Innovations Insights
Innovaxis Named to List of Chicago’s Top Marketing Consultants
As a B2B-focused digital marketing firm with a track record of creating lead-generating marketing content and strategy for a wide variety of businesses, we are proud to have been named to a list of the top marketing and consulting firms serving Chicago.
The ranking, created by Seattle-based research firm Expertise, used 25 variables across five categories that include reputation, credibility, experience, availability and professionalism to establish its list. The agencies on the list were culled from a starting point of more than 600 marketing consultants serving Chicago.
B2B Expertise that Drives Lead Generation
Our president Sean Parnell said the ranking reflects the hard work and specialized expertise that the Innovaxis Marketing team brings to its B2B clients both in Chicago and across the United States.
“Too many B2B companies spend too much money on marketing efforts that aren’t aligned with a successful B2B marketing strategy – which requires a focus that is far more targeted than churning out generic content and Facebook posts,”
… Continue Reading >>30 Proven Formulas for Writing Headlines
As mentioned in our recent blog, The Formula for Headline Success, the book Tested Advertising Methods by John Caples is an all-time classic and must read for all marketing professionals.
Here is another excerpt from the book that I feel is essential for B2B marketers and copywriters: 30 proven formulas for writing headlines that generate results.
News Headlines
Begin Your Headline with the Word “Introducing”- Introducing a New Generation of Affordable Art Materials for Student Artists
- Introducing a New Way to Help Bridge the Gap Between What You’ve Saved and What You’ll Need During Retirement
- United Airlines Proudly Introduces Something Shockingly Amazing… Nothing (launch of e-tickets)
- Announcing a New Selection of Video Cameras
- Gulf Announces a New and Different Gasoline
- An Important Announcement to Homeowners
- Finally an Exciting New Look that Isn’t Retro Anything
- Good-Bye Old Fashioned Air Conditioners
- Just Published: a New Encyclopedia
3 Steps for Applying the Merlyn Principle in Business Planning
In T.H. White’s The Once & Future King, Merlyn explains how he predicts the future: “Now ordinary people are born forwards in Time… But I unfortunately was born at the wrong end of Time, and I have to live backwards from in front, while surrounded by a lot of people living forwards from behind. Some people call it having second sight.”
If you want to predict the future of your business, then start by developing your exit strategy and work backwards. Here are three steps for doing so.
Step 1: Create Your Exit Strategy
It can be uncomfortable to explore the answers to questions like, “How long will I live? How much money will I need for retirement? When should I retire?” This may require the help of a financial advisor who can guide you through the process of determining:
- How much you will need to live on in retirement
- How much your investment portfolio will provide
- The gap between the two – or what you’ll need to generate from the sale of your business
- How much revenue and profit you’ll need to generate to sell the business for what you want
- How many years it might take to generate that business,
B2B Lead Generation Demystified: New SEO Guide Available
SEO is easier than you think when you understand what works: apply these best practices to increase lead generation by 30-300%+…
Creating B2B website content that ranks high and generates leads shouldn’t feel like a baffling exercise in hit-or-miss tactics. High keyword rankings and sales leads are built on practices that leverage expertise in Google architecture and the unique demands of B2B marketing.
Our new guide offers you the best of both, combining more than 16 years of Google experience with deep knowledge of B2B sales and marketing best practices.
Learn how to update your website to reach the right prospects. Overcome your fear of Google algorithm updates and learn techniques that may leave you looking forward to them. Create quality, high-performing content that brings the right prospects to your site and keeps them there.
… Continue Reading >>The Formula for Headline Success
The book Tested Advertising Methods by John Caples is an all-time classic and must read for all marketing professionals.
Though first published in 1932, the fifth edition has been updated so that its even more relevant today and, in our opinion, is relevant for every blog post title and meta description, email campaign subject line and preview test, Google AdWords and other pay-per-click ads, company tag lines, as well as in today’s advertising headlines.
Why is this book so good? Because it takes a simple and powerful approach to writing headlines and other copywriting that generates leads and other results.
3-Step Approach to Headline Creativity
For example, here are John Caples’ three-step approach to creativity:
- Capture the Prospects Attention: nothing happens unless something in your ad, your mailing, or your commercial makes the prospect stop long enough to pay attention to what you say next
- Maintain the Prospect’s Interest: keep the ad,
5 Common Mistakes Made by Content Marketing Agencies
Content marketing is the foundation of inbound lead generation. When part of a strategic marketing plan leveraged with search engine optimization (SEO), content marketing can dramatically increase thought leadership, inbound lead generation, revenue and profits.
Effective content marketing can generate ROI of at least 300% within 9-18 months, sometimes sooner. Unfortunately, ineffective content marketing is more common, can cost several thousand per month and may only result in a handful of leads. How can you tell the good from the bad so you don’t waste a lot of time and money?
Here are five common mistakes made by content marketing agencies, and how to avoid them.
Mistake #1: Content in a VacuumAny content marketing agency who guarantees they can boost your online ranking with content alone is telling you a tired story. With over 409 million people viewing more than 20 billion pages each month on WordPress sites alone,
… Continue Reading >>A Better Way to Market Your Brand & Accelerate B2B Sales Growth
So many companies make the same mistake: they lead with what they sell and why they’re good at it. While this may sound counterintuitive, leading with who you serve and what problems you solve resonates with prospects and customers in a far more powerful way – especially when you craft a compelling story around the needs of your clients.
Messaging that Doesn’t Put the Solution Before the Problem
The problem with the traditional approach to messaging is that it only works if the products, services and solutions you sell align exactly with what your prospects think they need. What if they don’t know what they want? What if they’re wrong? What if they’re not even aware your solutions exist?
Unless they are experts in your field, which is unlikely, your prospects are self-prescribing and are likely to be wrong,
… Continue Reading >>Farewell, Adobe Business Catalyst – What’s Next?
At this time two years ago, we encouraged B2B companies to use Adobe Business Catalyst – our website content management system (WCMS) of choice.
Sadly and unexpectedly, Business Catalyst announced that they will end-of-life the platform by March 26, 2020. Adobe originally wanted to pull the plug in 2018, but pushed the date back as torches were lit and pitchforks were being sharpened. This leaves more than 700,000 websites currently hosted on Adobe with the daunting task of migrating to another platform.
Choosing a WCMS for your B2B website can be a struggle. There are so many – trendy platforms entice you with promises of do-it-yourself website designs and minimal prices. Others wow you with functionality until you realize that the monthly subscription is more than your entire marketing budget.
So, how do you choose the right WCMS without sacrificing something key?
… Continue Reading >>How to Unlock the Power of Your B2B Website with Structured Data
The first objective of any marketing effort is to get your message where it needs to go. In digital marketing, your first audience is often a search engine: the powerful, frequently misunderstood gatekeepers of the internet.
Search engines are designed to deliver the best possible results based on what you’re searching for. To do so, automatically, they have to decipher and reconcile thousands of formats, languages and vocabularies associated with website coding.
The addition of “structured data” – highly organized blocks of code added to web pages to provide search engines with additional page details – can streamline this process by “speaking” to search engines directly, in a vocabulary they can easily interpret.
Until recently, these multiple languages and vocabularies used on the web for structured data made this process difficult for search engines and web developers alike.
But in 2011,
… Continue Reading >>Chicago Innovation Awards 2018: Call for Nominations
For the 17th consecutive year, the Chicago Innovation Awards will celebrate the most innovative new products and services introduced in the Chicago. Nominees and winners cut across all industries, from large corporations to start-ups, for-profit and non-profit, public and private sector, high tech and low tech. The key is innovation.
I encourage all who have developed a new product or service within the last 3 years to self-nominate for this year’s awards. Nominations are free, and can be submitted via an online form at www.chicagoinnovation.com. The deadline is July 31, 2018.
This year’s winners will be celebrated with 1,500 business and civic leaders at the Chicago Innovation Awards on October 29, 2018, at the Harris Theater. Winners will be covered in local and national media, invited to ring the NASDAQ Bell, invited to meet with the Mayor, Governor, Cook County President and more.
… Continue Reading >>