Mojo, Newsjacking and More – Notes from MarketingProfs B2B Forum

Annuitas Blog Team

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I can’t help mulling over some of the key things I heard at last week’s MarketingProfs B2B Forum in Boston. I always leave conferences exhausted, yet energized and full of ideas, freshly inspired and ready to make a difference in my organization. This year’s event still has me thinking, especially about how we communicate with our buyers and what we need to do to make our communications more relevant.

I attended too many sessions to count, but here are a few things I learned from the event and it’s great sessions:

Writing with Mojo-
Marketers tend to write like writers and too often, forget to write how we speak. It makes a difference. It’s about having a fresh voice, not the expected voice. B2B doesn’t have to be boring. According to Doug Kessler, Co-founder and Creative Director of Velocity Partners. Doug’s slide below says it all.

Newsjacking: The Art and Science of Injecting Your Content into a Breaking News Story-
Without a doubt, the rules of marketing and public relations have changed. It’s vital to be dynamic, avoid the scripted campaign and interject relevance into the news and tie it back to your organization. But do it well. The best example was upon landing in Australia, a local insurance company issued a press release about their gift to President Obama of crocodile insurance. Not your typical coverage of a presidential visit, and not a typical press release either. But, the “news” went out and it generated some major buzz for local company TIO from various publications including the Huffington Post, all in a good way. Listening to Marketing and Sales Strategist, author of Newjacking David Meerman Scott helped open our eyes to new ways of communicating.

Revitalize Your Buyer Personas for Real-World Results –
Marketers know they need to develop buyer personas and most have them. But when were they last updated? Did buying committees factor into your persona development? If not, it’s time to update the personas or you may be missing out on connecting with your buyers. Katie Martell, Co-founder and CMO of Cintell shares insights into why developing the buyer personas is not enough, you need to update them too to keep them relevant

Brand Now: How Today’s Digital Dynamics Can Help You Build a Better Brand Online (and Off)-
Nick Westergaard, Chief Brand Strategist of Brand Driven Social, shares insights on how we need to think in terms of four digital dynamics: clarity, content, coherence and community. The session talked about the hierarchy of digital brand building too in a way that makes sense of the various channels.

Communicating is really what marketing is all about. However, most marketers struggle to communicate effectively to Engage our buyers. Maybe it has to do with the new ways we need to communicate, the multitude of channels that are available to us, the resistance to change or perhaps, we aren’t listening well enough to our buyers. The content from #mpb2b helped a many-a-marketer see things in a different light and perhaps, showed us a new way of communicating. It’s time, isn’t it? Here’s to writing with MOJO.

Author: Erika Goldwater CIPP/US @erikawg is Vice President, Marketing for ANNUITAS