Modern B2B Marketing | Marketo Blog

Best Practices from the Front Lines: Thought Leadership with Mark Fidelman

2009-11-11T18:45:48-08:00

Marketing automation has the ability to benefit almost every B2B company and industry, but are there benefits specific to open source companies? In our newest B2B marketing thought leadership interview, Mark Fidelman is the EVP of Sales at MindTouch and author of "Open Source Best Practices 2009" talks about open source success and using marketing automation to achieve it.

What aspects of the buying cycle are most important to open source companies?

The entire buying cycle is important. Most open source companies are starting to understand their sales funnel better and are educating their customers throughout the buying cycle. We look at it as more of a learning process and less of a sales approach. We know that not every user trying our products and solutions will become commercial customers, but by being open and providing educational content, our users can self select based on need.

What characteristics of the open source community are a good fit for marketing automation?

Because the commercial open source community deals with heavy volumes of web traffic, most open source companies require precise user segmentation to better understand who and how to prioritize and target. Sophisticated marketing automation tools are needed to aid marketing and sales throughout the entire lead nurturing process. Without marketing automation, figuring out the right users to contact is extremely difficult. With marketing automation, I can create compelling content that attracts the ideal user and guides them through a predetermined path. Then, at the right time, sales people are alerted to engage with the prospect. Because marketing automation tools track the activity of every visitor, the salesperson has a dossier of the prospect and is better able to communicate in context with the prospect’s specific need.

Why is the commercial open source business model successful?

There are at least three reasons for the success of the commercial open source model.

The most important aspect of any open source company is high levels of participation by its surrounding community. Open source companies need a vibrant community of commercial and non-commercial customers to advance and innovate the code base plus contribute to their financial success.
User adoption of commercial open source company products is significantly higher due to the free community versions of the product/solution. Enough value is given to the community of users to adopt the product, while commercial customers buy add-ons and services that provide significant, if not mission-critical, value.
By its very nature of being open source, community- and partner- developed product extensions help deliver additional value above and beyond the original code. These extensions enable customers to further customize the product to suit their needs, further extending the user base and providing additional opportunities for open source companies to sell commercial solutions or licenses.

What prompted you to launch the Open Source Success Best Practices 2009 survey?

As a community, we share best practices amongst ourselves, but they needed to be codified and shared beyond our local peer groups.

Somewhat unique among open source companies is the transparency and help MindTouch was given in conducting the survey. We owe the open source community a debt of gratitude for their generous participation.

What is the Open Source Success Formula?

It is best explained on our blog, but the Open Source Success Formula is a method followed by the majority of survey respondents knowingly or unknowingly:

D x CR x ASP = $$ (or € £)

The formula can be broken down as follows:

D = Distribution (total number of downloads, subscriptions, etc.)
CR = Conversion Rate (meaning: percentage of the Distribution that develops into paid customers)
ASP = Average Sales Price
$$ = Revenue

It’s important to note that the formula can be expanded to include other factors, but it is the primary driver for most open source companies.

Why is it important to improve Conversion Rates?

Conversion rates are a key set of metrics that illustrate how successful commercial open source companies are converting their community users to commercial customers. Looking closely at conversion rates, the primary success factors are:

How well is the product / solution differentiated from your free or community edition (this can include services)
How well is the product / solution differentiated from your competitor’s solution
How mission critical is the product / solution (in our research this was the number one indicator of how successful an open source company is at that point in time)
Marketing and sales effectiveness (how well are they communicating #1 – #3 above?)

Marketing automation is a primary ingredient in item 4, but it also helps communicate the value of #1 - #3 at the appropriate time and to the appropriate audience.

How can a solution like Marketo impact conversion rates?

It’s critical to understand how and why an open source user converts to a commercial customer. Solutions like Marketo help us identify the steps users are taking to become commercial customers. Then, through reverse engineering, we build our web site to optimize the path our prospects take to become commercial customers.

Because we understand the behavior of our commercial prospects, we deliver the optimal value and benefit information through Marketo to prospective customers at the right time in the right sequence. That’s powerful differentiation and why solutions like Marketo are important.

What can other industries learn from the open source community?

There is much to learn from the companies we interviewed. The primary benefits of commercial open source are high adoption rates, passionate communities and the crowd sourcing of code and product extensions. Let me offer a few best practices;

First, since the commercial open source business model offers lower barriers to entry to using and evaluating products, consider offering a limited, free offering that provides enough value to be useful, but is not mission critical to your prospect’s business.

Second, become your industry’s knowledge leader. Blog, create videos, and host webinars about the industry as well as how your solution addresses business pain. The industry angle will attract prospects to your web site that normally wouldn’t visit.

Lastly, become more transparent. Counter-intuitive to most organizations, but open source has taught us that by providing open user forums, bug tracking and roadmaps, prospective customers enthusiastically respond. In fact, the more transparent the company, the easier a customer can self select your solution on their terms and within their own timeframe. Benefits include shortened sales cycles and a dramatic reduction in cost of sales.

Creating a New Customer Every Few Days – Marketo’s Secret Sauce to Sales Success

2009-11-10T13:20:13-08:00

Last week I helped moderate the webinar, Marketo’s Secret Sauce for Sales Success. It is a sequel to one of Marketo’s most popular webinars. The Secret Sauce to Demand Generation, given by Jon Miller, VP of Marketing at Marketo about how we generate leads and nurture them through the buying process. This webinar has had hundreds of views and shares the exact reports, plans, and scoring that Marketo uses to prepare leads for our sales team. This new webinar was created to show what happens to these leads once they are passed to sales.

But why would anyone even care about Marketo’s sales process? As a part of the Marketo team I sometimes take for granted the amazing accomplishments of sales over the past 2 years. Just today we announced 300+ customers and 328% Q3 revenue growth. While closed deals and sales success seem part of the norm here, it’s because of the structure built around the process and the cohesiveness between sales and marketing.

Specifically, the Secret Sauce for Sales Success is an hour long webinar used to discuss the sales process Marketo’s Bill Binch, VP of Sales and Customer Success at Marketo, has created for Marketo, including information about:

How Marketo uses Sales 2.0 techniques to fuel their revenue growth
How Marketo handles sales opportunities, lead follow-up and recycling
How Marketo uses Sales Insight to accelerate the sales cycle
What sales metrics Marketo tracks and why

And on the call, Bill was joined by Anneke Seley, CEO of Phone Works and author of the popular book, Sales 2.0: Improve Business Results Using Innovative Sales Practices and Technology. Anneke asks hard questions about what happens when a lead isn’t followed up with properly and what happens when leads aren’t ready to buy.

My favorite part of the webinar was the Q&A where Bill and Anneke fielded about 10 questions from other sales managers including how we compensate our sales people, how to sell a more social selling structure into your organization, and how to infuse sales 2.0 into a sales process.

I not only recommend this webinar for Sales Managers, but also strongly urge Marketing Managers to check out this recording. By working with your sales team to create a true Sales 2.0 revenue process you will not only be improving the success of your programs, but also will gain better insight into where Marketing has made great contributions.

5 Reasons Dreamforce Is a Must-Attend Sales and Marketing Event For B2B Marketers

2009-11-06T00:00:46-08:00

Are you ready to improve sales, maximize marketing efforts and collaborate with 12,000 customers, partners and employees?

Attend Dreamforce Global Gathering 2009, one of the year’s premier sales and marketing events, to gain proven best practices, how-tos and practical training on the latest Cloud Computing solutions. Held Nov. 17-20 in San Francisco, Dreamforce will teach attendees to use Cloud Computing solutions to maximize results and lower costs through lead generation, marketing automation and landing page optimization.

If you still aren’t convinced, consider the top 5 reasons why Dreamforce is the ideal sales and marketing event for B2B marketers:

Learn to maximize lead generation success. Attendees of the sales and marketing event can gain best practices for improving lead generation, campaign management and other overall marketing processes—from very basic concepts to the most advanced implementations. Join Marketo Vice President of Marketing Jon Miller at 3:30 pm on Wed., Nov. 18 for “Using Lead Nurturing and Scoring to Deliver More and Higher-Quality Sales Leads.”

Gain tips and tools for web site optimization. Learn to track web traffic and capture more leads through landing page optimization. Plus, find out how to take search marketing to the next level with advanced search engine marketing tips, landing page strategies and web analytics.

Discover how to maximize marketing ROI through automation. Discover how to communicate marketing analytics to improve team performance and keep your entire organization updated. In addition, receive hands-on training for building reports to capture marketing analytics.

Acquire best practices for achieving sales success. Attendees of the sales and marketing event can gain sales insight on better pipeline management, process management, and team collaboration. Plus, discover tips for dashboards, analytics, workflow and forecasting.

Connect with customers, partners and developers. Network with more than 12,000 business managers and executives from customer-facing departments; IT, operations and development organizations; and end users to GMs to C-level executives. This year’s conference features more activities, events and social networking opportunities than ever before—before, during, and after the conference.

Bonus reason: Marketo will be represented in full force. Join us at Dreamforce by:

Visiting us at Booth 1010 in the Expo Hall – stop by for a demo or to say hi!
Joining our customer roundtable session to hear Salesforce integration tips and tricks and meet your peers who are also using Marketo
Attending our Marketing Session:
Wednesday, November 18 at
3:30pm West Mezzanine 250
Using Lead Nurturing and Scoring
to Deliver More and
Higher-Quality Sales Leads

Be sure to follow us on Twitter for real-time updates. If you’re at the event and recognize one of us, don’t be shy – say hello.

Salesforce integration starts at Dreamforce – register today.

Marketing Features in Salesforce.com Winter 10

2009-11-03T23:59:33-08:00

Once again Salesforce.com has delivered a great set of new features for Marketers in the Winter 10 release. You will see that you are using the new release because your system will have a new image at the top left of your home page of a snowman with the number 10 in his hands. If you are still catching up from the last release check out this post on Marketing features from Salesforce.com Summer 09.

New Campaign Features:
Campaign Scoreboard is a new feature that provides two benefits- Campaign Summaries and Dynamic Campaign Viewing. The first, Campaign Summaries, allows users to summarize information for any fields you create so can view campaign results without leaving the campaign module. You will do this by creating campaign roll-up summary fields, but are limited to creating 5 per campaign.

The second, Dynamic Campaign Viewing, allows users to create custom fields on different record types. This means you can create campaign member record types and assign them using the Campaign Member Type field on new or existing campaigns. To use this, create different campaign record types for each of your different types of marketing programs, like email, webinars, direct mail, tradeshows, and website/landing pages. The Campaign Summaries will also benefit those using Dynamic Campaign Viewing because you can summarize campaign reports using campaign member type.

The new Campaign Assistant offers marketers the ability to upload 50,000 records at one time into a campaign, and can now map to custom campaign fields. In addition, you can now run campaign member workflows, triggers, and validation rules upon import of a campaign using the campaign member import and update wizards. You will also be able to run workflows, triggers, and validation rules for leads created via web-to-lead.

Updates to the currency field in campaigns will benefit orgs using multiple currencies. This is more relevant than ever since marketers may wish to use Salesforce.com to track events like seminars that may have a registration fee.

New Email Features include:

You can now choose if Salesforce will notify the sender when a mass email has sent.
The Mass Mail Merge Wizard has been updated so you don’t have to select records one page at a time. Instead, you can now select records and move to the next page to select more records without the previous page’s records being unselected.
The system now allows you to truncate email body text, body HTML, and attachments to 100,000 characters to allow Salesforce.com email services to accept larger emails.
There is improved bounce routing for email services since you can route error email messages to a specified email address instead of notifying the sender.

New Dashboard Features:
Salesforce dashboards are often used by marketers to share results with their organization. They are now improved with Dashboard Microscope. This new feature allows you to hover over a chart in the dashboard and see details without having to click through to the report. Additionally, you can now prevent small amounts of data from being grouped into an “Other” category at your discretion. Also, charts can now be combined so you can feature two different chart types on one chart, plus you can pick colors to make sure that certain chart elements are always the same color even on different charts.

New Social Media Features:
Promoted as part of the service cloud, the new Salesforce for Twitter application is a big win for marketers. Though this managed app takes a little time to install and customize, you will be able to search Tweets, bring them into you CRM, and then attach them to lead records, capturing both the Tweet and the Twitter name.

Finally, Force.com sites now have Google Analytics support which means you can use Google for web analytics without code.

Want to know more about this release and everything else Salesforce.com? Join Marketo at Dreamforce with a free keynote and expo pass. Just register using promo code Success to take advantage of this $200 offer. Plus, attend the Marketing Party of the Year being held on the evening of Thursday, November 19th at the prestigious St. Regis hotel just a block from the Moscone center in San Francisco. We look forward to seeing you at there!

25 Must-Read B2B Marketing Blog Posts

2009-11-02T06:49:00-08:00

Instead of scouring the web in search of the latest insight on B2B marketing tactics and trends, consult our list of 25 must-read B2B marketing posts. Find out what these influential marketing bloggers have to say about B2B social media, landing page optimization, search marketing, marketing ROI, and other B2B marketing techniques.

Tips on Using Twitter to Boost Your Marketing Efforts - Anything Goes Marketing blogger Chad Horenfeldt shares unique tips in this marketing post on how B2B marketers can take their Twitter efforts to the next level. Ideas revolve around perfecting the use of hash tags, pictures and surveys to maximize results.
Social Media and Content Discovery: A Growing Relationship - This Marketing Pilgrim blog post by Frank Reed offers insight on how the social web is changing the search engine-centric world, leveraging interesting new research from The Nielsen Group.
Getting the Best From On-Site Search on Your Website - B2B marketers understand the importance of lead generation, and a user-friendly, intuitive website is one significant part of that. In this marketing post on SEOmozBlog, Rob Ousbey provides tips for improving on-site search functionality to provide an enhanced user experience, such as using search behavior to guide site content and site structure.
20 Essential Blog Directories to Submit Your Blog To - Loren Baker's list of popular blog directories on Search Engine Journal provides a great starting point for acquiring valuable inbound links - particularly for B2B marketers new to blogging.
3 Principles of Effective Communication - In this ProBlogger post, Darren Rowse shares insight on the 3 things B2B marketers must do in order to communicate with customers: Give them a message, make them care and give them a way to remember it.
The #1 Conversation Killer in Your Copy (And How to Beat It) - Is there a breakdown in your lead nurturing process? Discover what makes your customers almost buy in this must-read marketing post from CopyBlogger writer Sonia Simone. Learn how to reduce your risk of customers turning away at the last minute.
Keep Moving Forward: Turn Defeat Into Victory - The next time you experience a setback in your marketing efforts - whether from a mistake or some other failure - put these tips from Marketing Profs Daily Fix blogger Paul Williams to practice.
A 100-Percent Guarantee For Social Media Success - In this short, to-the-point marketing post on Social Media Explorer, blogger Jason Falls offer the one key to ensure social media success. It's much simpler than you might think.
50 Content Ideas That Create Buzz - Rely on this tip list from ConversationAgent blogger Valeria Maltoni to make your content get read and get shared, including incorporating visual elements and writing something unexpected.
Online SEO Tools - The Ultimate Collection - Search Engine Journal blogger Ann Smarty reveals the most useful online SEO tools that are web-based and free. The marketing post includes backlink analyzing tools, keyword research tools, domain name tools and search-related tools.
Ten Tips for Writing a Blog Post - If you plan to launch a company blog, you won't want to miss these 10 blog writing tips from Darren Rowse in this classic ProBlogger post. Learn to write snappy headlines, effectively link to other posts and web pages, and successfully use keywords.
Recent Twitter Statistics - In this Social Media Marketing Blog post from Scott Monty, find some interesting analysis on the latest Twitter numbers from Pew Internet. Discover which demographic groups are Tweeting, including their education, age and income.
43 Web Design Mistakes You Should Avoid - You've likely seen countless lists of the 5 or 10 most common web design mistakes, but Daily Blog Tips blogger Daniel Scocco ups the ante by offering 43. The tips are both easy to understand and easy to implement for B2B marketers.
10 SEO Questions - In an effort to clear up common misconceptions regarding effective SEO, SEO by the Sea blogger Bill Slawski provides answers to 10 common questions in this marketing post. B2B marketers can leverage these insightful answers when justifying their own search marketing efforts.
How to Increase Your Blog Subscription Rate by 254% - CopyBlogger writer Willy Franzen provides some helpful hints on increasing blog subscriptions, including ensuring potential subscribers understand what it means to subscribe.
10 Steps to Help You Become a Social Media Ninja - Econsultancy Digital Marketing Blog writer Jake Hird puts a fun and unique spin on maximizing social media efforts in this post. Learn to approach the social web with agility, precision and stealth - just a ninja would.
Social Media: The Need for Measurement - Just like every other form of marketing, social media marketing must demonstrate value and be accountable as well. This SEOBook marketing post offers 7 useful ways to measure the success of social media efforts.
Writing Your Best PPC Ads - This SearchCowboys blog post by guest blogger Kate Morris offers best practices for identifying the most effective keywords, writing ad text to grab readers' attention and using dynamic keywords to increase click-through rates.
Get Your Link Building Requests Answered - Inbound links are a necessary and vital part of improving search rankings, but from achieving responses from link requests isn't always easy. Dream Systems Media Blog writer Mat Siltala relies on his experience - and the experience of several other SEO experts - to provide tips for overcoming the link building block.
7 Simple Steps for Decoding Website Analytics - Google Analytics provides a wealth of data for B2B marketers, but it can be difficult to know where to begin to uncover trends. This Search Engine Journal marketing post by Joanna Butler simplifies the process with tips that apply to Google Analytics as well as many other web analytics software.
30+ Principles to a Better Landing Page Design - This Landing Page Optimization blog post presents the essential elements to keep in mind when designing or optimizing a landing page, including knowing your visitors, choosing effective graphics and delivering a consistent message.
The SEM Toolbox: 79 Tools and Tips Every Search Marketer Must Have - In order for search efforts to be effective, you need the right tools for the job. SEO Contrarian blogger Ari Ozick provides no less than 79 tools and tips for B2B marketers engaging in search marketing, including backup tools, backlink discovery tools, link management tools and competitive research tools.
10 Reasons Why Journalists Will Write About Your Website - Discover how journalists search and what exactly they're looking for in this Linking Matters blog post by Ken McGaffin. Start maximizing publicity and media coverage for your company with these helpful tips.
Is Choosing Search Engines Over Users a Fatal Flaw in SEO? - It's a common question for many B2B marketers engaging in search, and this Search Engine Land post by Jill Whalen provides the answers.
Be Proactive With Your Reputation Management - This VerticalMeasures blog post shares tips and best practices for B2B marketers to proactively manage their corporate reputation by utilizing 16 different social media and listing sites.

What B2B marketing posts have you found interesting and useful?

Sales 2.0 and Social Media: Thought Leadership with Anneke Seley

2009-10-21T23:45:23-07:00

What can Sales 2.0 do to improve your sales success? Anneke Seley, Author and CEO, shares some of her thoughts about using social media in our newest B2B Marketing thought leader interview. Anneke was the twelfth employee at Oracle and the designer of OracleDirect, the company’s revolutionary inside sales operation. She is currently the CEO and founder of Phone Works, a sales strategy and implementation consultancy that has helped over 350 large and small businesses across industries increase sales productivity and results. Anneke is also the coauthor of a new book, Sales 2.0: Improve Business Results Using Innovative Sales Practices and Technology.

When we think of Sales 2.0 we often think about social media- but does it entail more than using Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn?

Sales 2.0 entails a lot more than using social media! It is a philosophy and approach to selling, not a technology. Sales 2.0 is a more effective and efficient way of selling for both the buyer and the seller that is enabled by technology. It requires re-thinking the sales process from the perspective of your customers, continually evolving and improving practices as your markets change, and recognizing that sales is a science as well as an art that can be measurable and predictable, with the help of technology. There are many powerful technologies that enable Sales 2.0 that can help sales people connect with and engage prospects and customers and increase productivity.

In what way has Sales 2.0 impacted the success of your company, Phone Works?

The sales community has responded enthusiastically to Sales 2.0 and the messages in my book, which has had a positive impact on Phone Works. Large and small companies across industries are asking for our help defining or assessing their overall sales models. This includes new approaches to sales strategy, people, process and technology that are resonating with customers and translating into increased revenue, shorter sales cycles, predictable business results, and happier customers. We are even working with several nonprofits, who are embracing a Sales 2.0 approach to fundraising, membership outreach and engagement.

What mistakes have you made or seen made by other sales professionals in social media?

The biggest mistake I see sales executives and reps make is to fear social media or dismiss it as a time waster. We can now point to many examples of social media contributing to a sales manager's monthly quota or filling the pipeline with qualified leads. We sales people are also susceptible to making the same mistakes in social media that we make face-to-face, on the phone, in e-mail, and any other communications: we talk before we listen. Users of social media are especially sensitive to this, so it's easy to to turn people off. Salespeople can avoid this common error by reading customers' posts and comments and understanding their perspective by asking questions before pitching products.

What are your thoughts on lead nurturing to help sales move leads through the sales funnel?

Lead nurturing is an important piece of the Sales 2.0 philosophy: sell in the way your customer wants to buy and develop strong, long-term relationships. That includes respecting their decision-making timeline and giving them time to understand your offering instead of forcing a sale because it's the end of your quarter. By putting lead nurturing programs in place, you also increase productivity by focusing sales on the highest-priority opportunities that are ready to buy now while insuring that the longer-term opportunities are not ignored.

Many sales professionals believe social media to be the responsibility of marketing and customer service. Do you agree or disagree, and why?

I believe that customers look to social media for an authentic, personal, real-time view of you and your company. That means that there is an opportunity for sales people - and others in departments such as product development - to connect to buyers in a new medium that is rapidly gaining in popularity. Why limit that potential competitive advantage in customer communications to a few functional areas, such as marketing and customer service? In Sales 2.0, departments across the company collaborate to give customers the most valuable, most responsive experience possible. The reward is customer retention, loyalty, and increased sales.

What are the new metrics that you think companies should be using to measure their sales programs now that so much business is occurring online?

Companies should be measuring quantity and quality of sales leads generated by medium - both traditional and social - and comparing results. This will help determine customer preferences and where future investments should be made. Also, as customers gravitate to online information sources rather than speaking with a sales person, it's important to measure their activities and engagement levels, so you know what they've looked at, downloaded or forwarded before the first person to person interaction. By tracking this "online body language", you can determine when to get a sales person involved and help prospects make a buying decision when they are ready.

What do you think will be some of the challenges and trends in sales for 2010?

Sales 2.0 continues to be a growing trend as we approach 2010. One challenge is keeping companies focused on implementing appropriate strategies, business practices and tools to measure success. Sales 2.0 technology can help, but requires a foundation of the right business approach, people, process, and supporting resources. Inside sales - sales teams that use the phone and Web to engage with and sell to customers - will also continue to grow in importance, as customers embrace new communications media, travel budgets shrink, and companies continue to focus on increasing sales productivity and effectiveness.

To learn more about Sales 2.0 and to hear from Anneke and Marketo about benchmarks and best practices to create a winning sales process join the upcoming webinar, The Secret Sauce for Sales Success on November 4th.

2010 Blueprint for B2B Demand Generation Success: Free Webinar with SiriusDecisions and the American Marketing Association

2009-10-19T11:31:35-07:00

Over a thousand B2B marketers registered to attend an October 13th webinar created to help marketers plan for 2010. This webinar, hosted by the American Marketing Association, featured Tony Jaros, VP of Research at SiriusDecisions, and Jon Miller, VP of Marketing at Marketo who together discussed five key planning assumptions in two key areas- reputation and demand generation. Specifically, the spoke about:

Five key planning assumptions across two macro functions – reputation and demand creation – that should drive b-to-b marketing planning for 2010
How budgets have changed over the past 12 months
Specific steps you can take to turn your leads into revenue faster than ever before
The SiriusDecisions Demand Waterfall, and the trends within it

During the webinar we learned that in 2010 we will see a shift in Marketing spend to continue, moving non-performing traditional media and advertising dollars to marketing automation, social media, and field marketing. A new focus for B2B marketers will be on campaign alignment, making sure organizations get the most out of every one of their campaigns by using social media, email marketing, events, and branding together to get the most impact. These interactions will not only be used to generate leads, but will be used to score and nurture leads as they move down the sales funnel. This team approach to moving prospects through the pipeline will not only help accelerate sales, but will continue to improve the relationship between marketing and sales.

Check out our webinar to learn more about 2010 demand generation planning and hear all the details including the recorded live Q&A session that answered questions from many marketers on the call.

A book’s worth of Search Marketing education in one half day event: The Current State of Search Advertising

2009-10-18T23:48:39-07:00

A few weeks ago at the Marketo User Summit I had the privilege of hearing from Andrew Spoeth, Marketo customer and Director of Marketing at the world’s leading B2B Search Marketing firm, Enquiro about an upcoming seminar on October 28th that is sure to be a must-attend event for marketing managers, directors, and VPs in the San Francisco Bay area.

Kicking off this half day event will be a keynote from Graham Mudd, Vice President of comScore Marketing Solutions about “The Current State of Search Advertising” along with insights from Search Marketing superstar and author of the new book, The BuyerSphere Project: How Business Buys from Business, Gord Hotchkiss. Following the keynote will be a panel discussion, small group tactical sessions, plus wrap-ups summarizing the book’s worth of learning.

An added benefit of the event will be the ability to network with other marketers and the speakers who will be at the event including those mentioned plus:

Patricia Neuray, Vice President National Sales, Business.com
Jon Miller, Vice President Marketing, Marketo
Matthias Blume, Chief Analytics Officer, Covario
Bill Barnes, Executive Vice President, Business Development, Enquiro Search Solutions

To ensure everyone can attend, Enquiro has made this event very low cost and have included breakfast and lunch as part of the program. Plus they have also included a digital copy of the recently released book, The BuyerSphere Project: How Business Buys from Business . And as a sponsor of the event, Marketo can help subsidize your tuition by offering $50 off the $199 price of the event if you click through on this link when you register. See you at this cool event!

Why Thought Leadership Is Your Most Valuable Asset

2009-10-14T12:57:25-07:00

As a B2B marketer, thought leadership is one of the most valuable assets your brand — or you — can attain.

In down economies, prospects conduct even more research leading up to the purchase. This means B2B marketing professionals must help educate prospects in the early stages of the buying cycle; doing this well can help frame their buying process and establish your brand as a trusted advisor that understands their problems and knows how to solve them. Therefore it's more vital than ever for your organization to be viewed as an industry leader and trusted resource for all key stakeholders: customers, media, analysts, investors and everyone in between.

Unfortunately thought leadership is not as easily quantifiable as other demand generation metrics like revenue, sales or leads. And investing in reputation building may not produce the same short-term, immediate effects of efforts such email marketing campaigns. But cultivating thought leadership can have a significant long-term payoff, as in time it elevates your brand at scale.

What are the qualities that define thought leaders? Thought leaders:

Develop relationships with customers, prospects and others by engaging them in non-sales, industry-relevant conversations.
Become the go-to source for research, insight and interpretation of the latest news and trends.
Gain trust among prospective customers so that when the time finally comes to purchase, customers turn to the thought leader organization.

Try incorporating some of these ideas in your B2B marketing efforts to build your organization's reputation:

Provide original research. Conduct a poll on your website, send out a survey to customers or perform a more in-depth study with the help of a third party. Whatever type of research you conduct, this information can be especially useful for media and industry analysts. And the more often your research is picked up by these sources, the more likely prospects will view you as a trusted source.
Use your company blog to provide insight. Every company is now a media company. And while networks like Twitter are all the buzz, the most flexible and ultimately valuable publishing tool remains a blog. For your blog to succeed at positioning your brand as a thought leader, you need to go beyond simply reporting and reacting. Include insightful commentary and analysis on industry trends, and start threads of original ideas. This will position you as a leader as opposed to a follower.
Be a solution for specific problems. If your finger is on the pulse of your industry, you'll understand clearly what the pain points are for prospects. Taking the time to articulate solutions to timely problems will position you as a trusted source. When you are able to solve specific problems that people in your industry are actively seeking solutions for, you'll be positioned well ahead of competitors.
Join the speaking circuit. From keynote speeches to panel discussions to breakout sessions, opportunities abound to provide insight for potential customers at industry events. Research the types of conferences, meetings and conventions that you prospects are likely to attend, and develop relationships with event organizers.

If you still aren't sold on the value of cultivating thought leadership, consider the indirect result of these measures. Done well, reputation-building efforts can:

Provide you with additional quality inbound links to your website
Increase higher-quality referral traffic
Elevate your brand to become referential

Plus, the more optimized content you produce in the form of whitepapers, blog posts and webinars, the higher your search rankings. What's not to like about that?

5 Ways B2B Marketing Professionals Can Leverage Social Media

2009-09-29T08:55:08-07:00

As I wrote way back in 2007, there are plenty of things wrong with social media for B2B marketing. But in that post I also alluded to the fact that there are plenty of things right.

Social media tools like Twitter and blogs (it's frequently forgotten blogs are social media) are becoming standard in the toolboxes of B2B marketers. But the truth is most marketers are not leveraging social media to full potential to create a brand, reputation and authority for themselves or their companies.

So, here are five key ways B2B marketing professionals can leverage social media.

1. Build a rock-solid reputation

Social media allows marketers to build a strong reputation by earning the trust of their peers and industry, 100% organically. Like many marketing tools, social media makes this possible, but not necessarily easy. With social media, you can build relationships and connections without the need to get past gatekeepers such as editors and traditional media.

The new gatekeepers are your peers, where trust is formed by the idea of social proofing. Social proofing, also known as informational social influence, is a psychological phenomenon that occurs in ambiguous situations when people do not have enough information to make opinions independently. Essentially we look for external clues about things like popularity, trust, etc. The web allows you to display earned social proofing publicly to help paint a picture of your positive reputation.

After reputation is successfully built through the use of social media, that reputation becomes a pull factor in attaining organic attention -- from media, from your industry or from prospects. And the best part is that it's possible for you to form our own reputation based on the merits you deem worthwhile.

Use social media to build the kind of reputation that resonates with prospects, and success will be a natural byproduct.

2. Nurture leads long-term with targeted, qualified prospects

Reading some pundits and blogs, you might be deluded into thinking that social media is a quick path to leads. But the truth is while you can create connections quickly with social communications tools, long-term lead nurturing is still a must to actually make sales.

It is not uncommon for a prospect to read a vendor's blog for 6 months or even longer before engaging that vendor, or for a lead to require seven or eight marketing touches before being sales ready. If you ignore the requirement to nurture leads, you're yielding this opportunity to more agile competitors who will scoop these savvy prospects out from under you.

3. Build a strong permission marketing asset like a trusted blog

Marketo's Modern B2B Marketing blog is read by an organically formed community of thousands of marketing professionals interested in the B2B space. (As of September 2009, we have more than 4,500 subscribers and 10,000 weekly visitors.) Subscribers have come to anticipate content aimed at helping them achieve success with everything from finding qualified sales leads to learning about demand generation and all things B2B. We've worked hard over the years to develop a voice in the industry and share tips, tools, and best practices with the marketing community as a whole. For it, we're rewarded with one of the most valuable assets any B2B marketer could ask for: an active, engaged audience.

4. Attract leads at scale once your brand 'tips' in the social web

People like Seth Godin and Chris Brogan have strong personal brands (in other words, they probably don't need my links). Their brands have "tipped" in the social web -- in other words they have become organically referential (thus my links). Marketers large and small reference these thought leaders on digital channels, at conferences, during networking events and when discussing top marketing practitioners. Both Seth and Chris get no shortage of book deals, speaking opportunities and consulting offers. And it's all inbound -- that is to say, their efforts are focused on getting found by potentials through inbound marketing. This is scalable, it delivers quality and it's authentic. Put your sharpest team members out there, and the same is possible for your brand.

5. Maximize the social and SEO synergy

Roughly one-third of all commercial searches on Google are B2B in nature, more than 50 percent of Google's target advertisers are B2B, and almost 38 percent of Yahoo's target advertisers are B2B. Clearly, SEO is essential for modern B2B marketers to succeed. And to not put the SEO and social media synergy to work for your brand is a mistake. Having an industry presence in the social web that delivers value, such as a blog, positions your company as a referential brand. And what does it mean to be referential on the web? It means you're going to consistently attract organic, editorially endorsed links: the lifeblood of the engines.