Why Do You Tweet? Social Media And Your Personal Brand
I am an advocate for social media marketing and personal branding which I believe can help to benefit both your company and your career. And so I am often asked why I tweet, why I blog and why I participate in both online and offline social communities and events.
Despite the huge press coverage around social media, I am still surprised at how many marketers and other market-facing professionals resist the call to participate in social media and to be brand ambassadors. To me, social media is all about personal branding. Grow your personal brand, with respect and proper attribution to your company as an ambassador, and the company benefits through the greater exposure of a positive voice out to the market it serves.
How to Nurture The Great Unknown Leads
In a previous post on Paid Search, I reviewed a study by TechTarget and Google that highlighted one of the main challenges in demand generation for the B2B Marketer: inaccurate contact details. But there is tremendous value in these contacts as they are telling you exactly what you need to know, when you need to know it – if only you will listen.
In this post, I will explain how you can use your best content to nurture these early stage leads to the point where they are ready to take the next step in their buying journey – and to take it with your company.
How To Use Paid Search To Target Buyers By Stage
For 2 years running now TechTarget and Google have combined to produce a behavioral research study for B2B Marketers on the search behavior of IT Buyers. The study shows that there are specific keyword combinations used dependent upon the buying stage of the person searching on Google.
While this study was focused on IT Buyers, the implications for the B2B Marketer should be relevant across the prospect universe no matter which industries you serve. In this post, I will provide an overview of the study and summarize the key actions you should take as a B2B Marketer responsible for driving leads for your business.
7 Tips For Successful Lead Follow-up
A Guest Post By: Robert Krekstein
Telemarketing services are continuing to grow in popularity given the low cost and high return, and for most companies Tele resources are fully utilized in an outbound calling capacity. The companies that are able to create a sustainable responder generation program will see higher conversions and sales.
However, it is difficult for companies to gain inbound responders in large volumes, and too many companies do not have an optimal responder program in place to drive whatever responders they receive to an eventual sale. In my 20 years of marketing, sales and Telemarketing experience I have created many “Tele Web” programs, and here are the top reasons they succeed.
Lead Generation Programs That Work
On July 13th, 2010 I presented on a webinar sponsored by Focus entitled “True Lead Generation Stories” moderated by Craig Rosenberg and co-presented by an esteemed colleague Chris Waldo who runs Demand Generation for Ingersoll Rand.
During my presentation titled Lead Generation Programs That Work I walked through the 5 Steps to Achieve Lead Generation ROI. I defined the top tactics for driving leads in today’s environment and listed those that aren’t working as well as they used to. I concluded with a discussion of the tactics to consider in future demand generation efforts.
11 Reasons Why Outbound Telemarketing Programs Fail
My colleague Robert Krekstein is the Telemarketing Program Director for SAP North America. Rob and I support and have adopted what we call the “Tele-Web” concept of driving the most efficient leads for sales through pull-based inbound programs. The leads with the highest conversion rate and the lowest costs typically come from inbound activities like search and are then followed up and qualified by our telemarketing professionals.
Why Social Media Will Help Us All Get Along (Better)
It is one of the biggest questions you will hear in any open forum on Social Media: Which department owns social media? I wanted to outline my thoughts here and summarize some of the key sides of the debate.
6 Content Marketing Tips That Drive Leads
In yesterday’s post we reviewed the The 4 Most Common Mistakes in B2B Content Marketing. Too often we grab the latest product brochure, sales presentation or case study and post it online. But customers are looking for you to demonstrate an understanding of their needs before they are ready to engage in the sales process. If we pay close attention to avoid the common mistakes, content marketing can drive leads that are more relevant, targeted and qualified than a traditional outbound push.
So here are my 6 tips for creating content that drives the leads that sales wants…
The 4 Most Common Mistakes in B2B Content Marketing
One of the largest challenges facing online marketers is how to create and utilize content that resonates and then delivers the targeted leads that sales is looking for. The days of sending a list of contacts to sales is over. Some creative marketers call these lists suspects. To sales, they are a waste of time. Inbound marketeering requires 2 simple things: First you need to be found and that requires the basic techniques of understanding how prospects search and the keywords they use. Second, you need to have compelling content that meets the prospects needs. Do these 2 things and you will find valuable leads.
In this post I will explain the 4 most common mistakes marketers make. And I will describe the “halo effect” and how to make it work for you. In the next post, I will list the actions you can take today to deliver targeted leads to sales.
Social Media and the Case for Marketing Optimism
Recently, I have read and participated in many conversations on the new optimism spreading through B2B Marketing organizations. In many ways, Social Media is simply another proof point of the power of customer-driven, inbound marketing. But now, we are seeing a whole new class of converts.
Push vs. Pull
The battle has raged within B2B Marketing departments since the dawn of the web: push vs. pull, traditional direct marketing vs. newer inbound techniques like search. The truth of course lies somewhere in the middle. A strong campaign includes a combination of both push and pull. For me, the strength of inbound marketing techniques lies in the power of giving up control to the customer. When we allow our prospects to tell us what words they use, where and how they search for solutions, what their pain points are, and when they are ready to engage, sales and pipeline opportunities appear- almost miraculously. Or at least predictably. Read more
