B2B Marketing Blog

We’re currently working with a local commercial real estate firm and the economic downturn has had a significant impact on the amount of business the brokerage has seen over the past year.  In previous years, the industry was booming and the brokers were experiencing some of their most profitable years.  In today’s market, deals are taking longer to find and commissions are harder to earn.  Along with the usual marketing and lead generation efforts employed, as with many B2B businesses there was a need to reach out to a relatively untouched set of leads.

The source of leads, which is often overlooked in many SMB businesses, is the contact database that the commercial real estate firm had built up over the past 10 years.   Market data tells us that many leads you generate today may not be ready to buy within the next 90 days, but will be ready over the next 12 to 24 months.  And that’s certainly the case today given the economic turmoil we’re experiencing.  So how can you easily reach out to these 15,000+ contacts easily and cost effectively and ensure that as we work through these tough times we take advantage of the opportunities?  The answer is: Marketing Automation through Nurturing.

Fortunately, the contact database maintained by the real estate firm was very well organized, with details about each contact’s business and their requirements for office space.  This made it easy to segment the list and define 8 groups of potential buyers which needed to be “nurtured”.  The groups would be nurtured with important information about the commercial real estate economy and specific opportunities in their area that would be of interest to them.  The 8 sub-groups would also be dynamic and need to be updated on a monthly basis as contacts are added or removed.

Each month, the team would reach out to their different property seeking groups with the automated messaging and would understand who is interested and who they needed to follow up with based on activities captured by the marketing automation tool (ex. click to website, open email, download of brochure, etc).  In addition to being an easy way to market the properties available, this allows the real estate firm to remain ‘top of mind’ for those that might not be looking to make a change.

Stay tuned for Part 2 of this post as we discuss the successes of this campaign and benefits experienced by the commercial real estate broker.

One of the most popular free search engine marketing tools is the one providing Website Comparisons. The tool allows you to see how your website ranks, and compares your site against others such as  your competitors.  Here are a few key benchmarks of search engine marketing you should know about from the tool.

Alexa Rank – gives you a general measure of the traffic your website is receiving.  The lower the score the better.  It’s very useful to compare the traffic trend to that of your competitors for example.  If you do any social media marketing, it will play a part in how much traffic you receive from your marketing effort. The SiteInfo of Alexa will also tell you a lot about a particular website, like Traffic Stats, Contact Info, Related Links, Keywords, Clickstream and Demographics.

Google PageRank – is a numeric value between 0-10 that represents how important a page is on the web. It is based on a link analysis algorithm that is similar to a ballot system. When one page links to another page, it is effectively casting a vote for the other page. The more votes that are cast for a page, the more important that page is assumed to be.

Indexed Pages – reports how many pages of your website can be found on Google.  More indexed pages usually indicates your website is search engine friendly and is ultimately beneficial to your ranking.   As an example, we’ve seen a large DVD rental website that initially had about 100 pages indexed by Google due to search engine barriers on the site.  With some effort and minor optimization of the website, it went from 100 to over 50,000 indexed pages in less than a month.

Inbound Links - reports how many websites directly link back to your site.  Having a good number of credible links to your website will also boost your Google Page-Rank and improve the importance of your website within Google.  It allows Google and other search engines to position your website higher in their search results.  Of course, the content needs to be related to the search terms.

The Website Comparison tool is just one tool and a start for your online marketing efforts.  You can also try the  Keyword Suggestion Tool to see what search terms people are using to find your website and Webpage Analyzer to get a technical breakdown of key components of a webpage relevant to the search engines.

Ideally your marketing automation solution has an open lead scoring system where you can set the values assigned to various online behaviors. A versatile system will also allow you to set (and modify) a score that represents a “sales-ready” lead.

The lead scoring system should be granular enough to cover a range of online behaviors. A numerical system based on a scale of 100 works well. Online behaviors can include return visits to the website, form submissions, file downloads and/or responding to email.

Initially you need to set the scores of individual behaviors relative to each other.  Start by setting the value of the online behavior that you believe indicates the highest level of interest. For many B2B marketers a return visit to their website is the most clear-cut indicator of interest. Let’s set it at 10 to start. You may decide that a return visit counts twice as much as a file download so the file download is set at 5. Carry on this way until you have set values for all online behaviors. Defining score values is an iterative process so if you are not satisfied that the weightings are proportionate to each other, keep repeating the process until you are.

Then you need to establish a score that defines “sales-ready.” For example you may decide that after a visitor has downloaded a white paper, returned to your website after a few days to view more pages including the pricing page that the lead is qualified and ready for a call from your sales team. The cumulative score of these online behaviors is the “sales-ready” threshold. As time goes on this threshold should be adjusted up or down depending on feedback from sales.

My colleagues and I are immersed in the world of web marketing and take a lot of our skill sets for granted. One such skill is email marketing, the sending of an email to a list. While it is simple to do, and something we do at least every other day, 4 out of 5 companies I talk to are not doing it, and a good percentage of those who are doing it are doing it wrong, harmfully wrong. So here in four easy steps, is how to do email marketing.

Step 1: Gather your list.
Seems commonsensical, but most companies struggle when asked to produce a basic “house list”, let alone lists delineated by variables such as how old the contact information is, how it was received, if a product or service was bought by the contact, and so on. Short of setting up a Contact Relationship Management (CRM) system, put out an “all points bulletin” to your company and collect all the names into a spread sheet. Simple as that, put them into an excel spreadsheet, have a company name, contact name, mailing address, phone number, and of course, an email address. You need more than just the email address, spammers have just an email address, legitimate emailers have contact information.

Step 2: Join an Email Service Provider (ESP).
ESPs are different from Internet Service Providers (ISPs); ESPs are a new element in the ever evolving arms race against spammers. If you are going to send an email to a list, you want to send that email through an ESP or you are likely going to end up in a spam filter (they are free to join, and they charge about a penny an email). Invariably receivers of emails sent to a list will click the spam button, and the ISP will ask “who sent this?” If no one replies the ISP black lists the Internet Protocol (IP) address, automatically getting your emails dumped into spam folders. When you use an ESP they reply to the ISP; “We sent that, we have full contact information including name, address, phone number, this is not spam,” and the ISP relents. There are many ESPs to choose from, I’ll make it simple and suggest this one: VerticalResponse.

Step 3: Email your list with valuable content.
Arguably this is the easiest to state, but the hardest to do. Pick an interval, say once a month, and send a meaningful email that contains something of value. This is where you either win or lose; send nothing of value and you are spamming, send something of value and you are building your tribe. If you are having trouble coming up with something of value you can send in an email, email me and after I find out what your company does I’ll let you know what others in your industry are offering.

Step 4: Keep building your list, keep emailing your list.
Create a quota for everyone in your company; each needs to contribute three new contacts to the list each month. Start keeping segmented lists; in addition to the master “house list”, build lists that are finer grained. Stick to your emailing schedule, it must be a high priority. Keep sending emails that contain something of value.

There are steps beyond these, such as adding Marketing Automation to the mix, but email marketing is so simple, and virtually free, that if your company is not doing it, you are missing out on a powerful tool.