In the world of B2B management, there are numerous head scratching efforts going on as we peer ahead into 2012 and beyond. Primarily, it has to do with how to get from here to there. One of the issues faced by B2B companies with the high degree of uncertainty, global economic turbulence, and a rapidly changing buyer driven and social world is figuring out where the from here to there actually leads to.
Recent buyer and management interviews tell me a lot of head scratching continues to go on. Plenty of internal angst and debate is taking place on how to get from here to there, what is needed, what should be done, and what a lot of people think. The what to do aspects of internal planning usually center on strategy and tactical questions such as:
How do we grow revenues?
What can we do to generate more leads?
How do we expand business with existing customers?
What type of content will drive more traffic to our web site?
Should we get more active with social media?
Do we need to improve our product quality and offering?
Should we boost marketing and sales budgets?
Do we need to hire more people?
What should our pricing... Read more
Tags: buyer experience, buyer insight, buyer persona, buyer research, buyergraphics, buyerology, content marketing, marketing, qualitative research, socialmedia, Targeting, trends
Posted in Creative Best Practices, Emerging Platforms, Opinions, Search, Social Media, Targeting, Websites | No Comments »
For many in B2B sales, from senior leaders to sales representatives, it may be a discouraging time. If you follow conventional and social media closely, the storied demise of sales has been told many times. You probably could buy a few lunches if you collected a dollar for every time you heard that buyers are in control and don’t need sales. To you, this sentiment seems like it is taking on mythical proportions. I am not so sure. If I ask myself three simple questions, I think my answers are clear:
Have buyers changed? Answer: Yes
Does B2B Sales need to change? Answer: Yes
Will buyers still require the assistance of B2B Sales? Answer: Yes
I suspect many of you will answer the same way. B2B Sales will continue to matter very much and it will go through periods of redefinitions and transformations over the next few years. Although, in the Social Age, it may seem that people want to be devoid of actual interactions with others in such buying settings, I for one believe buyers are actually seeking more. However, more of what has not defined interactions and relationships in... Read more
Tags: b2b marketing, B2B Sales, buyer experience, buyer persona, buyer personas, buyergraphics, buyerology, online marketing, Social business, Social Media, Targeting, Tony Zambito
Posted in Creative Best Practices, Emerging Platforms, Opinions, Search, Social Media, Targeting, Websites | No Comments »
What do businesses and brands have to learn from the Santorum/Savage “Google Problem”? Unwanted search results will always be alive online, and it takes an active approach to keep them managed as much as possible. With the right tactics, it’s possible to minimize reputational threats, but simply complaining about them will not find a resolution.
(Author’s note, this post is not meant to advocate for one political party or any single politician vs. another.)
Without getting into the frothy details (which you can find out about through the article links that follow in this post), Rick Santorum has become a high profile example of a common problem for many brands, businesses, and business leaders dealing with unfavorable search results that stray WAY off-message. Essentially, the candidate is dealing with a competitive attack page aimed at undermining his campaign and throwing a wrench in his own messaging.
What Santorum has NOT been doing over the past 8 years of the existence of columnist Dan Savage’s rogue page, is deal with it by creating more relevant content and employing even basic SEO tactics. Instead he has protested to Google (no word if he has also complained to Bing) to remove the page in question from its search rankings. ... Read more
Tags: brand managers, brand marketers, crisis communications, crisis management, dan savage, google, PR, product managers, public relations, rick santorum
Posted in Search, Social Media | No Comments »
Most people are pretty happy when they take a look at their web site traffic and see that a large share of traffic coming to their site from search engines. The natural reaction to these numbers is likely to be "Isn't this great? Look at all these new prospects who are finding me on the web!" But in many cases, such assumptions about who's finding your site via search may be completely wrong. Before I give you some tips on how you can improve your search results, let's take a look at how people use search engines today.
How do people search?
It all begins with a need or interest—something inspires a person to search for a certain topic. Let's use a hypothetical example of person considering buying a new camera. A typical search begins pretty broadly. Type "camera" into Google (65.9% of searches happen on Google according to ComScore, December 2011); the results page brings up a bunch of links for places where you can buy cameras, some photos of cameras, links to manufacturer's sites, and so on. Great—but you're not even sure what you're looking for yet. So you go back to the top of the page and start adding qualifiers... Read more
Posted in Search, Web Analytics | No Comments »
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