January typically is filled with “best of” lists, resolutions and predictions. Industry news sites feature countdowns and rewinds that take us back or forecasts that keep us looking ahead. It’s a natural time to reflect so we can learn where we’ve been and plan for the future. B2B content marketing is no different. Now that 2018 is fully underway, what predictions can we make about this year’s trends? What similarities will we see from 2017, and what changes will be made?
The Top 9 Marketing Communications Projects
Content is still king when it comes to attracting and engaging customers and prospects. But the real key to success is to identify and produce the right mix of projects with compelling messaging that demonstrates your thought leadership and core competencies. To help you accomplish those goals, here is a brief list of content-driven marketing communications projects and their purposes.
Industries to Watch in the New Year
As investors, business owners or entrepreneurs, it’s important to understand the shifting sands of the top growth industries in today’s marketplace. Identifying and exploring these industries are critical to uncovering new opportunities, recognizing emerging marketplaces and identifying potential customers.
10 Questions to Help Guide Your Marketing Strategy
As companies finalize their marketing plans for 2018, it’s important to ask (and answer) some key questions. A marketing strategy combines all of an organization’s marketing goals into one comprehensive plan. While each company has a unique set of goals, the overreaching objectives are to increase business and expand corporate awareness. Here are 10 questions marketers and other executives can ask themselves as part of the marketing strategy development process.
Gratitude: The Best Way to Start the New Year
While some might argue the best way to start the New Year is with a well-written, strategic plan that gets everyone on the same page as well as eager and poised to pursue the company’s goals, there might be a better way. Start with gratitude.
How Contributed Content Fuels the Marketing Effort
It’s no secret that content marketing is a strategy worth investing in, but the success of your content is dependent not only on the message but on its distribution through appropriate marketing channels. A powerful blog, white paper or case study can go unnoticed if it isn’t properly circulated to target audiences. The complicated part is knowing where you will get the biggest bang for your buck. While sharing on social media is a great start, it doesn’t always expose your company and its thought leadership to new and relevant demographics. One effective and often underutilized method of outreach is contributed content or guest posting. As editorial staffs shrink and the demand for content increases, the practice is on the rise, with 61 percent of editors increasing published contributions this year.
When Quitting Is the Best Option
We are conditioned to think of quitting as failure. We praise people for sticking with challenging tasks and assignments even when they are difficult. As the saying goes, “When the going gets tough, the tough get going.” But sometimes quitting is the right thing to do.
How to Avoid These 4 Social Media Marketing Myths
Most marketers understand that social media marketing is a crucial component of their digital marketing strategy. This cross-platform plan involves building company awareness, sharing content and increasing engagement. There are multiple social media sites, and some have been in existence longer than most people realize. While many believe Facebook, introduced in 2004, was the first social media platform, LinkedIn is the true frontrunner as it started a year earlier. Twitter soon followed in 2006, with hashtags introduced in 2007. Pinterest started in 2008, but did not allow business accounts until 2012. Some of the newcomers include Instagram (2010) and Snapchat (2011). These platforms, and others not mentioned here, serve distinctive functions in the marketing realm.
In the Spirit of Giving: Customer Appreciation
When the holidays roll around, many of us instantly start thinking about what gifts to buy our loved ones. In some cases, we know exactly what to get, while others send us running around at the last minute trying to find the “perfect” gift. But the spirit of giving shouldn’t revolve just around family and friends. What about the people who’ve made your gift giving possible? Your customers. Sending a small gift or gesture to new or returning clients is a great way to maintain a positive relationship and let them know you appreciate their business.
I’ll Get to it Tomorrow: The High Cost of Procrastination
What’s the busiest day of the week? Tomorrow. And what’s the busiest time of day? Later. In our fast-paced lives where competing and increasing priorities are rampant, it’s easy to procrastinate. Most of us are guilty of it—delaying and putting things off—but there’s a cost to that behavior, whether it’s in our personal or business lives.
Gated Content: A Right Place and a Right Time
In today’s marketplace, as much as 80% of B2B content is gated. What does that mean? To gate means that specific contact information is required to access content such as a white paper, article, video, ebook or case study. This information usually consists of a name, email address, company, title and possibly a phone number. We’ve all seen it, and most likely, we’ve given up some of our personal information in exchange for a bit of content. But how does gating affect the success and outreach of the specific content marketing asset, let alone the total marketing strategy? Here are the pros and cons of gating content on your website to help determine your decision.
Business Marketing: How to Avoid Burying Your Head in the Sand
Burying one’s head in the sand refers to an individual’s desire to avoid confrontation, reality, guilt and real or imagined danger. While we most often think of this behavior occurring in our personal lives, it’s common in business marketing as well. Here are a few examples of this ostrich phenomenon. The company operates without a
The Essentials of Multichannel Content Distribution
Creating effective marketing content takes a lot of work. You have to come up with the idea, develop it, research it, cite your sources and go through countless rounds of editing with colleagues before it’s ready to produce. But then what? How will you get the most views, leads, interest and comments? If you think your audiences will find their own way to your all-important messages, you’re mistaken. Just as important as the content itself is how you distribute it. Without a proactive content distribution plan to share and build traffic, a perfectly good article, blog or white paper will collect dust in the fast-paced realm of digital content.
How to Grow Your Sales Pipeline with Lead Generation Strategies
Today’s B2B marketers face increasing challenges and opportunities. At the end of the day, though, it all comes down to just one key factor: quality lead generation. Traditional marketing objectives include brand awareness, customer loyalty, increased market share, talent recruitment and the introduction of new products and services. But without leads, and the resulting sales, businesses simply can’t exist. While lead generation is hardly a new concept, recent studies show that 77 percent of marketers are focused on improving the quality of leads and nearly half have their sights set on improving the number of leads their efforts attract.
Customer Surveys: A Tool For Better Decision Making
Online survey tools offer a wide range of capabilities for businesses of every size. These economical and easy-to-use services are customizable, objective and provide detailed reporting. Whether you choose platforms like SurveyGizmo, Survey Monkey, Zoho, QuestionPro or others, there are several areas of information you can gather through online customer surveys. Increase Brand Awareness In
30 Ways to Promote Your B2B White Paper
Marketers and thought leaders commit effort, resources and money to developing white papers and then bury them on their websites where no one will see valuable content. Without proper promotion, a B2B white paper can simply fall flat. To avoid this common mistake, develop a multi-prong approach to promote your B2B white paper. This approach
Why It’s Time to Rethink Your B2B Branding Strategy
When we think of successful branding, certain images automatically pop into our minds. For example, consider MasterCard’s intersecting circles, McDonalds’ golden arches and the NBC peacock. These universally recognized logos are perfect examples of successful and even iconic branding. While these examples represent B2C companies, it begs the question: Can B2B companies achieve the same
4 Statistics that Will Transform Your Telemarketing Efforts
Some suggest that telemarketing is dead. Some research indicates that a mere one percent of cold calls ultimately convert into appointments. But at the same time, other research shows that 78% percent of decision-makers have taken an appointment or attended an event because of an email or cold call. Why the discrepancy? The issue isn’t whether or not cold calling is an effective marketing strategy. Instead, it’s about knowing how to execute telemarketing initiatives that effectively reach and influence potential customers.
6 Ways Google Alerts Can Fuel Your Marketing
Google Alerts is one of Google’s hidden treasures. A free tool, it helps you track trends, interesting topics or anything new that appears on the web. The service detects content on the web and automatically sends users email notifications when it finds new results that match preferences. Yet many marketers have missed the memo about how to best leverage this powerful tool.
5 Blogging Mistakes and How to Fix Them
Introduced in the 1990s, blogging has come of age. What started out as an online diary has evolved into a sophisticated marketing channel. In the process, individuals and organizations that blog are learning the importance of determining the right topics to cover, the value of engaging headlines and copy, the appearance of blogs, consistency of posting and a host of other variables that can impact the success of the blogging efforts.
How to Use Client Testimonials to Your Advantage
Finally, your portfolio is flourishing with successful and powerful work completed for your clients, yet no one seems to be noticing. What’s missing? How about the actual client’s opinion? In fact, 89% of B2B marketers consider client testimonials to be the most effective content marketing tactic available to them.
4 Reasons Why B2B and B2C Marketing Are Different
Marketing is marketing whether you are speaking to businesses or individuals, right? Not so fast. While customers in both segments may have similar personal needs, using consumer-focused strategies in a business-to-business marketplace can be costly both in the short- and long-term. To maximize your marketing resources and opportunities, consider these four key differences between B2B and B2C marketing.
How to Avoid the 7 Deadly Marketing Sins
Yes, marketing has changed, but so has virtually every other aspect of conducting business. So what’s new? Putting marketing into a different perspective. There are no absolutes, but what is essential is a commitment to agility, innovation and serving the vastly different needs of every customer. That’s a tall order, but it can be accomplished by avoiding these seven sins.
How to Stand Out in the Inbox: Best Practices in Email Marketing
Did you know that U.S. companies send approximately 1.47 million emails per month, and almost 60 percent of them are marketing oriented? To stand out in increasingly crowded inboxes, marketers need to capture readers’ attention in creative ways. Here are two methods to accomplish that goal through email marketing. Email Marketing: Win Them With Words
