With the improvement of the economy, online ad spending continues to grow.

According to the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and PricewaterhouseCoopers, Internet advertising revenue hit $8.4 billion for the first three months of 2012, an increase of some 15 percent over the same period in 2011. The figure is reportedly the largest Q1 revenue that both IAB and PC have measured dating back to their first recordings in 1996.

David Silverman, a partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers U.S., noted “The year-over-year growth between Q1 2011 and Q1 2012 sets quite a milestone. Moreover, a 15 percent increase over the comparable period in 2011 is a solid affirmation the Internet is delivering on its promise to attract consumers and the advertising dollars that follow.”

According to Randall Rothenberg, president and CEO, IAB “Marketers and agencies are clearly–and wisely–investing dollars to reach digitally connected consumers.”

Digital video advertising — which the IAB includes as a portion of display advertising — witnessed solid growth as well, increasing 29% from $1.4 billion to $1.8 billion. As a whole, display spending grew 15% in 2011 from $9.6 billion to $11.1 billion.

Search advertising witnessed even larger gains, increasing 27% from $11.7 billion to $14.8 billion. It continued to represent the biggest proportion of online ad spend: at 46.5%, up from 44.8% in 2010. That increase came at the expense of display, which declined from 37% in 2010 to 34.8% last year.

What’s Your Game Plan to Grow Your Lead Generation?

With the halfway point of 2012, coming up next month, B2B marketers should look at several items in order to be sure they are doing everything possible to increase their advertising sales lead generation. Among them:

• Let your headlines and content speak – The content you put both on your Web site and emails needs to give customers a call to action.
• Consider special offers – Buyers like deals, so make them available where and whenever possible.. Also keep in mind who you are sending the offers to so that you’re delivering relevant offers.
• Make sure forms are up to date – If you have the consumer going to a form page on your site, be sure that it is easy to navigate and is short and sweet if requesting the consumer to fill it out.
• Utilize social media – It is still rather amazing how many B2B companies are not taking advantage of all social media has to offer. Be sure that you have exposure on the main players such as Facebook, Twitter and Google+ for starters. If you are on such sites already, analyze the metrics to see how often you are using the sites, what kind of follow rate you are getting, and who exactly is following your company.

As some signs point to a recovering economy, what will Q2 say about your B2B online advertising efforts?

Photo credit: tvads.com

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As more and more B2B companies are discovering, the role played by the corporate marketer has a big impact on the success of the business.

That thinking is further supported by a recent report from the Institute for the Study of Business Markets at Penn State University and Illinois-based marketing agency Blue Canyon Partners.

Moving on from the first part of the study, this research centered on ongoing talks with B2B marketers, identified the 10 best practices for corporate B2B marketers.

Points six through 10 include:

6. Teach and Communicate - Corporate marketing must take advantage of the opportunity to bring a common language of the marketing discipline to their firm. In B2B firms, oftentimes the whole concept of “marketing” is quite misunderstood. Corporate marketing must facilitate common language and learning throughout the business, and take accountability for communicating what marketing is all about.

The success of the majority of messaging programs starts with the company’s own employees and close-in stakeholders. They are responsible for ensuring that their colleagues know of corporate-wide changes taking place, whether fundamental changes in the firm’s business model or changes tied to new corporate marketing communication efforts. Providing information regarding the changes permits for internal build buy-in to the new directions. They assist employees in answering questions from customers and suppliers, because, as many business-to-business marketers know, third parties are more apt to first turn to employees to obtain answers.

7. Drive Internal Integration - Corporate marketing must also form cross-functional integration, which is absolutely necessary in executing marketing plans. They understand that good marketing plans are not developed and then “handed off” to other functions. Good marketing plans incorporate tight integration with numerous functions throughout the corporation – most especially the sales function – as they’re developed.  Marketers get inputs from finance, operations, research and design, engineering, corporate communications, and other functions as plans are developed.  They are vigilant in connecting marketing plans to the major functions that will implement or execute them.

8. Communicate during a Crisis – Along with the public relations department, corporate marketing owns the responsibility for the company’s communications during a time of crisis.  Due to the fact crises often impact customers, suppliers, distributors, and other constituents, it’s very important that a well-coordinated crisis communication plan, with protocols and practiced processes, is set up in advance of a crisis. Marketing assists to plan, design and resource this process, and is an important cog in the crisis team when a situation arises.

9. Introduce New-to-the-World Trends and Tools – Companies that are passionate when it comes to deeply understanding new trends, new ideas, and new tools rely on corporate marketing to bring this learning to the table in a balanced and actionable way. These topics can include the need to understand global changes, assess the economic outlook, address technology trends, think on the implications of new business model concepts, stay up to speed on changes in the competitive environment, etc. From recent social networking phenomena to the economic global shifts underway in the 21^st century, corporate marketing must put together a forum so that this information can be leveraged and spread throughout the corporation, and assist businesses deal with concepts that might well first appear to be “out in left field”, but which in truth can profoundly impact on success down the road.

10. Understand Marketing Funding and Measurement - Corporate marketing functions move through a number of maturity levels as to how they’re funded, and how their success is measured.

If the funding model for the corporate marketing function involves ongoing cycles of justification with business units, all of whom contribute to the corporate marketing function budget (by way of an allocation or what is often viewed as a “tax”), the real leverage of this function is greatly limited.  While this methodology does ensure ongoing contact with the business units, this model can often lead to on-going wasteful discussions and a corporate function whose fate increases and decreases with the state of the economy, and business-unit-specific politics.

When a corporate matching fund is deployed well, it enhances connection between the corporate and business unit functions, greases the skids of execution, and can result in healthy synergistic relationships.

In conclusion, in the B2B environment corporate marketing must bring superior competencies, stronger processes, crisper language and brand direction to the forefront.  The move toward world-class corporate marketing takes time and investment, but involves a path that does not detour into the long-term parking lot. By zeroing in on the Top 10 best practices described, a corporate marketing leader can start a journey toward contributing enormously to the enterprise’s goals.

As a B2B marketer, are you willing and able to try and tie some of these principles into your pay-per-click campaigns and lead generation?

Photo credit: reducedprinting.com

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As more and more B2B companies are discovering, the role played by the corporate marketer has a big impact on the success of the business.

That thinking is further supported by a recent report from the Institute for the Study of Business Markets at Penn State University and Illinois-based marketing agency Blue Canyon Partners.

The study, centered on ongoing talks with B2B marketers, identified the 10 best practices for corporate B2B marketers:

1. Drive Marketing Planning - Corporate marketing drives a systematic approach for developing company-wide marketing plans. Closely tied with their business unit colleagues, the corporate marketing leader heads the approach to engineer the planning process, and constructs the tool sets to back the marketing planning effort. This framework involves an understanding as the way to go about addressing a number of planning options. Those options include decision “rights” at different levels of the organization, expectations as to the level of detail that is necessary, promulgation of the tools to be used within the corporation, templates illustrating the recommended approach to plan design, etc.

2. Be the Brand Steward – Corporate marketing takes care of the corporate brand.  Custodianship starts with clearly articulating what the firm wants its corporate brand to mean, and putting together the tools, techniques, and training to communicate this to all constituent audiences. In today’s business-to-business environment, the brand is reinforced and maintained via numerous employees of the firm.

Going past setting corporate brand direction, corporate marketing also involves setting the ground rules on the use of the corporate brand, nurturing and protecting the master brand, and offering overall quality control, brand architecture, and decision making relating to building the corporation’s brand equity. This includes creating frameworks for how to handle brand transitions (for new product development, for acquisitions, for sun-setting brands, etc.) along with measuring and monitoring brand equity (e.g., brand assessments, customer satisfaction, etc.);

3. Ensure that Voice of the Customer Informs Business Strategy -  When corporate leadership wants to update, re-think, or re-establish the fundamental strategy of the business, corporate marketing needs to have major involvement in this endeavor.  Marketing represents the voice of the market and customer as business strategies are put together, as goals are set, and as opportunities for growth – both organic and inorganic – are talked about.  This can include the formation of a clear and genuinely differentiated statement of the mission and vision of the firm, but goes past that.

The voice of the customer championed by corporate marketing should be viewed by executives as very important to assisting build market-driven differentiated strategy;

4. Train and Develop Marketing Talent - Corporate marketing must partner with human resources to recruit, hire, on-board, train, and develop career paths for talented marketing professionals. Marketing leaders establish career paths that enable marketers to have a well-rounded view of the company, and that bring a marketing point of view – and marketing talent – into key positions throughout the firm.  These companies aspire to have a marketing career ladder, much like the “technical ladder” where senior technical people can move to a greater level of responsibility and impact, as individual contributors.

A large number of firms that do not reach the level of world-class business-to-business firms sometimes “park” executives in the corporate marketing role, if they have no other logical place go.  Stronger organizations understand that a person with an engineering background, but with no particular skill, talent, or understanding of marketing may not always be the best choice to be positioned into a senior marketing role. Progressive companies include marketing positions as part of the must-have stepping stones for fast track managers.

5. Deploy Specialist Teams - Marketing specialists can run the gamut. A number of organizations form enterprise shared services.

Other marketing organizations have put together SWAT teams that are deployable resources with strong, practical marketing competencies. These teams are often wanted by business unit leaders to take care of strategic problems or address special opportunities that might come about. These resources are called in routinely to assist with growth challenges that the business leaders face.  They are trusted advisers who can see past obstacles, take a broader view, and provide a focused team of talented professionals, beyond what a business unit may be able to find (or fund) in the normal course of business.

These issues can include needing a plan to grow into adjacent markets, to grow quicker than the market, or to reposition a brand that is dealing with a crisis.  This team is not empowered to simply be the arms and legs and extra resources for the business unit; instead, the goal of the team is to give the whole corporation a leveraging effect by working with business units on the big matters that can yield positive ramifications throughout the entire company.

Editor’s note: Look for Part 2 (steps 6 through 10) in Friday’s post.

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Even though some individuals think social media is a fad that will one day be a thing of the past, others have jumped on the social media bandwagon, looking to ride it as far as possible.

As a B2B marketer, what role has social media played in your marketing efforts over the first half of this year and in recent years?

According to a recent poll from software provider Satmetrix, most B2B companies still fail to track their social media activity, in effect ignoring customers that interact with brand pages online.

The poll of nearly 1,200 worldwide professionals points out that 51 percent of B2B companies actually have no social media tracking at their businesses, in comparison to 22 percent of their B2C counterparts.

Also noted in the survey was that 69 percent of B2B respondents actually turned a deaf ear to customers that offered feedback through social media due to the fact they had no system in place in order to offer a response.

With those businesses measuring effectiveness of social media, a mere four percent undertook sentiment analysis, while most (56 percent) resorted to counted remarks and followers, suggesting measurement techniques prove to be lacking when it comes to sophistication.

According to a spokesperson for Satmetrix, “While 77 percent of consumers post about products, 67 percent of businesses have no means of measuring what is being said and less than one in 20 have any insight into the sentiment of what is being said. This is both a huge threat and a massive lost opportunity.”

As a B2B marketer, ask yourself:

• What is your company’s strategy towards social media?
• What could you do better with social media that you are not currently using?
• What feedback have you gotten from customers regarding your social media efforts?
• What allocation of time and resources does your company put toward social media?

In the event your B2B marketing efforts have not involved a fair amount of social media, do you fully understand what you are missing out on?

In many cases, you could be coming across as anti-social.

Photo credit: buzzom.com

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As a B2B marketer, how do you go about reaching out to business prospects?

Several recent surveys take a look at how marketers are going after prospects; along with what is showing to be successful and what is not.

In the “2012 Tech Marketing Barometer Study” from IDC, lead generation was viewed as a major B2B marketing priority for this year.

Among the respondents, bettering lead generation obtained the highest score (20.7), followed by putting together more brand awareness (16.2) and improving on marketing processes (13.9).

Marketers were also questioned on their performance on lead scoring, defined as the qualification of lead readiness when utilizing quantitative criteria.

Among the findings:

• A mere 10 percent of tech marketers indicated they do not score leads;
• One-third indicated they have begun to score leads, however it is not done consistently;
• One-third reported they score leads frequently centered on different prospect interactions like opening email or looking at webcasts;
• Sixteen percent stated they have scored leads consistently for more than 18 months, now being able to tie interactions to buyer intent;
• Eight percent noted they have been scoring leads for a number of years focused on ideal customer knowledge and purchaser readiness.

Content Needs to Be Strong Focus of Reaching Out

Meantime, data from DemandGen Report indicates that marketers are in fact turning away prospects as a result of zeroing in on the wrong content too often.

The data noted that:

• 88 percent of respondents say they have used white papers for business research in the last year, 73 percent have utilized webinars, while more than 50 percent have used Ebooks, blogs and podcasts;
• White papers were rated as “most valuable” more often than any other format (56 percent of those that rated white papers);
• White papers have the greatest spread between very valuable and minimal value. Respondents are five times more apt to indicate they are the most valuable (30 percent) than to state they are the least valuable (6 percent). On the other hand, the spread for ebooks, webcasts and podcasts is smaller than three times;
• Close to half (47 percent) opt for text or narrative content formats, with just 33 percent preferring more visual content formats;
• White papers ranked as the most likely format to be shared (70 percent), followed by case studies. Meantime, only 40 percent share webcasts.

The research indicates that providing one’s prospects a number of options is important, with the white paper getting prominent stature in their lead generation plans.

As we prepare to head into the second half of 2012 in another month or so, are you meeting your lead generation goals?

If not, have you been reviewing your content to see if it is off the mark?

Photo credit: fitnessandspicemarketing.com

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If your B2B company has not been raking in the revenue you would like, now might be a great time to review your SEO practices, especially in light of the Penguin algorithm update.

The bottom line is your Web site needs to generate a steady flow of traffic in order to keep business coming in and expanding those efforts to potential new customers. As you may or may not know, your site and your full online presence must be properly optimized in order to achieve the best results via search engines, most notably Google.

If you have not recently reviewed your online optimization efforts, take the time to do so now. Among the things you will want to make sure you are doing:

• Make sure your white papers/guides are optimized – By sharing your documents that are engaging and informative, you increase the awareness of what products and services your business offers. Optimization should also be a priority with imagery in order to have them crawled. You also build inbound links to raise your SEO, along with moving traffic to your site;
• Put together SEO-friendly press releases – Informative press releases that are properly distributed will show up in Google News, giving you a good outlet to get your company’s information in front of many eyes;
• Google place listing – When you have a finalized Google place listing, you will find that it is easier for your customers to locate you. Be sure to items like images, important contact information, deals and promotions, along with a solid description of what the company offers;
• Utilize anchor text – It is important to have your anchor text strategically placed in order to insert a hyperlink behind a focused keyword that you want to stand out;
• Utilize no-follow links – According to Google, a Web site that has links directed viewed by the search engine giant as being highly concentrated in spam can impact both the reputation and ranking of your own site. In order to battle link spam, utilize the no-follow link command. When it is turned on, a search engine crawler does not follow the link, while your site will not be penalized for direction to a spam locale;
• Make sure your inbound links are beneficial – One of the best ways to gain positive attention from Google’s rankings is by making sure you have a large number of links from high-quality sites. The best way to go about this is by finding quality bloggers within your industry and swapping links with them;
• Content rules – At the end of the day, quality and engaging content does make a difference. You want material that serves the needs of your current and potential customers (write with them in mind), with content that is original and provides focused keywords.

The Penguin Surfaces

As for the recent emergence of the Penguin algorithm, the numbers are in to show what kind of impact it has had to date.

Google reports the Penguin update impacted 12 percent of all searches, only affecting approximately 3.1 percent of all searches done in English.

For those that were still trying to understand Panda and had yet to focus on Penguin, this latest algorithm penalized those sites applying keyword stuffing and unusual linking patterns, among which would be anchor text links for targeted keywords not directly related to content on a page.

In order to better your ranking situation if you were left out in the cold by Penguin, there are some things you can do. They include:

• Fess up to your site being punished and then correct the matter, be it cleaning up bad links and/or rewriting and providing fresher content;
• Resubmit the improved content to get Google’s blessing;
• Going forward, only utilize ethical SEO tactics;
• Always be prepared for another Google algorithm procedure, meaning review your site from time to time to make sure your content is what it needs to be, along with fixing any linking issues.

How often does your business review its SEO best practices, and have you seen a hit recently on your site due to Penguin?

Photo credit: silverbackmarketing.com

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We’ve all had that telltale sense of dread.

After spending days putting together an email detailing our newest offer (Brand new product! Never seen before! Will solve all your life problems, from varicose veins to a bad golf game!), we send the email out and wait for the responses to roll in.

Rather than roll in, however, they trickle in so slowly that a midday email from Grandma makes us sit up and take notice. (That is, until we realize Granny isn’t interested in our product, either – she just wants to know if we’re coming to dinner Sunday night.)

This sense of disappointment doesn’t have to be par for the course when you’re running email marketing campaigns. Rather than resolving yourself to lagging responses and sub-par returns on your investment, make it your goal to revitalize your campaign.

What Successful E-Marketers Do

Email marketing can come across as spam. (Shocking, no?) Successful campaigns begin with trust. The recipients of email marketing must recognize and welcome messages from the sender. Because of this inherent need for trust, strong e-marketers don’t rent or buy email lists. Nothing turns people off faster except, perhaps, Grandma’s meatloaf.

If you’re sending email via a third party, make sure their list is responsive. Are they following the Marketing Golden Rule to give as much as you take? Like any relationship, email marketing requires a balance. If you’re constantly trying to sell people through your emails, they’ll quickly tire of receiving them. Good e-marketers try to provide value as often as they sell. They provide real benefits – not just discounts on their stuff. Subscribers look forward to receiving their mailings because they offer tips, access to information, and other exclusive content for free.

Successful marketers act as if their emails are going to be read by actual humans. This means that their text is written in plain, natural language. Writing emails as if they’d go to a friend or a family member works better than trying to over-market. People see through the awkward verbiage of someone desperately trying to sell a product. But someone who’s writing so that even Grandma understands why this new-fangled contraption is interesting will entice more readers.

When writing, these marketers also pay close attention to their subject lines.

Like article headings, subject lines must grab the attention of the recipient. It’s the surest way to keep them from automatically deleting your message. How do you know what gets them intrigued? Target and tailor your campaigns. You can only knock on someone’s door so many times; when you do, make sure it’s worthwhile for both of you. Determine your ideal audience or target demographic, and build your campaign around them.

For example, my clients are eBook enthusiasts; when sponsors send emails to our client base, we suggest that they offer an eBook or an e-Guide in their campaign because that’s what our audience wants. It’s a win-win for our clients and our sponsors.

What Lackluster Campaigns Do

The least successful email campaigns are created without spam triggers in mind.

Email providers, including Gmail and Yahoo!, review each email before they direct them appropriately. Emails riddled with spam triggers – spam keywords, excessive links, and a low ratio of text to images – get siphoned into junk mail, or aren’t delivered at all. (Are you seeing why these are the least successful campaigns?) It’s impossible to get feedback if your emails are never read, so familiarize yourself with the most important spam triggers so you can make it past first base.

Similarly, bad email marketing doesn’t comply with CAN-SPAM regulations. Companies who fail to properly identify themselves or provide unsubscribe methods are quickly blacklisted. These aren’t optional details – these regulations are law. The only way to make your bad campaign worse is to get fined $16,000 by law enforcement for each email sent. Talk about a nightmare!

Finally, weak campaigns are never split tested. Split testing allows you to see which elements of your campaigns are most successful – or most disliked. Split tests quickly show marketers what’s stale about their existing campaigns, whether it’s their design, their copy, or their offer.

Several variations of split testing exist, so there’s no good excuse for e-marketers to not do it. If, somehow, your business is against split testing, at the very least you should be tracking your open rates, your click-through rates, and which links are getting the most hits. You can’t replicate success if you don’t know what was successful in the first place, but you can certainly fail over and over again by doing the same things.

By carefully considering your text, your approach, and your customers’ needs, you’re more likely to strike gold with your next email marketing campaign.

Keep your recipients’ perceptions in mind as you develop your campaign, and success shouldn’t be far behind. (Heck, maybe even Grandma will want what you’re selling.)

Photo credit: scholesmarketing.com

About the author: Nicolas Gremion is CEO of Free-eBooks.net, a source for free eBook downloads, eBook resources, and eBook authors, and Foboko.com, a social publishing network.

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As B2B marketers review their options for keeping their budgets in line the remainder of 2012, holding the line entirely on spending does not seem to be an option for a number them.

Two recent reports surveying how B2B marketers planned to spend their budgeting funds for 2012 indicate a plan to increase such budgets and a turn toward marketing automation solutions.

First, a recent report from Forrester Research notes that B2B marketers say they will grow their marketing budgets by 6.8 percent during the year.

According to B2B Marketers Must Focus on Partnership and Experimentation as 2012 Budgets Rises, a little more than one-fourth (27 percent) of marketers will increase their budgets somewhere between 10 to 19 percent this year. Twenty percent of them state they will likely grow their budgets between 5 percent and 9 percent, while 18 percent plan to increase budgets anywhere from 1 to 4 percent. Lastly, 16 percent of marketers indicate they will be enhancing their budgets by more than 20 percent this year.

The survey also points out that industries planning to utilize the greatest portion of their budgets on marketing include finance and insurance (3 percent), high-tech (2.7 percent) and pharma and medical (2.6 percent).

While B2B marketing budgets for this year have already been planned out, that does not mean they cannot be tweaked to fit necessary needs.

Among the ways to make sure you came up with the right budget for this year are:

• Review the 2011 budget to see where alterations were made during last year and whether or not those proved to be wise decisions;
• Did you use blank-page budgeting? If so, you are able to construct the budget as you go along, using both the marketing plan and its marketing communications tactics to better assist your needs;
• Allowing for potential cuts. In the event your boss/bosses are discussing plans to trim the budget from its present state, discuss with them which area of sales they would be comfortable part with, given the fact decreasing the budget will lead to less sales revenue;
• See what the competition has done. One means by which to potentially stave off major slashes in the B2B marketing budget is by showing management what the competition has been doing to date. If there are areas to where you can capitalize on moves the competition has made, you are more likely to get approval from management.

Meantime, a Wakefly survey of several hundred B2B marketers’ points out the attention towards marketing automation solutions this time around.

According to the survey, while B2B marketers previously indicated allocating less than 3 percent of their entire online marketing budget to marketing automation solutions in the past, now more than 10 percent indicate doing such.

Overall, 61 percent of those surveyed said 2012 would provide them with budget increase, with 31 percent planning the same expenditures as they had in 2011. A mere 8 percent said this year’s budget would shrink from a year ago.

Other major growth was expected in marketing allocations for PPC search and landing page design, together making up another 30 percent of B2B marketing allocations for this year.

Surprisingly, no increase was noted in allocations over 2011 for both social media marketing and e-mail marketing.

In looking at the first four months of 2012, what appears to be working for you and what is not doing as well?

With seven months left to go in the year, what changes if any are planned for your B2B marketing budget?

Photo credit: marketingprofs.com

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As you put together your B2B marketing content, implementing the right keywords sounds like a no-brainer, but how many of you actually take the time to get it done right the first time?

B2B marketing content contains an array of possibilities, including press releases, guides and white papers, blog postings, e-mail newsletters and more. Which keywords you use and where they are placed, proves critical in order to get more eyes directed towards your copy.

Some things to keep in mind as you look to optimize your content:

• In looking at it through the eyes of search engine optimization (SEO), more times than not it is more advantageous to utilize heavily focused keywords with minimum search volumes. By doing this, your traffic not only stands a better chance of being targeted but you increase the chances of being located. In the event you use popular, generic terminology, your chances of ranking decrease;
• Be sure you know your audience. It stands to reason that you will be targeting different audiences over time, so your keywords need to reflect this. You will have different demographics looking to do business with you, so using the same terminology to cover the entire spectrum will not work. As an example, if you’re marketing to small business owners pitching life insurance, some keywords to consider would be life insurance quotes, affordable life insurance, life insurance for individuals, life insurance for families, quotes for life insurance etc.  Another important facet to your audience is listening to them. Talk to your clients in deciding what terminology they use in their search efforts ;
• Track your efforts. By tracking your keywords through analytics such as those offered by Google for example, it is easy to determine those words individuals are utilizing to come to your site. Don’t only review keywords used to come to a single page or two, but those used to move further into your site. In order to better your standing in organic search, it is important that the keywords you use are tied to and relevant with the overall vision behind your site;
• Be willing to adapt. It is also important that your keyword strategy not be set in stone, as you need to evolve and stay up to speed with what your clients want and need. Put to use keywords and phrases that will provide sufficient search volumes and prove relevant at the same time;
• Determine keyword competitiveness. As you search and track keywords, use an online tool that will label keywords as being either low, medium or very competitive. Speaking of competitive, see what the competition is doing as far as bringing traffic to their site. If there are keyword terms they use and you don’t that appear to be working, consider some changes;
• Understand importance of keyword density. Lastly, make sure you have a firm grasp of keyword density. Avoid worrying over the precise number of times you utilize an exact target phrase, given that when your keywords are relevant and tied to a specific page’s content, they will find their proper placing. Remember, the goal is to come up with material that proves optimal for both search engines and readers. In most cases, a keyword density rate anywhere from 1 percent to 5 percent is oftentimes adequate, meaning the designated keyword would show up in the content one to five times for every 100 words. One note of caution is being careful to not exceed your keyword density ratio in so that search engines perceive it to be keyword spamming.

Photo credit: udemy.com

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A recent study from the Aberdeen Group indicates that those B2B marketers utilizing best-in-class B2B practices are generating, on average, some 17 percent of all leads through their social media channels.

The study reviewed four performance criteria in order to separate Best-in-Class (the leading 20 percent of aggregate performers) from the average industry and worst performing Laggard companies (middle 50 percent and lowest 30 percent, respectively).

According to the study, the Best-in-Class businesses witnessed these performance metrics:

• Average annual revenue increase of 20%, compared to 8% for average and –3% for Laggard organizations;
• Average 10% year over year improvement of marketing leads that lead to closed sales, compared with 3% for the industry average and –1 for those Laggard organizations;
• A 44% of forecasted sales generated by marketing, that compares to 27% for average and 7% for Laggards;
• The customer retention rate grew to an annual 73%, as compared to 27% for average and 7% for Laggard organizations.

Also of note from the study:

• Forty-seven percent of Best-in-Class businesses report increasing lead generation as their main reasoning with social media marketing efforts, and 13 percent note generating leads to be their secondary strategy;
• Twenty-three percent of Best-in-Class companies note forming clear business process for social marketing as their main strategy, and 8 percent report process development to be a secondary strategy.

Overall, the study points out that an overwhelming 84 percent of all the B2B marketers that took part in the survey are utilizing social marketing to some degree.

As it stands, the Best-in-Class businesses are typically showing a greater focus on using social media for lead-generation purposes and are more apt to involve social marketing with their other primary marketing channels and actions.

At the end of the day, B2B marketers have a number of reasons to leverage social media, including:

• Add to company’s brand awareness
• Put a human touch on the company
• Be looked upon as a thought leader
• Interact with both current and potential customers

In your efforts to generate leads, what role has social media played for you in the last year?

Photo credit: leadershippost.com

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