Where do you go when you need some marketing inspiration? What and who are the best resources to help you create the best marketing plans and campaigns? These are the questions I asked four marketing leaders in the Microsoft channel.
And this is what they said:
“Covering both broader Marketing Resources and Microsoft specific, my favourite resources are:
- MarketingWeek – I subscribe to the daily newsletter which keeps me updated with the latest industry news. Although it is predominantly B2C focused, I’m a strong believer in learning and applying B2C insights to B2B campaigns. I also attended the Festival of Marketing in 2019 and it’s really interesting to hear customer case studies and stories from other marketers, regardless of their industry.
- LinkedIn Marketing Blog is another great resource – with a broad spectrum of content and lots of research and insight.
- Mark Ritson, Thomas Barta, and Gary Vaynerchuck are some of my favourite marketers to follow on LinkedIn. (Every marketer should really follow Mark Ritson – he’s very marmite but we should always seek out different perspectives and he’s certainly got a few!)
- For Microsoft news I obviously follow all the Microsoft official channels, and I also keep an eye on anything written by Mary-Jo Foley as she has great insight into the organisation (and it’s channel)”
Deidre Jones, Director, Zebra Perspectives
“Traditionally, I would turn to magazines (particularly Campaign, Marketing Week and AdWeek), but I can’t tell you the last time I read any physical magazine. Like many others in digital marketing, I consume content on social media, but how I consume content varies by channel. For example, I spend most evenings scrolling through LinkedIn, joining groups and following pages, primarily focused on digital marketing and social media. I turn to Twitter to search hashtags, find topics or discover what is currently trending. Over the last year, I find myself skim reading articles, but engaging better with short videos. I’ve become a fan of TikTok and enjoy the short, digestible content, finding myself spending far too many hours on it.”
Mobeena Iqbal-Ahmad, Digital Marketing Manager, CDW
“A few off the top of my head:
- MarketingExperiments.com – great content around digital optimisation from a scientific perspective.
- StrengthsFinder – a great book for understanding your strengths and how to capitalise on them.
- Tested Advertising Methods by John Caples – a useful introduction to successful copywriting methods that go to the heart of persuasion.”
Mark Britton, Head of Marketing, Crimson
“In all honesty I find very few marketing resources helpful as they are so biased towards B2C and rarely seem to be relevant to complex buying cycles. However, I did read this book recently and found it really helpful in understanding peoples behaviours.
‘Surrounded by Idiots: The Four Types of Human Behaviour’ by Thomas Erikson (or, How to Understand Those Who Cannot Be Understood! The title seems a bit insulting at first sight but the book explores how humans think and behave differently (categorised as Red, Yellow, Green and Blue) – some, if they are like us are easy to understand and get on with, others not so much – sometimes to such an extent we might think ‘what an idiot!’. If you can recognise people who think differently and why, you can adjust your own behaviour to build a more harmonious relationship or team or just simply except they are different and will never think like you do but that doesn’t make them an idiot!”
Sally-Ann Smith, European Marketing Director, Hitachi Solutions Europe
Many thanks to Deirdre, Mobeena, Mark and Sally-Ann for sharing their recommendations on great marketing resources. And here are a few of mine!
One of my go to marketing people is David Meerman Scott, A few years ago, I stumbled across a presentation that he was giving at a Microsoft Partner Conference and it was one of those sessions that just made sense. Following the event, I bought his book, “The New Rules of Marketing and PR”, which is very engaging, great storytelling and easy to dip into when you need a bit of inspiration.
Another person I would recommend and someone who has great knowledge of the Microsoft partner channel is Mark Stuyt from Neural Impact. I have attended a number of his workshops he has run and I have engaged his company on a couple of my own marketing projects. Once again, he is very engaging and his insight is always very actionable – plus he has some great free resources on his website.
Talking about free resources! Whenever I need to find out some information on some specific marketing topic I always check out Hubspot to see what they have – and they have a lot! Also, if you want to delve a little deeper, I would recommend their free online courses on inbound marketing techniques.
If you have any questions or comments on the above article, I would love to hear from you at chrisg@richinteractive.com
Chris Green, IAMCP UK Marketing Lead