B2B Native Advertising: Does Forbes BrandVoice Really Work? [Research]

forbes-brandvoice-logoNative advertising, and more specifically native content publishing, is hot.

Nearly every major publisher already has a program or is working on one. It shouldn’t be a surprise, as marketers increasingly turn to content, publishers need to offer solutions to promote and distribute that content.

For B2B marketers, the Forbes BrandVoice program is one of the original and most established programs. BrandVoice marketers are able to publish directly on Forbes, presumably gaining access to an audience far larger and more valuable than what they could reach on their own.

But do native advertising programs that let marketers publish directly on a media property distribute content effectively? Do they really get the benefit of the media company’s audience? To find out, I gathered data on more than 340 articles, 15 marketers in the Forbes BrandVoice program and 3 Forbes staff writers. [Read more…]

The Intersection of Content Marketing and Advertising

In order to deliver something more memorable than most advertising, marketers are turning to content that tells a story, engages the audience and delivers value.

But how do marketers reach a large audience with their content? Major publishers continue to have audiences that dwarf those of nearly every marketer, relying on just their own audience isn’t enough.

In the past, marketers relied on advertising and PR to get to these audiences, but those approaches mean the marketer’s own content is still a step removed. Today, there is an emerging third option that allows marketers to distribute quality content at scale: native advertising. [Read more…]

New Research: B2B Content is a Dead End

Dead End, DeKalb, ILAccording to research from the Content Marketing Institute, B2B marketers are now spending 26% of their budget on content marketing.

What happens when someone downloads or accesses some of the highest value and most in-depth content marketers are offering? Today, many large B2B marketers are putting a stop to the conversation and cutting off prospects ability to continue finding additional information when potential customers get to their best content. [Read more…]

Not Just Automation, Marketing Needs REAL Conversation

Create a personalized dialogue with each prospect at every point in the sales process!

This sounds like a pitch for marketing automation. While the result is valuable, it is not a dialogue. Here are some of the characteristics of this “dialogue” marketing has created with automation:

  • Most of the audience response is a click and inferred consumption. In mass it is a valuable indicator but it isn’t a valuable individual response (Scott Brinker discussed this at Insights from the explosion of marketing touchpoints)
  • It is based on well educated guesses about what information someone needs next, not answering a specific question or need.
  • It is designed to replace the conversation that once happened directly between sales and a potential new prospect.

Real conversations need to come back into marketing communications. [Read more…]