B2B Reads: Web 3.0 for B2B, Effective Personalization, and Using Intuition Wisely

In addition to our Sunday App of the Week feature, we also summarize some of our favorite B2B sales & marketing posts from around the web each week. We’ll miss a ton of great stuff, so if you found something you think is worth sharing please add it to the comments below. 

Web 3.0 and Digital CX: Next Steps for B2B Marketers
In this post, Chitra Iyer distills and synthesizes the wide, complicated world of Web 3.0 into specific and pertinent questions for B2B marketers. On the outset, she establishes that “the key at this stage is not to find answers — we can’t know them for sure anyway — but to think about the right questions to ask.” She also touches on important Web 3.0 aspects that have relevant connections to B2B marketing like community building and omni-channel customer experience.

Eight Smart Tips For Creating A Balanced, Effective Sales Strategy
Written by the Forbes Expert Panel, this article focuses on eight direct and actionable tips for a more effective sales strategy. Each member of the panel offers both a rationale and proposed solution for each tip. Topics include content marketing, branding, effective communication with customers, and many more.

Social marketing: How to reach your audience
Jo Hamilton in this post draws on a new study from Emplifi to offer conclusions and guidance on how best to leverage social media marketing. Most important, Hamilton writes, is the generation of your audience. Hamilton outlines the different platforms that each generation flocks to, along with other important questions like how social impacts the purchasing journey and what customers expect from brands.

From Reactive to Holistic: Exploring the Various Levels of Personalization
“Gaps are inevitable when it comes to anticipating consumers’ requests—but there are better ways to narrow those misses” writes Stephen H. Yu. This article follows the pathway from reactive to holistic personalization in an organization’s marketing. Yu offers that predictive modeling can help push a company towards holistic personalization and help them to reach a sustainable personalization strategy.

How To Adjust Your B2B Marketing Strategy In An Economic Downturn
In this article, Justin Turner, offers practical and proven approaches to improving your marketing’s efficiency (while hopefully cutting costs) in an economic downturn. Turner also details how freelancers and agencies can help companies that need targeted marketing success with less. He writes: “the marketing tactics used to get a company where it is today may not be the same ones to drive the next 10 to 12 months of growth.”

How to approach in-person networking again
Rachel Loock here provides some targeted and helpful advice around getting back out into the world of networking. She focuses on simple goals that you can hold yourself to in trying to resume building an in-person network. She notes: “Building rapport with others can be easier and more authentic in a face-to-face situation, leading to more spontaneous conversations. But after a two-year hiatus for many in-person professional meetings and events, getting back out there again can feel new again, and frankly, a bit daunting.”

The Trap of Blaming Others
In this blog post, Gregg Vanourek, extends an overview of blaming others: how it manifests itself, its central problem, and how you might avoid it in the future. He provides an in-depth view into why we blame, and the several “traps” associated with the practice. He notes: “Blaming may give you a feeling of satisfaction as you look outside for responsibility and wallow in the unfairness of it all. But that feeling is fleeting. In the meantime, you haven’t moved forward at all. In fact, you’ve moved backward.”

Kantar: Southeast Asia winners reveal what makes digital ads effective
Jo Hamilton in this article identifies key commonalities among different digital advertising campaigns that won Kantar’s 2022 Digital Creative Awards. Hamilton relays the 5 creative themes found among all of the winners, allowing readers to apply similar strategies to their own work.

How The Best Leaders Overcome Their Own Defense Mechanisms
Lolly Daskal on this blog post explains the importance of understanding and controlling your own defense mechanisms in leadership positions. She notes: “Failing to understand and deal with your defense mechanisms is especially harmful in leadership work, where relationships with others are critically important and you’re setting the standard for the workplace culture of your entire team.”

Coaching lesson: How to use intuition wisely
Lastly, John Baldoni, writes about the proper use of intuition in executive coaching. He acknowledges the hidden power and relevant limitations of intuition and offers a wise middle path to using intuition within coaching. He quotes physician David Fessell: “Data and analysis, when available, are fundamental and the backbone of most successful strategies. Intuition can be a spice to add sparingly. If you use it, know your limits. Be prepared to be wrong so that you, and others, don’t get hurt.”