The Simple Truths About Happiness

The Simple Truths About Happiness written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

Marketing Podcast with Dr. Sophia Godkin

In this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, I interview Sophia Godkin. She’s a Health Psychologist, Happyologist, and Happiness, Relationship & Transformational Coach. She’s also the author of The 5-Minute Gratitude Journal: Give Thanks, Practice Positivity, Find Joy.

Questions I Ask Dr. Sophia Godkin:

• Will you give us a sense of your journey to becoming a happyologist?
• Why is it so simple yet so hard to decide to be happy?
• Does calling yourself a happyologist ever feel like you have a target on your back and you’re not allowed to have bad days?
• Can you make the connection between gratitude and happiness?
• Can you describe the 5-Minute Gratitude Journal and how it’s structured? And how do you suggest people use it?
• Do you attribute anything to the success of your book?
• What do you think about the relationship between work and happiness?
• What are a couple of things that you commonly tell people that they can start doing now to make a ‘happiness’ difference in their life?
• How do you begin your day?

More About Dr. Sophia Godkin:

• Dr. Sophia Godkin’s website – The Happiness Doctor
• The 5-Minute Gratitude Journal: Give Thanks, Practice Positivity, Find Joy

 

Like this show? Click on over and give us a review on iTunes, please!

This episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast is brought to you by .site.

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B2B Marketing News: How B2B Tech Marketing Is Changing, The Rising Influence of Online Communities, B2B Sales & Marketing Sharing Study, & Brand vs Direct Response Campaign Report

New Channels, Better Targeting: How B2B Tech Marketing Is Changing [Survey] 54 percent of global B2B marketers plan to use more marketing channels during 2021, and 51 percent say they are seeking out new ways to tell their brand's stories — two of several statistics of interest to digital marketers in newly-released report data from Spotify and WARC. MarketingProfs New Report Looks at the Rising Influence of Online Communities 77 percent of consumers say that online groups are the single most important communities in their lives, a trend that has increased during the pandemic, according to recently-released global survey data. Social Media Today Twitter announces paid Super Follows to let you charge for tweets Twitter has announced a selection of payment tools that will allow online publishers to provide exclusive content on the social platform, while a new Twitter Communities feature will bring topic-specific groups to the platform. The Verge Facebook Shares New Research into the Comparative Performance of Brand vs Direct Response Campaigns Facebook has published results from three-year examination of 500 brand and direct response (DR) marketing campaigns, detailing how effectiveness varies across industries and target audiences, the social media giant recently announced. Social Media Today 62% of People Say Customer Photos Influence Purchase Decisions Some 62 percent of consumers say they are more likely to make a purchase when they can first see customer photos and videos, according to recently-released survey data, also showing that other customer-created content also influences purchase decisions. Search Engine Journal Does ‘brand purpose’ messaging actually impact consumer behavior? 82 percent of consumers say that they would pay more to choose a brand that supports a cause that is important to them, and 43 percent say they would pay twice as much to support such brands, according to newly-released survey data of interest to digital marketers. Campaign US Brandwatch is acquired by Cision for $450M, creating a PR, marketing and social listening giant Communication and public relations giant Cision has acquired social media listening platform Brandwatch for $450 million, in a move that will also see BuzzSumo among Cision's properties, the firm recently announced. TechCrunch TikTok, Facebook Are America's Least-Trusted Platforms, 61% Want Tech Giants Regulated TikTok, Facebook, and Twitter were the least-trusted platforms among U.S. consumers, while Google, Amazon, Microsoft and Apple occupied the most-trusted spots, according to recently-released November 2020 survey data. MediaPost Google’s Message To The Ad Industry: We Won’t Build Our Own Third-Party Cookie Alternatives (And We Don’t Want You To Either) Search giant Google announced that it does not plan to implement alternative tracking methods once it ceases online tracking cookie support in its Chrome web browser, and voiced its disapproval of email-based tracking alternatives — moves that have caused advertising industry speculation about the future importance of first-party data among digital marketers. AdExchanger Fewer Than Half of B2B SMBs Report Shared KPIs for Marketing and Sales Ideal customer profiles (ICPs) are the least shared among sales and marketing teams, while regular joint meetings between the two departments are the most frequency activities shared, according to recently-released B2B marketing and sales collaboration survey data. MarketingCharts ON THE LIGHTER SIDE: A lighthearted look at “sustainability marketing” by Marketoonist Tom Fishburne — Marketoonist Trader Joe's, Great Value 'Most Loved Brands' — MediaPost TOPRANK MARKETING & CLIENTS IN THE NEWS:

• SAP — NBCUniversal, Ad Council, and SAP Execs on the Power of Purpose-Led Marketing — Adweek

Have you found your own key B2B marketing story from the past week of industry news? Please let us know in the comments below. Thank you for taking the time to join us for the TopRank Marketing B2B marketing news, and we hope that you'll return again next Friday for more of the week's most relevant B2B and digital marketing industry news. In the meantime, you can follow us at @toprank on Twitter for even more timely daily news.

The post B2B Marketing News: How B2B Tech Marketing Is Changing, The Rising Influence of Online Communities, B2B Sales & Marketing Sharing Study, & Brand vs Direct Response Campaign Report appeared first on B2B Marketing Blog - TopRank®.

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The Power of Rituals in The Workplace

The Power of Rituals in The Workplace written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

Marketing Podcast with Erica Keswin

In this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, I interview Erica Keswin. Erica is an expert in the business of working human. She helps top-of-the-class businesses, organizations, and individuals improve their performance by honoring relationships in every context. Erica is also the author of the book – Rituals Roadmap: The Human Way to Transform Everyday Routines into Workplace Magic.

Questions I Ask Erica Keswin:

• How do you bring the word “rituals” into a context like the workplace where it’s not generally used?
• Is it equally as effective for small businesses to think in terms of rituals as it is for larger organizations?
• What suggestions do you have for those individuals who have had their routines shaken up by COVID?
• What are some ritual examples you’re seeing in meetings that creatively make them more welcoming?
• How much of personal development should be ritualized?
• For any business just starting to implement rituals into their workplace, how do you make it authentic and consistent?
• Is there a typical place or department where ritual development and ritual maintenance should live in a company?
• Outside of the workplace, how would you suggest people bring rituals into their individual lives?
• What are some ideas for rituals for customers?

More About Erica Keswin:

• You can learn more about Erica here
• Rituals Roadmap: The Human Way to Transform Everyday Routines into Workplace Magic

 

Like this show? Click on over and give us a review on iTunes, please!

Layr is redefining the way businesses purchase and manage their commercial liability insurance by giving control of the process back to the business owner.

We are a modern tech-enabled insurance agency that has created an entirely new commercial insurance distribution model which allows businesses to quickly get the insurance they need, completely online, from trusted insurance carriers, all while paying for it monthly on a credit card. Learn more about Layr here.

 

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Leveraging The Profit First Methodology with Dan Dollevoet

Leveraging The Profit First Methodology with Dan Dollevoet written by Sara Nay read more at Duct Tape Marketing

 

 

Agency Spark Podcast with Dan Dollevoet

The Agency Spark Podcast, hosted by Sara Nay, is a collection of interviews from thought leaders in the marketing consultancy and agency space. Each episode is designed to spark ideas you can put into practice for your agency today.

In this episode of the Agency Spark Podcast, Sara interviews Dan Dollevoet. Dan is the COO and CFO of Exigo Business Solutions, an accounting and advisory firm. Dan provides virtual CFO services to Exigo’s clients and helps them experience profit through the implementation of Mike Michalowicz’s Profit First system.

Questions Sara asks Dan Dollevoet:

• What is the concept of Profit First?
• What’s the very first baby step someone should take when they’re moving into the Profit First system?
• If a business is currently not taking any profits today, how do you recommend getting to their Profit First percentage goal?
• What kind of advice would you give someone that realizes that their expenses need to be looked at further?
• Do you have any success stories with clients that you’ve helped install the system for?
• When would you say someone can implement Profit First on their own through reading the book versus where someone might need a professional to help guide them?

Where you can learn more about Dan Dollevoet:

• Learn more about Dan’s company: Exigo Business Solutions

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5 Payoffs B2B Marketers Win From Precision Pacing

How does having a proper pace make for better B2B marketing? Is there such a thing as an ideal pace when it comes to marketing efforts, and does it matter if you’re in a sprint or an ultra-marathon? Part of proper pacing is recognizing the length of your marketing race and maximizing your efforts to fully take advantage of each mile of the journey, whether its a short one-off campaign or a protracted always-on marathon. Knowing and implementing steady pacing are often-overlooked elements in long-term B2B marketing success, so let’s take a look at five ways they pay off.

1 — Burning The Marketing Candle at Both Ends Will Fizzle Out

It’s unfortunately all-too-common for marketers to engage in marketing efforts at an unsustainable pace, leading to burn-out, especially during the pandemic when the boundaries between professional and home life have narrowed or disappeared entirely. Since penning it in 1978, Neil Young’s iconic lyric, “It’s better to burn out than to fade away,” has been co-opted by countless people in all walks of life, including marketers and many in the frenetic technology sector. Our content marketing manager Nick Nelson shared how — from SEO and social to experiences and strategy — in our fast-paced digital world, B2B marketers can gain many benefits from slowing down. You'll find his collection of tips for avoiding burnout in, "In a Fast-Paced Digital World, B2B Marketers Can Benefit from Slowing Down." Marketers who overcook their pace sacrifice long-term success for short-term gains, and often fail to recognize the harm that comes from trying to sustain a pace that is beyond their ability. Operating at a pace that's too fast can take time away from important tasks in B2B marketing, such as getting to know your customers, as we looked at in "Create a Stellar Audience Experience By Slowing Down with These Tips from Ann Handley #CMWorld." [bctt tweet="We live in a fast-paced world. But slowing down our marketing efforts — from experience to strategy to social to SEO — can help brands differentiate and achieve more. @NickNelsonMN" username="toprank"]

2 — Steady Doesn’t Mean Glacial Pace

On the other hand, marketers who take too much of a wait-and-see approach, and get bogged down in labyrinths of overtly gratuitous procedures won’t be nimble enough to keep up with necessary changes. Today's marketing world undoubtedly rotates at a faster clip than ever before, so it is important for B2B marketers to keep up with the latest industry news and changes. Our own weekly TopRank Marketing B2B news, published every Friday, and numerous other industry news sources can help you stay on top of the swift marketing shifts our industry experiences, so that you can apply them to your own efforts. If you do find yourself in a marketing marathon, check out my "26.2 B2B Marathon Marketing Lessons" article, which shows that racing a marathon and running a successful marketing campaign have a surprising number of similarities — including 26.2 things they share in common. [bctt tweet="“If the marathon if a part-time interest, you will only get part-time results.” — Bill Rodgers @BillRodgersRACE " username="toprank"]

3 — Don’t Burn Out or Fade Away, Use Always-On Instead

What’s a B2B marketer to do, then, to keep from burning out with an unsustainable pace or losing any hope of winning the race using bogged down marketing? When someone says, “Always-on marketing,” what does it mean do you? It might be tempting to immediately relegate such an effort to the destined-for-burnout pacing category, yet in this case always-on doesn’t mean unsustainable. As our CEO Lee Odden has written, always-on influencer marketing is the practice of ongoing relationship-building, engagement and activation of a specified group of influencers to build community, content and brand advocacy. In fact, we've dedicated an entire series to the advantages of always-on marketing:

• • Always On Influence: Definition and Why B2B Brands Need it to Succeed
  • Always-On Influence: 5 Examples of Ongoing B2B Influencer Marketing In Action
  • Always On Influence: Short Term vs. Long Term for Success During a Crisis
  • Always-On Influence: Why B2B Needs Brand Research
  • Always-On Influencer Marketing: Building Thought Leadership for B2B Brands
  • For Successful B2B Marketers The Engine of Influence is Always On #B2BIMReport

[bctt tweet="“Continuously listen to your audience and adjust your strategy to better meet their needs.” — Ann Handley @annhandley" username="toprank"]

4 — A Lifetime Network of Trusted Partners & Associates

Marketing efforts that move at a healthy pace foster a lifetime network of trusted partners and associates, and provide a wide range of benefits that improve our lives on both a professional and personal level. Marketers operating at a pace they aren't able to sustain often not only produce sub-par work, but don't have the time to develop trusting relationships with a network of marketing industry professionals. B2B marketing especially is about the longer haul, and building and nourishing relationships over time is an important part of success. Proper pacing helps us not only have time to get to know each other over time, but also to learn more about our customers, and to gain empathy for their challenges. Microsoft’s Miri Rodriguez recently shared how empathy, creativity, authenticity, and heart are key to great storytelling, as I covered in "Microsoft’s Miri Rodriguez on How B2B Marketers Are Embracing Empathy For Better Customer Storytelling #B2BMX." Such goals are made possible only when we purposely adjust our pace and dedicate time to building connections and learning about our customers. [bctt tweet="“A long term, relationship focused and results driven influencer program is a tremendous asset to a B2B brand that wants to be trusted, capable of exerting influence in the market and seen as a thought leader.” @LeeOdden" username="toprank"]

5 — Marketing Fitness from Healthy & Sustainable Long-Term Pacing

It pays off when B2B marketers practice a type of marketing fitness that is a necessary ingredient to healthy and sustainable long-term pacing. Just as it's possible to gauge the level of our own personal fitness, we can also measure the health of our marketing efforts, by looking at the previous four elements we've explored in this article. Healthy marketing is sustainable for the long-term, and can be achieved when we adjust our professional and personal pacing to match our abilities and goals. Lee has spoken and written extensively about marketing fitness, including the following pieces:

• B2B Marketing Fitness: 16 B2B Experts Share Top Tips for Optimized Performance #mpb2b
• Lee Odden Shares His Secret to Content Marketing Fitness #CMWorld
• Content Marketing Fitness: Are You Ready to Integrate, Optimize and Activate?

[bctt tweet="“Healthy marketing is sustainable for the long-term, and can be achieved when we adjust our professional and personal pacing to match our abilities and goals.” — Lane R. Ellis @lanerellis" username="toprank"]

Add Precision Pacing To Your B2B Marketing Slate

via GIPHY By being mindful of moving too slowly or quickly, B2B marketers can reap the rewards and benefits of a sustainable always-on cadence that includes a lifetime of trusted partners. Add precision pacing to your own marketing slate and you'll find a lifetime of B2B marketing opportunities await you. Creating award-winning B2B marketing takes considerable time and effort, which is why many firms choose to work with a top digital marketing agency such as TopRank Marketing. Contact us today and let us know how we can help, as we’ve done for businesses ranging from LinkedIn, Dell and 3M to Adobe, Oracle, monday.com and others.

The post 5 Payoffs B2B Marketers Win From Precision Pacing appeared first on B2B Marketing Blog - TopRank®.

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5 B2C Content Marketing Techniques that B2B Marketers Should Steal (And 5 They Shouldn’t Touch)

B2B marketers, are we over the B2C envy yet? We used to have a legitimate reason to be envious. B2C marketers got to be more creative, personal, emotional, and interactive. We were stuck with dry, logical appeals with no-frills presentation. These days, though, B2B marketers can be just as dynamic and creative as our B2C counterparts. And we not only can, we should. Yet we still hear that drumbeat: “B2B marketing needs to be more like B2C.”  Does it really? I would argue yes, but only to a certain point. B2B is its own discipline with its own best practices. There are a few recent developments in B2C that we should borrow, but there are just as many strategies and tactics that don’t translate as well. In the interest of continually evolving B2B marketing to be more sophisticated, more useful, and more effective: Here are five B2C trends to steal, and five to leave to our esteemed peers on the other side.

5 B2C Content Marketing Techniques to Steal — And 5 to Leave Alone

The central thesis for using B2C techniques in B2B is the realization that there’s no such thing as a “B2B buyer.” They’re not a distinct species. People are people, whether they’re at work or at home. As the lines between home life and work life continue to blur, that distinction gets even fuzzier. However, that doesn’t mean we need to take on B2C techniques that don’t work, or don’t work as well as what we’re already doing.

Steal These:

1 — Take a Stand Historically, B2B brands have stayed out of broader societal discussions. This is a holdover from the idea that B2B marketing should be exclusively logical, dealing with facts rather than emotion, delivered in a neutral tone. After all, why should B2B buyers care if their cloud server provider supports Black Lives Matter? Why not focus on your solution’s speed, bandwidth and low latency? Here’s why taking a stand matters: A recent study found that 77% of consumers buy from brands who share the same values as they do.  Another global study found consumers are four to six times more likely to purchase, protect and advocate for brands who have a larger purpose. In this climate, a neutral stance is more risky than taking a principled stand. We should point out that it’s not enough to talk about your brand’s values or put them in a mission statement. Consumers will be looking for consistent, meaningful action that expresses your values. 2 — Embrace Diversity I’m old enough to remember the first TV ad with a gay couple, way back in 1994. The controversy was enormous. But Ikea weathered the storm and continued to push for diversity of representation in their advertising. Over time, the rest of media gradually caught up with them. As a whole, B2B marketing hasn’t been as aware of diversity. How many old eBooks and white papers feature pictures that are overwhelmingly white and male? As the executive audience grows more diverse, we can’t afford the ongoing mental stereotype of a B2B buyer as a heterosexual, middle-aged white man.  As you select images for your marketing materials, look for the audiences you might be missing. We want people to see themselves in our content, recognize themselves as the target audience and be moved to action. If we fail at diverse representation, we’re locking out potential buyers. 3 — Be Visually Stunning It says a lot to me that one common unit of B2B marketing is the “white paper.” What a bland and utilitarian thing — it brings to mind a list of features and benefits in black text on a plain white page.  There’s no reason B2B marketing shouldn’t be beautiful to look at. General Electric’s Instagram proves that you can find gorgeous imagery in the most industrial settings. Communication company (and client) Mitel draws you into their latest interactive guide with a fanciful futuristic home office. In a quick-scrolling online world, brands need to have visually arresting content that grabs attention. 4 — Embrace Multimedia Friends, Romans, B2B marketers, I come here not to praise the static PDF but to bury it. There may still be a place for old-school gated eBooks, but their role should be a lot less prominent in a modern marketing environment. We have the ability to create video cheaply and easily. We have live-streams and podcasts, countless platforms with a quick click-to-publish. Our agency is seeing great success for clients with interactive assets like the Mitel one I linked above. Tools like Ceros make it easy for a designer to create something dynamic and engaging. What might have been just another PDF becomes an experience that unfolds, comes to life, and looks great on mobile and desktop alike.  At the very least, multimedia can serve to augment more traditional content. For example, our client Prophix turned a report into a long-scrolling, influencer-activated, bright and engaging power page. But they also provide a static download of the report in PDF form to cover all the bases. 5 — Get Personal I can bring to mind a dozen B2C ads that have made me either laugh or cry. The same can’t be said for B2B. Tim Washer’s Fast Innovation and the Slow Waiter ads are funny, but I can’t think of many more examples of ads that moved me on a personal level.  We can’t afford to hold people at arm’s length anymore, focusing on just the intersection of our solution and their workplace. The thing is, work is personal. What we do for a living is tied up in our identity, our sense of self, our security, our families, and our future. B2B marketers should feel empowered to address all of those entanglements, a whole person rather than a “B2B buyer.”

Let B2C Keep These:

1 — Transactional Influence  Influencer marketing in B2C tends to be more of an endorsement model. Whether it’s Kim Kardashian hawking beauty cream, or a micro-influencer holding an energy drink, the focus is bringing an audience’s attention to a product. For B2B, influence is more about providing value and building relationships. Influencer content shouldn’t be product-focused. It should be designed to highlight the influencer’s expertise, provide real utility, and strengthen the brand by association with credible and thoughtful content. 2 — Snarky Social Media Look, I love the ferocious sarcasm of the Wendy’s Twitter account as much as the next guy. Ditto the absurd and frequently bleak Moon Pie account. But that type of attention-grabbing, potentially off-putting weirdness only makes sense when your product costs less than $10.  B2B content should be emotional, human, and even humorous, but it should always aim to provide value. Leave the roasts, call-outs and memes to our B2C counterparts. 3 — Vanity Virality B2B marketing isn’t a numbers game anymore. It’s a relevance game. Would you rather have a million views on a video, but no conversions, or 500 views that lead to 100 closed sales? I don’t know many marketers who would pick the former. Yet we still tend to measure effectiveness in terms of numbers rather than relevance. We know that hitting the right audience is better than hitting the biggest possible audience — it’s high time we quit chasing vanity metrics. 4 — Every Channel Advertising Is your brand on TikTok? Instagram? Snapchat? LinkedIn? Facebook? Should you be? Better question: Where is your audience? If you find that your most valuable decision makers are on TikTok, fire away. If you never get any engagement on Facebook, let it fade away. B2B marketers should feel free to focus their efforts where they’re getting the most results. 5 — Top of Funnel Focus For many B2C brands, awareness is everything. Like the Moon Pie and Wendy’s examples above, it’s about keeping the brand top-of-mind for the next checkout-line impulse buy or fast-food lunch. You don’t see a lot of, say, 1500-word blog posts on why Wendy’s hamburgers are better than McDonald’s. Even as B2B content gets more creative, emotional, and personal, we can’t let lower-funnel content slide. B2B solutions are rarely impulse purchases; we need conversion content as well as awareness-building content.

Let B2B Be

I’ll admit it: Every time I see an awesome B2C ad, I do feel a little twinge of envy. There’s a degree of creative freedom in B2C that will never fly with a big B2B brand. At the same time, I’ve come to appreciate how B2B content can be deeper, more meaningful, and more useful than a lot of B2C can aspire to. So the next time you hear, “B2B marketing needs to be more like B2C,” take it with a grain or two of salt. As much as B2C gets the glory, B2B is its own discipline, and we get to blaze our own trail.

The post 5 B2C Content Marketing Techniques that B2B Marketers Should Steal (And 5 They Shouldn’t Touch) appeared first on B2B Marketing Blog - TopRank®.

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5 Ways B2B Marketers Sabotage Influencer Marketing Success

It is the nature of marketers to continuously evaluate the effectiveness of their efforts. The problem with this approach to marketing optimization is that it assumes effective execution of marketing strategies, which we all know, is often not the case. Poor execution is as often at fault of poor performance as the effectiveness or appropriateness of the tactic. For nearly 10 years we've been engaged in influencer collaboration for B2B content marketing programs and have worked with a wide range of B2B brands during that time. We've fielded multiple times that in inquiries and questions from B2B marketers about influencer marketing as well as conducting the first ever dedicated research study into B2B influencer marketing.  This depth of experience has provided unique and far reaching insight into how B2B brands understand and implement content marketing efforts in partnership with influencers - good, bad and otherwise. While the B2B marketing industry has evolved and become more sophisticated with influencer adoption rates on the rise, old habits and bad habits often remain.  Our focus on influence as a B2B marketing discipline has enabled us to identify the best practices as well as the ways in which B2B marketers continue to sabotage the success. Avoiding bad practices is a strong first step to ensuring investments in influencer marketing programs result in expected returns. Here are 5 of the most common things B2B marketers do to sabotage their influencer marketing success:

1. Waiting to Recruit

The best time to recruit an army is not on the first day of the war. That's probably not the best analogy, but approaching influencers as an afterthought vs. as part of the planning of a marketing effort is a big mistake. For B2B brands that are new to working with influencers, it is important to understand that influencer recruitment takes time (and skill). Being able to engage the right mix of influencers on a very short timeframe without pre-existing relationships is unlikely. That's a problem if a B2B marketing effort is counting on those influencers to add credibility and promotion to the campaign. Best practice: The time to start recruiting influencers is long before you need to activate them for a content collaboration. This is especially true where influencer engagement will be mostly or all organic vs. paid.  B2B marketers need to put their empathy hats on and think about how to create value and sense of urgency for the influencer through relationship building vs. thinking influencers are simply waiting to work for free when the B2B marketer emails them. There are ways to fast-track relationship building with influencers and we use those strategies regularly within our influencer marketing practice at TopRank Marketing. But doing so draws upon many years of experience, established processes, technology and strategy. Without that experience, B2B marketers should think about following, interacting with and creating value for influencers that they want to activate months in the future in order to get the highest quality contributions, and enthusiastic/authentic promotion.

2. Believing the Hype

Follower counts and ability to influence are not the same thing. With the popularity of influencer marketing across B2C and B2B industries, the attraction to boost network size exists for every person that identifies as an influencer. The reality is, within most B2B verticals, the most influential people don't always self promote themselves as influencers and may not even pay much attention to growing their networks. Instead, many people who are influential in a B2B industry are focused on doing the work. The lesson to learn is not to rely solely on social network size (fans, friends and followers) or overly self-promotional "influencers" since the hype simply doesn't translate into action in B2B. Best practice: Influence in B2B is based on real expertise, respect and third party validation by peers, communities, publications, professional organizations and often, academic institutions. This influence may be a mix of online; which is easier to validate with influencer software, and offline; which is harder to source and validate. Validate the influence of potential experts by qualifying the topics they are known for with how the communities they are expected to influence see them. Topical relevance, resonance with the community and reach are the basic data points for evaluating influencers. Having a million followers in B2B is very unique and that person could be a great match, but don't rely on network size alone to evaluate influencers. Do the homework to validate they are topically relevant to your audience and the campaign and that their audience is the audience your B2B brand wants to reach. Otherwise, you're wasting everyone's time.

3. Content Mismatch Creates Customer Confusion

B2B marketers may find an influencer that is topically relevant and has the audience the B2B brand needs to reach, but if the content vehicle the B2B brand uses to engage that audience isn't what the influencer is known for, it may not be trusted or create confusion, "Why is this person known for a podcast doing videos for a B2B brand I've never heard them talk about before?" Best practice: Identify influencers that are topically relevant and also take into consideration the brand mentions and content formats the influencer is most known for. Influencer marketing or social media software can help identify to what degree a potential influencer mentions your B2B brand. You can also see what content formats they publish most and that resonate best with their audiences. If a podcaster talks about Adobe in a positive way fairly often, then it makes sense to engage that influencer via a brand podcast for an Adobe content activation - assuming they are validated on expertise, topical relevance, resonance and reach of course.

4. Transactional Approach Leads to Little Action

Many B2B marketers view working with influencers through the lens of B2C, which has had much faster and greater adoption so far than in the business world. B2C influence engagements are almost always treated like an advertising buy where the value exchange is about paying an influencer to create content that is hosted and promoted on the influencer's own social channels. In B2B, many of the people that are most influential do not monetize their influencer through transactional value exchanges like we see in B2C. Their motivation for engaging in a collaboration on content with a B2B brand might be more about growing the influencer's own credibility and authority around a certain topic that they write books about, speak professionally about or provide consulting around. Therefore, B2B brands that treat influencer engagement purely as a transaction will often not get the reaction that they are looking for or not get the emotional investment needed to generate the most credible and authentic content creation/promotion that is needed. Best practice: Part of the influencer recruiting process is for B2B brands to make an effort to understand what motivates the influencer. Are they brandividuals that solely monetize through paid influencer engagements? Are they an industry expert whose credibility amongst peers would be elevated if they worked with your B2B brand? Are they a respected professional with a high quality audience that believes in the vision of your B2B brand and wants to be a part of it? Find out what the influencer is motivated by and how a collaboration with your B2B brand can help them achieve their goals. Then focus on creating a great experience for the influencer that is more meaningful than mechanical. If they care, they'll share!

5. Failure to Communicate

Effective communications is everything to a successful B2B influencer engagement. Whoever is responsible for directly engaging influencers and managing the relationships must have the ability to work with all types of people from high profile industry celebrities to introverted subject matter experts that don't identify as influencers at all - even though they are. Communications is also about every point of contact from how the influencer outreach is conducted to how activation asks are made to how ongoing engagement is done. Failure to communicate with empathy and relevance during the first outreach can turn influencers off as much as asking too much too soon or clearly not having done research on who the influencer is and what they are most passionate about. Best practice: Do the homework to understand influencers before doing outreach. Understand their motivations and how a collaboration will help the influencer vs. only thinking about what's in it for the B2B brand. Once an influencer has agreed to collaborate, make it easy and enjoyable for them to do so. Set expectations, be organized and helpful, share progress of the program and feedback about their contributions. Most of all, plan for some kind of ongoing communication to keep the relationship warm so the next activation is something the influencer looks forward to vs. only engaging influencers when you need them. There are many ways to do influencer marketing wrong in B2B, but these are some of the most common ways we see B2B marketers sabotaging their own success. It comes down to understanding that influencers are people with emotions, goals, problems and a desire to be part of something bigger than themselves. Successful Influencer Marketing is also a relationship business, not simply a transaction. When B2B marketers can add a greater level of expertise, empathy and skill to influencer engagement, they will often see how impressive the results for everyone involved can be.

The post 5 Ways B2B Marketers Sabotage Influencer Marketing Success appeared first on B2B Marketing Blog - TopRank®.

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