As online marketers searched high and low to meet this challenge, interest soon focused on marketing automation as marketers increasingly saw that early adopters were using this technology. In 2011, I expect this trend will significantly increase and adoption of marketing automation will spread beyond this group as word spreads within individual markets.

For example, the use of content marketing has grown and as a result, online marketers are beginning to understand that content must be tailored to where the customer is in the purchase cycle. This goes hand in hand with lead scoring and lead nurturing and points to marketing automation as a way to exploit this new way of developing customers. Although early adopters have a significant profit motive, it is this pragmatism that propels a technology thorough early adoption and even into adoption by the early majority. I can’t wait for 2011.

Sally Hedgehog, the author of “Fascinate: Your 7 Triggers to Persuasion and Captivation”, says, “Fascination is the most powerful way to influence decision making”. Every day, intentionally or not, we are all using fascination triggers to persuade people at work and our prospective clients. Whether you’re pitching a new client, creating a new marketing message to sell a new or an existing product, you’re using triggers to elicit a certain response. Each trigger leads to a different style of communication, and a different type of relationship. The more accurately B2B marketers identify their audiences personality triggers, the more influential their message becomes. There are seven types of triggers that Sally defines in her book. I found few that can be used pretty effectively for B2B marketing. They are: power, alarm, trust and prestige. These triggers when understood and used correctly in the marketing campaigns can help marketers create compelling messages to persuade their audience to take that desired action. To know more about these triggers and to find out where you fit with your fascination score click here.

Here are a few questions that marketers can ask themselves when they are in the thought process and ready to create something that will generate them the leads they desire. Also are some supporting points that demonstrate how ActiveConversion uses some of the fascination triggers to create a compelling marketing message.

1. How would I fascinate my audience to influence them to take action? Pick the trigger that you think your audience will be influenced most with. Here at ActiveConversion, we recently used the message: “OUTSELL & OUTMARKET your larger competitors”. This call to action to outsell your competitor used “POWER” and the “ALARM” trigger by defining consequence where specific demands causes more specific actions.

1. How can I relate to my audience at a personal level? Pick a trigger that would take for YOU to take that specific action? Put yourself in their shoes and visualize the impact that you want to create. For instance, if you serve small businesses and are targeting other small businesses, talk to your audience in their language. Use the persuading power by triggering the sense of “TRUST”. For example, message that emphasizes how you know their business and how you have helped other similar businesses get value with a minimal budget. – “Do more with your budget. Let us show you how.” Using other companies as a reference and relevant case studies will leave the feeling of trust and motivate your audience to take the desired action.

The above few pointers will hopefully make you explore other triggers that will let you harness the power of your creativity in order to be fascinating when you are marketing. And as a final note – Be fascinating to be inspiring!

Success at this point will usually sound like “…interesting, send me an email with your info in it and I’ll get back to you”.  The big question is did they say it to be nice,  to get you off the phone?  Or are they genuinely interested? If they are not interested, you may have just set yourself up for a waste of time following up with them.  What you really want is insight into who on the “send me an email” list really is interested, who is actually engaged with your message.

One path to this insight is through a combination of a content-rich website, and marketing automation like ActiveConversion.  When they ask for the “more information email”, the email itself contains links that lead to the information/content.  With the ActiveConversion Outlook plugin installed, if they click on any of those links, you’ll see if they clicked through and what they looked at.

If they said they were interested, but didn’t click through on any of the informational links, well, not as qualified.  However if they clicked through and looked at multiple pages, and even more significantly, if they returned later for a second look at your website, notch them up as having passed qualifying test #1.

Keep in mind this same approach is useful when re-engaging with customers and old prospects.  Even deep into a relationship sell, being able to gauge how interested and engaged a prospect is with the new message you’re delivering is invaluable.

Stable Content

• Website: Since its 2010, you should have professional website.  If you don’t have one, get on it.
• Bonus Points Wikipedia Entry: Businesses haven’t fully embraced Wikipedia but it is the authority for information reference.  Having a Wikipedia entry will become increasingly important for online credibility and exposure.

Regularly Updated Content

• Blog: A critical platform for establishing credibility with the online community and search engines.  If your organization doesn’t have a blog, you are missing out on establishing yourself as an online authority in your industry.
• Bonus Points Periodical Press Releases: Press Releases still have their place online, particularly when pushed out with a service like PRWeb.com.  It can do more than just a blog posting or website update as it pushes to many channels, allowing for more exposure and credibility.

Social Networking

• Twitter/Facebook Fan Page: Twitter and Facebook are the kings of social networking and an increasingly important platform to promote dialog between companies and the online community.
• Bonus Points LinkedIn/Foursquare: LinkedIn and Foursquare aren’t for everyone, but depending on the kind of business you do, these maybe valuable platforms to reach potential customers.

Video Media

• YouTube: YouTube continues to be a predominately an entertainment focused community, but its reach is undeniable.  If you have how-to videos, or a business presentation, they are good candidates for YouTube.
• Bonus Points Webinar: Webinars are a great way to interact with customers and the community.  Webinars add great value for any customer base.

Search Engine Marketing

• Google AdWords: This isn’t a must but for those of you who are just starting out, or struggling in competitive markets, pay-per-click campaigns with Google can get you that exposure when you need it.
• Bonus Points Pay-per-click on Facebook/LinkedIn/Yahoo/Bing: Although Google is the most recognized player; pretty much every major platform (Facebook, LinkedIn, Yahoo, Bing, etc) has a similar version of the pay-per-click program.  They may present a less competitive and more targeted environment to push marketing efforts.

Depending on your business and goals, the platforms mentioned may not be critical.  Also keep in mind that just because you are represented on these platforms doesn’t necessarily mean you are being represented well on each platform.  However, how to assess your effectiveness on the various online platforms is the topic for another post.

Do you have other platforms that are critical to your business’s online marketing strategy that you feel should be on this list?  Please share it with us in the comments.

Max Lenderman, the author of “Experience the Message“,  says engaging potential customers is more important than shoving advertisements into peoples’ faces. With an attention span of 8 seconds which is equal to that of a goldfish, it is really hard to reach the target audience minds with one or two or even 10 instances of our marketing campaigns. I like two examples that Max Lenderman gave at the Art of Marketing event.

Example 1: In India having a cell phone has become the fifth necessity after food, housing, clothes and electricity. Most of the people in rural places are not educated and their main preoccupation is with farming. Reaching such an audience to promote products is a difficult task. Billboards, TV, newspaper ads or online ads are all off limits. How do companies reach such audiences? The way marketing agencies do that is by implementing experience based marketing. They use pop ups in stores where they engage the audience via a street play, drama or musicals.

Example 2: Charmin, the maker of bathroom tissue, opened up a few free to use washrooms in one of the busy New York areas. People in New York’s Time Square area had resorted to washroom use in Starbucks or nearby restaurants. Now people are happy to see these public washrooms conveniently situated  that also provide an experience nothing like they have ever experienced before. In addition to providing a washroom facility, Charmin has richly decorated that place with fancy chairs, and a stage to dance and sing while waiting. Many people have left with pictures and most importantly praise and promise to use only Charmin from there on. View the video.

Takeaways for B2B marketers:
1.      It is more important to engage with the audience while marketing or showing off your product.

2.      Instead of spending thousands of dollars in billboards, banner ads and other expensive ads, make use of experience based marketing by giving away  free to use products and giving prospects a first hand experience.

3.      B2B marketers can learn from these examples by letting their potential customers experience the product before making a decision like the 30 day free trial by ActiveConversion.

4.      Make it easier for them to use/try the product. It is easier to make people switch if you change the environment to making ease of use your priority.

To all you B2B marketers, can you bring the flavor of experience into your marketing?

In this list of less tangible assets is the company’s website, usually in the same category as the brochure that it closely resembles.  But what is increasingly expected of websites is that, instead of being a static brochure, that they convey insight; captivating reasons to stay engaged with a website, maybe even follow it on social media.  The standard way a B2B website accomplishes this is with what I will call “website assets”; whitepapers or case studies (and the promise of new ones in a timely fashion), sometimes a nice video, or most effectively, a blog that is updated on a regular basis.  The problem is that developing website assets at all, let alone a consistent cyclical production, requires some not-insignificant commitment and resources to see through.  Most companies, even if they agree that website assets are good ideas, will say that they have little time or money to get these accomplished.

The Easy Path to High-Value Website Assets
So I have an alternative, something easier, something anyone who is even somewhat passionate about what they do for a living can do without breaking a sweat; a webinar.  If you can talk for 30 minutes to a customer or prospect about how you can solve one of their more pressing business problems, then you can do a webinar.  Now many people respond that they are not comfortable doing public speaking, even if you’re presenting to your computer, to them I council “then don’t host it live with an audience, host without an audience and record it”.

Instead of inviting everyone to the live webinar you’re afraid of doing, invite everyone to the recorded webinar they ‘missed’.  Put in the invite that if while watching the webinar they have any questions (answering these live is one key value of live webinars, certainly during the webinar you will answer a few canned ones) they can email them in, and you promise to answer each and everyone one of them.  And the best part is this recorded webinar is now a website asset, you can put a button on your website that engages visitors, maybe even convinces them to give you their contact info:

(this is a webinar I hosted in early May), here’s a link to our full list of recorded webinars.

So here they are, the

10 Reasons Your Company Should Do Webinars, because everyone likes lists, heck maybe you just jumped right to the list, so here it is:

1. Webinars are the easiest to achieve high-value content your company can generate; it is the easiest way to capture the expertise and experience of your senior people in a way that can be accessed over and over again by prospects visiting your website.
2. People like to hear things from people, not faceless corporations.  Webinars give you the opportunity for visitors to your website to hear your expertise and experience on specific topics that matter to them, much more so than the generic statements on the website.
3. The invitation to a webinar, and the follow up invitation to download the recorded webinar, are a valid reason to email your entire “in-house” list of contacts at least twice
4. Announcing you are having a webinar increases your credibility on the subject the webinar will focus on.  If you stick to a subject that you know well because of both successful experience and passion, you will likely build credibility.
5. This high-value content is ideal for pushing out to your social media network; the companies winning at social media are the ones contributing content that speaks to their credibility.
6. High-value content like this is very useful to your sales team; when they encounter this business problem they can refer prospects to a webinar recording on the respective subject from your guru.
7. Webinars are easier to sell to the gurus that need to host them; getting them to speak for 30-45 minutes on a subject they are an expert on and passionate about is something they do all the time, and is much more “natural act” than asking for a whitepaper.
8. You can use recorded webinars as “conversion elements” to build your list; gate them behind a form on your website and require a name and email address to access them (have a very good privacy policy very visible, and do an opt in campaign afterwards).
9. You can very effectively increase your brand credibility by co-hosting a webinar with one of your more recognized suppliers or vendors.
10. Webinars can be very nimble; if you recognize a shift in your industry, or an event that is of significance, you can quickly reach out to your audience with your insight on the topic.

Too many people create websites that look beautiful. But what we really need are websites that WORK beautifully. It’s not enough to put some content up. It’s not enough to launch and leave an application or a new website design. If you want a website that makes money you must continuously improve the completion times of your customers’ top tasks. The most important thing you need to manage on your website is your customers’ time.

This is Coolaid that we drink all day every day; it is more important to be found, answer questions, generate a lead, than it is to look the prettiest.  Of course the website can’t be a junker either, or that becomes a barrier (lack of credibility) all in itself.   Just don’t spend all your money on the design, save 75% of your budget for promoting the website and answering your customers questions with webinars (and downloads of recorded ones), case studies, and white papers.

Most marketing executives cite email or search marketing as their company’s top-performing advertising channel in 2009—39.4% and 23.6%, respectively—and over nine in ten (93.6%) say they plan to increase their budget allocation to digital marketing in the next five years, according to the Fourth Annual Marketing and Media Survey from Datran Media.

Just 9.4% of marketers cited offline channels as their most effective response channel last year. Another 4.7% cited social media, while mobile marketing, still in its early stages, was cited by 0.8% of marketers.

Crucially I’d argue that all these pieces need to work together.  Search so they find you, content to convert them, email to nurture them.

In today’s blog we look at the top 5 mistakes made when setting up pay per click advertising:

1. Not doing the right keyword research – Search advertisers provide research tools to find keywords to run your advertisements on, but often they suggest the highest searched keywords which have the highest competition.  Selecting these keywords also requires you to bid significantly higher for them in order to have your advertisement show up.  In most cases it is better to select keywords which have a reasonably high search volume, but lower competition, which will help to keep your bids down in the long run.
2. Not defining a daily budget – You can define a daily budget for your advertising where your advertisements stop showing after the budget is reached.  Not doing this may result in your monthly budget being reached within a week or two and your advertisements not showing for the remainder of the month.
3. Not targeting the right audience – You need to define the cities, states or countries that you want your advertising to be shown in. It doesn’t make sense for a local service provider to show advertising across the nation.  It is also important to set the time of day you want your advertisements to show (ex. Not in the middle of the night).
4. Not improving your website or landing page – If you do not get any business off your website currently, then driving more traffic using pay per click advertising does not always mean that will improve.  Your company website needs to be credible and look professional before someone will contact you from it.  Improve your landing page and add the right offers or calls to action to entice your visitor to make contact.
5. Not maintaining the advertisements regularly – There are a lot of moving parts in pay per click advertising that often get overlooked; It’s not easy enough to simply set something up and let it run.  You need to pay attention to things like: bids, keywords, ad copy, click through rate, bounce rate, quality score, etc.  It is worth the effort to run experiments and try different variations on ad copy and landing pages to see what produces the best result.

Search advertising is a very powerful medium to use when it is done right.  It can produce a good amount of business and easily pay for itself.  If you do not have the expertise or time to manage it, we recommend consulting with an expert who can help you to manage and achieve better results.

It is important to note that paid search advertisements are only clicked on by ~30% of search engine users; the large majority of search results are delivered through organic listings, so ensure you have a search engine optimization strategy as well.

Business to business (B2B) trade shows can be a cost-effective means of gaining valuable face-to-face interaction with many qualified prospects. Most B2B companies have a reasonable expectation that sales revenue will result from participation at trade shows. Yet too often, experience has shown that for many leads from trade shows the timing is too early in the sales cycle. This experience may explain why business executives are constantly dismayed that so few leads are actually followed up by their sales departments. Trade show industry research indicates that 80-90 percent of all trade show leads are not followed up.

What the guide advocates is that in addition to using marketing automation in the promoting of attendance pre trade show, a trade show booth is analogous to a website for the large number of “inquiries” that exhibitors come home with:

• Most of these inquires are not ready to buy (95% according to the research)
• They have opted-in to receive more information (so they are ideal for email nurture campaigns)
• They need to be nurtured through a sales cycle so that in 3 or 6 or 9 months when/if they reach sales ready, the exhibitor is still top of mind
• They need sorting (scoring of their behavior) to weed out the ones who are, and who are not, worth inside/outside sales resources.

But also key is the takeaway that companies need to know who is visiting their website (marketing automation platforms like ActiveConversion identify anonymous company visits, as well as labelled individuals).  The traffic that visits a company’s website directly after a trade show is often a key indicator of whom at the trade show they got some level of engagement with, especially if there are multiple visits from different individuals from the same company.

To download this eHow To Guide on why marketing automation can increase your trade show ROI, click here or on the image!