Intended Audience: B2B Business Owners, Media Outlets
Clutch, the leading B2B rating site that recognizes marketing, IT, and software services providers, has included Maven Collective Marketing among the Top 500 B2B Providers for 2022. Maven Collective Marketing is honored to be ranked among the Top 500 Business to Business companies in Canada for the second year in a row.
Maven Collective Marketing Recognized as Top B2B Company in Canada
The Washington DC-based ratings and reviews platform recently released its list of top Canadian B2B companies across varying industries and locations. When it comes to choosing the best and the brightest, the selection process is based on verified customer reviews, digital presence, case studies, and brand recognition.
About the Clutch Annual Awards
Clutch is a leading ratings and reviews platform for IT, marketing, and business service providers. The annual Clutch Award ranks and awards the finest and highest-ranking firms across industries and locations. The Clutch Leader Awards recognize companies’ commitment to building their expertise, providing stellar customer service, and producing high-quality results for clients. To qualify as a Clutch Leader, companies must display excellent industry expertise, substantial ability to deliver, and a track record of high-quality and legitimate client reviews.
Take a Look Back at Our 2021
2021 was a busy year for the Mavens. We have been blessed to work with many amazing clients, delivering award-winning results with measurable ROI, while also giving back to the community. This honorable award could not have happened without the five-star reviews from our trusting clients. Let’s take a look at some of our noteworthy projects from the past year:
The Mavens collaborated with Getisoft Inc. to provide award-winning B2B storytelling & award submission services in support of the Microsoft Inspire/IMPACT Awards. The Mavens were able to create the award-wining application for Gestisoft, propelling them to a notable finalist position in Regional Cloud Solution Provider – Business Applications Impact Award 2021.
On top of that, we were recognized for our exceptional work with Orchestry Software by not one but four awards – the Web Excellence Awards, the AVA Digital Platinum Award for Best B2B Website, the AVA Digital Gold Award, and Summit Marketing Effectiveness Awards.
Plus a notable mention was our work to develop a tailored webinar marketing strategy for VisualSP resulting in a 200%+ increase in engagement and registration numbers.
That is not all that we did in 2021, the Maven Collective Marketing team was engaged in many other projects that helped all our clients maintain a healthy online presence throughout the year. For more details on our work and be sure to check out our Clutch profile.
Get in Touch with the Award-Winning Team Now!
Maven Collective Marketing is more than just an award-winning team. We are a group of result-oriented B2B marketing mavens that want to see you achieve your business goals with the best marketing tools and strategies. Talk to a Maven today and consult us on how we can help you stand out among your competition. Send us your marketing queries at maven@mavencollectivemarketing.com.
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.
Improve Your Competitiveness with SEO Tips
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.
The Maven Team Activity
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.
Measure Your Marketing Performance
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.
Your Marketing Technology Toolkit
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
Improve SEO by Growing Your Social Signals
Grow 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?
We’ve all heard the phrase: “if you build it, they will come.” But if no one knows where it is, how will they get there?
It used to be enough to create quality content, but if content promotion isn’t a key part of your content marketing strategy, the only engagement you are likely to get is a thumbs up from your mother. And while we appreciate kudos from family, that doesn’t usually turn our posts or pages into high-traffic, lead-generating machines.
In the world of online marketing and content marketing, content promotion acts as the road that gets visitors to arrive at our destination. So, how do we get people to show up?
Back to the Basics: SEO & Content Marketing
It goes without saying—SEO isn’t optional, it’s a mandatory part of the process. According to Ahrefs, over four million blog posts are published every single day. To help yours stand out from the crowd, there are some important on-page tactics to employ as part of your content marketing strategy:
Use strategic keywords in HTML elements such as title tags, meta descriptions, heading tags, and alt text.
Create relevant and well-written content that is optimized for short and long-tailed keywords.
Ensure page URLs are simple, well-formatted, and incorporate keywords.
Optimize page load speed on mobile and desktop devices (this can be as simple as limiting large video and image files).
Don’t Wait for Indexing
A common misconception is that as soon as a post goes live, Google will immediately crawl your website, index your content, and voila! A flood of visitors will find themselves knocking at your door. While it’s a nice thought, it likely won’t happen.
It can take up to three months (sometimes more) for Google’s bots to find new pages—unless you re-index your website after every new addition (still, please don’t wait for indexing).
Include Organic Content Promotion in Your Content Marketing Strategy
Once you’ve written high-quality content, optimized for SEO, and published to your website, it’s time to shout your new content from the rooftops. Organic content promotion is used to amplify the visibility and effectiveness of your content or marketing campaigns.
Unlike paid promotion, it doesn’t involve spending money on advertisements or boosting posts. There are several ways to include organic content promotion within your content marketing strategy, but here are five that can yield the most significant results.
Content Promotion with Email Marketing
Email marketing is a powerful way to spread the word. There are loads of great software solutions for marketing automation to help you send targeted campaigns. Begin by identifying the segment(s) of your list that would be most interested in your latest content.
A/B test your subject lines and CTAs to see what resonates. Add a little personalization for good measure, [FIRST NAME]. And do some research on your personas to find out what day of the week and time is best to hit SEND.
Always remember to test your emails on different devices and mail clients before circulating to ensure nothing breaks.
Content Promotion with Social Media
Social media marketing is a necessary component of an effective content promotion strategy. While you likely aren’t active on all of the different social media platforms, it’s safe to assume your brand probably engages with Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and/or LinkedIn. Here is a useful tip for each:
Instagram: Hashtags are like signposts, but using too many can appear spammy. Wrap your hashtags in “[…]” to hide from followers while still appeasing Instagram’s algorithm.
Twitter: Hashtags are also relevant on Twitter, but even more so is building authentic relationships with your audience. Think of Twitter as a telephone rather than a megaphone.
Facebook: It may be tempting to ask viewers to like, comment, or share your content, but Facebook views these explicit requests as click-bait. With their transition to focusing on meaningful interactions, click-bait is seen as spam and the antithesis to providing value for users.
LinkedIn: The more people you can get your content in front of, the better. Tag team members or friends in your network to encourage dialogue and sharing.
An additional tip for all social media platforms: You can craft multiple social posts from one piece of content. Repromote by using different snack-size bites, such as sound clips, videos, or quotes.
Content Promotion with Backlinks
One of the most important ways to improve the search ranking for your content is to build backlinks. When a high-ranking site links to your content, search engines see that as a “vote of confidence” and elevates its importance in their results.
Backlinks can be notoriously challenging to obtain, but guest blogging, answering questions on Quora and Reddit, or pushing out a PR campaign are a few great, no-cost options to organically promote content and build brand awareness.
Content Promotion with Schema Markup
Technical SEO tactics were once enough to show search engines the value of your content, but not since the advent of semantic search. Structured data markup is a type of in-page code that enables Google, Yahoo, and Bing! to crawl, organize, and understand the information in a similar way people do.
When implemented correctly, structured data markup can enhance your site’s search results leading to rich cards, carousels, and interactive features. These elements increase the findability of your content and make them more appealing to potential visitors as they wade through millions of returned results.
Content Promotion in Online Communities
Most social media platforms offer opportunities for professionals or people with similar interests to form online communities—think, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter Chats.
Joining these groups as an active member can be a great way to share your content and drive strong, relevant traffic. The key here is to be an active member, not just a content pusher. Adding true value to the conversation will yield higher results than dropping in just to push your own agenda.
Need Help Content Marketing Strategy and Content Promotion?
You invest a lot of time and resources in creating valuable content. Using some or all of the tools recommended above will not only tell visitors where you live but also pave the road for getting them there.
If you’ve tried the tactics above and didn’t see a measurable difference or want additional guidance on organic content promotion, Maven Collective Marketing is here to help. We drive web traffic, build audiences, and specialize in SEO content creation and promotion for B2B software and software service companies. Get in touch to find out how we can produce meaningful and measurable ROI for your business together.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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