09 Aug |
Who’s Running Your Marketing? |
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It’s not uncommon to see newbie, tech-savvy, social marketers display their impatience with the “grey brigade”. It’s equally common to see experienced, mature heads shaking disapprovingly at Generation Y who are “still green behind their ears”. The challenge in many B2B marketing situations is that it’s either the ‘grey’ or the ‘green’ in a position of power and calling the shots. Now ideally, the two should blend well so that new age technologies can be optimally leveraged with the valuable mingling of experience. Corporate America is seeing the increasing surge of
Read more...22 Mar |
Social Media and B2B Lead Generation…A definite work in progress |
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- Take the statistics with a grain of salt A recent Survey by Hubspot, “The 2011 State of Inbound Marketing” offers statistics on the average cost per lead for Inbound vs. Outbound marketing in 2010-2011 for North American companies. With social media budgets increasing between 2010 and 2011, social media channels seem to surpass paid search for inbound marketing. eMarketer quotes this survey and opines that inbound leads via blogs and social media are the least expensive inbound leads (actually, they use the term “cheapest leads”!) I’d like to examine this statement –
Read more...15 Mar |
10 Reasons NOT TO Use Social Media |
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I can see some of you raise your eyebrows as you read the title of this blog post. When every individual and every business is deeply and passionately immersed in social media, what planet am I on? I’m coming from the opinion that unless your organization has mechanisms in place to generate ROI from your social media efforts, you would be wasting precious time and resources on it. Yes, there’s plenty of motivation (and inspiration) for engaging in social media. In recent posts I have been analyzing and commenting on the contributions that social media technologies and tools can make to
Read more...15 Feb |
Love Your Brand, Love Your Customer |
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…And love your watch! I do. I really love every watch I own. Each one is unique and has a special place in my life. So when I had issues with my brand new Moon Dust DNA from Romain Jerome, I was shocked and upset. Here’s what happened. I had just bought this RJ masterpiece from an authorized dealer before I went on a family vacation in December. Shortly thereafter I started having issues with the Power reserve. When you spend good money on a watch, you expect flawless performance! This snazzy little piece of art has authentic moon dust on the dial, the titanium and steel for the
Read more...09 Feb |
Social Media and Common Sense – How Common is it? |
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For social media to work in a B2B context we need total alignment of all go-to-market tactics. Unfortunately, the “experts” are looking at social media as a single focus tactic, despite the fact that it is an unproven replacement tactic. If the end game is to produce a sales ready lead or speed up the process to a sales ready lead then organizations ought to start thinking integration and alignment. What is happening to your increased web inquiries, landing page visits, etc. that are being generated by your Internet marketing and social media activities? I see this whole issue as a more
Read more...27 Jan |
The Ideal Demand Generation Personality Profile |
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The Ideal Demand Generation Personality Profile and How to Cultivate Having witnessed organizations burn up thousands upon thousands of precious dollars, I can’t help but analyze a lead generation failure when I see it. While the specifics vary in every case, there are certain common traits of a demand generation personality profile that create negative results. I talked about some of these in my last post on the types of demand generation personalities. Let’s look at some traits that you can consider imbibing to don the ideal demand generation personality profile…please feel free to
Read more...30 Dec |
A “Do Not Bug” Registry for Social Media? |
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My “Do Not Disturb” Sign on Social Media Even as I’m enjoying the holiday season, trying to catch up on my social life, sharing my niece, Stacey’s wonderful recipes with all of you, I find myself getting annoyed every now and then. It’s the whole “push” factor of social media that’s putting me off. So much so, that I’m contemplating starting a “Do Not Bug” registry for online social networks. I know; a few friends I talked to about this just accused me of being “anti-social”, but I’m not. Truly, I do understand the usefulness of social media, both from a
Read more...16 Nov |
The expanding social landscape – integral to lead generation? |
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Is Social Technology Integral to B2B Lead Generation? The scope of social technologies and their potential to help maximize B2B lead generation efforts is real and valid. But marketers must look beyond the eye-candy. Having a bunch of social media medals (logos and icons on your website) won’t do much for your sales team that’s out in the field trying to close the sale on a hot lead. But being active socially will definitely help establish greater credibility and increase visibility; both important factors that positively influence prospects about to make a purchase decision. It looks
Read more...09 Nov |
Is There More to Social Media than Meets the Eye? |
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Social Media and B2B Lead Generation In the spring this year, I wrote in one of my blog posts, that “social media is new and evolving”. That was in late April 2010. Today, in the fall of the same year, I have to say that social media has indeed evolved with great speed! This actually makes me want to caution marketers that social media isn’t like magic beans that will sprout into a lead generation beanstalk overnight. You still need a very strong foundation on which to build your demand generation efforts. Incorporating social tools and technologies into tried and tested target
Read more...30 Jun |
Customer Referrals Act as CRM Catalysts across Social Media |
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Nurture existing customers in CRM with social media to get repeat and referral business One happy customer is worth a hundred (or more) in your CRM system. Sounds like a cliché? Well, maybe; but it’s one of those eternal truths which, if you believe in and remember, will take you a long way down the road of successful customer relationship management. It’s easy to pour enthusiasm, effort, ideas (and money!) into B2B lead generation because there is that gleaming pot of gold to aim for – revenue and profits. But the repeat and referral business you can get from existing customers is
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