Russ Powell, Author at Sharper B2B Marketing

The B2B Marketing Anti-Trends: 2023

As we hurtle full speed towards the end of another calendar year, the usual slew of B2B marketing trends reports and views from commentators on what we as marketers need to look out for next year will pepper our social feeds and inboxes. Publications whip out their crystal balls, check their tea leaves, and flip […]

6 Top Tips: How to create an award-winning B2B Marketing Campaign

If you weren’t aware – and how could you not be if you’re connected with our MD, Russ on LinkedIn – Sharper recently took home 3 awards from the B2B Marketing Awards 2022. (And we did actually win them, we didn’t just nab someone else’s awards we found lying around). We won 2 […]

Marketing Myth Busting: Intent Data

Intent Data. It’s a hot (if not the hottest) topic in B2B marketing right now. Driven by the ever-rumbling conversations about Account Based Marketing (ABM) as the saviour of B2B (more on this in our blog “3 Reasons NOT to do ABM”) and the shift away from short-termist lead gen to long-termist demand gen (which […]

Beware of Lead Gen “Silver Bullets”: A Short Story

We were chatting to a potential client about lead gen campaigns. We’d wowed them with our ideas and approach (obvs) and we were getting into the nitty gritty of “what good looks like”. (Because you know we underpin EVERYTHING we do with metrics and measures of success). We’d done our modelling based on audience sizes, […]

The Diary of a 5-month-old Marketer

A typical 5-month-old Baby: Needs 14-16 hours’ sleep a day (including 2-3 daytime naps) Can lift, hold, and shake an object Makes complex vocal sounds such as “blowing raspberries” Me, a 5-month-old Marketer: Would very much enjoy 2- 3 daytime naps Find myself using terms like ‘persona pain points’ and ‘impressive CTR’ like a real […]

Marketing Lessons From a Stand-Up Comedian

You may or may not know that our Founder/MD Russ is a bit funny. Both looking and smelling, yes. But he also knows his way around a joke and how to make people laugh, which all stems from his time as a stand-up comic. He makes no secret of this and was actually invited by […]

Lead Scoring: Why Collaboration and Patience is the Winning Formula

Lead scoring. It’s a ‘buzz-word’ that’s thrown around the B2B Marketing space willy nilly. Done right it can deliver seriously impressive results (like the nearly 2000% increase in pipeline you can read about in the example at the bottom of this blog). And It may sound self-explanatory but when you dig beneath the surface it […]

Ahoy there: How to sail the 7 C’s of Creativity

BEFORE YOU START: You should know that this blog post is a special one. Why? Because it was co-created by Russ, our MD and the truly wonderful Zoe Hominick, Head of Business Marketing and CEX at O2 (Telefonica UK) following presentations they both did on the subject of creativity for the lovely people at The […]

The problem with marketing KPIs

We are awash with marketing KPIs. We’ve got them coming out of our ears. We can’t move for the flipping things. They’re absolutely everywhere. Every activity, every channel, every tactic has their own special set of three letter acronyms (or TLAs if you want to get meta) that tell you how things are going and […]

Ready for a marketing spring clean?

The sun is shining, the daffodils are blooming and we’re feeling like Spring is in the air (although we are in the UK, so it could be snowing next weekend…) As the days get longer and the weather gets warmer, the windows get pushed open, marigolds get pulled on (if they’re pink fluffy ones, we’re […]