Lee Odden

Where B2B Marketers See the Most Impact from Influencer Marketing

Lee Odden on Aug 16th, 2021
B2B Marketing, Influencer Marketing

Sophisticated B2B marketers understand that the effectiveness of a given strategy or set of tactics is tied to goals.

When it comes to influence, there are applications across the customer lifecycle from increasing reach and attention from hard to connect with audiences to creating more credible and authentic content experiences to improving trust and inspiring decision making.

Of course, working with external influencers and improving the influence of internal experts is not a silver bullet across all marketing goals. However, in our research on influencer marketing for B2B brands, there are some outcomes where marketers are seeing greater impact.

Rather than simply provide a laundry list of the highest impact marketing outcomes, I’ve clustered similar goals together to provide more category level insight into where B2B marketers have seen the most success when working with influencers.

Where B2B Marketers See the Most Impact from Influencer Marketing

7 Questions B2B Marketers Need to Answer About Influencer Marketing

Lee Odden on Aug 2nd, 2021
B2B Marketing, Influencer Marketing

Diminishing organic social reach, distrust of brand marketing and information overload makes reaching and engaging today’s B2B buyer harder than ever. On top of that, the major changes brought by the pandemic have created new challenges and opportunities for B2B companies to better attract and engage customers in meaningful ways.

Out of the pandemic and the shift to digital first go-to-market approaches for B2B companies, Influencer Marketing has emerged as one of the most effective ways to connect with customers to create better experiences. Despite substantial growth in the discipline from best practices to software, many B2B brands are still experimenting or simply don’t know how to identify, engage and activate influencers.

7 Questions B2B Marketers Need to Answer About Influencer Marketing

6 Timeless SEO Tips Content Marketers Can Do Now

Lee Odden on Jul 26th, 2021
Content Marketing, SEO

Content is the research search began in the first place.

Learning about how to get customers to visit newly created websites is where my search engine optimization education began. In that journey from before there was a Google to today, many things have changed. What has stayed the same is the opportunity to grow business by connecting customers to content by being the best answer and inspiring those customers to take action.

The best SEO practitioners stay on top of what’s current, always experimenting and evaluating what works for topics in a particular industry for the websites and content they’re in charge of attracting customers to. At the same time, the best SEO advice isn’t worth much if it doesn’t get implemented. That’s why many marketers with long term SEO experience emphasize the fundamentals.

6 Timeless SEO Tips Content Marketers Can Do Now

Share Your Expertise in the 2021 State of B2B Influencer Marketing Survey

Lee Odden on Jul 19th, 2021
B2B Marketing, Influencer Marketing

The past year or more has taught B2B marketer many lessons, especially the importance of creating digital first experiences that are credible, authentic and relevant to specific buyers. As part of the digital transformation of marketing, many B2B companies have adjusted their go-to-market approach to satisfy the changing customer expectations that have evolved during the pandemic.

One of those adjustments in B2B marketing has been the increasing role of influence in delivering credible, authentic and relevant digital experiences. Our initial B2B Influencer Marketing research from 2020 showed that going into the pandemic, confidence in working with B2B influencers was very high as were expectations of outcomes.

Despite the growing confidence in working with B2B influencers over the past year, today there are important questions to be answered as more B2B brands enter the realm of influence and grow more sophisticated with the practice.

Share Your Expertise in the 2021 State of B2B Influencer Marketing Survey

From Tech to Human: Three Post Pandemic B2B Marketing Trends

Lee Odden on Jul 12th, 2021
B2B Marketing

For many, the past few months have opened up giving us a taste of “return to normal” but what does that mean?

When most people say normal, what they often mean is comfortable. In the business world pre-pandemic comfortable is a dangerous place to be.

Any company that did not adjust, adapt or pivot over the past year and a half probably isn’t in business or doing as much business as they should. There have been many changes during the pandemic from digital transformation across all aspects of business to evolving expectations of customers. Companies and their marketers must be in tune with all of these changes in order to survive and thrive in a post-pandemic business environment.

From Tech to Human: Three Post Pandemic B2B Marketing Trends

Inside B2B Influence: Justin Levy of Demandbase on Optimizing B2B Marketing with Influence

Lee Odden on Jul 5th, 2021
B2B Marketing, Influencer Marketing

If you’re new to this series, Inside B2B Influence is a podcast and video series that goes behind the scenes of B2B marketing and showcases conversations with industry experts on influencer marketing for B2B companies. We’re doing our best here at TopRank Marketing Blog to elevate the practice of growing influence within and outside of B2B brands to drive thought leadership, create demand and grow revenue.

In Episode 15 of Inside B2B Influence, Justin Levy, (@justinlevy) Director of Social and Influencer Marketing at Demandbase (client) and I connected to help answer some key questions about working with influencers at a technology company. I’ve known Justin for many years and we’re both members of the esteemed Marketing Fitness Group on Facebook. His work with influencers goes all the way back to when he and Chris Brogan ran a marketing agency back in 2008.

Inside B2B Influence: Justin Levy of Demandbase on Optimizing B2B Marketing with Influence

5 Tips for Empowering Enterprise SEO Success

Lee Odden on Jun 28th, 2021
Enterprise SEO, SEO

Large scale search engine optimization projects are often viewed as a golden egg career opportunity for many SEO professionals. Big budget projects and well-known brand names can look great on a resume. Unfortunately, many search marketers quickly realize that the golden egg actually came from a large, slow moving tortoise.

Many Search Marketers are accustomed to optimization projects where the advice they are paid to give is communicated directly and for the most part, actually implemented. Those same marketers may not be prepared to adapt SEO processes to accommodate the operational and communication needs of large, complex organizations. Successful enterprise SEO projects require a unique combination of creative and mechanical SEO expertise as well as large company political savvy.

5 Tips for Empowering Enterprise SEO Success

Inside B2B Influence 14: Ann Handley of MarketingProfs on Content Marketing and Influence

Lee Odden on Jun 21st, 2021
B2B Marketing, Content Marketing, Influencer Marketing

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

In this first episode of the second season of Inside B2B Influence, I was able to catch up with the incredibly popular, talented and beloved Chief Content Officer at MarketingProfs, Ann Handley. I’ve known Ann for well over 10 years and she’s been a great friend, client and source of inspiration to me about more meaningful content marketing.

Inside B2B Influence 14: Ann Handley of MarketingProfs on Content Marketing and Influence

Is ABX the Next Evolution of B2B Marketing?

Lee Odden on Jun 14th, 2021
B2B Marketing

What is the next evolution of Account Based Marketing?

ABM has gained much traction in the past few years and marketers have developed the kinds of best practices around ABM to make it one of the fastest growing innovations in the B2B mix. But what’s next?

The business world has changed since the pandemic and B2B marketing has had to pivot, transform and evolve with a digital first focus. As Jon Miller, CMO at Demandbase (client) has said, “It’s time for the next evolution in B2B go to market strategies. We can’t keep doing the same things and expect different results.”

Customer expectations and preferences have changed as well – not just during the buying journey, but across the entire customer lifecycle. It is with those changes that we can see new opportunities in B2B marketing. So, what do those new opportunities look like?

Is ABX the Next Evolution of B2B Marketing?

Optimize for B2B Customers with Digital First Content Marketing

Lee Odden on Jun 7th, 2021
B2B Marketing, Content Marketing

The evolution of B2B marketing has required companies to extend the transformations and pivots made during the pandemic to more permanent changes in marketing driven by evolving consumer preferences for information discovery, consumption and interaction. B2B marketing is evolved as a digital first practice and there’s no going back.

While most marketers understand it is simply not enough to rely on push marketing tactics and advertising, they still rely on these familiar and comfortable tactics.

Today’s business customers have more content choices in text, images, audio, video and interactive formats on more devices than ever. They expect more than just useful information from the brands they buy from.

Optimize for B2B Customers with Digital First Content Marketing

Top 5 Benefits of Influencer Marketing for B2B Brands

Lee Odden on May 31st, 2021
B2B Marketing, Influencer Marketing

Despite that 96% of marketers engaging influencers for marketing deem their programs successful, there are still a very large number of B2B companies evaluating where influencer engagement fits in their marketing mix.

After spending the last 8 plus years working on developing influencer marketing strategies, creating pilot projects, implementing campaigns and running ongoing influencer programs for brands that range from 3M to Dell to LinkedIn, here are some of the top benefits B2B companies of all sizes are realizing through their influencer marketing efforts.

Before I get to the list, I think it’s important to mention that benefits realized are directly connected to goals imagined. That may seem obvious but the application of influence to marketing is viewed in many different ways and therefore, the outcomes can be just as different.

Top 5 Benefits of Influencer Marketing for B2B Brands

How B2B Marketers Can Build a Community of Influence with Content

Lee Odden on May 24th, 2021
B2B Marketing, Content Marketing

One of the most compelling scenarios for B2B marketers to build content and community is through a combination user generated content (UGC) and strategic content collaborations. To do this, many B2B brands will initiate ongoing social media content and engagement programs to stimulate dialog with customers, community and influencers to build essential relationships.

With B2B marketing shifting to digital first, there is more demand for content than ever, but there are also resource challenges with the need to continuously create new content. At the same time traditional social media and content marketing can have trust issues if the brand isn’t engaging with the community or the right influencers on a regular basis. A content marketing focused solution that solves for both of those challenges that also helps build community and influence for B2B brands can be found through participation marketing – aka, user generated content in the form of content collaborations with external influencers, brand community and customers.

How B2B Marketers Can Build a Community of Influence with Content