FEATURED ARTICLES
Your buyers purchase what they need to purchase when they need to purchase it (not when you decide to run a campaign). So why do B2B marketers structure almost everything they do around campaigns.
- Applying B2C Predictive Analytics To B2B Marketing
- A Guide For Mapping Content To The B2B Buyer's Journey
- Linking Action To Outcomes
- 5 Ways To Improve Your Content Strategy
- What To Do With Those Content Marketing Leads
- 5 Stages Of B2B Content Marketing Maturity
- Looking For An Editorial Calendar? You Won't Find One Here
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![light bulb meeting]( "The New Definition Of Leads For B2B Marketers")
The New Definition Of Leads For B2B MarketersAll leads are not created equal. Understanding the difference between marketing qualified leads, sales qualified leads, sales ready leads, and sales winnable leads is essential in B2B environments.
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![Person Puzzle Pieces]( "2 Missing Pieces Of Your Marketing Attribution Puzzle")
2 Missing Pieces Of Your Marketing Attribution PuzzleMeasuring ROI in B2B marketing is easier with multi-touch and multi-contact attribution models that shed light on the entire buyer’s journey.
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![What you need to know lightbulb]( "What Press Releases Reveal About The State Of B2B Marketing")
What Press Releases Reveal About The State Of B2B MarketingFour steps to help B2B marketers and agencies stop wasting precious resources on press releases.
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![crowd.reg.png]( "What Really Is A Buyer Persona?")
What Really Is A Buyer Persona?A buyer persona is a description of a specific person for whom your products and services are intended. It goes beyond statistics and demographics and defines behaviors, motivations, likes/dislikes, traits, etc. Its intent is to help you reach your customers on a human level.
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![Food Manufacturing Production Planning and Scheduling Best Practices]( "How To Explain Content Marketing To Sales & Executive Teams")
How To Explain Content Marketing To Sales & Executive TeamsContent marketing might not be a new concept for marketers, but it usually is for sales teams, and that's why marketers need to take the initiative to educate their colleagues about what it is and how it works.
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![Business Meeting Presentation]( "How To Get SMEs To Play For Your Content Marketing Team")
How To Get SMEs To Play For Your Content Marketing TeamTips for explaining content marketing to the subject matter experts who can make or break your content strategy.
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![iStock-578275864]( "Building The Bridge While Crossing The River — B2B Marketing And Sales Professional Development")
Building The Bridge While Crossing The River — B2B Marketing And Sales Professional Development**“Change is the dominant** fact of life in every business today. And the ability to master and exploit change has become one of the most sought-after management skills. This is particularly true in marketing, where the very tempo of change is constantly quickening.” This was how John D. Louth, a principal at McKinsey, opened his presentation to a group of executives in 1964.1 It was true then, and it is true today.
Despite Louth’s clairvoyance, how many of us are intentional about helping our marketing and sales teams adapt to change?
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![Business meeting]( "8 Tips For Vetting Your Marketing Agency")
8 Tips For Vetting Your Marketing AgencyAdvice on asking the right questions about an agency’s operations and strategy before you outsource any B2B marketing activities.
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![magnifying glass 450pxw]( "Imagining An Ideal Application Of Behavioral Analytics In B2B Marketing")
Imagining An Ideal Application Of Behavioral Analytics In B2B MarketingMarketers have a blind spot when it comes to differentiating interest vs. intent, but there is a way to expand the view into the buyer’s journey.
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![Maze]( "6 Reasons Your B2B Content Marketing Isn't Working (And How To Fix It)")
6 Reasons Your B2B Content Marketing Isn't Working (And How To Fix It)There are plenty of reasons why B2B content marketing fails to produce desired results, and the first step to getting back on track is understanding what, exactly, your problem areas are.
GUEST CONTRIBUTORS
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![Content Marketing]( "Why You Can't Afford To Ignore Content Clusters")
A content cluster provides context as well as a logical path for readers.
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![The Pitfalls Of Too Much Self-Promotion]( "Why Your Content Creation Strategy Needs Buyer-Centric Research")
Choosing the content themes that will best drive buyer engagement used to be an educated guessing game, but now it can be an exact science thanks to primary research.
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![question marks]( "What Does Enough Thought Leadership Look Like In Content Marketing?")
There is a critical minimum volume of content that B2B marketers need to earn thought leadership status on a narrative.
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![Train tracks]( "The Trouble With Silos")
No one gets excited about adding another meeting to their schedule, but the right kind can offer immediate improvement if you suspect important information is getting trapped in your separate marketing and sales silos.
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![Confusion]( "Communicating Your Value In The Information Age")
Communicating your value in The Information Age means giving your prospect what they need rather than what you want.
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![Twisted-Corridor-iStock-925115248]( "Reframing The Relationship Between B2B Sales And Marketing")
Reframing The Relationship Between B2B Sales And MarketingExploring ways to improve the relationship between sales and marketing in B2B businesses is like venturing into the Sahara on foot without water. Rarely do business leaders intentionally set out to change marketing and sales operations, to include organizational structure and processes. We too easily retreat to the risk-free zone of “but that’s the way we’ve always done it.” However, the harsh truth is that this modus operandi is fraught with risk.
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![Choosing the correct pathway, difficult decision concept, confusion symbol-iStock-1173531479]( "Are Your Marketing Tactics Supporting Your Business Strategy? If You’re Not Sure, Try Task And Purpose")
Are Your Marketing Tactics Supporting Your Business Strategy? If You’re Not Sure, Try Task And PurposeI speak with a lot of B2B marketing professionals who describe their work as trying to manage chaos. Unrealistic deadlines, constantly changing priorities, emergency press releases that never get approved for distribution, and tradeshow collateral that must be created and overnighted are all in a typical day’s work. I’ve been in newsrooms less frenzied.
Marketing is intended to be the process organizations use to engage target audiences, nurture customer relationships, develop business, and, ultimately, generate revenue. But too many organizations are drowning in tactics that are not linked to their business strategy. To gain clarity, think task and purpose.
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![DuketheDog]( "Sell Like a Dog")
Sell Like a DogWhoever coined the term “work like a dog” must not have owned a dog, at least not one of our modern-era pets who have earned family-member status. As our love for our four-legged companions has grown, so too has our desire to understand them through formal training, books, and podcasts. Despite all this expert advice, I believe our pets’ ability to understand us far outpaces our ability to understand them. How do they do it and what can we learn from them about sales?
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![Female executive putting her ideas-iStock-903715608]( "Plan Like There Are No Rules")
Plan Like There Are No RulesWhen asked, most organizations will describe their planning process like this--establish objectives, define supporting tasks, identify resources, set a timeline, determine how results will be measured, communicate the plan, and execute. When followed this process will lead to reasonably good outcomes, however, most of us don’t really plan this way. What our planning processes lack is effective planning guidance that offers purpose, direction , and motivation.
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![iStock-1059441412-trade-show-marketing]( "Marketing Do's & Don'ts When B2B Trade Shows Return")
Marketing Do's & Don'ts When B2B Trade Shows ReturnA global pandemic meant B2B marketers couldn't spend money on in-person events for many months, but will they continue to think outside the box when the temptation returns?
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![Map On Laptop]( "A Guide For Mapping Content To The B2B Buyer's Journey")
A Guide For Mapping Content To The B2B Buyer's JourneyCreating, classifying, and analyzing content according to the stages of the buyer's journey enables marketers to identify potential buying activity and share that valuable insight with their sales team.
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![Tug of war struggle battle]( "Creating Content Is Half The Battle (But It Doesn’t Win The Buyer Attention War)")
Creating Content Is Half The Battle (But It Doesn’t Win The Buyer Attention War)B2B marketers are often too enamored with driving traffic to their website instead of distributing content where your buyers are more likely to engage with it.
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