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The growth in users sustained by major social media platforms means that some of the marketing tactics that have been pushed over the past few years are becoming less effective. Especially if you’re operating in a large market (such as virtualization or IP networking), the development of targeted audiences and communities may become quite difficult. Instead of trying to personalize the social media experience, therefore, it may make sense to do something that sounds strange — treat social media platforms like the internet as a whole.

The tactics that you used on the pre-social media web, such as search engine optimization (SEO) and direct marketing against large lists, are more useful now than ever before ii particularly if you use them within a social media platform. Check out enter:marketing’s recent guest post on SocialTimes, one of the top social media blogs, to learn more about how you can use the marketing tactics you know well in the social media space.

[Source: SocialTimes]

ROI Is Your Reward for Listening to the Market: Too often, we think we know the answer. We know our clients pain points. We know the solutions they need. We know how much they should budget for it. Unfortunately, what we purport to know is rarely what actually happens. Prospects may delay a purchase, alter implementation timelines or even go down an entirely different path. When this happens, IT sales professionals and implementation teams are often surprised, feeling that the change of plan came out of nowhere. If you pay attention, however, you’ll pick up cues along the way that can keep these surprises from arising.

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Do You Really Want More Leads?: Generating high-quality leads is the top challenge for B2B marketers … by a mile. The latest research from MarketingSherpa shows that 69 percent of respondents see this as a significant challenge. The next one — marketing to a lengthening sales cycle – came in at a distant 39 percent. Even generating a high volume of leads only attracted the attention of 35 percent of the survey’s respondents. Competing for leads across multiple media environments ranked last at 27 percent.

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Four Ways to Sell Skittish Execs on Corporate Blogging: Blogging isn’t for the faint of heart. You have to expect readers to engage on some sort of level if you’re doing it right. With that said, some blogs can be the Wild Wild West, which is what gives blogging a bad reputation in the board room and with executives that are stuck in the 80s. So, despite impassioned pleas to get a corporate blog off the ground, sometimes those pleas are destined to fall on deaf ears.

Read the article >>

How to Sell Emerging Technology: Right now, the buzz around cloud computing is endless. But, it’s just the latest trend. In the past, it’s been B2B marketplaces, best-of-breed solutions for targeted business challenges and even the internet as a whole. The hidden cost of innovation is that IT solution provider’s need to explain the value and viability of these emerging technologies to skeptical decision-makers who are heavily invested in the status quo. Eventually, you know, today’s innovation will become tomorrow’s legacy platform, but that doesn’t make getting over the hump any easier.

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A New Way to Sell Virtualization: Virtualization is among the hottest technologies in the IT market right now. Even though datacenter penetration is still low, your competitors are pushing it just as hard as you are. There’s no guarantee that you’ll be the first person a CIO or other IT decision maker has spoke with about virtualization, so you need to make sure your message is a bit different — you need to make it pop. The easiest way to do this is to make it about the competition.

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Most Popular Keyword: Strategy

And, you may have missed …

Is E-mail Marketing Getting Too Defensive?: Most companies could be much more aggressive with their e-mail marketing initiatives. A new report from MarketingSherpa shows that customer retention is by far the top priority, with objectives around new opportunities not gaining nearly as much attention. Listen to this message from the market, and you’ll hear the whisper: “It’s time to make your move.”

Read the article >>

Right now, the buzz around cloud computing is endless. But, it’s just the latest trend. In the past, it’s been B2B marketplaces, best-of-breed solutions for targeted business challenges and even the internet as a whole. The hidden cost of innovation is that IT solution provider’s need to explain the value and viability of these emerging technologies to skeptical decision-makers who are heavily invested in the status quo. Eventually, you know, today’s innovation will become tomorrow’s legacy platform, but that doesn’t make getting over the hump any easier.

So, how do you approach a CIO or IT director with something new, like private cloud computing solution?

Well, cautiously.

Read the rest of this entry »

Too often, we think we know the answer. We know our clients pain points. We know the solutions they need. We know how much they should budget for it. Unfortunately, what we purport to know is rarely what actually happens. Prospects may delay a purchase, alter implementation timelines or even go down an entirely different path. When this happens, IT sales professionals and implementation teams are often surprised, feeling that the change of plan came out of nowhere. If you pay attention, however, you’ll pick up cues along the way that can keep these surprises from arising.

Read the rest of this entry »

Virtualization is among the hottest technologies in the IT market right now. Even though datacenter penetration is still low, your competitors are pushing it just as hard as you are. There’s no guarantee that you’ll be the first person a CIO or other IT decision maker has spoke with about virtualization, so you need to make sure your message is a bit different — you need to make it pop. The easiest way to do this is to make it about the competition.

In your own market (i.e., among you and your competitors), you’re seeing the importance of virtualization skyrocket. Do the math — this means a lot of IT solution providers are talking to a lot of IT departments. Virtualization is on the move, and a CIO that doesn’t get on board soon enough will be left behind, leaving the entire organization at a disadvantage in the marketplace. A company that lags technologically will have trouble supporting its business users, serving its clients and managing its operations.

Read the rest of this entry »

Social Media Demystified — How to Make It work in the IT Channel: Back by Popular Demand! Attend this webinar if you’re wondering how Social Media Marketing can impact your IT business. Tim Freestone, enter:marketing Vice President, will walk you through the best practices for getting started in social media IT channel marketing, from planning to building a community and managing your social media platforms for eventual ROI.

Register for this webinar >>

Optimize Blog Content for Sales Results: It’s natural to want to entertain or inform your readers with the best content you can put together. Rather than push a product, the conventional wisdom holds, you want to engage, interact and make the world a better place for your clients.

Read the article >>

Are You Losing Faith in E-mail Marketing?: Has your faith in e-mail marketing been shaken? It’s tough, to say the least. You’re competing for eyeballs in the inbox — and a lot of companies are, too. E-mail is easy to develop, cheap to execute and fantastic for tracking, but the crowds realizing this have led to degraded results — and frustrated IT solution provider marketers. The problem isn’t in the medium … it’s in the method. As with any other marketing technique, how you execute plays a significant role in the results you realize.

Read the article >>

Stop the Scramble: Most IT sales professionals know what it takes to close a deal. Put one in front of a well-qualified prospect, and the rest takes care of itself. The problem, of course, is getting those meetings. Without effective marketing support, sales teams are stuck cold-calling, hovering at networking events filled mostly with job-hunters instead of decision-makers and otherwise trying to find very small needles in incredibly large haystacks. The odds against success are high.

Read the article >>

Four Ways to Sell Skittish Execs on Corporate Blogging: Blogging isn’t for the faint of heart. You have to expect readers to engage on some sort of level if you’re doing it right. With that said, some blogs can be the Wild Wild West, which is what gives blogging a bad reputation in the board room and with executives that are stuck in the 80s. So, despite impassioned pleas to get a corporate blog off the ground, sometimes those pleas are destined to fall on deaf ears.

Read the article >>

Most Popular Keyword: email marketing

And, you may have missed …

Six Tips for Using Free Research on Your Corporate Blog: It’s relatively easy for companies on the Fortune 500 to get material for their blogs. These large enterprises have access to beefy research departments, paid primary research and other tools that smaller companies simply can’t afford. But, this doesn’t mean you’re stuck writing “soft” blog posts that lack the punch of big stats and pretty charts.

Read the article >>

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It’s natural to want to entertain or inform your readers with the best content you can put together. Rather than push a product, the conventional wisdom holds, you want to engage, interact and make the world a better place for your clients.

And you do. You really do want these things. The only problem, of course, is that such lofty ideals aren’t free, and you’re the one stuck with the tab. So, you need to generate some revenue, and your corporate blog is one of the ways you do that.

To get the most out of your blog, however, you need to find that middle ground between pure advertising and pure news/information/education. Essentially, you need blog content that can unobtrusively deliver an engagement opportunity while still delivering value to your target market.

Read the rest of this entry »

Wednesday, June 2, 2010
12:30 – 1:15 pm EST

Back by Popular Demand! Attend this webinar if you’re wondering how Social Media Marketing can impact your IT business.

Tim Freestone, enter:marketing Vice President, will walk you through the best practices for getting started in social media IT channel marketing, from planning to building a community and managing your social media platforms for eventual ROI.

You’ll learn:

• Where to invest your energy for optimal results
• Best practices for organizing and creating content
• A step-by-step approach to building and managing a community
• Some hints for pulling leads into your pipeline from your social media community

If you’re not in the social media space, you should be – and this webinar will be your first step. If you are in this space and struggling, help has arrived and it’s in the form of this webinar! Don’t miss out.

To register for this webinar, click here >>

Has your faith in e-mail marketing been shaken? It’s tough, to say the least. You’re competing for eyeballs in the inbox — and a lot of companies are, too. E-mail is easy to develop, cheap to execute and fantastic for tracking, but the crowds realizing this have led to degraded results — and frustrated IT solution provider marketers. The problem isn’t in the medium … it’s in the method. As with any other marketing technique, how you execute plays a significant role in the results you realize.

Read the rest of this entry »

Is E-mail Marketing Getting Too Defensive?: Most companies could be much more aggressive with their e-mail marketing initiatives. A new report from MarketingSherpa shows that customer retention is by far the top priority, with objectives around new opportunities not gaining nearly as much attention. Listen to this message from the market, and you’ll hear the whisper: “It’s time to make your move.”

Read the article >>

Stop the Scramble: Most IT sales professionals know what it takes to close a deal. Put one in front of a well-qualified prospect, and the rest takes care of itself. The problem, of course, is getting those meetings. Without effective marketing support, sales teams are stuck cold-calling, hovering at networking events filled mostly with job-hunters instead of decision-makers and otherwise trying to find very small needles in incredibly large haystacks. The odds against success are high.

Read the article >>

Fan Base Versus House List: Where’s the Value?: For internet marketers, nothing compares in value to the house list. It’s gold. You know that you can blast an e-mail and count on a certain conversion rate, yielding a comfortable predictability to your revenue stream. Yet, there are limits to e-mail marketing. After a while, you have to limit your campaigns, for fear of winding up in a spam folder or seeing the unsubscribes tick up. You’re ability to interact with your most likely buyers, therefore, is inherently constrained. Social media platforms can cut the ties that bind, however, and bring new flexibility to your internet marketing efforts.

Read the article >>

Five Signs You Are Leaving Marketing ROI on the Table: Are you getting the most out of your marketing budget? The only way to know for sure is to take a close look at how your marketing and sales teams are performing. Dig into the data in your CRM system, and you’ll find a wealth of information. Even if you’re satisfied with the fruits of your labor, you may learn that you’re actually leaving ROI on the table. Here are five ways to find out if your organization has more ROI just waiting to happen.

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Twitter Mastery Makes Money: Let’s not mess around with the thinking, here’s the data: companies with between 100 and 500 followers on Twitter generated 146 percent more median monthly leads than those with 21 to 100 followers. So, whip out your Blackberry and pump out those 140-character insights!

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