Best Content Marketing Resources for Technology Marketers

Selling content marketing to B2B executives is hard. At least harder than it should be. But what strikes me as odd is their willingness to requestion their decision after they've finally been convinced. I'm getting more and more requests from B2B marketers about how to present reasons why content marketing should stay a line item on the budget. The number...

The best tools for creating, publishing and promoting content on the internet. Mostly for free.

A buyer persona is a composite of different factors that affect your buyer and motivate him/her to buy. Your prospect's buying cycle and buying decisions are situated within a larger context that must be understood in order to motivate his/her buyer behavior.

Stop getting scared by your empty editorial calendar. Never feel stuck coming up with blog post ideas. Learn how to get your creativity going in this post.

When it comes to content – planning it, creating it, using it – Product Marketing’s role is often unclear.

But given that Product Marketing is often a key business owner, it makes sense to include Product Marketing in content marketing efforts.

Wouldn’t it be great to pull out a crystal ball and know exactly what your prospective technology buyers DON’T want in your marketing content?

A recent study by UBM TechWeb asked technology decision makers the biggest mistakes vendors make when producing marketing information.

A great content marketing strategy can help position your company as a trusted advisor to prospects by providing helpful information that prospects are looking for.

Providing detailed, current information that speaks to your prospects’ pain points is crucial when building the long-term relationships that lead to t...

Persona marketing clarifies buyers’ real concerns with actionable insights other marketing strategies cannot match. But skillful execution is crucial.

When you understand how your buyers make decisions, your job as a content marketer will be easier and more rewarding than you ever imagined.

I rarely mention it, but I spent a year of my marketing career as a sales rep.

I was in a marketing role at a software company/hardware reseller when I noticed that our existing customers were bypassing us for their computer upgrades. This translated to a lot of lost revenue, because those were the days when software was nearly free and companies like ours made most of our profits by reselling another company’s computers.

UBM TechWeb recently published an interesting report on what technology buyers want from their vendors’ content.

As you might image, it didn’t involve requests for more product datasheets.

Rather they want fact-based, best practices-oriented content that helps them make purchasing decisions. Although this research is focused on the technology industry, the results can be applied to most any complex, B2B purchasing cycle.

If you’ve read my blog, you likely know I am a HUGE advocate of regularly interviewing customers or prospects.

Here is a real-life example of the outstanding benefits companies can reap if they regularly converse with their customers.

Kristin Zhivago, a revenue coach, has developed a step-by-step process for companies to use when interviewing customers. The goal of these interviews is to gain critical insights into customers' thoughts and reactions to your company's services and products.

To see why the answer is yes, let's look at a typical interaction between a salesperson and a customer in a selling situation.

And there is no question in my mind now that THE most important sales tool is something that isn't even on the radar of most marketers: the product manual.

Looking to understand how others are using content marketing? View research based on various industries and company sizes.

The buying process has made a major shift: B2B technology buyers are spending more time online researching solutions before they contact your sales team. But research shows they rarely find the information they want and need. Product marketers who understand this shift and create high-value, buyer-focused content for their next product launch earn buyers’ trust and differentiate themselves from the competition.

In this webinar, Joan will explain how to categorize new products to determine launch campaign strategy. In addition, you’ll learn the top 10 tactics companies can use to improve launch success in the highly competitive B2B market.

No one questions that the finance team is best qualified to keep the books, or engineering’s authority to build useful products. But marketing tends to be everyone’s playground. While stakeholder input is useful, the consequences are enormous when marketing isn’t the respected authority on decisions that impact buyers and customers. Many marketers respond to internal pressure by perfecting ROI metrics or doubling down on efforts to be responsive to stakeholders. These are worthy goals, but marginal progress on the credibility front suggests that we’re not on a path to resolve the core problem.

I’ve spent the better part of the past two months on the road at various internal and external industry events, so it has been a bit hectic. There is some great content to share, and I am in the process of building these out in the forms of articles, infographics, and slide shows. In the meantime, I thought I would share some of the key highlights and themes heard among senior marketing leaders during my travels.

CMOs face the especially difficult task of aligning products and services with branding and marketing efforts—even when there’s a mismatch. The rise of the Internet, social media and other forms of digital media haven’t made things any simpler. Getting a handle on today’s business environment is nothing short of daunting. Here are 10 classic marketing mistakes and what CMOs can do to improve bottom line results.

Lead nurturing, inbound pull, social networks, blogs and other eMarketing activities are all fueled by content. Lots of it. That puts a lot of pressure on limited marketing resources to churn out not only volume, but quality content that delivers a consistent storyline to a variety of target markets and customers. So what's a B2B marketer to do? Embrace the...

Win loss analysis may be one of the most important success measurement activities—not just for sales, but for marketing and product leaders.

YouTube is the second largest search engine behind Google, meaning that your potential customers are searching for answers, recommendations and inspiration related to your product, and want to consume content in an engaging format.

Our audit is a fully comprehensive tool that takes into account every factor of what a successful branded channel should entail. This includes everything from consistent branding to on-page SEO factors, along with advice on how to best utilize your content on site to improve conversion rates.

We’ll also benchmark you against your nearest competitors to explore relevant opportunities around video marketing that are tailored to your target audience. As there is also a strong correlation between a channel’s subscriber size and rankings it is important to position your channel as a leader against your nearest competitors.

In this article I hope to offer up some insights from my past 7 years of blogging and give you a fair assessment of the major and best email providers.