Executing a Successful B2B Social Media Marketing Campaign

A MarketingProfs report states that “Across the various platforms, brands cited the following adoption levels: Facebook (87%), Twitter (83%), LinkedIn (76%), YouTube (66%), and blogs (57%).”

There are many new social media channels rolling in every day and marketers are continuously pressurized to engage prospects that are active on each of them.  In social media marketing, one solution does not apply to all channels, is a known fact. Example: a Facebook marketing strategy is completely different from a marketing strategy executed in LinkedIn or Pinterest.

However, there are some best practices that have to be followed when it comes to executing social media B2B marketing strategies. While marketing is only a part of the activity, it should always be remembered that marketers need to first build a community of prospects, partners and customers who will be evangelists for their company some day.

Step 1: Identify Target Audience

The first step for social media success is to identify your target audience. First, join social networks, where peers are already on board. Applying some smart brand building techniques combined with personalized nurturing of prospects, based on their interest levels, is the first best practice to adopt for social media campaigns to be effective.  

It is important to find out the top social applications used by your target segment. They, analyze forums for offers and promotions that have worked very well with your target audience to assess how they respond to them.

Step 2: Personalize Marketing Strategy

Every social networking site is different and hence marketing strategies must be planned and executed accordingly. Some important pointers for personalization of marketing strategy are:

• Find out who the key social media influencers are with the help of free search tools such as Technorati, Twitter Search or Google Blog search.
• Design and execute marketing campaigns to reach out to these purchasing influencers.
• Determine the key business objectives that are to be met with social media marketing, first.
• Allocate manpower to dedicatedly create, track and monitor social media campaigns.
• Use marketing automation tools to track website visitor intent and use that intelligence to create personalized campaigns.
• Devise a social media marketing strategy based on your revenue targets, product releases, upcoming events, etc.
• Prioritize your social media campaigns activities based on how fast your brand image gets established on the social site. Example: If your Twitter stream is going  great guns vs. your Facebook presence that is still lacklustre, it makes sense to spend more time and campaign money on Twitter than Facebook.

Leads procured through social media can be scored using lead scoring model and nurtured through smart drip marketing campaigns.


Read more on   -  Lead Management

Social Media Campaigns- The New-age Marketing Mantra

Every business enterprise has a profit oriented objective and enterprises work with various strategies and methods to achieve this objective. Marketing of products and services through various means help the enterprises in achieving their goal. However marketing strategies have  changed over the years with the changing and technology landscape.  Today, most of the leading and brands as well as some small and medium enterprises have their footprints on the world wide web. The increasing use of digital media as a communication tool by the customers has promoted the e-commerce initiatives of  enterprises.

With diminishing world economy, social media has gained a place in the marketing strategies of the leading organizations the world over. Social media campaigns help organizations market their products and services to a wider customer base across the globe. Though there is no alternatives to a physical presence in a business meet, building customer relationships on global level through face to face interaction  will require  enterprises to pool in  large amounts from their exchequer. However   technological innovations over the years has paved way for a number of marketing automation solutions which facilitates customer building and retention, market expansions, entry into new market and launching of new products and services.

The presence of a next generation techno savvy customer helps enterprises benefit from social media and email marketing  campaigns. These effect of these campaigns are further enhanced with virtual conferences,  online catalogs, blogs  and social media networking sites.  The social media enhances the effectiveness of in-person events by using the social networking sites to share information such as agendas, speakers, topic and event highlights. It helps organizations to identify prospective attendees on the basis of  biographical or demographic information and customize invitations for the event. Further, it also helps enterprises to create social teams to spread the word across a wider public.

The social networking sites is a forum for prospective  and existing customers to interact with one another.  Enterprises with the presence on the web  join the social networking sites or create a  social profile as part of their social media campaigns. This helps prospective customer reach out to understand the products and services better through interactions with one another and with the organization.

The media irrespective of  its  digital or physical form, is a great method of increasing brand awareness and customer engagement leading to long term loyalty and boost in sales. However, in today's technologically enabled business environment the social media plays a major role in doing these functions. Social media campaigns which come in all shapes and sizes gives it the uniqueness. However, irrespective of this being a part of B2C marketing or B2B marketing automation,  a set of clear objectives and laser sharp targeting is the success mantra for the social media campaigns.

Also read more on - lead generation, 
Drip Campaigns

Marketing Automation Solutions - Providing a Cutting Edge

Today's business environment is an aggressively competitive one. Technological innovations and globalization have helped enterprises stay ahead of their competitors. With the basic aim of every business enterprise to be  profit oriented, they  take steps to market their products and services across wide  geographical regions  through various modes including the world-wide web.

Effective marketing of products and services leads to generation  quality sales leads. However,  the enterprise today with all the technology know how are still challenged to create business strategies that would help manage demand generation campaigns and effectively evaluate  return on investments.  Adoption  of effective marketing automation solutions  by the new age business enterprises help them combat the  complex scenario and streamline marketing and sales functions.

The business enterprises that think of creative and innovative solutions to meet the demands of the customers tend to achieve maximum sales leads. Thus innovation is must in the enterprises marketing plan. The marketing automation solutions is innovative and intuitive and provides the B2B  and B2C sales channels an spontaneous platform for the ever-changing marketing landscape.

Today with technology so involved in every aspect of the business world,  e-commerce has  become a popular method of  business expansions. This has brought to light a number of marketing  tools that has been developed over the years. Email marketing is a powerful marketing tool popular among the B2B enterprises. Being  low cost and  effective means to reach a wide range of  targeted audiences this is an effective way for  building relationship with prospects,  past and present customers. Combined with marketing automation tools from the leading service providers helps enterprises target their emails accordingly.

However, success of the business enterprise is largely dependent on the level of  synchronization of  the sales and marketing efforts of the various teams. Marketing automation systems  facilitates  a high-level of real-time communication between the teams. Social media campaigns also play a great role for communication and feedback between teams as well as customers. This helps to augment the marketing campaigns on the basis of sales team feedback  which further facilitates  greater lead generation.

An effective marketing automation solutions  will  aid generation of qualified leads. Together with the insight provided by the marketing automation  systems the teams can work out better campaigns. With foundations of the marketing campaigns today  based on real data, enterprises gain greater control . The marketing automation solutions thus provides greater return on investment and  a competitive edge for the global enterprises.

Also read more on - marketing funnel, Search Engine Optimization Tools

Reinforce Your Sales Pipeline with Effective Email Marketing

According to Forrester’s marketing forecast based on an online survey conducted, “email marketing and spending is expected to actually balloon to $2 billion by 2014”. This means that greater numbers of businesses are looking at email marketing to offer them higher levels of cost-effectiveness and efficiency to derive better ROI. Email marketing has been a great source to get access to as many people as you want and it works because it allows marketers to target their audience. Email marketing is s data driven, it influences direct sales and it builds relationships, loyalty and trust.

Being an extremely cost-effective way to communicate with prospective and existing customers, the key objective of email marketing for most businesses is to create “brand awareness” and get as many leads as possible. While the success of any marketing campaign depends on delivering the right message to the right people at the right time, it is important to have a sophisticated email marketing tool tracks and analyzes prospect behavior based on the email campaigns run.

To ensure maximum returns from email marketing programs, it is important to see if the campaign is relevant and if it carries the right message. Though these aspects may be frivolous, they are essential to determine the success of your campaign. An interesting fact in email campaigns is that “if 8 out of 10 people read your email subject and from address, only 2 will read the rest.” If that is the case, then you need to ensure that your subject line is pertinent to the reader, and arresting to retain their interest. This makes it vital to arm your email campaign with a solid database would ensure better leads.

An effective integration of your email marketing with your social media campaigns can add that extra push to your campaign.  The social media site is an effective email marketing platform that provides beneficial contributions. Through the social media sites it is possible to send promotional emails to capture the attention of the customers. While it helps maintain a long relationship with loyal customers, it also helps reach out to a larger audience effectively using this marketing strategy without making large investments.

The right execution of an effective email marketing campaign would certainly bring in added benefits. Effective email marketing allows companies to proactively communicate with their existing customers instead of passively waiting for them to return to your  Web site, visit your store or office, call you on the phone, etc. With email marketing you can solidify existing relationships, initiate new ones, and convert your one-time visitors, buyers, and members into repeat business and long-term customers.

Go ahead and announce recent developments and new products and services to your prospective customers. Reinforce your sales pipelines, and give your business an email marketing edge.


Also read more on - Lead Scoring Model, marketing funnel, Search Engine Optimization Tools