Sparking B2B lead consideration with social media

I came across a great post today from Paul Dunay at Buzz Marketing for Technology about how business to business marketers can use social media to spark lead consideration.

“A prospect reading a blog entry doesn’t mean they want to buy anything, but it does mean they have engaged with your brand.”

Engagement is the first step, and many times the hardest, when developing leads. Tools like blogs and podcasts can initially engage customers with ongoing and relevant conversation.

Social media helps business to business marketers, who are faced with selling complex products and services, by asking the customer to simply consider their brand. Once a visitor considers your business as a possible source to buy from, you can then start the lead nurturing process.

Dunay also has some good advice on how to measure social media success -

“Don’t measure your teams on page views generated from a campaign. Measure them on how engaged they can get your leads with your content and turn them into sales.”

Geek art: Map of the World 2.0

Thanks to those at The AppGap for sharing this cool new application. It’s a world mosaic created from 1001 web 2.0 company logos. The picture below does it no justice. Click through to Map of the World 2.0 to see how cool this application really is.

Email open rates, take another look

You may want to take a second look at your open rates before making any changes to your email strategies. Email open rates are of limited usefulness, according to those at MarketingSherpa.

Their most recent chart shows that since 2004, email open rates have declined significantly. But, the Sherpas believe that open rates are a highly flawed metric and should be examined carefully before making any rash decisions.

How email opens are measured:
“A line of code resides within an email that asks the server to deliver a single pixel image. When that image gets served, it’s called an open. The problem? If the email client (Outlook, Yahoo! Mail , etc.) doesn’t allow the image to arrive, the open doesn’t get counted.”

With so many email clients (business and consumer) automatically blocking images, you can see why the metric can be tricky.

“Think about your own email reading patterns. How often do you read an article or scan an offer without enabling images? Probably quite often, if you’re like most recipients.”

Proceed with caution …

Track your marketing efforts with Google Analytics

So, you have poured copious amounts of blood, sweat, and tears into promoting your business online. Ok, maybe not any blood, but certainly countless hours of hard work, effort, and your fair share of perspiration have gone into getting the word about your products or services out across the internet and other venues. Don’t you want to see how these efforts are working? Fortunately, there is a comprehensive solution available from one of the giants of the internet industry to help you see how your marketing efforts are paying off. Oh, and did we mention it is absolutely free?

Google Analytics provides you with a way to see how your website is performing. What are your most popular pages? How many visitors does your site get a day? Which sites are generating the most traffic for your website? These questions (and more) are all answered by Google Analytics. You can even check to see how many people visited your site from Timbuktu!

With all of this in depth statistical information available at the click of a mouse button, you might worry about becoming overwhelmed. However, Google has designed a sleek, user-friendly interface that lets you find the information that you need to maximize your marketing efforts with relative ease. For a step-by-step guide on how to get going with Google Analytics, check out this blog:

How to Use Google Analytics (For Beginners)

FYI, for all you training providers out there, Google Analytics is a great way to see how much traffic TrainingTime.com is bringing to your site. Oh, and one more time, just in case you missed it… ITS FREE! Enjoy.

Make customers comfortable buying from your site

Purchase anxiety – that feeling you get when you’re thinking about buying something, but not completely sure you want to spend the money on it. The feeling is usually attributed to a large purchase or buying something on the internet.

Online shoppers tend to feel more purchase anxiety than offline customers, according to Derek Gehl at Entrepreneur.com. Spending a lot of money on something you can’t hold in your hand, by a person they’ve never seen before may cause serious purchase anxiety for online customers.

The goal of your website is to help customers overcome anxiety and feel comfortable enough to make a purchase. Gehl outlines a few elements you can add to your site to reassure visitors that you are a reputable seller with a quality product.

Here are a few of his tips to make customers comfortable enough to click the checkout button:

Show proof that you value and will protect customer privacy. Include a privacy policy, clearly displayed on your site to reassure customers that you will not share their personal information. Process purchases through a secure server and include “security seals” on your site to let customers know you have done everything to keep your site safe from hackers. Popular security seals are VeriSign, TRUSTe and Hacker Safe.

Use testimonials. We know you think you’re the best company out there, but we want to know what everyone else has to say. Post a few testimonials from valued customers who can vouch for the quality of your product or service. Try to include as much information on the testimonial provider as possible.

Include contact information. Show that you are open to customer calls by providing as much contact information as you can on your site. Create a contact information page and link to it on every page on your site.

Don’t forget to follow up. Even after the purchase, customer anxiety may develop into “post-purchase anxiety.” Be sure to thank the customer for their purchase and keep them updated on their shipment status. It is your responsibility to keep the customer informed until it has made it into their hands.

For the full list of tips, please see Gehl’s article on Entrepreneur.com.

Increase value before lowering prices

Forget the chickens and listen to a little marketing advice from a real expert …

When customers and you sales team are telling you to lower your prices, remember what Seth Godin says – there’s “no such thing as price pressure.”

“You need to increase your value. If people don’t want to pay, it’s because you’re not delivering enough value for the money you’re charging.”

More important than price, companies should feel pressure to increase value for the customer. Lowering your prices may also mean lowering perceived value and could turn customers away.

Friday Fun: Chicken marketing advice

A little marketing wisdom from Savage Chickens.

With economy down, customer service can put you on top

While some airline companies are nickel-and-diming their customers with the economy down, others like Southwest airlines refuse to charge for peanuts and keep their focus on superior customer service.

I came across a post today (I admit it was the picture that caught my eye) on Church of the Customer about how Southwest Airlines is dealing with recent negative industry news by focusing on their core values.

The picture is of a man holding a “birthday cake” his innovative Southwest crew created on his fight to Baltimore. The birthday cake was creatively made from a roll of toilet paper, topped with candles and a SWA happy birthday message. The passengers even sang him “Happy Birthday” during the flight. How’s that for in-flight entertainment?

Though times may be bad in the airlines industry, Southwest has stayed focused on customer service and has come out on top. While keeping fuel costs under control has helped tremendously, Southwest Airlines does hold the U.S. title for being the only profitable airline during the first quarter of the year. They are even considering growing their fleet and have no plans to charge for extra bags or in-flight beverages.

According to Herb Kelleher, Southwest’s president and chief executive officer, taking good care of customers is a top priority. He has said,

“We are not an airline with great customer service. We are a great customer service organization that happens to be in the airline business,”

It’s a great lesson in customer service during a time when including “great customer service” and “airline industry” together in the same sentence can be a tough thing to do.

New report: HR buyer purchasing behavior

HRmarketer.com published their “Trends in HR Marketing” report, providing information on trends and best practices for marketing to human resources professionals and on HR buyer purchasing behavior.

The reports can be downloaded for free from HRmarketer.com (after filling out a quick registration form).

It is usually the person in the HR role who is purchasing the training products for their company, so knowing their buying behavior can offer insights on how best to market your product. This report could help you market more effectively, by knowing the best tools and methods to reach your target audience.

Covered topics include:

• Use of Internet search engines by HR buyers
• HR and Web 2.0
• How important is exhibiting?
• How often do HR buyers go out to bid for various products and services?
• HR “pain points” for the coming year
• How HR buyers “go shopping”
• Where should HR vendors spend their marketing and PR dollars?

How ‘smart’ is your press release? Grade it for free

HubSpot’s new Press Release Grader is an online application that evaluates and scores your press releases for free. (Special thanks to David Meerman Scott for sharing the good news with the marketing world.)

Just cut and paste the press release content into the tool, along with company information including your name, website and email. In a few seconds the site will come back with a “marketing effectiveness score” and specific suggestions on improvements.

Press releases are graded on basic factors most public relations experts stick to, along with factors from Internet marketing experts such as links and search engine optimization characteristics.

If you regularly create and distribute marketing press releases, check out the Press Release Grader and see how well you score.