B2B Marketing Blog - TopRank®

B2B Marketing views, news and interviews.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Video Interview: Social Media Marketing at GM – Charlotte Blank, Manager of Social Media

Optimize Digital Marketing Interview Charlotte Blank GM

At the recent Online Marketing Summit in San Diego I caught up with Charlotte Blank, Manager of Social Media at General Motors to talk about digital marketing.  In this short interview I asked Charlotte a few fundamental questions about digital and social media marketing related to customers:

1. How does GM segment digital marketing activities between customer acquisition and retention?

Follow up: Does GM follow a social media editorial calendar according to customer buying cycles and personas?

2. With all the shiny objects of social media in the world, how do you go about deciding what to test and what to implement?

Take a look at the video and I think you’ll be interested in the customer-centric approach GM takes with social media and how time is allocated towards new customers, activating current customers as evangelists and their approach to filtering shiny social objects.


Video Interview: Social Media Marketing at GM – Charlotte Blank, Manager of Social Media

Interview: Jay Baer on The Now Revolution

The Now RevolutionWhile at OMS and SES Accelerator this week, I bumped into (literally) my friend Jay Baer who has just published a new book with co-author Amber Naslund called The Now Revolution. I am reading it now and may do a full review, but I asked Jay about a few core principles or shifts from the book that I think are essential for helping organizations transform.

The first deals with the notion of companies “doing social” vs. “being social”.  Having personally provided social media marketing advice to a variety of companies ranging from startups to a $100 billion corporation, questions often center around “How do we do social media right?”. In other words, social media and the social web are viewed as a tactic.


Interview: Jay Baer on The Now Revolution

Tips on Video: B2B Facebook, Social ROI & Repurposing Social Content

While traveling recently in New Zealand and a short stay in Sydney, Australia I shot a few videos offering social media marketing tips. Check them out below and you can also view many other tips videos and interviews we’ve done with search and social media marketing experts on the  TopRank Online Marketing YouTube Channel.

Tips on Social Media ROI from Sydney Australia near the famous Opera House & Sydney Harbour Bridge. Sorry about the wind, it messed with the audio a bit. I need to get a Zi8 and a microphone!

Common B2B Facebook Myths from Rangitoto Island, off Auckland, New Zealand. (From an old Army bunker near the mouth of a 600 year old volcano actually)


Tips on Video: B2B Facebook, Social ROI & Repurposing Social Content

Video: Cycle of Social & SEO

While in Hong Kong I thought it might be interesting to start doing videos that offer tips against an interesting backdrop. There are so many amazing conversations and topics discussed at the events I travel to, why not combine that somehow?

Watch this Content Marketing Optimization video to learn the simple, yet highly effective, method of incorporating search and social media keywords to guide content marketing optimization efforts. Combine optimized social media content with promotions to increase the traffic and sharing that will provide subsequent data to mine even more effective content ideas.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LFgsBgaxbk[/youtube]

Please let me know if you like this format of content. I’ve been doing more video interviews of other people in the search and social media marketing industry lately but I haven’t used video to share my own ideas. In the interest of making this blog even more interesting and useful, your feedback is greatly appreciated!


Video: Cycle of Social & SEO

Brent D. Payne on SEO for Journalists

brent d payne

I’ve been connected via the social web with Brent Payne for several years and we finally met in person at SES Hong Kong. Working for the Tribune companies as Director of Search Engine Optimization, Brent has been able to make a significant impact on news web sites like the Chicago Tribune and the LA Times.

In this interview, Brent shares his experiences with how optimizing news content for search engines works as well as the challenges and results from training journalists on how to use keywords to improve traffic to news content.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s3T9IqVsLN4[/youtube]

If you work with a media company or online publisher, do you train writers, reporters, editors and journalists on how to optimize content with keywords? Have you tried and had great results? Have you tried and met strong resistance?


Brent D. Payne on SEO for Journalists

Avinash Kaushik on Storytelling & Web Analytics

avinash kaushikThe opening keynote presentation at SES Hong Kong featured none other than Avinash Kaushik, co-Founder of Market Motive Inc and the Analytics Evangelist for Google.

In this video interview, Avinash talks about the value of communicating analytics information in more meaningful ways. He gives examples of metaphors he’s used to present important analytics information that helps others better understand the meaning and implications of the data. There are lessons here for companies that report tabular data with no insight and little creativity in communicating insight.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qEHmc4oVa-I[/youtube]

What creative ways have you found to communicate web analytics insights? Have you had nightmare experiences with web analytics reports?

Check out Avinash’s “must-read” web analytics blog, Occam’s Razor, here.


Avinash Kaushik on Storytelling & Web Analytics