Marketing Interactions

AUGUST 1, 2021

I just read a recommendation that B2B organizations should allocate 46% of budget to brand marketing and 54% to demand gen. The reasoning is based on an estimation that at any given time, only 5% to 10% of customers are in-market for a category. But I see others breaking the marketing spectrum down like this: Brand – awareness.

Demand 69

Demand B2B Marketing Brand Identity Branding 69

Marketing Interactions

JULY 25, 2021

Hyper-everything in B2B marketing! Is it the new “new and improved” label for marketing concepts? I don’t know about you, but I don’t need marketing to become hyper-anything. But here’s my real problem with hyper – marketers haven’t mastered relevance, personalization, targeting, or experiences in their original forms.

B2B Marketing 69

B2B Marketing B2B Paid Search Agency Buying Cycle 69

Marketing Interactions

AUGUST 15, 2021

Which, as a marketer, I found disappointing—and yes, a bit maddening—until I stopped to think about it. Shouldn’t sending people who actively engage and show interest in solving the problem be the core qualification for a marketing qualified lead (MQL)? And arguably for a marketing qualified account (MQA). Lack of Agreement.

Marketing Qualified Leads 62

Marketing Qualified Leads Lead Ranking Sales Qualified Leads High Quality Lead 62

Marketing Interactions

JULY 18, 2021

Personalization in B2B marketing has been on an upward intention trend for a while now. Despite marketers’ best intentions, nearly half say delivering personalized and relevant content is a top business challenge. Forrester Business Technographics® Marketing Survey, 2020). But it’s not working out very well.

B2B Marketing 75

B2B Marketing Personalization B2B Planning 75

Marketing Interactions

DECEMBER 21, 2021

For some reason, B2B marketing content tends to lean more toward academia than literary license. While I applaud all the folks who insist that B2B is like B2C because we’re marketing to people, it’s a sentiment that’s slightly misplaced. Emotion in B2B marketing content is more subtle. Empathy represents emotion.

B2B Marketing 80

B2B Marketing B2B Content Paid Search Agency 80

Marketing Interactions

FEBRUARY 15, 2019

Know your audience has become a rallying cry behind the concept of creating compelling buyer and customer experiences and becoming customer-centric companies. But how many B2B marketers can say they truly KNOW their customers? I was sitting in a call with a group of marketers recently, reviewing a go-to-market plan.

Conversion 93

Conversion Planning Buyer Personas Dwell 93

Marketing Interactions

SEPTEMBER 20, 2018

For SaaS and subscription companies, winning a customer is only the first step of the journey to customer lifetime value (LTV). This is why it’s imperative for B2B tech marketers to shift their focus from buying journey funnels to full-on customer lifecycle management. Develop a Clear Customer Engagement Strategy.

Marketing Funnels 87

Marketing Funnels Top of Funnel B2B Marketing Work Management 87

Marketing Interactions

MAY 21, 2018

With that said, what I see most is that B2B marketers tend to stick to traditional vanity metrics rather than doing the work to rethink what we’re measuring—and why. According to the latest email marketing benchmarks by MailChimp, I’m being generous in the example above. Email metrics are a great example.

Webinar Metrics 74

Webinar Metrics Marketing Strategy Marketing & Strategy Dwell 74

Marketing Interactions

JUNE 4, 2017

Pushing product: it’s what B2B companies have been doing for years. We have all these meetings and mandates about what the company wants to accomplish and rally our teams to create strategies and execute tactics to achieve them. How many marketing meetings have you been in that start with some version of one of the below?

Account Based Marketing 64

Account Based Marketing ABM Lead Scoring Lead Ranking 64

Marketing Interactions

SEPTEMBER 30, 2018

As I stated in my book, Digital Relevance, “…a process for continuous improvement will enable your marketing team to tweak and refine strategy progressively to keep your brand relevant in the face of change.”. 93% of marketers think personalization at scale is attainable but 58% aren’t sure how to do so. Bridge the Gap , 2018, Ytel].

Relevance 58

Relevance B2B Marketing B2B Broadcasting 58

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. One of the key foundational elements to a content marketing strategy is a buyer persona.

Buyer Personas 74

Buyer Personas Enterprise Management B2B Marketing Marketing Strategy 74

Marketing Interactions

DECEMBER 26, 2016

Nearly all B2B companies are using content marketing to attract and engage buyers. But getting it right is still a struggle for a majority of companies. This is because we haven’t formalized content marketing as a strategy or built sufficient process, workflow, and collaboration around its execution.

Lead Scoring 72

Lead Scoring Lead Ranking B2B Marketing Planning 72

Marketing Interactions

DECEMBER 29, 2016

Using content for marketing in B2B companies has caught on with a fervor that continues unabated. And, even though only a small percentage of B2B marketers say they are consistently effective with it, most of them will produce more content next year. And now their sights are set on scale for B2B content marketing.

B2B Marketing 81

B2B Marketing Content Marketing B2B Content 81

Marketing Interactions

APRIL 21, 2017

One of the biggest values that come with content marketing operations maturity is the ability to say “no” to ad hoc content demands. As B2B marketers have adopted content marketing, many have found themselves on the hamster wheel of content production. But publishing content is not content marketing.

Content Marketing 60

Content Marketing Planning Marketing Management Paid Search Agency 60

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. Compassion: From Company-Centric to Customer-Obsessed.

B2B Marketing 73

B2B Marketing Marketing Strategy Marketing & Strategy Webinar Metrics 73

Marketing Interactions

JUNE 23, 2017

In this post, I’ll discuss how the details of a buyer persona inform a content marketing strategy. As VP of Finance for my company, most of my time is spent in status meetings with my direct reports. Examples: Automate processes to speed time to market by removing inefficient workflows. 9 Components of a B2B Buyer Persona.

Buyer Personas 64

Buyer Personas Marketing Strategy Marketing & Strategy B2B Marketing 64

Marketing Interactions

AUGUST 15, 2022

One of the first things marketers and sellers must understand to connect with and influence buyers is the objective. So, let’s take growth as the overall company mandate. For Product leaders it may mean speeding up release cycles to get new features/versions in market faster. Why ETAs Don’t Replace Buyer Personas.

Buyer Personas 75

Buyer Personas Ideal Customer Profiles B2B Gartner 75

Marketing Interactions

SEPTEMBER 26, 2022

As the market shifts, much of what you thought was true about your buyer personas and ICPs may be different. These events in your target markets can quickly make your messaging irrelevant, rendering your marketing programs and sales plays ineffective. This is an indication that marketers are not telling the right stories.

Ideal Customer Profiles 80

Ideal Customer Profiles Buyer Personas Marketing Analytics Tools B2B 80

Marketing Interactions

APRIL 26, 2022

We can start by dropping the jargon and the “scripts” of how we think marketing and sales content should sound and just talk to our B2B buyers like the professionals they are—as people. Marketing is all about perception. In other words, if your content sounds like marketing, you’re giving up points for trust.

Top of Funnel 91

Top of Funnel B2B Content Terms and Conditions 91

Marketing Interactions

JANUARY 19, 2020

Which B2B buyer personas, when engaged, will help marketers drive contribution to revenues? The better question for discovery is, “Who can the marketing team reach and engage successfully? Note that this could be the reason marketers think they need a CXO persona. Let’s take on both of those questions. Why do the work twice?

Buyer Personas 121

Buyer Personas Enterprise Management Work Management B2B 121

Marketing Interactions

JUNE 27, 2021

Year after year I read research where marketers report their biggest challenges include: Knowing who to target and how to engage buyers. Proving the ROI from content marketing. But the above three findings from 2021 reports indicate that’s not true for close to half of the marketers who participated in the research.

Buyer Personas 111

Buyer Personas B2B Ideal Customer Profiles Account Based Marketing 111

Marketing Interactions

SEPTEMBER 14, 2021

Unfortunately, this is a challenge that marketers continue to struggle with. And that’s not surprising given the rate things change in today’s market landscape. Leaps of faith can happen in all kinds of places in our marketing. Sales says one thing, marketing messaging says another, and product marketing says something else.

B2B 149

B2B Marketing Qualified Leads Lead Ranking Content 149

Marketing Interactions

MARCH 7, 2022

Most companies tend to either write them off or recycle them back into their existing net new B2B nurturing programs. Yet most companies don’t act on this potential, losing the work that’s already been done—on both sides. If they chose a competitor, then they’re off the market for at least a year…or three. What do you think?

Ideal Customer Profiles 88

Ideal Customer Profiles B2B B2B Thought Leadership Peer-to-peer 88

Marketing Interactions

FEBRUARY 17, 2020

Content marketing has been an ongoing practice for B2B marketers for more than a decade. Marketers are spending a boatload of money, time and effort producing and distributing content to their audiences. Get rid of the sales pitch and marketing fluff. B2B Marketers say: Our personalization efforts are mostly ineffective.

Work Management 96

Work Management Marketing Management B2B Thought Leadership B2B 96

Marketing Interactions

MARCH 22, 2022

The way B2B companies qualify leads is based on what we want, rather than letting our buyers guide us. And I’d wager that if you look at the way your company applies BANT, need has an inside-out focus. There’s only one of four components that marketers can weigh in on. Case in point > BANT. Need: This one is still valid.

Work Management 62

Work Management Marketing Management Ideal Customer Profiles Sales Qualified Leads 62

Marketing Interactions

FEBRUARY 8, 2022

Strangely, B2B companies use it to foster an inside-out perspective. Customer centricity has become another tool companies use to try to place products, with their goals taking priority over their buyers.’. Most companies understand—at least theoretically—customers (happy, satisfied customers) drive organizational growth.

B2B 69

B2B Peer-to-peer Gartner Top of Funnel 69

Marketing Interactions

JANUARY 3, 2022

Unfortunately, many marketing campaigns provide the same content to both buyers and customers. As the uncertainty of the last two years has pointed marketers to focus more on customer retention and upsell, you may be thinking, yes, but…. It’s a new division of the company, they don’t know us yet, so they’re new buyers….

B2B 69

B2B Paid Search Agency Lead Scoring Lead Ranking 69

Marketing Interactions

FEBRUARY 20, 2022

In B2B marketing and sales, we talk a lot about our buyers’ pain or need. That all takes time, research and political negotiations depending on company culture. 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.

Top of Funnel 88

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

Marketing Interactions

SEPTEMBER 21, 2021

I’d contend that all the content your marketing team produces needs to be human, be helpful, and be insightful. What does your company think? Very little of it takes a stand about what the company producing it thinks. The other outcome from POV is that it makes your content/company memorable. Read that again….

B2B Thought Leadership 69

B2B Thought Leadership Thought Leadership B2B Content 69

Marketing Interactions

NOVEMBER 2, 2021

But, for marketers, questions are one key to B2B buyer enablement. But it’s surprising how few marketers use questions as a tool and framework to achieve goals, including: Gaining awareness from specific personas, segments. Most marketers still struggle to understand what’s relevant to their buyers and customers.

B2B 75

B2B B2B Sales Webinar Metrics Buy 75

Marketing Interactions

JANUARY 9, 2022

Think about the Marketing Technology Landscape compiled each year by Scott Brinker – now up to 8,000 solutions. Solution saturation makes marketing and selling even more challenging. Which of our SMEs can help us generate new ideas we can use to approach target markets? appeared first on Marketing Interactions.

B2B Thought Leadership 62

B2B Thought Leadership B2B Thought Leadership Content 62

Marketing Interactions

MAY 21, 2018

The intent to expand content marketing strategy and tactics is in every B2B marketing survey. B2B marketers plan to create more content, spend more on content marketing, increase the number of channels for content distribution, and add more technology to their marketing tech stack. consistency with their content.

Cost 69

Cost Content Marketing Automation Services Work Management 69

Marketing Interactions

APRIL 21, 2017

What he said can be paraphrased as: If there is no buzz about your company online, I won’t consider your product as a viable choice. He also says he reads white papers, does his due diligence, looks for facts and data to back up company claims, and talks to vendors. B2B Buyers Will Change if Marketers Don’t.

Peer-to-peer 100

Peer-to-peer Lead Gen B2B Vendors 100

Marketing Interactions

SEPTEMBER 9, 2021

One of the problems marketing and sales have as B2B buyers’ roles shift is that they start too late in the process. ABM is a terrific vehicle for enabling marketers and sellers to work in parallel to help B2B buyers do their own discovery and complete their pre-buying work to enable them to buy what you’re selling.

Ideal Customer Profiles 62

Ideal Customer Profiles Account Based Marketing B2B ABM 62

Marketing Interactions

NOVEMBER 29, 2021

This is a question that comes up repeatedly for B2B marketers and one we can’t seem to answer definitively. Forrester finds that buyer interactions have increased to 27 (across both marketing and sales) from 17 only two years ago. To gate or not to gate your B2B content? That’s an increase of 47%. It’s easy to share a link.

B2B 62

B2B Work Management Marketing Management B2B Thought Leadership 62

Marketing Interactions

JULY 25, 2019

And content that tells a disconnected story will only result in confusion that causes buyers to have a lack of faith that your company knows what it’s talking about and has the expertise to help them solve the problem. Product needs regional teams to work better together to get products to market faster. Let’s take an example.

Relevance 73

Relevance Work Management Marketing Management B2B Sales 73

Marketing Interactions

JUNE 20, 2021

All go-to-market and customer programs run on messaging. Marketing creates messaging to position the company in market, draw attention to the brand and create awareness and advancement for prospective buyers and across the customer continuum. Marketing redesigns the website in preparation for a big, new product update.

B2B 62

B2B Marketing Management Customer Satisfaction B2B Sales 62