Six related emails can be 400% better than one, says Sherpa

April 29, 2010 by ·

As we’ve said here before, we keep posting about email marketing because of its singular importance to our B2B clients …most of whom use it fairly heavily for lead nurturing (if not generation).

Say you have 5 or 6 relatively independent things you want to say about a certain topic, that would culminate in a particular offer.  Are you better off putting all those points into one email message, sort of blogpost-style? …or splitting them up into a series of 5 or 6 separate messages, sent over a period of time?  We’ve always suspected that [Read more...]

Filed Under: B2B Web Strategy, email ·

Small business doubled its social media use in 2009 – research

April 27, 2010 by · Leave a Comment

We recently ran across an interesting survey of 500 small business owners nationwide, conducted by Network Solutions, LLC and the University of Maryland’s Smith School of Business.

Of some 15 Internet marketing categories, there were no statistically significant changes from the prior year …except for the use of social media, which was up by 12%!

Of the 89 users of social media, 70% felt the medium met or exceeded their expectations for success.  Not surprisingly, [Read more...]

Filed Under: B2B Web Strategy, Social Media ·

Web marketing creates a new revenue engine for the new millenium

April 23, 2010 by · Leave a Comment

Along with many other observers, we’ve noted for some time how online vehicles are changing the shape of B2B marketing:  e.g., shifting budgets/spending from traditional to online modes and changing how and when B2Bs engage with their prospects.

But according to a dynamite post by Jon Miller over at Marketo, our thinking hasn’t gone nearly far enough.  In particular, we’ve all stopped short of recognizing the real seismic shift that’s underway… which is a completely new B2B revenue-generation model, replacing one that’s existed virtually unexamined since at least the dawn of assembly-line manufacturing.

That traditional revenue-generation model focused heavily on [Read more...]

Filed Under: B2B Web Strategy ·

How social media can improve B2B email marketing

April 20, 2010 by · Leave a Comment

When social media invaded the online marketing scene a couple of years ago, many observers predicted that it would spell the end for email marketing.

But not so, says MarketingSherpa’s 2010 Email Marketing Benchmark Report, which found that the only two marketing tactics to see an increased budget in 2009 were social media and email. And not so, says Ajay Goel, posting in iMediaConnection.  In fact, he sees the two channels becoming [Read more...]

Filed Under: B2B Web Strategy, email, Social Media ·

More best-practice pointers for effective B2B email marketing

April 15, 2010 by ·

Email is a favored B2B marketing tactic, relied upon by many of our clients.  For that reason, we try to track and pass along the latest expert thinking on the subject …for example, our recent post “7 tips for improving your email marketing effectiveness.”  Given the ever-increasing hazards of overflowing in-boxes and spam filtering, it seems we all have to keep working smarter just to maintain email’s usefulness.

So it was good to come across a recent set of email best-practice pointers from [Read more...]

Filed Under: B2B Web Strategy, email ·

Want leads for less? …use inbound marketing.

April 13, 2010 by · Leave a Comment

We’ve blogged before about inbound marketing – “pull” marketing tactics such as search, blog and social media – being the wave of the future in terms of how your B2B’s prospects want to work with you.

We’ve also been pretty sure it’s also less expensive… but now there’s proof, according to [Read more...]

Filed Under: B2B Web Strategy, Lead Generation ·

Deciding when your B2B should use SEO …or SMO …or PPC

April 8, 2010 by · Leave a Comment

We’ve blogged several times before on the perception that there’s some sort of forced choice between search engine optimization (SEO) and pay per click advertising (PPC) – see for example “Why do I need both SEO and PPC?” – and of course we’ve always debunked the premise, and have urged B2Bs to do both whenever possible.

But what if it’s just not possible? …like maybe in present times, of severely constrained marketing budgets for many?  Well, that’s when to turn to an outstanding post by Barry Bowman over at Search Engine Land.  Assuming you can’t do everything, Barry lays out the criteria for when you should be [Read more...]

Filed Under: B2B Web Strategy, Search Engine Marketing ·
« Older Posts