B2B marketing needs to take advantage of traditional approaches like blogging

When you start sifting through the online literature, you’ll see right away there are as many different trends emerging only to fade away and then, in some cases, reemerge again when it comes to online advertising in general and content strategy specifically.

The point here is you’ve got to have your marketing people do the right research and go about things the right way so that your business can rest assured they’re getting the most bang for their buck. Whether you’re leaning toward video marketing when you see YouTube is monetizing over 2 billion video views per week globally and think that’s the way to go or more toward the money that’s waiting in mobile applications and the possibilities when you hear that the FDA has recently cleared a Radiology Diagnostics app.

However, there is a simpler method that entails taking advantage of more traditional approaches for optimal results in the B2B marketing world, like blogging. Still blogging is like any of the other techniques you might use in that you need a clearly defined strategy to be successful.  First off you need to put the horse squarely in front of the cart and define your objectives.

One of those objectives needs to be a clear delineation of the sources that you will use since that will define your credibility in your client’s eyes. There are several choices here including the leadership of your firm or higher ranking sales people and /or professionals from the industry and guest writers.  

Make no mistake about the viability of blogging either and try to ignore what you hear about its imminent demise. Consider that while teenagers working their own blogs have halved since 2006, and adults aged 18-33 who blog have also seen a modest decline,  blogging’s popularity increased among most older generations and the rates rose  from 11% in late 2008 to 14% in 2010.  When you’re looking at any viable content strategy, you can’t afford to overlook that demographic.    

Internet Advertising Revenue Taking Off: Your Firm Needs To Be On Board

You keep your ear to the proverbial ground because you’re in the business of going where the money is. Someone told you a while back that meant the Internet and you listened - that was your first smart move. Bolstered by social media, the proliferation of the Web has become not only a viable but expanding source of revenue. Some even call it the gold rush of the new millennium.

Fair enough, but you’re in business and need to be convinced before you start shelling out marketing cash on cyberspace. You need numbers to convince you, so here goes.  Global internet advertising spending is expected to rise 12.7% in 2011 and that’s an expansion for an industry where others are shrinking, downsizing or just plain failing.

These are the numbers from U.K.-based Warc (the Worldwide Advertising Research Center) and they predict that the United States will still be the center of the storm when it comes to the rebound this advertising has enjoyed and it has as the two main drivers: emerging markets and the prolonged rise of Internet advertising.

This is what it means for businesses, both large and small: Quite simply, you need to be sure to cover all the bases when it comes to getting the most for your advertising dollar. That means straddling the line between cyberspace and other more traditional methods. Consider the findings of another advertising related report.

Numbers from BIA/Kelsey and ConStat tell us that Twitter is increasing its market share where adverting is concerned and that there has been an increase of 19% in the fourth quarter of 2010 from 9% in the third quarter of 2009 in the usage of the familiar social media tool. Still, that’s keeping pace with the Yellow pages at 29% usage for the same time period.

That doesn’t mean that the writing isn’t on the wall, however. Another recent report even has Skype selling banner ads on its pages in the near future. The move is clearly to cyberspace and Internet advertising.

Facebook Comments: The Jury Is Still Out

Leave it to the good people at Facebook to keep moving ahead and trying new things that business needs to be aware of. Latest in the never ending festival of innovation that comes from this social network are Facebook Comments—some say a great new innovation that will help business listen and engage clients, other’s are not so sure.

Even the hard core tech wizards at places like techcrunch.com aren’t sold on the new platform that allows for commenting on blogs and third party sites. First off the new system is easy to install since it only requires a simple line of code that needs to be added, but right off the bat there’s a downside when you see that the new Facebook Comments possibility doesn’t allow for Twitter or Google logins. Not really a big deal, but there is something to be said for convenience and getting the most input from across the largest spectrum when you’re steering social media platforms on toward business goals.

Still the micro goal here is parallel with the macro goal of any business that’s using Facebook as a tool to gauge customer preference and watching trends carefully, and for that reason the fact that site administrators have been given controls over comments is interesting. The option of making them visible generically or only to certain people, as well as blacklisting certain words and banning certain users, provides the kind of insight and solid social media marketing requires.

The results speak for themselves. As far as techcrunch.com goes, at least checking out the new Facebook Comments section is more than worth it as they report that Facebook is still their number one referring site right behind Twitter.

Still more evidence that social media can’t be ignored as part of any comprehensive online adverting package.

Facebook looking at new dashboard for one part of a complete content strategy

It doesn’t matter where the demographic studies for your target market tell you that you need to focus to attract the most clients, you need to be sure to stay on top of the technological curve to be sure that you’re spreading the net as far as possible. And unless you’ve been hiding under a rock you know that social media in general and Facebook specifically needs to be an important part of the equation.

Rest assured a well developed content strategy will take full advantage of this phenomenon if for no other reason that the innovation your business will get by associating with them. Consider the latest news, and there’s always something on the horizon with Zuckerberg and his crew. During what’s called a Tech Talk at their office this month, the wizards at Facebook disclosed they were looking at developing a new dashboard that will give developers more access to the latest and most current information about the traffic they get to their sites. The relevance?

For small or large businesses that are using this cost effective method it means they can have the latest information about who is looking at what in real time. That’s a vast improvement over the old clunker dashboard that only supplied data that was no more recent than 48 hours old.

It’s the best of both worlds for the business that wants to be sure they get as much territory covered as possible. Imagine a content strategy that allows clients to tell you what it is they want through the interactive qualities of social media and then even lets you look in on what they select and what their real preferences are? It’s the best of beneficent data collection for the social media age.

Online Video Marketing: Placement Spells Success

For those of you who have been marketing on the internet for any length of time you’ll no doubt be aware of the fact that the only constant is change and you can expect although the fundamentals might stay the same, all forms of online advertising need to be tweaked from time to time to ensure their effectiveness.

Online video company Youku.com Inc is a great example of what to expect from the technology that’s been considered a major player in online advertising for years now. The Chinese firm debut on the New York Stock Exchange Dec. 8 was lauded as the most positive first-day performance for a stock in the U.S. in years. Shares in the firm more than tripled over the first few days of trading from their initial offer price of $12.80, and although they have not had the strongest performance since, interest toward video marketing home and abroad remains unabated.

Video marketing is not just holding it’s own but it’s growing. Traditionally this form of advertising has been the domain of the ad network and they have been the one entrusted with getting your goods and services to as many eyeballs as possible. However there’s a new trend that’s moving more and more toward specific targeting.

Consider. Branded customer content is the number one way for online advertisers to market their products online and length is essential when it comes to this form of advertising. Customer engagement is the primary driver behind this element and so ad placement becomes a critical value.

While longer video ads can come in handy and be effective, remember that placing video in traditional adverting places like pre-roll and in-stream banner ads is not the best idea when you’re looking for the benefits of engagement.

PRISM Media Group Seeks Account Manager

Account Manager - Job Description

The position:
PRISM Media Group is looking for a highly organized and energetic account management candidate to join our team as soon as possible. The candidate must have at least 5 years experience working in Account Management surrounding digital media, social media and interactive marketing. An ability to work in a fast-paced, entrepreneurial environment is a must.

Role and Responsibilities:
• Primary day-today contact for clients
• Responsible for client communications, conflict resolution, and compliance on client deliverables and revenue.
• Manages contractor relationships to ensure work is completed on deadline and meets quality standards.
• Approves Change Orders and invoices
• Works closely with the project team in order to maintain a continuous knowledge of project status in order to identify potential issues and/or opportunities within or related to the project.
• Ensures that all processes and procedures are completed, quality standards are met, and that projects are profitable.
• Communicates the client's goals and represents the client's interests to the team.
• Provides regular two-way communication between the client and team
• Understanding of company capabilities and service, and effectively communicates all offerings to the client.

Requirements:
• Proven Account Management skills required in order to create, maintain and enhance customer relationships
• Strong Computer Skills (Microsoft Office Suite & CRM Software experience a must – graphics and development software experience a plus)
• Knowledge of Digital Media, Social Media, Marketing and Advertising
• Ability to juggle multiple projects at one time
• Healthcare Industry Knowledge a plus
• Minimum 5 years of Account/project management experience
• Extremely detail oriented
• Technical competence a plus
• Motivated, goal oriented, persistent and a skilled negotiator
• High level of initiative and work well in a team environment
• Excellent written and oral communication skills
• Handles stressful situations and deadline pressures well
• Plans and carries out responsibilities with minimal direction

We offer:
Competitive compensation
Professional, fun and casual office environment
Comprehensive benefits including health, dental, vision, life, 401K, flex spending and tuition
Reimbursement

Contact: send resumes to [email protected]

Automated Marketing: Set It And Forget It

It was no surprise to anyone who understood the implications of the Internet that business would get involved and one of the first places they grabbed a foothold was in marketing. It's no shock either that the gurus who understood what the web and computers were capable of soon came up with a concept called automated marketing which is the technical term behind the ‘set it and forget it’ philosophy.

In plain terms it means that business can market and do more with less by:
• Increasing the productivity of your marketing team without making the team bigger
• Finding out what works and replicating it
• Easily increasing the size and scope of events
Valuable content is what’s behind the techniques that can range from email marketing to article marketing and blogs. The idea here is just what the namesake implies in that the technique is automated—business decides on a set of parameters and criteria and then lets the parameters do their work.
Here’s an example of a vehicle that business can use when it comes to an email marketing. Autoresponder is a great way to follow up with customers with an email every few days that will include interesting tidbits like reports, videos, podcasts and related products as well as news.
With set and forget automated marketing the initial investment of time and money is once .After that the system that you’ve decided on takes care of itself. Updating your targeting from time to time and market scope every once in a while after that is all that you’ll need to do.
Business needs to start by deciding on the best techniques that suit the company model. A variety of search engine optimization techniques like the blogs and articles mentioned above are good choices and Google AdWords is another popular example of this automated approach.