Thursday, April 19, 2007
Optimizing B2B Leads: Deep Dive #3
Here's my third and final "deep dive" into the high points covered in a recent ClickZ article by Bryan Eisenberg.
The ClickZ article:
Optimizing B2B-Demand Generation
http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3625240
Here are Part 1 and Part 2 of this series of posts.
High Point: Set the bait.
Your incentive piece, or "digital morsel" as Eisenberg calls it, is the bait that generates the lead. It can be a white paper, podcast, mailed packet, or anything that your visitor will find valuable. Try different "bait" to optimize your offering. And even if it's "free," don't treat it as if it has no value.
Deep Dive: Give it away, give it away now.
In olden days, every company had its trade secrets. These were the little morsels of knowledge and experience that the company kept close to its corporate vest. Coca-Cola's formula is the ultimate trade secret, but in B2B companies, these would include business processes, best practices, and research.
In today's world, a company is not differentiated by keeping this information secret--but instead by its ability to churn out value continually. So these morsels of information are the bait that they need to share--openly--with their entire markets, on their web sites. B2Bs can't afford to fear sharing at least some of their good information. It does more good to use your "best kept secrets" on the front side of the sales cycle, to prove your worth and value, and to attract attention to your business.
The ClickZ article:
Optimizing B2B-Demand Generation
http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3625240
Here are Part 1 and Part 2 of this series of posts.
High Point: Set the bait.
Your incentive piece, or "digital morsel" as Eisenberg calls it, is the bait that generates the lead. It can be a white paper, podcast, mailed packet, or anything that your visitor will find valuable. Try different "bait" to optimize your offering. And even if it's "free," don't treat it as if it has no value.
Deep Dive: Give it away, give it away now.
In olden days, every company had its trade secrets. These were the little morsels of knowledge and experience that the company kept close to its corporate vest. Coca-Cola's formula is the ultimate trade secret, but in B2B companies, these would include business processes, best practices, and research.
In today's world, a company is not differentiated by keeping this information secret--but instead by its ability to churn out value continually. So these morsels of information are the bait that they need to share--openly--with their entire markets, on their web sites. B2Bs can't afford to fear sharing at least some of their good information. It does more good to use your "best kept secrets" on the front side of the sales cycle, to prove your worth and value, and to attract attention to your business.
Labels: business to business (B2B), lead generation
Tuesday, April 03, 2007
Poor Content = Big Time Wasted Search Marketing Dollars
By guest author Todd Miechiels, Internet Marketing Consultant
There’s a crisis out there in the internet marketing world, specifically in the area of search engine marketing (SEM). Companies everywhere are wanting to throw money at search engine optimization (SEO) and pay-per-click (PPC) advertising in hopes of getting their share of the new, less-costly-to-acquire customers that internet marketing has promised.
The truth is, without content—and I mean good content that clearly communicates, persuades, and inspires—a good amount of search marketing dollars are wasted. A lot of companies get lazy on the content development side, which turns a pretty low risk marketing channel into a pretty sure bust.
Why? Because search marketing—particularly PPC advertising—only accelerates and magnifies what's already true about your message, offer, content, creative, etc. From the ever-important tiny little Google PPC ad copy, straight through to the landing page copy, to the position paper you toiled over for so long…if the content isn't good, you'll know right away when you take a look at the basic analytics (you do have basic analytics in place, don’t you?) People won't click your ad, won't stay on your landing page, won't fill out the form. Or, even worse, a lot of people will get their hands on that piece of content you were never very pleased with in the first place.
The big problem is that most search agencies aren't going to try and convince you that you need better content (although the good ones will). And the webmaster trying to optimize your site isn’t likely to think about the strategic consequences of less-than-stellar content.
Search marketing has become ultra-competitive, and content is a big factor. It takes a steady release of good, relevant content—preferably the kind of content that will create a viral word-of-mouth effect—to help ensure a successful campaign. My advice to my clients who want to jump into search marketing? Make sure you've got some killer content!
There’s a crisis out there in the internet marketing world, specifically in the area of search engine marketing (SEM). Companies everywhere are wanting to throw money at search engine optimization (SEO) and pay-per-click (PPC) advertising in hopes of getting their share of the new, less-costly-to-acquire customers that internet marketing has promised.
The truth is, without content—and I mean good content that clearly communicates, persuades, and inspires—a good amount of search marketing dollars are wasted. A lot of companies get lazy on the content development side, which turns a pretty low risk marketing channel into a pretty sure bust.
Why? Because search marketing—particularly PPC advertising—only accelerates and magnifies what's already true about your message, offer, content, creative, etc. From the ever-important tiny little Google PPC ad copy, straight through to the landing page copy, to the position paper you toiled over for so long…if the content isn't good, you'll know right away when you take a look at the basic analytics (you do have basic analytics in place, don’t you?) People won't click your ad, won't stay on your landing page, won't fill out the form. Or, even worse, a lot of people will get their hands on that piece of content you were never very pleased with in the first place.
The big problem is that most search agencies aren't going to try and convince you that you need better content (although the good ones will). And the webmaster trying to optimize your site isn’t likely to think about the strategic consequences of less-than-stellar content.
Search marketing has become ultra-competitive, and content is a big factor. It takes a steady release of good, relevant content—preferably the kind of content that will create a viral word-of-mouth effect—to help ensure a successful campaign. My advice to my clients who want to jump into search marketing? Make sure you've got some killer content!
Labels: Search Engine Marketing
