B2B Call To Action Blog

Disclaimer: I found this article so compelling that I decided to post it here but the full credit goes to Brad Fallon. Brad is the author of Creating Customers Out of Thin Air: Secrets of Online Marketing for Offline Businesses. You can buy it in bookstores, but he’ll give you the pdf free if you ask nicely: brad@mysmartsuite.com

Brad is the founder of Smart Marketing, Inc. and the Smart Suite, an interactive marketing technology platform. His latest project is building the leading pure research laboratory for investigating search engine techniques and theories: www.seoresearch.com

Why Most B2B Websites Don’t Work (by Brad Fallon)

The problem with so many web sites today is that they are built around an advertising model – but the wrong kind. As a result, business owners are throwing away money hand over fist when they could be pulling in tons of qualified, interested prospects and customers.

If you want your web site to capture more quality leads, this article is for you. You see, there are two types of advertising, but only one kind of web site. Unfortunately, most web site designers don’t seem to know this.

Branding vs. Direct Response

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Tags: Lead Generation, B2B Marketing // 1 Comment »

Do open-ended or long-term marketing engagements scare you? Are you hesitant to engage a top-notch marketing firm for fear of “scope creep” that can drain your marketing budget? If so, you may be interested in a fresh approach; fixed price marketing services.

Most small and medium size businesses (SMBs) know they can benefit from experienced marketing firms for traditional as well as internet based services. The problem, however, is that most small businesses don’t have a huge marketing budget that allows for open-ended, time based services.

Now there are less risky options for purchasing specific marketing services based on a “buy-only-what-you-need” approach.

One example is Vancouver, BC based Intersection Consulting; a full service marketing concern that has taken the fear out of acquiring marketing services by offering pre-packaged services at a fixed price. From basic offerings like Market Communications, Website Development Management, Google Ad Campaigns to advanced services like Brand Management, Intersection offers fixed price packages.

To make it even easier on potential clients, Intersection Consulting now provides Self-Service Pricing so potential customers can determine budget fit before contacting them.

Tags: Lead Generation, B2B Marketing, B2B Sales // Add Comment »

In Chris Koch’s (ITSMA) interview with Brian Carroll “Building a Marketing Funnel and Other Lead Management Tips” Brian shares 5 ways to make B2B lead management more effective. At the head of the list is #1 Create a Marketing Funnel (as opposed to a Sales Funnel).
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All marketers are familiar with Calls to Action (CTA) used to motivate a prospect to take action. In the pre-internet era this usually manifested itself as a “Call our 800 number.”

The 800 number is certainly still in use today but is gradually being replaced with the more modern “Visit our Website”. For many companys, 100% of their marketing spend is focused on driving traffic to their website and good SEO/SEM processes can help with traffic. However, once visitors arrive at the Corporate website the hard part begins; qualifying and converting the prospect.

Is there a magic formula for creating a CTA to filter serious prospects and convert them to leads?
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It’s been fun getting to know the varied community of online sales/marketing folks. One thing I’ve noticed is that many in the community have a gift for giving to others. Whether it be time, effort or even money, the online marketing community seems to be a caring bunch.

I’d like to extend our hand and say that we are here to help you build your business, no matter how small. Give us a shout, or get a quote for our new “Consultant” role. You might just find that having EchoQuote on your site helps you spend more time doing what you love, not writing sales proposals.

Cheers,

Dale

Tags: B2B Marketing // Add Comment »

I am really looking forward to the upcoming Inbound Marketing Summit in September (Cambridge, MA) sponsored by Hubspot. As a relatively new player in the world of internet marketing, I am very selective about where I spend my time and who I spend it with. Last year I learned a lot at MarketingSherpa’s Demand Creation Summit. This year, the Inbound Summit just seems to “fit” and it got me thinking about synergy between Hubspot and EchoQuote.

What does Hubspot do?

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Tags: Lead Generation, B2B Marketing, B2B Sales // 1 Comment »

Cut through all of the marketing pitches for driving traffic to your business by watching this 40 minute video by Mike Volpe of Hubspot. This is the most comprehensive article/video I’ve seen that actually shows you a day in the life of a top Inbound marketer.

Enjoy.

SEO, Blogging and Social Media summarized in 40 minute Hubspot video

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At last Fall’s MarketingSherpa Demand Creation Summit there was a specific track laying out a basic B2B sales cycle from start to finish. Although every organization will have a variation of the model, it is a good starting point to understand how organizations can improve their sales by understanding what customers are looking for at the different stages of the decision process and then providing it.

Here’s the model in a nutshell:

Earlier is better

Ask any B2B VP of Sales the question “does your sales team have a better chance of winning business if they engage the prospect early or late in the sales process”; you will get 100% saying they need to engage early.

Of course they do. If the sales team can engage early then it can influence the decision (function) criteria. So why does Marketing fail to filter and capture these “future customers” during the Research phase?

The problem has become that marketing has fewer and fewer unique reasons (Calls to Action) for a prospect to reveal themselves so they continue to pile on more of the same stuff (whitepapers, webinars and case studies) without any noticable effect on lead generation.

This reminds me of the definition of insanity, “doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting a different result”. Do marketers who have created saturated sales websites really expect serious prospects to fill out a form for “more information”?

So, what is left in the Research Phase to incent the serious B2B prospect to engage?

Budget Fit and Decision (function) Criteria, that’s what.

How are you handling these 2 “needs”?

Tags: Lead Generation, B2B Marketing, B2B Sales // Add Comment »

It’s 9:32 at night and I just heard it…

We’ve all heard of the smell of money, but what about the sound? Sales people that live life at the end of a Blackberry or iPhone driven by EchoQuote know what I’m talking about. A hot prospect is actively researching on the corporate website. He sees a strange link, one he does not expect. Since it is exactly what he is thinking about, he clicks on it and seconds later…the sound.

There’s an email waiting…
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Floods and fires are everywhere in the news. For small and medium size businesses, these natural phenomenon can spell disaster for corporate data. Four out of Five businesses that experience a catastrophic data loss never recover. Unfortunately, most small companies can’t afford a complete off-site disaster recovery service and have to “roll the dice” that nothing will happen.

A Solution…

One of our clients, KL Security, carries a “hot” product (actually it is a very cool product, especially when the building is on fire). They are the top reseller for ioSafe, a deskside device that contains fire-proof hard drives. The Network Attached Storage (NAS) device simply plugs into a company’s network infrastructure to provide fireproof/waterproof protection. Once the ioSafe device is attached and data is backed up, corporate data is protected up to 1500 degrees and 30 feet of water. Customers often refer to it as “the hardest pillow you’ll ever love” because it will help you sleep at night.

They have a cool video of an actual fire demonstration where they loaded data on a device, engulfed it in flames, cooled it off and recovered the data.

There are several sizes and models to choose from and of course you can get a Self-Service Price for each model with no hassle.

From paper to electronic information, KL Security has the products to protect your data.

Tags: B2B Marketing, B2B Sales // Add Comment »