Joshua Nite

11 Content Marketing Tips to Build Your B2B Business

Joshua Nite on Jul 24th, 2017     B2B Marketing, Content Marketing

As the father of an 8-year-old boy, most of my disposable income is tied up in little plastic bricks. In my house, you’ll find thousands of them in bins, several elaborate sets on display, and a distressing number of the (razor-sharp) things underfoot.

I’m not complaining, really. I have as much fun building with them as he does. And as a marketer, having Lego around is a good reminder of the value of content marketing. Great content can drive marketing goals while providing something of real value to its target audience: The Lego Movie was a 90-minute commercial for Lego, but it was also entertaining and heartfelt. I laughed, I cried, I bought $100 worth of tie-in toys… everybody won.


11 Content Marketing Tips to Build Your B2B Business
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Tiffani Allen

Digital Marketing News: Email Marketing Facts, Gen Z Media Usage & Snap Publisher Tool

Tiffani Allen on Jul 21st, 2017     Online Marketing, Online Marketing News

119 Facts About Email Marketing [Infographic]
Discover 119 facts you didn’t know about email marketing including, why email marketing works, biggest email trends for 2017, most common types of emails, most used email marketing tactics, segmentation and personalization, mobile email statistics and more. (MarketingProfs)

Gen Z is The Largest, Most Diverse Group of Media Users, According to a New Report From Nielsen
A new report from Nielsen’s Total Audience Report for the first quarter of 2017 highlights how unique and diverse Gen Z is in media consumption. This report shows a device ownership and other technology breakdown by generation, and why Gen Z is more able to adapt to new technologies than other generations. (AdWeek)


Digital Marketing News: Email Marketing Facts, Gen Z Media Usage & Snap Publisher Tool
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Ashley Zeckman

CMWorld Interview: H&R Block’s Zerlina Jackson Explores Marketing in the Financial Sector

Ashley Zeckman on Jul 20th, 2017     Content Marketing, Content Marketing World

Marketers in financial industries are in the midst of a major digital transformation.

Apps and mobile experience have become not a “nice to have” but a requirement from consumers. Additionally, financial institutions have started investing heavily in user experience for their web properties to focus on customers first.

The team at H&R Block has taken digital transformation to the next level by utilizing the artificial intelligence from IBM Watson to help tax preparers dig deeper and help customers save money.

To gain a better understanding of what it’s like to work in marketing at a financial institution, I reached out to Zerlina Jackson, Director of Web Experience at H&R Block. Zerlina has nearly eight years of marketing experience in the financial sector and was able to shed some light on topics that are top of mind for nearly every marketer.


CMWorld Interview: H&R Block’s Zerlina Jackson Explores Marketing in the Financial Sector
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Caitlin Burgess

Digital Advertising Tips: 5 Scenarios Perfect for Pay-to-Play Tactics

Caitlin Burgess on Jul 19th, 2017     Online Advertising, Search Marketing, Social Media Advertising

In today’s competitive and content-saturated digital landscape, it’s no secret that it’s becoming increasingly difficult to connect, engage and inspire action from our audiences using only “free” or organic marketing tactics.

As a result, digital advertising, often dubbed “pay-to-play” by marketers, is steadily on the rise. In fact, last fall, eMarketer forecasted that digital advertising spend would surpass TV ad spending for the first time in history by the end of 2016. And that trend is definitely expected to continue.

However, despite rising ad spend, consumers are actively avoiding our ads, according to a 2016 HubSpot Research report. For example, four out of five consumers reported that they closed a browser or exited a website because of an autoplaying ad or a pop up.


Digital Advertising Tips: 5 Scenarios Perfect for Pay-to-Play Tactics
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Nick Nelson

4 Marketing Lessons I Learned from Building a Bustling Baseball Fan Community

Nick Nelson on Jul 18th, 2017     Content Marketing

[Editor’s Note: Please join me in welcoming another new author to TopRankBlog.com, Nick Nelson. Nick is a Content Strategist that has been with the TopRank Marketing team for a few months and spends his time creating great content for some of our enterprise B2B clients. Welcome Nick!]

If you build it, they will come.

Ah, if only it were that simple. But as any business proprietor knows, it is not. Even if you offer a great product or service, attracting customers takes time and effort. It requires creativity, dedication, and tenacity. That is where marketing comes in.


4 Marketing Lessons I Learned from Building a Bustling Baseball Fan Community
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Joshua Nite

Why Content Curation Is an Essential Part of Your Marketing Mix

Joshua Nite on Jul 17th, 2017     Content Marketing

Imagine if an art museum contained every single painting created over a hundred-year period. It wouldn’t be much fun to visit, right? Hundreds of thousands of images, of wildly varying quality, without organization or context? It would be like a Google image search crossed with a garage sale.

Content curation is what turns a warehouse full of art and artifacts into a museum. A good curator sifts through the content to find pieces that are valuable for an intended audience. Their job is to direct attention to worthy content—and in doing so, make the museum a worthwhile place to visit.

Your blog readers and social media followers are drowning in content. You can be the content curator that helps direct their attention to what is most helpful, educational, or entertaining. Content curation, as part of your editorial strategy, can help make your blog a more valuable destination for your readers.


Why Content Curation Is an Essential Part of Your Marketing Mix
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Tiffani Allen

Digital Marketing News: Short Attention Spans, Instagram Retargeting and LinkedIn Notifications

Tiffani Allen on Jul 14th, 2017     Online Marketing, Online Marketing News

The Short Attention Span Solution for Marketers (Hint: It’s Email) [Infographic]
Email subscribers are spending more time reading the emails they receive. This infographic looks at email analytics over the past 6 years, and includes statistics and research on how email has evolved, how consumers interact with email and tips to optimize your emails for readers with short attention spans. (HubSpot)

Facebook Adds Instagram Retargeting Options to Custom Audience
Facebook’s Business Manager has added 3 new retargeting options for Instagram that appears under the “Engagement” objective when creating a custom audience. Video lets you create a list of people based on how long they watched your video, lead form creates a list of people who have opened, completed or started a form and Instagram business profile creates a list of anyone who’s interacted with your profile page. (Social Media Today)


Digital Marketing News: Short Attention Spans, Instagram Retargeting and LinkedIn Notifications
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Caitlin Burgess

6 Best Practices for Nurturing B2B Marketing Qualified Leads

Caitlin Burgess on Jul 13th, 2017     B2B Marketing, Content Marketing

The rise of the internet, digital technologies and social media platforms have transformed the way consumers make purchasing decisions—and not just for B2C consumers, but for B2B as well. In fact, according to CEB, B2B buyers are 57% of the way through a purchasing decision before engaging with a sales rep.

But, as a savvy B2B marketer, you already knew all this. So, you’ve designed an integrated strategy featuring a hearty mix of marketing tactics to help build trust and awareness as prospects do their research. You’re turning out thoughtful, relevant content that informs, engages and inspires action. You’re working with industry influencers to add credibility and authority to your efforts. Heck, you’re even driving what you believe are solid marketing qualified leads (MQLs).


6 Best Practices for Nurturing B2B Marketing Qualified Leads
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Emily Hinderaker

25 Influencer Marketing Platforms & Marketplaces

Emily Hinderaker on Jul 12th, 2017     Influencer Marketing, Online Marketing

Marketers around the world are searching for ways to better connect with their audiences and it’s become very clear that consumers place more trust in consumers than brands. That means, the true power lies with the customer, which means many brands have had to adapt their marketing strategies to create better experiences for their audience.

One way to do so is by incorporating influencer driven content into the digital marketing mix.

For B2C brands, incorporating influencers is already a well-established practice. But for B2B brands, the concept is much newer. In a recent report that we developed with Altimeter Group and Traackr, we found that only 11% of B2B companies are running an ongoing influencer marketing program, yet 80% of these marketers rate content marketing most impacted by influencer marketing.


25 Influencer Marketing Platforms & Marketplaces
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Joshua Nite

10 Easy Wins to Improve Your B2B Marketing Leads

Joshua Nite on Jul 11th, 2017     B2B Marketing

And now, a brief message from Captain Obvious and his sidekick, Sidekick Boy:

The goal of marketing is to generate leads that convert to sales, thereby generating revenue.

What a thunderously, crashingly obvious statement! Captain Obvious saves the day again.

But seriously, it’s useful for marketers to occasionally contemplate this most fundamental truth about our profession. We’re not here to just raise awareness, get subscribers, or foster engagement. All of these goals should be parts of a strategy to get to the ultimate goal: lead generation.

We have more tools now than ever before to measure how our efforts translate to leads. Unfortunately, that means marketers—especially in B2B—are under more pressure than ever to improve the quantity and quality of the leads we deliver to sales.


10 Easy Wins to Improve Your B2B Marketing Leads
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Ashley Zeckman

CMWorld Interview: Citrix’s Justin Levy Takes a Dive into Top Social Media Opportunities

Ashley Zeckman on Jul 10th, 2017     Content Marketing, Content Marketing World, Online Marketing, Social Media

The lines between long-form content and social media marketing are becoming blurrier each day. Social networks now allow for native video viewing, live video and even some long-form content. They have essentially become their own content platforms competing with blogs and brand websites.

Facebook alone is on pace to hit approximately 2 billion users this year and other social networks are growing at a rapid pace as well.

To better understand the role that social media marketing plays in today’s digital world, I decided to pick the brain of one of today’s top social media leaders, Justin Levy. Justin is the Director of Social Marketing at Citrix and in addition to being an incredibly talented marketer, he’s very open to sharing what he knows to help other marketers learn and grow.


CMWorld Interview: Citrix’s Justin Levy Takes a Dive into Top Social Media Opportunities
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Tiffani Allen

Digital Marketing News: Sustainable Social, Mobile Search Makeover and The Hiring Climate

Tiffani Allen on Jul 7th, 2017     Online Marketing, Online Marketing News


How to Build a Sustainable Social Marketing Strategy [Infographic]
Maximize your marketing efforts by understanding core best practices including, emphasize visual content, use infographics if you’re a B2B brand and avoid clickbait titles. This infographic also shows stats that will help you understand audience behaviors and interests on social media. (Social Media Today)

Google is Testing a New Design for Mobile Search Results
Google is testing a new design for both paid and organic search results. Some changes include the URL is now at the top of search cards, there are fewer ads and more color has been added to organic search cards. (Search Engine Journal)


Digital Marketing News: Sustainable Social, Mobile Search Makeover and The Hiring Climate
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