New Rules of B2B Demand Generation

For marketers the last two or three years have been some of the most chaotic ever.   Traditional mass media channels have scuffled, shedding jobs and revenue at a staggering pace.  Tough economic times have emboldened CFO’s to raise the pressure on accountability.  And the emergence of social media and ubiquitous digital interaction has dramatically amplified the power and voice of the customer.  Net sum, the rules of the game and the very field itself have changed drastically.  Disruption creates opportunity.  Firms who can embrace change and visualize a world beyond product brochures and email blasts can capitalize on this.

How to Implement a Social Media Marketing Strategy

Again, thank you to everyone for the support and enthusiasm for the presentation. Certainly this is something that has hit a nerve and I’ve heard you loud and clear. Over the coming weeks and months I will be devoting more time documenting the approach we are deploying at Alterian and sharing insights on what is and isn’t working.

To download a copy of the presentation, please visit the Alterian site:

http://www.alterian.com/smleadgen/

Thanks for the support!

Honestly, I’m overwhelmed at the feedback I’ve been receiving for the upcoming December webinar.  I know a lot of people have taken it upon themselves to reach out to their friends and colleagues to get them to the event.  I’m extremely grateful to you all!

Thank you!

- Tewksbum

December Webinar: How to Implement a Social Media Marketing Strategy

Okay, so yes, on December 17th I am hosting Alterian’s December webinar. My topic for the session will be how to make social media part of your strategic marketing planning.  Yes, I will cover some of the blocking and tackling of deploying to the channels, but the real point of emphasis is how to incorporate in a measurable, accountable way into an overall demand generation program.  Below is the most recent write up…

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What you already know: Your emails are starting to fall on deaf ears; the quality and ROI of your PPC campaigns are on the decline; and your prospects and customers are spending more and more time online, but not necessarily on your site.

What you need to know: Social media can address all of these issues in a measurable, programmable way by taking the brand experience to the community and engaging people where they form impressions and find answers.

In this webinar, I will walk through the steps that can make you a social star. He will cover:

• Tracking customers online and identifying the right social channels
• Creating content that sticks and sells
• Crafting calls-to-action that are tailored to the social media
• Being accountable, and showing straightforward ways to demonstrate lift and ROI
• Developing a search strategy that gives your content the best chance of being found
• Enabling new social channels like LinkedIn, YouTube, and Twitter to cheaply and efficiently spread your brand message
• And much more…

Thursday, December 17, 2009
10am CT / 8am PT / 11am ET / 16.00 GMT
…click to register…

What is Social Media Marketing?

Recently I was blasted by someone for not having more Twitter followers. It certainly gave me pause. For sure, from a personal branding stand point “followers” and “views” can be a barometer of success in the social space. I would argue, however, there are other valid approaches. Below is in part the rebuttal I sent, but this is something I will certainly start to pickup in greater detail….

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… My perspective on social media, which is rooted in the idea’s of 1:1 and true customer centric engagement, is that it opens new avenues to deepen and broaden your customer relationships. I like to use this visual to make a point:

(actually, I usually use a slightly different one, but at any rate…)

I’d rather be engaged with the right 300 customers than 30,000 of the wrong ones. This is the focus of my forthcoming webinar. To present a framework for how you can systematically use social media as part of your greater demand generation program to weed through the chaff so you can target and pull through the right prospects.

A big component of this is transparency and traceability. I spend a lot of time covering how you can track asset performance and combine it with other channel data, particularly financial, to identify what’s working and what’s truly moving the needle. Friend Mark Wright (president of TargetBase) I think said it best, “a click is just a click if you can’t relate it to revenue.” Too much effort in the social media space I’m afraid falls in this category.

How to Drive Demand Generation with an Inbound, Social Media Strategy

Flip the funnel.  Flatten the funnel.  Get rid of the funnel!  These aren’t some loony, fringe ideas, but rather the thinking of some of the leading marketing minds of our time like Godin, Meerman, and Brogan.  Everyone recognizes that social media is having a huge impact on successful demand generation.  The problem lies in identifying how to apply it to the greatest benefit.

Some argue that you should rely entirely upon social media.  That if you position things properly you can just sit back and let the customers come to you.  Well… I don’t know about you, but I don’t know of any salesman that’s made his numbers by sitting around and waiting for the phone to ring.  As with all good things, and social media is a good thing, when done to excess it can be bad.  Like Twinkies and margaritas.

When done right, however, social media can have a profound impact on your demand generation efforts.  At a time when it’s getting a lot harder to fill the funnel with email blasts, PPC campaigns, and cold calling social media offers an alternative way to engage with your prospects and customers.

In this webinar we will show you how to cost efficiently keep the top of your funnel primed using a repeatable 4 part framework that covers:

• Be Interesting
  • How to understand your audience’s pains and crafting relevant, interesting stories
• Be Accessible
  • How to use digital to be available at a place and time of the customers choosing
• Be Findable
  • How to use SEO and tagging to get your message in front of high value prospects
• Be Measurable
  • How to use asset and lead tracking to monetize the impact of your efforts

Thursday, December 17, 2009
10am CT / 8am PT / 11am ET / 16.00 GMT
…click to register…

Also, we were posted up at:

http://benbradley.net/2009/12/08/webinar-how-to-drive-demand-generation-with-an-inbound-social-media-strategy/

http://timtetra.com/5455/webinar-%E2%80%93-how-to-drive-demand-generation-with-an-inbound-social/

Is your demand gen approach working?

There is really only one way to measure this – is it generating revenue from net new business?  This is the singular most important thing your demand generation efforts need to net.  In this deck on SlideShare we explore some specific ways you can assess the shape of your own funnel:

Thoughts On A Successful Demand Generation Program

View more presentations from tewksbum.

Campaign Tracking – Managing and Analyzing the Results

Campaign Tracking

With all the effort put forth to execute the campaign, a key point of failure for campaign effectiveness lies with the tracking and analysis.  Just getting the message out isn’t sufficient.  How was that message received?  What does the overall response to the message say for future campaigns?

Leveraging Social Media to Turbo Charge Your Inbound Program

Over this weekend I’m excited to be presenting at DMA on how social media can be used to drive an inbound program.  Overall, this is a big idea, that I’ve introduced with the series on Inbound Marketing, but will really try to take to next level with my December webinar – The New Rules of Demand Generation.  In the meantime you can check out the DMA deck on slideshare at:

http://www.slideshare.net/tewksbum/turbo-charge-inbound-marketing-w-social-media