Category: Social Marketing

Unlike Google Adwords, Facebook lets you target advertisements based on demographics. It is possible to target your ads based on factors like the age, location and gender of the user. This makes it an attractive medium for B2C businesses to promote their wares. Things are slightly different for B2B where you do not target consumers by their demographics. In this article, we will take a look at the several parameters to consider while using Facebook as an advertising medium for your B2B product.

Identifying the Target 

In a B2B setup, the age or gender of the target is irrelevant. What however is relevant is the industry that a person works in, and their designation. A business that manufactures ball bearings might want to reach out to the procurement managers at companies that make products like blenders, washing machines, bicycles and pumps. Facebook permits such precise targeting through the ‘Detailed Targeting’ feature. This feature lets advertisers pick their audience based on a multitude of factors such as their education, relationships, job profile, and hobbies. A B2B advertiser may be interested in navigating to Demographics -> Work and targeting the recipient by their employer, job title and industry.

Designing the Landing Page 

Marketers often make the mistake of focusing primarily on the targeting and spending little time tweaking the landing page to fit the medium you are advertising on. A procurement manager searching for ‘ball bearing suppliers’ on Google has an intent. The landing page for your Adwords ad would need to focus on capturing the lead by demonstrating your authority in the ball bearing industry. On Facebook however, marketers do not have the benefit of receiving such ‘pre-warmed’ leads. The landing page here should thus focus on building a relationship for future engagement.

Let us take the example of a ball bearing supplier reaching out to procurement manager at a bicycle manufacturer. A Facebook ad here would focus on rich media content that would focus on bicycles and their reliance on ball bearings. The idea is to make them aware of your brand and what you do for their industry. Capturing a lead at this stage is ideal, but the conversions are going to be typically lower than what you would find on Adwords.

Retargeting 

Retargeting is an extremely crucial part of Facebook advertising. It lets marketers target the audience with more branding down the line. Since Facebook does not have the advantage of getting pre-warmed audiences, retargeting helps tackle this problem through branding. This will get your recipients warm up to your brand and offering. Facebook lets you to set up dynamic ads that render retargeting messages based on what action you previously took. This guide on Shopify provides a detailed tutorial on how to achieve this.

Setting Up Call To Action 

Call-to-Actions (CTA) are a critical component of digital advertising. On Facebook, it is possible to choose from a variety of various options like ‘Apply Now’, ‘Book Now’, ‘Contact Us’, ‘Download’, ‘Learn More’, ‘Request Time’, ‘See Menu’, ‘Shop Now’, ‘Sign Up’ and ‘Watch More’. A lot of these CTAs are targeted at consumer-facing businesses in the ecommerce, travel and food industry and may thus not be relevant to a B2B marketer. The options that work the best for B2B marketers are however ‘Download’, ‘Learn More’ and ‘Watch More’.

‘Watch More’ is used for rich media advertisements that are specifically targeted to spread awareness of your brand using videos. Marketers are more often inclined to build interest through survey reports, whitepapers and by building useful software tools to bait the target. For such campaigns, ‘Download’ and ‘Learn More’ are quite effective.

Measuring Performance 

It may be tempting to measure the performance of your ad campaigns in terms of the number of clicks or leads generated. Unfortunately, the effectiveness of Facebook advertising for B2B is not captured well by either of these metrics. As noted earlier, the objective for a B2B marketer is to build awareness and warm the leads over time.

The performance needs to be thus studied over two steps. In the first step, measure your engagement through metrics like Post Reactions (that includes likes, clicks, shares, etc.) that is offered on your Facebook Reports dashboard. In the second step, measure the performance of your retargeting campaigns through the number of leads generated.

The B2B sales and marketing cycle can often be excruciatingly long and it is very unlikely for a target to respond to a ‘Buy now’ button. Your ad campaign needs to acknowledge this reality and warm up to the target over a period of time instead of working on instant results.

Article Contributed by Kristina Jaramillo

According to a LinkedIn study reported in their “Sophisticated Marketer’s Guide to Thought Leadership” ebook, 88% of IT buyers said that thought leadership was important or critical in determining their short list of vendors. And, if they did this study with other industries, I’m sure they’d find very similar results.

So, why aren’t entrepreneurs and business leaders focused on providing specific thought leadership content that’s relevant to extremely targeted, specific audience? Why are we going for reach and pushing out content (in many cases other people’s content) just to get the like, share, comment and exposure?

Why aren’t we challenging the common social media best practice that the majority of the content you share should not be your own and challenge experts like David Meerman Scott (best-selling author with more than 250,000 books sold worldwide, keynote sales and marketing speaker) who believes that only 10% of the content you share in social media circles should be your own?  Why aren’t we challenging Wayne Breitbarth (author of The Power Formula for LinkedIn Success) who believes that for every 10 updates, 6 should be for content you didn’t create?

These best practices automatically put you as a resource rather than an expert who’s putting his or her thoughts out there on a regular basis.  LinkedIn gives you the opportunity to go directly to key decision makers and communicate to them your business value, which should be demonstrated through your thought leadership content.  Your business value shouldn’t be that you can curate content that would be relevant to them!

Don’t get me wrong. I love resources – and I’ll connect with someone that can be resourceful to me. But I’m not going to invest in a resource.

The 2nd Reason Why You Are Thought of As a Resource….You’re Simply Giving Reminders

Viveka von Rosen, author of LinkedIn Marketing in an Hour a Day (and one of the most well-known LinkedIn marketing consultants) talks about how to customize your invitations on LinkedIn. Melonie Dodaro – a contributor to LinkedIn Sales Solutions blog (and the best-selling author of The LinkedIn Code) shares on the LinkedIn publishing platform “7 messages that you should not send on LinkedIn, including the default message.” In the posts from fellow Social Media Examiner contributor Stephanie Sammons, you’ll find tips about having a professional photo, a strong headline, and a summary written in first person that is prospect-centric.

Isn’t this information that most business leaders and consultants should already know? So, the information is simply a reminder. And, I thank Viveka, Melonie and others for being great resources and reminding us what we should be doing.

But, does a reminder, make you move forward? Do reminders make you question your approach, thoughts, ideas or actions and open your mind up to alternative options? Doesn’t a thought leader make you think differently – so how is the information you’re providing making you anything other than a resource?

If you look at the articles on my LinkedIn publishing platform, you’ll see I’m challenging LinkedIn and their idea of sophisticated marketing (even though I am featured in their Sophisticated Marketer’s Guide to LinkedIn). I challenge CMOs at top enterprise organizations like Xerox on how they are taking a brand awareness approach to LinkedIn. I challenge how most business owners, sales and marketing leaders are failing to communicate real business value to prospects on their profile and how this is causing them to have a worthless LinkedIn profile. Do you notice the difference?

The 3^rd Reason Why You Are Just a Resource….You’re Providing Me-Too Content

In reviewing one of our video production and marketing client’s, I noticed that they are sharing the same types of “later stage” production content that their competitors were creating. For example, here are the types of content that you could find on our client’s blog:

• How to construct your videos around the call to action
• Six questions to ask when planning your explainer video
• How long should your videos be – and what should you include
• 3 things to understand in planning an enterprise solutions explainer videos
• Five mistakes B2B organizations make when creating their technology marketing videos
• How to condense your product information and marketing messages into a two-minute (or less) video

You see there was no content to drive demand. There was no content to create an unconsidered need and an unexpected urgency and demand for the company’s services. You see, the company was only basing their content on what customers were saying what their needs were. So, they were responding to those known needs with commodity messaging that were very much like the information their competitors were providing. Thus, they were being a resource rather than a thought leader that shows how they can take a vision and turn it into a path to value.

By changing the client’s content and focusing on unconsidered needs – how videos should be used with the actions that sales and marketing has as top priority – our client was able to drive an unexpected urgency. You see, the client was now driving action by going beyond the “me too” content that every other video production, explainer video creation and video marketing firm was providing.

Thought leaders drive action – so if your content is not driving action, then maybe it’s time that you take a look and see if you’re a thought leader or just resource.

About the Author:

Kristina Jaramillo, Managing Partner at GetLinkedInHelp.com and featured LinkedIn expert in LinkedIn’s “Sophisticated Marketers Guide to LinkedIn” helps consultants differentiate themselves so they can drive demand on LinkedIn. Watch her recent webinar that shows how consultants are failing to drive a competitive advantage and learn how you can differentiate yourself starting with your LinkedIn profile: http://freelinkedinmarketingtraining.com/linkedin-profile

Article Contributed by Kristina Jaramillo

Studies from the Alterra Group show that 97% of marketers report account based marketing approaches have the highest ROI. The IT Services Marketing Association (ITSMA) reports that 85% of marketers who measure ROI describe account based marketing as delivering the highest returns of all other marketing approaches. And, LinkedIn reports that social selling professionals that take an account based marketing approach gain 45% more opportunities.

Yet, most sales and marketing professionals fail to take an account based marketing approach on LinkedIn and on social media in general. For example, Single Point of Contact, a California-based MSP, was targeting real estate management firms with the same promises of reduced IT savings, increased security and other generic claims that other managed service providers were also discussing. They were making these generic claims without showing any proof and showing how and why they’re able to provide these benefits to targeted audiences.

On LinkedIn, the profile of the VP of Business Development was mainly a resume and there was no quantifiable, specific value being communicated to their targeted audiences. The firm had no case studies that they can use on their profile and in nurturing efforts to targeted prospects. The blog content was general in nature and did not show targeted audiences that they understood their specific issues, challenges and circumstances. And, they didn’t show how they can take their targeted audiences vision and turn it into a path to value (which you can only do with an account-based marketing approach).

Here Are the Steps We Took to Help Single Point of Contact Drive Demand with Specific, Targeted Audiences

1. Take an account based marketing approach to our client’s LinkedIn profile.  We focused on pulling in prospects with relevant stories rather than just push out content – even on the VP’s profile where we show his unique business story and the results that his clients have gained under his direction.  You’ll find case studies throughout the profile. So, instead of using the experience section as a resume, the VP now has content for different audiences with different needs. You’ll find a position that shows how he helped Shorenstein Realty (one of the largest, oldest, most respected real estate management firms in the US that was spending upwards of $750,000 on their  IT infrastructure) cut IT Opex by 43%. By making the VP’s profile case study based, we show his relevance and how he is in tune with his buyer’s needs. By talking about Shorenstein Realty within his profile in multiple spots – an IT leader within a local SF Bay real estate management firm reached out to our client to connect and asked specific questions based on the content found inside the profile.  Do you see the power of taking an account based marketing approach to your profile where you focus on what’s going to allow you to open the door to the targeted audiences that you are looking to attract? This SF Bay real estate management form ignored all previous communications up until now.

1. Take an account based marketing approach with their social content strategy. Now, building the foundation was only the first step. Single Point of Contact needed the content to further nurture relationships with interested parties. For example, as Single Point of Contact’s

VP’s profile piqued interest by talking about his work with Shorenstein Realty, the company needed case studies to continue the conversation. And, the company needed case studies for other markets that they wanted to penetrate. Now, on the Single Point of Contact website, you’d learn how the managed service provider supports the broadband industry (another target market for the managed service provider). You’d see how they helped a law firm save $24,000 with just 1 fix (another big target market). Along with case studies, we provided them with blog post and LinkedIn publishing platform posts that would challenge IT leaders within these target industries  and provide them alternative answers to their unique challenges.

 

• Take an account based LinkedIn marketing and social selling approach – In many cases, your LinkedIn profile and your content will not drive demand enough to produce the ROI you want. It’s the next step actions you take and how you use the content to build and leverage relationships that will move prospects closer to the sale. That’s why we mapped out how Single Point of Contact should be connecting and building relationships with specific key decision makers within the targeted accounts that the managed service provider wanted. We mapped out content paths based on the specific issues that the targeted accounts were facing and how the prospects were reacting and engaging with the content.

 

Results of an Account-Based Marketing Approach on LinkedIn

Besides attracting a large real estate management company (when all previous attempts to gain their attention failed), taking an account based marketing approach to LinkedIn provided Single Point of Contact with:

• Engagement driving visibility
• Access to higher quality leads who saw the Managed Service Provider’s business value
• Increased lead conversions as IT buyers saw how Single Point of Contact can help them overcome IT challenges and create a path to value
• A strong foundation to build key relationships with enterprise decision makers

Click here to read the complete case study to learn more!

Now, look at your profile and your messaging. Are you speaking to “everyone” instead of very specific audiences and showing that you truly understand their unique challenges and that you are uniquely qualified to solve their problems? If so, that may be why you’re connection conversions are low and why your prospects are ignoring your messaging. Maybe it’s time for you to seriously think about giving your LinkedIn profile a makeover and design it to move conversations forward with very specific audiences.

About the Author:

Kristina Jaramillo, Managing Partner at GetLinkedInHelp.com, provides LinkedIn profile makeover training to sales teams so they can attract key decision makers, communicate their business value and move sales conversations forward. Check out Kristina’s latest free LinkedIn profile makeover webinar to see how your profile is worthless as a sales and marketing tool plus get more examples of profiles that are driving results: http://freelinkedinmarketingtraining.com/linkedin-profile

Article Contributed by Ryan Camomile

How do you advertise your business? If you’re spending money on commercials or yellow book advertisements, you may be wasting your time. Social media has a more powerful influence than most other marketing platforms these days, with research showing that 90% of Americans adults have an active social media page of some kind. In the United States, 29% of social media users log in several times a day to check in with friends, post photos and opinions, and even to read up on their favorite businesses.

Social media has such an unparalleled reach and influence that companies who successfully market on these platforms enjoy a growing customer base. However, social media can be difficult to navigate and has its own set of unspoken rules, which is why business owners everywhere need to learn to be more social media savvy. This article teaches business owners to use social media to grow your brand. Here are a few things you should keep in mind when setting up social media pages and communicating with customers.

 

• Understand the Platforms

 

From Twitter to Snapchat, there is a social media platform designed for the preferences of every user out there. Facebook is primarily a place where users can enjoy a friendly landing page completely dedicated to the business or owner, while Twitter gives business owners the chance to communicate directly with customers across the world in 140 characters or less. However, choosing the wrong platform can spell trouble for your business.

For example, if you have a clothing company that specializes in all of the latest and greatest styles, opting for a social media platform that isn’t picture-heavy could reduce interest in your brand. However, a social media platform that revolves around simple snaps, such as Instagram, could give your customers a quick glance at what to expect from your Spring line.

Before you choose a social media platform, think carefully about how you want to use your page. Do you want to use social media to answer comments or guest complaints, or do you want to offer a comfortable landing page that offers a touch of your company’s aesthetic? Whatever your goals may be, make sure that your social media page reflects your brand values, and proofread, proofread, proofread. Posting the wrong picture or saying the wrong thing on social media could do extensive damage to your brand value and brand image.

 

• Research Your Target Audience

 

Another key consideration you is who you are trying to reach. Think about your target audience and what would be most helpful for them online. Do your homework and make use of online analytics to learn what your customers are doing online. Understand their likes, preferences and favorite activities. This will help you decide where you want to be seen online and what kind of social media presence you need to have.

Talk with your customers about what they would like to see online or how you could make their social media experience more enjoyable. Many businesses offer coupons, exclusive event information, or even online sales and giveawaysthrough social media to encourage clients to “Like” their pages or to mention their business in online comments.

 

• Choose Your Talking Points Wisely

 

The kiss of death for many businesses is saying the wrong thing online for the world to see. Before you make any comments regarding local news stories, events, or even company promotions, think carefully about how your comments could be seen by people who aren’t familiar with your brand. Try to engage with customers in a friendly, professional, and fun way—and avoid any comment that could be construed as bigoted, offensive, or damaging in any way.

To choose your talking points wisely, look to businesses who use social media very successfully, such as The Merrymaker Sisters, Luxy Hair and Sweet Pure Honey. These companies became popular on social media because of their informal, entertaining, and engaging tone.

 

• Hire A Professional To Monitor Social Media

 

If you want to make your company look irrelevant, simply set up a social media page and never log in again. Mismanaged social media can make your business look like a graveyard for unanswered questions and outdated advertisements, which is why it is so crucial for you to keep your social media page up to date. To make this process much easier, many business owners these days hire professional marketing companies to monitor and update their social media accounts, offering new information, answering customer questions, and commenting on news elements that could affect the industry. Using a team of marketing experts can also help you to use your social media page to its full potential—so that you can make your company more viable and interesting than ever before.

Author Bio

Ryan Camomile is a co-founder and the CEO of Infogenix, a web design, programming, and marketing company based in Orem, Utah. The company began in 1998 with Ryan as the sole web and graphic designer, but he also became interested in AdWords and Search Engine Optimization when he realized that there was more to developing a site for success on the internet than having an excellent design. He has now been an expert in the Design, SEO and PPC fields for over 15 years. He uses his diverse experience and unique perspective to help his clients’ projects and ideas to flourish.

When LinkedIn opened the LinkedIn publishing platform to everyone – consultants, business leaders and their sales, marketing and business development teams were getting hundreds to thousands of views. But now, many are struggling to get even 100 views. And, we find that people are beginning to post less because their efforts are not driving sales results.

What happened?

The problem was that everyone was just using the LinkedIn platform as an extension of their blog. They were sharing every piece of content on the LinkedIn publishing platform even if it ineffectively took away from any positioning work that may have been completed on their profile. They were publishing articles without any thought of how it would challenge their prospects’ thoughts and actions and drive demand for an alternative option. They’re simply following the actions of other LinkedIn experts and social selling experts.

A Review of the Content That’s Being Published on the LinkedIn Publishing Platform by the Experts:

• Viveka von Rosen, author of LinkedIn Marketing in an Hour a Day and one of the most well-known LinkedIn marketing consultants talks about how to customize your invitations on LinkedIn. Can’t that be found on almost every social media consultant’s website?

• Melonie Dodaro – a contributor to LinkedIn Sales Solutions blog and best-selling author of the LinkedIn Code shares on the LinkedIn publishing platform 7 messages that you should not send on LinkedIn including the default message (like this hasn’t been written about a million times in the last 5 years.) In her posts about LinkedIn profiles (as well as the posts from fellow Social Media Examiner contributor Stephanie Sammons) you’ll find tips about having a professional photo, a strong headline and a summary that is written in 1st person that is prospect-centric. Notice the same old information just written by another author.

• Christine Hueber, who self-proclaims herself as the #1 LinkedIn All-Time Top Female Expert mainly uses the LinkedIn Publishing Platform to promote her events, workshops, webinars etc. Most of the posts are blatant self-promotions even though B2B buyers are calling for more value. They want relationships first. They want to see real, differentiated value and how you turn their vision into results they want to achieve. When Christine provides any value in her platform posts, it is generic value. For example, in a post where she talks about how to increase your website traffic 500+% with a simple strategy – she talks about consistent, compelling blogging (like no duh!) and then you have to sign up for a strategy session to learn about an effective system that makes blogging easy, fast and fun.

• Donna Serdula, a LinkedIn profile makeover expert – uses the LinkedIn publishing platform to share information about completely overdone topics like “Should Your LinkedIn Profile Be Written in 1st Person or 3rd Person.” She also discusses things like the Microsoft Acquisition of LinkedIn, the LinkedIn lawsuit and how LinkedIn caps the number of searches you can complete with a free account. Now, how do these topics relate back to driving demand for LinkedIn profile makeovers?

• Kurt Shaver (Founder of The Sales Foundry) and many others ineffectively newsjack and push out content. When the news broke, about the Microsoft + LinkedIn acquisition, everyone started creating and sharing articles and posts about it. Kurt Shaver, started writing posts about how it’s mostly a tactic to beat Salesforce (who cares except for anyone in marketing automation) and Why Microsoft Buying LinkedIn is Like the Warriors Signing Kevin Durant. This may have gotten 2000+ views, hundreds of likes and comments and even Jeff Weiner’s attention, but if there is no next step action what good is it? If the acquisition isn’t changing anything now or in the near future for my prospects, why would I write about it?

How I’m Using the LinkedIn Publishing Platform Differently

On my LinkedIn publishing platform you’ll find posts that challenge a Forrester’s analysts thoughts that LinkedIn is just for brand awareness and I debate Jay Baer’s idea that social media should be a volume play. I have posts that show how most LinkedIn profiles are worthless as sales and marketing tools as I focus on how they are failing to communicate real business value – this post has doubled our LinkedIn profile makeover project revenue! I talk about how B2B buyers are calling for a change in how you sell and market to them on LinkedIn and what those changes should be. I evaluate the actions taken by CMOs at top companies like Xerox, Lithium, XOJet, Wiley and G2Crowd and show how they are struggling to get past brand awareness.

The content I’m sharing is not the same old LinkedIn content. It’s provocative. It’s challenging. It opens your eyes and makes you question your approach (which is the first step in the challenger sales!)

Each piece of content is designed to drive next step actions beyond the view, like, comment or share. It’s meant to be used in part of the nurturing program to move buyers forward. And, each piece is meant to position me as the unique LinkedIn expert.

Click here to read my posts!

Additional Social Content Mistakes the Experts Are Making

David Meerman Scott (best-selling author with more than 250,000 books sold worldwide, keynote sales and marketing speaker) believes that only 10% of the content you share in social media circles (including LinkedIn) should be your own. Wayne Breitbarth (author of The Power Formula for LinkedIn Success) believes that for every 10 updates, 6 should be for content you didn’t create!

This positions you as a resource rather than a thought leader! LinkedIn gives you the opportunity to go directly to key decision makers and communicate to them your business value. Your business value shouldn’t be that you can curate content that would be relevant to them!

Keep in mind that a recent LinkedIn study shows that 80% of IT buyers say that thought leadership content is crucial in their decision making process – and I’m sure that if LinkedIn completed the study in other industries, they’d get similar results. If thought leadership content was key, why would I focus on sharing other people’s content more?

Now, take a look at the content you’re publishing and sharing on LinkedIn?

Is your content just driving awareness instead of next step actions and revenue? Are you making the same mistakes that even these experts are making?

Maybe it’s time that you take a different approach! Watch our LinkedIn Leads to Revenue webinar to learn about the content, processes and approaches you need to drive demand and revenues on LinkedIn.

About the Author:

Kristina Jaramillo, Chief LinkedIn Strategist at GetLinkedInHelp.com helps sales and marketing leaders go beyond brand awareness and actually drive demand. By combining the right content with her relationship-based LinkedIn approach, Kristina is helping many of her clients gain more revenue opportunities than all of their other efforts combined. Watch her LinkedIn Leads to Revenue webinar at http://freelinkedinmarketingtraining.com/linkedinleadstorevenue to learn more about Kristina’s approach.