Topic results for "B2B marketing"
B2B web marketing: the platform battle
As B2B web marketing comes of age, a battle is brewing between some pretty big players (and a few upstarts) over who will become the primary dashboard for marketers. The…
Never mind the Barack, it’s mobiThinking
Birth of a thought leadership website
dotMobi is a mobile Internet services company and the registry for the .mobi domain name. It’s backed by leading mobile operators, device manufacturers, and Internet…
You can have it done right, cheap, or quick. Pick two
Fortunately, it’s very rare that we ever get a client who doesn’t understand that you can’t have all three at once. Yet it’s still something that a lot of agencies…
What’s white, invisible, invaluable and online now?
No search returns!
By that I mean the empty returns so many B2B websites deliver to their users. They’re actually gold dust. They allow us to extract value from exactly nothing. …
EPiServer uses market momentum to go public
We just learned that our client EPiserver is preparing to go public on the Stockholm Stock Exchange.
The company offers the best Microsoft .Net CMS on the planet (running nearly 10,000…
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…
IBS injects Velocity into turnaround
When we met them in 2009, IBS, the specialist ERP vendor, was in turnaround. They’d just finished a major restructuring to focus the entire global business on one sector, wholesale…
2010 Content Marketing Trends and Predictions
ClickPredictions 2010
View more documents from Ambal Balakrishnan.
There she is. The 2010 Content Marketing Trends and Predictions eBook from ClickPredictions — a crowdsourced effort by “39 of the world’s…
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 a…
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 the new year’s resolutions from the…
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 to deliver the…
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…
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 opposite:…
Let us march!
My favourite quote from Ogilvy On Advertising:
“When Aeshines spoke, they said, ‘How well he speaks’. When Demosthenes spoke, they said, ‘Let us march!’”
Unfortunately, when the typical B2B copywriter speaks, they…
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…
Woo hoo! John Watton, B2B Marketer of the Year
Deer… headlights…
Woke up in a haze on a strange sofa in an unknown flat. Looked down: dinner jacket. Weird purple stain on shirt. Ah — it wasn’t a dream then:…
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…
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:
THE KIND-OF-OBVIOUS PREDICTIONS:
Content Marketing will…
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. Apparently this is a higher concentration than for Wikipedia and much, much higher…
How you market is almost as important as what you market
We spend a lot of time looking for ways to differentiate our clients based on what they do. Sometimes - surprisingly often - it’s really hard to do because the…
The Velocity B2B Marketing Tube Map
The B2B Journey Planner
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…
Brevity is the soul of traffic safety
Pet peeve: signs that desperately need a sub-editor.
This one uses nine words where… none would do (the number 30 when posted on the roadside pretty much says it all).
…
Quick Case: when content goes social
Gotta love Twitter…
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…
Join us for a Demand Generation Webinar
An illustrious panel
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…
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 and…
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…
Why ShipServ won a 2009 CRM Market Award
Once again, ShipServ has ’scooped’ a marketing award (why are awards always scooped?) — this time the 2009 CRM Market Awards run by CRM Magazine. ShipServ, piloted by CMO John…
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…
Why Real Research Is Better Than Norman Muller
Reading the report into teenage media consumption by Morgan Stanley intern Matthew Robson, aged 15 and a half, didn’t just leave me in two minds. It made me feel like…
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 -…
Velocity takes New Media Age Awards by storm (but loses)
Velocity at the New Media Age Effectiveness Awards
We were thrilled to have been a Finalist for the Best B2B Campaign in the New Media Age Effectiveness Awards, celebrated the other…
The white paper is dead…or is it?
At a webinar I presented the other day I said that while white papers were still the staple of content marketing, they’re getting really stale as a communications vehicle for B2B.…
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…
Choose your patients carefully
Choose your B2B patients wisely
The most respected surgeons in the world have the best survival rates. But they don’t have the best survival rates because they’re better surgeons. They have…
B2B Bloggers and Influence: Part I
Nothing - not even a finger buffet served on two separate tables - splits a room of B2B communication professionals down the middle like the issue of bloggers and influence.
We…
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…
ShipServ wins First Tuesday ‘Most Promising Internet Company 2009′
We swelled with pride yesterday when our client ShipServ won First Tuesday’s prestigious ‘Most promising Internet Company in the UK 2009‘ award.
We’ve been working with the company and its CMO…
Web personas and Mind Maps
Like most good digital agencies, we’ve been exploring web personas for a while and we’ve found them to be a critical aid to great site design.
If you do them thoroughly,…
Simple Steps To A User Focused Site
We never tire of building websites. The sheer pace of technology change means we constantly push the barriers back. No two projects are ever the same.
But the excitement is tempered…
How strong is your B2B positioning?
Positioning is one of the essentials of B2B marketing but it’s very rare to see it done well. It’s a simple idea: as a marketer, you should explicitly manage the…
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…
New media frenzy: the medium is just the medium
It’s an exciting time to be in the communications business. It’s not just that there are so many new ways to reach people. It’s also that we get to watch…
Twitter in B2B – a Velocity Slideshare
In the last few months, Twitter has shot from being a cult web app to a full-blown global fad. Celebrities are doing it (Stephen Fry has 361,225 followers as of…
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…
The Disruptive Idea: that’s what it’s all about
There is so much written about the black art of marketing and even more written about digital marketing (or internet marketing). Zillions of blog posts. Millions of white papers, books,…
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…
Postcreditcrunchism: marketing is the measure of all things
Every recession is a reckoning. Seemingly untouchable business empires crumble and disappear practically overnight. New ones, perhaps Richmond based, rise out the rubble.
This recession is no different. The financial industry’s…
Cross-fertilisation in social media:
tweet my post and I’ll post your tweet
Social media is a whirling tornado of content and comment. Throw a new white paper into it and, if you’re lucky, it gets tossed around in the vortex, throwing bits…
Atomizing your content: your B2B social life
Web marketing used to be all about driving traffic to your website. Now, it’s also about driving your content out into the wider web to see who trips over it,…
Digital Velocity in eight tweets: accelerate your online engagement
B2B marketing has become almost synonymous with digital marketing. If you’re not getting your story out on the web, you’re probably not getting your story out at all. Now,…
‘Inspired by Kittens’ - Five branding lessons from social media
I always keep an eye on what my friend Laurence Green’s company Fallon is doing (disclosure: our elder daughters have known each other since they were about three weeks old…
Is the Mobile Web ready for B2B (and vice versa)?
B2B Marketing Magazine just published an article we wrote on what every B2B marketer should be thinking about the mobile web. These are clearly still early days for the mobile…
Microsoft gets it right
We’ve given Microsoft some bad reviews here — especially for the “I’m a PC” ad campaign, so it feels only fair to give them some credit when they get it…
Going social in B2B: seven automatic actions for every piece of content
Time was, you generated a piece of thought leadership content, stuck it on your website and eNewsletter, then sat back counting the hits. Today, whenever we produce a new piece…
17 Strategies to Killer Ads
I stumbled across a great blog today that attempted to categorise advertising strategies. Based on an analysis of The Advertising Concept Book by Pete Barry, it’s a really useful list…
Why Ronald Reagan is the Spitting Image of an internet pioneer
Presidents are all the rage. Obama and Nixon, in their own ways, are the toast of the Hollywood glitterati. And Ronald Reagan has emerged as a genuine internet pioneer.
Okay, okay. …
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 people really…
10 Tips for Using Twitter And Email Marketing for B2B
We’re exploring how to use Twitter for B2B marketing right now (you can follow us at http://twitter.com/dougkessler and we just started http://twitter.com/velocitytweets for tweeting blog posts like this one). As…
B2B Content Marketing - five or so mistakes
In B2B marketing, content marketing is what works. It’s all about generating content that the target audience will value, then driving that content into the market and out over the…
Digital PR: Shut up and listen
A good interview on ScobleizerTV with Joshua Reynolds who oversees Hill and Knowlton’s global technology practice. Traditional PR firms get a lot of stick lately about being slow to pick…
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…
The perfect direct mail list: just 23 companies
I recently received this letter, offering me a personalised number plate with my last name on it:
The author, one Ray Kessler, needs to get rid of his vanity plate fast. …
Papa’s got a brand new bag, maaan.
I’ve been a member of emusic, a great music download service, for a few years now (I had an argument with iTunes and vowed never to use them again, but…
Drop-down positioning at the Royal Opera House
We’re always telling clients that everything you do contributes to your positioning.
A great example from a drop-down menu in a Royal Opera House web form:
That’s just a small sample. Check…
Five Basic Social Theories of Online PR
Roger , our web wonderwall, posted a terrific article on the essentials of Online PR. The central metaphor: the web is a party — work the room instead of stumbling…
Velocity Xmas B2B Technology Marketing Newsletter: the Gift That Keeps on Giving
That’s right, deck the halls - it’s that giving time of year….
In our bumper edition Xmas newsletter, you’ll find:
A super-shiny new White Paper, ‘The Hierarchy of Benefits‘, which identifies one of…
Survival kit for growth companies
Max Bleyleben’s excellent Technofile Europe blog recently posted this Survival Kit for Growth Companies, suggesting a strategy (or at least a list of tactics) for surviving the crunch. It ranges…
Opt-Out: Digital Marketing’s punch in the stomach
Marketing used to be all about the upside. You fired off a message; some people responded; others didn’t. Net gain.
In the digital world, there’s a downside that’s as painful as…
Zappos’ culture: paying employees to leave is great marketing
Saw a fantastic video online today that I thought I’d share.
It’s a presentation by Tony Hsieh, the CEO of Zappos, the US online retailer famous for shoes. He talks about…
Credit Crunch B2B Marketing: Demand Generation, Lead Nurturing and Online PR
The CEO is stalking the corridors, blood dripping from his Budget Axe — and he’s on his way to the marketing department. Your department.
How will you defend your marketing plan? “That…
Evel Knievel, corporate positioning & corporate message development
B2B tech companies are often run by engineers. Engineers are great at talking about technology, but not so great at translating the technology into business benefits that people actually believe.
Being…
Spamalot to the Holy Grail: a personal email journey
Are you a spammer? I’m sure you’re not. But I’ll cheerfully wager that some of you have, at one point, been confused for one.
According to the BBC, undercover US researchers,…
Your new content may not be as relevant as your old
All the best B2B tech marketers are mini-publishing houses — they never stop cranking out thought-provoking content on the issues their target market cares most about. White papers, blog posts,…
A really good newsletter
We know we ‘big up’ Pär Almqvist, the Marketing Dude at VNL, quite a bit. But we thought you’d like to see what we consider a really, really good eNewsletter…
Microsoft’s baffling “I’m a PC” campaign
Apple got a lot of attention with its “PC vs Mac” commericals. They were simple, funny, well-scripted and seemed to capture the essence of what Mac people love about their…
Because you’re worth it
Why are so few B2B companies as good at naming things as consumer companies?
We all could learn a lot from beauty companies like L’Oreal, which uses naming to great, if…
Branding as body language
A friend of ours who also happens to be a God of Branding just sent us an article he wrote ten years ago but could have been written yesterday. He’s…
I beg you: don’t bore the bejesus out of me
Marketing is communication.
B2B marketing is bad communication.
That’s how your audience thinks about everything you put out.
Their expectations couldn’t be lower.
They’ve waded through thousands of case studies and brochures and web…
Tech marketing trapped in Plato’s Cave
Will we ever learn?
The hilarious spoof of Microsoft’s attempt to re-label the iPod packaging appears to focus on a modern marketing issue. But Plato, the pick of Greece’s golden generation…
B2B Web Marketing Tools Around Town
Being a nice chap, I thought I’d share a few of our secret web marketing tools with you. These are the apps and widgets that we use day in, day…
Playing in the creative sandbox
Despite living in a ‘creative’ world, most agencies are pretty linear. They take the brief, then they do the creative.
Velocity is a bit different. When we do consulting engagements –…
Buff Your Pitch Up. Google Suggest & B2B Content Marketing
It’s funny, but oftentimes we marketers are our own worst enemy when it comes to marketing ‘ideas’. In my time I’ve had the pleasure of conceiving some truly dreadful press…
The C word: the importance of confidence in B2B marketing
A great website. Lots of white papers and thought leadership content. Case studies and customer testimonials. Great campaigns and creative. Awards, editorial coverage and analyst attention. They’re all important to…
Quick Start Pimp Your Content Guide to SEO
I’ve been doing a stack of content optimisation for client web sites lately, so I thought I’d share some of my ‘how to’ notes with the interweb.
As I do this…
Guerrilla video: VNL thinks beyond B2B
We blogged a while back about the idea of guerrilla video for B2B websites — foregoing expensive video productions to just go out and get the footage you need to…
A Different Kind of Growth Equity Investor Needs a Different Kind of Web Presence
Don’t know about you, but it’s Friday evening and we’re offski. Peroni awaits. We’re celebrating the launch of a brand new web site for Kennet.
This is our latest and greatest…
Marketers everywhere - get a little mobiThinking
…check out mobiThinking.com, which was launched today to help the world’s marketing community to better understand the opportunities and challenges presented by mobile marketing. (Note: it’s web marketing Jim, but…
Mobile Marketing Madness: What We Learned this Week
We’ve been beavering away over the past few weeks on an important new campaign for one of our shiny new clients in the mobile internet space.
It’s a fascinating area -…
The Velocity B2B Social Media & Web Engagement Mind Map
We’ve been working on a number of ‘web engagement’ programs lately, where we’ve been helping clients to increase their web ‘footprint’ in order to improve their general SEO and awareness…
B2B lead generation with thought leadership content: ditch the web-to-lead forms and win
Here’s an experment for you to try.
Open your web stats app and check out which pieces of content are your top performers over the past month. (By top performers, I…
Your First (Free) Baby Steps in B2B Web Marketing
OK, Listen Up
Your web site is not your field of dreams. Build it and most likely they will not come.
Nope, once it’s built your goal is to make it work as…
The power of “You”: the 2nd person singular in B2B copywriting
Most B2B technology copywriting is so boring because its so neutral. The best copywriting looks the prospect squarely in the eye and says, “I’m going to sell to you and…
17 credibility builders that make your claims believable
Anyone can claim anything they like about their product or service. Claims are empty. Your job as a B2B marketer is to get believed.
But credibility is a funny thing. It’s…
Recent papers
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…
The Benefit Hierarchy in corporate positioning & corporate message development
Managing the relationship between value and credibility is the key to good corporate positioning and corporate message development…
Riding the Hype Cycle
Gartner’s Hype Cycle maps a curve that describes the way new technologies become adopted by the marketplace over time. Here’s how you should ride it to your advantage…
Topics
Featured Paper
-
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…
Latest Papers
-
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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