Posts Tagged ‘B2B’
B2B Marketing Tips From SES SF
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What’s the quickest way to catch a fish? Offer the right bait.
What’s the quickest way to get a B2B marketer to an SES session? Title it ‘B2B Marketing Tips.’
What’s the quickest way to get you to read this post? By diving right in to the top 5 tips shared:
- Your conversion goals must become more sophisticated**
Yes, probably even yours. For the simple reason that you should always be testing and always be experimenting with something new. The keywords that convert today may transform into completely new derivations tomorrow. Always be tracking and always be testing. - Segment transactional from educational keywords*
Keywords that drive sales tomorrow will rarely match the keywords that drive inquiries today. Your transactional keywords are your bottom of the funnel phrases that represent a user closest to the buying cycle, while educational keywords are top of the funnel phrases used by someone looking for more information. Third party tools and research can help identify what keywords lead a user down the path to a sale, while looking at repeat visits in analytics can help identify keywords that are educational.
Smarter Ways to Get Content Ideas for B2B Blogs
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One of the most common challenges of business blogging is sourcing content. The range of things that can interrupt content creation are important obstacles to overcome because without content there is little reason for readers to return. Blogs are fairly easy to start and if you’ve been a reader of this blog, chances are pretty good that you have started your own blog (personal or for biz) at some point in time. Many of the companies TopRank Marketing consults with have either started business blogs and need help or want to start a new blog to advance a variety of business goals. In fact, in our blogging survey earlier this year, 95% of respondents indicated they incorporate blogs as part of their search engine optimization efforts. Many others use blogs for public relations, customer service, product support and recruiting.
Whatever the reason for starting a blog, long time content creation with B2B blogs requires creativity, social participation and a smart feedback loop. Here are a few specific ways to generate content ideas for business to business blogs:
Content Marketing: Definitions of Curation & Context
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Companies are realizing the value in “brands as publishers” and are making real commitments to the creation of content in their online marketing mix. It’s no longer enough to provide fundamental features and benefits information about products and services to succeed competitively online. Consumers and of course, business buyers, seek additional information, resources and others to connect with on the topics of interest to them. Some companies choose a pure creation strategy and find it to be a formidable undertaking, especially creating unique and valuable content over a long period of time.
Within the field of content marketing, curation is becoming a popular topic of discussion. Blending a mix of new content with the filtering and management of other useful information streams is a productive and manageable solution for providing prospective customers a steady stream of high quality and relevant content. Pure creation is demanding. Pure automation doesn’t engage. Content curation can provide the best of both.
As I am prone to do with topics of interest, I reached out to a few industry thought leaders to get their take on defining content curation and where it fits within the mix in an online marketing program:
The Power of Blogs & Social Media in B2B Marketing
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As a living example of a B2B company that fully leverages blogging and social media in our online marketing, TopRank Marketing has a lot of first-hand insight that we can share with clients. I know there are many B2B marketers that are uncertain about their place on the social web and over 6 1/2 years of B2B blogging experience can provide the companies we work with a unique perspective.
Working smarter with developing and implementing blogging strategy, content planning, promotion, SEO and the intersection with other on communications channels such as PR and social networking saves time, resources and improves results.
Am I biased towards blogging as part of a B2B marketing strategy? Absolutely. Is blogging appropriate for every B2B company? Not by a long shot.
According to the 2010 SEMPO Study, 35% of B2B companies integrate social media marketing with search marketing. At this stage of the Social SEO game, that percentage shows a lot of opportunity for growth. However, companies we’ve worked with like Marketo have made substantial progress towards dominating their industry and experiencing explosive business growth, in part, due to the effects of blogging and SEO.