Marketing Article Index » More marketing articles
- The Benefits of Using AI in the Sales Process
Explore how AI can be used in sales to improve efficiency, decision-making, and outcomes, based on insights derived from a survey of 250+ sales professionals globally. Check out the details.
Explore these insights on why marketers, especially those in tech, should rethink their automation strategies. Understand the cultural shifts needed to enhance ROI and customer relationships. Dive into the full discussion.
Discover the transformative power of design in marketing. From brand identity to user-centric designs, visual strategies drive success. Read more.
Discover the power of personalization in B2B marketing. Learn how personalization tech, tools, and tactics can transform campaigns and boost customer engagement and conversions. Read more.
Explore how to balance content volume with content relevance, enhancing buyer engagement by crafting content that resonates with your audience and drives conversions. Ask yourself these questions.
Delve into how AI is reshaping content marketing strategy and search engine interactions so you can prepare for the future of content and SEO. Read more.
What makes top B2B marketers successful? Recent research unveils what differentiates top performers. Dive deeper.
Explore practical tactics on how to source customer reviews so you can harness their power to boost your brand and B2B marketing effectiveness by fostering trust and engagement. Learn how.
A pivotal shift in programmatic advertising is long due as enhanced measurement practices challenge the traditional ad stack and reshape the economics of programmatic. Learn more.
Explore how the 3Rs—Repackaging, Repurposing, Reoptimizing—can transform your B2B content marketing, enhancing your efforts' efficiency and impact despite resource constraints. Learn more.
Understand the role of video marketing in B2B healthcare. Gain insights into how strategic video use can support brand and trust development. Read more.
Discover how to use employee-generated content to build brand reputation, drive social engagement, foster team community, and much more. Read now.
Elevate your B2B website's performance with technical SEO best-practices. These fundamental practices will help drive traffic and engagement. Learn more.
Discover four key insights to turbocharge the impact of your B2B demand generation efforts. Learn what tactics top marketers are using for better results. Dive in.
Grasp the essentials of building and managing a sales pipeline, identifying promising leads, and guiding them toward successful deals. Get started now.
Discover how the art of sonic branding can help your B2B brand identity resonate with your customers. Learn how strategic sound design can enhance brand recall, foster emotional connection, and set your brand apart. Read more.
Explore essential B2B marketing approaches for engaging and connecting with the next generation of B2B buyers—a digital-first generation that values authenticity and seamless customer experience. Learn more.
Uncover five LinkedIn Ads metrics crucial for B2B lead gen success. Enhance your LinkedIn strategy and drive better campaign results and ROI. Learn more.
Explore the efficiency and effectiveness of microlearning in corporate and marketing training and career development. Dive in for actionable insights into acquiring skills and achieving remarkable results by embracing the future of learning.
Unlock the potential of your sales and marketing teams with key smarketing metrics. Discover how alignment can propel your business forward. Learn more now.
What are the pivotal differences between micro- and macro-influencers? Discover key differences and their impact on reach and authenticity, and gain insights for determining the right influencers for your marketing goals. See how to choose wisely.
Uncover the secrets behind Taylor Swift's PR success and transform your own brand's approach to storytelling, engagement, and consistent authenticity. Ready to elevate your brand's PR strategy? Dive in to learn more!
Key business metrics are there to tell you how well you're meeting customers' expectations and gaining conversions. One of the most important metrics to measure is customer lifetime value (CLV). See why it matters and how to calculate it.
Learning about the psychological tool of persuasion—and how best to use it in your marketing materials—can serve as a powerful pathway to influencing customer behavior, relationships, and sales. Get started here.
By making community a core part of your strategy, your brand can create better products and achieve higher engagement and retention rates. But building your community on someone else's platform is full of risk.
When potential customers see and interact with your brand multiple times, they become more likely to become interested in what you're offering. And when sales and marketing teams work together to make multitouch lead gen even more effective, the inevitable result is a boost in conversions.
Even in the age of AI, you need a human writer to craft high-quality B2B content. True, humans can deliver blah content, too. But that's less likely to happen if you provide your writers a kickass content creation brief. Here are the essential elements of your brief.
Today, there's less time for CMOs to ramp up and to build an organization with a five-year plan. Enter fractional CMOs, who bring expertise as "hired guns" with more cross functional expertise, more objectivity, and less ego. Is a fractional career right for you?
Now that TikTok has entered the search ad game, have you adjusted your media mix? If you're trying to reach Gen Z or Millennials and you haven't yet made use of the advertising capabilities TikTok affords marketers, you should probably rethink your ad strategy.
What many of us are worried about is not inevitable. You don't have to surrender your craft or creativity or the joy you find in it to AI or Silicon Valley. Nor do you have to surrender your ethics. You have a choice.
Infusing values-driven elements into content and campaigns can do more than just inform audiences about your products or services. Discover how you can communicate what your brand truly stands for.
Most salespeople are required to learn sales scripts before contacting prospects. And to ensure all the information is conveyed exactly as the company prefers, they're discouraged from adding anything to the script. Basically, they're hired to be human commercials. No wonder it doesn't work.
As ad spend stalls, PR and Marketing have the potential to receive a bigger share of annual budget. But what ramifications does a shift in budget allocation entail, and what opportunities await savvy, creative PR and marketing pros? Let's find out.
Sales enablement can feel worse than untangling a giant knot of half-burned-out Christmas tree lights. Luckily, a series of MarketingProfs articles undertook that metaphorical untangling. The lessons now unwound from that effort shine brightly as guiding principles of sales enablement.
Demonstrating the link between investment in PR/corporate communications and business outcomes has always been hard. But proving value is getting easier. Here's what you need to know.
In the current environment, the pressure is on all marketers to produce results. Here are three predictions for how the coming year's standout content marketing performers will use data to their advantage.
Maybe you think you can coast without brand guidelines because your employees or contractors or customers implicitly understand your brand. They don't. Or maybe you think it's too expensive to create a guide. The reality? You can't afford not to.
B2B influencer marketing offers a unique opportunity to build credibility and trust among prospects and customers. Embrace it—but do so with the utmost care for brand safety. Follow these eight steps.
Laying the groundwork for first-party data success means understanding the variables that shape the journey and the key milestones along the way. And here they all are.
It sounds simple, but writing a good question and collecting reliable answers is harder than it seems—whether you're writing full-fledged survey instruments or quick questions for polls or forms. So here are six sets of expert tips and best-practices.
In an age when every digital interaction by potential buyers leaves a trace, salestech can help sellers and marketers harness a wealth of data. As a result, customization, at scale, is both possible and necessary.
To discover whether your content marketing is successful and to what extent your content goals have been met, you need to identify your content marketing's key performance indicators. Monitor these nine KPIs.
When businesses use chatbots, they improve engagement, lead generation, and customer experience. But what, exactly, can chatbots do for marketers? Here are the top 5 benefits.
CDP and CEP objectives overlap, but their primary functions differ. This article highlights the roles of CEPs and CDPs, real-world use cases, and ways they enable customer-centric strategies.
The explosive growth in martech solutions, once fueled by an era of easy capital, now faces a stark reality-check. What's next? And how can marketers decide what should go in their tech stack?
Much like the three unwavering rules of success in real estate—location, location, location—the world of digital out-of-home (DOOH) advertising has its own triad of rules for success: quality, quality, quality. Just follow these three guiding principles.
In our data-rich, content-saturated digital landscape, success lies not in just creating more content but in listening to what your audience is telling you. Because content makes the connections, but data finds the match.
Learn how generative AI is about to revolutionize search with conversational queries and creative search responses, challenging traditional SEO strategies. Start preparing for the future.
Today, most people expect brands to foster open channels that enable businesses to actively listen to feedback, address concerns promptly, and personalize user experience. A channel that has proven adept at doing all that and more is a brand online community.
Generative AI is undeniably having an impact on every facet of business (and our lives), and that certainly includes marketing. For marketers, adapting to and embracing genAI is not just an option, it's a necessity.
In the new year, one thing is clear: Artificial Intelligence (AI) is at the forefront of the marketing conversation. As we move further into 2024, the marketing landscape will be shaped by four trends.
Another year in martech has passed at a blistering pace—with the discussion on new trends, technologies, and issues consuming our days. The author builds on his (mostly borne out) 2023 predictions about three martech trends.
Helping potential buyers through their buying journey is a multipronged effort involving a blend of tactics and the right content for each step. This article explores four content types and their impact during that journey.
Although acceptance of rebranding is growing among business leaders, many remain plagued by misconceptions that leave them hesitant to embrace what is a powerful strategy. Here are nine rebranding realities that will dispel those misconceptions.
Considering how rapidly marketing is changing, including how reach is fracturing across a myriad of channels and platforms, there's a lot that's not in our control. What we can control is we react to inevitable failure. For gritty marketers, it can be the secret to marketing success.
An increasing number of customers want ethical products and services. That means marketers need to adopt more ethical marketing practices. Here's what you need to know—and do.
Scaling your PPC search ads efficiently—increasing advertising spend while maintaining performance—is crucial to growing revenue. Here are the pros and cons of horizontal and vertical ad scaling approaches. Discover which would work best for you.
GTM captures the essence of B2B marketing and sales. The first critical step—the most vital element of any GTM planning—is to get management buy-in, which hinges on the quality and clarity of your GTM plan. Here's how to develop and communicate a solid plan.
The next few years will bring fundamental shifts to marketing. First things first, though: Prepare for what's to come in 2024 before looking further out into the future. Here's where 2024's most successful marketers and media agencies will direct their focus this year.
The bad news is that marketing isn't going to get any easier in 2024. The good news is that your marketing output is sure to improve if you use these three predictions to work both smarter and harder in the new year. See what's ahead...
Many small B2B SaaS companies ignore SEO... and they are right to do so! But that's not the case for midsize and enterprise-level SaaS companies; for them, SEO is vital. All the more reason to avoid these seven common mistakes specific to B2B SaaS.
Removing extra steps in a marketing process or streamlining your product by removing an unnecessary bell or whistle can lead to less friction and cost savings. A subtractive approach can help unlock new possibilities for producing better results.
For marketers, belt-tightening is back for 2024. Balancing brand and demand investments, however, doesn't have to hurt. In fact, taking these six steps can increase impact, build resilience, and pave the way for long-term growth. Do more with less.
Doing a little bit of every kind of marketing content means you do none really well. But with a consistent investment in fewer content types that are relevant to your audience, you can build an effective content-marketing mix strategy.
During revenue headwinds and economic uncertainty, CFOs often turn to reducing marketing headcount and budgets. Yet, CMOs must still generate more pipeline and revenue. But how? Enter outsourcing—specifically, marketing as a service.
The Barbie movie is a marketing masterclass that offers valuable insights for branded podcasts—and marketers. The strategic marketing approach that made Barbie a global phenomenon can be applied to take your marketing to the next level.
The world as we know it changed dramatically in 2023—generative AI's breakout year. So, what have we learned in the past year from the AI whiplash rollercoaster ride? Trends, takeaways, advice... it's all here.
Each type of marketing video has attributes that make it better at some tasks than others. Whiteboard videos excel at engaging and concisely conveying lots of information. But, with the right visual and production elements, they can also be great for branding.
Radio and podcast appearances can be powerful ways to spread your message to an audience of avid listeners who might convert into potential leads. But you have to know how to tailor your message to audiences that listen to these types of shows. These useful tips will help.
"What should I keep in-house, and when should I use an agency?" That marketing and advertising dilemma may be one of the most persistent. And the decision can be hugely consequential. Here's how to weigh your options.
These days, public relations extends beyond traditional media. In fact, you can—and should—use social media for your B2B brand's PR as well. If only because 75% of B2B buyers use social media to make purchase decisions. Find out how to reach them.
Even the most seasoned social media marketers struggle with creating a constant stream of high-quality content. Burnout and inconsistency are common side effects. Here's how ChatGPT can help.
Recruiting professionals for qualitative research can be challenging, particularly if your candidates are in the ever-changing tech industry. Try these tactics.
Looking for a new B2B marketing agency? This article will help you understand what goes on behind-the-scenes at an agency when your brief goes out.
Advertising on LinkedIn requires a strategic approach that goes beyond mere ad placement. To truly excel, advertisers need to understand the ins and outs of the platform and its best-practices.
Google Ads continues to be a powerhouse among paid ad platforms, and now there's Google Analytics 4 to help you get more out of your data than ever. This article offers best-practices for using GA4 in paid media campaigns.
Your website copy and blog posts are not meant solely for a search engine algorithm. You need an engaged audience for the content to have an effect. Marketers can learn a little something about that from live theater.
This article shares tips for setting up clear tone-of-voice brand guidelines, teaching your team to follow them, and checking how well you're doing.
How do you strike the right balance between delivering personalized marketing experiences and protecting user privacy? Is it a zero-sum game in which one goal undermines the other, or can they harmoniously coexist?
Many people take the same commute route every day. Placing a digital or interactive ad in a strategic public transit location can result in countless impressions and improved ROI.
As cookies and third-party tracking fall out of favor, marketers will need to look beyond paid media and revisit the backbone of SEO: organic search.
Connecting the dots between a prospect's professional and personal profiles is a powerful way to supercharge B2B marketing. Here's why it's important and how it can help you.
How can marketers strategically deliver the next generation of B2B customer experiences? And how do you get your executive team on board? This article offers a few ideas.
Do you love your neighbors, your customers, your partners, your employees? If you're building a digital community, you'd better. This article explores how to reap the rewards of community-building.
A multilingual email marketing strategy doesn't stop at the translation of text. Localization is also essential. This article breaks down what you need to consider.
The way marketing and sales are done is changing—fast. Harnessing the unique skills of Marketing and Sales for a common purpose can help you get ahead of the curve. Here's how.
The launch of Apple's mail privacy protection two years ago immediately led to cries of "Email opens are dead!" But much like the cries of "Email is dead," they should be ignored. Learn how open rate can still be useful.
The biotech industry is super-competitive, requiring effective marketing to allow the novelty of the science to shine for all to see. This article provides areas to consider for prioritization of digital marketing efforts.
Behind every great thought leader are years of hard-earned experience—and now Google cares about your experience, too. This article explores ways you can best demonstrate that experience.
Companies that spotlight their expertise, innovation, and commitment to customer success are more likely to accumulate brand loyalty—and the easiest way to do those things is through effective PR.
Social media platforms are designed to highlight insights in real-time, but it's impossible to create enough social media content on the fly to keep your brand in people's minds. Keeping a calendar and planning your content is a necessity.
The recessionary environment is driving the need for sales reps to personalize the buying experience. This article explores how individualized sales training helps ensure high-quality experiences.
AI adoption has the potential to bring the much-beleaguered CMO role to the frontline of business operations. With the CEO and C-suite's support, CMOs can use AI responsibly to drive digital change and meet growth goals. Here's how.
As a PR pro, you can't rely on someone else to source genuine media contacts for you. Keeping a healthy PR email list is your responsibility. Here's how to do that.
Co-op advertising involves manufacturers and brands providing advertising dollars to their channel partners, such as retailers and dealers, that sell their products. Learn why the method is a win-win.
The process of attracting high-value leads has evolved into a blend of science and art. This article dissects what constitutes a high-value lead and explores how you can craft a balanced, targeted approach to lead generation.
Cold emails often get a bad rap for being intrusive, generic, and spammy. Can ChatGPT help? You bet it can.
Behold, the medium rectangle ad banner, a wondrous digital canvas that has captivated and charmed audiences for years! But it may be losing popularity to more engaging formats, a recent ad tech study suggests.
Considering outsourcing your thought leadership content to generative AI? You may want to reconsider, as editors are well aware of the risks and inaccuracies that come with content created solely by AI.
A customer data platform compiles data from multiple internal sources, resulting in a central database that offers a 360-degree view of customers. Here's how to ensure you pick the solution that's right for your business.
Understanding GA4 metrics is key to effectively analyzing user behavior and getting more revenue out of your website. But knowing the best metrics to use can be tough. This article outlines some of the best options to help support your analysis.
Selling physical products to consumers over the Internet has never been easier. So why are B2B firms struggling to achieve digital transformation?
This article explores what makes for a great interview: research and preparation, a proper guest introduction, and engaging conversation.
Account penetration is a useful metric to determine how effective your sales and marketing strategies have been. This article provides tips on how to improve that metric.
'Tis the season for thinking about next year before this year is even over! This article looks at how to plan, but not over-plan, for the new year by creating a flexible road map.
In a landscape cluttered with generic marketing, niche marketing can stand out with personalization and precision tailored for smaller audiences. This article defines the technique and offers tips for creating your own niche strategy.
Taking the humble PDF as an example, this article suggests three ways B2B marketers can embrace greater personalization—and why that matters.
Although acquiring new customers is needed to counterbalance inevitable attrition, it isn't the most effective way to stimulate growth. The true goldmine for revenue expansion lies in your existing accounts.
GenAI's positive benefits outweigh its negative consequences, but that doesn't make those consequences any less real. This article lists future concerns about the use of AI, from basic to dystopian.
The availability heuristic is a mechanism used by the brain to recall and label information, and it can cause lots of biases in buyers. Some brands attempt to use those biases to their benefit—through awareness advertising, for example. Ethics aside, it's probably not a good idea...
When news drops, it hits seemingly every social platform at once. It can be hard for a brand to stand out among all the noise. Following the tips in this article for better social media PR.
You'd never hide your content from your target audience, right? If you're not publishing content in the publications your target audience is reading, you might be. Here's how to get it in front of them.
Managing remote teams is not just about having virtual meetings ad nauseam. This article explores other ways of securing performance and cohesion in remote marketing teams.
Marketers' tentative trial-and-error with AI can feel a lot like dating—red flags and all. Here's how a "dating" approach can help you embrace AI.
To make the right first impression, your brand needs an elevator pitch—a practiced script that introduces yourself and your business in a positive way that is both relevant and memorable. Here are tips on how to craft one.
It's high time we bridge the gap between B2C and B2B content marketing, using the strengths of B2C strategies to bolster B2B outcomes. Here are some ideas.
Have you ever been on the receiving end of AI that didn't work well? It can be awkward and even creepy. To avoid that "uncanny valley," marketers need to learn which functions are human-specific and which ones can be passed off to a bot.
Marketers are well-versed in the customer journey. But knowing the other side of the story—the buying process (no, the two are not the same)—is also important. Le's visualize the process to truly understand it.
To minimize risk and maximize the benefits of strategic alliances, B2B companies must carefully consider their specific circumstances, objectives, and the compatibility of potential partners. Here's what you need to know.
We marketers have grown accustomed to measuring everything. It if can be measured, why not do it? Well... because metrics are messy and outcomes are more important.
Increased use of generative AI has the potential to populate the Internet with false photos and misinformation, and PR pros need to prepare for possible crises.
Are you using empathy to its full potential in your marketing? This article argues for a comprehensive approach— empathic marketing—that resonates with audience emotions, desires, and needs and translates into business success.
We've all heard it: B2B buyers are leaning toward self-service. Enter: the lead funnel, which allows you to sell your offer before your sales team even gets on the phone. Sound good? Check out the details.
Paid advertising gives you reach, but it's earned media coverage that builds brand trust. Check out this article for tips on how to get more media coverage.
An account-based demand engine focuses marketing efforts on specific high-value accounts and delivers personalized experiences. Through six questions and answers, this article discusses the alignment of Sales and Marketing and the adoption of a unified approach to demand gen.
The value proposition isn't just changeable; it's as dynamic as a world currency. Learn why marketing agencies in particular must stay on top of their evolving value propositions and embrace a new version when necessary.
Brands in every industry have discovered the ease and effectiveness of SMS marketing. Check out this article to learn the do's and don'ts of text messaging.
Email segmentation is a tried-and-true tactic for maximizing email engagement. But how can segmentation help senders get more emails into the inbox? This article offers some ideas.
As an email marketer, you must maintain good list hygiene. One way to do that is by creating an email suppression list. Here's how.
How should B2B communicators dip their toes into the AI waters before fully embracing it? There are three major things to consider: what AI excels at, what skills it lacks, and what legal and copyright issues are at stake.
Whether you use them together or separately, Google Ads and Facebook Ads are the leading PPC ad platforms in 2023—but there could be challengers. In this article, discover which platform is best for your business.
Your buyer is most often a group, not a single person. So, how can you tailor your marketing tactics to multiple people? This article offers a road map.
As a marketer, your goal is to deliver real-time, relevant, and engaging experiences to propel your brand forward. Closing customer identity gaps with an identity graph can help.
B2B digital marketing may not share every similarity with B2C marketing, but it can certainly benefit from using some of its tactics—an investment mindset, in particular.
B2B marketing content needs to make an impact. It needs to be so thought-provoking and well-written that buyers devour it from start to finish. Here are some tips for where to start.
As generative AI becomes more sophisticated, it will find many uses in the email space, such as sending automated support and customer service email responses. But it's unlikely to be used to create permission-based promotional marketing emails. Here's why.
It's easy to joke about Google's algorithms and mysterious methods of determining page rank. But SEO is measurable. Try these metrics.
From harnessing original ideas that excite customers to sharing quirky content on social media, creativity can spice things up and add color to your marketing campaigns. Here's how to get there in five steps.
To prevent avoidable churn, businesses must improve their service at every point, on every channel. Sounds easy, right? Not so much. But multichannel, personalized CX could be the key.
Formulaic approaches feel safe. But you need to get uncomfortable to take control of your audience. Some cues from Nicolas Cage can help you do the Challenger Sale right.
Google debuted an early AI product, Bard, that isn't quite up to par with its competitors—namely ChatGPT. Will that affect Google's search dominance? This article explores some possibilities.
Marketing leaders have plenty of data on their plate, but many aren't yet able to convert it into the insight they require to perform better. Get some tactics from this article.
Learn the basics of the connected customer experience and five approaches to delivering omnichannel experiences at every opportunity.
When the world gets chaotic, people turn to what feels safe and familiar. A trustworthy, familiar brand can be the bedrock that keeps your business stable.
If you find yourself moaning about something "everyone is talking about," it may be a good time to use that something to benefit your PR strategy. Just don't push too far outside your client's wheelhouse.
You've got a great signup conversion rate! Except... nope, those are full of bots. But what about all that traffic to... nope. Also bots. Sound familiar? Working with the security team can help.
Although its importance is never denied, "personalization" in marketing can be such a nebulous word. Is it even measurable? How do you find out whether it affects the bottom line? Check out this five-step guide.
The benefits of repurposing content are well-known. But you can't just pick a random blog post off your website and convert it into a random content format. Keep your repurposing strategic with these nine tips.
In-person events are back! Has it been a while since you've set up a booth and offered free swag? Never fear—this article shares 10 essential tips for making your event a success.
Everywhere you look, another tech company is debuting its version of generative AI. So which tools are actually a good investment for content marketers? This article takes a look at three tools that offer unique strengths in content creation.
Companies are fighting to survive, and Marketing needs to be more than a cost center. Although it's easy to preach about the value of brand marketing, the rubber needs to meet the road in practical execution and deliver tangible results.
The job market has been volatile recently, see-sawing between pandemic layoffs and the "Great Resignation." This article looks at the company characteristics that help attract and then retain B2B marketing talent.
Was your campaign email opened? If the recipient just deleted it anyway, maybe it doesn't matter. Try shifting your email measurements to these eight metrics instead.
Are you closing the door on Instagram leads? Get their attention and invite them in using these 10 simple tactics.
Brand launch. Brand refresh. Rebrand. You know the drill. But what do you do when the best brand option was one you left behind?
Speaking the language of the C-suite not only enhances marketers' credibility but also increases chances for getting meaningful resources for carrying out important marketing activities.
One friend says, "Let's get dinner some time." Another friend says, "Let's get dinner Tuesday at 7PM." You can already tell the second friend is more interested—and the same principle applies to setting sales appointments.
Does your thought leadership contribute to marketing, or is it just amorphous posturing that makes you sound smart? (Spoiler: that wouldn't really be thought leadership, anyway.) Here's how to infuse actual demand gen into your leadership content.
Slack and Discord are the titans of online community at the moment—particularly for businesses looking for easier ways to communicate. But they're not the only options. As illustrated by (naturally) Nicolas Cage, sometimes the obvious choice isn't the right one for you.
How have empathy maps changed now that empathy is more vital to marketing than ever? This article suggests that they become as mutable as the customer behaviors that inspire them.
The "Hi [customer name]" template falls short of true personalization in the post-pandemic world. What people want from brands now is much less Mad Lib and more customized experience.
AI won't replace marketers so much as eliminate time-sucking tasks that they don't like doing anyway—and that goes for all kinds of tactics and content, from audience targeting to product descriptions.
People like to win—whether it's a win for their business or themselves. When marketing incorporates gamification and interaction, winning comes with the added benefit of brand loyalty.
The cheeky adage "if you want something done right, do it yourself" is impractical (to say the least) in modern business. You have a team for a reason. It's time to put them to good use.
Generating leads for Sales to qualify, follow up with, and eventually sell to is what drives the revenue—and success—of a business. This article covers how webinars and webinar marketing can lead to increased B2B lead generation.
In today's fast-paced digital world, keeping up with media trends is essential for businesses to stay relevant and competitive. This article covers seven trends that are particularly relevant for CMOs.
Your data-driven marketing is only as good as your data. Clean rooms can be a useful resource, but only if the data shared in them follows certain standards.
Digital transformation can't be done all at once or off the cuff. Adopting automation and new martech must be a deliberate process that ensures business success while prioritizing the right tech.
Unlike other social content, comments can't be planned and scheduled for the balance of the year or quarter. Comments require ongoing communication, and that makes them powerful marketing tools.
Losing third-party data as a source of customer information will be a challenge. But it could be an excellent opportunity to recharge your customer relationships.
Fixing leaks in your lead generation pool requires examining your entire process to identify the problem. Is it department alignment? Automation? Inbound marketing? This article takes you through the possibilities.
Data analytics love for their data points to be fixed and objective, but in the modern marketing world, that's not always the case. It's vital that your marketing mix model also incorporate what this article refers to as "squishy" data.
In theory, it's easy to be customer-focused: gather and process customer information, segment, focus on target segments, understand customer perceptions, act on customer information, and know when and how to build customer relationships. So, why is being customer-focused so hard?
After an eternity of development, testing, troubleshooting, and more testing, you've finally reached your product's launch date! But wait... did you forget something? Use this product launch checklist to ensure you haven't missed anything.
Companies today must embrace digitizing nearly every aspect of their business to ensure compelling, engaging, and valuable digital buyer journeys. That is, no doubt, a monumental task. But there is a path forward.
If you're concerned about your company's customer experience, don't just throw a CXO into the fray and expect that person to fix it. Leaders need buy-in from all departments to improve customer experience.
Everyone in marketing talks about providing value. It's become a bingo buzzword. Whatever happened to real value—honest-to-goodness help for someone with a specific problem?
Crises are inconvenient but inevitable. These four high-profile calamities from 2022 are great examples of what and what not to do during a crisis.
Socially responsible marketing tactics can encourage your potential clients to think more favorably of your brand while creating a better work environment for your employees. Here's how.
Whether it's it's the start of the singularity or a fad that will fade like so many others, AI writing has taken the marketing world by storm. This article muses about whether human creativity is at stake.
Personification is the art of giving something (your brand, say) human characteristics to draw out emotion in people (your audience, for example). Check out this article to learn how in a few easy steps.
Writing for public relations can be a challenge, especially when you're not familiar with your client's industry. Check out three tips for successful PR writing.
Sales training can be littered with outdated strategies that don't translate well into a hybrid or digital-first environment. This article outlines three necessary tactics for training future salespeople.
If only it were possible to read tea leaves and divine exactly what the future holds for our beloved content marketing! But it's not, so Chad S. White offers his own compelling predictions.
Video marketing is becoming table stakes. But how do you highlight a product with video—without turning into Wheel of Fortune's Vanna White? Get schooled by watching these product videos.
You need first-party data! they all say. But your website-form opt-ins are weak. Where can you get that data when you need it? From events.
Being a customer-centric company involves taking customer feedback and applying it, of course. But before you get to that point, you have to create content that is focused on what your customers want.
Knowing the relative positions your company and its competitors occupy on the market landscape helps you shape content for all your marketing materials. But how do you determine the positioning of your competitors? This article outlines a straightforward process.
Press releases are widely maligned. But if you use them strategically, they can be effective marketing and communications tools. Here's how to make yours a success.
Data privacy standards have complicated the process of obtaining reliable customer data. Are clean rooms here to save the day? Maybe, maybe not... but they can certainly help.
It's almost impossible to escape GIF memes on the Web. But can GIFs serve a different purpose—as marketing tools? Of course.
A lot of the talk about Web 3.0 has been focused on commodities, such as NFTs and game tokens. However, the technology does present opportunities for B2B marketers—in a surprising number of ways.
Sometimes all the cool martech available can obscure the fact that marketing is about connecting with people and having conversations. In this article, our resident Nicolas Cage expert dives into community-building.
Content SEO can be overwhelming, especially when populating a website with relevant posts. Visualizing your pages as topic hierarchies, as in the color wheel theory framework, can help.
How do you analyze your company's customer success to find out what areas need improvement? This article offers an effective "recipe" for understanding customer health.
Countless companies and marketers are using generative AI to write blog posts, emails, articles, and other forms of content. The robots can help your marketing. Just don't use it as a replacement for authentic messaging.
There's a reason we don't write poetry to convince prospects to buy our products (although how fun would that be?). B2B content needs a lot more than beautiful writing to work the way it's supposed to.
If you're responsible for a company's marketing strategy, one of the main issues you'll face is how to manage multiple products (or services) for the future as well as maximize product opportunities in the present. It turns out there are various approaches to solving that problem, but each has its pros and cons.
The virtual events of the pandemic have had long-lasting effects on event marketing: namely, the metrics marketers use to track their success. It's now much less about registrations and more about metrics that actually matter.
Your organization's greatest innovations have yet to be discovered. Who's going to discover them? Your sales team's entrepreneurs. So, find and nurture your brightest problem-solvers. Here's how.
Google may have retired its official authorship markup, but that doesn't mean a creator's authority no longer matters. This article explores why including author information on a webpage can boost its ranking.
Taking control of your owned media will help your organization transition more smoothly into the coming "cookieless" world. Learn what that means, and how to do it.
Whether you're looking to track the progress of your agency or you need to be alerted when business performance is going down, the metrics in this article can help you.
More and more marketing teams are being expected to drive business growth. The easiest way to do that is incorporate an interdisciplinary team focused on companywide goals and three oft-siloed marketing elements.
Products, prices, description, checkout. You're all set for e-commerce! But not so fast... there's more to it than that. In this article, get tips for your strategy.
Customer profiles, user browsing data, and benchmark studies are designed to help companies know exactly who their customers are and what brand sentiments they have. But what if we don't need that much information?
Zoom fatigue? You may be missing those water-cooler conversations. Feeling confused? You might need a video call to give you some visual cues. This article offers five tips for healthy communication with a remote team.
Although the role that technology vendors play is critical to their clients, the relationship between the two parties can often feel transactional. Building a long-term strategic partnership, on the other hand, can benefit both.
Now that media outlets have fully transitioned to online spaces, PR and SEO have become intrinsically linked. Journalists do searches, too, and the higher a press release ranks in search results, the more likely it will be covered.
Generative AI tools like ChatGPT are poised to affect some marketing writing roles, but their future in the world of search is slightly more complex. This article provides a breakdown of the possibilities.
To help us think strategically about the benefits and risks of launching a brand-new product to the market, it's useful to frame the process as the stages of a life cycle, especially from customer point of view—i.e., the types of customers a company will attract at each stage.
You may think you know all there is to know about content marketing now, but you were a rookie too, once. Give those new rookies a good education with these seven tips.
The recent hiring climate—resignations, layoffs, a talent shortage, more layoffs—is symptomatic of brands' and agencies' knee-jerk reaction to economic circumstances. And that, argues this article, is not the right way to run a business.
Strong video content can skyrocket your marketing success. But it's vital to know what you're getting into before you invest budget in video. Here are some things to consider.
What if Sales enablement is not about being loud and obnoxious so you can cut through the noise? Through the context of Nicolas Cage movies, this second article in a monthly series looks at authenticity.
Financial services companies are essential, but the industry has faced many setbacks in recent years. Using account intelligence, those organizations can take back control.
From privacy features to dark mode options, email marketing has become much more complex over the past decade. Marketers need to be open to continual change.
Using imagery and video should be a high priority for a well-rounded SEO strategy. This article has five tips for using images and video to improve search results.
Forget bragging about Marketing-qualified leads or social media likes. To keep our jobs, marketers have to learn to communicate Marketing's value in terms that matter to senior management.
Data privacy changes don't stop at the use (or nonuse) of third-party cookies. For a list of upcoming state requirements and tips on how to handle your company's privacy policy, check out this article.
Data-driven marketing works if your data is high-quality. But what if it isn't? A data audit can save your campaigns.
When you think of how to improve your customers' experience, you likely consider website UX, speed of response, and smooth transitions, among other things. When serving international customers, speaking their language can influence all of that.
The secret to performing successfully as a CMO—and extending your tenure—is being adaptable to the company's needs. This article provides some suggestions for getting there.
This third and final article on recurring revenue growth introduces a valuable framework for SaaS companies. Find out how it makes every department's job easier.
The best way a company can weather an economic downturn is to focus on profitability instead of growth at all costs. To do that, you may have to narrow your focus and rethink your target audience.
Instead of looking at the marketing department as a standalone function, CEOs need to construct a marketing team that benefits all areas of the organization. Here's how.
There's no point in burying your head in the sand: Generative AI is here to stay, and it's only going to become more popular. The good news is tech marketers can use AI platforms like ChatGPT to make their lives a lot easier.
The mere effort of doing dynamic competitive analysis will reveal a host of insights you can use thereafter in your marketing.
The classic marketing funnel isn't designed to include the vital steps that come after initial purchase in recurring revenue companies such as SaaS. The Bow Tie model can help.
Generative AI tools have captivated the imagination of millions, but what do they have to offer B2B marketers? How will we be applying them in our work? Here are three ideas.
Determined to wax ecstatic on your company's shiny new offering—at the cost of customer voices? You might be suffering from marketing myopia.
Can sales enablement be empathetic, helpful, and privacy-minded? Marketers have to get over some awkward hurdles first... And they can do that with a little help from Nicolas Cage.
SaaS companies grow fast. At first, the growth originates from winning deals. But over time, most of the growth comes from somewhere else.
When the economy tanks, companies often cancel outsourced creative and try to do everything in-house. Get tips on how to market your agency and make the best of an economic downturn.
Most long-form content is meant to help readers and prospects solve a problem, and it's best not to oversell your brand when creating it. But when should you start slipping in mentions of your solution? When is it time to get promotional?
AI will only replace you if your pitches and marketing copy are as wooden as those crafted by... well, a robot. It's time to embrace your humanity.
Even among the proliferation of AI and tech tools, focusing on business goals and the marketing side of SEO strategy is the way to win. Here's why that's the case.
To keep up with evolving buyers, sellers need to better understand the new customer journey. Here's what that means today.
Subscription services such as SaaS companies depend on organic rankings for prospects to find them. This article breaks down good SaaS SEO into three major elements.
To differentiate themselves from marketing automation tools, agencies (and marketers, more generally) need to focus on how they can provide unique, long-term value. Here are three ways to do that.
Marketers and advertisers often invest exclusively in Google and Facebook advertising to find, engage, nurture, convert, and retain their customers. Should they branch out? This article weighs the pros and cons.
You've had your event planned for months—but suddenly one of the speakers can't make it! Crisis! To prevent panic every time that happens, it's best to incorporate contingency planning into your event planning.
Don't make basic content marketing blunders. Check out this list of gaffes that happen more often than they should.
Everyone has questions about whether, when, and how to use ChatGPT for marketing. Aside from the sense of wonder that tech is crafting sentences, what does it really bring to the table? One marketing department did some experimenting to find out.
The buzz about content creation is that AI is going to start doing it for us. That's not really the case—although it will certainly change the game, together with several other forms of tech that are influencing content growth.
It's always a good time to fine-tune your email marketing. Tactics that may have seemed brand new in previous years have become table stakes in 2023.
If you want your customers to stay, buy more, and advocate for your company, then setting accurate expectations and consistently meeting them wins—even if parts of those expectations aren't great.
Marketing strategy is often thought about in terms of where the market is going and how best to satisfy the changing needs of the market. Rarely is time spent analyzing one's own company. But doing so is the only way to ensure consistent success.
B2B brands should be playing the long game with their email marketing because their businesses are a long game. So... what's the real goal of a B2B email marketer? Opens? Clicks? Conversions? Nope.
It's difficult to align Sales and Marketing when your company isn't big enough to have departments dedicated to those functions. That's why SMBs need a full-funnel approach to marketing. Here are three steps to get you there.
There's not much value in a whitepaper if otherwise valuable information is hidden by bad design. Here are five things to avoid.
What's in store for search in 2023? This article breaks down predictions about what in SEO will gain momentum and what will fizzle out.
It's been a rocky few months for Twitter. But does the loss of advertising mean your own company should jump to a new platform? Not if you use your account primarily for customer service, says this article.
It's time for marketers to reinvent their organizations, and that starts with effective communication. Communicating clearly and consistently reduces costly slowdowns, enhances the customer experience, and drives the ability to scale.
It's hard to know where to focus your sales efforts when the economy is shaky, but these 23 tips work well.
Artificial intelligence has been improving workflows in back-office systems for years. But the advent of generative AI, which interprets human language and mimics human speech, writing, and art, can revolutionize customer service in particular. Here's how.
By analyzing your most successful customer interactions and understanding customers' goals, you can better inform your marketing efforts to replicate your best and favorite customers. So how is that done? Let's break it down into a few key steps.
Traditional ads such as billboards, television ads, and radio spots may have fallen out of favor more during the pandemic, when businesses were accelerating digital methods. But do traditional ads still have value? This article explores the differences.
The economic climate has caused many businesses to re-evaluate their 2023 strategies, and that extends into sales prospecting. In particular, take note of these three trends.
As the pandemic transitions to a less serious threat, brands are once again using in-person tools to reach prospective customers. Printed materials and physical media offer a way to reach people who are at the office less and out in the real world more.
From an uncertain economy to new customer expectations, the B2B marketing function—and the job of the B2B CMO—is shifting, quickly. Here's how to make sure those changes lead to better marketing and faster growth.
TikTok is full of flashy ads (and cute dog videos), but a large part of brand presence on the platform is B2C. So, is B2B TikTok even a thing? It certainly can be, if you plan ahead and do it right.
Are your PR and marketing departments butting heads? It happens. But as in every case, companies have greater success when the two departments work together. Check out four tips for uniting marketing and PR pros.
The trials of remote work and multiple meetings can make being productive more difficult than ever. Check out these four tips for increasing your productivity.
There's no better time than a looming recession to double-down on marketing to current customers. Get some techniques for doing so in this article.
A vital component of any marketing strategy is thinking about what the future might look like. In strategy parlance, that's called having industry foresight. But what does industry foresight mean—and how do you get such a view of—how can you forecast—the future of your market?
Implementing a data infrastructure can make the difference between planting a flag on a mountain of useless customer data and turning a smaller hill of data into actionable insights. The amount of data doesn't matter so much as what you do with it.
Women make great marketers. So why do so few of them own marketing agencies? This article presents possible ways to solve that problem.
Content marketing can be powerful, but there are so many ways to get it wrong, from missed opportunities to incorrect information. Watch for these five major stumbling blocks.
Foregoing a robust in-house marketing team and, instead, outsourcing various capabilities—called fractional marketing—is become more popular. Here's why.
It seems natural to move beyond ways of thinking that haven't worked. But business leaders also need to be able to let go of tactics that have worked in the past so they can start fresh in a new role.
In 2022, several technologies cemented their marketing viability. In 2023, we'll start to see those technologies live up to their potential, argues this article.
Before you invest in new content tools this year, try poking your salespeople for information and inspiration. Their conversations with prospects can hold the key to content that converts.
We've all heard it: AI is here, you need to use AI, incorporate AI into your business. But in the case of marketing, what exactly do you use it for? Here are practical applications for AI across four content types.
If you've been resisting adding podcasts to your B2B marketing strategy, 2023 is the year to change that. Podcasts are popular, they have a low barrier to entry, and they appeal to audiences you might not otherwise reach. Here's a guide to creating your own podcast.
In the midst of layoffs and economic uncertainty, what tactics will public relations firms turn to in the new year? Check out these five possibilities.
It's easy to audit your own first-party data. But what about data you purchase from a provider? Can you verify its quality? An independent audit can.
Web3 was all the rage in 2022, from crypto to the metaverse. But will the B2B world plunge deeper into such technologies in 2023? This article argues no.
Not many people talk about "going into the office" anymore because so many offices are at home. Marketers need to refine their targeting strategies accordingly—to reach beyond job-related channels and meet prospects as they engage in everyday activities.
Today's B2B buyers mostly want to be left alone to make their own decisions during their customer journey. Providing them with interactive content and product demos enables them to do just that.
Social media engagement often depends on clicks. But on Instagram, where you only get your "link in bio," those clicks are harder to come by. This article shares the benefits of a brand landing page.
Although their influence is broadly felt, thought leaders aren't magical beings. They're just people—like you. Here are six ways regular people can increase their company's influence with thought leadership.
When people scroll through their email inboxes, they're looking for names they recognize, so it might not be the best idea to use a person's name in the sender field—unless that person has an established relationship with the customer. See the arguments for and against.
The amount of data used by marketers has grown exponentially in recent times. But data is only as good as what information you can derive from it. Enter data visualization.
Visual, interactive design is increasingly important for marketers looking to make the most of the moment. But asking designers what they think shouldn't be an afterthought—get them involved at the onset of campaign planning.
Brand-positioning is an involved, complex process that, if done incorrectly, can lead to a "meh" result. That's the last thing your company wants. This article outlines nine common mistakes to avoid.
Although cutting back on marketing is a kneejerk reaction to a struggling economy, history teaches us that companies' keeping focused on customers is what keeps them afloat. Here are four major reasons for that.
You might think Marketing and Accounting have nothing to say to each other. But you'd be wrong. Seven ways wrong, according to this article, which outlines how Marketing Ops can benefit greatly from Accounting's involvement.
If you're intrigued by AI but also confused, start learning here! This article, the first in a planned series on AI, covers basic terminology and possible ways to prioritize your investment. Let's learn!
A few months ago, Google announced a delay to its blocking of third-party cookies... again. We keep preparing, and the deadline keeps getting pushed back. Given that additional time, how should we be spending it?
Becoming a multilingual company is much more complex than just putting all your copy through Google Translate. Explore tips on how to successfully expand into multinational markets.
We've all seen them: videos that really should have had professional production value. The lighting is bad, there's a broom in the background, or a dog is barking off-screen. But what about when DIY video works fine? This article breaks down the differences.
When as a marketer you identify and focus on benefits, you ensure that you are focusing your attention on what customers are really buying; as a result, you don't waste money and energy in your marketing efforts.
Perceptual maps are the only way to understand what your position is in the market and how the market views you vs. your competitors. In fact, if you don't have a perceptual map, you're flying blind.
Welcome to a highly misunderstood topic: segmentation. This article explains what marketers tend to get wrong about segmentation, what's a better way to segment, and why doing a differential advantage analysis after segmentation can help you beat the competition.
The accelerated pace of the digital business world will require B2B tech marketers to drop their manual ABM processes and get to a deeper level of customer understanding. But how? Check out these ideas.
As the tide of technology moves closer to virtual reality, what can brands to do prepare? Advertising could look very different in a VR world. This article explores the possibilities.
Diversity, equity, and inclusion is a win-win for everyone: It's good for business, good for employees, and good for PR. To drive real change, check out these tips.
A brand known for a particular benefit enables growth opportunities beyond the product's original focus—via a brand extension. Using the brand on a new market offering that's in a different product category can provide sizable benefits, including new paths to growth. But you have to be careful.
What's the secret to constructing a sophisticated, airtight digital marketing budget that's justifiable and sensible? It's definitely not more spend equals more payoff. Check out this article for budgeting tips.
Actual conversations sound very different from written content; likewise, voice search operates slightly differently than a typed phrase in the Google search bar. Here are some tips for optimizing for voice—and B2B brands that are leading the way.
In an era of Big Data and revenue-driven marketing strategies, is it possible to find a balance between the art and science of marketing? This article tackles that question.
Once the novelty of AI-generated content has worn off, is it really useful to your company? This article argues that it absolutely is, and you should adopt it sooner rather than later.
There's nothing particularly thrilling about writing RFPs. But when it's time to switch email service providers, the sheer number of options basically requires you to write them. Here are three tips to make the process less painful.
ABM is more effective with intent data! Yay! But you're using it wrong. D'oh! You might be making one of four newbie mistakes outlined in this article.
The first part of this article series identified what factors contribute to the dark funnel—a (spooky) place where prospects learn about your company without your knowledge. This second part offers concrete steps you can take to start obtaining data from the dark funnel.
We all know about the "Great Resignation," but survey results have uncovered a "Great Customer Resignation" as well. Churn is at an all-time high. Luckily, implementing data and good tech can mitigate the problem.
Making campaign results sound impressive to management is difficult enough in itself; you don't need added hurdles. But if you do run into problems, this article will help you resolve them.
Fears of a possible recession have B2B SaaS companies feeling off-balance. But that doesn't mean branding has to stop. Time to pull out these five PR tactics and make your company stand out in a different way.
The marketing funnel is supposed to map out the process of bringing a customer on board. But there's a mysterious no-man's land where those people hang out and share information before they even reach your map. Here's how to take that dark portion of the funnel into account.
It's time to dig out that ideal customer profile you created and saved to a random folder a while back. Actively applying an ICP across your entire marketing funnel could be what you need to become more revenue-focused.
Synchronous viewing of broadcast TV programs seems like an ancient practice now, and the proliferation of CTV, OTT, and online video has made traditional methods of measuring ad effectiveness obsolete. Here are four things marketers can do to adapt.
Google's "helpful content update" to its algorithm has companies wondering how their SEO will be affected. Your SEO will be OK if you avoid these five traps.
A central goal of marketing strategy is to get an advantage over the competition. But how do you do that?
This article explores how to nurture potential B2B clients through the awareness journey, from Marketing-qualified lead to Sales-qualified lead, using the Awareness Cascade.
This article explores why it's important to build campaigns that elicit the behaviors you wish to see your leads displaying, and how to do that effectively—through marketing automation.
Personalization is such a sacred word in marketing. Who would question its effectiveness? This article examines a piece by two writers who did just that, and highlights points that are worth considering in the context of B2B.
B2B buyers want you to treat them as humans, not algorithms. To connect with your customers successfully—on a human level—follow these five steps.
As a content marketer, do you ever wish you could eavesdrop on sales calls to figure out what content items your sales team is actually using? Good news: AI can do that so you feel less creepy.
Writing can feel like inching your way along a pitch-black tunnel. You can make out only the next few feet in front of you. It's scary. But The Writing GPS is here to help.
Right now your prospects might be on board with your solution. Three months from now, they might have forgotten you entirely. Learn how to keep that from happening.
Organic referrals are as good as free advertising, but they don't always happen. More often, customers have to be prompted to refer people to your business. Here are nine ways to ensure you get referrals consistently.
Digital advertising is booming, but it's best not to invest in every single channel at once. An ad tech expert shares some wisdom.
It's impossible to have a strong brand identity without a brand. Likewise, you can't have a successful brand without a brand identity. This article breaks down the differences.
One concrete way to maximize marketing ROI is to reduce the amount of waste of potential leads across the entire user journey. To help you start the process, here are six applications you may not have previously considered.
Text messaging apps now come with a spam folder. Uh oh. What can you still do to stand out from the competition in customers' text inboxes? These four rules can help.
Personalized targeting has worked for banner advertisers for years. However, it was never feasible for OTT—until now. Here's why your OTT ad strategy needs work.
Unless your company consists of about five people, its social media accounts are likely not run by a single person. How to achieve coherence, then, if multiple people are posting? Try creating a style guide.
Smaller hybrid and virtual events can often reach more people than large conferences because smaller shows can better take accessibility and other attendee needs into account. Learn how to plan such events.
It takes continual, meticulous post-purchase engagement to turn a one-time customer into a brand evangelist. That engagement usually begins with an email conversation.
In B2B relationships, all voices are important, but not equal or the same—and treating them as such can cost your company retention and loyalty.
"What is the definition of marketing strategy?" is a common question among marketing professionals and others in the business world. This article covers some basic ideas that separate marketing strategy from other aspects of marketing.
Many brand-naming rules are totally valid, but adhering to them doesn't guarantee success. Every brand is different, and if you need to break one of these five rules, it's okay.
Transitioning to GA4 may seem like a daunting task. But the earlier you start, the easier it will be. Follow this action plan.
Marketers are not alone in the struggle to juggle their tasks. Salespeople can become just as frustrated. This article breaks down what it looks like when your sales department is in desperate need of an intelligence tool.
You can have the longest list of content items in the world, but it's not a content strategy until they're mapped to your customers' needs. To get there, take these four actions.
To support Sales, marketers need to cultivate leads and nurture them through the buying process—empowering leads and the sales team alike to have conversations with each other. See what needs to be done.
Marketing has the power to not only drive demand gen but also ensure the sales team has relevant, contextualized conversations with qualified leads. Learn what contextualized conversations are, why they work so well to convert leads, and how marketing automation can help you help Sales.
Optimizing anchor text is as delicate as it is essential. Iffy tactics risk penalties, but playing it too safe means low rankings. Google will judge you. Follow the four steps in this article to get your anchor texts just right.
Although it's impossible to give an absolute value to abstract concepts such as loyalty, there are metrics that can indicate customers' willingness to return to your company. Here's what to track.
Your company may have its messaging content and tone perfected, but that counts for nothing if you're messaging customers at 3 in the morning on weekends. Go through the steps in this article to achieve total personalization of the customer experience.
As a marketer, you might feel helpless when the economy takes a tumble and suddenly people aren't spending money. But there are still things you can do to take advantage of a quiet market.
Do you have a dedicated competitive intelligence team, or does your company just poke around on its competitors' social media now and then? The results of a new study might convince you to ramp up your tactics.
It's only for email! It's only for enterprise businesses! It will replace us all! Wrong. This article sets out to debunk eight marketing automation myths.
We've all been there: You send out a million party invitations, and nobody shows up. Ouch. To ensure that doesn't happen with your company webinars, use these invitation tips.
Has the meteoric rise of video and audio content made written text obsolete? Hardly. Bad business writing can cost a company everything, from productivity to potential customers.
Even if your B2B company doesn't make direct use of TikTok, it can still learn something about event marketing from the popular social platform. Here are four takeaways.
Advertising is a B2B e-commerce marketer's best friend—but it can stab you in the back if you don't measure the return correctly. Here are six mistakes to watch out for.
Once their novelty wears off, do metaverse, blockchain, and Web 3.0 technologies have practical uses in the B2B space? This article explores a few possibilities.
This article explores what entry points are and how to successfully use them to get people signed up and into your database.
The email newsletter will never die! But it will continue to undergo changes every now and then. Here are nine of today's best-practices that will get your newsletter read.
When basic SEO feels like crawling up the flat surface of a rock, Google Ads can give your marketing a lift. Here are the basic types and some best-practices.
This articles explains what lead magnets are, how businesses use them incorrectly, and how to integrate segmentation and lead magnets to better drive demand generation.
Podcasts are everywhere. Chances are your audience members subscribe to several. And their content—especially that of a branded podcast—is conducive to spreading brand awareness.
You don't have to be in IT anymore to take advantage of big data and AI. Check out these four ways to use AI for finding prospects you may not have known were there.
Convincing ourselves that our customer engagement tactics are working may feel great, but it isn't always helpful. That's why you should avoid relying too much on these three metrics.
Email marketing, though old school, is always evolving, as are its enhancements. HTML has become par for the course, but many are still reluctant to include video in their emails. This article breaks down the possibilities and best-practices.
Are you unwittingly sabotaging your cold-call sales by being too chatty, or failing to prepare, or reading straight from a one-size-fits-all script? Read this article to find out, and learn what to do instead.
Your company's reputation doesn't rest on products and services alone. People like to support brands they can relate to, and a video telling your company story is the perfect way to draw them in.
Why do a mundane task when software can do it for you? The use of AI in marketing has gone mainstream in recent years. Where will it go from here?
Keeping people's eyes on your website is a vital top-funnel tactic. Check out these 10 tips for more engaging blog posts.
Enthused employees can have a huge effect on your company's reputation and bottom line, and excitement is easily built on LinkedIn. Here's how to use the social platform for employee advocacy.
This article explores sales intent behavior, helping you understand precisely where and when your sales team should get involved with leads—and when you should be nurturing them instead.
Programmatic: it's not only an ad strategy aimed at acquiring customers but also a tool for recruiting employees. The technology allows employers to target and discover better job candidates.
Marketers are storytellers, and storytellers create character sheets to ensure they know their fictional cast members inside and out. The marketing equivalent? Buyer personas. Here's why they work and how to create them.
If you don't continually invest in business development to keep potential clients in the marketing funnel, your brand might as well not exist. Don't let that happen. Ensure you aren't making these six mistakes.
The version of progressive profiling that most marketing automation companies espouse merely collects more data on prospective customers. But more data isn't enough. What you need instead is an understanding of those potential customers based on their behavior so you can significantly increase your chances of closing a sale.
Data this, metrics that... it can be hard to harness basic creativity in the current marketing environment. This article argues for a return to design and a focus on interactive content to break up the monotony.
When you're about to spend money on something, chances are you look up reviews of it first. But reviews and ratings aren't useful to buyers alone. Marketers can learn and benefit greatly from taking reviews into account.
Marketers can't be blamed for being overwhelmed by the seemingly endless choices that digital advertising offers. But do you have to embrace every option and every channel? There's a better way.
Too... much... technology... It's time to rethink how your martech stack works and which parts of it are really necessary. Your revenue depends on it.
Everyone's quitting their jobs! Or so it seems. In-house marketing teams are rare enough, so how do we keep marketers from leaving and making them even more rare? This article presents some ideas.
Topic clusters arranged around a pillar page are SEO-friendly as well as helpful for keeping your website visitors from hopping off to learn more somewhere else. Here's how to create a topic-cluster content plan.
The mobile app market may seem like an unruly landscape at times. But as is the case with every market, tapping into it requires research and competitive analysis.
Clicking "accept cookies" is an annoying but necessary step in the modern Web browsing experience. This article covers how to construct a site banner that is both compliant and (relatively) pain-free.
Your case studies are probably boring, but don't panic. It's not the cases that are the problem; it's the way you're presenting them. Fix it with this four-step cure.
As an agency, you have more than just the smarts to help your clients with their bottom line; You have the means to prove marketing's value to the business—and showcase your own awesomeness.
NFTs have had a strong debut as one-of-a-kind collectibles, but forward-thinking brands will organize around how they can take advantage of this new class of technology to mobilize customers and engage communities.
Give personality to a software feature. Provide an epic tale with a product update. Even business buyers are swayed by stories, which bring emotion—and humanity—to your brand.
So you've just crafted a beautiful blog post bursting with metaphors and emotion and elaborate language. Done! The sales should roll in. But that's not quite how persuasion works. Check out this article to find out what does.
A well-functioning martech stack should be like a five-layer burrito—a worthy set of ingredients by itself that makes for an even better combination. Here's what modern marketers have been putting into their "burritos."
Mundane tasks taking up your time? Overwhelmed by data? Good news: there's an AI-based tool for that.
It's easy to assume everyone has equal access to Internet content. But a lot of design and development practices make that access difficult or impossible for people with disabilities. Here's how you can make your content more accessible—and more useful for everyone.
It's hard to remember a time you could open an email and not be assaulted by buttons and graphics and neon colors. Is there any place for boring typeface in the marketing world anymore? Perhaps. Here are some situations when plain text is effective.
Sometimes the best way to own customer success is to create Customer Success—its own department, that is. But how? Here's a 10-step guide.
"Coming to you live" doesn't mean as much as it used to. Event attendees have adapted to on-demand, tech-savvy experiences, and marketers have to embrace that.
If you can barely remember the "once upon a time" when your marketing job was satisfying and fun, you're not alone. Marketing leaders deal with pressure from every direction. Here's why—and three steps you can take to regain control.
Support from marketing teams can bring a lot of value to the sales process. Really. No, wait! Come back here! This article explores five ways that can be true.
You have a big channel partner who has doubled your sales. Yeah! But then the partner starts making decisions willy-nilly without checking with you. D'oh! Here's how to prevent similar conflicts.
Composing a single email is hard enough. How can you possibly plan for email at scale? It helps to keep these tips in mind.
Do the potentials of blockchain technology go beyond the novelty of "owning" a digital piece of art? Perhaps. Future marketers could harness NFTs for functions typically associated with customer relationship management.
Is your ABM strategy following deals through close, or is it focused only on the top of the funnel? If the latter, your strategy is actually limited to tech and demand gen instead of true ABM.
TikTok may be the world's favorite time-waster at the moment, but lessons about speech and presentation can be learned from the annals of its scroll-happy user base.
"Click here for more." Is anyone actually going to click on a call to action like that? Probably not. Check out what makes for a good cold email CTA in this article.
Successful branding relies on having a defensible market position, and a good way to regularly evaluate yours is to use brand-mapping. Here's how.
Okay, we've all heard about NFTs. But are they actually useful in the marketing world? How can brands incorporate them into their strategy? The answer may lie in community-building.
A RevOps department is only as effective as its unification of metrics—and it really should be the marketing department that takes that leap, argues this article.
Visibility, flexibility, and accuracy: who in your organization can provide all three to have the greatest effect on business? Those entrenched in day-to-day operations.
Digital transformation doesn't have to turn your sales reps into disembodied Internet heads. B2B buyers have become more self-serve, yes; but it's still advantageous for them to work with seller expertise, even post-pandemic.
We've all overestimated our ability to get a project done in time and missed a deadline. But when the project is a B2B marketing video, the company can suffer the consequences. Here are four tips to ensure that doesn't happen.
Pride Month is upon us, and many companies will rebrand with rainbows to mark the occasion. But running Pride campaigns without aligning your brand with LGBT struggles is disingenuous. Here's how to do Pride Month right.
Keyword research can be complicated, but the best keywords and phrases to target can often be found by just sniffing around Google and competitor websites. Here's a basic rundown of where to start.
Ever felt like you need a reference library for your marketing content? Of course you have. It's called a knowledge bank, and its existence will make everything easier.
We can all admit it: Creating content can feel like a slog at times. Fortunately, software has caught on, and there are plenty of tools that make the process easier. Here are six of them.
Instead of lamenting the impending tightrope walk between personalization and privacy, marketers should take advantage of the cookieless environment and forge better customer relationships.
Customers don't just jump into a car and drive around aimlessly until they reach a purchase. They follow a map—one that can be mirrored for greater business success.
The birds are chirping, the sky is blue, and... yikes, that infographic you posted two years ago just doesn't hold up. Time for a spring cleaning. Here's how to do it.
Amplifying your content can be as simple as breaking a larger piece into bite-sized (byte-sized?) pieces, and there's no better way to get those pieces than by having a good conversation.
Real-world AI looks very different from sci-fi TV's beeping robots most of us watched while growing up. Today's AI cannot fulfill its potential if it's relegated to its usual incarnation—expensive prototypes or initiatives. AI in the enterprise functions best as an integral part of a product management system.
The best way to establish a lead-scoring system is to follow what makes marketing so effective: knowing your core audience and setting goals. Check out this article for more on lead-scoring.
Many marketers get to the point where they want to venture out on their own, but starting a new agency can be confusing and complicated. Here are four benchmarks to count on, and what you should measure when you get there.
Replacing a ho-hum experience with something clever that brings a smile or otherwise engages is incredibly powerful. Make the most of every customer touchpoint by being creative in these six places.
So you've got your sales and marketing departments on the same page... mostly. But where does IT fit in? Can you put everyone in the same room without all hell breaking loose? To achieve interdepartmental harmony, follow these steps.
Marketers should be gazing into their crystal balls to see how their company will really fare in the cookieless future. Here are the tactics that will keep brands afloat.
"Positions, everyone!" You know where your company started at the beginning of the show. But where is it by intermission? If you don't know, it may be time to reposition.
In the modern digital world, customer experience is not just about how you deliver the features of your products but also about how your customers interact with those products online. For excellent product experiences, follow these three tips.
What can B2B marketers learn from a retail brand? A lot more than just B2C tactics, if the brand sets up its own data solution. And that's happening more and more.
Dating horror stories... we all have them. But happens when dating goes well? It looks a lot like a long-term relationship between a company and its repeat customers.
You know when you were a kid visiting a museum and hated reading long blocks of text but loved the slimy "touch and feel" displays? That's pretty much how interactive advertising works—and for generating leads, it definitely works.
After 2+ years of major pivots and accelerated digital transformation, brands are now having to take a close look at how they handle customer data. To make absolutely necessary improvements, organizations must meet three challenges and implement a series of best-practices.
Consumer ads have ruled CTV, but with the ever-decreasing gap between home and work life, that doesn't have to be the case. Here's how B2B advertisers can use digital attribution to take advantage of CTV.
You know you've got the best service around. But does anyone else know it? Check out these three tips to increase brand awareness with more media coverage.
"Oh, that company? I hear it's shady..." Don't let that happen to you! Consistent vigilance over your media mentions can help manage your brand's reputation.
What we marketers call a business-to-business-to-consumer (B2B2C) model—having not only businesses but also their consumers as marketing audiences—can be daunting if you don't have a recipe for success. These are three must-have ingredients.
"Earth Day every day!" they always said in elementary school. We were enthusiasts then, but it's easy to get bogged down in the adult world of making a living. Here are six steps you can take today to bring sustainability to your marketing.
Digital marketing consists of so many tactics that it can be hard to tell what's working—which may be why many companies suspect that it isn't. But these four tried-and-true tactics should always be part of the mix.
You ever wake up one day and realize that your martech stack is completely out of control? Here's what may solve your problem.
Eye of newt... scale of dragon... whoops, wrong recipe. You want to know what goes into a power page—the top-ranking internet content that makes Google sing your praises. Check out this article to learn the most important ingredients.
Taking customer feedback on social media can be brutal. It's like standing on a stage getting hit by flying vegetables. A possible alternative is to build an online community, which comes with added benefits for both your brand and your customers.
Working in PR and media relations means no day will ever be the same, so it's imperative that you roll with changes and adjust how you work. These four tips can help.
Although the sales team shouldn't function exactly like your significant other (at least, we hope not), marketing leaders can learn a lot about alignment from how a marriage endures. Check out these four lessons.
Email, website, chatbot, PPC, Zoom calls... B2B buyers have access to more channels than ever to get information about your product or service. Coordinating those touchpoints leads to the best possible experience.
It's easy to get overwhelmed and feel like pulling your hair out when creating new pieces of content. Slow down, take a deep breath, and follow the steps in this article.
Time to take your brand to the doctor. How does it measure up? Ask yourself these six questions to see if you need to make changes.
Complying with customer data rights doesn't mean just checking a few boxes and moving on. Your entire organization must shift in the way it views and processes customer data. Here are some tips to get started.
You have a great customer feedback program that gets you a mountain of data. But how do you spin that data into problem-solving gold? Here are three lessons from companies that successfully did just that.
PR seems firmly tied up in a company's brand reputation vs. money-making ventures. But that perception needs to change, argues this article.
When cookies are no more, we'll need to get data directly from customers. The best way to do that? Offer great experiences in exchange for information.
How do you know you've created a great piece of content? Pageviews? Social shares? Those are nice, but we really want to see content generate leads. Here are some tactics that can help.
Apple's email privacy updates have been a migraine for some marketers who depend on email data for their campaigns. But it's time to rise to the challenge and admit that open rate doesn't matter much, anyway. Here are four things that do.
High conversion rates for your content can be elusive, but a solid way to get there is by ensuring your prospects are being served exactly what they need—and in the right order. Check out these tips for aligning content to each customer journey.
You've obtained a prospect's email address. Huzzah! Nothing can stop you now! Except spam traps. And temp emails. And bounce rate. And... well, that's why you need email list validation.
Remember the early days of the Web when we'd throw everything possible onto a website just because we could (RIP midi files)? Turns out that's not the best way to get people to engage. You should think twice about whether your site needs these five things.
You've been throwing free content at people, and they're not engaging with it. You're exhausted. Your CEO agrees: It's time to buy their attention. Try one of these seven paid marketing strategies.
Ahh! Crisis! What now? Before you attempt to communicate with the outside world, your internal crisis management must run smoothly. This article offers five tips to ensure it does.
Status update: social media marketing can no longer be ignored. But it's about more than a mere online presence. Using social media correctly can contribute to business growth in surprising ways.
It's impossible to connect with a crowd of faceless nobodies. You have to know whom you're marketing to if you want your marketing to be effective. Audience analysis can help. Here's how to get started.
Ever listened to a podcast and thought, Oh my god, I can do better? You probably can, and the popularity of the format has made it easier than ever to get started.
B2B companies with a product-led growth strategy tend to start out with individual, self-serve customers but then scale to sell to lucrative enterprise buyers. At that point, you shouldn't ignore your self-serve market. You can do both.
Option 1: keep track of campaign data and metrics and do all the reporting by yourself, which can lead to exhaustion and human error. Option 2: let Data Studio do it for you. Let this article be your guide to the better option.
Not all of us can be good at naming things, which is why we have brand-naming agencies and experts to make sure a new name rolls right off the tongue. This article gives five ways to tell whether a brand-namer is worth your while.
We all know that the death of third-party cookies is imminent. But have we considered how to plan for other data collection methods? And what methods have been proposed? This article breaks down what you need to know.
A product information management system sorts, organizes, and updates your marketing assets for you. Sort of like a sentient library card catalogue. Now that would be cool. Lucky for you, PIM can be almost that cool.
Customers don't tend to abandon surveys in the middle of taking them. The trick to improving response is getting email recipients to open the survey in the first place. This article has some ideas.
It's finally here: MarketingProfs' first-of-its-kind report on the state of B2B marketing training. And the revelations abound! Take a look.
Chatbots have moved well beyond the initial "Hello! How can I help you today?" B2B marketers can make great use of them in their account-based marketing strategy.
A lot of factors go into an effective lightning strike moment—the sudden flash of attention that draws attention to your brand. And if a PR strategy isn't one of them, you're doing it wrong. Here's why.
Accessibility is a hot topic in the virtual event and video space. Live captions are an effective way to make your event accessible, but you have logistic choices to make—namely, should you go with a human or a machine?
So... you're relatively new to content marketing. You keep hearing about "sales enablement." What exactly is that? And what content types can you tailor specifically for Sales? This article has your answers.
PowerPoint presentations are a super basic skill, right? That means everyone makes super basic mistakes. This article covers four—and how to fix them.
As a marketer, you produce your content, you post it, you amplify it, and you're done, right? Not so fast. There's more. Gathering content intelligence improves the value, personalization, and overall effectiveness of your marketing. Here's how.
You may think you have all the data you need to create effective marketing campaigns, but this article argues that many marketers overlook a crucial data type.
How can email automation work when we don't know, because of Apple's new privacy rules, whether a recipient has actually opened an email? This article offers alternatives to the open-triggered email sequence.
Public perception around purpose-driven brands is changing. Find out what top B2B brands are doing in lieu of catchy marketing slogans to emphasize a higher purpose.
Everything's gone remote! But that doesn't mean friendly competition with your coworkers has cooled. Here are four ways to take on the challenges of remote selling and emerge triumphant.
Email security doesn't only stop cyberattacks and opportunistic hackers; it actually improves your brand reputation. If you're not yet implementing DMARC, this article explains why you should.
Rapid changes in revenue operations, revenue intelligence, and sales engagement can be confusing for marketers who are focused on content value. That's because their teams have incomplete data. Here's what's missing.
Sick of staring at cheesy stock images all day to use in your marketing? Don't fall into the people-looking-at-a-whiteboard hole. Check out these other eight visual content ideas.
In the digital age, it can feel fruitless to market to people out "in the wild." But for a truly omnichannel approach, OOH ads shouldn't be ruled out. Here are six ways to take advantage of them.
Martech isn't as simple as pressing a button and automatically getting more leads or higher conversion. If you feed your tech garbage data, you'll get garbage back. In the case of attribution, people often trip over these three issues.
Most people throw out how-to manuals and go straight to YouTube to understand how to do something, and they should be able to do the same for your company. Here are five ways to explain your business with video.
It's no longer enough to personalize emails using only the [your name] field. Customers are over it. Luckily, there's a better way to personalize: dynamic content.
Sales enablement is a company no-brainer, but what about Marketing enablement? Consistent structure and training can help keep marketers around for the long haul. Here's how.
What has Google added or changed recently? What is it likely to do in 2022? Here are three trends that should rocket to the top of your priority list.
Of course you want to lure your competitors' clients, but you may feel stuck in the position of waiting for them to make the switch. Here's how to take action and increase your chances of persuading those prospects.
Customers love to give feedback, and companies should love it get it—especially because focused feedback can increase your lead conversion rate. Here's how.
If you're not yet using Google Search Console Insights to improve your SEO, it's time to start. More than just an analytics dashboard, GSCI answers specific SEO questions; best of all, it's completely free.
When you plan an event, your first thought may not be "Ooh, gotta get the graphic design right." But virtual events have changed that. To make the most impact with your online B2B event, follow these five design tips.
Online reviews are of course useful for prospective customers seeking information about a business. But the education goes both ways: Businesses can learn a lot from their own customers by paying attention to reviews. This article highlights five of the major lessons.
As important as it is to create a diverse and welcoming workplace, getting there isn't always easy. If you're feeling stuck with your DEI initiative, follow these three steps.
Creativity often drives marketing. But creativity is not measurable. To earn the right to experiment and be artistic in your marketing tactics, you have to first prove you're doing the science right—and that means learning to prove revenue.
B2B buyers are often swayed by different factors than B2C buyers, but brand trust is crucial in both cases. Chatbots are an easy way for B2B brands to differentiate themselves from the competition.
B2B marketers know they have to treat leads as more than a name on a list, but that can be difficult when conducting ABM at scale. Here are four ways to use automation for ABM.
A case study can be an effective storytelling tool to use in B2B content marketing. Learn why, as well as how to craft one, in this article.
Audio of all types, from podcasts to voice search, is a powerful form of content marketing. If you're not doing it yet, here's how to get started.
An omnichannel ABM approach is now considered the most efficient B2B marketing strategy, resulting in higher win rates, shorter sales cycles, and bigger deals. Here's how to make it work for you.
So much of marketing is data-driven. But what makes data high-quality, and what are the advantages of vetting the data you use? This article covers the basics.
Where do you start when crafting your organization's CX? It helps to know what errors other companies are making. This article outlines three of the most costly mistakes.
Price increases don't have to mean your customers' running in the opposite direction. Differentiation and open communication can help. Here are some strategic basics of raising prices.
In the digital age, it's vital that marketing be highly adaptable. But focusing too much on reactive marketing can throw your plans out of control. Here's how to find the balance between the two.
Is there even a "normal" to go back in 2022? For B2B marketing, likely not, because digitization and changes in customer expectations are here to stay.
Brand response and increasing the bottom line no longer have to be mutually exclusive. Brand response advertising combines the best of both worlds. Here's how.
Quality is a nebulous concept that can be difficult to define. Not for Google: high-quality content for better search rank depends on specific factors that can be optimized. Here's how to do so for five of them.
2020 and 2021 have been transformative for B2B marketers, and the trend toward digitalization of marketing will continue into 2022, argues this article.
New marketing platforms pop up every day, but every shiny new tactic isn't necessarily right for your company. Our second article on panic marketing covers "shiny-object syndrome" and what can be done to avoid it.
Traditional CRM systems are now costing companies revenue rather than increasing it. The solution should be to give AI the baton—because it can help reduce churn and lead to better integration with CX.
The rise of new channels such as Connected TV and technologies such as voice search have moved advertising in new directions. This article covers five major trends in ad tech today and what advantages they give to businesses.
Webinars are more prevalent than ever, and that won't change any time soon. To reduce hiccups and improve the experience for attendees, follow these eight tips.
Standing for something is good for business these days. But how do you go beyond merely sharing company values to crafting real thought leadership? Start with a POV blog post.
If you're having trouble aligning departments or meeting your goals because you're always chasing a new marketing buzzword, you could be panic marketing. This first article of a three-part series defines the term and explains the consequences.
MarketingProfs uses single