Want to improve your B2B marketing skills? B2B can be tough on marketers; these tips will make it a little easier!
1) Just write better
Our own Maren Hogan wrote about how to write better here and she’s even written an in-house guide to make sure every blog post we produce shines! Lesson? You need an editor (don’t worry we all do). Don’t have one, get some advice from online blogger Darren Rowse (aka ProBlogger):
“Successful bloggers have to keep their heads around many different aspects of the medium – but at its core is being able to write compelling and engaging content on a consistent basis over time.”
2) Show me, Don’t tell me
Whenever posting on Facebook, your goal should be to have an image for every single thing you put out. Ever wonder how an app as simple as Instagram made it so huge (and then got bought by Facebook)? People love visuals and more importantly they make you FEEL things (catnip for marketers)! Data from WishPond indicates that posts with photos get 120% more engagement than non-image posts. The stats on video are even more compelling. Don’t have the budget for images or video? That’s what Photopin and YouTube are for!
3) Juicing up Content
Finished writing? Go back and add relevant links to keywords and anchor statements. A strong emphasis on SEO will keep constant organic traffic coming back to the site. Adding these links after the content is ready will ensure that writing doesn’t suffer for SEO. Remember, dynamic trumps SEO. These keywords can often be found on the backside of most sites or an online keyword tool. But be careful, Google keeps changing things up on us. But don’t worry, follow a marketing company (AHEM!) or a tech-hipster on Twitter and you’ll know when they switch it up posthaste.
Our in-house SEO and keyword experts Jeremy Hogan (@JPHogan) and Sarah Duke (@SarahMaeDuke) use dozens of different variations of keywords for each site we work on. This makes your Google net wider when searchers type in different terms for the same thing. It also helps you get rid of keywords you may be using that aren’t helping your future customers any. One company we worked with was using the word “fired” to help displaced jobseekers, meanwhile, they were getting a lot of fire prevention tools bounces.
4) Get some Intel
Here are some awesome ways to check out the keywords that are important to your competitors, and how to use the information.
SassyWebWords.com gives us four good reasons to explore competitors’ keywords.
1. You just want some broad ideas of what keywords you can use to optimize your site.
2. Assess which keywords you’d like to include on your site to obtain better organic search results
3. Find out why your main competitors have websites that rank above you
4. Why stop at 3? Yes go and steal your competitor’s keywords…..hehe
5) “But I Can’t Write”
I won’t argue with you. If you think you can’t, you probably can’t (or at least don’t want to and that’s fair enough). Have no fear, you can still read and share. Choose at least 5 interesting, relevant or funny industry articles that you personally found helpful and share them socially. Don’t forget to use bitly to share links! Read also #6 –add the author’s twitter handles when possible. SocialBakers.com tells us that posting more than 2 times per day as a brand will typically lose engagement.
Here are some stats from GetSpokal.com to help you gauge your twitter posts.
- The highest % of retweets happen around 5pm est
- The highest % of people who click on links happens between noon and 6pm est
- Twitter links get the most attention towards the end of the week and on the weekends
The first five got you overwhelmed? Don’t worry, if you’re going it on your own, the key to B2B marketingis to start simply, define a process and stick with it. Repeat to scale.
It’s also important to note that this is just the surface stuff and no one should start any of it without figuring out budget, timeline, goals and potential resources. Any of those things can get out hand quickly without defined expectations first. If you need help with those expectations, reach out to us!
Stay tuned for Part 2 of 10 Quick Tips on B2B Marketing! What do you think about the first 5? Tweet us with your questions, comments, rotten tomatoes…whatever!
photo credit: yoppy via photopin cc
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