Google Finds Nirvana Through Second Life - Marketing WTF?
Tuesday, April 1st, 2008In a bold move designed to fortify itself as THE King of All Advertising in both the real world and the virtual world, rumor has it Google will be announcing an exclusive agreement with Linden Research, Inc. (aka Linden Lab), the creators of the wildly popular online world Second Life, to become the premiere advertising medium within the virtual world. Code-named “Narnia”, the agreement details a two-pronged advertising strategy that will enable Google’s PPC-based AdWords technology to be ascribed to any assets within Second Life, including the Avatars themselves. The second and most interesting component of the agreement provides for the ability to “bridge” PPC advertisements and landing page interactivity between the “real world” and Second Life. Imagine an Adwords-enabled billboard in Second Life promoting a new sports car that, when clicked on, draws the user back onto the advertiser’s web site on the Internet, and vice versa.
What’s next? Is salesforce.com going to start tracking virtual leads? Are marketing automation vendors like Eloqua, Marketo, Vtrenz, and LoopFuse going to start allowing you to track virtual marketing campaigns to Second Life Avatars? If so, how will all of this integrate with our tracking and social media tools?
This is perfect timing for ReachForce, as we just announced our Convert software-as-a-service enabling businesses to turn web visitors into active leads, whether traditional or virtual.
Website Visitors - Leads or Just Impressions - B2B Marketing and Sales Tip #85
Wednesday, March 26th, 2008We all know that as B2B marketers we must manage our online presence well. The first step is having an easy-to-navigate and information-rich website. Then we try to find new ways to drive traffic by investing in banner ads, Google AdWords, SEO or by using sponsored whitepapers and participating in social media through Facebook or LinkedIn. In addition, we have all spent real dollars on landing pages. Many of us have also taken on a company blog to indirectly promote our agenda and promote ourselves as thought leaders. We do all of these things with the feeling in mind of “if we’re out there they will come”. What happens once you get them to your home page or landing pages? We try our best to capture as many leads online as possible, but with only 1% of web visitors filling out a form and only half of those being accurate, don’t you wonder about the other 99%?
My view is that AdWords and other PPC marketing techniques are B2C optimized and that we as B2B marketers have to work harder (in new ways) to try to monetize these investments – not just stop on impressions but on the entire value chain of the investment as it translates to real revenue.
As more and more marketers are having to show real results for marketing dollars spent, is measuring web traffic enough? Seeing a spike in your website traffic is exciting and being able to correlate that spike to a press release, change in a Google AdWords/PPC program, or an email campaign proves that your tactics are working. But are website visitors any different than people driving past a billboard? Are they just impressions?
I want to capture the people not just visiting the homepage, but the ones who spend time on my product pages, looking at my case studies and reading my white papers. And I want to weed out those that just look at my careers page or press releases. To me, online marketing is important but lead generation that drives real revenue is priceless, so how can I convert more web visitors into actionable leads?
Measuring the Effectiveness of Your Corporate Blog - Blog Master…NOT
Tuesday, March 25th, 2008Companies create blogs for different reasons. Some use it as a tool to communicate with their customers. Others try to leverage their blog for lead generation. Some use it to supplement their PR strategy. Whatever the reason, all companies should have set metrics to follow in order to track the effectiveness of their blog. I just read a great MarketingProf’s article by Mack Collier (this one does require a premium membership, but I highly recommend it).
To give you a recap of what Mack suggests, there are three major metrics to track:
- Traffic
- Feed Subscribers
- Links
Traffic can be easily tracked using a tool like Google Analytics. You can use traffic measurements to help you determine what subjects are being read the most, what days of the week you get the most traffic and if outside activities like a press release or commenting on another blog gave you a boost.
Feed subscribers are different than traffic and will not count as part of your traffic. You may actually see your traffic decrease as your readers find your content to be valuable and subscribe to your RSS. Feedburner is a tracking tool for feeds and offers a few other benefits as well. (Just as an FYI is owned by Google now.)
You can track your links through Technorati or Google Blog Search. This will help you determine which topics resonate the best with your readers and will help you to create relationships with other bloggers.
Death of Email Marketing; Long Live Email Marketing - B2B Marketing and Sales Tip #84
Thursday, March 20th, 2008I was just reading my ‘daily dose’ of eMarketer and saw these statistics and thought it would be useful to share them with the readers of our Blog.
The interesting view here is personalization. Now here are a few questions to ponder,
- Are these “spray and pray” e-mail campaigns or targeted?
- What would these metrics look like if they were targeted to the right person?
- What happens as the economy continues to drift and budget cuts come after marketing dollars, what stays, what goes?
- Is lead generation mission critical to your business? If not, why not?
What rates are you seeing out there?
I just spoke with Amy Hawthorne, our Lead Generation Guru and she said her campaign this week had a 10% click through rate and 30% open rate. WOW!
Want Bloggers to Write About You? Make Sure Your Website is Blogger-Friendly - B2B Marketing and Sales Tip #83
Wednesday, March 19th, 2008Attention Conservation Notice: The following post shares a few counter-intuitive tips for getting bloggers to write about you.
Cory Doctorow – the genius behind Boing Boing, and the inspiration behind ReachForce’s attention conservation notices–has shared more of his brilliance in 17 TIPS FOR GETTING BLOGGERS TO WRITE ABOUT YOU.
If you can get past the InformationWeek’s annoying, in-your-face advertising and survey requests, you will find several great nuggets in this post. Many of which will really throw most marketers for a loop. Here are a few of the more interesting suggestions:
- Have a permanent link. Don’t just change the front page of your site every time a new speaker for your speaker-series in announced. A blogger who links to the front page of your site today in a post about the upcoming address by Philo T Farnsworth, wants that link to stay good for in the future,
- PDFs stink. It’s not a Web page (see “Have a link”). It’s hard to copy and paste out of. It doesn’t show up in browsers half the time. The Web is made of HTML.
- Put your URL on your images. If you’ve got cool photos or other images up on your site, stick your URL in unobtrusive type at the bottom of it.
- Forget the “copyright protection” Javascript. Some sites have bizarre Javascript that pops up snotty little copyright messages when you try to right-click on an image to save it. OK, we get the point: you don’t want people to copy your images. We’ll just move on. Enjoy your obscurity.
- Enough with the legal boilerplate. If every page on your site ends with “(c) 2008 Paranoid Co Inc, all rights reserved. No part of this site may be reproduced without permission,” then bloggers may just take you at your word and write about someone else’s site.
The world of Marketing has changed drastically in the last few years and it’s time for B2B Marketers to question the status quo (and their legal counsel) and make some changes to thrive in this new world.
Social Networking is Still Just Networking - B2B Marketing and Sales Tip #82
Tuesday, March 18th, 2008It seems everyone nowadays has a profile on Facebook and LinkedIn plus more and more are becoming Twitter users. But are people there to really network and create relationships or is it something you have to do to stay in the game? With so many blogs and other publications giving strategies on how to leverage twitter or how to get the most out of Facebook, is everyone really just there to promote themselves? Now I will say that there are users out there that are very committed to their social networks and often interact with people more online than they do face to face, but is that the majority? Are most people out there just commenting on your blog post or writing on your Facebook wall so that you will listen to them? And does that mean that they don’t really care about your message at all?
When I comment on a blog I am genuinely asking a question or giving my opinion but do I hope that it will help traffic and linking to my blog? absolutely (isn’t that part of the strategy those articles tell us?) When I follow you on Twitter do I expect you to follow me back, of course. My point really is that all forms of social media are not completely transparent and everyone who participates does so with some degree of selfishness. As brilliant as Seth Godin is, do you really think he writes his blog just to share ideas and isn’t hoping that it will help sell more copies of his next book?
Sometimes It’s Time to Move On - B2B Marketing and Sales Tip #81
Monday, March 17th, 2008I’ve written about the average tenure of a CMO (23 months) time and time again here on The B2B Lead blog. And, even though I know full well the risks that come with this position, I made the leap recently. Fortunately, the new company is a ReachForce customer so I can continue to blog here on The B2B Lead.
Just as I was wrapping up projects and readying myself to take on new challenges, Six Tips for a First-Time or Newly Appointed CMO arrived in my inbox. More good fortune! It seems that Michael Sprouse had generously shared his lessons learned as a new CMO for Adzoogle. NOTE: You have to register to try the site for free. And, I highly recommend it.
I do believe Michael may have forgotten a very important piece of advice, however. I would suggest adding #7. Benchmark and begin tracking and reporting results of your efforts immediately. Perhaps with Michael’s advice and a fanatical commitment to accountability, newly appointed CMOs may buck the 23 month trend.
- Don’t jam Marketing down people’s throat—be a sponge
Everyone hates a know-it-all anyway. But in this particular case, for a new CMO or a CMO at an organization not yet comfortable with the CMO role, it’s important that your early efforts center on learning the organization, the business model, the customers, the staff and the infrastructure. - Make your first hire or personnel move very carefully and wisely
The perception of the CMO’s ability to build and run a team starts with the first hire or first major personnel move that he or she makes. Hire someone better than you at that particular function. - Get some small wins early
You will build a foundation of small wins that will then turn into larger ones shortly thereafter, all the while building credibility and instilling confidence from those around you. - Establish a close bond with other chief executives at the company
Most of the time, a CMO cannot succeed without other senior executive buy-in and support. Sometimes, that buy-in is already built into the fabric of the company. Other times, it is earned over time. - After a few months, immerse yourself in a few important strategic initiatives for the company
After gaining momentum, jump into big things right away and sink your teeth into important issues. - Always judge and evaluate your own performance
As a C-level executive, you should not need a CEO or anyone else to provide you feedback on how you’re doing. You should know.
Any other nuggets of advice to share with this first-time VP of Marketing?
Marketing WTF: A Lemon Law for Leads?
Thursday, March 13th, 2008In a recent post to The B2B Lead, I wrote about trade shows and asked the question: are they best for branding or demand generation? Or are they simply a waste of time and money?
Those posts seemed to hit a hot button with B2B marketers as they generated more commentary than any other topic we cover on The B2B Lead. Get ready for another hot button: Online advertising. And, when I say online advertising, I don’t mean Google Adwords. I’m talking about content syndication services where you list your whitepaper or podcast and expect to get qualified leads back.
Maybe I’m missing something, but these types of campaigns don’t seem to generate the quantity or quality of leads that I would expect for the large price-tag associated with them. In fact, after years of throwing money at these types of campaigns, I’ve basically chalked them up to brand building with a few nuggets to add to my lead nurturing program.
Apparently, I’m not the only B2B Marketer who is frustrated with the poor quality of online advertising leads. According to an opinion posted by Dave Behn on the Adotas blog:
“Anyone who participates in online lead generation is left with one of two conclusions at the end of a campaign: there are either a disproportionate number of John Smiths at 123 Main Street (phone number 555-1212, email yomama@hotmail.com); or there’s no such thing as a set of “pure” leads. No matter the brand or offer, any lead generation campaign will include leads with false or incomplete information that ultimately leaves the lead un-actionable to the advertiser. It’s an accepted and at times expensive cost of doing business in lead generation.”
Well, OK, we all know this is true, but what are our options, really? I, for one, have redirected my online advertising spend to a targeted database build and Google AdWords. But I would still appreciate the brand awareness that goes along with these services. Sadly, though, demand gen goals win out over brand so I’ve resigned myself to the fact that you can’t have your cake and eat it too.
Behn, on the other hand, is far more idealistic. He advocates a sort of “lemon law for leads”:
“Moving forward, the lead generation community needs to adopt standard guidelines for developing actionable leads. As lead generation grows, and as it welcomes a greater number of mature, Fortune 1000 brands, we should embrace the lemon law concept within our industry. Let’s develop a singular definition of valid and billable leads that revolves around accuracy, completeness, timeliness and actionability. It’s a logical and long-overdue next step the industry needs to confront.
An interesting thought, but not likely to happen anytime soon since we B2B Marketers continue to line up to hand over our marketing budget for junk leads.
What do you think?
Trade in an Bad Addiction for a Good One - B2B Marketing and Sales Tip #80
Tuesday, March 11th, 2008Are you a Stumbler? I must admit, I find myself neglecting family and friends for my nightly StumbleUpon fix.
For those of you scratching your head, StumbleUpon is–according to Wikipedia – a web browser plugin that allows its users to discover and rate webpages, photos, videos, and news articles. These webpages are typically presented when the user—known within the community as a Stumbler—clicks the “Stumble!” button on the browser’s toolbar. StumbleUpon chooses which new webpage to display based on the user’s ratings of previous pages, ratings by his/her friends, and by the ratings of users with similar interests. i.e. it is a recommendation system which uses peer and social networking principles.
And, for B2B Marketers, a StumbleUpon addiction could actually be a good one. Here are a few cool articles and tools I’ve found while Stumbling:
And, a few of the more fun finds:
Now for the really good part. Turns out Marketers can pay to have their sites featured or served up to Stumblers. It’s called Stumble Upon Advertising and it’s really powerful, especially if you have the type of product or service that seems to be most popular with the StumbleUpon crowd. For pennies per view, you can target an audience with your website or blog. StumbleUpon then brings users directly to the page you specify and they rate your site. It’s a great way to drive web traffic and leads.
2008 is the Year of Digital Omnipresence - B2B Marketing and Sales Tip #79
Monday, March 10th, 2008Attention Conservation Notice: The following post contains ideas for helping B2B marketers secure multiple page one listings on Google and Yahoo.
More tidbits from SMX West have been posted to Web Pro News by Jason Lee Miller. Apparently, digital omnipresence was the hot topic at the event. According to Miller, “the discussion surrounding search is no longer just about securing your place in a same-for-everybody top-ten list of search results. The discussion is about being everywhere; it’s about establishing a case for digital omnipresence.”
Now, I wasn’t there (unfortunately), so I don’t know the full story on digital omnipresence, but it sounds very similar to the concepts promoted by the folks at StomperNet. As a B2B marketer and a follower of StomperNet strategies, I have experienced the results first hand and am hooked. Today, it’s not enough to have one listing on page one of Google. I’m driven to secure multiple page one listings. And that is made far easier by posting valuable, actionable content in a multitude of formats – web pages, blog posts, video, podcast, etc.
When you look at the research on B2B tech buyer behavior, it’s easy to see why. Research from numerous sources, including Marketing Sherpa, indicate between 85 to 98% of B2B technical buyers in North America use the Google search engine. Yahoo dominates in other areas of the world. And, reports published by StomperNet, Enquiro and others show that a double listing at the top of Google not only boosts brand affinity but generates more than 2X the leads of a single listing. Difficult to argue with those odds.
And, it’s not enough to secure organic listings. Enquiro Research suggests that B2B technical buyers start their research in the organic or Search Engine Optimization (SEO) listings of search engines and their purchase process in the Search Engine Marketing (SEM) or pay-per-click (PPC) ads. What’s more, Marketing Sherpa reports that organic listings draw 75% of the click through traffic, while SEM draw 25%. Clearly, when targeting the tech buyer, it is vital to be in both places.
To succeed online, B2B marketers are going to have to learn how to present their brand and their corporate and thought leadership messages everywhere, in many different formats. We will have to drive demand, build brand awareness, establish thought leadership and a community of interest using social media, traditional media and Search Marketing techniques.
One way to do this is to optimize a variety of different types of content for broadly searched/highly competitive terms. However, securing a top listing for competitive terms requires a significant time and resource investment so it is not an option for many B2B marketers. Even with the longterm commitment required for success here, I’m not advocating that B2B marketers avoid these keywords. Just the opposite. Go ahead and optimize for those terms, but use SEM programs such as Google AdWords and contextual PPC advertising to fill in gaps and “be there” when both researchers and buyers are searching. Then, leverage new media program elements including your blog and social media/Web 2.0 sites to secure high value inbound links. A steady investment in these programs will help move these listings closer to the top of the search engines.
A far faster approach to top listings, is targeting “long tail” terms—keywords that have moderate search volumes and are relatively easy to dominate quickly.
Targeting these terms should enable you to secure a double or triple listing at the top of page one of Google or Yahoo. At least until Google changes its algorithm again! Once again, it is important to use social media program elements such as a blog, social media, social bookmarking, PR, and high value link-building to secure the best results.
