B2B Marketing Archives - Online Marketing Blog

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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Trust Factors: Why Your Brand Should Take a Stand with Its Marketing Strategy

Nick Nelson on Sep 16th, 2019 B2B Marketing, Digital Marketing

Earlier this year, Salesforce made waves by announcing a policy that compelled retailers to either stop selling military-style rifles and certain accessories, or stop using its popular e-commerce software.

For a massive brand like this to take such an emphatic stand on a divisive social issue would’ve been unthinkable not so long ago. But in today’s world at large, and consequently in the business and marketing environments, it’s becoming more common. This owes to a variety of factors, ranging from generational changes among consumers to a growing need to differentiate.

But, like so many other trends and strategies we see emerging in digital marketing, I think it mostly comes back to one overarching thing: the trust factor.

Trust Factors: Why Your Brand Should Take a Stand with Its Marketing Strategy

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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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Get Heroic Results from B2B Influencer Marketing with Advice from Ashley Zeckman #CMWorld

Joshua Nite on Sep 9th, 2019 B2B Marketing, Content Marketing World, Influencer Marketing

B2B content marketers have faced many epic foes over the last few years. There’s the nefarious Content Shock, the demoralizing Facebook Algorithm, and the destructive Google Search Update. We have battled them all and continued to thrive.

But now we face our most fearsome foe: The Dreaded Trust Gap.

Less than half of consumers trust brands. Seventy-one percent of buyers are turned off by overly sales-y content. Buyers increasingly prefer content from industry influencers rather than brands.

It’s a daunting problem that needs a bold solution: The Guardians of Content!

In her Content Marketing World 2019 presentation, our very own Director of Digital Strategy Ashley Zeckman explained how B2B content marketers can initiate and scale up a heroic influencer content program of their own. Here are a few key takeaways.

Get Heroic Results from B2B Influencer Marketing with Advice from Ashley Zeckman #CMWorld

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April Henderson on Data-Driven, Empathetic B2B Content #CMWorld

Joshua Nite on Sep 6th, 2019 B2B Marketing, Content Marketing, Content Marketing World

Forrester’s April Henderson started her Content Marketing World 2019 session with a classic cautionary tale:

Johann Rall was fighting for the British at the turning point of the Revolutionary War. The night before the Battle of Trenton, he was out celebrating at the home of a local Loyalist merchant. That merchant had seen General Washington amassing his forces and knew the attack was coming.

So what did the merchant do? He created relevant content! He wrote Rall a note and slipped it across the table. Rall nodded, put the note in his pocket… and continued his evening of revelry. The British were caught unawares, and the tide of the war began to turn. That lack of content engagement might be how America won the war.

April Henderson on Data-Driven, Empathetic B2B Content #CMWorld

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Lee Odden Shares His Secret to Content Marketing Fitness #CMWorld

Joshua Nite on Sep 5th, 2019 B2B Marketing, Content Marketing, Content Marketing World, Marketing PR Conferences

Let’s face it: Too many of us are yo-yo marketers.

We deploy a campaign the way someone might approach a fad diet: With nothing but our initial enthusiasm to keep it going.

And like a fad dieter, we get results… for a little while. Then the campaign runs out of steam and we’re back at square one.

Wouldn’t it be nice if those initial successes could last? If we could go from “fad diet” marketing to lean, mean marketing machines?

At his Content Marketing World 2019 session, TopRank Marketing CEO Lee Odden laid out a blueprint for how to do just that.

Not only is Lee a champion of always-on marketing that gets sustainable results over time, he’s also achieved a dramatic physical transformation in the past year. He’s lost 65 pounds and just finished his first half-marathon.

Lee Odden Shares His Secret to Content Marketing Fitness #CMWorld

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Carlos Abler Details How Content Marketing Can Contribute to the Greater Good #CMWorld

Joshua Nite on Sep 4th, 2019 B2B Marketing, Content Marketing, Content Marketing World

Can content marketing make the world a better place?

Let’s dial that in tighter: Can brands, businesses, make the world a better place?

And can they do it while making money at the same time?

According to content marketing leader Carlos Abler, not only can brands provide social value, they must – and, not for nothing, it’s in their best business interest to do so.

In his session at Content Marketing World 2019, Carlos shared a blueprint brands can follow to find the convergence of business value and social value.

How Can We Make Content More Valuable to Customers?

Stop me if you’ve heard this one: Content needs to be customer-centric, it needs to have value, and it needs to be relevant to the customer’s needs. Most content marketers could recite a similar mantra in their sleep. So if we all know better, why does content consistently miss the mark?

Carlos Abler Details How Content Marketing Can Contribute to the Greater Good #CMWorld

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Ghosted: What’s a Content Marketer to Do When Your Audience Goes Silent?

Nick Nelson on Sep 4th, 2019 B2B Marketing, Content Marketing

The all-encompassing digital takeover has completely changed the way we communicate and interact as people. Naturally, in our professional realm we tend to tie this back to marketing, but the reality applies to just about every aspect of human relations.

This includes dating and courtship, of course. The terms of engagement (so to speak) have transformed wildly. Whereas romance still can and does sprout through chance meetings, or encounters at the bar, or mutual college friend circles, it’s increasingly common for these fated connections to take place through online matchmaking sites and dating apps. (I would know — I’m marrying an amazing gal this weekend who I originally met on such an app!)

Ghosted: What’s a Content Marketer to Do When Your Audience Goes Silent?

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16 Can’t-Miss Acts at the Greatest Content Marketing Show on Earth: #CMWorld 2019

Joshua Nite on Sep 2nd, 2019 B2B Marketing, Content Marketing, Content Marketing World

Come one! Come all! Come several! Come few!

Step right up! Don’t be shy! You there in the back, with the funny hat, step right up! You over there with the earrings and the weird mustache, come on in! There’s room for everyone under the Big Top, and it’s time for the Greatest Content Marketing Show on Earth!

That’s right, Content Marketing World is mere days away. There is no more exciting place for a content marketer to be next week than Cleveland, OH(sure, it would be great if it were in Hawaii next year, but Cleveland is not without its charms). There’s a lot to look forward to: The opening night festivities! The keynotes! The sessions! The potential to see amazing marketing geniuses do bad karaoke!

16 Can’t-Miss Acts at the Greatest Content Marketing Show on Earth: #CMWorld 2019

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5 B2B Brands Delivering Great Customer Experiences

Lane Ellis on Aug 29th, 2019 B2B Marketing

Today’s B2B customers expect more B2C-like experiences, and here are five brands delivering great customer experiences that go far beyond the tired tradition of boring-to-boring.

Research from Gartner has shown that 89 percent of firms compete primarily on customer experience. Not all companies may be taking this to heart, however, as according to additional research some 60 percent of marketers fail to take into account consumer expectations, despite 95 percent seeing increasing expectations from customers.

Making memorable customer experiences a priority can help build successful campaigns and make for delighted customers, and with further recent research showing that just 14 percent of B2B survey respondents view customer experience and support as a top priority, there may be no better time to work on delivering great customer experiences.

5 B2B Brands Delivering Great Customer Experiences

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The Great Marketing Get-Together

Lane Ellis on Aug 21st, 2019 B2B Marketing

State fair season brings tasty new foods-on-a-stick and a grandstand full of marketing lessons for those willing to walk the midway.

The Minnesota State Fair, known affectionately as the Great Minnesota Get-Together, begins tomorrow, and we’ll explore some of the wild new food concoctions on offer this year, and dig in to a bucket-of-cookies-size list of surprising things it can teach us about marketing.

The fair, which began all the way back in 1859, is one of the largest in the U.S., now often topping the 2 million attendee mark each 12-day season and offering fair-goers 322 acres of summer fun in the form of amusement rides, live music from at least four stages, art, animals, parades and more.

The Great Marketing Get-Together

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