Business to Business Marketing Archives - Maven Collective Marketing

2022 Marketing Trendsetters to Watch

The Biggest B2B Marketing Trends of 2022

Estimated Read Time: 5 minutes Intended

Audience: B2B Business Owners, Chief Marketing Officers, Business Strategists

2022 is upon us already! As the world of remote/hybrid digital workplaces expanded, the world of digital marketing / online marketing has also greatly evolved. This presents a unique opportunity for you to capitalize on this growth to apply to your business. Let us guide you to how proper preparation for B2B marketing in 2022 can put you light-years ahead of your competitors.

We all recognize the major changes organizations have made to adapt to the remote/hybrid work, and we aren’t seeing these digital transformations wane for the foreseeable future. We know the spending shift to a mobile-first strategy was among the most significant transformations in 2021, along with the switch in lead-generation channels. Looking ahead, we want to prepare you for 2022 so that there are no surprises for when you kick-start marketing efforts in the new year.

How B2B Marketing will Take Shape in 2022

Enhanced Short-Form Video Content

Among the most effective trends, one can leverage, short-form content like mini videos and clips are great at grabbing the attention of customers. Getting to the point with short videos can be highly beneficial for B2B marketers. Being able to explain or showcase use cases for your tech services/products, quickly is very effective as it aligns with the fast-paced attention spans of the online audience. In addition, short-form videos are significantly more popular on social media channels as they catch the attention of the audience and encourage them to take the next step.

Content is King but SEO Holds the Key to the Kingdom

The Google algorithm, Bing algorithm, and others continue to refine and evolve day after day. For best performance on search engines, SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is not something you want to cut back on in 2022. In fact, 61% of digital marketers believe that improving SEO is key to improving your online organic search results.

SEO impacts both short-term and long-term website traffic, which is what makes it such a critical tool for your website’s performance and lead generation. It’s time to go beyond answering basic search queries and start investing in multi-media optimization such as content, video, images, long-form articles, and more.

Inbound B2B Marketing Continues to Trump Outbound B2B Marketing

As work environments have evolved from in-person to remote to hybrid, outbound marketing is becoming less effective. It is time to get creative with ways in which you can attract leads. Target your buyer personas and produce quality content that is most relevant to your audience. The new inbound marketing approach is transitioning from Funnel marketing to the Flywheel, which puts your audience at the center of it all. It is all about meeting your audience where they are at by creating personalized content.

Transform Employee Engagement to Employee Advocacy

Being able to associate a company and brand with its people is key to building a connection, and it’s bound to work for both customer engagement and partner channel marketing. 2022 is the year to humanize your brand by transforming basic employee engagement actions into activation and advocacy. Involving your team helps boost brand recognition and visibility while also increasing trustworthiness. Start your 2022, by putting together an employee advocacy program with social media guidelines that will help them participate easily without taking up too much of their time.

Artificial Intelligence Enabled B2B Marketing

The time has come to improve and expand your ability to respond to your prospects and consumers in real-time. AI (Artificial Intelligence) will help you make data-driven decisions with predictive analytics. Take 2022 by storm by utilizing AI insights to create content and run personalized ad campaigns. Not only will this allow you to have a deeper knowledge of your audience, but also give you a competitive edge in the sameness of B2B marketing. AI is nudging companies to embrace chatbots and virtual assistants to optimize support services and engage website visitors by giving them a one-on-one experience.

Personalized Engagement Marketing

Personalization has long been part of marketing strategies, but doing it intently and thoughtfully is what will drive marketing ROI in 2022. Although an always-on engagement strategy is critical to maintaining the connection with your audience, you must be mindful of your buyer market to make any headway. Adequate insight into your target market and being observant of their behavior will set you apart when it comes to fruitful engagement.

Fractional Marketing Partnership

There has been much change in the workplace landscape over the last two years; employee upheaval has become a constant. A fractional marketing partnership is going to be the go-to method in 2022 for business to keep their brand standards and marketing performance from dropping. Involving a marketing agency as a part-time CMO and/or external marketing powerhouse to support your internal efforts, will allow you to maintain that grip target market without compromising on your high standards. Changes in the employee structure will no longer impact your B2B marketing strategy if you find the right fit for this fractional marketing partnership.

Maven Collective Marketing provides fractional CMO and full-service marketing to empower you with knowledgeable marketing strategists that take your B2B marketing to the next level. We have the ability to quickly step into the role, identify the missing pieces, and curate the strategy that will drive business success. One of the ways we support Microsoft Partners is by creating captivating B2B award entries, along with supplemental marketing services, such as virtual events & digital performance audits, that showcase their incredible work outside of award submissions. If you are rethinking your organizational strategy, then the Maven Collective Marketing team is here to help you achieve operational efficiency with our marketing expertise.

Building a More Powerful MarTech Stack

2022 is the year for smarter and more streamlined marketing technology. Simplify your processes and enhance the experience for both the marketer and target audience by introducing flexible systems to your marketing stack. Make sure that you are equipped with tools that play nicely together and give your marketing strategy a boost. For example, an advanced CRM platform such as Salesforce or HubSpot on your side has the ability to support B2B lead generation with automation and personalization while tying in seamlessly with Pardot or Hubspot Marketing.

If you are wondering how to choose the right tools for your MarTech stack, start by defining your goals and marketing strategy. This will help you identify the capability gaps and choose technology based on that. If you are unsure of what technology to incorporate, check out our most recommended tools.

How to Steer Clear From Common Marketing Mishaps in 2022

Now that you have a list of must-haves for the New Year, it’s time you familiarize yourself with what not to do so that your B2B marketing strategy is truly successful.

Email Marketing Spamming: You need to be mindful of how many emails you send out and the types of content you are sharing. If you find yourself emailing your audience every week, you are most likely overdoing it. B2B email marketing needs to be handled a lot more delicately and with a strategy that ensures well-planned approach to nurturing your curated audience.
Social Push Without Engagement: Just posting content constantly is not enough to get your audience engaged. You will only drive them away by overpopulating their timeline with an overwhelming amount of information. Ensure you post at intervals and take the time to interact with them to make them feel heard and garner real interest.
Self-Promotional Content: Always talking shop can be off-putting for customers. There is so much more to your B2B organization than just your services and products. Instead, transform your experience and expertise into educational content and teach your audience the need for your product with insightful details on how your offerings overcome their challenges. Make your marketing about them, not you!
Uninformed Website Redesigns: Revamping your website without any research or data can damage user experience. You need to take the time to study website visitors and how they interact with your webpages to get a clear understanding of what design elements will boost website leads. Utilizing tools like Microsoft Clarity will help you understand user behavior that you can then take to your website designer. Here are some critical factors to consider before taking on a redesign project.
Status Quo Microsoft Messaging/Positioning: pushing the same message and tagline as Microsoft keeps you a small fish in a vast ocean of sameness. Without defining your unique value and approach to customers and prospective clients, you are painted with the same brush as all the other Microsoft software resellers and service providers. You must truly understand your value to clients in order to break free from the sameness and stand as category of one.
Boring Virtual Events: Virtual events have become the new norm since 2020, but webinar-fatigue is also becoming increasingly common nowadays. Make your virtual events engaging and successful by reevaluating how you conduct your sessions. It is a necessity to make them highly engaging with information that keeps your audience hooked till the final minute. There are two key ingredients to a successful virtual event, a presentation that is visually appealing and a speaker that knows how to communicate effectively with large audiences. Take a look at how you can schedule and run a successful virtual event with our insights.

Tap into Marketing Success in 2022 with the Mavens

Let’s help you start the New Year on the right note, with the right kind of marketing support. Our penchant for measurable results is what drives us to deliver marketing success for your business. We will customize our services to best suit your needs and in a manner which resonates well with your audience. The Mavens come equipped with a variety of experiences and a myriad of marketing tactics, giving you a holistic B2B digital marketing strategy.

Reach out to the Maven Collective team for all your B2B marketing needs and we will dedicate ourselves to defining, building and growing your business.

The Secret to a Winning B2B Award Entry

You do impactful work. It’s time you get recognized for it. You may think it’s a bit late in the year to be talking about award entries, but we are here to make sure you have ample time to get a head start on the B2B, technology, and partner awards for 2022. Creating an award submission that helps you stand out and showcase your talents takes time, and nobody wants to be thrown in the deep end as the clock ticks towards the deadline.

To craft a piece this significant, we are here to share with you the ingredients of a winning entry from the multi-award-winning Mavens at this Collective:

1. Carefully Read & Review the Guidelines

Award guidelines exist for a reason. Take the time to read and review them thoroughly to ensure you understand what is expected. Guidelines provide important insight on how to structure your entry and what details to include. They include details on the eligibility marking scheme, weightage of different components of the entry, judges’ expectations, as well as official deadlines and contact information for any queries. If you want to be an award-winning entrant you need to be very familiar with the requirements and scoring of each award entry.

2. Selecting the Appropriate Category

Developing an award submission proposal under the wrong category can cost you, both in time, money and endless frustration. Take the time to conduct research on the various categories to plan how your body of award-winning work fits into them. By selecting the correct category and knowing that your solution/service/product is eligible for entry, you are setting yourself on the path to success. This will take some planning and discussion on your part to determine the perfect fit, but rest assured it will be worth it!

choose the correct B2B award category — Choosing the Right B2B Award Category Path

3. Stick to the Subject

It is easy to run astray when writing lengthy submissions. Stay conscious of the requirements and scoring criteria are for each B2B award. Speak directly to the requirements and criteria while providing a unique and entertaining storyline that animates the true problem, challenge, solution and outcome for each entry.

Be mindful of word limits! Most B2B, technology and partner awards demand a maximum word or character count limit. This is something you must plan for from the start. It can be very challenging to cut down on details once you have drafted the complete submission.

writing a technology B2B award submission — The Importance of Editing and Proof-Reading Your Submission

4. Prove It

Evidence is everything when it comes to technology awards. If you can show measurable results for the work you have done, it will have a significant impact on your submission. Using metrics and testimonials is a powerful way to demonstrate your impact. Customer case studies are a great resource to capture your influence.

5. Add Visuals

Videos, screenshots, photos, and other media help the judges visualize your work. Even if they are not mandatory to the submission, do try and include visuals if possible in every entry package. The judges usually come from all walks of life and some may not be well-versed in your product or service. In such cases, visual representation delivers the most impact in the fewest characters, which we all know are mercilessly counted.

6. Take Your Time

This might not seem like a big deal, but trust us when we say that award entries are time-consuming and you do not want to rush it. Your B2B award submission is not a race, it’s a marathon. Therefore, you must take your time to plan your submission, map out what needs to be done and strategize an approach. This is the real secret, giving your award entry the time and attention it deserves to truly showcase your soon-to-be award-winning work.

7. Reuse and Repurpose

Reduce, reuse and recycle your B2B award entries throughout the year. This simple entry can be a very fruitful content piece for you to repurpose in a blog, in a case study, into another award entry, transformed into a presentation for a virtual event, edited into a guide of best practices, and much more. Don’t let these award-winning works sit stagnant after all the initial effort to get the award entry up to snuff. Reuse this excellence in the many mediums that showcase the outstanding work your business delivers in multiple means through many channels.

Upcoming Technology, Microsoft Partner & B2B Awards

Microsoft Inspire Awards – The largest partner event of the year, Microsoft Inspire awards recognize the outstanding success of Microsoft Partners from over 100 countries. In addition, Microsoft introduced a new category in 2021, the Social Impact Awards, to drive innovation through community response, inclusion, and sustainability. Award entrants must submit by April to be considered.

Microsoft Canada Impact Awards – This is hosted by Microsoft to recognize Partners that create solutions leveraging Microsoft products, services and technology, and drove exceptional customer excellence in Canada.Award entrants must make their submissions by April to be considered.

P.S. We have had the pleasure of taking our clients to the finalist circle last year!

Deloitte Awards – These awards recognize the unique strengths of Canadian innovation. Some noteworthy categories are: Technology Fast50 & North American Technology Fast500. Award entrants have deadlines ranging from April through summer.

Fast Company Innovation by Design Awards – Honors people and companies solving problems of today and tomorrow through innovation. Award entrants must submit by April to be considered.

SaaS Awards – The Software-as-a-Service awards celebrate software solutions that solve business challenges.by them, relevant to our North American audience: International Business Awards & American Business Awards.Award entrants must submit by May to be considered.

Stevie Awards – Acknowledge the positive contributions of organizations worldwide, Here are some awards hosted by them, relevant to our North American audience: International Business Awards & American Business Awards. Award entrants must submit by February to be considered.

P.S. We have had the pleasure of taking this award in years past!

The CANIE Awards – The Candian Innovation and Entrepreneurship Awards promote and encourage innovators and entrepreneurs in Canada to create unique solutions year after year.Award entrants must submit by April to be considered.

IT World Awards – Honoring achievements in every field of information technology, IT World awards provide industry-wide recognition. Regular deadlines are in January, but you have the option to submit late entries until April.

Future of Tech Awards – Celebrating the leading product and innovation in the US technology sector. Award entrants must submit by November to be considered.

B2B Awards - Digital Marketing Agency Award Winning — Maven Collective Marketing Transcribes Award-Winning Successes

That’s not all, there are several regional and global awards that take place throughout the year. Put your best foot forward as you step into 2022 by celebrating your hard work.

Stand Out in the Sea of Sameness

All of this can seem overwhelming, and that’s where we come in. Maven Collective Marketing is well-versed in the curation of exceptional award submissions. We are storytellers that capture all the essential components of your work and streamline the otherwise overwhelming process of submitting one or multiple B2B award entries. That is exactly why we are here today, to give you a gentle reminder that it is time to start thinking about how you can make the most of this opportunity with us.

We know how demanding and time-consuming B2B award proposals can be. Let’s not forget that if something is worth doing, it is worth doing well. Maven Collective Marketing can not only help you strategize your proposal, but also weave the complete entry to tell your riveting story. Leverage our expertise to create entries for any B2B, technology, or product innovation award, and check out our Business Awards Submission Service for more details on how we can assist you.

Maven Collective Marketing is dedicated to your success, and hence, we have decided to work with a limited number of award entries in the coming year. We limit entries to ensure we will be able to give every unique entry the time and resources they deserve to podium in 2022.

For 2022 award entries, if you would like us to work with you to craft that top-notch submission, then you must act fast! Reach out to us while there still are limited spaces to help you leap ahead.

B2B Business Awards: The Underestimated B2B Marketing & PR Tool

Award ceremonies are more than just a red carpet, a trophy, and a speech, especially in the B2B and technology industry. B2B Awards and competitions for companies are a powerful way to get recognition in your field of expertise.

This recognition is often underestimated by businesses as they are skeptical of the resource investment that goes into preparing a nomination submission. Let us change that for you and show you why it is worth the effort. Since, both the B2B and technology industry is highly competitive; opportunities like business awards become even more essential to help stand out in the market.

Let’s briefly glance over the types of awards and then dive straight into the advantages of entering business awards.

Ranging from local, national to international, awards of all kinds are available, they can be industry-based or narrowed down to a particular criterion. So, no matter the size of your business or the impact of your service, there is something for everyone. If you are a B2B company, you should definitely be exploring awards relevant to your business to achieve that edge over your competitors.

What is the Significance of B2B Awards?

There are many benefits to submitting your B2B company for an award:

Earn Credibility

Think of awards as a stamp of approval for your business. What is it that your audience is recognizing when you enter or win an award? Your expertise, knowledge, expertise and know-how! Just by entering for an award, you are able to showcase that your product or service is worth knowing and talking about. It is a great way to get larger audiences to learn more about what you do and gain credibility for your work in your industry.

Level the Playing Field

No matter the scale of your business, there is an award out there for you. In fact, many awards allow businesses of varying sizes to compete against each other. In this case, a small startup could be pitched against a larger enterprise. What matters here is your unique solution, process/approach and business model.

Motivate Employees

b2b award winning team - business awards

All that hard work that organizations channel towards their services deserves attention. Awards are a great way to boost the morale of your team and keep them motivated to deliver quality results time and again. These wins are very important for teams and you should not hold back in celebrating together.

Attract Customers

Business Awards can bring in new customers and open new avenues for your business. A lot of award organizers provide media coverage to winners, which can help your company get more attention, so enter the arena and increase your market share.

Boost Your Marketing Strategy

Of course, we know that companies enter with the aim to win, but you can repurpose your award submissions for other marketing opportunities too. Once you have won the award you can utilize its PR toolkit of award badges, certification, and other components to update your own marketing material.

Engagement and Brand Awareness – Having an award logo on your website, company-client documentation, and social media channels helps with brand awareness regarding your achievements and drive engagement for your product.
Link Building – Winning an award can get you featured on reputable websites with high traffic, in turn, impacting your website’s organic search performance.
Content Marketing – You shouldn’t think that all your efforts towards writing that perfect submission come to an end with the award. You can make use of your submission and create various kinds of content around it like a case study, multiple B2B blogs, short video clips, or even conduct a live webinar session that talks about how you attained your project goals.

When is the Best Time to Enter a B2B Award?

If you think you have missed out, don’t worry, award season isn’t limited to a single month of the year. Since there are so many different types of business and technology awards, they are all open for nominations at different times of the year.

Consider your B2B award nominations it an ongoing effort, honing the nomination pitch after pitch. This is not as time-consuming as it sounds, you could subscribe to business press or just do a simple sweep at the beginning of each quarter to keep yourself abreast on forthcoming business awards.

Once you know the deadlines and requirements for the award you are aiming for, it is important to make sure you have enough time and resources to prepare for the submission. We understand that with so many ongoing projects and customers to serve, it can be hard to make the time for this as well. That’s where the Mavens come in.

Captivating Business Awards Submissions with Maven Collective

The Maven Collective team is fully equipped to draft a compelling submission for you. Not only are we an award-winning marketing team ourselves, but we have also helped many clients successfully enter several B2B and technology awards and win!

b2b business award for maven collective clients

Each year the Mavens work with clients to create captivating submissions for prestigious awards like the Microsoft Inspire/Impact Awards, Nielsen Norman Group Intranet Design Awards, FastCompany Innovation by Design Awards, Ragan and PR Daily Awards, StepTwo Intranet & Digital Workplace Awards, BC Tech Technology Impact Awards, Les Prix Canie Awards, and the Web Excellence Awards to name a few.

With the Neilson Norman Group Intranet Design Awards submission deadline fast approaching, we are actively curating some riveting applications for our clients.

From our experience, we have learned how demanding award nomination proposals can be, but we also understand what it takes to create a notable, award-winning entry. Starting right from strategizing your approach to weaving storytelling and testimonials into your submission. We extract the right information from you teams and your clients that allows you to shine in a way your organization hasn’t before. Let us be your storyteller and build your captivating award nomination you and your team will be proud of.

Award Winning B2B Marketing Agency - Maven Collective Marketing

If you would like us to guide you through any B2B, technology, or product innovation award submissions, check out our carefully crafted services or send us your queries at mavens@mavencollectivemarketing.com today!

How to Improve SEO and Drive More Traffic to your B2B Website

We all know how important it is to have high SEO rankings, but with over 200 search engine ranking factors in Google’s search engine algorithm alone, it can feel a little overwhelming knowing which factors are the most critical for a successful online marketing strategy.

One question we are frequently asked by our clients is “how can we improve SEO on our B2B website?” This might sound like a simple question but producing the desired results for your B2B website requires establishing and maintaining a complex series of strategies and tactics.

In this blog post, we’ll highlight the key search engine ranking factors you should be integrating to improve SEO.

Improve SEO with Keyword Research — *Improve SEO with Thorough Keyword Research*

Keyword Research Is Essential to Improve SEO

Keyword research is ESSENTIAL to improve SEO strategy and practice.

There are various FREE and paid tools for keyword research, which can be helpful to gain a better understanding of a keyword. We recommend you take the time to evaluate the demand and competition of the keywords you are targeting and think about how someone would search for relevant information based on the specific product or service you are offering.

It’s also worth bearing in mind how competitive a keyword is. If you need to focus on building more authority on your B2B site, try targeting less competitive words until you have built a stronger foundation for your site.

Once you’ve researched and chosen your keywords it’s time to plan relevant and high-quality content around these keywords, BUT make sure it sounds natural and avoid using too many.

Improve SEO with Fresh Content — *Fresh Content is Vital to Improve SEO*

How to Improve SEO With Content Marketing

Producing high-quality content is crucial to increasing your rankings, but DON’T forget about old content once it’s up on your site. Your content needs to be relevant and up to date, so make sure you are reviewing and updating existing content regularly.

This is a fantastic way to signal to visitors that your website contains fresh, exciting, and accurate information. It will also likely increase the amount of time people spend on your site, also known as your dwell time, which can significantly improve SEO.

When reviewing existing content ask questions like, does my content demonstrate expertise, authority, and trustworthiness? Google’s ranking factor “E-A-T” (Expertise, Authority, and Trustworthiness) is used to measure just this.

While search engines want to ensure users are getting high-quality content, they also want to know that users are acquiring accurate and trustworthy information from your content.

Focus on Technical Elements to Improve SEO

Improving the technical SEO of your site is more important than you might think, so you want to ensure your site is compatible with the standards set by search engines, as this will significantly influence your ranking.

We recognize there are a lot of different aspects to technical SEO, so to make things easier we’ve highlighted some key points for you to focus on:

XML sitemaps – make sure to use an XML sitemap, as this shows search engines your website URLs and allows them to see what content is available and how to reach it.
Site structure – have an organized and flat structure that shows your site’s pages are only a few links away from one another. This also helps search engines to access and “crawl” all of your pages easily.
URL structure – a consistent and logical URL structure provides a better user experience and helps users understand how to move around your site.
Linking – internal links direct users to other relevant pages on your site, which increases your authority as well as your dwell time. It also helps search engines to “crawl” more of your site’s pages.
Duplicate & thin content – avoid duplicate content or providing thin content with little or no value to the user. We recommend using a social audit tool to help you find and remove duplicate content on your site.
Canonical Tags – canonical URLs help you manage similar content on your site and helps specify the exact URL you want visitors to see in search results.
Rich snippets – a type of markup that enables you to include additional information on your pages, making them more noticeable in search results. This will naturally increase organic traffic to your site.
404 pages & 301 redirects – you want to show search engines that all of your links are live, so make sure you don’t have any broken links and use 301 redirects to redirect users if you’ve restructured your site.
HTTPS – make sure to use HTTPS, an encrypted version of HTTP that will improve the security of your site for visitors by encrypting the data between your browser and server.

Optimize User Experience to Improve SEO — *High Quality User Experience is a Key SEO Factor*

Offer an Optimal User Experience to Improve SEO

Evaluating your site for page performance is key to ensuring visitors have an optimal user experience on your page, whether on a desktop or mobile device. This will not only improve SEO but also increase organic web traffic. What’s more, with the increase of mobile browsing, it’s more important than ever to have a mobile-friendly user experience and a fast-loading speed.

Arriving in 2021 is Core Web Vitals, Google’s latest ranking factor. With this new factor, your search ranking will be measured by the user’s experience on your site – we’re talking about the speed of your site when it loads, page performance and mobile experience.

Algorithm updates can have a big impact on your rankings, as well as traffic to your site, so it’s important to stay ahead of them. Here are a few points that will help you understand how to prepare your B2B website for Core Web Vitals:

Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) – how long does it take for the largest piece of content on your site to load? Whether it’s a video, an image, some text, on your desktop or on your mobile, your ranking will be influenced by the loading speed of that content.
Cumulative layout shift (CLS) – is used to measure the stability of your site. Think about whether a user may experience an unexpected layout shift when they go to click a button.
First Input Delay (FID) – how fast can your site start to process and produce a result when a user clicks on something?

Remember, this is all about providing an optimal user experience, so make sure your site offers an easy, accessible and fast experience for visitors.

Improve SEO with High Quality Backlinks

It’s important to build high-quality backlinks by linking to authoritative and trustworthy sites that are relevant to your subject matter. Backlinks not only demonstrate subject matter expertise, but they also build your own authority and trustworthiness.

Take the time to link your content only with relevant and high-quality backlinks and make sure not to include too many.

How to improve seo with social media — *Improve SEO by Growing Your Social Signals*

Social shares may not be a direct ranking factor but getting more social shares to your site can really help your search engine ranking. There are two key reasons for this:

More social shares help to increase organic traffic to your site.
More social shares mean there are greater opportunities for your content to build backlinks.

What’s more using platforms such as Google My Business (GMB) and Bing Places for Business is a fantastic way to improve your B2B business ranking. There is a long list of benefits for local businesses, such as increased customer trust, expanded search engine real estate, increased website traffic and one-click accurate business information for customers.

It’s Possible to Improve SEO!

As we mentioned earlier, the question “how to improve SEO on our B2B website?” is a simple one to a complex series of strategies, tactics, and execution planning, but by following this resourceful guide you too can improve your search engine rankings and drive more traffic to your B2B website.

Have further questions or would like hands-on guidance applying these strategies and tactics?

Get in touch at maven@mavencollectivemarketing.com to learn how our expert team can improve your SEO and drive measurable results.

How to Choose The Best Webinar Platform / Virtual Event Platform

Curious About Webinars? Whether it’s an online class, webinar, or conference, chances are you have taken part in a virtual event of some kind. A virtual event is simply one where the participants experience the event and it’s content online as opposed to in-person. If your organization has not yet ventured into the world of… Continue reading How to Choose The Best Webinar Platform / Virtual Event Platform

B2B Marketing Must-Have Tools To Thrive in Today’s Online World

With ever-evolving search engine algorithms, increasing numbers of social media channels, emerging coding languages and endless automation tools helping to improve productivity it’s hard to stay up to date in the world of marketing today. In order to stay relevant in today’s global B2B market, marketers, business owners and organisations must educate themselves on… Continue reading B2B Marketing Must-Have Tools To Thrive in Today’s Online World

Principal, Erica Hakonson, named as Stevie Award Finalist

The Stevie Awards for Women in Business have named Erica Hakonson, our Principal & Founder, a finalist for Female Entrepreneur of the Year. The world’s premier business awards, The Stevie Awards for Women in Business honor women executives, entrepreneurs, employees and the companies they run. “It is a great honor to be recognized… Continue reading Principal, Erica Hakonson, named as Stevie Award Finalist

B2B Digital Marketing Practices You Can’t Ignore

No better time than now to equip yourself with the best marketing tools to create (and execute) an even stronger marketing strategy for your B2B organization..

But with so many emerging trends, where should B2B marketers turn their attention? This post will take you through the top B2B digital marketing trends you can’t ignore in the year ahead.

1. Increase Use of Interactive Content for Result Drive B2B Marketing

Have you noticed more interactive content on the internet lately? If you have, it’s no coincidence. According to the Content Marketing Institute, the number of interactive posts has increased by 33%. And this will continue to grow as the years progress.

In the saturated content landscape, it’s hard to make static content stand out anymore – let alone connect on an emotional level with consumers. Interactive content is considerably more effective at grabbing people’s attention. In fact, 66% of marketers reported greater audience engagement after using interactive content, according to the Content Marketing Institute.

Aren’t sure what type of interactive content would work best for your industry? Try using Buzzsumo. Search your topic and add keywords like “interactive” or “quiz” to see what has worked for other businesses.

It’s up to B2B marketers to start providing more engaging interactive content as part of their content marketing strategy.

Employee Advocacy 2020 B2B Digital Marketing Trends

2. Employee Advocacy is the NEW Influencer Marketing

Tapping into the influential power of your employees should be a consideration for all brands – especially since we have kissed goodbye to the assumption that having a high-profile influencer equals instant credibility (and is worth the investment).

Employee re-shares of company-posted content not only generates more reach, but it’s shown to have more than double the click-through rate of the original post. Plus, employee-shared content is seen as more authentic, and therefore more likely to inspire action.

Employees often have more connections than their employer has followers. Since this is the case, employees can easily act as “influencers” and help spread their company’s message to increase online reach.

The takeaway? Encourage employees to share company-sponsored content, as well their own company-related content, to achieve the expanded reach and consideration you are looking for.

Digital events and going live on social media - B2B Digital Marketing trends 2020

3. Digital Events & LIVE on Social Media

Most marketers believe event marketing is the most effective channel for achieving business goals – and they’re not wrong. However, events no longer need to be in-person in order to be effective. Integrating digital events into your B2B marketing strategy can also be lucrative for generating leads and accelerating your sales pipeline.

Virtual events in B2B marketing are a powerful alternative to in-person events

Virtual events are quickly becoming a mainstream form of event for B2B companies. Full-scale live events can be costly, and justifying the expenses associated with travel to an international event can be difficult. Virtual events alleviate both obstacles and provide the ultimate convenience for attendees who can join from anywhere on a laptop.

Event streaming and live Q&As on social media present a big opportunity for B2B marketers

Going live on social media should be another consideration part of your content marketing plan. Social media sites like Facebook are prioritizing live stream video content, meaning live content is less likely to get lost in the sea of regular posts and videos.

Additionally, Facebook wants more users to go live: “Live” is currently the first option in the status bar and sometimes you’ll receive notifications of when someone you follow goes live. With this extra push from Facebook, your company should be considering the live option to stream an event or run a live Q&A session.

Chatbots and messaging trends for 2020 B2B marketing

4. Chatbots & Messaging Apps are the Future of B2B Marketing

The conversation has become increasingly digital in our daily routines, and this has quickly spilled over into B2B marketing. Chatbots have taken their place as the customer communication channel of choice, and they are giving rise to more personalized customer experiences.

According to Twilio, 66% of consumers prefer to reach brands through messaging apps. Chatbots connect people to the help and resources they need faster than ever before, proving to be a cost-effective and convenient way to communicate.

Savvy B2B marketers are increasingly using messaging apps and chatbots to meet their conversational marketing needs.

In fact, 100,000 bots are already available within Facebook Messenger. With the growth of Facebook Messenger, the launch of chatbots, and Messenger’s codes and plug-ins available to improve interactions, messaging has become the fastest-growing channel for branded conversations worldwide.

If you’re not on board with chatbots and messaging apps yet, you’re already falling behind.

Artificial Intelligence trends for B2B marketing in 2020

5. Artificial Intelligence for More Productive in B2B Marketing

A recent survey of marketers identified AI as the technology they are most likely to implement.

The reason for this is two-fold: today, prospects are expecting more personalized engagement throughout their customer journey than ever before, and there is more data available to inform those strategies. As a result, manual analysis of data and marketing best practices just doesn’t cut it anymore – prospects want more relevant and compelling engagement.

Artificial intelligence is the solution to this. It can help B2B marketers determine the best time and place to engage with prospects based on past performance and the information already collected about that prospect. AI can help deliver higher value to prospects by applying machine learning to the content selection and delivery process in order to further personalize their customer journey. It can even help B2B marketers predict outcomes like campaign performance, conversion rates, revenue, and customer value.

AI is more than just hype. It can make a fundamental change to the productivity and efficiency of your B2B marketing strategy.

6. The Race to “Position Zero” in B2B Search Engine Marketing

Position zero is the featured snippet of text at the top of the Google search results page, just after the ads.

Despite being the most sought after spot on the internet, only 12% of search queries include position zero in their search results – presenting a huge opportunity for your marketing strategy.

So how can you ensure your content ranks in position zero? Assuming your content is good enough to rank organically on the first page of search results, you then need to optimize your content for the specific question it answers. Depending on the question, you can use text, lists, images, and even videos to inform your audience. Encourage users to learn more by creating teasers for your answers so that they are more likely to click through to your website.

Remember, Google is looking for the best answer. That means the relevance of the content will outweigh its ranking (once in the top 10) when it comes to the sought after position zero.

B2B marketers already know that position zero is the holy grail of SEO. A recent study from HubSpot found that when their content ranked for position zero, it generated a 114% increase in click-through-rates, even in cases where they already had the top organic placement.

B2B Marketing Trends & Beyond

Digital marketing has one consistency: it is ever-changing. In order to stay current, it’s important to adopt new technology, fail forward, and test what works for your business. Which strategies will you try to implement?

Need help with your B2B Digital Marketing Strategy?

Successful B2B marketing is constantly shifting, iterating, and adapting to reach your goals. Want to stay ahead of the game? Get in touch at maven@mavencollectivemarketing.com

No better time than now to equip yourself with the best marketing tools to create (and execute) an even stronger marketing strategy for your B2B organization.. But with so many emerging trends, where should B2B marketers turn their attention? This post will take you through the top B2B digital marketing trends you can’t ignore in… Continue reading B2B Digital Marketing Practices You Can’t Ignore

Maven Collective Marketing Wins MarCom Gold Award for B2B Website Overhaul

Maven Collective Marketing - MarCom Gold Winner - Website Design Award

The multi-award-winning B2B Digital Marketing Agency, Maven Collective Marketing, has won a MarCom Gold Award for Creating a Stress-Free Brand and Website Overhaul its client, BONZAI Intranet. The MarCom Awards honors excellence in marketing and communication while recognizing the creativity, hard work and generosity of industry professionals.

“We are thrilled and honored to receive such a competitive marketing and communications award. We couldn’t have done it without the skills, hard work and dedication from everyone who contributed to this rewarding project,” shares Erica Hakonson, Principal of Maven Collective Marketing.

BONZAI Intranet, an Aurea Company, needed a new website to showcase the features and functionality of its Digital Workplace solution. Maven Collective Marketing led the website overhaul project with design and development support from Creative Engine. The result was a one of a kind website that is not only aesthetically pleasing, it has also led to a significant increase in website traffic and qualified leads for the client.

“We couldn’t be happier with how the BONZAI Intranet’s brand and website overhaul turned out. Receiving such a prestigious award for this project is an affirmation of our team’s expertise as well as the high level of service our clients have come to rely on from us,” adds Hakonson.

MarCom, sponsored and judged by the Association of Marketing and Communication Professionals (AMCP) is one of the oldest, largest, and most prestigious creative competitions in the world. Judged by industry professionals, the awards recognize outstanding achievements in marketing and communications materials and programs. Judges look for individuals and companies whose talent exceeds a high standard of excellence and whose work serves as a benchmark for the industry. There were over 6,000 entries from around the world in contention for the 2019 MarCom awards competition.

If you’re ready to redefine your brand and transform your organization with superior digital marketing services from a multi-award-winning agency, contact Maven Collective Marketing directly at maven@mavencollectivemarketing.com.

Measuring B2B Digital Marketing Performance – Website Analytics, Paid Advertising, Email Marketing and Beyond

Ultimately, it all comes down to ROI on your marketing dollars. But how should you be measuring that ROI actively for money spent? This post will take you through the top metrics you should track for your website, paid advertising, search console, and email marketing. Top 5 Website Metrics Setting up and using Google… Continue reading Measuring B2B Digital Marketing Performance – Website Analytics, Paid Advertising, Email Marketing and Beyond