Need some inspiration and new ideas for your content marketing strategy. This is a great, great resource for all marketers to check out: Content Marketing Institute’s ‘100 Content Marketing Examples‘ – whether you’re at the start of your content journey or trying to find new and exciting ways to engage – here’s a good mix of B2B and B2C examples to mull over and learn from. Some of my favourites:

• Example 3: IBM’s business simulation game, “CityOne”

• Example 30: Logitech’s storytelling web video

• Example 33:  Agilent puts fun into science with their unexpected humorous approach

• Example 58: Unilever’s Adrenalist website ties in with a specific product line

• My favourite – Example 82: Coca Cola’s narrative style videos. They cleverly share their strategy on ‘doubling their business’ through a very personal, two-way communications feel. Love this! Check out the video.

We all know how hot infographics have become in social marketing and how powerful they can be – it’s a great way to take complex, detailed or sometimes dry concepts and transforming them into something engaging and more intuitive. These visual messages have certainly become an important weapon in B2B social and content marketing strategies.

If you’re still not too sure about infographics, well … check out this infographic:

We all want to engage, nurture and provide added value – so how can we go beyond that – what’s next?

My source of inspiration for this blog is eConsultancy’s article “The mainstreaming of content marketing: ten implications“.  Doug writes about his predictions on how he thinks the digital marketing space will change as content marketing becomes the norm. Some real food for thought – here’s a summary of Doug’s predictions:

• Broadcast-style marketing will make a comeback
• Your content brand will be as important as your overall brand
• It will be harder and harder to earn downloads
• Content production will become commoditised
• We’ll have to work much harder to earn people’s contact details
• Active shares will be the killer metric
• Cross-promotion will become essential
• Trigger events will be the new personas
• Library marketing will be the next critical discipline
• Social CRM will become the core technology for most marketing departments
• Get ready to raise your game

For me, where we’re starting to see fatigue is lead generation tactics. There is a such an overload of content out there and it’s getting more and more challenging to engage people through content marketing and getting prospects to carry out the action you want them to – download, sign up, enter, share. Content needs to be timely, hot, relevant and slick for someone to part with their details.

The interesting opportunity that lies ahead for me is ‘content mapping‘ – so being more intelligent with your content and linking it in with customer buying stages and personas. The right content showing at the right time is the name of the game. We’re all good at distributing our new piece of content to everyone but not everyone is interested at that precise point in time. Linking behavioural marketing with content is definitely the new edge.

There’s also a real missed opportunity that many are not taking advantage of – go back to previous content and update it/link it/cross promote it to something current – an upcoming event or webinar etc. Yes, these activities are more time-intensive but the payback should mean highly engaged, timely and hopefully ready-to-purchase prospects.

For me the last point about raising your game runs true all the time to be honest. Marketers everywhere need to be continuously innovating, raising the bar and striving to lead rather than follow.

Interesting times….

Following on from the blog we posted back in March ‘Leverage Pinterest for B2B Marketing‘, here’s a great Marketingsherpa case study from a B2B company that’s making the most of Pinterest.

If you look beyond ROI, hit rates and conversions, you’ll see that Pinterest can really extend your brand awareness, market positioning, thought leadership and content sharing. As the fastest growing social platform at the moment B2B marketers need to start paying attention.

Check out the case study: B2B Social Media: How one marketer is utilizing Pinterest

Developments in technology have been keeping us on our BrightBull toes. A consensus among other fellow marketers is that keeping up with technology is becoming one of their biggest challenges. So it’s exciting news like this acquisition that makes us very happy – in fact it should make any B2B social media marketer very happy.

A combined estimated 136 million monthly unique visitors now aligning 9 million content uploads with 161 million members, opens up a whole new world of possibilities for us B2B marketers.

I have been fantasising a little about the implications of this deal in our daily social media lives. So I’ve come up with some potential things that might happen in the near  future:

1. Single login with your LinkedIn profile
   We assume that an obvious new feature will be a single login with your LinkedIn profile, making everything easier and effortless
2. Better customer profiling of your slideshare views
   The basic analytics package built in on slideshare is very basic and completely dependent on how complete other members have their profiles. Now with the potential login through LinkedIn we should be able to have an extended view of each of the views
3. Funkier ways to integrate with other tools within LinkedIn
   Right now there is no way of sharing content on LinkedIn other than the existing plug-in with slideshare for one’s profile. Can you imagine being able to share presentations, webinars and downloadable pieces directly into groups, Q&A, company profiles etc? It would be a dream. Alternatively, having group features on slideshare like the ones already on LinkedIn will enhance the viewing experience and community sense.
4. Lead generation to be made easier than ever
   One can already generate leads via slideshare, however any integration with LinkedIn and user profiles should theoretically bring a better quality of contacts and leads into the whole community.
5. Better exposure to your already existing community of contacts
   Combine both groups of contacts into one single platform – simple, seamless (hopefully) and all will benefit

Obviously we can only speculate at this stage, but whatever happens moving forward it will be sure to make our B2B marketing lives easier – having a better and more robust single channel for companies to share their valuable content in my opinion is a win-win for all. The kind of news we would welcome every day of the week!

So why are we not taking it more seriously? We’re embracing social media but mobile still doesn’t featured too highly in B2B marketing strategies or campaigns. We seem to be missing a real opportunity.

Let’s make 2012 a better year for B2B mobile email.

1. First step – get curious about the stats. Find out what proportions of your email marketing campaigns are being opened on a mobile device. Most email marketing systems give you access to those analytics – if not it’s probably time you invested in one that gives you richer metrics.

2. Ensure you optimise your emails for mobile – it’s a little more work but mobile email is only going to continue growing so best you do it now. Besides you’ll be one step ahead of your competition by the looks of it!

3. Don’t forget to optimise the all important landing page. You don’t just want people viewing your email on their mobile devices but also taking the desired action – be it to join, register, book, like or share.

Mobile is clearly an important part of the marketing landscape – we can’t ignore statistics like “27% of emails are opened on mobile devices.” so it’s about time we gave it the attention it deserves.

Check out the video:

How to Succeed in Business (to Business)

In a nutshell Seth summaries with this great quote – “The only way to consistently grow in B2B is to be better than very good.”

He talks about ‘honest connections‘ with clients and avoiding the “all things to all people” and “vague promises” approach.

Got me thinking about how we work here at BrightBull. We’re fortunate to have very loyal and happy clients and I’d like to think it’s because we’re more than just ‘very good’.

We’re straight talking, we truly understand our clients’ businesses, we work in a niche sector, we’ve got bags of experience and we’re big fans of transparency and measurement. This is what we feel takes us above and beyond just being ‘very good’.

What are your above and beyond qualities? Worth thinking about and ensuring that ethos runs right through your organisation.

BrightBull offers two marketing internships a year and we’ll be kicking off the selection process in May 2012.

What We’re Offering

• A great opportunity to be part of a creative, dynamic team
• Hands on B2B marketing role, working on key client accounts
• Managing email campaigns, social media activities and PPC
• Gain agency experience Intensive marketing training and mentoring
• Flexible working
• Expenses and allowance

We’re looking for someone with fantastic communication skills, who is highly organised and brings bags of ideas and enthusiasm to the team. You need to have a ‘roll your sleeves up’ attitude with a willingness to learn. Never a dull moment here!

What You Need

• Marketing related degree
• Social media savvy
• Experience in PPC a bonus
• Ability to multi task and prioritise
• Good command of written and spoken English
• A commitment of 3 days per week minimum

What Next

If you think you fit the bill and can add real value to our team, please get in touch telling us! Examples of your creativity and enthusiasm for marketing would be ideal too. Application deadline 30th April 2012.
Email: sonia@brightbull.co.uk with your CV and a short cover letter.

As an objective measure of the performance of the exhibition industry the CEIR Index measures year-over-year changes in four key metrics to determine overall performance:

1. Net Square Feet of Exhibit Space Sold

2. Professional Attendance

3. Number of Exhibiting Companies

4. Gross Revenue

The 2011 gain in the exhibition industry was reflected in all four metrics of measurement, marking an end of three consecutive years of decline – the events future is looking bright!

You can read CEIR’s full press release, but here’s a brief summary of the findings:

• Overall exhibition industry posted a relatively strong rebound of 2.7%, finishing 15% higher than forecast
• Revenue growth is expected to increase Y-O-Y to 3.6% in 2014
• According to a CEIR survey released in February 2012, “B2B exhibitions received an average of 39.2% of respondents’ marketing budget in 2011.”
• Number of exhibitors also posted an increase – up 2.3% year-over-year after falling 1.1% in 2010
• Number of attendees increased 3.4% on the back of 2.4% growth in 2010
• Sector to watch: business-process related exhibitions growing rapidly – 11.2% increase
• Government related exhibitions grew 7%, communication & IT 8.1%, and transportation 5.7% were also among the fastest-growing
• By contrast, building, construction, and home repair (-5.3%), and sporting goods, travel, and amusement (-0.8%) all declined, while medical and health care (0.2%) experienced only marginal growth.