B2B social media marketers are in the early and middle stages of their efforts, according to a study by MarketingSherpa. The survey finds that, almost independent of social media marketing category, trial programs and transitions (to strategic roles) are most common, with relatively few companies using these tools strategically.

Overall, 33 percent of companies are in the Trial Phase, with 40 percent in the Transition Phase. While this constitutes an overwhelming majority, the fact that 23 percent of social media marketers have moved into the Strategic Phase is actually promising. Businesses are moving into this advanced state – and they are using social media to drive returns.

[Source: MarketingSherpa]

Marketing campaigns don’t add up to a strategy. Sometimes it may look that way, but that’s just a bit of luck at work. It’s far more effective to go the other way — start with a strategy and use that to drive your campaigns.

IT solution provider marketers tend to focus on the campaign, a perspective resulting largely from demand generation considerations. The best way to bring in leads, however, is to use a coordinated approach that maximizes the value and potency of your marketing efforts. One-off campaigns just don’t have the same effect.

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Technology adoption entails the temptation to expect over-simplification. We want to streamline to the bone, taking anything that even seems excessive out of the equation. Slicing manual intervention completely, sometimes, appears to be the goal. And, this kind of thinking finds its way to the marketing department. Push-button marketing would be great, right? Just let the marketing happen on its own …

The only problem is that push-button marketing doesn’t always work.

Don’t get me wrong: there is a place for the inflexible, the templated, the boilerplate, the procedural. Not every marketing effort has to be people-intensive and high-touch. For every carefully crafted blog post, you may send an e-mail blast to tens of thousands of people. Rather than try to automate everything — or guide everything manually — the best approach is to find the right mix.

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As you begin to enter the social media marketing space, you’ll start to hear about “fans,” “friends” and “followers” — variations on the connections that people make in these environments. These relationships provide a first layer of measurement for social media marketing success, as they define your primary high-value audience.

While you don’t want to evaluate success strictly in terms of the number of followers or fans you amass — their activity, particularly relative to blog pageviews or, even better, purchases is far more important — this is the foundation from which you will drive the interactions that yield returns.

So, why do customers and clients become company and brand fans? Well, the answer varies with the type of social media user involved.

According to MarketingSherpa, there are three basic categories: Daily Users, Max Connectors and everyone else (i.e., “All Respondents”). Max Connectors are users with more than 500 social connections (e.g., on Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter). Daily Users are exactly what you think they are, though they lack the number of relationships as Max Connectors. Finally, All Respondents consists of Max Connectors, Daily Users and everyone else who participated in the study.

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Webinar: February 4, 2010, 12:30 to 1:15 PM EST

Prospecting for today isn’t good enough. Focus too much on the near term, and you’ll find yourself in a constant scramble for leads. Break the cycle now, and cultivate leads for the future. You’ll develop a pipeline for the future and gain a platform for strong, consistent growth. Don’t chase leads… cultivate them.

Join enter:marketing for this webinar to learn how you can cultivate your leads!

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There is no shortage of IT marketing agencies on the market that would be thrilled to have you as a client. You get calls regularly, have listened to countless pitches and reviewed what feels like a never-ending stack of presentations on demand generation. So, how do you choose? If you have a partner in place, how do you evaluate its effectiveness?

The most important aspect of your relationship, of course, is the result generated. You are looking for a return on your marketing investment, and sluggish demand generation is probably an indicator that you need to take a closer look at your IT marketing agency. And, strong results may be effective now, but you need to think toward the future — is your agency equipped to help you grow and mature?

To help you answer these questions, you’ll find below five characteristics of an
optimal IT marketing partner. Take a look to get a sense of what you are receiving
from your current relationship.

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A decade ago, the CRM sector was hitting its stride. The commericialization of the web made it possible for businesses to keep better track of their customers, marketing initiatives and the revenue associated with each, with the evolution of software as a service (SaaS) making it even more accessible and powerful. The next iteration in the maturity of CRM is social media. Beyond the nebulous benefits of connecting with existing and new clients via this increasingly popular channel, there are steps you can take to use tools like Twitter and LinkedIn to extend your CRM capabilities.

The stakes are high, of course. Forrester Research estimates that around 75 percent of adults online in the United States use social media platforms, so there’s a decent chance that a meaningful portion of your target market can be found in this environment. The challenge then becomes … what do you do with this access?

Like Forrester, I agree that you need to dodge the hype and get right down to business. There are plenty of specific ways you can extend your CRM capabilities into the social media space, from monitoring client satisfaction trends to identifying pain points that can be used in pursuing new business. The potential is easy enough to identify — execution tends to be the tough part.

So, here are five suggestions from Forrester on how to get started … with an enter:marketing twist:

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The buzz around social media marketing is palpable, but many IT resellers are rightfully skeptical. After all, how do you link tweets, fans and other nebulous concepts to sales opportunities? Through our work with you and the top IT manufacturers in the business, enter:marketing has developed a unique, results-focused social media marketing approach that is designed to extend your reach, target your message to a specific market and generate opportunities for client intelligence and new business. Enter the social media space confidently, and reap the rewards of this robust marketing venue.

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Everything we’re seeing and hearing in the channel partner and IT manufacturer space is that everyone’s going “social.” Computer software and hardware companies, we published last week, are increasingly turning to this form of marketing. Fifty-five percent of them, according to a MarketingSherpa survey, are increasing their social media marketing budgets, with only 5 percent cutting back.

But, what are they hoping to accomplish?

That’s been the unanswered question for IT manufacturers and resellers. Everyone knows that social is the place to be, but few are sure of the reasons why. We’ve always maintained that social media marketing must be integrated into a company’s larger marketing plan and that clear objectives should be defined.

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Alert: Five reasons to watch Google in 2010 >>

Google is trying to replace — not enter — the market >>

Small and medium-sized businesses, especially, are becoming comfortable with nebulous apps and services >>

 Google needs to grow into new areas >>

IT buyers are looking for more bang for their IT bucks >>

Google doesn’t need to charge >>