With the growth in web-based marketing, success is very dependent on having an effective relationship with your IT team, whether they're in-house or not. This can be a challenge for marketing people for a number of reasons and can lead to wasted effort, wasted money and huge delays to a project.
I was interested to see that Marketing Experiments have started to publish a series of 'back to basics'
June 2010 Archives
Given the investment in both time and money, I was surprised to read the results of a B2B Marketing survey on events as a marketing channel. Unlike other offline channels, it seems that the recession has had little impact on the use of events. One third of those surveyed have actually increased their investment, with a similar number expecting to increase it next year. In fact, just under 70% of respondents described them as either 'critical' or 'very important'!
What's perhaps even more surprising is that brand awareness was still cited by nearly half of the respondents as the most important objective.
There hasn't been much take-up for digital events, with 47% claiming to have never used them.
I saw a case study yesterday from the guys who work on ICIS (
www.icis.com), one of RBI's brands. Now ICIS is a specialist information brand focused on global chemical markets. They have a fabulous product which delivers true value to their customer groups. However what's impressive is how they get their message to market. Several years ago, they embraced search marketing which has generated a regular flow of leads, now they have moved their attention to creating compelling, multi-media content to help 'nurture leads' and move their prospects through the process of deciding whether or not to buy.The attached presentation takes you through the five steps of using content marketing to generate leads. It's not rocket science, but amazing how many people will try to short-cut the process and have just two steps which doesn't work.
Here are the five steps in summary form. Click here for the full presentation.
1. Identify/create compelling content - different types of content are suitable for different points in a decision process.
2. Plan the campaign - I can't emphasise how important this part is. Planning means really thinking about what you're going to do; what you want to happen once you do it and putting systems in place to refine and optimise the programme once you can actually see what's going on.
3. Create landing page.
4. Promote the content.
5. Measure and analyse - with marketing automation software, you can measure the impact that your content has had on a prospect. For example, a user may download one of your white paper, watch a video and then go onto to purchase though another channel. Thanks to the analysis, you can attribute the result to the influence of your content.
Further Resources:
- Read the ICIS Case Study
- Landing page optimisation
I was on a train on Friday to London, so took the opportunity to catch-up on some reading. I'd printed off a report entitled 'The Definitive Guide to B2B Social Media' from Marketo a couple of weeks ago. It's a useful report. Clearly, Marketo, a Marketing Automation Provider, are keen to promote the benefits of their software, but this sales message is very implicit in the report. When I read that 'according to Forrester, 77% of B2B technology decision makers are active in social media', I decided to read on.
The report's pages include useful information such as:
An overview of social sharing and how to include it on your landing pages
Widgets and the value they add Paid advertising in social media
A checklist to determine if your company is ready for social media and one of the pitfalls to avoid
A whole range of social media tactics and metrics
....And finally the ROI of social media.
If you're either new to social media or have been active on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Delicious and the many other emerging channels for a while, I'm certain you'll find the guide useful.
Further references
You can download the full copy of The Definitive Guide to B2B Social Media here.
I wouldn't describe myself as an early adopter of new technologies or someone who just has to have the latest gadget. Far from it in fact. However, occasionally, something new comes along which you know is going to add value to your life and change the way you do things now. On a personal level, my life has changed in a positive way thanks to email, the blackberry, remember the milk, evernote, delicious, moveable type, eloqua...to name but a few. Collectively these things have given me time back...time that has been filled with more activity so that my productivity has increased.
Now - a new tool is about to come along into my life...the IPAD. I'm not sure what the opportunity is for marketers, but it's a great opportunity for people who love reading books, watching videos on youtube and generally keeping on top of things. Mine is now on order!
Here's an interesting précis on the benefits of the IPAD from one early adopter.
- Due to its size, portability and convenience. It will bring the internet and online social
connectivity further into the home and deeper into people's lives much more than the laptop
ever did.
- A major potential impact is what it will do as a reading device.
- The platform is perfect for content consumption, and it's a game changer because it's the
first sit back to consume truly interactive platform.
- There is a real opportunity in service innovation. It can be given to a workforce to enhance
or add value to customer interactions.
- The iPad is already attracting the more premium apps. This offers brands a new medium for
added value, innovative services. Viewing apps requires dedicated attention and this is of
great value to brands.
You can read the full post here:
http://blog.codecomputerlove.com/2010/06/08/our-views-on-the-ipad/#more-645
Now - a new tool is about to come along into my life...the IPAD. I'm not sure what the opportunity is for marketers, but it's a great opportunity for people who love reading books, watching videos on youtube and generally keeping on top of things. Mine is now on order!
Here's an interesting précis on the benefits of the IPAD from one early adopter.
- Due to its size, portability and convenience. It will bring the internet and online social
connectivity further into the home and deeper into people's lives much more than the laptop
ever did.
- A major potential impact is what it will do as a reading device.
- The platform is perfect for content consumption, and it's a game changer because it's the
first sit back to consume truly interactive platform.
- There is a real opportunity in service innovation. It can be given to a workforce to enhance
or add value to customer interactions.
- The iPad is already attracting the more premium apps. This offers brands a new medium for
added value, innovative services. Viewing apps requires dedicated attention and this is of
great value to brands.
You can read the full post here:
h
A useful analysis from Emarketer that shows how social media (for example: blogging, microblogging, photo and video-sharing, wikis etc) has rapidly moved up the b2b marketer's agenda. There are some useful trends and examples of how social media has been used to achieve lead generation, thought leadership and customer feedback objectives as well as ways that it has been integrated with other media.
Download report yourself
Picking-up on the lead generation objective, something close to my heart, it's interesting to note the most effective tactics on social networks:
Most Effective Social Media for Lead Generation
