Mary Ann Bautista and I first met in the ‘90s, when she was a remnant space broker, and I was buying a lot of media for Book of the Month Club.  Her company has since moved into direct-response radio, and later video advertising, which is of course a very hot topic these days in B2B and everywhere else. When I mentioned to Mary Ann that I now co-host a podcast, our conversation turned to podcast advertising as a lead generator.  Mary Ann explained that many hosts are missing the boat when it comes to getting the most out of their podcasts.  I was all ears. Here’s what she told m ..read more

In former times, video content and budgets were largely incidental to B2B marketing strategies. Both sales and marketing organizations deployed video opportunistically to meet tactical objectives, but neither needed a “video strategy” as such. But times have changed. Video is now the preferred mode of sales communication “Three quarters of buyers and sellers say they now prefer digital self-serve and remote human engagement over face-to-face interactions” according to McKinsey. (See “These eight charts show how COVID-19 has changed B2B sales forever.”) “Digital self-serve” and “remote human en ..read more

The conference and event business is slowly getting back its footing, with a lively combination of virtual, in-person and hybrid events ahead.   It’s been a long haul.  But vaccinations and safe practices provide some reason for optimism, so it’s time for B2B marketers to plan their event calendars.  Here’s a roundup of events to consider through the end of the year.  May 26-27, hybrid, B2B Marketing Leaders Forum APAC 2021 The largest B2B event in Asia Pacific is sold out for in-person in Sydney Australia, but virtual tickets are still available.  Additional co ..read more

How’s that for an attention-getting headline?! I promise, though: it’s not click-bait. I really do think you’ll find my thoughts below to be incredibly valuable to making your marketing more successful. It’s even simple and straightforward advice. Unfortunately, that doesn’t make it easy … Marketing Is About Them, Not You You may think that the secret to successful marketing is making it clear how great you are and how incredible whatever you’re offering is. Nobody cares. What they care about of course, is what’s in it for them. As I am fond of saying, Your prospects don’t care about you. Your ..read more

The movie The Social Dilemma is now streaming on Netflix. It’s been widely reviewed, and most of the reviews are positive.  (You can read David’s review for his Avast blog here.) It combines documentary-style interviews with leading minds formerly at Facebook, Twitter, Uber, Instagram, and so on, along with star turns from Shoshana Zuboff, Jaron Lanier, and Renee Diresta. The thesis is that the social giants have sold us and our data down the river, and we now are stuck with the results. Paul and David discuss the wider implications of the movie for B2B marketers ..read more

B2B marketing quickly adapted to the challenges of the global pandemic, thanks to the many talented people who have chosen business markets as their professional focus. I am pleased to introduce ten standouts here. This is my sixth annual list (see 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, and 2015). We are lucky to have all these skilled B2B marketers in our camp.  Gary Skidmore reinvented Aberdeen into a data-driven content marketing powerhouse and sold it to Spiceworks Ziff Davis just last month. I take pleasure in noting how the deal takes Gary full circle, as he started the business by buying the Comp ..read more

Mitch Ratcliffe is a business, product and content marketing leader with 35 years of experience in local media, technology marketing, online and broadcast publishing. Among the successful businesses he’s helped launch are the ON24 conferencing platform and BuzzLogic influencer marketing agency. He’s also served on the founding board of directors of Match.com. Mitch shares our publication lineage with roles at Ziff-Davis, CMP and numerous other publishers. We spoke to Mitch about this recent post on Metaforce, his current digs. We touch on the changes that COVID-19 has wrought with m ..read more

Website visitors are among your most valuable prospects. They have found you, searching around for a solution. They’re clearly interested in your category and it’s very likely they are in the market for an offering like yours. The only problem is that they tend to come, poke around and leave.  Without a way to engage them, you may lose a sizable opportunity. But there are methods for converting business visitors to identifiable prospects, for ongoing marketing interaction and development. Here are six methods to connect with your website visitors. Motivate visitors to fill out a ..read more

Always on the lookout for new ways to identify prospects and generate leads in business markets? This year I’ve come across a handful of services and tools that demonstrate and welcome creativity and innovative by using digital marketing. Here are some to consider. Ramp up your LinkedIn outreach.  Hugh MacFarlane, a longtime sales and marketing trainer and coach has added a prospecting service that uses predictive modeling to identify and target prospects for clients. Then it takes over the LinkedIn accounts of the client’s sales reps. The system then sends out a connection request w ..read more

The other day I was invited to speak on retention marketing as part of a 3-webinar series on sales enablement.  It got me thinking:  What is sales enablement, anyway?  I remember the term in general use when I worked at IBM in the ‘90s.  But it seemed to be mainly about collateral and sales presentations in those days.  So I decided to ask Steven W. Wright for help bringing me up to speed on how B2B marketers see the function today.  Steve is Chief Analyst at VendorNeutral, a platform that helps buyers of sales technology and sales training find suppliers.  D ..read more