Marketing Interactions

JUNE 27, 2021

I’m really tired of seeing people dismiss B2B buyer personas as worthless. Well Built B2B Buyer Personas Provide Answers to Marketing Challenges. I’ve been building B2B buyer personas since 2007 for my clients. That’s the most important part of a B2B buyer persona. Creating compelling and engaging content.

Buyer Personas 111

Buyer Personas B2B Ideal Customer Profiles Account Based Marketing 111

Marketing Interactions

NOVEMBER 15, 2021

B2B Intent data is the latest tool in the marketing stack on the hype cycle. Therefore, we can expand the dependencies a bit further in B2B marketing and selling by recognizing that interest must be sustainable, and intent must include the ability and willingness to act (buy). The Rabbit Hole of B2B Intent Data.

Intent Data 124

Intent Data Intent B2B Marketing B2B 124

Marketing Interactions

FEBRUARY 20, 2022

In B2B marketing and sales, we talk a lot about our buyers’ pain or need. Yet, given what your digital behavior indicates, this is when marketers are looking to get you to raise your hand for a demo or take a meeting with a sales rep. The Mandate to Help B2B Buyers with Problem Blindness. Do you feel it? Do you have this?

Top of Funnel 88

Top of Funnel B2B Peer-to-peer Lead Scoring 88

Marketing Interactions

SEPTEMBER 26, 2022

These events in your target markets can quickly make your messaging irrelevant, rendering your marketing programs and sales plays ineffective. Only 16% of B2B marketers rate their current lead nurturing initiatives as excellent, per the 2022 Lead Nurturing & Acceleration Benchmark Survey. What worked yesterday may not work today.

Ideal Customer Profiles 80

Ideal Customer Profiles Buyer Personas Marketing Analytics Tools B2B 80

Marketing Interactions

JANUARY 15, 2023

As I keep seeing all these posts about marketers going gaga over ChatGPT, I wonder if we’re missing a more confounding impact from the tool > our B2B buyers using it. So, let’s talk about what this means for B2B marketers…. If you follow marketing research, you know those issues are already key challenges for B2B marketers.

Marketing Management 80

Marketing Management B2B Vendors Buy 80

Marketing Interactions

JANUARY 19, 2020

The average is three to five B2B buyer personas. Which B2B buyer personas, when engaged, will help marketers drive contribution to revenues? Which B2B Buyer Personas Should You Build? They are convinced that the higher they can get in the organization, the more sales they will be able to influence. Why do the work twice?

Buyer Personas 121

Buyer Personas Enterprise Management Work Management B2B 121

Marketing Interactions

JULY 31, 2022

I’m hearing a lot of assertions about the B2B buyer journey. Sure, you may get engagement on a one-off basis, but unless your sale is transactional, you’re also giving up the depth required for a complex sale. 3: Marketers have no control over the B2B buying journey. This also holds true for sales.

B2B 75

B2B Buyer's Journey Gartner B2B Sales 75

Marketing Interactions

FEBRUARY 7, 2020

The idea that if we cram everything into a 3-week campaign, we can force our prospects into speaking with our sales reps and buying. We need to size our B2B content to fit into those windows of opportunity in a way that’s meaningful and fuels purpose. Go Small and Deep with B2B Content. The Power of One Applied to B2B Content.

B2B 114

B2B Content B2B Marketing Trust Marketing 114

Marketing Interactions

NOVEMBER 29, 2021

To gate or not to gate your B2B content? This is a question that comes up repeatedly for B2B marketers and one we can’t seem to answer definitively. Unless it’s a demo form—and sometimes not even then—filling out a form does not make someone a lead who is sales ready. If it did, sales reps wouldn’t shun your MQLs.

B2B 62

B2B Work Management Marketing Management B2B Thought Leadership 62

Marketing Interactions

FEBRUARY 17, 2020

Content marketing has been an ongoing practice for B2B marketers for more than a decade. But for many buyers, the B2B content they encounter is out of context. B2B Buyers say: Give me messaging I can understand. Get rid of the sales pitch and marketing fluff. Lack of Context in B2B Content Kills Engagement.

Work Management 96

Work Management Marketing Management B2B Thought Leadership B2B 96

Marketing Interactions

AUGUST 24, 2021

And they benefit from B2B content that shows them how to do those things. There’s a lot more to B2B content marketing than thought leadership, industry trends and infotainment. Aim Earlier with Your B2B Content Marketing Strategy. Think about what your buyers have already gone through before they engage with your sales reps.

B2B Thought Leadership 62

B2B Thought Leadership Thought Leadership B2B Gartner 62

Marketing Interactions

OCTOBER 8, 2020

The Job of Sales Content. For this post, let’s focus on content’s job for sales. Sales content must focus on creating buying intent. To do this, it must either instigate inquiries from your buyers or invoke curiosity and engagement when used by a sales rep or dealer rep in outreach or in support of conversations.

Effectiveness 122

Effectiveness Work Management Content Marketing Management 122

Marketing Interactions

AUGUST 15, 2022

With 8 to 15 buyers involved in a complex B2B purchase, ensuring a no-regret deal can be as difficult as herding cats. For Sales leaders, it may mean not only closing more deals but also selling more expansion deals. The enduring problem both B2B marketers and sellers have almost universally is self-focus. No regrets.

Buyer Personas 75

Buyer Personas Ideal Customer Profiles B2B Gartner 75

Marketing Interactions

OCTOBER 8, 2020

One of the assumptions that marketers and sales reps make when people show interest in your website, content, or booth at a virtual summit or trade show is that they’re buyers. At a minimum, a B2B buyer is thought to: Understand the problem they’re trying to solve. The Opportunity for Marketers and Sales Teams.

Buy 77

Buy B2B Peer-to-peer Work Management 77

Marketing Interactions

SEPTEMBER 9, 2021

Discovery is most often considered a function performed by sales reps. But in this context, it’s more about discovery FOR the sales rep, NOT B2B buyers. One of the problems marketing and sales have as B2B buyers’ roles shift is that they start too late in the process. Back to ABM…and Seamless Transitions.

Ideal Customer Profiles 62

Ideal Customer Profiles Account Based Marketing B2B ABM 62

Marketing Interactions

OCTOBER 5, 2022

When B2B marketers think “buyer,” they’re most often thinking about net-new buyers. This becomes even more important when you consider 73% of B2B tech companies have accelerated existing company revenue goals and 41% of them are decreasing their emphasis on net-new sales to focus on up- and cross-selling.

Ideal Customer Profiles 62

Ideal Customer Profiles B2B Marketing Enterprise Management Work Management 62

Marketing Interactions

FEBRUARY 8, 2022

Customer centricity mostly misses the mark in B2B. Strangely, B2B companies use it to foster an inside-out perspective. B2B buying is hard. To change this outcome in our favor, we need to unify around B2B buying committees (individuals), not channels or products. months to make a buying decision. If they do.

B2B 69

B2B Peer-to-peer Gartner Top of Funnel 69

Marketing Interactions

NOVEMBER 2, 2021

But, for marketers, questions are one key to B2B buyer enablement. B2B buyers facing a problem must find out how to fix it—or even if they should. In support of sales conversations valued by buyers. In the recorded sales calls you listen to. From marketing to product to sales to customer success to UX designers, and more.

B2B 75

B2B B2B Sales Webinar Metrics Buy 75

Marketing Interactions

JANUARY 25, 2022

The beginning of the year is an appropriate time to take a stand about the payoffs of commitment in B2B marketing strategies. The beginning of the year is when a lot of B2B companies look at what they want to accomplish this year as a clean slate. B2B marketers must stop thinking about “campaigns” in response to change.

B2B Marketing 69

B2B Marketing B2B Budget Programs Marketing & Strategy 69

Marketing Interactions

JANUARY 3, 2022

Your B2B nurturing programs must account for the dynamism of the customer lifecycle to be effective. Namely: In B2B complex purchases, the end users are often not the buyers you sold to, so your audience has shifted. The Focus on B2B Nurturing for Retention and Upsell. B2B Nurturing Programs Let Your Audience Drive.

B2B 69

B2B Paid Search Agency Lead Scoring Lead Ranking 69

Marketing Interactions

SEPTEMBER 21, 2021

And much of the B2B content produced is leaving buyers cold. Edelman and LinkedIn recently released the 2021 B2B Thought Leadership Impact Study. But, as I reviewed the findings in the report, I noticed many of the findings apply not just to thought leadership content, but to all B2B content. The noise is deafening.

B2B Thought Leadership 69

B2B Thought Leadership Thought Leadership B2B Content 69

Marketing Interactions

AUGUST 8, 2021

“Sellers use their sales process to place solutions.”. The other is a change management initiative with individualized criteria sales reps lack insight to. This is because our marketing-to-sales models and processes are not built to help buyers buy. They are sales-driven, not buyer-driven. They drive, but you can enable.

Buy 62

Buy Work Management Lead Ranking Marketing Management 62

Marketing Interactions

JUNE 20, 2021

B2B messaging is a key component of doing business. Buyers engage with marketing and sales and customers and product folks interchangeably during their interactions and experiences with companies and throughout their lifecycle with a vendor. Architect B2B Messaging and Stories Around Customers. That’s no longer true.

B2B 62

B2B Marketing Management Customer Satisfaction B2B Sales 62

Marketing Interactions

JANUARY 27, 2020

In a lot of the conversations I have with B2B marketers, many are overwhelmed when confronted with how to build truly actionable buyer personas. In my previous post, I discussed how to determine the which B2B buyer personas you really need. In my previous post, I discussed how to determine the which B2B buyer personas you really need.

Buyer Personas 69

Buyer Personas Effectiveness B2B B2B Thought Leadership 69

Marketing Interactions

DECEMBER 26, 2016

Corporate Visions recently surveyed more than 400 B2B organizations to find out how one statistic is creating challenges at the intersection of content strategy, sales enablement, and lead conversion. But what I really want this report to help marketing and sales practitioners come to terms with is the consistency gap.

Conversion 82

Conversion B2B Top of Funnel Stats 82

Marketing Interactions

APRIL 14, 2019

Marketing automation is the foundational solution in the Martech stack for many B2B marketers. Invite Sales to Step into Existing Conversations. Whether your buyer is engaging with your content or your sales rep, the expectation is a continuous conversation. Without the back and forth, there is no conversation.

Conversion 86

Conversion Marketing Automation Services B2B Trigger Marketing 86

Marketing Interactions

APRIL 21, 2017

For context, this is a B2B SaaS product. Take a look at the last three years of research from DemandGen Report’s B2B Content Preferences Surveys: In 2015 , the top suggested improvements to content: Use more data and research to support content. Curb the sales messaging. Curb the sales messaging. Curb the sales messaging.

Peer-to-peer 100

Peer-to-peer Lead Gen B2B Vendors 100

Marketing Interactions

SEPTEMBER 20, 2018

This is why it’s imperative for B2B tech marketers to shift their focus from buying journey funnels to full-on customer lifecycle management. In this blog, I’ll cover best practices for B2B marketers to make the shift from funnels to lifecycles to increase ROI and help your customers stick with you for the long run.

Marketing Funnels 87

Marketing Funnels Top of Funnel B2B Marketing Work Management 87

Marketing Interactions

JUNE 23, 2017

While 89% of B2B marketers have embraced content marketing, only 37% have a documented content marketing strategy, and only 22% say they are extremely successful with their overall approach to content marketing. Yet merely 57% of B2B marketers say they have a deep understanding of the buyer personas included in their strategy.

Buyer Personas 74

Buyer Personas Enterprise Management B2B Marketing Marketing Strategy 74

Marketing Interactions

JANUARY 30, 2017

This happens because B2B marketing is often based on a set of one-off, one-way interactions defined by what we believe the audience should do, whether it’s fill out our form, register for our webinar, share our blog post, follow us on social media, and more actions focused on us. Why would you ever want to give it to them?

B2B Marketing 73

B2B Marketing Marketing Strategy Marketing & Strategy Webinar Metrics 73

Marketing Interactions

DECEMBER 26, 2016

Nearly all B2B companies are using content marketing to attract and engage buyers. 28% of B2B marketers describe their organization’s content marketing maturity as sophisticated/mature. 28% of B2B marketers describe their organization’s content marketing maturity as sophisticated/mature.

Lead Scoring 72

Lead Scoring Lead Ranking B2B Marketing Planning 72

Marketing Interactions

SEPTEMBER 30, 2018

Unfortunately, the following recent research findings indicate not a lot has changed since I wrote my book four years ago: 55% of B2B marketers somewhat or strongly agree that they have difficulty getting their message and content in front of their target audience. B2B buyers crave meaning and connection—not just utility or value.

Relevance 58

Relevance B2B Marketing B2B Broadcasting 58

Marketing Interactions

MARCH 8, 2017

If you know me, you know I’m all about creating and using B2B buyer personas to drive content marketing strategy. A B2B buyer persona should never be treated as a silo. And this one presents a huge opportunity for B2B marketers. A Look at B2B Buying Dynamics. There’s just one thing. Yep, I know. After all – 23.8%

Buyer Personas 48

Buyer Personas Budget Programs B2B Cross-Selling 48

Marketing Interactions

MARCH 22, 2022

The way B2B companies qualify leads is based on what we want, rather than letting our buyers guide us. There’s also been a lot of talk and research showing that B2B marketers intend to make lead quality a higher priority than lead quantity. Case in point > BANT. The Case to Banish BANT. First, let’s look at why BANT is ineffective.

Work Management 62

Work Management Marketing Management Ideal Customer Profiles Sales Qualified Leads 62

Marketing Interactions

JULY 25, 2019

Once B2B buyers figured out they could access whatever information they needed to understand a new subject, answer a question, or evaluate a product they no longer needed to talk to a vendor until they decided to invite them to the conversation. At last count by CEB (Gartner), there are nearly 7 people involved in a B2B buying decision.

Relevance 73

Relevance Work Management Marketing Management B2B Sales 73

Marketing Interactions

FEBRUARY 15, 2019

But how many B2B marketers can say they truly KNOW their customers? For those of you who know me, you know I spend much of my time talking to my clients’ customers to do the research necessary to build buyer personas that can truly inform content marketing, product marketing and sales enablement programs.

Conversion 93

Conversion Planning Buyer Personas Dwell 93

Marketing Interactions

JUNE 13, 2021

Ever since, I’ve been thinking about a few more things that B2B marketers need to break. But, in B2B, it’s not as much about knowing their shoe size as it is understanding their industry, role, and use case. Research from Gartner found that helping B2B buyers advance increased purchase intent by 16%.

B2B Marketing 174

B2B Marketing B2B Gartner Purchase Intent 174