Marketing Archives - Trade Press Services

The Rise of Phygital Marketing: New Tactic or Proven Strategy?

Posted on April 21, 2025 by Gerri Knilans

A relatively new buzzword making the rounds is “phygital” marketing, but is this concept new? The answer is not exactly. Phygital marketing is a portmanteau combining the words physical and digital. The term describes traditional or physical marketing, like in-store ads, complemented by digital means, like online or app-based coupons. These techniques have been used in tandem for decades. For example, email marketing that bolsters print ads or QR codes included in direct mail campaigns.

While phygital is being used to describe long-existing marketing techniques, technological advancements have expanded the ways physical and digital marketing can work together. This synergy creates an immersive customer journey by seamlessly bridging gaps in modern shopping experiences. The result? Increased engagement, improved customer satisfaction and loyalty, and higher sales. Phygital marketing meets consumer demands for efficient, convenient, cohesive, and personalized experiences

How B Corp Certification Helps Marketers Build a Winning Brand

Posted on March 24, 2025 by Gerri Knilans

Consumers and businesses gravitate toward brands that share their values. This makes corporate ethics and sustainability non-negotiable. In an Ipsos survey, 66 percent of U.S. respondents say they buy from brands they believe reflect their values. With trust and transparency essential to long-term success, B Corp Certification has emerged as a powerful differentiator. With over 9,000 companies certified, this movement, led by B Lab Global, is reshaping how businesses earn consumer trust and drive meaningful change. For marketers, a B Corp certification provides a unique storytelling opportunity, builds brand credibility, and strengthens customer relationships.

Barriers to Marketing Success and How to Overcome Them

Posted on March 3, 2025 by Gerri Knilans

Strategic marketing paves the way to sustained business success and growth. With a solid, functional plan in place, teams can optimize resources, execute initiatives, and achieve operational goals. While the importance of planning is undisputable, many organizations encounter barriers when executing their plans. These obstacles often include inconsistent messaging, inability to capture unexpected opportunities, and failure to leverage data. Unclear strategy and mismatched marketing efforts can hinder marketing success. These challenges can affect visibility, customer loyalty, and ultimately, the bottom line.

How Interactive Marketing Drives B2B Customer Engagement

Posted on December 9, 2024 by Gerri Knilans

Engagement is the spark that turns interest into action—and action into sales. According to Sam Horton, senior director of strategic ecosystem partnerships at Firework, “Consumers are no longer satisfied with passive viewing experiences as they want to interact and engage with the content they consume.” This shift in customer behavior is backed by data: interactive videos generate 300 percent higher engagement rates than traditional video formats. Engaged prospects trust your brand more, are easier to nurture, and are significantly more likely to progress through your sales funnel. For B2B businesses navigating long and complex sales cycles, this matters more than ever.

Essential Skills and Roles for a B2B Marketing Team: When to Build, When to Outsource

Posted on August 19, 2024 by Gerri Knilans

The right marketing team can make all the difference between a company’s success and stagnation. Building an effective B2B marketing team requires more than just assembling a group of talented individuals. It involves carefully fulfilling roles and skill sets that align with your company’s goals, target audiences, and industry. Today’s marketers wear many hats, balancing creativity with strategy, analytics, and execution. The multifaceted nature of marketing underscores the importance of building a well-rounded team, where each member brings a specific skill set while also being able to step into other roles as needed. This versatility not only boosts efficiency, it supports the innovation that is necessary to meet the changing demands of an evolving marketplace.

Ethical Marketing: Essential Standards and Regulations Brands Need to Understand

Posted on May 28, 2024 by Gerri Knilans

Every customer wants to work with a trustworthy brand. In fact, 81 percent of customers state they need to trust the brands they buy from. This trust is not built overnight but through consistent adherence to ethical marketing standards and regulations. Whether brands are subject to distinct laws and regulations from regulatory bodies or best practices shaped by client expectations, it’s important to ensure integrity in all marketing efforts. This includes messaging, targeting, data collection, and advertising.

Your Marketing Campaign Isn’t Working: Signs It’s Time to Pull the Plug

Posted on August 14, 2023 by Gerri Knilans

The planning and execution of effective marketing require a significant investment of time, effort and money. That commitment can involve days, weeks and even months of research, analysis, design, implementation and testing. But sometimes the best-planned marketing campaigns can fall flat. When hard work goes into a marketing program, it can be difficult to pull

Empathy in Marketing: Why a Human Touch Is Crucial

Posted on March 6, 2023 by Gerri Knilans

With the rise of remote workplaces, artificial intelligence tools, and data utilization, it’s easy to assume that relationships are founded on a network of technologies. These digital transformations sometimes cause customers to lose sight of the people behind a brand. The personal, human touch plays a vital role in successful business relationships. Empathy makes that genuine connection possible in an increasingly digital and global marketplace. Roger Ebert stated that “empathy is the most essential quality of civilization.” Does this make empathy the most essential quality of a successful, customer-centric marketing approach?

How Marketing Plays an Essential Role in Change Management

Posted on January 23, 2023 by Gerri Knilans

As the saying goes, “The only constant in life is change.” This is especially true in business. Whether facing reorganization, leadership shifts, acquisition, technology upgrades, rebranding or culture modifications, change is a part of our everyday lives. Adjusting to it, however, can be challenging, disruptive and exciting all at the same time.

13 Marketing Metrics and KPIs to Measure in 2023

Posted on January 9, 2023 by Gerri Knilans

Marketing metrics and key performance indicators (KPIs) are vital factors to monitor, record and measure the success of marketing initiatives. They are a critical component of any marketing plan. Without them, marketing teams are unable to track performance and effectiveness. The most appropriate metrics and KPIs vary by organization, platform and campaign.

How to Use Push and Pull Marketing in Today’s Digitally Transformed Market

Posted on December 5, 2022 by Gerri Knilans

Marketing is a vast umbrella term for a complex and constantly changing business necessity. A familiar, but ever-evolving dichotomy is the concept of “push” versus “pull” marketing. Today, push versus pull strategy goes by many names: outbound versus inbound, direct versus indirect, and interruption versus permission. No matter what you call it, “push” and “pull”

Is Outsourcing Marketing the Answer to the Labor Shortage Crisis?

Posted on November 7, 2022 by Gerri Knilans

As businesses grappled with the COVID-19 pandemic, there were many changes in how, where and when work was performed. Many companies provided work from home options. While that opportunity helped deal with government-mandated shutdowns, it had other unintended consequences. One consequence resulted in an unanticipated shortage in the labor force. During 2021 alone, 47 million workers quit their jobs in an era now called “The Great Resignation.”

How to Create a Successful B2B Podcast

Posted on October 31, 2022 by Gerri Knilans

More than 104 million Americans listen to podcasts regularly—that’s one-third of the country’s population. Podcasts make consuming valuable content possible in any setting, whether at the office, at home or while on the go. They are an excellent source for professionals in any industry to engage with prospects, clients, referrals and strategic partners.

Successful Marketing: 7 Critical Email Marketing Principles

Posted on August 29, 2022 by Gerri Knilans

With the fast pace of technology, it’s easy to keep our eyes on the horizon for the next digital communication trend. That said, at more than 50 years old, email remains one of our most valuable means of communication, especially in business. Thanks to its familiarity, flexibility and cost-effectiveness, email continues to thrive as a formidable marketing channel.

9 Common Subject Line Mistakes that Kill Your Email Open Rates

Posted on July 5, 2022 by Gerri Knilans

Email marketing is a channel of choice for many marketers, especially in B2B organizations. According to the Litmus 2020 State of Email Report, which surveyed more than 2,000 marketers, four out of five respondents said they’d give up social media initiatives before giving up email marketing. Mastering the channel includes many skills, not least of which is the subject line.

Why Every B2B Brand Needs Earned Media

Posted on June 27, 2022 by Gerri Knilans

Of the various types of media available to marketers, earned media might seem the most difficult to predict and control. It’s one thing when an organization creates its own content, pays for media coverage and shares it across multiple marketing channels. It’s far more powerful when authentic, authoritative and third-party sources mention your brand and share your thought leadership.

Is Your Company Missing Out on the Benefits of Guerrilla Marketing?

Posted on May 23, 2022 by Gerri Knilans

When B2C companies want to create a buzz, attract media attention or take their messaging viral, they may turn to guerrilla marketing tactics. This generally involves using unconventional methods that evoke surprise, wonder or shock in their target audiences.

What Best-in-Class Marketers Do Differently: How to Cultivate Value Creation

Posted on April 6, 2022 by Gerri Knilans

As the pace of Marketing transformation accelerates, marketers are tackling the hardest task of all: creating value that improves organizational results. Business author Eric Jorgenson says value creation is the foundation for business. In fact, Marketing’s fundamental mission is to create customer-centric profitable growth. A high-performing Marketing function adds tremendous value toward achieving business goals and informing

7 Marketing Tasks to Outsource to Boost Productivity and Improve Results

Posted on March 28, 2022 by Gerri Knilans

Marketing encompasses countless business activities aimed at stimulating business growth. With a wide variety of tactics to implement and an increasing level of expertise required, it’s easy for marketing teams to go on overload. To accomplish goals and drive real results, it may be time to outsource. When organizations recognize the need for an outsourced partnership, they free up time for in-house teams to focus on their priorities, while bringing a fresh perspective and new skills to the table.

Self-Promotion or Thought Leadership? When and Where It’s Okay to Beat Your Own Drum

Posted on February 28, 2022 by Gerri Knilans

There’s one cardinal sin when it comes to thought leadership: self-promotional content. In fact, it’s often the first guideline marketers will hear when talking with editors, event planners and podcast hosts. Self-promotion is for marketing assets and advertising, not for thought leadership.

5 Tips for Creating Powerful Calls to Action (CTAs)

Posted on February 21, 2022 by Gerri Knilans

In marketing, a “call to action,” or “CTA,” is a small but mighty element of every marketing initiative. It answers the question “what now?” after a prospect consumes a blog, article, video, advertisement, email or other types of content. The call to action, whether digital or print, encourages prospects to take immediate action. Whether you urge a prospect to buy now, subscribe to a newsletter, schedule an appointment, download a white paper or connect with a customer service rep, effective CTAs keep potential customers engaged and guide them through the buying journey. How can marketers maximize these small but powerful tools in a strategic way?

Is Wikipedia a Viable Marketing Tool?

Posted on January 17, 2022 by Gerri Knilans

Wikipedia may not be the first thing that comes to mind when you think about content marketing. Yet, despite the lack of traditional peer review, Wikipedia pages rank at the top of Google search results. This makes it a pillar resource for initial research of all kinds. But can it play a part in your marketing strategy?

Supply Chain Challenges and the Role of Marketing

Posted on January 10, 2022 by Gerri Knilans

A supply chain is the network of those involved with the production and distribution of a company’s products or services. Supply chain operations include the internal and external steps and processes required to design, create, market and deliver products and services to customers. They cross department lines and involve multiple activities, people, entities, data, information and resources.

How to Incorporate the Holiday Spirit in B2B Marketing

Posted on December 20, 2021 by Gerri Knilans

There’s no doubt that the holidays are a big part of business-to-consumer marketing. Consumer holiday ads from companies big and small are sometimes as familiar to us as decorations and time-honored, family traditions. But is the season ripe for B2B marketers as well?