TopRank Internet Marketing News

According to a new report from MarketingSherpa, the B2B marketplace is rapidly evolving, and marketers are resistant to adapt to the latest best practices. 68% of B2B marketers haven’t even identified their Marketing-Sales funnel. Resistance to market changes and the failure to identify the customer journey are huge obstacles for improving B2B marketing effectiveness.

In light of these challenges, it’s refreshing to know that progressive and successful B2B marketers are offering advice to become more innovative and customer centric. “Speak customer”, “Be Human” and work to innovate by understanding the sales funnel so performance can be optimized are the trends to follow.

To advance B2B marketing innovation, TopRank Online Marketing and MarketingProfs have partnered to create an impressive collection of 33 B2B Marketing innovation tips from some of the top B2B thought leaders and brands.

The greatest content isn’t so great until people read and share it. That’s why social communities and networks are so critical for an effective content marketing program.

According to Eric Schmidt of Google, every two days we create more data and information than since the dawn of time to 2003.

Where is that data coming from? Think about this: Every 60 seconds over 1,500 blog posts are published, 72 hours of video is uploaded to YouTube, 100,000 Tweets are posted and over 700,000 status updates are made on Facebook. Google+ is gaining steam and Pinterest has had explosive adoption and growth.

Besides creating content that’s relevant to your target audience to guide them along your sales pipeline, it’s also important to consider how to spread that content. How can you help your content “pop” and stand out amongst the millions of new documents published, shared and included in search results every day?

Even with the best intentions, we may not always follow through on our marketing goals for the year. If you are looking to connect with your customers, implement a social strategy that sticks, or create a blog, there are some some practical steps you can take to reach your marketing goals.   In this post you will find tips and tactics for getting started, as well as helpful advice for sticking with them.

I want to really connect with my customers.
The first step in connecting with your customers involves knowing who they are.  Run a survey of your existing customers to help develop personas based upon their answers.  From there you will have a better sense of what type of communication they prefer, how they interact with content, and their pain points.  What steps should you take to get this accomplished?

• Create a 5-10 question survey using a service like www.surveymonkey.com

Have you ever noticed how young children figure out a maze? At first they may struggle going through each path only to realize that they can’t get through. By then, the paper may be filled up with messy crayon or pencil marks that make it virtually impossible to find the right way. Then as they get just a little older, you might see them look at the end point. They may even start at the finish line and work backwards to the beginning of the maze. It’s creative problem solving at its finest.

When thinking about marketing to customers, companies often get tied up on discussions that involve details that seem highly relevant to the company but won’t really matter to the customer. There is a natural tendency to analyze and examine but there can be danger in losing sight of the end goal.

Over 175 million users are now registered on Twitter, and per data cited by PCMag, 95% of accounts have been created in the last two years.  And where ever 175 million gather, marketers will follow.

The number of registered Twitter users, and sharp growth over the last twenty-four months alone, suggest a channel that is more than just rapidly expanding.  They suggest an environment that is extremely noisy, extremely volatile – and in the case of unprepared marketers – an environment rife with opportunity for misstep.

If you are implementing Twitter marketing as part of your social media marketing initiative in the new year, how can you avoid the risk of Tweets that fall on deaf ears, or worse, are misinterpreted and live on in infamy?

Start by adhering to the three tips below:

Audience engagement, interaction, and participation are keys to building a brand on the social web.  Social platforms such as Twitter and Facebook offer unparalleled options for  audience engagement, but where should a marketer start with so many choices?

Fortunately, Lee Odden, CEO of TopRank Online Marketing and Chelsea Bucoy, Sr. Product Marketing Manager for Zoomerang are here to help. Their on-demand webinar: Engage Your Audience with Social Media and Surveys recorded in July is available to watch at any time.

The webinar discusses important items such as:

• Why you should consider social media as a part of your marketing strategy
• Engaging your audience with online surveys and polls
• How to choose topics which make for interesting surveys and how to share them on your website or blog

If an online marketing program were to be compared to an airplane, one could make the analogy that the left wing is a strong Search Engine Optimization (SEO) program.

Important as it may be, a left wing alone will not complete the elements needed to launch an airplane, just as SEO alone will not be enough to make up an entire online marketing program.  As social media becomes more prevalent, a social media marketing strategy becomes the right wing to help the online marketing program launch and maintain flight.

Below are three ways social media marketing helps support an online marketing program:

1. Builds Website Legitimacy: More and more, search engines are recognizing companies with a social media presence as more legitimate than those without. As such, search rankings, traffic – and of course, corresponding inquiries and sales – all tie into establishing a social media presence.

Suitably sticky social news headlines, crafted to help content resonate and burn throughout social media channels, is both an art and a science.  In a recent post to Online Marketing Blog, picked up by CRM Mastery, TopRank® Online Marketing Account Manager Adam Singer offers several tips to help readers craft compelling social headlines.

Below, find how two of the five tips offered by Singer have helped boost everything from search engine rankings to social media exposure for TopRank Clients.

• Leverage formulas which work for others
  ’16 Must-Read B2B Marketing Strategy Ebooks’ by Marketo

Smashing Magazine has made page one of Digg hundreds of times using the headline formula ‘number + adjective + sticky message.’  Of course, this formula only works if the headline directs to content that is equally compelling to the audience.

Social media provides a great opportunity to engage your target audience and increase brand awareness online. Social media encompasses blogging and blog marketing, social networks such as Facebook and LinkedIn, microblogging via sites like Twitter, social news and bookmarking, video sharing, image and audio sharing, and wikis.

To develop a social media strategy that works for your business, the first step is to outline your goals. What do you want social media to do for you? Drive traffic to your website, engage your target audience in conversation, build relationships with your prospects, or build awareness for your brand online.

The next step in developing your social media strategy is to know your target audience. Who are they, what are they talking about, where are they making connections online. Once you understand who your target audience is, identify how you want to position yourself with your audience.