B2B marketing

Cloud wary, yet hopeful. Buyers see cloud computing as a major disruptive technology wave with many benefits, forcing them to re-think their IT landscape

Self-reliant, yet dependent. Buyers are pushing salespeople out of the early stages of the buying process with search, industry influencers, their peers, and social media, yet they demand strong relationships

Short on time, yet content hungry. Time-constrained buyers maintain a robust appetite for relevant content, but they want it packaged and delivered on their terms

All successful whitepapers have a call to action. Download this ROI calculator, visit our website, call us on this number- you get the idea. You have wooed the reader, don’t leave them hanging.

A broken or non existent content strategy Whitepapers can’t stand on their own- they need content leading up to them, and they work best when they can direct the reader to another piece of collateral. A well written whitepaper is no replacement for a content funnel. 7

10. No social sharing buttons

Also, not enough branded content’s end goal is audience participation. Without enabling your customers to advocate on your behalf, your fancy-pants web video is stuck in paid/owned territory and has missed the boat on all that sweet earned media potential.

Many brands aren’t taking the time to map their content to buyer roles, personas and objections,

Sometimes brands overlook that the biggest audience that may need education is their employees. Don’t assume that because your education goes to the outside world that your employees are following along. Knowledgeable employees are an important part of maintaining that consistency.

Responsive design. This is a term that means that your website automatically senses what kind of device is being used to access information and adjusts accordingly. To further explain, responsive design allows the users to access an advanced four column layout, with the width of 1292 pixels, on a 1025 pixel width screen, and then automatically simplifies the site into one or two columns for smart phone viewing.

If you look at the data from the survey, you will see that marketers believe their website is the leading source of leads and that 80% of marketers believe they are NOT maximizing their efforts there.As I like to say:  “you got them into the store (aka website), now what?”  The next step for marketers who are doing the right things with inbound marketing, lead nurturing, and such as optimize conversion when they get them to the website.

I am shocked that in this day and age: 27% have 8 or more fields.

Ardath: In your opinion, what is the biggest reason that B2B websites fail to generate demand?Craig: There are two reasons.The first is the propensity for creating brochureware.   Many websites are still boring, corporate, sterile, etc.  In today’s world, content needs to be arresting and provide buyers with something they actually want to read.  As well, design and usability is very important to the user experience.The second is conversion, plain and simple.  You have to decide what you want your website visitors to do on a particular page, etc.  If it is to register for something, then optimize the experience for the registration.   Most websites are not the great at that.

As covered extensively over the last few months, the buying experience is becoming a predominant factor in the buyer’s relationship.  In fact, it is fair to say that the buyer will view the value of their relationships with sellers based on a high percentage of their experiences with the selling company.  Today, B2B companies will need to catch up to B2C advancements in this area if they are to have a future in buyer relationships.  Carefully examining new social technologies that enhance the buying experience.

Social Expert NetworksThe social buyer persona that is emerging this decade is placing tremendous value in social expert networks.  I see this trend as having two distinct components.  The first being that the social buyer persona is looking to avail him or herself to expert knowledge that creates more confidence in decision-making.  The second being, and we are seeing this more today, social buyers are seeking to position themselves as experts in their respective fields and seek to contribute content socially.

Increased frequency of blogging correlates with increased customer acquisition, according to [pdf] an e-book released in February 2012 by HubSpot. 92% of of blog users who posted multiple times a day acquired a customer through their blog, a figure that decreased to 66% for those who blogged monthly and 43% for those who posted less than monthly. Overall, 60% of the survey respondents indicated that they blog weekly, while 10% post daily and 30% either monthly or less.

By contrast, among B2B companies, LinkedIn was the most effective, with 65% of these respondents having acquired a customer through the professional network. Company blogs (60%), Facebook (43%), and Twitter (40%) followed.

Facebook has generated leads for 73% of B2C marketers, ahead of Twitter (40%) and LinkedIn (12%), it takes second rank for B2B marketers. Of those, 44.6% say LinkedIn has been effective in generating lead flow, with Facebook in second (35.1%), and Twitter (31.6%) in third.

78%, said CEO participation in social media leads to better communication, while 71% said it leads to improved brand image and 64% said it provides more transparency.

86% of respondents rated CEO social media engagement as somewhat important, very important or mission-critical. CEO activity on social networks also appears to influence employees’

(77%) are more likely or much more likely to buy from a company whose CEO uses social media to clearly define company values and leadership principles. And 94% said C-suite social media participation enhances a brand image.

To improve sales pro­duc­tiv­ity mar­keters must pro­vide rel­e­vant infor­ma­tion to sup­port the needs of both key deci­sion mak­ers, as well as the buy­ing influ­encers. Effec­tive lead nur­tur­ing cam­paigns are highly depen­dent upon the avail­abil­ity of rel­e­vant con­tent, for each key touch­point through­out the buy­ing cycle. B2B mar­ket­ing automa­tion experts like Elo­qua and Mar­keto say that this con­tent should be rel­e­vant to the buyer’s role and key busi­ness issues, not just to the appli­ca­tion or solu­tion under consideration.

45% of CMOs sur­veyed say they are faced with “mar­ket­ing to a grow­ing num­ber of peo­ple involved in the buy­ing process,”

A buyer per­sona is a detailed pro­file of an exam­ple buyer that rep­re­sents the real audi­ence — an arche­type of the tar­get buyer. Mar­keters can use buyer per­sonas to clar­ify the goals, con­cerns, pref­er­ences and deci­sion process that are most rel­e­vant to their cus­tomers. Imag­ine how effec­tive mar­keters could be if we would all stop mak­ing stuff up and start align­ing our mes­sages and pro­grams with the way real peo­ple think.

Painful Con­se­quences of the Sta­tus Quo for B2B Marketers Accord­ing to a recent report by For­rester, here are some of the typ­i­cal con­se­quences of tra­di­tional B2B mar­ket­ing, approaches that haven’t responded to the new realities: Only 12% of tech mar­keters say they have a “very strong” rela­tion­ship with their sales coun­ter­parts when it comes to achiev­ing align­ment on sales pipelines, processes for man­ag­ing leads, etc. Half are unable to reach solid agree­ment on basic things like busi­ness targets. No vis­i­bil­ity into what’s going on with the buyer (or buyer com­mit­tee) once the lead moves into the sales pipeline. Chaotic engage­ment with the cus­tomer, siloed com­mu­ni­ca­tion chan­nels, incon­sis­tent mes­sages, lost opportunities. Too many tools, too lit­tle inte­gra­tion, too much over­lap, wasted spend.

More than three-quarters (77%) of social media users say websites should offer social login—i.e., using a social media identity to log in at a website—as an alternative to traditional account creation or logging in as a guest, up from the 66% who said so a year earlier, according to a study by Janrain.

Many socially networked consumers leave false information when asked to register: 88% admit to having given incorrect information or leaving forms incomplete when creating a new account on a website, up from 76% who said so a year earlier.

With social login, consumers are given the choice to have a more personalized experience when they visit a website without needing to re-enter preferences.

Though 88% of B2B companies say they understand their target audiences at least moderately well, they still struggle to translate that understanding into new business leads via their corporate websites, according to a new study by Demandbase and Focus.

Corporate websites are a critical channel for B2B companies. After personal connections and referrals (41%), websites are the leading source of leads (23%) among surveyed B2B professionals, outpacing email (14%), online advertising (7%), and social media (3%).

Immediately orient visitors. "You'd better make sure people can figure out what your company does, why they're staring at your webpage and what they should do/get—and do it fast," Albee advises. Dump the jargon and get to your core information. Speak directly to them. Tell them what's in it for them. "Make sure your content speaks directly to them about stuff they care about—high-priority stuff," she says. Provide 'interest pathways' for them. To accommodate a range of prospects, offer unique pathways that appeal to individual interests—such as, "if X is your priority, then click here for all the resources you need about that topic." Answer their questions. Access your own site from the Internet, navigate it and see what questions come to mind as a visitor. This exercise can help you identify information gaps. Get them to do something. "What event can they sign up for that relates to their interests?" Albee asks. "What white paper or eBook can they download? Do you have related blog posts they might be interested in?" Invite them to follow you on Twitter.

Persona I: The Methodical B2B Customer Methodical types need to be prepared and organized to act. How can your solution solve this problem? Provide hard evidence and superior service. Persona II: The Spontaneous B2B Customer Spontaneous types live in the moment. Why is your solution best to solve the problem now? Address immediate needs with relevant and credible options. Persona III: The Humanistic B2B Customer Humanistic types are usually slow to reach a decision and generally prefer the big picture. Who has used your solution to solve my problem? Offer testimonials and incentives. Persona IV: The Competitive B2B Customer Competitive types are goal-oriented and looking for methods to completing tasks. What can your solution do for me? Provide rational options, probabilities and challenges.

While testing content is nothing new—in fact, most marketers and agencies perform some sort of testing on creative content before publication—the formalization of such processes has become a priority at many b2b companies.

We've learned that simplicity is the key—easily scanned, brief content, appropriate imagery and a value-based call to action.” For example, after simplifying a registration form for a particular call to action, SAP.com saw a 96% increase in the number of registrations.

“We have to look at what is the downside to SAP in removing a field, such as taking away "industry.' We have industry-specific sales teams, so for each field we take away to get an increased conversion, there is a downside—now we have to do more work on the back end [to learn this information].”

Research from Forrester, CSO Insights, Brian Carroll – as well as Marketo’s own research –demonstrates the ROI of lead nurturing. In particular, companies that excel at lead nurturing: Decrease the percent of marketing-generated leads that are ignored by sales (from as high as 80% to as low as 25%). Raise win rates on marketing-generated leads (7% points higher) and reduce “no decisions” (6% lower). Have more sales representatives that make quota (9% higher) and a shorter ramp up time for new reps (10% decrease).

Find out what are the top five events your target audience attends every year, the top five publications they read, the top five blogs they subscribe to, the top five influencers they follow, top analyst firms they go to for referrals, etc. Information is the new currency, and by knowing where your audience turns to for information, you can prioritize your marketing tactics and align your content strategy accordingly.

Build a brand story that has multiple levels of content to support your story and messaging.

Social media is about relationships, so it requires you to engage in two-way conversations and participate consistently. Social media is real time, so you need to be monitoring the conversations and taking action on them in real time. Social media enhances and amplifies other channels, so it cannot be used in a silo.

To generate demand from these conversations, you want the engine to identify those people who are potential buyers in the discover phase of their customer life-cycle so that you have already started a relationship with them and created brand preference when they enter the explore phase.

1 – Attract many, then focus on filtering If your prospects do research online, will they find your company, or your competitor? Mark Roberge, VP Sales from HubSpot argued that you should keep the top of your sales funnel as broad as possible.

#2 – Give all sales people a social media address Scott Holden, Senior Director at Salesforce.com argued that not just companies need to be discoverable, but also individual sales representatives. Social pages are often the first ones to come up in search results.

Scott Holden summarized this as moving from self-promotion to social referrals: “trust me, he is a great lover” and not “I am a great lover”.  I expressed a similar sentiment in my blog earlier this week on Genuine Customer Engagement.

  Social media participants contribute very little to conversations. Research from the Online Community Research Network shows that fewer than 10% of people in online communities ever say anything. And fewer than 2% take a leadership role in starting conversations. Therefore, if you want compelling and relevant content – it’s critical to have a content leader or practice who can think like a publisher and develop a strong editorial calendar.

  ITSMA research shows that 66% of buyers seek information themselves rather than waiting to hear from providers. They seek that information through search. 79% of C-level executives do at least three searches per day. They are more likely to encounter your content through search than through the social media channels themselves.

The bottom line: Organizations (and B2B marketers) need to focus on content, thought leadership and engaging B2B tech buyers in channels where they go to consume information.