B2B Marketing for $100 - B2B Marketing and Sales Tip #173
Monday, November 17th, 2008As I was working on my FREE list last week I noticed I seemed to also be building a list of things that we as B2B Marketers can do that require minimal cost, like less than $100.
- StumbleUpon advertising – be very targeted with your ad and your landing page. Each click only costs you $.05. I’ve only heard good stuff about this, we’ll be trying this one immediately.
- Long Tail PPC keywords – think niche, pick words or phrases people would use to search for your EXACT solution. The landing page is just as important as your ad. You’re goal is to convert unknown visitors into known leads. Remember you can track companies visiting your landing pages using ReachForce Convert.
- Survey Monkey or Zoomerang – both have free versions or subscription pricing (for more features) of about $20/per month. Create a survey and use it for lead generation, thought leadership or PR. People are interested in what their peers think and are doing, share your results with the participants.
- PRWeb – write a news release and link it up. Add an offer to the news release or offer additional content on a landing page with the full announcement.
- Start a blog – you can do this for free but you might consider investing in your own look (vs. stock templates and photos). Regularly updated content helps your SEO too.
- Video/Podcast Series – you can add them to your website and use them for lead generation programs. Get a FLiP camera and set up your YouTube account and you’re ready to go. Remember to keep your videos and podcasts short and to the point.
- Email campaign - If you don’t already use an email or marketing automation system, check out VerticalResponse. Emails start at less than $.02 a piece.
I’m sure my short list is only a beginning of things you can do for about $100, please feel free to add to the list if you’ve got more.
Eight Critical Success Factors for Lead Generation – ReachForce Book Club
Thursday, November 13th, 2008If you’ve been doing B2B Marketing for any length of time you know who Brian Carroll is. If you don’t know who he is, you should. His eBook, Eight Critical Success Factors for Lead Generation, is a must read for “lead generation specialists committed to the long-term proposition that digging for leads, educating prospects, navigating the nuances of the complex sale and creating new, high-level return on investment is what has brought lead generation to the position it enjoys in the marketing hierarchy today”.
I read this eBook a couple of years ago but I was due a refresher. While all 8 factors are important to lead generation success, I pulled out a few things we could all benefit from doing or ensuring on a more regular basis. My summary and highlights by no means replaces reading the eBook.
- Remember you are creating conversations, not campaigns – “Companies don’t buy, people do.” With each lead generation initiative we are developing an ongoing relationship with the prospect. We are educating and providing value with each touch. Or at least we should be.
- Be sure you have identified an Ideal Customer Profile before getting started – we’ve talked about personas many times on The B2B Lead. Building out the ideal customer profile makes everyone’s job easier. Why wouldn’t you do it?
- Universal Lead Definition – it’s key that both Sales and Marketing agree on this. “There is consensus that sales functionaries fail to act on nearly 80% of the leads they get, largely because most of the leads aren’t qualified, or because appropriate buyers haven’t been identified and targeted.”
- Your database – your most valuable marketing asset. “The properly designed and well-maintained database is the hub of all lead generation activity and communication.”
- Lead nurturing – we all know it takes multiple touches to turn a contact to a lead and a lead to a real prospect. “Lead nurturing is not a single marketing campaign, but rather a series of steps and communication tactics with the objective of developing and building a relationship with the potential customer.” Automation tools make this easier than ever. No more excuses to not nurturing.
This is only a few highlights from the eBook, now go read it yourself if you haven’t already. If nothing else, the pictures/diagrams are worth your time.
Brian Carroll, CEO of InTouch, Inc. part of the MECLABS Group that owns MarketingExperiments and MarketingSherpa and author of Lead Generation for the Complex Sale (McGraw-Hill 2006) and the B2B Lead Generation Blog with expertise related to B2B marketing, lead generation and complex sales.
Once you’re done with this one go ahead and download next week’s eBook – HubSpot’s Get Found Online. We’ll be chatting about it next Thursday here on The B2B Lead.
FREE B2B Marketing Tools - B2B Marketing and Sales Tip #171
Tuesday, November 11th, 2008Many B2B Marketers, along with most Americans, are wondering what is going on with our economy. Now that we have elected a new President, will that help? How long will this slump last? How is this going to affect budgets and jobs and new sales opportunities? While wondering all of the same things and how it will affect ReachForce, I decided to make a list of FREE things that we as Marketers can do in a recession. Some lead generating tools and some awareness building tactics, but all things you can do at no cost. Here’s what I came up with, please feel free to help add to the list.
Twitter - free social networking and micro-blogging service that allows its users to send and read other users’ updates (AKA tweets), these text-based posts can contain up to 140 characters. Feel free to share links to other good content in these micro posts too.
Here’s 10 tips for building a following a Twitter.
Commenting on other industry thought leader’s blog or other blogs related to your business - Get in on the conversation and get your view point out there.
Submit your best practice content to free sites - The content will be indexed by the search engines allowing people to find your article when searching for something related. Some examples are Scribd, Docstoc and WhitePapers.org.
Website Grader - Website Grader is a free seo tool that measures the marketing effectiveness of a website. It provides a score that incorporates things like website traffic, SEO, social popularity and other technical factors. It also provides some basic advice on how the website can be improved from a marketing perspective.
Email signatures – Set up a standard email signature for all company emails and include things like your blog, or events you’re attending or a customer testimonial video. Easy to do and everyone that gets an email from someone at your company will also get your mini marketing message.
ReachForce Insight Lite - Do you know your best customers? Can you easily identify your target market sweet spots – markets that you sell the most or the fastest? Are there other business buyers in your sweet spot that you should be targeting with your Marketing campaigns? Download ReachForce Insight Lite on the Appexchange and see.
Re-purpose content you already have – or create a Top 10 list or a list of Top 5 things to Avoid. People love lists and you probably already have all of this information at your finger tips. At ReachForce, we’ve recently turned our best 101 blog posts into an eBook series. We didn’t have to create anything new, we just pulled the best posts and put them together in an eBook format. We’re currently using them for lead generation campaigns and getting GREAT results and feedback. Also, it has increased our daily blog traffic.
LinkedIn – just sign up and start linking up. LinkedIn is rolling out new applications and group features all the time, take advantage of these free networking tools.
Once you’ve set your profile up, check out LinkedIn Answers.
Facebook - Facebook is somewhat of a new thing for B2B Marketers, here at ReachForce we are still figuring out our strategy but know their endless opportunity out there. Here’s a few tips on getting started and promoting your business via Facebook.
Google Analytics – why wouldn’t you use this? Here’s a few more ideas on Tracking Tools.
ReachForce Convert 30 Day Trial - You are probably tracking web site visitors and your best PPC keywords, but are you capturing those visitors and turning them into actionable leads? Only 3% of web visitors fill out a form or announce themselves; what happens to the other 97%? ReachForce Convert, a software-as-a-service application, empowers Marketers to proactively target lead generation efforts at passive web visitors. Why not try it, it’s free.
Press Release Grader – “Press Release Grader rates a press release based on a checklist of criteria – from content and structure, to search optimization and link analysis. The free tool is designed to optimize a press release so it can be found more easily by media, bloggers, customers and prospects. Press Release Grader provides an analysis and recommendations that will help you improve the way your press release is structured.” It only takes a second and the recommendations for improvement are typically easy fixes. Again, why wouldn’t you use this tool?
What FREE stuff are you using out there? Please share with the rest of us. Who knows, it could save your fellow Marketer’s job.
3 Great Tools for Online Reputation Management - B2B Marketing and Sales Tip #169
Friday, November 7th, 2008A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about how to use Trigger-based marketing techniques in a down economy by leveraging Web 2.0 tools. Some of these tools are also great for online reputation management, as well, you’ll just want to focus on a different set of search/scan criteria.
To get started, you’ll need to identify keywords that are important for tracking your industry, key trends or issues, the competition, your company and product brand names, as well as company spokespersons’ names. Once you’ve come up with a manageable list, configure the following tools to scan and collect that data.
- Google Alerts, Google Blog Search, and Google Reader: We’ve written a lot about using Google Alerts here on The B2B Lead. What we haven’t written about is organizing all of the discoveries you’ve made using these tools in Google Reader. It’s a great way to collect a bunch of sources of insight about your keywords and feed them into a list of must-read links each day.
- Tweetscan: This is one of the most important feeds in your Google Reader list as you can use it to monitor what people are saying about you or your competitor throughout the Twitter universe. It’s also another good way to find people with shared interests.
- For my company, most of the conversations are taking place on tech forums and message boards. I just discovered Boardtracker.com which will enable me to keep an eye on popular forums and alert me by RSS feed if my company is mentioned. But, you have to know which forums to track.
Need more? Marketing Pilgrim published this great post with 20+ others.
Our New President, Barack Obama - Marketer of the Year
Wednesday, November 5th, 2008Did you know that our new President Barack Obama was named Marketer of the Year 2008? Last month, Advertising Age named Barack Obama “Marketer of the Year”. Congratulations, on both counts. It doesn’t matter if you voted Republican or Democrat this year; I think we can all agree Barack Obama took campaigning to a whole new level. As an independent first time voter, I was impressed as a Marketer by the campaign overall. The dimensions of marketing they put to use stretched my marketing brain. With the use of direct marketing, event marketing, online marketing and new media the Obama team understood the need to reach out to voters as individuals – demographics and targeting were central to the campaign.
Obama and his team understood their target demographic/markets and how to use a mix of multi touch, multi level and multimedia platforms to reach these people where they were already hanging out. By using video game ads, Twitter, an active online community, and a list of other marketing vehicles, the Obama marketing team understood the importance of motivating the younger demographics and using multiple mediums that worked for them.
B2B Marketers take note. Our new President has something to say about reaching the right audiences with the right kinds of messages through the right vehicles. Below is a list a few places you can find Barack Obama marketing. Are you there for your business and what lessons can we learn from the reach created by his campaign?
Email marketing
- event based - I would receive text messages and emails while Obama was at an event or debate
- 1:1 with key players - email messages from Barack, Michelle Obama and Joe Biden - For example, I got a message from Michelle Obama reminding me it was the last day to give money to the campaign.
Community – currently over 1 million members. Through the community supporters can:
- find information about local events or groups
- connect with other supporters
- share information or real-life stories
- donate to the campaign
PPC – 14% of Barack Obama’s online traffic in August 2008 came from paid search
New Media – Barack Obama is out there, are you?
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Polls are showing more young voters have registered to vote than ever before. I have no doubt that Obama and his team’s approach to reach them drove this involvement.
Thank you President Obama. You are proof that targeted marketing does drive real results…oh, and I’m sure your messages and positions on the issues helped too.
LinkedIn Adds Applications - B2B Marketing and Sales Tip #166
Thursday, October 30th, 2008New stuff to do now!
I got the heads up from Chris Brogan, and now I want to share with all The B2B Lead readers about the new applications LinkedIn has released. On first glance I was really impressed. The list is not sooo long with applications (like Facebook) that have nothing to do with the business world, and I really think these apps will make LinkedIn much more interactive and useful.
So far I have downloaded the 2 apps for blogging and My Travel (to tell everyone I’ll be at Dreamforce next week), and am still exploring the others. Other applications let you show what books you are reading, upload slideshows and more.
Go check it out and start using. What other applications would you be interested in seeing?
Is a GoogleGrader on the Horizon? - Marketing WTF?
Wednesday, October 8th, 2008What’s your Google Rank? No, not your Google Page Rank, your personal Google Rank? That’s right, according to a story published by Business Week, Google has filed for a patent on technology for ranking the “influence” of people on social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace. Much like Google’s approach to ranking web sites, the algorithm would calculate your influence rating based on how many “friends” you have, how influential your friends are, how frequently you blog, etc. The article speculates that this breakthrough could finally make ads on social networks relevant and profitable.
Not sure about that. Sounds a bit too much like TwitterGrader to me and you all now know how much I like that product. 
Search Engine Marketing - ReachForce Book Club
Monday, October 6th, 2008In this chapter, David covers the basics of search engine marketing without getting into the technical details. He makes the great point that if you follow the New Rules, you will already be practicing search engine marketing. It really is all about the content. (Some of you may scoff that inbound links are most important, but I contend that great content is what draws inbound links.)
David covers a few tips on SEM but I want to highlight his tips on landing pages:
- Make the landing page copy short and the graphics simple.
- Create the page with your company’s look, feel, and tone.
- Write from the prospect’s point of view.
- A landing page is communications, not advertising.
- Provide a quote from a happy customer.
- Make the landing page a self-contained unit.
- Make the call to action clear and easy to respond to.
- Use multiple calls to action.
- Only ask for necessary information.
- Don’t forget to follow up!
Landing pages are critical to direct buyers to your content. Well optimized landing pages can rank highly in organic search and produce high conversion rates.
That pretty much wraps it all up. Now that we have completed The New Rules of Marketing and PR, the title of the final chapter sums it up nicely, “Make it Happen.” David, himself, admits that he has not put into practice every idea presented in this book. The point is to find what works best for you and your organization, put it into action and start reaping the benefits. Best of luck!
5 Tips for Promoting Your Business Page on Facebook - B2B Marketing and Sales Tip #152
Tuesday, September 30th, 2008Written by Ellie Mirman, blogger at the HubSpot Internet Marketing Blog and Inbound Marketer at Internet Marketing company HubSpot.
So you’ve got a Facebook Business Page… Now what? Building a Business Page is one of the best ways to increase your presence and engage more potential customers on Facebook, but it’s more than just clicking “Create Page”. As you venture out into the social media world, here are a few tips to help you promote your Page and reach more of the 100 million Facebook users.
Create a Facebook Business Page worth becoming a fan of.
To quote David Meerman Scott, nobody cares about your products and services (except you). People care about how you can help them solve their problems. To extend that thought to Facebook, don’t use your Facebook Page to talk about your products all the time. People aren’t interested. Instead, create some interesting, useful content that people want to receive. This could be blog posts, whitepapers, or simply discussions.
Take advantage of the viral nature of Facebook.
Facebook provides great opportunities for viral marketing. Facebook creates a “News Feed” of your friends’ activities on Facebook, like posting photos, changing statuses, or becoming fans of a Page. What this means is that every time someone interacts with your Page in some way, that action is published across all of their friends’ News Feeds, giving you exposure to that person’s entire network. The best way to take advantage of this is to engage your users and give them more opportunities to interact with your Page, for example, by fostering discussions, inviting them to events, allowing them to post links. Leveraging the power of the News Feed is a critical part of establishing your presence on Facebook and building a fan base for spreading your messages.
Don’t forget to draw on your network.
All promotion does not need to take place within Facebook. Feel free to email your opt-in e-mail list, blog about your Page, and post a link to your Page on your company website. The best people to help you build up your fan base for your Business Page on Facebook are those people already subscribed to your blog or engaged with you in some way.
Optimize your Page for Facebook – and public – search.
Another way to get found and build your fan base is through Facebook’s search. Facebook – like all other search engines (Facebook was noted the most used people search engine) – has an undisclosed algorithm that ranks search results in a way that aims to return relevant and useful results to the searcher. The best think you can do to show up higher in these search results is to build a large following of your existing fans, because entities with a larger network tend to show up higher in search results. Also note that Facebook Business Pages are public and indexable by search engines. This potentially gives you exposure to those searching in broader search engines like Google. To make the most of this, start lots of engaging discussion threads on your Page, so that if someone is searching in Google on that very topic, they can stumble upon your Facebook Page and discussion thread.
Get an extra push with Facebook Ads.
If you want to give your Business Page an extra push at the beginning, you can also buy some advertising slots. Note that Facebook ads are much less effective than the viral marketing options on Facebook, and the click through rate for Facebook ads is notoriously low. Facebook advertisements show up on the sidebar as users browse through their friends’ profiles, groups, and so on. When you set up your ad, be sure to include “social ads” – these draw on a users’ network to see who in their network has already engaged with your Page and shows, for example, “Jim Smith is a fan of Company ABC” next to your ad, potentially improving your click through rate. Also, make sure that you give viewers a relevant reason to click on your ad by inviting them to connect with industry peers or offering a free whitepaper, for example. Also in this vein, note that you can target your ads by age, gender, interests, geography, and other factors, to reach users who may be more interested in your Business Page.
Bonus Tip: Measure your results.
Once you’ve built up your Facebook Page it’s good to measure what you’re actually getting out of your social media program. Some metrics you may want to measure are: number of fans, page views, and unique users. Facebook’s “Insights” provide some of these metrics, including demographic data. You’ll also want to track actions beyond your Facebook Page, namely, website traffic, leads, and sales that come from Facebook. Hopefully some of these tips will help you get your Facebook Business Page off the ground and build it into a valuable channel for reaching your potential customers.
All this said, social media, including Facebook, is by no means static. It is constantly changing and we, as marketers, are constantly learning the right way to leverage these channels for marketing. If you want to see what we at HubSpot have done, you can become a fan of our Page at http://facebook.hubspot.com. And, if you’re looking to network with other marketers on Facebook, you may be interested in the Facebook Pro Marketers group, a group for marketers passionate about marketing. Perhaps there we can continue discussing ideas for marketing on Facebook.
How to Create a Facebook Page for Your Company - B2B Marketing and Sales Tip #151
Monday, September 29th, 2008Wikipedia’s definition of Facebook - a social networking site where users can join networks organized by city, workplace, school, and region to connect and interact with other people. People can also add friends and send them messages, and update their personal profile to notify friends about themselves.
I got on Facebook when I was in college (when only college students could be members), and used it to keep up with hometown friends, keep up with other students I had met, join groups that I cared about, send messages to friends and post fun pictures and wall posts reminiscing from the weekend before. Now that I am out of college and working, I still use Facebook to keep up with friends (maybe a few less pictures and groups), but I also use it now for networking and more business purposes. My personal and professional life are definitely colliding!
Facebook has made itself easier for professionals to use with groups, discussions and ads, but I think the best thing you can do for your business on Facebook is Facebook Pages. Facebook Pages help to build a business presence and engage with customers, co-workers, partners and fans on Facebook. Users can express their support by adding themselves as a fan, writing on your wall, uploading photos, and joining other fans in discussion groups. You can send updates to your fans regularly — or just with special news or offers. Add applications to your Page and engage your users with videos, reviews, flash content, and more. More importantly, it is free and easy!
To get started:
- You need to be a member on Facebook
- Go to facebook.com/business/?pages (or go the bottom of the page and click “advertising”)
- Click “create a Facebook Page” and follow the directions
- Upload a picture (best to use your logo for this)
- Fill in company information
- Take it from there…add photos, discussions, notes, video, etc. (you should see all the categories to edit right there on the page or if not click “edit page”)
- Click “more applications” if you would like to browse what other applications are out there (like RSS Feeds) - you can look or type in the search box
- Publish the Page (in red lettering at the top of the page)
- Ask co-workers and customers to become fans and start getting the word out
Now you know how to get started with a Facebook Page, how do you manage it? We over here at ReachForce just put up our own page, and are still working to get the word out. Luckily, our friend Ellie Mirman from HubSpot has some experience. Look for a post from her soon on how to manage your page and get fans. HubSpot already has 797 fans!
