Backbone Media B2B Marketing Blog
Notes onB2B growth.
94 articles
-
4 Subtle Ways You Halt the Growth of Your Business
Your business has been on a roll. Your initial marketing strategy caused you to grow quickly, and you think you’re doing great. Then suddenly, your sales plateau, and you…
-
Use These 4 Marketing Tips to Jumpstart Your Revenue
You’ve done a great job in your business so far. You have a fantastic product or service, you’ve used word-of-mouth to generate sales, and you’ve grown your business to a…
-
7 Strategies for A Successful New Market Entry
Entry into a new vertical can be a lucrative business move – when done correctly. Too often, businesses approach new markets without sufficient data or a strategy that…
-
How to Identify Your Brand’s Core Values and Message
“Your brand is the single most important investment you can make in your business.” – Steve Forbes Right now is the ideal time to sit down and get clear on your company’s…
-
How to Identify a New Vertical for Your Business
The wellness of nearly every industry has changed thanks to recent global events. Some industries have grown stronger, and some are suffering. If you followed the advice…
-
How to Use Buyer Insight to Create a New Marketing Message
If you followed our advice on gathering buyer insight, then you should be well on your way to discovering the most powerful marketing campaign possible for your clients…
-
How to Connect with Clients and Prospects for Powerful Marketing Insights
The time you take to gather buyer insights now could mean the difference between profit and loss down the line.
-
7 CREATIVE STRATEGIES TO GET SALES BACK ON TRACK
1. LISTEN Talk to real customers and prospects to understand what they are struggling with right now. Get on their radar as a partner who cares what they think. When you…
-
6 Mistakes That Will Make or Break your Inbound Marketing Plan and How to Fix
Have you ever launched an inbound marketing plan that you thought was perfect but then it backfired? Maybe you generated a ton of leads with quality content, but when you…
- B2B Marketing VPs Need to Produce Remarkable Content Consistently Content is King because it’s your golden ticket to engaging with customers. The most effective content not only attracts visitors, but it helps you convert and nurture…
- B2B Marketing VPs Need Accurate Buyer Personas Why B2B Marketers Need Better Insight Into Their Buyers You know the saying garbage in garbage out? Well That’s what you have if you’re basing your marketing decisions on…
- Top 7 Reasons B2B Marketing VPs Fail at Inbound Marketing Have you ever launched an Inbound marketing plan that you thought was perfect but then it backfired? Maybe you generated a ton of leads with quality content, but when you…
-
How Inbound Marketing Works
Ever since the advent of the web browser, B2B marketers have found that digital marketing is a much more efficient way to reach a targeted audience at key stages of their…
-
What is Closed-Loop Marketing?
Backbone’s Closed-Loop Digital Marketing methodology is designed to combine whatever you’re doing with your digital marketing right now into one cohesive, persona based,…
-
B2B Marketing VPs are Not Taking Advantage of Their Investment Into Marketing Automation
Marketing Automation Platforms (MAPs) like Hubspot, Marketo, Pardot and Act-on really do provide unprecedented control over how today’s marketers can execute and measure…
-
Why B2B Marketing VPs are Sending Unqualified Leads to Sales, Wasting Their Time
Most B2B sales and marketing organizations live or die with their ability to generate qualified leads. The combination of poor strategy, poor buyer insight and poor…
- B2B Marketing VPs Need a Better Reporting Structure That Closes the Loop Between Marketing and Revenue According to AdAge, more than half of CMOs feel that a large portion of their marketing budgets are wasted and not delivering the results their business expects. Whether…
- B2B Marketing VPs Need An Effective Underlying Digital Marketing Strategy Most B2B companies are pursuing Inbound Marketing and finding that it’s not bringing in the leads that they had hoped. It’s not that inbound marketing is broken. It’s…
- The Five Things You Must Do Before You Buy Any Marketing Automation System There is a problem in B2B marketing today. Marketers are wasting their precious budgets buying marketing automation systems that they don't use. A recent study by Ascend2…
-
Content Marketing’s New Frontier Has Arrived – Podcasting
2016 is the continuation of the golden age of content marketing that emphasizes science, substance, story, speed, and simplicity.
-
A Conversation with Ardath Albee: The Power of Personas
A conversation between Backbone and Ardath Albee discussing the power of customer personas for B2B companies—and not just marketing departments.
- The Power of Podcasting – Interview with Jack Sweeney Backbone Media discusses the power of podcasting with marketing thought leader Jack Sweeney in this audio blog post. More and more of Backbone’s clients are launching…
- The Power of Podcasting – Interview with Jamie Turner Today I'm speaking with Jamie Turner on the power of podcasting. Jamie recently launched his own podcast called, "The Jamie Turner Show."
-
Upcoming Webinar: How to Create a Thought Leadership Content Engine
For nearly a year I have been speaking with top marketing thought leaders, listening to Backbone Media’s B2B clients and analyzing best practices for developing an…
-
Why Are So Many Content Marketers Failing? MalContent vs. MegaContent (Part 3 of 3)
Recent data indicates many marketers are dissatisfied with content marketing. In my first post in this series, I presented data that suggests content marketing is over…
-
Why Are So Many Content Marketers Failing? MalContent vs. MegaContent (Part 2 of 3)
Recent data indicates many content marketers are dissatisfied with content marketing. So why are so many marketers failing to see results?
-
Why Are So Many Content Marketers Failing? MalContent vs. MegaContent (Part 1 of 3)
Recent data indicates many content marketers are dissatisfied with content marketing. So why are so many marketers failing to see results?
- Unify Your Marketing Messages with Synchronized Marketing Synchronized marketing focuses around a “singular brand idea” that’s developed and sustained through a collaborative effort of your organization.
-
3 Ways to Simplify Your Marketing
For many reasons, marketing today is hyper complex. Here are three ways to simplify your marketing.
- Why You MUST Have a Mobile-Friendly Website (now according to Google) Based on a recent announcement from Google, having a mobile-friendly website will soon be even more critical in today’s digital marketing landscape.
-
Will Your Sales and Marketing Departments Align Or Converge in 2015?
As marketing departments transition from cost centers to profit centers, some experts predict a convergence of sales and marketing rather than an alignment.
- Does Your 2015 Content Marketing Already Suck? One way to turn things around this year is to be aware of recent content marketing trends and consider content expert predictions for 2015.
- 4 Secrets to a Professional (and Successful) B2B Blog Post Writing is hard, and writing well is even harder. Here are four secrets that professional writers use to produce high-quality B2B blog posts every time.
- 3 Questions That Provide Insight Into B2B Customer Personas Here are three questions that will help you provide insight into B2B customer personas, and prepare you for how they can change over time.
-
24 Marketing Predictions for 2015 from 8 Top Thought Leaders
Welcome to BackboneMedia.com‘s first blog post in our B2B Marketing Predictions Weekly Series. The 24 predictions below cover the categories of Social, Mobile, Data,…
- The Real Value of a B2B Marketing Agency Connect with right B2B marketing agency for your business and your marketing strategy will fall into place.
- The Top 5 Benefits of B2B Blogging B2B blogging plays an important role in lead generation and customer acquisition – here are five great reasons why your brand should be blogging.
- 100 B2B Marketing Predictions for 2015 From Top Thought Leaders Sign up for weekly 2015 B2B Marketing Predictions e-mails from industry leaders such as; Joe Pulizzi, David M. Scott, Ann Handley, and more!
- Have You Solved the Mystery of B2B Blogging? Not quite sure where to start with content marketing? Take a look at these five companies that have solved the mystery of B2B blogging.
- 4 Tools That Will Shed Light on your SEO Effectiveness Here’s an overview of four free industry tools to help shed some light on the SEO effectiveness of your website.
-
4 Ways White Papers Help Content Marketing Efforts
Here are four ways that white papers and premium content assets help generate qualified leads for your business as part of your content marketing efforts.
- 3 Ways your B2B Blog can Capture Your Reader’s Attention Three ways you can capture your reader’s attention and fire up their imagination with a great opening to your next B2B blog post.
-
1 Month Later and The Data is in: The Google Pigeon Update Has Hit…and it hit HARD
A real world example of how the Google Pigeon Update can impact site search traffic by up almost 66%.
- What is B2B Remarketing and How Does It Affect My Bottom Line? One visit to your website is rarely all it takes to convert a visitor into a lead. That’s where B2B remarketing offers its most obvious benefit.
- How to Regularly Reassess Your Customer Personas Once you've built your rock-solid client personas, your work isn't done. Here are three ways you can reassess your customer personas as technology changes.
- 5 Reasons to Have a Responsive Website Is your B2B website responsive? Learn the 5 reasons why having a responsive website is crucial for marketers.
- Customer Personas: What is Your Audience Looking For? In B2B marketing, there’s a lot of talk about customer personas. So how do you determine your reader’s intent with your content? Here are three ways.
- Should Your B2B Social Media Strategy Include Publishing on LinkedIn? If you've decided to publish on LinkedIn as part of your B2B social media strategy, here are three main ways you can begin.
- Why “Me, Too!” Corporate Branding Won’t Win You Customers Companies often want their corporate branding to be “drawn out” from a website redesign. But it simply doesn't work; in fact, it’s backwards.
-
How to Merge your Google+ Local and Business Page (Sort of)
Steps to ensure your Google+ page will have verified local status and the search benefits that come with it.
-
Why Emotions Matter in B2B Content Marketing
Emotions matter (yes, even for B2B buyers), and here are four ways to push the personal value buttons with your B2B content marketing strategy.
- 4 Reasons Your Customers Aren’t Reading Your B2B Blog Posts Are your customers not reading your blog? Here are four reasons they aren’t reading your B2B blog posts and how to fix them.
- 3 Social Media Management Tools Worth Their Weight in Tweets If you've been wondering which of the latest social media management tools are worth the time commitment, here are three we recommend.
- Content Marketing World #CMWorld Twitter Chat Recap 7/1 Recap of the Content Marketing World #CMWorld Twitter chat from 7/1 focused on “Preparing for the Future of Content Marketing”.
- 6 Ways to Be the Best Guide on the B2B Buyer Journey Today, the b2b buying journey is about cultivating a long-term relationship with both the organizations and the buying decision makers.
-
Web Analytics: “Visits” and Other Junk Metrics
Learn why a high number of visits tells you absolutely nothing about the success of your website when measuring web analytics.
- How to Build B2B Company Thought Leadership Thought Leadership is a buzzword making the rounds of B2B organizations today. People talk about being a thought leader, but what does that really mean?
- The Future of Content Marketing B2B marketers are realizing that they've got stories to tell through content marketing efforts, and that their audience is listening.
- Content Marketing World #CMWorld Twitter Chat Recap 6/10 Recap of the Content Marketing World #CMWorld Twitter chat from 6/10 focused on “Tone & Personality of Content” for content marketing.
- The Pros and Cons of Hosting Live Social Media Events It’s every business’s dream to have prospective clients waiting to sign on for live social media events. But for how many brands is that really a reality?
- Never Run Out of B2B Blog Topics Again If there’s one part of the content marketing process you’re allowed to struggle with, it’s generating B2B blog topics -- learn how to never run out again.
-
The Importance of LinkedIn Sponsored Updates in B2B Marketing
So, are you looking to start using LinkedIn sponsored updates in your next B2B marketing campaign? Here's the Top 5 reasons why you should.
- 4 Internet Marketing Mistakes Holding Your Company Back We often have clients coming to us with good intentions but bad internet marketing practices. Here are four of them you should look out for.
- Marketers: You Build Terrible Websites Website design and development that meets your users’ goals requires a level of impartiality that the average marketer is rarely able to muster.
- How Content Marketing Builds Thought Leadership Thought leadership is achieved by combining important strategies like content marketing and PR with digital cornerstones like social engagement and SEO.
- Homepage Copy: The Heart of Your Online Brand When prospective clients click through to your website, you only have a few seconds with your homepage copy to convince them that you’re an ideal solution.
- 3 Steps to a Customer-Friendly Inbound Marketing Program Successful B2B inbound marketing programs are built on developing a customer-friendly strategy focused on problem-solving.
- The Rebirth of Klout and Social Media Influence Social media marketing is always changing, and this year it’s about social media influence and engagement. Here’s why Klout is the next big thing.
- 3 Cornerstone SEO Tips from Google Does it seem like just when you start to understand Search Engine Optimization (SEO), something changes? Learn 3 cornerstone SEO tips from Google.
- Your Website Is Not an Art Project: 3 Web Design Best Practices When overhauling your web design to drive more business, you have to make sure that that first impression is really meaningful. Read more to learn how.
- How to use Curation in Content Marketing To run a successful, engaging content marketing campaign, you need high-quality original content AND curated content from other sources.
- The Value of Infographics for Social Media Marketing As part of your overall social media marketing strategy, infographics can help expand your reach and simplify your message.
- The Need for Useful (not just clever) Content Marketing Content marketing needs to be useful to your clearly defined and understood target audience -- and they need to be gently called to action.
- The Insourcing vs. Outsourcing Brand Newsroom Debate When it comes to the decision to either insource or outsource your brand newsroom, we believe in a third, more beneficial option: co-sourcing.
- Why Your Website Design Needs to Be More Than Beautiful When your website design is focused on solving the problems of your target audience, it builds trust and is crucial part of user experience strategy (UX).
- Predictions for Social Media Marketing in 2014 Blog article focused on the five major themes from the the Social Media Today webinar focused on social media marketing predictions for 2014.
- Why You Should Co-Source Your B2B Newsroom Staff your B2B newsroom with an expert co-sourced team rather than hiring and managing your own team with significant benefits to your marketing efforts.
- The 12 Days of LinkedIn Marketing The holidays are upon us and the year is winding down. So, as a gift to you we've crafted a 12-day guide for prepping your LinkedIn marketing for next year.
- Search Engine Marketing in 2014: Focus on Content With the recent Google algorithm updates, search engine marketing in 2014 must place greater focus on content marketing to stay relevant in search results.
- Out with the Old: Backbone Media’s Website Redesign The new Backbone Media website redesign was developed to be more engaging, informative, and easier to use while adhering to our core values and branding.
- Why Not Having a Brand Newsroom Is Costing You A B2B brand newsroom is an extension of content marketing that gives your target audience a chance to get to know your brand and products at their pace.
- Why SEO by Yoast will Change Your Life Wordpress is inherently a very good platform for SEO, however the SEO by Yoast wordpress plugin takes your optimization strategies to another level.
- How to Use LinkedIn for B2B Salespeople Your Sales Team: Connected Social media promotion has become one of the most widely used and effective forms of B2B Internet marketing — but chances are your employees…
- Is Your Brand Important Enough? How do you describe your brand? Take a quick poll around your office and ask your co-workers to best describe your company in one or two sentences. If you get varying…
- How to Get Started With Social Media Marketing Marketing in a Social World In order for your content marketing plan to actually work, you must also be successful with social media promotion. Social media provides…
- Top 3 Social Media Sites for B2B Marketers Tangled in the social web? In a recent post, I gave a few pointers on how to succeed with Social Media marketing for both B2B and B2C content marketers; but the usage can…
-
How to Succeed with Social Media Marketing
Market Where Your Customers Are Know Your Audience Any type of marketing fails if the marketer doesn’t develop a firm grasp on their intended audience and potential…
- Stop Writing Boring Content!! Is your content boring? One of the biggest difficulties of content marketing is writing compelling copy that people actually want to read — after all, we’ve all heard the…
- Top 5 Goals of Content Marketing Why bother with content marketing? Content marketing is a huge buzz-term in Internet marketing — it uses the creation of relevant content to promote a brand and lead to…
- Who Cares about Content Marketing? If you care about the success of your organization, YOU should care about Content Marketing. But what is it? and how is it any different from traditional marketing or…
-
Top B2B Marketing Trends By Paul Dunay
Real-Time, Data & Personalization Last week, we caught up with Paul Dunay, global VP of Marketing for Maxymiser, a company that specializes in multivariate testing and…
- Top 3 Challenges for B2B Marketers in 2013 via David Meerman Scott B2B Marketing Hiring, Measuring and Messaging In a recent Backbone Media webcast, “Top B2B Marketing Trends of 2013,” author, speaker and Hubspot advisor David Meerman…
- Death to the Sales Lead as Key B2B Marketing Metric The Biggest Problem with B2B Marketing? In a recent Backbone Media webcast, “Top B2B Marketing Trends of 2013,” author, speaker and Hubspot advisor David Meerman Scott…
- IBM’s Susan Emerick: Top B2B Marketing Trends in 2013 (Part 1) Manager of Social Enterprise Programs at IBM Predicts 2013 Trends Backbone Media recently hosted a webinar entitled “Top B2B Marketing Trends 2013,” which included a…
Get in touch
Let’s talk about your next project.
Give us a call, or get in touch, and let’s see if we can help maximize your digital marketing ROI.