7 Ways to Get Results from Your Business-to-Business Blog
Every marketing guru (including me) is telling their clients to blog, for lots of good reasons. But blogging is a big commitment. Do blogs produce real results for B2B marketers? Does blogging truly lead to fame and fortune? I’ve just completed my second year writing a blog about marketing strategy. Here are seven ways I’ve used the blog to increase visibility for my business (fame) and get new clients (fortune) and some blogging tips for your smart marketing strategy.
How to Create Great Advertising with Storytelling
Top 10 lists are everywhere this time of year. One of the most interesting lists for marketers is the Top 10 Most Viewed Ads on YouTube, as reported on Mashable.com. These are TV spots people chose to watch online, by the millions. That’s an advertiser’s dream. But what makes these ads so popular? It’s not crazy gimmicks or over-the-top production techniques, though some of the ads have spectacular visual effects. I think it’s about storytelling. The most watched ads of 2011 engage viewers in a compelling story. Here’s why storytelling is such an effective advertising technique and how to tell stories in your smart marketing strategy.
How to be a Great Content Curator on Social Media
The most successful social media marketers create and publish a high volume of original content through blogs, videos, white papers, and other vehicles.But they also share quality content produced by others. Gathering, sorting, and republishing content from other authors that you believe your followers will value is called curation. By being a great content curator, you help customers, prospects, and colleagues find the “good stuff” online and know what to read. This not only makes you an informative and influential social media contributor, but it also helps attract new followers. Here’s how to find, filter, and share the best content with your social media followers in a smart marketing strategy.
Branding at Birth: How Young is Too Young for Marketing?
Did you see the recent article in Adweek about efforts by major consumer marketers like Disney to establish brand preferences in children ages 0-3? The Next Great American Consumer by Brian Braiker provides a fascinating look at this development. Braiker says branding at birth is “a trend—fueled in part by the growth of digital devices—toward aggressively targeting a demographic that didn’t exist, in marketers’ eyes, until recently: infants to 3-year-olds. By getting their logos and iconic characters in front of babies—even those with still-blurry eyesight—they hope to establish brand-name preference before she or he has uttered a word.”Is this a smart marketing strategy? Or is this the scariest thing you’ve seen all week? The answer to both questions is yes. Here’s why.
Top 10 Tips for a Successful B2B Marketing Strategy
Are you marketing to business decision-makers? Here are my top 10 recommendations for developing a smart business-to-business (B2B) marketing strategy, based on the tried-and-true principles of B2B marketing and my experience as a marketing strategy consultant.
Shut Up, Already: How Over-Marketing Kills Relationships
Permission-based marketing is now at the heart of relationships between companies and their customers and prospects. People opt-in to receive your emails, like your company on Facebook, subscribe to an RSS feed from your website or your channel on YouTube, or follow you on Twitter or LinkedIn.But having permission to market to someone isn’t a license to bombard them with marketing messages. In fact, not knowing when to shut up is a classic marketing mistake.Here’s how over-marketing can kill a customer or prospect relationship and 7 ways to avoid this costly error in your smart marketing strategy.
New Sales Rep, Key Account: Top 10 Tips for B2B Success
Smart business-to-business (B2B) marketers work hard to create and keep great relationships with their clients.In my last post, I shared the story of how a new B2B sales rep nearly destroyed a 10-year client relationship with my marketing agency by making six crucial mistakes in the first meeting.But transitioning a legacy client to a new sales rep doesn’t have to be a sales minefield. When handled well, assigning a new rep to a key account can be an opportunity to increase the client’s satisfaction and boost sales.Here are 10 things a new sales rep can do to ensure a smooth transition and earn a long-time client’s trust.
40 Questions for a Smarter Marketing Strategy
Are you getting a good return on your investment in marketing? Could it be better?One way to find out is to conduct a top-to-bottom review of your entire marketing plan to determine what’s working and what isn’t.This process is sometimes called a marketing audit. I’m often asked to guide audits as an independent marketing consultant and I recently shared advice on how to do an audit effectively.What specific factors should you assess in a marketing audit? Here are 40 questions I recommend for evaluating the effectiveness of your marketing and developing a smarter marketing strategy.
21 Tips for Power Networking: When the Product is You
If you break into a cold sweat at the thought of walking into a business networking event as a complete stranger, you’re not alone.Networking is essential to building and growing a business, especially for business-to-business (B2B) marketers who participate in professional associations and trade shows.But it takes skill and experience to feel confident in a networking situation, and it takes careful planning to capitalize on the value of networking for lead generation.Here’s what I’ve learned about personal marketing and successful networking at B2B events, and 21 tips you can use to make networking a powerful component of your smart marketing strategy.
Want Better Marketing Results? Audit Your Marketing Strategy
What’s the best way to maximize the return on your marketing investment? Take a step back from your day-to-day marketing projects and conduct a marketing audit.A marketing audit is a top-to-bottom assessment of your entire marketing program, from branding to tactics. The beginning of a new year or the start of a new budget period is an ideal time to do it.How do you conduct a marketing audit? And how can an audit help you develop a smart marketing strategy? Here are some answers.