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The post Digital Marketing News: Influencers Trusted More Than Friends, LinkedIn Expands Audience Data, New B2B Studies & More appeared first on Online Marketing Blog - TopRank® . from Online Marketing Blog – TopRank® https://ift.tt/32eiilv

Today’s B2B customers expect more B2C-like experiences, and here are five brands delivering great customer experiences that go far beyond the tired tradition of boring-to-boring. Research from Gartner has shown that 89 percent of firms compete primarily on customer experience. Not all companies may be taking this to heart, however, as according to additional research some 60 percent of marketers fail to take into account consumer expectations, despite 95 percent seeing increasing expectations from customers . Making memorable customer experiences a priority can help build successful campaigns and make for delighted customers, and with further recent research showing that just 14 percent of B2B survey respondents view customer experience and support as a top priority , there may be no better time to work on delivering great customer experiences. In the following randomly-ordered list, we’ll look at five B2B brands that are innovating with customer-pleasing digital experiences. #1 IB...

Have you been to a stadium concert lately? The big ones touring the country tend to pull out all the stops. It’s not just a singer on stage — they are usually supported by a giant jumbotron as backdrop providing flashy visuals, along with fog machines, laser lights, platforms rising out of the ground, special guest cameos… the works.  Why is this? Because the bar has been raised. When fans plunk down the big bucks for tickets to see Drake or Carrie Underwood or The Rolling Stones, they expect more than seeing their favorite artists performing on stage. They expect an unforgettable experience that stirs all the senses. via GIPHY In content marketing, we see a continuing shift toward delivering full-on experiences. This emerging focus is evident in the steady growth of the term “content experience” in Google Trends over the past 10 years, and is now reaching a fever pitch as technology enables unprecedented sparkle and scintillation, while the shortening attention spans of ou...

Influence is its own form of a modern digital currency. Influence is able to overcome almost any obstacle, and more than ever, it's the powerful (sometimes-hidden) global fuel that helps drive our multi-trillion dollar online business world. In fact, according to the 2019 Edelman Trust Barometer “In Brands We Trust?” report , 63% of consumers trust what influencers say about brands much more than what brands say about themselves within their advertising messages. An even more telling statistic from the same study is that 58% said they had purchased a product in the past six months because of an influencer, as shown below. As the internet has matured since its 1991 creation, networking between people around the world has expanded to truly astounding heights, helping make wonderful projects and partnerships happen. [bctt tweet="It’s not about who has the most followers, or the gaudiest personal brand. It’s about who resonates most with your specific customers and prospects. —...

We are all products of our environments, and the experiences we carry are invariably influential to the way we approach and think about our jobs.  Recently we shared an interview with Margaret Magnarelli , who spent nearly a decade as a magazine editor before moving into a content marketing leadership role. With her background in journalism, she offers important perspective for marketers everywhere. The same is true for Annie Granatstein , who lives at the center of the convergence between investigative journalism and brand marketing. Annie runs The Washington Post’s BrandStudio unit, which takes The Post’s award-winning proclivity for immersive digital storytelling and leverages it on behalf of brands and advertisers. Peruse BrandStudio’s archive and you’ll find a wide range of multimedia techniques applied to bring stories to life. These include 360-degree environments, photo tours, augmented reality applications, choose-your-own-adventure journeys, and more. With the th...

The post Digital Marketing News: Most Google Searches Don’t Yield Clicks, Facebook Drops Group Chat, Diminishing Ad Trust & More appeared first on Online Marketing Blog - TopRank® . from Online Marketing Blog – TopRank® https://ift.tt/2L3l7z8

Some performers take the stage all by themselves, with no props or partners to lend support, and capture their audience with a riveting solo act. Hilarious standup comedy routines and enlightening TED Talks exemplify this ability in action.  As a content marketer, there are occasions where a well written piece will take off on its own, with no help required beyond a powerful message presented clearly. But more often, spicing things up with added elements of interactivity or visual pizzazz provides a necessary added boost in today’s busy digital environment. And incorporating the right strategic partners is a reliable way to increase your program’s reach and impact. When I attended my first Digital Summit Minneapolis two years ago, Seth Godin delivered the opening keynote. He employed a technique that still stands out in my mind to this day. Following a fairly brief monologue, he pulled out a plush cube toy and tossed it into the audience, encouraging the recipient to ask hi...

State fair season brings tasty new foods-on-a-stick and a grandstand full of marketing lessons for those willing to walk the midway. The Minnesota State Fair, known affectionately as the Great Minnesota Get-Together , begins tomorrow, and we’ll explore some of the wild new food concoctions on offer this year, and dig in to a bucket-of-cookies-size list of surprising things it can teach us about marketing. The fair, which began all the way back in 1859, is one of the largest in the U.S., now often topping the 2 million attendee mark each 12-day season and offering fair-goers 322 acres of summer fun in the form of amusement rides, live music from at least four stages, art, animals, parades and more. Marketers can gain plenty of insight from the spectacle of the Minnesota State Fair, so let’s take a food-centric look at some of the marketing lessons we can learn from the Great Minnesota Get-Together. The Power of Anticipation On A Stick Each year fair-goers eagerly anticipate the list...