B2B Excellence - The million dollar B2B influencer?

B2B Excellence is a weekly newsletter that curates the best B2B marketing content from the brightest minds in our industry.

?We include the perspectives from a variety of enterprise marketers, stories from fast-growth businesses challenging the conventional ways of working and thinking, and the top 1% of B2B marketers shaping modern-day practices.

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?Article - The 1-million-dollar influencer

?YouTubers are taking over all walks of life, whether it's clothing brands, chocolate bars or boxing. Influencers are leveraging and monetizing their communities.

?Are we about to see this in the professional arena?

?This is a fascinating prediction for sales, will we see a similar cross-over into marketing?

?This post elaborates on the traditional path sales folks take, how their org is typically built, and how they market themselves and do a more effective job.

?This CEO over at Retention believe all these core behaviours and traditional views are ripped for distribution with the role of the future influencer.

?Check out the full post here.

?At its core, the B2B influencer is still emerging and we’re all still figuring out the role they play within our company.

?But what’s certainly evident, in my eyes at least, it’s here to stay and will keep growing.

?I wrote this piece earlier last week, on four keys that will evolve in B2B marketing this year and provide the biggest opportunities. (full article coming next week).

?B2B Influencer Marketing - The shiny new graze, or the emergence of a key new(ish) growth pillar?

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Article 2 - Marketing effectiveness vs marketing efficiency?

?One of my favourite new writers at the end of last year was Dale W Harrison.

?He emerged as someone with a provocative point of view, data-led and determined to challenge conventional wisdom.

This is another example of just that.

Dale challenges the general aggregation of different metrics, suggesting some of those typical metrics that are more commonly associated with effectiveness should be more associated with measuring efficiency.

A logical perspective, personally I don’t agree with them all. But I love original opinions, so check out Dale's latest provocative view.

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?Article 3 - The fundamentals behind a content strategy (SMB first)

There are some core principles around content marketing that are applicable to all walks of life in B2B,? whether you're getting started or the category leader.

The complexity and output will naturally evolve as you go upmarket, introduce new audiences or your business grows and so forth.

?But stripping it all back for those getting started, this is a nice structure as ever with a clear visual from product marketer Pierre Herubel.

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Article 4- It’s time to fight the ‘lead gen lie’ in B2B marketing

?Marketers have had renewed confidence in the latter stages of 2023, with budgets increasing indicators, and the markets seemingly improving, on face value, the tide turning.

?Jenny Sagstrom suggests curbing the enthusiasm when our behaviours are yet to adapt to the opportunity for more brand investment.

?This a nice healthy reminder to use 2024 as a springboard to calibrate our brand/led generation budget investment, head over to the Drum to read the full article .

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?Article 5 - How to build a media company

?A relevantly new term coined to reinforce the narrative of producing valuable insightful content that engages future buyers who seek out your content. Which over time helps affinity and brand trust.?A simple and obvious statement, but often forgotten, and whilst straightforward on face value, executing it is actually very difficult.

?You can also just call it your “content strategy”.

?Not every B2B brand can be a media company, but we should all have an inspiration to be one.

?Features are commoditized, there are more competitors than ever, budgets are being squeezed, and there is more average content than ever.

?So, what better way to engage your future buyers, with creating better content, FOR THEM.

?What content do you seek out, and why? Do you think your content produces this behaviour?

Nice overview here of how to build one with a supporting video from Chris Walker.

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Conversations, posts or articles I liked this week

Does Ad Retargeting Work?

Airbnb has a blueprint of their entire customer journey on their office walls.

How to book thought leaders on your podcast

9 Psychology Concepts Used in Marketing

99% of learnings are after launch?

"Attention" will be a marketing buzzword again in 2024

How do you build a B2B media company?