Below is the infographic.

It essentially speaks for itself, but we’d like to point out its most essential elements to mark the importance of adopting a social media strategy first before moving forward with creating accounts to engage with social media consumers.

Social media impact is not related to the number of fans a company has on its Facebook page or the amount of followers it has on Twitter – the real impact lies in monetization.

Web strategist Jeremiah Owyang comments: “Because fans and followers are so easily viewable by all employees of our owned social accounts as well as our competitors, it’s easy to use that as a default index. Instead, focus on the business outcomes of the account, whether it be for being involved in influencing them, transacting leads or conversions, fostering word of mouth, improving customer service and support, or generating ideas for future products or the brand.”

There are several key questions that marketers have to ask themselves before moving forward with a social media campaign. The first is what platforms do your perfect consumers prefer to use for discovering, sharing and learning new information? The second: what are your business goals with social media marketing? Have you segmented important groups like customers, prospects and partners and have clearly defined your goals with each? Finally, what departments and internal resources need to be involved in making your social media accounts as valuable as they can be?

Nakano points out an important statistic. A survey that measured ROI impact of over 700 marketers in order to compile the top benefits of engaging with potential buyers on Facebook found that recruiting new customers, increasing conversion rates and purchase frequency were the most important goals. For this reason, companies shouldn’t relay on a single platform, or put all their eggs in one basket, like Facebook. The article continues:

 “While respondents ranked Facebook as their top social media marketing channel, we may see this change in 2012 with services like Twitter’s branded pages, LinkedIn’s developer launch, Google+ and the continued growth of blogging networks like Tumblr and WordPress.

Having the biggest fan base is not the end-result for most forward-thinking companies. Their need is to impact ROI and generate revenue. Using sophisticated and effective strategies to measure social media ROI means that businesses can build stronger connections with potential buyers using effective marketing efforts that will directly translate to the generation of more sales-ready leads.

At the event, C&A will be showcasing our newest offering in our series of marketing and sales tools; Wingman – a mobile sales enablement app. Be sure to drop by the C&A booth to see a demo of on the fly lead scoring! You can find us at booth #210.

Click HERE to read the latest press release.

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There are endless social networks out there that can be utilized in an effort to engage with perfect customers but it’s a matter of figuring out which ones will have the most impact and yield the best results. Facebook, Twitter and Google+ are just a few social networks that comprise a whole world of potential buyers, and companies that want to stay ahead-of-the-curve have to use the right approach to actually take advantage of them.

You will often find that big brand names acquire the most accounts in an effort to retain them and use them for future campaigns. They occupy as many Twitter handles as possible and begin to build these accounts only to finish setting up the profile before ever starting the process of engagement. This is often the case of companies mismanaging their social media campaigns. However, the only way to combat this is by devising a sound strategy, first.

Two Effective Methods to Create a Social Media Account

1. Use Your Account for Customer Service

Often successful companies begin interacting with consumers by letting them know that if there is any query or problem that they are encountering with a product or brand, they can find that company on a specific social media channel to get an immediate response. This is a good way to gain followers. When consumers see that others are engaging with a brand because that company is providing value to others they are likely to start following the conversation.

2. Building a Strong Brand Identity

The right social media channels offer B2B companies the opportunity to build their brands. When a company has strong brand identity and holds a strong brand position it becomes easier to find perfect customers because a brand often reflects the characteristics of its own perfect consumers.  The messages in a social media account have to work within the bounds of a strong brand identity and they have to be disseminating within these bounds. The more defined the character and attributes of your brand, the better the chances are that potential buyers will identify with it. A social media account that revolves around a single, coherent message has a greater potential of resonating with buyers than an account that doesn’t have a strong marketing agenda and holds a weak branding position.

Search plus Your World is adding user reviews to +1s and adding new sharing capabilities to the top of search engine results for users with a Google Profile – essentially ousting Twitter, Facebook and other providers from gaining the advantages of Google’s top real estate. If a user wants to get the latest information on his or her favorite celebrity, instead of getting a Twitter, Facebook or YouTube result, Google+ results will be at the top of SERPs instead (results that have been +1d and reviewed by friend’s in a user’s circle.) Another instance: when users search for definitions on Google they will get Google’s own favored dictionary results instead of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED).

The most interesting thing about Google’s attempt at what seems to be the exclusion of other providers is that this could mean that providers who want top visibility will have to partner with Google to gain it.

Wide-eyed critics who argue that Google is monopolizing web content are forgetting that Google have always been “excluding” web content and social networks from appearing on top results pages – this is what’s called “invisible web” data (data that’s not indexed on Google.) Yet, Google is simply doing what Microsoft has always done – bundling up their services like Microsoft and Internet Explorer in Windows.

Reaction by others, the Facebook Case

Google has never made Facebook’s thousands of message boards, intranets and chat rooms available on public search (again, a part of Google’s “invisible web”.) This is the reason why Facebook has partnered up with Bing – the two have formed an alliance to work together against Google due to Facebook’s inability to have prominent visibility on Google’s search results. Critics that are calling this an anti-trust violation are fundamentally wrong. Google is expanding its reach and transforming itself into a social search engine based on the creation of social networks or ‘circles’ that allow friends, family, co-workers and most importantly, potential buyers, to use the web in collaboration with others to find the best content.

With the advent of Facebook and the “Like” button, the Google+ implementation has transformed the way users engage with pages on SERPs. What was once a matter of brands controlling page visibility (through SEO and keyword relevancy) is now providing users with the ability to find products and brands using recommendations by people they trust.

Google+ allows users to “vote” for pages they have found useful after visiting and reading their contents. If a user finds information valuable and wants to recommend it to others they simply have to designate a +1 to that page to make it visible to those within their ‘circle’. To have a circle, Google+ users need to be signed into their Google Accounts and also have a public Google Profile to have the ability to +1 pages.

Since Google users are now able to voice their opinions on the products and brands they like, this new capability is transforming the way we use Google itself. Google has gone from a search engine that allows business owners to influence corporate visibility by optimizing websites, to a search engine which allows users to help each other find information by “voting” on it.

Marketers that venture into Google+ could potentially be tapping into a market segment which has a wider scope of customers by executing the kind of campaigns that encourage potential buyers to join their Google network, or ‘circle’.

Gaining market share as a result of having the most +1s allows potential buyers to see our pages because they’ve been recommended by their friends – people they actually know and trust. As a result of this, the chances that they will click on our pages before anyone else’s mean more traffic to our sites.

Google has also added the ability to leave behind reviews on pages that have been +1d by users. +1d pages as well as reviews by people within a user’s circle are shown first before any other provider’s results like Facebook, Twitter or YouTube. (See the Search plus Your World blog for more information on this development.)

Google+ is transforming social collaboration into one of the most important ways users use the search engine to find valuable information. Trusting someone within your circle who has recommended a site could mean an entirely new way for marketers to market to Google+ users by displaying value through having the most votes.

What kind of impact do you think Google+ will have on the way you use Google for website visibility?

Click HERE to join the Couch & Associates’ ‘Circle.’

Mobile users have become accustomed to using their mobile phones to accomplish simple and increasingly more complex tasks and are looking for even more efficient ways of doing so. This means that companies that want to stay ahead-of-the-curve in the mobile environment have to build increasingly more “intuitive” mobile interfaces in order to achieve the right response and action from a growing consumer base that uses Blackberries, iPhones and Androids to navigate through applications, web sites and other information portals on the web.

Best-in-Class Performing companies know that at the core of an effective mobile strategy lays a well-designed user interface that allows on-the-go users to access information quickly and more efficiently.  By allowing users to better navigate through content on the mobile, mobile designers can really work to create a positive experience for end-users, particularly when the art of web design is combined with the science of usability to achieve a successful Information Architecture (IA).

While design is an art and usability a science, the right combination of both can achieve an effective user experience that can significantly influence conversion rates by meeting end-user needs and aligning customer goals with an organization’s business objectives. Making a decision about the right mobile experience means testing usability by function, task and assessing whether elements like font, color scheme, wireframes and labels are appealing and intuitive enough to allow users to successfully navigate through informational sources on mobile. With a good understanding of your customer base and the needs of your potential buyers, it becomes possible to implement the kind of mobile strategy that holds the user interface as a key component to the mobile strategy as a whole and as a result allows organizations to achieve significant success in the mobile market.

What kind of strategies do you employ to capture new customers and increase customer usage?

An effective user experience is a critical component of any business. To deliver value to web users, it has become essential to represent our products, brands, information and services in a increasingly “intuitive” way. Designing intuitive interfaces on web sites, mobile devises and other information portals means organizing content in such a way as to allow users to navigate through a well designed interface that works to get customers to the exact information they need. Companies that achieve this spend time devising the kind of campaigns that help them better understand their prospects’ basic needs and motivations. This way, marketing can identify these needs and create the kind of content that is easily available through an effective interface that reflects buyer needs at each sales cycle stage.

Yet, a positive user experience is not something that can be achieved on its own; a positive user experience has to be supplemented by a effective branding strategy.

Having an effective branding strategy means having a strong brand identity and a strong brand identity is a product of strong brand positioning. Our brand attributes are essentially one in the same as the attributes that comprise our perfect customers and when we demonstrate that their needs can be met with our solution, we are targeting their pain points head-on. A strong brand image allows us to identify who our perfect prospects are, and with this knowledge, we can engage with buyers by demonstrating to them why they shouldn’t look further than the place they have arrived.

Companies that invest in the right tools and methodologies to understand the expectations and needs of web users are able to devise the kind of marketing campaigns that trigger prospect needs at each sales cycle stage. By extension, the information on our web sites, mobile interfaces and other information portals can also be designed in such a way as to

How do you ensure that your organization understands its web users’ needs?

Content marketing champions often get stuck at the planning stages: What type of content are we going to disseminate? What should we do with the content after it has been created? How is the content going to be defined in terms of the solutions it will provide for our prospects? What channels should be used for distribution; and finally, do we offer publications for free or charge prospects for access?

For a properly executed content roadmap, strategic content marketers have to evaluate each step of the sales cycle as well as the buying behavior of prospects in order to ensure that publications are delivered and contain authoritative information. The worst thing that can be done is when content champions leave things to chance or “understanding” hoping that consumers will “get” what actions they need to take.

 2. The Message

Once objectives for each publication have been clearly defined and each stage of the sales cycle has been marked with a clear message, CMOs can begin to map out their execution paths based on the messages that have been incorporated in each stage of the buying cycle. For example, at the inquiry level, consumers are only beginning to seek out information to answer their needs, and when they find a source that is best able to explain and define their problem, they can move on to getting to know the product or brand more in-depth. By constructing a message at each stage before a lead becomes sales-ready, marketers can help navigate consumers from message to message until they get to the closing stages of the sales cycle.

 3. Content Ownership and Distribution

Once a clear path of execution has been established and the message is clearly defined at each stage of the buying cycle, the CMO or champion can outline the fundamentals of ownership and control of rights. For example, have all clearances and rights been identified and received and have all the publications been based upon the rights granted?

 4. Frequency

For a content marketing strategy to be effective, a content marketing champion has to distribute the publications based on the behaviors of the prospects and clients who will be reading them. The way to measure effective frequency is by defining each stage of the sales cycle, aligning marketing and sales, and understanding the needs and problems of prospects at each sales cycle stage. When the behavior and needs of consumers have been clearly defined, we can build a roadmap based on information like: how many webinars do we need to execute on an annual basis? How many white papers are needed monthly and what email marketing campaigns do we execute at a specific time? All these answers help define parameters and help set a schedule for content distribution.

 5. Measurement

Tracking the publications and content we are using as part of our content marketing efforts will allow us to better understand which content pieces hold the most value. With informational publications, it becomes important to measure web traffic, conversions, views, downloads and other pertinent KPIs. By being realistic about the performance of our content pieces, we avoid setting the wrong expectations on which assets are worth reproducing and which are ineffective or provide no substantial benefit.

- It takes $1 to verify a record when it is in your database
- It takes $10 to cleanse that record for accuracy, and;
- It can cost you up to $100 if you neglect to take the necessary steps to ensure that your contact information is accurate.

This is the cost of bad data. Organizations that don’t emphasize the important of ensuring that their database (either the MAP or CRM) is kept clean and all information on each contact is accurate are simply losing revenue. They are losing because they are working within the parameters of an ineffective marketing strategy while placing little value on the importance of prospect retention.

If you’re losing as a result of bad data, perhaps the reasons can be found here:

- Form inconsistency. Inefficiency is more often caused by capturing the same pieces of data several times and using redundant methods of doing so.
- Inconsistent information from one database to another. Having one set of field values in the MAP and another set in the CRM means maintaining conflicting information.
- Uploading lists inconsistently. Ensuring that all available contact information is properly entered into the database means better data to work with in future campaigns. Companies that don’t invest in the time it takes to ensure data is accurate are wasting the money they’ve invested on the lists they’ve acquired.

Yet, there is a silver lining to the story.

One of the most effective ways to battle against maintain bad data is by developing a “Contact Washing Machine”.

A Contact Washing Machine is a uniquely designed program in a MAP or CRM that automates the entire process of capturing contact information. With a Contact Washing Machine, marketing is able to gain more accuracy on contact profiles by inputting all the missing data pieces. Everything from incoming lists, to form submissions, account syncs and various prospect actions are automatically scrubbed, normalized, standardized and cleansed.

With a Contact Washing Machine, sales and marketing becomes capable of isolating the most important data points for each contact in order to more effectively segment leads with more accurate reports. Furthermore, data that is captured is accompanied by visually produced statistics via reports and dashboards that provide for better insight into all the different activities that are happening in the sales funnel. With access to information like number of inquiries, inquiries by segment, and inquiries by normalized title, information on each contact is compartmentalized while data becomes more organized.

With a Contact Washing Machine, a MAP or CRM enables marketing to execute more targeted campaigns using more accurate messages in an effort to reach the ultimate goal of translating more prospects into revenue.

Click HERE to read more on The Cost of Bad Data.

Lead scoring is essential to the lead management process. The better understanding we have of the nature of a lead in terms of how sales-ready it is or how ‘hot’ it may be, the better does our decision-making process become. When we know that a lead hasn’t met a particular set of criteria, we know that it is still ‘warm’ and needs more marketing-related activities in order to be ready to be passed off to sales. Leads are very delicate when it comes to engagement, and sophisticated marketers know and value this most. Brash or out of turn action can cause negative effects in the short- and long-term. It is important to respect each lead in the buying cycle and respond accordingly.

2. An Effective Lead Qualification System

 Marketing automation allows marketers to have all available information on any lead in the sales funnel available on-hand and in real-time. Knowing where a lead comes from is one of the most essential factors for marketers because this determines all associated future activities. Furthermore, by knowing how a lead entered the database better prepares marketers with the knowledge of what campaigns and activities will work in the future. If a lead comes in from a landing page or through a gated form, the richness of these details provides great insight in the follow-up process.

3. Responding to Leads in a Timely Manner

Timing is a crucial factor in the lead management process. Leads that are left without necessary engagement at the right time will often result in a missed opportunity. Sophisticated marketers are continuously analyzing leads in the sales cycle by keeping tabs on each activity as it is associated with each lead. An important aspect of lead management is holding the responsibility of sending appropriate messages at the most crucial moments when potential buyers are either looking for more information or are ready to move to the sales-ready stage. A sound lead management process accounts for each stage of the sales cycle as well as the activities associated with each lead in order to deliver the right messages at the right time.

4. Placing Leads in the Right Channel

A lead stands the best chance of moving forward in the buying cycle when it is matched with an appropriate communication channel. Whether it is via email, a white paper download or through access on a designated landing page or a gated form, connecting the right leads with the right content pieces is one of the most essential factors in connecting potential buyers with the right information.

5. CRM Management

A company CRM, when used appropriately, has the potential to unlock essential data as it pertains to each lead. In other words, a CRM is a goldmine that has to be consistently nurtured and updated by the sales team with each new lead activity and lead action. To have the most accurate measurements on the quality of each lead, a CRM becomes effective when it holds the kind of data that pertains to the history of each lead and all of its associated activities.