After spending six weeks traveling through Southeast Asia with my family in 2017, I came home to more than 2,000 emails! We are inundated with information: blog posts, videos, social media, advertisements, podcasts, infographics, photos, bill- boards, videos, direct mail and more. The growing embrace of storytelling is an attempt to make sense of the […]
At a time when digital tools such as social media and content marketing are all the rage, some startups are discovering that going un-digital can be an effective approach to marketing. In the marketing world, it’s all about being digital active. Brands need a vibrant social media presence, ideally on multiple platforms. They need to […]
In the fast-moving digital world, the press release is widely viewed as an anachronism. Compared to sizzle and sexiness of social media and content marketing, the press release is a digital dinosaur. As Chris Hogg argued in an earlier post on B2B NN, why would anyone use a press release when they can tweet, share and […]
What’s ahead for startup marketing in 2016? Which trends will impact your B2B startup? In many cases, it will be more of the same: content marketing, social marketing and storytelling. If there is an underlying theme, it may be agility, flexibility and the ability to capitalize on opportunities to stand apart in an increasingly noisy […]
Everyone loves a holiday party…except the people who organize them. Having to deal with different tastes and lifestyles while trying to be fun and responsible can make the holiday party a fierce creature. In theory, holiday parties are an opportunity to celebrate successes and recognize employees for their efforts and achievements. But holiday parties can also […]
It’s November so it must be Movember, right? Throwing caution to the wind, men are growing moustaches with various degrees of success. Regardless of the final “product”, it is all for a good cause – raising awareness and money for men’s health, specifically prostate cancer, testicular cancer and men’s mental health. From humble beginnings in […]
Saul Colt is an experienced marketer who has worked with high-profile companies such as FreshBooks and Xero, so you would figure he would have no problems finding a job. But after finishing a one-year contract with Xero in San Francisco, Colt discovered that getting his next gig was more challenging than he had anticipated. In […]
For many startups, advertising means digital – AdSense, Facebook, Twitter, retargeting, etc. It’s a landscape they know and like, particularly given how many activities can be tracked and analyzed. What about traditional media such as radio, television and print, which have lost much of their luster as digital marketing becomes more popular? Is traditional media […]
It used to be that when a company was privately owned, things were, well, mostly private. A company may have disclosed the number of employees and maybe annual sales but all other information was kept behind closed doors. These days, however, privacy seems to be less important. This is particularly the case for a growing […]
In part one, Mark Evans explained what motivated him and his team to produce mesh, a popular digital media conference in Toronto. In this column, he reveals how mesh evolved, the team’s biggest mistakes, and why he no longer runs conferences When the mesh conference debuted in 2006, it was an immediate hit. Its success was […]
It was never my plan to start a conference. I was a technology reporter for the National Post, who wrote about telecom, venture capital and start-ups. I covered conferences; they were not things that I organized. But sometimes things happen through serendipity or luck. The impetus to create the mesh conference – an annual digital […]
While Lauren Friese says there are no hard and fast rules for selling a business, she noticed the signs indicating the time was right to sell TalentEgg, the company she founded in 2008. Among the leading indicators were two factors: Friese recognized that her personal contribution to TalentEgg’s success was becoming less important, and there was […]
To PR or not to PR? That is the question facing many B2B start-ups. From the outside looking in, PR is a sexy proposition because it can be a powerful tool to attract the spotlight. The other reality is that hiring a PR agency is expensive and there are no guarantees the investment will deliver […]
Dick Costolo’s recent departure as Twitter’s CEO was not surprising. Twitter’s revenue growth is failing to meet expectations, which is a problem exacerbated by its status as a publicly traded company. Twitter needs to meet the expectations of investors and Wall St. analysts. One of the biggest lessons from the company’s financial struggles is the […]
Writing a business book is a major endeavour but it’s only half the battle. After a book is published, it has to be marketed to support sales. In many ways, marketing a book takes as much time, effort and energy than writing it. For many authors, it can be a daunting task because it means […]
Having published a book recently, I can see there are many benefits to writing a book. Among the biggest attractions is enhanced industry stature. If you publish a book, it must mean you are an industry expert, right? For many CEOs in the B2B industry, writing a book is a great way to drive a […]
In the startup world, product-market fit is regarded as a key ingredient for success. In layman’s terms, product-market fit boils down to whether there are enough people willing to use your product. In many ways, Google+ has struggled for years to realize product-market fit. Google had aspirations that Google+ would go head-to-head with Facebook, but […]
The headline’s question is frequently asked because B2C and B2B are seen as markets with different types of customers, tools and rules of engagement. While different approaches and channels may be used, I would argue the marketing fundamentals and goals are similar. Perhaps the biggest common denominator is how marketing needs to be focused on the […]
It goes without saying that websites play a crucial role for SMBs that may not have huge marketing budgets. A well-designed and customer-friendly site can be a SMB’s most powerful marketing and sales tool. But there are many examples of SMB websites that have obvious flaws. I would suggest the leading culprits include: Homepages that are cluttered and […]
In the third excerpt B2BNN is publishing from Mark Evans’ new book Storytelling for Startups, we find out which people should be explaining your corporate story and why. To read the first excerpt we published, go here. The second excerpt can be found here. Most startups have a small number of employees, particularly startups that have embraced […]
