What can B2B marketers learn from family history research?

Family history research offers a surprising number of valuable lessons for marketers looking to hone existing skills and build new ones.

For starters, genealogy research can teach us about:

• Knowing Your Marketing Roots
• Sharpening Your Research Skills
• Building Enduring Passion
• Citing, Celebrating & Honoring Your Marketing Sources
• Learning & Networking With Fellow Professionals at Industry Events
• Adhering To Guidelines & Goalposts
• Publishing & Preserving For Posterity
• Sparking Interest For Future Marketers
• Breaking Through With Hyper-Personal Relevance
• Peering Inside Your B2B Marketing DNA

Aside from childhood school family history projects, I first stared researching my roots in earnest in 1994, and a decade later for several years I worked as a professional genealogist.

It’s still a passion, and a pursuit that has for millions of people of all ages around the world become not only one of the fastest-growing pastimes — spurred on by popular shows such as Finding Your Roots with Henry Louis Gates Jr., Who Do You Think You Are and others — but a multi-billion dollar industry.

[bctt tweet=““Learning to sing one’s own songs, to trust the particular cadences of own’s voices, is also the goal of any writer.” — Henry Louis Gates Jr. @HenryLouisGates“ username=“toprank“]

Let’s open your own B2B marketing book of life, with 10 tips genealogy offers marketers.

1 — Know Your Marketing Roots

Family history gives researchers newfound understanding, insight, and appreciation for the very real people who form our own personal ancestry.

Marketers too can gain a great deal by learning more about marketing through the lens of the people who played instrumental roles in marketing.

Genealogy reminds us to take the time to learn about the origins of our particular marketing specialty.

Are you involved in B2B influencer marketing? Learn about the professionals who first innovated B2B marketing by applying the strongest aspects of influencer marketing — people like our own TopRank Marketing CEO and co-founder Lee Odden.

At its root the underlying truths of influencer marketing aren’t new at all, as I took to its ultimate conclusion in “10 Tips From Influencer Marketing’s Hidden 1,000-Year History,” with insights to help inspire your marketing from the likes of Hildegard von Bingen through Phineas Taylor “P.T.” Barnum and David Ogilvy.

Invest some time learning about people such as Edward Louis Bernays, the father of public relations, or even the early pioneers of the Internet and the web, who had such a profound effect on how marketers — and pretty much everybody else these days — perform work. Last year when the Internet turned 50, I wrote a celebration in „Classic Marketing Insights to Celebrate the Internet’s 50th Birthday,“ and took a look as some of the key pioneering figures.

[bctt tweet=““The farther backward you can look, the farther forward you are likely to see.” — Winston Churchill“ username=“toprank“]

Take-Away: The more you know your marketing roots the better your own marketing will be.

2 — Sharpen Your Research Skills

At the heart of genealogy sits sharp research skills, to such an extent that many genealogists have to force themselves to occasionally stop researching in order to dedicate time to publishing the results of all that work.

Marketing generally doesn’t involve nearly as great a percentage of time researching as genealogy, yet the benefits of strong research are undeniable, and are often what sets apart run of the mill promotional efforts from those that lead the industry and win awards.

We’ve explored original research in various forms, and you’ll find helpful information in the following articles from our archives:

• How to Optimize Original B2B Research Content For Credibility and Impact
• What You Can Learn from Competitive Research to Improve B2B Content Marketing Performance
• Always-On Influence: Why B2B Needs Brand Research
• 10 Smart Question Research Tools for B2B Marketers

[bctt tweet=““You have to know the past to understand the present.” — Dr. Carl Sagan“ username=“toprank“]

Take-Away: Research is vital in marketing, so try incorporating more time to research in your marketing efforts, and to improving your research skills — because the smarter you are when it comes to research, the more efficient the process becomes.

3 — Build Enduring Passion Into Your B2B Marketing

Are you being the best marketer you can be? Are you creating the kind of marketing your descendants will be proud of in 200 years, or at least be able to understand and feel some sense of compassion for?

One key ingredient of successful and genuine marketing is the passion of the person creating it. Share your unique voice to tell compelling stories in your marketing efforts, and when possible humanize your work using anecdotes and history from your own journey.

One curious similarity between B2B marketing and family history is the lengthy duration both usually entail — with the B2B buyer journey being significantly longer than in B2C efforts, as our own Nick Nelson explores in „How to Educate, Engage, & Persuade Buyers Over Lengthy Sales Cycles.“

To help inspire your marketing passion and spark new digital storytelling flames, here are several articles we’ve written on these key topics:

• Your Guide to Effective Storytelling in B2B Content Marketing
• Break Free B2B Series: Zari Venhaus on How to Scoot Your Way to Martech Transformation Through Storytelling
• Becoming a Better Marketer by Embracing Your Passions Outside the Office
• Once Upon a Time: Storytelling in Today’s B2B Content Marketing Landscape

[bctt tweet=““Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” — George Santayana“ username=“toprank“]

Take-Away: Let your marketing efforts make your descendants — and your ancestors — proud, by including enough of yourself and your own story to bring out the passion in your work.

4 — Cite, Celebrate & Honor Your Marketing Sources

In both marketing and genealogy, quality research involves citing your sources. In genealogy those citations are almost always included in the final report or accompanying source material, while in marketing direct citations are more often included only when quoting people or sharing study data.

In genealogy the goal of source citation is to allow anyone who uses yours to locate the original record you saw — not only in the immediate future but also as long into the future as possible.

Professional genealogists can take source citation to extremes, and I sometimes have to chuckle when I come across a page in the National Genealogical Society Quarterly that has more space dedicated to source citations than report narrative.

Even if your research won’t be including citations in a final publication, strong research technique dictates that for your own records and those of your business, your notes should always include the citations you or others could use to find your sources again.

The same research practices that make good genealogical research translate directly into top-notch marketing research.

Take-Away: Use citations to both personally and professionally document all material you’ve used in coming up with new original work.

5 — Learn & Network With Fellow Professionals at Industry Events

I remember the first genealogy conference I attended — the 2003 Federation of Genealogical Societies (FSG) event — which took place before the web-based family history boom became a multi-billion dollar industry.

Back then I recall being by far one of the youngest attendees. Thankfully today the family history boom has infused genealogy with a massive influx of younger people with a passion for learning more, and before the pandemic hit large conferences such as RootsTech drew over 25,000 in-person attendees along with over 100,000 remote participants.

Today’s genealogy conference audiences tend to look a lot more like those of marketing events, and not just the sea of gray hair I saw back at my first family history conference.

B2B marketers can reap the same benefits as genealogists do by attending conferences — now nearly all conducted virtually due to the pandemic — to help you with:

• Keeping Up-To-Date on the Latest Research
• Learning From the Best in the Business
• Networking From Fellow Professionals
• Sharing Knowledge with Peers

You can take a took a look at some of the top virtual marketing conferences through the end of 2021 in „17+ Top Virtual Marketing Conferences for Summer 2020 & Beyond,“ and be sure to catch Lee Odden presenting on October 13 at Content Marketing World, on October 15 delivering a Pubcon Virtual keynote, and on November 5 at MarketingProfs B2B Forum.

Marketers can also benefit from joining professional organizations just as genealogists do.

Take-Away: Utilize marketing conferences and professional organizations to become exposed to new methods, ideas, and inspiration.

6 — Adhere To Guidelines & Goalposts

In some ways genealogists have it easier than marketers, as the guidelines and goalposts for the family history game don’t change frequently the way they so often do in marketing, where nearly constant change is ubiquitous.

Family historians do need to keep abreast of newly-discovered historical records or existing physical records than have just become available to search online, and also have to deal with how to cite information contained in all of the new formats people use to communicate today, from TikTok to Reddit and beyond.

There are, however, fundamental truths in marketing, and smart marketers owe it to themselves to learn the underlying principles of advertising.

It’s important to adhere to the use of industry standards such as the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) in the U.S., the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in the E.U., and regulations including the Federal Trade Commission’s „Disclosures 101 for Social Media Influencers.”

Adhering to your company’s style and usage guide, as well as those of client organizations, is another similarity between marketing and genealogy.

Take-Away: Know the laws in your area of marketing practice and adhere to the style and usage guidelines of the businesses you work with.

7 — Publish & Preserve For Posterity

Don’t allow your life’s work in marketing to fade away as social media platforms and apps come and go as the sands of time shift — which in social media time can happen in dangerously little time.

Through the use of proper backup plans, digital asset management systems, publishing on a variety of media platforms owned by multiple companies, and submitting to digital archiving efforts such as those of The Internet Archive and its Wayback Machine, your marketing efforts don’t have to be relegated to the digital dustbin of Internet history.

Take-Away: Preserving your marketing efforts makes future campaigns stronger, as you can easily consult and learn from your smartly-archived previous work.

8 — Spark Interest For Future Marketers

As we’ve explored, one of the advantages to looking back is the newfound insight we gain for successfully making the most of the future, and we can do a great service to future generations by sharing our insight with aspiring young marketers.

If we can spark an interest by mentoring a younger colleague, client or associate — or even a family member — we’ll contribute to a future of marketing that is more robust with your own personal knowledge passed along to the next generation.

Two people ignited my love of genealogy back in 1994 — my grand-aunt Solveig and an older in-law, Ed. Solveig was the older sister of my grandmother Lilly, who is alive and well and living on her own in her own house at 103, and Solveig gave me a family history book written by a cousin in Norway in the 1950s.

Ed shared with me his fascinating hand-drawn genealogy charts, and between the two of them I was inspired to set out entering all the information I could find — including everyone in that book — into my 1994-era genealogy database program.

Take-Away: Inspire and mentor young marketing talent by imparting your own passion.

9 — Break Through With Hyper-Personal Relevance

One of the ah-ha moments in genealogy comes when a researcher suddenly realizes that their very own family history is vitally intertwined with a history that they hitherto only knew as something utterly distant and probably considered quite boring. When a family history researcher discovers a Civil War or Revolutionary Way ancestor, or one who overcame great obstacles of any type, history comes alive in a new and much more personal way.

In marketing, unlocking a similar key comes by breaking through messaging that goes from boring-to-boring B2B to hyper-relevant personal digital storytelling with heaps of passion and purpose.

We’ve made efforts to do that in our video interview series including Break Free B2B Marketing, and our new Inside Influence series — each episode featuring a leading B2B marketer who is making a difference.

Make that vital connection that brings far-off dusty history or marketing alive with hyper-personal relevance, by learning as much as possible about your audience, and making efforts to connect personally with those who express interest in your campaigns.

Take-Away: Create ah-ha marketing moments that make hyper-personalized connection through passionate storytelling and break free of boring B2B marketing.

10 — Peer Inside Your B2B Marketing DNA

Is there a marketing equivalent of DNA?

DNA has helped expand interest in family history and its ability to help solve many types of genealogy questions, from “Who was my real father?” to “Where did my ancestors like 2,000 years ago?”

While marketing doesn’t have scientific DNA, some similarities can be drawn between DNA and the early efforts into neuromarketing and other attempts to improve marketing through a greater understanding of how the brain works.

Now fairly well-established, neuromarketing faces additional challenges as brands and marketers ask whether it’s worth shifting ad spend to, and the Harvard Business Review took a look at how consumer neuroscience is meeting those challenges head on.

Take-Away: Keep tabs on neuromarketing and similar efforts to hone in on some of the universal truths that make for successful marketing.

Create Amazing Marketing To Make Your Ancestors Proud

via GIPHY

We hope that our look at the lessons B2B marketers can learn from family history research has provided you with at least a few helpful tips to implement in your own amazing marketing efforts.

One powerful way to combine many of these top marketing elements is by leveraging B2B influencer marketing, as we outline in our all new 2020 State of B2B Influencer Marketing Report, featuring insights from hundreds of marketers surveyed as well as expert analysis by the TopRank Marketing team and contributions from top B2B influencer marketing professionals from SAP, LinkedIn, AT&T Business, Adobe, Traackr, IBM, Dell, Cherwell Software, monday.com and more.

Contact us today and find out why TopRank Marketing is the only B2B marketing agency offering influencer marketing as a top capability in Forrester’s “B2B Marketing Agencies, North America” report, and discover how we can help create award-winning marketing for you.

The post Your B2B Marketing Book of Life: 10 Inspiring B2B Marketing Tips From Family History appeared first on Online Marketing Blog – TopRank®.

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In recent times dark viewing mode for websites has gained a lot of popularity from users worldwide. The followership is so strong that Google right now offers you the ‘Night Eye‘ feature where you can apply dark mode on any website as long as you’re using Google Chrome as your browser.

However, the popularity is further augmented with many applications and web designs exclusively adopting this new design feature to make users enjoy the experience that is different from conventional web designs.

According to a recent report by Built With, around 1,028 websites have used Dark Theme to attract customers, out of which 340 are live websites while 688 sites have used Dark Theme historically. Furthermore, Get Polarized conducted recent surveys on various social media platforms to comprehend users‘ preferences when it comes to the dark mode or dark theme user interfaces.

It turns out that the majority of users gave an overwhelming response agreeing that the shift was appreciable.

In light of this information, let us take a quick look at some of the prominent reasons as to why dark mode web designs are gaining popularity.

1. Adopted by tech giants

Source: TechCrunch

To consider Google as the progenitor of dark mode would be too biased. In fact, many early home computers that used monochrome CRT monitors used to display greenish text on black screens, in recent times however it was Windows Phone 7 in 2010 that reintroduced dark-colored themes and backgrounds.

Right now, we have major tech giants and popular domains that have actively adopted the so-called ‘Night Mode‘ and are offering customers and their users with the ability to shift their viewing preferences as per their choice.

These include big names like Facebook, Reddit, Twitter, YouTube, WhatsApp, Samsung’s One UI, Apple’s iPad and iOS 13, and Android 10 shadow mode, to name a few who are offering dark mode for users.

Together these online platforms and companies cater to the majority of the urban-tech population of the planet. Hence there is no doubt that night mode became a popular option for internet and smartphone users.

2. Influenced by developers and coders

Source: Omg! Ubuntu!

While the dark mode is gaining popularity by users in recent times, seldom do people realize that for program developers and coders who design UI apart from other things, have been working on this theme for a very long time.

In fact, this dark mode theme has been the default look from most coding text editors out there. In fact, some of the most popular coding text editors, including Atom, Sublime Text, Brackets, and Visual Studio Code, all use dark themes.

Hence, it becomes quite easy to understand why coders and developers might influence this transformation when you look at this perspective. Furthermore, according to a recent study published by Medium.com, over 70% of software engineers use Dark Theme IDEs, and dark theme downloads are almost always within the top 10 themes as per popular demand.

3. Friendly to users‘ eyes

Source: PhoneArena

It seems like biology is involved when dark theme preferences are further studied according to their impact on users and their eyes. The mechanics are simple. Seeing light text on a dark screen allows the iris in our eyes to be more burdened. It has to widen much more than it does in case of a white screen.

Hence, in dark viewing mode, our eyes‘ pupil grows in size, thus requiring more effort to focus on things.

This is further backed by statistics regarding astigmatism, a condition that affects almost 33% of the US population. However, at the same time, dark mode is preferable when the reader on any device has low-light conditions and doesn’t prefer to read long chunks of text.

4. The boldness of text or just mood

Source: Facebook

While the argument for using dark text on light backgrounds is fairly strong, however, the argument that it makes the experience aggravating for some also holds true. This is because the majority of users spend their days staring at bright white screens that can result in digital eye strain.

Digital eye strain is defined as a group of vision-related problems that result from prolonged use of cell phone, computer, e-reader, or tablet, to name a few. Many users thus consider the change as much more acceptable and agreeable. This allows them to sink into the darkness and cocoon themselves from bright white light that makes people feel as if they are staring directly into the sun.

While the dark theme does not make the text bold, it happens to create the opposite reaction where letters bleed, dark mode is more of a mood rather than just a feature. According to the recent survey findings on Medium, around 82.7% of participants stated that they prefer to use dark mode on their devices.

5. Less battery consumption

Source: TechSpot

At the 2018 Android Dev Summit, one of Google’s solutions to developers to reduce battery consumption was the introduction of dark UI. Researchers at Google proclaimed that night mode could save battery life.

This finding is shared through a story published by XDA Developers, where it is stated that a dark theme can reduce battery usage up to 63% on AMOLED displays even with max brightness. Furthermore, one also has to consider the fact that white pixels are indeed more power-hungry and that brightness affects both power usage and battery life in a linear fashion.

6. Plenty of guides online

With dark mode becoming a prevalent theme across users, no wonder today, you can find various online guides to make any application and software on your smartphone or browser change the interface. This also adds as well as goes to show just how fanatic people can be at times when a trend hits them.

7. Search engines don’t mind it

Source: 9to5Google

To understand the impact of the dark theme on SEO, we have to consider the user experience. This is due to the fact that users and the usability of your website play a huge role these days when it comes to search engine rankings. Hence if you are planning to go dark mode, then it has to be done right.

The short answer to the question of whether dark mode affects your SEO or not? The answer is NO, but that doesn’t mean that we can neglect users and not provide them with a user-friendly experience.

Hence using a dark theme doesn’t mean that search engines like Google will penalize you for it. It does, however, matter if you are adversely affecting the user experience in some way.

8. User preferences

Source: Reddit

We all are pretty aware of the fact that the majority of the audiences seldom read texts online as the most viewed and popular forms of media are visuals that can be either categorized into videos or images. Hence user preferences do come into play when it comes to the popularity of dark-themed websites.

According to a recent study by Smart Insights®, 92% of marketers are using videos as an important part of their marketing strategy. Furthermore, it is estimated that on average people will spend as much as 100 minutes every day watching online videos in 2021.

This is also supported by the findings of Statista.com, where online video consumption is considered as one of the most popular forms of internet activities worldwide. Hence when taking these studies into perspective, it is definite that dark theme works well with online video streaming sites.

No wonder YouTube and Netflix have become dominant in the usage of these dark tones for the most part.

9. Adding space matters

Lastly, I would like to add that reading or viewing media closely hinged together in a night mode theme website can be more difficult than with a more traditional white background website. Hence a strong word of advice, consider using more space between visual elements and texts when designing a dark themed website.

Conclusion

While laws of science and medicine state; otherwise, the dark mode has become instantly popular amongst the masses. I preferably define dark mode as more of a mood inkling rather than something more profound.

I hope this post was able to offer you some delightful insights regarding why dark mode web designs have gained popularity amongst users. For more questions regarding the topic, please feel free to share your feedback in the comment section below.

Amanda Jerelyn currently works as a Marketing Manager at Dissertation Assistance, a perfect place for students to buy academic writing services from expert dissertation writers UK. During her free time, she likes to practice mindful yoga to keep herself fit and healthy.

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COVID-19 has had an impact on everyone and everything – starting from our lives and lifestyle to economies and businesses across the world. Business processes were forcefully shut down as a preventive measure to stop the pandemic earlier this year and the same has reflected in paid advertising, digital marketing strategies, and brands‘ social media reputation management efforts.

COVID-19 and digital marketing

The number of people using social media has skyrocketed during the epidemic. Despite that, many organizations paused their digital marketing and even social media due to the lockdown.

Social network is one of the most effective tools businesses use for marketing, branding, sales, engagement, and delivering customer care. And to make the most of it, you should not stop your brand’s social media activities. This is something that a brand should never do.

Contrarily, trends suggest that about 25% of businesses paused their marketing and advertising on social media during the first six months of 2020.

However, this can’t be said for forward-looking marketers.

Facebook reports that 89% of advertisers reconsidered their budget in response to the coronavirus outbreak.

But there is no denying that the activities of brands have reduced to a great extent and has changed a lot during the pandemic. As a result, many have lost their customers and other their online reputation.

This post attempts to underline some of the strategies you can consider practicing to restore your reputation and recognition on social media.

1. Evaluate your situation

If you too had closed off your social media at the beginning of the pandemic, the first step for you to take would be – evaluate. Peep into the insights and evaluate the condition of your social networks.

Run an audit involving all your social networks. This will give insights related to engagement and traffic your activities generated during this period. You will also learn what worked well and what didn’t work for you.

You will be able to identify and understand the mistakes you made. Doing all this will help you develop or modify your social media strategy.

2. Develop a positive and supportive brand voice

When looking to rebuild your lost empire on social networks, you might want to reconsider your brand’s voice as well.

Review the voice and tone of your updates on each social network, and ponder – does it represent your brand?

The idea is to develop a positive voice for your brand that is supportive and feels like you care for customers.

It is obvious that people do not want to be pitched directly by marketers in a difficult time like this. In that picture, it perfectly makes sense to build a brand voice that does not sound overly promotional.

So, this would be the right strategy to give your social networks a new voice – a voice and tone that is calm, positive, and always ready-to-help.

3. Do campaigns broadcasting the benefits of your brand

While direct pitches may have a negative influence on customer behavior, there are ways you can promote your brand indirectly. One such way is – telling the benefits of your products and services.

Another would be to share stories around how your product helped a customer or how your service eased an individual’s life. Posts like this are a great motivator; they help build a positive brand image among your audience.

You can also encourage your customers to share their experiences or review on your brand’s social network. Such campaigns do indirect marketing for your brand, apart from adding to your efforts to rediscover your reputation.

You might want to make some strategic adjustments in your approach to social networks. For example, you can create and share visual content backed by keyword-rich captions or descriptions on your social networks. However, the type of content you share depends largely on factors like your brand, your products, and the media preferences of your audience.

This way, not only will you generate traffic, engagement, and sales for you, but also build a name for sharing high-quality, valuable, and above-all useful content.

And just for a reminder: you don’t need a big budget to get started with a completely new style of posts.

4. Social media influencer marketing

Influencers can also help you turn up your social media reputation. Influencers are celebrities that you can partner with to promote your brand among their fans and followers. In short, they will influence their followers – who follow suggestions and advice from their idols. This is how influencer marketing works.

Since 63% of customers trust their favorite influencer more than they trust brands, you can consider hiring an industry-specific influencer for your brand to give your brand-building efforts a quick boost.

If celebrities don’t fit into your budget, you can shift your focus on onboarding micro and small influencers. When it comes to influencing, micro-influencers get you better engagement and results than celebrities do.

Micro-influencers are students and professionals with a few thousand followers looking to earn some extra cash. They have an active follower base, with which they interact on a daily basis. They can help you reach specific market segments and target audiences more effectively that too without much investment.

And to get started with that, you will need to have a well-planned social media cum influencer marketing strategy.

5. Introduce social media tools

The best part of social media is – everything you do here is measurable. Impressions, likes, dislikes, engagement, clicks, and several other user actions can be traced using the default analytics feature of all leading social networks.

You can analyze user behavior on various factors such as the time zone, the age group, the device, the location, and the gender of those who engaged on your updates. You can use these metrics to develop a new or modify your existing social media marketing strategies.

But, using the inbuilt analytics of social networks could be a time-consuming job, because as a brand you have to manage and analyze multiple social networks at a time.

So, you could consider having an all-inclusive social media management and marketing tool that gives you access to all important metrics related to the performance of all your social networks on a single dashboard. Imagine how much time your team will save with one such tool!

6. Respond to reviews

Reviews are possibly the best thing that helps brands in building social media reputation. While positive reviews make everyone happy, negative reviews on social networks can boost your sales and reputation.

Take negative reviews and criticism as a chance for improvement. Address each issue and complaint raised by customers, and try to resolve their concerns on the same thread. It has two advantages.

First, it turns an unhappy and unsatisfied customer into a happy and satisfied customer. And second, it builds a positive impression which ultimately improves your online reputation.

But, that does not mean you should respond to negative reviews only. Don’t skip positive reviews as well. Thank everyone who posts a review on your timeline.

If it is a positive review, thank them for their kind words. And if it is a negative review, thank them for bringing their concern to you and assure them that you will leave no stone unturned in resolving their issue.

Bottom line

When you restart your social network to regain your lost online reputation, try to be consistent with your activities. Respond to comments and inboxes on an everyday basis. In addition to that, never miss a chance to socialize (that’s what social media is meant for) and engage with your audience.

Encourage your followers to share their opinions on your posts. Celebrate festivities and special days and display the pictures on your brand’s social network. These small yet impactful steps and tactics help you connect with your audience in a more humane way and add to your online reputation.

Birbahadur Singh Kathayat is an Entrepreneur, internet marketer, and Co-founder of Lbswebsoft. He can be found on Twitter @bskathayat.

The post Post-COVID-19 strategy to restore your social media reputation appeared first on Search Engine Watch.

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Consumer activity online is at an all-time high. So, it’s no surprise many marketers are aiming to make the most of it by hooking their attention early, at the point of search. But deciding how best to do so isn’t necessarily easy.

Given that consumers run billions of searches every day — with Google estimated to process 40,000 per second — it’s clear marketers need a smart strategy to cut through the competition. The question is: will they drive the highest traffic and performance with search engine optimization (SEO) or pay per click (PPC)?

Both have their own advantages and drawbacks. PPC is a quick win, enabling businesses to rapidly reach consumers and boost visibility. But its lead generation power only lasts while the money flows and, depending on campaign scale and scope, those costs can run high. Meanwhile, SEO delivers more lasting rewards and higher click-through rates (CTRs), often for less investment. Yet marketers might have a long wait before organic searches pay off, and may still fall behind dominant digital marketplaces for certain keywords.

Ultimately, the smartest route lies neither one way nor the other, but in a combination of both. Blending PPC and SEO not only generates stronger results but also balances out their respective shortcomings, offering marketers the best chance of success in the new ever-changing normal.

Utilizing a combination of paid and organic search tactics isn’t new – but it’s never been clear how marketers can best do this, or a way to visualize the data for optimization. Leveraging PPC and SEO in conjunction with one another can be challenging, but creating the perfect synergy is possible if marketers focus on the following three factors:

Unify search operations

With consumers spending a quarter of their waking day online, marketers have plenty of chances to spark their interest through search. To outmanoeuvre rivals and capture eyeballs first, brands must make fast yet informed decisions about which approach will produce the ideal outcome.

Achieving this requires holistic insight which, in turn, calls for greater unity. Due to the general view of PPC and SEO as separate entities, teams often operate in silos, but this isolates valuable knowledge around consumer behaviour and the tactics that generate the biggest rewards. Simple as it sounds, removing divisions and encouraging teams to share their insight can significantly improve campaign execution and drive more efficient CPAs.

For example, information from the PPC teams on the best performing keywords and ad copy will help SEO teams to optimize meta descriptions and website content.

Sharing information on what keywords campaigns are covering will also prevent the doubling up of efforts – for example, as organic keyword positions improve, there might be an opportunity to pull back PPC activity and reallocate budget to other keywords to increase the overall coverage. Similarly, updates from the SEO team on keywords that are particularly competitive to rank in top positions are an opportunity for PPC to drive incremental conversions. And, on a more fundamental level, by sharing any new or emerging search terms with each other, both SEO and PPC teams can ensure they are up-to-date and reacting as quickly as possible to opportunities.

Select tech that drives collaboration

The next step is integrated technology. Implementing tools that collate and merge data from multiple sources — including PPC and SEO campaigns — will make collaboration easier. That’s not to mention generating a complete overview of collective search operations, performance, and opportunities for businesses.

A holistic and unified dashboard, for example, can provide visibility of combined search performance against KPIs and competitor activity. This enables PPC and SEO teams to identify where there are opportunities and how strategies can be adjusted to leverage them, without duplicating each other’s efforts. Marketers can understand where organic rankings are high, and competitor activity low, and vice versa, which means they know when to reduce PPC activity, as well as opportunities where it can drive incremental conversions over and above what SEO can deliver.

All of this, however, depends on accuracy and usability. Information needs to be reliable and actionable, which means simply joining up the data dots isn’t enough: in addition to robust cleansing, processing and storage, tools must offer accessible visualization.

Although frequently overlooked, clearly-presented data plays a huge part in enhancing everyday activity. Providing a streamlined picture of keywords and performance data is vital, but to ensure teams can pinpoint prime SERPs, accelerate traffic, and increase conversions, businesses also need tools that allow their teams to quickly find and activate key insights.

Don’t forget human checks

Dialing up tech use, however, does come with a word of warning – no matter how smart platforms may be, they can’t entirely replace human experience and expertise. On their own, sophisticated tools bring a range of benefits that go far beyond translating data into a more cohesive and user-friendly format. The most advanced boast immediate alerts that tell PPC teams where their competitors are bidding — or not — and use artificially intelligent (AI) analysis to deliver a cross-market, sector, and classification perspective on SEO activity.

Human knowledge is still paramount to steering search campaigns in the right direction and picking up on the nuances that machines miss. For instance, problem-solving machines might take the quickest path to objective completion for certain pages or messages, but seasoned search professionals may see the potential for longer-term uses that deliver higher incremental value.

As a result, organizations must avoid the perils of over-reliance on their marketing tools. By persistently applying manual reviews and checking automated conclusions against human knowledge, they can tap the best of tech and people power.

Today’s marketing leaders are grappling with multiple uncertainties, but when it comes to search, the way forward is clear. PPC and SEO are complementary forces; producing deeper insights and higher returns together, as well as minimizing risk. By connecting the two and taking a considered approach to data-driven search strategy, businesses can ensure campaigns are strong enough to succeed in the new normal and take on whatever tomorrow brings.

Asher Gordon is Head of Paid Media at Tug. He leads a multi-disciplined media team who plan, buy, and deliver integrated media plans for a diverse set of clients. With over 10 years experience working across multiple markets and brands at PHD and Wavemaker, Asher works with clients to better their marketing goals and drive their business forward.

The post Synergized search is key to success in the new normal appeared first on Search Engine Watch.

Source:: searchenginewatch.com

On the heels of the release of the 2020 State of B2B Influencer Marketing Report and the announcement that several of our clients (LinkedIn and Alcatel Lucent Enterprise) have won awards for B2B influencer marketing campaigns, I am very happy to share the launch of a new video interview series: Inside Influence: Interviews with B2B Influencer Marketing Insiders.

What is Inside Influence?

This is a show that goes behind the scenes of B2B influencer marketing and showcases conversations with insiders from the world of B2B influencer marketing. We’ll be talking with practitioners at B2B brands of all kinds and sizes to answer the rising number of questions about working with influencers in a business context.

The 2020 State of B2B Influencer Marketing Report has provided data for B2B brands to benchmark some of their strategies, operations and best practices. The report has also helped drive more conversations around B2B influence and the Inside Influence series aims to answer questions, provide deeper insights and also highlight many of the talented and unsung heroes of influencer marketing in the B2B world.

First up is the amazing Rani Mani, Head of Employee Advocacy at Adobe where among many responsibilities, she manages the B2B Adobe Insiders program which I am very happy to be a member of. We’ve had a chance to talk to Rani before in this interview and with Inside Influence you will get to see the conversation happening on fresh topics that matter today and into the future.

In this first episode of Inside Influence, we talked to Rani about

• 2020 State of B2B Influencer Marketing Report
• The role of influence across the customer lifecycle
• How influencers bring freshness and creativity to brand content
• The benefits of working with B2B influencers during the pandemic
• How influencers can help humanize B2B brands, including Adobe
• Top challenges working with B2B influencers
• Insights into the B2B Adobe Insiders community
• The future of B2B influencer marketing

What are some of the other outcomes B2B brands can expect from working with influencers?

Rani: For us it’s been thought leadership in terms of getting some fantastic minds to tap into, you’ve got your pulse on what’s happening in the community and you’re able to anticipate what’s coming up around the corner. Also reach of audience that you normally wouldn’t is also a really nice benefit.

Something we’ve seen firsthand is crisis management and reputation management. When folks are misconstruing who we are and what we stand for, it’s so nice to have trusted advisors swoop in and save the day and explain what’s happening in a way that’s relatable and digestible for the everyday person. And it’s so much more believable when it comes from a peer vs. an executive from the company or a brand channel.

In the report, you mentioned one of ways influencers help B2B marketers create advantage is that influencers bring a heavy dose of freshness and creativity to the content a brand produces. Can you share an example of that influencer creativity in action with Adobe?

Rani: I have so many. One is what we did a couple of years ago with you and your company, TopRank, when we did this very unique and interactive digital storytelling around reimagining and reshaping customer experience management and the future of CXM. We leveraged several brand personalities such as Ann Handley, Scott Monty and Shama Hyder. That was a very interesting piece of content that lives on today.

In addition we went to New York, you were there with us, for Advertising Week and we had all of our Adobe Insiders on camera at NASDAQ where you gave your top challenges in advertising and also gave predictions on what the future of advertising would look like. That was super compelling because not only did it produce wonderful wisdom for the industry, I think you had mentioned, what a fabulous experience it was for the individuals going through it.

You know our good friend and colleague Abhijit Bhaduri, he is out of India and does these fantastic visually compelling sketchnotes when he does his content. It’s really a wonderful way to get through thought leadership and it really cuts through the clutter out there in the digital area. Similarly there’s Kathleen Hessert and her GenZ Group, they do a lot of infographics chock full of memes and emojis that relate to that generation, very fun and playful. Adobe has benefitted from a lot of fresh, creative content from all of you.

Let’s talk about the future of B2B influencer marketing – what do you think will change in 2021, What needs to change?

Rani: I really think the power is shifting. Individual influencers are taking more control and have the opportunity to be more selective about who they do work with and what kind of work they do.

I think we’ll see a lot more influencers standing up for their creative freedom and creative license and I think we’ll see less prescriptive micromanagement from brands. I think the high quality influencers simply won’t stand for that any more. You’re not here as order takers, right? You’re here to collaborate and to co-create and you’re here to be thought partners, not to be puppets. I love that statement and I feel that is the evolution that’s going to happen. It’s already underway but I think it’s going to go in full force as we move past the pandemic and into the future.

Check out the full video interview with Rani Mani here.

For more B2B influencer marketing insights and her overall awesomeness, you can connect with Rani here on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Next up on Inside Influence we will be talking with with Garnor Morantes, Group Marketing Manager at LinkedIn and the brains behind the LinkedIn Marketing and Sales Solutions influencer community.

The post Inside Influence: Rani Mani from Adobe on the B2B Influencer Marketing Advantage appeared first on Online Marketing Blog – TopRank®.

Source:: toprankblog.com