2013 Big Quest for B2B Marketer

1. How to generate leads and maintain them?

Returning to the question of how leads can be defined and segmented, it will require proper lead research and unique lead persona development to help B2B marketer address this most important question.

2. Any set rule to use Marketing Automation properly?

Marketing automation is finally out of infant stage and is being more widely adopted and more companies are in lets-do-it stage rather than the implementation stage. The question here is to understand if there are any set rules to use marketing automation properly.

3. Best Possible Way To Operationalize Content Marketing?

There has been a radical change within content marketing that has led to question the very role of marketing. To operationalize content marketing leads to further questions related to structure, roles and skills.

4. What Are The Real Expectations of Customers And Buyers?

Move above a product – centric answer for this question. It’s one of the challenging questions and would require qualitative intelligence along with powerful market and buyer research.

5. How To Create Seamless Multi-Channel Experience?

Listen and understand how one channel works for them but another does not. The wider the gap, the more disruptive the channel is, and that my friend is not a good things.

6. How to resist reacting and plan for future?

The inherent need to know and get results creates mounting pressure. If seen in another way, buyers are right out there and B2B marketers just have to catch up, for which they need to have strong foundation of buyer intelligence to work with.

7. How Can We Build More Buyer Predictability Into B2B Marketing?

Predictive analysis keeps on growing and with limitations, it definitely holds promise to scale down Big Data and give the ability to predict buying behaviors. A capability rather that is in making is advocating, developing customer and buyer foresight planning.

So folks, above mentioned are some of the most intriguing queries interfacing B2B marketers and if you are one of them, I would just say go with the flow and always keep a good Plan B in action.

Till then Cheers!!

seo

Do you still find people within your business who asks “what is SEO?” or “How should we go about it?” Well let me tell you its not the first time. its especially common among the start ups those are basically new and want to make big within the online industry. SEO, however is a complete true spirit, as without optimization, your website will be nothing but a tiny speck of salt in vast, rapidly changing universe.

The changing dynamics within the SEO industry, about the new tactics that are trending, and what Google dislikes this year confirmed from Penguin and Panda updates, forecasts that its going to be quite hard to receive significant sales in the initial months. So let’s begin with few support tricks that would help you get started:

1. Page Titles

Start basic with the keywords and include the meta titles within your website that would clearly state your presence in the web world. Find out keywords that are relevant to your service or you cal always check competitors website for reference.

Do make it a point to include fair combination long tail keywords which involve phrase-like words and are more specific to a particular topic.

2. Link Building

It’s the process of entailing other websites to link back to your site, however the way to do it have changed over the years. Google’s periodically updated algorithm has been systemized in a way to detect certain paid links, overdone anchor texts etc. The point is links are as good as long they are generated organically, through content.

Write guest posts on interesting blogs, successful social media activity and associating yourself with other relative interests can compel other readers to visit and mention your website name

3. Content

You have to mention interesting updated content on your own website too. From info graphics to video blogs to inspirational stories, you have to put it out there to say something bold. Write about things that people care about and include an inspirational image. Make your audience laugh, cry at the most let readers identify with your experience.

To speak in current time creating fascinating content can be the only distinguishing factor unique to you.

Going back few years and see what a revolutionary leap we have taken within the business mechanics. SEO is the current trend that is surely going to rule B2B domain in the next forthcoming years.

Big Brands Vs Niche Players

It’s always a debate among niche players while competing against the big giants, do we compete or play safe. A market so dominated and ruled by bigger champions its not easy to craft a space for yourself, therefore for niche companies, all those years of growth can quickly turn into losses when facing industry consolidation and facing an unstable economy only increasing the struggle.

The Survival Risk

Well if you are a niche you should always be prepared for the risks while the economy gets surrounded with weakening dollar and market valuation being empirically low, the risk of consolidation has never been greater. Also the most successful niche companies like Apple, Ducati, Red Bull and Swatch are vulnerable.

Understanding “Niche”

Is Niche definable? Is it a subsidiary market with special needs that can be served by special companies? Or is it actually a market that is too insignificant for the sector to care about?

Around 600,000 companies worldwide are affected by the subject of niche strategy, therefore this subject accounts for a major concern as global consolidation occurs. In addition to many underestimates by business pundits, hardly any other group of strategies has misled business owners and managers in such a fatal way as an unsuccessful or poorly defended niche.

Judging Market Subtlety for Niche

It’s extremely important to judge market subtlety towards niche, but if you are the one striving to be the next best, here’s how you can create your own demand by redefining the market:

Tip #1 – Understand Consumer Need

By closely analyzing an established market, an entrepreneur can easily point out what is missing in the offerings. An idea can strike anywhere, anytime.

Tip #2 – Differentiate Your Product

If you have the innate desire to create demand for your products or services, you’ve got to offer something that the world has never seen before.

Tip #3 – Narrate A Story

Tell people about your distinct offering and imbibe the same essence through visuals, ads, or short story over social media. Let your consumers know about the same.

Tip #4 – Spread the Word

Talking about a low cost strategy, build up your brand ambassadors – they are people who just can’t stop talking about your services.

If you are a niche and want to make your company the next “Big”, just go through the flow and get yourself the attention deserved.

email engagement

Inactive or passive subscribers as we know it, has been a persistent problem since beginning of the email era. The current challenge that has emerged is you will be penalized if your emails do not have adequate levels of deliverability and engagement.

With increasing stages of security from service providers, it has become increasingly difficult to reach to the inbox and have an invariably decent open rate. So you have to invariably make sure that your emails not only reach the desired Inbox but also gets opened.

Golden rules regarding Deliverability and Engagement

Most recent email service providers converted to a new algorithm that calculates deliverability using a combination of the original email delivery rules plus new “engagement” factors: open rates, clicks, unsubscribes and complaints. Considering the current equation of deliverability, future emails that you send may be considered SPAM or not delivered at all, even to subscribers who signed up to receive your emails.

List Hygiene

Well almost 70%-75% of email subscribes are inactive. List hygiene therefore is not only about removing undeliverable emails, bounces and unsubscribes. It also includes re-engaging inactive subscribers and the tricky task of asking subscribers if they still want to receive your emails. It’s aversive to think about losing subscribers but from a more business practical point of view its a share of resources, money and hurts the overall deliverability of your list.

Again if you remove inactives and non-responders there are number of added benefits to your email campaign. Moreover in addition to a better deliverability rate, you will have lowered costs and increased ease of segmentation and analysis.

Efforts to Engage

Use catchy subject lines like:

• Are you breaking up with us?
• Are we still friends?
• Are you mad at us?

The main body of the mail should possess the essence of the subject line alongwith variety of options to opt in and opt out, subscribe to only some topics and adjusting frequency.

Best Lessons Captured

• Email relationship should be started effectively by capturing attention and inviting engagement with a quality welcome series.
• Testing to determine the most important areas of interest can be adjudged by engaging content and subject lines.
• Segmenting and personalizing emails so you deliver the greatest relevance to each individual subscriber.
• Analyze inactive users and begin sending re-engagement emails as soon as possible so that inactive users do not remain on your list.

So what are you waiting for evaluate current deliverability rate and apply the above rules.

Online reputation

Online Reputation can cost you high time with a reasoning well enough to make or break deal. Let’s say if you have given a powerful presentation to a pulpy new client and are just about to ask how many subscriptions would they like to sign up for today, that a well-built guy from the decision making team highlights the Ripoff report your customer Orange Meachanix has provided for the installation difficulties and your incapability to ascertain your claim areas.

Boom!! You are crashed to the ground and you start brain storming to defiant the argument but to vain and the only thoughts that come around is “This is bizarre, we never thought Orange was anything but a happy customer. Welcome to what some of us would call the Dark Ages of web 2.0. The parts where users or customers get to critique their vendors and have their comments essentially live forever.

If your company has been in business long enough chances are that it has already been the topic of some user-generated content “out there” which in turn is defining your online reputation as much as maybe more than – the press releases your marketing folks churn out.  Tracking and dealing with this content has spawned yet another Web-oriented niche discipline…

Online Reputation Management – The Important Do’s

• Monitor

You have to consistently monitor sites for that would give an overview of where to play safe and which areas to garden more. Employ free online tools such as Google Alerts, Google News, Yahoo Alerts, Technorati.com, Boardtracker.com and many more.

• Placate

Reach out to those responsible for the most negative comments and place importance to understand and resolve it, fast and you would be surprised as to how effectively this approach can turn critics into fans. And don’t forget to be visible online!

• Push

Device time tested methods to push down negative reviews further on SERP pages by proves SEO techniques with emphasis on things like PR, blog and social media that can bump your ranking fairly quickly.

Online reputation management can get you through the toughest of future deals and earn you a reputation of fair player who believes in keeping all major customers happy. Is there anything more to ask for?

online leads

Whoever reading this piece of content would agree themselves with the title themselves. It seems that the creativity required by marketers to generate that ‘X’ amount of leads has died somewhere and what we are left with is few tits and bits of sitcom marketing attempts. Moving forward a survey by BtoB magazine proves that so far as 2013 is concerned, lead generation remains the number one challenge, a bigger concern among 60% of the marketers. So what are other major concerns apart from lead generation, let’s discuss one by one.

Tracking – Lead In comings

While lead generation captures the major concern another area that marketers seem to fail is lead tracking. Most of the leads incoming have to be tracked periodically to know the major source of channel.

The primary objective of lead generation among B2Bs was improving the quality of leads (58 percent), followed by converting more leads to customers (55 percent). Fewer than half (42 percent) cared most about getting more leads, showing that for B2Bs, targeting the right people and companies is more important than getting as many prospect names as possible.

When it comes to measuring leads, the greatest percentage (42 percent) of B2Bs evaluated results across all major marketing channels, including email, offline events and mobile marketing. Of all channels,email marketing was the most effective B2B marketing technique,

Email Marketing – Increase conversions with booster databases

What provides the strong base for it, of course a trusted, well built, relevant database of contact lists. But that is not the end. You have to put it to a perfect use and not spam it away. Whether it’s tweeting, tagging or poking the truth that stays by is you got to have numbers. Why?

Because however compulsive your messages may sound, it is never able to prove 100% effective. Let’s take the case of email open rates; it’s never 100% only close to 25% if done very well. Unopened messages are scourage for B2B marketing, therefore be on the safer side and send emails to more people than you expect to respond.

Summing up where plenty of email addresses to target is a must having a cent percent accurate information about the mail lists is extremely important.

Mobile Video Apps

So you are one of those innovative marketers that have accepted digitization with open hearts and video is one of your darlings. Then this post would be your bookmark and for all the rest, it will change the way you perceive Videos.

Let’s start with the new gen “Mobile Videos’ and discuss the top five video apps that are a must for your marketing strategy. Always remember using the apps is not the end of the matter understand the internal dynamics to make the best possible use of it and spark up your online engagement.

1. Vine for Twitter

Planning to create rich content can prove to be a challenge on Twitter with only 140 characters to work with. By introducing Vine there is a new way to generate highly engaging content.

Vine’s six-second looping videos are easily consumed and highly shareable. You can create mini-advertisements, behind-the-scenes-tours, announcements, contests and much more. By allowing your followers to view and share your videos directly from within Twitter.

2. Facebook iPhone Integration

Facebook survey proves the use of images and video results in the largest visual impact on their platform. Its recent integration with iOS 6 makes the creation and sharing of video less painful.

The key with video on Facebook is creativity and consistency, record major events and breaking news and post immediately to timeline without exiting previous apps.

3. Socialcam for Brand Messaging

Including social media for business is its ability to expose your brand message to a large number of people within a short span of time.

With Socialcam you can create videos with no length restrictions, use an assortment of filters and post to numerous social sites including Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

4. Viddy for Video Content

Viddy is a video app for both iPhone and Android that allows anyone to create “a simple way for anyone to capture, beautify and sharing amazing videos with the world.

With a presence on Viddy, you can post your own 15 seconds videos, follow other members and be followed. One of the appealing reasons to utilize is that it’s integrated with Open Graph that allows all your actions of Viddy to be posted on Facebook timeline.

5. Videolicious for Meaningful Relationships

Interested for connecting at a deeper level, Videolicious is an extensive app with a variety of business focused plans. You can edit videos and photos and turn them into films by using built-in videos ideas and share across multiple platform at once.

It also provides how-to’s creating video thank you notes, product reviews and news reports.

Got your all comprehensive list for mobile video apps, so what are you waiting for try em’ all to judge what works best for you. Till then happy blogging.

Entrepreneurship

Being an entrepreneur is not easy. You are more or less surrounded by big dreams and the hunger to excel. So you get to many choices, while some leads to happiness, some to failure. But one thing seems to be sure while you are in an entrepreneurial role you are bound to get over indulgent.

Often deliberately, often with the taste of initial success, early stage entrepreneurs tend to sway with the wind and commit crimes that is unpardonable. Here are the top six that has ranked as the most common repeated and common mistakes of entrepreneurs:

Crime No. 1 – Greed

Success brings a lot of greed manifested in appeal to cash, fame, fast cars and fancy houses that tends to lure away the determined focus away, the thing which is truly important to build the business.

Make business first by setting a legitimate standard and focus on building a sustainable profitable business with capital reserves that exceeds a year fixed overhead.

Crime No. 2 – Gluttony

You can eat only the amount you are hungry, what happens if you double fill your stomach. Similarly companies need to grow in a controlled manner. Entrepreneurs suffering from gluttony will take on too much before infrastructure is solidly placed.

Avoid temptation by setting targets on manageable rate of growth.

Crime No. 3 – Insatiableness

Entrepreneurs with unsatisfactory always make immoral decision that may increase short term goals but doing damage to pricing, marketing and other policies.

Control your insatiableness by taking a long-term view; try to build a reputation for being fair to your employees, customer and industry.

Crime No. 4 – Inertia

Most successful entrepreneurs know the secret formula – its being creative and innovative to fight hard with your competitors. Those wrapped in the cloth of inertia would make sloppy choices in terms of business models and marketing techniques.

You can control your inertia by doing your own homework and managing impatience and testing constantly before committing other people resources. 

Crime No. 5 – Indignation

Passion is no doubt, the critical entrepreneurial content, but the moment you start reflecting indignation, all your decisions has an impact of irrational behavior and decisions.

Focus yourself on the desired results by practicing self-awareness and the dignity to become a gracious leader.

Crime No. 6 – Enviousness

It’s always good to be positively competitive but being hypersensitive every time your competition gets a win will a take a toll on progress. Most of the time entrepreneurs shall be busy to take on the competition, losing most of their unique time to maximize opportunities.

Concentrate on your own achievement, you may win some battles you may lose some, adjust your expectations accordingly.

Most of the time entrepreneurs get trapped into the web of pride. Immediate success is good to the business but never build plans on that, develop plans that would stick at times of distress.

Telemarketing – Defending the Changes

As the engagement with customers is taking on new meanings, tech businesses are categorically benefiting from it. How? Well the Smartphone is already here and enjoying its own dominance. What more, companies like Google are developing its own devices to put interfaces before your eyes. But have you thought ever the need for innovation remains the same, yes it hardly changes.

Keeping the same logic in mind, telemarketing is more likely to grow as just advanced.

Age old Telemarketing:

So when we think of telemarketing we think of all the unwanted sales call frequently disturbing the peaceful existence of your lives. But many marketers would agree with me when I say that it has for years remained the most effective direct marketing tool. A flexible tool for lead generation, driving sales and even data gathering, telemarketing basics revolve around these basic areas.

The Era of Change:

Let’s say your company needs software leads for a newly developed system that actually allows online shoppers to view what it is they are ordering in real time. So have you wondered what need it serves; the need for authenticity!

• New has still not overcome the issues of Old:

Revisiting old times would suggest how merchants and royals would travel far to see first to believe. Telemarketing did prove to be a genuine resolution to the issue of distance but it too came with the flaws of abusing the anonymity of not showing a face. But the issue remains that authenticity is still the major need.

• Old is striving to be the New:

You cannot avoid the fact that core elements allow telemarketing to be built upon when it comes to technologically advanced means of marketing for B2B software. The fact is very well known that customers are not going to believe everything mentioned over the website, telemarketing shall work well to confirm their inquiry.

• Combining Old and New avoids Bad incoming:

Allowing your business open up to both old and new saves it from bad incoming and it also clears your eyes from being blinded by labels. Telemarketing quenches the desire of customers to have authentic discussion with a prospect and it definitely delivers more than any anonymous form of communication.

Well there are always issues that Telemarketing strives to resolve but because of its very nature can’t, but no denying the fact that it shall always remain the best result driven direct marketing tool.

Be Experimentative

Its not always about Facebook and Twitter. Most popular social networking sites have their dominance existed on most marketer strategy. It is difficult to break the shackles of the already established social networking giants but there are some new players invading the market that deserves special attention.

We are not talking of discarding the existing rulers, but be experimentative and cross networking boundaries to acknowledge the arrival of the new best that is going to sweep the market:

The 5 New Bests:

1. Medium:

Though Medium is a blogging site its founders emphasize that in most cases it is an extension of Twitter. How it works? Well simple you write a blog that appears on site under their different collections. How prominently a post is displayed is judged by the number of votes received.

Things to Look for: Medium was a creation by BizStone and Evan Williams, the creators of Twitter and Blogger. No with that kind of a track record they are something to look for.

2. Whisper:

It is an iPhone app promising anonymity. Using Whisper, user post secrets also known as whispers that appears in the form of postcard. Now that sounds cool, according to Business Insider more than 1 million people have uploaded roughly 8 million whispers.

Things to Look for: The app received $3million in funding and has already gone viral among college students who are soon to your office.

3. Chirpify:

Founded in 2011, this is an online service that enables user to buy products through social media with one click. You sign up for Chirpify that you can do in less than 30 seconds via Twitter, Facebook or Instagram accounts just sync with your PayPal account and start shopping.

Things to Look for: Since most of us are active is social media we all want the ease of shopping with a single click. And here’s your solution.

4. Sina Weibo:

It is China’s Twitter and guess what it has twice the users as Twitter. Most recognized brand has accepted this site and celebrities like Tom Cruise is a registered user.

Things to Look for: According to Mashable, around 22% of China’s population are already registered that means a lot of people.

5. devianArt

The Internet is bombarded with images helping and they help drive viral images for brand. Founded in 2000, it is the largest social network for artists and enthusiasts.

Things to Look for: Having more than 26 million users it witnesses 65 million unique views a month.

And now when you have your own list of forthcoming social networking blockbusters, call the next meeting with your PR team and revise marketing strategy accordingly.