The Information Game
There is a game B2B marketers around the globe play every day. The stakes are always high, the rules are never the same, the goals can change during the game, and it often takes months to determine a winner. The game is played in every industry and with all types of products and services. Any number can play, but in most instances, there are five or six participants—all with different roles, agendas and experience levels. Players can come from the client side, the agency side or an outside consultant. This challenging contest has no official title. In fact, most B2B marketers don’t even realize they’re playing. For the sake of this article, we’ll
A cure for the common chaos
By Randy Mitchell A wise client once confided that a little chaos was good for creatives. She believed it forced us to think in unexpected ways. That was an eye-opening revelation and I embraced her sage guidance. However, in today’s turbulent B2B marketplace with labor shortages and global supply chain challenges, the last thing marketing managers need is more chaos. That’s particularly true when it comes to planning a major initiative. If you have a significant project coming in 2023, a marketing RFP is the logical starting point. However, the marketing RFP process, particularly on the B2B side, is an inexact science. It’s a complex, time-consuming, high-profile assignment that is initiated out of necessity.
The stats story
By Randy Mitchell “Here’s a crazy idea
When B2B goes off the rails
By Randy Mitchell There are some moments when the world of B2B does not make sense. Thankfully, these meltdowns are few and far between. I had one of them last week and I’m still reeling. My moment of madness happened because I read the following statistics from Hubspot: 73 percent of B2B firms have increased their marketing spending in 2022 63 percent of B2B firms do not follow a formal marketing RFP process The first stat made perfect sense. The second one is stupefying. Let’s say you work at a B2B firm that’s planning a major marketing initiative like a social media program launch, website redesign, video production or full-on rebranding. What’s the first logical step
Want the best work from your agency? Use the Magic Document.
By Randy Mitchell You’re a reasonable marketing professional: smart, productive, and you have great taste in blogs. You work for a reasonable company: they have important programs, big plans, and they were wise enough to hire you. So, when your company’s leadership team makes the all-important decision to bring in a marketing firm, it’s only reasonable to expect the agency’s best work. But will that expectation truly materialize? Far too often the answer is no, particularly when it comes to B2B marketing. The relationship starts well enough. Everyone seems to connect, and the agency promises a quick ramp up and real progress. “They actually get it,” growls the company’s tough CEO, and everyone is smiling. Then
B2B marketing trends among friends
By Randy Mitchell What are your go-to resources for the latest B2B marketing trends? Popular options include HubSpot, Digiday, Forbes, the ANA and LinkedIn. But those industry experts only represent the top level of available insights. If you truly want to dive deeply into emerging B2B marketing trends, there is a data deluge just waiting to wash away a few hours of your day. For the sake of brevity and your busy schedule, I’m proposing an entirely different approach to trendspotting. Let’s call it: “B2B marketing trends among friends.” That title is appropriate because the driving forces behind these particular trends are our clients and contacts, and all of the topics we’ll cover are
The marketing elephant in the room
By Randy Mitchell It can crush budgets, trample timelines and smash strategies. It has a nasty habit of monopolizing planning meetings, status calls and your lunch hour. It packs about 13,000 pounds of angst, and it just landed squarely on your shoulders. What is it? The marketing elephant in the room. Every B2B marketer has one. I’m talking about the massive program that gets assigned to you as coworkers sigh audibly and avoid your glance. From that day forward, your pachyderm of a project will follow you around the office, onto the bus, and sometimes, it even comes home with you. Maybe your elephant is a social media program. It can be a beast to develop
B2B Lead Generation Techniques for the New Era of Leads
The world of lead generation is changing. In a recent post, we discussed how the lead generation landscape has evolved over the years, and what’s different about how leads are found today. But how can companies reach the customers and prospects they’re looking for in this new era? In this blog post, we’ll explore lead generation techniques that can help you meet prospects where they’re at and find leads that are truly qualified. How to Make Contact One crucial aspect of generating qualified leads in this new paradigm is ensuring your website gets found. Prospects are doing their research using Google and looking at the sites of businesses with potential solutions to their
The New Paradigm For Generating Sales Leads
Leads are the lifeblood of every business. But over the past several years, the way we think about generating sales leads has changed. This has left some companies confused and unsure about how to get the best, most qualified leads for their sales teams to work with. In this two-part blog series from Boomm, we’ll look at how the landscape of lead generation has changed. We’ll first discuss how lead generation evolved to the process we see today. Then we’ll pinpoint ways that companies can generate better qualified leads. The History of Lead Generation For many decades, leads were the property of the sales team, particularly in the B2B world. The sales representative
B2B Lead Generation Best Practices: How Do You Compare?
What will $272 get you? One three-day pass to Lollapalooza, if you snagged it before they sold out. A decent dinner for two if your gastronomic bar is not set ridiculously high. Or, a qualified lead, if you're an average B2B marketer. According to Advertising Age's 2014 B-to-B Marketing Fact Pack, $272 is the average cost of a qualified lead, up 10% over the previous year. Given the cost it takes to obtain that quality lead, it's useful to look at what the report identifies as B2B lead generation best practices, as well as how marketing peers judge the performance of their lead generating initiatives. What Qualifies a Qualified Lead? So, how do B2B