Credit to Rick Kean, CBC, Managing Director of the Business Marketing Institute, LLC www.businessmarketinginstitute.com

Marketing professionals and sales teams are partners, (at least in theory) and now, more than ever, keeping the relationship between the two in-sync and productive is absolutely critical to success.  It’s supposed to work like this: Marketing sets the stage, creates a positive perception, and generates the lead through the marketing program, but ultimately it takes the Sales team to get the order. Likewise, a Sales team talks value, solutions, numbers and provides promises of delivery, but it relies on Marketing to build a clear understanding of the company, its reputation, its products and its place in the market. Marketing establishes the right enviornment for Sales. But several things have to happen to get us on the same page, and as a marketer, this is your responsibility:

• Marketing Managers must tap their sales teams for information: Information-sharing is a good thing. The Sales force has to be an information source for marketing, and define the selling problems for each particular type of customer or potential customer. Marketers, in turn, need to actively solicit information and give that information the weight it deserves when making decisions on the marketing program.  Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems make this easier to accomplish. By having everyone use the same data, full accountability becomes possible. And that information makes it easier for everyone to see which marketing activity is actually responsible for a given sale;
• Marketers must  be active throughout the entire sales cycle: The marketing department must become involved in the selling process, and must dramatically and effectively communicate product and service benefits (value) to the prospect to help prospects become informed potential customers. Getting Marketing involved in the core of the sales process expands Marketing’s mission, and lets the Sales department gain a fuller appreciation of what Marketing does. It also gives Marketing a better understanding of the challenges faced by Sales;
• Measurement doesn’t stop at counting sales leads: Way too many marketing teams focus on just the first two steps in the sales process—awareness and consideration—yet do nothing for the preference and purchase phases of the marketing process. We take comfort in the belief that our job is primarily to influence success, not to drive it. So it’s entirely possible, at least in our own minds, to claim success for a marketing program without seeing a direct net increase in sales;
• Chasing fuzzy concepts makes Marketing irrelevant to Sales: When marketing becomes less about top-line revenue (i.e., sales) and more about “brand” or “awareness,” linkage to the sales team’s need to actually drive revenue breaks down. And then the inefficiency starts to occur as Sales, left without any real support on the preference and purchase phases, creates its own marketing services organization, often referred to as “field marketing.” The time has come for B2B marketers to show they can build programs that drive a sales number; Getting it done makes marketers instrumental. If we want to elevate our status from corporate bullhorn to driver of our company’s go-to-market strategies and tactics, we need to focus on two core goals: 1.) Feeding the sales machine today, and 2.) Driving the strategic push to define what’s next. In other words, we need to be doers, not dreamers.

It’s becoming widely accepted that the most effective measure of marketing ROI is its impact on sales. Marketing should be viewed as an enabler, not part of the power struggle. Because Sales, not Marketing, is rightly or wrongly perceived as the function responsible for generating revenue, in any company where Marketing ceases to become an enabler and focuses more on power struggles with Sales, Marketing will lose. And as a marketer, you can significantly increase your job security by aligning with and supporting the sales organization. For marketing managers and those on the agency side who serve them, delivering results matters. So does thinking strategically, being persuasive, politically adroit, and having a significantly broader organizational awareness. So, you can forget the theoretical marketing mumbo-jumbo espoused by consultants and the writers of marketing textbooks. Supporting Sales is Marketing’s real job, and, as a marketing professional, your company’s sales staff is your number one client.

Rick Kean, CBC, is Managing Director of the Business Marketing Insitute, LLC www.businessmarketinginstitute.com

As business-to-business marketers implement next-generation websites that feature enhanced functions, many companies have not yet taken advantage of even the most basic Search Engine Optimization (SEO) techniques. In most industries, SEO can be critical to achieving improved search results for websites — thereby increasing website traffic, and quite possibly sales and market share.

SEO relates to website programming, design and development as a foundation to increase or optimize search engine results that include your industry’s keywords. As more and more business is conducted through the internet, how can business-to-business marketers leverage this important medium? An SEO foundation should include such optimization techniques as:

• Meta-tag coding
• Alt-tag coding
• Title-tags
• URL structure
• Site Index
• Link building
• Keyword content or “landing” pages
• Blogs and Social Media

Though invisible to the user, meta-tag coding uses html coding for keywords and descriptions of the page’s contents, thus enabling the search engine to correctly index the web page’s contents. Meta-tag coding is possibly the most fundamental SEO technique, yet critical to most search results.

Alt-tags are the file names, image captions or descriptions for images contained on your website. These are useful when search engines index or “spider” your website. The engines automatically turn off images and read only text. However, the engine does read image file names. Therefore, instead of image filenames such as “DCP0003.jpg,” images should be re-named “KEYWORD.jpg,” to increase search results. Title-tags are the descriptive words at the top of the browser window that, more often than not, only list the company name or website address. Like meta-tags and alt-tags, title-tags should be simple and keyword heavy.

Perhaps the most neglected SEO task is URL structure. When linking to website sub-pages that are often served via databases, the URL that appears on the “http” line often includes obscure database code with multiple backslashes. To eliminate this search engine hurdle, ideal URL structures use the base domain name, along with simple keywords or keyword phrases in place of this coding, and eliminate excessive backslashes.

To continue reading this article and learn more about site maps, search engine ranking, link building, and role or blogs and social media in your company’s SEO strategy – look at Part II of the article: Search Engine Optimization: Top Priority Marketing for Business-to-Business

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Despite high interest in database marketing (DBM), many marketers still have not implemented DBM. One of the reasons for this is a lack of practical information. Depending on your objectives, you should consider one or more DBM strategies including:
1. Segmentation
2. New Customer Acquisition
3. Customer Penetration
4. Customer Retention
5. Marketing Intelligence
6. Measuring Results

Step 1 – Segmentation

Segmenting customers and prospects into various classifications is the first step in DBM. The most basic level of segmentation involves classifying, coding or sorting customers and prospects by type, size or potential. Business marketers can utilize Standard Industrial Classifications (SIC codes) established by the federal government to categorize most business types. Other typical classifications include sales revenue, employees, product purchases, purchase interest, etc.

A higher level of segmentation involves profiling, scoring, or modeling of customers and prospects. Profiling identifies frequencies (percentages) of different categories, for example, financial services comprise 17% of XYZ Corporation’s customer base. In addition, the 80/20 rule can be illustrated utilizing percentages, for example, 80% of XYZ profits are derived from the top 20% of customers.

Scoring, as the name implies, ranks segments or individual customers by some predetermined criteria, often sales or gross margin contribution. Dividing the ranked list into three groups is common to identify heavy, moderate, and light users. Mail order marketers utilize RFM, that is recency, frequency and monetary or transaction value, as criteria for judging customer worth.

Modeling employs statistical techniques like multiple regression to identify factors that correlate to high sales potential or likelihood of promotional response. Prospective customers can then be “fitted” to these models to determine which prospects should be priorities.

Step 2 – Customer Acquisition

Identifying and communicating with high potential prospects is a goal of most marketers. The segmentation tools described allow you to focus on prospects that are “heavy users” or that fit predetermined criteria. DBM can be utilized to identify new customer “gains”, and to track trends in new customer activity. Finally DBM can be used to target and manage prospect communications, marketing, and sales programs.

Step 3 – Customer Penetration

What is your “account penetration” level by customer? DBM can help identify penetration by comparing transaction data to total customer purchases. In addition, modeling “ideal” product mix by customer type will identify cross-sell and up-sell opportunities. Again, the segmentation step can identify opportunities.

Step 4 – Customer Retention

Strategies in this area have grown in importance since the high cost of new customer acquisition has been well documented. DBM can support the identification of lost customers to be reclaimed, dormant customers to be reactivated, as well as the Lifetime Value (LTV) of customers. DBM often is the foundation for implementing loyalty building strategies including continuity or points programs, recognition, and other value-added marketing or sales programs.

Step 5 – Marketing Intelligence

Sometimes a by-product of DBM is the ability to utilize the database as a marketing intelligence device. Segmentation supports intelligence gathering. Often a customer record will include unlimited text entries. Remote database access and “real-time” updating reinforce marketing intelligence applications.

Step 6 – Measuring Results

Tracking of marketing, sales, advertising and communications program results is possible by “capturing” customer/prospect responses, transactions, etc., in the database. Updating customer records allows the database to remain “fresh”. In addition, coding and sorting allows for the testing of alternative programs or offers, with responses carefully measured to support ongoing improvements.

Why Database Marketing?

Database marketing promises to deliver more effective marketing and communications, first by improving customer understanding through segmentation, and then by using this information to communicate with customers in a targeted, even personalized, way. At least six DBM strategies should be considered including segmentation, customer acquisition, penetration, retention, market intelligence and measuring results.

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Developing effective taglines is a disciplined process that melds insight with positioning strategy and creativity. So what is a tagline, and how can tagline development deliver a breakthrough? Sometimes called tags, positioning taglines, slogans, jingles, unique selling propositions or descriptors, taglines distill your corporate or brand position to a few simple and memorable words—ideally from one to five words, and never more than seven words.

Taglines are flexible, persuasive, differentiating, extendable and very often, more memorable than the corporate and brand names they modify. Why? Many names are legacy names, likely descriptive and sometimes over time, less relevant to positioning due to changing markets. With years of equity, it can be difficult to change names, but taglines can change with new campaigns, or to target different audiences.

Like names, there are different types of taglines. With metaphorical names that have highly provocative meanings, sometimes simple, Descriptive taglines can add clarity and anchor aggressive branding. For our client AfterMath, we chose a simple descriptor, Claim Science to communicate industry focus and differentiation. In addition to descriptive taglines, Fusion B2B has identified other tagline types including Metaphorical, Aspirational, Comparative and Jingles. And note that hybrid types abound.

Like their name counterparts, metaphorical taglines deliver meanings (ideally double meanings) and associations that reinforce desired positioning, often when names by themselves cannot. Metaphorical taglines can be particularly effective when paired descriptive names to reinforce a position and improve memorability.

A great example of a metaphorical tagline is Chevy Trucks, “Like a Rock”, communicating durability, and leveraging memorability by virtue of the popular (Bob Seger) hit song. On the corporate front, GE’s “Imagination at Work” delivers the double meaning.

Consumer product brands and corporate America are enamored with Aspirational taglines. And why not? Consumers often buy products based on a desire for self-improvement, and corporations always want to be perceived as benevolent. One of the most famous taglines in history, “Nike, Just Do It”, is clearly aspirational with a meaning of achievement and athletic performance. In the corporate arena, examples abound, from HP’s “Invent”, to Apple’s “Think Different”.

When a secondary competitor seeks to take on the category leader, a comparative tagline can quickly and effectively deliver differentiation. Consider Taco Bell’s “Think Outside the Bun”, or “Pork, the other white meat”, or the poster child for comparative taglines, Avis: “We Try harder”.

Jingles are most often associated with catchy tunes for consumer products with big advertising budgets. Fusion B2B and IDeas BIG also uses jingles to describe tagline types that use slogans that employ rhythm, rhyming or alliteration. Examples include Bounty, “the quicker picker-upper”, or “Don’t get mad, get Glad”.

The process of developing effective taglines is, not surprisingly, similar to name development. Product or industry category understanding is required, along with customer insight and competitive positioning. Tagline generation is followed by scoring using several criteria, screening and trademark search. Final selection from a shortlist of taglines can be supported by customer testing and old-fashioned judgment.

Find us on Twitter to get other B2B marketing and branding tips. Feel free to contact us via by leaving a comment or via contact form to see how Fusion B2B can help your business.

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by Pavel Solyak

A spam-less Twitter feed is just too good to be true. Increasingly, spam in becoming a problem for Twitter users as spammers are finding new and innovative ways to clutter up the emerging communications channel. Ten years ago search engine optimizers have developed link farms to take advantage of search engine’s dependence upon link popularity. Mostly automated, link farms are landing pages containing groups of hyperlinks to other sites and no content. It took Yahoo! and Google several years to catch on and change algorithms to stop spamdexing users with irrelevant results, but was it enough?

Perhaps link farms have lost some of their appeal to spammers. Getting little love from search engines, not generating much traffic (or revenue) and paying for the domain, spammers had to find new grounds. And this is how Twitter Spam Farms were born.

We’ve compiled a short list of several ways spammers might try to get you, and things you should watch out for. Also we’ll give you valuable tips of how to protect your account against unwanted twitter-solicitors.

Spammers will use Twitter by replying to your @username, which then causes Tweets to show up in your timeline or mentions.

Get unsolicited DM’s (Direct Messages) that often include a promotional link or are typed in all caps.

Spammers will follow you in hopes of you following them back. They might have deceiving names like ‘GoogleGuru1’ or simply ‘JohnDoe’. Check their profile, and if there is no bio, only a couple of tweets, followers in double digits while following thousands of users – don’t bother adding them.

Many complain that twitter is full of ‘bots’. Sure, many bloggers and news outlets use syndicating technology to update tweets every time something gets updated on their site, blog, or Facebook. What’s worse, are spammers who use ‘bots’ or rather scripts for their deceptive techniques. An example of such script might be an algorithm that follow, then un-follow people with the goal of keeping a follower to boost follow/follower ratio. Another one might be to re-tweet random tweets from public timeline, in hopes you will add them as a follower.

Re-posts. Many spammers will post duplicate content several times a day on their accounts so the same message appears regularly in the timeline. Not only this is considered spammy, but it violates Twitter terms of service. Cross-posting the same content on multiple accounts is also considered a violation of Twitter code of conduct.

Have you encountered a spammer? Here are several tips how to clean up your account:

Alert Twitter of spam by sending a DM to @spam with @username of the spammer you’ve encountered.

Don’t follow spammers. Take the time to check their account bio before you follow them back. Look at their last 10 most recent tweets; if you see anything about making money online fast, get rich quickly, lose 20 pounds in 5 days or getting hundreds of thousands of Twitter followers by following a link – report to spam.

Block the spammer by heading over to their account page and clicking ‘block’ link on the right side.

Use Twitter Spam Applications like TwerpScan or TwitSweeper to clean up potential spammers.

Don’t use automated programs. Inevitably you’ll see promotions like “Get 1,000 followers in one day, just click here”. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Those programs will follow a number of questionable people in hopes they will follow you back. Don’t forget Twitter is a communication tool used to build relationship – it’s about quality, not quantity.

We also recommend taking a look at the Twitter Support page for security FAQ’s. Feel free to comment on this post or find us on Twitter at @FusionB2B if you have any questions.

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Improving the effectiveness of new product launches is of critical importance to most companies and brands as development costs can be stratospheric, coupled with extremely high failure rates. Some estimates of new product failure as high as 90%! Certainly the new product development process is complex and multi-functional—not just marketing—but typically involving many departments such as engineering, operations, purchasing, executive management and others.

The scope of this checklist does NOT address the many product development processes. Rather, the focus of this New Product Launch Planning Checklist are the marketing activities required to improve product launch effectiveness. No question that different markets or product types will require vastly different new product launch approaches, and have different budget resources. So a New Product Launch Planning Checklist should allow for a range of market and budget scenarios. This planning checklist is based on a typical business-to-business (B2B) market scenario.

1. 1. Secondary Research (already published)
      • Internet search
      • Syndicated research studies
      • Data from category publications, associations, websites, databases
   2. Primary Research
      • Customer interviews (also sales personnel, channel partners)
      • Customer/Channel surveys
      • Focus Groups
      • Test Markets, Beta Tests
   3. Competitive Analysis
      • Patent research
      • Reverse engineering
      • Branding/positioning analysis
      • SWOT analysis
      • Pricing analysis
      • Market research to determine share, volume, channels
   4. Testing
      • Concept testing (interviews, focus groups)
      • Product evaluation (interviews, focus groups)
      • Copy testing (interviews, surveys or focus groups)
   1. Market Definition
      • Market segments
      • Customer identification (demographics, titles, units)
      • Channels
   2. Product Definition
      • Feature set, functionality, accessories
      • Prototypes
      • Competitive positioning (comparison, differentiation)
   3. Sales Objectives (Revenue, Volume, Margin)
      • Pricing (trade, discount schedules)
      • Cost analysis
      • Market share, other measures
   1. Branding
      • Re-branding, Sub-branding
      • Naming
      • Identity (logo, graphic theme)
      • Trademark search, trademark registration, identity standards
   2. Internet
      • Website development, re-development, microsites, landing pages
      • Search engine optimization (SEO), search engine marketing (SEM)
      • Social media (profiles, followers, blog and forum posts)
      • Email campaigns (landing pages, registration forms)
      • Webcasts, webinars, web conferences
   3. Advertising
      • Media (research, planning, placement, traffic)
      • Print (trade publications)
      • Online (banners, directories, Google AdWords)
      • Broadcast (TV, radio)
   4. Publicity
      • News releases
      • Press list
      • Press kit
      • Press events
      • Article (writing and placement)
      • Media relations
      • Distribution (internet, wire service)
   5. Sales Promotion
      • Programs
      • Training (sales, customer service, customers)
      • Contests, coupons, sweepstakes
   6. Collateral and Content
      • Brochures, product sheets, flyers
      • Catalogs, manuals, instructions, installation manuals
      • Educational pieces (white papers, guides, how-tos)
      • Electronic versions for web, re-purpose above for web
   7. Trade Shows and Events (national, international, regional shows, dealer open houses)
      • Exhibit design
      • Booth graphics
      • Pre-show promotion
      • Inquiry management
   8. Channel Marketing
      • Dealer or distributor programs
      • Promotions
      • Merchandising support, POP, packaging
      • Training programs
      • Launch kits
      • Retail line reviews
      • MDF and Co-Op programs
   9. Direct Marketing
      • Direct mail
      • Database marketing
      • List procurement, email, webcasts
   10. Photography and Video (supports all tactics above)

RESEARCH AND TESTING

PRODUCT PLANNING

MARKETING STRATEGIES/TACTICS

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Marketing plans come in a number of “shapes and sizes”, from a detailed strategic marketing plan with extensive market segmentation and competitive intelligence, to an annual tactical plan with budgets and calendars, to a plan in support of a new product launch. One of the most basic types of marketing plans is a checklist that identifies a broad range of elements or steps required for typical marketing initiatives.

A given marketing program may range in complexity, budget and requirements. Different markets and products likely require vastly different marketing strategies and tactics. So a Marketing Planning Checklist should allow for a range of marketing scenarios. This planning checklist is based on a typical business-to-business (B2B) marketing scenario.

1. 1. Company or brand
      • Historical sales, margins, volume
      • Economic drivers (macro)
      • SWOT analysis
   2. Customer targets
      • Demographics (decision makers)
      • Market segments
      • Channels
      • Sales process (incl. cycle)
   3. Competitors
      • Market share
      • Branding/positioning
      • Key marketing initiatives
   4. Prior Marketing Programs and Results
      • Sales
      • Inquiries/sales leads/new customers
      • Website traffic statistics
      • Other measures
   1. Sales (Revenue, Volume, Margin)
   2. Market share
   3. Other measures
   1. How to achieve objectives, not specific tactics
      • New products
      • New markets
      • Promotions
      • New Programs
      • Customer initiatives
   1. Branding
      • Re-branding
      • Naming
      • Identity
      • Sub-branding, trademark registration, identity standards
   2. Internet
      • Website development, re-development, microsites, landing pages
      • Search engine optimization (SEO), search engine marketing (SEM)
      • Social media (profiles, followers, blog and forum posts)
      • Email campaigns (landing pages, registration forms)
      • Webcasts, webinars, web conferences
   3. Advertising
      • Media (research, planning, placement, traffic)
      • Print (trade publications)
      • Online (banners, directories, Google AdWords)
      • Broadcast (TV, radio)
   4. Publicity
      • News releases
      • Press list
      • Press kit
      • Press events
      • Article (writing and placement)
      • Media relations
      • Distribution (internet, wire service)
   5. Sales Promotion
      • Programs
      • Training
      • Contests, coupons, sweepstakes
   6. Collateral
      • Brochures, product sheets, flyers
      • Catalogs, manuals, instructions, installation
      • Educational pieces (white papers, guides, how-tos)
   7. Trade shows and Events (national, international, regional shows, dealer open houses)
      • Exhibit design
      • Booth graphics
      • Pre-show promotion
   8. Channel marketing
      • Dealer or distributor programs
      • Promotions
      • Merchandising support, POP, packaging
      • Training programs
      • Launch kits
      • MDF and Co-Op programs
   9. Direct marketing
      • Direct mail
      • Database marketing
      • List procurement, email, webcasts
   10. Photography and video (supports all tactics above)

BACKGROUND

OBJECTIVES (quantify)

STRATEGIES

TACTICS

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No question Social Media or Social Marketing is the marketing topic du jour.
And while the benefits of Social to B2B marketers are becoming more obvious,
traditional marketing still delivers measurable sales. For many marketers,
the website is the foundation of marketing activity. Integrated with social
media, websites become even more potent a marketing weapon.

Certainly every B2B market has its own nuances, but old fashioned new
product launches, special promotions and sales and channel programs are the
marketing that drives real sales. Advertising and publicity build awareness
and even direct response.

Its important not to forget what marketing strategies and tactics deliver
sales, as it is easy for a marketer to get sucked into spending hours on
social media with little sales results to show for it.

To be sure, all marketing activities should be planned, budgeted,
prioritized and integrated. Social Media supports traditional marketing, it
does not replace. For most of our B2B clients, we consider the following
tactics:

• Brand identity, graphic themes, messaging, taglines

• Website, search optimization, social media

• Advertising

• Publicity

• Brochures, literature and content

• Sales programs, promotions and training

• Channel marketing

• Trade shows and events

• Direct marketing including email and webcasts

• Photography and video

What traditional marketing do you implement and how does Social Media fit
into the so-called marketing mix?

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