Posts Tagged ‘MarketingSherpa’
Five Social Media Marketing Reports and Guides Worth Checking Out
Monday, August 2nd, 2010Much has been written about content marketing from the delivery side. As advertising is increasingly looked upon with skepticism if not simply tuned out, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to buy your prospects’ attention; it has to be earned. Substituting thought-leadership content for ad copy—telling rather than selling—should benefit both buyers and sellers, by increasing the knowledge of buyers and shortening sales cycles (though this latter effect may be masked by current economic conditions).
For those whose job it is to generate leads and sales through content and social media, here are five excellent new resources to help increase your knowledge.
A B2B Marketer’s Guide to Great Facebook Pages from HubSpot (29 pages)
Though Facebook is generally more effective for b2c marketers than on the b2b side (as even this report notes), there are nevertheless b2b companies standing out from the crowd by getting results through Facebook. How are they doing it? This report highlights five tips, 15 examples of winning b2b Facebook pages, and eight additional resources on using Facebook for business.
Among the tips: build an active wall by encouraging “likes,” posting useful content on a regular basis, and monitoring and responding to wall comments. Take advantage of the medium using pictures and other media. Companies cited as role models include web conferencing provider Dimdim, HR software provider Taleo and telecom firm Unified360.
Don’t create a business Facebook page without checking out this report. And if your business already has a presence on Facebook, but it isn’t delivering the results you’d hope for, this report will likely give you ideas on how to improve your presence and interactivity.
Social Media Marketing GPS (91 pages)
Insights from more than three dozen social media marketing experts including Ann Handley, Marc Meyer, B.L. Ochman, Yvonne DiVita, Beth Harte, Scott Monty, Peter Kim, Liz Strauss and David Meerman Scott on topics ranging from social media research, ethics and strategy to branding and metrics—all in 140-character snippets. Yes, as Shel Israel writes in the foreword, “It had to happen—an entire book, one tweet a time, and yet it is a real book that will help you understand what SM is about.
SMGPS will tell you the why & how using social media, 1 tweet at a time. You’ll learn essentials in digestible little spoonfuls.
The book will explain why old-school broadcast practices are waning and new conversational methods are on the rise.
This is the way it should be. These days, companies cannot waste money. They need to cut costs.
And SM is MUCH more efficient.
Writing a book in tweets is like writing a very long #Haiku series.
Reading it should be both interesting and useful.”
10 Key Online Marketing Trends for 2010 (3 pages)
As online marketing continues to rapidly evolve, web analytics provider Unica surveyed 155 marketing pros about their technology usage and plans to develop this concise report. While some of the findings are hardly earth-shaking (e.g., budgets continue to shift from offline to online, and “[companies] will expand their social media participation and continue to nurture a wide variety of social media tactics”), others are more interesting.
For example, the report predicts that by the end of 2010, more than 3/4 of companies will use targeting and personalization on their websites. Two-thirds of marketers “complained about IT’s support for marketing’s technology needs,” a major factor driving adoption of on-demand or SaaS applications. And adoption of mobile marketing is expected to more than double this year, despite recent findings from groups such as Forrester that less than 5% of U.S. online users have ever used location-based applications on a mobile device, and only about 1% do so regularly.
2010 Lead Generation Marketing ROI Study (32 pages)
This report explores the state of current b2b lead generation efforts and, more importantly, provides recommendations for marketers on how to improve both the productivity of lead generation programs and the measurement of ROI. Nearly half of all b2b marketers said they can’t predict the impact on lead production from a 10% increase in budget.
But among marketers who do have the information to make such predictions, 6 in 10 indicated they could deliver more than a 10% increase in leads. Lead tracking metrics tend to favor last-click attribution and lead quantity over quality (which will hardly come as a shock to most b2b marketers). Yet marketers recognize that high-engagement tactics (such as webinars) drive higher quality leads than do “promotional” tactics such as incentives and limited-time discounts.
The report recommends using richer metrics to measure not only the last click leading to a conversion, but also the effect of other activities (e.g., social media, PR, advertising) that support that activity. This requires use of exposure and interaction metrics in addition to direct lead conversion measures.
MarketingSherpa’s Top 7 B2B Case Studies for 2010 (64 pages)
As the introduction here notes, “It’s one thing to pick up a workbook that provides you with best practices. But, it’s an entirely different challenge to implement those best practices into the real world…MarketingSherpa know(s) this better than anyone. Sherpa’s reporters spend much of their time scouring the business world for marketing case studies. And not just any case studies—but the ones that offer marketers practical solutions for their companies.”
This report presents seven hand-picked case studies from MarketingSherpa’s vast library showing how companies can improve ROI while increasing leads, generate effective content, improve search engine rankings, nurture leads through the funnel and more.
Disclosure: As a RevResponse affiliate, I receive an obscenely modest spiff for each download of the Social Media Marketing GPS report. The others I just think are helpful and interesting.
Best Email Marketing Strategies and Tactics of 2009
Tuesday, April 20th, 2010While social media marketing gets the headlines, email marketing remains an effective and increasingly used tool in marketer’s toolboxes. After nearly 20 years, it may not seem as sexy as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, but used properly, it’s a proven medium that generates cost-effective results. How has email marketing changed in the last few years? What tactics should email marketers be using today to grow subscriber lists, maximize deliverability and generate click-throughs and conversions? How can email and social media marketing be combined to increase the effectiveness of both?
Get the answers to these questions and more here in the best blog posts and articles on email marketing from the past year.
Email’s new role in digital marketing by iMedia Connection
Simms Jenkins outlines five shifts in email marketing fundamentals and how these developments should influence new campaigns.
7 Tips For Responsible Direct Email Marketing by 7th Dimension Sites
Scott T. Smith prsents a helpful list of tactics for using email marketing the one “right way.”
3 steps to stellar welcome emails by iMedia Connection
Chris Marriott offers guidance on capitalizing on new email subscribers based on common plotlines of 1980s teen coming-of-age movies.
Make Email and Social Media Work Together: Interview with Sergio Balegno by MarketingSherpa
Sean Donahue interviews senior analyst Sergio Balegno about tips for combining social media with email marketing to help “one message exponentially, virally grow to reach a very large audience.”
Email, Social Media Merged To Create Marketing Channel by MediaPost Online Media Daily
On the same theme as the post above, the brilliant Laurie Sullivan demonstrates how to combine email marketing services with tools like Facebook, Bebo and Digg to extend the reach of email messages through social channels.
10 Ways to Get More Clicks in Your Email Campaigns by VerticalResponse
Janine Popick offers helpful tips for increasing email click-throughs including image liks, headline links, free gifts, expiration dates and personalization.
Best practices for recruiting email subscribers by iMedia Connection
Spencer Kollas supplies advice on boosting email subscriptions by using other common processes to attract subscribers and offering customers clear incentives for signing up.
How to Get Your Mail Past the Inbox Bouncers by ClickZ
Noting that “getting your e-mail opened and read by your recipients is like trying to get into the most exclusive club in town,” Stefan Pollard explains how to use authentication and better branding “to move (your) e-mail past all the wannabe guests and into the club.”
11 email design best practices by iMedia Connection
Ryan Buchanan details design tips and tricks for organizing your key messages, crafting compelling subject lines, and capitalizing on common reading patterns and use of preview panes.
MarketingSherpa’s 2009 Email Awards Gallery: Get Inspired by These Exceptional Campaigns by MarketingSherpa
Get inspired by MarketingSherpa’s annual gallery of winning email designs that reflect both creativity and effectiveness in delivering exceptional results.
Closing the Click: Eight Tips for Creating Landing Pages that Sell by iMedia Connection
Robert Boman advises using a set of basic techniques for capitalizing on email clicks to convert readers, such as carrying through with consistent imagery, repeating the call to action that drew in the reader, keeping your message relevant and not making readers hunt for the next step to take.
Why do email marketing? by Email Marketing Reports
Mark Brownlow answers objections to email marketing based on concerns about spam and social media using compellig statistics such as “email marketing generated an ROI of $43.62 for every dollar spent on it in 2009″ and “a November 2009 survey of B2B marketers found that email marketing was likely to see more spending increase than any other form of online marketing bar website development.”
7 fixes for terrible subject lines by iMedia Connection
Wendy Roth recommends clear language and calls to action, personalization, time-sensitive offers and other techniques for maximizing the impact of this critical element in email campaigns.
Forrester Wave Report Cites Email Marketing Service Provider Leaders by Demand Gen Report
Noting that “Forrester’s March 2009 US Interactive Marketing Forecast Online Survey found that 92% of respondents are currently using email marketing and spending is expected to balloon to $2 billion dollars by 2014,” Forrester ranks the best providers based on their research; ExactTarget, Yesmail and Experian’s CheetahMail are among the top picks. (Keep in mind however that Forrester’s primary audience is large enterprises; for small to midsize firms, ESPs like Constant Contact and VerticalResponse should definitely be in the consideration set.)
How to protect your email reputation by iMedia Connection
David Fowler shares tips for increasing deliverability using double opt-in, careful list selection and working with email service providers on feedback loops.
Social Media Marketing Strategies for 2010
Tuesday, February 9th, 2010Marketing Sherpa last week released its 2010 Social Media Marketing Benchmark report. Though the full report runs $400, much interesting data can be gleaned from the free executive summary. The report’s authors begin by noting that:
“An important transition in the use of social media for marketing purposes is taking place. A rapidly increasing segment of marketers are gaining the experience required to advance from novice to competent practitioner capable of achieving social marketing objectives and proving ROI…In the past year, marketers have been captivated by the ample hype about Twitter, Facebook, blogs and other social media platforms…(but) they jumped into this new medium thinking tactically about the latest social media platforms they could add to the mix rather than thinking strategically about the objectives they needed to achieve. In the year ahead, we see social marketing maturing to the point where a majority of organizations will be in transition from the trial phase to the strategic phase of the learning curve.”
Among the key findings from the report:
Despite the lingering economic malaise, companies across virtually all industries plan to increase budgets for social media marketing in 2010. Such plans are most nearly universal in retail and ecommerce, where 79% of survey respondents plan to increase budgets, with only 1% planning budget reductions for social media. In computer hardware and software, 55% of firms plan budget increases while 5% say they will cut budgets. In business and consumer services, the figures are 54% increase, 1% decrease.
When asked which objectives they planned to target and measure, 88% of “strategic” social media marketers (those who have reached the highest level of social media marketing maturity) answered “increase website traffic” while 75% said “lead generation.” Interestingly, PR-type measures—such as improving brand or product awareness and reputation—scored in the middle of the pack of 10 possible objectives, with just over half of marketers indicating they would target and measure these objectives. Note that these are some of the most effective uses of social media, and arguably much more important from a strategic standpoint than simply increasing web traffic—but they are also much more difficult to measure with any precision. Somewhat surprisingly, increasing customer support quality and decreasing support costs were identified as the least important objectives, with only about a third of companies in the MarketingSherpa benchmarking study planning to target and measure these goals.
This key chart compares the difficulty and effectiveness of various social media tactics, as well as their level of usage. Note that the four most popular tactics are microblogging such as Twitter ( highly effective with low effort); blogging (highly effective but high effort); social networking (moderately effective, low effort); and multimedia content sharing such as images, video and presentations (low effectiveness, moderate effort). Fewer marketers are focusing efforts on blogger relations, which is viewed as being the most effective tactic but also the one requiring the most effort. That result seems somewhat counterintuitive, as companies that actively use tactics like blogging and Twitter will find blogger relations less taxing than will firms who rely primarily on “pitching” bloggers to obtain coverage.
From the buyer standpoint, the two most popular uses of social media (with roughly 60% each) in the commercial realm are to “learn about new products / features / services” and to “learn about specials and sales.” What is critical for marketers to understand is that buyers are talking about two distinctly different sets of products and services here. Buyers are most interested in price for items like a popular model of flat screen TV, common office supplies or today’s lunch; but they are seeking thought leadership when considering hardware, software or services to solve a vexing business problem. They don’t care about the technical details behind today’s lunch special or a thought leadership white paper on “Solving Your Mid-Day Hunger Issues,” and are likely to be skeptical of a coupon for a 5% discount on outsourcing a critical IT project or purchasing a key piece of enterprise software.
Finally, when using social media for research purposes, buyers are most interested in hearing from independent third parties, with blogs, boards and forums being the most popular tools. Secondarily, they want to read about results from peers and colleagues, with blogs and Twitter being the most popular media. However, close behind, vendors are the third-most sought source of information; blogs and Twitter are again the preferred platform, with wikis being the least popular. The lessons? It’s critical to get key influencers and customers talking about your products and services, and if you’re not currently writing a blog or optimizing your use of Twitter, you need to.
Again, you can purchase the full report or download the free executive summary of this social media benchmarking report from MarketingSherpa here.
How to Write an Effective Business Blog
Friday, January 8th, 2010Blogs are not a traditional marketing medium. Blogs written like extended brochures (in promotional language) don’t get read. They’re boring. A blog is rather, a place to share useful content. Instead of saying “We’re the leading producer of widgets…” or some other such self-promoting statement, demonstrate your leadership by writing about the many creative uses of widgets, what to look for in a widget, recent developments in the widget field, or whatever. Certainly you can promote your company and product in your blog, but this should be more in the form of sponsorship than selling language. The Marketing Eye blog once recommended an 80/20 rule for content; spend 80% of your words sharing knowledge, and 20% on promotion. I’d recommend more like a 90/10 ratio of interesting content to self-promotion.
A blog is not an ad, a traditional Web site or an online brochure. It is rather a place where your employees can speak to customers and prospects in their own unique voices. It is a place to demonstrate the collected knowledge and expertise of your company (that is, your people). And, through comments, it is a place to have a conversation with your customers and prospects, informally and openly. Compared to other marketing media, a blog is closest to a (well-written and informative) newsletter, but easier, faster, cheaper, and with the benefit of interaction.
To get started, select a blogging platform such as Blogger, TypePad or WordPress. All are easy to use, but each has its own quirks and advantages. Factors to consider include the option of hosting the blog on your own existing Web site, RSS feed capabilities, Trackback functionality, and of course personal preference. Personally, I’ve found Blogger to be the easiest, but WordPress to be the most powerful.
Who should write for your blog? Anyone in your company with 1) halfway decent writing skills and 2) knowledge of value to your customers and prospects. This means customer service reps, consultants, engineers, technicians (as well as, yes, marketers and executives) – anyone with in-depth knowledge of your product/service and who has direct interaction with customers. While your marketing group should have overall ownership of the blog, contributions should be open to those closest to the product and the customer, with interesting information or stories to share.
Make it easy to contact the author(s) of your blog. Most blogs have a contact link somewhere on the site; a few don’t provide any contact information at all (a pet peeve of mine). If you want to drive business with your blog, MarketingSherpa recommends adding a contact email link at the bottom of every posting. (To avoid being picked up by automated email address extraction programs used by spammers, write the email address as something like “nameATcompany.com” or “name-at-company-dot-com.”) Adding contact information to each post is particularly critical when you have multiple authors contributing to a single blog. Include each author’s Twitter link as well.
How often should you post to your blog? A good general rule to keep content fresh, yet not over-stretch your resources, is at least weekly but no more than daily. An exception to this is in the case of breaking news (for example, an insurance company tracking the progress of a hurricane, a company announcing a merger), where several posts in single day may be justified. Two to three posts weekly is decent frequency for a business blog, with Monday and Tuesday posts generally drawing the best traffic.
Avoid being derivative. Commenting on an industry news article or a post on another blog is fine, but devote most of your effort to creating unique and interesting content; after all, you want your company to be seen as a thought leader and expert in your field. Excessive use of content that been posted or reported elsewhere may generate search engine hits, but it doesn’t add value and so won’t make your blog stand out. An exception is periodic “best of” posts from other industry bloggers, which are often popular with readers and search engines alike.
Keep your posts related to your business and industry. Granted, this can be wide-ranging (such as posting on specific new laws or government regulations affecting your industry), as long as the topic is both relevant and of interest to your customers and prospects. Avoid off-topic postings, general musings and rants.
Keep in mind the nature of blog traffic; according to research firm comScore Networks, “Because blogs often source their visitors from search engines or links from other sites (often other blogs), many draw relatively large audiences that visit infrequently.” This means that each post has to add some value in and of itself. If you refer to a previous post in your blog, provide the link to it. Posts don’t need to be long, they just need to be useful.
Provide an RSS feed of your blog. (RSS stands for “really simple syndication.” You can find a useful and not overly-technical explanation of RSS here.) Information consumers have embraced RSS because of the control it gives them over the information they receive (generally without spam).
In addition to an RSS feed, allow visitors to sign up to receive your new posts via email. This also gives you some insight into who is visiting your blog.
Should you accept outside advertising on your blog? If the purpose of your blog is make money itself, ads are a potential revenue generator. Ad programs such as Google AdSense are popular and easy to integrate. But if you’re building a blog to promote your business, the only “ads” should be promotion of white papers, special offers or other information specific to your company.
Follow blogs that provide helpful tips and insights on business blogging, such as Conversation Marketing, Copyblogger and ProBlogger.
With a well-crafted blog in place, you can turn your attention to promoting your blog (the subject of another post in the near future here).
Social Media Expertise Without Experience?
Tuesday, December 15th, 2009This post was originally published on the WebMarketCentral blog in April 2009.
In most areas of life, experience with a particular field of endeavor is considered a vital component of expertise. If you needed surgery, for example, you’d probably prefer to have it done by someone who had performed many surgeries before than by an individual who’d merely read quite a bit about medicine.
When it comes to social media, however, MarketingSherpa reported yesterday that a majority of marketers don’t believe any experience is necessary to be a social media expert. According to their report, “two-thirds of marketers who work for organizations that have not used any form of social media marketing or PR consider themselves ‘very knowledgeable” or “somewhat knowledgeable’ about this emerging strategy. Their overconfidence in unproven ability can doom social media initiatives to failure.”
The article goes on to state, “Clearly, there is a disconnect between personal exposure and professional ability that is unique to social media. And this disconnect is one of the most critical dangers to the successful adoption of social media as a marketing strategy. This was confirmed in MarketingSherpa’s Social Media Marketing and PR study where we found that the ‘lack of knowledgeable staff’ was the most significant barrier to social media adoption…A better approach to adopting this strategy is to seek the advice of an agency or consultant specializing in social media if no one within your organization has proven experience.”
I was recently part of a LinkedIn discussion about what constitutes social media expertise. The general consensus was that the field is so new and still changing so rapidly that almost anyone can claim to be an expert, dubious as that label may be in most cases. Still, most companies could save money and get a better return on their social marketing initiatives by bringing in an outside firm or consultant with some experience, who has clear concepts of social media strategy and an outline of services that can be provided.
Ultimately, social media marketing is an in-house activity. No outside expert will ever be able to carry on in-depth conversations about your industry or products the way your own subject matter expert employees can. But an experienced consultant can help create an appropriate strategy for your business, select the right social media tools, and train your staff so you can minimize costs, avoid missteps, and maximize the return on your social media marketing efforts.
