Ashley Zeckman

Imagine What’s Possible: Top Insights & Favorite Marketing Moments From #MPB2B 2019

Ashley Zeckman on Oct 22nd, 2019     B2B Marketing, MarketingProfs B2B Forum, Online Marketing

If we had to describe the experience at this year’s MarketingProfs B2B Forum in one word, we would probably have to go with “neighborly.”

Yes, this vibe was intentionally embedded by the event organizers, who constructed the main stage and supporting elements at MPB2B around a “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” theme. But the speakers and attendees at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center all did their parts to foster a helpful, friendly, and kind environment. 

As a result, we’ve returned home with our mental batteries recharged, full of inspiration and motivation to help our clients, partners, audience, and coworkers achieve new heights with B2B marketing strategy.


Imagine What’s Possible: Top Insights & Favorite Marketing Moments From #MPB2B 2019
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Nick Nelson

How Intuit Surmounted Stagnating Lead Gen with Customer Insight

Nick Nelson on Oct 21st, 2019     B2B Marketing, MarketingProfs B2B Forum

Here’s something you might already know about Intuit: The leading financial software company has been around for 35 years, buoyed by its primary software offerings, TurboTax and QuickBooks.

Here’s something you might not know (at least it was news to me): While Intuit does market to consumers, B2B customers comprise a large portion of the company’s base – its ProConnect division sells products to tax and accounting professionals, while Intuit, in general, is reliant on such pros to recommend TurboTax and QuickBooks to their own clients.

And on this B2B front, Intuit was facing a challenge: Leads had been flat for five years. Despite extremely high product awareness (I doubt anyone reading this hasn’t heard of those two main products) and strong tax firm industry retention rates around 90%, Intuit simply wasn’t bringing in new business at the desired rate.


How Intuit Surmounted Stagnating Lead Gen with Customer Insight
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Ashley Zeckman

Tales from the B2B Influencer Marketing Trenches with Leaders from Dell & SAP #MPB2B

Ashley Zeckman on Oct 21st, 2019     B2B Marketing, Influencer Marketing, MarketingProfs B2B Forum

When was the last time you made a purchase without reading multiple reviews, asking your friends for recommendations or relying on an endorsement from someone that you know and trust? The likely response is: “I can’t even remember that far back.”

While trusting the insights of others to inform our purchasing decisions has become second-nature for both personal and business purchases, influencer marketing for B2B organizations is still fairly new. In fact, only 24% of marketers are currently partnering with influencers to expand their reach (CMI & MarketingProfs). 

Last week at MarketingProfs B2B Forum, seasoned influencer marketing leaders Konstanze Alex and Janine Wegner from Dell* and Amisha Gandhi from SAP* teamed up to share tales from the trenches of influencer marketing at their respective organizations. Below is just a sampling of the insights they shared that can help guide your approach for your brand. 


Tales from the B2B Influencer Marketing Trenches with Leaders from Dell & SAP #MPB2B
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Nick Nelson

Breaking Down Barriers for Healthy B2B Marketing with Lee Odden #MPB2B

Nick Nelson on Oct 18th, 2019     B2B Marketing, Content Marketing, MarketingProfs B2B Forum

On Thursday morning at MarketingProfs B2B Forum, TopRank Marketing CEO Lee Odden asked a room full of marketers, “Who here has tried starting a diet or exercise program before?” Pretty much every hand in the room shot up.

The percentage of those individuals who would rate their efforts as a satisfying success? Not quite so high.

Falling short of aspirations with fitness endeavors is an almost universally relatable experience. We embark on a diet plan, but we slip. We go all-in on a workout regimen, but we stop. Life gets in the way, and other priorities demand our attention. Alas, any temporary progress we make ultimately proves to be only that.

Many marketers are familiar with this pattern in their jobs: Campaigns yielding strong results, which quickly fade and leave us unfulfilled.


Breaking Down Barriers for Healthy B2B Marketing with Lee Odden #MPB2B
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Lane Ellis

Digital Marketing News: Google Ads Targeting Options, Templates Come to Facebook & Instagram Stories Ads, LinkedIn Adds Events Features & More

Lane Ellis on Oct 18th, 2019     Online Marketing News

2019 October 18 MarketingCharts Chart

Social media ad spend to surpass print for first time
Ad spending in 2019 will for the first time see social media topping print, with global spending growth up 20 percent increasing to $84 billion, according to recently-released forecast data from Zenith. Marketing Land

LinkedIn Launches Events to Facilitate Professional Meet-Ups
LinkedIn (client) has released a robust new tool allowing users to create and manage events pages, the culmination of a program first announced late last year, the professional social networking firm revealed this week. Social Media Today

Facebook testing ads in Groups tab
Facebook has begun allowing certain advertisers to utilize new mobile Facebook Groups ads, as part of an Ads Manager test, the social giant recently announced. Should the option eventually be rolling out to all advertisers, digital marketers will be able to target new audiences with mobile group ads. Marketing Land


Digital Marketing News: Google Ads Targeting Options, Templates Come to Facebook & Instagram Stories Ads, LinkedIn Adds Events Features & More
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Nick Nelson

A Primer on Combining Account-Based Marketing and Social Selling, from LinkedIn’s Ty Heath #MPB2B

Nick Nelson on Oct 17th, 2019     B2B Marketing, MarketingProfs B2B Forum

Lines are blurring. The B2B funnel is no longer tidily divided between marketing (top) and sales (bottom) because the buying process has grown more complex and less linear. 

Account-based marketing and social selling are both practices built for the new era of convergence, encouraging marketers to think more like sellers and vice versa. On Wednesday afternoon at MarketingProfs B2B Forum, Ty Heath of LinkedIn* offered her perspective on bolstering alignment by combining ABM and social selling, while calling out tools and tactics that can aid these efforts.

ABM, Meet Social Selling

At B2B Sales and Marketing Exchange a couple months ago, Sangram Vajre of Terminus kicked things off with an opening keynote in which he declared “ABM is B2B.” He argued that the principles of account-based marketing have become so ingrained in the fabric of B2B marketing that virtually everyone operating in the space is adopting an ABM framework to some degree. This was a sentiment echoed by others at the conference.


A Primer on Combining Account-Based Marketing and Social Selling, from LinkedIn’s Ty Heath #MPB2B
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Nick Nelson

The Truth About Marketing Personalization, According to Arm Treasure Data’s Tom Treanor #MPB2B

Nick Nelson on Oct 17th, 2019     B2B Marketing, MarketingProfs B2B Forum

Personalization is one of the most-discussed topics in marketing today, B2B or otherwise, and with all the chatter it can be a little tricky to separate fact from fiction. At MarketingProfs B2B Forum on Tuesday afternoon, Arm Treasure Data’s* Global Head of Marketing Tom Treanor took the stage to serve up some truth. 

By offering clarity around what separates the leaders from the learners on this critical frontier, his session provided a blueprint for refining and improving our efforts to get in sync with customers and prospects.

B2B Personalization Is Challenging (But Critical!)

During another session earlier in the day, Samantha Stone of The Marketing Advisory offered up some truth of her own, which resonated with Tom and I: “We need to worry less about creating scale, and more about creating relationships in our marketing.”


The Truth About Marketing Personalization, According to Arm Treasure Data’s Tom Treanor #MPB2B
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Nick Nelson

A Journey Through Always-On Influencer Marketing with Ashley Zeckman #MPB2B

Nick Nelson on Oct 16th, 2019     B2B Marketing, Influencer Marketing, MarketingProfs B2B Forum

Ashley Zeckman Presenting at MPB2B 2019

What is that makes Alice in Wonderland so powerful and resonant? It’s a tale that’s been retold – through books, movies, TV, video games, and various other content formats – time and time again. Terms like “down the rabbit hole” and “through the looking glass” are now fixtures in our collective lexicon. Almost everyone is familiar with Lewis Carroll’s whimsical world of fantasy.

Why?

There are many reasonable answers, but for me, it comes down to the characters. From Alice to the Mad Hatter to the Cheshire Cat to Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum, the denizens of Wonderland are deeply memorable, and – in their own ways – relatable. As humans, we connect with people on a level that transcends things or places. 


A Journey Through Always-On Influencer Marketing with Ashley Zeckman #MPB2B
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Caitlin Burgess

How B2B Brands Can Break Into Interactive Content

Caitlin Burgess on Oct 16th, 2019     B2B Marketing, Interactive Marketing

Pop quiz, B2B marketers: When it comes to creating content that effectively reaches, informs, engages, and inspires buyers and buying committees, you should…

  1. Embrace the “boring-to-boring” status quo. (Buyers and committees want the facts, not a spectacle!)
  2. Push tradition aside and dip your marketing toes into interactive content waters. (Who says B2B content has to be boring?)

(Psst. Here’s a hint from TopRank Marketing CEO Lee Odden: “The sheer volume of information and media that confronts people in the business world is overwhelming and often pretty boring. Creating compelling experiences with interactive content is one way to stand out, differentiate, and optimize for effectiveness.”)


How B2B Brands Can Break Into Interactive Content
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Lee Odden

50 Top B2B Marketing Influencers, Experts and Speakers in 2019

Lee Odden on Oct 15th, 2019     B2B Marketing

B2B Marketing Influencers 2019

In a world saturated with marketing strategies, tactics and technology, much of what makes B2B marketing successful is understanding the realm of what’s possible. Lucky for us, MarketingProfs B2B Forum in Washington D.C. October 16-18, 2019 offers an infotaining mix of possibilities from some of the top experts in the B2B marketing industry.

But who are these experts? To help B2B marketing professionals connect with experts and influential speakers at this year’s #MPB2B event, we’ve sorted through the master list of presenters to identify 50 of the top B2B marketing social influencers.

List Methodology: Our starting point is to identify and validate credentials of all speakers from the MarketingProfs B2B Forum website. Then we imported the scrubbed info into the influencer marketing platform Traackr. Using Traackr’s algorithm for ranking, we sorted the speakers according to their respective B2B marketing social influence using reach, relevance, resonance, and audience metrics.


50 Top B2B Marketing Influencers, Experts and Speakers in 2019
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Joshua Nite

10 Crucial Steps for Launching Your B2B Podcast Into the Wild

Joshua Nite on Oct 14th, 2019     B2B Marketing, Podcast Marketing, Podcasting

Hey, friend, have you heard the good news about podcasts? 

Given the most recent stats, it’s highly likely you have. Over half of all Americans over 12 years of age have listened to at least one. Podcasts have well and truly hit the mainstream. In other words, the gold rush is on for brands looking to connect with a highly-engaged, long-attention-span audience.

However, getting a podcast up and running isn’t as simple as publishing a blog. We recently published an entire B2B podcasting webinar to walk you through the entire process, from conception to publication. This post will zero in on the choices you need to make and the steps you need to take to release your podcast into the wild.


10 Crucial Steps for Launching Your B2B Podcast Into the Wild
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Anne Leuman

Digital Marketing News: More Facebook Stories Updates, CCPA Shakes Up the Ad Industry, GDPR Compliance in the U.S. & More

Anne Leuman on Oct 11th, 2019     Online Marketing News

Image Credit: Marketing Land

Facebook Unveils New CTA for Brand Stories
Facebook has been hot on the Stories train and shows no signs of stopping with their latest update. With their recent update to Stories, users can now send messages to brands and businesses directly from Stories ads. This change allows brands to drive more engagement with their target audience with an easier, softer CTA on the platform. Marketing Land

87% of Consumers Would Opt Out of Ad Targeting Thanks to the CCPA
The California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) is set to give consumers more control over their personal data starting Jan. 2020. To measure the potential impact the CCPA may have on the media and advertising industries, several studies are being conducted. The most recent studies from BritePool and Annenberg Research show that 87% of consumers would opt out of ad targeting when given the option through the CCPA, making it even harder for organizations to reach their target audience. Adweek


Digital Marketing News: More Facebook Stories Updates, CCPA Shakes Up the Ad Industry, GDPR Compliance in the U.S. & More
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