It’s the last week in June, and as always, we’re sharing a few of our favorite B2B marketing posts from the last month. Here’s what’s been keeping us interested and on our toes in June:
After all the investment (both time and money) that B2B companies have put into social media in the last few years, we’re happy someone took a step back to evaluate the merit behind BtoB magazine’s proclaimation that social media does not influence B2B buyers. While a study conducted by the publication found that only 18.6% of B2B technology buyers feel that social media has influenced their purchase decisions, Eric Wittlake points out in this article on Business2Community that social media is not about selling. It’s about building relationships and sharing information.
Some have been quick to dismiss content marketing as a passing trend, but we agree with Joe that it’s here to stay. We especially like his point that the industry is over 100 years old and began when John Deere put out its first publication in 1895. Doesn’t sound like a passing trend to us!
Can’t Create? Curate! How Content Curation Can Work From You via BuyerZone
Limited manpower is no excuse for failing to engage in content marketing. Even if you don’t have the staff on hand to create a ton of original content, content curation can work wonders for your business. This post from BuyerZone has some great tips to get you started
We’re excited to welcome our Junior Copywriter Brannon Smith to Get There as a guest poster today. We asked Brannon to stop by the blog to share his thoughts on combatting one of the biggest blunders in B2B marketing: boring presentations. Take it away, Brannon!
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Ranked right up there with the fear of flying, public speaking has earned a reputation for seriously freaking people out. Add variables like workplace advancement and the opinions of colleagues to the mix, and you have the perfect recipe for a full-on professional meltdown.
That’s right, folks. I’m talking about the dreaded corporate presentation. We’ve all sat through them, and we’ve all had to deliver them at some point in our lives. The next time you have to deliver a presentation, take a few cues from the expert TED Talks and presentations highlighted here, and you’ll do great.
1.) KEEP VISUALS SIMPLE AND CLEAN
Ever been to a presentation where the accompanying slideshow was pretty much a transcript for the speaker? I have, and it’s just plain weird to sit through
When developing visuals for your presentation, keep these points in mind:
Make it brief. You’re not writing War and Peace here. Your slides should add to the words coming out of your mouth, not actually be the words coming out of your mouth.
No tiny text. Design your slides for that person waaaay in the back that left his glasses at home — he needs to be able to see everything, too. If he can’t, your visuals are useless.
One main idea per slide. I know, I know — those bullets are so tempting. And they’re acceptable, so long as they are enhancing one main point, not serving as a springboard for you to hop all over the place
Take a look at the “World’s Best Presentation” (according to slideshare.net) for an example of a perfectly executed slideshow.
2.) WEAVE A STORY INTO YOUR PRESENTATION
Adding a short, relevant anecdote to your presentation makes whatever you’re talking about instantly more relatable, and captivates your audience in a way that dry facts just can’t.
To support her theory that sleep unlocks dormant ideas within us, media mogul Arianna Huffington recounts a personal story.
Notice how she takes the audience on a virtual ride with her? When she’s down — detailing the injuries from her fainting spell, they’re down. When she’s up and excited, they’re laughing right along with her.
3.) CONNECT WITH YOUR AUDIENCE
“Me, too!”
If you can make your audience have a “Me, too!” moment, you’re golden. People love to feel connected to the presenter. They feel included — like you’re talking especially to them.
Graham Hill of treehugger.com does a great job of connecting with his audience in this TED Talk about the amount of “stuff” people tend to accumulate.
Everyone in that audience was all ears after the box story because we all have one of those boxes at home. Admit it — you do, too!
4.) INCORPORATE A LIST OR COUNTDOWN
Graham Hill also does something else incredibly well — he boils his presentation down to three key takeaways.
Let’s face it — no matter how good your presentation is, people have short memories, and even shorter attention spans. This little trick increases the chance that people may actually remember what you said.
5.) [INSERT HUMOR HERE]____________________.
If you’re a naturally funny person, incorporate some humor into your presentation. It’ll relax you, entertain your audience, and once the crowd starts giggling, give you the confidence to deliver an even better presentation.
YouTube’s trends manager Kevin Allocca does a great job of incorporating humor into his talk.
He still drives home his main points, but his comedy makes his seven-minute talk fly by.
It seems like we hear about a new social media management tool nearly every day. As a marketer, it’s easy to get overwhelmed. You’re probably asking yourself how you could possibly decide which tools will help grow your business, and which are just a waste of time.
There are a few paid tools that stand above the rest in terms of functionality, but they come with a price tag that may be out of reach for smaller B2B companies or those just getting started in social media. If you fall into either of these groups, we’d like to help. We’ve compiled a list of our four favorite social media tools for small budgets and social media beginners below. Even if you tap into only these four tools, you’ll find yourself with a wealth of data and functionality that will help take your social media efforts to the next level.
What it does: TweetLevel allows you to search Twitter for a list of key influencers on just about any topic under the sun.
Why it’s useful: Social media is all about building relationships. TweetLevel helps identify other people who care about the same things you do so that you can begin to interact with them via social media.
How to use it: Identify key topics about which your business has the potential to be influential, find key influencers around these topics, follow them and begin to interact by reposting their content, replying to their posts, and answering questions they pose.
What it does: Brand Mentions’ Social Mention is a simple-to-use social media search tool that aggregates user-generated content from across the internet into a single stream of information, allowing you to track and measure what people are saying about your brand anywhere on the globe, in real-time.
Why it’s useful: Brand Mentions’ Social Mention allows you to discover who’s talking about your brand, ensuring you never miss a comment or mention. The tool provides useful customer insights so you can better understand user interactions and how social campaigns are resonating. It also allows you to quickly respond to social media mentions, allowing you to better protect your online reputation and improve your crisis management strategy.
How to use it: Set up an account and connect all of your sites and social media accounts. Define the country and language for the mentions you want to receive. Right away you’ll be provided a dashboard with all social media mentions. From there, you can fine tune your results to include or exclude keywords and/or domains, providing you with fewer, but more relevant mentions. Alerts will be sent to your primary contact in real-time.
What it does: DivvyHQ is an editorial calendar and content marketing tool on steroids. You can organize content ideas, send and track content assignments, manage deadlines and schedule posts all within this simple cloud-based app that is 100% spreadsheet free.
Why it’s useful: Content marketing requires a great deal of coordination, especially when it involves a team. DivvyHQ allows you to plan and schedule everything ahead of time so that your content goes up without a hitch. Just imagine the relief you’ll feel when you no longer have to remember to make time for daily Twitter or Facebook updates or track down an overdue blog post from a colleague.
How to use it: Sign up for an account (the paid subscription options will give you significantly more functionality) and begin brainstorming post topics for your various social channels. Then, assign your content to dates on a calendar, assign writing assignments to members of your team, and schedule posts as you complete them. DivvyHQ will even follow up with members of your team automatically when their content nears its due date.
What it does: True Social Metrics allows you to obtain the social media metrics that really matter. While likes and followers might be valuable numbers for some, they are relatively meaningless for others. True Social Metrics allows you to measure valuable data like applause rate, amplification rate, and even economic value of your social media interactions.
Why it’s useful: True Social Metrics solves the problem that marketers have had with proving the ROI of social media. It pulls only the data that clearly shows how your social interactions are contributing to the health and growth of your brand.
How to use it: Sign up for a True Social Metrics account and connect it to your Facebook, Twitter, blog and other social channels. Then, watch the numbers come in and use them to assess the true value of your efforts.
B2B companies that include social media in their lead generation efforts enjoy a better alignment between marketing and sales. Companies that use a CRM are more likely to see an increase their marketing budgets than those that do not. Companies that engage in marketing automation are happier with the quality of leads they receive than those that do not. These are just a few of the insightful findings that stand out from BuyerZone’s recent survey of 200 B2B executives on the state of B2B Lead Generation
While the infographic and white paper from the study won’t be released officially until next week, we’d like to give you a sneak peak now:
We were most surprised to see that, despite the awesome impact that marketing automation can have on sales, it’s still an underused practice. While 86% of companies using marketing automation saw an increase in their marketing budgets between 2011 and 2012, 87% of B2B marketers surveyed still don’t engage in marketing automation, and 44% don’t even know what it is. As an agency with a B2B practice, we feel that it’s our responsibility to educate you about marketing automation so you know how to harness its power. On that note, you can expect to see a few new posts about marketing automation from us in the future.
In the meantime, we encourage you to download our advance copy of BuyerZone’s full white paper on the State of Lead Generation here.
Movéo was in the house as Guy Kawasaki, former Apple software evangelist and author of “Enchantment: The Art of Changing Hearts, Minds and Actions” spoke at this year’s Business Marketing Association conference (themed “Grow”).
Kawasaki offered a number of suggestions to marketers to inspire the “enchantment” he said businesses need in order to succeed. These revolved around three pillars: trust, likability and quality.
Among Guy’s “nuggets of wisdom”:
Plant many seeds. In the past, Kawasaki said, marketers “sucked up” to journalists and analysts who would endorse their products. Today, top-down marketing has largly been replaced by social media.
Offer excellent products and services. Powerful functionality, “intelligent” addressing of customer needs, elegant design and a full complement of services and support behind products are the way to win customers.
Use “salient points” when describing products. Obscure attributes that promote product features are not nearly as compelling to customers as descriptions of how the product can make a difference in their lives.
Build an ecosystem of support with other companies with a stake in your success. “These people and companies want you to succeed, because if you fail they fail. Don’t go it alone. Share the wealth and responsibility,” Guy advised.
Missed the BMA conference? You can view similar Guy Kawasaki speeches on “enchantment” here.
Attended the BMA conference? Who was your favorite speaker?
We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: Content marketing is tough. It requires creativity, careful planning and coordination of many moving pieces. While we could offer countless tips and best practices, if you’re just starting out in content marketing, you might be more interested in learning what not to do.
Here’s our take on the three most important (and commonly made) content marketing mistakes you should avoid:
#1: Not knowing your niche. An unfocused approach to content marketing won’t get you very far. Before you start creating content, you should have a deep understanding of the wants and needs of your target audience, and the unique ways your content can meet those needs. Your niche can be found at the intersection of your business’ area of expertise and your target’s area of interest. Once you find it, stick to it. Create content that fits within a narrowly defined topic area, and create it with your reader in mind.
#2: Failing to give your content a home. Sure, you can share your content on social networks like LinkedIn and Facebook, but unless it has its own home, you’re missing out on a lot of opportunities and setting yourself up for possible problems in the future. Essentially, when we post to a social network that we don’t own, we give that site complete control over our content. They can change how it appears or delete it entirely at a moment’s notice. On the flipside, when we own our content platform (like a self-hosted WordPress blog) we have complete control over our content and have the assurance of being able to hold on to it forever. By all means, continue to post your content to social networks. Just make sure it also has a permanent home in a blog, website or publication you own.
#3 Being inconsistent. Of all the mistakes we make as content marketers, this one might be the most common, and the most detrimental. It doesn’t matter if you release content once a day, once a week or once a month as long as you’re consistent. Decide on a realistic content schedule in the beginning, and do your best to adhere to it. If you must change things up (posting to your blog two times a week rather than three, for example) give your readers fair warning so they know what to expect.
What other common content marketing mistakes would you add to this list?
Back in December, Mashable wrote about their predictions for the impact of digital on B2B sales. Now that we’re almost halfway through the year, we thought it would be a great time to look at which predictions have come true so far.
Prediction #2: Companies will Use Facebook as a Sales Channel
GE is always a forerunner in B2B social media, and if their Facebook page is any indication, this prediction has already come true. Just last week, GE posted news of a new product that has yet to be released, and users began commenting about their interest in making a purchase.
We expect to see more B2B companies follow suit soon, especially for new product releases.
Prediction #4: Customer engagement becomes a top priority
Propelled by the growth of social networks and changing customer demands, B2B companies have been moving toward increased customer engagement for the last few years. However, customer engagement is becoming a true priority in 2012. IBM’s 2012 Global CEO study, which we wrote about here, uncovered that “outperforming organizations are embracing a new spirit of openness to forge closer connections with customers, partners and employees,” and that some companies are even creating a “Chief Engagement Officer” role in their C-Suites
Prediction #5: Outside Sales Reps will use iPads
It seems like everywhere we go, we hear another story of a company that is supplying its sales reps with tablets. Take, for example, this InformationWeek article about Level 3 Communications’ decision to give its salespeople iPads loaded with selling tools like SalesForce, Chatter and Google Maps. This trend is likely to continue through 2012 as tablets come down in price and new apps are released.
While it still remains to be seen whether the rest of Mashable’s predications will come true, we think that 2012 has been a good year for B2B sales advancements in the digital space so far.
B2B Magazine reported that marketing automation is gaining popularity among American marketing executives. As more companies jump into automation (59% of those surveyed say they’ll boost their marketing automation spend this year) it’s important to stay focused on what makes a marketing automation effort successful.
We consider the following three things to be key ingredients for any marketing automation campaign:
Data. Good data alone doesn’t ensure that your marketing automation effort will succeed, but bad data guarantees it will fail. The kind of data you will gather depends on your goals and the type of campaign you’ll run, but at minimum, you’ll want to make sure that your list of names and contact information is complete, up to date and representative of your target market.
Content. Finding, creating and organizing content is often the most challenging task in marketing automation. Each step in your marketing automation workflow will require some sort of content, whether it’s copy and images for an email, information and calls-to-action for a landing page, or an asset like a case study or white paper that will be available for download. Begin by assessing the content you already have on hand, and then identify areas where you’ll need to develop new content and get to work. When viewed together, your content should tell a cohesive story and move your target through to the decision you want them to make.
Workflow. How you build your workflow will depend largely on the marketing automation solution you’re using, but whether you’re running Genius, Eloqua or Marketo you should set your workflow up to nurture your leads through the sales funnel. Begin with emails, assets and messaging targeted at the awareness/interest stage of the purchasing funnel, and then move your way through to consider/evaluate and select/purchase.
While marketing automation is rarely as simple as stirring together three ingredients, we hope these tips will get you off to a good start when planning your next campaign.
Now that the Pinterest has established itself as a key player in social media, we thought it was about time we take a look at how the site can be used in the B2B world. Admittedly, we’re not the first ones to look at the topic from this angle. Pinterest has been one of the hottest topics in the marketing blogosphere in the last few months, and there have been some great posts about its application in B2B from Business2Community and Tweak Your Biz (to name a few). We even posted on the pros and cons of Pinterest for B2B back in March. But B2B companies are now working Pinterest into their social media strategies at a rapid pace, and we’ve noticed a few companies doing new and interesting things on the site. Here are a few of the companies that we’re looking at as B2B Pinterest “winners”.
Cisco Systems showcases infographics, articles about their company and select images from recent events. We really like the way they’ve mixed their own original content with repinned images from other users, and still managed to tell a story in the process.
Few things seem less visually appealing than microprocessors, but Intel finds a way to make their industry and product interesting through boards that show their products being used by stylish people, and others that highlight fun tech gadgets that can be used in tandem with products that run on Intel processors.
Timeless Tractor’s pinboards are all about their customers. They showcase their tractors in real settings with real customers with boards like “people and tractors” and “tractor events.” This is a great strategy for companies that want to showcase different applications for a product that may not be visually interesting on its own.
A few months ago, we released a white paper on the W3C Consortium’s new “Do Not Track” privacy standard, which allows Internet users to specify which sites they do not want to have tracked when they surf the web. The standard caused quite a stir when it was released, but it did not compare to the outcry we’re seeing currently as the result of Internet Explorer’s decision to make the “Do Not Track” specification a default for all websites in their new release of IE10.
As BtoB Magazine reports, the Interactive Advertising Bureau and The Association of National Advertisers both made statements last week opposing the default setting. As advertisers ourselves, we understand where they’re coming from. Default “Do Not Track” settings mean we’re unable to collect information about IE10 users who haven’t overridden the default. As a result, we lose our ability to accurately target them based on their browsing behavior.
However, we also care about privacy. While we’re not huge fans of Internet Explorer (mostly because of the problems it causes for our web programmers) we can’t help but wonder whether they’re doing the right thing to make the DNT setting a default. After all, most average web users aren’t even aware of how closely their browsing history can be tracked. We’re not sure that defaulting the “Do Not Track” setting to “off” (as most other browsers do) is really the most responsible choice, either. What’s your take?
