Creating a social media strategy for B2B organisations
As shown in many of the latest Econsultancy reports, a growing number of B2B companies seem to have caught up with their B2C peers and are investing in social media.
However, when we decided to create a company-wide social media strategy in the summer of 2010 there were very few examples from which to draw inspiration.
20 ways to get reviews (and links) from the media
When it comes to getting reviews from the media, I like to take the approach of 'you make your own luck'.
It’s very easy to send press releases to a selection of media publications, sit back and forget about it, but like any form of outreach, without a targeted approach the results will be poor.
The quality and quantity of your media reviews is tied directly to the amount of effort that is put in, and the amount of research that is done before you hit send on an email.
Working as both a blogger who reviews products, and as a marketer who is trying to get reviews, I’ve compiled 20 solutions based on my own experience.
Managing expectations in B2B content marketing
Your audience's opinions abut your content depends largely on their expectations, but few B2B marketers think about managing expectations around their content marketing.
DIY usability assessments for expert users
I firmly believe that observing real users doing real tasks is the 'gold standard' for usability testing, particularly when the designers observe it themselves and see the problems only real users can find.
However, sometimes full user testing falls outside the budget and the project manager will decide to use an expert usability assessment instead.
This works well for websites where an expert usability consultant can put themselves in the shoes of the user and work through typical tasks identifying critical usability issues.
But what if the system supports far more complex tasks, which users take years to learn?
Maintaining momentum in B2B marketing
A planning vacuum means most B2B marketing progresses in fits and starts. Inertia kills momentum.
Ask a consumer marketer for a look at their marketing plan and you're likely to get anything from a 20-page powerpoint deck to a 400-page binder with tabs, spreadsheets, gant charts and dashboards.
Ask a B2B marketer for their marketing plan and you're likely to get a funny look and some awkward rationalisation. "Erm... we're agile here. Our market moves too fast. If we had a plan it wold be out of date in a week." Yadda-yadda-yadda.
Psychographic targeting in B2B marketing
There are so many ways to segment an audience and target your messages – by job title, industry, seniority, behaviour... But there's an important dimension that's often ignored by B2B marketers: psychographics.
How different prospects feel about things can guide your segmentation, offers and creative. The trick is to find ways to get your psychographic targets to identify themselves so you can market to their specific biases.
Clients get the (search) advertising they deserve
David Ogilvy once said ‘clients get the advertising they deserve’.
Having been COO of a search agency for each of the last 10 years, I can tell you with some authority that Ogilvy’s quote is as true in the digital specialisms of SEO, PPC and Social Media as it is in the broader advertising discipline.
Will NFC be the technology that tips us into mobile retail?
Research by YouGov has found that 91% of British consumers have not heard of NFC technology, while 70% have yet to hear of the ‘mobile wallet’.
Though Juniper Research predicts that $50bn in worldwide sales revenue will be generated by NFC mobile payments by 2014, it’s clear that there is some way to go before British shoppers turn their backs on cash in favour of their mobile.
The rise of the reverse affiliate
Affiliate marketing is one of the stalwarts in the digital marketing landscape. It seems to benefit from change as much as it benefits from a lack of change.
For example, over the years CPM prices in non-premium inventory have dropped and yet CPA rates and network overrides have remained largely unchanged.
That has allowed some savvy arbitrage players, like lead brokers or performance agencies, to make a whack of cash. It has also contributed towards the rise of the reverse affiliate.
The scramble for mobile payments
Every part of the mobile supply chain is getting in on the mobile payments act. This is being driven not by technology, but by a shift in consumer behaviour.
