Social Media: Authenticity And Perseverance

May 17, 2013

Social media is the current zeitgeist and the way of the future, or so we are told. This makes it all the more important to make sure that we are conducting our social media behavior in the correct manner.

Two of the most important things in the way we conduct ourselves in the world of social media are transparency and authenticity. In other words, do not try to pretend to be anyone or anything but what you are and be honest in all your interactions.

That said, perseverance and a thick skin can also come in handy. You cannot worry over what anyone else thinks about you 24 hours a day, seven days a week in the world of social media any more than you can in the real world.

Build and work your plan and just get out there. Make sure that you manage your brand, your image and your reputation. Take any legitimate criticism onboard, but do not be beholden to it.

Optimizing social strategy in emails
Senior management often tells B2B marketers to be more social when it comes to their B2B marketing efforts, but how exactly are you supposed to go about doing that?

The more familiar channel of email sees B2B marketers pushing their brand, solutions and messaging onto a targeted list of leads who are quite likely to either ignore it or even list them as spam.

One good tip when it comes to using email marketing for social media is to share rather than tell. It is not sufficient to leverage social media by just adding your social media links onto the bottom of an email. Provide links in emails in order to let leads share the content.

You also need to remember that at the end of the day it is all about the content. Sending the right content to the right person in the social sphere will have the result of amplifying the effect of that content, so take note of who your space’s loudest social media users are and try to get them to join in with your communications in order to leverage their long reach.

How to grow your market
There are a number of innovative methods with which you can attempt to connect and ultimately grow your market.

One good method is to actually invent a whole new market segment. B2B marketing is all about making sure that your service or product is put in the position of being at your category’s “logical extreme.”

For example, B2B companies that create disruptive technologies tend to be heavily funded when it comes to R&D, but the winners will be those companies that have positioned themselves to be the first in people’s minds.

Another good method is to swap your sales funnel for a sales network. These days there are innumerable ways to get out of the B2B sales funnel, with the market of today making it very expensive to find new prospects.

The trick is to create services and products that are so amazing that your existing customer base will not be able to stop talking about them to their friends and colleagues.

Filed Under: Marketing, Social Media Tagged With: ,

Writing Compelling Online And Offline Marketing Content

October 8, 2012

Working in the world of B2B communications there are a lot of rules and regulations to follow, and it is often all very serious indeed, but that doesn’t mean that all your communications have to be boring.

There are a few guidelines to remember that can give potential customers important information without putting them to sleep in the process.

The first tip is to keep the message as brief as possible and just get to the point. A short, powerful idea that has been cleverly packaged will always be better than an inordinate amount of waffle.

The more efficient you can make the message, the more likely it is to be read and to have the effect you want it to have. It is also important to make your content valuable and one of a kind.

While your topic of choice may have already been the subject of countless articles, you need to provide a different angle that will make yours stand out from the crowd and draw in consumers.

Avoid Four-Letter Words
There are some four-letter words that have no place when it comes to the world of B2B – and we’re not talking about profanity.

These are simple everyday words that the really clever stopped making use of a long time ago. Some of the most offensive?

The likes of “can’t” and “busy” as used in sentences such as “We can’t do that” or “I’ll call you back when I’m not as busy.”
Customers come to your business because they believe that you will be able to give them what they are asking for.

Even if you genuinely cannot give them that, you should always try to send them to someone who can, as they will remember your helpful behavior.

Likewise, under no circumstances should you tell a customer you’re too busy to deal with them.

No client wants to feel that they are unimportant and unappreciated, and if you do that, chances are your client will find someone else who won’t make them feel that way.

How Much Content Is Enough?
One question faced by many B2B companies is when they have created enough content to be able to answer all the questions that a prospect might conceivably have at each and every stage of the buying cycle.

The question therefore is, how can a company go about determining that? It begins with understanding who their ideal buyers really are and the kinds of concerns and issues they will have.

Creating buyer personas can actually assist with this, as they are used quite commonly in order to create an ideal customer archetype based upon what you already know in regard to your current prospects and customer base.

You need to be able to get inside your buyers’ heads and have a solid understanding of what it is that makes them tick. To do this, talk to your customers and to the personnel at your company who regularly engage with them. It will be a lot easier to craft your message.

Filed Under: Marketing Tagged With: ,

Social Media Management: Think Local

July 30, 2012

Marketers seem to be hearing three words a lot more these days: “social,” “local” and “mobile.”

With more and more users relying on cell phones and tablets and the geo-location technology that accompanies them, more and more businesses are realizing they need to think locally.

One good way to use social media to appeal to a local audience is to develop a blog. Blog posts are excellent places to write about things specific to your local area – events, people, places and restaurants, for example.

When writing blog posts, make sure you optimize the post by using tags that demonstrate the local nature of your business so you will benefit from your local search strategy and will be indexed in the correct manner by search engines.

Another way to better optimize your social search is to submit your profile data to local directories such as Yellow Pages and SuperPages.

Filed Under: Blogging, Marketing, Social Media Tagged With: ,

Business To Business Marketing Tips

July 30, 2012

Marketing is the life blood of any business. Staying in touch with customers, prospects, and vendors is critical to the growth of your business. Here are some tips to use the technical resources available to you to promote your business.

Business Blogging
Many B2B businesses, from the manufacturers of GPS devices for vehicle tracking to the providers of credit card processing services, are blogging today for a very good reason: blogging represents real power.

When done properly, it allows B2B businesses to generate leads, brand awareness, brand loyalty and greater interest in general. And B2B blogging is not all that difficult to get right, so long as a few simple tips are followed.

Knowing your audience is a very simple but effective tip. Make sure you have done research on your target audience, either on your own or with the assistance of an Internet marketing company, and then write appropriate content to best reach those individuals.

Another simple tip is just to have a plan. It is always important to actually plan ahead when it comes to being able to offer the best content.

Plan out ideas for blog topics for at least one month in advance, and make sure that you have a backlog of post ideas so you can fill in any gaps.

Creating Compelling Email Copy
Email marketing has evolved in a big way over the last few years, and yet the fact remains that übe-designed emails with lots of “bells and whistles” are meaningless without well-written content. The good news is that in the end, writing a great marketing email all comes down to just a few simple copywriting best practices.

Writing a genuinely compelling email subject line is one such practice. The message itself might be a work of literary genius, but no one will ever read it if the subject line does not inspire the receiver to open the message and read it in the first place. Use actionable language that makes it very clear what the reader can do with the information contained in the email message and why he or she should read it.

Wherever possible, personalized emails also work well. That means more than just including the recipient’s name; it means also knowing personal information about the person to whom you are sending your messages, including what he or she is likely to be interested in.

Filed Under: Blogging, E-Mail, Marketing Tagged With: ,

Six Ways To Ensure Your Email Gets Read

March 20, 2012

If you’re like a lot of us, you get so much email every day that you might spend as little as 15 seconds scanning a message to determine how it applies to you.

Now, imagine that other people are reading your email the same way. If they can’t quickly identify the purpose of your message, they’ll probably delete it or leave it in the Inbox for “later” – if later ever comes.

Here are some tips to ensure that your email messages are read and get the attention they deserve.

Have a clear purpose
When recipients receive your email message, they should be able to see at a quick glance how the message relates to them and why it’s important.

They may be looking at a preview of your message in Microsoft Outlook or on a smart phone. Or they may see only subject lines in their inbox. If your subject line is confusing and irrelevant, your email will surely get deleted in a hurry.

Here are some things you can include in subject lines to make sure the reader opens your mail:

A standard subject heading such as “Action Requested,” “Response Requested,” “FYI,” or “Read Only.”

The meaningful objective or supporting project that the message relates to, for example, “FY ‘05 budget forecasting.”

The required action if applicable, for example, “Consolidate departmental budget spreadsheets.” The due date if applicable, for example, “Due by July 7.”

An example of an effective Subject line is “Action Requested—Consolidate all department spreadsheets for FY ‘06 budget and return to me by June 15th.”

Tell them what to do
Be completely clear about the actions you want the recipients to take.

Be specific and put all the material that is related to an action in one place. To get even faster responses, talk about how the action relates to the recipient’s objectives, and always give due dates.

It’s also important to clarify what you want the recipient to do. There are basically four types of actions you could request:

Action: The recipient needs to perform an action. For example, “Provide a proposal for a 5% reduction in travel expenses.”

Respond: The recipient needs to respond to your message with specific information. For example, “Let me know if you can attend the staff meeting at 9am Friday.”

Read only: The recipient needs to read your message, and no response is necessary. For example, “Please read the attached sales plan before the staff meeting on August 12th.”

FYI only: The recipient should file your message for future reference. In fact, even reading the message is optional. For example, “Enclosed for your records are your completed expense reports.”

Give them all of the data
Make sure you give recipients all of the information they need to complete an action or respond successfully to your request.

Your co-workers shouldn’t have to come back to you asking for information, whether it is a supporting document or a link to a file on a shared website.

You can include supporting information in the body of the message, in an attached file, or in an attached email.

Send only to necessary people
Target your message to the appropriate audience. Only people who have to complete an action on the Subject line should receive your message. Be thoughtful and respectful when you enter names on the To line. People observe your thoughtfulness and the results are more effective.

No forwards!
While everyone appreciates a little humor and a sanity break at the office, save the funny forwards, jokes, and cute pictures for personal email.

Filed Under: E-Mail, Marketing Tagged With: , ,