B2B Aware: This Week in B2B Marketing-Leadership, Mastership & Relationships

WEEK OF JANUARY 16-20, 2011
This week in B2B marketing the B2B blogosphere is buzzing about mirroring leadership, mastering new innovation, and building relationships via new means. Stay aware.

We appreciate the content contributors who keep the B2B marketing community informed with your reports, thoughts and observations.

b2b aware: This Week In B2B MarketingIt’s 10 pm. Do you know where your B2B twitter message is?

  • Marketers should try to post their most important Twitter messages at off-peak times when there’s less noise and chatter for them to compete with, writes Dan Zarrella. Weekends tend to be a good time to get the word out. “When there is less other noise to compete with … your content can gain attention more easily,” he writes. DanZarrella.com

Large websites face unique SEO problems

  • Enterprise websites can have a thousand pages — creating unique search-engine optimization challenges, writes Nick Stamoulis. Keyword research, meta-tagging and onsite SEO is exacting and exhausting, and even if the work is farmed out, the company still needs a sharp liaison. Properly segregating the workforce is one way to ensure maximum SEO efficiency. Search Engine Optimization Journal

Don’t ignore lead nurturing in the complex sale

  • E-mail enhanced by marketing automation and behavioral targeting is crucial to lead nurturing, given that 73% of leads are not yet ready for sales, according to a MarketingSherpa report. Lead-nurturing campaigns have been demonstrated to yield a 35% increase in return-on-investment, yet 65% of marketers say they haven’t implemented one, leaving buyers stuck in the funnel — and money on the table. MarketingSherpa

Big ideas that will transform B2B marketing in 2012

  • The tablet computer craze should reach enterprise solutions for business-to-business marketing soon, while social tools will become a more fundamental part of an organization’s structure, according to this list of B2B trends for the year. As a paid/owned/earned media model becomes the norm, expect more content marketing, data analysis and marketing automation across all platforms, experts note. BtoB Magazine

How to turn LinkedIn into a relationship filter

  • >LinkedIn status updates require a more focused approach than other social networks do, RockTech CEO Dave Gowel says. Before posting to the site, ask yourself who’s actually connected to you and what specific response you’re hoping for by posting. Even then, Gowel says, it’s important to show restraint and to avoid overwhelming your contacts. SmartBrief/SmartBlog on Social Media

It’s time to start listening to your sales team

  • Many high-performing salespeople don’t think that their organizations are listening to what they have to say, writes Tony Albachiara. You can get more feedback by holding meetings with sales executives led by someone outside the organization and by going into the field with your representatives. Sales Benchmark Index/Sales Force Effectiveness Blog

How to lead like MLK, Jr.

  • Martin Luther King Jr. was a great leader in part because he knew how to channel his anger productively, writes Hitendra Wadhwa. “Great leaders often have a strong capacity to experience anger. … Without anger, they would not have the awareness or the drive to fix what is wrong,” he writes. Inc.com

What happened in your B2B marketing week that you’d like to share?