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Buyers have made some additional changes in their level of concern when making strategic buying decisions. Price for example is less of an issue than it was in the past. The focus has shifted to economic impact. Price of course is still extremely important, but it must fit into an economic impact model showing a measurable positive impact on the c-suite metrics and company’s financials. The word, “strategic” is very important here because B2B buying decisions must fit into the overall corporate strategic buying plan. (As stated in the CFO Report) This is the primary reason decisions have moved from the shop floor to the C-Suite. (More on this in a moment.) In addition to this change in Price on the diagram we have added three additional lines, Risk, Economic Impact and Cash Flow.

Each of the three lines have taken a position in the Buyers and Sellers process above the traditional buying concerns of Needs, Solution and Price. The reason for this is they are now the most important part of the buying decision process. This is a major difference from the past to the present. Buyers are focused on Economic Impact, Cash Flow and Risk Mitigation. That is not to say, price, solution and needs are unimportant. Look at the diagram, price, need and solution all begin the process mid-way up on the level of concern axis.

Economic Impact is a key component to the buying process. The C-Suite is questioning every purchase request and asking what is the impact on our financial statement? If the purchase does not positively affect the Balance Sheet and Income Statement it is unlikely to get approved.

The problem however lies in the fact that Sellers have failed to realize these additional concerns the Buyers have, and have not adjusted to include them in their sales process. In other words, Cash Flow, Risk, and Economic Impact are not part of the sales professional’s process. In the past it really didn’t matter, today it is critical.

Sellers have inserted some process changes to become more familiar with the Buyer using tools like Social Media, Hoovers, LinkedIn, Jigsaw, InsideView or ZoomInfo. They have also adopted, “ROI” models to try and circumvent the economic impact, along with a fancy proposal to impress the Buyer.

The problem today is the Sellers are still not addressing the Economic Impact Studies at the beginning of a sale, they are not addressing the issue of risk mitigation throughout the buyers process, and they are not discussing cash flow and its impact on the corporation’s goals. Remember these three lines on the diagram all end up above the three traditional lines of, needs, price and solution. Sellers will need to make adjustments to neutralize economic impact, cash flow and risk concerns.

 

Michael Nick is the founder of ROI4Sales and author of three best selling business books. To contact Michael visit www.roi4sales.com, email him at info@roi4sales.com, or call us at 262.338.1851.

The post Major Changes in How Buyers Buy appeared first on ROI4Sales.com.

There is a common parlance in the sales world about the distinctive profiles of sellers: lone wolves, relationship builders, challengers etc. They serve as a frame of reference for not only who salespeople are, but who they want to become.

But what about sales leaders? How do salespeople change once they are in leadership roles? What new characteristics and behaviors do they exhibit? What effect does this have on the salespeople whom they lead?

In our work with thousands of sales leaders, we consistently observe unique qualities that personify them. If you are a sales leader, you will likely identify with a number of these personifications:

• Deal Doer – loves nothing more than the thrill of the deal
• Quota Dog – lives for numbers, spreadsheets and charts
• Pusher – pushes his team with specific goals, hoping people will rise to the occasion
• Hair on Fire – thrives on chaos and can’t seem to get off the hamster wheel
• Well-Intended – genuinely wants nothing more than to help your team members improve

But which one do you—and your salespeople—think you are most like? Take our brief quiz in our new point of view to identify which type of sales leader you most embody and learn which critical skills can help you become more effective in your leadership role. In the point of view, we share five critical mindsets that you can master, and note which types of sales leaders should pay particular attention to each one:

• Plan: A good plan provides a clear picture of where you want to be in the future, a prioritized set of actions you can take to make that future a reality, and a way to measure your progress along the way.
• Measure: It’s important to not only measure lagging measures (like revenue or close rates) such as financials, but also leading indicators (such as behaviors and skills). A sales leader without clear measures of leading indicators is like a quarterback without any yardage or goal line markers.
• Practice: Practice doesn’t make perfect—perfect practice makes perfect. The only factor that has been scientifically demonstrated as correlating to sales success…is the willingness to practice. Not any kind of practice, but expertly defined routines that are simplified and sequenced into proven learning patterns. This is what translates
• Coach: Great sales coaches do two primary things: They advance talent, and they advance deals—and they do both at the same time.
• Model: As a sales leader, your actions, behaviors and skills are constantly being assessed and often emulated by your teams and others around you. Taking accountability for your actions is the most visible mindset and behavior you can model.

Focusing on all five mindsets can help you on your journey to becoming a highly effective sales leader – one who gains the trust and respect of her sales teams by serving as a role model and creating an environment that motivates and encourages. Highly effective sales leaders see the payoff of coaching and mentoring and give credit where it’s due. They set and achieve high standards, measuring leading indicators to ensure progress is being made and to know when to step in and help. They have the courage to take risks, and they execute with commitment with consistency.

So, which type of sales leader are you?

As a PR/communications professional, one thing we essentially get paid to do is to stay on top of trends. That includes media and pop culture. That includes TV shows and movies.

Yep–we essentially get paid to watch TV.

OK, so we really don’t get paid cash for watching TV shows. But tangentially, we do get paid to stay on top of trends. So yeah, it’s a leap, but it does definitely matter.

In small talk with clients. In chatter at the office (as I remember, at least). On the phone with partners.

Knowing what’s going on in the world matters–especially on TV and in the media.

So, I find myself happily writing off the time I spend watching TV shows like Scandal, Sons of Anarchy and Walking Dead.

Of course, I also watch a fair amount of TV news during the day–a prerequisite.

But you know what I find myself watching less and less of? Movies.

I’ve seen exactly zero movies in the theater in the last three months. And I’ve only seen one movie in the theater in the last six months (and that was Frozen with my kids).

On the other hand, I probably watch at least one episode of some TV show almost every day (currently a mix of The Wire, Good Wife, Walking Dead and soon, Mad Men).

While my movie-watching habits have declined significantly over the years, my TV viewing habits have skyrocketed. Why? A few factors:

Kids and priorities

Popular movies are getting longer–a lot longer. I just watched Wolf of Wall St. last weekend. Three hours later, I was sorely disappointed. But instead of only wasting 2 hours of my time (or better yet 1.5 hours), I wasted a full three hours (and I saw it at home, without the painful previews). Who has three hours to devote to a movie? Not parents, I can tell you that. At least not this one.

Pricepoints relevant to value

A night at the movies (just with my wife) would typically run me north of $30. And that’s really just for two tickets, a small pop and a small popcorn. Probably closer to $35, actually. TWO PEOPLE FOR ONE TWO- TO THREE-HOUR MOVIE! On the other hand, I just bought the whole first season of The Wire for $38 on iTunes. That’s 13 one-hour episodes. So, $35 for two hours in a theater. Or, $38 for, most likely, 13 different evenings on the couch? I think the value equation here is a slam dunk.

Better stories, characters

Let’s just do a quick test. Which of the following characters have you heard more about in the past three months:

* Claire Underwood

* Walter White

* Ron Woodroof

* Jeannette Francis

OK, raise your hand if you even know who the last two are? I had to look them both up–they’re Matthew McCounagahy (Dallas Buyers Club) and Cate Blanchette (Blue Jasmine) in their Academy Award-winning roles this year. By contrast, I would argue almost everyone has heard of Walter White by now. He’s a household name–literally. A cultural phenomenon. And Claire Underwood probably isn’t far behind (both were Golden Globe winners for best actor/actress this year). TV characters have been FAR more compelling in recent years. Let’s go down the list: Frank Underwood, Piper Chapman (Orange), Olivia Pope, Don Draper and Alicia Florrick just for starters. Can you name four characters in today’s movies that carry the same clout? What’s more, the storylines in movies are dying (sequel movie-making anyone?) while TV storylines have exploded (think Breaking Bad, Walking Dead and Game of Thrones for starters).

Ongoing online discussion with friends

TV shows–by their very episode-fashion nature–lend themselves better to ongoing conversations online (and off) with friends. You see it every day on Facebook. TONS of people talking about Scandal, Good Wife, Parenthood and other popular shows. Meanwhile, the very best movies, like the new Captain American movie, have a shelf life of conversation of about a week or two at most. While I watch most of my shows on Netflix and iTunes, I see other actively engaging with the live TV shows weekly–you just don’t have that same dynamic with movies. For me, the fun is merely just talking about these shows as they unfold–even if I am watching them well after they air.

Cliffhangers and plot twists

In my adult life, I think I can count the number of movies that had surprise endings or plot twists in them on one hand (Usual Suspects comes to mind), On the flip side, TV shows routinely go for the unexpected. Just last week, The Good Wife killed off one of the main characters of the show (“Will”, i.e., Josh Charles) in a highly unanticipated move. To the point where my wife and I still didn’t believe he was dead after the show aired. This has become commonplace with TV shows–and fans love it (Frank Underwood pushing Chloe off the platform in House of Cards, another recent example). While Hollywood continues to pander to the masses, effectively dumbing down their content Jay-Leno-style, TV shows are pushing the envelope and attracting larger (if still somewhat segmented) audiences, as a result. Give me more of the latter any day of the week.

So, that’s why I’ve become a serial TV viewer. I know my situation is a bit more unique (kids + no cable). But what about you? Are you watching more TV and fewer movies, too?

photo credit: manybits via photopin cc

My longtime friend and colleague James Obermayer has strong feelings about who is responsible for lost leads among salespeople. Jim, who is principal of a California-based sales and marketing consulting firm Sales Leakage Consulting, lays the blame squarely at the feet of sales managers, who aren’t putting the necessary pressure on their sales force to follow up on leads, he said.

Jim is also head of the Sales Lead Management Association, which regularly names the 50 most influential people in lead generation. During our discussion, he pulled no punches about how to plug the leaks in sales leads.

Here is a link to our entire conversation, followed by some highlights.

Sales Managers Are to Blame for Lost Leads

Click to start video at this point—I asked Jim who was responsible for lost leads and he said it’s sales managers, not salespeople (which I didn’t wholeheartedly agree with). He made the point that 75-90 percent of sales leads are not followed up on, which wastes billions of dollars in marketing. It’s the responsibility of managers to make sure that leads are followed up on 100 percent of the time, he said.

They Think Sales Skills are Going to Win the Day

Click to start video at this point—Jim said too many salespeople are overconfident in their traditional sales skills, and fail to recognize the central role of following up. He said he can take a mediocre salesperson and beat most of the competition simply by getting that salesperson to follow up 100 percent of the time.

What is Effective Follow Up?

Click to start video at this point—Jim said he sees statistics that say 45 percent of salespeople give up after one contact with a lead—and that’s counting email. I asked him what he would define as effective follow up. He said it varies per case, but in general he demands at least three phone calls and two to three emails. More importantly, these touches need to be spread out over more than a week.

Do You Organize a Dinner Date with Friends in One Email?

Click to start video at this point—I mentioned to Jim how many emails and phone calls it takes to set up a dinner date among friendly couples. In my experience, it’s six to seven in total. Why then, I asked, should it come as a shock when a stranger doesn’t get back to you after first contact? Jim mentioned that it’s all a process, and that typically you need to have 8-10 touches with a prospect over time, adding value with each communication.

You can connect with Jim and learn more about the Sales Lead Management Association via the following resources:

 

 

Website: www.theslma.com

Email: jobermayer at salesleadmgmtassn dot com

 

 

 

Stay tuned for my next PowerViews

By Dan McDade

Perl is a great server side scriping language, it's easy to learn, it's fast and it's free but it is still considered something that only hardcore programmins use when it's actually something that could be useful for all. This is why I have made this simple Infograph to tell a little more about the benefits of Perl and why you should consider giving it a try if you need some dynamic content or user interaction on a website. I hope you enjoy this simple presentation and that it gives you a small taste of the benefits to Perl.

As a remote professional seller you use the phone continuously throughout the day. If you are not using the phone at least half of the time you are reaching out to buyers, then I hope you are using video conversations to a great extent. These two strategies – video-to-video or telephone allow for real connection.

While being in front of someone is, in fact, the BEST way to communicate, a good two-way video conversation is the next best thing. These are not universally used yet, but more innovative sales teams are using Skype video calls, Google Hangouts, and other means to facilitate seeing each person on the call. If you are not able to make 2-way video conversations happen, then the telephone or digital audio call is the next best thing.

If you are one of those sellers hiding behind email – where email is your #1 strategy and you use it more than 80% of the time, we need to talk – via a video connection or by phone.

Why? There are several reasons why e-mail alone is not the best strategy for you in connecting with potential buyers and following up with clients. E-mail definitely needs to be part of your communication strategy but not exclusively.  Complex topics or services don’t do well as email dialogue. Difficult or more sensitive topics do not work well via email. It is extremely difficult to tell tone by email, and tonality is one fantastic way to build rapport, so by not having it as part of a conversation you’re taking a big risk of being misunderstood.

A friend of mine stopped doing business with a vendor because of a poorly written email which she reacted to. Another friend stopped working with a business partner because of a misunderstanding through email. Worse than that, I know of a client that lost a $400K deal because of several hurried email messages and lack of planning to be able to have more verbal conversations with a prospective customer.

In order to be successful on video or with the telephone you need to understand the basics of presenting as well as having concise, buyer-focused messaging.

I use an acronym to help sellers remember the important points of speaking:

W- you have to wow your prospective buyer with something different, new, educational or insightful

E- you need to express the value to them. What’s in it for them?

L- work to listen for what they are responding with, and for what they are not saying

L- always leave a positive impression with buyers, clients, and referrers.

Do you have trouble speaking clearly and concisely? Consider joining a Toastmasters group. I’ve written about Toastmasters many times before and belonged for a number of years. Check out a local group – for a very small dollar investment you will gain both communication and leadership skills in this organization.

Know of a great online course about communications? Let us know.

Lori Richardson is recognized on Forbes as one of the “Top 30 Social Sales Influencers” worldwide. Lori speaks, writes, trains, and consults with inside sales teams in mid-sized companies. Subscribe to the award-winning blog and the “Sales Ideas In A Minute” newsletter for sales strategies, tactics, and tips in selling. Increase Opportunities. Expand Your Pipeline. Close More Deals.

email lori@scoremoresales.com | My LinkedIn Profile | twitter | Visit us on google+

The post Inside Sales Power Tip 151 – Speak WELL appeared first on Score More Sales.

When things got spooky back in the ‘80s, “Ghostbusters” were the guys to call for help. But now there are lots of agencies, consulting firms and vendor services who can help you deal with those elusive (and sometimes scary) online social initiatives.

Social Media Marketing Agency

Most social media agencies, often offshoots from traditional advertising and marketing firms, focus on branding and awareness strategy and help clients manage social media marketing tools and campaigns on platforms such as Facebook or Twitter. As an extension of online PR or advertising channels, agencies are well-versed in SEO, marketing content development and reaching “influencer” audience members. They address questions such as: How do we reach a wider audience? Raise audience awareness of our product or services? Build more customer engagement with our brands?

Agencies tend to employ armies of young go-getters who are expected to be well-versed in the latest social media tools. These agencies build and maintain strong relationships with influencers and journalists, and may have the resources to cover a sizable social media marketing campaign in a short period of time. Through their experience managing social media marketing initiatives, a skilled agency can help a B2C company who needs to reach a wide and diverse online audience get significant traction and lift in a short period of time. Some agencies also have a specialty in crisis communications using online social channels.

Social Business Consulting Firm

For organizations seeking assistance with an online social business initiative, there are business consulting firms with the special expertise needed to identify internal processes might benefit from the use of social tools to achieve specific business goals. A consulting firm will work with an internal team to identify greatest needs, understand desired outcomes and create a strategy and plan for achieving results. An example engagement might be to create a collaborative environment for customers and internal R&D to co-create a new product roadmap more quickly, with greater customer acceptance and buy-in, and fewer new product customer service issues.

Business consulting firms are generally platform agnostics, preferring to identify the business requirements and then determine the most suitable application or service provider for a specific need. These firms are staffed by experienced business professionals and online experts, who typically have held senior operational roles within larger organizations and are familiar with enterprise culture. In addition to project guidance, they develop frameworks and best practices, teach staff and coach executives on the nuances of digital collaboration, and provide knowledge transfer on leveraging additional internal process via online social business techniques.

Social Application Developer or Consultant

Many application and platform vendors also offer guidance and support for social initiatives. Once the marketing or businesses strategy is in place (through a consulting firm or agency) and a platform decision has been reached, the vendor can be brought in to deploy their application or assist with customization and training with their tool. Of course, a platform vendor may not offer the most objective guidance on business strategy or platform selection. Once a platform decision is made, their expertise with their own product can help translate the business strategy and requirements into a technical implementation. This underscores the importance of defining objectives, creating strategy and developing requirements first. Countless online projects have underperformed or failed altogether, because the excitement of choosing an online platform overshadowed the more important – and more difficult – task of understanding what the online project goals and results should be.

Here are the Cliff’s notes:

• Social media marketing = agency
• Social business strategy = business consultancy
• Social application development = application vendor

Before your organization goes shopping for guidance about your online social initiatives, consider the above and ask yourself which kind of advice will best serve your needs. Think about how the different players view the opportunity to work with you, the value and offerings of the different players, their core competencies and their revenue models. In the end, it will be up to you to select best partner for each stage of your online social business and social media marketing needs.

To read The Social Business Buyer’s Guide Part One click here

Probably the biggest challenge we Marketers face is managing the expectations of our stakeholders. Marketing is a crucial solution to the general problem of generating more sales revenues. Done right, Marketing can build a sustainable sales pipeline that increases revenues while driving down customer acquisition costs over time. Done wrong, Marketing gets the blame for achieving just the opposite. Reality is often somewhere in between, however, and managing expectations is the key to keeping stakeholders happy.

Lessons From SEOs

As usual, I am inspired this week by a Whiteboard Friday session by Rand Fishkin, this one entitled “Surviving the SEO Slog.” In response to a post by Scott Clark (aka, BuzzMaven), Rand discusses the “delta of dissatisfaction.” He describes the apparent gap between ramped up effort and lack of results during the first few months following a decision to overhaul a company’s search engine visibility, when search professionals and content marketers work hard to optimize their content and web presence for better traction with Google’s new algorithms, Penguin, Panda and Hummingbird. Typically, they see a quick uptick in ranking for relevant search phrases and an improvement in traffic and leads. Then, the results start to level off (hence, the “slog”) even though the effort to embrace best practices is just getting started. Without properly managing the expectations of Senior Management (or clients), this dissatisfaction begins to breed contempt, or worse.

The Rest of the Inbound Story

Since SEO is just one component of inbound marketing, it’s safe to assume other slogs are also commonly at work as the Marketing Team works hard to build a sustainable, growing online presence and pipeline. In fact, it can also take months to build up a library of helpful, relevant content and a tuned-in audience that accomplishes the goals of inbound marketing, including:

• Identifying buyer personas and relevant topics
• Understanding how they search, select and share content
• Website design and messaging tuned to buyer needs
• SEO strategy for content creation and sharing
• Regular blog posts by recognized authors
• Premium content mapped to buyer personas and each stage of the buyer journey
• Social media reach development and engagement
• Blog post syndication and curation
• Conversion rate optimization on landing pages and CTAs
• Personalized content and lead nurturing for warm leads

As in SEO efforts, there can be a substantial lead time between startup of activity and a steady inbound flow of qualified sales leads. There may be some quick hits as well, depending on the quality of the content you create and the established authority of your authors and thought leaders, but overall it can take 12-18 months before your inbound pipeline begins to mature. After the initial effort to build a groundwork of personas, SEO and content creation strategy, you may find you can gradually reduce resources over time, but never to the point of pure automation and background process. Remember you are competing with everyone else for the attention of your buyers, so an ongoing creative impulse is needed to stay ahead of the curve. Inbound Marketing is, thus, a long-term investment that will pay dividends with sustained effort. But where does that leave our stakeholders who are starving for short-term results?

Balancing The Marketing Mix Over Time

If Marketers simply present the reality of the inbound marketing “slog” to Management, they are likely to be met with cold stares and a few calls to HR. The Management Team has goals to fulfill, and postponing them 12-18 months is a non-starter. A more balanced plan, including more targeted outbound marketing (paid online and offline advertising in its numerous forms) in the early months, followed by a gradual shift of budget to inbound marketing later in the fiscal year can accomplish short-term, intermediate and longer-term goals, while reducing the cost of customer acquisition over time.

 Of course, actual budget planning will depend on specific goals and timelines, as well as costs for the most effective outbound channels for your business, available in-house labor, outsourcing costs and your sales cycle and sales process. In general, your plan should seek to offset ramp-up time for inbound marketing with more immediate returns from outbound channels. Over time, you begin to replace outbound with inbound, but not entirely. There will always be a place for new outreach campaigns to find new buyers and nurture them with inbound content.

Why Bother With Inbound at All?

If targeted outbound campaigns are so effective, maybe we don’t need to build an inbound marketing machine, right? Not so fast. Over time, you want organic search to become an important lead generation channel, because potential buyers are searching for solutions (not just browsing), and many of them have already started the evaluation process before they ever visit your website or contact you. A comprehensive content creation strategy, informed by up-to-date SEO best practices and social media engagement, is the way to go.

Then, maybe there are buyers who know about you from outbound channels. How do they do their due diligence? By Googling your content, visiting your website, reading your blog and downloading your premium content. How you perform with these “warm visitors” has everything to do with your inbound marketing efforts. Then there’s the cost to acquire a customer (CAC) and customer lifetime value (LTV) thing. Inbound is invaluable in reducing CAC (as a function of your evergreen content) and increasing LTV (as a function of your helpful content and online support).

So next time you get in front of your stakeholders with that Marketing Plan and Budget, make sure it’s balanced, anticipates the various “slogs” and compensates for them with alternate strategies and presents a realistic way to accomplish goals and timeframes. Without that, you are going to have a tough time managing expectations.

Photo credit: Jason LLagan

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If you are in the business of selling and repairing cars, not using social media outlets to their full extent is equivalent to giving up a large amount of revenue on purpose. Sound like an extreme statement? I understand that every social media guru everywhere tries to convince every single type of business that they must either tweet and post or die, but sometimes there are actually numbers and examples that back those claims up. For automobile dealers, the facts are pretty clear.

The Big News

If you write off this information, you may as well not read anything else and just give up on more sales. Digital Air Strike is the top social media, online reputation management, and digital response company in the U.S. for the automotive industry. In a report they issued a year ago, they made the startling revelation that the online reviews for dealerships have become the single biggest factor for consumers in deciding which dealership to buy from. The single biggest factor. Ignore that at your own peril.

The study looked at the way that 650 dealerships nationwide use social media, and compiled survey responses for 2000 customers who had purchased within the previous six months. It wasn’t an educated guess. This brings social media monitoring software and reputation management up to the top of the priorities list.

Facebook’s Bold Claim

Facebook commissioned a study from ComScore which led them to make a claim that they are now poised to target car buyers not only better than Google, but in fact better than television advertising. Considering the amount of money put into TV ads by Car companies and dealers every week, that statement might be the game-changer of the decade.

Specifically, customers who viewed a Facebook ad about a car model were 50% more likely to visit the page for that model. Conversely, the customer’s interest in viewing the page of another model they were considering dropped by nearly 15% after viewing the ad. I’m no statistician, but those seem like pretty massive percentages when combined. From a budgetary standpoint, a Facebook ad is infinitely less expensive than a television commercial, so you do the math.

Same Strategy, Different Platform

Car dealers are already doing what they need to do on social media, they’re just doing it elsewhere, on antiquated platforms. TV ads? Facebook is the most used and viewed social platform on the web, and the most effective for car sales. Radio? Twitter is the always-on, soundbite platform equivalent.

The weekly or monthly car exchange magazine that is in every convenience store can be easily transplanted on Pinterest, for free or almost free, and will exponentially grow exposure. Google+ is forever intertwined with Google search. If you can’t make the jump in your mind on that one then I can’t help you.

There is literally room for massive sales and revenue growth in using social media for auto sales, but it won’t fall in your lap. Every day that you mull over these options or dismiss them is another day of almost guaranteed unrealized revenue. Are you willing to take that chance?

You know who’s really good at marketing?

Fashion people.

I recently attended the Free Style Conference (organized by awesome NYC event organizers Pavan Bahl and Andrew Young).

I expected nothing but skinny models, overly dressed hipsters, and wanna-be bourgeoisie fashion people who would laugh at people like me who shop not at the latest trendy stores but at stores that are closest and have the shortest waiting line.

But nope, they were really cool.

What’s even more surprising was that some of these fashion people were great at online marketing.

For example, did you know that an Instagram of Coke ($150 avg) costs more than gram of coke ($80-100 nyc street cocaine price)?

Of course, it made sense. Fashion industry is just like the movie or the game industry – hit driven, very trend oriented, and media intensive. These guys probably have the most intensive competition of ALL industries because by default, they are all content marketers.

Most of the online marketing talk was about driving sales and/or traffic to your website…. which is ok, but here’s the problem.

Driving traffic is just ONE side of the equation.

Pay per click, SEO, content marketing, email marketing, social media marketing, influencer marketing, partnership marketing, APIs, etc etc etc..

That’s all GREAT and all, but doing that without mastering conversion rate optimization, engagement, landing page optimization, and all that fun stuff is like clapping with ONE hand.

If your funnel looks more like a barrel, then everything you pour on top comes out on bottom and you get nothing.

If you squeeze the bottom of your barrel, then it looks more like a funnel and you’re able to retain the value.

So no matter what you online marketing & growth hacking strategy you do, you MUST master the following (or at least hire someone who can do them).

1) Copywriting

Copywriting is selling on print. Print can be online or offline, but it’s the basis for selling with words.

When I first came across this idea that you can actually have “words” sell.. I was like “PFFFFFFFFFFFFT”.

Then I looked at Amazon and eBay’s income statement.

Yes.. HUNDREDS of BILLIONS of dollars made without one single salesman. (When was the last time someone from those two companies called you to ask you to buy their stuff?)

But they do invest heavily into copywriting.

If you cannot do copywriting, you cannot get your ideas. Period. (Heck, you can even use copywriting to get more/better dates.)

2) Testing

Unless you’re Professor Xavier from X-Men, you probably have no idea what messaging is working.

Suppose you’re doing dental marketing and want to know whether “Get Your Teeth Fixed for Only $XYZ. Call Now!” or “Do You Have Sharp Pains in Your Mouth? Call us Today”… how would you do it?

Yeap. You’d test it out. Show your message to different people and see what gets them to take action in the most cost effective way.

It doesn’t matter if you’re a banker selling $2 million dollar mortgages or a ecommerce website selling $15 t-shirts. If you do not test, you will never know what works.

For example, which one of these won?

Doesn’t seem like much right?

Except the red button BEAT the green button by 21%.

Do you sell to men? Believe it or not, sometimes using hot girls doesn’t work as much as using men.

Remember: men lie, women lie, politicians lie… but numbers tell the truth.

So make sure you A/B test the heck out everything.

But.. MOST importantly..

3) Story telling

If you’re selling commodities (i.e. stuff you can buy from a retailer), you probably think you don’t have a huge need to do this. Unfortunately, if that were the case, then everyone can just rely on Google to give them sales 24×7.

Here’s the problem.

If you’re an ecommerce website selling expensive designer sunglasses, how are you any different than the next Joe Schmoe who opens up an ecommerce site and sells the same stuff you do, doing the same marketing that you do?

And what prevents from that designer opening up his OWN ecommerce store and competing with all their distributors?

That’s right, there isn’t.

You have no competitive advantage if you look like everyone else. If you pay for your buyers, you’re fighting a margin war that you can’t possibly win against deep entrenched companies that have more history with ad networks and more ad budget.

Sure, people still buy “commodities” at Walmart/Target/Amazon and they are doing ok even if they fight on margins. Yes, but the problem is.. you’re not Walmart/Target/Amazon. They have best locations, best supply chain management, best buying volume, best.

So how on earth do you compete with them?

Simple: Build trust. Build a brand. Tell a story.

Why do you go your dentist when you can get cheaper dental service at one of those national dental franchises? Because you have a relationship with your dentist.

Why does your mom get her clothes at the local dress shop when she can get the same at Target for 30% less? Because they give her a service and know her by her name.

Why does your cousin get his car fixed at that run down car shop next to the train tracks even though he can probably go to Midas/Jiffy Lube with that 50% coupon? Because that crazy car mechanic Joe has built up his reputation online and tells you crazy his crazy drunk Vegas stories when you’re waiting for your car.

If you build trust.. if your story/service stands apart from the crowd.. if people can relate to you, they WILL buy from you.

In fact, they might even become your champion.

For example, a dentist I used to go to when I lived (shortly) in LA was so awesome that I left him this awesome Yelp review:

He gives you a mirror to see what he’s doing. He explains everything… for example, this crappy dentist I used to go to when I was in junior high for my braces left the cement bracket. Dr. Cho told me it was still there and removed it. Awesome. He even showed the back of the lower front teeth and how plaque build up looked. (Yes, it was nasty brown color.)

He tells you EVERYTHING. Almost like a narration. I felt like I was in Bob Ross’ TV show.. and my mouth was the painting canvas. I can imagine Dr. Cho (in soothing voice) something like this:

“Ah yes. What a beautiful landscape that is. Maybe a little tooth lives over here, so why don’t we pay him a visit. Ah, yes, his friend, Mr.Gum is over having a lovely afternoon tea with him. Perhaps there’s a divine background tonsil hanging by the mountains. Uh oh. There’s trouble in the neighborhood. The evil doer Cavity-meister doesn’t look very nice. So why don’t we just evict him since he doesn’t pay rent in the Mouthville. *picks off cavity with tool* Ah yes, there.. much better.”

Just by going the extra mile, you have social media influencers doing the selling FOR you.

Now, imagine how much more imperative this is if you sell NON-commodities (like software, real estate, insurance, etc) where your products/services are either personalized or you have lots (if not infinite) to sell.

Remember, anyone can copy you.. but will they be YOU? Probably not. And THAT is your competitive advantage.

Work is Not Sexy

But why don’t experts and conference speakers talk about these skills?

Simply put: they’re BORING.

It’s like working out: no one wants to see you wake up at 6 AM, hit the gym, lift weights, drink protein juice.. everyday. No, the public wants to see your awesome abs or the physical transformation of before and after in one shot.

Marketing is no different. You don’t go from 0.1% to 11%+ conversion rate overnight.

It’s a daily grind – writing blog posts (i.e. content marketing), creating sales pages, working with vendors & suppliers, trying, failing, and repeating that every day.. until you get your goal.

No one wants to see the daily grind. But remember what Edison said? Success is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.

No one wants to see you sweat. Sweat is not sexy. It’s the glory, the homerun, the trophy, and the money people want to see. Unfortunately, you can’t get there without the right tools and your ability to harness those tools.

So suck it up, and keep at it, until you’re successful.

I’ve been a fan of Tom Hopkins for as far back as I can remember. I read the original edition of his wonderful book—How to Master the Art of Selling—over three decades ago; I still refer back to it now and then. That I was Honored when Tom endorsed Selling Fearlessly may be the understatement […]

The merging of technology and marketing has led to a new breed of marketer- the technical marketer.

The good old days

Remember when there was an IT department full of nerdy guys with neck beards who were responsible for all the techy stuff in the company? Remember when there was a marketing department full of well-dressed graduates who were responsible for all of the sales stuff in the company? And remember a time when never the twain did meet?

No, me neither. But I do remember what it was like starting out as a computer-science graduate. We were the smart ones who made things run. We were the doers, and we had little interest in glossy brand awareness and consumer sentiment.

If I were to channel my marketing peers of the time, I might guess they considered themselves the creative ones – who made things run. They were the high-level thinkers, and they had little interest in our Java code or Unix shell scripts.

It’s safe to say that those days are over, and thankfully, those attitudes dying off.

The great convergence

In 2012, Gartner analyst Laura McLellan predicted that by 2017, CMOs will spend more on IT than CIOs.

Today, marketing and technology are increasingly tied together. Consequently, marketers and technologists are starting to work together. They’re even beginning to understand each other – that marketing is meaningless without the foundations built by technologists and that technology tools are worthless without the direction marketers provide.

Blurred lines

In fact, the most interesting facet of this convergence is that marketers are becoming technologists, and technologists are becoming marketers (though still sometimes kicking and screaming!).

What does this mean?
Silly new titles of course (Growth Hacker… really? Analytics Ninja … please). But it also means that modern marketers are a new breed, and the successful ones are the individuals who embrace technology and understand how and when to use it to complement their core marketing abilities.

Tools of the trade

So let’s look at some of the technology areas at which the marketer of yesteryear may have turned up their noses. These are concepts that the modern marketer should consider as integral to their skill set as anything with the word “brand” it in.

Analytics

Technical marketers know that marketing has no real value if you can’t measure it in some way. As such, all marketing initiatives need to be tracked, and more importantly, the powers that be need to understand and act upon the results. With this, it’s a given that:

• All email campaigns need to report on opens, clicks and unsubscribes.
• All websites need to report on page views, bounces and time on page.
• All ad campaigns need to report on impressions, clickthrough rates and conversions.

Technical marketers understand and expect these analytics and, if they’re good at their jobs, are ready to act on the results.

Automation

Technical marketers share a trait with their programmer comrades – they’re inherently lazy. They have no interest in carrying out repetitive tasks over and over again. They understand that marketing automation beats manual processing every day of the week for tasks such as:

• Emailing consumers who have recently bought their products, asking them to fill in a product review.
• Sending a thank-you tweet to all Twitter users who have retweeted their content each day.
• Sending a discount coupon to potentials buyers who have abandoned their online shopping cart.

Technical marketers embrace ‘set and forget’, knowing their time is better spent on strategic work.

Segmentation

Technical marketers understand that their target audience is not a single group with a single set of interests and needs. Rather, they are talking to a group of individuals, all of whom require personalised treatment. And the more data marketers can collect, the more effectively they can seek out small groups and interact with them through highly targeted messaging, such as:

• Using purchase-history data to identify the most valuable customers and providing them with further purchasing incentives.
• Using social media data to identify people who are promoting the company and providing them with recognition.
• Using behavioural data to find unengaged subscribers and attempting to win their interest back with specially targeted content.

Technical marketers understand that pinpointing their segments in this way is the best way to attract and maintain an engaged audience.

That’s just a small sample of the technologies in the technical marketer’s world. Beyond these concepts, the brave ones are also rolling up their sleeves and getting intimate with JavaScript, HTML 5 and SQL.

As someone from the other side of the fence, I’m watching this metamorphosis with great interest – and a tinge of sadness. As a techie, my feeling of superiority becomes less founded every day. My only recourse? Start reading up on brand awareness and consumer sentiment.

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Last month, Brian Kardon argued that marketing technology is out-innovating sales technology.

Unfortunately, he’s dead wrong.

Kardon grossly underestimates the innovation that’s currently disrupting sales, possibly because he defines “sales technology” as being limited to customer relationship management (CRM). While CRM companies like Salesforce1, Pipedrive, Base, and Insightly are indeed innovating, they represent only a fraction of all sales technology.

In marketing, the advent of metrics and data in recent years has spurred the marketing automation movement. In sales, metrics and data are driving the creation of new performance-boosting tools in an emerging category called “sales acceleration.”

These tools are less about automation and more about using newly available data sources to drive concrete sales numbers. They allow the modern salesperson to work strategically instead of leaning on the guesswork that has festered for decades at the core of common sales processes: When should I call? How should I time my emails? Why did that subject line succeed while this one flopped? Did my prospect even read that email? Sales acceleration technology is allowing us to definitively answer these questions for the first time.

Sales has long been the most-measured area of companies because its connection to the bottom line is direct and obvious. However, it is only in recent years that new technology has enabled sales managers to measure the process as carefully as the sale itself.

Automation and other innovations in marketing have helped improve the quality of leads handed over to sales. But Kardon is wrong when he implies that marketing tools can handle the bulk of the problems that salespeople face. Sales needs dedicated tools to shape better strategies for sales calls, presentations, emails, compensation, and more. That’s where sales acceleration comes into play.

There’s no mystery about why the demand for sales acceleration tools is growing. These tools help companies make more money. And sales acceleration is not just about reducing costs; it’s about helping salespeople grow the top line by sending the right message at the right time to the best prospects.

Here’s a snapshot of the sales acceleration ecosystem, organized by deal stage. A small portion of the market measured by analysts — tools for phone, email, and meetings — is worth billions of dollars. The entire sales acceleration category is surely even bigger.

Last year, companies paid out more than $650 billion in sales commissions. Every sales person is fighting for a bigger slice of that $650 billion, but the total pie only grows as fast as the global economy. Relying on global economic growth is not a winning strategy for salespeople who want more commision. Instead, they are turning to sales acceleration tools to help win their fair share.

Kardon is right to say that marketing innovation is growing, but he’s wrong to imply that the importance of sales or the need for new sales tools is shrinking. Marketing and sales each have their own set of problems being addressed by technology, and both will continue to play an important part in driving revenue.

The question is not whether marketing or sales is innovating faster, but whether they’re innovating in tandem. With our technology and our people pulling in the same direction, we can lift our companies to new heights together.

Matthew Bellows is the CEO of Yesware. He is responsible for sales, product vision and strategic direction of the company. As a founder of the company, Matthew brings more than 10 years of extensive sales experience to the company’s goal of helping salespeople close more deals faster.

As a business owner, you don’t know as much as you need to in order to market your business successfully, that’s why you hired a Marketing Director. But sadly, even in-house Marketing Directors may not be the best move – some of them are stuck in their ways or not aware of current developments.

So how do you know if your Marketing Director is pulling their weight? New development in data analytics can help you spot the marketing heroes and the marketing villains. Here we give you the top 18 signs that your Marketing Director isn’t helping you achieve your business growth goals, and should therefore, get the shove.

1. They don’t know your business growth goals
2. They don’t link marketing activities to revenue targets
3. They are doing ad-hoc marketing instead of building a plan that outlines your objectives, buyers and tactics
4. They are doing what YOU ask them to do, not what is right for your target audience
5. They don’t talk to your customers or know what your customers are troubled about
6. They choose tactics arbitrarily and don’t know which tactics can generate the best results for your business
7. They aren’t pushing you calculate marketing ROI in the business
8. They don’t know the average lifetime value of a customer
9. The don’t know the average cost of acquisition of a customer
10. They don’t challenge you or make suggestions for product development
11. They aren’t best friends with your sales guy: they should be picking the sales guys brains for vital information and providing them with high quality leads
12. They aren’t able to prove that marketing efforts are contributing to sales
13. They aren’t obsessed with the numbers
14. They aren’t concerned with increasing customer retention
15. Their content is company or product-centric not buyer-centric
16. Their blog posts that have no defined persona or problem to solve
17. They aren’t sitting next to you at the board room table
18. You aren’t terrified of losing them

The role of the marketer has changed. Although a lot of marketers are frustrated because they aren’t valued as much as they should be, there is a point to be made about this being their fault: you earn your place at that boardroom table, and with the right data this is easier than ever before. Click through rates and brand awareness are meaningless to a business owner, and I don’t know a business owner who isn’t enthralled by someone who can genuinely prove they are making their business money.

Now there is a clause here. Let’s give these poor marketers a little break, as this is only possible with the right software. So if your marketers don’t have the software to measure this, you need to fix this first and foremost. Enable them with the right analytics tool and they have no excuses. Of course, this will work only if you already have a skilled Marketing Director who has the right foundations of B2B marketing including the buyer’s journey.

To read more about measuring marketing ROI, download our free ebook below:

In a previous blog post (On the Road to Marketing Accountability: Five KPIs You Should Start Tracking Today), we discussed how to evaluate marketing performance from a macro perspective. In this post we will look at evaluating marketing performance from a micro perspective – specifically, at the lead level.

There are three key variables that ideally should be associated with every new lead:

1. Lead Source
2. Marketing Channel
3. Marketing Campaign

Each of these variables serves a unique purpose, as described below.

Lead Source

The “Lead Source” variable identifies, at a high level, where a lead was originated. The goal of tracking lead sources is to evaluate marketing activities strategically for their effectiveness in producing leads. These calculations are very valuable for periodic (especially annual) marketing planning purposes. Some common lead sources are noted below; you may have others:

Website Conferences Business Information Providers
Virtual Events Partners Social Webinars Referrals White Papers Sales Prospecting

Because lead sources are used for long-term planning, you should track the same ones consistently over a period of time. At the same time, you should be in tune with the evolving marketing landscape so you can add (or delete) lead sources when a reporting period ends. We recommend performing an audit and refinement of Lead Sources on an annual basis so that reporting is consistent for the year. Make sure that the list of lead sources is as small and distinct as possible. The more clearly defined and distinctive a lead source is, the more observable and actionable it will be.

Marketing Channel

The “Marketing Channel” variable identifies the distribution channel through which the company’s message reaches the target and results in a new lead. Tracking this variable enables us to connect the dots between acquiring a lead with the marketing dollars (and effort) spent in each channel. Thus, identification of each Marketing Channel’s production allows calculation of ROI by Marketing Channel, which in turn enables optimization of marketing dollars spent. Here’s a sample of potential key marketing channels:

Google Paid Search 3rd-Party Webinar Email (to Lists) 3rd-Party Email Facebook – Paid Conference Twitter – Organic Website

There will likely be some overlap between Lead Sources and Marketing Channels. We recommend that Marketing Channels be specific (for example, “Twitter-organic” rather than generic “Social Media”) so that ROI calculations are more actionable down the line.

In practice, attaching Marketing Channel attribution to a lead is harder than attaching Lead Source attribution. That said, some marketing channels are more easily identifiable than others. The recommended approach is to start the practice of attaching a Marketing Channel designation to new leads as much as possible, and then expand the attachment rate over time. Once successful, identifying Marketing Channels to leads could be a major leap towards marketing accountability in your organization.

Marketing Campaign

This attribution identifies the origination of a lead at a tactical level. Your list of Marketing Campaigns increases over time; for clarity, we recommend that the marketing campaign name contain the date when the campaign was sent.

2014-01-01: January Survey 2014-03-01: XYZ Onsite Event 2014-06-19: Email -SEO Basics and Beyond 2013-11-06: B2B Virtual Event 2013-11-01: Demo 2014-02-19: XYZ E-zine: Best Practices for SEO

Analyzing Marketing Campaign data allows you to evaluate the performance of individual campaigns (both number of leads generated and, eventually, lead-to-sale conversion) and fine-tune them for optimum performance at a tactical level.

A Last Thought

Making sure that Lead Source, Marketing Channel, and Marketing Campaign attributions are attached to each new lead may be the most difficult part of implementing a marketing accountability framework. Some marketers add fields to the CRM database. However you accomplish it, once this attribution is implemented, it opens an array of possibilities for improving marketing performance. How you can leverage this data will be the topic for my next blog post.

Have questions? Let me know if there’s an aspect of marketing accountability that you’d like to see in my next post.

In an age that celebrates storytelling and imagery, the use of videos to promote brand awareness has skyrocketed. B2B branding and sales-related videos–whether they appear on a Facebook page, YouTube channel or on short-format platforms like Vine or Instagram–are quickly becoming the content-marketing tool of choice among top brand marketers.

Businesses also post branding videos on their websites, including on:

• Landing pages
• Product detail pages
• Virtually everywhere on the site as a sidebar feature

Videos can be circulated via email, newsletter and virtually every way you communicate with current and prospective customers.

So if you haven’t yet told your story on video, now’s a good time to start. Here are tips to get you going:

Know your objectives. Broadly speaking, there are two main types of business-branding videos to consider–conversion videos and brand-building videos. A conversion video is chiefly designed to generate leads and drive sales. A branding video seeks to position your brand within the larger industry or demonstrate to viewers how use of your product or service will benefit them. Knowing your ultimate branding or marketing objectives in advance (rather than determining them afterward) can save you considerable time and money.

Tailor the video to your preferred audience. Because the tone and subject-matter of videos can vary widely, it’s important to understand how your audience will likely respond. Some target customers enjoy a tongue-in-cheek approach, but the same approach can alienate viewers in another market. No single type of video will appeal to everyone, so don’t even try.

You also need to gauge the level of knowledge and sophistication among your intended viewers. Senior decision-makers, industry experts and influencers will respond more favorably to an in-depth approach, while those new to your business will get lost if the subject-matter is too dry and detailed. Consider the proper tone for the video (corporate, humorous, traditional, informal, etc.) during the planning process.

Decide on the right type of video. Assessing the desired audience response can help guide you toward the type of video you want to make. There are dozens of potential video format choices, such as:

• On location or at an event
• Two or more talking heads
• Product demonstration or “how-to” format
• A look behind the scenes of your business
• Customer testimonials

The recent social media boom has caused business marketers to realize the vital importance of expanding their marketing campaigns to include a strong social media presence. The goal of this article is to help give you a social media marketing snapshot – a look at which social platforms you should use for your business and data on why.

Because 8 out of 10 internet users can be reached via social media networks and blogs, it’s no surprise that businesses across the globe have strategically adapted their use of this essential tool to help them meet their marketing goals.

Predictions are that social marketing budgets will double over the next 5 years. Also, statistics indicate that 87% of business owners confidently affirm that social media does indeed help their business. As marketer’s creative use of social media networks continues to expand, it’s time for all of us to get on board!

Popular Social Platforms that Smart Marketers Use

As an internet marketing company, we have an interior view of the most beneficial social platforms you should get your business placed in. Here are the platforms that we have seen garner the most leads, conversions, and increase to brand awareness.

Facebook

According to statistics, 93% of adult internet users are on Facebook. Evidence of Facebook’s relevance to inbound marketing campaigns is abounding. Hubspot reports that “74% of all marketers say Facebook is important to their lead generation strategies.”

Begin your Facebook presence by creating a business page. This allows people to “like” your page as well as other items and updates that you post. When building your social media presence, pay attention to the layout of your page. The visual components of your page need to be visually appealing. Create a presence that people will want to “like.”

Facebook tends to be a friendly online environment where people go to hang out and chat. This casual atmosphere lends itself toward a light and friendly approach to your social media content.

Tips for Facebook:

• Keep posts and updates casual and friendly.
• Uploading photo’s is the most popular activity on Facebook. Therefore, it’s recommended that your business implement this popular trend as an element of your marketing strategy. Uploading photos to Facebook is one of the best ways to keep your friends interested in and aware of your business.
• The best times to post on Facebook are weekdays between 6-8am and 2-5pm.

Google+

Google + has arisen as the new Facebook competitor and now has over 300 million monthly active users, making it a prime avenue for business marketing. As its popularity continues to grow, its important to establish yourself as a prominent player within this network. Functioning within the same “casual” atmosphere as Facebook, Google + appeals to users who are out to just relax and have fun, but also to the professional environment as well.

Tips for Google+:

• Take advantage of Google+’s useful “circles” feature. This allows you to put your friends into “circles,” giving you more control over your social media presence because you’re able to share certain updates with some circles and not others.
• Post more specifically to appeal to their respective interests and personas.
• The best time to post on Google+ are between the hours of 9am-11am.

To find out more about using Google Plus, check out this article here.

LinkedIn

It would be a mistake to underestimate the power of LinkedIn. LinkedIn is now responsible for 64% of all visits to corporate websites via social media networks.

LinkedIn is the most popular social media network for older, more professional users. Not nearly as “fun and casual” as Facebook and Google+, this network is used by those serious about business topics, industry information, and idea sharing. Therefore, it’s not surprising that LinkedIn generates more leads for the Business-To-Business community than Facebook does.

Definitely one of the most mature networks on the web, having a LinkedIn presence will plug your business into a quite different (and very useful) demographic of users.

Tips for LinkedIn:

• Customize your LinkedIn profile URL.

• Link to your LinkedIn profile from your company website. This opens the conduit so that your website visitors can view your LinkedIn page.

• Include keywords in your page content. When designing your page’s content, make sure to include your keywords (the search terms you’re targeting) in your descriptions and summaries.

• Add, remove, or rearrange segments of the page. You want your page to be a nicely arranged presentation of your business with the most important information near the top of the page.

• The best times to post on LinkedIn are between the hours of 7-8:30am and 5-6:00pm.

Twitter

This microblogging site has had one of the biggest user increases ever—900% within the past year alone. This network is designed for quick ‘short-distance’ communication between followers. It can also be an invaluable tool for the savvy online marketer, if you follow the correct procedures.

Tips for Twitter:

• Complete your profile: Take the time to fill in all the fields (optional included) and personalize your profile with your company’s branding. You don’t halfway fill out tax forms or partially complete websites, do you? Consider Twitter an extension of your company, and fill in that profile.

• Salesforce has found that tweets including one or two hashtags receive 21% higher engagement than those with three or more hashtags.

• Increase your contact base. Start with those you know. Twitter allows you to import contacts from Gmail, Hotmail and whatever online address book you may have. Do so.

• Find followers in directories or by adding good follower bases that you see actively participating in topics you’re interested in. A lot of them will follow you back.

• Follow back people that have started following you (unless they are spammy profiles).

• Only tweet things you’d be interested in. Twitter isn’t an ad column, so don’t bore your followers with constant sales pitches. Use discretion in your tweets and don’t tweet unto others, what you wouldn’t tweet unto yourself.

Twitter users are most active over the weekends, and research shows that tweeters are most engaged between 1-3pm or over the weekends.

Pinterest

Despite many businesses thinking that Pinterest is fad photo platform with little ability to impact their business, Pinterest is actually one of the greater resources for generating leads of the social platforms available. While it might not be the ideal platform for every marketer in every industry, it does offer a huge opportunity.

Pinterest has over 70 million users, and it continues to grow, especially internationally. In addition, Pinterest users spend the most money out of users on the various popular social networks—nearly double the amount of money spent by Facebook users and triple the amount spent by Twitter users. So, delve in; there are plenty of potential leads and customers waiting to spend their money on you.

Tips for Pinning:

• Using your keywords is vital in each of your pins

• Always include a link when pinning

• Fully fill out your Pinterest profile. Too little information makes you seem like a spammer.

• Try to keep your pin word count to 100-200 and use a shortened URL.

• The best times to pin are between 2-4pm and 8-11pm on weekdays and on Saturday mornings

Use Google Analytics tools to monitor the type of traffic you’re garnering from Pinterest and modify your marketing accordingly.

Instagram

Instagram is another enormous social media platform with over 130 million active users each month and at least 75 million daily users. Instagram is designed to be a down-to-earth network where businesses and white-collars can ‘loosen their ties’. Show consumers your personal side by adding humorous or interesting videos and images to your profile.

Instagram is best used to enhance the human value of your brand and create better brand awareness. Let’s take Michael Kors, the well-known fashion designer, as an example.

In November of 2013, Michael Kors posted the first Instagram ad, featuring a luxury watch nestled amidst a table of brightly colored macaroons. After analyzing the key metrics, Kors’ team assessed that this one ad had generated 33,000 new followers for Michael Kors. It’s speculated that the ad was seen by 6.7 million people.

That’s big brand awareness.

Tips for Instagram:

• Instagram utilizes both the @ symbol and the # (hashtag), so direct your posts at your friends and hashtag to your heart’s content. Keep in mind, the best results are posts with 1-2 hashtags, so don’t get carried away.

• Use images and videos that are a good representation of your company’s voice. Don’t get carried away with being too artsy or involved—keep your voice your own.

• Share the action: take behind-the-scenes images with your fans

• Know what your fan base is looking for. A group of white collar executives may or may not respond to a photo of a chainsaw. Post with your buyer persona in mind.

• Don’t worry that your photo’s and videos aren’t professional grade (unless they are) because the nature of Instagram is laid back—people aren’t expecting perfection, but real life connection.

• The best times to post on Instagram are between 3-5pm on weekdays and weekends.

At the End of a Day of Social Media Networking…

According to recent statistics, social media marketing generates almost double the amount of leads as do trade shows, direct mail, telemarketing, and PPC. Don’t miss out on this fantastic marketing avenue. Bolster your comprehensive marketing campaign by adequately emphasizing the importance of social media marketing and adjusting your budget accordingly. Based on these statistics, you won’t be disappointed!

Words matter.

Words inspire.

Words are influence.

One of my greatest inspirations in copywriting has always been Rudyard Kipling because he understood the true power words possess.

This little gem, “Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind,” is one of his better-known quotes on the subject and you can see why.

It’s also no surprise to me that marketers continue to discover new opportunities to increase conversion through their testing of copy.

In today’s B2B Lead Roundtable Blog post, we’ll take a look at how a one small tweak to the copy on a lead generation page increased conversion and what we can learn from the results.

But, before we dive in, here are the research notes to add a little context around the testing.

Background: Sophos, a provider of IT security solutions for businesses.

Objective: To increase leads from quote requests.

Primary Research Question: Which form messaging will result in the most leads?

Approach: A/B split test

Side-by-side of control and treatment

In the treatment, the team at Sophos changed “request a quote” to “for a no obligation quote” to the sub-headline.

Results

The result was a 44% increase in quote form submissions.

One explanation for the increase was the prospects’ fear of commitment. By adding language into the sub-headline that emphasized no obligation, some of the anxiety prospects were experiencing was mitigated.

When’s the last time you requested an obligation from Sales?

I like the results of this test because they speak clearly about lead capture from a prospect’s perspective.

They want information.

They want value.

They want this with as little commitment as possible.

Consequently, every word you choose to deliver that value is vital in moving the dial from conversation to conversion.

To learn more about some of the other small changes the team at Sophos shared at MarketingSherpa MarketingExperiments Optimization Summit 2013, checkout the free on-demand replay of “How a Long-term Optimization Strategy Led to a 6,031% Increase in Leads” to aid your lead generation efforts.

You may also like

B2B Lead Gen: A/B split test helps increase quote requests 262% [More from the blogs]

Lead Generation: Does your teleprospecting deliver value to prospects? [More from the blogs]

Email Marketing: Do you test your legacy marketing? [More from the blogs]

Facebook has been around for a while, and it’s still the most popular social network in the world. Yet when many companies decide to get social with Facebook, they don’t know how to properly leverage the network as a business tool.

See what these 11 experts are saying about Facebook marketing, and learn how you can use the social network to strengthen your brand and grow your business.

1) Stimulate Action

“Don’t be afraid to ask users to share objects or click on the Like button—especially if you’re new to Facebook. It can take a little while for a Facebook page to gain momentum. Anything you can do to help it along will only speed the process.”

- Jim Lodico, CEO of JAL Communication

Encourage customers to take action with your posts. The “call to action” is a simple concept that’s easy to implement, but so many small businesses forget about it. There are billions of posts telling customers to do this and to do that. If you’re not encouraging customers to take action with your posts, they’re going to start interacting with other posts.

Action Steps:

- Don’t always limit your word count—being concise is important, but a simple “take our survey” doesn’t always cut it.
- Introduce your post with a question and create a call to action that provides a solution to that question (ex: Tired of not getting enough traffic on Facebook? . . . Click here to read the top ten Facebook marketing tips.).
- Test your CTAs to see which are working best.

2) Share The Spotlight

“As a rough rule of thumb, post four status updates on items about outside news items or discoveries for every post promoting a product. And when you do mention a product or service, try to do so in a helpful way.”

- JD Lasica of Socialmedia.biz

We often see Facebook being used by businesses as an advertising platform, not a way to engage. To attract customers and generate sales, you first have to show customers that you aren’t just interested in selling them something. You have to build that trust. Otherwise, they won’t listen to you.

Action Steps:

- Highlight your vendors’ successes and talk about good customers.
- Stick with JD’s rule of thumb above (4:1 status to promo ratio).
- Focus on providing value and the leads/sales will come naturally. Don’t force it.

3) Involve Customers In Product Decisions

“It’s always great to have a big response when rolling out a new product. Whether that product is an information product or a physical product, involve your fans in designing an element of it.”

- PJ Jonas of goatmilkstuff.com

Involving customers in the design of a new product is a great way to generate conversation so you can hit the ground running. Most customers want their opinions to be heard, so give them a voice in a way that helps your business.

I can’t think of a better way to build brand loyalty. You can bet that after the product has been launched, if a customer had a hand in designing it, he or she will already have an emotional attachment.

Action Steps:

- If you’re in need of new ideas and want customers to openly contribute their thoughts, hold an open-ended contest. Best design/color/name/whatever wins.
- For a more controlled situation, create a poll asking customers to vote on their favorite design/color/name/whatever.
- Don’t promise what you can’t deliver—if you leave it up to the customers, you have to actually leave it up to them.

4) Stay Personally Involved

“Facebook is a friendly network where people connect with people. If you’re not using Facebook for your personal profile, you’ll never really understand user motivations.”

- John Haydon, co-author of Facebook Marketing for Dummies

I think John really hit it on the head. How can you expect to be successful on social media as a business if you don’t understand what the experience is like as a user?

This is why many businesses turn the social media duties over to the interns (which we don’t recommend) because they use it more frequently and understand how it works better than their managers.

Action Steps:

- Become an active user on your personal Facebook account.
- Like competitors’ pages to see how they’re engaging with customers.
- Be conscious of your own decisions and actions online to better understand how users navigate Facebook.

5) Address Negativity

“Should there be a negative comment, which scares many B2B companies, address it with understanding and sincerity. In most cases, transparency and listening go a long way in stemming off negative feedback.”

- Dave Folkens, Toprankblog

You can’t hide from negativity. No business can.

Instead of ignoring potentially damaging comments, address them. Reach out to unsatisfied customers to see how you can help make their experience more positive, and if the time ever comes, suck up your pride and admit that you were wrong/insensitive/unproductive . . . you insert the adjective.

Just like Dave says, listening does go a long way in building relationships with customers.

Action Steps:

- Develop a posting policy (see an example here).
- Be selective with the posts you block and delete—people still need to be heard.
- Flag keywords to stay on top of what people are saying (look under the Manage Permissions tab to input keywords).

6) Use Videos For Better Engagement

“My hottest tip is for those who sell products or services on their websites and have Like buttons attached to them: share videos, not just still images!”

– Emeric Emoult, founder of AgoraPlus

Emeric makes a really good point. Every time someone likes a product on your website, a link with a story pops up on his or her newsfeed. Imagine how much more effective and attention-grabbing that link would be if it displayed a video that demonstrated the product or highlighted a user testimonial.

Action Steps:

- Become familiar with Facebook Open Graph to be able to manipulate meta tags and share engaging videos.
- Get creative with video. Find that balance between informing and entertaining to make the posts shareable.

7) Stay Consistent

“Nothing makes for a bad Facebook Group or Page than stagnant content. Like a corporate blog or dynamic website, you need to engage people regularly. Even if it’s just posting a new message board topic each week, do something on a regular basis (the more frequent the better) to elicit a response from folks.”

- Jason Falls, founder of Social Media Explorer

Especially when you’re just starting to develop a brand presence on Facebook, it can be difficult to keep putting in the effort to share content and stay active when no one is really paying attention. Even when momentum starts to build, it takes effort to keep things going in the right direction.

Action Steps:

- Curate content/quotes/videos ahead of time so you never run out of content to post.
- Make Facebook part of your daily routine so posting becomes an every day habit.
- Pay attention to your audience. How are they responding to the frequency of your posts? Do they want more? Less?

8) Social Media Overtime

“You have a fan page for your business, so it stands to reason you’ll want to publish your posts during business hours, right? That’s partially true. However, you may be missing out on reaching a huge portion of your fans by not posting outside business hours!”

- Mari Smith, author of The New Relationship Marketing, co-author of Facebook Marketing: An Hour a Day (second edition), and blogger.

A little bit of social media overtime may seem like a pain —no one wants to think about business when they’re at home—but if it helps you reach more customers, it will be worth it. For many companies, customers are much more responsive when they are at home, not when they’re at work.

Action Steps:

- Experiment with off-hour posts and track them to see how users respond.
- Analyse who is responding. A specific segment of customers might be better reached during off-hours, while a different segment may be more responsive during the day.
- Try these types of posts more than once to get a larger sample to work with.

9) Motivate With Incentives

“If you want to get people to Like your Facebook page, and become more familiar with your products and services, a strong incentive can help achieve this.”

- Graham Charlton, Econsultancy

I don’t see anything wrong with rewarding customers for interacting with you. I think contests are a great way to create conversation and to get people excited about your brand. Giving back a little bit goes a long way.

Action Steps:

- Choose motivational incentives that appeal to your target audience (consider even asking them in a poll).
- Create a sweepstakes that enters followers into a drawing when they like or share a certain post.
- Give deeper discounts or coupons for users that refer likes.

10) Take Advantage Of Scheduling

“Aside from not having to log in to post something at a specific time, you can save time by mapping out your communications plan and scheduling multiple messages in advance.”

- Ben Pickering, Strutta

Besides making social media overtime a little easier, having a set posting schedule will help you stay organised and focused on your goals. It forces you to have a plan and to step back and look at the big picture once in a while. Do the next few posts portray the same brand image that the last few did? Do we need to switch things up?

Action Steps:

- To schedule a post, write up a normal post and then click on the small “clock” icon in the far left corner. Then you can change the date and time the post will publish.
- To view and edit your scheduled posts, you can view your activity log in the admin page (go to “Edit Page” > “Use Activity Log”).

11) Always Analyse

“Monitor which posts attract the most Likes and comments (eyeball), and use Insights – Facebook’s own analytics tool – for data. (Integrating your Facebook Page provides much better data).”

- Linda Bustos, Get Elastic

I can’t stress enough how important it is to look at your social metrics. Facebook analytics is useful, but there is even more robust software that can get you better data. You have to track your progress to know if you’re even making any.

Action Steps:

- Monitor your Tab Views to see which tabs users are viewing most often. Use the data to see if you need to add/edit content in more popular tabs.
- Post Feedback will help you analyse how people are interacting with your posts. Take note of your most liked/shared posts and see if you can replicate success.
- Keep an eye on these other Facebook metrics: Monthly Active Users, Page Views, External referrers.

Final Thoughts

The best part about these tips?

Most of them are simple enough that they can be done today. You don’t have to wait one or two months to try them out. If you want, you can start experimenting this afternoon, and I would encourage it.

Why wait to start growing your brand on Facebook? Take advice from these 11 experts and start doing Facebook marketing the right way.

Which of these tips did you find to be the most useful?

Share your thoughts in the comments!

Image: Flickr
Image 2: Flickr
Image 3: Overtime

Online lead generation is now the number 1 tool for B2B marketers. We show you what strategies to employ to improve your website lead generation.

What is strategic lead generation?

Ultimately, it’s the process by which marketers collate the contact details of prospective new customers and assesses their potential to become sales targets.

In marketing speak: it’s the process by which Marketing Qualified Leads – or MQLs – are generated and funnelled down the pipeline to become Sales Qualified Leads – or SQLs – and, ultimately, customers.

Firstly, you need to ensure that your sales department’s time is not wasted chasing prospects who aren’t red hot sales leads – not every interested party – or MQL – who has visited your website and left their contact details, will ultimately qualify to become an SQL.

With quality lead generation now the number one priority for B2B marketers, and websites cited as a B2B marketer’s most effective online lead generation tool, how can you ensure your website lead generation system is working hard to produce quality leads? And how can you then assess their SQL potential?

Using your website to generate Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs)

1. Create topical content that resonates, educates and entertains.

Publishing quality online resources is a proven online lead generation tactic. 62% of respondents in a recent benchmark study reported that content marketing had led to an increase in the quality and quantity of leads in their pipeline, including things like:

• White papers

• How to guides

• Free trials

• Survey results

• Reports

• Video content

• Product reviews

2. Create bold, highly visible calls to action

Whether you’re promoting online resources, a blog, or social media pages, ensure your CTAs stand out. CTAs must compel customers to act, and develop a more intimate relationship with your brand.

Did you know: 67% of a buyer’s journey is now done digitally.

3. Create simple landing pages for each piece of content

A landing page allows leads to submit brief contact details before completing a download. This will enter them into your MQL database and will ensure you are not giving away something for nothing.

4. Search engine optimise

A well-executed SEO strategy ensures maximum organic traffic to your site. Research has shown that organic SEO leads have a successful close rate (14.6%) which is more than eight times higher than that of outbound sourced leads (1.7%).

5. Create a manageable pipeline for nurturing MQLs

The only thing worse than generating no leads, is generating leads which you fail to follow up on. This process is vital for assessing your MQL’s future potential as a customer.

6. Actively encourage your MQLs to get in touch

Ensure your website contains highly visible and inviting contact information, sign-up forms and social media links. Remember, the aim here is to capture and retain your audience.

Your website can only do so much work. Now it’s up to you to assess which of your MQLs are genuine sales prospects…

Lead scoring

To evaluate sales potential, your marketing and sales teams need to devise a lead scoring system. This assigns a numeric value to each MQL, based on a number of criteria which could include: job title, number of website visits, level of product interest, industry sector and so on.

Only high-scoring leads will progress down the pipeline as an SQL. This process helps to whittle out poor quality leads, but more importantly is designed to improve the efficiency and productivity of your sales department by feeding them fewer, higher quality leads.

In summary, your strategic lead generation website should:

• Be a source for easily-accessible, quality content that captures leads to your database.

• Generate valuable organic leads for your sales pipeline.

• Be the basis for a simple lead scoring system to progress prospects down your pipeline towards a final sale.

Once they’re on the hook, discover how to pull your prospects down the funnel. Get your free eGuide now: 5 ways to nurture leads:

We’ve proven time and again that email marketing isn’t dead. If you’re not getting the results you hoped for with your email campaigns, you might want to consider the anatomy of those emails. Where in that message do you lose your readers? Believe it or not, they might just slide your email to the trash bin when they reach your closing.

While the body of an email may contain the most important information being sent, you can’t fail to give your sign off the personalized attention it needs. Although signing off your email with a quick “Thanks” is perfectly fine when sending a personal email, it just won’t fly in a professional work environment.

Take a look at some of the best ways to sign off on your emails to ensure they make the statement your missive is hoping to convey in its entirety.

Do not abbreviate

Nothing says “I don’t care enough about this email” more than abbreviating your sign off. Instead of “RGDS”, just take the extra second to add the remaining three letters. Don’t end your memo with “THX”, as it just isn’t professional. These aren’t text messages you are sending. Even if the body of your email isn’t serious, it is still a work-related communication.

Leave the quotes for your Facebook page

We have all heard one quote or another that touches us deeply and has significant meaning to us. However, the closing of a marketing email is not the place for it. Even a short and simple quote about life, or even work, can take away from the point at hand.

Include important contact information

Although the people you are sending your message to will obviously have your email address, they may also need additional contact information for future use. By adding this information to your email signature, you are able to let people know what your position is within the company. Whether you are sending something to a fellow employee or a client, they will know your level of authority, or lack thereof.

Match your closing to the theme of your message

When choosing the personalized closing phrase for your email, you want to make sure it matches the tone of the message. For example, if you’re attempting to communicate a stern warning about job performance or attendance, you wouldn’t want to end the email with a sunny “Warmest regards!” or “Have a great day!” There are more appropriate closings for those types of notes. Just by leaving off the “Warmest,” “Regards” becomes a very professional and neutral sign-off for such a serious message.

On the other hand, if you are sending out a mass email congratulating a fellow employee on a promotion or upcoming baby or wedding, the closing can be more upbeat. If a promotion is the subject, an ending like “Wishing you great success!” is a fantastic option.

Minimize the company logo

This doesn’t mean to leave it out completely. Your place of business may require that you have your company name or logo included in your signature. However, you don’t want it to overpower your email. If the logo included in your sign-off is large and full of bright colors, it could cause the eye of the reader to wander away from the body of text. Make it as small as is allowed, and leave the focus to the message.

The methods of communication are forever changing, so we have to keep up with the times. In most cases, a basic knowledge of professional etiquette will be enough to guide you in the right direction. Don’t be afraid to get creative; just be professional and keep it short and sweet.

While the sign-off of your email may not be the most important part, it certainly can make an impact. Whether that impact is positive or negative is completely up to you.

freedigitalphotos.net/nokhoog_buchachon

In the mid-to-late ‘90’s, as the first roots of the Internet began to take hold, Don Tapscott coined the phrase The Digital Economy. Tapscott’s landmark book is entitled The Digital Economy: Promise And Peril In The Age Of Networked Intelligence. At the time, it was filled with tremendous foresight. Much of the perspectives Tapscott offered have come to fruition.

Global Phenomenon

The digital economy has become a global phenomenon. Intertwined now on many fronts be they economics, political, finance, consumerism, technologies, globalization, and societal. The digitization and the Internet of everything no longer a far fetch idea but a reality we are experiencing more and more with each passing year. In the past fifteen years, we have seen radical changes to how we view our everyday lives as well as how we view concepts in business.

Digital technologies have made it possible to introduce new forms of business services and operational capabilities. Allowing all types and sizes of businesses to become global and interconnected. Notably changing how we work, communicate, and conduct business.

B2B Is Still B2B – Even More So

One outcome of the digital economy evolution is the widespread globalization of business-to-business transactions. During the past two years, I have conducted a significant number of qualitative buyer interviews with mid-size organizations. What has drastically changed is how globalization is no longer the domain of the large enterprise. The ability to interact, locate, and transact in different countries are no longer subject to the rigid barriers of just a decade ago.

The digitization of business-to-business transactions has led to more partnering and new business models within B2B. From eCommerce to SaaS, the ability of businesses to interact and engage in new ways continues to evolve rapidly. In essence, what you have is more B2B taking place, not less. This is an important development to understand by B2B marketing and sales leaders. It is easy to get lost in the hype of B2B not being B2B anymore but B2P, B2I, or B2W (Whatever).

There is most definitely something more profound happening.

Internetworked

One of the most significant developments changing the face of buyers today is the internetworking of businesses and the people within businesses. A concept Tapscott introduced over a decade ago. In order to evolve in an increasingly global digital economy, businesses will need to interact and be digitally connected to their foreign entities, customers, suppliers, partners, and even competitors.

Internetworking, enabled by digital technologies and new mobility, has altered how people work. Having a direct impact on how businesses and people make buying decisions. Here are a few ways we can characterize the new face of buyers:

More open and connected collaboration. Businesses and people are engaged in more open collaborative efforts on important issues and decisions affecting organizations. Using digital technologies to bring as many parties to the table as possible. Introducing new requirements for engagement.

New rules for decision-making. As businesses become more internetworked and integrated, it is changing the rules of decision-making – including those related to purchases. Decisions are rarely made in a vacuum in the new internetworked world. How purchase decisions are being made and the reasons for purchases are radically changing. Trying to force-fit understanding of buyers into old buying process paradigms will create a mismatch between supplier and buyer.

Production by intent. Internetworking between suppliers and buyers today means buyers are actively involved in the design and production of manufactured products or services they need. Using digital technologies to communicate design specifications, adjustments, modifications, and approvals to the final outputs they need.

Information immediacy expectations. While it is easy to get caught up in the noise of content marketing, it is important to understand its role in the digital economy. The new face of buyers relies on knowledge and the immediacy of information. When thinking of how to be effective with content in the digital economy, B2B organizations and B2B marketing will need to have conscious thinking about the immediacy factor.

Empowered high performance teams. Internetworked businesses, with the use of new evolving digital technologies, are undergoing organizational metamorphosis. We are seeing more high performance teams with highly effective individuals come together on projects as core units of essential operational or customer-facing functions. For example, I wrote recently on the rise of user influence on purchase decisions. Expect to see more organizations create smaller high performance teams to tackle tough projects – empowered with their own decision-making capacity.

Impact On Understanding Buyers In The Digital Economy

As businesses look to survive, stay ahead, or progress, the ability to understand the new face of buyers will be critical. Where companies can falter in doing so is in using a 20^th century framework in a 21^st century digital world. For instance, when establishing the concepts of buyer insights research and buyer personas, they were heavily influenced by trends reshaping the business world.

What is troubling today is I continue to see many continued misinterpretations of these concepts to force-fit or meet old business model concepts. Making use of old sales and product marketing facts-based attributes to describe buyers – as if the 20^th century still exists.

To understand the new face of buyers in the digital economy, businesses will need to understand buyers in new ways and new contexts. Gaining deep insights into the new forces of internetworked businesses operating in a fast evolving digital economy.

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Hubspot is the number one deployed marketing automation system on the planet. However, Marketo has top market share for companies with websites in the Alexa top 100,000 — and the top 10,000, and the top 1,000.

But wait.

If you just look at Alexa top 1,000 sites, Hubspot is actually in seventh place behind Oracle’s Eloqua, Salesforce’s Pardot, DemandBase, Leadlander (a marketing automation system I’ve never even heard of), and yes, first-place Marketo.

This new information is from Datanyze, a company I’ve called the Google of sales and marketing for software-as-a-service technologies. Datanyze continually scans over 11 million of the world’s most-trafficked websites, looking for the little Javascript embeds and web tags that indicate the presence of an integrated SaaS technology — in this case a marketing automation system.

“We added a ‘Datanyze Universe’ option to our free Market Share data so that you can see the market share for companies for all of the websites we track,” Datanyze marketing head Jon Hearty told me via email.

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We’re studying marketing automation buyers with marketing expert Dan Freeman.
Answer our survey, and we’ll share the data with you.

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The product’s not perfect yet. I noticed a few companies in the mix, such as VisualRevenue, that are misclassified as marketing automation solutions. But there’s real value here in being able to examine configurable slices of the market: 11 million global sites, or just the Alexa top 100.

What it essentially does, beyond showing market penetration, is reveal company strategy and product focus.

Clearly, a company whose products are mostly adopted by large enterprises will have fewer overall installs just because there are fewer large companies than small.

Hence Marketo’s lead when you look at the top 100,000 sites on the Internet … since the largest sites tend to come from larger companies. And a company whose products are mostly adopted by smaller companies is more likely to have a larger number of installs.

That all correlates with what we know from VB’s 1,000-person marketing automation survey: seven to ten percent of Hubspot’s clients have annual revenue over $500 million, while the vast majority are under $25 million. And 25 percent or more of Eloqua’s clients have annual revenue of $500 million or more.

There are other interesting little quirks in the data.

For instance, Performable, a marketing automation system that Hubspot bought three years ago, still has active tags out there in customers’ sites. And that platforms which don’t get a lot of press, like Salesmanago out of Poland and LeadLander, whose website looks like 2004 wants to live on, are much more active than typically given credit for.

Leadlander not only beats out Hubspot for Alexa top 1,000 websites; it sits eighth among marketing automation solutions in the top 100,000 sites.

The new data is freely available from Datanyze.

API-level access to all of the company’s information costs $1,200/month for the first seat, but the company had announced plans for a freemium product earlier this year. It looks like this access to the “Datanyze Universe” is the beginning of that strategy.

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Silicon Valley prides itself on being a place where failure is okay and diversity is celebrated.

But the tech community proved itself remarkably intolerant this week when it forced the resignation of Mozilla chief executive Brendan Eich.

Eich gave $1,000 to the California Proposition 8 campaign in 2008, a proposition that attempted to redefine marriage as being valid only if it was between a man and a woman. Prop. 8 passed, in large part thanks to vigorous support from the Mormon church and other religious groups, but was later found unconstitutional by a federal court, a decision which was ultimately upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Now, to be clear: I found Prop. 8 repellent and hurtful, as it was an attempt to take away rights that had already been granted by the courts. I believe people should have the right to marry, without regard to gender, and I think Prop. 8′s supporters are on the wrong side of history. But that is my opinion — just as Eich’s opinion, no doubt informed by his faith, was that Prop. 8 was worth supporting.

Nevertheless, those of us who hold strong personal opinions are often able to bracket them in the public sphere. That is part of the definition of being a professional. Eich was a terrific example of that.

After being named the CEO of Mozilla, Eich came under fire from Mozilla employees and others who felt that his past support of an anti-marriage initiative was incompatible with Mozilla’s institutional values of inclusiveness and diversity.

But at no point did anyone suggest that Eich was actually opposed to those values. There is no record of him discriminating against gay and lesbian employees, resisting Mozilla’s policies of treating them equally, or attempting to diminish their standing within the organization. All he did was make that campaign donation in 2008.

In extensive interviews this week, including with VentureBeat’s J. O’Dell, Eich made it crystal clear that he was leaving his personal values at the door and embracing Mozilla’s progressive values in every way as far as his job was concerned.

Notably, he did not offer an apology for his earlier support of Prop. 8, nor did he state whether his views on same-sex marriage had changed. That’s probably because his views haven’t changed, and he didn’t want to be dishonest about them. He was simply trying to do the best job he could while remaining true to his own personal convictions in his private life.

So much for honesty.

The sustained outrage against Eich continued unabated, and on Wednesday, he stepped down from the CEO job.

There are a lot of reasons to be sorry about this outcome. Eich was a talented, committed technologist who helped create JavaScript and is one of the founders of Mozilla. He showed every sign of being a responsible, ethical CEO whose work values were in complete alignment with Mozilla’s.

His personal views are repellent to many of us, but his actions — apart from the donation — were on the level.

And if we’re judging people based on their donations to political campaigns we find repellent, there’s a whole lot more blame to go around. More than 1,300 people at a range of tech companies donated a combined $1 million to Prop. 8, William Saletan reports in Slate. Those companies include Adobe, Apple, Google, Microsoft, Oracle, Sun Microsystems, and Yahoo. Are we going to boycott those companies? Force the resignation of all 1,300?

Needless to say, that’s a ridiculous approach, both politically and from a business point of view.

Politically speaking, the supporters of same-sex marriage would do far better to target the really big, and often anonymous, donors who have supported and pushed laws like Prop. 8, rather than vilifying the occasional small supporter. Going after people like Eich makes the same-sex marriage movement look petty, vindictive, and shrill — the exact opposite of the inclusive, tolerant message that they should be spreading.

“This is a repugnantly illiberal sentiment. It is also unbelievably stupid for the gay rights movement,” Andrew Sullivan wrote this week on The Dish. “It’s a bad, self-inflicted blow. And all of us will come to regret it.”

And as for the technology business, it’s just stupid to penalize people for their personal views and past mistakes, especially outside work. One of the reasons Silicon Valley has been so successful, many of us often hear, is because it has a culture of embracing difference and forgiving failure.

I believe that’s true. We are happy to overlook people’s personal values, their backgrounds or sexual orientations, whether they are pleasant people or complete jerks, and even their willingness to bathe — as long as they are contributing material value to their companies and to the world.

It’s time for Silicon Valley to re-learn that lesson. If we want to remain a place where outstanding technologists continue to create immense value, we have to think twice about hounding technologists out of jobs where they’re doing just that, just because we find their personal values objectionable.

As content marketing grows in popularity, marketers are discovering that – for all but the largest and best-funded marketing teams – it’s nearly impossible to publish only original, created content at the pace expected of today’s brands. Given this reality, many successful content marketers publish a mix of content they’ve created themselves, content they’re curating and annotating from other sources, and syndicated content.

Curata surveyed over 500 marketers from both the B2B and B2C worlds about their mix of content marketing. But before we get into numbers, let’s define each of these content types:

Created content is content that is authored by your in-house marketing team or an outsourced team of content creators. Content can also be created based on material that is crowdsourced from customers or clients. In some cases content that you’ve created for one distribution platform can be repurposed for another platform (such as when you leverage a white paper into a series of blog posts) but it still must be an original work to be considered “created content.”

Curated content is external content that you link to and provide additional commentary, context, or opinions to tailor the content to your audience and add your brand’s voice to the conversation. Curated content can include blog posts, tweets, email newsletters, and more.

Syndicated content or licensed content is third-party content that has been previously published elsewhere and is republished in its entirety on your website through a syndication agreement. Ideally, this is quality content that stands on its own without the need for additional context.

Based on Curata’s survey, the current marketing mix of marketers surveyed is as follows: 63.4 percent created, 24 percent curated and 12.6 percent syndicated.

The average desired overall content marketing mix is: 61 percent created, 27 percent curated and 12 percent syndicated; not much change from the current mix.

However, given trends we’ve identified, we expect to see a shift in the content marketing mix in the next 6 to 18 months as marketers complement their original, created content with more curated content. In 2014, best-in-class marketers will strive to create 65 percent of their content, with the remainder being 25 percent curated and 10 percent syndicated. The objectives behind this shift are three-fold: to better leverage resources, to improve the ideation process, and to better engage buyers through higher value content.

More created and curated content and slightly less syndicated content will allow these marketers to differentiate themselves and produce valuable content that builds trust in their brand.

Ready to learn more about content marketing strategy? Download the 2014 Content Marketing Tactics Planner, Curata’s third annual content marketing benchmark study. This free eBook covers the new strategies of successful content marketing teams, the impact of technology on content marketing, and more.

When it comes to search, deciding whether to dedicate resources to organic search efforts (SEO) or paid search efforts (PPC) is not easy. The right answer depends on a variety of factors including audience behavior, available budget, and your organization’s marketing goals.

Often, the answer to the paid vs. search question isn’t either/or. It’s a matter of striking the right balance.

To help, we’ve put together some key things to consider when implementing the right SEO/PPC balance for your organization. But first, let’s review the major difference between paid and organic search.

Traffic coming from SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is free, while traffic generated from PPC (Pay Per Click) ads is not free. PPC ads are displayed above organic search results or on the sidebar of search engine pages for search queries related to their topic. Landing page keywords, ad keywords, CPC (cost per click) bids, and targeting all influence how those ads are “served” or displayed on the page.

Organic results appear under paid ads. Getting your website or listing to appear in the coveted first and second positions of a SERP (search engine results page) depends on how optimized your website is for search engines.

So, what’s the best strategy to use for your organization and when? Here are the main factors to consider.

In order to determine what to invest in PPC vs. SEO, consider your total budget for search marketing. If you have no budget to commit to paid ads, you’ll need to stick to SEO.

If you do have some budget to dedicate to paid ads, it’s worth incorporating it into your SEM strategy. Some benefits of PPC advertising include:

Testing: If you want to test a new layout, UX, or product on your website, you’re going to need a lot of A-B testing traffic to get the results you’re looking for. PPC ads are a great way to drive that traffic immediately. If you’re just implementing SEO, it takes a lot of time and resources to drive the same volume of traffic.

Immunity: Search companies are constantly thinking up ways to update their algorithms so that searchers are getting the content most relevant to their needs. While SEO strategies, which rely on the algorithms already in place, must adapt and change with these search engine updates, PPC campaigns are totally immune.

Bottom Line: If you have some budget to dedicate towards PPC campaigns, it’s worth giving it a try in the right circumstances.

If you’re interested in implementing PPC as well as SEO, consider how much the competition in your industry spends on these ads, too.

PPC platforms hinge not on fixed prices, but on bids. Marketers bid for what they’re willing to pay for a single keyword click. Some industry words are much more expensive than others. The more expensive the word, the more likely you should rely on SEO to deliver traffic and leads to your organization. To find average industry CPCs, you can use Google’s keyword planner tool.

Bottom Line: If the average CPC is really high, lean more on SEO to deliver results for your organization. If it’s manageable, bid away!

Competition for keywords in hot industries can be fierce, and is often dominated by leaders in the space. Trying to displace these big fish through your SEO efforts alone will require significant resources and strategy, and may, in the end, be impossible.

To understand SEO competition for your target keywords, refer back to Google’s keyword planner tool. This tool not only helps you research competition for your target keywords, but gives you ideas for terms that are relevant to your product or services.

Bottom line: If competition for your keywords is relatively small, lean on your SEO strategy to do the heavy lifting. If the competition is raging, pay for traffic via your PPC ads.

When deciding whether to use PPC, SEO, or a mixture of both for a search marketing campaign, first consider your goals. Are they mainly short-term goals like increasing traffic immediately? Or are they long-term goals like building a consistent body of traffic over time?

For the short-term, PPC is generally your best bet. The minute your ad runs, it delivers results. But when the budget stops, so do the benefits. Because SEO relies on your website’s content, linking structure, and meta data, developing a thorough strategy that delivers real results takes more time than setting up a PPC campaign. However, SEO’s results may be more valuable to you and your organization in the long run.

Bottom line: If you’re looking for quick results, invest more in PPC. If you’re interested in building a more valuable traffic base over time, lean on SEO.

PPC campaigns and SEO campaigns drive different kinds of traffic to your website. Which way you lean depends on what your traffic goals are.

Are you primarily interested in short-term conversions, testing, and/or product sales? PPC is the way to go. 50% of people arriving at a retailer’s site from paid ads are more likely to buy than visitors who came from an organic link.

Are you more interested in building a lot of traffic over time and establishing trust with your visitors? A solid SEO strategy should be your go-to strategy.

Bottom line: In general, SEO promotes more valuable long-term relationships and trust with visitors, while PPC drives more traffic and immediate conversions.

The very best marketing teams know that the SEO vs. PPC comparison is not black and white. Each approach provides value—emphasize the one that matches the goals of your organization and the circumstances of your campaign.

Worldwide IT spending is expected to increase this year, but it's nothing compared to how much money will flow into Big Data. And for employees at those companies, more money is certainly a good thing.

As a new IDC report reveals, spending in the Big Data market will reach $32.4 billion by 2017, or nearly six times the growth rate of the overall IT market.

With billions at stake, much of that money is flowing into Big Data startups, including $900 million to Cloudera just this week. Flush with cash, these startups are hiring like crazy. The perks are good, but they're not much different from what companies in other hot areas offer, according to Dice.com:

What these Big Data startups offer instead is the chance to completely change the future of how organizations operate. Sounds appetizing, right? But before you submit your résumé, consider what it's like to work at the 10 most heavily-funded Big Data startups, according to the people that work there. Their views come via the employee reviews on Glassdoor. (Full disclosure: I work at MongoDB, but I included them on the list based on the objective criterion of how much funding these companies have received.)

Here are the top 10 Big Data companies, ranked by employee satisfaction:

DataStax

DataStax is one of the leaders in the emerging database market and the company behind Cassandra, a so-called NoSQL database that was originally developed at Facebook. It's gets both dings and praise for its "demanding work environment," though some complain that the company's distributed employee base means "you have to make an effort to get to know your co-workers." Given that being "remote is the norm," you'll take comfort in knowing that the company includes "the smartest and best group of engineers you will ever work with."

MongoDB

MongoDB offers a document-oriented "NoSQL" database. Mind you, I am an employee of MongoDB, but others have described the workplace as one filled with "generous, good people that work hard, expect much but are also kind," as well as "passionate, curious, and very smart" people who go[] above and beyond their call of duty to help you. MongoDB gets high marks for being a "leader in a market that is transforming how data is managed." However, one engineer notes that "All senior leadership positions are filled with outsiders." This may be getting better as another reviewer indicates that there is more "hiring from within." 

 

Domo

Domo sells a business intelligence platform that incorporates data feeds from throughout an organization and makes them easily consumable in one place. The company, founded by Omniture founder Josh James, perhaps not surprisingly involves "lots of hero worship," given James' outsized personality, and also gets dinged for having a sales-driven culture. Others disagree with these sentiments, declaring Domo to employ the "best talent [they've] ever worked with" and an "awesome culture."

 

Cloudera 

Cloudera offers a Hadoop-based Big Data platform. Employees love the "incredible culture" working alongside the "smartest people in the industry" on a "product that's changing the world" in a company that maintains "a strong emphasis on remaining an independent company." Still, some complain about Cloudera, saying it has a "cowboy" culture that forces you to "view co-workers as competition rather than teammates." But most say the high growth and the problems it engenders are consistent with companies undergoing similar growing pains.

Talend  

Talend sells open-source data integration software. The company's management is lauded for its "open door policy," which means employees are "able to converse with C-levels and VP's without intimidation." Several reviewers cite the company's focus on growing employees professionally, but the company, which has a significant presence in France, is broadly distributed, causing some reviewers to laud the cultural diversity while others to complain that the "geographical and cultural diversity ... can make collaboration and communication a slight challenge sometimes." 

 

Palantir

Palantir, for the sake of developing analytics applications, puts employees into small teams so people can have "high individual impact" and work on "big, important problems" together.  Still, this "smug 'Our impact on the world is all that matters' mentality" gets derided for contributing to a "cult-like culture" and leads to the company paying "below-market compensation." 

 

Hortonworks                                        

Hortonworks, like Cloudera, is building a Big Data platform around Hadoop. Reviewers credit the company's winning strategy around its open-source development and partnerships, though some suggest "the pace and the personal sacrifice required to be successful in an early stage company [including Hortonworks] is not for everybody." Still, with "great access to senior leadership," the "internal politics" that several reviewers criticized are manageable.

 

Gauvus

Gauvus builds a Big Data analytics platform. People say the company has the "best idea in terms of big data analytics," and others gush about the "exciting technology," but "execution is another thing." On the execution front, reviewers complain about "fragmented communication" and "rapidly changing priorities." 

 

Mu Sigma

Mu Sigma provides a Data-Science-as-a-Service (DSaaS?) product. While the company is one of the lowest-ranked Big Data vendors on the list, some reviewers proclaim it a good place for data geeks, with "opportunity to learn a lot and work on different statistical tools like SAS, R [and] SQL." However, as far as work-life balance goes, some noted a "lack of diversity" and that "even earned time taken off is sometimes frowned upon and it is really hard to plan personal time." Furthermore, Mu Sigma was consistently dinged by reviewers for its "low pay."

 

Opera Solutions 

Opera Solutions, another Data-Science-as-a-Service (DSaaS) company, ranks lowest among the other Big Data companies on this list. While employees love "the variety and level of clients [Opera Solutions] work with" and a "laid back" management team that's "not afraid to be experimental," many others argue that same laid-back management should "resign" because of "policies [that] change all the time" and an inability to "get past fancy marketing and smoke/mirror tactics and simply explain the real value that [the company] provide[s]."

 

No Bad Choices

While each company has its warts, there are good reasons to want to join any of these companies. Compared to established incumbents, virtually all of these startups rank much higher than their legacy counterparts. Given that pay seems to be good across the spectrum, finding the right company for you may be a matter of finding the right cultural fit.

Image courtesy of Shutterstock

Businesses continue to struggle to adapt to social media and tap social media marketing for maximum ROI. While almost every single company has (and uses) a Twitter account, everyone can agree that not everyone uses it well.

Many businesses find that tweets don’t exactly translate into sales, or struggle parsing the metrics when it comes to social media ROI. Normally we swoop in with a few tips here and there, and the folks at Ninja Metrics have shared a spectacular infographic with us that really puts the numbers in context.

From Ninja Metrics:

We all know that people influence each other. If your family or friends do something, your chances of doing it go up–whether it’s playing a game, eating tofu, or smoking. This kind of influence can not only be predicted, it can be measured. And if that extra playing, or spending, or eating leads to dollars, that’s a value you can capture and impact. We call this “social value” and it is responsible for between 20% and 50% of all game spending.

Imagine a person has an LTV (Life Time Value) of $50. We think they’ll spend that much more before they go away. Great, now let’s say that same person also has a social value of $60. Their interactions with their friends cause those people to spend another $60. That means this person actually contributes $110 to your bottom line. You want to know who they are, how much social value they wield, and how you can attract, monetize, and retain those people. It turns out that these “social whales” are about 10% of all people. We’ll tell you who they are, how much they are worth, and if you want to get really fancy with our social value analytics, what products they are influential on.

Check out the infographic below (click to enlarge), and let us know if you think this data is useful for maximizing Twitter potential for your business or brand in the comments.

Whenever leads are handed from Marketing to Sales, conditions are ripe for problems. So why not add a guiding step in between? Here's how a Sales Development team can help you qualify more and better leads.

For many B2B marketers, 2013 should have been a watershed moment. It wasn’t.

Will it be different this year?

Marketers now have vast pools of data to prove their efficacy, new tools that allow them to be compelling at an inexpensive price and, perhaps most importantly, the chance to regularly connect on an intimate basis with an elusive C-suite.

But, instead of recognizing the watershed opportunity, most just look like they are drowning. A rich universe of possibilities appears to actually paralyze most B2B marketers. Too many are content to indulge in tiny, “toe dipping” experiments instead of aspiring to a meaningful evolution of their function. Typical challenges include:

• Confusion on how to integrate traditional and emerging marketing strategies: It is human nature to rely on past choices to guide current decision-making. For marketers, that often means letting their line leaders dictate budget allotment based on past, sometimes outmoded success. Advertising plans have only a minor PPC element, new websites don’t reflect mobile user needs and web bios are typically resumes, when they could be compelling video introductions.

• Lack of foundational knowledge: Every thought leadership strategy requires a foundational layer of information to start program planning. This includes a broad array of data points, from typical target behavior, business sales goals and cleansed email lists, to validated POVs on customer needs. Most B2Bs are still too willing to skip some of the “block and tackling” work required to build a successful marketing program.

• Fixation on a complete ROI solution…instead of a workable start: At first blush, you’d think that B2B marketers were thrilled to finally have access to unambiguous proof points that could show their efforts were working. So, what happened? For starters, their employers asked them to tie marketing success metrics to the bottom line of the company. (In fairness, in many cases, their employers weren’t often willing to invest the time required to tie business and marketing outcomes together.) In addition, there are now so many measurement options that it’s very easy to build a complex set of benchmarks that satisfy no one in the end. This behavior swiftly leads to a “killed by KPI” mentality.

We believe that the marketers who are finally ready to “dive in” have a chance to leapfrog hesitant competitors. So, what are the likely opportunities for savvy B2B marketers in 2014?

• Spend money to dimensionalize target audiences: It’s time to invest in a much better understanding of how to motivate the target. We expect smart B2Bs will allot budget to stakeholder research, including persona development, customized geographic implications and typical engagement and conversion triggers. Some companies balk at gathering expensive data that isn’t immediately actionable and can be time consuming to obtain. Smart marketing leaders are beginning to see that information is a source of lasting business advantage.

• Recognize that the race to created, branded, “owned” content should include consistent, methodical analysis of data across the entire “Paid/Owned/Earned/Shared” compass: Many B2B companies now recognize the importance of becoming brand publishers and are intentionally creating (or upgrading) a deep inventory of proprietary intellectual property. That makes sense. Though, most will take a few years to catch up to B2Cs like Coca-Cola with its famous Coca-Cola Journey magazine website. But, in their speed to adopt the brand publisher model, they often forget that effective marketing relies on correct interpretation and correlation of your marketing investment data:

• Tackle the hard work associated with scaling a Content Marketing Program to accommodate specific geographic and stakeholder needs: Whether global or domestic, B2B companies need to develop much better storytelling and thought leadership programs for their customers. This year, smart marketing leaders will resolve to develop content that feels intimate and customized.

• Seize the attention of the C-Suite through a bold, integrated campaign that reflects a deep understanding of their likely behavior at every stage of the sales funnel: Somewhere, at this minute, another marketing communication strategy devoted to the C-suite is being born. And, at the same time, ten similar programs are dying an undignified, unnoticed death. Why? There is no more desired target. Inevitably, that leads to a highly cluttered, undifferentiated and impenetrable market.

There is no magic bullet to attract C-suite attention. It starts and ends with hard work at every interaction juncture. But the required ingredients of a successful program include: 1) thoughtful needs and behavior research, 2) differentiated and actionable thought leadership, 3) compelling content formats, 4) methodical distribution and 5) continual measurement.

Photo courtesy of Kevin Utting on Flickr