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. But for many buyers, the B2B content they encounter is out of context. Lack of Context in B2B Content Kills Engagement.

Work Management 96

Work Management Marketing Management B2B Thought Leadership B2B 96

Marketing Interactions

DECEMBER 21, 2021

For some reason, B2B marketing content tends to lean more toward academia than literary license. Much of the content produced is dry, mechanical, and, well, academic. We think our content must exude professionalism because we sell complex, high-ticket solutions to businesses. Emotion in B2B marketing content is more subtle.

B2B Marketing 80

B2B Marketing B2B Content Paid Search Agency 80

Marketing Interactions

APRIL 14, 2019

Marketers say one of their biggest challenges is creating content that engages and compels their buyers. The future will not only depend on engagement, but on continuous, content-driven conversations that result in buying decisions in your favor. Content-Driven Conversations Rely on Nuance. Dry content won’t cut it.

Conversion 86

Conversion Marketing Automation Services B2B Trigger Marketing 86

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

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

MAY 23, 2018

You’re creating content—lots of it. If the trend holds steady—which B2B marketers indicate it will—you’ll create even more content next year. Content has become almost as much of a product as the actual products and solutions your company provides to your customers. And content is the versatile weapon of choice.

Top of Funnel 67

Top of Funnel Paid Search Agency Companies B2B 67

Marketing Interactions

MAY 21, 2018

As our ability to collect data grows, so do the different ways we can measure content performance. It’s hard to inform anything about your content marketing strategy with such low results. Yet, we seem content to continue to send email campaigns with mediocre performance. Don’t Let Your Content Become a Dead End.

Webinar Metrics 74

Webinar Metrics Marketing & Strategy Marketing Strategy Dwell 74

Marketing Interactions

APRIL 11, 2019

I’ve been actively involved in content marketing for 20 years. There’s something new to learn every day and content marketing feels like it’s taken over marketing. I remember back when just putting up a blog post once or twice per week was a novel approach to content marketing. The Evolution of Content.

Peer-to-peer 53

Peer-to-peer Content Enterprise Management Broadcasting 53

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

MAY 23, 2018

When I was asked to review Kapost’s latest benchmark on B2B content operations strategy, I jumped at the chance. Content operations as a standard practice is still a pretty new concept for many B2B organizations, and I was curious to see how it was going. B2B Content Operations Are Making Progress. I’m admittedly a data hound.

Advertising Benchmark 83

Advertising Benchmark Marketing & Strategy B2B Content 83

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. Everyone is busy.

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. This is because we haven’t formalized content marketing as a strategy or built sufficient process, workflow, and collaboration around its execution. 37% have a documented content marketing strategy. Let’s take a look….

Lead Ranking 72

Lead Ranking Lead Scoring B2B Marketing Planning 72

Marketing Interactions

JUNE 23, 2017

In a previous post, I shared a four-step process for creating in-depth B2B buyer personas. In this post, I’ll discuss how the details of a buyer persona inform a content marketing strategy. With the wealth of information gained during the process of determining buyer personas, you can now create the nine components for each persona.

Buyer Personas 64

Buyer Personas Marketing & Strategy Marketing Strategy B2B Marketing 64

Marketing Interactions

JUNE 27, 2021

Creating compelling and engaging content. Creating content for specific stages of the buying process. Proving the ROI from content marketing. 2021 Content Management & Strategy Survey – PDF). It’s an involved process that begins with talking to people. One Thing About ABM and Buyer Personas.

Buyer Personas 111

Buyer Personas B2B Ideal Customer Profiles Account Based Marketing 111

Marketing Interactions

SEPTEMBER 26, 2022

The person/role you used to primarily engage with is now removed from the evaluation process, only stepping in at decision time. Timing of touches and developing targeted content for each buyer stage/interest are the top two issues at 49% and 48% respectively. Did you encounter obstacles you weren’t expecting during the buying process?

Ideal Customer Profiles 80

Ideal Customer Profiles Buyer Personas Marketing Analytics Tools B2B 80

Marketing Interactions

JULY 31, 2022

I’m thinking about the differences between what your buyers experience with your content and brand (outside), and what it takes to create successful buyer-driven experiences (inside). Without strategy, all you have are random acts of content. Content should be helpful for both customers and buyers…everyone consuming it.

B2B 75

B2B Buyer's Journey Gartner B2B Sales 75

Marketing Interactions

NOVEMBER 2, 2021

The process of Q&A drives momentum based on addressing how context shifts with each new intake of relevant information that helps your buyers advance their thinking. This one is critical for buyers given the overwhelming amount of content available on every topic—not to mention the conflicts in information they must untangle.

B2B 75

B2B B2B Sales Webinar Metrics Buy 75

Marketing Interactions

AUGUST 8, 2021

“Sellers use their sales process to place solutions.”. Buyers use their buying decision process to figure out how to resolve their problem with the least disruption.”. This is because our marketing-to-sales models and processes are not built to help buyers buy. It’s not about volume of content viewed, but which content.

Buy 62

Buy Work Management Lead Ranking Marketing Management 62

Marketing Interactions

OCTOBER 15, 2021

83% of a typical B2B purchase decision happens before a buyer engages with a vendor – therefore, marketing now owns impact across most of the buying process. Marketers have insights in relation to content usage and engagement that the other teams don’t—or at least aren’t as immersed in daily. Edelman/LinkedIn ).

B2B Marketing 131

B2B Marketing Lead Ranking B2B Paid Search Agency 131

Marketing Interactions

JULY 18, 2021

Despite marketers’ best intentions, nearly half say delivering personalized and relevant content is a top business challenge. However, personalization remains a priority for B2B marketing executives, with 52% planning to increase spending on content marketing and personalization technology to get this right.

B2B Marketing 75

B2B Marketing Personalization B2B Planning 75

Marketing Interactions

JANUARY 15, 2023

The marketing world has glommed onto the technology as if it will save them from drowning in mediocre, irrelevant content without the need to develop the skills to write their way out. First off, I think considering the ramifications for our digital strategies is much more important than using the tool to write mediocre marketing content.

Marketing Management 80

Marketing Management B2B Vendors Buy 80

Marketing Interactions

APRIL 18, 2019

Instead, if we say something like, “when using our solution, helpdesk teams find they can cut 3 steps out of a 10-step process, reducing ticket resolution time by 3 hours” – now your prospect can visualize what you’re talking about. Complex Buying Processes Require Small Shifts. Complex Buying Processes Require Small Shifts.

Buyer Personas 119

Buyer Personas Buying Cycle Case Studies Case Study 119

Marketing Interactions

FEBRUARY 8, 2022

Customer centricity has been translated to mean – let’s understand our customers just enough so we can tell them what to do, push them down a funnel, and sell them our stuff based on our timeline, process, and revenue quotas. The way you frame the information/content you share with them has an impact. B2B buying is hard.

B2B 69

B2B Peer-to-peer Gartner Top of Funnel 69

Marketing Interactions

FEBRUARY 20, 2022

Trying to change it, rather than fix it – make it more “welcome” by modifying the process or the technology, or shifting direction to avoid the problem as it’s perceived to be. In a recent article , Robert Rose stated “I see wicked problems a lot in content strategy. Asking someone else to deal with it.

Top of Funnel 88

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

Marketing Interactions

JANUARY 25, 2022

But, unless your B2B content marketing strategy and programs sucked last year, taking a clean slate approach is not the best idea. This means your content marketing strategy needs to follow suit. Balancing Internal Changes with Content Marketing Strategy. And everyone’s favorite: Budgets get slashed!

B2B Marketing 69

B2B Marketing B2B Budget Programs Marketing & Strategy 69

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. Ultimately, buyers spend only about 20% of their buying process in conversations with sales reps. Unsure about the validity of their business case.

Buy 77

Buy B2B Peer-to-peer Work Management 77

Marketing Interactions

NOVEMBER 15, 2021

There’s simply no match with the account’s place in the buying process. For example, when an account hits a certain intent score AND has reached a set account/lead score, fire off content that extends from the topic they just engaged in with you. Mostly because the campaign is trying to place product before the buyer is ready to buy.

Intent Data 124

Intent Data Intent B2B Marketing B2B 124

Marketing Interactions

AUGUST 15, 2021

B2B buyers consume at least 13 content assets during their buying process. If buyer engagement isn’t telling you enough to understand their intent and where they are in the process, perhaps it’s time to re-evaluate how leads becomes a marketing qualified leads. Pre-sales cycle content. Are they only skimming?

Marketing Qualified Leads 62

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

Marketing Interactions

JANUARY 27, 2020

In other words, if a persona represents a role that isn’t involved all the way through the buying process, is it worth your time to build a full-blown persona designed to inform your content marketing strategy across the entirety of the buying process? I say no, it’s not. Effort should be in line with payoff. Mini Buyer Persona.

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. The report found that content used for both demand gen and sales enablement is created in different parts of the organization.

Conversion 82

Conversion B2B Top of Funnel Stats 82

Marketing Interactions

MARCH 7, 2022

Content Ideas for Lost Opportunity Engagement. Competitor Content: Just bear with me… If you have a competitor publishing great, relevant content that speaks to a reason you lost an opportunity, such as lack of differentiation, here’s your opportunity to show why you’re a better choice—without dissing the competition.

Ideal Customer Profiles 88

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

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. So, they’re not considered relevant while B2B buyers are dealing with early discovery about the change process they must complete before they can buy anything. Or a combination? How will they know?

Ideal Customer Profiles 62

Ideal Customer Profiles Account Based Marketing B2B ABM 62

Marketing Interactions

JANUARY 3, 2022

Unfortunately, many marketing campaigns provide the same content to both buyers and customers. Therefore, the same content isn’t useful for both contexts. What if they’re not using some of the features and functions – then educational content would apply, right? As well as show them that the content really isn’t for them.

B2B 69

B2B Paid Search Agency Lead Scoring Lead Ranking 69

Marketing Interactions

FEBRUARY 15, 2019

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. I also what to hear what the buying process is like for their buyers/customers.

Conversion 93

Conversion Planning Buyer Personas Dwell 93

Marketing Interactions

MARCH 22, 2022

Given that 94% of B2B Buyers say they are very well informed or somewhat informed before they talk to a sales rep, there’s a lot of opportunity for marketers to help buyers self-qualify as ¾ of them push off engaging with sales until the end of their change process. There’s only one of four components that marketers can weigh in on.

Work Management 62

Work Management Marketing Management Ideal Customer Profiles Sales Qualified Leads 62

Marketing Interactions

JANUARY 19, 2020

How long is the sales process from the time you get involved? In other words, do you have the resources to create content and programs for five personas right now? Or can you only confidently picture you and your team addressing one or two across the entirety of their buying process? What questions do they ask you?

Buyer Personas 121

Buyer Personas Enterprise Management Work Management B2B 121

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.”. The state of this lack of relevance in marketing content has 71% of marketers saying that less than half of their content is consumed.

Relevance 58

Relevance B2B Marketing B2B Broadcasting 58