Lee Odden

Lee Odden

About Lee Odden

@LeeOdden is the CEO of TopRank Marketing and editor of Online Marketing Blog. Cited for his expertise by The Economist, Forbes and the Wall Street Journal, he's the author of the book Optimize and presents internationally on integrated content, search, social media and influencer marketing. When not at conferences, consulting, or working with his talented team, he's likely running, traveling or cooking up something new.

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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Lee Odden

5 Examples of B2B Influencer Marketing to Inspire You in 2019

Lee Odden on Jan 29th, 2019     B2B Marketing, Influencer Marketing

B2B Influencer Marketing Examples 2019

B2B brands don’t have it easy when trying to attract, engage and persuade today’s increasingly distracted and distrustful buyers. Many are experimenting with influencer marketing but results without an informed plan can be a mixed bag. Trust me, I know.

We’ve been experimenting heavily with B2B influencer marketing for over 6 years, partnering with hundreds of B2B influencers and B2B brands of all sizes while also learning a lesson or two.

Fast forward to today and we understand that for successful influencer marketing in the B2B world. Relationships are key, right along with shared values and some robust validation when it comes to topical relevance, ability to create and engage on-topic with an interested community.


5 Examples of B2B Influencer Marketing to Inspire You in 2019
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Lee Odden

Top Marketing Resources for CMOs in 2019

Lee Odden on Jan 21st, 2019     Digital Marketing

Marketing Resources CMO

A seat at the executive table for marketers in the form of the CMO role has not come without costs. CMOs have half the tenure of CEOs and the spotlight is on marketing leadership like never before.

While it’s undoubtedly a tough job, there’s plenty of opportunity. More than 25% of CEOs at large publicly traded companies have a marketing background. A CMO title has become the ultimate goal for many marketers and those that make the grade have to continue working hard on advancing their knowledge, skills and staying on top of industry trends.

To help CMOs and aspiring CMOs connect to strategic, useful and engaging information, here are 5 of the top resources worthy of a CMOs time.


Top Marketing Resources for CMOs in 2019
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Lee Odden

How A Best Answer Content Strategy Drives B2B Marketing Results

Lee Odden on Jan 17th, 2019     B2B Marketing, Content Marketing

Best Answer Content B2B Marketing

For many B2B marketers content is a numbers game, especially as the number of channels for discovery and engagement grow right along with competition for attention.

We all know how the information overload story ends: buyers disconnect, they start to ignore marketing content and they lose trust in the brands trying so desperately to reach them.

Smart voices like Ann Handley in the B2B marketing industry have called for a focus on quality and even brevity over the hamster wheel of content mediocrity. Many have listened and yet many more B2B marketers are still fighting the uphill battle of creating uninspired blog post after blog post, ebooks, white papers, case studies and who knows how many social messages – and to what end?


How A Best Answer Content Strategy Drives B2B Marketing Results
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Lee Odden

BIGLIST of 50 Top Marketing Blogs for 2019 – Martech Edition

Lee Odden on Jan 7th, 2019     BIGLIST Marketing Blogs, Digital Marketing

top marketing blogs

During my marketing conference travels I was asked a curious question: Are blogs still a thing in marketing?

In my B2B marketing world, blogs are core to successful content, search, social and influencer marketing. It seems the business world agrees. The University of Massachusetts Dartmouth ongoing study of blogging and social media reported in 2018 that 53% of Fortune 500 companies have a corporate blog (an 11% increase over 2017) and 55% of the Inc 500 companies are blogging,

Blogs are still an effective part of marketing however it can also be argued that many of them are not well maintained or updated very often. But here’s the thing: There’s more useful knowledge about marketing being shared than ever before, so where can marketers find the best marketing blogs to follow?


BIGLIST of 50 Top Marketing Blogs for 2019 – Martech Edition
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Lee Odden

Explore, Experience, Engage: 6 Top Digital Marketing Trends for 2019

Lee Odden on Jan 3rd, 2019     Digital Marketing

digital marketing trends 2019

With the excitement of every new year comes a new batch of marketing trends and predictions. Marketers all over the world are pondering what trends, tactics and technologies they need to focus on in order to attract, engage and convert towards reaching their marketing and business goals?

From one year to the next, there are often a mix of new trends, technologies and consumer behaviors combined with enduring best practices that marketers have yet to fully adopt. This year is no different.

As I contemplated the evolution of our own marketing efforts for clients reconciled with research on top marketing trends for 2019, I found a concentration of interest in a few specific areas like video, voice, AI and influencer marketing as well as a long tail of sorts ranging from AR/VR to camera marketing to visual search.


Explore, Experience, Engage: 6 Top Digital Marketing Trends for 2019
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Lee Odden

Help Us Celebrate 15 Years of Blogging – TopRank Marketing Blog

Lee Odden on Dec 28th, 2018     Blogging Strategy, TopRank Agency News

15 years of marketing blogging

I think it’s safe to say that there are not many marketing blogs that have hit the 15 year mark.

However, I am happy to say that the class of 2003 includes an impressive cohort of marketing blogs including several that have become industry standards like Search Engine Roundtable by Barry Schwartz and Search Engine Journal founded by Loren Baker.

While TopRank’s Online Marketing blog started with a focus on search marketing, we’ve grown and evolved over the past 15 years just like the marketing industry has. Plus, instead of me writing 3-5 posts a week myself (over 2,400 total), I now have a great team that does most of the hard work.


Help Us Celebrate 15 Years of Blogging – TopRank Marketing Blog
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Lee Odden

B2B Marketers: Is Your Influencer Marketing Mechanical or Meaningful?

Lee Odden on Dec 11th, 2018     B2B Marketing, Influencer Marketing

influencer marketing

If they don’t care, they won’t share.

With the need to scale and drive efficient performance, many B2B marketers work hard to operationalize their efforts. While process brings efficiency, a transactional approach to a relationship-centric discipline can reduce effectiveness significantly.

The effect of a mechanical vs. meaningful relationship is particularly impactful when it comes to influencer marketing. This is why many in the field call it influencer relations – it’s a relationship business, not just an advertising buy.

Now that is not to say that paying B2B influencers is out of the question. In fact, it makes sense to clearly outline the situations where payment is appropriate and where it is not. For example, if you ask an influencer to attend an event and emcee a track or co-author an ebook, payment for that expertise and time is definitely appropriate. If you invite an influencer to share a quote for an article or be a guest on a podcast, then payment is less likely to be involved.


B2B Marketers: Is Your Influencer Marketing Mechanical or Meaningful?
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Lee Odden

25 Influential Women in Digital Marketing Who Rocked and Inspired in 2018

Lee Odden on Nov 28th, 2018     Digital Marketing

25 Women Digital Marketing

The digital marketing industry is like no other, and one of the great joys of publishing a top marketing blog is the opportunity to shine a light on top talent. People who are doing great work, inspiring others to do great work and making a difference in marketing.

Working in this industry over the past 20 years has provided numerous opportunities for me to connect with, learn from and be inspired by incredibly talented marketers. Many of them women.

And so, for the ninth year in a row, TopRank Marketing is publishing it’s annual influential women in digital marketing list.


25 Influential Women in Digital Marketing Who Rocked and Inspired in 2018
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Lee Odden

What B2B CMOs Need to Know About Successful Influencer Marketing

Lee Odden on Nov 27th, 2018     B2B Marketing, Influencer Marketing

B2B Influencer Marketing for CMOs

65% of multinational brands will increase Influencer Marketing spending in the next 12 months reaching $10 billion over the next 5 years.

With so much at stake for marketing in our fast paced industry, senior marketers must be able to see both the forest and the trees when it comes to influencer marketing in the B2B world. Much of what the marketing industry knows about working with influencers is seen through a consumer marketing lens often with the self-anointed social celebrities publishing ads as content without real passion for the brands.

With so much of influencer marketing akin to “get rick quick” with a shiny marketing object, many B2B marketing leaders can acquire unrealistic expectations about what works and what doesn’t with influencers in the business world.


What B2B CMOs Need to Know About Successful Influencer Marketing
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Lee Odden

Three Ways Content Marketers Can Optimize Marketing Performance with Data

Lee Odden on Nov 26th, 2018     Content Marketing

Optimize Content Marketing with Data

In 1984, a person saw an average 2,000 ads/day. By 2014, they saw around 5,000. (Media Dynamics)

There’s some irony to the fact that it’s due to data and information overload that consumers face on a daily basis (63gb of media per day in the US according to USC/ICT) that data has become even more important for marketers.

Successful marketing today isn’t just about creating useful content that informs buyers, it must be even easier to find in all the right places and deliver both utility and experience. Without data insights about customer preferences, it’s very difficult to deliver on that.


Three Ways Content Marketers Can Optimize Marketing Performance with Data
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Lee Odden

B2B Influencer Marketing Interview: Whitney Magnuson, IBM

Lee Odden on Nov 12th, 2018     B2B Marketing, Influencer Marketing

Whitney Magnuson IBM

Our journey into the world of B2B influencer marketing continues this week with an interview featuring Whitney Magnuson, Global head of social and influencers at IBM Systems.

Overall, IBM has a long history working with influencers ranging from the Midsize Insider blogging program to the IBM Futurists. For her part at IBM Systems, Whitney has overseen the creation of a first-of-its-kind external influencer outreach program that has since become the model for IBM company-wide among many other accomplishments.

In this interview, Whitney talks about the differences between B2C and B2B influencer marketing, how influencer marketing is positioned within her company, a favorite influencer marketing campaign and tips on tools and measurement.

What brought you to the world of Influencer Marketing?


B2B Influencer Marketing Interview: Whitney Magnuson, IBM
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