Montreal Marketing Consultant - Montreal Business Marketing - Silver Maple

With much of North America having a very white Christmas (snow) and retailers hoping for a very green Christmas ($$$), social media will be the “it” media for business-to-business marketers next year. It’s been growing steadily for the last few years, but really hit its stride when Facebook took off, somewhere around 2007-2008. And in 2011, it will finally take off with SME’s. A few basics before I start. Social media (the channel) is the communication network that people use to build their social networks (a social structure made up of individuals and organizations). Those businesses that haven’t already created a Facebook, Twitter or Linkedin page are finally seeing the value of these tools to reach prospects, build brand awareness and create buzz and not just something to do on their free time.  According to Marketing Sherpa, http://www.marketingsherpa.com, a vast majority of respondents felt that social media could increase traffic (74%), improve search results (61%), increase sales revenue (56%) and generate leads (51%) amongst other activities like increasing brand awareness, improving brand reputation and public relations etc…. Another survey indicated that increased spending in social media (69%) is right up there with website design, management and optimization when respondents were asked where their organization would be allocating their budgets in 2011.Marketers have finally realized that you have to go where your customer is and he/she will probably be visiting a social media website, probably to build their social networks. According to the e-marketer, www.emarketer.com, 60% of Canadians visit a social networking site monthly! Now most visitors to these sites, aren’t going there to be marketed to, so no sales pitches to the great masses. Your messages have to be informative and stimulate dialogue. Marketing through social media involves having conversations with your customers. And that means having ongoing dialogue with your customers even when they aren’t happy with you. Businesses will have to enhance their value proposition to include the famous S in the AIDAS model (Attention, Interest, Desire, Action and Satisfaction) if they want brand engagement and interaction. These days, there’s just too much competition out there.

A B2B benchmark survey from the U.S. based research firm, Marketing Sherpa,www.marketingsherpa.com indicated conclusively (70% of respondents) that the top challenge for marketers in 2010 is to generate quality leads. Now quality means different things to different people but most marketers will agree that a “quality” lead is a prospect with a need, a motivation to fill the need and is in the process of determining who will fill that need. It’s the classic being at the right place at the right time with the right idea. For B2B marketers, being in the right place over the years has meant working tradeshows, networking, cold-calling, advertising, seminars etc… One thing that all of these tactics have in common is that they all involve going out and getting business .... and they are really expensive. The problem is that buyers nowadays prefer to be engaged through dialogue or “conversations”.  It might be difficult to near impossible to teach an old dog new tricks but this is one trick that B2B marketers better pick up pronto.  And the next easiest way (picking up a phone works best but it’s hard to talk to an automated voice messaging service) is through social media. According to the eMarketer,www.emarketer.com, blogs and social media outlets such as Twitter convert visitors into leads. And not only do they do it for less but they can also double average monthly leads for small and medium-sized businesses. However it takes more than just creating a community of followers. They have to be informed regularly through the streaming of content, building engagement, boosting the company’s presence on Google (free online marketing) and ultimately bring in more potential customers. The holy grail of quality sales leads exists but a change in thinking and approach have to be factored into the equation!