1,083,219 People Per Month and Counting: My New Favorite SEO Strategy

Podcasting.

You’ve heard about it before and I bet you’ve even listened to a handful of podcasts. But you probably haven’t created one yet.

Just think of it this way…

There are over 1 billion blogs and roughly 7 billion people in this world. That’s 1 blog for every 7 people…

On the other hand, there are roughly 700,000 podcasts. That means there is only 1 podcast for every 10,000 people or so.

Podcasting is 1,428 times less competitive than blogging.

So, should you waste your time on podcasting?

Well, let me ask you this… do you want a new way to get more organic traffic from Google?

I’m guessing you said yes. But before I teach you how to do that, let me first break down some podcasting stats for you, in case you aren’t convinced yet.

Is podcasting even worth it?

From a marketing and monetization standpoint, podcasting isn’t too bad.

I have a podcast called Marketing School that I do with my buddy Eric Siu. We haven’t done much to market it and over time it’s grown naturally.

Here are the stats for the last month.

We got 1,083,219 downloads or “listens” last month. To give you an idea of what that is worth, Dream Host paid us $60,000 for an ad spot…

They’ve also been paying us for a while, technically we have a 1-year contract worth $720,000.

Now on top of the ad money, Eric and I both have gotten clients from our podcast. It’s tough to say how much revenue we’ve made from the podcast outside of advertising, but it is easy to say somewhere in the 7-figure range.

Keep in mind, when I make money through ads or generate revenue for my ad agency, there are costs so by no means does that revenue mean profit.

Sadly, my expenses are really high, but I’ll save that for a different post.

But here is the cool thing: Eric and I only spend 3 hours a month to record podcast episodes for the entire month. So, the financial return for how much time we are spending is high.

And if that doesn’t convince you that you need to get into podcasting, here are some other stats that may:

• 32% of Americans listen to a podcast at least once a month.
• 54% of listeners think about buying products advertised in podcasts.
• Businesses spent $497 million on podcast ads in 2018 (probably much larger now).
• 51% of monthly active podcast listeners have an annual household income of at least $75,000.

If you haven’t created a podcast, this guide will teach you how. And this one will teach you how to get your first 10,000 downloads.

Alright, and now for the interesting part…

How to get more SEO traffic through podcasting

Back in 2019, Google saw how podcasts were growing at a rapid pace and they didn’t want to miss out.

They wanted people to continually use Google, even when it came to learning information that is given over audio format. So they decided to make a change to their search engine and algorithm and started to index podcasts and rank them.

And depending on what you search for and the more specific you get, you’ll even notice that Google is pulling out details from specific episodes. This clearly shows that they are able to transcribe the audio automatically.

This shouldn’t be too much of a shocker as they’ve already had this technology for years. They use it on YouTube to figure out what a video is really about.

But here is the thing, just recording a podcast and putting it out there isn’t going to get you a ton of search traffic.

So how do you get more SEO traffic to your podcast?

It starts with topics

Podcasting is a lot like blogging.

If you create a blog post on any random topic that no one cares to read about, then you aren’t going to generate much traffic… whether it is from social or search.

The same goes for podcasting. If you have an episode on a random topic that no one cares to listen to, then you won’t get many downloads (or listens) and very little SEO traffic as well.

Just look at the stats for a few of our episodes.

Look at the screenshot above, you’ll see some do better than others.

For example, the episode on “7 Secrets to Selling High Ticket Items” didn’t do as well as “The 7 Best Marketing Conferences 2020” or even “How to Drive More Paid Signups In Your Funnel.”

You won’t always be able to produce a hit for every podcast you release, but there is a simple strategy you can use to increase your success rate.

First, go to Ubersuggest and type in a keyword or phrase related to what your podcast is about.

Once you type in your keyword or phrase, hit search.

You’ll land on a screen that looks something like this:

Then in the left-hand navigation, click on the “Content Ideas” option.

From there, you’ll see a list of popular topics on the subject you are researching.

This report breaks down popular blog posts based on social shares, SEO traffic, and backlinks.

Typically, if a blog post has all 3, that means people like the topic. Even if it has only 2 out of the 3, it shows that people are interested in the topic.

What we’ve found is that if a topic has done well as a blog post, it usually does well as a podcast episode.

See with the web, there are so many blogs, most topics have been beaten to death. But with podcasting, it is the opposite. Because there are very few podcasts, most topics haven’t been covered.

And if you take those beaten-to-death blog topics and turn them into podcast episodes, it is considered new, fresh content that people want to hear. And they tend to do really well.

Now you have to dive into keywords

Hopefully, you are still on the content ideas report and you’ve found some ideas to go after.

If not, just scroll down to the bottom of the Content Ideas report and keep clicking next… even if only a few numbers show, don’t worry, there are millions of results and as you go to the next page, more pages will show up.

Once you find a topic, I want you to click the “Keywords” button under the “Estimated Visits” column.

This will give you more specific keywords to mention and so you can go even more in-depth during your podcast episode.

Remember that Google is able to decipher your audio and knows what topics and keywords you are covering.

So, when you mention a keyword within your podcast, your podcast episode is more likely to rank for that keyword or phrase.

But there are a few things I’ve learned through this whole process:

1. You don’t have to keyword stuff – you don’t have to mention a keyword 100 times or anything crazy if you want to rank well organically. Mention it whenever it is natural.
2. Episodes titles that contain popular keywords tend to do better – do your keyword research and include the right keywords within your title (I’ll show you how in a bit).
3. Episode titles that contain questions do well – eventually, you’ll also see these episodes perform even better because when people ask questions in the future on smart assistants like Alexa and Google Home, you’ll eventually start to see them pull from podcasts.

So how do you find the right keywords and questions to incorporate into your podcasts?

Head back to Ubersuggest and type in a keyword or phrase related to a podcast episode you want to create. This should be a bit easier now because you’ve already leveraged the Content Ideas report to come up with popular topics that people want to hear about. 😉

This time, I want you to click on the “Keyword Ideas” report in the left-hand navigation.

You’ll then see a list of suggestions that look something like this.

As you scroll down, you’ll continually see more and more keywords.

Don’t worry about the CPC data, but you will want to look at the SEO difficulty score as the easier the score the better chances you will have of ranking your podcast episode on Google. Also, look at search volume… the higher the number the better as that means more potential listens.

My recommendation for you is to target keywords and phrases that have an SEO difficulty of 40 or less.

Once you have a list of keywords, I want you to click on the “Related” navigational link on that report.

Now, you’ll see a much bigger keyword list.

In this case, you’ll see 405,513 related keywords that you can target. Again, ignore the CPC data but target keywords with an SEO difficulty of 40 or less and the more popular the keyword the better.

Lastly, I want you to click on the “Questions” navigational link…

Then scroll through the list and you’ll see a list of questions that you can target.

According to Comscore, over 50% of the searches are voice searches. A large portion of those are questions, so covering them within your podcast or even labeling your titles based on questions is a great way to get more traffic.

If you don’t think going after questions is a good strategy to get more traffic, just look at Quora.

With roughly 111,114,424 estimated visits a month from Google, Quora is getting a lot of traffic by optimizing their site for question-related keywords.

Conclusion

Google is the most popular site in the world. Whether you love SEO or hate it, you have no choice but to leverage it.

One way to get more SEO traffic is to write tons of content and leverage content marketing. It’s a competitive approach and you should consider it.

But another solution that’s even easier is to create a podcast and rank it well on Google.

And ideally, you should be doing both.

Do you have a podcast? Have you tried ranking audio content on Google?

The post 1,083,219 People Per Month and Counting: My New Favorite SEO Strategy appeared first on Neil Patel.

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4 Qualities Only Great B2B Marketing Agencies Possess

Is your agency a vendor or a partner? In response to the shifting market and evolving role of the CMO, agency-brand partnerships are shrinking in average duration, less than three years now, compared to over seven in 1984. But strategic, strong partnerships between brands and agencies have become increasingly important as 64% of CMOs expect to feel more pressure to demonstrate tangible short term results in the next 2-3 years. This pressure also signals a big opportunity for CMOs to demonstrate the value of marketing as a strategic function with organizations. The right agency, that can support the brand in a true partnership, can be critical in helping CMOs achieve their goals and win over the rest of the C-suite. That right agency, though, is tough to find —  especially in the B2B space where market needs are shifting rapidly and new spaces and topics are constantly being created. How can you find an agency that isn’t just a vendor? How can you trust that you’ve chosen a true partner that will help your brand further your marketing strategy and increase your customer base? It takes one to know one. Whether you’re putting out an RFP or undergoing a less formal review process, look for these things in order to find a truly great B2B marketing agency and partner. [bctt tweet="“The right agency, that can support the brand in a true partnership, can be critical in helping CMOs achieve their goals and win over the rest of the C-suite.” @Alexis5484" username="toprank"]

4 Qualities Only Great B2B Marketing Agencies Possess

Quality #1: Fosters a relationship based on mutual accountability.

A great agency partner will share the accountability brand marketing teams feel to deliver short term results. This means sharing reporting of marketing KPIs that impact business objectives, consulting in terms of the best strategic or tactical approach to achieve results and a focus on ongoing optimization. Reporting on the impact of B2B marketing can be tricky, due to a long sales cycle and multiple touch points, however a great partner will encourage reporting that is as accurate and actionable as possible. During the selection process, ask the agency:

• What KPIs do you typically report on?

• • Look for KPIs which resonate with your goals and go beyond vanity metrics.

• Can you show me an example report from existing clients?

• • Take note not only of the KPIs, but also actionable next steps to improve performance.

• What reporting platforms do you have experience using? 

• • It’s not critical the agency has leveraged the same platform you are using in the past. However, they should have experience leveraging marketing technology for data and a willingness to hop into your tool for reporting.

• What is needed from our team in order for this to be successful?

• • It’s important for an agency to communicate up front what will be required from your team, so expectations are clear on both sides on how to be successful.

• How transparent are you about processes and best practices? 

• • Education and guidance is important on both sides. A great partner isn’t going to hesitate to share best practices or process details with you.

[bctt tweet="“A great partner isn’t going to hesitate to share best practices or process details with you.” @Alexis5484" username="toprank"]

Quality #2: Demonstrates alignment of culture and values.

A great B2B marketing agency should demonstrate a complementary system of culture and values. If your team values collaboration and innovation, then partner with an agency which fosters a culture of teamwork and curiosity. In order to produce the best results, the teams should be able to speak the same language, challenge each other but collaborate toward mutual solutions, and enjoy the partnership. Our best client relationships are built on trust, respect, and a genuine enjoyment from the relationships. If these things don’t exist, it’s tough to gain momentum. During the selection process ask the agency:

• What are your values? 

• • Being able to communicate a defined set of values indicate an agency likely has a strong, positive culture. Look for values which resonate and sync with your own.

• Can we meet in person?  

• • An in-person or video chat between teams is a great way to see how your teams will get along. Look for an agency team that brings energy and excitement about the craft and working with your brand. Notice if your teams are speaking the same language and are able to play off each other.

[bctt tweet="“Our best client relationships are built on trust, respect, and a genuine enjoyment from the relationships. If these things don’t exist, it’s tough to gain momentum.” @Alexis5484" username="toprank"]

Quality #3: Specializes within your vertical and service need.

A great agency partner will understand your market and be able to ramp up quickly on your customer pain points, messaging, and business challenges. Especially in increasingly complex B2B markets, agencies with experience working with clients in similar segments will likely have talent that can acclimate quickly and reduce pain on your team’s side. To identify your agency’s specializations, ask:

• What does your network look like within my vertical? 

• • Look for connections with subject matter experts, industry influencers, publications, and analysts.

• Can you show me some samples of client work within my vertical?

• • Look for similar levels of complexity in messaging or overlap in topical areas. You probably do not want an agency working with a direct competitor, but rather complimentary businesses and verticals.

• How does your team typically get up to speed on a new client? 

• • A great agency partner is going to spend some time getting to know you and your messaging. They’ll ask for a product demo or a meeting with your sales team to get to know your customer and they’ll want to talk to your toughest in-house editor to learn your messaging. The benefit of already knowing the topics, is that they focus on your brand’s unique value proposition.

[bctt tweet="“A great agency partner is going to spend some time getting to know you and your messaging.” @Alexis5484" username="toprank"]

Quality #4: Ability to be nimble.

CMOs need to move and adjust quickly to reach their goals while not losing sight of the long term strategy. And it’s important for agency partners to do the same. A nimble agency will be able to adapt as factors change and get creative when it comes to rising to challenges from the market or within the business. An advantage of a great B2B agency is that they will be able to drive a project forward faster and more reliably than an in-house team with shifting priorities. To determine an agency’s ability to adapt and shift, ask them:

• What is your typical timeline for this type of project? 

• • You’re not necessarily looking for the shortest timeline. A quick timeline may mean an agency isn’t taking the time to get to know your messaging or spending the right amount of time on strategy. Instead, you’re looking for an agency that expresses alignment in helping reach your goals around the timeline. You also want an agency that is transparent in terms of what is needed from your team in order to achieve that timeline.

• This is a potential roadblock. How could we get around it? 

• • A great agency partner will be able to help you find solutions to work around roadblocks. You’re looking for an agency to demonstrate an agile and creative solution.

[bctt tweet="“A nimble agency will be able to adapt as factors change and get creative when it comes to rising to challenges from the market or within the business.” @Alexis5484" username="toprank"]

Partner > Vendor

Good B2B marketing agencies are vendors that can assist in executing your short term marketing plans. Great B2B marketing agencies are partners that can help your team be more innovative, move faster, and achieve short term goals while aligning to a strategic long term plan. Brand-agency relationships are evolving, but trusted, long term partnerships is still the ideal. To find your ideal agency partner, you need to look for the qualities above. If they pass the test, you’ll find an agency partner that has and will continue to evolve with the needs of the modern CMO.

The post 4 Qualities Only Great B2B Marketing Agencies Possess appeared first on Online Marketing Blog - TopRank®.

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When Good Enough Shouldn’t Be: The Best Email Frequency

How often should I email my subscribers? Without a doubt, that’s one of the top five most frequently asked questions my clients have asked me over the years. My quick answer?

If the content is relevant, then frequency is irrelevant. 

Put another way, if your emails contain information, offers, news, updates, and other content your subscriber wants, needs, or expects, then you can essentially send as often as you’d like. That’s the ideal, but the concept of an always on, completely fluid construct of emails that are triggered as necessary where the right content is always available and automatically pulled when needed simply isn’t possible today. AI and other technologies are helping marketers get closer to that ideal, but the reality is that it’s many years off for most email teams right now.

So, while we wait for the future to arrive, what’s the next best thing? How do I know what the best email frequency is? 

First, it’s important to start with the customer. This rocks some worlds but...the customer may not want as many emails as you are sending. That can be tough for many brands to accept because cutting back email volume is associated with cutting back revenue. Some see the “send button” as the “revenue button.” While it’s true that every time you push send, conversions and revenue spike, there are many long-term negative implications of over-mailing, including high list churn, poor deliverability, and brand damage.  

But you can avoid those negative consequences while not forsaking your short-term revenue goals by being thoughtful about figuring out which subscribers should get each of your non-triggered promotional emails. The frequency of promotional emails across the industry continues to grow, so the risks are growing, too. Ironically, volumes are growing in part because of the ongoing effectiveness of email. 

So what are the best ways to smartly, even surgically, select who should get those emails that are sometimes sent multiple times in a day? In keeping with my previous posts on the best time to send emails, optimizing automated emails, and fixing email performance problems, let’s look at the Good, Better, and Best approaches to email frequency: 

A Good Email Frequency Involves Seasonal Optimization

Most businesses have some cyclicality to them, and those seasonal pushes often mean boosting email volume by 3x or more during peak periods. This spike may be a function of any or all of the following tactics:

• Incremental sends, which involve sending additional emails, often multiple times per day

• Re-sends, where the same email is sent multiple times, often only with a change to the subject line

• Deeper audience selection, where emails are sent to a broader, less active audience of subscribers that include subscribers that you typically suppress from sends due to their lack of activity

Each of these is a common approach to increasing volume in an attempt to maximize revenue during peak seasons. However, applying the right rules is important to reduce the risk of jeopardizing your subscriber base long term or your IP reputation and associated deliverability success in the short term. Let’s look at each approach separately: 

1. Incremental Sends

For B2C brands, the November to December holiday season is the most common period where they increase their email frequency above their typical levels. Sending two or even three times a day isn’t uncommon for many retailers. Whenever your peak seasons are, you’re likely increasing your email frequency significantly to try to capture your customers’ heightened interest.

Reduce the risks of using this tactic by being selective about which subscribers you target with incremental sends. Ask yourself…

• Which segments of my audience are the most likely to engage with me during a particular peak season window? Examine previous periods. How many subscribers didn’t open any emails at all during that period? Could that have been predicted to begin with?  

• Which subscribers have a pattern of only engaging during that time of the year?  

• Can I conduct a matchback to offline activity via email address, loyalty program, or some other approach to understand the impact of offline conversions? As we know there can be a halo effect associated with email impacting store traffic even without opening or clicking on an email.

Answering those three questions will help you focus your incremental sends on subscribers who are likely to act, either online or offline, and avoid sending incremental emails to those who are unlikely to act.

2. Re-Sends

If you've not tested the impact of this across different segments, try it out. Re-sends can go to recipients of an email that:

• Didn’t open or click

• Opened but didn’t click or convert 

• Clicked but didn’t convert

Based on experience with our clients, non-openers are the least likely to respond to re-sends, especially if they haven’t engaged lately. For example, if your brand sends at a high frequency and a subscriber hasn’t opened any of your promotional emails over the past 30 days, the odds of them converting on a re-send of an email on the same day are extremely low.

Reduce the risks of using this tactic by thinking of your re-sends like browse abandons. For those subscribers who demonstrated that they were reasonably serious by clicking but not converting, target them with a re-send that highlights a time-sensitive aspect of the promotion, such as “Just hours left until your 50% off promotion expires!”

It’s pretty simple to test and see for yourself how each of these groups responds to re-sends and where the biggest conversion opportunity is.  

3. Deeper Audience Selection

Mailing subscribers who haven’t heard from you for some time can be trickier to navigate for several reasons. You haven’t been mailing them recently because their engagement level was so low that it was hurting your engagement and you didn’t want it to affect your deliverability. So, it comes to reason that starting to mail them again presents similar risks. You can expect:

• Spam complaints to rise

• Engagement rates to dip

• Potential bulking or blocking by inbox providers, because of those first two issues

Reduce the risks of using this tactic by being selective about going broader with your audience. For instance, you can reduce your deliverability risks by only adding inactive subscribers who have made purchases in the past.

You can also reduce the fallout from loosening your audience criteria by reaching out to these subscribers well ahead of the holiday period. Try to warm up this expanded audience by including them in some campaigns leading up to the core season, so if deliverability issues do appear, you have time to mitigate them rather than trying to solve that during the mission critical period.

A Better Email Frequency Includes Engagement Segments

Established brands generally have 18 months or more of email engagement history for the majority of their subscribers. This is a gold mine of data that can be used to generate basic segments that indicate value metrics associated with recency, frequency, and monetary (RFM) dimensions of engaging with you.

 RFM segments, as they are known, have been around for many years, but broad application into email is more recent. Some digital marketing platforms and email service providers, including Oracle Responsys, have RFM values built in. But if yours doesn’t consider creating them manually for your file. Subscribers are behaving very differently, so we should treat them differently—and this is a great rubric for doing so.

Consider the differences in the following audiences: 

• Hyperactives. Based on the last 6 months of send data, these subscribers have opened or clicked on 80% or more of emails you’ve sent to them. This data is even more helpful if you can layer on a value dimension—the monetary one—to understand which of your hyperactives are generating the most value for your brand. This is an audience you may not be mailing enough! The focus here should be on further personalization and loyalty expansion.

• Zombies. Based on the last six months of send data, these subscribers haven't opened or clicked on anything. However, they were high-value subscribers at one point in time. Is it possible to bring them back from the dead? These are prime re-engagement targets that warrant a different frequency and content strategy.

• First-timers. Based on six months of data, these subscribers were moderately engaged in terms of recency and frequency of engagement early on, but haven’t opened, clicked, or converted since. This audience is a prime target to turn into first-time purchasers or repeat buyers.

Several other behavioral segments can be created to join these three, depending on how your audience behaves and what the natural buying cycle is for the products or services your company sells. Note that not only is the frequency likely different for these audiences, but the content and messaging will become sharper and more relevant based on what we know about them.

Finally, given that we’ve done our homework with these audiences, the more that the messages sent to them can be trigger-based, rather than simply a part of the natural promotional calendar, the more they are likely to engage with the brand on the optimal path. Think about the push to get a one-time buyer to be a repeat buyer and what you know about the first purchase that could be instructive regarding their second. Granted, lots of factors come into play here—including that you might be selling a durable good that your customer only buys once every three years—but think about what that messaging should be after the first purchase to ensure you are a part of the consideration set for the next purchase.

The Best Email Frequency Incorporates Predictive Modeling

You knew it was coming: We’re going to talk about artificial intelligence now. All that data we talked about for the Better approach? It’s useful here too, but we can also combine it with other subscriber data like past purchase history, gender, acquisition source, and so on to establish propensities and anticipated behavior to inform frequency.

Most subscribers will go through natural ebbs and flows with a brand. Imagine going on a large vacation at a resort, or purchasing a car. For most people, these are not frequent purchases. From an email standpoint there will be peaks and valleys of engagement based on the natural lifecycle.

A predictive model powered by AI can determine the probability that a subscriber will engage with an email or, even better, make a purchase. Imagine if each of your subscribers was rated from 0 to 100 based on their likelihood to that they would engage with your next email in the next 3 days. If you were considering ramping up frequency from once per day to twice per day, with this rating you’d have the ability to, for instance:

• Select only those with a 35% or greater chance of engaging with a re-send

• Select those with an 80% or greater chance of engaging with a 3rd send from among those who didn’t engage with the re-send

• Know who to target if sales are short at the very end of the quarter to minimize the risk of fatiguing or burning out your email list

We’ve run this kind of predictive activity modeling successfully over and over for clients where it has allowed them to send less email and generate more revenue when compared to a control group that didn’t use the modeling. For example, we conducted a two-month experiment with an outdoor apparel retailer where one audience segment received their regular email cadence and another segment included some recipients received slightly more email and others slightly less. The segment that used predictively activity modeling sent 19% less email but generated:

• 17% higher open rates

• 29% higher click-through rates 

• 29% higher conversion rates

• Revenue equal to the control group

By avoiding unproductive email sends, brands create better subscriber experiences and are rewarded with fewer unsubscribes and less email fatigue, and therefore higher subscriber lifetime value. Plus, the higher engagement rates improve deliverability, which is especially critical for high-volume senders who receive the most scrutiny by inbox providers.

A lot of factors go into answering How often should I email my subscribers? Seasonal optimization, engagement segments, and AI-powered predictive modeling can all play a role. I hope that the issues I discussed in this post have armed you with new approaches and insights into how to best approach this tricky balance as you head toward your next big promotional period. 

Want more ways to uplevel your email marketing and avoid settling for good enough? Check out:

• When Good Enough Shouldn’t Be: Fixing Email Performance Problems
• When Good Enough Shouldn’t Be: Optimizing Automated Emails
• When Good Enough Shouldn’t Be: The Best Time to Send Emails

—————

Need help taking your email marketing program to the next level? Oracle CX Marketing Consulting has more than 500 of the leading marketing minds ready to help you to achieve more with the leading marketing cloud, including strategists, designers, copywriters, trainers, deliverability experts, and more.

Learn more or reach out to us at CXMconsulting_ww@oracle.com

To learn more about email frequency and the tools to make email marketing successful, visit Oracle CX Marketing.
 

 

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Conversions Aren't Always Sales: How Moments of Connection Keep Customers Coming Back

When outdoor retailer Orvis set out to launch a new line of adventure products for dog lovers, they faced a challenge familiar to every retailer.

On one hand, they knew an email campaign that simply advertised the new canine products might generate a limited number of conversions. On the other hand, an upfront promotional discount would likely result in lost revenue, since many customers might’ve been happy to pay full price for the very same items.

How can a retailer maximize their campaign’s conversion rate, without losing value by over-relying on promotional pricing?

Orvis solved the puzzle by breaking free of the false assumption that “conversion = sale.” Instead of sending out a digital flyer for their new products, they created an interactive quiz that helped subscribers choose the ideal dog breed to join them on their next outdoor adventure.

By putting customers’ interests above their own internal sales goals, Orvis cultivated vastly stronger loyalty than they could’ve obtained with a promotional email.

Here’s what this approach will mean for your next campaign.

Conversion is not a one-time event — it’s an ongoing process.

According to the old school of salesmanship, a conversion is a sale, pure and simple. If you want to make sales, this thinking goes, then you’ve got to keep repeating your pitches — until some of your customers finally “give in” and buy the products you’ve repeatedly presented to them.

While some marketers continue to live by this outdated approach, it’s not very useful for fostering long-term trust and repeat business. It treats customers as if they’re enemies to be defeated, rather than allies in need of assistance. And that’s a major mistake — because more than half of customers will happily pay more for the privilege of doing business with brands that treat them as personal friends.

What’s more, conversion doesn’t have to be a one-time event at all. Although some customers might “convert” by making a single purchase via a promotional email, you’re not likely to see much repeat business from them. They may have converted to a particular product or offer — but not to your brand.

Instead of focusing on those one-time conversions, you’ll cultivate much steadier revenue — and more repeat purchases — by fostering relationships with customers who’ll go out of their way to buy from you, even when you’re not offering a promotion.

Trust goes both ways — and your brand has to take the first step.

Like every healthy partnership, a long-lasting customer relationship is built on trust — not only your customers’ trust in you, but also your trust in them. The more you demonstrate that you value your customers even when they’re not making purchases, the more they’ll come to accept you as part of their everyday life.

For example, we’ve all had the stressful experience of shopping for clothes at a store that pays employees on commission. Staff members follow us around the sales floor, urging us to try on more items — sometimes outright pressuring us to purchase accessories we don’t want. Although the commission policy was put in place to drive sales, its actual effect is to drive customers like us away.

Contrast this with your favorite clothing retailer, whose employees leave you free to shop at your leisure — always ready with a helping hand, but never pushy or impatient to make a sale. By trusting you to make purchases in your own time, they cultivate your trust in return — and as a result, they get far more of your business than their commission-based competitors ever will.

Take the first step in demonstrating trust to your customers, and many of them will reciprocate by extending that same trust to you in return.

Moments of connection drive repeat sales and loyalty over time.

The most proven driver of repeat sales isn’t repetitive pitching — it’s moments of emotional connection. Those moments happen every time your customers join you in a meaningful, memorable experience.

If this sounds too fluffy, consider the following hard numbers: 95 percent of purchase decisions are driven by subconscious emotions. Customers who feel “connected” to a brand are more than twice as likely to make a purchase. A full 81 percent of customers who feel that connection will recommend your products to their friends and loved ones.

In short, customers who feel emotionally connected with your brand may not make a purchase today — but they’re far more likely to make multiple purchases in the longer term, and to spread the word to the people who matter in their lives.

With these facts in mind, try taking a step back from the sales-first mindset as you plan your next campaign. Instead of product pitches, think about how you can create shared moments that foster emotional connections with your customers.

They’ll get the underlying message: You trust them to remember your brand. In return, they’ll trust you to become a part of their life.

                                                             

An emotional connection with your customers can make all the difference, but how do you establish one? Find out with “B2C Personalization Blog Series Part 1: Taking the First Step Toward One-to-One Marketing.”

 

 

 

 

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B2BMX 2020 Wrap Up: B2B Marketing Evolved

Over the past 10 years that our marketing agency has been focused on B2B marketing, there have been many changes: From the advent of marketing automation and social media to the growing popularity of interactive content, ABM and influencer marketing. Staying on top of trends and best practices requires continuous innovation, education and cycles of marketing optimization. The reward for this continuous effort is staying one step ahead of the competition in the form of quality and performance. Events play a big role in the ongoing effort to draw on the collective wisdom of the B2B marketing industry and last week TopRank Marketing wrapped up speaking and attending our 8th B2B Marketing Exchange conference. In case you missed the conference, here are a few highlights: Award Winning B2B Influencer Marketing - I am very proud to say that our clients dominated the influencer marketing category of the B2BMX Killer Content Awards. Dell Outlet was a finalist with a campaign featuring small business influencers advocating on video, audio and test for the value of refurbished computers. Alcatel Lucent Enterprise was the influencer marketing category winner with an innovative awards campaign featuring influencer judges that generated millions in sales pipeline. Connecting the Dots Between ABM and Influence - For the 8th year in a row I had the opportunity to present at B2BMX and in 2020 it was about how ABM marketers can leverage influencer marketing to improve the performance of their programs. Josh Nite liveblogged the presentation here. The First Ever B2B Influencer Marketing Study - At B2BMX we announced the launch of the first B2B influencer marketing research study that aims to provide B2B marketers with a single source of data when it comes to business influencer marketing strategies, tactics, budgets, trends and future plans. Whether you’re just thinking about influencer marketing, have only piloted or are engaged with an ongoing program, we invite you to take the survey here: State of B2B Influencer Marketing Study 2020. Break Free B2B Marketing - Susan Misukanis and Josh Nite from our team spent much of the conference interviewing top B2B marketing executives from brands including on how they’re “breaking free” in their marketing. Interviews include senior marketing executives from Dell, Oracle, 6sense, SAP, ON24, Johnson Controls and more. Be sure to subscribe to TopRank Blog and catch Season 2 of Break Free B2B. Insights From Top B2B Marketing Speakers - When I present at conferences, especially B2B events, I try to attend presentations and below are a few highlights: Customers Are Your Best Marketers Vinay Bhagat - Trust Radius: What content can customers relate to better than content created by other customers? When you do awareness campaigns, reviews can make them more effective. To optimize customer reviews, ask questions that draw out your solution differentiators. Review can support lead generation activities by supporting buyer intent data, retargeting, content, nurture, website and landing pages. Adding reviews to a trial page increased conversions by 20%. Innovative Conversions Strategies  Anamaria Alba, Dell Technologies: Dell needed something that would break through the noise and get the attention of IT buyers. The solution was to develop a Tech Score to meet the need of getting truly qualified, high quality leads. A Tech Score is an interactive assessment oriented demand gen product that requires users to self identify pain points, providing them the right content at the right time. Using the Tech Score has resulted in 3X higher more ROI and 5-10% higher conversions. A Modular, Multi-Touch Approach To Campaign Strategy Christine Cornwell - Equifax: Start with evergreen high value content, then figure out how you can pull it apart into snackable formats and work with your martech stack for publishing and promoting that content. Don’t retire content, reuse it.

Katie Fisher - JLL:  Use a platform like Adobe to organize content, repurposing, and syndication. Be sure to listen to and learn from your partners about what’s reasonable and impactful for your marketing.

The Power of Experiential B2B Content Ryan Brown - Ceros: If the goal for marketers is to create things that are memorable to people, we must realize how much opportunity there is to avoid the mediocre middle. To start on the experiential content journey create content by thinking about what experience you want your customers to have, vs. making content and then adding experiential elements to it.

Darios Eslami - VMware Cabon Black: Experiential content is not just for prospect engagement but it’s a great internal tool to make you think about how you’re delivering all of your content. Commitment to thoughtful marketing, engaging opportunities and experiential content. If we can’t invest time into great experiences for our clients we can’t expect them to give us their time back. Sharon Shapiro & Paige Gildner - Bluecore: Experiential content is at the intersection of content an design. It’s essential to engage content and design early and often on programs. With experiential content, you have access to data about how users interact with elements of a content experience. From those data insights, future experiential content can be customized according to customer preferences. Josh Nite liveblogged the Experiential Content session here. A huge thank you to Andrew Gaffney and the team at B2B Marketing Exchange for the opportunity to present at this excellent event. The Scottsdale, Arizona location, the presentation content, the food, the full exhibit hall and after conference networking events were all first rate. B2B Marketing is not a place for marketers to "coast" and staying relevant means investing in education like B2BMX and expertise like the fountain of knowledge found amongst long time B2B marketing specialists like TopRank Marketing.

Eight More Event Opportunities to Boost Your B2B Marketing Smarts in 2020

March 9, 2020 Webinar Panel Are you ready to transform your B2B marketing? Featuring Joel Harrison for B2B Marketing, Doug Kessler from Velocity Partners, Me, and Mark Bornstein from ON24 Registration info here

March 19, 2020 Convergence Summit Minneapolis Lunch Keynote: In Search of Trust: How Authentic Content Drives Customer Experience Agenda and registration info March 24, 2020 Pubcon Florida B2B Influencer Marketing Workshop Register here March 25, 2020 Webinar Top B2B Marketing Challenges, Trends and Best Practices for 2020 Register here

April 22, 2020 - ContentTECH Summit How to Optimize Content Performance with Influence  Session info and register here

April 23rd, 2020 - Content Marketing Conference How to Optimize Customer Experience with SEO and Influence Conference info and register here May 13 - 14, 2020 - Ceros Experience Matters How to Optimize for Customer Experience with Interactive Content Event and registration info here May 27-28, 2020 - B2B Ignite USA Keynote - In Marketing We Trust: How to build influence with the C-Suite and on the street Conference agenda and registration info here If you're going to attend any of these B2B marketing events, be sure to reach out beforehand, I'd love to connect.

The post B2BMX 2020 Wrap Up: B2B Marketing Evolved appeared first on Online Marketing Blog - TopRank®.

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Why Your B2B Company Needs a Loyalty Program

Loyalty initiatives have been traditionally considered a better fit in the B2C rather than B2B space. With long, complex sales cycles and buyers that aren’t as responsive to discounts and coupons, many B2B marketers have rejected the concept of loyalty programs. However, due to increased competition and price wars, B2B companies are realizing the value in investing in loyalty. Let’s take a look at the reasons more and more B2B companies are turning to loyalty to help them attract and retain customers and some of the tactics they are using. 

Incentivize customers and increase retention

Customer churn can cause serious concern for B2B businesses. Despite having a lower number of customers compared to B2C businesses, B2B transaction value is much higher. This is because B2B customers are likely to order in bulk and are tied into longer term contracts and subscriptions.

Retaining customers and keeping them satisfied is a huge priority. Forrester Research says that a 2% increase in customer retention has the same effect on profits as a 10% cost cut, and the average company loses 10% of customers every year. Customers need to be incentivized to repeat purchase from your company. Forrester Research recommends B2B marketers develop an engagement plan featuring a mix of rewards falling into three categories:

• Material rewards that incent and reinforce desired behaviors

• Experiential benefits that engage channel partners, customers, and end users alike

• Recognition and customer acknowledgement that appeals to advocates

Differentiate and attract

B2B companies have fewer customers than retailers and brands, and the cost to acquire new customers is considerably higher than in the B2C markets. This is because customer segments are narrow, and competition is extremely fierce.

In a study Google conducted with CEB, 86% of B2B buyers perceived no significant difference between competing company products. When products are non-differentiated it can be difficult to communicate competitive advantage, and as a result, many B2B businesses engage in price wars in an attempt to win market share. According to B2B International, 80% of business-to-business buyers do not prioritize price. This means that price-focused businesses do not appeal to the majority of B2B buyers. In order to avoid competing on price, B2B companies need to be very targeted in their marketing efforts and build in ways to add more customer value. A loyalty program that adds true value to the target customer can set your business apart.

Reward for referrals

Referrals are extremely important in B2B customer acquisition. 84% of B2B buyers start the purchasing process with a referral, and peer recommendations influence more than 90% of all B2B buying decisions.

By implementing a robust loyalty program, you can motivate and encourage customers to become more active and engaged with your brand. Make referrals easy for already satisfied customers by building a referral program into your loyalty initiative that rewards existing customers for successful new business opportunities.

Capture data and personalize experiences

Using data effectively allows B2B marketers to understand their accounts better and target them with more relevant and personalized communications and experiences.

B2B companies are finding value in adopting data and analytics to drive marketing efforts and identify customer needs. According to a survey of B2B marketers by Dimensional Research, 70% of respondents use big data, historical information and predictive analytics to improve their marketing effectiveness.

Loyalty programs, such as those powered by CrowdTwist, capture not only transactional, but engagement data and use it to serve customers with relevant content, communications, and product recommendations.

Effective B2B tactics

Create customer tiers. By using a tiered loyalty program design, you can segment your customers based on contract size and value to your company and offer different rewards and perks at different tier levels.

Offer exclusive access. To build in value with B2B customers, offer exclusive access to new products, new enhancements, events or services.

Collect information. Motivate your most loyal customers to provide feedback on their level of satisfaction with your products and services through surveys and use this data to drive future enhancements.

Educate through content marketing. Utilize customer data to understand your customers’ specific business needs and create content that addresses their challenges and pain points. Customers will become more engaged and brand loyal when they feel that your company understands their business. Furthermore, educational content can also help B2B customers get further along in their career, helps strengthens the bond, and positions your company as a trusted content resource.

Provide discounts and perks. Give customers incentive to repeat purchase from your company by offering valuable rewards such as shipping discounts, free products and % off orders. By offering these incentives to your more valuable accounts, you can drive brand advocacy and referrals.

Offer relevant rewards. Rewards also drive brand advocacy and referrals. Offer free products, or invitations to client dinners and events, conference passes and so on to your top, most influential customers.

Surprise and delight. This is where a B2B business with a great loyalty program and great customer service will really shine. Make your customers feel valued for every positive interaction with your company, whether it’s for promoting your business in their company news, or because they’ve just purchased an add-on product. Let them know they’re appreciated by surprising and delighting them with an unexpected perk or reward.

Conclusion

In the B2C world it’s easy to offer loyalty programs with membership perks and discounts to encourage repeat purchase and loyalty. In the B2B world, customer acquisition and retention challenges are very different. B2B businesses compete in their space based on the value they can add to keep their existing customers satisfied and attract new business. Effective use of data, personalization, and customized content helps set B2B businesses apart from competition and provide exceptional customer experiences. 

                                                              

In the experience economy, the walls between B2C and B2B are crumbling. What does this mean for digital marketers? Read “The Experience Economy Is Here: What That Means for Digital Marketers and How They Can Thrive.”

 

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