In the first part of this B2B marketer fails series, I talked about how B2B marketers fail to realize they are selling to people, not businesses. They sell to the professionals who work at a business. And though these professionals have their work hats on, they need to be convinced based on their own personal needs, ambitions, and motivations. The crux of the fail is marketers ignoring how they act themselves. Whether as a consumer or a professional, the people in the marketing department … [Read more...]
How to Hire Great Inbound Marketers: Six Key Personality Traits
Note: I originally published this post on LinkedIn. Inbound marketing requires certain skills – skills you may not have in your department. As it becomes an ever-larger part of the marketing mix, finding people who are good at inbound is going to become more important. But as buzzy as inbound marketing is, finding people who are good at it is not easy. How can that be? After all, it’s not like inbound was invented yesterday. The term ‘inbound marketing’ was coined by Hubspot’s Brian … [Read more...]
Demand Generation Through the Fisherman’s Eye: Three Ways Haul in Leads
I was preparing recently to clearly explain to an executive the different marketing channels we use in demand generation. It can all get technical very quickly, and I didn't want to cause his eyes glaze over. I was trying to come up with an analogy I could use. I'm not sure why fishing came to mind. I was in the pool when the analogy popped into my head, but I don't fish empathy triggered the idea. The image of hooking a lead may have shaken loose in my skull. Or perhaps it was the memory of … [Read more...]
Organic Traffic Isn’t Free: How to Dispel this Common Misconception
I was in a meeting recently with a web design agency. We were discussing a new site, and how we would be generating leads, when he made the following comment, “Of course, you want to get lots of that free organic traffic.” I thought to myself, I'm not going to hire this guy. He has no idea what he's talking about. Why did I think that? Because SEO is not a one time, set-it-and-forget-it operation. Growing organic traffic takes a lot of work. Lots of staff and agency time. That costs money. It … [Read more...]
Want to learn even more about marketing?