When you were getting started in B2B marketing or selling, did you suspect you’d be selling your product more or less the same way for years at a time, or maybe for even longer? What a sweet dream that was. But a few years in B2B shook you awake
For over a decade our team at TopRank Marketing has fostered a strong community of leading influencers, developing close relationships with subject matter experts in a wide variety of industries. When it comes to B2B influencer marketing, it’s natural to wonder just what an industry influencer actually looks like?
How do B2B marketers who fully embrace empathy build stronger relationships? Miri Rodriguez , storyteller and internship program head at Microsoft, recently presented the opening keynote at the 2021 B2B Marketing Exchange Experience virtual conference, and asked this important question. Although this pandemic year at #B2BMX won’t see B2B marketers gathered in the event’s usual sunny Scottsdale, Arizona location, plenty of new attendee opportunities were on tap virtually
Empathy is more than a buzzword. It’s not a box to be checked, or an added finishing touch for content. If B2B marketers want to successfully engage human audiences and break free from the deluge of irrelevant messages swirling around today’s customers, empathy needs to be at the center of all strategic initiatives from start to finish.
Marketers are really jumping on the content bandwagon while the definition of what “content marketing” really means varies greatly between the SEO, PR, advertising and custom publishing industries. For example, I recently read very clever post about content marketing on a SEO website providing an impressive array of content types, tactics, tips and shortcuts for content to be created and used as a marketing asset. Not once was “customer journey”, “buying cycle”, “customer insight” or related concepts mentioned.
Focus and simplicity help ideas grow.