Maximize the Results of your B2B Voice of the Customer Programme: The Ultimate Guide
Well-run customer experience (CX) programs can help B2B companies grow the lifetime value of accounts, save them from churning, and generate warm referrals that drive new growth.
According to a McKinsey study, successful programmes lower customer churn by 10-15%, increase sales close rates by 20-40% and lower costs to serve by up to 50%.
In addition, B2B leads generated through warm referrals have on average a 4 times higher lead-to-deal conversion rate compared to sales prospecting or advertising.
The All New Firefox Quantum launches Nov 14, 2017
Google Chrome is up against the new Firefox browser that officially launches on November 14, 2017. The browser from Mozilla promised to be fast and fierce with cutting edge technology that makes it 2x faster than the present Firefox browser and claims to use 30 % less memory than Chrome. Rightly named Quantum, which gives it more speed and power to challenge Chrome and Safari.
Firefox in the early 2000 was leading the browser race with a high market share, however in the last decade it has lost out to Google Chrome and Safari. Currently Google Chrome rules the internet browser space in US with more than 45% market share, followed by Safari at 24%, Firefox however lags at less than 7% market share.
The new Firefox Quantum not only promises better speed and less RAM usage, but is also loaded with intuitive features like sleeker UI, in browser screen shots (Now why didn’t chrome think of this ), extensive library for you to bookmark your favorite sites, plugin extension, mobile browsing capabilities and a very powerful private browsing experience that promises upto 44% faster page loads.
Excited 
The New Firefox Quantum launches Nov. 14, 2017 – you can however try the beta version in the meanwhile.
Facebook Ads For Beginners 2019 – How To Generate Leads With Facebook Ads For Beginners
Facebook Ads For Beginners 2019 – How To Generate Leads With Facebook Ads For Beginners In this video I show you how to generate leads on Facebook the …
Read More →How To Run A Facebook Ad Campaign For Small Businesses – Complete Facebook Ad Tutorial
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Read More →Inspiring Examples of B2B Influencer Marketing in Action
While Instagram influencer marketing is expected to hit $8 billion in spend by 2020, the growth trajectory of influencer marketing is not limited to consumer brands.
B2B companies are also realizing the value of collaborating with influential experts for marketing purposes and count the practice as one of the top 4 tactics planned for 2019, according to a study by Spiceworks of B2B tech marketers in North America and Europe.
Many B2B brands are considering engaging influencers for marketing but are not clear on exactly how or what the best practices are. Having worked with B2B brands that range from Dell to SAP to LinkedIn on influencer marketing programs over the past 6 years, I’ve had a chance to dig deep into exactly what makes influencer marketing work for B2B.
To help illustrate how business brands we work with are driving results with influencer marketing, I’ve pulled together ten examples of B2B companies that represent a mix of approaches and performance outcomes.
B2B tech marketers’ adoption of influencer marketing is expected to grow to 48% by the end of 2019. @marketingcharts
1. Prophix – Driving a Message of Innovation and Influence with Interactive Audio
Situation: Prophix is a corporate performance management software solutions company serving the finance industry. They believed that finance leaders have the opportunity to shape the future of business and take a more prominent seat at the leadership table.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning will be critical to the innovation of finance, so Prophix wanted to start conversations and answer key questions on the role of AI in the next evolution of finance amongst its target audience.
Solution: To build thought leadership for the brand around AI and ML innovations in finance amongst its audience, experts collaborated to co-create an industry resource.
To add a tech-savvy flavor to the content experience of this resource, a simulated AI personality voice named Penny was created to help users navigate a microsite featuring industry experts. The site was titled, Adapt & Innovate: AI and the Next Evolution of Finance.
The microsite was complemented with a mix of content including promotional motion graphics video, email promotions, landing page, supporting blog content, social content and custom graphics for the contributing influencers to share.
Results: 642% increase in engagement, new relationships with top influencers and numerous conversations amongst the target audience about AI and finance in connection with the Prophix brand.
2. DivvyHQ – Create Thought Leadership & Lead Gen Momentum with Multi-Campaign Influencer Program
Situation: As an award-winning content planning and marketing software company, DivvyHQ wanted to elevate its reputation and more actively engage potential buyers.
Solution: A survey was conducted to surface top challenges and insights around content planning and marketing, sparking a multi-campaign program focused on future-proofing content marketing that included over 30 marketing influencers.
Each of the 5 campaigns focused on content and influencers specific to the topic ranging from the research report to a strategy ebook to a series of video interviews about content planning.
The final campaign repurposed the “best of content” from the first 4 campaigns into an interactive microsite using a Back to the Future theme. Each campaign was supported by blog posts, organic social content, influencer promotion and some paid social.
Results: Each campaign exceeded goals including 300% more downloads of the research report, hitting some KPI goals within a week of publishing, thousands of video views, new relationships with top marketing industry influencers and 140% of one conversion KPI within a week of publishing.
3. Introhive – Improve Lead Quality with Influencer Insights and Research
Situation: The legal industry has been slow to adopt Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems, something that Introhive, an automation solutions provider wanted to change.
Solution: With the goals of raising awareness and leads from the legal community, Introhive wanted to engage the audience they were marketing to through an industry survey and insights.
The survey identified the top challenges and Introhive designed a Playbook to solve those problems with a combination of brand insight and expertise from speakers at the industry’s Legal Marketing Association event. During the conference, the contributors shared the playbook and Introhive promoted it using the event hashtag.
Additional pieces of the content mix included 12 blog posts, landing page, organic and influencer social shares, paid social and email promotions.
Results: Improved marketing qualified lead quality, more playbook downloads in the first month than in the entire lifetime of previous reports, nearly 50% of all brand blog content views for the quarter and an 85% increase in new Twitter followers.
4. Cherwell Software – Achieve Thought Leadership, Engagement & Lead Gen Goals with Influence Optimization
Situation: With ambitious objectives to continue its rapid growth, Cherwell Software wanted to increase brand awareness as a leading ITSM software provider and develop a network of IT influencers.
Solution: Using insights gained from research of target accounts, 15 influencers were researched, identified and engaged to co-create content and promotions around next-generation IT Service Management.
The content mix included blog posts, IT Service Management 2020 ebook, landing page and both paid/organic social content for influencers to share.
Results: The ebook was viewed 170% more often than previous assets and shared nearly 2,000 times. Additionally, this one campaign was accountable for 22% of all sales leads for the entire year.
5. SAP SuccessFactors – Increase Performance with a More Sophisticated Influencer Mix
Situation: Wellness programs are common but SAP SuccessFactors wanted to accentuate the importance of employee wellness from a more holistic approach to wellbeing.
Solution: To raise awareness of their health care management suite, SAP SuccessFactors developed a program to share relevant, useful and actionable insights about wellbeing from trusted experts, peers and even one business celebrity.
Just as the best wellness solutions are holistic, so was this approach to partnering with influencers including industry influencers, internal experts, SAP partners and clients.
The content mix included an ebook titled The True Impact of Health and Well-Being featuring 10 influencers, motion graphics, landing page, social content for the brand and influencers to share.
Results: 272% increase over the goal and a 68% conversion rate on the ebook downloads. Influencer shares represented 86% of all ebook views and 69% of the conversions.
6. Dell Technologies – Increase Brand Thought Leadership with Influencer Interview Podcast
Situation: While many companies focus on working with influencers, Dell Technologies wanted to partner with industry influencers to simultaneously create useful content for their customers and increase the influence of their internal experts.
Solution: Dell has developed relationships with a network of influencers including Mark Schaefer and Doug Karr, who host the Dell Luminaries podcast.
Their discussions with technology visionaries from inside Dell and out, putting a human face on technology innovation.
Results: The Dell Luminaries project effectively created a single platform to bring voices from multiple companies under the Dell brand together following a common thread while staying true to their individual expertise and influence.
7. 3M – Humanize Science with Influencers and a Podcast
Situation: Science can seem out of reach to many and 3M wanted to make the innovations and complexities of science accessible to the everyday person.
Solution: 3M conducted the largest ever science study about global attitudes about science, the State of Science Index research report along with the launch of 3M’s first podcast: Science Champions Podcast.
Hosted by 3M’s Chief Science Advocate, Jayshree Seth, the first season of the podcast featured twenty one science experts and influencers on topics ranging from an introduction to science in everyday life to careers in science.
Results: Outside of creating relationships with science influencers and showcasing an internal influencer, the Science Champions podcast exceeded all expectations for downloads and engagement, resulting in the launch of season two in March 2019.
8. Content Marketing Institute – Activate Event Awareness & Engagement with Themed Influencer Content
Situation: There are many choices for marketers to attend industry events and Content Marketing Institute wanted to create broader awareness of its conference and showcase its speakers in a way that tapped their influence and helped them become more influential.
Solution: Many months before the conference, a selection of content marketing speakers were identified and engaged to share their expertise on specific content marketing topics.
With a conference theme of “Game on », the 36 influential marketing speakers’ contributions were assembled into a 48 page ebook called The Ultimate Guide to Conquering Content Marketing with a retro video game theme. Each section of the ebook was supported by corresponding animation videos using an 8-bit video game theme featuring game character avatars for each influencer.
The content mix also included 6 long-form interviews, multiple promotional blog posts, email marketing, custom social graphics for the brand and influencers to share, organic and paid social promotion.
Results: A 258% increase in views of the main ebook asset and over 30,000 views of the promotional 8-bit video game interviews.
9. SAP – Create New Platform Thought Leadership & Credibility with Influencers
Situation: SAP launched its Leonardo platform at the annual SAPPHIRE conference. With an event this large, key announcements can blur in the noise of communications. SAP wanted to launch Leonardo as a transformative technology vision.
Solution: An interactive experience called The Path to Digital Innovation was created showcasing SAP CEO Bill McDermott and 32 top industry influencers sharing insights across transformative technologies including IoT, machine learning, AI, blockchain, analytics, big data and cloud.
Results: 100% of participating influencers shared the Leonardo Path to Digital Innovation content, many of them multiple times. Reach was unprecedented, with over 21 million views of the interactive experience.
Where Does B2B Influencer Marketing Go From Here?
In the research report, Influence 2.0: The Future of Influencer Marketing by Altimeter Group’s Brian Solis, 48% of B2C companies are running ongoing influencer marketing programs vs. only 11% of B2B brands. Nearly half of B2B brands are still in the experimentation stage, according to the study, which was conducted by Traackr and TopRank Marketing.
But this trend is changing and more B2B brands are realizing that while different than B2C, working with influencers in a business to business context represents a significant opportunity to create more credible content that can be promoted to interested buyers by people they trust.
Many of the examples in this article started with customer research and added outside expert commentary in a way that was relevant to both the brand and the audience. This shift in focus from the brand talking about itself towards a more collaborative approach involving external and internal influencers represents a key change successful B2B marketers have realized.
Trends come and go, but the value of trusted sources of information to customers looking for solutions couldn’t be any more timeless.
For more information about how TopRank Marketing works with B2B brands to improve industry awareness, increase influence and community engagement, drive leads and sales by partnering with industry experts, check out the influencer marketing section of our website.
A version of this post originally published on the Digital Marketing Institute website.
The post Inspiring Examples of B2B Influencer Marketing in Action appeared first on Online Marketing Blog – TopRank®.
Top Takeaways from LinkedIn’s New ‘Enlightened Tech Buyer’ Report
Technology is one of the fastest-growing B2B sectors, for reasons that are self-evident. As new solutions and innovations continue to enhance the way businesses operate across every industry, every key department has increasing tech needs and buying power these days.
The folks at LinkedIn* recently released a 2019 global report, The Enlightened Tech Buyer: Powering Customer Decisions from Acquisition to Renewal, and it merits attention from marketers of all stripes. As the “enlightened” descriptor implies, tech buyers (for reasons that are also self-evident) tend to be ahead of the curve when it comes to research, consumption, and purchase behaviors.
Today we’ll take a deeper look at LinkedIn’s new data around this trendsetting cohort, breaking down five key revelations within.
5 Telling Trends Revealed in LinkedIn’s Tech Buyer Report
Here are some of the most eye-opening tidbits we saw based on LinkedIn’s survey of “5,241 global professionals who participated in or influenced the purchase of various hardware or software solutions at their organization within the last three months.”
#1 – Tech Buying Committees are Expansive and Diverse
We all know that, in general, B2B buying committees are expanding faster than the Night King’s army of wights. This dynamic is especially pronounced in the tech space.
“Where previously 3/4 of enterprise employees were part of technology decision-making,” LinkedIn reports, “today the total universe of end-users and decision-makers who impact business technology investments encompasses 4/5 of employees (roughly 86%).”
As tech products and services become increasingly integrated with every aspect of an organization, more voices are coming into play. End users, external influencers, and cross-functional stakeholders all tend to have a role. This reinforces the imperative of establishing strong brand awareness throughout a business, which is a central focus of account-based marketing.
#2 – The Purchase Cycle is Shortening
The report notes that the process of reviewing, selecting, and implementing new tech solutions has accelerated over the past few years, with the average purchase cycle now checking in at about 25 months. This could be viewed as good news or bad news, depending on how you look at it.
On the one hand, that’s still a fairly long timespan, providing plenty of opportunity for marketing content to make an impact. Meanwhile, the increase in velocity could suggest buyers are becoming more deliberate and urgent in identifying solutions.
But on the other hand, this also means that we as marketers have a smaller window than before to engage and persuade. We now need to make each interaction count more than ever — especially if we’re pursuing a new account. LinkedIn’s study shows that shortlists are becoming more competitive than ever for vendors.
#3 – Vendor Websites Are a Prime Resource
Across every B2B tech category, vendor website/mobile app is the top research destination for buyers. In aggregate, this source is followed by blogs/forums/discussion boards, product review websites, and technology media/trade journals:
In short, buyers are seeking out trustworthy information — be it from a company’s own website or from unbiased third party resources. This accentuates the importance of building credibility with best-answer content, which can satisfy a decision maker’s questions during research while also positioning your brand as helpful and knowledgeable.
#4 – Buyers Want Partners, Not Sellers
Above all, tech buyers value the overall quality of a product or service above all when choosing a vendor. (Duh.) But the next two factors are interesting: both the ability to consistently meet a buyer’s needs, and the ability to answer questions to a buyer’s satisfaction, rank above affordability/pricing in importance:
This is why the customer experience is becoming such an overarching imperative. Effective marketing now goes beyond the scope of traditional functions. Brands need to be readily available, with the right content at the right time. Strategies must account for every touch point. Always-on approaches are becoming the norm. And this level of attentiveness should go beyond the actual purchase itself…
#5 – Smooth Implementation is Essential
Per LinkedIn, “The #1 indicator of customer renewal success is successful adoption and product satisfaction.” No surprise there. But it’s another reminder of why the full customer experience needs to be addressed.
“The data shows direct vendor engagement among buyers dropping off in later stages of purchase, meaning that there’s an opportunity to be more present and engaged with customers post-sale,” according to the report. “Marketers need to play an active role in the implementation and adoption process of new technology. A seamless customer experience also demands alignment with customer support in activities, training and key education resources.”
How can marketing continue to shape experiences in these later stages and after the sale? It’s a vital consideration for profitability, since we all know the relative cost of acquiring new customers compared to retaining existing ones.
Follow the Tech Buyers
None of the nuggets revealed in LinkedIn’s “Enlightened Tech Buyer” report are especially surprising, but they do reinforce some of the trends we see playing out at large:
- Buying committees are becoming more distributed
- Researchers seek out objective information and best-answer content
- We need to help, not sell
- Marketing is starting to impact more parts of the customer experience
To get the full scoop on today’s B2B tech buyer preferences, check out LinkedIn’s report.
*Disclosure: LinkedIn is a TopRank Marketing client.
The post Top Takeaways from LinkedIn’s New ‘Enlightened Tech Buyer’ Report appeared first on Online Marketing Blog – TopRank®.
How to Create a Free Facebook Messenger Bot (ManyChat Tutorial)
How to Create a Free Facebook Messenger Bot (ManyChat Tutorial) Subscribe so you never miss another video https://goo.gl/xqijqT Start Growing Your …
Read More →Is Moz Domain Authority Important for SEO?
Authority and rank metrics like Moz Domain Authority can be incredibly useful for all of your SEO campaigns but when taken at face value or misinterpreted, these metrics can lead you astray of important goals and leave you chasing ROI shadows.
The point of any ranking or authority metric is to mimic a search engine ranking algorithm. Companies like Moz have invested heavily and built these calculations on the backs of crawlers that index pages, count links, evaluate topicality, and use machine learning to provide insights into how well your website might rank against a competitor.
There are quite a few ranking metrics on the market today. Some of the more well-known ones include Majestic’s Trust Flow and Citation Flow, Ahrefs’ Domain Rating, and Moz’s Domain Authority.
Let’s dive into one of the most used authority metrics out there: Moz Domain Authority.
What is Moz Domain Authority?
The Moz Domain Authority, or DA, is a proprietary metric that attempts to predict how well your website will rank on a scale of 1-100.
DA is a good indicator of a website’s potential for organic visibility. Moz also calculates the Page Authority (PA) for a specific URL, scoring it the same way that it does for the domain as a whole.
You can quickly check your DA with the MozBar Chrome extension.
MozBar comes in a few different flavors. The default view gives you DA scores and linking breakdowns for all the pages in a search results page, or once you click through to a page, the DA score and analysis for that page.
A lighter, more simplified view is the DA mode which only shows the score of the page you’re on in the extension icon.
What Does Moz DA Measure?
Moz DA measures links: links, links, and more links.
The Moz score measures inbound links from other sites to your specific pages, inbound links to any of your sub-domains, and inbound links to anywhere on your root domain. It also adds up the number of unique domains and the total quantity of links pointing at your site.
From the Moz Domain Authority explainer:
“Domain Authority is calculated by evaluating multiple factors, including linking root domains and number of total links, into a single DA score. This score can then be used when comparing websites or tracking the “ranking strength” of a website over time. Domain Authority is not a metric used by Google in determining search rankings and has no effect on the SERPs.”
Moz is taking all of the link data from their Link Explorer tool for a given website and matching that up against other domains in their index.
Did you see the catch there?
The score is based only on the Moz index of the web, not Google’s or anyone else’s. Their metric is only as good as its index, which got a lot better last year when Link Explorer replaced Open Site Explorer (OSE), increasing the size of their index 35x and the freshness of their index 30x.
Moz DA 2.0 Update
You may have heard recently about a shake-up with Domain Authority. Moz overhauled the way that they were calculating DA, and marketers and webmasters went into a tizzy. Some sites’ scores went up while others’ went down.
The most important thing to know is that Domain Authority got better. The size of Moz’s link data set got bigger and fresher while they worked in ways to better interpret the link data by incorporating their Spam Score and adding a dash of machine-learning.
So, if you were closely monitoring your Domain Authority scores and they went up on or around March 5, 2019, keep doing what you’re doing. Maybe even more of it.
If your DA dropped off a cliff, you weren’t penalized — it was because your links stink. Moz got significantly better at assessing the quality of the inbound links pointing at your website, and their DA is now a more accurate reflection of Google’s algorithm.
I recommend conducting a little backlink audit and updating that disavow file as soon as you get the chance.
Is Domain Authority a Ranking Factor?
No.
Domain Authority is not a Google ranking factor.
DA is a Moz metric.
Google doesn’t use it. Bing doesn’t use it. DuckDuckGo doesn’t use it.
But, as Googler John Mueller cheekily pointed out during an AMA last year, DA does exist, and Google is aware of it:
How Should You Use Domain Authority?
Domain Authority and similar authority and ranking scores are great as a comparative metric. They should never be used as an absolute measurement of how well your website is doing in organic search. Keep a close eye on your scores and your competitors’ scores over time, especially when there are coordinated campaigns with dedicated outreach efforts.
If you have a link building campaign running alongside on-page optimizations of sections of your website, you’ll be able to show the correlation between on- and off-page factors driving in high-quality traffic.
Then, add DA over time to a reporting dashboard that highlights all the traffic being driven to your campaign’s target pages.
Moz Domain Authority should only be used as a part of your overall tracking strategy; it should never be the sole measurement.
And after the 2.0 refresh, it is one of the best reflections of how Google might be analyzing and ranking your website. As long as you know how to use it (and how not to use it), DA will be a reliable indicator of how well you will perform against your competitors in the SERPs.
The post Is Moz Domain Authority Important for SEO? appeared first on Portent.
New Research on Stress, Anxiety, DNA, and the Likelihood of Getting Sick
Get Free Resources from Eazl: http://bit.ly/eazlresources Save $5 on some of Eazl’s most popular courses ➸ Career Hacking: Resume, LinkedIn®, Interviewing + …
Read More →Customer Understanding: The Cornerstone of Customer-Centricity
If you don’t know by now, customer understanding is the cornerstone of customer-centricity.
Customer-centricity means putting the customer at the center; customer understanding is how you’ll achieve that.
What is customer-centricity?
A lot of people talk about being customer-centric, but it’s one thing to say that and another to be it! Customer-centricity is about putting the customer at the center of all you do.
