Here we cut the world of B2B marketing into digestible nuggets of inspiration, highlighting courageous individuals and ideas approximately two times a month. Want to contribute content to our blog?
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Can a great story drive leads? (Spoiler alert: Yes!)
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August 23, 2018
We've recently sent you some examples of the power of great storytelling. But can a great story actually drive leads your business? The answer is, unequivocally, "Yes!" (And we can prove it). Hear from one of our clients, in her own words, about how our story-driven marketing campaign ("Reducing Friction") has generated qualified leads and awareness for Tungsten Network: We've...

The Name Game is Not a Simple Tune for Brands
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August 22, 2018
One of the most bizarre yet pervasive quirks of the business world is that everyone thinks they are a qualified marketer. The collective rationale is that because they consume products like other humans, their opinions must be valid. Well folks, I've witnessed a rocket launch but that doesn't make me a NASA scientist. Marketing is an increasingly sophisticated discipline requiring...

CMO Challenges
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August 22, 2018
At the tail end of 2017, I participated in a CMO Roundtable. It was somewhat therapeutic knowing that all 19 of my fellow seasoned CMOs had a similar view of their jobs: "It's damn hard!" The good news is that to a person, everyone sitting around the table actually loved their jobs along with the challenges and rewards that came with it....

B2B Marketing: Find Your Inner Geek
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August 20, 2018
Whether it's seen as a guiding light or a perilous sinkhole, the use of data is a predominant consideration for B2B marketers, especially as they look ahead to 2018. In fact, gathering, dissecting, deploying and protecting data is so top-of-mind that you might think these folks were becoming geeks of the first order, mirroring the passions and predilections of coders and...

CMOs: Keep Your Eyes on Revenue Generation
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August 17, 2018
Ensconced in the luxurious observation lounge of a brand-new 168,000-ton ship, Meg Lee, chief marketing officer of Norwegian Cruise Lines, greeted me with smiles and a champagne glass. This demonstration of the notion that travel should be fun ended with my first question about her definition of marketing. She responded: "filling ships." "My job is to fill a fleet of...

B2B Marketing: How One CMO Pulled His Team Together
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August 15, 2018
If "every village has its idiot" had an antithesis, it would be "every community has its organizer." In any group setting, he or she is that person who naturally brings together disparate individuals with a common bond and, most important, mobilizes them for action. At Kofax, that person is Grant Johnson, chief marketing officer. The automation software company was acquired...

How to Create Emotional Appeal for Tough Products
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August 8, 2018
Ah taxes... If the thought of getting through this onerous, yearly ritual brings a tear of frustration and anxiety to your eye, you're not alone. But there is hope - and help - available, as this storytelling campaign from tax and accounting software maker, Intuit, so poignantly demonstrates. It just goes to show that no matter what the product or...

The Hiddens Risks of MarTech
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August 6, 2018
Finding myself among the 145 million American's who personal information was compromised by the gargantuan Equifax data breach, I welcomed the chance to talk with cybersecurity expert Norman Guadagno, senior VP of data security company Carbonite. Our conversation was both scary and enlightening as Guadagno pointed out how poorly Equifax handled the crisis, the inevitability of having your personal and company...

Your Inbound and Outbound Lead Gen Must Have THIS...
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August 1, 2018
Do you know the one thing that ALL inbound and outbound lead generation strategies need to succeed? (See the answer below, but first consider this): Where do you "lead" your inbound leads - and what do you give them when they get there? How do you market to outbound prospects? You give them content, right? Sometimes that content is your...