In a world where shiny object marketing and weight loss fads equally distract from reaching our potential, there are many parallels between improving physical health and optimizing B2B marketing effectiveness.
Just like world class athletes, top B2B marketers focus on key areas for improvement starting with goals and including the right mix of data insights, tactical best practices and ongoing performance optimization.
To help B2B marketers achieve record breaking levels of marketing fitness, we’ve tapped some of the top B2B experts from brands like MarketingProfs, LinkedIn, Content Marketing Institute, SAP Ariba, Dell Technologies, Facebook, Skyword, Arm Treasure Data, & Engagio.
We also collaborated with B2B marketing influencers like Ann Handley, Pam Didner, Michele Linn, Christopher Penn, Ashley Zeckman, Keith Reynold Jennings, and Kathleen Booth for their best advice to help marketers on their fitness journey.
From setting goals to nutritious data to exercising best practices and optimization, this group of speakers from MarketingProfs B2B Forum will inspire you to break free of sluggish B2B and optimize for greatness. Enjoy!
See the full screen B2B Marketing Fitness interactive ebook here.
Marketing Fitness Goals
Fun Sized Goals Drive B2B Success – Too often B2B marketers treat content as a process vs. a competition for the time and emotion-driven attention of customers that drive marketing ROI. Oversized goals are often lost to distraction and the wrong metrics. For optimal marketing fitness, start with long term goals broken down into short term goals relevant to audience impact and business outcomes, not just the content.
The challenge for a lot of B2B marketers is that the goals we set tend to be big and long-term, when they should be small and short-term. @MarketingProfs
One critical factor of measuring marketing goals is to be able to talk about the progress of the goals honestly, without sugar coating. @PamDidner
True content marketing starts at setting specific, concrete goals on what we believe audiences who engage with our content will do vs. those who don’t. @Robert_Rose
We need to rethink our “Business to Business” strategy more as a “Business to Business People” strategy to remind ourselves that the person, not the business, is ultimately behind the driver’s seat. Matthew Sutton of @Facebook
Learn More about B2B Marketing Goals from Ann Handley, Pam Didner, Robert Rose and Matt Sutton here.
Marketing Fitness Data
Feed Your Program What It Needs to Succeed – You are what you eat. If you’re feeding bad data into your marketing engine like sugary vanity metrics and high-calorie fluff, your results will suffer the crash that follows. No regimen for getting your B2B marketing in tip-top shape will work without a balanced diet of audience research and insights, industry benchmarks, and measurements of bottom-line impact.
When it comes to B2B influencer marketing, don’t just look at popularity metrics and social media following. Look at deeper engagement metrics. @AmishaGandhi
B2B marketing fitness requires a proper diet of data about customer preferences for: Information discovery, content types and topics, and triggers to take action. @leeodden
In B2B if you publish research, you’re sharing something new and meaningful that is backed by numbers instead of opinion. @michelelinn
Clean. Complete. Comprehensive. Chosen. Credible. Calculable. Adhere to the 6 C’s of data quality and you’ll be well on your way to great B2B marketing fitness. @cspenn
Learn more about using data in B2B Marketing from Amisha Gandhi, Lee Odden, Michele Linn and Christopher Penn here.
Marketing Fitness Best Practices
Tighten Up Your Core Strategy with Tactics – Focusing on only one marketing muscle group isn’t the path to total marketing fitness or a great beach body. It’s about a holistic and varied workout plan that accounts for all the tactical elements from social media to influencers to analytics that are important for delivering a great experience for your buyers.
If your brand’s value proposition increases the health or endurance of your influencer and your brand, you’re setting yourself up for a long and enjoyable run. @Konstanze
Marketers should continuously revisit the results their best practices are driving, and evolve them to raise the bar. @Allen
One strategic exercise that never goes out of style is keeping a constant pulse on who your audience is and what they need. @azeckman
We need to invest in branding alongside our lead generation. It maximizes marketing efficiency, strengthens pricing, and increases profitability. @tyrona
Learn More About B2B Marketing Best Practices from Konstanze Alex, Allen Gannett, Ashley Zeckman and Tyrona Heath here.
Marketing Fitness Optimization
Improving Every Day Is Essential – One size solutions do not solve fitness or marketing problems. While the right goals, data insights and best practices can improve any B2B content marketing program, it is ongoing performance optimization that develops beach body results. Optimization comes in many forms from stepping back for big picture analysis to daily performance review and adjustment.
There are no silver bullets in B2B marketing. Gains from gimmicks will often be short-lived (just like that fad diet!). @RtMixMktg
B2B marketing is a team sport. Just like in a soccer game, it takes every player on the field working together to win. @jonmiller
Like a good personal trainer, successful B2B marketers must serve the deeper jobs that motivate prospects to commit. @keithjennings
One of the most impactful things that any marketer can do is block off time to step away from their day-to-day work and do some deep thinking. @WorkMommyWork
Learn More About Optimizing B2B Marketing with Tom Treanor, Jon Miller, Keith Reynold Jennings and Kathleen Booth here.
If you really want to optimize your B2B Marketing performance, I highly recommend you get signed up for MarketingProfs B2B Forum next week in Washington D.C.. There’s a full agenda featuring amazing keynote speakers like Ann Handley, Jay Baer, Kara Swisher and Neen James.
As an extra incentive, you can get $150 off with this code B2BFitness.
There are also amazing breakout sessions from pro B2B marketers like Tyrona Heath who will be talking about ABM and Social Selling on LinkedIn and Ashely Zeckman who will be presenting, Through the Looking-Glass: Enter a New World of Always-On Influencer Programs.
PLUS you can learn even more about improving your B2B content marketing fitness with my presentation on Thursday, October 17th at 11am: Content Marketing Fitness – 10 Exercises to Build Your Marketing Beach Body
Check out the full interactive ebook featuring all 16 B2B marketing experts here.
At MarketingProfs B2B Forum you can also meet several members of the TopRank Marketing team including Susan Misukanis (@smisukanis), Kelly Hogan and Nick Nelson (NickNelsonMN) who will be liveblogging daily. Be sure to follow us on @toprank and the conference hashtag #mpb2b.
