A Business Development Manager’s Guide to Exhibitions & Trade Shows
July 26th, 2013
As all Business Development Managers know, the best way to connect with your leads and ultimately win new business is through meeting actual people in the flesh. But getting that first meeting to understand challenges faced by a lead and how you might be able to help them is notoriously difficult to secure, particularly if you’re selling a service that you don’t yet know if they need.
The exhibition or trade show can be the ideal place to put real faces to the names you have in your CRM and connect with them on a human level. Though there are numerous strands to an effective lead generation strategy, exhibitions and trade shows can be part of this and can be essential in strengthening new relationships. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted By: rhiannon
How British B2B companies use social media: Anglo American
July 24th, 2013
This is the first in a series of posts looking at how some of Britain’s biggest B2B companies are using social media within their organisation.
In January 2012 the British mining giant announced via YouTube it would be entering the world of social media to “have conversations with people” and “to show what we’re about.” What does this actually mean though?
On Facebook almost every post features a high quality image and a question. Each post offers a nugget of information related to the mining industry and appears to be pitched perfectly for a Facebook audience where many fans of the page may have a passing interest in the mining industry without having great technical expertise. Did you know Metallurgical coal is primarily used in the steelmaking industry, making such items as cutlery?
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted By: Martin Broadhurst
Four startlingly obvious ways to segment your B2B email marketing lists
July 22nd, 2013
Consider this: The reason why 40% of email subscribers mark email as spam is not because they did not know who sent it, but because what was sent was irrelevant to their needs.
With such high levels of email being marked as spam the need for well segmented email marketing lists is clear. In order to get the attention of your recipients you will need to give them something relevant to their personal situation, goals or challenges. After all, when you have put so much effort in to building your email marketing database through inbound marketing, it would be a shame to then be marked as spam and blocked. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted By: Martin Broadhurst
Why buying email lists destroys B2B marketing campaigns
July 15th, 2013
When it comes to B2B digital marketing there tends to be one channel that most people will agree works and that is email. Forget social media, trade shows or print advertising; email is said to be the most effective marketing channel according to 59% of B2B marketers (Source: BtoB Magazine).
Alienate your recipients
Have you ever received junk mail from a company who personalised the envelope with a message about how you were pre-approved for a loan or credit card? Maybe it had a free pen inside. You may have even willingly took the pen and used it happily for many years, writing letters to loved ones, completing crosswords and signing cheques to UPVC double glazing companies. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted By: Martin Broadhurst
Six examples of landing pages doing what they’re supposed to do
July 12th, 2013
Landing pages: they are the point at which you take anonymous visitors and convert them in to real known people with first names, last names and email addresses. They can be used for PPC campaigns, email marketing, social media marketing and SEO which is why digital marketers love them. However, a bad landing page does no one any favours. That’s why we’ve chosen six of our favourite landing pages and explained why we like each example so much.
Axis|SybronEndo
What’s not to like about this landing page? At the bottom we have a bold graphic telling us how to access the free download, the banner image leaves us in no doubt about what the offer actually is and this is reinforced with the book cover image we see next to the form.
Curata
While this landing page still has leaks (links taking people away from the landing page) such as the top navigation, the proposition is clear: you’re requesting a demo of Curata’s software. The form is a little long but this is presumably to keep time-wasters away as they won’t bother to fill it in. This landing page is light on copy but the endorsement from a customer is strong and really drives home the value of the software. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted By: Martin Broadhurst
Letting the hand rule the brain: Cultural Connections and Printmaking
July 10th, 2013
Our latest Cultural Connections event was inspired by this season’s exhibition at QUAD – A Universal Archive: William Kentridge as Printmaker, which meant inviting our guests to try their hand at their own bit of printmaking. This largely resulted in inky hands and pictures of cats (inspired by Kentridge’s ‘Scribble Cat’ below).
Posted By: rhiannon
Ten videos to guide your SEO strategy
July 8th, 2013
One topic that is frequently rearing its head in digital marketing is, of course, search engine optimisation (SEO). Everyone wants to be on the first page of Google yet the processes involved in achieving that are still a thing of mystery for many. Here are ten videos that will give you the knowledge you need to kick start a successful SEO strategy.
Bookmark this page for future reference!
1. What is search engine optimisation?
Posted By: Martin Broadhurst
Infographic: Powerful social calls-to-action to increase engagement
July 5th, 2013
When you want someone to do something, the best thing to do is ask. This has long been the case and it is just as true in marketing as it is for children with messy bedrooms. Dan Zarella, HubSpot’s social media scientist in residence, recently carried out some research seeing just how much influence calls-to-action had on content engagement. The results were quite surprising.
Posted By: Martin Broadhurst
How to use social media for B2B lead generation
July 3rd, 2013
“I’m quite certain that Facebook isn’t going to be relevant for us” said a sales manager I recently spoke to. That’s a bold statement as he just said he couldn’t think of a way to use a network that is regularly frequented by one in seven people on the planet. Sure, Facebook might not be the first place you turn to when looking for B2B leads and sales through social, but it can play an important role when used effectively. Follow this step-by-step guide and you can start using social media for B2B lead generation right away.
Step 1: Know thy audience
As is the case with so much digital marketing, your starting point for a successful social media lead generation campaign should be understanding who it is you’re are attempting to engage with. This means creating a buyer persona.
Your buyer persona will be a fictional representation of the typical person you are trying to reach. It will tell you about the issues that concern them, the challenges they face in their roles and where they look to find answers. This should include the magazines they read, the websites they visit and the social networks you think they use. Use this to create the content that you will use to lure them onto your website. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted By: Martin Broadhurst
“Has anyone got a spare pair of trousers?”…Company wide emails in pictures
July 2nd, 2013
Offices can be bizarre places at times. From ridiculous passive aggressive notices to the water cooler gossip, the office provides an endless stream of material for astute observational comedians or comic strip writers (I’m looking at you, Scott Adams).
A new source of office based mirth comes from the All Staff, All Day Tumblr which sets real company wide emails against an image. You can see some of the best posts below.
Check out the full blog over on http://www.allstaffallday.tumblr.com/
Posted By: Martin Broadhurst
