Do you work in a position where you sell or do business development, either for your own business or for an employer? Do you need to re-invent yourself or heighten your credibility for your next promotion or career move?
Then you need to nurture your online personal brand. In today’s world, where websites and social media activity are leading news and information resources, you need a strong online presence. An online personal branding program will cultivate your personal brand image in the minds of prospects, customers and other decision makers.
Think of your favorite brands for a moment: automobile, beer, computer tablet, fast food, soap, whatever. You like them for what they represent to you, which is the result of how their companies have differentiated them from the competition. You need to do the same thing: differentiate yourself from all the other choices out there.
The process by which you establish your personal brand is very much like it is for a product. You need to understand the competition and create a value proposition that tells people why they should prefer you.
Establishing the blueprint for your personal branding initiative takes analysis and reflection. It starts with a basic personal brand assessment where you:
1. Clarify your vision and purpose. 2. Determine your personal and professional goals. 3. Understand your target audience. They may describe what they need in different ways; you need to speak their language. 4. Decide on your personal brand strengths. These are your top three skills—the things you want to be known for. 5. Develop your personal brand keywords.Start building a list of keyword phrases that support your positioning.
These are five of the 10 steps I use to create a personal brand assessment—an exercise that can be done individually or in a group.
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B2B marketers are scrambling to deploy social media campaigns in order to establish a foothold in this burgeoning channel. In fact, according to a recent Forrester Research study, 85% of business decision-makers believe having at least one social media channel is important when making tech purchase decisions. Here are 12 ways to make your SM campaign effective and optimize your social media campaign:
Be consistent. B2B marketers must post regularly and connect with their audiences frequently in order to be effective through SM channels.
Use images within your content. Whenever possible embed an image in your SM posts. Use images that are relevant to your business such as product images, users, employees, etc. Visual media is typically shared more often than copy.
Join LinkedIn discussion groups. Professionals join LinkedIn Groups to learn, share, and discuss – this is a great spot to provide insight, answers, or even the occasional joke (in good taste!)
Become a Quora user. Show your interest in being helpful by providing answers to questions about your industry, etc. There will be opportunities to improve an existing answer or posting your own.
Use social bookmarking sites to share information. Reddit, Digg, Delicious, and other social bookmarking sites allow b-to-b marketers to provide resources for prospects. Become a respected knowledge authority by sharing content from a variety of sources.
Respond to any and all comments. Be diligent in providing responses or comments to those who have engaged with your posts. Readers want to feel as if you are connected to them.
Use your prospect’s language. Put some effort in learning common phrases, terms, etc. that are used by your prospects. Avoid using language that, although familiar to you, may be confusing to your audience.
Embed AddThis widgets on your site, blog, etc. Make it easy to share your web pages, blog posts, and other digital assets by inserting a SM widget on every page.
Automate your posting activity. Deploy social media automation platforms, such as HootSuite, that allow marketers to automate delivery and manage multiple SM profiles. Automating SM deployment provides lean organizations with a cost effective way to deploy social messaging using fewer resources.
Share content from multiple networks. It’s easy to connect your social posts across multiple platforms. Cross-network sharing is a good way to catch prospects that may miss your original post.
Share video. Watching product demonstration videos is an effective way to learn about a company’s solutions. If possible, create and share videos that depict how to use your solutions, how to troubleshoot issues, and other helpful information.
Use analytics. Find out which messages are generating responses, which posts are being viewed, and what messaging should be dropped. Adapt social messaging to meet your market’s demands by maintaining an agile marketing strategy through the use of SM analytics.
At the end of the day, a B2B social media campaign is only as effective as its messaging. When deploying SM, break out your processes using a 70/30 rule: 70% of the time should be devoted to message creation and 30% should be devoted to message delivery.
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A growing number of B2B companies want to learn how to use social media automation in their marketing campaigns. We thought it would be a good time to discuss how you can use social media automation to accomplish your marketing objectives.
Create a posting schedule. For B2B marketers, it’s important to maintain a consistent profile for your leads. It can be helpful to create at least a month-long posting schedule with topic ideas and targeted audiences. Allow for flexibility if there is a need to post a message in response to an unforeseen event or issue but develop a messaging sequence that moves your B2B prospects through a series of unique posts.
Select recipients. This can seem like an easy step but beware: ineffective SM use can spell doom for your business just like with other channels. Not all B2B leads are the same, and not all view social media favorably as a business tool. Focus on prospects that have engaged previously on the network rather than those that simply have an account profile.
Create posts. Compose a message that is conversational (not salesy) and addresses a single issue that your prospects are interested in. Be careful not to compose messages that are complex or confusing. Keep posts short (hard not to on Twitter!) and engaging. Throw in a question, conduct a poll, host a contest, find ways to engage your audience. And avoid repeatedly asking your prospects to share, like, or otherwise socially deliver your posts; doing so frequently can appear desperate.
Select networks. Choose the networks to post on that are most visible to your prospects. In many cases, LinkedIn will be a solid choice. Investigate as many networks as possible and select the sites where your hottest prospects “hang out”. Our Lead Management Automation™ platform allows posting to multiple SM networks including Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter.
Schedule delivery. Determine when each post should be delivered and schedule social post delivery dates and times when posts will most likely be read. Select various times throughout the day to deliver your posts. It may be helpful to use A/B testing to determine the most effective times for social media posting.
As more B2B companies discover how to use social media within their marketing strategies, competition for prospects’ attention through SM channels will likely become as fierce as PPC and search marketing has been in recent years. The winners will be early adopters who position themselves effectively within the social media channel.
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Top 5 socially driven sales prospecting sites. With social media interaction in full force, businesses are afforded the opportunity to harness leads targeted specifically to their needs. Properly prospecting to collect potential sales, however, takes more than sleight of hand and quick email responses: it requires understanding what the socialites actually ‘like’ while matching their ‘likes’ with your product offerings. While it would appear Facebook is predominantly the go-to source for sales prospecting, you’d be surprised where more specific leads can be found. We disseminate socially driven internet sales prospecting using communities which are more specific for businesses that need something more intuitive or in-depth which Facebook may not have the proper facilities to offer them. Upon completion of this article, find out the leading platform to handle everything your sales team needs to close the deals – no matter where they’re found online.
Last.fm
With over 30 million audiophiles tuning in, downloading skins and enjoying occasional streaming advertisements, utilizing this social music channel would allow your business to reach millions of targeted business prospects interested in music, guitars, rock memorabilia and other products related to music. Since this is a specific niche, the prospecting possibilities are endless.
Hi5
Those who wish to incorporate advertisement into gaming could benefit from the third largest monthly volume of visitors in social media today by putting your message in front of millions of gamers. Inside every gamer is somebody that still runs a business or works; prospecting leads from this niche should be easily accomplished with an aggressive marketing angle.
Biznik
Another social media gem which could help create lucrative business connections and potential sales leads is Biznik, one of few that moderates individual profiles made so reputation management companies and excessive spammers cannot create automated profiles. This beefs the potential for legitimate prospecting opportunities for all businesses while keeping things fair for all.
Manta
Business to business merchants can find loads of useful information using Manta, the authority in finding businesses to cold call or contact via email. You can find local or national businesses using keyword searches and skim the results for suitable prospects. Although you shouldn’t directly shill your products or services on Manta itself, you can definitely prospect potential customers quite easily.
LinkedIn
The epitome of sales prospecting is LinkedIn, perhaps the only site where finding contact cards to download has been perfected. By joining specific groups related to your business, you can begin interaction with individual business entrepreneurs or large companies which can then be contacted to pitch your idea or sale to. It would definitely be worth your while to pay the monthly premium cost as this allows deeper insights and contact information to be revealed. Of all social networking platforms, LinkedIn takes the cake in terms of providing industry-specific individuals to cater to.
Before You Start
While jumping in head first seems viable, sales prospecting takes prior planning and some form of centralized lead software to handle nurturing, prospect contacting and sales campaign delivery. Since Lead Liaison specializes in all-in-one lead solvency from finding the lead to closing the sale, let the professionals handle your social media lead prospecting quest. The web-based software platform unveiled by Lead Liaison offers unparalleled support for your lead capture and segmentation needs. This, of course, includes your quest to hunt down sales prospects within the social media world.
The social media craze among consumers has many B2B marketers thinking about their social media strategy. Often times, email marketing is compared to social media as part of the analysis. Should B2B marketers do one or the other? This raises the question of email marketing vs social media, which one is better and which one should you use? The answer may surprise you.
In the past few years, the focus on email marketing has been dwarfed relative to the focus on social media. It’s taken B2B marketer’s mind share aware from the email marketing. Nielsen recently published e-mail’s share of time declined 28%, putting it in third place, while social networking, the leader, climbed 43%. With so much attention on social media, email marketing strategies have suffered. Its important B2B marketers do not forget to make investments in email marketing though.
42% said they prefer to receive ads for sales via e-mail compared to just 3% who said the same for social-networking sites and 1% who preferred Twitter.
You can bet those numbers are even higher in B2B sales. When’s the last time you were attracted to a B2B solution by browsing Twitter? My guess is you probably haven’t. Moreover, unless you’re in marketing you probably don’t spend much time at all on Twitter or Facebook while at work. But you probably spend time managing your email. Awareness of solutions commonly start from email marketing campaigns.
Email marketing has significant benefit over social media for B2B companies; especially when email marketing is used on conjunction with marketing automation software. Marketing automation software includes email marketing capabilities and enables B2B marketers to execute intelligent campaigns that are highly relevant to buyer’s interests. Email marketing does have some clear advantages vs social media.
Advantages of email marketing over social media:
For example, email marketing allows:
1) more personally relevant emails to be delivered by: – demographics like age, gender, geography, company size – visitors interaction with marketing assets – time since previous interaction – position in lifecycle – new customers/prospects are sent different messages from old customers/prospects – follow up on a website interaction like a search or specific page visit
2) greater overall response as responses occur over 12-48 hours rather than 1-2 hours more typical of Twitter and Facebook
3) offers and content can be inserted dynamically into emails
4) responses measured at the individual level of a campaign or offer
5) better follow-up on customer interest via lead nurturing
Advantages of social media over email marketing:
Social media marketing has its own set of benefits relative to email marketing. In particular, raising awareness and collecting customer feedback, something email marketing cannot do (unless you’re using surveys). Here are the top five benefits B2B companies will get from social media marketing.
• Increasing brand awareness • Educating potential consumers • Creating visibility • Building thought leadership • Gathering positive online reviews
Each marketing strategy has its own benefits, so which one is better? The answer, neither. We do not recommend B2B companies use one strategy over another. We suggest using both together. Email marketing should be integrated with a social media strategy to increase engagement with customers.
Use both email marketing and social media:
In this case, the whole is definitely greater than the sum of the parts. Social media and email marketing should be viewed as complementary strategies to deepen prospect and customer relationships (vs. maximizing outreach). Take the first step in integrating both marketing channels together by adding social media icons to the bottom of your email marketing messages. Next, procure a marketing automation software package, which integrates closed-loop email marketing, to deliver capabilities mentioned in #1 above and elevate your email marketing capabilities to the next phase.
Marketing automation offers automatic lead qualification (lead scoring), lead distribution, lead generation, lead tracking, landing page optimization, and more to automate manual marketing processes, generate more qualified leads, shorten sales cycles, and further deepen your B2B relationships. It also augments traditional email marketing by closing the loop. Most email marketing systems create a “black hole of activity” after an email is opened and initial click-through. Closed-loop email marketing ties past, current, and future web visits together with email opens to build a more accurate profile of a sales lead and presents hot leads to sales in real-time.
To learn how Lead Liaison’s revenue generation software can help you with your marketing automation, email marketing, and social media marketing needs contact us.
We welcome your feedback, comments and suggestions. How do you judge email marketing vs social media for B2B marketing?
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A recent study by Marketing Sherpa showed a breakdown of B2B marketing budgets in 2011. Frankly, I’m shocked to see how businesses are allocating their marketing dollars. I propose B2B marketing companies re-prioritize their budgets by re-allocating dollars from one marketing investment to another to produce a higher ROI and generate more revenue. Specifically, marketing investments in website design and trade shows should be decreased while marketing investments in social media, marketing automation and lead nurturing should be increased.
Increasing B2B Marketing Budgets
Marketers must recognize it’s a buyer’s world. More and more buyers conduct research online before ever contacting a vendor. The internet-era changed the landscape of sales and marketing. Data sheets, white papers, webinars, blogs, forums, public profiles, employees, competitors and more can be researched without ever picking up the phone. It’s the same concept as in the B2C world when consumers buy a car. Case in point, Polk and Autotrader.com conducted a survey of 4,005 U.S. consumers and found 71% of those surveyed conducted research online before buying their car.
The same process applies to the B2B world. More than 80% of B2B buyers research the internet for answers about products and services before calling a sales rep. With the proliferation of mobile phones and tablets this percentage will surely rise. B2B marketers have got to be in the right place at the right time (social media), monitor/listen to buyer’s behavior (marketing automation) and engage prospective buyers (lead nurturing). As the volume of online and/or digital activity increases, so does the opportunity to interact and engage with potential buyers. Lead nurturing helps B2B marketers create meaningful dialogue with prospects based on their research and interests. The net result of lead nurturing is stronger relationships and shorter sales cycles as prospects will keep you top of mind through consistent and on-target communications. For these reasons B2B marketing budgets should include social media, lead nurturing and marketing automation as a high priority.
But, what if there’s no more money in the budget for these items? That’s an easy problem to solve. Reduce investments in website design and trade shows and re-appropriate the funds.
Decreasing B2B Marketing Budgets
Trade shows are generally a thing of the past and put pressure on B2B marketing budgets. We’re not implying you completely do away with trade shows; however, reduced investment should be considered. Trade shows are expensive and usually cost about $10,000 minimum just to get in the door. Do yourself a favor and analyze ROI from past trade shows. The easiest way to do this is to look at past sales wins and identify if the lead came from a trade show. If you can’t tie revenue to your trade show investments they’re not worth it. Although, attending a trade show might help prospects recognize your brand/image; sometimes you’ve just got to show up. My advice is to pick a few select trade shows that you must attend and get an exhibitor pass for the others.
As for website design, I encourage B2B companies consider moving their website into a content management system (CMS) such as Drupal or WordPress. These tools have very professional off-the-shelf themes and several plug-ins for search engine optimization, blog authoring and more. You might spend a little more up front to change your site but its well worth it over time. Many of the processes which you rely on 3rd parties for can be automated and you’ll have more control over your content and of course, reduce costs.
Take your money saved from trade shows and website development and invest in social media, lead nurturing and marketing automation.
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As part of any social media strategy it’s important to identify which social media outlets to target. We recently ran a study of the top social media sites in the world and we thought we’d share them with you. Rankings are based off of Alexa ratings. We’ve highlighted our top social media sites that every B2B marketer should participate in below.
Top social media sites
Ranked by Alexa rating as of 2011
Num
Website
Alexa
Category
1
youtube.com
3
Videos
2
twitter.com
9
General
3
linkedin.com
17
General
4
flickr.com
31
Images
5
stumbleupon.com
113
Cool Content
6
reddit.com
136
General
7
digg.com
140
General
8
scribd.com
199
Articles
9
del.icio.us
244
General
10
metacafe.com
285
Videos
11
technorati.com
901
Blogging
12
mixx.com
2,265
General
We’ll be updating this post shortly when we add a new feature to our solution to help track ROI from social media. We welcome your feedback, comments and suggestions. What are your top social media sites?
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