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In the B2B landscape, data dominates and, arguably, makes marketers less creative and interesting.Decisions are heavily (overly?) influenced by KPIs and metrics. The numbers don’t lie, right?But here’s something exciting (at least to me): B2B companies are starting to rediscover the value of brand and branding.In a noisy, ultra-competitive landscape, it is critical to stand out from the crowd.A brand has to be differentiated, compelling, memorable, and interesting.Otherwise, you’re just another company battling for attention, even if your product is amazing.Karen O’Mahoney says many B2B companies are starting to focus on the fundamentals and what really makes them different.They’re focusing on how they want customers, prospects, and employees to see the brand and what it offers.Karen, CEO of Brandlucent, says developing a brand strategy is not a one-and-done exercise. It’s about making sure that a brand evolves and changes as a company grows, pursues new opportunities and markets.Your brand should be your “North Star” that propels your company forward and allows you to boldly and distinctly stand out from the crowd.

2020 has been a big year for LinkedIn. The social media platform now has more than 720 million users globally.It has transformed into a platform dominated by content and connections rather than a place where HR professionals troll for talent and people look for new opportunities.In short order, many people have decided to embrace LinkedIn as the social platform to drive their personal profiles and careers.From doubling-down on the platform over the past seven months, I've seen first-hand the power of LinkedIn to drive my fractional CMO business.I've made new connections with people around the world and had dozens of conversations, including Camille Trent, a brand and digital marketing specialist with Texas Citizens Bank.I reached out to Camille because she has established an engaged following since jumping hard into LinkedIn in August. I want to learn first-hand about how someone leverages LinkedIn effectively.

Sadly, most virtual events are terrible.For whatever reason, virtual events have been unable to replicate in-person conferences, which likely won't happen for another six to 12 months, conservatively speaking.But Narrative Science has cracked the nut. Its most recent virtual event attracted 3,000 (yes, 3,000 registrations).In this Marketing Spark episode, Cassidy Shield, Narrative Science's VP, Marketing, talks about how the company has approached virtual events and made them a core part of its marketing activities. 

In an age of video and photos, words don't get the respect they deserve.Words aren't sexy or glitzy. But they do matter. Words provide the information, the context, and the guidance for customers to take action.In this episode, I talk with Eden Bidani, a conversion copywriter for SaaS, tech, and direct to consumer brands.One of the things that struck me is Eden's suggestion that the best copy takes time to create and a lot of the time is not writing, but research. 

Every company (well, most companies) wants to tell stories that engage, entertain, educate, and encourage.It's what drives and differentiates their marketing and sales.But developing and delivering stories that make an impact is a challenge.In this episode of Marketing Spark, Jordan Bower and I take an in-depth look at how companies can approach storytelling and why storytelling has everything to do with the customers and the experiences that a product or brand delivers.

Google's algorithm changes on a regular basis, which keeps marketers on their toes and SEO experts happily employed.On this episode of the Marketing Spark podcast, Huckabuy's Geoff Atkinson talks about the impact that Google's next major update, Page Experience, will have on content marketing and SEO. On the podcast, Geoff and I talked about how B2B companies need to look beyond keyword optimization to drive SEO. They need to focus on technical elements such as dynamic rendering, page speed, and structured data. We also talked about why many companies are wasting time and money on content marketing.

While marketers mostly focus their efforts on attracting prospects, it's also crucial to connect with customers (aka the people paying for your product!).In this episode, Amrita Gurney, VP, Marketing & Community with CrowdRiff, talks about the company has heavily focused on engaging and nurturing its customers over the past six months.Amrita has great insight on best practices to develop a vibrant and active community, as well as thoughts on whether to use a platform.

As more B2B companies embrace content marketing, here's the question: what's more important: quality or quantity content.In other words: is less more or is more more?Dan Sanchez firmly falls into the quantity content camp. He believes that marketing success is driven by brands willing to create lots of content as way to perfect production.Dan also talked about the importance of brand positioning as a pillar for marketing success, and how podcasts are one of the best ways to connect with prospects.

Creating valuable,and interesting content is a huge challenge for B2B companies.There is so much competition that standing out is really difficult.Lindsay Tjepkema, CEO with Casted, says that podcasts are the way that B2B companies can create content that resonates.Podcasts offer companies the ability to connect with experts (customers, employees, analysts, media, investors) to have conversations that deliver amazing insight and information. These conversations can, of course, be turned into podcasts. But, as important, they offer great content for blog posts, eBooks, social media, and sales collateral.Casted is a SaaS service that allows companies to manage, activate, and measure podcasts from end-to-end while engaging their audience,s increasing sales alignment, and quantifying podcast value with metrics that matter.

Why do so many companies take their customers for granted? They invest so much time and money to acquire new customers but not nearly enough to keep them happy and loyal?In this episode of the Marketing Spark podcast, Jack Fussell talks about why knowing your customers and communicating with them is so important."We should be customer-centric all the time. We should have in-depth insight into what our customers want, what their fears are, their aspirations, and their  goals."Jack, the managing partner with Campfire Social and a fractional CMO, also talks about the importance of branding at a time when many companies sound and look the same, as well as the rise of fractional C-suite executives.

Marketing can be painful for small businesses; spending money is a hard pill to swallow.As a result, they adopt a DIY approach that often goes badly.Tara Hunt experienced the small business marketing challenge while running a digital marketing agency.Work easily done as a freelancer no longer made economic sense.But rather than walking away from marketing-hungry entrepreneurs, Tara did something different.She and her team at Truly created a program called Phlywheel, a marketing platform that combines DIY lessons, templates, coaching, and community.It allows entrepreneurs to do marketing without spending a lot of money.

LinkedIn has emerged as a powerful platform for personal branding and establishing new connections.Powered by a steady stream of value-added content and relentless engagement with a growing network, Jason Vana has become one of the highest-profile marketers on LinkedIn.In this conversation, Jason talks about how he approaches LinkedIn and why he sees it as an effective platform to drive leads and make money. 

In the wake of COVID-19, it was easy for B2B companies to shrink marketing budgets and get rid of marketers. After all, marketing is a luxury, not a necessity, right? (well, not really).But as the economies recover in many countries, companies are beginning to spend more on marketing. The question is whether companies will rebuild marketing teams or look for ways to outsource marketing by using agencies, contractors, and freelancers.Jamie Stenhouse, an Australian digital marketer, says outsourcing is an increasingly popular way to drive tactical execution.Jamie outsources a lot of his agency's work and sells a program to many companies on how they outsource their marketing.

What are the keys to building a successful marketing team? Do you hire the best talent or put together a cohesive team that features people with different talents? "Of course, all-stars," says Mitch Solway, a fractional CMO for startups, who I interviewed for the Marketing Spark podcast. "But all-star doesn't necessarily mean the top talent." Mitch says one of the keys to success is hiring people focused on the right goals and, as important, people who can fit into the corporate culture.

Virtual events have received mixed reviews as a replacement for in-person conferences. For some companies, virtual events have provided opportunities to connect. But many people have complained about the lack of interactivity and engagement. For commonsku, which sells software to promotional product companies, in-person events have been a key part of its marketing and sales efforts. As important, events have propelled Commonsku's community. With in-person conferences off the table, commonsku has successfully leveraged virtual events to stay connected to customers and nurture prospects. In this episode of Marketing Spark, Mark Graham, commonsku's co-founder and chief brand officer, talks about why and how virtual events have worked so well.  

What can brands do to position themselves to emerge from COVID as strong and dynamic players? While many brands are struggling to keep their heads above water, the strongest brands are already thinking about what needs to be done outflank rivals with marketing that engages consumers in new and different ways. On the Marketing Spark podcast, Ron Tite provides insight into how brands can build marketing momentum to pull away from the competition.

If you're a B2B company that thinks it is too late to launch a podcast, think again. Sweet Fish Media's James Carbary says there are huge opportunities for B2B companies to leverage podcasts to drive marketing, sales, and relationships with prospects and customers. “There are one million podcasts live now. There are 30 million YouTube channels and a ubiquitous number of blogs.  But no company is saying ‘no, we don’t want to do video or we don’t want to do written content’. So, there's so much opportunity left in podcasting”. Sweet Media Media produces podcasts for B2B and SaaS companies and offers a growing library of business podcasts.

Every B2B company wants to capitalize on the power of SEO.But there are fundamental mistakes at these companies make that undermine their marketing activities.Dev Basu, chief experience officer with Powered by Search, said SEO delivers when companies create research-driven content that meets the needs of target audiences. 

Too many brands leverage email marketing to drive sales. That's it.But Coherent Path CEO James Glover contends that retailers should use email marketing to build stronger relationships and help consumers discover new opportunities, and, yes, drive sales.He calls this approach "engagement farming". It's based on the idea that customers should look forward to getting email because it engages and deliver values. If they also buy something, that's great.  For more about James and this episode of Marketing Spark, check out the show notes. 

Print is the Rodney Dangerfield of marketing; it gets no respect.These days, it's all digital all the time. But print hasn't disappeared. It's still important and a key part of the marketing mix.In this episode of Marketing Spark, Joanne Gore, an experienced B2B marketer, talks about how print and digital can form a beautiful marriage to drive marketing success.To learn more about Joanne and why print still matters, visit the show notes.