Marketing Spark (The B2B SaaS Marketing Podcast)

Some companies aim to stand out from the crowd. They want to differentiate themselves from companies that walk, talk, and sound the same. Some companies want to go a step further. They want to compete in a new category. They embrace a concept called category design in which they define and lead a new market. In this episode of Marketing Spark, Josh Lowman offers insight into the definition of category design and how one of his clients embraced the concept.

xtensio is a classic story of how a service-based company turned a problem into a product. The company was working with startups and needed better ways to support buyer personas and other marketing activities It launched a few templates that resonated and then realized that there was more than enough demand to pivot the business. In this episode of Marketing Spark, xtensio CEO Alper Cakir talks about the journey and how it has leveraged content marketing to drive brand awareness and inbound traffic. It is interesting that xtensio doesn't have a marketing department. Instead, it relies on Cakir and in-house employees to create most of the content.

It's the wild west when it comes to building a personal brand.  There's no lack of advice, guidance, content, and coaches to establish a personal brand within a competitive landscape.  Michelle Griffin has some great insight into creating a strategic plan for personal branding. We talk about why personal branding is important for entrepreneurs and CEOs, and how to get started on platforms like LinkedIn.

Many B2B marketers are throttled by the need to generate MQLs. Their campaigns and activities are measured by how many email addresses are collected and fed to an army of business development and sales reps. Nelson Gilliat believes there's a better way. The "Buyer-centric revenue" model allows marketers to do good and creative marketing that drives brand awareness and generates customer interest in your products. At the same time, the buyer-centric revenue model eliminates a lot of the prospecting done by B2B SaaS companies. It's cold outreach and cold-calling that bother prospects rather than engage and educate. Nelson is the author of "Death of the SDR: Birth of Buyer Centric Revenue" 

Building a content marketing strategy is a lot like building a house, says Visme's Farzad Rashidi . You need a good foundation and infrastructure and a nice facade. You need to have a clear understanding of the best keywords that will attract readers to content and determine the most relevant channels to publish content. But creation should only account for 20% of your time. 80% should be devoted to promotion and distribution, as well as updating and refreshing existing content. That's the formula for content marketing success.

Hiring a marketing consultant is often a leap of faith. You’re hoping their expertise and experience fills gaps and make things happen. But a lot of consulting engagements don’t work as well as expected. - There’s misalignment on expectations. - A lack of engagement and collaboration (no partnership) - Not enough clarity about what success looks like. - A lack of commitment to actually do marketing (more talk than walk) When I lost a client recently, some of these issues reared their ugly heads. To get some more perspective, I talked to Kevin Whelan, who helps marketing consultants improve their businesses. A key theme was how companies need to hire consultant and, as important, how and when consultants should take on clients. Consulting is a two-way street. Both parties need to agree to work together. It’s there’s a good fit, that’s a great start.

In simple terms, account-based marketing (ABM) is about targeting the prospects that really matter. It's about a laser-focused approach to marketing and sales. Behind the scenes, however, a lot needs to happen. It includes ensuring that marketing and sales work together to attract, engage, and nurture prospects. On this episode of Marketing Spark, Andrei Zinkevich also points out that ABM also involves determining the customers that you don't want as much as the customers you do want. Andrei goes into depth about how his company, Full Funnel, helps B2B SaaS companies leverage ABM to drive leads and revenue growth.

For many B2B SaaS companies, conversations are the ultimate success metric. When customers directly engage with you, relationships are established and, as important, the sales journey is jump-started. On this episode of Marketing Spark, Mark Kilens, Drfit's VP of Content & Community, talks about how conversation marketing gained momentum last year at a time when conferences disappeared. Drift pioneered conversation marketing with the introduction of an AI-powered chatbot that attempts to engage, understand and recommend solutions. Mark and I also talk about Drift's approach to content marketing, the importance of content distribution, and some of the metrics used to assess content marketing success.

Over the past 19 months, a growing number of people have embraced LinkedIn as a platform to make connections, drive conversations, and share content. Among the most successful is Joel Lalgee , a professional recruiter, who has more than 73,000 followers.  In this episode of Marketing Spark, Joel looks at how LinkedIn has evolved and how his approach to LinkedIn has changed. It's great insight from someone who has clearly seen huge ROI from LinkedIn. Joel also talks about the "Great Resign" movement that has dominated the work landscape, as well as the challenges and opportunities of working from home. 

When did building a personal brand become so important? Does everyone need a personal brand? DP Knudten has some great insight into why a personal brand is a key part of how to operate professionally and personally. He looks at the keys to success and the mistakes made by people along the way.  As well, DP talks about his Non-Fiction Brand approach to personal branding.