Study: B-to-B Marketers Lagging With Social Media. Data shows about 40 percent of b-to-b brands aren’t using social marketing. Of 548 b-to-b marketers surveyed by Eloqua, about 40 percent say they are not yet using social media marketing. MORE

Tweet As I talk to marketing and sales leaders, I hear this reoccurring theme: “I want to do something that really matters; I want to feel what I’m doing is really making a real difference.” ” I feel the same way, but I’ve painfully learned that it’s futile to make changes outside before we make changes inside. This requires a different kind of thinking to drive a different way of marketing. MORE

Have you noticed how so many B2B companies seem to be running their own proprietary conferences these days? In conversations with several marketers, I have identified six reasons to consider it. Who better to sell for you than happy current customers? MORE

Or, “Once this automation system is installed, it will take our marketing to the next level.” Déjà vu all over again, to echo Yogi Berra. Think about it: if their clients can’t get the value from the software, their revenues are going to be impacted. Three things come to mind. MORE

Learn from the team elevating brand experience MORE

I’ve got to admit, when SiriusDecisions’ Jennifer Ross and Marisa Kopec opened their keynote session yesterday morning saying their presentation was going to be “provocative”, I was skeptical. So what does this mean for marketers who thought we were impossible to shock or provoke? MORE

Today, 89% of B-to-B marketers in the U.S. are using social media, says a study conducted by iTracks and the Business Marketing Association (BMA). In fact, B-to-B use of social media may have even eclipsed that of consumer marketers, according to another report from White Horse Productions. But the B-to-B marketers I talk to still sound confused. What you want to do is get out of the hype, get real, and get results. MORE

There’s a spirited debate in B-to-B marketing about whether it’s best to give away information (aka “content,” like white papers and research reports) to all comers, versus requiring web visitors to provide some information in exchange for a content download. In other words, to gate your content or not to gate. The underlying assumption there is that people buy from companies that they trust—a valid point, to be sure. MORE

B-to-B marketers are often guilty of laziness when it comes to testing their communications, whether it’s testing the copy approach, the layout, the offer or the target audience. Well, to call it laziness may not be entirely fair. Image via Wikipedia. MORE

One problem that plagues B-to-B sales and marketing is coming up with relevant, timely messages for nurturing customer relationships. I recently ran across a particularly compelling solution to this problem: Personalized email that links to entertaining, but useful, videos. MORE

If you’re a marketer in a medium-to large-sized B2B company, you’re almost certainly using customer relationship management (CRM) software to track your customers and prospects. I encourage you to restrain your enthusiasm. No social map is going to unearth these relationships. MORE

This is the first in a series of occasional interviews with top practitioners in the field of B-to-B demand generation. Today’s guest is Michael Damphousse , CEO/CMO of Green Leads, LLC , a firm that specializes in using the phone to get qualified appointments for its clients’ salespeople on a pay-per-performance basis. His blog, Smashmouth Marketing , has developed a wide following among B-to-B marketing professionals. MORE

Yesterday, in this very space, my friend Ruth Stevens made the case against “gating content” –placing your best stuff behind a registration or contact form so that you mine your Web visitors for those precious e-mail addresses and hand them off to your CRM system so they can be worked as “leads.” No, this is just an issue that I have a history with, going all the way back to my IBM days and with several clients since. Credit: Getty Images via @daylife. MORE

My book Social Marketing to the Business Customer with co-author Eric Schwartzman was released last month and is now available through Amazon , Barnes & Noble , Borders and other booksellers. It’s the first book devoted exclusively to B2B social media , and the most comprehensive collection of best practices and case studies currently available in print. Everyone seems to be interested in the concept of using social media to reach a focused, select group of individuals. MORE

Business-to-business marketers are plagued by data problems. To shed some light on B2B data problems, Bernice Grossman and I compiled a working list of problems and solutions. Give them objective rules to follow. Test a few vendors to find the one that works best with your data. MORE

The other day, a marketing colleague told me she was feeling under pressure to move all her efforts to inbound, or “pull,” marketing. SEO and SEM, which will pull them to your site and your content when prospects are looking for particular information. MORE

Despite the attention given to large enterprise marketing, it’s small and medium businesses (SMB) where the bulk of marketing investments go. SMB is where there’s enough volume to do plenty of testing. Here are the nuggets that were most revealing to me. MORE

But this is the one to acquire for your marketing library, for two reasons. First, it’s your one-stop shop on the entire subject, from strategy and planning, to thorny execution matters like measuring the ROI. I recommend Epic Content Marketing to everyone who sells to business buyers. MORE

On May 25, 2018, any company that is not compliance with the European Union’s new opt-in regulations is at risk of a fine of up to 20 million euros, or 4% of their global topline revenue. Furthermore, the reg requires businesses to buy only from firms who are compliant. MORE

In my view, the primary objective of B-to-B marketing is to drive leads and sales. Recommendation: Let your brand come along for the ride while you focus your marketing on convincing potential buyers to raise their hands and express interest in your products or services. MORE

In the B2B marketing world, content is used primarily to 1. Develop the relationship over time until the prospect is ready to see a salesperson, a process known as lead nurturing. For these two purposes, business marketers need to have on hand an array of very particular types of content assets. A good way to determine what’s available, and what additional content you need to create, is to perform a content audit. Photo credit: Wikipedia. MORE

Are you hounded by email pitches offering access to all kinds of prospective business targets? As a B2B marketer, I am always interested in new customer data sources, so I feel compelled to at least give them a listen. So, over time, I have come up with a 9-point assessment strategy to help marketers determine the likely legitimacy of a potential vendor, using approaches that can be replicated by anyone, at arm’s length. (Photo credit: Tim Morgan). MORE

In the old days—just a few years ago—when business buyers had a problem, they’d call in their vendors for advice on how to solve it. So a sales person was in a nifty position to educate—and influence—the buyer from the earliest stages of the process. Image via Wikipedia. MORE

Lessons from the B-to-B Dream Team Power Panel MORE

While preparing case studies for book, I had the fun of interviewing a bunch of very smart B2B marketers to learn how they were applying data and analytics to their marketing objectives. My new book, B2B Data-Driven Marketing: Sources, Uses, Results , is launching in a few weeks. MORE

In our fast-changing marketing world, a smart B2B practitioner keeps up to date by learning from thought leaders. While this used to mean reading business books and magazines, today it means blogs. Eric’s writing is always practical, action oriented, and a joy to read. MORE

I was delighted when B2B Marketing Zone – a website and newsletter that I devour – asked me to be one of 25 contributors to its “ B2B Marketing Trends for 2016 ” e-book. Clearly, we need to do better.” – Erika Goldwater. “If MORE

Finding new customers is a lot easier these days, what with innovative, digitally based ways to capture and collect data. New ways to find prospects continue to come on the scene—it seems like daily. Susceptible to hurricane damage? MORE

The best way to provoke discussion on LinkedIn is to ask questions. Rather than sharing a link to an article, use it to kick off a discussion. For example, instead of posting a headline and a link to an article about cloud security, formulate it into a question: “This article on Cloud Computing Path makes the case that the recent Dropbox security breach proves that the cloud is not yet secure enough for the enterprise. Think of the Benefit to Your Audience. MORE

It’s a platform for communications, for selling, for just about every element of the marketing arsenal, and it’s is forcing marketers to think more carefully about customer and prospect data. Most marketing technologies claim to make marketer’s lives simpler. MORE

Best of all, a number of new tools and tactics are now available to do the marketing job efficiently. These are the accounts we pay attention to.”. We need volume of at least 1,500 leads a month to serve a client efficiently,” says Jeff Feuer, CEO. MORE

I had the chance recently to catch up with Martyn Etherington , a marketing leader I’ve long admired. In a reflective mood, he was willing to field some questions about his successes there. Where did you direct them to focus their efforts, and why? MORE

It refers to the ascendance of content marketing (especially in B-to-B), and the differential between the current inventory of quality content that most B-to-B companies have, and the amount they need to have to market effectively. MORE

That’s a good thing, since marketers are under increasing pressure to manage, collect, and make use of data, according to a recent CMO Club/Gartner study. Most B2B marketers really struggle to get their arms around the reality of customer and prospect information. MORE

With a tip of the hat to Barbara Walters , I’d like to introduce ten fascinating people who have brought new ideas and admirable energy to the B2B marketing world this year. It’s an eclectic list, culled from contacts I happened to make in 2015. We are lucky to have them. MORE

This is a draft of chapter 10 of Social Marketing to the Business Customer by Paul Gillin and Eric Schwartzman. This chapter focuses on how to calculate ROI of social media and Internet marketing programs in general. ROI analysis enforces rigor that leads to better decisions. MORE

Here are 5 steps you can take to maintain data accuracy, a process known as “data hygiene.”. Harness customer-facing personnel to update the data. Leverage the access of customer-facing personnel to fresh contact information. MORE

But B2B marketers still struggle to get their full share of value from data. One reason is that they are missing some important ways to apply the data to marketing problems. Querying and performing “what-ifs” to stimulate marketing ideas and actions. Can anyone add to it? MORE

It’s no secret that the factors that motivate salespeople to change the way they work have to be pretty simple: Help them spend more time selling and less time scrounging for information and telling managers what they’re doing. MORE

Every time you turn around, a new “performance marketing” opportunity turns up for B-to-B marketers. But there are some potholes to consider. Let’s look at how marketers get value out of this approach to finding new customers. . So marketers need to do the math. MORE

In preparing my new book on the subject—to be published in June of 2015—I had a chance to speak to a variety of brilliant thinkers about where things are headed. So the outlook for talent to manage the new technologies in marketing is bright. MORE

If you’re selling to business buyers, data about your customers and prospects is essential to success. Even with the data on hand, many marketers are unsure of what to do with it. You need to get a grip on customer data, and figure out how to put it to work for your business. MORE

The most reliable and scalable approach to finding new B2B customers is outbound communications–whether one is using mail, phone, or email, or using rented or purchased lists. Links to LinkedIn profiles of company managers (Stirista). (Photo credit: Wikipedia). MORE