Online Marketing Blog - TopRank®

Break Free B2B Series: CMI’s Stephanie Stahl on Data-Driven Event Planning and Promotion

Caitlin Burgess
Caitlin Burgess on Dec 17th, 2019
B2B Marketing, Content Marketing World, Video Interviews

Break Free B2B Interview with Stephanie Stahl

Planning events isn’t easy. Heck, scheduling a meeting with a small group of colleagues can be an exercise in strategy and patience. Now imagine if you were responsible for creating the preeminent educational experience for 4,000+ content marketers, featuring 225 inspiring speakers, and over 123 hours of amazing content? 

That’s what Stephanie Stahl, General Manager at Content Marketing Institute, and her event team does each year while planning the Content Marketing World Conference and Expo.

Joshua Nite, our Senior Content Marketing Manager, was able to snag a few minutes with Stephanie on the last day of Content Marketing World 2019 to learn how her team delivers an amazing experience year after year. Unsurprisingly, success requires a lot of work, data, and content.


Break Free B2B Series: CMI’s Stephanie Stahl on Data-Driven Event Planning and Promotion

Break Free B2B Series: Maliha Aqeel on How to Ace B2B Company Culture

Caitlin Burgess
Caitlin Burgess on Dec 12th, 2019
B2B Marketing, Video Interviews

Maliha Aqeel, Assistant Director of Brand, Marketing and Communications at Ernst & Young, is known for being a staunch advocate of the three C’s that drive brands: content, customer, and culture.

But when Maliha sat down with TopRank Marketing’s Joshua Nite for a Break Free B2B interview at Content Marketing World this past fall, she had one “C” at the top of her mind: culture, and its role as a driver for both employee and customer satisfaction. 

“Whether we’re working for someone, or we’re actively purchasing their products, or just engaging with their brand, it matters to us what others think,” she says.

While many employees still see corporate culture as solely a function of HR, Maliha says this is not the case. She believes that all employees have a responsibility to help propagate and model a company’s values, both inside and outside the organization.


Break Free B2B Series: Maliha Aqeel on How to Ace B2B Company Culture

Break Free B2B Series: Judy Tian on Humanizing B2B Through Influencer Marketing

Nick Nelson
Nick Nelson on Dec 10th, 2019
B2B Marketing, Influencer Marketing, Video Interviews

As the world’s largest social network for professionals, LinkedIn* lies at the epicenter of people and business. 

Profiles on the platform put a real face on our professional brands, allowing visitors to learn about our interests, career experiences, and personalities. Emphasizing this human element, and creating a genuine sense of community among members, is paramount to LinkedIn’s brand mission according to Marketing Manager Judy Tian. 

“As a platform where so much of people’s job opportunities and personal and professional development takes place,” she says, “we really sought to humanize the brand and make it a more community-based platform, where real stories can be told and people would feel like they have relatable experiences there with others.”


Break Free B2B Series: Judy Tian on Humanizing B2B Through Influencer Marketing

Break Free B2B Series: John Joyce on Taking B2B Content Marketing Back 2 Basics

Nick Nelson
Nick Nelson on Dec 3rd, 2019
B2B Marketing, Content Marketing, Video Interviews

One of the central tenets of best-answer content is comprehensiveness. Your content needs to fully and artfully answer your buyers’ most burning questions. And as John Joyce and his team at Brennan Industries remind us, sometimes that requires going back to the basics.

It can be all too easy for B2B marketers and brands to get caught up in new trends, industry lingo, and the next big lofty concept in their niche. We grow conversant in these matters on a day-to-day basis. But to assume the same is true for all — or even a majority of — our audience is a mistake, and potentially a costly one.

In the latest entry of our Break Free B2B interview series, John shares how a content strategy rooted in educational content helped yield an 800% increase in leads for his company. 


Break Free B2B Series: John Joyce on Taking B2B Content Marketing Back 2 Basics

Break Free B2B Series: Janine Wegner on Building Brand Thought Leadership With the Help of Influencers

Nick Nelson
Nick Nelson on Nov 26th, 2019
B2B Marketing, Influencer Marketing, Video Interviews

Break Free B2B Marketing Interview with Janine Wenger of Dell Technologies

Influencer marketing is in a state of flux. In the past 10 days alone, I’ve seen suggestions that paid influencers are out, and that “influencer marketing — in the traditional sense — is in the midst of an irreversible fail from grace.”

Neither of these arguments is off the mark, per se, but they both frame the concept in outdated B2C-centric terms (the authors more or less acknowledge this with their qualifiers). No one can deny that the impact of hired celebrity influencers, transparently shilling products or services, is waning. It’s not an approach that builds trust or credibility. 


Break Free B2B Series: Janine Wegner on Building Brand Thought Leadership With the Help of Influencers

Break Free B2B Series: Hal Werner on the Intersection of Marketing Creativity and Analytics

Nick Nelson
Nick Nelson on Nov 19th, 2019
B2B Marketing, Video Interviews

Break Free B2B Interview with Hal Werner of Mitel

Part art, part science, all business.

This is the credo under which Hal Werner operates. As Global Manager of Digital Marketing & Strategy for Mitel, he’s responsible for overseeing the telecommunication company’s marketing programs from a holistic view, and understanding how all the pieces fit together.

Coming from a background in copywriting and content strategy, while also possessing considerable experience with SEO, PPC, and analytics tools, Hal believes the key to unlocking success in this modern era of digital marketing resides at the intersection of creativity and data.


Break Free B2B Series: Hal Werner on the Intersection of Marketing Creativity and Analytics

Break Free B2B Series: Clare Carr on Using Data to Drive Content Marketing Success

Kelly Hogan
Kelly Hogan on Nov 14th, 2019
B2B Marketing, Content Marketing, Video Interviews

TopRank Marketing Interviews Clare Carr, VP of Marketing at Chief

Intertwined from the start. For marketing executive Clare Carr, digital marketing and data have been a packaged deal since the beginning of her career. But for most marketers, while data is plentiful, leveraging that data (and deriving actionable insights to improve content strategy) is an evolving challenge. Most of us are just beginning to scratch the surface of our data’s potential.

But according to Clare, who spent more than six years at content analytics platform Parse.ly, data can do more than help us optimize performance “after the fact.” Data can help us build our brand. Data can help us become better storytellers. Data can help us grab attention.


Break Free B2B Series: Clare Carr on Using Data to Drive Content Marketing Success

Break Free B2B Series: Brody Dorland on Creating Long-Lasting Content Marketing Strategy

Kelly Hogan
Kelly Hogan on Nov 12th, 2019
B2B Marketing, Content Marketing, Video Interviews

An Interview with Brody Dorland of DivvyHQ

We’re ready to release another insightful interview as a part of our Break Free B2B series, this time with Brody Dorland, co-founder of the popular content planning platform, Divvy HQ. Brody is a self-described data geek. He believes data is a crucial component of successful content marketing.

The platform that he co-created is all about bringing data, structure, and strategy into content marketing. We feel that he’s a practitioner who is uniting that data side with the creative side within B2B content marketing. That’s why we were so excited to sit down with him for a few minutes and pick his brain.

We not only spoke about what B2B content marketers can start doing to boost the success of their content marketing initiatives, but also gain insight into where B2B content marketing is headed in the future.


Break Free B2B Series: Brody Dorland on Creating Long-Lasting Content Marketing Strategy

Break Free B2B Series: Amisha Gandhi on Global B2B Influencer Marketing

Kelly Hogan
Kelly Hogan on Nov 7th, 2019
B2B Marketing, Influencer Marketing, Video Interviews

Break Free B2B Interview with Amisha Gandhi

Amisha Gandhi is the VP of Influencer Marketing & Communications for SAP Ariba & SAP Fieldglass. She is a sought-after speaker, and in this video — fresh off of a workshop presentation at MarketingProfs B2B Forum that absolutely rocked — she shares fascinating ideas about how to make an ongoing B2B influencer content marketing program not only work but drive organizational change and success. With that said, check out the full interview below.

Break Free B2B Marketing Interview with Amisha Gandhi

Below are some of our favorite insights from the chat between Amisha and our president and co-founder Susan Misukanis.

Sue: I’ll always get calls from B2B marketers who say they want to deploy the Kardashian model for their long-tale, B2B influencer program that is still in its infancy, and I feel like I need to redirect. What are your thoughts on that?


Break Free B2B Series: Amisha Gandhi on Global B2B Influencer Marketing

Break Free B2B Series: Amanda Todorovich on Creating Content that Pays Off

Kelly Hogan
Kelly Hogan on Nov 5th, 2019
B2B Marketing, Online Marketing, Video Interviews

Amanda Todorovich is the Senior Director of Health Content at Cleveland Clinic. That title kind of undersells what she did over there. She turned a neglected blog into a revenue stream. That’s right –  something that is generating money and is getting over 7 million visitors a month. Now Amanda is a true believer, like our agency, in the power of audience-centered content.

She is living proof that investing in this kind of content pays off. Join us in learning more from Amanda. She is one of the leading lights and is at the vanguard of next-generation content marketers, and we are thrilled to speak with her. View the entire interview below.

Break Free B2B Marketing Interview with Amanda Todorovich


Break Free B2B Series: Amanda Todorovich on Creating Content that Pays Off

GeekBeat.TV Interview: Optimizing the Customer to Content Connection

At BlogWorld New Media Expo in New York, John P. and Cali Lewis had me on their GeekBeat.tv show where we talked about a mix of digital marketing topics including “walk the talk” marketing consulting, the power of word of mouth, the value of influence, common marketing challenges for companies, ROI vs. the promise of ROI, budget limitations vs. culture, the “must do” of getting started with social media.

Those companies that take the time to understand who their audiences and influencers are can dig into optimal means of information discovery, what target audience preferences are for media type and format, and how to inspire action whether it’s a referral or a sale.  With that insight, marketers can work to develop a plan to continuously optimize the brand’s effectivenss at connecting content with customers all across the lifecycle: awareness, interest, consideration, purchase, retention, advocacy.


GeekBeat.TV Interview: Optimizing the Customer to Content Connection