Today’s B2B customers expect more B2C-like experiences, and here are five brands delivering great customer experiences that go far beyond the tired tradition of boring-to-boring. Research from Gartner has shown that 89 percent of firms compete primarily on customer experience. Not all companies may be taking this to heart, however, as according to additional research some 60 percent of marketers fail to take into account consumer expectations, despite 95 percent seeing increasing expectations from customers. Making memorable customer experiences a priority can help build successful campaigns and make for delighted customers, and with further recent research showing that just 14 percent of B2B survey respondents view customer experience and support as a top priority, there may be no better time to work on delivering great customer experiences. 
In the following randomly-ordered list, we’ll look at five B2B brands that are innovating with customer-pleasing digital experiences.
IBM publishes both a print and digital version of a magazine, with its award-winning Industrious quarterly publication, featuring the top content from IBM Industries blog combined with exclusive insight from a variety of industry influencers. Industrious was the winner of the Best Content Marketing Campaign at the B2B Awards USA in 2018, and offers a compelling example of how a large B2B firm is delivering great customer experiences. IBM senior vice president of digital sales and chief marketing officer Michelle Peluso recently offered insight into some of the ways IBM has worked to deliver more agile experiences both internally and on the customer experience front. You can hear her episode of The CMO Podcast here. [bctt tweet="“Client and customer needs are changing at a very rapid pace. We want to make sure IBM is interacting with the people who use our systems, software and services—not just the person making the purchase decisions.” @MichelleaPeluso" username="toprank"] Adding relevant influencer content is a proven method to drive engagement, build trust, and create digital experiences that are truly interesting and helpful. [bctt tweet="“It’s not enough to simply make people aware of our brands — we need to instill an immediate sense of credibility, so that trust is being established in the very first interactions.” — Nick Nelson @NickNelsonMN" username="toprank"]
At TopRank Marketing we are B2B influencer marketing specialists, and have recently worked to feature influencers in our client 3M’s Champions of Science series of podcasts. Recent industry experts appearing on Champions of Science have included Professor Stephen Curry, Department of Life Sciences at Imperial College London, Dr. Suze Kundu, Materials Chemist and Science Presenter, Chris Gammell, Principal, Analog Life, LLC, and Matt Hartings, Associate Professor of Chemistry at American University. Using podcasting can be a great way to up your customer experience game, and we’ve recently taken a look at how B2B marketers can promote podcasts, and have also gathered together an industry-leading list of top marketing-related podcasts, which you can find here:
Employee benefits administration technology firm Businessolver sought to connect with customers through conducting a study of empathy in the workplace, causing professionals to take a close look at what has recently been seen as the rising importance of empathy among workers in all fields. Businessolver's 2019 State of Workplace Empathy study highlights why workplace empathy should be an important part of company efforts, offering an online asset that can be cited and used by customers and their firms. [bctt tweet="“93 percent of employees say they're more likely to stay with an empathetic employer.” @businessolver" username="toprank"] At this year’s Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, greater incorporation of empathy and intuition in marketing processes was seen as a key trend for 2020, along with learning to better recognize the individuals behind the data. Take a look at more in “6 Cannes Revelations About B2B Marketing in 2020.” [bctt tweet="“Content marketing requires putting the empathy you have for your audience to a constructive purpose.” — Joshua Nite @NiteWrites" username="toprank"]
Each year marketing software firm Marketo creates a Guide to Lead Generation, with helpful insights for customers made available on an array of easy-to-access social media platforms including Facebook, LinkedIn, SlideShare, and Google, as well as the firm's own site. [bctt tweet="“We live in a hyperconnected world where our brands aren’t controlled by us anymore. They’re controlled by our customers. The brand is being defined by the buyer.” — Marketo CEO @nstevenlucas" username="toprank"] Offering helpful digital assets is just one of many successful methods to deliver great customer experiences. We've explored numerous additional ways savvy B2B marketers can offer memorable customer experiences in these recent articles:
Global technology and engineering firm Emerson has worked to increase the next generation’s interest in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM), and has conducted and released its 2019 STEM Survey. Emerson CMO Kathy Button Bell recently shared some of the innovative initiatives the company is taking to build successful customer experiences, in an interview with Drew Neisser of AdAge. “Empowering individuals of all ages and backgrounds with the tools necessary to thrive in STEM is a crucial step in solving the growing talent gap across several key industries,” Bell recently told Power Engineering. “We have long been dedicated to fostering a culture at Emerson that attracts and advances women through a variety of initiatives, including our 4,000-member Women in STEM group, which provides support and mentoring for our female engineers globally,” Bell added. [bctt tweet="“To raise new questions, new possibilities, to regard old problems from a new angle, requires creative imagination and marks real advance in science.” — Albert Einstein" username="toprank"]
When it comes to delivering great customer expectations, IBM, 3M, Businessolver, Marketo, and Emerson have given us five examples of what can be done with award-winning effort, sizable resources, and an abundance of time. Considering the extensive effort required to produce top-quality customer experiences today, many B2B brands are turning to professional agency help from firms such as TopRank Marketing, the only B2B Marketing agency offering influencer marketing as a top capability in Forrester’s most recent “B2B Marketing Agencies, North America, Q1 2019” report. You can also learn more on these subjects by joining us at upcoming speaking events and conferences. Our CEO Lee Odden will be speaking at Content Marketing World next week, where on September 3 he'll be presenting "How to Develop a B2B Influencer Marketing Program That Actually Works" with Amisha Gandhi of SAP, and a solo session on September 4 exploring "Content Marketing Fitness - 10 Exercises to Build Your Marketing Beach Body." Our Senior Director of Digital Strategy Ashley Zeckman will also be speaking at Content Marketing World, in "Guardians of Content Vol 1: How to Scale B2B Influencer Content to Save the Galaxy."
The post 5 B2B Brands Delivering Great Customer Experiences appeared first on Online Marketing Blog - TopRank®.
Have you been to a stadium concert lately? The big ones touring the country tend to pull out all the stops. It’s not just a singer on stage — they are usually supported by a giant jumbotron as backdrop providing flashy visuals, along with fog machines, laser lights, platforms rising out of the ground, special guest cameos… the works. Why is this? Because the bar has been raised. When fans plunk down the big bucks for tickets to see Drake or Carrie Underwood or The Rolling Stones, they expect more than seeing their favorite artists performing on stage. They expect an unforgettable experience that stirs all the senses. via GIPHY In content marketing, we see a continuing shift toward delivering full-on experiences. This emerging focus is evident in the steady growth of the term “content experience” in Google Trends over the past 10 years, and is now reaching a fever pitch as technology enables unprecedented sparkle and scintillation, while the shortening attention spans of our audience demand it. The theme for this year’s Content Marketing World extravaganza, as well as our interactive preview and the series of blog posts wrapping up today, all lead back to this crucial edict: elevating experiences and wowing the crowd. The good news is that there are endless ways to creatively approach this initiative, and today we’ll draw inspiration from CMWorld speakers who will be taking the stage next week in Cleveland to offer up some memorable experiences of their own. 
[bctt tweet="A memorable experience goes a long way. - @AmishaGandhi on raising the bar for content experiences #CMWorld" username="toprank"]
The post Wow Your Crowd: The Recipe for Creating Exceptional Content Experiences appeared first on Online Marketing Blog - TopRank®.
Influence is its own form of a modern digital currency. Influence is able to overcome almost any obstacle, and more than ever, it's the powerful (sometimes-hidden) global fuel that helps drive our multi-trillion dollar online business world. In fact, according to the 2019 Edelman Trust Barometer “In Brands We Trust?” report, 63% of consumers trust what influencers say about brands much more than what brands say about themselves within their advertising messages. An even more telling statistic from the same study is that 58% said they had purchased a product in the past six months because of an influencer, as shown below. 
As the internet has matured since its 1991 creation, networking between people around the world has expanded to truly astounding heights, helping make wonderful projects and partnerships happen. [bctt tweet="It’s not about who has the most followers, or the gaudiest personal brand. It’s about who resonates most with your specific customers and prospects. — Nick Nelson @NickNelsonMN" username="toprank"] By learning the importance of influence, how best to incorporate it into your own life and marketing, and how to deal with some of its primary challenges, B2B marketers and brands can harness the power of influence and reach new levels of business and personal success. Whether you call it influence, networking pull, or professional persuasion, connecting with successful people in your industry will bolster your own efforts both today and long into the future.
Successfully wielding online influence today puts the world at your fingertips. As with gold or paper money, the currency of influence can be earned, accumulated, spent, traded, or used towards philanthropic causes. When influence is willingly shared it has the special quality of creating other new introductions and connections, setting in motion a sphere of professional networking and knowledge that can keep growing as long as you put in the effort to understand and maintain it. [bctt tweet="Working with influencers is about building solid relationships that last over time, not just a summer fling. — Ashley Zeckman @azeckman" username="toprank"] Just as influence comes in vastly varying degrees, so to do influencers, who can take the form of micro-influencers or other specialty varieties. Recent data from several surveys shows that micro and niche-influencers are forging stronger target audience connections and boosting long-term loyalty. Heather-Mae Pusztai of Buffer recently took a close look at micro-influencers, in “Why Micro-Influencers May Be the Most Effective Influencer Marketing Strategy.” [bctt tweet="Topically, the influencers you work with must have relevant expertise, insight, interest, and audience, ultimately aligning with your goals and expertise of your brand. — Caitlin Burgess @CaitlinMBurgess" username="toprank"] More and more brands are looking to harness the power of influence through influencer marketing initiatives. In fact, influencer marketing spending in the U.S. and Canada has seen 83% year-over-year growth, accompanied by second-quarter spending of $442 million, according to recent research data from Instascreener. Over the next 12 months, 65% of multinational brands plan to increase influencer marketing spending, according to the World Federation of Advertisers. We’ve explored the unique strengths of influencer marketing in many recent articles, including these helpful takes:
Who really has influence and who is merely claiming to? Building influence is time-consuming, so why should I even bother? There’s little doubt that celebrity influencers have faced increasing skepticism, but the process of finding true B2B industry experts who are hyper-relevant to your industry is as important as ever, and we’ve looked at how to go about this in several recent pieces:
Measuring influence has changed over time and will continue to evolve. Will the ability to achieve and grow online influence remain fully accessible to everyone, or will those holding little influence and clout face insurmountable obstacles in the future? Will a backlash against celebrity influencers — or perhaps even twinfluencers — continue, or will methods and systems evolve that help us filter out pretenders and make it easier to discover and connect with true industry experts? [bctt tweet="The growth of influence on individual and organizational effectiveness in the B2B marketing world will continue for years to come. @leeodden" username="toprank"] Educator and writer Lillie Marshall recently took a look at the challenges that even using the word influencer can sometimes present, and the role diversity can play when considering the quality of influence. She ultimately prefers using the word "sway" over influence, a fine synonym in my book as well. [bctt tweet="It’s a fine balance to embrace the power and joy of our voices, yet honor what audiences truly desire. — Lillie Marshall @WorldLillie" username="toprank"] Several additional resources we've compiled to dig in and explore how influence and influencer marketing can intertwine to help B2B firms are these:
Whether you call it influencer marketing or working with top relevant experts in your industry, the quality of influence itself has a timeless and unmistakable power to drive successful marketing campaigns. [bctt tweet="When identifying and qualifying influencers, go beyond what the numbers are and see what that data really means. — Amisha Gandhi @AmishaGandhi" username="toprank"] Here are three articles with examples of how influencer marketing has helped B2B firms achieve strong results:
The post The Currency of Influence in Marketing — Buy, Sell, or Trade appeared first on Online Marketing Blog - TopRank®.
More people are on mobile than ever before, and the numbers aren’t going anywhere but up.
Statistically, at least half of the people reading this article are doing it from their phone.
Every time we take a ride on a bus or a train, we witness a sea of phones lighting up the faces of commuters.
But how pervasive are they, really?
And how are they affecting your marketing strategy?
This resource gives you 75 recent mobile statistics, organized into four categories:
Table of Contents (Click to Navigate to Each Mobile Statistics Category)
Before we dive into how mobile usage may be affecting your business’ marketing, advertising, or social media efforts, it’s worth learning exactly how pervasive mobile really is in the world today.
These 20 statistics examine global mobile adoption and internet usage as well as what all those people are doing with their time.
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Here are the most popular activities for mobile users (dark blue is mobile, light blue is tablet)
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Now that you have a better understanding of just how massive mobile usage is around the world, and a grip on what we’re doing with them, let’s take a look at how mobile affects your advertising and marketing efforts.
Below is an example from a business looking to pivot their online advertising strategy.
They poured money into mobile search advertising to see if the CPC was more affordable.
Here are their results:
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So now you understand how mobile usage affects your advertising and marketing strategy, but are mobile users buying?
And, if they are, how are they using their mobile devices, and what’s impacting their purchase decisions?
The mobile statistics below cover purchase behavior:
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It’s clear from the statistics above that mobile devices are having a massive influence on how we buy (both online and off).
But when we’re not buying, what are we doing?
After all, American adults are spending 3 hours and 23 minutes per day on their mobile phones.
They can’t be buying shoes the entire time, can they?
No, they’re on social media.
You probably expected that…
Here are the most important statistics to know about mobile social media usage:
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Now you know what all those people on the bus or train are doing.
Increasingly, we live our lives through our phones. Whether that’s a good thing or a bad is up to you.
But as a marketer or advertiser, (or just a citizen of the world) it’s essential to know how pervasive mobile phones are in our day-to-day.
We spend three and a half hours on them every day of the week – checking email, scrolling through Facebook, researching products, catching up with friends, and sharing our lives with our online communities.
Hopefully these 66 mobile statistics have given you a better understanding of the influence of mobile devices and (for marketers) how they can be leveraged to drive business success.
The post 75 Mobile Statistics to Get You Amped for 2020 appeared first on HigherVisibility.
We are all products of our environments, and the experiences we carry are invariably influential to the way we approach and think about our jobs. Recently we shared an interview with Margaret Magnarelli, who spent nearly a decade as a magazine editor before moving into a content marketing leadership role. With her background in journalism, she offers important perspective for marketers everywhere. The same is true for Annie Granatstein, who lives at the center of the convergence between investigative journalism and brand marketing. Annie runs The Washington Post’s BrandStudio unit, which takes The Post’s award-winning proclivity for immersive digital storytelling and leverages it on behalf of brands and advertisers. Peruse BrandStudio’s archive and you’ll find a wide range of multimedia techniques applied to bring stories to life. These include 360-degree environments, photo tours, augmented reality applications, choose-your-own-adventure journeys, and more. With the theme of this year’s Content Marketing World being show-stopping experiences that delight our audiences, the work being done by Annie’s team deserves our full attention. She was one of the CMWorld speakers who contributed to our interactive conference preview experience, where she proclaims that engaging our audiences emotionally should be an utmost priority. In her extended interview with TopRank Marketing, Annie elaborates on how BrandStudio is pursuing this objective, with plenty of examples and insights to illustrate.
The post Content Marketing Interview: Annie Granatstein on Creating Emotionally Engaging Content Experiences #CMWorld appeared first on Online Marketing Blog - TopRank®.
Some performers take the stage all by themselves, with no props or partners to lend support, and capture their audience with a riveting solo act. Hilarious standup comedy routines and enlightening TED Talks exemplify this ability in action. As a content marketer, there are occasions where a well written piece will take off on its own, with no help required beyond a powerful message presented clearly. But more often, spicing things up with added elements of interactivity or visual pizzazz provides a necessary added boost in today’s busy digital environment. And incorporating the right strategic partners is a reliable way to increase your program’s reach and impact. When I attended my first Digital Summit Minneapolis two years ago, Seth Godin delivered the opening keynote. He employed a technique that still stands out in my mind to this day. Following a fairly brief monologue, he pulled out a plush cube toy and tossed it into the audience, encouraging the recipient to ask him a question and then throw it to anyone else around them in the crowd. This went on for about 30 minutes. With one ultra-simple prop, Seth brought freshness to the familiar and turned his audience into part of the show. This represents a broader goal for modern content marketers of all stripes, and one we can achieve digitally through various emerging tactics. Plenty of other practitioners are mastering the art of elevating experiences through audience immersion today. Whether through props (multimedia, interactivity, augmented reality) or partnerships (influencers, user-generated content, co-creation), they add an extra flare that makes content irresistibly engaging. How? Ahead of Content Marketing World 2019, TopRank Marketing teamed up with Content Marketing Institute to create an insight-fueled interactive experience: The Greatest Content Marketing Show on Earth. One of the most vital topics covered — and one that will surely be a central focus at CMWorld 2019 — is picking the right props and partners to propel your content. Today we’ll touch on some key insights from those leading the way.
The post Wow Your Crowd: How Influencers and Media Integrations Can Add Pizzazz to Your Content Act appeared first on Online Marketing Blog - TopRank®.
