Email marketing continues to be a preferred communication medium in B2B Marketing. Using real data, Dan Zarrella provides the information we need to maximize the effectiveness of our email-based campaigns and communications. I have actually used several of the key takeaways from this data to increase the open and click through rates of external Cisco communications. Use the following data to find the best days and times to maximize open and click through rates for your own communications. 

Data is from the great work done by Dan Zarrella (@danzarrella) and HubSpot.  Download detailed slides from the webinar by Dan Zarrella for  a more indepth look at the science of timing for email marketing. Infographic created by KissMetrics.

Download a PDF of this infographic here

Tags: Cisco, Cisco partner marketing, click through rates, Dan Zarrella, email marketing, email optimization, HubSpot, open rates

I was recently asked by a Cisco partner which social platform was better for B2B marketing – Facebook or LinkedIn?  My response went something like this – We’re all using Facebook to connect and share with our family and friends and with 800 million users, Facebook is hard to ignore, but do we really want our professional networks and personal lives to intermingle to this extent? There is always the option to create a separate Facebook page solely for business purposes. However, these types of pages are more likely to be successful for B2C companies where the target audience is already a regular Facebook user and  the product or service they’re selling is a lifestyle fit.

On the other hand, LinkedIn is a social platform designed specifically for the business professional.  It’s used by over 160 million people worldwidewho did nearly 4.2 billion professionally-oriented searches within the platform in 2011 and are set to surpass more than 5.3 billion this year. If I only had $10 to spend on social marketing and I had to choose between LinkedIn and Facebook, I would choose LinkedIn. The audience is more targeted, more qualified for the B2B technology market we focus on and the platform offers many ways to engage with this audience.

Here are five thoughts on how to maximize LinkedIn for business:

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Tags: b2b marketing, Cisco partner marketing, facebook, linkedin, marketing, social media, social media marketing

Leveraging social networks for maximum exposure and engagement has become integrally important for marketers. Use the following data to find out the best times to post to Twitter and Facebook. 

Data is from the great work done by Dan Zarrella (@danzarrella) and HubSpot.  View the webinar by Dan Zarrella for  a more indepth look at the science of timing for social networks here. Infographic created by KissMetrics.

Download a PDF of this infographic here

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Sometimes as B2B technology marketers, we experience a little tunnel vision when it comes to our target audience. There’s a tendency to think that there is a hard line dividing business buyers from consumers; that the marketing methods we must use to reach our intended audience are so unique that they are unrelated to consumer marketing techniques and that practices from consumer-oriented marketing can’t possibly be applied to B2B buyers. As it turns out, IT decision makers have a lot in common with personal technology buyers when it comes to online behavior, media consumption and brand reception.    

Consider these similarities noted from a recent TechTarget report and their implications for marketing:

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Tags: b2b marketing, Cisco, Cisco partner marketing, digital marketing, IT buyers, IT decision makers, online advertising, online marketing, TechTarget

Marketing is transforming. We’re aligning closer to sales, owning more of the revenue pipeline and being held more accountable. To be a successful marketer we need understand our customers’ and potential customers’ needs and behaviors so that we can respond effectively with appropriate messages about our products and services. CRM systems allow us to do this. The data housed inside a CRM system can help close sales faster, retain customers, find new customers, and offer superior customer service – all things that ultimately increase revenue. So why is it that  less than 50% of executives are fully satisfied with the business benefits of CRM? How can we ensure that at least for marketing that we are maximizing the investment in our CRM tools and leveraging them to drive the right kind of engagement with customers and prospects?

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Tags: b2b marketing, business goals, Cisco partner marketing, crm, data, marketing automation

Metrics are fast becoming the B2B marketers new best friend. As we begin to take on responsibility for more of the sale funnel and ultimately revenue generation, our reliance on metrics increases. We need to learn a new language – one based upon return on investment and productivity. With metrics we can show the value of marketing, effectively manage our marketing investments, and ensure we’re putting our budget dollars in the best places  to drive business.

Today, there are countless methods to measuring marketing. Unfortunately, not all metrics are created equal.  For example, if driving web traffic is one of your key goals, you may focus on low cost, high volume sources of traffic. However, the audience you’re drawing to your web site may not fit your target audience and do little to actually drive business.  So which metrics should you be tracking? And how do you leverage this data for the best insight?

Picking the right metrics matters. Here are twelve metrics that can help ensure you’re choosing the best marketing investments for your business:

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Tags: b2b marketing, Cisco, Cisco partner marketing, marketing measurement, marketing metrics, metrics

Earlier this week, we hosted the first session in our current Accelerate! Virtual Workshop Series on Marketing Planning for 2012. Todd Lebo, Sr. Director of Content and Jen Doyle, Sr. Research Manager from MECLABS shared key findings from their 2012 B2B Marketing Benchmark Guide including top lead gen tactics for 2011, how we can best utilize them to generate qualified leads in 2012 and how B2B marketers are allocating their budgets given new marketing trends.

According to the MarketingSherpa research, B2B marketing challenges such as producing high-quality leads, generating the required volume of leads, conveying value, creating PR buzz, and competing in a multi-channel lead generation , are on the rise.  Demonstrating marketing’s contribution to revenue is a key focus for marketers.  So what tactics can help us do this?

Interestingly, the MarketingSherpa research shows that website optimization, SEO and email are the top lead generation tactics for B2B marketers. (These were also the top tactics for 2010 and 2011). There are few surprises here if you consider these trends from a recent TechTarget Study:

• The Internet remains the primary destination and source for all research done by IT professionals.
• The Internet is the preferred method by which IT professionals expect marketers to communicate the value of their brand and capture IT prospects as leads.

Although our priority as B2B marketers is on lead generation, perhaps our greatest challenge is lead conversion. In our Accelerate! session, our experts outlined a four steps to conduct a lead generation analysis which will help ensure you are focused on the right tactics to generate leads and increase conversions.  View the session recording from the On Demand tab in the Virtual Velocity Auditorium – session title: Top Lead Gen Tactics of 2011 and How Best to Utilize Them in the New Year

We will continue our discussion on marketing planning with a second session on February 15^th. This session will focus on making your marketing plan a reality with four tactical steps you can use to drive online conversions.  Register for this session in the Virtual Velocity Auditorium

Tags: Accelerate, Accelerate! Virtual Workshop, b2b marketing, Cisco partner marketing, cisco partner marketing accelerate!, MarketingSherpa, MECLABS

Inspiration is a word we often see used in the media, news and corporate life.  If I remember my school Latin lessons correctly it literally means ‘breathing in’, that great sense of readiness we get when we take in a deep breath and pause, just for a second, before we apply ourselves with vigor and passion to some project or task. We can be inspired or inspire others and with our sponsorship of London 2012 I feel it and believe we are doing it to others.

In less than 200 days, the greatest show on earth comes to my country’s capital, London. It’s never happened before in my lifetime and in spite of longer life expectancies, it is probably never going to happen again. Which means not only do I want to savour every moment, share it with my family and friends but I also want to leave a permanent mark in terms of Cisco’s involvement. When the sound of the closing ceremony to the Paralympics is but a memory in the Olympic Park, I want Cisco’s investment in the Games to be inspiring future generations of athletes, students, entrepreneurs, business people and ordinary members of our community…both in the UK and the furthest reaches of our planet.

As a marketer, sponsoring a global event such as London 2012 is incredibly exciting and at the same time a major challenge. With so many other sponsors and the general media noise that builds up around the Games, how do you create a marketing strategy that has depth and stands out?

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Tags: Cisco, Cisco London 2012, cisco London 2012 Olympics, Cisco partner marketing, L2012

Correctly conceived and creatively executed sponsorship is a powerful marketing tool.  Why else would the Fortune 500, along with millions of other businesses big and small, invest precious marketing dollars in the discipline?  As mentioned in my previous blog post, the first step in successful sponsorship is having clear objectives, whether those are aimed at brand building, commercial gain or stakeholder engagement.  Clearly articulated SMART objectives are a pre-requisite for achieving the second most important aspect of successful sponsorship – securing the right ‘rights’. Read More »

Tags: 2012 london olympics, Cisco London 2012, Cisco Olympics Sponsorship, Cisco partner marketing, Cisco_London_2012, event sponsorships, L2012, London 2012, London Olympics, Sponsorships

We’re all familiar with Google Search. Most of us use it every day to find information and data to help us with our jobs and make our daily easier or perhaps, just more entertaining. However, Google is not only a search engine. It also has a range of tools that provide marketers with social networking and content creation opportunities. Google Places is one of these lesser known tools, but used correctly, it can help your business get found on local search results on both Google Search and Google Maps. In fact, you’ve probably unknowingly used it yourself to find a local restaurant or handyman. So, what exactly us Google Places and why is it important?

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Tags: cisco partner marketing. b2b marketing, google places, online marketing, online optimization, search engine optimization

In the good old days last century, global sponsorship was the preserve of a select number of companies.  Only a handful of sponsorship properties could be considered to have global reach (The Olympic Games, FIFA World Cup, Formula One Racing).  A similarly small number of brands were big enough to pay the premium for gaining mass market brand exposure at a fraction of the cost of a global advertising campaign.

But technology has changed all that.  Exponential growth in computing power, the internet and mobile has created a new environment.  Brands are now able to reach customers with individual conversations pretty much anywhere in the world.

So why is it that brands continue to invest sometimes seemingly ridiculous sums in sponsorship platforms?  The Rugby World Cup is currently enjoying the patronage of Mastercard, Heineken and DHL, amongst others, even though it is being hosted in a time zone that makes for late nights or early starts for the majority of rugby playing nations. 

Next summer sees the ultimate sponsorfest in London with the Olympic and Paralympic Games  coming to town.  The London Organising Committee for the Olympic Games (LOCOG) recently announced it had achieved revenues of over £700m ( that’s over 1 billion US Dollars) from its domestic sponsor programme. At a quoted £40-80 million for a Tier 1 sponsor, and something in the region of £15-25m for a Tier 2, which must then be at least doubled cover sponsorship activation, what is motivating brands to make these sorts of investments when more direct, cheaper conversations are possible?

The answer lies in objectives.  Read More »

Tags: Cisco, Cisco_London_2012, Cisco_Olympics_Sponsorship, marketing, Olympic Games, Sponsorships

Last week, I attended  the MarketingSherpa B2B Summit in Boston. The line-up of speakers was fabulous including Jay Baer, Kristin Zhivago and numerous experts from MECLABS; all of them providing fascinating information on how to optimize the B2B lead generation funnel.  Here are a few things that resonated with me:

The biggest challenges for B2B marketers are 1) generating high-quality sales leads, 2) providing a sufficient volume of leads to sales, and 3) accommodating lengthening sales cycles. No real surprise there. I’m sure all of us experience these challenges.

What is surprising is that B2B marketers don’t appear to be adapting new marketing practices that can help to address these challenges. According to research from MarketingSherpa, 61% of marketers send all leads directly to sales but only 27% of these leads are actually qualified.  68% of marketers have not identified a sales funnel, 79% are not scoring their leads and 65% have no nurturing campaigns in place.  Clearly, there is an opportunity for us to address  the premature handoff of leads to sales,  identify and articulate a lead funnel  that we can support with marketing , and begin to develop lead scoring and nurturing processes. 

The value proposition is the essence of marketing.  Your value proposition should address two key questions: What does your company do? and Why should a buyer that meets your ideal customer profile buy from you and not one of your competitors?  It’s important to include at least one key differentiator in your value proposition that identifies what makes your solution or service unique and better than your competition.

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Tags: b2b_marketing, Cisco_Marketing, Cisco_partner_marketing, lead_generation, lead_nurturing, marketingsherpa_b2b_summit, marketing_automation

There was a period in our house when Roger Black could do no wrong.  The young, tall, handsome runner with the choirboy hairstyle from Portsmouth had won medals at both the 1992 and 1996 Olympics and in my wife and her friend’s eyes had an effect akin to that which Achilles must have had on all the Greek women while they waited to hear of his success at Troy. So it was with some curiosity that I met Roger for the first time in his capacity as one of our London 2012 Olympic Ambassadors. Would he still have the athlete’s demeanour, a taught spring ready to tear out of the starting blocks or pounce on an  unsuspecting Trojan? Would the choirboy hair deny his 45 years?

I joined the Cisco UK & Ireland team fairly late into our London 2012 journey in August 2011 following four years in Cisco’s Services business in California and Europe.  I had been lucky enough in my earlier career while working for a consumer brand to sponsor the British Bobsleigh team across a period of two winter Olympics, culminating in a medal at Nagano. I knew the excitement that comes from involvement in world-class sport and while I had not been involved in the early decisions around Cisco’s sponsorship, I was very much looking forward to being involved in probably the only Olympics and Paralympics that will take place during my lifetime in Britain.

For Cisco, London 2012 is all about leveraging network technology to create a better Britain, a brilliant future as we see it. London 2012 is the starting gun for us, not the finishing tape as so many other sponsors see it. The legacy is what it’s all about, not just 5 weeks of incredible sporting challenge. So when we look at our 2012 marketing strategy, we always keep the end goal in mind. It is a tall order; we want to focus on the future beyond 2012 and at the same time benefit from the excitement and opportunity before and during the Games.

So how have we approached our marketing strategy for London 2012?

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Tags: 2012_Olympics, Cisco_London_2012, Cisco_Marketing, Cisco_Olympics_Sponsorship, London_Olympics, Olympics_2012, Rachel_Morris, Roger_Black, Tim_Brabants

According to SiriusDecisions, 70% of the buying process is now completed before the prospect is ready to speak with a sales representative. This means that marketing is moving further into the buying process as the prospective buyer uses new – and decidedly online – sources of information instead of a relationship with a sales professional to guide their purchasing decisions.

As B2B marketers we know it’s important to leverage social media as part of our marketing efforts and most of us are. However, it’s more important to pay attention to how our target buyers’ online behavior is changing overtime. How do IT professionals leverage social networks? What sources of content influence their purchase decisions?  Do IT professionals have a preference for certain formats of content over others? 

Answers to these questions can be found in the 2011 Toolbox.com/PJA Social Media Index. Read More »

Tags: b2b marketing, Cisco, cisco channels, Cisco partner marketing, IT buyers, marketing, social media, social media marketing, social networks, technology buyers

As the saying goes, all good things must come to an end, and this is very true of the Cisco NOW Van Program. Cisco has decided to discontinue the US NOW Van program as of July 29^th 2011 in accordance with Cisco business priorities for our next fiscal year.

Over the last 7 years, the Cisco NOW Van has crisscrossed North America, visiting every state in the United States and making the occasional foray into Canada. All in the name of wowing customers and prospects at Cisco and partner events with exceptional demonstrations of Cisco products. While we recognize the overwhelming support for the NOW Van from our partners, it’s time for the NOW Van to go the way of  music videos on MTV, the typewriter, and the ability for humans to write in cursive format.  

Not to worry though. The void created by the decommissioning of the NOW Van Program will be filled by new demonstration capabilities. We are currently exploring innovative techniques that will allow partners to showcase the latest Cisco products at non-Cisco locations throughout the country. In the interim, there are several options for both live and virtual demos available through Cisco and our Distribution Partners.  (Link requires CCO Login. You may want to log into Partner Marketing Central before clicking the link to ensure easy access)

Saying goodbye to the NOW Van is like saying goodbye to an old friend. But it is time… Adieu Now Van! The roads of North America just won’t be the same without you.

Tags: Cisco_NOW_Van, NOW_Van, partner_marketing