Why You Should Get to Know Your Industry Trade Publication
by MGB2B
Cultivating relationships is the foundation of any successful business. One of the most underutilized B2B relationships is with your industry’s leading trade publication. Trade publications are narrowly targeted magazines serving a specific field. They usually include editorial content, industry news, and related advertisements. Advertising in industry trade pubs is only the first step. They can also be a very important way to start filling your sales funnel.
You may ask yourself, why should I spend time nurturing a relationship with my sales rep at the trade pub when I can simply email them an order with my print schedule for the year and be done? Because, in the current communication age, trade pubs are much more than the monthly magazine they produce.
Here Are 4 Perks of Cultivating a Relationship with Your Industry Trade Publication:
- Inside Scoop on Last-Minute Deals. After inevitable last-minute cancellations, magazines will often offer premium placements (back covers, spreads, etc.) at deep discounts. Open communication with your sales rep will get you on the short list for these exclusive deals.
- Customized Digital Opportunities. Trade publications host webinars, cultivate a library of native advertising, and send out email newsletters to a curated audience. Discuss your marketing goals with your rep and upgrade your marketing campaign to involve yourself in some of these premium digital options.
- Enhanced Trade Show Experience. Trade publications are at the hub of many industry conferences, networking events, and trade shows. Work with your trade publication to become a leader at the next event, instead of just a passive attendee. (Don’t waste time; here’s how to make the most of your next trade show).
- Editorial Preference. Sales reps are a great resource to help get your most recent press release in the hands of the right person, whom you might not reach otherwise. Also, many trade publications are happy to work with you to publish advertiser-written editorial; all you have to do is ask.
Gone are the days where a trade publication’s reach is confined to the pages of their magazine. For many B2B industries, trade pubs — and more specifically, their websites — are the pulse of the industry. They’re also the first place your potential customers will look for current news, trends, and leaders of the industry. Next time, instead of blowing off that networking event or letting your sales rep’s call go to voicemail, take the extra 5 minutes to chat with your contact and reap the benefits of a strong relationship with your industry’s leading publication.
Continue ReadingB2B Monday Myth: Millennials Aren’t Making B2B Decisions
by MGB2B
The Myth: Millennials Aren’t Making B2B Decisions
The Truth: Millennials Are Changing the Face of B2B Marketing Altogether
Over the last few years, the demographic for B2B buyers has dramatically shifted. More than half of today’s B2B buyers — employees assigned to find product providers — are labeled as millennials. This is a huge increase from 2012, when millennial buyers made up only 27% of the B2B buyer job category.
The question isn’t: Do millennials make B2B decisions? It’s how has this giant shift affected B2B marketing?
This dramatic shift in such a small period of time means that successful B2B marketers must understand what makes millennials tick. As you’re probably already aware, millennials are less likely to respond to many of the marketing tactics that worked on Baby Boomers, or even Gen X. Millennials have never known a world without the Internet — they are digital natives. They complete the majority of their buying journey through their own research, rather than relying on sales reps. That means marketing content must always be relevant, easy to find, mobile-friendly, and engaging — but informative as well. The challenge with content marketing today is finding that perfect balance of engaging visual content, and informative decision-making content.
If you’re worried about sacrificing Gen X and Baby Boomer decision makers, don’t. They may respond a little differently from their younger counterparts, but they crave content just as much.
The Importance of Mobile for This Audience
Whatever content you create for this audience, one of the most important things to remember is to have mobile-friendly content. With 42% of B2B researchers using mobile as they make purchase decisions, you can’t afford to lose buyers during that process. That means your website, emails, white papers, blog posts — everything — need to be legible, well-designed, and easy to navigate on a mobile phone. This applies across generations of course, but is particularly true for millennials, who use their mobile phones for nearly every decision they make — whether at work or at home.
Not sure how to approach B2B marketing for this audience? Drop us a line.
Continue ReadingB2B Monday Myth: Content Marketing and Inbound Marketing Are the Same Thing
by MGB2B
The Myth: Content Marketing and Inbound Marketing Are the Same Thing.
The Truth: Content Marketing Expands Well Beyond Just Inbound.
One mistake marketers make fairly often is confusing Content Marketing with Inbound Marketing. They see them as one and the same, when in reality Inbound Marketing is just a child of Content Marketing. Let’s take a closer look.
First off, when we talk about content, here are some examples of what we’re referring to:
- Blog Posts
- Podcasts
- White Papers
- eBooks
- Social Media Posts
- Videos
Content Marketing is simply how you distribute content to your target audience. The way you do it can make or break your marketing campaign. Sometimes, Content Marketing takes the form of Inbound Marketing.
So, How Does Inbound Marketing Work?
Inbound marketing is a simple concept. It generates strong leads for B2B brands because it lets the buyer find you instead of you hunting them down as you would with Outbound Marketing. It is passive marketing – you leave your fishing hook in the water and wait for the fish to come and take your bait. So the goal is to make your bait as attractive as possible by optimizing the content on your website and social media sites. If your content is good, hopefully others will use them as inbound links on their sites. This gives you credibility, not only to prospects, but to Google, who will then be more likely to put you at the top of the search list.
The goal of Inbound Marketing, is once you draw a prospect to your content, you can capture their information, and they become a lead that you can now contact and (hopefully) convert.
But this is only one way to use content.
Okay, What About Content Marketing?
Content Marketing encompasses more than just Inbound. It’s been around much longer than you might think. John Deere started doing it back in 1895 by creating The Furrow, an agricultural magazine that would appeal to his customers and prospects (millions of them). Walt Disney was a master of Content Marketing as early as 1954. Both the Deere and Disney brands have been distributing their content to mass audiences since long before the Internet was even invented, never mind Inbound Marketing.
But we needn’t put the division line between Inbound and Offline. There are other ways to drive people to your content online that are not considered Inbound Marketing. Optimizing your content can get you hot leads who are searching for what you offer, but Outbound allows you to widen your net a bit. It’s basically marketing as you’ve always known it, but used to drive readers to content instead of to build awareness of your brand. With Outbound, you drive people to your content via:
- Social Media Ads
- Online Display Ads / Retargeting
- Paid Search
- E-blasts via Trade Publications
- Webinars with Relevant Trade Publications
- Email Campaigns (though there is debate as to whether this is considered Inbound or Out)
As you can see, Content Marketing is a wide umbrella, and Inbound a highly effective methodology that falls beneath it. Their goal is the same: to get prospects into your sales funnel. The key is to have good content that can increase the number of leads you get from both your Inbound and Outbound efforts. Try what you think will work best for your target audiences, measure the effectiveness of each piece of your campaign, and fine-tune it until you have a well-oiled Inbound and Outbound Content Marketing machine.
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