Tony Zambito

MARCH 22, 2010

  Determining how to win has strategy relevance to pricing, selling structure, content marketing, and etc.   Let’s take the case of HP and IBM as they battle it out in the midmarket space. Each is investing significant dollars in their marketing and demand generation programs to attract medium sized businesses.

Buyer Personas 100

Buyer Personas Planning Segmentation Case Studies 100

Tony Zambito

NOVEMBER 10, 2011

Buyer Trend: Overwhelmed By Content. During the past two years, we’ve seen a significant rise in focus on content and how content is the new marketing.    While some may debate that content marketing is messaging in new clothing, it is now a competency that marketing executives need to assure getting right. 

Trends 100

Trends Content Wikipedia Custom Publishing 100

Tony Zambito

MAY 8, 2011

  From a business culture perspective, we are seeing a recently introduced new domain of content marketing born out of changes in technology and buyer behaviors as well as the area of sales enablement attempting to make selling performance more efficient.    Sometimes I wonder though if the two areas ever talk to each other. 

Buyer Personas 100

Buyer Personas Content Marketing Content Buying Cycle 100

Tony Zambito

MAY 12, 2021

A good reason your content marketing may fall on deaf ears. Consisting of generic forms of background information passed off as a way to personalize. For content to resonate and sales to make sense during buyer conversation, you will need to know a lot more about the “new world order” of buying processes.

Buyer Personas 221

Buyer Personas Marketing AI Personalization B2B Sales 221

Tony Zambito

NOVEMBER 29, 2020

It is no longer about fulfilling just the information gap. BTI buyers saw the Internet and its evolution as a way to get information. They no longer needed to call a sales representative to begin information seeking. Content marketing arose in response. Digital explorers know they can get information.

Internet Marketing 207

Internet Marketing Fulfillment Interactive Marketing Customer Surveys 207

Tony Zambito

MAY 31, 2017

What was true then and is as true today, is the need for information and insights into accounts. When ABS (account-based sales) first came into existence, it began with needs assessments and led to the collection of information on teams, hierarchy, divisions, decision-makers, approvers, etc. Common Thread.

Account Based Marketing 211

Account Based Marketing ABM Digital Transformation Paid Search Agency 211

Tony Zambito

MARCH 6, 2017

B2B companies may have to come to grips with the fact they are living in their own digital information bubble. Inside the bubble, intelligence is gathered to support predefined expectations around CX, account-based marketing, buyer’s journey, content marketing , content conversion rates, etc.

Digital Transformation 253

Digital Transformation Buyer Personas Lead Ranking B2B 253

Tony Zambito

FEBRUARY 5, 2017

In the past five years, the often-unquestioned hymnal has been that to succeed in today’s digital world, businesses must produce content. Produce high-quality content, yes. According to various statistics on the Internet, we are living in a world where every minute over 200 million items of online content is produced.

Digital Transformation 50

Digital Transformation Buyer Personas Broadcasting Leads 50

Tony Zambito

NOVEMBER 23, 2020

.” Oftentimes though referring to buyer profiles hastily completed for specific content campaigns. Where informing insights are once again gainfully sought. Analytics are helpful in informing where updating is needed. Be wary of updating the bad to worse. The Reasons Why To Update. Interactions Have Changed.

Buyer Personas 228

Buyer Personas Terms and Conditions Interactive Marketing B2B Sales 228

Tony Zambito

MAY 17, 2010

Similarly, the world of B2B Marketing and Content Marketing must contend with parity.    Businesses continue to be in receipt of multiple waves of marketing messaging, email marketing, demand generation, pay per click, and many new forms of social networking oriented content. 

Buyer Personas 100

Buyer Personas B2B Marketing B2B Content 100

Tony Zambito

JANUARY 30, 2011

One of the interesting outcomes of the rise of Social Media , Demand Generation , and Content Marketing in 2010 was the increasing use of the term audience development.  In the new world of content marketing, the idea of thinking like a publisher has taken root.  Image via Wikipedia. Let’s take a look at some good.

Social Media 100

Social Media Social Marketing Buyer Personas Planning 100

Tony Zambito

DECEMBER 6, 2020

What I do know is that much of what I see is just redundant information about our buyers. With the focus on activities that buyers engage in, such as what content is being accessed and how often. . Nothing new in a way that helps us.”. Why can this happen? Hierarchy Gets in The Way.

Organization 183

Organization B2B Buyer Personas Fulfillment 183

Tony Zambito

MAY 5, 2021

The results can often be brand storytelling and content that fails to connect and is meaningless to an audience of buyers. Buyer Personas , archetypal representations of actual buyers based on qualitative research, have been helping to inform brand storytellers about their central buyers and insights into the story of buyers.

Buyer Personas 198

Buyer Personas Storytelling Brand Identity Branding 198

Tony Zambito

MAY 23, 2017

For example, many companies tend to adopt different labeled marketing approaches each year, whether it be content marketing, customer experience, account-based marketing, or the many others that have cropped up. While many companies have engaged in one or all three critical areas, the struggle is in creating a cycle that informs.

B2B Marketing 227

B2B Marketing Planning Buyer Personas B2B 227

Tony Zambito

DECEMBER 20, 2020

A key buyer insight coming out of the pandemic is B2B buyers are experiencing content fatigue. Who as a group, are undergoing the greatest barrage of content since the digitization of content began. With many B2B organizations tethered to activity-based metrics, the response is – you guessed it – more content marketing activity.

Account Based Marketing 273

Account Based Marketing Buyer Personas B2B Content 273

Tony Zambito

DECEMBER 13, 2015

Content Deluge Is Counter-Productive. A contributing element, found in behavioral research, is people (buyers) having the capacity to only retain a small amount of information to use specifically for decision-making. Marketing leaders enamored with content marketing in an overzealous manner should take note of this element.

Buyer Personas 100

Buyer Personas B2B Sales Lead Ranking Research 100

Tony Zambito

AUGUST 14, 2016

Information Overload by Jenny Chisnell. And, more importantly, truly informs on customer strategies. As a means to help inform overall customer strategy. Applying this quantifying approach to content development spun the numbers even higher. Buyer Personas Lost In Data Overkill.

Buyer Personas 102

Buyer Personas Ideal Customer Profiles Profiling CMO 102

Tony Zambito

OCTOBER 4, 2015

Respond with content and media that fits into the new world of digital commerce. Yet, as CMOs invest and allocate more to content and digital media, the returns are not occurring as hoped. Various studies have shown buyers continue to find as much as 60-to-75% of content to be non-relevant. Understanding The Problem.

Direct Marketing 100

Direct Marketing Buyer Personas Allocation Ideal Customer Profiles 100

Tony Zambito

JUNE 26, 2016

A recognition of the growing importance of digital content marketing to overall marketing strategies today. As the concept of content marketing has become more prominent in the B2B Marketing landscape, so have terms and compartmentalization. For example, some content marketing pundits believe you should separate out audience personas.

Buyer Personas 104

Buyer Personas Research B2B Fulfillment 104

Tony Zambito

NOVEMBER 15, 2020

A role or job-description buyer profile or buyer persona will leave you ill-informed. With digital content as a constant, we are seeing buyers wanting totally seller-free interactions to intense seller-intervention to help them. Buyer’s pursuit of goals is changing drastically and you need to know how and why they are changing.

Buyer Personas 220

Buyer Personas Digital Transformation B2B Sales Interactive Marketing 220

Tony Zambito

MAY 29, 2021

Delivering just-in-time content and details that inform the buyer in a way that matters to them. B2B leaders will need to develop marketing and sales teams’ abilities to truly understand buyers. Equipped to activate buyer insights and put them in action. Marketing can up their level of resonating with buyers.

Top of Funnel 162

Top of Funnel Buyer Personas B2B Buyer's Journey 162

Tony Zambito

MARCH 6, 2016

I recently wrote an article on the waste of content that is resulting from this assumption. Primarily from attempts to create multiple pieces of content for each perceived stage. Thus, inundating customers with non-relevant content. As opposed to a buyer’s focus on their situational scenario.

Buyer Personas 100

Buyer Personas Ideal Customer Profiles B2B B2B Sales 100

Tony Zambito

OCTOBER 23, 2016

The primary course of conversation in the past few years for CMO’s and their marketing teams has centered around customer centricity, customer experience, and content marketing. We have also seen organizations struggle with how best to adapt to new market dynamics related to customer behaviors and the role of content in reaching customers.

Enterprise Management 100

Enterprise Management Marketing Strategy Marketing & Strategy Work Management 100

Tony Zambito

NOVEMBER 1, 2015

A recent survey by B2B Marketing, in conjunction with the UK-based agency Tomorrow People, indicated only 38% of marketers considered their content to be “very customer-centric.” Incorporate data analysis : Quantitative data analysis can help to size opportunities based on the informed insights achieved in the qualitative buyer research.

Buyer Personas 100

Buyer Personas Ideal Customer Profiles B2B Marketing Paid Search Agency 100

Tony Zambito

JANUARY 22, 2017

When the concept of personas was first introduced, they were introduced on the foundation of informing design strategy. In this case, the focus is on understanding the goals of buyers to inform overall marketing and sales strategies. 4 – Digital Interaction Will Matter More Than Content.

Buyer Personas 100

Buyer Personas Digital Transformation Enterprise Management Account Based Marketing 100

Tony Zambito

MARCH 26, 2012

This includes getting a good sense about their Buyergraphics – their attitudes, perceptions, values, information needs, and more. To help round out the SMB buyer picture, learning their attitudes towards your product, service, or technology and how these attitudes drive information needs help to get deeply descriptive.

SMB 100

SMB Enterprise Management Buyer Personas Marketing Management 100

Tony Zambito

JANUARY 25, 2012

For decades, B2B sales and marketing has relied on business information of the likes of Hoovers , Dun & Bradstreet , and others. Business information also plays a role in providing B2B with a level of company profiles and firmographics data about organizations within markets. Insight into how buyers find content and share content.

Buyer Personas 100

Buyer Personas B2B Allocation Peer-to-peer 100

Tony Zambito

OCTOBER 25, 2011

When formulating marketing, sales, demand generation, and content strategies, an important factor is that of understanding the choices buyers make.  To gain such an understanding, we can look at several areas where buyers are confronted with choice: Information. I want to refrain from using the word content in this context. 

Demand Generation 100

Demand Generation Internet Marketing Purchase Buy 100

Tony Zambito

JANUARY 3, 2016

72% of the respondent stated they were using buyer personas for content marketing and messaging while 45% stated they were using for assessing market challenges and problems, as well as, address overall marketing strategy – an increase from 28% the previous year. As indicated by over 70% of the respondents.

Buyer Personas 100

Buyer Personas Correlation Effectiveness Ideal Customer Profiles 100

Tony Zambito

MAY 12, 2011

Without question, while B2B Marketing is focused on developing its new prominence in the early stages of the buying cycle via content strategy and content marketing, B2B Sales is caught flat-footed on how to adapt to changing buyer behaviors.  Eliminate Information Fog and Selling Friction! Image via Wikipedia.

Buyer Personas 100

Buyer Personas B2B Sales B2B Buying Cycle 100

Tony Zambito

JULY 18, 2011

  Social buyer persona development must change to be more about informing on listening competency than messaging competency.   When implemented correctly, buyer personas have been used to inform the design of buyer strategies and interactions.  From Content Presentation to Social Interaction.

Buyer Personas 100

Buyer Personas Lead Ranking Ideal Customer Profiles Opt-out 100

Tony Zambito

FEBRUARY 7, 2012

Here is a portion of what he said: “As more buyers wait to engage with sales and as more companies, in order to attract potential buyers, open up their content, the need to meet your audience’s needs before you know who they are is likely going to be one of the next revolutions we see.”. Smart Content. Rush to Tactics.

Demand Generation Agencies 100

Demand Generation Agencies Wikipedia Demand Generation Buyer Personas 100

Tony Zambito

DECEMBER 8, 2015

There has been much content propagated on buyer personas. My hope is the survey will yield informative insights and offer a pathway on how to properly assess and utilize buyer persona development. From advice on how to do interviews to what elements to include in buyer persona descriptions.

Buyer Personas 100

Buyer Personas Customer Surveys Ideal Customer Profiles Organic Leads 100

Tony Zambito

APRIL 29, 2012

While efforts are made to develop the usual litany of content such as white papers and other mediums, they are focused on a generic understanding of challenges and issues. Their information needs do not necessarily align or map one-to-one to a linear view of buying stages. Buyer Scenario Modeling.

Lead Nurturing 100

Lead Nurturing Lead Ranking Leads Lead 100

Tony Zambito

JULY 24, 2011

" Content Marketing: “The term, content marketing, I am seeing here and there.    What I do know is that the sources of information is abundant but can be overwhelming.    This has implications to how we think in the future about sales and content marketing.    Not sure I get it. 

Peer-to-peer 100

Peer-to-peer Buyer Personas Allocation Social Networks 100

Tony Zambito

OCTOBER 18, 2015

When the Internet came along, we began to see a seismic shift in how buyers gathered information and made decisions. As time progressed in the early decade of 2000 to 2010, reliance on the sales representative for product and solutions information began to diminish. The Internet Propels Buying Behavior Shifts.

Ideal Customer Profiles 100

Ideal Customer Profiles Profiling Buyer Personas Marketing Management 100

Tony Zambito

OCTOBER 14, 2018

The journey concept has spurred a mountain of marketing advice-oriented content related to stages and time. For example, how many articles have there been about “aligning content to the stages of the buyer’s journey” in the last few years? An image of someone with a backpack going hiking seems to be one that is used often.

Marketing AI 174

Marketing AI Buyer Personas Top of Funnel Digital Marketing Funnels 174