B2B Marketing Blog

The folks at Forrester Research have updated their Interactive Marketing Forecast out to 2014. 

The table of contents has some predictable headlines:

• Interactive Will Cannibalize Traditional Media
• Interactive Marketing Spend Will Near $55 Billion By 2014
• Search Marketing Still Leads Interactive Spend
• Display Advertising Rebounds
• Email Marketing Continues Healthy Growth
• Social Media Fixes Itself In The Interactive Mix
• Mobile Marketing Matters – Post Recession
• WHAT IT MEANS – Interactive Trends Will Redefine Your Business

It’s a very good read, and a few points jumped out for me.

When faced with budget cuts or the need for immediate sales, these marketers find that interactive tools are less expensive, more measurable, and better for direct response than traditional media.

Empowered consumers today expect a customized, interactive brand experience that goes way beyond a 30-second television spot or two-dimensional print ad. Forty-two percent of online adults and 55% of online youth want to engage with their favorite brands through social applications.

And last, even laggard industries feel that they have enough experience and data to prove interactive marketing’s worth. Online display spending by telecom companies in Q1 2009 grew 50% over Q1 2008.

What was also interesting was the the potential for more growth; interactive marketing ad spend is still under represented and laggard compared to how much of sample media time is spend online.

You can sign up for a copy of the full report here, courtesy of  DemandGen Report. Check it out. Your marketing future may depend on it!

Two guys are walking in the woods when suddenly a huge bear jumps out at them.  They take off with the bear in hot pursuit.  One guy stops to change into his running shoes.  The other guy shouts, “What are you doing?  That won’t help you outrun the bear!”  The first guy replies, “I don’t have to outrun the bear.  I just have to outrun you!”

Graphic source: MacGregor Marketing

This bit of modern folklore is usually used in a business context as a cue to be aware of your true competition and to to stay ahead of them.  For B2B Marketers who leverage organic search engine optimization it is a good reminder for them to beat the competition by focusing on what happens after the prospect has landed.  They know well that targeting popular keywords related to their product or service brings with it a downside:  Their competition have targeted the same keywords and are right there in the same search results. That’s right, the competition is only a click or two away.

So it is wise to assume that any prospect who has found your website will also check out the websites of your competitors.  When businesses are seeking products and services that will enhance their own productivity and competitiveness, the typical sales cycle has changed.  Businesses spend more time researching before they actually engage vendors.  In this research phase there are two marketing pitfalls worth highlighting:  First, the visits are anonymous unless you can entice the prospect into filling out a form.  Second, prospects are unlikely to stay (or return) on your website unless it informs and educates them.   Offering up superlatives without any real substance won’t cut it.  And warmed over product brochures won’t cut it.

Fortunately a single tactic addresses both pitfalls.  Offering high quality content (such as white papers) that answers prospects’ questions will elicit basic contact information with a brief, easy form fill.  Moreover, with a modern marketing automation system, you can enhance your lead scoring by tying any earlier anonymous visits with your newly-identified prospect.  This more complete set of data will help your sales team with superior lead information, faster response and help outrun their competition.

ActiveConversion recently published an “eHow To” guide to Lead Nurturing that we at the SMB Marketing Blog would like to share with you (link, or click on the image at right).

From the landing page for the guide:

Lead nurturing is the process of communicating with prospects who are not yet ready to buy.

Only 10 to 25 percent of all leads are sales-ready. A similar percentage of leads are not qualified at all. This means 50 to 80 percent of all leads generated are potentially wasted if no appropriate action is taken.

With lead nurturing B2B marketers can realize significant benefits. Leads that are not sales-ready are not lost and significant online lead generation effort is not wasted. Automation of lead nurturing increases the ROI of all online marketing activities.

To download this whitepaper on why, when, and how to implement an automatic lead nurturing plan for your business, follow this link or click on the image to the right.

(eHow To Guides)

This post is a bit of a rant inspired by a web comic I stumbled on, but it is so true and so common that it bears talking about.

At a certain point most SMBs decide that their website is no good, and that this critical portion of their marketing (which is very true of course) needs a makeover, or a re-design.  The ones that are smart go out and hire a professional, or a very reputable firm, the ones that aren’t hire the cheapest thing they can find, waste time, money and opportunity, and then eventually hire professionals.   So pros are hired, people with years of experience maximizing what a website can do, especially those who combine website development with online marketing, social media, demand gen, and inbound marketing.  But then this SMB proceeds to tell the pro(s) exactly what to do, or as the website nears reality, others in the company suddenly take interest and chime in, and then change their mind(s) over and over. This is a little like going to the doctors office because you have a medical problem and telling the doctor what the diagnosis is (based on your web research) and what medications you want him/her to prescribe, and of course on your next visit change your mind entirely.

The blog The Oatmeal sums it up all too accurately in this little web comic.  I showed it to our designers and one of them said he wanted to laugh, but it brought up some painful memories.  I thought this was funny, but he had a very serious look on his face.

The really sad part is I’ve experienced that sorta thing so many times the comic actually makes me a bit mad because it brings back some haunting memories.

So the takeaway is, if you’re going to pay good money and hire a professional to develop a marketing strategy (in this case part of your online marketing mix) and execute tactically (design and build the website), let them!  Sitting over their shoulder and directing the development almost guarantees a worse end-result.  The same is true for hiring a professional firm to do your SEO, or set up and maintain your Google Adwords campaigns, or set up and integrate a marketing and lead management automation solution; they do this full time, you’re paying them for their expertise, your involvement above what they ask for diminishes their performance correspondingly.