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Arketi Group, a high-tech BtoB PR and marketing firm, recently had a chance to speak with University of Georgia professor Dr. Kaye Sweetser, APR, after her September PRSA|GA social media seminar. Dr. Sweetser emphasized the importance of due diligence in social media strategy and provided a laundry list of Twitter best practices.

Simply based on numbers, it is understandable that Twitter use is dominated by everyday consumers. Statistics from the “Twitter and the Consumer-Marketer Dynamic” white paper shows that 90 percent of all tweets come from regular users, compared to the eight percent from marketers.

Enlisting the help of the consumer through brand advocacy has become a goal of marketers with Twitter accounts. However, nearly three-quarters of marketer’s tweets were those containing news content or general company information. These marketers devoted only 16 percent of their tweets to conversing with the customer.Why should marketers expect consumers to advocate their business when they rarely interact? The social media movement de jour is for spending more time interacting with their customers in efforts to start discussion and retweeting. By doing so, companies will be more likely to take full advantage of the brand advocacy potentials of Twitter.Today, marketers are more concerned with “talking at people – not with them.” While some in the social media space see this as a chance to rake marketers over the hot coals, we disagree. This shows that marketers are using the tool, getting familiar with it and, like consumers, their use of it will evolve over time. When that happens, the organization will likely be able to take advantage of the fact that 43 percent of tweets are conversation, indicated by the “@” character.For more information, visit http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?R=1007847

Whitney Boudreaux of Arketi Group talking about 3D Content Mapping at the Elevate 2010: Pardot User Conference in Atlanta on Tuesday, Sept. 28, 2010.

Arketi Group's Whitney Boudreaux speaks on 3D Content Mapping. Photo by Jep Castelein.

Is your marketing content strategy still one-dimensional?
This year, BtoB companies will invest as much as one-third of their total marketing budgets in developing content to fuel lead nurturing activities.  Unfortunately, for many, this investment will not pay off as planned in increased visibility, lead capture or better bottom-line results. 

What’s missing is an overall, well-thought-out and comprehensive content strategy. In today’s attention-challenged, ultra-segmented and over-marketed BtoB environment, the traditional approach of developing a few white papers, case studies and data sheets and blasting them out to a list of all suspects, prospects and customers, hoping to achieve the “nirvana” of a high download rate are over – for good.

Three-D isn’t only for Hollywood blockbusters featuring blue-skinned aliens.  Managing content today also requires a three-dimensional strategic approach that considers all aspects of delivering your message to a relevant audience in an ongoing and impactful way. We call it 3D Content Mapping.

Read more… 

Webinars are becoming one of the best and most popular ways to increase customer acquisition, according to a Forrester Research report referenced in a BtoB Online article earlier this month. In fact, an online survey of more than 600 companies found that more than 50 percent of respondents planned to increase their spending on webinars this year.

Before you line up speakers and send out invitations to your next webinar, consider the following tips to make sure your webinar engages customers and prospects and prompts them to buy your solutions.

• Timing is Everything. Denise Persson, VP-marketing and CMO of webinar technology firm ON24 Inc. suggested avoiding Mondays and Fridays, as both are peak in-office meeting days, which can drag down webcast attendance. The best time of the day is 1 p.m. EST, as this also accommodates West Coast attendees, Persson said.
• Practice Makes Perfect. Have presenters, whether they are in-house experts or third-party speakers, do a live run-through making sure length is right. You’ll also want to approve content and messaging, making sure it’s not offensive, repetitive or boring. On the day of the webinar, ask speakers to invite colleagues to sit with them during the presentation since having an actual audience will improve presentation delivery.
• It’s Not About You. BtoB Marketers often forget to keep the language customer focused. The webinar and all promotions and collateral produced for the event should reflect the pain points of the audience—not how your company sells its products. “Marketers are insular,” stated Michael Greene, interactive marketing analyst at Forrester in the Sept. 13^th article headlined, Webinars 101. “They use language that refers to their own internal specifications rather than looking at what challenges are facing the customers.” Catchy headlines that discuss the real take-away work well, he added.

For more information, or to read the entire article go to http://www.btobonline.com/article/20100913/FREE/309139986/webinars-101

To view some of Arketi’s recent webinars, go to http://www.arketi.com/webinar.html

Some interesting date from a recent survey report…

“Daily Twitter users who followed a brand were more than twice as likely as daily Facebook users who “liked” a brand to say they were more likely to purchase from the brand after becoming a social media follower. What’s more, Facebook fans were the most likely group to actively disagree with the question. Subscribers to opt-in marketing emails fell in the middle.” (Source: emarketer)

Something to think on!

The need for print circulations is without a doubt declining, however, the need for news is only growing, but in a new fashion: The Internet.

The Internet has become a crucial component to most Americans lives today. It is an easy, portable, and reliable way of receiving information, including the news. A new ComScore release affirms that more than 123 million Americans visited newspaper websites in May, which is 57 percent of the total U.S. Internet audience. Not surprising to many, the New York Times Brand led the category with more than 32 million visitors and 719 million pages viewed during the month.

News on the web is also an emerging opportunity for advertisers, “visitors who are exposed to display ads on news sites are more likely than average to visit the advertiser website, are heavier online buyers, and tend to have higher household income,” according to the report.

 This study was published by ComScore.

A recent study reveals that six in 10 adult Americans go online wirelessly each week, many from a smart phone. The most interesting part of this study is that cell phone ownership has not increased significantly in the past year, but owners are beginning to utilize their cell phone’s capabilities more.

Businesses have an opportunity to capitalize on this upswing of technology. Of all cell phone users, 11 percent have used their phone to make a purchase this year, something unheard of just a few years ago. Up nine percent from last April, many people – 34 percent – are using their smart phones to check email when away from home or the office. When looking at the 30 – 49 age group, over 43 percent are using their smart phones to access the internet.  

As people continue to utilize the functions of their smart phone, businesses should look into creating mobile applications or offering mobile-friendly versions of their website. Consumers are inviting business into their personal lives via cell phone by using wireless internet – business should respond to the trend early and engage with these consumers through this new vertical.

Learn more about these wireless internet statistics.

Arketi’s Site of the Week is back and ready to critique another website. Fret not, it’s also a short read this week.

This week we are looking at http://www.tunnelbravo.com.

What I really like about this site is the user experience. Click on the work examples and notice the affect on the page layout. Yet another effective use of JavaScript.

Another feature worth pointing out on this site is the stationary background. I’m seeing more of this and I think it’s a cool effect and a good way to ensure consistent brand identity on a site.

Bonus site:
For fun, check out http://unsuck-it.com. Have you ever been in a loss for non-jargon for your business correspondences? UnSuckIt is the site for you.

Twitter users choose to follow certain companies for a reason. “Subscribers, Fans, and Followers: Twitter X-Factors” indicates the largest single percentage of users who follow a company, brand, or association do so because they have a desire to get updates on future products. Another 32 percent, the second largest percentage, want to get more information about the activities of a company.

It makes sense that users would want the inside scoop on an organization, and Twitter is often the most recently updated source for a given business. By checking for updates via Twitter, the consumer can know when it is time to prepare to invest and when one should be watching other markets.

Following these two informational reasons, the next highest percentages of Twitter users follow companies to receive discounts (31 percent) and freebies, such as coupons and samples (28 percent). Unfortunately, only 23 percent follow to show support for a company and only 20 percent have a desire to interact with the company.

For a company, successfully integrating Twitter into its overall marketing strategy can be tricky. According to ExactTarget, the key to success is to not think of Twitter as a way to maintain direct relationships with customers, but as a way to serve those customers who chose to follow them.

For more information on this study, visit http://bit.ly/8XzvdI.

The excitement around marketing automation systems and the extended lead nurturing activities they enable shows no sign of abating within the B2B community.  And that’s a great thing. These multi-faceted tools are enabling Marketers to delivering more relevant, timely and – ultimately – more impactful information to their prospect base, monitor prospect’s every electronic “footstep”, score and grade prospects every characteristic, etc..

And if you read the collateral from Automation vendors, it’s clear that today’s tools will do everything the B2B marketer needs – including delivering the late-night caffeine shot and monitoring the marketing team’s fashion sense. 

What many seem to lose sight of during the euphoria of launching the first drip campaign is answering the question “Why did I start down this path in the first place?”

Was it to offset staff reductions in the Marketing department that make email campaign execution more difficult? 

Was it to avoid the constant nagging from the Sales team that Marketing leads are worthless? 

Was it to stop the “How much revenue have you generated for me lately?” hallway conversations with the CEO? 

We like to think of automation as the next frontier that will revolutionize marketing from ground up.  It no doubt will over time.  But as a first step in this grand transformation, maybe it would make sense to step back and identify the top 3-5 immediate things you want your shiny new tool to do for you as you build the internal business case.

If you are part of the fortunate that have their execs convinced that a complete marketing retooling with the long-term ROI this type of change entails makes sense, great.  For the rest of us, dealing with shorter-term requirements, setting the stage with more modest, immediate and measurable objectives – which, by the way, automation tools provide as well —  just might offer a better path for success.