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Acclivity A B2B marketing agency for manufacturers, IoT providers, and innovative technologies. There is only an upside to working with Acclivity!

A polished website alone won't not get you into a buying committee's shortlist. A credible voice in their earbuds might....
09/29/2026

A polished website alone won't not get you into a buying committee's shortlist. A credible voice in their earbuds might.

Near three out of four B2B decision-makers say thought leadership is more trustworthy than what they get from your product marketing team.

They're not reading your brochures or sales sheets to form opinions about your products. They're hearing from executives who show up for podcasts and interviews with those creators.

Podcast appearances do something traditional ads can’t. They let buyers hear how your leaders think. And see how a real person outside your company reacts to your messaging.

Most event ROI gets measured wrong.Companies track registrations, booth traffic, and badge scans. None of that is where ...
09/22/2026

Most event ROI gets measured wrong.

Companies track registrations, booth traffic, and badge scans. None of that is where the return actually lands.

Research shows at the emotional benefits of conferences peak during the event, and connecting with colleagues is no small thing, but the real business outcomes come days later.

It comes from following up while the memory is still fresh.

A two-line LinkedIn message referencing a real conversation converts better than any automated outreach. It's personal. It's timely. It shows you were paying attention.

If you already paid to be in the room, don't leave the ROI sitting in someone's “maybe later” pile.

Your best candidates are researching your executives before they apply to work with you. Most often, they're checking Li...
09/15/2026

Your best candidates are researching your executives before they apply to work with you. Most often, they're checking LinkedIn profiles.

They want to know who they would be working for, what those people stand for, and whether the company feels like an exciting cause worth contributing their time to. You better believe that a blank profile or a stale headline answers that question fast.

Most businesses pour budget into employer branding campaigns and ignore the thing candidates actually look at. It’s the executives who they would be working for.

A strong executive presence on LinkedIn takes care and attention. The absence of one costs you talented applicants that you never knew you lost.

Slate Auto's new truck skips the touchscreen infotainment center. No speakers either. Or even power windows. Instead of ...
09/08/2026

Slate Auto's new truck skips the touchscreen infotainment center. No speakers either. Or even power windows.

Instead of being a stripped-down compromise, this is the whole selling point. The truck is intentionally left as a blank slate.

At $25,000, with a single rear motor producing 135 kilowatts and 195 pound-feet of torque, Slate built something meant to be customized by DIY enthusiasts.

Every other EV maker added features to justify a higher price. Slate removed them and found a market that nobody thought to serve.

What is the one market that everyone in your industry isn’t paying attention to?

Your best salesperson never had to say a word. It's your LinkedIn page. Your blog. Every post under your name that a pro...
09/01/2026

Your best salesperson never had to say a word.

It's your LinkedIn page. Your blog. Every post under your name that a prospect finds before they ever pick up the phone.

A 2024 6sense survey found that 81% of B2B buyers make their purchasing decision before they ever spoke to a sales rep. That conversation isn't where deals get made, but it might be where your next deal gets confirmed or lost.

While your competitors post twice a year and call it a strategy, buyers are quietly building a shortlist from whoever shows up around them consistently.

Your LinkedIn activity, or maybe lack of it, is part of their criteria. Whether you asked for it or not.

This is how thought leadership and executive branding supports sales. If you do it right, your customers consider you first.

Think of the strongest personal brand in your industry. Who comes to mind?

Forget bigger advertising budgets. 64% of B2Bs don't trust their own marketing measurements, according to a recent stud...
08/25/2026

Forget bigger advertising budgets.

64% of B2Bs don't trust their own marketing measurements, according to a recent study by Forrester.

That's not a small gap. Entire industries are making growth decisions on numbers they don't actually believe.

You're not alone. It happens more often than most companies admit.

B2B isn't consumer marketing with a different logo. Every deal has multiple stakeholders, often pulling in opposite directions. A pitch that lands with one decision-maker can fall flat with the next.

Spray-and-pray campaigns just can't survive that math. Clarity and trust are the only criteria that hold up in a room full of competing agendas.

If your last marketing agency understood Google Adwords but not your client’s buying committee, that's a serious misalignment.

Here's a sales exercise that takes minimal time and outperforms cold prospecting.Review your existing testimonials. (If...
04/24/2026

Here's a sales exercise that takes minimal time and outperforms cold prospecting.

Review your existing testimonials. (If you don't currently have documented testimonials, go ask your best clients for them. Right now. Seriously, close this app and go text, email or call them and ask for a testimonial.)

Then, with testimonials in hand, make a list of every company and industry represented. Next, make a second list of companies adjacent to those. Same size. Same sector. Same buyer profile. (AI or LinkedIn Sales Nav can help here!)

That second list is your next batch of outreach.

Post those testimonials and client quotes to social, add them to your website and highlight them on an industry-specific PDF sell sheet. This is your "social proof." Use their language. Add a tiny bit of context, and you have a case study, too.

Choose whichever method feels right for you: direct outreach on social, webinar presentation, ads funnelling to a landing page, cold call, podcast appearances - anything that gets you comfortably in front of your testimonial adjacent prospects.

(Tip: in LinkedIn Sales Nav you can do a search and filter for people that are connected to the clients that gave you testimonials! "Best path in - Connections of - [list your testimonial sources.]" The closer the lead is to you or your existing testimonial client, the more weight the social proof carries - start here!)

Your message gets framed around:
"How one company in [industry] solved [pain point].
Here's the solution and what they had to say about it."
(Adjust to your specific offer/product/service, add your brand voice, and for the love of Vega protein shakes - talk to people like you're a human.)

Now, the adjacent buyer doesn't need to be convinced you can do what you say you can do. They just need to feel urgency and make the numbers make sense.

Your focus becomes sharing what you know from working in the space, and building a relationship. At some point, ask for the meeting or the sale.

It feels simple. It is simple. That's the point.

Your website is not about you. If it is, you're doing it wrong.Here's what your website should be centred around:>> Who ...
04/22/2026

Your website is not about you. If it is, you're doing it wrong.

Here's what your website should be centred around:

>> Who is this for.
>> What problem/pain point does it solve.
>> What's the offer and the commitment.
>> What outcomes should they expect.

That's it. That's the framework.

I've used it for software, manufacturing, raw materials, service businesses, and founder-led consulting practices. It works because it forces the business/writer/you to stop spewing sales messaging, stats, features and buzzwords - and start serving your future client.

Most websites fail to engage or resonate with the target audience. They talks about the company instead of the customer. By the time you get to outcomes, the reader has already closed the tab.

Check your home page (or full website) against those four questions - how did it do?

Your brand is a foundation. Not a finish line.We see it all the time with B2B companies, especially in manufacturing and...
04/09/2026

Your brand is a foundation. Not a finish line.

We see it all the time with B2B companies, especially in manufacturing and tech: they invest heavily in a rebrand or brand refresh, launch it, and then... wait for results.

But a brand identity -- no matter how polished -- doesn't generate awareness or trust on its own. It's the platform everything else is built on.

Here's how we think about it at Acclivity:

Your company brand is the foundation. Clean positioning. Clear value proposition. Visual identity that signals credibility. You absolutely need this, and it needs to be solid.

But then you layer on the things that actually drive traffic, build trust, and expand reach:

Executive thought leadership -- your leaders sharing real perspective, building personal brands that carry the company forward.

PR -- third-party validation through media coverage, review sites, podcasts, and industry publications.

Events -- showing up where your ICP gathers, hosting conversations that matter.

Review campaigns -- giving prospects the peer validation they need to move forward with confidence.

You build the brand foundation and then you do all of these other things to get people's attention, drive trust, drive reach.

The brand is essential. But it's chapter one, not the whole book.

What's the layer above brand that's driven the most results for your company?

"Taste" is about to become the most valuable skill in marketing. And most teams aren't developing it.Here's what I mean....
04/08/2026

"Taste" is about to become the most valuable skill in marketing. And most teams aren't developing it.

Here's what I mean. AI can now produce content, design, strategy outlines, campaign concepts -- fast, cheap, and at scale. The capability gap between teams is shrinking. Everyone has access to the same tools.

So what becomes the differentiator?

Taste. Judgment. The ability to look at output and know -- not just think, but KNOW -- that it needs to be sharper, more interesting, more human.

The organizations that go fully agentic with their marketing will produce an ocean of flat, forgettable work. It'll be competent. It'll check every box. And it will move no one.

Where magic happens is at the intersection of AI speed and human discernment. Where someone keeps pushing the prompt. "This is fine, but it's not interesting enough." "This reads like everyone else." "Challenge this angle -- what's the contrarian take?""

That's not a skill you can automate. It's earned through years of doing the work, studying what resonates, developing a point of view.

AI is the most powerful multiplier we've ever had. But it multiplies whatever you feed it -- including mediocrity.

Don't just do mediocre work at scale. Develop taste. It's your moat.

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