Topic results for "B2B content marketing"
Social Success: a new content site for Salesforce.com
We’re inordinately proud to announce the launch of a new microsite by Salesforce UK that Velocity helped with. The site is called Social Success and it’s all about helping…
Velocity’s B2B content marketing research trip to Paris
To stay at the cutting edge of B2B content marketing you can’t just sit in your office. So Velocity decided to get out of London and discover how B2B content…
Moneyball: Why Oakland Analytics will change our world
Every B2B marketer should watch Moneyball. It's another sign that science will change every world. It's time to adapt or die.B2B content marketing: when target audiences clash
Marketers are instinctively inclusive. Our default is to set our crop-sprayer on the widest possible setting, covering the largest possible audience for everything we do.
But content marketing is different.…
Heavenly B2B Content Marketing: The Ave Maria Moment
Getting it right. How some of our clients are starting to produce content that's just ripe for promotion from day one.Content Development: Nine Tips for B2B marketers
Content marketing has hit the tipping point for B2B marketers. At Velocity, we used to have to evangelise the concept of content marketing , then spend lots of time…
Now THAT’s an infographic (most B2B infographics aren’t)
We’ve been huge fans of information graphics at Velocity ever since Edward Tufte self-published his brilliant ‘The Visual Display of Quantitative Information‘ book. But as the B2B marketing world…
Content Development using Inbound Writer
Ryan came across a blog post by Jay Baer on a tool called Inbound Writer which is designed to help writers create better B2B content marketing pieces. Jay was so…
Hackgate Technique: The Content Marketing Skill Part 2
A simple how-to of a powerful content marketing technique. Share thought leadership and boost online reputation management in a few a few quick steps.Are you coming to FUNNEL?
FUNNEL is a great idea (well, we did help develop it). It’s a B2B marketing event that covers the entire sales/marketing pipeline.
It happens on 1 November at the…
The Devil wants Pravda (and he wants it now)
Find out happens when creative ideas get sidelined in the B2B content marketing process. It's not clever, it's not fun and it's certainly not pretty...Why you should give away the very thing you sell
As content marketing gains momentum, we find that we’re not having to work quite as hard explaining the principles to prospective clients. But one objection does keep popping up…
Content marketing & marketing automation webinar
In case you missed last week’s Content Marketing & Marketing Automatation webinar put on by DemandGen’s John Sweeney, here’s a link to the archived talk with slides.
In it,…
The A/B and Multivariate Testing Resource Map
We’re always surprised by how infrequently B2B marketers actually test their web pages, emails, banner ads and content offers.
That’s why A/B and Multivariate Testing is one of the Six…
Are you the bore in the corner?
When he was working for a big B2B company, Andrew Walker did a brave thing. He audited every piece of communication that his company put out, with a cold,…
Five B2B marketing posts we think you’ll like
We know you like the backs of our hands. You’re a B2B marketer who’s always looking for new ideas, strategies, tactics and technologies. (See? Nailed you in one sentence). With…
B2B Marketing Webinar: B2B Content Marketing and Automation
Content Marketing and Marketing Automation are the two new pillars of B2B. We’re taking part in an upcoming DemandGen webinar that brings the two topics together. It’s on 15 September…
Nine companies B2B marketers should know about
You’re a marketer, we’re marketers. It’s good to share the things we like.
Here are nine companies you ought to know about. They all help marketers make more money…
Internet Marketing Strategy: a meaty new briefing for all marketers
If you’re feeling overwhelmed by all the change taking place in digital marketing – and all the blogs, eBooks, videos and research reports that try to explain it all…
How to write FAQs – an FAQ for B2B
We're big believers in the power of a great FAQ section on a B2B website -- not just for customer support but for marketing. So here's our FAQ on FAQs:In case you missed these B2B marketing guest posts
We’re big believers in doing guest posts on other marketing sites. It reaches new audiences, builds backlinks and boosts our page rank and overall search rankings.
The only bad…
12 Lessons from the Manifesto Campaign – Project Open Kimono 13
We’ll be wrapping up the results of the B2B Marketing Manifesto campaign soon, but here’s a quick tour of some of the lessons learned as we brought the Manifesto to…
B2B chalk talk videos: capturing your best experts
Even the smallest company has at least one guy who can tell its story really, really well. He’s the guy you always want to bring to important sales calls…
Do the British prefer ‘muddling through’ to evidence-based B2B marketing?
I was at a meeting the other day with the CMO of a leading cloud-based software vendor. Why, he asked, was it so difficult to get the lead machine working here in the UK. Three reasons sprang to mind.Project Open Kimono 12: Re-purposing and atomising your content
This is typical: you put a lot of effort into a chunky piece of marketing content — then retire it, move on and start working on the next piece.…
B2B content marketing around buying triggers
There are lots of ways to build your content marketing strategy -- around personas, products, organisational structure... We'd like to suggest a new way to go: build your content around your most important buying triggers.Post-Digital Marketing: The Rise of Meatspace
Marketing is entering the post-digital era. It’s not that digital is going away, just that it’s being dissolved into everything we do. This means we can also stop the digital…
Project Open Kimono 11: Do Twitter Auto DMs work?
One of the experiments we've run as part of Project Open Kimono was to set up an automated Direct Message to everyone who follows me on Twitter. Check out the results...LinkedIn Maps: your network visualised
We’re big infographics fans so when LinkedIn launched their new LinkedIn Maps tool, we were first in the virtual queue to have a play. The tool generates a colourful,…
A nice bit of visual B2B personalisation
LinkedIn just sent me a nice piece of highly personalized B2B email.
I’ve never seen ‘visual persoanlization’ in an out-bound email before but it’s pretty compelling to see the faces…
Project Open Kimono 10 – The Form Conclusion
We cursed the web form. But warned it might fight back. Has the form risen, Phoenix like from the Velocity flames, in the latest installment of Project Open Kimono?How to inject urgency into your B2B marketing
We talk a lot about the Battle for Attention in B2B and about Buyer Attention Deficit Disorder and the relentless Mississippi of info-dreck that gushes through us all every…
Project Open Kimono 8: email follow-up and promotional defense barriers
One of the experiments we ran in our B2B Marketing Manifesto campaign was to send a simple, quirky text email as a follow-up to our sexy HTML email announcing…
B2B Marketing Agency campaign in a scribble
We were mapping out the B2B Marketing Manifesto campaign on a sheet of A4 lined paper and this is what was left behind on the meeting table. Pretty much all there.Twitter and the tyranny of the new
Is it just me or have you noticed how Twitter buries the best under a blizzard of blah-blah-blah? Feels like it's a medium that favours newness over quality and that has implications for humans and for marketers...Are B2B marketers wimps? Project Open Kimono part 6
Our recent micro-survey generated some disturbing data: B2B marketers are wimps. Not a pretty result but maybe it's time to face up to it...Top B2B bloggers: we have favourites and we’re not ashamed of it
We’ve been fishing around and come up with a digest of recent blog posts and B2B resources that we think are pretty cracking. Have a look and see if you agree.A B2B viral video gets contagious
B2B marketers often question the value of the kind of video people often call ‘viral’: the quirky, witty ones that demonstrate the human side of a business. It can be…
Cross-Promoting B2B Content: Project Open Kimono Part 4
It’s time to talk about cross-promoting content as we approach week three of Project Open Kimono, the real-life, almost-real-time, warts-bunions-and-all case study of our B2B Marketing Manifesto campaign. The…
B2B Marketing Analytics – Project Open Kimono Part 3
Two weeks in and the analytics Kimono is wide open. Take a look and see what you can learn from our B2B Marketing Manifesto campaign.B2B Content Marketing Trends and Spends
Marketing Profs and Junta 42 haven’t half been busy lately. They’ve produced a report into content marketing, surveying skills, resources, and trends. It’s the biggest and most comprehensive report of…
B2B Case Study Live – Project Open Kimono – part 2
B2B Case Study live: Project Open Kimono Part 2, in which Velocity, the B2B Marketing Agency shares it's experiences in promoting the B2B Marketing Manifesto.The B2B Marketing Manifesto: hot off the press
“This is without a doubt the most exciting time in history to be a B2B marketer. It’s also the scariest.” That’s how our new eBook, The B2B Marketing Manifesto…
Copywriting: the unsung hero of B2B
We bang on a lot about the importance of copywriting in B2B but we don’t often see good data to support our case. I found some while listening to an…
Sales and Marketing: the same hymn sheet
Our friend Stephanie Tilton (one of the Savvy B2B Marketers) and the folks at AG Salesworks have just published an excellent eBook on the subject: Gear Up For Success: 8 Steps to Get Sales & Marketing Cranking in Unison:The Banksy of B2B Marketing
I came back to the office today to find Stuart, our senor designer, all covered in spray paint. In this age of InDesign, Photoshop and Illustrator, it's great to see a designer actually get out the scissors, card and spray cans once in a while.Anatomy of a project: Calnetix
We've just completed a big project for Calnetix, a company that turn waste heat from industrial processes into energy. It's green, clean, and it saves money. What's not to like? Watch the Prezi to find out what we did.Ten ways that B2B marketing copy goes wrong
Let's face it, most B2B copywriting is not very good. There are many reasons, but here are our top ten. Is your latest B2B marketing copy guilty of any of them?Ten Tips for Cross-Promoting your Content, Part II
As B2B marketing content libraries start to grow, we all need to think about how we cross-promote our content to people who have already engaged with us.Why KPIs underpin your B2B content marketing cycle?
To love your customers is to love your analytics. Find out why B2B content marketing campaigns need KPIs for measured success.B2B marketing’s virtuous digital circle: Spin Cycle
At Velocity we believe in making our content work harder than we do. Find out how just a little bit of joined up thinking can make you the toast of your management team in just three months and still have spare time to enjoy the sunshine.How to structure a B2B argument
B2B marketing always comes down to building an argument; telling a story that leads to an inescapable conclusion: ‘You need to buy this, now.’ If your argument isn’t solid, the creativity of Björk and the budget of Nike will not move your business.IBS campaign shortlisted for B2B Marketing Awards 2010
Ice the champagne: our ‘Margin Killers’ campaign for IBS has been shortlisted for the Best International Campaign category in this year’s B2B Marketing Awards.The power of beliefs in B2B marketing
Check out this great TED Talk by Simon Sinek on the power of beliefs in marketing. Great leaders and great companies start with beliefs not facts, policies, products or services. People don't buy WHAT you do they buy WHY you do it.B2B Copywriting: hitting the sweet spot
There are four kinds of B2B copywriting and they fall into the neat little quadrants formed when two important axes intersect: Clarity and Authenticity. If you can get both in your writing, you're in the Sweet Spot and wonderful things will begin to happen to you...B2B summed up in two words: the writing’s on the road
B2B is a lot simpler than the gurus would have you believe. After all the e-tomes and blog posts and webinars it really all boils down to two words -- and you can see them painted on almost urban street road in the land. When in doubt: look down.An infographic with sound
We love infographics here at Velocity and are big fans of Edward Tufte and Information is Beautiful and Data Flow and stuff like that. But we just had to…
The value of story? About 2,776%
We’re always talking about how important a story is in marketing — but now someone has finally proven it with an ingenious experiment.
As summarised in a recent DoubleThink…
Notes from a General Election: the power of decisions
B2B marketers are always looking to influence decisions. But the recent General Election shows how every customer decision can change the dynamic of your relationship.We’re all B2B content brands now
We just did a guest post for the excellent B2BBloggers on how we’re all becoming content brands now — and some tips for how to build a strong B2B content…
B2B Content Marketing: Mobilise Your Home Front
Anyone else hate time, resources and expertise? I know I do. Find out how you can stop B2B marketing's ancestral enemies from wrecking your social media programmes now.Cleaning up your B2B product portfolio
A lot of our consultancy engagements involve helping companies structure a product portfolio that makes sense. Usually that means organising a long list of products or services into a few sensible buckets. It can be kind of tricky and isn't always intuitive but putting in the time to get it right is well worth it.An antidote to all the hype
There's a lot of crap talked about the power of social media and how it's transforming marketing. Check the Ad Contrarian blog for a bracing, acerbic and amusing antidote to all the hype.Nativ gets its mojo on
We’ve been working with a great company called Nativ, who offer a digital video content management and distribution platform and service.7 Incredibly Rare Mistakes in Social Media Marketing
There are literally thousands of blog posts, eBooks and articles called, "The 24 Most Common Mistakes in Social Media Marketing". But no one ever covers the really rare mistakes in social media marketing -- the ones almost nobody ever seems to make.The F word in B2B marketing
Is it just me or is typical B2B marketing utterly joyless? Why is that? Why do people who are passionate about carp fishing and bicycling and the Beatles become…
What’s white, invisible, invaluable and online now?
No internal search returns! Find out how your own site's search results can turn you into a better informed marketer in minutes.The rise and rise of B2B content marketing
Content Marketing is rivaling social media marketing in the hype stakes -- and for good reason. It may not be particularly new, but in the age of the informed buyer and zero-cost distribution (the Internet), it's what works in B2B marketing. The 2010 Content Marketing Spending Survey by Junta 42 confirms the trend (though anyone with a passing acquaintance with Twitter, LinkedIn or any B2B marketing blog won't need it confirmed)...2010 Content Marketing Trends and Predictions
Drumroll please... Introducing The 2010 Content Marketing Trends and Predictions eBook from ClickPredictions -- a crowdsourced effort by "39 of the world's top B2B marketers, e-mail marketers and social media gurus" (including, erm, me). Ambal Balakrishnan, the tireless ClickDocuments founder, asked each of us a straightforward question, “What are key marketing trends and predictions for 2010?”Should free B2B content hide behind a form?
The debate rages on: is it better to ask people to fill out a form to download your content (chasing shy people away) or maximise downloads and go without…
Our New Year’s B2B Marketing Resolutions
Inspired by Neil’s resolution “to eat breakfast every morning”, I got everyone at Velocity to give me their B2B marketing resolutions. So here are…
In Which The Hero Helps SmallWorlders Sell Intranets To Marketers
We’ve been working with a great company called SmallWorlders. They produce smart, sociable intranets for marketing types. Their Sandbox™ platform, hosted model and marketing-savvy service teams combine…
Velocity Does Video: Nine kinds of B2B web video
As this quick showreel demonstrates, we've been doing more and more video for our B2B marketing clients. Why? because it's a great way to get even the most complex ideas across in a clear, compelling way.Low-tech videos for a high tech product
We love these Google Features videos on YouTube. Most tech demonstration videos are all high-tech flash with little icon men and screen shots and slick animations. These are the…
How often do you need to publish content? 1-7-30-4-2-1
Content Marketing is like publishing -- you need an editorial calendar and a bit of discipline. This guest post on Junta42 by Russell Sparkman of Fusionspark Media talks about how frequently you should be doing different elements of your content marketing mix.Diary of a Tweet: Clarity vs Twitterjunk
The birth of every every new communications medium is followed by a period during which the underlying technology actually cramps the communication it’s supposed to be enabling. When it comes…
16 ways to alienate a B2B buyer
Most B2B marketing doesn't just fail – it actively repels the people it's trying to attract. In other words, most B2B marketing would deliver better results if it didn't exist at all. When I buy things for Velocity, I'm a B2B buyer. Here's the best ways to alienate me...B2B marketing predictions for 2010
We were recently asked where we thought B2B marketing would go in 2010. Made us think. So here are some predictions for the next year:, including kind-of-obvious ones, less obvious ones and a few we'd wish would come true...Lethal Generosity: a key principle of social media marketing?
According to the Harvard Business Review, 90% of tweets are generated by just 10% of Twitter users, reflecting the fact that these people are subject-matter experts, passionates, mavens, and thought leaders. B2B brands that can create places where this type of exchange can happen are engaging in something called 'lethal generosity', a key principle of social media marketing.You can’t have a conversation when you use a megaphone
Most B2B marketing organisations are set up for interruption-based, broadcast style communications and this traditional approach to marketing consumes 80-90% of the budget. This is strange in a world where there's been a dramatic shift from megaphone marketing to listening and engaging in conversations. There's need for a new type of marketing professional called a content strategist. Do you agree?The Velocity B2B Marketing Tube Map
We've always loved Harry Beck's legendary design for the London Underground Tube Map, so thought we'd do our own version mapping out the B2B marketing landscape. Kind of makes sense if you give it some time. The junctions were the trickiest bits...Quick Case: when content goes social
It's been about four months since we published the B2B Content Marketing Workbook and we thought we'd report back on how the campaign has worked so far. It was the first time we've used social media as a vector for our content marketing and so makes a nice case study.Join us for a Demand Generation Webinar
Stan Woods will be taking part in what's shaping up to be an excellent webinar on Innovation in Demand Generation and we thought you, as a loyal Velocity blog reader, might like to drop in (register here). John Watton will top the bill with a short case study on how ShipServ created 75% more sales opportunities without extra budget or headcount.B2B blogging for beginners
Let’s face it: these days, if you don’t have a blog on your website you’re admitting that you have nothing to say about your market, your customers, their problems…
Ghost in the machine: who should write your blog?
There's a debate in the blogosphere about whether it's right for a blog to be ghost-written, particularly one advertised as being written by a particular author. Rather than get exercised about whether this is right or wrong, the question is: can it ever work effectively? Find out what we think.All CIOs (or CEOs) are not the same
We're often asked s for creative ideas that target 'the C-suite' - CEO, COO, CFO, CIO and so on. It's natural because these guys are usually the ones to sign the cheques, particularly for significant purchases. But the question implies that these people are pretty much all the same in what they do and how they think and behave. In our experience, this isn't true.The Web Form Wall
It's a perennial debate: give your content away with no registration (web form), or force people to give you their details to get the goodies. Both arguments are compelling and both approaches have penalties...V Shortlisted for Glittering B2B Gong
We’re pleased as Punch to have been shortlisted for a B2B Marketing Magazine Award for our recent work with ShipServ. It’s hard to come over all surprised about it –…
The white paper is dead…or is it?
I presented a webinar the other day where I stated that while white papers are still the staple of content marketing, they're getting really stale as a communications vehicle for B2B. A few people were so incensed they contacted me to say I was talking nonsense. So click here to find out whether they changed my mind...The Content Marketing Workbook
It's here. The book of the webinar of the movie: The Velocity B2B Content Marketing Workbook. Over 45 breezy pages of good, solid advice about thought leadership and content marketing for B2B marketers like you. Come and get it!Watch the Velocity web seminar on Content Marketing
Stan just presented our web seminar with B2B Marketing magazine, called "Content Marketing: Thought Leadership in a Web 2.0 World". Seemed to go really well. Over 130 people attended and the feedback was excellent. The seminar is based on our imminent Content Marketing Workbook, which you'll be able to download from this site very, very soon...Join us for our new Content Marketing Webinar
Traditional, interruption-based marketing is dead (or dying fast). The new B2B marketing is Content Marketing. And while a lot of marketers think that's what they're doing when they crank out case studies and white papers, most of them really aren't doing it at all. Our new webinar explains all...Why we steal from our clients.
In the marketing world, agencies are supposed to be the 'creative' ones and clients are supposed to be the dullards who are grateful for a fresh source of ideas. In our experience, that's just not how it works...How strong is your B2B positioning?
Positioning is one of the essentials of B2B marketing but we don't see a lot of companies getting it right. It's a simple idea: as a marketer, you should explicitly manage the place your brand holds in the minds of your target audience so that it's clearly differentiated from the competition. We use this triple-test to develop strong positioning statements for our clients...Clean tech marketing and green tech marketing: a different kind of B2B
We've recently worked with a handful of companies that offer clean technologies or green technologies (or both if SEO is important to you) and we've noticed some issues that they have in common. So we thought we'd capture them in this new slideshare...Don’t get lost on the mobile Web: a mobile marketing e-Book
We just completed a new e-Book for our client dotMobi on mobile content discovery. Called 'Don't get lost on the mobile Web', you can find it at www.mobithinking.com, the online resource for mobile marketers.ROI and social media marketing for B2B
One of our clients is talking to us about spending budget on creating online buzz. Naturally, she’s thinking hard about how to justify what is effectively a new cost line…
Who needs editors?
Google has dis-intermediated the content business.
You don’t have to hire a PR agency to kiss the arses of the editors any more.
You just have to generate content that…
Slugwatch: the power of content marketing
We were just having a really thought-provoking conversation about content marketing with Andrew Findlater and Hooman Bassirian from Reed Business and they told us about Slugwatch, a service for UK…
Recent papers
The B2B Content Marketing Tutorial
A roll-up-your-sleeves guide for marketers
If you’ve read the B2B Marketing Manifesto or the Content Marketing Workbook, you’re already hip to the power of B2B content marketing.
But you need a bit of practical help on the process side of content…
The B2B Marketing Manifesto: Five Imperatives and Six Staples for Winning the Battle for Attention
There’s never been a more exciting – or a scarier– time to be a B2B marketer.
It’s not about social media, the web, or email. It’s about a completely new mindset, new buyer behaviours and a shiny new set of tools to address it all.
The B2B Content Marketing Workbook
Content Marketing is probably the single most important weapon in the B2B marketing arsenal. This eBook takes you through velocity’s approach to the art. Download it and see what you think…
A B2B Social Media Checklist
You’ve just published a great piece of content. Don’t just stick it on your website. Use social media to drive people to it (and vice versa). Here’s a one-page checklist to help you socialize your content, driving traffic and downloads…
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The B2B Marketing Manifesto: Five Imperatives and Six Staples for Winning the Battle for Attention
There’s never been a more exciting – or a scarier– time to be a B2B marketer.
It’s not about social media, the web, or email. It’s about a completely new mindset, new buyer behaviours and a shiny new set of tools to address it all.
Latest Papers
-
The B2B Content Marketing Tutorial
A roll-up-your-sleeves guide for marketers
If you’ve read the B2B Marketing Manifesto or the Content Marketing Workbook, you’re already hip to the power of B2B content marketing.
But you need a bit of practical help on the process side of content…
-
The B2B Marketing Manifesto: Five Imperatives and Six Staples for Winning the Battle for Attention
There’s never been a more exciting – or a scarier– time to be a B2B marketer.
It’s not about social media, the web, or email. It’s about a completely new mindset, new buyer behaviours and a shiny new set of tools to address it all.
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