Online Marketing Blog - TopRank®

10 Worst Practices for B2B Influencer Marketing – Don’t be a Clown

Worst Practices B2B Influencer Marketing

When it comes to sharing B2B marketing advice, I prefer not to clown around too much and do my best to be positive and optimistic with trends, insights and how to’s focused on looking forward towards best practices and getting better results.

Marketers expect serious results but unfortunatley, many B2B marketers insist on clowning around with half-hearted or incomplete influencer marketing efforts.

I know this from stories told by brand marketers that have worked with other agencies and from being on the receiving end of clueless pitches, minimum viable engagement efforts and willfully ignorant attempts to get me to promote something I really have no business caring about. I’ve heard much of the same from other people who are often engaged as influencers as well.


10 Worst Practices for B2B Influencer Marketing – Don’t be a Clown

B2B Marketing News: Changing B2B Sales Models, LinkedIn Adds Polls, Social Media Engagement Data, & Twitter’s Scheduled Tweets

Lane Ellis
Lane Ellis on May 15th, 2020
Online Marketing News

2020 May 15 MarketingCharts Chart

COVID-19’s Impact on B2B Software Budgets
31 percent of B2B software buyers say they’ll spend less due to the pandemic, while 30 percent said that spending won’t be affected, according to recently-released survey data. Web conferencing, collaboration, and remote desktop software were the three top segments for expanded spending, the survey also noted. MarketingProfs

90% of people buy from brands they follow on social media, study says
Nine out of 10 people purchase from the brands they follow on social platforms, and the amount they spend climbed 12 percent from 2019 figures — two of numerous findings of interest to digital marketers contained in new report data. Just 23 percent of marketers use social media data for measuring return-on-investment (ROI), the report also noted. Mobile Marketer


B2B Marketing News: Changing B2B Sales Models, LinkedIn Adds Polls, Social Media Engagement Data, & Twitter’s Scheduled Tweets

5 Project Management Tips for Adrift Remote Marketing Teams

Anne Leuman
Anne Leuman on May 14th, 2020
B2B Marketing

Remote island in ocean image.

“WILSON!”

“Wilson, I’m sorry!”

via GIPHY

Work, lately, feels a little like being a castaway.

Isolating yourself. Dreaming of the past. Trusting in technology — however advanced or primitive — to get us through.

And work could stay this way for a while.

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought an unprecedented number of information workers, including marketers, home for work. In fact, 62% of American workers said they’ve worked from home at some point during this crisis. But many experts are estimating that this volume of distributed and remote work won’t decrease after the pandemic ends. They see that hundreds, if not thousands, of businesses are realizing they never really needed an office — they could have operated remotely all along.


5 Project Management Tips for Adrift Remote Marketing Teams

Always-On Influence: 5 Examples of Ongoing B2B Influencer Marketing In Action

Lane Ellis
Lane Ellis on May 13th, 2020
B2B Marketing, Influencer Marketing

Businesswoman walking past five world-time clocks.

Always-on influence is especially vital today as brands look to combat increasing mistrust and apathy.

Why have top B2B firms including our clients LinkedIn, Adobe and Dell Outlet chosen always-on influencer marketing programs, and what results are they achieving using continuing influence programs?

We answer these questions and more with examples of always-on influence in action.

In the first installment of our new #AlwaysOnInfluence series, our CEO and co-founder Lee Odden explored what always-on influencer marketing is and why B2B brands need it now more than ever, and now we’ll move forward and look at why five major B2B firms have chosen ongoing influencer marketing.

First let’s refresh our marketing lexicon with an overview of just what always-on influence is.


Always-On Influence: 5 Examples of Ongoing B2B Influencer Marketing In Action

The B2B Marketing Force Multiplier: Integrated SEO and Influencer Marketing

Lee Odden
Lee Odden on May 11th, 2020
Influencer Marketing, SEO

B2B Marketing Force Multiplier SEO Influence

As business customers with questions are ignoring tone deaf brand marketing (and tiring of Pandemic messaging too) they are increasingly in search of information more than ever. Trust Radius reports that some B2B tech categories are seeing anywhere from 194% to 613% increases in search driven traffic. Search engines are clearly positioned to deliver answers for buyers seeking answers, but where is the trust? And more importantly, is your brand the best answer when and where buyers are looking?

SEO alone is not enough. A study from CSO insights ranked Web searches the 8th most trusted source of information for technology buyers. According to a study by Forbes/Yext, only 50% of customers believe search results. Search ads are not necessarily the solution because 65% of marketers don’t trust them either (HubSpot).


The B2B Marketing Force Multiplier: Integrated SEO and Influencer Marketing

B2B Marketing News: Brands Spending More on Data, Spotify Turns Video Chats into Podcasts, & Consumers Trying More New Brands

Lane Ellis
Lane Ellis on May 8th, 2020
Online Marketing News

2020 May 8 MarketingCharts Chart

How COVID-19 Is Impacting Business Event Planning
70 percent of business event planners have changed previously-planned in-person events to virtual platforms due to the pandemic, and 47 percent expect that once it ends people will still be hesitant to travel, with 27 percent expecting a swift uptick in real-world events due to pent-up demand, according to newly-released survey data from the Professional Convention Management Association (PCMA). MarketingProfs

Google ad sales steady after coronavirus drop; Alphabet leads tech share rally
2020 first-quarter advertising sales at Google tallied $33.8 billion, with 73 percent coming from search and 12 percent from its YouTube property, and Google’s ad business accounting for some 83 percent of revenue for parent firm Alphabet, according to newly-released financial results. Reuters


B2B Marketing News: Brands Spending More on Data, Spotify Turns Video Chats into Podcasts, & Consumers Trying More New Brands

How to Hit a Marketing Home Run with Experiential Content

Nick Nelson
Nick Nelson on May 7th, 2020
B2B Marketing, Content Marketing

Man Staring Intently at On-screen Experience

While their importance pales in comparison to many other things taken away by our society’s ongoing lockdown, I do find myself missing sports. Going without them during a difficult time causes me to appreciate the comfortable routine and reliable distraction they provide all the more.

Those who know me will not be surprised to learn that I’m longing for baseball especially — everything from strikeouts and singles to slides and steals. But there is no part of the game I miss more than home runs.

Home runs are among the most satisfying individual achievements in sports. When a batter goes deep, he takes care of everything, going from home plate to home plate and putting a run — or more — on the board single-handedly. It is the literal representation of “covering all your bases.”


How to Hit a Marketing Home Run with Experiential Content

B2B Marketing Mythbusters: Dispelling 10 Common Myths with Extraordinary Marketing

Lane Ellis
Lane Ellis on May 6th, 2020
B2B Marketing

Wrecking ball busting through wall image.

B2B marketing is boring, doesn’t feature influencers, and uses only monotonous white papers and lifeless case studies — we’ve all heard these stereotypes, but what is the reality of B2B marketing in 2020?

The traditional image of dull B2B marketing has been turned on its head in recent years, and we wanted to explore 10 top myths and show how the state of B2B marketing has gone from bland to unforgettable.

Let’s dig in and break down the biggest B2B marketing myths, and look at how your brand can benefit from the new era of business marketing.

1 — B2B Marketing Goes From Boring-2-Boringest

The Myth:

The grand-daddy of all B2B marketing myths — dating back nearly to when the term business-to-business was coined — is the notion that it stands for boring-to-boring, with marketing about as exciting as forty shades of dreary gray.


B2B Marketing Mythbusters: Dispelling 10 Common Myths with Extraordinary Marketing

Break Free B2B Marketing: Lisa Sharapata of 6sense on the End of the MQL

Joshua Nite
Joshua Nite on May 5th, 2020
B2B Marketing, Online Marketing

Lisa Sharapata from 6sense

What do we mean when we talk about a transformation in marketing?

Let me put it this way. The switch from horses to cars was a transformation. It was a fundamental rethinking of the way that humans move. We went from, “Find an animal that can go further and faster than you can and ride on it,” to “Burn fuel and use the energy to turn a motor that transfers the power to wheels.”

Every improvement since then — from V8 engines to power steering — has just been an iteration on the theme. A little faster, a little more efficient, a little safer, but iteration, not transformation.


Break Free B2B Marketing: Lisa Sharapata of 6sense on the End of the MQL

Four Ways to Optimize the Marketing Performance of a B2B Influencer Program

4 Ways to Optimize B2B Influencer Marketing

Uncertainty for some is opportunity for others. While much is being said about changes in influencer marketing approach and B2C influencers losing work at scale because events are now cancelled and industries like retail, travel and hospitality have been disrupted due to COVID-19, consumer behavior has decidedly shifted towards digital experiences.

While in-person events have been a staple for B2B marketers, we’ve seen how working with digital influencers on co-created content can be a sound alternative.

How brands approach marketing during a crisis makes the issue of trust even more important. When planned and implemented effectively, B2B influencer marketing programs build trust and confidence for buyers, influencers and the brand.


Four Ways to Optimize the Marketing Performance of a B2B Influencer Program

B2B Marketing News: B2B Marketers Invest in Data Quality, Top Times to Post During Pandemic, LinkedIn’s Engagement Trends, & Facebook’s Video Updates

Lane Ellis
Lane Ellis on May 1st, 2020
Online Marketing News

2020 May 1 Sprout Social Chart

How to use LinkedIn Ads’ new company targeting options to boost B2B lead generation
LinkedIn (client) recently rolled out additional targeting options for advertisers, allowing LinkedIn Ad users access to new Company Category B2B data comprised of Forbes, Fortune and platform data, along with the addition of growth rate targeting information. Search Engine Land

Report: Majority of B2B Marketers to Continue Investment in Data Quality in 2020
75 percent of B2B marketers plan to up their investment in data quality during 2020, while 90 percent said they view such investment leading to improved marketing and sales performance — two of the numerous findings of interest to digital marketers contained in recently-released Dun & Bradstreet report data. Chief Marketer


B2B Marketing News: B2B Marketers Invest in Data Quality, Top Times to Post During Pandemic, LinkedIn’s Engagement Trends, & Facebook’s Video Updates