Online Marketing Blog

The Great Marketing Get-Together

Lane Ellis on Aug 21st, 2019 B2B Marketing

State fair season brings tasty new foods-on-a-stick and a grandstand full of marketing lessons for those willing to walk the midway.

The Minnesota State Fair, known affectionately as the Great Minnesota Get-Together, begins tomorrow, and we’ll explore some of the wild new food concoctions on offer this year, and dig in to a bucket-of-cookies-size list of surprising things it can teach us about marketing.

The fair, which began all the way back in 1859, is one of the largest in the U.S., now often topping the 2 million attendee mark each 12-day season and offering fair-goers 322 acres of summer fun in the form of amusement rides, live music from at least four stages, art, animals, parades and more.

The Great Marketing Get-Together

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Content Marketing Interview: Margaret Magnarelli on Applying Journalistic Integrity to Content Strategy #CMWorld

Nick Nelson on Aug 20th, 2019 Content Marketing, Content Marketing World

Content marketers come from all sorts of different backgrounds, with each bringing its own distinct and valuable perspective. Recently we shared our chat with Andrew Davis, whose history in television inspires him to think like a TV executive when strategizing his content. Today we’re highlighting the insights of Margaret Magnarelli, whose ingrained journalistic mindset fuels a commitment to putting her audience — and their trust — above all else.

Prior to joining Morgan Stanley as Executive Director for Audience Acquisition and Growth Marketing, Margaret served as Vice President of Marketing for Monster, and before that she spent nearly a decade on the editorial staff at Money Magazine, rising from Senior Editor to Assistant Managing Editor to Executive Editor.

Content Marketing Interview: Margaret Magnarelli on Applying Journalistic Integrity to Content Strategy #CMWorld

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Margaret Shepard Shares How Mayo Clinic Built its Facebook Live Broadcast Strategy #DSMPLS

Debbie Friez on Aug 19th, 2019 Digital Summit, Facebook, Influencer Marketing, Video

The Mayo Clinic, one of our nation’s most renowned hospitals, believes in being social. More than 100 years ago, the Mayo brothers got the social ball rolling by inviting other surgeons to come to its facility in Rochester, MN to talk and learn from one another.

Today, that sharing and learning principle continues through social media, particularly Facebook Live.

With the hopes of helping patients learn more about their health care options, Mayo Clinic knew that research showed that word-of-mouth and expert insight could make an impact. With that in mind, it began its foray into live video on social media with Periscope and eventually moved to Facebook Live.

The hook of the broadcast? Leveraging the expert insights of experienced physicians.

Margaret Shepard Shares How Mayo Clinic Built its Facebook Live Broadcast Strategy #DSMPLS

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TopRank Marketing’s Ashley Zeckman Shares How to Build Consumer Trust with Influencers #DSMPLS

Debbie Friez on Aug 19th, 2019 Digital Summit, Influencer Marketing

In a world of consumer distrust, especially when it comes to marketing messages, it can sometimes feel like you’re living in the “Upside Down.” Everything that you thought was true about marketing and how you engage with customers and buyers is now different. In fact, sometimes nothing seems to make sense anymore.

In fact, Edelman found that less than 50% of U.S. consumers trust brands. In her Stranger Things-themed presentation at Digital Summit Minneapolis, TopRank Marketing’s Ashley Zeckman addressed the current state of marketing affairs and offered insight into ways that brands can improve trust and connect with their buying audience.

What’s her advice on changing the narrative and winning back the hearts and minds of customers? Partner with influencers to create credible content that can change the day and save the world. Stranger Things have happened, right?

TopRank Marketing’s Ashley Zeckman Shares How to Build Consumer Trust with Influencers #DSMPLS

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Pantheon’s Roland Smart Details the Secret to Agile Marketing Transformation #DSMPLS

Elizabeth Williams on Aug 16th, 2019 Digital Marketing, Marketing PR Conferences, MIMA Summit

Run a Google search for “agile marketing” today and you’ll see 144 million results. It’s an insanely hot topic, which has steadily grown more applicable and desired from it’s “Scrum” beginnings.

Why are marketers today so obsessed with agility? Roland Smart, podcaster, author of “The Agile Marketer: Turning Customer Experience Into Your Competitive Advantage” and Vice President of Marketing for Pantheon*, shared his insight on the subject at Digital Summit Minneapolis this week.

For starters, the average marketer’s tenure is just 18 months. After all, we need to get results—and we need them fast. Second, while our strategies and tactics have been artfully crafted with insight and data, once we put everything into the wild, we need to be able to act fast to monitor, measure, and optimize performance—while also navigating budget and “waterfall” resourcing limitations and challenges. And finally, today’s marketers are often managing a growing tech stack, making an agile approach a match made in heaven.

Pantheon’s Roland Smart Details the Secret to Agile Marketing Transformation #DSMPLS

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Digital Marketing News: Google Indexing Podcasts, Unity’s Rising Marketing Value, Facebook’s Flashy Slideshows & More

Lane Ellis on Aug 16th, 2019 Online Marketing News

2019 August 16 Marketing Charts Chart

US digital ad spend up 18% YoY, new IAB report says
Digital advertising expenditures in the U.S. increased by 18 percent year-over-over from the first quarter of 2018, hitting $28.4 billion, with paid search comprising some 40%, according to new report data from the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB). ClickZ

B2B Buyers Prefer Email, But That’s Only One Of Their Demands, Study Finds
41 percent of B2B buyers consider email as their preferred channel, with some 57 percent preferring quotes to come via the channel, while 33 percent choose vendors based on reference reviews, according to newly-released survey data. MediaPost

Report: Instagram Story ad share doubles while overall ad growth levels out
Instagram Story ad spending doubled from 9 percent to 18 percent year-over-year from the second quarter of 2018, reaching levels that are now similar to those of Facebook, according to newly-released report data from Kenshoo. Marketing Land

Digital Marketing News: Google Indexing Podcasts, Unity’s Rising Marketing Value, Facebook’s Flashy Slideshows & More

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4 Marketing Productivity Tips from Workfront’s Mike Riding #DSMPLS

Anne Leuman on Aug 15th, 2019 Digital Marketing, Digital Summit, Marketing & PR Industry

Does work follow you home? When was the last time you had a work week that was actually 40 hours?

Marketers often feel pressed for time and overworked. In fact, according to recent Workfront research:

64% say they’re being asked to come up with new ways of working
58% are so swamped, they don’t have time to think beyond their daily tasks
56% they’re completely overwhelmed.

Mike Riding, Workfront’s Director of Digital Marketing, came to Digital Summit Minneapolis with the sole goal of helping marketers get more work done. While organizations typically turn to technology to solve the productivity problem, Mike offered four actionable, process-driven ways marketers can modernize their work and become more productive.

4 Marketing Productivity Tips from Workfront’s Mike Riding #DSMPLS

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Joseph Lindberg of Land O’Lakes Outlines How to Build a Marketing Dashboarding Discipline #DSMPLS

Elizabeth Williams on Aug 15th, 2019 Digital Marketing, Digital Summit, Marketing PR Conferences

Marketing measurement. It’s absolutely essential, but perhaps one of the hardest marketing disciplines to master. Why? As Joseph Lindberg, Digital Communications Editor for Land O’Lakes, Inc., told a room of marketers at Digital Summit Minneapolis this week:

“Measurement is a loaded term. It means many things to many people.”

It’s true. Measurement can be thought of in terms of KPIs. Measurement can be raw data or data insights. Measurement can be your stack of tools.

And during his session, titled Building a Marketing Dashboarding Discipline: It’s Not About the Tool (Until It Is), Joseph challenged marketers to flip our thinking on how we measure.

Below we outline his recommended process and advice for how you can level up your measurement game, and map tactics to business objectives so you can prove value up the ladder.

Joseph Lindberg of Land O’Lakes Outlines How to Build a Marketing Dashboarding Discipline #DSMPLS

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The Future of Marketing As Seen By Randi Zuckerberg #DSMPLS

Anne Leuman on Aug 15th, 2019 Digital Marketing, Digital Summit, Marketing PR Conferences

“Technology is changing the way we do business.”

Said everyone, ever.

Marketers know technology is changing how we interact with our audience. But knowing it’s happening and doing something about it are two very different things.

Randi Zuckerberg is no stranger to technology and its effects on business, daily life, and social structures. As the founder and CEO of her own media company, Zuckerberg Media, and a former marketing leader at Facebook, Randi has a unique vision for the future of marketing and how today’s marketers can adapt.

Explore that future with her insights below from the floor of Digital Summit Minneapolis.

We’re Afraid to Fail

We’ve been talking about the evolving state of marketing for years. But maybe we as marketers haven’t changed all that much. Why?

The Future of Marketing As Seen By Randi Zuckerberg #DSMPLS

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B2B Sales and Marketing Exchange Wrapup #B2BSMX

Lee Odden on Aug 14th, 2019 B2B Marketing

B2BSMX header

What do you get when three B2B thought leader brands come together to form a combined event featuring top B2B marketing experts? B2BSMX

This week in Boston, a new event launched called the B2B Sales and Marketing Exchange combining the best of three of the best resources in B2B: FlipMyFunnel from Terminus, RevTalks from the Pedowitz Group and Demand Gen Summit from Demand Gen Report. Together with another track focused on Labs and Case Studies, they powered over 50 sessions for about 1,000 registered attendees.

Lee Odden Nick Nelson
As a media sponsor, TopRank Marketing was invited to shine a light on some of the talent at the event though speaker interviews and liveblogging presentations. Nick Nelson and I attended numerous sessions each day allowing us to accelerate our B2B sales and marketing knowledge as well as our connections with thought leaders, practitioners and vendors in the industry.

B2B Sales and Marketing Exchange Wrapup #B2BSMX

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B2B Marketing Spotlight: Shonodeep Modak, CMO NA at Schneider Electric #B2BSMX

Lee Odden on Aug 14th, 2019 B2B Marketing, Interviews

Shonodeep Modak is CMO of North America at Schneider Electric. He has more than 18 years of commercial experience across energy, oil & gas, electrical distribution, automation and aftermarket services where he has architected and led nimble, data-driven global teams to propel portfolio expansion and deliver double-digit returns.

At the recent B2B Sales and Marketing Exchange conference, Shonodeep presented on how to restructure your marketing department around the customer vs. around your products or services: Opening Up The Panel Door…Rewiring How Your Marketing Team Works.

During the first day of the conference, Shonodeep and I met to discuss his presentation, his experiences at companies like GE and ExxonMobil, what’s broken with today’s marketing departments and where to marketing leaders can start to fix their own organizational structure.

B2B Marketing Spotlight: Shonodeep Modak, CMO NA at Schneider Electric #B2BSMX

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The 10 Commandments of Modern B2B Marketing – Dave Gerhardt, Drift #B2BSMX

Nick Nelson on Aug 14th, 2019 B2B Marketing, Marketing PR Conferences

Drift is widely regarded as a pioneer in modern marketing, and their Vice President of Marketing Dave Gerhardt has been instrumental in establishing this reputation.

Taking on his first role as a marketing leader, he helped grow the chatbot platform from a startup with no market recognition to a $10 million company in less than two years. He also co-authored the book Conversational Marketing along with Drift’s founder David Cancel.

While his company has experienced powerful growth and attained status as a leading innovator, the journey hasn’t always been smooth and seamless. Dave says there are a number of things he wishes he would’ve known before getting started, and he shared them on Tuesday at B2B Sales and Marketing Exchange in Boston, dubbing them his “10 Commandments for Modern Marketing” (with a stated emphasis on the word modern).

The 10 Commandments of Modern B2B Marketing – Dave Gerhardt, Drift #B2BSMX

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