Start Increasing Your Revenue with Social Media

Inspired by Mike Stelzner’s post on his Writing White Papers blog and the positive comments on my comment, I thought I’d share on my blog how I’ve used social media to grow my business in 2008, particularly the past 3 months.

These tips work particularly well for solopreneurs and small businesses, but even the largest of companies can benefit from taking advantage of some of these tactics.

My Overall Approach to Using Social Media for Biz

The vast majority of the time, I keep my personal and professional online ‘personalities’ separate. My username for almost all of my online biz profiles is B2BMarketingPR or very similar variation like my Twitter name B2B_MarketingPR, so that followers can recognize me across all social media outlets. I use another username and separate profile for personal accounts. People interested in B2B marketing/PR want info from me directly related to that, they don’t care what I’m doing over the weekend. My friends/family aren’t into marketing, but do care what I’m doing over the weekend. Right now I only use Facebook for personal use, if use it for biz I’ll set up a separate profile.

Blog

Started this biz blog in Sept., (having great time doing it!) been great for SEO and driving traffic to my website, and sharing knowledge and resources with the community. More important, one client found me through Google via a blog post, and fellow copywriter that read my blog referred a client to me because they were too busy at the time.

LinkedIn

I have full profile including several endorsement quotes and links to my blog posts via WordPress application. Very picky re: who I connect with and send connection requests to. I send connect invites to B2B tech marketing/PR pros in my network (I did B2B tech MKT/PR in-house for many years before going solo so already had solid network) who could potentially use my services IF they accept consulting requests and I keep it light, not ‘hard sell’. Secured 2 clients by doing this, and another client found me on their own when searching LinkedIn.

Joined several groups and monitor discussions via email updates in case anyone requests copywriting help. Just yesterday I submitted links to a blog post of mine and an article I wrote to the ‘news’ section of the groups I’m in, already driving nice traffic to my blog and I’ve gotten 2 new email newsletter subscribers in less than 18 hours.

Occasionally answer questions posted to Answers section of LinkedIn, one of my answers resulted in me being quoted in an upcoming book on effectively working with clients. Didn’t know person was writing book when submitted answer, just good karma

I put a link to my LI profile on my website to encourage people to connect with me, and also include link in my email signature.

Twitter

Started using in Sept., have 300+ followers so far. I make a conscious effort to only tweet about my blog posts, articles, etc. 30% of time, 70% is sharing other people’s information I find really useful and think my followers would too. I don’t want to be the annoying person who only talks about themselves, doesn’t build trust and credibility.

Very selective about who I follow in order to only get info relevant to me and make Twitter manageable. I DON’T follow a bunch of people just to get them to check out my site or follow me back to increase my numbers.

Several followers regularly ‘re-tweet’ my tweets which helps drive traffic to my blog posts and free article downloads.

A follower who is the owner of a marketing agency in my area got in touch with me via Twitter and hired me for a project. I found a virtual assistant via Twitter who will be helping me with admin tasks I don’t have time for, helping me grow my biz.

I put Twitter button on my website which encourages people to follow me, and also include a link in my email signature.

StumbleUpon

Drives a ton of traffic to my blog and website, better quality than one might think at first. I’m ‘friends’ with 30+ people also into biz marketing, PR, SEO, social media who I send my stuff to give a ‘thumbs up’ (and they send me theirs in kind) which gets it viewed by more people. Have had one blogger link to a blog post of mine when found it via SU, which drove nice traffic to my blog and a few new RSS subscribers.

Commenting on Blogs

I selectively comment on blogs I follow, just like today’s comment on Mike Stelzner’s, making a conscious effort to give useful information, not selling my services. I’ve received nice site traffic from doing this (at least what can tell as most blog comments are ‘no follow’ links) and am not positive it was directly related but think I’ve gotten new newsletter and RSS subscribers from these efforts.

Squidoo

I made a lens re: B2B marketing, PR, social media, SEO on Squidoo which ranks highly on Google for some keywords. Link to my website on lens drives a bit of traffic, not much, but it’s highly targeted. No direct results yet but need to invest more time into lens as it’s not great.

Also using Technorati and delicious, but no results from those yet. I also did a search engine optimized press release on the Most Powerful Online Tool for Influencing B2B Technology Buyers free research report I wrote which got picked up by several blogs and MarketingVOX and MarketingCharts did articles which resulted in a prospective client contacting me.

I set aside 30 minutes - 1 hour a day to these efforts during work week, more on weekends.

I’d love to know how you’re growing your business with social media, please share your strategies and tips!

I attended a great event Tuesday on social media marketing strategies for B2B and B2G technology companies, hosted by Women In Technology, a Washington, D.C. association of women technology professionals. Although the event focused on tech, the strategies and principles shared can be used in any industry. Here are the slides from the presentation.

Although I didn’t expect many of the 80+ attendees to be active in social media, as the event was an overview not deep-dive, I was surprised to be the only one in the room that knew what Technorati is. Many of the people had never heard of Twitter, although I did speak with a few who recently began using Twitter for personal use and 1 using it for their company (Jen Krupey (Twitter name: @krupey) of Viget Labs (Twitter name: @viget), one of the event speakers). A few people using Facebook for personal use, but didn’t hear of anyone using it for business. Quite a few people interested in starting a blog for their company, but having a hard time justifying time and resources to executives since ROI can be difficult to measure. LinkedIn was also brought up, but the only people using it for marketing or business is recruiters. New LinkedIn applications may make it more effective for marketing purposes.

The panel of 4 speakers included Matt Goddard of R2integrated, Susan Kearney of Smith Gifford, Jen Krupey, Director Marketing Services for Viget Labs, and Brian Reed, CMO of Boxtone.

Quick overview of tips and insights:

• Marketing IS technology - think about how technology can make every marketing program more effective, efficient, or measurable
• The Web should be viewed by marketers as a buying engine for customers, not a selling engine for companies
• Figure out how your customers want to purchase and do it their way
• 3 parts of the digital ecosystem:
  • Engagement - the user experience
  • Distribution - the social media outlets used to provide user experience
  • Analytics - the technology/systems used to measure results
• Don’t fall into the “fad trap” - just because there are new technology-based marketing techniques doesn’t mean they are right for your business
• Measure real success (revenue, new customers), not the steps along the way (leads, mentions, etc.)
• Think of your website as a neighborhood or marketplace, make it vibrant and interactive
• It’s the content stupid… Good content distributed widely to the places your target audiences are already visiting is best, especially for up-and-coming companies
• Embrace two-way communication
• Start a lot of fires and see which ones burn - Don’t wait until you feel you’re a social media master before trying different avenues. Social media is ‘learn as you go’, as no way to tell what will be effective for you until you try it
• Don’t forget search engine optimization (SEO), but don’t rely on just SEO to drive people to your online materials. Must seek out where people already are online and meet them there.
• Adopt the mindset of a direct marketer - test, measure, lather, rinse, repeat
• Always be transparent. Don’t try to fool your audience, it will get ugly.

Jen Krupey has posted her presentation slides on the Viget Labs blog, including discussion of the “Motrin Moms”, a group of upset mothers commenting on and responding to an online video advertisement by pain reliever medicine brand Motrin via social media, particularly Twitter.

The speakers recommended the following books:

• Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies by Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff

• Guerilla Marketing with Technology: Unleashing the Full Potential of Your Small Business by Jay Conrad Levinson

• The New Rules of Marketing & PR: How to Use News Releases, Blogs, Podcasting, Viral Marketing & Online Media to Reach Buyers Directly by David Meerman Scott (I highly recommend this as well)

What social media strategies are working (or aren’t) for your company? Any advice or tips?

• a highly relevant topic

• terrific line-up of speakers

• finely tuned list of contacts in a very specific audience

• great email copywriting

• multiple emails deployed strategically over time

• a good amount of registrations

….but only 2 people actually listened in?

How do you increase actual webinar attendance vs. registrations?

Reminders

Outlook Calendar Appointment

In the webinar registration confirmation email or webpage, include a link to an Outlook appointment that registrants can quickly add to their calendars. Make sure you designate a reminder within the appointment so registrants will get an Outlook pop-up reminder 30 minutes, 15 minutes, 5 minutes or other time you decide prior to the start of the webinar.

It’s very helpful for registrants if you include the link to the webinar, any login/password information, and telephone dial-in instructions directly within the Outlook appointment so they don’t have to find the registration email buried in their inbox. Including a phone number or link to live chat for assistance with any problems registrants may have accessing the webinar is also a good idea.

Many people also use Google calendar, so including a link for a Google appointment may also be useful for registrants.

Some online event management software includes a feature to do this (something to look for when deciding which software solution to use), but if yours doesn’t, Chad Horenfeldt over at the Anything Goes Marketing blog created a document with step-by-step instructions on how to create an iCalendar appointment and include the link in your confirmation email or webpage.

Reinforce Webinar Value in Email 30 Minutes Before Start

Ever registered for a webinar, but when the event time came you’re buried in work and say to yourself “I don’t have time for this” and skip it?

Remember that your prospective customers have many things demanding their time and attention. In order to tear them away from those things, they need to know that the time spent with you will be worthwhile.

Reinforcing the value of the webinar - answering the all important “what’s in it for me?” - by sending a reminder email shortly before the start of the webinar can persuade more registrants to stop what they’re doing and attend. My suggestion is 30 minutes prior, as that gives registrants enough time to wrap up what they’re doing, go to the bathroom, get a drink, or whatever they need to do, but not so far ahead of time that they forget about it.

Again, include a link to the webinar and dial-in instructions in the email.

Create Pre-Webinar Excitement with Survey

Send registrants a brief email survey prior to the webinar asking what they feel is important in regards to the webinar topic, and what they most want information on. Listening to your audience’s needs not only makes the webinar content better, but helps them feel more engaged with the event and more willing to spend the time attending.

Give Compelling Reasons to Attend Live Event Instead of Viewing It Later

Most companies record their webinars and make them available on their websites for viewing after the event, or send registrants the presentation slides. It’s a very good idea to do this, but it can dissuade registrants from attending the live event. Why bother attending at the time of the event when they can just get the slides later and view it whenever they want?

Offer something only live attendees can take advantage of, such as

• live Q&A session with attendees submitting questions via chat feature or special phone number to call

• ask attendees questions about the topic during the webinar, and give prizes to first person to answer each question correctly via chat or other means

B2B marketing research firm Marketing Experiments uses a great tactic in their webinars on landing page optimization, pay-per-click advertising, and other marketing avenues. On the webinar registration confirmation page, they offer the opportunity to submit your materials for live review by several experts during the webinar and receive feedback that you can immediately employ afterwards.

It’s great information for all attendees, but if someone has submitted materials then you can bet they’ll be more likely to attend the live event and find out if their materials will be reviewed.

What techniques are you using to increase attendance?

By the time the U.S. Presidential election is over, the two candidates will collectively have spent close to a billion dollars on the largest, most complex political marketing and PR campaigns in history. Although most of us will never have the huge budgets and manpower behind these campaigns, here are six valuable tips business-to-business marketers can take away from the election campaigns that can be applied regardless of the size of your company or budget.

1) Find Smart, Trustworthy People to Advise and Help You

One of the first things McCain and Obama did when deciding to run for President, well before they announced themselves as candidates, was surround themselves with exceptionally talented, passionate people with proven track records of success in their respective areas (yes their choices of advisors is debatable, but the concept is solid).

If you’re like many marketers I know, you’re smart, talented, hard-working, and capable of forming effective marketing strategies and tactics and implementing them. But trying to do everything yourself (or not being able to rely on your colleagues or staff) means you’re making decisions in a vacuum, not necessarily based on the best knowledge or information available. An outside perspective can be very valuable in making decisions objectively. Also, being able to focus on your core responsibilities allows you to perform at your best, while other capable people handle other details.

Who can you turn to for help?

• Marketing/PR consultant

• Virtual assistant (to aid with administrative tasks and campaign details)

• Industry associations and interest groups such as MarketingSherpa, MarketingProfs, Business Marketing Association for third party research and professional opinions

• Partner with other companies and utilize their expertise

2) Multi-Channel Marketing/PR Strategy is Best

Most voters I know don’t just view, listen to, or read one source for information on who they’re going to vote for, and the Presidential campaigns certainly know this and take advantage of the available communications avenues: TV, radio, Internet, blogs and social media, telemarketing, direct mail, signs, bumper stickers, word-of-mouth, you name it.

You may be thinking, “If I had the huge budget that the candidates do, my company could do that too.” But it doesn’t have to take a huge amount of money to make multi-channel marketing effective for any business, and it’s necessary as your customers, just like when their ‘voter’ hat is on, gather information about solutions to their problems (i.e. what you’re selling) from many sources. Using a mix of traditional and online marketing and PR tactics ensures you’re reaching your key audiences.

However, it is possible to do too much marketing, which leads me to my next point….

3) Don’t Wear Out Your Audience

I live in Virginia, and if you’ve been watching the news you’ve maybe heard it’s one of the states both candidates most need the electoral votes from. For the past 3 months not a day has gone by that I haven’t received a direct mailer from one or both candidates (and local election candidates as well), much less seen them on TV, Internet, etc. At least 15 campaign volunteers have visited my door in the past 2 weeks alone, and the telemarketing calls are endless. I care deeply about the election and the future of my beloved country, but ENOUGH ALREADY!

Your customers and prospects will begin to feel this way if your company is over-marketing, particularly when it’s outbound marketing such as emails, phone calls, and direct mail. It’s been proven that it takes multiple encounters with your company and/or your products or services before someone purchases, but if you ‘interrupt’ your audience and demand their attention too often, you become like the boy who cried wolf and your audience will either ignore you or be irritated. When they are ready to buy those negative feelings may carry over and prevent them from contacting you, because they don’t want to be marketed to even more frequently if they do.

Some signs you’re over-marketing:

• High rate of recipients un-subscribing from your email campaigns
• Email recipients reporting your emails as SPAM (even if they opted-in to your list)
• Low rate of subscriptions to newsletters
• Telemarketing campaigns contact same people repeatedly in short timeframe

4) Embrace Social Media

Both candidates used social media marketing via Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, blogs and several other outlets to “reach younger voters,” but many older voters have also caught on to the value of social media to stay up to date on the candidates and campaigns.

Using social media for B2B marketing is valuable on its own (see my blog post re: use of industry peer blogs and RSS to influence B2B technology buyers), but using it to support your other marketing efforts makes it twice as effective. For example, if you’re launching a new product or service to a specific market, posting about the problem it solves on your blog, discussing it on other industry peer blogs, using videos on YouTube to demonstrate it, and using Twitter to drive like-minded followers to your blog or website are effective, low-cost avenues of promotion.

5) Face-to-Face is Effective and Valuable

There is a reason Obama and McCain spent so much time traveling the country to speak to groups in person and rally supporters – it works. Both candidates and their campaign advisors are well aware that trust is a big factor in deciding whom to vote for, and one of the most effective ways to gain and maintain trust is for voters to see them up close, to listen to them live, maybe shake their hand and have a brief word. Although the vast majority of people that go to campaign rallies and events are already supporters, they need to be reassured that their candidate will meet their needs once the candidate is in office. The actual number of voters who attend rallies is very small compared to the total number of voters registered, but the ‘hard core’ supporters are usually the most vocal and will carry the campaign message to others.

A similar scenario plays out in the business-to-business world. When comparing products and services of similar type and cost, people are much more likely to buy from (and continue to buy from) people they trust and like. The ability to meet your prospective and current customers in person at some point in the sales cycle and/or after the sale gives your company a big leg up in gaining and keeping their trust and confidence and subsequently a steady stream of repeat sales.

How do you meet your customers face-to-face without breaking the bank:

• Several regional or local events hosted by the sales team responsible for that territory, instead of one big annual event

• Attend industry conferences and events, you don’t have to sponsor it to enjoy the great networking benefits. Let your customers know what events you’ll be attending, they may be attending as well (via e-newsletter is good option). Gather those you meet and take them to dinner or drinks after the event is over for the day.

• Since your top 20% of customers normally produce 80% of your sales revenue, concentrate your efforts on them first before reaching out to meet with others

6) Help Your Supporters Help You

As I mentioned above, the biggest supporters of each candidate are the most likely to vocalize their support and actively campaign on their behalf. Each campaign has many regional and local offices, special websites, and a multitude of other tools used to ‘mobilize the troops’ and make it as easy as possible for supporters to use offline and online means of convincing others to vote for their candidate.

Does your company have particularly happy customers, partners, industry analysts, media, or other fans of your products or services? Make it as simple as possible for them to pass along your information to others, and most people are happy to do so.

Some simple ways to accomplish this:

• Post a ‘referral toolkit’ on your website, or better yet your customer intranet site if you have one. It can be as simple as a .zip file containing your company brochure, a couple of customer case studies, and a white paper or article. It enables supporters to easily email the information to others.

• Ensure you post a press kit to your website and send it (ask permission first) to industry analysts and media you know are fans

• Encourage your website and/or blog readers to share the information posted by using widgets that enable them to quickly share it with others via social media or email

• During a customer feedback survey, provide the option for them to write a brief testimonial quote (if they wish to be named)

• Include a ‘forward to a friend’ button in your e-newsletters and ask readers to pass it along to non-subscribers who may be interested

• Always give out 2-3 business cards to contacts you meet, one for them to keep and some to share

What marketing or PR lessons have you gleaned from the Presidential campaigns? I’d love to get your thoughts.

]]> http://www.marcomink.com/blog/2008/11/04/6-b2b-marketing-tips-courtesy-of-mccain-obama/feed/ http://www.marcomink.com/blog/2008/10/21/you-can%e2%80%99t-make-filet-mignon-out-of-ground-chuck-seo-copywriting-poor-conversion/ http://www.marcomink.com/blog/2008/10/21/you-can%e2%80%99t-make-filet-mignon-out-of-ground-chuck-seo-copywriting-poor-conversion/#comments Tue, 21 Oct 2008 04:44:46 +0000 Kim http://www.marcomink.com/blog/?p=187

You Can’t Make This Into Filet Mignon- Ditto for Your Website

Oh. My. Gosh. The writing on this website was terrible.

Run-on sentences galore. Rampant misuse of punctuation forced my eyes to pause after every third word. The same few words and phases repeated over and over. And what the heck does that paragraph even mean?

It was a case of SEO copywriting gone horribly wrong. No wonder the site wasn’t converting visitors into quality prospective customers. Once visitors got to the site, they couldn’t understand in 3-5 seconds why they should be there!

The person in charge of the poorly written website was a marketing director who had been charged by the V.P. of marketing with increasing the ranking of the site on Google to attract more visitors, which they thought would lead to increased volume of prospective customers. In an effort to save money, the

marketing director hired a cheap copywriter through eLance. In a case of ‘you get what you pay for’, the site was packed with keywords and vague, overblown copy but little else. When I asked why they accepted the copy, she said, “My boss thought that’s what SEO copywriting was supposed to look like.”

When I asked how I could help, she said, “Can you just tweak it a little so it sounds better and put in some keywords?”

As much as I wanted to say yes - no, I can’t. And that’s because you can’t take ground chuck and make it into filet mignon. Translation: If the copy is already bad, “tweaking” it won’t help. The only thing you can do is scrap it all and start over.

I understand why she was afraid of a total website re-write. The site was on the first page of Google for their keywords and driving OK traffic. Her first concern (which makes sense) was “if we change the site, what happens to our rankings?” But, getting rankings is just one piece of the search engine conversion pie. A top position means nothing if the website doesn’t drive high conversion metrics.

Wondering if your website falls into the “ground chuck” category? Here are some things to check:

• What do your site analytics say? Are people staying at your site, maybe going to several pages per visit – or leaving mere seconds after they arrive?

• Are your rankings OK, but your conversions are non-existent?

• Do you know deep down in your gut that the copy is bad? (It’s OK to admit it. We’ve all been there. The first step to recovery is admitting your problems.)

To eliminate your ground chuck status, your only help for salvation is action. There are ways to re-write the copy so the rankings aren’t ruined. In fact, that’s the easy part (more on that in a future post.) A smart copywriter can easily craft new copy that maintains your keyword positioning.

Will re-writing your copy be painful? A little. Yes, you will be spending time and money. But, like all things worth having, the pain is definitely worth it. Although a SEO copywriting overhaul sounds overwhelming, it will more than pay for itself in increased conversions. Besides, once you’re at the bottom the only place to go is up, so the sooner you take action, the sooner your visitors regard your website and company as “filet migon” and start asking how they can get some!

B2B Marketing Podcasts

10 Golden Rules Internet Marketing Podcast - Jay Berkowitz offers weekly tips for business owners about the leading internet marketing trends, including Web 2.0 and search engine marketing.

B2B Marketing Minute - Arketi Group covers business-to-business marketing news, ideas and best practices

The B2B Lead - Reachforce discusses B2B marketing and sales tips

B2B Lead Generation - Start With a Lead Show - Brian Carroll focuses on B2B lead generation and marketing for the complex sale

Buzz Marketing for Technology - Paul Dunay talks about innovative ideas to accelerate demand generation

Duct Tape Marketing Radio - John Jantsch discusses effective small business marketing

HubSpot TV - Karen Rubin and Mike Volpe at HubSpot host live Internet TV show discussing inbound marketing including SEO, blogging, social media, landing pages, lead generation and analytics

MarCom Strategist - Dianna Huff delivers news, riffs, and commentary on all things relating to B2B marketing communications

Marketing Edge - Albert Maruggi weaves 25 years of marketing and PR experience across business, technology and national public affairs in interviews with newsmakers, authors and business leaders

Marketing Online Live - Alex Mandossian and Paul Colligan share practical advice on how to get the best from Internet marketing

Marketing Over Coffee - Christopher Penn and John Wall cover both classic and new marketing

Modern B2B Marketing - Marketo’s latest thinking about B2B marketing, from best practices in search engine marketing to lead nurturing to marketing accountability

When do you listen to podcasts? Do you listen via your iPod (or other similar device), or via your computer? I like listening to podcasts on late Friday afternoons or weekends on my computer, to take a break while still doing something productive, and on my iPod in the car and while outside walking.

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is a Web feed format used to publish frequently updated information such as blog entries, news headlines, audio, and video in a standardized format. Website or blog visitors may subscribe to RSS feeds through a widget button on a site using Feedburner (recently acquired by Google) or other free service.

I found that 70% of B2B technology companies are not using RSS at all, and of the 30% that are using it, only 10% are using more than one feed in order to offer targeted information updates.

What’s the big deal about RSS? MarketingSherpa and KnowledgeStorm surveyed over 3,000 B2B technology decision makers, asking them “How important is RSS in helping you stay up-to-date on technology information?” 8% responded that it was a “necessity”, 24% responded that it was “important”, and 39% said it was “nice to have.”

While only 16% of the general public uses RSS feeds, 71% of technology buyers assign at least some value to their RSS use. By not offering this option, most B2B tech marketers are missing out on a valuable opportunity to influence this audience.

According to Rok Hrastnik, author of “Unleash the Marketing and Publishing Power of RSS,” the problem with most RSS marketing plans is that the marketer doesn’t go beyond providing a simple RSS feed for all of their online news or blog.

Marketers need to correctly plan their RSS marketing strategy, starting with deciding how RSS content will be delivered. Mr. Hrastnik recommends providing individual RSS feeds for:

- Individual target audiences

- Types of content

- Content topics

Want step-by-step instructions on how to best implement RSS? Get your free copy of my research report The Most Powerful Online Tool for Influencing B2B Technology Buyers

A KnowledgeStorm research report found that 53% of B2B technology buyers had already been influenced by blog content at least once when making purchase decisions.

Industry peer blogs differ from a vendor’s blog or industry analyst blog because the information and opinions offered are perceived as being from an independent source not influenced by any particular company or organization. Technology purchasers consider these blogs to be similar to word-of-mouth, with the blogger leading the discussions and other peers volunteering information and opinions on the topics.

Examples of popular technology industry peer blogs include TechCrunch and Scobleizer, but there are a variety of peer blogs discussing various B2B tech niches including Customer Relationship Management,Enterprise Resource Planning, Service-Oriented Architecture, Business Intelligence, and Software-as-a-Service.

Want to know how a B2B software company uses industry peer blogs to drive a 30% product trial conversion rate? Get your free copy (no registration needed) of the full research report: The Most Powerful Online Tool for Influencing B2B Technology Buyers

The Big Mistake 90% of Marketing Directors Make When Engaging Bloggers

A great way to use industry peer blogs to influence tech buyers is submitting a public comment on a particularly relevant post that all readers of the blog can view (comment settings are different for every blog, some require blogger approval before comment is public). Most blog systems enable you to enter your name, e-mail address, and website along with your comment, providing other readers (and the blogger) an opportunity to go to the website you entered. It’s a terrific opportunity to increase your credibility with your target audience while driving quality website traffic.

However, according to professional blogger Darren Rowse of the ProBlogging blog (#27 on Technorati’s
list of Top 100 blogs), many comments left on some blogs are for shameless self-promotion purposes only and aggravate both bloggers and readers, and many are made by marketing or sales personnel.

Instead of adding value to the ‘conversation’ and knowledge exchange, comments that blatantly have no other purpose than advertising only serve to ruin your credibility, brand image, and chances of having bloggers link to your website or blog.

Discover the Top 10 Blog Comment Sins and How to Avoid Them

In the short time I’ve been blogging, I’ve already seen the tremendous value in driving traffic to my blog by posting useful, actionable comments on industry peer blogs - I highly recommend it.

Ever wondered why you do the things you do, make the decisions you do, or why someone else behaves a certain way? Ever wanted to get inside the minds of your potential customers, partners, investors and other people important to your company and know their hidden fears and thoughts so you know how to overcome them?

If you’re a fan of Malcolm Gladwell’s book ‘Blink‘, you should check out ‘Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions‘ by Dan Ariely, a MIT professor and researcher who looks at behavioral science and sociology in terms of how it affects every part of our lives.

Knowing why people do what they do and how we’re all influenced by different mediums has always interested me, I think it’s part of what drew me to marketing and PR. Seeing test results of landing pages, headlines, etc. and seeing the big difference just one or two simple tweaks can make is fascinating to me and makes me want to dig deeper into WHY. During college I took an entire course in persuation theory, and it was a great class, but didn’t offer much in the way of practical, real-life examples that I could relate to.

Ariely has discovered in 20 years of researching behavioral economics that people tend to behave irrationally in a predictable fashion. Drawing on psychology and economics, behavioral economics can show us why patients get greater relief from a more expensive drug over its cheaper counterpart, why honest people may steal office supplies or communal food, but not money, why people trying to lose weight can’t pass by the dessert cart, and other “irrational” behavior.

According to Ariely, our understanding of economics, now based on the assumption of a rational subject, should instead be based on our systematic irrationality. Ariely argues that greater understanding of previously ignored or misunderstood forces (emotions, relativity and social norms) that influence our economic behavior opens opportunities for reexamining individual motivation and consumer choice.

I’m about 70% of the way through the book, and I’m already forming ideas for how to apply what I’m learning to my business and my clients’.

As someone who has been on both the in-house corporate client side and the independent creative contractor side of marketing projects, this really hit home for me.

Pictures Say 1,000 Words - Make Them Relevant

If you’ve been on a business-to-business company website or read a brochure, white paper or other collateral lately, you’ve seen them. The stock photos of good-looking, smiling people (both genders and multiple ethnic groups represented of course) dressed in suits in some kind of office environment or in front of a white background.

Although I don’t claim to be a master graphic or website designer, I do know irrelevance when I see it. What purpose do these images have, other than adding a visual element to break up the text? In fact, these types of images are detrimental in that they make a company’s marketing completely unremarkable and they blend in with their competitors.

Pictures are worth 1,000 words, arguably more in marketing, where you have about 3 seconds to capture your audience’s attention. Making the images in your marketing relevant to the information being presented and engaging to your target reader is imperative if you want to clearly communicate with and persuade them.

Explain your Product or Service Visually to Reinforce the Key Points

I’ve found graphical explanations of products and services to be effective, for example the image below used in a case study I did for a software company. The image quickly communicates the message on the page and resonated well with the non-technical purchase decision makers the case study was intended for based on feedback from the company’s sales team.

Thumbnail Images Work Great on Landing Pages

For landing pages promoting a white paper or other marketing collateral for download, thumbnail images of the document quickly let the visitor know what the page is about and intrigue them by offering a ’sneak peek’ at the contents. I used a thumbnail image (created with Adobe Photoshop) of a white paper written for a software client on a landing page I did for them. After doing A/B testing of two versions of the landing page in which we tested which image worked better, the image below was the winner.

I’m not saying don’t use stock images. There are many terrific ways to use graphics and imagery available on sites like iStockPhoto.com to get your message across in a meaningful and interesting way. I use stock photos (see the goldfish on my website home page Flash for instance), but always choose unique images that directly reinforce the messaging in the written copy.

With so many creative visual ways to express your message, resist the urge to play it safe with standard images. Your sales team will thank you when the leads start rolling in

Consistently Valuable Information = Loyal Subscribers

For most B2B companies email newsletters are an extremely effective vehicle for building prospect and customer relationships, establishing thought leadership, and generating leads. Achieving these goals, however, requires that these newsletters contain valuable content for your readers, or your clients, partners and prospects will simply stop reading your newsletter.

Most B2B newsletter subscribers opt-in looking for best practices, tips, trends, news, and a viewpoint, and do not want to be overwhelmed with marketing/sales messages. The objective of your newsletter is to establish or enhance a relationship based on trusted content. This content then drives readers to your Web site where they take a desired action – register for demo, call a sales person, download whitepapers and in some way move the prospect or customer to the next level of the relationship.

To ensure that your B2B newsletter continuously delivers value, consider the following 20 tips for better approaches to format and content.

1. Opt-In Page Expectations — An effective content strategy starts with your opt-in process. Be certain you manage subscriber expectations at the start. Describe in a sentence or two the type of content your newsletter contains and the value it will deliver readers. Also provide a link to back issues so that prospective subscribers can see exactly what to expect.
2. Identify and Stick to an Editorial Focus — Your recipients only have room for a limited number of newsletters on their list of “must read” newsletters. Identify the core focus of your newsletter, establish an editorial approach and then stick to it.
3. Establish Regular Columns and Features — A key to sustaining ongoing value is to institute recurring columns and topic features. Subscribers will know what to expect and it also allows you to plan and focus the content and develop a real position and expectation in recipients’ minds.
4. Table of Contents — If you have more than two articles include an “In This Issue” section at the top of your newsletter. Give them a quick sense of what the articles are about and provide a link down to each article within the newsletter.
5. Use Short Teaser Articles — For articles longer than three or four paragraphs, use short “teaser” introductions that whet your reader’s appetite and motivate them to click through to the entire article posted on your Web site. This makes it easy for readers to determine their interest in the topic and enables you to track which articles and topics are of most interest.
6. Sidebars — Use sidebar boxes and columns for promotional and supporting information that is not the primary focus of the newsletter. This includes company and new product information, news, events, resource links, brochure links, etc. This enables the reader to easily find this information while clearly separating it in their mind from the primary editorial value of the newsletter articles.
7. Have a Personality — Just because you are producing a corporate newsletter doesn’t mean it can’t have a personality. You want the reader to have a sense that there are humans on the other end of the newsletter. Establish someone as the editorial face of the newsletter and don’t be afraid to have them interject some humor and personal flavor. Humor can be great, but be careful not to offend.
8. Tips and Best Practices — In my experience B2B readers love “tips” and can’t get enough of them. (This article is no exception!) No matter what profession, workers are always interested in practical ideas and best practices they can put to use. Consider including a Quick Tip feature and focusing some of your articles around actionable tips.
9. Benchmarking and Statistics — Your customers and prospects are keenly interested in how they are doing compared to other companies. Providing benchmarking information and industry statistics will keep readers coming back for more each month.
10. FAQ/Ask The Expert — Columns devoted to answering questions are a great way to generate reader interest and feedback, while simultaneously enabling your company to establish its expertise in particular areas.
11. Case Studies — Customer case studies are always of interest to readers. They provide practical examples of success stories and strategies, and enable you to convey your company’s value proposition.
12. Use Click-Through Stats to Refine Editorial Focus — Continuously monitor which columns and type of articles are driving the most clicks. Use this information to refine both topics and editorial style.
13. Monitor Web Analytics — Check your Web site log files on occasion to determine which articles and content on your site are most visited. Use this information as key input into your editorial focus.
14. Reader Surveys — Consider conducting reader surveys a few times a year. An annual survey can uncover changing needs and interests among your readers. Additional reader surveys can be conducted on specific topics on which the results form the basis of future articles.
15. Ask Sales and Support — Other employees are great sources of ideas for content. Sales and support staff in particular can have great insights as they are dealing directly with customers and prospects on a daily basis.
16. Competitor and Industry Newsletters — Read industry and competitor newsletters and make a list of future story ideas based on interesting topics in these newsletters.
17. Subject Line is Key — Tie your subject line to a specific article in your newsletter that will generate the most opens. Don’t feel limited to use the same words used in an article title. Think newspaper headline style and craft a subject line that will stand out in your recipients’ inboxes.
18. Subtle Self Promotion — While educating your readers with tips and best practices, insert subtle, but supporting, references to your company, product or service. Done well it won’t seem out of place for your readers and helps achieve your overall goals for the newsletter.
19. Feedback — Provide a “Feedback” link after each article so that readers can easily send you feedback and suggestions for other articles.
20. Partner/Customer/Expert Articles — Solicit articles from your clients, partners and industry experts. Using these external sources will help position your newsletter in readers’ minds as having greater interest and value beyond your company’s self promotion.

Need some creative inspiration? View B2B e-newsletters I’ve created that utilize the above tips.

What newsletter strategies or content have been effective for your organization?