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 B2B marketing topics including 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.

B2B Marketing Spotlight: Jay Baer on Employee Generated Content #mpb2b

Lee Odden on Sep 19th, 2019 B2B Marketing, Content Marketing, Interviews

It was back in 2010 at SXSWi that I was in the blogger lounge networking with other social media savvy content creators and thought leaders like Brian Solis, Chris Heuer, Amber Naslund, Chris Brogan and Rohit Bhargava, when I met a fellow marketer who shared a metal bottle opener as his business card.

What a brilliant idea! Package your identity around something useful to trigger conversations.

Fast forward to 2019 and Jay Baer has continued to carry that message of utility, talk triggers and clever marketing savvy to his online media empire of Convince & Convert that includes an award winning blog, a network of podcasts, professional speaking, training and consulting.

B2B Marketing Spotlight: Jay Baer on Employee Generated Content #mpb2b

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B2B Marketing Spotlight: Ann Handley on Being a “Badaxe” Marketer #mpb2b

Lee Odden on Sep 12th, 2019 B2B Marketing, Interviews, Marketing PR Conferences

Twelve years ago I had the good fortune to connect with Ann Handley, Chief Content Officer at MarketingProfs and she’s been a positive influence to me on what’s possible in content and B2B marketing ever since.

I’m not alone.

During that time, we’ve both grown as marketers. Well, maybe I’ve grown, but Ann has exploded. She regularly fills keynote rooms at conferences, draws long, long lines of people to get one of her best selling books signed and her company MarketingProfs has attracted over 600,000 subscribers.

Ann Handley is a marketing influencers’s influencer or more creatively, she’s an Annfluencer.

Since Ann is the very first Chief Content Officer ever, a multi-book best selling author, international keynote speaker and who I like to call, The Khaleesi of Content, we’re pretty fortunate to share the following interview. And after recent events in Toronto, you call also call her a “badaxe” marketer.

B2B Marketing Spotlight: Ann Handley on Being a “Badaxe” Marketer #mpb2b

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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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B2B Marketing Spotlight: Omar Al-Sinjari, Sr Digital Marketing Manager, RelayHealth McKesson #B2BSMX

Lee Odden on Aug 8th, 2019 B2B Marketing

Next week’s B2B Sales and Marketing Exchange conference in Boston is coming up fast! To give you another sneak peek at the talented brand marketers sharing their insights and best practices, I’ve interviewed Omar Al-Sinjari, Senior Manager, Digital Marketing at RelayHealth – McKesson.

Omar is responsible for all things digital and a full stack operator including ABM, web, analytics, attribution, lead generation and marketing operations.

RelayHealth is a business unit of McKesson which is a $214 billion Fortune 10 company. Large enterprise level organizations bring with them a different set of marketing challenges and opportunities and with all of the evolution in B2B marketing and sales that has emerged, Omar is a great person to give us perspective.

B2B Marketing Spotlight: Omar Al-Sinjari, Sr Digital Marketing Manager, RelayHealth McKesson #B2BSMX

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B2B Marketing Spotlight: Alexandra Gobbi, CMO at Secureworks #B2BSMX

Lee Odden on Aug 1st, 2019 B2B Marketing

Sales and Marketing alignment is a wonderful and yet elusive thing. Many B2B marketers and sales professionals in particular are in search of leadership, strategy, best practices and networks of peers they can connect with as they adapt to an ever changing marketing world. Lucky for those working in B2B industries, there’s an upcoming conference in Boston that was developed for just this purpose: B2B Sales and Marketing Exchange.

That name might sound familiar because the same people at Demand Gen Report who brought you B2BMX in Scottsdale have expanded. This first B2BSMX event in Boston features both a Sales and Marketing focus with 6 keynotes, 50+ sessions and over 1,000 registrants. TopRank Marketing has partnered with B2BSMX to give you a glimpse at some of the top talent speaking at the conference through a series of pre-conference interviews.

B2B Marketing Spotlight: Alexandra Gobbi, CMO at Secureworks #B2BSMX

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Infographic: 5 Must Have Ingredients for a Great Content Marketing Strategy

Lee Odden on Jun 14th, 2019 Content Marketing

ingredients content marketing strategy

If you’re still struggling with establishing your content marketing strategy for 2019, you’re not alone. Only 12% of respondents to a recent survey by the Content Marketing Institute felt successful at their current efforts to strategically manage content. What’s particularly striking about this is that the vast majority of organizations surveyed – 91% – used content marketing to sell their products. Where’s the disconnect?

To help answer that question, I’ve collaborated with the folks at Oracle Marketing Cloud to create an infographic featuring 5 must-have ingredients for a great content marketing strategy. You can download the full infographic here.

We could talk about the talent gap or the technology gap, but I believe that content marketing success really comes down to five basic ingredients:

Goals
Operations
Insights

Infographic: 5 Must Have Ingredients for a Great Content Marketing Strategy

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7 Top B2B Influencer Marketing Trends for 2020

Lee Odden on May 20th, 2019 B2B Marketing, Influencer Marketing

While there are some who think the expression “influencer” is an expired term, the role of influence on B2B buying decisions is irrefutable.

According to the World Federation of Advertisers, 65% of multinational brands will increase influencer marketing spending in the next 12 months and there’s good reason for increased confidence: The 2019 Content Preferences Survey from DGR reports 95% of respondents favor credible content from industry influencers as a top preference, a 30% increase compared year over year.

Earlier this year in a post about The Business of Influence for 2019, I shared 5 influencer marketing trends including:

Micro AND Macro influencers
Centralizing Influencer Operations
Always On Influencer Engagement
Focus on Quality vs. Quantity Metrics
Influencer Marketing Software Investment

7 Top B2B Influencer Marketing Trends for 2020

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Content Marketing Fitness: Are You Ready to Integrate, Optimize and Activate?

Lee Odden on May 6th, 2019 Content Marketing

I’ve always thought of content marketing as a fast paced, agile and high energy approach to engaging the modern buyer.

So why does so much of the B2B content marketing that’s out there feel sluggish, low energy and bloated?

eMarketer recently reported that B2B decision makers’ top issues with marketing content reveal that marketers are clearly “out of shape” when it comes to a focus on what’s most important. The top issues shared by B2B decision makers were that content is too fluffy, not relevant, not personalized, misleading, behind a form or hard to find.

For the marketers behind these issues, a quick look in the mirror makes it easy to see why: Bad habit strategy, low metabolism execution, overly processed tactics and sugar high shiny object software that doesn’t get used properly if at all.

Content Marketing Fitness: Are You Ready to Integrate, Optimize and Activate?

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Inspiring Examples of B2B Influencer Marketing in Action

Lee Odden on Apr 22nd, 2019 B2B Marketing, Influencer Marketing

While Instagram influencer marketing is expected to hit $8 billion in spend by 2020, the growth trajectory of influencer marketing is not limited to consumer brands.

B2B companies are also realizing the value of collaborating with influential experts for marketing purposes and count the practice as one of the top 4 tactics planned for 2019, according to a study by Spiceworks of B2B tech marketers in North America and Europe.

Many B2B brands are considering engaging influencers for marketing but are not clear on exactly how or what the best practices are. Having worked with B2B brands that range from Dell to SAP to LinkedIn on influencer marketing programs over the past 6 years, I’ve had a chance to dig deep into exactly what makes influencer marketing work for B2B.

Inspiring Examples of B2B Influencer Marketing in Action

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The Future of B2B Content: Data-Informed, Interactive, and Influential

Lee Odden on Apr 8th, 2019 B2B Marketing, Content Marketing, Influencer Marketing

Before starting on any new marketing initiative or trying a new tactic, B2B marketers need to answer and essential question: Why?

While most B2B marketers won’t admit it, many still practice some “spaghetti/wall marketing” wherein each year they throw new digital tactics “against the wall” to see what sticks without really knowing why a tactic would work for their audience over another.

This is not to say that you should slow down on innovating and trying new things. But it’s important for success to be strategic and test. I challenge marketers to do more research around customer insights and preferences so that any changes they make are driven by data and informed hypothesis—rather than simply trying new things just to see if they will work.

The Future of B2B Content: Data-Informed, Interactive, and Influential

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