How to keep your website’s content fresh
We hear this plaintive wail from clients all the time: “With everything else going on, how can we ever keep posting fresh content to our website?” Well, here’s a bit of tough love on this: keeping your website in tip-top shape is your job …not an interruption of it. If it’s hard for you to find time to generate fresh, relevant content for your site, then I’d respectfully suggest that your priorities are out of line with the fact that today’s website is central to every B2B’s marketing strategy, not some hobby off to the side like it may have… [more]
Writing for the Web – a refresher course
Though a bit of a dust-off from the files, Anne Stuart’s piece for Inc. on this evergreen subject has some timeless advice, well worth another read. Starting with the well-worn research that Web “readers” actually scan in a headlong rush, looking for specific items of interest, Anne encapsulates her recommended approach in “the three S’s”: Make it scannable. Place the most important information at the top of each document. Precede longer documents with brief executive summaries. Make liberal use of headlines, subheads, bullet points, “Q&A” format, bolding and color for emphasis. But avoid mixing too many fonts, or using underlining… [more]
Does Your Newsroom Really “Meet the Press” …and their Needs?
If your website is like that of most B2Bs, your “News” or “Press” section is somewhat of an afterthought. It’s like, “OK, finally we got all the important (product/service) content done; now what can we throw in under ‘News’ so we can get this puppy launched?” Too often, that ends up being simply an archive of moldy press releases and clippings. But in his excellent RainToday article, David Meerman Scott argues that your “News” area can – and should – be so much more. As for the “should”… marketers need only remind themselves that journalists are a relatively trusted voice… [more]
Does Your Company Stand Still? Neither Should Your Website.
Like every organism in nature, your company is constantly evolving: developing new products or services, addressing new markets, changing its image to the world (aka branding). That means that your website – as the company’s “front door” these days – absolutely must evolve to keep pace. Few things are more off-putting to prospects than learning that they just spent a lot of time researching an older version of your product: “Oh no, the latest doc on that is this pdf that we put together awhile back… I’ll email it to you, OK?” You can certainly forgive the prospect for thinking,… [more]
Practical Online Marketing Tips From MarketingSherpa’s Research
In his posting “What Works in B2B Technology Marketing”, Tom Pick over at WebMarketCentral had provided a nice summary of Marketing Sherpa’s free whitepaper, Business Technology Marketing Benchmark Guide 2007-08: Practical Data for B2B Software, Hardware & Services Marketers. (The whitepaper itself distills the complete Benchmark Guide, which is available for a fee at the SherpaStore.) As Tom says, truly experienced B2B IT marketers won’t find any shocking revelations here; but there are a few surprises, and the confirmatory data also make it well worth the read. We honed in on just three of Tom’s major takeaways…
Is Your Website Leaking Your Advertising Dollars Down the Drain?
You may have seen some of our postings summarizing industry forecasts for increasing industry online ad spending …recession or not. (See, for example, B2B Online Marketing Budgets Set to Rise Again in 2008 and Microsoft’s Yahoo Bid Reveals Confidence in Online Spending Growth.) Of course, “industry spending” is simply the summation of many decisions taken at companies much like yours. So if you’re in the majority that is continuing or increasing your online budget …well, we salute you and feel sure that you’re on the right track. However… it’s a very good time to ensure that your website is truly… [more]
Does Your Content Hit Your Prospect Where (S)he Lives?
Websites are by nature evolving beasts. Initially, it may be a struggle just to get enough solid content to fully describe your B2B’s offerings in a way that captivates your prospects (and gets sufficient attention from the search engines). Then you need to win the battle to keep it all fresh. Once that’s under control, you probably want to crank it up a notch. So you ensure that much of your content is truly educational, and that your site is helping to establish your firm – and its stars – as thought leaders. And you make sure that your site… [more]
White Papers or Webcasts? (Your Prospects’ Choice May Surprise You.)
If you’re like most B2B marketers, you probably would choose webcasts almost every time as the preferred means to influence your prospects; they’re visual and provide a richer, quasi-personal means of communicating your message to your prospects. Chances are, you do white papers – if at all – primarily because your competitors do, or as a means of giving your developers a place to expound on topics that you secretly believe only they really care about. Problem is, that perspective is not shared by the people you most want to influence; in fact, your prospects would choose white papers almost… [more]
Is Your B2B Website Educating? …or Simply Boasting?
We see so many websites that read much like print ads or brochures: going on and on about the virtues of the company and its products or services. Phrases like “leading”, “most flexible”, “best-performing”, “cutting edge”, “best practices” and other such superlatives appear to elbow each other for more and better page space. Not that there’s anything wrong with that …to an extent. After all, it’s your site; so you have every right – in fact, a responsibility – to present your firm and its offerings in their best possible light. And especially in those early days… if you don’t… [more]
Does Your Website Provide Content for All Stages of the Buying Cycle?
If it doesn’t, you’re in lots of company …but not necessarily good company. According to KnowledgeStorm and MarketingSherpa’s landmark Connecting through Content joint study of over 4,000 technology marketers and buyers, 61% of technology buyers say that they look for different content types, depending on where they are in a research-to-purchase cycle. Yet 62% of technology marketers say that they do not provide such stage-differentiated content! …although a bit less than half of those say they do plan to. At a macro level, this is a rather astonishing disconnect. At the level of your company, however, it may represent a… [more]
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