In order to develop content that builds an audience, earns their trust and leads to sales, it’s critical to first honestly evaluate whether your company’s communication style will attract readers or send them straight to your competitors’ blogs.

Here are 3 ways to help your company make the transition from generic content to authentic communication.

1. Change Your Perspective

The first step is to understand what makes content marketing different from outbound marketing.

Advertiser vs. Publisher

Content marketing is not just advertising with a few “how to” tips thrown in. It requires shifting from short-sighted goals to a long-term view.

Magazine publishers establish themselves as the authority in their niche by creating content for a very specific audience. Your own content marketing approach needs to follow the same strategy, focusing on topics related to the problems your company solves.

Content marketers are the new magazines, newspapers and television stations. The quality and value of your content and the connection it builds with your audience is more influential than any full page branding ad could ever be.

And there’s the irony of the publishing marketing model. Its purpose is to drive new sales and build repeat business, but the right execution requires a subtle approach. When you focus squarely on the needs of your audience first, ROI is inevitable.

Pack a Lunch

Content marketing is not a short-term strategy. Building an audience takes time, commitment and resources. The potential payoff for those who commit, however, can be huge.

The components that make up a solid ongoing content marketing campaign include:

• Developing high quality content and establishing publishing channels (blogs, social media, etc)
• Building an audience by earning their attention and trust
• Converting readers into prospects and then customers

There are no shortcuts. Each step builds upon the last. Expecting to generate a sale from every new Twitter follower or forcing a pitch into every blog post ruins your chances of earning your audience’s trust. The stronger your content, the greater the connection you will build and the less need you’ll have to hard sell at all.

2. Get to the Point

The purpose that your company expresses through its content is critical to earning an audience.

Spock Would Make a Horrible Content Marketer

Nobody is persuaded by data. They are persuaded by meaning. The purely logic-driven decision is a myth.

It doesn’t matter if you sell office towers, copy machines or consulting. Cranking out pages of dry facts and graphs like a robot just adds to the already overwhelming information overload that we all deal with. Your goal as a content marketer is to translate those facts into meaning. If you can use emotion as well as logic to help people solve problems, your content will be far more engaging and persuasive.

Muzak

“XYZ Inc is a leading ______ with a commitment to creating win-win, value-added solutions for companies of all sizes, including Fortune 500 enterprises and small businesses alike.” This type of generic, pointless jargon exists because it’s safe and expected. Like muzak in an elevator, nobody really likes or is inspired by it. It’s just neutral background noise.

Marketing cliches, just like muzak, are largely ignored. Nobody is influenced by corporate platitudes. They are influenced by purpose; why you do what you do to begin with. Being authentic means making a bold statement, standing for something and ignoring the critics. It means not trying to appeal to everyone and instead focusing on dominating the market for the customers who share your vision.

If you want to connect with your audience, you have to be real. Everything else gets filtered out.

Word Budget

From today’s LA Times: “Multi-tasking audiences appear to be tiring of (drama) shows that require concentration.”

Yikes. If the audience for a multi-million dollar television production is so easily distracted, what chance does the average white paper have of being read to the end?

Deliver your content in as concise and readable way as you possibly can. Longer is very rarely better.

3. Is Everyone on the Same Page?

It does you no good to create wonderfully engaging content only to have your CEO or sales manager shelve it for the wrong reasons. It’s critical to get the right people on board first, before you finalize your content and communication strategy.

Fearless Leader

Start at the top and work your way down. Make sure that every stakeholder is not only comfortable with the time commitment needed for content marketing but with your communication style as well. Without that, your well crafted and engaging content will likely be reduced to pointless “professional sounding” jargon.

Death by Committee

Content shouldn’t be written to stroke your CEO or sales manager’s ego. It should be written to serve the people in your market.

The fewer managers involved in the copy approval process the better. Great content is never written by committee. Putting it through the meat grinder of office politics is a guaranteed way to end up with generic filler.

That doesn’t mean that your team shouldn’t be involved. Your service and sales reps are on the front lines with your customers every day and have unique insight into the topics and content customers would be most interested in. Get them involved early and your content’s relevance will go up dramatically.

The Leads Are Weak?

Your sales team should have a clear understanding of where your audience fits into their lead pipeline. Convert readers into prospects carefully, without pushing them too hard and driving them away, losing their trust and damaging your credibility. Only after they’ve expressed interest in beginning a conversation by responding to a specific offer should they be handed off to your sales team for follow up.

Photo Credit: Flickr Creative Commons Some rights reserved by kevinspencer

Here is what a survey of over 4,000 internet users by Forrester Research in 2010 reveals about how users find websites:

• 61% of adults say they still find websites using natural search results; 39% of those users say they trust these results.  57% of consumers under the age of 18 say they trust search engine results – and the majority of all of these users say they trust search engine results more than they trust social networking results or even major media advertising like television.  Search engine results remain the number 1 traffic driver online – as they have since this survey began in 2003.
• The next biggest traffic driver is referrals.  Word of mouth is so effective that 1 out of every 3 consumers surveyed say they visit websites their friends and family tell them about via email.
• Paid advertising is now the least effective method of driving traffic to a website.  Paid advertising will still get you impressions, but it’s harder than ever to translate those impressions into views – or conversions.  A mere 3% of surveyed adults say they visit websites from paid advertisements.  The effectiveness of paid search advertising has dropped by 10% since only two years ago.
• Social media marketing has been holding steady as a major traffic driver.  16% of adult internet users find websites through social media profiles and links.  This is the same percentage as follow television ads to websites – and a lot less expensive for internet marketers!
• Reiteration is good.  20% of users who view a paid advertisement online choose to search for that website’s organic results before visiting the website.  These organic results add validity to your site; users trust them more than they trust your paid advertisement.  Be sure to market yourself in more than one way.

How does Age Impact Surfing Habits?

• Social media has been gathering ground for consumers of all ages but has a particularly powerful influence over surfers age 30 and below.  Even though organic results are still the primary way younger consumers find websites, social media is a close second – above even personal recommendations and word of mouth.
• Surfers age 55 and up are significantly less interested in social media (only 7% use social media to find websites).  They are far more likely to rely on referrals from friends and family to find websites.  They also are influenced by print media and interested in content.

In Conclusion:  Additional Tips for Success

• Your paid ads aren’t worthless just because other forms of marketing are taking center stage.  Consider that your paid ads can offer you real-time analytic information along with their functionality as ads.  This analytic data is useful for improving all aspects of your campaign.
• Impressions matter.  Just because your ads don’t seem to be driving clicks directly doesn’t mean they aren’t adding to the overall awareness of your brand.  Remember that many users now view search results after viewing an ad and then navigate to a website – focusing on multiple aspects of your campaign can help target these users.
• Mobile marketing is of growing importance.  1 in 3 internet users under the age of 18 browse the internet at least once a week on their mobile phones.  Target these users to increase your success.

The best approach to marketing your website in 2011 is not to utilize any one form of online marketing by itself – but to combine all of these tools into an all-encompassing, fully integrated campaign.

Post written by Spencer Belkofer of Lumin Consulting.

From the moment we launched B2Bbloggers.com, it has been our vision to create a community of marketers actively participating in shaping the future of B2B marketing. In a little over a year’s time, we’ve grown to more than 50 contributors and a community of over 7,500 senior level B2B marketers, CMOs, and agency and company executives. We are so very grateful to all of you.

Today, we’re launching a new monthly B2B expert roundtable series titled: B2B Marketing – In 140 Words Or Less. The intent is to start conversations on the toughest topics facing today’s B2B marketing community. Our goal –  shape it’s future.

Our first question starts at the top.

According to Peter Drucker in The Practice of Management (1982), only two things matter in the corporation: marketing and innovation. That is an awfully challenging statement. From your perspective, what is the single most important focus for today’s CMO and why?

Read what the roundtable participants have to say. Then get involved and share your expert opinion.

Ardath Albee – CEO & B2B Marketing Strategist, Marketing Interactions

Excuse the play on words, but I think “innovative marketing” is the primary goal for today’s CMO. We all know the buying process has changed – even more dramatically for B2B than B2C.

By this I mean that instead of focusing on the companies marketers want as customers, they must focus on the people within those companies who have the power to affect the kind of change we can help them achieve.

Innovative marketing in this sense is related to our ability to relearn how to have conversations with the buyer, not as a company, but as individuals sharing expertise with other individuals. The kicker is that most of this interactive dialogue will take place online, rather than face-to-face. That means learning new skill sets and how to use tools for better insights—as well as developing content that drives conversations.

Trey Pennington – Marketing Pro, Business Connector, and Storyteller

There’s often a gap between what SHOULD be and WHAT IS. Reality is, CMOs are forced to justify every move financially, often with a short event timeline in view. No doubt Drucker would be in favor of smart investment of capital, but he would probably encourage CMOs to remember the goal of a business is to create and keep a customer.

Today the money question comes first. Instead the question, “What must we do to create and keep a customer” should take priority. If it did, then the single most important focus for CMOs would be tenacious pursuit of understanding customers. Every action would be measured by, “How does this help us understand our customers better so we can make a meaningful contribution to their quest for significance?” and CMOs would succeed in the long run.

Jody S. Canavan – President, Launch International, Inc.

Today’s CMO is focused on proving marketing’s contribution to driving top-line revenue growth. At the core of that effort is a massive focus on understanding an organization’s sales process and marketing’s role in both influencing a multifaceted buyer’s journey and supporting a complex selling effort.

For years, experts have been talking about bridging the great divide between marketing and sales, but, until recently, we’ve rarely seen organizational shifts to make that happen. Today, CMOs are investing heavily in anything (analysts, consultants, focus groups, etc.) that will help them study their prospects, customers and buying influencers and understand how they live, work and buy.

They’re using that data as baseline intelligence to create everything from brand and solutions messaging to blog posts, airport signage and sales presentations, resulting in a new level of marketing synchronicity that is all but required in today’s complex and technology-enabled world.

Joe Chernov – VP Content Marketing, Eloqua

Math. The most important focus for today’s CMO is good ol’ fashioned math.

CMO’s need to demonstrate the impact marketing is having on the company’s top line.  Soft sciences like brand building are giving way to hard sciences of funnel throughput, pipeline management and lead conversion rates.  Virtually every aspect of marketing is now measurable.  A great website is no longer determined by the eye of the beholder.  Inbound links and search rank will tell you how magnificent your site is – or isn’t.

Customer advocacy is no longer a convenient byproduct of a positive experience.  Social media has made customer sentiment as “triggerable” as it is “trackable.” Why will the science of marketing eclipse the art of marketing?  Because without revenue there is no business, and without business, there is no brand.

Billy Mitchell – President and Creative Director, MLT Creative

A CMO’s most important focus should be “informed leadership”. The authority implied by the CMO title is meaningless if you don’t lead by example. Today’s marketplace requires a never-quit-learning mindset, especially for you.

Of everyone in the company, you should be the best at telling its story. And you need to have a passion for it. I think that is your job. And it includes challenges too – listening and vision. You have to know more than anyone about your customers, your competition, goals and strategy.

There are now more ways to tell your company’s story than ever. And more ways to gather intelligence. Both outbound and inbound media are ever-evolving and you need to keep up and think ahead.

If you are a chief, you must have a tribe. Lead them well and be smart about it.

Rebel Brown – Consultant, Author, Speaker

Everything about our markets shifted.  Successful CMO’s must shift too. Yesterday’s chest-thumping Me Me Marketing, allowing internal teams to define your distinct Value and other you-focused efforts will cause you to crash and burn.

Today’s customers are empowered to find out everything they want to know about you, your competitors and your value – without ever involving you.  Now more than ever successful marketing is about your customers; building relationships with your audience, focusing on their real problems and defining Value with your markets –not your product teams.

So ditch the Me, Me Gravity thinking. Get close to your markets  – and not just your favorite customers. Get out and chat with the unhappy customer, the one who left you or the prospect who never bought. They’ll tell you more about your Value than those customers you’ve known and loved forever.

Maria Pergolino – Director of Marketing, Marketo, Inc.

The most important focus for today’s CMO should be the imperative for revenue growth – how to generate more of it, more profitably and more predictably.

That doesn’t mean that marketing has to focus only on spreadsheets and formulas. Instead, today’s most successful CMO must be able to balance the art and the science of marketing.  Innovation and creativity are more important than ever, but these efforts need to be balanced and well evaluated to ensure the maximum number of sales opportunities are created.  By making this the priority, marketing will finally receive the credit deserved as a true driver of success for the organization.

Doug Kessler – Co-founder Velocity Partners, Author B2B Marketing Manifesto

Any CMO whose chief focus is not revenue won’t be CMO for long.  If you start with the revenue you need to generate for the company and work backwards, you’ve got your marching orders.

Yes, you must keep an eye on the brand and each step in the customer purchase path, but if an activity is not leading to revenue, it’s off-strategy and if it is revenue-driving, the rest will look after itself.

Christopher Koch – Associate Vice President, ITSMA

CMOs must expand the concept of branding to include personal brands for their top SMEs. Putting short bios and tiny head shots of your SMEs at the end of white papers isn’t going to cut it anymore. Social media have increased buyers’ expectations for intimacy at all stages of the buying process.

Buyers want to “meet” your SMEs before they will listen to them—(e.g., read their personal blog, follow them on twitter, read their comments in an online community). Once they have established this personal knowledge of the SME (with the help of marketing), then buyers will be more interested in reading the whitepapers. CMOs have to start thinking of themselves as paparazzi, complicit in making our SMEs’ personalities and accomplishments as visible online as Britney Spears’ stretch marks.

To say the least, these responses include some tremendous thinking. What’s your take? Who’s right? Who’s off? How do you answer the question, “what is the single most important focus for today’s CMO and why?”

To quote Joe Chernov, “It is in the spirit of this “rule” that Eloqua and JESS3 collaborated to develop “The Blog Tree” – the world’s first visual depiction of the interrelationship among marketing blogs.  It’s both a blog list and an infographic.  It’s both practical and playful.  It’s both something to use and something to muse.”

As I spent the day pondering this infographic, I couldn’t help but remember another tree. It is one that I was very fond of as a child, The Giving Tree.

The Giving Tree is a story about the relationship between a young boy and a tree in the forest. As the story goes, the tree always gives the boy what he wants, a branch to swing on, shade to sit in, apples to eat, and one day the tree even makes the ultimate self-sacrifice and allows the boy to cut her down. The tree’s love for the boy was so powerful that she willingly did anything to make the boy happy.

I feel similarly about The Blog Tree, it is the ultimate giving tree. Every blog willingly gives everything they have to their readers. So much knowledge, experience, advice and guidance is freely shared.

When I look at each of the leaves, I’m reminded of how much I have learned from each one of them. How willingly they all give me what I need when I need them.

I beg you Blog Tree, please, please keep giving. I promise to always sit in your shade.

Today’s marketing options can seem innumerable and the number of choices in the future will only increase. Marketers have to choose not only which channel to utilize, but how much to invest in each channel to achieve success.  The diagram below shows an example of some of the choices available to attract customers today:

Looking at this diagram reminds me of playing darts. Darts may be a more effective method of allocating budgets because multi-channel measurement is still in its infancy.   Even when we have data from all the individual channels, we still don’t know how the combined formula impacts the bottom line.  It’s alchemy and it can blow up!

According to an InfoTrends study on Multi-Channel Communications Measurement and Benchmarking, multi-channel campaigns using email, customized landing pages and print yielded a 35% higher response rate than print-only campaigns.

Multi-channel campaigns are simply more effective.  How can we know the efficiency of each individual channel and what the ratio of investment should be in each?  Investment in one channel naturally takes money away from other channels so every decision either approaches or detracts from the optimal formula.

Currently there is no standard CPM to measure channel mix, although several companies have proprietary solutions that attempt to attribute cross-channel results.   Companies like Alterian, Radian6, Nielsen Business Media and Mobilestorm are a few.  These software solutions are a great step toward ROI transparency, and their sophistication will improve as time advances.

Most companies aren’t aware or can’t afford these software solutions so Marketers need a disciplined planning process with clear steps to help you increase your chance of success.  To be clear, let’s revisit Jessica, our 25-year-old professional working in the year 2020.  We’ll use a day in her life to explain how you might make better channel marketing decisions for your business.

Here’s how to evaluate the right channel strategy:

6:20 A.M. – After snoozing through one alarm, Jessica grabs her Cloud Acquisition Device (CAD) and drops it in the cradle in the bathroom where she’ll listen to news, weather and sports while she gets ready for work

Step 1. Segment your audience according to profitability.  Understand the financial impact of adding X percent of new customers within each segment.  Jessica is a high-end digital consumer who buys the maximum data plans to support her voracious information-access needs.  Analyzing your customer segments will help you focus on the channels that will deliver the highest ROI.  If you don’t fully understand your target segments, drop everything you’re doing and get this data.  It will change everything you do.  When I worked at Ameritech Cellular, we knew 15% of our customers delivered 80% of the company profit.  While it was tempting to put the majority of our budget and resources into the retail consumer promotions (only 20% of the profits), that decision would have had terrible financial consequences.  Instead, we invested in high-end business packages that sold our best customers more services, driving up EBIDA.

There are several businesses today that tier their content offerings, charging consumers for content that’s free of ads.  Check out Pandora and Uber Twitter.  We’ll see more of this as everyday, basic content changes as time progresses, so start organizing your product or service offerings now.

Step 2. Make sure your data supports threshold levels of investment based on your targets use of that channel before you add that particular channel into the mix.  “Innovation” (otherwise known as cutting edge media with no proven performance) should be kept below 10% of the budget.

7:15 A.M. – Jessica grabs her CAD from her bedroom CAP and brings it into the kitchen where it wirelessly connects to the Cloud Acquisition Portal (CAP).  Her mother calls her to remind her about her father’s upcoming birthday, and the CAD seamlessly transitions between news and the video chat session with her mother.  Since all video is now web-enabled, Jessica will use the top online gift store to search a variety of gift options for her Dad.  More about this when Jessica comes home tonight.

Each channel will be much more segmented, persuasive and effective.  B2B channels will even be fully integrated with search engine optimization (SEO), video, email, promotions, ads (banner and PPC), mobile, print, direct, PoP and social.  Support for this trend can be found in the study by EConsultancy.

7:45 A.M. – Jessica jumps into her electric car and drives to work.  Electric cars, and all the cottage industries that support them, will grow exponentially in the next decade.  Popularity will increase electric car market penetration to 50% by 2020.

• Major, mass market product launches are happening this year.

9:30 A.M. – While doing research for a 10:00 A.M. client meeting, Jessica reads a news update regarding one of her supplier’s new contracts.  She clicks on a link and receives an un-branded case study that can be used in any presentation.  Packaging case studies for viral distribution, with links back to the source, will become a rich source of lead generation in the future.

• The future of contextual search.

Noon – On her lunch break, Jessica scrolls through mobile ads she’s cached for future use.  She’s opted into certain ads so she can save money on the things she likes.  The cache app allows her to save ads she wants to save and retrieve when she is near the store.

• Mobile, location-based marketing will improve targeting for marketers and convenience for consumers.

2:30 P.M. Throughout the day, Jessica receives alerts about a variety of information according to her pre-approved preferences.  These alerts represent highly targeted opportunities to reach consumers.

• Daily mobile text alerts.

5:30 P.M. - A good friend calls Jessica and invites her to a business association meet-up that night where business celebrities talk live and interact with attendees from far-off locations – using sophisticated streaming technology.  Branding and social media opportunities abound.

• Streaming from live events

6:30 P.M. - Jessica uses her CAD to buy admission and dinner while at the event.

• Read about the first barcode scanner on smart phones.

8:00 P.M. - Once home, Jessica plugs in her CAD and selects from a list of high quality resources that will deliver relevant news, cases and data to her business account in the morning.  This information will make her more informed and articulate when the discussions and debates occur throughout her business day.  If content is King, Jessica will have a crown by noon.

• Read about the future of local news by the Wall Street Journal.

11 P.M. - Once in bed, Jessica voice-enables her alarm and reads from her wireless reader, which drifts to sleep-mode after Jessica.

• Voice Controlled Talking Alarm Clock.

The only way to ensure you’re maximizing your marketing investment, knowing that it isn’t perfect, is to measure every channel. Start with individual measurement tools and add software that integrates channel metrics.  Analyze the data and you’ll find valuable insights that will grow your business – guaranteed.  Too often we shrug our shoulders and believe its too complicated and there aren’t accurate resources to measure effectively.  This attitude leads to complacency and sloth.  It’s possible today to dramatically increase your marketing ROI.  Get granular and you’ll make a mountain out of a molehill.

I hope you’ve been motivated by this series and make the effort to rise above the standards of this day to lead the future of marketing.  I looked ten years into the future but I believe we don’t have to wait to achieve the kind of effectiveness that technology and strategy will surely bring. I’m excited about the future and can’t wait to see what YOU will contribute.

With the firehose of data that is available to marketers now-a-days, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to find the information that truly matters. And this is especially true for B2B with their typically complex, drawn out sales cycles.

In our latest episode of #B2Bchat, we dug into questions surrounding metrics. Here is a summary of the questions and comments, compiled:

Q. Which components of your digital marketing campaigns are delivering the best results? E.g. Search, Email, Display Advertising, Social Media?

• Search (PPC and SEO). These are most effective when in used in conjunction with great landing pages.
• Email
• Mediums are secondary, success depends on the contextual relevance of the message.

Q. Why do campaign budgets get cut? Poor performance or lack of tracking?

• Both: poor performance due to lack of clear objectives. and lack of tracking because no analysis properly done during campaign
• Most of the time the problem is poorly defined goals and metrics
• Budget cuts can also come due to lack of well defined baselines.
• Lack of commitment to the campaign. Unreasonable expectations of sales impact.
• On social media budgets: Shyness with social media due to it being unproven, thus high risk. Execs are holding back.
• Measuring metrics a science, but knowing how to explain them can sometimes be an art. e.g. convincing your boss to keep budget.

Q. What is your biggest pet peeve when it comes to marketing reports?

• First Dashboard reports need to be customized (management level) and meet biz needs…focus on actionable metrics!
• A lot of people over-do it with reports. Too much data and too complex = danger of focusing on wrong metrics.

Q. How do you assess the value of a digital marketing campaign? Where do you start?

• Have specific goals and objectives
• Start with the dollar value of new sales and work backwards
• Measure the number of sales-ready leads and wins
• A good marketing dashboard is fundamental

Q. What metrics (Key Performance Indicators) do you track? Which matter most?

• “Actionable” metrics, data which will allow us to make better decisions and take action
• PDF downloads, newsletter subscriptions, sales leads, e-commerce transactions
• Clicks, conversion, leads
• Customer retention
• Qualified leads, Reach, Buzz, Sentiment
• Engagement: comments/replies
• Predictive actions: signups, downloads, resource access

Word art of transcript from April 29 #B2Bchat – Measuring the Value of Digital Marketing (courtesy of Wordle.net)

About the B2Bblogger:

How do B2B marketers tackle the question of marketing campaign value? Do we make strategic decisions based on real, actionable data? With the firehose of data that is available to marketers now-a-days, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to find the information that truly matters. And this is especially true for B2B with their typically complex, drawn out sales cycles.

In our next #B2Bchat session, we’ll open up the discussion on measuring the value of digital marketing. Here are some of the questions we’ve collected:

• How do you assess the value of a digital marketing campaign? Where do you start?
• What metrics (Key Performance Indicators) do you track? Which matter most?
• Which components of your digital marketing campaigns are delivering the best results? E.g. Search, Email, Display Advertising, Social Media?
• Which attribution model(s) do you use? First click? Last click? Blended model?
• Who is responsible for collecting the data? Agency? Internal staff?
• Why do campaign budgets get cut? Poor performance or lack of tracking?
• Do you use a reporting dashboard? If so, how often do you revisit the dashboard?
• What is your biggest pet peeve when it comes to marketing reports?
• How has your company’s internal reporting evolved over the past two years?

Join us for this week’s #B2Bchat on Measuring the Value of Digital Marketing, Thursday, April 29 at 8pm Eastern (5pm Pacific). Follow @B2B_chat for updates.

About the B2Bblogger:

From the start on Oct 28^th, 2009, the mission of B2Bbloggers has been to shape the future of B2B marketing. Our approach on the web site is to provide you a combination of original content from fellow B2B marketers and aggregated content from over 1,500 B2B marketing blogs (submit your B2B marketing blog).

Using our Twitter account – @B2Bbloggers – we are constantly tweeting links to helpful, useful articles to again make it easy for you to find the information you need to be more successful. Every tweeted article is hand picked and has to pass our filter: “Will this make the job of a B2B marketer easier?” and “Will a B2B marketer learn how to better market their company?”

Our uniqueness lies in our breadth of subject matter – our publication focuses on the whole of B2B marketing and how to integrate the new dimensions of b2b social media and content marketing. To that point, there have been great posts on Print Advertising, Tradeshow Marketing, as well as B2B Video Strategy and Marketing Analytics and Automation.

We are just getting started, we are especially appreciative to each of you that have become our loyal readers, retweeters, and advocates. We look forward to our continued relationship, and as always you are welcome to share your voice and thoughts on the future of b2b marketing by writing for B2Bbloggers. Enjoy the list, it is a summary of learnings, happenings, musings, and some favorite blogs, posts, and eBooks that I’ve discovered over the past 100 posts.

Thoughts On Blogging

1. It’s fun. And hard work.
2. If you enjoy writing, it is a lot easier (luckily I do).
3. It’s changed publishing. We are all publishers now. (You have to take the good with the bad of that statement).
4. It’s more strategic than you first think. At minimum you need goals, well conceived buyer personas, and an editorial plan.
5. The written article is truly just 50% of the job. Copy editing, proofreading, optimizing, finding/creating images, and adding it to the blog platform make up the rest.
6. Thought leadership, “share-ability”, engagement – just three of the benefits of blogging for businesss.
7. Blogging fatigue is real. Be prepared for it.
8. Did I mention fun? And Hard work?

The Guest Bloggers

Fulfilling the vision to be the online B2B marketing magazine for B2B marketers by B2B marketers.

1. Andrew Spoeth
2. Barbra Gago
3. Beth Brindle
4. Billy Mitchell
5. Chris Snell
6. Dan O’Brien
7. David Wiggs
8. Deni Kasrel
9. Elizabeth Sosnow
10. Heather Rast
11. Joan Damico
12. Ksenia Coffman
13. Mark Schaefer
14. Mike Thimmesch
15. Phil Lauterjung
16. Rachel Foster
17. Rodica Buzescu
18. Steven Parker
19. Talmadge Boyd
20. Tom Pick
21. Trey Pennington

The Interviews

I am extremely thankful for the opportunity I’ve had thus far to interview some great marketers.

1. Jeffrey Hayzlett CMO Kodak
2. Stacy Holleran SMC³ Corporate Marketing & Communications Executive
3. David Meerman Scott Best Selling Author, Speaker
4. Eric Fletcher (coming soon) CMO McGlinchey Stafford PLLC

Musings

1. Content Marketing and Inbound Marketing work. Period. In a post back in November, I asked if these terms were synonyms and the leaders of the charge Joe Pulizzi, David Meerman Scott, and Brian Halligan all weighed in. I prefer (and use) the term Content Marketing more so than Inbound Marketing for the reason that (in my view) content marketing takes into account all the channels your content can (and should) be used in to attract, nurture, and engage people.
2. To all the people who are saying, “Why do I need an iPad?” Were your parents the people asking, “Why do I need a microwave?” While you are probably right, you don’t need an iPad right now, in my view this next generation of computing devices will see 50% of us having some form of iPad, HP Slate, Microsoft Courier, or Google Tablet within the next 3-5 years (if the price comes down typical to Moore’s Law that percentage may even be higher).
3. Can someone explain to me how working with a writer to draft blog posts (i.e. Ghost Writing) is any different than having a PR agency write a press release (or any other form of marketing content)? I just don’t understand how on one hand you can preach the benefits of content marketing and then on the other hand (knowing the labor involved) say that to be successful you have to do it yourself.If you give me authenticity/transparency/trust argument, does that mean PR agencies haven’t been that way in the past when writing press releases for clients? I really just struggle with understanding the argument. A good partner will go to whatever lengths necessary to understand your business and ensure your communications are honest, transparent, and authentic. Wouldn’t they?
4. This year will not be the year the content marketing and inbound marketing “cross the chasm“. We will see big leaps forward, but the vast majority remain skeptics. For lots of reasons (generational, time, fear, risk aversion), it is just extremely difficult to get some people to consider the benefits. We’ve all heard, “Twitter, you’re kidding me right?” We have to all remind ourselves on occasion that just because we live, eat, and breathe this stuff, we are still largely ahead of the curve.That said, comfort can be found in the fact that this same phenomena was just experienced 10-15 years ago, “What’s the internet and why would I need a website?” Internet marketing crossed the chasm and so will content marketing … just not this year.
5. In less than two years, B2B marketers will wonder what they ever did without Marketing Automation software (and also be thanking the universe for not to have sort leads in spreadsheets). Here is a comprehensive list of marketing automation systems available today.
6. Google rushed Buzz out. It did them more harm than good. In hindsight it seems rather clear now that they should have followed their normal go to market strategy of: Labs, Beta, Production.

The Books I’ve Read (not affiliate links)

I love to read – it is how I learn. Here are the books I made it through in the last six months. We also started the #B2Bbookclub twitter interview series. Once weekly, but now monthly, I am in the midst of working with Bob Gilbreath (Marketing With Meaning) and Jeffrey Hayzlett (The Mirror Test) to schedule the next dates.

1. Web Content Strategy – Kristina Halvorson
2. eMarketing Strategies For The Complex Sale – Ardath Albee (#B2Bbookclub guest)
3. Trust Agents – Chris Brogran
4. Tribes – Seth Godin
5. Adland – James Othmer (#B2Bbookclub guest)
6. The BuyerSphere Project – Gord Hotchkiss (#B2Bbookclub guest)
7. Engage – Brian Solis
8. Six Pixels of Separation – Mitch Joel
9. Inbound Marketing – Brain Halligan & Dharmesh Shah
10. When Growth Stalls – Steve McKee (#B2Bbookclub guest)
11. Digital Body Language – Steve Woods (#B2Bbookclub guest)
12. The Digital Handshake – Paul Chaney (#B2Bbookclub guest)
13. The New Rules of Marketing And PR (2^nd Edition) – David Meerman Scott
14. A Whole New Mind – Daniel Pink
15. Drive – Daniel Pink (reading)
16. The Next Evolution of Marketing – Bob Gilbreath (reading)
17. The Effective Executive – Getting The Right Things Done – Peter Drucker (always reading)
18. Think and Grow Rich – Napolean Hill (always reading)

Blogs I Read Almost Every Day

1. The Future Buzz
2. Outspoken Media
3. The Conversation Agent
4. Brian Solis
5. Mark Schaefer’s {Grow}
6. Convince and Convert
7. PR² Squared

Blogs Gracious Enough To Have Me As A Contributor

1. Mark Schaefer’s {Grow}
2. Connected Marketer
3. The Social CMO
4. MLT Creative Launch B2B Ideas@Work Blog (coming soon)

My failings

1. I am not meeting my targets I set for my social media activities.
2. I have twice missed the send of the B2Bbloggers newsletter. I’ve justified this by believing that if I can not add enough value, it is better to say nothing, than waste your time.Hopefully that rings right to you.
3. I haven’t been controversial enough. I’ve had some controversial thoughts, but lacked the guts to spit ‘em out and publish them here. Let’s see if that changes in the coming months.
4. The layout of the sidebar is long overdue for the addition of categories, an archive, and popular posts. Unfortunately, it keeps getting bumped down the priority list. (At least my failing is not have a priority list, right?)

10 Most Popular Posts On B2Bbloggers.com

1. Content Marketing. Inbound Marketing. Are These Terms Synonymous?
2. The 7 Things That Will Surprise You Most About Twitter
3. Five Things Every B2B Marketer Should Know About Social Media
4. Humanize Your Marketing With Buyer Personas
5. Three B2B Marketing Trends (To Avoid)
6. The B2B Marketers Guide To A Brilliant Video Strategy
7. New B2B Marcom Tool: Conversation Calendar
8. Where In The World Does Print Advertising Fall In The 2010 B2B Marketing Mix?
9. How Are B2B Marketers Measuring Social Media?
10. Stepping Away From The Social Media B2B Hype

10 Best Posts I’ve Read This Year

1. Fear Nothing
2. The 10 Stages of Social Media Integration in Business
3. All The World’s A Stage In Marketing
4. Five Areas to Focus On for Effective SEO Copywriting
5. 25 Women That Rock Social Media
6. News flash: Social media won’t fix your content problems
7. Advice for Skeptical Execs: What To Do Amid Social Media Hype
8. Does Curated Content Drive Vendor Preference?
9. Can We Calculate “Community Equity?”
10. Content Strategy: Secret to Writing for Buyers Consideration Phase

Best eBooks

1. The Definitive Guide to Social Media (published by Marketo)
2. 2010 Content Marketing Trends and Predictions (published by Click Documents)
3. How To Build Your Inbound Marketing GamePlan(published by PR2020
4. How-to Build a Socially Armed Team eBook (published by Genius)
5. The B2B Content Marketing Workbook (my personal favorite published by Velocity Partners)

#B2Bchat

What a great idea this was by Ksenia Coffman. Just a little over a month ago, she reached out to Kent Huffman and I and suggested we start #B2Bchat. Within a couple of days, we had our first chat and right after that Andrew Spoeth joined us as a fourth moderator. Each week we post the questions and the transcripts. Join us in the coming weeks and read the transcripts of the first couple.

1. #B2Bchat: What’s Your B2B Content Strategy? [transcript]
2. #B2Bchat: B2B Marketing and Facebook [transcript]
3. #B2Bchat – Lead Scoring Best Practices [Transcript]

That’s a wrap for our 101st post. As I mentioned earlier, we are sincerely appreciative of the time you spend here, please keep coming back. I would love to hear your thoughts and ideas for future of the site, so share them in the comments and we’ll consider putting your ideas into practice. Next milestone post will be at 250. Would love to get there by the end of 2010. Wanna help us? The platform is open.  (One final thought on blogging, creating a post with 100  points takes about twice as long as you initially think.)

Why look for the overlap between B2B marketing and trade show trends?  Because trade shows represent the single largest marketing expenditure for B2B marketers.  For some companies, trade shows are central to their B2B marketing.

So here are seven B2B marketing trends, and some ideas on how trade show marketers can take advantage of them:

1.  Economic recovery: With US GDP growth of 5.7% in the 4^th quarter of 2009 (the fastest rate in six years), B2B marketers are getting off their heels and onto their toes, as prolonged uncertainty gradually shifts towards resurging ambition.  Marketers don’t just want to conserve cash; they want to make an impact.

“The extreme cost-cutting of the past has led to a big rebound in corporate profits, so businesses will start to compete for market share, said Frank Chow, chief economist for Trade Show Executive magazine.  To look like a leader at trade shows, B2B marketers are getting new graphics to promote their more ambitious marketing messages, or finally replacing the entire worn-out trade show display they had been holding onto.  But they are cautiously spending even in their ambition, choosing lighter weight portable and modular exhibits, and renting exhibits more often than before the downturn.

2.  Change in the sales cycle. Until about 10 years ago, when a B2B buyer needed product information, they had to ask potential vendors’ sales people. That put the sales people in control of the sales cycle.  But now, buyers know they are in control, because they have so much product info instantly available just by searching Google.  The recent downturn gave any actual buyers even more clout.  Buyers can wait later and later until they contact the sales rep.

This places even greater value on trade shows, as when a prospect meets you at the show, they’ve already learned about your products on the internet, and want to check out your people.  Plus, at a show you finally get face-to-face access to the buyer that your salesperson is having a harder time getting an appointment with.

3.  Marketing Automation: With B2B salespeople losing access to their prospects in favor of the Internet, marketing automation software such as Eloqua, Marketo, Genius, Manticore, and Silverpop has gained popularity as a means to keep tabs on and develop top prospects.

For trade show marketers, if your company introduces a marketing automation platform, you will need to learn how to record leads at show so they seamlessly enter into the marketing automation program.  Even better, be able to tap into the lead scoring system at a show, so when a top prospect enters your booth, you can identify their value, and take appropriate action, such as introducing them to a top company officer, or bring them to a conference room for a longer discussion.  Also consider how lead nurturing drip campaigns can include your pre-show invitations and post-show follow up messages.

4.  Growth Internationally:  United States companies that want to grow are looking more at exports to achieve that growth.  Recently President Obama even set a goal of doubling U.S. exports over the next five years.  No wonder — according to the World Bank, GDP in developing countries is expected to grow 5.2 percent in 2010 and 5.8 percent in 2011, while GDP in the USA is only expected to grow about half that.

U.S. manufacturers looking to increase exports can get an easier start by exhibiting at international trade shows, either on their own, or within a U.S. pavilion at the foreign show.  Even if they don’t exhibit abroad, U.S. exhibitors can get started or expand exports by paying more attention to international visitors in their booths.

5.  Greater Sales and Marketing Integration.  The economic downturn put even greater emphasis on the need for marketing to better drive sales.  There just isn’t any more leeway for lost revenue and profits from friction and miscommunication between sales and marketing.  Marketing must provide the sales force with tools for every step of the sales cycle, and deliver leads that sales values and will follow-up on.  They become one team with a common goal.  Companies that embrace this partnership are more likely to succeed.

There is no greater example of this than at trade shows, where sales and marketing literally work side-by-side.  In the booth, marketing people have to act more like sales people, and sales people have to be willing to help generate leads for outside their territory.  That teamwork at trade shows builds stronger relationships between sales and marketing.

6.  Social Media: Social media growth has been one of the most high-profile trends affecting business marketers.  More and more B2B marketers have learned to take advantage of social media sites like Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, and Facebook to extend their brand reach, communicate with customers, build communities, and generate sales leads.

Those same social media tools are becoming more useful to trade show marketers.  Whether it’s posting on YouTube a video interview with a client in their exhibit, or sending a tweet during show hours to announce a drawing in their booth, business marketers will more fully integrate their pre-show, at-show, and post-show promotions with their company’s social media programs.  Also consider that your popular company blogger may now be a good draw in your trade show booth and that your bloggers could get similar treatment as your industry press as an attendee

7.  Increased Use of Mobile: As more and more people carry their computer in their pocket, growth in mobile marketing is expected to grow 43% in 2010 according to Forrester Research, much faster than established B2B marketing mediums.  While some marketers are starting by ensuring their websites and blogs view well on mobile devices, others are taking advantage of the location-aware nature of mobile devices to create greater relevance and interactivity in their marketing.

For trade show marketers, mobile devices mean that trade show attendees don’t have to lug a laptop around the show to receive and act on their Twitter and email at-show promotions. Some trade shows are using apps that replace, even surpass the printed show book, with a scheduler, venue city info, and more.  Also, new lead management systems are now available that can be run on mobile devices rather than show-specific systems.  And audience polling apps can be used on mobile devices for greater interactivity, be it in their booth or at conference seminar sessions.

Marketers who exhibit at trade shows control a huge portion of B2B marketing budgets.  While other marketing areas appear to be undergoing more rapid change, trade show marketers are also affected and need to remain aware of how to adjust and adapt to these trends.

Do you have other ideas on how trade show marketers can adapt to these 7 B2B marketing trends?  Or have you noticed other B2B marketing trends you feel are more important to them?  Please share your insights in the comment box below.

Individually they can be viewed as breakthroughs, but they complicate marketer’s ability to achieve ROI.  Why?  Innovations don’t integrate well with established technologies.

We’ve all professed our sophisticated integration, but the reality is we live in a disaggregated and inefficient marketing world.  Lack of integration isn’t all our faults. As a culture, we suffer from a lack of platform integration.  Despite the fact that consumers overlap their media, various media platforms aren’t connected, especially in a manner that would allow measurement.  But that will all change.

In this three-part series I will investigate the future of marketing from the customer experience (today’s post), the marketer and then the implications on channel mix today and for the future.

So let’s take a peek into what our business and social lives might be like in ten years from the customer’s perspective.  I’ll paint a picture of our future in an attempt to encourage you, and possibly give you ideas that will help us all realize this future sooner.  I won’t predict flying cars and surrogate beings, but rather, a more probable future based on research and technology trends from today.

Lets look at our world ten years from now, in April 2020, through the eyes of Jessica (the most popular baby girl’s name in the U.S. in 1995).

She is a 25-year-old professional woman, and this is a perspective on what her typical workday might be like:

6:00 A.M. – Jessica’s Cloud Acquisition Device (CAD) wakes her up with her favorite songs or sounds.  The Cad is cradled on her nightstand in one of many Cloud Acquisition Ports (CAP) located throughout her apartment.  Jessica voice-enables the 10-minute snooze and drifts back to sleep.

• the cloud will run all our applications and data delivery:  http://bit.ly/9w4teD
• device integration is the future of the internet:   http://bit.ly/cGfCOn

6:10 A.M. – The sweet sounds of encouragement wake her up again, and after 15 seconds shifts to a voice-calendar reminder of her day’s schedule.  Jessica’s cloud is tailored to her life, with calendar, personal and work database, music, television programs, movies, internet, social networks and more – all contextually delivered and selected to improve her efficiency and happiness.

• contextual search will become much more refined:  http://bit.ly/buhdUb

6:20 A.M. - Jessica grabs her CAD and plugs it into the port next to her bathroom sink where it displays world and local news, financial market activity and weather on a video screen.  Jessica catches up on news while she gets ready for her day.

• TV’s will become intelligent video portals for streaming content:  http://bit.ly/dAfSzw

7:15 A.M. – Jessica grabs her CAD from her bedroom CAP and brings it into the kitchen where it wirelessly connects to the CAP.  Her mother calls her to remind her about her father’s upcoming birthday, and the CAD seamlessly transitions between news and the video chat session with her mother.  After the call, Jessica voice-enables her calendar and adds her father’s birthday and a reminder to shop for his gift when she gets home tonight.  The CAD is charged wirelessly, eliminating the need for cords.

• technology eliminates the need for wire cords: http://bit.ly/ajbCvy

7:45 A.M. –  Jessica attaches her non-invasive, audio/microphone button behind her ear (over the external acoustic meatus bone which transmits sound without ear damage). Then she is out the door and into her electric car.  Her CAD delivers music and podcasts to her ear button, which is legal while driving because it doesn’t block external noise. Her CAD still seamlessly integrates with her car’s audio and navigation device, and verbal commands direct her music, traffic reports synched to her destination, news, internet search or phone call options while also providing audio navigation (if necessary).

• Non-invasive headphone conducts through bone: http://bit.ly/avIeiD

8:10 – As Jessica parks in her building, her CAD  synchs with her monthly parking status (paid) to open the gate.

8:15 A.M. -  As she enters her office building, the international coffee chain using location-based services reminds her that she has 12 credits left.  This is the only audio advertising reminder she has enabled Monday-Friday.  Once in her office, Jessica plugs her CAD into the CAP, which recognizes her location and delivers her business desktop through a CAP screen.  She removes her ear button because the audio and microphone wireless systems in her office are highly focused and efficient.

9:30 A.M. – While doing research for a 10:00 A.M. client meeting, Jessica discovers the most recent and relevant contextual data available for her client’s products.  Her options are organized by news articles, research, business strategies, trademarks and legal issues, competitive products, pricing and customer insight.  Search results are no longer organized by “video, images, blogs, books and discussions” because these options exist within each result.  Each option is organized chronologically, with search variable control.

• The future of contextual search:  http://bit.ly/aCUjBZ

Noon – Anticipating a lunch break at 12:30, Jessica voice-enables her food option network and chooses a Thai salad from the salad restaurant around the corner from her building.  The salad is purchased with her CAD-enabled, password protected bank account, and the salad is ready to be picked up at 12:30.  She dons her ear button and leaves the office.

At the restaurant, Jessica grabs an impromptu candy bar at the counter and pays by swiping her CAD.  All of a sudden Jessica remembers she needs a birthday card for a co-worker, but doesn’t know where a card shop is located near her building.  She voice- enables a search for “birthday card shop” and audio directions for a pedestrian are delivered.  Once the card is purchased using her CAD, Jessica returns to the office to work while she eats her salad (some things never change).  All her social networks are integrated into a single user interface allowing her to stay in touch during her day without spending too much time on it.

• Location based and personalized advertising: http://bit.ly/ddYF8B

2:30 P.M. -  A client meeting begins and Jessica uses her CAD as the lead device for the team.  It plugs into the CAP in a conference room and establishes audio and videoconference connections to eight locations via the invites in the calendar.  Jessica selects the presentation from her CAD and seamlessly controls the screen that everyone sees during the meeting.  Data reduction technologies have transformed our ability to share large files over pipes that have not expanded as much as they have in other countries. All CAP’s have file reduction filters that reduce the density of data to enhance speed.

The conference is recorded and notes are logged for future access and work flow.

5:30 P.M. - A good friend calls Jessica and invites her to a social meet-up that night where live auditions are being broadcast for a popular reality TV show.   Live video venues stream concerts, theatre, church, government proceedings, legal disputes and parades, with screens and sound closely replicating the feel of being there.  This becomes a more affordable and accessible means of attending “live” events.  They agree to meet at 6:30.

• Streaming from live events:  http://bit.ly/bsMjAs

6:30 P.M. - Jessica uses her CAD to buy admission and dinner while at the event.

8:00 P.M. - Once home, Jessica plugs in her CAD and settles down at the portable screen on her coffee table.  Reclining on the couch, she enables her online persona, which accesses her profile that was previously created and saved, including likes and dislikes for every category relevant to her.   Her search results offer a plethora of gift ideas for her father, easily purchased and delivered without any concerns about identity theft or creeps hacking her real identity.

• Online personal profile: http://bit.ly/btlihX

11 P.M. - Once in bed, Jessica voice-enables her alarm and reads from her wireless reader, which drifts to sleep-mode after Jessica.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this peek into our collective future and it’s given you some inspiration for innovation.  Don’t settle on expected marketing.  Know your target, research the options and create a marketing plan that will engage and inspire.  Let me know what you think.

In my next post, I’ll report about Jessica’s world from the marketer’s perspective.  What will these technology innovations mean for us as we try to sculpt the most effective marketing plans?  Until then, enjoy the moment.

Prior to Vivid Ascent Dan was the Global Director of Advertising for Accenture.  He spent the first twelve years of his career at J. Walter Thompson and was President of the International Advertising Association (IAA) Chicago Chapter for five years. You can read more from Dan at Vivid Ascent’s PR, social media and SEO blog or follow him on Twitter @danielmobrien.