Wednesday, March 26, 2008

If Wealthy Consumers Are Using Social Networks Wouldn't BtoB Buyers Be Users Too?

You bet! This report shows some eye popping numbers...if folks making nearly $300K a year are involved in social networking sites it's safe to guess that many in the BtoB C-Suites are starting to participate in this area too.

Advice to BtoB marketers...get involved, test social networks in marketing efforts, try Web 2.0 technology...in short, let's all learn some new marketing tricks!


Social sites gain in popularity amongst wealthy Americans, study finds

According to The Luxury Institute's latest WealthSurvey, the participation of wealthy online consumers in social networks dramatically increased to 60% in 2008, from 27% in 2007. Participation levels of online wealthy consumers in leading social networks are 16% for MySpace, 13% for LinkedIn, and 11% for Facebook.

A national sample of 805 wealthy American consumers, with an average income of $287K and average net worth of $2.1 million, was surveyed online. According to the report:

  • The wealthy average membership in 2.8 social networks, with an average of 110 connections.
  • They are intolerant of opt-out techniques, with 65% saying that having their personal data given out without permission would cause them to disconnect; 63% have an interest in "do not track" lists.

To read more about this report click here.

Friday, March 21, 2008

Search Engine Marketing

The TAG Marketing society met yesterday to discuss the latest information regarding Search Engine Marketing. The moderator from NeboWeb and panelists from Prominent Placement and Sage Software did an excellent job. Some basic, strong reminders that were shared included: (1) The importance of a strong call to action, (2) Content is king, and (3) Test! Test! Test!

Of course, marketers should know these, but it is always good to be reminded -- and how often, do we sacrifice content, our call-to-action, or testing for expediency sake? Never, right?

Anyway, here are some really good tidbits that they mentioned will help the efficacy of your programs, and I bet you aren't using all of them:
1 - Make sure your press releases are search engine optimized. It is not that hard to make sure the most frequently used phrases in your space show up in the press release.
2 - Always make sure you put your URL on the outside envelope of any direct mail piece - it greatly increases traffic.
3 - Use IndexTools for metrics. It was recommended over Google Analytics, and it keeps Google from knowing what is and is not working on your website (meaning they can't as easily increase prices, when they don't have that information).
4 - Using new media tools on your website (e.g. FlickR, blogs, video, podcasting, etc) will increase the conversion rate and your search rankings. To do that, ensure that you optimize the content and create links back to your website.

All-in-all, another winning TAG Marketing society event with some good information to put into practice.

Until Next Time...

SJ

Labels:

Monday, March 03, 2008

B2B Marketing News Blog Updates

Those of you not following our blog from myspace may have noticed a few changes in the preceding months. We added a few new features thanks to some ideas gleaned from others in the blogosphere and a social bookmarking section.

We’ve added a blogroll so you can check out some of our favorite blogs. Links to all of them are available at the bottom of our sidebar on the right. They are listed with a short description below:

  • There are a number of “mainstream” marketing blogs including Marketing Sherpa, Marketing Profs, Business 2.0 and AMA Marketing News.


  • If you’re into fantastic tips and ideas for social media and the online world, I suggest checking out Jeremiah Owyang’s blog, Web Strategy by Jeremiah.


  • Professor and friend of Arketi, Kaye Sweetser, Ph.D, APR, maintains her own blog, so this is mass communications?, covering all things surrounding those media.


  • Brand DNA, by Stan Lee; KD Paine’s PR Measurement Blog, and O’Dwyer’s odwyerpr blog are all single-author blogs that lend insight to PR and marketing.


  • If social media is something you’ve been keeping up on or want to learn more about, definitely stop by Mashable.


  • For those of you with design in mind, check out DesignSessions; an intriguing blog that brings in authors from all over to discuss all aspects of design.


  • And of course, a little fun for anyone “grammatically inclined.” The “Blog” of “Unnecessary” Quotation Marks is a place where people who are sick of or entertained by misused quotation marks can have a voice.

The other big news about our blog is the addition of our social bookmarking bar located just above the blogroll. If you’ve set up an account at any social bookmarking sites, roll your mouse over our bookmark bar to add any useful articles to your list of resources.

We have also added our blog to the blog and social media tracking Website, Technorati. Look us up and add us as one of your favorites. If we haven’t found your blog yet, we’ll be sure to return the favor.

Finally, for more information about blogging, Technorati, blogrolls and social bookmarks, check out our recent podcast on improving your blog titled So You’ve Started a Blog…Now What? You can find it at www.arketi.com/minute.