T’is the night before Christmas, and time to think about B2B marketing gifts and, come on, be honest; what you might get in return!
In my house and our tradition, it’s Christmas Eve. When our kids were younger, my wife and I would wait for our girls to go to bed, then wrap all the presents and put them under the tree, ready for the surprise of Christmas morning.
We’ve kept the tradition, even though they’ve grown up, and we find ourselves doing it at 1am, so technically, it is Christmas morning, but today is about wrapping gifts.
In that spirit, I thought I’d share some gifts, not from me, but regifting some of the B2B marketing gifts I’ve enjoyed this year.
But to kick off, why is giving gifts important in B2B marketing?
Well, for starters, we’ve talked for years about content marketing as being useful, creating something that is not (entirely) about us and helps the audience.
I say it’s not entirely self-serving as, obviously, we give these gifts to the world, expecting something in return, like attention, engagement, and to be considered relevant to our buyer’s problem.
I’ve taken a bit of an interest this year in behavioral science, and my first gift is the Nudge Podcast. The host Phill Agnew does a splendid job explaining what is clearly his passion, and this gifting business has some science behind it in reciprocation.
I have used another gift I have enjoyed this year, as you probably have too, generative AI. This is how ChatGPT defines reciprocation:
The psychology of reciprocation is the innate human tendency to respond to positive actions with similar gestures, fostering mutual exchange and trust. Rooted in social norms, it creates a sense of obligation to repay favors, gifts, or kindness, driven by emotions like gratitude or guilt and the desire for balance in relationships. Genuine, unselfish acts are more likely to elicit reciprocation, while overtly self-serving gestures can weaken this response. Widely applied in marketing, relationships, and negotiations, reciprocation strengthens social bonds and cooperation but can be misused for manipulation or create imbalances if overdone.
A couple of companies have stood out as doing this gift of content thing well, which I have personally found helpful in my work.
Right now, if you were to ask me for a great example of this in B2B today, I’d say 6Sense. On the Rockstar CMO podcast, we’ve dipped into their work several times, specifically the work of Kerry Cunningham, who leads their research and thought-leadership function.
I love that they have a dedicated “research and thought-leadership function.” We all need one of those, and if we don’t have the resources to have someone dedicated to it, we need a bit of time and budget to do this within the team.
At this time of year, maybe I can describe this as a Santa’s workshop, making all the good stuff we can gift to our target audience.
The 6Sense team regularly churns out excellent research that is ungated (GASP!) and as a result, you see them being quoted in a lot of B2B thought leadership and presentations, and some of their findings into how B2B buyers shortlist and buy are making it into the shorthand we all use to describe the challenges and opportunities of this B2B craft.
As you probably know, I talk about the objective of marketing is to create ART, Awareness Revenue and Trust, and this work definitely appears to be moving the needle on the awareness and trust scale for 6Sense, speaking as someone who, I suspect, is firmly in their Ideal Customer Profile.
Similarily, The B2B Institute by LinkedIn and its partnership with the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute come bearing research gifts. Who hasn’t heard of the 95-5% rule they’ve popularised (that only 5% of your target buyer is actually buying)?
On an entirely different scale, SparkToro and the work of Rand Fishkin, a company that (according to LinkedIn) has 2-10 employees, and yet, aside from being a fan of their work, I am frequently seeing their research quoted and the term “zero-click search” that we are all banging on about now, seems to have been invented by them and their research in 2019.
This shows that even if your toy workshop only has a few elves, if you are generous, your gifts can reach all of the little marketing girls and boys.
Not a vendor, in the same way as these examples, but I can’t mention B2B marketing research gift-givers without a nod to the Content Marketing Institute and their B2B content marketing research, which Robert Rose often unwraps on our Rockstar CMO podcast.
On that podcast, aside from quoting these folks (and a fair amount of Forrester), we’ve tried to make our own small contribution by sharing our little gift of marketing street knowledge. And, It’s been a gift for me to work with a former Forrester Research Director Jeff Clark, in shaping our ideas, much of which we encapsulated in our 5 F’in Marketing Fundamentals.
So, as we plan for 2025, with hopefully a bit of downtime for the holidays, we should be thinking about what gifts we can give to our audience this year.
Maybe you can commission some research like 6Sense, LinkedIn or the Content Marketing Institute, share findings from your work and product like SparkToro or find a thought leader to jazz with and invest time in creating your own little gift workshop.
Maybe that’s some work for another day, as I hope you are taking the gift of a break this week, and it’s certainly beyond this brief 2 cents, but if this is a topic that is interesting, please comment, or I’d love to chat.
Thank you for reading this; happy holidays, and let’s see what metaphor I can torture next week, the last 2 cents of the year! 🙂
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I’m a 3xCMO, now a marketing strategy advisor and podcast host at Rockstar CMO. Although, I’m not a rock star, but a marketing leader, strategist, content marketer, columnist, speaker, industry watcher, and creator of ART (Awareness, Revenue, and Trust) for the companies I work with. But most of all, I am an enthusiastic tea drinker.
You can find me on LinkedIn, Twitter, or now Threads! – or listen to my weekly podcast at Rockstarcmo.com
The half-baked thoughts shared on this blog may not reflect those of my employer or clients, and if the topic of this article is interesting or you just want to say hello please get in touch.