B2B Myth of the Week: My Company Needs 3 Blog Posts a Week
by Emily Swet
The Myth: My Company Needs 3 Blog Posts a Week to Achieve Our Goals
The Truth: Your Blog Sweet Spot Is All About Quality, Not Quantity
You’ve decided it’s time to ramp up your content marketing strategy. Your first thought? We need blog posts, lots of them, stat! Right?
Well… yes and no. Your blog is the workhorse of your content marketing program. You need strong, informative content that entices and engages your audience. What you don’t need is a bunch of filler that leaves them unsatisfied, misled, or annoyed. How you find your magic blog post number is directly related to both. Just as it’s unwise to let your blog collect tumbleweeds, it’s also a poor strategy to flood your followers with dozens of useless posts.
So How Do You Find Your Sweet Spot? Start By Asking Yourself These 4 Questions:
- What are your resources? You’ll need a writer that understands how to write for SEO while still comfortably speaking to your company’s buyer personas. Most of all, you’ll need time: a well-researched, edited blog can take upwards of four hours to write. How much or how little budget dedicated to content is your first indicator of how frequently you can successfully post.
- What are your goals? Brand awareness. Brand loyalty. Customer engagement. You’ve got to know what goal you’re posting for and how to leverage it. But the core goal of every content program must be to resonate with your audience – which brings us to the next question.
- What does your audience want? If you’re in a fast-moving industry, short and sweet updates might work best – in which case, you’ll likely be able to post more often. If your pace is slower, lengthier info pieces posted less frequently may be more worthwhile. But more importantly, what kind of content does your audience crave? What are their pain points? A blog post that addresses these things is a thousand times more effective than a post filled with fluff.
- What is your competition doing? You don’t have to beat how often your competitors are posting. Instead, look at what they’re posting and see how you can differentiate your brand. How are you different? How are you better? Use competitive analysis to capitalize on your strengths.
If the value of your content is consistently high, publishing more often will likely bring more traffic. More posts mean more content to keep your readers happy and more indexed pages in search engines. However, if you find your resources are too limited to dedicate to several quality posts, once a week is sufficient to keep your audience tuned in to your brand. Content marketing is meant to entertain, educate, and provoke questions. It’s next-level marketing that readers actually want – but only if it’s done well.
Continue ReadingB2B Myth of the Week: All Mobile-Friendly Sites Are Created Equal
by MGB2B
The Myth: All Mobile-Friendly Sites Are Created Equal
The Truth: Unless Your Site’s Responsive, It’s Not Really Mobile-Friendly
Gone are the days of browsing the Internet on a desktop alone. Today’s B2B buyers are constantly on the move. Meetings. Traveling. Multitasking. You name it. Today’s websites need to adapt to cater to these on-the-go decision makers. How? By being responsive. Responsive web design focus on maintaining readability across all devices. Viewing is compatible despite window or screen size. This seemingly small factor is of utmost importance for all businesses, especially B2B brands. Here’s why:
- Buyers Are Using Mobile More Than Ever. According to Hubspot, 49% of B2B researchers who use mobile for research are doing so while at work. Therefore, mobile devices are crucial to buying decisions. B2B users expect their experience on mobile to be just as seamless as on a desktop. But just because a website can be accessed on a mobile device doesn’t mean the experience is seamless. If your website isn’t responsive, the page most likely does not fit on a mobile screen. This means your audience has to zoom in and out, scroll left and right, and finagle their screen before they can get the information they want. In contrast, responsive sites ensure your information is accessible across all platforms – smartphone, tablets, laptops, and desktops. A responsive web design ensures your website leaves buyers with a great experience. Remember, the more your buyer has to hunt and peck, the more likely they’ll leave (and go to your competitor).
- Having a Responsive Website Lowers Maintenance Time and Cost. When the shift from desktop to mobile first took off, many companies developed a separate mobile website. If your company is still using this method, you have two sites to update and manage. Needless to say, maintaining two websites is much less efficient than one responsive site. It doubles your workload when changes are made, and it’s not cost-effective in the long term.
- Google Prioritizes Mobile-Friendly Sites. Google constantly evolves its algorithm to ensure the best search results. In 2015, Google changed its algorithm to prioritize mobile-friendly sites. This means that websites that are not compatible with mobile tech get displayed much lower in search results. In addition, Google recently rolled out a mobile-first index – which means it sees your mobile site as your primary website. These updates alone should be encouragement enough to add responsive web design to your marketing to-do list.
The digital world is moving pretty fast, and it doesn’t look like it’s slowing down anytime soon. As the shift from desktop to mobile grows more significant, it’s imperative you create a seamless user experience for your buyer. Reducing the time spent on site maintenance and upping your search rankings doesn’t hurt either. Don’t lose potential leads – incorporate responsive web design into your marketing plan. Have questions about where to begin? Drop us a line.
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4 Ways to Feed Your B2B Sales Funnel in 2018
by Emily Swet
Few things are worse for B2B business growth than a stalled out sales funnel. Even though your company may be using the same funnel-feeding tactics as before, what once worked may not be as successful now. To keep it going strong, we’ve compiled four ways to feed your B2B sales funnel in 2018.
1. Align Sales and Marketing Teams
Sometimes sales and marketing teams clash, despite having the same end goal. And this misalignment can lead to staggering losses. To get everyone on the same page, start facilitating communication between the two groups. Ask marketing to sit in on sales calls. Encourage sales to share their customer details with marketing. And encourage uniformity with constant updates between both departments. (Get more tips on sales and marketing collaboration here).
2. Consider Predictive Lead Scoring
Predictive lead scoring is a scoring methodology that leverages historical data and predictive analytics. It takes the data from successful leads (ones that you have won) and adds digital footprints from third-party sources to pool as much data as possible. By crunching the numbers, predictive lead scoring can identify patterns or relationships you’ve never seen before. It also aids in aligning your sales and marketing teams (see above) by providing data-backed reasoning behind lead qualifications. And last but not least, it reduces the margin of error in traditional lead scoring.
3. Don’t Forget the Mid-Funnel
Most marketing and sales teams focus on the top (lead quantity) and the bottom (the percentage of leads closed) of the sales funnel. However, when the middle is unattended to, the information and goals get murky. You could be losing leads without knowing why. To clear this up, ask: how many touches does the average lead need before they move to the next stage? Where do your leads seem to leak out? What is the difference between the ones that leave and the ones that move on? Diagnosing and addressing the issues mid-funnel will have a big impact on your results.
4. Use Video
We’ve made it clear in past blogs how important video has become. You can use it throughout your funnel to keep moving prospects to the bottom. To attract leads at the top, consider how-to’s, thought leadership videos, and any content that showcases your brand’s personality or authenticity. As your leads move to decision mode, product demos, client testimonials, and video case studies can be very compelling. Close the deal with nurture videos, FAQ’s, and instructional videos – and be sure each has a strong CTA (like signing up for a demo or webinar).
No matter what, it’s essential to keep the customer at the center of each stage. Every small fix you can make will help produce better results, and help grow your leads as well as your revenue.
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