Many marketers who have discovered tips or tricks about their field keep those items close to their chest. It’s understandable why they would want to preserve these secrets, whether for competitive advantage, job security or simple jealousy. They use these strategies to help create leads for their sales teams, and watch their secret tools or methods mature over time and find ways to improve them or get a little more out of them. A lot of these hidden tools and tricks are around finding ways to pull in more leads to the top of your marketing funnel, whether to increase your social media reach, list size, or any other attribute that you are being measured on as a marketer. Here are five steps that you should be doing to make your B2B marketing efforts more effective online.

Network More Efficiently with Followerwonk

Followerwonk is a Twitter networking tool that helps you identify other Twitter users with specific interests, sorted by how popular they are. There are a number of tools out there that do things that are similar to this, but Followerwonk is better than them for a few reasons: You don’t need to sign in or give it information about yourself, it’s very fast, and it doesn’t just do the basics like “Find users like me”. As marketers, we usually aren’t trying to find more people who are just like us, but instead trying to find people in certain segments or topic areas.

Their sorting and ranking is also useful because it places the likely influencers and predictors of the field at the top of the rankings very reliably, and so you can quickly assemble the list of 10 or 15 primary people that you would like to reach out to. You can reach out to them directly from Followerwonk once you’ve established who in a specific field that you want to contact, and engage with them. If you’re instead just trying to build followers, you can also do a search for the people who follow the most people, and then follow them from Followerwonk – They are the people most likely to end up following you back.

Make Sure Your Social Media Presence Has Forms

This is a mistake that a lot of marketers make when using in social media – Forgetting to include the lead form. We frequently get caught up in the other parts of social media like “conversing” and “engaging” and “joining the conversation” that we forget to include our own motives in our work. Make sure that some of your tweets go to landing pages on your site or refer back to content offers that you have. A good rule of thumb is that if you’ve made ten tweets but haven’t linked to something that could generate leads for you, it’s the perfect time to do so. Some marketing automation software packages can also help you track this and handle it for you. If you have other interactive tweets and actions happening, that means that you have the engaged following that you need to be successful with this.

Special Offers To Your Unengaged Recipients

Build a mailing list segment of people who haven’t been responsive to your last five emails to them, and then send them a special offer and ask them what they are looking for but haven’t seen. You can get very valuable feedback and advice, and generate leads that were otherwise unresponsive. Consider this a different type of lead nurturing campaign, customized to an unresponsive set of leads or prospects.

In one test, a re-engagement email was sent to otherwise inactive contacts that included a final offer and asked them for feedback on what they’d received so far. Almost 5% of those emailed “woke up” and became actively engaged in some way, by responding to the question or following through on the offer. While that may not seem like a great number, these were previously inactive subscribers, and so were basically dead weight on the mailing list. By getting some action out of them, they were more valuable than before, and the marketer was able to remove the other emails from the list, maintaining list health and reducing the cost of future campaigns.

Make Sure Your Website Is Optimized

This can feel like an obvious item to be aware of, but it’s tricky – It’s too easy to lose track of old pages and outdated offers on your website when you’re a busy marketer. Twice a year, take a quick inventory of your offers and their conversion rates, and then check pages on your site that haven’t been changed in the last six months. If they’re displaying offers or forms that are not converting well anymore, consider switching them out with newer offers or ones that are proving more effective. By getting into a regular six month cycle of this, you will be more aware of what is succeeding or flopping on your website, and better able to turn around pages that aren’t delivering on their potential value to you.

Check Your Historical Analytics

Finally, hand in hand with the previous point, make sure that you are consistently examining your analytics, not just against the previous month, but also against last year’s month and the year before that, if available. Look at your growth, accomplishments, and the milestones that helped set you along that way. If business hasn’t been as strong as the past, carefully review what different segments of traffic and activity looked like in past years. Is it traffic or leads from a particular source or type of source that has decreased? This can help you better understand where you need to focus your efforts to grow again, or where your real problems lie.

What other tips or ideas do you have for success in lead generation?

Photo Credit: Flickr: Some rights reserved by boklm

New social media marketers are jumping into the field every day. This is reasonable – with hundreds of millions of people active on each network, from all backgrounds and different interests, it’s important to create interesting content and to get in front of them. Having worked with many people new to online marketing or social media, you can see many of them making the same mistakes over again, despite other people already having struggled with the same issue.

I’d like to share three crucial best practices that I’ve developed from working with dozens of businesses to develop their social media presence and generate leads. If you have your own ideas as well or things you’ve seen businesses stumble on when getting started, I’d love to hear them as well!

Tip One: Show Visitors Specific Offers

A very common mistake that marketers make when promoting their offers on their social media profile is not making it clear what will happen next when someone converts. Visitors always like to know very clearly what they are getting in return for their contact information, or if it’s really going to be helpful for them.

For example, take a look at SteelMaster’s Facebook page below. They have several guides available for download right from the Facebook page. Clicking on one of these images takes you to a short form to get your contact information, and then the whitepaper is directly mailed to them. Before a visitor is asked to leave Facebook however, Steelmaster is showing them the types of content that they have available and the cover of each one so that users can easily determine which offer is right for them, right away.

This kind of path also helps it be very clear to Steelmaster which leads they are generating from Facebook – A quick look at referral traffic from Facebook will tell them what leads are coming in because of their excellent presence on Facebook.

Tip Two: Try Different Content And Formats

Inbound marketing always follows the ABCs: Always Be Creating. Or, maybe that’s “Always Beating Competition”. Either way, one of the biggest errors you can make when working in B2B social media is to not be constantly experimenting with different offers or formats of content. People will always respond to various types of content differently. Not everyone enjoys on-demand webinars, and would prefer to read an eBook or start a free trial instead.

At HubSpot, that is a big part of why our best offers are our “kits”, like our Lead Generation kit. They come with several different types of content that are all available behind just one form, so that there’s something for everyone. If someone doesn’t like one type of content or isn’t as interested, there is still a good chance of offering content to them that they’ll like, without needing to make multiple landing pages or excessive amounts of A/B testing.

If you can’t assemble a “Kit” like this easily, another great way to make sure that you’re maximizing leads from social media is to rotate offers, try out new types of content, and see what visitors could be interested in your content but haven’t converted yet.

Tip Three: Place Your Offers Everywhere

Don’t be shy to place relevant offers across all of the social media profiles that you own. When someone arrives at your Facebook page and they don’t Like you yet, invite them to Like you via an image. Afterwards, show them an offer or form to convert on. It’s the perfect time – You’ve already established that they are interested in you and want to learn more and engage. Start collecting more great leads from those visitors.

Optio Solutions (above) does a great job of this by offering people a cup of coffee in return for a conversion on their form and learning about how they want to be your business’s new collections agency. They’ve positioned this offer in a few places, but one of the spots where it is very effective is the homepage of Facebook if you don’t Like them yet.

By making it easy for people to become a lead and a solid offer, they’ve started to generate real leads from Facebook. Something like this is definitely inventive and a big change from most B2B messaging in social media. It’s easier to walk the line of self-promotion and community building if your offers and content are natural. Always be constructive, not obstructive.

Have you seen other great tactics be effective on social media? Let us know!

A tweet caught my eye yesterday and it got me thinking.

What does “high quality lead” mean anyway?

Doesn’t every B2B marketer and VP of Sales have a different definition? Does it have to do with the stage of the buying lifecycle our prospects are in or the target market/demographic?Both? Neither? Is it even a specific enough goal?

What if we started using a new venacular? How about if we tried this as our number one challenge?

• Generating interest from the people that match our buyer personas.

or

• Attracting and keeping the attention of the people we would like to have as customers.

Would that be a better target? Would we act differently? I think we would.

We wouldn’t we care about what stage of the buying lifecyle a person was in. We would develop a content marketing strategy that would nurture that individual (and his or her organization) through the buying lifecycle. Don’t you think? I do.

Would this seemingly insignificant  change in our thinking and vernacular, make a difference?  Do you think that would help us become better B2B marketers? I do.

I’m really seeking your help and insight on this one. Am I off base? Is it too trivial? Or could it have a profound impact and truly alter our way of doing things.

Tell me what you think. As I am starting to feel like chasing “high quality leads” is shooting for the wrong target.

This week’s #B2BChat was yet another fast-paced exchange of insightful input as our participants tackled the ins and outs of lead nurturing. The chat zoned in on hot questions that dealt with the various lead nurturing strategies that would work, the kinds of content that would have the most impact and success, the significance of lead scoring, the tools that can be used, etc.

This is a summary adapted from the complete transcript and if you want to read the full version then you can just drop by here.

What strategies work for lead nurturing, what doesn’t, and what could be improved upon?

@asuthosh: Nurturing implies constant and strategic engagement and that’s the fundamental basis of nurturing

@fearlesscomp: Story telling process – problem to solution works. Random messaging does not work. To improve, develop deep buyer personas.

@paige_oneill: thought leadership and best practices work well in my experience

@utollwi: Understand the buyers cycle and stage – test the message and call to action – optimize and repeat.

@shelleyryan: Most marketers think of webinars as lead GENERATION events, but they work for lead NURTURING, too.

@andrewspoeth: also, build your lead nurturing strategy around customer trust. High trust = low risk.

@kseniacoffman: Research & understanding the customer – always better than throwing darts in the dark :-)

What content works well for lead nurturing? How can it be effectively marketed?

@NathanRKing: Content needs to be new and relevant to your target audience.

@fearlesscomp: Tough question. Good content appeals to the recipient and is in the media they like. That’s why insights so critical.

@robbtrost: Provide solutions for the participants. Intriguing content w/ brevity will keep ‘em coming back

@paige_oneill: our best performing pieces by far are all “top 10 steps” “best practices” Everyone hungry for how-tos.

@asuthosh: Content that customers can use, not blatant marketing collateral. Content that helps solve their problems. Trust follows

@andrewspoeth: Use different content for different stages of the purchase cycle in lead nurturing

@utollwi: Good educational content pertinent to the buyer persona and the stage they are in. ROI examples, 3rd party expert info etc.

@chadhorenfeldt: we’ve found from benchmark data that not only content is important but the timing. If it’s timed well, response increases

@ExoPoirier: educating with content on marketing operations basics, helping prospects build their marketing dept, works well for my targets

@kimgeralds: Monitor the conversations to determine what customers are discussing. LinkedIn groups r great. Use content to respond.

What and how significant a role can lead scoring play when nurturing leads?

@fearlesscomp: IMHO Scoring is critical. Cannot know status of nurturing unless we can watch for the “hand raise”

@AGB2BPro: Lead scoring helps determine how far they go along the nurturing path/how much content they receive

@joezuc: Scoring is critical – after all, the nurturing is all about “grooming” the lead for submission to Sales.

@fearlesscomp: Lead nurturing and lead scoring need to be married. Work best used together.

@b2bento: Lead Scoring is the bridge between Marketing and Sales silos too. It’ V.V. Important!

@utollwi: It can be important if honest lead scoring is done recorded Helps set budget for each segment of leads

@joezuc: Lead nurturing w/o scoring serves the firm no purpose. It must always be about moving the ball to the goal (conversion/sales)

@joezuc: and scoring tells the marketer whether to keep nurturing the lead ( to get to sales eventually) or to dump it.

What lead nurturing tools are you using/considering to use? What have the results been to date?

@mcbru: We use intelligent dialogs that survey customers about whether *they* think they’re a hot lead.

@ExoPoirier: hubspot and Sugar CRM tightly integrated

@andrewspoeth: I’ve mostly used Marketo. Very easy to build lead nurturing campaigns and track results. Q4

@fearlesscomp: Marketo is great, but pricey, which is why we use Genoo.

@paige_oneill: That’s what we do (@aprimo) (www.aprimo.com) so I’m lucky to use it. Challenge is adapting people to processes. myself included.

@sharonmostyn: I attended @Eloqua (www.eloqua.com) conference in ’08 & was impressed w/them-I’m sure they’ve made even bigger strides but new emplyr can’t afford

How do you want to see lead nurturing evolve? What’s your wish list?

@joezuc: I want to see lead nurtuing truly become personalized w/content that is individually tailored to a buyer rather than impersonal

@cuferg: More integration of tools, combine offline and online analytics.

@fearlesscomp: My hope is that B2B companies will finally go beyond the bare minimum and craft highly personalized campaigns.

@utollwi: better reports in the tools and always better training for all teams sales & marketing…make them believers

@joezuc: I hope that mktrs consider variable data publishing to include personalized direct mail also during a drip marketing effort.

@sharonmostyn: Lead nurturing wish list: inexpensive automation that easily delivers personalized msgs to the right person at the optimal time.

@ExoPoirier: Lead nurturing OUTSOURCED to specialists like us! Client B2B sales team concentrating on hottest leads. Tried it and it works

@jeremyvictor: Let’s make it “customer nurturing”. We are starting the relationship wrong by calling human beings “leads”

@jeremyvictor: Let’s make it about them not us …

As expected, it was an insightful session indeed. Many thanks to all who participated. Join us for next week’s #B2Bchat, Thursday, August 19, at 8pm Eastern (5pm Pacific, 8am Aug 20 in Singapore). Follow @B2B_chat for updates.

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About the B2Bblogger:Anol Bhattacharya (@B2Bento) is CEO of GetIT Comms, a marketing and communications consultancy for hi-tech and telco’s, where he helps clients (Cisco Systems Inc, IBM, IDC Asia Pacific, HP, Datacraft etc) in the field of B2B marketing, demand generation, lead nurturing, social media strategy & implementation, interactive digital media for marketing initiatives and user experience design.

Anol is one of the key contributors at B2Bento.com and has had his articles published in various media in the region.

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Summary of June 17, 2010 #B2Bchat Session

Webinars are an important part of the B2B demand generation toolkit. What advice do marketers have when it comes to producing, promoting, and following up on webinars? We put this question to our #B2Bchat audience in our latest session. Here is what the experts had to say:

Q. What are innovative ideas of promoting webinars?

• Schedule the webinar on a Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday. 9am Pacific (noon Eastern) was cited as a preferred time. An alternate strategy would be to schedule webinars when others aren’t being held, e.g. Fridays, to avoid competition.
• Send a voicemail service reminder to registrants the day before.
• Use social media to promote via Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook. Place reminders on your corporate site and banners on industry publications.
• To increase attendance, send email reminders 7 days, 3 days and 1 day prior.
• Offer a short video preview.
• Offer a prize draw for attendees.
• Average webinar attendance ranges from 30% to 70% depending on industry and qualifications of registrants.
• Many people actually prefer viewing on demand, after hours; it allows for fast-forwarding, pausing and skimming.
• When offering an Outlook calendar invite, make sure to set the reminder. Many default to “no reminder.”

Q. How can marketers leverage Twitter with webinars?

• Tweet before, during and after the webinar.
• For sharing the tweet transcript post-event, www.wthashtag.com is GREAT. Just make sure you register & describe the tag beforehand. www.wthashtag.com will summarize tweets and also illustrate via bar chart who your top tweeters were, so you know who to thank.
• Prepare a few canned tweets based on content ahead of time to get the conversation going.
• Have designated Twitterer, and expert to answer questions.
• Don’t forget the twitter hashtag. Have it on all slides for latecomers. And the host should determine, create and promote the hashtag far in advance, or someone else might.

Q. What are some of the biggest mistakes that marketers make when producing webinars?

• Not sufficiently promoting the event in advance
• Not sharing the content afterwards
• Droning on about “company capabilities” esp. if at the beginning
• Saying “on this slide”
• Not following up with attendees
• Not inviting people to submit questions in advance
• Not leaving enough time for Q&A. 1/3 of the total webinar time should be alloted for this.

Q. What is the best way to follow up after a webinar?

• Send a short email to attendees referencing the highlights from the webinar and Q&A, plus link to the recording.
• Follow up on survey results. If someone provides very interesting comments, write back personally.
• Send info on the next webinar.
• Whatever follow-up activity, the presenter should set the expectation. If a rep. is going to call, tell them so in advance.

Q. What will webinars look like in 5 years?

• Webinars will be more interactive, include things like instant polls, widgets, integrated payments and social media capabilities.
• There will be less PowerPoint and more video.
• Audiences may be smaller, but more specialized.
• Mobile devices will play a bigger role.

Join us again this week for #B2Bchat – Thursday, June 24 at 8:00 p.m. Eastern (5:00 p.m. Pacific). Follow @B2B_chat for updates.

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About the B2Bblogger: Andrew Spoeth is an independent marketing consultant who specializes in B2B demand generation. He most recently worked as the marketing director at Enquiro, one of North America’s leading search marketing agencies. You’ll also find Andrew speaking at industry events, co-moderating the weekly #B2Bchat series on Twitter, and blogging at MarketingFinger.com. You can follow him on Twitter at@andrewspoeth.

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Editor’s Note: In our ongoing efforts to provide you with relevant, helpful information, I am pleased to inform you of a new relationship we have formed with BrightTALK.

First Event: How To Build A Demand Generation Machine With Online Events

WHEN: Wednesday, April 28, 2010, 11:00pm PDT / 2:00pm EDT / 7:00pm BST

Every marketer responsible for lead generation and nurturing knows the power of online events. However, most still find it challenging to build a demand generation machine that turns out audience and fuels their sales department with quality leads. Join David Pitta with BrightTALK’s Online Events Academy as he lays out the steps needed to build your own event machine this quarter.

PRESENTER: David Pitta, Evangelist, BrightTALK

Register And Learn How To Build A Demand Generation Machine With Online Events

TOPICS COVERED:

• Building a scalable content strategy
• Scoring leads and assigning them to your team
• Designing your drip email campaigns
• Nurturing leads with on-demand assets
• Measuring the success of your events and leads

View this webcast from the Online Events Academy live to submit real-time questions to the presenter and vote in audience polls or on demand at your convenience any time following the recording: http://academy.brighttalk.com/events

ABOUT THE PRESENTER:

David Pitta has 15 years of technology sales and marketing experience including over a decade in the online events industry. He now serves as BrightTALK’s Demand Generation Marketing Manager and Evangelist and has helped thousands of marketing professionals use online events to meet lead generation, awareness and community building objectives. He has also deployed webcasting solutions for NYU, USC, California Pizza Kitchen, DoubleClick (Google), and hundreds of other small to enterprise-sized organizations.

Like many marketers I am hard-wired to look for emerging trends.  I’ve read about or observed key trends affecting B2B marketers, and more about trade show trends, but I’ve yet to read anything that summarizes how current B2B trends affect trade show marketers.

Why look for the overlap between B2B marketing and trade show trends?  Because trade shows represent the single largest marketing expenditure for B2B marketers.  For some companies, trade shows are central to their B2B marketing.

So here are seven B2B marketing trends, and some ideas on how trade show marketers can take advantage of them:

1.  Economic recovery: With US GDP growth of 5.7% in the 4^th quarter of 2009 (the fastest rate in six years), B2B marketers are getting off their heels and onto their toes, as prolonged uncertainty gradually shifts towards resurging ambition.  Marketers don’t just want to conserve cash; they want to make an impact.

“The extreme cost-cutting of the past has led to a big rebound in corporate profits, so businesses will start to compete for market share, said Frank Chow, chief economist for Trade Show Executive magazine.  To look like a leader at trade shows, B2B marketers are getting new graphics to promote their more ambitious marketing messages, or finally replacing the entire worn-out trade show display they had been holding onto.  But they are cautiously spending even in their ambition, choosing lighter weight portable and modular exhibits, and renting exhibits more often than before the downturn.

2.  Change in the sales cycle. Until about 10 years ago, when a B2B buyer needed product information, they had to ask potential vendors’ sales people. That put the sales people in control of the sales cycle.  But now, buyers know they are in control, because they have so much product info instantly available just by searching Google.  The recent downturn gave any actual buyers even more clout.  Buyers can wait later and later until they contact the sales rep.

This places even greater value on trade shows, as when a prospect meets you at the show, they’ve already learned about your products on the internet, and want to check out your people.  Plus, at a show you finally get face-to-face access to the buyer that your salesperson is having a harder time getting an appointment with.

3.  Marketing Automation: With B2B salespeople losing access to their prospects in favor of the Internet, marketing automation software such as Eloqua, Marketo, Genius, Manticore, and Silverpop has gained popularity as a means to keep tabs on and develop top prospects.

For trade show marketers, if your company introduces a marketing automation platform, you will need to learn how to record leads at show so they seamlessly enter into the marketing automation program.  Even better, be able to tap into the lead scoring system at a show, so when a top prospect enters your booth, you can identify their value, and take appropriate action, such as introducing them to a top company officer, or bring them to a conference room for a longer discussion.  Also consider how lead nurturing drip campaigns can include your pre-show invitations and post-show follow up messages.

4.  Growth Internationally:  United States companies that want to grow are looking more at exports to achieve that growth.  Recently President Obama even set a goal of doubling U.S. exports over the next five years.  No wonder — according to the World Bank, GDP in developing countries is expected to grow 5.2 percent in 2010 and 5.8 percent in 2011, while GDP in the USA is only expected to grow about half that.

U.S. manufacturers looking to increase exports can get an easier start by exhibiting at international trade shows, either on their own, or within a U.S. pavilion at the foreign show.  Even if they don’t exhibit abroad, U.S. exhibitors can get started or expand exports by paying more attention to international visitors in their booths.

5.  Greater Sales and Marketing Integration.  The economic downturn put even greater emphasis on the need for marketing to better drive sales.  There just isn’t any more leeway for lost revenue and profits from friction and miscommunication between sales and marketing.  Marketing must provide the sales force with tools for every step of the sales cycle, and deliver leads that sales values and will follow-up on.  They become one team with a common goal.  Companies that embrace this partnership are more likely to succeed.

There is no greater example of this than at trade shows, where sales and marketing literally work side-by-side.  In the booth, marketing people have to act more like sales people, and sales people have to be willing to help generate leads for outside their territory.  That teamwork at trade shows builds stronger relationships between sales and marketing.

6.  Social Media: Social media growth has been one of the most high-profile trends affecting business marketers.  More and more B2B marketers have learned to take advantage of social media sites like Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, and Facebook to extend their brand reach, communicate with customers, build communities, and generate sales leads.

Those same social media tools are becoming more useful to trade show marketers.  Whether it’s posting on YouTube a video interview with a client in their exhibit, or sending a tweet during show hours to announce a drawing in their booth, business marketers will more fully integrate their pre-show, at-show, and post-show promotions with their company’s social media programs.  Also consider that your popular company blogger may now be a good draw in your trade show booth and that your bloggers could get similar treatment as your industry press as an attendee

7.  Increased Use of Mobile: As more and more people carry their computer in their pocket, growth in mobile marketing is expected to grow 43% in 2010 according to Forrester Research, much faster than established B2B marketing mediums.  While some marketers are starting by ensuring their websites and blogs view well on mobile devices, others are taking advantage of the location-aware nature of mobile devices to create greater relevance and interactivity in their marketing.

For trade show marketers, mobile devices mean that trade show attendees don’t have to lug a laptop around the show to receive and act on their Twitter and email at-show promotions. Some trade shows are using apps that replace, even surpass the printed show book, with a scheduler, venue city info, and more.  Also, new lead management systems are now available that can be run on mobile devices rather than show-specific systems.  And audience polling apps can be used on mobile devices for greater interactivity, be it in their booth or at conference seminar sessions.

Marketers who exhibit at trade shows control a huge portion of B2B marketing budgets.  While other marketing areas appear to be undergoing more rapid change, trade show marketers are also affected and need to remain aware of how to adjust and adapt to these trends.

Do you have other ideas on how trade show marketers can adapt to these 7 B2B marketing trends?  Or have you noticed other B2B marketing trends you feel are more important to them?  Please share your insights in the comment box below.

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About The B2Bblogger:: Michael Thimmesch is Skyline Exhibits‘ Director of Lead Generation and Industry Relations, with over 20 years of Marketing and Trade Show Marketing experience.

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Thanks to everyone who joined us for the first #B2BChat last Thursday night – our new weekly twitter conversation for B2B marketers.

The objective is to bring the B2B marketing community on Twitter together while discussing topics relevant to us as B2B marketers.

So Mark Your Calendars For March 11th at 8:oo PM EST.

In this week’s #B2BChat, we take on the topic of seminars and roadshows and attempt to answer the question, “Effective Lead Generation Tool or Glorified Sales Pitches?”

With travel budgets slashed, and time away from the office at a premium, 1-day seminars and road shows are gaining momentum. But some pundits judge them to be nothing else but veiled sales pitches.

• How do you create appealing educational content, while meeting lead generation goals? Do you need a guest speaker (industry expert or educational partner)?
• How do you maximize registrations, and minimize no-shows?
• How to effectively integrate social media tools in the event promotion, and during the event? Should you focus on Twitter, create a LinkedIn group, or employ other tactics?
• And last, but not least, what door prizes and give-aways are most in demand?

Join us for a live conversation with other B2B marketers who face the same challenges that you do.

Follow @B2B_chat for updates and join us this Thursday, March 11, at 8 pm Eastern as we tackle seminars and roadshows.

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About the B2Bblogger: Ksenia Coffman is senior marketing manager at Firetide, a wireless infrastructure mesh company, where she is responsible for Firetide’s marketing strategy and technology solution partnerships. Her articles on wireless infrastructure appeared in various publications, including Security Products, Law & Order, SecurityInfoWatch.com and Communications News. An ASIS member (an international association for security professionals), she is a frequent speaker at industry events, including ASIS workshops and IWCE conferences. Ksenia launched @Firetide – with 800+ followers, it’s is one of the most active Twitter accounts in physical security and wireless infrastructure space. You can read more from Ksenia at Mesh Without Wires blog.

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From various conversations with others in my profession, I am starting to realize that very little is understood about the role of web analytics in the context of this brave new world of b2b marketing automation. In this article is an explanation of how to think about these tools and the types of questions they can answer for your business.

Let’s start with the definitions as it is important to put each of these terms into context:

Marketing automation tool – a marketing database (think Salesforce, but for marketing).  You place marketing leads here first until they are ready to be passed into your business CRM and to a sales representative.

With the help of compelling content delivered via email & your website, you can help educate prospects in this database about your solution as you progressively glean more information about who they are and what solution would benefit them the most.

In order to easily collect the activity information of your prospects at this phase, the automation tool also has a web tracking component that saves a person’s web activity from a particular campaign into a field in the marketing database.

Web analytics – a tool that tracks visitor activity at an aggregate level; also helps build traffic trending over time, etc. on your web properties. You typically get very high level data and no IP information with a service like Google Analytics, but you can drill down to the individual with services such as Webtrends and Omniture.

Filling the Marketing & Sales Funnel
Implementing a marketing automation tool helps ease some of the work hours a marketing department spends manually gathering information and setting up workflows. With that freed time, the team has more resources to dedicate to generating demand for the business.

Demand Generation activities – events, PR, contributed articles, speaking engagements, advertising, SEO, social media – will feed the marketing database with contacts that can be nurtured, qualified, and then passed to Sales based on rules that marketing & sales establish together.

Creating a Lean & Mean Demand Generation Machine
Peter Young from Webtrends (@webtrendspeter, LinkedIn profile) has a very neat metaphor for describing the difference between web analytics and marketing automation:

“Marketing automation is like looking through the windshield of your car. Analytics is like looking into the rear-view mirror – both are critical to a positive driving experience.”

Another useful way to think about the power of web analytics is in the context of the Sales & Marketing Funnel. Web analytics reports and dashboard help marketers optimize web properties in order to bring visitors into the Marketing & Sales Funnel. Path analysis, web behavior tracking, landing page optimization, etc. all fall into this part of the experience. When you make changes to your web properties you can also check against historical data and make decisions based on those baselines.

The key at this step is to fine-tune the web properties to drive conversions (in many cases, this would be obtaining vistors’ email address for future email marketing).

Down the Rabbit Hole: Passing from Top of Funnel into the Marketing & Sales Funnel
As soon as someone identifies themselves, they immediately get placed in the marketing database, where further web activity, qualification (lead scoring), segmentation, and education (lead nurturing) takes place. From this point on, you may want to segment out the web traffic of these warm prospects visiting your site and use content marketing to drive thought leadership and educational messages to them.

Beyond the Horizon: Messaging To Your Customer
The other, sometimes overlooked, aspect is that this marketing database of contacts will keep track of a prospect’s behavior on your web properties into their transition as a customer. Additional segmentation on your customer population can help drive customer retention and programs that target your base. You can use marketing automation to learn, indirectly or directly, more about your customers’ needs.

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About the B2Bblogger: Rodica Buzescu (@rodica) is a marketing manager at Amazon Web Services. She enjoys combining interdisciplinary knowledge and various agency & B2B experience in digital marketing to solve larger marketing challenges. Rodica sometimes blogs on various marketing, management, and bigger strategy ideas at http://morphingthrough.blogspot.com.

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White papers are one of the best marketing tools you can use to educate your audience about your products and services. A rapidly increasing number of professionals claim white papers are a major factor in influencing their purchasing decisions.

TechTarget recently surveyed more than 1,400 IT professionals about their buying habits. The survey revealed that 66% of IT buyers have used white papers within the past 3 months to evaluate new technology information.

Although many marketers take the time to create white papers, their messages may only reach a fraction of their potential audience. This is because some marketers simply post white papers on their websites, sit back and hope their ideal customers will find them.

If you want to increase your readership and the number of leads you generate, you must make it easy for your target audience to find your information. Below are 5 ways you can promote your white papers online and direct more leads to your website:

1. Share your white papers with your social networks
   One key component of social networking is providing valuable content for your community. IT professionals and other business buyers tend to perceive white papers as highly valuable. Eccolo Media’s 2009 B2B Technology Collateral Survey Report revealed white papers are shared more than any other form of marketing collateral. In fact, 89% of survey respondents reported sharing white papers with others.

   Use your social networks to spread the word about your white papers. If members of your community enjoy the content, they will pass it along via their own networks.

2. Run a teaser in your blog or e-newsletter
   Before you create your next white paper, try writing an e-zine article or blog post that discusses one of its key points. Doing this early allows you to:
   • Gauge your readers’ feedback to determine if the topic interests them.
   • Overcome writer’s block. When you sit down to write the white paper, you’ll already have a solid starting point.

3. Send out an online news release
   Your latest research can become exciting news in your industry. Every time you create a white paper, you should develop an online news release to drive journalists, bloggers and potential customers to your website.Online news releases have a few benefits over traditional press releases. Many popular online press release distribution services will submit your news to major search engines and social networks, helping to improve your overall search engine rankings. These services also allow you to target your distribution, so your press release goes to the exact sector you wish to reach.
4. Promote your white paper in your email signature
   Your email signature might be one of your most overlooked marketing areas. Add a P.S. to your outgoing messages that invites your contacts to visit your website and download your white paper.
5. Increase downloads with online advertisements
   If you have a large website, try placing ads for your white paper on your home page and throughout your site. You can also run a Google AdWords campaign that directs people to your white paper’s registration form.

Once people arrive at your landing page, make it easy for them to request your white paper. If your registration form asks for too much information, people will become frustrated and leave your web page. Keep your registration form as short as possible to ensure the most people request your white paper.

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About the B2Bblogger: Rachel Foster is an award-winning B2B copywriter and owner of Fresh Perspective Copywriting. She helps technology marketers generate more leads and sales by providing them with compelling marketing copy that motivates their audiences to take action. Join the 8,500 B2B professionals who follow Rachel on Twitter, where she shares the latest B2B marketing trends, copywriting tips and advice on how to effectively use social media to market your business.