July 19th, 2010 - Posted in Social Media Marketing by tim
Pushing for top placement in search results is as old as marketing itself, and it continues to be a priority. Internet marketers continue to recognize the importance of search in driving the end user’s internet browsing experience and understand that the odds of attracting a visitor (and the opportunity to convert) improve significantly with search engine placement.
June 24th, 2010 - Posted in Solution Provider Services by tim
We all know that B2B and B2C are totally different animals. What works for selling toilet paper doesn’t really translate to virtual desktop infrastructures. In e-mail marketing, content reigns supreme … which is why we expect corporate blogs to increase in influence through the end of the year and beyond.
According to recent research by MarketingSherpa, 67 percent of B2B marketing professionals use e-mail to deliver “content relevant to segment,” compared to only 61 percent of B2C e-mail marketers.
June 8th, 2010 - Posted in Social Media Marketing by tim
How do you handle social media marketing? Is it integrated into your overall marketing plan, or do you treat it separately?
If you go with the latter, you’re in the minority, according to a new study by MarketingSherpa. The research indicates that 52 percent of respondents integrate social media with both online and offline marketing tactics. Meanwhile, 31 percent integrate social media marketing efforts with online tactics only, with 1 percent integrating with offline only. Sixteen percent of the respondents integrate social media with any other marketing tactics.
These findings suggest that social media marketing is moving beyond the experimentation stage. Marketing departments realize that the environment can’t be ignored – and that it actually requires a substantial commitment.
Social media marketing is no longer a differentiator: it’s part of the price of admission to your market.
[Source: MarketingSherpa]
June 2nd, 2010 - Posted in Social Media Marketing by tim
A year ago, the results of this MarketingSherpa survey would have looked a lot different. Nearly half of respondents indicated that “social media is a promising tactic and will eventually produce ROI” and are increasing budget conservatively. This may not seem exciting, but a “cautious” commitment is a commitment nonetheless. Only 17 percent replied that they aren’t going to invest in social media marketing.
Of course, the group of respondents increasing budget “liberally” is small, but that’s to be expected for a relatively new approach to marketing that many are still exploring. For 7 percent to invest fairly heavily in social media marketing is impressive, especially this early in the innovation cycle. The remaining 27 percent is neither increasing nor decreasing, responding, “Social media value is unknown and something we do only as time permits. Why invest more?”
May 17th, 2010 - Posted in Solution Provider Services by tim
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.
May 12th, 2010 - Posted in General by tom
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.”
When I saw the latest chart published by MarketingSherpa, I was shocked. Eighty-eight percent of respondents called “retain[ing] existing customers” a very important objective for e-mail marketing. Only 78 percent ascribed this level of importance to “generat[ing] new sales leads,” and “increase web traffic,” “build brand and educate market” and “drive offline sales” each was considered “very important” by only 56 percent of respondents.
May 5th, 2010 - Posted in General by tom
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.
What does this mean for you?
Quality matters. Period. The top priority for solution providers needs to be lead quality — there’s no substitute for delivering a qualified, interested prospect on which you have plenty of intelligence to your sales team.
[Source: MarketingSherpa]
April 26th, 2010 - Posted in Social Media Marketing by tim
If you have budget to burn on search engine marketing (SEM), analyzing site log files for highly converting keywords is the most popular approach to research. It’s also favored by companies with thinner budgets. Sifting through the same log files for frequent keywords is a favorite, as well.
The latest research from MarketingSherpa shows that 85 percent of companies with SEM budgets of above $25,000 a year look for highly converting keywords in their log files, with 54 percent of companies with SEM budgets of $10,000 and down using the same method. Fifty-four percent of both the big and small companies looked for frequent keywords in log files, and both chose internal site search analysis (46 percent and 30 percent, respectively) as the #3 technique.
Competitor site analysis and competitive tools were considerably less popular, particularly with companies that didn’t have large SEM budgets. And, social semantic mining is still in its infancy.
How do you do keyword research? Leave a comment, and let us know!
[Source: MarketingSherpa]
April 7th, 2010 - Posted in Social Media Marketing by tim
Whether search engine marketing is an important part of your online arsenal is beyond question. Google alone, with around two-thirds of the U.S. search market, warrants specific consideration. For IT manufacturers and solution providers, search engine marketing can be particularly challenging because competition is fierce for fairly specific search terms — both for products and vendors and for the IT issues that you seek to resolve for your clients. The latest research from MarketingSherpa reveals the priorities of search engine marketers.
March 30th, 2010 - Posted in Social Media Marketing by tim
As expected, social media marketing results vary across the B2B space. The general theme, according to the latest study by MarketingSherpa, is that, in general, social media marketing has been somewhat effective. What’s most encouraging, though, is that for most categories, few respondents indicated that social media initiatives were not effective at all.
For brand-related, traffic and PR efforts, more than 40 percent of respondents for each category indicated that there social media marketing programs were very effective, with those indicating “somewhat effective” ranging from 47 percent to 54 percent. Respondents saying that social media had not been effective for them amounted to 5 percent and fewer.
In areas where a connection to the sales cycle was included, social media was not deemed to have been as effective. Customer support quality and cost initiatives were generally somewhat effective to ineffective. Social media-driven lead generation, sales revenue and the containment of new customer acquisition costs, on the other hand, were generally somewhat effective.
[Source: MarketingSherpa]
