5-Steps to Attracting Only Dream Clients

5-Steps to Attracting Only Dream Clients written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

Craving a solid strategy to reel in profitable clients? You've landed at the right spot. This post will guide you through a strategic rethink of your marketing approach aimed at securing those top-tier clients. Let's set your business on the path to success.

Here are 5 actionable steps small business owners should take to build a more targeted marketing strategy that focuses on the top 20% of their clients:

• Identify your inspirational clients 
• Understand your golden trifecta
• Dig deeper into their challenges and needs
• Start repelling the wrong clients
• Formulate your marketing plan and strategy

1. Identify your inspirational clients

Every client is unique, but the best clients inspire us. As seasoned professionals, we've all had experiences with a range of clients. Some are simply a joy to work with; they appreciate the value we bring, respect our advice, and engage in a genuinely collaborative partnership. They inspire us to do our best work.

Conversely, there are clients who pose more significant challenges. And while these challenges can lead to growth, wouldn't it be wonderful to work primarily with clients who inspire us and contribute significantly to our bottom line?

Avoid the "All Things to All People" Trap

I've found that businesses often unwittingly fall into a trap. It's not a trap they've intentionally walked into - it's more of a pit they've stumbled into. That pit is what I like to call the "all-things-to-all-people" trap. Does that sound familiar?

Being all things to all people can lead to inconsistent engagements, value, and, most importantly, inconsistent profitability. 

Reflect on your past and current client roster, and identify your ideal clients who inspire you the most. They are usually those who appreciate your value, respect your expertise, and engage with you in a collaborative manner. Make a list of these clients and note down the characteristics that make them stand out.

2. Understand your golden trifecta

I'm here to tell you that there's a better way. In fact, there's a strategic way to avoid this trap. It starts with identifying your top 20% of clients, but it's not just about sales volume. We're looking at a bigger picture here - profitability, experience, and referrals. The golden trifecta, if you will.

My experience tells me that the clients who are profitable and refer you to others are likely your top 20%. So, what do we need to know about them? Make a list of…

• Which clients generate the most profit?
• Which clients consistently provide a positive working experience?
• Which clients frequently refer your business to others?

Download our AI Prompts for Building a Marketing Strategy

This toolkit can help you develop a complete marketing strategy to attract your best customers. It's a step-by-step approach designed to boost your marketing efforts, enhance customer retention, increase online visibility, and improve ROI.

Your marketing strategy should be the backbone of your business - a roadmap leading you toward your growth goals. By identifying your ideal customers, creating consistent branding, and tracking your performance, you can start working smarter, not harder.

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3. Dig deeper into their challenges and needs

Once you've identified your top clients, the next step is to understand them better. What challenges do they face? What problems are they trying to solve? Why did they choose your business over your competitors? The answers to these questions can give you valuable insights into what attracts these clients to your business.

4. Start repelling the wrong clients

The beauty of this approach is that it allows you to refine your marketing strategy. You're not just attracting more clients - you're attracting the right clients. This simple shift can instantly make your business more profitable, reduce the amount of work you're chasing, and even help you repel the clients that aren't a good fit for your business. Yes, that's right - sometimes repelling clients can be a good thing.

Trying to be everything to everyone confuses everyone - including you and your team. It doesn't attract the right clients, and it makes it challenging to create a predictable customer journey with your marketing. It's difficult to understand the behaviors that attract the right clients and even more challenging to retain clients and get referrals unless you're working with the right people.

The bottom line is, working with the wrong client, working with an unprofitable client, or a client that you've underpriced and therefore can't deliver value to, isn't just frustrating - it's costing you more than it's worth.

With a clear understanding of what attracts your top clients, you now need to refine your marketing messages to attract more of these clients and repel the wrong ones. Your marketing messages should communicate the unique value you provide that addresses your top clients' specific challenges and needs. This doesn't necessarily mean turning away business but rather focusing your energy and resources on attracting clients that are the best fit for your business. Following these 5 rules, can help you attract the right clients to scale your business.

5. Formulate your marketing plan and strategy

As a part of your marketing strategy, I invite you to take some time to identify the top 20% of your clients. It's a simple but powerful exercise. What you might find is that this select group of clients would happily do more business with you - in fact, some might even do ten times more business with you. There's a huge potential for growth and building momentum with these clients, compared to the occasional one-off projects or clients who just stumbled upon you.

Use the insights gained from the above steps to shape your marketing strategy. The strategy should aim to attract more of your top 20% clients. Consider the marketing channels they use, the type of content they engage with, and the language and tone that resonates with them. Also, remember to adjust your pricing if necessary to reflect the value you're providing.

Remember, this process is iterative. As your business grows and evolves, so too will your top 20% clients. Regularly revisit these steps to ensure your marketing strategy remains focused on attracting the most profitable and satisfying clients for your business.

 

I understand that developing a complete marketing plan can be overwhelming, but we're here to help. You can download our AI Prompts for Developing a Comprehensive Marketing Strategy. Better yet, if you'd rather we handle the strategizing for you, book a call with us.

At the end of the day, your marketing strategy is not just about getting clients; it's about attracting the right clients. And those right clients? They're the ones who will drive your business forward, contribute to its growth, and genuinely value what you do.

Let's stop being all things to all people and start being everything to the right people.

 

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How Creativity Is a Force Multiplier for B2B Marketing

There’s always been an uneasy truce between creativity and commerce. We accuse financially successful artists of ‘selling out.’ We’re wary of sponsored content and product placement in our favorite TV shows and movies. In general, we think of creativity as an artistic pursuit, unconcerned with the practicalities of the business world. And we think of business as the opposite: Concrete, practical and pragmatic.

But it’s that kind of thinking that leads to astoundingly boring B2B marketing. If we see creativity and business as opposing or unrelated forces, rather than complementary elements, we’re not going to inspire our audience. 

Creative B2B marketing isn’t just more fun to create and more fun to consume: It’s directly related to better business results.

Measurable. Business. Results. 

And I don’t mean that lightly sprinkling some ‘creativity’ dust on top of a campaign leads to a minor boost. I’m talking about a 10-20x effectiveness multiplier.

Here’s how creativity elevates B2B marketing to win awards AND new customers.

 

Why creativity is a force multiplier for B2B Marketing

Anecdotally, it’s easy to make a case for creativity. I remember creative ads more clearly than the boring ones. If you engage my emotions—make me laugh, cry, get queasy—I’ll remember your brand. For example, Lamisil’s commercial with the little fungus monster lifting up a toenail and burrowing under it is forever seared into my consciousness.

I’ll spare you an embedded video. Search youtube if you’re morbidly curious.

But we do actually have some hard data to back up the claim. The folks at The B2B Institute at LinkedIn joined forces with a data analysis company called System1 to analyze 1700+ B2B ads. The results: Exceptionally creative ads get 10x the market share compared to the dull or status quo ones. 

It’s lovely when the right thing to do (make more creative marketing that inspires, entertains and informs) is also the financially expedient thing to do. 

Here’s how we can make that business case for creativity.

Let’s keep it positive: There’s plenty of room for improvement!

I have been thrilled to work during a creative renaissance in B2B marketing. TopRank Marketing has been pushing boundaries with eye-popping comic books, colorful social-first campaigns, and engrossing podcasts. 

But as cool as some of these campaigns are, creative campaigns are still more an exception than a norm. The B2B Institute study rated ads on a creativity scale of 1-5 stars.

One half of one percent scored in the 4-5 star range. Over 3/4ths – 77% – scored one star. Those 4-5 star ads saw an average of 2.5% market share growth. The low performers were around .25%.

That’s a 10x difference. 

And 99.5% of B2B marketing is missing out. 

Creativity lets you live rent-free in your future buyers’ heads

Creative top-of-funnel ads are a direct investment in future income. LinkedIn’s research shows that 95% of your potential audience isn’t currently in the market. It isn’t about convincing them to suddenly enter the market. It’s about holding mental real estate until they’re ready to buy.

We call this concept “mental availability.” 

For example, when I think of marketing email automation (as I’m sure we all do multiple times a day), I think of MailChimp. Well, first I think of JailBlimp, and probably FailChip or WhaleSynth, and then I think of MailChimp. Their intensely creative—borderline bizarre—advertising has 100% colonized the space in my brain for automation tools.

It’s easy to see how mental availability through creativity is valuable for brands. The only problem is that our traditional marketing metrics aren’t set up to measure that value.

New metrics for creativity in B2B

How can marketers tell if their ads are creating mental availability? We’re going to have to dig deeper than likes, shares and web traffic (though these metrics can still tell us how our work is resonating in the moment). The B2B Institute recommends four new ways to measure. It may take some outside help to get measurement up and running, but it’s well worth the trouble. 

First, how memorable is your content? Did it attract initial attention? Do people still remember it days or weeks later? This metric is called recognition, or “cut-through.”

Second is recall. I’ll confess that when I remembered the toe-gremlin ad, I didn’t remember the brand it was associated with. That’s a major red flag for a marketer. Recall measures whether your brand is actually associated with the memory.

Third, did people actually like the content? I vividly remember the Pepsi commercial where Kendall Jenner gives a flower to the police at a protest… but the association isn’t positive. Likeability measures the sentiment associated with the ad. 

Finally, did the content get across a clear message? Clarity measures whether people got the right takeaway from your content. For example, most Gen X-ers remember the “This Is Your Brain on Drugs” ad that featured an egg in a frying pan. But at the time, older folks started buying fewer eggs—they only remembered that eggs and drugs were associated, and so both must be bad.

Recognition, recall, likeability and clarity: Four ways to measure the business impact that creativity has on your marketing. Mastering these metrics can help you make a business case for the kind of elevated, creative, emotionally resonant B2B content that gets results.

TopRank Marketing is in the business of elevating B2B marketing for global enterprise brands. Contact us to join the movement.

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Elevate B2B Marketing News Weekly Roundup: Threads Get Branded Content Tools & B2B Marketing Spend To Top Pre-Pandemic Rates

LinkedIn is the social platform of choice for B2B marketers worldwide
80 percent of B2B marketers and their clients have said that LinkedIn is their most-used social platform, followed by YouTube at 60 percent, Facebook at 57 percent, Instagram at 52 percent, and Twitter at some 39 percent, with 22.3 percent of all U.S. adults expected to use LinkedIn during 2023, according to newly-published report data. Insider Intelligence

B2B Marketers Tout Social Media’s Influence in the Buyer Journey
Social media and email were the leading tactics when it came to reaching both top and bottom-of-funnel goals, with in-person, live events, video, interactive content, and influencer marketing also among the most effective approaches in top-of-funnel activity — some of the findings shown within recently-released study data of interest to B2B marketers. MarketingCharts

Threads isn’t just growing fast—its users are also more engaged than on Twitter
87 percent of the analyzed brands active on Meta’s recently-launched Threads social media app — which has gained an estimated 110 million users since first taking publish user sign-ups on July 5 — reported better engagement than their efforts on rival Twitter’s platform, according to newly-published survey results. QZ

80% of marketers deem creative quality key to marketing effectiveness [Survey]
When it comes to the effectiveness of creative in marketing, 14.2 percent of brand-side marketers have said that they consider it the single most important element, with 80.5 percent pointing to creative as one of the most influential factors in marketing campaign effectiveness — two of numerous findings of interest to B2B marketers contained in Marketing Week’s recently-released Language of Effectiveness survey. Marketing Week

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“Marketers are putting more focus on the quality of their creative in a tough economic environment where standing out has never been more important.” — Josh Stephenson of @MarketingWeekEd
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Marketers Now Say Generative AI is the Most Important Consumer Trend of the Year
A leading 59 percent of marketing industry professionals have said that generative AI was the most important consumer trend in 2023, with 57 percent having pointed to social video and TikTok, and 48 percent having chosen connected television (CTV) and streaming, with the Metaverse coming in down the list at 20 percent, according to newly-pubished 2023 trend survey data of interest to digital marketers. MarketingCharts

Threads Reaches 100 Million Members in Record Time
Meta’s Twitter-like app Threads has dethroned ChatGPT as the swiftest app to reach the 100 million user mark, topping the generative AI app’s previous record two-month rise to the benchmark in only five days, according to third-party user track firm data. Social Media Today

Google Calls For Public Discussion On AI Use Of Web Content
Search giant Google has sought to open new public dialog and conversations surrounding how the firm, the technology sector, and civilization as a whole can best address the future of skyrocketing generative AI use, and how Google should incorporate web data within AI training models, the firm recently announced. Search Engine Journal

B2B Marketers Outline Their Biggest Challenges [Survey]
43 percent of B2B marketers have said that finding and targeting the right audience for marketing campaigns will be their biggest challenge over the next three years, with 39 percent pointing to the need to balancing digital with traditional channels, and some 36 percent noting data privacy regulations and related-concerns — three of several statistics of interest to B2B marketers contained in newly-publish marketing obstacle survey results. MarketingCharts

Scoop: Branded content tools coming to Threads
While full-blown advertising has yet to arrive as an option on Meta’s new Threads app, Instagram has rolled out branded content tools that offer certain influencer and paid promotional opportunities on the nascent social platform in the interim, Meta recently announced. Axios

US B2B Marketing and Advertising Spend Set to Outpace Pre-Pandemic Levels This Year
Overall U.S. digital and offline B2B marketing and advertising spending was expected to top pre-pandemic marks during 2023 — something online advertising by itself has already done during each of the years since 2019, with some $53.7 billion in combined online and offline spending forecast by the end of 2023, reaching $69.3 billion by 2026, according to newly-published B2B marketing forecast report data. MarketingCharts

ON THE LIGHTER SIDE:

A lighthearted look at the “spam, spam, spam” by Marketoonist Tom Fishburne — Marketoonist

Amazon Prime Day Glitch Offers Controlling Stake In Company For $24.99 — Adweek

TOPRANK MARKETING & CLIENTS IN THE NEWS:

• Nick Nelson — This Week in Marketing: Going Long — LinkedIn (client)
• Lee Odden — The Top 100 Marketing Influencers to Follow in 2023 — Relevance
• TopRank Marketing — Top 10 Best LinkedIn Advertising Agencies — Wealth Ideas

FRIDAY FIVE B2B MARKETING FAVORITES TO FOLLOW:

Viveka Von Rosen @LinkedInExpert
Bernie Borges @bernieborges
Zari Venhaus @zvenhaus
Andrew Davis @DrewDavisHere
Cathy McKnight @cathymcknight

Learn more about TopRank Marketing‘s mission to help elevate the B2B marketing industry.

Have you come across your own key B2B marketing news item that we haven’t yet covered? If so, please don’t hesitate to drop us a line in the comments below.

Thank you for taking the time to join us for this week’s edition of the Elevate B2B Marketing News, and we hope that you will return next Friday for another array of the most up-to-date and relevant B2B and digital marketing industry news. In the meantime, you can follow us on our LinkedIn page, or at @toprank on Twitter for even more timely daily news.

The post Elevate B2B Marketing News Weekly Roundup: Threads Get Branded Content Tools & B2B Marketing Spend To Top Pre-Pandemic Rates appeared first on B2B Marketing Blog - TopRank®.

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Weekend Favs July 15

Weekend Favs July 15 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 I took on the road.

• Elai.io – An SaaS platform that helps you build customized AI videos with a presenter in minutes from just text.
  
• Poe – Poe is a platform that lets people ask questions, get instant answers, and have back-and-forth conversations with a range of AI bots such as ChatGPT, GPT-4, Claude, etc.
• Beethoven.ai – This platform uses advanced AI music generation techniques to compose unique mood-based music to suit every part of your videos or podcasts.
  
  

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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Creativity’s Rising Role in B2B Marketing

Why has 2023 seen creativity come to the forefront in B2B marketing like no other year?

In the face of skyrocketing use of generative AI technologies, creativity is standing out more than ever, as it represents the very essence of what people bring to marketing that AI on its own can’t.

While some AI tools can certainly help B2B marketers better realize their creative efforts, the power of the human touch is undeniable, and it is serving as a growing differentiator between mediocre marketing efforts and those five-star creative efforts that sparkle and delight brand audiences.

Let’s take a look at some of the ways that creativity is blossoming in B2B marketing in 2023.

1 — In B2B Marketing Team Creativity & Ideas Reign

B2B marketers are looking to feed off competitive momentum and focus conversations using creativity, and keeping it sincere when it comes to brand activism, while making sure to avoid all hints of opportunism.

Some marketers and brands are also pulling back from an over-investment in technology that has taken a certain amount of focus away from creativity.

“I think in marketing you are only as good as the creativity of your team and your ideas,” Judy Tian, senior brand marketing manager at LinkedIn* observed. “The more voices that we bring to the table and the more proactiveness and willingness of everyone contributing ideas, the better off your marketing campaigns will be,” Judy added.

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“I think in marketing you are only as good as the creativity of your team and your ideas.” — Judy Tian of @LinkedIn
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When the post-pandemic energy was released into the B2B marketing world, the floodgates of creativity opened and drove an increased focus on the kind of  campaigns that connect brand and customer in deeper and more meaningful ways — and creativity through storytelling plays a important role in those efforts.

Powerful storytelling only happens in the B2B space when marketers tell their stories for their audiences, and not to them — ideally with empathy, creativity, authenticity, and heart, as Miri Rodriguez, senior storyteller future of work at Microsoft shared in “Microsoft’s Miri Rodriguez on How B2B Marketers Are Embracing Empathy For Better Customer Storytelling.”

2 — Differentiating Through Creativity That Is Relevant To B2B Audiences

Raja Rajamannar, chief marketing and communications officer and president at Mastercard has shared the firm’s embrace of radical changes in marketing and advertising, sharing how the human elements that incorporate influence provide the differentiation that is needed more than ever in 2023.

“Since digital marketing began, the dependency on technology and data has become so intense that people started regarding anything creative as unnecessary or fluffy,” Rajamannar shared with The Association of National Advertisers (ANA).

“But the reality is that technology and data will level the playing field, so a company can no longer compete on just its product features or benefits or pricing or distribution network. You are going to have to differentiate yourself through creativity that is relevant to human beings,” Rajamannar suggested.

Additionally, the most successful firms utilizing content marketing tend to place a higher value on the attribute of creativity, a trait 92 percent of top content marketers said their organization sees as helping to craft successful content, while just 63 percent at lower-performing organizations strongly value such creativity in content marketing, according to Content Marketing Institute (CMI) data.

Indeed, 56 percent of marketers have said that creativity is the most important skill required for navigating uncertain times, according to LinkedIn data.

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“AI is opening the door to new ideas, new executions, and new visuals that I may not have come up with on my own. It's expanding my creative palette, not just saving me time.” — Chris Lavigne @crlvideo
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With the B2B sector representing over 50 percent of the economy, as B2B brands increasingly begin utilizing more B2C-like marketing efforts, the role and importance of creativity in B2B has natural risen.

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“Though some might think b-to-b is all about technology and targeting, our research suggests that creativity is where you can find the biggest competitive edge.” — Peter Weinberg & @JonLombardo
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3 — AI Can Play A Role In B2B Marketing Creativity

Our own CEO Lee Odden recently delivered a fascinating keynote about AI’s impact on B2B marketing, presenting “Human vs Machine: The Future of B2B Content Marketing” during the BtoB Summit Paris 2023 conference.

Lee explained how generative AI essentially “makes you more of what you already are,” with poor content simply being turned into even more sub-par content if that’s what a marketer brings to the AI table, while those who instead present creativity and imagination to AI tools will be rewarded with even more top quality B2B marketing content that is creative and imaginative.

As the team at Think With Google has pointed out in its weekly “big topic,” it’s more a matter of AI plus creativity, and not AI versus creativity.

Creativity is playing an even more important role in B2B marketing in the age of generative AI, simultaneously helping to increase brand awareness and drive profitability.

Tyrona Heath, director of market engagement at The B2B Institute at LinkedIn, shared some of the many ways that creativity adds value to today’s B2B marketing efforts, in “B2B advertising doesn’t need to be boring: why creativity is a key driver of profitability.”

“Creativity plays a significant role in building and expanding your brand size,” Heath suggested.

“It leads to increased brand recognition, differentiation, customer loyalty, and ultimately having a larger market presence. And investing in creativity has a positive impact on financial performance because it serves as a multiplier,” Heath added.

4 — Take B2B Marketing To The Next Level With Creativity

In 2023, generative AI and creativity may initially appear as two completely different endeavors, however both offer compelling justifications for B2B marketers to use, especially when each is factored into the other’s strategy.

The future of B2B marketing is poised to feature a uniquely human touch optimized with AI for creative storytelling, and as new tools proliferate at a breakneck pace, it’s the marketers who embrace both AI and creativity who stand to see the greatest successes in 2023 and beyond.

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“The future of B2B marketing is poised to feature a uniquely human touch optimized with AI for creative storytelling.” — Lane R. Ellis @lanerellis
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We hope you’ve found some of the insight we’ve shared here on the rising role of creativity in B2B marketing helping, and that you’ll be able to put these take-aways to use in your own B2B efforts.

More than ever before, crafting creative 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. Contact us today 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.

* LinkedIn is a TopRank Marketing client.

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Differentiating B2B Marketing Mediocrity from Marketing Excellence

We talk a lot about elevating B2B marketing on this blog, but we don’t always provide side by side examples of what approaches work and which ones don’t. What separates mediocre marketing from marketing excellence in B2B campaigns?

The short answer is: a lot. And certainly there is more that separates the good from the bad than could ever be covered by a single blog post. But to get you started, there are four main categories to consider when evaluating your marketing approach.

Let’s take a look at four factors that differentiate mediocre marketing from marketing excellence.

1 — Lazy vs. thoughtful

Is it harsh to call mediocre marketing lazy? Maybe. But I can tell you this: the opposite of genuine thought and effort is laziness.

What exactly does it mean to be lazy in marketing?

One version of lazy marketing is collateral that goes into detail about statistics, product features, or some other data the brand wants to tell you about and… they leave it at that. Aren’t these features great? Isn’t that statistic interesting? Sure, maybe. But also: so what?

If you don’t explain to me why your statistics or product features matter to me specifically, you have only done half the job. That’s where thoughtfulness comes in: tell me what your specific bits of data have to do with me. Talk me through how my day-to-day problems are solved by your product. Show me you have thought about me and I’m way more apt to act.

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“Talk me through how my day-to-day problems are solved by your product. Show me you have thought about me and I’m way more apt to act.” — Art Allen @punsultant
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2 — Boring vs. creative

The idea that only B2C marketing can be creative and B2B marketing has to be boring is dead. And it has been for a while! In fact, creativity in B2B marketing is so well developed that there are now awards honoring the best of the best.

Don’t worry too much about coming up with the most creative idea anyone has ever seen. This isn’t about writing the Great American Novel, it’s just about making your marketing content more enjoyable for your audience. Enjoyable content keeps people around, and creative content is generally more fun to consume.

But just being fun and creative isn’t enough. Over at LinkedIn, Alexandra Rynne recently wrote, “It feels good as a B2B marketer to make cool stuff. Yet if we’re only making cool stuff for cool stuff’s sake, we’re going to end up back at boring whitepapers (gasp!) touting features and benefits.” Now it’s not only boring, we’re getting into lazy territory. Double trouble!

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“It feels good as a B2B marketer to make cool stuff. Yet if we’re only making cool stuff for cool stuff’s sake, we’re going to end up back at boring whitepapers (gasp!) touting features and benefits.” — Alexandra Rynne @amrynnie
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3 — Brand-only vs. Influencer marketing

Does your audience trust you? If you’re trying to reach new customers, chances are gaining their trust is an uphill battle — which is to say no, they don’t trust you.

If you come to these new potential customers with a hard pitch, the best result you can hope for is that they’ll ignore you. What’s more likely is that they will see your branded content trying to convince them of something and decide “this is mediocre.”

But there is a way to reach these people and get them on your side: marketing influencers.

When we published the comprehensive 2022 B2B Influencer Marketing Report, one of the most striking responses we got was that 72% of B2B marketers say influencer marketing improves brand reputation. And it makes sense: third party endorsement of your product or service can go a long way in showing its value to an audience that may otherwise not have considered your brand.

Sure, influencer marketing may not be the right tool for every campaign, but its potential remains huge.

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“Third party endorsement of your product or service can go a long way in showing its value to an audience that may otherwise not have considered your brand.” — Art Allen @punsultant
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4 — Vanity metrics vs. Meaningful KPIs

We all want to do a good job! But vanity metrics are a staple of mediocre marketing. If all you’re measuring are things like impressions, page views, or likes on social media, you may feel good about how big those numbers are. But B2B marketing isn’t (just) about feeling good, it’s also about driving conversions.

Truly excellent marketing will still have impressive vanity metrics — because they’re easy to get. But it will also have impressive results for the KPIs that matter: sales, leads, downloads, or whatever results your campaign was built to drive. If the results can’t be tied to a measurable business outcome, it doesn’t matter how many millions of people may have seen it as they scrolled through LinkedIn.

For more insights into how to elevate your B2B marketing, follow the TopRank Marketing Blog.

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Elevate B2B Marketing News Weekly Roundup: AIs Rising Use In B2B & Metas Swift Threads Launch

Younger B2B buyers are the main reason marketers need to refresh their social media marketing strategies
46.5 percent of B2B buyers use social media to connect with B2B brands, while 61.1 percent of U.S. LinkedIn users will be comprised of members of the millennial and Gen Z demographic by the end of 2023, according to newly-published forecast data. When it comes to how B2B buyers prefer reaching B2B sellers, email, phone, and social media were the top methods, survey data has shown. Insider Intelligence

In B2B, Being Good Is Good for Business [Merkle B2B Superpowers Index]
B2B buyers have seen a 74 percent rise in interest in sustainability, accompanied by a 17 percent increase in interest in developing sustainability programs — two of numerous findings of interest to B2B marketers contained in recently-released Merkle survey findings. ANA

In Bid to Improve CX, B2B Marketers Look to Expand Their Retention Strategies
43 percent of B2B marketers have said that customer retention was their top customer experience priority in 2023 — up from 40 percent during 2022 — with 39 percent pointing to investment in new creative and content, and the same portion noting better aligning teams and tactics to create a more seamless brand experience, according to newly-published survey data. MarketingCharts

AI has the power to change B2B market research forever
Generative AI is particularly well-suited for B2B marketing research initiatives, with ChatGPT and other AI tools able to assist in the expansion of brand category entry points and more, and Peter Weinberg and Jon Lombardo of LinkedIn’s The B2B Institute take a deep dive for Marketing Week. Marketing Week

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“AI will expand the market for marketers and market researchers. Every B2B (and B2C) brand needs to understand their customers at scale to build better marketing and build better products.” — Jon Lombardo @JonLombardo
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Mark Zuckerberg’s Twitter rival passed 30 million signups overnight — here’s how to use Meta’s Threads app and what’s missing
Facebook and Instagram parent Meta has rolled out its separate Twitter-like Threads app a day earlier that planned, with the new social media platform garnering over 30 million users in only the first 16 hours since sign-ups began, Meta recently announced.
. CNBC

FTC Requirements for Influencers
The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has finalized an updated set of endorsement and testimonial guidelines for social media influencers and creators, and TermsFeed recently explored new disclosure best-practices and more. TermsFeed

Instagram Will Now Let You Add Up to Three Collaborators on Posts and Reels
Meta-owned Instagram has rolled out a new feature that increases its previous limit of one content collaborator to three, bringing a wide range of new content co-creation options to creators and influencers on the social platform, Instagram recently announced. Social Media Today

ChatGPT Forecasts Use To Grow Nearly 900% In 2023
By the end of 2023 some 61.5 million internet users will have submitted a prompt to the generative AI (GAI) tool ChatGPT, an 882 percent increase from 2022’s 6.3 million, while 20 percent of the U.S. population is expected to use a GAI platform as least once a month during 2023, according to newly-published AI forecast data of interest to B2B marketers. MediaPost

How animated creative ad formats could yield stronger attention, recall metrics [Study]
Brand recall was seen to increase by up to 25 percent for animated advertising over static ads, with additional recall benefits affecting attention, memorability, and engagement figures, according to recently-released ad format survey data of interest to digital marketers. DigiDay

LinkedIn’s Experimenting with Monetization Opportunities for Creators
Microsoft-owned LinkedIn has begun testing the ability for creators and influencers on the professional social platform to share a variety of collaborative campaign analytics with brands, which could lead to additional brand partnership opportunities. Social Media Today

ON THE LIGHTER SIDE:

A lighthearted look at the “5 Stages of Price Promotions” by Marketoonist Tom Fishburne — Marketoonist

Adobe’s Hilarious ‘Office Space’ Sendup Starring Hasan Minhaj Is a Tribute to 30 Years of the PDF — Adweek

TOPRANK MARKETING & CLIENTS IN THE NEWS:

• Nick Nelson — This Week in Marketing: Celebrating Collaboration — LinkedIn (client)
• Lee Odden — You’re Doing SEO All Wrong: How to Optimize Content for Search Intent — Content Marketing World
• Lane R. Ellis — The Happiest Man in Social Media & Marketing [Podcast] — Lane Ellis — Are You Happy Podcast

FRIDAY FIVE B2B MARKETING FAVORITES TO FOLLOW:

Andrea Fryrear @AndreaFryrear
Joshua Nite @nitewrites
Kathy Klotz-Guest @kathyklotzguest
Amy Balliett @AmyBalliett
Luvvie Ajayi Jones @iLuvvit

Learn more about TopRank Marketing‘s mission to help elevate the B2B marketing industry.

Have you run into your own top B2B marketing news item that we haven’t yet covered? If so, please don’t hesitate to drop us a line in the comments below.

Thanks for joining us for this week’s edition of the Elevate B2B Marketing News, and we hope you’ll return again next Friday for another selection of the most up-to-date and relevant B2B and digital marketing industry news. In the meantime, you can follow us on our LinkedIn page, or at @toprank on Twitter for even more timely daily news.

The post Elevate B2B Marketing News Weekly Roundup: AI’s Rising Use In B2B & Meta’s Swift Threads Launch appeared first on B2B Marketing Blog - TopRank®.

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