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29
Oct

5 Real Reasons Why CEOs Cut Your Marketing Budget

cut marketing budgetDigital disruptions are causing marketers to rethink their position within the company. The increasing expectations from customers, social media, mobile and globalization are giving organizations great opportunities, to those who are willing to change.

Many struggle with this change. Few have been able to position themselves to capture the real business benefits.

I think this change starts with strong leadership and a change of mindset.  If you do not have that leadership and mindset, your CEO will keep cutting your budget. Here are 5 Misconceptions about Marketing, understood by those that will make the change, neglected by those of the past.

Budget cuts are yours by those who neglect. Read more »

18
Oct

How to get started with Content Marketing in B2B? The Educated Approach

well educated in content marketing

In order to be successful and rise above the clutter, serious B2B companies are starting to pay more and more attention to content marketing.

B2B companies devote large budgets to placing ads in industry publications or building large and expensive booths at trade shows. With marketing budgets under pressure, and with classic marketing techniques being less and less efficient, being found and being relevant to buyers has become the mantra of many marketers.

If content marketing is becoming critical to your company, it is time to start taking it seriously.

This blog post is not intended to give you a step-by-step detailed guide on how to do this. There are many great resources out there.

It does however try to guide you on what you should do before diving into developing your own content marketing strategy. Read more »

8
Oct

A Motion to Kill Content Marketing

The word "content" in Content Marketing deserves more credit. Will you vote ? (image from  Amsterdamnewspolitics)

The word “content” in Content Marketing deserves more credit. Will you vote ? (image : Amsterdamnewspolitics)

Whenever I talk to fellow marketing managers about Content Marketing, I feel as if the word “content” in itself just kills the whole conversation.

When the word content is used, people think of text. They think of paper, copywriting, layout, online and print. Some are more informed, and know that content marketing is more than the output of content creators.

Content marketing is all about providing customers with answers to their questions. The format in which these answers are delivered to them is irrelevant. By providing these answers, you lift your brand to become a company that is seen as a go-to-resource for knowledge and insight. By providing these answers you become a trusted party to which they’ll turn to when they have a problem, a question, an opportunity.

And doing that, my friends, is scary stuff for marketers. Read more »

3
Oct

Aligning Marketing and Sales Systems: Building the Right Foundations

 

Too busy to build foundations, Too busy because of the wrong foundations...

Too busy to build foundations, Too busy because of the wrong foundations…

Many B2B companies haven’t integrated their marketing and sales systems.

You have tools for marketing planning, events, webinars, email, PR, marketing automation, websites, document management, CRM, ERP, … Your customer services department also has its own systems, also containing customer touchpoint data. And the finance department is also sitting on similar data.

The effect? Dispersed contact databases, standalone CRM implementations and Excel import-export nightmares. These situations are more the rule than the exception.

We all know we need to integrate these systems. But how do you move towards integrated systems, to the benefit of the business? Read more »