Best Practices in B2B Demand Generation - demandblog

What the Heck is the Long Tail?

The Long Tail.

This is one of those phrases I hear more and more. And at the risk of betraying my own ignorance, it is one of those phrases where I think I know what it means...at least in relation to search marketing. I think.

Approximately 90% of the traffic on the search engines is tied up into a small number, maybe 10% of the keywords. The other 10% of the traffic, which is still A LOT of traffic, is tied up in more specific, niche, specialized phrases and words. Those words make up the "long tail." For example, "television" is not in the long tail. "32 inch LCD HDTV with input for my computer" is. Click here for a series of graphical representations. Ignore the picture of the monkey with the long tail, though.

Feel free to put your own definitions up in the comments section, as long as you make them as simple as possible. Also, are there any other marketing phrases you can think of that could use a good "plain english" definition? Let's hear them.

Google Can You Hear Me, Part 2

The B2B Search gurus at Enquiro have written a much more eloquent and detailed list of reasons to use Google's webmaster tools than I ever could. Check it out here.

Free Word of Mouth Marketing Goodness

It has been generating buzz in any number of places, so he must know what he is talking about...

BzzAgent John Balter has written an book called The Word of Mouth Manual, Volume II and it is available for free as an eBook from a few selected blogs. Wow, even that is a good idea..."you are one of only a dozen sources for this book online, should you want to brag/write about that fact..."

I've read the first ten pages and look forward to plowing through it. Download it free (!) from any of the blogs listed here, or look it up on Amazon if you want to pay $45 for the hard copy.

Customer Service as a Marketing Campaign

Sharing a post from one of my favorite marketing blogs, Brand Autopsy. Interesting because he refers to a column in Advertising Age wherein the authors recommend not advertising. Check it out here.

The bottom line is, good customer service and a product that works are more deserving of the $$$ than a new campaign. What sort of shape are you in, support and service-wise? I'm not saying you should allow the perfect to be the enemy of the good...but are you even good?

Keep reading through the comments, some lively debate. Good stuff.

More Retro Marketing

If you liked my posts on How to Get Your Ideas Across (business communication circa 1970) you might like this....

Back in 1965, stores would allow people to take a record album home with them with a very unique advertisement for one of their products. In exchange for bringing the record back, they would get a discount on said product. BoingBoing saw this post and pointed to it, but here is the direct link to The Most Important Event of the Year.

Quick thought on SFDC, SaaS and Exchanging Ideas

I was thinking about the previous post, specifically about the Salesforce.com IdeaExchange community...

In the client/server world new releases are a big deal and can be very compelling...but do you know of anyone who is rabid with anticipation over the next release of Microsoft Office? Of course not. When you need to lay out that kind of money on an upgrade, you want to take a slower approach which analyzes the performance of the new software (is it buggy?) and you need to justify the cost of these new features to management (are 100 new fonts really worth the extra money?).

SFDC now has a dedicated community of users putting hours of effort into their suggestions, monitoring their performance on the exchange, voting, commenting, and competing with colleagues over whose idea is better. Users are jumping into new releases and updates with a gusto you don't normally see outside of video game addicts or Apple fanboys. 

Isn't it cool that people can get this excited about their job and the tools they use in it? And what a great marketing touchstone to get people talking.

Do You Know What Would Make Dreamforce Better?

Well, if you do, Salesforce.com would like to hear about it.

The SFDC IdeaExchange, has been up and running for a long time now. It's a place customers can share their ideas for feature requests with the community to solicit feedback and votes in order to try and get them higher up on the developmental "to-do" list. It's really interesting to have this kind of visibility into their feature request world, and the amount of detail and work some of their customers put into the feature requests that they post is pretty impressive.

SFDC has created a Dreamforce portion in the Idea Exchange, in order to solicit input from the community on content at this November's event. If you are a Salesforce.com customer you can vote on the presentations you would like to see, or if you have an idea for a presentation you want to deliver (that is not simply an advertisement for your product or services) you can out it up there and see if anyone votes for it.

One idea I particularly like was Salesforce Marketing for Small Businesses, although I think it is something that deserves an entire track as opposed to a single session. I actually wrote a bit about just that after the last Dreamforce, part of my Five Things to Make Dreamforce Better post. Here's an excerpt:

"Create a new track: Guerilla Salesforce.com -- Bigger does not necessarily mean more interesting. At the keynotes, at the awards, and in the breakout sessions the customer references and case studies are overwhelmingly dominated by big customers. I understand -- big customers are cool. But last time I checked, the vast majority of customers (heck, the vast majority of partners) all have less than 100 employees. I was in one marketing track where the speaker asked how many attendees worked in marketing departments with less than five people in them. Most of the room raised their hands. Here's what you do. Create a track dedicated to best practices and creative ways to use Salesforce.com without a lot of extra development, and without a single App off the AppExchange that you can't download for free....and create an Appy Award that a customer with less than 100 seats has a shot at winning. "Most Creative Use of Salesforce.com Without Spending a Penny."

Advanced Tracking & Reporting: From Your Email to Dollars in the Bank

I'm doing a webinar recap of the presentation I gave at the Vertical Response Spring Marketing Event a few weeks back. Jeremy's portion is perfect for Vertical Response customers interested in getting their reporting capabilities up to the next level, while I focus more on general "how-to" stuff with regard website analytics using the free Google Analytics tool.

It's free, but registration is required. Here's the link...

Wednesday, June 11, 2008 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM PDT

You've created and sent a great looking email - now the fun begins.  Start using advanced tracking with the Vertical Response "Click to Sale" feature and the Vertical Response Google Analytics integration.  Join Jeremy Engler and Jason Stewart of Demandbase to learn:

• How to leverage Click to Sale tracking and Google Analytics to gain real business insight
• How to use VerticalResponse's Google Analytics integration and Click to Conversion tracking.
• What types of reports you can create – and how to analyze them
• Why now is the time to take your reporting to the next level

About the Speakers:
Jason Stewart leads the demand generation programs for Demandbase, Inc. and is also the lead contributor for Demandblog, dedicated to best practices in B2B demand generation.  Mr. Stewart is a recognized thought leader in the B2B lead generation and lead management space, and is the founding leader of the Salesforce.com San Francisco user group.

Jeremy Engler is a Product Manager at Vertical Response who brings 9 years of technology experience to the VerticalResponse team.  He was previously the Operations Manager for Salesforce.com's AppExchange, and no one has a better understanding of the advanced reporting tools provided by VR.

Register HERE.

More Press Release Optimization

Coming out of the comments related to this post, Search Optimization for Press Releases, is a link to a great tool for grading your press release before you post it online.

Unfortunately, Hubspot's PressReleaseGrader can't tell you how enticing the hook is on your story, or if the press will flock to you as the next big thing. That's up to you. What it can do is pretty impressive, however, checking it for links, phone numbers, format, reading level, and even showing you which words are mentioned most in the release to make sure you are emphasizing the correct keywords. A great tool to make sure the nuts and bolts are there, and are placed correctly.

It's up to you to create the story, though...and that's always the hardest part.

Check it out here.