Making Money On-line: September 2015

Wednesday 30 September 2015

The way people buy has changed just about everything about sales and marketing today.

The way people buy in B2B has grown so complex that just understanding the buying landscape is half of the battle.

My guest today for the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast is Matthew Dixon, co-author of The Challenger Customer: Selling to the Hidden Influencer That Can Multiply Your Results. We talk about influencers, why they matter to your marketing goals, and how to reach them for the best results.

In his previous work, the Challenger Sale, Dixon and his co-authors presented research that overwhelmingly suggested a new way to prospect and sell and even a new way to view sales hiring.

I this addition to the Challenger series, they talk about the need to identify and work with the “hidden influencer” in every B2B selling environment.

Questions I ask Matthew:

What is a hidden influencer?
How do you identify and engage a hidden influencer?
How does a salesperson insert themselves in the customer journey earlier?

What you’ll learn if you give a listen:

How buyers have changed, and how salespeople must change with them.
How to approach businesses that use network-based decision-making.
The different groups of stakeholders to identify.

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Forget Generic – Target Individual Users by Tailoring Your Website

We all know that no user is the same. Aside from the very basics such as age, gender, socio-economic background and so on–every person differs in their life experiences, interests, and preferences. Since this is the case, why do Marketers continue to use the same tired methodology to reach a diverse customer base? There are lots of excuses: Little man power, not enough resources, and of course—time constraints. But, with today’s technology, customization, segmentation and individualized targeting can be done efficiently without utilizing too many resources.

The importance of individualized messaging for your website cannot be overlooked. After all, there is a strong psychological basis behind the practice. This generation has seen tremendous breakthroughs in terms of promoting the interests of people on a personal level and while it has proven tremendously advantageous in the social arena, it has also lead to higher expectations in terms of customer experience, marketing and sales.

People want their needs to be met right here, right now. As a result, your messaging needs to be in tune with your users specific problems, provide viable solutions and give them maximum bang for their buck in terms of information provided and personal appeal. In other words, your users don’t want to feel like they are being spoken at. Instead, they want to feel valued as an important part of a community.

In order to arrive at the information necessary for individualized website marketing to be successful, you should first consider analyzing your users accordingly.

Demographics

User demographics tell you who they are on the most basic level. This includes information such as age, gender, socio-economic level, location, profession, education level, and marital status. In certain marketing contexts, these elements would be extremely important to note.

For example, if you are creating a landing page meant to increase your jewelry sales, it would be a bad idea to target single people about buying your jewelry as a gift for their spouse. Not only can this be a slap in the face for some, but it also makes people subconsciously feel discluded from your brand’s messaging and by extension, your community as a whole.

To avoid such disasters, you can obtain your users’ demographics in a few different ways. First of all, your website should always be set up to be a two-way conversation. This way, you can casually ask users this information either through conversation or asking them to fill out a short survey. Some great survey tools include SurveyMonkey, Typeform, and Zoho Survey.

Using surveys is highly beneficial since you get the personal information you need while simultaneously empowering your customers and showing them you care about being relevant in their lives.

If surveys don’t cut it, use analytics tools such as Google Analytics Demographics Report along with Facebook Insights. Additionally, products such as Demographics Pro and Quantcast are able to easily provide great insights to classify your customers.

To demonstrate how demographics can make significant impact on a Marketing campaign, check out this great infographic about using demographics for social media marketing:

which-demographics-use-social-media-docstoc-infographic

As you can see, by gaining knowledge of which social media sites are more popular based on age, income, and other factors, marketers are better equipped to decide which social media campaigns to use where. Obviously, the same type of information can be used for websites in general in order to run the right campaigns and write appealing website content.

Psychographic Segmentation

Psychographic segmentation digs deeper. This type of data focuses more on people’s lifestyles, behavior, and belief systems. While this type of information is more difficult to attain, it is by far the most valuable way of appealing to your customers.

Going back to the psychological level, appealing to a person’s intrinsic, emotional beliefs is generally extremely effective. For example, you can appeal to a targeted segment of say– young mothers based on the ideal of providing quick, healthy meals that children love.

In contrast, the exact same message will likely not be a significant core belief of a college aged male and will therefore fail to make a deep impression on his buying habits. Selling people on beliefs and lifestyles rather than products have been a key strategy in marketing for years.

As seen in the ad below, Tiffany and Co. builds an emotional connection with their audience by connecting the emotion of love with their brand. Through this strategy, they as a brand resonate with individuals that identify with this emotion.

At this point, it is important to note that connecting emotionally is not the only way to utilize psychographic data. Often times humor, hobbies, and other motivations are just as effective – if not more so. Check out this landing page by Awesometalk for example. Its messaging is simple and funny, while making a valid point which almost everyone can relate to.

While the data needed to come up with messaging that resonates with your target audience can be obtained through surveys, keyword searches, and your previous effective content – in order to put the values into practice for your marketing efforts, you need to put these beliefs into words. So design landing pages, content, and social campaigns that communicate such themes and messages, and watch your users grow to love your site.

Prior Purchases

Deriving information about previous buys can help you gain insights on the types of products and services that interest a particular person. For example, if a person has previously bought a new comforter for their bed, they may be interested in buying pillows as well.

Therefore, using website features that sell complementary products or services can make your customers’ lives easier. Even prior to purchase, you can give your customers smart options. Many ecommerce sites such as Amazon show similar products that others have looked at so users can compare products and make a purchase.

Thankfully, there are a variety of tools and plugins that will allow you to instantly install this intuitive sales feature. For example, Retail Rocket specializes in real-time ecommerce personalization and product recommendation based on previous purchases and products that have been clicked on. By installing features such as this, your users feel that your site understands their needs and cares about their ease of use. Eventually, this will lead to increased sales and greater customer loyalty.

Previous Behavior

Each browser’s behavior online can show you a lot about their interests and what information is relevant to their lives. Answers (or lack thereof) to email newsletters or taking into account what they’ve clicked, Liked or read on your website can help indicate an individual’s interests and/or place in the buying cycle.

Heatmaps such as Crazy Egg as well as Google Analytics In-Page Analytics can show you where your customers are clicking, scrolling, and reading, which can help you get a feel for how to best approach them.

Obviously, if you see on a heatmap that a person has already watched a demo of your product, they may be more inclined to purchase than someone who is just reading your blog. However, if you notice that a user is constantly coming to your site to read blogs posts on growth hacking, writing more content on the topic and informing them about that content could give that user an extra push.

In addition, getting information about the searches your users are making and how they arrived at your site can help you to figure out messaging that is tailored to their needs.

What’s Next?

So now that you have gotten all the data needed to understand your customer’s needs, how do you actually follow through with your site’s customization? Here are some tips:

Individualize Your Newsfeed, Updates, and Notifications

There’s a reason people keep coming back to Facebook– and there’s no reason your site can’t capitalize from their understanding of targeted website marketing. They came up with the newsfeed so people get a glimpse at what’s happening in their friends’ lives. They then altered the newsfeed and notifications according to their users’ preferences and stories they wanted to see most. The same with Netflix – each users homepage is different. Each user sees different suggestions and recommendations based on their previous viewing history and ratings.

You can do the same. Think about installing updates and notifications based on the type of content specific users want to see. For example, if you have users who repeatedly read content related to growth hacking, display those stories in a special section and ensure they get notifications when a new story on that topic goes up.

You can also employ a comments section where your users can converse amongst themselves about topics that interest them. In this scenario, user’s conversations about growth hacking should also appear on this individual’s newsfeed so he or she is instantly informed and can participate in the conversation.

Targeted Landing Pages

As we have established, your users interests vary. Therefore, creating landing pages that appeal to specific keywords and niche subjects is a great strategy for reeling in segmented audiences.

Landing pages work great because they bring people to your site based on specific interests. For example, you may have users that love gardening. To bring them in initially, you would place an ad about growing beautiful flowers on a different site, targeting these specific individuals. Once the ad is clicked on, they get to an entire page elaborating on how your product can help make a beautiful garden. This eventually guides them to perform a specific action.

So now that we know why landing pages are great for targeting users, here’s how to write one that is sure to convert:

First decide which key messages, subjects, and topics are most relevant to various user-types. Then develop short, concise headlines for each topic along with information that elaborates the main points of what you can offer your customers. Make sure there is one call-to-action in order to ensure users are more likely to actually follow through with what you want them to do. Finally, design it, and watch it do its magic.

For further guidance, check out Kissmetrics’s comprehensive guide to creating an effective landing page.

Power to The People

As we mentioned earlier, your users are not interested in a one-way conversation. They want to feel you are open to their suggestions, input, and knowledge. Therefore, adding a comments section or another area where your users can communicate and discuss ideals is a great way to make them feel you geared their site to fulfill their needs. Not only does it help them to use your site for a social means, but it also helps them to solve their problems and share their beliefs in a manner that is both educational and informal.

Of course, since nothing is more individualistic than voicing an opinion, so by installing such features, you are definitely scoring points with your users.

Individualized Content

Like many sites, your content might cover a variety of different topics. However, not all of these topics have the same meaning to everyone. This is where individualized content comes in. By guiding your users toward information that’s of specific interest to them, you provide them with useful intellectual tools that are relevant to their lives while also enticing them with more reasons they should continue to visit your site.

To take this to the next level, install tools that suggest new content to read at the bottom of each article. This way, you get greater loyalty and user retention by keeping their interests at heart.

Get Personal

Finally, don’t be afraid to take your site to a personal level. Allow your users to have usernames pictures and even gravatars. This way, they can feel they are talking to real people on the other side of the screen and feel that their comments are being noticed and attributed to them.

Individualizing your site is extremely important for creating personal relationships with your users. Your users want to feel that they are valued as people and not just as potential leads. By paying attention to their individual characteristics, you grab their attention and make them feel like a valued, dynamic member of a community.

About the Author: Nadav Shoval is the CEO & Co-Founder of Spot.IM, an on-site community that brings the power back to the publisher. Prior to Spot.IM, Nadav has developed and founded 4 technology startups. Spot.IM is his fifth venture. Nadav is a technology erudite and a sports addict.

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5 Trends from New Blogger Survey That Probably Won't Surprise You

Orbit Media Services conducted a survey of over 1,000 bloggers for the second year in a row to see how this core content marketing tactic is changing. The survey included some of the most common questions asked by marketers beginning new blogs, like how often to blog and how long posts need to be. This is great data to benchmark your progress as you get started. There are a few more questions on the original post, as well as expert analysis on each one of the questions.

How Frequently are Bloggers Publishing?

There are more bloggers that are blogging 2-6 times per week, although that number is down slightly from last year. Both daily and weekly bloggers have increased since last year, and those are good targets to hit. If you are currently blogging a couple of times a month, try to get to weekly and if you are publishing a few days a week, see what it would take to get to daily. Ignore the 15% of bloggers that are blogging irregularly, because from a business perspective, you will see greater results by blogging regularly and more often. This doesn't mean publish just for the sake of publishing, but a regular cadence of solid posts will be more likely to catch on with your readers.

How Long is a Typical Blog Post?

Nearly 60% of blog posts are between 500 and 1000 words. The same was true last year, but the trend is telling a different story. This category is shrinking, as is the under 500 word category, while posts over 1000 words are increasing. Bloggers have seen longer, in-depth posts gaining traction in the past year, so they are creating long form content. This also follows the quality over quantity trend of content marketing.

What Media are Bloggers including in their Content?

If you are not including images in your posts, you are behind the times. Even though the number is down slightly, it is most likely because bloggers are using more that one image in their content more often. We are in the visual age of content and one or more images are needed to draw people in to your post, especially if you share the post on social networks. The uptick in audio is likely due to the explosion of podcasts in the past year. The downward trend of video in blog posts is interesting, as video is soaring as a content medium on other social channels. It is also currently buoyed by the revived livesteaming craze. And finally, the other category includes calls-to-action, so bloggers are getting serious about converting readers into prospects.

How Long Does It Take to Write a Typical Post?

While more bloggers are spending 1-2 hours on their blog posts, this follows the trends of blog length above, and bloggers are spending more time on their posts. In some cases, they're spending a lot more time creating in-depth posts that resonate with their readers. Providing that kind of value is paying off, as the educational nature of those posts are what build the relationship with prospects. If you are not tracking production metrics, you should consider it, as this is becoming a more common success metric across content teams.

How Are Bloggers Driving Traffic to their Posts?

Almost all bloggers use social media to drive traffic to their posts. This is not a surprise, especially for B2B companies, where the blog is the hub of their content strategy and social media is the means of distribution. Even though it is down slightly, every other tactics, from SEO, email, influencer outreach and paid services, are up as bloggers are looking to replace the ongoing declining organic reach of social networks. Follow their lead and expand your activities that drive traffic back to your blog home base.

Read more about how all of the above blogging tactics feed into a content marketing strategy and download the Modern Marketing Essentials Guide to Content Marketing.

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Over 140 B2B Content Marketing Statistics for 2016 Strategy Planning

The best content marketing strategies are informed by data and one of the most consistent B2B marketing research reports chock full of data comes from Content Marketing Institute and MarketingProfs.

Today the 6th edition of the B2B Content Marketing – 2016 Benchmarks, Budgets and Trends – North America report was published revealing a canyon of difference between successful content marketers and those that seem to be lost in the wilderness. This report is also a reality check for content marketers that drink too much of their own kool-aid, offering a mix of slightly downward trend data right along with numerous reasons for future content marketing optimism.

What do I mean by reality check? Fewer marketers have a documented content marketing strategy than last year 32% vs 35% and less marketers see their content marketing as effective 30% vs 38%.

What are the content marketing disconnects? Here’s one example: 57% of B2B marketers are still using Print or Other Offline Promotions, even though only 31% consider that paid tactic as effective. Also, 55% are still using traditional banner ads, even though only 29% consider banners effective.

B2B Marketers are still missing on tactics. The most popular content marketing tactics are things like shiny object social media (93%) and blogs (81%) while the most effective B2B content marketing tactics are In-Person Events (75%) and Webinars / Webcasts (66%). Only case studies get near-top treatment when it comes to both popularity (82%) and effectiveness (65%).

Marketers are still challenged to produce engaging content (60%) on a consistent basis (57%). That said, their priorities are in the right place, putting the task of creating engaging content (72%) at the top of the list for future focus.

There’s more good news: 76% of marketers will produce more content in 2016 – they just want to know what content is effective and what isn’t (65%). They also want to know more about repurposing (57%) creating more visual content (51%) and telling better stories (41%).

The most successful B2B content marketers do these four things including documenting both their strategy (48%) and editorial mission statements (49%) as well as meeting with their content teams frequently (41%) and having organizational clarity on what content marketing success actually looks like (55%). There’s a consistent message in this: marketers who are goals focused, strategic in planning and action are more effective.

B2B marketers who are goals focused, strategic in planning and action are more effective.

Ways to use this data: Marketing research data, statistics and charts are useful in different ways when it comes to informing a B2B content marketing program. Whether it’s citing a key stat when building a business case, advocating a particular course of action in a report or reinforcing recommendations in a presentation, the kind of information in this report can be effectively persuasive.

That’s why I’ve had the individual statistics broken out by category so you can easily copy and paste into whatever content, presentation or social share you’re creating. Just be sure to cite @CMIContent / @MarketingProfs as the source.

Hopefully this compendium will help those with clarity about content marketing confirm being on the right track and at the same time help those that are a little lost get pointed in the right direction.

B2B Content Marketing Use and Effectiveness

88% of B2B marketers use content marketing (86% in 2015)
12% of B2B marketers do not use content marketing

8% of of B2B marketers rate their content marketing maturity as sophisticated
24% of of B2B marketers rate their content marketing maturity as mature
29% of of B2B marketers rate their content marketing maturity as adolescent
27% of of B2B marketers rate their content marketing maturity as young
11% of of B2B marketers rate their content marketing maturity as first steps

CMI’s Content Marketing Maturity Definitions

Sophisticated: Providing accurate measurement to the business, scaling across the organization
Mature: Finding success, yet challenged with integration across the organization
Adolescent: Have developed a business case, seeing early success, becoming more sophisticated with measurement and scaling
Young: Growing pains, challenged with creating a cohesive strategy and a measurement plan
First Steps: Doing some aspects of content but have not yet begun to make content marketing a process

64% of sophisticated/mature marketers say they are effective at content marketing
6% of young/first steps marketers are effective at content marketing

5% of B2B marketers say their content marketing is very effective
24% of B2B marketers say their content marketing is effective
44% of B2B marketers say their content marketing is neutral
22% of B2B marketers say their content marketing is minimally effective
1% of B2B marketers say their content marketing is not at all effective

What do the most successful content marketers do to be more effective?

48% of B2B marketers with a documented content marketing strategy are effective
49% of B2B marketers with a documented editorial mission statement are effective
55% of B2B marketers with organizational clarity on what content marketing success looks like are effective
41% of B2B marketers that meet daily or weekly are effective

44% of B2B marketers are clear about what a successful content marketing program looks like
34% of B2B marketers are NOT clear about what a successful content marketing program looks like
21% of B2B marketers are unsure what a successful content marketing program looks like

Strategy and Organization

32% of B2B marketers have a documented content marketing strategy
48% of B2B marketers have an undocumented content marketing strategy
16% of B2B marketers do not have a documented content marketing strategy
4% of B2B marketers are unsure if they have a documented content marketing strategy

54% of B2B marketers say team meetings are valuable to content marketing effectiveness

Content Creation and Distribution

76% of B2B marketers will produce more content than 2015
19% of B2B marketers will produce the same amount of content as 2015
2% of B2B marketers will produce less content than 2015

The top content marketing tactics:
(the average number of tactics used: 13)

93% Social Media Content
82% Case Studies
81% Blogs
81% eNewsletters
81% In-Person Events
79% Articles on Your Website
79% Videos
76% Illustrations / Photos
71% White Papers
67% Infographics
66% Webinars / Webcasts
65% Online Presentations
49% Research Reports
47% Microsites / Separate Website Hubs
42% Brand Content Tools
39% eBooks
36% Print Magazines
30% Books
29% Digital Magazines
28% Mobile Apps
25% Virtual Conferences
23% Podcasts
22% Print Newsletters
12% Games / Gamification

The most effective B2B content marketing tactics:

75% In-Person Events
66% Webinars / Webcasts
65% Case Studies
63% White Papers
62% Videos
61% Research Reports
60% eNewsletters
59% Blogs
58% Infographics
58% Online Presentations

Top social media platforms for B2B content marketers:
(Average social platforms used: 6)

94% LinkedIn
87% Twitter
84% Facebook
74% YouTube
62% Google+
37% SlideShare
29% Instagram
25% Pinterest
21% Vimeo
10% iTunes
9% Tumblr
7% Vine
6% Medium
6% Periscope
5% SnapChat

Most effective social media platforms for content marketers:

B2B Social Media

Congratulations yet again, to our client LinkedIn for being the top, most effective social media platform for B2B content marketers!

Paid advertising tactics used most by content marketers:

66% Search Engine Marketing
57% Print or Other Offline Promotions
55% Traditional Online Banner ads
52% Promoted Posts
51% Social Ads
29% Native Ads
14% Content Discovery Tools

Most effective paid advertising tactics used by content marketers:

55% Search Engine Marketing
48% Promoted Posts
45% Content Discovery Tools
45% Social Ads
40% Native Ads
31% Print or Other Offline Promotions
29% Traditional Banner Ads

Goals and Metrics

The most important goals for B2B content marketing:

85% Lead Generation
84% Sales
78% Lead Nurturing
77% Brand Awareness
76% Engagement
74% Customer Retention / Loyalty
61% Customer Advocacy
58% Upsell / Cross-Sell

Most important metrics for B2B content marketing:

87% Sales Lead Quality
84% Sales
82% Higher Conversion Rates
71% Sales Lead Quantity
71% Website Traffic
69% Brand Lift
67% SEO Ranking
66% Customer Renewal Rates
64% Purchase Intent
62% Subscriber Growth

Budgets and Spending

28% on average is the percentage of total marketing budgets spent on content marketing
51% of B2B marketers will increase content marketing spending in 2016

Challenges and Priorities

Top challenges for B2B content marketers:

60% Producing Engaging Content
57% Measuring Content Effectiveness
57% Producing Content Consistently
52% Measuring the ROI of Content Marketing Programs
35% Lack of Budget
35% Producing a Variety of Content
25% Gaps in Knowledge and Skills of Internal Teams
24% Understanding / Choosing Technology
23% Lack of Integration across marketing
21% Finding or Training Skilled Content Marketing / Content Creation Professionals
19% Lack of buy-in / vision from higher-ups
18% Implementing the technology that we already have

Top priorities for B2B content marketers:

72% Create More Engaging Content
65% Better Understanding of What Content is Effective and What Isn’t
57% Finding More and Better Ways to Repurpose Content
51% Creating Visual Content
41% Becoming Better Storytellers
41% Better Understanding of Audience
38% Content Optimization
22% Content Curation
20% Content Personalization
19% Becoming Stronger Writers

To see the full B2B Content Marketing – 2016 Benchmarks, Budgets and Trends – North America report, check it out below:

What do you think? Were there any statistics in this year’s report that surprised you?

If you’re looking at investing in your B2B content marketing skills, I would highly recommend MarketingProfs B2B Marketing Forum conference coming up in just 3 weeks. Boston is a great place to visit in the fall and who knows what smarts and new network connections you’ll pick up when you’re there. TopRank Marketing staff will be attending and speaking at the event so we hope to see you there.

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Tuesday 29 September 2015

Make Money Online From Home - How To Make Money Online Youtube Traffic

7 Traits for Successful Digital Marketing Agency Client Relationships

agency-client-relationship

The relationships that we form with other people are an inherent part of being human. Some relationships stand the test of time while others become a distant memory. Relationships (good and bad) are not bound to our personal lives. Every day your interactions with coworkers, customers and other business contacts work towards building strong professional relationships today.

One of the larger investments that many organizations make today is in partnering with a digital marketing agency. The job of an agency is to understand who you are as a client and translate that message in a way that helps your brand better connect with target customers. Unfortunately, while 90% of agencies say they truly understand their client’s business, only 65% of clients agree.

Since the beginning, TopRank Marketing’s company mantra has always been “Client, Company, Community, Self”. Understanding what our clients do and what is important to them has been a driving force that has enabled us to deliver (and often over-deliver) results in a way that meets or exceeds client expectations. One of the most important elements that allows us to accomplish this is the relationships that we form with clients from the very beginning.

If your company is searching for an agency partner, look beyond the surface to ensure they possess the following traits that will help you get the most out of your investment.

1 – Strive to Set Clear Expectations

Setting expectations in terms of timelines, results or processes means less surprises down the line for you. This can provide a sense of predictability that helps you to feel in control and confident in the process.

When approaching search engine optimization, for example, it can be easy to assume that once you hire an agency your search engine rankings will be boosted overnight. In reality, website optimization is an ongoing process that can sometimes take several months to see notable results and is dependent on many factors. When an agency fails to address program expectations ahead of time, they risk leaving you feeling under-served or mislead. A great agency under promises, and over delivers.

2 – Offer Transparency & Authenticity

You should be able to rely on your digital agency to give you the expert advice and consultation that comes from their collective wisdom and years of marketing experience. Long gone are the days when agencies can expect that spurting marketing jargon and mumbo jumbo will leave clients impressed. A great marketing agency will educate you on every facet of their strategy, offer honest advice and admit when the topic has shifted outside of their expertise.

With an authentic and transparent digital agency at your side, you’ll feel a weight lifted off your shoulders knowing you can lean on them as true partners.

3 – Respect Your Time

Your workweek is booked, your inbox requires constant attention and you may sometimes find yourself scrambling to get your job duties completed. Any great digital agency will recognize that long-winded emails and unstructured meetings are inconsiderate of your time. Good partners will ensure meetings bring value to those involved and are respectful of your time by:

Sharing agendas ahead of time,
Sticking to the allotted time scheduled
Avoiding tangents and off-topic conversations
Concluding with next steps for each party

4 – Provide Top-Notch Communication

In today’s fast-moving digital marketing world, you don’t always the option of waiting a few days for an email response or returned call from your digital agency. To maintain great communication, your agency contact should be:

Responding to emails and calls within 24 hours
Sending a follow up email to reiterate next steps following each meeting
Conducting quarterly check-ins with you to gather feedback on program performance and opportunities for improvement

When a digital agency can demonstrate this type of attentive and organized communication, you’ll feel confident in their ability to manage the various digital campaigns you’ve entrusted them with.

It’s easy to get comfortable shooting emails off from behind a desk, but there are definite times when a simple phone call will go a long way in building that agency/client relationship. Your digital agency account manager should not hesitate to give you a friendly call every once in a while to answer a quick question or provide a progress update.

5 – Form the Personal Connection

Sometimes everyone finds themselves getting sucked in to the tasks at hand, without taking a minute to step back and get to know the people they are working with. This leads to skipping the small talk, and getting right down to business.

Meaningful business relationships are fostered through conversation beyond the work-related task at hand. An invested agency contact will find ways to connect on a more personal level by asking how your day is going, or what your weekend plans are – not for the sake of small talk, but because they truly care.

6 – Suggest In-Person Meetings

Did you know that human contact releases hormones that act as neurotransmitters in the brain that build trust and bond? You can’t get that kind of science with a conference call.

In-person meetings allow us to observe and respond to facial expressions and body language, which builds stronger, more meaningful business relationships. In a world full of conference bridges and screen sharing, your agency should make an effort to meet with you in person – even if you’re located in different states.

An agency that’s willing to make the time and monetary investment to secure occasional in-person meetings is demonstrating their dedication to strengthening the agency/client relationship.

7 – They Advocate for You

At the end of the day, you should feel that your digital agency is working diligently towards your shared goals. There should be an understanding that they are your true marketing partners. A dedicated agency will commit to providing the level of service that exceeds your expectations, and provide compelling results that keep you coming back for more.

You know your agency “gets it” if they provide results and progress reports in a format that is easily shared and consumed by stakeholders at your company. That means less work translating reports to the higher-ups, and more time focusing on your responsibilities.

When you’re in search of a digital marketing agency, look for hints of these characteristics that indicate the level of respect, dedication and organization you’ll receive in the client/agency relationship.

On the hunt for a new agency that has these traits? Contact TopRank Online Marketing to learn how we can become your digital marketing partner.

Image via Shutterstock

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How Does LinkedIn’s Jason Miller MAKE Marketing Magic? #MPB2B

Effective content creation requires more than setting goals, implementing a strategy and creating your assets. For content to really be great, your audience needs to see it. One of the most effective content promotion mechanisms is the use of social media.

MarketingProfs and Content Marketing Institute recently found that LinkedIn is the most effective social media platform for B2B marketers to distribute and promote content marketing assets. Instead of searching through countless websites looking for best practices, we’re taking you straight to the source.

We have partnered with MarketingProfs to bring you insights from some of the top speakers that will be presenting at MarketingProfs B2B Marketing Forum (October 20 – 23).

Today we kick off our four part MarketingProfs interview series with none other than LinkedIn’s Jason Miller. Curious to know how the Global Content Marketing Leader at LinkedIn continues to MAKE marketing magic at the the most successful B2B social platform for promoting content marketing?

Making Marketing Magic with LinkedIn’s Jason Miller

The more we encourage crazy ideas, the more creative our team can be.

What are some approaches or processes that you follow in the making of creative marketing at LinkedIn?

Quality over quantity
Personality over conformity
Measurable over fluff
Spitballing over brainstorming
Grandiose over mediocrity
Never chasing the new shiny object

How do you inspire creativity at LinkedIn?

Instead of brainstorming we do spitballing. The difference is that during brainstorming some of the ideas are thrown out completely. With spitballing everything stays on the table, no idea is ever thrown out and no idea is ever looked down upon. The more we encourage crazy ideas, the more creative our team can be.

Has your experience as a musician impacted the way you approach creative content marketing?

Absolutely. There is certainly an element of Axl Rose, Black Sabbath, Whitesnake and other heavy metal bands that I love in every piece of content I produce. It’s part of who I am and what sets me apart. Heavy metal has always inspired me to be a better person as well as a better marketer. There’s also a lot of B2B Marketers who are metal fans, just ask Brian Clark, Robert Rose, C.C. Chapman, Scott Stratten and Lee Odden.

What are some of the most creative uses of LinkedIn for marketing that you’ve seen?

20th Century Fox’s Taken 3 Showcase Page Promotion

Fans of the Taken franchise were provided a unique opportunity to follow the movie showcase page on LinkedIn as a sign of their interest. Bryan Mills (played by Liam Neeson) then picked one lucky winner to have him create a video endorsement of their skills.

Read More

Nissan’s Brilliant InMail Campaign

nissan case study

Nissan chose to launch a campaign on LinkedIn largely in part because of the expertise in targeting capabilities. The goal of the program was to sign as many qualified individuals up for test drives as possible. One of the biggest opportunities for Nissan was to reach the right audience segments, with the right message, at the right time.
Read More

Citi’s Professional Women’s Network

Citi Network Case Study

In 2012, Citi partnered with LinkedIn to create a branded community for professional women. Because of the role that many women play in making household purchasing decisions, Citi was very motivated to begin connecting with these individuals.
Read More

What are three things you want attendees to understand from your session, “Teach Me How! Content Marketing For LinkedIn”?

The importance of having LinkedIn as part of a successful integrated marketing approach.
How to amplify and personalize your content using LinkedIn for driving brand awareness, lead generation and ultimately revenue.
Inspirational examples of marketers who are killing it on LinkedIn as well as a behind the scenes look at how LinkedIn uses LinkedIn for marketing.

What inspires you to MAKE marketing magic?

My team, partners and agencies that I work with. There’s a certain chemistry that sparks creativity and innovation, and for me it’s fueled by the marketers I choose to surround myself with.

MAKE Your Own Marketing Magic

Thank you Jason for sharing some of your secrets for making marketing magic. If you want even more insight on B2B marketing from some of today’s top marketers be sure to check out the MarketingProfs B2B Marketing Forum, and our next interview on October 5 with Uberflip’s Hana Abaza.

If you’re already planning on attending MarketingProfs B2B Forum, be sure to check out TopRank Marketing CEO Lee Odden’s session, Participation Marketing: If You Want B2B Content to Be Great, Ask Your Community to Participate.

Disclosure: LinkedIn is a TopRank Marketing Client.
Header image via Shutterstock

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Online Marketing News: Facebook Gets The Signal, Auto-Converting Ads, Instagram Tops 400 Million

Anatomy Of A Perfect Checkout Page

How to Create the Perfect Checkout Page [Infographic] – 68% of all ecommerce visitors abandon their shopping carts – leaving $4 trillion of abandoned merchandize behind. But don’t despair – according to BI Intelligence, roughly 2.5 trillion (or 63%) of this is potentially recoverable. Check out this handy infographic to find out more. VWO

Facebook Launches Signal – Journalists use Signal to surface relevant trends, photos, videos and posts from Facebook and Instagram for use in their storytelling and reporting. This is an easy way to source and curate content from major public events across news, culture, entertainment, sports, and more. Journalists can then embed that curated content online and integrate it into their broadcasts. Facebook

Study: Position 1 In Search May Get Fewer Clicks Than Position 2 With Rich Snippets – Rich snippets can provide a 26% lift in clicks on the second search listing, says a Blue Nile Research study. Search Engine Land

Google AdWords Drops More Referrer Data – Over a year ago, Google AdWords followed suit and went not provided but now there are more changes happening around the ad click referrer data. Google announced on Google+ that starting next week, in October, Google will stop showing anything but the main domain name in the referrer. Search Engine Roundtable

Facebook Retargeting Rising (Report) – Retargeting has been robust for advertisers on Facebook, as ad platform AdRoll saw a 31 percent year-over-year increase in spending. The Facebook Marketing Partner analyzed more than 55,000 campaigns on the social network between July 1, 2014, and June 30 of this year, accounting for more than 37 billion global impressions, and see what else it found. SocialTimes

Introducing 360 Video on Facebook – Starting today, 360-degree videos will begin rolling out in News Feed. Our goal at Facebook is to connect you with the people and things that matter, every single day. Over time, we’ve seen that people enjoy more immersive content in their News Feeds. This is one reason video has been so successful on Facebook, and we’re excited to take it a step further with 360 video. Facebook

Google Display Network Now Auto-Converts Text Ads into ‘Richer Text’ Image Ads – After much head scratching and cruising the web looking for an announcement or news coverage, we found only one little mention of this new format, “Richer Text Ads,” on the Google AdSense blog. Here’s what that means. Search Engine Journal

Facebook Like And Share Buttons To Power Ad Targeting Based On Sites And Apps Users Visit – On Tuesday, the company announced the expansion of ad targeting based on the sites and apps users visit in a blog post: “We are continuing to roll out online interest-based advertising and will now begin including information from pages that use Facebook’s Like button and similar social features, as we announced last year.” Marketing Land

Instagram Hits 400 Million Users – When Facebook paid close to $1 billion for Instagram back in 2012, people thought Zuck had lost it. A the time of the deal, Instagram had close to 30 million users, which meant Facebook was effectively paying around $33 per user, a huge amount. Crazy. Well that investment is looking more and more astute every day, with Instagram, today revealing, via an official blog post, that they’ve now hit 400 million users. Instagram

Gmail Has A New ‘Block Sender’ Option – Gmail users can now block specific email addresses with just two clicks. In the top right hand corner of a message, click the drop-down menu button (upside down triangle), and select “block.” (It appears with the name of the sender in quotes.) Gmail

Pinterest Opens API Platform To All Developers – Developers can now build and test third-party integrations with the Pinterest platform. When they are ready to go public, they need to be submitted to Pinterest for approval. Marketing Land

Engagement on Instagram Tops Facebook – This is the first time that social interactions on Instagram have surpassed Facebook. The media publishing industry saw a 5 percent decrease in total actions compared to July 2015, due to a 12 percent drop in Facebook actions. The media publishing industry represents 31 percent of all actions taken on content published by brands in August. SocialTimes

From our Online Marketing Community:

In response to Why It’s Time for More Participation in B2B Content Marketing, David Butler shared, “Hi Lee, sourcing B2B story ideas is exactly why I developed iPositioning. To operationalize it. I find it is often a broader collaborative task than just hiring a writer to work with a product marketer. “Two brains together can create an even better idea than just one”. So how do you recommend operationalizing the “democratization” part though. This is key to scaling sourcing, ideation, and making it super efficient and simple for everyone to create the story. If we are the B2B marketing team how can we organize and align our target strategy and be on the same “wave length” thinking about stories and content. Thanks for starting this discussion!”

What were the top online and digital marketing news stories for you this week?

Thanks for reading and have a great weekend!

Infographic: VWO

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