With the rise in technology and marketing automation implementation, the B2B industry is changing. ABM’s Annual Conference (April 28 – May 1) in Florida is themed “The Future of B-to-B Media: Cross-Platform Growth Strategies.” The conference will kick off with a roundtable called, “The B-to-B Company: A Fully Integrated Enterprise,” where Tony Uphoff, the newly named CEO of Business.com, will moderate the panel. This roundtable brings together industry leaders from media and information company operators and marketing experts to investors and bankers. They’ll discuss and debate the emerging role and value proposition of B2B media when it comes to connecting buyers and sellers.

In a recent interview, ABM asked Uphoff to offer a preview of the discussion, including how the rise of marketing automation will affect B2B media, whether the traditional model organized around an editorial enterprise is starting to change and how B2B leaders are addressing company culture.

The Shift in the Buyer-Seller Connection

The purchasing process for B2B buyers has changed. Traditional B2B media is no longer as effective. When ABM asked Uphoff about how the connection between buyers and sellers is changing, he noted that “Reach, Frequency and Awareness, are gone, replaced today by Engagement, Loyalty and Advocacy.” Buyers are able to discover and engage with information that is specific to their needs and “signal their intentions based on their digital body language — whether their intention is the acquisition of more knowledge, social engagement or the actual purchase of products and services.” However, buyers aren’t the only ones making a change. According to Uphoff, “Sellers have made a corresponding shift, from targeting based on demographics to targeting based on intention. Traditional media from B2B publishers that historically connected buyers and sellers has been surrounded by digital, social and community-based media of all sorts. We’re also seeing marketers focus on “direct to the customer” digital media initiatives via their own websites and content marketing initiatives.” Note – I believe ‘direct to the customer’ should be in apostrophes, not quotes because it’s within a quote

From Editorial Enterprises to Engaging Content Creators

We’ve all heard it, read it and seen it. We cover it regularly on this blog. Content marketing is a must. ABM touched on this in their interview with Tony Uphoff. ABM noted that traditionally B2B media companies have been organized as editorial enterprises, but that this is changing. Uphoff agrees, “The rise of content marketing and brands as publishers has changed B2B media forever.” In order for businesses to be relevant and engaging, they need to have content. Uphoff also believes “that in the performance marketing era, marketers simply aren’t willing to subsidize the cost of editorial operations with basic advertising anymore.” Content, according to Uphoff, is what helps a buyer go through the purchase process, including editorials and social research, peer input, advertising and marketing. B2B companies of the future will “learn how to present ‘content’ in all its forms, in a highly contextual way that engages their audiences as they go through their purchase processes.”

A Move towards Marketing Automation

More data and incoming information are causing a change in the marketing landscape. Call it marketing automation if you will, but Uphoff prefers the term performance marketing. He indicates that automation suggests a singular event. However, marketing is ongoing and technology now enables marketers the ability to adjust messaging and strategy on the fly based on performance. Uphoff believes, “We are seeing performance marketing and media converge. As this trend accelerates, we will see B2B media brands offering marketers a series of integrated and ongoing marketing services, ’Marketing as a Service‘ if you will, that range from display advertising, through to lead generation and content marketing.” He also predicts that marketers will begin to see more services that integrate with social media and mobile applications as well as content marketing.

As the buyer landscape and behaviors shift, sellers are acting accordingly. The buyer purchasing process is changing and sellers are taking the steps necessary to meet expectations. This includes content creation and marketing that are more informational and less advertorial. Because marketing is an ongoing and ever-changing area of a business, it’s becoming more crucial for businesses to make decisions based on data and performance. Technologies that supply this will become more important for successful B2B companies.

Find the full interview on abmassociation.com and stay tuned for a post following the conference.

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This week San Diego is being taken over by marketers looking to learn more about digital marketing at the Online Marketing Summit. From digital commerce to more modern marketing strategies, OMS has a lot to offer. We’ll be there (stop by booth #320) and think you should be too. You’ll be given the opportunity to learn about where your business can more acutely develop a competitive advantage, engage and collaborate with marketers, and learn all the best practices to make your marketing campaigns more successful.

Networking

We won’t be the only ones at the event! Attending this summit is a great opportunity for businesses, large or small, to connect with others. By stopping by the various booths, attending interesting keynote speeches and speaking with other marketers, you’ll be able to connect with new companies and colleagues for possible business together in the future. Connect on social media, via email, or exchange contact information for future outreach.

• Find and connect with those attending using the official event hashtag: #omsummit. We’ll be live tweeting during some of the seminars to keep you in the loop. Find the streams from our team at @b2bonlinemktg.

Education

Engage with the leading providers of digital marketing services and technologies, such as Business.com, by tuning into a seminar or two and popping by more than a few booths. At OMS, you’ll be given the opportunity to receive in-person demos in the expo hall, attend sessions that provide the best practices with case studies for support, and gain education that can be put to use at your business in little to no time at all.

• Be sure to stop by the Business.com booth (located at booth 320). You’ll have a chance to enter to win an iPad and get a sneak peek of our upcoming site enhancements. You can also speak to a marketing consultant and learn about special OMS offers.

Inspiration

With a new network and new information from OMS, you’re sure to feel inspired as you leave each day. Whether it’s a random conversation about how to better segment your email marketing database or one of the takeaways from a keynote speech, you’ll be surround with inspiring ideas for more effectively marketing your business. This summit is aimed at collaborative engagement and education so that marketers can immediately impact their organizations. You should be feeling very inspired by the end of the week.

• Whether it’s a lead generation campaign or how to incorporate calls to action more successfully on social media networks, take what you learned and consider what can be applied to your strategies now or in the near future.

The details:

What: Online Marketing Summit, San Diego

When: Monday, February 11 to Wednesday, February 13, 2013

Where: San Diego Convention Center, 111 West Harbor Drive, San Diego, CA 92101

Who: Business.com will be located at booth 320 and will be tweeting from @b2bonlinemktg. Be sure to stop by and say hi!

If you’ll be there, leave us a comment and let us know!

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This is part two of a two-part blog post – Recapping the Business.com and BtoB Webinar, ‘Finding B2B Marketing Success Integrating Social Media and Search’

As promised, we’ll address many of the additional questions asked during Thursday’s webinar that we were unable to answer during the Q&A. To view the on-demand version of the webinar, click here.

In reviewing the questions, we evidenced a common desire among marketers to understand more clearly how they can measure social media and better integrate it with their search marketing efforts, a trend supported by the responses of more than 450 marketers in our recent co-sponsored survey.

In fact, our survey revealed more than half of B2B marketers currently do not use a social media monitoring tool to measure their social media efforts, even though three-quarters of marketers are currently using social media to enhance their search marketing efforts.

It’s clear marketers understand that (1) social media is an important part of an online marketing program and (2) that social media can be used to enhance search marketing efforts. However, when it comes to truly executing on the measurement of efforts, many marketers are unclear how to proceed. Our in-webinar poll reaffirmed this assumption in showing that 41% of marketers are currently not measuring their social media efforts; only 27% are using a social media monitoring tool.

Many attendees asked us similar questions surrounding the measurement of social media and the integration of social with search; to better educate our attendees and B2B online marketers, check back in the coming weeks for our upcoming solution guide detailing the top social media monitoring tools available for B2B marketers.

In the interim, we’ve addressed some of the main questions asked during the webinar. If you have additional questions on this webinar, feel free to contact us directly or comment on this blog post.

Q: How did you define/determine ‘The Best’ and ‘The Rest’?

A: The two groups, ‘The Best’ and ‘The Rest’ were a result of respondent segmentation on this within the Business.com and BtoB Survey: “What has been the overall impact of social media channels on the search performance of your business website(s)?”

Respondents who answered as having a positive impact (either ‘very positive’ or ‘positive’) were grouped into the segment ‘The Best’ (n = 205). Respondents answering anything other than these two choices (neutral, negative, very negative or don’t know) were grouped into ‘The Rest’ (n = 259). Data was then rerun for each segment and statistical significance was analyzed.

Q: For the BtoB/Business.com Survey, you said that the survey consisted of 464 people. Was that a random sample? How did you find the participants?

A: Participants were recruited through multiple BtoB Online E-mails that went out from July 1 – 16. Recipients were asked to complete the survey and were provided with an incentive to be entered into a raffle to win an iPad.

Q: Also for the BtoB/Business.com survey, what types of businesses participated and what industries were represented?

A: Respondents were primarily B2B decision-makers in an executive or managerial role that were overseeing or managing directly both paid search and social media marketing.  Responses on key variables were not significantly different between B2B and B2C respondents so that data was pooled for analysis purposes.  Although there were some specialty marketers, many (33%) were general B2B marketers and had cross-channel roles and responsibilities.  Most companies had fewer than 250 employees (59%) and were from a variety of industries, including high/tech, advertising and media.

Q: Must you post on multiple social sites, or is it beneficial to focus on Facebook and Twitter? Is it necessary to also go to Digg and others? Or should you stick to one venue?

A: Again, it all depends on what your overall goals are for your social media efforts – let your objectives determine the appropriate social media channels. We found within the study that The Best marketers were using, on average, more social media channels than the rest, so definitely don’t be afraid to use more than one social media channel and continue to try out and test new channels that might fit with your overall goals.

Q: What is another option besides CTR that will help track views/sales?

A: Some social media monitoring tools like Radian6 or Viralheat are CRM compatible and will allow you to link social media activity to clients and prospects, better allowing you to capture the influence of your social media programs. The majority of CRMs (like Salesforce.com) will allow you to then pull reporting that can show activity impact among these contacts and revenue generation.

Q: In today’s economy, how can a company approach the resource issue of social media ($ or people) within the confines of existing resources… without more budget or staff (or agency expense)?

A: A few suggestions for increasing your social media footprint without increasing resource allocation are:

1. Will work for free – Check out your local community college or university to recruit interns to come on board at no cost to you in exchange for class credits.
2. Clearly define your social media goals – Companies who set up Twitter and Facebook accounts because they feel like it’s a “must” can easily waste valuable time and resources. Consider your social media efforts as an extension of your overarching online marketing goals to clearly understand which social media accounts are the most right for you.
3. Get other marketers on board – Now that you know what you want to accomplish with social media, let other team members know how you can use social media to assist with their marketing programs.
4. Establish KPIs for your efforts – Work with your colleagues to establish measurable KPIs for your social media programs.
5. Set up a free social media monitoring tool – There are many free and easy-to-use social media monitoring tools that take minutes to set up like SocialMention or Google Alerts to help you measure the success of your social media efforts. They are great resources for monitoring all the major social media channels for conversations and mentions about your brand, product or a competitor’s product.
6. You have a social media army – use it! – We hear you on the resource front – realistically, many companies are still lacking in a dedicated social media manager.

One way to lessen the load (or reallocate, in a way) is to educate all employees on your social media efforts and encourage them to participate. Train sales to share the latest press releases, news and product updates across their social networks; show them how to monitor the major social media channels for potential customers looking for your product or service. Let engineering or product departments serve as the ‘field experts’ for any feature and functionality conversations or questions raised in online communities and forums where they’re most likely already participating. You’ll quickly find you’re able to make a bigger impact with less stress on your end. It make take some up-front work to establish company ‘best practices’ for social media use and train employees, but the investment will pay off.

Q: How can I train for myself for social media without paying big bucks?

A: Start by using social media to find what you’re looking for! Webinars are great (and usually free) educational tools. I’d also recommend doing a quick search in YouTube to see if anyone has set up an instructional video you can watch.

 Some channels and monitoring tools also offer free demonstrations and information on their Web sites for getting started, so make sure to look there; finally, consider asking around in community forums like Business.com Answers or other online communities to see if anyone has additional advice for the best ways to get started, given what you’re looking for.

Q: I have heard that Facebook may not be as key a component of social media for B2B organizations with a niche market. Is that true, or should we have a Facebook page and post updates even if we only have 5 “friends”?

A: You need to start somewhere, right? Every company out there probably had just a few Facebook “friends” at the beginning stages of their Facebook efforts. As to whether or not Facebook is the place for you to focus your social media efforts, it depends on where your audience is and how they are using that channel. If your product has a viral element and your brand has a personality that matches that of habits and behaviors on Facebook, then it makes sense to continue there. However, if your business is more conservative and thought leadership is a key element of your marketing strategy, you may want to consider starting off with a blog or Twitter account.

Take some time to really think about the end goal for reaching your market with social media, and that will help dictate your use of social media channel. You may find you’re better served engaging in a tight-knit online forum or community where your audience has established itself.

Q: How do you build a Twitter following without a “personality” to drive the content?

A: Share really, really relevant and quality content. Twitter users follow other users who are sharing information they’re interested in. Share links to the latest articles, blog posts and videos you find or create that you think your target audience would find valuable.

You should also engage with industry thought leaders and other key influencers on Twitter who are sharing content your audience values. Follow them and publicly thank them and retweet their articles and content you find valuable. Just make sure to keep a healthy mix of what you’re sending out and what you’re retweeting of others.

Q: For B2B videos and webinars- is it better to cover products & services, or simply share expertise?

A: Both can be effective, as long as you know when and which to use. Webinars are powerful thought leadership vehicles and are a great way to share your expertise with a large group of potential customers and current clients.  And, since the majority of webinars can be archived and accessed on-demand, this thought leadership content can easily be incorporated into your Web site.

Product and service videos are a great addition to your Web site or YouTube. They allow clients and potential customers to gather information about your product and maximize the use of your services. If you have an upcoming product release or enhancement to share, you could consider a webinar to showcase the new release and give a quick tutorial of what clients and future clients can expect. Just make sure to be clear about the webinar content up front – don’t lead attendees in under false pretenses of thought leadership only to be presented with a product pitch or demo.

Q: How much do the social media theories apply to non-retail businesses? e.g. Selling technical software to financial institutions or specialized equipment to manufacturers.

A: Consumers aren’t the only ones turning online for purchasing information. According to an Enquiro Study, 83% of business purchasers first locate a vendor online. Furthermore, a recent Coremetrics whitepaper indicated 67% of Twitter users who become followers of a brand are more likely to buy that brand products, and 60% of Facebook users who become a fan of a brand a more likely to recommend that brand to friends.

In the end, a business purchaser is still a single person looking to gather information and make an informed decision. With the majority of people turning online to conduct that research and locate vendors, missing out on the social media conversation can mean missing out in general. By knowing your target audience and how they search for and interact with your product, you’ll best be equipped to determine the social media channels that are right for you.

Q: Is there a tool for tracking mentions/text for such “social” networks like Flickr?

A: Yes, there are many. Some of the free tools mentioned above are SocialMention and Google Alerts. There are also paid tools like Alterian’s SM2, Sysomos’ Heartbeat and Viralheat. Check out Chris Rawlinson’s blog post for 21 Free Social Media Tracking tools for more information, and stay tuned for the upcoming Business.com whitepaper detailing the top social media monitoring tools.

Q: Is there any point of setting up a Twitter or Facebook account if it is not frequently updated? And how often should these accounts be updated?

A: Would you be inclined to follow or engage with a stagnant account? If you’re going to invest the time into setting up these accounts, you should make sure you’re maximizing the use of Twitter and Facebook to achieve your goals. These accounts should be updated as often as you have something new or valuable to share with your audience. News? Discounts? Interesting research? It’s all worth sharing.

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This is Part One of a two-part post.

Thank you to everyone who attended yesterday’s Business.com-sponsored webinar, ‘Finding B2B Marketing Success Integrating Social Media and Search.’ We’re grateful to have had such a successful turnout and appreciative to Kate Maddox of BtoB Online and Ryan DeShazer of Gyro:HSR for such great content.

If you missed the webinar, check out the on-demand version.

What You Missed

Thursday’s webinar, ‘Finding B2B Marketing Success Integrating Social Media and Search’ showcased findings from Business.com and BtoB Online’s recent study of more than 450 B2B marketers, detailing how  marketers are using social media to enhance search marketing and what success metrics they’re using.

Kate Maddox, BtoB’s executive editor, began by detailing the current use of social media among B2B marketers, as found in the study. While it’s clear the use of social media is an understood ‘must’ for B2B marketers, its evident many marketers struggle to capture the impact of their social media programs in general, and the resulting potential for positive impact on online marketing efforts like search marketing.

Business.com’s Patricia Neuray, VP Sales and Marketing, focused on the key highlighted differences among B2B marketers who are currently seeing a positive impact on their search marketing efforts as a result of their social media efforts versus those who are not seeing a positive impact or are unsure of their impact. Neuray respectively labeled these groups ‘The Best’ and ‘The Rest.’

Neuray explored the reported ways The Best use social media to enhance paid search and search-engine-optimization (SEO) efforts. She capitalized on The Best’s best practices by sharing a few top tips for integrating social and search efforts, including keeping measurement simple and making sure measurement reflects set goals. Neuray also urged the audience to take the best of both social and search marketing.

For example, use keywords, phrases and terms discovered through monitoring social media conversations to enhance your SEO and paid search, and use paid search as a springboard to drive traffic to your social media efforts by including links to social media accounts and profiles in your paid search ads.

Yes, marketers love a good list of best practices, but they love the execution of best practices even more. Therefore, it’s not surprising Gyro:HSR’s Ryan DeShazer, Vice President, Global Practice Leader – Search, captivated the audience for the remainder of the webinar with real-life examples of how Gyro:HSR is currently leveraging social media to enhance search marketing for clients.

DeShazer shared four methods for effective search and social integration and illuminated each method with a client case study. According to DeShazer, marketers can best integrate social media and search by discerning the value of social media, uncovering the lingo, influencing the conversion and the new link graph.

To check out DeShazer’s case studies and learn more about his four methods for integration, download the on-demand version of the webinar.

Business.com encourages you to share your highlights, thoughts and feedback with us by commenting on this post.

We were overwhelmed by the great questions asked during the question-and-answer (Q&A) portion of the webinar. To see our answers to additional questions, make sure to check back on Monday for our Part-Two post.

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Business.com is turning 10 and to celebrate, we are giving away 10 iPads over 10 weeks. Enter to win an iPad here. And that’s not all. We’d like to offer you special deals and discounts to save money for your business from partners like Dell, Intuit, Branders.com, NorthAmerican Bancard, Vistaprint, Bidz.com, TelecomRush, Biztree and more. Access these offers today and begin saving money for your business. 

Over the past 10 years, the B2B online marketing space has greatly evolved. Business.com has not only survived 10 years within this volatile industry, but has emerged as the premier B2B resource on the web. While many other Internet companies rose and fell with the Internet boom and bust, Business.com remained true to its core mission of helping businesses find solutions to solve their most pressing challenges. Business.com continues to evolve by providing new and innovative user and advertiser offerings, including social media tools, the largest repository of B2B content on the web and an enhanced search experience to enable users to more easily find solutions for their businesses. We now help B2B marketers connect with 40 million monthly unique visitors.

The past 10 years hasn’t been easy. Over the past year we have been working to launch social features for business users and advertisers, expanded the What Works for Business blog and launched Business.com Answers, a B2B question-and-answer community.

“At Business.com we recognize that starting and running a business are no easy tasks, and we strive to make that process simpler and seamless,” said Patricia Neuray, vice president, sales and marketing, Business.com.  “Business.com has evolved a great deal over the last 10 years and will remain focused on providing small businesses with critical tools and connecting b-to-b advertisers with active business buyers searching for products and services across all stages of the buying process.”

We would like to extend a special thank you to all of you who have stayed with us over the past 10 years and those of you who are just now discovering what Business.com can do for your business.

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The old adage, ‘good things come to those who wait,’ proved true as B2B search marketers gathered last Wednesday, June 23 in San Francisco for the long-awaited conference dedicated solely to B2B search marketing – the B2B Search Strategy Summit.  The online marketing event space may be littered with online marketing events and educational organizations, but one marketer, Mary O’Brien, identified a growing need for a more tailored and advanced conference geared toward B2B marketers.     

 So, at long last, a B2B-specific search marketing conference was born, and on Wednesday, I found myself in a packed room, surrounded by B2B marketers all eagerly consuming and voraciously scribbling and typing their favorite tips, stats and case studies shared by some of the biggest names in the industry.     

 The takeaways from the B2B Search Strategy Summit were many, but there are 5 in particular I’d like to highlight:     

 Takeaway #1 – Know Your Audience (or, C-Suite Decision Makers are Rolling up Their Sleeves & Getting Their Hands Dirty)     

 Without a doubt, one of the themes all speakers both placed emphasis and agreement in was to ‘know your audience.’     

 Throughout the day, this seemingly simple and intuitive theme was referenced time and time again as the foundation for everything in search marketing from landing page selection to ad copy optimization.     

 Gord Hotchkiss of Enquiro first introduced the theme during his morning keynote with an interesting statistic from a 2009 Forbes Insights Study: 53% of C-Suite executives reportedly take the first pass at finding information online, with 26% starting the process and then delegating appropriately.     

 No longer are C-Suites sitting idly as others do their work; more than 4 out of 5 are actively online searching for relevant information needed to make key business decisions or purchases. So how many marketers are currently catering their search marketing to this audience?     

 Takeaway #2 – Understanding Your Audience’s B2B Buying Cycle is Key to Optimizing Your Search Marketing Campaign Structure      

 To know your online audience is not enough, at least for Connie Stack of Wordstream and Angela Sanfilippo of You Send It. Both eloquently illustrated the importance of also understanding the intent and behaviors of your audience as they navigate through the B2B buying cycle in order to fully optimize and tailor search marketing efforts.      

 Stack encouraged marketers to take the time to dissect the buying process and categorize keywords appropriately among the different phases of the buying process. From there, you can map content offerings appropriately to each keyword, thereby providing the foundation for ad copy, landing page selection and more.     

 She shared the below image, taken from The Google/Tech Target Behavioral Research Project, as a ‘how-to guide’ of sorts for implementing this process.    

Taken from the Google/TechTarget Behavioral Research Project: Phase 2 (p. 9, 2010) - referenced at the B2B Search Strategy Summit by Connie Stack, Wordstream

 Sanfilippo also shared a more strategic view of the benefits and expectations for organizing your search marketing campaign around the phases of the buying process – her distinction of the importance of branded vs. non-branded keywords in each of the phases is widely useful and insightful for both organizing and measuring campaign success.   

This is especially true for search engine marketers who use both general and vertical engines where branded vs. non-branded keywords play a unique role within each engine (and are often mistakenly evaluated alongside one another, leading to skewed performance analysis).   

Takeaway #3 – Don’t Just Know Your Audience: Show Them You Remember Them      

 Jay Middleton of Adobe gave us a glimpse into the future of B2B Search Marketing in his afternoon keynote session when he appropriately took the mantra of knowing your audience to the next level.     

Interaction is easy, but engaging your target audience centers around the ability to continue to build upon that interaction in a way that is meaningful and personal to that audience.     

The more data we as marketers can collect on potential customers and leads, and the more data we can use to guide their brand experience, the better we’ll be able to live up to this mantra.     

Adobe, Marketo and Salesforce.com were a few of the companies that showcased some of their best practices and resulting successes from taking the time to set up custom lead scoring, nurturing or marketing automation programs.  It was clear when these programs were coupled with relevant, valuable content for the audience, success quickly followed.     

Takeaway #4 – Don’t Throw Away Hard Work Just Because You Think Your Job is Done     

As marketers, we’re often held accountable for demand generation, lead generation and the lead nurture process. Beyond these responsibilities, we usually look to our sales force to carry their end of the bargain by closing the leads we determine sales ready.     

Presented by Lauren Vaccarello, Salesforce.com, at the B2B Search Strategy Summit

 Lauren Vaccarello of Salesforce.com challenged the audience to redefine their responsibilities as marketers and place an emphasis on knowledge transference and team work in closing sales.  

While the marketing automation process can often be a complex and somewhat technical process that few sales reps have interest in understanding, Vaccarello encouraged marketers to take the time to educate sales on the journey their leads undergo throughout this process to provide sales context for contacting and engaging leads.     

Back to Middleton’s point – it’s not only about knowing your audience but about showing them you remember them – and it’s up to the marketer to make sure sales has the information and understanding they need to provide a seamless experience.     

 Takeaway #5 – You Too Can & Should Be Using YouTube      

 Many marketers recognize YouTube as a powerful marketing mechanism; many struggle to understand how B2B can benefit from such a seemingly B2C tool.    

Presented by Greg Jarboe, SEO-PR, at the B2B Search Strategy Summit

Greg Jarboe from SEO-PR proved the efficacy of YouTube for B2B in sharing a cogent example of how he used YouTube to build hype for a high-end product before it formally hit the market.    

 Jarboe leveraged YouTube as a means for buyers and enthusiasts to preview product design, capabilities and engage with the product in a dynamic and exciting way, which resulted in thousands of views and, even better, a dozen pre-sales totaling more than $1 million.     

 Our blog post from Friday highlighted Cisco’s use of YouTube for engaging and clients and potential customers with a more down-to-earth and witty perception of the company. Launched on Friday, this video already has more than 28,000 views. 

If you’re saying, ‘good for them, but I just don’t see our products, services or company making for a compelling YouTube video…’ then I suggest you reread takeaway #1 above. 

What makes Jarboe’s and Cisco’s efforts and videos so well-received isn’t a product or service, it’s their understanding of what will engage, attract and entertain the audience. 

If you’ve taken the time to know your audience and understand what they find interesting, funny or engaging, then you too can use YouTube to your advantage. And, if you’re smart about identifying and catering to your opinion leaders and product evangelists, you can rest easy in knowing that if they find value in your video, they’ll be sure to share it with many, many others. 

 In retrospect, these 5 takeaways probably could have been shortened to 1: Know your audience. Marketers far too often associate the word ‘audience’ with a certain demographic or firmographic, and spend the majority of our time looking to reach those demographics and find that ‘sweet spot.’ 

But in the end, our ‘audience’ is, in its simplest form, a person at a company within that demographic or firmographic who is looking to solve a problem, relate to others and feel understood. 

  

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Online marketers, especially agency marketers, have their work cut out for them. Their agencies demand they continuously produce through innovation and idea generation, and their clients view them as the go-to expert for all online marketing questions.

 Couple these expectations with an oversized workload, and one quickly wonders where agency marketers find free time to proactively further their online marketing education.

To save our agency marketers time and energy, we’ve compiled a list of our top recommended organizations and B2B marketing events that’ll help any marketer stay competitively ‘in the know’ (and perhaps meet a few potential clients while you’re at it.)

Without further adieu, since time is surely of the essence, they are – in no particular order:

1. Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) – There’s a good chance your agency is already a member of this organization, but you may not be aware of all it has to offer, including access to the research of more than 400 companies that belong to the IAB.

You’ll also find the most up-to-date industry standards for online ad specs as well as general online advertising guidelines.  Their Glossary of Interactive Advertising Terms is an excellent resource for marketers of all levels.

The IAB also features a host of webinars, events and even seminars like the IAB Interactive Boot Camp for Senior Marketers & Agencies, which can be customized for your agency. Also check out the IAB’s Certification in Interactive Advertising Program. 

2. Anything Ending in ‘-IMA’–Whether you’re in Boston or Austin, if you live in a larger city (and chances are if you work for an advertising agency that you do,) your area will have a local interactive marketing association.

These interactive associations are great places to network with and learn from other agency marketers. Overall organization structures and offerings will vary, but most associations will have some type of monthly or quarterly meeting in the form of a luncheon, roundtable or networking event where you can socialize and educate simultaneously.

The B2B vs. B2C mix of marketers in local chapters will vary upon location. Don’t hesitate to interview the local chapter heads before joining to ensure the association’s overall audience and educational focus complement your online marketing education goals.

Check out Lee Odden’s List of Regional Search and Interactive Marketing Associations for local associations in your area, and search LinkedIn or Meetup.com  to find additional organizations.

3.  Business Marketing Association (BMA) – This organization focuses on all areas of marketing – both online and offline, so if you’re looking for more integrated marketing education, you’ll find it here.

Like the local interactive marketing associations, BMA has regional chapters that hold monthly or quarterly meetings, socials and more. To find a local chapter in your area, click here.

BMA offers access to B2B articles, whitepapers, industry research and podcasts. They also offer three customized certification programs for business marketers through the Business Marketing Institute. 

4. BtoB Online – An equal blend of an online marketing with an emphasis in B2B makes this organization (and event host) a must-know resource for B2B online marketers.

Their BtoB NetMarketing Breakfasts are held in major cities like New York, Chicago, Atlanta, Boston and San Francisco, and typically feature a star-studded panel of B2B marketers sharing marketing challenges, successes and overall insight. These breakfasts are free to marketers and will have you back to the office well before noon.

If leaving the office isn’t an option, BtoB’s webcasts are another great way to stay up-to-date on the latest B2B online marketing trends, all from the comfort of your desk. Also accessible from your desk are articles, research reports and newsletter options for a daily dose of information right to your inbox.

5. MarketingSherpa’s B2B Marketing Summit – Their annual B2B summit offers both a West Coast and an East Coast summit; both are held this year in October.

This two-day event features case studies, training sessions and roundtables focused on the latest trends in B2B marketing (with lots of sessions devoted to online marketing).

If you’re fortunate enough to attend one of the summits, you can expect to find an audience of senior-level marketers and decision makers.  You’ll also find a healthy mix of agency and client-direct marketers.

On the whole, MarketingSherpa is a great resource for any marketer looking to further their industry education or provide a client with the latest online marketing stats. Check out The MarketingSherpa Library  - it’s broken down by topic and tactics. You may have to pay for some of the resources, so check to see if you’re already a member.

6. MarketingProfs Business-to-Business Forum – If you’re looking to immerse yourself in B2B marketing, then this two-day event is for you. Like the MarketingSherpa events, you’ll find a senior-level audience with a mix of agency and client-direct marketers.

MarketingProfs is one of the industry leader s for providing B2B marketing education – the company was actually started by marketing academic Allen Weiss as an online location for exchanging marketing ideas and information.  Today, it has more than 350,000 subscribers and keeps its educative spirit by offering a marketing training certification program through MarketingProfs University.

Agencies working specifically with B2B technology companies will want to check into their SocialTech event, a first-year event with front-row access to learning how to leverage social media for increased online marketing performance.

7. B2B Search Strategy Summit –For those who are tired of leaving B2B online marketing events  wishing there were more search marketing-specific sessions, this is THE B2B search marketing event of 2010.

In its first year, this event is already quickly capturing the attention of the biggest names in B2B search marketing who are looking to share and learn advanced search marketing best practices for B2B, including how to shorten the B2B sales cycle, integrate search with social, and more.

To register for this June 23 event, click here. Get $300 off registration using promo code BUSINESS.

Whether you’re looking for a quick information fix right from your desk or a more in-depth learning experience or marketing certification, these resources should allow you to find what you need to stay competitive and continue to add value among your B2B online marketing colleagues and clients.

Know of additional organizations or resources that are a must for agency marketers or online marketers in general? Let us know!

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This past week, I was fortunate enough to attend the MarketingProfs Business-to-Business Forum in Boston and grab a seat the keynote session “Six Pixels of Separation: How B2B Connects in a Connected World,” with Mitch Joel, author of Six Pixels of Separation and owner of Twist Image.

Joel was an engaging and dynamic presenter offering ample YouTube clips and tales of conquistadores from long ago, all the while driving home a simple yet profound point: B2B Marketing needs to be more about communicating and less about marketing.

There were three particular takeaways I felt challenged the audience’s current marketing plans and even left many marketers like myself walking out of the room with all preexisting ideas unraveling and trailing behind like a loose ball of yarn…

#1 – Burn the ships (sacrificing the past to be free to focus on what’s in front of us) – Joel shares a story about Hernan Cortes, a Conquistador who, upon landing in Mexico, burned all his ships as a forced yet symbolic effort to show his men there was no turning back, only moving forward.

As marketers, how often do we leave the ship of safety and move forward in exploration? How often do the words, ‘because that’s what we’ve always done,’ or ‘because that’s what we’ve included in the marketing plan’ flow from our mouths? And, how often do we cling to what what’s mapped out on paper because to deviate would seemingly unravel our entire marketing strategy?

Joel challenged us to metaphorically ‘burn the ships.’  What tactics and strategies would we want to save? Which programs and current focuses would we sacrifice? These questions have the ability to shift an entire marketing strategy and free up resources for new endeavors determined not by a spreadsheet or set-in-stone marketing strategy, but by what current and potential clients are telling us is effective. Which brings me to the next takeaway…

#2 –Marketers need to learn to communicate, which means not just speaking, but listening - Webster.com defines Marketing as, “the process or technique of promoting, selling, and distributing a product or service.” If we take the definition at face value, it’s a very one-directional approach to reaching a target audience.

Joel quickly demonstrates the advent of social media and online communities is the demise of this definition. Marketers no longer drive the brand message; we’re now one of many voices in the overall brand conversation. It’s time to refocus efforts on joining the multi-directional conversation through communication, not marketing.

It’s a common and somewhat expected reaction to say at this point, “While this all sounds well and good for B2C, I’m just not sold on the fact that my customers are that engaged in social media.”

But they are.

In Business.com’s recent study of nearly 2,500 business users, we found that more than 60% of business professionals are turning to social media such as company or product profiles pages on social media sites, user ratings and product reviews, and podcasts or webinars as business information resources.

In other words, 3 in 5 business professionals are currently making decisions about your brand through resources and peer communities where your brand’s voice isn’t the only voice heard and valued. Truth be told, I find the implications to be rather exciting.

The upside and potential for fostering these conversations and engaging with a community where your brand is participating is exponential– that is if you are willing to become part of the community as a participator, not just a spectator.

#3 – Joining the conversation means more than showing up: it means providing value - Pretend, just for a second, that you have three candidates to interview. The first candidate is nice but lacks depth – she keeps reiterating the same points. The second candidate is talkative but off topic and clearly didn’t take the time to research and understand your company before in the interview. The third candidate is engaging, on topic and really understands your company and the position she’d be filling.

Which would you hire?

I’d like to think of a brand’s community participation as a daily and ongoing interview by potential clients.  We’d choose the candidate that offers the most value and understands our company, and so would a client.  

Podcasts, webinars, user review communities, question-and-answer sites like Business.com Answers – clients are more empowered and educated than ever to make B2B buying decisions, and they’re demanding more from their solutions providers.

It’s a challenging call to action that pushes us as marketers to reevaluate our messaging. It requires us to learn how to meet these demands and differentiate ourselves from the competition through unique and engaging content.

If one thing is clear, it’s that it’s time for marketers to start listening and join the conversation. Marketing tactics, as we know them, are unraveling and transforming into conversation where our brand’s voice isn’t the only voice that counts.

Are you ready to join and – more importantly – contribute to the conversation?

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Business.com recently partnered with Enquiro for the 30-minute webinar, “What B2B Marketing Can Learn from B2C.”

The webinar debunked the commonly held misconception that separate approaches are required for B2B and B2C online marketing.  It also challenged B2B marketers to focus on similarities between the two and leverage parallels to boost their business.

During this webinar, we shared how to successfully use social media and branding in B2B online marketing, and Enquiro’s EVP of Business Development, Bill Barnes, provided insight on how B2B marketers can draw on parallels from the complex B2C purchase cycle to influence B2B marketing tactics.

Additional highlights include:

• A startling finding that B2B marketers reportedly utilize more social media than their B2C counterparts but spend less time on it. To learn more about how professionals are using social media for B2B, download Business.com’s B2B Social Media Benchmarking Study.
• Realizing that branding isn’t just for B2C marketing; B2B branding can improve Web traffic and increase conversion rates.
• Understanding the parallels between the B2B and complex B2C purchasing processes so B2B marketers can uncover hidden opportunities to gain a competitive edge.

To access the on-demand version of  “What B2B Marketing Can Learn from B2C,” click here.

We’re partnering with Enquiro again June 23, 2010 for the B2B Search Strategy Summit in San Francisco. Get front-row access to the latest B2B search strategies to increase lead generation for your business. Register before June 4, and you can get $300 off registration using our sponsor discount code ‘BUSINESS.’

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It’s that time of year again when over 5,000 search engine marketers amass at Search Engine Strategies New York, March 23 – 24, 2010.

This year’s show is set to focus on using search as a means for connecting with your customers. The three-day agenda also features prominent discussions of leveraging the combined impact of search and social media.

Business.com’s VP Sales, Patricia Neuray, will be a panelist in one such session on Day 2 (Wednesday, March 24 at 10:30 a.m.): Social and Search: Integrating Social Media and Search to Drive the Brand. For those looking to increase brand presence through online marketing, this is a must-attend session featuring key insight from Business.com and big brands like IBM.

For those of you looking to the Search Engine Strategies show  for more tactical search marketing advice like keyword selection and usage, don’t miss Business.com’s SES Theatre Presentation on Day 1 (Tuesday, March 23 at 1:00 p.m.), 5 Keyword-Related Traps to Avoid in B2B Search Marketing, featuring Business.com’s East Coast Sales Director Arkady Fridman and Strategic Account Executive Seamus Heaney.

And, if you’re already planning to attend SES New York, don’t forget to swing by the Business.com booth (#300) to say hello and enter to win an Amazon Kindle and $50 American Express® gift card!

Business.com will also be co-sponsoring this year’s car giveaway – learn more on how you can win a brand new Honda Fit!

We look forward to seeing you at SES New York.

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