How do the best B2B content marketers hit home runs? What can other companies learn from them that will make them more competitive? Content Marketing Institute (CMI) surveys B2B companies annually to gain insight into the state of content marketing and trends. The latest CMI report shines a light on three characteristics that distinguish [...]
Barbershop quartets and Beyonce. Garth and Mick. A mezzosoprano and a mountain yodeler. They could all sing the same melody, but, oh my, what a world of difference. What is the brand voice of your business? Does it have one? Why does it matter? A business’ brand voice isn’t audible, at least not in [...]
Buzzwords and business jargon. We all see them and probably use them every day: Paradigm shifts. Deliverables. Synergy. Interfacing. The list is bottomless. These words all have their appropriate uses. Marketing just isn’t one of them. Who are you? What is your business about? What difference do you want to make? Well-crafted marketing content [...]
Phone technology has changed our behavior. People don’t take calls from people they don’t know anymore. Cold calling is about as welcome as robo calls. Likewise, cold sales emails often feel like SPAM. Today the odds of a cold call ending in a sale are depressingly miniscule. Richard Stephens reports in a Dec. 2018 [...]
Today’s customers are inundated with marketing messages, news updates, goofy memes and personal social media threads. All but the most urgent have become easy-to-ignore white noise. How can your message stand out in all that cacophony? What’s more, your customers don’t respond to out-and-out advertisements in the positive way people used to. In fact, [...]
Is direct mail dead? Nearly everyone on the planet is reachable electronically these days, right? So why would you keep forking over cash for the printing and postage of actual printed advertising? The big players all do it. Grocery ads, back-to-school big-box ads, home improvement store ads all arrive in our mailboxes every week. [...]
How do you tell potential customers how wonderful your products or services are? That’s a trick question, because it’s best if you let someone else share how much they love you. Their excitement about their experience with your products or services will sell more people than your sales copy ever could because their opinions [...]
You go to a networking happy hour, strike up conversations with other business owners and exchange business cards. You go home and one of you follows up with an email proposing a coffee date. You meet and chat more. You add them to your database, hoping that someday, surely, if the stars align, you [...]
How many people receive an email from you every day? From each of your team members? Do you realize the marketing possibilities right there in your email signature? The average business person in the U.S. sends between 30 and 35 emails every day to potential and current customers, job seekers, vendors, and others in [...]
Marketers spend a lot of time developing resources that explain products, answer questions about services, and in general are meant to cultivate customer relationships and support the sales staff. Webinars, white papers, website content, or leave-behind collateral — they all cost any business a chunk of change. So why is it that so often all [...]
