Getting Beyond Awareness
To Generate B2B Leads
wmarx@marxcommunications.com
http://www.linkedin.com/in/
marxcommunications.com
@wendymarx

A Quick Lesson in Giving
Hat tip to @fatAwesome for video. View their YouTube channel here

The Non-Tweet
“By not tweeting, you’re
sending a message”
- Anonymous

The Social Media Community
POTENTIAL FRIENDS (PROSPECTS)
INFLUENCERS
SHARERS
FRIENDS
RAGING FANS!
CRITICS (BOO!)

Remember it’s
SOCIAL Media
Develop Strong Ties
“Who you spend time with is who you
become. One of the most important
decisions is who you’re friends are”
- Tony Robbins

Don’t Be a Hermit
• Roughly 99.9% of online
banners are never clicked on
• Buyers wait until they have
completed 60-80% of their
research before reaching out
to vendors

BE Visible and Credible
of marketers reported that the number
one benefit of social marketing is
generating more business exposure

Multiple Barriers to Tying Social Media to Revenue
Inability to tie
Social Media to
Business outcomes
Lack of
analytics expertise
and/or resources
Poor
tools
Inconsistent
Analytical
approaches
Unreliable
data

Don’t Be a Silo
A recent CMO Survey
reported that while B2B
social media spending
increased 9.6% last year,
the majority of B2B
companies failed to
integrate social media into
their business practices.

Meanwhile...
Social media spending as a percentage of
marketing budgets will more than double
over the next 5 years to 21.6 % of the
budget – CMO 2013 Survery
How can you NOT afford to be integrated?

7 Steps to Being Successful
In Your Social Media
Community
STEP 1
Get Top Management Buy in

STEP 2
Set Goals and Objectives
“The Victory of SUCCESS is half
won when one gains the habit
of setting GOALS and
ACHIEVING them”
- Og Mandino

What are Your Goals and Objectives?
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Increase inbound leads at a low cost
Expand reach of thought leadership content
Engage and excite influencers
Better understand, identify, and engage potential
buyers
• Improve customer service and satisfaction
• Enhance outbound campaign program effectiveness
• Improve recruiting initiatives

STEP 3
Have the necessary structure and resources
• Social Media Team & Reporting
Structure
• Social Media Platform:
Posting/Monitoring/Analytics/Reporting
• Integration

STEP 4
Develop a Social Media Plan
“Man Plans and God Laughs”
-Yiddish Proverb

Social Media Plan
Define your Audience
thought leaders
• Who Is Your Target?
fans
• What social media channels
do they hang out in?
partners
potential employees
prospects
analysts
clients
media

Social Media Plan
• Tie to goals/objectives
• Start small and test
• Tactical plan for each network

Tactical Plan
Twitter/x hours/month/day/week
Short term objectives:
• Promote content through
Twitter
• Communicate support issues
from Social
• Segment influencers and
create lists
• Promote webinars and drive
to registration page
• Utilize promoted Tweets
• Listen to relevant
conversations
• Build reputation
Source: Marketo

Tactical Plan
Twitter/x hours/month/day/week
Key Metrics:
• Followers
• Mentions
• Social Capital--influence of
Twitter followers
• Retweets
• Number of potential prospects
sent to sales
• Retweet Reach
• Posts
• Replies Reach
• Number of
• Number of lists
registrants/downloads, etc.
Source: Marketo

STEP 5
Tie social media to the rest of your marketing
and include in all phases of the buying process
• Link with your CRM System
• Link with your Marketing Automation
• Link with your editorial calendar and
public relations and marketing strategy

STEP 6
Train employees
• Establish a social media
policy that all
employees adhere to
• Provide measurable
goals/objectives
• Ensure knowledge of
tools

STEP 7
Be accountable
• Daily/weekly/monthly reports
• Metrics aligned with business goals

The Social Media Community Rules
• Don’t try to be everywhere
• Don’t broadcast, brag, or be boring
• Be a good community member

© Marketoonist.com

© Marketoonist.com

How Social Media Leads Happen
• Think Top of the Funnel
• The Endless Turkey Meal
• Think Content
• Curate: Value by association
Source: Hubspot

Case Study:
Major B2B
Marketing Company

Goals/Objectives
• Move to top of funnel
• Generate leads
• Fill out a form for an e-book
• Register for a webinar
The Bottom Line: Not about sales, all about
educating, inspiring

Overview
• Social Media and Content Team (5 people each) reports
to Director of Content and Engagement Social and
Content Creation reside in Marketing organization
• Engaging 8 am to 5 pm ET daily
• 10 + Twitter posts a day
• 10 LinkedIn company page posts
• Some of the same posts as in Twitter
• 3 Google+ posts
• 1 Facebook post
• Many of the same posts in Google+ and LinkedIn
• 127,000+ Twitter followers
• 136,00+ Linkedin followers
• 270,000 Facebook likes
• 17,000+ Google+ circled 200,000/month Blog visitors
• Twitter most effective, then LinkedIn

“No one will engage or
follow you if don't share
helpful information”
- Anonymous
Content Manager,
major B2B marketing company

The Content Engine
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4 writers, 1 designer, 1 manager who also writes
Focused around one initiative, i.e., webinar
5 to 10 blog posts a day all with Call To Action
60 ebooks for call to action
Presentation on Slideshare with link to ebook
Infographcs
Check list, game, quiz on Slideshare or blog
Influencers – Guest blog
Tweetchats 2X a month, #mcloudlive
Hashtag for webinars: #marketingcloud
Give away books of thought leader
Get questions from Twitter -- first 10 who ask questions get a free book
Have fun: Friday fun

Thought Leader Webinars
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•
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Promote it X weeks in advance on Twitter, etc.
Get thought leader to tweet?
X Blog posts about it
Blog post afterwards?
X posts afterwards?
Videotape webinar and gate it
Blog post around the recording
Manually determine action of lead, if downloaded
Lot of ebooks, attend a webinar, targeted for call
If first time at webinar, put into nurturing in the company website or
marked as a hot lead
• ID on end of URLs so can determine which channel someone comes
in from to track effectiveness

What to Do if You’re Not This Company?
•Promote it in advance
on social media
•Get thought leader to
tweet
•Blog in advance
•Blog afterwards
•Videotape webinar and
gate it special thought
leader offer
•If first time at webinar,
put into nurturing in the
company website or if
participated in several
activities marked as a hot
lead
•ID on end of URLs so can
determine which channel
someone comes in from
to track effectiveness

© Marketoonist.com