#B2BSMX Preview: B2B Leaders Illuminate Best Practices & Strategies For 2021 & Beyond

Although last year’s event was held virtually, the DGR crew saw a lot of success engaging with attendees digitally. Virginia Sanders, Sr. Content Marketing Manager at PFL, noted how positively the B2B community responded to the gift boxes and virtual sessions, highlighting that the pandemic did not degrade the quality of the event.

“In true 2020 style, our friends at DGR turned their biggest event of the year into a virtual extravaganza,” wrote Sanders in a blog post. “With more than 60 breakout sessions that included great speakers, labs, case studies and networking opportunities, #B2BSMX had an incredible amount of value to offer. The PFL team tips its hat to DGR for a stellar partnership and an online event experience that’s worthy of a standing ovation."

With industry experts and practitioners craving in-person interactions, the DGR team is working to balance content-filled sessions and face-to-face experiences in an event that highlights key B2B trends and successful strategies while providing meaningful networking opportunities.

Learning How To Apply Digital Strategies For A Hybrid, Revenue-Based Industry

#B2BSMX will feature informative sessions about the state of the B2B industry, highlighting trends, strategies and solutions B2B marketing and sales teams are implementing in 2021 and beyond.

The three-day event features various Keynotes; Lunch & Learns; Networking; Case Studies; and Breakout sessions within four targeted tracks: Revenue Operations, Demand Generation, Profitable Partnerships and FlipMyFunnel. A sampling of the sessions include:

• “Making Marketplaces A Productive Part Of Your Channel Strategy” with Larry Walsh of Channelnomics;
• “0 To 60 In The First 90 Days: The Strategy, Tech & Team That Make A Revenue Marketing Engine” with Andrea Eaton of DadeSystems;
• “Inside The ABM Test Kitchen: Sharing Different Flavors & Recipes For Successful Programs… + A Few Gotchas Of What To Avoid” with Danny Nail of Microsoft; and
• “No SaaS Is An Island: Expanding Ecosystems For Growing Tech Firms” with Gauri Chawla of inriver.

Craig Rosenberg of Gartner will deliver the opening keynote, titled “How 2020 Strengthened Collective Revenue Generation For High-Performing B2B Brands,” to discuss how high-performing companies turned the challenges of the past 18 months into competitive advantages. Rosenberg will highlight how the organizations strengthened their go-to-market (GTM) positioning and collective revenue generation processes across marketing, sales and customer teams.  

Additional keynotes from Terminus’ Sangram Vajre and MarketingProfs’ Nick Westergaard will take place on the second day of the event.

Vajre’s Monday morning keynote, “Why Your Go-To-Market Strategy Is Broken & How To Fix It,” will provide attendees with a new GTM framework that will reveal the next steps and provide guidance to help organizations propel their businesses forward, regardless of company size.

Westergaard’s keynote, “Brand Now: How To Drive Demand While Building Brand” will provide a lesson in the seven “Brand Now” dynamics — meaning, structure, story, content, community, clarity and experience — and discuss how they can help build a standout brand that fuels demand gen efforts.

Demandbase’s Jon Miller will kick off the last day of #B2BSMX with his keynote, “How An Account-Based Experience GTM Strategy Drives Exponential Growth.” During the session, he’ll share practical, proven techniques that demonstrate how companies can improve pipeline, growth and satisfaction by evolving GTM strategies to align with every stage of the buyer’s journey.

This year’s event will also see the return of the CMO Exchange, an invite-only roundtable designed to bring together various industry executives to discuss the rising trends in B2B freely and confidentially. This CMO Exchange will explore the impact of account-based initiatives on pipeline, how to find sales enablement opportunities in a digital market, the best ways to measure intent and the latest tools/solutions executives are using to bolster their marketing initiatives.

Reintroducing In-Person Interactions To B2BSMX

With marketing organizations excited to connect with their peers face-to-face again, the DGR team is dedicating resources to ensuring in-person interactions come back to B2B events with full force… safely.

In addition to an Opening Night Reception cocktail party, #B2BSMX will host an invitation-only Best in B2B Awards Ceremony to honor, well, the best in B2B. The ceremony will feature two complementary award programs — DGR’s B2B Innovator Awards and Terminus’ ABMies — that showcase the people, teams and organizations bringing B2B to new heights in creativity and revenue growth.

The 5th annual B2B Innovator Awards will celebrate the most progressive marketing and sales practitioners pushing the envelope to effectively engage prospective customers and meet their buyer needs in the age of digital transformation. Nominations are currently open, so feel free to submit the innovators who’ve thought outside the box to move the B2B industry forward. In addition to the live, in-person awards ceremony, winners will be honored in an exclusive special report slated to publish in the fall.

Networking & Learning Opportunities With Industry Experts

For those looking for hands-on experience with new and different B2B strategies and tools, #B2BSMX will host a series of in-person workshops that explore the new realities of B2B tactics. Attendees can cooperate alongside their peers as they learn about what’s working in modern sales and marketing and leave with best practices they can implement in their own strategies.

One standout workshop comes from Inverta’s Shelly Kulesza, titled “Intent Activation: Real-Life Use Cases For Capitalizing On Intent.” In this workshop, Kulesza will present attendees with real-life use cases on how to identify intent and explore best practices in leveraging intent to expand brand influence during the buying process.

Pam Didner is back by popular demand and will host a workshop titled, “Leveraging Your Existing Marketing Programs To Enable Your Sales Team.” Attendees will learn how to incorporate sales enablement opportunities into marketing campaigns and vice versa for higher conversion rates.

Finally, #B2BSMX will welcome back its B2BMXperts meetings. These 15-minute, pre-booked sessions will allow attendees to connect with handpicked experts one-on-one to discuss their personal marketing and sales challenges and leverage the B2BMXperts’ ideas or experiences to brainstorm new strategies.

This is only a sneak peak of what the in-person #B2BSMX has in store for attendees. Visit the website for more information about the event, including the full agenda, session descriptions and registration options. We hope to see you face-to-face on Aug. 9 -11!