This time last year marketing pundits were looking into the “crystal ball”, trying to discover trends that were likely to take the marketing world by storm in the year to come. Personalisation and context were then hailed as businesses’ most promising opportunity to reach and engage multiscreen users. But has this prediction materialised?

Sitting between the rising consumer demand for real-time bespoke services and increased privacy concerns, personalisation remains in its infancy but there are signs that it is likely to flourish in the foreseeable future, with smart software coming into being and companies blazing the trail of bespoke social engagement.

The rise of bespoke marketing

Andreas Weigend, former Amazon chief scientist, was quoted in a recent thought-provoking article in Marketing Magazine as saying: “Segmentation, not long ago the Holy Grail of marketing, is becoming an anachronism. Most people don’t want to be anonymous. Customers want to be treated as individuals and they are heading for platforms and companies that understand this.”

Above all, this statement highlights the potential of individual, bespoke marketing – in a context where marketers have access to data about users’ social, search and browsing behaviour, and where, more importantly, users demand a bespoke, relevant user experience, not tapping into this sea of opportunity is a deadly sin for businesses.

Is one-to-one personalisation an illusion?

Marketing Magazine describes the efforts made by certain trailblazers in the field, pointing out that personalisation is a complex concept which can mean any combination of behavioural targeting (as done by Google), the creative use of social graph data (from networks such as Facebook) and collaborative filtering (as practised by Amazon).

“If they have one thing in common, it is usually to replicate in the diffuse digital environment the kind of effortless familiarity with which, say, local shopkeepers might once have treated their customers,” the author, Adam Woods, points out.

However, while the majority of marketers seem to understand the concept of personalisation, saying they will increasingly seek to harness social data to deliver a better tailored web experience (Econsultancy Quarterly Digital Intelligence Briefing), when it comes to the implementation, social behavioural targeting proves to be a tough mission.

34% of the marketers in the Econsultancy study carried out in the summer say their CMS does not facilitate personalisation, with a mere 6% presently applying user social engagement data, instead opting for more traditional digital marketing techniques such as tracking browser history.

Businesses’ attempts at personalisation

Marketing Magazine offers a few examples of companies which have got personalisation right, and other who have not quite nailed behavioural targeting. Among the top performers is American Express, which delivers content and special deals to cardholders based on their Facebook likes. In the US, Groupon tailors newsletters to subscribers’ location and preferences using proprietary geo-location technology.

Some companies’ stab at personalisation has had a disastrous effect. Urban Outfitters, for instance, tested simple gender personalisation, displaying women’s clothes to women and men’s clothes to men, forgetting about those shoppers who may be looking to buy clothes for their partner.

So it looks like, aside from a few simple and stumbling attempts across the Pond, personalisation in its nascent form may still be out of reach for the majority of businesses, mainly due to technological limitations (not to mention red-hot issues such as consent and privacy concerns).

But with the advent of sophisticated marketing software such as HubSpot 3 in the autumn of 2012 and its impending integration with CMS provided by Ektron, the coveted bespoke cross-channel digital experience may be just around the corner.

Last week Twitter threw down the gauntlet to businesses. In what it announced was a move toward making users’ presence “more meaningful” it started rolling out some major design changes to profile pages.

The aesthetic update, which allows users to customise their Twitter profiles by adding a header photo in addition to the existing profile picture and background, has been hailed by many as yet another opportunity for brand expression. But there are fears that too much visual branding can have a potentially adverse effect on businesses’ social presence if they fail to get it right.

And getting it right is a tricky endeavour. Unlike Facebook’s landscape cover photos, where the profile picture is conveniently tucked in the left-hand corner, the new Twitter avatar is positioned centre-front within the header image. This gives Twitter users the opportunity to unleash their design creativity in their attempt to seamlessly unite the two images.

Some users, such as comparison service Split It and San Diego-based SEO service, Organik SEO, have managed to blend their respective avatar with the header and the background to good effect, while other big brands have not reacted immediately, no doubt contemplating the branding implications of the design change.

HP and Microsoft have so far opted for preserving their tried-and-tested avatar + background Twitter presence and it will be interesting to see when and how they will approach the new design capabilities of the microblogging platform.

Other companies, such as HubSpot, have embraced the change and added a friendly, personal feel to their Twitter branding by uploading a header image of their staff.

The new Twitter design: A branding risk or an opportunity?

With the addition of yet another image to the visual inventory, Twitter has created both an opportunity and a risk, depending on how businesses approach the changes.

On one hand, the new banner area offers businesses the opportunity to better communicate their brand’s identity on the platform. On the other hand, is there is a danger of simply creating visual noise on a platform where content is the key focus?

The good news is that Twitter has been flexible in allowing users to keep their old page design… for the time being. Eventually, all profiles will be updated to the new design, the company announced, although it didn’t disclose any more about the rollout timescales.

This gives companies a bit of time to get to grips with the new Twitter design and find the right visual approach that best expresses their brand identity. As with any other social media change, brands will perhaps go through a period of trial and error until they find the best application of the new visual capabilities.

One thing is certain – with the new page profile design, Twitter is putting an end to dull, brochure-like profiles and giving brands the chance to infuse some vitality and personality into their existing social presence. How businesses will respond to the challenge remains to be seen.

Ultimately, will this change help drive deeper engagement with users?

Analysing the challenges, objectives and trends in social media, SEO and PPC for B2B and B2C companies, the study offers a snapshot of digital marketing in 2012.

Here are the major findings:

- Generating leads is the top objective for B2B marketers, while their B2C peers prioritise increasing awareness.
- When it comes to lead generation, B2B marketers consider SEO twice as effective as PPC or social media.
- Measurement remains a major challenge for marketers with a massive 70% unable to attribute ROI.

B2B marketers and business owners should check out this infographic by Web Marketing 123 – you may find it useful as you consider how to generate online leads and understand your marketing ROI.

Research carried out by Strathclyde University has confirmed that when it comes to social media, law firms are failing to keep apace with most other sectors, The DRUM has reported.

The study found that a mere 10% of Scottish law firms actively use Twitter to reach potential clients looking for legal advice. According to The DRUM, the findings can be used to make a deduction about law firms’ social media adoption in the UK as a whole.

The Firm’s editor, Steven Raeburn, points out that social media’s primary function should be in business development and reputation building, as a “utility that lets you speak directly to your clients, and allows them to see you doing your best.”

Social media has a lot of potential benefits that agile lawyers can tap into. The growing trend of individual lawyer marketing across various social channels offers online opportunities to boost a firm’s reputation by promoting a partner as a thought leader in their respective area of expertise.

LinkedIn’s professional networking capabilities have clear benefits for law firms, which is not surprising given that out of all the social media channels, it most closely reflects traditional business networking models.

Facebook, although generally perceived as a personal social network, can also contribute to increasing a law firm’s reach as could be seen in the case of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP. The firm, which has 23 offices, approximately 1,800 attorneys and more than 40 areas of practice, is an example of the effective use of Facebook to increase a law practice’s reach and build trust.

Socially savvy legal practices, such as Dechert LLP, use YouTube videos to explain their views on topics of current interest, and thus build their firm’s reputation as a reliable, professional and knowledgeable source.

As Bill Drummond, Managing Partner at Brodies LLP, stated in Business Insider magazine:

“Those firms that challenge convention and think creatively about their business model are nimble and agile in the execution of their plans, and who quickly organise themselves to deliver superior service, value and results to their clients will enjoy success.”

The customer journey for legal services is now increasingly beginning online and having a brochure website is leaving many law firms with no mechanism to generate and convert online leads. A coordinated strategy to serve up the growing demand for relevant information by offering compelling content across social channels in a personalised, platform-agnostic way would go a long way to help equity partners get a return on their marketing spend.

Learn how to be a forward-thinking law firm by downloading our e-book, Why Inbound Marketing is the Future for Legal Firms.

Image credit: Rosaura Ochoa via Flickr/Creative Commons

So it should perhaps come as no surprise that European marketers struggle to identify the Key Performance Indicators that have the biggest impact on the bottom line.

Based on a pan-European survey about prevalent social media marketing practices it conducted in the spring of 2012, Neolane concludes that, while social ROI is a decisive target for the overwhelming majority of marketers (69%), measuring it remains a common challenge.

57% of European marketers gauge intangibles such as brand awareness, buzz and web traffic, yet only 34% evaluate social marketing performance on the basis of revenue indicators such as acquisition, qualification and sales rates.

While the social ROI aspect of the study findings may not be particularly unexpected, what is perhaps interesting is where marketers across Europe believe the biggest digital marketing opportunities lie.

Integrating social media into the global marketing strategy, personalising the user experience and testing rank highest on European marketers’ list of priorities.

Check out this infographic for a visual representation of the study results.

Via: Neolane

If you wish to learn more about social media and ROI, join Brightfire at Social Media Week, Glasgow for our in-demand event, Social ROI: Cracking the Code through Collaboration.

Enter social media sharing, organic link-building and the relatively new yet almighty Rel=”author” tag!

SEO, social media marketing and the dissolving boundaries

The SEOmoz State of SEO 2012 report highlights the importance of social recommendation, especially on Facebook and Google+, as an SEO factor, pointing to the convergence of what were once (and still are, for some) two autonomous domains.

With more SEO specialists now setting up and managing Facebook pages than doing analytics, “SEOmoz’s survey data would seem to suggest that the lines are blurring between SEO and social media marketing,” argues Patricio Robles of Econsultancy.

In fact, it was Econsultancy that earlier this year identified the convergence of SEO, content marketing and PR in its SEO Agencies Buyers’ Guide 2012, while Searchmetrics found that social media sharing and backlinks from reputable websites are the two most important factors affecting how a website ranks.

These studies suggest that content marketing, social media and SEO might in the future merge as indistinguishable digital marketing techniques.

A case for humanised SEO?

In a strong opinion piece for Fast Company, titled SEO Isn’t What You Think It Is, Veronica Fielding caused a stir by arguing that with Google’s algorithm updates, “social engagement, rather than search engine trickery, yields top results”.

“Both the Panda and Penguin updates contained very clear messages for marketers: stop focusing on technology and tricks, and start focusing on people. If your website appeals to people, it will appeal to Google’s algorithms too,” Fielding goes on, adding that with Panda and Penguin the search engines are focusing on interactive exchanges in social media channels as ranking factors.

Judging by all the recent studies on SEO, Fielding’s arguments and conclusions ring true:

‘So rather than asking yourself, “How do I optimize my website to better rank with search engines?” ask, “How can I optimize my brand so that it’s a sought-after participant in relevant conversations?”’

According to Jon Thomas of Post-Advertising, the best strategy is to “create useful, relevant and share-worthy keyword-optimized content, share across other owned properties, and [not] worry about what Google may or may not do.”

What better reason than this for businesses to stop trying to outwit Google, de-silo SEO and social, create unique content that people will love and share, and build an inbound marketing strategy around the user journey?

Image credit: SESConferenceSeries via Flickr/Creative Commons

The online user behaviour has changed for good, making it critical for companies to gain user insights and translate them into web content that is tailored to each stage of the customer journey.

Identifying where your sales leads begin their web journey when looking for a solution to their issues is a great place to start and involves finding the right tools and methodology to gather user insights. The following three steps can help you in the vital first stage in the move to providing a personalised user experience.

1. Get specific about who you are selling to.

Spend time answering questions about your ideal sale prospects and what they care about, and then translate these insights into real-life customer pains and gains.

A deep understanding of your prospective leads’ issues, pain points, goals, influences, motivations and attitudes will facilitate a customer-centric approach to online engagement, guide your decisions about the right content and web user journey, and it will ensure consistency throughout the content development process.

Here is a handy template for persona development that can help you get the ball rolling.

2. Categorise leads based on their issues.

A software technology company we have worked with uses an effective method of prospective client segmentation. It has identified its target leads’ issues and on that basis, has put them into two distinct categories – “risk takers” and “risk managers”.

Our client has then mapped the two types of personas to the solutions it provides, thus effectively identifying the type of content that could be found, was in the right format for the respective stage of the customer journey, and would resonate with their audience.

In so doing, the software provider has become one of the first points of reference for risk managers when they experience a system failure, which has earned them the right to take users to the next stage.

3. Create a bespoke content plan.

Armed with persona intelligence, you can now go ahead and build a content plan focused on addressing the potential issues of your target sales leads.

Publishing content that explores certain pain points will help your target leads educate themselves on how their challenges can be solved. When a prospect is looking for a solution, they will type in a query in Google using language associated with the issue so it is critical that you have quality content to address it.

Here is a handy worksheet to help you map your buyers’ issues to relevant content:

Once you have developed your personas and mapped out your content to their issues, you should think about how you can move your prospective clients down the sales funnel.

You can find some handy tips on how to generate more prospects and nurture them to sales-ready leads in the free Essential Guide to Lead Generation.

Image credit: |vvaldzen| via Flickr, Creative Commons

A couple of good articles on the topic we recently came across make a case for the adoption of individual lawyer marketing techniques, executed through the use of social media tools.

Steve Bell, chief client development officer at Womble Carlyle Sandridge & Rice PLLC, and John Hellerman, partner and co-founder of Hellerman Baretz Communications LLC, make an unbeatable argument for the adoption of individual lawyer marketing practices by pointing out that what draws people in are individual lawyers, not law firm institutions. Although that argument may overstate the case as large, well-established legal brands will undoubtedly see the benefit in both.

“If individual lawyers are the product clients are buying, they should also be the product you are marketing,” the two lawyers argue, adding that, as social media tools become more accessible, “[w]hether through LinkedIn, Twitter, blog posts or another new medium, it is easier than ever for individual lawyers to make their presence known.”

Research commissioned by Hellerman Baretz Communications LLC reveals that referrals and in-person meetings are the most effective methods of securing new business, while other recent studies have found that personal bio pages and LinkedIn profiles attract more views than law firms’ home and practice pages.

In a thought-provoking blog post, titled Who to Market: The Firm or the Individual Lawyer? , Lloyd Pearson echoes the argument expressed in the above-mentioned article, adding that simultaneously promoting the firm’s institutional brand and the individuals is not only possible but also desirable, especially since “strong lawyers make strong law firms.”

Pearson believes that the successful lawyer of the future “will have a good law firm bio, probably through a flexible micro-site attached to the regular firm-wide website, and will also have a strong online presence through the likes of Linked-In, blogs, and the better legal directories.”

Two forward-thinking law firms doing individual lawyer marketing well

Levenfeld Pearlstein has embraced the individual marketing approach in a social media savvy way – by creating biography videos to show the personality of its lawyers and uploading them on to its YouTube channel, it promotes the individual lawyers within the framework of the firm’s brand.

Arent Fox have created an employment law video series hosted by the firm’s partner, Harry Johnson. Named “After Hours With Harry Johnson”, the episodes resemble a TV show, in which the host summarises and draws attention to different issues that employers need to know. Note the use of Johnson’s Twitter handle and email address at the start of this video followed by an invitation to a webinar in the text description underneath.

The two law firms’ use of individual lawyer marketing practices, delivered through well targeted compelling content in social media, sets them apart from the competition and gives us a hint about what professional services marketing of the future may look like.

You surely don’t want your visitors to head to the exit door of your web real estate as soon as they have entered, right?

The question remains – what makes for a bad web experience? According to Kissmetrics, things such as poor navigation, obtrusive use of video and audio, boring content and design, and poor legibility can put online users off and result in excruciating bounce rates.

Kissmetrics provide the answer in this infographic, visualising some examples of what not to do when designing your website but also dishing out advice on how web design mistakes could be fixed.

++ Click Image to Enlarge ++

Source: What Makes Someone Leave A Website?

81% of the respondents identified compelling storytelling as the most effective content tactic, followed by originality (52%), customized content (52%) and professional writing (39%). In terms of the content formats used, case studies, white papers and e-books lead the way, with infographics picking up speed as the fastest growing content type.

Top 3 trends in B2B content marketing in 2012

1. Content marketing is expanding dramatically in terms if tactics, forms and volumes of content, with 84% of marketers saying content production is on the rise.

2. The top goals of content marketing are lead generation (68%), thought leadership and market education (50%), and brand awareness (39%).

3. The biggest challenge for marketers is time and bandwidth to create content – 94% of B2B marketers create content from scratch.
For more B2B content marketing trends, have a look at the SlideShare presentation.

B2B Content Marketing Trends 2012 from Holger Schulze

There is some scepticism in the B2B world about the use of video for content marketing. We have all seen the benefits of video content for B2C companies but does and can video actually work for B2B, too?

Well, we are not going to lie – adding video to your content marketing arsenal is no plain sailing but with a pinch of insight, creativity and inspiration, and, of course, spot-on implementation, it can turn it into your most valuable marketing tool.

Why B2B companies should tap into video

If you remain unconvinced of the power of video content, then consider the following stats:

- Videos are 53 times more likely than text pages to appear on page one of search results. (Forrester)

- B2B companies using video experience up to a 36% annual sales increase. (Brightcove)

- Businesses using videos see on average a 45% increase in web traffic and time spent on site. (Brightcove)

By adding visual value to content, a B2B company can boost its web visibility and drive increased online lead conversion as web visitors spend more time engaging with your content.

B2B approaches to video creation

Since you are not selling commodities and your target audience is likely to be niche, thinking outside the box when brainstorming subject matter ideas is a must. And, no doubt, so is good targeting! After all, you don’t want your video to look boring, nor do you wish to attract the wrong crowd.

Here are a few tips that could help in this tough endeavour:

• Revisit your personas.

What better way to predict what will resonate with your audience than going back to your brand personas? Who are they? Where do they hang out? What are their issues and pain points? What would they like to learn about? These considerations will help generate lots of topic ideas that are likely to be relevant to your personas.

• Establish your expertise

Thought leadership is arguably one of the most effective content strategies in B2B and videos are an excellent opportunity to build credibility by showing your expertise. A professionally shot video of a company CEO or a partner dealing with an issue that is red hot in their sector is an excellent way to build credibility.

• Video case studies: let your clients tell the tale

To avoid the risk of appearing self-promotional, you can let your clients tell your target audience what your company has helped them achieve. There’s no better way to convince your prospects that you’re trustworthy to do business with than a third-party endorsement, especially if it is in the form of a client testimonial.

One legal firm that is doing video right…

Have a look at this video created by Dechert LLP in which six of the law firm partners deal with a topic of current interest – The Eurozone Sovereign Debt Crisis: Investment Risks and Opportunities. The video has a professional feel, is well branded, concise and to the point, with fluid transitions but most importantly, it addresses a topical issue for businesses looking to invest in Europe.

We imagine that lots of companies would be eager to hear what the Dechert LLP partners have to say about the sovereign debt crisis in the Eurozone. From a marketing perspective, this informative and perfectly executed video helps build the law firm’s reputation as a reliable, professional and knowledgeable legal practice.

… and one software technology company

Eloqua and JESS3’s award-winning video, Future of Revenue – there’s not much to say really – it’s a must-watch. Unique, creative, inspired… not to mention informative and educational, this animated video is a paragon of B2B content. Who said topics such as revenue performance management and software technology had to be boring?

Image credit: M4D GROUP via Flickr/Creative Commons

They may evoke memories of advertising practices based on old-fashioned stereotypes dating back to as early as the 1910s but brand personas are now actually more important than ever as business goes digital.

In the digital world, where traditional megaphone-style advertising is generally losing its effectiveness, creating an archetype of a prospective client is becoming critical for companies who wish to provide a relevant, bespoke and truly personalised user journey. Persona development is the necessary first step in the move towards a client-centric, inbound marketing approach.

A business or a brand has to speak directly to its target audience, addressing users’ issues, pains and challenges. This means delving deep into the fabric of your target audience and putting yourself in your persona’s shoes before you even begin to map out the customer journey.

Check out this infographic, created by Linchpin SEO – an excellent visual guide to persona creation.

Guide To Personas Infographic by Linchpin Web Design

The webcast, State of SEO and Internet Marketing, was so popular it got trending on Twitter under the hashtag #StateofSEO. Brightfire was lucky to attend the webinar so here are our key takeaways from it.

Social media activity becomes critical to SEO

As social signals coming from Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+ activity become increasingly important for SEO, more and more marketers feel confident they are masters of what was not long ago terra incognita to many. According to SEOmoz’s 2012 State of SEO report, 44.4% of the marketing practitioners surveyed feel they are “advanced” or “expert” at social media.

The rise of Google+

While the majority of the respondents favour the use of Facebook and Twitter, a significant number of marketers are now tapping into the potential of Google+, likely due to its strong impact on search engine rankings. Rand Fishkin and Dharmesh Shah agreed that the correlation between Google+ activity and search is certainly a good enough reason to use the social hub.

The importance of author optimisation

The speakers focused on the rising importance of author optimisation, which has been introduced by the Rel=Author tag – a mark-up code that blog owners can add to their blogs, linking to their Google+ Pages. This is an important development in SEO as it makes it possible to highlight an author as the Google search results produce a headshot image and a snippet of information about them.

Just try doing a search about, say, SEO. I bet you are likely to click on the result accompanied by a picture as it stands out from all the other results that are just text. A picture in this instance equals credibility – something bloggers and brands having been vying to achieve in their bid to attract more visitors, leads and clients.

Indeed, HubSpot’s Dharmesh Shah emphasised the fact that 75% of all clicks go to organic results as opposed to paid ads, with inbound marketing activities driving dramatically higher levels of traffic.

Rand Fishkin’s Top 5 SEO Tips

1. Create an incentive for people to share your content.
2. Don’t beg influencers; involve them!
3. When performing keyword optimisation, start with the long terms and the “chunky middle”.
4. Don’t just aim for rankings, but go for CTR (click-through rates).
5. Delight users by being surprising, unique and outstanding.

You can find out more about the report by waching the webinar recording.

Lee is not the first person to sound the death knell of traditional marketing. In April 2012, Saatchi & Saatchi’s CEO, Kevin Roberts, created a stir by proclaiming the death of marketing that is based on strategy and management.

Lee argues that traditional marketing communications no longer make sense in “today’s increasingly social media-infused environment”. Old-school interruptive and overtly promotional methods are no longer relevant to the “buyer’s decision journey”- he goes on to explain- as buyers nowadays are “checking out product and service information in their own way, often through the Internet, and often from sources outside the firm such as word-of-mouth or customer reviews.”

Lee’s arguments are not much different from what John Hornell wrote in his blog article, Traditional Advertising is Dead. “Ask yourself this question, when you were last considering buying a particular product, did you look for information on TV, in the paper or on billboards? I doubt it. Did you, however, type something into Google, look for blogs on the topic or ask your social media community for advice or information. I think this is far more likely,” argues Brightfire’s CEO.

According to Lee, the broken model should be replaced by a new type of marketing that is based on:

• Community marketing – with companies positioning their social media efforts to replicate the community-oriented buying experience.
• Customer influencers – businesses need to find and cultivate customer influencers from their own network, as opposed to industry influencers who have gained following through social media.
• Helping customers build social capital – businesses should help customers build their affiliation networks, increase their reputation and empower them through new knowledge.

Ultimately, Lee concludes, the new marketing model should be based on businesses creating and sustaining authentic customer relationships. The only way you can achieve it is this: leave outbound marketing in the past and embrace inbound marketing as the only marketing strategy which reflects the way people search, buy and live online.

Image credit: Mandy Goldberg, view from 5’2“, Creative Commons

- Hi, we have never met before.

- But I would like you to demo my product.

Does this sound familiar? If so, then your online offering must suffer from what we call “premature demonstration disorder”, a condition more common among software technology companies than you may think.

What are the symptoms?

You can tell a business has it when their website drives users straight to a software demo or trial without offering content that addresses the issues users face at each stage of the customer journey.

What is the underlying cause?

Many technology businesses are still centred on promoting their product features rather than providing a rich and tailored customer journey.

What is the prognosis?

As a result of jumping the gun by prematurely demonstrating their software and asking unqualified users to download it, software technology businesses risk losing lead conversion opportunities, as well as the chance of further nurturing prospective clients through the sales funnel.

What is the cure?

Software companies that offer a demo or trial need to make sure that they are giving prospects valuable insights on their way to a decision to try out the company’s product.

They can do this by making sure they are there at the start of their users’ journey when users are researching on the issues that affect them. They can then be part of the journey towards their product by mapping insightful content to each step of the user’s way. Finally, they can convert users into customers more effectively by analysing and responding to each, based on their actions.

For more information about how you can cure this condition, download our software technology guide.

What is more alarming, however, is that only 58% of the respondents rate marketing’s contribution to the sales pipeline as being valuable, with a mere 43% actually measuring it. What do these figures indicate?

Analysing the stats, Eloqua concludes that marketing and sales operating in silos is a thing of the past and it is therefore incumbent on businesses to focus on building a pipeline. When 78% of Best-of-Class companies are measuring marketing’s contribution to the sales pipeline, you can’t help but get a sense of an emerging gap in the UK, the author of the article points out.

“For UK marketers to truly provide data on the impact to the organization, they need to track their efforts’ effect on sales. This is the next step in aligning marketing with sales and a critical step on the path to Revenue Performance Management,” writes Sylvia Jensen.

Why marketing should always come first

There is no doubt that sales are critical to a business’s operations but before looking for the right sales people to employ, you need to spend some time and resources on nailing the marketing cycle first.

Only by doing so can you get the most out of the marketing-sales integration. This requires finding the tools and methodology that will help you monitor marketing activities’ impact on the sales funnel.

How marketing automation can help

Aberdeen Research Report Group notes that forecasting the value of the funnel requires knowing the percentage of marketing leads that are qualified, accepted and closed by sales.

This is where marketing automation tools, such as the ones offered by HubSpot, Marketo and Eloqua, come in – they enable closed-loop reporting, data optimisation and predictive analytics, making aligning marketing and sales an easier and cost-effective process.

Learn more about this technology in our complimentary B2B Guide to Marketing Automation.

In comparison, it took four years for social networking giant Facebook, which recently bought Instagram for $1 billion, to reach the same number of users. For some, that is an indication of just how big Instagram is becoming. But how can businesses benefit from this fast-growing app?

Firstly, what is Instagram?

Instagram is a free photo-sharing programme that allows users to take a photo, edit it, and then share it on a range of social networking services, including its own platform. Many big businesses are now using Instagram, including Pepsi, Burberry, Redbull and Starbucks, and the site has become popular worldwide with users from the Philippines, France, the UK, USA, Australia and Canada, to name a few.

With the proliferation of hand-held devices, busy people are increasingly opting for visual content to consume on the go. There is no doubt a photo is likely to have a stronger impact than text because of its visual, easier-to-consume nature. This principle was demonstrated by Twitter introducing photos and Facebook creating “Timeline” to make its profile pages more graphic.

How can businesses tap into Instagram?

Instagram should be seen as an opportunity to reach out to potential clients on a more personal level. It is interactive, allows you to tell your brand’s story in images, and encourages customers to feel connected and loyal to your business. For example, how was the business started? What do you do? What are your views or instituting principles? As the saying goes, a photo tells a thousand words so instead of boring prospective customers with lengthy descriptions, why not tell your story through photos?

Jewellery company Tiffany & Co often, for instance, posts behind-the-scene photos of the jewellery-making process to give customers an insight into how their favourite adornments are produced. This makes the customer feel more involved and therefore, more likely to buy.

Product-offering businesses can use Instagram to present their products and build brand loyalty but that is not to say that Instagram is solely for B2C companies. Some B2B organisations, such as Salesforce, have also been seen to harness the photo app effectively. For example, Salesforce promoted their Dreamforce X event by posting 7 reasons why you can’t miss Dreamforce X in pictures, in the hope that they would attract industry attendees. By mentioning A-list guest speakers, such as Sir Richard Branson, they have successfully stirred up interest in the event, which is due to take place in September.

What can Instagram be used for?

Like Twitter, Instagram uses the hash-tagging function which allows your business to find people who add photographs related to your brand. Blogger ‘Social Wayne’ observed that people were already posting photos of brands even as Instagram was in its early stages. Hashtags make tracking these people and businesses even easier, and can start trends based around your business. You can also hash-tag words or phrases to increase your chance of being found, for example #SEO.

Another benefit of hash-tagging is that it allows you to create an RSS feed of your Instagram photos. Since not all your customers will have an iPhone (note that Instagram has only recently become available to Android smart phones), incorporating the feed into your company’s Facebook or Twitter pages is a good way to keep users in the loop. The key is building a loyal brand following that wants to see your Instagram content, whether or not you are trying to sell something.

As we saw in the Salesforce example, Instagram can be used effectively for marketing upcoming events. Posting a photo allows your business to tell the world about an event in a more creative way than text alone does, and Instagram gives you another platform to share your brand content on, aside from your existing social networks and your website.

Photo contests are yet another creative way to stir up interest about your business. You can ask users to take a picture of your product or send in their favorite original photos related to your service. Alternatively, you could run a “caption contest” and upload a photo of your own. For example, General Electric ran a competition to find its next photographer, in which followers were asked to submit photos hash-tagged #GEInspiredMe. 4000 photos were posted and then put on Facebook where fans voted for the winner. This not only allowed GE to attract fans involved with several social platforms, but also managed to get people excited about turbine engines (which, admittedly, is no easy task!).

Although Instagram may still be a novelty in the marketing world, it is fast gaining popularity among UK consumers. Experian Hitwise recently found that it is the 10th most visited social network in the UK so savvy businesses recognising the value of being where their clients and customers are, should stand up and take note. With the ever-growing usage of mobile social sharing apps, Instagram may well soon become one of the must-have tools in the business marketing arsenal. The key to Instagram users’ hearts and minds will then lie in finding ways to deploy it with the precision of an archer and the creativity of an artist!

There’s a debate currently raging in a number of LinkedIn legal marketing groups about the value of search engine optimisation for law firms. While some group members believe a website not optimised for the search engines means fewer prospective clients, others insist that SEO is over-rated, especially in the conservative realm of law practices which traditionally rely on word-of-mouth recommendations as the tried-and-true route to winning new clients.

Those who are quick to dismiss SEO should note that in 2011 alone the UK marketplace for SEO grew by 18% to a value of £514 million, according to Econsultancy’s SEO Agencies Buyer’s Guide 2012. This upward trend in UK adoption of search engine optimisation practices indicates a rising need for optimised web content that has the potential to increase the visibility of a corporate website.

One of the recurrent arguments expressed in LinkedIn discussions is that law firms should disregard SEO and focus on producing high quality content, instead. This is certainly a valid point for old-school keyword-driven SEO. While ranking high for the right keywords is critical to your website getting found by new users, the only way to keep visitors on the page is by engaging them through compelling content. What is more, while many still draw a line between content marketing and SEO, there are indications that the distinction between the two domains will become irrelevant in the near future.

Content is becoming a critical part of SEO

You may think of search engine optimisation as a technical domain involving lengthy spreadsheets and testing keywords in Google Adwords. But with its most recent algorithm updates, Panda and Penguin, Google is moving closer towards a semantic search experience, serving up search results consisting of high quality socially shared content.

In fact, a recent report by Searchmetrics found that social media sharing and backlinks from reputable websites are the two most important factors affecting how a website ranks. Interestingly, the same study concluded that keywords are not as significant as they used to be as a ranking factor. Another prominent development, which Econsultancy identified in their SEO report, is the convergence of SEO, content marketing, and PR, pointing to a future where content marketing and SEO might become indistinguishable and inseparable as digital marketing techniques.

What does this mean for law firms who want to attract new clients?

Law firm partners, associates and marketing directors might rightfully argue that apart from commoditised legal services, search is not an opportunity creator. And indeed, prospective clients are more likely to start their journey for special complex and bespoke services by consulting their friends rather than searching online. But whatever type of service they are seeking, your prospective clients are likely to look up your website, your Facebook page and your Twitter profile, especially in a world where eight in 10 people search online before making a commitment to purchase a product or a service.

Faced with the challenges posed by the changes in the legal market such as ABS, law firms cannot rely on word-of-mouth only to gain competitive advantage – they need to build and optimise their online real estate.

As the boundaries between quality social content and SEO continue to blur and the two domains become more intertwined, law firms will need to build their online inbound marketing strategy around both. Great content is nothing without good SEO, which makes the firm’s content more visible. And vice versa, any SEO effort is pointless if there isn’t quality, engaging content which showcases your expertise, your trustworthiness and your commitment to providing outstanding legal services.

Google+ engagement has been proven to have potential SEO benefits – not surprisingly, Google’s very own social website has the strongest correlation with search rankings . But what is less known is that businesses can effectively harness the platform for lead generation, too.

Did you know Google+ could help you generate more leads?

Making it happen is actually not a rocket science. According to HubSpot, the trick is to accompany any content you post on Google+ – from text descriptions to visuals – with a link back to a landing page on your website, which will enable conversion.

Here are some tips from HubSpot’s e-book, 6 Ways to Generate Leads From Google+ which HubSpot claim come straight from the Google+ kitchen:

1. Share Compelling Content

Posting compelling updates that include links back to your website is, according to HubSpot, the most organic way of using Google+ for lead generation. A snippet or a teaser of content on Google+ opens the door for audience engagement and discussions, and is yet another way of stirring up people’s attention and driving them to your website, where you can capture their details and convert them into leads.

Chocolate manufacturer and London Olympics sponsor Cadbury, for instance, posted a call-to-action on their Google+ page to their “Win a Cadbury Hamper” campaign, with a snippet of the question and a link to a landing page. The user is then asked to provide the right answer, after which they can enter the competition by completing a form. A clever and engaging way of creating brand loyalty by offering users an incentive and taking them straight to a dedicated landing page. Within hours of being posted, this update had received 77 +1s and 77 comments.

The key here is to know how to create compelling landing pages and calls-to-action that will drive action!

2. Optimise the timing and frequency of your updates

Just as it is important to find the right type of content that will really strike a chord with your target audience, it is also critical to know when and how often to post updates. HubSpot recommends that you space your updates out so that users who follow your brand don’t get overwhelmed. In fact, that is what marketers would do on other social networks, such as Twitter and Facebook, for the reasons mentioned above.

3. Make your posts personal and better targeted

Just like Twitter, Google+ has its own vernacular, which allows you to make your engagement more personal and better targeted. The hashtag – “#” – immediately followed by a keyword, makes updates easier to find, while the “+” sign directly followed by a person’s name allows companies to speak directly to other users by tagging them.

Let’s look at an example of how leading tech news site Mashable makes use of these symbols. And note the impressive engagement indicators – 461 +1s and 103 shares!

HubSpot points out that by mentioning other Google+ users and pages in your posts your update is likely to appear in search results when people look for them on Google+ – something which gives your content even greater reach.

4. Optimise visual content for lead generation

Visual content, such as images and videos, rules the roost in social media, and Google+ is no exception. Besides text descriptions, you can add a link directly to an image (be it the cover photo, the profile image or a picture update) or a video, making it possible for users to click through to the landing page. Adding a link to the visual content, along with the text description, only increases the chances of Google+ users visiting your landing page.

One thing to watch out for is using a compelling and concise call-to-action to increase the chance of people clicking through.

And why not surprise users with a unique approach to visuals to make your Google+ page stand out? Recently it became possible to use cinemagraphs, and trendy apparel retailer Forever21 has instantly taken advantage, featuring an animated GIF on its Google+ cover.

Given the clear SEO and conversion opportunities that a Google+ business page has to offer, every business needs to consider the potential business benefits of engaging on what is the fastest growing social network. A pinch of inspiration from businesses that have got it right and a bit an understanding of the platform’s intricacies can make you a Google+ lead generation high-flyer. The only ingredient left is a dollop of lead generation best practices. Get it now and add it to the mix with our Essential Guide to Online Lead Generation.

Your condition as a content writer is aggravated by the fact you don’t have the freedom that fiction writers enjoy to choose your own plot and protagonists. What you have to nail is the narrative! Finding the right story and style that will strike a chord with the audience you wish to attract makes this a tight rope-walking exercise. So what do you do when you’ve lost your writing muse?

The folks from Copyblogger come to the rescue with this wonderful, colourful infographic, presenting 22 ways to create compelling content when you don’t have a clue. Beautifully designed by the BlueGrass infographic team, it should in itself be enough to stimulate your creativity. Enjoy!

Like this infographic? Get more content marketing tips from Copyblogger.

‘Big data’, relevancy and personalisation have been all the talk in the digital marketing world over the past year. But while marketers by and large have acknowledged the rising demand for content and services specifically tailored to the individual, the actual implementation has been seen as near impossible, mostly due to the segmentation limitations of existing social websites. This is now starting to change. Guess who is leading the way?

In what is seen as one of the most important developments in Facebook’s history, the social giant recently introduced new enhanced post targeting, allowing businesses to fine-tune their socially shared content to the nuances of different segments of their target audience.

Page owners, who have so far been able to target page posts by language and location, will soon be able to select the following targeting criteria when distributing updates in their news feeds:

- Age

- Gender

- Relationship status

- Education

- Workplace

- Language

- Location

Business Page managers can harness the new post targeting function to craft bespoke messages to different segments of their audience. The enhanced functionality has the potential benefits of reducing unsubscribes and ‘unlikes’ while increasing reach and engagement.

A move towards hyper-relevancy

With the change, it is clear Facebook is providing the opportunity for micro-targeting and hyper-relevancy, which more closely reflect social consumer reality and demands. “As brands seek to determine ROI and address social media fatigue, being able to deliver more relevant content as opposed to one-size-fits-all messaging could be very helpful,” points out Patricio Robles of Econsultancy, while in the same breath warning businesses that enhanced post targeting can create a false sense of increased effectiveness.

This is where marketing analytics comes into place as the indispensable part of the equation. It makes sense. To know exactly what you are getting out of the increased resource investment that the new Facebook capability requires, you need to have a sound performance measurement process in place.

This means making sure you track the right mix of behavioural and demographic social metrics which match your business and campaign objectives. A marketing automation tool, for instance, allows the integration of social media APIs so tracking, measuring and analysing social media performance directly within the tool is a quick, time-saving and cost effective way to measure return on investment.

This applies to any social network but particularly to Facebook, whose new granular targeting functionality, combined with the deep analytical capabilities of marketing automation, has the potential to solve the social media ROI conundrum, at least for this social channel.

What do you think about Facebook’s enhanced targeting functionality? Share your thoughts in the comments.

Who doesn’t like a bit of space imagery? Especially when related to something as unfathomable as the social media sphere, metaphors such as “solar system” and “asteroid fields” feel just right, and Marketo knew that quite well while they were designing this clever B2B infographic.

We totally subscribe to the idea that “your blog is your inbound marketing shuttle”, while your tech tools are “the engine of your inbound marketing machine” cruising around “visual content comets” such as Flickr, SlideShare, Instagram and YouTube, and “social news and message board asteroid fields” Pinterest, StumbleUpon, and the like.

Of course, in the deepest part of the social solar system lies the need to evaluate your social media performance – here is where “deep space marketing analytics” come into play to measure the reach and success of each piece of content, while targeted social buttons encourage people to share your content and marketing automation helps you funnel each user that engages with your content into your marketing pipeline.

To get some in-depth knowledge about how you can use marketing automation to fire up your inbound marketing engine, download our B2B Guide to Marketing Automation.

Well, it turns out there is. But what’s a more significant finding is that with the advent of inbound marketing and social media, email has evolved. Once a tool primarily used for lead generation, it now finds a more effective application in nurturing already acquired leads.

Pardot’s co-founder and COO, Adam Blitzer, explains these findings with the fact marketers now use a greater variety of lead generation tactics to capture prospect information, such as landing pages, forms, social media and paid search ads. “Email marketing is then used to move new leads through the sales process or to re-engage dormant leads,” Blitzer adds.

Invitation to a webinar wins hands on as the most effective offer to include in an email (and generate responses), followed by white papers and case studies. Check out this Pardot infographic for more survey findings.

Embedded from the Pardot Blog

Download our B2B Guide to Marketing Automation for some email marketing best practices!

Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP is a law practice with 23 offices, approximately 1,800 attorneys and more than 40 areas of practice. The Facebook Business Page the company created a mere two months ago has already attracted 874 ‘likes’ (and counting), which goes to show that the popular belief that law firms cannot benefit from a Facebook presence may not be true – at least not in all cases.

The legal company has placed the focus on the personal as a way of building trust – the Facebook Page cover features a collage made up of the individual faces behind the firm. Its Facebook account managers post pictures from various team building activities, links to interviews with/articles about its partners published in reputable media outlets, and news stories related to company achievements.

Even if it doesn’t directly contribute to winning new clients, Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP’s approach to Facebook can certainly be instrumental in increasing the firm’s online reach and building its reputation as a trusted law practice.

While consumer brands have embraced Facebook as a key tool in building deeper customer engagement, the biggest social network largely remains terra incognita in the legal world. The sector has certainly harnessed the professional networking capabilities of the world’s largest business social networking website LinkedIn. There is a logical explanation for this choice – LinkedIn more closely reflects traditional business networking, whereas Facebook as a network is seen as too personal – a place one is more likely to interact with friends, rather than search for law services.

Three Key Benefits of Facebook for Law Firms

Law firms who remain unconvinced of the business benefits of using Facebook cite the lack of tangible results as a key argument against adopting Facebook. However, some of the benefits (see below) are not to be ignored:

1. Increased brand awareness.

Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP has effectively harnessed the personal nature of Facebook and its social media activity is an example of Facebook marketing best practices. By introducing its attorneys and associates on its Facebook Business Page and posting team-related content, the firm has the potential to increase its reach, earn a good reputation and generate trust prior to directly engaging with prospective clients.

2. Higher search engine rankings.

A little known, yet considerable, advantage to setting up a Facebook Business Page is that with Google’s constant search algorithm updates, Facebook is turning into one of the most important factors affecting how a website ranks on Google. As Brightfire wrote recently, Facebook and Google+ activity has the strongest impact on search engine rankings, which means that setting up a Business Page, linking it to your website and occasionally posting updates will increase your online visibility.

3. Thought leadership.

With nearly a billion users, Facebook is the perfect platform for sharing owned and earned media content – from articles published in authoritative media outlets, related to the law firm, to proprietary blog posts. This helps establish a firm’s partners, attorneys and associates as thought leaders in their area of expertise.

Given the potential SEO benefits, online exposure, and thought leadership opportunities, law firms should think twice before they give Facebook the cold shoulder. Using it as one of the arrows in their online marketing quiver will increase their chances of hitting the target.

Acknowledging that social is still new and in the process of ongoing evolution, Return on Digital’s Social Media Executive Tim Grimes points out that with more than a billion online users combined, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn “can be targeted for business leads and sales with the correct strategy”. The key point here is that as with any other business activity, social media should be approached in a strategic way, with clear targets goals in mind.

As Grimes warns, “without an effective strategy and an understanding of their customer’s online behaviour, it could be a waste of valuable business hours.”

Enjoy this cleverly designed, informative graphic! What are your social media marketing challenges? Let us know in the comments.

Source: Return On Digital