Last week we attended the much awaited Funnel event by Econsultancy - it's a pretty exciting gathering in a marketers calendar and if you're serious about your job and like us, a bit of a marketing geek, then this is an event to indulge in. While we got value out of attending, I have to say previous years have been better - nonetheless it was great being there, seeing some familar faces and meeting new ones.
While chatting with other B2B marketers a question came up which got me thinking...
Is B2B Marketing getting boring?
Well I might be biased as I live and breathe the stuff - but in short - not at all! I know there's a sentiment out there that after the big hype of content and inbound marketing, marketers are "back to business" as such and having to get on with bottom line impact.
It's great to see that a good number of marketers have now taken the much needed leap in having a marketing automation tool and are enjoying the pleasures of having one.
I've heard people saying: "My Managing Director is hooked on the funnel reporting tool", "Marketing is now responsible for managing the sales deparment" (to my happy astonishment), "We are achieving X conversion rates, and SEO has rocketed", "We are getting more budget this year..."
Boring? No,no,no... We are in marketing heaven!
This is the joyous conclusion myself and other marketers came up with at Funnel. Hurrah B2B marketers... times have never been so exciting. We finally have tools at our fingertips to demonstrate marketing value and impact!
Onto our top takeaways from Funnel 2013 worth highlighting:
On Marketing Automation
- A marketer should transform into a change maker. Needs to translate technology and potential to the business
- 9% of CEO's refer to marketing data for decision making
- Marketers misunderstand their role
- Build an infrastructure, leave a legacy... marketing automation
- Now creativity is in the workflow and journey design
- Invest in the post it note
- If your campaigns are shorter than your buying cycle then you are leaving too much to chance
- In marketing automation, CRM and all... It is all about the API
- Before you embark on a marketing automation tool you need to sort out your data first
- You have to follow a process for cleaning old data and standardise new data
- Job Roles are becoming more important than Job Titles when segmenting data
- You might need to use third party companies to help you with your process
About Content
- People expect to find the best content in Print
- Each stakeholder should know what they are signing off for
- When signing off a piece of content there needs to be a brief to sign-off against
- Where there's no brief, at the least there needs to be a statement of intent for the piece of content
- Senior management make the biggest dent in the quality of copy during signoff and feedback, followed by product managers
- The biggest challenge in organisations is that people simply don't get what good copy actually is
- Everything begins with a brief
- Journalists ask a lot of questions (that is if they are good ones)
- You must be clear when engaging journalists by telling them where, why and who you want the content for
- Commissioning content is a skill that takes practice. So you might not get it right the first time
- The best tips for proofing content using the FAST method:
Format
Audience
Strategy
Tone
So overall, Funnel 2013 was a positive day. Some new pearls of wisdom (check out my twitter updates) - although I probably gained more insight by chatting to other attendees and catching up with clients and colleagues.
Hats off to Econsultancy for organising a whole week of marketing mojo proving that marketing is definitely not boring! It's only boring if you're not getting involved with inbound marketing and if you still can't track your marketing activities.
If you think your marketing is boring let's chat! Get in touch for your free marketing best practice review.
Image credit: Andrew Mason
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