Q2 Marketing Blog – Technology Marketing, Public Relations, Brand Consulting

Online Marketing Category

Communicate consistently with buyers

Friday, April 3rd, 2009 - by Becky Sheetz-Runkle

We often recommend that companies looking to better communicate with their client or prospect base consider a direct marketing initiative. One of the most cost effective is a monthly or quarterly newsletter.

It’s often easy for organizations to believe in the value of newsletters. Being top of mind is important. And with some fantastic distribution tools out there, newsletter traffic is eminently measurable.

But the more they consider this tactic, the more some organizations begin to question whether they will be able to consistently generate enough interesting content. This is a fair question, and one that you must absolutely ask before diving into something like a customer or prospect newsletter. After all, starting one only to stop it a few months later doesn’t really advance your cause. Nor is that a very good way to spend your marketing dollars.

Here are some ideas for newsletter topics:

case studies you can use to highlight a successful project or hot trend
new customers or contract wins
new technologies you support that represent trends
company milestones such as growth, partnerships, etc. that could make a difference to your clients
stories highlighting service in the local community and beyond
achievement of industry awards
the addition of new customer-facing personnel

For product companies, announcements of upgrade packages, new products, user groups, special offers and more can easily be used to drive opens and click-throughs. Service companies often have to work a bit harder to generate content, but the point is the same for both: There are exciting things going on in your company that matter to your customers and your prospects.

Newsletters are one consistent way to facilitate constant communications. What aren’t you communicating to your customers (and/or prospects) that you should be?

Posted in Direct marketing, Lead Generation, Online Marketing | 1 Comment »

Five ways to ruin the ROI of your webinars

Thursday, March 26th, 2009 - by Becky Sheetz-Runkle

This is the latest in an occasional series on webinar marketing. Why so much focus on webinars? Because they’re relatively inexpensive to produce, particularly when compared to road shows and other live events. Webinars are an increasingly important tool in the lead generation activities of marketing departments of tech companies. But, if they aren’t done right, the Return on Marketing Investment (ROMI) will be adversely impacted.

Read on for five common pitfalls to avoid in your next webinar or series.

Your customers and prospects receive lots of offers to attend webinars. How many emails and other invitations have you received this week urging you to a product or solution webinar? How many have you received today? The important question: how many have you paid attention to and why? For more on how to put together a great webinar, read Maximize the value of your webinars.

Without further ado, here are the pitfalls:

1. Poor branding.

Read more about how to brand your webinars here. This is a big deal, and often a shortcoming for too many companies. How do you measure up?

2. Lack of content

If your webinar is a thinly-veiled sales pitch or you don’t have important information to communicate to the marketplace, a webinar strategy may not be your best option. Read more about why content comes first.

3. Failing at the follow up

We all know that follow up is where a lot of our best laid marketing plans too often fall apart. Make sure the follow up strategy is in place before you launch the webinar. How many days after the webinar will sales follow up? What will be their approach? How will they further quality leads? And, importantly, what role do you expect the webinar to have in your sales process?

4. Missing the mark

It is critical, of course, to deliver great content in a webinar. Secondly, it’s just as critical to use your webinars to build and reinforce your corporate and/or product brand. But make sure the two are not mutually exclusive. It is possible to distance your topic too far from what your company does. Just because you think prospects will opt into a webinar on a hot topic doesn’t mean hosting it will further the objectives of your organization.

5. Not getting the word out

This is Marketing 101. The marketing database and/or list to attract visitors to your webinars has to be a good one. Consider a distribution strategy that includes ads and sponsorship in influential industry media, through partners and other vehicles. Some media groups saturate their readership with emails for webinars, and a small business can get lost in the shuffle. Others are more targeted to industries, verticals, etc. It usually makes sense to opt for the latter.

For more on how to hold webinars that drive revenue, contact sales@q2marketing.com.

Posted in Industry Trends, Lead Generation, Online Marketing, Sales and Marketing, Technology Marketing | No Comments »

99.5% of press releases not optimized for the web

Friday, March 13th, 2009 - by Becky Sheetz-Runkle

DMNews reported recently that 99.5% of press releases don’t feature search engine optimization (SEO) for the web. This DMNews story was written by Brian Halligan:

He bases this finding on data collected from over 11,000 press releases. Here are the top three tips from Halligan on how to optimize press releases. No new information here, but if his data is accurate, there is a shortage of practical application in the PR world:

1. Link your releases back to your site.

2. The links should include relevant keywords.

3. Include the links near the top of your press releases, and focus on the first page as well.

Read the full story.

Q2 Marketing also recommends your keyword optimization strategy carry over to your press releases. Once you’ve determined what your top keywords are, particularly in light of the specific news of the release, use them appropriately. This includes headlines and sub-heads. But make sure your keywords or phrases comprise no more than 2% of your release.

One more note: don’t invent your own insular corporate labels for solutions and services. Use accepted industry terminology. A good keyword software will yield these results for you. If you are in a murky industry without clear definitions, look through industry analyst reports (and abstracts), industry articles, competitors’ web sites, conference brochures, etc., to understand what the most appropriate and popular terms are for your industry.

Posted in Business to Business Marketing, Business to Government Marketing, Industry Trends, Marketing Research, Online Marketing, Public Relations, Research and studies, SEO, Technology Marketing | No Comments »

SEO Secrets: How Tech Buyers Use Search to Purchase

Monday, March 2nd, 2009 - by Becky Sheetz-Runkle

The new Google/TechTarget Research Project delivers exciting SEO insight into how technology purchasers use search terms to find products and services like yours. If you’re serious about your SEO strategies and you want to outshine competitors, even the ones that outspend you, keep reading….

We’re examining the Google/TechTarget Research Project because it deserves some quality time. Serious B2B and B2G marketers should really download this free report. They then should come back here for more quick highlights and observations.

How many keywords are buyers using to find you?

Conventional wisdom in search, across industries, is that buyers are using two to three keywords to find information on solutions like yours. But this report sheds new light on this critical topic. In the early stages of research, technology buyers tend to type in two or three keywords. No surprise to search pros. But later in the buying cycle, they will use brief four- or five-word phrases. Why is this?

In later stages of buying, tech purchases use search terms like “compare” and “review” in an effort to distinguish between products and solutions. Specifically, they are looking for reviews and resources that compare technology solutions.

(As an aside, also from this report, 24% of buyers surveyed “frequently” find industry analyst web sites useful in the buying and evaluating process, but this resource is not even in the top five. Click back later to find where analyst sites rank and which resources rank higher.)

What does this mean for IT marketers? The first observation, taken from the report, but a clear conclusion, is that any and all favorable comparisons of your solutions to your competitors should be on your web site in whatever formats available.

If these resources don’t exist, you need to put a strategy in place to have reviews and comparisons created, preferably by reputable third parties like industry analyst firms, magazines, online editorial sources, etc.

You can also take the lead in generating a discussion around your technology, comparing it to your competitors. Maybe a social media program is in order.

From the report: “An analysis of TechTarget online campaigns demonstrates that many of the superior performing white papers are ones in which the author compares the solution or blueprint of one provider to that of another.” That is a very valuable piece in information.

Posted in Business to Business Marketing, Business to Government Marketing, Industry Trends, Lead Generation, Online Marketing, Research and studies, SEO, Search Marketing, Technology Marketing | No Comments »

Google/TechTarget Report Reveals Tech Buyers’ Search Patterns

Monday, February 23rd, 2009 - by Becky Sheetz-Runkle

A new joint study from Google and Tech Target, examines the search habits of technology professionals when making purchasing decisions. The purpose of the The Google/TechTarget Research Project:

Reveal the mindset of the IT buyer in context of their purchase process and search mode
Put marketers in a better position to make keyword buys, choose content to syndicate
Determine optimal selection and scheduling of content and website media to attract the IT buyer

Sounds good, doesn’t it?

Here is a recap of some important findings:

Different search terms are used by buyers at various stages of the IT buying process
There is a concrete relationship between search and branding, as well as lead generation and ROI implications
Surprises were found regarding buyer utilization of new media including mobile devices, video and RSS feeds
Information source preferences were established

Here are some more important findings on the brand impact of search:

53% of IT purchasers use search to discover vendor solutions they are not previously aware of
86% of searchers look for a familiar brand or manufacturer before clicking on a search result
67% willing to click on the link of a manufacturer with which they are not familiar
Over 40% of searchers will click on search ads that are contextual to content on IT Publisher sites, and 46% willing to read those ads.

There is some good stuff in this report, and we will be examining it in greater detail throughout the week. Thanks to Michael Stelzner’s “Writing White Papers” blog for bringing it to my attention.

Posted in Business to Business Marketing, Industry Trends, Lead Generation, Online Marketing, Research and studies, SEO, Search Marketing, Technology Marketing | No Comments »

Maximize Webinar Marketing Value

Friday, February 6th, 2009 - by Becky Sheetz-Runkle

Let’s examine the second rule of maximizing the value of your webinars. Earlier this week, we delved into how to use your webinar to reinforce your brand value.

Rule #2–Content comes first. One of the biggest disappointments for webinar viewers is a thinly veiled sales pitch parading as industry content. Go down this dead end road, and not only will your attendees refuse to purchase what you’re selling, they will be aggravated. Your webinar will have created more problems for your company and brand than it solved. Rather than being seen as a value center, you’ll be seen as, well, the opposite of a valuable use of their time.

Most of the organizations Q2 Marketing works with are professional services firms and/or enterprise software providers. They realize how critical it is to deliver value in their marketing programs in order to generate leads and move prospects through the pipeline.

Of course, the webinar is a sales tool. Otherwise, why should your company do them? But to make your webinars most effective, step back and view them from the perspective of your prospects. What are they taking away? How can they better do their jobs, better understand their customers, be more profitable, etc? What’s in it for them?

I took in a Business Wire webinar on optimizing press releases yesterday. Upon logging off, they surveyed attendees with a few quick parting questions. Their purpose was to learn what we gained from the session and what they should cover next time. To gauge the successful delivery of content, you might consider adopting a similar tactic for your next web seminar.

Posted in Lead Generation, Online Marketing, Technology Marketing | 1 Comment »

Maximize webinar marketing effectiveness. Hint: Branding counts big.

Wednesday, February 4th, 2009 - by Becky Sheetz-Runkle

When costs are cut, executives look for ways to streamline marketing costs. If you’re reading this blog, we probably don’t need to state the case to you that webinars, or web seminars, are less expensive than events. The latter includes hotel rental, food and beverage, AV, etc. etc. And certainly, webinars are far less costly than a multi-city road show.

These cost cutting benefits are all good. But webinars are not the panacea. We’ve noticed some interesting trends as of late in the world of webinar marketing and execution. For one thing, there are a lot more of them for the reasons highlighted above. Like the deluge of sales and marketing related emails we all get, most of us in the tech marketing world are inundated with invitations, ads and other overtures to log onto webinars.

We’re going to take some time to explore this ever-growing marketing tactic in upcoming columns. But the first and most critical problem of webinar marketing is the issue of branding.

I’ll spare you my personal brand definition. Agencies often carefully wordsmith their own unique definition so as to brand themselves distinctly as branding experts. According to Wikipedia: “A brand is a collection of symbols, experiences and associations connected with a product, a service, a person or any other artifact or entity. Brands have become increasingly important components of culture and the economy, now being described as “cultural accessories and personal philosophies.”

If you have a webinar strategy, ask yourself, how well are your webinars branding your company? I can’t tell you how many webinars I schedule myself to attend, but have no connection to the hosting organization. Too often, moments after I log off, I won’t even remember the name of the benevolent organization that held the seminar. They haven’t made an impression with who they are, what they do and why the attendee would care. The onus to address those questions is upon them, not the attendee.

Webinar marketing must be treated with the same fundamentals of brand building that you would for an ad campaign, direct marketing initiative, etc. If the corporate or product brand is not tightly integrated with the content of the webinar, then it is a miss.

More on the dos and don’ts of webinar marketing in upcoming blog entries. Check back. You’ll be glad you did.

Posted in Advertising, Business to Business Marketing, Economy, Industry Trends, Lead Generation, Online Marketing | 1 Comment »

Newspapers not dead, 16% increase in online readership

Monday, February 2nd, 2009 - by Becky Sheetz-Runkle

Nielsen Online reports a 16 percent year-over-year increase in unique visitors to the top 10 newspaper web sites. This represents 40.1 million unique visitors in December 2008, up from 34.6 million in December 2007.

To top online newspaper site was NYTimes.com, with 18.2 million unique visitors. USATODAY.com and washingtonpost.com took the second and third spots. See the table below for more.

Here are the top ten finishers, courtesy of Nielson Online:

                                               Dec-08 UA   % Change

Top 10 Online Newspapers     40,093            16

 1. NYTimes.com                       18,187             6

 2. USATODAY.com               11,420           15

 3. washingtonpost.com              9,470           12

 4. LA Times                               7,963           73

 5. Wall Street Journal Online     7,235          34

 6. Daily News Online Edition    5,883          99

 7. Chicago Tribune                    5,235           35

 8. New York Post                      4,557           60

 9. Boston.com                           4,086            -6

10. SFGate.com                          3,503           26

Of the top 10 online newspapers, nine experienced positive year-over-year growth. No small contribution to this jump was the weakening economy, election cycle and new administration.

Posted in Economy, Industry Trends, Online Marketing, Public Relations, Research and studies, SEO, Search Marketing | No Comments »

SEO Strategies: Bylined articles and content distribution

Tuesday, January 27th, 2009 - by Becky Sheetz-Runkle

This entry is adapted from our upcoming white paper on SEO for public relations. It focuses on the important strategy of building credibility, and using SEO for PR to help you get there.

In traditional media terms, bylined stories are articles ostensibly written by an executive and credited to him or her with a byline. Today, many sites, directories, online media firms and related industry sites are open to distributing content by way of their electronic outlets. Do you see the value in delivering your content to the world and leveraging existing channels? If so, begin by building a database of targeted channels. Base this on industry segments you want to reach and/or solutions you provide.

A world of caution: you can get creative, but don’t stray too far from your core business. Contributing content for the sake of a byline that doesn’t reflect the work you do isn’t much of an asset. Here is an example of a meaningful connection.

This process should consist of:

Identifying the target media outlets
Determining direction of content, such as trends, controversial topics, hot technology, etc.
Developing the content
Working with online media to ensure deadlines and specifications are met

An extension of this program is contributing to an online media source on an ongoing basis. This can be achieved through a dedicated effort like the bullets outlined above. Sometimes, it can be a byproduct of a proactive PR program. Recently, Q2 scheduled the second interview for one of our clients with an influential business and technology outlet. Impressed with the spokesperson’s subject matter expertise, the editor invited him to contribute a monthly piece.

This is great exposure that came out of a dedicated PR strategy. If you have executives and/or subject matter experts who can dedicate some time to regular contributions in important outlets in your industry, this content development will go a long way. It can also be a determining factor in being selected for speaking engagements, industry awards and media interviews. But most importantly of all, this visibility can be a determining factor in being vetted and selected by a customer.

Come back to the Technology Marketing Blog for more SEO PR tips and to be among the first to download the upcoming white paper.

Posted in Industry Trends, Online Marketing, Public Relations, SEO, Search Marketing, Social Media | No Comments »

Should we capture data on prospect downloads from our web site?

Friday, January 16th, 2009 - by Becky Sheetz-Runkle

How much information should we require an individual submit to when they download white papers, view demos, etc? Should we require any data at all? We get these questions a lot. While there are some considerations, there is a clear yes or no answer to this question.

Companies dedicate valuable time and effort to creating white papers and other useful content. Anyone in marketing who has ever been involved in trying to coax a white paper out of engineers or demos out of technical people understands the complexity (and often frustration) of this initiative. If these items are done well and marketed effectively, however, they can yield valuable results.

Assuming your white papers are more than marketing fluff and your demos are of value to your audience, then you should make anyone who wants to download this data give to get. If the content will help your prospects’ get their jobs done better, then they need to tell you a tiny bit about themselves in order to benefit.

It’s a mistake not to require some fundamental data from these individuals. At a minimum, require their first and last name, company and email. Other data like title, department and company size (and more) can be optional. But don’t make the data entry screen daunting. If you do, people will simply bail out.

What if our competitors get their hands on this information?

The question of competitors is often raised. If you want to protect technical information and fear you competitors will be the prime beneficiaries of this initiative, you can control who receives the material. You don’t have to auto send the materials to just anyone. You can always have an internal vetting process to determine if you want to provide the materials to the requester. If they provide a hotmail or yahoo mailing address, you can contact them requiring a valid company address.

As with any sales effort, you can and should control each stage of the game.

What about pure marketing materials?

A final note on permission-based content is that it should be restricted to educational materials, not marketing brochures. Nor should case studies be permission-based. Don’t make people jump through hurdles for materials like these. That will only drive prospects away and irritate them. That’s the opposite of sales and marketing.

Posted in Business to Business Marketing, Lead Generation, Online Marketing, White paper marketing | No Comments »

Most Popular

Categories

Options

Feeds