B2B Marketing, Digital Media and Marketing Strategy
According to many in the digital advertising industry, at some point in the future digital marketing will be so targeted that consumers will want to see the ads. Advertising will tell us about the products we want to know about, give us a direct path to the content we need and provide access to discounts on products we want.
How will marketers do this? Data, of course. Information marketers can use to determine what you are interested in. [Read more…]
If you published 250 blog posts over the last year and saw no benefit to any area of your business from that effort, what would you do?
What if you were just getting started, you published 20 posts over the last quarter, and you already saw an immediate positive impact on your business?
That’s what I thought. [Read more…]
If you torture the data long enough, it will confess to anything.
One of the challenges with relying on research, particularly research companies use in their own marketing, is that the statistics used have been tortured.
When you see a sales pitch full of statistics, how do you differentiate the real story from the spin? Short of dismissing all of the data presented (a good idea, but not realistic for most of us), these five methods will be a good starting point. [Read more…]
Native 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…]
You don’t need more content. You need old content. I know, that’s not what you usually hear, so stick with me.
Old content is the real king of content marketing. It’s why established publishers still have a huge advantage. It is why new successful publications like Huffington Post or Copyblogger really aren’t all that new.
Better content isn’t enough when your competitors have good old content. [Read more…]
“Overall, a 30% increase in positive Tweets is four times more effective in driving sales than a 30% increase in existing above-the-line advertising.”
That is an impressive statistic, quoted directly from a Twitter infographic and attributed to a study by Deloitte. With the inclusion of a big name audit and consulting firm doing a study of 100 different game releases, it has all of the marks of credibility.
Unfortunately, it isn’t true. [Read more…]
Marketers, encouraged by self-proclaimed gurus, experts and thought leaders, are increasingly misusing and abusing research and statistics when developing their marketing approach.
Yes, market and audience research can be incredibly valuable. But when it is misused, even the best information can lead you in the wrong direction.
Here are four mistakes marketers make when using market research data. [Read more…]
In B2B marketing, and particularly in enterprise technology marketing, publishers lean heavily on email lists for lead generation programs, including whitepaper and webcast promotions.
B2B email lists also still command high rental rates ($300+ CPMs are very common). Both directly or indirectly, email continues to be an important vehicle for B2B publishers.
But when you rent an email list, purchase an ad in an email newsletter or run a lead generation program with a publisher, do you know how much the publisher has used (or abused) their email list? [Read more…]
Buyer personas are a hot topic of discussion in the B2B marketing world, but how do you create the personas that you need and ensure you are getting the value you need out of them? Do you even need to create B2B buyer personas at all?
B2B buyer personas were the topic of discussion recently on #B2Bchat and the group shared their perspective on these and a number of other questions.
Here are three of the takeaways I came away from the conversation with: [Read more…]
That was the headline on the first page article when BtoB Magazine landed in my inbox last week. According to new research from IDC, only 18.6% of B2B technology buyers say social media has influenced their purchase decisions or interactions with vendors.
So should B2B organizations shutter their social media efforts or reduce their investments? No.
Stepping back from the details, the research from IDC reaffirms two key guidelines for B2B social media. [Read more…]