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.
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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:
- Click through for the 7 principles of Conversion Centered Design
- Or download the FREE ebook
- Then review each example carefully with the accompanying notes
- 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
http://sco.lt/8ftlOT
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
http://sco.lt/5Ej0i1
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
http://sco.lt/7mgVXt
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.
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We're getting bullish on Vine, as we believe the 6 second, quick capture process will be a significant teaser tool for the B2B marketer. As we've said before, it's early, but keep your fingers on the pulse.