Posts Tagged ‘audience engagement’
Social Media in the B2B Space
“Social media and community marketing will fundamentally change marketing’s role in customer communication. The need to foster deeper social interaction and intimacy requires B2B marketers to look far beyond the front of the sales pipeline and use Web 2.0 tactics to engage customers in mutually beneficial business activity. Instead of heaping social activity onto an overflowing plate, socially savvy marketers use technology to streamline lead management; close the loop with sales; and free up time to listen to, talk with, and embrace community members for the long haul.”
Making Social Media Work in B2B Marketing , Laura Ramos, Analyst Forrester Oct. 2008)
“Effective online marketing is not about buying access through advertising or begging the media to write about your company and its products and services. Instead it is about creating great content (websites, press releases, blogs, podcasts, videos, etc.that the search engines reward with high rankings, which will drive people to your stuff. I suggest that when people are faced with the inevitable push back from executives about “the ROI thing” to ask the executives a few questions: 1) Have you answered a direct mail ad? (Nearly all answer “No.”) 2) Have you used Google or another search engine? (Nearly all answer “Yes.”).”
- The New Rules of Marketing & PR, David Meerman Scott, it has been the top selling PR and marketing book since its release in June 2007)
Although B2B companies are lagging behind their B2C counterparts, more and more B2B companies are starting to take notice of the value of Web 2.0 and influencing buyer decisions. People are seeking the web for information about businesses, products, reviews and first-hand accounts from others in the industry. The more B2B companies that start using the new means of social media technology and look to connect with people should reap the rewards. The lack of use from some has been around the validity of the metrics to measure the viral influence and connection to sales. “While they see Webinars, microsites, and rich media apps delivering qualified leads, respondents scratch their heads about the value that viral video and social network marketing provide, with 31% saying it is “too early to tell” for social networks and 68% saying the same for video marketing (Making Social Media Work in B2B Marketing, Forrester Oct. 2008).” Yet, one can’t let all the metrics in the world take precedence, but it’s also important to speak and reach out directly to your customers, provide a two-way dialogue to learn more about their emotional attachment and use with your brands. Think of ways of incorporating new technology to spread the message, but also don’t get too carried away with all this new knowledge and developments on the horizon. Test and see what works best for your brands and become the expert in your market. Make a point to read and learn about what others are using and what new trends are shaping on the digital frontier in your industry. Don’t be afraid to try and encourage your advertisers the same with your products and services.
There is growing interest for B2B marketers to rely on the creation of widgets for greater reach to audiences, as well as using better targeting strategies that include segmentation based on behaviors and understanding the different uses of information. B2B professionals are starting to see the value for their brands with blogs, forums and RSS feeds and how it can create better reach to influence audiences. Yet, if you think about it, as far as your advertisers’ dollars and your brands, publicity can be FREE across social media, or absorb little cost for online exposure. It’s those companies that develop interactive functionality incorporating their audience into the development of their online product and services, building the right community and turning to other communities in their market. The companies that can offer the right mix of useful tools, widgets, audience engagement tactics to reach the right person at the right time, will help a business stand out. In return, others will take notice and marketers would be willing to pay extra for the added value and service.
Create More Buzz For Your Brand
Allow the reputable bloggers in your market to contribute to the development of your new online experience, use them as your focus groups to offer suggestions for your future business development and/or marketing strategies. Consider new ways to build loyal bonds with your blogging community. Partner with your advertisers, as well as bloggers to provide further reach and value to your audiences. Recognize your bloggers, listen to their thoughts, and don’t be fearful to reach out to them. Respond to their comments, learn from their insights and don’t ignore them. Your audiences are likely to tell their friends, write about it, share the links on Facebook, Linkedin, or may use Twitter to tweet to others. All of this will gain more attention and create buzz for your brand.
Six Free Tools for Online Reputation Management: MarketingSherpa Provides A Glimpse Of What People Are Saying About Your Brands
Be A Patriot For Your Brand
Emails: Ksinger@gmail.com, kerisays@yahoo.com
Recently, I had the pleasure to go to Gillette Stadium to not only see the home of the Patriots, but also enjoyed the new addition which includes an entertainment and retail center called Patriots Place, a museum that showcases the Patriots accomplishments where the world-wide super bowl champion trophies and rings are displayed, take a behind-the-scenes tour of the stadium where many NFL greats have graced, and be a part of a place where some of the most unbelievable moments in NFL history occurred. As an avid Patriots fan, this was great venue to host the New Marketing Summit. It’s not actually NEW marketing, but applying traditional ways of marketing to new mediums available online and understanding how to use them to your advantage.
What Does A Recession Mean to Digital Business?
During recessions, people tend to cut back on marketing spend, when in fact, it’s the best time to make the most amount of noise about your business! The focus for many of your customers will be first creating brand awareness to generate leads through PR, as well as looking for ways to promote their businesses through new forms of social media (Linkedin, Facebook, Twitter, blogging, etc.). This costs very little, but relies much on word-of-mouth. Marketers will also focus on creating content, syndicating their content, looking for ways to generate leads and putting better lead scoring measures in place, as people are spending less for advertising and some large-scale events. The great thing about digital is it empowers marketers allowing them to monitor the information better than any other source (email and website analytics, Google alerts, Technorati alerts, etc.). Other ways to monitor brand awareness are through discussion groups forming through social media, YouTube video postings, as well as blogs and making efforts to increase link building with credible partners in their industry to stay top of mind of others. Yet, one can’t let all the metrics in the world take precedence, but it’s also important to speak and reach out directly to your customers, provide a two-way dialogue to learn more about their emotional attachment and use with your brands.
Bloggers are Your Best Asset
Encourage bloggers to write more about the experience with your brands and look to reward them through your relationships with your partners, advertisers, etc. Remember, the blogging community can also become your partners and it’s important to listen to their thoughts, as well as respond. Don’t ignore someone to solve something. Think of social media as the new social phone. Would you ignore the phone that was ringing? Unless of course it was a telemarketer bothering you, but think about you are trying to reach some of the brands that you use in your own life each and everyday. You have to sometimes jump thru “voicemail hell” or you feel ignored. Wouldn’t you share that story or an incident of poor customer service with your friends and/or colleagues? Don’t you think that your audience may do the same thing when it comes to your brands? Well folks, they are and they are not only doing it over the phone, in person, but also ONLINE. Take the information spoken by others, whether good or bad and use that knowledge to your advantage. In this day and age, it’s best to listen, learn and consider a positive response, so that others will be a sound board to rally your fans across the world behind your brands. At the same time, turn to your bloggers in a way you would at a networking event. Establish loyal, genuine relationships and don’t just use pushy sales tactics to grab their attention. Treat them as a friend and allure them to your brand by also paying attention to their content, background and interests. Remember, they are your audience as well.
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Join New Social Communities
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Create Transparency with Your Brands and Speak in An Authentic Voice
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Try New Technology – Are you asking me to Twitter? Sure why not!
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Learn more about GoogleFriend Connect
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Create widgets, RSS feeds and more opportunities for others to spread our content
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Meetup.com , EventBrite, Yahoo’s Upcomingevents and others online to Spread the News About Your Event
The new model for B2B businesses and how they market, added David Meerman Scott, is for them to ACT AS PUBLISHERS. Some are staffing up with former editors of the Wall Street Journal and other writers from specialized markets. Editors are becoming the new marketers and it’s important for also marketers to embrace new online tactics and begin acting like editors. You can have the best SEO tactics implemented on your site, but once you grab the attention of the search engines, how are you going to keep your audience further engaged! People have emotions, needs, desires and they seek answers through our brands. I agree that we have to consider the elements of SEO, good architecture for our websites and utilize best practices, but we can’t lose sight that we are communicating to people. People like rewards and appraisal, they want to know WIFM (What’s In It for Me). They want a forum to learn from others, communicate and share ideas, so think of ways you can do that with your brands and your potential advertising clients.
It’s important to embrace the new ways of communication and technology, but also realize the importance of building face-to-face relationships and more personable encounters. This week it’s Twitter, next week it’s Plaxo, Linkedin, Digsby, what else is new? Hopefully, we don’t end up in a world that people forget the importance of those personable relationships in the real world and how it compliments the virtual world. The move is towards more personable and intimate relationships online. It’s ironic that they are trying to replicate the face-to-face, authentic experiences, but rather online. What scares me is more and more people are going to be too reliant on online tactics and lose out on the healthy balance with more real world personal encounters. One has to look at the web as new tools to communicate with others, but not neglect the personable experiences that can inflect moods and emotions. We need to learn from those personable encounters and see how to translate that online best. The companies that find the right balance between the virtual and the real world would become the true leaders in my mind.
This is why it’s important for me to start my blog and for others as well to be your own patriot!
