10 Quick Tips on B2B Marketing [Part Two]

Five more golden nuggets of B2B marketing knowledge straight from the Red Branchers, to you. We’ve got insight for your social, your company site and (drum roll please) lead generation. Check it out…

6) Connect the Dots

When quoting an industry leader, using a company’s stat or any mention of people in your space, incorporate their Twitter handle. This gets great engagement and they are likely to return the favor. Did you know that using the words “Please Retweet” in your tweets will generate 4x more retweets? Part of our dynamic social duo, Shaley (@Miss_Shaley), insists that you not only use the twitter handle but a picture if you can get it, and a link to their twitter page. After all, you benefitted from their wisdom, everyone else can too! While you’re at it, get in the practice of sending LinkedIn invites to those you quote or follow regularly. Seem too forward? Try Twitter instead!

7) Nix Tech Talk

Remember who your audience is. They aren’t going to geek out about on buzzwords and tech terms. Use language that your target audience can understand. This goes for everything from web site copy to social interactions. We don’t have a stat for this one; it just makes good ol’ fashion sense.

We use WordPress Yoast plugin on the back end of this very blog and it does a great job of giving us a readability score for every blog post. This helps our team determine if we’ve gone too far beyond what people are likely to take the time to read. If you do have to tackle a difficult subject, use bulleted statements, headers, lists or pull quotes to keep your readers’ eyeballs from falling right out.

8) WebADD

We run into this a lot and it’s a cryin’ shame; is your website ADD-proof? If you were a visitor to your site, would you be able to tell what it is that you do or sell from the homepage (top half)? These things should be crystal clear from the second that page loads.

If you’re unsure because it seems common sense to you, it can be as easy as posting the question on Twitter, “Can you tell what it is we do from our Homepage within seconds?” It never hurts to ask for feedback, people want to give it. You probably wouldn’t be surprised at how often people love to tell you what you’re doing wrong. Usability testing can be done well for pennies on the dollar.

9) Managing Social

Your company should have Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn accounts, but only if you are prepared to set them up. Most B2Bs have that down, the part they struggle with, is using them and updating them. We get it, you run out of things to say, some days or weeks engagement is down. It will never go back up if you don’t get into a routine. You can actually get the majority of this accomplished in 30 minutes a week with tools like Sprout Social, Hootsuite or Buffer.

Our in-house social guru, Eric Foutch (@erockfoutch) recommends the following minimum standards for these three popular social sites, but keep your industry in mind!:

• Post to Facebook once per day. This does not include keeping up with necessary engagements, such as liking or replying to a post or update.
• Post to Twitter 5 times per day. This does include engagement like retweets, replies and @s.
• Post to LinkedIn 3 times per day. This does not include the necessary engagements of joining discussions, making connections, or endorsements.

It’s easy to get caught up in the dialogue on social media, but don’t forget why you’re there; you’re there for lead gen. Hubspot author, Brian Whalley gives us a good rule of thumb:

photo credit: isado via photopin cc

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Maren Hogan

Maren Hogan is CEO of Red Branch and general Bad@$$

Maren Hogan is a seasoned marketer and community builder in the HR and Recruiting industry. Maren started Red Branch Media and, before she hired all the smiling faces you see below, she ran it on her own. In marketing for over 15 years, she has deep experience in strategic campaigns and a long-term, results-based operational approach.