B2B Marketing Blog

The 10 essential resources every startup founder needs to follow for 2018

By |2023-04-05T11:18:12+00:00November 29th, 2017|

topicIcon B2B Marketing

John Doe

Architect & Engineer

We love that guy

The 10 essential resources every startup founder needs to follow for 2018 header

While blogs will still be a huge way to give and receive value for B2B entrepreneurs in 2018, there’s no doubt that some of the best content for startups is coming in as other resources such as podcasts, videos, and in some cases, even Chrome extensions.

That being said, we’ve compiled this comprehensive blogs and beyond entrepreneurship guide for any startup founder. From marketing and recruitment to some more out-of-the-box (though vital) categories like well-being and vlogging, we’ve put together some of the top content producers in the industry who have a special soft spot for startup founders like you.

Now sit back and relax, because we just found your new favorite blogs, vlogs, Chrome extensions, and podcasts you won’t be able to get enough of.

1. Marketing – Zest.is Chrome extension

On one of my first days at Bold, I was chatting with our Account Manager Barak who HAD to show me this new Chrome extension he had gotten called Zest.is. Opening it up on his computer, I was stunned by the digital kaleidoscope of articles. “What is this?!” Zest.is, as Barak described it, is the marketing content newsfeed to end all marketing content newsfeeds. Co-founders Yam Regev and Idan Yalovich came together to created the ultimate Chrome extension that allows readers to scroll through manually, cherry-picked content on the marketing subtopics of their choice. So if you’re looking for grade-A marketing content but don’t have time to sift through multiple blogs full of positioning statements and get straight to the value, I highly recommend you adding it to your extensions.

2. Scaling up – Master of Scale podcast with Reid Hoffman

For those of you thinking about moving out of your local coworking space, tackling new markets, and adding new features to your product or service, welcome to the scale-up phase with your host, Reid Hoffman. Full of quirky sound effects and dedicated to a 50-50 gender balance for his guests, the LinkedIn co-founder has a way of interviewing some top names in the business about how they came to scale up. Get inspired as Hoffman takes you on a journey and occasionally gives you some tough love on ways to rediscover what makes your vision unique, and build your company into something epic.

3. Recruitment/ Company culture – The Employer Branding Podcast with Jörgen Sundberg

An unapologetic lover of all things HubSpot (just read my gushing review of their 2018 product announcements), I’m not surprised that I clicked when I saw an interview with HubSpot’s Inbound Recruiting Manager, Hannah Fleishman, come up on my LinkedIn newsfeed during a recent commute to work. Unfamiliar with Jörgen Sundberg’s 160+ podcast episodes, I soon became an avid listener to The Employee Branding Podcast. As a startup founder, it can be obvious to focus on product or marketing but seldom do startup CEOs really take the time to learn what it takes to attract top talent and build a unique and compelling culture that will lead to authentic employee retention. Scratching your head thinking, “Oh gosh, that’s so me”? Jörgen’s got your back asking the tough questions to his all-star guests from companies like GE, Microsoft, and Salesforce.

helping you navigate your startup to marketing stardom

4. VC – Both Sides of the Table with Mark Suster on Medium

Entrepreneur turned VC, Mark Suster, just gets it. Sure he talks a lot about his ADD and quotes himself in graphics he puts on his site (see below), but this guy has seen it all and has an acute pulse on the startup and VC scene. Looking to understand what’s on the minds of VCs? You’ll have a lot to learn from his years of startup wisdom.

Courtesy of Both Sides of the Table

[Courtesy of Both Sides of the Table]

5. Well-being – Mindful at Work blog

It’s not just yoga and protein powder smoothies. As we move into 2018, we are more than ever overloaded with various stimuli at the office and multitasking various work and personal responsibilities. As a startup founder, you wear more hats than that guy from Caps for Sale. You’re juggling the motherload and if you’re not careful, there’s a huge chance of burnout that will hurt your team, product, and — oh right — your well-being. Mindful at Work offers you some serious insight on how to stay mindful while running your new business from mindful meetings, to mindful walking, to mindful leadership. Well-being may not seem like a pressing blog topic to move your startup along, but trust me when I say this stuff will transform the way you work, interact with you colleagues, and put your best foot forward.

6. Sales – Salesfolk blog

Salesfolk is more than just a sales blog. Sure, they have posts on best practices you’d expect like cold emailing, calling, positioning, and filling your funnel, but they don’t just stop there. Take a look at their Hall of Shame, where they call out household names like Adobe and KISSmetrics for bad sales campaigns, in addition to general things NOT to do in sales. But wait there’s more (see what I did there?)! Check out “Salesfolk Academy” for mastery courses, certifications, and premium membership.

7. Design – 99designs

There’s a lot of design blogs out there but few have the entrepreneurship spirit of 99designs. Known for their endless list examples of some of the best, worst, and weirdest company designs, you can easy get lost on their amazing, beautiful, and witty content. 99designs also has a whole section devoted to helping startup founders learn about the relationship between design, psychology, and marketing. With some irresistible content to go along with equally engaging graphics (see below), you just found your new happy place.

Courtesy of 99designs

[Courtesy of 99designs]

8. Videos, vlogging, motion graphics, all that good stuff – Wistia

Using video in your marketing can increase conversion rates by up to 65%. That’s right, folks. The future is here and it’s full of videos (because we all have had that experience of having our sound on while scrolling through Facebook in public and suddenly some cat video starts blaring and everyone stares, amiright?). If you’re trying to figure out how videos work for B2B and if they’re right for your business and where to start, you can breathe now. Wistia, the ultimate thought leader in B2B video marketing, is here to teach you a thing or two about modern day video making in the business world.

9. News and Innovation – This Week In Startups with Jason Calacanis on YouTube

Want to know what’s happening in innovation and startup news? Then you gotta follow Jason Calacanis on his YouTube channel This Week in Startups. I’ve never been a news person but this guy’s got some sass, and it’s got my attention. Informative and entertaining, Jason could be a real asset to you if you’re looking to stay on top of news coming out of Silicon Valley.

10. Productivity and other things – Taking Note blog by EverNote on Medium

EverNote for many is a household name when it comes to organization and productivity. Through their blog on Medium entitled Taking Note, their team explores themes such as creativity, productivity, collaboration, and of course, writing. No matter if you’re looking to brainstorm or to finally sit down and get to work, Taking Notes’ got it all. More of a podcast type of guy or gal? That’s cool. Check their podcast here to get listening.

Conclusion

There’s so much content out there but it can sometimes be hard to find the right content that speaks to you as an entrepreneur at your stage of development and in the area you’re looking for insight. I hope this list helps lead you to your new favorite blog, vlog, podcast, or Chrome extension that gives you your weekly dose of inspiration and the comforting knowledge that every successful enterprise began as a small team with the will to change the game and learn from all those around them.

 

 

Read More

Startup On A Tight Budget: 3 Marketing Hacks For Quick Wins

By |2023-04-05T11:17:17+00:00November 28th, 2017|

topicIcon B2B Marketing

John Doe

Architect & Engineer

We love that guy

Startup On A Tight Budget: 3 Marketing Hacks For Quick Wins header

Contemporary startup ecosystem may seem like a “schizophrenic” jungle – overflowing with creative juices in one part, only to be bordered by cash-starved deserts of reality in the neighboring one. The reason for this are varied, chief among them being tight budgets that run out of steam before a business idea manages to grow some roots. That’s why startups try to come up with growth hacks that will allow them to achieve as much sustainable growth as possible before the cash fizzles out. One of the key areas in which this can be achieved is marketing, which offers clever marketers enough flexibility to put to use at least two important skills: creativity and the ability to survive on cash-strapped budgets. Read on to learn more about three marketing hacks that can skyrocket your growth without breaking the bank.

Narrative Video Marketing Tells YOUR Story

As insiders would have it, growth hacking art boils down to growing as much as possible without robbing yourself blind in the process. Marketers learned this before all the others, as their job is frequently put on the backburner when allocating pieces of a startup’s budgetary cake. That’s why they have to look forward to new technologies in absence of financial executive’s friendly ear, and one of them is surely video marketing focused on attractive and storytelling-powered narratives.

helping you navigate your startup to marketing stardom

This notion is based on the idea that storytelling is currently one of the smartest ways to kickstart a memorable marketing campaign and this effort is greatly helped by the fact that the costs of video production have dropped significantly. Whatever your product is, its visibility and credibility will be hugely boosted by making a memorable video about it. This is based on what the marketers count on as a feature of human visual-focused psychology, which processes these images 60.000 times faster compared to textual content. At the same time, having an attractive video will secure you a willing ally in form of social media whose users, in general, are more likely to share a video or screenshot-based content with their peers compared to other media formats.

One of the textbook examples of effective pairing of visuals with storytelling is the marketing campaign created by the Dollar Shave Club, whose inventive video on a rather prosaic everyday item such as shaving razor rocks 25 million YouTube views at the moment, helping the company disseminate its brand message to every corner of the world at little or no initial costs. Bear in mind that storytelling can also take other forms, such as creating videos that are strictly instructive like tutorials. Marketing guru Neil Patel swears by Whiteboard Friday videos created by Moz’s Rand Fishkin. These videos combine visually attractive presentations with informative content, with both of them effectively harnessed for marketing purposes.

Timing Virality from the Outset

Speaking of the sharing potential of video-based marketing content, having a healthy level of awareness when it comes to ensuring the early virality of your products can be an important hack-friendly skill to be acquired from the start. Whatever you want to sell or promote, the viral germs need to be grown no later than the embryonic stage of your startup. This is a key consideration, at the time when numerous startups’ are based on the idea that ensuring the contagious virality of your product is something you need to do only once it gets past the development stage. You can avoid this and jumpstart your business by enshrining virality as the core ingredient of your product from the very outset, instead of treating it as a posterior marketing consideration playing a second fiddle to everything else. In practice, this boils down to utilizing the power of language to the fullest, and coming up with content that is educational, practical and accompanied by clearly presented calls to action. Remember that you actually want the readers to keep clicking on your titles, followed by reading and sharing engaging content. Using power words that are bound to evoke strong emotional response is a tried & tested option for attracting and keeping your customers’ attention and ensuring the virality of your content.

Going for virality early in the process doesn’t mean you should wait before employing a bit of brand evangelism. Having a relevant personality spreading the word about your products means building reputation and networking infrastructure from the start which, mind you, doesn’t necessarily have to mean an influencer should be a consumer in the general sense of the word. Do not be put away by claims that word of mouth marketing is an obsolete equivalent of positive gossiping. Your evangelists do not have to be recruited among major influencers or media persons. Nielsen research indicates that 83% of consumers still prefer recommendations from their friends and family compared to the rest of advertising channels.

However, the hand of virality can (and should) be slightly forced. There are ways for you to influence how viral a piece of content can be, by making sharing simple. Brian Solis (digital analyst) twisted the old KISS philosophy in that regard – Keep It Simple and Shareable. That means making sure all the sharing options (Share on Facebook, send via email, etc.) are simple, and within hand’s reach, on all devices. Particularly on mobile devices (tablets and smartphones).

Thus, if you are unable to hire an influencer from the outset, your financial officers will surely appreciate your offering to take this burden upon yourself, or striving to turn your product consumers into early bird brand evangelists. In any case, the lesson is similar to the one you’d use with video marketing – making an emotional appeal to your audience from the start will allow your product to grow some teeth early and nest itself easily within any budgetary projection.

B2B technology marketing, for example, has long felt the need to leave behind the exhaustive retelling of tech features from user manuals and move on to narrative-based advertising. Guy Kawasaki is an Apple brand evangelist dedicated to “creating and maintaining the Macintosh cult”. He does so by preparing engaging technological demos and refraining himself from using generic tech buzzwords in favor of coming up with concise and audience-friendly narratives about the company and its products. That way, instead of fancy wording which can be perceived as a game of smoke and mirrors, businesses can create and nurture long-lasting relationships based on trust.

B2B technology marketing

Image Credit: Pixabay

Play to Your Ideal Early Customer First

Yet, storytelling, early virality and brand evangelism can hardly function without a vital ingredient that rules them all: the audience whose shoulders your startup needs to climb on in order to reach for the sky. Knowing that these shoulders should belong only to a highly targeted and select crowd, it is essential to have a thorough understanding of the target audience. That way, a start-up will be able to speak only to them.

Don’t fall into temptation of trying a spray and pray technique for your marketing efforts. As your product is hardly a hot cake at this marketing stage, it will be neither loved nor desired by just everyone.

Targeting your customers plays an essential role here, as you want your product to achieve relevancy by appealing only to the right eyes and ears, similar to avoiding to offer a steak to a committed vegan, no matter how juicy it is. You are better off turning your marketing efforts into a laser weapon, instead of making it a blunt club worn by a rapacious berserker. You will achieve this by creating a crystal clear image of an ideal customer for your startup’s product and focusing your campaign efforts around this persona.

Think of this as a stepping stone to the time in which you’ll have both a larger budget and an audience to work with. This is done in numerous ways, starting from social media profiling to using analytical tools. Whatever you opt for, you’ll want to know how your ideal customer breathes, not just how old he/she is, where they come from and what gender they subscribe to.

Take, for example, what you can do with a simple fix such as streamlining your homepage message, a CTA or a landing page, in the manner which will reflect what you know about your audience. Knowing who you address with it means that you can come up with an appealing message that will introduce your visitors to what you believe in, your startup’s mission and its whole reason for existence.

Wrap-up

Tight budgets place noticeable constraints on startups’ marketing campaigns. At the same time, these should not restrain your imagination and creativity in devising quality growth hacks in these penny-pinching times. Pairing video with quality storytelling, putting viral hooks on your products from the outset, and identifying an ideal early customer are great ways to secure quick initial marketing victories that will help you secure financial sustainability and growth potential for your cash-strapped startup.

 

 

Read More

Inbound Marketing vs. Outbound Marketing: What You Need to Know

By |2023-04-05T11:18:42+00:00November 20th, 2017|

topicIcon Digital Marketing Inbound Marketing

John Doe

Architect & Engineer

We love that guy

Inbound Vs Outbound: What You Need to Know header

Is your marketing strategy headed down a dead-end street?

We all have that one friend whose stories never seem to end, that one person that we want to hang out with every once in awhile, but always regret it afterwards. Remember the feeling of being stuck in an infinite loop of their monologues? By the end of the coffee break, you have heard about the greatest thing that has ever happened to them, and the second greatest thing, and the third and the twenty-sixth.

In all honesty, for most of the meetup you are bombarded with the information you might not even be interested in. At one point (probably while drifting off during one of their monologues) you probably realized you should be making new friendships with people who actually listen to your stories, value your opinions and share your interests and ideas, instead of the ones who only use you for your pair of ears.

You see, marketing and friendship have a lot in common. Both are a two-way street. If you are only exposed to content without being given space to utter a thing, what is the point of partaking in the dialogue? Are you being treated respectfully? And should you make new friends/choose a new marketing strategy? Well, according to Barney’s rule – you should, because:

Inbound vs Outbound

New vs Old Approach: Inbound vs Outbound Marketing

Outbound Marketing

Do you use an ad blocker for your browsers? Do you record your favourite shows just to fast-forward through the ads? Are your local telemarketers saved in your contacts list under “DO NOT ANSWER FOR THE LOVE OF GOD”? If so, you are unconsciously blocking out the outbound marketing tactics.

Instead of the boring definitions, allow us to show you a few examples and types of outbound marketing. TV commercials, billboards (those huge smiling faces and cringey messages you used to read while stuck in traffic, before smartphones), telemarketing, direct mail and online advertisements are perfect prototypes of the traditional marketing.

outbound strategies

Businesses that use outbound strategies are “pushing out” their message to promote a product. That may sound smart, but bear in mind that buyers in the outbound marketing process are not targeted with any real precision. Most of the people who see the ad might not even be interested in their product whatsoever.

helping you navigate your startup to marketing stardom

 

Traditional marketing campaigns tend to be interruptive and to the contemporary society – extremely annoying. Did you know that a person is exposed to as much as 2000 ads per day via outbound marketing? Modern-day customers are finding new ways to dodge traditional marketing that infiltrates their lives through mass media and drains time and energy. Just look at the adoption rates of ad blocking software:

Adblock usage

Adblock usage is up worldwide [Image Credit: Business Insider]

Outbound marketing is frequently discredited due to its overall similar marketing patterns that create a gap between business and buyer. Using outbound marketing tactics is like driving down a dead-end street. One-way communication lacks subjective feedback from customers. It alienates an audience from the business and brand itself.

Inbound Marketing

With the rapid pace of marketing technology, marketers decided to put the focus to focusing on what customers want, rather than deciding for them. Since then, inbound strategies have been changing the world of marketing as we know it, irrevocably.

Inbound marketing is client-oriented businesses that “pull in” potential customers to their doorstep. On one end are buyers that are searching for things they are interested in. On the other end are companies that create relevant content around their customers’ preferences.

Now more than ever customers want to feel like they are in control of their own buyer’s journey. Potential customers are indirectly persuaded into buying your products instead of being “attacked” via ads and salesmen.

All types of inbound marketing use two-way communication. This allows buyers to be heard and additionally engages them into the process of buying, thus creating a solid bond between brand and consumer.

Inbound your business and turn your customers into brand lovers

If you have just started your own business, you are most certainly looking for ways to advertise your brand. One of the first things startup founders dwell on is reach. The thing we cannot stress enough is that reach doesn’t mean much in the buying process – if you’re reaching the wrong audience. The amount of people seeing your brand is not as important as if the people who are seeing it are relevant for your business.

The second thing you think about is obviously the financial side of the story. Everybody wants to make the most out of their monetary investment and with inbound marketing you will get your money’s worth in no time, as inbound strategies will pull your audience to your product.

Blog posts, email newsletters, videos and social media, content in general – those are just few of many examples of inbound marketing which offer your business a boost in the dot com world. But how does it all work?

First of all, you need to research buyer personas. The information you collect from several leads should create an ideal buyer profile. This will help you identify challenges and pain points of your potential consumers and create a proper strategy for your company.

After this step you create content using the above-mentioned findings. The content is the nucleus of inbound marketing and as such it should always captivate buyer’s attention in order to potentially create more leads.

The feedback you receive is always a good thing. Even if you face negative comments, you must accept them for what they are – suggestions to change and improve your approach. With your customers’ feedback, you are able to advance your business and always thrive for more and better.

Since inbound marketing suggests two-way communication, you and your business are not the only ones that prosper in the process. The personal segment of inbound marketing is what creates the love for the brand.

Conclusion

Search engines give buyers so much freedom nowadays. They are given possibility to opt for the best service for their needs. The content you create and the communication with the customers is what gets buyers hooked.

The last time you searched something on your engine was five minutes ago and it led you here. Barney was right. New is always better.

 

 

Read More

Haters gonna hate – how to deal with those who dislike your product

By |2023-04-05T11:19:40+00:00November 12th, 2017|

topicIcon Inbound Marketing Lead Generation Sales

John Doe

Architect & Engineer

We love that guy

Haters gonna hate.png

If there is one thing that all entrepreneurs share in common, it has to be the false belief that all mankind just HAS to like the thing that they invented. Every person who looks like they’re not interested, or even – god forbid – say something negative about their product, company or service, is considered to be the root of evil, or – in the ever so polite corporate jargon – a crisis.

This usually comes from misunderstanding what “target audience” means. Politicians, by the way, understand this term better than anyone else, and usually wouldn’t care about a negative story about them, as long as it’s not published in a media that is read by their voters.

So what does “target audience” means? It means the audience which is highly likely to purchase whatever it is that you’re making, usually because it’s highly relevant to them (based on their location, occupation, habits, areas of interest etc.). I think we can agree that if this definition was to stop here, everyone would embrace it. The problem lies with the part less talked about – the one that deals with those who are NOT part of your target audience, and how they might react to your story. 

 

First of all, news flash – there isn’t even one thing in this world that EVERYBODY likes. Even babies or puppies are hated by some (those bastards!). Your product, your company, your story – are not going to be the one thing that changes that. It’s not “close to being impossible”, it is impossible. So some people are not going to like what you’re doing, that’s a given. And by the way, you are not going to find out about all of them, not now and not ever.

What to do about them? that’s what we’re going to solve today. I even prepared a checklist to make it easier on you. After all, dealing with haters is no pleasure cruise.

 1. Are they in your target audience? 

2. Are they in a position to influence your target audience? (say a reporter that writes about luxury cars, and hates yours. While he probably won’t buy one for himself, his readers are your exact target audience. This is also true for KOL – Key Opinion Leaders – and the likes of them).

 3. How loud are they? 

 4. Is their hate based on personal bias, or actual experience?

 5. (This is the most important one, probably) Do they make a fair point?

 6. Is there a possibility to change their mind?

 7. If the answer to 6 is yes, what will it take, and is it worth it?

helping you navigate your startup to marketing stardom

 

If they are in your target audience, jump immediately to Q4+5 (by the way, if the answer to 1+2 is no, leave it!). Do they make a fair point? if you’re too close to answer this yourself, ask someone you trust and doesn’t work for you to try and answer this. Try to avoid giving them your point of view before they answer, and ask only people who you trust enough to know that they will always be honest with you.

If the answer is yes, thank the hater and learn from it. Maybe even change accordingly. You have a chance at communicating directly with your audience here. Be humble.

If the answer is no, go back to Q2. If they are not in a position to influence others on a massive scale, leave it. No one reaches 100% of their target audience. If the answer is yes, check out Q6- can you change their mind? yes- go to Q7 (what will it take), and if it makes sense, do it. If no – leave it! It would be wiser and better to spend your time on winning others who like you, or are able to learn to like you, and create positive ambassadors there.

The only question I did not address is Q3, how loud are they. I didn’t address it because, to be honest, I don’t like it. In today’s world things can go viral for no apparent reason, and ignoring someone (especially if they do make a fair point) just because they have only 130 friends on Facebook and 43 Twitter followers can prove to be a big mistake. Huge.  But if you have to, add that to the mix in order to asses the risk – it also helps to understand the general loudness of the hater. Are they “professional haters”, the kind that hates everything and anyone? are they usually positive but have a thing with your company specifically?

 Professional haters (and we all know at least one of those) are usually taken by their surroundings with a grain of salt. Positive people who share negative opinion about something are usually trusted more. Which one is yours?

 To sum it up – if you go through the following Q&A with a rational mind, most of the time the answer would be “leave it”. That’s because we can’t win them all. And I’m not saying they should be treated with anything other than respect (not admiration, obviously, but respect for sure). I’m just saying they’re not worth it. Not your time, not your resources, and not the endless fight of trying to win them over, a fight that will never end because there will always be at least one hater you’re aware of, if you’re not lying to yourself.

Last note,

If you see that too many of your target audience are becoming haters, then the best thing to do would be to quote Ice Cube to yourself – “Check yourself before you wreck yourself”. Something is not working, either your story, your brand promise or the actual experience. Don’t wait until it’s too late – your target audience wants to love you, you invented something that is aimed at making their life easier. If they don’t, learn from it and react before it’s too late.

I’ll close with an example I like to give. There’s a website called “paypalsucks.com“. It’s been around for a while, and I’m sure PayPal HQ are aware of it. Why haven’t they declared war on it? Simply because with over 100M clients, they understand the simple truth I was talking about today:

Haters gonna hate. No worth spending your time and energy on them, when you can win loyal clients somewhere else instead.

 

 

Read More

Businesses Still Unsure About GDPR Compliance

By |2023-04-05T11:20:08+00:00October 26th, 2017|

topicIcon B2B Marketing

John Doe

Architect & Engineer

We love that guy

Businesses Still Unsure About GDPR Compliance header header

Despite the fact that the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is due to come into effect on May 25, 2018, there is still uncertainty about how businesses handle and protect sensitive data.

GDPR criteria maintains that any company, which holds or processes any kind of personal information relating to European citizens through goods or services, must abide by the new data privacy and storage laws. This includes both physical or digital files.

However, the latest report on UK companies shows 47% of their workers don’t know if their company is taking action to comply with the new legislation. Another study shows that less than a third of global organizations state they are compliant or close to being compliant.

A study by Veritas yielded the same result with even more dire numbers. Those businesses that already conform to the legislation’s requirement admitted to unlikely being in compliance with specific provisions, with only a measly 2% appearing to be in actual compliance.

The subsequent findings point to a gross misunderstanding over regulation readiness. Under the GDPR rules, EU residents will have to give consent for their personal data to be used, as well as be provided full access to their data. In addition, they have the right to request the removal of their data, such as usernames and emails businesses use for their newsletter databases.

 

Still, research shows that a large number of organizations have common issues regarding the inner workings of GDPR. Even those that are already in compliance don’t have the means to meet the lower level requirements such as finding and erasing personal data, searching and analyzing said data, and its actual storage location. All these shortcomings would make a company non-compliant under the GDPR.

The new legislation presents a major change in how European businesses approach their data practices. Many see GDPR as a major disruptor regarding the management of the customer information, particularly because it involves companies from every sector that deal with customer data in one way or another.

The trouble with implementing GDPR lies in the costs and resources needed to see the process through. That’s hardly a surprise considering the regulations are more than 200-pages long and present a complete overhaul of the previous Data Protection Directive that’s been in place since 1995.

GDPR will reach further than the existing data protection laws, adding fundamental changes such as accountability, the need for consent, new individual-based rights regarding the use of personal information, along with hefty non-compliance fines.

 

Read More

5 Examples of Great B2B Content: Strategy Break Down

By |2023-04-05T11:20:34+00:00October 19th, 2017|

topicIcon B2B Marketing

John Doe

Architect & Engineer

We love that guy

5 Examples of Great B2B Content header

In 2017, we thrive on information. Indeed, we are living in the information age. This has inevitably led to the emergence of new approaches to advertising – in particular, content marketing. This exciting and effective form of inbound marketing shows no sign of slowing, however, some find it difficult to discern its impact. 32% of B2B marketers say they have a documented content marketing strategy, but 55% say they are unclear on what content marketing success or effectiveness looks like (Source).

So while they strive to follow the latest inbound marketing trends, the reality is that many B2B marketers feel like they are shooting in the dark. If you’re struggling to create engaging content for your B2B audience, then it’s time to turn your attention to those who have mastered the art and absorb their strategies. Here are 5 examples of excellent B2B content that will educate and inspire.

Evernote

Evernote

Cross-platform organizational app Evernote uses email and video marketing to great effect in order to maximize conversions. Evernote users get occasional emails that share information, give useful tips and let them know what’s going on. Rarely, if ever, do you see a hard sell from Evernote – even when it’s talking about its premium service.

Evernote uses its email marketing campaigns to draw attention to its latest video case studies, like this one with MailChimp. When you’re reaching out to business clients, video case studies speak volumes, especially when your service is being recommended by a well-known company. 4X as many customers would rather watch a video about a product (or case study) than read about it, and in 2015, marketers who used video grew revenue 49% faster than non-video users (Source).

 

By including links to video case studies in its email strategy, Evernote draws attention to its previous successes and helps potential customers to realize that they can achieve the same positive results.

Basecamp

Basecamp

Project management software company Basecamp allows teams to work collaboratively together from wherever they are in the world, with a range of different plans available for businesses. Of course, business project management software is nothing new. But what’s different about Basecamp compared to other startups is its belief in the benefits of ‘slow and steady’. Jason Fried, the founder, attributes Basecamp’s ongoing success to its slow growth strategy – unlike that of many new businesses who dream of overnight riches.

Basecamp puts out a monthly podcast, known as ‘The Distance’, all about longevity in business. It features businesses that have been going for 25 years or more. In a world obsessed with hares, Basecamp’s content marketing strategy reminds us of the valuable lessons of the tortoise. A refreshing reminder to its users that with a reliable service like Basecamp, they too can go the distance.

Point Blank SEO

Point Blank SEO

Founded and written by blogger Jon Cooper, Point Blank SEO is a popular link building blog that has grown in readership over the years, “empowering ordinary marketers to build extraordinary links”. One of the reasons that he started getting so much traffic to his website was through guest posting – writing articles and having them published on powerful, relevant websites. Not only is guest posting a great way to get your name out there: it also gives your domain authority (a crucial SEO metric) a huge boost.

Jon Cooper wrote an article on 5 Pro Link Building Tips to Improve Scalability, which was published on Moz.com. He introduces himself in the opening paragraph: “I’m a consultant who blogs over at Point Blank SEO, my link building blog” and, one day after the post was published, he started receiving upwards of 400 new visitors every day.

Even now, a few years later, Jon Cooper still receives referral traffic from this post and many others. So when you plan your content marketing strategy, do not only plan for your own blog content. Consider where you can reach out to influential sites and offer them something of value, in return for a powerful link.

FireRock

FireRock

FireRock, a leading manufacturer of pre-engineered masonry fireplaces, is a rare example of a B2B organization who really know their way around social media – in particular, Pinterest. Just look at all those boards! FireRock understands that customers want to see a product in context, so they can imagine it working for their own projects, rather than endless pictures of bare fireplaces. Of course, it helps that their products look good.

People generally use Pinterest for inspiration, and that’s exactly what photos of finished installations help to do. It’s less of a stretch for the imagination. FireRock also tags its images by geographic location, so users can easily find photos filtered by area.

B2B suppliers can learn a lot from FireRock, who are on top of their game when it comes to embracing new channels. One such channel is Houzz, another visual community that provides inspiration for the home, founded in 2008. In using Houzz, FireRock has direct access to its perfect audience – people looking to revamp and redecorate their homes.

Shopify

Shopify

Shopify is a popular ecommerce store builder that gives entrepreneurs everything they need to easily create an online business. It’s mission is to make web-based retail super simple, so new starters can get up and running and build professional-looking websites from scratch. It’s comprehensive content marketing strategy is aimed at ecommerce entrepreneurs of all levels.

First off, they have a blog that covers case studies, niche products, ideas for growing your business, financial matters, productivity, marketing and company announcements. Then on top of that, you have all of the resources: guides, videos, podcasts, success stories, forums, tools, and access to experts. Shopify answers every question you could possibly have about the service, and what’s more, they rank for hundreds of thousands of ecommerce-related keywords. This is the power of having a huge backlog of content that is regularly updated.

Hopefully these examples help to inspire your B2B content strategy in 2017. Think we missed anything important? Why not share the B2B content that has inspired you this year? Victoria Greene is a brand marketing consultant and freelance writer. She writes over at VictoriaEcommerce where she likes to share tips to entrepreneurs looking to make the most of their ecommerce brands.

Victoria Greene is a brand marketing consultant and freelance writer. She writes over at VictoriaEcommerce where she likes to share tips to entrepreneurs looking to make the most of their ecommerce brands.

 

Read More

How to market your SaaS product

By |2023-04-05T11:21:04+00:00October 17th, 2017|

topicIcon B2B Marketing Content Marketing Inbound Marketing

John Doe

Architect & Engineer

We love that guy

how to market your saas product header

Update: we just published a new comprehensive guide for marketing your SAAS product, go check it out!

 

I speak with many B2B CMOs who tell me online marketing isn’t relevant when it comes to B2B. Such companies stick to traditional methods such as trade shows, cold calling and god forbid – traditional media such as billboards or even TV. SaaS marketers don’t have the privilege of disregarding online marketing as a core platform for generating customers.

By the inherent online SaaS nature, SaaS marketers are “forced” to hack their way to growth online. So, what do most SaaS CMOs do? They spend money on media, sending traffic to salesly landing pages that rarely convert visitors to leads (and even when converting, those leads almost never become customers). After a while they realize that’s not the way to go and start searching for solutions. The purpose of this post is to help you avoid wasting your investors’ money, and tackle SaaS marketing like a pro.

 

First things first – who are you selling to?

A good starting point to learning your target audience is to learn all you can about your current customers.

Evaluate the following: who are those people whose problem you’re solving? How old are they? What’s their professional background? What challenges are they dealing with and how do you help them solve those challenges?

Understanding your buyer personas is the foundation of an effective SaaS marketing strategy. Without that, you’re working in the dark.

Understand your prospect’s buyers journey

Once you’ve mapped out who your ideal buyers are, it’s time to put yourself in their shoes and understand the journey they go through leading up to a purchase. First, I’ll tell what their journey isn’t (though wouldn’t everyone’s life be easier if it where) :

dream buyer journey.png

a dream buyer’s journey

I’m surprised by the number of B2B marketers who still think that by interrupting their target audience with ads intended to sell them something they’re not ready to buy, from a company they don’t trust – can actually generate positive ROI. The brutal reality is that interrupting will not get you far. Selling to people who don’t trust you and aren’t ready to buy is annoying, spammy and a waste of your money.  Here’s what a realistic buyer’s journey looks like:

buyers-journey.png

A typical buyer’s journey includes 3 stages:

 

  1. Awareness – the prospect realized and expressed symptoms of a potential problem. For example “how do I drive the right kind of traffic to my website”
  2. Consideration – the prospect clearly defined and gave a name to their problem and is now committed to researching and understanding all available approaches to solving their problem. For example, a prospect whose problem is driving the right kind of traffic might research “how to do Inbound Marketing” or “what you should look out for when outsourcing Inbound Marketing”
  3. Decision – the prospect defined their solution strategy and is now comparing vendors.

Many companies are trying to sell to prospects at early stages of the buyer’s journey when in fact what they should be focusing on is adding value and positioning themselves as experts in their fields. The secret lies in distributing valuable content, building trust and creating lasting relationships. Turning visitors to customers will happen on your visitors’ terms. Just as you can’t force a social relationship, you can’t force a business one. The days of salesmen knocking on doors (both online and offline) asking for a glass of water and then pitching to death (or closed deal) are gone. We’re in an era of value. By placing the right content at the right place and the right time, you’ll be amazed at the quality of leads you’ll be generating. Those leads will be called inbound leads and the method – inbound marketing.

helping you navigate your startup to marketing stardom

 

Convinced? Let’s get practical

  1. Make sure you have a company blog, and keep your eye on the goal – adding value, helping and educating. The blog isn’t an extended sales deck, it’s your chance to position your company as professionals.
  2. Align your blog content with the buyer’s journey. Awareness blog posts should be about high level challenges your buyer personas are experiencing. Consideration stage posts should tap into possible solutions, including yours of course. Decision stage content is the time to start selling. This is the time to convince your prospects why you’re the best choice, and it shouldn’t be too difficult since they already trust you and have gained value from your educational content.

applying content to the buyers journey

  1. With respect to awareness stage posts, make sure to conduct a keywords research and to include relevant keywords in your blog post titles and content. This is important – you need to make sure your prospects will find your content when searching for solutions at the awareness stage of their journey. You can learn more about how to optimize your content here.
  2. In order to progress prospects down the buyer’s journey, use calls to action at the end of each blog post inviting them to download gated content that is most relevant to their stage of the journey. Technically speaking, these calls to action should lead to landing pages where they’ll be invited to provide their email and further info in order to receive the content. Once they do that a magic moment occurs – those visitors have now become leads. Don’t make the mistake of transferring those leads to sale just yet. Make sure to nurture them and to keep building their trust. Email them consideration stage content, invite them do download more gated content and nurture the relationship with them all the way down to the decision stage.

Only once you’ve seen the leads have engaged with your content at a suffice level (subjective per company and product), transfer them over to sales. This way, instead of the regular complaints you’re hearing from them, they’ll suddenly thank you as they’ll be receiving leads who actually want to hear from them and don’t experience them as intrusive.

Leverage SaaS directories and review websites

For maximum exposure of your SaaS product, you should consider adding different SaaS directories and review websites to your strategy. You might get some traffic or conversions from the websites you submitted to (someone might stumble across your product) or at the very least, get some quality backlinks that will help down the line.

Be wary, though. Some directories are labeled as spam due to misleading and/or false information – these will get you nowhere. Some websites like Pandia require you to pay for the placement, while others such as SoftwareFindr, Capterra, and Crunchbase are free. In any case, SaaS companies should consider building their presence on these software listing and review sites so buyers looking for products in your category can easily find your solution.

Wrapping up

By adopting a marketing strategy that revolves around adding value instead of interrupting, you can start generating customers from your online marketing efforts. Learn who your buyer personas are, understand their buyers journey and tailor content specifically for them and their challenges. Now you understand inbound marketing in a nutshell. Time to learn more and step up your efforts to market your SaaS product.

Good luck!

 

Read More

Startup Marketing Growth Hacks to Bolster Your Business

By |2023-04-05T11:19:12+00:00October 17th, 2017|

topicIcon B2B Marketing Inbound Marketing

John Doe

Architect & Engineer

We love that guy

Startup Marketing Growth Hacks to Bolster Your Business header

You have a great idea for a new startup. You’ve identified a need in your industry, and have a killer product that has the potential to disrupt the market.

However gone are the days where a great idea will simply attract customers and clients. With all the startups in the world these days, creating a unique, comprehensive startup marketing strategy is critical for success.

But with limited resources and funding, especially in the early days, startup marketing can prove to be a difficult task. Marketing efforts often take a backseat to product, R&D, and development needs.

Thing is, you can have the greatest product in the world, but if you don’t have the tools to market your product, no one will ever get the chance to see it.

This post will give actionable growth hacks to boost your startup marketing strategy and get your awesome product on the eyes of your public.

Startup Marketing Growth Hack #1: Influencer Marketing

Influencer marketing has changed the way we look at celebrity, social media, and how they intersect with technology. With 70 percent of consumers saying they are influenced by peers in their buying decision, leveraging the power of influencers is a startup marketing strategy that can result in huge returns.

helping you navigate your startup to marketing stardom

 

Look no further than Maybeline, who teamed up with 15 beauty experts during Fashion Week in 2016. By partnering with these influencers, they were able to reach 13.9 million consumers across the world, resulting in almost 4 million “likes” on social media. As growth hacking startup marketing strategies go, influencer marketing should be at the top of your list for 2018.

Startup Marketing Growth Hack #2: Product Hunt Exposure

Product hunt is a priceless tool for early age startups to gain marketing exposure. Widely regarded as one of the best places to launch new products, ensuring you have a prepared strategy for Product Hunt is a great growth hack for high intent traffic and customers.

Konsus, an on-demand outsourcing platform, achieved 500% growth from launching their startup on Product Hunt. They came prepared with both an impressive pre and post launch plan, and were prepared to handle the amount of traffic and buzz that they garnered after launch. By allocating limited, yet important resources to launching your startup on Product Hunt, this startup marketing growth hack strategy is one to have in your arsenal.

Startup Marketing Growth Hack #3: Quora, Quora, Quora

As high-intent social media platforms go, Quora may reign supreme for tech startups. With over 190 million monthly users, Quora has positioned themselves as the place to go for all your Q&A needs. From startup funding, lead generation, and social media advice, Quora has created an amazing community where your in-depth thought leader answers could turn into new customers.

Wishpond, a comprehensive lead generation tool, were able to generate almost 14,000 page views in a month from answering Quora questions. Their Content Marketing Manager offered some interesting insights as to how they accomplished this, such as linking back to posts with in-depth content, as well as trying to answer questions with more than 1,000 views per week for maximum exposure.

Startup Marketing Growth Hack #4: Get Early Users To Become Advocates

There are no better marketers than your own customers We inherently tend to trust more when other people give a positive review of something. In fact, consumer to consumer word of mouth advertising generates more than 2X sales than paid advertising. Having early adopters of your startup become brand advocates creates an air of trust and confidence around your product.

Hubstaff, a time tracker software, shared their story on how they generated the first 25 signups of their business. They found that a combination between word of mouth from friends and family, as well as inbound marketing methods were the key ways they signed up early adopters. It is clear that investing in your early adopters happiness and satisfaction is an important startup marketing strategy for both short and long-term success.

Startup Marketing Growth Hack #5: Consider Co-Marketing Ventures

A startup marketing strategy that is often overlooked in early-age growth are both co-marketing and strategic partnership opportunities. Co-marketing is a great way to collaborate with companies that share a similar audience to yours, but at the same time are not direct competitors. Offers such as eBooks, webinars, and list sharing are just some of the ways to team up with others for growth hacking opportunities.

A great example of a successful co-marketing initiative is between Hubspot and Linkedin. These two B2B behemoths teamed up to create an eBook entitled “How to Use Social Selling Throughout the Seller’s Journey”. By banding together and creating a shared content offer, Hubspot and Linkedin are able to reach a similar audience group, but also tap into each others core user base that they otherwise may not have been able to reach.

Wrapping Up:

Although many startup founders often focus on marketing efforts later in their company growth, certain marketing growth hacks are available early on that are imperative to implement for short and long-term success. Influencer marketing, leveraging Product Hunt and Quora, and participating in co-marketing activities are just some of the startup marketing strategies that can help you generate both early adopters and long-term customers.

What are some of your favorite startup marketing growth hacks? Let us know in the comments below!

 

 

Read More

TLDR: HubSpot’s #INBOUND17 Product Announcements

By |2023-04-05T11:21:47+00:00October 1st, 2017|

topicIcon Digital Marketing

John Doe

Architect & Engineer

We love that guy

TLDR- HubSpot's #INBOUND17 Product Announcements

Well to be honest, we’re excited about all of them.

Today on the bus to work, I finished HubSpot co-founders, Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah’s keynote speeches at this year’s HubSpot conference. Formally (or digitally, or both?) known as #INBOUND17, the conference was a great chance to gather as an inbound movement to learn, network, and get inspired by a mutual drive to build meaningful, professional relationships based on value.

But I’m getting sidetracked.

During Dharmesh’s speech as co-founder and CTO, he discussed the new products coming to HubSpot in 2018, and with them comes an underlying philosophy: more than anything else, people buy products based on recommendations, reviews, and good ol’ fashioned word of mouth. In short, people trust the advice of others above all else. With that in mind, HubSpot’s been moving in the direction of offering freemiums in order to pull more people into using their new features and allowing that positive experience drive an organic buzz.

That all being said, let’s review HubSpot’s product announcements for 2018!

1. The professional marketers CMS (Content Management System) — Available now

Fast, stable, and secure, this is any company’s dream when it comes to building a website with easy-to-use templates. It also comes with developer tools like IDE, Custom Modules, and HubDB. Ready for a fun fact? According to third party data, the HubSpot CMS is 2X faster than the average CMS in North America! I may not understand developer jargon, but that speaks to me.

Whether this makes you more or less confused, it’s worth noting that while initially called a COS (Content Optimization System), HubSpot has recently decided to join the rest of website creating world and call this tool a CMS. Good move HubSpot.

2. Facebook Lead Ads — Available now

More and more people are doing business over Facebook and HubSpot’s gotten on board. You now can create Facebook Leads Ads right from HubSpot. Leads will automatically be tracked and synced into your CRM and it’s optimized for mobile so viewers can sign up for newsletters, offers, or deals straight from their phone. Maybe the coolest part of this though, is the Audience Sync. Use the segmented contact lists you already have in HubSpot to send targeted messages to your Facebook audiences. But what about viewers who aren’t in your contacts list? Enter lookalike campaigns for those similar to your contacts, or as Christopher O’Donnell (HubSpot’s VP of Product) calls it, “the mind blow”. What’s next? Facebook retargeting, with early access now.

 

3. Account Based Marketing + HubSpot — Available now

HubSpot’s been getting a lot of questions on how inbound and ABM can work together, and the HubSpot product team did not disappoint. By teaming up with Terminus, a B2B Account-Based Marketing leader, you can now leverage their data to serve hyper-targeted ads not only to the people in your database, but also their peers in the same company. Interested in learning more about the coexistence of ABM and inbound? Check out this video below of Sangram Vajre (Terminus, CMO) and Kipp Bodnar (HubSpot,CMO) discussing the relationship between the methodologies.

4. Shopify Native eCommerce Integration — Early access now

Products sync to HubSpot. Purchases sync to HubSpot. It’s all there. This further allows you to leverage list segmentation, automation, email, and more. Want to send a transactional email? Go for it. Interested in setting up an abandoned cart workflow? HubSpot’s got you. If you’re not the Shopify type, don’t fret. HubSpot is also rolling out an eCommerce bridge which allows developers to integrate any shopping cart – products, sales, you name it – with HubSpot.

5. HubSpot Conversations — Coming 2018

Imagine instant messaging, but bigger. Available for free on the Marketing Hub, Sales Hub, and Customer Hub, this is what Christopher is calling the future. Sure, HubSpot Sales Pro already has Messages, to chat with website visitors, but that’s just the first step in creating Conversations. Why Conversations? It’s multi-channel in one place, for everyone on your team. Cool, but how many people is it now gonna take (slash cost you) to make sure someone is always available to chat? Enter…

6. motion.ai – “Drag and drop, and build a bot” — Coming 2018

According to Darmesh, HubSpot’s team tried out a number of different top-tier DIY bots and ‘fell in love with’ motion.ai. A few meetings and handshakes later, and voilà! HubSpot acquires motion.ai. You can hear him tell the story in his keynote. Just skip ahead to 1:18:30 (at the bottom of this post). The software lets you build, train, and deploy AI powered chat robots to do almost anything imaginable. It can answer FAQs, qualify leads, and direct prospects to sales reps.

Courtesy of HubSpot

[Courtesy of HubSpot]

7. New and (massively) improved HubSpot Sales Professional — Available Nov. 1st 2017

First we got to talk about the automation or Workflows. While this feature used to only be available for HubSpot Marketing, Workflows have come to the Sales CRM and it’s here to stay. For Sales Workflows, you can include New Deals, Tasks, emails, really just about anything you can think of putting into a workflow. The combinations are endless.

Another Marketing feature that’s come to Sales? Sales Reporting. See sales engagement by date, rep, and lifecycle stage right from your dashboard. If you’ve got a growing sales crew, you’re going to love the new Teams feature that allows members to collaborate and share their work and reports. Christopher explains they’re now ‘baking’ artificial intelligence into the Sales newsfeed (though I’m not totally sure what that means), offering you priority notifications for the things you’re most interested in. What’s more? Send prospects emails at the ideal time based on previous openings.

8. Campaign Reporting — Available now in BETA

For every project, and campaign, ROI is the key to measure the return on your resources and efforts. Included for every tier of HubSpot Marketing, HubSpot will now show ROI for every piece of a campaign. Be it at the top, middle, or bottom of the funnel – you now have the power to analyze impact. For us an agency, we’re excited to put this feature to work in order to help our clients best understand the true value of their marketing investments.

9. Customer Hub (because HubSpot taking over the entire buyer’s journey was inevitable) — Available early 2018

Starting out as free version (duh) coming out in early 2018, HubSpot’s excited to roll out the last piece of the end-to-end business trifecta — Customer Hub. This announcement was a bit of an annoying cliffhanger if I’m going to be honest. Christopher didn’t give us much more to go on than that, so we’ll just have to hold on to the edge of our seats until their next round of announcements.

Aaaand that’s a wrap! #INBOUND17 you left us totally starstruck at all the new features they’re coming out with and we’re so excited to see how you continue to change the way companies do end-to-end, personalized, and value-based business! See you next year.

 

To watch Brian and Dharmesh’s keynote, check out the link below. If you just want to skip to the product announcements part, fast forward to 1:08:26.

To watch Christopher’s New Product Spotlight, you can you also watch that below.

 

 

Read More

Bold Digital Architects The Telegraph Thought Leadership Interview

By |2023-04-24T12:41:24+00:00September 19th, 2017|

topicIcon Blog

John Doe

Architect & Engineer

We love that guy

telegraph interview.png

Following our release of the 2017 State of Marketing Automation report, we were approached by The Telegraph UK and invited to take part in their digital transformation campaign alongside titans such as VISA, IBM and EMC. Humbled and honored we accepted the invite, jumped on a plane to royal London, and gave them our 2 cents on how to create the perfect B2B campaign.

We invite you to view the interview here or below:

 

TLDW (Too Long Didn’t Watch): All companies want their voice heard. But the more they try the bigger the noise grows; and the bigger the noise grows, the weaker their signal feels. The solution: Stop interrupting, start adding value.

If you’re ready to start adding value to your B2B marketing campaigns, request a free consult with us! We’d be happy to jump on a call to discuss how you can bring this best practice to your business today.

Schedule a FREE consultation

 

 

 

 

Read More

Posts by Topic
Bold Digital Architects

MENU

CONTACT DETAILS

+972 54 571 0232
21 Rothschild blv. Tel Aviv, Israel

We88

FOLLOW US

AWARDS

PARTNERS

Go to Top