What We’re Reading: Week of Oct. 02, 2023

Welcome to What We're Reading, a weekly rundown of news stories, marketing columns, and B2B industry news that caught our eye.

Making sense of B2B marketing and sales misalignment

After LinkedIn found that the average ‘alignment’ between B2B marketing and sales is only 16%, MarketingWeek shared what it calls ‘The Circle Game’. By taking the circle of marketing and the circle of sales, it discusses circle doom, circle boom, and how the two should work in tandem.

A rise in B2B influencer marketing

While B2B organizations have been slow to adopt influencer marketing, Ogilvy’s new report on its global rise offers some interesting insights. It found that 67% of B2B influencer campaigns had more impact on their marketing performance than their brand-only marketing and, of those who don’t use influencers, 53% are planning to in future.

Analyzing 5 B2B marketing trends

Whether it’s the rise of AI or a shake-up of the sales funnel, we all know the B2B industry is undergoing change. Forbes identifies five B2B marketing trends for the remainder of 2023, from brand awareness to bringing it back to the basics of lead generation.

Anticipating ecommerce B2B sales growth

Thanks to digital buyers seeing sales channels as easier, faster, and more efficient, more B2B sellers are seeing healthy growth in their ecommerce sales. Digital Commerce 360 surveyed more than 100 B2B buyers and found that 42% saw a rise between 11 and 24% over the last 12 months.