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B2B Marketing views, news and interviews.

Lee Odden

Trust in Marketing: How to Build Influence with the C-Suite and on the Street with Customers

Lee Odden
Lee Odden on Jun 22nd, 2020
B2B Marketing

Marketing Trust Influence

80% of CEOs don’t trust marketers.

And yet 91% of CEOs do trust CIOs and CFOs

Ouch!

In addition to the many challenges marketers are currently facing with the COVID-19 pandemic and overall social change, a study by Fournaise Group found that CEOs felt marketing was not meeting expectations, causing a lack of confidence. Whether it was due to too much emphasis on martech or marketing “hype”, the outcome is clear: the credibility of marketing is at risk.

The thing is, those credibility issues are not limited to the C-Suite. Customers have trust issues with marketing as well and for good reasons:

  • Brand vs. Customer Focus
  • Lack of Confidence & Trust
  • Not Delivering Value
  • Not Meeting Expectations
  • Lack of Authenticity

Trust in Marketing: How to Build Influence with the C-Suite and on the Street with Customers

How to Tap the Most Powerful Marketing Force in the World – Fanocracy

Lee Odden
Lee Odden on Jun 15th, 2020
Book Reviews

Fanocracy David Meerman Scott Reiko Scott
Photo: David Meerman Scott

One of the most coveted things a brand can earn is the emotional investment of their customers in the brand itself. That undeniable force that can make or break a business is why the Wall Street Journal bestseller, FANOCRACY – Turning Fans into Customers and Customers into Fans is a must read for marketers today.

Co-authored by best selling author and international keynote speaker David Meerman Scott and his daughter Reiko Scott, Fanocracy was 5 years in the making. David and Reiko have developed a blueprint of 9 steps for marketers to tap in to the most powerful marketing force in the world: passionate fans.


How to Tap the Most Powerful Marketing Force in the World – Fanocracy

Always On Influence: Short Term vs. Long Term for Success During a Crisis

Always On Influence

The focus of Always On Influence for B2B brands is to establish and maintain relationships with business influencers through content co-creation, engagement and various types of activations that create and reinforce brand thought leadership.

In fact, those strong relationships with industry experts create value for driving marketing performance across the entire customer lifecycle from awareness, to purchase to advocacy. There are many of examples of B2B brands implementing ongoing influencer programs and having impact.

When the COVID-19 pandemic came along, many B2B marketers took a moment to evaluate whether their marketing programs were a fit, taking care not to sound tone deaf or too opportunistic. With the current movement about racial justice and equality, even more considerations are at hand with all social channels rich with messages about social change and little with commercial intent.


Always On Influence: Short Term vs. Long Term for Success During a Crisis

Marketers: We Can Do Better Than Words with Action

Minneapolis

Never in my wildest dreams did I ever think I’d send an email with the subject line: USA on Fire – What are we doing? What do we say?

My message started with: “The past few days have been tragic and surreal to say the least. I feel we have an obligation to address this internally and in some way, externally. At the same time, I am not 100% clear on what to say.”

I share this because I think a lot of individuals like myself who basically live in a bubble, but are in a position to affect change and have the motivation to do so felt the same way. Who am I to say anything at all?


Marketers: We Can Do Better Than Words with Action

How Social Should the CMO Be? 3 Guidelines for Success

Lee Odden
Lee Odden on Jun 1st, 2020
Social Media

Social Media CMOs

Senior executive social media participation is often associated with better leadership, brand transparency and helps build better connections with customers, employees, and investors.

For most companies, the CMO is one of the most visible executives and as a public facing marketing role, there is an expectation that the chief marketing officer will be active on social networks. But how many tweets, likes, shares and stories is enough?

It is tempting for senior marketing executives to hold themselves up in comparison to professional marketing influencers who spend virtually all of their time keynoting conferences, writing books and being interviewed by the media – aka “brandividuals”.


How Social Should the CMO Be? 3 Guidelines for Success

Why SEO & Influence are Critical to Pandemic Era Content Marketing

Pandemic Marketing SEO Influence
On this Memorial Day of 2020, it is important we remember those who have made the ultimate sacrifice serving our country – not only in the military, but those on the front lines of fighting the COVID-19 pandemic. Thank you to first responders, law enforcement, healthcare workers and all that support them!

The health and economic crisis we are all facing now compounds the many other uncertainties of our time including trust and expectations in the brands we buy from. The COVID-19 pandemic and our society’s reaction to it have changed the reality we have lived with into something different and very digital.


Why SEO & Influence are Critical to Pandemic Era Content Marketing

10 Worst Practices for B2B Influencer Marketing

Worst Practices B2B Influencer Marketing

When it comes to sharing B2B marketing advice, I prefer not to clown around too much and do my best to be positive and optimistic with trends, insights and how to’s focused on looking forward towards best practices and getting better results.

Marketers expect serious results but unfortunatley, many B2B marketers insist on clowning around with half-hearted or incomplete influencer marketing efforts.

I know this from stories told by brand marketers that have worked with other agencies and from being on the receiving end of clueless pitches, minimum viable engagement efforts and willfully ignorant attempts to get me to promote something I really have no business caring about. I’ve heard much of the same from other people who are often engaged as influencers as well.


10 Worst Practices for B2B Influencer Marketing

The B2B Marketing Force Multiplier: Integrated SEO and Influencer Marketing

Lee Odden
Lee Odden on May 11th, 2020
Influencer Marketing, SEO

B2B Marketing Force Multiplier SEO Influence

As business customers with questions are ignoring tone deaf brand marketing (and tiring of Pandemic messaging too) they are increasingly in search of information more than ever. Trust Radius reports that some B2B tech categories are seeing anywhere from 194% to 613% increases in search driven traffic. Search engines are clearly positioned to deliver answers for buyers seeking answers, but where is the trust? And more importantly, is your brand the best answer when and where buyers are looking?

SEO alone is not enough. A study from CSO insights ranked Web searches the 8th most trusted source of information for technology buyers. According to a study by Forbes/Yext, only 50% of customers believe search results. Search ads are not necessarily the solution because 65% of marketers don’t trust them either (HubSpot).


The B2B Marketing Force Multiplier: Integrated SEO and Influencer Marketing

Four Ways to Optimize the Marketing Performance of a B2B Influencer Program

4 Ways to Optimize B2B Influencer Marketing

Uncertainty for some is opportunity for others. While much is being said about changes in influencer marketing approach and B2C influencers losing work at scale because events are now cancelled and industries like retail, travel and hospitality have been disrupted due to COVID-19, consumer behavior has decidedly shifted towards digital experiences.

While in-person events have been a staple for B2B marketers, we’ve seen how working with digital influencers on co-created content can be a sound alternative.

How brands approach marketing during a crisis makes the issue of trust even more important. When planned and implemented effectively, B2B influencer marketing programs build trust and confidence for buyers, influencers and the brand.


Four Ways to Optimize the Marketing Performance of a B2B Influencer Program

Always On Influence: Definition and Why B2B Brands Need it to Succeed

Lee Odden
Lee Odden on Apr 27th, 2020
Influencer Marketing

Always On Influence Series

Influencer Marketing in the B2B world is fast growing as an essential part of the marketing mix. How brands implement influencer engagement strategies varies from one off campaigns, to event activations to passive social engagement to the topic of this post: Always On Influencer Marketing.

According to research from Linqia. 42% of marketers have shifted to an “always on” influencer marketing strategy from individual campaigns. As B2B companies evolve in their influencer marketing maturity, confidence builds along with the realization that a relationship driven endeavor like engaging with influencers requires an ongoing effort.

The problem is, many B2B marketers still see influencer marketing as something you just turn on or off as needed. Such a short term approach does not yield the full benefit of developing strong content collaboration partnerships with industry influencers that can fuel thought leadership, be repurposed for demand gen and even sales enablement.


Always On Influence: Definition and Why B2B Brands Need it to Succeed

B2C vs. B2B Influencer Marketing – What’s the Difference?

B2C B2B Influencer Marketing

The vast majority of content and industry news coverage around influencer marketing is focused on those who engage consumer audiences: Instagramers, YouTubers, and  as of late TikTokers. Of course the world of influence is not limited to consumer products and services. Influencers play an important role in businesses marketing to other businesses as well, whether it’s on LinkedIn, Twitter or Facebook.

So what’s the difference between B2C and B2B influencer marketing? We’ve covered B2B influencer marketing here in depth already with case studies, strategy and best practices, what makes a great B2B influencer, key statistics and more. After 7 plus years of focusing on B2B influencer marketing for some of the top B2B brands in the world, we’ve learned a few things about the practice. From that experience, I’ll focus on what makes for good B2B influencer engagement as a way to understand the difference from B2C.


B2C vs. B2B Influencer Marketing – What’s the Difference?

Where’s the Marketing in Content Marketing? 10 Essential Promotion Tactics That Drive Results

Lee Odden
Lee Odden on Apr 13th, 2020
Content Marketing

content promotion tactics

My marketing journey was born out of SEO roots, where the priority of content promotion has always been high in order to create the kind of accountable marketing performance that matters. In contrast, I see a lot of brands putting the majority or all of their investment towards content creation without qualitative or quantitative effort towards the promotion of that content.

An imbalance of content creation and promotion is not only frustrating potential marketing performance, but it’s wasting the investment made in creating great content. What good is that great content if no one sees it?

Below are 10 content promotion tactics that have stood the test of time and go beyond email blasts, social ads and simple social sharing on brand channels. When promotion is included in the content planning and creation process, it becomes part of a content marketing system that drives the kind of relevant, useful and engaging content customers are looking for.


Where’s the Marketing in Content Marketing? 10 Essential Promotion Tactics That Drive Results

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