Is your B2B marketing feeling “old fashioned” and out of date? Have your white papers, direct mail and webinars been called out as “boring”? Maybe you’re losing interest with prospects because corporate chest beating about products and services just isn’t enough anymore?
There’s a growing movement amongst progressive business to business marketers to break free of stale and antiquated digital marketing tactics. While consumer product marketing has long been associated with more interesting and compelling marketing efforts, modern B2B marketers include numerous companies that are creating amazing programs to attract, engage and convert business buyers with infotaining content, compelling social engagement and memorable calls to action.
As a build up to the MarketingProfs B2B Forum conference in Boston, over the past week we’ve been working on an eBook and publishing a series of interviews covering the topic of B2B Marketing Innovation with advice from speakers at the #mpb2b event. These smarties represent some of the top B2B brands in the world, including: Cisco, IBM, SAP, Salesforce, Silverpop and Monetate. We’ve also tapped many of the web’s most prominent B2B, social media and content marketing thought leaders including Joe Pulizzi, Ann Handley, Amber Naslund, Paul Gillin, CC Chapman, Amanda Maksymiw, Michael Brenner, Adele Revella and many more.
We added a twist to the B2B Marketing Innovation interview series by encouraging our readers to suggest their own hard won tips. With the incentive of winning a copy of Content Rules AND a copy of Optimize, we attracted some pretty good insight.
The best 3 B2B tip givers really hit the jackpot though (Lynn O’Connell, Scott Williamson, Joe Yeager) and were included in an eBook that Ashley Zeckman and I put together which will be shared with the MarketingProfs community of over 400,000, our network of over 150,000 plus the thousands that read our blog every day.
But you don’t have to wait for those eBook promotions, because you can download the eBook in PDF format, by clicking on the cover image below:
Click image to download eBook
We took a bit of a “retro” angle to the theme of the eBook to work in tandem with MarketingProfs branding of the event: “This Is Not Your Father’s B2B”. From the importance to data to use of visual content and humor, this eBook is chock full of practical advice for B2B marketers to be more innovative with their marketing. There are tips, examples and plenty of hard won insights from practitioners and thought leaders alike.
33 B2B Marketing Innovators and Their Topics:
1. Customer = Hero – Ann Handley
2. Engaging Content – Michael Brenner
3. Stop Talking & Listen – Joe Pulizzi
4. Study Deeply – Christopher Penn
5. Be First & Fail – Rob Yoegel
6. Actively Adapt – Amber Naslund
7. Remarkability – Alan Belniak
8. Do the Unexpected – C.C. Chapman
9. Borrow Freely – Roberta Rosenberg
10. Automation Tools – Kathleen Christoph
11. Have Understanding – Mack Collier
12. Buyers Are People Too – Amanda Maksymiw
13. Steal Shamelessly – Ellen Valentine
14. Create A Theme – Paul Gillin
15. Honest & Factual – Jeane Hopkins
16. Uncover the Truth – Adele Revella
17. I’m Eric Granof – Eric Granof
18. Use Web Data – Chad Horenfeldt
19. Customer Needs – Susan Emerick
20. Talk To Customers – Matt T. Grant
21. Stick To Basics – Lou Imbriano
22. Serve Up Information – Shelly Kramer
23. Innovation Day – Mark Rice
24. White Paper Rut – Corey O’Loughlin
25. Awesome Audiences – Tom Fishburne
26. Tell Stories – Tim Washer
27. B’s & C’s Are People – Dave Thomas
28. Be Creative – Kami Huyse
29. Flexible Content Plan – Marti Konstant
30. Listen for Gold – Lee Odden
31. Appeal to People – Lynn O’Connell
32. Proof of Quality – Scott Williamson
33. Likes VS. Shares – Joe Yeager
Here’s a link to directly download the PDF of the B2B Marketing Innovations eBook. Feel free to post it and share. Below you can view the eBook embedded from Slideshare and get the embed code to easily add it to your own site.
For even more great insights on B2B Innovation, here are the 7 long form interviews we ran with some of the B2B Forum speakers:
- B2B Marketing Innovation Tips from Tim Washer of Cisco
- Social Media Marketing Tips from Amber Naslund of SideraWorks
- Tips On Creating Social Influence in B2B Marketing from Alan Belniak of PTC
- Create More Compelling Content from Rob Yoegel of Monetate
- Why Before What in Social Media Strategy – B2B Insights from Mack Collier
- What B2B Marketers Can Learn From Cartoons with Tom Fishburne
- The Truth About Influence in B2B Marketing from Master Strategist Paul Gillin
Thank you again to the speakers from the MarketingProfs B2B Forum who were able to participate in this project and to our readers who contributed their B2B smarts as well.
If you’re attending the B2B Forum in Boston next week (if you’re in the area it’s a MUST) then I hope to see you there. I’ll be giving a track keynote Friday, October 5th at 8:15am on Optimizing Search, Social and Content across the Buying Cycle.
