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Marketing Gimmicks versus Value: A Disappointing Example

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B2B marketing often includes thought leadership in areas that are outside a company’s core product or service focus.

  • Omniture (now Adobe) wants to be a leader on driving business results with digital marketing, not just measurement.
  • Eloqua has an active voice on the entire spectrum of content marketing.

What happens when a company tries to align with something new to them? It could be a financial software package talking about supply chain management. Or a big cracker brand aligning with back to basics and real food.

In either case, the alignment must be believable. Here is an example that doesn’t make the grade and what B2B marketers can learn from it. [Read more…]

7 Point Checklist for Retargeting Campaigns That AREN’T Creepy

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Online Marketers are Creepy, but they don’t have to be! Last week, I shared the results of an informal survey about banner ads promoting a site or product you recently viewed. More than 90% of the people I spoke with had a distinctly negative view of these ads and the few that liked them were marketers.

However, retargeting does not need to make online marketers creepy. Here are 7 points to keep retargeting from turning you into a creepy marketer. [Read more…]

Inbound Marketing: A Square Peg in a Round Hole?

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square-peg-round-hole-21Two weeks ago, I wrote Just Say NO to Marketing Advice. Inbound marketing is a great example of popular marketing advice and it may makes sense for most marketers. But it doesn’t make sense for all.

Most B2B marketers are not providing pure commodity products, even in commodity markets. Every company is looking to differentiate by meeting specific business needs. But as this story illustrates, that doesn’t mean inbound marketing or other modern marketing tactics are always good advice. [Read more…]

Three B2B Marketing Mistakes from Kim Kardashian’s Wedding

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The Kim Kardashian and Kris Humphries wedding made a big splash, but the lasting impact hasn’t been what the couple was likely looking for.

Sadly, B2B marketing sometimes includes some of the same mistakes. Here are three traps from Kim and Kris’s wedding that catch B2B marketers as well. Each of these problems is familiar, and examples are included with each mistake. [Read more…]

Three Social Media Lessons Learned

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There is no learning like hands on learning. Books, seminars, or cocktail discussions are valuable, but it cannot compare to what you learn by rolling up your sleeves and doing something yourself.

In that light, here are three things I have learned through my increased involvement in social media and starting this blog seven months ago.

Find the UnexpectedNo one is so brave that he is not disturbed by something unexpected. Julius Caesar

Until I actively engaged in social media, you could not anticipate the type of return I would see. The real results from my social media involvement have nothing to do with numbers. Not only has it exceeded my expectations, the return has come in areas I never considered.

Over the last few months, I have had exposure to pre-launch initiatives from a number of companies, including Bizo’s Switchboard, which I was able to share here the day it was released.

I have developed new industry relationships, some with people I have had tremendous respect for over the years, but who hardly knew I existed before. I’m awed by this democratizing power of social media. [Read more…]

Optimizing Digital B2B Marketing Campaigns

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Plans are carefully laid. The creative is impactful. The content is compelling. The media surrounds your audience. Search, social and email are integrated in support of the overarching program. But the results are not there.

Your plan is the result of your passion. When someone says it isn’t performing, it is nearly a personal affront, but it shouldn’t be. Doing something that doesn’t work is learning. Continuing to do something that doesn’t work is lunacy.

Let’s skip past setting goals and establishing your metrics. If you are still struggling with this, there are numerous good articles available. When should you optimize your campaign? When are you certain that making a change is better than waiting it out? [Read more…]

Beyond Lists: Use Filters to Manage Twitter

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We each build our own communication channel on Twitter, choosing who to follow and list. However, based on a number of recent conversations I have had on Twitter and Google+, many Twitter users are overlooking a significant tool to customize their channel and reduce noise: filters.

If your Twitter stream clogs up every evening with color commentary on a TV show, filters can remove it, without unfollowing people you otherwise appreciate. If auto-post applications are filling your stream with drivel, filters can cut through it.

Filters change the list/follow/unfollow decision, giving you more control over the tweets you see from each person. The difference in the stream of a single person may be minor, but across even 50 people, filters can be the difference between a stream of noise and a source of content and conversation. [Read more…]

A New Way to Understand Your Social Media Audience

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Audience research is invaluable and well developed personas provide a broad array of insights into the lives and minds of your target audience, insights that form the basis for your social media plans.

Then, you put your social media plan in place, including sharing great content from others and creating your own. And you hit a fundamental disconnect. Your planning is based on your target audience, but you are measuring activity from everyone. Here are two questions that are difficult to answer.

  • Is the content you share via social media resonating with your target audience or a random audience?
  • What content is most popular with your target audience?

[Read more…]

Is Marketing Strategy Out of Favor?

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wooden wagon wheelDoes this sound familiar? “We know our budget doesn’t let us do this right, but we need to do what we can.” No wonder marketing doesn’t have respect in so many organizations! You can’t meet your goal, so you “do what you can”? For any other group in your company, this would be completely unacceptable. For marketing in many organizations, it is almost expected.

The result too often is a series of random acts of marketing. One marketing activity that makes sense on the surface, but without complementary components, simply doesn’t deliver what it could. A single solitary activity (or even two or three) that do not surround the audience, that do not deliver and reinforce your message, that are not part of a larger cohesive story, are just random acts of marketing. [Read more…]