Nick Nelson

How B2B Marketers Can Win at Search with Best Answer Content

Nick Nelson on Feb 21st, 2019     B2B Marketing, Search Marketing, SEO

Winning Search with Best Answer Content

Marketers are engaged in a continuous battle to gain an edge when it comes to SEO, seeking those crucial advantages provided by top visibility where customers are looking. Multiple disciplines from technical SEO to creative content can be leveraged to win the search marketing game. At TopRank Marketing, we believe the best answer to this quandary is… well, to be the Best Answer.

To simplify and clarify, it might be helpful to take a step back.

In October of 2000, Larry Page laid out his ambitious vision for Google, a company he’d founded along with Sergey Brin just two years earlier.

Page foresaw his creation as “the ultimate search engine that would understand everything on the Web. It would understand exactly what you wanted, and it would give you the right thing.”


How B2B Marketers Can Win at Search with Best Answer Content
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Joshua Nite

B2B Brands Go Bold: 7 Great Examples of Interactive B2B Content

Joshua Nite on Feb 20th, 2019     B2B Marketing, Online Marketing

B2B Interactive Content Examples

If you’re not convinced that interactive content in the B2B space can work: Well, first check out these interactive content stats.

If you’re still on the fence, here’s an object lesson from a master of audience engagement:

Freddie plays that 100,000-person crowd like an instrument. You can feel the energy, even through a tiny YouTube window.

When you invite your audience to be part of the show, the results can be magical.

Now, odds are your brand can’t match the raw charisma of Freddie Mercury in tight jeans. But you can still get your audience cheering with interactive B2B content.

Here are a few great examples to light your creative fires and open your B2B minds to the possibilities of interactive.


B2B Brands Go Bold: 7 Great Examples of Interactive B2B Content
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Caitlin Burgess

Why Always-On Is Always Better for Driving B2B Influencer Marketing Success

Caitlin Burgess on Feb 19th, 2019     B2B Marketing, Influencer Marketing

Show of hands: How many of us brush our teeth at least twice a day? All of us? Great.

Now, a follow up question: Why?

The reasons are numerous, right? We care about maintaining our hygiene on a daily basis. We want to keep our smiles bright. We need to defend against offensive bad breath. We want to ensure the long-term health of our teeth, gums, and mouths. And, mostly, we want to successfully avoid pricey and painful dental work now and in the future.

via GIPHY

The moral here? With consistency and commitment we reap both short- and long-term benefits—and avoid a whole lot of pain. And the same is true when it comes to B2B influencer marketing.


Why Always-On Is Always Better for Driving B2B Influencer Marketing Success
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Lee Odden

Break Free of Boring B2B with Interactive Influencer Content

Lee Odden on Feb 18th, 2019     B2B Marketing, Influencer Marketing


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Click Here to see the Break Free from Boring B2B Guide in Full Screen Mode

B2B doesn’t need to mean “boring to boring” and yet much of business marketing has earned its reputation. In a world of information overload, buyers expect engaging content from sources they can trust.

So what’s the solution for marketers that want to break free of boring B2B marketing?

Since 81% of marketers agree that interactive content grabs attention more effectively than static content (CMI) and 70% say interactive content is effective at converting site visitors (ion interactive), B2B marketers need move away from simply educating and to start creating content experiences that allow customers to engage.


Break Free of Boring B2B with Interactive Influencer Content
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Lane Ellis

Digital Marketing News: LinkedIn’s Live Video, CMI’s New Content Marketing Agency Report, Google on SEO, & Reddit’s $3B Valuation

Lane Ellis on Feb 15th, 2019     Online Marketing News

2019 February 15 CMI Report Chart

Do Agencies Practice the Content Marketing They Preach? [New Research]
Agency content marketing statistics and budgeting trends for 2019 are examined in a new report from the Content Marketing Institute and MarketingProfs, with the release of the new “Agency Content Marketing 2019: Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends” survey. Content Marketing Institute

LinkedIn debuts LinkedIn Live, a new live video broadcast service
LinkedIn (client) has began launching a live video feature, LinkedIn Live, to build on the success of its standard video offerings which are already the fastest-growing format on the platform, the firm has announced. TechCrunch

In-app ad spend grows but KPIs slow to catch up, study finds
Advertisers are spending 45 percent of their budgets on mobile formats, and 92 percent of firms expect to see those budgets expand during the next year, two of the take-aways from a new joint survey from Forrester and PubMatic. The Drum


Digital Marketing News: LinkedIn’s Live Video, CMI’s New Content Marketing Agency Report, Google on SEO, & Reddit’s $3B Valuation
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Anne Leuman

Lovestruck: Why We’ve Fallen in Love with B2B Content Marketing

Anne Leuman on Feb 14th, 2019     B2B Marketing, Content Marketing

Falling in Love with B2B Content Marketing

Once upon a time, in a land of rainbows, butterflies, and evil content overload, a gripping love story is unfolding.

But this love affair isn’t what you’d expect — it’s no “Romeo and Juliet” or “Sleepless in Seattle.”

Rather, it’s an unlikely courtship with a bond sealed by three little words: Business-to-Business.

That’s right. We’ve said. The secret’s out. For the last decade, we’ve been head-over-heels in love with B2B content marketing.

We know what you’re thinking. B2B can’t hold a candle to B2C. B2B is boring. B2B lacks sex appeal. But you don’t know B2B like we do—she’s a knockout and a showstopper.

via GIPHY

What’s so darn attractive about B2B content marketing? Let us remind you of all there is to fall in love with.


Lovestruck: Why We’ve Fallen in Love with B2B Content Marketing
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Joshua Nite

10 Memorable Marketer Moods, Memed

Joshua Nite on Feb 13th, 2019     B2B Marketing, Content Marketing

10 Marketer Moods in Memes

As a content marketer, I’m always looking for more effective and efficient ways to communicate. I love the way communication is evolving online (with the exception of, say, YouTube comments).

Think about it: A hundred years ago, it was much harder to convey a mood in text.

  • You could trail off (…)
  • You could ask questions (?)
  • You could shout (!!)

And that’s about it.

Emoticons opened up the possibilities a bit, with “slight smile :),” “big smile :D,” and “guy wearing sunglasses sticking his tongue out 8P.” Emojis added even more nuance.

Now, though, we have the ability to embed images and GIFs in our blog posts, emails, and messages. We can convey extremely specific moods, thoughts, and insights with a single image. Like, for example, the feeling when you’re wearing socks and step in something wet:


10 Memorable Marketer Moods, Memed
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Nick Nelson

Tip of the Iceberg: A Story of Trust in Marketing as Told by Statistics

Nick Nelson on Feb 12th, 2019     B2B Marketing, Content Marketing

The State of Trust in Marketing

“Step up on the railing. Hold on, hold on. Keep your eyes closed.”

Jack is holding Rose around her waist, cautiously lifting her up to the Titanic’s bow.

“Do you trust me?”

He was a stranger up until days earlier, but still, her response is almost instantaneous.

“I trust you.”

Moments later, Rose opens her eyes and she’s flying, arms outstretched as the mighty liner propels her forward. She and Jack hold hands; they kiss. Celine Dion’s music wafts in the background. Teenage boys in the theater start gagging, while romantic types swoon.

There’s a good chance you lived through this very experience. James Cameron’s 1997 cinematic landmark Titanic was an unprecedented hit, holding the title as highest-grossing film of all time for 14 years. The scene described above is perhaps its most famous — the linchpin in a love story sparked by deep, genuine trust that materialized almost out nowhere.


Tip of the Iceberg: A Story of Trust in Marketing as Told by Statistics
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Lane Ellis

10 Free Online Courses to Optimize Your Marketing Skills

Lane Ellis on Feb 11th, 2019     Online Marketing

Silhouettes of men and women on colorful background.

No matter how much you already know, in today’s fast-paced marketing world there’s always plenty more to learn.

Today more than ever options for learning new marketing skills abound, and the sheer number of choices can sometimes be overwhelming.

Online courses can be an excellent way to advance your career through learning, and offer a go-at-your-own-pace cadence along with the ability to fit in as much or as little instruction as you wish, whenever and wherever you want.

With more than 70% of companies seeing online learning as essential to long-term strategy (Digital Marketing Institute), it’s no wonder that online courses are flourishing.

We’ve picked out 10 organizations offering online courses for optimizing your marketing skills, and best of all, each one is either completely free or offers free trials that allow you to try out content before you make a commitment.


10 Free Online Courses to Optimize Your Marketing Skills
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Lane Ellis

Digital Marketing News: LinkedIn Hits 610M Users, Inc 500 Social Usage, Facebook’s Income Targeting, & YouTube’s New Explore Tab

Lane Ellis on Feb 8th, 2019     Online Marketing News

2019 February 8 Center for Marketing Research at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth Chart

New Inc. 500 and Social Media Use Study from UMass Dartmouth
A new look into how Inc. 500 firms use both paid and organic social media advertising comes from the Center for Marketing Research at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, and offers a slew of useful information for digital marketers. UMass Dartmouth

LinkedIn Reaches 610 Million Members, Publishes New eBook on Social Media Management Tips
LinkedIn (client) has topped the 610 million user mark, with 40 percent using the site daily — two of the statistics from a guide the firm recently published, also offering best practices and social media management tips. Social Media Today

YouTube expands test of its Instagram-like Explore tab to more devices
YouTube has recently expanded its Explore tab test to surface more video content that would not show up using traditional recommendation algorithms, now available on more devices. TechCrunch


Digital Marketing News: LinkedIn Hits 610M Users, Inc 500 Social Usage, Facebook’s Income Targeting, & YouTube’s New Explore Tab
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Lane Ellis

5 Time-Saving Tips to Overclock Your B2B Marketing Efficiency

Lane Ellis on Feb 7th, 2019     B2B Marketing, Content Marketing

Gigahertz Overclocking Gauge Image

Is saving time important for a B2B marketer?

Your answer is likely an unequivocal yes. But saving time by upping efficiency isn’t just a one-and-done step. It should be an ongoing, living and breathing process that changes and improves over your marketing career. And that means you should be taking time to review and audit your processes to uncover opportunities for improvement.

In my 35-plus years working in online communications, I’ve come to learn several efficiency-boosting methods. So, here are five of my personal time-saving tips to overclock, fine-tune, and crank up your B2B marketing efficiency.

Why B2B Marketing Efficiency Matters

Saving a few minutes here and there throughout the day may not seem all that important — or worth devoting much effort to achieve. But keep in mind that saving two minutes each day equates to eight and a half hours over a standard business year. That’s valuable time that can be used for countless other activities.


5 Time-Saving Tips to Overclock Your B2B Marketing Efficiency
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Lee Odden

Great B2B Content Isn’t Great if No One Sees It: Here’s a Solution

Lee Odden on Feb 6th, 2019     B2B Marketing, Content Marketing

B2B integrated content marketing

If you want B2B content to be great, across channels you must integrate.

In B2B marketing, the expression “great content” should mean relevant, useful and maybe even inspiring information that connects with the intended reader. The problem is, even when business content fires on all of those cylinders it falls flat if few people ever see it.

That’s why business content promotion must go hand in hand with content creation.

While the previous sentence makes sense to just about everyone reading it, we also know that in practice, content promotion is more often an afterthought than a key part of content planning. It shouldn’t be a special case to improve organic search visibility, social engagement, industry media pickups and influencer shares of your content for all the (relevant) world to see, but the standard when it comes to B2B content marketing.


Great B2B Content Isn’t Great if No One Sees It: Here’s a Solution
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