Digital Marketing News: Influencers Trusted More Than Friends, LinkedIn Expands Audience Data, New B2B Studies & More

The post Digital Marketing News: Influencers Trusted More Than Friends, LinkedIn Expands Audience Data, New B2B Studies & More appeared first on Online Marketing Blog - TopRank®.

5 B2B Brands Delivering Great Customer Experiences

Today’s B2B customers expect more B2C-like experiences, and here are five brands delivering great customer experiences that go far beyond the tired tradition of boring-to-boring. Research from Gartner has shown that 89 percent of firms compete primarily on customer experience. Not all companies may be taking this to heart, however, as according to additional research some 60 percent of marketers fail to take into account consumer expectations, despite 95 percent seeing increasing expectations from customers. Making memorable customer experiences a priority can help build successful campaigns and make for delighted customers, and with further recent research showing that just 14 percent of B2B survey respondents view customer experience and support as a top priority, there may be no better time to work on delivering great customer experiences. In the following randomly-ordered list, we’ll look at five B2B brands that are innovating with customer-pleasing digital experiences.

#1 IBM — IBM Industries Magazine

IBM publishes both a print and digital version of a magazine, with its award-winning Industrious quarterly publication, featuring the top content from IBM Industries blog combined with exclusive insight from a variety of industry influencers. Industrious was the winner of the Best Content Marketing Campaign at the B2B Awards USA in 2018, and offers a compelling example of how a large B2B firm is delivering great customer experiences. IBM senior vice president of digital sales and chief marketing officer Michelle Peluso recently offered insight into some of the ways IBM has worked to deliver more agile experiences both internally and on the customer experience front. You can hear her episode of The CMO Podcast here. [bctt tweet="“Client and customer needs are changing at a very rapid pace. We want to make sure IBM is interacting with the people who use our systems, software and services—not just the person making the purchase decisions.” @MichelleaPeluso" username="toprank"] Adding relevant influencer content is a proven method to drive engagement, build trust, and create digital experiences that are truly interesting and helpful. [bctt tweet="“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.” — Nick Nelson @NickNelsonMN" username="toprank"]

#2 3M — Science Champions Podcast

At TopRank Marketing we are B2B influencer marketing specialists, and have recently worked to feature influencers in our client 3M’s Champions of Science series of podcasts. Recent industry experts appearing on Champions of Science have included Professor Stephen Curry, Department of Life Sciences at Imperial College London, Dr. Suze Kundu, Materials Chemist and Science Presenter, Chris Gammell, Principal, Analog Life, LLC, and Matt Hartings, Associate Professor of Chemistry at American University. Using podcasting can be a great way to up your customer experience game, and we’ve recently taken a look at how B2B marketers can promote podcasts, and have also gathered together an industry-leading list of top marketing-related podcasts, which you can find here:

• How to Promote Your B2B Podcast
• 20 Podcasts To Elevate Your B2B Marketing
• 10 More Marketing Podcasts To Boost Your Business

[bctt tweet="“If you’re at an enterprise-level organization, you have a built-in audience. Encourage your employees to listen to each episode and share it with their social networks.” — Joshua Nite @NiteWrites" username="toprank"]

#3 Businessolver — 2019 State of Workplace Empathy

Employee benefits administration technology firm Businessolver sought to connect with customers through conducting a study of empathy in the workplace, causing professionals to take a close look at what has recently been seen as the rising importance of empathy among workers in all fields. Businessolver's 2019 State of Workplace Empathy study highlights why workplace empathy should be an important part of company efforts, offering an online asset that can be cited and used by customers and their firms. [bctt tweet="“93 percent of employees say they're more likely to stay with an empathetic employer.” @businessolver" username="toprank"] At this year’s Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, greater incorporation of empathy and intuition in marketing processes was seen as a key trend for 2020, along with learning to better recognize the individuals behind the data. Take a look at more in “6 Cannes Revelations About B2B Marketing in 2020.” [bctt tweet="“Content marketing requires putting the empathy you have for your audience to a constructive purpose.” — Joshua Nite @NiteWrites" username="toprank"]

#4 Marketo — Guide to Lead Generation

Each year marketing software firm Marketo creates a Guide to Lead Generation, with helpful insights for customers made available on an array of easy-to-access social media platforms including Facebook, LinkedIn, SlideShare, and Google, as well as the firm's own site. [bctt tweet="“We live in a hyperconnected world where our brands aren’t controlled by us anymore. They’re controlled by our customers. The brand is being defined by the buyer.” — Marketo CEO @nstevenlucas" username="toprank"] Offering helpful digital assets is just one of many successful methods to deliver great customer experiences. We've explored numerous additional ways savvy B2B marketers can offer memorable customer experiences in these recent articles:

• Wow Your Crowd: The Recipe for Creating Exceptional Content Experiences
• Content Marketing Interview: Annie Granatstein on Creating Emotionally Engaging Content Experiences #CMWorld
• The Experience Factor: It’s Time for Content Marketers to ‘Flip the Switch’

[bctt tweet="“If your lead gen efforts aren’t connecting, start by getting a more accurate picture of your buying audience. Use social listening. Ask them questions. Talk to sales and customer service to refine your personas.” — Joshua Nite @NiteWrites" username="toprank"]

#5 Emerson — We <3 STEM / 2019 STEM Survey

Global technology and engineering firm Emerson has worked to increase the next generation’s interest in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM), and has conducted and released its 2019 STEM Survey. Emerson CMO Kathy Button Bell recently shared some of the innovative initiatives the company is taking to build successful customer experiences, in an interview with Drew Neisser of AdAge. “Empowering individuals of all ages and backgrounds with the tools necessary to thrive in STEM is a crucial step in solving the growing talent gap across several key industries,” Bell recently told Power Engineering. “We have long been dedicated to fostering a culture at Emerson that attracts and advances women through a variety of initiatives, including our 4,000-member Women in STEM group, which provides support and mentoring for our female engineers globally,” Bell added. [bctt tweet="“To raise new questions, new possibilities, to regard old problems from a new angle, requires creative imagination and marks real advance in science.” — Albert Einstein" username="toprank"]

How To Deliver Great Customer Expectations

When it comes to delivering great customer expectations, IBM, 3M, Businessolver, Marketo, and Emerson have given us five examples of what can be done with award-winning effort, sizable resources, and an abundance of time. Considering the extensive effort required to produce top-quality customer experiences today, many B2B brands are turning to professional agency help from firms such as TopRank Marketing, the only B2B Marketing agency offering influencer marketing as a top capability in Forrester’s most recent “B2B Marketing Agencies, North America, Q1 2019” report. You can also learn more on these subjects by joining us at upcoming speaking events and conferences. Our CEO Lee Odden will be speaking at Content Marketing World next week, 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 5 B2B Brands Delivering Great Customer Experiences appeared first on Online Marketing Blog - TopRank®.

Wow Your Crowd: The Recipe for Creating Exceptional Content Experiences

Have you been to a stadium concert lately? The big ones touring the country tend to pull out all the stops. It’s not just a singer on stage — they are usually supported by a giant jumbotron as backdrop providing flashy visuals, along with fog machines, laser lights, platforms rising out of the ground, special guest cameos… the works.  Why is this? Because the bar has been raised. When fans plunk down the big bucks for tickets to see Drake or Carrie Underwood or The Rolling Stones, they expect more than seeing their favorite artists performing on stage. They expect an unforgettable experience that stirs all the senses. via GIPHY In content marketing, we see a continuing shift toward delivering full-on experiences. This emerging focus is evident in the steady growth of the term “content experience” in Google Trends over the past 10 years, and is now reaching a fever pitch as technology enables unprecedented sparkle and scintillation, while the shortening attention spans of our audience demand it.  The theme for this year’s Content Marketing World extravaganza, as well as our interactive preview and the series of blog posts wrapping up today, all lead back to this crucial edict: elevating experiences and wowing the crowd. The good news is that there are endless ways to creatively approach this initiative, and today we’ll draw inspiration from CMWorld speakers who will be taking the stage next week in Cleveland to offer up some memorable experiences of their own.

3 Expert Tips on Stepping Up the Content Experience

#1 - Create Serial Content

It’s tempting to think about high-caliber content experiences in terms of pageantry and spectacle, but there are many simpler elements at play. Your audience wants content that it can contextualize, compartmentalize, and reliably look forward to. There’s a reason that almost every big Hollywood release these days is a spin-off, sequel, or reboot — viewers thrive on familiarity. For this reason, Jay Baer of Convince and Convert says serial content, steeped in quality and consistency, is a must. “This aids in recognition and findability and taps into the truism that multiple exposures are often needed to drive behavior,” Jay explains. And he says another key is making this serial content as easy as possible for your audience to get to. [bctt tweet="Ask yourself how your information and insights can be accessed with a minimum amount of effort or hassle for the consumer. - @jaybaer on minimizing content friction #CMWorld " username="toprank"] There are any number of ways to serialize your content. Maybe it’s breaking a big idea up into a series of blog posts, dissecting various components. Maybe it’s a run of videos mirroring the format of a TV season. And of course, podcasts are gaining fast popularity as an inherently serial form of content.  At TopRank Marketing, we’re all about serial content. You can reliably find our Digital Marketing News roundups (both blog and video) every Friday. Recently we’ve been running a Trust Factors series, examining the vital topic of trust in marketing from various angles. And in fact, you’re reading the final installment of a four-part series right now! Check out the previous “Wow Your Crowd” entries below: 

• Wow Your Crowd: How Content Planning Sets the Stage for Unforgettable Experiences
• Wow Your Crowd: How Content Marketers Can Create Powerful Audience Connections
• Wow Your Crowd: How Influencers and Media Integrations Can Add Pizzazz to Your Content Act

#2 - Use Tools and Technology Thoughtfully

There are so many eye-catching technologies out there offering new ways to package and deliver content. But don’t be blinded by bells and whistles. Add-ons like interactivity only make sense if they actually serve a meaningful purpose.  “The key for brands is to not just pursue these programs for the sake of doing it, or to ‘be cool,’ but to have a clear purpose and value-add,” says SAP’s Amisha Gandhi.  For example, when scrolling through the Greatest Content Marketing Show on Earth experience created by TopRank Marketing and Content Marketing Institute, you’ll be able to play games like shoot-the-duck and bop-the-clown. But these interactive gamification elements weren’t just thrown in for the heck of it; they’re meant to play up the midway/carnival vibes of the asset (and this year’s CMWorld conference). [bctt tweet="A memorable experience goes a long way. - @AmishaGandhi on raising the bar for content experiences #CMWorld" username="toprank"]

#3 - Measure and Optimize

The trouble with all this talk about content experiences is that they can feel difficult to quantify and report on. I mean, how do you measure audience delight? What is the ROI of someone grinning with glee while bopping clowns on their browser? To some degree, the benefits of a great experience are intangible, at least in the short-term. But we can still measure the impact by connecting consumption metrics with bottom-line results.  “I think of content marketing metrics in two dimensions: Business outcomes (how content is contributing to the business) and engagement metrics (a proxy for how much the target audience likes the content),” says Chris White of Capital One.  He breaks them down like this:  Engagement Metrics: 

• Views
• Total view time
• View-through-rate
• Percent of target audience (in relation to total viewers)
• Comments
• Likes/Reactions
• Scroll depth
• Pages-per-session
• Bounce rate 
• Time-on-site

Business Outcomes

• Brand awareness/consideration
• Remarketing audience size
• Web traffic
• Conversions
• Customer behavior (e.g., retention, adoption rate, referrals, etc.)  

If you’re getting it right with customer experiences, you’ll see growth across all of these metrics over time. From our view at TopRank Marketing, engagement metrics and business outcomes (or proof of ROI) are among the seven essential elements for content marketing performance dashboard. Also included: benchmarks, goals, real-time KPI monitoring, traffic trends, and breakdowns by topic/persona. [bctt tweet="Every initiative is paired with a specific business outcome to evaluate performance. Although we keep tabs on engagement metrics, they do not dictate success by themselves. - Chris White of @CapitalOne on measuring content performance   " username="toprank"]

Experience Is Your Content Differentiator

Turn content experience into your competitive advantage. Create things that amaze your audience and leave them yearning for more. Utilize new trends and tech when appropriate to elevate your content. And, at all times, validate your efforts by measuring the right things and letting your customers dictate your direction. Is it silly to think about content marketing on the same terms as stadium concerts? I’d say it’s silly not to.  We’re counting down the days until the grand experience unfolds at Content Marketing World 2019 on Sept. 3, 2019 in Cleveland. Before then, you can find plenty more guidance on taking your programs to the next level in our interactive experience, The Greatest Content Marketing Show on Earth.

The post Wow Your Crowd: The Recipe for Creating Exceptional Content Experiences appeared first on Online Marketing Blog - TopRank®.

The Currency of Influence in Marketing — Buy, Sell, or Trade

Influence is its own form of a modern digital currency. Influence is able to overcome almost any obstacle, and more than ever, it's the powerful (sometimes-hidden) global fuel that helps drive our multi-trillion dollar online business world. In fact, according to the 2019 Edelman Trust Barometer “In Brands We Trust?” report, 63% of consumers trust what influencers say about brands much more than what brands say about themselves within their advertising messages. An even more telling statistic from the same study is that 58% said they had purchased a product in the past six months because of an influencer, as shown below. As the internet has matured since its 1991 creation, networking between people around the world has expanded to truly astounding heights, helping make wonderful projects and partnerships happen. [bctt tweet="It’s not about who has the most followers, or the gaudiest personal brand. It’s about who resonates most with your specific customers and prospects. — Nick Nelson @NickNelsonMN" username="toprank"] By learning the importance of influence, how best to incorporate it into your own life and marketing, and how to deal with some of its primary challenges, B2B marketers and brands can harness the power of influence and reach new levels of business and personal success. Whether you call it influence, networking pull, or professional persuasion, connecting with successful people in your industry will bolster your own efforts both today and long into the future.

Buy: Influence Is Loaded With Strengths

Successfully wielding online influence today puts the world at your fingertips. As with gold or paper money, the currency of influence can be earned, accumulated, spent, traded, or used towards philanthropic causes. When influence is willingly shared it has the special quality of creating other new introductions and connections, setting in motion a sphere of professional networking and knowledge that can keep growing as long as you put in the effort to understand and maintain it. [bctt tweet="Working with influencers is about building solid relationships that last over time, not just a summer fling. — Ashley Zeckman @azeckman" username="toprank"] Just as influence comes in vastly varying degrees, so to do influencers, who can take the form of micro-influencers or other specialty varieties. Recent data from several surveys shows that micro and niche-influencers are forging stronger target audience connections and boosting long-term loyalty. Heather-Mae Pusztai of Buffer recently took a close look at micro-influencers, in “Why Micro-Influencers May Be the Most Effective Influencer Marketing Strategy.” [bctt tweet="Topically, the influencers you work with must have relevant expertise, insight, interest, and audience, ultimately aligning with your goals and expertise of your brand. — Caitlin Burgess @CaitlinMBurgess" username="toprank"] More and more brands are looking to harness the power of influence through influencer marketing initiatives. In fact, influencer marketing spending in the U.S. and Canada has seen 83% year-over-year growth, accompanied by second-quarter spending of $442 million, according to recent research data from Instascreener. Over the next 12 months, 65% of multinational brands plan to increase influencer marketing spending, according to the World Federation of Advertisers. We’ve explored the unique strengths of influencer marketing in many recent articles, including these helpful takes:

• 11 Qualities You Should be Looking for to Find Your B2B Influencer Match
• Hitting Your Target: Why Account-Based Marketing and Influencers Are the Perfect Match
• Sowing the Seeds of Success: 3 Elements of Strong B2B Influencer Relationships

Sell: Influence Is Rife With Challenges

Who really has influence and who is merely claiming to? Building influence is time-consuming, so why should I even bother? There’s little doubt that celebrity influencers have faced increasing skepticism, but the process of finding true B2B industry experts who are hyper-relevant to your industry is as important as ever, and we’ve looked at how to go about this in several recent pieces:

• Do Your Homework: Selecting the Right Influencers for Your B2B Brand With Tips from the Experts
• How to Intertwine Online & Offline Tactics to Cultivate B2B Influencer Relationships
• Trust Factors: The (In)Credible Impact of B2B Influencer Marketing

The challenges influencer marketing has faced are real yet surmountable, especially when campaigns are conducted for the long term, with proper planning, key performance indicators (KPIs), and goals. When done well, it’s no wonder that 95% of respondents to a recent DGR survey favor credible content from industry influencers, a 30% increase over 2018. [bctt tweet="Cutting edge B2B influencer marketing focuses on both online and offline engagements. — Konstanze Alex @konstanze" username="toprank"] The topic of influencer marketing was present during this year's Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, as Maja Pawinska Sims covered in "Cannes: Brands Can Avoid Being Fake By Shifting To Niche Influencers," and in our recent "6 Cannes Revelations About B2B Marketing in 2020."

Trade: Influence’s Future Strong Yet Still Unfolding

Measuring influence has changed over time and will continue to evolve. Will the ability to achieve and grow online influence remain fully accessible to everyone, or will those holding little influence and clout face insurmountable obstacles in the future? Will a backlash against celebrity influencers — or perhaps even twinfluencers — continue, or will methods and systems evolve that help us filter out pretenders and make it easier to discover and connect with true industry experts? [bctt tweet="The growth of influence on individual and organizational effectiveness in the B2B marketing world will continue for years to come. @leeodden" username="toprank"] Educator and writer Lillie Marshall recently took a look at the challenges that even using the word influencer can sometimes present, and the role diversity can play when considering the quality of influence. She ultimately prefers using the word "sway" over influence, a fine synonym in my book as well. [bctt tweet="It’s a fine balance to embrace the power and joy of our voices, yet honor what audiences truly desire. — Lillie Marshall @WorldLillie" username="toprank"] Several additional resources we've compiled to dig in and explore how influence and influencer marketing can intertwine to help B2B firms are these:

• 5 Essential Questions to Guide Your B2B Influencer Marketing Strategy
• 5 Key Trends in B2B Influencer Marketing Plus Critical Do’s and Don’ts
• The Intersection of SEO & Influencer Marketing: What B2B Marketers Need to Know

[bctt tweet="Whether you’re tired of or wired for 'influencer marketing', make no mistake: The growth of influence on individual and organizational effectiveness in the B2B marketing world will continue for years to come. @leeodden" username="toprank"]

Influencer Marketing Offers a Win-Win Partnership

Whether you call it influencer marketing or working with top relevant experts in your industry, the quality of influence itself has a timeless and unmistakable power to drive successful marketing campaigns. [bctt tweet="When identifying and qualifying influencers, go beyond what the numbers are and see what that data really means. — Amisha Gandhi @AmishaGandhi" username="toprank"] Here are three articles with examples of how influencer marketing has helped B2B firms achieve strong results:

• Inspiring Examples of B2B Influencer Marketing in Action
• Break Free of Boring B2B with Interactive Influencer Content
• Examples of B2B Influencer Marketing to Inspire You in 2019

With enough hard work, great fortunes of influence can be earned and put to use, whether in marketing campaigns or other areas of our lives. Finding a marketing agency specializing in influencer marketing can be difficult enough, and if you need one focused on the world of B2B, the challenge can be all the more daunting. Thankfully, the number of marketers realizing the power of influencer marketing has grown, and even esteemed measurement groups like Forrester have begun listing B2B agencies that specialize in influencer marketing. TopRank Marketing was thrilled to be the only such agency listed in Forrester’s most recent “B2B Marketing Agencies, North America, Q1 2019” report. Want to dive deeper into influencer marketing tips, tricks, tactics, and strategies? Then take a gander at our vast collection of influence marketing insights on the TopRank Marketing Blog.

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Content Marketing Interview: Annie Granatstein on Creating Emotionally Engaging Content Experiences #CMWorld

We are all products of our environments, and the experiences we carry are invariably influential to the way we approach and think about our jobs.  Recently we shared an interview with Margaret Magnarelli, who spent nearly a decade as a magazine editor before moving into a content marketing leadership role. With her background in journalism, she offers important perspective for marketers everywhere. The same is true for Annie Granatstein, who lives at the center of the convergence between investigative journalism and brand marketing. Annie runs The Washington Post’s BrandStudio unit, which takes The Post’s award-winning proclivity for immersive digital storytelling and leverages it on behalf of brands and advertisers. Peruse BrandStudio’s archive and you’ll find a wide range of multimedia techniques applied to bring stories to life. These include 360-degree environments, photo tours, augmented reality applications, choose-your-own-adventure journeys, and more. With the theme of this year’s Content Marketing World being show-stopping experiences that delight our audiences, the work being done by Annie’s team deserves our full attention. She was one of the CMWorld speakers who contributed to our interactive conference preview experience, where she proclaims that engaging our audiences emotionally should be an utmost priority.  In her extended interview with TopRank Marketing, Annie elaborates on how BrandStudio is pursuing this objective, with plenty of examples and insights to illustrate.

Annie Granatstein on Immersive, Emotional Content Experiences

1. What do your day-to-day duties as Head of WP BrandStudio entail? 

I oversee a multi-disciplinary team of content strategists, writers, editors, interactive designers, developers, program managers, producers, and social media and onsite performance strategists. We work together to conceive, create, and promote branded content programs for Washington Post advertisers that are story-first, data-driven, technology-forward. On any given day I move between pre- and post-sale, and also between high-level management and hands-on creative oversight. So I might spend some time developing business strategy or strategizing team structure and then move to editing an article, giving notes on a video cut, or providing creative direction on proposals. 2. Compelling stories are table stakes for content marketers these days. To stand out, we need to elevate these narratives through more immersive and engaging experiences. How can we all better embrace this central philosophy of BrandStudio? The key to creating more immersive experiences is collaboration between different types of talent. As a content leader you must find ways to continuously encourage and improve that collaboration. One way we’ve done this is by creating multi-disciplinary initiatives such as our Emerging Media Taskforce.  This group of about eight creatives from across the Studio’s disciplines gets together once a month to discuss which innovations in storytelling are most promising, plan for researching and prototyping them, and report back to each other. Innovations such as in-browser AR and development of proprietary emotion recognition technology arose out of this Taskforce. We then can use these innovations to create out-of-the-box content for advertisers. One example is we used the emotion recognition technology in a 360 campaign for Mike’s Hard Lemonade where our audience was able to see how good news affects their emotions in digital content (see The Good News Effect) and at an exciting experiential event. In addition, it’s essential to use data to show advertisers the ROI of immersive experiences. For example, we have found that immersive experiences tend to drive higher time spent, and we’ll show this data to advertisers to encourage them to invest in this type of content.  [bctt tweet="The key to creating more immersive experiences is collaboration between different types of talent. @anniegranat" username="toprank"] 3. Your team uses a variety of multimedia techniques to bring content to life, including 360-degree experiences, photo tours, motion graphics, illustrated articles, and more. Which formats and features do you see as most promising and versatile in the marketing world? It’s all about what works best on mobile since the majority are engaging with content on the small screen. Certain interactive experiences are truly mobile-friendly or even mobile-first such as 360 experiences which can be navigated with your finger or by moving your phone.  Augmented reality is still fledgling but exciting as it’s truly mobile-first, and recent technological developments have allowed for the experiences to be available in-browser (versus in-app), reaching a larger audience. For MGM National Harbor, for example, we enhanced an article about cherry blossom season with an AR experience of cherry trees blossoming through your phone (open Hanami at Home on your mobile device). As we made this experience available in browser we saw 4x the scale of AR experiences only available on the Washington Post app.  Custom podcasts are also a great way to reach people on mobile—deeply. We’ve had a lot of success engaging audiences for long periods of time with a variety of podcasts, including multiple seasons of a personal finance podcast for T. Rowe Price, The Confident Wallet, which garnered six-figure downloads and 4.5/5-star average ratings on Apple Podcasts. [bctt tweet="Custom podcasts are a great way to reach people on mobile—deeply. We’ve had a lot of success engaging audiences for long periods of time with a variety of podcasts. @anniegranat" username="toprank"] 4. Given the diversity of topics you cover, what are some steps BrandStudio takes to better understand specific audiences, and what might resonate most with them? So many! Understanding The Post’s different audiences is a number one priority for the team. The better we know our audience, the better we can create content that resonates with them, providing more value to our advertisers. We tap into many data sources, like content performance and audience interest surveys. We test experiences in our UX Lab. We derive insights from this data to understand what will resonate with different audiences. We also think of our audience in three categories — consumer, business, and thought leader — and use these insights to dive deep into the characteristics, interests, and content habits of each. We then use these insights to inform the story, content type, and distribution tactics. 5. Can you cite one or two of BrandStudio’s most successful and well-received programs, adding your perspective on what made them pop with audiences? For Optum insurance, we created a multimedia investigative feature on the opioid crisis, Working to End the Epidemic, that blended educational elements such as infographics and interactive maps to inform our audience of the scope of the epidemic with emotional, human elements such as video interviews with recovering addicts and treatment providers.  The program was incredibly successful, garnering high time spent, a flurry of social media activity (including organic tweets from important influencers such as Katie Couric), earned media (named to the top of Ad Age best branded content partnerships list), and awards. This blend of educational and emotional elements on a pressing topic resonates deeply with our intellectually curious and highly intelligent audience. 6. Which speakers and/or sessions are you most looking forward to seeing at this year’s Content Marketing World? I’m always interested to hear the perspectives of folks leading content inside brands since it’s the flipside of my perspective running a publisher-based content studio. So, really looking forward to talks from execs, such as:

• Maliha Aqeel, Assistant Director of Brand, Marketing & Communication, Ernst & Young
• Carlos Abler, Leader of Content Marketing Strategy, 3M
• Ann Bakuniene-Milanowski, Director of Editorial, Cleveland Clinic. Cleveland Clinic is also a valued, long-term partner of WP BrandStudio and The Washington Post overall. We have created truly innovative and important content together such as this multimedia feature on treating brain disorders as we age, Keeping Your Mind.

More Memorable Stories Await

You’ll be able to witness plenty of of immersive storytelling on-stage at Content Marketing World 2019, and you’ll definitely want to check out Annie’s session on Sept. 4 at 11:20 a.m.: Speaking Their Language: How to Engage Different Types of Audiences with Content that is Uniquely Meaningful. Until then, you’ll find plenty of uniquely meaningful content (plus a couple of fun games to play) in our interactive experience, The Greatest Content Marketing Show on Earth!

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Digital Marketing News: Most Google Searches Don’t Yield Clicks, Facebook Drops Group Chat, Diminishing Ad Trust & More

The post Digital Marketing News: Most Google Searches Don’t Yield Clicks, Facebook Drops Group Chat, Diminishing Ad Trust & More appeared first on Online Marketing Blog - TopRank®.

Wow Your Crowd: How Influencers and Media Integrations Can Add Pizzazz to Your Content Act

Some performers take the stage all by themselves, with no props or partners to lend support, and capture their audience with a riveting solo act. Hilarious standup comedy routines and enlightening TED Talks exemplify this ability in action.  As a content marketer, there are occasions where a well written piece will take off on its own, with no help required beyond a powerful message presented clearly. But more often, spicing things up with added elements of interactivity or visual pizzazz provides a necessary added boost in today’s busy digital environment. And incorporating the right strategic partners is a reliable way to increase your program’s reach and impact. When I attended my first Digital Summit Minneapolis two years ago, Seth Godin delivered the opening keynote. He employed a technique that still stands out in my mind to this day. Following a fairly brief monologue, he pulled out a plush cube toy and tossed it into the audience, encouraging the recipient to ask him a question and then throw it to anyone else around them in the crowd. This went on for about 30 minutes. With one ultra-simple prop, Seth brought freshness to the familiar and turned his audience into part of the show. This represents a broader goal for modern content marketers of all stripes, and one we can achieve digitally through various emerging tactics.  Plenty of other practitioners are mastering the art of elevating experiences through audience immersion today. Whether through props (multimedia, interactivity, augmented reality) or partnerships (influencers, user-generated content, co-creation), they add an extra flare that makes content irresistibly engaging. How? Ahead of Content Marketing World 2019, TopRank Marketing teamed up with Content Marketing Institute to create an insight-fueled interactive experience: The Greatest Content Marketing Show on Earth. One of the most vital topics covered — and one that will surely be a central focus at CMWorld 2019 — is picking the right props and partners to propel your content. Today we’ll touch on some key insights from those leading the way.

3 Pointers on Adding Punch to Your Content Act

#1 - Choose Influencers that Align with Your Strategy

Siegfried and Roy make the perfect pairing. So do Penn and Teller. But if you remixed those combinations, it probably wouldn’t work out so well. (Poor old Teller would be silently limping away from a performance covered in tiger scratches.) At TopRank Marketing, we obviously believe in the power of partnering with influencers. But in order for this strategy to pay dividends, you need to put serious thought and research into the selection process. It is essential to identify influencers who align with what you’re trying to do, have the relevant topical expertise, and will resonate with the audience you’re trying to reach. “Finding ideal influencers for impact means discovering those with on-topic credibility, the ability to publish, an engaged network and a willingness to share,” says our CEO Lee Odden. This collection of qualities is harder to find than you might think, but once you do, compelling collaboration awaits. It’s a mistake to base influencer selection solely on celebrity or star power. In many cases the most fitting partner will be someone with a smaller but more tightly attuned and aligned audience. Lee often says “everyone is influential about something,” and sometimes the most relevant thought leaders are living outside of the spotlight. For now. [bctt tweet="Brandividuals can drive awareness, subject matter experts can create engagement and customers who advocate can help inspire sales. @leeodden on #influencermarketing alignment #CMWorld " username="toprank"]

#2 - Put On an Eye-Catching Show 

In his extended interview with us, Andrew Davis had one overarching message for video marketers: show, don’t tell. We are often not doing enough to take advantage of this medium’s visual nature, he argues, and as such we’re leaving opportunities on the table.  “Instead of a talking head or another interview, how can you SHOW me?” he asks. “Spend more time shooting the rest of the story and immediately, you'll take your videos from drab to show-stopping.”  Bringing a TV producer’s mindset to the discipline, Andrew advocates for shooting plenty of B-roll footage that you can intercut with your main narrative to keep the action moving throughout. This applies beyond video content, as well; we should always be looking for ways to catch a viewer’s eyes, even (especially?) when dealing with written text. Don’t forget about the importance of sound, either. [bctt tweet="You shouldn't forget about the soundtrack for your video … sound effects and music go a long way to making video that works. @DrewDavisHere on #videomarketing #CMWorld" username="toprank"] Delivering a high-quality, visually interesting video production doesn’t necessarily require deep expertise or a lofty budget. As we wrote last year in offering up video marketing tips for beginners, your efforts will benefit from proper preparation, creative use of resources, practice, and purpose.  

#3 - Appeal to Audience Emotions

The most effective way to create a memorable experience for your audience is to engage them emotionally. There are many different ways to approach this — through humor, suspense, sadness, etc. — but the bottom line is that you need to make them feel something.   Annie Granatstein, who runs WP BrandStudio for the Washington Post, is at the frontline of emotionally connective content. With a purpose of elevating experiential storytelling through diverse multimedia integration and other emerging technologies, BrandStudio is a model for modern marketers everywhere. “One example is an investigative multimedia feature covering the opioid crisis for Optum, blending emotional videos and evocative imagery with interactive infographics to educate our audience on the epidemic and solutions,” she says. You can explore that experience here. As content marketers, we have a vast assortment of tools and tech at our fingertips, and they can bring our initiatives to life in unprecedented ways. It’s all about choosing the right ones for what you’re trying to accomplish. As you weigh the merits of techniques like motion graphics, 360-degree experiences, augmented reality, and photo tours — all mainstays in the BrandStudio mix — think always about which will be most effective for building those crucial emotional connections. [bctt tweet="Multimedia and interactivity are in our wheelhouse at WP BrandStudio for driving engagement with our stories. @anniegranat on building emotional connections with content #CMWorld" username="toprank"] By striking the intersection of influencers, visual appeal, and interactivity via technologies like VR, we can bypass the barriers of traditionally dry verticals and earn emotional investment from our audience, as Lee discussed earlier this year at B2B Marketing Exchange:

Enter the Era of Integrated Content Experiences

As Seth Godin remarked in his aforementioned Digital Summit keynote, “When a system changes, the people who come out ahead are the people who change.”  Content marketing is changing. The bar has been raised when it comes to engaging our audiences in an era of attention deficits and content saturation. Building meaningful emotional connections by integrating the right influencers, multimedia, and interactive elements presents the key to delighting audiences and driving action.  You’ll learn plenty more about the changing content landscape at Content Marketing World 2019 when the curtains open on Sept. 3, 2019 in Cleveland. Before then, you can find plenty more guidance on taking your programs to the next level in our interactive experience, The Greatest Content Marketing Show on Earth.

The post Wow Your Crowd: How Influencers and Media Integrations Can Add Pizzazz to Your Content Act appeared first on Online Marketing Blog - TopRank®.

The Great Marketing Get-Together

State fair season brings tasty new foods-on-a-stick and a grandstand full of marketing lessons for those willing to walk the midway. The Minnesota State Fair, known affectionately as the Great Minnesota Get-Together, begins tomorrow, and we’ll explore some of the wild new food concoctions on offer this year, and dig in to a bucket-of-cookies-size list of surprising things it can teach us about marketing. The fair, which began all the way back in 1859, is one of the largest in the U.S., now often topping the 2 million attendee mark each 12-day season and offering fair-goers 322 acres of summer fun in the form of amusement rides, live music from at least four stages, art, animals, parades and more. Marketers can gain plenty of insight from the spectacle of the Minnesota State Fair, so let’s take a food-centric look at some of the marketing lessons we can learn from the Great Minnesota Get-Together.

The Power of Anticipation On A Stick

Each year fair-goers eagerly anticipate the list of new foods being released, followed by a period of speculation about how each new food will taste before the event begins, including some who even place odds on each new fair food. Marketers have long built anticipation into campaigns, especially for organizations with popular products and services with many dedicated fans such as top car manufacturers and video game makers. Getting your audience excited, whether it’s by building anticipation through social media, search marketing, or influencer marketing, is a time-tested tactic in many successful campaigns, and we’ll see how the sometimes over-the-top foods of the fair parallel these methods. In our age of instant gratification and always-on answers, anticipation is sometimes overlooked as a powerful marketing element. [bctt tweet="“The idea of waiting for something makes it more exciting.” — Andy Warhol " username="toprank"] If your organization is lucky enough to already have throngs of hard-core fans, keeping them happy through clear communication about upcoming releases, teaser previews, behind-the-scenes glimpses, and other fan-pleasing methods is likely to build continued success. [bctt tweet="“Anticipation is sometimes more exciting than actual events.” — Ana Monnar " username="toprank"]

FOMO & The Power of Ever-New Fair Food

Over 30 all-new foods will premier tomorrow at The Minnesota State Fair for 2019, including:

• Bada Bing Sandwich
• Blueberry Key Lime Pie
• Cheesy Sriracha Funnel Cake Bites
• Pebbles & Bam Bam Nordic Waffles
• Peaches n’ Cream Nachos

Whether it’s one of these or the new Wingwalker Donut Flight with user-injectable flavor filling syringes, each year state fairs do an admirable job of getting mouths watering — or perplexing us with unusual concoctions — ultimately driving interest in a way that even B2B marketers can emulate and achieve success with. Reading the list of new fair foods induces a super-size dose of Fear of Missing Out (FOMA), an emotion that marketers can play on and work to include in our own campaigns, even if they may not include chocolate coatings, tornado potatoes and other deep-fried delights. Try not to let FOMA detract from either your marketing or your personal life, however. [bctt tweet="“Joy comes to us in moments — ordinary moments. We risk missing out on joy when we get too busy chasing down the extraordinary.” — Brené Brown @BreneBrown" username="toprank"] State fairs thrive by augmenting each year’s wild new foods with tried-and-true standby favorites such as corn-on-the-cob, cheese curds, and corndogs, which fair-goers have come to expect, just as many midway thrill-seekers still expect to enjoy a ride on the Tilt-a-Whirl — a 1926 Minnesota invention. Knowing when to retire a food requires walking that fine line between getting rid of a slow seller and possibly removing mom’s favorite fair treat. Marketers too need to consider their audiences before dropping an old marketing tactic or channel in favor of a shiny new selling method. Conducting audience surveys can help you find out how your customers would feel if you removed an element from your organization’s systems, whether it’s a chatbot virtual assistant, an online form, or even support for a particular social media platform. Understanding your audience’s needs and desires goes a long way towards building strong customer relationships, and one way to gain these types of insight is through researching the questions that your audience is asking, as I wrote about recently in “10 Smart Question Research Tools for B2B Marketers.” [bctt tweet="“Finding trends in what your current customers need can help you answer questions that your prospective customers might be asking, too.” — Jessica Best @bestofjess" username="toprank"]

Corn Dogs & Classic Social Media Marketing

These days social media marketing is a classic tactic, a comforting corn dog of the marketing world. The specific platforms we use come and go, and their features change as frequently as the fair-goers riding the SkyRide or Octopus, yet many social tactics are bedrocks of marketing. A sizable part of a successful social media marketing campaign is keeping track of performance benchmarks, as Joshua Nite, our Content Marketing Manager explored in detail in “Social Media Marketing Benchmarks: What Works & Where to Focus,” which was our most popular social media marketing post of 2018. [bctt tweet="“We should approach evolving our social media with the same data-driven, strategic rigor that applies to everything else we do.” — Joshua Nite @NiteWrites" username="toprank"] Over the past 15 years we’ve written a midway-full of additional helpful articles about how you can best incorporate social media marketing into your own campaigns, and some of the top recent ones are listed here, with no midway ticket coupons even required…

• 80+ New Social Media Marketing Statistics for B2B Marketers
• Social Media Secrets: 5 Under-the-Radar LinkedIn Features for Marketers
• B2B Social Media Shakeup: 4 Developments That Have Caught Our Eye

Blooming Onions & Podcast Marketing

Podcasting has been among the biggest blooming marketing trends in recent years, with forecasts predicting that ad spending in the podcasting industry will top $1 billion by 2021, equal to more state fair blooming onions than you could shake a corn-dog stick at. As one of today’s most promising marketing opportunities, podcasting has found a new way to take the simple commodity of people talking and turn it into a highly desirable and profitable digital asset, much the same as how state fair vendors take an ordinary onion and transform it into a showy explosion of deep-fried rooty tentacles. [bctt tweet="“Stay closer to top-of-funnel with your podcast ideas. It’s far better to educate, inspire, and entertain your audience than to try and sell them something.” — Joshua Nite @NiteWrites" username="toprank"] As podcasting has bloomed over the past several years, our team at TopRank Marketing has explored its’ relevant use in B2B marketing, including the following recent articles:

• How to Promote Your B2B Podcast
• 20 Podcasts To Elevate Your B2B Marketing
• 10 More Marketing Podcasts To Boost Your Business

Deep-Fried Candy Bars & The Promise of VR/AR Interactive Marketing

Virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) have also taken marketing by storm, similar to how deep-fried candy bars have given many the promise of a bold new future of state fair indulgences. Dip your marketing Snickers and advertising Milky-Ways into a batter of VR and dunk them into the fryer, and read up on how interactive elements will play a bigger role in our future marketing efforts, with our recent articles here:

• Augmented Reality: How to Leverage AR in Marketing With Cathy Hackl
• The Future of B2B Content: Data-Informed, Interactive, and Influential
• How B2B Marketers Can Make the Most of Interactive Content Tools

Cheese Curds & Search Marketing

Cheese has been around a lot longer than search engines, yet both are modern staples for most marketers and many fair-goers. As with social media marketing, the specific tactics needed to achieve success in search and SEO are highly-specialized. Get to the cheesy, gooey center of your search marketing learning by grabbing a bit bite of our recent posts on the subject here:

• What the Future of Google Search Means for B2B Marketers
• How B2B Marketers Can Win at Search with Best Answer Content
• Our Top 10 Search Marketing Posts

The Full Food Court of Influencer Marketing

Influencer marketing is hard to pair with any single state fair delicacy, as the many benefits it offers when executed smartly are more akin to the virtually unlimited smorgasbord of flavors available in the state fair’s main food court. Influencer marketing spending in the U.S. and Canada has seen 83 percent year-over-year growth, accompanied by second-quarter spending of $442 million, according to recent research. Recent data also shows that micro and niche-influencers are forging stronger target audience connections and boosting long-term loyalty, and over the next 12 months, 65 percent of multinational brands plan to increase influencer marketing spending, according to the World Federation of Advertisers. [bctt tweet="“Whether you’re tired of or wired for “influencer marketing”, make no mistake: The growth of influence on individual and organizational effectiveness in the B2B marketing world will continue for years to come.” @LeeOdden" username="toprank"] In Minnesota our State Fair is considered our state’s Greatest Show on Earth, a similar theme we recently pursued as we partnered with the Content Marketing Institute to showcase the powerful and entertaining combination of influencer marketing and interactive digital assets, which you can experience here: If you’ve never had the opportunity to experience the splendors of a state fair, we hope you’ll someday be able to visit one, and if you’re near Minnesota be sure to take in our Great Minnesota Get-Together. I'll leave you with a photo of this author preparing to tackle a mountain of spiral potatoes at the Minnesota State Fair in 2014.

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