Not working as a team. Are the results you are seeing from your marketing campaign in line with what your sales team needs? It is mandatory that your teams or departments work together to ensure that your campaigns are delivering measurable results.

You can’t manage marketing ROI when you don’t measure your marketing leads. It’s important to analyze and benchmark the performance of your marketing channels regularly, ensuring that they are delivering the sales and marketing results that you desire. This allows you to know what components of your marketing program are working, and what you should consider trashing or refining. You can track the results by asking your clients for feedback.

Focus on customers’ needs. Do you know who your customers and potential prospects are, and what product or services they need from you? Research should be done to determine the performance of every marketing effort.

Keep timing in mind. Bad timing can result in missed opportunities. Make sure that your initiatives are in sync with the potential customers company events. Also keep in mind that a marketing campaign should always be launched when the audience is ready, not the material.

What common marketing mistakes can you think of? Tell us about your experiences.

We at Emerging Marketing have generated five tips for becoming a networking master.

You only get one first impression. Be sure to dress the part. An inappropriate or sloppy outfit can affect your first impression. Find out what the dress will be at a particular event and  put your best foot forward in the looks department.

Prepare an elevator pitch. Show up ready to sell yourself. Bring cards with your contact information. If you reference your social media savvy in your résumé, have your blog and twitter pages on your business card. If you’re a writer, have samples on hand or create an online portfolio and hand out links to your website.

Take notes. When you collect someone’s business card, write notes on the back about where you met and a few details about the conversation. Your notes will help you remember the person 24 hours later, and you can repurpose these details to personalize your follow-up letter, e-mail or LinkedIn invite.

Be personal. Posing questions can help you hurdle the small talk. And remember, everyone likes to talk about themselves. Plus, the more informed you are, the better. Try to ask questions outside of the typical, “What do you do?”. Have 2 questions that will get them talking like, “Where are you from?” and “What was it like in Iowa?”. Only use the last one if they answered Iowa.

Listen. The faster you and your networking partner learn what you need to know about each other, the faster you’ll establish a valuable relationship. Listen to what they’re saying, don’t just wait to talk and be sure to follow-up the next few days.

Do you want to practice networking? Emerging Marketing is hosting the next AdFed Happy Hour Event on April 21! We would love to see you there!

Do you have any networking tips you would like to share?

1. Post and share as company, not as an individual. This will give your page a certain discretion and make your fans interact with the brand and not an individual.

2. Keep your fans in the loop! Facebook is a great way to update your followers on what’s going on at the company. Have a new-hire announcement? Introduce them on Facebook! Win a new client? Ask people to like them! Get your fans involved in your company activities.

3. Be human. Your Facebook page will be more active once people realize there is a human behind it all. So start conversations, take pictures and comment on your fans posts. You will find that people enjoy getting a peek inside your company walls.

Now we want to know what you think. How have you optimized your company’s Facebook page? What have you found to work, and what just doesn’t?

Let us know, the first three responses will get an Emerging Marketing coffee mug!

Sandra will specialize in Public Relations at Emerging Marketing, one of Emerging Marketing’s agency services. She has three years of Public Relations experience working for Farner, a PR agency in Berne, Switzerland.

“I’m so excited to accept new challenges, get to know a completely new environment, and mostly, to be a part of a skilled business to business marketing team where I can learn from the best,” said Schneider.

So are we.

Emerging Marketing is always looking for talented marketing, communications and public relation interns wanting to dig into the marketing process and really get their hands dirty in the b2b agency world. The process of hiring an international intern was intimidating at first… but well worth it. Sandra is sophisticated, highly motivated and will enhance our business with a valuable international perspective.

We are wondering, have you had marketing or agency experience working with international interns? Share some of your thoughts and benefits?

http://2010.census.gov/2010census/

What does this mean to you or your business?

So, we developed a list of our top B2B marketing predictions for 2011. Check them out below and tell us what to think. What do you foresee coming?

Emerging Marketing’s 2011 B2B Marketing Predictions

+ Companies will continue to spend again. However, they will continue to look towards outsourced solutions until the economy feels more stable. The focus on ROI that we’ve seen in 2010 will continue. I call this CFO-driven marketing planning.  If a program cannot be measured, it will be difficult for it to be a big part of budgets.

+ iPads and tablet technology will continue to grow in relevance as paper-less sales tools and innovative presentation tools are developed specifically for B2B companies. However a drastic decrease in price, an increase in memory and more productivity enhancing applications will be necessary to make this equipment more realistic and justifiable for B-to-B business use. The big question is whether these devices are taking the place of laptops? And, how soon will they really be adopted by business. I’d love to hear your thoughts.

+ The use of highly targeted Direct Marketing will steadily increase in 2011.  The  most successful direct programs will find the perfect balance of integrating online media and traditional offline elements to reach their target audiences. Although it has been easy for companies to push everything online with the intent of saving money, ultimately an online only world is not driving business to business sales. Traditional, paper-based direct marketing is an increasing effective tool to reach your audiences. Until business to business marketers can track social media as accurately as direct mail and other forms of measurable media, direct marketing will stay around.

+ The use of consumer-type communities will increase in the realm of B2B marketing. Generating social media communities for clients to provide feedback, offer suggestions, announce new products and hold competitions will encourage customers to interact with your brand and company. Promoting customer participation with each other.

So there you have it – Emerging Marketing’s top B to B predictions for 2011.

Comment below and tell me two of your B to B marketing predictions for 2011.

We can do it all ourselves now. Why use an outside marketing agency at all?

With tighter-than-ever budgets, many b to b corporations have pulled marketing strategy and implementation in house as a cost saving tactic.

However, we find that the skills offered by marketing agencies are just as specialized as those offered by your accountant, lawyer or IT outsourcing relationships. Ultimately, the reasons for using a marketing agency are the same for using any other outside consultancy: You employ someone who has special talents to do the things you can’t do as successful yourself (or at least can’t do with as high of a return on your marketing investment).

Look for a marketing agency relationship that offers a range of services that complement your internal team – b to b marketing, advertising, sales promotion, digital marketing, social media, public relations.  You can utilize just part of their business that makes sense during these times and that you can afford.

What do you think? Have you stopped using a marketing agency since the economy tanked? Do you think agencies offer specialties that you don’t have in-house? Why is marketing one of the first places budgets get cut? At Emerging Marketing, we’ve increased our own marketing three-fold over the past two years and it has dramatically paid off.

We’d love to hear from you…

Do you really believe an internal department can create a better connection with your target audience? Does your in-house staff get caught up in the “we tried that and it didn’t work” world?

Ideas. Interaction. Intelligence.

It also discusses the number of marketing agencies we buy in to. Are you using separate partners for PR, direct marketing, interactive marketing, social media, etc? Do your messages have consistency across so many different specialty agencies?

Challenging the value your B2B marketing agencies provide, this article begs the question – is it time to rethink your business to business marketing firm’s role, along with your own?

I can’t help but wonder – are you getting b to b marketing ideas, interaction and intelligence from your business marketing partners? Do you believe in multiple marketing agencies for different specialties? How often do you evaluate your current vendors?

Can we all change our social media interactions to be… responsive? To start talking? To start selling?

Subject matter experts are great, but we still need people to sell what you have to offer. And, to buy what we’re selling. We still need that face to face communication… and we need it sooner.

I believe social media has added time to the b2b marketing sales cycle? What do you think?

Well…

Better Business Marketers is not another professional networking organization. BBM is a group of business-to-business marketers that believe when talented and creative individuals come together – everyone benefits; a social professional group that choose to collaborate, problem solve and socialize with industry peers.

But don’t take their word for it.

Check out the BBM on 11/11.

5 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.

Special 6:15 p.m. announcement.

RSVP at: http://events.linkedin.com/Better-Business-Marketers/pub/450223

$10 cover charge. Cocktails. Hors d’oeuvres.

Here at our offices – Emerging Marketing 29 W Third Avenue Columbus, OH 43201 614-923-6000, ext. 229