inbound marketing – Page 2 – inBlurbs Inbound Marketing Agency

July 5, 2012March 24, 2014

5 Jobs for Tomorrow’s Marketing Team

If you want to see the future of marketing, just take a look at recent job postings. Recruiters increasingly request such new generation skills as SEO, analytics, mobile, social media and content in lieu of mass media and direct mail acumen, for example.

At the same time, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics expects marketing payrolls to swell by at least 13 percent between 2010 and 2020. So what does this shift in desired skills mean for the industry? What new positions to experts expect will be created during that time period? This week, I asked more than 30 marketing and recruiting specialists what they see in the industry’s employment future.

Here are five of the most common new roles they envision.

“The industry needs to emulate, then stimulate, consumers’ nonlinear, multi-screen, in-control purchase behavior,” Protagonist Partner Tom Cotton said.

1. Cotton and others I interviewed see companies recruiting a Marketing Integration Planner in the future, or someone that would identify ways to deliver a single marketing message, campaign or branding effort across multiple digital channels. For example, using a pay-per-click advertising campaign to promote a viral video, or using SEO keyword analysis to help craft a press release.

Marketing consultant Jocelyn Saurini said “people don’t call directly in from an infomercial or click a banner and immediately buy items.” Instead, they search for reviews, interact with brands on social media and pay attention to trending topics in the industry. So marketing teams need to make sure they utilize every channel at once with a unified message.

2. Other experts I interviewed introduced this idea of a Crowdsourcing Specialist. This plays into the idea that companies can no longer dictate their brand identity to the customer. They need someone–in this case the Crowdsourcer–to monitor conversations happening on the Web about the brand and develop messaging that responds to customers’ voiced expectations.

That person would also use the crowd to promote and send out calls to action, such as inviting customers to compete to create the best video about the brand, and perhaps tying the theme to something trending on Twitter.

3. Marketing automation, browser history, on-demand advertising, Google analytics and other data gathering tools have armed marketers with more return on investment resources than ever before. For this reason, companies will look to one expert, a Vice President of Marketing Data Analytics possibly, to decide when, why and how marketing data should be tracked. Their goals would be to improve marketing performance and predictive modeling, and continually refine the company’s definition of the ideal customer.

This information would be shared with brand and campaign strategists who design promotions.

4. Also as a result of new data, companies have increasingly moved their marketing budget strategy from quarterly allotments for print, direct mail and media advertising to constantly-shifting spending from one channel to another. This could develop into a ROI and Marketing Budget Officer position, experts said. This person would constantly track ROI from all promotion channels and adjust spending based on those results.

5. “The idea is to get marketing tactics out there quickly, track results, then continue with ones that work and dump ones that don’t,” says crowdSPRING co-founder Mike Samson. “The idea is to try a bunch of things and learn through constant trial and error.”

6. Finally, content creation is likely one of the fasted growing skills in marketing teams today. Every expert I interviewed mentioned companies wanting to hone their content strategy. Eventually, this might be led by one Content Marketing Manager or Officer that would plan websites, blog, video, infographic, webinars, social media and other content vehicle development. The individual would decide how that content would be promoted and cross-promoted, then track its performance.

Three Ships Media CEO and founder Zach Clayton described it this way: “the people who are able to create a lot of value in the marketing organization of the future think in terms of content, not channels, and in terms of insight, not data.”

Research for this article as provided by softwareadvice.com/crm.

Photo courtesy of Victor1558.

About the author:

Ashley Furness is a Market Analyst for research firm Software Advice. Her professional experience spans journalism, sales, advertising and SEO marketing. She’s a seasoned writer having produced copy for business journals, a sports magazine, daily deals advertising and industry blogs. She can be contacted at Ashleyfurness[@]softwareadvice.com, or by calling 512-582-2314512-582-2314. LinkedIn – Twitter – Google +

June 29, 2012

How to Build a Brand through Inbound Marketing

Businesses are always interested to increase the reach of their brand to get in front of future customers.

Brand building can be a though thing if not done the right way. To build a brand a huge budget is not necessary but more the right strategy.

The past and the present (still for some) of marketing:

There are a lot of ways to inform future clients of a brand, like advertising, TV and radio spots, newspaper ads, snail mail, pay per click marketing, trade shows, etc. But the hook with most of those marketing ways is they are expensive, mostly not measurable and not long lasting. As soon you stop this paid advertising than your visibility decreases again.

There is a strategy which delivers guaranteed, long lasting and measurable results for a fraction of the costs of old school advertising.

The marketing strategy:

Inbound marketing offers you a smart strategic approach to be and most important to stay steps ahead of your competition.

The inbound marketing strategy focuses on getting found by customers when they research online for products and services your business also has to offer.

With inbound marketing businesses “earn” their way to the customer by publishing helpful information for example on a corporate blog, in social media and forums.

Inbound marketing includes: Content creation like blogging, video, photo, whitepapers, eBooks, podcasts, press releases, comments in social media and other blogs and forums, Social media two way communication, lead generation, lead conversion, lead nurturing and closed-loop analysis.

Summary what you can expect from inbound marketing:

A. Save up to 62% of your marketing budget in the long term
B. Make you stand out of your competition
C. Generate a massive amount of qualified and hot business leads
D. Improve your lead conversion rate by up to 55%
E. Increase your loyal customers and sales

Brain vs. Budget = Inbound Marketing

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Time frame for inbound marketing brand building?

As every doing in business inbound marketing also depends on what you put in. The more you do the better results you will get and expand your brand reach faster.

To establish a brand takes about 2-3 years, depending on product, service market and customer demand.

But the difference is, with inbound marketing you have an up to 62% lesser cost per lead and an up to 55% higher lead conversion rate. Which is a much lesser marketing investment than old fashioned advertising, and your doings are long lasting.

For example: Created content which you have published stays online as long you want it to be, attracts people which research online for products and services you also have to offer and still delivers qualified visitors to your lead capture – landing pages.

You do tasks like publishing a blog article–– one time and they deliver traffic to your lead capture – landing pages where you convert them to leads and later to paying customers.

By executing a serious inbound marketing strategy for your business you can set you apart from your competition, reach more future customers, improve your brands reach and visibility and become trusted industry source.

How much is inbound marketing?

Again, as every doing in business inbound marketing also depends on what you put in. The more you do the better results you will get, expand your brand reach and get more customers faster.

As inbound marketing is the most powerful marketing strategy in the marketing actually, it is also difficult to execute through its complexity without any professional help.

Moreover about 70% of businesses which try to execute an inbound marketing strategy without professional help fail within the first three months, remain 30% of business fail thereafter.

To start with inbound marketing for your business you should calculate $2,000 – $3,000 per month or maybe more. The size of your inbound marketing investment also depends on your goals and the pace you want to achieve results.

As we discussed brand building earlier you should take into account a minimum time frame of 18 months or more for your brand building, and this also depends on several factors like the market and competitive situation, your products and services only to name some of them.

June 27, 2012June 27, 2012

How to Win Customer Loyalty in Social Media with Smart Inbound Marketing

Many marketers out there still think that a Facebook “like” is a proof of customer loyalty. Or when the do promotions and give coupons and freebies this will help to tie customers to their brand. But the “like” button is mostly clicked by expecting a reward to do so.

An increasing number of people who like a brand page are looking for valuable and helpful content.

COLLOQUY find out that promotions in the long run do not have an impact to customer experience!

Customer loyalty can be won and kept by encouraging them to spread the word about the brand they are satisfied with and help those customers to become brand advocates.

The today customer depends on his friends, family and social network when he is researching for new products and services on the web. Furthermore the today customer wants to be entertained and informed from brands and not overwhelmed with sales pitches.

Customers want brands to listen and to respond to their needs, wishes and complaint because this is what makes them feel understand.

The top five most popular things customers expects from a brand are:

1. Providing a great 24/7 customer service
2. Rewarding them for purchases, their feedback and referrals they bring in
3. Sending them exclusive and relevant offers and specials
4. Provide them with personalized products and services
5. To know them when they visit or call a brand

How can you utilize those above information to set your business apart from your competition and to fulfill your customer’s needs?

Ask yourself, what will future customers find about me when they research for products and services on the web which I have to offer also?

When the above described customers ask friends and family for recommendations on products and services, will they recommend you or your competition?

As people go online to research, and customers want to be informed and entertained, what do you do to inform and/ or to entertain your existing and future customers.

In simple words, how do you separate your brand from the competition?

To separate your brand from your competition you need to understand that those above stated five points are your business advantage when used wisely. When you are able to improve these points than you will be always several steps ahead of your competition, but only as long as you do not stop improving what you do!

Inbound marketing offers you a strategic and smart approach to be and to stay several steps ahead of your competition.

Inbound marketing is the marketing strategy that focuses on getting found by customers when they research online for products and services your business also has to offer.

With inbound marketing businesses “earn” their way to the customer and his loyalty, by publishing helpful information on a blog, in social media and forums.

Infographic: Inbound Marketing

Inbound marketing can help you to:

A. Save up to 62% of your marketing budget in the long term
B. Make you stand out of your competition
C. Generate a massive amount of qualified and hot business leads
D. Improve your lead conversion rate by up to 55%
E. Increase your loyal customers and sales

What do you think are you willing to take the effort by doing the above?

May 23, 2012

9 Easy Steps How to Generate Business Leads on Google+

There’s major buzz in the marketing space regarding Google’s addition to the social media madness, “Google Plus (+)”.

“If Facebook and Twitter had a baby, they’d call it Google+” – Olaf Wempe

Some believe Google Plus will quickly replace Twitter, as it provides an easier way to manage and communicate with friends.

Others believe that Google Plus will be a valuable addition to their personal connections, and for marketers, it offers a whole new way of reaching out and networking with other entrepreneurs in your niche market.

In just a few weeks of beta launch, Google+ has amassed more than 12 million users, with over a billion pieces of content being posted throughout Google+ every single day.

While Google+ has rolled out its services to focus on the average user and individual, they have created extensions within Google+ primarily for businesses.

Still, thousands of Internet Marketers and entrepreneurs have already started using Google+ to further their outreach, connect with their target audience and develop relationships with new partners and networking opportunities.

Since November 2011 brands are able to create company pages on Google+.

Recent numbers show that brand engagement on Google+ is increasing but is still far away behind players like Facebook and Twitter.

A recent report from Simply Measured which was released on May and shows results of Top 100 companies of which 64 of them have verified Google+ pages.

An increasing number of consumers are adding these companies to their Circles. At least 5,000 people had added 35% of these Top 100 brands to their Circles until May. This is a 21% increase from February. About 22% of brands Google+ pages had been added to Circles by more than 100,000 Google+ users. This is an increase from of 13% in February to May.

The 15 best performing industries on Google+ are:

1. Automotive
2. Electronics
3. Luxury
4. Internet Services
5. Beverages
6. Apparel
7. Restaurants
8. Sporting Goods
9. Business Services
10. Computer Software
11. Media
12. FMCG
13. Financial Services
14. Diversified
15. Transportation

Infographic: Who Is Usig Google+

How can you profit from Google+?

1. If do not have a Google account, go an register one
2. Go to Google+ and complete all necessary information for a personal profile
3. Create a Google+ Page and complete the businesses profile regarding your business, like a logo, address, phone number, address, link to your website and blog, etc.
4. Search for business partners on Google+ and add them to your circles for your Google+ Page
5. Link from your website to your Google+ Page
6. Start the interaction by +1 posts of your circles and by republishing your blog articles or other content on your Google+ Page
7. Listen and learn what your audience is interested in
8. Craft a how to on base of the information you have collected on Google+ and offer it for download on a landing page
9. Setup landing pages which specially are dedicated to Google+ so you will know for sure that these leads are from your Google+ Page

May 17, 2012December 4, 2012

4 Steps How Closed-Loop Marketing Can Help you Grow your Revenue

Online Business has developed tremendously in recent years. To promote business online, there are many important marketing strategies adopted by companies to generate revenue for their business. Closed loop marketing is one efficient marketing strategy that is key point in generating quality business leads and revenue for organizations.

About Closed Loop marketing

A successful company online is the one which manages its Closed Loop Marketing effectively and strategically. For large companies, inbound marketing experts help to maintain stability over their Closed Loop Marketing strategies and thereby generating Quality Leads for business. But what is this Closed Loop Marketing which helps businesses to develop faster and securely? This article gives a glimpse of Closed Loop Marketing and advantages of using it with the help of marketing experts.

In every business there is competition and company’s invest huge money in generating quality leads. While generating leads is one part of the marketing strategy, the other part is to maintain the marketing budgets by using latest technology and marketing tools.

4 Phases of Closed Loop Marketing

Closed Loop marketing is one of the effective online marketing strategies that help companies to decrease marketing budgets by providing strategic lead generation reports and giving powerful tools for the sales team to increase their lead generation capacity.

One advantage of Closed Loop Marketing is that it increases the Sales of the company as well as giving more freedom for marketing team to generate Quality Leads through proven marketing tools.

There are 4 phases of Closed Loop marketing which in simple words are

1. Managing your Visitors and track them
2. Check visitor’s requirements and interests
3. Generating visitors and leads database using powerful marketing software’s
4. Converting leads into customers through a lead nurturing process using powerful Customer Relationship Management software.

Let’s briefly discuss about these four essential steps that helps in a successful inbound marketing strategy.

Step 1: Managing your Visitors

Every company online have lead capture pages and useful content that drives traffic to their website or business online. There are many marketing software’s and tools available online that help you to identify and track the visitors location, source of visitors and give information related to your visitor information.

Marketing experts advise using tracking URL’s for each of these sources so that it is easy to identify the main sources of traffic to your business. This is the first step of closed loop marketing that would be helpful in generating list of visitors who are interested in your business.

Step 2: Identifying visitor’s interests

One of the important parts of closed loop marketing is to identify the difference between the visitor and lead. Many visitors arrive through blogs, social media, pay per click campaigns and other ways of marketing as they are interested in your business.

Once they have a good impression and re-think of visiting your business, they provide their information either subscribing or giving information through lead capture forms.

Step 3: Generating visitors and leads database using powerful marketing software’s

These leads are potential for revenue growth of your business and for increasing customers for your company. By generating separate database for your leads and visitors through powerful marketing software’s, you can concentrate more on sources which have maximized your visitor to lead conversion.

Step 4: Call to action using powerful CRM software

Once you have your lead database, it is up to the CRM software’s and the sales team to put their efforts into action in the final step of Closed Loop Marketing.

Customer Relationship management software’s helps to do lead nurturing and in maintaining synchronization between the sales, marketing and customer support teams which are the critical part of customer’s interaction. There are many CRM software’s that are available in the markets that are recommended by inbound marketing experts according to the business niches.

Infographic: Social CRM Evolution

Start using closed loop marketing for your business by hiring inbound marketing experts who can help you in increasing business revenue and potential leads.

May 3, 2012May 4, 2012

What is the most effective SEO Tactic? Creating Content!

A MarketingSherpa research found out that creating content is one of the most effective tactics for improving a website’s SEO.

User-Generated Content encountered for Organic search up to 10%, and lead conversion up 125%.

Companies who create content, operate a corporate blog and update it frequently have 55% more website visitors.

57% of companies which operate a corporate blog report to have acquired new customers through their blog.

Corporate Blogging

Blogging gets companies 55% more Traffic and up to 97% more Inbound Links. Companies who blog get 434% more indexed pages in search engines and up to 25x times more business leads.

Video Content Creation

Business who utilize video content creation, encounter up to 300% more monthly unique visitors, and 100% longer average time-on-site per visitor. The average time spent on pages with videos is 3-minutes. Generating video content increases search engine traffic by 157% and page views by 63% unique visitors by 100%.

User generated reviews on ecommerce sites

Content marketing ways like product ratings and reviews are proven to increase conversion rates on product pages.

Visitors of ecommerce pages should be able to include pictures and videos with their reviews. The way like sited as eBay and Amazon do to provide an overall rating are additional ways to increase website interaction.

The value of reviews increases as they are moderated within a short time period of about 24 hrs.

Also sharing these reviews to social media sites like Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and other is a great way to distribute this user generated content.

Infographic: The Rise Of Conten Marketing

All above activities are visible to search engines and can lead to a massive growth in traffic.

Creating content takes time, money and expertise. When you need inspiration on which content your audience is interested in, just ask them and they will tell you.

April 25, 2012

Video and Social Media on the Rise Say 79% of US Marketing Professionals

An eMarketer study found out that 79% of US marketing professionals said they plan to increase spending on social media marketing and 24% of them said that social media will be the most-used tactic in the ad industry this year.

As the number of areas and activities increase marketers are confronted with various platforms and various ways to use and measure those platforms. Marketing tools and automation are the most seen challenges.

“In the Marketing Tools Study 2012 from digital marketing technology and services company PointRoll and Kelton Research, US marketing professionals reported using multiple tools in each campaign they execute. More than half of respondents used more than five tools in a single advertising and marketing campaign, with 33% saying they averaged five to six, 15% saying seven to nine and 13% saying they used an average of 10 or more.”

This results show that marketers come closer to paralysis through analysis! The more tools have been used the more time is spend on them.

Instead of to improving their marketing marketers are bound in tools mess!

Marketers should focus one tool which helps them to get found online and in social media by more qualified visitors, helps them to convert more visitors into leads, to close those leads efficiently and which provides analytics to help make smart marketing investments.

Watch this Video!

April 11, 2012

3 Reasons why to outsource Social Media and Inbound marketing for your Restaurant

All successful businesses have one thing in common, they have great marketing and they care about their customers and restaurants are no exemption.

For a restaurant to get new guests the audience needs to know that you exist and what you have to offer. So you need to get found!

When you operate or just start a restaurant it can make sense to use Groupon for the first six months to help boost your reach so more people learn about your restaurant. But when the first six month are over you need to have a holistic strategy prepared to attract new guests to your restaurant and keep the actual coming back.

But what if you do not have the time and the experience in house to do so? And which strategy should you use, which one brings the big bang for your marketing buck?

Inbound marketing has been the most successful Internet marketing strategies in recent years.

Many businesses from different industries are using inbound marketing since about ten years as it is highly productive for their business. This article will give you a few examples why restaurant businesses should outsource their marketing and advantages in doing so.

Inbound marketing has been the successful and cheapest marketing trends in online world now. Inbound marketing generated leads have a proven 62% lesser Cost per Lead (CPL) and an up to 55% higher conversion rate! It simply outperforms any other way of marketing like TV, Radio, Print Media, Mass mail, Trade shows, Pay per click, Cold calling, etc.

All major brands and thousands of small and mid size businesses have switched to these powerful marketing strategies. Inbound marketing needs expertise, dedication and commitment and companies can benefit by hiring a professional inbound marketing agency. It is beneficial for companies to outsource their marketing in order to concentrate more on their business and leave their marketing strategies for the experts in the field.

Infographic: Dining and Restaurant Reservation Trends

Advantages of Outsourcing Marketing for Restaurant

Restaurant business is popular though its wide opprotunites it offers. Hundreds of success stories show and prove how money can be made by operating a good restaurant. Chains like Burger Kind, KFC prove this. Also celebrities have discovered the restaurant business as a profitable way to make extra revenue.

With increasing competition, regular restaurants have also started their business online and taking reservations and orders. With many competitors creeping up, it is very much important for the restaurant owners to get themselves updated with the latest marketing trends online to stay out of the crowd.

1. Get found online through inbound marketing

Main requirement of restaurant industry is the word of mouth marketing and getting new customers. So it is important for the businesses in restaurant industry to concentrate on their competence and outsource the marketing it for the inbound marketing experts to lead new guests to their restaurant.

Main advantage of inbound marketing is to get found online at the start to the customers. By hiring marketing experts who use the latest social media marketing and analytical tools for analysis, companies need not worry about the fast changing marketing trends and strategies.

2. Marketing Experts help you in Social Media and Content Marketing

Social Media and content marketing through blogging have increased in popularity as consumers are increasingly looking online for reputable sources to spend their money. Content marketing is increasingly used by companies to get new customers to their business.

If we take an example, companies that blog get 55% more visitors to their business website. So it is very much important to use these types of marketing strategies to gain new customers for your restaurant as well.

Another important strategy that has been successful is the social media branding for business and being active in social media. It is very much important to update your social media profiles regularly as search engines have started indexing your business social media content. This brings more prominence for your business in search engine marketing.

Not only search engines, your customers are also very much interested with the latest news, promotions and deals that are updated in your blog and social media.

To get potential leads and increase their prominence in market place, it is therefore useful to hire the marketing experts to do this job for restaurant industry.

3. Less Marketing Budgets and risk free business marketing strategy

Inbound marketing is the cheapest marketing strategy in the long term. It is easy to outsource your marketing by hiring an inbound marketing agency and build prominence on the web for your restaurant business.

By using various effective and creative marketing, inbound marketing agencies help to stay ahead of your competitors and get found online easily to potential customers.

Not only do the inbound marketing agencies help to do your marketing, they also help you to minimize your budgets on the long term.

Summary of what you get by executing a professional marketing strategy?

A. Save up to 62% of your marketing budget
B. Stand out of your competition
C. Generate a massive amount of leads
D. Get up to 55% higher lead conversion rates
E. Increase your customers and sales

These are some of examples on how you can benefit by outsourcing your restaurants marketing to a professional inbound marketing agency. Start your inbound marketing today and stay ahead of your competitors

Read also:

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When you feel you need help to execute this combined marketing strategy just let us know. Request a free custom quote today!

April 4, 2012

How to Multiply Marketing results the Smart Way? Combine In and Outbound

When it comes to led generation than “nothing beats the inbound marketing strategy”!

Inbound marketing builds you trust before the sale. Means your audience learn about your business and your products before they are looking to buy from you and without pushing them.

This increases your chance they select your company when they are ready to purchase.

Studies from the past five years revealed that a seriously executed inbound marketing strategy results in up to 62% lower cost per lead an in an up to 55% higher lead conversion rate.

Inbound marketing consists of content creation, content distribution, content marketing, Social Media communication, Lead generation, Lead Nurturing, Lead Conversion, and Closed-Loop Analysis to refine and improve the activities.

Companies who execute an inbound marketing seriously build trust, their brand and are recognized as a reputable source on the web. They get found on the web when future customers are looking, instead of pushing them with dump old fashioned sales pitches.

Infographic: The Inbound Marketing Multiplier

What do you get by executing a professional marketing strategy?

A. Save up to 62% of your marketing budget.
B. Stand out of your competition.
C. Generate a massive amount of leads.
D. Get up to 55% higher lead conversion rates.
E. Increase your customers and sales.

When you feel that you need help to execute this combined marketing strategy just let us know. Request a free custom quote today!

March 26, 2012

How to Decrease Ad Spending, Increase Lead Count and Conversion

Social media has become the most popular distribution channel, this is no secret. But still the most marketers rely on paid advertising nevertheless they can reach their audience in social media with no paid ads for a faction of the costs.

Advertising industry research firm Advertiser Perceptions found out that:

More than half (59%) of US marketers and agencies planned to increase their social media display ad spending on sites like Facebook in the next 12 months.

The good news is that 62% of marketers say that social media is important to critical for their business. And the bad news is that 59% of them want to buy customer attention instead of earning it by a simultaneously decrease of cost per lead up to 62%.

It is a good approach to be visible where your audience is around. But the way how you are visible is more important than a big ad budget.

Moreover a big ad budget does not mean you will be successful with your lead generation campaign.

The most profitable method to gain customer attention in the long term is to offer something of value for the audience. Information which is remarkable and share worthy.

Smart content marketing has proven to be a great way to create brand awareness and to e most effective to drive traffic to a company website and convert this traffic to leads and customers. The most popular ways of content marketing are blogging, social media and video.

A good way to start a smart dialogue is to ask open questions. To ask the audience about their opinion about the published content will open discussions where a brand get the opportunity to respond in a professional, authentic and human way.

Companies utilizing content marketing strategy report n up to 2,000% lift in blog traffic and 40% boost in revenue.

Publish buyer persona oriented remarkable content. This can be achieved with a corporate blog very quick.

How can your business profit from this?

1. Start a social media presence. Complete your profile there.
2. Research for industry related B2B groups and people. Become a member and invite those people to your network.
3. Listen to their discussions. If you have something valuable to contribute than do it, otherwise go on listening.
4. Start a corporate blog. Write about topics your B2B audience is interested in. Share your blog articles in social media and ask for feedback for your publication.
5. Build landing pages and offer exclusive and valuable content for download. So you generate laser target high quality industry related B2B leads.
6. Measure your activities.
7. Improve your activities and repeat.

This can lower your cost per lead up to 62%, increase your lead conversion up to 55% and boost your revenue the smart way.

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March 23, 2012

How B2B Marketers Can do Social Media Lead Generation the Smart Way

Any B2B business can use social media as a source of unfiltered information and as powerful business intelligence tool to predict trends, for support and product development. Social media has proved in the past years that it can bring positive ROI when done right.

A recent study from Sagefrog Marketing Group shows how companies have learned to leverage social media.

Leveraging social media for branding and building awareness helps B2B companies.

4 Ways how companies can leverage social media:

• Increase brand awareness
• Humanize B2B companies
• Establish as thought leader
• Connecting with customers and prospects

An increasing number of companies like Intuit, Sysco, Cisco, GE Healthcare and AT&T are using social media for effective business lead generation.

What sites, tactics and strategies are B2B marketers including in their social media outreach?

To do their social media outreach B2B marketers include professional networking sites like LinkedIn which have proven to be an effective way to generate business leads. Furthermore they utilize social networks like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube also which are helping them to reach customers in new ways.

Some numbers about Social Media Lead Generation

“67% of B2C and 47% of B2B companies report to have acquired new customers through Facebook.” “47% of companies who use Twitter report to have acquired new customer through it.”

Online Marketing strategies like banner ads have been replaced through proven buyer persona oriented content creation which also brings better ROI than pay per click marketing (PPC).

A corporate blog has become the number one content marketing tool for companies. The importance of blogging is growing and people are adding nearly 3 million blogs per month. [Technorati 2011 State of the Blogosphere Report]

Studies show that companies who operate and update a corporate blog frequently have 55% more website visitors. From those companies 57% which operate a corporate blog report to have acquired new customers through their blog.

There is no question content marketing, corporate blogging connected with social media distribution is definitely a revenue driver for B2B companies.

Infographic: B2B Social Media on the Rise

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March 21, 2012March 22, 2012

Why Marketers should do Brand Massaging in Real-Time

In the past marketers have been dependent on static inflexible campaigns and surveys which took days, weeks or months before companies get an understanding of how consumers are responding to their brand messaging.

To keep up with the today digital pace is a challenge which every marketer is facing by doing brand messaging.

Also it is not necessary anymore to wait for days, weeks or months to get an idea how brand messaging work and if the recent results are going into the right direction.

By taking the advantages of social media into account marketers have the opportunity to get unfiltered real time feedback from their audience about the impact of their brand messaging. Also they have the opportunity to refine their brand messaging in real time by carefully listening to their audience and offer buyer persona tailored information to make their brand outstanding.

This messaging can be improved online in real time and on daily base to lead the messaging towards the company goals.

Brand marketers need to move beyond campaign mode and post campaign measurement and take advantage of real time feedback and metrics on brand messaging performance.

The first question which marketers face to answer is: How far is the reach of my brand messaging?

To get an idea you need to know some metrics about social media and sharing.

LinkedIn
Each LinkedIn user has an average of 60 connection and messages there are shared on average 0.3 times.
Facebook
Each Facebook user has an average of 130 friends and messages there are shared on average 0.65 times.
Twitter
Each Twitter user has an average of 300 followers and messages there are shared on average 1.5 times.

Calculation example “Facebook”

When your company Facebook page has 1000 likes, it means your messages are visible on these 1000 peoples wall as well in the moment when they are published on yours.

We have learned that an average Facebook user has 130 friends.

Your potential brand message reach: 1000 (Likes) x 130 (each one of them) = 130,000 – 1000 (Likes) = 129,000 (possible additional people to see your brand message)

We have also learned that an average Facebook user shares a message on average about 0.65 times. This could increase your visibility to additionally 83,850 people. Your estimated brand messaging reach could be 212,850 people.

Infographic: How Engaged is Your Brand?

You can’t buy a good branding anymore you need to earn it day by day.

To earn reputation and a trustworthy brand to reach an increasing amount of people you need to offer valuable information – content there where your audience is around on the web and in social media. Remarkable and valuable content can be shared from people in the networks and travel on light speed around the globe.

On the web you are what you publish. What are you?

—David Meerman Scott

To take advantage of the real time opportunities the web and social media offer, you need to transform your marketing from static campaign mode to real time mode and make use of daily news, events and the social vibe your audience gives you as a feedback.

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March 15, 2012March 15, 2012

An Easy Way to Reach One Fifth of the World with your Brand Message

Simply become active in Facebook!

Facebook has about 830 million users worldwide which means it reaches one fifth of the global population.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg predicted there will be 1.43 billion social network users in 2012, 63.2% of internet users will visit a social network at least once a month, rising to 67.6% in 2013 and 70.7% in 2014.

The top ten largest countries are:

1. United States 155,886,800
2. India 45,018,540
3. Indonesia 43,521,320
4. Brazil 42,199,700
5. Mexico 33,599,040
6. Turkey 31,526,380
7. United Kingdom 30,484,380
8. Philippines 27,718,720
9. France 24,100,240
10. Germany 23,251,880

The search volume on Facebook has overtaken Google. And there are not only consumers who research there. B2B is also using Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+ and other social networks to research for products, services, industry related information and new business partners.

Social media is a great way to showcase a business and to offer a more personal insight view. A company has great opportunities to show personality to attract the right buyer persona and to get in touch with the right new future customer when this one is looking out for products and services.

Social media has proved in the past years that it can bring positive ROI when it’s done right.

Some successful business examples are Intrepid Travel, Easy Lunch Boxes, and SnapRetail just only to name some of them.

As businesses understand that social media is no short term sprint than more something like a marathon they engage with more diligence to plan their steps to reach a long term ROI.

A study from Wildfire Interactive shows that social media helps grow brand awareness, increase sales and partnerships and helped to reduce marketing costs.

Infographic: Small Business + Social Media Use

Engaging in dialogue with customers via social media has become an important part of successful companies.

Smart marketers measure the value of social media channels as well. They want to know which one has the best results for their business. One of the most popular channels is Facebook. About 44% of surveyed marketers say that “Facebook is valuable because they help with new customer recruitment”.

A proven working strategy is to add lead capture pages to your in social published articles and to track the traffic, leads, lead to customer rate and revenue per generated lead. So you get a good picture of your cost per lead and adjust activities to increase your profits.

Studies show that companies which relying on online lead generation is two times more profitable than those who do not. Those companies achieve up to 62% lower costs per lead.

Get active and establish your outpost in social media today!

Seven steps to establish your brands social media outpost:

1. Start a social media presence. Complete your profile there.
2. Research for industry related B2B groups and people. Become a member and invite those people to your network.
3. Listen to their discussions. If you have something valuable to contribute than do it, otherwise go on listening.
4. Start a corporate blog. Write about topics your B2B audience is interested in. Share your blog articles in social media and ask for feedback for your publication.
5. Build landing pages and offer exclusive and valuable content for download. So you generate laser target high quality industry related B2B leads.
6. Measure your activities.
7. Improve your activities and repeat.

What do you think? How do you use social media?

Further Resources:

Facebook Helps Get One in Five People Worldwide Socializing on Online Networks

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March 8, 2012March 9, 2012

Facebook CPC Rates could be an Indicator of Trust Level

Today on eMarketer an article captured my attention:

An analysis of AdParlor and SocialBakers found out that industry such as electronics, travel and entertainment are more social marketing friendly than others.

It found out also that Merchant / Banking services, Health/ Fitness and Tourism have higher CPC rates than for example Promotions and Beauty/ Cosmetics. See graphic below.

What does it mean, when an industry needs to pay more than another to get attention and does not get the click trough rates on the end of the day too?

Infographic: Small Business Social Media

Social media is about conversation and about trust. Companies who handle social media authentically and communicate this way with their audience get the most social media juice out and are also well recognized when they do paid campaigns on places like facebook.

Every business who engages in social media needs to understand that trust can’t be bought there. They need to earn it step by step, day by day and year by year.

How can a business earn trust and decrease their ad spending in social media?

1. Listen to your audience and contribute to the conversation if you have something valuable to say.
2. Develop buyer persona oriented and remarkable content and publish it online and share it in social media. Ask your audience for their opinion about the published content and listen carefully.
3. Us the unfiltered social media feedback to improve your service, support your product and your communication.
4. Develop your products and services tailored for your audience.
5. Measure all what you do and improve your doings.

These above points can earn you trust reputation and respect from your audience. Moreover it can improve your revenue significantly.