The growing role of social media and personalized content were among the topics discussed at BtoB’s Digital Edge virtual tradeshow. The online event included webcasts hosted by executives from Marketo, Act-On and other marketing automation companies discussing demand gen strategies, content marketing, email marketing, marketing analytics and other topics.
The event kicked off with a keynote presentation from Gary Vaynerchuk, New York Times Best-Selling Author of Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook: How to Tell Your Story in a Noisy World, about how marketers can create content adapted for specific social media platforms by paying attention to what context will help the content make the most impact.
“Behind every ‘B’ in the title B2B, there is a ‘C’,” said Vaynerchuk during his presentation. “There is a human being making the decision on whether or not their company will do business with you, and that is something we really have to think about when you start to humanize your logo and talk about things that are not about your business.”
According to Vaynerchuk, people are increasingly posting personal data into their social networks, providing marketers with a clear indication of a person’s interest. This data can then be used to create content and spur interactions that will impact the audience more effectively than generic email campaigns.
“It may sound stalker-ish, but the truth is that the end user understands that all that information is being made public,” said Vaynerchuk. “If you jump in and interact with them using the data they are sharing, you are doing one of the most attractive things in the world: you are listening.”
Proper Engagement Can Do Wonders
In one of the four webinars offered throughout the event, Mathew Sweezey, Marketing Automation Evangelist at Pardot, examined the buyer’s journey and how companies should plan to engage with their prospects by using the right information at the right time to get heard over all the noise.
“A consumer can disqualify an email in one-twentieth of a second by only looking at who the email is from, and what the subject line says,” said Sweezey during his presentation.“So always having your emails come from an individual, and making sure you are not using any branding or keywords in your subject line, will lead to your emails being opened.”
In another webinar, Amnon Mishor, Founder & VP of Products at Leadspace, covers the best way to evaluate and segment the leads generated by a company, and also predict whether or not a particular lead meets the qualifications to move along the buying cycle towards the sales department.
“Today each one of your lead sources contributes data separately, so you only see one perspective of the lead,” said Mishor. “None of these sources, by themselves, tell you what you need to know: is this a good lead, and what the chances of this lead buying my product are.”
In the closing keynote, Michael Brenner, VP of Marketing and Content Strategy at SAP, shared his outlook on the future of content marketing, highlighting various trends that are turning marketers on to using content to interact with their audience.
“I think we, as brands, need to be more like Oprah Winfrey,” said Brenner. “We need to be able to reach out and connect with our buyers, we need to be able to connect with them on an emotional level. Brands also have to be like rock-and-roll artist Dave Grohl, who not only creates great content, but can deliver that content in a way that instantly connects with the consumer.”
To view on-demand versions of the keynotes and webcasts, or to view any of the resources offered throughout the event, click here.
