Categories: Marketing,
Last week’s MarketingProfs B2B Forum 2015 in Boston had something for nearly every marketer, whether in lead generation, demand generation, content marketing, social media marketing, predictive analytics and lots of other SEO keywords.
If I had to sum up the key theme of the event (and that’s certainly a helpful blogging technique), it was the necessity of understanding your customers and the business problems keeping them awake at night, then finding ways to help them solve those problems. Also, how to tell your story so that it’s fun and interesting.
Two. Two key themes.
Lazily, I have compiled some tweets that caught my eye, summed up the spirit of the event, had pretty pictures, or featured me.
Carlos Hidalgo pointed out that you can’t create useful content if you don’t understand your customers.
Content is not the 1st step – lots of orgs are doing content & getting nothing from it. Developing buyer insights is the first step #mpb2b
— Carlos Hidalgo (@cahidalgo) October 21, 2015
To put it another way, as Joe Pulizzi did:
Nobody cares about what you sell. They care about their own pain points. <@JoePulizzi #SMB #b2bsales #mpb2b — Karen Jackson (@karenjacksol) October 22, 2015
Hard to say it better than this:
Dying when @bobbylehew introduced this during his fantastic #storytelling talk.https://t.co/ACdh6wfxTI #MPB2B pic.twitter.com/cCQAwXluFT — Shannon K. Murphy (@shannonkmurphy) October 22, 2015
Ron Ploof shared this image to inspire attendees who think they don’t have a story to tell. There are lots of ways to get to Story Street. (I don’t think he said it like that, so if that sounds dopey, it’s my fault.)
Think you don’t have a story to tell? Think again. RonPloof #mpb2b pic.twitter.com/4jIOdFEbiA https://t.co/nL9Dhy9jgN — Bobby Johansen (@BobbyJohansen2) October 23, 2015
Doug Kessler shared what may be my favorite slide of the entire event, because it reminds me that not only is it a challenge to tell a really great story in a B2B context, but when you find one you have to try hard not to ruin it.
How to write w MOJO-Still thinking about this from yesterday’s session w @dougkessler #mpb2b pic.twitter.com/b4QKsPSBHO — ANNUITAS (@_ANNUITAS) October 23, 2015
The Smartest Man in Marketing, Christopher S. Penn, cautioned marketers to be deliberate about their metrics, and their intent in measuring them.
“Don’t measure what you won’t change” @cspenn rocking #mpb2b pic.twitter.com/PMDmr1a1Kd — Loren McDonald (@LorenMcDonald) October 22, 2015
Andy Crestodina made a highly-retweeted point that took a key theme of the entire event and made it very practical. If you bury customer testimonials on one page of your website, no one will see them.
.@crestodina #FOMO Make every page a testimonial page! #mpb2b pic.twitter.com/oZdG6k1CY4 — Wendy DeFazio (@WDeFazio) October 22, 2015
Heidi Cohen shared one of those cool stats that I always write down and still forget to do anything about. Takeaway: More pictures! Fewer words!
60% of blog visitors read full blogpost; nearly 100% view photos and videos. @heidicohen #mpb2b #mktngtips — Renee Karibi-Whyte (@ReneeKaribi) October 22, 2015
Holly Chessman and Jeffrey L. Cohen’s session on B2B content to drive traffic and leads got a lot of attention, in part for the great stats flying back and forth (us content marketers love stats that prove what we do is valuable). They also did a great job of promoting their session and extending its shelf life with a blog post on socialmediab2b.com.
Great B2B content marketing tips for lead generation from @HollyChessman #mpb2b https://t.co/ATeG6ffUUa — Leadspace (@Leadspace) October 23, 2015
Avinash Kaushik, digital marketing evangelist at Google, garnered a lot of tweets, and not just because of the salty language. Avinash hates funnels.
“I hate funnels and I hate you if you like funnels.” via @avinash #mpb2b They are fundamentally selfish. pic.twitter.com/NVw0gcoOJc — Robert Collins (@RobertCollins) October 21, 2015
Avinash suggests a measurement strategy that recognizes your buyer’s journey isn’t always linear.
#mpb2b Map your metrics and analytics to intent category. @avinash pic.twitter.com/NSXdr66JaY — Christopher Penn (@cspenn) October 21, 2015
Ashley Zeckman of Top Rank Blog was at the event, and wrote quite a few useful posts (which is a content marketing best practice all by itself). She wrote a great one on Avinash’s talk. “Content today must compete with pictures of babies and kittens,” says Michael Brenner of NewsCred. He shared the slides from his content marketing plan session while the event was still going on, which is really smart (but so is he). Plus, people love “how to” guides.
How To Build Your Own #ContentMarketing Plan – My @SlideShare for #mpb2b https://t.co/thzmiPJXsD pic.twitter.com/sx2vuScXop — Michael Brenner (@BrennerMichael) October 21, 2015
“Graphic recorder” Kelly Kingman did a fantastic job of capturing the keynotes with words and images. Lots of people tweeted photos of her creations.
@kellykingman another work of art thank you!! #mpb2b pic.twitter.com/hhWQM4oK4v — Jen Daniele (@JenDaniele) October 24, 2015
Kelly obviously enjoys her job.
What’s big, red & eats rocks? Via @petersagal #mpb2b pic.twitter.com/RTe0vPNvH8 — Kelly Kingman (@kellykingman) October 23, 2015
Ashley ’s wrap-up post for TopRank was especially good, and not just because I’m in it.
Top Takeaways from #MPB2B Forum @HanaAbaza @DavidBThomas @JasonMillerCA @KatieMartell https://t.co/co4UkaxCmJ pic.twitter.com/hA4PjDNWrg — TopRankMarketing.com (@toprank) October 27, 2015
Now that I’ve gone through the hashtag stream again, I’m left with one key takeaway above all others: If you want to get attention at an event, send a capable writer to capture useful content and share it in near-real time. TopRank basically won MarketingProfs B2B by employing that strategy.
main image yoinked from Ann Handley’s Instagram feed | I regret nothing
