Lane Ellis

5 B2B Brands Delivering Great Customer Experiences

Lane Ellis on Aug 29th, 2019     B2B Marketing

Colorfully painted wooden planks image.

Today’s B2B customers expect more B2C-like experiences, and here are five brands delivering great customer experiences that go far beyond the tired tradition of boring-to-boring.

Research from Gartner has shown that 89 percent of firms compete primarily on customer experience. Not all companies may be taking this to heart, however, as according to additional research some 60 percent of marketers fail to take into account consumer expectations, despite 95 percent seeing increasing expectations from customers.

Making memorable customer experiences a priority can help build successful campaigns and make for delighted customers, and with further recent research showing that just 14 percent of B2B survey respondents view customer experience and support as a top priority, there may be no better time to work on delivering great customer experiences.


5 B2B Brands Delivering Great Customer Experiences
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Nick Nelson

Wow Your Crowd: The Recipe for Creating Exceptional Content Experiences

Nick Nelson on Aug 28th, 2019     Content Marketing, Content Marketing World, Marketing PR Conferences

Expert Tips for Creating Memorable Experiences Through Content Marketing

Have you been to a stadium concert lately? The big ones touring the country tend to pull out all the stops. It’s not just a singer on stage — they are usually supported by a giant jumbotron as backdrop providing flashy visuals, along with fog machines, laser lights, platforms rising out of the ground, special guest cameos… the works. 

Why is this? Because the bar has been raised. When fans plunk down the big bucks for tickets to see Drake or Carrie Underwood or The Rolling Stones, they expect more than seeing their favorite artists performing on stage. They expect an unforgettable experience that stirs all the senses.

via GIPHY


Wow Your Crowd: The Recipe for Creating Exceptional Content Experiences
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Lane Ellis

The Currency of Influence in Marketing — Buy, Sell, or Trade

Lane Ellis on Aug 27th, 2019     Influencer Marketing

Paper currencies from many nations image.

Influence is its own form of a modern digital currency. Influence is able to overcome almost any obstacle, and more than ever, it’s the powerful (sometimes-hidden) global fuel that helps drive our multi-trillion dollar online business world.

In fact, according to the 2019 Edelman Trust Barometer “In Brands We Trust?” report, 63% of consumers trust what influencers say about brands much more than what brands say about themselves within their advertising messages.

An even more telling statistic from the same study is that 58% said they had purchased a product in the past six months because of an influencer, as shown below.

2019 Edelman Trust Influencer Image

As the internet has matured since its 1991 creation, networking between people around the world has expanded to truly astounding heights, helping make wonderful projects and partnerships happen.


The Currency of Influence in Marketing — Buy, Sell, or Trade
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Nick Nelson

Content Marketing Interview: Annie Granatstein on Creating Emotionally Engaging Content Experiences #CMWorld

Nick Nelson on Aug 26th, 2019     Content Marketing, Content Marketing World, Interviews

Interview with Annie Granasteing of The Washington Post

We are all products of our environments, and the experiences we carry are invariably influential to the way we approach and think about our jobs. 

Recently we shared an interview with Margaret Magnarelli, who spent nearly a decade as a magazine editor before moving into a content marketing leadership role. With her background in journalism, she offers important perspective for marketers everywhere.

The same is true for Annie Granatstein, who lives at the center of the convergence between investigative journalism and brand marketing. Annie runs The Washington Post’s BrandStudio unit, which takes The Post’s award-winning proclivity for immersive digital storytelling and leverages it on behalf of brands and advertisers.


Content Marketing Interview: Annie Granatstein on Creating Emotionally Engaging Content Experiences #CMWorld
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Lane Ellis

Digital Marketing News: Most Google Searches Don’t Yield Clicks, Facebook Drops Group Chat, Diminishing Ad Trust & More

Lane Ellis on Aug 23rd, 2019     Online Marketing News

2019 August 23 Marketing Charts Chart

Less than Half of Google Searches Now Result in a Click
Most Google searches don’t yield subsequent clicks, with 50.33 percent ending on the search giant’s result page, according to newly-released data from Jumpshot, also showing 45.25 percent of searches resulting in organic clicks and 4.42 percent in paid advertisement clicks. SparkToro

Spotify for Podcasters provides data on demographics, listening habits
Now out of beta, a new Spotify podcast analytics dashboard has brought marketers new engagement data and other information on the listening habits of the firms’ users, in an expansion of its targeted podcast advertising system. Marketing Land

Google: Says Dates On Articles Makes It Easier To Recognize High-Quality Evergreen Content
Google has reiterated its admonition that Web articles ought to include date information, which the firm considers a factor when it comes to recognizing high-quality online content, the search giant’s John Mueller recently noted. SEO Roundtable


Digital Marketing News: Most Google Searches Don’t Yield Clicks, Facebook Drops Group Chat, Diminishing Ad Trust & More
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Nick Nelson

Wow Your Crowd: How Influencers and Media Integrations Can Add Pizzazz to Your Content Act

Nick Nelson on Aug 22nd, 2019     Content Marketing

3 Pointers for Adding Pizzazz to Your Content Marketing Act

Some performers take the stage all by themselves, with no props or partners to lend support, and capture their audience with a riveting solo act. Hilarious standup comedy routines and enlightening TED Talks exemplify this ability in action. 

As a content marketer, there are occasions where a well written piece will take off on its own, with no help required beyond a powerful message presented clearly. But more often, spicing things up with added elements of interactivity or visual pizzazz provides a necessary added boost in today’s busy digital environment. And incorporating the right strategic partners is a reliable way to increase your program’s reach and impact.


Wow Your Crowd: How Influencers and Media Integrations Can Add Pizzazz to Your Content Act
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Lane Ellis

The Great Marketing Get-Together

Lane Ellis on Aug 21st, 2019     B2B Marketing

State fair season brings tasty new foods-on-a-stick and a grandstand full of marketing lessons for those willing to walk the midway.

State fair season brings tasty new foods-on-a-stick and a grandstand full of marketing lessons for those willing to walk the midway.

The Minnesota State Fair, known affectionately as the Great Minnesota Get-Together, begins tomorrow, and we’ll explore some of the wild new food concoctions on offer this year, and dig in to a bucket-of-cookies-size list of surprising things it can teach us about marketing.

The fair, which began all the way back in 1859, is one of the largest in the U.S., now often topping the 2 million attendee mark each 12-day season and offering fair-goers 322 acres of summer fun in the form of amusement rides, live music from at least four stages, art, animals, parades and more.


The Great Marketing Get-Together
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Nick Nelson

Content Marketing Interview: Margaret Magnarelli on Applying Journalistic Integrity to Content Strategy #CMWorld

Nick Nelson on Aug 20th, 2019     Content Marketing, Content Marketing World

Margaret Magnarelli Interview

Content marketers come from all sorts of different backgrounds, with each bringing its own distinct and valuable perspective. Recently we shared our chat with Andrew Davis, whose history in television inspires him to think like a TV executive when strategizing his content. Today we’re highlighting the insights of Margaret Magnarelli, whose ingrained journalistic mindset fuels a commitment to putting her audience — and their trust — above all else. 

Prior to joining Morgan Stanley as Executive Director for Audience Acquisition and Growth Marketing, Margaret served as Vice President of Marketing for Monster, and before that she spent nearly a decade on the editorial staff at Money Magazine, rising from Senior Editor to Assistant Managing Editor to Executive Editor.


Content Marketing Interview: Margaret Magnarelli on Applying Journalistic Integrity to Content Strategy #CMWorld
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Debbie Friez

Margaret Shepard Shares How Mayo Clinic Built its Facebook Live Broadcast Strategy #DSMPLS

Debbie Friez on Aug 19th, 2019     Digital Summit, Facebook, Influencer Marketing, Video

The Mayo Clinic, one of our nation’s most renowned hospitals, believes in being social. More than 100 years ago, the Mayo brothers got the social ball rolling by inviting other surgeons to come to its facility in Rochester, MN to talk and learn from one another.

Today, that sharing and learning principle continues through social media, particularly Facebook Live.

With the hopes of helping patients learn more about their health care options, Mayo Clinic knew that research showed that word-of-mouth and expert insight could make an impact. With that in mind, it began its foray into live video on social media with Periscope and eventually moved to Facebook Live.

The hook of the broadcast? Leveraging the expert insights of experienced physicians.


Margaret Shepard Shares How Mayo Clinic Built its Facebook Live Broadcast Strategy #DSMPLS
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Debbie Friez

TopRank Marketing’s Ashley Zeckman Shares How to Build Consumer Trust with Influencers #DSMPLS

Debbie Friez on Aug 19th, 2019     Digital Summit, Influencer Marketing

Ashley Zeckman Speaking at Digital Summit

In a world of consumer distrust, especially when it comes to marketing messages, it can sometimes feel like you’re living in the “Upside Down.” Everything that you thought was true about marketing and how you engage with customers and buyers is now different. In fact, sometimes nothing seems to make sense anymore.

In fact, Edelman found that less than 50% of U.S. consumers trust brands. In her Stranger Things-themed presentation at Digital Summit Minneapolis, TopRank Marketing’s Ashley Zeckman addressed the current state of marketing affairs and offered insight into ways that brands can improve trust and connect with their buying audience.

What’s her advice on changing the narrative and winning back the hearts and minds of customers? Partner with influencers to create credible content that can change the day and save the world. Stranger Things have happened, right?


TopRank Marketing’s Ashley Zeckman Shares How to Build Consumer Trust with Influencers #DSMPLS
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Elizabeth Williams

Pantheon’s Roland Smart Details the Secret to Agile Marketing Transformation #DSMPLS

Elizabeth Williams on Aug 16th, 2019     Digital Marketing, Marketing PR Conferences, MIMA Summit

Roland Smart at Digital Summit Minneapolis

Run a Google search for “agile marketing” today and you’ll see 144 million results. It’s an insanely hot topic, which has steadily grown more applicable and desired from it’s “Scrum” beginnings.

Why are marketers today so obsessed with agility? Roland Smart, podcaster, author of “The Agile Marketer: Turning Customer Experience Into Your Competitive Advantage” and Vice President of Marketing for Pantheon*, shared his insight on the subject at Digital Summit Minneapolis this week.

For starters, the average marketer’s tenure is just 18 months. After all, we need to get results—and we need them fast. Second, while our strategies and tactics have been artfully crafted with insight and data, once we put everything into the wild, we need to be able to act fast to monitor, measure, and optimize performance—while also navigating budget and “waterfall” resourcing limitations and challenges. And finally, today’s marketers are often managing a growing tech stack, making an agile approach a match made in heaven.


Pantheon’s Roland Smart Details the Secret to Agile Marketing Transformation #DSMPLS
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Lane Ellis

Digital Marketing News: Google Indexing Podcasts, Unity’s Rising Marketing Value, Facebook’s Flashy Slideshows & More

Lane Ellis on Aug 16th, 2019     Online Marketing News

2019 August 16 Marketing Charts Chart

US digital ad spend up 18% YoY, new IAB report says
Digital advertising expenditures in the U.S. increased by 18 percent year-over-over from the first quarter of 2018, hitting $28.4 billion, with paid search comprising some 40%, according to new report data from the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB). ClickZ

B2B Buyers Prefer Email, But That’s Only One Of Their Demands, Study Finds
41 percent of B2B buyers consider email as their preferred channel, with some 57 percent preferring quotes to come via the channel, while 33 percent choose vendors based on reference reviews, according to newly-released survey data. MediaPost

Report: Instagram Story ad share doubles while overall ad growth levels out
Instagram Story ad spending doubled from 9 percent to 18 percent year-over-year from the second quarter of 2018, reaching levels that are now similar to those of Facebook, according to newly-released report data from Kenshoo. Marketing Land


Digital Marketing News: Google Indexing Podcasts, Unity’s Rising Marketing Value, Facebook’s Flashy Slideshows & More
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