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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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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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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The second post in this two-article series is also written by Rich Mauser, Sr. Email Marketing Manager for Business.com. In part one, Rich shared his tips for more optimized email campaigns. Email marketing is great way for B2B businesses to generate leads, nurture leads and turn those with an interest into long-term and loyal customers.  In part two, he shares two more quick and easy email tips (plus two bonus tips!) to capture the attention of email readers, cultivate conversation and convert more email subscribers into customers.

3. Focus On Your Prospect, Not on Yourself

The biggest mistake most people make in their first email interaction with a prospect is that they try to sell too early. They invariably end up talking all about their company and their product and how great it is. Your initial email interactions should focus on your prospects, not on you, your company or your products. Ask about them and their needs. Take an interest in them and help them get what they want, rather than what you want. Think of it like you’re out in the dating scene. You don’t approach someone the first time you meet them, then tell them everything about yourself, how great you are, and all the things you’ve accomplished, and then ask them to go home with you, right? Right?? A great way to stay focused on you prospect is to offer them something of value, real value that is relevant to what THEY want. A free report, a guide to choosing ABC widgets, etc. Give them something that will help them get what they want.

4. Ask for a Reply

The great Dr. Robert Cialdini, in his book “Influence: The Psychology and Power of Persuasion” discovered some fundamental things about human behavior that have been helping marketers for many years. One of the behaviors he discovered was “commitment and consistency”. Dr.Cialdini concluded that people tend to behave consistently with choices they’ve already made, even very small choices. Therefore  if you can get your prospect to commit to some small action, then you will be much more likely to get them to commit to bigger actions in the future (e.g. giving you their time, or money). One of the smallest and easiest actions you can ask for is simply asking for an email reply. Ask for a reply back in your first email to a prospect, and I guarantee you’ll be able to get bigger and better engagement later. It could be as simple as ending your email with “Reply back to this email and let me know you received it, ok?”. Try it, and then comment below and let me know how it worked. By the way, if you haven’t yet read Dr. Cialdini’s book yet, put it at the top of your list – it will instantly improve your sales and marketing skills.

Bonus Tip #1: How to Quickly Build Rapport via Email

Once you get an email reply, matching your prospects language via email will help you gain rapport quickly, and give you a major advantage over your competition. Look carefully at how you prospect communicates in their emails. What kind of sensory language are they using? Auditory? Visual? Kinesthetic? When you identify whether your prospects are centered by sound, sight, or touch, match that language in your email replies and you’ll build quick rapport with your prospects. Here’s an example of auditory centered language (You can quickly identify kinesthetic and visually-centered language with works like “feel” “a good fit”, or “looks” and “see”):

Email:

I heard about one of your products from a friend of mine.  It really sounds like just what I need, and I’d like to hear more

Could you tell me a little bit more about it?

Your reply:

Thanks for your email. I’ve attached a few documents that will tell you all about it.

Reply back to this email and tell me what most rings true with you about our products. Sound good?

I’m looking forward to talking to you more about it.

Bonus Tip #2: The Amazing, Super-Simple Email That Revives Dead Leads

I learned this great lead reviving email strategy from one of my marketing mentors, the great Dean Jackson. Dean is a master at making the complex simple. He’s also one of the best marketers on the planet. The email was originally designed for real estate agents, but it is so simple it will work for nearly any industry. Take a look below:

Subj: Hi Rich

Rich, are you still interested in getting a new copier for your business?

Reply back to this email and let me know.

Thanks,

Your email signature.

That’s it. Really. As humans we tend to want to include more and over-complicate things. Resist the temptation to over complicate this email. And remember, all you’re looking for is a reply to your email. That’s it. Don’t oversell anything. You’re just trying to re-engage in a dialogue with your prospect. This email is super-simple, and that is why it works so well. It’s short. It’s personal. It expects a reply.

Try it right now. It only takes a minute or two. Then come back tomorrow, post a comment below and let us know how well it worked for you.

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This post is written by Rich Mauser, Sr. Email Marketing Manager for Business.com. In this two-part article series, Rich shares his tips for more optimized email campaigns. Email marketing is great way for businesses to generate leads, nurture leads and turn those with an interest into long-term and loyal customers.  In part one, he shares two quick and easy email tips to get your prospect’s attention, build rapport and convert more of your prospects to customers.

1. Get Your Prospect’s Attention with a Great Subject Line

There’s an old adage in email marketing that says you have 3 seconds to capture someone’s attention in your email. All it takes is 3 seconds (or less) for a prospect to decide if they’re going read your email, save it to read later, or delete it. So it’s absolutely crucial in your first email to a prospect that you get their attention quickly. And the best way to get their attention is through the subject line of your email. The subject line is the most important aspect of your email. It’s your headline. It’s the first thing your prospect will see when they receive your email, so spend some time thinking about  your subject line. We spend nearly twice as much time writing and testing subject lines for our emails than we do on the rest of the email. It’s that important. So what makes a great subject line? The best subject lines speak to the reader’s selfish benefit, so focus your subject lines on your prospects and how they will benefit. Do NOT make it about you. A quick way to improve a subject line is to look for the words “me”, we” or “I”. If any of those words appear in your subject line, it may be time to re-write.

• Quick Tip: put your prospect’s first name in the subject line and you’ll get a much higher percentage of them reading your email. If you’re using an automated email system, you should have the ability to merge the first name into the subject line automatically. If it doesn’t you may want to consider getting another one. I’ve been using this tip for years, and I’ve seen it boost response by as much as 75%.

Keep your subject lines short. Most subject lines get cut off in the email preview window, so any words after the first 30 characters aren’t likely to make an impact. And most likely will not get read by your prospect, so keep them short. President Obama’s 2012 fundraising campaign set a new benchmark for political fundraising via email. They tested hundreds of subject lines and the one that got the best open rate was “Hey.” That’s it. Three simple letters.  Here’s what Toby Fallsgraff, the campaign’s email director had to say about it in a Bloomberg Businessweek article:

“The subject lines that worked best were things you might see in your in-box from other people,” Fallsgraff says. “ ‘Hey’ was probably the best one we had over the duration.” Another blockbuster in June simply read, “I will be outspent.” According to testing data shared with Bloomberg Businessweek, that outperformed 17 other variants and raised more than $2.6 million.

The second subject line mentioned in the quote above, “I will be outspent” uses another concept I’ve seen work well in my own testing – using cryptic or vague subjects. This arouses the reader’s curiosity and keeps them moving forward from your subject line to the rest of your email, which is the sole responsibility of the subject line – get them to keep reading!

2. Keep It Conversational

Once you’ve got your reader’s attention with a short subject line that arouses curiosity, you want to keep their attention by making the “body” of your email short and personal. One of the biggest mistakes I see businesses make in their emails is they write with a “business appropriate” tone. This typically comes off as stiff, uncomfortable and unreadable. Frankly, I don’t know anyone who enjoys reading dry business writing. Yaaawn.

• Quick Tip: If you’re having a hard time finding a casual voice for your emails, go to one of my favorite websites all time: Unsuck It. They’ve got a great tool that helps you turn dry, over-complicated and ambiguous phrasing into short, concise language that’s simple, direct and easy to understand.

When making your first contact with a prospect via email, act like you’re welcoming them into your home. What do you do first when you let someone into your home? Greet them, thank them, welcome them and ask if there’s anything they need? Maybe you offer them something to eat or drink? A seat?  That’s a pretty good formula for a first email contact: greet them, thank them, and ask if there’s anything they need. This will go a long way to building a relationship that will ultimately end in a sale. Be authentic. Use a casual, conversational tone. And remember, people buy from people, not from companies.

Stay tuned for Part 2 for more tips on how your business can use email to convert prospects into customers.

What type of success has your business seen with email marketing?

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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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We hear it all the time: “Content is King.” Content marketing is become more of a focus for B2B marketers as they begin to see the transition from telling to showing. Content enables marketers to provide buyers with the information they need while still promoting themselves as a thought leader and business that adds value to others. Relevance to the content recipient as well as how the content is distributed are things businesses need to pay attention to in 2013. Each year, there are some shifts in the marketing world, whether it is the adoption of a new platform or a transition from one strategy to the next. Content marketing is experiencing some shifts in trends in the New Year. The study “B2B Content Marketing: 2013 Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends—North America,” conducted by Marketing Profs and CMI (Content Marketing Institute), provides some key trend takeaways.

Content Creation

The number of B2B marketers creating in-house content has risen 18 percentage points. While many still use a combination of in-house and outsourced content, it is becoming more common for businesses to keep content creation in-house. This is even true for larger companies, even though CMI found that the larger the company, the more likely it is to outsource content. 91% of B2B content marketers tailor their content in at least one way, compared with 88% last year. Content creation, whether it’s in house or outsourced, needs to be relevant. Different businesses tailor content in different ways. You can focus on the profiles of decision makers, where someone is in the buying cycle, or the company and industry characteristics. A great content marketer combines all three to create relevant and personalized information to business buyers.

Visuals

Marketers are beginning to see the impact of visuals in their content marketing strategies and it’s one trend you need to be on board with moving forward in 2013. One of the biggest jumps in tactics has been in the use of videos. While only 52% of B2B marketers used videos in 2011, 70% used videos in 2012 and that number is expected to grow even more in 2013. The majority (58%) of respondents in the CMI study believe that videos are an effective marketing tactic. With the increasing use of visuals, more and more marketers are using the photo-driven sharing site, Pinterest. In 2012, more than one-quarter of B2B marketers used Pinterest to distribute content. You can use videos, infographics, charts and images as visuals in your content. Publishers who use infographics grow in traffic an average of 12% more than those who don’t (AnsonAlex). Infographics and visuals need to be a part of your content marketing strategy.

Distribution

Over the past year, 13% more B2B marketers are using social media to distribute content. In 2012, 87% of those surveyed by CMI responded that they were distributing content via social media networks. With increased social network usage, the number of marketers using social media is bound to increase in 2013. B2B marketers use an average of 5 social media sites to distribute content. Here are some of the most popular social networks for those in the B2B arena.

• LinkedIn was used by 83% of B2B marketers in 2012.
• Twitter was used by 80% of marketers in 2012, an increase of 6% over 2011.
• Facebook was used by 80%, an increase of 10% over 2011.
• 61% of B2B marketers used YouTube in 2012.
• 39% of the respondents used Google+ to distribute content.

Content marketing is an appealing way for marketers to connect with leads and customers, no matter where they are in the buying cycle. In 2013, the distribution of content over social networks will increase, visuals will become more common and more important, and content will need to be more tailored to the person receiving it. Customers and potential customers are tired of receiving “fluff” pieces that don’t translate to their professional lives. Providing relevant, visually-appealing content that is distributed across multiple platforms is how your business can become more successful with content marketing in 2013.

What other content marketing trends have you noticed in 2013?

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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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Businesses and marketers are constantly looking for more ways to generate leads and market their company more effectively. A 2012 DemandGen survey polled more than 170 B2B buyers involved in the purchase of a solution during the past year. The number of respondents who said they were dissatisfied with their B2B buying experience jumped by 50% over 2011. So how can your business increase the level of satisfaction that B2B buyers experience? Here are three ways to get started.

Provide the Research Content

Buyers aren’t wandering into purchases blindly. With the internet easily accessible and stacked with information, buyers are doing their research before making a purchase. DemandGen found that 55 percent of buyers said they spent more time researching B2B purchases, compared to 47 percent in 2011. Because buyers are taking longer to make decision, your business needs to be sure it’s prepared to support the buyer every step of the way. From providing research materials about different features of different solutions to a cost analysis calculator, there are different ways your business can provide buyers with the research content they are after.

• As we’ve written about before, timing is everything. Make sure you are providing buyers with the right content at the right time, whether it’s in a blog post or email newsletter. Evaluate your sales funnel and segmentation, the types of content you’re sending it out and when you’re sending out to make sure your optimizing your efforts.

Be Industry Relevant

While broad topics may be a way to draw in buyers initially, broad generalizations aren’t going to cut it. Relevance is important as buyers are looking for specifics about your product/service and their industry or type of business. 53 of respondents said that the relevance of the information a company provided was very important. According to this study, buyers were most likely to cite both the breadth of relevant product information and the educational value of that information as the most compelling elements of their chosen vendor’s web site. Again, your business needs to make sure it’s providing the right content. Broad content can be a great way to get initial exposure, but industry relevant information, such as case studies, can help you move towards a close.

• Make your industry, and more specific, content easily available. 73 percent said they aren’t interested in using social sign-in tools to access content. Buyers are hesitant to request information when it is gated, so be careful when choosing to do so.

Stay Up-to-Date with Expectations

There’s a gap between the buyer’s expectations the provider performance that needs to be filled. 56 percent of all buyers surveyed rated their experience with a less-satisfied rating. Businesses and B2B marketers need to focus on the customer experience just as much as they focus on the sale. This survey found that 57 percent of the respondents ranked the timeliness of a vendor’s response to their questions/inquiries as very important. By responding in a timely manner with the right information your buyer is after, you’ll be able to improve their satisfaction with the entire experience.

• Evaluate the training your sales team is working with. Make sure your keeping pace with the buyer’s expectations. Your sales and marketing methods need to change as the expectations of customer’s do.

B2B buyers are looking for more when considering their options. They’re looking for a relevant resource and a business that exceeds their expectations. Businesses trying to reach new customers need to make sure they’re reaching out and staying connected to buyers, no matter where that buyer is in their decision-making process. In next week’s post, we’ll discuss the impact of following up multiple times and maintaining contact.

What was your business’s experience with B2B buyers in 2012?

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