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Is your blog filled with the content you want to see there? That’s probably a mistake, according to the latest survey from MarketingSherpa. Too often, IT marketers are publishing what they think is appropriate, instead of using the materials that are most likely to drive a prospect to click and enter the sales cycle.

Most marketers have a clear bias toward educational content and free research reports, with 92 percent believing the former will drive clicks and 86 percent supporting the latter. Best practices content? Marketers lean on it 79 percent of the time.

The reality is much different.

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Content-based marketing has the singular goal of driving clicks, very specific clicks, in fact. You want to draw users into the sales cycle as quickly and easily as possible, ensuring that when they reach your sales force, they are ready to move toward a purchase. The longer the process, the greater the risk that your prospects will fall off.

So, how do you drive more clicks? The latest research from MarketingSherpa suggests that you lead with — promotional content?!

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enter:marketing is excited to show off our new website! Our redesign, which includes fresh content to help IT solution providers and manufacturers find the information they need quickly and easily. As we have grown, we’ve found new opportunities to showcase our services and help the entire IT sales and implementation community to use innovative marketing practices to drive demand, cultivate leads and increase revenue.

The new enter:marketing website is a starting point for IT solution providers and manufacturers. Visit the website, and take a look at the services we provide. Then, contact us with specific questions you may have about how to identify, reach and connect with the IT decision-makers who are most important to you. We’ll work with you to develop and execute a marketing plan to put you in front of prospects now — and develop a pipeline of future possibilities.

Check out our website, and read the latest stories on our blog. We’re more than happy to provide free information to benefit the industry as a whole. When you’re ready to talk further, we’ll be ready.

Okay, maybe it’s not that easy. There are some serious benefits to paid search advertising with search engines, such as predictability and control. And, it’s easier to measure your paid search marketing ROI. But, the quality of the leads that come to you this way aren’t nearly as high as those that come via search engine optimization (SEO).

According to the latest study by MarketingSherpa, SEO was responsible for both the highest quality and quantity of search engine-driven leads, with shares of 30 percent and 37 percent, respectively. Paid search on Google did post a noticeable 32 percent of leads by quantity, but it was only good for 16 percent by quality. Meanwhile, paid search on the other major search engines resulted in only 6 percent of leads by quality, compared to a similarly meager 9 percent of high-quantity leads.

Commit to a solid SEO strategy (which can be helped along considerably by blogging), and you’ll earn stronger leads in greater quantity.

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[Source: MarketingSherpa]

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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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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