Online Marketing Blog

Take the 2020 B2B Influencer Marketing Survey

Lee Odden on Apr 6th, 2020
B2B Marketing, Influencer Marketing

Influencer Marketing is positioned to address some of the key B2B marketing challenges of our time: declining buyer trust, improving content quality, reach and effectiveness.

On top of that, business marketers are now faced with the additional challenge of in-person marketing being taken out of the mix with many shifting to pure digital and and purpose driven programs.

Influencer Marketing presents an even greater opportunity for B2B brands in an all-digital environment to attract and engage customers with authentic content that builds trust.

While there’s plenty of momentum and recent attention towards influencer marketing for B2B companies, the majority of research on the topic has been covered broadly or focused on B2C influencer marketing. Many blogs and publications including this one have cited B2C statistics and examples in the hopes of a correlation to B2B. But it’s just not the same thing.

Take the 2020 B2B Influencer Marketing Survey

Digital Marketing News: Influencers See Surging Engagement, COVID-19’s Impact on B2B Marketers, & New Opportunities For Building Brand Trust

Lane Ellis on Apr 3rd, 2020
Online Marketing News

Influencers see surge in engagement, want to help SMBs
While other forms of marketing have generally seen decreased effectiveness figures during the coronavirus pandemic, influencer marketing has seen surging social media engagements and impressions, with some 70 percent of influencers seeing audiences seeking guidance from them during the crisis, according to recently-released survey data of interest to digital marketers. Influence Central

Forrester: Brands must build trust as coronavirus saps consumer sentiment
Although brands have been facing decreased consumer confidence due to the coronavirus pandemic, some are also achieving new levels of trust by helping consumers regain a sense of control, a shift examined in newly-released consumer energy index survey data from Forrester. Marketing Dive

Digital Marketing News: Influencers See Surging Engagement, COVID-19’s Impact on B2B Marketers, & New Opportunities For Building Brand Trust

5 Ways SEO Can Shine a Light on Your Unseen B2B Content

Joshua Nite on Apr 2nd, 2020
B2B Marketing, Content Marketing, SEO

“Look, marketers. Everywhere the light touches is content beloved by customers.”

“But what about that shadowy place over there?”

“That’s our unseen content. We worked hard to create it, but nobody ever visits it.”

“That’s really depressing.”

“That’s life.”

Okay, sorry to bring the room down. And I’m also sorry to say that it gets worse. A recent study found that 69% of all web content is not seen by consumers.

The remaining 31% is our kingdom.

Fortunately, there are many ways to create content that beats the odds. For example, you can co-create with influencers, or experiment with interactive content that inspires social media sharing. But what about the content you have already created? The really good stuff that never caught on with an audience?

5 Ways SEO Can Shine a Light on Your Unseen B2B Content

5 Stars: 20+ Tips to Invigorate Your B2B Marketing Using Testimonials & Reviews

Lane Ellis on Apr 1st, 2020
B2B Marketing

What’s in a review?

With the right client testimonials and customer reviews, B2B brands can increase trust and loyalty in uncertain times while strengthening existing connections and fostering new ones. Your brand may even be sitting on a goldmine of evergreen trust-building user-generated content.

Let’s take a look at 20+ tips to invigorate and expand your B2B marketing toolkit with a smart customer review and testimonial strategy.

Making The Statistical Case For Testimonials & Reviews

With some surveys showing that 90 percent of adult Internet users rely on reviews before making purchases, and others placing the figure even higher at nearly 99 percent, it’s important for B2B brands to make sure they feature the reviews and testimonials their customers have taken the time to write and share online.

5 Stars: 20+ Tips to Invigorate Your B2B Marketing Using Testimonials & Reviews

6 Tips to Keep B2B Marketing Teams in Rhythm While Working Remotely

Nick Nelson on Mar 31st, 2020
B2B Marketing

In these unconventional times, many work teams are grappling with an unconventional dynamic: fully distributed personnel and remote collaboration. This setup presents a number of challenges, but thankfully we live in a time where technology makes it easier than ever to stay connected and tightly aligned on our work.

For B2B agencies like TopRank Marketing, this has always been a point of emphasis. In servicing clients from around the globe, we’re accustomed to communicating across distances, borders, and time zones. We occasionally have our own team members work from home, and in fact, we have a few who do so full-time.

While having everyone in the organization work remotely is uncharted territory for us, our built-in comfort with digital collaboration gives us a head-start, and has allowed us to hit the ground running with minimal disruption to our programs and workflows.

6 Tips to Keep B2B Marketing Teams in Rhythm While Working Remotely

Four Opportunities for Focus to Improve B2B Marketing

Lee Odden on Mar 30th, 2020
B2B Marketing

While uncertainty can be distraction, now is a time for focus in the B2B marketing world. Beyond figuring out the new logistics and operations of remote work, paused marketing efforts and the urgent need to keep employees, customers and community safe and healthy, there’s still a need for marketing. In fact, the areas of focus below are relevant in any time but are worth considering over the coming weeks and months.

Align content strategy with the entire marketing funnel.
Successful business marketers are doing more than ever to understand the customer journey and realize that in today’s environment, buyers are pulling themselves through 60-80% of the funnel with information they find on their own before ever contacting a vendor. Without real-world events and interactions, the current focus on digital engagement pushes that percentage even higher.

Four Opportunities for Focus to Improve B2B Marketing

Digital Marketing News: Coronavirus’ Impact on Marketing Budgets & Social Media Usage, LinkedIn’s New Conversation Ads, & Instagram Story Changes

Lane Ellis on Mar 27th, 2020
Online Marketing News

LinkedIn rolls out Conversation Ads, aimed at improving personalization in messaging
LinkedIn has begun launching its new Conversation Ads, with real-time engagement ad options that include multiple calls-to-action. Conversation Ads are rolling out to all LinkedIn (client) advertisers over the next several weeks, the firm recently announced. Marketing Land

Social Media Consumption Grows Amid Coronavirus
Social media usage has sharply increased in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. Certain Instagram #ad campaign post likes have seen an increase of up to 76 percent during the past two weeks, as the majority of workers have shifted to temporary remote work. AList

CX in B2B Marketing: Top-of-Mind Strategy in 2020
54 percent of B2B marketers say their organizations are focusing most on customer experience and loyalty in their marketing efforts, according to newly-released report data examining global B2B customer experience priorities. MarketingProfs

Digital Marketing News: Coronavirus’ Impact on Marketing Budgets & Social Media Usage, LinkedIn’s New Conversation Ads, & Instagram Story Changes

A Well-Oiled Machine: Why Every B2B Marketing Team Needs Marketing Operations

Anne Leuman on Mar 26th, 2020
B2B Marketing

What makes a B2B marketing campaign great?

Is it a creative theme that catches your attention? Is it the insightful expertise featured within? Is it the number of leads it produced?

Answer: it’s all of those things and more. Great B2B marketing campaigns have great ideas and great execution.

But great execution is hard to achieve. It demands excellent resourcing, swift approvals, streamlined processes, and more. And as you may have noticed, these aren’t marketing functions. They’re operational functions.

For your B2B marketing campaigns to truly be successful, you need someone leading the operational side of things. You need marketing operations.

What Is Marketing Operations?

According to MarketingProfs, marketing operations is “an emerging discipline that increases efficiency and drives consistent results in marketing-focused organizations. It builds a foundation for excellence by reinforcing marketing strategy with metrics, infrastructure, business processes, best practices, budgeting and reporting.”

A Well-Oiled Machine: Why Every B2B Marketing Team Needs Marketing Operations

50+ Top B2B Marketing Insights You Need To Know Today

Lane Ellis on Mar 25th, 2020
B2B Marketing

Even though the “Roaring Twenties” moniker of a century ago today takes on a more menacing new tone in light of today’s COVID-19 pandemic, smart B2B marketers are still hard at work and looking ahead.

The B2B marketing world of tomorrow will be shaped by the emerging marketing trends we have seen during the beginning of 2020, and we already have a wealth of insight to learn from new research data that has come out in recent marketing reports.

We’ll take a look at:

Impressive Results in a Growing Influencer Marketing Industry
Social Media Changes & The Rising Importance of Trust
The Global Impact of Artificial Intelligence (AI)
The Role of Emerging Digital Interfaces in B2B Marketing

50+ Top B2B Marketing Insights You Need To Know Today

8 Virtual SEO Conferences for B2B Marketers

Tiffani Allen on Mar 24th, 2020
SEO, SEO Training

It’s the beginning of our second week of social distancing here in Minnesota. I’ve already cleaned my house no fewer than 10 times, cleaned and organized closets, and gone on approximately 100 walks. I’m about 24 hours away from dressing my cats in costumes and putting on a (very sharp, bitey) show. But if that’s what it takes to keep spirits up and minds occupied at home, that’s what we will do.

Among the uncertainty and boredom we all face in these unprecedented times, we tend to take solace in the familiar. Keeping ourselves busy with ideas, concepts and work that nourish our minds is one thing we can do to stay sane and focus on the things we can impact.

8 Virtual SEO Conferences for B2B Marketers

Marketing During a Pandemnic: Stop Pushing and Start Pulling with SEO

Lee Odden on Mar 23rd, 2020
SEO

Customer empathy is at the forefront of the best marketing and tone deaf promotions as if things were normal during the COVID-19 pandemic are probably some of the worst.

When it comes to understanding the customer state of mind right now, I think Dean Shaw from SAS summed it up well on Twitter:

Pro Tip to Companies on what your customers are thinking about right now:
– their health
– their family’s health
– their job
– their savings
– paying their bills
– how to transition to working from home
– their toilet paper supply
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– your product pitch

— deanshaw (@deanshaw) March 21, 2020

Marketing During a Pandemnic: Stop Pushing and Start Pulling with SEO

Digital Marketing News: B2B Brand Personalization & Revenue Alignment Studies, Coronavirus Ad Spend Impact, & Facebook’s New Horizon VR

Lane Ellis on Mar 20th, 2020
Online Marketing News

Some B2B Brands Are Falling Short On Personalization: Study
Some 42 percent of B2B marketers see their marketing efforts as not being fully personalized, despite 77 percent seeing personalized marketing as delivering better customer relationships — two of several insights relevant to digital marketers contained in recently-released study data. MediaPost

YouTube to automate more video reviews in light of staffing challenges caused by coronavirus
Caronavirus concerns have led YouTube and other social media platforms to turn partially to artificial intelligence (AI) for flagging troublesome content, as temporary in-house human staff shortages have arisen. The temporary measures include possible delays in appeals processes, and increased instances of falsely-flagged content, YouTube and other social networking firms have announced this week. Marketing Land

Digital Marketing News: B2B Brand Personalization & Revenue Alignment Studies, Coronavirus Ad Spend Impact, & Facebook’s New Horizon VR