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B2B content marketing
Content marketing: get the Innovator’s Dividend
Written by Doug Kessler |
Doing new things in content marketing gets you the Innovator’s Dividend. Here’s why you want it and how to get it.
The Content Marketer’s Progress: Surviving the Slough of Despond
Written by Neil Stoneman |
Every great content journey must find a way to keep best practice methods intact.
The Future of Content Marketing: Five Beyonds
Written by Doug Kessler |
Where is content marketing going? Doug took a shot at answering this at the B2B Huddle last week. Slides here.
B2B content marketing in 180 seconds
Written by Doug Kessler |
Short interviews are better than long ones. Here’s a recent three-minute session on Content vs Crap.
We’re hiring smart, talented marketers (no recruiters, thanks)
Written by Doug Kessler |
Velocity is looking for two account people, a planner and a designer. Superstars. (No recruiters.)
Sometimes content is not the answer. A content marketing fail.
Written by Doug Kessler |
To content marketers, every problem looks like a case for content. Sometimes it just isn’t. Know when to say no.
Introducing The Center of Content Excellence
Written by Doug Kessler |
Big companies are suffering from content proliferation syndrome. A Center of Content Excellence can help.
Google updates Panda – why I don’t give a shit
Written by Doug Kessler |
SEOs fall over each other every time Google updates its algorithm. Here’s why we don’t do that at Velocity.
6 ways to turn comments into content
Written by Doug Kessler |
How to turn blog comments into great content for your content marketing programs. A simple tip but a powerful one.
What’s this Content Marketing Hangout on 21 March?
Written by Ryan Skinner |
Decorated veterans of content marketing join us to explore how marketers can build a case for it.
Ever have one of those days when it feels like…
Written by Doug Kessler |
It took 17 hours to make this image. Just when I got the cats to stay still for one word, the others would be off.
Why the content marketing backlash is getting it wrong
Written by Doug Kessler |
An angry mob is forming to denounce content marketing. Here’s why I think they’re mostly (but not all) wrong.
Great content marketing is a filter not just a magnet
Written by Doug Kessler |
We marketers work hard to attract prospects. Here’s why you need to actively chase them away, too.
Behind the Crap: what it feels like to go viral
Written by Doug Kessler |
A diary of the roller-coaster ride we took when the Crap slideshare went kind of viral on us. Hint: it was fun.
19 verbs that help to build your new marketing team
Written by Stan Woods |
All about the shape and tasks of the modern B2B marketing team and the 19 verbs that tell you what you need to do.
Der Kessler spricht – The Content Marketing Deluge
Written by Martha Rzeppa |
In preparation for our Content Strategy Hangout,we talk to Doug about the imminent content marketing deluge.
What do you look for in a content marketing partner? [INFOGRAPHIC]
Written by Ryan Skinner |
There are 1000s of ways to do content marketing. Pick your partner wisely with this infographic…
The emergence of marketing operations: let’s aim for yin & yang not a dialogue of the deaf.
Written by Stan Woods |
B2B marketing works best when there’s an alliance between marketing artists and scientists
The B2B Marketing Fun Poll
Written by Martha Rzeppa |
We’re convinced that – even for the driest of B2B markets – successful marketing is fun marketing.
Crap: the single biggest threat to B2B content marketing
Written by Doug Kessler |
Why the content marketing deluge will force all B2B marketers to raise their game and build a great content brand.
Der Kessler spricht – Content Marketing Resolutions 2013
Written by Martha Rzeppa |
Doug ‘Der Kessler’ talks Content Marketing Resolutions 2013.
B2B meets B2C: an obscene video
Written by Doug Kessler |
The difference between B2B and B2C: an obscene B2B video. Parental Warning: mild but emphatic profanity.
Slideshare Pro for B2B content marketing
Written by Doug Kessler |
We finally signed up for Slideshare PRO. Here are our first impressions for fellow content marketers.
The Year in B2B Content Marketing – Best of (Other People’s) Content
Written by Ryan Skinner |
2012 was a great year for content about B2B content marketing. Here are 27 examples that we admired this year…
Mastering Tone of Voice in B2B content marketing
Written by Doug Kessler |
How you say things can be even more important than what you say. So actively manage your Tone of Voice.
The Cutting Edge of B2B Content Marketing
Written by Ryan Skinner |
37 ways to put yourself at the cutting edge of B2B content marketing and win hearts and minds to your brand!
The state of B2B marketing: a review of Funnel 2012
Written by Doug Kessler |
Funnel 2012 was a mirror on the B2B marketing industry. We went, we saw and now we’re reporting back to you.
Gut reactions from the B2B marketing vanguard
Written by Ryan Skinner |
Loving it! Former VP Optimization at a demand gen agency shares no-holds-barred observations on content marketing.
Stan does Funnel 2012 – the B2B marketing event
Written by Doug Kessler |
Stan Woods tells you why you’d be insane to miss his session at FUNNEL 20122, the major B2B marketing event.
Three Poisonous Metaphors in B2B Content Marketing
Written by Doug Kessler |
We all use these three metaphors as we discuss B2B content marketing. But maybe we should think twice…
Stan Woods on B2B content marketing
Written by Doug Kessler |
A short, sharp interview with Velocity MD Stan Woods on the power of B2B content marketing and the value of story.
The Great B2B Content Marketing Convergence
Written by Doug Kessler |
All aboard! A single doodle that summarises how everyone and their uncle is becoming a content marketer.
B2B marketers: denial is not a strategy
Written by Doug Kessler |
Most B2B marketing strategies are still fueled by some serious denial. Time to wake up and smell the coffee.
The B2B Content Marketing Trends Report
Written by Doug Kessler |
Holger Shulze’s survey of the B2B Technology Marketing community shows content marketing trends. It’s booming!
Visual marketing vs stupid old words
Written by Doug Kessler |
Words are dead. Visual marketing is the new religion. A doddering old wordsmith fights back while admitting defeat.
Diary of a Content Pimp 5 – Content analytics and the power of the series
Written by Ryan Skinner |
A statistical study of the performance of our blog posts in series (like this one) versus stand-alone posts…
Better B2B Video Marketing: a BrightTalk panel
Written by Doug Kessler |
Doug took part in this BrightTalk webinar on B2B marketing video. Tune in for some sound advice and a few examples.
Velocity a finalist for Content Marketing Agency of the Year
Written by Doug Kessler |
We’re, in the local vernacular, ‘chuffed to bits’ to be a finalist for the Content Marketing Institute’s award!
Diary of a Content Pimp 3 – the promotion plan
Written by Doug Kessler |
Everybody has a content plan these days but too few have content promotion plans. Here’s ours for the ‘Checklist’.
Diary of a Content Pimp 2 – Goals, Metrics & Fears
Written by Doug Kessler |
The one about our goals for the Content Marketing Checklist campaign and the metrics we’ll use to track them.
B2B Content Marketing Models I: The weekly/monthly content roundup
Written by Ryan Skinner |
Take time to prowl your market for great online content, and share the best of the best with your audiences.
B2B Content Marketing Roundtable
Written by Doug Kessler |
Doug joined Joe Pulizzi of the CMI and Jim Burns of Avitage on this Marketing Made Simple TV show. Check it out.
Diary of a Content Pimp 1 – The kick-off
Written by Doug Kessler |
The first in a series of posts telling the story behind the Content Marketing Strategy Checkllist campaign.
The B2B Content Marketing Strategy Checklist is born
Written by Doug Kessler |
A Content Marketing Strategy Checklist is born! We’re proud of our new baby and hope it helps you do great things.
Mapping content to the B2B buying stage
Written by Doug Kessler |
A DemandCon talk on mapping content to different purchase stages – by Doug Kessler and Bob Apollo.
Forrester gets the new B2B technology marketing
Written by Doug Kessler |
B2B technology marketing analyst Peter O’Neill of Forrester Research really gets the new B2B content marketing.
Using Piktochart: a marketing technology review
Written by Doug Kessler |
A friend alerted me to Piktochart, the online Infographics creator so I thought I’d give it a try. Here’s my first impression after making two infographics, the one you see above (which took about 7 minutes) and a spoof Content Marketing Strategy infographic I cranked out last week and shared on Pinterest (yes, it did [...]
B2B Marketing Research: content marketing goes mainstream
Written by Doug Kessler |
A quick bit of B2B marketing research: a comparison of ‘Content Marketing’ compared with the general Advertising and Marketing category search volumes and with other related terms. From Google Insights for Search.
The editorial calendar for content marketing: a round-up
Written by Doug Kessler |
As B2B marketers get serious about content marketing, they’re starting to bring together the people, processes and technologies needed to run a continuous content-generating machine. An editorial calendar is central to this new discipline and the core of a marketing plan. To call it best practice is like calling breathing a best practice technique for [...]
Buyer personas in B2B content marketing: a round-up of resources
Written by Doug Kessler |
The power of buyer personas in B2B content marketing. You mean you don’t do personas?
How to use Prezi for B2B content marketing
Written by Doug Kessler |
Prezi is the cloud-based presentation software that’s like Powerpoint on LSD. Its ‘zoomable user interface’ (ZUI?) with swoopy transitions and infinite drill-downs make it a sexy alternative to boring old slides. Here’s how and why you should put it in your B2B content marketing toolkit…
B2B Marketing Masters: How do you make content stand out in a busy market? [VIDEO]
Written by Ryan Skinner |
Golden B2B content marketing rule: Thou shalt not be dull as dishwater! In this humorous video segment, two B2B con
How to build a B2B content marketing team
Written by Doug Kessler |
Great B2B content marketing is teamwork. But it’s rare to have all the necessary talents in one person, so here are the ten types you need on your team…
Salesforce Social Success case study
Written by Doug Kessler |
Kieran Flanagan has written an excellent summary on SEOmoz of the Salesforce Social Success content microsite. He tells this B2B content marketing case story so well, I won’t try to re-tell it here. Just wanted to share my favourite graphic from it: Says it all — the sweet spot for all B2B marketing is where [...]
Pinterest for B2B marketing: Velocity dives in
Written by Doug Kessler |
At Velocity, we never let a bandwagon rattle past without at least making a token effort towards hopping on board. So when Pinterest started to pick up steam, we registered without a moment’s hesitation. Our excuse? We need to learn about this stuff even if it’s not exactly suited to our business. As soon as [...]
Find out if your content has wings
Written by Neil Stoneman |
The first of our “Content Marketing Mickle Series” tells you how to boost conversions and better measure campaign e
The problem/solution structure in B2B content marketing
Written by Doug Kessler |
When it comes to structuring a B2B marketing argument, it’s hard to beat the good old ‘Problem/Solution’ structure. It’s stood the test of time for some very good reasons: It gets the target audience nodding in agreement – if they recognise the problem you’re describing, they’re much more likely to lean forward and give you [...]
Guest blogging in B2B content marketing (with some examples)
Written by Doug Kessler |
Guest blogging is a great way to extend your reach, get discovered by new people and earn some valuable backlnks. Here are a few guest posts we’ve done recently that you may have missed.
Why Adam Smith Invented Content Marketing
Written by Neil Stoneman |
Find out why content marketing is one of the best examples of enlightened self-interest ever seen after 350 years of disagreements and disputes.
Is B2B content marketing jumping the shark?
Written by Doug Kessler |
‘Jumping the shark’ is one of my favourite expressions. Wikipedia tells us it means “the moment in the evolution of a television show when it begins a decline in quality that is beyond recovery. The phrase is also used to refer to a particular scene, episode or aspect of a show in which the writers [...]
Content Differentiation: Doug Does Mad Marketing TV
Written by Doug Kessler |
I was honoured to be invited to be Jeff Ogden’s guest on Mad Marketing TV, the excellent series of interviews with B2B marketers. Here’s the interview — and the ‘after-party’ chat — on Content Differentiation (the next big challenge for content marketers).
B2B Content Marketing: Infographic Angles of Attack
Written by Ryan Skinner |
Yes, there are good infographics and bad infographics. But, more importantly, there are different kinds of good infographics. Here’s a basic taxonomy to frame your thinking.
Viral videos? First have a B2B video marketing strategy
Written by Doug Kessler |
A client asked for a bit of help in putting together a video strategy for next year’s marketing plan. In writing a reply, we realised that there are so many different ways of using video in B2B content marketing – not just the obvious video demos and viral videos…
Starting with an earthquake and building to a climax
Written by Stan Woods |
Sam Goldwyn, legendary Hollywood film producer (famous for malapropisms, paradoxes and errors of speech) once said: “We want a story that starts out with an earthquake and works its way up to a climax”. I’m not sure we quite achieved that at Velocity’s first live Marketing Masters one-hour-long interview with John Watton from Expedia.
Social Success: a new content site for Salesforce.com
Written by Doug Kessler |
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 businesses harness the power of social media. Our job was to find the considerable pockets of expertise within Salesforce (the place is crawling with very, very [...]
Velocity’s B2B content marketing research trip to Paris
Written by Doug Kessler |
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 marketing works for B2B content marketing agencies over in Paris, the French capital of B2B content marketing. This B2B content marketing blog post is a [...]
Moneyball: Why Oakland Analytics will change our world
Written by Neil Stoneman |
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
Written by Doug Kessler |
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. The best content marketing tends to be narrowly targeted, focusing on a very specific audience. That’s how we maximise relevance, earn downloads and reward engagement. [...]
Heavenly B2B Content Marketing: The Ave Maria Moment
Written by Neil Stoneman |
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
Written by Doug Kessler |
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 telling clients and prospects why it’s such a powerful thing. Today, those conversations are a lot shorter. B2B marketers have discovered content marketing as the engine [...]
Now THAT’s an infographic (most B2B infographics aren’t)
Written by Doug Kessler |
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 has gone B2B infographic crazy in the last year or so, we’ve been much more likely to be disappointed than delighted. Most B2B infographics are really [...]
Content Development using Inbound Writer
Written by Doug Kessler |
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 enthusiastic that Ryan gave it a go and Ryan, while considerably less enthusiastic, thought it might be worth playing with. So I’m creating this very [...]
Hackgate Technique: The Content Marketing Skill Part 2
Written by Ryan Skinner |
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?
Written by Doug Kessler |
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 Lancaster Hotel in London. As a friend of Velocity, you get a 20% discount to the event just by using this code: FLD508. Four tracks: Attract, [...]
The Devil wants Pravda (and he wants it now)
Written by Neil Stoneman |
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
Written by Doug Kessler |
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 that we thought would have died off by now: “Why should we give content away that tells people exactly how to do what we do? Won’t [...]
Content marketing & marketing automation webinar
Written by Doug Kessler |
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, Bob Apollo of Inflexion Point and Hubspot takes you through his principles of content marketing and Doug Kessler from Velocity shares Twelve Lessons learned from our [...]
The A/B and Multivariate Testing Resource Map
Written by Doug Kessler |
Testing is the single best way to improve your conversion rates and turn more traffic into customers. Here’s help.
Are you the bore in the corner?
Written by Doug Kessler |
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, clear eye. And the result was, in Andrew’s words, “overwhelmingly bad. Every page on our website, every article we’d written, every e-newsletter, every piece of collateral [...]
Five B2B marketing posts we think you’ll like
Written by Doug Kessler |
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 this persona in mind, via the magic of content curation, here are five blog posts we’ve enjoyed recently: Social Media, Pretend Friends, and the Lie [...]
B2B Marketing Webinar: B2B Content Marketing and Automation
Written by Doug Kessler |
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 at 1pm London time and you can register here. Facilitated by John Sweeney of DemandGen, the marketing automation consultants, the web panel will include Velocity’s [...]
Nine companies B2B marketers should know about
Written by Doug Kessler |
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 for their companies; they’re all great at what they do; and they’re all Velocity clients – which says a hell of a lot about their judgement [...]
Internet Marketing Strategy: a meaty new briefing for all marketers
Written by Doug Kessler |
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 – take an info-break and read this one report from the Gods of Digital Marketing: Econsultancy. It’s the new Internet Marketing Strategy Briefing and, unlike the [...]
How to write FAQs – an FAQ for B2B
Written by Doug Kessler |
We’re big believers in the power of a great FAQ section on a B2B website . Here’s an FAQ about why.
In case you missed these B2B marketing guest posts
Written by Doug Kessler |
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 thing: our regular blog readers don’t get to see them unless they happen to follow the blogs we’re posting on. We wouldn’t want to simply cut [...]
12 Lessons from the Manifesto Campaign – Project Open Kimono 13
Written by Doug Kessler |
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 market. There’s some yadda-yadda to go with it but you’ll probably get the idea… 12 Lessons from the B2B Marketing Manifesto Campaign View more presentations [...]
B2B chalk talk videos: capturing your best experts
Written by Doug Kessler |
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 and meetings. The one who can make your story seem so simple, clear and compelling. This guy is a priceless asset – but the one thing [...]
Do the British prefer ‘muddling through’ to evidence-based B2B marketing?
Written by Stan Woods |
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
Written by Doug Kessler |
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. When you do that, you’re leaving a lot of content value behind and wasting a real opportunity to get more goodies for just a little more [...]
The B2B Content Marketing Tutorial
Written by Doug Kessler |
How do you create great content? This quick Prezi will take you by the hand and show you the way.
B2B content marketing around buying triggers
Written by Doug Kessler |
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
Written by Doug Kessler |
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 myopia and start thinking about ideas in the real world again (then spin them in digital directions). A cool example from the consumer world: The [...]
Project Open Kimono 11: Do Twitter Auto DMs work?
Written by Doug Kessler |
One of the experiments we’ve run as part of Project Open Kimono was to set up an automated Direct Message to everyo
LinkedIn Maps: your network visualised
Written by Doug Kessler |
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, dynamic map showing all your connections and how they’re related to each other. It colour codes the clusters it identifies and lets you assign your own [...]
A nice bit of visual B2B personalisation
Written by Doug Kessler |
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 of so many friends and contacts looking back at me. I also like the little scribbled comments like ‘See Simon’s new job’. The only question [...]
Project Open Kimono 10 – The Form Conclusion
Written by Neil Stoneman |
We cursed the web form. But warned it might fight back. Has the form risen, Phoenix like from the Velocity flames,
How to inject urgency into your B2B marketing
Written by Doug Kessler |
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 hour of every day and about how the best-laid campaigns of the humble B2B marketer doesn’t stand a snowball’s chance in Haiti anymore. But we haven’t [...]
Project Open Kimono 8: email follow-up and promotional defense barriers
Written by Doug Kessler |
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 the Manifesto. In the spirit of Project Open Kimono, here’s what we’ve learned. What we did To announce the publication of the B2B Marketing Manifesto, we [...]
B2B Marketing Agency campaign in a scribble
Written by Doug Kessler |
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.