Posts Tagged ‘B2B marketing’

The “5th P” in the Marketing Mix: People

Tuesday, August 29th, 2023

Developing and maintaining a strong brand for a service is significantly more challenging than developing and maintaining a strong brand for a product. Why? Because a service is less tangible, more ephemeral—and often involves multiple “touchpoints” that really determine the “brand experience.”

What makes a strong brand? (more…)

Cultivating Customer Advocates in a B2B Environment

Tuesday, June 26th, 2018

Hiring marketing or content marketing talent?by Justin Grensing, Esq., MBA

 

Few things can be as effective at generating sales as positive customer reviews. Similarly, and conversely, few things can be as damaging to sales as negative customer reviews. In terms of online retail, a recent survey found that positive reviews influence the purchase decisions of 90 percent of respondents, while negative reviews influence around 86 percent. But that’s in the B2C (business-to-consumer) world. In B2C, there are a relatively large number of customer interactions compared to B2B (business-to-business). This means that while B2B has fewer potential customer reviews to base a purchase decision on, each one is that much more impactful. (more…)

Focusing on Value Over Features in B2B Sales

Tuesday, November 14th, 2017

To a large extent, the sales and marketing world can be divided along two broad lines: business-to-business (B2B) versus business-to-consumer (B2C) and products versus services. Sales strategies for B2C services will differ from B2B services, which differ from B2B products, etc. There are best practices and pitfalls for each quadrant of possible scenarios created by this way of looking at sales and marketing. (more…)

Do You Know When—And Why—Your Customers Have Left You?

Thursday, May 18th, 2017

Every business will gain and lose customers over the course of the business’s lifetime. Of course the hope is that there will be more gains than losses; however, sometimes businesses find themselves in the opposite situation and struggle to understand why their customers are leaving. While creative companies could come up with a myriad of creative and complex metrics and measurement techniques to try to gain some insights, one of the best ways to determine why customers are lost is to ask them! (more…)

Why It Pays to Be “You,” Rather Than “Me,” Focused

Thursday, January 19th, 2017

12389678 - acronym of aam for all about me written in chalk on a blackboard

By now, most business owners and business professionals have accepted the value that social media can have in helping to raise awareness, create preference and drive traffic to websites and to brick-and-mortar establishments. But, unfortunately, not all are communicating effectively through these channels.

We often see two common missteps, which we try to advise clients against doing: (more…)

“Newsjacking”: New Term, Big Opportunities

Tuesday, December 15th, 2015

David Meerman Scott, a well-known marketing strategist, coined the term “newsjacking,” which he describes as “the process by which you inject your ideas or angles into breaking news, in real-time, in order to generate media coverage for yourself or your business.” He’s even written an ebook on the topic: Newsjacking: How to Inject Your Ideas Into a Breaking News Story and Generate Tons of Media Coverage.

The concept makes sense, and we all know that a great way to gain relevance online is by leveraging hot topics and news items that are beginning to trend-but it’s a competitive, and fast-moving, field. How do content marketers stay on top of the relevant trends and news in their industries to ensure they’re curating and communicating fresh, engaging content? (more…)

Email Marketing: Updating an Old Standard for Today’s Consumer

Tuesday, December 8th, 2015

Email marketing is still a staple of any digital marketer’s repertoire, but the technology has become much more sophisticated-and so have your consumers. In this cluttered environment, understanding how to best target and connect with your audience as well as compel them to action is critical. For those in the know, email marketing is far from being a dying breed, despite the proliferation of other online and mobile options. (more…)

Small Business and Content Marketing: Opportunities Abound but Strategy is Key

Tuesday, December 1st, 2015

Content Marketing Institute’s 2015 “Small Business Marketing Trends-North America” study, sponsored by Copyblogger Media’s Rainmaker platform, focuses on how small business marketers are changing their marketing practices. It also points to some potential opportunities for these small businesses and others to better leverage the value that content marketing can provide. Chief among the keys to content marketing success is having a strategy. (more…)

B2B Content Marketing Still Going Strong!

Thursday, November 19th, 2015

Over the past few years, both B2B (business-to-business) and B2C (business-to-consumer) content marketing has exploded, driven by multiple changes to Google’s algorithms, which now reward unique, original, high-quality content. Marketers everywhere, in businesses large and small, are scrambling not only to find or create high-quality content, but to distribute that content in strategic ways aligned with their brand and designed to generate real, and measurable, results. (more…)