I joined the Google+ community last summer, and although I thought Google+ was a great, new social media powerhouse backed by Google, one question lingered in the back of my mind: “How can Google+ be used for business?” I think I’ve found my answer.

For those of you not familiar with Google+, let me bring you up to speed. Google+ launched in June of 2011 as the invitation-only social networking platform powered by Google that was going to give Facebook a run for its money by creating an opportunity to make more genuine connections and share with specific “circles” versus a sea of “friends.”

Since last summer, its membership has grown significantly and includes everyone from young professionals, to CEOs and yes, even “Mr. Facebook” Mark Zuckerberg, himself. But how can businesses capitalize on Google+? Is it even worth it? Yes. According to Jason Cormier, writer for Search Engine Watch, businesses need to be active in Google+ for one simple reason: The quality and corresponding engagement around your search engine visibility stands to either noticeably improve or gradually decline.

Scanning the recent issue of Fast Company, I came across a blog post that would be of interest to many B2B marketers. The blogger acknowledges that while “content is king” for most marketers, the quality of the content is even more important. The blogger goes on to say that the current state of business writing — whether it be a website, press release, white paper or whatever — is, in essence, deplorable.

As a marketer in the B2B space, I must admit that I’m not surprised by this assessment. In talking with many of our clients and colleagues in the industry, we’ve heard them echo this same sentiment. These days, companies need marketing and PR materials that talk benefits and address customer needs, rather than focus on the latest product features and functionality. Don’t get me wrong, “speeds and feeds” are important, but only later in the buying cycle.

As a B2B PR and marketing agency, we represent clients from a number of industries who share one common thread — they are all in the technology space. As a result, we look for writers who can write in a number of different styles and on a variety of topics. When in the market for writing talent, here are a few tips we suggest you keep in mind:

• It takes a slightly different skill set to write for marketing than it does for PR. Marketing is persuasive. PR is factual.
• Ask the job interviewee how he or she would refresh your website. If the person starts out wanting to talk about your company first, as opposed to your customers’ needs, you probably want to keep interviewing.
• Ask to see short writing samples. The shortest writing assignments are the toughest because they must be concise. Look for copy that introduces the problem first, followed by a value statement, then additional details (if needed) and finally a call-to-action in the closing. If the writer is good, all of the above can be accomplished in 200 words (or less!).
• Consider giving a potential new hire a writing test on site.

One last tip to take into account if you are looking to improve the quality of your marketing content: writing is a skill part learned and part talent. Meaning, high school English teachers can only do so much; writing is a talent not everyone shares. Therefore, once you find someone who can write relevant, personalized, high-quality content for each of your audiences (customers, employees, shareholders, etc.), hold onto that person. In today’s market, people with this skill are hard to come by.

The latest CMO Counsel survey (Jan. 2012) is good news for firms, like Arketi, which believe the right marketing strategies link to and build business value – you know Where Marketing Generates Revenue.

The research finds multi-national client marketers are seeking strategic contributions (57 percent) and business value created (56 percent) from their marketing agencies. Other key considerations include:

• Agency efficiency and effectiveness (50 percent)
• Market impact and success of campaigns (42 percent), and
• Creative excellence (42 percent).

Another finding of note included that the top technique for improving client-agency collaboration, output and performance is the religious work to keep all teams fully aligned and in-sync with objectives and deliverables.

In addition, marketers said fresh ideas, analytics and perspectives were what they value the most from outside agencies.  For more on this study check out the great blog post from Marketing Charts or download the entire report from the CMO Counsel.

In 2011, Arketi has was able to help families, individuals and companies from Greater Atlanta to Uganda and Afghanistan.

As a firm, Arketians collected with boxed and canned goods for the Atlanta Community Food Bank during its annual Arketi Turkey Day Food Drive. Employees filled up bags and the donation barrel to the rim during October and November. The food bank then distributed the groceries to low-income families in Metro Atlanta and throughout North Georgia.

Arketi also gathered snacks, toiletries, baby wipes and other items to send to troops at FOB Shank located in the Loghar Province of Afghanistan.

Another way employees helped out is by contributing to Hands of Love – an organization that improves the lives of children and their families affected by the humanitarian crisis in Uganda. Arketi “adopted” three children there and provided each of them with school supplies, clothes and a Christmas gift.

In 2011, Arketi gave “in-kind” offerings to several non-profit organizations, such as High Tech Ministries and HealthMPowers. Arketi provided public relations, event coordination support, design services and more.

Arketians supported clients with their community service programs, as well. For instance, Arketi staffers joined Knowlagent at the MUST Toy Shop, operated by MUST Ministries – a local non-profit organization that provides shelter and services to persons in crisis.

MUST’s store gave parents an opportunity to “shop” for items for their children with a volunteer personal shopper. Thanks to the MUST Toy Shop and volunteers, approximately 4,500 children delighted in opening presents on Christmas morning.

Arketi has been able to give back to the community in these several ways to help make the past year brighter for so many deserving people. Visit Arketi’s Community page to read more about its outreach programs.

The growth of various forms of one and two-way communication, including text messaging and social media, is causing some to question the viability of email as an effective vehicle for marketing campaigns.

But reports of the death of email may have been greatly exaggerated – at least in the BtoB marketing arena. A recent article in BtoB Magazine states that email marketing is alive and well with open rates trending upwards. The article, which includes survey results from a study conducted by a marketing company and the Direct Marketing Association, states that email open rates increased by nearly 8 percent in Q3 2011 – a fairly significant jump in a mature market space.

The article also includes information from a second survey in which 60 percent of respondents stated they plan to increase email marketing budgets. In the same survey only 55 percent of respondents stated that they planned to boost social media marketing budgets.

Even with the increased popularity of email marketing campaigns, communications professionals need to know and exercise best practices to ensure campaigns are effective and successfully engaging with customers and prospects. To start, know your audience (preferably with specific industry data) and, moreover, the audience’s collective tolerance level for email. The mass move to mobile means many recipients are viewing emails on tablets and other devices and marketers need to keep this in mind when developing content and determining offers.

To see the complete BtoB article, headlined Email Trends: Spotlight on Strengths, Challenges, click here.

Recently, the folks at the Content Marketing Institute published a survey entitled “B2B Content Marketing: 2012 Benchmarks, Budgets and Trends”—a survey which further validates Arketi’s own findings at our fourth Annual High Tech CMO Roundtable event .

According to the survey, content marketing, which is viewed as one of the hottest trends in publishing in 2011, is poised to continue its market dominance in the upcoming year. In fact, 60 percent of surveyed business-to-business marketing personnel plan to increase content market spending in 2012. On average, the surveyed marketing personnel allocate 26 percent of their total budget to content marketing initiatives.

According to CMI’s findings, BtoB marketers use an average of 8 content marketing tactics to achieve their goals. Article posting ranks the highest with 79 percent usage; social media (other than blogs) is used by 74 percent of survey respondents. Blogs, enewsletters and case studies rounded out the top 5 with 65 percent, 63 percent and 58 percent of the vote.  See below for full ranking.

In the social media sector, Twitter reigns supreme. Twitter use increased by 35 percent to 74 percent in 2011, with Facebook use up 30 percent from 2010 numbers to 70 percent. Joe Pulizzi, founder of the CMI, noted that, “Twitter, from a listing standpoint and niche content standpoint, is easier to use in a niche business rather than a large consumer. You’re focused on hashtags and different searches that are focused on content sets. Twitter is our most effective broadcasting tool: less social media, more broadcasting.”

“Twitter is closer to what they [marketers] are doing now, as opposed to Facebook, where you really have to interact,” he stated.

YouTube and LinkedIn shared double digit jumps with increased usage of 47% and 39% respectively, while blog and video use leaped 27 percent in 2011 from 2010.

In 2011, we posted a B2B Marketing Minute that summarized our own content marketing tend findings from our Annual CMO Roundtable. We learned that 90% of BtoB organizations are now engaged in content marketing. In addition, more than a quarter of BtoB organizations’ marketing budgets would be used on content marketing alone in 2011.

Stay tuned to find out the latest findings and predictions for 2012, as we’ll reveal our 5th Annual Roundtable findings for both the Atlanta office and our new North Carolina branch.

As another year draws to a close, many of us are looking back at the past 12 months with an eye toward 2012. In the spirit of continual improvement, this is also the time when we begin setting New Year’s Resolutions. As we all know, most of these well-meaning resolutions typically fall by the wayside mid-February. Setting aside the personal, what are your professional resolutions for 2012? I have proposed a few below which we could all benefit from:

1.  Leveraging social media
You recognize the importance of social media and may even have a LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter account. But are you actively mining your social media channels for opportunities and leads? According to a recent study by Pardot Marketing Automation, 52.5 percent of marketers are spending 10 percent of their marketing budgets on social media activities, with nearly as many stating that 10 percent of their leads come from social media channels. Connecting and engaging in the conversation is key in truly maximizing this channel.

2.  Doing the little things

Want to set yourself apart from your peers and impress others? It really is the little things that make a difference here. Do more than is expected of you internally and externally to set a great example. Show up to your meetings on time or even a few minutes early. Send your business partners an email after hours to let them know you are always thinking about their business. Practice the art of listening, both online and offline and practice repeating what you heard.

3.  Employ the KISS method
In an era of information deluge, it is increasingly difficult to follow the maxim, Keep it Simple Stupid (KISS). Do not call meetings unless you have defined an express purpose and outcome. Following the KISS method means streamlining your interactions and ultimately, giving yourself time to focus.

A recent article from BtoB Magazine on Marketing Automation sparked a somewhat interesting debate among members of the Marketing Automation Association LinkedIn Group, and I thought it worth revisiting. The article’s main point was to imply, somewhat strongly, that the marketing automation and business intelligence tools available to today’s BtoB marketers have essentially changed marketing from a right brain to a left brain profession. (Slight detour for those, like me, who sometimes have trouble telling our right brain from our left – right brain dominant individuals tend to be more creative while their left brain dominant counterparts tend toward the analytic.)

It’s true that today’s automation and analytic engines are offering marketers tools and capabilities that we could only wish for a decade or two ago. However, I think it would be a mistake, and would set BtoB marketing back significantly, if these new tools resulted in anything less than a strong and equally deployed mix of right brain and left brain skills.

I would say that most successful marketers realize that, to be effective, marketing requires both creative and analytic thinking. Certainly, killer creative can at times overcome flaws in mix or deployment strategy. And ending up on the right side of a killer opt-in list built from relentless analysis of personas and prospect actions can make up for a bit of pedestrian creative. But when a strong, relevant creative message is paired with a well thought out campaign strategy built on solid analytic models, true magic can occur.

As point of fact, two of the more successful and creative campaigns I’ve been associated with recently had to do with an Indiana Jones type multimedia campaign and a zombie-based video and trade show support plan. Both leveraged analytic tools to validate results and both required a lot of left brain thinking. But I’d say it was the combination of both the pre and post campaign analysis and strong creative that made the efforts a success.

It is true that today’s comprehensive business intelligence and marketing automation solutions have made delivery against performance metrics a regular part of a marketers success criteria. And this goes well beyond the time-worn ROI numbers we’ve all used for decades.  Today, lifetime value, lead to revenue and pipeline conversion results rule. And marketers are more than ever held accountable for their decisions.

In addition to post-campaign analytics, today’s BtoB marketers can take advantage of a myriad of testing tools that enable A/B and multivariate testing of every conceivable campaign element before hitting a “Go” button. But I still believe that the best marketers are leveraging those tests to find the best of a series of strong creative elements pulled from the deep resources of their right brain.

Hopefully we don’t ever lose that.

Over the weekend, the Arketi team celebrated the holidays together at Ray’s on the River with delicious food, drinks and company. Celebrating their first winter holiday with Arketi were several new team members along with Arketi veterans, family and friends.

As tradition, Arketians brought a wrapped gift and participated in “bad santa”  by opening and/or stealing a present.

After all the stealing, we then confess to which funny, useful, or pampering present we brought.

Check out more holiday photos on Arketi’s Picasa album. From our team to yours, have a wonderful holiday season and an exciting new year!

We’ve come to that time of year again when budgeting is in full season, and it made me think about how organizations approach budgeting differently, particularly as it relates to marketing.
I was talking with a CMO recently, and he said, “I have the ‘CFO cut’ built into my budget, so we should be good.” You see, this CMO has figured out that come the mid-Q3 timeframe, the CFO is going to get nervous and ask for money back from the budget. So, he has learned to put that money in ahead of time, so he could ‘give it back.’ Sounds like a game, doesn’t it?

Oftentimes, we are asked by our clients to think outside the budget, to plan as if there was no budget in place. Rather, they want us to build a plan that will execute at a level that ensures the goal is reached. Having gone through this exercise a number of times, the outcomes tend to fall into one of two scenarios:

1.  The budget is truly fixed, and the thinking and strategy to determine what was really necessary to make the objective happen was a theoretical exercise and a waste of time, or
2. The exercise was strategic and sincere. The CEO takes the feedback and goes to the board for approval to expand the marketing budget and take the market by force.

It might not surprise you to know that scenario #1 plays out much more often than scenario #2… maybe this is why so many marketers look upon the budgeting process with disdain, thinking it is “fixed” or a game in of itself.

Maybe it is time that marketers challenged the process and asked the strategic question, “What are we truly trying to achieve this year, and will we invest appropriately to make it happen?” For example, if we want to double sales, but will only increase the marketing budget by 5%, is that truly realistic?

Perhaps marketers should worry less about following the budgeting process and more about leading the strategic discussion.  Maybe then, the budgeting process will become strategic.

This post was also featured on TAG Think.