B2B

One of the biggest challenges B2B marketers face when they develop a blog is maintaining its momentum. You may write a few posts, run out of ideas and let your blog sit empty as you devote your time to other projects. However, to realize benefits from a corporate blog, you must post engaging content on a regular basis.

1. Share your latest research or white papers.

2. Post educational information or “how to” tips.

3. Discuss a problem in your industry.

4. Tell readers about your upcoming events.

5. Comment on the latest news in your sector.

6. Reformat your press releases into blog posts to highlight your company’s latest news.

7. Profile a staff member. Share stories about their work and why they are involved with your company.

8. Interview your CEO or another leader or colleague in your industry about a hot topic.

9. Post case studies that show the value of your services.

10. Accept guest posts from your staff, customers or leaders in your industry.

11. Post photos and write short captions under them.

12. Share “how to” videos. You can also post videos of interviews, keynote speeches, product demos, events and staff shenanigans.

13. Report about an event or conference you have attended. You can even blog live from the event.

14. Review something (e.g. a book, program or event).

15. Develop a resource list. If customers regularly ask you for information on a specific topic, give them a list of online resources.

16. Link to a post on another blog and tell your readers why they should check it out.

17. If you’re active on Twitter, you can share your weekly “top tweets.” That way, readers who don’t use Twitter can keep up with your latest news, and readers who tweet will want to follow you.

18. Mention your other social networks. For example, you can highlight discussions you’re having on Facebook and encourage readers to join the conversation.

What about you? What other topics make good B2B blog content? Feel free to share your thoughts below.

Infographics that feature B2B social media stats always get my attention. And when someone takes the time to fully source their statistics with footnotes that point each stat to a source, I am going to shout their praises from the rooftops. The following infographic does both as it focuses its gaze on content marketing.

Social media works best for B2B companies when people connect directly around topics they are passionate about. Connections work even better when no one in the group is pushing a particular agenda. This allows the focus of the communications to be around joint learning, which draws crowds, versus thinly disguised sales pitches, which drives everyone toward the metaphorical door. There is no group better to foster these learning discussions than a company’s channel partners, especially for those companies lucky enough to have built out strong channel partner programs. Channel partners know the niche and know the clients. They also have an independence that provides both authority and authenticity. These partners looked at all the solutions they could sell, and with their reputation on the line, chose to include your offering. When they enter a discussion, and a prospect checks out the channel partner’s background, the fact that they didn’t create a particular product makes it easier for them to be established as providers of valued advice.

Landing page creation, optimization and analytics best practices.

As a B2B marketing agency, we encourage our clients to work on their website content before diving in too aggressively in social media.

Pinterest has made a big splash on the social media scene, by quickly earning passionate users who log multiple hours per day on the site. Pinterest saw a 4,000% increase in site traffic from June to December of last year, and many consumer-facing and female-centric brands are already using it well. While Nordstrom pins its latest shoes and fashions by boards organized by department, Whole Foods uses the site to pin kitchen design inspiration and recycling projects in addition to recipes using its foods.

But despite its reputation as a service for brides and decorators, only 58% of the visitors to the site are women. And just like its diversity in users, brands on Pinterest aren’t limited to department and grocery stores. News sites such as Mashable and Time Magazine are also using the site to spread cover art, articles and copy included in its news stories.

Email subject lines are a form of headline. They attract attention and get your email content a chance to be read, so write them well.

With the holiday season winding down and 2012 just around the corner, it's time to take a deep breath and get ready to plunge into the new year. When marke

2012 is going to be a big year for adoption of social media for B2B companies. We expect that early adopter companies will move even further out in front by becoming social in many areas of their business, while more of the second wave adopters will begin to see value in social media and move forward with planning and execution. This means that there will be a greater spread of B2B social media activities than ever before. More resources are available for B2B marketers, as well as more experienced practitioners, both of which will make the previously steep learning curve more manageable.

The following predictions for 2012 reveal many of the ways B2B companies will leverage social media for their business success.

Read more: http://socialmediab2b.com/2011/12/b2b-social-media-predictions-for-2012/#ixzz1h59KmjYS

The importance of sending relevant email messages is frequently discussed by email marketers at conferences, webinars and on blogs. However, how many organizations achieve this objective? To answer this question, MarketingSherpa surveyed more than 2,700 marketers and asked how their organizations were sending email communications based on four key areas: relevant content, sending time, segmentation of subscribers, and the clarity of the conversion goal in the email.

The changing nature of our industry propels us to stay on top of the latest trends. Meeting and learning from other professionals helps us do our jobs better. Here's what's on tap for marketing industry events for December.

I recently read that the success of a campaign is based on the target audience’s belief that the issue is important enough to consider, and that the person who is delivering the message is entitled to be doing so. I often write about the many variables involved in how someone develops their beliefs about what is important (such as social perception, personal factors, etc.), but this idea of entitlement interested me, and I wanted to delve a little deeper into the B2B side of it.

Are you entitled?
Often, B2B companies will market their product by talking about their Unique Selling Propositions — what makes them better than the competition. And that is important, but why are you entitled to be there? Why are you entitled to relay this knowledge, and for your target audience to be motivated enough to purchase your product or buy into your service?

Social Marketing Science: Timing Maximizes Engagement On Twitter And Facebook

When Toyota subsidiary Denso Wave developed quick response codes in 1994, few realized how powerful a marketing tool they could be. In the last two years QR codes have taken on a life of their own, with B2C marketing usage taking off thanks to smartphones. QR codes have proven to effectively link the offline world to the online universe. But is there a place for these treasure troves of information in B2B marketing? You bet!

Here are some actionable B2B ideas on how to use QR codes to attract prospects to your business:

An interesting look at some marketing initiatives by companies like American Express, Dell, and Cisco that don't necessarily have clear ROI at the onset. According to the writer Paul Gill, "These companies set audacious goals in the belief that market-changing ideas are more likely to come from the back of an envelope than the bottom line of a spreadsheet. But they also measure like crazy at the back end."

The changing nature of b2b marketing propels us to stay on top of the latest trends. Here's what's on tap for marketing industry events in November!

A good analysis on the relationship between form length and leads captured. Marketing experts like David Meerman Scott advocate "making content like white papers totally free without registration in order to spread the information as far as possible." For those that must produce leads, however, this post offers a compelling stat: testing has shown that each additional piece of data required on a web landing page/lead capture form will depress the response rate by 10-20 percent.

Any B2B marketer who has initiated an email or direct mail campaign lately knows that business marketing data degrades quickly. Bounce rates are hitting the ceiling. Direct mail return rates are shockingly wasteful. Data master Dun & Bradstreet says the current level of data quality costs U.S. business $600 billion per year in printing, mailing costs and staff overhead alone.

Blame this instability on the volatility of today’s businesses. D&B says:

A new business opens every minute. A business closes every three minutes A CEO changes every minute. A company name change occurs every two minutes. Overall business data is said to breakdown at a rate of 3% to 6% a month. That’s one-third to three-quarters of obsolete data per year. Bad data is an enormous liability that can lead to:

Got a great email marketing solution? Got a solid opt-in and scrubbed contact list? That’s half the battle to a great return on your email marketing investment. Here are six simple tips you can use to improve almost any email marketing effort. 1. Remember why it’s called a “message”. If you think of your email campaign as an ongoing dialogue with each prospect, it will change your strategy. For instance, in a dialogue, you have to keep the conversation going – and that means listening to the people you’re talking about. (How are they responding? What actions are they taking?) It also means staying relevant. (If they visited your blog after your last email, but have never been to the products page after several messages, stop sending them messages that try to drive them to the products page – offer them an incentive to take some other action instead.)

B2B marketers focus on social media as a way to connect online with prospects and customers, but social media offers a huge opportunity to enhance offline events like tradeshows and conferences. Trade shows still make up a large percentage of B2B companies’ marketing budgets, so the following ideas can help leverage those events and make them more successful. And more social.

1. Use Full URLs for Social Media Profiles Every booth sign, business card and flyer includes logos for Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. Don’t make your prospects and customer search to find you on these platforms. Provide the full URL for your page. If you still have a long and unwieldy Facebook URL, go to facebook.com/username to select a custom URL.

2. Encourage Facebook Likes Via Text Message Even though smartphones continue to grow, many customers and prospects who come to your booth may still use feature phones. Show them how they can set up their phones to use Facebook via text messages and how they can easily subscribe to your Facebook Page that way. Just text “like” and the Page’s username to 32665 or your specific country code. This way, booth visitors can like your page while they are standing in front of you and continue to get updates on whatever device they use for Facebook, including their computer.

3. Provide Latest Topics from Relevant Industry Groups Prior to the trade show, review topics and industry issues that are being discussed in LinkedIn Groups, or other online industry gathering places. Provide these topics, along with talking points, to your sales reps and other booth personnel as conversation starters. Yes, prospects come to your booth to learn about your products and services, but relevant, industry conversations can help build a relationship.

4. Post Content on Slideshare Slideshare is not just for public presentations, although you should definitely upload any slide decks that are associated with talks you or other company representatives give. Create a short, highly visual deck about new product launches, booth highlights or even an industry news update. Share this deck on your social media profiles for those attending the show, and even for those who can’t make it. A keyword-rich description will also help this information get found on Slideshare.

B2B marketers have long known that to succeed with social media they can’t view it as a stand alone campaign or tactic, but must integrate social media into their marketing plans. Here are four suggestions for doing just that. 1. A Social WebsiteA B2B website is the most likely destination for your prospects and customers with any campaign. A call-to-action from any source drives a visitor to your website for more information, to download a white paper or ebook, or even to contact a sales rep. The first thing you need to make sure is that your website supports the marketing campaign. Whether you have a landing page for the specific offer, or just a clear path from the home page (which is where people will wind up from anything that is not a click), make sure they can find what they are looking for. Making your website social includes providing other remarkable content, usually on a blog, allowing visitors to share and spread your content, and links to your social profiles, along with what visitors can expect when they follow or like your company.

1. Support Traditional Advertising There are stil B2B companies using traditional advertising to drive leads into their funnel. If that is still working for your company, and your cost per lead is competitive to other tactics, it is not yet time to discontinue it cold turkey. It is time to review its effectiveness and cost, as you begin adding social media to your marketing mix. You do, however, want to support that advertising with social media. Create a blog post that provides more in-depth information to what was in the ad. If creating the ad featured an interesting photo shoot, post some behinds the scenes shots on your Facebook page. Shoot a video with the product manager talking about the development of the product and some of the customer feedback that was incorporated into the development.

Read more: http://socialmediab2b.com/2011/10/b2b-social-media-marketing-plans-integrate/#ixzz1b8rtQ9kc

by Claudia Bruemmer

Business-to-business marketing is growing at a rapid pace, but B2B marketers have many challenges to face. What are these challenges? The answer comes from the Marketing Sherpa 2012 B2B Marketing Benchmark Report, which surveyed B2B marketers about marketing barriers and top challenges to success. Facing these challenges in today’s market makes it more important than ever for wholesalers and manufacturers to identify these obstacles within their own organizations and develop solutions that will keep them competitive.

The Marketing Sherpa report identified the barriers listed below as obstacles preventing B2B marketers from overcoming their greatest challenges. B2B marketers must identify and address these barriers within their businesses, and then develop solutions in order to succeed. Following are the top barriers identified by the survey.