{"id":6756,"date":"2024-03-07T17:42:00","date_gmt":"2024-03-07T17:42:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tup.kxe.temporary.site\/heres-what-happened-at-b2bmx-2024\/"},"modified":"2024-03-07T17:42:00","modified_gmt":"2024-03-07T17:42:00","slug":"heres-what-happened-at-b2bmx-2024","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/okdesign.ca\/en\/heres-what-happened-at-b2bmx-2024\/","title":{"rendered":"Here’s what happened at B2BMX 2024"},"content":{"rendered":"


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The B2B Marketing Exchange (B2BMX) conference takes place annually in late February or early March at The Phoenician hotel in Scottsdale, Ariz. I was in attendance, along with a good 250 to 300 marketers. It was my first event since before the COVID-19 pandemic. Toss in representatives from about 75 vendors and the event was thick with pitches, presentations and promotions.<\/p>\n

My goal for the three-day event was to check out and learn more about new technologies from the sponsors and gain insight into the top issues that practitioners are wrestling with day-to-day.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Here are my takeaways.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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The major themes of B2BMX 2024<\/h2>\n

Artificial intelligence was everywhere<\/h3>\n

AI was everywhere \u2014 the vendors in the exhibit areas, the presentations and in conversation. That said, I didn\u2019t really see anything that knocked my socks off. A bunch of generative AI content tools were on the vendor floor and featured in presentations, but nothing that was game changing.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Dig deeper: How AI enhances multimedia content creation<\/a> <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Vendor consolidation<\/h3>\n

Vendor consolidation was not necessarily an official event theme, but martech consolidation was a definite vibe. From what I heard from vendors and marketers, the day of reckoning is upon us. Marketers are drilling into ROI, contract terms, spend and functionality.\u00a0 Ironically, Scott Brinker\u2019s Chiefmartec<\/a> newsletter came out during the event and announced that SaaS martech stacks shrunk 8% from 2023 to 2024. I expect that number to be much higher next year.\u00a0<\/p>\n

My favorite sessions<\/h2>\n

Keynote<\/h3>\n

Dan Gingiss, author of \u201cThe Experience Maker,\u201d <\/em>presented a lively and entertaining discussion of his WISE framework for creating notable customer experiences. Here\u2019s the key point from his presentation: If something is expected or \u201cnormal\u201d do the opposite. But to do that, you have to make time for it. Too many people are just going through the motions. To create truly memorable experiences, you have to take the time to think about it. It doesn\u2019t have to be complicated. It can be as simple as how you respond to a customer on the phone. In fact, one of his examples was hold music.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Favorite workshop session<\/h3>\n

My favorite workshop was called \u201cFrom Strategy to Tech Stack.\u201d I actually never got to see the presentation \u2014 they couldn\u2019t get the projector to work. So it became a \u201cfireside chat\u201d with Megan Crone from Palo Alto Networks and Amy Holtzman from CHEQ. The topic centered around cybersecurity for marketers, specifically protecting pay-per-click campaigns from bots. We\u2019ve long known that bots are a nuisance on blogs, etc., but AI bots have become much more sophisticated in evading standard bot protection mechanism like CAPTCHA.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Most interesting vendors<\/h2>\n