B2B Nation

One of the challenges that many B2B startups face is how to effectively market their product in a way that fosters growth without breaking the bank. It’s also not unusual for startups to launch their marketing efforts before building out a fully staffed marketing team. Eyal Katz is a former anthropologist and search engine marketer for SAP who started an agency that specializes in taking early-sta...

In this week’s episode of B2B Nation, we talk to Pedro Ramos, Executive Director of Performance at OMD EMEA, about leadership in the B2B marketing space, and how coaching and mentoring helped him grow his career. We’ll also discuss some of the conversations young marketers will be jumping into as they start their careers, including humanizing B2B marketing, the challenges of leadership in an indus...

In this episode of B2B Nation, Emily Gaylord, a global marketing campaigns manager for OutSystems, talks about the challenge of targeting technology tools to business people, picking the right tone for the right target audience, how marketing for the IT channel differs from marketing to users, and more. Episode Guide 2:26: The unique challenges of marketing tech to business roles without alienatin...

A universally recognized brand is a powerful tool for the brand’s marketers, but it can also serve as a target -- for unhappy users, for hackers, and for the competition. When it comes to recognizable brands in B2B tech, Microsoft sits near the top of the heap. In this episode of B2B Nation, we talk to Sylvia Harn, global media director at Microsoft, about how her team plans to use the Microsoft b...

In this episode of B2B Nation, Mike talks with Bolaji Oyejide, the Senior Director of Demand Generation at Bevy .  Bolaji and his colleagues at Bevy believe that the secret to establishing relationships with prospects is through community, not marketing. And they practice what they preach, using the Bevy platform to create communities of like-minded prospects, helping them connect with each o...

In this episode of B2B Nation, we talk to Christopher Bray, a cybersecurity sales and marketing veteran with experience working for some of the best-known brands in the security market. Today, Christopher is Chief Revenue Officer at Aura , a consumer cybersecurity vendor that changed its message once the pandemic further blurred the lines between home and office. Aura’s leadership found an opportu...

In this episode of B2B Nation, we’re talking to Jon Carlson, Sr. Marketing Director at Allego, which makes a sales enablement platform that helps sales reps learn and access resources at the right place, at the right time. Our discussion covers the evolution of the sales enablement function and its tools, what to look for in a sales enablement leader, how Allego markets its solution, and more. Epi...

In this episode of B2B Nation, our guest Paul Fifield estimates that half of the world’s companies are in the B2B space, and that the Go To Market teams in many of those organizations are essentially learning on the job. B2B sales and marketing, Paul explains, simply move too fast for traditional higher education to keep pace. As co-founder and CEO of Sales Impact Academy , an online learning plat...

With more tools available to help capture the voice of the customer, and more data on customer behaviors available than ever before, it’s never been easier to understand the challenges and goals of B2B customers. So what is preventing some B2B firms from thinking more like their buyers? In this episode of B2B Nation, we talk to Erik Newton, vice president of Milestone Inc. , about why the customer...

Ike Singh Kehal and his team at Social27 spent much of 2019 re-thinking online events and virtual experiences. A few months later, with the global pandemic shutting down in-person events of all sizes, Social27 found itself flooded by inbound inquiries from marketers and event professionals looking to make a pivot to virtual experiences. Even Ike, Social27’s CEO, found himself giving demos for more...

For B2B organizations, determining the right targeting, messaging, and channel for their marketing often requires a great deal of research and testing. And that’s true whether you’re working with paid or organic media. In this episode of B2B Nation we’re talking to Naira Perez, who runs Springhill Digital, a boutique agency that manages paid social and search channels for its clients. According to...

Today’s technology vendors talk a lot about agility, and few teams need to be more agile than the B2B marketers trying to sell emerging technologies. Take, for example, Relative Insight , a language analysis vendor that started out helping protect children online. In this episode of B2B Nation, we talk to James Cuthbertson, CRO at Relative Insight, about how the killer application, target market,...

Not only is public relations changing alongside marketing, but the two seem to be converging. The KPIs for PR activities increasingly include SEO metrics, inbound traffic, qualified leads, and conversations. In this episode, we talk to Dmitry Dragilev, an entrepreneur, do-it-yourself PR advocate, and founder of JustReachOut.io , about the challenges of getting noticed in a noisy market, tips for g...

Agencies have been a part of the B2B marketing and advertising landscape for years. As the marketing landscape shifts, first from print to digital, and now into a data-driven and analytical mindset, it got us wondering: “Where do agencies fit in this new B2B reality?” To get some answers, we turned to Keith Booton, founder and CEO of Ivor Andrew , an integrated agency located in the Chicago area t...

Jason Reichl is CFO of Breadcrumbs and the former CEO of GoNimbly, and he is a long-time supporter of RevOps. For Jason, the RevOps methodology is a way for companies to focus on one thing: increasing revenue. In his view, RevOps changes the organizational structure by introducing the role of revenue operators, but it also changes tactical components of sales and marketing, such as how leads are s...

It seems like our voices are being recorded all the time, by phones, collaboration tools, smart speakers and more. The “voice of the customer” (VoC) isn’t a new idea for marketing and customer success professionals, but better technology is changing the game. It’s now easier for marketers to search for and share the important parts of calls, for example. In this episode of B2B Nation, we talk to M...

In this episode of B2B Nation we take a look at the B2B marketing playbook as it existed before the COVID-19 pandemic and ask the question, “Is it time to re-think any of this moving forward?” Our search for a guest who could help us answer that question led us to none other than Gaetano DiNardi, head of growth and demand generation at business communications provider Nextiva . If you’re familiar...

In this episode of B2B Nation, we talk to Kristjan Mar Hauksson, digital marketer, SEO and inbound marketing expert and the co-author of Global Search Engine Marketing: Fine-Tuning Your International Search Engine Results . Today’s B2B marketers put a lot of emphasis on being found by prospects using organic search. But they can’t stop there. Not all inbound traffic should be treated equally, whic...

In this episode of B2B Nation, we talk to Paul Cowan, CMO of Freshbooks, about marketing software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications to small businesses. SaaS marketers tend to move more quickly than other B2B tech marketers, and that’s especially true of those targeting SMBs. Small businesses move fast, make decisions more quickly and look for ways to easily research and compare technology solution...

In this episode of B2B Nation, we are discussing how to create memorable content for B2B audiences with Dr. Carmen Simon, Chief Science Officer of Corporate Visions, and the author of Impossible to Ignore: Creating Memorable Content to Influence Decisions. Dr. Simon is a neuroscientist who studies how people react to and remember content. We’re going to discuss the role of imagery and images in yo...

In this episode of B2B Nation, we talk to Todd Grossman, CEO of Talkwalker Americas, about how brands can effectively track the conversations that matter to them on social media. This space used to be called social media analytics, then it was called social media listening. Today, it’s often described as “conversational intelligence,” and it delivers a detailed analysis of what is being said about...

In this episode of B2B Nation, we talk to Lindsay Tjepkema, CEO and co-founder of Casted , about using podcasts as part of your content marketing strategy. If you’re considering launching a podcast for your B2B brand, or if you want to improve the podcast you’re currently creating, Lindsay has some tips for you. Our conversation covers how to create a compelling podcast for your audience, as well...

In this episode of B2B Nation, we talk with Eli Schwartz, a growth advisor, SEO expert and author of the best-selling book Product-Led SEO, about his approach to search engine optimization and digital marketing. The concept of product-led SEO is a significant departure from a lot of the books and advice focused on organic marketing. Unlike content-led SEO, which focuses on keyphrases and content c...

For many people, a successful career doesn’t always lead to career happiness. There are a number of explanations for this disconnect, including ultra-driven and ambitious personalities, Imposter Syndrome and the feeling that you and your work are unnoticed or under-appreciated. In this episode of B2B Nation, we talk to Terry McDougall, a former corporate marketer who today runs her own business as...

On this episode of B2B Nation, we talk to Tracey Fudge, founder of The Thrive Agency, about the level of noise in B2B marketing and whether all of the information being created and data coming back to marketers is generating significant value. Tracey has a background in corporate sales, and she came to the realization several years back that almost everything she was taught about sales and marketi...