Another Great Resource--Marketing Podcasts From Leading Internet Marketing Consultants

Jay Berkowitz, CEO of Ten Golden Rules features tips to business owners about the leading internet marketing and online advertising trends, including search engine marketing and Web 2.0.

Acccess Ten Golden Rules podcasts

Recent Episodes Include:

• Jay Berkowitz and prominent Twitter Rock Stars Warren Whitlock, Gail Goodwin and @Iconic88 discuss personal branding

• Meet internet marketing Rock Stars including Google’s Albert Chen, Mitch Joel, Author Six Pixel of Separation, Craig Agranoff, Founder of WorstPizza, Shawn Rorick, Author / Past Director of Marketing – Cirque du Soleil, Murray Izenwasser, Mike Monahan Cruises One, Alex Harris from eDiets.com and AlexDesigns.com and Chris Thornton from Definition 6 in Atlanta.

• Meet Posterous Co-Founder Sachin Agarwal, Optimizing Video for the Search Engines, 10 Top Twitter Stories, Web 2010: Discover the 10 Trends Defining Your Business Future, Micro Communications, Mission Pie, ‘The Girl with the Golden Disk’.

Acccess Ten Golden Rules podcasts

Web Content Development: Defining Roles and Managing the Process

Whether responsible for the success of a Web site or merely contributors of content, marketers must understand the skills and processes required for achieving the site's communications objectives.

Yet the role of a content manager and the processes for creating a Web site are often unclear and mismanaged. Sometimes, content simply "appears" when someone realizes the task is left undone. Other times, a copywriter is hired and given a daunting task that he or she is incapable of executing.

Generally, when a company decides to redesign its site, it does not fully include the task of content creation and management into the scope of the project—and it rarely understands the nature of the role, the work process or the necessary deliverables.

This article first defines the role of content manager and clarifies the qualifications. Then, it delves into the details of the content management process and workflow and how they fit into the big picture. It also provides a list of resources to aid in the quest for clear content creation.

Read Marketing Profs article Web Content Development: Defining Roles and Managing the Process

Content Is King. Database Is Queen. We Can Help

As you dive into the world of digital media and marketing, the phrase " content is king and your e-mail database is queen," surfaces over and over.

In many ways digital media and marketing has been falsely spun as being somewhat of a low-cost savior for B2B marketers.

It is true that your cost structure in digital marketing is different than many traditional marketing efforts. It costs nothing to start a Facebook fan page or to open a Twitter account. The delivery cost of hitting "send" for an e-mail deployment is a lot less per recipient than the postage cost of putting a catalog in the mail. We have always needed graphic designers to produce our materials, but now our printing needs are less...yet another cost reduced.

However, by moving some efforts from offline media to digital media, other costs will surface. Or rather, other costs should surface. Without a doubt, a digital marketing campaign will not work without content and without an audience. Without content we are saying nothing and generally speaking, effective digital marketing requires more content - a lot more content - than most offline marketing efforts. Without an audience, we are talking to ourselves and most of us want to grow the audience we are talking to so that we can uncover new opportunities.

As wonderful as we think our products are, our customers do not really care about our products. Our customers do, however, care deeply about the solutions our products provide. So, an entire website full of product spec sheet type of information will not be particularly engaging to your customers and prospects. Don't get me wrong, you need product spec information on your website, but you also should have interesting and relevant content that addresses prospective customers and existing customers in educational and problem solving manners. Research, application stories/notes, case studies, articles, podcasts, videos, webcasts are all ways to help to market to your customers and prospects. Most importantly, it is this type of content that will keep your customers and prospects engaged with you.

Once you have a constant stream of content to engage your audience, how do you build the size of your engaged audience? Your own CRM databases is certainly the first place to start, as well as outside marketing/media partners, trade shows, SEO efforts and much more.

A constant stream of relevant and engaging content and audience growth/engagement....this is not easy, effortless or free. For next to nothing, anyone can start a wide variety of digital marketing efforts. BUT, it takes time, focus and money to engage an audience in a manner that strategically advances your marketing and sales efforts.

The ironic thing is that traditional print-based marketing always has had many of the same demands--constant, engaging content and an audience. Most offline media is more challenging to measure, so often we told ourselves that our efforts worked when the reality was we simply did not know. Since everything in the digital world is extremely measurable, efforts that are not interesting, relevant or engaging to your audience are quickly and sometimes harshly revealed.

How can the Pharmaceutical Manufacturing team help you in this area? We are really good at content creation and audience development. Many aspects of our business have changed radically within the last 6-7 years, but the need for great content written by industry experts has not changed. In fact, the need has only grown. In the throes of the recession, many b2b publishing companies made the unfortunate and, in my opinion, unwise decision to reduce costs by reducing the size and quality of their editorial/content creation teams. Pharmaceutical Manufacturing, nor Putman Media as a whole, took this approach. Our editorial teams are stronger than ever and could be a very substantial asset for you.

We have developed a number of content development programs. Some of these programs are turn-key, more "off-the-shelf" type of efforts that are adjusted to fit your needs. Some of our solutions are very customized and are more involved efforts.

We also have a programs to help you to grow and nurture the audience interested in your content--lead generation programs, contextual advertising programs and behavior-based content programs.

To discuss how we might be able to you help, please contact Tonia Becker, Publisher at tbecker@putman.net or 630-467-1301 ext 455.

Google Instant 101

Still wondering how Google Instant—the new enhancement that shows results as you type—changes search marketing?

Well, Google promises to shave 2.5 seconds off each user's search, with the end result of 10-percent faster searches.

In a recent post at the Daily Fix blog, David Felfoldi cites the benefits of this change, according to Google.

They are:

• Predictive Typing. As you type, a prediction is made of what you are seeking.
• Instant Results. As you type, the results appear. Every typed character updates the search results instantly.

How will this affect your efforts? Read full MarketingProfs article

Optimizing Your Webcast Efforts

The pharmaceutical industry has become overrun with webcasts of various sorts. I am not making this statement in a judgmental fashion as I believe webcasts can be a very effective part of a marketing mix. However, I have seen a good number of cases where our clients are not optimizing their energies.

It is more and more difficult to secure an audience for webcasts today - there is simply a lot of competition for an audience. We have undeniably seen the effects of webcast audience competition via Pharmaceutical Manufacturing's own programs and the programs we produce and promote for our clients. Thankfully, we have developed some approaches that have worked quite well and these approaches are continually evolving as our audiences change.

If hosting webcasts is part of your marketing mix, Pharmaceutical Manufacturing might be well-suited to help you to: extend your potential audience beyond your own CRM database and help you to think of ways of creatively extending the value of the energy you expend to produce your webcasts.

If you are interested in learning more about some of Pharmaceutical Manufacturing's approaches to working with clients to enhance their webcast programs, please contact Jeanne Freedland, jfreedland@putman.net or Tonia Becker, tbecker@putman.net.

B2B Lead Generation Gone Wild. B2B Lead Generation Gone Bad.

It should come as no surprise that lead generation has become an important force within B2B marketing. In fact, there is a good chance that lead generation efforts are one of the predominant elements within your own marketing plan.

But, what is lead generation really? Frankly, I have become increasingly concerned by some of what I see going on in the pharmaceutical b2b marketing/media space.

Effective and ethical lead generation programs require an offer—some in the digital marketing world call the offer a Unique Value Proposition. In order to capture a prospect’s contact information, you have to give them something. Examples of things you can give include: access to piece of high-level content (white paper, webinar, podcast, etc), a free product sample, a discount, a free consultation session. Your offer is solely limited by your creativity, but the value of your offer needs to be in line with the information you are asking for.

People guard their e-mail addresses and phone numbers carefully and justifiably so. Requiring full contact information to download a product brochure is not an equitable exchange. However, requiring full contact information to access a white paper, a non-commercial webcast - a piece of content that educates and helps someone solve a problem, is an equitable exchange.

I believe lead generation should be transparent. By this, I mean that it should be clear to the user that they are giving X company their contact information in exchange for access to Y deliverable. Enabling registration forms with cookies is great so that repeat visitors do not have to enter their information every time they want to download a piece of your content. But, a cookied registration form still makes it obvious to the visitor that they are offering their contact information.

I am not a tremendous fan of registration-based B2B industry websites as most of these sites do not require registration for a specific download. When registered users select a piece of content to download, they do not have to submit a registration form because the site knows who they are. Although these sites may not violate acceptable privacy policies, I believe that they count on visitors clicking away not realizing that they are providing a company a lead for every piece of content they access.

These sites are sometimes able to give large quantities of “leads” to their advertisers and the advertisers are generally unaware of the very passive action the visitor took to provide the “lead.” Although, I generally do not like a site registration approach to lead generation for industry sites, I would be comfortable with this approach for a specific company’s site if done in a thoughtful manner.

The big disagreement, no make that a huge disagreement, I have with many publishers right now is that many are giving “clicks as leads” and an increasing number of publishing companies are giving “looks as leads.” The analytics and behavior of specific visitors/audience members is quite detailed for e-newsletter subscribers and registered website users. For instance, I can access the specific individuals and their full contact information for anyone who clicks on any link (ad or editorial) within any of our e-newsletters. The same holds true for registered members of our websites. And our analytics technology allows us to identify specific individuals just looking (not even clicking) on specific content areas via “hot spot” technology.

However, I firmly believe that it is a form of identity theft to give this information to our advertisers. I do not and will not do this to our readers. Many of our readers are very loyal and without an audience we don't have much of a business...why would I steal from the very people who allow our business to prosper? And I will not fill our clients’ CRM systems with ill-gotten data.

We all have different views on business ethics and this is my line in the sand on this issue. Serving contextual ads or ads based on past behavior can be of tremendous value to the reader and is a tactic I support and utilize. Giving individuals' contact information without it being transparent to the reader that they are giving their contact information is a tactic I do not support and do not utilize. Period.

A “click” is not a lead and a “look” certainly is not a lead. Eventually, I think there could be federal regulation to keep publishers from doing this kind of thing. However for now, I wonder if we can keep the Feds out of this issue and just do the right thing? Can we apply the Golden Rule to our B2B marketing strategies and tactics? Most of us do not want our identities stolen. Why, then, would we do this to our customers and prospects?

Read Pharmaceutical Manufacturing's Digital Pledge to our audience.

Webinar: What Your Love Life & Lead Nurturing Having in Common?

Continuing on the dating/b2b marketing theme, the following is an Eloqua lead nurturing webcast that I think that you might find helpful. Click here to access the webcast.

Revisiting the B2B Marketing - Dating Comparison

Early in 2009 I wrote a posted entitled B2B Marketing and Dating - A Parallel for Consideration.

I wrote this post because I really do believe that the seduction effective marketing programs demand is in a lot of ways quite similar to dating.

Yesterday I had lunch with a couple of smart clients whose opinions and insights I really respect. That conversations simulated additional thought on the b2b marketing/dating comparison.

It might be easier for many of us to see the comparison I am making if we look at consumer marketing. There is no question that the marketing programs of car, perfume, clothing companies, as well as many other categories are working hard to seduce us.

Is there a comparable seduction required to sell solutions like valves, motors, business software solutions...? I contend yes. Of course, effective b2b marketing needs to be more informational than a perfume ad AND b2b marketers need to tap into different emotions. But, effective b2b marketing still needs to seduce human beings.

For instance, clothing companies targeting my demographic work to tap into the fact that every woman wants to feel pretty, most want to feel thinner, many want to express their personalities via the clothes they wear. So, to a prospective woman customer in her late thirties/forties, clothing companies will likely present a pretty, sensual woman who is thin (but not too thin) and who has a fun, dynamic and sparkling personality. What woman of my age does not want to feel fun, pretty and that she still has "it?"

We all are the same emotional creatures when we walk into our offices...we just tap into different emotions. We want to feel smart, successful, upwardly mobile, safe/we are making the right decisions, less burdened, less stressed, like a hero to our customers and colleagues. I believe most of us often experience quite complex and deep emotions via our professional activities. Career satisfaction study after career satisfaction study clearly demonstrate that our jobs are not "just a job."

I don't know about you, but I can begrudgingly accept not being as thin as I used to be and having a few wrinkles here and there. BUT, I cannot accept feeling that I am failing. I don't think that these feeling are particularly unique to me.

So as b2b marketers we do need to seduce our customers and prospects--can we make them know that they will be heroes, make them more effective/successful, convince them that as solution suppliers we will not let them down?

And....just as when we are dating, can we accomplish this in an appropriate fashion that respects and embraces the emotional beings we all are?

In a dating situation, if we try to move too fast or if we violate our beloved's trust we will experience a lot of rejection and quick cooling of budding passions. Similarly, in a b2b marketing situation if we violate trust, try to move too quickly our conversion rates will suffer horribly....or to look at it another way, many potential customers will abandon potential engagement.

Check out the parable within the B2B Marketing and Dating - A Parallel for Consideration post and let me know what you think.

Top Spam Words and Phrases--Updated April 2010

The following is a list of the top 80 words and phrases common to business-to-business media identified to trigger spam filters. This list was updated in April of 2010. At the end of this list are spam triggers specific to Microsoft Outlook.

In addition to these words triggering e-mail spam filters, use of these phrases within web pages can negatively effect SEO/SEM efforts.

Finally, from our understanding Google can now (to some extent at least) read words within photos. Therefore, these words/phrases should be avoided within photos and other graphics within digital media efforts.

100% satisfied
Accept credit cards
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Amazing
Hidden' assets
Amazing
Apply online
Bargain
Best price
Billing address
Buy direct
Call free
Cards Accepted
Cents on the dollar
Check
Click Below
Click to remove
Compare rates
Compete for your business
Cost / No cost
Do it today
For free
E-mail marketing
Free
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Free offer
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Free website
Full refund
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Giving away
Guarantee
Hidden
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Information you requested
Investment / no investment
Investment decision
Marketing solutions
Message contains
Month trial offer
Never
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Opportunity
Order / Order Now / Order today / Order status
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Microsoft Outlook: Spam Words To Avoid In Your Emails (2/10)

First 8 characters of From are digits
Subject contains “advertisement”
Body contains “money back ”
Body contains “cards accepted”
Body contains “removal instructions”
Body contains “extra income”
Subject contains “!” AND Subject contains “$”

The Difference between Social Media and Social Networks

by Greg Satell

Twitter is a social network, but social networks are not Twitter.

Much of the hype about social media obscures a vastly greater opportunity. Although social media types love to tell the rest of us that we “just don’t get it,” the fact is that very few social “gurus”s have actually taken the time to learn anything about social networks.

Happily, the joke is on them. Social networks are where the real money is. Read More

The Primal Forces that Drive Social Networks

Fascinating. You may need to "hang on" a little bit, but the network theories touched upon in this article, if strategically applied could have a powerful effect on marketing campaigns and approaches.

The Primal Forces That Drive Social Networks
by Greg Satell

Social Networks are revolutionizing how we view our world. People are connecting, businesses are being created or transformed, and the world seems like a smaller place. As with any transformation on a grand scale, a plethora of consultants, gurus, blogs, and how-to books have risen to meet the demand for information about the social revolution.

However, it is very rare to hear anything about the underlying forces that actually drive the social network phenomenon. Read More

Social Media Trends at Fortune 100 Companies

Interesting summary from Mashable regarding the prevelance and increased importance of social media amongst the Fortune 100.




Click here to read the article.

Delivering Value. Abandoning Extortion.

Two great annoyances in my life are air travel change fees and the pricing strategy of replacement printer ink cartridges.

I will confess to being frugal, but I am not cheap. I will gladly and cheerfully pay for value. However, I am infuriated every time I hand my credit card to an airline ticket counter agent for four minutes worth of work to confirm my standby seat on a flight with empty seats. I am equally, if not more irritated, every time I replace a printer ink cartridge and pay nearly as much for the ink cartridge as I did for the printer.

Why do I find these costs so annoying? Largely because I am trapped. The airline and the printer companies are treating me like a rat in a maze, not a valued customer. If I want to print, if I want to go home, I have to play the game by their rules.

The companies in both the airline and the computer printer industries act in concert with one another leaving me, as the customer, essentially powerless. It is the sense of powerlessness, the feeling and the reality that I am paying a hefty price because “they have me” that I find so unpleasant.

Every company needs to make a profit in order to survive and thrive. I want my preferred suppliers in both my business and personal lives to make a fair profit so that they may continue to provide the products and/or services I procure from them. However, I want to feel valued, not manipulated. I know that I am not alone in this desire.

I have been thinking a lot about this dynamic as it relates to my business (publishing) and we continue to strive to build value into our programs and offerings. In the publishing business we used to have a number of high-profit, low-value revenue centers. Or, areas where the price was out of line with the value being delivered. Nearly all of these revenue centers have been squeezed out over the course of the last several years, which I think is a good thing.

Are there areas in your business where you change customers a lot of money just because you can? Low-value, unfairly high-profit revenue that irritates your customers? If so, it makes sense to me to think about reducing or eliminating these areas. I do not mean take a voluntary revenue reduction as few of us can afford that especially within this economic climate. But, perhaps look at ways to turn annoying, low-value fees into a high-value deliverable.

If an airline offered me no-charge flexibility when they can, they would have a customer for life. I am not asking an airline to secure a seat for me that they could sell. But, it would make me really happy if they offered me flexibility when they have empty seats available. Twenty empty seats are not going to be sold 50 minutes before take off…great opportunity to make me happy and build value rather than forcing me to pay a fee. Maybe they have the opportunity to increase their revenues by selling “jump seat passes.” Not for consumers to literally sit in the jump seats, but an annual pass that would offer more flexibility to pass holders.

Could a printer company charge a fair price for their printers, a fair price for their replacement ink cartridges and perhaps keep their revenue flowing by offering feature add-ons or software downloads for a fee that would enhance the functionality of the printer? If the add-on or download adds value, I will gladly pay for it.

Within previous posts I made a number of recent comments about the book “What Would Google Do?” by Jeff Jarvis. In his book, Mr. Jarvis points out a fascinating aspect of Google and some of the other very large internet players like Craig’s List and EBay. Many of these internet players operate on a model of charging as little as possible rather than the traditional approach of charging “what the market will bear.”

To me this is a fascinating idea and one that I am thinking a lot about. Most of us have and need to have business models much different than that of Google or Craig’s List, but what does apply is that most of the current internet giants have built value into every aspect of their businesses. I don’t believe that the same can be said of many more traditional businesses/industries…at times, even my own.

4 Elements of a Successful Business Website

A really great Mashable.com post that outlines in an easy to digest way the very basics of a business website.

What’s the most important piece of your business’s web presence? Your website, of course.

Creating a website requires a good deal of thought; it’s important to plan what information you want on the site, what the layout will look like, and how you’ll connect each piece together.

Think of your website as your hub; it’s what people will see when they look for you. Here are four elements of a successful business web presence that can help ensure that your first impression is a good one.

Click here to read more

Is Saving Children’s Lives Just Another Business Opportunity?

Pharmaceutical Manufacturing does several surveys and research studies over the course of the year to track pharmaceutical industry trends.

It is common market research practice to offer an incentive to survey respondents and for several years we followed the fairly uninspired practice of offering the chance to win one of three $50 gift cards, the chance to win an iPod or fairly conventional offers of this nature.

This year we decided that rather than standard survey incentives. we would donate money to a charitable cause in honor of survey respondents.

The Pharmaceutical Manufacturing team selected St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital as our charity of choice. We felt good about the idea of helping to support, in at least a small way, St. Jude’s important work of “Finding Cures. Saving Children.”

In addition, based on our knowledge and coverage of the industry, we know that St. Jude is doing some outstanding work.

In December 2009 we deployed our first research study in which we notified our audience that we would make a donation to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in honor of survey participants.

In fairly short order we were contacted by the Corporate Affiliates department of the St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital (I did not even think to call them in advance). Great I thought! One less phone call I had to make to determine where to send the checks.

We would not make huge donations ($150 - $200 at a time which is our typical incentive budget per survey—$1500 – $2,500 over the course of the year), but I believe every bit helps when you are working toward something big and important.

Although I certainly did not expect to be given V.I.P treatment, I did expect that our donations would be politely received and perhaps we would even enjoy some level of feigned gratefulness.

I was informed that St. Jude was not interested in “our opportunity” and that the minimum donation for their corporate affiliate program was $250,000.

As a highly specialized information source, I don’t even believe that Pharmaceutical Manufacturing benefits much from offering any kind of incentive for the completion of our surveys. However, I view our research incentive budget as a small opportunity for us to do a little bit of good.

The St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital does outstanding and important work, but their “business,” their “brand,” is not interested in Pharmaceutical Manufacturing’s “opportunity.” I am O.K. with that. Non-profits have been hit hard by this recession just as businesses and individuals have. Plenty of organizations are seeking donations of any size.

Maybe this situation worked out for the best. CharityNavigator.org, a resource I find to be quite helpful, features some interesting information that points to the potential need for St. Jude to improve fund raising and administrative efficiencies. Click here if you are interested in reviewing CharityNavigator.org's ALSAC-St. Jude Children's Research Hospital profile.

The Pharmaceutical Manufacturing brand is not ours, it is yours. Without our loyal audience and advertising supporters, there would be no Pharmaceutical Manufacturing. In this spirit, please e-mail me at tbecker@putman.net or post a blog comment naming the organizations you would like us to support. We will maintain a list of organizations we donate to on our website PharmaManufacturing.com.

Because we made a promise to the respondents of our 2010 Career and Salary Satisfaction Survey that we would donate to the St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, a donation of $150.00 has been sent.

Please understand, our donations will not be huge. But as Mother Teresa so beautifully said, “We ourselves feel that what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean. But the ocean would be less because of that missing drop.”

Harvard Business Review Names Top 100 CEOs

Very interesting. Harvard Business Review just released its list of the world's top 100 CEO's.

Click here to read more.

As a side note...of the world's 2,000 top performing companies, only 29 of those companies are led by women CEOs (1.5%). On the global political stage, the percentage of women heads of state is even smaller.

I have my theories on this. My theories are not laden with victim thinking or sentiments about how unfair the world is (I have never spent my energies engaging in that type of thought).

However, the lack of balance is concerning as I do believe men and women (as a generalization) tend to think differently. The business world and the world at large could use more of a balanced approach.

How to Fix Marketing in 2010: 6 Steps

An interesting piece. Some points you may agree with, other points you will not, but worthy of thought.


Now that it’s a new decade, it’s time to wean the marketing group away from their delusions of strategic grandeur. Here’s a simple, six-step program to ensure that your company’s marketing is successful and productive in 2010:

• STEP #1: Correctly define marketing. If your company’s marketers think that they’re doing something “strategic”, they’re wasting money. Marketing is a tactical function whose sole purpose is to provide qualified sales leads. In a productive marketing group, all activities serve that goal.

• STEP #2: Make marketing subservient. In most companies, there’s often a total disagreement about basic issues, like the intended market and the target customer. The only way to prevent stovepipes and infighting is to fold the marketing group into the sales group. Do it now.

Click here to read more.