B2B Marketing News: B2B Ad Spending Sizzles, Salesforce Slack Buy Complete, C-Suite Marketing Survey, & Clubhouse Opens To All

US B2B ad spend set to pass $30b in 2023, nearly half the dollars will go to digital In the U.S. alone B2B advertising spending is expected to top $30 billion by 2023, with almost half going to digital, while display advertising spending is expected to surpass that of search advertising by 2023 — two of several insights of interest to digital marketers in newly-released forecast data. The Drum Salesforce completes $27.7B Slack acquisition Salesforce has put finishing touches on its $27.7 billion acquisition of business communication platform Slack, with the now-official purchase set to combine Salesforce’s data platform Customer 360 with Slack, Salesforce recently announced. Venture Beat Zenith: Online Video To Lead 2021 Global Ad-Spend Growth, At +26%; Digital To Take 58% Share Of Total 2021's most robust growth in global digital advertising spend is set to come from online video, climbing some 26 percent to $63 billion, according to recently-released forecast data. Overall ad spending growth is expected to reach 6.9 percent in 2022 and 5.6 percent in 2023, the forecast data also shows. MediaPost Twitter Posts Steady Increases in Users and Revenue for Q2, with Good Growth in Ad Spend Twitter saw an 11 percent rise in its monetizable daily active user (mDAU) count compared to last year, an increase of some 7 million users since the first quarter of 2021, while also recording a 69 percent increase in international revenue, Twitter recently announced. Social Media Today C-Suite Survey: The Top 5 Marketing Org Deficiencies 84 percent of senior management executives say they are interacting either closely, regularly, or increasingly with marketing teams, while 52 percent noted that interim or fractional marketing leaders bring new thinking, ideas, and innovations to marketing departments, according to recently-released survey data. MarketingProfs Clubhouse is now out of beta and open to everyone After a year of restricted waiting-list access, and following up on May's Android version release, audio-call-based communication app Clubhouse has opened its digital doors to the public, accompanied by an updated logo, the firm recently announced. TechCrunch Consumers want control, not ad blocking, in online advertising 80 percent of consumers say they don't trust online ads, and 74 percent report that they hate them, while 67 percent of the Gen Z demographic said that online ads serve an important purpose — two of several findings of interest to online marketers contained in recently-released survey data. AdAge Google now shows why it ranked a specific search result A new list of factors taken into account by Google for individual search results has been launched by the search giant, highlighting some of the top areas businesses can look to for improving their search rankings, Google recently announced. Search Engine Land 2021 U.S., Worldwide Consensus Jumps On Zenith Ad Revisions Global and U.S. advertising spending forecasts for 2021 have recently gotten stronger, with worldwide ad spend growth predicted to reach 13.1 percent and U.S. growth 14.6 percent, each revised to greater levels than earlier predictions, according to joint forecast data from Dentsu, GroupM, Magna, and Zenith. MediaPost What B2B Buyers Want From Vendor Websites When it comes to B2B buyers seeking insight from online vendors, the top three criteria affecting purchase decisions include easy website access to relevant content, pricing and competitive information, and site content that directly demonstrates expertise around industry needs — one of numerous findings of interest to digital marketers contained in newly-released B2B buyer research. MarketingProfs ON THE LIGHTER SIDE: A lighthearted look at the “the personalization privacy paradox” by Marketoonist Tom Fishburne — Marketoonist The Internet Is Rotting — The Atlantic TOPRANK MARKETING & CLIENTS IN THE NEWS:

• Joshua Nite — What’s Trending: Shake Things Up — LinkedIn (client)
• TopRank Marketing — How to Create Winning Sales-Enablement Content — Content Marketing Institute
• Lee Odden — 8 Binge-Worthy Public Relations Podcasts — OnePitch
• Lee Odden — 5 Things You Need To Know About Search Engine Optimization SEO — Wow Digital
• TopRank Marketing — 101 Top Minnesota Social Media Companies and Startups of 2021 — BestStartup.us

Have you come across your own top B2B marketing news item from the past week of industry news? Please drop us a line in the comments below. Thanks for joining us for this week's TopRank Marketing B2B marketing news, and we hope you'll come back next Friday for more of the week's most relevant B2B and digital marketing industry news. In the meantime, you can follow us at @toprank on Twitter for even more timely daily news.

The post B2B Marketing News: B2B Ad Spending Sizzles, Salesforce Slack Buy Complete, C-Suite Marketing Survey, & Clubhouse Opens To All appeared first on B2B Marketing Blog - TopRank®.

Article Source: http://bathseoexpert.blogspot.com/2021/07/b2b-marketing-news-b2b-ad-spending.html

5 Ways the Pandemic Has Forever Changed the Voices & Visions of B2B Marketing

How has B2B marketing changed forever during the pandemic? The voices and visions of B2B marketing have been forced to shift over the past few years, as have many of the goals and methods we strive for and use to connect with our current and potential customers. Some of these changes are subtle while others are decidedly not, yet each brings with it both new opportunities for embracing the future of B2B marketing along with risks for those who don’t heed the call when the winds of digital change shift. Let’s take a look at five of the most substantial changes in B2B marketing that the pandemic has driven, and explore new insights that can inform and inspire your efforts in the push towards 2022 and beyond.

1 — Remote Yet Closer B2B Relationships

The remote Zoom, Slack, phone and email communication we’ve all had to embrace over the course of the pandemic have surprisingly brought closer B2B relationships in many cases. How being physically distanced from each other has actually brought us together in new and fascinating ways is a phenomenon that will likely be studied for years to come, yet successful B2B marketers have already embraced this shift and are doing everything they can to nurture our new world of remote business relationships in creative digital fashion. The heart of online communication are the people at either end of the conversation. The particular tools they use come and go like the shifting seasons, and in my 37 years of online digital communication this fact has become more pronounced. The way our communication tools today are generally able to work together seamlessly is a far cry from the days when I operated a 300-baud computer bulletin board system and each person had to take turns phoning in with their modem. Two formats carried over, however — email and chat — and both are still successfully used today by countless B2B marketers. Relationships between brands and influential subject matter experts have also taken on new qualities since the pandemic began. For Ann Handley, chief content officer at MarketingProfs, a new variety of these opportunities has been arising. "I think in B2B what we’re seeing, and this has been fueled by the pandemic, is that we are seeing those relationships start to happen between brands and influencers like me where they’re reaching out to me proactively and saying, 'Hey, we don’t have a thing right now, but we want to work with you. Can we sort of get to know each other?'” Ann recently told our chief executive and co-founder Lee Odden in "Inside B2B Influence 14: Ann Handley of MarketingProfs on Content Marketing and Influence." [bctt tweet="“Integrating influencer content is a direct line to building trust and customer confidence.” — Ann Handley @annhandley" username="toprank"]

2 — A Digital Communications Deluge

Advertisers, consumers, brands and pretty much everyone in between have all had to vastly increase their use of digital communication during these challenging recent years, which has led to more competition than ever to be heard. For advertisers, the pandemic propelled digital advertising past the 50 percent mark, and the margin between digital and all other formats is now only increasing. Even among B2B marketers, in the U.S. advertising spending is expected to top $30 billion by 2023, with almost half of that going to digital advertising (eMarketer.) Just because we have great tools for communicating, however, doesn’t mean we’re using them to full effect in our marketing efforts. The combined art and science of effective B2B marketing communication is a subject we've explored in the following articles:

• 10 Marketing and Communications Leaders to Inspire You in 2021
• Remote Communication Opportunities For B2B Marketers
• The Universal Translator: How Marketers Can Improve Communication with Internal Stakeholders

[bctt tweet="“Just because we have great tools for communicating, however, doesn’t mean we’re using them to full effect in our marketing efforts.” — Lane R. Ellis @lanerellis" username="toprank"]

3 — Heightened Customer Journey Expectations

The touch-points that B2B customers now look for along their purchasing journey in the coronavirus era run from well before the starting line to long past the finish line of sales. Before the pandemic, B2B buyers had long-standing way-points for predictable interactions with brands. Now, businesses that rely only on those traditional touch-points for customer interaction risk not being there for their potential customers in the new places buyers expect to find brands — whether it’s a new batch of social media platforms such at Clubhouse, human or chatbot live chat, or text messaging. The more we can learn about our customers and the digital journeys they set out on today, the better we can get front and center at those key points where we want to provide the best-answer solutions our audience is searching for. It’s rarely possible to truly be there at every possible spot in today’s vast and circuitous digital routes, even with substantial resources, so it’s important to pick the right locations for meeting your customer on their journey, and to make each one count. One approach to tackling this complex issue is through the use of account based marketing (ABM), or better yet, account based experiences (ABX), as Lee recently explored in "Is ABX the Next Evolution of B2B Marketing?" [bctt tweet="“In many ways, Account Based Experience (ABX) is the next generation of Account Based Marketing. ABX is a fundamental customer centric rethinking of an account based go-to-market.” — Jon Miller @JonMiller" username="toprank"]

4 — The Natural Shift to Influence

One big winner the pandemic has surfaced for brands, marketers, and customers alike is the enduring power of influence. It’s no wonder that U.S. influencer spending is set to surpass $3 billion in 2021, an increase of over 33 percent (eMarketer), and that paid branded content and influencer marketing have accounted for 20 percent of 2021 digital advertising budgets, while influence marketing has been seen as the second most important digital ad option for 2021, according to recently-released Advertiser Perceptions survey data. These past two years are likely to go down as the turning point when influencer marketing truly showed its potential in the world of B2B industries. We've examined this important shift to B2B influencer marketing recently in the following articles:

• Top 5 Benefits of Influencer Marketing for B2B Brands
• Mindful Marketing: 5 Uncommon Ways To Work With B2B Influencers
• 5 Examples of B2B Brands Rocking With Influence in 2021
• 9 Questions to Ask When Hiring a B2B Influencer Marketing Agency

[bctt tweet="“Optimizing marketing experiences with influence represents one of the most important digital growth strategies in 2021 and beyond.” — Lee Odden @LeeOdden" username="toprank"]

5 — Hybrid Work Hotbeds Go Mainstream

I’ve worked remotely for the past 5,241 days — since March 23, 2007 — and one genie-from-the-bottle change the past two pandemic years has brought is the immense increase in the number of people working remotely around the world. B2B brands that facilitate remote communication have undoubtedly thrived the past two years, with Zoom and clients such as Slack and monday.com upping their game to make hybrid and remote work a much more friction-free and less frustrating experience. Digital video too has exploded since the pandemic began, a trend that newly-released forecast data clearly shows, with online video and eCommerce advertising expected to add $40 billion — some 11.2 percent —  to advertising spending worldwide, an increase of more than six percent from its peak before the global health crisis. Professional talent in all areas surrounding the great circle of B2B activity is now more global than ever, and successful firms are strengthening their teams by adding great and diverse voices from the four corners of the digital world. [bctt tweet="“The more diverse your workforce is, the better your ideas, innovation, and problem solving are, because you don't have a bunch of heads that look like one another nodding in agreement, which doesn't get us anywhere.” — @TamaraMcCleary" username="toprank"]

Crank Up & Amplify Your B2B Marketing Voice & Vision

via GIPHY Being mindful of these changes can help make the journey to 2022 and beyond a more successful one, as we move forward towards a future shaped not only by the pandemic but also by the many powerful changes and improvements B2B marketers have crafted. By cranking up and embracing new closer B2B relationships and the digital realm where they largely reside, savvy marketers will meet those heightened customer journey expectations. Utilizing the multifaceted power of influence will propel tomorrow’s most successful marketers and B2B brands, all in a new work landscape that will henceforth be far more hybrid and remote. Crafting award-winning digital experiences and storytelling featuring each of these elements takes significant time, resources, and effort, which is why many of the world’s top B2B brands choose to partner with a leading B2B marketing agency. Contact us today and learn why for more than 20 years brands from LinkedIn and 3M to Dell and Adobe have chosen to work with TopRank Marketing.

The post 5 Ways the Pandemic Has Forever Changed the Voices & Visions of B2B Marketing appeared first on B2B Marketing Blog - TopRank®.

Article Source: http://bathseoexpert.blogspot.com/2021/07/5-ways-pandemic-has-forever-changed.html

6 Timeless SEO Tips Content Marketers Can Do Now

Content is the research search began in the first place.

Learning about how to get customers to visit newly created websites is where my search engine optimization education began. In that journey from before there was a Google to today, many things have changed. What has stayed the same is the opportunity to grow business by connecting customers to content by being the best answer and inspiring those customers to take action. The best SEO practitioners stay on top of what's current, always experimenting and evaluating what works for topics in a particular industry for the websites and content they're in charge of attracting customers to. At the same time, the best SEO advice isn't worth much if it doesn't get implemented. That's why many marketers with long term SEO experience emphasize the fundamentals.

If content can be found in search, it can be optimized for better performance.

With over 200 million search results for the phrase "search engine optimization" on Google, there is no shortage of advice for marketers, copywriters, designers, web developers, programmers and creatives. SEO is definitely a team sport. In the spirit of simplicity with the goal of easy implementation, here are 6 timeless tips for content marketers to improve their search visibility: Avoid overuse of pronouns like "it", "they" and "them" in favor of more descriptive keyword phrases where Google is looking for them: in page titles, file names, text links between pages, image alt text and in body copy. Facts tell, stories sell: Figure out why customers buy and create keyword optimized content that tells stories about how and why your products solve customer problems. Problem solution formatted content naturally invites the kind of information structure that can satisfy customer intent when they are looking for solutions. Google is dedicated to creating a great search user experience so anything content marketers can do to deliver topically specific information that satisfies what people are looking for is likely to be rewarded with better placement in search results. Links are like electricity: "Light up" your website content to be so useful and engaging that it is worth linking to by others who compile and share resources. To make it easier for others to know about your link worthy content, promote it by sharing with industry influencers (better yet, invite them to help you create it), on social networks, through blogging, byline articles in industry publications, through guest posts on industry and association websites and by being digitally active in the industry you are working in. Be the best answer: Create and promote comprehensive and remarkable information resources on topics of interest to prospects and relevant to your business. Strive to "be the best answer" for what customers are looking for by creating content that is in-depth, engaging, and inspires deeper clickthroughs into your site. Develop content based on topic clusters and aim to answer any questions buyers might have about those topics, keeping in mind to use an index page and to cross link between pages. Close the gap with an SEO audit: Have your website audited by a SEO professional (yes, we do audits) to ensure keyword targeting in content, technical friendliness of your website to being crawled, and the health of links between pages as well as inbound links from other topically relevant websites. The audit will uncover gaps and provide prioritized opportunities where you can focus your efforts to improve search visibility and the marketing performance of your content. Always be optimizing: Optimization of content including text on web pages, videos, audio, images or a combination for better search visibility is a continuous process. Search Engine Optimization is not a project or a single event. SEO is an ongoing effort to create and promote keyword optimized content that can be the best answer for what customers are looking for. It is also the process of monitoring performance through analytics and making refinements at regular intervals. There are numerous long lists of SEO best practices that you can and should follow. There are also some fundamentals that can be made part of the content marketing operation and process which are very doable for most organizations. Leaving search engine visibility to chance isn't something most companies can afford to gamble with as competition for customers continues to increase in digital channels. Search Engines are a trusted resource for customers at all stages of the buying journey and represent an opportunity for brands to be useful at the very moment buyers need help the most.

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Article Source: http://bathseoexpert.blogspot.com/2021/07/6-timeless-seo-tips-content-marketers.html

B2B Marketing News: Targeting B2B Buyers Takes Long-Term Lens, Where CMOs Are Spending, ABM Use Rises In B2B, US Influencer Spending To Top $3B, & Media Price Inflation Concerns

US influencer spending to surpass $3 billion in 2021 An increase of over 33 percent in influencer marketing spending is expected for 2021 — reaching $3.69 billion — recently-released forecast data shows, with a 12.2 percent rise predicted for 2022 and 11.5% in 2023, climbing to $4.62 billion, according to the forecast. eMarketer Ehrenberg-Bass: 95% of B2B buyers are not in the market for your products As many as 95 percent of businesses aren't presently in the market for most services and goods, however not in all sectors, according to newly-released data from client LinkedIn and its LinkedIn B2B Institute. Marketing Week examines the data, and interviews Jann Martin Schwarz, global head of the LinkedIn B2B Institute, on targeting long-term B2B marketing goals and more. Marketing Week B2B Marketers' Biggest Lead Gen Challenges 45 percent of B2B marketers find creating targeted and engaging content the most difficult challenge when it comes to lead generation, followed by difficulty gathering quality data at 43 percent, and managing and tracking leads at 38 percent, according to recently-released B2B marketing survey data of interest to digital marketers. MarketingProfs Account-based marketing propelled forward by the pandemic 80 percent of B2B buyers plan to do more business online after the pandemic than they did during pre-covid times, while at the same time 77 percent say purchases have become more complex and challenging, with six to 10 people now comprising the median size of buying groups, newly-released survey data shows. MarTech CMOs: Budgets, Resources Are Constrained, Digital Investments Most Popular Digital commerce, marketing operations, brand strategy and marketing analytics are the top content marketing officer investments, according to Gartner’s latest CMO Spend Survey, which also showed that over 72 percent of total marketing budgets are now pure-play digital channels. MediaPost Google Launches New Way to Optimize Videos For Search Google has brought easier markup to video content hosted on brands' own sites with the latest Google SeektoAction change, making non-YouTube video segmentation and chapters possible, the search giant recently announced, expanding the previous beta test of the feature to a wider audience. Search Engine Journal Ad Market Grows 35.2% In June, Marks Fourth Consecutive Month Of Expansion Strong year-over-year growth has continued for the U.S. advertising economy, with June's 35.2 percent increase in ad spending representing the third month in a row of growth, according to newly-released advertising index data of interest to digital marketers. MediaPost Instagram Stories Drafts are Now Available to All Users Crafting more thoughtful and detailed content is likely to become easier with the return of Instagram's option to save Instagram Story drafts — a feature that had previously been removed, the Facebook-owned platform recently announced. Social Media Today YouTube Begins Adding Chapters to Videos Automatically Optional artificial intelligence (AI) generated video chapter splitting has come to certain eligible videos on Google’s YouTube platform, with the option being turned on by default, in an effort to provide a more helpful user experience, YouTube recently announced. Search Engine Journal What Makes a Brand Best-in-Class on Social Media Marketers and consumers hold differing viewpoints on the qualities that comprise best-in-class experiences on social media, with 48 percent of marketers noting that they saw audience engagement as the most important factor, while 47 percent of consumers said that they viewed strong customer service as the most important element, according to newly-released social media survey data. MarketingProfs ON THE LIGHTER SIDE: A lighthearted look at the “back to the office” by Marketoonist Tom Fishburne — Marketoonist Italian Museums Are Using AI Cameras to Determine if People Like the Art — PetaPixel TOPRANK MARKETING & CLIENTS IN THE NEWS:

• TopRank Marketing — Influencer Marketing In A B2B World – Don’t Miss Out! — Crowd Media
• TopRank Marketing — Why Website Accessibility Is Critical To The Digital Experience — Dan Gingiss
• Lee Odden — Top 45 Twitter Accounts on Marketing You Should Follow — Signum.ai

Have you located your own key B2B marketing news item from the past week of industry news? Please drop us a line in the comments below. Thank you for taking the time to join us for this week's TopRank Marketing B2B marketing news, and we hope that you'll return again next Friday for more of the week's most relevant B2B and digital marketing industry news. In the meantime, you can follow us at @toprank on Twitter for even more timely daily news.

The post B2B Marketing News: Targeting B2B Buyers Takes Long-Term Lens, Where CMOs Are Spending, ABM Use Rises In B2B, US Influencer Spending To Top $3B, & Media Price Inflation Concerns appeared first on B2B Marketing Blog - TopRank®.

Article Source: http://bathseoexpert.blogspot.com/2021/07/b2b-marketing-news-targeting-b2b-buyers.html

Digital Diamonds: 5 Multifaceted Tactics To Boost Your B2B Marketing Clarity & Commitment This Summer

How is successful B2B marketing like a master jeweler working with diamonds of the digital marketing variety? Diamonds are forever, as the 1971 James Bond film and its title song made famous, and with the archival global power of the web, your B2B marketing efforts are also likely to endure — so why not strive to make them truly memorable? Also like diamonds, B2B marketing is a multifaceted endeavor. Let's explore five enduring tactics that can help you achieve B2B content marketing clarity and create your own digital marketing diamonds.

1 — Achieve Content Marketing Clarity

via GIPHY Bring diamond-like clarity to your B2B content marketing by identifying and focusing on the heart of your effort’s primary goal. While it can be tempting to digress into periphery elements of the topic at hand, honing in on the purpose of your content and delivering a clear answer in providing it will make your marketing creations shine with diamond-like brilliance. Part of providing content marketing clarity is knowing what your audience is hoping to learn from what you’ve got on tap, and this type of knowledge can come from a number of places. One of the best sources for finding the root topics that your audience is seeking information about are the tools and services that show the questions people are asking online. Some of the question research tools that B2B marketers can benefit from include:

• Answer the Public
• StoryBase
• SEMrush’s Topic Research Competitive Research Tool
• Ahrefs
• Google Search Console
• KeywordTool.io
• BuzzSumo’s Question Analyzer

Other often-untapped resources for finding out what your audience is looking for include:

• Asking Directly with Polls, Surveys, Focus Groups & Questionnaires
• Tapping Into Search Intent From Voice Search & Chatbots
• Online Form Queries, Server Log Files, & E-mail Questions

You can learn more about each of these tools and tactics in my “10 Smart Question Research Tools for B2B Marketers,” and also dig in to other relevant questions in the following helpful articles:

• 9 Questions to Ask When Hiring a B2B Influencer Marketing Agency
• B2B Influencer Marketing Strategy: 5 Questions to Ask First
• Project Management FAQ: Top Questions B2B Marketers Ask About Projects and Process
• 4 Questions to Drive More Productive Marketing Meetings

Clarity in B2B content marketing can help deliver a diamond rating to your efforts, so take the time to research and fully understand what you’re trying to achieve with any written, visual, or audio marketing efforts. [bctt tweet="“Honing in on the purpose of your content and delivering a clear answer in providing it will make your marketing creations shine with diamond-like brilliance.” — Lane R. Ellis @lanerellis" username="toprank"]

2 — Get a Cut Above With a Marathon of Commitment

via GIPHY In today’s B2B marketing world it takes more than a little commitment to get a cut above when it comes to crafting the best digital diamonds of content. B2B marketing’s lengthier sales cycles mean you’ll need dedication and commitment to achieve the type of long-term success that powers businesses outside of the B2C realm. You don't necessarily need to be Batman or Robin to craft compelling and memorable B2B content, however you will need commitment. B2B marketing is more akin to a marathon than a sprint, and I’ve explored the similarities between marathon running and marketing in “26.2 B2B Marathon Marketing Lessons,” along with the importance of proper pacing when you’re in it for the long marketing haul, in “5 Payoffs B2B Marketers Win From Precision Pacing.” [bctt tweet="“B2B marketing’s lengthier sales cycles mean you’ll need dedication and commitment to achieve the type of long-term success that powers businesses outside of the B2C realm.” — Lane R. Ellis @lanerellis" username="toprank"]

3 — Finding Hidden Gems Can Sometimes Be Key

via GIPHY Not all that glitters is gold, yet what’s hidden out of sight just below the surface are often gems that can digitally bejewel your B2B marketing content, if you know where and when to look. Although no handy treasure maps are on offer, B2B marketers can use a number of tactics to unearth the hidden gems that will set your content apart. Doing your own research and investigation can often be the best way to go beyond what everybody else is doing, allowing you to go far beyond the same few tactics and techniques that are often repeated in perpetuity in all-too-similar how-to guides and lists. Creating original B2B research that's both credible and impactful is the focus of our CEO Lee Odden's insightful "How to Optimize Original B2B Research Content For Credibility and Impact." [bctt tweet="“Brands that co-create experiential content with relevant experts and influencers can build industry confidence, grow brand trust, create a more effective digital customer experience and drive business growth.” — Lee Odden @LeeOdden" username="toprank"]

4 — Making The Hardest Substance Into a Softer Journey

via GIPHY Diamonds are famously and unyieldingly inflexible, but that doesn’t mean that the marketing journey you offer your audience can’t be a pleasant one. Some B2B industries may have notoriously friction-riddled obstacles, and smart marketers will turn these challenges into opportunities. By helping audiences smoothly navigate around troublesome hot-spots, the best B2B content marketing offers the kind of smooth sailing that competitors can’t easily match. Easing the B2B customer journey is key in 2021 and will most likely become even more critical in 2022, as increasing competition and an influx of more B2C-like tactics mean you’ll need to serve up diamonds and not just more disposable digital dust. These resources offer fresh takes on the B2B audience journey and using storytelling to smooth the way:

• 6 B2B Content Marketing Summertime Sizzlers To Increase Audience Engagement
• Microsoft’s Miri Rodriguez on How B2B Marketers Are Embracing Empathy For Better Customer Storytelling
• Hophead Marketing: What B2B Marketers Can Learn From The Craft Beer Industry
• Create a Stellar Audience Experience By Slowing Down with These Tips from Ann Handley

[bctt tweet="“Brands want to transact with people who are showing high levels of empathy.” — Miri Rodriguez @MiriRod #B2BMX" username="toprank"]

5 — Keep a Watch Out For Imposters In The Search For Authenticity

via GIPHY If it appears too good to be true, it’s wise to be wary and take extra measures to make sure the information and answers you’re providing are genuinely helpful and contain the latest accurate information. Authenticity in B2B marketing is a subject close to our heart at TopRank Marketing, and as such we’ve developed several approaches marketers can take to achieving the most genuine and human connections. A selection of some of our recent efforts highlighting the importance of authenticity in B2B marketing include:

• Inside Influence 12: Paul Dobson from Citrix on The Secret Sauce of B2B Influence: Authenticity
• The Real Thing: 5 Ways Authenticity Inspires Vibrant B2B Marketing
• Authenticity and Great B2B Content Marketing Go Hand In Hand
• 10 Expert Pointers To Create Better B2B Content With Authentic Influence
• 5 Tips For Finding Your Authentic Marketing Identity
• In Search of Trust: How Authentic Content Drives Customer Experience

[bctt tweet="“Part of the benefit of working with influencers is that they have a different lens on what’s happening in the world and what’s happening with your company.” — Paul Dobson @svengelsk" username="toprank"]

Digital Marketing Diamonds Last Forever & A Day

via GIPHY We hope that these five tips for achieving B2B content marketing clarity by getting a cut above with commitment, finding hidden gems, making a softer audience journey, and keeping watch for imposters, will help as you create your own digital marketing diamonds. Creating award-winning digital experiences and storytelling takes significant time, resources, and effort, which is why many of the world’s top B2B brands choose to partner with a leading B2B marketing agency. Contact us today and learn why for more than 20 years brands from LinkedIn and 3M to Dell and Adobe have chosen to work with TopRank Marketing.

The post Digital Diamonds: 5 Multifaceted Tactics To Boost Your B2B Marketing Clarity & Commitment This Summer appeared first on B2B Marketing Blog - TopRank®.

Article Source: http://bathseoexpert.blogspot.com/2021/07/digital-diamonds-5-multifaceted-tactics.html

Write from the Heart for More Memorable B2B Content Marketing

B2B marketers have been pushing for personalized content for a good long while. Now we’re also trying to humanize content — to make the case that B2B buyers are human beings who want to connect with other humans on an emotional level. Isn’t it remarkable that we still have to make that argument?  But I’m not here to write another 1000 words about humanizing content. I want us to take it a step further, beyond personalization, humanization, personality and empathy. B2B content marketing needs to come from the heart. True, genuine heart is the last frontier in content. Every brand has an Instagram with behind-the-scenes content to boost authenticity. Every brand is striving to give at least the appearance of sincerity, personality and transparency. A lot of it is about as deep as the checkout clerk telling you to “have a nice day.” To stand out now, B2B content needs to hit on a more fundamental level. 

Why Write from the Heart?

Even as we talk about “human to human” or “B2Me” marketing, we still tend to think that B2B content needs to be head-driven, mostly logic and reasoning, with a thin gloss of personality and emotion on top to “humanize.”  The truth is, of course, that humans are inherently emotional creatures who seek connection with each other. We most often decide with our hearts first, then apply logic in retrospect.  B2B content with heart seeks to make a connection first, then supply value, then finally ask for a next step. It has to be in that order. So, what does it mean to write from the heart? 

1. Upgrade Personality to Passion

 I am not passionate about, say, a software-as-a-service platform that collects customer data for marketers. And I’m not sure I want to meet the person who is.  But I am passionate about less intrusive marketing, about people getting connected with solutions that meet their needs, and about a future where marketing is helpful and productive, not annoying. So I can lead with the passion, the why that drove us to create this solution, and then I can talk about the product’s capabilities.

2. Upgrade Empathy to Compassion

Let’s face it: The marketing term ‘empathy’ sometimes has little to do with what the word actually means. While we may strive for truly feeling someone else’s hopes and fears, it tends to be in the service of persuasion, rather than connection. Compassion is more than just walking a mile in someone’s shoes. It’s sincerely desiring to help them — to ease suffering, bring joy, and help them be successful. Do you care if the people you’re marketing to get promoted, get to spend more time with their kids, can finally afford to buy a starter home, and so on? If you can show that you have true compassion for your audience, beyond the solution you’re offering, you’re far more likely to make a connection.

3. Upgrade Authenticity to Vulnerability

Here’s a hard one. Very few brands want to seem vulnerable or fallible. Even with behind-the-scenes content, they tend to present a highly sanitized version of the business. If you admit a fault, or share an obstacle you had to struggle to overcome, will you lose people’s trust and confidence in your brand? Absolutely not. You’re writing to people who experience hardships and make mistakes. You’ll make a better connection if you show that your brand is made up of fallible human beings, too. There’s nothing more authentic and transparent than a warts-and-all look at the problems your company faces and the ways in which you try, fail and ultimately succeed. 

4. Upgrade Thought Leadership to Humility

What’s the fastest way to make a connection with a stranger? Ask them to do you a favor. Ask for help. Most salespeople are familiar with this phenomenon, sometimes called the “Ben Franklin Effect.” The idea is that if someone does you a favor, they’re demonstrably more likely to do a second one, and to regard you more kindly than if you had done a favor for them.  I think the same is true with content marketing. Thought leadership content tends to lack the notion of humility — it usually focuses on establishing knowledge and authority, of the author as an inerrant source of truth. The problem is, no one really likes a know-it-all. A hefty dose of humility can make thought leadership content much more engaging, and much more likely to start a conversation.  Imagine a blog post that goes, “I’ve seen success in my business with x, y, and z. But I’m still not sure how to best go about a, b, and c. What are your experiences? What do you do in this situation?”  The thought leader in this case is adding value by sharing their own experience and success, but also allowing others to share their expertise as well. The result can be a conversation that benefits everyone involved - author, audience, and brand.

Your Heart Will Go On

As Maya Angelou famously said, people may forget what you say, but they will never forget the way you made them feel. And the best way to engage someone’s emotions is to share your own. We can’t settle for the shallow marketing equivalents of passion, compassion, vulnerability, and humility.  We need to embrace the difficult but rewarding task of bringing our whole hearts to what we’re creating. How do you create content with heart? Let me know in the comments. And take our B2B Influencer Marketing Survey to share your opinions.

The post Write from the Heart for More Memorable B2B Content Marketing appeared first on B2B Marketing Blog - TopRank®.

Article Source: http://bathseoexpert.blogspot.com/2021/07/write-from-heart-for-more-memorable-b2b.html

Share Your Expertise in the 2021 State of B2B Influencer Marketing Survey

The past year or more has taught B2B marketer many lessons, especially the importance of creating digital first experiences that are credible, authentic and relevant to specific buyers. As part of the digital transformation of marketing, many B2B companies have adjusted their go-to-market approach to satisfy the changing customer expectations that have evolved during the pandemic. One of those adjustments in B2B marketing has been the increasing role of influence in delivering  credible, authentic and relevant digital experiences. Our initial B2B Influencer Marketing research from 2020 showed that going into the pandemic, confidence in working with B2B influencers was very high as were expectations of outcomes. Despite the growing confidence in working with B2B influencers over the past year, today there are important questions to be answered as more B2B brands enter the realm of influence and grow more sophisticated with the practice. Much of B2B influencer marketing has emphasized working with industry experts external to the organization, but what about growing influence from within? How does influencer marketing work across departments? How do employee advocacy, growing executive influence and working with industry influencers intersect to deliver better customer experiences and marketing performance? At TopRank Marketing we are proud to work on influencer content marketing and executive social programs for some of the biggest B2B brands in the world. We also know that our blog community represent a wealth and depth of B2B marketing experience.  We invite you to share that expertise in our 2021 State of B2B Influencer Marketing Survey. Your insights will help elevate the practice of B2B Influencer Marketing and help the industry see what's working, what's not and where the future of influence is in 2021 and beyond. For the 2021 report, we'll be collecting data on all aspects of influencer marketing for B2B brands as well as insights from practitioners like you. In the 45 page 2020 report we featured key findings and statistics about strategy, tactics, budgets and measurement as well as B2B influencer marketing case studies from SAP, LinkedIn, Cherwell Software and Monday.com. We also highlighted influencer marketing insights from B2B executives at Adobe, AT&T Business, IBM, MarketingProfs, Salesforce, SAP, Traackr, Treasure Data and more. For the 2021 report, we'll be sharing insights on growing marketing momentum with influence, the next level of Always-On influence, new best practices, budgets, technology and measurement plus all new case studies and insights from B2B marketing professionals. We've also been working on a fresh list of the most influential voices in the B2B world on the topic of influence in marketing and their predictions for the future. If you have worked with influencers in the past year, then you'll have valuable insights to share. You can also enter our giveaway of five $100 Amazon gift cards and early access to the findings of the report. The survey takes just a few minutes and that investment in time will go a long way towards helping answer some of the key questions about working with internal and external influencers. Optimizing marketing experiences with influence represents one of the most important digital growth strategies in 2021 and beyond. Take the survey today and join us in helping B2B marketers at all levels of influencer marketing experience level up their strategy, best practices and operations to build momentum in 2021 and beyond.    

The post Share Your Expertise in the 2021 State of B2B Influencer Marketing Survey appeared first on B2B Marketing Blog - TopRank®.

Article Source: http://bathseoexpert.blogspot.com/2021/07/share-your-expertise-in-2021-state-of.html

B2B Marketing News: B2B MarTech Spending On The Rise, More Brands Turn To Personalized Content, Microsoft’s New Multimedia Ads, & The Power Of B2B Storytelling

Twitter's Fleets Format To Disappear, Just Weeks After Ads Test Commenced Twitter has abandoned its Fleets feature that automatically deleted messages in the format after 24 hours, noting that the format and its accompanying full-screen vertical ads, hadn't performed as well as initially envisioned, the firm recently announced. MediaPost Digital to power a 10.4% recovery in global ad spend Global digital advertising spend will ascend to $311 billion to hit 15.6 percent growth in 2021, according to newly-release forecast data from Dentsu, the firm recently announced. Social ad spending is expected to rise even more swiftly at 23 percent, with video ads predicted to rise by 17 percent, according to the forecast data. The Drum Facebook Launches New 'Creative Guidance Navigator' To Provide Marketing Stats and Tips Facebook has launched a new mini-site of interest to digital marketers, highlighting a variety of the social giant's ad campaign options, with best-practice examples of how many of the formats are being put to use by top brands, Facebook recently announced. Social Media Today Text Marketing On The Rise, 61.8% Of Consumers Have Opted In To Messages: Study 78 percent of consumers say they most often use their phones for texting, with 61.8 percent having chosen to receive texts from a business over the past year, while 59.5 percent said the top reason they've opted out of business texts was for receiving too many texts, according to newly-released survey data. MediaPost US Ad Spend Projected to Soar This Year A 23.3 percent increase in advertising spending is expected in the U.S. in 2021, with some 57 percent of the entirety of U.S. ad spending going to pure-play online channels, according to recently-released forecast data of interest to online marketers. MarketingCharts Gen Z and millennials seek diverse voices in audio 58 percent of millennials and some 48 percent of the Gen Z demographic say that they have actively looked for audio content from more diverse creators over the past year, with 40 percent of the two demographic groups saying that they have greater trust for podcasts than tradition sources of news, according to data from Spotify’s Culture Next report. Campaign US IBM CMO is taking ‘a completely new approach’ to B2B marketing Telling B2B technology marketing stories and creating relationships that add value are key in a fully new approach to B2B marketing, according to Carla Piñyero Sublett, senior vice president and chief marketing officer at IBM. Campaign Asia Microsoft Debuts Multimedia Ads For Search Microsoft has launched new responsive machine-learning Bing advertising options for its Microsoft Advertising program, which bring more multimedia ad format choices to digital marketers, the firm recently announced. MediaPost Augmented Reality Ads See Better Reception Than Other Digital Formats Some 75 percent of consumers say that they are more likely to notice ads that utilize augmented reality (AR) features, with 70 percent noting they'd like to view more AR ads in the future — two of several statistics of interest to digital marketers contained in recently-released survey data. Adweek 2 in 3 B2B Marketers to Up Their MarTech Spend 68 percent of B2B marketers say they plan to spend more on marketing technology in the coming year, with more than a quarter planning to significantly increase their martec budgets during the same timeframe, according to newly-release survey data. MarketingCharts ON THE LIGHTER SIDE: A lighthearted look at the “marketing myopia and brand choice” by Marketoonist Tom Fishburne — Marketoonist AT&T Fiber Drafts Kevin Garnett to Poke Fun at Slow Web Connections — Adweek TOPRANK MARKETING & CLIENTS IN THE NEWS:

• Lane R. Ellis — What’s Trending: Summer Standouts — LinkedIn (client)
• Lee Odden — 10 Online Marketing Tips to Gather and Convert More Leads — Small Business Trends
• TopRank Marketing — 4 SEO Factors to Consider Before Removing Outdated Website Content — Content Marketing Institute
• Lee Odden — GUEST COLUMN: What marketers will need to learn about voice and audio — Indian Television
• TopRank Marketing — Are there lessons to be learned from Love Islanders? Brand influencing confirms its worth in the B2B space — IBA International
• Lee Odden — The 12 Best Ecommerce Marketing Strategies You Should Try in 2021 — eCommerce Fastlane
• Lee Odden — Your Website – Another Business Asset — WrightIMC

Have you come across your own top B2B marketing news item from the past week of industry news? Please drop us a line in the comments below. Thanks for joining us for this week's TopRank Marketing B2B marketing news, and please return again next Friday for more of the week's most relevant B2B and digital marketing industry news. In the meantime, you can follow us at @toprank on Twitter for even more timely daily news.

The post B2B Marketing News: B2B MarTech Spending On The Rise, More Brands Turn To Personalized Content, Microsoft’s New Multimedia Ads, & The Power Of B2B Storytelling appeared first on B2B Marketing Blog - TopRank®.

Article Source: http://bathseoexpert.blogspot.com/2021/07/b2b-marketing-news-b2b-martech-spending.html

Productivity Pulsars: Blast Into Orbit With 5 Efficiency Boosters For B2B Marketers

How can B2B marketers boost content creation productivity and avoid that dreaded black hole of inefficiency? As TopRank Marketing chief executive and co-founder Lee Odden said in 2018 in 16 Ways to Be More Efficient with Content Creation, “Without additional budget or writing resources, the most practical way to squeeze out more content creation productivity is by being more efficient,” and the same may be even more true today in 2021. There’s no denying that better efficiency offers benefits in many areas of a B2B marketer's work, so we wanted to share some of the galaxy’s top tactics, methods, and tips to improve your productivity through efficiency as we make the push through the rest of 2021 and plan ahead for 2022. Let’s strap on our B2B marketing jet-packs and hyperspace forward with five productivity pulsars to improve your efficiency.

1 — Work Smarter For Out-Of-This-World Marketing Efficiency

Working in a smarter way saves time and increases productivity, and part of that boils down to saving time through efficiencies. At first saving a few minutes here and there throughout the day may not seem all that important — or worth devoting much effort to achieve. However, keep in mind that saving two minutes each day equates to eight and a half hours over a standard business year. That’s valuable time that can be reinvested for countless other B2B marketing activities. For marketers, boosting efficiency doesn’t only come from the time saved. It’s additional time that can be used for many things such as experimenting with new technologies, taking on additional projects, or optimizing previous or current campaigns. Finding and using scheduling, planning, and calendaring applications that work well for you can be one of the bigger time and efficiency boosters. It’s important, however, to find ones that fit well with how you work best, so that you’re not working against systems designed to make things easier. Just as we all have various styles and tactics for tackling challenges, applications that help us manage time come in a big array of digital flavors with more in 2021 than ever before. If you’re not happy with what you currently use, it can be worthwhile to experiment with new time management methods and apps that you haven’t yet taken for a spin. Until you do, you may be missing out on a new time management tool that suits you to a tee. Most marketers today schedule, plan, and calendar completely in the digital realm, using software such as:

• Calendly
• Google Calendar
• Mavenlink
• monday.com (client)
• Workfront
• Microsoft Bookings
• Setmore

These are only a tiny traction of the available options. A few of the most productive people I know still also include some variation of the old-fashioned pen and paper, too. Simply using time management software isn’t enough, however, especially if it isn’t a solution that works with you but against you, so take the time to investigate what’s available and what works best for you. [bctt tweet="“If you’re not happy with what you currently use, it can be worthwhile to experiment with new time management methods and apps that you haven’t yet taken for a spin.” — Lane R. Ellis @lanerellis" username="toprank"]

2 — Harness Productivity Propulsion With Marketing Passion

You’ll also increase your productivity by tapping into your internal passion and energy, which can help propel your B2B marketing to new heights. When you find yourself in an especially productive period, it’s wise to take advantage of it and ride that wave of productivity to get as much done as possible while the creative B2B marketing iron is hot. Unfortunately, we can’t control when we’ll be at our peak combined levels of energy, productivity, and efficiency. However, by quickly recognizing when such a period hits us, we can put our nose to the grindstone and get in as much work as possible before that big wave of energy eventually peters out. How can you best take advantage of these times when they arrive, or even help make them happen? Here are three strategies:

• Turn off anything you can that normally distracts you, such as alarms, message notifications, or whatever causes you to break stride while working at your best
• Try to include short micro-breaks — even if only for a minute or two — to keep your overall energy up, and use the time to focus on what you want to accomplish next during the session
• When your highly-productive period comes to its inevitable end, it can be worth if to take some time and write down what you think made for such a good working session, and what you’d do differently next time to make it even better

A study by the National Association for Professional Organizers found that 82 percent of respondents believed that if they were more organized, their quality of life would be better — a statistic that shows how powerful time management and organization can be in both our professional marketing and private lives. [bctt tweet="“When you find yourself in an especially productive period, it’s wise to take advantage of it and ride that wave of productivity to get as much done as possible while the creative B2B marketing iron is hot.” — Lane R. Ellis @lanerellis" username="toprank"]

3 — Tiny Elements Make Massive Differences On Interstellar Marketing Journeys

While “don’t sweat the small stuff” is good advice for some areas of life, when you’re looking at the big picture and looking at long-term results, the opposite can often be just as true. Take for example the simple act of copying and pasting text — something we all do dozens or even hundreds of times every day. Did you know that you can slice your cut-and-paste keystrokes or mouse clicks in half? Decades ago I started setting up all my computers with one very simple adjustment that has saved me millions of repetitive keystrokes or mouse and touchpad clicks — a trick so easy that most people don’t even realize it’s possible. My all-time top cumulatively small time-saver that adds up over time is setting up my computers to automatically copy and remove formatting for any text I highlight. If you think of how many times you cut-and-paste something every day, imagine cutting the keystrokes fully in half, and that’s just what you can do by using one any many available auto-copy utilities. Whichever browser or operating system you use, you’ll find an array of extensions or add-ons that will copy whatever you highlight into your computer’s clipboard. Most also come with the option to clear all or just certain text formatting, which is another time saver because you’ll never again have to go in and manually edit out unneeded formatting or markup code. Examples include:

• AutocopySelection2keyboard for Firefox
• Auto Copy for Chrome
• Ctrl+C for Windows Cortana
• AutoCopy for Safari

Changing what you’ve always done to find more efficient methods doesn’t have to be difficult, as Danny Nail, account based engagement specialist at Microsoft told us a while ago. “You have to let go of templatized, old ideas. You have to break free of thinking about things the way we’ve always thought about them, and start really digging into how you can change what you’re doing and make it more efficient, more effective, but be creative about that,” Danny said. You can watch our full interview with Danny in “Break Free B2B Marketing: Danny Nail on Creating a Global ABM Platform.” [bctt tweet="“You have to let go of templatized old ideas...and start really digging into how you can change what you're doing and make it more efficient, more effective, and be creative about that.” — Danny Nail @DannyNail" username="toprank"]

4 — Build A Constellation of Content Co-Creation & Crowdsourcing

The co-creation of content can be likened to a constellation of interconnected subject matter experts, influencers, and other B2B marketing professionals. Working with industry experts and influencers to co-create content is a proven tactic for adding more inherent promotion right from the start of your campaign, as Lee Odden explored in "How to Win at B2B Influence With The Magic of Content Co-Creation." When you work with noted figures in your profession and include their insight along with your own, you’ll both end up reaping the rewards on several levels by joining together. Co-created content by its very nature provides promotion potential that is greater than the sum of its individual parts. The value and relevance that industry experts add to your content makes it something that not only your target audience will want to learn from and share, but it will also see additional sharing and social amplification opportunities. Using influencer optimized co-creation of content results in the kind of authoritative content that earns, grows, and keeps audience trust, and it’s also a great way to boost efficiency. To learn more about influencer optimized content, start with Lee Odden’s insightful “How to Accelerate 2021 B2B Marketing Success with Influencer Optimized Content.” [bctt tweet="“Using influencer optimized co-creation of content results in the kind of authoritative content that earns, grows, and keeps audience trust, and it’s also a great way to boost efficiency.” — Lane R. Ellis @lanerellis" username="toprank"]

5 — Take Your B2B Marketing To Interstellar Heights With Influence

Speaking of influence, harnessing its power can propel your B2B marketing efforts to new heights, and at the same time turn up the volume when it comes to productivity. Developing relationships with influencers builds a framework of productivity than can be used not only on immediate projects, but when done carefully will also lead to the type of long-term collaborations that thrive as always-on marketing. Here are five recent articles we’ve published that can help you understand what always-on influence is, and how influence increases engagement, productivity, and credibility:

• Inside B2B Influence: Justin Levy of Demandbase on Optimizing B2B Marketing with Influence
• Mindful Marketing: 5 Uncommon Ways To Work With B2B Influencers
• Inside B2B Influence 14: Ann Handley of MarketingProfs on Content Marketing and Influence
• 5 Examples of B2B Brands Rocking With Influence in 2021
• 6 B2B Content Marketing Summertime Sizzlers To Increase Audience Engagement

[bctt tweet="“Developing relationships with influencers builds a framework of productivity than can be used not only on immediate projects, but also for successful long-term always-on marketing collaborations.” — Lane R. Ellis @lanerellis" username="toprank"]

Sleek Marketing Can Warp You To New Dimensions

via GIPHY By using these tips and tactics for working smarter, harnessing productivity passion, paying attention to the small details, using content co-creation, and playing off the power of influencer, you’ve got the productivity fuel needed to bypass a slow-moving star-field of B2B marketers stuck in the mire of inefficient workflows. Working smartly and efficiently is key in today’s global B2B marketing universe, which is why many top brands choose the help of an award-winning digital marketing agency such as TopRank Marketing. Contact us and find out how we can help, as we’ve done for businesses ranging from LinkedIn, Dell and 3M to Adobe, Oracle, monday.com and others.

The post Productivity Pulsars: Blast Into Orbit With 5 Efficiency Boosters For B2B Marketers appeared first on B2B Marketing Blog - TopRank®.

Article Source: http://bathseoexpert.blogspot.com/2021/07/productivity-pulsars-blast-into-orbit.html

From Tech to Human: Three Post Pandemic B2B Marketing Trends

For many, the past few months have opened up giving us a taste of "return to normal" but what does that mean? When most people say normal, what they often mean is comfortable. In the business world pre-pandemic comfortable is a dangerous place to be. Any company that did not adjust, adapt or pivot over the past year and a half probably isn't in business or doing as much business as they should. There have been many changes during the pandemic from digital transformation across all aspects of business to evolving expectations of customers. Companies and their marketers must be in tune with all of these changes in order to survive and thrive in a post-pandemic business environment. One way customers have changed in B2B is that they expect more from the digital experience. Recent research shows 90% of B2B buyers will turn to a competitor if a suppliers digital channel doesn't meet their needs. The elevation of expectations extends to service as well. "Expectations for experience have gotten so high that our traditional means of customer service simply aren't sufficient anymore." says Vivek Ahuja in a piece on Forbes. Marketing is no different and the experiences companies create through their marketing are more important than ever. As the former Salesforce chief marketing officer Kraig Swensrud, who is now co-founder of Qualified.com says, B2B marketers must prioritize "personalized, real-time experiences" to win over decision-makers who are increasingly digital-first. There are important connections to be made between changes born of the pandemic and the trends that B2B brands need to be aware of as we enter the next phase marketing for 2H 2021 and into 2022.

Experience is Everything

"Research shows a strong correlation and interconnectedness between brand experience, customer experience and employee experience." Forrester

Digital first B2B buyers expect continuity across channels for the information they seek as they pull themselves from awareness to consideration to decision in the sales journey. B2B brands that have adapted their marketing for digital first buyers must deliver best answer experiences that are both findable and credible. Being the best answer for your customers with content that is comprehensive, relevant, engaging and actionable is more important than ever as competition for digital attention rises in B2B communication channels. Optimizing best answer content experiences by making them easy to find and relevant is something many B2B marketers are tackling through renewed focus on SEO. Being found is a great start, but being found and trustworthy is even better. That's why it is more timely than ever for B2B marketers to integrate efforts to optimize content for findability and credibility by incorporating influencers. Many successful B2B marketers have already made this connection between SEO and influence when creating content experiences for customers. In our research for the State of B2B Influencer Marketing, we found that 50% of B2B marketers surveyed are integrating influencer marketing with SEO.  We also found that there is a connection between the elevated credibility of content from trusted industry experts and the experiences B2B brands are so focused on. 74% of B2B marketers believe that influencer marketing impacts both prospect and customer experiences with the brand.

Content Really is King

"The average number of buying interactions has risen from 17 to 27 and 60% of purchases have 4+ people involved." Forrester

Those interactions are powered by content. As B2B marketers have shifted much of their marketing efforts to digital, content plays a more important role in delivering information and experiences that satisfy the buyer's intent. And there's more buyers involved in the process creating even more reasons to produce highly relevant, engaging and trusted content. While many marketers are already challenged to create enough content, our research found that by partnering with industry experts, content credibility and reach objectives are both positively affected.  In fact, 70% of B2B marketers say influencers improve the credibility of brand content and 75% say influencers help drive more views of brand content. The transformation of B2B to digital means B2B marketers must approach content intelligently and not alone. Partnering with the voices in the industry that have the trust and attention of the customers helps create a quantity of quality content that has credibility and reach that brands are having a hard time achieving on their own.

Executive Influence Drives Sales

"Salespeople must become recognized thought leaders in their fields and contribute to digital conversations in new and provocative ways." Harvard Business Review

The value of influence for B2B brands is not limited to salespeople. In fact, there's value in every public facing executive at a B2B brand to grow their influence in the industry and help drive revenue outcomes. Many B2B key opinion leaders and subject matter experts within companies may not have sales responsibilities, but the trust in their expertise can help create confidence in the brand and those who are tasked with sales. Some B2B marketers area already seeing lift in lead generation and sales by working with industry influencers. For example, our survey of hundreds of B2B marketers found that 53% of B2B marketers have increased leads by working with influencers. 34% say their work with influencers have increased sales. So why limit the value of influence to only working with external influencers? Why not develop the influence of appropriate subject matter experts and executives within the brand as well? In fact, many B2B brands are finding the combination of developing social influence of their executives can be facilitated by partnering those internal opinion leaders with external industry experts. Whether it's content co-creation, a LinkedIn Live event, webinar Twitter Spaces or Clubhouse chat, podcast interview or recorded video, there are many opportunities for B2B brands the create mutual value and lift for their executives in partnership with industry experts that can result in those internal executives having more influence on prospects and customers. There are more than enough emerging technology trends happening with the transformation of B2B marketing and business to digital first. But there is a human side to B2B marketing that has too often been overlooked in the past. If there's one thing that past 18 months has taught us as we've come to know our business customers better than ever, is that the human connection - the customer experience, the value of content and the power of your own executives being influential all play important roles in connecting with customers in ways they expect and are necessary.

The post From Tech to Human: Three Post Pandemic B2B Marketing Trends appeared first on B2B Marketing Blog - TopRank®.

Article Source: http://bathseoexpert.blogspot.com/2021/07/from-tech-to-human-three-post-pandemic.html