Thriving in the New Normal: Top 5 B2B Marketing Strategies Post-COVID

The COVID-19 pandemic has permanently altered the B2B marketing playbook, with traditional phone and email strategies losing their edge as remote work becomes the norm. As we navigate this new landscape, adaptability and innovation are key. Here are five effective ways to reach your B2B audience today.

1. Leverage LinkedIn for Networking and Thought Leadership

With face-to-face meetings on the decline, LinkedIn has surged as the go-to platform for professional networking. Beyond just connecting, use LinkedIn to share insightful content, engage with your industry community, and position your company as a thought leader. Regular posts, articles, and active participation in relevant groups can elevate your visibility and credibility.

2. Harness the Power of Webinars and Virtual Events

With in-person conferences a rarity, webinars and virtual events offer a dynamic way to connect with your audience. They’re not only cost-effective but also allow for a broader reach. To stand out, ensure your events are interactive, provide valuable content, and include Q&A sessions to engage attendees. Post-event, repurpose the content into blogs, guides, and social media snippets to extend its lifecycle.

3. Invest in Content Marketing

In a world of digital fatigue, quality content can capture attention. Create informative, engaging content that addresses your target audience’s pain points and interests. Think outside the traditional blog post: infographics, podcasts, and short videos can diversify your content strategy and engage audiences across different platforms.

4. Optimize for Search (SEO)

As more businesses turn to online research before making decisions, a strong SEO strategy is crucial. Optimize your website and content to rank higher in search results for keywords relevant to your business. This not only increases visibility but also drives organic traffic to your site, generating leads without direct outreach.

5. Focus on Customer Success Stories

Testimonials and case studies are powerful tools for building trust and demonstrating value. They provide tangible evidence of your success and can sway potential clients. Share these stories on your website, in presentations, and across social media to highlight your achievements and solidify your reputation in the industry.

In Conclusion

The post-COVID world demands a shift in how B2B businesses approach marketing. By embracing digital platforms, engaging content, and innovative event formats, you can effectively reach and resonate with your target audience. Stay flexible, experiment with new strategies, and always aim to provide value. The landscape may have changed, but the opportunities for growth and connection are abundant.

standardApril 3Tom SalonekMarketing

5 Business Insights from the Super Bowl

Yesterday’s Super Bowl had business strategy, marketing innovation, and team dynamics. Here are five key takeaways that businesses can apply from the gridiron to the boardroom.

1. Preparation Meets Opportunity Just as Super Bowl teams meticulously prepare for the big game, businesses must also strategize and plan for their big moments. Whether it’s a product launch or entering a new market, the success lies in the preparation. The game teaches us the value of anticipating competitors’ moves and being ready when opportunity knocks.

2. Agility Is Key The Super Bowl demonstrates the power of adaptability. Teams adjust their strategies in real-time, responding to the dynamics on the field. Similarly, businesses must remain agile, able to pivot strategies in response to market changes. This agility can be the difference between leading the market or lagging behind.

3. The Power of a Diverse Team Just like a winning Super Bowl team comprises players with diverse skills and roles, a successful business needs a variety of talents and perspectives. Diversity in expertise, experience, and thought leads to innovative solutions and a stronger competitive edge.

4. Marketing Genius: Beyond the Ads While Super Bowl ads are a highlight, the marketing genius doesn’t stop there. From strategic social media engagement to experiential marketing, the Super Bowl teaches us to think outside the traditional advertising box. It’s about creating a memorable brand experience that resonates with the audience.

5. Building a Legacy Winning the Super Bowl is not just about the championship; it’s about building a legacy. Businesses should aim not just for immediate success but for long-term impact. This involves investing in the community, building a strong corporate culture, and focusing on sustainable growth.

standardFebruary 12Tom SalonekLeadership

Top 10 2017 Posts

My thanks to our customers, employees, and partners for an awesome year.  I’m going to be offline for a couple of weeks to be with my wife and kiddos.   I wish you and yours an enjoyable break and great start to 2018.  Below are my top 10 articles or posts for 2017:

  1. ​Business and life lessons, as taught by … mom
  2. The 100:  Downloads
  3. To keep employees, try valuing them
  4. 5 Lessons Most People Learn Way Too Late in Life
  5. Crazy Busy and Proud of it
  6. Rudy! Rudy! Rudy!
  7. Social Media Marketing Matters
  8. Listen Up – Your Customers are Talking!
  9. 6 simple ways to make every project successful
  10. 4 rules for delegating so you can retreat without regrets

 

standardDecember 19Tom SalonekHappy Employees

Social Media Marketing Matters

Image result for social media icons mediumTechnology can be like that classic Dickens’ novel: the worst of times and the best of times, all at the same time. Take social media. Depending on who’s talking, social media is either transforming the planet in all sorts of positive ways, from social organizing and crowd sourcing, or causing a drastic decline in literacy and civility.

The truth – like most things – probably can be found somewhere in the middle.

That’s certainly the case when it comes to social media and business marketing. An interesting piece in Harvard Business Review by Douglas Holt makes the case that “companies have sunk billions of dollars into producing content on social media, hoping to build audiences around their brands. But consumers haven’t shown up.”

Holt is the founder and president of the Cultural Strategy Group and a former Harvard Business School and University of Oxford professor. He believes that social media “has transformed how culture works and that digital crowds have become powerful cultural innovators.” He calls this “crowdculture” and while it makes it difficult for companies to compete for eyeballs online, Holt says the way forward is for companies to collaborate with crowdcultures.

He cites successful examples of “cultural branding,” including Chipotle, Dove and Axe. Why? Each of these brands tapped into a larger cultural trend and then provided online content to piggyback on existing psychological trends. These companies, of course, enjoy the luxury of multi-million dollar marketing budgets. If you work for a mega company doing marketing on that scale, I strongly urge you to read Holt’s HBR article, “Branding in the age of social media.”

If you’re like smaller and growing companies, a more down-to-earth approach to social media makes marketing (and financial) sense. For Intertech, this has meant growing our online presence by providing content that offers business value. We give away our expertise online but we gain by building trust in our brand. From blogs and white papers to webinars and participation in technical chat rooms, Intertech lets people know we’re here and we have something valuable to share. That’s invaluable!

Having a solid and predictable online presence also lets potential customers know you’re real and you’re here for the long-term. Even something as seemingly trivial as how many Facebook likes your page garners speaks volumes about how your company is perceived in the marketplace of your peers. Let’s face it, a thousand or more “likes” beats 50 any day of the week!

Building a respectable online presence takes time and effort. I recommend some advice that I believe originated with Winston Churchill, “Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.” If you’re a small shop or solo consultant, maybe your best strategy is to write one blog post each month and to comment on other blogs related to your industry or area of expertise.

It’s better to start slowly and remain consistent over time rather than to burst onto the scene with all social guns blazing only to peter out a few months later (it happens!). But if you do decide to tackle multiple social media platforms simultaneously, be sure to provide different, fresh and valuable content for each platform.

standardAugust 15Tom SalonekMarketing

Listen Up – Your Customers are Talking!

Anyone with responsibility for making a company successful—from the CEO to the front desk receptionist—already knows who really decides an organization’s fate: the customers. That’s why most of us pay attention and actively solicit customer input on our current work and future product developments.

As a smaller company, Intertech regularly engages with our customers in informal ways. Why? We all know it’s more economical and productive to extend existing customer relationships than to build new ones from scratch (we also genuinely like our customers!).

But what about medium-to-large companies where regular informal customer contact is difficult to encourage? It’s not uncommon in larger companies for customer relationships to be completely controlled by a single sales rep. That’s not a healthy situation for your company, especially if your sales rep decides to work elsewhere – taking all of those precious customer relationships with him or her.

A couple of smart and connection-minded local entrepreneurs, Eric Lopez and Loring Kaveney, decided to do something about this. They developed a secure community platform called WorkOutLoud to facilitate ongoing conversations between companies and their customers. This cool new platform also provides the tools to drive collaborative activities through online registration, surveys, email notifications, blogs, files storage, forums, analytics and the like. It’s especially helpful for developing case studies, and facilitating product enhancement requests that drives customer engagements before, during and after events such as webinars, conferences, blog posts and announcements.

Loring Kaveney, who also serves as the Minneapolis Director of StartUp Grind (a national networking group for tech entrepreneurs), explained it to me this way:

“There is a natural increase in collaboration when a community platform is provided to share information from thought leaders in their industry, especially when it supports rich content to solve challenges. Customer communities will lower churn while focusing on the satisfaction of the customer’s thoughts around services and products provided by your company.”

In other words, every company needs a customer community to clearly understand what drives their customers and to encourage collaboration. Your bottom line depends on it. I’m impressed with WorkOutLoud and suggest you check it out at www.workoutloud.com.

standardMarch 21Tom SalonekIT