B2B Marketing Archives - Page 43 of 73 - B2B Marketing Blog

Get Your Priorities Straight: How to Prioritize to Optimize Your Marketing Workflow

Anne Leuman
B2B Marketing, Content Marketing

Here’s what marketers look like when everything is a priority:

And here’s what marketers look like when everything gets prioritized:

I think you can all guess which scenario is more efficient, effective, and less stressful.

Throughout my marketing career, I’ve taken on roles that have challenged me to be a jack of all trades as well as a specialist—yet every role has required the ability to identify, assess, and tackle the tasks at hand in a way that makes sense for my clients, organization, team, and myself. Simply put, every marketing practitioner and leader needs to be able to prioritize and deprioritize work to be lean, mean marketing machine that drives results.

Get Your Priorities Straight: How to Prioritize to Optimize Your Marketing Workflow

Return to Sender: Email Marketing Is NOT Dead, But It Needs Rejuvenation

Oh, look. Another death of email marketing headline. All too often, we see posts that lead with this provocative clickbait proclamation, while keeping the contradicting nuances under the surface.

Ironically, this kind of practice is exactly WHY email marketing has seen its reputation tarnished. The focus has shifted too far toward style at the expense of substance. Marketers became so singularly obsessed with compelling opens and clicks, through irresistible subject lines and poppy CTAs, that many of us lost touch with the core value of this digital channel: direct, one-on-one engagement.

I’m here to tell you that this value still exists, and might be more essential today than ever, in spite of (maybe even because of) the waters becoming so muddied. Recipients will welcome a little freshness and clarity in their inbox, from those brands and influencers that are willing to buck the trend.

Return to Sender: Email Marketing Is NOT Dead, But It Needs Rejuvenation

Q3 Wrap-Up: What’s Changed For B2B Marketers & What’s Ahead in 2020?

Lane Ellis
B2B Marketing, Digital Marketing

We’ve now reached the end of the third quarter of 2019, one filled with many significant B2B marketing changes and several surprising twists and turns that will combine to affect how the industry moves forward as we enter Q4 and push forward to 2020.

Q3 saw numerous exciting shifts in new directions, and a few seemingly slight changes in course that are nonetheless poised to make big impacts in 2020.

We’re always working to bring you the most relevant B2B marketing news, including over 180 weekly industry news videos, hosted by Tiffani Allen, Joshua Nite and others here on our blog and on our TopRank Marketing YouTube channel.

Each quarter we reflect on what’s happened in digital marketing and look ahead with key trends. Let’s examine both the challenges and opportunities the quarter’s top B2B marketing news has brought our industry.

Q3 Wrap-Up: What’s Changed For B2B Marketers & What’s Ahead in 2020?

B2B Marketing Spotlight: Ty Heath on Optimizing ABM & Social Sales with LinkedIn #mpb2b

Lee Odden
B2B Marketing, Interviews, MarketingProfs B2B Forum

Ty Heath is one of those people whose reputation precedes them. I had heard of Ty as a marketing industry speaker and force for change working at LinkedIn before finally meeting her in person. The IRL Ty experience did not disappoint. Each time I meet with Ty, ideas pop like popcorn – who needs coffee with such inspiration around what’s possible?

Currently Ty is Global Lead of The B2B Institute at LinkedIn where she is responsible for scaling education on LinkedIn’s Marketing Solutions product globally. She has previously worked for major brands including IBM, Nestle and over 7 years at Google – plus she’s had her own consultancy.

B2B Marketing Spotlight: Ty Heath on Optimizing ABM & Social Sales with LinkedIn #mpb2b

5 Unexpected Content Marketing Benefits of B2B Podcasting

Joshua Nite
B2B Marketing

We all know by now that podcasting is a fantastic content marketing tactic, right? To review:

Over 81 million people listen to podcasts (Edison Research)
80% finish the majority of every episode on their favorite podcasts (Edison Research)
Most people who listen to one podcast are likely to pick up more (Edison Research)

In other words, there’s an enormous audience out there, ready to spend multiple hours with your quality content. And now they can get your episodes right on the Google results page.

So, since you’re ready to start your podcast anyway, how can you use it to elevate the rest of your content marketing efforts?

5 Unexpected Content Marketing Benefits of B2B Podcasting

What’s Missing In Your B2B Marketing Strategy? 5 Key Elements You Don’t Want to Overlook

Nick Nelson
B2B Marketing

A car engine without a water pump. A baseball team without a shortstop. A guitar without a D string.

All it takes is one missing piece to prevent something from working as it should. Your B2B marketing strategy might excel in certain areas, but a single overlooked element can cause results to stall out.

I’m not talking about tactics here, because those can vary on a case-by-case basis. But there are specific considerations and focal points that ought to exist in pretty much every marketing strategy, and if we fail to account for them we are doing ourselves a disservice.

This isn’t a matter of covering bases or checking boxes. This is about thinking through your marketing approach holistically to set it up for sustainable growth. If any of the following aspects are amiss for your team at a strategic level, I highly recommend addressing them.

What’s Missing In Your B2B Marketing Strategy? 5 Key Elements You Don’t Want to Overlook

B2B Marketing Spotlight: Jay Baer on Employee Generated Content #mpb2b

Lee Odden
B2B Marketing, Content Marketing, Interviews, MarketingProfs B2B Forum

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

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

Nick Nelson
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

B2B Marketing Spotlight: Ann Handley on Being a “Badaxe” Marketer #mpb2b

Lee Odden
B2B Marketing, Interviews, MarketingProfs B2B Forum

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

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

Joshua Nite
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