Industrial Marketing Today

AUGUST 26, 2011

Their pipeline of leads would dry up quickly and sales would come to a grinding halt if they depended entirely on inbound marketing for prospects to come to them. Inbound marketing requires prospects to be actively searching for products and solutions. These buyers are not looking to engage, they want complete product specifications.

Inbound Marketing 60

Inbound Marketing Paid Search Agency Companies Ad Frequency 60

Industrial Marketing Today

MARCH 16, 2012

Talking to manufacturers and industrial companies on a daily basis has convinced me that when they say they need help with their lead generation, they really want more RFQ (Request For Quote) opportunities. Generating new leads, qualifying and nurturing them until they turn into a RFQ is too much work for them.

Lead Management 60

Lead Management Lead Ranking Lead Scoring Sales Qualified Leads 60

Industrial Marketing Today

OCTOBER 1, 2011

They agree it helps them get found in search engines early and often, drives hordes of traffic to their site and fills the top of their funnel with qualified leads at a lower cost per lead. I can’t help but think that the person at the other end is silently telling me, “Show Me the Money!”

Top of Funnel 60

Top of Funnel Inbound Marketing Bulldog Solutions Lead Scoring 60

Industrial Marketing Today

JUNE 12, 2010

In order to get on the buyer’s short list as early in the buy cycle as possible, your B2B website needs to provide relevant information that your prospects are looking for. We want the prospect to contact us for pricing information so we can engage with them further 3. This may include basic pricing information.

Sales Management 60

Sales Management Pricing Price Marketing Websites 60

Industrial Marketing Today

MARCH 1, 2011

After lead nurturing: Salespeople only call those prospects that have sent a clear signal of their readiness to buy with their online interactions with your marketing content. Prospects are fed relevant content of their choice, in their preferred format and with their permission. Your ratio of calls to wins goes up significantly.

Lead Nurturing 60

Lead Nurturing Cold Calling Marketing Qualified Leads Leads 60

Industrial Marketing Today

MAY 5, 2010

said it best when she wrote, “Passive reading of your content is not going to help online marketing initiatives shorten buying cycles or increase customer acquisition and revenues.” Your prospects are at different stages of their decision making process when they visit your site. Ardath Albee, CEO of Marketing Interactions, Inc.

Sales Cycle 60

Sales Cycle Web 2.0 Buying Cycle Privacy Policies 60

Industrial Marketing Today

AUGUST 27, 2012

How can digital marketing help industrial companies gain an edge? There are many ways that digital marketing can help industrial companies make their consultative selling process more productive. Make sure your digital content focuses on helping them make an informed decision while moving the needle for you.

RFP 60

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

Industrial Marketing Today

APRIL 26, 2010

Now, B2B content marketing’s agenda is to educate and inform customers and prospects. Educate, inform and provide value to customers and prospects. Instead of interrupting people with television ads, inbound marketers create videos that prospects want to see. The old ways of pushing out content is no longer effective.

Marketing Budget Creation 60

Marketing Budget Creation B2B Marketing Web 2.0 Marketing Budget 60

Industrial Marketing Today

OCTOBER 25, 2011

Content marketing helps industrial and manufacturing marketers manage their sales funnels from ToFU to MoFU. Use optimized content for inbound marketing to attract qualified prospects (ToFU) and then nurture them with engaging content to convert them into “sales ready” leads (MoFU). “By

Top of Funnel 60

Top of Funnel Marketing Funnels Content Marketing High Quality Lead 60

Industrial Marketing Today

JULY 6, 2010

What I do want to talk about here is the how and not the why of you should translate your features into tangible benefits if you want your marketing content to engage with prospects and convert them into customers. I have come across two tools for helping you dig deeper and create marketing content that focuses on benefits over features.

Features 60

Features Web 2.0 Planning Work Management 60

Industrial Marketing Today

FEBRUARY 3, 2012

You can talk value until you’re blue in the face but your customers and prospects will push back on price. Here are some of my thoughts to help you better align an industrial website with your sales process. Your industrial website has missed a great opportunity to frame the discussion in their minds in the early stages.

Top of Funnel 60

Top of Funnel Process Marketing Websites Sales Qualified Leads 60

Industrial Marketing Today

JANUARY 26, 2010

Is it so outdated that you avoid sending prospects and customers to your site? It goes well beyond just cutting costs, today, it is more about accountability, analytics and engaging customers and prospects by using free or inexpensive social media tactics. Nothing will turn off your prospects more than outdated and stale content.

Rules 60

Rules Marketing Websites Web 2.0 Buying Cycle 60

Industrial Marketing Today

FEBRUARY 12, 2012

Helped 9% more sales reps make quota and shortened ramp up time of new ones by 10%. Lead nurturing is usually done by sending out helpful content to prospects and moves them from the top of the funnel (ToFU) to the bottom of the funnel (BoFU) where they are ready to make a purchase decision. Still not convinced?

Lead Nurturing 60

Lead Nurturing Sales Management Top of Funnel Sales Qualified Leads 60

Industrial Marketing Today

SEPTEMBER 13, 2010

In Needs Awareness and Research phases, the first two stages of the industrial buy cycle (see my earlier post Deconstructing the Four Stages of the Industrial Buy Cycle ) your prospects and customers use a variety of online content to find solutions to their current problems and needs. Not every action needs to be scored.

Buying Cycle 60

Buying Cycle Marketing Automation Services Peer-to-peer Web 2.0 60

Industrial Marketing Today

MAY 7, 2012

This interim action step moves them forward in their decision-making process and helps you collect leads that are more qualified. Your prospects won’t take action unless your content convinces them that you understand their problem(s) and have a solution. See Industrial Marketing Content that Helps Buyers ).

Content Marketing 60

Content Marketing Planning Content Sales Qualified Leads 60

Industrial Marketing Today

DECEMBER 22, 2010

I hope you’ll get some value and practical help from reading or rereading these articles. 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

DECEMBER 7, 2010

Helped 9% more sales reps make quota and shortened ramp up time of new ones by 10%. He defines lead nurturing as “… having consistent and meaningful dialog with viable prospects regardless of their timing to buy. Raised win rates on marketing-generated leads by 7% and reduced “no decisions” by 6%. What is lead nurturing?

Lead Nurturing 60

Lead Nurturing Lead Generation Sales Qualified Leads Marketing Qualified Leads 60

Industrial Marketing Today

MAY 26, 2010

Typically, that means understanding the prospect’s pain and then offering a solution for relief. But not easy to execute because there usually is a disconnect between what your prospect wants to hear and what you want to say about your company and its products and services. Sounds simple, right?

Buying Cycle 60

Buying Cycle Buy Web 2.0 Allocation 60

Industrial Marketing Today

SEPTEMBER 12, 2011

What I have learned is that these companies need help with content in digital marketing at many levels. Contact me if you need specific help or would like to chat about your digital marketing issues. At first glance, that may sound like an oversimplification of a bigger problem. This is not a new problem.

Paid Search Agency 60

Paid Search Agency Marketing Management Content Buying Cycle 60

Industrial Marketing Today

JANUARY 14, 2011

In their book, they recommend you produce online content to achieve one or more of the following objectives: Get higher rankings in search engine results so your prospects can find you easily. Chapman (Authors of Content Rules ). Attract more leads and acquire new customers. The results speak for themselves.

Content Marketing 60

Content Marketing High Quality Lead Planning BtoB 60

Industrial Marketing Today

JULY 12, 2011

Seth summarizes problem-centric marketing brilliantly in his post Sell the problem where he wrote, “When a prospect comes to the table and says, ‘we have a problem,’ then you’re both on the same side of the table when it comes time to solve it. He sent it to me as helpful content as part of his lead nurturing program. Thanks Kevin!

Marketing Management 60

Marketing Management Paid Search Agency Comparison Inbound Marketing 60

Industrial Marketing Today

APRIL 2, 2012

In the early stages of lead generation, you are primarily dealing with “suspects” – people who you have not yet qualified as prospects or leads. I found the one written by Ahava Leibtag ( @ahaval ) to be very helpful. If done right, they can be very effective in content marketing for manufacturers and industrial companies.

Top of Funnel 60

Top of Funnel Ideal Customer Profiles Content Marketing Planning 60

Industrial Marketing Today

APRIL 3, 2011

You are wasting your time and valuable resources if your content isn’t relevant and helpful to them. Help to frame the discussion in their minds. Add value to them with every visit to your site and/or download and help them make a more informed decision. Describe or show (videos) how your products/services solve those problems.

Planning 60

Planning Work Management Marketing Automation Services Marketing Management 60

Industrial Marketing Today

MARCH 29, 2011

At least have a mechanism in place to weed out unqualified prospects and move qualified ones into some kind of a lead nurturing program. Here are some additions that you can make to your Website that will help to engage site visitors: Add a “live chat” feature. Do they need help finding the right part number?

Marketing Websites 60

Marketing Websites Web 2.0 Sales Qualified Leads Lead Nurturing 60

Industrial Marketing Today

MAY 11, 2010

He also said, “Use of information from social media sources and web mining is growing as sales professionals are looking to leverage every piece of intelligence they can find to help progress deals.&# An article I read on Eloqua’s blog “It’s All About Revenue,” shed some light on this.

Sales Cycle 60

Sales Cycle Lead Ranking Marketing Qualified Leads B2B Sales 60

Industrial Marketing Today

OCTOBER 1, 2012

This may seem obvious since you want to create content for your customers and prospects but it is somewhat of a tricky question. It should help you shift the focus from writing about your products and services to how you help your customers solve their challenges. The H stands for How.

Paid Search Agency 60

Paid Search Agency Marketing Strategy Marketing & Strategy Work Management 60

Industrial Marketing Today

JANUARY 21, 2011

It is a balancing act to create content that solves real problems for your readers (prospects and customers) without hawking your products and services. The parametric search option uses a Flash driven tree-based navigation menu that helps the design engineer to quickly find the exact component he/she is searching for.

Sample 60

Sample Content Sales Qualified Leads Sales Cycle 60

Industrial Marketing Today

MAY 21, 2010

This timeless classic, one of the first bestselling self-help books published in 1937 and sold over 15 million copies globally is still relevant today. This timeless classic, one of the first bestselling self-help books published in 1937 and sold over 15 million copies globally is still relevant today.

Web 2.0 60

Web 2.0 Buying Cycle B2B Blogger 60

Industrial Marketing Today

FEBRUARY 21, 2011

And I have used some of these tactics to help my industrial clients make their content more relevant in engaging with their target audience and converting more of them into qualified sales leads. Help to get designed in – Research shows that when a CAD drawing is specified into a design, the actual product gets purchased 80% of the time.

Relevance 60

Relevance Sales Qualified Leads Sales Leads Marketing Qualified Leads 60

Industrial Marketing Today

JULY 23, 2010

Those punch lines and stereotypes may be amusing but they won’t really help you come up with an effective site redesign. The key here is to serve up relevant content that matches the prospect’s state or stage on the decision making process. One-size-fits-all site content will not help you engage.

Rules 60

Rules Marketing Websites Marketing Automation Services Web 2.0 60

Industrial Marketing Today

AUGUST 1, 2012

Marketing does a lot more by building trust among your customers (branding) and sets the table for prospects to engage in more meaningful conversations with your sales team (See Inbound Marketing Must Set the Table for Industrial Sales ). Hold marketing accountable but don’t measure its real value only by the number of RFQs generated.

Tactics 60

Tactics Planning Paid Search Agency High Quality Lead 60

Industrial Marketing Today

SEPTEMBER 26, 2011

To me, those contacts are prospects and not leads. This will help you gather lead intelligence that is important for segmenting and improving relevance. It has been my experience within the industrial sector that these companies rarely use email marketing proactively for lead generation. There is a difference.

Lead Generation 60

Lead Generation Auto Responder Generation Marketing Analytics Tools 60

Industrial Marketing Today

OCTOBER 2, 2010

They are combining video, audio and sophisticated tracking tools to deliver email campaigns with highly customized messages that engage prospects in their preferred format and measure interactions beyond just open and click-thru rates and well into website behavior. WHEN : When on the sales cycle do you expect to engage with your prospects?

Email Marketing 60

Email Marketing Planning Web 2.0 BtoB 60

Industrial Marketing Today

MAY 31, 2010

Just building a business blog is not going to help you drive traffic or generate leads. You need to optimize it for search engines in order for your target audience to find your B2B blog (see my earlier post, “How to Use a B2B Blog to Win Customers and Influence Prospects” ). You’ll find a bunch of them on the Internet.

Optimization 60

Optimization SEO Buying Cycle Web 2.0 60

Industrial Marketing Today

JUNE 29, 2010

Create an expertise blog to showcase your internal subject matter experts and allow your prospects and site visitors to interact with them directly. It will help build a deeper one-on-one relationship based on credibility and trust instead of suspicion and friction caused by traditional push marketing tactics.

Relevance 60

Relevance B2B Marketing Web 2.0 Branding 60

Industrial Marketing Today

NOVEMBER 5, 2010

This is a problem across the board for B2B marketers as reported by the same study – the largest challenge is “producing the kind of content that engages prospects and customers” (36% of respondents). One-fifth say that “producing enough content” (21%) and “budget to produce content” (19%) are their greatest challenge in content marketing.

Peer-to-peer 60

Peer-to-peer Social Marketing Paid Search Agency Content 60

Industrial Marketing Today

APRIL 14, 2012

This content marketing strategy has helped us achieve several top 10 rankings in Google for competitive keywords and phrases. These are exciting times in industrial marketing with so much going on – inbound marketing, creating compelling content that engages and converts prospects into customers, social, mobile and video marketing.

Paid Search Agency 60

Paid Search Agency Work Management Marketing Management Companies 60