Most business development professionals are growing weary of hearing “things are on hold” or “our budgets have been frozen.” Those positions don’t bode well for meeting sales and revenue goals. COVID-19 took all of us by surprise and companies are still struggling to understand how to recover. One thing is clear: we cannot simply wait it out.
Burnout is a psychologically recognized type of work-related stress that results in emotional, mental and physical exhaustion. A recent Gallup study of nearly 7,500 full-time employees found that 23 percent reported feeling burned out at work very often or always, while an additional 44 percent reported feeling burned out sometimes.
Generating quality and consistent leads is a priority for most businesses. As communication platforms grow and change and as customer preferences and new marketplaces emerge, business trends shift. For marketers to effectively create, implement and evaluate lead generation programs, they need to understand and leverage the latest statistics, research and trends.
If someone asked you to define your company’s culture in a few words, how would you answer? Employees’ answers to this question reveal a lot about how a company operates and how they feel about working there. Despite sounding like a corporate buzzword, a company’s culture can make or break the productivity, collaboration, loyalty and overall contentment of your team members.
Studies show that 92 percent of marketers say that video is an important part of their 2020 marketing strategy. This has grown from 78 percent in 2015. As our time spent on virtual platforms climbs, video marketing will continue to be an essential digital strategy. Despite the numbers, you may still be questioning if video marketing is worth the investment of time, budget and resources.
Four Types of Target Marketing Before you can dive into the details of target marketing, consider these common marketing approaches to identify the best communications strategy for your audiences. Mass marketing (or undifferentiated marketing) is the most encompassing marketing technique and essentially ignores segmentation. In mass marketing, the organization sells to the largest audience possible
While event marketing looks different in 2020 (and perhaps into the future), it doesn’t mean it is any less powerful. If anything, buyers and sellers are looking for more effective and efficient ways to connect. For organizations whose lifeblood is event marketing, consider some of these alternative methods in our new normal environment.
Social media platforms have become a primary source of information, connection and promotion. Because of that, social media platforms are one of the most common and accessible spaces for companies to advertise. But because of the specialized target markets and long lead times for B2B companies, social media advertising can be more difficult to navigate.
Headlines are important. The right title means the difference between your message getting read or unread. A powerful title informs, hooks readers, provokes curiosity, plays on emotion and provides value. Sounds easy, but there’s no one-size-fits-all headline that works best for all audiences.
Since the onset of the pandemic, social media use has surged significantly. In particular, LinkedIn has seen record growth in the past several months. Originally launched as an online job and career board in 2003, the platform has transformed into a rich social network. Today, professionals around the world connect about careers, company and industry-related
Email is still king when it comes to B2B marketing communications. In fact, 93 percent of B2B marketers use email to distribute content. So ask yourself, do your marketing and sales emails stand out in their recipients’ inboxes? While we’ve discussed best practices in email marketing, methods to boost engagement and even detailed the best ways to stay out of the dreaded spam folder, we haven’t covered an often overlooked, yet important, aspect of a marketing or sales email: the closing.
Trade Press Services had the pleasure of speaking with John Golden, chief strategy and marketing officer of Pipeliner CRM and publisher of Sales POP! Magazine blog. Golden is the Amazon bestselling author of Winning the Battle for Sales: Lessons on Closing Every Deal from the World’s Greatest Military Victories and Social Upheaval: How to Win at Social Selling. In a time when connecting digitally is increasingly important, we appreciate his insights and expertise on social selling.
Companies invest a lot on marketing communications. In the United States alone, in 2019 businesses spent more than $197 billion on marketing. In B2B companies, marketing grabs an average of 11.5 percent of the total budget. But is all that money well spent? And more fundamentally, does marketing actually work? A marketing ROI analysis can help answer those questions.
It’s an understatement to say that 2020 has been a challenging year. And to make matters worse, the dust hasn’t settled yet. When it comes to global health crises, social upheaval, major job losses and business closures, the resulting social challenge and economic hardships are overwhelming. “We’re all in this together” is the common refrain. Yet, knowing that we aren’t alone in these struggles is not particularly comforting.
When you think of SMS (short-message service) marketing, many think of attention-grabbing text blasts from B2C companies promoting special offers or new products. B2B messaging feels very different as it is typically professional, solutions-oriented and showcases expertise and credibility. The audience for B2B messaging includes multiple stakeholders in a more complicated buying process. Does that mean SMS marketing doesn’t have a place in the B2B space? Let’s take a look.
If you’re the only game in town, customers don’t have to like or trust you. But in this competitive marketplace, that’s rarely the case. To develop and retain a strong customer base, companies need to build rapport and earn trust. They go hand-in-hand. Building trust in one’s personal and business life starts with integrity. Are
A reputable and robust brand is essential to any company’s marketing arsenal. However, a brand is much more than an eye-catching logo and color scheme (although those are important too.) A brand represents the totality of who the company is as an organization. It captures and communicates the values it holds and shares with its stakeholders.
The United States has been coined “the no vacation nation” due to its major focus on work productivity and financial success. Even when much of the workforce takes official vacation time, it doesn’t mean unplugging. We bring our to-do list with us, check email regularly, work on projects and juggle all the balls we do while we are in the office, at school or in the field.
It’s no question that we see the value in content to establish thought leadership. In fact, 72 percent of marketers agree content marketing increases engagement. In previous blogs, we’ve shared insights into how to develop high-quality content, which mediums to prioritize for your organizational goals and how to build a strong content strategy. But do you know how well your content is helping customers make buying decisions?
COVID-19 brought on a wave of predictions: infection rates, stock market losses, supply chain and production challenges. The list goes on and on. It’s next to impossible to consume the news without seeing another prediction about how we will experience the “new normal.” The good news is that in uncertain times, predictions can help us make better decisions and plan for the future. In business analytics and marketing, this process is “predictive analytics.”
Regardless of the industry you’re in, it’s essential to have your finger on the pulse of the market. At a minimum, an annual review of the competition (competitive analysis) is one of the most important methods you can use to gain direct insights into your customers’ and prospects’ world.
Multicultural consumers represent approximately 40 percent of the population, yet only five percent of marketing spending is multiculturally oriented. When executed well, multicultural marketing—the targeting and reflection of different ethnicities and cultures within a brand’s overall audience—can unite people, empower groups and capitalize on culturally connected populations. When executed poorly, it can lead to backlash and a potentially devastating brand image.
The business-to-business marketplace is built differently than its business-to-consumer counterpart. B2C sells products or services directly to individuals. B2B targets organizations where the sales process can be longer and more complex. This reality makes the B2B marketplace more resistant to the sometimes whimsical, flashy or ostentatious marketing tactics used in the B2C space.
Most states are beginning to emerge from the COVID-19 shutdown. For many, it’s a relief to reopen, yet there are challenges that still lie ahead as companies and individuals learn to navigate this new normal. Whenever a major change occurs, whether it’s on a small scale or a global one like COVID-19, it’s the perfect opportunity to assess the relevancy and sustainability of a company’s vision and mission.
