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Your Marketing Results Are Not In Your Control

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Two weeks ago GoDaddy’s outage knocked numerous sites offline for an extended period of time.

On the same day, this site (B2B Digital Marketing, in case you are reading this elsewhere) received more search traffic than ever before.

Google search traffic was up 20% over the previous one-day high and was nearly 40% higher than the average from the prior three weeks.

The increase wasn’t because of great search engine optimization. It wasn’t because of great content. It was because other good (or better, according to Google) sites were simply not available, offline because of the GoDaddy outage. Traffic that would normally have gone elsewhere ended up here. [Read more…]

7 Characteristics of Tomorrow’s Best B2B Marketers

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If you are looking for another article that lists search, social media, persona development or lead management, this is not it. Those are skills that can easily be learned by the right person.

The more important thing to know is what type of person can learn both the skills they need today and the new ones they will need tomorrow?

Here are 7 key characteristics of B2B marketers that will be able to learn the skills needed today and tomorrow and will be able to identify and pursue new B2B marketing opportunities as they emerge. Isn’t that the kind of person you need on your team? [Read more…]

4 B2B Marketing Myths

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The B2B marketing community has become so focused on the journey they have lost sight of the destination.

The purpose of B2B marketing is not leads, relationships, content or branding. Social media, mobile, search and local are all irrelevant at the end of the day.

This focus on the day-to-day marketing and business activities has given rise to a number of B2B marketing myths. [Read more…]

Marketing Is NOT About Relationships

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A Couple Walking Across the LawnDevelop a relationship. Don’t propose on the first date. Relationships take time.

You talk about relationships as a marketer. You use the same words and clichés. However, you don’t really mean a relationship.

You won’t take a walk in the park with me because we enjoy spending time together and share what we did today just because we want each other to know.

What do businesses really mean when they talk about relationships and what is marketing’s place in those relationships with clients, prospects and the marketplace at large? [Read more…]

7 Steps to Find Your Content Marketing Sweet Spot

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The Content Marketing Sweet SpotYou are ready to take your content marketing to the next level. Until now, you have been producing mostly mid and late stage content.

Your content supports the sales process and effectively communicates the value of your solutions to prospects.

Now, you are ready to use content marketing to raise the profile of your company overall.

Content that drives overall visibility for your company is different. To broadly improve your visibility within your market, you need to focus [Read more…]

Three Reasons Content Curation is Overrated

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B2B marketers are looking for a shortcut to thought leadership, but the shortcut many are taking lead somewhere else completely.

According to a recent report on eMarketer, 85% of marketers curate content in order to establish thought leadership!

Does sharing someone else’s content make you a thought leader? No.

Marketers, in their race to the shortcut, are confusing respect and attention with thought leadership. [Read more…]

10 Lessons From Mom To Make You A Better B2B Marketer

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B2B marketing can quickly become complicated. Scoring leads, establishing marketing automation, building thought leadership, creating demand… it isn’t easy.

Far too often, the complexity masks the important foundational elements. Remembering the things dear Mom taught you before you were old enough for school will make you an infinitely better marketer.

Here are ten lessons from Mom that B2B marketers (and really all marketers) would be wise to remember. [Read more…]

Three Requirements as Marketers, Agencies and Publishers Converge

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In April Crain Communications, the publisher of BtoB Magazine, announced the creation of CrainsSocial, a new marketing services group offering social media solutions to marketers. This is one more introduction in a long line of changes that are blurring traditional roles in the marketing landscape.

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Looking Beyond Sales and Marketing Alignment

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In many B2B marketing organizations, marketing is expected to deliver leads and sales is expected to close. In a world of perfect sales and marketing alignment, marketing and sales have a common definition of qualified leads, the number of leads needed, when leads should be delivered and how the handoff from marketing to sales will function.

But is this really perfect sales and marketing alignment? A clear definition of roles and responsibilites with no overlap?

Adam Needles (@abneedles) makes some great points that call this into question [Read more…]

4 Ways to Plan for Unexpected Changes

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As a marketer, you have carefully established plans. But are you ready for when things don’t go as planned?

Our son, Caleb, was born last weekend, but we expected him more than a week earlier. Although births are rarely predictable, we had attempted to plan, and our plans were completely thrown off.

As marketers, things often don’t go as we expect. You can develop Plans A through Z, but you will never have a plan for every possible development.

If the only constant is change, why does change so often take us by surprise?
[Read more…]