B2B Marketing, Digital Media and Marketing Strategy
I have had it with “research” about the content formats B2B buyers prefer at each stage of the buyers journey. Multiple B2B publishers are pedaling this misinformation and as B2B marketers struggle with content marketing, it is diverting their focus.
Here is one example from TechTarget:
eBooks are earlier than white papers which are earlier than virtual trade shows? Yeah, right. Instead of focusing on content formats by stage, marketers need to [Read more…]
Of course not! As B2B marketers, focusing on your audience is absolutely critical.
However, you must look forward, at where your audience will be. Research and observation tell you where your audience has been and what they have been interested in. But what will they be interested in and using in 6, 12 or 24 months?
If you are focused on what your B2B target audience has done in the past or is doing today, you will miss new opportunities like the Internet (2000), Twitter (2009) or Pinterest (2011) to connect with your audience. [Read more…]
Unsubscribing should be easy!
Let’s face it, email is convenient, but sometimes email marketing sucks. Today’s business buyers are flooded with email they do not want and it seems cannot get rid of.
The problem is, publishers and marketers rely heavily on email. In order to keep their subscriber counts high and continue getting their message out through email, they make unsubscribing an ardous process.
Here are four examples of unsubscribe process that tell your audience you don’t care what they want, as long as they stay on your email list. [Read more…]
Were you upset by Klout’s recent algorithm change? Do you pay less attention to Klout than you did before the algorithm changes? If so, you may be doing exactly what Klout wants you to do.
If you care about grades in school, you study for your exam. The algorithm is clear (test results, possibly quizzes, attendance or participation) and you work to influence the result. [Read more…]
B2B salespeople are looking to talk to people that influence or make decisions for business purchases.
Businesses do not make decisions. People make decisions on behalf of businesses. And outside of some trusts run by lawyers following the direction of legal documents, this has always been the case.
So why all the fuss about B2B being B2P (business to person)?
The problem with the current B2P mantra is you risk forgetting just who these people are. (Maybe not you, but some B2B marketer will). They are corporate decision makers, entrusted with significant budgets and their career opportunities may turn on the decisions or recommendations they make. [Read more…]
Last week, my commute home was interrupted. I was frustrated when my train was behind schedule, and then taken out of service.
My reaction was similar to the reaction of those around me. “We are all late because your trains are running behind schedule, and your response is to kick us off the train and tell us to wait for the next one? Seriously, TriMet?”
The next day, it happened again. This time we were told there were too many trains. However, our train was nearly shoulder to shoulder. Saying there were too many trains, to those of us on the train, didn’t ring true. And it underlined that TriMet didn’t care about us, a train full of riders.
Over two days, we had an awful customer experience. The first time, we felt disregarded. The second time, we felt lied to.
But today, I am drafting this post on the train, living proof not every aspect of the customer experience matters. [Read more…]
Mobile devices are expected to be the primary mode of internet access in the next three years. This is worth saying again: Your company’s digital experience will be primarily via mobile devices.
The current response from marketing falls woefully short of where they need to be in a few short months.
Discussions of mobile marketing quickly turn to apps, mobile sites and how to make content mobile-friendly. Even when embraced, this response is eerily similar to early websites, which extended brochures to the web by merely converting to HTML and adding hyperlinks. [Read more…]
Thought leadership is a common marketing topic, but unfortunately thought leadership is not a common outcome of marketing. Part of the problem is that thought leadership marketing has lost all notions of actual thought leadership.
Gartner defines thought leadership marketing as “the giving — for free or at a nominal charge — of information or advice that a client will value so as to create awareness of the outcome that a company’s product or service can deliver, in order to position and differentiate that offering and stimulate demand for it.”
The problem is, knowledge of what a product or service can deliver or its differentiation does not establish real thought leadership. [Read more…]
This is my opinion about the recent IAB, ANA and 4A’s principles for online measurement. If you don’t like rants, or think the advertising associations can do no wrong, stop reading and go back to Lycos. Otherwise, read on and share your reactions in the comments below.
The IAB, ANA and 4A’s recently outlined five measurement principles as part of Making Measurement Make Sense. The objectives, outlined below, are admirable:
The problem is, as someone that has spent the last ten years (gulp) in this industry, the principles and their intended impact are mostly nonsense. [Read more…]
As LinkedIn share buttons pop up across the web and share counts climb, it appears LinkedIn is quickly becoming a major platform for sharing articles and links. I fell for it, the numbers on the share buttons fooled me two months ago when I wrote Which Social Network is Right for B2B Marketing.
The truth is, LinkedIn isn’t where we share. With LinkedIn’s valuation soaring like its the next Fortune 500, you have to ask, if we are not sharing on LinkedIn, is LinkedIn really a major social platform? Or is it a great platform for business connections and profiles. [Read more…]