What you don’t know about your online reputation could cost you

July 15, 2009 by · Leave a Comment

So you’ve just given a killer PowerPoint pitch to a terrific new prospect, and are just about to ask how many seats of your application they’ll sign up for today.  But suddenly a slightly-built guy at the far end of the table (and at the right hand of the top decision-maker) pipes up with:  “That’s all well and good, but on Ripoff Report your customer Ace Mechanix said that your kit presented “installation difficulties”, and – even after those were overcome – didn’t really live up to its claims in several areas.”  While racking your brain for some way to overcome this “objection” (and watching your 6-digit order and 5-digit commission fly out the window), you remember thinking “This is bizarre… we had no reason to think that Ace was anything but a happy customer.”

Welcome to what some would call the dark side of Web 2.0… the part where users or customers get to critique their vendors and have their comments essentially live forever.
The vendor in the vignette was actually victimized twice:  once by the user who trashed their wares on a public site without giving the vendor any prior hint of dissatisfaction or opportunity to correct (which, sadly, is not unusual customer behavior);  and once by their own folly, for being oblivious to what’s being said about them in cyberspace.

If your company has been in business long enough to ship product or service a client, chances are that it’s already been… [Read more...]

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

B2Bs are doing well managing their websites …or are they?

July 15, 2009 by · Leave a Comment

Along comes another in MarketingSherpa’s “Chart of the Week” series, this one the results of a rather interesting approach, methodologically speaking:  Sherpa asked not the B2B clients themselves, but the agencies and consulting firms who support them, to rate those clients on the job they’re doing with various aspects of website management (SEO, updating content, clarity of messaging, use of analytics, etc.).

The results are truly impressive:  it’s almost like today’s Little League, where everyone who shows up gets a trophy.  I mean, 76% doing an OK or better job of SEO??  In fact, they’re so impressive that one has to wonder a bit about the study;  is it possible that despite reassurances about confidentiality, agencies were concerned about giving “poor” grades to their clients?  In a posted comment, Scott LoSasso speculates that “…agencies involved and exposed to Sherpa are probably … more advanced on these measures than others”, which could skew the results due to unintended selection bias.

In another comment, Katherine Ventres Canipelli points out that “…the low performing activities [use of micro-sites; integration with CRM] are those most likely to be managed by the client enterprise, while the higher performance tasks are those for which marketing/interactive agencies likely have greater influence.”  Which leads us to wonder:  if – as Sherpa says, and we sincerely believe – “the role of a company’s website has been elevated from simply a spoke in the marketing mix wheel to the hub of the marketing strategy”, have our clients truly internalized that? …or are they only “committed” as far as their consultants or outsourced vendors can comfortably carry them?  If the latter, we as an industry still have more educating/evangelizing to do…

Filed Under: B2B Web Strategy, Online Marketing ·

Six essential social media platforms for small business

July 14, 2009 by · Leave a Comment

Which social media platforms should a small business establish a presence on? …Heather Lutze says there are six must-haves.

There’s much more in the way of rationale in Heather’s useful piece for Tech Journal – South, “Social media advertising strategy:  Six profiles you must have”;  but as a pithy summary, it may be impossible to beat the following capsule found on SmartBrief …so I’ve elected to just quote it here for you:

“Small businesses can start tackling social media by building six essential profiles, Heather Lutze writes.  LinkedIn connects you to associates, Facebook provides marketing, MySpace can be personalized, YouTube is the best place for viral campaigns, a blog boosts search engine rankings and Twitter lets you push your message out to other platforms.”  Neatly done, eh?

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

Cardinal sins of PPC campaigns

July 10, 2009 by · Leave a Comment

PPC is so easy to start that it’s also easy to do it wrong – or at least sub-optimally – and probably not even know it (kinda like how computers have enabled us all to screw things up much faster).  So it was good to see that search marketing guru Todd Miechiels has updated this evergreen topic in “7 Cardinal Sins of B2B Search Engine Marketing” (a 5-page pdf, and well worth a read) …to include such points as:

  • not having a clear, realistic goal
  • not having fundamental sales and marketing elements in place
  • not being diligent about testing and refining

Commenting on Todd’s piece for SherpaBlog, Sean Donahue adds an eighth sin:  neglecting your PPC landing pages.  As he points out, landing pages are the linchpin of any PPC campaign;  it’s where a click becomes a lead (or not).

To avoid this mistake, Sean suggests actually starting with the landing page and working backwards, focusing on the key elements that will drive your conversion rate.  With a good landing page in hand, it’s then easier to work back to the ads that will drive traffic to the page.  But going the usual way – spending all your energy on the ads, and treating the landing page as an afterthought – is responsible for way too many PPC “bridges to nowhere.”

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

Should you start a business blog? Well, sure; or maybe, not so fast!

July 9, 2009 by · Leave a Comment

It’s become almost an unquestioned article of faith;  your B2B needs to start using social media, and the first thing on that list is to start a blog for your business.

Well, maybe;  but maybe not, says Adam Sutton in a short post on the MarketingSherpa Blog.  Consider:

  • the benefits of your blog don’t start Day 1;  they build fairly glacially, post by post
  • your blog will have to establish itself “against” all the existing blogs in your space

A better approach may be to first engage heavily with the blogs in your space over a period of 6 months or so.  Post thoughtful, non-inflammatory comments to posts you had a strong reaction to, positive or negative;  email the author of a post you especially liked.  There is no shortage of good advice around cyberspace on how to (& not to) engage industry bloggers.

By the time you actually start your own blog, you may find that your “blogger outreach” has built you a receptive and respectful community of peers who will track your blog and perhaps reframe some of your posts on their blogs.  And bear in mind that, at least initially, their bullhorn is much louder than yours.

Filed Under: B2B Web Strategy, Blogs, Blogging, Online Marketing ·

For best SEO results, CMOs need to remain engaged

July 8, 2009 by · Leave a Comment

Here’s something I’ve noticed in a decade or so of managing and delivering search engine optimization (SEO) projects:  one of the biggest causes of poor SEO results is lack of engagement by top executives …and in particular, the top-ranking marketing execs who authorize the project, and therefore have the greatest stake in its success and the most to lose from its going off the rails.

But we see it time and time again… the CMO writes us a check and basically disappears, leaving the conduct of the project to eMagine and a marketing specialist or coordinator.

Now, we’re certainly OK with our client management’s right to delegate, and we enjoy some degree of project autonomy as much as anyone.  So just how does this become a problem?  Well… [Read more...]

Filed Under: B2B Web Strategy, Search Engine Marketing ·

Before worrying about its cost, know what makes a quality lead

July 8, 2009 by · Leave a Comment

In tight economic times, it’s often tempting for Marketing to step up its lead-generating efforts in an attempt to help the company and demonstrate its own value …too often in the process inundating Sales with low-quality leads that are never acted upon.  Another knee-jerk reaction is to focus on driving down cost-per-lead (again demonstrating to top management how it’s helping the company tighten its belt), while most likely driving down average lead quality in the process.

Both of these temptations should be avoided, posts Brian Carroll on his B2B LeadGen Blog.  In fact, Marketing and Sales need to collaborate and actually define what makes a good sales lead in your business.  Clearly, you’re better off with 10 quality leads out of a group of 20 responses than you are with 5 in a group of 50;  and the metric you really need is not the cost to get the 20 or 50, but the cost per each of the 5 or 10 leads that will be pursued …i.e., the cost-per-opportunity, or cost-per-lead-pursued by Sales.

Brian gives some good pointers for how to arrive at a working definition of a good sales lead in this post, and promises more to come;  we’ll stay tuned.

Filed Under: B2B Web Strategy, Lead Generation ·
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