thefunnel

In B-2-B marketing and lead generation due to the length and complexity of the marketing / sales funnel marketers and because of lack of closed loop systems, often have to accept that sometimes the only things that can be measured are impressions or clicks, instead of the true marketing ROI. Even at this level marketers should try to closely examine not only the quality of clicks generated, but also the cost as it turns out that the face value of the cost might be deceptive.   The True Cost of a Click  The True Cost of a Click

A bit disappointing to read the MarketingProfs 2009 success story case study collection about Social Media ROI. The paper talks about how 11 known brands that are listening, engaging and measuring social media. I think this part are OK, and there actually some interesting approaches that one could learn from. The connection ROI however is in most cases not there. A statement like “thanks in part to increase coverage (PR) sales have continued to risen….” simply doesn’t cut it, and marketeers need to make sure we don’t claim or take credit for things that we can’t prove. It will only get us in more trouble and not advance the credibility of marketing. On the other hand the story is re-assuring for companies only now starting the experiment with social media, in the sense that not many, if any, have figured out the financial return.

Content is King in B-2-B web marketing. We all heard that before, but do you really know which of your content performs the best? Which are your top performing 10 content pieces? How do you measure performance / content? Is it by number of customer engagements, number of leads it generates or by the conversion of leads to sales opportunities? What are the trends? Are they declining or increasing? And how does web content conversion stack up against other elements in the promotional mix, both on-line and off-line . If you can’t answer these questions then is content really King?