The Top 5 B2B Marketing Blog Posts of 2013

b2b marketing blogAs we get closer to the end of the year, it’s always fun to stop and take a look back at the year that was. As a marketer, taking the time to stop, review, and analyze is the key to planning for the future.

This line of thinking recently had me going back over our blog posts from 2013. This year, the VA Partners team wrote over a hundred blog posts on sales, marketing, and social media!

Inspired by our experiences working with startups and growing businesses, our blog posts tend to cover topics that we feel are important for any B2B entrepreneur to master. In 2013, unsurprisingly, content marketing and social media played a starring role.

Here were our top 5 B2B marketing blog posts of 2013 (as measured by the number of reads and shares).

1. The 7 Best Social Media Marketing Analogies

If you’re unfamiliar with social media marketing, it can be a concept that can be hard to wrap your head around (especially from a B2B perspective). Questions like “Why does social media marketing matter?” and “What are its benefits?” are very common. Over time, I’ve found that far and away the best way to explain social media and its benefits is by using analogies to make the concept relevant and personal. Here’s 7 of the best I’ve come across.

2. Four B2B Marketing Lessons from Starbucks

Recently, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about what makes Starbucks so successful from a marketing perspective. Is it the coffee? The atmosphere? The 6-decision ordering process? Ultimately, despite being a B2C company, there are several key areas of Starbucks’ marketing philosophy which hold important lessons for B2B marketers.

3. Milkshake Marketing for Startups

One of the best articles I’ve ever read is Finding the Right Job for Your Product, which contends that traditional marketing segmentation schemes are broken. The authors argue that while companies tend to segment their markets along product or customer characteristics, customers “just find themselves needing to get things done” and “hire a product or service to do the job.” It’s hard to disagree. Here’s why it matters for startups.

4. How to Create Contagious B2B Marketing Content

What do hundred-dollar cheesesteaks, a golf ball destroying blender and a phone booth with a trick door have to do with creating great B2B marketing content? In his book Contagious: Why Things Catch On, Jonah Berger uses each of these viral marketing sensations to help explore the question of why some products, ideas and behaviours succeed while others fail (a question at the heart of all marketing). See how this 7-step process works for you.

5. What is a Marketing Strategy?

Marketing strategy can be defined in many different ways. In my view, marketing strategy is all about focus and alignment. Focusing on the relationship between customers and value, focusing on how you fit into it, and aligning the elements of your business to allow you to do it well. What’s your definition?

If you’re looking for more helpful reads this holiday season, check out some of our free white papers for more inspiration.

Don’t miss the Top 5 B2B Social Media Blogs of 2013.

From the team at VA Partners, Happy New Year and best wishes for a happy and successful 2014!

The Top 5 B2B Marketing Blog Posts of 2013