As Demand Gen Report’s sister brand, the Content4Demand team always has access to a wealth of B2B buyer insights. Together, the annual B2B Buyer’s Survey and Content Preferences Survey provide an in-depth look into the content formats and approaches buyers prefer as they research … | Continue reading
As Senior Director of Modern Marketing Business Transformation, Kelvin Gee focuses on Modern Marketing enablement evangelism and training. His specialty? Educating and transforming Oracle’s marketers to adopt marketing automation, personas and best practices. Kelvin’s devotion to … | Continue reading
By Melanie Kinney, Content4Demand As a beginning designer, I wasn’t particularly enthusiastic about branding guidelines. I felt like they were cutting into my creative design decisions. Fonts, colors, imagery — my design choices felt so limited. I didn’t understand why clients wa … | Continue reading
By Brenda Caine, Content Strategist, Content4Demand Personas are the cornerstone of content marketing. The better you know the people you’re talking to, the more closely you can align your content messaging, format decisions and even your promotional strategies to their needs. Yo … | Continue reading
Data empowers marketers, demand creators and sales teams to be more effective at their jobs and make smarter decisions. But when we think about data in the B2B world, it covers a vast spectrum: buyer-specific data, search data, content download and consumption, social data, site- … | Continue reading
On average, Americans spend 24.3 minutes driving to and from work each day. This may not seem like much, but it adds up to more than 100 hours of commuting time each year — time you could spend engaging your buyers. If that’s not enough for you to consider the power and potential … | Continue reading
We hope you’re enjoying meeting the C4D team in our ongoing column. In this edition, we’d like to introduce you to Holly Celeste Fisk, Client Services Manager to the Stars. (She told us to say that.) When she’s not pushing “Auntarchy” with her niece and nephew, she’s overseeing t … | Continue reading
Creating great content is the first step towards marketing success. Perhaps the most important step, though, is delivering this right content to the right buyer at the right time. There has been a lot of buzz recently around “contextual marketing,” which is more targeted and rele … | Continue reading
By Emily Lewis, BlueBird Strategies Editor’s note: As part of a special arrangement, the article below has been syndicated from the blog of BlueBird Strategies, a Content4Demand partner. Data is the new currency. In today’s increasingly connected world, collecting, managing, anal … | Continue reading
You can always rely on the SiriusDecisions team to concoct complex models and conjure up in-depth insights that make you completely rethink how you create content and engage your buyers. And deliver they did during the annual #SDSummit in Nashville, Tenn. During the show, the Si … | Continue reading
It is extremely important that marketers create and publish content on a consistent basis. However, there’s no point in building an extensive content library unless you have the tools and best practices to promote and syndicate that content effectively across channels. Over time … | Continue reading
By Brenda Caine, Content Strategist, Content4Demand All the marketing automation in the world won’t achieve squat without quality content. MA software allows us to deploy campaigns that deliver content based on individual behavior and measure our results. When it’s integrated wit … | Continue reading
Happy Friday, everyone! We’re closing out the final day of the SiriusDecisions Summit in Nashville and it has been a busy week (to say the least). We joined thousands of our fellow marketing and demand gen pals to acquire the latest research, models and methodologies from the Sir … | Continue reading
Love it or hate it, election season impacts us all. This election season in particular, we’ve seen a tremendous shift in how people exercise their free speech and support their candidates. The current election cycle has influenced the Content4Demand team so much that we’ve desig … | Continue reading
By Sophorn Chhay, Trumpia Mobile marketing has come a long way, and B2B marketers are considering it an asset on many platforms. Today, 80% of smartphone holders utilize their devices to make purchasing decisions. Analysts already predict an astounding 3.5 billion mobile searches … | Continue reading
Happy Friday, content marketers! Would you say you have a mature content strategy? Are you able to craft highly relevant, curated and interactive experiences for your buyers as they venture along their decision-making journeys? Here are some great articles that will help you take … | Continue reading
Walking into the opening keynote at this year’s Marketo Summit, I saw firsthand just how busy today’s marketers are. Attendees were anxiously awaiting the start of the show as they furiously sent emails, IMs and tweets. Multi-tasking at its finest. Marketo CEO Phil Fernandez was … | Continue reading
By Brenda Caine, Content4Demand With the advent of social media, everybody has access to a digital megaphone that allows them to blast their thoughts and opinions to millions of people. And some of that chatter is about our brands. With billions of messages swarming around the cy … | Continue reading
Over the past few days, I was in New York City for our sister brand Retail TouchPoints’ annual Retail Innovation Conference. It was a packed agenda featuring analysts, shopper behavioralists and retail executives who shared their views on the latest industry trends and best pract … | Continue reading
One widely accepted rule in B2B content marketing is that product-focused content belongs in the final stage of the buyer’s journey. Education first. Solutions second. Product third. If only it were that simple… The irony is that by saying unequivocally that buyers don’t want pro … | Continue reading
In our latest installment of C4D Staffer Spotlight, we’d like to introduce you to a vital member of our design team, Nathan Billman. He consistently delivers outstanding design concepts for both client and internal C4D projects, bringing content marketing to life with compelling … | Continue reading
What I enjoy most in my role as a Content Strategist is conjuring up new ideas. This could mean developing nurture campaign themes and flows, crafting individual content ideas or brainstorming event themes and multichannel initiatives. For all of these different areas, I always g … | Continue reading
Cinco de Mayo is more widely celebrated in the U.S. than it is in Mexico, where it was originally intended to commemorate a small Mexican army’s victory over French forces in the Batalia de Puebla in 1862. Today, most Americans are happy to pay homage with chips, guacamole and, o … | Continue reading
Establishing and building a brand and its corporate positioning is no easy feat, especially for a brand that has the roots that Aptos does. Just last year, the retail division of Epicor separated from the behemoth brand and became its own entity. Over the past year or so, Marketi … | Continue reading
I don’t know about you, but there are times when I spend so much time writing that I type myself into a corner. All of the words start to blur, and my eyes see something like this: “sadofinaisfnaosdfiasmdofinaoifnaosdfnasdiofnsaoifn.” Our hectic schedules, tight deadlines and am … | Continue reading
Last week, the world was shocked by the death of Prince — the almighty Purple One who has inspired so many people with his music, incredible fashion sense and devotion to being true to himself. I personally am still in shock. Over the past five days, artists and friends of Prince … | Continue reading
By Alex Star, BlueBird Strategies Editor’s note: As part of a special arrangement, the article below has been syndicated from the blog of BlueBird Strategies, a Content4Demand partner. According to Business2Community, despite plans to increase spending on social media in 2016 an … | Continue reading
Happy Friday, content marketers! I hope you had a wonderful, productive week creating great content, crafting campaigns and pushing the marketing limits! To help inspire you as you go into the weekend, I wanted to share some helpful articles that touch on relationship-building, i … | Continue reading
By Brenda Caine, Content4Demand You know your demand generation efforts aren’t up to snuff, and you know that a coherent content marketing campaign is what you need to turn things around. The facts prove it: Content marketing costs 62% less than traditional marketing while genera … | Continue reading
By Melanie Kinney, Content4Demand “What makes an object clickable?” It’s an interesting question, right? It’s easy to identify buttons and calls to action (CTAs) in traditional digital environments. On websites and in emails, you have an expectation of what a button looks like an … | Continue reading
It’s been almost two weeks since I’ve tackled a “Fast & Easy Friday” column, and I have to say that I’m so happy to be back! Within this time period, I got married, went on a honeymoon to Miami and unplugged from all things content marketing. As I got back into the swing of thing … | Continue reading
If you’re a marketer, it’s a safe bet that doing a content audit is not your idea of a good time. Don’t feel too bad about this; unless your perfect Friday night involves a root canal and a few dozen paper cuts, I don’t expect you to be crazy about content audits, either. Still, … | Continue reading
Editor’s note: This guest feature by Klaudia Tirico was originally published in Demand Gen Report’s “Industry Insights” column on April 6, 2016. Social media platforms have become a common source for B2B marketers to engage with their client base and potential prospects, as well … | Continue reading
Every year, I write a list of new personal goals – everything from the local museums I want to visit (I’m headed your way, Getty Villa!) to health, family, career and financial goals; when I intend to achieve them; and the steps required to mark each item off the list. It works! … | Continue reading
Everyone who’s had the pleasure of meeting Lisa Ladle Wallace has probably enjoyed her warm smile, friendly style and a good laugh — all icing on the cake when you see how much of herself she puts into delivering quality work for her clients. That’s just a part of why she took no … | Continue reading
When SiriusDecisions asserted last year that content marketers were wasting “tens of millions of dollars a year” on the 60% to 70% of content created by B2B marketing teams that never gets used, my jaw dropped. Waste makes me crazy, and that’s a pretty incredible waste. That’s wh … | Continue reading
What I find most interesting about the art and science of content marketing is that there are so many different ways to be successful. Although there are some core best practices that all marketers should follow, tactics and approaches can vary based on a number of factors, inclu … | Continue reading
If you work for a B2B company, I’m betting you already have a lead nurture program in place. It’s no wonder why: Businesses that use marketing automation to nurture prospects see a 451% increase in the number of qualified leads. But lead nurturing takes more than just a great Mar … | Continue reading
I have a confession to make: I’m obsessed with listicles. You may immediately associate the term with BuzzFeed, which has become known for its vast selection of hilarious lists, which touch on tips, secrets, observations and more. All listicles are quick, easy to read and includ … | Continue reading
Pop quiz: What’s a great way to engage buyers, encourage them to rate or assess their current strategies and connect them to an end goal or potential? The not-so-surprising answer is quizzes and assessments! Your buyers are gravitating to more snackable, easy-to-digest assets: Up … | Continue reading
Your buyers are being bombarded by content. Every day, they receive an influx of emails promoting new white papers and E-books, and their peers and influencers are recommending podcasts, webinars, infographics and other assets. As a result, the likelihood of your content turning … | Continue reading
The art of content marketing is like building a house. Your strategy is the foundation; it’s vital to your success. If you don’t have a foundation for your house, the walls, roof and all other elements will crumble around it. The same can be said about your content marketing inve … | Continue reading
A prerequisite of effective B2B nurture planning is knowing the type of demand you are trying to generate. Content can have any number of jobs: education, buyer progression, objection handling, etc. But content can do no job unless someone pays attention, and that’s why knowing d … | Continue reading
While her actual doppelganger may be disputed, this isn’t: C4D’s Alicia Fiorletta is an unquestionably talented Content Strategist who shines at distilling important strategies and messaging into engaging content for Content4Demand and our clients. Alicia juggles an impressive nu … | Continue reading
Let me tell you a story about…storytelling. A powerful story is the necessary foundation of successful content. As marketers, we can’t truly connect with our audience unless we craft a storyline that resonates with them. We need to give them something to relate to, empathize with … | Continue reading
It’s coming up on 10 years since the Harvard Business Review (HBR) laid out a strategy to end “the war between sales and marketing.” Decrying the negative impact on corporate performance due to misaligned sales and marketing departments, the prestigious publication offered severa … | Continue reading
Every day, marketers face an endless list of tasks and deadlines. We’re always itching to get the next to-do crossed off our list, so we sometimes gloss over the creative process in order to get down to business. But as Ashley Taylor Anderson, Director of Content at Ceros, notes … | Continue reading
Happy Friday, content marketers! You’re probably winding down after a hectic week of creating content, coordinating campaigns or measuring results, so we’re going to take things nice and easy. Rather than hammering hard metrics and detailed concepts into your brain, we’re going t … | Continue reading