Fast fixes for B2B marketing in a sour economy

August 21, 2008 by · Leave a Comment

These are somewhat scary times at some B2Bs.  Despite expert advice about becoming more aggressive in a downturn (some of it summarized in our posting “B2B Marketing in a Recession”), their top management is more inclined to be cutting marketing expense than approving increased spending.  Leads are harder to come by and taking noticeably longer to close.

All these things make it a good time to do something fairly uncommon in the headlong rush of better times, which is to take a critical look at your marketing and fix some of those deficiencies that [Read more...]

Filed Under: B2B Web Strategy, Online Marketing ·

Best of the social media sites for small B2Bs

August 14, 2008 by · Leave a Comment

“(OK, so you) walk into a coffee shop and notice one of your best customers sitting at a table with several people you don’t know.  You walk over to say ‘hi’ and your customer invites you to join them, and introduces you to the others.  They are talking about your industry, and you quickly realize that some of those you’ve just met are potential future customers.  How you handle the next step is crucial:  immediately launching into a sales pitch is likely to alienate the group.  On the other hand, displaying your industry knowledge and providing insightful input to the conversation will make those at the table want to learn more from you.

Social media and social networks are simply an online version of that table at the coffee shop. They give you the opportunity to [Read more...]

Filed Under: B2B Web Strategy, Online Marketing, Social Media, Traffic Generation ·

Search engine marketing: Don’t expect to be #1 by Monday!

August 7, 2008 by · Leave a Comment

We sometimes get a call from a frantic prospect who says something like “I absolutely have to rank Number 1 on ‘convertible frammis’ by Monday.”  Never mind that it’s Thursday afternoon, and that he means through organic search only …no PPC allowed.

We can only speculate as to what motivates a normally sane marketer to take on such a fool’s errand, though naturally a fit of sudden top-management interest/pressure springs to mind (think Dilbert).  Of course, we always do our best to help such people… although they rarely end up becoming clients, because their circumstances generally keep them from even hearing our message that [Read more...]

Filed Under: B2B Web Strategy, PPC, Search Engine Marketing, Traffic Generation ·