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As enter:marketing moves forward into 2011 and looks to expand how our clients connect with and sell to their customers – one thing is glaringly obvious: Social Media. In particular, Facebook is a frontier that is critical for our clients to conquer.

That said, we’re facing resistance in our discussions of the value of Facebook marketing. I’m not surprised though. The unknown makes people uncomfortable. The majority of marketing and sales professionals in IT are not familiar with strategies in this space – after all, it’s not an event at Ruth’s Chris steakhouse. Because of this unfamiliarity, most are not willing to make the leap. A couple primary objections pervade most of my conversations: 1) “I don’t think Facebook is for IT businesses; and 2) “Custom what?”

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Look – I realize I’m asking quite a lot of people. Perseverance is not a trait that pervades the IT industry. If there were a guild of actors of short-attention-span theater, this industry would certainly hold the annual convention. Also, I’m not making a directed statement – it’s a fairly universal trait across all players – sales, marketing, CEO’s, engineers – no favoritism here. I’m also not blaming anyone. I’m simply calling a spade a spade. We all function in a system where products mutate and migrate faster than Madonna’s wardrobe changes in an early nineties concert at Madison Square Garden. So it’s no wonder that the shadow (marketing and sales) of such an unruly beast be also A.D.D.

Again, I’m not bitter, simply painting a clear picture of reality before I lay out a sentiment for how to truly stand out as competent, dare I say exceptional, in a sea of deer-in-headlights mediocrity.
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First, lets define “success.” Actually, let’s define the antithesis of success. Success is NOT pretty pictures or cool designs. Yes, sometimes marketers can smoke and mirror their way through life, but tricks are for kids (someone wise once said that). Success in demand generation marketing is NOT the number of leads. The definition of good vs. bad leads is too subjective and wildly unpredictable. Success is NOT the number of meetings. Unless you are charging the prospect a fee to attend the meeting, a meeting in and of itself is nothing more than two people talking. So what is success in demand generation? It’s simple. Success is the amount of revenue you enable a sales executive to identify from the targets in your programs. I’ll say it again. Success is the amount of revenue you enable a sales executive to identify from the targets in your programs.

The reason I define success in such a manner is because it’s at this point at which the marketer begins to lose direct control of the actual sales process. The marketer still has influence and indirect control (helping provide reps with data sheets, case studies, and other sales tools to aid them in their journey with the prospect) but it’s still the point in that process where the 80/20 rule of control flips. As long as you have at least 80% control, you have the ball. Its where that responsibility ends, where you “make the hand off” that you need to hold yourself accountable, and where the metric for success should be defined. Read the rest of this entry »

What makes success difficult for email marketing campaigns? For B2B marketing professionals, several factors can impede progress, but targeting recipients is at the top of the list. Let’s take a look at the top six challenges B2B email marketers face:

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Email marketing has been around for a while, and many marketers have clear thoughts on the value it provides. Respondents to a recent MarketingSherpa survey indicated a variety of perspectives on email marketing, ROI and investment, though almost all surveyed indicated seeing the value of this approach.

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Is email marketing a priority for your company? Nothing answers that question quite like your budget. After all, how you allocate your marketing capital is the truest indicator of what’s important to your business. According to the latest survey by MarketingSherpa, it looks like email marketing means different things to different companies.

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In some industries, the corporate blogging and social media marketing opportunity is obvious. Especially in the consumer space, you use a corporate blog to attract, retain and engage your target market, ultimately with the goal of leading them into your sales funnel and converting on your website. For business-to-business companies, especially in the professional services sector, the case isn’t quite as clear.

Does a corporate blog become relegated to PR tool, or is it primarily a brand play?

With only soft metrics apparently available, it can be incredibly difficult to get even the slightest investment. Startup costs may be low, but content creation and traffic analysis tend to be time-consuming if done properly, making a soft-dollar employee commitment crucial … which is where the reluctance of senior management usually comes into play. To free up resources to tend to your corporate blog and manage your social media marketing environment, you need to deliver a compelling business case, showing explicitly the tangible benefits to your company.

Though B2B professional services companies are extremely likely to generate direct sales online, there is a salient ROI opportunity from this form of marketing, and it stretches well past branding and publicity. Let’s take a look at five ways you can use your B2B corporate blog to gain a competitive advantage:

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B2B marketing operations may be more mature than you think.

It’s easy to look in the mirror and get frustrated. After all, you have to balance your commitment to marketing against your core business operations (such as sales and services fulfillment), and it always feels like you’re leaving a marketing opportunity on the table. I’ve spoken with many IT solution provider marketers over the past few years, and I’m rarely surprised to hear sentences that start with, “I’d like to …” and have “but” somewhere in there.

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Do you actively manage how your company communicates to the market? Every interaction with your clients and prospects should be framed by what your company is and believes, and this includes every piece of paper and every conversation. Managing this may seem difficult, but with a rigorous approach, you can create a culture of message discipline in your company that will bolster your band, shorten the sales cycle and reduce selling costs. This leads to more revenue, higher margins and increased market share.

Ready to get started? Here’s how you can implement message discipline in five simple steps:

1. Define your message: without a clear message from the start, nothing else matters. Your brand is a random collection of public statements and project results that may or may not be related to each other. Take the time to decide what your company is and means, based on your core business objectives and competencies. Document it, and be prepared to live by it.

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As you increase your visibility, it becomes more important to manage what you say in public. The people who watch your company most carefully – namely, existing and potential clients – will be more likely to pick up on discrepancies, invariably leading to the uncomfortable conversations you want to avoid. It’s a necessary evil as you grow your brand and your company, so instead of trying to avoid it, start implementing message discipline now. For small and mid-sized B2B service providers, this is crucial.

The purpose of brand marketing is to define your company and communicate this to the marketplace, creating a platform for future growth at a lower cost per sale. You want your company to be visible, to be on the minds of prospective buyers all the time. There are many ways to accomplish this, ranging from person-to-person interaction through broad PR and social media initiatives. Even your demand generation campaigns are part of this process: over time, direct response marketing can accumulate to brand recognition (as long as you are positioning your marketing materials correctly).

So, what happens when it works?

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