Industrial Marketing Today

MARCH 17, 2011

The mantra for effective business blogging is to regularly pump out fresh content that is reader-centric and not focussed too much on you, your products or your company. More power to you if you already have a horde of avid readers who visit your blog every time you post new content. Your blog posts will remain online in perpetuity.

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Industrial Marketing Today

DECEMBER 22, 2010

In keeping with that spirit, here are my five most popular industrial marketing blog posts from 2010. Marketing automation is very effective in moving prospects through the middle of the marketing funnel until the handoff to sales and provides a good closed-loop system for lead recycling that would otherwise go to waste.

Top of Funnel 60

Top of Funnel B2B Thought Leadership Marketing Analytics Tools Curation 60

Industrial Marketing Today

FEBRUARY 12, 2011

For a while now, marketing consultants have been preaching the benefits of making B2B blogging the cornerstone of inbound marketing. It is difficult nowadays to find a marketing company or an independent expert not using a business blog to attract and engage with its target audience. CSC Scientific Blog – a blog about test equipment.

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Co-Registration Paid Search Agency Companies B to B 60

Industrial Marketing Today

AUGUST 27, 2012

Call it digital marketing or inbound marketing with content , the fact is marketing is now playing a much more active role in complex industrial sales. In this world the celebrated “solution sales rep” can be more of an annoyance than an asset. Source: The End of Solution Sales, Harvard Business Review – HBR blog).

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RFP Peer-to-peer High Quality Lead Lead Scoring 60

Industrial Marketing Today

MAY 3, 2010

Home Marketing Matters About Contact B2B Marketing Store Company Website How to Make Your Business Blog Be All It Can Be by Achinta Mitra on May 3, 2010 in Industrial Marketing & Web 2.0 , Industrial Marketing Blog Remember the U.S. How about your business blog, is it all it can be for your industrial company?

Business Blogging 60

Business Blogging Web 2.0 Long Tail Marketing Business 60

Industrial Marketing Today

MAY 22, 2012

I am seeing more and more manufacturers and industrial distributors using e-commerce as a sales channel for growth. However, I have noticed a growing trend among industrial companies using e-commerce as their primary sales channel. Annual Sales: $1.5+ billion with no outside sales force.

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Advertising Channels Cable BtoB Distribution 60

Industrial Marketing Today

MAY 21, 2010

A B2B blog is the perfect online tool to accomplish that. If you are still not sure about the benefits of using a business blog, head over to HubSpot and read these articles: 6 Reasons Every Small Business Should Be Blogging… Are You Missing the Boat? Others recommend writing about things that you are knowledgeable about.

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Web 2.0 Buying Cycle B2B Blogger 60

Industrial Marketing Today

MAY 5, 2010

That however is only part of the solution because if your content doesn’t engage the visitor s/he won’t take a desired action to move forward in the sales cycle. Score this lead according to your preset BANT (Budget, Authority, Need, and Timing) criteria to determine if they are “sales-ready.”

Sales Cycle 60

Sales Cycle Web 2.0 Buying Cycle Privacy Policies 60

Industrial Marketing Today

MAY 11, 2010

The top findings I got out of the release were: 47% of the sales professionals reported a slight increase in the size of their B2B pipelines this year as compared to last year. However, the sales cycles have also become longer, making it much harder to close deals. This one caught me by surprise.

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Sales Cycle Lead Ranking Marketing Qualified Leads B2B Sales 60

Industrial Marketing Today

JULY 2, 2012

Inbound marketing tactics such as SEO and other content marketing strategies do fill the top of their sales funnel. That’s why I like to call them “sales enablers.”. Comparing these offerings is a topic for another blog post in the future. Design wins lead to prototype and production orders.

Lead Ranking 60

Lead Ranking Top of Funnel Sales Qualified Leads Buying Cycle 60

Industrial Marketing Today

NOVEMBER 14, 2010

In most manufacturing and industrial companies, engineering, sales and marketing operate in their own silos, barely acknowledging each other’s existence. Here’s a video on an engineer’s scorn for marketing (from productmarketing.com, a blog by Pragmatic Marketing ). The disconnect is strong and distinct. Hallelujah!

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Advertising Agencies Paid Search Agency Work Management CMO 60

Industrial Marketing Today

MARCH 16, 2012

For a real-life example of this lead generation disconnect, read my post, Manufacturers: Don’t Start a Lead Generation Campaign without Sales. I direct their attention to all the blog posts that I’ve written in the past about inbound marketing for industrial companies. Step 5: Convince them that none of this is easy, quick or cheap.

Lead Management 60

Lead Management Lead Ranking Lead Scoring Sales Qualified Leads 60

Industrial Marketing Today

MARCH 12, 2012

The one statistic that stood out for me and is consistent in both these studies is that company blogs rated low for usage across the board. Blogging is a proven social media channel and yet, industrial companies seem to severely under utilize this proven social media tactic. A third of those companies posted frequently to their blogs.”

Social Media 60

Social Media Tactics ROI Paid Search Agency 60

Industrial Marketing Today

JUNE 5, 2012

Decision makers in these companies want to jump on the content marketing bandwagon but they really don’t have a strategic plan of action and/or a clear idea of how it will drive sales and generate revenues. Some of them are filling the top of their sales funnel but the pipeline of qualified sales opportunities is running dry.

Top of Funnel 60

Top of Funnel Content Marketing Planning Buying Cycle 60

Industrial Marketing Today

AUGUST 3, 2010

However, accurately defining and measuring customer engagement in complex business or industrial sales is still elusive. However, it is not so simple to measure customer engagement in situations with long sales cycles that’s commonplace with manufacturers, sellers of technical products and B2B consultative solution providers.

B2B 60

B2B Marketing Analytics Tools Web 2.0 Buying Cycle 60

Industrial Marketing Today

AUGUST 1, 2011

The owner of a small manufacturing firm or the CEO of a large industrial distributor wants proof of content marketing’s direct contributions to sales and revenues. Talk about: The number of sales qualified leads generated. The percentage of quotes that converted to sales. Sounds familiar? I thought so.

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Sales Qualified Leads Content Marketing Planning Paid Search Agency 60

Industrial Marketing Today

DECEMBER 22, 2011

If there is one important takeaway from this exercise, it is that blog posts live forever and continue to attract traffic long after they have been posted. I looked at my Google Analytics for the entire year and have selected the top ten blog posts using a combination of Pageviews, Engagement and Social Sharing data to determine the ranking.

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Marketing Analytics Tools B2B Thought Leadership Buying Cycle Thought Leadership 60

Industrial Marketing Today

JULY 16, 2012

These companies have always thought of marketing as sales support, so it requires a lot of convincing to change that mind-set. Upper management and key decision makers are skeptical about inbound marketing with content being able to generate qualified leads and set the table for sales.

Lead Ranking 60

Lead Ranking Lead Scoring Marketing Management Paid Search Agency 60

Industrial Marketing Today

APRIL 26, 2010

Paul Dunay in his blog post, “4 C’s of B2B Marketing” has defined this very nicely. Instead of buying print ads in trade journals, they create their own blog and build an active community around it. However, to be successful with social media, you have to provide real value and that usually comes from great content.

Marketing Budget Creation 60

Marketing Budget Creation B2B Marketing Web 2.0 Marketing Budget 60

Industrial Marketing Today

DECEMBER 7, 2010

Here’s the shocking reality of B2B lead generation – 79% of marketing leads never convert into sales opportunities. This is because of the prevalent trend of industrial buyers using online resources to go deeper and deeper into their buying cycle before engaging with your sales people. Source: Marketing Sherpa/ KnowledgeStorm).

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Lead Nurturing Lead Generation Sales Qualified Leads Marketing Qualified Leads 60

Industrial Marketing Today

JUNE 24, 2010

by Achinta Mitra on June 24, 2010 in B2B E-Mail Marketing , Industrial Marketing & Web 2.0 , Social Media Marketing , Social Networking Lately, social media seems to garner all the attention in the media and blog posts with very little mention about email marketing. The first study done by AWeber (aff.

Social Media 60

Social Media Email Marketing Social Marketing Web 2.0 60

Industrial Marketing Today

JANUARY 14, 2011

Nobody cares about your products and services (except you)” was the title of a blog post written by David Meerman Scott (Author of the wildly successful book The New Rules of Marketing & PR and his new book Real-Time Marketing & PR ) back in 2008. For more, visit Indium’s blogs and their YouTube channel.

Content Marketing 60

Content Marketing High Quality Lead Planning BtoB 60

Industrial Marketing Today

SEPTEMBER 29, 2009

Home Marketing Matters About Contact B2B Marketing Store Company Website 101 Tips from 50 Small Business Bloggers by Achinta Mitra on September 29, 2009 in Industrial Marketing Blog , Industrial Websites , Social Media Marketing I came across an incredible blog post recently that I think every small business owner should read.

Small Business Marketing 60

Small Business Marketing Blogger Web 2.0 Tips 60

Industrial Marketing Today

MAY 31, 2010

I have listed some easy, do-it-yourself (DiY) SEO tactics to optimize your WordPress blogs for search engines. Just building a business blog is not going to help you drive traffic or generate leads. On-site SEO refers to changes that you can make within the code of your blog. What is On Site SEO?

Optimization 60

Optimization SEO Buying Cycle Web 2.0 60

Industrial Marketing Today

SEPTEMBER 27, 2010

Home Marketing Matters About Contact B2B Marketing Store Company Website Have Digital Marketing and Social Media Killed the Industrial Sales Job? by Achinta Mitra on September 27, 2010 in Industrial Marketing Strategies , Industrial Websites , Sales Strategies , Social Media Marketing Remember the very first music video ever played on MTV?

Social Media 60

Social Media Social Marketing Media Planning 60

Industrial Marketing Today

AUGUST 17, 2010

After all, that’s how your prospects and customers will find your blog and/or Web site. To deepen and strengthen this relationship, marketers (and sales) must optimize the “return on time spent” by increasing the value received through each touchpoint. I am referring to optimizing customer engagement in B2B marketing.

Optimization 60

Optimization Web 2.0 Planning Buying Cycle 60

Industrial Marketing Today

MAY 7, 2010

Here are some of the key findings from the study: Emerging Trends: 61% of the respondents (500 total) cited Driving Revenue as the most important success metric as compared to Sales Accepted Opportunities (40%), Qualified Leads (39%) with website visits and click-through rates trailing way at the back at 12% each.

Lead Generation 60

Lead Generation Sales Qualified Leads Web 2.0 B2B Marketing 60

Industrial Marketing Today

NOVEMBER 16, 2009

by Achinta Mitra on November 16, 2009 in B2B E-Mail Marketing Do you know the key component of email marketing that generates more high-quality leads and drives sales? However, for email marketing to be a true driver of sales, your need something even more valuable and every email that you send out should have it.

Email Marketing 60

Email Marketing Web 2.0 Planning Opt-in 60

Industrial Marketing Today

APRIL 22, 2010

Home Marketing Matters About Contact B2B Marketing Store Company Website The Distribution Trap – How Innovations Become Commodities by Achinta Mitra on April 22, 2010 in Industrial Marketing Strategies , Sales Strategies I read an eye-opening article by Andrew R. Non-core functions such as sales and distribution should be outsourced.

Distribution 60

Distribution Web 2.0 Lead Ranking Privacy Policies 60

Industrial Marketing Today

JUNE 19, 2010

Nothing happens until your site visitors and blog readers take some kind of an action after reading your content. Understanding and building accurate profiles of different personas requires a close alignment between sales and marketing. That is pretty much the mantra of B2B content marketing. Get Engineers Can Sell white paper now.

Relevance 60

Relevance B2B Marketing CMS Development Buying Cycle 60

Industrial Marketing Today

JUNE 12, 2010

Home Marketing Matters About Contact B2B Marketing Store Company Website B2B Websites: To Publish Prices, Or Not To Publish…That Is The Question by Achinta Mitra on June 12, 2010 in Industrial Marketing Strategies , Sales Strategies , Website Design & Development Do you show prices on your B2B website? If not, what’s stopping you ?

Sales Management 60

Sales Management Pricing Price Marketing Websites 60

Industrial Marketing Today

MAY 14, 2010

Home Marketing Matters About Contact B2B Marketing Store Company Website 7 Strategies for Using Content to Market Industrial Products by Achinta Mitra on May 14, 2010 in Content Marketing , Industrial Marketing & Web 2.0 , Industrial Marketing Blog I am a big fan of Content Marketing or as some people like to refer to it as Inbound Marketing.

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Webinar Metrics Marketing & Strategy Marketing Strategy Product 60

Industrial Marketing Today

SEPTEMBER 17, 2012

I have talked to owners and marketers from manufacturing and industrial companies of various sizes that sounded enthusiastic about launching an industrial blog and moving forward with inbound marketing with content but it seems easier for them to do nothing and maintain their digital marketing status quo.

Cost 60

Cost Planning Marketing Budget Creation Marketing Budget 60

Industrial Marketing Today

APRIL 20, 2010

This Marketing Data and Research Presentation includes data on: Lead Generation Blogging and Social Media Marketing Budgets Twitter and Facebook 50+ pages of marketing charts and graphs from original research Download the report from here. Have Digital Marketing and Social Media Killed the Industrial Sales Job?

Social Media 60

Social Media Social Marketing B2B Marketing Web 2.0 60

Industrial Marketing Today

NOVEMBER 9, 2010

I wrote this post because Chris, a regular reader of this blog, emailed me recently with a question on B2B lead scoring. His question – “Could you briefly describe the tools/process you use to ‘score’ sales leads?”. Lead scoring is a key component of marketing automation and a very effective tool for aligning sales and marketing.

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Lead Scoring Lead Ranking Resources Marketing Automation Services 60

Industrial Marketing Today

JULY 9, 2010

I found a good answer to that in a comment by Mike Gospe on a blog post at leadsloth.com where he wrote, “But when it comes to marketing automation, I recommend caution. If you’d like to read more about how to design this process, this Blog Post may be useful:: [link] The Process post is the top one on this page.

Marketing Automation Services 60

Marketing Automation Services Lead Ranking Marketing Qualified Leads Marketing Automation 60

Industrial Marketing Today

APRIL 30, 2010

If a video you used in a blog post relates, pull it through to the landing page for that content. Hold some in reserve to use as an offer during an inside sales call to follow-up. Ardath is the author of eMarketing Strategies for the Complex Sale. Re-route - Find new and interesting ways to use and distribute your content.

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Planning B2B Marketing Emarketing B2B 60