When TopRank Marketing was created over 20 years ago, it wasn’t a company exactly. It was a specialized SEO offering within a start-up marketing and PR agency. But in time, the number of SEO clients began to outnumber the PR clients resulting in the evolution from a PR focused agency to a search marketing agency.
If You’re Not Growing, You’re Dying
Changing the company name to TopRank Marketing was as much about where the momentum in business was coming from and the evolved services being provided as it was about growing for the future. A future where digital channels become the primary place where customers would discover, consume and act on information through search engines, social networks, online communities, blogs, media and advertising. Plus the alternative to growing is, ah, dying.
Social Media Everywhere
Social media really changed the game of digital marketing and TopRank Marketing changed with it, evolving services from blogging for SEO to social media marketing and advertising, executive social media management, brand social listening and engagement.
Just Say Yes to More Content
And then came the addition of content marketing where useful information could be created by brands to educate the increasing number of business solution buyers that were pulling themselves through the majority of the sales cycle with content they researched online. TopRank Marketing was on the content marketing train early winning the #1 content marketing blog honor 3 times by Content Marketing Institute.
Uh Oh, Information Overload
However, as more companies embraced digital channels an overwhelming amount of content became available making it challenging for buying committees to trust, evaluate and make decisions. It also made it hard for B2B marketers to keep up with content demand and more importantly, with content that actually worked.
The Business of Influence
Sensing these information overload trends, TopRank Marketing evolved again by embracing working with B2B influencers and developing content collaborations with the most trusted voices in a client’s industry. Co-creating content with industry thought leaders, key opinion leaders and experts meant capturing the attention of buyers in ways that was not happening with paid search or other forms of online advertising. We’ve continued our evolution with B2B influencer marketing by conducting industry research to produce 4 yearly reports.
Is Your B2B Brand the Best Answer for Customers?
The idea of TopRank Marketing as a solution that helps B2B companies become the best answer wherever their customers are looking is timeless. It transcends search, social media, content and influencer marketing. A best answer marketing strategy adapts based on where buyers are discovering, consuming and acting on information today. And into the future.
And the Industry Keeps Evolving
The introduction of AI overviews in Google and the increasing use of GenAI tools like ChatGPT and Perplexity as search engines means another evolution. B2B buyers are not only searching using AI tools, but are using them in increasingly sophisticated ways to evaluate vendors as well. With AIO pulling more search engine traffic away from Google, diversified marketing tactics are more important than ever.
Welcome to the Marketing AI Overlords
At the same time, more B2B marketers are creating marketing content, visuals, images and even sound using AI tools. And they’re doing it with ease. So far, a lot of this AI generated content is average at best. Unremarkable content simply adds to the brand trust issues that already exist. Just think about how you normally react when you discover something is AI-created vs. human created. It will get better, but in the meantime there’s just more “average” content being produced.
Is Chaos a Ladder?
Working in marketing has always meant adapting to change and in the current environment, “change” feels a bit more like chaos. A lot of marketers are feeling overwhelmed with choices and complexity. I can think of few better examples of this than Scott Brinker’s Martech Supergraphic. It used to have hundreds of martech solutions and now there are over 14,000 of them. That’s just insane. And the GenAI trend will only drive that number up even more.
So, what is TopRank Marketing doing to evolve in this chaotic, uncertain and overly complex B2B marketing environment?
Seeing Things More Clearly
While I co-founded TopRank Marketing 24 years ago and served as CEO for 18 of those years, I was able to take a step back for about a year and a half. Doing so gave me an opportunity to view the growing chaos and complexity differently. From a distance, I started to see more clearly the important threads of what connects business buyers and brands. It’s not technology. It’s not AI. Those are tools to help, but not the solution themselves. The connective tissue of business to business that a lot of B2B brands are missing isn’t about the technology. It’s about relevance, trust, and even relationships.
“Marketing complexity is noise. Information overload is noise. Chaos is noise. Authenticity, relevance and trust are the signal we need to succeed in B2B.”
Less Mechanical, More Meaningful Marketing
B2B marketing has a reputation for meaning “boring to boring” and while progress has been made, the overemphasis on technology has resulted in more mechanical than meaningful marketing experiences. Without relevance, trust and meaning, why would anyone buy from you?
On a Mission to Evolve B2B
As of mid February 2025, I have returned to TopRank as owner and CEO. This return marks a new chapter I’m affectionately calling TopRank 2.0, where our solutions will put a spotlight on B2B marketing strategy, creativity, analytics, and the first-class service our clients have come to expect.
TopRank is Walking the Community Engagement Talk
While we evolve our own solutions, processes and AI tech stack, we’re also walking the talk of relevance, trust and relationships with our own industry engagement. Engaging with the marketing community whether B2B marketing at large or specific communities like content marketing, SEO or social media has been an instrumental part of how TopRank has been able to build trust, stay relevant and build relationships with some of the best B2B brands in the world. We’re committed to continuing those conversations to do our part in highlighting talent in the industry, driving conversations that move B2B forward and celebrating marketing work that actually works.
Some of Our Initiatives for 2025
We’re hitting the ground running in our efforts to evolve in 2025 starting with a few initiatives:
- AI Integration: Our team will evolve from experimenting to building on TopRank’s legacy of innovation by infusing AI into every facet of our operations—ensuring more efficient processes and smarter, data-backed marketing solutions for our clients. Our emphasis is on improving quality, scale and impact.
- Evolved B2B Marketing Services: As we continue to provide world-class influencer marketing, SEO, content creation, social media engagement and online advertising services, our B2B marketing strategy, creative and analytics dashboards and services will be evolving to better serve our clients’ changing needs.
- Thought Leadership: We are returning to our legacy of industry engagement through events, editorial and a mix of efforts including the Beyond B2B Marketing Podcast featuring conversations about all things B2B marketing and beyond.
- B2B Marketing Community: We’re creating a new On TRAC private community dedicated to B2B marketers—aimed at sharing best practices, hosting webinars and in-person events, and giving clients and industry pros alike an open forum to collaborate.
- Marketing Partnerships: We’re forging new, strategic alliances with complementary providers in the marketing technology and services space. These partnerships will help us offer comprehensive solutions that address our clients’ biggest B2B marketing challenges.
Over the past 20+ years TopRank Marketing has been proud to contribute to the B2B marketing industry through our own content, research reports, book, events, customer engagements, community engagement and client work. And while the technology and tactics have evolved, our mission to help B2B brands become the best answer for their customers remains our focus.
Stay tuned as we start to roll out the next generation of the Elevate B2B Marketing podcast, the On TRAC community and TopRank’s unique integration of content, influence and search marketing services to help make B2B brands the best answer for their customers. To connect with me, LinkedIn is the best. Or you can check out TopRank’s Newsletter and B2B marketing solutions.
