Posts Tagged ‘marketing tips’

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Five Ways to Build Your Presence on LinkedIn

Friday, November 11th, 2011

As Twitter and Facebook’s no-nonsense cousin, LinkedIn may not be quite as popular, but many business marketers have discovered its potential for establishing thought leadership and building brand recognition.

Since LinkedIn was designed as a platform to help business people connect, you will find it offers a number of tools created specifically for that purpose.  Here are a few ways you can use LinkedIn to create awareness about your services and, quite possibly, garner some quality leads.

  1. First, be sure to fully flesh out your profile with information about your company. You can embed your videos and company blog on the profile page, and add a  “share” button so your content can be sent to social media sites like Twitter, Facebook and Digg. Also, be sure your company is listed in the company directory, with details about the services you provide.
  2. One of the best ways to establish yourself as an authority in your field is to answer questions on the LinkedIn Answers page. You can find this section under the drop-down menu labeled “More” at the top of the home page. Browse the categories in the column on the right-hand side of the page for topics in which you have expertise to share. Maintain credibility by refraining from making promotional statements and focus on supplying helpful information.
  3. Join several LinkedIn groups. How to Use LinkedIn For Business: A Beginner’s Guide, by Hubspot, recommends joining, not only groups pertaining to your industry, but also several outside your industry so you can connect with businesses that might need your services. You can even create and manage your own group. By actively participating in group discussions, offering valuable tips and insights, you can expand your circle of influence and enhance your reputation as a respected authority in your field.
  4. Take advantage of LinkedIn Applications to create surveys and slide presentations, display your portfolio, embed your blogs and tweets, keep up with professional events and conferences, and more.
  5. Regularly post status updates and share content. Keep your LinkedIn presence fresh by posting news about your company on a weekly basis. Provide content in the way of blog posts that others will find useful enough to share. With more than a million users, content posted on LinkedIn can become viral. If your content is widely shared, it may even be featured on LinkedIn Today, the site’s news aggregate service, providing you with even more exposure.

Visit LinkedIn’s learning center for more tips on how to get the most from your LinkedIn membership. And while you’re there, stop by and visit our profile!

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Posted in B2B Lead Generation Tips, B2B Marketing | No Comments »

Aligning B2B Services with Your Prospects’ Needs

Wednesday, September 7th, 2011

Does your company fit the profile of a quality service provider? When your prospects conduct research to find the right business services to fill their needs, are you the answer? Doing a bit of your own research can help you fulfill your prospects’ criteria for an ideal provider.

Education based marketing works especially well in the B2B arena, but only if you are providing the right answers to questions your customers actually have. Conversations with your existing customers can provide some insight, but what about future customers, the ones who are still in the research stage?

One simple way to know what questions you should be prepared to answer is to read materials designed to help business service seekers find a provider. If you offer ecommerce solutions, for example, do an Internet search for “tips on choosing ecommerce services,” or “questions to ask an ecommerce provider.” This will help you address the most common concerns of your target market. If you expect reputation and experience to be a deciding factor, you can be prepared with testimonials and referrals from your best clients. Or perhaps you’ll be fielding a lot of questions about price. Can you offer easy financing terms to help close the deal?

When you closely align your offering with what your ideal client is looking for, your prospect won’t need to search for the “next best alternative.” In his book, The Personal MBA, Josh Kaufman highlights this point, saying, “Understanding the other party’s Next Best Alternative gives you a major sales advantage: you can structure your agreement so it’s more attractive than their next best option. The more you know about the other party’s alternatives the more attractively you can frame your total offer by bundling/unbundling various options.”

Even after you’ve addressed a prospect’s main questions and aligned your offer with their needs, you could still be faced with some tough objections to the actual purchase. In a future post, we’ll look at ways you can overcome the most common objections.

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Posted in B2B Marketing, Small Business Tips | No Comments »

Using Keywords in B2B Marketing

Friday, 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.

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

Five Steps to Measuring the ROI of Social Media Marketing

Friday, 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.”

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Seven Secrets of Magnetic Marketing Copy

Monday, 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.

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Sales Leads Top B2B Challenges

Wednesday, April 20th, 2011


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Posted in B2B Lead Generation Tips, Lead Purchasing | No Comments »

How to Get Better ROI from Inbound Marketing

Monday, March 28th, 2011

Embracing the latest online marketing strategies, businesses are spending countless hours and marketing dollars in an effort to keep their sales teams supplied with inbound leads.

Marketing teams are kept busy revising, perfecting and testing their inbound strategies using the myriad social media, content marketing, search marketing and public relations tools at their disposal.

Inbound marketing may seem like the latest trend but it is built on classic marketing principles. Closely related to the principle of “permission marketing,” a term coined by Seth Godin in the late ‘90s and now widely used by marketers, inbound marketing is an effective means of acquiring leads who are actively seeking your services.

A prospect’s permission to contact them is one of your most valuable marketing assets, especially since most people do not give out their information freely to just anyone who asks for it. It indicates that they are already interested in what you have to offer, so you don’t need to expend any effort convincing them on that count. The only thing that remains is to demonstrate that yours is the ideal company for their needs. And this brings us to the heart of successful inbound marketing.

Speak to your customer out of a genuine desire, not just to sell them on your solution, but to truly help their business succeed. Keep this motivation at the core of every piece of content you create and every interaction with your prospect.

Building a genuine rapport does take an investment of time, but the results will be solid and lasting. These are the same principles used by the best lead generation companies to generate warm leads who have demonstrated an interest in your services, supplied information about their specific needs, and are not only willing, but eager to hear about your solutions.

Treat these inbound leads like gold. Be the company who provides value before your prospect has even committed to using your service. Answer their questions and build their trust. Make sure your company’s message is aligned with your prospective customers’ needs. You will be building a loyal customer base while you strengthen your reputation and your brand.

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Twelve Key Ways Marketing Automation Can Benefit Your Business

Tuesday, January 25th, 2011

According to a new report by DemandGen, the number of companies that have adopted marketing automation solutions in 2010 is double that of the previous year. Several giants such as IBM and Oracle were among them.

With marketing automation’s capacity to help companies maximize their return on investment, manage revenue cycles, and create brand awareness, the number of B2B companies taking advantage of this technology is expected to continue to grow. But you don’t have to be a mega organization to reap the benefits of CRM and other forms of marketing automation software. So what, exactly, is marketing automation and how can it help your business grow?

According to SearchCRM, marketing automation software is used to automate marketing processes such as customer segmentation, customer data integration (CDI), and campaign management. Its use makes processes, which had been performed manually, much more efficient. It also provides new features and capabilities that companies have yet to exploit. Marketing automation is an integral component of customer relationship management (CRM).

Marketo further defines marketing automation as a tool for increasing operational efficiency and driving revenue. It automates the routine and repeatable tasks involved in lead management, lead nurturing and lead scoring. It will also build and maintain your company’s marketing lead database. It can also be integrated with your company’s existing sales force automation systems.

Automation software enables marketing departments to measure what works and demonstrate the impact of specific marketing and lead nurturing campaigns on company revenue. Used effectively, it can foster collaboration between marketing and sales teams and increase productivity.

The two main functions of marketing automation are campaign management and customer segmentation. Organizations use factors such as gender, age, and education to separate and categorize customer data. This helps marketers create campaigns targeted to particular demographics and measure the effectiveness of advertising and lead nurturing strategies.

Within these two main functions, marketing automation programs perform a multitude of tasks. Some of these will vary by provider, but most will help increase the effectiveness of your marketing in these 12 ways:

  1. Increase productivity by replacing repetitive manual tasks with automated systems.
  2. Help to manage your company’s revenue cycles.
  3. Automate lead generation and lead nurturing processes.
  4. Create marketing work-flow systems, budget plans and organizational calendars.
  5. Manage organization-wide marketing campaigns
  6. Manage mailing lists based on existing lead, account and contact data.
  7. Assist on campaign asset creation.
  8. Analyze campaign effectiveness based on customer data.
  9. Use information captured in lead details to qualify leads to next stage.
  10. Deploy mass email campaigns to targeted mailing lists.
  11. Import leads from external sources, such as lead suppliers and Web downloads.
  12. Create, automate and deliver multi-channel promotional messaging.

If you’re planning to purchase marketing automation software tools, it’s important to realize that your initial purchase is only the beginning. When companies express disappointment with their marketing automation system, this is often because they have not taken the time to learn how to use it fully. To get the most benefit from your software, you will need to integrate it with the right resources, people, and processes.

Think of marketing automation as one component of your complete marketing solution. When used effectively, it can help you build brand awareness and realize a higher return on your sales leads.

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More B2B Marketers are Migrating to Mobile

Thursday, November 18th, 2010

Increasingly businesses are leveraging the power of mobile media to keep their brand in front of buyers. And business-to-business marketers are no exception. New research by Forrester reports that B2B mobile marketing spending will quadruple over the next five years, rising from $26 million in 2009 to $106 million in 2014.

According to CNET News, by the year 2013 mobile phones could easily outrank PCs as the way most people search the Internet. And research firm Gartner indicates that Web-enabled phones will shoot past 1.82 billion units by 2013. As reported by Business Week magazine, “More than half the people surveyed recently by Zogby International said they would use a tablet device such as the iPad for working outside the office.”

Since the introduction of the iPhone, there has been a dramatic shift toward the use of smartphones for business purposes. Proving that the iPhone is not a mere consumer-oriented trend, more than 80 percent of Fortune 500 companies have recently deployed iPhones to their workforce. The use of mobile media by business is really not surprising considering the fact that text messages have a 97 percent open rate, a fact that marketers cannot ignore.

Going mobile with your marketing does require a measure of finesse. You need to consider how your web content will appear on the smaller screen, and as always, you will need to provide engaging and useful content if you want your prospects to stay connected.

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Posted in B2B Lead Generation Tips, B2B Marketing | 5 Comments »

Why There is No Such Thing as An Exclusive Lead

Friday, August 27th, 2010

Many B2B marketers still believe in the myth of the exclusive lead and that sales success only comes with exclusive leads. This may have been true in 1980, but in today’s world of online marketing, exclusive leads are virtually nonexistent. The reality is that customers do diligent research before settling on one vendor. And price is not the most important factor for comparing vendors.

If you want to turn your leads into sales, you need to know what your customers are looking for. Are they seeking value, or is it all about the lowest price? Do they compare several vendors or just go with the first one they find?

A recent research study by B2B International found that not only do B2B buyers compare vendors, they also favor quality and reliable delivery over price when choosing a vendor. Of the buyers surveyed, 100 percent said quality was the most important factor in their buying decision. Reliable delivery was ranked second by 84 percent of participants, and pricing took third place for 76 percent.

Key Factors in Choosing
a Vendor		 Percentage of Respondents Overall Ranking
Quality 100 1
Reliable delivery 84 2
Price 76 3
Speedy delivery 42 4
Technical back up 31 5
Sales service 30 6

What prompts potential buyers to search online?

Researchers at Enquiro found that information gathering is the primary objective of potential buyers online search activities. Over 70% of respondents search online to learn more about a product or service or to compare it against alternatives. This demonstrates that search activity precedes purchase decisions in a huge number of cases.

How can these insights help you turn leads into sales?

Knowing that potential buyers are weighing price against quality of service, you can tailor your sales message to emphasize specific ways in which your company delivers quality service. Remember, the large majority are not looking for the cheapest provider, but the one that is the best match in terms of features and service quality.

Of course, this requires that your company actually does offer a level of service that differentiates you from your competitors. Perhaps you will find there is opportunity for improvement in this area. Strengthening the quality of your services in measurable ways will give you a definite advantage when it comes to closing sales.

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