Wednesday, 31 August 2022
Life Lessons: What B2B Marketers Can Learn From Marathon Running
What can B2B marketers learn from marathon running? Even if you’ve never run a step and have no plans to, there are powerful lessons we can all learn from marathon running that significantly align with successful B2B marketing. I’ve been running marathons since 1998 and working in online communications and marketing since 1984 — two pursuits that may initially seem quite dissimilar, but which have much in common when you get down to it. The eleven marathons and ultra-marathons I’ve run — and the training to prepare for them — have taught me life lessons that have continued on long after any particular race has finished. Let’s take a look at a handful of the many take-aways that B2B marketers can learn from marathon running.
1 — The Power of Proper Pacing
In B2B marketing and in marathoning, always keep your goal in mind and map out the steps you need to take along the way to achieve it. Pacing is knowing when to take each of the actions that will make your goal possible, whether it’s running a sub-three-hour marathon or forming a business relationship with a Fortune 50 company. Pacing in B2B marketing is still more of a marathon than the sprint of the B2C marketer, even with buying cycles that have changed during the pandemic. Being as precise as possible when it comes to segmenting your goal into bite-sized and achievable parts is a trait that successful marathon runners and B2B marketers share. Map out all of those segments in a way that makes sense to you — whether it’s in the form of a timeline or another organizational technique — with an eye for keeping a pace that you can sustain throughout the entire effort. [bctt tweet="“If you want to run, run a mile. If you want to experience a different life, run a marathon.” — Emil Zatopek " username="toprank"]2 — Putting In The Training
In running, knowing your own sustainable pace comes from miles and miles of training. In B2B marketing, deep knowledge of potential client pain points and an understanding of the route their buying journey is likely to take combine to get results. Every runner will ultimately train differently, and those who don’t allow themselves flexibility when working with a prescribed running training plan will likely pay the price in the form of setbacks such as injuries or frustration. Successful B2B marketers also each train and work in differing ways using varied tactics — so trying to stick too stringently to somebody else’s playbook without customizing it to create your own unique approach can ultimately dampen opportunities. Part of the joy of running marathons and B2B marketing is finding your own best training plan, and then seeing it come to life on race day or when the big deal is finally signed. [bctt tweet="“If the marathon if a part-time interest, you will only get part-time results.” — Bill Rodgers @BillRodgersRACE " username="toprank"]3 — Going The Distance With Endurance
When it comes to endurance, it’s key to keep in mind that it takes two forms — physical and mental — and to understand that the two are forever intertwined, each playing a huge role in success in both marathon running and B2B marketing. In marathon running it’s often said that the race doesn’t really begin until mile 20, and that 90 percent of running is a mental game and a mere 10 percent a physical one, especially as the distance run goes up and into ultra-marathon territory. Focusing exclusively on physical training will build a strong body that may be able to run far and fast, however without a dedicated effort to build mental endurance, runners can’t reach their ultimate potential. In B2B marketing, relying only on using an ever-increasing number of automated tools and utilities or worn out conventional strategies can’t provide the results that come from a cohesive approach that also features the power of mental endurance. [bctt tweet="“Motivation remains key to the marathon: the motivation to begin; the motivation to continue; the motivation never to quit.” Hal Higdon @higdonmarathon " username="toprank"]4 — Pushing To New Levels & Finding Your Limits
Another beautiful and rewarding aspect that marathon running and B2B marketing share is that both allow you to push yourself to new levels of success, and to ultimately push those limits and break through barriers that may have previously seemed impossible to budge. Expanding our limits is a phenomenon that transcends running and marketing, working its magic in many aspects of our lives when we learn how to carefully find our limits, train to expand them, and then successfully break through. There’s nothing like the first glimpse of the finish line up ahead in a marathon, as it seems to release your body’s final, hidden stores of energy — a special boost that only seems to come when the body knows its work will soon be done. If a runner is ever going to feel euphoric, it’s most likely going to come in the final push to the finish line of a marathon, knowing that nothing is going to stop you from crossing that line. It’s a great time to savor the moment and celebrate the weeks, months, or years of hard training and planning, and the same can be said for the culmination of a comprehensive, well-executed award-winning B2B marketing campaign. [bctt tweet="“Everything you ever wanted to know about yourself you can learn in 26.2 miles.” — Lori Culnane " username="toprank"]Continuing Marathon & B2B Marketing Success
via GIPHY By practicing proper pacing, putting in the training, going the distance with physical and mental endurance, and pushing your limits, the world can be your oyster when it comes to running marathons or B2B marketing. We hope you've learned something new to help put an extra hop in your marketing step as we push ahead towards 2023 and a new year of marathon and marketing opportunities. For a deeper dive into the parallels between B2B marketing and running, check out our in-depth “26.2 B2B Marathon Marketing Lessons.” With hard work and smart training, a successful marathon can involve setting a new personal best, winning an age-group award, or at the highest level even winning a race outright. In B2B marketing, a stellar campaign can set company performance records, or even go on to win industry recognition, such as at this year’s Cannes Creative B2B Lions awards. Running marathons can help elevate our lives, enhance fitness, and bring a new appreciation of each day, and great marketing can do the same as we increase our B2B marketing fitness. Today more than ever, crafting award-winning B2B marketing that goes the distance takes considerable time and effort, which is why more brands are choosing to work with a top digital marketing agency such as TopRank Marketing. Reach out to learn how we can help, as we’ve done for over 20 years for businesses ranging from LinkedIn, Dell and 3M to Adobe, Oracle, monday.com and many others.
The post Life Lessons: What B2B Marketers Can Learn From Marathon Running appeared first on B2B Marketing Blog - TopRank®.
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Monday, 29 August 2022
Mental Health in Marketing: 4 Communication Tips for Neurodivergent Marketers
The world isn't a one-size-fits-all place. Embracing diversity of experience, thought, and perspective is a practice we’re seeing grow throughout our industry and those adjacent to it. There’s no longer just one image of what a “professional” looks – or acts – like… there are many. Elevating those that don’t fit the traditional professional mold is something we believe should be a priority for all businesses, including our own. One area we’ve noticed a need for additional support is mental health in the workplace that goes beyond basic tips for stress relief. Did you know that somewhere between 15 and 20% of the population is estimated to be neurodivergent? Neurodivergent, in this case, being a word that encompasses conditions that lead to alternative interpretations of the surrounding world, including ADHD, autism, dyslexia, and dyspraxia. Just like the world isn’t a one-size-fits-all place, solutions for succeeding as a neurodivergent marketer aren’t going to be. That doesn’t mean we can’t make operating in the professional world a little easier for those who need it. Below you’ll find four workplace communication tips for neurodivergent marketers… gathered for you by a neurodivergent marketer.
1 — Don’t be afraid to send a post-meeting follow-up
One common trait among neurodivergent individuals is the fear of being misunderstood. In my personal experience with autism, I have a hard time following through on tasks unless the directions are incredibly clear-cut. The fear of misunderstanding what someone wants me to do and thus doing it incorrectly can paralyze and prevent me from doing the task itself. If you’ve ever felt that way, you are 100% not alone. How do we work around it? By sending a follow-up. Hear me out: no one is going to know what you don’t know unless you ask. Things that are clear for others might not be clear for you, and they’ll never know unless you tell them. Here are a few things to do during meetings to make sure that, if and when you do send a follow-up, that it’s well received:- Take meeting notes during all meetings and 1x1s, making sure to call out any time you need clarification
- Let the people you’re meeting with know that you might have questions after you process the information from the meeting so they know to expect your message
- When you write your message, do your best to keep things concise: use formatting or color coding to call out action items, resist the urge to over-explain, try to send your follow-up as soon after the meeting as possible so nothing is lost in the shuffle
2 — Remember that it’s not all on you
Our first tip here is about how you can better communicate to meet your needs, but I don’t want you to think that you have to do all the work yourself. Your workplace can help. Your colleagues can help. The only hard part is that, most of the time, you’ll have to ask for it. Because it’s so challenging to ask for these things outright for fear of sticking out, I’ve made a list of common accommodation requests you’re free to copy and use for yourself.- Could you please provide audio transcripts of our meetings so I can review?
- Could we please use a different, dyslexic-friendly font for internal documents that I'll be working in?
- Can you please put the priority of the request in the subject line of emails you send so I'm better able to prioritize my workload?
- I'm struggling with being verbal today, but still want to be present at work. During our Zoom call today, I'd like to use the chat box to communicate so that I’m still able to collaborate with the team.
- Could I please have 24 hours' notice for any new meetings on my calendar?
- Could we include the outline for the meeting in the invite so that I’m best able to prepare?
3 — Find someone to anchor you when you enter a new workplace
You wouldn’t expect yourself to travel to France and be able to speak the language fluently upon landing. That’s why many people hire local travel guides to help them navigate the foreign waters until they’re comfortable on their own. Take this approach when entering a new workplace. If you’re not comfortable with opening up to your direct report, then take a look at other team members. Just like Spiderman can sense danger, neurodivergent folks and our outspoken allies can often sniff one another out. Resist the urge to be shy and hide yourself and instead seek out those connections and ask them for help with things that might be challenging for you like unspoken rules of etiquette, internal best communication practices, and the like. [bctt tweet="“If you’re not comfortable with opening up to your direct report, then take a look at other team members. Just like Spiderman can sense danger, neurodivergent folks and our outspoken allies can often sniff one another out.” — Sam Kirchoff" username="toprank"]4 — Advocate for yourself
The hardest lesson I’ve learned during my ten years working professionally as an adult with autism is this: no one can advocate for you better than you can. You’re unique, not bad. You have a different perspective, but that doesn’t make it wrong. Not every place you work is going to offer you the flexibility to be truly yourself, but you’ll never know the places that do unless you’re being yourself. Unmask. Stim when you’re excited. Take your notes and ask your questions. Make life work for you and advocate for a workplace that supports that if you’re able to. Not everyone is – and that’s okay! – but if you are… go for it. Trust me when I say, the first time you have a coworker telling you that you helped them feel more comfortable being themselves at work, it’ll all feel worth it. [bctt tweet="“The hardest lesson I’ve learned during my ten years working professionally as an adult with autism is this: no one can advocate for you better than you can.” — Sam Kirchoff" username="toprank"] The final tip is… be yourself Society is made better by diversity. This goes beyond just the way we look or the way we move to the way we perceive, communicate, and connect. If you're a neurodivergent professional reading this: thanks for doing the hard work of making the world of business more accessible for others like yourself. We’re lucky to have you. If you’re a business wondering if you could be doing a better job supporting your neurodiverse employees, there are plenty of articles and resources out there just waiting to help.The post Mental Health in Marketing: 4 Communication Tips for Neurodivergent Marketers appeared first on B2B Marketing Blog - TopRank®.
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Saturday, 27 August 2022
Weekend Favs August 27
Weekend Favs August 27 written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing
My weekend blog post routine includes posting links to a handful of tools or great content I ran across during the week.
I don’t go into depth about the finds, but I encourage you to check them out if they sound interesting. The photo in the post is a favorite for the week from an online source or one that I took out there on the road.
- Krisp – a free AI tool that mutes all the background noise during online meetings in real-time.
- Deck Rocks – is an AI-based tool that generates pitch decks using GPT-3. You just have to describe your idea in 1 or 2 sentences, and you get a deck tailor-made for you within minutes.
- Writesonic– is an AI writer trained to help you write high-performing ads, sales copy, SEO content and much more. Enter a couple of keywords, and Writesonic will provide several options in seconds.
These are my weekend favs; I would love to hear about some of yours – Tweet me @ducttape
If you want to check out more Weekend Favs you can find them here.
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Friday, 26 August 2022
Clone of The 5 Stages Of Marketing Every Business Moves Their Customers Through
Clone of The 5 Stages Of Marketing Every Business Moves Their Customers Through written by Kyndall Ramirez read more at Duct Tape Marketing
Marketing Podcast with John Jantsch
In this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, I’m doing a solo show, and I’m gonna talk about something that I’ve been talking a lot about lately called the Customer Success Track.
Key Takeaway:
After working with tons of small businesses and clients for the last 30+ years, I’ve realized that there are five stages of marketing that many businesses go through. I’ve been able to identify the milestones that businesses need to move customers or clients through and consequently the tasks associated with each of those milestones.
I’ve mapped this out in what I’m calling the Customer Success Track – a concept I talk about deeply in my latest book – The Ultimate Marketing Engine. In this episode, I’m diving into the five stages of the customer success track – Foundation, Level Up, Organize, Stabilize, and Scale – and how to advance a customer or client through all five stages over the course of a long-term business relationship.
Topics I Cover:
- [1:28] What the Customer Success Track is
- [1:41] Stage 1: Foundation
- [7:46] Stage 2: Level up
- [11:36] Stage 3: Organize
- [14:23] Stage 4: Stabilize
- [18:36] Stage 5: Scale
Resources I Mention:
- Get the Kindle version of The Ultimate Marketing Engine for just $2.99 (during the month of August 2022)
- Learn more about my book The Ultimate Marketing Engine
Take The Marketing Assessment:
Like this show? Click on over and give us a review on iTunes, please!
John Jantsch (00:00): Today's episode of the duct tape marketing podcast is brought to you by blissful prospecting, hosted by Jason bay and brought to you by the HubSpot podcast network host Jason Bay dives in with leading sales experts and top performing reps to share actionable tips and strategies to help you land more meetings with your ideal clients. Recently, they did a show on the four day work week. I'm a huge fan. I think everybody should be looking towards trying to create that. Hey, we get most of our work done in like two hours every day. Anyway, so let's try out the four day work week. All right, listen to blissful, prospecting, wherever you get your podcasts.
John Jantsch (00:46): Hey, hello, and welcome to another episode of the duct tape marketing podcast. This is John Jantsch and I am doing another solo show, just you and me and the radio, as they say, I guess somebody probably said, I'm gonna talk about something that I've been talking a lot about lately called the customer success, track little plug for my latest book, the ultimate marketing engine. I talk about it in depth in there, and there's all kinds of resources. And if you're listening to this show in August of 2022, you can pick up the Kindle version for 2 99. Okay. There's a commercial today. But if this topic resonates, go get the book because I go so deep in into it. So here's the basis premise behind this customer success track. Over the years, I started to recognize, and again, I didn't wake up on day one and say, this is how the world is over tons and tons of experience, years clients, prospects.
John Jantsch (01:45): I've started to realize that there are about five stages of marketing that many businesses go through. And some of them rush through them. Some of 'em hang out in one stage or the another for a long time, but I've been able to recognize the characteristics of a business in that stage based a lot on what's going on in their marketing or what's going on in, you know, increasingly in their online presence. I know what challenges they're probably facing at that point because of where they are. But I also know have been able to identify the milestones that we need to move them through and consequently, the tasks associated to each of those milestones. And if we do that, I mean, it's basically a task list of things that need to be accomplished. If we do that, we can also say, but here's the promise of moving through that stage.
John Jantsch (02:37): I'm gonna go into some depth from a marketing standpoint. So if you're a business owner out there thinking, okay, he's talking about me right now. Maybe it'll give you some clues to what you need to be looking at in your marketing. If you're a marketer, if you're a consultant listening to this and you work with folks on their marketing, this is a great way to start thinking about how you would retain clients for a longer time, because you've got a roadmap that you're working from. And again, as I said, the much, much more depth on this in the ultimate marketing engine and a lot of things that I've been writing about, but I thought I would bring it out today because I think what happens is a lot of times people can't really identify the problem or they think the solution is I just need more leads.
John Jantsch (03:19): Well, what I'm gonna share today is that's not always the challenge. There is sort of a linear order. to how things need to be done, how things need to be built, how your business will evolve. And I think to some degree you can start recognizing it's hard if you get stuck because a lot of businesses get to a certain point, frankly, and they've grown. They're doing some things that maybe now they're juggling a lot of balls dropping a few plates, but outwardly they appear to have succeeded some. And so they, a lot of times dig in and just try to do more where they are and what I wanna suggest through this idea of the customer's success track and the stages and the customer success track is there's certain things you as the owner, the founder, the head of marketing, whatever your role is, need to start doing differently at each of these stages.
John Jantsch (04:06): And I think sometimes that's what trips people up. There are a lot of people that, that they love tinkering. They love DIYing. They love getting in and digging under the hood and figuring things out. Even if it takes 'em all day long to do it. And that has to change. If in fact you wanna move through these stages. So that's a little bit of what, what I'm gonna talk about today. All right. So let's talk about the stages. I've given them names. There are five of them. I'm gonna go through the characteristics and I'm hopeful that you'll listen and go, oh, wait a minute. That's some of what I'm experiencing. So that must be where I am. All right. The stages are foundation level up, organize, stabilize, and scale. Now those are arbitrary names. That's just a name that we pinned to each of the stages.
John Jantsch (04:53): If you're thinking about developing something like this for your own practice or for your own offerings that you go out there, obviously five's even an arbitrary number, but we just found that who we worked with that was a good way to delineate. All right. So what are the characteristics of that foundation business quite often, sometimes, but not always. They're in a startup mode. They're very founder driven. All the sales are typically happening from the founder, going out there and knocking on doors. Almost. There's no website leads coming in. They've maybe built a website. It's kind of a brochure, but no leads coming in. They're talking about their company. They're talking about their products in most of their marketing. There's not a consistent online presence. I mean, we see this all the time. Maybe they've got a LinkedIn profile, they've got a, a, you know, Google business profile page and there's off branding off names off what they call it. I mean, there's just, it's a lot of inconsistencies. And typically it's because they've not attached any value to participating in social media. They're not using email in a consistent manner. Even if they're getting clients, they're not using email to nurture those leads, to nurture those clients, to actually get repeat business.
John Jantsch (06:05): Part of the reason, some of the challenges of being in this stage, marketing's changing quickly, or at least it really feels like it. I think it, we run into folks all the time and this part of their, and they just don't know where to invest. I mean, somebody tells me I need to buy this. Somebody tells me I need to be here. Social media in a lot of cases feels like a way, particularly when you use it the way you see so many people using it, repeat business is not coming your way. And frankly, you've got too many tasks.
John Jantsch (06:37): Any of that sound like you , those are the challenges. Now here's the payoff. If we can fix, if you can fix those challenges, if you can start addressing the fact that you have to look at your website, for example, in a much different way, you have to actually start telling stories. You have to actually start using email. You have to actually start understanding the problem you solve for your customers. Some of the strategic things that go into actually creating a consistent online presence. The promise of that is that you're now gonna have a website that's prepared to not only a attract leads, but convert them. You're gonna get traffic flow from the search engines because you're creating useful content that people want to find. People wanna read. You're addressing the problems they're trying to solve. You can start generating reviews, perhaps automatically using some of the tools that are available today. And you can start thinking about re-engaging past customers. That's the promise of getting just the foundational stage built.
John Jantsch (07:39): Now, obviously that may not make the phone ring that may not actually take you from a revenue standpoint where you want to go. So what's the next level of maturity. The next stage, we actually call that one level up. A lot of times people will get that website built that work with a marketer. I mean, they're starting to produce content that they're starting to optimize some of their assets out there, but they're not really converting any of that web traffic. I mean, I guess the first trick is to get some traffic there , but it's not converting. So, so frankly, if you get things out of order, let's say at this stage, you wanna start running ads. Well, you're gonna be wasting a lot of money because until you're converting traffic that comes to your website, there's no point sending or, or getting traffic that comes there.
John Jantsch (08:25): You're not getting into page one. You know, search engine results are on maps in for local businesses there. There's still okay. You've bought into social media, but there's no engagement, which is really the only thing that matters leads are coming in, but you don't have any real systematic way to follow up on them. You're starting to think about online advertising, but not really sure what to do. And then this is what another thing we commonly run into at this stage. There's no sales process, not one that's repeatable. Anyway, that just kind of happens as it happens. Now, again, part of the challenges of being in this stage is maybe you've got customers, maybe you're fulfilling orders, but you don't have enough time to produce content or at least the volume of content that marketers say you need today. You're not really sure what content to produce online.
John Jantsch (09:16): Advertising seems both complex and expensive. You're not converting enough leads. You're starting to have those conversations, but you're not really converting them into customers. And unfortunately at this stage in many cases, because there aren't systems built for fulfillment, you're not retaining those clients. So at this stage, what we're working on doing now is creating landing pages, creating and narrowing the focus of an ideal customer, creating ways in which we can make content for really, for all stages of the customer journey, creating trust on the website, creating an actual journey with calls to action and maybe some free downloads. So you can start capturing those leads that are, or that traffic that's coming to your website because they're interested in something you're putting out there. So if we can get that now we've got the foundation built and now we're starting to layer on conversion. I mean, we're starting to layer on, okay, we've got people coming now, what's gonna turn them into customers or what's gonna at least put them into our pipeline.
John Jantsch (10:19): So the promise there is that, that now first off you're gonna start attracting higher quality traffic and leads because that's one of the real challenges in that foundation mode is you might be attracting some leads, but they're the wrong leads. So you're gonna get more ideal client interactions at this phase. Search engines and maps are gonna start noticing you, you all, you will create because at this stage, you're now ready to create some automatic lead capture and follow up. You're going to create a solid sales process at this stage so that you can start to consistently converting leads that, and in those sales conversations that you're having,
John Jantsch (10:56): And now let's hear from a sponsor, running a small business means doing it all. You deserve an online marketing platform that does the same. Semrush is an all in one platform that will lighten the load handle SEO, social media, and advertising all in one place, attract new customers, save time and money on marketing and get ahead of the competition.
John Jantsch (11:15): If you need it online marketing, no problem. Some rush will get you started. If you're ready to grow online, try Semrush free @ Semrush.com/now that's Semrush.com/now,
John Jantsch (11:31): all right, now we've got somebody up and running. So, so you can see we're kind of building on this. So once we're up and running, we're gonna move into organized. Now what's happening here is okay. Now I'm starting to get leads. I'm starting to have sales conversations, but now I'm kind of a mess. now I'm not tracking client relationships. I'm not really fully tracking my marketing results because I'm running too fast. I'm not upselling. I'm not cross-selling, I'm not taking advantage now of the fact that if I just drove more traffic there, say through advertising, I'm really in a, in many cases, I'm still fighting that competitive dynamic. I'm not seen as a leader necessarily.
John Jantsch (12:11): Now again, the challenges that, that this stage brings quite often is that your lead cycles are really up and down. Sometimes it's busy. Sometimes it's slow. sometimes you can keep up. Sometimes you can't. I mean, marketing return is hard to understand. There's so many things that go into it. If you're not really accurately tracking, it's a challenge. Client acquisition seems really hard or maybe expensive sales processes still at this point are very manual and customer service now has become an issue and is in inconsistent. So what are we gonna go to work on here? This is a place where we certainly are gonna start talking about the need for a CRM. at this stage, you need to be using some of the tools that allow you to automate some of your marketing, to track some of your clients to segment who's coming to your website.
John Jantsch (13:03): We're gonna set up a dashboard. You know, at this stage, we want to know what's working. What's not working. We're gonna track calls. We're gonna track emails. We're gonna track ad spend. We are going to start thinking about campaigns now to retain customers campaigns, specifically, to sell more to existing customers. We're probably gonna start talking about referrals here. We are. Certainly at this point can take advantage of some of the online advertising, but we also have to really focus on what happens when somebody becomes a customer. This is the stage where we certainly could go to work earlier on this, but we find that this is where it becomes so crucial that we can make it a priority. And that's the customer experience, the onboarding, the follow up, the communication, the orientation. I mean, all those as set intentions that we can repeat, you know, time and time again.
John Jantsch (13:56): So we do this in this stage, and now we're gonna see a consistent lead flow. We're not gonna be wasting money on advertising because we're gonna understand what works, what doesn't, we're gonna automate some of the lead nurturing, not as a way to shield ourselves from having to talk to customers, but as a way to actually create a frictionless better experience for prospects and customers, we're gonna be converting the right customers. And we're gonna have much higher retention and referral. This is the place where a lot of businesses, I mean, getting to this space is really the goal. Many businesses don't even reach this stage, but also this is a place where now all of a sudden, if we're gonna go beyond this, we can't just add more revenue. We just can't add more sales because we're not gonna be able to handle it. We have to add team.
John Jantsch (14:44): We have to add delegate delegation. This is the place at which quite frankly, the marketer, the doer, the task doer, who has maybe moved to being task manager. This is the place where we need actually a real CEO. we need the head of the organization to form because this is the, you know, I don't know where the revenue is, but it's certainly when we're gonna go north of a million in revenue, obviously that's an arbitrary figure because types of businesses are different, but this is the one to 10 to 50 million range where short of a leadership team, short of, uh, you being a CEO and no longer being the marketing manager or the marketing doer has to happen. So what's happening here. You know, we're using the characteristics now are actually more positive because you're using a CRM for sales. You've established some marketing KPIs.
John Jantsch (15:40): Maybe now you're starting to get the room, the breathing room to think, Hey, we can develop new products, new offerings. We've got online advertising, working for us well enough. Maybe we're starting to feel like, Hey, we're a bigger player. We need to get more involved in the community, more involved in our industry. We need to start developing internal marketing roles. Now the challenge, of course, at this stage, that all those characteristics sound lovely, right? Profitability starts to vary at this stage. We maybe were really pumping in expenses cause we're buying advertising. We're adding team. So expenses are increasing rapidly.
John Jantsch (16:19): It's tough to maintain marketing momentum with the growth that's coming and even harder to maintain fulfillment. It's time to actually probably bring on a strategic marketing hire as well. And this is the point where a lot of founders actually have to start analyzing, am I the right person? to be in this seat to be the COO, do I need a COO? Do I need somebody? Who's actually not only running marketing, but to somebody who's actually running operations or at least creating the delegation and the systems and the processes for getting all the work done. So in many cases, this is where we'll definitely go to work on trying to automate things in an elegant way. Again, not to just shield the, the business from ever having to talk to anyone. This is where we'll make significant talk about making significant investments in both marketing spend.
John Jantsch (17:15): And then I guess a third one operations spend, if in some cases, this is the place, you know, for many of our consultants, for example, this is the place where they need to start adding account managers. They need to AC actually start adding managerial levels in, in, you know, several places because businesses there. But if it's going out the back door as fast as it's coming in the front door, you're not really gonna gain any traction, but the promise here, if we can get this done, if we can build systems for both marketing and for fulfillment here, we can start replicating what we're doing. We start replicating what you used to be doing maybe as the founder and the startup, and this is gonna actually lead to consistent lead conversion, which certainly is going to lead to consistent growth. This is where word of mouth and referral generation just starts happening.
John Jantsch (18:04): Steadily your business really becomes start starting at this point to become an asset to the owner of the business, because it's not as dependent on you. And frankly, if you ever wanna talk about exiting your business or selling your business, I mean, that's certainly one of the criteria. Somebody has to be able to see how this would run without you. You know, there are many businesses that get found by an individual grown by an individual. And really a lot of the relationships are with that individual as opposed to the systems and the framework of the business. All right, the last one as we call scale, and really this one, probably this stage, you know, probably fits somebody that is maybe, maybe thinking in terms of exiting the business or certainly of maybe exiting their role as a, you know, day to day CEO or something, you know, kind of moving to a board type of role.
John Jantsch (18:57): So what's going on here typically, is that again, more positive characteristics, but still same challenges. So lead flow is pretty consistent and predictable starting to build an internal marketing team. You're sales management driven, not just a couple sales people out there, right? There's an entire selling system. You're starting to become recognized as a leader or in your industry or in your town. There's a bit of financial mastery. So at this stage, while again, some people who are more financial oriented, you know, maybe start this in the first stage, but this is where profit and your cost of acquisition of new business. This is where you're starting to have capital needs. I mean, so financial mastery is, has become a much bigger piece of the puzzle for success here. And you've really almost built and established, uh, uh, an internal org chart of roles of management roles.
John Jantsch (19:53): Now, the challenges here of course, is anybody who's grown to this. I mean, we might be talking about 20, 30 people or more here. We might be talking about 10, 20, 30 million or more here. And so all of a sudden culture, the thing that maybe was a great thing, not only for those people that work there, but for your customers, um, rapid growth sometimes really comes with a deterioration of culture. There's staff turnover. There's no emphasis on employee branding. There's a challenge to innovate, to continue to grow that bring new products and service offerings can add a lot of stress at this stage. So in terms of many of the things that that I talked about as characteristics, I mean, now you're gonna go to work on you. You absolutely are gonna build team. You're gonna build leadership team here. You're going to formalize structure around people, operations.
John Jantsch (20:46): You're going to need to give more and more focus to fulfillment and more and more focus to innovation. In fact, a lot of leaders in this stage of business, actually their primary job is to innovate, becomes the, you know, you've got that operations higher in place that is that managing the people that you've got. Somebody that's focused on culture. You've got somebody that's focused on sales. You've got the finance piece figured out. So in many cases, the role of the leader at this stage is ideas is innovation is to figure out how you can get more market share. Again, the promise, the value of the business will continue to grow. Cash flow will be consistent if need be. You're gonna be set up in now to raise significant capital. A lot of folks go out and raise a whole bunch of capital based on money or I'm sorry, based on an idea, but a business that generates consistent cash flow can demonstrate an ability to grow is going to have a really easy, um, access to a lot of cash.
John Jantsch (21:49): Should they need it? And certainly this is that are seen as leaders have a much easier time attracting experienced talent to, to the organization as well. So all of that to say, you know, many companies, many businesses come to us say, I wanna grow, I want more business. I want more leads. And what we've discovered is certainly that's, we're gonna get there but first we're gonna develop more clarity. First, we're gonna develop more confidence in the systems, more control over what works and what doesn't work. And there is a linear process for this. But for us having this roadmap is such a, you know, becomes the mission, becomes taking folks from where they are to where they want to go. In terms of training, in terms of hiring, in terms of even sales messaging, being able to demonstrate that you have a path to build on for many particularly service businesses is a pretty compelling differentiator and a compelling offer for somebody who is just had so many people selling them the tactic of the week.
John Jantsch (22:52): So while I just went through kind of our customer stages and I could do a whole nother show on every milestone involved in accomplishing moving people through there, but my feeling is that just about any business I've done marketing here, right? But just about any business that sells to other businesses, maybe even individuals could develop this idea of stage growth of staged evolution or maturity. So that's what I wanted to share today. As I said, if you pick up the ultimate marketing engine, you can pick that up. Wherever books are sold, all the electronic book. If you're listening to this in August of 2022 is on sale now for $2 and 99 cents. So when you get the book, you'll actually the entire show that I went through has a, has this roadmap in a form. So when you get the book, you'll actually get all the forms and tools that are shown in the book as well.
John Jantsch (23:43): So that's it for today. Hopefully we'll run into one of these days out there on the road. Hey, and one final thing before you go, you know how I talk about marketing strategy strategy before tactics? Well, sometimes it can be hard to understand where you stand in that what needs to be done with regard to creating a marketing strategy. So we create it a free tool for you. It's called the marketing strategy assessment. You can find it @ marketingassessment.co not .com .co check out our free marketing assessment and learn where you are with your strategy today. That's just marketingassessment.co I'd love to chat with you about the results that you get.
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B2B Marketing News: Thought Leadership Connections, Google’s People-First Search Update, Digital Ad Revenue Climbs, & YouTube’s New Podcast Site
Digital Advertising Hits $189 Billion In 2021, Global Forecasts Predict 5% Yearly Growth Through 2027 U.S. digital advertising revenue of $189 billion in 2021 was the biggest increase since 2006, including audio advertising with a leading 57.9 percent growth rate, and newly-released report data predicts that the audio ad market will see a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 5.07 percent that will continue on through 2027. MediaPost Google Helpful Content Update Is Now Rolling Out The latest updates to Google’s always-in-motion search engine algorithm look to emphasize content written more for people and less for SEO, as the search giant began rolling out its "helpful content update" as part of efforts to surface more high-quality original content, Google recently announced. Search Engine Roundtable [bctt tweet="“The Google helpful content update will change how SEOs perform content strategies going forward, much like Panda and Penguin changed how SEOs did content and link strategies, respectively, a decade ago.” — Barry Schwartz @rustybrick" username="toprank"] YouTube Expands Access to Audience Behavior Insights, Adds New Creative Tools for Community Posts Google's YouTube video platform has launched new features including channel traffic thresholds that have been lowered, allowing more marketers to see data on the other videos their audience has watched and additional analytics information, along with new options for finding YouTube Shorts content, YouTube announced recently. Social Media Today CEOs from Dentsu, GroupM, Omnicom Media Group & Publicis Media agree Hispanics are the quintessential Growth Drivers Marketing strategies that don't recognize the U.S. population of more than 63 million Hispanics are increasingly at risk for slowing brand growth, and HispanicAd recently tapped top marketing CEOs to explore minority media investments and diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) best practices. HispanicAd Sound investments: just how effective is audio branding? The number of brands rolling out sonic identities in 2021 grew by 22 percent, with new research showing a five percent increase in perceived value for brands that have a recognizable sonic identity, as more brands have become aware of the power of audio branding to tap into areas of the brain not reached through non-audio content. The Drum Twitter’s Developing a New ‘Reply Filter’ Option to Give Users More Control Over Their Tweet Experience Twitter has begun testing an optional reply filtering feature that could help brands limit negative interactions on Twitter, reducing potential exposure to harmful or offensive language and giving marketers new brand experience settings on the platform, Twitter recently announced. Social Media Today 
Google Launches Dedicated YouTube Podcasts Site YouTube has continued to refine ongoing testing of a new section of its platform dedicated entirely to podcast audio content, including a new podcast tab on YouTube's page for exploring content, as the Google-owned social platform seeks to provide podcasters its own alternative to Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and its own Google Play, YouTube recently announced. MediaPost Facebook is losing its grip as a 'Top 10' app as BeReal and TikTok grow Facebook's mobile app has increasingly experienced periods during which it hasn't been among the top ten apps downloaded in the U.S., as rising entrants on the list including BeReal and TikTok have created greater competition for the Meta-owned firm's app, which plummeted momentarily to the number 44 spot earlier this year, according to app store data. TechCrunch Google Adds New Viewer Attention Metrics for Display and Video 360 Campaigns Google has rolled out a slew of new and updated data measurement features relating to viewer attention, which have been made available within its Google Display & Video 360 ad tools for managing programmatic and other campaigns across multiple channels, Google recently announced. Social Media Today Thought Leadership Being Used to Connect with Various Stakeholders 76 percent of business leaders use thought leadership to connect with customers or clients, with 75 percent for connecting to internal employees, 68 percent to make connections with general consumers, and 64 percent to reach prospects — four of several statistics of interest to B2B marketers contained in newly-released though leadership survey data. MarketingCharts ON THE LIGHTER SIDE: 
A lighthearted look at “The Algorithm Giveth and Taketh Away” by Marketoonist Tom Fishburne — Marketoonist This Man Set the Record for Wearing a Brain-Computer Interface — Wired TOPRANK MARKETING & CLIENTS IN THE NEWS:
- Lee Odden — What Revenue Teams Want From Social Media Teams — Agorapulse
- Lee Odden / TopRank Marketing — Las marcas B2B triunfan con el influencer marketing [In Spanish] — SocialPubli
The post B2B Marketing News: Thought Leadership Connections, Google’s People-First Search Update, Digital Ad Revenue Climbs, & YouTube’s New Podcast Site appeared first on B2B Marketing Blog - TopRank®.
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Thursday, 25 August 2022
Wednesday, 24 August 2022
How To Turn Your Customers Into Lustomers™
How To Turn Your Customers Into Lustomers™ written by Sara Nay read more at Duct Tape Marketing
About the show:
The Agency Spark Podcast, hosted by Sara Nay, is a collection of short-form interviews from thought leaders in the marketing consultancy and agency space. Each episode focuses on a single topic with actionable insights you can apply today. Check out the new Spark Lab Consulting website here!
About this episode:
In this episode of the Agency Spark Podcast, Sara talks with Bryan Rutberg on how to turn your customers into lustomers
.
Bryan Rutberg, founder and president of 3C Communications, guides and inspires leaders and their organizations to develop better communications skills, including public speaking, to build stronger relationships with customers and other key audiences as a path to deeper loyalties, greater market share, and way more fun for everyone.
More from Bryan Rutberg:
- 3C Comms
- Love & Profit: 10 Ways to Transform Customers into Lustomers
- Business Communications Assessment
- Youtube
This episode of the Agency Spark Podcast is brought to you by Monday.com, a powerful project management platform. Monday.com helps teams easily build, run, and scale their dream workflows on one platform. I personally am a user and big fan of Monday.com – I start my workday pulling up the platform and spend my day working within it for everything from task management to running client engagements. Learn more about Monday.com at ducttape.me/monday.
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Weekend Favs August 20
Weekend Favs August 20 written by Shawna Salinger read more at Duct Tape Marketing
My weekend blog post routine includes posting links to a handful of tools or great content I ran across during the week.
I don’t go into depth about the finds, but encourage you to check them out if they sound interesting. The photo in the post is a favorite for the week from an online source or one that I took out there on the road.
- Snipfeed – This platform allows content creators to monetize their content and streamline their storefronts using their social media channels rather than linking to external websites.
- Let’s Enhance – is a Ukrainian start-up that helps designers to improve and zoom online images without losing quality. They use super-resolution machine learning technology.
- Rephrase – is a very simple to use AI-based rephraser tool that rewrites sentences, paragraphs, or papers using diverse AI writing modes.
These are my weekend favs, I would love to hear about some of yours – Tweet me @ducttape
If you want to check out more Weekend Favs, you can find them here.
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How To Turn Your Customers Into Lustomers™
How To Turn Your Customers Into Lustomers™ written by Sara Nay read more at Duct Tape Marketing
About the show:
The Agency Spark Podcast, hosted by Sara Nay, is a collection of short-form interviews from thought leaders in the marketing consultancy and agency space. Each episode focuses on a single topic with actionable insights you can apply today. Check out the new Spark Lab Consulting website here!
About this episode:
In this episode of the Agency Spark Podcast, Sara talks with Bryan Rutberg on how to turn your customers into lustomers.
Bryan Rutberg, founder and president of 3C Communications, guides and inspires leaders and their organizations to develop better communications skills, including public speaking, to build stronger relationships with customers and other key audiences as a path to deeper loyalties, greater market share, and way more fun for everyone.
More from Bryan Rutberg:
- 3C Comms
- Love & Profit: 10 Ways to Transform Customers into Lustomers
- Business Communications Assessment
- Youtube
This episode of the Agency Spark Podcast is brought to you by Monday.com, a powerful project management platform. Monday.com helps teams easily build, run, and scale their dream workflows on one platform. I personally am a user and big fan of Monday.com – I start my workday pulling up the platform and spend my day working within it for everything from task management to running client engagements. Learn more about Monday.com at ducttape.me/monday.
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Digital-First: Why B2B Marketers Need Digital Asset Management (DAM) More Than Ever
The pandemic has ushered in a new digital-first era for B2B brands, complete with an ever-deeper and more complex ocean of digital assets — but how can today’s organizations and marketing teams keep track of this influx of online content? Before the pandemic, digital asset management systems — DAM for short — were mostly seen as either a luxury that could be afforded only by large global corporations or as an über-nerdy technology used by musty librarians or professional photographers and videographers. Earlier this year however, Adobe’s Digital Trends Report revealed that nine out of ten business leaders said customers are now digital first, with 54 percent planning to spend more on customer data technology and 52 percent expecting to increase spending on customer experience management systems. B2B buyers have increasingly brought online whatever offline processes they still had in place, and research data from Salesforce has shown that 52 percent of B2B sellers expect more than half of their revenue to come from digital channels in the next two years. 
As more of the B2B ecosystem has shifted to digital-first operations, marketers can now see more benefits than ever from using a DAM system, from the speed and agility of digital asset delivery to optimized online content management and more. It comes as no surprise that the market for DAM solutions has rapidly grown, with the global DAM market valued at $4.7 billion in 2021, and expected to reach $13.4 billion by 2027, according to data from IMARC. Let’s take a look at some of the leading reasons why B2B marketers need digital asset management more than ever in a digital-first playing field. [bctt tweet="“As more of the B2B ecosystem has shifted to digital-first operations, marketers can now see more benefits than ever from using a digital asset management (DAM) system.” — Lane R. Ellis @lanerellis" username="toprank"]
1 — Digital-First Produces Mountains of Online Content
Digital assets are comprised of any computer files, stored anywhere — whether on your phone, tablet, desktop, network, or in the cloud. DAM software runs either on a local computer network or in the cloud, and has been built to pull in and make it easy to organize an unlimited number of files — all the digital assets that organizations are creating and using daily in our digital-first environment. The more complex your marketing strategies and the structure of your organization are, the bigger the benefits of using DAM software can be, especially over time, as the advantages of having conveniently managed digital assets pile up. In today’s digital-first marketing world, some of the greatest gains can come from increased workflow efficiency, and this is where DAM systems generally shine. B2B firms that use a modern DAM system have immediate access to all their digital assets, with nothing getting lost in un-indexed folders or in data that is stranded on individual laptops — all helping to save untold amounts of time compared to firms that don’t use DAM software. A proper DAM tool also helps B2B firms when it comes time to conduct an asset inventory, either for data analysis, capital investment tracking, or other purposes — an example of how organizations can find benefits from a DAM system that go far beyond public-facing marketing efforts.2 — Digital-First Requires Faster Delivery & Response
Marketing campaigns, especially in the B2B realm, often involve many people and multiple teams, consisting of a complex variety of images, document files, videos, and other digital assets. Additionally, tracking multiple versions of files — with varieties specifically created for each social media platform involved in a campaign — can quickly get complicated, and many firms either use a cobbled together approach that may be known only to a few people in the organization, or end up bouncing around from one software solution to another. At the same time, B2B customers now want the information they need as quickly as possible, which means that organizations that have a smoothly-running DAM in place are generally better equipped to get best-answer content published online faster than those that don’t. Some of the top DAM solutions also offer transparent and robust import and export routines, so that organizations aren’t locked-in to one DAM environment with their digital assets held hostage, unable to easily migrate to other solutions if needed. Digital-first marketing benefits from using DAM through increased efficiency and time savings, which result in quicker content publishing times and ultimately more satisfied audiences. The type of savvy content management offered by DAM systems can save marketing teams 13 days annually per staff member, according to report data from Canto. The same research found that 41 percent of marketers said that digital filing inefficiencies had caused delayed project releases, and 54 percent revealed that they experienced frustration with inefficient filing systems — each an example of why more B2B firms are implementing DAM solutions in their digital-first content creation and publishing workflows. [bctt tweet="“Digital-first marketing benefits from using DAM through increased efficiency and time savings, which result in quicker content publishing times and ultimately more satisfied audiences.” — Lane R. Ellis @lanerellis" username="toprank"]3 — All Digital-First Content Formats Get a Boost with DAM
Whether you’re dealing with content destined for traditional video or still imagery, or material meant for emerging social media platforms such as the metaverse and BeReal, a DAM system is more than up to the task of organizing all your organization’s digital assets. As with static digital assets, a powerful DAM system easily ingests and organizes video content, augmented or virtual reality files, and more — putting it all at the fingertips of each person in an organization who needs it, from video editor to social media manager to corporate executives. An additional benefit of a top-notch DAM solution is the ability to surface hidden, overlooked, or forgotten content in an organization’s archives, which can then be put to use where appropriate, oftentimes avoiding time-consuming efforts to re-do work that has already been completed but can’t easily be found. Re-purposing content on social platforms in digital-first initiatives can have a new lease on life when every digital asset can easily come into play and be creatively combined in new ways, thanks to the indexing and searching features of a powerful DAM system. For B2B marketers, the shift to always-on marketing is a perfect match to meeting the demands of digital-first customers, and here the advantages of a DAM solution shine brightly, removing many of the bottlenecks slowing down traditional marketing, by offering easy and swift access to a firm’s entire digital asset archive.Boost Your Digital-First Muscles with DAM
via GIPHY In the new digital-first B2B marketing era, having the organizational muscle of a digital asset management system is more important than ever, and we hope that this brief look at some of the reasons why has been helpful. To learn more about DAM systems for B2B marketers, be sure to also check out our "Why B2B Marketers Should Give a DAM: Top Tips on Digital Asset Management," and "Why Digital Asset Management Matters in B2B Marketing." A DAM system is just one tool in the B2B marketer's digital tool-bag, yet one that successful organizations will increasingly omit at their peril as we head towards 2023. More than ever before, creating award-winning B2B marketing that elevates, gives voice to talent, and humanizes with authenticity takes considerable time and effort, which is why more brands are choosing to work with a top digital marketing agency such as TopRank Marketing. Reach out to learn how we can help, as we’ve done for over 20 years for businesses ranging from LinkedIn, Dell and 3M to Adobe, Oracle, monday.com and many others.
The post Digital-First: Why B2B Marketers Need Digital Asset Management (DAM) More Than Ever appeared first on B2B Marketing Blog - TopRank®.
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Monday, 22 August 2022
Turn Influential Fans Into Brand Ambassadors With B2B Influencer Marketing
What turns an influencer into a brand ambassador? One answer you might be hearing more often is, “A big ol’ wad of cash.” But while it’s true that B2B influencers want to get paid (don’t we all?), there’s an enthusiasm and authenticity that money alone can’t buy. And once you have a group of true brand ambassadors on board, you’ve got something wonderful that your competition can’t duplicate. At the heart of it, creating brand ambassadors means pulling your influencers into a purposeful community united in common interests and goals. It means making an ongoing effort to engage and delight these folks so they can engage and delight their audiences. [bctt tweet="“At the heart of it, creating brand ambassadors means pulling your influencers into a purposeful community united in common interests and goals.” — Joshua Nite @NiteWrites" username="toprank"] In our 2022 B2B Influencer Marketing Report, we saw that marketers with ongoing influencer programs reported a higher degree of success than those with one-off campaigns. That’s the difference between hiring influencers and cultivating ambassadors. 
Here’s how to create an ambassadorship for your brand.
1 — Identify your influential fans
The first step is to find the folks who have an engaged audience, are experts on their subject matter, and ideally are talking about your brand already (that part’s helpful but less essential). Tools like Traackr and Meltwater can help you find people engaging on a particular topic or even directly mentioning your brand. Don’t get too wrapped up in who has the highest follower counts — reach is an important part of the equation, but it’s not the only part. Look for:
- An engaged audience that shares and comments
- An engaged influencer who replies to comments and thanks people for shares
- A high degree of relevance to your brand’s area of expertise
2 — Build a relationship
One thing all influencers have in common: They want their work to be seen and recognized. So the fastest way to build a relationship is to offer sincere and public praise for their work. And don’t stop at kind words: Share their content from your brand and individual social media accounts. When you share, pull out a key point they’re making or a quote you especially admire. Let them know you’re actually reading their stuff, not just resharing blindly. Once you’ve engaged a few times publicly, you can ask for a quick quote to go in a blog post or infographic. Something quick and easy: 50-100 words to answer a question that’s square in their wheelhouse. This is where a lot of B2B influencer programs stop. But it’s the next two steps that turn an influencer into an ambassador.
3 — Make it official
Once you have established that someone meets your criteria for a brand ambassador, and you’ve worked with them on small projects, it’s time to take it to the next level. That means:
- A long-term plan for consistent engagement (at least 3 months)
- Agreement on deliverables & compensation
- Tight alignment on mission and goals
4 — Keep the romance alive
Once your influencer is participating in discussions with a brand-affiliated group of fellow subject matter experts, you’re most of the way there. There’s just one more level-up: from long-term influencer to ambassador. This stage is all about exceptional experiences. What can your brand offer that will delight your influencers? Think about ideas like:
- Thoughtful gifts. Are they into running? Get them some sporty headphones. Woodworking? A nice set of monogrammed chisels. Price is less important than demonstrating that you see the influencer as a person and care about delighting them.
- One-of-a-kind experiences. Bring them to in-person events like conferences, product launches or showcases. Give them an unforgettable VIP experience and you’ll not only get goodwill, but you’ll also get more social promotion as they post about the experience.
- Networking opportunities. Look for mutually beneficial introductions you can make, both within and outside of your organization.
- Advance peeks at cool stuff. Bring them behind the scenes for exclusive first looks at your latest product. If they’re already excited by the work your organization is doing, they will be thrilled to see what’s next and flattered to be one of the first to see it.
5 — Share the love
I absolutely love working with influencers the way our agency does it. Even when we’re paying influencers for specific deliverables, it never feels purely transactional. Every interaction is driven by mutual respect and enthusiasm. We like each other and are thrilled to be working together. The agency is helping these people succeed, and they’re helping us create killer content. I’m not saying all B2B influencer marketing has to be a lovefest — but it’s a whole lot more fun for everyone involved if it is. If you follow the steps above, you can create a community of brand ambassadors who are genuinely motivated to share their great experiences with the brand, and to share their knowledge with your target audience. See how TopRank Marketing and Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise achieved amazing results with B2B influencer marketing.The post Turn Influential Fans Into Brand Ambassadors With B2B Influencer Marketing appeared first on B2B Marketing Blog - TopRank®.
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