In Search Engine Marketing, pragmatism is in short supply. And in B2B, realistic expectations and practical perspectives are more important than anywhere else.

With consumer widget-selling businesses, you can practically measure your ROI on a daily basis.
But in B2B, where complex (long) sales cycles prevail and quality outweighs quantity in terms of lead requirements, the need for patience is an understatement.

Todd Miechiels has compiled “The 7 Cardinal Sins of B2B Search Engine Marketing“. MarketingSherpa founder Anne Holland calls Todd “one of the rare search engine marketing experts who… truly focuses on the unusual needs of business-to-business marketers.” [Read more...]

The most important, yet most often neglected element of a B-to-B web site’s home page is its main “billboard” messaging. A user will decide whether to stay on a site or leave within 5 seconds.

While a typical site will serve multiple objectives (e-commerce, marketing, customer service, employee optimization/intranet, public relations, investor relations, channel partner relations), in most cases, the focus is on NEW LEADS AND PROSPECTS.

This being the case, we can never ASSUME a visitor knows exactly what it is the company offers, and why it’s beneficial for him or her to go deeper into the site.  A common argument (we don’t know why any marketer would argue proper site messaging) we hear is:   “Nobody who hits our site is going to need to be told what we do.  They wouldn’t be there if they didn’t know.  And if they DON’T know, they’re not our prospects anyway”.  Even if a user has sought you out in a search engine, or visited your site as a result of a marketing promotion, they STILL need a reminder UPON IMPACT that they have arrived at a site that might solve their business problem.

The prime real estate for site messaging is [Read more...]

We all know that…

• B-to-B buyers want web content specific to their industry
• B-to-B buyers want web content specific to their role in their organization
• Providing content to prospects based on where they are in the sales cycle will produce optimal results
• B-to-B buyers want web content that is delivered within the context of their problems (and appropriate solutions), but most feel that the content they’re receiving is far more company and product-centric

Most B-to-B marketers believe that their web marketing is fairly targeted. While most will admit that they could be doing a much better job, the notion that marketing should be focused and targeted is nothing new, right?

There’s a large gap between how decent of a job marketers believe they’re doing and how targeted their buyers actually feel that their content is.

So what’s the problem?
I’ve worked with hundreds of marketers over the years and there have been very few that… [Read more...]

Since mid-September of 2008, when the fall of Lehman Brothers kicked off the slew of doomsday headlines we’ve now all become accustomed to, most Americans have been given little reason to feel very positive about the economy, the stock market, their business or their jobs.

Well, do you believe that was over 6 months ago?? And now, after one of the best months in stock market history, there are a lot of reasons to believe that an economic rebound is on its way.

Look, I’m not claiming that the mess is even close to being cleaned up, or that the pain of those millions of Americans who have lost their jobs can be ignored … but hidden tightly between the lines by the viewership-starved major media outlets, lie a lot of positive news nuggets that offer hope and positivity. So, let’s turn off the news for a few weeks, ignore the negative headlines and take a few minutes to peruse some of these more optimistic items:

Manufacturing index rises more than expected

U.S. Feb. Pending Home Sales Up 2.1%, Trade Group Says

Consumers slightly more confident

U.S. consumer spending, sentiment edge up

U.S. home sales climb at fastest pace in 10 months

4.4 Million Jobs Created in January

Economic Data Looking Brighter as Fed Meets

Obama to announce steps to aid small businesses

Another Economist sees an end to recession

Some sectors still growing

Layoffs Are Cooling Down

Better Times for Real Estate Ahead

Evidence mounts that recession’s worst is behind us

Macy’s profit tops view

Home Depot results top estimates

And on a personal note, eMagine’s business has been stable and growing since the new year began. Sure, we felt the ripple effect in November and December that the entire country experienced, but it didn’t take long for our clients to get back to business and back to marketing.