If you follow B-to-B marketing buzz, you’ve probably noticed that account-based marketing (ABM), a one-to-one engagement approach, is getting some serious attention.

Today's customers and their interactions with others are hyper-connected, so when measuring real customer value, marketing organizations need to start focusing on the digital and social potential of their customers.

Shaping the success of a brand relies on a marketer’s ability to create an intelligent and fully-connected marketing funnel. A funnel moves like a swarm of birds — fluid, collective, and constantly moving to new opportunities.

One prerequisite before signing the dotted line and purchasing a marketing automation system is making sure that your data quality is perfect. But, generally that's not the order of how things actually go. You purchase the marketing automation platform (MAP), and then realize that you're stuck with something you can only use as a simple email execution tool, due to the quality of your data.

Keeping an existing customer is more valuable to your company than trying to find a new one. So how can B2B marketers go about retaining their customers in the 21st century? Here are three key considerations.

Working on a global account with an international team based on four continents in over a dozen cities brings tremendous rewards. Yes, managing time zones can be a challenge, but I’ve found a real joy in connecting with people who have incredibly diverse backgrounds.

With the onset of vendor-managed inventory (VMI), the enterprise eliminated the bullwhip effect in the supply chain as first noted by Jay Forrester's Industrial Dynamics in 1961. By giving manufacturers visibility into point-of-sale data and the responsibility of creating and maintaining the inventory plans, they were able to reduce uncertainty, variability, and lead times. Ultimately, vendors were able to reduce costs and increase service levels.

In marketing, as in flying, preparation is an essential element for the success of any type of pilot, whether launching a plane or launching a marketing program. B2B marketers are changing how they market to their accounts. Through ABM pilots, they are scaling efforts to market to accounts on an individual basis, providing the right message, at the right time, and to the right audience in order to have a more direct impact on sales.