Tag Archive for: inbound marketing

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High Tech B2B Marketers: Use Placed Editorial to Boost Your Inbound Marketing Results

Content is king, but digital channels are noisy. Even the best marketing assets can get lost in the deluge of AI-generated content. In response, B2B marketers must continually find innovative strategies to enhance online visibility and engage target audiences. Placed editorial content is often an under-utilized marketing tactic that can help your brand stand out. This blog post delves into what placed editorial is, its benefits, and how you can effectively leverage it to boost your inbound marketing programs.

What is Placed Editorial?

Placed editorial content refers to articles, features, or any form of written content strategically placed in external publications or platforms other than the brand’s owned media. Unlike traditional advertising, which is overtly promotional, placed editorials offer valuable information, insights, or stories that resonate with the target audience while subtly integrating the brand’s message or expertise.

The Benefits of Placed Editorial

1. Enhanced Credibility

By appearing in reputable external publications, you can borrow the publication’s credibility, enhancing your company’s own in the eyes of the target audience.

2. Targeted Audience Reach

Contributing articles to targeted publications that cater to specific industries or interests allows you to reach new audiences.

3. SEO Advantages

Including backlinks to your company website within the editorial or the author’s bio can improve search engine rankings by increasing your domain authority and referral traffic.

4. Brand Awareness and Thought Leadership

Sharing expertise through well-written articles can position your brand as a thought leader in the industry, increasing brand awareness and reputation.

How to Use Placed Editorial Effectively

Identify the Right Platforms

The first step in leveraging editorial content is identifying the right publications that align with your brand’s target audience and industry niche. You should spend time researching publications that your ideal customers are likely to read and hold authority within the industry.

Craft Compelling Content

An article’s effectiveness depends on the content’s quality and relevance. You should focus on creating articles that provide real value to the reader, such as industry insights, trends, case studies, or solutions to common problems. The content should be engaging, well-researched, and written in a tone that aligns with the publication’s style.

Integrate Brand Messaging Subtly

While the primary goal of placed editorial content is to provide value to the reader, it’s also an opportunity for subtle brand promotion. You should integrate your brand messaging or expertise in a way that feels natural and adds to the value of the content rather than detracting from it.

Build Relationships with Publishers

Successful placed editorial strategies often rely on building strong relationships with publishers and editors. You should focus on understanding the publication’s content needs and how their editorial can contribute value. Providing high-quality, exclusive content can help in establishing a beneficial partnership.

Measure Success

To gauge the effectiveness of placed editorial content, you must track metrics such as website traffic, engagement rates, lead generation, and SEO rankings post-publication. This data will help refine your strategy and identify the most valuable publications for future placements.

Conclusion: Improve Inbound Marketing Results with Placed Editorial

Placed editorial content is a powerful tool for enhancing your company’s online visibility, credibility, and audience engagement. By focusing on providing value through high-quality, relevant content and building strong relationships with publishers, you can effectively use placed editorials to achieve your marketing objectives. As the generative AI digital landscape continues to evolve, placing editorial content will remain a key component of successful B2B inbound marketing strategies.

If you need help establishing or executing an effective placed editorial strategy, Attain Marketing is here to help! With our expertise and deep understanding of the B2B technology marketing landscape, we can help you navigate the complexities of B2B digital marketing and develop customized strategies that align with your brand and objectives.

From leveraging content marketing to establishing thought leadership, Attain Marketing can guide you every step of the way. So, join us to tap into the power of content marketing, public relations, and audience engagement to supercharge your company’s growth!

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Tech Startups: Common B2B Inbound Marketing Mistakes and How to Avoid Them 

Inbound marketing can set the stage for long-term revenue growth, but only if you avoid common B2B inbound marketing mistakes and set realistic expectations with your executive team.

Today’s B2B customers are looking for buying experiences that provide them with easily accessible information — curated to their roles, business needs, and priorities. According to PwC, 65% of U.S. customers find a positive brand experience more influential than great advertising. That makes inbound marketing a strategic imperative for startups or high-tech B2B marketers looking to grow revenues.

Understanding B2B Inbound Marketing

Unlike traditional outbound marketing tactics, which broadly focus on promoting products or services, inbound marketing invites potential customers into a narrative, fostering engagement and trust through high-value content, search engine marketing, and personalized interactions. 

Too often, B2B tech marketers think inbound marketing is just about generating sales content. It’s not. Today’s buyers don’t want a sales pitch, cold calls, or impersonal emails. They want to be informed.

Doing inbound marketing right requires a comprehensive approach that includes understanding prospective buyers’ demographics and motivations, creating useful content, optimizing it for search engines, engaging on social media, and nurturing leads to drive conversion. That’s not to say that far-reaching traditional outbound marketing tactics that sell the benefits of products and services are obsolete. Just be sure to align outbound efforts with inbound programs to amplify your brand’s reach and impact.

Common B2B Inbound Marketing Mistakes

1. Expecting Quick Results

Many executives expect immediate results from their marketing investments. When they don’t see quick ROI, they cancel inbound marketing programs. Unlike outbound tactics, which can generate fast, albeit short-lived, spikes in engagement, inbound marketing is a long-term investment. It builds momentum over time, cultivating a loyal audience and generating sustained lead flow.

2. Believing Inbound Is Only for B2C

Many executives falsely believe that inbound marketing is only effective for B2C markets. B2B tech buyers need more informative and engaging content than B2C consumers to support their purchase decisions as they move through the sales funnel from interest to close. Inbound marketing directly serves this need, facilitating a more informed and engaged B2B customer base.

3. Thinking Content Is the Only Requirement

While content is undeniably the cornerstone of inbound marketing, its effectiveness is contingent upon a broader strategy. This includes thoughtful distribution, ongoing SEO efforts, and meticulous analysis to refine and optimize the approach continuously.

4. Adopting a One-Size-Fits-All Strategy

Treating inbound marketing as a universal solution is a critical inbound marketing mistake. High-tech companies must tailor their inbound strategies to address their target audiences’ unique challenges, preferences, and behaviors.

5. Inconsistent Content Production

Consistency in content creation is key to keeping your audience engaged and attracting new leads. An erratic publishing schedule can diminish interest and undermine your marketing efforts.

6. Failing to Integrate with Outbound Efforts

Inbound and outbound marketing are not mutually exclusive. Integrating both can create a cohesive marketing strategy that leverages the strengths of each approach, maximizing overall impact.

Strategies for Inbound Marketing Program Success

Establish Clear Objectives

Setting precise, measurable goals is the first step in developing an effective inbound marketing program. Whether your goal is increasing lead quality, boosting web traffic, or enhancing brand awareness, clear objectives guide your inbound strategy.

Develop In-depth Buyer Personas

Crafting detailed buyer personas is essential. These personas should inform every aspect of your content strategy, ensuring your messaging addresses your target audience’s specific needs and pain points.

Craft a Content Strategy

A strategic approach to content creation involves planning the types of content that will attract, engage, and convert your audience. This includes blogs, whitepapers, webinars, and more, tailored to the interests and stage of the buyer’s journey of your personas.

Optimize for SEO

SEO is vital for making your content visible to the right audience. To improve your search engine rankings, utilize keyword research, on-page optimization, and quality backlink strategies.

Leverage Marketing Automation and CRM Tools

Marketing automation and CRM tools can streamline your inbound marketing efforts, enabling personalized interactions and efficient lead management.

Monitor, Analyze and Adjust

Continuously measuring your strategy’s performance against your objectives allows you to make informed adjustments. Use analytics to identify what’s working and not, then pivot your strategy accordingly.

Conclusion: Avoid Inbound Marketing Mistakes to Achieve Better Results

Inbound marketing presents a dynamic and effective avenue for engaging and converting B2B technology buyers. With the right planning and commitment, you can avoid common inbound marketing mistakes and execute strategic programs that amplify your brand reach, cultivate a loyal audience, and generate sustained lead flow.

If you need help establishing or executing an effective inbound marketing strategy, Attain Marketing is here to help! With our expertise and deep understanding of the B2B technology marketing landscape, we can help you navigate the complexities of B2B inbound marketing and develop customized strategies that align with your brand and objectives.

From leveraging content marketing and earned media to establishing thought leadership, Attain Marketing can guide you every step of the way. So, join us to effectively tap into the power of content marketing, public relations, and audience engagement to supercharge your company’s growth!

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B2B Inbound Marketing Quick Start Guide

We’re several years into the era of “Marketing 2.0” and I’m still surprised at the number of B2B technology companies that have not modernized their marketing approach. Just take a look at the websites of so many technology companies, small and large, and it clearly looks like they are stuck in the early 2000’s – or even (gasp)… the 90s.

While I don’t believe in doing trendy things just for the sake of doing trendy things (a.k.a. keeping up with the Jones’), I do believe it’s prudent to take stock of the most current marketing tactics – learn what’s working for companies in the same industries you serve – and implement the most impactful changes.

For decades now, marketers have been focused on traditional “outbound” marketing programs such as television and radio advertising, trade shows, direct mail, online banner displays, pop-up ads, email blasts and the dreaded telemarketing, to name a few.

However with the advent of social media marketing and the social web, a dramatic shift has occurred. Today’s customer no longer wants to be “sold” – instead they prefer to find products and services online on their own or through friendly referrals. This shift is called “inbound marketing” and focuses efforts on web optimization, content marketing, social media optimization and customer referral programs.

Here are some basic tips that should help bring you up to speed on 2011 marketing must-haves and provide a solid foundation for inbound marketing success.

#1 Web Optimization (including SEO)
The corporate website is often a company’s most tangible and visible face to the world. When properly executed, a website can become a powerful marketing tool that not only serves the needs of existing clients, but also provides an opportunity to capture new customers. Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of making sure your business website is properly categorized in the search engines (especially Google) and comes up high in the search results. Another big ingredient of SEO is link building, or getting other relevant sites to link to yours. Although it has been around for years, SEO is still critical in making your business more findable on the Web. It is a long-term strategy, however, and the results may take time to kick in.

#2 Content Marketing
We’ve said it before but “Content is King”. Content marketing is about creating demand through compelling, highly relevant content. This is includes white papers, strategy guides, blogging, infographics, contributed articles, podcasts, videos, data surveys, news articles — anything that offers value to your target customer and helps differentiate you in the marketplace. This content, especially blog posts, gets picked up by the search engines and can help fuel your social media strategy.

#3 Social Media Optimization
Social media sites and associated spam are growing in volume every day as new-bees jump on the social networking bandwagon in hopes of growing their network and making a splash – or at least being heard. The key to successfully leveraging social media is to define the most appropriate channels and best ways to engage key audiences in the right environments, at the right time, with the right messages. This may include the major social networks (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn); specialty networks, such as Biznik; local directories, such as MojoPages.com and Kudzu.com; social bookmarking sites; video platforms; article directories and blog and forum comments.

#4 Customer Reference Programs
Word-of-mouth marketing is arguably the most powerful way to market your product or services. As discussed in a previous blog post, customer testimonials can greatly enhance the credibility of a company and result in increased sales, media coverage or add the fire to your viral social media campaigns. When customers talk favorably of your product or service, they send a free, credible and targeted marketing message. Customer endorsements can be used in one or more of the following marketing mediums: media/analyst outreach, collateral, social media and/or inclusion on the website.

It’s 2011 and marketing has changed, even in the world of B2B technology. Your customers have different expectations about how they want to find, buy and validate products. If your marketing tactics haven’t kept with the times, you may be missing out on lucrative sales opportunities. The good news is… it’s not too late to adopt an inbound marketing game plan to extend your marketing reach and win more business.

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