Danny Wong says, “If marketers and salespeople knew exactly why people bought their products, it would be a lot easier to pedal their wares. The problem is there’s a lot of nuances when it comes to why people do what they do. Some are overwhelmed by choice and opt for what’s easiest while others need to examine every possible angle before they decide. Without knowing who a person is before they’re approached, a salesperson could inadvertently say the wrong thing and kill the sale altogether. Scott Gillum, a B2B marketing expert, identifies the different groups as needles,... [...]

Reineke Reitsma says, “As a music lover, this has been a year of goodbyes for me, with many of my teenage heroes like David Bowie, Prince, and earlier this week, George Michael, passing away. It makes you realize how fast time moves on, and nothing lasts forever. As I’ve shared before, I love this time of year: Thinking about what has been, and having a world of opportunities in front of us. And I can’t wait to see what next year will bring.This year, there were a number of surprises and new developments that nobody predicted. And 2016 was the year of Pokémon. As my colleague Anjali... [...]

Joy Hawkins says, “Google’s Map Maker has often received bad press due to the amount of spam that originates from users of the product. In May of 2015, Map Maker was actually shut down to help prevent disasters like this one. So Google’s announcement that they’re shutting down Map Maker entirely in March of 2017 made a lot of people really happy.It’s the end of spam, right? We should all be celebrating, right?Nothing could be further from the truth.Allowing spammers to hide rather than vanquishing themThe truth is that users — some with less-than-virtuous motives — will still... [...]

Jodi Harris says, “Love the fresh start you get after the holidays, but dread coming back to the office knowing just how much pressure you’ll be under to make up for all that lost time? The CMI editorial team feels your pain, so we put together a little seasonal present to help you hit the ground running – without undoing the stress-busting benefits of taking some well-deserved time off.We’ve collected some of our most popular strategy, planning, and measurement templates to help make your content marketing efforts easier to manage throughout the year. You can also access additional... [...]

Greg Finn says, “Over the past two years we’ve seen Amazon excel at creating demand for Prime Day, a Amazon-generated sales holiday. This week Amazon is launching a new sales day on digital media dubbed “Digital Day.”The first Digital Day will be a 24 hour event held tomorrow, Friday December 30th and is marketed like a Black Friday for anything digital. These offerings include games, books, TV shows, apps, music and more. Some of the marketed deals include:– 80% off of video games– 50% off of movies & TV– 75% off of digital comics”.Amazon launches... [...]

Jason Parks says, “The current process of building backlinks to improve your SEO is outdated and it’s about to change. Enough with automated emails and random pitches to contribute content on external sites. While this can work, I’m going to share the secret sauce to differentiate your backlink strategy.Beware, this might be uncomfortable for many within the SEO community.Stop hiding behind a computer screen.You need to get away from your desk and make connections within the local community. You have to stop hiding behind your screen and start meeting with business owners face to face... [...]

Nili Zaharony says, “No matter how far you advance your career, networking is likely never going to be something you enjoy. And for the introverted among us, it can feel like we’re being forced back into those endless icebreaker exercises we had to do at corporate retreats while we were coming up. So, let’s stop.Wait, what?You read that correctly. Let’s stop networking. Instead, let’s start connecting and helping. When you start looking at networking as a way to help people, it gets a lot easier. Remember what Jim Rohn once said: “If you help enough people get what they want,... [...]

Ginny Marvin says, “Aloha, here we are again — coming down from the high of holiday e-commerce, the Q4 scurry of lead gen and the calm before year-end reporting starts churning. Let’s take a breather and look back on all of the changes in PPC that came flying at us in 2016.First, let’s get one thing out of the way. In last year’s year-end roundup, I said Yahoo might be worth paying attention to in 2016 due to the renegotiated search deal with Microsoft and CEO Marissa Mayer’s stated commitment to mobile search. So long ago. It did seem like Yahoo might just be able to gain steam... [...]

Shubhomita Bose says, “Pinterest has revealed trends it predicts will dominate in 2017.The third annual Pinterest 100 report (PDF) narrows down the top trends in 10 key categories the image sharing social network expects to be hot in the new year.The list has been compiled by Pinterest’s insight team, which gleaned the most popular trends that saw considerable year-over-year increase in interest on the platform.Here’s a quick overview of the topmost trends in the 10 categories.Top Pinterest Trends for 2017 in 10 CategoriesWellness: Ab Exercises You Haven’t TriedThe trend to stay... [...]

Erik Matlick says, “The lull between Christmas and New Year’s is traditionally a time for looking back at the best practices (and missteps) of the year gone by, in the hopes of getting a jump on the trends that will dominate the coming year. For B2B marketers, 2017 will be about three Cs: Consolidation, Convergence and the Collective.Consolidation of vendors and dashboards2016 might best be described as the year Account-Based Marketing (ABM) took over B2B marketing. While the basic principles of ABM are not new, ad tech and martech providers worked hard in 2016 to make the process of... [...]