The Marketing Automation Alert

Many digital marketers make a common error from the outset when planning their content marketing campaigns.

Condensed...

I recently interviewed an internet marketer for the University of Westminster’s New Media Knowledge website who was also, handily, a trained psychologist, about the psychology of social and he affirmed that people treat social media as an extension of their own persona. What they post and say is a projection of themselves, their beliefs, their interests, their entire identity.

There’s a certain “me too-ism”, as I call it, about the way people act online.

Then there’s the whole issue of “social proofing”. People love numbers. These numbers are critical to virality as you will share the article with your own sphere of influence if you oblige. Almost as importantly, they tell those visiting this post for the first time that lots of people have read and shared this post, the implication being that they should to. Social proofing is a very powerful force.

At the start of campaigns it is essential to listen to your audiences, so see what they are talking about and in what context, in order to create relevant content for them going forward. But the question why will they enjoy and share your content, and respond to calls to actions, needs to be addressed at the planning stage too.

Too many organisations fail to step away from the brand and look objectively from the outside in, as if through the eyes of the punters they wish to reach. By and large, the man and woman in the street is not anywhere near as interested in brands and their messaging as marketers would like to believe.

Neutral, quality, unique, engaging content is the bridge between the two worlds.

Social proofing is one easy best practice to follow, but if that content lacks the context and relevance for the target audience in the first place, if it fails to educate, entertain and/or answer questions, then the content – and the campaign – is doomed to fail.

Report overview...

In order to be effective, social media marketers need to implement the same types of digital marketing tactics that ecommerce and search engine technologists have used for years. In this guide, The Mathematics of Social Marketing, you’ll:

• Discover how to determine the number of social media contact views you need in order to convert contacts to customers
• Learn about back and front-end efficiencies that will help drive your business with social media
• Find out how to move beyond “launch and hope” to develop measurable strategies that will drive social media customers to take action

Insightful, fresh marketing technology content today as opposed to “how to” articles. We lead off with reasons why marketing automation may be the wrong choice for you, and then a few unique takes that include an approach to assessing an ad’s creativity, conversion design techniques proven by tests and studies, and a free report on the Social Media Marketing Industry. We’ve also folded in two announcements, one from Google and the other from Pardot. And do you know what B2B trade show attendees REALLY want from exhibitors?

Receive a daily summary of The Marketing Automation Alert directly to your inbox. Subscribe here (your privacy is protected). If you find this valuable, please share by using the links below:

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Featured Marketing Automation Article

When Marketing Automation Is the Wrong Solution - B2B Digital Net

http://sco.lt/7OPJ1V

From b2bdigital.net - Today, 10:09 AM

Marketing automation may be a multi-billion dollar market, but is it the right solution for you?

Condensed...

Here are two situations where marketing automation, with its complexity, learning curve and cost, just isn’t the right solution. Unfortunately, these situations are all too common, even among marketing automation clients.

1. Your Marketing Isn’t Well Established
If you are just building out your first drip email campaign, you can build it in a marketing automation solution but you could also build it in almost any modern email marketing solution. Marketing automation gives you a way to automate your marketing activity with far more complex business rules.

2. You Don’t Have Scale
Automation makes sense when the effort required to automate is less than the effort required to execute manually. You would never consider creating rules with complex branching logic to send a followup email to just one person; you would look at the situation and write only the email needed, when it’s needed. And you would really personalize it to everything you know about the recipient! The interesting question is where is the tradeoff? When does automation actually make sense? In short, it makes sense when you have sufficient scale that an automated solution costs less to manage or delivers a higher return for a similar investment.

iNeoMarketing's insight:

And we'll add to this:

3. You Don't Have Processes in Place

Marketing automation will only make inefficiencies more efficient at being inefficient.

4. There is a communication and lead gen gap between Marketing and Sales

Marketing automation will be money well spent to exacerbate the gap.

Get your ducks in a row. Use the marketing automation research phase to blueprint and implement internal changes before automating.

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Worlds Collide: The New Data-Focused CMOs and Their CIO Counterparts

http://sco.lt/68qgmP

From adage.com - Today, 9:54 AM

How the role of CMO is morphing to embrace technology and partner more closely with CIOs.

Key excerpts...

Marketers should have a plan for IT, said Sheryl Pattek, VP and principal analyst at Forrester Research, adding that CMOs must be involved in vetting technology vendors, historically a job for the CIO that marketers ignored. Marketing execs should "step up and own that infrastructure," she told the audience.

Eduardo Conrado, senior VP-marketing and IT at Motorola Solutions, had his own twist on the evolving relationship between marketing and IT. The former CMO of Motorola Solutions in January was elevated to a role into which marketing and IT report. About 18% to 20% of his company's marketers work in technology these days, said Mr. Conrado.

iNeoMarketing's insight:

As we have often said, the CMO must build its digital capabilities so as not to be usurped by the CIO. The word "embrace" is correct!!!

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How to Assess an Ad's Creativity - HBR

http://sco.lt/8tIXL7

From blogs.hbr.org - Today, 9:38 AM

This test can help you better target your ad investments.

Originality: An original ad comprises elements that are rare, surprising, or move away from the obvious and commonplace. The focal element here is uniqueness of the ideas or features contained in the ad.

Flexibility: Flexibility is seen in an ad's ability to link a product to a range of different uses or ideas.

Elaboration:  Many ads are creative because they contain unexpected details or extend basic ideas so they become more intricate and complicated.

Synthesis: An ad that is creative along this dimension blends normally unrelated objects or ideas.

Artistic Value: Ads with a high level of artistic creativity contain aesthetically appealing verbal, visual or sound elements. Their production quality is high, their dialog is clever, their color palettes is original, or their choice of music is somehow memorable.

Combining elaboration with originality had almost double the average impact of a creative pairing on sales, closely followed by the combination of Artistic Value and Originality (1.89, accounting for 11% of all combos). The weakest combination was flexibility and elaboration, which had less than half the average pairing's impact on sales. Yet we found that in terms of usage there was little difference between them: advertisers did not seem to favor any one combination over the other.

iNeoMarketing's insight:

So damn subjective. Regardless, the question is how can this information be used by the B2B marketer? We think that you may substitute "advertising" with "content marketing" so that the combination of elaboration and originality may have an impact on your demand generation efforts. Having said that, isn't the combination of elaboration and originality really the element of surprise? And isn't surprise one of the marketer's greatest tools? End result: THE TOPICS OF YOUR CONTENT SHOULD ELICIT SURPRISE!

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5 Tested Conversion Design Tactics You Should Put to Work. Right Now. - Unbounce

http://sco.lt/4wyJ85

From unbounce.com - Today, 9:48 AM

You think your design decisions are helping your page convert, right? These 5 case studies show you what to do and more importantly, what NOT to do.

Digest...

That’s why today we’re going to take a look at even more ways to get your design right for high conversions, and all of it is going to be backed with research so you know you’re following sound advice, not just fly-by-night anecdotal evidence.

1. Image Sliders / Carousels Suck, Don’t Use Them

2. The Importance of ‘Closure’ in Online Sales

One sneaky way to improve your onboarding process, and with it your customer retention rates, is to alter your post-sales process to focus on maximum consumer satisfaction. An easy way to do this: recognize that human beings have a natural inclination to seek closure.

3. Summaries Matter on Your Company Blog

Your startup is utilizing the power of content marketing to spur growth on a bootstrapped budget, right? On your company blog, you should know that this study revealed having summaries instead of full blog posts will actually get people to read more of your content.

4. Get Smart with Fitt’s Law

In essence, Fitt’s law is all about understanding the visual hierarchy in human-computer interaction. For instance, you know that it’s common for good interfaces to group items together when they are related, as it makes them easier to use. It would also make sense to give more ‘weight’ (via size or color differences) to REALLY important buttons that get used a lot.

5. The Use of ‘Useless’ Prices

If you’ve followed my work you’ve definitely seen me mention this video by Dan Ariely on useless price points: Many have asked me though, what’s the practical application of this? One answer is found in the ‘classic’ tactic of showing previous prices before the sales drop—while seemingly useless (customers won’t be paying those prices), it helps consumers make decisions when evaluating the product.

iNeoMarketing's insight:

Here's what different about Unbounce's posts: they're supported by studies and science. You really must click through to read the details in order to properly implement the recommendations.

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5 hot social media tools - Ragan

http://sco.lt/5aHCXx

From www.ragan.com - Today, 9:07 AM

These platforms can help brand marketers seeking to engage audiences and key online voices, as well as monitoring conversations and other mentions.

Condensed...

Though the perfect solution will vary from brand to brand, here are my five top social media marketing tools:

1. Socialbakers Analytics Pro

2. Simply Measured

3. Brandwatch

4. Commun.it

5. GroupHigh

On a budget? Here are a few social media marketing tools with completely free versions:

1. Wildfire Social Media Monitor
2. SocialBro
3. Social Crawlytics

iNeoMarketing's insight:

Love the fact that the author recommends free tools!

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FREE REPORT: 2013 Social Media Marketing Industry Report | Social Media Examiner

http://sco.lt/7DPcmX

From www.socialmediaexaminer.com - Today, 9:26 AM

2013 Social Media Marketing Industry Report: learn from more than 3000 marketers on how to focus your social media activities and what the rewards are.

Excerpt...

A few of this year’s social media statistics:

• 86% of marketers say social media is important for their business
• 69% plan to increase their use of YouTube
• 58% of marketers are blogging and 62% will increase blogging in 2013
• 49% picked Facebook as the single most important social network
• 89% of marketers state that increased exposure was the most important benefit of social media marketing

iNeoMarketing's insight:

You can also watch a quick video overview of the report here.

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Google Analytics Lets Analytics Premium Users Join Big Data in Google Cloud - Search Engine Watch

http://sco.lt/8ZY1UP

From searchenginewatch.com - Today, 8:02 AM

At Google I/O, Google Analytics introduced a new feature that's quite a big deal to Premium Analytics users. Google is now giving Analytics Premium users the ability to use Google BigQuery to crunch their analytics data and other offline data sets.

Announced at Google I/O 2010, Google BigQuery is a web-based service where you can analyze immensely massive data sets using Google's servers to crunch the numbers. How massive? Up to trillions of rows of data. By using Google's computing power, you can get insights from that kind of big data in seconds, as opposed to hours or days.

Specifically, Google Analytics Premium users can have their unsampled session-level and hit-level analytics data sent directly into Google's BigQuery cloud platform to crunch our all kinds of great information really quickly.

iNeoMarketing's insight:

This is interesting, and perhaps a means by which Marketing can free itself somewhat from the IT infrastructure, pending security issues. If you have a marketing technologist at hand, this is one that you'll want to investigate.

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Google+ in the SERPs Increasing; Authorship Adoption High [Data] - Search Engine Watch

From searchenginewatch.com - Today, 8:14 AM

A new analysis suggests establishing Google authorship has moved past the early adopter stage and those marketers who have not yet established authorship and who are not regularly sharing content on Google+ would be wise to do so.

Digest...

A data analysis of the search results for queries containing 500 of the world's top tech writers' names using Conductor's Searchlight enterprise SEO platform (disclosure: I work for Conductor) – shows that Google is surfacing Google+ accounts for personal brand searches with increased frequency. From January 2012 to May 2013 the percentage of writers that have Google+ results appear on page increased from 33 percent to 43 percent.

The analysis showed almost 75 percent of authors with a Google+ account had linked their content to their profile and their authorship appeared in the SERPs. This high percentage of authors who have gone through one of the two steps to establish authorship suggests the importance to natural search visibility they (or their publishers) now assign Google authorship.

iNeoMarketing's insight:

Seriously, do you need further proof? Gettoit!

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ExactTarget Expands Pardot’s B-to-B Marketing Automation to Facebook, Adds New Social Features | EON: Enhanced Online News

http://sco.lt/9DvkrB

From eon.businesswire.com - Today, 7:41 AM

Global cross-channel digital marketing leader ExactTarget (NYSE:ET) extended its Pardot business-to-business marketing automation

Key excerpt...

With Pardot’s integration with ExactTarget’s SocialPages, marketers can drag and drop Pardot’s lead capture connector into their Facebook page and publish it. Customers and prospects who register via the Facebook page can be automatically placed into a lead nurturing program designed to deliver relevant content throughout the buying lifecycle and accelerate the sales process. Pardot’s integration with ExactTarget’s SocialPages works with all native Pardot CRM integrations, including salesforce.com, Microsoft Dynamics, SugarCRM and Netsuite.

iNeoMarketing's insight:

So at what point does LinkedIn start to move into marketing automation, or vice versa? BTW: gamification just got closer.

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How To Calculate The ROI Of CRM | Forrester Blogs

http://sco.lt/7sUVlJ

From blogs.forrester.com - Today, 7:50 AM

Digest...

The first step is to estimate how investing in a CRM solution will help grow revenues, cut operating costs, and boost IT efficiencies:

•  Power up the revenue engine. 
•  Cut the cost of generating and servicing revenues.
•  Improve IT efficiencies. 

On the cost side of the equation, estimate the costs of software, deployment, maintenance, and support:

• Dig into hardware, software, and subscription costs. 
•  Dissect deployment costs. 
•  Factor in ongoing maintenance costs. 
• Don't get blindsided by administrative and infrastructure costs. 

iNeoMarketing's insight:

Common sense? Yes, but a very nice cheat sheet to start this type of project, so you'll want to click through for details. Sidebar: Forrester clients asking how to calculate the ROI of CRM investment? You would think that there would be 100% adoption by the Forrester community by now.

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B2B Email Marketers Focus on Targeting Content - eMarketer

http://sco.lt/6fP3lB

From www.emarketer.com - Today, 7:17 AM

The tactic B2B email marketers most want to improve on is getting content out to the right segments.

iNeoMarketing's insight:

And we know that this is accomplished via marketing automation.

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What B2B Trade Show Attendees REALLY Want From Exhibitors - Artillery Marketing

http://sco.lt/5kdpqL

From www.artillerymarketing.com - Today, 7:21 AM

The thing a B2B trade show exhibitor can provide attendees that has the highest correlation with purchase intent is new learning.

Key excerpt...

According to a study sponsored by Skyline Exhibits and Marketech 360, the number one reason attendees visited exhibits was to ‘obtain product information.’

As shown in the graphic below, when combining the results of ‘obtaining product information’ (32%), ‘product demo’ (11%) and ‘seeing a rep’ (10%), 53% come to learn about what the exhibitor has that is new.

iNeoMarketing's insight:

Events are a personal way to deliver content. Are sales made on the trade show floor? Of course, but if the primary reason for the attendee is to learn, then deliver knowledge that positions you as the expert and drives further conversations and engagements. BTW: best B2B techniques that we've experienced? On show floor classes.

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The Seven Deadly Sins of Email Deliverability [CHECKLIST] - Pardot

http://sco.lt/6Ak6fB

From www.pardot.com - Today, 7:06 AM

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Are People Stealing Your Content? How (and When) to Fight Back - Pardot

http://sco.lt/8dAhVp

From www.slideshare.net - Today, 7:15 AM

Learn how to keep your marketing content safe from internet thieves. For more information, click here: http://bit.ly/ContentTheft

Key excerpt...

With the ever-expanding number of websites in the world, tracking down stolen content isn’t always easy. Here are a couple ways to find it:

• Copyscape: Simply plug your page’s URL into the search box, and voila! Copyscape locates where your content appears elsewhere online.
• Referral Traffic: Dive into your marketing analytics to see which sites are sending you traffic.
• Pingbacks: Depending on your content management system, you may have the ability to be notified whenever a site links back to a post.
• Google Alerts, Topsy, and HubSpot Social Inbox: Whichever tool you prefer, you can set up alerts to ping you when someone mentions your content online.
• Manual Searches: You also have the option of manually searching for your content.

iNeoMarketing's insight:

Copyscape is the way to go, as it is the most automated of all solutions. The accompanying article to the deck is far more informative: click through for the details.

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Data-Driven Marketers Report Uptick in Q1 Spending, Revenues - Marketing Charts

http://sco.lt/5wTlNR

From www.marketingcharts.com - Today, 7:02 AM

Data-driven marketing spending is on the rise, according to respondents to the Direct Marketing Association’s Quarterly Business Review covering Q1 2013. 38.7% of respondents indicated that their spending increased quarter-over-quarter, with another 41.9% reporting a steady level of spending. On a 5-point scale, where 5 indicates a significant increase in spend from the prior quarter, data-driven marketers averaged out at a score of 3.19, up from 3.1 in Q4 2012 and 3.16 in Q3. In turn, 45.9% enjoyed revenue increases from their activities for the quarter, with another 39.4% indicating that revenues stayed flat.

Global cross-channel digital marketing leader ExactTarget (NYSE:ET) extended its Pardot business-to-business marketing automation

Key excerpt...

With Pardot’s integration with ExactTarget’s SocialPages, marketers can drag and drop Pardot’s lead capture connector into their Facebook page and publish it. Customers and prospects who register via the Facebook page can be automatically placed into a lead nurturing program designed to deliver relevant content throughout the buying lifecycle and accelerate the sales process. Pardot’s integration with ExactTarget’s SocialPages works with all native Pardot CRM integrations, including salesforce.com, Microsoft Dynamics, SugarCRM and Netsuite.

Leading off today with what we think is a huge announcement from Twitter: their Lead Generation Card. The potential impact is profound, and could very well turn your inbound marketing strategy upside down. Exciting stuff. In addition today, we’ve included multiple scoops pertaining to B2B video, Facebook, and social media measurements. Lastly, we continue to scoop the great series from Unbounce, and a FREE report from ExactTarget.

Receive a daily summary of The Marketing Automation Alert directly to your inbox. Subscribe here (your privacy is protected). If you find this valuable, please share by using the links below:

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Featured Marketing Automation Article

[MUST READ] Twitter Advertising: Capture user interest with the Lead Generation Card

http://sco.lt/7sW6rJ

From advertising.twitter.com - Today, 7:55 AM

Summary...

Today there’s a new addition to our suite of Twitter Cards, one which helps brands drive highly qualified leads: the Lead Generation Card.

Twitter Cards let you bring rich experiences and useful tools to users within an expanded Tweet. The Lead Generation Card makes it easy for users to express interest in what your brand offers. Users can easily and securely share their email address with a business without leaving Twitter or having to fill out a cumbersome form.

When someone expands your Tweet, they see a description of the offer and a call to action. Their name, @username, and email address are already pre-filled within the Card. The user simply clicks a button to send this information directly (and securely) to you.

Today, the Lead Generation Card will only be available to our managed clients; we have plans to launch this Card globally and to small- and medium-sized businesses soon. 

iNeoMarketing's insight:

A B2B game-changer, and something you absolutely want to explore! New from Twitter, and coming soon to Twitter advertisers. This may possibly catapult Twitter advertising to the front of the B2B social media advertising to do list.

UPDATE: We cannot help to think that this will be followed by other social media channels, especially LI and FB. And then carry that one step further: how long before the "cards" are dumped right into your MAP? This move has significant potential! And turn your inbound marketing upside down!

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Tapping into the minds of your audience: The psychology of social media - Econsultancy

http://sco.lt/9E2Zsn

From econsultancy.com - Today, 8:07 AM

Many digital marketers make a common error from the outset when planning their content marketing campaigns.

Condensed...

I recently interviewed an internet marketer for the University of Westminster’s New Media Knowledge website who was also, handily, a trained psychologist, about the psychology of social and he affirmed that people treat social media as an extension of their own persona. What they post and say is a projection of themselves, their beliefs, their interests, their entire identity.

There’s a certain “me too-ism”, as I call it, about the way people act online.

Then there’s the whole issue of “social proofing”. People love numbers. These numbers are critical to virality as you will share the article with your own sphere of influence if you oblige. Almost as importantly, they tell those visiting this post for the first time that lots of people have read and shared this post, the implication being that they should to. Social proofing is a very powerful force.

At the start of campaigns it is essential to listen to your audiences, so see what they are talking about and in what context, in order to create relevant content for them going forward. But the question why will they enjoy and share your content, and respond to calls to actions, needs to be addressed at the planning stage too.

Too many organisations fail to step away from the brand and look objectively from the outside in, as if through the eyes of the punters they wish to reach. By and large, the man and woman in the street is not anywhere near as interested in brands and their messaging as marketers would like to believe.

Neutral, quality, unique, engaging content is the bridge between the two worlds.

Social proofing is one easy best practice to follow, but if that content lacks the context and relevance for the target audience in the first place, if it fails to educate, entertain and/or answer questions, then the content – and the campaign – is doomed to fail.

iNeoMarketing's insight:

It also serves to drive home the notion that we picked up last week: the element (and value) of surprise. We're hanging onto this valuable beacon, as we see surprise fitting right into this article's POV. If you're able to surprise, you'll be able to engage, and if you can engage, social proofing takes place.

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36 Awesome & Terrifying Landing Page Design Examples - Unbounce

http://sco.lt/8zCDBp

From unbounce.com - Today, 7:43 AM

36 landing page designs for you to geek out on! Each one critiqued to see how they stack up against the principles of conversion centered design.

Note...

BIG TIP: If you’re just here to see the examples, click on the first one and cycle through all of the designs by clicking on the right half of the image!

iNeoMarketing's insight:

You need to take your time with this article! Here's the sequence:

1. Click through for the 7 principles of Conversion Centered Design
2. Or download the FREE ebook
3. Then review each example carefully with the accompanying notes
4. Apply to your own landing pages.

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FREE REPORT: The Mathematics of Social Marketing - ExactTarget

http://sco.lt/8ORyzZ

From pages.exacttarget.com - Today, 7:38 AM

Report overview...

In order to be effective, social media marketers need to implement the same types of digital marketing tactics that ecommerce and search engine technologists have used for years. In this guide, The Mathematics of Social Marketing, you’ll:

• Discover how to determine the number of social media contact views you need in order to convert contacts to customers
• Learn about back and front-end efficiencies that will help drive your business with social media
• Find out how to move beyond “launch and hope” to develop measurable strategies that will drive social media customers to take action

iNeoMarketing's insight:

A smart report...and timely. Interesting that it came from ExactTarget, and not its acquisition Pardot.

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How To Predict Conversion Rates From Lead to Close With an ‘Exit Criteria’ - Eloqua

http://sco.lt/4sfFRZ

From blog.eloqua.com - Today, 7:26 AM

Key excerpt...

Traditional lead scoring and buyer profiling is valuable to marketing, and sales stage definition is equally useful to sales.  The missing link between the two?  Something I call, “Exit Criteria.”  Specific, measurable actions by the prospect that indicate that they may be willing to “cross the chasm” from lead to sales opportunity.

Once a lead is scored (title, industry, customer history, lead source, etc.), we then attempt to measure the “health” of that lead dependent on their specific level of engagement.  Activity, like webinar registration and attendance, is captured. Participation in the same seminar (i.e. Q&A; polling) is a higher level of engagement, and advances the lead even more. And each of these activities becomes the requirement to “exit” the previous lead stage.

By making the prospect’s specific engagement the predominate determination for lead health, marketing can then create new types of campaigns that inspire the behavior that yield better leads.

iNeoMarketing's insight:

Another way to look at this is post-conversion activity, i.e., measuring beyond the conversion. In addition to the webinar attendee metric (an often used metric), you could measure how long a person stayed on a particular post conversion page. It's a function of the analytics you have in place, but it's a different level of engagement than just a conversion.

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Ad Agencies See Effectiveness in Online Video - eMarketer

http://sco.lt/7zSSOn

From www.emarketer.com - Today, 7:16 AM

Summary...

The online video advertising ecosystem has gained both prominence and complexity, but that might be because buyers have found that the ads really work. A March 2013 survey of US advertising agency executives conducted by online video ad platform BrightRoll found that the vast majority of respondents (75%) said online video ads were equally or more effective than traditional TV. Nine out of 10 also thought online video ads had equal or greater impact than display ads.

iNeoMarketing's insight:

Stew on that for a second...

So ad execs consider online video ads as potentially more effective at reading audiences than TV ads. Consider the B2B marketer: it would never make sense to create broadcast ads for TV distribution. However, if ad agencies are seeing the value, then what's to stop you from creating a video-based communications distributed across your social media channels? The point: the cost barrier is low, and the impact is high. Test!

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The Breakthrough of B2B Video Marketing | Business.com

http://sco.lt/54dyXh

From www.business.com - Today, 7:10 AM

B2B video marketing is on the rise as businesses look for ways to create and repurpose content that engages their audience on multiple platforms and networks.

Digest...

IDG Research Services conducted a study to see how tech buyers are leveraging video to advance their decision making process when it comes to new purchases. The study and resulting infographic indicate that 95% of B2B tech buyers watch tech-related videos and that this correlates with purchase behaviors (Tweet this!).  But, why are tech buyers actually watching these videos? They want to:

• Learn how to use particular products (61%)
• Find information on products they’re interested in buying (58%)
• Find how-to content (57%)
• Get product reviews (54%)
• Stay on the leading edge of technology (52%)

Creating a B2B marketing video doesn’t require as much budget or time as you may initially think. Easy ways to get started are turning slideshows, presentations and in-person demos into videos.

iNeoMarketing's insight:

We beg to differ on budget/time associated with B2B video, as that is a function of production value (which none of us feel the need to sacrifice). Outside of that, we have repeatedly said that this is a new found territory for you. Consider this scoop with the adjacent post regarding video as a viable replacement to TV commercials!

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Optify | 5 Essential Tips for B2B Facebook Advertising

http://sco.lt/5v5Mp7

From www.optify.net - Today, 6:54 AM

As a marketer who speaks with lots of other marketers, I've found that a significant number of marketers just don’t understand how powerful Facebook can be as a B2B lead generation source.

Summarized...

I’m going to do my best to provide tips using Facebook’s newest ad tools.

1. Targeting the right people (Custom Audiences)

Did you know that you can actually upload your own list of targeted emails to Facebook and advertise only to the people on that list? Whether you target existing leads or you’re buying industry specific lists, this new feature will allow you to better target your audience.

2. Target your anonymous website visitors (Facebook Retargeting)

Did you know that you can now retarget leads on Facebook? That’s right, you can use your own first party audience data to target the visitors to your website using Facebook Exchange (FBX), allowing you to place highly personalized and dynamic ads right in the middle of their Facebook Newsfeeds.

3. Customize offers for every stage of the funnel

Facebook Retargeting and Custom Audiences can be configured to work together in a very powerful way. If you think about it, you’re now able to target your leads at each stage of the consideration funnel.

4. Deliver real value and address pain-points

When treating Facebook advertising as a demand generation activity as opposed to one for brand awareness, it’s important to prime your audience for a value exchange. This is done by delivering high-value content or solutions to your ideal customers’ real pain-points.

5. Design your campaigns to convert

At the end of the day, if you’re not tying your ads back to an offer or a conversion goal, you’ll miss opportunities.

iNeoMarketing's insight:

The first two cover the important FB ad tools at your disposal, and the last three are tips. You'll want to click through for a bit more detail on the first two.

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7 ways to measure Facebook's ROI - Ragan

http://sco.lt/96MaDx

From www.ragan.com - Today, 6:51 AM

It's not impossible—it just takes some work. To find out if your efforts are paying off, track these metrics.

Excerpt...

The following are Facebook objectives and results that I track weekly at my company, Kruse Control:

1. Community growth: the number of likes

This metric shows how your page is growing. You can tie it in with the Facebook ad budget.

2. Engagement: the number of likes, comments and shares

Content is what drives your social media success. When you track how your audience receives the content, you get smarter about what to post in the future.

3. Total reach: the number of people who viewed your content

This is another metric you can tie to your Facebook ad spend. Facebook now allows you to pay to reach more people. As a Facebook marketer I'm glad to have this available to me.

4. Popular posts: The posts that got the highest engagement

This is a useful metric for content curation. As marketers, we use our best guesses as to what our audiences are looking for. Keeping track of your most popular posts allows you to give your audience more of what it likes.

5. Budget spent: Facebook ads, software tools, design, etc.

Facebook is not free; you have to pay to play. If you want to increase your reach, you need a budget for ads. Beyond an ad budget, you'll need money for software monitoring tools, scheduling software, photos and graphic design. Since it is actual money spent, this is the easiest one to track.

6. Leads: the number of leads generated

This is the golden ring, folks. There are two types of leads from Facebook: organic and traditional. Organic leads happen in the comment section of your posts. Share a special offer and many times someone will ask, "How long is this on for?" or "Do you service Nissans?"

iNeoMarketing's insight:

Couple this with the adjacent post on Social Media Metrics: goes a bit deeper regarding what to do with the data.

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Auto-responders: Why Trigger-based Email Will Increase Your Conversions - MarketingLand

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From marketingland.com - Today, 6:39 AM

Condensed...

There are two really well-defined steps you should follow to get started with your first auto-responder campaign. By following these steps, I guarantee you’ll find at least one campaign that will give you a 10 times ROI on your email marketing spend!

1. Find Your Key Trigger

What should you use to actually trigger your auto-responder campaign? The place to start is to focus on your quickest win. To find your quickest win, you should review your website’s core funnel.

• An e-commerce store might review the steps from landing on their homepage, viewing a product, adding a product to the cart, beginning checkout and, finally, to completing checkout.
• A software as a service application might review the steps from free trial signup to taking a core action within the application to becoming a paying customer.

When reviewing your funnel, you want to find the step at which you have the highest drop-off. That’s where you’ll find the trigger to provide you with the quickest win.

2. Keep It Simple!

Once you’ve found your key drop-off point, the next question is what to write in your initial auto-responder. It can be tricky to get started — and often, worrying about the perfect copy, the perfect call-to-action or the perfect formatting can prevent marketers from getting started. A fool-proof formula for coming up with the copy for your first auto-responder is to put yourself in your customers’ shoes: what are they thinking at this drop-off point? What questions do they usually ask you or your support team at this stage of their life-cycle?

iNeoMarketing's insight:

We dug into this post to scoop the key point, one which vexes many: to what should you auto-respond?

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The Minimalist's Guide To Social Media Metrics - MarketingLand

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From marketingland.com - Today, 6:46 AM

The buzz around startup culture lately is all about “minimum viable product.” It’s the idea of creating a product as quickly as possible — in its most minimum viable form — so you can then make it better by adapting it as quickly as possible...

Summarized...

Your minimal metrics are likely going to reside within one of these five places:

Activity Metrics

Sample Metrics: Post Rate, Response Rate, Average Response Time, Customer Service Savings

Reach Metrics

Sample Metrics: Audience Growth Rate, Brand Awareness, Sentiment, Share of Voice, Share of Conversation

Engagement Metrics

Sample Metrics: Applause Rate, Conversation Rate, Amplification Rate, Overall Engagement Rate

Acquisition Metrics

Sample Metrics: Click-Through Rate, Social Visits, Visitor Frequency Rate, Visit Duration

Conversion Metrics

Sample Metrics: Assisted Social Conversions, Last Interaction Social Conversions, Assisted/Last Interaction Conversion Ratio, Social Media as a Percentage of Total Conversions

iNeoMarketing's insight:

Minimal or agile? Let's not forget that you start off in a minimal fashion, then iterate following agile marketing best practices. So consider this a starting point.

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Marketing Research Chart: Top platforms for testing value proposition | MarketingSherpa

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From article - Today, 6:15 AM

In this week's chart, we look at the 2012 Lead Generation Benchmark Report to learn how marketers tested their organizations' value propositions.

iNeoMarketing's insight:

Yesterday's scoop on how to build a value prop drew a fair amount of attention, so we're following up with this tidbit.

Digest...

The first step is to estimate how investing in a CRM solution will help grow revenues, cut operating costs, and boost IT efficiencies:

•  Power up the revenue engine. 
•  Cut the cost of generating and servicing revenues.
•  Improve IT efficiencies. 

On the cost side of the equation, estimate the costs of software, deployment, maintenance, and support:

• Dig into hardware, software, and subscription costs. 
•  Dissect deployment costs. 
•  Factor in ongoing maintenance costs. 
• Don't get blindsided by administrative and infrastructure costs.