B2B Marketing Blog

With more companies likely to tighten their financial budgets going into 2012, ask yourself if your business has the financial stomach to spend more on marketing, about the same as this year, or even possibly reduce what you spent these last 12 months.

That thought especially holds true with online marketing, given that your company has a real-time impact with both current and potential customers in a matter of minutes, something that cannot be achieved through more traditional ways like newspapers, radio ads, flyers, newsletters etc.

According to a recent The CMO Survey, even with an up-and-down economy forecast to continue into 2012, chief marketing officers are looking to add to spending on all aspects of marketing in 2012.

This will especially be true when it comes to funds for social media marketing (see more on importance of social media in marketing below). The survey also goes on to note that companies will likely grow spending for marketing hires, likely around 7.2 percent on average in the next year.

That being said, those companies looking to reduce their marketing expenditures in 2012 have ways to cut back and still get some bang for their dollar, however they need to be creative to say the least.

The last thing companies will want to do is turn down or even off their marketing engines to the point that the competition takes advantage of the downswing.

In the event your company is thinking about trimming the marketing budget for the New Year, keep several factors in mind:

• Stay the course – Keeping your marketing awareness and staying engaged is less expensive than having to try and get it back down the road when the economy improves;
• Exude confidence – When you slash your marketing expenses out of what appears to be fear, current and potential customers may lose faith in your abilities. The common perception when you make such a move is that your company may be lacking some stability, therefore leading customers to question you;
• The competition likes you – When a company slashes its marketing budget, a competitor sees an opening. The competitor, who may in fact have cut back some too, could seize the opportunity to pitch their message to some of your current customers or leads you were pursuing. If that happens, you could find yourself on the outside looking in when it comes to getting that business at some point;
• Vendors may be willing to work with you – Businesses have to remember that not only are they looking to save dollars here and there, but many they work with are too. The companies you work with for your promotional items, printing, display, etc. are more apt to want to work with you than lose you altogether as a client. Just because financial times are tough does not mean there may not be some deals to be had;
• Re-evaluate your marketing techniques – Whether you are cutting back or not in 2012 on your marketing operations, take the time now to review 2011. What has worked with your marketing plans? What did not work? What are some techniques you would like to try but have hesitated in doing so up to this point? Use the last 12 months as a guiding tool for the next 12;
• Are you properly using social media? – Even though social media is there for the taking, too many businesses still do not take advantage of all it has to offer. With sites like Facebook and Twitter just to name two, companies should be sure to have fan pages set up and maximized to the hilt. Be sure that your marketing team is taking the time and effort to share and tweet pertinent information about the company, its products and services. Given the fact that more businesses will be transitioning from initial adoption of SM marketing to a more reflective and refined campaign, they are apt to want data that clearly defines the cost-effectiveness of such campaigns. Having another year of experience with social media techniques, more companies will likely show more sophistication when it comes to properly surfing the social media channel. As a result, they will seek more tools that properly enable tracking, measuring and bettering their returns on investment.

Take a look at your marketing techniques, go into 2012 with a plan in place, and market your company to success.

Dave Thomas, who covers among other subjects’ document management and HR software, writes extensively for Business.com, an online resource destination for businesses of all sizes to research, find, and compare the products and services they need to run their businesses.

Every year, the Top Sales Organization conducts an award ceremony recognizing the best in sales and marketing. Since its inception in 2010, ActiveConversion has been nominated twice, this time for the “Top Sales Productivity Tool”.  Having won the silver medal last December for the “Top Sales Tool”, ActiveConversion is thankful and grateful for the support that the online sales and marketing community has shown towards the company. This year in a new category, we here at ActiveConversion seek the same support.

Voting is easy. Click on the following link: http://www.topsalesawards.com/. Look for the category:  Top Sales Productivity Tool. Login or create a new account and then vote for your favourite sales productivity tool.

Voting will close on Dec 9^th. The award ceremony will take place on Dec 15^th, 2011 and will be hosted by Gerhard Gschwandtner of SellingPower.com and Jonathan Farrington of the JF Corporation. Public voting will account for half of the total marks with the other 50% being determined by the judging panel of industry experts.

We here at ActiveConversion hope to get your full support this second time around. We also wish you all happy holidays and a merry Christmas!

Every year SLMA organizes and opens up voting for the top 50 most influential people in Sales Lead Management. Fred Yee, CEO of ActiveConversion is nominated again third year in a row, and shares this prestigious nomination with other luminaries including Jill Konrath, Steve Woods, Phil Fernandez and Joe Payne among others.

Fred Yee has won this title in past two years and is hoping for a greater support again this year. We’re showing our support for Fred by voting, and encourage our readers to do the same.

Anyone can vote, and it only takes a minute. Fred’s name (due to alphabetization) appears at the bottom of the list.

Please vote here. Thank You!

Following the ActiveConversion webinar on sales lead management, Brad Kamphuis, Director Business Development, spoke on the SLMA radio show on Oct 13, 2011 at 5:00PST.

With the holiday season right around the corner, does your small business have its e-mail marketing campaign in place and ready to go? If not, you could be left scrambling at the last minute.

The holiday season for many small businesses can be a make or break time.

For those in the retail business, for example, the holiday rush can be an opportunity to make up for lackluster sales earlier in the year. For small businesses that have a tough time selling over the holidays, it can place them in a very precarious position heading into the next year.

In the event your company’s got questions regarding its e-mail marketing opportunities with the coming holidays, here are some thoughts to consider:

• Make sure your distribution frequency is good – Another important item to keep in mind is that your distribution frequency is solid. Be sure to check the activity from your mailing list a year ago at this time, making necessary adjustments along the way. Prior to the holiday email cycle starting, push out a re-engagement campaign to get less active members engaged. That can include a special email to folks who haven’t opened or clicked in the last several months or a holiday survey to determine what subscribers want from you this season. Also look into having an added opt-in with a holiday campaign to grow the distribution frequency just for those customers seeking it;

• Stand out from the crowd – It is important to remember that your subscribers’ get inundated with email promotional content leading up to the holidays. That being the case, you need your online marketing message to stand head and shoulders above the rest. Make sure you give the subscriber incentive to want to read your message and not hit the delete button;

• Get your message out early – Start the message campaign early and inform your subscribers the importance of doing their business sooner rather than later with the holiday rush coming up. Make sure that your promo emails are done in plenty of time so that they get to the consumer sooner than your competition’s does;

• Engage your social media channels – Given the importance of social media in today’s marketing efforts, make sure you engage the different social networking sites (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn etc.) to target additional audience members. The great thing with social networking sites is it is a free other than a little time and effort. Be sure, however, you don’t use SM just to promote endlessly. Take the time to engage with both present and potential customers regarding your products and services. Bottom line…. be engaged;

• Be relevant after the holiday rush – It is a given that many shoppers look for bargains right after the holidays, so give them a reason to want to come back to you in 2012. Offering incentives to stick with you after the holidays is a great way to go about that;

• Be a mobile player – With more and more individuals using mobile devices to stay in touch with the world, be sure your campaign can accommodate such needs. When designing copy and images, make sure they will work smoothly with mobile devices. This brings on added importance given that many individuals will have their mobile devices with them while shopping etc. You can provide them with valuable deals and offers right at that time.

The bottom line is that the holiday season demands much attention from consumers; make it so that you’re at the top of their shopping wish list.

Dave Thomas, who covers among other subjects vehicle insurance writes extensively for www.business.com an online resource destination for businesses of all sizes to research, find, and compare the products and services they need to run their businesses.

You are invited to join ActiveConversion and Sales Lead Management Association (SLMA) for a free webinar.

View the recorded webinar now!

Our speaker line-up!

This is the first time SLMA is co-sponsoring ActiveConversion webinar and we are privileged on having James Obermayer co-host the webinar and enlighten our audience with his vast experience and knowledge on lead conversion and sales lead management. James is the author of “Managing Sales Leads, Turning Cold Prospects into Hot Customers” and “Sales & Marketing 365.”  He is also co-author of “Managing Sales Leads, How to Turn Every Prospect into a Customer” (over 12,500 copies sold).  In addition, he has written more than 80 articles on sales and marketing management.

We are also excited to have Brad Kamphuis, Director, Business Development, ActiveConversion speak at this event. Brad is a veteran (with 22 years of experience) when it comes to sales lead generation practices, and is trained in all the “big-name” sales strategies, including Dale Carnegie, Sandler Sales, Miller Heiman and Brian Tracy and has been involved in training hundreds of sales representatives.

What to expect:

In 30-45 min followed by a 15 min Q & A session, Brad Kamphuis, and James Obermayer, will walk you through the top lead management strategies and the tactics using ActiveConversion Automation Rules involved to:

• “Clean” your sales lead data to save massive amounts of time on your lead qualification process,
• Target leads to zero in on the most qualified opportunities,
• Close the loop on leads that bring you business now, and leads that aren’t ready to buy.

Online advertising like Google Adwords, MSN Adcenter and Facebook Ads all have similar ways of showing ads to targeted audiences and getting your website clicks. The problem with almost all types of advertising (online is not immune to this), is that it is hard to gauge if those clicks are becoming sales. Coupons used to be the main way companies could track print advertising return on investment while adding further incentives. If a customer comes in with a coupon in their hand, you know your campaign has worked.

Pay per click campaigns can act like a man in a gorilla costume with a sign reading “Sale!” We can assume that many people are seeing this ad, but there is little way to discern between visitors who did, and didn’t see the ad. Making things more complex, who is buying from you that saw the gorilla, who is buying from you who did not see the gorilla? This same problem can affect online campaigns if they are not setup correctly or if the administrator of the campaign is not experienced.

A few tools you can use to better track your online campaigns:

Landing pages – A landing page is a specialized page made to do one thing: to turn a “click” into a SALE. Design a landing page like a flyer or a catalogue page that the user can buy from immediately. Embed graphics and video to emphasize the value of your product, and make sure it is EXTEREMELY easy to purchase your product from that same page. Every click a user has to make will make it less likely they will finalize the transaction. The result? All sales from that page have come in from advertising campaigns and you can measure that in real numbers.

Coupon codes – “Free Shipping with the coupon BoxingDay2011” or something similar is not an uncommon offer to see on eCommerce sites. Just like in the old days of print advertising, these coupon codes can be tracked (as long as your eCommerce system supports it) and work as an additional incentive to make a purchase.

Software – A number of free and paid services/software will track your various campaigns. Integrating Google Analytics is a good first step, as it can integrate with Google Adwords and give you more intelligence on where visitors are coming from, and what they are doing once they get there.

Once you are able to tack your ROI, you can tailor your campaigns to make the most sales, while spending the least amount of money.

If your company’s marketing strategy appears to be taking on some water, perhaps it is time to set sail on a new course?

Since marketing plays such a key role in the direction of many companies, take the time to review your company’s efforts and if they are being directed squarely where they should be.

Reviewing Your Marketing Needs

As you review your company’s marketing needs, analyze where your return on investment (ROI) could be improved, where money may be disappearing to and where you see your company’s finances down the road.

Among the specific areas to zero in on are:

• Numbers review – It is important to review the company financials to determine if change is necessary.
• Marketing efforts – Where are your marketing dollars going? Have you changed anything significantly in the last six months or years? If so, what were the end results?
• Get an outsider’s opinion – While it is easy to judge things from your end, have an outsider look at your marketing efforts. They can give an unbiased viewpoint as to what may be working, what isn’t likely to work and where the dollars should be going;
• Do an industry review – See what others are doing with their marketing efforts. Are they putting the pedal to the metal or are they pulling back? While you don’t necessarily want to emulate what the competition is doing, it doesn’t hurt to review their efforts.
• Customer feedback – Most importantly, get feedback from the clients you are marketing to. Find out what they like and don’t like. If they feel something isn’t working but you aren’t aware of that, how will you fix it?

While you don’t want to be changing your marketing efforts every month, tweaking here and there is by all means a good thing to consider.

If you decide that a change to your marketing game plan is in order, be sure you can answer the question as to why this is in the first place.  At the end of the day, companies need to determine and understand the ongoing cost of promoting and advertising their brand to their customer base and the potential prospects.

Dave Thomas is an expert writer on items like copier machines and is based in San Diego, California. He writes extensively for an online resource, providing expert advice on digital copiers for small business owners and entrepreneurs at Resource Nation.

When the money is tight, the general rule of thumb is that small businesses need to tighten their purse strings and draw back from efforts like marketing and advertising.

But what if companies actually spent more on their marketing when things were tough? Could marketing department managers just this to their bosses?

It is not a big secret that many small businesses falter not long out of the gates; with some reports stating more than three-fourths of businesses go under in their first year.

While the reasons can vary, one of the main reasons companies bite the dust early on is they do not understand what their special niche or true market really are. Without understanding these areas, many companies are doomed for failure.

Before you blow up the marketing budget in this troubled economy, consider the following:

• How will you attract new business if you decimate the marketing budget?
• What is the competition doing? Assuming a number of them are not applying major blows to their marketing budgets, will they reap the rewards when you slit your budget?
• What will your current customers think? Another danger here is that you will stop marketing to the very people who helped establish you in the first place;
• Once the economy does improve, is it already too late? You run the risk of having to recover from a point where there is no recovery.

Marketing your business when times are tough doesn’t require a Master’s degree in finances, just some good old common sense. Most importantly, have a well thought out plan in place so that your business can handle just about any situation.

Among the things to include would be:

• Objectives – What are our company’s objectives during this rough financial time? If we’re not slashing the marketing budget, do we in fact add to it? If so, what areas do we target?

• Audience – Given that money is not only tighter for us but also consumers, who exactly should we be marketing to? Are our customers only going to be interested in deals and rewards programs or will they buy like they did in the past?
• Competition – What is my competition doing? Since it is safe to assume that they are also feeling the pinch of this economy, have they increased or scaled back their marketing efforts?
• Timetables – What are the financial experts saying regarding how long this bad economy will be in place? I can’t just start up a marketing campaign today for tomorrow, so what do the experts believe will happen financially in the next 3 to 6 months?

Even though you may think it is a done deal that your boss or bosses will want to slash the marketing budget in this struggling economy, do not assume that.

Take the time at office meetings to point out that the marketing approach needs to be consistent and cannot be severely reduced or even dismissed in a bad financial climate.

Your competition is having the same meetings your business is in terms of how much and when to market when the economy is bad. Be sure not to pass along customers to them because you were too afraid to market yourself when the economy went south.

Dave Thomas is an expert writer on items like appointment setters and is based in San Diego, California. He writes extensively for an online resource that provides expert advice on answering service purchasing decisions for small business owners and entrepreneurs at Resource Nation.

ActiveConversion is proud to announce the release of an upgraded UI and automation rules designed to handle sales leads more efficiently.

Automation rules is a new cutting edge feature designed to simplify work flow around lead management and lead handling. Automation rules improve lead accuracy and streamline lead management tailored to individual user preferences. Users can now manage their lead data more effectively and reach right kind of leads they want to pursue with greater ease.

The user interface change simplifies the management of multiple entries and makes information more readily available. The upgraded UI simplified identifying sales-ready leads, and creates better experience for the users.

Both the upgraded UI and automation rules ensure our clients are able to find the right kind of lead at the right time. The new features enhance the user experience and improve lead management efficiency.

View our recent press release on this announcement.