Tap Blogging

How the Pandemic Has Affected Account-Based Marketing 42 percent of B2B marketers say that the pandemic has changed their account-based marketing (ABM) business objectives, according to recently-released survey data, with 30 percent noting that their ABM budgets fell due to the global health crisis, while 26 percent saw their ABM spending increase. MarketingProfs Despite In-Housing Trend, Clients Continue To Value Agency Relationships Greater alignment with brand priorities brings increased value to agencies, according to newly-released Forrester report data of interest to digital marketers, which also showed that some 75 percent of brand decision makers were satisfied or very satisfied with their agency rosters. MediaPost Social Media Ad and Video Spend Skyrocketed in Q4 2020 The final quarter of 2020 saw a 92.3 percent year-over-year rise in social media advertising spending in North America, according to recently-released report data, with global increases for the period topp...

Never underestimate the corporate world’s ability to take something that should be intuitive, and make it weird by overthinking it. Case in point: We used to say, “B2B doesn’t have to be boring.” Which indicates that for a long time, folks truly believed that B2B did have to be boring — that B2B buyers were a unique species of creature that operated without emotion and wanted the driest content possible. Now we’re talking about how we need to “ humanize ” B2B content.  And doesn’t that sound like some kind of filter you run your content through after you make it? I picture something that looks like a fax machine, where you load the content in the top, and push a big red button marked “HUMANIZE.” “We’re ready to ship that blog post, Johnson — wait! Don’t forget to humanize it!” Now, I get that B2B brands are dealing with millions of dollars worth of business. It makes sense to be mindful about how you represent the brand. But there’s a difference between caution, and so much...

My favorite part of playing a sports video game is the “Create a Player” function. It gives me the opportunity to set realism aside and dream up the most legendary, dominant athletic specimen imaginable. On the basketball court, no real-life point guard would be able to match up against “Dimes McGee,” my customized 7-foot-10 wunderkind with 99 ratings for shooting, passing, ball-handling, speed, and defense. Talk about optimization! What if you could “create a player” in B2B content marketing? Which attributes would you want to max out in order to fabricate the most successful practitioner possible? It’s a fun and interesting question to contemplate, in large part because the answers now are different than even a few years ago. Which traits and characteristics define the most effective B2B content marketers in 2021? Optimized: 5 Traits of the Best B2B Content Marketers Certain requisite skills, such as being creative and a good communicator, are so obvious as to go without stating. ...

2021 Edelman Trust Barometer: Plague of mistrust follows COVID-19 After a year of unprecedented disaster and turbulence – the Covid-19 pandemic and economic crisis, the global outcry over systemic racism and political instability – the 2021 Edelman Trust Barometer reveals an epidemic of misinformation and widespread mistrust of societal institutions and leaders around the world. Edelman What Are B2B Marketing Leaders Measuring: Five Key Takeaways from Forrester's SiriusDecisions 2020 Metrics Study Forrester’s study asked worldwide B2B leaders which metrics appear on their company’s top-level dashboards. Key insights include: Leadership attention is precious, High-growth companies focus more on the customer lifecycle and others. Forbes New Study from SEMRush Shares Top Goals for Content Marketers in 2021 79% more quality leads, 74% more website traffic, 57% improve brand reputation, 47% improve customer engagement and loyalty. eMarketer Twitter Is Helping To Build An Alterna...

How can the intense brightness that often follows humankind's darkest moments help us achieve greater team unity and newfound marketing energy, gratitude and strength? As the pandemic marches on into its second year, B2B marketers looking to rise above despair and make this a brighter and more successful year can look especially to the five reasons we've gathered here for being optimistic about the many positive opportunities and experiences that 2021 holds in store. Let's jump right in and take a look at five inspiring reasons for B2B marketing optimism in 2021 and beyond. 1 — We're More United As Teams & As Communities Despite the difficult pandemic challenges of 2020 that have continued into 2021, B2B marketers have gained a newfound understanding of the power of successful teamwork, even as remote work has typically meant less physically time together. Online collaboration systems are undoubtedly flourishing as never before, as teams meet and share in fascina...

Each year I've taken inventory of the major trends emerging within our B2B marketing agency practice and with the crazy year that was 2020, the new year requires even greater focus on what's ahead. Some of the marketing predictions and trends I've shared in the past include: Top 10 B2B Digital Marketing Trends in 2020 Personalization Video content and live video AI and Machine Learning Voice engagement and Podcasts B2B Influencer Marketing Content Marketing Chatbots and Conversational Selling Customer Experience Visual and Interactive Content ABM Top Digital Marketing Trends for 2019 Live, Interactive Video Voice Search AI/Machine Learning/Chatbots Data/Privacy/Transparency Influencer Marketing 2.0 Purpose Driven Brands and Gen Z It's interesting to see things like Video, Voice, AI and influencer marketing persist each year. The fact is, when it comes to B2B marketing trends, the world is moving fast and while marketing innovation hasn't slow...

The Top Barriers to Creating Great B2B Content [Study] Workload, resources, interference and changing priorities rank as the leading obstacles faced by B2B content marketers, according to recently-released survey data of interest to digital marketers. MarketingProfs Google My Business launches new performance reporting Google has added new performance reporting features to its Google My Business service, which now includes search term data from Google Search and Maps, among other new reporting information available. Search Engine Land The Best Times to Post Your Social Media Updates in 2021 [Infographic] One LinkedIn post a day published on Tuesday through Thursday between 7 to 10 a.m. or 5 to 6 p.m. are the top posting days and times on the platform, according to newly-released report data, which also covers other social media platform top posting times. Social Media Today Pandemic Accelerated Consumer Media Tech In 2020, Makes For Tough Comps In Next Few Years U.S. consumer ...

Just what is a B2B influencer, and what do they actually look like? In our third season of Break Free B2B Marketing video interviews we're having in-depth conversations with an impressive array of top B2B influencers, exploring the important issues that each expert is influential about. Successful B2B influencers have a rare mix of the 5 Ps — proficiency, personality, publishing, promotion, and popularity — as our CEO Lee Odden has carefully outlined in " 5 Key Traits of the Best B2B Influencers ." Offering up all of those boxes and more is Oliver Christie , chief artificial intelligence (AI) officer at PertexaHealthTech, who we're delighted to be profiling today. Nothing helps individuals and the businesses they work for break free from the norm quite like a tech disruption. The microprocessor. The internet. Mobile data. E-Commerce. When these technologies came onto the scene, everything changed… but what’s next? According to Oliver Christie, it’s AI. In his own w...

Are you wondering whether you’re missing valuable customer feedback because you're just not looking in the right places? Our digital landscape today offers a wide array of well-used standard methods for B2B marketers to collect customer feedback, with just a few including: Monitoring Social Media Activity Customer Experience Surveys Feedback Forms Website Data Analysis Customer Reviews & Other User Generated Content Direct Interviews Testimonials Usability Test Data Sales & Customer Service Team Data There are many other traditional ways as well, and each method excels in its own specific way, holding the promise of providing insightful information about customers or prospective customers. There is also an entirely different realm of customer feedback opportunities, however — an area filled with less-explored avenues that offer a great deal of audience insight to B2B marketers willing to venture off the beaten feedback path. B2B marketers can optimize their 202...