Using Keywords in B2B Marketing

August 12th, 2011

Whether you’re creating a PPC campaign or need to increase your company website’s ranking in organic search results, understanding the role of keywords in your online B2B  strategy will be a key to your success.

Even if you believe you’ve got a good grasp on your keyword focus, it’s important to realize that just like so many other business processes,your keyword strategy should never be static. There is no ‘set and forget’; keyword campaigns must continually evolve and progress along with your business.

For your PPC campaign, avoid centering on one broad term. Rather, choose highly targeted phrases of two or more words to capture searches for providers in your specialty. A staffing service, for example, would do better with the keyword phrase “staffing and recruiting services” than a single keyword such as “staffing.” 

Remember to add words such as ”company,”  ”provider, ” vendor,”  ”consultant,”  or any other terms your potential customers may use when seeking the type of business services you offer. Also, take note of keywords with the potential to expand your reach to vertical and horizontal segments of your market.

Filter out unwanted traffic by listing “negative” keywords. For B2B marketers, this may include such terms as “jobs,” “employment,” “free,” “retail” and “open source.”

To improve your rank in organic search, be sure the keywords used on each page are aligned with and relevant to the overall purpose of your site. Avoid stuffing your content with keywords; sophisticated search engine algorithms can sift out low quality content that has been created for the sole purpose of drawing search engine traffic. Quality content that is relevant to your site will naturally include a realistic amount of keywords.

Tags:
Posted in B2B Lead Generation Tips, Small Business Tips | No Comments »

Nine Ways to Build Your Email Subscriber List

July 18th, 2011

An appealing and engaging email newsletter can be one of your best online marketing tools. But without subscribers, all your creativity and thought leadership will go unnoticed.

So how do you gain a list of loyal newsletter subscribers? Here are a few tips:

  1. Give your website visitors access to a sample article from your newsletter so they can get an idea of the type of content they’ll be receiving when they sign up.
  2. Make sure your opt-in form is in a prominent location on your page. Try placing it near the top of each web page, and make sure it’s noticeable.
  3. Catch your visitors’ attention with a lightbox or pop-over form that appears when they arrive on your home or about page.
  4. Don’t make the opt-in form too long. The shorter the form, the more subscribers you will acquire. You can gather more information about your subscribers later on using surveys.
  5. Offer an incentive to subscribe, such as a free e-book, webinar or white paper.  Make sure it’s relevant to the interests of your target audience.
  6. Partner with other newsletter owners by placing their opt-in form and brief description of their newsletter on your site and having them do the same for you.
  7. Get your email newsletter syndicated using an RSS feed or a content network such as Moreover.com.
  8. Make it easy for your subscribers to forward your emails to friends and colleagues who might also enjoy them.
  9. Use social media to spread awareness about your newsletter. Create an opt-in form on your Facebook page and send out Twitter notifications with a teaser line or two from your latest email and a link to your subscription page.

Tags: , ,
Posted in B2B Lead Generation Tips, Small Business Tips | No Comments »

Does Your Business Need a D-U-N-S Number?

July 18th, 2011


Tags: , ,
Posted in Small Business Tips | No Comments »

Five Steps to Measuring the ROI of Social Media Marketing

July 1st, 2011

The question of how to measure the return on their investment in social media marketing has some CMOs mystified.

Not all of the benefits of using social media to promote your brand are easily quantifiable.

Perhaps that’s why a recent survey discovered that 84 percent of marketers do not currently measure their ROI from social media tools such as video sharing, Twitter, Facebook, blogging and podcasts.

While it’s true that some benefits such as increased brand awareness are not immediately measurable, tracking a few key factors and comparing your social media activity over a period of time against your sales for that period can give you a good idea of what is working and what is not.

  1. Clearly define your objectives. Is your goal to generate leads, reduce sales cycles, or increase conversion rates? Knowing what you want to accomplish is a vital first step in determining your ROI.
  2. Establish your baseline. Where are you at right now in relation to these goals?
  3. Do the same for your social media activity. What specific tools are you using and how often? Continue to document all such activity during this period.
  4. Track your results using the corresponding monitoring tool for each activity. Google Analytics, for example, will provide reports on how well your web site is converting, visitor contribution, and search engine traffic, to name just a few. Mashable recently posted a list of more than fifty web site and social media monitoring tools.
  5. Look for trends and trace them to their point of origin.

This last step, according to Mashable’s Christina Warren, is the key to measuring ROI. “Take the metrics from your monitoring tools and see how they correlate to higher sales, better customer retention, or whatever your primary markers for output are.

“If your ultimate measurement is sales for instance, look at your sales level. If it has increased, look at the number of referrers on your e-commerce site (assuming you can track this data) from your website or Twitter or the number of coupons used that were given away in a Facebook campaign to start calculating which sales stemmed from your social media campaigns.”

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Social Media Marketing | No Comments »

What Metrics Do I Measure with Blog Marketing?

June 24th, 2011

Is your business blog getting the results you want? What metrics can you use to find out what’s working and where you can improve?

Blogger Avinash Kaushik, author of Web Analytics 2.0 offers six key factors you can measure to determine the success of your blogging efforts:

  1. Author Contribution-How much and how often do you add to your blog? If you use WordPress, you can find this data by using the General Stats plugin. You can use these figures to find the average amount of times you post per month and the average word count per post. Whether you post once a week or every day, the important thing here is to maintain consistency and regularly contribute to your blog.
  2. Audience Growth-You can use web analytics tools such as Google Analytics and WebTrends, which will tell you how many visits and unique visitors you are receiving each month. You will also want to check Feedburner to get a picture of your offsite audience growth via RSS feed subscribers. Regarding such subscribers, Kaushik comments, “It is very hard to convert a Visitor into a Subscriber, someone who has now given you permission to push content to them. That extra commitment is worth a lot to me. I would take ten extra feed subscribers over a hundred visitors.”
  3. Conversation Rate-Your conversion rate is the number of visitor comments divided by the number of posts. Social media is about engaging and creating a relationship with your audience, and blogging is no exception.
  4. Citations-Technorati measures and ranks the importance of a blog according to how many times it is mentioned or cited or linked to across the web. Google will also tell you how many other sites or blogs have linked to your blog.
  5. Cost-Businesses especially should measure how much it costs to produce a blog in terms of labor hours and technology expenses such as hosting.
  6. ROI-The value of your business blog can be measured in strictly monetary terms, but that won’t give you the complete picture of its true worth. As Kaushik aptly puts it, “It is about the Customer. It is about the Conversation. It is about creating Customer Evangelists. It is about Social Objects. Your blog facilitates this more than anything else you could do. Any business, big or small, that is not leveraging this medium in a honest attempt to have a new kind of conversation is committing a massive crime.”

Is your business blog getting the results you want? What metrics can you use to find out what’s working and where you can improve? Blogger Avinash Kaushik, author of “Web Analytics 2.0” offers six key factors you can measure to determine the success of your blogging efforts:

1. Author Contribution-How much and how often do you add to your blog? If you use WordPress, you can find this data by using the General Stats plugin. You can use these figures to find the average amount of times you post per month and the average word count per post. Whether you post once a week or every day, the important thing here is to maintain consistency and regularly contribute to your blog.

2. Audience Growth-You can use web analytics tools such as Google Analytics and WebTrends, which will tell you how many visits and unique visitors you are receiving each month. You will also want to check Feedburner to get a picture of your offsite audience growth via RSS feed subscribers. Regarding such subscribers, Kaushik comments, “It is very hard to convert a Visitor into a Subscriber, someone who has now given you permission to push content to them. That extra commitment is worth a lot to me. I would take ten extra feed subscribers over a hundred visitors.”

3. Conversation Rate-Your conversion rate is the number of visitor comments divided by the number of posts. Social media is about engaging and creating a relationship with your audience, and blogging is no exception.

4. Citations-Technorati measures and ranks the importance of a blog according to how many times it is mentioned or cited or linked to across the web. Google will also tell you how many other sites or blogs have linked to your blog.

5. Cost-Businesses especially should measure how much it costs to produce a blog in terms of labor hours and technology expenses such as hosting.

6. ROI-The value of your business blog can be measured strictly monetary terms, but that won’t give you a full picture of its true worth. As Kaushik aptly puts it, “It is about the Customer. It is about the Conversation. It is about creating Customer Evangelists. It is about Social Objects. Your blog facilitates this more than anything else you could do. Any business, big or small, that is not leveraging this medium in a honest attempt to have a new kind of conversation is committing a massive crime.”

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Elements of High Value Sales Leads

June 16th, 2011


Tags: , , , ,
Posted in InsideUp Lead Generation Blogs - Lead Purchasing | No Comments »

Seven Secrets of Magnetic Marketing Copy

June 13th, 2011

A compelling sales letter, email marketing, social media campaigns–a successful online B2B marketing strategy should include all of these. Lead generation, of course, is the ultimate goal of all marketing collateral. By applying a few key principles you can make your B2B copy much more effective:

  1. Know your audience. In order to focus on the needs of your prospective customers, you must be thoroughly familiar with their needs and concerns. Think about what you already know about your target market and note details such as where most of your audience is in the sales cycle, what are their goals and their frustrations. If you find you aren’t very familiar with your target market, do some additional research–ask questions or send out a survey.
  2. Use this knowledge to capture your prospect’s attention and pique their interest. Begin with a headline that asks a pointed question related to a common need they are likely to have.
  3. Respect your audience. “Speak” to them as if you were talking to a friend. Your B2B prospects will appreciate a straightforward message that doesn’t waste their time. Also, avoid making exaggerated or unsubstantiated promises just to get their attention.
  4. Avoid using inflated business jargon. Phrases such as “innovative solutions” and “enhanced insight” have lost their meaning through overuse. Tell your readers in simple terms exactly what to expect from your product or service.
  5. Emphasize the benefits of doing business with your company. Answer your prospect’s unspoken question, “Why should I use your B2B service?” Communicate to them your own unique selling point. Avoid general terms such as “superior customer service.” Tell your readers about the specific benefits your company will give them that they won’t find elsewhere.
  6. Offer value before you’ve made a sale. Even if they don’t purchase your product immediately, give your prospects something useful to take away. If you are doing email marketing, this might take the form of a newsletter with tips and insights relevant to your prospect’s concerns.
  7. Always include a call to action. Let your prospective customers know what their next step should be if they want to benefit from the services your company offers.

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in B2B Lead Generation Tips | No Comments »

Ways to Use Facebook to Market Your Business

June 6th, 2011

According to a recent survey regarding social media, 68 percent of Facebook fans stated they are highly likely to recommend products they like to their friends. In fact, Facebook users spend an average of $71.84 more each year than consumers who don’t use Facebook.

Another advantage of using Facebook for business is that it’s a form of inbound marketing; visitors to your page are probably already interested in what you have to offer.

Fan pages offer a number of tools to help you add content and customize the page to reflect your brand. It’s important to note that there is a difference between your Facebook profile page or “wall” and your Fan page, or business page.

After logging in to your Facebook account, follow these simple steps to create your Fan page:

  1. Click the link on the left side of the page that says “Ads and Pages.”
  2. On the page that appears, click the button that says “Add Page
  3. Choose the type of page you want to add. Most businesses will want to choose the option that reads “Brand, Product, or Organization.”
  4. Next, choose the type of page you plan to create. If your main goal is to direct visitors to your website, then select “Website.”
  5. Enter a name for your page. This can be the name of your business or website.
  6. Click “Create Page.”
  7. Add a photo by in the box in the upper left that has a question mark. Click “Change Picture” to upload your photo.
  8. Click “Edit Page” below the picture to start creating content for your page. Add a welcome message and a link to your website. Always provide useful information that your visitors would want to share with their friends. When you’re done, click “View Page,” and then “Publish Page” in the upper right corner when you’re ready to publish.

You can also add an opt-in form to your Facebook page by clicking on “Applications,” selecting “FBML” and pasting the code from your email provider into the FBML box.

Make your site engaging by adding videos (also in the “Applications” page). Start a discussion forum to help you get to know your potential customers. Post questions and encourage visitors to share their opinions. You can post updates to the “Notes” page, which functions essentially as a blog.

Businesses can also create a Facebook ad campaign. Facebook ads can be highly effective because you have the ability to target your campaign according to the expressed interests of Facebook users.

Once you’ve gained a level of familiarity with Facebook, you’ll be able to add content and post updates quickly and efficiently, keeping your Fan page fresh and appealing.

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in B2B Lead Generation Tips | No Comments »

Four Reasons to Buy Sales Leads

June 4th, 2011


Tags: , , , ,
Posted in InsideUp Lead Generation Blogs - Lead Purchasing | No Comments »

Comparing Key Features of Three Leading CRM Solutions

May 20th, 2011

In light of InsideUp’s recent announcement of its integration with three top customer relations management solutions, small to medium-sized companies who have not begun using CRM may wonder which of these applications would be the best fit for their needs.

To help you make an informed decision, here are a few of the main features and functions of each of these CRM solutions:

Salesforce CRM introduced its CRM software as a service (SaaS) in 1999, allowing companies to leverage the benefits of CRM solutions without the expense of purchasing and installing software. Salesforce focuses primarily on the automation of sales, marketing and customer service and support functions. You can choose the Unlimited, Enterprise, Professional or Group edition. Salesforce.com also offers training as well as consulting and implementation services.

Salesforce features include: sales force automation, marketing automation, customer service and support, analytics, document management, contract management, Mobile CRM and AppExchange. Users value Salesforce for its intuitive interfaces, flexible customization, extensibility and ease of use.

The Professional edition is ideal for SMBs, and offers custom dashboards, comprehensive reporting and analytics, sales forecasts, e-mail marketing and real-time data sharing in addition to its basic customer service tools.

Microsoft Dynamics CRM offers a complete front office suite that includes robust sales force automation (SFA) platform, basic marketing functionality and customer support capability suitable for the typical small or midsize business.

Features include: sales force management, order management, sales quotes, opportunity management, email marketing, case management, email response management, marketing campaign management and searchable knowledge base.

Microsoft Dynamics users enjoy its highly customizable platform as well as its tight integration with Microsoft Outlook. It also allows users to easily share information through such formats as Excel, HTML, XML, CSV and PDF.

Sugar CRM is the leader in open source CRM software. With strong venture financing, Sugar CRM is expanding internationally, and its user communities are continually making advancements in user flexibility and control.

You can choose from Sugar Enterprise, Sugar Professional, Sugar Cube and Sugar On-Demand. Sugar CRM offers a workflow-based dashboard which displays your open calls, leads, and scheduled meetings. Sugar CRM solutions are Microsoft compatible and offer features such as sales force automation, reporting, forecasting, mobile app, core sales and marketing support and collaboration.

Module Builder lets Sugar users create custom fields within a given module or create an entire new module. Sugar’s paid solutions offer several built-in features, which cost extra on other services. Sugar customers appreciate its affordability and ease of customization.

All three solutions are well suited for small to medium-sized businesses. And the ability to easily integrate any of these CRM services with real-time leads from InsideUp makes the sales automation process easier, more intuitive and results-driven.

Tags: , , , , ,
Posted in InsideUp Lead Generation Blogs - Lead Management | No Comments »

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »