Tag Archives: Buyer Journey

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Buyer Persona Case Study: CFO On-Call

Notes from HubSpot's Inbound Certification Video Class 3: What Does Inbound Look Like?

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Buyer Persona Case Study

HubSpot’s Inbound Certification Video Class 3: “What Does Inbound Look Like?” shares how a real-world company successfully practices inbound marketing. This is a valuable class as a real-world, spot-on buyer persona case study.

This buyer persona case study proves how well-crafted buyer personas can:

  • Drive inbound marketing strategy and tactics
  • Link together content marketing and SEO choices
  • Support a company’s sales and revenue goals

Here’s what to expect from this blog post on these inbound marketing best practices (and future blog posts) as I prepare for the inbound marketing certification exam:

  • Open Sharing. I’ll publish my study notes on this blog as I review each video in the twelve (12) classes.
  • Detail. My notes will be very detailed. Many of the slides in the video classes state the learning or take-home-message perfectly. If I think that’s the best way to state the learning, I’ll record the learning in my notes verbatim from the respective slide.
  • Context. I’ll provide my context whenever it may help us better understand the inbound marketing and sales concept(s).

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Four Reasons Why LinkedIn Is a B2B Marketer’s Best Friend

LinkedIn "maps out" the B2B buyer journey

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Hiker Looking at a Map

Photo Credit: sakeeb via flickr

 

eMarketer published on August 31st: Does Your Marketing Influence B2B Decision-Makers? — Word-of-mouth is a winner—marketing, not so much.

The article shared important and discouraging insights for B2B (business-to-business) content marketers:

Word-of-mouth is a key driver, with businesspeople looking to friends in the industry and other third-party experts ahead of traditional or digital marketing resources.

Nearly two in five respondents said their professional network was the No. 1 most influential source at purchasing time. Industry experts came in second place, followed by internal influencers. Vendor-supplied content was a distant fourth, with just 14% of responses.

 

I’ll address the B2B content marketing implications later in this post.

For now, let’s dive into two (2) key issues: (1) A B2B buyer’s professional network important influence in the outcomes of six- to seven-figure business deals / complex sales and (2) LinkedIn’s immediate importance in the B2B buyer journey.  (more…)

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Five Reasons Why Self-Publishing Exclusively on LinkedIn Is Bad Business

Invest in Yourself. Protect Your Personal Brand. Publish a Self-Hosted Blog.

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Runner with LinkedIn Logos

Bolota Asmeron, a member of the Linkedin Elite Centipede outs on a temporary Linkedin tattoo before the start of the 2010 Bay to Breakers race in San Francisco.

Photo Credit: A Name Like Shields Can Make You Defensive

 

Important Note: An intelligent and thought-provoking discussion from The Writing on LinkedIn Group inspired this latest post. Matt Sekol initiated the discussion thread, Where’s The Traditional Blog. It’s people like Matt Sekol (and many others) who reaffirm my belief and commitment to why The Writing on LinkedIn Group is one of the most important, intelligent, and enjoyable communities for engaging with and learning from like-minded individuals within LinkedIn.

Last week, I read Alexandra Samuel’s thoughtful post on Harvard Business Review: Have LinkedIn and Medium Killed the Old-Fashioned Blog? Almost three years ago and 1 million Linkedin writers later, LinkedIn launched its self-described definitive publishing platform.

I submitted a comment stating why limiting our self-publishing investments to third-party platforms like LinkedIn’s Publishing Platform and Medium without investing in a self-hosted, personal website or personal blog is a career and business mistake.

Here are more detailed thoughts expanding on my comment in Alexandra’s post.  (more…)

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Part 2: Seth Godin’s Professional Freelancer Course

What Do You Provide?

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Teacher with Students

Photo Credit: usembassykyiv

 

I’m publicly taking and publishing the required exercises in Seth Godin’s Professional Freelancer Course on Udemy. The required exercises force you to ask: “Am I Taking This Path for The Right Reasons.”

I completed the Lectures Six through Thirteen this morning. It’s great stuff taught by The Godfather Himself: Mr. Seth Godin.

Seth asked his course participants to go all-in and publish their assignments. As I perform the course exercises, I will continue publishing the results. It’s Seth teaching his students to write down, commit to, and deliver on our personal manifestos.

Here’s my continuing public contribution and commitment to Seth’s class:
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