Best of B2B Marketing April 2010Great stuff this month in the world of B2B Marketing. The following are the top items from featured sources based on social signals.

  1. Five Big Shifts in Social Media Marketing- Webbiquity, April 19, 2010
    Social media reflects a larger trend toward buyer empowerment that has changed not only the practice but the underlying philosophies of marketing over the past several years. Power has gradually shifted over the past couple of decades from manufacturers (e.g. HP, P&G) to the channel...
  2. The Difference Between B2B Leads and Personas- Marketing Interactions, April 17, 2010
    B2B marketers have relied on lead definitions to define their marketing programs for years. Some definitions are more complete than others. The biggest disconnect for companies is that a marketer's definition of a lead can often be quite different than how sales defines what they need to accept a lead as qualified for follow-up.
  3. 8 Critical Success Factors for Lead Generation 2.0- B2B Lead Generation Blog, April 29, 2010
    The single biggest issue for B2B marketers is effective lead generation. I wrote an eight part series on building an effective lead generation program a while back. To help readers who missed the series, I pulled all the posts together in order.
  4. Monday Marketing Term: Content Mapping- Marketing Genius Blog, April 26, 2010
    Content mapping is the process of understanding and organizing the flow of content for your website, nurturing campaigns or blog, so it can be presented to your audience ( personas ) based on their needs and stage in the buying cycle. Content means web copy, blog posts, videos, interactive presentations, social elements, diagrams or other pieces of information used to engaged users / visitors.
  5. My 5 favorite B2B marketing numbers.- B2BMarketingSmarts, April 20, 2010
    Everyone — except perhaps the creative folks in advertising agencies — knows that marketing is a numbers game. Numbers such as click-thrus, cost-per-lead, cost-per-sale and ROI dominate the landscape of marketing discussions. I like numbers.
  6. New Breed of Analysts- PR Meets Marketing, April 18, 2010
    The landscape has drastically changed for analyst relations over the past few years. When I first started PR, there were just a handful of analyst firms with a few independent firms. In the end, you knew if you had briefings with Yankee Group, Gartner, Forrester, Jupiter and Meta Group, you had your bases covered.
  7. A powerful story: Simple, but not simplistic- grow - Practical Marketing Solutions, April 15, 2010
    If I asked you to create a compelling three-minute video with only written words, could you do it? Take a look at this interesting video treatment of words playfully telling a serious story. Occasionally I feature examples of business storytelling that seem particularly effective and I wanted to highlight this 3-minute video by Dan Heath on behalf of the charity The Girl Effect.
  8. How to establish a voice of authority in a blog- Chris Koch, April 9, 2010
    A few weeks ago, I wrote a post about how to get others to blog. But it’s not enough just to support bloggers. For them to be successful, we need to help them establish their voices in a blog. The way that we establish trust and relationships with buyers is through authority.
  9. Savvy Week in Review - April 2- Savvy B2B Marketing, April 2, 2010
    As we look back on our first Savvy year, one of the things we're most nostalgic about--and grateful for--is all of the wonderful people we have met in the B2B community. These are the posts that inspired us this week, but as you have seen from our wraps up every week, we're learning something from you. Thanks for sharing your ideas and being part of Savvy B2B!
  10. Using Content to Build Trust in B2B Marketing- Buzz Marketing for Technology, April 1, 2010
    In the recent Edelman Trust Barometer report they detail out how trust is rebounding in a handful of Western countries especially in the United States where trust in business jumped 18 points to 54 percent. Which was an interesting statistic no doubt for many of us in business today.
  11. 11 Killer Social Media Presentations Worth Watching- Hubspot, April 27, 2010
    Presentations are a great way to consume information and learn about new topics. Unfortunately, we all don't have the time and money to spend traveling to conferences to see them in-person. Fortunately, the web has helped solve this problem by making it easier to share and watch presentations.
  12. Five Reasons Social Media Marketing Comes Last- Junta 42, April 13, 2010
    My friend Shama Kabani's book, The Zen of Social Media Marketing , officially comes out this week. I was one of the lucky ones to receive a review copy and I can tell you it's worth the read.
  13. Meaningful Metrics for B2B Blogging- Proteus B2B Marketing Blog, April 20, 2010
    Whether you’re just starting a B2B blog or have been blogging for a long time, you should be hungry to see results. After all, a lot of time and effort is going into creating new content, and it’s hard to continually feed the content marketing dragon. But if you’re looking to traditional consumer blog metrics ...
  14. 11 Ways the iPad can be used for B2B Marketing (aka a list of App Store apps all B2B Marketers should be using)- Modern B2B Marketing, April 5, 2010
    Iphone Apps for B2B Marketing Recently on LinkedIn the American Marketing Association posted a question about how Apple’s new iPad can be useful for B2B marketers. There were a lot of negative comments, saying there will be no use or impact. I disagree.
  15. Top 10 Takeaways from the 2010 Content Strategy Forum- Content Marketing Today, April 30, 2010
    Why An Effective Content Strategy is Fundamental to Effective Content Marketing We hope you’re a firm believer in the value of content marketing. If so, you know how important it is to deliver relevant and valuable content to your most important current and prospective customers. With that understanding, you are ahead of the game.
  16. 5 Ways to Better Marketing Performance with Marketing Operations- Everything Technology Marketing, April 14, 2010
    In my last post “ 5 Steps to B2B Marketing Success ” we established a simple approach to improving success in B2B marketing, starting with understanding your audience, building a strong value proposition, mapping out the buyer’s journey, building compelling messages and content, and finally, investing in robust marketing automation. Increasing Pressure on Marketing But how do you ensure that all this happens at peak efficiency, you are meeting your goals, and providing solid quantifiable return on your marketing investment?
  17. The lure of cheap content in B2B marketing- Reputation to Revenue, April 26, 2010
    An article in MediaWeek on content mills like Demand Media and Seed.com got me thinking about the dangerous lure of cheap content in B2B marketing. The goal of the content mills is to crank out a huge volume of search-oriented content for the web as cheaply as possible and sell advertising against it. Large consumer brands including AT&T, Proctor and Gamble, and General Motors have taken the bait and the model seems to be working.
  18. Thought Leadership Interview #5 – Sales Visionary Sharon Drew Morgan- Fearless Competitor, April 29, 2010
    Sales visionary and thought leader Sharon Drew Morgen , author of the remarkable and groundbreaking book Dirty Little Secrets: Why buyers can’t buy and sellers can’t sell and what you can do about it , sat down with the Fearless Competitor to answer a few questions about her book and her insightful ideas for facilitating change management for buyers and sellers. In this interview she shares the real reasons why buyers don’t make the expected buying decisions, and how sales people can help potential buyers make good buying decisions much faster than as is typical.
  19. How to Find Killer Topics for Blog Posts- Webbiquity, April 12, 2010
    There have been many excellent pieces written on how to find topics for blog posts, such as The best 50 blogging ideas to choose from by Aswani Srivastava and How to find topics for your blog posts from Mike Consol. But the most powerful blog posts are those that answer questions your readers have. What kind of question?
  20. 7 "Rs" for B2B Marketing Content Planning- Marketing Interactions, April 24, 2010
    Content is the fuel for eMarketing. With a majority of marketing efforts going digital, that means even more content is needed. The instant gratification mindset of B2B content consumers means they're demanding more content, faster. Not just any content, but ideas, information and expertise they find relevant and helpful for answering questions they have about problems they're trying to solve.
  21. 5 dials to tune in your lead generation process- B2B Lead Generation Blog, April 19, 2010
    It's important to think of lead generation as a process, rather than an isolated event, or a series of campaigns. A process can be continually improved through ongoing testing and refinement and will generate higher quality results more cost effectively (i.e. reduce expense-to-revenue ratio) and improve overall ROI.
  22. Monday Marketing Term: KPI- Marketing Genius Blog, April 12, 2010
    KPI stands for Key Performance Indicator which makes it a success metric. KPIs are usually set to evaluate the success and progress towards long-term organizational goals. KPIs are frequently used to value hard to measure activities (like social media) or the benefits of value, leadership, engagement or customer service.
  23. The Flywheel Effect- Digital Body Language, April 19, 2010
    I'm back to blogging after a rather spontaneous, two-week hiatus. My wife were expecting our daughter to arrive at the end of April, but were surprised and thrilled to welcome a happy and healthy Sejal Anya Woods, to the world on April 2nd, a full four weeks early. As I return to the world of work, now two weeks later, I realized that Sejal's surprising arrival gave me an accidental test-bed for one of the interesting aspects of social media, the fly-wheel effect.
  24. Sales Prospecting: Who's Helping Your Sales Team?- Sales Prospecting Perspectives, April 12, 2010
    Sales Prospecting Perspectives is pleased to bring you a guest post from Chris Lang, AG's Sales Director. Chris lives and breathes sales and sales prospecting, and we are very happy to have the opportunity to share this entry from him with our readers. Thanks Chris!
  25. Is this the final answer to social media measurement?- grow - Practical Marketing Solutions, April 12, 2010
    The blogosphere is buzzing about the new social media measurement platform SAS Institute Inc . announced yesterday. Is there a place for yet ANOTHER social web monitoring tool in a crowded market? And what is so special about this announcement?
  26. How to build emotional engagement in B2B marketing- Chris Koch, April 2, 2010
    I got a really interesting question last week through my Skribit box: How do you use emotional engagement when talking about dry technology? This may be the ultimate question in B2B, especially as we struggle to integrate social media into the overall marketing mix. Let’s face it, even if it was possible to curl up in front of the fire with a glass of wine and our B2B products and services, no one would do it.
  27. Deciding when your B2B should use SEO …or SMO …or PPC- B2B Web Strategy, April 8, 2010
    We’ve blogged several times before on the perception that there’s some sort of forced choice between search engine optimization (SEO) and pay per click advertising (PPC) – see for example “Why do I need both SEO and PPC?” – and of course we’ve always debunked the premise, and have urged B2Bs to do both whenever [...]
  28. A Simple Technique for Reducing Bounces & Unsubscribes- The Point, April 8, 2010
    It used to be said that the average US business mailing address (snail mail) changes once every 9 months. That’s individuals moving, not companies. Fast-forward to today’s highly mobile workforce, where people change jobs like the proverbial underwear, throw in a volatile economy, and more than one-third of the email addresses in your marketing database could change each and every year*.
  29. How will the Salesforce/Jigsaw acquisition change the B2B industry?- Fearless Competitor, April 23, 2010
    The data quality problem If we don’t know you, we can’t sell to you. And if we ask for too much, we lose you. To look the problem, let’s examine just one industry, E-Commerce, and see the results of their email campaigns: less than 1 in 5 emails is opened (19.8%)...
  30. Best Web and Landing Page Design Tips of 2009- Webbiquity, April 14, 2010
    Discover beautiful site designs inspired by nature, mind-blowing microsites, and beautiful icon sets. Find out how to make landing pages work harder and increase conversion rates. Learn which attributes to double-check before launching a new site, mortal web design sins to avoid, and how to create a custom 404 error page.
  31. The Difference Between Features and Value- Marketing Interactions, April 2, 2010
    There are numerous articles, blogs, Tweets and discussion groups that talk about content marketing. The consensus across the web is that content needs to be highly relevant and engaging to break through the clutter. So, why is it that so much B2B content misses the mark?
  32. Could Facebook become a Lead Nurturing platform?- Buzz Marketing for Technology, April 6, 2010
    When you think of lead nurturing platforms you typically think of firms like Eloqua, Marketo, Aprimo, LeadLife, Market2Lead, Silverpop, even Salesforce.com is getting into the lead nurturing space. But Facebook? Lead nurturing starts by taking many touch points and pulling them all together into one spot so you can see patterns of activity across your customer base and get a true profile...

Hot Topics Linkedin (83)

  1. LinkedIn Adds the Ability to Follow Companies, April 30, 2010
  2. How Marketers are Using Social Media for Business: New Report, April 27, 2010
  3. How to establish a voice of authority in a blog, April 9, 2010
  4. All mouth, no trousers, April 6, 2010

Facebook (91)

  1. A Marketer's Guide to Facebook's New Social Plugins, April 22, 2010
  2. Could Facebook become a Lead Nurturing platform?, April 6, 2010
  3. How Marketers are Using Social Media for Business: New Report, April 27, 2010
  4. All mouth, no trousers, April 6, 2010

Social Media (147)

  1. 11 Killer Social Media Presentations Worth Watching, April 27, 2010
  2. Five Big Shifts in Social Media Marketing, April 19, 2010
  3. Five Reasons Social Media Marketing Comes Last, April 13, 2010
  4. How Marketers are Using Social Media for Business: New Report, April 27, 2010

Forecast (14)

  1. Six Steps for Marketing Forecasting Done Right, April 28, 2010
  2. Sales Prospecting: Who's Helping Your Sales Team?, April 12, 2010
  3. Best Search Engine Marketing Tips of 2009, Part 2, April 7, 2010
  4. Where is your mobile marketing center of gravity?, April 30, 2010