Your B2B Marketing Top Three: Social Media, Landing Pages, and Newsletters

We dive deep into this week's interview questions with Sue, discussing hot topics for 2024 below.

What are your top three pieces of content that you think are best to write on a regular basis?

I think it’s definitely social. Social is number one for marketing. So, LinkedIn posts, specifically if they’re in B2B, as their main channel.  

Related to social media but not as public, there are many amazing B2B Slack communities no one ever talks about, because that is a very text-based medium. It’s important to join your audience communities and post in Slack as well to share tools and advice. If your audience, is in, for example, cybersecurity, look up the slack communities in cyber, and start participating.  

People are also exploring more; they’re using video as an entry point as well. It’s huge. But what are they going to click on? What are they going to read? What are they going to search for? Ultimately, since they’re going to land on your website, I would say number two in the priority list is to really focus on your website and landing pages. Make sure the content says what you do: it’s amazing how many websites don’t really say what the company does. So, if you are writing social and linking to it, if you are doing video and linking to what you’re trying to promote, make sure what they land on it. And make sure you get the right words there to communicate your message quickly. 

Finally (number three), you want to have a reason for them to come back. You know, blogging is great, and it’s one of our most requested items. But the newsletter format is more compelling because you must engage, and you can combine your blog with the newsletter, to bring people back again.  

Unless people are considering a purchase, there’s no real reason for people to come back to your website. So even though it’s kind of old school, I’m a big fan of just email newsletters where you can put your own content in, you can announce your next blog post, you can engage with them. When they come back, they might check stuff out, they might act on it. So those are my top three.

Why do you feel more marketers are losing their jobs these days?

I love marketing. It’s exciting and innovative. But part of the problem with being innovative is usually you need money to try new things. And especially things that aren’t tried and tested. So, marketers don’t get a lot of support, unless you have a real advocate internally.  

Many companies have this fundamental problem: they don’t see marketing as a way to grow effectively. And it’s hard to justify the expense when you’re always trying to be innovative and try things that may not work. It’s very risky.   

So, when we see announcements about companies that tend to lay off CMOS, or marketers, it’s because they are seen as expendable and not an integral part of the company. It’s ridiculous. Without marketing, or marketing efforts, your company will not stand out from the crowd. You won’t have any great reason for being. There are some people out there who don’t want to fund marketing initiatives.  

It’s tough because the marketers exist in a world where they have to get everyone on their side, not just their immediate bosses, but the finance team and the sales team as well. They must win people over all the time, and then do their jobs on top of that.  

Generally, companies don’t want to invest in things that don’t bring in results, and marketers take risks all the time. I feel that marketers are almost like the canaries in the coal mine. They’re always the first to go if there’s a problem. That tells me a lot about how a company operates, and how they treat marketers.  

When a company prioritizes their marketing efforts and invests in innovation, and stands behind their marketing teams, that is where marketing shines and helps to grow revenue. I feel that marketers should look for job opportunities at the companies that really value their worth and want to support that kind of risk-taking. 

We are holding a rare virtual event this month! Learn from HeadStart’s Managing Editor? Be sure to sign up for our virtual event taking place on February 22, 2024at 12PM EST. Amanda will have important writing tips to share and earlier this month she shared two as a sneak peak. Sign up today to get your ticket!