The Marketing Funnel

To effectively generate leads for a sales team these days, marketers have to set up effective programs to run continuously. What hasn’t changed, however, is the traditional marketing concept of pushing potential prospects through the funnel to identify which ones might become a customer. At the top of the funnel is the complete universe of potential clients. Using marketing, PR, and communication programs, it’s the marketer’s job to identify the potential leads that can enter the funnel, qualify the prospects, and serve them up to a nurturing team or sales person. Of course, there are also marketing automation software systems that can help track the programs, score the potential leads, and analyze the results.

Do New Graduates Have What It Takes?

So who should set up these programs? Should I hire marketing staff to create a dynamic team of experts? How many MBAs will I need? Do marketing graduates come equipped to run the latest in social media and marketing automation tools? Are universities cranking out ready-to-go marketers? Can I find employees who can write well? Can they use the latest automation tools and scheduling systems? How about social media channels? And then, of course, can my employee pick up the phone and call that editor at the trade industry’s biggest publication and get my article in it?

Or, can I find talent through agencies or contractors to do the work? What’s important here – the cubicles for marketing employees, along with their 401K, employee handbook, knowledge of their benefits, and location of the office coffee maker? No, of course not. What is important is identifying resources that have tremendous depth on the relevant topics.

You need a wheelhouse of experts with a vast range of skills to operate an efficient marketing engine.

Marketing Budgets 101

According to Forrester Research, B2B marketing budgets are expected to rise this year. Prior to the 2008 recession, the rule of thumb measurement on a marketing budget was between 5% to 10% of your revenues. In 2011, Forrester surveyed B2B marketers and found that number to be closer to 2.5% of revenues. The good news is that the percentage is growing and 2014 should see an average marketing budget of 4% of revenues.

Here’s the Quiz

So with tight budgets and fast changing tools, you should ask yourself the following questions to determine if you should indeed outsource your marketing team:

1. Are your annual sales less than $10 million?
2. Do you have a complex sales cycle that requires more than 30 days to make a purchase decision?
3. Is your marketing budget less than 5% of annual revenue?
4. Is your company less than five years old?

If you answered yes to three or more of these questions, consider outsourcing most of your marketing efforts to contracted specialists or an agency where you can control the actual spend of every hour worked.

The Right Answer

Truthfully, there isn’t one right answer. Each situation requires its own strategy based on budget, time, and resources available to you. I’ve worked on both sides of the coin. I’ve managed a team of internal marketers in a B2B environment and I’ve hired both agency and individual contractors to fulfill my marketing team needs. Both are great, but when budgets are tight, I have to go with the contracted/agency model. I get senior level experience with fewer dollars than a full-time employee!

Have a comment? I would love to hear from you. Reach me at peggy@markitstrategies.com.

September 2014 – We’re big fans of LinkedIn, considered the world’s largest professional network. The Markit Strategies team has seen terrific results from our business-to-business clients who leverage LinkedIn to expand their online awareness.

To get the most out of b-to-b social media, remember it takes strategy and focused effort to connect, converse and engage with a relevant audience. A recent Markit blog post about social media as branding reinforces the point.

Looking at LinkedIn

Launched in May 2003, LinkedIn is considered the “grand-daddy” of social media platforms. At the ripe old age of 11 years, LinkedIn has demonstrated its staying power in today’s rapidly changing world of online social media. Think of LinkedIn as a gathering of your business buyers and decision makers, waiting to hear about your company.

Some notable facts about LinkedIn:

• LinkedIn has more than 300 million members – with 100 million members in the U.S.
• A new member joins LinkedIn approximately every second
• Executives from all Fortune 500 companies are LinkedIn members
• 40% of users check LinkedIn every day
• Over 50% of users (with some sources reporting much higher) are business decision makers in their company

See additional research here.

5 Tips to Get You Started

As business-to-business marketers, we encourage our clients to make the most out of LinkedIn. But many organizations either don’t have the resources to apply to this effort, or simply don’t know where to begin.

Noted below are five tips to get your started in the right direction.

1. Craft a profile with punch. Join LinkedIn for free and start building your professional profile. Be sure to completely detail your professional history in your free profile, including education, career highlights, a professional headshot and references. Those in the LinkedIn community and even those who are not in LinkedIn will be able to access your public profile – so spend time to craft the best possible profile. We encourage our clients to use a professional headshot. Sources say that profiles with photos are 11 times more likely to be viewed than profiles with no photo.
2. Connect. Reach out to colleagues, clients and industry associates by searching for them under “people” in the search box. Chances are, they already use LinkedIn. Ask to “connect” with them to build a relevant LinkedIn network. Ask those who truly know you, your company and its products or services, to write recommendations for you. These references, once you approve them, will appear in your profile. As you engage with colleagues in your professional world or attend conferences, remember to ask for LinkedIn connections to keep building your network.
3. Grow through relevant groups. Make time to join relevant LinkedIn groups, follow companies of interest, post in discussion forums, and to engage other related activity. Take the time to research LinkedIn groups that are appropriate for your service or product offering. Simply search the “Groups” area of LinkedIn using relevant keywords. Think of LinkedIn groups as your target audience, but proceed with caution. Don’t “spam” the groups with overly promotional messages. Instead, follow rules they lay out regarding discussions and postings. We’ve seen clients gain new customers from the connections they have made engaging with LinkedIn groups.
4. Create a compelling company page. Take the time to craft a carefully written LinkedIn company page. Google previews up to 156 characters of your page’s text. So develop powerful, keyword-rich descriptions. It’s all about making it easy for other LinkedIn members to find your company. That’s why it is important to include words and phrases in your company page that describe your business, expertise and industry focus. Once you start posting, you’ll see how many folks clicked through to view your content.
   And here’s a basic, yet surprisingly often over-looked tip: include your company contact information, website URL, and thorough descriptions of product/service offerings and your areas of expertise. Encourage all employees to follow your company page.
5. Apply a strategic approach. Actively updating your LinkedIn status signals your connections that you stay current and active in your field. For either your personal profile page or your company page, status updates should offer relevant and professional content or link to industry-related content. Examples include availability of new products/services; industry accolades received by you or the company; events hosted by your organization; etc. Remember that LinkedIn isn’t a personal blogging platform. It is a professional social network. So keep it professional. At the very least, try to post a professional update every week.

Final Thoughts

LinkedIn constantly adds new features. Set aside a half hour every week to click around and see how to enhance your company page or personal profile with new features.

Remember that LinkedIn is a powerful part of your integrated marketing communications programs.

It’s worth the time and effort to converse, connect and engage on LinkedIn. For further insight into your b-to-b social marketing programs, contact Markit Strategies and PR.

Typos! We may laugh with glee when we see them on Jay Leno’s old Headlines segment, but weep in frustration when we see them in our own materials. They come with the territory. Auto-correct and spell-check programs find misspelled words but not misused words.

We’re all working so quickly, up against a deadline, and we know what the materials are supposed to say. It’s impossible and foolhardy to try to proof one’s own work. Which is why all marketing content developers (indeed, all content developers in any industry) must build in time and resources for editorial review and proofing. Hire an editor.

Unfortunate and Expensive Typos

Here are some famous examples of deadly typos.

• Even in academia, a typo can slip through and cause great embarrassment.
• Trying to include the correct website can have its pitfalls, as the University of Texas Longhorns football team found out.
• Here’s an oldie but a goodie. Disagreements over punctuation rules can change the meaning of very expensive contracts, just ask Rogers Communications of Toronto and Bell Aliant telephone company.

Some people suggest that informal means of communication, such as emails and blogs, Tweets and Facebook posts, should be forgiven typos and grammatical errors. But when it’s your company behind that post or blog, wouldn’t you want it to be as error-free as the services and products you offer? Hire an editor.

Check the Subject Line

Our colleague, Val Valentine writes about best practices for direct marketing email subject lines. She says: “In many ways, your email subject line is even more important than the content of your email, since opening the email is the very first step on the email marketing journey. You may have a terrific message but it’s worthless if it never sees the light of day.” Check for typos. Hire an editor.

Well-written content instills trust in your product or service. Inconsistent use of the company or product name, an email with grammatical or punctuation errors, and poorly crafted materials reflect directly on your company. To make your company look the very best…hire an editor.

How does your company make sure your content is error-free?

A common error I see companies make in the B2B world is trying to attract customers by presenting a litany of product features and specifications, assuming the potential customer will recognize the benefits and see how they apply to their unique circumstance. The approach
is to tell what the product or service does better or faster than their last release. Or how much better it performs than the competitors’ version of the solution.

What’s lacking is the voice of customers explaining how the product or service addressed their pain points and solved their company’s problems. When a reference-able customer is willing to go on the record and explain how the product improves quality, reduces costs or somehow improves its business processes in a quantifiable metric, people take notice. Other companies recognize the same challenges in the marketplace and have a greater appreciation for the benefit that the solution provides.

It’s critical for a company to listen to the voice of the customer when determining priorities for developing new products, but that’s not the only way to leverage a mutually beneficial relationship with a satisfied customer. A customer testimonial is a much more convincing validation of the product than merely stating the claims, as proven in the bestselling marketing book, The Fall of Advertising and the Rise of PR.

Any neutral observer will place far greater value on a customer offering his or her real-world example of how the company overcame a challenge or improved a process. It’s much more impressive than a company spokesperson giving the tired “Ain’t it great?” message with a litany of features and benefits. Recall a previous Markit Strategies’ blog post from Barbara Longley MacGregor shared the importance of striking customer gold with case studies. Case studies are just one way a client can share a customer success story.

What’s important to convey is not what your product or service does, it’s how the customer will benefit from the investment. And that message is often best told by someone who has experienced the results, not a company spokesperson.

We often hear the term “brand” used in the world of marketing communications. Many times the term “brand” is used interchangeably to mean a “logo,” so it’s important to distinguish between the two concepts.

A “brand” is typically defined as the emotional relationship a product, company, organization or even person has with their customers, audiences, consumers, and community.

A logo, by contrast, is a design representation of a brand. In a way, a logo serves as a brand communications “shortcut” when it is created effectively.

You can read more about the nuances of branding in this Forbes article entitled “What is a brand anyway? http://www.forbes.com/sites/jerrymclaughlin/2011/12/21/what-is-a-brand-anyway/

B-to-B Branding

In terms of business-to-business marketing, a brand elicits thoughts, perceptions, emotions, and responses from business customers.

Responses are based on key elements such as the product/service itself, the company reputation, the company history, the logo, the website, product packaging, the company employees, news articles, etc.

Social Media and B to B Branding

So how can business-to-business marketers use social media as a branding tool? The following tips are key considerations.

1)    Do the hard work up front. A social media program can only reinforce your brand if you’ve taken the time to develop one in the first place. Is your organization striving for a “thought leadership” brand? If that makes sense for you, then social media platforms (LinkedIn, Twitter, Google Plus, etc.) can reflect cutting-edge information, leading industry trends, and other materials supporting that brand image. You can only be effective when you have a sense of the brand. Are you hoping to brand the company as a leading edge innovator? Than social media engagement should reinforce that brand image by directing followers to innovation success stories, accolades and awards for innovation, breaking news of other innovators in the marketplace, etc. Again, this only makes sense if that branding work has been done beforehand.

2)    Consistency is key. Branding must be consistent across all marketing communications programs. As an example, a financial consultant might use print and online ads and its website to portray a conservative and trustworthy brand. Thus it wouldn’t make sense for the financial advisor to use social media to share jokes or off-color comments, personal observations about the weather, politics or unrelated topics. Be human throughout social media outlets, but don’t go off-brand. The advisor’s tweet stream, LinkedIn updates and social media postings should reinforce a consistent brand image that relates to other programs.

3)    Use common sense. Courtesy goes a long way when it comes to social media. Don’t be reckless, use profanity, or insult. That makes a terrible brand impression! Don’t Tweet or post when angry. Refrain from being intoxicated when Tweeting, as many organizations have learned.

4)    Stay current. What does it say about a business consultant’s “brand” when the Twitter feed hasn’t been updated in more than 12 months? If you start a social media marketing program, by all means, maintain it in a timely fashion. It is a detriment to the brand if a blog, LinkedIn company page, Google Plus profile, Twitter account, or Facebook goes through a “set it and forget it” process, and the last post was from a year ago.

5)    Focus on the fundamentals. Business-to-business companies are smart to take time to draft an effective social media biography profile. Be sure the profile includes related imagery, logo, location, website URL and full description of the company, product and service. Relevant followers search Twitter bios, LinkedIn and other social outlets using keywords when looking for folks to follow. If a corporate trainer, for instance, leaves the bio blank, or doesn’t use keywords in the bio like “training,” “corporate training,” “learning workshops,” they are missing out on a great branding opportunity.

Next Steps: B-to-B Branding and Social Media

Your brand is the foundation of all marketing activities.

It takes thought and effort, but social media marketing can effectively reinforce your brand, and deliver a favorable collection of perceptions in the mind of your prospect.

Ready to consider social media management and branding for your company? Contact Markit Strategies to get the conversation going.

1. Communicate frequently with your customers. While multiple touch-points for prospects are important, make sure you’re keeping the line of communication open with your current and past customers as well.We could spend an entire blog or two on various marketing strategies to reach your customer, however, as a PR practitioner, remember toshare press releases and media hits with your customers via email blasts, your website and social media. Let them know what is going on in the world of your company. It’s okay to brag a little, especially to the people who have helped you get where you are.
2. Customer service is going social. This one is becoming more and more apparent as customers are increasingly using social media to interact with companies. Implementing strategies for each social media platform will help your company set the right tone. Keep in mind the points from a recent Forbes article, “The Ignored Side of Social Media: Customer Service” which discusses the rising expectations people have when utilizing a company’s social media channels for customer service issues. When implementing a social media strategy targeting customer service complaints, remember to be courteous, to direct people where you’d like them to go if 140 characters won’t get the point across, use proper spelling and grammar, and be as timely as possible.
3. Case Studies and Contributed Articles. Barbara Longley MacGregor recently outlined how to strike content gold with your customer case studies. From a public relations standpoint, these case studies are perfect fodder to bring to an editor as a real-world example. Depending on your case study, research a targeted editor and pitch your case study. Some publications may even allow a contributed article written by the appropriate executive. Who doesn’t love to see their name in print!
4. LinkedIn Groups. If your customers love your product, they’ll love getting in on the ground floor to collaborate on the next version of your solution. Creating an online forum or User Group for customers to discuss and troubleshoot is easy through LinkedIn Groups. This creates an open place for people to strategize and make your solution even stronger.

We’re always thinking of fun ways to incorporate customers at Markit Strategies. Do you have a strategy that has worked for you?

June 2014 – With mobile and tablet device usage on the rise, companies need a website that provides an optimal experience on all devices. Responsive web design is the best way to deliver advanced navigation, ease of use, and all the benefits and services your site offers all the time, on all devices.

What is Responsive Design?

Responsive design is an approach to crafting a website so that it responds to the user’s behavior and environment; maintaining the same features, navigation, and ease of use while it seamlessly adapts to screens of different sizes, on multiple devices. A well-crafted responsive website will minimize the need for users to resize, pan, and scroll to access the features and information they seek.

Why Responsive Design?

In addition to making you look good by having a current, adaptive site and providing a more fluid experience for your users, consider these other benefits to a responsive website design:

Retain and gain users

With long commutes, multitasking, and the expectation to be on call 24/7, today’s business professionals need to get things done anytime, anywhere. Sites without navigation designed for mobile devices are inconvenient and frustrating for users, who will look elsewhere. Be ahead of the game. Ensuring your site can adapt to multiple devices will not only retain the customers you have, but will gain new market share.

SEO

Because Google is the world’s most popular search engine, it is imperative to have a website that gets Google’s attention. Not only does Google recommend responsive design as the best way to target mobile users, but it also favors mobile-optimized sites when presenting search results made on a mobile device. Responsive web design also enhances SEO efforts by directing all of your users to a single site no matter which device they are using. Read more about the one-two punch of SEO and content marketing.

Cost

One website costs less than two. Designing, developing, and maintaining a single site that serves the needs of all users on all devices will save your business time and money.

According to CNN Money, mobile device usage of the Internet has surpassed that of the PC. Thus, it is critical for your business to have a website that gives your customers the same features and ease-of-use on all devices.   Get the most out of your web presence with responsive design. Contact Markit Strategies today.

In a world dominated with a “It’s not you, it’s me” mentality, we can get caught up in telling our solutions story from our point of view. In order to sell, we must tell the story from the customer’s point of view.

As Geoffrey James points out in his post for Inc.com, “The most consistent mistake companies make in sales and marketing is to position their company or product as the hero of the story… Even when you tell [your] story with enthusiasm and confidence, you’re making a huge mistake, because you’re turning the customer into a minor character in your story, rather than the star of the show.”

With a little creativity, we can recharge our efforts. I would wager most press releases and marketing content includes a sentence or two about how “our company is the industry leader” or “our services and solutions offer terrific return on investment.” What would resonate is swapping generic marketing jargon with actual customer results. “ABC Company was overloaded with data and needed to improve their working systems. They used XYZ solution and were able to improve how their business operates.”

We must realize what prospects want to read is how similar companies have succeeded. How did that happen? What did they do? What were the results?

In June, we’ll outline the four best public relations strategies to make your customer the hero. And for a refresher on case study content, check out this past post by Barbara Longley MacGregor: Striking content marketing gold with case studies.

Many of the business-to-business organizations we team with are interested in achieving page one visibility when it comes to Google, Bing or other search rankings.

We know from studies that prospects rarely scroll through multiple pages of a search result when they use Google or Bing to seek out products or services. They are more likely to click through to a website when it shows up on a page one search.

The challenge is that sustainable Search Engine Optimization (SEO) results don’t just happen. SEO requires a strategic effort from the PR and marketing team, along with significant resources and engaging content that’s relevant to the target audience.

The process involves keyword analysis, generating customer-focused content, whether it is web copy, press releases, marketing collateral or other vehicles, and of course, an effective link strategy to improve rank, click-throughs and conversions.

SEO and Content Marketing: 5 “How To’s”

As we consider SEO and content marketing, the marketing communications team at Markit Strategies suggests a “one-two punch” approach that combines coordinated SEO and content marketing – two great strategies that work great together.

Given that organic search is a leading source of traffic, we advise our clients to integrate SEO best practices from the beginning of key messaging and content creation.

Not intended to be an exhaustive list by any means, the following tips are “SEO” thought-starters to keep in mind when embarking upon a PR and content marketing program:

• Does the marketing content (web pages, press releases, case studies, by-lined articles) offer quality information of value to the prospect?
• Has the team taken the time to discover the high volume keywords prospects are using, and does the content team use those relevant keywords to make content search engine-friendly? This includes all content including blog posts, website content, press releases, product data sheets, by-lined articles placed in industry trade journals, and other vehicles.
• For online content, does the team take the time to optimize titles, header tags, subheads, embedded links, meta tags, image tags, and the page URL?
• In terms of PR placements and “earned media,” are the linking sites (trade journals, industry web portals, etc.) related to the content and the prospect?
• In terms of social media, do posts that share content use relevant hashtags and keywords when encouraging social engagement?

Final Thoughts Content Marketing and SEO

An SEO-informed approach to marketing content is critical to improved online awareness, and is a key part of content marketing and public relations best practices.

Quality information that delivers value to your prospects must also be easy to find, and that means including SEO in every step of the process.

For further information, contact the Markit Strategies team.

As public relations practitioners, we now have so many wonderful tools to use to communicate our messages, but nothing is easier for a PR pro than a simple phone call. Having been in the PR industry for more than a decade, I wholeheartedly believe we should spend the time and utilize every piece of the content puzzle to formulate the perfect message for our clients.

However, there are times we must conjure up our PR intern days of yore and just make that phone call.

Pick Up the Phone

In my years of experience, I have found that the best (and quickest) way to build a relationship with contacts in the media is to pick up the phone and actually speak with him or her.

It’s not easy – it’s hard. You will be rejected. However, you will get a nugget that will make you pick up the phone again. Even if it’s just a gruff voice yelling “I’m on a deadline!” You will know next time that A) that person picks up the phone and B) you should call on a different day.

Be Prepared

It has been well documented that journalists hate the cold call, perhaps more than you hate making them. So, before you just pick up the phone to chat, do a little research. Know your contacts. What have they written recently, what are they tweeting, who do they follow? How often do they write and what other outlets have picked up their work? It’s so easy to get this information quickly and it will help immeasurably when you pick up the phone.

I suggest prior to picking up the call, take a journalist’s advice and send a targeted email pitch. This Business Insider article goes into some excellent detail about how to pitch journalists when they don’t know who you are.

Then, it’s on to the call. Having some marketing background has helped my calls. I’ve worked with enough sales people and listened to enough cold calls to know that it helps to have a few bullet points written down of what I’m trying to discuss. I am always polite and ask them if it’s a good time to pitch them. If they accept, I get to it quickly and succinctly. The reporter doesn’t want a long pitch but with luck, they’ll ask a question or two. Just like all your other messages – give the reporter a call to action. Then say thanks for the time and get off the call.

Just as your Mother reminds you to do with Aunt Edna, remember the thank you note. In this case, a quick thank you email is perfect. Thank your contact for taking your call and send along a link to a recent case study, infographic or press release.

PR Phone Call

The “PR phone call” has led me down all sorts of paths. Sometimes you get the gruff person on the other end of the phone. Most often though, a reporter is looking for a story as well and may find what you’re pitching interesting. Or your contact may be able to offer some advice which makes your pitch more compelling. Any of these scenarios will help you in your future calls.

I promise, going back to the basics of media relations is still a good way to build a relationship with a reporter. It’s also the way to look like a rock star with your boss and clients.
How about you? Have you found a compelling hook that works in your calls?