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Earlier this year, we spent a month focused on the importance of organizational purpose, and that conversation is as relevant as ever as we move into 2016.
Why is purpose important? For one thing, it’s the right thing to do. Your organization has an impact on the world through its actions, from advocacy efforts to charitable contributions to supply chain decisions. Shouldn’t that impact be one that fits your values? Creating and operationalizing a strong statement of purpose puts your organization on track to do good for your employees, your customers and your community.
Moreover, organizational purpose is in high demand among jobseekers, especially millennials, as Bob Murphy discussed in his piece for Triple Pundit, Why making an impact is good for recruitment, retention and production. When people can see the concrete impact of your organization’s purpose and corporate social responsibility efforts, they are more likely to want to work there, and to feel more connected to the work they do.
Marketers, make purpose a priority in 2016
This is the perfect time of year to realign your department with overall organizational purpose. That includes making sure that your team is involved in cause-focused initiatives, and building robust messaging around organizational purpose.
In terms of committing to organizational initiatives, encourage your team to take part in any charitable or other programs that your organization is involved in. Perhaps even brainstorm some new ones that would suit your department well and are in line with your organization’s goals and values.
In terms of better communicating your organization’s purpose in your marketing efforts, hold a strategy session to evaluate what aspects of your purpose are and are not resonating with your audience. Consider the channels where you can better showcase the good work your organization is doing, as well as the types of content you can use to do so. Review top examples of B2B organizations that have used digital marketing to make a difference in how the public views various issues, and let them inspire your upcoming work.
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At Movéo, our blog is one of our chief ways of sharing our knowledge and connecting with you, our readers. As the year draws to a close, we wanted to take a look back at some of our favorite posts from the year.
From Mad Men to today: how purpose has changed in marketing
How much do you know about the history of marketing? For a trip through time, read our post on how purpose-driven marketing has changed through the decades. From David Ogilvy to Dove’s “Campaign for Real Beauty,” take a look at how technological and social change have transformed marketing and advertising.
Is your marketing ready for the next big thing?
The marketing community is always excited about the new tools and techniques that are changing the face of marketing operations. In this post from July, we covered two still-trendy topics, gamification and live streaming video.
Half a year later, it’s clear that live streaming video especially has had staying power in the B2B marketing space. For an example of its continuing success, just take a look at Caterpillar’s recent campaign, which combined drone footage and live-streaming video and made a splash. As we move into 2016, how will your organization harness gamification, live streaming video or another “next big thing” in your marketing?
Why you should combine your marketing and sales reports (and how to do it)
This introduction to combining marketing and sales reporting should be on your list of things to revisit as you strategize for the coming year. Why? Marketing and sales alignment creates a more consistent experience for prospects and a more productive environment for internal operations. Equally important, a combined marketing and sales report better shows your organization’s leaders how marketing and sales work in tandem to contribute to the pipeline.
Why employee voice matters: a dive into The Social Employee
Early in 2015, Movéo took part in a Twitter chat with Cheryl Burgess, one of the authors of The Social Employee, a book for which our own Kevin Randall wrote the afterword. In this post, we explored how employee voice shapes brand identity, a key theme from the book. Additionally, we shared why it’s important to encourage honest, open employee sharing on social channels given the rise of raw content and the desire for greater authenticity online.
Launching a data-driven campaign
As content trends come and go, we believe that one thing remains unchanged: data is key to success. Review this post from the spring for three ideas for how you can craft a successful data-driven campaign.
Looking back at this post, there’s only one thing we would add, and that’s the importance of keeping your data clean. In order to gain real insights from data, you need to collect and analyze the data appropriately. Are you prepared to do so in 2016?
In 2016, what would you like to hear more about in the world of marketing? Are there topics you’d like to see more about on our blog? Get in touch.
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CMOs face a variety of pressures: to prove marketing’s ROI to the CEO, to stay on top of marketing trends and changes and to provide their teams with the training, tools and leadership they need to perform. It’s a lot to manage, but a successful CMO is a powerful force for their organization’s growth and development.
This year, we think all CMOs should resolve to take the work of their departments to the next level. Here’s our advice for making it happen:
Invest in better data collection and analysis
The most successful digital marketing is data-driven. You’d be hard-pressed to find marketers who disagree with that statement, and yet not all marketers are committing the resources required do data-driven marketing right.
In the coming year, take steps to maximize accuracy in your data-driven predictions. That means employing one or more experienced data scientists (or working with a partner firm), and giving them the tools they need to work effectively. Ask your team what data collection and analysis tools they would most like in place for the coming year.
Empower your team to make departmental alignment a priority
Interdepartmental alignment starts from the top, but to be impactful it needs to be implemented at all levels. That means empowering your team to take ownership of their relationship with the rest of your organization.
How can you do this? First, train your team to better understand how they impact the rest of the organization, from sales to IT. When individuals feel connected to the overall operations and purpose of your organization, they feel more invested in their work. Moreover, they will be driven to make connections with their colleagues across departments.
Invest in professional development
If you’re like many marketing leaders, you make time for some professional training for your team members, in the form of occasional trainings on new tech tools or talks on industry trends. But in 2016, think outside the box when it comes to professional development for your marketing team. You may not have the resources to give your employees 20 percent of their time to work on passion projects, as Google used to, but you can still embrace unconventional professional development projects.
Consider aligning your professional development programs with your organizational purpose and provide opportunities for your team to do pro-bono work or volunteer in areas they’d like to explore. Or, encourage team members to think creatively by setting up a quarterly or annual activity that stimulates their imaginations. Perhaps have your team brainstorm ways to market a fictional product from a popular movie, or try out each other’s roles as a training exercise.
Looking for more guidance on how to better support your team in 2016? Browse our library of white papers.
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This year has brought the launch of some truly innovative B2B marketing campaigns. We’ve enjoyed seeing the creativity of our fellow marketers, who consistently push the envelope to create engaging new content and wow their audiences.
All marketers can take away key learnings from standout campaigns, and we’ve mined some of our favorite marketing efforts from 2015 for these lessons. If you missed any of these top B2B campaigns, consider this recap our gift to you. Happy Holidays!
Virtual reality takes viewers inside engines
Winner of the Gold PRO Award 2015 from Chief Marketer, “The Bosch Xperience” brought engineering company Bosch’s systems to life using the virtual reality headset Oculus Rift. In this campaign, a Bosch-branded truck visited auto shops and gave retailers a virtual trip through an engine and braking system using Bosch’s technology.
This campaign took advantage of an innovative technology to create a new type of content: a virtual reality experience. The virtual tour of a working engine and brake system created an experience that cannot easily be replicated in a mailer, blog post or even video. Bosch chose a content form that fit their offering well and could effectively set them apart from the competition. Moreover, by pairing the virtual reality experience with a national tour, Bosch could build excitement around the campaign itself as well as the technologies it promoted.
Top-of-the-line educational content cements brand identity
Spiceworks is a social network, app inventory and online help desk for IT professionals all in one. They strive to be the go-to place on the web for every IT pro who needs help solving a challenge, and they’ve been building out their content library in support of that goal for a while now. However, in 2015, some pieces in particular stood out.
In their annual State of IT report, a compilation of IT budgets and tech trends, Spiceworks presented valuable research findings gathered from hundreds of IT professionals as well as social data and IT usage stats. This research alone would be enough to position the brand as a thought leader in IT, but Spiceworks went above and beyond to imbue the report with its quirky brand character.
Presenting their findings as “the budgetary beasts” and security threats IT pros must “battle” in the coming year, the report is designed with cartoon monsters personifying the challenges facing IT. The combination of data and whimsy draws readers through the report—and positions Spiceworks as a knowledgeable but approachable brand.
Simplifying complexity encourages innovation
In 2015, SAP, the enterprise software company that helps businesses manage their operations and customer relations, realized something many of its competitors did not. They recognized that while business leaders are excited by the growth of big data and digital technology, they’re also overwhelmed. SAP even found that in some cases, leaders actually feel that the complexities created by data and digital can hinder business growth by impacting productivity and inflating budgets. To combat this mindset, they launched their largest-ever multi-platform campaign entitled ‘Run simple.’ The campaign features online video, TV and outside broadcast, all aligned around the message that SAP helps its customers simplify their operations and improve innovation even in the face of great complexity. We applaud SAP for truly understanding their buyers’ pain points and hesitations, and then approaching them head-on.
These campaigns serve as proof that building a strong B2B brand matters—in fact, we believe that B2B brands matter more than B2C. Download our white paper to learn more. You can also contact us to talk about how you can implement next year’s stand-out marketing campaign for your organization.
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In 2015, we addressed topics across marketing, from business purpose to innovative content forms. As we move into the coming year, those lessons are just as important as ever. As you plan for 2016, revisit these pieces, and see why they are still relevant to your marketing going forward.
How CMOs can prove their ROI in the C-suite
Sixty-two percent of CMOs say they feel pressure from their CEOs to prove marketing’s value. Are you one of them? In this piece for MarketingProfs, Movéo Managing Partner Bob Murphy gives CMOs the tools to show their value to their CEOs and boards.
In 2016, measuring and reporting marketing’s ROI will remain a top priority for marketers in organizations large and small. Review Bob’s piece for ideas on how you can identify and address opportunities to improve the impact of your marketing, and display your success to your boss.
Data and insights in action: how major B2B marketers are earning their seat at the table
Writing in Business2Community in June, Bob Murphy again addressed CMOs needing to solidify their roles in high-level business discussions. These four tips remain critical to grow marketing and improve success rates.
In 2016, commit to using data-based strategies to drive meaningful growth and change—and demonstrate your department’s ROI. As Bob states in this piece, that’s the way for CMOs to prove their importance and place in an organization, and in doing so to secure the necessary resources for continued success.
COR value: higher purpose means higher profits
Early in 2015, we released this white paper, in which Movéo Vice President of Strategy and Planning Kevin Randall took a closer look at the relationship between purpose and business success. He shows that organizations need higher purposes that speak to three “COR” audiences: Customers, the Organization and the Rest of the world.
In 2016, organizational purpose will continue to set organizations apart. Will yours be one of them? Whatever your marketing is selling, it also represents an organization that has a larger impact. So in the coming year, work with others at your company to make your purpose clear.
Amateur hour or the end of professionalism?
In this white paper, Movéo Managing Partner Brian Davies addressed the rise of raw content, and how it’s reshaping the world of marketing. Read the piece to learn more about how everything from the shift to “pro-amateurs” to the pace and uncertainty of digital publishing is changing the face of digital content.
Your marketing strategy for the coming year will need to take the rise of raw content into account, and figure out how to give your audience something truly engaging. If you’ve ever struggled with balancing polish and authenticity, this piece is for you.
4 ways to prepare for the B-to-B e-commerce boom
In this contribution to the American Marketing Association’s B2B e-newsletter, Bob Murphy covers best practices for marketers looking ahead to the projected rise of B2B e-commerce. If you’re looking for more insights on how to prepare for digital-first buyers or ensure channel mobility, this one is for you.
The increase in B2B e-commerce is ongoing, and early 2016 is a great time to perfect your organization’s approach to these opportunities. Don’t leave money on the table; learn to optimize your digital presence for the B2B e-commerce boom now.
Looking for more B2B marketing guidance? Take a deeper dive into Movéo’s thought leadership by browsing our white paper library.
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In 2015, new forms of content came to the forefront and the ways marketers delivered content to their audiences evolved. These ongoing trends are sure to have an impact in 2016.
Is your content marketing keeping up with the times? As the new year approaches, take a moment to consider the delivery methods, quality and character of your content.
Rethinking content gating
Once upon a time, digital marketers tried to put all their valuable content behind forms, requiring that site visitors provide their information in order to access it. Over the past year, content marketing thought leaders continued to debate the benefits and downsides of gating content.
So where does that leave content marketers? One thing is clear: all your content needs to be high-quality, including the items you leave ungated. Your audience’s personal information is valuable, and your organization must treat it as such. That means offering a fair value exchange. Top-of-the-funnel content should generally be ungated. The content you do gate should require information only in proportion to the value it offers and its placement in the funnel.
If you plan content gating carefully, gating only your most valuable content assets, you may find that the leads you gather there are more qualified.
Hyper-personal content
More than ever before, content is hyper-personalized. Instead of creating just one version of a white paper and delivering it to prospects across market segments, marketers are now producing several versions of pieces like white papers and targeting them specifically to different buyer groups within each segment.
While the work needed to create numerous versions of high-level content pieces may seem like a lot up front, the more personal approach can reap rewards. By repurposing content for multiple audiences, your team can multiply the impact of each piece of content.
The growth of B2B video
In 2015, 76% of B2B marketers intended to use video content in their digital marketing strategies. Whether hosted on your own site or YouTube, snackable or long-form, and shared in real-time or after-the-fact, video is now an integral part of digital media strategy. And that means success will require an ever-increasing commitment to quality and thoughtful delivery of video content.
As you prepare for the new year, consider how your marketing team can take B2B video marketing to the next level. Is your video reaching the right people? Are you effectively tracking whether it drives leads further down the funnel? Does it consistently match your brand voice and convey key brand messages? Build your 2016 strategy to address these needs, and create impactful video in the coming year.
If you’re looking for more content guidance, we’ve got you covered. Read our white paper The 5 new laws of content to learn more.
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Marketers, we are nearing the end of 2015, and it’s time to clean house for 2016. That means retiring outdated tools and replacing them with new, more effective solutions. Whatever your reasons, if your team is still using the following tools, you need to upgrade.
Email marketing and marketing automation programs that lack CRM integration
Today, most email marketing programs collect and report a fair amount of data from your campaigns. Simple email marketing tools are a great solution for businesses that are just launching their digital outreach, but more established organizations like yours need to step up their tools for gathering email data and translating it to their CRMs.
In fact, if any of your marketing automation tools don’t track results and communicate with sales in an effective manner, it’s time to change your approach. In 2016, replace your basic email marketing tool, or any subpar marketing automation software, with a program like Hubspot, Marketo or Act-On. Programs like these will track your email engagement together with the rest of your marketing interactions, collecting data in thorough, actionable profiles with robust data about your leads.
How could use the time and effort your team will save? We recommend putting that energy toward creating even stronger marketing content in the new year.
Manual call tracking
What happens when call tracking is manual? Inevitably, some information gets lost or miscategorized. Plus, your organization wastes time manually entering data that could be collected effortlessly with an appropriate call tracking program.
By using tech tools such as CallRail in 2016, your organization can better align marketing and sales operations and take conversion tracking to the next level. By keeping better track of the marketing tactics that lead to calls and the calls that lead to sales, your organization can better optimize your work across the board.
Free or basic social media software that doesn’t offer deep insights
Facebook and Twitter offer some valuable audience analytics, and in the past you may have found that these paired well enough with free or basic tools to track your audience engagement on social media. But in 2016, it’s time to do better.
This January, retire your old analytics platform and debut a tool that can drill down to offer deeper insights about the value of your social marketing. For example, TrueSocialMetrics calculates the rate at which your posts inspired conversations, amplification (sharing) and applause (liking and favoriting) over a given period of time. These numbers offer a clearer look at the real impact of your social engagements.
Advanced social media analysis tools offer centralized reporting on everything from engagement to demographics, making it easy to create reports that reflect your overall social strategy. If you’re looking to improve marketing reporting across the board in 2016, these tools are a good place to start.
Are you thinking of hiring a partner firm to improve your marketing in 2016? We’d love to talk to you about the options that could best fit your needs. Contact us today.
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Have you started thinking about your New Year’s resolutions yet? January is traditionally a time when we commit to freshening up some aspects of our own lives, but what about our marketing? As 2016 begins, you’d better not still be using ineffective, outdated tactics from years past. It’s time for a marketing update.
In the new year, leave these marketing tactics behind:
Basing decisions on raw data
Marketing needs to be data-driven, but simply gathering data is not enough. You need to know how to analyze it. Let’s be real: raw data is dirty. It needs to be cleaned up, and it needs to be evaluated in context. Marketing decisions based on statistically-insignificant data or misunderstood insights might as well be made with no data at all. To ensure accurate data-driven predictions, you need trained data analysts on your marketing team. So in the coming year, invest in improving your data practices.
Creating keyword-stuffed content
Keywords are important to search engine optimization (SEO), but they must be used thoughtfully in order to have success. Keyword density is only one factor in search engine ranking, and it’s far from the most important. In fact, these days, keyword placement is more important than keyword density. What else is important? User experience. Overstuffing keywords into your content reads as spammy and not at all educational or easy to read. So in 2016, skip cramming keywords into your blog posts and just write naturally. If your content is on-topic, you should be using the relevant keywords throughout it anyway.
Marketing without a strategy
In order to reach your audience, your marketing efforts must be multi-channel and include a variety of content. But generating lots of content and sharing it everywhere you possibly can won’t do anything for your organization if you’re working without an overarching strategy.
In 2016, vow to deploy only marketing tactics that tie into your overall strategy. And that means crafting a comprehensive strategy: one that takes your various audience segments and their needs into account, as well as the many channels you use to reach them.
Are there other outdated marketing practices your organization hopes to leave behind in 2015? Give us a call to discuss how you can renew your marketing efforts for 2016.
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Marketers, can you believe it’s December already? It seems like we were just putting the finishing touches on our advice for marketers preparing for 2015, and here we are writing about the year in review. Time flies—but the year’s lessons stay relevant. So let’s take a look back. What were some of the top marketing lessons learned in 2015?
Make mobile a priority
By now, your organization ought to be mobile-first. There just shouldn’t be any question. With 48% of email opens happening on mobile devices, it’s clear that your email marketing needs to be mobile-optimized. As for your website? If you were paying attention this year, you heard plenty about Mobilegeddon. Listen: your audience wants web design and content delivery that works well on mobile, and Google’s search algorithm wants the same thing. For your marketing to succeed in 2016, it needs to be mobile-focused.
Invest in marketing-sales alignment
Marketing-sales alignment improves the customer experience, internal operations and the bottom line. Your organization needs to commit to working for continuous improvement in your marketing-sales alignment, but how? Revisit our posts from June of this year for more ideas, including on the following topics:
Turn customers into brand advocates
For B2B marketers, each customer may be costly to acquire, but every solid relationship you build pays off in the long term. By turning customers into brand advocates, you can increase the value of each customer relationship, and defray the cost of marketing to new leads. Moreover, happy customers are better for your organization’s reputation than just about anything else.
In 2015, we covered three times to instill brand advocacy in your customers, and how to make customer experience central to your marketing. What changes will your organization make in 2016 to improve the rate at which your customers become strong brand advocates?
Embrace business purpose
In 2015, business purpose became more important than ever. Organizations driven by values and social responsibility came to the forefront. Social commitment has been tied to more effective recruitment and even a better bottom line. Ultimately, it’s just the right thing to do.
Once your organization has committed to shared values, your marketing department needs to plan how best to spread the word. In 2016, look back at what you learned about measuring and sharing organizational purpose, and let the world know about what your work is doing to better the world.
Want to discuss how your own marketing results in 2015 can inform your efforts in the coming year? Contact us. We’re always happy to talk about ways to improve marketing performance.
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Interactive content marketing surpasses passive content in generating conversions, educating the buyer and differentiating a brand. If you’ve been following our blog, you know that we think this is an up-and-coming space for B2B marketers to explore. So before you gather your team to create an interactive content marketing strategy, review our guidelines for B2B marketers launching interactive storytelling programs, and then take a look at these resources from other marketing thought leaders around the web.
Arnie Kuenn: Why you need interactive content now
Read this piece in Marketing Land for a solid overview of the benefits of offering your audience interactive content and several types that could be valuable for your marketing efforts. Kuenn shares examples of quizzes, calculators and infographics that intrigue audiences and tie in to an organization’s offerings in an interesting and informative manner. We’re betting these examples will give you some ideas of how your own organization can harness the power of interactive content.
Julie Wingerter: How interactive aspects can breathe new life into traditional content
Writing for Content Marketing Institute, Wingerter covers how adding interactive elements to white papers and infographics can build value for both marketers and their audiences. For a taste of the piece, check out her description of what a modern white paper can be:
“It’s engaging; it’s multimedia; it’s interactive. The modern interactive white paper asks questions, provides benchmarking opportunities, and takes readers through a tailored experience based on the information they share.”
Also from Wingerter, head to Marketo for seven interactive content marketing questions, answered.
Yoav Vilner: How interactive content supercharges storytelling
Still not convinced as to the value of interactive storytelling? Then give this piece from Forbes contributor Yoav Vilner a read. Vilner lays out the case for interactive content’s ability to engage your audience and increase repeated visits. Moreover, he shows how interactive elements can directly lead to an increase in the time each visitor spends on your site—a prized metric for all digital marketers.
So what are you waiting for? Are you ready to get to work and create some interactive content that converts?
While you’re considering your content strategy, be sure to revisit our white paper, The five new laws of content.
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