This might not be the first time you’ve heard of 'ABM' (accounts based marketing).
Previously known as ‘key accounts marketing,’ ABM assumes that B2B buying decisions are down to a group of people, rather than an individual.
Therefore, as opposed to using broad, traditional marketing techniques, it relies on a close alignment between sales and marketing to identify key influencers and decision makers within a business, supplying them with personalised, relevant, and compelling content.
The sheer volume of images available online can be overwhelming - especially when you're aware there is such great impetus placed on the use of visual media in B2B marketing content.
Sourcing powerful imagery that is sympathetic to your brand and content is a crucial part of the blog writing process. The tone of your blog can be swayed dramatically by the image you choose to pair your writing with. Your choice affects numerous things, from click-rate to audience comprehension and, ultimately, conversion.
If you’ve been involved in a website redesign before, you may not have fully enjoyed the process. Did it take longer to launch than anticipated? Was it over budget? Maybe there was a significant up-front cost?
These are common pain points.
But what if you could take away the pain of traditional web builds?
What if there was a faster, more agile process that would produce better results and ROI?
Well, good news - there is. If you haven’t heard of it before, it’s called Growth-Driven Design.
The deadline is imminent, and by now, most organisations should have their houses in order when it comes to GDPR.
It’s likely you’ve recently received a flurry of "can we still contact you" emails from B2C companies that you’ve previously bought from, or shown some interest in. You may have even heard of some companies deleting all their contacts in a fit of panic, fearful of falling foul of the new compliance measures. When it comes to B2B marketers, many are taking a more systematic and considered approach to how they use and handle data sensibly.
9 in 10 B2B companies have invested in content marketing, according to the latest CMI report.
And 6 in 10 say their efforts are more successful than they were a year ago.
This has important implications: with more businesses creating content, it’s a crowded space, and your content needs to cut through the noise.
Maybe you’ve started blogging, have created a few eBooks, and shared an infographic or two on social media.
While these can be extremely effective, there are a large number of other formats you can add to your content marketing arsenal.
So what content marketing formats should you be including in your mix this year?
Changes in customer behaviour are widening the gap between buyers’ expectations and sellers’ tactics. it is well versed that today's buyers would rather conduct their own research online than pick up the phone to Sales.
In response to this savvy marketers are driving traffic to their websites through inbound marketing methods; generating organic traffic and using topics and keywords to boost search engine rankings.
But marketers are also spending budget on advertising.
The Advertising Association is projecting that total UK advertising spend in 2018 will grow 2.8% to £22.7bn. The report also revealed that almost one in four pounds spent on advertising in the third quarter of 2017 went to mobile, which recorded year-on-year growth of 30.7%.
Marketing success today, rightly or wrongly, is often determined by your visibility in search engines, and the biggest by far is Google.
Your business could live or die depending on your search results. So getting your SEO right, and ensuring that your buyers find you when they are looking is crucial to success.
But while your competitors are also employing their SEO techniques to lead to their content, what can you do to get ahead in the SEO arms race?
One way is through Google’s rich results, previously known under various names – rich snippets, rich cards or enriched results, Google has now tied them down and called them rich results. But what are they? And how can they help a B2B business?
Directly after clicking a call-to-action, customers are swept away to a landing page tailored specifically to address their concerns. A fully optimised landing page helps prospective customers access the information they need in exchange for valuable contact information.
Landing page video is an inventive way to deliver useful information about your offer.
At this young stage of your lead generation, video is particularly powerful.
Active leads may have first encountered your CTA via email, a blog post, sidebar, pay-per-click campaign or social media. However it happened, they have shown a vested interest in a specific recommendation you made and are now on a quest for further details.
The software as a service (SaaS) industry is one of the most lucrative niches on the market. Inherently scalable and profitable, it’s expected to surpass $112.8 billion by 2019.
But if you're in the business of selling software as a service, you’ll know that standing out is now more of a challenge than ever.
And, unlike many other industries, if a software company grows at only 20%, it has 92% chance of ceasing to exist within a few years according to McKinsey.
So, listen up, because getting this right is important.
Inbound and content marketing are often favoured by SaaS companies because they are conducive to B2B buying habits.
Research is regularly hailed as one of the most effective forms of content. Why? Because it encapsulates the very essence of thought leadership.
If you think about it, what better way is there to position your company as a voice of authority in your field than by sharing new insights on industry trends?
But carrying out your own research is an investment that can require a significant amount of time and attention. Perhaps that’s why just 49 per cent of B2B marketers are creating research as part of their content marketing strategy.
However, it’s not as difficult or demanding as you might think.
And research that delivers useful, relevant and interesting insights for your target buyers can be repurposed into multiple pieces of powerful content, making it the gift that keeps on giving.
Great SEO copywriting is the key to thriving online.
But one of the biggest challenges for SEO copywriters is creating content that is favoured by online searchers and search engines.
The job of an SEO copywriter has demanded a variety of disciplines in previous years. Now, it's not enough to write for algorithms. You must write for people first.
This means your writing must speak to your audience's needs and desires, while, at the same time, targeting specific keywords and following SEO best practices.