There's so much information available across the web.It's a tough task to find the most relevant content for your own B2B efforts. Even aggregrators compile too much information - making the search for B2B Marketing content feel like that proverbial hunt for the needle in the haystack.
Tom Pick and Tony Karrer decided to do something about it. They created B2B Marketing Zone as a resource for serious B2B marketers. I had the chance to interview these two guys about their thoughts, goals and insights for the future of B2B Marketing Zone. Here's the scoop.
With all
the marketing sites on the web - from blogs to roll-ups like AllTop and others, why did you decide to create B2B Marketing Zone?
Tom: There are topic-focused
content aggregators and quasi-publications like Social Media Today for social
media and Search Engine Journal for SEO, but there was nothing specifically
focused on B2B marketing. B2B marketers have specific needs and content
interests that very different from consumer brand managers or B2C internet
marketers.
Tony: There
are also some important differences in the way in which B2B Marketing Zone and
the underlying Browse My Stuff system works that makes this site a bit different.
The goal here is really to provide a launching point to all the great content
that gets created already. Alltop, Social Media Today and most
aggregators try to take that content to produce a new destination. We
want people to still go out to each blog to make comments and connect with the
blogger.
What are
your top goals for this community?
Tom: In the
short term, we just want to create a great site that attracts top-notch B2B bloggers
as contributors, and attracts B2B marketers and other executives on the
strength of the content. We’ll also offer some focused RSS feeds that will save
readers time, giving them great information in a convenient manner.
Tony: Really
the goal is to create something useful that makes sense of all the great stuff
going on already. I personally value the connection this creates for me
with bloggers that I've been reading for a while and it helps me to find the
best content from them. Tom's right that there are a host of longer term
monetization possibilities, but I don't see those for the B2B marketing zone
itself as much as I do in helping B2B marketers see that there's value in this
for attracting audiences around all sorts of B2B topics. In other words,
the same people who will get value from this site, might want to think about
using the same approach as a B2B marketing vehicle.
What range
of content are you including in B2B Marketing Zone?
Tom: Within a
B2B focus, we’re leaving it fairly broad. So, that could include blogs about
any aspect of B2B marketing--online, events, direct mail, SEO, SEM, social
media, email marketing, white papers, video--PR, even sales-oriented blogs, as
long as they address marketing and not strictly sales.
Tony: Well
said Tom.
What's
different about B2B Marketing Zone than other marketing sites - say for example Junta 42, or Alltop marketing?
Tom: Both are
great sites, but B2B Marketing Zone sort of all falls in between in terms of
focus. Junta 42 has a narrower focus, specifically on content marketing. So
they generally wouldn’t address other areas of B2B marketing—like search
marketing, events or SEO—that will be included on B2B Marketing Zone.
Tony: And
Alltop's marketing domain will be much broader. Plus even if Alltop were
to do a B2B Marketing subdomain, it still would have a different focus.
You can read quite a bit on this at:
http://www.browsemystuff.com/wpblog/alltop-browse-my-stuff/
I should also
mention that Joe Pulizzi and I have had several discussions and we feel that
Junta 42 and B2B Marketing Zone are going to be great complementary sources.
How many
blogs are you planning on including?
Tom: We don’t
have a specific number in mind, but that’s a great question in the sense that
balancing quantity with quality will be a key challenge for the site. If we try
to keep it too exclusive, we’ll risk missing fresh voices with new
perspectives, which would do a disservice both to those bloggers and our
readers. If we leave the gates open too far, on the other hand, we risk
diluting the site with off-topic or overly-promotional content.
In general,
we’re looking for blogs that are 1) active and have built up both a track
record and somewhat of an audience, 2) B2B-focused, and 3) high quality. For
requirement #1, we generally look for bloggers that post at least once per week
on a regular basis, have been in existence for at least six months, and have a
Google Pagerank of at least 3. Those aren’t hard-and-fast rules, but that’s
generally the floor. Requirements #2 and #3 are somewhat subjective, a bit more
“we know it when we see it.”
Tony: I would add that one of the nice things about the system is
that it uses social filtering to surface the best stuff. As a long time
blogger, I know that some of my posts are pretty meaty and some are more
announcement like. Social filtering will bring the meaty stuff to the
top.
Who are
your readers and how are you helping them?
Tom: Other
bloggers are one audience of course, but the readers we focus on serving are
B2B marketers, PR professionals and other executives. Those are the readers who
benefit most from the content developed by our featured bloggers. We help them
by combining aggregation with filtering; we bring them all the best B2B
marketing and PR content in a convenient package.
Tony: And I
think within those audiences, we are especially trying to help those people who
are not regularly subscribing to these blogs. My experience is that only
about 10% of audiences use RSS readers to regularly read blog content related
to their profession. The other 90% likely will not find and read that
really great content that's often far better than what you will get through
more mainstream trade publications. So, having something like the Best Of
feed provides a way for that 90% audience to become introduced to this great
content.
Take a look
at a recent 
post regarding Twitter and tell me
if that isn't some pretty amazing content!
Tony: I've done several of these sites in different areas where I have interests and where I want to learn. Tom has been great to work with and has really helped steer this ship. I look forward to learning a lot from Tom and from all the contributing bloggers.
That's it for the interview - but there's so much more! Check out B2B Marketing Zone and see for yourself what they have to offer. You'll be glad you did!
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