Demand Creation

Innovative B2B marketers are fluent in newer digital and content marketing practices. We’re constantly adding a new spin to classic tactics. And, we’re grooving on the opportunity to entertain and engage customers as we find the great story in our B2B solutions and people. This makes it fun and keeps the craft interesting. But what’s new can be hard. And noise levels are increasing […]

No one can afford to guess what marketing programs work. Customers self-educate via digital channels, content marketing, industry events, and consultation with peers. They form opinions long before they become a “lead” in your demand creation funnel.  So, what’s the best way to measure what’s working?   1. Measure Funnel Health You should be able to see the health of your funnel in 5-10 charts. You need enough data to see results […]

Where is the Promised Land of Permission Marketing? As a B2B marketer, I’m on the receiving many sales and marketing tactics. And I watch with utter dismay as others make the rest of us look bad with scurrilous tactics.    3 Terrible Tactics That Make Me Crazy   1. My #1 pet peeve is bad outbound sales and marketing which forces me to unsubscribe or block you. It goes […]

What content should we include on a high-performing landing page, specifically for webinars, online training and in person conferences or events? Kissmetrics offers some good advice for creating landing pages that convert. With more complex content engagements, where you are asking for a bigger time investment and data collection from a registrant, it’s important to sell them on the content. I’m going to focus […]

A classic tool, the marketing persona is overdue for a modern overhaul. My friend Peg Miller recently wrote excellent advice on how to cure persona-itis and other persona management challenges. She inspired me to reflect on what modern personas should do. So, if you’re a product marketing expert and wondering how to manage personas, here’s my advice. A modern marketing persona is a marriage of […]

Upcycling is described as the process of converting older or discarded materials into something useful and often beautiful. Let’s discuss new ways to upcycle current content, and turn it into something useful and perhaps even more beautiful. Over the course of this three-part blog series, I’ll provide three example content types that most B2B organizations already have within their content library: webinars, blogs, and long […]

In my original post in this series, I shared ideas to upcycle your webinar content. Let’s turn our attention to blog posts. Here’s how we can apply similar thinking to your blog strategy: Pay attention to web analytics. Look for your top 10-20 blog posts (which are likely responsible for most of your blog traffic anyway) and determine why they are driving interest from your prospect […]

Whether you consider yourself a content marketing newbie or you’ve been doing content marketing for years, I guarantee there is content inside your organization that is being underused within your content marketing strategy. 60% of marketers are challenged to create engaging content, according to 2016 B2B Content Marketing Trends, from Content Marketing Institute/MarketingProfs. The top challenge for B2B marketers is creating consistent and engaging content, […]

Earlier this week I was invited to participate in a content marketing panel at SIIA’s Deciphering Market event in Denver. It’s always fun to share best practices and get feedback from other B2B marketers. What is SIIA, you ask? The acronym stands for Software & Information Industry Association, a trade association for the software and digital content industry. It was a great opportunity to meet […]