This morning’s eMarketer Daily email contained an interesting article on BtoB marketers’ use social media. This article’s comparison of BtoB social media usage to that of their  BtoC counterparts seems slightly flawed. Those who are true experts in BtoB marketing understand  marketing in this environment is drastically different from marketing to consumers.

Assuming BtoB and BtoC usage of social media should mirror each other is  dangerous (we all know what happens when you “assume”). In addition, using the answer “daily social engagement” as a mechanism to measure an organization’s social media engagement is a touch too ridged.

Having played in the BtoB social media space for many years now, it’s not uncommon to find a “social media engaged” BtoB company that does not interact  with social media platforms daily. In the BtoB social media space, savvy marketers determine the cadence of channel usage based on their audience.

For example, in some industries, blog postings on a bi-weekly schedule are better than daily or weekly posts because they align with the audience’s rate of consumption. Utilizing this approach will decrease the likelihood of “channel fatigue” and consequently increase the overall value of your social media investment.

By and large, we find the research interesting, and know it is something that must be looked at with a critical eye and consumed with other information in mind. This reminded me of a great Mark Twain quote:

“There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics.”

Consume it, digest it, question it and then find the time to learn how social media might work within your specific audiences. 

You can read the full article below or click here.

B2B Marketers Gain Ground with Social

Perceived irrelevance still a barrier

Business-to-business (B2B) companies are participating in the social space, but they are not yet as engaged as their business-to-consumer (B2C) brethren and face greater internal obstacles, according to a report from digital marketing agency White Horse.

Comparable numbers of B2B and B2C marketers were not doing any social marketing at all, but business-oriented firms were much more likely to say they had social media accounts but little marketing activity.

One reason: More than one-third of B2B marketers surveyed said there was low executive interest in social media in their company, compared with 9% of B2C marketers who said the same. Overall, about one-quarter of corporate marketers told White Horse they needed to learn more about social media to justify investment in the space, but the issue was more pressing for B2B respondents.

Fully 46% of B2B respondents said social media was perceived as irrelevant to their company, while only 12% of consumer-oriented marketers had the same problem. B2Bs also reported a much greater preference for traditional marketing tactics.

There was also a large disparity in the proportion of B2B marketers who said they were not measuring social success at all, at 34%, versus just 10% of B2C respondents.

Other studies have shown that B2B marketers are more effective at measurement because they focus on outcomes that matter to their bottom line, such as lead generation.

Source: eMarketer Daily May 27, 2010

The Cain and Abel-like relationship between marketers and their sales teams appears to have gone the way of the horse and buggy, according to a recently-released industry survey by BtoB and a marketing automation provider.

While marketers still face their share of challenges according to the “B2B Marketer Skills Snapshot Survey,” most respondents stated that working with the sales team has improved over the last few years.

One respondent believes the economy has created an environment in which we all need to get along. Technology also is a key driver in improving the once antagonistic relationship between sales and marketing.

“Technology makes it easier to communicate in real time, and that enhances the relationship,” said Ernest Thompson, director-corporate marketing and branding for Guardian Industries, a global manufacturer of glass, automotive and building products. “Organizationally, there’s a trend toward compensation schemes that apply to both sales and marketing.”

Asked what would most help to alleviate their challenges, “increased budget” was the clear winner, followed by “bigger team/staff.” This result was consistent regardless of the size of the organization. Other key findings include:

• Asked to rank in importance the metrics they use to judge the success of an online campaign, revenue (87%) beat out gross measures such as click-through rate (53%) and Web site traffic (48%), seeming to indicate that, online at least, marketers have come to align their metrics with bottom-line business objectives.
• When asked about the goal and mission of the marketing department, the largest percentage of respondents picked “to drive qualified leads,” with more than half (52%) saying this was marketing’s “most important” mission.

Conducted between March 19 and April 5, 2010, the survey collected 544 responses, primarily from b-to-b marketing organizations. The read the full story, visit http://www.btobonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100503/FREE/100509997/1207/RESEARCH.

Are you, like a lot of companies, looking for a proven, measurable way to generate leads? If so, then consider this:

• According to SiriusDecisions, 50% of BtoB companies will have marketing automation by 2015.
• Companies that get lead scoring right have a 192% higher average lead qualification rate than those that don’t, according to Aberdeen Group.
• Nurturing (leads) with relevant communication and multiple touches increased conversion to sales leads by 375% in the first 8 months, according to inTouch and Marketing Experiments.

Marketing automation is a great way to drive email communications and assess online behavior of prospects and clients. If you decide to set up a marketing automation platform, here are two things to keep in mind …

1. Marketing automation is first and foremost about change management. To be successful, you need to change how you handle a prospect, which means you need to update your marketing process. Rather than worrying about guiding a prospect through your entire lead nurture process, instead focus on getting to know your prospect and his needs so you can identify where he is in the buying cycle and better market to him.
2. Content is a critical factor to feed successful demand generation programs. According to a survey of 100 B2B buyers in the DemandGen Report, “Breaking out of the funnel,” 78% of buyers start the buying process by gathering informal information. Therefore, you need to have sufficient content already created in order to support multiple messages and calls to action. When developing content, categorize according to these three needs: attracting prospects, provides information to overcome objections and supports decisions by providing case studies or testimonials.

To learn more about Marketing Automation, read our Five Steps to Automate Your BtoB Marketing white paper.

It’s not totally clear from this article just what counts as “advertising,” but one imagines TV accounts for the largest chunk. As the writers note, Apple seems to be on TV all the time – certainly as frequently as Microsoft – whereas I can’t remember the last time I saw an Ebay or Yahoo commercial. Perhaps I’m watching channels whose demographics better fit Apple/Microsoft?

Even then, I don’t get the feeling I’m seeing Microsoft twice as often as Apple. Which suggests Apple is getting more bang for its buck.  (I do like the “Windows 7 was my idea” spots, though, especially the French girl. There’s an infectious enthusiasm which the brand really needed.)

CHART OF THE DAY: Here’s How Much Tech Companies Spend On Advertising
Jay Yarow and Kamelia Angelova | May. 7, 2010, 1:12 PM
via CHART OF THE DAY

Yahoo plans to spend $80 million on the next leg of its big ad campaign. If that sounds like a lot, that’s because it is. It’s almost double the amount Yahoo spent on advertising last year and 40 times what rival AOL spent on advertising in 2009.

WPP-owned Kantar Media provided us with data on tech companies’ 2009 total ad spend across print, online, radio, tv, and outdoor. We also plotted the ad spend as a percentage of revenue to see which company gets the most from the least.

Yahoo spent $45 million on ads last year, second most among Internet companies. eBay’s $89 million ad spend led the way, especially when shown as a percent of revenue. Of these companies, Google spent just $11 million on ads, which is the least as percent of revenue. (This makes sense, because Google rarely advertises on TV.)

Another interesting thing in the data: Apple spends half as much on ads as Microsoft, and appears to get more out them. This sort of surprised us, as it seems that iPhone ads are constantly on TV.