When alignment is discussed in marketing, the usual application is to sales and marketing alignment. The issue that comes up for me is that there are some alignment issues before we can even get to sales and marketing alignment that could have major implications for brands, if they took stock. In my opinion, before marketing and sales can align, the marketing organization needs to align. This has been an ongoing conversation for nearly as long as I can remember. And I've been in the business environment for quite a while. marketing misalignment. customer misalignment. MORE >>

They were simply unusable in a B2B complex sale situation. Many of the projects I do for companies start with buyer personas. After all, it's a logical place to start as it's next to impossible to develop a content strategy without a keen understanding of the people involved in buying complex B2B product offerings. But I'm noticing a trend I hadn't foreseen. Marketers are keeping buyer personas in the closet. Yep, it's true. In the latter case, it's usually because a past marketer had them created. At all. That's a plain disservice, in my opinion. kids)? MORE >>

This usually gets mucked up with jargon and technical terms and thinly veiled sales pitches. Many B2B marketers cite a goal of their content marketing programs as establishing their company as thought leaders in their marketplace. This is an admirable goal, as prospects are looking for experts, not just products or solutions. However, becoming a thought leader takes a bit more effort than you may think. Definition of Thought Leadership by Wikipedia: A thought leader is a futurist or person who is recognized for. innovative ideas and demonstrates the confidence to promote or share. MORE >>

Make a sale. I was reviewing a few email messages I'd developed for a B2B lead nurturing program with a project team when they said the equivalent of - Gosh, these are short. We should include links to events, products, etc. We're missing a big opportunity to give our prospects more choices. Then there was a pause and one of them asked, "What if they don't like the one link we're including?" " And there you have the ultimate email challenge - being perceived as relevant enough to get the level of attention that motivates action. Get any old click. Do you? MORE >>

The normal response to the "call to action" mandate is inserting a "have a sales rep call me" or some other version of pushing the sales conversation. Marketers need to reframe the way they think about the CTA, flipping it from what they ultimately want (qualified leads that will buy from their sales team) to what will be helpful to their prospective buyers. During my keynote at the B2B Content 2 Conversion conference on Tuesday, one of the questions the audience asked was about a slide I used when discussing how to create a content flow. MORE >>