Elevate B2B Marketing News Weekly Roundup: B2B Buyers Refocus On ROI, Meta’s New Audio AI, & More Marketers Increasing Budgets

B2B Buyers More Thoroughly Evaluating Purchases
When it comes to the new processes that B2B buyers have added for purchase decisions, some 38 percent have said they are conducting more rigorous analysis of return-on-investment (ROI), with 31 percent noting that they are taking more time researching buying decisions, and 24 percent focusing on adjusting decision timelines to reflect changing business needs — three of numerous findings contained in newly-published survey data. MarketingCharts

Marketers Upbeat About 2024, But Still Worry About Inflation: Study
58 percent of marketing and communications professionals have said that they are increasing budgets during 2024, with 69 percent expecting business to pick up during the year ahead, while 53 percent cited inflation as their most sizable obstacle, according to recently-released report data of interest to B2B marketers. MediaPost

Meta releases open source AI audio tools, AudioCraft
Facebook and Instagram parent firm Meta has rolled out an updated and open-source addition to its AudioCraft generative AI audio suite of utilities, including the ability to produce a variety of sound effects and music from text prompts, opening the door for more widespread use of the technology among developers and ultimately marketers, Meta recently announced. Ars Technica

“We are releasing three more foundation models, for music and audio. It’s been fun to play with these models, and generate a variety of new outputs.” — Joelle Pineau @jpineau1 of @MetaAI
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The US B2B Media Market is Forecast to Surpass Pre-Pandemic Levels This Year
The size of the overall U.S. B2B media market is expected to see 4.7 percent growth during 2023, totaling some $85.04 billion — a figure that would top pre-pandemic marks — with expectations to reach $91.19 billion by 2027, with smaller growth forecast for the coming years, as the trade show sector represented the fastest B2B market segment, according to newly-published report data. MarketingCharts

B2Bs Consider Mobile-Only Threads’ Biggest Limitation
Meta’s Threads social platform, which set a record for the swiftest rise to 100 million users, has set sights on ultimately topping the one billion user mark thanks to the eventual rollout of mainstream advertising options, yet challenges for B2B marketers remain, as 45 percent noted that the present mobile-only incarnation of Threads was its biggest disadvantage, with 39 percent citing the platform’s lack of direct messaging features, according to recently-released survey data. MediaPost

Marketing uses for generative AI that will outlive the hype
83 percent of global executives have said that chatbots were the AI app type that was the most relevant to their business, with 75 percent pinpointing data-oriented tasks, 71 percent citing text interpretation and content creation, and 70 percent AI-powered search marketing insights — some of the findings included in newly-published survey data. Insider Intelligence

How the Pandemic Changed Marketing Channels
A mere 6.7 percent of organizations have reported that their face-to-face (F2F) marketing channels have shifted entirely to digital, while some 28 percent of companies noted that they were still planning on opening new F2F channels, and the Harvard Business Review recently took a look at the increasing importance of finding the marketing channels that will have the greatest brand impact. Harvard Business Review

Facebook surpasses 3 billion monthly active users
Including its Instagram, Messenger, WhatsApp, and Threads properties, Meta-owned platforms now account for some 3.88 billion active monthly users, with flagship Facebook reaching 2.064 billion daily active users in the most recent quarter — an increase from 2.037 billion, Meta recently announced. TechCrunch

Instagram Experiments With Range of Generative AI Elements
Instagram has undergone testing of an array of new generative AI utilities, expected to eventually roll out to user content feeds, including more advanced AI-assisted visual editing and chatbot tools, while also adding new ways to denote AI-assisted content on the platform, Instagram recently announced. Social Media Today

In challenge to TikTok, YouTube Shorts gains new creation tools like Collab and Q&As
Google’s YouTube has begun rolling out an expanded array of video creation tools, including a new side-by-side Collab tool that allows for recording Short videos alongside other YouTube content, in a move to offer more video creation option as the firm seeks to differentiate from the TikTok platform, YouTube recently announced. TechCrunch

ON THE LIGHTER SIDE:

A lighthearted look at “The CMO Role” by Marketoonist Tom Fishburne — Marketoonist

The Soviet-Era, Z80-based Galaksija Dared to Be Different — IEEE Spectrum

TOPRANK MARKETING & CLIENTS IN THE NEWS:

• TopRank Marketing — Top Influencer Marketing Services (2023) — Business of Apps
• Lee Odden — 68 SEO Experts To Follow On Threads — Search Engine Journal

FRIDAY FIVE B2B MARKETING FAVORITES TO FOLLOW:

Gini Dietrich @ginidietrich
Brian Solis @briansolis
Katrina Neal @katrina_neal
Janine Wegner @JanineWegner
Debbie Friez @dfriez

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Thanks for joining us for this week’s Elevate B2B Marketing News, and we hope you’ll come back next Friday for another selection of the most up-to-date and relevant B2B and digital marketing industry news. In the meantime, you can follow us on our LinkedIn page, or at @toprank on Twitter for even more timely daily news.

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