Nick Nelson

How to Create Memorable B2B Experiences for When Your Prospect Is Ready to Buy

Nick Nelson on Jan 4th, 2023
B2B Marketing, Content Marketing

The concept of jogging someone’s memory seems, on its surface, like an unscientific and inscrutable undertaking.

Memories and mental associations pop up at random. Right? The smell of a bakery reminds you of grandma’s cinnamon rolls. The color of a street sign invokes your old high school colors and jovial pep rallies. A friend’s choice of words causes you to blurt out a line from a classic comedy movie.

The thing is, these moments aren’t random. The memories are physically stored in your brain, and the scenarios and experiences that took place caused them to trigger in your consciousness.

Understanding this cause-and-effect relationship holds the key to effective B2B marketing that bridges brand with demand and leads to sustainable customer pipelines.

How to Create Memorable B2B Experiences for When Your Prospect Is Ready to Buy

Why Relationship Marketing Is Essential To B2B Lead Generation

Nick Nelson on Nov 7th, 2022
B2B Marketing, Content Marketing, Conversion Optimization

One of the oldest, and creepiest, adages about the value of content marketing is that you can’t ask someone to marry you on the first date.

Weird as it might feel, there’s a good reason this metaphor has held sway. A marriage is a serious and high-stakes commitment, and nobody wants to enter one without truly feeling like they know and trust their future partner.

In the business realm, purchase influencers and decision makers are under huge pressure to get it right. It’s not enough to understand the product, its price, or its features. Buyers want to believe in the brand and the people behind it.

Increasingly, significant business purchases need to be buoyed by a strong relationship. (The non-romantic type, to be clear.) Smart and strategic content marketing is how those relationships are built.

Why Relationship Marketing Is Essential To B2B Lead Generation

B2B Content Marketing: Making Small Budgets Do Big Things

Nick Nelson on Oct 24th, 2022
B2B Marketing, Content Marketing

The latest B2B Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets and Trends Report found that 67% respondents are being asked to do more with the same resources compared to a year ago.

Many teams will keep being pressed to work under constraints in the coming year as economic uncertainty affects planning and budgets. In the latest CMO Survey, released in September, results showed that marketers “generally expect the growth of their marketing spending to slow or be flat in the coming year,” with waning optimism around the economic outlook likely a central factor.

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The most reliable way to drive marketing results is to (smartly) invest more. This can lead to more ambitious campaigns and more robust promotion, among other things. But when a big budget isn’t available, B2B marketers can still do big things.

B2B Content Marketing: Making Small Budgets Do Big Things

Crunch Time: Maximize Your Content Marketing Impact When It Matters Most

Nick Nelson on Sep 26th, 2022
B2B Marketing, Content Marketing

In baseball, it’s technically true that games in April matter just as much as those in September. Each win and loss ultimately carries the same weight, no matter when it’s recorded.

Still: every player, coach, and person involved will tell you they feel the added pressure of late-season games in a close pennant race. More than ever, decisions are scrutinized and moments are magnified. It’s where the stars take center stage.

The approaching end of the year invokes similar vibes for marketing leaders – especially here in the year 2022, as we gaze ahead into an uncertain future, burdened with the likelihood of a looming recession.

Crunch Time: Maximize Your Content Marketing Impact When It Matters Most

The Secrets of Creating Inspired B2B Content Experiences, Revealed

Nick Nelson on Sep 16th, 2022
B2B Marketing, Content Marketing, Content Marketing World

Picture this:

It’s mid-December and you’re on a road trip through Florida. A man stands on the side of the highway, holding a sign and pointing his thumb skyward. “To Jacksonville,” it reads, plainly indicating his intentions. Without a second thought, you keep driving and think of the hitch-hiker not once again.

What if the scenario instead played out like this?

It’s mid-December and you’re on a road trip through Florida. A man stands on the side of the highway, holding a sign and pointing his thumb skyward. “To Mom’s for Christmas,” it reads. Suddenly your heart swells, filled with memories of your own cherished holidays past, and somber thoughts of families around the world kept apart.

The Secrets of Creating Inspired B2B Content Experiences, Revealed

Evolving Agency Roles: Why Outside Help Is More Important Than Ever For B2B Brands

Nick Nelson on Sep 5th, 2022
B2B Marketing

I know: it probably sounds self-serving for a guy who works at a marketing agency to talk about how agency partners are becoming more indispensable than ever for B2B brands.

But it’s simply the truth, and the numbers bear it out.

According to CMI’s latest B2B Content Marketing Benchmarking report, around half of all respondents report outsourcing content marketing activities. Of note: 57% of the companies categorized as “most successful” use outsourcing, compared to 36% of the “least successful.”

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“Regarding large companies,” CMI wrote in the report, “61% indicated last year that they outsourced. This year, the figure was up to 75%. This suggests that in the early phase of the pandemic large companies pulled the reins back on outsourcing but are now back to the practice. In fact, more large companies are outsourcing now than in 2019 (75% vs. 71%).”

Evolving Agency Roles: Why Outside Help Is More Important Than Ever For B2B Brands

How to Foster a Strong B2B Brand Digital-First Experience That Differentiates

Nick Nelson on Aug 15th, 2022
B2B Marketing

B2B marketers can relate to customers who’ve rapidly shifted into all-out digital mode in their daily professional lives. That’s because so many of us have done the same, with numerous departments and agencies transitioning to remote or hybrid work in the wake of COVID.

At TopRank Marketing, we’ve been fully remote since March of 2020. And while that setup brings with it plenty of welcome perks and advantages, there are undeniably things that go amiss from a distance. We were reminded of some during our first in-person TopRank Summit in Minneapolis earlier this month.

Having an opportunity to see coworkers face-to-face drove home for me the relative challenges of engaging people, developing rapport, and creating emotional connections through a screen.

How to Foster a Strong B2B Brand Digital-First Experience That Differentiates

Triple Take: How to Make B2B Content Marketing More Influential, Authentic, and Credible

Nick Nelson on Jul 25th, 2022
B2B Marketing, Content Marketing, Influencer Marketing

When it comes to creating effective B2B marketing content, these three traits arguably rank as the most essential: credible, authentic, influential.

Credible: Does the content position its author or brand as a knowledgeable and authoritative expert in their space? Enough so that it aids in justifying a decision to invest in their solutions?
Authentic: Is the content reflective of what that person or brand is really about? Does it instill trust through truth and transparency?
Influential: Does the content actually shift perceptions and drive the reader or viewer toward some sort of action?

These three qualities, in a nutshell, differentiate marketing content from plain-old “content.” When all three are realized in the hearts and minds of your audience, a piece of content is almost guaranteed to achieve its objectives — provided you have the right promotion plan in place.

Triple Take: How to Make B2B Content Marketing More Influential, Authentic, and Credible

10+ Top Content & Search Marketing Insights from MnSearch Summit 2022

Nick Nelson on Jun 27th, 2022
B2B Marketing, Marketing PR Conferences, Search Marketing

When MnSearch, Minnesota’s premier collection of search marketing luminaries, held its latest big annual summit in St. Paul, we knew TopRank Marketing had to be in the house. I attended Friday’s festivities at the RiverCentre along with our search marketing manager Ryan Leighty.

It was my first time attending a marketing conference in almost three years — and also my first time meeting my awesome coworker Ryan in person — which created plenty of good vibes in itself. But there was also a lot of really great content from very bright folks, making this event all the more enriching.

Ryan and I divided and conquered the day’s sessions. Naturally, he dove into the more technical search topics — you’ll be shocked to hear Google Analytics 4 (GA4) was a recurring focus! — while I gravitated more toward the content-centric themes.

10+ Top Content & Search Marketing Insights from MnSearch Summit 2022

Zoom Fatigue: 5 Simple Tips for Better Virtual Meetings in B2B Marketing

Nick Nelson on May 30th, 2022
B2B Marketing

When the pandemic broke out in 2020 and forced most marketers into remote work, there was a big looming concern you’d often hear about: Zoom fatigue.

In a profession where meetings are frequent and essential, the danger of video-call burnout seemed to be acutely high. Would the endless reminders of our isolation and disconnection become too much to bear?

As it turns out, these concerns were somewhat overstated. Recent Pew Research found that usage of videoconferencing tools is very common, as expected …

(Source)

… But the percentage of professionals who report experiencing the dreaded “Zoom fatigue” is much lower than than the zoomsayers forecasted, with three in four saying they are fine with the amount of time they spend on video calls.

(Source)

Zoom Fatigue: 5 Simple Tips for Better Virtual Meetings in B2B Marketing

Two Years In: How B2B Marketers Are Optimizing & Elevating Remote Work Experiences

Nick Nelson on Apr 25th, 2022
B2B Marketing

I always enjoy those dystopian movies about remnants of humanity persisting in a bleak future where some natural disaster or other catastrophe has dramatically altered the state of the planet.

Particularly, I like when we as viewers are dropped into these worlds, and able to see how their inhabitants have learned to acclimate and even thrive under extraordinary circumstances.

In the book and film I Am Legend, for example, Dr. Robert Neville is already a self-sufficient “omega man” by the time we meet him, living a lonely life in New York City where everyone else has died or transformed into a nocturnal mutant zombie.

Two Years In: How B2B Marketers Are Optimizing & Elevating Remote Work Experiences

Winning B2B Calls to Action That Get Responses & Convert Browsers into Buyers

Nick Nelson on Mar 11th, 2022
B2B Marketing

Calls to action (CTAs) are often treated as an afterthought in content creation, which is odd since they are arguably the most consequential element.

Digital marketers and their campaigns are evaluated through a great many factors, which are growing more deep and nuanced as analytics evolve, but conversions are still the name of the game. It’s the easiest thing to measure and the surest sign that your content made an impact.

With this in mind, it’s probably worth taking a step back and rethinking your CTA strategy. If you’re cruising on autopilot and running a generic “Download guide” or “Request demo” at the end of every content piece, you are probably leaving opportunities on the table to better engage (and convert!) your audience.

Winning B2B Calls to Action That Get Responses & Convert Browsers into Buyers