Generating B2B leads using social mediaHeather BurnettMarketing Program ManagerLarge Enterprise | Public

Today’s discussion

• Justifying social media for business

• Building a community for IT Expert Forum

• Goals and metrics

• Best practices and key takeaways

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Justifying social media for business

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Social media contributes to customer awareness, sales support and revenue.

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• Primary goal is always about audience

• Create a community where members can openly discuss the

product/service and “expert” members can comment

• Great way to measure awareness and engage customer (surveys,

contests, points system, etc.)

• Address public concern

• Be relevant and address customer pain points

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Customer awareness

• Lead generation – help Sales to

“Always Be Closing”

• Augment pre-sales nurturing

• Establish and nurture the

relationship between the customer

and the organization

• Track lead generation in CRM tools

(i.e., Salesforce.com)

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Can social media support sales?

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IT Expert Forum: a new community for IT professionals

How we got started

• Traditional generation activities drive sales engagements

– Landing zones

– Online events

– Face-to-face events

– Content syndication

– Telemarketing

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Evolving the model: developing a social media hybrid

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Traditional Landing Zone

Social Networking Site

www.itexpertforum.com

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Create a community that’s ready to grow and prosper.

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Building the community

• Reached out to existing leads

• Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Paid Search

• Rented a list for email blasts

• Leveraged blog and other forum membership

• >100 Members on Day 1

• >350 Members after Month 1

Leveraging other communities

• Integrated existing social media components

• Our blog (www.migrationexpertzoneblog.com/)

and blogger has been consistently ranked in the

Top 10 Windows 7 Influencers*

• We introduced our existing audience to

IT Expert Forum

* Source: December 2009 Collective Intellect Report14

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Goals and metrics

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Define specific goals and metrics to measure success.

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Goal: growth• Fresh content

• WidgeAds (via KickApps)

• Email blasts

• Paid search

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Metric: Number of members vs. goal

Goal: community engagement• Email nurturing promotes

fresh content

• Surveys that pique members’ interests

• Promote online events via the Spotlight section

• Integrate your SMEs into the community

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Metric: Survey responses, assets uploaded by members, email blast metrics

Goal: member interaction• Use “points” to encourage

member interaction

• Contests, games and surveys

• Widgets help members push and upload content

• Evaluate data to understand customer

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Metric: Email sharing, return visits, number of groups and community leaders, site discussions, blog comments

• Identify which members fit the lead demographic

• Evaluate custom reporting to identify valid leads

• Conversations and threads can be captured in reporting

• Site-generated email nurturing

• “Points” help rank, prioritize and validate leads

• Telemarketing nurture and sales-ready leads

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Goal: leads

Metric: Number of leads generated for nurturing, number of leads generated for sales reception, revenue in pipeline

Lead lifecycle

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If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.

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Metrics

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Community ActivityNew RegistrationsTotal Site DiscussionsTraffic - PagesTotal Page Views

Total Page ViewsHome PageMy Home PagesPlay PagesFull Comments PagesProfile PagesList PagesMessage Board PagesGroups PagesChat PageMember JoinMember Login

ContentTotal Uploads

Media Files ApprovedPhotos UploadedVideos UploadedText Blogs PostedAudio Files Uploaded

• Basic Reporting

– Metrics can be applied to specific goals

and ROI

– Site traffic paid search or email blasts

– Registration email nurturing

Metrics

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• Custom Reporting

– More robust

– Registered members may convert to leads

– Total downloads new content

– Confirm brand awareness

– Custom enhancements, surveys or

WidgeAd activity (paid media)

Custom ActivitySite Enhancements

WidgeAd Activity

Leads

Email Nurturing

Total Downloads

Survey Activity

Total Site Impressions

Home Page Impressions

Client Migration Impressions

Enterprise Virtualization Impressions

Metrics

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Best practices and key takeaways

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Going beyond the blog with a social media hybrid for lead generation.

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• Social media real results – not just a pretty, fun toy

• Consider the goals and the potential of the site

– Become a thought leader in the industry

– Gain and enhance customer loyalty

– Track marketing media use and popularity

– Build a community of experts

– Lead generation potential

• Publicize messages in the community – promote products and

messaging

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Value-add for marketing plans

• Remember audience comes first

• Know that building the community is a main goal

• Carefully consider the goals for your site and plan early

• Create a marketing plan to include activities that build the site

• Set real and measurable goals that map to budget and track ROI

• Leverage knowledge and resources

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Best practices and key takeaways

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Best practices and key takeaways

• Encourage interaction and engagement

• Keep it simple; specific and strategic content - no “spray and pray”

• Utilize widgets to keep site fresh, dynamic and informational for you

• Allow organic dialog to take place on the site; don’t police it too much

for reasons like damage control

• Identify your lead demographic and generate reports accordingly

• Track lead scoring (points) and be mindful of constant calibration

• Reward your members to build loyalty so they come back and share the

site with their friends

www.itexpertforum.com

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