The worlds of technology and marketing have their own superstars and legends. Everyone who has taken a business class has heard of guys like Gary Vaynerchuk, Neil Patel and Guy Kawasaki. However, there are many more influencers to follow and be inspired by. Each sub-specialization of marketing has its list of celebrated experts who are respected for their abilities to lead, inspire and deliver results. These people are changing the way we all do business. It's definitely a good idea to follow what these influencers are doing. The good news is that they are all extremely generous with sharing the wisdom behind their winning methods. Here’s a look at the seven people shaking up the marketing world. Let these gurus show you that there’s nothing wrong with embracing what’s new when it comes to sharing your brand with the world.

Back in the days of Don Draper and cronies, the cigarette puffing Mad Men could succeed in their marketing campaigns by dint of a catchy turn of phrase, a hummable jingle and a larger than life billboard image that would remind everyone of the product. One can only wonder what they’d think of SEO, algorithms and social media.

These days, creative types who know their way around a storyboard but treat number crunching as a foreign language are not likely to get very far. No matter how good you are, it’s no longer enough to be a one-trick pony. Instead, you have to be a kindergarten triple threat: Good at writing words, drawing pictures and adding numbers.

An exasperated executive at a successful B2B found the causes of inadequate response to the company website by conducting a personal investigation. He recalled seeing a training film in which a video camera moved around an office, focusing on improper practices such as a stack of undelivered telephone messages.

The best idea in the world won’t set the world on fire unless it’s shared in just the right way. Too many people let smart ideas and good products fall to the wayside because they falsely believe that if they build it, people will come. You wouldn't expect to see lines forming at your door if you opened a store that sells down jackets and snow boots along a desert highway in the middle of July. However, setting up a kiosk that sells fur-lined boots and hats in a cozy ski lodge just might create a line full of eager buyers. The same basic logic applies to B2B marketing. Far too many people are opening coat stores in the desert instead of taking their products directly to the ski lodge. The simple truth is that how we share is as important as what we share these days. Successful marketing is actually just successful storytelling. A confident marketer knows how to jump in and narrate every twist and turn of a great story. While many people assume that advertising to other businesses involves less creativity than marketing to the general public or niche markets, B2B marketing actually requires its own specific type of storytelling. If you're looking to craft a B2B marketing strategy, you need three things:

Look at what is not working, scale up what is – that is what the agile, smart startup looks to do.

Investments in your startup are followed closely by marketing in terms of the vital areas that require your focus, writes Steven Shattuck for Techpoint.

Consider what channels produce customers. Avoid wasting many

Computing muscle that was once available to large corporations is now accessible to everyone including small innovators, a major shift in the dynamics of business competition, Beverley Head writes in a recent AFR Weekend.

Forbes magazine has named its top 7 Content Marketing Trends to watch for 2016. Where online marketing once was dependent on volume of quality content produced, the more important trend these days is to connect with people across several mediums, whichever one they choose to use at any given moment.

Still, with the key stakeholders believing in an idea, most startups face a daunting challenge trying to get sales.

All startups dream of having the billions of Uber, the wildly successful business model of Airbnb, or the popularity of Snapchat. But the overwhelming majority of tech startups must persevere to make sure their product or service makes it to market, whether solo or by taking a partner corporation along.

We all know that working in a group can help us move our goals forward, but sometimes not without pain. Keeping everyone on a team on the same track can be a perilous challenge.