Sean Parnell
4 Marketing Partner Best Practices: How Does Yours Stack Up?
As a former head of market research consultant, head of product management, and having worked with hundreds of clients that have been under-served by their so-called marketing “partner” over the past 18 years, I know what ineffective marketing looks like and how much it can hold you back.
How well does your marketing partner stack up with the following?
1. Being a True Marketing Partner vs. a Vendor
Does your marketing company actively bring new lead generation and thought leadership ideas to you on a regular basis? Do they meet with you on a regular basis and provide monthly reporting? Can they provide useful guidance on even beyond marketing?
2.
... Continue Reading >>Your 2025 B2B Marketing Plan: What You Should Be Doing Differently
Well into the tech boom of AI, automation and machine learning, we are navigating a marketing landscape that is evolving faster than ever – and it’s time to rethink your marketing approach.
The old playbook is no longer enough. Markets are evolving, buyer behavior has shifted, and the tools available are more powerful than ever. To succeed, businesses must adapt, innovate, and make strategic decisions to seek meaningful engagement, blue oceans, and revenue growth.
Here’s what you should be rethinking for the year ahead.
1. Align Marketing with Revenue Goals
Too many marketing plans focus on vanity metrics – clicks and traffic that may or may not be human – without directly linking efforts to revenue.
... Continue Reading >>3 Critical Website Measures
Every company knows they need a compelling website to stay competitive. Still, far too many spend little or no time tracking and evaluating the effectiveness of their website and online marketing campaigns. Over the last decade, our experience has taught us that having the answers to 3 basic questions—and knowing what to do with that information—can lay the foundation for higher conversion rates, increased sales, and greater ROI on marketing budgets. These answers can be the difference between success and failure.
- How many unique visitors does your site get per month?
- What are the top 5 pages on your site?
- What are the top 5 sources of traffic to your site?
7 B2B Marketing Steps for Fueling Sustainable, Double-Digit Growth
From manufacturing to software developers to professional services to contractors, breaking through competitor noise in the B2B marketing landscape isn’t easy, but it’s essential for growth. Picture this: you’re not just aiming for incremental gains but for sustainable, double-digit growth that propels your business forward.
Achieving this requires more than just surface-level tactics. It’s about diving deep into market research, crafting compelling stories, and executing a balanced mix of inbound and outbound strategies. Here are seven essential steps that will transform your B2B marketing efforts into results you can measure by leads and sales, not noise.
1. Marketing Strategy
An effective marketing strategy isn’t something you can whip up after a few sales calls.
... Continue Reading >>The Formula for Successful Messaging in Headlines, Ads, Emails & Everything
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 print and digital ads, Google Ads and other pay-per-click campaigns as well as for blog post and web page titles (H1 headings), page titles and meta descriptions (SEO), email campaign subject lines and preview text, direct mail pieces, company tag lines, and anywhere else you promote your messaging.
Why is this book so good and relevant over the last 100 years? Because it takes a simple and powerful approach to writing headlines and other copywriting that generates leads and sales.
... Continue Reading >>How to Increase Lead Generation with Thought Leadership
It may seem obvious to say that people seek out businesses that demonstrate thought leadership in their industries, but you would be surprised at the number of business owners whose marketing includes few examples of it – or none at all.
When a potential customer is researching your products and solutions, thought leadership can be a powerful differentiator. There are few ways as effective at driving leads as guides, industry publication articles and whitepapers that demonstrate the depth of expertise and experience you provide.
So why don’t more marketing efforts feature this type of content?
In many cases it’s because of a mistaken idea that marketing should lead with the benefits of products and services.
... Continue Reading >>B2B Podcast Marketing Recommendations
If you can justify the signifiant amount of time needed to recruit guests and record them, podcasts are an additional way to share thought leadership, increase brand awareness, and generate leads – and video podcasts are even better because you can promote them in all the ways you promote podcasts and videos.
Below are recommendations for getting the most out of this effort – since we are not podcasting experts, we are focused more on how to effectively promote it with the right level of external support, plus other recommendations that could help increase lead generation for you.
Recording & Production
Subject Matter
- Identify subjects where you can offer unique thought leadership
- Guests are recommended – especially those with their own podcast and are willing to help promote yours
- Up to 20-25 minutes in length is recommended (at least at first)
Equipment
- We’re not the experts but know you shouldn’t rely on your computer’s mic or AirPods
- Recommendations from PC Mag
Content
- Title/name
- Description
- Original cover art (3,000 x 3,000 pixels in PNG or JPG)
- Name of host(s)
- Website
- Selected category(s)
- Primary language
- Episode titles within 20 characters and description
- If you need help creating your podcasts,
WP Engine vs. SiteGround: Which is Better for Your WordPress Site?
While both WP Engine and SiteGround make starting and managing a WordPress website easier than with non-WordPress hosting like GoDaddy, Network Solutions, and HostGator, our experience over the last five years is that WP Engine is better suited to host websites for small and mid-sized and large-sized businesses. Users praise WP Engine for its custom software solutions, testing environments, and overall great experience for any website.
Because WP Engine is dedicated to WordPress entirely, it’s built to be the best option for efficiently managing WordPress sites, while SiteGround must also accommodate other content management systems. As SiteGround initially appears to be the cheaper option, featuers we believe most websites need all cost extra and make WP Engine a better deal.
... Continue Reading >>Leveraging B2B Marketing Efforts for Double-Digit Growth
The B2B sales and marketing landscape can be a murky place.
Visitors may flock to your website but create few qualified leads. A flurry of sales activity doesn’t necessarily lead to sustainable gains. You can flaunt your services at all the right trade shows and still go home with little to show for it. And every five minutes some new “must do” marketing platform or technology pops up on the scene.
It’s never been easier to sink time and money into marketing your business. What’s harder is creating a focused and disciplined strategy that’s tied to genuine and measurable ROI.
At Innovaxis, we specialize in helping B2B businesses develop and implement marketing strategies that deliver sustainable,
... Continue Reading >>How Content Can Accelerate Prospects Through the Sales Funnel
Learn how your content mirrors your sales funnel, with mid and bottom funnel content generating leads and accelerating prospects to become customers in the buyer’s journey.
If there’s anything that gets a website reader’s heart racing and eyes moving down the page in anticipation, it’s marketing-speak. All those high-quality products and services for achieving things in more ways, faster and more cost-effectively than ever before!
It’s riveting stuff, (yawn) pulling the reader into a thicket of abstract nouns as they search for a signpost, a detail, something – anything solid they can use to satisfy the need that brought them to the website in the first place.
... Continue Reading >>