B2B marketers need a coherent approach to digital content .

Content has always been important to B2B, so why all of a sudden am I writing a blog post about it? For the simple reason that the business audience mindset has been shifting and digital content is the new brochure. 

Business customers are accessing more information online than ever before and using this to inform their buying decisions. Over 70% of B2B buyers use a search engine at the start of their buying process and 75% B2B prospects click on organic results.

·        You need to cater for the needs of a diverse audience

·       You need to be found where people are searching

·        You need to spread the gospel

·        People like to pass your content around & sometimes gossip

·        Poorly planned content campaigns can be costly

Your content needs to be methodically planned to cater for diverse needs. That requires a mind map of how the different content assets at your disposal can be used across digital channels, not just your website, to satisfy the needs of each person in the buying chain. 

Every buying decision has a number of critical stages; points where the process either breaks down or continues.  

Search is one way to put your content in front of B2B decision makers when they want it most. The challenge is to understand the techniques needed to:

a) Optimise your website technically to facilitate indexing/spidering by search engines e.g. dynamically generated sitemaps (XML and HTML).

b) Optimise your content to be visible for the most relevant search terms.

c) Analyse the impact of your SEO to determine how you can fine tune and improve.

The ability to reach a large audience cost effectively via direct digital marketing is in your hands.

One challenge is to ensure you have the content that addresses the likely questions that will be asked during the buying cycle.

This content can be made available on your website and distributed across other digital channels. If you do your keyword research and optimise the content accordingly, you can rapidly make this visible for relevant online searches.

Key thought: your content isn’t just web content and statics asset like a white paper; it’s also the words that your employees can speak and write. How are you maximising the value and impact of these assets?

Your competitors have access to all these tools too!

If you’re not on top of your content creation & distribution, you will lag behind. If you have a gap at any stage of your customers’ buying cycle, the competition could steal them from under your nose.  

There is a resource limitation and the need to prioritise. This is where web analytics, testing and optimisation come in. I always advocate measuring the impact of your content, which isn’t as daunting as it sounds.

Source : http://econsultancy.com/us/blog/7757-five-reasons-why-b2b-marketers-need-a-coherent-approach-to-digital-content

Companies must evolve with technology developing new services

Business marketers should expect practical growth, evolve with new technologies, and use data to drive business decisions. 

Companies should expect 3% to 5% annual growth over the next five years as the economy recovers strong companies will thrive, while weak companies grow weaker during the recovery. B-to-b marketers must evolve with the explosion of technology that is driving one-to-one customer relationships.

The Web allows small players to be hyper-targeted and focused. The market is moving to near-perfect information. We should focus on six things like product and service innovation; leveraging knowledge and content; providing consultative selling; leveraging integrated marketing tactics; using data to drive business decisions; and taking advantage of online marketing.

 Build new, unique and hard to find products. 

Collect data unique to your business and look at data to validate a hypothesis, but it will also tell you things you don't know that will lead to a new hypothesis.

 Source : http://www.dmnews.com/companies-must-evolve-with-technology-develop-new-services-meritdirect-co-op/article/207376/

SMO ideas for marketing

Viral videos : Television commercials adds to the marketing world as the preferred advertising method for Fortune 500 companies. Social media sites are slowly rendering these TV commercials obsolete as Internet video traffic grows. A new breed of advertising dubbed the viral video is giving brands exposure on video-sharing giant YouTube.

Facebook fan gating : Big brands are enticing their consumers by asking them to “Like” their pages to gain access to special content. For instance, Dr. Pepper’s Facebook page allows you to win free cases of the soft drink. Large brands are following up with custom games, apps and contests to keep people active on their page.

Crowdsourcing : If you have a brick-and-mortar business selling a product or service, your best bet is crowdsourcing. The catch is you provide a heavy discount in exchange for an abnormally large amount of new customers. The tradeoff is good enough that these sites are generating millions of dollars daily.

Twitter engagement :Think of your company on Twitter as a human entity. For the first time in history, companies are enabled to talk to their customers directly, quickly, and efficiently. The micro-blogging tool can gives businesses a voice to respond to customer inquiries.

Listening and monitoring : When a company is looking to break into the social media space, the easiest way to start is by listening.Traditional marketing is a one-way street where the business pushes a marketing message to the consumer. Social media has created a two-way street where consumers respond to the marketing messages. Businesses need to take an active role in participating in the conversation that ensues.

Source : http://www.digitaltrends.com/social-media/five-social-media-marketing-ideas-for-businesses/

Marketing Definitions for a job seeker.

College graduates go into the business world with lack of understanding of  the important facets that shape marketing today. Here are some marketing definitions for aspiring marketing professional.

 

1. SEO Services - Search engine optimization or SEO is the foundation of online marketing in the year 2011. It  is the studying of search engine algorithms to determine how to rank highly when people search specific keyword phrases.  The end goal is to get incoming leads and minimize the number of cold-calls that a firm has to make.

2. Landing Pages - Landing pages are separate pages on the website, constructed to highlight the keywords. Landing pages are a facet of marketing that the aspiring marketing professional will have to learn early, simply because being able to style a webpage, yet still keyword stuff it, takes a significant amount of skill.

3. Ezine websites - Ezine sites are article websites that cater to the nonprofessional writer and allow the general public to publish articles on topics of their choice. There are many advantageous reasons to write for these publications.  One main factor is to get a permanent backlink thereby ranking high in Google. 

4. Google Analytics - Google Analytics is a web-based software that tells the marketing professional, among many other things, how many visitors (both unique and returning) are coming to a particular website on any given day.  The program also covers the amount of time each visitor is staying on the website and the subsequent bounce rate of that particular site. Google Analytics will tell the viewer what keywords are most popular in leading to visits on the website, as well as what pages the visitor lands on, and which web pages are most popular. 

 5. Page Rank - Page Rank is a numeric value given by Google that aims to quantify how important a particular website is in the eyes of the search engine.  Page rank is judged on a number basis between 1 and 10, 10 being the highest and 1 being the lowest.

Source : http://www.businessinsider.com/5-marketing-definitions-every-young-job-seeker-should-know-2011-7

Strategies in Digital Marketing.

There is much help you can find for your digital marketing. In fact, many companies on the market have to meet the unique needs of today’s customers. There are companies that provide marketing services. There are also full service agencies, freelance companies and others. Digital Marketing includes Web development and strategy, email marketing, SEM, mobile marketing, online advertising, analytics and social media.

The agencies are usually small, contractors, or they use outsourcing of the service core groups for others. Some agencies collaborate with their internal teams, which means that every company, both pre-and disadvantages for their cost and quality of the work will have. For small business is always a third-party contractor are the transfer of knowledge and ideas can be less expensive, but the problem. Sometimes can the message transmissions are determined, and it could lead to problems at the end of the day. A large company can be even more expensive than a small company, so that if you just starting out and you are a simple business, you can benefit more from one of the services offered by these companies.

What kind of service do you need? An a-it-all company is a Jack-of-all-trades but a master of none of his location. You can put nothing too deep you everything but to even higher to be able to offer. It is therefore crucial that you know what you want. Unless you know you are what you need only your investments spread too thin, and does it not lead to anything of value to your needs. Therefore, you need to know your needs so that you not fall in the trap and just getting everything you think is necessary. A partner should have the Agency, which work on the road with you. You know exactly what you need and what you have to do for your website. Ask for advice before he any deals, so that you are protected at the end of the day.

Source : http://www.teenagecasketcompany.com/how-to-find-the-right-digital-marketing-agency/

Marketing of New Business.

Building a new business is like caring for a baby. Now it’s time to teach your baby to walk!. On Digital Marketing and what startups need to get right from the start. Its already mentioned that Once you have completed the initial steps in marketing your business online, it is time to get serious about the next two steps and make sure that your business has legs. The initial steps are:

• Website
• Search Engine Optimisation
• Pay Per Click Marketing

Further to being compelling to human audiences, your website content must be equally compelling to search engines.

Its appropriate content, combined with the other ranking factors, that will ensure that your website ranks highly in the Search engine results page.

Source : http://memeburn.com/2011/07/digital-marketing-next-steps-for-startups/

Basics of Marketing.

The core of marketing is to understand the customers' needs and develop a plan that meets those needs. Let's face it anyone that has a business has a wish to grow their business. The most effective way to grow and expand your business is by focusing on organic growth. By acquiring more customers you increase your customer base and your revenues then come from a larger base.

Small businesses typically have a limited marketing budget. It just means you have to think a little more creatively.

By the end of this series you'll have a clear idea of not only what marketing is and why you should do it, but you'll also be well on your way to creating your own marketing plan. With a plan in hand and a basic understanding you will have taken the risk out of where your putting those marketing dollars.

Marketing a service is different than advertising a product. There are certain things you need to consider and different steps you need to take in order to help the consumer feel comfortable. Learn what you what you need to do differently in order to market your service effectively.

Source :  http://marketing.about.com/od/marketingbasics/a/smmktgbasics.htm