Emerging Marketing Trends

81. Adding Context To Content Marketing 2/28/2020

    By now, especially if you are reading this post, you’re aware of what content marketing is. For those of you still unsure, here’s a definition from Wikipedia:

82. The Fallacy Of Social Media Following 2/28/2020

    In today’s world of information-overload, are you struggling to engage customers and prospects with your marketing? Are the click-rates of your emails falling as thousands of rival emails flood your clients’ inboxes? Do you find yourself trying to justify your social media activity by number of likes but struggle to link them to any commercially-advancing behavior?

83. The Four Letter Code To Selling Just About Anything 2/28/2020

    This story from Derek Thompson writing in The Atlantic about Raymond Loewy and his design philosophy is enlightening when you think about how water and wastewater equipment providers introduce new products to the market. The concept of making something familiar feel surprising and something surprising feel familiar is an interesting one as product marketers work to out-position their competition.

84. Why No One Answers Their Phone Anymore 2/24/2020

    Writing for The Atlantic, Alexis C. Madrigal explores the fact that we just don’t use our phones as phones anymore. Except for talking to our contacts. It’s easy to correlate the personal narrative to what your reps experience in the field when trying to connect with new people in the industry.

85. Marketing Attribution In The Water And Wastewater Market 2/18/2020

    One of the reasons Marketing gets such a brush off in the water and wastewater market is that unlike Sales, it has always been difficult to measure Marketing’s return on investment. Measuring sales is easy. It doesn’t matter what happens out in the field, at the end of the day, you measure your Sales reps on how many units they sell. They might be hard to manage but their output is simple to measure.

86. How To Do Content Marketing Like TED 2/18/2020

    I’m sure by now you’ve come across a TED Talk on YouTube? If you haven’t, check one out as much for the performances as the subject matter. In this insightful post for Small Business Trends, Larry Alton dissects what works for TED in suggesting it could also work for you.

87. Marketers Expect Content Driven Campaigns To Increase In 2020 2/18/2020

    As reported by eMarketer, new research from World Media Group suggests 80% of marketers believe content-driven campaigns will increase over the next two years.

88. 10 Content Marketing Skills You Need To Master 2/18/2020

    This Search Engine Journal post provides a great foundation in what makes good content marketing. In a world where voice-activated search devices and Google’s zero click responses are slowly suffocating websites ability to attract users by answering simple questions, the metaphorical lifeboat has to be through content designed to provide a deeper learning on larger topics:

89. Do You Have A Chief Content Officer Yet? 2/5/2020

    Do you have a Chief Content Officer in your equipment manufacturing company? I’ve yet to find one in the water and wastewater industry. There are many examples in more B2C enterprises such as Goldman Sachs, HP or Uber. As consumers turn to online search and phone apps more frequently to understand issues and identify solutions, companies are finding they need to take a more strategic approach to generating the types of reader-facing content that will guarantee them a fair share of online interest.

90. Sales Advice You Need To Ignore Today 2/5/2020

    Colleen Francis writes some great posts on modern sales for water and wastewater manufacturers to think about as they talk to their independent reps. From a content perspective think about these two challenges. How do you reach contacts high, low, left and right within a utility or large engineering firm? How do you create warm leads and referrals over low conversion cold calling?