3 Keys to Select an Exceptional PR Firm

Adam Gelles, Editor
Public relations is a key tool for B2B brands to go to market. And selecting the right PR firm is critical to your company’s success. Over the past decade, I’ve been involved in about 100 PR agency selection processes. Here are 3 areas I recommend to review when evaluating a public relations agency partner. Industry ExpertiseIt goes without saying, but industry knowledge is a must-have for a successful PR effort. As PR firms spread their wings and add social, content marketing, and other adjacent services this requirement is ever more important. My key, make sure there is a managing partner… Read More

3 Keys to Ensure Marketing Planning is Aligned with Company Goals

Adam Gelles, Editor
All too often, I see businesses whose go to market is not aligned with their overall goals and objectives. This is a function of marketing planning not taking into account business, revenue and margin goals of a company while being developed. Here are 3 keys to ensure your marketing planning efforts align to your company’s goals and objectives. Start Planning with Business ObjectivesTo begin your marketing planning effort, start by identifying the top 3 things that are important to the business. Is it revenue growth? New account acquisition? Once these are selected, put a quantitative goal in place for each… Read More

3 Marketer Types Your Marketing Team Must Have to Succeed

Adam Gelles, Editor
Over the years I’ve been inside hundreds of marketing teams – both large and small. But there are common traits to teams that have marketing excellence. It’s having great people. But more importantly it’s having great people in the right roles grouped together properly. One of the tools that we use at The B2B Marketing Company to help clients’ marketing teams excel is mapping team members to 3 key marketer archetypes. This is important since teams that fail to have all three archetypes have much lower success.  Type #1: The Doer This person has the personality and work ethic to get stuff done.… Read More

3 Ways Digital Transformation is Shaping Modern B2B Marketing

Adam Gelles
Over the last several years the majority of B2B marketers have seen their customers move online in terms of brand discovery, engagement and ultimately sales. This has become even more accelerated with the pandemic forcing businesses to move their entire customer journey’s online. Gone are the days of throwing spaghetti at the wall and hoping it sticks as you would with mass-media marketing. Digital transformation has positively influenced how we go to market, engage our stakeholders, and analyze our success at every stage of a customer’s journey. Comprehensive Decision Making The goal of marketing in mass media was to spread… Read More

3 Ways AI is Affecting Content Marketing

Adam Gelles
Digital Marketers are swimming in so much information these days to make content marketing work and AI is serving as a life-jacket to streamline these efforts. Already 64% of B2B marketers consider AI valuable for their sales and marketing strategy.  Here are the 3 ways that AI is affecting content marketing:  Custom Feed Algorithms & Predictive Analytics With advancements in technology, AI now allows marketers to track and analyze what their users are interested in and which pieces of content will gain the most traction. With AI, marketers can review predictive analytics and generate relevant content based on the data that the AI… Read More

3 Tips to Manage Content Marketing Effectively

Adam Gelles, Editor
Measuring the success of content marketing programs is a fundamental challenge for many B2B marketers. Beyond the typical volumetrics (e.g., page views) how can marketers successfully measure content marketing in a way we can understand its impact on business. Here are three tips to help your marketing team measure content marketing success. Tip #1: Measure in Context Different types of content require different tactical measures. A tent-pole research white paper and an article for SEO have two different goals. And they should be measured differently. The former’s consumption is determined by your distribution strategy, while the latter is designed to… Read More

3 Lessons to Align PR and Content Marketing

Adam Gelles, Editor
Thought leadership is a key marketing strategy to help companies grow. But in many organizations, content marketing is handled by either corporate communications (potentially via a PR agency) or by the marketing team. But keeping both teams on the same page for thought leadership efforts is critical to success. Here are some lessons I’ve seen over the decades to ensure that PR and Content Marketing Teams and their shared efforts (e.g., thought leadership) are executed with excellence. Lesson 1: Plan Together There are really two key sides of content marketing planning. The editorial plan (e.g., storytelling frameworks, calendars, etc.) and… Read More

3 Keys to Successful Marketing Planning

Adam Gelles, Editor
As much as B2B marketing constantly changes, the more it stays the same. The ritual of annualized marketing planning is an important one to chart our GTM tentpoles, align our strategy across various marketing and communication channels, and align our teams on business and revenue goals. Over the last decade, I’ve written close to 50 marketing plans for clients. Here are some key things I’ve seen that create success for marketing planning. Key 1: Inclusive Participation Marketing is a collaborative process. Therefore, planning it should be as well. For larger teams, strategic offsite meetings are a powerful tool for the… Read More

3 Proven Strategies for Improving Community Marketing

Kelsey O'Neill, Community and Social Manager
‘Tis the season of having an endless to-do list and not enough time to complete it. And while you’re caught up between last-minute shopping and gift wrapping, you may not be thinking about how this could possibly relate to marketing.  Similar to how we see an increase in community engagement in our daily lives during the holiday season; from more interactions with your mail and package carriers, neighbors, family members, or reconnecting with longtime friends through yearly holiday cards, the community is everywhere during this time of year – and it’s also the perfect time to bring community into your… Read More