Online Marketing Blog

Summer in Minnesota is my favorite. Warm weather, green grass and puffy, white clouds flittering across the sky; it’s fabulous.

In particular I’m excited for the month of August because there are 2 great events happening in Minnesota.

Event #1 – Explore Minneapolis August 16-17, where digital and social media marketers are gathering to explore the latest in online marketing and I’m presenting on Optimizing for B2B Audiences.

Event #2 – The “Great Minnesota Get Together”, where mini-doughnuts, Sweet Martha’s Cookies, and Corn on the Cob are must-have’s on the list.

What do these 2 events have in common? It might seem like nothing, but let me explain: One of the key challenges most B2B Marketers face is selling a product or service where multiple end-users and decision makers are involved.

The final day of SES New York wrapped up with a series of the top rated sessions from other SES conferences. One of those sessions was a presentation on “Content & Customer Optimization” by my boss TopRank Online Marketing CEO Lee Odden (@leeodden).

I for one was impressed that on the final day of the conference and the last session of the day the room was packed and people were ready to learn.

Lee began by polling the audience to see what mix online marketing expertise was present in the room.  There were a smattering of SEO practitioners, copywriters, agency marketers (like myself), and those working client side.  Below I’ve included what I considered to be some of the highlights from Lee’s presentation.

Imagine this scenario:  Company XYZ has developed a great business creating products and services, developing marketing programs that explain the features and benefits of those offerings and making sales.  The mix of SEO, advertising and newsletter is focused on explaining the solutions offered with the intention of educating and persuading prospects to buy. This is the way it’s been done in the past and it’s what current marketing programs are based on. Pretty common right?

But let’s also imagine in our hypothetical situation that sales growth has started to slow down or even slumped. Competitors are starting to eclipse Company XYZ in search results, the blog doesn’t really get many shares, likes, links or comments and it’s nothing but crickets chipring on the Facebook Fan page, on Twitter and the YouTube channel.  The staff responsible for creating content are running out of ideas. Seem familiar?