At Grant Marketing, we like to stay ahead of the curve and that’s also the reason why we spend a great deal of time researching, monitoring current marketing trends, gathering consumer insights and pushing beyond this to deliver customized marketing solutions. This year we bring the concept of marketing automation into our zeitgeist. Although it is an evolving concept that many companies particularly in the B2B space are still grappling to acquire the right knowledge in order to leverage this technology to its full potential which exists today. This blog aims to impart a degree of understanding on the importance of embarking on a marketing automation journey for B2B, as there is a general consensus now more than ever, the value of marketing automation capabilities needs to be understood by both small and medium-sized B2B to large enterprises.

To start with, there are several marketing automation definitions floating around the internet, but the one that fits well with B2B marketing automation is defined by Marketo, “marketing automation is the use of technology to manage and automate the process of converting prospective customers into actual buyers. By automating the various tasks and workflows involved in demand generation, lead management, and sales and marketing alignment, marketing automation contributes to shorter sales cycles, increased revenue, and better marketing ROI.”  Modern Marketing automation platforms play a critical role as we move towards an era of personalization, with the use of sophisticated technology they have become purveyor of highly personalized marketing. It is important to note that the foundation of marketing automation is laid by gathering in-depth information on the existing and potential customer’s preferences and behavior. And that is something which is on every B2B company’s wish list. But according to Sirius Decisions Benchmarking report, only 25% of all organizations (B2B and B2C) have invested in marketing automation and are utilizing it to the fullest.   To make the case for marketing automation even stronger and viable, particularly in the B2B space, where marketing is complex, involves multiple stakeholders and longer sales cycle; there is a greater need for a defined, track able marketing process or platform and marketing automation provides that platform to achieve success in terms of driving customer intimacy, productivity and revenue growth.

Let us now take a cursory look at the components that make up the concept of marketing automation:

Lead Generation: It involves creating demand or leads at the top of the buying funnel. These are the leads that begin the conversation between a prospect and an organization and later kick start the sales cycle.

Data Segmentation: This process includes classifying leads data on the basis of job roles, industry, region and various other criteria. Data segmentation can happen at different levels.

Lead Scoring: Scoring of leads is a relative ranking of prospective buyers over one another. It is an unbiased way of determining the prospects that are ready for more attention from the organization. Lead scoring is a way of learning the make-up of the buyer profile.

Lead Nurturing: Lead nurturing is the process of communicating with leads/customers/buyers, building better engagement and enabling better movement through the buyer profile.

Program Management: Program Management in marketing automation includes effectively automating management of essential campaign processes, customer communication management across channels, tracking responses, consolidating and reporting results.

Campaign Measurement: Measuring marketing campaigns is a procedure of creating, executing and measuring marketing programs with a specific target audience.

Workflow: It is a pre-determined path of interactions for prospects to experience based on their profile, demographic and/or behavioral data with a goal of nurturing and building relationships.

Revenue Cycle: The revenue cycle starts from the day the organization first meets a prospect and continues through the sale and beyond, to the customer relationship.

Bottom Line: Marketing automation provides method to the madness!

Grant Marketing offers a demo and free trial of marketing automation at Marketing Auto Demo.

Written by Vidushi Bhardwaj

Vidushi Bhardwaj is the Content Marketing Strategist at Grant Marketing. She possess a strong background in content marketing and integrated marketing communications. Passionate about innovation in the digital marketing and social media space has driven her to the marketing world. You can connect with her by sharing your thoughts on her blog.

As mentioned in our previous blog, B2B companies are slowly and steadily dipping their toes in the social media water, and rightly so. But there is another storm brewing in the present digital ecosystem, which is integrating mobile into the current B2B marketing mix. According to Forrester Research report for 2012, “By 2016, smart phones and tablets will put power in the pockets of a billion global consumers, and mobile is the manifestation of a much broader shift to new systems of engagement”.  This power shift is compelling not only for B2C companies to pay attention to mobile marketing, but B2B companies are also waking up to the innumerable opportunities, this evolving and interactive “touch point” can offer them.

Mobile smart phones and tablets are quickly becoming a way of life for all, especially for the on-the go workforce. To put things into perspective for B2B, mobile devices are MUST have business tools and are also the primary mode of communication used by many B2B professionals. More importantly, smart phones – sophisticated mobile devices have become an omnipresent all-in-one digital companion of the masses, which combines the capabilities of a personal computer/laptop, landline phone and Internet. Due to mass conversion in the consumption of communication and content on mobile devices today, mobile has the power to justify the status of being the biggest media platform.

By sheer virtue of the phenomenal adoption rate particularly in the B2B space, as mentioned in Marketing Sherpa Benchmark Report for 2012; B2B customers are using smart phones and tablets more than B2C customers. The growing use of mobile devices is driving the needs, attitudes, purchase behaviors and expectations among this new breed of B2B segment, which is more connected, more research-oriented, and more informed than their predecessors. Yet, B2B companies are slow to untap the full potential of this anywhere, anytime, always-on mobile media, in their pursuit to connect and engage with business audiences.

According to a research led by Oracle and Endeca in November 2011, published in an e-marketer article, “nearly one-quarter of B2B ecommerce professionals said that mobile web was one of the most influential touch points for their customers; In addition, 28 percent of US c-level executives used a mobile device to research business purchases, 21 percent used a tablet”.  The significance of how content consumption habits have changed among the senior decision-making business executives further implies that B2B companies need to embrace mobile in their marketing efforts more than ever.

Moving forward, in the high-touch, highly personal selling environment of B2B, where building one to one customer-relationships is the Holy Grail, thus making it imperative for B2B businesses to have mobile-friendly assets. To make the case for mobile-optimized content marketing opportunities for B2B even stronger and viable, Donovan Neale – May, executive director of the CMO Council, mentions in the study “Engage at Every Stage”, “Mobile is an enormously impactful channel for differentiating a brand and creating much closer and more dependable relationships with customers, suppliers, and the entire value chain”.  For B2B companies to venture into the world of mobile, a haphazard approach to developing and implementing mobile marketing strategies just by having a mobile-friendly website is not sufficient. Like everything else in Marketing, mobile marketing initiatives require aligning of the complex and rapidly evolving mobile ecosystem involving different combinations of device, wireless operator, and operating system, with the companies’ objectives and needs.  Jim Hemmer, CEO of Antenna Software, emphasizes in a Forbes article, on the need for mobile undertakings to be interactive and agile rather than tactical one-off projects with a beginning and an end.

Below are some mobile marketing “best practices” to guide your lead generation and nurturing efforts, in the B2B landscape.

Assess: To start with, it is important to assess what specific pieces of the existing content library are best suited for the mobile-specific business audience in order for them to make informed decisions, perform tasks and stay up-to-date. This can mean providing users with shorter version of lengthy content through short videos, content feeds or text message alerts. And which mobile tools and approach can enhance the overall B2B marketing campaign? For instance, there are potentially dozens of mobile tools at the disposal of marketers such as, QR code, location-based mobile services, mobile apps, mobile-friendly websites, mobile web banner ads and mobile e-mail/text messaging and multi-media messaging, all depending upon which mobile tools support the needs of the business audience.

Optimization: The key is to optimize the content of the website for the mobile environment with a special focus on improving the readability and relevance of the content to ensure campaign success and stickiness. All content, links, destination pages should be mobile-optimized and presented in a consistent, simple and easy-to-use manner, which not only drives engagement but also leverages to extend brand value proposition among its target consumers.

Mobile Testing: According to 2012 Mobile Marketing Benchmark Report, only 13% of marketers are conducting mobile testing whereas 59% did not perform any mobile testing or optimization. But to be effective in this rapidly evolving digital landscape, the verification of cross-platform delivery should be a mandatory step in executing any mobile campaign. Mobile testing process encompasses various tests to ensure consistency and quality of the content across all types of mobile devices and platforms.

Analysis: One of the great things about mobile marketing is that you can measure the effectiveness of the campaign and make quick adjustments in real time. A mobile website can give you rapid data such as click-through rate, impressions, conversion rates, download counts and number of forwards. Furthermore, with the use of mobile SEO software it can help in tracking and analyzing which devices and mobile operating systems are most used by the business audience, and how engagement, abandonment and behavioral patterns vary across these devices. All of this data can play an important role in the overall analytics of the B2B marketing campaign.

Take-away Note: For B2B companies to design and build a mobile experience, they need to look at mobile in a holistic way by putting the customer experience at the core of their focus.

Written by Vidushi Bhardwaj

Vidushi Bhardwaj is the Content Marketing Strategist at Grant Marketing. She possess a strong background in content marketing and integrated marketing communications. Passionate about innovation in the digital marketing and social media space has driven her to the marketing world. You can connect with her by sharing your thoughts on her blog.

Grant marketing strives to be on the forefront of the marketing and branding industry, Grant Marketing is able to do that by not only embracing new trends and tactics where marketing is concerned but by perfecting its execution of said trends and tactics. Recently we have seen a new wave of marketing come through via mobile applications and QPR codes, in order to implement a successful campaign by these means one must understand why they have become highly effective over the years.

Since 2010 mobile searches have increased by over 400% and by the end of 2012 about 46% of US consumers will own smartphones, by 2013 more people will use mobile phones than PC’s to get online, and by 2015 there will be about one mobile phone per person on earth. After taking these statistics from Google into account it only makes sense for Grant Marketing to pursue more smartphone friendly routes when trying to leave a lasting impression in a consumer’s mind about a budding brand or coming-of-age company.

Smartphones have completely reorganized how we carry out even the simplest of transactions, for instance about 61% of smartphone users call a business after searching and 59% visit the location furthermore approximately 70% of mobile users have compares product prices on their phones.

From a business perspective launching separate mobile campaigns that only targets mobile devices with full internet browsers have caused the cost per acquisition to decrease by 15% and the click through rate to increase by an astounding 80%. According to Google Engage for Agencies, “Having separate mobile campaigns allows you to control the mobile cost-per-click (CPC) and thus influence the ad rank of your client’s ads. By allocating a separate budget, you make the costs for mobile campaigns more transparent. In addition, you can create separate reports and better monitor the success of your campaigns.”

Through mobile marketing Grant Marketing can target the right consumer more specifically than ever before by using sophisticated targeting features such as:

• Location targeting
• Targeting specific movable operating systems, devices, and mobile carriers
• Targeting user interests within the display network
• Targeting specific time of day

The market for mobile advertising is an increasingly large opportunity, so partner with Grant Marketing and let us guide you through the many ways that you can reach out to your clients with campaigns that are tailored specifically for mobile devices.

For more information please visit our site www.grantmarketing.com or email us on bob.grant@grantmarketing.com

By Anushka I. Kassim

Long gone are the days where a firm could be successful in any market without any social media, firms must adopt some form of social media if they would like to stay relevant and not lose their competitive edge. Our words may come off being too strong, but it’s the truth and we’ve got the numbers to prove it!

The three most effective social media sites are Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn and it is easy to see why. After all 77% of companies on Facebook have brought in clients through Facebook, and about 65% of B2B companies have attracted customers through their LinkedIn company pages. Having an updated company page is key for B2B companies to gain customers, companies can also track who is viewing the page and ensure that they are in fact targeting the correct audience.

One can also use social media such as Facebook and Twitter to drive traffic to the company website, Facebook created about 26% of traffic on company websites whereas Twitter created about 23% of traffic. Furthermore, friends of your customers are about 85% more likely to choose your company over another company if they have seen your company be liked or tweeted by their friends. This phenomenon has been dramatically enhanced due to search engines like Bing, as they not only aggregate web results for a search but include any relative information that may be posted on social media sites that you are on.

Users must also realize that social media’s sole purpose is not just to generate leads anymore but to allow prospective clients to gather enough information about your firm in order for them to make an educated choice of who they would like to work with most. A successful social media campaign has to be extremely content orientated, the best way to get content out is by publishing blogs on a regular basis. These blogs can be a deeper insight into your industry or your company, a rule of thumb that I go by is to make sure the content that I am publishing is something that cannot be easily found with a Google search. In other words, push yourself to put out something meaningful instead of simply regurgitating something that you read in this week’s Forbes. About 60% of companies have gained customers through blogs.

Other social media sites that tend to be content heavy are YouTube and Slideshare. Many firms have turned to YouTube to cost effectively release videos that either educate customers about the company culture or the basic company operations. SlideShare is a platform where companies can publish presentations, the objective of this is again to share information about the company or the industry. Sharing videos and presentations is a great way to connect with customers and ease them into trusting your brand over another brand.

Another aspect of content marketing that one must take into consideration as well is that content that tends to go viral is that which is usually shared within small groups first instead of being posted as a status update on Facebook or tweeted.

The information in this blog has been extrapolated from Tom Pick’s article titled “72 Fascinating Social Media Marketing Facts and Statistics for 2012.” The article can be found at www.jeffbulas.com.

For more information please visit our site www.grantmarketing.com or email us on bob.grant@grantmarketing.com

By Anushka I. Kassim

Content marketing is one of those buzz terms that has taken the traditional marketing world by storm. A pretty picture is not enough to catch the increasingly educated eye of consumers, instead consumers have begun to choose companies and brands that share content in order to influence the consumers’ decision towards the product or service in question. Content marketing is an umbrella term that encompasses all marketing materials that include sharing content with the objective to attract and acquire customers.

According to BtoB magazine’s recent study on content marketing, “Content Marketing: Ready for Prime Time,” found 34% of respondents are “very” or “fully” engaged with content marketing, compared with only 18% last year. For the future, companies’ commitment to content marketing will increase rapidly: 66% say they will be “very” o r “fully” engaged in content marketing by 2013. The study was based on an online survey of 440 b2b marketing professionals conducted in April and May.”

It is easy to see why content marketing is being increasingly implemented by companies across all industries; after all it does hold the ability to better engagement with targeted audiences this statement was confirmed by 56% of the survey’s participants. 47% said it increases the trust factor with companies, and 23% agreed that it also improves Search Engine Optimization.

According to Nick Panayi, director-global brand and digital marketing at multinational IT services company Computer Sciences Corp: “There are two parts to the content story… one is the raw intelligence and information it provides that allow you to rise above the clutter. And then there is putting those insights into a package that is consumable and attractive.”

The BtoB magazine study went on to say that marketers perceive content marketing as having its most significant impact on the following

• Lead generation – 51%
• Brand Awareness 38%
• Thought Leadership 34%
• Sales – 29%

Furthermore marketers can focus on multiple uses from a single piece or content marketing, for instance a content heavy video on YouTube could be a call to action and also link back to other social media outlets. The video’s transcript can also be molded into a white paper or into a blog post.

About 54% of the people that BtoB magazine surveyed for the study said that they were satisfied or more than satisfied with their use of content marketing. About 51% of marketers will be increasing their budgets for content marketing, and about 44% indicate that a sixth of their budget is directed by content marketing needs. The marketing industry is past the point where content marketing was just an innovative way to market a product or service; content marketing is now needed to ensure the success of any marketing campaign.

For more information please visit our site www.grantmarketing.com or email us on bob.grant@grantmarketing.com

By Anushka I. Kassim

Just  a brief note that Grant Marketing has moved to Back Bay Boston. You will find us on the 16th floor of the Prudential Building. We look forward to greeting clients in our new location where the coffee is always hot or cold bottled water, if you prefer. Once we are settled we will be hosting brand and marketing workshops. Our first workshop is on June 26th for more information click on Web Sales and Google Ranking.

For more information on our move go to Grant Move .

By Bob Grant, President of Grant Marketing

Bob Grant

It was not so long ago that the term branding in casual conversation meant that you were going to burn your initials or insignia into the backside of your livestock.  Fast-forward a generation and branding has taken on a whole new meaning.  Or maybe not. It still is about differentiating yourself from your competition. In the days of the wild west, the Circle-R Ranch wanted to differentiate itself from the Square-Z Ranch. Perhaps this was the start of logos where the design of the brand represented the brand of the ranch. As it was back then, your brand is a reflection of you, or your company, and is the image with which all consumers associate your product.

Even in the cattle industry, certain brands receive more recognition than others. McDonalds promotes its relationship with the Black Gold Ranch in Illinois that raises more than 1200 beef cows. The new McDonald’s agriculture commercials give us a sense that their hamburgers and other foods are wholesome and nutritious.

Businesses need to invest in brand development and to create a viable brand strategy.  In today’s overwhelmingly busy market, where consumers are barraged by online and offline advertisements every minute, developing an easily recognizable presence, or brand, is vital to the success of any business.  An integrated marketing system that targets multiple consumer bases in various ways will most certainly result in the most recognition for your product or company.  The more recognition, the higher the potential profit, and at the end of the day, that profit is your largest barometer of success.

Bob Grant

As a  b2b Boston brand and marketing agency we are often asked  to help companies to create a positioning statement. This positioning statement will help to define your company, your product, and your service to your target audience. A positioning statement, makes a clear declaration as to why you are different than your competitors.

A positioning statement has a very important job to do. It is to break through the clutter created by the unending and constant bombardment of messages penetrating our brain. More information has been produced in the last 30 years than the previous 5000. Yet our brains can’t cope with all of this information overload. It seeks simplicity and clarity. The goal of the positioning statement is to state simply and clearly why your product, your service, your company, is different and preferable from your competitor.

The first step in creating your positioning statement is to understand the buying preferences of your audience.  You are not competing for the minds and souls of everyone on the planet (unless you’re Apple or Google), but only the audience who may have an interest in your specific product or service. Once you understand the buyer’s preferences, you can help create a message that will engage that audience emotionally and strategically to create a purchase. The positioning statement will be straightforward with attainable goals while ensuring the company is able to make progress.  It will effectively set the product off from its competition by being inspirational and significant to the target audience to which it is meant to engage.

Integrated marketing is an effective way to bring all forms of communication together into one concise campaign. Advertising, sales, direct marketing, etc. all work together in a cohesive approach for a united goal.

A very important first step of any integrated marketing strategy is situation analysis. Much like research marketing, situation analysis researches the potential of the industry and any online sales for a particular company or product.

Situation analysis takes into account the market environment and any foreseeable trends in the market such as size and potential for growth to which the company is positioning themselves. Budgets, strategies, objectives are all part of the evaluation process.

Evaluating the competition is also very important. Describing the major competitors, the market share and the comparison of the products are part of this strategy. Finding out a competitor’s strengths and weaknesses and what are their market shares and sales trends are helping to solidify a company’s position in the market.

Researching the needs and behaviors of the target audience is also part of the situation analysis. What is their general lifestyle and attitudes of the product or service offered? How will this company reach this target audience?

The strengths and weaknesses of the company should be addressed as well as all means and tactics to strengthen all areas of the company.

Ah, the old battle: which is more important the copy or the design?

Any great copywriter and any talented designer know they need each other. If you are presenting a b2b brand strategy, you have to present both: stunning artwork with compelling copy. You've got to make a presentation so amazing that each can work independently of each other. If a person only saw the tagline they would immediately know what company or product it is from, likewise, if they saw the graphic, they would be able to recite the words that go along with the campaign. It is a marriage made in advertising heaven.

If done correctly, both will be able to grab and hold a person’s attention. That beautiful or inspiring graphic will make a person stop and stare; the words will cut right to a person’s core and make them think long after they’ve stopped reading.

Marrying the two in a campaign, finding that perfect shot with those perfect words is what a great b2b marketing agency is all about.