Posts Tagged ‘b2b marketing’
How Marketers are Using Social Media for Business: New Report
Tuesday, April 27th, 2010Whatever questions you may have about social media marketing, you’ll probably find the answers in the 2010 Social Media Marketing Industry Report from white paper guru Michael Stelzner. This excellent study provides a wide array of answers, statistics and insights. If there was any doubt that social media has become a mainstream marketing channel, 91% of respondents said they are using social media for marketing. Given the nature of the respondents, that figure is very likely higher than the overall business population, but there’s no doubt that social media is now being used in a sizable majority of organizations. Here are a few more of the key findings and my own observations.
The Biggest Question
A year ago, the top questions most marketers had about social media related to tactics, with ROI second. This year, questions about ROI top the list. The report notes that “the question of whether social media works has dropped off the charts completely.” One in three marketers said that measuring results and identifying best practices are their top questions about social media marketing.
Expertise Without Experience?
While 65% of marketers have been involved with social media marketing for a few months, only 14% of businesses are outsourcing any aspect of their social media marketing. This is eerily reminiscent of research findings reported by MarketingSherpa a year ago on the large percentage of marketers who felt they could be social media experts without having social media experience. Diving into social media without guidance from an outside expert risks ineffectiveness at the least, and possibly much worse. You could learn to drive a car without an instructor too, but it’s certainly not recommended. This new report does point out that the use of social media outsourcing does vary by company size, but still only 25 of medium to large enterprises are taking advantage of outside expertise.
Social Media Takes Time
How much time? More than half (56%) of respondents said they spend six hours or more per week on social media marketing, with 30% spending 11 hours or more and 12% spending more than half of their time with social media. Furthermore, the time commitment required grows with experience; those getting started in social media spent on average just an hour per week on it. But for marketers who have been using social media for a few months or longer, the median time jumped to 10 hours per week. That makes perfect sense–as marketers develop more social media connections, it takes longer to manage those relationships. And as social media marketing marketing begins to pay dividends, marketers are motivated to spend more time on it. The one question missing here was what gets included in social media time. Content development is one of the most time-consuming aspects of social media marketing, but other than blogging, it isn’t clear if writing is included in these figures.
Exposure vs. ROI
Interestingly, while guidance on measuring ROI topped the list of questions, “increased exposure for my business” was cited as the top benefit of social media marketing, with 85% of respondents achieving this. The next three most common benefits noted–increased traffic and email subscribers, new business partnerships and help with SEO–are also more measures of exposure than tangible financial return. Metrics related to ROI, such as leads generated and direct sales, were mentioned by only about half of the survey respondents as key benefits of social media marketing.
The report notes that last year, only about a third of marketers said that social media helped reduce their marketing expenses, while nearly half made that claim this year. This seems somewhat surprising; while social definitely reduces media/advertising expenses, it increases labor costs. It would seem logical that for many companies, marketing costs would be shifted, but not necessarily reduced, by the use of social media. Again, it isn’t clear what all gets lumped into this category. If content generation is included, overall costs aren’t likely to change much.
Social Media Means (Business-to) Business…
Nearly 74% of marketers who have been using social media for at least two years report that it has helped them close new sales. B2B marketers were slightly more likely to report increased sales than than their B2C counterparts. And small businesses with anywhere from 2-100 employees were most likely to see this benefit.
Social media is also valuable for establishing new business partnerships. More than half of marketers using social media said it had helped them forge new partnerships. Again, this benefit was more prevalent among b2b companies (61%) than b2b firms (49%).
…But Facebook Means Consumer Marketing
The top social media tools used across all respondents are:
Twitter – 88%
Facebook – 87%
LinkedIn – 78%
Blogging – 70%
Among experienced social media users, those who have been at it for at least two years, an astounding 96% use Twitter. Digging further in the details, b2b marketers are considerably more likely to find value with LinkedIn, and slightly more likely to utilize blogs, than their b2c peers. However, b2c marketers are much more likely to use Facebook; in fact, it is the top social media tool in the b2c space, used by 90% of b2c marketing pros.
What the Future Holds for Social Media Marketing
When asked to look forward, two-thirds of marketers said they plan to increase their use of blogs, Facebook, video, Twitter and LinkedIn. Blogs are the top area in which marketers plan to increase efforts, and small businesses are more enthusiastic about blogging than their larger counterparts.
Only 4% of marketers overall said they have no plans to use Facebook, though again it is favored more highly by consumer than business marketers. 80% of b2c companies, and 85% of large companies, plan to increase efforts here.
93% of all marketers are already using Twitter, and 71% plan to increase this effort.
Consumer marketers are slightly more likely to utilize online video and YouTube than their b2b counterparts (76% vs. 71%), but video is the top area of increased investment for the most experienced social marketers across the two segments.
B2b marketers are significantly more likely (72% vs. 59%) to increase their use of LinkedIn than those on the b2c side.
Finally, mobile marketing is growing in importance, but is a much higher priority for large bc2 companies than for smaller firms or b2b marketing teams.
There’s much more in the 2010 Social Media Marketing Industry Report as well. It’s a fascinating read for anyone interested in the current state and future of social media marketing.
Five Big Shifts in Social Media Marketing
Monday, April 19th, 2010Social media reflects a larger trend toward buyer empowerment that has changed not only the practice but the underlying philosophies of marketing over the past several years. Power has gradually shifted over the past couple of decades from manufacturers (e.g. HP, P&G) to the channel (e.g. TigerDirect, Wal Mart) to consumers and b2b buyers. Prospective customers are now using technologies like iPods, TiVo and ad blockers to avoid advertising messages. Interruption marketing isn’t quite dead, but it is no longer nearly as effective as it used to be. Marketers now have to work harder and smarter to earn the attention of potential customers, not just buy it.
While many if not most marketers have adjusted to the new practices required, one still sees corporate Facebook pages with few fans and no clear purpose, Twitter streams filled with nothing but obnoxious “Hey! Buy my stuff now!” messages, repackaged marketing brochures masquerading as thought leadership content and the like. B2c and b2b buyers alike are tuning out such messages; they increasingly listen to each other, to key influencers, and to marketers willing to add real value beyond just schlepping their own products and services when making their purchase decisions.
Just as social media has changed the sales practice, here are five shifts that savvy marketers recognize and capitalizing on to increase sales in an age of consumer empowerment generally and the rise of social media specifically.
Buyer control vs. vendor control: in traditional interruptive marketing, vendors produced messages (advertisements, direct mail, email blasts) and prospective buyers consumed these messages. Production was active, consumption was passive. That equation is now reversed. Buyers control which messages they want to see. Prospects seek out the information they want, and respond to messages that are entertaining, compelling and/or informative. They will help spread great content virally, while ignoring or mercilessly parodying what they don’t like.
Desired content vs. marketing messages: responding to the first trend, marketers are now challenged to produce helpful or interesting content rather than just brochures and marketing collateral. To be sure, marketing content still has its place, but that place is now when the prospect wants it, not at the front end of the consideration cycle. To earn a buyer’s attention up-front, marketers must produce attractive content, whether through entertainment or games in the b2c space, or problem-solving, research-oriented materials in b2b marketing.
Dialog vs. broadcast: in perhaps the biggest shift produced by the rise of social media, prospects now seek two-way communication with vendors rather than passively consuming marketing messages. In the early days of the internet, traditional forms of media (magazines, newspapers, marketing brochures) were simply moved from print to online; communication was still primarily one-way. Forums and blogs began to change that, empowering prospective purchasers to ask questions of vendors, and of each other. Now, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other social media tools have exploded this capability. Conversations are less expensive than broadcasting from a media standpoint, but much more costly in terms of time. Budgets consequently must shift from buying one-way media to adding personnel or supplementing staff with outside experts who can successfully engage potential buyers in product conversations.
Ongoing vs. campaigns: Traditional marketing often revolved around campaigns, such as a defined run period for a specific advertisement or series of ads, that had a clear beginning and endpoint. Social media marketing, in contrast, is ongoing. Try using a blog specifically for a campaign and you’ll end up with an abandoned blog and disillusioned readers. Traditional campaigns were about producing sales in the short term; social media is about developing relationships that lead to (increased and ongoing) sales over the long term. Well-crafted campaigns led to one-time buyers, who may or may not have returned. The successful use of social media produces long-term customers and brand advocates. This shift has also altered best practices for successful product launches.
Indirect vs. direct measures: Traditional advertising and marketing campaigns often lent themselves to convenient, direct measures of success (or failure), e.g.: 100 people saw our ad, 10 responded, and two purchased. ROI was a simple calculation. Social media can be measured, certainly, but the metrics are frequently less direct and ROI challenging to measure with any precision. While research shows that social media engagement increases revenue, direct tactical measurement is difficult. For example, while it’s generally better to have more Twitter followers than fewer, quality matters more; better to have fewer but more engaged followers than a bunch of spammy followers who inflate follower count without adding any value. Retweets are valuable, but exactly how much are they worth? What’s the value of engaging an influential blogger who may indirectly drive buyers your direction, even though he or she will never actually be your customer? What’s the value of answering a question or engaging in a discussion on LinkedIn? Certainly, marketers should measure what they can, such as website traffic driven by various social media sites and the quality (conversions, time spent on site, etc.) associated with that traffic, but beware the temptation of excessive “last click attribution”—just because a visitor who came from Twitter ended up buying your product or service doesn’t mean the microblogging service should get all of the ROI credit. They may very well have seen your messages and interactions in a dozen other social media and more traditional forums first.
The genie of consumer empowerment is unlikely to be stuffed back into the magic lamp soon, if ever. While the specific tools for engagement and social media interaction will no doubt continue to evolve over time, marketers who understand and adapt to the shifts produced will be well positioned for ongoing success, and unaffected by the continuing decline in the power of interruption marketing.
The One Effective Use of Facebook for B2B Marketing
Tuesday, March 9th, 2010You’ve seen the eye-popping statistics: Facebook now has more than 350 million active users. If it were a country, it would be the third most-populous on earth, behind only China and India. TechCrunch predicts that “by this summer (2010) well over half of all Internet users will likely visit Facebook each month.” It’s now the second most-visited site on the web, behind only Google.
Given that level of popularity and traffic, it’s no wonder that marketers have embraced Facebook in a big way. What’s curious, however, is that of the top 50 brands on Facebook according to Slate magazine, not one is a b2b vendor. Not even close. And as Mark Schaefer has noted, b2b Facebook success stories are notoriously hard to come by (he found one).
With a mammoth audience and the acceptance, even embrace, of brands there, why is Facebook success so elusive for b2b marketers? It isn’t demographics. Granted, the potential pool of customers for most b2b companies is minute compared to that for major consumer brands, but given the sheer size and ubiquity of Facebook, there are still a lot of b2b buyers using it.
The challenge rather lies in the way Facebook fan pages are used. I’ve heard countless people, within the b2b community, express the sentiment that “LinkedIn is for business, Facebook is for friends and family.” As such, it’s not surprisingly that many of the entries on Slate’s top Facebook list are lifestyle brands. If you buy a new Audi, you might use Facebook to show it off to your friends, but if you’re part if a buying team that just acquired a new enterprise software system—eh, not so much so. And as one more bit of anecdotal evidence, I have my Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook badges all displayed in the left column of this blog. I pick up a lot of new Twitter followers here, and a fair number of LinkedIn connection requests, but rarely a Facebook invitation.
Still, this doesn’t mean that Facebook can’t serve any purpose for b2b marketing. It can serve one helpful role: humanizing a company. As a very wise b2b sales executive said to me several years ago, “people don’t buy from companies. They buy from people.” With the emergence of social media as a marketing tool, that sentiment is arguably even more true today.
Because of the intimate, informal nature of Facebook, it is the ideal venue to showcase personal content related to your company that may not be appropriate on a corporate website or even a LinkedIn profile. Many employees within b2b companies have email communication with customers and prospects, but never actually talk to them. Or they have phone conversations but never meet face to face. Facebook provides an excellent means for sharing photos and even (limited) personal information, to help put a human face on an organization, and “put a face with the name” or voice of an employee for customers and prospects.
Just a few examples of content that work better on Facebook than in more formal settings are:
- • Photos of employees in casual office settings;
- • Photos of employees and customers interacting, or casual shots of a customer using a product (with permission, of course);
- • Trade show photos;
- • Pictures of employees working on community service projects;
- • Company executives speaking, accepting awards, meeting with VIPs, etc.;
- • Photos of production facilities (for manufactured products);
- • Photos taken with resellers or channel partners;
- • Informal or even humorous videos, such as HubSpot’s spoof of The Office or Resco’s “border battle” video shot before last season’s first Vikings-Packers game;
- • And of course, interaction! Most customers and prospects probably won’t want to interact with your brand on Facebook, but for those who do, it’s important to engage them through this channel.
In short, Facebook provides a place to show the human side of your company, to cut loose just a bit and have some fun. While it may produce a lead now and then, it isn’t a very effective lead generation vehicle. Instead, by humanizing your company and giving a glimpse inside, it’s business value lies primarily in lead nurturing—helping move leads through the buying process. It’s more about making current sales cycles more productive than about generating new potential business.
Because the ROI is likely to be difficult to measure with precision, it’s best to keep the “I” fairly modest. Still, with realistic expectations, using Facebook as a means to put a human face (or faces) on a B2B brand can be one effective component of an overall social media marketing strategy.
Marketing Automation: Like Bringing a Gun to a Knife Fight
Sunday, February 14th, 2010One of the biggest challenges b2b marketers face is what to do with all of those “names” that come into your system that aren’t really “leads” yet; contacts collected from white paper downloads, webinar registrations, trade shows and other activities. How do you separate hot leads from long-term leads from tire-kickers? How can you efficiently nurture those long-term prospects, learning more about their interests in the process, until they are really ready to engage with sales?
Those are the types of questions marketing automation / demand generation software vendors seek to address with their offerings. They apply technology to a difficult process. For b2b companies who are able to use such software effectively, the competitive advantage is akin to Indiana Jones taking on his would-be assassin in Raiders of the Lost Ark:
The challenge for b2b marketers in adopting marketing automation / demand gen systems isn’t with the technology, which is stable and reasonably easy to use. It’s with internal processes, office politics and other issues. In the scene above, although Indy clearly had the technology advantage, if he’d been a lousy shot, or didn’t have his gun loaded properly, he’d have ended up as shredded professor in a hurry.
I recently had the opportunity to sit down with Steve Woods, CTO and co-founder at marketing automation provider Eloqua, for a wide-ranging conversation about the future of marketing and the challenges faced by those adopting marketing automation / demand generation systems. Here are six key points that surfaced from our conversation.
1. “Marketing automation” is a misleading term. You can’t really automate marketing, of course, any more than you can automate gourmet cooking or great painting. “Demand generation” is a better term, though still not precise. “Software-that-helps-turn-raw-names-into-qualified-leads-by-delivering-the-right-content-at-the-right-time-and-monitoring-response” would be most accurate, but kind of a mouthful.
2. The buying process has fundamentally changed. Many marketers are starting to get this. Most sales people still don’t. Buyers no longer rely on sales people for basic information or exploratory “consultation.” They get 95% of the information they need from the Internet—online publications, analyst reports, vendor websites, blogs and other social media—before they have any contact with sales. They expect sales and marketing pros to be using the web as well to understand their problems before the sales conversation even starts. The key role of sales is to provide that last 5% needed to reach a buying decision: the company’s differentiating value, or what pain the prospect will experience if they don’t buy the right product or service.
3. Customers are those who’ve advanced from email service providers (ESPs). Small b2b companies often manage their email campaigns through hosted email services like Constant Contact, VerticalResponse or ExactTarget; when they’ve outgrown those and need more sophisticated segmentation, response tracking and automated response features, plus the ability to create and manage targeted microsites, they graduate to marketing automation / demand generation systems.
4. Building the logic behind the nurturing process is the hard part. Marketers who can do this effectively will command (or should be able to command) a premium. The technology is relatively easy. The hard part is mapping out the information delivery process. If we know that John Doe is the CIO at a medical manufacturing company with $100 million in revenue, what information should we deliver first? And we offer him two paths in that message, what should we provide if he chooses path A? What should we do differently if he chooses path B?
5. It won’t work if the processes and incentives between sales and marketing aren’t aligned. If, for example, marketers are focused on delivering leads who meet a defined threshold of interest as soon as they cross a certain point, but sales reps are comped on the number of calls they make, there is a fundamental disconnect. Calling even the right prospect at the wrong time, or trying to sell them the wrong product, can destroy the value of the marketing investment made to that point.
6. There is a crying need for this. It aligns vendor messages with buyer needs, saving money and corporate reputations. Prospective buyers are overloaded with information. Sending them more junk—information they can’t use or that isn’t relevant to them—makes your company look out of touch and reduces your ability to get the sale. Quick example: I used to have high-speed Internet service through AT&T. They would actually send me promotional mail for the dial-up service. Why on earth would they waste my time and their money trying to get me to downgrade my service with them? On the other hand, providing compelling information at the right time can reduce the sales effort required, shorten sales cycles, and make you look smarter than your competition as well.
The “science” of marketing automation / demand generation is well-established and readily available. The winning users will be those who manage to get the “art” part right.
Note: this post was originally published on the WebMarketCentral blog in September 2009.
Content Marketing Trends and Predictions for 2010
Wednesday, January 20th, 2010What does 2010 hold for content marketing? ClickPredictions: Key Content Marketing Trends and Predictions for 2010, an intriguing ebook just released by Marketo and ClickDocuments, attempts to provide some answers. To compile the ebook, the sponsors asked 38 of the world’s top b2b marketers (and me) to offer insights on key marketing trends and predictions for the coming year.
Content marketing is, in many ways, the new advertising. Prospects, particularly for complex b2b products, don’t care about marketing copy, they care about solving their problems. A carefully crafted content marketing strategy begins with positioning your company as the helpful and knowledgeable experts in your industry, and flows through content that illustrates why your product or service is uniquely the best choice to fix a critical issue for a particular type of company.
The ClickPredictions ebook includes prescient commentary from an impressive array of experts, including Mike Stelzner, Rebel Brown, Ian Lurie, Patsi Krakoff, Michele Linn, Steve Woods, Galen De Young, Jon Miller, Stephanie Tilton and more. Each author also provides a list of their favorite resources for further reading.
If your company is using content to attract prospects and help guide them through the buying process to ultimately select your offering, check out what these very smart b2b marketing pros view as the Key Content Marketing Trends and Predictions for 2010.
