Would you say that B2B buyers talk more to sales reps than B2C buyers do?

Many believe that B2B purchases are too complex which is why B2B customers avoid digital channels to make decisions. 

According to new research by McKinsey, that's not really the case. 

B2B buyers require both the help of sales reps and the power of digital to purchase, however, what determines the channel of choice is whether or not the buyer is making a first-time purchase. 

What's also interesting is that industry sector is not a factor in customers’ decisions to turn to a digital channel rather than a traditional one when deciding what to buy.

Let's look at the first learning. 

In my new role as Global Partner Program Manager at HubSpot, I'm involved in a ton of projects. I run quite a few of them as well. 

I knew this was going to be the case before I officially got into the job so as with anything else that I'm not a full expert on (yet), I read a ton of literature and did a few courses on project management, including getting Scrum certified. 

By doing so I managed to develop a framework for project management that I now use and I have shared with colleagues at HubSpot who have also used it. 

I thought it only makes sense for me to share this knowledge with you because I believe that almost every professional runs some sort of a project and so putting a formalised structure around it can only make you more effective and efficient. 

Bear in mind that the way I've gone developing this has been from the standpoint of a process or operational improvement rather than product development but it can be applied there as well or any other area/department with some tweaks (even marketing/PR agencies).

Here we go.

Project Management Framework Steps

We know that PR is so much more than just media relations. 

But the media hasn't gone away and remains a valuable source to spread the word about our business, especially in B2B or more complicated industries. 

Media relations, though, is done pretty badly. Journalists don't really like PR professionals because they spam them with non-stop emails and phone calls. The worst part is that the content of those pitches is irrelevant or not of interest for the journalist. 

So how do you do it right? I've written a whole blog post on doing media relations the inbound way, however, what I want to show you today are some stats from Muck Rack's latest research on how journalists use social media that support the points I make in the mentioned blog post.

5 Tips on How to Pitch the Media

In today's digitally driven world, if I can't find you as a brand online, you pretty much don't exist. 

Even if I spot your store on the street, I'll probably check out your website and your social profiles to vet you. 

That's the world we live in today and if you are not highly visible online, you won't make it far. This is why SEO (or search engine optimisation) is so important.

Especially for small business owners, SEO is not only a buzzword but also a term whose meaning is easy to understand but hard to implement. I would add PR professionals to this group as well because not many of them have expanded their expertise to SEO even though SEO today is primarily driven by relevant, quality content - and content is what PR pros do best.

At HubSpot, we preach a lot about topic clusters. But as a beginner in SEO, before you get to topic clusters, you really need to understand the basics of SEO.

Here's where a fantastic infographic from SEO Jury comes into play. (I suggest studying it yourself or giving it to your new hires too.)

16 SEO FAQs You Need to Understand [Infographic]

Did you know that 53.3% of communication professionals have low visual communication skills? 

I learned this from the latest European Communication Monitor 2017 which is a yearly survey that looks at trends and challenges in the communication industry. This year, over 3,300 professionals from 50 European countries took part in the research. 

Here's a quick video of some of the key findings: 

 I went through the research slides and this fantastic summary to put together my six key themes: 

Six Key Themes in Communication for 2017 and Beyond