Small businesses and major corporations are both constantly trying to generate new business. Lead generation can be done a number of ways: through lead generation services, online marketing, tradeshows and more. Social media is the talk of the town for B2C businesses, but B2B companies are just getting on board. Successful B2B online marketers are using social media and seeing a positive impact from doing so. Did you know that the companies who actively manage social media campaigns have seen comparatively high conversion rates as well as healthy engagement rates (Optify’s B2B Marketing Benchmark Report)? If you’re wondering how to nurture those leads you’ve generated on social networks, take these 3 steps for greater success.

Step One: Connect

You may have made contact with a lead once… or maybe you haven’t. Social networks are a great way to reach out leads directly through mediums other than email or the phone. Optify found that Twitter is the strongest social media channel for generating leads. It even outperforms Facebook and LinkedIn 9-to-1 with 82% of social media leads coming from Twitter. Lead generation and lead nurturing efforts can be improved as your sales and marketing teams connect with these people and business decision-makers on social networks.

• How to Find Them: You have their contact information. Use it to find and connect with these prospects on networks such as LinkedIn and Twitter.
• How to Connect: Personalize your connection requests, especially with LinkedIn. If you’re asking someone to become a fan of your company on Facebook, provide them with a valid reason they should.

Step Two: Engage

Engagement with prospects can mean different things for different businesses, but the often overall goal is to create a deeper relationship with those potential customers. Engagement involves your business providing value to these leads via social networks. According to Optify, website engagement from different social media channels varies, but LinkedIn leads the pack while Twitter shows the lowest page views per visit.

• Tweet prospects directly to let them know when an event is taking place in their industry.
• Aim to become a thought leader for your customers to turn to by providing content that can help them gain new insight into how to be more successful. Share your content and the content of others – you don’t want to be overly self-promotional.

Step 3: Convert

Conversion is the ultimate goal. Connecting and engaging a lead are necessary steps in order to convert a lead into a customer. Social media can be the final point of contact between a prospect and your business or brand, so make each touch point count. Facebook is the strongest driver of traffic among the three (Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn), but Twitter leads the way for lead generation.  While Facebook drove the highest percentage of visits from social media, Twitter outperforms it in terms of lead conversion by over a 9-to-1 ratio.

• The B2B buying process has changed and now customers are more likely to come to you when they are ready instead of responding to advertisements. Provide ways for prospects to become customers on your social networks such as with applications, social media specific discounts, etc.
• Optimize your landing pages so that as a customer comes to your pages via social networks, they don’t become lost and have a way to carry on the conversation, via live chat or easy social sharing.

Some may not see the value in lead nurturing via social media. However, it is time to open your eyes to the possibility of these expanding networks. The 2012 Social Media Marketing Industry Report, sponsored by Social Media Examiner, found that 58% of marketers who have been using social media for more than three years report it has helped them improve sales. Social media is where you business can truly become creative in how to attract, engage and convert leads you have generated. Lead nurturing isn’t restricted to follow-up calls and emails. Brand out and stand out with a social media nurturing campaign.

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Social business and an engaging social content strategy go hand in hand. The content you produce can incorporate a number of assets including checklists, images, videos, copy and social posts. Social media and the social content strategy approach have more in common with all other forms of content marketing than you might think. We know content marketing is on the rise for B2B businesses in 2013, but how is social media included in this number? As you develop your strategy, keep these three things in mind.

Talk Through Your Audience

It is easier to get your brand, content, and social posts in front of people who already connect with your business. What about the audience beyond your immediate fan base? B2B marketers, especially those on a budget, need to create ways to talk through their audience. The audience of your audience, and their audience, are potentially new customers for you. As you develop your social content strategy, consider the ways in which you can talk through your current audience to connect with new audiences.

• What do your customers want? Focus on the content that your customers want and what social networks are the best for sharing and promoting that type of content. For example, if you’re targeting IT professionals, LinkedIn may be a better place to start than Pinterest.
• What do they want to experience? Consider the type of experience someone will have when they encounter or share your content. The experience, whether it’s a phone conversation or the way in which they find information on your site, should be a consideration with everything you do.

For B2B buyers, their audience isn’t family and friends for the way it is for B2C buyers. A significant number of B2B buyers (38%) involve more team members in buying decisions, and around 30% do more detailed ROI/cost analyses of solutions than they did in the past (2012 Demand Gen Report B2B Buyer Survey). This means, B2B marketers need to find a way to reach  all the decision makers involved in the purchasing process.

Understand Content Strategies are Social by Nature

Business may be about the numbers, but marketing and sales are all about the chains and the paths customers take to reach the end of it. There are the sales and marketing funnel, buyer journey and more. “What the customer wants you to know” equals understanding what your audience and their audience want you and other vendors to know. The social B2B buyer and buyers in general are affected by the opinions of their peers. As mentioned, business buying is a group decision. While this conversation may be offline, it often begins or ends online.

• Reach out to leads who are in the research phase of the buying cycle with whitepapers, case studies and infographics that not only educate the buyer, build thought leadership but are also easily shared on social networks.
• If possible, share the demographics of who else is buying from your business. Your prospects may be interested in knowing who, in their area or industry, has found success with your products or services.

Nearly all B2B buyers (94%) view multiple pieces of content from the company they ultimately select (2012 Demand Gen Report B2B Buyer Survey). This is one indication that you need to be producing content that your audience will find relevant and useful in making a purchasing decision. The other key indicator in this passage that you should be focusing on is that of multiple pieces. For example, you can create calculators, webinars, case studies, eBooks and buyer guides. Each of these unique pieces of content helps elevate your business and brand.

Be Relevant to Address Needs

You may have been able to pick it up from the previous sections of this article or past blog posts, but the content your marketing and sales teams share needs to be relevant. What your customers and their audiences say should serve as inspiration for the content you create from a social perspective. Listening is the basis, while acting to drive action and sharing are the goals. Content is what brings these two together successfully.

• Start social listening, if you aren’t already, to discover the pain points of your audience and their audience. Then use content and social media to solve these problems. Note: add example of how they should do this.
• Segment, target, and personalize your content to be as relevant as possible. Social media is not for amplification, it’s for social conversations.

More than 37% of buyers say sellers fail to provide enough content tailored for their specific job roleor industry. Stand out from the crowd while nurturing a lead by providing relevant content that they’ll find valuable. Nearly 63% of the respondents said that case-study examples were at the top of their research content lists. Industry case studies that address the pain points are a sure way to encourage your content gets shared.

Social media networks are important platforms for every business. It provides you with the opportunity to connect on a more personal level with your audience. Don’t let the opportunity pass you by! Talk to and through your social audience by developing a content strategy that focuses on relevance and tailored content.

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Metrics matter. As marketers, there are multiple numbers and reports we need to validate our efforts.  After all, if a marketing team isn’t helping a business generate new customers and creating better relationships with current ones, they often won’t be considered as successful as they could be. A Hubspot cheat sheet shares the 6 of the most important marketing metrics. We’ve broken them down just for B2B marketers.

Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)

The Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) is a metric used to determine the total average cost you spend to acquire a new customer or lead. Businesses want a low average.

Why You Should Care: An increase in CAC means that you are spending comparatively more for each new customer or lead, which suggests there’s a problem with your sales or marketing efficiency that needs to be resolved.

Marketing Percent of Customer Acquisitions Cost

The Marketing Percent of Customer Acquisition Cost is the marketing portion of your total CAC, calculated as a percentage of the overall CAC.  This number can show you how the marketing teams performance and spending impact your overall Customer Acquisition cost.

Why You Should Care: An increase here can mean a number of things: Your sales team could have underperformed (and consequently received) lower commissions and/or bonuses, your marketing team is spending too much or has too much overhead or you are in an investment phase, spending more on marketing to provide more high quality leads and improve your sales productivity

Ratio of Customer Lifetime Value to CAC (LTV:CAC)

The Ratio of Customer Lifetime Value to CAC is a way for you to estimate the total value that your company derives from each customer compared with what you spend to acquire that lead or new customer. While reaching new customers is always important, so is total company growth.

Why You Should Care: The higher this number, the more ROI your sales and marketing team is delivering to your bottom line. A ratio that is too high could indicate you aren’t reaching enough new customers or connecting with enough leads. Spending more on acquiring new customers or leads to reach out to will reduce your LTV:CAC ratio, but can help speed up total growth.

Time to Payback CAC

The Time to Payback CAC shows you the number of months it takes for your company to earn back the CAC it spent acquiring new customers. In industries where your customers pay a monthly or annual fee, which many B2B businesses do, you normally want your Payback Time to be under 12 months.

Why You Should Care: The less time it takes to payback your CAC, the sooner you can start profiting from the new customers. Most businesses aim to make each new customer profitable in less than a year, though new customers in the B2B industry can take 12-24 months to make a purchase.

Marketing Originated Customer Percent

The Marketing Originated Customer Percent is a ratio that shows what new business is driven by marketing, by determining which portion of your total customer acquisitions directly originated from marketing efforts. It’s based on your sales and marketing relationship and structure, so your ideal ratio will vary depending on your business model.

Why You Should Care: The impact of your marketing team’s lead generation efforts have on acquiring new customers is reflected in this percentage. A company with an outside sales team and inside sales support may be looking at 20-40%. A company with an inside sales team and lead focused marketing team might be at 40-80%.

Marketing Influenced Customer Percent

The Marketing Influenced Customer Percent takes into account all of the new customers that marketing interacted with while they were leads, anytime during the sales process. This percent takes into account the impact marketing has on a lead during their entire buying lifecycle.

Why You Should Care: This metric will indicate how effective marketing is at generating new leads, nurturing existing ones, and helping sales close the deal. It gives your CEO or CFO a big-picture look into the overall impact that marketing has on the entire sales process.

To find out how to calculate these numbers, visit the HubSpot cheat sheet.

Which of these metrics matters the most to your business?

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According to DemandGen reports, the B2B buyer behavior has been changing dramatically over the last few years as buyers find new ways to gather information online and via social media. In fact, 90% of business buyers say when they’re ready to buy, they’ll find you. A 2013 lead generation survey from Holger Schulze asked B2B marketers questions about their budgets, challenges and how they measure success and campaign ROI. Here are 3 key trends to take away from this research.

Generate High-Quality Leads

The number one challenge for B2B marketers is generating high-quality leads. The most effective lead generation tactics used by marketers are their company website, email marketing and SEO. Getting leads isn’t always a challenge, but getting a qualified lead is. A lead generation company, such as Business.com, can help small or medium-sized businesses connect with decision makers who are actively looking to make a purchase. Immediate and consistent follow up with emails and phone calls is critical for achieving optimal close rates.  Making 6 calls leads to a 90% increase in sales, but 78% of leads are contacted only once. Not all leads are ready to make a purchase, but studies (including one from Gartner) have shown that most will purchase within the next 12 to 24 months making these leads potential customers you can’t ignore. Nurturing leads with effective follow-up is a key factor in attaining high-quality leads. B2B email and lead nurturing success come from providing compelling content for each stage in the buying process to move buyers from first tough to purchase.

Break Down Lead Generation Barriers

According to a study conducted by Schulze, the greatest barrier to lead generation success is lack of resources, including staff, budget and time. Breaking down these barriers means making the most of the leads and resources your business has. Autoresponse emails can save your team time right off the bat. While many indicated budget as a barrier in their lead generation success, the survey also found that lead generation budgets are going up for nearly 50% of B2B marketers. Budgets are staying the same for 44%  of respondents. Lead generation programs receive the second biggest marketing budget allocation, second behind conferences and tradeshows. In order to break down the barrier of a lack of resources, reevaluate your marketing processes and whether money is being spent in the right place.

Measure Marketing Efforts

Businesses are about the data, the numbers and the ROI. Marketing departments are no different. B2B marketers’ top metrics to measure marketing ROI are lead volume, cost per lead, revenue and cost-per-acquisition. Marketing automation software is one way B2B marketers measure their efforts. The survey found that most B2B marketers (43%) use marketing automation software for reporting, analytics, and dashboard capabilities, followed by campaign tracking (42%).

Look for a marketing software solution that integrates with your CRM and campaign tracking easily. More and more, marketers in all industries want to see whether their efforts are yielding a positive ROI and are worth the time and investment they are dedicating to different channels and strategies. Measuring marketing efforts is one 2013 trend that isn’t going anywhere but up.

Lead generation is an area that many B2B businesses are familiar with. Many are having the same struggles when it comes to quality, allocation of resources and measuring their efforts. However, the increase in dedicated lead generation budget for nearly half of B2B marketers also indicates that businesses are seeing success with their lead generation efforts. According to this study, three trends B2B marketers need to pay attention to are how they can generate high-quality leads, break down barriers that arise due to a lack of resources, and measure their marketing efforts more effectively.

How does your business measure its lead generation success?

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A new study from Optify looked at the websites of over 500 of the Inc 5000 fastest growing companies and found that only 37% are using autoresponders to follow up on leads. Our research has found that there is a direct correlation between follow-up timing and conversion rates. Because a sales rep is not always available to reach out immediately to a lead, auto response emails are a simple and effective way for your business to communicate with a new prospect. There are four elements to an auto responder: a form, a “thank you” page, an email and cadence. Your initial and follow-up emails need to be branded, relevant and timeless. Our testing has found that emails sent from a person within the company, as opposed to sending from a generic company name, drive a higher response. Auto response email campaigns are a great way to stay connected with prospects after they submit a form and here are three ways your business can make the most of them.

The Thank You Page

A clear call to action can direct your customer further down the conversion funnel. The thank you page is an opportunity to upsell, cross-sell or deepen engagement with links to your blog or social networks. Focus on delivering content on your thank you page that helps the reader make sense of everything they just read and how they can put it into action to improve their business. You can even offer additional downloads. Turn your thank you page into a resource page and a way your business can continue to build its brand.

• Optify found that 91% of the B2B companies analyzed displayed a “Thank You” page stating that the form was received
• Only 18% of those with thank you pages displayed a call-to-action upon form submission. Be sure your thank you page encourages leads to continue interacting with your business.

The First Follow-Up

A fast auto response email places your business in the eyes of a potential customer again, before they have a chance to forget about your business and the form they filled out. Include trackable links to content on your site or blog. Sales teams are often reaching out to leads via phone calls. Your team’s first follow-up shouldn’t be a call or an email. It needs to be both. Timing is everything and when responding to a completed form within 5 minutes versus 10 minutes leads to a 900% increase in contact rate, your business needs to be reaching out to touch base quickly and through multiple communication channels if needed.

• 70% of the companies that use autoresponders send the first email within 15 minutes of a form being submitted with the average response time for these companies being just over 3 minutes.
• Only 58% of the immediate (within 15 minutes of submission) auto response emails were personalized.
• Emails sent in between phone calls raise the chances of achieving contact by 16% (Leads360).

The Next Follow-Up

Play with timing until you find the best time to submit emails. One best practice your business can follow is the 3:7 schedule. While your first email is sent immediately, second and third emails can be sent 3 days after form submission and then again one week after submission. After the first email, your follow-up emails need to progress depending on where the person is in the purchasing funnel. Letting the user know what to expect provides an additional layer of transparency to your lead nurturing process.

• 6% of the initial auto response emails contained an indication of a future email (Optify).
• Most companies send more than one follow up email — the average number of follow up emails sent in the first week was 2.54 and the average interval between the first and second email was just over 30.5 hours.
• The data from Leads360 reveals that the optimal number of email messages to increase conversion during the first month of a prospect’s lifetime is 5.

Combining the findings for phone calls and emails, the most effective contact strategy involves 6 phone calls and 5 emails, interspersed over 22 days. Use auto responders to make this process more efficient. An effective auto responder campaign generates a response. Give the prospect another opportunity to request additional information and connect with your business. An auto response program collects additional information about each prospect that your company and sales reps can use to prioritize follow-up. You can use your auto response efforts to nurture leads and guide them through the conversion funnel for greater optimization and success.

Has your business seen success with the use of auto response emails? How so?

(Image: Optify)

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For some time, the B2B marketing funnel has been a constant. Businesses have evolved, marketing platforms have too, but the funnel has remained. However, this is no longer the case. The buying cycle of business decision makers has changed. Now, your marketing funnel needs to do the same. When more than 90% of B2B buyers start their purchasing cycle by looking for solutions and suppliers online, you need to provide information about the solutions and how they are beneficial to your audience. You need to update your marketing funnel and here are the reasons why.

A New Research Process

There is a new research process in place that impacts your marketing funnel. Business buyers are increasingly conducting their own research before ever speaking with a sales rep. In fact, according to Forrester, two-thirds to 90% of the buying cycle is completed before a B2B buyer ever speaks with a sales rep. Instead of sending out impersonal or broad information via email, provide targeted, relevant content to your audience directly on your site and then share that information with targeted campaigns. Create awareness around the solutions your business provides and the problems you solve. You can do this through social media marketing, email campaigns and paid ads. Then, spend some time educating your site visitors and subscribers. Explain the impact and potential for prospects when they use your products. However, keep things conversational and educational. Not all content you offer needs to be a sales pitch.

A New Buying Conversation

Business buyers are no longer communicating with service or product providers right off the bat. According to IDG Connect, buyers spend just 21% of the buying cycle in conversations with salespeople, instead spending 23% of the time in conversations with peers and colleagues, and 56% of the buying cycle searching for and engaging with content. Those aren’t the only people contributing to purchase conversations as the number of people involved in a large technology purchase increased from 5 in 2010 to 7 in 2012 (International Data Corporation). The content you provide needs to appeal to the lead business buyer as well as others within their company. Consider what executives and managers will have an impact in the buying decision and provide content for each group. Business owners also want to know what businesses similar to theirs are buying, researching and investing in. When possible, share that information as well as industry trends.

A New Purchase Process

Businesses are conducting their own research, talking with colleagues and only reaching out to vendors when they are ready to receive proposals. According to UBM Techweb, 70% of business technology buyers are at the RFP stage by the time the vendor becomes aware of the opportunity. By the time a buyer reaches out to a business, they often have a deep understanding of their problem and have scoped out solutions. Now, those customers are requesting proposals from your business as to why they should work with you instead of another company. Many sales conversations are becoming fulfillment conversations. If you’ve provided great, relevant content and a lead is now reaching out to your business, focus on fulfilling their needs. There’s a good chance they’ve already eliminated some of your competitors and have put you in their final tier before the purchase.

Content marketing is one of the hottest marketing trends of 2013. The revolution taking place in the marketing funnel is a huge part of that. Your business needs to engage with customers by providing them content that establishes your brand as a thought leader. Through registrations, you can acquire names,  score them as identified sales leads and then filter them through your lead nurturing program until they are deemed “sales ready.” Take a survey of current clients and compare their buying cycle to the marketing funnel your team has in place. Any missed steps or content marketing opportunities can be updated and capitalized for greater success.

What are your biggest challenges in  refining your marketing funnel?

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In the previous post about lead scoring and nurturing, we talked about what lead scoring is, why businesses need to do it, and how to set up a scoring system. What do you do once you’ve scored a lead? This post will cover that. According to DemandGen Report, on average, nurtured leads produce a 20 percent increase in sales opportunities versus non-nurtured leads. Once you have a scoring system in place, you can use it to nurture leads through the purchasing process. Here’s how you can get started nurturing leads based off your scoring system:

Sales-Ready or Near-Ready

Lead scoring provides insights into who the most sales-ready leads are. Sales-ready and near-ready leads need to be distinguished from one another. You will want to review your scores to make sure that those you would want to send to sales actually meet the minimum score to be sales-qualified. If the lead just misses the mark, they’re near ready and need to be nurtured. Sales-ready leads are a no-brainer and need to be passed to your sales team right away. It’s the near-ready ones you want to nurture as they get closer to making a purchase. Between calls and your more sales pitch oriented emails, you can promote the rich content your company offers that this lead will find valuable. There are a few ways you can nurture near-ready leads:

• Ask: Ask these near-ready leads for more information as to what they’re waiting on. Is it pricing or something else? A call to touch base could give your greater insight into how close this customer is and what further information they will find valuable.
• Email: Email out special offers and highlight benefits the customer can expect if they chose to do business with you. A discount or new insight could be the added push a prospect needs.
• Get Personal: Business buyers have expressed that the relevance of individualized content is missing from sites they visit. Provide this for customers can you could see an increase in conversions.

Almost Ready

These are your leads that received a B/C grade, were rated as warm, or fall in the middle tier of your scoring system. Often times, these “almost ready” leads are those that are somewhere in the comparison phase of the buying cycle where they are comparing vendors. When a lead is almost ready to make a purchase, often they need a bit of encouragement or a bit more information. Nurture almost ready leads with:

• Email: Send out special offers, invitations for free trials or demos, and relevant information such as case studies and your company media kit..
• On-Site: On your website, offer buyer’s guides and analyst reports that are industry-oriented. Tie your on-site content into personal emails you send out. Reference one or two places on your site that the lead could find valuable.
• Ask: Again, you can always ask a lead how they want to be contacted and with what information. This could open the gates of better communication between you and the customer.

Nowhere Near Ready

Maybe they filled out a form for more research information or to download a whitepaper, but this lead is not ready to make a purchase. These are the leads that fall in your D/E grade score, cold qualification or received a bottom score in your lead scoring system. These “nowhere near ready” leads are just beginning the research phase. They haven’t identified which companies are offering the best features and prices; they might not even know what features of a product or service could benefit their business the most. Nurture these leads with:

• Email: Send emails to these leads with links to download whitepapers and e-Books. If they’ve just begun the research phase, this is the information they’re likely to find valuable.
• Educate: These leads are looking for educational information, not a sales pitch or how you plan to win their business. Earn their business by building a relationship based on sharing educational information and best practices.
• Call: Introduce yourself and let the lead know you are there to answer questions they have and provide them with the resources they need to make an informed decision. Start building your working relationship right away with an introduction call to touch base.

Every now and then, take a look at your scoring system to see if needs to be modified so that sales staff are receiving only the leads who are truly sales-ready. Talk with your sales and marketing teams to make sure the lead scoring system satisfies both their needs. Make sure any nurturing emails you send out comply with the CAN-SPAM Act and are relevant to the potential customer. Once you’ve gathered a lead’s information, nurture them until they are sales-ready. You can generate more sales-ready leads at a lower cost-per-lead.

Does your business score and nurture leads? Have you seen success in doing so?

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More and more, prospects and business buyers are turning to online channels to conduct research before they make a purchase. From webinars and whitepapers to e-books and blogs, these buyers are engaging and researching long before they are ready to buy. Businesses want to connect with those who are reaching the end of the research funnel and are ready to make a purchase. However, with lead nurturing, you can connect with a potential customer no matter where they are in the sales cycle, score them and then create content mapped for each step of the buying process so that when it comes time to buy, your brand is top of mind. According to Marketing Sherpa, only 27% of leads are sales-qualified. When this is the case, businesses need to pay attention to the majority who aren’t ready to buy and focus on establishing the  relationship with a lead nurture campaign by delivering the information buyers need to make a purchasing decision. In Part I of Lead Nurturing Through Scoring, we’ll discuss how your business should score leads for greater success.

What Is Lead Scoring and Why Should I Do It?

Lead scoring is when companies assign leads scores based on points or a ranking system that takes into account how far along someone is in the buying process. By utilizing a scoring system, sales and marketing departments can begin to work more closely for greater overall success while helping your company determine whether or not a prospect is sales-ready.

• According to SiriusDecisions, of the 20% of leads that sales reps follow up on, 70% are disqualified. It’s a mistake to ignore those leads. Just because someone isn’t ready to buy now doesn’t mean you should cross them off your list as a lost lead. After all, 80% of prospects that don’t make the grade today will go on to buy from you or a competitor within the next 24 months.
• Marketo reports that a 10% increase in lead quality, such as through a scoring system, can translate into a 40% increase in sales productivity.

Lead scoring allows you to reach ready-to-buy customers now while helping you nurture leads who are still in the research and comparison shopping phase of the sales funnel. Generate leads, score them, then hold on and nurture those who need it.

How Can I Set Up a Scoring System?

Setting up and implementing a scoring system for prospects isn’t something you should take lightly. It requires research and analysis. A faulty system could lead to a negative impact on lead conversions. However, if you put in the time and effort to create an accurate scoring system for your prospects, you can create an effective solution that generates a deeper understanding of leads for better nurturing and ultimately, greater conversion rates.

• Gather Information: Take a look at your data to see what actions prospects that converted took before making a decision.
• Focus on Your Target: Use information such as demographics, behavior, registration information, level of interest and level of engagement to determine your perfect prospect.
• Establish a Methodology: You can use a weighted point system, term rankings or letter grades to indicate how close a prospect is to being sales-ready using the information you collected and the qualifications in what constitutes a perfect prospect.
• Determine Your Threshold: You’ll need to determine the point at which a buyer goes from needing nurturing to sales-ready.
• Test and Analyze Your Scoring System: Compare your new scoring methodology to past customers who converted to see where your system needs tweaking before you implement it.

Your scoring system can be as complex or as simple as you need it to be. Starting out with a simpler scoring system can help you determine which things need to changed and which are successful so that you can tailor the scoring system more accurately for your individual business. A system that is too loose or too tight won’t be successful. Once you have the scoring system in place, you can spend time nurturing the leads who are deemed to be not sales-ready. With the scoring system, you’ll be able to gear content more closely to align with demographics and industry while boosting their interest level and engagement level and creating higher-quality leads. Your sales team will become more efficient and your marketing team can better segment their content and strategies.

Part II will discuss your options in creating the right content, dependent on your scoring system, to nurture leads and increase conversions.

Does your business score leads? How?

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Business.com was all over the Online Marketing Summit in San Diego this year. Business.com exhibited at the show, attended a few keynotes and workshops, and connected with some impressive marketers. On top of gaining insights into industry trends, we took away some great marketing ideas and tools. Here are a few of the events our team attended and the key takeaways:

How to Discover Hundreds of Powerful Content Ideas for Your Business, Presenter: Arnie Kuenn from Vertical Measures

Content development needs to be a part of your marketing strategy. If you don’t think blogs are worth the time, think again. The presenter share this stat: businesses with blo
gs on their site get 55% more traffic. If you’re stuck when it comes to creating new content, there are a few things you need to keep in mind.

• Provide quality content that is valuable to your readers. The value is what keeps them coming back.
• Use Answers, Yahoo and Google extra suggestions to see what people are searching for around your keywords.
• Use OpenSiteExplorer.org to see what pages of your competitors are being shared and linked to as this indicates which content consumers view as valuable. You should be writing on similar topics.

Content Marketing like a Pro: Tactics and Techniques to Increase Search Engine Visibility, Presenter: Daryl Colwell from MediaWhiz

All content shared/written should result in your business acquiring contact information from the reader, customer or buyer. As we’ve written about before, it is important to plan your publishing around the buying cycle so customers are getting the most pertinent information at the right time. Don’t be afraid to step out from purely text content. Use other types of content to lure new visitors in. For example, tease potential customers with a snippet of a whitepaper, then ask for them to register their email before getting full access to the content in its entirety. When possible, create an editorial calendar so that you don’t lose track of the content creations and promotions that are coming up. Whatever content you’re using, make sure that once it’s been created you’re promoting it with media.

Getting From ‘Like’ to Buy, Presenter: Kevin Ryan from Motivity Marketing

When sharing content on Facebook, get visual. Photos are more likely to be ‘Liked’ and shared on the social network. This is important for your business as these interactions are logged by Facebook and their EdgeRank algorithm.  If someone likes a photo, it will impact whether or not you are more likely to appear in their news feed down the line. Content on social networks needs to be consumable and shareable. Think quality over quantity. If you are wondering what that content is that will be most successful, look for correlations between what is doing well in terms of keywords on social and what is doing well on search. Sync advertisements and content with where your business is performing well in search traffic.

Improving Lead Generation Using the Social Media Advancements in 2012, Presenter: Rebecca Corliss from HubSpot

Consumers are in the driver’s seat. No longer can marketers pitch what they want and expect it to be what the consumer wants. Businesses need to change their strategies and focus on the customer first before creating content. When using social media to generate leads, you want to create content, whether it’s a landing or product page or a blog post, people will love. That lovable content is becoming visual. Images on Facebook will, on average, attain 53% more Likes than a regular post. Hubspot experienced a 17% visitor lead conversion by sharing their e-books on Pinterest as visuals. They also shared that when using Vine alongside Twitter for their #inbound chat they saw higher engagement for that session than they had when using Twitter alone. Marketers, make friends with your designers because marketing is becoming more and more visual and you’ll want their help.

We had a great time at the Online Marketing Summit and hope all those who attended did to. If you attended a workshop not listed here, let us know what key points you walked away with by leaving a comment, sending us a tweet, or connecting with us on Facebook.

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There’s a fine balance between a strategic B2B sales marketing plan and simply pounding the phones. DemandGen released The 2012 B2B Buyer Behavior Survey which indicates that business buyers want to maintain contact with vendors, but don’t want to feel hounded. While sales teams and marketers need to consistently follow up in order to close a sale, they need to be cautious of becoming too aggressive in the eyes of the buyer. Following up with B2B buyers is an art and here’s how you can get started mastering the craft.

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