If you have purchased a new house in the month of November, then surely you are looking for auspicious Griha Pravesh (House Warming) dates. Apart from Griha Pravesh dates, Puja and Homam and Vastu Shanti Puja are also necessary as per

November signifies the onset of the winter season in India. One can experience the cold weather that continues until 3 months. However, November is not only the month of cold weather and the onset of chilly wind. In fact, it

December being the last month of the year is quite colourful and has so much to offer. One can enjoy the month with chilly winter, hot beverages, cosy blankets and Christmas. But do you know apart from Christmas, in the month

House Warming or 'Griha Pravesh' is an age-old ritual and is quite popular in India. before you plan to step into your new home. According to Hindu mythology, it is believed to be auspicious and is said to be the kind

Owning a vehicle means you owe at least some kind of comfort and in today's time it is a necessity rather than a luxury for most of us. It is an age-old ritual or custom in India that many people prefer

In India, it is believed that at weddings too, stars can play an important role as marriages are considered auspicious in which two individuals take vows to share their lives with each other. This is the reason, many people prefer to

With the arrival of New Year 2020, are you planning to purchase a vehicle in January? Well, purchasing a vehicle may sound as easy as a cakewalk but it is actually a stressful job as you need to select the best

Marriage is a sacred institution that integrates a man and a woman in a beautiful bond. People in India, believe that in order to make married life blissful, one must make sure if the stars are in the right position. While

Marriage is not only the union of two people but also about uniting two families. In India, most of us prefer big fat weddings and therefore it is essential to know the auspicious timings to fix the marriage dates. Even though

April is the month when farmers bring their newly harvested crops and start storing the grains. This is the time when India experiences the onset of the summer season. But there is something even more special and that is the arrival

A marriage is considered to be a sacred union of two souls. It not only unites a couple but also their family members and other things related to them. Due to this, people believe getting married on an auspicious date can

The holy Islamic month of Ramadan has begun and people belonging to the Muslim community are observing fasts (also known as Roza) and praying to the Almighty. This is said to be the month of austerity, worship, abstinence and fasting. People

In India marriage is considered to be an extremely sacred bond between two couples and their families. It is believed that getting married on an auspicious day when stars are in the right position can bring marital bliss and prosperity in

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, COPD, is a progressive lung disease that makes breathing hard. It can turn fatal if not properly treated. Smoking and exposure to air pollution are considered as some of the main causes of COPD. Some

Summer ailments are quite common during the hot summer months. From heat rashes and sunburns to jaundice and food poisoning summer causes a host of health problems. In India, usually May and June are considered the hottest months of the year

Walking pneumonia (WP) is the infection of the lungs or say, a milder form of pneumonia that affects the upper and lower respiratory tract. It is also known as 'atypical pneumonia' as the bacteria behind the condition is an atypical bacteria

Our homes are often a reflection of our personality. They describe our inner selves and that is why we take ages to decorate the interiors of our homes to reflect our style. We also work round the clock to keep our

Irrespective of the place that you grew up in, it is but natural that the flavour of cinnamon triggers waves of childhood nostalgia. The way the strong aroma of cinnamon filled up the entire room is something that none of us

There are a lot of exciting things that couples do. Be it going on a date or trek, camping or hitchhiking. But, keeping a track of finances is certainly not one of them. Believe it or not, money can cause trouble

Hair loss is a very common problem among adults who are above 50. But did you know that hair loss is common among children too? Yes, hair loss in children aged 12 years and younger are most often caused due to

Birth control pills are considered to be one of the most effective and easiest ways to prevent unwanted pregnancy. The pills are said to be 99.9 per cent effective in the prevention of pregnancy, however, does not protect one against sexually

There is nothing as beautiful as bringing your own child in this world or becoming parents. The birth of your child not only makes you feel complete, but it also adds a purpose to your life. Though you get your own

To support customers during this time where their car/bike will not be in use, Acko General Insurance, a new age online insurance provider, has decided to not charge insurance for one month

Having an emergency corpus and a health cover is critical

With support from FII and DIIs, benchmark indices gained nearly 8 percent each last week. Both rallied over 14 percent in April.

Vikas Jain of Reliance Securities said the rights issue would enable shareholders to increase the holdings at a lower price compared to Thursday#39;s closing of Rs 1,467 per share.

Feed provided by Moneycontrol.

The decision was taken due to the adverse impact of the lockdown on the real estate sector, a state Public Relations Department official said on Thursday.

"Most of the landlords are extending a helping hand to the tenants - 44 percent have not increased the rent, 41 percent are giving more time to their tenants to pay and 16 percent have waived the rent for up to two months," the portal, which has over 10 lakh residential and commercial properties listed by owners and brokers, said in a statement.

Investors should, therefore, patiently wait and get into sectoral leaders to prevent wealth erosion in the coming months, says Umesh Mehta.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 288.14 points, or 1.17%, to 24,345.72, the SP 500 lost 27.08 points, or 0.92%, to 2,912.43 and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 25.16 points, or 0.28%, to 8,889.55.

Bajaj Auto has released its sales report for the month of April 2020 in India. Unsurprisingly, the company has announced 0 units of domestic sales in the country during the last month. This was due to the nationwide lockdown, amidst the COVID-19 pandemic.

Honda Motorcycles & Scooters India (HMSI) have increased prices of the Dio BS6 scooter. Prices have been increased for both variants of the Dio, although the hike is only Rs 552.

The May 5-7 poll median of more than 40 economists predicted India#39;s annual consumer price inflation fell to 5.68% in April from March#39;s 5.91%, still above the Reserve Bank of India#39;s (RBI) medium-term target of 4.00%.

Raghuram Rajan, former RBI Governor and now a professor of finance at Chicago Booth School, in a note on LinkedIn, lucidly explains what monetisation of deficit is all about.

The procedure for seeking admission to MBA, MCA, and M.E/ M.Tech/ M.Arch./ M.Plan. Degree programs for the academic year 2017-2018 consist of the following two steps: Appearing for the Tamil Nadu Common Entrance Test (TANCET) 2017 in March 2017.  Applying

Walking pneumonia (WP) is the infection of the lungs or say, a milder form of pneumonia that affects the upper and lower respiratory tract. It is also known as 'atypical pneumonia' as the bacteria behind the condition is an atypical bacteria

Indian teachers have broken the myth about their inability to use technology. We already have 3,000 schools lined up to adopt our platform, and more are joining the queue every day.

One main feature of Hubstaff is an activity monitor that gives managers a snapshot of what an employee is doing. Broken down in 10-minute increments, the system tallies what percentage of time the worker has been typing or moving the computer mouse. That percentage acts as a productivity score.

The government has readied plans for a major change in India’s tax administration structure, including overhauling the Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC) to ensure a glitch-free roll-out of a nation-wide goods and services tax (GST).

Ashok Leyland has released the sales report for zero sales in April due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The nationwide lockdown was supposed to be lifted by May 4 but seeing the current scenario, the government has further extended it to May 17.

Maruti Suzuki was among the first brand's in the country to offer factory-fitted CNG technology. The company offers CNG-powered variants on a number of their popular models, including the WagonR and the Alto.

Hyundai India has announced that they have resumed production operations at their facility in Sriperumbudur, Chennai. The manufacturing facility of Hyundai has been shut since the 23rd of March 2020, amidst COVID-19 pandemic.

US gas stocks stand at 2210 billion cubic feet which is 19.5 percent higher than 5-year average stocks for this time of the year.

Neither the outbreak of COVID-19 nor the dire state of economy has deterred investors’ enthusiasm for equity mutual funds

B2B marketing is boring, doesn’t feature influencers, and uses only monotonous white papers and lifeless case studies — we’ve all heard these stereotypes, but what is the reality of B2B marketing in 2020?

The traditional image of dull B2B marketing has been turned on its head in recent years, and we wanted to explore 10 top myths and show how the state of B2B marketing has gone from bland to unforgettable.

Let’s dig in and break down the biggest B2B marketing myths, and look at how your brand can benefit from the new era of business marketing.

1 — B2B Marketing Goes From Boring-2-Boringest

The Myth:

The grand-daddy of all B2B marketing myths — dating back nearly to when the term business-to-business was coined — is the notion that it stands for boring-to-boring, with marketing about as exciting as forty shades of dreary gray.

The Myth-Buster:

As we’ll explore throughout this post, the B2B marketing of 2020 has left boring in the dust, replaced with exciting and truly memorable content experiences.

As the B2B marketing landscape continues progressing from its dusty Boring-To-Boring roots, business customers are expecting content and experiences that are increasingly similar to what B2C efforts have long provided.

Today’s B2B customers expect to find all of the relevant information they seek brought to life through an online interface that’s not only easy to search and navigate, but one that’s also chock full of interactive and story-rich user experience features that make interacting an entertaining experience, such as our “Laser Bear.”

Click Here to see the Break Free from Boring B2B Guide in Full Screen Mode

[bctt tweet="“Tell the truth, but make the truth fascinating. You know you can’t bore people into buying your product, you can only interest them into buying it.” — David Ogilvy" username="toprank"]

2 — B2B Marketing Doesn’t Use the Cool Social Media Platforms

The Myth:

You won’t find B2B brands actively sharing content and interacting on Instagram, TikTok, Reddit, Pinterest, Twitch, or other fun and fresh social media platforms.

The Myth-Buster:

Fortune 500 firms regularly now have social media presences on fashionable social channels such as Giphy, Snapchat, and even Facebook Horizons — the social media giant’s foray into the virtual reality (VR) world — all gaining new B2B brands at a faster pace than you might imagine.

Our senior content marketing manager Joshua Nite recently took a look at “6 Unconventional Social Channels for B2B Marketing,” showing how B2B brands can gain a competitive edge by adopting unconventional social channels.

Out client Dell Technologies offers a fine example of how B2B brands are embracing nontraditional social channels, with its Dell Technologies Giphy page.

via GIPHY

Despite using social media more than any other demographic, Gen Z is most at home not on traditional mainstream social platforms but increasingly on gaming platforms, according to recent Kantar study data, which showed that 90 percent of the demographic use gaming platforms to serve roles similar to those social media does for some 59 percent of the general population.

To learn more, we’ve also looked at how B2B brands are successfully using various social media platforms:

• 5 Top B2B Brands Mastering Facebook Engagement
• 5 Top B2B Brands Delivering Exemplary Twitter Engagement
• 5 Top B2B Brands Maximizing LinkedIn Engagement
• How 5 B2B Brands Are Using Snapchat and Instagram Stories

[bctt tweet="“B2B marketers should be exploring any channel where their audience is. While it’s easy to feel like the more younger-skewing platforms are optional, we ignore them at our peril.” — Joshua Nite @NiteWrites" username="toprank"]

3 — B2B Marketing Doesn’t Relate to Real People & Their Stories

The Myth:

B2B marketing isn’t about me or my real challenges, and never even attempts to appeal to people like me — instead it just continues to put forth insincere messages targeting people who don’t exist in the real world.

The Myth-Buster:

Telling real stories about actual people has catapulted B2B influencer marketing to the forefront of business marketing success, while B2B marketing in general has also continued to embrace the importance of storytelling.

We’ve set out to tell the intriguing stories of many top B2B marketers in our Break Free B2B video interview series, to date featuring 23 industry professionals such as Amisha Gandhi of client SAP Ariba and Kelvin Gee of client Oracle,  sharing their insights and passions.

Some, such as Eaton’s director of corporate marketing Zari Venhaus have explored the importance of storytelling.

Another benefit of telling the stories of real people in B2B industries is that it lends itself well to the creation of episodic content, as our senior content strategist Nick Nelson explored in “Hungry for More: What B2B Marketers Need to Know About Episodic Content.”

Additional takes on how storytelling benefits B2B marketers are available in our following related articles:

• Once Upon a Time: Storytelling in Today’s B2B Content Marketing Landscape
• Be Like Honest Abe: How Content Marketers Can Build Trust Through Storytelling
• You Have 8 Seconds – GO! Brand Messaging Secrets With Debra Jasper at #Pubcon

[bctt tweet="“The most powerful person in the world is the storyteller.” — Steve Jobs" username="toprank"]

4 — B2B Marketing Never Gets Heard, or If it Does It’s Quickly Ignored and Forgotten

The Myth:

B2B marketing is just wasted effort, since nobody ever really reads it or pays any attention to its boring business-suit-and-briefcase imagery. Who would ever remember a B2B advertising message, anyway?

The Myth-Buster:

Study after study continues to show that real emotion makes us remember digital content and messaging, and smart B2B marketing has grown significantly in its use of the kind of authentic storytelling that people will remember.

The most-shared ads during the last Olympics were all loaded with hard-hitting emotion from brands like Panasonic and Apple, and the Super Bowl perennially features similarly emotion-packed spots from brands like Google and Microsoft.

[bctt tweet="“Stories are just data with a soul.” @BreneBrown" username="toprank"]

5 — B2B Marketing is For Stodgy Old People

The Myth:

B2B marketing is for stodgy old fuddy-duddies, and has no relevance for anyone under 40 or 50.

The Myth-Buster:

B2B marketers freshly out of college are having tremendous impact in today’s professional brand messaging, and are bringing with them their younger takes on B2B marketing, which will increasingly drive the industry.

Thanks in large part to the successful inroads B2B influencer marketing have made for brands looking to reach younger audiences, when an influencer recommends a product, 51 percent of Millennials say they are more likely to try it, according to research data from Valassis and Kantar.

Gen Z and Millennial B2B marketers who have grown up with newer social media platforms are occupying ever-more positions of power all the way up to corporate marketing management — a move that has helped today's B2B marketing look decidedly different from that of even five years ago.

Snapchat recently published a study exploring brand expectations among Gen Z, finding that 82 percent of the demographic want brands to act on customer feedback, while a similar report from Campaign Monitor also found Gen Z's social media platform preferences to differ from those of older generations.

[bctt tweet="“The B2B marketing of 2020 has left boring in the dust, replaced with exciting and truly memorable content experiences.” — Lane R. Ellis @lanerellis" username="toprank"]

6 — B2B Marketing Should Never Include Interactive or Experiential Content

The Myth:

B2B audiences don’t expect or even want interactive or experiential content when it comes to brand messaging — they want only dense black-and-white case studies of at least 200 pages, or white papers filled with serious professional business information.

The Myth-Buster:

B2B audiences have been starved for interactive and experiential content for far too long, and in recent years have come to expect much more B2C-like digital experiences which incorporate truly entertaining, memorable, and interactive elements.

With 98 percent of consumers more likely to make a purchase after an experience (Limelight), and 77 percent having chosen, recommended, or paid more for a brand that delivers a personalized service or experience (Forrester), more B2B marketers have begun to use experiential content.

In 2020 experiential content comes in many forms, with just a few examples being:

• Virtual Reality (VR)
• Augmented Reality (AR)
• Cloud-Based Digital Assets from Ceros and Other Platforms
• Quizzes and Polls
• Interactive Flipbooks and eBooks

Experiential content is also intertwined with both storytelling and customer experience (CX), together becoming an extremely powerful triptych of B2B marketing strategy.

You can take a closer look at the growing field of B2B experiential marketing here:

• What B2B Marketers Need to Know About Experiential Content
• The B2B Marketer’s Journey To Experiential Content at #B2BMX
• Break Free B2B Marketing: Sruthi Kumar on Creating Memorable Experiences
• 31 DIY Marketing Tools To Create Remarkable Experiences
• Top 10 B2B Digital Marketing Trends in 2020

[bctt tweet="“Experiential content makes us a central part of a story, and not just a passive subject receiving a one-way brand message.” — Lane R. Ellis @lanerellis" username="toprank"]

7 — B2B Marketing Doesn’t Have Influencers

The Myth:

Influencers don’t exist in B2B marketing, because they are only for hawking cosmetics and pushing designer clothing lines on Instagram — what relevance could influencers really have in the professional B2B world?

The Myth-Buster:

Influencer marketing in the business world has never been more vibrant and thriving, especially the kind of always-on B2B influencer marketing our CEO Lee Odden has explored in articles including “Always On Influence: Definition and Why B2B Brands Need it to Succeed.”

Influencer marketing will see global brand spending up to $15 billion by 2022 (Business Insider Intelligence), and with more people using social media and spending greater amounts of time doing so, B2B influencers have a bigger audience than ever.

This may explain why influencers are seeing rising engagements with a variety of firms, as even the World Health Organization recently worked with influencers for its latest “Safe Hands Challenge” hand-washing campaign.

B2C and B2B influencer marketing are undoubtedly very different – and ever-evolving – undertakings, as we recently explored in “B2C vs. B2B Influencer Marketing – What’s the Difference?”

[bctt tweet="“The output of B2B influencer collaboration can be in any form that the brand is currently publishing content: text, video, visual, audio, interactive and even VR.” @LeeOdden" username="toprank"]

Learn more about B2B influencer marketing with these insightful looks at how brands are using it to achieve success, and dig in to recent influencer marketing statistics here:

• Four Ways to Optimize the Marketing Performance of a B2B Influencer Program
• 24 Essential B2B Influencer Marketing Statistics
• How B2B Influencer Marketing Offers Brands an Ideal Alternative to In-Person Events
• Jumpstarting a Pilot B2B Influencer Marketing Program in 5 Steps
• 5 Key Traits of the Best B2B Influencers

8 — B2B Marketing is Pointless & Impossible For Brands Than Aren’t Billion-Dollar Firms

The Myth:

B2B marketing is only for billion-dollar mega-corporations looking to attract other massive Fortune 500 firms — and it doesn’t have any relevance for a company with less than 10,000 employees.

The Myth-Buster:

It doesn’t take billion-dollar firms to create priceless B2B marketing efforts. Indeed, some of the most successful and memorable B2B marketing campaigns are coming from small-to-midsize firms, especially those that are using B2B influencer marketing.

Our content strategist Anne Leuman recently took a look at “5 Examples of Effective B2B Content Marketing in Times of Crisis,” featuring several smaller firms including HealthcareSource and our client monday.com, showing how they are putting out timely and helpful marketing messages during the pandemic.

Social media and influencer marketing have helped level the playing field not only among large B2C and B2B firms, but smaller B2B businesses as well.

Being savvy and nimble can propel a business a long way in the B2B marketing world — perhaps even over land and water, as Shakespeare once noted.

[bctt tweet="“Nimble thought can jump both sea and land.” — William Shakespeare" username="toprank"]

9 — B2B Marketing Isn’t Even Well-Suited for Social Media

The Myth:

B2B marketers shouldn’t even use social media, since business audiences don’t use social platforms, or if they do, they’re not there to find serious B2B information.

The Myth-Buster:

Nearly everyone uses social media in 2020, with global active social media users topping the 3.8 billion mark recently, and that includes almost all the business professionals in every B2B industry.

Social media and B2B marketing go hand-in-hand these days, and smart marketers recognize the importance of this intertwined system, and work hard to inform and delight on every social channel where their brand's customers are actively engaging.

[bctt tweet="“It doesn’t take billion-dollar firms to create priceless B2B marketing efforts.” — Lane R. Ellis @lanerellis" username="toprank"]

10 — B2B Marketing’s Only Real Channel is LinkedIn

The Myth:

LinkedIn is the only social media platform B2B marketers ever need to use, because it’s the only one those in B2B industries ever really utilize.

The Myth-Buster:

While it’s true that LinkedIn is the top social media platform for B2B marketers and professionals in general, and still represents the go-to source for business information when it comes to social — and we’re not just saying that because they are a TopRank Marketing client — if you’re limiting your efforts solely to LinkedIn you’re missing out on key industry players who happen to spend the majority of their social media time on other platforms.

As we've shown above, there are a wide array of social media channels B2B marketers are finding vital to their brand efforts. With every Fortune 500 firm now represented on LinkedIn, however, it's a platform that should be included in every B2B marketer's mix.

Soar Beyond B2B Myths With Powerful Marketing Tactics

Now that we've made an effort to dispel these 10 common B2B marketing myths, we hope that you'll be better able to power your next marketing campaign using the tactics we've looked at, and create B2B content that inspires and enchants while also providing best-answer solutions.

The post B2B Marketing Mythbusters: Dispelling 10 Common Myths with Extraordinary Marketing appeared first on Online Marketing Blog - TopRank®.

Arizona State University's Thunderbird School of Global Management utilizes robots to give its students a virtual graduation ceremony. Freddie Joyner has more.

Arizona State University's Thunderbird School of Global Management utilizes robots to give its students a virtual graduation ceremony. Freddie Joyner has more.

More than a third of confirmed coronavirus cases in the Afghan capital have been among doctors and other healthcare staff, two senior health officials said on Thursday, in a sign that the war-torn country is struggling to deal with the pandemic.

Arizona State University's Thunderbird School of Global Management utilizes robots to give its students a virtual graduation ceremony. Freddie Joyner has more.