Tap Blogging

Why do you even need a content person for influencer marketing? After all, the influencers are providing the content. You just have to collect their pearls of wisdom, make them look pretty in a PDF, and you’re good to go, right? I’ll confess, on my first influencer marketing project, I wasn’t quite sure what I was doing there. Over the last few years, however, I’ve come to understand the role that content marketers can play in shaping influencer content. It’s the content lead’s job to shape the conversation with the influencer. We have to ask the right questions, and provide a structure and framework to elicit thoughtful, detailed responses. There are a few extraordinary thought leaders who will dash off a thousand-word, amazingly insightful response to the vaguest prompt. But most folks — even those who write for a living — need more to go on than “What is the biggest problem facing our industry?” The influencers you’re talking to have spent hours of time and effort learning ...

What makes for strong long-term email marketing, and what can email marketers learn from a 26 year archive of spam? In 1994 I started archiving the funniest and most outlandish spam emails I received, and throughout the rest of the ‘90s I sent out an annual holiday compendium of the year’s top unsolicited messages. Over the years friends and associates began sending me their own wild spam finds, and although I ceased my annual updates long ago, I’ve kept up my spam archive — a trove of email marketing horrors, hi-jinks, and oftentimes hilarity that I still hope to turn into a book someday. For now, I’ll crack open the archive and share five email marketing lessons taken from analyzing 26 years of spam, to help illustrate how we can adapt, grow, and innovate — and how not to follow in the footsteps of atrocious spammers. Spam usually serves as a spot-on case study for email marketers on what not to do when it comes to building genuine and meaningful email communications. Oftentimes sp...

“Integrated marketing” is an ideal with clear appeal, but one that is often difficult to actualize in practice. Developing a truly integrated strategy — in which marketing functions in lockstep with sales, product, and other departments — is immensely challenging, especially within large and complex organizations. It’s not necessarily for a lack of trying, or a lack of good intentions from all involved. These roles simply operate and think differently from one another. Friction and disconnects are inherent. Silos are pervasive. As the Leader of Integrated Marketing for Sales and Marketing Solutions at Dun & Bradstreet, Sean Crowley tackles these barriers head-on each day. Eager to hear his philosophies on bridging these crucial gaps, and to learn what’s working at D&B, TopRank Marketing’s Joshua Nite joined Sean for a chat during B2B Marketing Exchange in February. “When you look at being able to bring people together, it’s about creating a common message, a common purpose,...

Photo: David Meerman Scott One of the most coveted things a brand can earn is the emotional investment of their customers in the brand itself. That undeniable force that can make or break a business is why the Wall Street Journal bestseller, FANOCRACY - Turning Fans into Customers and Customers into Fans is a must read for marketers today. Co-authored by best selling author and international keynote speaker David Meerman Scott and his daughter Reiko Scott, Fanocracy was 5 years in the making. David and Reiko have developed a blueprint of 9 steps for marketers to tap in to the most powerful marketing force in the world: passionate fans. The book has a great Father / Daughter genesis story. While David's experiences surfing and passion for live music were different from Reiko's experiences with cosplay at Comic Con and as a Harry Potter fan, they realized how their ideas about fandoms were so similar. Why not explore those experiences further and write a book? So what does Fa...

Key Insights: B2B content marketing decoded, top marketing technologies, and AI spotlight Demand for webinars has increased among B2B marketers during the global health crisis, with 76 percent of marketers seeing webinars as an increasingly successful method of driving leads, while the top B2B content types are eBooks, white papers and guides — two of numerous statistics of interest to digital marketers in recently-released B2B marketing survey data. ClickZ LinkedIn introduces new retargeting tools LinkedIn has expanded its retargeting feature set, with new tools for video advertising and lead generation among the latest virtual engagement additions at LinkedIn (client), the Microsoft-owned firm recently announced. TechCrunch PR Industry Survey: The Tactics and Skills Rising in Importance 50 percent of public relations and communications professionals find measuring impact the leading communications challenge, followed by 45 percent who face executive teams without sufficient un...

What is every B2B marketer’s favorite word? Process.  Okay, I’m kidding. For people who live and work in a creative field like B2B marketing, process has a little bit of a reputation. A reputation for stifling the creative process with extra steps, procedures, and — depending on who you ask — hoops to jump through. While it’s certainly true that too much process becomes a hindrance, it’s also true that not enough process becomes chaos. We need processes to onboard new staff, establish marketing innovations, create more efficient projects, and more. With such a critical  — and controversial — role in B2B marketing, it makes sense that marketers have a lot of questions when it comes to processes and the projects they aid. You may even be one of those marketers. To help you get the answers you seek, here are the most frequently asked questions B2B marketers have about process and projects. Question #1: Do we really need another process? Easily the most asked question of the b...

It’s never been more important for brands to show purpose and to be connected to what’s important to customers. As our CEO Lee Odden recently observed in Marketers: We Can Do Better Than Words with Action , "We can all agree that there has to be a change and that we can all play a part in some way, large or small," a call to action that is being taken to heart by individuals and brands alike. Here are 5 examples of B2B brands making a difference today by going beyond words and taking action. 1 - Microsoft United For Change Microsoft’s “ United for Change ” initiative was announced by company CEO Satya Nadella in an email to the firm’s employees, also made public in a post on its LinkedIn* page . “We all have a role to play. I will do the work. The company will do the work. I am asking each of you to do the work. And together, we will help make the difference we want to see in the world,” Nadella said, while offering solidarity and quarter million dollar donations to the...