B2B Articles Search Results

1. B2B International Marketing Budgets Swell. More than half of B2B marketers surveyed plan to increase international marketing budgets but are confronting attendant challenges, like language barriers, an exclusive B2B survey found, writes...

   

   (08/27/08 09:00 PM)

2. B2b buy sell in Middle East and India. These questions always survive and always have resulted into confusion amongst the people somehow coming across b2b world. But, the very fact that today is the world of B2b and people round the globe... (08/23/08 09:01 AM)

3. The Power of Search Within a Complex Sales Cycle. Now that we know that 85% of B2B customers use the Internet at some point during the buying process, why is it that so many business executives still contend that online marketing "doesn't work" for businesses with enterprise solutions or complex sales cycles? (08/12/08 09:00 AM)

4. Six Reasons Word-of-Mouth Doesn't Work. Is there any form of marketing communications more compelling than word-of-mouth, the enthusiastic and genuine recommendation of a person you like and trust? It's no wonder that virtually every business-to-business marketer prizes this organic, spontaneous, and?perhaps best of all?practically cost-free method of bringing in business. But some businesses, especially on the B2B side, rely far too heavily on organic word-of-mouth strategies and, specifically, on acquiring new customers primarily through referrals. (07/29/08 09:01 AM)

5. Eight Ways to Integrate Webinars Into a B2B Marketing Plan. B2B sales happen over a period of several months as trust builds between the prospect and the seller. Webinars may be used not just to bring new leads in the door but also to move existing leads through the pipeline to a final contract. Rather than a one-hit approach, you need to determine where webinars fit into the overall sales cycle. (06/24/08 09:00 AM)

6. Face-to-Face Marketing: When Media Alone Is Not Enough. While most people think of public relations as media relations, there are times when either you can't reach your audience through print, broadcast or the Internet, or you need to supplement your media program. That's when you need to think about face-to-face marketing?placing clients directly in front of targeted audiences through informational events structured around their interests. This strategy works well for consumer markets (think cooking demonstrations in grocery stores, hospital-sponsored health fairs, and hotel-sponsored bridal expos). It also works well for B2B companies like construction companies, law firms, or consultancies?businesses that want to showcase the expertise of t (06/24/08 09:00 AM)

7. BtoB 2008 Lead Generation Guide. B2B Marketers are increasingly emphasizing lead generation and as a result, BtoB Magazine just published their inaugural BtoB's Lead Generation Guide today. I highly recommend you check it out. It has a lot of resources studies, expert columns, market statistics... (05/28/08 09:00 AM)

8. Five B2B Email Marketing Tips. Email marketers are perpetually caught in the middle. On the one hand, we are celebrated for being the go-to resource for generating short-term revenue results. On the other hand, the applause dies down when the budget talk comes around and we continue to be handicapped by limited investment and strained resources. What's an email marketer to do? Here are five ideas. (05/27/08 09:00 AM)

9. Going Viral With Your B2B Marketing: Q&A With David Meerman Scott. Viral marketing has been all the rage in recent years: Companies are intoxicated with the idea of creating the next video that spreads across the Internet and becomes a viral sensation. But for every successful viral effort there are countless attempts that totally miss the mark. Here's where David Meerman Scott comes in. Scott understands why ideas spread in a Web 2.0 world, and he educates his clients on why the "old school" rules of PR and marketing are totally irrelevant in a time of content-sharing on YouTube and Twitter. (05/06/08 09:01 AM)

10. Web Analytics for B2B Lead Generation . In the complex sale, the length of the buying cycle makes the connection between on-the-web activity and the off-line decision to purchase much more difficult to trace. So the challenge is connecting our website log file data (analytics), with marketing... (05/02/08 09:01 PM)

11. Want more signups/subscribers? Test your forms!.

    This from Bill Flagg of RegOnline talks about how he has continuously works on optimizing the account signup page for the RegOnline website to maximize the conversion rate. [via Brad Feld]

    What a great post to encounter first thing this morning. I just had this discussion with two separate clients in the past two days on how to optimize their account signup and newsletter subscription forms. Some great advice from Bill:

    Here's what I learned to ask myself and my team... 1. Which information is a must-have? Do I have to know where they came from or can my web analytics tell me? 2. Which information could we collect later? For example, we collect billing information when the client goes live with their event. 3. Eliminate the rest. If a piece of information doesn't create a change in action, then I eliminate the field.

    I agree with Bill 100% and often ask a couple more questions to get this right. Of course, you're never done asking questions. You should always be testing you forms to achieve greater conversion!

    1. What data can you market to? If you're asking for address, birth date, phone number and the like - are you really going to market using all of that data or are you just collecting it because you think you need it (or your CEO thinks you need it)
    2. How does the data tie into the rest of your CRM and database marketing efforts? If you're a B2B company you'll want to and need to know different things than a CPG company.
    3. What's the "form fatigue" factor and how do you eliminate data point collection to ease up on your customer's patience.

    
    (05/02/08 09:01 AM)

12. Stop doing random acts of lead generation. I don’t know about you but I seldom meet a B2B marketer who time to think. And it seems that the pressure keeps building as more of us seek to do more with less. That said, it’s vital for us... (04/29/08 09:01 PM)

13. B2B 2.0 marketing expo by MarketingProfs . The gang at MarketingProfs put together conference that's worth checking out. Now here's the best part... no conference travel required. The B2B 2.0 Marketing Expo is March 5, 2008 and you can register here. (03/03/08 09:01 AM)

14. Making B2B lead generation messages more memorable . In B2B marketing, when you have many potential buyers who are involved in the buying process, how do you connect with these people in a memorable way? If you look at most lead generation messages, they often contain industry jargon... (02/27/08 09:01 AM)

15. #1 Lesson from 2007: Using a Sense of Urgency in Marketing. If there's one theme that keeps coming back to me from the past year, it's got the be the proper use (and the ease of misuse, if you're not careful) of a sense of urgency about doing business with you and your company. I'm not talking about the cheezy 'limited time offers' that you see over and over on TV (limited my ass...you mean, limited by your budget for spewing out shitty ads...) but genuine urgency created by inflection points in your business which moves the needle on buyer behavior.

    Keep in mind here that I'm talking mostly about B2B, which, from my perspective, makes this even more exciting. B2C gets all the urgency in the mass media, and sometimes it's a rare day for most B2B organizations to be able to substantiate a genuine sense of urgency within the base of prospects.

    That said, urgency is not for everyone. It's a powerful weapon that's not to be used without forethought and and crisp and clear understanding of not only the immediate implications, but also future consequences of the slippery slope that it can create, as discussed in a concise little bit about urgency in the Marketing Experiments blog.

    So, what's this urgency thing all about and how do you create it?

    I guess that this will be different for everyone, but frankly, the most successful levers that I've found are timing around pricing and production and availability, quotas and caps. I'm keen to hear more about what you think. Again, I'm talking sustainable things here - not just a 50% off sale or something....

    Timing and production to create urgency:

    This is the fun one. A great example is an impending price increase. If you've been doing a great deal of lead nurturing with your base of prospects, this is especially useful because the already know and trust you. On the other hand, if you don't have a base of prospects that you're nurturing, then you're just another average dude with a deal. Seriously, there's a lot of you out there...this type of urgency play almost has to come from a position of trust to be truly effective. Sure, you can impose urgency on a facelist list of prospects, but your conversion will suffer.

    Proper planning improves urgency results:

    Again, you can take this for what it's worth, but like everything I preach about when I talk about thought leadership marketing or 'altruism before capitalism', you can't just wake up one day and say "I need to create a sense of urgency and get more sales." Crap, what's first. Wrong way Charlie. Not going to work. You need to plan this. You need to understand what the next inflection point in your business will be (obsolescence of an old product, price increase across the board, new product design coming out, office move/clearing inventory...something that's almost 'external' to you yet internal at the same time) and work in a sense of urgency into your marketing to coincide with (or, preferably leading up to) the genuine, non "manufactured" inflection point.

    Quotas, caps and limited availability:

    Take a page from event marketers (if any of you are attending sold out football games as we near playoff time, you understand the acute sense of urgency that surrounds ticket prices and the limited availability in stadium seating) and keep an eye on your quota for items, or your geographical territories that are quickly filling up or the number of 'limited edition' items that you can produce in one quarter. From a services perspective, such as social media speaking or marketing consulting (things which I have some familiarity with) the best creator of urgency is the calendar and the limited number of dates you have available.

    This is not the end of the story. There's so much more to this urgency thing (like neuromarketing and buyer behavior) but for now, that's enough.
    
    Action Items:

    What ideas do you have for creating urgency? Please share in comments!

    
    (12/31/07 09:00 PM)

16. Lesson’s learned from Podcasting. If you plan on entering the world of podcasting or want to make yours better, you can read what I’ve learned in my MarketingProfs article, "Lessons Learned from Podcasting." Similar to blogging, podcasting is a medium that B2B marketers remain... (11/16/07 09:01 PM)

17. InTouch Acquired by MECLABS Group, Parent Company of MarketingSherpa and MarketingExperiments. When I started the B2B Lead Generation blog back in 2003, my purpose was to have this blog be a launch pad for practical ideas, not commercials. So that’s why many of you probably don’t know what I do in... (11/07/07 09:00 PM)

18. Three Answers from the Web 2.0 Summit. I couldn't make the Web 2.0 Summit a couple weeks ago, but my colleague Jay Hallberg (Co-founder and VP of Marketing for Spiceworks) was there and answered my top three questions: If I were a brand company.... top three things... that would help my business: 1) Web 2.0 is moving into 'adulthood' and changing industries. There was a general feeling that web 2.0 has grown up. In fact, the Red Herring had a great piece on this: "Is Web 2.0 Growing Up?". Collaborative technologies are solving problems for enterprises and entire industries. It's no longer about whether your CEO has a blog or your company has a wiki. You better be paying attention to how Web 2.0 is helping your competitor or turning your company upside down. Half of the companies featured in the prestigious Launch Pad were "B2B": Cleverset optimizes website revenue, ClickForensics analyzes PPC click fraud, and Spiceworks (my company) has introduced free, ad-supported IT applications. Some of the crowd bemoaned the fact that Web 2.0 is no longer about the next YouTube or Flickr -- it's now about how it's impacting the bottom-line or up-ending industries. If you are still talking about blogs and wikis you may have missed the boat. 2) "Online" is everything. Brian McAndrews who runs Microsoft's ad business really nailed it when said that within 5 years online will be the center of all media, marketing and advertising strategies. It's where people should start. Frankly, it's hard to believe that this isn't already... (10/29/07 09:00 AM)

19. Where's the passion in B2B marketing?. I spoke yesterday at MarketingSherpa's Demand Generation Summit and I felt led to go off topic for a bit to address why I do, what I do. Personally, I've been pondering the idea of passion and what role it plays... (10/16/07 09:01 PM)

20. The One Piece Of Advice You Can't Generate Leads Without. The staff at Raintoday approached a group of B2B lead generation experts with the following question: "What is the one piece of advice you simply cannot generate leads without?" The result was a special 36-page report with 10 all-new articles... (08/30/07 09:00 PM)

21. B2B Marketing and lead generation via Social networking . Have you dipped your toe in the water of social networking yet? And if not, should you start? That’s a question I know that a lot of very busy B2B marketers ask themselves which is why I found Tessa Wegert's... (08/29/07 09:00 PM)

22. John Moore's Marketing Lessons from Starbucks. Last week was the first event of this year for Texchange (my first as President). The speaker was John Moore, author of Tribal Knowledge and top marketing blog, Brand Autopsy. The title of John's presentation was "Business Wisdom Brewed from the Grounds of Starbucks". John was a senior marketing guy at Starbucks and Whole Foods. I told him Texchange was an audience of (mostly) B2B entrepreneurs and executives, yet his seemingly B2C message didn't disappoint. The lessons learned from Starbucks are applicable to any company. Essentially your employees are your marketing. The culture and passion inside is what becomes visible outside. John calls it inside out marketing. Another point I should make, that I brought up to my discussion table. In order to create a brand like Starbucks, or any great brand, the key is to decide what NOT to do. Again, what NOT to do. Strip away activities, messages, and resources from anything not core to your core. He presented several principles to the audience. Here are the two I liked most:Building the Business Creates the Brand GIST: Starbucks was too busy building a business to worry about something as nebulous as branding. Because Starbucks was busy working in and on the business, the by-product was the creation of a powerful brand which connects on so many levels with people around the world. Rarely, if ever, can you sprinkle magical branding dust to create an enduring and endearing brand. Starbucks Tribal Knowledge tells us you cannot create a brand... (08/23/07 09:00 PM)

23. 7 Tips to Improve Sales Follow-up & Close More Leads. If you are like most B2B marketers, lead generation is at top of your priority list. But as you may already know, generating tons of “leads” doesn’t guarantee sales will follow. Does the sales team either ignore your hard-won leads... (08/01/07 09:01 PM)

24. Disruptors Video: An eBay for Manufacturers (MFG.com). Remember all of those B2B exchanges that were supposed to change the industrial landscape before they evaporated at the tail end of the last dotcom boom? Well, at least one of them survived—a small company based in Atlanta called MFG.com. Today, it is a thriving Web marketplace for manufacturers and their suppliers. I talk with CEO Mitch Free in this week’s episode of the New Disruptors. MFG.com is a Website where engineers and purchasing managers from places like Apple or Northrop Grumman can put up CAD diagrams of parts they want manufactured and get bids from suppliers all over the world. In the past twelve months, over $2 billion worth of parts have been sourced over MFG.com. But instead of trying to take a cut of each transaction like eBay does, MFG.com charges a subscription fee of about $6,000 a year to each supplier. Free says the company is on track to pull in $25 million in revenues this year and is running at break-even. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is the largest outside investor (he learned about it from one of the engineers at his spacecraft startup, Blue Origin). Germany’s Samwer brothers—their startup Alando became eBay Germany—also own a stake. Free wants to turn MFG.com into an online platform for the manufacturing industry. Last year, he bought Europe’s SourcingParts (a Salesforce.com for purchasing managers), and launched a manufacturing social network last March called MFGx.com. “We’ve borrowed some of the elements from Craigslist, MySpace, and Wikipedia,” he says. But perhaps the... (07/26/07 09:00 PM)

25. Women in Sales - Participate in a Groundbreaking Study. My colleague and B2B sales expert, Jill Konrath is working with The Center for Sales Innovation to reach out to women in business who make a living calling on corporate accounts through an innovative study. If you are a B2B... (07/13/07 09:02 AM)

26. Social Media Pundits Disconnect from B2B Marketing. As someone in B2B, do you feel left out of the social media buzz? I read a good article on What’s Wrong With Social Media For B2B Marketing by John Miller who also writes the Modern B2B Marketing blog. John's... (06/14/07 09:00 AM)

27. The Difference Between ROI and Marketing Accountability. What's the difference difference between ROI and marketing accountability? My recent blog post, On B2B Demand Generation tools and Lead Generation Dashboards started an email exchange between me Jeffrey Eisenberg and then spawned an article by Bryan Eisenberg over at... (05/13/07 09:00 PM)

28. B2B Lead Generation Blog is today's TypePad Featured Blog. Greetings and welcome new readers! I'm honored that the B2B Lead Generation Blog was chosen as today's Typepad featured blog. I've been using Typepad to power my blog since October of 2003 and I think it's a super blogging tool.... (05/08/07 09:01 PM)

29. On B2B Demand Generation tools and Lead Generation Dashboards. CEOs continue to demand better ROI measurement and accountability from marketers. As a result there’s been a surge of interest in software and tools to manage the process of lead management, lead nurturing and lead generation with a greater emphasis... (04/18/07 09:00 PM)

30. Going beyond the sales lead . Ultimately, the purpose of B2B marketing is to help the sales team sell. But marketers often get so wrapped up in driving activity that they seem to forget it's about driving sales conversion. For example, ask most executives and marketers... (04/02/07 09:00 AM)

31. On building the Lists for B2B Lead Generation Programs. Would you buy this business card? Maybe... maybe not. When you buy a list of names, you are basically buying business cards on a list. But there is no such thing as buying the perfect list, especially if you have... (04/02/07 09:00 AM)

32. Now Announcing the "Start With A Lead" Podcast Show. I am pleased to announce that I'll be hosting a new podcast show called Start with a Lead debuting in April. The show will have content specifically for marketers and those who care about B2B lead generation, sales leads, and... (04/02/07 09:00 AM)

33. Webcast: How to Precisely Define a "Lead" Before Marketing Begins. If you are like most B2B marketers, lead generation is at top of your priority list. But as you may already know, generating tons of leads doesn’t guarantee sales will follow. Does the sales department either ignore your hard-won leads... (04/02/07 09:00 AM)

34. Targeting Your B2B Lead Generation. Often lead generation programs seem more ready-fire-aim instead of ready-aim-fire. Mac McInTosh wrote a helpful article on, Targeting Your B2B Lead Generation, that I think provides some good tips and reminders. Mac writes, When searching for leads for selling your... (02/28/07 09:00 AM)

35. The B2B Lead Generation Blog Wins Best B-to-B Marketing Blog in MarketingSherpa's Readers' Choice Awards. Thank you all for voting! I won the best B-to-B Marketing Blog in MarketingSherpa's Readers' Choice Awards! I’m humbled and thrilled that so many readers have found the content valuable and informative enough to cast their vote for my blog.... (02/28/07 09:00 AM)

36. Article: Why Most B2B Websites Fail To Convert Sales Leads. Check out a new article that I wrote for RainToday, called “Why Most B2B Web Sites Fail to Convert Sales Leads.” It was originally a blog post I wrote back in June. There, I offer some thoughts on organizing and... (02/28/07 09:00 AM)

37. How Podcasts Impact B2B Purchase Decisions. A key aspect of lead generation is to engage people as early in their buying process as possible, because that's where you can make the biggest difference. Simply put, engage early and often. An excellent way to reach people early... (02/28/07 09:00 AM)

38. White Papers and Lead Generation, Key for BtoB Marketers. Complex sales cycles make the development of multi-modal marketing strategies critical. For many B2B marketing pros (especially those in technology), a time-tested tool is the white paper. As I've written before, I'm a big proponent of educational marketing tools such... (02/28/07 09:00 AM)

39. Podcast: Marketing and Sales for Big Complex Selling (Pt 1). I had a great time chatting with Todd at 800-CEO-READ on lead generation. This is the first of three podcasts 800-CEO-Read is doing on B2B sales and marketing. Here's what Todd says about it: In this podcast, I talk with... (02/28/07 09:00 AM)

40. Marketing Bullseye 9: Marketing To (and Through) the First Brain. In my father’s book, You've Got To Be Believed To Be Heard he calls it the 'First Brain.' Malcolm Gladwell in his great book Blink calls it the adaptive unconscious. Without getting into a lot of detail, in the center of our cerebral cortex there is the limbic system (our emotions) and brain stem (our unconscious habits are housed here.) Together they make up our pre- or unconscious brain. The fact is that all of our sensory input — the nerve pathways from our eyes and ears for visual and auditory — and taste, touch and smell as well — go into our First Brain first, before they are shunted out into our conscious cerebral cortex thinking brain. So at the unconscious level, we are making many emotionally slanted decisions before we even can think about them. In Blink, Gladwell calls it thin slicing. What does that have to do with bulls eye marketing? Well, purchase behavior (even B2B) suggests people buy on emotion and justify with fact. First impressions make a difference. Before they actually read, hear or watch your message, customers have determined their feeling about it. And it’s the feeling that matters. Bulls eye marketing is about being efficient and effective. Therefore any marketing message must cut through the first brain to be considered for the intellect to take action. In other words, it must be trusted to be persuasive. And since 97% of customers don’t trust advertising, perhaps your message shouldn’t look like advertising! That’s why... (09/17/06 09:00 PM)

41. Search marketing works for B2B, too.. Thanks to a reader, I learned that there was a 'B2B Case Study' session at the recent Search Engine Strategies conference in San Francisco. The article reviewing the session, titled, Search marketing works for B2B, too, starts with this gem:
    
    "Most people assume search marketing works only to reach consumers, but it's actually quite effective for businesses wishing to connect with other businesses, as well."
    
    Um, I'd counter that SEM is more effective for B2B, but I think this comment just shows the lack of knowledge of the author--obviously B2B is off the charts for some folks. The article throws up comments about basic SEM for B2B but this bit is probably of interest B2Blog readers:
    
    

    "Rick Brown, President of NetTrack closed out the session with a discussion of the effectiveness of paid inclusion in vertical aggregator sites like ThomasNet, GlobalSpec and Industrial Quick Search. Brown articulated his endorsement of such aggregators cautiously, saying that they can bring in relevant traffic as well as provide valuable links to a company's homepage but that many of the metrics such websites use to promote their services (such as "reach," "page views," and "brand activity") don't have much impact on a client's bottom line.
    
    He also noted that the value of the links from content aggregators is highest when the landing page can be controlled and there is a one to one relationship between the product category being searched and the landing page on a firm's website. Brown suggested than firms who invest in paid inclusion on a vertical aggregator site have their own analytics like ClickTracks to determine the value of the traffic coming in from sites like Industrial Quick Search. "

    
    Um, get an analytics program? Duh. What most B2B folks don't do is actually look at the data and ponder its meaning.
    
    One thing that Rick Brown said that is innovative, is that he proposes a 1-to-1 relationship between the seller's landing page and the product categories on the directories. I've opined before that part of the problem with directories is that once the user clicks-thru, they have to start their search over again.
    
    BTW: A rather interesting post by Marketing Headhunter Harry Joiner about a SEO specialist looking for a new job. Key fact: $125-150K pay for specialists at SEO agencies. Wow! (08/28/06 09:03 PM)

42. Sponsoring B2B email newsletters. Globalspec's newsletter, Marketing Maven, posts a e-marketing 101 article titled What to Know About Sponsoring e-Newsletters that caught my attention. I don't think the subject gets talked about very much. Ultimately, she is making a case for sponsoring Globalspec's industry-specific newsletters.
    

    "A compelling case exists for suppliers and manufacturers to add sponsorship of e-newsletters to their marketing mix. The benefits of the right sponsorship include:"
    

    • Brand visibility
    • Frequency
    • Low barrier to entry
    • Audience
    • Ability to test"

    
    Okay, the Maven is right on these (and she explains more for each bullet), but there are two other issues that come to my mind:
    
    1. Cost. Of course.
    Globalspec has always positioned itself as costing about as much for a one year listing as a single full page ad in a trade publication (around $15K). Their newsletter sponsorships (three different positions available) are about $2,500 per issue. This was true regardless of the audience size (30K or 70K), but is on par with pricing I've seen with trade publications.
    
    This expense could be acceptable for an advertiser with a large budget trying to round out their exposure triangle. For a partial-page advertiser like myself, this is a big price to pay for a extremely fleeting exposure. But that leads to my second point.
    
    2. Effectiveness
    Just how fast do people scan e-newsletters? Fast. The quality of content and the format is going to effect how the user reads the newsletter, but the process is fast nonetheless. While there is a 'low barrier to entry' as the Maven says, and it sounds good to get your promotion in front of 70K folks at one shot, I don't think that you can just throw money and a simple ad/listing and expect results. Particular care needs to be placed on what your ad says and looks like, and how it fits in the newsletter. Essentially, the same due-diligence should be applied as to a print ad in order to be effective.
    
    So, in summary, I think e-newsletter sponsorship works when:
    
    • It is a smaller part of an overall marketing program
    • The newsletter format makes the sponsorship likely to be noticed
    • The advertiser prepares content that gets noticed
    • Sponsors should take advantage of the points the Maven calls out
    Longtime readers may remember I once posted about a newsletter sponsor that got me to click, only to lead to a white paper as a Word file. Hopefully we're all past that by now. (08/25/06 09:02 AM)

43. "Finally, an event for those of you who wear too many hats!". So leads a mailer I recently received from ISA (Instrument Society of America). Seems that they are putting together their "First Annual Marketing & Sales Summit". Wow, a real B2B organization putting together a marketing program!
    
    The ISA seems to be more about software and automation these days than instruments per-say, so maybe I'm overreaching in thinking they care about 'industrial' marketing vs. 'tech' marketing.
    
    Anyway, it lands at a bad time for me to be able to attend (second week of September), but maybe some of you guys out there are interested. www.isa.org/rsvp/1 (08/21/06 09:00 PM)

44. Is CPA helpful to B2B AdSense campaigns?. Perhaps you've heard of Google's mantra, "do no evil". I was concerned that their going-public would shift the focus of their company towards profiteering, if not evil. As it turns out, they seem to have been too clumsy (and blessed by Wall Street) to be digging for profits.
    
    Staying squarely in the 'no evil' category, the big story this week is that they are testing AdSense payment based on "Cost per action", or CPA. A click-thru would not be enough, the visitor would have to 'convert', or achieve a goal on the website. Advertisers using this model would only pay for traffic that matters, and risk of click-fraud (i.e. evil) would go away. For the sites hosting the ad, a potentially higher pay-off should offset their PPC income.
    
    This sounds great, but there are questions that seem hard to resolve, especially for advertisers like me (which is maybe why Google is only 'testing' CPA).
    
    The obvious technicality is that for a lot of smaller & B2B businesses, the most common 'action' coming from their website is a phone call. And these are the people who also are paying much more per-click in their current PPC campaigns. Which means they have a lot more at risk for click-fraud yet cannot rely on CPA to help due to the untraceable phone call.
    
    The other problem is simply numbers. AdSense needs thousands of impressions just to create PPC activity worth mentioning. And of those clicks, only another 1-2% are going to convert. And because that conversion for small or B2B businesses is not a sale, we aren't going to want to pay a high bounty for 'just a lead' (unless quality can be determined).
    
    Russ Perkins, at InfoCommerce Group, points out a deeper issue in this week's newsletter, titled Does CPA Add Up To Trouble? that this would once-again upset the apple cart regarding the job of advertisers and the publishers carrying the AdSense ads:
    

    "If CPA takes off with advertisers, and I think it will, we have to watch it closely. If it remains limited to publishers getting paid (hopefully a lot) for generating hard sales leads, that's one thing, and a number of us could do quite well in this environment. If it morphs (as I predict it will) to advertisers demanding to pay only when they make a sale, we as an industry have to draw the line. The purpose of advertising is to stimulate interest, not guarantee profits."

    While the CPA program may flourish with e-commerce businesses, I don't see it gaining a foothold in the B2B sphere.
    
    In addition, I will go one further: As B2B advertisers look closer at their spending and conversion rates with AdSense (as compared to AdWords), they will start to pull out of AdSense.
    
    The next smart place to try is Google's Site Targeting, which is paid on a CPM basis, but allows you to choose what sites to run your ad. That kind of human selection should provide a greater chance of clicks and conversions. (07/29/06 02:28 PM)

45. Guess what is the top B2B marketing tool?. Us poor B2B marketers...the top three things buyers look for in a product aren't under our direct control...price, service, quality. We can add sizzle to these, but ultimately, the buyer will discern the truth.
    
    So what is our #1 marketing tool? Amazingly it is something we've only had for ten years...our websites. Results of a user survey by ThomasNet were summed this way:
    
    

    "Of course, competitive pricing, good customer service and high quality are a given, but the next single most important thing buyers mentioned is a detailed, user-friendly Web site. "

    The article has lots of other handy tidbits from the survey:
    
    Comments by users like this:
    "Provide enough information within their Web site for me to make an educated decision-? comparative product details, listed prices, and list of distributors that I can purchase from if they don't sell direct."
    
    This factual gem:
    36% of the time users will seek out new suppliers for a new purchase.
    
    Look at the top two of '10 Things Buyers Look For In a New Supplier'
    1. Easy-to-navigate Web sites with accurate, detailed product and pricing information
    2. Companies that are easy to find and have a strong Web presence
    
    This shouldn't really be news to us B2B marketers...but after ten years, we may have grown complacent about our websites. From the details of this survey, I say our target audience has become even more discerning and faster to pass on poor (to them) websites. We can't become complacent!
    
    Read more: It's Not Who You Know. It's Who Knows You (07/29/06 02:28 PM)

46. B2B content trapped in need for completeness?. The one thing I like about writing is that I get to address the topic as completely as I feel I need to. Over the years I've found that the one detail I leave out in a email or brochure or webpage is the one piece of information that folks call back looking for. When blogging, I write until I feel I've addressed the topic until it is resolved in my mind. Writing saves interuptions and makes revising easy. The end result is a complete document.
    
    Reading an article in this month's Wired called What Kind of Genuis Are You (a facinating article about two types of creatives, nicely summarized here at Reveries), I find myself identifying with 'experimentalist' creatives like Cezanne who only signed 10% of his paintings because he was never sure if they were complete or not.
    
    Regardless, the point is that one goal of B2B marketing is communicating information effectively, which means completeness. But perhaps we are overachievers. Engineers need certain data from our materials, but they aren't dumb. They can connect the dots. We don't need to spoon-feed them.
    
    Yet we continue to produce 'features and benefits' lists that treat them as dumb. That's because we are told that benefits sell, not features. And it becomes complete that way. How many of you have written something like this...
    
    "Our latest model features a smaller footprint to save your valuable lab space."
    
    Perhaps we are lacking feedback on our writing, because on the other side, this is what is happening:
    
    Engineer reading web page: "Duh!"
    
    
    How much smarter is it to leave your marketing incomplete and let the reader do the heavy lifting? The conclusion may be obvious, but the conclusion is now theirs. They own the idea now. Even complex concepts may fair better, because explaining them takes more effort then just pointing the reader in the right direction. (This happens in art and B2C advertising, but they also have the benefit of multiple mediums to make this more effective.)
    
    Or to quote a Chinese proverb I saw somewhere else this week:
    

    "Tell me and I'll forget; show me and I may remember; involve me and I'll understand."

    I think I've reached the asymptote of completeness with this post, so I'll leave you to figure out what it means to you. (Of course I'm wondering if your reading this going 'duh', how obvious.)
    
    UPDATE: Kathy Sierra latest post complements (adds to) this one: Hooverin' and the space between notes (07/29/06 02:28 PM)

47. Three Tips For Adding New Marketing Tactics. A business is a system of processes, policies and the people operating them. Therefore, marketing is also made up of processes -- from how strategic and creative decisions are made to how tactics are executed. You have to choose when to optimize your existing processes and when to add NEW processes. In general, I'm a fan of turning up gold under your own rocks...there's a lot of optimization room in the fundamentals. However, when I think of launching new processes (tactics), I keep these principles in mind: 1) Find Synergy It's best to add a marketing process that compliments another process. This might seem like optimization, but the tactic can stand on its own. It's just more powerful when associated with something else. For example, when you add direct mail to an outbound sales campaign. Or create landing pages for search engine optimization, which can also be used for advertising campaigns. 2) Look for Parallels Most marketing, especially from B2B businesses, is me-too marketing. One company looks a lot like another, especially web sites. To make a new marketing process worthwhile, find outside inspiration. Find a business or industry with a similar marketing problem to yours. This is not marketing related, but think of how Henry Ford revolutionized automobile factory with division of labor, inspired by the division of labor in a meat cutting plant. 3) Test the unique and unproven When I did A/B split tests, we made a point to test the outrageous, the outer boundaries, things that... (07/29/06 02:28 PM)

48. DirectIndustry, or Direct Access?. On the last page of July's Test & Measurement World, there is an interview with Corentin Thiercelin, CEO of DirectIndustry.com. I haven't talked much about DirectIndustry here, but it is a directory targeting world-wide B2B supply.
    
    The interview is typical of what you would expect, with bits like this:
    
    

    "Google is so exhaustive that it can sometimes lack the order and logic necessary for professionals to compare products and brands effectively. As a search engine specialized for industry, DirectIndustry returns this order to the search, saving professionals time and headaches."

    
    Info-commerce geeks and directory clients who read this blog should find the article somewhat interesting, which is part of the reason why I've posted it. This article leaves me with three questions, however:
    1. Is this good content?
    I've praised T&MW's content here before, but why this piece? Are engineers interested in the business of directories? The page subject is "Viewpoint, An exclusive interview with a technical leader". The most interesting part may be that Corentin was once a test engineer, which is why his website is lopsided towards test.
    
    2. Is this a play to an advertiser?
    DirectIndustry has been running a series of ads in T&MW celebrating their growth and longevity--is this why this interview is here? It's lack of typical editorial relevance smacks of direct access for advertisers. And the interview is all about his company, not really the 'role of the Web in purchasing decisions', as the intro promises.
    
    3. What about loyalty to KellySearch?
    T&MW is a Reed publication, which also owns KellySearch.com, a DirectIndustry competitor. T&MW has KellySearch as a tool on its website. Are the editors passive-aggressive towards their forced association with Kelly? Or trying to look unbiased?
    
    What do you think? (07/29/06 02:28 PM)

49. New Series: How to Hit the Marketing Bullseye. I’ve felt guilty not posting for a while. But I have been thinking a lot about marketing topics as they relate to my past and current position in a new startup. These thoughts keep circling around the same theme for me… How to Hit the Marketing Bullseye You see, Marketing (and typically advertising) is an incredibly wasteful profession… Some marketers measure their effectiveness by the amount of money they spend. Some view success by the ‘names in light’ phenomenon – because they have a pretty ad somewhere visible, they’re doing a good job. Some do one marketing function well, and regardless of industry, company, product, or customer they deploy their marketing strategy they know best. Some marketers hire big agencies or big consultants, who’s business model revolves around hours spent and/or money spent. Marketing has historically been one of the most wasteful professions available to young college graduates! I can’t think this way. Maybe it’s because I’m on my fourth startup, and in each I’ve had little marketing budget and huge growth goals. From these experiences I wrote a book on word of mouth marketing and guerilla marketing. I spent 7 years of operational, metrics-driven, Six-sigma optimized marketing at Dell, Inc. (B2B and B2C). While budgets are bigger at Dell, they are tiny compared to the revenue and growth goals. Try a marketing marketing budget of 1-2% of revenue (and declining) with 20% revenue growth goal! So, I’ve decided to write a series of blog posts centered on principles of... (07/29/06 02:28 PM)

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