Posted by Rebekah Donaldson on Wed, Oct 07, 2009
Visits and conversions by source for www.b2bcommunications.com Sept 7 to Oct 6 2009
By Rebekah E. Donaldson
Here is a screenshot showing the sources of our website traffic that converted to leads over the last month. Looking at the chart, I answer:
- What does this chart tell you about lead sources?
- How much did you invest to get the site working this way?
- We need to generate leads - what's the best way?
Visits and conversions by source (1 month)
This chart shows how different sources have driven visits, leads, and customers to www.b2bcommunications.com. The key on the right shows the sources tracked.
What does this chart tell you about lead sources?
To see our lead sources, we open our Hubspot account (more on this below) and go to the "Reports" tab and pick "Sources". There we have a chart showing visit to lead ratios by source:
Totals for Sep 7-Oct 7, 2009 |
|
|
|
Sources |
Visits |
Visit to Lead |
Leads |
Organic Search |
590 |
0.68% |
4 |
Referrals |
265 |
2.60% |
7 |
Paid Search |
0 |
0% |
0 |
Direct Traffic |
547 |
1.50% |
8 |
Email Marketing |
0 |
0% |
0 |
Social Media |
86 |
8.10% |
7 |
Other Campaigns |
0 |
0% |
0 |
Totals |
1,488 |
1.75% |
26 |
According to the chart, visitors from social media sources convert at the highest rate. A visit-to-lead conversion rate of 8.10% means that in the last month, eight out of ten visitors who came to the site via LinkedIn or other networking sites, responded. Visitors referred to our site from an article, blog, or website are the next most likely to respond.
How much did you invest to get these leads rolling in?
Hundreds of hours and tens of thousands of dollars over several years. The site re-launched in 2007 and it's been an ongoing process to make it so visitors find what they need and take the next step. And there's still so much work to do! Meantime, we've been at blogging, search engine marketing, and social media marketing since 2007 - and public relations since 2001. We've tried to always close the loop (see below), so we know which B2B lead generation activities work and which to avoid.
What is Hubspot?
Hubspot provides advice and software that helps businesses get found on the Internet by the right prospects and convert more of them into leads and customers. We use it to build landing pages, attract traffic, nurture contacts, track leads, and connect records about leads and sales with records about marketing efforts.
We need to generate leads - what's the best way?
Here are just two of many ways to get started. Do both or pick the one that work for you:
Get a 60 Minute Internet Marketing Planning Session.
Try Hubspot - Use all the powerful features of Hubspot for B2B lead generation. Free for 30 days.
NOTE: We are pitched weekly by companies looking for affiliates to rep their stuff. So far, we've partnered only with MarketingSherpa and Hubspot. In each case, we bought their stuff and recommended it to others before we were ever a partner. Now that we are a partner, we get a small % of sales we help generate. Just so you know.
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Rebekah E. Donaldson ("Red") has led Business Communications Group since 2001. More >> |
Posted by Cris Rominger on Fri, Aug 07, 2009
By Cris L. Rominger
What are the 9 must-have qualities of a user-focused B2B website design?
When approaching a re-skin or redesign of your company's website, it's helpful to keep in mind both branding goals and user goals.
For example, consider these questions:
Website branding goals
Do the changes communicate professionalism? Are they appropriate for our industry/market?
Do the changes render error-free on different browsers? At different resolutions? On different operating systems?
Website user goals
- Do the changes help users accomplish their goals on the site quickly and easily?
- Are we communicating a clear value proposition?
- Is our site organized for our visitors? Are the paths to information clear?
- Is the orientation clear? Is the labeling instructive?
- Does our content instill trust and credibility? Is it formatted for online readers?
- Does our writing compel visitors to take action?
- Is our content portable?
Managing design to hit branding goals
While these questions may sound straightforward, they are also very easy to overlook in implementation.
Last October, Forrester Research released its Best and Worst of Brand Building Web Sites, 2008 Report. They looked at 20 top brands through two key questions:
- Does the site cater to user needs? (termed “brand action” in the results)
- Does the site support brand positioning?
The results were shocking: only 4 sites passed test #1 – Does the site cater to user needs? Only 7 sites passed test #2 – Does the site support brand positioning? And only 1 site passed both tests.
Fixing branding problems
According to Forrester principal analyst and report author Ron Rogowski, “Common Brand Action problems included poor text legibility, confusing category names, and missing or buried content. On the Brand Image side, sites were guilty of layouts, imagery, and production values that failed to support brand positioning. To improve the online brand experience, top firms should document their users’ goals, clearly define their brand attributes, and map relevant attributes to the right target users.”
Rogowski goes on to recommend that companies “…should also collect brand positioning statements and conduct Brand Image Reviews to ensure that the site presents the brand’s core attributes in a manner that is consistent with other channels and relevant to target users.”
Self-Check Site Changes
If you need to evaluate your proposed site changes, try going down the free checklist we have posted called The B2B Website ROI Checklist.
Learn More
Learn more about our B2B Website Design Services
Posted by Rebekah Donaldson on Tue, Aug 04, 2009
NOTE: A big thank you to Jep Castelein of LeadSloth on Demand Generation for his contributions to this post.
By Rebekah E. Donaldson
Say you are a CEO paying for search engine marketing services — also known as SEO services or SEM services. What result are you seeking?
Qualified leads, of course.
Today’s article is about the cheapest, most direct route to that result.
In particular, do you really need SEO consulting from people like me, if you can get SEO software for less?
Some savvy business people seem to think ”no.”
For example, a few weeks ago I read Shar VanBoskirk’s post, “Search Marketing Automation Will Compete With Agencies.” In it she describes up and coming Altruik as “SEO automation vendor”.
(She says later that they’re making “technology-enabled” search marketing possible. Which seems a world apart to me. But more on that below.)
SEO consultants wrote in with strong objections. More notably, even Altruik’s CEO, Tom Kwon, distanced himself from the idea that software can automate SEO!
Kwon wrote:
“…I don’t think there will ever be a white hat SEO solution that guarantees rankings….
“Everyone asks me about ranking, ‘how do I improve the ranking of my website?’, I usually respond as follows: Good organic rankings are the result of a comprehensive program that encompasses both on-page and off-page SEO strategies. Successful SEO strategies combine the two to gain and maintain rank power….
“Our goal is to empower all the highly skilled SEOs and SEMs with our platform to make visibility and on-page SEO easier. We will always need these skilled individuals and their services to ensure a well-rounded SEO program overall.”
Your take-away: Makers of SEO software urge you to use of skilled individuals. And it’s not just because SEO services providers are a big channel for them.
Being found versus being successful
The reason SEO must involve people is that being found is a long way from being successful. And to you — the person paying for SEO services — ’success’ doesn’t = getting found in search engine results!
Success means getting found and getting qualified leads. The latter is an order of magnitude harder than the former.
People optimize content
There are two essential tests to run on search-optimized content:
- Test #1 – Does this content help our prospects?
- Test #2 – Does this content help search engines?
A well rounded SEO pro will help its client consistently pass both tests.
Wanted: SEO copywriting skills
I’m hearing Tom Kwon saying in his comment that Altruik is designed to help you pass test #2.
To pass test #1 you need to be a strategic marketer armed with sound competitive analysis and monster business writing skills adapted to following complex online content and conversion optimization rules. (More on this in our recent e-book.)
If software can help us pass test #1, we should call him “Hal” (after the artificial intelligence that takes over in the film 2001: A Space Odyssey).
Technology-enabled SEO, yes
To be fair, Shar also said that SEO is more and more technology-enabled. That is right. But I’m not sure it’s news.
Back in the day, we used WebPosition software to keep track of clients’ rankings and check on-page optimization.
Today one of our tools is Hubspot Marketer, software as a service which has a good UI and is backed by an energetic support team. Among other things, we use it to see rank changes relative to competitors, do keyword research, create landing pages, track what’s helping our lead funnel vs what’s a waste of time, and other modules.
No tool named “Hal”
Even Hubspot is no “Hal” — and it’s not trying to be, either.
Hubspot provides site owners with lots of best practices and ideas to make best use of the system and create high-quality content. If site owners don’t have the time to educate themselves on inbound marketing, Hubspot recommends they get help from qualified agencies.
Because in the real world, you need to impress both human prospects and search engines. That’s how you take your website’s rank to the bank.
Posted by Rebekah Donaldson on Fri, Jun 19, 2009
By Rebekah E. Donaldson
I talked with Sacramento Business Journal senior reporter Kathy Robertson this week about the return on investment from the Red On Marketing Blog. Her questions got me thinking about why I do it, and this post is the result.
To ground things in real world and tangible results, you’ll see a screenshot showing where our website traffic and leads came from this week.
I’ve written the Red On Marketing Blog since Fall 2007. Yes, one reason I started it was to market our company. Another is that we help our clients with staying at the top of certain search results in Google, and social media (which includes blogging) is part of how we do it. We need to walk the walk.
We track everything with lead management software. Social media has tangibly helped us. Leads are up 400% this quarter over the same period last year. We have new leads every day – many from our website. So social media might sound like a fad or B.S. to some CEOs. But it’s moved the needle for our company.
Referrers — week of June 15 2009
Of our current clients, most found us online. For example, one Sacramento CEO found us when he searched “Sacramento search engine optimization”; another when he searched in LinkedIn for “B2B marketing Sacramento”; and so on.
Blogging is part of Social Media
The Red On Marketing Blog is intertwined with other efforts. It doesn’t stand alone. I’m active on LinkedIn – mostly I try to answer questions – and on Twitter. Sometimes, helping in those forums means pointing to B2B marketing articles, and other B2B Communications resources.
One realization I’ve had is that a marketer’s mindset can backfire with a blog or other social media participation. When I started blogging, I thought about it in terms of
1) Make a calendar of article topics.
2) Chip away at the calendar.
But that can lead to really boring blog posts. And everyone hates boring.
You Said WHAT?
Before starting the blog I’d been reading other people’s blogs for a couple of years. People like Josh Bernoff and David Meerman Scott publish edgy stuff that gets people talking (and pisses off some readers – a cost of being interesting).
The threads of comments after they post are crazy – dozens and dozens of smart people write in to respond.
I really wanted to do that.
Stirring Things Up
Fortunately, I have strong opinions — especially when it comes to cases of marketers getting things terribly wrong.
When I gave stronger opinions, you (readers) did too. Example: “From the Shocking Marketing No Nos Department.” When I published that piece, our blog lit up with comments and backlinks. It was referenced in many more places online. The lesson to me was: Speak up! Call it like you see it!
So after that I co-wrote an ebook. It took 9 months and was like having a third baby. Kind colleagues promoted it with social media (thank you Dianna Huff, David Meerman Scott, Peter Kim, Peter Caputa, and other colleagues).
Behind the Scenes Battles
One behind-the-scenes struggle I have is over topics appropriate for the blog. On the one hand, there is value in publishing about basic marketing techniques and issues. In fact, my colleagues at B2B Communications keeps reminding me that some of you may want intro material . But I fear you’re bored with the same old stuff like ”segment your audience!” “get the word out!” It seems like recycled, regurgitated truisms. (Who’s right? Please comment.)
Girl’s Dream Comes True
One thing that surprised me was that our blog helped us become a MarketingSherpa Affiliate. (MarketingSherpa is like Consumer Reports for marketers – loads of objective data that helps you make good decisions.) I think we’re the only one in Sacramento, California and surrounding regions. It gives us a lot of credibility – most marketers really admire Sherpa – as well as access to their material and the ability to pass along discounts.
One of their big decision criteria was around the quality of guidance we provide through our blog. They looked and said we were doing a great job. So the blog helped us stand out among much bigger agencies. It’s also led to interviews, invitations to speak, and other exposure with organizations like Forrester Research and Hubspot. Each of those organizations reaches tens of thousands of subscribers with their updates. The blog is also one of our top sources of search engine traffic and exposure for our services.
Most importantly, it’s sparked interactions with hundreds of small business owners and business to business marketers.
Keeping it Real
Still, even if we didn’t get the business benefits I’ve listed, knowing what I know now, I would still write a blog. Blogging helps keep things real. It makes me stay abreast of new data and ideas, instead of throwing up my hands because there’s too much. It makes me a better thinker, a better listener, a better writer, and a better salesperson.
Your turn
My hope is that, if you’re one of those business folks who has been blogging, but doesn’t know if it’s worth it, or you’ve held off because you don’t think anyone wants to read a blog written by you, maybe hearing about my experience will help you keep at it or get started.
Do you blog? Why or why not?
Posted by Rebekah Donaldson on Thu, May 21, 2009
I’m pleased to introduce Cris Rominger as a contributor to this blog.
In a world where 92% of B2B buyers turn to the web first when looking for service providers, effective internet marketing is essential. Cris will be writing about web marketing, search engine optimization, writing for the web and search engines, usability, conversion optimization, and user-focused design.
Cris’ insights are based on what works in the real world. Her 20 years’ communications experience spans web development, information architecture, user-interface design, usability, web copywriting, and search engine optimization.
Cris joined Business Communications Group in 2007. She helps our clients build B2B websites that engage business decisions makers, get to the top of Google search results through advanced SEO, and, through it all, stay focused on what it takes to build trust with savvy buyers.
Check out two of her recent articles posted at our company site:
Posted by Rebekah Donaldson on Mon, Feb 09, 2009
Today Cris Rominger and I published a free B2B marketing e-book (550KB PDF) called The New Rules of Outsourcing B2B Marketing: What Marketing Directors need in a B2B marketing consultant today.
In it we discuss how the shift to inbound marketing affects Marketing Directors; the 5 essential traits your B2B marketer needs and why each is important; 10 questions to ask a prospective B2B marketing consultant; how to cut ROI guesswork; what B2B buyers are looking for; and why B2B marketing differs from B2C.
We’re hoping to hear feedback. Please weigh in. (Tip: to comment, scroll down to the bottom of an article.)
We started this e-book in the summer of 2008, and finished it… well… every time I open it I start tinkering. My file name for it is currently ”Outsourcing ebook FINAL v7″. But give birth we must.
My hope is that this blog post could work as a discussion area for the e-book. To try to get things rolling, here are some questions for you readers:
Premise: Changed marketing landscape
1. We argue that the marketing landscape has changed. Did we get it right? Leave anything out?
Premise: Specialization not enough
2. We argue that because of a changed marketing landscape, it takes special skills to see and seize opportunities. Did we get that right? Leave anything out?
To engage decision makers today, our view is that B2B companies need to:
- Prove their value through a strong business case
- Build sites and other communications vehicles in a way that fosters trust
- Pull in prospects
… and that doing it requires specialists in both new and traditional marketing disciplines. Still, it’s your B2B marketing partner’s job to see all the options and how they can work together.
Premise: higher bar for B2B marketing consultants
The e-book is really about what it takes to help Marketing Directors reach and engage today’s savvy B2B buyers without breaking the bank. We’re trying to articulate a standard to which Marketing Directors should hold us and other B2B marketing agencies.
Are there parts of the e-book you particularly agree or disagree with? We’re hoping to hear feedback. Please weigh in.
Posted by Rebekah Donaldson on Thu, Jan 22, 2009
Strong web content is the foundation of successful b2b marketing. My colleague Cris Rominger has posted two great articles on writing web content. And on Thursday next week is a training session by MarketingSherpa called How to Create High Conversion Lead Generation Content.
Writing web content – articles
In Writing Web Content for the Online Reader, Cris gives key facts about how people read online and tells why some web content is particularly effective.
In Website Content Tips, she offers six techniques to ensure your web content grabs the eye and gets attention.
Cris has focused on the web as a marketing communications tool since 1995. As the person responsible for web marketing at Business Communications Group, she helps ensure that a client’s online presence builds relationships and trust that lead to more sales.
High conversion web content — training
With web content writing best practices on the brain, I registered for a MarketingSherpa webinar on Thursday, January 29 – “How to Create High Conversion Lead Generation Content.” What caught my eye is the on-the-money agenda.
Sherpa’s email invitation reads:
This webinar will give you the tools you need to:
- Create relevant content for each stage of the sales cycle
- Use content to help sales have a valid business reason for follow-up
- Create site and product tours that produce higher ROI
I gather that attendees also get a MarketingSherpa Special Report – “Create Content Your Prospects Adore.” These guys really have my number.
Posted by Rebekah Donaldson on Tue, Dec 23, 2008
I’m working on a list of action items I have for our main website. Meantime, a thought struck me: is my site obsolete?
My web team may kill me for writing this. And for good reason. They’ve got blood and sweat in that nav, content and tags. So am I nuts? And which articles on this am I overlooking? I’m sure there are many good ones.
Since launching our business blog in early 2008, I’ve tended to steer fresh content to our blog instead of posting it to our main company website. I favor the blog vs the main site. Why?
B2B blog content vs B2B website content — a theory about why what goes where
- I really want to have a two-way communication with visitors. But, sans public comments feature on our main site, we’re encouraging… listening. That is, I don’t think that offering a response form with a field for entering comments counts as fostering dialogue; that mechanism sends a private communication to the site owner. What fires people up is playing a part… impacting through contributing.
- My perception is that reader/visitor expectations are different for the main site and the blog. And as the author, publishing to the blog is lower stress. The blog posts are supposed to be authentic. It’s not the end of the world if I leave out a word. It’s ok if I don’t know the answer to a question. As long as I’m not squandering your time or committing other heinous acts on Tom Pick’s memorable list, ”The 7 Deadly Sins of Blogging“.
- Because of (2), publishing to the blog is quicker. It feels gratifying to get an idea ‘out’. Making something new is creative. These days, it’s the closest I ever get to making art.
I’m not suggesting that our main corporate website be a wiki. Or that it’s not worthwhile at all without a public comment feature. I am, though, observing that blog infrastructure invites public dialogue; a traditional website does not. And wondering if that is ok in the long term.
So in the vein of the hard-hitting “reality bites” Forrester telecon I helped Laura Ramos with on Oct 29th – I wonder: are traditional websites without comments, obsolete?
Traditional website + public comments = all the usual social media benefits and challenges?
To walk the walk regarding participation, could we invite comments using a form at least on B2B Central pages where we lay out ideas/approaches most likely to spark reader feedback?
At the simplest level, we could manually post people’s comments to the page as they are submitted… or get fancier and automate it. The online Business Journal websites, for example, has space for comments under each online article now. (Note: to my knowledge, no reporter or editor has responded to any comment I’ve posted at a bizjournals.com site.)
However we rig up the technology, I feel there’s still the question about why a business would maintain a main website and a blog separately.
- Perhaps it has to do with separating personal opinion from corporate policy.
- Perhaps it’s because buyers still expect a company to have a company website that looks like a company website.
- Perhaps it’s because a company needs to convey respect for visitors by presenting a polished online presence – not one created with haste or inattention to detail.
B2B websites — why not abandon ship?
Now, why not? That is, why not just do what comes naturally and keep posting all the fresh content to our blog?
Again, I fear my web team is going to absolutely kill me. And for good reason! For one thing, this blog is not optimized, and it shows. It doesn’t ’sell’ our company. It is about ideas, persepctive… connecting with others.
The main site, by contrast, was designed to make our business case. It shows we know our best customers are savvy consumers seeking not just a likeable or hip consultant but a pro wearing the scars and medals that indicate trustworthiness. There are testimonials. Pages telling our skills and services and experience. Press releases noting our successes.
And it’s more usable — content is ‘chunked’ up. It has calls to action. It shows we’ve got some Skills. It’s like wearing business attire for a Friday client meeting.
And I can just hear David Meerman Scott now, thundering “Nobody Cares About Your Products and Services!” I mostly agree David, I mostly agree!
Applying Peter Kim*
Peter Kim’s thinking about Social networking and the ego trap may be applicable here. Kim writes,
Social networks are valuable for building and maintaining relationships. Updates and status feeds preserve the signal strength of current ties and boost the signal of weak ones. But adding connections with low relevance and connection result in static, increasing in annoyance as one’s network grows. Useful social networks require a high signal-to-noise ratio.
Extending this idea: could it be that, while a high volume of comments is gratifying, the ”signal-to-noise” ratio will worsen overall?
His thinking about the scalability of social media bears mention too. In Social media marketing’s scalability problem he writes,
People don’t scale, either. Frank at Comcast does a great job, but he’s only one person. Dell has 17+ people on Twitter, like Amie Paxton. Scott Monty is a new kind of leader, but he’s only one person…
…From my last post asking if social media matters, the commenting consensus seems to agree, with its impact in awareness, consideration, and preference.
But if social media marketing matters, then does it scale?
I don’t think so. I think the technologies scale. But the programs – especially those with a labor-intensive component – don’t.
What if our main site did have a public comments feature and 50 thoughtful visitors weighed in tomorrow? I’d need to surf that wave, rather than drown in it. And that might require Brogan-ish Social Media Skills.
Other website doomsdayers
Others have written about this – some an impressively long time ago! But while their headlines grabbed me in the Google results, their beefs seem to be different. Here are some examples:
In a 2002 article in Digital Web Magazine Jeffrey Zeldman writes in 99.9% of Websites Are Obsolete that,
“…In off-brand browsers, in screen readers used by people with disabilities, and in increasingly popular non-traditional devices from Palm Pilots(TM) to web-enabled cell phones, many of these sites have never worked and still don’t, while others function marginally at best…. Peel the skin of any major site, from Amazon to Microsoft.com, from Sony to ZDNet. Examine their tortuous non-standard markup, their proprietary ActiveX and JavaScript (often including broken detection scripts), and ill-conceived use of Cascading Style Sheets-when they use CSS at all. It’s a wonder such sites work in any browser.”
Someone called Titus Hoskins of bizwaremagic.com writes, in Are Websites Obsolete Already? Will they go the way of the DoDo?, a seemingly orphaned blog post dated 2005:
“…we see the start of such a direction in the blurring of sites that are not exactly a blog or a website — but a cross between the two. People are building complete websites in rss/xml coding so they can feed them directly to their site’s customers or patrons…”
Now – I noticed some months ago that a couple of industry leaders don’t have separate blogs and corporate sites. Their blog IS their corporate site. It has pages for Services and About… but the main area one lands at when you use their root URL, is their latest post and its comments.
This is interesting to me because it’s an acknowledgement of the way b2b conversations need to happen now… two way, less formal, less preachy, more authentic, more inclusive, more timely, more shaped by the community of players and ideas of which it is one part.
Thoughts?
What do you think? Is trying to structure all corporate communications to be interactive an ego trap… and too hard to support? Or is it silly and shortsighted to get stuck on those issues… in the same sort of way that it’d be silly to not use email because there’s so much of it to keep on top of?
–
* A far cry from Being Peter Kim
Posted by Rebekah Donaldson on Sun, Oct 05, 2008
Cris Rominger and I will lead the Sacramento Area Regional Technology Alliance (SARTA) Leadership Series seminar titled “How to Succeed at Web Marketing in 2009″ on Wednesday, October 15, 2008.
About this web marketing seminar
Details
Succeeding at web marketing is important for virtually all businesses – but none more so than early stage and small firms. Web marketing can bring outsized returns for a relatively modest investment. Plus, you can see what exactly works with your audience, unlike in offline mediums.
In a recent survey of 1,000 business decision makers by marketing research firm Enquiro, 92 percent of respondents said they turn to online resources in the early stages of the buying cycle. And 77 percent named Google as their first choice among all search engines.
In this session we’ll show you charts and examples of what works and what doesn’t in web marketing today and 9 ways to make your business website work harder for you. You may be able to do all the steps yourself.
Attendees get a briefing and question-and-answer session plus a checklist, charts, samples of effective websites, and case studies.
Registration link
Posted by Rebekah Donaldson on Fri, Sep 19, 2008
Everyone is supposed to be nailing down their plans for 2009 marketing efforts. What should go in yours?
Let’s start with tactics to be wary of: Today executives resist cold-calls. People are using their Flash-challenged Blackberries to look at websites. And does anyone open promotional snail mail anymore? (Here come the angry emails from direct marketers…)
Other questions you may be pondering this season, and my ideas on finding answers:
Question: should we sponsor conferences?
… Should we fork over thousands to sponsor conferences? Should we pay $30,000 for space at that trade show? Or will we get through to people more often and for less money, if we focus on calling prospects directly? Should our CEO start a blog, or is that a fad that’s already fading?
Suggestion
1. Check out this blog’s Archive.
2. MarketingSherpa publishes a B2B Lead Generation Guide ($697 – sold out as of 9/16/08) that has data and guidelines that will help you make a good call on these questions. It’s got step-by-step instructions from beginning to end of lead generation campaigns; 150 case studies, tactics, and how-tos; 60 stats, data charts and eyetracking heatmaps; and 158 creative samples.
Study: B2B ad context matters.”
Question: is PPC a good marketing strategy?
… Should we take the plunge into pay per click ad programs or banner advertising? Can that really fill our lead pipeline and drive growth?
Suggestion
1. Check out this recent blog post, “
2. If you know you’re ready to add this tactic, you can find such answers in MarketingSherpa’s 2008 Online Advertising Handbook + Benchmarks ($397). It has objective data and samples that shows what works and what’s a waste of time.
Question: is email marketing effective?
… Should we switch to RSS because so much email is blocked now by corporate firewalls? Or does it still have the great bang for the buck qualities that it used to?
Suggestion
1. First check your email efforts agains the free checklist I’ve published, “Top 10 Email Marketing Mistakes“
2. Stay tuned for a new resource out next month, the 2009 Email Marketing Benchmark Guide.
(price not yet available – probably around $400).
Question: why no leads from our website?
… Should we pay for updates to our website? Why does our website get a lot of traffic, but no one ever responds to us through our site?
Suggestion
1. Try to identify problems and fix them using the free checklist I’ve published, “Better website ROI: a 12-point checklist.”
2. Read the MarketingSherpa Landing Page Handbook ($497) for help rectifying any problems.
Question: scrap our website, or upgrade it?
… Should we start over to rebuild our website, in order to start showing up on Google results when clients look for us online?
Suggestion
1. Read the free article I’ve published on this, Effective Search Engine Optimization for how to tell when you’ve got a site that convinces human visitors and search engines that you’re the real deal.
2. Get ahold of MarketingSherpa’s new Search Marketing Benchmark Guide ($397) if you can (it’s a bestseller). It tells you what will work and what’s a waste of time, based on extensive research and with tons of examples you can copy.
Question: should we do webinars?
… Should we keep working on webinar registrations? Or are CIOs sick and tired of getting invitations to online seminars?
Suggestion
1. Assess how many new valuable contacts you gained last year as a result of doing webinars, and multiply that by the average value of such a contact.
2. Get a leg up with the MarketingSherpa Business Technology Benchmark Guide. It tells you what over 10,000 business technology buyers said and what 934 marketing professionals said, through 216 charts, tables, and eyetracking heatmaps.
I offer alot of free advice on this site… in past blog posts and the B2B Central area. But you may need more. The sort of information you’ll get in Sherpa guides can save you a whole lot of wasted money, effort, and credibility.