For nationwide campaigns, there is a little used Google Adwords report that provides amazing insight into the perfomance of your campaign by geographic region. This report allows you to drill down to metro areas and determine which areas are producing the most conversions and leads or sales. This is beneficial because it allows you to separate poor performing metro areas from the better performing areas, which should decrease your cost per click and your cost per conversion. This also gives you the information needed to setup campaigns by regions in which you know there is stronger performance.

The performance statistics available on these geographic reports include impressions, clicks, CTR, average CPC and cost. The report offers these attributes, Country/Territory, Region, Metro, City, Ad Distribution, Daily Budget, Ad Variation, Ad Group Status, Campaign Status and Ad Delivery Channel. Plus it can be broken out into Campaign or Ad Group level. The one negative is that this report only allows for a daily breakdown where it would also be useful to view the weekly or monthly data over a long period of time.

The best way to analyze the data is to download the information into Microosft Excel and set up a pivot table. This will allow you to analyze all of the available metrics by geographic area. If you are not familiar with how to use pivot table, here is a short, detailed tutorial. Using the Google Adwords Geographical Performance Report will allow you to quickly focus your campaigns into smaller campaigns that perform better and provide a higher ROI for your PPC spend.

With all the buzz regarding SEM and social media these days coupled with a bad economy, it's no wonder direct mail has been steadily declining in 2008 and 2009. Direct mail is a very expensive communication medium. The cost per contact is far more expensive than email marketing, social media or paid search. It also takes longer in most instances to see program results due to the complexity of creating and delivering these programs. Online marketing is much easier and more effective, right?

Well, it depends. SEM and social media are both great business tools to reach those actively pursuing information or business connections. But, these are not always the most successful media to reach decision makers and influencers. SEM for instance, is most effective when people become aware that they have a need for a product or service. They begin searching for solutions that fit their needs. In a B2B environment though, it’s unlikely the influencer or decision maker will conduct this research. They simply don’t have the time. There are exceptions of course; small businesses, car dealerships, etc. will have principals/owners who are researchers, influencers and decision makers because there are few other options. But for larger B2B organizations, decision makers and influencers rely on others to do the heavy research lifting.

A parallel challenge exists in social media.  If you talk to anyone vigorously marketing in social media, they’ll most likely tell you it requires a significant personal investment to be successful. Establishing industry credibility and expertise takes time. Those successful contend connecting with the decision makers and influencers isn’t necessarily difficult, getting them to listen and act when online, is. The benefits are great, but so are the contributions.

Most importantly, both of these marketing channels are initiated by the individual.  That is, you reach these people after they have made a decision to go online. Where SEM and social media ultimately fall short is communicating with prospects that had no intent of communicating with anyone, period.

That’s where direct mail comes in to play. Done right, direct mail — and to a lesser extent email marketing — modifies behavior in a recipient who had no clue you existed or that they needed your product or service prior to receiving your information. How? They respond because you introduced a problem they are faced with, and then described benefits or pain-points so clearly they are compelled to act because of your solution. And, you did so with little time commitment on their part.

Now, direct mail critics will say it’s great when you can get to decision makers and influencers but most of them have gatekeepers. They don’t read their mail/email, etc. All this is true but the key to a successful direct marketing campaign is realistic expectations and a solid contact strategy that revolves around list and offer.

In direct mail, everyone knows that 1% - 3% response rate is the norm. This may sound low but consider this (which is a very realistic scenario in B2B): say you have a list of 1,000 companies you are targeting and you are shooting for a 1% response rate with a $100K budget. This would yield 10 responses at $10K a piece, right? Several of these leads turn out to be lukewarm but one of them converts into a sale. Was it worth it? Yes, if the cost of the sale covered the $100K investment — which in our experience is completely viable. The response percentage is far less important that the conversion rate. Establishing appropriate expectations is critical in evaluating the success of any marketing channel.

A contact strategy around list and offer is the other critical component. Targeting the appropriate titles in a company is the first step in creating a successful contact strategy. In your approach, don’t try to avoid the gatekeepers if they exist; include them in the decision making process. You achieve this by marketing to them as well as the people they are protecting — decision makers and influencers. The second step is creating an offer specific to these titles so compelling, they feel a need to respond. Remember, you are modifying a behavior of someone who wasn’t aware they needed you moments earlier.

The third component to a solid contact strategy is messaging, which is also extremely important but subordinate to the former two. It doesn’t matter how good the messaging is, it will fail if it’s going to the wrong list. At that point, it’s nothing but a good message.

More to come in later blogs on how to create a solid contact strategy in B2B…..

There’s little doubt of Twitter’s value in consumer marketing. Leading brands like Starbucks, Whole Foods  and JetBlue are using Twitter as a two-way pipeline with hundreds of thousands of followers to burnish their brands, drive sales and build customer loyalty. When it comes to B2B marketing, however, the opportunities of Twitter still seem a little fuzzy for many in the business. But there’s away to look at Twitter that brings its value for B2B marketers into sharper focus:

Think of Twitter as the world’s largest, non-stop trade show.

Like a tradeshow, everyone who matters to your business will be there: your customers, your prospects, your competition, your distributors and partners, even industry institutions and regulatory bodies. So almost anything you’d do at a tradeshow, you can probably do on Twitter as well. Take an important product announcement, for instance.

A trade show is a great place to announce a breakthrough development – and then have personal conversations about it with the people it will impact most. Twitter’s broad potential reach and two-way dialog enables you to do this as well. Prize drawings and limited-time discounts are other trade show staples that work well on Twitter.

But as we all know, a trade show is as much a social event as a sales opportunity.

The sales power of trade shows is simple: knowing people personally is a huge advantage. While you can’t press the flesh in person on Twitter, its informal vibe is a natural for bond building. Just like the face-to-face conversations at a trade show, on Twitter, vacation destinations and the travails of your favorite team are mixed in with pitches for your products.  No other online channel can match Twitter’s ability to create personal connections.  

Will Twitter replace face-to-face relationships? Certainly not. But in this down economy many companies are slashing travel budgets. That, of course, means fewer trade shows. So the chances are good that many in your industry are going to consider Twitter as a cost-effective alternative for connecting one-to-one.

Twitter’s out of pocket costs are hardly worth mentioning. An account is free. However, to use Twitter successfully requires a coherent strategy and a disciplined commitment of time. While there is no one-size-fits-all formula for using Twitter, your company will need to make a significant time investment to build a critical mass of followers and maintain two-way communications. A word of warning: Using Twitter as an RSS feed for blasting one-way messages will produce few results. Like a pushy sales person in a trade show hospitality suite, overt hustling is not well received on Twitter.

What’s the right Twitter strategy for your company? You can experiment through trial and error – or consider a professional consultant. Either way, once you learn the language and the landscape of Twitter, the ways Twitter functions as a trade show will become much clearer. In fact, it’s likely the day will come (if it’s not already here) when your absence on Twitter will be as noticeable as your absence at a leading trade show.

The time has never been better for your B2B company to explore Twitter and other social media. 

As noted in my previous post, this week Starbucks launched its biggest promotional campaign ever to fend off McDonald’s after the burger giant encroached on Starbucks' turf and went to market with McCafe coffee beverages late last year.  In contrast to McDonald’s $100 million traditional media blitz, Starbucks countered with a promotional strategy with a significant social media component.

However, it seems social media can be a double-edged sword. Thanks to the reporting of blogger Simon Owens, we’ve learned Starbucks pulled the plug on the first phase of its social media efforts only hours after it began.

To kickoff its campaign, Starbucks asked fans to post photos of their recently-released billboards on Twitter. Activists eager to unionize Starbucks seized on the marketing initiative and hijacked the Twitter locations, posting photos accusing Starbucks of unfair labor practices and low pay for its employees. Starbucks stopped the campaign shortly thereafter, nullifying the attempt to multiply the effects of its print media spend by harnessing their social media fan base.  

Does this mean social media is too volatile a medium to be used effectively? The answer will depend on the company using it. Although Starbucks is widely regarded as a good corporate citizen for its green-friendly attitudes, clearly it was vulnerable to the union seeking to organize its employees.

We predicted this campaign would be one to watch. Interesting how quickly that prediction has borne fruit.

Stay tuned. We have not seen the end of this story.

Starbucks and McDonald’s, two iconic brands, have squared off for a showdown. Not only are the stakes exceptionally high, the battle pits two contrasting marketing styles as well.

The confrontation began when McDonalds introduced McCafé coffee drinks late last year backed by a spend of “more than $100 million on television, print, radio, billboard and Web ads” according to the NewYork Times. This shock and awe campaign of traditional media is reported to be the biggest product introduction for McDonald’s since the company launched its breakfast menu in the 1970s.

Eager to guard its turf from the old school Goliath, Starbucks has countered with its biggest marketing spend to date – although the coffee mavens will not disclose total dollars. In keeping with the offbeat style of its brand, the Starbucks campaign is a mix of social media supported by outdoor and print. Starbucks is banking on social media as the sling that lets them play David and slay the giant invading their territory. The centrifugal force behind their social media is considerable. The coffee retailer boasts a Facebookpagewith nearly 1.5 million fans and over 145,000 Twitter followers.

The Starbucks campaign began by asking customers to be the first to post photos of their newly-released billboards on Twitter. YouTube will be part of the mix as well. Videos of coffee experts touting Starbucks coffee are slated for release online instead of on the air. Another social media dimension will be a contest for Starbucks store employees to submit headlines for future ads. Starbucks hopes to mobilize its legions of fans and let them carry the brand banner.

Will this social media effort be enough to counter the traditional ad blitz by McDonald’s? “It’s the difference between launching with many millions of dollars versus millions of fans,” Starbucks vice president for brand, content and online, Chris Bruzzo told the New York Times.

This is shaping up to be a battle of biblical proportions – and you can bet many marketers will be keeping an eye on the outcome. Care to play soothsayer and predict who will win? Leave us a message. 

Social media is a medium still in it’s infancy, but undoubtedly will continue to grow and evolve as a platform that is heavily used for expression, information, and communication. This poses a challenge for businesses to determine how to effectively use social media and how to achieve the results they desire. The task can quickly become very overwhelming as there are many different networks to manage which all function a little differently. Here is a list of things to consider when developing your social media strategy so that you can be efficient from the outset and not spread your resources too thin by attempting to conquer too much. 

Things to consider when developing a Social media Strategy

1. Resources – One of the benefits of social media is the ease of use. Very little technical skill is required to get started in social media which contributes to it’s popularity. Many third party applications are available that make using social media even easier. The main resource that is required to participate in social media is people and time, which can be fairly expensive. The effective use of social media requires regular monitoring and engagement in the community and offering valuable information to others. Many businesses make the mistake of being too sales oriented in their social media efforts which is usually ineffective because it lacks an authenticity that is required for social media success. Social media is about developing trust within the community and indirectly increasing your business through those efforts which leads back to the need for people and time to make that happen. Social media is a significant time investment that should not be underestimated. If only 15-30 minutes per day are allocated to social media, that is simply not enough. Your company must commit the time necessary to adequately participate in social media. Only allowing for a small amount of time will be time wasted.
2. Expectations – Setting realistic expectations is probably one of the most difficult aspects of social media. Two questions that must be answered are 1) what your company hopes to achieve and 2) how long will it take to meet your expectations. A myth in social media has been created that causes people to believe that the results are immediate and the response is overwhelming. This is simply not the case. With consistent effort and a clear focus, social media can produce positive results, but if your efforts are concentrated into one hard week of work and waiting for the phone to ring, then you are probably wasting your time. That is similar to extreme dieting and simply is not an effective strategy. It must be clear to your leadership that social media efforts are a long term strategy and not a quick fix and also many times the results are not as tangible as other media.
3. Goals – Setting goals for social media can be difficult especially if your goals include lead generation. If goals are loosely defined by such things as “more exposure” or “increased fan base” then those are easier to obtain because they do not have hard numbers. When setting goals for your social media strategy some things that should be included are a defined increase in website traffic, a defined number of leads that should be produced, and a goal of revenue to generate. These metrics are important since resources will be allocated to social media, the ROI of these efforts must be compared to all other marketing efforts to determine future direction. Without clearly defining goals for you social media efforts, it will be difficult to assess how successful your efforts have been and if it is worth moving forward.
4. What networks to participate in – The short answer is all of them, but that is a little naïve and unrealistic depending on the resources you have available or are willing to invest. With finite resources as all businesses have, the decision must be made as to which network will give you the most return on your investment which as I discussed earlier, is not an easy metric to measure. The best guide should be determined by your targeted audience and which platform they participate in most heavily. For most B2B companies, this is going to be primarily Facebook, Linkedin and Youtube, with some usage of Twitter and Myspace. In B2C, all five are equally valuable. There are many other smaller networks that can be targeted that are more topic specific. A simple search on Google or Ning.com can identify many of them. So the challenge for business owners becomes how to effectively manage these networks and produce results that make their efforts beneficial. Starting with one or two networks and gaining momentum is your best bet.
5. Two way conversation – The ability to broadcast your message to a large number of people is an intriguing aspect of social media and when used properly can be very effective in reaching your target audience. This may include press releases, promotional offers, and just general information. The other aspect of social media is that it allows your audience to speak back to you and sometimes in unflattering ways. Just like every other medium where customers can voice their opinions, it is usually those that are the most unhappy that speak up. This requires the engagement of these people within the social media community and constant monitoring of those communities to identify when opinions need a response. The larger your company and your client base, most likely the more potential for these types of responses. When developing your business social media strategy, consider that there needs to be an understood company response to certain accusations as well as a focused message when using social media to obtain maximum benefit. If social media is not treated as a two-way conversation, you will have a hard time being effective.

The ROI for social media is still very sketchy for both B2C and B2B. There are very few reports from successful social media campaigns measured using tangible data. Success thus far has been measured in statements like “exposure” and “engagement” which are tough to measure and this identifies a lack of strategy and lack of numerical goal setting. Using the list outlined above when developing you social media strategy should lessen the learning curve and ensure that your efforts are aimed at the tasks that will produce the best results.

It has been a common belief that social networks were not a good place to advertise cost effectively for B2B marketers as most of the users were children or young adults and not decision makers for businesses. This has rapidly changed with the exlposive growth of Facebook and their self-service advertising platform that allows well-defined demographic targeting. In recent months, the laragest percentage growth for Facebook has been for adults 35 and older. This creates an amazing opportunity for B2B marketers to reach their target audience in a place where there are increasingly spending more of their time.    

 In order to take advantage of this growing user base, marketers most use the targeting features of the Facebook platform to narrow their audience and target those individuals that they deem a good prospect. As you can see in the picture below, there are 50.35 million Facebook users 18 and over in the United States. Since all of these users are not prospects for your products or services, you must narrow your target.

Unless you are just now emerging from the safe room you built in anticipation of the Y2K disaster, you know that the marketing budgets at many B2B companies have been severely slashed over the last twelve months. Any dollars marketing departments have left are being scrutinized like never before. At times like these, there’s a great temptation for marketing managers to choose media with the lowest possible cost per contact. However, while low-cost media will help make departmental numbers look good, the consequences to the long term health of these companies may be quite another story.

Let me give you an example. If a B2B company depends on persuading C-level executives to create new business opportunities, it would not be a wise choice to completely replace traditional channels like direct mail and trade shows with a lower cost-per-contact medium like e-mail. In most instances, cold-call e-mail marketing is so much less effective at reaching boardroom-level executives, the cost savings are an illusion. In other words, when you go fishing for marlin with a breadcrumb, it’s simply a waste of bread. And who has bread to spare these days?

The trend right now is to choose interactive channels because of their lower relative costs. Yet, in the rush to save dollars, we sometimes forget that some businesses are not managed by people who spend all day at a computer.  Contractors, independent truckers, gym owners, and hundreds of other business people spend most of their work time away from a monitor. Here again, digital media dollars may be a huge waste. 

Not to say low cost-per-contact integrated media is ineffective. Quite the contrary. E-mail and pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns have proven remarkably effective in generating solid B2B sales leads at astonishingly reasonable costs. But it’s important to realize that these channels are not suitable at every level of an enterprise—or for every type of business. 

So if you’re feeling the pressure to reduce your costs while reporting low-cost-per-contact numbers, check that bath water before you throw it out. There could be a million dollar baby in those suds. 

Video sites such as YouTube have long been viewed as sites that are only visited by viewers searching for dancing babies and singing cats, but with the growth trend in online video continuing to rise, it is very likely that your potential client is searching YouTube and other video sharing sites as well. Your challenge is will they find you?

Online video had a record month in December 2008, according to Comscore. In December alone, more than 14 billion videos were viewed online. By properly using video sharing websites, business-to-business marketers have an opportunity to strategically place well-crafted videos of their products and services directly in front of the potential client. It is a form of advertising that could potentially increase brand awareness for years to come as well as driving high quality visitors to your site.

The report states that the average video viewing time was 309 minutes per month. That's the average. Without viewing the raw data, it's likely many viewers have only watched a short amount of video. So in order to have averages as high as 309 minutes, there are some people viewing well over 500 minutes per month. That is a very serious engagement, definitely not to be overlooked.

If your company has not considered using online video as a part of your integrated marketing campaigns, you may be missing a huge opportunity.

To find out more, contact us for a free report: Online Video for B2B Marketers.

Organizations have been jumping on the “green” bandwagon for several years now. But how many of them have created a green marketing strategy based on sound and truthful policies? According to a December 8, 2008 article in BtoB Magazine, Green Pays, many companies are not only unsuccessful in developing and maintaining a sound green marketing strategy, they are also not completely truthful in their statements when presenting their green initiatives to the public. The article goes on to state how companies have fared by not having a sound strategy based on fact. “Greenwashing” is a topical term now used for companies who purport to be enviro-friendly but have little to back up their claims.

Companies engaging in so-called “greenwashing” can become targets of more than ridicule by environmentalists. They can run afoul of the law. Two years ago, the Canadian Nuclear Association learned the dangers of inappropriate green marketing. The organization was accused by Canadian religious, public health, renewable energy and environmental groups of false advertising when it began to use ads touting nuclear power as environmentally clean, reliable and affordable.In the U.S., the same real-world lesson plays out almost daily, said Dave Young, a partner in Washington, D.C.-based law firm Goodwin Procter. “From a legal perspective, if an advertiser isn’t up to speed on federal and state regulations, they can get into trouble,” he said.”There are rules in place so advertisers have to be careful.”

Other key points of the article:

·         Have your green efforts on your website and keep it current

·         Keep overgeneralizations out of copy

·         Keep the focus on the customers that benefit from being green

·         Use third party certifications to add credibility (Energy Star Efficient)

·         Use in-house legal counsel whenever possible

My advice…a message that is not genuine and relevant will most likely do more to hurt an organization that to simply stay silent until there is something relevant to say. However, don’t stay silent either. Come up with a good green marketing strategy based on relevant and accurate data and get it out to the proper channels. You’ll be rewarded for it. You can read more at:

http://www.btobonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081208/FREE/312089936/1109/FREE