Industrial Marketing Today

JANUARY 14, 2011

Thriving in today’s content-driven online marketing world, demands that you think like a publisher. That mindset is even more important today if you don’t want to drown in the deluge of online content. Build a larger base of loyal customers and spread the word via social media channels. Chapman (Authors of Content Rules ).

Content Marketing 60

Content Marketing High Quality Lead Planning BtoB 60

Industrial Marketing Today

JUNE 12, 2010

ThomasNet study, 2006) For IT solutions in excess of $50,000, the most wanted data in the early stage awareness was price ( Source: Joint study done by MarketingSherpa and Enquiro , 2007) Today, a majority of industrial buying decisions begin online. Reasons people don’t want to publish prices online There may be many reasons (excuses?)

Sales Management 60

Sales Management Pricing Price Marketing Websites 60

Industrial Marketing Today

JUNE 15, 2010

Success story #1: Manufacturer of electronic passive components We built an online parametric search application for the client’s website to help site visitors quickly find/build the exact part number based on selecting a number of design and/or performance characteristics. Take a quick poll.

CMS Development 60

CMS Development Marketing Websites Work Management Web 2.0 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.

Buying Cycle 60

Buying Cycle Marketing Automation Services Peer-to-peer Web 2.0 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 online content needs to play a much more active role in moving site visitors along in his/her buy decision.

Sales Cycle 60

Sales Cycle Web 2.0 Buying Cycle Privacy Policies 60

Industrial Marketing Today

AUGUST 27, 2012

Only 22% of companies surveyed still follow the traditional RFP path, 78% are narrowing the field long before the RFP process, by conducting anonymous web research and relying on information from peers and others via social media venues ( Source: SiriusDecisions ). Meet your customers where they are choosing to learn – online.

RFP 60

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

Industrial Marketing Today

JULY 23, 2010

Today, technical buyers and engineers expect suppliers to have a substantial online presence with a website packed with relevant content in a variety of formats and easily searchable. Extend its life by making your site content shareable via social media, RSS feeds and forward to a colleague. However, they do have a strong influence.

Rules 60

Rules Marketing Websites Marketing Automation Services Web 2.0 60

Industrial Marketing Today

JANUARY 26, 2010

It may be time to invest in your online presence. 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. Make sure there are well-established guidelines for employees to participate in social networks.

Rules 60

Rules Marketing Websites Web 2.0 Buying Cycle 60

Industrial Marketing Today

AUGUST 17, 2010

Because B2B and industrial buyers tend to be more sophisticated in the use of online content in making their decision over the entire buying cycle. Keep in mind your marketing content may exist in various forms and formats; company website, blog, email campaigns, press releases, marketing collateral and social networks.

Optimization 60

Optimization Web 2.0 Planning Buying Cycle 60

Industrial Marketing Today

OCTOBER 2, 2010

Today, the customer split is 55/45 in favor of B2B clients Read the full case study on BtoB Online at [link] Case study #2: Driving qualified traffic and growing in-house list using emails with videos links Business challenge: Milwaukee Electric Tool Corp. Social Media with Email Marketing – is it the Super Combo?

Email Marketing 60

Email Marketing Planning Web 2.0 BtoB 60

Industrial Marketing Today

JULY 14, 2010

Google News, aggregating content via RSS feeds and social bookmarking sites have been around for a while. The final piece of the content curation puzzle was an article by Lee Odden of TopRank Online Marketing blog. The final piece of the content curation puzzle was an article by Lee Odden of TopRank Online Marketing blog.

Curation 60

Curation RSS Web 2.0 Content Marketing 60

Industrial Marketing Today

JUNE 19, 2010

Creating effective marketing content requires a well-rounded skill set that includes researching, interviewing subject matter experts (SME), customers, and internal stakeholders, compiling all that information into cohesive content and a basic understanding of any existing content management system (CMS) to update your online content library.

Relevance 60

Relevance B2B Marketing CMS Development Buying Cycle 60

Industrial Marketing Today

MAY 14, 2010

Once they find the correct part number, offer datasheets with performance characteristics, applications and tolerance information, include a way for the visitor to send a quick question to your engineering department and if applicable, add a “buy now” button to take advantage of online sales.

Webinar Metrics 60

Webinar Metrics Marketing & Strategy Marketing Strategy Product 60

Industrial Marketing Today

MAY 26, 2011

Create an online version that supports complex parametric searches to help design engineers find the exact part from your inventory of thousands of SKUs. Convert that very useful piece of content from a static printed application into a real-time online application. A QR code can hold a lot more information than just a simple URL.

Product 60

Product B2B Thought Leadership Cross-Selling Thought Leadership 60

Industrial Marketing Today

AUGUST 20, 2010

Add a link that carries the part number to the shopping cart if you also have an online store or to the RFQ form on your site. Lesson #3: Features are the benefits Your online marketing content may consist of images, videos, PowerPoint presentations, PDFs, white papers and pre-recorded webinars.

Web 2.0 60

Web 2.0 Planning Buying Cycle Lead Scoring 60

Industrial Marketing Today

OCTOBER 21, 2010

Despite all the promises of online marketing tactics, industrial marketers are still wrestling with the same lead generation problem year after year. Marketing automation is good at supporting a self-service model that B2B buyers are accustomed to from their personal online experiences. B2B sales processes are becoming “consumerized.”

Marketing Automation Services 60

Marketing Automation Services Inbound Marketing Marketing Automation Top of Funnel 60

Industrial Marketing Today

SEPTEMBER 3, 2010

While conversion may be the ultimate goal, building trust, increasing awareness, improving the company’s reputation, expertise and credibility and encouraging social sharing are all worthy content marketing goals too. Industrial buyers of today use online content extensively in making their buying decision.

Buying Cycle 60

Buying Cycle Buy Marketing Budget Web 2.0 60

Industrial Marketing Today

JUNE 24, 2010

Home Marketing Matters About Contact B2B Marketing Store Company Website Social Media with Email Marketing – is it the Super Combo? Can we deliver a powerful 1-2 punch by combining social media and email marketing? Including at least three social sharing options boosted the rate to 11.2% The first study done by AWeber (aff.

Social Media 60

Social Media Email Marketing Social Marketing Web 2.0 60

Industrial Marketing Today

JANUARY 3, 2011

You can find lots of online articles about the advantages of using a business blog for building thought leadership, communities and humanizing your company. A business blog is a powerful online marketing tool for inbound lead generation. The answer is a resounding yes.

Top of Funnel 60

Top of Funnel Business Blogging High Quality Lead Business 60

Industrial Marketing Today

JULY 29, 2009

Home Marketing Matters About Contact B2B Marketing Store Company Website Business Value of Social Networking by Achinta Mitra on July 29, 2009 in Social Media Marketing , Social Networking Saw a very interesting video where Seth Godin talks about how useful social media is to businesses.

Social Networks 60

Social Networks Lead Scoring Lead Ranking Web 2.0 60

Industrial Marketing Today

MARCH 17, 2011

These people find your blog while searching for answers to their current problem or visit via social media. Your blog posts will remain online in perpetuity. For others, the bulk of your blog traffic, in some cases as much as 80%, will come from first-time visitors. It is not just your latest post that draws traffic.

Top of Funnel 60

Top of Funnel FAQ Case Studies Content 60

Industrial Marketing Today

AUGUST 20, 2012

We are afraid of giving away our trade secrets if we reveal too much in our online content. A good content marketer must play many roles – he/she must know SEO, be an investigative reporter who asks the right questions for extracting the meat of the matter from SMEs, be a copywriter, an editor, a marketer and be savvy about social media.

SEO 60

SEO Content Marketing Copywriting Content 60

Industrial Marketing Today

AUGUST 24, 2009

However, to be successful in your online marketing, you must come up with fresh and interesting content regularly. That led me to other popular search terms like blog content creation, content creation help, online content creation etc. Most people get writer’s block or their brains freeze up while staring at a blank screen.

Web 2.0 60

Web 2.0 Copywriting Content Buying Cycle 60

Industrial Marketing Today

JUNE 3, 2010

Why does online marketing content cause so much angst? We just need site visitors to fill out our online order form. We are uniquely qualified to recommend hiring an expert online copywriter or designer or SEO expert when it becomes necessary to bring in outside talent. And the cycle of frustration continues.

Marketing Websites 60

Marketing Websites Web 2.0 Work Management Buying Cycle 60

Industrial Marketing Today

SEPTEMBER 6, 2011

They are beginning to look beyond a static informational website and are now seriously focusing on developing a more robust online presence for attracting qualified traffic, generating higher quality leads and positioning themselves as thought leaders in their respective niches.

CMS Development 60

CMS Development Curation Inbound Marketing Marketing Management 60

Industrial Marketing Today

APRIL 21, 2010

In short, they are doing things that help them get found online. Leave a Comment Previous post: Social Media and B2B Marketing Do Pair Well Next post: The Distribution Trap – How Innovations Become Commodities FREE Marketing Guides Engineers Can Sell™ White Paper: Most people are skeptical about associating engineers with sales.

Budget Programs 60

Budget Programs Education Marketing Budget Lead Scoring 60

Industrial Marketing Today

MAY 21, 2010

A B2B blog is the perfect online tool to accomplish that. Use other marketing tactics like article marketing, press releases, forum commenting, social bookmarking and networking to generate high quality traffic to your business blog. This is “social proof” and is how you begin to build a community around your business blog.

Web 2.0 60

Web 2.0 Buying Cycle B2B Blogger 60

Industrial Marketing Today

JANUARY 3, 2012

The most important ones are: Bite sized content is easier to consume online and on mobile devices. Use social media to announce each new post. Just like popular TV serials, you want to create a series of short blog posts that revolve around a common theme. There are many advantages to this content marketing strategy.

Long Tail Marketing 60

Long Tail Marketing Thought Leadership Content Marketing & Strategy 60

Industrial Marketing Today

JANUARY 10, 2011

Even though social media (Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn) adoption is lower among industrial marketers, YouTube usage by manufacturers (50%) is higher than other B2B marketers (38%). Social media (excluding blogs): 21% effectiveness (73% usage). All is not well with inbound content marketing within the industrial sector.

Video Marketing 60

Video Marketing Content Marketing Co-Registration High Quality Lead 60

Industrial Marketing Today

JUNE 29, 2010

In the Needs Awareness and Research stages (the first two stages of the industrial buying cycle ), buyers use a broad array of sources, including social media, webinars, e-newsletters, Google, Bing, Yahoo and vertical search engines like thomasnet.com and globalsepc.com. That’s the goal of every branding effort.

Relevance 60

Relevance B2B Marketing Web 2.0 Branding 60

Industrial Marketing Today

NOVEMBER 3, 2011

Blog about your online cross-reference guides that help design engineers and industrial specifiers find the closest substitute for “End of Life” components from your current product line. Post them to social sharing sites like SlideShare and YouTube. Publish charts and graphs of Performance and Characteristics data.

Marketing Websites 60

Marketing Websites Curation Ad Exchange Case Study 60

Industrial Marketing Today

APRIL 3, 2011

Customers in turn get 24/7 access via a secure online portal to personalized content such as: Detailed and critical cradle-to-grave records of every valve installed at their plant. That is its key differentiator from other forms of marketing that tend to focus more on advertising and promotional messages.

Planning 60

Planning Work Management Marketing Automation Services Marketing Management 60

Industrial Marketing Today

MAY 26, 2010

Here are some stats, results and recommendations that I found very useful: In the Needs Awareness and Research stages, buyers use a broad array of sources, including social media, Webinars, e-newsletters, search engines and [vertical search engines like] GlobalSpec.

Buying Cycle 60

Buying Cycle Buy Web 2.0 Allocation 60

Industrial Marketing Today

MAY 22, 2011

The current buzz about mobile marketing is probably second only to the hype surrounding social media. They are accessing your online content on the go and using their choice of mobile device. There is a good reason for industrial marketers to seriously consider and/or revisit their mobile marketing strategies.

Mobile Marketing 60

Mobile Marketing Paid Search Agency Marketing Analytics Tools Planning 60

Industrial Marketing Today

OCTOBER 1, 2011

It is up to marketing to create relevant content, optimize it for search engines, promote it online via social media and other outlets, score prospects, nurture leads until they are “sales ready” before handing them off to sales. It needs to do all the heavy lifting for creating qualified opportunities for industrial sales.

Top of Funnel 60

Top of Funnel Inbound Marketing Bulldog Solutions Lead Scoring 60

Industrial Marketing Today

SEPTEMBER 20, 2010

Don’t spend all your time and resources crafting lead generating offers (white papers, webinars, online demos etc.). Leave a Comment Previous post: Variety of Content is the Key in the Early Stages of the Industrial Buy Cycle Next post: Have Digital Marketing and Social Media Killed the Industrial Sales Job?

Lead Generation 60

Lead Generation Business Blogging Lead Scoring Lead Ranking 60

Industrial Marketing Today

JUNE 8, 2010

Pay attention to the terminology and words your target audience uses when they discuss their problems on social media, forums and blogs. You have to actively promote your optimized site using social media, press (news) releases, blogs and offline tactics to tell your target audience about your site. What has worked for you?

Buying Cycle 60

Buying Cycle Buy Work Management Marketing Management 60