Best in B2B Growth – Week of 2.22.2016

In this week’s issue of LeadCrunch’s Best in B2B Growth, we bring you a diverse set of articles about B2B buyers’ favorite content, content marketing for sales, digital marketing blunders, and the future of B2B sales. Also read about B2B marketing challenges and how to solve them. 

Enjoy your week!

The LeadCrunch Team | High precision B2B leads using artificial intelligence
@lead_crunch | 1-minute video | Try us for free | Subscribe to this newsletter

Curated content – summary

• B2B Buyers’ Favorite Content Types and Channels, by Ayaz Nanji, Marketing Profs
• Why Your Sales Team Should Invest More Time on Content Marketing [Infographic], by AJ Ghergich, Social Media Today
• Avoid Making These 10 Digital Marketing Blunders, by Stephen Moyers, Marketing Profs
• The Future of Sales: 9 B2B Sales Predictions For 2016, Danny Wong, Huffington Post
• Top 3 B2B Marketing Challenges and How to Solve Them, Patrick McFadden, Linkedin

Did you miss our last webinar?
How to Supercharge Your Inbound
AJ Agrawal
CEO Alumnify and Writer at Inc, Forbes, and Entrepreneur

Watch the webinar

Curated content – detailed

B2B Buyers’ Favorite Content Types and Channels, by Ayaz Nanji, Marketing Profs

The content B2B buyers say they want from vendors differs from the content salespeople and marketers believe is most effective, according to a recent report from LinkedIn. The report was based on data from a survey of more than 6,000 B2B buyers, marketers, and salespeople in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, India, the United Kingdom, and the United States. B2B buyers highly value detailed product information, and they often want to dive deeply into technical details when evaluating vendors, the analysis found. read more

Why Your Sales Team Should Invest More Time on Content Marketing [Infographic], by AJ Ghergich, Social Media Today

Your customers, on average, look at nearly a dozen pieces of content before finalizing a purchase – and they would rather check out content than look at ads when learning about a company and its offerings. This demand keeps marketers busy – 88% of B2B companies are turning to content marketing to supplement their sales efforts. Marketers know the importance of content marketing, but for the practice to be most effective, content needs to be a priority for both marketing and sales. Since the top goal for content marketing is lead generation, your sales team should be invested in what content is produced. Salespeople can use content to personalize their approach and meet prospects where they are in the buying process – and when salespeople use social media, 78% of them outperform their peers who aren’t on social media. read more

Avoid Making These 10 Digital Marketing Blunders, by Stephen Moyers, Marketing Profs

To make 2016 one of your most successful years, you must maintain an awareness of the latest advances in marketing. You don’t necessarily have to jump on every marketing bandwagon that comes around, but you do need to know what’s in, what’s out, and what’s never coming back. This year, keep your online flubs to a minimum by avoiding some of the most common digital marketing mistakes, such as the following: 1. Biting Off More Than You Can Chew It’s OK to get excited about digital marketing and brainstorming about a great integrative campaign that involves social media, great graphic design, SEO, writing a new blog every week, and more. What isn’t okay is letting yourself get swept away with several starts and few follow-ups. If your team can effectively manage five social media accounts while it balances all your other marketing activities, then great. But if your team can’t, focus on a handful of tactics that make sense financially and will fit into the time you have to work with. read more

The Future of Sales: 9 B2B Sales Predictions For 2016, Danny Wong, Huffington Post

In its 2015 report, SAP addressed the question, “What’s the Future of Sales?” Among 1,220 global business buyers, the survey found, “The dynamics between buyers and sellers have changed. Whereas once sellers were seen as an unparalleled source of information, the digital revolution has shifted the balance of power, equipping buyers with much of the information they need to make purchase decisions and fundamentally altering how and where sellers are able to add value to this process.” Indeed, the information age has birthed sophisticated enterprise customers. And sales teams everywhere have learned to adapt. read more

Top 3 B2B Marketing Challenges and How to Solve Them, Patrick McFadden, Linkedin

A great deal about B2B Marketing has changed over the last few years, but mostly what’s changed is the way people shop and buy and that’s what you have to understand in order to thrive in the world today. According to a recent study by Salesforce, B2B organizations are consistently faced with three main marketing challenges: bringing in new business, improving lead quality, and generating leads. These challenges actually reveal something greater, that in order to compete today, B2B marketers must completely change the context of how their products, solutions and organization are seen by a prospective customer. To meet these challenges, marketers need to think differently — and this article can help. read more