We’re proud to announce that BtoB Magazine recently recognized Fusion b2b as a Top-Small-Agency for 2012. The annual special report lists prominent marketing agencies within the following categories: large, medium, small and interactive. For the amazing sixth year in a row, FUSION b2b has captured a “Top Small Agency” award for their compelling creative work, business-to-business marketing expertise, and continued growth.

“FUSION b2b took advantage of the recent market momentum with an expanded range of assignments from past and current clients. Our clients’ typical marketing mix has become more relevant, more dynamic, and more competitive with the additions of social media, search engine marketing, and various web and mobile technologies to the marketing landscape.” said Laurie Oleksy, Managing Director. “Additionally, our clients have always valued our lean, cost-efficient operations. We help b2b marketers work on tough business issues to find affordable marketing solutions that are creative, practical, compelling, and once again – award-winning.”

Driven by significant growth in smart phones and tablets, the mobile web is the next big marketing thing! Current predictions indicate that one in two Americans now own a “smart phone” device. Mobile website conversions are the future for content delivery. Great websites are no longer sufficient for the task of business communications and interactions. Every company must establish a current and future strategy for how to make mobile communication one of their primary tactics. The opportunities associated with mobile website marketing cannot be ignored.

While your current website is most likely viewable on a mobile device, it is NOT mobile optimized. Attempting to click a link with your finger-tip on a 3.5 inch screen is quite a challenge. The ultimate goal is to structure your website to be user friendly on each and every mobile device. Ultimately, those users who visit your site via a mobile device need to be converted to leads, which requires convenient navigation and a logical site structure.

Essentially, mobile website conversion requires the development of stripped down versions of a larger website, with different versions for each mobile operating system. Android, iPhone and Blackberry control the market with 41%, 27% and 22% respectively through July, 2011 (Source:  comScore).

As an example, the mobile version of the Intel website is only nine (9) pages, compared to over 80,000 pages for the regular website. The most popular blog software, WordPress, offers built-in widgets for mobile website conversion.

One efficient option for mobile website conversion is through your content management system (CMS). Many popular CMS systems offer mobile Plug-In’s. This usually strips out any complicated CSS and large image files. It “stacks” the site so it is viewed primarily vertically. To view a very rough example of this type in your URL at http://www.skweezer.com, and it will render a ultra-simplified mobile version of your website. Any Plug-In available from your CMS would allow for a much cleaner look. Google also offers a mobile site creator, per link below: http://www.google.com/sites/help/intl/en/mobile-landing-pages/mlpb.html Another option for mobile website conversion is to build it from the ground-up. The same information that is relevant and important on your full website may not be relevant to a mobile viewer. Often times large amounts of copy and large image files are distracting and cumbersome. A mobile user will not read a mass amount of text, and they will not wait for a large file to load. Small image file sizes and minimalistic copy is important. Also be sure to make user navigation very simple. Be sure to set up a ‘mirror’ for your website and direct all mobile traffic to the URL http://mobile.yoursitehere.com. You will see several variations of this often times including m.yoursitehere.com.(i.e. www.fusionb2b.com becomes mobile.fusionb2b.com or m.fusionb2b.com). This gives you a sub-domain to build mobile website under.

Next up: The Fundamentals of a Mobile Website Part Two! Please Retweet, Facebook Like and Social Bookmark this Blog.

Dance into the New Year with this Vivacious and Appealing Reddish Orange

The 2011 color of the year, PANTONE 18-2120 Honeysuckle, encouraged us to face everyday troubles with verve and vigor. Tangerine Tango, a spirited reddish orange, continues to provide the energy boost we need to recharge and move forward.

“Sophisticated but at the same time dramatic and seductive, Tangerine Tango is an orange with a lot of depth to it,” said Leatrice Eiseman, executive director of the Pantone Color Institute®. “Reminiscent of the radiant shadings of a sunset, Tangerine Tango marries the vivaciousness and adrenaline rush of red with the friendliness and warmth of yellow, to form a high-visibility, magnetic hue that emanates heat and energy.”

Over the past several years, orange has grown in popularity and acceptance among designers and consumers alike. A provocative attention-getter, Tangerine Tango is especially appealing in men’s and women’s fashion. Fashion designers featured in the PANTONE Fashion Color Report Spring 2012, including Tommy Hilfiger, Nanette Lepore, Cynthia Steffe by Shaun Kearney, Elie Tahari and Adrienne Vittadini, are incorporating this attractive orange into their spring collections. A fun, lively take on a traditional autumnal hue, Tangerine Tango will surely carry through to fall fashion as well.

A winner in cosmetics because of its versatility, Tangerine Tango is a bit exotic, but in a very friendly, non-threatening way. Add a sultry flair to lips, cheeks and nails with Tangerine Tango. An unexpected eye shadow color, Tangerine Tango is a complementary opposite that flatters blue or green eyes. When paired with brown eyes, it brings out an amber cast.

Energize interior spaces with Tangerine Tango patterned home accessories. Pillows, bedspreads and tabletop accessories in this high-impact hue add spice to any room. Or incorporate Tangerine Tango appliances and personal electronics for an unexpected pop of color. Looking for an inexpensive way to perk up your home? Paint a wall in Tangerine Tango for a dynamic burst of energy in the kitchen, entryway or hallway.

Over the years, FUSION b2b has spread the holiday cheer by sending out holiday cards. With the holiday spirit in mind, we wanted to show you all of our cards from the years past. Below you will find five years of outstandingly creative, witty, thought-provoking holiday card designs from your favorite agency. The holiday season is always filled with hustle and bustle, so take a moment to sit-back, relax and take-in the holiday cheer with the beautiful holiday cards below. Don’t forget the cookies and milk!

A FUSION b2b Holiday Tale

2007

Our 2007 holiday card encompassed the idea of resolutions for the year to come. We developed a list of 12 marketing resolutions for every marketing professional to stick with! The card unfolds to reveal all of the resolutions, and made for a great piece of wall-art for your office. Click the images below to read through each and every resolution.

Resolution 1-6 and Inside Copy

Resolution 6-12 and Front Card Cover

2008

We thought our 2008 card should be clean, crisp, and full of holiday cheer. The idea here is quite simple; Unique Ideas by Unique Individuals. All FUSION b2b staff applied their fingerprints to the card to add a ‘personal touch’. Happy Holidays!

2009

I hope you weren’t expecting to see a cookie-cutter holiday card in 2009. No holiday is complete with out cookies to spread the holiday cheer! Each staff member was represented by a personally designed cookie that reflected their personality and skill set. No holiday card is complete without a witty play-on-words, and everyone at FUSION b2b is “a smart cookie”, and our ideas are “never half baked”! We could go on… but I’ll spare you from the rest of our cliche phrases.

2010

The internet was ‘twittering’ away in 2010, and our holiday card from this great year shows how tired and worn out our friend Twitter-bird was from delivering so many 140 character ‘tweets’. We took to paper and snail-mail to deliver the message the twitter-bird just couldn’t handle. Happy Holidays from your friends at FUSION b2b.

2011

What’s the worst holiday gift you’ve ever received? FUSION b2b’s 2011 card shows off 12 different gifts we would all love to receive (kidding). We wanted to give to a great cause this year by donating to the Greater Chicago Food Depository for each Facebook Like received. During the holidays it’s important to remember that this season is about giving back and helping out the community you live in. FUSION b2b would like to say thank you to all of our friends for making this year great! Lets keep up the hard work in 2012.

A webcast entitled SEO and PPC Best Practices is now open for registration on the FUSION b2b website. The free webcast is scheduled for Thursday, January 19, 2012 at 1 pm CST.

Internet marketing is key for most marketing managers in business-to-business categories. Search engine optimization (SEO) and Paid Search, or Pay-Per-Click (PPC) are two vital aspects of Internet marketing. Panelists include Jo Broussard, Google Account Executive for Construction Markets, and Derrick Manor, SEO manager for FUSION b2b. Chief Marketing Officer, Neil Brown will moderate and share results of a recent survey regarding SEO and PPC practices.

“Whether organic or paid, search marketing is foundational to a modern marketing program,” states Neil Brown. “Our panelists will detail SEO and PPC basics and advanced approaches to succeed.”

To register for the free SEO and PPC Best Practices Webcast, please click here!

ABOUT THE PANELISTS

Jo Broussard is Google Account Executive for Construction, active new business and strategic relationships with advertisers in the industry. She leads a team of account reps to create custom, cross-platform (search and emerging platform) ad solutions to drive new business opportunities for clients. Prior to Google, Jo led branding and information design projects for Fortune 500 companies during her tenure at Duarte Design. Jo holds a master’s degree in accounting and an undergraduate degree in business administration from the University of Texas at Austin, where she graduated magna cum laude in 2004.

Derrick Manor is SEO Manager for FUSION b2b. In his role, he manages search engine optimization (SEO), search engine marketing (SEM), pay-per-click (PPC), web development and social media integration for multiple brands and companies in various B2B industries. Derrick earned a Bachelor’s degree in Telecommunications from Ball State University.

This is the second blog in a two part series on Blogging for Business-to-Business Marketing. Part 1 covered the benefits of blogging, blog platforms and features.

This blog, Part 2, will consider the ongoing management and implementation of the blog, which focuses primarily on content. Other ongoing blog management considerations are building a blogroll and corresponding reciprocal links, updating other resource or content items like case studies, and supporting search engine optimization.

Content is king! Content is the fuel that will keep your blogging initiative alive and relevant. What’s more, when blogs are integrated with other social media  including Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, these social profiles can disseminate your blog content.

The process of developing content is challenging, and requires a thorough process and schedule to ensure that your blog strategy stays intact. A Rule-of-Thumb is that the average blog does not begin to build authority until 50+ blogs are published. You do the math—one blog per week takes a year; two blogs per week takes six months. So be ready to consistently blog.

To guide content, define your target audience(s),  then brainstorm and define a content strategy and plan. You will likely have primary and secondary target audiences, so specific content should be developed for each audience. Note that content should not just be about you or your company or prospects and customers will tune out quickly. Research and identify topics that are important to each target audience. Check with relevant publications (magazines), associations, bloggers and trade shows.

The content plan should have a ratio of content for each audience, company and product info, industry topics and other items like case studies, new videos (video blogs=vlogs). Curated content should be part of the content plan.  That is, blogs or articles from other authors and bloggers, used with permission and credit (list the author and/or publisher name with hyperlinks).

The content plan should define a schedule, with blogs for the next week or month defined, and rougher ideas identified for later dates. Developing content over and over can become tedious so be sure to not carry the load alone! Research, identify and cultivate multiple sources of content. Some quick tips to make content make content management easier. Start with internal staff—solicit input and feedback from sales, customer service and technical experts from engineering. Reach out to other relevant bloggers. They are typically flattered to have there content curated with credit, and links that build search authority. If an internal manager cannot dedicate time to ongoing blog content, outsource to a qualified agency or freelance writer.

25 Content Ideas

If the above tips and tricks do not dymystify the process of blogging, it may be the week-in and week-out struggle with developing content ideas. To offer further assistance, we took the liberty of compiling 25 blog topic ideas so you can start blogging today!

With a content plan,  schedule, and ongoing content resources, there are several important elements to be aware of that should be used in each and every blog you publish, and things to do in support of the overall blog:

1. Each blog title should include keyword search terms
2. Use keyword rich blogpost copy
3. Categorize each blog by keywords for archiving, and use keyword tagging for SEO
4. Images should use proper meta coding to support SEO
5. Keep blog length to 400-1000 words (this blog is 883 words); break longer blogs into series (like this)
6. Use hyperlinks to resources, and links to offers to capture leads
7. Continually add relevant links to your blogroll, and request reciprocal links
8. Offer changing content and resources, ex: case study, project spotlight
9. Encourage social sharing and comments (see below)

Of course, please Retweet, Facebook Like, bookmark and comment on this blog!

For many business marketers, blogging has become one of the most important marketing tactics for several reasons. First, blogging  reinforces thought leadership and subject matter expertise. You can publish very specialized content that is searchable for years to come.

Second, when implemented properly, blogging can have profound effects on search engine authority in so many ways. Consider that each blogpost builds indexed pages. Also blog titles, page titles, URL structures and image Alt tags all support SEO. The typical blogroll can build reciprocal links, and interlinking within a blogpost can build back-links. Next, social sharing (Retweet, Facebook Like, bookmarking, etc) and linking to social profiles can build search authority. Finally, throw in Header Tags, keyword tags and Google Analytics and you have a powerhouse of search engine optimization (SEO) delivered to you website.

Third, your blog can be the center of your content marketing and social media program. When integrated with other social profiles, sharing tools and counter tools, blogs can effectively “automate” content deployment. How? With Retweet, Facebook Like and now Google+ counters, content is automatically posted in these respective profiles. Even LinkedIn profiles can be integrated for auto-updates.  Fourth, blogs can generate leads in a variety of ways. How? RSS registrations capture email addresses. Links to registration pages for email newsletter sign-ups. Place offers within blogposts that hyperlink to registration pages. Blog comments often contain customer questions or requests. And finally, website analytics can identify traffic from blogs.

Despite all these extraordinary benefits, the daunting task of creating and managing a blog can be a deterrent. Our goal for this and the second blogpost in this series is to demonstrate that blogging can be manageable and extremely effective.

The term blog comes from the combination of the terms, web and log. A blog is defined as a website containing articles, referred to as ‘blog posts’ or ‘blogs’, that highlight subject matter expertise, industry news, or any relevant information to the audience you are targeting. These blogs often times include links and images adding value to the readers experience. Managing a blog can provide your company with an opportunity to further extend your brand and the industry expertise you have to offer, but most importantly can drive your company to rank number one on search engines. The road block that impedes the ability to manage a blog is content development, and we hope to demystify why this is so complicated in ‘Blogging for B2B Marketing Part 2′. We will outline a process that will allow you to consistently add valuable content to your readers, month after month. As a marketing professional, we all know the first newsletter is easy to produce, but developing interesting, engaging content after that is a struggle. Blogging is no different, and that’s why having a process is so important.

Blogging Platforms

There are several options out there for what platform or software to use for blogging. The two most popular options are Blogger, which is owned by Google, and WordPress. There are several other platforms out there, but these two dominate due to both user-friendliness and features. A plethora of plugins are available on WordPress, some of which can amplify your SEO efforts, making WordPress the leading platform in our eyes. A chart discussing the pro’s and con’s of WordPress vs. Blogger can be found HERE. Keep in mind what you intend your blog to be; If intended to be a community where people come to interact and engage you might consider a platform such as Drupal, which is for building community sites. At the end of the day, WordPress offers a easy to use interface or content management system (CMS), coupled with excellent SEO-enhancing features, including Google Analytics. In addition, WordPress is extremely customizable. Not to mention, the basic version is free!

Still, costs can be incurred for design services, advanced development, hosting integration and ongoing content development.  No matter what platform you choose, be ready for the next step of developing content and publishing regularly, the subject of our next blog in this series.

List of 5 Blogging Platforms

1. WordPress
2. Blogger
3. Tumblr
4. Drupal
5. Joomla (Considered a Content Management System, but can be used to create a blog.)

A WordPress Walkthrough

WordPress gives us the ability to customize a blog as much as we want. As long as a skilled developer is on hand, you can build an extremely user friendly experience. FUSION b2b specializes in blog design with integration of social media. A thorough process of building a destination to extend your brand is important. With WordPress you are given that rich user experience, along with a robust content management system (CMS) on the backend. This CMS is so amazing and easy to learn we had to show you. Below you will see an example of a custom WordPress theme developed by FUSION b2b and the CMS that we use to publish our content.

Blog Example

1. Custom Designed Blog
2. RSS Feed Subscription and Search Functionality
3. Blog post with Title, Author, Archive Categories, Tags and Date.
4. Social Media Sharing and Integration
5. Customizable widgets tailored to target audience
6. Images hosted and search engine optimized
7. Not shown, blogroll with reciprocal links

WordPress CMS

1. Main CMS Navigation allows you to manage all aspects of your WordPress Blog.
2. Search Engine Optimized Title and URL.
3. Content publishing area; ease of uploading text, images, and videos.
4. Archive Categories; Allows users to sort through content by topics they are interested in.
5. Tags; often referred to as keywords. Help users find interesting content, as well as help SEO.
6. Plugin; often times help maximize SEO by amplifying each and every blog post. You can browse plugins by visiting HERE.

Important Features Every Blog Should Have

• Resource Links / Blogroll – This benefits SEO and acts as a valuable resource to your readers to find industry content
• RSS Feed – This allows your readers/visitors to sign up to be emailed when you publish a new blog. RSS = real simple syndication. We suggest using Feedburner, which is yet again owned by Google.
• Image Optimization – Images can be optimized for SEO in 3 ways; image file name, image title, image alt tag. Use strong keywords to take full advantage of images.
• Social Sharing – Add the social sharing features such as the Facebook Like button, the Twitter Retweet Button, the Google+ button, and the LinkedIn Share button. When your readers share your content it builds up your SEO and over time will drive your page rank higher on search engines.
• Call To Action – Each and every blog you write should have a purpose. Be sure to have a call to action to solicit a response from a reader. Often times these will be a link to a form the reader can fill out to receive ___ (insert offer here)___.
• Branding – Custom design should extend your visual identity and reflect company goals and vision.
• Tags and Categories – Both necessary functions for SEO and on-page experience. Users will have the ability to search your content, and sort through it based on these two important elements. Tags are keywords that explain the content of the blog post and allows users to see other content that has that keyword within it. The Categories allow users to sort blog posts by that segment so they can read all blogs on that topic.
• Utilization of Bold Face and H1 Header tags – Both of these rich text editinrg features help to build SEO. Be sure to use these, when appropriate throughout blog posts to maximize each posts effectiveness.
• Widgets on the sidebar – WordPress has a vast amount of ‘widgets’ available for use on the sidebar. Examples include Blogroll, Archive by month and Categories, Word cloud, recent Blogs, recent Tweets.
• Analytics – be sure to track and monitor your success with blogging. Before you even start blogging be sure to develop several key performance indicators (KPI’s) that you will keep track of. This may consist of total visitors to your blog, click-through to landing pages, or form registrations. Google Analytics integrates with WordPress quite nicely.
• Plug-Ins – Currently WordPress has 17,126 plug-in’s available on their platform. You can peruse through the various plug-in’s available by visiting the WordPress plug-in site HERE.

Part 2 of ‘Blogging for B2B Marketing’ will cover the content development process, integrating blogging into your marketing mix, and content ideas to fuel your blogging strategy.

Please Retweet, Facebook Like, and Share this blog!

Originally published by the Content Marketing Institute, and Written by Joe Pulizzi.

This post was written with the assistance of my co-author for Managing Content Marketing and lead strategist for the Content Marketing Institute, Robert Rose. Thanks Robert!

I’m tired… tired of the large amount of destructive posts about content marketing that are completely and utterly false.

Two posts in particular, as penned by Hubspot, are clearly written by individuals (no offense here) who do not understand what content marketing really is (here is one and here is the other for your reading enjoyment).

I’m not sure why Hubspot is targeting the term content marketing and misleading its customers in such a way. Do they want to misinform marketing professionals? That is something I cannot live with.

Disclaimer: I am a Hubspot customer (pending future status).

What is inbound marketing?

When the term “inbound marketing” first started to get traction, I thought it was pretty much the same as content marketing. I was wrong.

According to my good friend David Meerman Scott, as published in the book Inbound Marketing (from Hubspot founders Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah), “Inbound Marketing is about getting found online, through search engines and on sites like Facebook and YouTube and Twitter…”

That said, if you only focus on inbound marketing, you will fail as a marketing professional.

Why you need a content marketing mindset

Content marketing is the practice of creating relevant and compelling content in a consistent fashion to a targeted buyer, focusing on all stages of the buying process, from brand awareness through to brand evangelism. Content marketing, unlike inbound marketing, has been around for hundreds of years, most notably starting in 1895 by John Deere with The Furrow magazine (although I argue that the cave people were drawing stories on walls to sell product). See the video for more:

 

 

While inbound marketing (as opposed to outbound marketing) and getting found online by prospects are critical, what do you do with your story once they find you? If content marketing were a football field, inbound marketing would get you to the 35-yard line. Definitely critical, but hard to score from that distance.

After inbound marketing, you need lead nurturing. Once the lead is nurtured and becomes a customer at some point, you need customer service content. What if you want to upsell or cross sell to the customer? Well, that’s a whole set of different content. What if your goal is customer retention and loyalty? Well that’s another content strategy as well. Lots of valuable content spread out around the web will help you reach a few of your content marketing goals, but not all of them. NOTE: Some will argue that lead nurturing is part of inbound marketing. Even if that is true, it still means you have to throw a Hail Mary to score a touchdown.

Content marketing must include strategic planning, content creation, distribution, and metrics for multiple stages of the buying cycle to multiple customer personas. In my view, that means a complete content marketing strategy would incorporate inbound marketing principles, but it would also take a more holistic approach to meeting a business’s overall marketing goals.

Uh, print?

Even more importantly, content marketing is channel-agnostic. That means that content marketers should be looking at ALL available channels to engage with customers… print, in-person, and online (including mobile). The outstanding Ritz Carlton magazine, placed in hotel rooms, does not have anything to do with being found; neither does the amazing LEGO Club magazine, which has been produced in print for over 30 years (I received the original Brick Kicks magazine back in the 80s). LEGO Club magazine is not inbound marketing.

The business goals of content marketing

With content marketing, there are a number of overall business goals you could have:

Brand awareness or reinforcement
This is almost always the first thing that is thought of when you look at content marketing. The goal may be that you are just trying to find a more effective way than advertising to create awareness for your product or service. This is the long-tail strategy. Content marketing is a great vehicle for that, as it’s organic, authentic, and a great way for you to start driving engagement with your brand. Content marketing and inbound marketing overlap in this area.

Lead conversion and nurturing
The most basic part of inbound marketing is the conversion metric. How you define a lead will vary — but from a content marketing perspective, this is where you have (through the exchange of engaging content) encouraged someone to give up enough information about themselves that you now have permission to “market” to them. This can include signing up for a “demo”, registering for an event, subscribing to your e-newsletter, or gaining access to your Resource Center. Once you have the prospect’s permission, you can use content to help move them through the buying cycle.

Customer conversion
In many cases, you already have a ton of content in this area. This is where, as marketers, we have traditionally focused — the “proof points” to the sale. Examples include case studies you send to your prospects that illustrate how you’ve solved the problem before — or the “testimonials” section on your client page. Ultimately, this is the content you’ve created as a marketer to illustrate to the hot prospect why your solution is better or will uniquely meet his or her needs.

Customer service
This is where content marketing can really earn its “subscribe” stripes. How well are you using content to create value or reinforce the customer’s decision AFTER the sale? This goes well beyond the user manual, the documented process for success, and the FAQ on your website. These are the best practices for how to use your product or service. How can customers get the MOST out of your product or service? What are the successful, innovative ways that you’ve seen your product or service get extended into other solutions?

Customer loyalty/retention
Just like you have a planned lead nurturing process to turn prospects into customers, you also need a planned customer retention strategy. If your ultimate goal is to turn customers into passionate subscribers who share your stories, this area needs major attention. Options may be a customer e-newsletter or printed newsletter, a print or tablet magazine, or possibly a user event or webinar series.

Customer upsell
Marketing doesn’t stop at the “checkout” button any longer. If you’re particularly good at using content to service the customer in a subscribe model, you also have the opportunity to be effective at creating ongoing engagement for the other products and services you offer. Why stop communicating with prospects once they become customers? Instead, communicate with them more frequently (certainly not in a creepy way) and engage them with additional value. Customer upsell and customer retention goals can work hand-in-hand.

Passionate subscribers
If you can successfully move customers to this stage, you have really accomplished something. Content — and especially content generated by satisfied customers — can be one of the most powerful ways for us to reach any business goal. This is when content marketing starts to work for you exponentially. Apple Computer is the quintessential example of this. Ask yourself what their content marketing strategy is. They have no social media presence. They have no blog. But they have successfully built their passionate subscriber base — and these people create fan sites, write, share, and evangelize the Apple brand. Your ultimate goal should be to create a community of evangelists who are prepared to fight for your brand.

So which of these goals makes sense for your content marketing? Maybe it’s only an inbound marketing initiative and you’re just trying to help drive more leads into the sales and marketing process. Maybe you’re trying to create a program that increases awareness, drives down the cost of organic traffic to your website, and increases your position with search engines. Maybe you are working to improve your customer retention rate. Take a moment now to get your mental juices flowing.

What do you want to accomplish with content marketing?

 

One last message from the soapbox

I’ve seen way too many presentations and read way too many articles from “gurus” touting that all marketing resources should switch to inbound marketing. Or even content marketing for that matter? For some small businesses, this could be the case. But for smart, growing businesses, we should be leveraging content marketing throughout all our marketing initiatives — even (gasp) traditional marketing and advertising. (Check out this excellent post by Robert Rose about how content marketing is butter, not the bread.)

Yes, traditional marketing doesn’t work the way it used to because the consumer is in complete control. If they don’t want to pay attention, they won’t. Telling interesting stories is a much better way to get attention. But in many circumstances, traditional marketing and advertising can work (Old Spice showed us the power of paid advertising in collaboration with content marketing and social media). The point is, there is no black and white in marketing; it’s all gray.  There are no silver bullets. Marketing objectives sometimes need to be solved with a combination of efforts, not by putting all your eggs in one basket.

As a marketing professional, it’s your responsibility to call BS when you see it. I hope you will.

NOTE: If you are looking to see content marketing in action, check out Content Marketing World On Demand, featuring over 40 videos from the leading content marketing experts from David Meerman Scott to brands like DuPont, Intel and Sherwin Williams.

 

Originally published by the Content Marketing Institute, and Written by Joe Pulizzi.

Tru Vue, a manufacturer of acrylic glazing products, needed to showcase the benefits of its newest product line, Optium. Targeting museums and architects, the new products offered exceptional performance features and benefits at a significant price premium. The sample kit served as a demonstration tool for aforementioned targets, with an objective to elicit orders from end user customers.

Solution

FUSION b2b developed a tri-fold sample kit comparing Optium to other conventional glazing products. Using photography, product samples and copy, this side-by-side comparison was designed to show the superiority of Optium for such key benefits as abrasion resistance, anti-reflective, anti-static and UV resistance. Each sample kit contained complete support collateral. The kit is used as a sales tool, or fulfilled to qualified requests from the Tru Vue website. In addition, dealers and distributors received quantities of the kits. The sample kit was used as a promotional offer in print advertising and social media, with a registration form on the Tru Vue Website.

Results

Since the kit launched in October 2009 and relaunched in January 2011, over 5,000 kits have been fulfilled. Website traffic for the kit information page is one of the highest traffic pages on the Tru Vue site as measured by Google analytics. The kit has been successful in demonstrating the advantages of Optium, and realizing double-digit sales growth.

Advertising is one of the most expensive elements in the marketing mix, whether print, broadcast or online. And because of the fickle and subjective nature of advertising, seemingly great ideas can flop, while unexpected approaches surprise even the most experienced marketers. With all financial investment at stake, it makes sense to gain insight into customer reaction.

There are a variety of options for advertising testing. The extent of testing depends on the expected advertising budget-both ad production and placement. Clearly a $1.3 million Super Bowl spot requires more elaborate testing than a $20,000 print ad.

So what are the advertising testing options? And when should you use one testing type vs. another?

Most experts agree on two broad types of advertising testing: concept testing and copy testing.

Concept testing is sometimes called pre-testing, and is generally exploratory using headlines, rough layouts or storyboards. Concept testing typically uses qualitative research techniques including focus groups or depth interviews to gain insight into effective ad concepts, identify problems or issues, or to generate new ad concepts.

In contrast, copy testing evaluates different executions of an advertising campaign using finished (or close to finished) ad executions. Copy testing typically employs quantitative research techniques including surveys to measure recall or recognition. Larger sample sizes can provide a level of statistical validity decisions that may be important with larger investments.

What’s more, you may use both types of testing for an important or expensive advertising campaign, using concept testing for the early stages of campaign development, and copy testing to select the final ad option.

Finally, advanced copy testing using quantitative techniques can also involve physiological measures including eye-movement analysis, galvanic skin-response methods and brain-wave analysis. Although I will suggest these are too complex or expensive for most requirements.

And what would a blog post about advertising testing be without an example of an actual ad test. Earlier this year, FUSION b2b conducted an ad test for client BOSCH Power Tools. Per above ad testing types, this was definitely a copy test using finished print ads with a striking visual (ala Cyborg) and varying headline, copy and the treatment of the direct response offer.

(click any ad example above to enlarge)

We set-up a survey using the free web-based SurveyMonkey tool and posed four (4) questions:

1. Which headline do you prefer most? Which headline would you stop and read?
2. Which copy version do you prefer most?
3. Which Free Offer treatment and layout position do you prefer most?
4. Please rate overall preference of each ad on a scale of 1-5 (1+hate, 5=love)

The ad test was emailed to a random list of remodelers, the target audience from the circulation of Hanley-Wood’s Remodeling magazine. We received hundreds of survey responses making the copy test statistically significant, and most importantly, a clear direction with a large percentage of respondents selecting the “Maximize Your Multi-Tool” headline and copy. The preference for “offer treatment” was even more pronounced with nearly 68% preferring the offer in yellow, top right position (an unconventional offer position, and unexpected outcome).

More Resources:

Advertising Research Foundation

As always, please comment, Retweet, Facebok Like and bookmark using the Share tools.