B2B Marketing Blog

Before the internet, marketing would “fish” for new customers much like deep sea fishing. Get out to the deep water, get the right bait for the fish you’re trying to catch set your line out and wait. You feel the rod jerk, set the hook and reel em’ in. As my grandfather would say, through billows of cigar smoke as I forlornly watched my still rod on his boat anchored off some shoal in Atlantic waters… “you need to have patience”.

The internet has now changed the game of fishing for customers from deep sea fishing to fly fishing in a mountain stream for willey cutthroat trout.

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Trade media has offset lost print ad revenue by offering advertisers more online opportunities including a growing number of sponsorships. One of the more popular offerings is “e-newsletter” sponsorships which target their circulation with guaranteed distribution numbers to advertisers. Typically the cost of these e-news letter sponsorships range between $2,500 to $6,000 or more depending on the size of the email blast and the profile of the audience. This cost is significantly higher than passive web advertising in the form of banner ads or print especially when considering the size of the “real-estate” the sponsor purchases in the email. (more…)

Web 2.0 isn’t a novelty for B2B marketers anymore. Your customers expect it. A study by Marketing Sherpa shows that in addition to search marketing (aka SEM, pay-per-click, PPC), search engine optimization (SEO) and natural search are also growing like crazy. This puts pressure on marketing departments to greatly improve their companies’ Web sites, making them two-way portals that encourage interaction and build relationships.

Blogs are also going strong. While attending a session on B2B blogs, I questioned blogs’ current popularity. Our agency had a blog 12 years ago that wasn’t all that successful. (Of course, the word “blog” didn’t even exist then.) Our Internet team answered in a single word: “technology.” Back then everyone had slow computers, slower transmission speeds and very little storage. Now it’s totally different. Lightning-quick technology makes video, interactive and just about anything else, instantaneous – including blogs.

In other words, even though we’ve been doing this “interactive” stuff for a long time, now it really works – and it’s not just for “computer nerds” and retailers selling to the Pepsi generation. It can work for you and your sales. Embrace the future and reap the rewards.

When our agency kicked off its blog last May, it seemed like anything and everything inspired me to blog. Current events, other blogs, articles and even just having conversations with my colleagues all made me feel like the forces of the universe were crying out for me to blog … and so I did my best to please them by participating on this blog and others. But for some reason, at the drop of a hat, I lost that momentum and electrifying urge to type away. I felt that way for several months. It begged me to wonder why I went from being so compelled to blog to feeling like there really wasn’t anything I had to say. And for people who know me… it’s very unusual for me to have nothing to say! Could it be bloggers fatigue? Nah. I think I’m too young for that … (more…)

“Signs Point to Yes”

Is widespread adoption of new media strategy and tactics really in the horizon for the B2B world? I don’t have a Magic 8-Ball anymore (I swear), but if I did … I’m pretty sure that the response I would see through its blue, bubbly liquid-filled peep hole would in fact be “Signs point to yes.” Why such the confidence? Well, I could easily make lists of reasons — but you are probably still caught-up on trying to figure out the fate of your own Magic 8-Ball, so I’ll stick to what peaked my interest today. (more…)

Yahoo’s stock jumped 50% on Friday’s announcement that Microsoft has made a 41 billion dollar offer on the number two search engine. That is great news if you have your money in Yahoo stock but don’t pull your marketing dollars out of Google just yet. Google is the number one search engine and even if Yahoo and MSN combined their total search traffic they would still be a distant second. (more…)

According to BtoB’s “2008 Marketing Priorities and Plans” survey, 60.1% of marketers plan to increase their overall marketing budgets next year… the biggest growth area??? Web site development… (more…)

When we first talked about initiating this blog, we discussed mandating staff participation, even specific procedures. We talked about the number of times each of us should post, whether material should be reviewed before posting, etc. Several of us argued that such requirements were counter intuitive to the blogging process. It would mean, we said, people would participate because they had to, not because they wanted to.

Thankfully, we created no formal procedures and a better blog is the result.

I mention this because I came across a (more…)

Will SEO finally put corporate marketing jargon to rest? Could public relations professionals be on the brink of securing universally clear and concise messaging at last?

The Web is an undeniable force when it comes to marketing, but this puts corporate jargon and marketing speak in quite a predicament. The vague terms and complex — yet meaningless — phrases that organization leaders have hidden behind for years to avoid establishing definitive messaging will not bid them well on the web. Although it may have never made good business sense to describe a product or service as an “innovative solution,” it may become a bit clearer to organizations when they realize that they aren’t making friends with search engines using such indirect and empty language. (more…)

Although I’m sure that the leadership of this PR agency trying to educate the world about the “Top 10 Lies a PR Firm Will Tell their Customers and Prospects” only had the best interest of others in mind when writing and distributing this press release, I’m curious to find out what they actually deemed to be newsworthy or, for a matter of fact, of any value at all. Or is that not a qualification for press releases distributed by their agency? If so, maybe they should add an 11th lie to their list, being “Yes! This would definitely make a good press release.” (more…)