Are You Using Landing Pages? If Not, Maybe You Should Be.

February 8, 2012

No matter what kind of promotion you’re doing, when going after the professional tradesmen, the bottom line is you want them to ask for more info and ultimately a sale. You can’t do that in an ad(print or digital) by itself. You need those that are interested in whatever it is you’re selling to go somewhere to get more info.

A landing page is ideal for a next step in the lead process. A good landing page will target a particular audience using a unique page that allows visitors to download the appropriate content (you wouldn’t have the same offer for say a tradesman and for a design engineer). They also help you track and monitor activity by offers so you know what works and what doesn’t.

I recently downloaded an e-book, Optimizing Landing Pages by Sarah Goliger from Hubspot that outlines the basics on what needs to be included, how to get them shared, using them as a lead nurturing tool and thanking them for responding.

Here are some highlights:

  • By directing them to a specific page with an offer and the appropriate form to fill out, it makes it more likely that they will complete the form and convert to a lead.
  • If your visitors decide to download your offer, why not invite them to share your content?
  • Lead nurturing is a very important part of the process. 50% of those who respond aren’t ready to buy just yet.
  • 78% of sales that start with a web inquiry get won by the first company that responds.
  • By sending a follow-up thank you to those that downloaded material, you have the opportunity to offer them additional info and downloads, as well as asking them to share this with others via social media.

So if you’re not using landing pages, you may want to give them a try. I think you’ll see that you’ll not only get more leads, but better quality ones.

If you like this post you might like:

Product Landing Pages: Tips on How to Improve their Performance

The Best Way to Reach Professional Tradesmen: Drip or Closed Loop Marketing?

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Trends for B-to-B Marketers to Focus Their Efforts in 2012

February 2, 2012

Today’s Internet-enabled customer has made it clear that they decide what content looks like and how it should be distributed. Content Marketing has emerged as the primary mode of engaging business prospects. This holds true especially in the technology sector where Eccolo Media, in the fall of 2011, released a report on the trends in marketing collateral. The survey, Eccolo Media 2011 B2B technology Collateral Survey Report is available free.

Customers expect that your collateral material will provide them with info they can use – not info on a particular product. Highlights of the survey include:

  • Users are consuming more content, but from a greater number of resources.
  • Social sharing buttons influence all type of content – 77% said if they had an easy way to share, they do.
  • Collateral goes Mobile – 37% consume content on tablets or smartphones.
  • Collateral goes interactive like embedded videos – 92% of users say it positively affected overall influence.

About the survey. This is the fourth year Eccolo Media has done it. They surveyed C-level executives and the survey represents 501 usable respondents.

One of the key take aways from this is that those of us who are developing content  should be considering a library of suitable content  for their marketing efforts.

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Are You Listening?

February 1, 2012

One of the first rules of social media is to listen. Most of us get that when it comes to our outward activities and from groups that you belong to. But when it comes to listening to what people are saying about us, are we doing a good job? Jay Baer thinks we all could do better.

In a recent post, he points out that no matter what tools you’re using to monitor your activity, you may be missing the boat when it comes to key words that you are using to track activity. Jay points out that in social conversations, very rarely does your company name or trade names come up in conversation.

Rather, it’s more likely that people will be talking about a plumbing problem of their toilet leaking and are looking at ways to fix it. So if the key words that you are tracking are your company name and the trade name of the product that fixes the internal working of a toilet, you’d be out of luck.

Maybe you should be taking the list of key words you use in your SEO and incorporate them into your listening program. You should also include your competitors, suppliers, distribution outlets. Anything that revolves around your category.

Let me know how you make out.

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2012 Trends of Smartphones and Tablets

January 31, 2012

Mobile media is here in a BIG way. Are you incorporating it into your marketing plans for 2012?

According to eMarketer, tablet users in the USA will reach almost 90 million by 2015. By 2015, there will be almost 150 million smartphone users.

So what can you do to dip your toe into the mobile market? I’d suggest you add a mobile component to an existing program and track the results.

Add a video via a QR code in an ad or on packaging that takes them to a helpful video. Do a mobile friendly landing page where they can easily find their closest dealer or store to buy.

Try something. Monitor the results and then try something else. This is the only way to get in since the choices are so overwhelming.

Here are a few other good reasons to incorporate mobile:

Integrating mobile marketing into your overall plans helps support every phase of the purchase cycle, based on data from eMarketer via Millward Brown-Dynamic Logic.

From a marketing perspective, it’s important to understand how and where consumers use their mobile phones. As smartphone penetration continues to increase, mobile phones are no longer just for talking. In fact, according to comScore, only one out of four owners use a phone solely for voice communications.

Mobile is here to stay so you should jump in sooner than later.

If you like this post, you might like:

Podcast: Why Manufacturers Should Be Using QR Codes

What Are You Doing to Insure a Successful QR Code Campaign?

Are You Considering Mobile Media as a Strategy to Reach Professional Tradesmen?

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How to Make Social Media Marketing More Effective:10 Do’s and Don’t Tips

January 26, 2012

Social media and its marketing are very important, and how you execute can mean the difference between fair and great results. We all try to formulate best practices.

A recent article by Ashley Zeckman, 20 Social Media Marketing Do’s and Don’ts  sparked some thoughts on my end of what we need to do and avoid in the world of social media.

Here are my thoughts and I would love to hear what you would add to the lists:

DO’S

  1. Interaction - Take the time to comment and interact. If you’re always trying to sell, sell, sell, it becomes hard to have a two-way conversation.
  2. Re-purpose content - If you have different audiences, slant the message to each one. Also use content on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook to drive traffic to your blog.
  3. Take advantage of SEO - Make sure what you do is searchable so it can be optimized.
  4. Have one voice – Someone has to be responsible both in delivering the message, but also in responding to comments.
  5. Test and measure - Make sure you have the tools in place to see what’s working best for you and your audience.

DON’TS

  1. Don’t ignore people - Especially negative comments. There’s nothing wrong with disagreeing,  but do so in a polite way.
  2. Don’t use automated responses - It defeats the purpose of trying to start a meaningful dialog. When was the last time you tried to have a conversation with a robot?
  3. Don’t overcommit - Yes, you’ll find numerous accounts or groups that you should be in. If you can’t commit to utilizing a platform on a regular basis, what’s the point? More is not better.
  4. It’s not about you - Instead of telling them how great you are, ask them how you might help them solve a problem.
  5. What are you doing with all these relationships - You’ve spent lots of time and effort to engage prospects. What’s the plan to take it to the next level?

Let’s hear your ideas.

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4 Reasons Why B-to-B Email Newsletters Should be a Part of Your Marketing Plan for 2012

January 25, 2012

Are you using email newsletters to keep in touch with customers and prospects? If not, you should be considering it. They are relatively easy to do, especially if you do a blog.

Using a CRM service like Emma, Exact Target or Constant Contact it will give you access to templates to use for formatting, and more importantly, it will give you tracking data on who opened the email and where they spent time. The metrics will also tell you where and on what subjects people are attracted to. They also give you room for special messaging and links to appropriate sites.

Here are 4 reasons why you should consider a newsletter:

  1. Helps you stay in front of customers and potentials.
  2. Helps you establish thought  leadership in your area of expertise.
  3. Helps identify potentials who sign up for and keep coming back to your newsletter. Maybe someone should call on them?
  4. Build a mailing list. Use it as one touch point to get your brand in front of your audience.

Frequency will depend on a few things. If you do a blog, I’d suggest you do it monthly and highlight the top 5 posts of the month. Most templates give you room for a customized message, like look for a new product launch coming next month or promotion of a webinar. 

If you don’t do a blog, assembly of info for the newsletter may be a little more time-consuming and I would suggest doing it at least quarterly. You could assign responsibilities to various people within your company. Customer service, sales and marketing. The key is to give the reader relevent and timely info.

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Have You Used Social Media to Enhance Your Events?

January 24, 2012

Everybody does some sort of events in their businesses. Open houses, counter days, new product launches to name a few. Have you ever considered using social media to help create buzz?

I recently read a post by Ekaterina Walter  in Social Media Examiner called 15 Ways to Bring Social Media to Events that I thought was really good. Even though some of her points were more for a retail/consumer approach, here are four of her tips that I thought would be applicable to this audience.

  • Create pre-event buzz - Start early with registration. Encourage attendees to share details. If you’re having speakers, make sure to include their Bios and Twitter handles.
  • Keep attendees informed – Use QR codes to access presentations if it’s being done outside. Collect your speaker’s blogs all in one place and create a dashboard of their latest posts.
  • Help them share information - Use Twitter back channels so you can get questions and feedback. Share images and presentations. Open your event to virtual attendees.
  • Post event - Publish your Twitter wall and give all access to your talks with links to videos.

I’m sure there are other ways to use social media for events, and I’d like to hear ways you’ve used it.

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What Are You Doing to Drive Traffic to Your Blog?

January 19, 2012

Your blog should be the centerpiece of your marketing efforts, so it stands to reason that you need to promote as much traffic to it as you can. I recently read a post on Problogger from Blogstash that outlined 65 ways to improve your traffic.

So here are some of my favorite ones:

  • Interview an expert or industry leader in your field and then post it on your blog.
  • Guest posts, there are certainly others in your space. Talk to them and see if they would be willing to do a post. Who knows, they may ask you to reciprocate.
  • Find interesting posts others have done and write a post about it and link to their site.
  • Go to YouTube and find relevant videos and make comments on with a link back to your blog.
  • Build a Wiki page for your blog using a non-promoting post.
  • Write list posts like this one. People seem to like them.
  • Publish your posts on Wikipedia.
  • Make sure you post on your social networks (Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and LinkedIn) a brief description and link to your site.

I have found that Twitter and the groups that I belong to on LinkedIn generate more traffic to my blog than any other source.

 A suggestion would be to take a few of these, implement them and see how they work for you.

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5 Tips to Stay on Top of LinkedIn

January 17, 2012

If you’re not on LinkedIn you should be, and if you are, when was the last time you updated your page?

Did you set goals when you first went on, but as time has passed you kind of let it slip a little? You and 131 million of your possible friends are on this site. How many are you connected with?

Let’s review some basics and make sure we’re all on track.

  • Profile page - Great place to make a good impression. Have you updated your photo or are you using one from 10 years ago? How about your accomplishments? I’m sure if you haven’t touched it for a while, something good must have happened at work that you could highlight. Have any other things changed like you started a Twitter account, a blog or new website? Be sure to include links.
  • Key words - SEO is king. When was the last time you looked at key words within your profile? The best place to do this is on the summary section.
  • Adding to your network - It was easy when you just started to get a list of contacts linked in. But what about all those grandiose plans of adding so many new contacts each week? I’m sure you haven’t stopped taking phone calls or going to meetings? What ever happened to asking them to link in with you? At least then when you do a posting, you’ll be getting it in front of them. I admit I’m as guilty as everyone else, but I’m back on track now to add at least 3 contacts a week. What’s your goal?
  • Status updates - So what good is 500 connections if you never connect? You need to be active and say something. It doesn’t have to be something original. It could be something as simple as  a comment and link to a morning news story that might have some impact on your industry. Try to do at least one a day. Lunchtime is LinkedIn’s prime time.
  • Groups - This is the “holy grail” as far as I’m concerned. 80% of members belong to at least one group. Search and join relevant groups. They allow you to join as many as 50. Talk about shooting fish in a barrel…where else can you find a group of like-minded individuals to hold a conversation with? A great place to build relationships and also build your visibility and credibility as an expert in the field.

Those are some of my thoughts on recommitting to using a great networking site. What are you doing to capitalize on LinkedIn?

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Content Marketing: Key to Thought Leadership and Leads

January 10, 2012

Content is King for more than one reason. One of the reasons we want to put out good-quality content is to become the thought leader in our market segment.

Content like white papers, fact sheets, case histories and webinars are just a few examples and might be used at different stages of the sales funnel. Online content is the fuel for new leads in the B2B arena.

It stands to reason that if people see that you both identify problems/issues and address possible solutions, that you not only will accomplish the first goal, but they might even identify themselves as a possible new lead.

Top 3 Priorities for the Marketing Funnel According to US B2B Marketers, June 2011 (% of respondents)

A recent survey from MarketingSherpa was highlighted in a post in eMarketer.com that highlighted the kind of content customers are looking for. Highlights include:

  • Why content marketing is essential to B2B leads.
  • How B2B buyers use content.
  • What type of content is best for generating leads.
  • How marketers can leverage content marketing formats.

 

Sonnhalter is partnering with Joe Pulizzi, a nationally-known content marketing expert and founder of the Content Marketing Institute, in hosting a webinar on the growing area of content marketing for B2B. This free, one-hour webinar will be Thursday, February 2, 2012 at 1:00 p.m. EST. Participants can click here to register for the “8 Content Initiatives You Need to Seriously Consider for 2012” webinar.

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