B2B Marketing Blog - TopRank®

B2B Marketing views, news and interviews.

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 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.

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

Brian Solis Inside Influence

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

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

Srijana-Angdembey Oracle

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

Digital Marketing Priorities 2020

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

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

Pierre-Loic-Assayag

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

Inside Influence EP06: Amisha Gandhi from SAP on the Power of Mutual Value in B2B Influencer Marketing

Amisha Gandhi SAP Inside Influence

The latest edition of Inside Influence: What’s working and what’s not inside the world of B2B Influencer Marketing, features B2B Influencer Marketing “OG”, Amisha Gandhi, VP Influencer Marketing & Communications at SAP. At TopRank Marketing, we’ve had the pleasure of working with Amisha for several years on a variety of influencer marketing programs from the launch of SAP Leonardo to developing a virtual reality experience featuring influencers for use at tradeshows.

In this 6th episode of Inside Influence, I talk with Amisha about the power of how creating mutual value between B2B brands and influencers drives returns across the customer lifecycle. Of course we also hit a few highlights of the 2020 State of B2B Influencer Marketing Report.

In this 6th Episode of Inside Influence, we cover:


Inside Influence EP06: Amisha Gandhi from SAP on the Power of Mutual Value in B2B Influencer Marketing

Inside Influence: Jen Holtvluwer from Spiron on Award Winning B2B Influencer Marketing

Jen Holtvluwer

When we conducted our research for the 2020 State of B2B Influencer Marketing Report, we found what the most successful B2B marketers have in common. They:

  • Have a Documented Influencer Marketing Strategy
  • Engage in Always-On Influencer Engagement
  • Have a Centralized Influencer Program
  • Use Software to Identify Influencers
  • Rely on Experts and Analysts
  • Use Blogs as Content Platforms
  • Create Interactive Content with Influencers

Learning from those who are already successful in a fast growing discipline is what the Inside Influence: What’s working and what’s not inside the world of B2B Influencer Marketing show is all about.


Inside Influence: Jen Holtvluwer from Spiron on Award Winning B2B Influencer Marketing

Inside Influence: Janine Wegner from Dell on Thought Leadership and Influencer Relations

Janine Wegner Interview

Today marks the 4th installment in the Inside Influence: What’s working and what’s not inside the world of B2B Influencer Marketing, series. I want to thank everyone who has viewed the interviews, made comments and shared with their networks. This week we’re continuing our search to find out what’s working and what’s not within the world of B2B influencer marketing as well as further insights from the 2020 State of B2B Influencer Marketing Report.

Episode 4 of Inside Influence features guest insider, Janine Wegner, Global Thought Leadership Program and Activation Manager at Dell Technologies who our agency TopRank Marketing has the pleasure of working with on influencer content marketing programs like The Zettabyte World – Securing our Data-Rich Future.


Inside Influence: Janine Wegner from Dell on Thought Leadership and Influencer Relations

Inside Influence: Ursula Ringham from SAP on Influencer Marketing Operations

Ursula Ringham SAP Interview

Welcome to the 3rd episode of Inside Influence: What’s working and what’s not inside the world of B2B Influencer Marketing. Each week we feature an interview with a B2B marketing insider on all things influence and a deeper dive into the insights found in the 2020 State of B2B Influencer Marketing Report.

In this 3rd episode of Inside Influence you are in for a treat: A discussion with the force of nature and client of TopRank Marketing that is Ursula Ringham, Head of Global Influencer Marketing at SAP.

Ursula leads the Global Influencer Marketing team at SAP in collaboration with the entire SAP product portfolio to create innovative content with trusted external voices to build brand awareness and create pipeline. She is also an accomplished storyteller, author, creator, influencer marketer, digital innovator, social media maven, champion of girls education, and self described “outdoor sports freak”.


Inside Influence: Ursula Ringham from SAP on Influencer Marketing Operations

B2B Marketing News: Demand Gen Adapts, B2B Buyers Taking Longer, Microsoft Digital Marketing Center Beta

Gartner Hype Cycle AI

The Gartner Hype Cycle for Artificial Intelligence, 2020 – Chatbots are projected to see over a 100% increase in their adoption rates in the next two to five years and are the leading AI use cases in enterprises today. Forbes

Bing is now Microsoft Bing as the search engine gets a rebrand – Microsoft doesn’t go into detail about why it added the company’s name to the Bing brand, other than it reflecting “the continued integration of our search experiences across the Microsoft family. The Verge

68% of B2B buyers say the length of their purchase cycles has increased over last year – The COVID-19 pandemic has led many B2B firms to lengthen their purchase cycles and to expect more personalized attention from vendors, according to recent research from Demand Gen Report. MarketingProfs


B2B Marketing News: Demand Gen Adapts, B2B Buyers Taking Longer, Microsoft Digital Marketing Center Beta

Inside Influence: Garnor Morantes from LinkedIn on the Power of Always-On Influence

Inside Influence Garnor Morantes

Welcome to the second episode of Inside Influence: Interviews with B2B Influencer Marketing Insiders. Each week we feature an interview with a B2B marketing insider on all things influence and a deeper dive into the insights found in the 2020 State of B2B Influencer Marketing Report.

This week, we’re talking to Garnor Morantes, Group Marketing Manager at LinkedIn. Our team at TopRank Marketing has been fortunate to work with Garnor on an award-winning, ongoing influencer marketing program for LinkedIn over several years and his leadership has been instrumental in its success.

Our conversation touches on:

  • What Always-On influencer marketing is and why its valuable for B2B brands
  • The challenges faced by campaign-focused influencer marketing efforts
  • Advice for B2B marketers considering influencer marketing

Inside Influence: Garnor Morantes from LinkedIn on the Power of Always-On Influence

Inside Influence: Rani Mani from Adobe on the B2B Influencer Marketing Advantage

Inside Influence Rani Mani

On the heels of the release of the 2020 State of B2B Influencer Marketing Report and the announcement that several of our clients (LinkedIn and Alcatel Lucent Enterprise) have won awards for B2B influencer marketing campaigns, I am very happy to share the launch of a new video interview series: Inside Influence: Interviews with B2B Influencer Marketing Insiders.

What is Inside Influence?

This is a show that goes behind the scenes of B2B influencer marketing and showcases conversations with insiders from the world of B2B influencer marketing. We’ll be talking with practitioners at B2B brands of all kinds and sizes to answer the rising number of questions about working with influencers in a business context.


Inside Influence: Rani Mani from Adobe on the B2B Influencer Marketing Advantage

How to Win at B2B Influence With The Magic of Content Co-Creation

Win B2B Influence
Today we live in an age of information overload where the speed of content discovery and the variety of options for media consumption across connected devices presents new challenges for B2B brands and buyers alike.

The natural response for buyers is to filter their choices and focus those few sources which are most trusted, credible and meaningful. For brands that want to differentiate and even dominate in their category, becoming known as “the best answer” for their domain of expertise will have enormous impact.

The challenge of increased digital sophistication brings an opportunity: businesses can differentiate and capture market attention by growing their authority and influence.


How to Win at B2B Influence With The Magic of Content Co-Creation

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