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In today’s era of customer engagement, brands are betting big on social media as a long term customer relationship management mechanism. Yet, many in the B2B space continue to stand on the sideline wondering how and why they should get involved – “but I’m not selling to regular customers,” they exclaim, “who’s going to be interested in tweets and Facebook posts about enterprise software solutions?” Perhaps true, but that doesn’t mean social media cannot be utilized effectively by B2B companies.
Here are 5 tips that B2B brands can employ …
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Email Marketing is one of the most popular marketing tools used today. Quick and inexpensive, B2B email marketing has the potential for incredible control of your message, audience and branding. It gives organizations the opportunity to reach new and existing customers in a way not possible with classic marketing tools.
Many times, email marketing is the primary form of marketing aB2B organization pursues – but does it perform?
Email marketing takes about a quarter of a marketing department’s time, but the sad reality is that B2Bs have an open rate of roughly 24%, and a click through rate of only 2%.[i] So should you abandon email marketing? NO! But there are tips that can make your B2B email marketing campaigns more effective.
- Content is key. Be a thought leader with a compelling topic; if you write it, they will come…
- Sharing is caring! Not only will quality content increase your click through rate, it also has a better shot at being shared on social networks. Include buttons for easy sharing at the end of your email.
- Less is more. Keep copy short and to the point, and make sure your best stuff is near the top.
- Draw them in with a short, intriguing subject line. Convey your superior knowledge in 55 characters or less to have a better chance at enticing readers to open your email.
- Scrub that data! Clean up your database and segment your lists – this will allow you to target and personalize your messages.
- Timing is everything, so hit them where it counts. Avoid first thing Monday morning – no one’s had their coffee yet, and they’re still mourning the loss of the weekend. Tuesday between 10 am and 1 pm is best, but tracking metrics will be your best insight into finding out what times work for your business.
- Don’t overload your audience! We’ve already established the abundance of messaging out there, so pick ONE point and stick to it. Having half a dozen call to actions (CTAs) will not make your message more effective; if anything, it will kill any potential your campaign has.
- STAND OUT! Make sure your CTA is impossible to miss and above the fold. Who has time to scroll?
- Optimize your message for mobiles. With 79 million US consumers checking their email on a mobile device, if you’re ignoring this segment of the population you’re missing out.
- Test it! Try A/B testing to find out what kinds of layouts create conversions. Every business is different; best practices in one industry won’t always work in another, so always test.
Got all that? The biggest takeaway: people are completely overwhelmed in today’s content driven society. If you want to stand out keep it simple, compelling, and make your call to action so obvious that it would be seen from space. And if in doubt, test your options.
Now what are you waiting for? Scrub those lists and get your click through rate up!
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[i] B2B Marketing’s Email Benchmarking Report
http://www.circle-research.com/b2b-marketing-report/b2b-social-media-marketing-report/ -
Discover how to Excel at B2B Marketing on Facebook
Facebook has been a ground breaking social media site, and occupies a good deal of internet users’ time every day. Long ago adopted by B2C companies as a way of interacting with their consumers, it has allowed them unprecedented success. The question now posed is whether these same benefits can be transferred to B2B marketing on Facebook.
Some interesting facts about Facebook:
- Over 500 million people had a Facebook account at the end of 2011.
- More than half of users log in every day.
- The average user has 130 friends.
- Over 700 Billion minutes a month are spent on Facebook.
- Over 250 million users interact with Facebook across 2 Million websites.
- 71.2% of the U.S. web audience is on Facebook.
- 750 million photos were uploaded to Facebook over New Year’s weekend.
- 48% of young Americans said they find out about news through Facebook
- 200 million people access Facebook via their mobile phone.
Facebook is being used by 1 in 13 people and that means that it’s being used by your target audience!
Facebook is an easy way to gain new clients, connect with existing customers, promote new products and market sales offers.
The key for B2B marketing on Facebook is value. Facebook allows you to create a compelling dialogue with users while communicating in a manner that isn’t possible through traditional promotional means.
Establish yourself as a resource: People can visit your website and learn about your business. Or they can check out your blog and find out about relevant industry developments and topics in the news. Adding this content to your Facebook page will establish your company as an industry expert and humanize your brand.
Engage with your audience: A Facebook page for your business is another way for you to interact with the people who are already buying and using your product or service. Your existing customers bring a breadth of knowledge about your products; their testimonials can also help to sway potential new customers in your favor.
Build relationships: Establish an easy rapport by encouraging and answering any questions your users have. Show them that your B2B business is there for the long haul by keeping customers satisfied and loyal to your brand. If a negative comment pops up, deal with it sincerely; understanding and addressing a problem goes a long way in stemming negative commentary.
Show your softer side: The stats on Facebook users are nothing if not compelling, and people are used to interacting with the site in a casual and informal manner. This is the time to let your brand personality shine through and create (or repurpose) fun and informative content for users.
Share the love: Facebook is built around the concept of sharing, and this concept remains firmly in place for B2Bs. Post interesting industry related videos, pictures or jokes; as your fans share this content your brand establishes meaningful connections with potential customers.
Show your talents: Post bios of your industry experts or staff members. Putting a face, or team, behind your brand increases trustworthiness and transparency.
Push the boundaries: Why stop at just wall interactions when you can use the many applications that Facebook offers to diversify. Set up a promotions tab to endorse special offers and support lead generation, or use Facebook shopping to boost sales.
So is Facebook a valuable tool for B2Bs? Yes! It enables personalized interactions, a customized consumer approach and a casual forum for addressing common questions or problems. Set up your B2B Facebook page and capture some of the success that B2Cs have long benefited from; it’s there for the taking!
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Before you figure out how to re-purpose your B2B marketing content you need to define what exactly inbound marketing is.
- Search Engine Optimization
- White papers, webinars and podcasts
- Blogs & Social Media
In case you looked at that question and weren’t too sure what can be labeled inbound marketing, here’s my version of the definition:
Inbound marketing is creating incredible content so that when your customers find it they are so impressed that they share it across their social media networks.
Before you start thinking of how best to stretch your existing resources across inbound marketing channels, let me remind you that with the plethora of information currently available online, magnetic content is key. I’m now going to assume that you’ve accumulated some captivating B2B marketing content that reflects exactly what your buyers are searching for.
How do you go about re-purposing B2B marketing content?
Let me count the ways!
White Papers
- Chances are you have a variety of white papers at your disposal. Find one section, rewrite it if you need to and create a blog post with the call to action being the white paper download.
Case Studies
- Turn case studies from one industry into a white paper highlighting the main successes of each company.
EBooks
- Put an except up on your blog from your eBook, encouraging readers to download the full copy.
Webinars
- Take the notes from a slide deck and write a blog post or white paper.
- If you have a very active Q&A session, publish it in a blog post and promote it through your social media channels.
- Post the slides from your webinar on SlideShare, then sync that SlideShare content to your LinkedIn account through the integrated app.
Podcasts
- Get a transcript of the podcast and depending on the length, create a blog post or white paper.
Blog
- Easiest blog post possible: list (and link to!) blog posts for the previous month.
- Take 5-10 blog posts that are relevant to each other and repurpose it into an eBook.
Social Media
- Always add links to your content on your Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn pages.
- Expand your content’s reach by joining industry related groups on LinkedIn. Include a link to your content when replying to posts.
- Take a poll on your social media sites (both LinkedIn and Facebook have polling features) and publish the results in a blog post as industry insight.
- Give active twitter users a hashtag during a webinar or event. The do a search and turn the tweets into a blog post.
Other Creative Ways
- Training new employees by doing a step-by-step demonstration? Capture it! Put it up on YouTube and add it to your resources page. You can also transcribe the training session so you have written instructions – turn them into a series of blog posts about ‘tips & tricks’.
- Create a ‘kit’ of information. You’ve got blog posts, videos, and whitepapers that all pertain to one vertical (e.g. manufacturing). Bundle it up, put it behind a form. Your customer will be thankful that they don’t have to search your site for all of the relevant information.
- Is your CEO doing a speech that includes industry or company news? Record it! You can turn it into a podcast, a gated article or even a blog post.
- Ask your sales team to keep track of frequently asked questions; make a blog post or put it up on your site in the FAQ section.
- Take pictures from your company outings and humanize your business. Give your organization a personality by sharing this event on your social media channels.
- Did you make notes at a conference you attended? Is it industry news? Turn it into a blog post.
Brainstorm! Use these and other ideas then map it out to create an editorial calendar. That way you know you’ll have enough spacing between similar B2B marketing content to hold your readers attention. Also, don’t forget to track it all with analytics and set Key Performance Indicators (KPI) so you can see which content performs best and what to focus on in the next quarter.
We’re always here to help, so contact Salesworks at sales@salesworks.com to discuss optimizing your inbound marketing efforts.
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We’d
like to share with you our knowledge of how customers make software buying decisions. If you’d like to learn about changes in B2B buying behaviors and find out how to leverage the web to drive more and improved lead flow, then it’s worth 45 minutes of your time to watch this free, on-demand webinar from Salesworks Systems.If you’re not convinced that it’s in your best interest to watch this webinar, keep reading…
B2B buying behaviors have changed in the last 10 years; if your approach to sales hasn’t been adapted to keep up with the shift in buying mentality, then your business may be suffering as a result. It may sound simple, but the truth is, one of the best things you can do to succeed is enhance your relationships with your buyers.
Ask yourself these questions:
- Do you truly understand how your buyers think and act?
- Are you capturing your buyers early in the buying phase and educating them about your products?
- Are you able to maintain a relationship with buyers if they are not ready to purchase yet?
- Is your messaging consistent between Marketing and Sales so that your buyers don’t get confused?
If you answered ‘no’ to any one of these, or even if you’re not 100% sure that it’s a ‘yes’, then there is room for improvement. Don’t leave it to chance, hope is not a strategy!
There was once a time when buyers engaged in a conversation with suppliers at the beginning of their buying phase, when they were looking for information about how your product could meet their needs. Now you don’t always get to speak for yourself right from the start. Buyers come to you knowing exactly what they want and they’ve already determined how your product matches their requirements.
When a buyer’s research phase begins they turn primarily to the internet to get their questions answered. They want to know about what you can do for them, but they’re not planning on picking up the phone anytime soon. You need to give them what they’re searching for, but first, they need to find you.
Have you optimized your online processes?
The first thing to help you get noticed by buyers is to identify and select the right keywords for what you are selling.
- Find “Pain based” and “Pain Solution based” keywords
- Use PPC to get instant traffic
- Use SEO and Link Building to improve organic rankings
- Use Remarketing campaigns to re-capture visitors
To keep buyers interested in your offering you need to select the right offers to display on your site.
- Develop vertical specific, informative content
- Use forms that require registration
When you have their attention, qualify the lead! Implement lead scoring to identify sales-ready leads so that you don’t miss an opportunity. If a buyer is not ready to make a purchase, don’t let them get away. Chances are they are early in the buying phase and gathering the information that will help them make a decision at a later date. Provide them with the information that they are searching for by nurturing your leads. Develop automatically triggered marketing campaigns to send your leads resources.
If you’re convinced that your business can do better but don’t know where to begin, your next step is to consider a Mini-Review of your website.
The review should identify:
- If your website is targeting “Early Buyers”
- If you are set up to capture “Early Buyers”
- The effectiveness of your nurture process
- Recommendations to streamline your processes and improve your lead flow
Another noteworthy step is to explore your internal procedures. If communications break down between departments, your bottom line can suffer. Determine if your marketing to sales hand-off is efficient and if the messaging is aligned. Buyers receive more information than ever before; your organization does not want to create frustrations where they need not be.
Watch the ‘Know Your Buyers, Grow Your Leads’ webinar to get more information about how buying behaviors have changed and how you can make this shift work in your favor.
Contact Enzo DiMichele at any time through email enzo@salesworks.com or call 604.617.6767 to find out how Salesworks can help your business grow its leads.
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LinkedIn seems like the perfect platform for business-to-business advertising. You’ve got a captive market, you can target specific industries with specific offers, you can decide which level of executive will see your ad. It’s an ideal scenario for us search marketers. At least in theory.
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A large part of our job here at SALESWORKS this summer has been auditing company websites, including our very own – we launched our new site in July.
This has had me thinking plenty about not just about what we do to build effective business websites, but also about the things businesses still do that can defeat the purposes of their website, those purposes being:
- Raise brand awareness;
- Boost prospects and leads;
- Drive sales. …
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When a business is engaged in Pay-Per-Click, Search Engine Optimization, etc to generate leads the general assumption is that they have a process in place to follow up with and nurture those leads. Unfortunately, this is not always the case and we see a lot of vendors who lack any form of cohesive, stringent follow up / sales process.
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Once upon a time it was commonly believed that social media was a time-waster for B2B companies. Times have changed.
In December, Google and Bing confirmed in an interview with search engine land’s Danny Sullivan that Twitter and Facebook links indeed have an impact on how well a webpage ranks. In a nutshell, in addition to helping boost your presence and credibility, retweets and link-sharing on Facebook by the right people can help drive your organic search results.
Now ignoring social media simply will not do. Armed with the right information, tackling social media can feel a lot less daunting.
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