Harry Mackin

What is Search Intent and Why Is It Fundamental to SEO?

Harry Mackin on Mar 15th, 2023
B2B Marketing, SEO

When you googled “what is search intent,” you had the informational intention to seek out an answer to your question and learn more about a topic you’ve been hearing about.

As you can see, we understood that intent and wrote this blog post to answer your question. In other words: you’ve clearly come to the right place!

Search intent isn’t a “new” concept in SEO, but it is a surprisingly overlooked concept, especially in B2B. This is a problem for a couple reasons:

First and foremost, there’s the scary reason. As SEO becomes more and more competitive and third-party cookies go the way of the dinosaur, B2B businesses really have their work cut out for them if they want to stand out. Just targeting high-volume keywords isn’t going to cut it anymore; we’ll need to reach the right audience with the right message using the right keywords.

What is Search Intent and Why Is It Fundamental to SEO?

5 Ways ChatGPT Will Change the Future of B2B Content Marketing

Harry Mackin on Feb 27th, 2023
B2B Marketing, Content Marketing

If you haven’t heard the jokes yet, you will. ChatGPT is the terminator, and all of us content marketers are Sarah Connor. It’s only a matter of time before the evil machines seize our jobs out from under us and send us scrambling for one of the six journalism positions left on the planet. If, someway, somehow, we want to stay in marketing, our only desperate recourse will be to learn how keywords actually work, or worse… try PAID SEARCH.

…Ok, so the reality isn’t all that dramatic, no matter what those jokers in SEO want you to believe. There is, however, a grain of truth behind all the ribbing: the fact is, ChatGPT and advanced machine learning AI like it is going to change how content marketing works forever. In fact, it already is. It’s just not going to replace content marketing or content marketers.

5 Ways ChatGPT Will Change the Future of B2B Content Marketing

5 Steps For Aligning B2B Brands With Customers’ Changing Needs

Harry Mackin on Jan 23rd, 2023
B2B Marketing

When you were getting started in B2B marketing or selling, did you suspect you’d be selling your product more or less the same way for years at a time, or maybe for even longer?

What a sweet dream that was. But a few years in B2B shook you awake.

The truth is, the B2B consumer doesn’t just change as quickly as the B2C consumer; they actually change considerably faster. Your B2B customer’s needs are constantly morphing and evolving just as fast as their industry develops, their competition stiffens, and new technologies enter the fore.

The B2B brand that keeps its existing customers and brings in new ones has to evolve even faster than its customers. As a B2B marketer or B2B salesperson, your job is to understand what your customer’s need just as quickly (or even faster than) they realize they need it and demonstrate that you can provide it.

5 Steps For Aligning B2B Brands With Customers’ Changing Needs

Four Ways B2B Influencer Content Builds Better Marketing Reach & ROI

Harry Mackin on Jun 13th, 2022
B2B Marketing, Influencer Marketing

Nearly every marketer is familiar with B2C influencer marketing, such as it is. Celebrities promoting iPhones, various alcohols and even “probiotic” yogurt. You like the celebrity, so you’re supposed to like the product.

But does associating a brand or product with a popular individual really work for B2B marketing? …really? Well, in a sense, yes, as TopRank Marketing has been proving for quite awhile now with companies like LinkedIn, Dell, SAP, and many more. B2B influencer marketing represents a huge opportunity for companies of all sizes to expand their reach and generate better ROI from their content. However, activating influencers to advance B2B marketing and business goals doesn’t work exactly the same as with B2C.

Four Ways B2B Influencer Content Builds Better Marketing Reach & ROI

Creative Tips For Better Virtual Brainstorming in B2B Marketing

Harry Mackin on Jun 8th, 2022
B2B Marketing

For the most part, we’ve all adapted to remote work pretty well. As we got used to working separately, we tended to find ways to transition, transform, or replace most of our old work routines to make sure everything keeps getting done. But most — as every remote work naysayer is quick to point out — is not all.

If there’s one big element of the in-person work process still missing from your new reality, it’s the big, impromptu “throw-it-all-at-the-wall” brainstorming session.

Sessions like those probably led to some of your team’s biggest and brightest ideas… and they’re also the kind of thing you may think simply can’t happen remotely. Well, as you’ve probably surmised from the title of this blog post, that’s what we’re here to prove wrong.

Creative Tips For Better Virtual Brainstorming in B2B Marketing

5 Ways to Build B2B Content That Resonates With Your Audience, and Why They Work

Harry Mackin on Mar 18th, 2022
B2B Marketing, Content Marketing

B2B marketing has a content problem: there’s more of it all the time… and the people we actually want reading it have started tuning it all out. We can’t exactly stop the content deluge (look, we’re even contributing to it right now!), so instead we’ve got to figure out:

Why are decision makers tuning out content?
How can we keep them from tuning out ours?

Why isn’t B2B content resonating?

LinkedIn-Edelman helped answer this first question in their 2021 B2B Thought Leadership Impact Study. Their conclusions aren’t really all that surprising.

Decision makers can really appreciate good thought leadership content (64% said it was a better basis for assessing a potential vendor than marketing materials or product sheets), but…. only if it isn’t boring.

5 Ways to Build B2B Content That Resonates With Your Audience, and Why They Work

5 Helpful Ways B2B Marketers Can Achieve Content Approval

Harry Mackin on Feb 21st, 2022
B2B Marketing, Content Marketing

The “Wild West” of content marketing stuck around longer than we may have imagined, but COVID-19 well and truly brought it to a close. These days, 82% of marketers use content marketing, over 40% of marketers say content is a very important part of their strategy, and 70% plan to actively continue investing in it in the long term.

If content marketing is such big business now, however, why does so much of it still feel distinctly lawless? Nowhere is that more true than when it comes to actually getting either client or internal approval for your content. You go to all the work of producing your stuff, send it to the people in charge, and then… you’re at their mercy. And often, your content disappears then and there.

5 Helpful Ways B2B Marketers Can Achieve Content Approval