B2B Marketing Blog

B2B Marketing News: B2B Marketer Covid Impact Study, Google Tests New Podcast Carousels, Salesforce Buys Slack, & New Podcast Data

Lane Ellis on Dec 4th, 2020
Online Marketing News

Salesforce strikes deal to acquire Slack for $27.7 billion
Cloud services firm Salesforce will pay $27.7 billion to acquire online workplace communication service company Slack, a move seen as likely aiming to bring tighter integration between the two platforms, Salesforce recently announced. Ars Technica

Google Search Podcast Carousel Updated With Larger Graphics
Google has tested significantly larger podcast carousel images within search results, a move that if rolled out would provide marketers greater podcast visibility opportunities in Google search results, and signify the expanding role that podcasts have held over the past year. Search Engine Roundtable

B2B Marketing News: B2B Marketer Covid Impact Study, Google Tests New Podcast Carousels, Salesforce Buys Slack, & New Podcast Data

Break Free B2B Marketing: Kevin Jackson of GC GlobalNet on Cloud Computing

Susan Misukanis on Dec 3rd, 2020
B2B Marketing, Video Interviews

Kevin L. Jackson of GC GlobalNet

Cloud computing is a topic that can be mystifying for many. The fact of the matter, however, is that the global public cloud service market is projected to exceed $266 billion this year. That’s a lot of companies doing a lot of business in the cloud. When it comes to making sense of this complex creation and the way it works, there are few experts more knowledgeable than Kevin Jackson.

Breaking free from blindly accepting cloud computing and moving toward an active, knowledgeable use of the technology is something all B2B marketers and business owners need to understand. It’s also something Kevin Jackson is especially good at, which is why we invited him to be the first speaker during Season 3 of our Break Free B2B Marketing interview series.

Break Free B2B Marketing: Kevin Jackson of GC GlobalNet on Cloud Computing

12 Top B2B SEO Trends & Predictions for 2021

Lane Ellis on Dec 2nd, 2020
B2B Marketing, Search Marketing, SEO

What will search marketing and search engine optimization (SEO) look like in 2021, and where will it take B2B marketers and brands when a post-pandemic world eventually arrives?

To help answer these questions and more we’ve gathered 12 top B2B search marketing insights from both industry experts and our own team, and present our annual look at SEO predictions and search trends for 2021.

When I first went online in 1984 operating a 300-baud bulletin board system, it would be six years before Archie’s FTP site search arrived in 1990, followed three years later by Excite and the other early web search engine innovators, and if there’s one aspect of search that has remained constant throughout the ensuing decades, it’s been unending change.

12 Top B2B SEO Trends & Predictions for 2021

Inside Influence EP09: Brian Solis from Salesforce on How B2B Influence Adds Value to Customers

Lee Odden on Nov 30th, 2020
B2B Marketing, Influencer Marketing

According to our research in the 2020 State of B2B Influencer Marketing Report, 74% of marketers surveyed believe that influencer marketing improves prospect and customer experience for B2B brands. If there’s one industry expert to tap on the topic of customer experience, I can think of few more qualified than the author of X: The Experience When Business Meets Design, Brian Solis.

As an 8 time best selling author, keynote speaker, analyst, futurist, digital anthropologist and Global Innovation Evangelist at Salesforce, Brian is a longtime friend that I’ve been able to collaborate with numerous times on marketing topics.

Inside Influence EP09: Brian Solis from Salesforce on How B2B Influence Adds Value to Customers

B2B Marketing News: B2B User Reviews, Instagram’s New Branded Reels, Writing To Reward, & Google’s Refined Smart Bidding

Lane Ellis on Nov 27th, 2020
Online Marketing News

Instagram turns influencer branded content on its head, giving advertisers greater control
Instagram has rolled out features that will give digital marketers new branded content options for its Instagram Reels and Live products, the Facebook-owned social media platform recently announced. AdAge

Write to Reward Your Reader
The Harvard Business Review takes a look at the role and power of rewarding your reader in writing, an element that applies especially well for the material content marketers write. Harvard Business Review

Google Ads’ Smart Bidding Enhances Predictions & Insights
Google has launched updated features to its Google Ads offering, with new smart bidding to offer more relevant predictions and new insights, the search giant recently announced. Search Engine Journal

B2B Marketing News: B2B User Reviews, Instagram’s New Branded Reels, Writing To Reward, & Google’s Refined Smart Bidding

Gratitude In Uncertain Times: What the TopRank Marketing Team is Most Thankful For

Lane Ellis on Nov 26th, 2020
B2B Marketing, TopRank Agency News

Have our views on thankfulness changed in the turmoil and uncertainty of 2020?

As the U.S. celebrates Thanksgiving Day, the pandemic continues to have a profound global impact, making this start to the holiday season one unique in modern history.

This doesn’t mean that we have less to be thankful for, however — indeed the opposite may be true, based on what our team here at TopRank Marketing have taken the time to reflect on for our traditional post sharing messages of thankfulness.

Our ability to see and express gratitude in difficult times can be especially meaningful and replenishing. This may be a prime year to consider the words of writer G. K. Chesterton.

Gratitude In Uncertain Times: What the TopRank Marketing Team is Most Thankful For

Inside Influence EP08: Srijana Angdembey from Oracle on How Influence Creates Better B2B Customer Experiences

Lee Odden on Nov 23rd, 2020
B2B Marketing, Influencer Marketing

Improving Customer Experience is one of the top priorities for B2B marketers today. With the challenges of real-world experiences from field marketing to in-person tradeshows all but gone, B2B marketers are focused on figuring out how to maximize digital experiences.

Working with influencers has proven to be an effective solution. In fact, 74% of marketers agree that influencer marketing improves customer and prospect experience with the brand according to the 2020 State of B2B Influencer Marketing Report. But how are B2B brands working with influencers to create those experiences?

To find out, I reached out to Srijana Angdembey, Director of Social Media Marketing at Oracle for this 8th Episode of Inside Influence – Interviews with B2B Influencer Marketing Insiders. During our talk, we discussed:

Inside Influence EP08: Srijana Angdembey from Oracle on How Influence Creates Better B2B Customer Experiences

B2B Marketing News: Digital Marketing Priorities, Ultimate CX, B2B Burnout, The Power of Podcasting

Lee Odden on Nov 20th, 2020
B2B Marketing, Online Marketing News

Where Do Digital Marketers’ Priorities Lie for the Year Ahead?
Digital marketers have a clear vision of their priorities though some are working with less marketing resources than others, according to Altimeter’s State of Digital Marketing report for 2020. The report highlights that organizations are either cutting costs as a response to the financial uncertainties of the crisis or upping investments in digital to keep up with customers moving online. MarketingCharts

The CX Courtship: How B2B Brands Get To The Partnership Stage [Merkle Study]
The B2B customer experience should be just as smooth as B2C. But too often it’s not. Indeed, 35% of businesses with 1,000 or more employees find choosing a B2B supplier to be almost a nightmarish process, judging by Architecting The Ultimate Customer Experience, a study by Merkle, with participation from its gyro and B2B International agencies. MediaPost

B2B Marketing News: Digital Marketing Priorities, Ultimate CX, B2B Burnout, The Power of Podcasting

14 Expert B2B Influencer Marketing Predictions for 2021

Lane Ellis on Nov 19th, 2020
B2B Marketing, Influencer Marketing

What will B2B influencer marketing look like in 2021, and where will it take B2B marketers and brands when a post-pandemic world eventually arrives?

To help answer these questions we’ve gathered top B2B influencer marketing insights from both industry experts and our own team, and present our look at their predictions for 2021.

Let’s jump right in and see how top B2B influencer marketing practitioners expect 2021 to change the way we do business, and why it will likely be a breakout year for building influence.

1 — Anti-Marketing and The Real vs. The Ideal

Ann Boyd
Vice President of Communications, Rubrik

14 Expert B2B Influencer Marketing Predictions for 2021

10 Expert Pointers To Create Better B2B Content With Authentic Influence

Lane Ellis on Nov 18th, 2020
B2B Marketing, Content Marketing

How does authentic content help drive better customer experience?

And how does influence help optimize B2B content marketing performance?

Both of these are important questions for today’s B2B marketers heading into the uncertainty of 2021, where we face falling organic social reach and declining brand trust. To help guide the way we have gathered together the answers to these key questions and eight others.

Our CEO and co-founder Lee Odden explored the topics of authentic content and how influence can optimize content marketing performance during virtual presentations for the ContentTECH Summit and the IABC MN Convergence Summit, and we’ll share some of the top take-aways from his insight-filled sessions.

Let’s dig right in and look at Lee’s 10 pointers to create better B2B content with authentic influence in our age of the new normal.

10 Expert Pointers To Create Better B2B Content With Authentic Influence

Inside Influence EP07: Pierre-Loïc Assayag from Traackr on Influencer Marketing Technology

Lee Odden on Nov 16th, 2020
B2B Marketing, Influencer Marketing

Scrow: A conjunction of “scale” and “grow”, which is a word I made up to talk about the value of technology when it comes to ramping up the impact of B2B influencer marketing during the latest Inside Influence show about what’s working and what’s not inside the world of B2B Influencer Marketing.

When B2B marketers think about how to “scrow” the success of their influencer marketing, they often start by looking beyond spreadsheets from transactional to more relationship driven influencer models. To support these efforts they often seek influencer marketing platforms.

Inside Influence EP07: Pierre-Loïc Assayag from Traackr on Influencer Marketing Technology

B2B Marketing News: B2B Buying Disconnect Study, Google’s SERP Video Carousels, B2B Event ROI Data, & Instagram’s New Story Reactions

Lane Ellis on Nov 13th, 2020
Online Marketing News

How Can You Improve Your B2B Virtual Event’s ROI?
47.6 percent of B2B professionals see post-virtual-event audience engagement as having the top return-on-investment (ROI) potential, followed by some 36 percent who said that making the virtual format more dynamic and interactive was a priority, according to recently-released survey data. MarketingCharts

Adweek Survey Finds 40% of Brands Might Seek New Agencies in 2021
75 percent of marketers have been satisfied with how agencies have handled the global health crisis, while a third performed better than expected during the pandemic — two of several statistics of interest to digital marketers contained in newly-released Adweek Intelligence survey data. Adweek

B2B Marketing News: B2B Buying Disconnect Study, Google’s SERP Video Carousels, B2B Event ROI Data, & Instagram’s New Story Reactions