Business to Business Marketing (B-to-B) Report
I just listened to a conference call with MarketingSherpa on new research on B-to-B Marketing. As always, very valuable. They talked to 1,900 online B-to-B marketers who have implemented various marketing techniques.
Here’s some of what they found:
- Content written by someone who is passionate about what you do usually a technical person. Avoid marketing speak at all costs. Build content around personas.Personas are fictitious profiles of typical customers to help you target your message specifically to people like them. Come up with maybe 10 typical groups of people who you market to. Break up your marketing to appeal to each type. Use the terminology they would use, advertise where they will see you, design your landing page or web site to appeal to them, etc.
- Word of Mouth Marketing and measured results virual marketing - getting your own customers to tell other people how great your product or company is.
- Use multiple methods to reach people.
The sales cycle is often long and getting longer. You can’t get a lead and let it go cold. So use the traditional ways: trade shows, public relations, ads in magazines, etc. And use the Web 2.0 or emerging technologies: podcasts, blogging, webinars, white papers, and web-optimized press releases.
Small companies found the most success (these were the most effective methods used) with:
- Offers in 3rd party newsletters - get your name associated with bigger brands in your space by getting in their newsletters. (70%)
- Paid Search advertising on search engines (68%)
- White paper syndication service, online ads in your industry, and emails to 3rd party lists (all around 58%)
Least effective for small business: online ads on general business sites. Expensive and you don’t have the brand pull to get a good return.
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Do you or your clients market business software, hardware, or related services?
New Metrics Guide helps you budget, forecast, and benchmark your campaign results. Plus, find out exactly which tactics work best for lead generation.
Includes:
-> Response & cost data for DM, search ads, PR, email, trade
shows, magazine ads, online ads, telemarketing, etc.
-> 185 tables & charts from 23 research sources
-> Real-life results from 826 marketers
http://www.sherpastore.com/c/a.pl?9204&p.cfm/2150
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4 Responses to “Business to Business Marketing (B-to-B) Report”
Leave a Reply
August 10th, 2006 at 10:01 pm
Hi Janet;
Nice post. I missed MarketingSherpa’s teleconference, but have seen some of the results of the study, they spoke about.
I am a white paper fan and there are some interesting findings. For example, for software companies, white papers sit at the top of the pile for lead generation.
Check out this article I wrote for more details: http://www.writingwhitepapers.com/blog/2006/07/20/white-paper-lead-effectiveness-new-study-results/
I like your blog by the way.
Mike
August 10th, 2006 at 11:05 pm
Michael,
Glad you like it. I’ve actually seen your name and I believe signed up for your email newsletter. Over a year ago I was looking into how to write whitepapers. Your name came up.
Now that I work for a software company I need to look into it for lead generation. The MarketingSherpa folks didn’t go into details but I need to do some research on it.
Glad you visited my blog and thanks for commenting.
I’ll be sure to take a look at your site.
Janet
August 11th, 2006 at 6:36 am
Hey Janet;
Looks like that previous message is spam. If you are wanting to learn more about white papers as lead generation, be sure to check out http://www.whitepapersource.com/marketing/ - There is a ton of stuff there on the topic.
Keep up the good work!
Mike
August 11th, 2006 at 6:52 am
Mike,
You’re right, it was spam. I deleted it. Thanks for the heads up.
Janet