SearchCap: Google Contracts SEOs, AdWords Bulk Uploader & Yahoo Acquires Polyvore

Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. The post SearchCap: Google Contracts SEOs, AdWords Bulk Uploader & Yahoo Acquires Polyvore appeared first on Search Engine Land.

Please visit Search Engine Land for the full article.

Social media marketing in China: Which platforms should you invest in?

For many marketers in Europe, North America and Australia, China is the next great marketing frontier.

With over 1.35bn people and 635m internet users (and still growing), it seems as if there’s no end to the marketing possibilities in China.

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The 2 Things You Must Nail For Lead-Generating B2B Content

Are you overwhelmed with the complexity of creating B2B marketing content that generates leads? A focus on two things can help it all fall in place.

The way people buy has changed dramatically. Studies show that 60% of the B2B sales cycle is over before a prospect first talks to a salesperson (Corporate Executive Board). Most every other study pegs that percentage even higher.
Salespeople used to be the information gatekeeper. Product information was once not so easily accessible to buyers who wanted it – they had to call a seller to get it. That’s why buyers used to contact the seller early in the buying process.

Now the customer has the power to get nearly all the information they want before finally speaking to a sales person. This sea change in how customers buy is why sales and marketing is going through a dramatic, wrenching transformation.

As marketing continues to evolve, the most successful marketers are keenly aware that the core restraints of marketing have shifted from space to attention.

For ages, marketing was constrained by space limitations (i.e. ad size, commercial length, trade show booth size, etc.). This space was normally rented from a gatekeeper who could control access and exposure. Or in the case of media relations, an editor had to be pitched (or begged) to gain exposure.

Because of the Internet, space is now almost limitless. Web pages can be added with minimal incremental cost. Video and podcast lengths can be as long as necessary. Companies can communicate directly with their audiences.

With unconstrained space, marketers now must fight for attention. To get attention, marketers need remarkable content to move their prospects through the traditional steps of awareness, interest, desire and action

Rebecca Lieb from Altimeter Group sums up the relationship of content to modern marketing: “Content is the atomic particle of all digital marketing.” 

For successful lead generation content, here’s what marketers need to keep in mind: Remarkable Content Is Solution, Not Product Based.

Just like at a cocktail party, if you only talk about yourself, others won’t find you very interesting. Companies who talk only about themselves and their products are largely ignored.

Instead, focus on the problems your prospects are facing and how you can help them. Pay attention to their core pain and how they feel. What is making it hard for them to do their jobs?

B2B Content Marketing: Easier Said Than Done?

According to the B2B Marketing Benchmarks Study by Content Management Institute and MarketingProfs, while 93% of B2B marketers use content only 42% say they’re effective at it.

While 93% of B2B marketers use content marketing…

…only 42% of B2B marketers say they are effective at content marketing.

For effective B2B content marketing that generates quality leads, there are a growing number of moving parts to master. So how do you get a handle on it? With a focus on the two things that matter most. The things that make everything else fall into place. The linchpins.

The two things you must nail for successful lead generation content are 1) deep insights into your buyer persona and 2) an understanding of the buyer’s journey. If you master most aspects of B2B content marketing but miss the mark on these two, you will be much less successful.

Alternatively, if you master these two aspects and screw up some others, you’ll still have a fighting chance at attracting more traffic to your site, converting visitors into leads and nurturing those leads into sales and happy customers.

1. Buyer Persona

Buyer personas are semi-fictional representations of your ideal customer based on real data and some select educated speculation about customer demographics, behavior patterns, motivations, and goals.

A focus on the buyer persona is the basis for all successful content marketing. You cannot create effective content without a deep understanding of your buyer persona.

Here are some questions about buyer personas to help guide your initial discovery:

• Who is your ideal customer? (It might not even be your current customer.)
• What problems does she face at her job?
• What questions are your sales and customer service people getting? This can provide insights into what’s keeping your buyer persona up at night.
• Who does your buyer persona report to at work?
• What function do they have at their job?
• How much budget control do they have?
• Who else is involved in purchase decisions for products like yours?

One of the most important things to do in buyer persona research is to interview your ideal customers. Make sure to include people who are not your current customers. And if you can interview people who decided not to buy from you, the insights gained can be even richer.

2. The Buyer’s Journey

In B2B marketing it’s often said that “Content is king, but context is queen.”

In other words, while you might have great content, if it doesn’t get to the right person at the right time, it’s not likely to be very helpful in closing sales.

This is particularly relevant after you’ve attracted a prospect to your website and want to convert them into a lead and then nurture them toward a sale. For this content marketing-assisted sales approach to work effectively, however, the content needs to synch up with where the buyer is in their research or “buyer’s journey.”

The buyer’s journey is not the same thing as the sales funnel. A sales funnel, according to HubSpot is “a predictive analytics model used by businesses as a marketing or sales pipeline predictor and tracking mechanism.”

So while sales and marketing people might refer to where a prospect is in the funnel (top, middle, bottom), a buyer doesn’t think that way. Ever.

The buyer’s journey consists of three broad stages:

1. Awareness

This is where a buyer is expressing the symptoms of a problem or an opportunity. The problem doesn’t have a name yet and they aren’t sure what their problem is. They probably need more educational research to get their arms around the problem.

An example would be a company owner with declining sales and a gnawing feeling that their company’s marketing efforts are not generating the number and quality of leads it once did. They might start to research things like “improving sales lead quality” or “modern lead generation methods.”

The type of information that is most helpful at this stage is vendor-neutral information that helps identify problems or symptoms. Examples would be analyst reports, research reports, eBooks, editorial content, educational content, etc.

What he doesn’t want at this point is lots of information about the company that is providing the content (e.g. pricing, testimonials, case studies, etc.). The prospect doesn’t even know what options exist to solve their problem and they probably don’t understand how the content producer could help. Slow down!

2. Consideration

Once the buyer has given a name to their problem or opportunity, they then start to consider all the available approaches/methods to solving their problem (or exploiting their opportunity).

An example for this business owner with declining sales might be to hire a marketing person, reassign roles of existing staff, or outsource to a marketing agency or consultant.

Content that is most relevant to the buyer at this stage would help him weigh his options such as comparison white papers, expert guides, webinars, videos, etc.

3. Decision

The buyer has reached this stage when they have defined their solution strategy, method, or approach. They are starting to compile a list of available vendors and products within their solution strategy.

Here, they will need supporting documentation, data, benchmarks or endorsements in order to make or recommend a final decision.

The right content for this stage includes vendor (or product) comparisons, case studies, trial download, a live demo, product literature, etc.

Creating B2B content in a world where your prospect’s attention is scarce is complicated and seemingly impossible. However, armed with keen insights into your buyer persona and their buying journey, you’ll be surprised at how effective your lead generation efforts can be.

This article originally appeared on the Artillery B2B Marketing blog (Photo Source.)

The post The 2 Things You Must Nail For Lead-Generating B2B Content appeared first on B2B Marketing Insider.

Why Amazon can be an important channel for SMEs

The Amazon marketplace has become necessary for ecommerce success.

Fishing in open water can yield positive results, but they can often be few and far between. Ample swimming space and other fishermen can make it hard to attract fish to your line, leaving you with little success.

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“Just A Little Heart Attack”

“We can’t publish that!” the director of public relations shouted after reviewing my cut of an audio interview. She didn’t object to the whole piece, just the founder’s answer to a question about his most difficult day as CEO.

“I remember the day that we almost ran out of money,” he said, describing a moment that every successful entrepreneur can relate. He recounted the weight of responsibility that he felt for his employees, their families, and his investors. During one particular agonizing and sleepless night, he said a little prayer. “Just a little heart attack,” he whispered. “Nothing that’ll kill me. Just something that will lay me up for a little while.”

Such events contain storyteller gold because they demonstrate the magnitude of an obstacle, the risk of failure, and the responsibility that comes with that risk. Audiences relate with them because, let’s be honest, we’ve all had our “just a little heart attack” moments.

“Do you know how much our stock price could drop if people found out that he wished for a heart attack?” the public relations director asked me. Had the story ended there, I might have agreed. But, our CEO wasn’t a quitter.

Instead, he awoke the next day, blessedly without chest pains. While in the shower, he thought about all of the smart people that worked for him. Rather than keeping the problem to himself, he decided to ask for their help. He must have done something right because twenty years after the prayer, he recorded this interview as the same CEO of a company listed on the Fortune 1000.

I loved his story. It had heart. It demonstrated achievement in the face of great adversity. The  CEO’s choices revealed much about his character and leadership. But alas, the director of public relations didn’t see it that way. Although I protested, she had me remove the dramatic moment, thus transforming a memorable story into a forgettable after-school special.

Most business communicators are terrified of including emotion in their stories. They see the great game of business as a gladiator sport, and thus their leaders must be promoted as both invincible and perfect. Unfortunately, rather than presenting us with glimpses of a human leader that we can respect, such storytelling choices deliver caricatures of shallow superheroes.

Photo Credit: Library of Congress

This post appeared first on The StoryHow Institute.

The post “Just A Little Heart Attack” appeared first on B2B Marketing Insider.

Two Brains: One Story

As a storyteller with a degree in electrical engineering, I’m about as dual-brained as one can get. I attend both the churches of Pathos and Logos. My left brain is filled with the gospels of physics, mathematics, and the creeds of deduction and induction. My right brain is infused with parables of the human condition, such as art, empathy, and symbolism. My bi-modal education helps me to present ideas and teach concepts.

However, dual-membership has its challenges, especially while encountering those with hemispherical bias. For example, someone who equates pure fact with truth is likely to miss the deeper meaning of something. Or, the opposite case, where someone’s reliance on pure emotion gives them false-license to discard facts entirely.

Robert McKee, author of the seminal book Story: Substance, Structure, Style, and the Principles of Screenwriting, warns us of relying on fact alone.

“‘The personal story’ is unstructured, slice-of-life portraiture that mistakes verisimilitude for truth. This writer believes that the more precise his observations of day-to-day facts, the more accurate his reportage of what happens, the more truth he tells. But fact, no matter how minutely observed, is truth with a small ‘t.’ Big ‘T’ truth is located behind, beyond, inside, below the surface of things, holding reality together or tearing it apart, and cannot be directly observed. Because this writer only sees what is visible and factual, he is blind to the truth of life.” ¹

John Allen Paulos, the author of Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and Its Consequences, demonstrates the unfair advantage that emotion holds over innumerates (folks who don’t understand mathematical probabilities). For example, when presented with the infinitesimally small probability of dying in a plane crash:

“… the innumerate will inevitably respond with the non sequitur, “Yes, but what if you’re that one,” and then nod knowingly, as if they’ve demolished your argument with their penetrating insight. This tendency to personalize is…a characteristic of many people who suffer from innumeracy.” ²

The storyteller cannot live on one side or the other. Attempting to prove a point through dogpiling facts will likely obscure their actual meaning. And without understanding those facts, the fear of dying in a plane crash will likely rule one’s decisions.  We need both fact and emotion to tell the whole story.

Edward Tenner, the author of  Why Things Bite Back: Technology and the Revenge of Unintended Consequences³ uses the car alarm to demonstrate.

• Fact: Car alarms reduce automobile thefts.

• Emotion: Frustrated by the inability to steal silently, auto thieves have resorted to stealing cars with the occupants still in them.

• Full Story: While alarms have reduced the number of stolen parked cars, it has simultaneously increased the number of carjackings. As a result, the technology has transformed a crime of larceny into a crime of violence.

Take a look at your most recent message. List all the facts. List all of the emotions around those facts. Can you create a message that intertwines them?

Notes:

1. Robert McKee, Story: Substance, structure, Style, and the Principles of Screenwriting (New York:itbooks, 1997), 23-24.
2. John Allen Paulos, Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and Its Consequences (New York: Vintage Books, 1988), 9-10.
3. Edward Tenner, Why Things Bite Back: Technology and the Revenge of Unintended Consequences (New York: Vintage Books, 1997)

Photo Credit: Library of Congress

This post originally appeared on The StoryHow Institute.

The post Two Brains: One Story appeared first on B2B Marketing Insider.

Twitter Marketing Tips For Small Businesses : The Pros and Cons

The Pros And Cons Of Using Twitter To Market Your Local Business

This article and video looks at the advantages and disadvantages of using Twitter to market your local business so that you can be aware of what you are signing up to if you decide to use this social marketing medium.

Twitter Marketing tips Video

Pros

1. Twitter helps you to find your exact target market and those are people who are genuinely interested in what your business is about and its products or services.

2. Twitter allows you to connect and engage with your customers on a really personal level.
The interaction is casual and continuous and gives your business a real face and voice to people. This is known as conversational marketing

3. Twitter provides your customers the platform to give you valuable feedback.
It’s so much easier for them to tweet those 140characters from the comfort of wherever they are than fill in a feedback form.
Your local business can get firsthand reviews in real time enabling you to remain nimble so you can give them what they want.

4. Twitter provides a sales funnel for your local business, enhancing your ecommerce.
You can integrate your twitter account into your business operations by using it to take orders, offer exclusive coupons and promote business and social events.

5. Twitter offers your business a chance to build a community around your brand instead of being a detached entity.

6. This community of followers will become your mini-marketing army through the viral network.

Cons

1. It takes some time to set up and gain followers.
You need to be organized and patient in the initial stages before you see big results.

2. It can be addictive because you feel chained to your phone all the time, always checking for incoming tweets and then responding to them.
It’s hard to separate your business life from your personal life and that can affect you socially with family and friends taking second place.

3. It is a double-edged sword and you need to be ready to accept the good and down right nasty tweets about your business.

4. Bad news travels faster than good news so any mistakes or controversies your business has will travel at lightning speed on Twitter.
You need to be extremely quick to do damage control if this happens.

5. Because people always know what you and your business are up to and in some cases your exact location, it could result in security issues if someone maliciously used that information.

It is always wise to err on the side of caution and decide what you shouldn’t tweet about concerning yourself and your business.

Thank you and please contact us for more information.

Blue Square Management
Internet Marketing Company
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Orpington
Kent
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United Kingdom

T: 01689 602 248

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Twitter Marketing Tips For Small Businesses

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