123 eGuides

1 Minute Advice: Brain Basics Improve Your Marketing

Sometimes, marketers are so caught up in sophisticated program strategies and advanced technologies they may forget the fact that they are marketing to humans, all of whom share commonalities when it comes to basic brain responses.

Email marketing provider Emma has put together a handy infographic called "12 Secrets of the Human Brain to Use in Your Marketing." In it are a wealth of useful facts, including these important reminders:

• Humans have gut reactions in 3 seconds or less.
• Emotions trump rational thought when it comes to a lasting message.
• Our brains our visually oriented; we remember pictures with text more than text by itself.
• Images and emotions are closely related because they are processed in areas of the brain that are close to one another.
• A very large percentage of our feeling about a product -- as much as 90 percent -- is attributed to color alone.

Check out the infographic and apply some of these brain basic to improve your marketing.

1 Minute Advice: B2B Marketers Should Focus on Referrals

The ultimate goal of B2B marketing is, of course, to close a sale. But that is no easy task, since many B2B companies sell products and services that may be complex and have a long sales cycle.

Interestingly, when all marketing methods are considered, the most effective in terms of converting leads to sales is referrals from customers and employees. Recent research by Implisit reported by eMarketer indicates that 3.63% of referrals resulted in sales, which were directly traced via the use of Salesforce.com among nearly 500 B2B companies. Company websites were in second place in lead-t0-sale conversion (1.55%) while Facebook, Twitter, and other social media came in third (1.47%). No other method reached 1% in the study.

In terms of active engagement of prospects, almost 25% of leads generated through customer/employee referrals resulted in an "opportunity," or a prospect who was engaged in an active sales process. The active engagement rate for websites was 31.3%.

It is clear that B2B marketing, in contrast to consumer marketing, involves an often lengthy cultivation and qualification process. In the study, for example, it took 84 days to convert 13% of leads to opportunities. B2B marketers therefore need to see lead generation, qualification, and conversion as a long-term process and should use a variety of techniques for engagement.

If you're a B2B marketer, you need to read the new 123 eGuide, B2B Marketing 123. It presents a 3 step approach for marketing to businesses that is grounded in timeless principles but recognizes and takes advantage of the brand new marketing world we live in. Purchase B2B Marketing 123 today for just $2.99 at the Amazon Kindle store or in any eBook format, including PDF, at Smashwords.com. This title is also be available wherever eBooks are sold. 

1 Minute Advice: The Strategic Advantage of Customer Service

Is customer service all it's cracked up to be -- and more importantly, are companies using customer service to their maximum strategic advantage?

A new Forbes Insight report, in association with Oracle, indicates senior managers believe their companies are making excellent use of customer service, with 75% of those surveyed saying they perform customer service better than their industry peers. When it comes to measuring their customer service success, it seems that most companies use traditional metrics, such as time to resolution and customer satisfaction. Still, a small percentage of company executives, 20%, consider the impact of customer service on new customer acquisition, and just 28% consider its impact on sales.

Taking a strategic view of customer service does not appear to be standard practice, however. Only 38% of the companies surveyed indicate that customer service is an organization-wide strategic goal, and just 15% consider customer service a key component of their marketing message or brand.

For this study, the responses of 415 executives, 79% of whom labeled themselves as being in customer service, were analyzed. All of the executives were from companies with over $250 million in revenue.

According to the report, "companies are struggling to make the connections among retention, revenue and spending, even as they are beginning to recognize the importance of customer effort on loyalty." 

1 Minute Advice: It's Still Tough for Businesses to Measure the Effectiveness of Social Media

Social media leaves lots of marketers, even in large companies, scratching their heads when it comes to measuring effectiveness. Most marketers know they need to be visible on social media -- it is a given that their customers and prospects use social media to engage with their family, friends and acquaintances and also with brands. But the big question remains: How does a business measure the real effectiveness of social media?

If you struggle with answering this question, you are not alone. Research reported in Social Media Examiner suggests even large companies find it challenging to pin down social media's ROI. For example, a survey of top marketing executives showed that hits/visits/page views is still the leading metric used to measure social media, followed by number of friends/followers, and repeat visits. Conversion rates from visitor to buyer is in fourth place. There is evidence, though, that when businesses generate a high amount of social media activity, the activity on their websites also increases.

Still, most marketers are not truly certain social media is producing a measurable ROI. Despite this fact, companies still expect their social media budgets, as a percentage of overall marketing, to double over the next five years.

According to Social Media Examiner, social media measurement should be viewed differently: "Just because the return on investment cannot be tracked in dollar amounts, however, doesn’t mean that social media has no effect on a business’s success. Brand awareness has been shown to drive revenues and profits, and social media has proven to raise brand awareness. The most encompassing way to measure social media success would be to track how overall business revenues and profits correlate to increasing or decreasing social media efforts."