Blog - Kim Gusta

Are You Wasting Your Trialware Leads?

Totango, a customer engagement company, conducted an informal study where they signed up for 10 software companies’ trial offers and sat back to see how well each company followed up with them. (See the entire article: “Software...

Top Mistakes Tech Marketers Make with Content

How to Pull Goodies out of your Content Treasure Chest

Content Marketing

Keeping up with content creation is tough and time-consuming, so here are some specific ideas on how you can re-use common types of content you may already have. Think of it as going through a treasure chest, dusting off the goodies, and giving them new life (without...

2019 State of B2B Content Marketing Report

Content Marketing

What does it take to get in front of your prospects with content? It's as simple as putting their informational needs before your sales goals. Simple, yet sage, advice. Get the latest on how companies reach their prospects by reviewing the latest research on content...

How to Use Custom Research to Create Thought-Provoking Content

Content Marketing

Create a Compelling and Interesting Research Report Conducting custom research is a popular method for technology companies to create interesting content that's useful to a variety of audience including customers, prospects, and media. It's often viewed as flagship...

11-Point Checklist for Hiring a B2B High-Tech Copywriter

Content Marketing

How to Find the Right Copywriter with a Minimum of Headaches Back in my corporate days, I hired copywriters. And I quickly learned that it wasn't that easy to find the right one. Some were great writers but didn't understand technology. Others were tech wizards but...

Why Your Copywriter Needs to be a Great Interviewer

Content Marketing, Content Rules

How to Unlock Brilliant Insights from Subject Matter Experts During my time in high-tech corporate marketing, I often needed to interview product managers or engineers in order to create messaging documents, white papers, and more. What I quickly realized was...

6 Steps to Building a Successful Email Nurture Campaign [Case Study]

B2B Sales, Content Marketing, Lead Generation, Lead Nurturing, Qualified Sales

Are you using email campaigns to nurture your prospects until they're ready to buy? Campaigns that are created with thoughtful care can have great results. Here are the six steps a client and I used to devise a very successful email campaign that resulted in open...

How Technology Marketers can Tame the Content Beast (Part 1)

Content Marketing, Content Rules, Content Strategy, Demanding Generation

This post is the first of a three-part series describing five steps to help you tame the content beast with consistency and purpose. I’ll begin with steps 1 and 2 by focusing on your buyer’s perspective and your organization’s existing content arsenal. Step 1: Find...

Taming the Content Beast and Avoiding Content Overwhelm (Part 2)

Content Marketing, Content Strategy, Technology Marketing,

This month, I shift my focus to the topic of thoughtful planning with Steps 3 and 4. By building an editorial calendar and maximizing the scalability of new or existing content, you will save time and optimize buyer impact with steady precision. Step 3: Create an...

Getting a Handle on Content Overwhelm (Part 3)

Content Marketing

To meet deadlines and creativity challenges, it’s imperative to leverage existing expertise and to work back from sales and buying cycles. In Step 5, I discuss content ideas to save time and maximize customer impact. Step 5: Borrow/Ask/Steal for Content Ideas The...

6 Steps to Creating “Snackable” Content [Case Study]

Case Studies, Content Marketing, Content Strategy, Demanding Generation

Many of my clients ask me to take long papers and research reports and turn them into something more “bite-size” for demand generation purposes. The challenge with longer reports is that, although they’re filled with loads of interesting information and data points,...

Banning “Frankenspeak” from Technology Marketing

Content Marketing, Content Rules, Demanding Generation, Product Marketing, Technology Marketing,

Our industry’s marketing is littered with squishy terms like “robust”, “revolutionary”, “next generation”... I’m sure you can add to this list, and perhaps you’re shifting uncomfortably because you (along with me) are guilty of using these stilted and...

How to Implement Effective Global Content Marketing [Book Review]

B2B Sales, Book Reviews, Content Marketing, Content Strategy, Product Marketing

With good processes in place, everyone has appropriate expectations and understands who’s doing what by when. This is critical when you’re working across multiple time zones with different countries. But creating these processes can be a challenge, especially if...

5 Steps to Preventing Content Creation Overwhelm [Free Quick Reference Guide]

Uncategorized

It’s necessary, to a large degree, in order to explain their complex solutions and what they can do for their customers. But for marketers, it can be overwhelming to create loads of high-quality content. Especially when it’s piled on top of an already very long to-do...

5 Things the Best Technology Marketers Do Differently with Content

Content Marketing, Content Strategy, Technology Marketing,

There aren’t a lot of resources out there specifically aimed at technology marketing. If you browse content marketing websites you’ll probably find a lot of helpful advice – but it’s often for other industries. So I’m always excited to come across a meaty resource...

3 Content Blunders that Technology Marketers Often Make

Content Marketing, Content Strategy, Technology Marketing,

Mistake #1: You don’t really know your audience. It doesn’t matter how great the writing, flashy the images, or clever the headline if the content you’re creating doesn’t resonate with your audience. Case in point: I often get calls from technology companies with...