What has changed in the past 4 years in B2B marketing?
Change is not always obvious when you're in the middle of it. Looking back over the past few years, here are a few things that I've noticed:
Marketing automation and lead nurturing has replaced old fashioned email marketing
Good news - more relevant, targeted communications. Powerful reporting that let's you talk numbers with confidence.
Bad news - requires excellence in content creation, which is HARD and TIME CONSUMING. So never mind the technology, it's still hard work to engage people and keep them engaged.
Social media has gone from "something we should do" to "something we're doing"
Good news - participation and experimentation are the only way to learn with this, so many brands are actually starting to do something meaningful. See, you never needed the "Social Media Guru". Just a little courage.
Bad news - It's the new shiney corporate thing...everything now has to be "social media". People feel overwhelmed with the volume and frequency of communication. The signal to noise ratio is terrible.
We've gone through the GFC, and as always, marketing budgets get slashed first
Good news - even people who used to have big budgets have started to look at more creative ways of marketing. Including social media. See point one.
Bad news - Well, I know I for one would have loved to have had a little more to spend...
Video is emerging as the killer app
Good news: People were never designed to write and read, we were designed to talk, look and listen. Now that anyone can make and publish video at little or no cost, there is a whole new world of opportunity opening up to generate interest, build a brand and convert prospects. And if I was 20, I would go head first into that business.
Bad news: As with everything online, the barrier to entry is low and so is a lot of the quality. This is not an easy game and requires people with skills to write stories, direct and create interesting stuff. No, I don't subscribe to the idea that all you need is a flip camera...
Have you seen any other trends and changes? What have I missed?
How web 2.0/social media is offering opportunities to B2B marketers
I subscribe to few newsletters these days, instead preferring RSS feeds, but the "Modern B2B Marketing" newsletter from Marketo is one that I like. Probably due to the easy lay out and great content. So the e-newsletter is not dead yet.
The discussion about social media/web 2.0 (I wish there was better terminology for this) tends to centre around consumer marketing, so this headline about B2B marketing got my attention.
It features Laura Ramos, Vice President and Principal Analyst at Forrester Research (interviewed by Jon Miller from Marketo) who provides an interesting insight into how changes in the media environment (i.e. the fragmentation of media and the fact that we are all getting overloaded with communications) is starting to make B2B marketers look at other avenues beyond the traditional outbound marketing activities.
Engaging customers and prospects who are activly looking around for solutions to their problems with information and interaction that is relevant and valuable, seems to be a no-brainer. But how many organisations invest in this "pull" activity? With web 2.0/social media still in its infancy (especially in B2B marketing) there is a real opportunity to differentiate for those who take the lead.
Laura also offers specific examples of B2B marketers successfully using Web 2.0 tactics like rich media, blogging, RSS, and social networks. I'm not a great podcast consumer (because I'm impatient and want to scan for the good bits), but this was time well invested. Have a listen to this short, (10 minute?) podcast.
Using Digital, Web 2.0 Tactics to Boost B2B Marketing Results (Podcast)
The biggest hole in paid search marketing strategies?
The amount of money being spent on Google adwords and other paid search marketing today is significant, including a lot of small businesses. One of the key success factors is that it's relatively simple to execute. Maybe simple to execute, but not necessarily simple to get results, especially in B2B marketing.
Getting a click through to your site (at the right price) is not necessarily the key challenge: it's getting a result from that click. A lead, and preferably a qualified one.
So what is the biggest hole in most b2b paid search strategies?
I'd argue that it is the landing page (the page the ad clicks through to). Although significant dollars are invested by companies to get their ads on the top of the list, once a potential customer clicks through, they end up on the home page which doesn't do anything for them.
Jon Miller has an interesting business in Marketo, which provides B2B marketing automation software and shares some great tips in a guest post at Online Marketing Blog: Ten tips for lead generation landing pages.
Read the post, but the ten points in short are: (my "bolding")
1. First Impressions Matter
2. Have an Offer
3. Remove The Navigation
4. Use Graphics Wisely
5. Make Your Content Scan-able
6. Only Ask What You Really Need
7. Capture Implicit Information
8. Have Reasons to Give Valid Info
9. Say Thank You
10. Test… But Don’t Over Test
If you are currently investing in paid search and you don't follow these guidelines currently, I bet you'll improve your results by taking this to heart.
(photo courtesy Astrovine)
Friends? Don’t expect them online
Connecting online with like-minded people (both professionally and personally) has changed peoples' business and private lives and I don't think we've seen anything yet. Whether it is through online collaborations (such as "The Age of Conversation") or through applications like LinkedIn and Facebook. But are they friendships?
Lewis Green doesn't think so. He writes: "Virtual is good. Reality is better" and I agree. Friendship between people requires meeting in the flesh and not once, but many times. I don't have more than a handful of friends and they are people I know very, very well. However I have many acquaintances, colleagues and business contacts.
There is nothing wrong with that. Relationships need a starting point and a path to grow into friendships. The hardest part for most people is precisely that; a starting point.
If you are building a business, if you are a marketer, a significant part of your life is focused on creating those first steps on that path; an opportunity to start a conversation, to gain a foothold of someone's attention and interest.
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