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The Implications of Convergence

April 18th, 2012 | Marilou Barsam

Well, having just come off of the Austin and Boston Summits I have a clearer view of what “convergence” means to IT buyers. In Boston I had a great IT panel from Novartis Vaccines, Thompson Reuter and American Tower. Between them they had buying authority for close to 500 million dollars.

I asked them to respond to the theme I’d chosen for the Summits, namely “convergence”, as it seems to be the next chapter in defining how online marketers should approach their marketing activities online. Actually, converged is not far removed from an integrated approach but the real time aspect of social discussions influencing IT buys without a marketer’s influence somehow begs for a word like converge.

Their gut reaction to this perspective and a converged ad format I showed them that combined a branding, demand gen and social piece was that it made perfect sense. Their time to buy in their markets have been greatly compressed and as our latest Media Consumption research shows they often have less than 6 months to get through their buy cycles including research online. One panelist put it perfectly when he said, “Well it may be convergence for marketers but for us it’s convenience.” He and the other buyers said they’d rather be exposed to multiple marketing formats at once as long as they can “control” their interaction times and when they engage. They see this as efficient- not overwhelming.

Another thought I put forward is that the industry needs to wrap their arms around engagement as a lead metric for calculating ROI and consequently figure out how to elicit engaged users/audience in a way that positively impacts branding awareness as well as lead gen as well as positive social interactions. The trick is to do this in a way that is acceptable to IT target audiences and on a platform that makes it easy to engage with a sponsor’s content.

Of course, we at TechTarget plan to have plenty of pragmatic ways to do just that –check out this example of an Engage Ad that offers multiple media options to marketers and multiple choices to IT buyers…

Posted in Uncategorized, Technology marketing, Integrated Media, Branding, Online ROI Summit, Social media, Lead generation | Post or View Comments (0)

‘Like’ Me - The Era of Engagement

June 6th, 2011 | Pegah Kamal

A colleague of mine and I recently had the pleasure of presenting to the entire TechTarget client consulting team about how online advertising has changed over the last 2 decades- ‘Digital Media: 2 Decades of Change’.  The objective was to raise awareness and further educate the team about the evolution of online advertising, understand the various influences that impact the market’s direction and explore new paths of creativity.  Through my research we noticed a common theme or trigger that seemed to be part of the root cause of all these changes and developments of innovative ads and online tools/resources.  The driving force is the very same person reading this blog post.  That’s right, the consumer.

I’m sure you’re thinking, well duh.  But start digging deeper into all the new innovations and realize just how ‘under the consumer influence’ marketers have been and you will really appreciate how far digital media has come in just under 2 decades.   Another key point drawn from our research, is that as online ads continue to evolve at a rapid pace, that it’s important for us as digital marketers to remember that the ‘IT  Pro / Consumer Will Always Be One Step Ahead’.  This notion presents all marketers with the opportunity to push the digital media industry even further in every aspect, from innovative online ads to new online tracking applications (Hootsuite, TweetDeck, etc.) and social sharing abilities (Add This, Share This, etc.) or as one of my colleagues, Ben Bradley, refers to in his recent blog ‘Socializing’.

We’ve already seen adaption of new online tools, such as social widgets, that are used to consume and share information, which has further developed a new breed of digital consumers and brand evangelists. In a recent Wall Street Journal article about ‘Like’ Button Follow Web Users, these widgets not only make it easier “to share content with friends and help attract visitors”, these widgets are a “potentially powerful way to track internet users.”  We’ve gone from a time of CPM, Open Rates, CTR, CPC to the era of CPE, cost per engagement or what is also known as CPA cost per action.

These more robust engagement metrics have allowed marketers to gather what TechTarget identifies as Activity Intelligence and has influenced the way marketers communicate their message and get users to engage with their brand on a new level.  Now in my last blog post, The Power of Customer Intelligence, I discussed leveraging customer intelligence from a high level, so I think it’s time we take it a step further.  What happens when you take the core of customer intelligence (behavior, demographics and basic activity- clicks and downloads) and add it with all this robust rich media engagement activity (time in ad, % viewed, # of tweets or shares)?

You now get a more refined set of marketing programs that are purely focused on user engagement, which provides greater insight into the behaviors and thought processes of a potential buyer or prospect.

Already out in the digital space we are seeing these new programs come to fruition.  You can find examples in the ‘Digital Media: 2 Decades of Change’ presentation, in the Things Your Mother Doesn’t Even Know About section.  These examples showcase three different types of engagement ads that take users beyond the click and immerse them with an interactive brand experience.

Overall, the era of engagement is an exciting place for all marketers to be in.  We’ve already begun to see the influence this new breed of consumers has had on the digital ad space.  And with every innovative interactive ad, comes a new set of metrics that provides marketers with a more robust set of activity intelligence. The combination of the two is pushing marketers to look beyond the click and make us venture onto new paths of creativity.  This will sure be an amazing trip and something tells me we are just scratching the surface of what is yet to come.

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Posted in search, Lead-Gen Strategies, Integrated Media, Social media, Activity Intelligence | Post or View Comments (0)

Avoid the obstacles — adopt social media marketing in your company

May 20th, 2011 | Sandra Sandoval

A recent BtoB study titled “Emerging Trends in B-to-B Social Media Marketing: Insights From the Field,” indicates that 93% of b2b marketers are engaged to some extent in social media marketing.  Twenty-six percent of respondents to BtoB’s survey cited LinkedIn as their most important social channel, followed by Facebook (20%), blogging (19%), customer communities (14%) and YouTube (7%).

Survey participants indicated that social sites are useful overall in supporting branding efforts, although different channels are considered to have their own unique strengths. LinkedIn, for example, was cited primarily for supporting lead generation.  Facebook was considered strong in promoting products and events.  Twitter was noted for its website traffic-building qualities.

With all this activity around social media marketing, companies should take advantage of using this media vehicle to aid with their overall branding and lead generation efforts, however some companies do come across obstacles when trying to adopt this strategy.   The B2b study then went on to explain three major obstacles seen when trying to adopt social media marketing in their company.  The single most pressing obstacle was due to “lack of resources,” cited by 70% of survey respondents.  Other hurdles uncovered were that 57% of respondents cited “poorly defined success metrics and key performance indicators” as preventing them from adopting this strategy in their organization.  Lastly, 44% indicated that “lack of knowledge about social media” was holding them and their companies back from adoption.

Social media is said to be one of the most powerful influencers on buyer behavior, and is “poised for hyper-growth,” according to B2B online.  According to a 2011 Social Media Marketing Trends blog post on Webbiquity, just 5% of Americans said they were familiar with Twitter in 2008; by the Fall of 2010, that figure was up to 87%, and Twitter is now adding 300,000 new users per day.  Facebook also added more than 150 million new users in 2010.

Has your company adopted social media marketing?   What are you waiting for?

Posted in Technology marketing, search, Integrated Media, Best practices, Social media | Post or View Comments (0)

Let’s Take A Closer Look at Corporate Volunteerism

May 12th, 2011 | Cynthia Cooper

How often do we really think of getting involved in volunteering from a corporate perspective? Corporate Volunteerism in the US can trace its roots back more than 25 years.  During this time, a growing number of companies have encouraged their employees to support charitable endeavors and non profit organizations through a variety of sponsored activities, events and promotions.

It is of little surprise then that corporations are increasingly engaged in volunteerism. Now, however they are refocusing their programs around their respective core business competencies to drive benefits that transcend philanthropic goals and ultimately support their bottom lines.

This shift has also allowed volunteerism to extend into largely untapped areas such as IT-based services.  The move to facilitate IT volunteerism has come thanks in large part to groups such as NPower which matches pro bono IT services through The Community Corps.  They not only match skilled IT volunteers with nonprofits in need of help, it manages the entire process allowing corporations to more effectively track each employee’s impact and contribution which is known as Soft ROI.

The ability to track, measure and manage a sponsored volunteer program successfully addresses a critical issue facing corporate volunteerism, clearing the way for IT and tech centric companies such as TechTarget to participate.

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Posted in Integrated Media | Post or View Comments (0)

Blogging as a form of nurturing

May 6th, 2011 | Sandra Sandoval

Blogs are a great way to establish thought leadership amongst both current and prospective clients.  In a recent TechTarget Media Consumption Benchmark Report titled, “Closing the Gap between IT Buyers and IT Marketers,” this report uncovered that marketers and IT buyers find that information from unbiased sources (like blogs, online communities, and social networks) are more useful during the awareness and consideration stages of the buying process.  What better time to get in front of prospective buyers researching technology solutions than now?

Blogs could even be considered yet another vehicle in which organizations use to nurture  prospects with information needed to help them get closer to make a purchasing decision.   If your organization has not entered the world of blogging, now might be a good time to pursue this initiative, but before you do, make sure your blog content is worthy of attracting and keeping loyal followers.

A recent blog post from March 2010 titled, “5 Ways to Write a Killer B2B Blog post” talks about key strategies for writing blog posts, like making a list.  These are very effective in that they are easily scanned and readers know exactly what they are getting when they read further.  Examples I would suggest to come of my clients would include posts titled, “Ten Signs That You Need a Server,”  “Top 10 Reasons for a Server Refresh,” and “Five Best Practices to Optimize Server Infrastructure Costs with Virtualization.”  Other tips include playing off current events like a recent technology conference / trade show, or even leveraging someone else’s thoughts.

While this doesn’t cover every concept that could be used for a B2B blogging strategy, these are just some ideas that have proven to be successful for organizations.  Has your organization entered the Blogosphere, and what is your strategy?

Posted in Blogroll, search, Podcasts, Blogs & Video, Integrated Media, Social media | Post or View Comments (0)

Marketers’ Request: Focus on lead gen for our next Online ROI Summit

August 31st, 2009 | Marilou Barsam

It’s that time of year again. In about 7 weeks we will be hosting our Online ROI Summit for about 300 marketers in Burlingame, California who want new insights on what’s working and what isn’t online - You can apply at www.TechTargetSummit.com.

However, before I plan the agenda for these conferences I make sure to check in with the marketers themselves about what they want us to cover — what is plaguing them the most when it comes to their online campaigns. And, no surprise, what keeps coming up is their need to know the latest best practices around “tightly” managing lead gen efforts and follow-up.

We all know “scrutiny” and “prove ROI” are the expectations du jour for the technology marketer and as economic times have tightened up focus on these aspects of their job have as well…

In rolling up trial and error stories from our actual technology customers what stands out is something that could appear as a huge contradiction but in reality makes sense, and that is the reality that the smaller the company, most likely, the tighter or “closed” is the process they have to stay on top of the leads they generate. The bigger, and often times more bureaucratic the company, the more complex it becomes. And so what we are left with is to figure out how do it the best regardless of company size. No easy feat but one we and our marketer participants will take on.

Check out the link to our Summit www.TechTargetSummit.com and if you want to hear what we all have to say please join us…  October 27th is only a blink away…

Posted in Technology marketing, Lead-Gen Strategies, Integrated Media, Best practices, ROI, Email marketing, Lead quality, International marketing, Content development, Online ROI Summit, Social media 1f58 | Post or View Comments (0)

“Try-Before-You-Buy” – Generate High-Value, Late-Stage Leads

October 8th, 2008 | Jeri-Lynn Imperial

I am hearing from many technology marketers that — in a time in which marketing activities need to deliver tangible results within a tighter timeframe — it is imperative that marketers allocate a portion of their budget dollars toward campaigns which capture more late-stage, actionable leads.

To accomplish this, marketers often use pay-per-click programs that point towards product trials and online product demonstrations.  While these types of programs result in marketers competing for a relatively small pool of leads, they do generate significant results because they reach potential buyers in the late stages of the research and purchase process - the “ready-to-buy” prospect.  

Recent TechTarget market research indicates that “try-before-you-buy” programs are particularly effective in the Application Development software space, because the developer community is immersed in the types of tools and products that they are encountering or implementing on a daily basis.  In the developer community, we see that implementers have a high degree of influence on the IT purchase decision.  The “try-before-you-buy” method is very important in building their loyalty and trust, and provides the IT marketer with an opportunity to demonstrate both the quality of the product, and, in many cases, showcase the quality of the customer service supporting the product.

Also, because the developer community places a high value on peer feedback and product recommendations, marketers can leverage social media to reach this group by providing a platform for experts within their organization to engage prospects in discussions about market trends, not just to gain exposure for their product, but build a rapport with — and establish a degree of trust within — the community.

Finally, although there is a significant benefit to offering downloads and trial versions of software to generate leads from prospects in the final stages of the research and purchase process, it is important that this not be the sole focus of your marketing efforts to the detriment of campaign elements supporting your branding efforts or reaching potential clients at the early and mid-stages of the research and purchase process.  You still need to maintain program elements to generate leads that will generate sales over an extended period of time.

While there is no “silver bullet” formula for what percentage of your marketing budget should focus on long-term or short-term leads, it is important that your plans include a mix of elements - like topical whitepapers to reach IT professionals at the very start of the research process, Webcasts and Webinars to reach mid-stage prospects, and virtual tradeshows to facilitate direct contact with prospective buyers.

Posted in Lead-Gen Strategies, Integrated Media, Best practices, Buying process, ROI, Lead quality | Post or View Comments (0)

The Role of Search in the B2B Buying Cycle

January 7th, 2008 | Melissa Marron

At TechTarget, we have spent a lot of time in 2007 gathering data from our ongoing research and developing marketing best practices around the IT buying process.   Recently, evidence surfaced that both the type of content (i.e. webcast, white paper, podcast, trial, etc.) and the topic of the content (analyst review, case study, product comparison, benchmarking study) determines whether the user is in the awareness, consideration, or decision phase of the IT buying process.  

With our recent acquisition of Knowledge Storm (a top-ranked search resource for technology solutions and information), we now have a complete product offering of both targeted, “push” promotion along with “pull” or broad based search strategies.  With that said, when implementing search engine optimization strategies, where do those leads generated fall into the IT buying process? 

In a recent post on www.searchengineland.com, Patricia Hursh highlights research that shows business buyers use search engines in the “awareness, research, and selection phases of the b2b buying cycle”.  At this point, I’m not willing to place leads generated through SEO in any particular part of the IT buying process.  Although I would like an opportunity to review more research, I suspect that search strategies can get more highly target content, such as events and seminars, in front of the right audience.  They aren’t just used for awareness building.  A lot of the success depends in how the content is catalogued and what search terms are used when syndicating the content.

Can you share any experiences or evidence that shows the influence SEO strategies have on all phases of the B2B or IT buying process?

Posted in 1fa7 Integrated Media, Buying process | Post or View Comments (1)

Big Brother Google

April 18th, 2007 | Garrett Mann

While you were sleeping, Google made a move that solidifies its position as a media industry giant. Late Friday afternoon, Google announced that it was purchasing DoubleClick for $3.1 Billion, double what they paid for YouTube. Google beat Yahoo! and Microsoft to the punch in a true end-game move that extends its dominance in search to display advertising, essentially giving them ownership of a significant portion of the online advertising industry.

But they have not just stopped at online. This deal comes on the heels of aggressive partnerships to distribute the Google AdSense model to offline sources such as radio and TV, opportunities created in part by another Google acquisition, dMarc, a broadcast advertising management platform they purchased in 2006.  

As Google ventures into Orwellian territory (see this list of 17 Google acquisitions over the last few years), it will be interesting to see what kind of impact it will make on both media buying and ROI measurement for the industry as a whole. My senses tell me that it will be significant.

I would love to hear your thoughts on this.

Posted in Integrated Media, ROI | Post or View Comments (3)

Integrated Marketing

April 2nd, 2007 | Marilou Barsam

A marketing survey that the ANA released found the top concerns on the minds of senior marketing executives are “integrated marketing communications” and “marketing accountability.”

Integrated Markeing leverages multiple media and marketing vehicles to work together rather than permitting each to work in isolation. Integrated marketing increases your share of voice and allows you to target decision makers at every phase of the buying cycle.
We have seen over and over again, that integrated marketing will result in greater recall of your brand.

What has your experience been with integrated marketing?

Posted in Technology marketing, Integrated Media, Best practices, Branding | Post or View Comments (3)

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