Why SEO Is The Key To Successful Marketing
Everyone uses a search engine! And yet, not everyone in marketing understands the difference between SEO, PPC, metatags and keywords. SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. PPC stands for Pay-Per-Click. I know it can be confusing but…
To be a successful marketer today, you need to understand how to show up in the search results of your buyers’ search engine activity. To do this you must understand keywords and content and how they interact with each other to gain that coveted top spot in the search engine results.
This is not just about being a successful marketer. This is about driving real business results in the form of traffic to your website, getting more consumers of your content and ultimately to obtaining more paying customers…
A B2B Marketing Manifesto?
The folks at Velocity Partners think that this is a great (and a scary) time to be a B2B marketer. So they’ve written a manifesto (reg. required) to prove it. The eBook offers a call to action for all B2B marketers to take a different path from the traditional “tried and true” marketing practices of old. The manifesto also makes a “plea for ambition.”
Setting aside the common discussions about tactics and channels like social media, the web, or email, they claim that the new age of B2B marketing is about a whole new mindset because we live in a new world of buyer behaviors with completely new ways to address them.
How To Focus On Your Marketing Plan
I started writing this article a month ago but became sidetracked when I realized that marketing plans were as unavoidable (and as important) as Death and Taxes. And while we all try to avoid these topics, the best way to deal with them is straight on. The best approach to dealing with uncertainty is to be prepared and to have a plan.
If you haven’t started, you’re already late. It’s that time of year for creating your marketing plan. Having crafted a few myself, I am writing this article to share my experiences and tips on what has worked and what didn’t.
The Role of B2B Marketing
Tweet Chats: Organized Chaos or Untapped Marketing Opportunity
While tweet chats can appear to be organized chaos from an outsider’s perspective, they are a fantastic way to enhance your experiences on Twitter by connecting and sharing with other individuals interested in the same topics. For those that are unfamiliar with tweet chats, they can be defined as prearranged discussions that happen on Twitter through the use of a predefined hashtag. The chat hashtag is used to link the tweets together in a virtual conversation so that all participants can follow along. Formal Twitter tweet chats are arranged in advance and occur at a specific time. They also may include a formal agenda with a specific leader/speaker/moderator or they might involve a free flowing discussion between all participants. Read more
What Is Marketing Acceleration?
What is marketing acceleration and why is it even worth discussing? In the larger context, acceleration refers to the increasing pace of change. In B2B Marketing, we are experiencing an unprecedented amount of upheaval in what defines our success. We not only need to be fast, we need to get faster. We need to be speed racers.
While we are being impacted by the rapid rise of social networks and the use of mobile technologies to connect business professionals, we are also being asked to produce more with less. More leads. More sales. Greater awareness. Less money. Less People. Fewer tools.
Marketing Leads: Quality Vs. Quantity
Last night I had the pleasure of dining with one of our media partners. We discussed the great lead quality vs. lead quantity debate. And the conversation went way later than the restaurant manager and our wonderful server wanted it to.
While we all want to be considered purveyors of nothing but the highest quality stuff, sometimes higher volume is the way to go. And when quality is required, you need to be able to deliver leads that convert.
Whatever Happened to Marketing Strategy?
The realities and pressures we all face in today’s economy are not easy. Too many times, the reaction of B2B Marketers is to pull out the fire house and start fighting the latest fire. I think one of the most important factors to success in B2B markets is simple: Strategic and Integrated Marketing Plans.
Oh and that means thinking ahead. (Disclosure: as a dedicated rant, this post is full of copious amounts of sarcasm).
Integrating Social Media and Search
Social media as a B2B Marketing technique is an evolution of the marketing tools that preceded it: organic search engine marketing and paid search advertising. But combining these techniques can provide tremendous uplift in results and ROI.
My sister blog B2C Marketing Insider recently ran this article called Where Search Meets Social: Integrating Social Media into Organic and Paid Search Can Generate Exponential ROI written by Kent Lewis, President and Founder of Social Media and Marketing agencies Anvil Media and Formic Media. The article has become one of the most popular we have ever done. And so with the author’s permission I am summarizing it here for our B2B audience.
How to Nurture The Great Unknown Leads
In a previous post on Paid Search, I reviewed a study by TechTarget and Google that highlighted one of the main challenges in demand generation for the B2B Marketer: inaccurate contact details. But there is tremendous value in these contacts as they are telling you exactly what you need to know, when you need to know it – if only you will listen.
In this post, I will explain how you can use your best content to nurture these early stage leads to the point where they are ready to take the next step in their buying journey – and to take it with your company.
