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.

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.

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.

Relationship building is a critical process in certain types of sales cycle involving personal interactions and rapport before the prospect is near the buying phase. The high cost and infrequency of purchases requires a level of trust and friendship to be established between seller and buyer. Note I did not say “between sales and the buyer”.

Traditionally, the sales department was responsible for developing relationships with prospects as they moved through the stages of the buying process. Marketing was traditionally only responsible for identifying which prospects sales should build relationships with. However, the time and dollar cost for sales to build and strengthen relationships was often too much to be able to see every lead to the end. The solution for this involves marketing accepting the responsibility for developing relationships.

Using marketing automation tools, such as ActiveConversion, marketing not only identifies prospects and leads, but also nurtures those prospects until they are sales ready. Automated drip campaigns, periodic offers, and resources such as videos or case studies build a stronger buy in. As the company begins to build their credibility as experts in their field, prospects authenticate them more, and finally move closer towards a sales ready state. Using marketing automation, marketing passes only leads that are close to sales ready state and are open to a purchase negotiation.

If marketing assumes the task of building relationships, there can be many benefits. Immediately, sales would have more time and resources to close sales with prospects that are sales-ready. The reduction in energy used to nurture leads who are not sales ready saves the parent company a large amount of overhead. As well, marketing has the resources and expertise to execute cohesive long term campaigns to deliver a message over multiple communications.

Establishing a relationship between marketing and the buyer is more effective and cost efficient than a sales representative chasing after a lead too early in the sales cycle when in fact the lead is still RESEARCHING!

Author: Mike Hwang

Service businesses, especially companies in the Energy Sector, Are looking outside their usual stomping grounds for new customers…

Perhaps the volatility of the energy markets is driving them to seek new lands offering better stability and security. Perhaps the possibility of positioning their businesses in markets with little, or no, competition has many companies looking at around for bigger and better opportunities. Whatever the reason, there is a growing trend among energy service providers to seek opportunities globally.

But, How Do You Grow Globally…

Bringing your business to market is all about putting the right message in front of the right audience at the right time. The trouble with marketing somewhere other than where you live is precisely that: You do not live there. How do you gain exposure? How do you know what messages will be well received? How do you know when those you want to deal with are ready to buy—if you even know who your real prospects are in the first place?

There are 2 options: get a consultant, or get a marketing automation system. Having been a consultant I have no desire to heap too large a pile of coals on my head. However, there is one truth I will confess: as a consultant, I was NOT cheap. I knew what the best options were, how to engage and how to get results. I also knew that my knowledge was well outside the scope of my clients—that is, they NEEDED me. And I charged for it.

A marketing automation system, like that of ActiveConversion, does much of the work of a consultant. The system literally educates those marketing into new territories by providing answers to key questions, such as:

• Which marketing campaigns are driving visitors to my website?
• Of those visiting my website, how often do they come and which products or services are they most interested in?
• Which of my competitors are checking me out, and what are they looking at?
• Who are the most relevant contacts at my prospects’ business?
• Whether prospects are at the right point in their buying cycle or not, how can my business stay top-of-mind (professionally and ethically) with my prospects from afar?
• When is the best time to commit sales resources to maximize my chances of converting my best prospects?

And one of the most interesting aspects of this information: it is gathered anonymously. No one has to fill out a form for you to know who they are, what they’re looking at, or how interested they might be.

Whether you plan to take your business to places where angels fear to tread, or if you’re staying close to home, a marketing automation system will keep you on top of your prospects, competitors ,and your advertising effectiveness—all for a lot less than I ever charged.

Does your company want to get its feet wet in the social media world, or is trying to and spinning its wheels?  If so, what can be done to improve the situation?

First, re-analyze why you have a company blog in the first place:

1. We have a blog because competitors do and we don’t want to seem out of the loop.
2. We have a blog due to the fact we wanted a way to promote our brands and services.
3. We have a blog for the simple reason our owner likes to talk a lot and this was one way for him/her to spout off.

So, what would you say is the correct answer to the three options above? If you said the last one, maybe your company needs more assistance than some realize.

While choice number one may be part of the reasoning for your blog, number two should be the obvious choice. Quite simply, company blogs are great tools to not only promote your goods and services, but stay in the social media loop.

With that being said, don’t just write to write.

• Your company’s blog needs to have worthwhile content on it so people will read it in the first place.

• Secondly, it requires regular updating so that readers will come back to it and search engines are more likely to pick it up. If you update it once in a blue moon, not only will readers be gone but the search engines will pick up more worthwhile entries.

• Another reason that readers will come and go from a company blog is if they are leaving valid, appropriate comments and you are not responding. Would you follow someone if you left them several comments and they ignored you? Companies need to take the bad feedback from consumers with the good, so respond accordingly, but do respond.

Companies need to determine if the blog materials they’re covering are appropriate for their readers in the first place. Relevant information draws people to blogs, so know what you want to write about ahead of time and be concise.

Are you placing relevant internal and external links and keywords in your company’s blog?

While SEO writing may not be for everyone, it is not rocket science either. If your company covers the auto insurance industry, your blog better be insurance related in order to drive more worthwhile traffic to it.

The most important item brings us full circle to the first point….why are we blogging in the first place?

Some companies decide its best to hire full-time staff to write, edit and oversee blogs. It allows for the boss/bosses to delegate one more item to professionals who can get the company’s message across.

Others, meantime, decide to do it on their own and give it more of a personal feel from the man or woman at the top.

Both ways can have their advantages and disadvantages, so decide what is best for your company. If you try one approach and it is not working for a period of time try another until you find the right solution.

A company blog can be a very useful tool to drive business your way; determine how blogging can best serve your business and get writing.

Dave Thomas is an expert writer on items like a document management systems and is based in San Diego, California.  He writes extensively for an online resource that provides expert advice on purchasing and outsourcing decisions for small business owners and entrepreneurs at Resource Nation.

I have often heard, “Marketing automation doesn’t work for me”, or “It’s of no use to our company, but it certainly looks and sounds interesting!” For some companies, marketing automation is still just a fancy word, and a concept that is not well understood.

How can companies make optimal use of marketing automation? Here is my view:

Awesome SEO/Inbound Marketing:

To get those prospective leads to your landing page. It is hard to attract visitors to your website when search engines cannot find your business. It is even harder justifying inbound marketing costs then. Pay Per Click (PPC) campaigns, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Social Media Marketing (SEM) are ways that you can use to bring potential customers to your website or a landing page.

Conversion capability of your online forms:

You need a compelling offer to entice visitors: From your awesome SEO, visitors can now find you from search engines and other marketing channels they visit; now they would like to know more about you. On top of that, they need a compelling offer to click and take advantage of the information that you are sharing. An online form on a landing page, with offers such as free trial, free whitepaper downloads, free webinars, free consulting, free live demos will encourage visitors to fill out the form. Oh Yes! Do not forget to add the privacy statement beside the form. Your landing page visitors will be less hesitant to share their business information with you if you forget to assure them of confidentiality.

LEADS themselves:

The visitors who filled the form to avail the offer are now your LEADS. Some companies will still call them prospects and not leads because they have not shown any buying behaviour yet to call them qualified or warm leads. Their engagement is indicated by their action of filling out a form, or offering contact information. They are interested, they are involved, and they are LEADS.

A good marketing automating system to nurture those leads:

After you get leads from your forms, it is important to qualify them before you send the leads off to sales rep. Marketing Automation can be the engine that does just that. Targeted emails, on the targeted days, will nurture the leads while marketing automation tracks if the leads took additional steps in learning more about you. The more interest, warmer the lead is (interest typically shown from the kind of engagement leads has: eg: click on a link to your case study, collateral, webinars, whitepapers or at the very best reply to the email with an interest to talk). Nurturing the lead has done a good job in converting the cold lead to a warm or Hot one.

A great lead management engine to give only the qualified leads to sales:

Marketing automation is generally hooked up to a CRM. It is essential that only the HOT leads are sent to the sales rep. This will optimize their time and make it easy for them to close the deal. If the lead is not warm enough, it will be sent back to marketing or just ignored as dirty data.

Last but not least, you need a great sales team to close the sale:

Yes, a great sales team will make sure that no HOT leads are lost to competitors and the benefits of marketing automation come full circle; that is the reason why you bought marketing automation in first place!

Did I miss any points? Please comment with your suggestions!

Blogging is considered to be one of the most effective methods of pull marketing. Prospective buyers are drawn towards the valuable content offered in the blog.

Another channel that can be used for sharing valuable content to increase your inbound marketing reach is to publish and engage in social media.  Sites such as Twitter and LinkedIn have proven to be great tools for B2B companies, and Facebook is not far behind.

Twitter, a micro-blogging community, provides a portal to learn the behaviours and habits of the end consumer.  For B2B companies, this is a fantastic tool to understand their customer’s customer.

LinkedIn is a social media portal designed for businesses and business-people to connect with each other and share knowledge, ideas, and opportunities.  This has become the go-to tool for finding experts, employment opportunities, and potential employees.

ActiveConversion recently conducted a webinar on SEO, Content, and Social media. This webinar examined inbound marketing and the value of content in generating thought leadership and credibility for your company, products, and services.

Martha Boulianne also recently published this blog on FoundPages, that discusses the value of blogging and outlines eight ways to improve a corporate blog.

Here are the main points suggested by Martha on improving your corporate blog:

1. Spread the word.
2. Add quality content.
3. Blog early, blog often.
4. Link to your own old posts.
5. Add links and images to your blog posts.
6. Write comments on related blogs.
7. Write title tags for both your readers and Google.
8. Cover topics that need attention.

Read the rest of the blog here…

Related articles

• Corporate Blogging Tip: Use Your “More” Tag (socialtimes.com)
• Guilt-Free Business Blogging – 7 Ways A Blog Can Grow Your Business (blogherald.com)
• Corporate Blogging: You’re Doing It Wrong (blogs.sitepoint.com)
• Whiteboard Friday – Corporate Blogging Tips (seomoz.org)

Marketing used to be only for the bigger companies. They were the only ones who could afford major marketing campaigns on buses, signs and in news print. These days, SMBs are getting a huge boost in everything. Even in the B2B market, SMBs are able to compete with the larger businesses. It all has to do with the ability to market their company online. The biggest key to the marketing online is the ability to properly use a few key marketing techniques. This way, they get the attention that they need as well as the revenue that they deserve.

There are three main components any business will need if it is to have any hopes of being able to get the kind of B2B business it is looking for. They need to be able to have a website which takes advantage of everything that SEO has to offer. It is necessary to have a working knowledge of the social media sites to use them correctly. It is also necessary to be able to market through means like email. If you have mastered these concepts, you will be assured of having a great business with a lot of success.

Using SEO for Marketing

Of all of the different online marketing techniques, one of the most important is the ability to draw people to your website without having to pay any money at all. By using SEO material, it is possible to make sure that those searching for the things you have to offer will be able to find your website. They will learn about your company through the kind of content that you have available so that they can see how your company will benefit theirs.

Using Social Media for Marketing

Purchasing managers spend just as much time online through social media sites as anyone else. They want to find out about the businesses that they are buying from before making a purchase. Make sure that all of the content which is on your social media site will properly represent your company to any possible clients. This way you will be able to build a loyal following of people who will receive every piece of marketing that you attach to Facebook posts as well as the posts that make to your Twitter account.

Using Email for Marketing

Email is still something which is checked every day by individuals and businesses alike. It is possible to gain the attention that your company needs by sending out different emails. This way you will be able to market everything from a digital security system to the services and products other businesses might want to purchase. Gathering email addresses is possible through your social media pages as well as through your website. Using them will help you to get the word out about the latest that your company has to offer.

Author: Matt Kraustrunk, Resource Nation.

Resource Nation provides free tools, tips, and purchasing advice for business owners and entrepreneurs in over 100 business categories ranging from phone systems to credit card processing. Whether it’s connecting businesses with local and national pre-screened vendors, or offering easy service comparisons on a VoIP service, Resource Nation empowers business decision makers by providing the information they need to make smart choices.