Its interesting about how much buzz is given to social media marketing…I must have read ten articles over the weekend about it. But the more I read about marketing on sites like myspace, friendster, facebook, blogs, etc. the more I realize that it is primarily B2C companies taking advantage of this new medium with the B2B crowd staying cautiously out of the fray.

Why is that?

Of course it is inherently easier to mass market a consumer product. You have a much larger pool of potential customers and the marketing is less complex than that of B2B. It will always be easier to go viral talking about the iphone instead of email marketing deliverability rates. And you can market the iphone to millions while an email marketing solution is limited to hundreds of potential clients (maybe thousands if your lucky).

So does it make sense to abstain from social media marketing then?

In a word…no.

The B2B approach to this kind of marketing should not follow that of B2C. You don’t need to rely on huge buzz to drive interest in your product so don’t feel the need to employ trendy video gimmicks, silly contests, or controversial blog posts in an attempt to “go viral”. Its not your style man!

Here are some simple mistakes to avoid.

1. Resist the urge to create a “company” myspace account. This will just make you look silly - especially when no one signs up to be your company’s friend.
2. Don’t try to accumulate a mass amount of friends. You will look as desperate as the high school geek trying to build a friend empire online.
3. Don’t waste your money advertising on myspace. I don’t think many high school and college students are in the market to buy your products or services.
4. Like I said before…no cheesy you tube videos. You will never be able to compete against a guy getting hit in the crotch or the cat playing the piano.
5. Don’t blog because everyone else is doing it. Alot of people wore a mullet in the 80’s too. Know when something makes sense for YOU to do…we can’t all be Billy Ray Cyrus.

Instead, just simply encourage your employees to use them.

The best way to approach social media in the B2B world is to actually use the social networks that all of your friends, colleagues, and business associates use. Specifically, Linked In is fast becoming the “professional” alternative to sites like myspace, friendster, and xanga. It is a social network site specifically for maintaining business and industry contacts.

But it is not the only resource. If a lot of your contacts are using myspace, get on myspace. In the end you want to stay in touch and be accessible to those people you know and have relationships with. And by using those social networking sites you will find additional contacts…who may even eventually buy something from you.

I’m not saying that there is not a larger marketing opportunity with these sites either. The potential for brand building is great and well thought out strategies exist for making the most out of marketing on them…even if your B2B.

But in the end it’s always been about building relationships …and its no different online.

In an earlier post last week I outlined how to create simple and effective B2B landing pages. When I was catching up on my litany of RSS feeds over this weekend I came across this article in Marketing Profs highlighting their Top 5 Best (and Worst) things about landing pages.Almost everything I had covered in my earlier post was covered here. ..except for the following observation that speaks about self directed user segmentation (see clip). This is also a great strategy if you find that your visitors are still varying widely by interests or needs.

On a side note, the article also speaks about the negative effect of landing pages on the brand. While I do believe that to some extent this is true it can be minimized by making the landing pages in high quality in both design and messaging…but I digress!

clipped from www.marketingprofs.com No segmentation—clicks are treated as a commodity. Not all clicks are created equal. Ad response traffic often contains a spectrum of different audience segments. They clicked on the same ad, yes, but not all for the same reason, not all with the same needs. The one-page format of landing pages makes the same pitch to all of them, oblivious to their distinctions. If the page focuses only on one segment, it disenfranchises others; if it tries to speak to all segments at once, its passion and relevance to any one segment are watered down. A better approach is to use a landing path where the first page induces a one-click directed behavioral segmentation choice from respondents—a branch in the path depending on the segment the respondent selects—and then you can speak with conviction and authority to each segment’s specific interests on page two.

Chances are good that if you do even a small amount of online marketing you have come into contact with landing pages.

Landing pages are described in Wikipedia as “a specific web page that a visitor ultimately reaches after clicking a link or advertisement”. This could be anything from a search campaign in Google to a banner ad placed in a local business association. These are almost always transactional pages that exist to help fuel the customer conversion, whether it is to purchase a product, download information, or simply sign up for an email newsletter.

We place a lot of importance on these pages as they are the gateway to all customer interactivity with your company. Get it wrong and you could miss out on a lot of potential revenue. It is especially important in the B2B realm - where the value of the conversion is typically greater.

So in an effort to help you get off on the right foot I have compiled a list of tips that have served me well when creating successful B2B landing pages.

1. Carry the message through from the advertisement: Do everything you can to make sure that you aren’t pushing your traffic to a “one size fits all” landing page. If the ad that brought them was about a particular feature - then highlight that feature. If it was a discount that brought them to you…don’t waste time talking up the feature set. It may be more work to create multiple landing pages…but you will definitely get more conversions
2. Personalize the content: I’ve seen marketers spend hours segmenting a list and crafting a highly customized message that speaks directly to each recipient…only to forward them to a generic landing page once they decide to take action! If your email program allows for personalization of content… drive that personalization through the link in the email and into the landing page. If you want to see how you can do this through using simple javascript, see this earlier post.
3. Keep the form simple and above the fold: You can test this yourself, but I have ALWAYS gotten better response when the form is above the fold. And of course, its always better to limit the amount of information to only that which is necessary. Do you really need to know the state when you have the zip code? If possible its even better if you can…
4. Pre-populate the form: Want to know the easiest way to increase conversion? Pre-populate the form on the landing page. If you are driving traffic from an email campaign then you already have alot of this info…don’t ask them for it again! Again, you can do this using simple javascript.
5. Minimize outbound links: You spent alot of money to get the visitor to the landing page so it is perfectly acceptable to drive traffic to a landing page optimized for conversion. As long as you are giving the visitor exactly what the ad promises…you are not entitled to give them access to every page of your website. If you want to force a conversion or an exit…then that is acceptable. I will usually offer a few ancillary links if they aren’t ready to take action, however…the intent is obvious and I try to do everything I can to encourage the dominant call to action.
6. Optimize them for search: It makes a lot of sense to optimize each landing page for a few specific (usually long tail) keywords. Since you will be driving alot of traffic to these pages they will likely gain relevance and therefore prominence. A good way to encourage volume traffic is to link to these landing pages from your website, add them to your sitemap, andkeep them as close to the design and layout as your web site pages (while keeping in mind #5). There are too many SEO tips to cover here…I suggest reading up on any number of SEO blogs available.
7. Keep the messaging to the point: The tendency is to try to do too much with the landing page copy. Its perfectly understandable since we ask so much of this page. But the fact of the matter is that this is no time to beat around the bush or push a lot of marketing fluff. Get to the point, offer real benefits, and answer those last minute questions that may be that last barrier to taking action.
8. Use visual elements to peak interest: A picture is worth a thousand words. The more you can do with images (or even better…embed a presentation) the more likely you are going to pique the interest of your visitor and encourage them to take the desired action. Leave nothing to the imagination…because nobody buys that way.
9. Set a testing plan in place: Don’t just create the landing page and then hope that everything goes right…start testing some combinations of messages. With Google releasing Website Optimizer to the public for free you can immediately begin seeing what headlines and action calls your visitors are responding the best to.
10. Monitor your results closely: I single out my landing pages for special treatment in my Google Analytics…in the form of goals and campaign tracking. This will provide a lot of opportunity to understand campaign traffic segments in relation to goal conversion. I also like to use Crazy Egg’s heat map and confetti view to track specific click behavior. Mine the data…and you will be able to make key insights that help your conversion.
11. Survey them: The best thing you can get from #10 is quantitative data…thousands of reports that will tell you all of the activity that has taken place…but it will not give you the “why“. Why did they choose Product X over Product Y? Why did they decide to leave without converting? Why are people who come from email more likely to convert than from search? Surveying on exit or conversion can help fill in those gaps that analytics cannot.

The most important thing to consider when crafting a landing page is to never sacrifice your message for short sighted gains in SEO or web analysis. Keep your primary focus on the customer and being as thorough as possible in describing the benefits or your product and/or service. Do only those things that make sense for your customer and watch the conversions come in!

There is a great post on Grokdotcom today about the reluctance of B2B companies to list pricing on their website. If you are competing on quality over price…maybe you shouldn’t be afraid to say so.While posting price might not be a good idea or make sense for all companies, it is worth thinking about and reconsidering. Go read the full article and see if it makes sense!

clipped from www.grokdotcom.com It’s usually companies that aren’t competing on price who want to keep price a secret. If a company doesn’t compete on price, they’re probably competing on quality; customer service or other factors. But why avoid the question? Tell the visitor what your price is and even explain that it’s higher than the competitors–just explain WHY it’s higher. If you don’t compete on price and your visitor is shopping on price, then that visitor isn’t your customer. Give him what he came searching for and sell him on your unique value. If that doesn’t work, don’t shy away from sending him elsewhere. That level of confidence is contagious, and often results in higher conversion, anyway.

There was a great article posted by B2B that does an outstanding job of discussing Web 2.0 and I wanted to share it here. If you have time check it out - its a very good article.

Happy Marketing!