The Twofold Benefit of Optimizing Marketing Content

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Online optimization is usually associated with natural or organic search engine optimization (SEO). Optimizing your marketing content around keywords or phrases is the first step in your content marketing strategy. After all, that’s how your prospects and customers will find your blog and/or Web site.

However, there is another strong reason for optimizing your marketing content that has nothing to do with SEO. I am referring to optimizing customer engagement in B2B marketing.

Why is it important? Because B2B and industrial buyers tend to be more sophisticated in the use of online content in making their decision over the entire buying cycle. BtoB marketers need to create and deliver content that is relevant to those searching for their solution while mapping it to the prospect’s buying cycle. Read more →

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Optimizing Your WordPress Business Blog

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Probably the biggest benefit of creating a business blog is to engage with your readers, build deeper relationships and convert most of them into paying customers. However, none of that can happen until you drive lots of interested traffic to your business blog.

Optimizing (SEO) your business blog is critical because it allows your target audience to find you in search engines and attract traffic. An invisible blog doesn’t draw a crowd and neither will you have the opportunity to engage with them.

Organic or natural search engine optimization (SEO) has always been shrouded in mystery, bordering on voodoo. It seems the secrets of SEO are known only to a few high-priced consultants. However, you can do it too with some help. See my earlier post, “Do-it-Yourself Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for Your WordPress Blog.”

I don’t deny that effective SEO does take experience, expertise and time to produce results. So no one should expect a DiY solution to achieve the same kind of results as a paid SEO expert (ethical one!). Start with some baby steps and fine tune as you learn more.

In this post, I’m going to focus on a powerful DiY SEO tool for WordPress blogs. It is called All in One SEO Pack (AIOSEO) and you can download it from here for free. After you have installed it, log into your admin panel, go to Settings > All in One SEO (See screen shot). Read more →

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How Relevant Marketing Content Helps B2B Branding

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Branding is usually not a popular topic in B2B marketing, especially in the industrial sector. Most CEOs of manufacturing, engineering and technical companies do not believe in the value of brand building and consider it the domain of consumer marketing (B2C). Branding is an expense item like the rest of marketing.

That’s a shame and here’s why — among the top ten in Interbrand’s Best Global Brands 2009, IBM was listed at #2, Microsoft, GE and Intel at number 3, 4 and 9 respectively. Yes, GE and Microsoft sell directly to end-users but they are primarily B2B companies.

According to a study done by Professor John A. Quelch, the Lincoln Filene Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, the common characteristic shared by the top B2B Global Brands is that their “CEO is a willing brand cheerleader, loves the brand heritage, and is a great storyteller.” He suggests that B2B marketers take a cue from their B2C counterparts when it comes to increasing brand awareness.

One of the key findings from the study was that B2B marketers are realizing that developing brand awareness among their customers’ customers can capture a larger share of channel margins and build loyalty that can protect them against lower-priced competitors. Professor Quelch provides the example of Intel and its very successful advertising campaign “Intel Inside.”

He ends his post by asking, “Would Dupont’s shareholder value be the same today if it had not made consumers aware of nylon, Lycra, [Teflon], Stainmaster and linked these innovations to the Dupont name? Definitely not.” Read more →

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Social Media with Email Marketing – is it the Super Combo?

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Lately, social media seems to garner all the attention in the media and blog posts with very little mention about email marketing. This long time staple has become the Rodney “No Respect” Dangerfield of B2B and industrial marketing.

I’ve read several articles about the impending death of email marketing because of the steady decline in open and click-through rates (CTR). Are those predictions a little premature? Can we deliver a powerful 1-2 punch by combining  social media and email marketing? I came across two research studies that answer the last question with a big YES!

The first study done by AWeber (aff. Link), was a survey of small business owners and found that the two most common tactics used in 2009 were tweeting e-mail newsletters and sending out blog entries to e-mail lists. In 2010, almost 50% of small businesses will include “follow us” links in their e-mails, and about 44% will include share options in their messages. (See charts below). Read more →

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7 Strategies for Using Content to Market Industrial Products

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I am a big fan of Content Marketing or as some people like to refer to it as Inbound Marketing. It is heartening to see that content is at the center of most discussions about the state of B2B marketing today.

However, industrial marketers face a challenge when it comes to producing a steady stream of fresh content to keep their target audience engaged. What do you do when the bulk of your marketing content, with the exception of case studies is product focused? How do you shift the focus from you or your company to your prospects and customers?

Here are seven content marketing strategies that you can use to engage your prospects and move them forward in their buying cycle. Read more →

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The Role of B2B Marketing is Shifting from Lead Generation to Revenue Generation

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For as long as I can remember, B2B marketers have considered lead generation as their primary focus. Organizations are spending considerable amounts of time and money on tracking and measuring lead generation metrics.

However, the role of B2B marketers is changing and evolving more into revenue generation. The recently released B2B Marketing Skills Survey jointly done by Genius and BtoB Magazine reveals some new trends and contradicts certain popular beliefs.

Here are some of the key findings from the study:

Emerging Trends:

  • 61% of the respondents (500 total) cited Driving Revenue as the most important success metric as compared to Sales Accepted Opportunities (40%), Qualified Leads (39%) with website visits and click-through rates trailing way at the back at 12% each.
  • In order to meet new revenue and ROI goals, marketers need to improve their strategic skills (50%) and sales skills (40%). Read more →
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How to Make Your Business Blog Be All It Can Be

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Remember the U.S. army’s “Be All You Can Be” campaign? An incredibly successful and popular recruiting slogan was used for over 20 years until it was retired in 2006. How about your business blog, is it all it can be for your industrial company?

I’m assuming you want your business blog to be more than just a personal journal. One way or another, you want it to be an integral part of your industrial marketing efforts in generating leads and driving sales. You want your business blog to become the hub that attracts traffic, establishes your credibility and ultimately, moves those readers forward in their decision making process and become paying customers.

How do you turn your business blog into a powerful sales tool? I’ve listed six business blogging tips here to get you started. Read more →

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Focus on Content in B2B Marketing

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Lately all the talk in B2B marketing has centered on social media. However, to be successful with social media, you have to provide real value and that usually comes from great content.

Paul Dunay in his blog post, “4 C’s of B2B Marketing” has defined this very nicely. His 4C’s are:

  • Content – the creation of a steady stream of engaging content
  • Connection – connecting with the audience you wish to attract
  • Communication – communicating with them in an ongoing conversation
  • Conversion – and then converting them at the illusive moment of need

What is content marketing?

Wikipedia defines content marketing as “an umbrella term encompassing all marketing formats that involve the creation or sharing of content for the purpose of engaging current and potential consumer bases.”

The old ways of pushing out content is no longer effective. Now, B2B content marketing’s agenda is to educate and inform customers and prospects. Content Marketing’s slogan is – “Don’t pitch. Don’t sell. Don’t interrupt. Educate, inform and provide value to customers and prospects. Your business will grow.” (See Content Marketing – The Ultimate Cheat Sheet).

Here’s a short but highly informative slide show that explains how to use content effectively as inbound marketing. Read more →

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Add Social Media to E-Newsletters

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This is a follow up to my post “E-Mail Marketing is Alive ‘N Kickin'. Adding Social Media features will add to the value of e-newsletters.

Email Marketing and Social Media, Part 1: Adding Social Media to the Email Newsletter  is an article written by Anna Billstrom on MarketingProfs.com. She has written about how you can do just that in easy to follow steps. Check it out.

Silverpop has introduced a new feature called Share-to-Social. Using links contained within your email messages, recipients can quickly share your message on one or more social networks such as Facebook and MySpace, adding their comments, including images from your message, and more. This opens up a whole new range of possibilities for viral marketing that can make your messages more effective and more targeted than ever before.

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How Are B2B Marketers Using Web 2.0 Tools?

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I just finished reading an interesting article titled “Social Revolution” in the August issue of Direct. It is written by Ruth P. Stevens, who is called “one of the top 100 most influential people in B-to-B marketing” by Crain’s BtoB Magazine.

In the article she writes, “For the most part, the new media are still behaving like PR tools – there’s high potential for building awareness and some spinoff lead generation on the side, but when it comes to delivering volume they’re just not ready for prime time.” I agree with her 100%.

Ms. Stevens has suggested looking at a few new resources, two of which I wasn’t aware of. First one is Jigsaw which she refers to as the Wikipedia of B-to-b data. I checked out their site and was impressed by the concept. Here’s a direct quote from the site that describes their service. Read more →

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