FEATURED ARTICLES
The halfway point of the calendar year is a great time to check in with your clients and determine if they are harboring intentions to end their business relationship with you.
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![Dog days of summer-GettyImages-483800899]( "The Dog Days Of Summer Are Upon Us!")
The Dog Days Of Summer Are Upon Us!The “dog days of summer” is a time of year when the heat tends to slow us down, or at least convince us that laziness is ok in a seasonal kind of way. Do you know the origins of this canine intrusion?
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![try fail try again success-GettyImages-660685046]( "Bridging The Gap Between Ordinary And Extraordinary!")
Bridging The Gap Between Ordinary And Extraordinary!My old friend Steve Warnstadt recently shared something with me that was extraordinary. Steve and I served together in the Army over three decades ago. He is one of those guys who can offer philosophical-level logic under the most chaotic circumstances, like combat. His observations often had a calming effect when things were anything but. When Steve shares his thoughts, I listen!
TRAILBLAZER INTERVIEWS
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![maxresdefault]( "Jeanette McMurtry, Turning Traditional Marketing On End To Achieve Remarkable Growth")
Jeanette McMurtry, Turning Traditional Marketing On End To Achieve Remarkable GrowthJeanette McMurtry experienced an epiphany that changed the way she thinks about marketing. It has led her on a journey as an author, thought leader, and valuable advisor to business leaders. She joins me as a guest to share her insights.
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![trail]( "John Dawes: B2B Advertising Effectiveness And The 95:5 Rule")
John Dawes: B2B Advertising Effectiveness And The 95:5 RuleAt any given point in time, only 5% of your target audience is ready-to-buy, yet we tend to focus all our marketing resources on this group. John Dawes from the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute of Marketing offers advice on what we should do instead.
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![maxresdefault]( "Creating Incredible Content Marketing Strategies With Wendy Jacobson")
Creating Incredible Content Marketing Strategies With Wendy JacobsonContent marketing savant, Wendy Jacobson, discusses a framework for effective content marketing strategies, how to create case studies that attract buyers, and offers key tips for content marketing success.
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![maxresdefault]( "Getting Smart On Using Generative AI For B2B Marketing With Adam Smartschan. Chief Strategy Officer At Altitude Marketing")
Getting Smart On Using Generative AI For B2B Marketing With Adam Smartschan. Chief Strategy Officer At Altitude MarketingMost of what we're hearing about Generative AI and ChatGPT is not grounded in fact, nor is it objective. Adam Smartschan shares practical, actionable advice if your thinking of using, or are already using, ChatGPT or technologies like it.
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![mq3]( "What Is Good Thought Leadership?")
What Is Good Thought Leadership?Annie Dunleavy, SVP & US Head of Content Strategy, Edelman Business Marketing talks about what makes good thought leadership content that engages target audiences.
GUEST CONTRIBUTORS
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![Chart Meeting]( "How To Create And Use A Customer Persona To Get Results")
When creating your customer persona there are two main camps that organizations fall into. Those that have customers and those do not have customers or at least very few. If you fall into the group with customers that is great, but it still does not mean you are finished, in fact it could be the recipe for disaster.
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![GettyImages-1166191698]( "4 Ways B2B Sales Can Use AI and ChatGPT")
Business-to-business sales professionals are no strangers to innovation. The last decade has seen a shift to Zoom meetings, the rise of hyperscale data vendors, and modern RevOps. The days of smiling and dialing and wining and dining aren’t over, per se, but things are markedly different. Enter the next disruptor: artificial intelligence and ChatGPT in particular.
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![Content-GettyImages-1130879484]( "Content Marketing Is More Than Simply Creating Content")
Today it seems that every business is engaged in some sort of content marketing initiative, which means that in addition to pitching products or services via traditional marketing methods, companies also are producing content to help inform, educate and even entertain their audiences. But because there’s some confusion about what content marketing actually is, many businesses aren’t as effective as they could be in their content marketing efforts.
TRAILBLAZER SHORTS
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![jeanette2]( "Do You Have a Marketing Strategy Or Are You Just Doing Busy Work?")
Jeanette McMurtry urges you to stop doing busy work and employ a real marketing strategy with supporting tactics.
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![jeanette1]( "Tradeshow Follow Up Best Practices")
Jeanette McMurtry Describes Sales Follow Up That Is Aligned With The Buyer's Journey.
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![jeanette-3]( "Forget About Unique Selling Propositions And Adopt Emotional Selling Propositions")
Jeanette McMurtry explains why unique selling propositions are doomed to fail and believes that businesses must transition to using emotional selling propositions.
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![Jeanette-2]( "Should Your Marketing Messages Apeal to Fear Or Opportunity? Our DNA Holds The Answer!")
Jeanette McMurtry explains why marketing messages appealing to fear are better at capturing your target audience's attention so you can then speak about solutions and opportunities.
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![Customer centric-GettyImages-1053339616]( "Customer-Centered Content Marketing - Part 2")
Customer-Centered Content Marketing - Part 2It is important to understand that potential buyers are on a journey to solve problems, not necessarily buy something. If you want to be considered as a solution provider, you must be a helpful participant in their problem-solving journey, the entire journey.
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![Customer-centric-GettyImages-1001534666]( "Customer-Centered Content Marketing Part 1")
Customer-Centered Content Marketing Part 1Here is the problem that many of us have. We define the B2B buyer’s journey in three stages: awareness, consideration, and decision. And we define awareness as when a buyer becomes aware of us and our solutions. We then develop content strategies focused on our own products and services which is what buyers seek in the late stages of their journey. We miss the opportunity to build trust with buyers when it is most critical. What we need is a content-marketing strategy that is aligned with the real buyer's journey.
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![High speed hi-tech-GettyImages-1414627330]( "The Real Buyer's Journey")
The Real Buyer's JourneyThe single force that has disrupted the way B2B solution providers market and sell is also the most critical to business success, buyers. As buyers discovered and embraced on-demand, digital content to help them solve problems, not make purchasing decisions, they pushed long-held B2B marketing traditions aside, rendering them obsolete.
FYB METHOD
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![FYB Image for LI NL Post]( "The Follow Your Buyer Philosophy Explained")
Life Science Connect, the parent company of Follow Your Buyer, has had a front row seat for the past several decades for the evolutionary transformation of the buyer's journey. Here is what we learned!
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![High speed hi-tech-GettyImages-1414627330]( "The Real Buyer's Journey")
The single force that has disrupted the way B2B solution providers market and sell is also the most critical to business success, buyers. As buyers discovered and embraced on-demand, digital content to help them solve problems, not make purchasing decisions, they pushed long-held B2B marketing traditions aside, rendering them obsolete.
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![Customer-centric-GettyImages-1001534666]( "Customer-Centered Content Marketing Part 1")
Here is the problem that many of us have. We define the B2B buyer’s journey in three stages: awareness, consideration, and decision. And we define awareness as when a buyer becomes aware of us and our solutions. We then develop content strategies focused on our own products and services which is what buyers seek in the late stages of their journey. We miss the opportunity to build trust with buyers when it is most critical. What we need is a content-marketing strategy that is aligned with the real buyer's journey.
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![Customer centric-GettyImages-1053339616]( "Customer-Centered Content Marketing - Part 2")
It is important to understand that potential buyers are on a journey to solve problems, not necessarily buy something. If you want to be considered as a solution provider, you must be a helpful participant in their problem-solving journey, the entire journey.
THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK
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![GettyImages-92831818]( "Double, Double, Toil And Trouble, Are You Ignoring Signs Of Trouble?")
The halfway point of the calendar year is a great time to check in with your clients and determine if they are harboring intentions to end their business relationship with you.
BOOK RECOMMENDATIONS & REVIEWS
At the top of our list of valuable, must-read books for B2B leaders, marketers, and sales professionals is “Selling to the C-Suite” by Nicholas A.C. Read and Stephen J. Bistritz. Here’s why we recommend it.
Selling To The C-Suite, Not Your Typical Sales Formula Book
NEWSLETTER ARCHIVE
- 05.28.24 -- Thought for the Week – Connecting target audience, messaging, and outcomes: lessons learned from a military deployment to the Middle East!
- 05.20.24 -- Thought for the Week – Xfinity's "The Aviators", who is the hero in your stories?
- 05.13.24 -- Thought for the Week – Is your B2B sales lead follow-up just all about the Benjamins?
- 05.06.24 -- Thought for the Week – Could Generative AI Be an Over-the-Horizon Storm for B2B Marketers?
- 04.29.24 -- Thought for the Week – The Value Of Becoming A More Empathetic Listener