Category Archives: Business to Business Marketing Strategies

Tips for improving your business to business marketing strategies and campaigns.  Learn how to find a market niche, and why having a niche is so important.  There are also posts about finding your ideal client (and why you need that too).  Trying to market to everyone only leaves you “spraying and praying” without actually hitting anything.

These pages also cover common business to business marketing mistakes (made by companies both large and small). If you’ve made one of these, you’ll learn how you can fix the errors you’ve made (and avoid future gaffes).

Need more clients? Or better clients? Check out the posts on lead generation, how to set and negotiate higher fees, and what red flags to look for when prospecting for new work.

Finally, there are posts on creating your brand and your company’s “story.” What you are selling isn’t necessarily what you think.  The way you present your products and services can make a big difference in your results.

How Online Marketing Tracking Gets You More Sales

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tire tracks in the snow image

Image: stellablu

John Wanamker once said, “Half my advertising is wasted, I just don’t know which half.”

Actually, there is a way to tell where your sales are coming from.

Set up online marketing tracking systems on your site

If you don’t have Google Analytics installed on your site, go do it now.  You set up a Google account, add some code to your site, and you’re good to go.  This will tell you where your clicks and visits are coming from. And here’s a Google Analytics tutorial with tips on what to look for.

Track marketing campaign clicks and ads

If you run a print ad, use a unique URL (such as www.mysite.com/logo).  Keep this fairly short and easy to remember.  The harder it is to type, the less likely it is that people will do it.

Do the same for a direct mail or postcard marketing campaign.  Add a unique URL or a keycode (a series of numbers or letters, like LOGO1, for the first logo offer mailing) that identifies which mailing it is or which list you used.  You can also add tracking links to your ebooks.

Update 2016: Google now lets you track clicks by adding a bit of extra code to your analytics tracking information.  That means it’s easier to see every click on every link, without having to mark each one individually.  More details  are here.

Offer a bonus

Add an incentive to go to the landing page.   Offer an additional discount or bonus for using the code. Put a box to your home page that says, see us in ______ magazine?  Enter your code here.  The code would be the unique URL name, which sends them to the landing page.

Welcome new visitors

If you’re driving visitors from another web site, welcome visitors from XYZ blog. right on top. For banners, or AdWords campaigns, send people to a landing page set up for that particular campaign.

Google can track all of this, as well as the conversions (sales/sign-ups) for each one. Once you know where your sales are coming from, you can shift more time (and money) to what works. Then, do a happy dance, cause you know more than John Wanamaker ever could.

Got any other ideas or tips for tracking?  Anything I missed?  Share in the comments.

Remarkable Can be Small (part 5)

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purple cow

Photo thanks to: heiwa4126

This post is the last in a continuing series highlighting attributes or ways of doing business that make people or businesses remarkable, and worth talking about and spreading.

 If you’re familiar with Seth Godin, remarkable marketing is what he calls “a purple cow.” In other words, something that’s so unusual and special, that it’s worth remarking on and talking about. If you saw a purple cow, you’re more likely to mention it than if you spotted an ordinary brown one.

Two remarkable people

The first is Bo Hume of American Airlines. Leigh McMullen of Cult of Mac left his iPad on a plane (and didn’t even realize it). Bo tracked him down and returned it.  And he wouldn’t accept a reward either.

Louise Penny (one of my favorite mystery writers – and a great person too), is holding a drawing for advance copies of her new book. I wrote her a note asking her to enter my name.

I got a reply back five minutes later. And, it was clearly personal (OK, my note was silly – but still).

She’s a best-selling author, she’s busy, she was in the middle of working on her next book, but she took the time to respond to me.

Share your thoughts

Know any remarkable people or businesses? Have your own story? Share it in the comments.

Here are the rest of the posts:  Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4

Remarkable Can be Small (Part 4)

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This is the fourth post in an ongoing series about small ways that businesses large and small can stand out.  It’s good for your customers (they’ll remember and appreciate you), and it’s good for your business too (you’ll be memorable, talked about, and probably get more customers too).

The post office can be remarkable

Seth Godin’s recent experience at the post office was sad. But, here are three examples of how people with repetitive jobs and lots of rules to follow can still find ways to stand out and, dare I say it, be linchpins.

1) My postman greets me by name (I live in New York City, in an apartment building – it’s not a small town where everyone knows each other).

2) A few days ago, I was on the way to mail a Netflix movie. A passing mailman saw me, and wanted to know if I was off to mail back the DVD. I said yes. He held out his hand and popped it in his bag.

3) My mom sent me something in the mail. She put the wrong address on the envelope. Instead of sending it back as unknown, they looked up the correct address (don’t know how they knew which Jodi to pick), and delivered it – all in three days.

Share your thoughts

Got your own examples of small things that are remarkable? Something that happened to you? Or, something you do yourself? Share them here.

You can find the first three here, here, and here.

Image thanks to: ronnieliew

How to Educate Your Clients and Reduce Your Stress

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german school book image

Image thanks to: Valeriana Solaris

Are you tired of having the same “fights” with your clients?  You know, the conversations where they keep asking you to make the logo bigger?  Or the ones where they insist that you must code for IE6?

Here are some tips on how to educate them, reduce your stress, and get more done.

Speak their language

Explaining that IE6 is outdated and has security flaws might get through, but telling them “it has a poor rendering engine” will go in one ear and out the other.  It may be as foreign to them as the words on the book in the picture (unless you speak German).

Instead, describe how their carefully crafted web site (and logo) won’t display properly.  The images may overlap. Or, there may be big white spaces or missing text. Even better, show them how IE6 wrecks someone else’s site.

Listen carefully

There may be a good reason behind a seemingly bone-headed insistence on IE6.  It could be that their own customers have cash terminals that use it.  Or, many of their clients are still using Windows XP and don’t want (or know how) to upgrade to IE7.

Logos, logos, logos

The logo isn’t big enough.  Can you make the logo bigger?

First, understand why they want it bigger.  It’s not logical, it’s emotional.  If you argue, frame it in business terms, not design considerations.

The purpose of their web site is to engage visitors, encourage them to return, to remember them, to get information, to build trust, and to buy things.  If the logo is too big, it will overshadow everything else.

Amazon’s logo is small.  Apple’s is tiny.  They want you to shop.  The logo is important, but it’s not the goal of the site.

Choose your battles

If they insist on making the logo bigger than you’d like, give in.   I know.  But, they are the client.  They’re paying the bills.

You can tell them that no,  you can’t use Photoshop to turn a sitting cat’s picture around so you can see her tail. And, you don’t have to wait for payment until after their new product makes millions.

Share your thoughts

Have you had situations like this?  How did you solve them?  Are there any design wins you are particularly proud of?  Share them in the comments (with a link).

Are you a Eierlegendewollmilchsau?

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egg laying wool milk pig

Many thanks to cocoate for this image

What in the world is an Eierlegendewollmilchsau?

I just learned this word today, from Carmen, who was kind enough to let me share it with you.

It means an egg-laying wool milk pig.

Something that doesn’t make sense. An animal that is trying to do too many things at once.

Are you an Eierlegendewollmilchsau?

But, sometimes, in the rush to get new business, or grow our influence, we forget that companies cannot be Eierlegendewollmilchsaus. As Carmen said, “You can’t be everything to everyone and neither can your organization. Segment, compartmentalize, create a spin-off, do whatever you have to do resist the temptation to become an Eierlegendewollmilchsau.”

What that means is that you need to concentrate your marketing efforts in one place. Don’t try to lay eggs, produce wool, give milk, and become bacon.

If you want to pursue different passions, such as life coaching and opera singing, separate them.

Pick your “people”

Don’t try to sell to the US military, your local dry cleaners, and stay-at-home moms at the same time. Choose your “fish.”

Build your expertise and your reputation

If you’re a web designer, be a great web designer. Don’t try to design, develop databases, write copy, and streamline packing and shipping all at once.

That’s a Eierlegendewollmilchsau. If you regularly get projects that require multiple skills, form partnerships.

I’m good with words, for instance, but nobody in their right mind wants me to code SQL databases. I leave that to other people.

Share your thoughts

What do you think?  Do you know of any companies that are  Eierlegendewollmilchsaus?  And, did you think I’d be able to find a picture of one?