B2B Connection

TrustRadius Top Rated Today, we awarded the 2019 TrustRadius Top Rated badges for Ad Serving & Retargeting Platforms. The TrustRadius Top Rated awards are the most trusted in the industry because they are an unbiased reflection of customer sentiment, based solely on user feedback and satisfaction scores. Top Rated awards are the voice of the market and are not influenced by analyst opinion, the vendor’s company size, popularity, or status as a TrustRadius customer. Ad Serving & Retargeting Platforms Ad serving & retargeting software is designed to help marketing teams expose customers and prospects to promotional content both on their own digital channels and on other sites. While ad serving solutions typically focus on displaying rich ad content to all site visitors, retargeting software uses visitor behavioral and intent data, collected onsite and offsite, to focus on more specific audience segments. Some ad serving & retargeting products allow marketers to use targeted promotional content on multiple different channels (e.g. websites, social media platforms, blogs, news sites, etc). Common ad serving & retargeting software features include ad campaign creation and deployment, multiple formats to display ads, sequenced ad targeting, integrations with ad exchanges, ad analytics and reporting, ad conversion tracking, ad […]

The podcasting boom is well and truly underway. According to recent figures, iTunes is now home to more than 525,000 active podcasts, with a total of 18.5 million episodes available to stream or download. Furthermore, podcast audiences have consistently grown 10 to 20% year over year, a trend which seems highly likely to continue. This growing popularity represents a big opportunity. Podcasts are a great marketing tool as they enable companies to share subject-specific expertise in a novel and engaging way. This helps build brand recognition, trust, and authority among consumers. Indeed many businesses have already taken the leap and begun recording and distributing their own podcasts. In this post, we’ll explore why that is and how you can do the same. The growing popularity of podcasting The growth of podcasting corresponds with the slow decline of traditional media such as TV and radio. Audiences are now increasingly seeking out niche online content that caters to their own interests and hobbies. This is part of the appeal of podcasts. Whatever you’re into, from banking to cartoons, there’s a podcast out there for you. This level of variety simply can’t be matched by traditional media.   Another key factor contributing to […]

The rapid evolution of technology has changed every facet of doing business.  These days, companies are feeling the pressure to evaluate their status quo and adjust where needed. One area this pressure is being felt especially hard is the respective roles of marketing and sales and how to create synchronicity between the two. Sales/marketing alignment is regularly cited as one of the top concerns for B2B organizations, and for good reason—misalignment between these two teams accounts for $1 trillion in costs per year. There are lots of questions to answer about how exactly to get these teams aligned. It can be confusing! Should you make a new technology investment? Do you need new hires? Should you hire a firm to facilitate alignment? Is it just a matter of adjusting existing processes? Deciding which marketing moves are most important can be overwhelming. It can feel like B2B marketing execs caught up in intangible, strategic moves while urgent to-do lists and revenue goals loom for practitioners on the ground. However, there’s good news! There are five overall steps to achieving sales and marketing alignment that have been tried and true by expert marketers. Even better news? There are lots of accessible, inexpensive […]

Your website can be a revenue-generating machine when you optimize it with your users in mind. But if you want to generate more leads, and more revenue, then implementing effective user experience (UX) best practices is a must. There are many tools that can help you on your UX journey, including A/B testing tools, Digital Experience platforms, ecommerce software, and other tools aimed to optimize your website and enhance your strategy. Consider these six effective UX strategies you can use to leverage revenue-producing results from your website. 1. Optimize Your Landing Pages Your landing pages are the face of your online presence and will help generate revenue by leading prospects down the sales funnel and increase your conversion rate. For instance, you can create landing pages that help prospects make a purchase and use clearly identifiable buttons for carrying out the transaction. Making sure the content on your site is consistent on your landing pages is also another way to streamline and optimize your website. For example, if you’re offering a free trial on your site, your landing page should mirror that message. 2. Make Site Navigation Natural A site that is hard to navigate can drive down your revenue […]

According to RollWorks, there are four key metrics to keep in mind on your Account Based Marketing (ABM) journey: Total Match Rate True Match Rate Account Match Rate Account Coverage Check out the infographic below to get a better understanding of these metrics and decide which one might be the right fit for your strategy. Before you create an ABM strategy and begin running your campaigns, you must first select an ABM software that best fits your company’s needs. A recent research study concluded that 19% of companies that pursue ABM are confident in their ability to do so properly. Perhaps this is caused by not understanding the functionality of their tools, or, perhaps, it is because they are using the wrong tools in general. Either way, selecting the best fitting ABM tool is detrimental to your marketing team if you’re aiming to ramp up this strategy. Check out Reviews of ABM tools and get a jump start on your buying journey!

We have all been there – waiting on a line to reach customer support. Whether you needed to solve a problem with your banker, airline, or online purchase, your first step was to call customer support. This has been a predictable part of our customer experience. However, in the SaaS community, customer support has evolved. Companies have transformed their customer support agents into customer success teams. Not sure what the difference between customer support and customer success is? The rest of this article will dive into what customer success and customer support are and how they are different. From there, we’ll take a deeper look at what customer success is all about – and why it may be one of the most important things for your business. What is Customer Support? Customer support is the service a company provides clients with when they have questions or complaints about a product. When there is a ticket that needs to be resolved, team representatives are on it. Customer support is continually utilized throughout the entire customer lifecycle – from planning and implementation to maintenance and upgrades. Once associated with call centers, customer support now spans many digital channels, including email, phone, instant […]

Gone are the days of having quick, polite, and ultimately superficial customer interactions. The people have spoken, and what they want is personalization. It’s no longer enough to make sure your agents are hitting target KPIs such as average handle time or average wait time – although these metrics are still important – and call it a day. The customer service industry has realized that customer experience (CX) is king. Enhancing CX is one of the best ways to set your business apart from the rest. It’s likely to reap higher ROI too. As of 2017, 81% of companies surveyed in Dimension Data’s Global Customer Experience Benchmarking Report identified customer experience as a key differentiator, and 79% observed the cost-saving effect of investing in CX. However, customer service companies, like contact centers, still have a ways to go in delivering quality customer experiences. In their State of the Connected Consumer report in which they surveyed over 7,000 global customers and buyers, Salesforce identified that 66% of consumers and 65% of business buyers will switch companies if they do not have personalized experiences with companies – or vendors.  A recent CX study also discovered that 58% of customers feel as if […]

Now that it’s 2019, 2018’s digital marketing landscape has seen trends that picked up in 2017 gain even more momentum. Video content, influencer marketing, outreach on social channels, augmented reality, SEO, and data-driven advertising strategies continue to be leading tools of choice for savvy brand-builders.   Predictions can be dicey. If there’s one constant in our technology-saturated times, it’s that the changes keep coming—often in unforeseen ways. We’ve got 2018 behind us, and can now make a few educated guesses about the trajectory of social media marketing in 2019. So saddle up for a tour of current trends and coming attractions. The Natives Are (Still) Social Let’s start with the Great White Whale of recent online marketing trends—the mad dash to master social media marketing. It is important to note that, recent events and marketing tactics have created a sense of distrust among users. This includes everything from privacy data breaches, political “trolls”, and the overuse of #ads on social platforms. Despite the 11 point decline in trust from users, social media still remains a strong contender for marketing. Now, brands are beginning to take a new, more authentic, approach to how they reach consumers. In recent years, social channels like Facebook, […]

If your business is growing, you are most likely doing something right when it comes to marketing. You have your marketing automation and weekly blog posts down, your social media posts are all duly scheduled, and your PPC ads are set in place. But where do you go from there? Soon enough, you may be scraping the bottom of the barrel unless you are willing to invest in cutting-edge marketing tools that can bring your brand deeper into organic marketing. It is time to take your digital marketing to the next level. “Creating content is not enough. Rather, you need advanced strategies rooted in your objectives so that you can engage and persuade today’s social readers.” ~ Neil Patel Instead of investing more money in paid traffic, it’s time to make your content feel more organic for your audience. This article takes a deep dive into two more advanced marketing tools that the most successful brands use to make more intelligent campaign strategies: predictive analytics and A/B testing. Adam Wagner, Chief Strategy Officer at branding and advertising firm Raindrop, doubles down on the importance of finding organic ways to reach your audience. They tend to find warmer leads in your […]

Wrapping your head around the new normal in the marketing industry means working your way through a branching tree of innovations. The long list includes social media outreach; leveraging video with different audiences in different settings; the latest tricks and tools of search engine optimization (SEO); influencer marketing; high-tech business analytics and other data-driven advertising tools; and more. Another item that belongs on our list is affiliate marketing. The term refers to the practice of earning income from marketing someone else’s brand, services, or products on their behalf. If it sounds like a golden ticket to financial success, there’s a good reason for that. It can be a great source of revenue when properly carried out. But, at the same time, the simplicity of the concept can be deceptive. And because the idea lends itself to some easy misunderstandings, a few myths about affiliate marketing have grown up over time. Our job here will be to dispel those myths and lay out a roadmap for success in affiliate marketing based on some simple fundamentals. Keep reading to grab that map. What Is Affiliate Marketing? Put simply, affiliate marketing is the sharing of revenue based on shared marketing efforts. It’s a […]

Change is in the air in the world of print. It’s a cliché—but a true one—that the internet has transformed how we work, relax, date, socialize, consume culture, share news, and most of everything else we do. Something else that’s been redefined by big changes in digital tech is how writers write, publish, and promote their work. One thing that hasn’t changed is that publishing a book first requires writing it. Writing means wrangling with a manuscript, fussing over edits, proofing it, and all the rest. And because even the most polished final draft won’t sell itself, you’ve got to find your readers and get your book into their hands. On the traditional publishing model of yesteryear, writers typically needed an agent to do the promotional work and represent them to publishers. Here’s where things have changed. Today, there is an abundance of digital tools designed to help you spread your ideas and tell your stories. These tools can help you publish your work without traditional support from a publisher and an agent. With the right tools and some patience and determination, you can self-publish your own work, and perhaps even achieve bestseller-grade success. Autonomous publication has enormous potential to […]

When it comes to sleek eye-catching print ads or TV commercials that make you want to dance, Apple has dominated the advertisement game. Their marketing campaigns have proved to be memorable, successful, and always seem to leave songs stuck in your head. These advertisements, however, are merely just the surface of their entire marketing strategy. Their strategy is one that runs deep, highlighting the product itself, not how to purchase it. Lessons to Learn from Apple There are many lessons to be learned from Apple’s unique approach to content and marketing. Their success does not just come from driving sales from direct marketing. In fact, much of their marketing strategy has a focus on customer loyalty, curiosity, and unique experiences. It’s safe to say that any company can learn a lot from Apple’s approach to marketing. Here are 10 lessons to learn from Apple and ways in which you can integrate these practices into your new marketing strategy. Courtesy of: The Website Group   Are you ready to adopt new “Apple-inspired” marketing tactics? Check out TrustRadius reviews for marketing automation software, content marketing software, or even video editing software to find the right tools to build out your new approach […]

In an age where inbound marketing has taken over, it is almost impossible to find a software or influencer who does not have a blog. It’s basically a requirement just to be on the Internet. When blogs abound, it can be difficult to sort through blogs that are merely throwing keywords at you and the gems that can actually inspire an ‘ah-ha’ moment. Some of the best blogs out there can help you grow your business exponentially. The B2B community has a wealth of information on digital marketing, SEO, modern sales techniques, and more. To access this information, we have put together a list of the top 14 blogs you should be following. These blogs offer plenty of useful content that can help you get started or advance your skills in your B2B company. The first 7 are personal and consulting blogs, followed by 7 software companies with blogs dedicated to the B2B space. B2B Personal and Consulting Blogs 1. Neil Patel’s Blog You don’t need to work in digital marketing long before you start hearing about Neil Patel. Neil Patel founded Crazy Egg and Hello Bar and has a reputation for testing everything while producing enough content to prove it. His […]

It’s a big question and if you find yourself in league with many marketers, one that is important to understand. A recent study conducted by Bizzabo found that 80% of c-suite executives believe that live events are crucial to their organization’s success. In this blog post we’ll walk you the various stages of event marketing and what it means for your brand. What is Event Marketing? Event marketing goes by many different names, including field marketing, experiential marketing, in-person marketing, and live event marketing. Whether it’s a thousand-person customer conference, an intimate VIP dinner for prospects, a street-side donut booth your brand sponsors, an internal company event to rally your team, or a roundtable discussion of an industry–event marketing is harnessing the power of person-to-person experiences to create unforgettable moments that drive business goals. It’s also just so happens to be one of the most effective channels for achieving business goals. Note: While event marketing can be associated with exhibiting or sponsoring an event in addition to hosting your own, we will focus on what it takes to create your own event during this piece. (Still, that’s not to say that many of the same takeaways don’t apply. They definitely […]

Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is simple. Businesses pay for ads to appear on search engine results pages, like Google, Facebook, Instagram, Bing, Yahoo and more. Every day, 3.5 billion Google searches take place. People are seeking information on all things, whether it be clothing brands, health products, or food delivery options. No matter your type of business, you need to appear in those top results. That’s where SEM comes in. Your ads are online and easy for potential customers to find. Ad retargeting makes SEM even more effective because it tracks who has visited your site and makes sure they see your ads again. Search Engine Marketing is necessary for your business to grow in today’s competitive climate. Google Ads, formerly known as Google AdWords, is one of the most popular choices for SEM and ad retargeting but that does not mean it is the only option. Here we take a dive into Google Ads and its competitors to see how they compare. A Glance at Google Ads Google Ads is one of the biggest pay-per-click online advertising platforms. It has formerly been well-known under its original name, Google AdWords. The platform itself is free to use and only charges businesses […]

The adoption of mobile device usage since 2011 is nothing short of a revolution. According to the Pew Research Center, more than 95% of Americans own a cell phone and 77% own smartphones. This is up from 35% in 2011. As our comfort with cell phones increases, so does our dependency. This past March, Pew reported that 26% of American adults go online “almost constantly” up from 21% in 2015. The vast majority of us (77%) go online daily, with 43% going online several times a day and 8% going online about once a day. Wide mobile adoption crosses multiple demographics. Americans ages 30 to 49 are now as likely as younger adults to use the internet almost constantly. Additionally, the share of “constant” internet users ages 50 to 64 has risen from 12% to 17% since 2015. This widespread adoption of mobile naturally has implications for the way we search for products and services in our professional lives. It also affects how B2B marketers can reach buyers. This constant connectivity provides new opportunities for marketers to connect with B2B buyers who consume and interact with online content at all hours of the day. The Modern B2B Shopper Research from […]

It’s 2018, and having an online presence is no longer optional for most businesses. From enterprises to small local shops, online content helps businesses connect with their target audience and keep up with current customers. There are a few elements to this – social media, for example, is often crucial for engagement and reviews. But at the core of moving online for most businesses is the use of a Content Management System, or CMS. A CMS is used to create, manage and publish web content. This includes websites, blog posts, e-commerce content, corporate information and more. Businesses can use a CMS as a basic blogging platform or a unified platform for their entire web presence. Depending on the platform, users can typically create content directly within the CMS. Some feature WYSIWYG editors, while others require at least some technical skill for uploading content, customizing the layout, and building out navigation. CMS platforms are critical for business success because they allow companies a structured and integrated approach to managing content across web pages. Most also let users personalize content, analyze demographics and optimize content. WordPress is one of the most widely used Content Management Systems out there today. In fact, WordPress […]

In this guide, we’ll give you insights on how to use Facebook to market your brand to a consumer audience. As the world’s most popular social network, and one that offers many tools for advertisers to personalize and measure their campaigns, Facebook is a powerful way for you to reach consumers. Here’s everything you need to know to get started with Facebook Ads. Why is Facebook a Good Tool for B2C marketing? Social Ads are a quick, effective, and inexpensive mode of reaching potential clients through highly personalized messages. Thanks to social networks’ large user data storage, social ads hold the potential for highly precise and targeted campaigns. With over 1.5 billion active users, Facebook offers an enormous potential reach, making it one of the most interesting social networks to leverage. It is also one of the most personalizable and visual options, all at a very low cost per click. For a successful B2C Facebook marketing strategy, follow these five basic steps: Understand the different types of ad placement Facebook offers. Define your goals for the ads—awareness, consideration, or conversion? Build your audience segments. Design and format your ads. Measure your results, and iterate! In the rest of the guide, […]

Influencer marketing isn’t just for the B2C space. It makes sense in any industry where at least one person has become notable and respected for their knowledge, contributions, and insights. In fact, it would be difficult to find a niche where influencers weren’t making their mark. By successfully using influencers, you can increase trust with your target audience, make your content more appealing, and give your audience a person they can relate to. The latter may be the most important, because people tend to form relationships with brands not businesses. By having a respected person act as an ambassador or evangelist for your brand, you add a genuine face and personality. The old adage is true, people buy from people. Of course, in the B2B space, influencer marketing is a bit more challenging. In B2C, a brand can simply find a well-known person that their audience will find relatable. That person doesn’t necessarily have to have any direct relationship with the product or service offered, or any relevant professional expertise, they can simply promote it as something they consume in their personal life. In a sense, B2C ambassadors are really often pitchmen. In B2B, it’s necessary to dig a little […]

Graphic design has always been an integral part of marketing and business operations. In more recent years, design software has become more accessible for business leaders looking to bring a new edge to their image. Gone are the days when specialized knowledge was a prerequisite for creating compelling design. But how do you choose the right design software for your needs and abilities? Design software tools range from simple platforms for beginners to advanced suites for experienced graphic designers. Which design software you choose will depend entirely on experience level and what you are looking to do with design. But no matter what, you should look for a design tool that makes your job easier and your message clearer. Take into account these words from the designer of the world-famous FedEx logo. “I strive for two things in design: simplicity and clarity. Great design is born of those two things.” ~ Lindon Leader This design mantra applies equally well to design software tools which should also be simple to use and bring clarity to what you are trying to accomplish. If you’re looking to create social media graphics, you most likely won’t need an entire design suite. On the other […]