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1 Minute Advice: If You're a B2B Marketer, Focus on Audience-Driven Content

When it comes to B2B marketing, there has been a fairly dramatic turn toward content that focuses on an audience's informational needs. Recent research by the Content Marketing Institute indicates that 90 percent of all top-performing B2B content marketers put their audience's informational needs above their company's sales/promotional message. Almost all of these organizations -- 96 percent -- believes their audience views their organization as a "credible and trusted resource."

Still, relatively few B2B content marketers research their audience by talking to their customers: Less than half (42 percent) say they have conversations with their customers as part of their audience research. Instead, 74 percent use sales team feedback, 73 percent use website analytics, and 65 percent use keyword research. The top two ways B2B content marketers nurture their audience are email campaigns and educational content.

Read more about this research here: https://contentmarketinginstitute.com/2018/10/research-b2b-audience/

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1 Minute Advice: Best Global Brands of 2018

International branding firm Interbrand is out with its ranking of the "Best Global Brands" of 2018. Interbrand pioneered brand valuation in 1988. The Interbrand ranking is significant because of the rigorous criteria, says Interbrand:

"To be included in Best Global Brands, a brand must be truly global, having successfully transcended geographic and cultural boundaries. It will have expanded across the established economic centers of the world and entered the major growth markets. In measurable terms, this requires that:

• At least 30 percent of revenue must come from outside of the brand’s home region.
• The brand must have a significant presence in Asia, Europe, and North America as well as broad geographic coverage in emerging markets.
• There must be sufficient publicly available data on the brand’s financial performance.
• Economic profit must be expected to be positive over the longer term, delivering a return above the brand’s cost of capital.
• The brand must have a public profile and awareness across the major economies of the world.

These requirements—that a brand be global, visible, growing, and relatively transparent with financial results—explains the exclusion of some well-known brands that might otherwise be expected to appear in the ranking."

Brands are ranked together and separately by business sector and geographic areas. The following are the top ten Best Global Brands overall, according to Interbrand:

1. Apple
2. Google
3. Amazon
4. Microsoft
5. Coca-Cola
6. Samsung
7. Toyota
8. Mercedes
9. Facebook
10. McDonald's

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1 Minute Advice: Sometimes, Brand Loyalty is Age-Related

It's common sense that when consumers like a brand, they will buy it again. But loyalty to a brand -- repeat purchase time and again -- is often related to the age of a consumer.

A recent study of U.S. Internet users, as reported by eMarketer, found that more than half (51 percent) of consumers age 18 to 21 will try different brands, even when there is one brand they already like. But two-thirds of the GenX generation and three-fourths of the Boomer generation indicated they will stick with a brand they like and buy it over and over again.

Still, according to the research, consumers are willing to switch brands if certain factors, including product quality, company ethics, and price, come into play. Even consumers most loyal to brands will stop buying a particular brand if any of these factors result in a negative experience or perception. Another study confirms that these factors not only influence consumers to leave a brand they formerly loved, but such factors can create new brand favorites. Almost 60 percent of digital consumers in that study said quality and variety lead to repeat purchases.

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1 Minute Advice: Amazon Makes Its Move in Digital Advertising

The acknowledged leader in e-commerce is now quickly becoming just as much of a force in digital advertising, according to eMarketer. While Google and Facebook continue to be the top two digital advertising leaders, by the end of this year, Amazon's digital advertising revenue is projected to double, making it third in digital advertising.

Still, the dominance of Google and Facebook is impressive: Together this year, they own almost 60 percent (57.7%) of the digital advertising market in the U.S. Google has about 37 percent market share to Facebook's 21 percent, with Amazon clocking in at just 4 percent, says eMarketer. By 2020, though, Amazon will see its market share grow to 7 percent, while Facebook will remain basically the same and Google will drop by 2 percent. According to eMarketer, "Amazon has the ingredients for a truly powerhouse digital ad business, the key to which is doing more than just selling ad impressions. It’s impossible to say how much of Amazon’s business comes from selling ads on its own properties vs. facilitating ad transactions across the web."

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