It’s been a gratifying first week at Genius.com. There has been lots of things going on, but I have settled right into place, and it feels great! Yesterday, I had the pleasure of attending the Digital Edge B2B Virtual Trade Show, put on by BtoB Magazine.
There was a lot of buzz around the event especially when it came to social media. While that’s no surprise, it was interesting to see the various takes on how to integrate, measure, and participate in it, but also how dominant the fundamental ideals of social media engagement have become, and how they are really changing the perspective of business to business marketers.
The keynotes were presented by two prominent figures in the B2B marketing space; David Meerman Scott–one of my personal favorites–and Marcy Shinder the VP of Brand Marketing & Strategy for American Express’s small business community OPEN.
Our CEO David Thompson also presented, with Paul Dunay author of Facebook for Dummies, a great session on how to “Socialize your Business.” More on that later.
In my opinion, aside from the obvious B2B lead generation, funneling, nurturing, and social media the main theme that really resonated with me throughout the entire show was “relevance.” No matter what the topic was, the conversation always came back to the importance of “relevance.”
Relevant Content Paths
In David Meerman Scott’s keynote, “The New Rules of Marketing & PR for B-to-B,” he stressed the New Rules of Sales Engagement by pointing out that you needed to develop “user personas” for all possible end users (of your product, and content) and then develop content specific to each of those user personas on your website that would lead them each down their own “relevant path.”
Relevant Touch Point
Relevance came up again in the “Socialize your Business” with David and Paul, from a couple different perspectives. Paul stressed the importance of “relevant engagement”. He suggested “customer support” as a possible starting point. David talked more about “relevant touch points.” How can social media help marketers become match-makers? He suggests “Social Marketing Automation” giving the marketer the opportunity to drive more relevant leads into the sales funnel.
Relevant Participation
Ken Venturi, Chief Creative Officer of NCM also presented a lot of great ideas in his session “Using Digital Marketing to Create a Unique and Powerful Brand Experience and Drive Conversion.” Relevance surfaced again as he talked about the importance of “relevant participation,” meaning listening and understanding what the community is about, and then behaving accordingly.
Relevant Experience
And finally, Marcy Shinder made it clear that there needs to be an ongoing “relevant experience” for a community to grow and spread around your brand. Marcy also mentioned something else that was very important, she said that as their community grew, their cost per lead shrank.
Her final tip of advice: “As you help the others, you ultimately help your self.”
For success today it’s apparent that marketers need to circle back to relevance. To do that you should ask yourself these 5 critical questions:
- Are we providing “relevant content & paths” on our website?
- Are we making sure we are providing “relevant engagement” for our customers?
- Are we reaching out, and nurturing our prospects at the “relevant touch points”?
- Have we understood, and are we “participating relevantly” within our targets communities?
- Are we sustaining a “relevant experience” for our customers and prospects?
Have you found this post to be relevant to your needs? Let me know!