A fair number of our B2B clients do pretty well on the basics of website content and email nurturing, but tend to fall down on the more in-depth kit that is needed to induce conversion, raise the degree of prospect engagement, and demonstrate thought leadership.

Exhibit A:  white papers.  No lie, they’re not easy to do;  so B2Bs have a tendency to…

• delay doing any for as long as possible;  then
• give the job to a volunteer, who will frequently be someone with a lot to say …but not necessarily the content your prospects most need to see.

In these cases, we generally recommend first developing… [Read more...]

It’s been quite awhile since we’ve been able to report some unabashedly good news like this, so here goes…

Nearly 40% of B2B marketers plan to increase spending next year!

Almost half plan to keep budgets flat, while just over 13% plan to cut them next year.  All this is according to BtoB’s “2010 Outlook: Marketing Priorities and Plans” report, which is based on an online survey of 376 marketers.

No surprise, the largest increases will be in… [Read more...]

It’s getting harder and harder to trip up our regular readers, who will probably suspect our title as presenting one of our frequent false choices.  More on that later on, but first…

After noting that short-form case studies – roughly a scant half-page, vs. the traditional 1-2 pages – are becoming ever more common on the Web, Michele Linn points out the advantages of each format in her post on Savvy B2B Marketing.   First, the short type (which Marketo refers to as their “Success Snapshots”): [Read more...]

Ran across an interesting post recently by Paul Boag (who runs a website-design house across the pond in the UK), titled “10 harsh truths about corporate websites”.  I thought it neatly summarized many of the pitfalls we see too many of our clients fall into.  His points are derived mostly from experience with very large organizations;  but most apply to some extent across the board, so we’ve picked out several to whet your appetite (advise clicking on over for the rest, it’ll be worth it)…

• Managing your website is a full-time job …and probably for more than one person.  Assigning someone to maintain even a smallish site alongside their “real” job is a one-way ticket to ruination of the site, and is simply incompatible with the central role of the website in today’s marketing.  You’re almost better off going without a site than having one that’s not properly resourced;  eventually, it will become apparent to your visitors (read prospects), and that will reflect negatively on… [Read more...]

Too many B2B marketers still think of thought leadership content mainly as something you put behind a landing-page registration form, hoping it will boost conversions.  So many think this way, in fact, that we posted a caution flag here in “Value of Thought-Leadership Offers (Not Just for Conversions Anymore)”.

Two of the non-conversion benefits of thought leadership content we mentioned in that piece were:

• positive impact on SEO/pagerank (hence more & better traffic), the result of more inbound links from opinion leaders referencing your content; and
• improved company image as your thought leaders become sought-after industry experts.

In a recent Marketo post, Jon Miller also emphasizes those benefits, and suggests several specific means of getting there… [Read more...]