Social media, content aggregation and curation, user-generated content and other developments have dramatically changed the B2B buying cycle over the past few years. Marketers need to think like publishers not only to improve their company’s visibility in search (which is where 93% of B2B buying cycles now start) but also to address the differing information needs of buying team members, at different stages during the decision process.

This evolution has changed life for sales reps as well. Prospects often don’t surface until much later in the buying process than they did just a few years ago. Buyers are better informed (and expect sales reps to be better informed about their industry and likely challenges as well), and often need only a few key questions answered (most critically, price) by the time they contact a sales person.

How can B2B organizations, marketers and sales professionals adjust to, and thrive in, this new environment? Find out here in some of the best blog posts and articles of the past year offering strategic guidance and insights for B2B marketing and sales executives.

B2B Marketing Trends,  Tips and Strategies

The Top-10 B2B Marketing Trends for 2011 by Everything Technology Marketing

Holger Schulze laid out these ten predictions in January 2011. For the most part, the predictions were on target. And also, for the most part, these predicted areas of focus (e.g. social media ROI, lead quality, content marketing) will remain priorities in 2012.

Just What Do Marketers Do, Anyway? by MarketingProfs

Barbara Bix and Olga Taylor craft an intriguing case for focused market research and targeting using the example of a violin virtuoso playing in a subway for $32, after having sold out a concert with $100 tickets just days before. Bix and Taylor explain that “Quality and price are important, but only in front of the right buyer, at the right time and place,” then provide guidance on determining those attributes in order to maximize profits.

You’ve Got New Visitors at Your Site. Now What? by MarketingProfs

Contending that “Only by creating rich experiences—in the form of content, features, interactivity, and the like—can businesses convert visitors into more than just passing window shoppers,” Gretel Going details a process for creating the right kinds of content based on buyer types, stage in the buying process, and differing content preferences, utilizing an array of different formats from ebooks and webinars to video and mobile apps–in addition to great web page copy.

B2B Websites NOT Great At Demand Gen by Business2Community

The insightful Ardath Albee picks up on the theme of the post above, noting that while B2B marketers expend great efforts on SEO and social media marketing to attract visitors to the websites, research shows that their websites are then often “ignoring the very audience they worked so hard to attract.” This post details a conversation she had with Craig Rosenberg about B2B website usability, effectiveness and conversion rate optimization.

Is Youtility the Future of Marketing? by iMedia Connection

Frequent “best of” contributor Jay Baer writes that “The difference between helping and selling is just 2 letters. But those letters make all the difference. Your company needs to become a YOUtility. Sell something, and you make a customer. Help someone, and you make a customer for life.” He illustrates the concept of YOUtility with real-world examples and explains how any company can do this.

3 Tips on How to Use Search Engine Marketing Effectively by ePROneur

Because “getting to the top of the search results requires work and the understanding of not only what tactical methods you need to use to get there, but also what foundation you need to build and have in place to be most effective,” Rania Kort outlines three high-level strategies for optimizing a company’s presence in search.

101 awesome marketing quotes; A presentation by Thewebcitizen

Ilias Chelidonis shares 101 marketing quotes from a HubSpot presentation, such as “Remarkable social media content and great sales copy are pretty much the same–plain spoken words designed to focus on the needs of the reader, listener or viewer” and “Make the customer the hero of your story” (so true).

10 rules for entrepreneurial survival by TECHdotMN

Getting your attention by opening his post with “If you’re an entrepreneur, there’s something wrong with you. You have a genetic predisposition for risking it all…You are a masochist who is mentally prepared to run an ultra-marathon with an invisible finish line. Yet, you are confident in the pursuit of your destination,” Lief Larson of Workface goes on to list 10 survival rules for entpreneurs. For example, #8: “There are no shortcuts. There is only one right way to do things: the right way. Dig your heels in and be prepared to endure. ‘Overnight success’ can take years in the making.”

Why lead generation and branding aren’t mutually exclusive by iMedia Connection

Chris Chariton shares five ideas on how “sales and marketing can work together to generate leads and build the brand as part of the same effort.” Among her ideas is increasing your company’s “findability.” As Chris notes, “pushing information out to customers and prospects is not nearly as effective as it once was. Instead, you have to make sure they can find you when they’re looking” (which is why web presence optimization is crucial).

Addressing Changes in the B2B Buying Cycle

No One Wants To Read Your Whitepaper. Let’s Hope They Recycle It. by Marketing Automation Software Guide

Writing that “I have no interest in reading a War and Peace-style sales pitch — and, let’s face it, that’s what most whitepapers are these days…Companies need to find new and more direct ways to reach the buyer 2.0 without going all Tolstoy on them,” Lauren Carlson recommends alternatives focused on providing the information that buyers need, when they want it, in forms that are more digestible and engaging.

The Future of Buyer Relationships by Business2Community

Tony Zambito outlines seven aspects of changes in the buying cycle brought about by social media and the explosion of user-generated content, including the importance of building an online reputation, understanding how social algorithms work, and producing real-time content.

The Blurry B2B Buying Process | New Breed of B2B Buyer #2 by Chaotic Flow

Joel York offers his insights on reaching “the new elusive B2B buyer” who seeks to engage with sales “only when there is clear value to be gained, not just to get information.” He demonstrates the imperative of marketing automation through some interesting variations of the traditional sales funnel model.

Five Ways B-to-B Marketers Need to Change Their Game by Biznology

Citing dramatic changes in the typical B2B sales cycle – “Buyers don’t really want to talk to vendors until somewhere akin to 70% of the way down the road, at the stage of writing RFPs and getting quotes…Business buying processes are getting longer, and—most important—involving more parties than ever before.  The so-called Buying Circle in large enterprise B-to-B—the influencers, specifiers, users, decision-makers—comprises as many as 21 people, according to Marketing Sherpa”—Ruth Stevens challenges marketers to “think differently” and use these specific techniques to maximize impact with buyers.

B2B Sales Trends and Strategies

Salesmen are Dying and Other IT Trends by IT Marketing World

Tom Pisello details changes in the B2B buying cycle resulting from the immediate access to vast amounts of information now available online. It isn’t exactly “death of a salesman” but it does mean death to the old way of selling. Pisello concludes that “Advanced ROI business case tools and training should be provided to direct and channel sales professionals to help them advance from traditional product / solution selling, to the value selling buyers now demand.”

Gartner: 5 Questions for Anyone Selling Technology by Inflexion Point

Bob Apollo shares five questions posed by Steve Prentice of Gartner in a presentation on the use of technology to drive business innovation, along with his interpretation of what those questions mean to those focused on selling technology-based products or services in a B2B context.

5 Ways To Influence B2B Group Buying Decisions by Social Media B2B

Noting that B2B purchases are normally group decisions, Adam Holden-Bache suggests “five things to consider as you create social media content targeted at B2B group buyers,” including highlighting the value of your offering (based on buyer roles) and showing how it will integrate with the buying company’s existing tools, systems and processes.

And Finally…

Future Trends: 2012 Online Marketing & Technology Predictions by TopRank Online Marketing Blog

This post opened with Holger Schulze’s predictions for 2011, and fittingly closes with Lee Odden’s prognostication for 2012. He challenges marketers to think how their audiences will be consuming information in the coming years (evolving online and device technology) rather than narrow concepts, then presents seven compelling reports and infographics outlining “key technology, social business and digital marketing trends for 2012 and beyond.”

Many books fail to live up to what’s promised on their covers: exciting title, raving blurbs, boring content. But The Power of Strategic Commitment by Josh Leibner, Gershon Mader and Alan Weiss is just the opposite—it’s a vital and engaging guide to effective leadership, despite the yawn-inducing title.

Power is written for leaders at all levels of any size organization. After defining what they mean by “strategic commitment,” the authors explain why it is so crucial to organizational success.

Basically, most organizations operate at a sub-optimal level because employees are more concerned about protecting their status quo than with making bold changes that will propel the organization to higher levels of success. This isn’t because they are bad employees, but because they don’t have effective leadership. (As the writers note, “Only when leaders are willing to ‘own’ the current state of affairs, and admit to themselves that they have caused the current levels of apathy, resistance, or resignation, can they begin to address and improve the situation.”) The authors then outline explicitly why this is the case, and most importantly, what to about it.

Often, it isn’t so much what an organization does that determines success, but how it does it. As a case in point, the authors cite Apple’s retail stores: “Online purchasing has created a new legion of buyers who aren’t willing to wait for bored salespeople to attend to them inn retail outlets. Yet Apple, Inc. was able to create very successful retail outlets by assigning a salesperson to customers from their moment of entry, through all purchases, right up to departures. (As one woman shopper was heard to remark, ‘Life should be like this, with a man assigned to you for as long as you want him.’).” Ouch!

The authors contend that many books about execution, motivation, and leadership fail to provide the information needed to really move the needle because they deal with only single factors of organizational excellence. What’s needed is true employee engagement with the corporate mission; commitment, as distinct from compliance.

Noting, from their observations in years of business consulting, that “when strategy fails it is almost always due to poor implementation, not poor formulation,” the authors argue that consensus is not the same as commitment. “Consensus is not commitment. People agree to ‘live with’ something, but that doesn’t mean they would ‘die for’ it.” They point out that in highly effective organizations, there are often passionate disputes—but these organizations are not disrupted by internal politics.

Along the way, the authors enthusiastically skewer “flavor of the month” management fads:

“In the early 1990’s, process reengineering…was the most popular organizational business response to improve effectiveness…By the late 1990s, it had become apparent that you could improve processes until the cows came home, but if people and functions were not genuinely on board ad buying in, then productivity gains would be ephemeral at best…In a leading manufacturing organization, the CEO’s engineering background and belief in the ‘science’ of Six Sigma drove him to ensure his managers and employees were rigorously complying with the process rather than truly owning the need to improve quality and the customer experience. As a result, Six Sigma was pervasive but customer satisfaction levels continued to decline. No customer ever proclaimed ‘Wow, I love what they’re doing with Six Sigma,” or ‘Quality teams have really improved by loyalty!’”

The lesson they draw is: “Organizational commitment to a CEO’s strategy is…perhaps the key factor in the success of the strategy and its organizational objectives.” In a nutshell, they recommend dictatorship in setting objectives (the “what”) but democracy in determining the means to achieve them (the “how”), and conclude “Including and engaging employees so that they can fully commit to the strategy is the ultimate factor in whether strategy succeeds or not.”

Leibner, Mader and Weiss identify two key issues at the heart of strategic commitment: content and context. Content is “the plan.” To be effective, it must be valid (the correct path for the organization based on research and independent thought) and it must be clearly communicated so that everyone in the organization can “get on the same page.”

Context has four key drivers:

• • Credibility (are leaders and managers being straightforward and honest?)
• • Courage (do leaders have the resolve to see the strategy through? Do employees  believe that management will be “open to hearing the real, often negative feedback, and will they have the guts to deal with the real issues?”)
• • Competence (are the organization’s leaders capable of executing the strategy; do they know what they’re doing?)
• • Caring (do the leaders understand the impact that the plan will have on employees? Will they give employees the freedom to contribute, and recognition for those contributions? As the authors sum this up, “the more that people believe that management values them as resources and not as expenses, the more committed they tend to become.”)

Leiber and Mader are the founders of Quantum Performance, Inc., a strategic management consulting firm that has worked with numerous Global 1000 clients. Weiss is a consultant, speaker, author of 32 books, and head of Summit Consulting Group. The three bring years of experience to this book, and illustrate many of their points with true-life stories from name-brand clients. But the principals and guidance presented here apply to organizations of all sizes, and non-profit and government agencies as well as businesses.

The book closes with appendix containing several helpful tools, checklists and tips to help put the authors’ ideas into practice.

The Power of Strategic Commitment, despite the dry title, is an engagingly written and vital guide to developing leadership practices that enable higher levels of organizational success.

Guest post by Kristin Zhivago

Tom is right. As he contended in Web Presence Optimization Reloaded, you should be “everywhere.” You have to appear in all the channels where your customers may be lurking.

But—and this is big—if you appear in those channels with a message that does not resonate with your potential buyers, it’s worse than not being there at all. You will be convincing potential buyers that you really don’t understand their issues, don’t know what they really care about, and aren’t really going to be able to solve their problems. You will be “unselling,” rather than selling.

Details about the revenue-growth method (including the questions you should be asking customers), are in Kristin's new book, Roadmap to Revenue: How to Sell the Way Your Customers Want to Buy.

How do you make sure your content—wherever it appears—is relevant and convincing?

You ask your current customers a tested set of questions that will result in you knowing exactly what you should be saying to your future customers. Using this method, you will actually be able to reverse-engineer your successful sales so you can produce new sales in quantity. Fortunately, you only have to interview 7 – 10 customers of any given type to see ironclad, bankable patterns emerge. These patterns will direct your company’s efforts going forward, and will result in higher revenue.

You should ask your questions on the phone, in a conversation. Your customers will be more relaxed and tell you more on the phone than they will in person. They will also give you more usable information than you’d ever get out of an emailed or webform survey. People tend to “clam up” when they’re typing something that could be used against them in some way. And “listening” to social media won’t tell you what their buying process was, or what they were thinking as they made the purchase. Even social media companies hire me to have these conversations with their customers.

The interviewing is just the first step to increasing your revenue. Equally important is what you learn, and what you do with the information after you have analyzed it and discussed it.

You will learn:

• Why they came looking for your solution—the problem they were trying to solve, and how they describe it. These words and phrases will become the magic words that resonate with customers. They won’t have to translate your internal jargon into the words and phrases they would naturally use.
• What their concerns were as they were trying to buy. I say “trying,” because only a few companies in the world actually make it easy for their customers to buy from them. Most companies place one barrier after another in front of buyers when they’re attempting to buy.
• What they like about your company, products, and services (which you should be promoting), and what simply isn’t working (which you should fix).
• What they wish you were selling. It could be a small tweak to your existing product line, a new service associated with your product line, a new way of packaging or supporting the product, or even a new product that would provide a new revenue stream.

Armed with what you’ve learned, you will then map out their buying process. You will create marketing and selling tools that make it easy for them to take the next step in their buying process, encouraged by what they see as they go.

Using this approach, all of your online and offline content—and the tools produced for salespeople—will resonate with customers. Your product developers will know exactly what they should be focusing on. Top executives will know what should be offered, how the business should be structured, and even what people are willing to pay for those products and services. You will know the promises that they want you to keep, and you will make the necessary changes to your company so you can keep those promises. You will create a revenue-growth action plan that lays out the steps you need to take to make all this happen. You won’t have to guess and experiment anymore.

As you make these changes to your website, marketing and selling tools, products, and services, customers will respond positively. They will buy more. And, they will tell others how great you are, which will increase your sales even more.

Kristin Zhivago is a revenue coach who helps CEOs and entrepreneurs sell more by understanding what their customers want to buy and how they want to buy it. She blogs at http://www.RevenueJournal.com.

Twitter, YouTube videos, text messaging…there’s no question attention spans are short. Everyone is busy, asked constantly to “do more with less,” including most critically their time. To connect with buyers in this environment, your business website needs to provide them with the information they need—quickly and concisely.

By the time a buyer reaches your site, he or she has likely done the basic research. The problem is defined, the solution set narrowed, and now it’s time to choose between competing vendors. In order to make the short list, and ideally to win the business, your site needs to quickly answer five critical questions.

1. Who are you? Unless your brand is a household name, at least within your industry, this is a critical element. Don’t waste your “About” page company history and trivia—make it “sell” your company. Write about awards, media/analyst recognition, number/importance of customers, length of time in business, the experience of your founders, funding, growth and financial performance, and/or any other information that conveys the message: we are the “safe” choice to buy from in this industry.

2. What do you sell? While that is obvious to you, it isn’t to prospects unfamiliar with your company. Use keyword research tools to make sure you are using terms your prospective buyers use, and make it clear and concise. Do you sell a point solution or something that’s part of a broader product suite? Products only or also associated services? For example, suppose you sell web content management software. That could mean a free or low-cost content management system, enterprise content management software, or a web marketing system that includes CRM and email capabilities as well as a CMS.

3. Who do you sell to? No company, especially a small business, can be everything to everyone. Make it clear who your target customers are; this will help weed out prospects who aren’t really qualified and enable you to tightly focus your web copy on your best potential buyers. Do you sell to consumers or to other businesses? To what specific demographic? To big companies or small? In a particular industry or set of industry segments? Make it clear to your site visitors if they are “in the right place.”

4. Why are you the best choice? This is where you differentiate yourself from the pack. Be as direct and factual as possible about your differentiators: service, price, features, capabilities, technology, experience, focus, expertise, acknowledgments, TCO, ROI…tell your prospects what makes your product or service uniquely suited to their needs.

5. How do I buy from you? If a qualified buyer has landed on your site and you’ve done a good job answering questions 1-4 above, this is the critical final question. What do you want the person to do next? Can they buy directly from your site or is it a more complex, high-value purchase that requires a sales cycle? If the former, give them a clear and simple path to the purchase. If the latter, you may need to provide more than one option—but don’t offer too many choices, which may overwhelm the prospect. Possibilities include downloading a white paper or report, signing up for a newsletter, contacting you for more information, following you on Twitter or Facebook, signing up for a free trial, viewing an online demo, or registering for a webinar. Different options likely make sense on different pages. Keep it simple and clear. Test different calls to action.

Much of this may seem obvious, but many business websites still either overload visitors with too much content or make key information hard to find. Differentiate your organization from competitors make it an effective sales tool by concisely answering these key questions for your prospective customers.

A few weeks back, I had a chance to get away for a few days “up nort” as Minnesotans say, for some fishing and relaxing with the family. While there, my mother-in-law took us to the Woodtick Theater, a bluegrass music show in the huge metropolis of Akeley (population: 432). The show itself wasn’t really my kind of thing, but then again, I wasn’t the target demographic (see below). But as I thought about it later, this little theater definitely has some marketing and management lessons to teach any business.

You’ve almost certainly never heard of the Woodtick Theater and are unlikely to see it written up in any business book, but consider:

• • The theater is in its 20th season.
• • It’s always been profitable.
• • It has raving fans and an extraordinary level of repeat business.
• • The employees love working there; many have been with the theater for a decade or more.

That’s an impressive set of performance metrics for any business. So how do they do it? Here are five keys to the theater’s success than any business can apply.

Focus on your target market.

Looking around the theater, I felt…young. While there were a few 20- and 30-somethings, and even some teens, in the crowd, the vast majority had hair that was grayer or less present than mine. The target audience for the show is definitely the post-retirement, AARP, RV-driving, early dinner crowd. Other than a Keith Urban song from the late 90′s, the newest song in the troupe’s repertoire was the Beatle’s Penny Lane. And it was these folks who were clapping most enthusiastically, singing along with many of the songs.

The point is—no business can be all things to all people. Particularly for small businesses, focus is critical. Identify your target market, as precisely as possible, and focus on producing messages that appeal to them and products and services that delight them.You’ll likely pick up some “bonus” business from outside your defined target market, which is great, but don’t let that dilute your focus on your core market.

Do the simple things well.

As noted above, the Woodtick Theater plays bluegrass music. As guitar players know, one can play nearly any bluegrass tune with just four chords: G, C, D and E minor. That’s not so say the band members weren’t talented—they were. They may have done just fine playing something from Lady Gaga or Nickelback, or Tchaikovsky for that matter. The point, rather, is that their audience likes the simple songs, ones they know and can sing along with, played well.

Likewise, your customers don’t expect you to be able to solve every problem under the sun, but to be competent (or better) at getting the basics right. Set realistic expectations, then strive to meet or exceed them. As blatantly obvious as that may sound, it’s surprising how many enterprises fail at the basics, like making it easy to contact customer service or returning sales calls promptly.

Make it easy to recommend your business.

The Woodtick Theater hands every guest a “keepsake” printed program; it not only talks about the show, but includes a few corny jokes, the history of Akeley, and most importantly: a discount coupon for the show. This encourages patrons to either come back for another show, or more frequently, recommend the show and pass along the program and discount.

How can your business make it easy for customers to recommend you? That depends on the type of business you’ve got, but a few tactics include producing an email newsletter that’s worthy of forwarding, including social sharing buttons on your blog and website, being active in social media, having a presence on review sites like Yelp (if applicable), or even developing a formal referral program with discounts or other incentives.

Constantly gather, and incorporate, customer feedback.

It’s easy to ask customers “how are we doing?” But the fact is, unless the customer is extremely happy (or unhappy), their answer is likely to be along the lines of “just fine.” Not terribly helpful.

The manager of the Woodtick Theater told me that he constantly watches how the audience responds to their act. “We change our songs frequently in order to keep the show fresh, so we watch how the audience responds. If they are smiling and singing along, we’ll keep that song in the act. If they don’t seem to really love it, we’ll throw that song out and try something different.”

Most businesses can’t collect feedback or witness customer behavior that easily, so they need to employ other methods to monitor and observe customers in action. The best companies find ways to understand how customers are using their products in the real world and utilize that information to constantly improve their products, add new features (or drop features that aren’t needed or valued) and produce new innovations. For example, LEGO Group is known for involving its most passionate customers intimately in its new product development process.

Make customer satisfaction everyone’s job.

Everyone we encountered at the Woodtick Theater—not just the performers, but the emcee, the lady at the ticket booth, the young guy who sold us our popcorn–was pleasant and smiling. All seemed to enjoy being there and wanted the audience to enjoy the visit as well.

Employees want several things from their jobs: an income, benefits, a comfortable work environment, a supportive boss. But they also want to feel that their efforts make a difference. Regardless of whether or not an employee is customer-facing (and through social media, that definition has expanded), every employee should understand how well the organization is performing on customer satisfaction metrics, how that satisfaction is measured, and how their individual efforts contribute.

That may be obvious for sales or customer service personnel, but what about the data entry person in accounting, the guys on the loading dock, or the janitor–how do their efforts impact customer happiness? Well, customers  may not rave about accurate billing or consistently getting their orders right, but they will certainly notice if those tasks aren’t done correctly. And if customers visit your office, fairly or not, how neat and clean it is will affect their perceptions of your company.

If you ever find yourself in northern Minnesota and the prospect of hearing a couple of retired music teachers perform a song like “Ghost Chickens in the Sky” (seriously, that was on the playlist) appeals to you, you may want to check out the Woodtick Theater. But regardless, any organization can benefit from the business practices that the theater exemplifies.

According to a recent presentation from HubSpot, “selling is 10X easier once you have established trust.” Other than having something of value to offer, trust is the most essential element for business success. It removes psychological barriers and objections to buying, and makes people want to do business with you because they are comfortable.

I was talking to a client not long ago about some travel she has coming up that will take her away from the office for several weeks. Half-jokingly, I told her not to worry, I can build her business without her. She laughed, then said, “You know what’s amazing? Even though we’ve only been working together for a few months, I completely trust you to do it.”

That is amazing, and it is treasured. Particularly for consultants like me who work mostly out of sight of our clients,  but really for any business, trust is absolutely essential to maintaining long-term client relationships and generating referral business.

Trust is precious yet delicate, like a work of fine art, such as a Ming vase:

• • It’s extremely valuable.
• • It’s difficult to obtain.
• • It’s fragile and easily broken.
• • Once broken, it’s extraordinarily difficult to repair.

But trust is unlike that vase in one critical aspect. Once you’ve obtained a Ming vase (or any other physical thing of value), assuming you take reasonable steps to safeguard it, it’s yours. Trust, on the other hand, can never be taken for granted and must be constantly and vigilantly re-earned. It cannot be, like civilization in the words of Kipling, something “laboriously achieved” but only “precariously defended.”

Most high-value purchases now begin online. Your first opportunity to build trust comes from what you say online and what others say about you. That’s why blogging is important (as a way to educate, inform and even entertain, without blatant selling) as is social media (for answering questions and building online relationships that lead to positive third-party coverage and comments).

But the process of building trust is even more fundamental than that. Blogs and social networks are just tools. They can be used productively, or clumsily. What matters most is your approach to business.

Before the Sale

• • Explain (without hype or a sales pitch) what you do, so people understand if you are offering what they are looking for.
• • Demonstrate knowledge (through blogging, guest posts,  comments, interaction on social networks, presentations, etc.).
• • Differentiate yourself, with disparaging your competition. Walmart (“Always the Low Price”) and Lexus (“The Pursuit of Perfection”) are effective examples in the consumer world. The agency I work with, KC Associates, is a full service marketing and PR agency (of which there are zillions) but focused exclusively on b2b technology clients; the focus sets the agency apart.
• • Be transparent. Buyers can smell BS from a great distance. Better to give an answer that is less than ideal but honest than one that is just what you think the prospect wants to hear but is an exaggeration (or worse).

After the Sale

• • Do what you say you are going to do.
• • Be as responsive as possible.
• • Set realistic expectations (then work hard to exceed them).
• • Be forthright. Your customers don’t expect you to be perfect, but they do you expect you to be straight with them. If something doesn’t work as well as planned, tell your customer, as precisely as possible, why. Then make recommendations for what to do differently next time.

Particularly with the explosion of social media and online content, buyers are more informed than ever before. The shady, fly-by-night operators will be exposed more quickly—while vendors who deliver value and engender trust will thrive.

Sometimes it’s essential to step back from everyday marketing tactics to ask the bigger questions: not just “how do we get more people to `like’ us on Facebook?” or “what apps should we be adding to our Facebook page?” but: why do we even have a corporate Facebook page? What are our key objectives for social media marketing? What conceptual models are we basing our marketing assumptions and practices on, and what new models should we be thinking about? Which emerging trends do we need to keep an eye on? Do we really understand why our customers buy from us? As we shift resources from traditional outbound marketing to inbound attraction marketing, how should we (re)organize to support that? As we rely more on all of our employees (not just marketing and PR) to represent our company through social media, how do we train and motivate them to do so effectively?

While you won’t find much in the way of “tips and tricks” in this post, you will find guidance on answers to these big-picture marketing questions and more here in some the best marketing strategy guides and insights of the past year.

5 principles of breakthrough success in the “Relationship Era” by iMedia Connection

Doug Levy contends that marketing has passed into its third major era—as we’ve moved from the primacy of product information through consumer persuasion to a new focus on sustainable relationships—and lays out five principles for success in this new realm.

Big Ed’s Top 10 B2B Marketing Trends For 2010 by Marketing-Gimbal

C. Edward Brice pretty much nailed the significant b2b marketing developments for 2010 (e.g. mass adoption of social media, but no clear way to measure ROI from it) in this predictive post. Was he prescient or just playing it safe? You decide.

2010: Social Network Advertising and Marketing Outlook by Brian Solis

Citing research from eMarketer, Brian Solis documents the continuing shift from interruption-based advertising to earned media engagement as the primary mode of marketing, as well as shifts within the social media landscape (e.g. from MySpace to Facebook). Remember when Facebook had “only” 350 million users? Yeah, that was one year ago.

Why Content is King No More… by Webfadds

Scott Frangos believes that content is no longer the “king” in online marketing strategy, but rather is now more like the “queen” with social media connection—your ability to share content and interact with readers—now playing the role of king.

The 3 Reasons That Motivate B2B Buyers to Buy by The Marketing Melange

Mike Frichol notes the disconnect between b2b technology vendor messages focused on features, innovation, technology leadership or competitive advantages and the three factors that actually motivate b2b buyers to make a purchase.

3 must-have marketing tools for small businesses by iMedia Connection

Eric Groves explains why low-cost, easy-to-use email marketing, online survey and social networking tools are essential marketing components for smaller companies.

Re-Architecting the B2B Sales and Marketing Process for a New Decade by Reflexions

“Sales organisations are reporting extended sales cycles, declining win rates, and that a growing number of apparently promising opportunities are ending in ‘no decision.’  At the same time, they observe that their prospects’ budgets appear to be shrinking, that more players are involved in the decision making process, and that their buyers are exhibiting increasingly risk-averse behavior.” What’s a sales executive to do? Bob Apollo suggests a three-phase plan to re-architect the sales and marketing process to better reflect today’s business buying process.

The Truth About Inbound Marketing vs Outbound Marketing by Kuno Creative

John McTigue presents four reasons why both inbound and outbound tactics should be included in any b2b marketing strategy. For example: “unless you already have a well-known brand, it can take many months to build up a loyal following (in social media)…blending targeted outbound marketing into social media marketing campaigns can accelerate awareness and growth.”

5 Steps to B2B Marketing Success by Everything Technology Marketing

According to Holger Schulze, “major shifts are taking place in B2B marketing…buyers and decision makers don’t want to get interrupted by a product promo email or a cold call that likely doesn’t come at the exact time they have a specific problem the caller can help with. And today’s customers are busier than ever. They want to be able to engage with a vendor when they are ready and actively seek out advice, often very late in the buying cycle, and have the vendor guide them through a complex buying and problem solving process.” He offers five steps, from understanding your buyers to investing in marketing automation systems to address this new reality.

Best Practices Produce Mediocre Results by iMedia Connection
***** 5 Stars
In this must-read strategy guide for 2011, the brilliant Rob Rose argues that “We follow ‘best practices’ because they’re safe.  These are maps for us to follow to get the same results as those that went before us.  In short, they are the marketing equivalent of sitting down at the restaurant and saying ‘I’ll have what she’s having.’” Making the case for valuing bold experimentation over the tried-and-true, he concludes: “We need to blow some shit up.”

In this must-read strategy guide for 2011, Rob Rose takes a hard look at “best practices” and concludes that “We need to blow some shit up.”

Framework and Matrix: The Five Ways Companies Organize for Social Business by Web Strategy by Jeremiah Owyang

Jeremiah–the only social media guru popular enough to achieve single-name status–presents five models of organization for social business (Organic, Centralized, Coordinated, Dandelion, and Honeycomb), along with the advantages and drawbacks of each, then asks executives to identify where their organization is today, and where they’d like it to be.

4 ROI Myths by Digital Tonto

Greg Satell identifies the four most damaging ways in which companies try to measure marketing ROI, then suggests an alternative approach that is more complex but also more comprehensive.

Abracadabra Moments, the Opening Line You Should Never Use, and 10 More Ways to Sell Ideas by Fast Company
***** 5 Stars
Sam Harrison offers eight smart tips for selling your ideas to any audience, among them: truly collaborating with your clients (team, co-workers, customers or whomever), one opening line to never use and ditching the handouts—”people follow handouts about as well as cats follow tour guides.”

Marketing ROI Should RIP by iMedia Connection

Another outstanding piece from Rob Rose, this one demonstrating why software tools and marketing tactics, important as they are, don’t deliver value in and of themselves—it’s the marketing people and processes that make these things work (or not). Accountability, yes, but ROI is hard to apply to marketing investments. “Have you EVER gone back after purchasing a piece of software and calculated whether or not you generated more money from that tool than what you spent on it? No,  of course not.”

10 tiny signs of great leadership by My Venture Pad
***** 5 Stars
This very concise (<250 words) post should be required reading, and re-reading, for every executive. Les McKeown briefly yet brilliantly contrasts the attributes of great leaders with those of “tiny” leaders, e.g., “(great leaders) want to find the smartest person in the room. Tiny leaders want to be the smartest person in the room.”

Crucial Components for B2B Social Media Success by acSellerant

Bob Leonard details 14 key factors for developing an effective b2b social media plan, among them: include input from sales, develop target personas, have a realistic content development plan, and build in analytics.

Are B2B Marketers Missing the Point? by Marketing Interactions

Ardath Albee reacts to MarketingSherpa research indicating that a third or more of b2b marketers assign basic lead management processes like having systems in place for lead scoring and nurturing non-sales-ready leads to the “back burner.” It’s crucial, she writes, for marketing to align its processes with sales to agree on the definition of a “sales ready” lead and hand leads back and forth based on where the prospect is in their buying cycle.

8 marketing blunders to avoid by iMedia Connection

Jim Nichols delightfully details marketing blunders to avoid, richly illustrated with graphics and examples, such as trying to outcool Apple, vowing to make up for it in volume, and marketing on attributes versus benefits.

The Best TED Talks To Make Use Of Social Media by MakeUseOf

Angela Alcorn presents 10 of the best TED videos from leading thinkers in social media, including Seth Godin on “Tribes,” James Surowiecki on social media news gathering and the wisdom of crowds, Matt Ridley (“When Ideas Have Sex”), and Gordon Brown (yes, as in the former British Prime Minister).

B2B marketing without creative has no punch by The Social CMO Blog

Defining “creative” broadly, Billy Mitchell asks and answers a series of questions that demonstrate the importance of creativity in b2b marketing processes, that it is most definitely not simply “fluff,” and concludes with 10 ways to inject creativity into b2b marketing programs.

Remember, Sometimes The Choir Can Use Some Preachin by iMedia Connction

One more from Rob Rose, this time reminding marketers that one of their most important audiences is the coworkers inside the organization: “Employees want to be motivated—and they desperately want to be on your side.” Just as with external marketing campaigns, it’s imperative do things like speaking the right language for your audience (even if your topic is the same, it’s important to use different words when talking about marketing with the IT group than with finance types), setting goals, and measuring results.

15 Inspirational Quotes About B2B Marketing by Modern B2B Blogs

Maria Pergolino shares a thoughtful collection of quotes from leaders like Valeria Maltoni (“Your writing doesn’t have to be boring just because it’s for other businesses. Businesses have people who read stuff.”) and Dave Jung: (“While an awareness of the customer’s use of your product is important, repeating what they already know obscures the real information they want. And that’s what B2B marketing thrives on … information.”).

The four engines of B2B marketing success by Reputation to Revenue

Rob Leavitt maps out and explains the four key “engines” that drive b2b marketing: content, relationships, lead development, and solutions development (combining products and services to produce “higher value solutions that respond more specifically to individual customer needs”).

Four takeaways from Marketing Sherpa’s B2B Summit by Marketing in a Downturn

Lawrence Mitchell shares lessons learned at MarketingSherpa’s October event about optimizing the marketing funnel, scoring and nurturing leads, and using advanced analytics to increase the ROI of marketing activities.

Six Secrets of Breakthrough Companies by The Six Disciplines Blog

Skip Reardon reports the key findings of Keith McFarland, a former Inc. 500 CEO who spent years researching thousands of private companies and interviewing their leaders in an attempt to identify the secrets of “breaking through.” Among the findings, which should come as no surprise but apparently do to a disturbing number of corporate executives today: Happy employees make successful companies. Money doesn’t solve everything. And “stick to the knitting” doesn’t always work; change matters.

15 Tips to Stop Random Acts of Social Media and Build a Business Platform by FruitZoom

Pam Moore advises businesses to avoid RAMMIES—”Random acts of marketing…that are not integrated, funded or properly planned.” She explains why they are bad, how to spot them, and how to deal with them (Step 1: “Get the RAMMIE planned, funded, measured and integrated. If this isn’t possible, then KILL IT!”)

Lead generation: Real-time, data-driven B2B marketing and sales by MarketingSherpa Blog

David Meerman Scott contends that marketers need to adopt real-time platforms and practices for lead generation, much like Wall Street traders have done in the financial markets. He explains how such systems can work and what marketers can do today to get started down this road.

The unique benefits of 5 marketing platforms by iMedia Connection

Gordon Plutsky describes how to use five marketing platforms–website, email, custom content, social media and mobile–in tandem to create an effective and comprehensive marketing media channel.

7 Steps to Creating a Sure-Fire Marketing System by American Express OPEN Forum

Contrary to the beliefs of business owners mystified by the “voodoo” of marketing, frequent best-of contributor John Jantsch argues that “marketing is not only a system, it may be the most important system in any business.” He then lays out a series of steps that lead to a “simple, effective and affordable approach to systematic marketing.”

7 Little Words That Sum Up the Entire Marketing Machine by Duct Tape Marketing

Following up on the post above,  John Jantsch contends that “Marketing is essentially getting someone that has a need to know, like and trust you…the entire practice of marketing (can be) summed up in seven little words that make up what I call The Marketing Hourglass,” illustrated in this helpful diagram.

10 Marketing Blunders Many Small Businesses Still Make! by Masterful Marketing

Debra Murphy advises small business owners to avoid common pitfalls as they plan for 2011, among them not clearly defining the target market; delivering inconsistent marketing messages; and focusing too much on internal messages (OUR company, OUR capabilities) rather than on solving problems in the customers’ world.

50 Ways to Get Your Site Noticed by Nettuts+

Carl Heaton provides more than four dozen tips for building traffic to your website, ranging from the obvious (write fresh and catchy content, listen to your visitors, submit your site to online directories) to the obscure (send seasonal e-cards, sponsor a college project, or “Hide a Konami Code Easter Egg”).

Beyond Paid Media: Marketing’s New Vocabulary by Forbes

David Edelman and Brian Salsberg write that “While traditional ‘paid’ media—such as television and radio commercials, print advertisements and roadside billboards—still play a major role, companies today can exploit many alternative forms of media,” and advise marketers to think in terms of paid, earned and owned media.

A big part of the appeal of social media is its simplicity. Any teenager can set up a Facebook page and start sharing status updates with their friends. Any mom or dad can set one up to share pictures of their kids (and keep tabs on their teenagers). Anyone can record an event with a Flip and upload it to YouTube. Anyone can get on Twitter and follow Ashton or Oprah.

That simplicity, however, can make social media dangerous for business. It can lead to well-intentioned but poorly executed rogue company Facebook pages. Inadvertent but damaging revelations. Oafish attempts to treat social networks like just another one-way promotional channel. “Build it and they will come” approach disappointments and subsequently abandoned efforts. Selecting tactics based on perceptions and opinions rather than data. Poor results, or worse—no clear idea of what to measure or what kinds of results to expect.

Executives who would never build a factory and then decide what to produce in it nevertheless set up a Twitter account or Facebook page with no clear plan for how to attract followers, or who exactly they want to attract, or what type of content they are going to promote, or who’s going to produce the content, or what the goal of the content is, or how many fans/followers/friends they should expect to attract, or how they are going to retain the interest of those people once they get it, or what results they hope to achieve, or what they will measure, or how they will measure it, or…you get the picture.

What’s needed is a strategic approach to social media, starting with listening. Who is talking about your industry? Where are they talking about it? What are they saying? Which voices seem the loudest, the most influential? These are all questions to ask, and answer, long before worrying about the background image you’ll use on your company’s Twitter account or what tabs you’ll need on your Facebook page…or even if your business really needs a Facebook page.

Then plan: what do you need to do? Who will be assigned to do it? Where do you need to be active? What types of content will you need? What are your objectives? How will you measure them?

The Four Essential Phases of Social Media Adoption is an attempt to provide a strategic framework for using social media for business. It’s a start-at-the-beginning-and-not-in-the-middle, walk-before-you-run approach. It’s not dip-your-toe-in-the-water—that doesn’t work with social media. Social media success requires a sustained commitment, over time. But this strategic approach is, to stay with that metaphor, an approach to determining the depth of the lake, the temperature of the water, and the kind of fish you’ll be swimming with before you jump in.

For all its simplicity, social media is an incredibly powerful tool. It can fundamentally change the way companies market their products and communicate with customers. And it will for many businesses. If your organization is still struggling with “if,” “when” or “how” questions with regard to using social media for business purposes, this strategic approach may provide the foundation needed.

MarketingSherpa recently released its 2011 B2B Marketing Benchmark Report. You can download the executive summary for free (or pay $400 for the full report). The summary reveals no shocking surprises but a few interesting trends:

78% of marketers identified “generating high-quality leads” as their top priority, while 44% said the same for “generating a high volume of leads” (so generating low-quality leads is a priority for some marketers? Strange.). Both figures were up slightly, but similar to last year. As MarketingSherpa notes, “Year after year, the greatest challenge that B2B organizations face is generating high-quality leads.”

A slightly higher percentage of marketers than last year (41% vs. 39%) called “marketing to a lengthening sales cycle” a top challenge. This may be just a statistical hiccup or it may be due to the continuing economic slump. While there’s no reason to expect sales cycles to shorten, an improving economy next year should help stabilize the length of the decision process.

Generating PR “buzz” and having  a product perceived as “cutting edge” were called significant challenges by only about a third of marketers, unchanged from last year. “Soft” benefits tend to take a back seat to harder measures like leads and marketing productivity during lean recessionary budgets, but should increase in importance as economic conditions improve and companies shift from a cost-cutting and expense minimization to growth mode.

Of eleven different marketing categories, all of those in which marketers said they plan to increase spending in 2011 are online activities: website design / optimization and social media topped the list with 69% of companies planning larger budgets in these areas, followed by virtual events and webinars, SEO, email marketing and paid search. The categories with the largest percentage of marketers reporting plans to reduce spending next year were high-cost offline tactics: direct mail, trade shows and print advertising.

Asked to specify which marketing tactics are most effective, more than 90% judged online activities such as website optimization, email marketing and SEO as somewhat or very effective—not surprisingly given the responses to the previous question regarding 2011 budget priorities. Tactics like telemarketing, PR and PPC advertising fell predominantly into the “somewhat effective” camp. But strangely, social media—one of the top priorities for increased spending next year—was viewed as “highly effective” by only 16% of respondents, while 25% said it was “not effective.” Why would otherwise highly sensible, ROI-conscious marketers spend even more money on a tactic that they don’t believe works very well? MarketingSherpa’s explanation:

“Social media is undervalued in terms of effectiveness and this is a result of the infancy of this marketing tactic and the low level of experience organizations have in execution when compared to more seasoned marketing tactics. As B2B marketers become more mature with their social marketing practices, their perceptions on the effectiveness of this tactic will improve.”

The study also found that direct mail was judged as a low-effectiveness tactic. However, both social media and direct mail can be effective if done right (though social media results tend to start small and build over time). Perhaps more of these marketers should seek professional outside help in these areas.

Finally, in what appears to be bad news for marketing automation software vendors, 60% of respondents reported having this application in place, while another 20% (likely purveyors of lower value / short sales cycle / low consideration items) said they no plans to implement such software. That leaves only 20% of the market left to fight over. Now, it’s possible that the survey sample was biased in favor of early adopters or that respondents were confusing email service providers with true marketing automation, but it’s also possible that this market is simply maturing faster than its leading vendors have publicly acknowledged.

Want to know more? Again, you can download the free executive summary or purchase the full report to get all the details.

In Defy Gravity: Propel Your Business to High-Velocity Growth, Rebel Brown shows business owners and executives how to shed the weight of legacy baggage, filter out the noise and focus on those opportunities which provide the best potential for profitable growth. This is a critical guidebook for any business faced with shrinking margins, flatlined revenue, or worse–that is in freefall and in need of a turnaround strategy for survival.

To illustrate her points throughout the book, Rebel metaphorically uses the language of flight—gravity, lift, thrust, waypoints, trim tabs—much as Tom Hayes employed terms from the old west in Maverick Marketing. In the book’s first section, “Sources of Gravity,” Rebel details how old practices and beliefs can weigh a company down, preventing it from reaching its potential altitude of profitability and speed of growth. Most of these will be familiar to anyone with a few years of business experience behind them: “it’s our biggest seller!” (even though it’s rapidly becoming yesterday’s technology), “They’re our biggest customer” (highest revenue doesn’t always equate to most profitable), “but the other guys have it” (the fallacy of chasing the competition) and more.

On one particularly sensitive topic in this section—the drag that can be created by long-time employees clinging to the status quo rather than evolving with the company—is handled graciously. Loyal employees shouldn’t be discarded cavalierly with every change in the wind. Their knowledge and opinions matter; if they are resisting a change in direction, listen to make sure what they’re saying really is status quo baggage thinking, and not a prescient warning of hidden dangers in the new course of action. If it is truly resistance to needed change, give them a chance to get on board with the new flight plan. At that point, if they continue to be a source of drag, and worse, make an effort to persuade others to sabotage efforts at changing direction, it’s time to gracefully help them find a seat on another plane.

This a high-level strategy book written for leaders of any sized business. Though Rebel provide guidance on tactics to identify value and evaluate markets, she flies well above the tree tops throughout the book.

At its most basic level, her guidance is: identify your true sources of value—not the ones you think you have, but the ones your best customers (and potential customers) attribute to your company and offerings—and then focus all of your efforts on the most profitable (even if not always the largest in revenue terms) segments. That’s oversimplifying her message, but gets to the heart of it. As she summarizes at the end of chapter 12, “There are two primary sources of sustainable growth: true value and market opportunity. You can’t have one without the other and expect to reach full business velocity.”

She reminds us throughout the book, however, that as obvious as these recommendations may seem, they often fail in practice for a multitude of reasons. The most common is managing based on historical results—expecting the future to be a continuation of the past. Though this is not actually unusual in the business world, Rebel equates it to a pilot trying to fly a plane by looking at what’s behind him to show how absurd this is; no one would want to be on that flight. We want a pilot whose eyes are on the horizon in front of us; businesses run best when managed the same way, looking forward at changing market conditions and needs.

Among Rebel’s insights:

• • ”Market leaders recognize that their best seller isn’t a specific product or approach. They identify their sustainable value as customer benefit, not a specific product.” Take Apple as an example; though the company has lots of outstanding products, it’s core value isn’t a single product but rather cool technology that works reliably.
• • Every organization has three distinct types of value that it is critical to identify properly: company value (i.e., “the brand”), product value (why your customers buy your product or service) and market value (leadership, reputation, unique position). Company value is relatively unchanging, or at most slowly evolving, over time. Product value lasts only as long as product lifecycles.
• • ”Don’t be surprised if the sales reps are selling to a subset of what you believe are current market opportunities. Reps sell where they win, to, wherever they are winning, that’s your current market focus. You’ll find that your best sales reps do not waste time on the target markets you choose for them…Where they focus is your current market opportunity, whether you want to believe it or not. Pay attention.”
• • While you need to understand the competition you’re up against, “don’t start doing deep competitive analysis. That’s not what you need. You need to know the market positions of established market leaders–if there are any…For all markets, understanding the competitive landscape is key to a decision about your strategic course and focus. Just don’t follow your competitors. Think for yourself!”
• • ”One of the biggest mistakes we make in our growth strategies is to assume that we can create demand in the markets we select. That takes big money and lots of time. We’re better off focusing on a market that already has demand, capturing a ready-made opportunity instead of attempting to create a new market space.”
• • ”Leaders, it’s really important that you let folks know that you want real-world estimates. Too many employees are trained to say they can do more than they can, in reality, to look good and to please their managers. Change this behavior if you want to succeed and grow.” The head of the agency I’m with refers to this as “setting proper expectations” and it’s critical for properly allocating budget and effort, and producing results everyone is pleased with.

The strategy section at the end of the book is bit reminiscent of the classic Boston Consulting Group matrix, though Rebels observations and recommendations are more nuanced and advanced. Plus, it’s a lot more fun to talk about airplanes, waypoints and flight decks than dogs and cows. She richly illustrates her points throughout with a variety of case studies from the B2B and consumer marketing realms.

If your business is growing more rapidly and profitably than you ever dreamed, you can afford to ignore this book (at least for now). But if it’s more like the other 98% of businesses—struggling to keep up with the pace of market change and maintain profitable growth—Rebel Brown’s Defy Gravity may very well provide your flight plan for resumed or continued growth and success.