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26th
MAR

5 Tips for Better B2B Branding

Posted by BlogPostman under Pay-Per-Click

Think branding only falls in the B2C court? Think again. In fact, three of the top 10 brands in 2009, as ranked by Interbrand, generate a sizable amount of revenue from their B2B customers: IBM, Microsoft and GE. As a B2B marketer your brand is your most valuable asset. B2B branding is less about cool, hip monikers (the Apples and Starbucks of the world) – and more about thought leadership. Particularly in down economies, B2B prospects and customers conduct significant research leading up to purchases. That means you as a marketer have to educate them early on, and establish your brand as a trusted resource that gets their problems and has the solution. To help your organization be seen as the thought leader it is, we’ve identified five B2B branding tips: 1. Consistently produce useful, innovative content These days, every company is essentially a media company. So it’s easier than ever to provide relevant, informative content for customers and prospects. From a company blog to Twitter to YouTube, there is no end to the content channels available. Provide the latest industry news and insight on trends through: Offering a white paper through an email marketing campaign Creating videos and promoting through YouTube and on your web site Conducting interviews with industry influentials and turning into blog posts Whatever channels you choose to promote, and whatever types of content you create, these consistent signals prove to customers and prospects that you are a thought leader. 2. Network digitally and in person Nothing communicates a brand more than direct involvement with customers and prospect. In that regard, online social networking has opened a new door. According to a recent eMarketer study , six in 10 B2B marketers planned to up spending on social in 2010. Whether your organization integrates Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn or another social network into its B2B branding efforts, the same rules apply: Social media is about engaging in conversations, not just pushing products It’s not about the masses; it’s about your target audience It’s listening and hearing before selling and talking That’s not to say that in-person networking is irrelevant. On the contrary, perfect B2B branding combination. Take advantage of opportunities to give keynote speeches, participate in panel discussions or lead breakout sessions at industry events. 3. Get personal and be real B2C marketers seem to have this concept nailed. But humanizing your company for customers and prospects is just as important in B2B branding. For one TopRank® Online Marketing client, an industrial part distributor for the bulk powder processing industry, humanizing its image was a top concern. The TopRank team created the Powder Doctor, a unique character, to relate to customers and prospects through email marketing campaigns. This humorous cartoon character offers advice – Dear Abby style – for common industry problems. Powder Doctor campaigns have increased sales for Powder-Solutions by 83%. 4. Position yourself differently than others in the space No doubt about it, it’s tough to build personal B2B brand if you’re just like everyone else. You simply can’t be known for what everyone else is. Standing out from the crowd is easy when your products or services are truly one-of-a-kind. When products or services are similar to those offered by the competition, it’s more of a challenge to uniquely position yourself. For one TopRank client – a staffing software company – that challenge was known all too well. To help the client stand from a large pool of competitors, TopRank developed a copywriting strategy where website copy was written in first person, from the viewpoint of the staffing software (i.e., “why you should hire me to fill your staffing software needs”). This strategy has not only helped the company develop a truly distinct B2B brand; the strategy has also achieved increased search traffic, high rankings for terms such as “staffing software” and a trend up in inquiries. 5. Leverage proof points It’s perfectly appropriate – and necessary – to toot your own horn from time to time as part of your B2B branding efforts. Whether it’s an impressive media placement or a web traffic milestone, implement proof points illustrating why your organization is a thought leader into marketing communications. Keep in mind that proof points are both analytical and subjective. For example: Analytical: website traffic increases, number of retweets of blog posts, number of blog subscribers Subjective: media placements, media interviews, mentions on blogs Are Your Ready to Take B2B Branding to the Next Level? B2B branding through thought leadership is not as easily quantifiable as other marketing efforts. And investments in reputation building might not pay off as immediately as pay-per-click or email marketing. But building a recognizable B2B brand pays off in the form of long-term increased referrals, positive brand conversations on both digital and in-person channels, web traffic and sales. What methods have you used to build a B2B brand?

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17th
MAR

2010 LeadingRE Conference: TopRank Digital Marketing Sessions

Posted by under Pay-Per-Click

Last week, I was in Las Vegas for the LeadingRE annual conference and marketing technology event speaking on social media and SEO strategies for real estate professionals. It’s always interesting to see where different verticals are at with their willingness to embrace social channels, and I’m pleased to report the top realtors globally are already engaging, or at the least starting to define their path. I gave the opening presentation to the MarTech part of the conference – a track of panels/sessions designed to help real estate professionals better integrate their marketing initiates with technology. Additionally, I spoke on two panels in the general sessions of the conference: one on online reputation management and one as an open panel Q&A answering marketing strategy questions. For Online Marketing Blog readers, following is a wrapup of each of my sessions and some key takeaways. Architecting A Web 2.0 Marketing And PR Strategy For this session, I took event goers through an overview of the process we at TopRank implement for companies seeking social media strategy: a social media roadmap . I took audience members through the essential elements of the roadmap: 1. Define an audience Who is it you are trying to influence? Where are they participating, what types of content resonates with them? Understanding your audience comes first, and will drive the next pieces of the roadmap. 2. Identify objectives What outcomes do you want from this audience? Only after you understand your digital audience should objectives be solidified, as research may uncover new opportunities not conceived initially. While many skip to objectives, audience research provides the current situation necessary to proceed to identify objectives. 3. Develop strategic approach For a social media marketing strategy to be effective and not a cookie-cutter application, you must have a strategic approach unique and logical for your brand. Audience data + objectives + insight into your industry + strategic mindset as a marketer will enable you to formulate a strategic approach that delivers results and permeates the market. 4. Implement tools/tactics Even more popular than skipping to step 2, most marketing and PR pros skip immediately to step 4. It’s a cliché to say “we need a Twitter account” or “we need a Facebook page.” You don’t know that yet. Nor do you have the proper roadmap elements to execute them successfully by skipping immediately to tactical elements. It’s like entering a battle by sending in the latest wave of ultra-sophisticated fighter jets but not having any sort of plan of how they work into your larger strategy. Yeah, they might be bigger/faster/stronger but it’s setting yourself up for failure without knowing how they integrate with other elements. 5. Measure results/metrics What will your success metrics be? Formulate not just an ultimate objective measurement, but define the right KPIs that actually roll to those objectives. Understand how they all work together and stagger them in the right order in your marketing dashboard to keep your finger on the pulse of success.  It takes a comprehensive understanding of web analytics reporting before getting into this phase. Online Reputation Management Panel For this panel, I presented alongside Jennifer Baumann , Esq. of DLA Piper. As I am not a lawyer and cannot provide any legal counsel, it was a good idea for Eric Bryn , conference organizer for LeadingRE to pair us. I shared prevention and response strategies and Jennifer discussed legal issues. In terms of online reputation management, the old adage of “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” could not be truer. I spoke mostly on prevention, but also response. Some key takeaways from this panel: Negative PR gets referenced – The web is referential, and we are actively tagging brands to their actions. For example, the first thing many mom bloggers now think of when they hear the name Motrin is the Motrin Moms fiasco. We are constantly archiving and building upon events, news and essentially our lives digitally. This paints a larger picture of people and companies, and the scars of negative PR are not going to go away. By having a presence yourself and already established as a brand digitally, you get to be a part of that debate as opposed to silently sitting on the sidelines and allowing others to dictate how you are seen. Additionally, if you foster a community of supporters, that negative PR might get hedged in the first place. If I wrote a blog post titled, “Apple Sucks,” almost immediately I’m going to get comments defending Apple – not just in my own comment section but on other blogs that debate and interact with me. Instead of a one-sided story, it will turn into a lively discussion and debate, with all sides being considered. A community of brand advocates is a powerful force for defending a brand or personal reputation.  In the case of Apple, whether by design or simply due to fanatical fans, they are now a part of the brand’s organic response. Search engine brand awareness – If your brand has a large digital footprint with multiple domains/sub-domains, an authoritative presence across social channels and a fan-base, owning page 1 of Google for your brand name is possible. By doing this, you won’t let a negative (and let’s hope isolated) event or experience show up in branded searches. Of course, in cases where negative PR spirals out of control (aka a Groundswell ) a negative situation can acquire so many links/attention it ranks on page one for your brand. In those cases, buying search ads to help counter the negativity, posting responses on the offending site, adding a response on your own site, and strategizing ways to regain control of page one via organic SEO methods are just some potential steps you can take. But of course, it all depends on the specific situation what the response strategy should be. Speaking of response strategy – for problems you anticipate may arise, having one is critical to be prepared for the worst. Consult PR before engaging legal – The RIAA’s reputation is irreparably damaged by their continual treatment of their biggest fans as criminals. Whether they legally can do something is not necessarily a reason they should. When technology comes along that makes a previous model obsolete, the natural reaction of the incumbent is to rally against it to defend a previous world. Unfortunately, all this succeeds in is positioning the organization or industry as draconian and opens the door to innovators who are designing models that embrace the new. When someone says something truthful but biting against your brand, the natural reaction might be to call your laywers to suppress that information. All this does is provide ammunition for that individual or media entity to succeed in gaining greater attention. In 2003, Barbra Streisand tried to sue photographer Kenneth Adelman for $50 million for taking a photograph of her house as he documented the California coastline as part of a project. As a result of the case, the picture substantially increased in popularity – quickly attracting 420,000+ views of a photo that otherwise would have existed in relative obscurity. Mike Masnick reported on the situation and coined the phrase “ The Streisand Effect .” The name stuck, and now even has its own dedicated Wikipedia page documenting multiple examples of companies suffering from the Streisand Effect by calling legal before consulting PR. Of course, there are situations where legal should be consulted, but they should be considered carefully, with legal being used as a last resort. Strategy Salon Panel L to R: Matt Dollinger, Matthew Ferrara, Adam Singer, Steve Harney - image by Barbara Springer This was an open Q&A discussion from the audience, where, Steve Harney , Matthew Ferrara , Matt Dollinger and I all riffed on answers to audience questions (moderated by Eric Bryn).  A few of the riffs from our discussion included: Getting your company to buy in to social media – This needs to happen from the top. If your leaders aren’t fully bought in and driving forward the items you want team members participating in, you can’t expect them to succeed. As one example, if you have a company blog, someone up top should be leading and driving it if you want the rest of the team to contribute as well. To inspire people to stay motivated and engaged, create feedback loops within the organization to highlight success and nurture participation. The perfect company website – There is no single archetype of the perfect website. Also, yours shouldn’t necessarily model competitors or one you think is pretty, rather it should resonate with prospects. Keep SEO in mind from the start and work with developers cognizant of search engines or consult an SEO firm to guide your development process. Site search matters, and is one of the most important features of any website according to Google . Leverage site search to gain data/insight into your customers and also tweak results to highlight fresh content or current specials. The real estate company of the future – Instead of doing everything in-house, you may begin to outsource certain elements like design, marketing or IT. Why have generalists when you can have specialists in each field and work with them across distances and time zones via agile project management systems? Also, for smaller companies, it will be about more than just those within a small radius; recruiting top talent will be vital for performance. Of your full-time team members, leadership will be an integral role and not something simply relegated to management. You need to find and empower leaders at all levels within the organization if you want to succeed against competitors.

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16th
MAR

5 Ways to Electrify Your Social Network

Posted by BlogPostman under Pay-Per-Click

A typical situation for many marketers when it comes to social networks is this: Setup LinkedIn profile, check. Corporate LinkedIn page, check.  Facebook profile, check. Facebook Fan Page, check. Twitter account, check. Corporate blog, check. Check check check! But where’s the buzz? Where are the fans, friends, followers, comments, links, traffic, search engine rankings? Where’s the customer engagement? And the most pressing question of all: What is all this social web participation doing for our company and our customers? Showing up to the game doesn’t mean there will be an audience. This is as true with the social web as it is offline.  The problem that marketers have with attracting interested customers and growing their social networks often stems from approaching social participation tactically and without a plan.  Testing and experimentation is great, but if what you’re doing is something that has a cost and is to be accounted for, then you’d better have a plan and objectives.  How can you score without a goal? Here are 5 tips to help business marketers energize and electrify social network development: 1. Decide to start You must start by deciding what business objectives you intend on meeting as a result of social network involvement. Once you’ve clearly identified objectives, then you can create a strategy that outlines which tactics make the most sense to reach and engage your audience. Common objectives for companies to develop online social networks include: Create connections with those interested in the type of solutions you offer so you can better meet customer needs Build out a channel of distribution for promoting content Connect with existing customers, create a place for them to connect with each other Initiate discussions around product for new ideas, enhancements, focus group Extend reach to influentials in your market for publicity Tap into active user base for content Facilitate conversations about your products & services to aid in new customer acquisition and/or upgrades Create a communication channel that reaches employees for internal PR Build up the personal networks of executives for thought leadership with journalists, analysts and key bloggers 2. Know your customer If marketers spend their time on the social networks dujour without really knowing where their customers are spending time, then of course there will be a disconnect between experience and expectations. Picking friends, at least initially, on social networks should be very intentional, not random. Understanding customer preferences towards information discovery, consumption and sharing along with which web sites they prefer is essential if a marketer wants to connect in a meaningful way. 3. Be real, be useful There are a lot of buzzwords like “transparency” and “openness” that describe the need for marketers to be “genuine”. Oops that’s another.  To be real is being honesty in your intentions.  I’ve seem highly respected marketers make absolutely idiotic statements about transparency, taking it to the extreme.  Ignorance is bliss I suppose, but there’s not much money in it. The core principles of understanding the needs of your customers and then finding a way to meet those needs in such a way that is helpful and that at the same time leads to product sales, need not be elusive.  Approaching a social network blatantly announcing that you’re a marketer and that you will be marketing so buy some product dammit, isn’t being transparent. It’s being stupid. Identifying yourself as a representative of a brand, product or service and communicating your intentions both in words and helpful actions is what I mean by “be real, be useful”.  Those good deeds create trust and relationships.  They create word of mouth and a certain gravity of popularity for your brand with your own identity as the proxy.  Fans, friends and followers “happen” because the word gets out that your brand promise is meaningful and being followed through on. Developing relationships can be hard work. People already know this through the relationships they have in daily life. Yet  it’s very common for corporate marketers to initiate online social networking efforts only to become disillusioned at the lack of immediate sales results.  It’s important that social web participation for a company become a part of what the company is, long term. Not an “add on” marketing tactic. 4. Recognize and reward When developing an active social network, participants will demonstrate certain behaviors that are more desirable than others.  For example, standing up for the brand when a troll appears or mashing up content in a creative way.  They say people will work for a living but die for recognition. This is a key concept for electrifying your social networking efforts.  First, understand what behaviors you want to reward. Participate and identify those behaviors that will influence the kinds of outcomes you’re looking for. Recognition can be active and passive. Active recognition is to reach out and recognize specific behaviors publicly and/or privately.  Passive recognition is built into the social CRM system you’re using or the platform within which customers participate. An example would be points based systems that provide rewards or more access based on accumulating points for completing certain behaviors such as comments, ratings, contributed content, etc.  The key to “Recognize and Reward” is for the recognition to be deserved, genuine, relevant and consistent. 5. Monitor, measure, feedback loop All the good intentions in the world won’t result in relationship and business growth from social networks unless there’s management of content and curation of interactions with the outcomes from participation. It can be as simple as noticing “5 of this” or “10 of that” tips blog posts yield 200% greater engagement scores (comments, retweets, inlinks, etc) than posts that focus on a single, general topic. Web analytics along with social media monitoring and a CRM component can facilitate the feedback loop to know whether customers are responding in the ways that you’d hoped.  Simply focusing on fans/followers, comments or sales can leave out some of the essential pieces of why some efforts fail and others succeed. Social media monitoring tools are essential for upfront research, ongoing monitoring and after-action results measurement. In the end, the steps to take for growing a social network for business must be rooted in an understanding of the customers and their needs combined with whatever it is you decide you’ll provide to meet those needs. Being useful by itself doesn’t turn an active network into achieved business goals. Provide opportunities for interested members of your social network to opt-in to a more commercial relationship when they’re ready.  That could be as simple as moving from a Facebook Fan to a Webinar participant or Email Newsletter subscriber. In some cases it might mean becoming a buyer of products/services. If your business has successfully developed it’s social network presence, what have been some of the roadblocks you’ve overcome? What insights can you share on best connecting with networks and growing your business as a result?

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12th
MAR

5 Social Media Tips for Ecommerce Marketing

Posted by under Pay-Per-Click

If you run an ecommerce business, chances are your customers – regardless of their age, gender or economic status – are active on social networks and social media sharing sites. Just consider the statistics from social media monitoring site Pingdom : Males and females almost equally use social sites (47% vs. 53%) 61% of Facebook users are middle aged or older, with the average age being 37 18- to 24-year-olds don’t dominate any particular social networking site; they’re spread out all over The bottom line: If you aren’t discovering which in social networking channels your customers spend time and include them in your ecommerce marketing mix, you’re probably  missing out on building relationships, community and increasing new customer acquisition through online word of mouth. Leverage these five social media marketing tips for ecommerce to either get started with more social digital marketing or take your current social strategy to the next level: 1. Go Where Your Customers Are Very few things in life promise endless options – digital and social media marketing being one exception. From Facebook to Twitter to LinkedIn to YouTube, there’s no limit to the number of social networking channels available for your business to leverage. Key to successful social media marketing for ecommerce is choosing the right channels to reach customers. Find out where your customers are congregating by: Asking them. Sounds overly simplistic, but sending a formal survey to customers or more informally polling them on your website can provide a wealth of knowledge. Monitoring social sites. Use a free tool like Social Mention or Trackur . For something far more robust use tools like  Radian6 to discover how and where customers are talking about your brand, your competitors or target keywords. Leveraging the stats. Some sites like Facebook are transparent when it comes to user statistics. Or leverage research conducted by third-party firms like eMarketer . Revivew backlinks, job postings, news announcements and keyword rankings of competitors on a regular basis to get a glimpse into their online marketing health. 2. Monitor What Your Competitors Are Doing Whether your ecommerce business is new to social media marketing, or just need to take your efforts up a notch, competitive intelligence can be very useful. Spend some time by conducting a competitive audit of your top five competitors on the social web. Include: The social sites in which they are active The type of content they publish on the social web The number of followers/fans/views they have on each site How they promote specific products, programs or events via social media For even more inspiration and insight into what works well on the social web, look to ecommerce sites in other industries or even successful B2B social media examples . 3. Promote Exclusive Offers Through Social Media In order for your ecommerce business to gain a following on whatever social channel you choose, entice customers with something they can’t get anywhere else. For example, promote a contest via social media. Last fall, TopRank® Online Marketing leveraged this tactic for one of its ecommerce clients. TopRank used the client’s blog and Facebook fan page to promote a Halloween contest to name the best costume. This initiative not only drove additional traffic to the client’s website, but also helped increase the number of Facebook fans. Alternately, offer an exclusive item to social media followers or fans, such as free shipping or a weekly coupon. You can also offer “breaking news” that does not appear anywhere else, like pre-product release announcements or an inside look at your company’s inter-workings. 4. Don’t Just Push Products and Promotions The primary goal of your ecommerce site may be to sell products, but your social media marketing strategy should encompass a wider range of tactics that simply promoting offerings. With too much product pushing and not enough engagement, you’re unlikely to experience optimal success. Incorporate some of these ideas into your ecommerce social media marketing strategy: Share messages or news stories from external sources Create a blog on your website and feed blog content to your social accounts Ask questions, participate in discussions or poll your customers via social media Post pictures from company events or videos from your CEO’s speaking engagements 5. Sell Products Through Social Networks 1-800-Flowers maximizes the use of social media for its marketing efforts. Many ecommerce sites leverage social channels to make it even simpler for customers to purchase their products. 1-800-Flowers has taken this idea to the max (see image above). It was the first ecommerce site to launch a Facebook store , allowing customers to browse and purchase its products directly through Facebook. 1-800-Flowers may be an extreme case, but ecommerce sites large and small can still indirectly sell products through their social profiles. For example, highlight new products or best-sellers and provide a link to the order page on your website. It may not be quite as simple as purchasing directly from the social profile, but it can be just as effective. The five ideas are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to ecommerce social media marketing. What social media tactics have you found to be successful?

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9th
MAR

Ford’s Focus on Social Media: Scott Monty Interview

Posted by under Pay-Per-Click

When you think of successful consumer brands in the social media space, names like Dell, Zappos and Pepsi come to mind. Another is Ford. Last year the Ford Fiesta movement generated tremendous amount of awareness (and pre-orders) for a vehicle that wasn’t available to the public yet. At the same time, it inspired a community to engage, create content and continue discussions about the Fiesta with over 7 million video views. While in Dearborn, Ford’s Head of Social Media, Scott Monty , extended to me an invitation to The Henry Ford Museum, The Rouge Truck Factory and a visit to Ford’s World Headquarters where we did a short interview. In the interview, Scott talked about the place for social media with Ford’s new product lines, local social media work with Chapter 2 of the Fiesta movement and advice for companies on empowering communities. Being able to learn about the history of this 100+ year old company through experiences at The Henry Ford and Rouge Factory tours was very informative. Being able to sit down with Bob Kreipke, Ford’s full time historian and hear stories about Henry Ford and Thomas Edison, company history and the evolution of Ford was priceless. Fast forward over 100 years and Ford is a very different company, as is the automotive industry. It’s not enough to be innovative but to be able to innovate quickly and connect with customers in more meaningful ways. Based on my discussions with Scott, Ford is very committed to making those connections.  Watch the interview below to get more insight on how Ford is approaching social media: Click here to view the embedded video. By leveraging technology and the social web, Ford is moving from being known as “A truck and Mustang company” to a “Car, utility and truck company”.  I think the decision to focus on local social media marketing is great evidence of understanding audience in a social strategy. So much of what companies are doing in the social space is a shotgun approach based on popular applications vs focusing on where and how actual customers spend their time. Check out the The Ford Story , a great example of a corporate social media aggregator not only of Ford social web participation, but of what others are saying about their brands. I can’t imaging any active brand online not launching a site like this. What are some great examples of consumer brands you think we should focus on in future posts? What kind of insights would you like to learn more of from those kinds of companies when it comes to the social web?

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