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B2B

Sarah Worsham / Feb 26, 2008

B2B Permission Marketing

Permission Marketing is only advertising to people who have told you they are interested in your products or services. This gives you a much smaller audience, but one who is much more likely to purchase your products. Interest can be shown in many forms: a website visit, an email, a phone call, a booth visit. Don’t forget to include your past and current customers – the ultimate form of interest!

Once you have a list of contacts, one of the best and unobtrusive ways to engage your potential customers is through a regular enewsletter. eNewsletters are a great way to keep your brand and products as top-of-mind and to give valuable information in the form of announcements, case studies, support information, and related topics. Keep in mind that your audience is people, so content should be short and to-the-point and most importantly – valuable! An enewsletter should be regular to have the most impact – at least monthly, and more often, such as weekly, is better (just don’t go overboard – most enewsletters don’t need to be daily).

Spam laws require that you have an unsubscribe link in your email – and it is best to only send emails to people who have requested information (most types of shown interest above are safe). A good enewsletter vendor will be able to handle these, as well as subscriptions, and stats.

On Thursday we’ll discuss what enewsletter stats are important and what they mean to you.

Technorati Tags: permission marketing, B2B permission marketing, B2B, internet consulting, B2B internet consulting

Sarah Worsham / Feb 12, 2008

B2B Email Marketing – iContact

eNewsletters and eBlasts are a great way to keep in contact with your customers and potential customers. They offer an easy way to send out news and promotions, although they are best-received if they provide valuable information. The best way to send out and manage these emails is through a vendor. I have been using iContact for sales training eblasts for over a year, and they are one of the most cost-effective vendors with great features that I have found.

If you want to get started quickly, they have over 300 templates to choose from, and it is easy to import your contacts as a group. I easily created my own template and had a test eblast out in about 10 minutes. They check your eblast for spam flags and can also send a text version. Their tracking will show you how many sent, opens and clicks you have and, more importantly, who did what. I’ve also had great experience with their tech support through online chats, email and over the phone. I had a problem with some emails not going through (to our own company email!) and it took them a bit to work through it, but they were very professional about keeping me updated throughout.

iContact’s great features (full feature list) come priced for how many recipients you have, starting at just 500 contacts for $9.99/month (with discounts if you pay annually), which makes it actually affordable for even small businesses. Pricing steps up in a fair manner: 1000 contacts for $14/month or $151.20/annually (full pricing). I recommend iContact if you’re a small or medium-sized business looking for a full-featured and affordable email marketing vendor. I would even recommend looking at it you’re a large business without special requirements.

Technorati Tags: email marketing, B2B email marketing, B2B, internet consulting, B2B internet consulting

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iContact
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Sarah Worsham / Feb 7, 2008

B2B Social Networks – A Review

So far we’ve taken a look at several social network software vendors: Leverage Software, Community Server, Prospero, Small World Labs, Pluck and Ning. These vendors run the gambit from very expensive to free, but their core functionality is very similar. Differences come mostly with integration into your own current website, single sign-on, and analytics.

If you’re a small company or not sure how social networks are going to work for you, Ning is an excellent place to start since you can get an ad-driven version for no cost. You can then upgrade to a non-ad version (and run your own ads), but keep in mind that Ning is for smaller networks and does not offer integration with your own website.

For larger companies, my current forerunner is Small World Labs, with their full set of features, modular implementation, and php-based system. Their 3 price-points make them very affordable and their offerings can be tailored to meet the needs of your specific social network. Content from your website can appear within the network and content from the network can appear on your website – effectively pulling your website into the network. Most importantly, I feel this option offers the best opportunity to scale cost-effectively if your network takes off.

I just came across GroupSwim who built community software that can be used internally, externally, with customers, users, developers, or audience. This may be very useful for B2B companies hoping to interact with their customers, so I’m going to try to get a demo set up for next week.

Technorati Tags: social networks, B2B social networks, B2B, internet consulting, B2B internet consulting

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About Sazbean


Sarah Worsham (Sazbean) is a Webgrrl = Solution Architect + Product Management (Computer Engineer * Geek * Digital Strategist)^MBA. All views are her own.

Business + Technical Product Management

My sweet spot is at the intersection between technology and business. I love to manage and develop products, market them, and deep dive into technical issues when needed. Leveraging strategic and creative thinking to problem solving is when I thrive. I have developed and marketed products for a variety of industries and companies, including manufacturing, eCommerce, retail, software, publishing, media, law, accounting, medical, construction, & marketing.

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