Sean Parnell
How to #Fail at B2B Marketing: The Only E-Book You Will Ever Read, Possibly
Math: 80% of businesses fail 100% of the time.
While it may seem easy, failing at business-to-business (B2B) marketing requires more than just math. It takes a delicate blend of poor judgment and a robust lack of strategy.
But don’t worry. While the internet is crawling with so-called experts spewing complicated strategies for organic, gluten-free lead generation and viral cat videos, we’re here to make it easy.
Our brave new e-book, How to #Fail at B2B Marketing, provides the insights you need for no-results marketing that will tank your sales efforts faster than you can say “where did the leads go?”
The best part? Everything Some things in this guide may have been inspired by true events and a few mishaps we’ve encountered along the way.
... Continue Reading >>A Great 2021 Starts with a Marketing Audit
Learn how your marketing compares with best practices, and how to increase B2B lead gen and sales by 30-300%
If you feel under-served by your marketing resources or would like a report card on their work, an Innovaxis marketing audit will uncover marketing gaps and reveal new opportunities to increase leads and sales.
The audit’s findings and recommendations will form the foundation for your 2021 marketing plan.
Case Studies
Here’s a case study of our work with a manufacturer of induction heating tools, which started with a marketing audit. We then implemented many of the audit’s findings, which increased their flagship product sales by 20%-100% and their ecommerce sales have grown 20% ever year since we implemented it (45% this year).
... Continue Reading >>3 Marketing Partner Best Practices: How Does Yours Stack Up?
As a former head of product management and working with so many clients that have been under-served by their so-called marketing “partner” over the past 14 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. Thinking Strategically vs. Opportunistically
Does your marketing company developed a comprehensive marketing plan for you every year that identifies the right combination of digital marketing,
... Continue Reading >>Innovaxis Is Your HubSpot Gold Partner
After years of helping clients get the most out of their marketing automation capabilities, Innovaxis is proud to be taking the next step as an official HubSpot Gold Partner.
From Pardot to SharpSpring, Marketo, and more, we have worked in a lot of marketing automation platforms. And – simply put – HubSpot is the best.
As the most powerful and intuitive marketing automation software we’ve seen, HubSpot is flexible, agile, and scalable to a company’s needs. HubSpot is a great option for companies who do not have a CRM, but for those that do, the platform seamlessly integrates with existing CRMs for streamlined marketing efforts.
We have used HubSpot for years and have experienced the benefits of the platform firsthand.
... Continue Reading >>Accelerating Your Rebound through Digital Marketing
We are proud to be a member of the Illinois Manufacturing Association (IMA). The following article, written by the Innovaxis content marketing team, appears in the 2020 Q3 Edition of Illinois Manufacturer.
The COVID-19 pandemic has put lives and livelihoods around the world at risk, and Illinois manufacturers have shared the pain. Manufacturers of any size could relate to Caterpillar Chairman and CEO Jim Umpleby when he said the pandemic’s impact was more severe than “any cyclical downturn we had envisioned.”
Crisis-driven orders for medical products, food and first responder equipment have kept some manufacturers busy, but that demand won’t last forever.
Most Illinois manufacturers anticipate a rebound, but they face concerns as they restart operations: returning employee health,
... Continue Reading >>How to Cut B2B Marketing Costs and Increase Leads & Sales
“Reducing marketing spending will, in most cases, only make a bad financial situation worse. You can almost never save your way to profitability.”
– Craig Bloem, Inc.
When the market falters or new obstacles cut into your business goals, are you tempted to cut marketing costs? Be careful not to cut your leads and sales as a result:
Not all outsourced marketing is effective, so how do you select the right partner?
The right marketing partner is a cost-effective way to control costs without losing the momentum that marketing provides for your sales efforts. Here are some key criteria for identifying the partner – and the ROI – that you need.
... Continue Reading >>How to Grow Your Business Out of Uncertainty
If you’re struggling to conduct “business as usual” right now, you’re not alone. Whether it’s a global pandemic or a more ordinary hurdle, uncertainty can be crippling.
If you think of your brand as a story, “uncertainty” is your new villain – your nemesis in times of crisis. But there is a path to a happy ending, and we can help you get there.
Here are four steps for growing your way out of uncertainty.
Step 1. Embrace the Situation
Uncertainty is often a product of unexpected change; finding your way out means accepting that things are different. You certainly don’t have to like it. But there’s a lot of opportunity out there—there always is—though it can be stressful as we work through the churn.
... Continue Reading >>B2B Ecommerce that Drives Sales
Welcome to the transactional side of B2B businesses: ecommerce.
Rising digital expectations make it difficult to keep up with the promise of one-click purchases (ahem, Amazon) but, if ecommerce is right for your business, it can create an entirely new revenue stream to supplement current sales, sell outside your current geographical area, expand into new markets, and appeal to those who want to buy without any human interaction.
Many, particularly manufacturers, have three main concerns regarding ecommerce:
- Channel Conflict: businesses with channel partners and distributors worry that they will be stepping on the interests of partners they’ve built relationships with
- Implementation: it is costly,
SEO & The Role of Content Marketing
“Creating compelling and useful content will likely influence your website more than any of the other factors discussed here.” – Google SEO Starter Guide
Once all of your current web pages and blogs are fully optimized for SEO, you’ll see significant rankings increases often 2-30% or more. For keywords where you’re not yet ranking on Google page one’s top 3 results, you will need more content to drive them higher in addition to offsite link building, which we will cover later.
After brainstorming and prioritizing new content ideas, you will have a new content calendar. We recommend that you create at least three new website content items per month that include fully optimized page names,
... Continue Reading >>Brand Story & SEO: Increasing Website Conversions
To increase your website’s capacity to generate leads, many often turn to a commissioning new web design. Facelifts can help but only addresses the style of your brand and not its substance.
Savvy marketers know that you can increase traffic to your website with content marketing leveraged by search engine optimization (SEO) and PR to increase leads but that’s only half the battle.
While a creative, professional web design, content marketing, SEO, and PR are all important pieces of the puzzle, converting more website traffic into leads depends more upon how strongly your messaging resonates with prospects.
... Continue Reading >>