Steven Casey says, “So this makes it official: the rite of passage for every new analyst. My first research report, How Self-Service Research Changes B2B Marketing, has just been published. I covered the premise of this report in my first blog post — but I’ll summarize it here again: multiple Forrester surveys have shown that B2B buyers strongly prefer to conduct their own research, without ever speaking with a sales rep. Forward-thinking B2B marketers will embrace this change and enable the customer-directed research journey with self-service technologies such as contextual help solutions... [...]

Callie Hinman says, “Smart marketers know Google AdWords is an essential part of a strong B2B marketing strategy. Since Google searchers are actively looking for either pertinent answers or solutions, marketers can quickly capture their attention and convert them to leads with search engine marketing (SEM) campaigns—as long as they take the right approach, of course. Neatly Organize Your Keywords and Ad Groups One of the most critical elements of your SEM campaigns is the organization of your keywords. Here are the best practices to create ad groups: 
Group keywords with similar themes:... [...]

Laura Ramos says, “Have you ever wondered about the tactical challenges B2B marketers (like you) face across role responsibilities like building brand/awareness, generating qualified demand, nurturing leads into qualified sales opportunities, enabling sales/channel partners to better close business, and expanding current customer relationships? Or how your practices around technology adoption, process change, modern marketing skill development, and sales alignment compare to peers? If you tell us — we will tell you more in return. Many of you read our blog and research, or talk to... [...]

Jeffrey L. Cohen says, “If it’s Friday, it must be my day to create some content. Marketers are busy planning, creating, optimizing, and analyzing, and for many of us, creating content is just one of many things on our to-do lists. We’ve all seen the stats that reveal B2B marketers are spending more time, budget, energy, happy hours, hackathons, and puppy time on content. But to what end? It’s great to have that fabulous piece of content to attract readers (or more often than not, downloaders), but what happens next? Those big download numbers you’ve been getting don’t count for much.... [...]

Derek Edmond says, “Keyword research can be overwhelming for clients. In its most basic form, keyword research will almost always consist of a spreadsheet of hundreds, if not thousands of words and phrases, or “key phrases.” In an effort to make this type of deliverable more “digestible” for clients, KoMarketing (my employer) will often organize these key phrases around core themes, like solution sets or product categories. From there, we try to prioritize keyword recommendations based on available metrics such as monthly search estimates and applicability to the client. Unfortunately,... [...]

Lindsay Kolowich says, “For B2B tech marketers, it’s crucial to understand the real value of the technology you’re promoting – whether it’s a simple consumer product or a complicated enterprise service. The real trick of technology marketing is learning a subject (one which may be completely foreign to you) quickly and efficiently. When that subject is a complex technology tool or service, you might feel lost trying to comprehend everything there is to know. While I can’t give you a crash course in your client’s work—only they can do that successfully—I can offer... [...]

Laura Ramos says, “I have a confession to make. I love talking with B2B marketers and clients, but there is one question I get occasionally that really makes me crazy. (And you will hear an earful if you are unfortunate enough to ask it.) “Laura, what’s working well in B2B marketing tactics?” And I’m thinking, “Do I look like the Lone Ranger?” (Silver bullets? Get it?) To be fair, when marketers ask me “What works best?” I don’t really think they are looking for a simple and seemingly magical solution to a complicated problem. Most just want to validate their current... [...]

Aaron Ross says, “What’s the difference between the sales email no one opens and responds to and the one that generates dozens of new customers? Is it the subject line, the length, the way the copy is written, or the ideas contained in the content? The answer is a combination of all of the above. Start tracking the performance of your sales email templates in HubSpot’s free CRM software. If you have a targeted lead list and your response rate is less than 10% with personalized emails, your emails could use some work. Earlier this year a B2B company came to me for help with their emails.... [...]

Ayaz Nanji says, “B2B marketers say increasing brand awareness and dealing with budget constraints are the top challenges they face, according to a report from B2B International. The report was based on data from a survey conducted in 2015 of 181 marketers for B2B companies around the world. Respondents were asked to list the top challenges their organization faces without any options or prompts by the researchers. Some 13% of respondents say increasing brand awareness is a top marketing challenge, and the same percentage list budget constraints. Other major challenges cited include doing... [...]

Peter O’Neill says, “For the past six years, Forrester has held its Sales Enablement Forum for B2B marketing professionals in March, the first two years in San Francisco and then down in Scottsdale (see here for my debrief from the successful 2015 event). I’ve already had a few calls and emails asking me about this year’s Forum: What is the agenda? Where and when is it being held? So, here is a timely reminder that we have reconfigured our events calendar this year and the 2016 B2B Marketing Forum is now scheduled for October 18 and 19 in Miami, Florida. Planning is well underway:... [...]