#CMWorld 2019 Interview: Andrew Davis on Showing, Not Telling

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Content Marketing Planning: How to Build Your Editorial Calendar

I can’t believe I got fired from the calendar factory. All I did was take a day off! Opening today’s post up with a bit of levity felt fitting, because calendars can cause much anxiety. They bring to mind deadlines, meticulous organization, and time crunches, which are often oppressive realities for marketers with a million things on their plates. But the truth is that you’re likely to encounter much more dread if you don’t house your content planning within a documented and strategic editorial calendar for blogging. Building out a set schedule (with a bit of flexibility) ultimately makes your life easier because it provides a guiding light, and ensures your content strategy remains cohesive and oriented around your objectives. In other words, editorial calendars are no joke. Here’s how you can construct one that seriously drives your company’s blog (or any other content initiative) forward. 

Fortify Your Editorial Calendar in Five Steps

Whether you’ve already got a content calendar, which you hope to refine and improve, or you’re starting from scratch, these five steps will put you on track.

Step 1: Crystallize Your Objectives

The biggest issue with many content plans is that they’re aimless and wayward. When you’re figuring things out on the fly, it can be difficult to tie everything back to the same goals and desired outcomes. So the first step is to zoom out and nail down what you’re trying to achieve with the content in question. For instance, if your blog is designed to generate leads with specific audiences, are you tethering each piece on your calendar back to this outcome in some way?  Placing objectives front-and-center is a key benefit of documenting your content strategy, and making them the underpinning of your planning will help ensure everything you publish has a purpose.  via GIPHY

Step 2: Chart Your Pillars and Timely Focuses

With objectives clearly defined, you can formulate content pillars that will serve as the cornerstones of your editorial calendar. Also known as topic clusters, these are the general categories that all of your content will nest under. Pillars are determined by the intersection of what you want to be known for, and where demand exists. They should be informed by SEO research around keywords and queries, hitting the sweet spot between search volume, expertise, and buying intent. Here on the TopRank Marketing Blog, our pillars are aligned with our agency’s core services — content marketing, SEO, influencer marketing — and so pretty much everything we create for the blog approaches these topics from various angles for people who are interested in learning about them and looking for insight. Don’t view content pillars as restricting; there are a wide range of ways you can address almost any topic, either directly or tangentially. Organizing your calendar around them will help ensure you stay focused, and relevant to your target audience. In addition to identifying a topical mix, you can start to define your content types — how-tos, thought leadership, influencer collaborations, conversion-driven pieces, etc. These can be aligned with various stages of the buying cycle, and mapped back to the key objectives established in Step 1. At this point, it’s also smart to map out industry events or seasonal milestones that you’ll want to create content around.  [bctt tweet="Don’t view content pillars as restricting; there are a wide range of ways you can address almost any topic, either directly or tangentially. @NickNelsonMN #ContentMarketing #ContentPlanning" username="toprank"]

Step 3: Coordinate with Your Broader Strategy

This is a vital consideration that is all too frequently overlooked. Whatever channel you’re scheduling content for — be it a blog, email, social, etc. — think about ways you can coordinate with other departments or disciplines in the organization. For example, does your sales team experience higher volumes of inquiries at certain times of year? Or are they attending a trade show next month that you could support with content? Maybe one of your executives will be speaking at a conference, and you want to queue up some thought leadership around the subject of their talk in the days leading up. A strong editorial calendar should reflect the company holistically. In this sense, it can be helpful to make your calendar visible to everyone and not just the folks on your team.  [bctt tweet="A strong editorial calendar should reflect the company holistically. @NickNelsonMN #ContentMarketing #ContentPlanning " username="toprank"]

Step 4: Plot Your Cadence and Schedule Out Your Content

How often will you create content? And why? We all know it’s valuable to publish regularly, because this is how you build an invested and trusting audience, but “regularly” can mean different things under different circumstances. Is it daily? Three times a week? Multiple times per day? This decision shouldn’t driven by guesswork, but by data.  Although it’s a little older now, HubSpot has a helpful post on determining how often companies should blog based on variables like company size and B2B vs. B2C. But you’ll also want to dig into your own visitor behavior analytics and draw conclusions on what your audience wants. Test different cadences and compare the impacts. As a general rule, more publishing equals more traffic, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’ll be worth your while to create new content each day.  As Alfred Lua of Buffer writes: “I would recommend experimenting and finding a suitable editorial cadence based on your content goals and the amount of time you have. There is no one right editorial cadence. HubSpot publishes several articles a day while Backlinko publishes less than once a month.” (As a side note, we highlighted Backlinko’s quality-over-quantity approach here earlier this year.) Having made this decision, you can start filling out the calendar appropriately, using your content pillars and organizational directives as guides. Plan as far out as you’re comfortable (at least one month, but forecasting three or more months is even better). Make sure you’re building in enough topical variety to keep things fresh and diverse. Once you get your schedule documented, it becomes easy to spot gaps or overloads. 

Step 5: Leave Room for Change

Note that you don’t want to completely fill out your editorial calendar. As we mentioned earlier, it’s important to leave some flexibility so you can nimbly address timely matters as they arise and account for the (expected) unexpected. Contently editor-in-chief Jordan Teicher proposes a 75/25 rule, wherein one out of every four slots in your calendar is left blank.  “In my years managing the site, I’m certain of one thing: s*** happens,” Teicher writes. “People miss deadlines. Sources don’t respond in time. The design team can’t find the right image. My day gets stuffed with meetings, which prevents me from editing a draft. A flexible content calendar is about more than just coming up with ideas for the current news cycle. It’s also about realistic expectations.”

Smart Practices for Getting the Most Out of Your Editorial Calendar

The five steps above will help you solidify your calendar. Here are a few additional tips to help make the process smoother and more effective.

• Hold group brainstorming sessions. Usually, the toughest thing about building out a content calendar is coming up with enough concepts to fill it in. I recommend setting up a time where a bunch of your creatives come together to load up the pipeline with ideas (run these ideas past your content pillars and SEO research to assess strategic viability). Make sure to incorporate voices from various departments. 
• Slice up and repurpose. It’s always valuable to get the most mileage possible out of your content. If you’ve got a big, meaty blog post planned on a certain subject, why not divvy it up into three parts and run it as a series? If you’re looking for a reliable performer next month, why not take your most successful piece from last month and flip it into an infographic, or conceive a follow-up post that expands on it? Repurposing is a great way to get the most out of your content leftovers.
• Lean on the right tools. For some content teams, a spreadsheet or even a Word doc can be sufficient for organizing your editorial calendar. In other cases, this initiative can be run through your project management software. But for high-volume teams with many elements to track and account for, it might be helpful to go with a dedicated content-centric solution. There are plenty of them out there, including Contently, DivvyHQ, Kapost, CoSchedule, and more.
• Create comprehensive coverage. What this looks like can vary in different scenarios. It might mean approaching your topical pillars with best-answer content that addresses every subtopic your customers are interested in learning about (especially those queries carrying any level of purchase intent). If you’re in a crowded niche, it might mean gobbling up every bit of white space your competitors are missing. If your content is oriented toward B2B buyers, it might mean creating content for every role on distributed buying committees, and speaking to each stage of a lengthy purchase cycle. 

Right on Schedule

If you feel apprehensive about building an editorial calendar from scratch, you’re not alone. It can feel intimidating to schedule out so far in advance, and to consistently manage and maintain this resource. But I assure you, once you get into the groove, your life will be much easier and your results will improve.  Following the steps and recommendations above will help you stay on target and derive maximum value from your efforts. Want to add further efficiency and foresight to your strategy? Learn more about getting ahead with your content planning. 

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Cooked to Strategic Perfection: The Layers of a Deliciously Integrated Content Marketing Lasagna

Few things in this world are as delicious as a corner piece of lasagna. For starters, the top layer of cheese is both gooey and crispy. The tomato sauce is sweet yet peppery. The meat? It’s flavorful and hearty. And don’t get me started on the ricotta and mozzarella layers—my favorite by far. via GIPHY Lasagna is the perfect dish. And its perfection is not just defined by quality ingredients, but how each ingredient is artfully layered together to bring satisfaction with each and every bite. That’s where the magic happens. Cooking a delectable lasagna to perfection is not unlike crafting an integrated approach to content marketing. On their own, your tactics may whet your audience’s appetite, but don’t pack the tasty punch of working together to make a lasting impact or drive savory results. Paid, SEO, content, social, influencer, design—all need to work in tandem to ensure your marketing objectives are met. What are the essential layers for a scrumptiously integrated content marketing lasagna? Here’s a little cooking demonstration.

The Layers of a Deliciously Integrated Content Marketing Lasagna

Layer No. 1: Structural SEO Noodles

Noodles are to lasagna as SEO is to content marketing. These are the support layers, helping bind the rest of tactical ingredients together while baking. They provide the structural integrity of the marketing dish—and add some much-loved, comforting carbohydrates.  From providing insights about the competitive landscape or revealing content or optimization opportunities based on your current search positioning, SEO tactics help provide context and actionable next steps for developing (and optimizing) your best-answer content marketing strategy. And without multiple layers of topical focus or the right contextual firmness, it all falls apart. [bctt tweet="Noodles are to lasagna as SEO is to content marketing. These are the support layers, helping bind the rest of tactical ingredients together while baking." username="toprank"]

Layer No. 2: Meaty and Savory Content

Most of the nutritional value of lasagna is rooted in the meat—or vegetables if that’s your thing. (Yes, I choose to believe lasagna is very nutritious and essential for a healthy body.) When it comes to content marketing, the content you create is what brings value to your audience. It’s what gives them delectable insights, solutions, and answers to their burning questions as they make their journey. However, to really succeed here, your content layer needs to be flavorful, well-seasoned, and fresh. It needs to be the best answer with a great user experience, impressive visuals, incredible storytelling, and valuable information. This means the flavor profile of your content needs to be multidimensional, including different content types (e.g. text, video, and/or audio, or interactive) and fit with your audience’s unique tastes.

Layer No. 3: Saucy and Seasoned Influencers

While well-seasoned meat and perfectly cooked pasta noodles can satisfy hunger in some cases, it does not yet make for a flavorful lasagna dish. This is where the tomato sauce comes in.  via GIPHY Tomatoes, basil, oregano, salt, pepper, and garlic come together to make a delectable tomato sauce to mix with the meat and coat the noodles. But there’s one key ingredient content marketers can add to make an especially spicy sauce: Influencers. Influencers add authority, credibility, flavorful insight, and even more meat to your content. Their seasoned advice also helps bring new, untapped audiences to the dinner table. But the key here is to season with care. It’s important to select, qualify, and recruit the right influencers depending on your goals, target audience, topic, and so on. Take their reach and follower size out of the equation—focus on the unique and relevant flavor they can bring to your content and audience. [bctt tweet="Identify the topics that are most important to your audience and how they align with the topics you want to be known for. Then identify the right types of relevant influencers. @azeckman" username="toprank"]

Lay No. 4: Cheesy Brand Goodness

As I mentioned, the ricotta cheese mixture is my absolute favorite lasagna layer. This creamy goodness envelops the meat sauce, adding a subtle flavors and elevating the dish as a whole. Your brand voice and personality is this cheesy, creamy goodness. Your audience needs to get a taste of who you are and how you can help, without having their senses overpowered with product messaging and misplaced calls to action. While under most circumstances I’d argue the more the merrier when it comes to cheese helpings, when it comes to crafting an integrated content marketing strategy that helps your brand shine, balance is the name of the game. [bctt tweet="Your audience needs to get a taste of who you are and how you can help, without having their senses overpowered with product messaging and misplaced calls to action. @annieleuman" username="toprank"]

Layer No. 5: The Promotional Parmesan

You know when you’re eating at your favorite Italian restaurant and you’re asked if you’d like some fresh parmesan to top off your meal? Of course, you reply in the affirmative and wait until there’s a lovely dusting (or a solid coating if you’re like me) of freshly grated cheese for you to enjoy.  That final, top layer of cheese is key for any good lasagna or any integrated digital marketing strategy. But just because it’s the last layer added, doesn’t mean it’s an afterthought. Your promotional parm has been planned all along.  Organic social media. Email marketing. Paid social, search, or display ads. Third-party editorial. Influencer activation. Cross-site promotion. As you pull your freshly baked content marketing lasagna out of the oven, the tantalizing top layer is the first thing your audience will see. How will you attract your audience? How will you entice them to take a bite? How will you ensure they’re satisfied and asking for more? [bctt tweet="Content promotion can’t be effective if it’s an afterthought. Your best practice would be to make promotion part of content planning. @leeodden" username="toprank"] Read: 50 Content Promotion Tactics to Help Your Content Get Amazing Exposure

Cook Your Integrated Marketing Lasagna to Perfection

A well-crafted and delicious lasagna has expert layers, with each layer’s flavors and textures coming together to deliver perfection in every bite. A great content marketing strategy does, too.  Leverage SEO tactics to provide foundational insights that can be built upon with meaty content. In addition, perfect your secret influencer sauce to coat your content and SEO noodles in flavor and insight. Finally, ensure your top layer of ooey gooey cheese is part of your cooking strategy from the beginning. Looking for more tasty content marketing recipes? Learn how to whip up a strategic and mouthwatering Repurposed Content Cobbler.

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Digital Marketing News: Influencer Marketing Grows, Personalization In B2B, Facebook’s Shrinking Ad Size, LinkedIn’s Record Engagement & More

The post Digital Marketing News: Influencer Marketing Grows, Personalization In B2B, Facebook’s Shrinking Ad Size, LinkedIn’s Record Engagement & More appeared first on Online Marketing Blog - TopRank®.

What Can Marketers Learn From the Children In Our Lives? Plenty

In my experience, most marketers fancy themselves as lifelong learners, taking pride in innovating their work and skill set to maximize their impact. We keep tabs on emerging trends, tactics, and tools. We follow industry leaders for their insight. We consult our internal teams and external partners for advice.  But there may be one specialty group we don’t look to for inspiration enough: The kids in our lives. As a parent of two adorable monsters who are growing up way to fast, I’ve been reflecting a lot on how far they’ve come. Of course, I’ve realized that I’ve come far too, as both a parent and a marketer. And I’d wager that most of us have kids in our lives who have the potential to teach and remind us of some important things that can make us better humans and better at what we do. So, what marketing lessons can the little ones in our lives pass on? Here are a few that have been illuminated for me recently.

4 Marketing Lessons We Can Learn from Kids

#1 - Foster permanent curiosity. 

Lately, on the 20-minute commute to daycare, we’ve been listening to “But Why?” It’s a fantastic podcast by Vermont Public Radio. It’s just incredible. Kids from all over North America send audio clips of themselves asking the most unexpected, puzzling, and just plain fun questions. This week we learned why we laugh, why boys and girls are different, and why sugar is bad for you. Curiosity is one of the simplest and most powerful lessons we can learn from a child. As a marketer, this makes me ask: What can we do stay curious against a backdrop of back-to-back meetings, tight budgets, and the unending barrage of emails? There’s a lot of opportunity for curiosity to creep in.

• Professional Development: Can you carve out a little time each week to drink a cup of coffee and surf your favorite industry publications for the latest news? Is there a certification or training that’s been on the backburner?
• Strategic Innovation: As you head into your quarterly or annual marketing strategy planning sessions, how deep have you dug into why you’re making your recommendations? Or better yet, have you considered other possibilities? A way to innovate? 
• Reflection and Growth: We all experience our fair share of fire drills. We immediately spring into action, oftentimes without asking all the “why” questions. Furthermore, we may not take the time to look back to learn how we got there. What processes could be fine-tuned? What is the true cause of a marketing mishap? (Tip: I like to employ the Urgent Important Matrix attributed to President Eisenhower to help balance my day.)

#2 - Employ resilient trust.

When both of my babes were around 6 to 9 months old, they learned to jump into our laps, assisted by Mom or Dad’s hands securely around their waist. They were so proud of their amazing feats. And through repetition, they knew we’d always be there to catch them—even when they jumped unexpectedly. Aided by their caretakers helping hands and guidance, kids learn new things and take risks, eventually without fear. Why? Because trust has been built. In the marketing world, when trust is a focus, you can forge incredible bonds colleagues, clients or customers, prospects, and partners. And in a time when trust is dwindling among consumers, it’s more critical than ever.

#3 - Be coachable.

My persistent (and often stubborn) children throw puzzle pieces. They shriek or scream, sometimes when they’re seemingly unprovoked. They make mistakes. But their curious, trusting nature makes them incredibly teachable. This magical trait is easy to lose once we hit the working world and get some experience under our belts. None of us probably think we’re perfect, but how well do you take feedback? If you want to get results for your company and your career, you need to be open to coaching. For example, did your supervisor offer some constructive feedback? Rather than put up your defenses, open yourself up to the feedback. You can literally, open your posture (no crossed arms), face her or him directly, and show your listening. Even take notes if it helps! Or did you get a string of bad customer reviews on social media? Acknowledge their concerns. Offer an opportunity to talk about it more in detail. Point them in the right direction to get help. This not only shows them that you want to create great experiences, but others can see your willingness to take feedback and work to make improvements.

#4 - Keep it simple.

My children never fail to remind me to simplify my life—and my marketing. Whether you’re a parent or caretaker, or you’re watching others raise their kids, we can all admit that parents over-think questions and scenarios all the time. What do I do when my kid asks me where babies come from? Why is that parent so concerned about a kid playing with a cardboard box? Am I a terrible parent for putting my kid in timeout five times today? But the thing is: Kids often sees the world through the most basic lens. They don’t typically overthink things. They aren’t riddled with stress and anxiety. This should be a reminder that we shouldn’t sweat the small stuff and that the simple answer is often the right answer.  For example, you could spend 45 minutes responding to a curt email from a colleague or client, and then hours or days spinning as you wait for a response. Or you could ask the person in question to jump on the phone or huddle for a quick chat. This levels the playing field and limits the potential for misinterpreting signals. As another example, if you’re in the process of launching a major campaign, can you integrate various tactics to minimize and streamline the work? (Certainly, hiring a trusted agency partner could help with that. Wink.)

Look to the Children

If you want to be a lifelong learner, sometimes you need to go back to basics. The children in our lives can teach us some incredible lessons about curiosity, trust, coachability, and simplicity that can improve our personal and professional lives. What’s a marketing lesson that you’ve learned from a kid in your life? Tell us in the comments section below.

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6 Cannes Revelations About B2B Marketing in 2020

In June the 2019 Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity brought together some of the world’s savviest B2B marketers, brands, and other creative professionals. From Nike, IKEA, and Visa to Tommy Hilfiger, Microsoft and Target, strong brands and the marketers behind them were involved at Cannes, and the trends they gathered to explore will play a part in shaping how B2B marketers focus their efforts in the months and years ahead. Here’s a run-down of some of the top B2B marketing and other revelations from this year’s Cannes, and what they’ll mean for your business in 2020 and beyond.

1 — Cannes B2B Marketing Brand Engagement Take-Aways

One running theme at Cannes this year was centered around being mindful of your brand’s purpose, and how it will be especially important when it comes time to meet your audience’s needs and make the greatest impact. Being a change-maker brand comes from honing in on consumer desires, so listen to the signals coming from the online platforms where your customers and potential clients spend the majority of their time. Don’t entirely eschew machine learning when it comes to your data, but build brand trust by ensuring that appropriate and responsible humans have data oversight. Look to feed off competitive momentum and focus conversations and cultural discussions using creativity, and keep it sincere when it comes to brand activism, while avoiding all hints of opportunism, many at Cannes urged. Brand engagement, especially through influencer marketing, has been the focus of several recent articles we've published, including these:

• Hitting Your Target: Why Account-Based Marketing and Influencers Are the Perfect Match
• 11 Qualities You Should be Looking for to Find Your B2B Influencer Match
• 7 Top B2B Influencer Marketing Trends for 2020

2 — Cannes B2B Marketing Consumer Journey Take-Aways

Dig in and embrace the sometimes-messy digital world where your potential customers interact, by communicating with them and taking the time to learn about their lives through what they’re posting online, because cold and impersonal data can only get you so far in the customer journey. These raw and real connections can unite and forge new relationships in ways that polished marketing campaigns sometimes just can’t, and some of the winners at Cannes showed examples of building these types of connections. Build strong brand value while also allowing customers to take the wheel, nurture the connections your brand makes, and don’t be afraid to build strong creative partnerships in your efforts. Valuing the participation of consumers while also standing by your brand’s values were among the trends explored during Cannes this year. Search taking place from smart speakers and other connected voice-assisted is poised to boom in the coming years, and podcasting is expanding to offer new ways to integrate brand messaging. Strive to build a seamless voice search approach that meshes with the values and messaging of your brand or that of your client, as sound is the newest frontier for B2B marketers. We're written about smart search recently, including in these helpful articles:

• Hey Alexa: How Do I Bake Voice Search Into My B2B Marketing Strategy?
• How B2B Marketers Can Win at Search with Best Answer Content
• Optimize Your B2B Content Performance with an SEO Audit

[bctt tweet="“We’re very good at doing marketing on screens. We’re not as good at audio only.” — Bessie Lee, Founder and CEO, Withinlink" username="toprank"]

3 — Cannes B2B Marketing Diversity Take-Aways

Cannes made efforts to find and highlight the areas in marketing where diversity continues to be lacking, led by people over 50 and those who are differently-abled, and spent considerable time exploring how setting aside fear and risk can lead to huge economic and strategic opportunities. Going beyond hiring, diversity should move towards being more of a core piece of a brand’s values, some of those gathered at Cannes noted. Adding diversity key performance indicators (KPIs) to existing performance metrics would go a long way towards making inclusiveness an important part of opportunity pipelines, and ultimately bottom lines, it was noted during Cannes.

4 — Cannes B2B Marketing Long-Term Planning Take-Aways

Connections coming from unexpected places and new experiences are poised to change how B2B marketers expand beyond traditional sources, and an emphasis on the power of creativity to strengthen organizations was made at Cannes. Brands and how they reflect culture at large will become more of a joint initiative at successful firms and in strong marketing efforts, especially in creative campaigns. Cannes showed that creativity will likely thrive in the coming year, even more-so when it’s increasingly expressed as a team effort, done in what some gathered for the week called real-time branding, with all involved having a creative stake in new marketing initiatives. Having a relevant and flexible B2B marketing strategy, and building innovative creative methods whether working solo or with an agency, were also take-aways from Cannes this year. We've explored both long-term planning and the question of when is the right time to partner with an agency, in recent articles such as these:

• How to Boost Your Content Marketing Efforts By Planning Ahead
• 5 Marvelous B2B Content Marketing Lessons From Mrs. Maisel
• How to Choose a B2B Marketing Agency that Can Evolve with Your Needs

[bctt tweet="“The value of agency creative is $10 Billion.” — Jay Pattisall, Forrester @jaypattisall" username="toprank"]

5 — Cannes B2B Marketing Storytelling Take-Aways

At Cannes a more transformational flavor of storytelling was seen as coming down the pike, one that will help evolve the narrative with more levels of both client and customer experience, all combining to bring better communication to consumers. Rapidly-expanding digital technologies and more data than ever present challenges, but also massive opportunities, especially when the two combine to help creative storytelling efforts that help drive B2B marketing efforts. Creating compelling narratives and delivering them in new and relevant ways will play a factor in marketing in 2020 and beyond, and firms utilizing solely technology to overcome marketing barriers may be left behind. Learning to better recognize the people behind the data and the numbers was also seen as a key trend at Cannes, along with greater incorporation of empathy and intuition in marketing processes. Neuroaesthetics and an evolving method of storytelling that is always-on will expand on traditional forms of narratives that have been largely limited to a beginning, middle, and end. Micro-storytelling efforts will also help brands shows that they are listening, and encourage consumers to create and share their own stories. A few of our helpful looks at storytelling in marketing are these:

• Once Upon a Time: Storytelling in Today’s B2B Content Marketing Landscape
• Be Like Honest Abe: How Content Marketers Can Build Trust Through Storytelling
• 6 Ways to Bring More Boom! & Less Boring to Your B2B

6 — Cannes Trust in B2B Marketing Take-Aways

We’ve focused more than ever on trust in marketing over the past year at TopRank Marketing, with pieces such as these:

• The B2B Marketing Funnel is Dead: Say Hello to the Trust Funnel
• Trust Fractures: How to Avoid Accidentally Eroding Your Brand’s Credibility
• Trust Factors: The (In)Credible Impact of B2B Influencer Marketing

At Cannes the power of trust played a major role this year, and how to regain it using transparency, authenticity, and empathy, after being compromised over the past several years in the eyes of many. A theme that resonated throughout the week was that nothing secures a relationship as powerfully as trust, which is the cornerstone of any long-term partnership. Trust in platforms and technology were also at the forefront on Cannes this year, and admonitions to shift to marketing strategies that are more real, open, transparent, and true were common themes for rebuilding broken trust. [bctt tweet="As the old adage goes: Trust is gained in drops and lost in buckets. #B2BMarketing #trust" username="toprank"]

Building on Marketing Lessons From Cannes

via GIPHY

These six major theme take-aways in the areas of brand engagement, customer journeys, diversity, long-term planning, storytelling and trust from this year's Cannes can play a part in your own B2B marketing strategy as we head ever-closer to 2020. You can also learn more by joining us at upcoming speaking events and conferences. Our CEO Lee Odden will be speaking at Content Marketing World this fall, where on September 3 he'll be presenting "How to Develop a B2B Influencer Marketing Program That Actually Works" with Amisha Gandhi of SAP, and a solo session on September 4 exploring "Content Marketing Fitness - 10 Exercises to Build Your Marketing Beach Body." Our Senior Director of Digital Strategy Ashley Zeckman will also be speaking at Content Marketing World, in "Guardians of Content Vol 1: How to Scale B2B Influencer Content to Save the Galaxy."

The post 6 Cannes Revelations About B2B Marketing in 2020 appeared first on Online Marketing Blog - TopRank®.

The B2B Marketing Funnel is Dead: Say Hello to the Trust Funnel

The marketing funnel as we know it is gone. Or at least it needs to be, if we as marketers want to move toward a truly customer-centric operation.  In this new installment of our Trust Factors series, we'll review the conventional models for customer acquisition and explain why they're going out of style. Then, we'll present an updated version, geared toward long-term sustainable growth.

The Funnel Fallacy

We're all accustomed to funnels: marketing funnels, sales funnels, conversion funnels. These frameworks can be helpful in guiding our strategies, but there's an inherent disconnect at play: they tend to commoditize our customers, because these models are solely focused on the end result (revenue). Traditionally, the funnel is designed to usher prospects from awareness, to consideration, to purchase, and then the job is done.  In today's buyer-controlled landscape, where retention and advocacy are at a premium, marketers need to align with every other customer-facing business unit to ensure trust is being built at each interaction — including (and especially) those after the purchase. [bctt tweet="In today's buyer-controlled landscape, where retention and advocacy are at a premium, #marketers need to align with every other customer-facing business unit to ensure trust is being built at each interaction. @NickNelsonMN" username="toprank"]

What is the Trust Funnel?

This theme has been covered in the past from a variety of different viewpoints (including a book by Brian G. Johnson), but we’ve got our own spin on it. By our definition, the trust funnel is a reconfiguration of the buying cycle, with a shift in orientation and objective. The focus here is not only generating sales, but also, generating trust (which leads to the same result).  At TopRank Marketing, we follow a modified version of the traditional marketing funnel, extending it beyond the purchase stage and accounting for the full customer lifecycle:

• Attract
• Engage
• Convert
• Retain
• Advocacy

The trust funnel is essentially aimed at optimizing each of the first three stages to support the last two by inspiring loyalty and cultivating long-term relationships throughout. Why is this important? Because successfully mastering this process is the key to running an efficient and sustainable business. Consider that increasing customer retention rates by 5% can increase profits by 25%-95%. Meanwhile, studies show that customer-referred leads are far more likely to convert, and deliver considerably higher lifetime value on average. In short, an effective customer retention and advocacy model helps your marketing become more self-sufficient. Trust unlocks this ideal.

Optimizing for Each Stage of the Trust Funnel

Adopting the trust funnel methodology is all about a shift in mindset. The stages are not fundamentally different than those in the aforementioned marketing funnel, at a high level, but you’ll be better positioned to serve your customers when thinking about them in these terms:

1. Attract: Foundational Credibility

“Awareness” is a broad and ambiguous concept. It’s not enough to simply make people aware of our brands — we need to instill an immediate sense of credibility, so that trust is being established in the very first interactions. How can we accomplish this? Focus on three vital touchpoints:

• Your Website. Does it convey authority of expertise in your vertical? Is it easily navigable, with quick access to resources that a curious buyer might want? Are there seamless methods to get in touch? If the site contains contact fields, do you clearly outline your commitment to privacy and care when handling a user’s personal data?
• Your Social Media Accounts. At any given time, your latest tweet or update might be the first time a new prospect experiences your brand. As such, it’s important to be thoughtful with each one. Make sure your voice is consistent, genuine, and directly aligned with your target audience. Are you approachable and conversant?
• Your Search Visibility. As we wrote here recently, your presence in search results is instrumental to your brand’s credibility. Are you delivering best answer content that satisfies search intent for prioritized phrases? Consequently, are you outranking competitors for these terms? Do your page titles and meta descriptions reflect an inviting and knowledgeable demeanor? 

2. Engage: Authenticity and Conversations

Once you’ve taken the appropriate steps to develop an air of credibility, it’s time to cement this perception as people begin to engage with your brand. Seize these opportunities to do so:

• Be Available and Responsive. Candace Lun Plotkin of McKinsey & Company published a post on LinkedIn recently discussing the growing expectation of B2B customers for rapid response times. In the age of an on-demand economy, people are conditioned for short waits and fast access to what they need. This is why an always-on marketing strategy is highly advisable, and why digital tools like chatbots and predictive technologies are gaining prominence.
• Employee Engagement. As users start to immerse themselves more deeply into your brand and its content, they’ll likely start encountering your employees, either directly or through social media. When the people who work for a business embody its philosophies and values, and are actively engaged in the work, it’s a major affirmation of authenticity. 
• Influencer Partnerships. Working with the right influencers, who are familiar to and respected by your audience, also provides a major credibility assist as they compare solutions. Note that in order to achieve this purpose, your influencer partnerships need to feel natural and not forced. Also, influencers play a key role at every stage of the trust funnel, but their recognition and built-in authority are especially crucial in separating your solution from others at this pivotal stage of deliberation.

3. Convert: Transparency and Comfort

As a prospect moves closer to making a decision, the stakes are raised. By now a buyer (or buying committee) has likely been engaging with your brand, and they are feeling the pressure that accompanies making a major business purchase decision. It is imperative to build comfort at this stage. 

• Be Open and Honest. The last thing you want to do at this point is make a buyer feel like there are hidden concerns or reasons for reservation. One key opportunity is to acknowledge and address negative reviews of your product/service. As our CEO Lee Odden put it in his Sophisticated Marketers interview with LinkedIn: “Millennial and Gen Z audiences expect brands to be honest and forthcoming. While some companies view information that is not a glowing endorsement of the brand as a liability, others are embracing those challenges as an opportunity to be transparent about issues and how they’re being solved. That transparency builds trust and confidence in the brand, key differentiators for customers who become loyal advocates.”
• Lean on Case Studies and Testimonials. Of course, positive and reinforcing examples of happy customers will be your strongest assets at this stage, so you’ll want to have plenty on hand — ideally, covering a variety of different challenges and scenarios, so you can match them up to the prospect in question for maximum resonance.
• Frictionless Purchase Process. How easy is it for someone to make a purchase from your company? Take whatever steps you can to make it painless and simple, so that a person going through it never stops and wonders, “What’s going on here?” Test relentlessly and gather feedback from existing customers.

4. Retain: Follow-through and Service

One of the most prevalent missteps for brands and marketers is a failure to account for the post-sale customer experience. The attitude that once a sale is complete it’s time to move on is misguided. This is, in fact, perhaps your most critical moment to make a positive impact. Given that everyone is aware of the relative cost difference between selling to a repeat customer and acquiring a new one, it’s kind of crazy how few marketers prioritize this stage. Note that according to one study, 68% of customer defections occur because customers perceive “an attitude of indifference.”

• Assist with Implementation. Do you have at least one person on your staff who is solely dedicated to ensuring customers are able to implement and leverage your solution without issue? Can the customer easily get in touch with this person, and troubleshoot quickly? Although these activities don’t necessarily fall directly under the purview of marketing, there is a fair amount of overlap (social media, customer resources, integrations, etc.) and it’s an essential aspect of the customer experience so it’s important for marketers to have visibility and influence. 
• Create a Loyalty Loop. This convention is at the center of our friend Andrew Davis’s marketing philosophy. As he puts it: “You serve your audience and subscribers first,” rather than constantly emphasizing the importance of new eyeballs and new business. Basically, the Loyalty Loop is about taking advantage of that “moment of inspiration” right after someone commits to your brand, by delighting them and reinforcing the decision. The idea is that as a result, the next time they have a need, they won’t even consider your competition. 
• Offer Post-Purchase Content. This is one smart retention tactic recommended by Marcia Riefer Johnston in a piece for Content Marketing Institute. Post-purchase content can include things like care and maintenance instructions, set-up guides, and repair help. This type of content can line up functionally with either, or both, of the bullets above.

5. Advocacy: Relationship Maintenance

Customer advocates are incredibly valuable, but also exceedingly rare. These are the people who will autonomously recommend your brand to others, and sing your praises publicly without prompting. In some cases this will happen organically because they simply love your offering so dang much, but more often, you need to develop this deep brand affinity through ongoing engagement and relationship-building.

• Stay in Touch. Don’t just reach out because their renewal is coming up and you want them to buy from you again. Use a birthday, anniversary, or job change as a prompt to check in and say hello. Provide helpful content just for the sake of doing it. You should aspire to be an advocate for your customer if you want them to do the same.
• Offer Customer Newsletters. This is a great way to stay in touch at scale. Email marketing is generally viewed as a lead generation tactic but it’s also an excellent channel for increasing loyalty. Make sure the content in your newsletter for existing customers is purposeful and value-oriented.
• Promote Customer Accomplishments. The primary issue with most case studies is that they’re so focused on the solution, rather than the customer who used it. You’ll build more affinity by highlighting the user’s accomplishment — how they smartly handled a problem and got the most out of your product or service. Heck, you can even promote achievements by your customers that don’t involve your solution. Get the good vibes rolling.

Put Trust First, and the Results Will Follow

When companies are focused on sales and revenues and bottom lines, it becomes apparent in the way they operate. This is why the “sales funnel” or "marketing funnel" concept is one I find myself referencing less and less these days. The true end-goals of any savvy modern marketing strategy are to inspire loyalty, affinity, and advocacy. The trust funnel is built to do just that. As a natural result, the sales, revenue, and bottom-line impact will follow — consistently, and over the long haul. Trust me on that. [bctt tweet="The true end-goals of any savvy modern #marketingstrategy are to inspire loyalty, affinity, and advocacy. The trust funnel is built to do just that. @NickNelsonMN" username="toprank"] Want to learn more about developing a truly trust-driven marketing strategy? Check out these other entries in our “Trust Factors” series:

• Trust Factors: The (In)Credible Impact of B2B Influencer Marketing
• Trust Factors: How Best Answer Content Fuels Brand Credibility
• Trust Fractures: How to Avoid Accidentally Eroding Your Brand’s Credibility
• Tip of the Iceberg: A Story of Trust in Marketing as Told by Statistics
• Be Like Honest Abe: How Content Marketers Can Build Trust Through Storytelling

The post The B2B Marketing Funnel is Dead: Say Hello to the Trust Funnel appeared first on Online Marketing Blog - TopRank®.

How to Power Marketing Presentations With Data Visualization & Win Over Your Audience

We’ve all been there. We’re five minutes into (what we thought would be) a riveting, data-driven presentation, yet a quick scan of the room reveals the audience is staring blankly at our data tables as we drone on. Or worse, someone asks a pointed question about what they do or don’t see and the discussion goes completely of course. Yikes. Perhaps the best advice I ever received in this regard was so simple yet incredibly smart: “Try it as a line graph.” I had presented a data-backed presentation and robust recommended next steps, but whether it was boredom or data suspicion that crept in, I failed to make my case. After the weeks I spent looking at a spreadsheet, I took that visionary advice. When the day came to remake my case, that line graph immediately won my critics over. When done thoughtfully, data visualizations have the power to change perspectives, far more quickly than a spreadsheet or bullet points on a slide. Data visualization allows us to take complex or even simple data sets, and present them in a way that allows us to see context, make comparisons, and enable decision-making.  The good news? Giving your data a visual identity is easier than you think.

The Case for Data Visualization

This is going to sound cliché, but we marketers really do have more data at our fingertips than ever before. And visualization is key in order for us to really leverage that data to tell a story and win over our bosses, colleagues, and customers. Here’s a simple example. First, the spreadsheet version: What can you take away from this example in just 5 seconds? 10 seconds? 30 seconds? July 2018 and December 2017 seemed to be big months. There was definitely some growth in the last two years. But how much? Is it consistent? How are we trending? Now, let’s look at this data as a line graph: Whoa! 2018 outperformed 2017 by quite a bit overall. However, 2017 traffic was on the up and up, and that momentum slowed in 2018. With the exception of a mid-year spike, 2018 traffic was flat, and dipped below year-over-year totals by the end of the year. The beauty here? As we prepare to deliver the data to our audience, we can draw some pretty important conclusions at a glance, helping us quickly arrive at what we need to find out next: What caused that big spike in July 2018? Is it an outlier or did we have an effective campaign running? What did the tactical mix look like throughout 2017? What were the top pages contributing to steady growth? Did we make major changes at the beginning of 2018? This not only helps us dig deeper into our data to understand trends and opportunities, but also prepare us to craft a narrative and answer the questions our bosses, colleagues, or clients will undoubtedly have about performance. After all, flashing a spreadsheet and then telling someone traffic is up year-over-year overall but flat month-over-month for the current year is not going to deliver much wow.

How to Get the Storytelling Started with Data Visualization

Creating a narrative, choosing your data set, perfecting your visualization, and adding context are essential for being able to persuade any sort of action or reaction with data. But whether you are using a simple Excel graph or a custom data visualization tool, here are some great tips to get started. 

Tip #1 - Start with your story and frame it for your audience.

Let’s say you’re presenting the results of your most recent marketing campaign to your internal stakeholders. It can be tempting to throw up any data point you can get your hands on, trying to see what sticks. Don’t do that. Your boss probably doesn’t care about how many shares you got on that one blog post or how many seconds someone spent on a video. They care about new prospects, re-engaged prospects, or advocacy. 

• Stay laser focused on your objective: What are you trying to achieve with this presentation? A bigger budget? A promotion? A shift in tactics internally? Every data visualization included should tell that story. Too many data points can muddy the narrative and reduce your impact. 
• Use your audience’s lens: Focus on the data you know is most important to your audience. Think of previous presentations you’ve done with them. Was there a particular data visualization they loved or one they pushed back on? Edit accordingly. If it’s your first time presenting to this audience, then use what you know based on job titles or culture in your office. 

One mistake it can be easy to make as marketers, is slipping into marketing lingo (e.g. sessions, shares, click-through-rate, bounce-rate). One simple shift if you’re presenting outside of your team, is shift your language to focus on meaningful business metrics. For example:  Instead of saying visitor, say potential prospect. 

Tip #2 - Design for comprehension.

Data visualization is so awesome because it’s able to allow humans to quickly make comparisons and decisions quickly, even with a complex data set.  So create charts with comprehension in mind. If your audience is staring at a graph trying to figure out what it means, they’re probably not listening to your supporting narrative. So make it easy for them to understand. Here are a few things to keep in mind:  Label Everything: This seems straight forward, but nothing is worse than when someone pauses you mid sentence to ask you to clarify your data set. So, label your chart, axes, legend, and so on. Also include a note on time frame and data source. Make sure all labels are visible and not obstructed by other text.  Chart Type: Choose the chart type that most efficiently illustrates your point:

• Bar charts are best for comparing discrete values. 
• Line charts are intended for a continuous data set.
• Pie charts show the element something else is made up of, and are not ideal for comparing values.
• Stacked bar charts are best to compare different items and show the composition.

For example, while the pie chart allows us to see a breakdown of traffic sources, the placement of legend, the close color families, and a similar proportion of the individual pieces make it difficult for a true comparison. With the bar chart, however, you can easily see how the traffic sources stack up next to one another.  Color: Incorporating color to help tell your story can be very powerful, but can also lend confusion. A few practical things to consider: 

• Don’t choose colors that are low contrast. Consider the fact that you may be presenting on a different monitor and the audience will be further away from the screen. 
• Use the same color to represent data from the same grouping or data set (e.g. all points from 2018 are in green and 2019 in yellow.)
• Be careful about using colors that have significant meaning on their own (e.g. bright red is always going to set off an alarm bell, whereas green tends to indicate something is good.)
• Use accent colors to highlight really key data points. This can draw your audience’s eye immediately and increase comprehension. 

A couple final thoughts here: 

• Add call-outs to your slides so you can help your audience understand a data set really quickly (e.g. Sales reached an all time high in June 2019).
• Keep your data ordering intuitive such as ordering by value, time period, or alphabetically.

Tip #3 - Create for context.

We should always anticipate, any presentation we create, can and will be passed along for others to consume, without the benefit of our verbal narrative. So, it’s important that your data visualizations have enough context so the impact can be understood with or without verbal support.  What do we mean by context? Here are a few things to keep in mind:

• Is this good or bad? What would you expect? This is definitely a frequently asked question from marketers as we are evaluating campaign or channel performance. One of the most important contextual markers you can add to a performance slide is a benchmark from previous data or third-party industry data. 
• Why? Data visualization can help us understand the current situation, but they can also help us answer the “why” behind a data set. Context in this situation can reveal hidden insights, which can really change the minds of our audience. For example, let’s say you are charting MQLs over time, now plot that against another variables which may drive fluctuations in MQLs, like website traffic, paid investment or frequency of events. This might help you determine whether overall web traffic is irrelevant, but paid investments are critical.
• What should we do next? Now that we understand the context for our data and what is driving it, the next question is what should we do next? Always include next steps related to your data visualization. 

Finally, looking at the same data as in our previous visualizations. This example dives into July 2018, with the added context of 2017. In this graph, we can easily see a spike in social caused our July 2018 increase. Now, we can add a call out to shout out to testing a paid social campaign or a contest that was running at that time. 

Tip #4: Be careful not to mislead your audience.

Data can be really powerful, if used wisely. But if we don’t understand or interpret it properly, it can also drive bad decision making. So as a presenter, definitely do these things to keep your data representation free of misleading information:

• Start your key at zero (and keep it consistent): It can be tempting to make that 3% increase look like 50%, but don’t change your scale unless it’s really pertinent to the data set, and then call it out. 
• Understand your data: If you (or your team) is pulling data from a tool like Google Analytics or Hubspot, be sure you understand the nuance or context of your data points (e.g. what’s included in that site conversion rate, how you’re categorizing a new user, what is the criteria for SQL versus MQL.)
• Include context: Be careful not to omit the context or drivers of the data set you’re aware of, even if they don't necessarily fit your narrative. For example, if you had a great Q3 for leads, but the first half of the year was down, don’t omit that context, just to make Q3 appear better. That context will probably change your tactical mix, investment levels, and next steps. 

Show Don’t Tell

To be really effective marketers, we must review and analyze data in order to make our own decisions about a tweak in tactics or a strategy overhaul. Our ability to illustrate to our colleagues, bosses, and customers how data insights inform our decisions ultimately impacts our ability to move forward with our plans.  So practice! Find that colleague who can review your latest graph and see what their first takeaway is. Do your presentation with a smaller group before you bring to your boss. See what they respond well to or question, and edit accordingly.  Data is power. Data visualization is powerful. [bctt tweet="Data is power. Data visualization is powerful. @Alexis5484 #datavisualization #marketing" username="toprank"] Many marketers aren’t using the data they have to its full potential. Set yourself on a path to better data and analytics utilization with these tips for overcoming common barriers.

The post How to Power Marketing Presentations With Data Visualization & Win Over Your Audience appeared first on Online Marketing Blog - TopRank®.

Digital Marketing News: Customer Expectation Study, Twitter Updates Lists, LinkedIn Objective-Based Brand Awareness Goals & More

The post Digital Marketing News: Customer Expectation Study, Twitter Updates Lists, LinkedIn Objective-Based Brand Awareness Goals & More appeared first on Online Marketing Blog - TopRank®.

Setting Your Sights on 2020: How to Brew a Forward-Thinking Marketing Strategy

The high-pressure marketing budget and strategy planning season seems to kick-off earlier each year. It’s as if your boss is asking you to magically construct the perfect strategic and tactical mix at the right budget for 2020, without having enough of 2019 under your belt to predict the best approach. After all, you don’t know what the future holds, right?  As they say, hindsight is 20/20. So, why not leverage that to get some 20/20 foresight? Like you, we at TopRank Marketing don’t have any magical crystal balls or employees with psychic powers. We don’t use witchcraft to brew mystical marketing love potions. And we certainly don’t engage in any sorcery with enchanted mirrors, but we’ve honed our craft over nearly 20 years and we do find plenty of value in reflecting. Just a mystic or a wizard or an enchantress gathers their crystals, herbs, or sacred artifacts, you too have transcendent tools available to you. Read on to learn how you can cast your spell, summon your marketing spirit, or connect with marketing’s natural elements to create a strategic 2020 marketing plan—without relying on the supernatural.

Research: The Magic Ingredient for Concocting Any Marketing Strategy

As a marketer you don’t know what you don’t know. And, that’s okay. Clairvoyance is not part of the job description. Begin your brew with some thoughtful research.

• Keep up with the latest trends. Is there a new tactic or strategy you should be testing?
• Read case studies from other B2B businesses. What’s working for them?
• Re-research your audience. Are your assumptions correct? What has changed since last year? What hasn’t? 
• Bonus. Learn like polymath Bill Gates and the likes, by dedicating 5+ hours per week to learning. Polymaths lead in their field by becoming competent in at least three diverse domains and integrating learnings into their current skill set.

via GIPHY Now that you’re tuned up, use your knowledge to spark new ideas, strengthen your plan recommendations, and back up your recommendations with solid rationales.

Data: Unlocking Insight to Season Your Potion

Every wizard, witch, psychic, or gifted mystic has had to spend a great deal of time to unlock the power inside themselves, you too must devote time to understand one of your most powerful tools: data. Anyone can come up with a striking idea, but it takes a special marketer to use data and unlock the insights within. Try this approach to uncover what you need to know to inform your marketing plan:

Gather the Data and Dive In

Leverage your tools like Google Analytics and Google Search Console to pull data from all of your tactics in the past year, including campaigns and ongoing programs.  You can also gather audience data and benchmarks from the research you’ve been doing.  Don’t be afraid to spend a little time diving down rabbit-holes. At this annual reflection point, what better time to dig into an unnoticed trend or insight? [bctt tweet="Don’t be afraid to spend a little time diving down rabbit-holes. At this annual reflection point, what better time to dig into an unnoticed trend or insight? - @ElizabethW1057 on 2020 #MarketingStrategy" username="toprank"]

Confirm Your Benchmarks

Look across your data to establish benchmarks fit to your brand that will be valuable in informing your decisions. Again, feel free to check out industry benchmarks, but remember your brand is a unique situation. For instance, are you a startup looking to create a demand for a new niche? Or are you an established enterprise looking to increase market share?

Unlock the Insights

Now it’s time to turn that data into something you can use. Look for trends, outliers, big successes and big failures. Each one can teach you something and guide your 2020 plan to be more strategic.  Here’s a simple example of how you can go from data, to benchmark, to insight, to 2020 tactics:

1. In your latest campaign, you saw 2,652 sessions to your asset 90-days post-launch.
2. Across your last 4 campaigns, you’ve averaged 2,002 sessions to your asset 90-days post-launch. 
3. Nice! Your latest campaign drove 32% higher sessions. But why?
4. You used email as an additional promotional tactic this time. And, email accounted for 27% of your total sessions.
5. Let’s use email in all of our campaigns that target this audience, and explore a more robust, ongoing email program.
6. Bonus: 75% of your influencers amplified your asset, driving 22% of the total campaign traffic. But, did they have enough reach, with the right people, to make it worth it? Were there other benefits of including influencers? To understand the impact of your influencer work better, add researching new measurement techniques to your “to do” list.

via GIPHY Yes, there are many more metrics, variables, and considerations than simply number of visitors or a single promotional tactic, but you can leverage this approach to unlock some actionable insights from your data. Harness the positive vibes you uncover to inform your marketing plan, and bring your findings to the table to back up your recommendations.

Partners: Adding Natural Elements to Bind the Brew

Now, it’s time to combine elements for a comprehensive strategy.

Stay Grounded: The Earth Element

To enable your success, you must stay grounded. It can be easy to go heads down in planning after one quick conversation, but avoid the temptation. There is nothing worse than presenting a complete marketing plan to a room full of confused faces because you missed the core objective or are suggesting using a new tactic that just failed in another business unit. Chat with your budget stakeholders early and often about:

• Are we aligned on the objective of my work in relation to the company’s business goals?
• What are you looking for me to achieve in 2020?
• Do you have any marketing strategies or tactics in mind that I should be considering? Or avoiding?
• What does my 2020 budget look like?
• Are you expecting any cuts? (Budget prioritization tips here)
• What have senior leadership or other BUs been talking about that I should be aware of?

[bctt tweet="When you go into 2020 planning mode, stay grounded by circling the wagons with stakeholders early and often. @ElizabethW1057 #MarketingStrategy" username="toprank"]

Seek Collaboration: The Water Element

The water element governs relationships, and it changes shape based on whatever vessel contains it. Use the people around you to gather and mold your ideas this planning season.  The information you gather from your internal teams can be an unmatched input for keyword research. It can also guide your influencer research, inform your tactical mix, or simply spark new ideas or ways of looking at problems.

• Your customer service team can tell you all the questions customers are asking about your product or service — what drives customers nuts and what they rave about.
• Your sales team will know every detail about what makes a customer want to buy versus what stands in the way of a sale. They also probably have competitive insights on the marketplace and know who influences their prospects. Just ask them!
• Your product team probably briefs with you ever so often, but have you talked to them lately? There might be a feature or benefit that you’ve yet to focus on, or not highlighted enough. With the insights you’ve gotten from customer service and sales, you’ll know just what to do with the product info.
• Though often difficult to get in front of, your senior leadership will have invaluable insights into the company’s direction. Keep up on any content they’re publishing or sharing on social. And, when you get the opportunity to connect, be prepared with thoughtful questions and discussion points.

Get Transformative: Fire Element

Transformation, passion, and action are the domain of the fire element. Your marketing agency should embody this completely.  Every fruitful client-agency partnership is rooted in a collaborative passion and drive for your success. So, who better to ask for help on your 2020 marketing plan? Your agency should have its finger on the pulse of the latest marketing strategies, tactics, and measurement techniques. And, it should be a consultative partner, giving you what you need to make the case for your 2020 budget. Tap your agency for anything from an informal brainstorm to proposing new ideas and tactics, and from campaign extension ideas to full collaboration on your entire plan. 

Seek Reflection: Wind Element

The final element is wind or air. Air is sometimes a harsh element. It cuts away the nonsense and gets us right down to the facts. This is where your plan comes together and you begin to shine.  Collect everything you’ve researched, studied and gathered, and reflect. Wipe away your emotions and what you feel like you should do. Give new ideas space to grow and be molded by your data and what you learned communing with your teams. 

Unleash Your Mystical Marketing Strategy Planning Abilities

You started making your magic marketing potion with research, filled it to the top with data and sprinkled in all of the world’s natural elements. Now, the power is in your hands.  You’re ready to concoct your 2020 marketing plan. Don’t hesitate to check back in with your team while you brew. Gather their feedback and refine, because collaboration is how the magic happens.  Would an agency partner be helpful for your 2020 planning? We’d love to help. Get in touch today.

The post Setting Your Sights on 2020: How to Brew a Forward-Thinking Marketing Strategy appeared first on Online Marketing Blog - TopRank®.