Marketing Interactions

JUNE 27, 2021

Although, I have to admit that many of the personas I review from prospective clients are little more than recipe cards for disconnected experiences. Misperceptions they had to work to overcome—for them or for others on the buying committee. I’m really tired of seeing people dismiss B2B buyer personas as worthless.

Buyer Personas 111

Buyer Personas B2B Ideal Customer Profiles Account Based Marketing 111

Marketing Interactions

MARCH 7, 2022

Yet most companies don’t act on this potential, losing the work that’s already been done—on both sides. You may also find that they haven’t done the work internally they need to complete before they can actively commit to buying something. It’s great if these are customers, but it also works if they’re your buyers’ peers.

Ideal Customer Profiles 88

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

Marketing Interactions

JULY 18, 2021

But it’s not working out very well. In The Experience Disconnect , marketers say the personalization they deliver most is the customer’s name, company name, and industry. There are three simple components that work together to give you the key to personalization your buyers will appreciate: context, connection, and conversation.

B2B Marketing 75

B2B Marketing Personalization B2B Planning 75

Marketing Interactions

MARCH 25, 2023

Would it surprise you that a whopping 1% of decision makers believe that B2B marketing shows a meaningful understanding of the human experience? As someone who reads a ton of B2B marketing content and works to help companies create meaningful, provocative, and forward-looking content, I agree it is hard to come by. Read that again.

B2B Marketing 91

B2B Marketing Content Marketing B2B Content 91

Marketing Interactions

JANUARY 25, 2022

B2B buyers overwhelmingly want control over a simpler, convenient experience unencumbered by pushy tactics and self-interested vendors. One of the most common memories of B2B buyers asked about their last buying experience is how complex, overwhelming, and difficult it was. They expect commitment. They also want buying to be faster.

B2B Marketing 69

B2B Marketing B2B Budget Programs Marketing & Strategy 69

Marketing Interactions

MAY 23, 2018

In order to achieve that goal, marketers need to create better experiences, produce customer-centric content, improve engagement in channels that can attract leads, and give all of this a boost with better targeting and personalization efforts. Even worse, they’ll be confused and not sure which experience to consider the true version.

Advertising Benchmark 83

Advertising Benchmark Marketing & Strategy B2B Content 83

Marketing Interactions

SEPTEMBER 20, 2018

Opportunities for churn arise throughout the customer experience. Marketers must seamlessly extend the experience that engaged and converted customers on the front end to one that will engage and grow their loyalty and satisfaction on the back end. Develop a Clear Customer Engagement Strategy. Expand Customer Relationships.

Marketing Funnels 87

Marketing Funnels Top of Funnel B2B Marketing Work Management 87

Marketing Interactions

JANUARY 3, 2022

I’ve worked on several projects lately where clients provided me with buyer personas to create customer retention programs. Your content will need to connect those dots for the new division, not present off-the-shelf rationale that may not match up with the experiences or use cases of the company they work for.

B2B 69

B2B Paid Search Agency Lead Scoring Lead Ranking 69

Marketing Interactions

MAY 23, 2018

When content marketing is run as an ad hoc effort, marketers tend to look at the content they’re working on for the next deadline rather than trying to figure out the big picture for how the content inventory is used strategically across the organization. Experience Gaps Disconnect Prospects and Customers. Budget Deficits.

Top of Funnel 67

Top of Funnel Paid Search Agency Companies B2B 67

Marketing Interactions

JULY 25, 2021

Next thing you know, we’ll have hyper-experiences; and that just feels exhausting to think about. But here’s my real problem with hyper – marketers haven’t mastered relevance, personalization, targeting, or experiences in their original forms. All personalization that works effectively is reliant on context. Just ask Google.

B2B Marketing 69

B2B Marketing B2B Paid Search Agency Buying Cycle 69

Marketing Interactions

SEPTEMBER 26, 2022

What worked yesterday may not work today. Some examples of questions to ask customers who’ve come on board in the last year include: Situational – what environmental/work conditions caused a shift in approach? The increasing speed with which this happens should put us all on notice. Your buyers and customers are not.

Ideal Customer Profiles 80

Ideal Customer Profiles Buyer Personas Marketing Analytics Tools B2B 80

Marketing Interactions

AUGUST 1, 2021

But this only works when there aren’t glaring gaps between the two. If you look at The Continuum Experience I created back around the time I wrote my second book – 6 years ago – it’s all one function. Almost half of working professionals change jobs at least every 4 years. And repeat…. The Argument to Connect Brand and Demand.

Demand 69

Demand B2B Marketing Brand Identity Branding 69

Marketing Interactions

JANUARY 30, 2017

The difference between a drive-by view and a meaningful engagement with your audience is based on the perceived value of the experience—by the audience. Unfortunately, customer experiences are often defined by the experience we want our customers to have, rather than those they expect and need to have with us.

B2B Marketing 73

B2B Marketing Marketing Strategy Marketing & Strategy Webinar Metrics 73

Marketing Interactions

MARCH 22, 2022

And, with buyers preferring self-reliance and digital experiences over direct vendor interactions, marketers have an expansive opportunity to help buyers self-qualify. There’s value in the quality of experiences with you, the level of trust they assign you, the unique point of view you share. The seller-driven approach isn’t working.

Work Management 62

Work Management Marketing Management Ideal Customer Profiles Sales Qualified Leads 62

Marketing Interactions

AUGUST 15, 2022

Recent research by Gartner found, “For respondents with high regret, 89% of them cited team members have different, often conflicting, objectives for the purchase versus 9% for those with no regret — that means they are almost 10 times more likely to experience this type of conflict.”. But how you get it isn’t as straightforward. No regrets.

Buyer Personas 75

Buyer Personas Ideal Customer Profiles B2B Gartner 75

Marketing Interactions

AUGUST 24, 2021

And for buyers who have already done the work they need to do to decide they’re in market. We understand what it does, how it works, why it’s needed, and more. They’ve got work to do. These types of questions are what your potential customers are working through in that majority of their buying process that doesn’t involve you.

B2B Thought Leadership 62

B2B Thought Leadership Thought Leadership B2B Gartner 62

Marketing Interactions

AUGUST 15, 2021

I know this from experience—it happens often—given the amount of research I do. However, if you’ve orchestrated your content to guide buyers from the start and created content experiences that build attention, engagement, and intent, then you have the evidence to provide the reasoning behind the status change. And that’s a shame.

Marketing Qualified Leads 62

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

Marketing Interactions

APRIL 11, 2019

Five years ago, it wasn’t uncommon for me to work with a marketing team in one department that never spoke to or even knew the marketing teams in other departments: the social media team or the sales team or customer success teams. Content has become foundational for experiences.

Peer-to-peer 53

Peer-to-peer Content Enterprise Management Broadcasting 53

Marketing Interactions

APRIL 14, 2019

The job of content is to deliver a captivating experience, not just a communication. Given that’s the takeaway we wanted to produce from that content, the next question the buyer likely has is, “Okay, so how does doing X work?”. Content-Driven Conversations Rely on Nuance. Use Marketing Automation to Increase “Turns”.

Conversion 86

Conversion Marketing Automation Services B2B Trigger Marketing 86

Marketing Interactions

FEBRUARY 20, 2022

Let’s work through it > an unwelcome situation could invite a variety of responses, including: Ignoring it and hoping it goes away. The irrelevance of that experience? The dictionary definition of problem is, “a matter or situation regarded as unwelcome or harmful and needing to be dealt with and overcome.”. Do you feel it?

Top of Funnel 88

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

Marketing Interactions

DECEMBER 26, 2016

This gap shows up in a couple of ways and it’s fragmenting your buyers’ experiences and negatively impacting your results. And through client engagements, I also know it works. Download your copy of the State of the Conversation Report to see why we need to do the hard work. Heck, I wrote a book about it. It’s not easy.

Conversion 82

Conversion B2B Top of Funnel Stats 82

Marketing Interactions

SEPTEMBER 30, 2018

A good customer experience must be relevant. It’s beyond time for B2B marketers to buckle down and do the work needed to become and stay relevant with their prospects and customers. Achieving relevance takes work, commitment and elbow grease and works best when approached as an iterative process.

Relevance 58

Relevance B2B Marketing B2B Broadcasting 58

Marketing Interactions

JULY 25, 2019

80% of buyers say the customer experience is as important as the product ( source ). In my work building personas, I find that often to be a low-ball count. Product needs regional teams to work better together to get products to market faster. If that doesn’t scare you, it should. 70% of content sits unused (Sirius Decisions).

Relevance 73

Relevance Work Management Marketing Management B2B Sales 73

Marketing Interactions

MAY 21, 2018

Unfortunately, many factors hinder team collaboration: marketers are too darn busy; the work culture doesn’t promote collaboration; teams don’t know they should be collaborating in the first place. When each team creates content based on their preferences, pretty soon your brand experience resembles an encounter with Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

Cost 69

Cost Content Marketing Automation Services Work Management 69

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. Informing Your Content Marketing Strategy to Create Connected Experiences. Email metrics are a great example. How much engagement is your content achieving?

Webinar Metrics 74

Webinar Metrics Marketing Strategy Marketing & Strategy Dwell 74

Marketing Interactions

DECEMBER 26, 2016

As more functions within the organization are creating, publishing, and distributing content to shared audiences, a lack of clarity can result in fragmented experiences that do more harm than good. I’ve worked on projects where the demand gen team didn’t talk to the social team or the corporate communications team or the events team.

Lead Scoring 72

Lead Scoring Lead Ranking B2B Marketing Planning 72

Marketing Interactions

JUNE 4, 2017

Because both sides are focused on the same goals, working together becomes a natural extension of ABM program strategy and execution. We have to talk to each other to work accounts seamlessly. With insights to what each role on the ABM team is doing and the overall ABM strategy, it’s easier to work together.

Account Based Marketing 64

Account Based Marketing ABM Lead Scoring Lead Ranking 64

Marketing Interactions

JUNE 23, 2017

Improve productivity by creating a flexible work plan that reduces the number of FTEs needed. Use your analytics and continuously monitor how well they’re working toward achieving your content marketing strategy goals. The key is developing a depth of information and actually putting that knowledge to work. In Conclusion.

Buyer Personas 64

Buyer Personas Marketing Strategy Marketing & Strategy B2B Marketing 64

Marketing Interactions

JUNE 23, 2017

Enable collaboration among marketing, product, sales, and customer service for a consistent experience. Even the same title will have vastly different perspectives, roles, and responsibilities if they work at an SMB vs. a large, global-enterprise company. Inform the tone, style, and voice for content.

Buyer Personas 74

Buyer Personas Enterprise Management B2B Marketing Marketing Strategy 74

Marketing Interactions

JUNE 13, 2021

Try this instead: “In our work with [title], we’re hearing that X…” This is much more effective because it triggers the voyeuristic and curiosity tendencies that motivate people to engage. He related an experience from early in his career where he created a story about his company’s product as “true SaaS” and competitors as “fake SaaS.”

B2B Marketing 174

B2B Marketing B2B Gartner Purchase Intent 174

Marketing Interactions

MAY 21, 2018

Step 4: And then: Find out what they think (Survey about experience – class or meal). This conversational approach can work effectively whether your business is a restaurant, you sell real estate, you’re a recruiter, or you sell SaaS technology or need to drive enrollment at a university. (Send message to book a reservation).

SMS 48

SMS Business Class Ad Frequency 48

Marketing Interactions

JULY 5, 2021

Every year, reports come out that tout which content type works best at which stage in the funnel and has marketers responding to which format drives the most ROI in buyer engagement. So, you think, wow, that really worked. We need to look beyond the single asset to the experience. has more views than other formats this month.

Relevance 140

Relevance Top of Funnel B2B Content 140

Marketing Interactions

MAY 23, 2018

I work with a lot of B2B marketing teams that are pressured to do more with less. A C-level conversation about marketing must relate to how the work of marketing helps the company to reach its objectives and revenue goals. Experience Is More Than the Sum of Its Parts. Target Your Audience. It can also be a matter of perspective.

Planning 118

Planning Paid Search Agency Content Marketing Marketing & Strategy 118