Nancy Nardin over at SmartSellingTools.com wrote a great blog post last week, entitled ‘99% of Businesses are Being Stiffed! And You’re Probably One of Them’ that is highly relevant to sales and marketing tools for small to medium size business (SMBs).

The essence of the post is that most SMBs are either overpaying for the software they’re using or using software that is built for mid-to-large companies but that is crippled for SMBs. What is more telling, is that the companies selling it to us are saying their ‘primary’ market is larger business but that the software is applicable for smaller companies too.

How can this be true? How can your under 100 employee firm have the same support, feature needs, and budget as a 500+ employee company that has a marketing department and a sales team of 40? Or how you the same as 50 person hi-tech venture capital backed startup that lives and breathes social media?  All the features those companies will insist upon can become a burden for you to use (or not even be a good fit altogether), not to mention the manpower and support issues you will have trying to keep it running smoothly. It’s no wonder that a lot of software becomes ‘shelfware’ after the vendor has sold the customer on all the whiz bang features 6 months previously.

We haven’t even gotten to budget! Some vendors will discount their software to give you a ‘great deal’, without ensuring you are a ‘great fit’. Or sell a ‘lite’ version or give a free version so that you will invest your time on their platform, so they can upsell you later. Again, will it fit your company is not their primary concern. What you pay today may not be what you pay when you renew, or have taken into consideration implementation costs.

As Trish Bertuzzi (a well-known expert on sales strategies) comments on the post, ‘Our advice to all our clients, don’t talk to vendors or do any research on marketing automation until you have defined your requirements. Then, once you have defined them, sit back and take a long hard look at what it will cost you in time, effort and energy to implement.’

So don’t get stiffed. Don’t buy a tool that is built for large companies and get short changed later. Buy what you need  – you can always upgrade later (if you need to) if it’s a monthly software-as-a-service (SaaS) product which most are. Gone are the days of buying all you will ever need, because its no longer a one-time license purchase.

Most importantly, choose based on what your requirements are, not based on what some large companies requirements are. There’s many reasons why SAP and Oracle ERP software don’t fit SMBs, and Intuit accounting software doesn’t fit large companies.

While a well designed and well promoted website can create leads for a company, it goes without saying that most companies will not rely on it entirely.  They will also supplement inbound marketing with outbound targeted calling; they will take a look at who their customer base is and why, develop a list of other companies that are similar, and start calling.

Success at this point will usually sound like “…interesting, send me an email with your info in it and I’ll get back to you”.  The big question is did they say it to be nice,  to get you off the phone?  Or are they genuinely interested? If they are not interested, you may have just set yourself up for a waste of time following up with them.  What you really want is insight into who on the “send me an email” list really is interested, who is actually engaged with your message.

One path to this insight is through a combination of a content-rich website, and marketing automation like ActiveConversion.  When they ask for the “more information email”, the email itself contains links that lead to the information/content.  With the ActiveConversion Outlook plugin installed, if they click on any of those links, you’ll see if they clicked through and what they looked at.

If they said they were interested, but didn’t click through on any of the informational links, well, not as qualified.  However if they clicked through and looked at multiple pages, and even more significantly, if they returned later for a second look at your website, notch them up as having passed qualifying test #1.

Keep in mind this same approach is useful when re-engaging with customers and old prospects.  Even deep into a relationship sell, being able to gauge how interested and engaged a prospect is with the new message you’re delivering is invaluable.

Both before and after the Global Petroleum Show, companies seriously interested in you will likely visit your website. Knowing who is interested in your product and services (and especially when), is something that you can use to increase your trade show return of investment substantially.

Finding The Needles in the Haystack
Research on trade shows have shown that serious buyers will gravitate to doing their research online and arrive at your website both before and after the trade show. But trade shows like the Global Petroleum Show can have two huge wins for exhibitors; Opt ins, and after show website visits.

Opt Ins
By virtue of the fact they are going to the GPS show, anyone visiting your booth is qualified in so far as they are in the energy industry. When one of them asks to be scanned for more information they are doing what is the holy grail of  marketing; they are “opting in”.

When someone asks for their badge to be scanned for more info, you can email nurture them  while always leading off with “you are receiving this because you visited our booth”. Then use a new breed of software to notify you as to who keeps coming back to your website, or visited the right pages on your website; it will tell you who to call, who you stand the best chance of building a relationship with.

The Bigger They Are, The Less They Call
Every exhibitor at the GPS hopes for booth visits from big, sought after accounts. But ironically the bigger the account, the less likely they are to call you after a trade show for fear of salespeople chasing them months on end. Regardless though, if these big accounts are interested in your company they will likely visit your website after the show to investigate your company further. Again, knowing who is visiting, who is interested in your company, who you should target over the weeks and months following the GPS show can be a significant competitive advantage.

eHow To Guide
Here’s a quick eHow To Guide from ActiveConversion that further explains what I’ve mentioned above. Good luck at the Global Petroleum Show 2010!

Most marketers face the challenge of generating qualified leads. According to the report published by Marketing Sherpa, 66% of B2B marketers face those challenges.

To some businesses, generating leads is still a primitive concept where they still use traditional marketing techniques and tools. Trade shows, mailing lists are some of the few ways to generate those leads. Obviously, these leads are nowhere near being qualified.

With the advent of Web 2.0 there has been a surge in the availability of web tools and techniques to generate leads. Having a presentable and message oriented website is good for any business, but what is more important for that business is the ability to find out the users coming to their website and what services or products they are interested in. Google Analytics has definitely paved its way to marketers who can measure online visitors, and track against certain pre-determined stats. And for sure, you can make changes to your website based on the stats and trends captured, but that’s not enough for the marketing ROI.

Importance of lead nurturing to marketers:

For marketers, it is more important to know who these visitors are, and if they will become customer some day? Now the question comes, after you see who is visiting your site, are they ready to be passed on to your sales reps? Definitely not, but at most organizations this is a still common practice in B2B Marketing. Strategic lead nurturing is a process where we can identify which prospect is ready to be a client.

Principles of lead nurturing:

We at Active Conversion have developed a three-step principle for lead nurturing,

1. Develop trust through credibility – be a valued advisor and gain trust
2. Target each of your market segments – use relevant content
3. Nurture your prospects according to the stage they are in the cycle – create a need for your product or services

Download our eHow to Guide to learn more about Lead nurturing and how B2B marketers can reap the benefits of marketing automation.

Do all of these social media networks make you dizzy? Do you have the feeling that you are lost in a maze of blogs, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google Buzz, Four Square etc? Posts are everywhere and sometimes they are repeating the same things. It may annoy your followers and friends and eventually you will get ignored. It doesn’t have to be this way when you know how to simplify and untangle the links that join social media networks together.

I’d like to show you one simple way to link the connections between your social media accounts so that you do less work and still spread your efforts to these social media channels.

1.    Blog – This is where you provide value to others by sharing your view point, expertise and experience.  Blogging is also a great way to get organic traffic from search engines and allows others to reference to your posts.

2.    Twitter – Twitter is the springboard and the broadcaster of your social media networks.  Connect your blog to your twitter accounts to make your blog automatically send messages to other social channels you have.

3.    LinkedIn – LinkedIn has partnered with Twitter. When you set your Twitter name in your LinkedIn account, your tweets will automatically update your LinkedIn status. You can also add your blog’s RSS feed to one of the link in your LinkedIn profile and add Blog Link app to your LinkedIn account to share your blog posts with your connections.

4.    Facebook – I don’t think I need to explain much about Facebook. For me, it’s primarily for my personal network of family, relatives and close friends. By connecting your Twitter announcements to Facebook, it can automatically add your twitter to your Facebook status.

5.    Google Buzz is the newcomer but not many people understand it yet. To make it work, you’ll want to create your own Google Profile. You then connect your Twitter account to your Google profile and Google Buzz to broadcast your status to your Buzz connection. The Buzz network usually consists of family and friends who use Gmail as their personal email platform. One feature of Google Buzz is that it allows you to share the items from your Google Reader and Blogger account through Buzz network.

Following are the tools that you can use to make the job of untangling your social media network easier:

HootSuite is a powerful tool to manage all your social media accounts. It can post messages to  multiple Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Four Square accounts. It also can connect with your WordPress and RSS.

DISQUS Comments: When you install DISQUS Comments on your blog, it replaces your regular comment forms. Your visitors can then use one of the social media accounts they already have to post comments. It will authenticate their identity to ensure quality comments. It will prevent opening up the blog to spam.

WordPress to Twitter plugins: There are a number of plugins to allow you to connect and broadcast your blog to your Twitter account. Most of them will also allow you to connect to shorten URL app and properly layout your tweets.

Everyone is talking about how to leverage and harness the power of social media but it can appear quite overwhelming. By taking simple steps to ensure the proper linkage of the connections, you can do less AND reap the benefits of the social media networks.  Download our whitepaper on implementing a B2B Social Media Marketing plan for your business.

The 2010 mediaFresh awards hosted by Digital Alberta are dedicated to the recognition of those Alberta Digital Media Professionals and Post-Secondary students who have created outstanding project and programs between September 2008 and November 2009.

Category: Best Entrepreneur Award for creative/business/technology entries will be judged on

• 40% Marketing Strategy
• 30% Commercial viability
• 30% Uniqueness of technology

Winning entries will be featured in a full color catalogue that will be published and distributed following the awards ceremony. Each winner will receive a complimentary copy of the catalogue for their portfolio. Additional copies of the mediaFresh 2010 will be distributed to promote digital media production in Alberta and around the world.

Fred Yee, CEO of Foundpages/ActiveConversion, is one of the nominees. We think Fred and the product / services fit the ranking criteria very well.

Whenever the oil and gas industry is mentioned most consumers think of gas bars and service stations, typically operated by a few multinational brands like Exxon, Shell and Chevron.  Gas bars and service stations are actually the tip of the energy industry iceberg, representing so-called downstream activity.  Further upstream there are many thousands of companies involved in exploration and production with their own particular role in the search for hydrocarbon deposits.  Many of these operators such as geophysical and drilling contractors are service providers who in turn contract with other service providers to perform specialized functions within their field.

The relationships between these companies is obviously business to business (B2B) and often well defined so why bother with a marketing automation solution or sales intelligence if you are a energy services provider?  The main reason is probably timing.  Exploration activity is project oriented and the decision to drill is at the core. Wouldn’t it be useful to know exactly when a new or existing customer is looking to buy something you provide?

Industry insiders pride themselves on what’s going on in the oil patch.  They seem to know where the deals are and when they’re sales-ready.  An advanced marketing automation solution will enhance their ability to strike, by providing automatic alerts.  A Sales 2.0 solution will not only identify which companies are sales-ready but will also indicate the ideal time to call in the sales cycle.

Sales reps for these leading companies retain a competitive advantage by being notified when a desired prospect has downloaded a particular specification, watched a video, or visited a certain page like pricing on their corporate website.  Or when they have a proposal out, and are waiting for indication that they are being considered for the ‘short list’. When this information is delivered in real-time, sales reps stand a much higher chance of winning these multi-million dollar bids.

Another advantage is intelligence.  Just knowing which companies are researching your offering is often worthwhile. Some companies may not have been on the radar, and can often lead to new business.

And with an advanced marketing automation solution , marketing personnel can track the results of trade shows, mail, email and other campaigns, in addition to being able to build and send emails to keep their brand top of mind.

Having sold to the ‘oil patch’ for many years, I can see why ActiveConversion is used by many energy industry manufacturers and service providers, to auto-nurture prospects and to optimize their sales time.

This is the sixth in the series of ActiveConversion’s very popular “eHow To” guides. This one deals with applying online marketing best practices to trade show marketing.  From the guide:

Business to business (B2B) trade shows can be a cost-effective means of gaining valuable face-to-face interaction with many qualified prospects. Most B2B companies have a reasonable expectation that sales revenue will result from participation at trade shows. Yet too often, experience has shown that for many leads from trade shows the timing is too early in the sales cycle. This experience may explain why business executives are constantly dismayed that so few leads are actually followed up by their sales departments. Trade show industry research indicates that 80-90 percent of all trade show leads are not followed up.

What the guide advocates is that in addition to using marketing automation in the promoting of attendance pre trade show, a trade show booth is analogous to a website for the large number of “inquiries” that exhibitors come home with:

• Most of these inquires are not ready to buy (95% according to the research)
• They have opted-in to receive more information (so they are ideal for email nurture campaigns)
• They need to be nurtured through a sales cycle so that in 3 or 6 or 9 months when/if they reach sales ready, the exhibitor is still top of mind
• They need sorting (scoring of their behavior) to weed out the ones who are, and who are not, worth inside/outside sales resources.

But also key is the takeaway that companies need to know who is visiting their website (marketing automation platforms like ActiveConversion identify anonymous company visits, as well as labelled individuals).  The traffic that visits a company’s website directly after a trade show is often a key indicator of whom at the trade show they got some level of engagement with, especially if there are multiple visits from different individuals from the same company.

To download this eHow To Guide on why marketing automation can increase your trade show ROI, click here or on the image!

This is the fifth in the series of ActiveConversion’s very popular “eHow To” guides. This one deals with aligning a company’s marketing and sales departments so that they can work together seamlessly. From the guide:

B2B marketing is about driving sales, yet a common complaint from the sales department is that “Marketing throws leads over the fence!” Too often experience has shown sales that few leads from marketing are qualified and even if they are; the timing is too early in the cycle. Meanwhile the marketing department is constantly dismayed that so few leads are actually followed up by the sales department.

According to the 2008 Miller Heiman Sales Best Practices Study, only 37% of respondents agreed that their sales and marketing organizations are aligned in what their customers want and need [source]. Since sales teams want to prioritize on the buyers that have a better chance of closing, it makes sense to use to:

• give marketing more of a role in the targeting and qualifying of prospects
• use marketing automation to nurture prospects that are not yet qualified for hand-off to sales
• give marketing the ability to auto-communicate to sales a lead’s activities and engagement level
• prioritize for sales a large volume of leads based on qualifiers like company size and engagement

To download this eHow To Guide on why marketing automation can get your Sales and Marketing teams aligned, click here or on the image!

This is a true story from my days as a sales rep for a Hospital Information Systems vendor.  As we were driving on the way to a sales call, my colleague gestured at a street sign and laughed, “See, our customers are so easy to find there are even signs pointing the way there!”  As healthcare industry vendors who focused on the multi-million dollar operations known as hospitals, HMOs and clinics, our situation was the opposite of most B2B companies whose main challenge is generating new prospects.

Which begs the question, if all prospects are known, why bother with a marketing automation solution if you are a healthcare industry vendor?  The main reason is probably timing.  A Sales 2.0 solution will identify which of those institutions are sales-ready at the exact moment in the sales cycle.  As a sales rep it is very advantageous for me to be notified when a hospital had downloaded a particular white paper, watched a video, or visited a certain page on our corporate website.  And more importantly, have that information delivered directly to my Salesforce.com account and with email at the moment it happens.  It goes without saying, that this would give me a huge competitive advantage due to knowing their TIMING. Hospitals and their constituent departments each have their own budgeting cycle so it helps to be alerted when funding might be kicking in.

Another reason is INTELLIGENCE.  Even if a hospital isn’t ready to purchase your healthcare product or service, an advanced  marketing automation solution will tell which ones are researching your offering.  And if you have multiple products, it will identify which of your products have attracted their attention.  Better products will even give you contact names, size of institution, location etc. This helps to qualify opportunities. You can even to put them on a ‘watch list’ so that you can tell when they re-visit and alert the right sales rep.

Today, leading healthcare industry vendors use Sales 2.o tools like this to be more competitive, more productive and more timely. They’re the guys who seem to ‘know’ where there are deals, and when they’re sales-ready.