According to a recent study by MarketingProfs, 9 in 10 B2B marketing organizations employed some form of content marketing in 2011, and 60% of those marketers intend to increase their spend on content marketing in 2012.

However, in the enterprise software industry, we tend to focus most of our content on the cerebral needs of the prospect… not on pulling their heartstrings. We create feature lists and tutorials, case studies and buyer’s guides to educate them on why they should buy our products. And while these content pieces certainly help convert prospects at the bottom of the funnel – or those who are actively comparing products and on the verge of purchasing – they fail to drive any initial demand or interest in the brand (or, in other words, fill the top of the funnel).

That’s where the Content King comes in. Creating compelling content is one area where many B2B marketers could take a cue from our B2C counterparts. What B2C companies have known for decades is that in order to sell their product, their marketing needs to entertain audiences and tap into their emotions in order to win over their hearts (and wallets). Just take a look at this weekend’s Super Bowl ads if you don’t believe me.

Before you say that there’s no way for your software company to create fun, heartwarming content to help woo your prospects, take a look at these 5 tactics (with corresponding B2B examples):

1. Video
   When most people think of “entertainment” they likely think of some form of video – like television shows, movies, or even commercials. Cisco created this hilarious video in 2009 to showcase their ASR 9000 Processor. Not only did they prove that B2B companies can, in fact, have a sense of humor, they also garnered the attention of the New York Times’ Tech Blog and secured a mention in David Meerman Scott’s book, Real-Time Marketing and PR.

   Content King Takeaway: Use video like a B2C Marketer would use a commercial – by tapping into your audience’s emotions. It’s more likely to “go viral” and generate attention for your brand if it’s funny, touching, inspiring, suspenseful, or, heck- even depressing! (You’ve seen the Sarah McLachlan ads for the SPCA…)

2. eBooks
   While geeky white papers might seem to fall closer to the “cerebral” end of the content spectrum, throw a few graphics and some cover art on that paper, and you’ve got yourself a fun and stylish eBook! All joking aside, eBooks can really help generate interest in your brand and move readers down the funnel. They tend to be more illustrative (like a children’s book) and narrative (told like a story rather than a research report). These subtle differences can have a big impact on whether your content is one, shared, and two, compelling enough to get someone to take further action (like demo your software). Radian6, a social media monitoring software provider, is great at publishing monthly eBooks on timely social media topics, as is MailChimp, an email marketing provider. I particularly like MailChimp’s coloring book – Love What You Do- featuring their mascot, Freddie. It’s not really educational at all, but it’s fun and definitely leaves an impression!

   Content King Takeaway: Make your reading materials fun for your prospects to read. People respond to storytelling much better than a list of facts, and eBooks are a great way to tell those stories. You can also use graphics, charts, and illustrations in an ebook to better demonstrate your points and add personality to your brand.

3. Webinars
   Webinars can be entertaining, if done right. We’ve all sat in on those webinars that are just glorified sales pitches, which ultimately make you resent the company for wasting 5-10 minutes of your time before you promptly sign out. But, I’ve also seen plenty of very helpful webinars (without a sales pitch) that make me think, I like this company – I want to learn more about what they do. Eloqua, a content marketing master (and marketing automation software provider),  frequently host webinars with intriguing topics like this one- What Your Love Life and Lead Nurturing Have in Common.

   Content King Takeaway: Even more traditional lead gen tactics, like webinars, can be a form of content marketing. After all, a lot of content goes into a webinar – a slideshow, a script, and even the graphics. Just make sure your webinar is entertaining enough to keep people’s attention for 30-60 minutes (and by attention, we mean that they’re actually watching the presentation, not refreshing their Gmail and posting to Facebook while logged in to your webinar).

4. Social Media Contests
   

   While commonly thought of as a B2C tactic, more and more B2B marketers are experimenting with social media contests to prompt user-generated content creation for their brand. A great example of this is Mashable’s #typenerdytome Valentine’s Day campaign. Mashable, a social media business tech blog, knows their audience: namely, nerdy marketers and techies (like me). So, to build social media buzz amongst influential marketers for Valentine’s Day, Mashable asked readers to enter a contest to develop their best tech-inspired Valentine. Participants could enter in one of three ways: 1. Tweet their one-liner with the hashtag #typenerdytome, 2. Submit their one-liner as a blog comment and then share the contest on Facebook, or 3. Submit their one-liner to Mashable’s Tumblr.

   
   Content King Takeaway: Don’t do all the work yourself! Tap into the creative minds of your prospects to generate some content for you. You can use a social media contest to harvest product suggestions, new campaign ideas, topics for your blog, or, if your contest is well-architected, even new sales leads!

5. Seasonal Blog Posts (Like this one)
   Really, any content pieces with a seasonal theme, including all of the examples listed above, are a great way to attract prospects. Emails with seasonal headlines typically see better open rates, tweets with seasonal phrases get more clicks and retweets, and blog posts including seasonal search terms show up higher in search engines around that particular time of year. Why? Because even in B2B marketing, your prospects are still human, and while they’re focusing on growing their business, they’re also thinking about the same topics we all do – like holidays and current events. Also, when they’re focused on something in their personal life, say for example, Valentine’s Day, they’re more likely to notice references to it- whether at work or at home. So when your prospects are browsing your blog in February and see a post about Valentine’s Day, it might catch their attention more than your other “evergreen” posts. For a full calendar of seasonal marketing topics, check out this great infographic from GetResponse.

   Content King Takeaway: Tying your content to a timely topic automatically makes it more interesting. Like the other examples above, you can use seasonal content to appeal to the heart of your consumer by referencing the holidays and events that they’re currently celebrating. A blog is a quick and simple way to publish timely content, and you can write several seasonal posts throughout the year without investing too much time.

Is your company using content to woo your prospects? We’d love to hear how! Share your best pick-up tactics in the comments below.

Does your website have a compelling call to action?

Does your website have a short form (and by short I mean less than 6 fields)?

Does your website have both?

If you answered no to any of these, stop what you’re doing and read this article because you’re losing a lot of money right now!

Over the last 12 years, we’ve seen websites that convert visitors into sales leads at phenomenal rates (15 – 25% +) and, on the other side of the spectrum, terrible conversion rates (less than 1%).  By analyzing what the software companies with the highest conversion rates had in common (and what the worst lacked), we were able to identify the two largest contributors to a software website’s conversion rate.

Think of it this way.  Pretend you’ve spent hundreds, thousands, maybe even millions creating the greatest new ice cream flavor that the world has ever seen.  You have efficiently marketed the ice cream, and, on a daily basis, every major newspaper writes about your amazing new product.  There’s even a constant line of potential customers outside your store front that know how the ice cream is made, which toppings you carry, and are chomping at the bit to give it a try.  However, there’s one problem.  Once customers enter your store, there are no ice cream scoopers, no staff members to answer questions, and no cash register.  Uh oh.  Big mistake.

If it is not extremely clear or easy for a prospect to try or buy your product, they won’t do it.

This is exactly what you are doing if you don’t have a compelling offer or call-to-action on your site.  You can shower prospects with data, video tutorials, testimonials, flashy infographics, or product specs, but if there is no “next step” for the prospect to click, then they’ll likely click on the next easiest: the red “X” in the top corner.  Every page of your website MUST have a simple offer that the customer will be able to click on when they’re ready to consider your product or give it a try.  Prospects know that they have hundreds of options when it comes to buying software, so if you make them dig through your site to find a “contact us” button or only give them an email address or phone number, you’re making it that much easier for them to contact your competitors instead.

The offer you choose will vary by what you sell.  The optimal offer is FREE TRIAL! Who wouldn’t want to take your product for a spin before buying it?  But, if you sell Jail Management Software or Electronic Medical Record Software or another type where that isn’t possible, you can change it up with, FREE DEMO or SCHEDULE FREE DEMO! Prospects love something that’s free, even if it’s essentially a free sales call.  You can also give your prospects a few tiered options based on their stage in the buying process.

So what are you going to do now that a prospect has confirmed their interest in your product?  Send them to a long form asking for their contact information, company specs, mailing address, and birthstone (oh, and make them fill out a captcha they can’t decipher)?

NO!  Make it easy on them!

On a landing page, your prospects are only one click away from providing their details to your sales team.  Give them a simple form with just four fields

• Name
• Company
• Email
• Phone

Your sales team is telling you that they need all 15+ fields to be able to qualify the lead, but what if those 15 fields cost you half of your leads?

Ask yourself if each question is truly necessary.  If you’re not going to send the prospect a direct mail piece immediately, then take mailing address off your form.  With the amount of spam and identity theft today, internet users have become wary of putting too much information online.  Not to mention, your prospects are busy people like you, and they don’t have 10 minutes to fill out your form. Don’t let these be the reasons that you don’t get a chance at the sale.

Lead acquisition and lead qualification are two separate processes.  If you try to do them both at once, they will both be done poorly.  Acquire the lead with the short form first, and then qualify them after they click “submit”.

Another neat option is to have a two-part form where you can ask additional questions once a prospect has submitted the first part(and you’ve saved them in your CRM).  This way, if the prospect abandons the form, at least you’ve captured the essentials for a sales call or email.

So, now what are you going to do?

Simple.  Talk to whoever manages your website today and get started on these two easy steps.

1. Add a button to every page of your site (easy to do if you add it to your template or navigation bar) with a compelling call to action.
2. Create a page on your site with a simple form.

Connect those two dots and you’ll be right on track for that Ferrari you’ve always wanted!

In my short time on Pinterest, I’ve made a few observations: it’s addictive, it works better for some industries than others (insurance: not so much, retail: most definitely), and, since it’s still so new, its value in the B2B world has not been proven.

So will Capterra keep pinning? Probably so because…

1. It really doesn’t take much time at all, especially when you add the “Pin It” button to your tool bar. That way, whenever you see anything pin-worthy, you can just click the button and not even leave that web page.
2. If we do it effectively, Pinterest can help keep us “top of mind” for future customers—especially those in the Retail, Salon, Event and Restaurant industries.
3. It’s good for brand building. You may or not know this, but Capterra is a pretty big deal (I hope you read that in your best Anchorman Ron Burgundy voice).  We’re also a really smart and fun!  Sometimes it’s hard to get that message across because we’re not a huge company and there are billions of people in the world and at least 5 million of them are on Pinterest, according to metrics from ComScore.  The stats show that women account for most of those users so it’s a great way to tap in to that demographic.
4. There’s link-building potential. Everything that you put up on the site counts as a back-linked image, whereas most social networks put a ‘no follow’ tag on links. That means Pinterest can drive traffic to your site and also improve your image results in Google search
5. We’re a tech company, so it makes sense that we should try whatever’s new and hip in the tech word. (Do hip people still use the word hip?)

Also, throughout our Pin-tastic adventure, we’ve some business software companies using Pinterest.

Are you one of them? Follow us and we’ll follow you back. And leave a comment below to tell us about how Pinterest is going for you!

The PPC advertising novice thinks of a new channel opportunity this way:
“Some of my competitors advertise there, so maybe I should try it, too.”

When they do decide to try, they only want to spend a few hundred dollars a month.

Now compare that to the savvy PPC advertiser:
“I’ll spend as much as I possibly can to maximize my sales!”

Why are they able to do that?

• They know their average revenue per customer so they’re willing to pay referral partners a commission if they close the deal.
• They have calculated their typical close rate so they can determine how much they’re willing to pay for a lead.
• Their website is optimized: strong call-to-action tied to a short form.
• They look at each channel separately because they know conversion rates can vary.

The savvy advertisers have connected the dots and realize that there is a direct line from web traffic to sales. More traffic (assuming the source has been verified) leads to more customers.  No company wants to limit their customer growth but many will advertise for only the first half of the month when they could be generating leads all month long.

Savvy advertisers don’t limit themselves. Instead, they determine their target cost per lead and then spend as much as they possibly can with any channel that can achieve that goal.

That being said, there are three valid reasons for a temporary limit:

1. Your sales team is at capacity.  Once you hire more sales people, you lift the limit.
2. You want to confirm the quality of a new channel – both the number of clicks and the value of the leads – before committing all the way.
3. You’re short on cash and have a very long sales cycle.  If it takes a year to convert a web lead into a sale then you may have to limit yourself so you don’t run out of cash in between.

Any other reason just doesn’t make sense – and is a sure sign that the advertiser isn’t connecting the “click-to-customer” dots.

Did I miss a reason? If you think I did, I’d love to hear from you!

So this month, we wanted to explore a different software industry for our second infographic— one that has gained a tremendous amount of buzz recently thanks to a few recent government declarations: Electronic Medical Records.

We know many medical practitioners have EMR on their minds because the U.S. government has laid out a goal that all medical facilities move over to electronic records by the end of 2014. Often referred to as “EHR” or electronic health records, these solutions allow physicians to track patient health information, including allergies, prescriptions, and charts, through a centrally-accessible system. The difference between the two terms is that EMR refers to a solution that can be used within one facility, whereas EHR refers to those that can be used across multiple facilities. (Several of the solutions listed on our infographic fall into both categories as demonstrated by their target audiences.)

The Data

Like last time, we started our data collection for the infographic by examining the software companies listed in Capterra’s EMR Software Directory. We strive to list every EMR solution on the market, and there are 325 currently included (if you see any missing though, please let us know!) From there, we narrowed down the list by looking at web data for each of the vendors, including Alexa rankings, Compete traffic, and Google searches. While none of these are perfect indicators of popularity (particularly for B2B websites), the data gave us a way of narrowing down the list from 325 to the top 50 most visited EMR sites on the web.

For those 50 vendors, we performed additional research to get a better sense of which were “Top 20 material.” Again, we searched their websites and press releases to identify their number of users, customers, and revenue (when listed). We also gathered the number of Twitter followers for each EMR company.

However, we learned from some of the constructive feedback on the last infographic that our original data points were not the only available indicators of popularity. So, we added more data to our Popularity Index, including:

• Facebook Likes
• LinkedIn Company Followers
• Klout Score
• Product Reviews (when available)

Surprisingly (or maybe not so surprisingly), the top companies’ LinkedIn pages turned out to be far more “followed” than either their Twitter or Facebook pages. That being said, social media only accounted for a small percentage of the overall ranking.  With all of these data points compiled, we weighted each metric for the 50 vendors (number of users being the most highly weighted), and came up with our list of the top 20. Product reviews, when available, were considered when scores were too close to call.

Note: One flaw we recognize with this method is that companies that do not publicly release their user, customer, or revenue data are bumped down in the popularity index due to lack of data.

Adding More “Info” to the Infographic

But, this time, we didn’t just leave it at the top 20. We wanted to see how we could make this infographic more useful to medical practitioners looking for an EMR solution. If “what’s popular?” is their first question, the next questions, in no particular order, are usually:

• How much does it cost?
• What features do I need?
• Will it work for my practice? (i.e. Does it cater to an office of my size and will it run on our computer system?)

As such, we added to the infographic price ranges, platforms, and target audiences for each vendor. The price range data may vary depending on features included, number of practitioners, monthly vs. annual contracts, and several other factors. So, to compare apples to apples, we looked for pricing for a solo practitioner with the most basic features offered, and divided any annual pricing into months. Monthly pricing for 1 full-time provider ranged from free to more than $800, so each $ represents roughly $200/month.

We also added two new charts (pictured at right) that showcase data based on EMR searches in Capterra’s directory in 2011. The first shows the 5 most requested EMR features.  The second shows which platforms are most commonly requested— with Windows stealing the show at 61%. However, we did notice that web-based platforms are growing in popularity year-over-year.

So, without further ado, we present you with our second ever published infographic- The Top 20 Most Popular EMR Software Solutions.

We hope that, if you’re a medical practitioner in the market for a solution, you find this information helpful (and that you give us a call if you need help with your search)! Likewise, if you’re an EMR vendor, whether included in this infographic or not, that you provide us your feedback and check to make sure your profile is updated in our directory. We know that the EMR/EHR space is changing rapidly, and we may update this infographic down the road as the medical software landscape continues to evolve.

1. Wow, this dress is tight.  Do I need to do the whole “lose those last 5lbs” resolution for the 5^th year in a row?
2. I should really drink champagne more often.
3. Dude, I’m going back to work the day after tomorrow.

Which led me to… how can I make 2012 an insanely awesome year for Capterra marketing?

Fast forward to the next day as I stared across the room at my gym shoes and decided I’d rather sit on the couch with my laptop than put on those sneakers.  Twitter was full of marketing inspiration that day.  As I clicked on link after link it hit me: I needed to make a list of New Year’s resolutions for marketing!  So before I lose the momentum, here goes:

1. Have a Coke and a smile… and follow Coca Cola’s lead. I was recently reading a Junta42 post by Joe Pulizzi about Coca Cola “betting the farm” on content marketing. Coke’s head of advertising recently announced that they’re changing their whole outlook on content marketing based on the fact that customers are connected to their phone and internet 24 hours a day—leaving a lot of untapped opportunity to engage.  The company wants to add substance and value to people’s lives.  And really, who doesn’t want that?!  I would love to know that the content we create at Capterra is truly valuable to businesses, but the only way to do that is by making content a top priority.  Not just churning it out like some companies (you know who you are), but really asking ourselves: “Is this helpful?”; “Are there actionable items that can be taken away?”; and “Is this memorable?” Maybe I’ll start drinking more Coke throughout the year to inspire me… (wait, does that mean their marketing is working on me??).
2. Take an interest in Pinterest (or whatever else is fun, new and social)! Pinterest is the new “it” social media space and caters mostly to women.  Since its launch a year and a half ago, it has become the go-to place to share beautiful and inspiring things. Is it the best place to promote software? Maybe not. But how do we know until we try it? We’re always talking about the wonderful things software can do for businesses—what if there was a cool way to show that on a pinboard?  In 2012, I vow to be open to Pinterest, Google+ and whatever else comes down the pipeline.
3. Dear [first name], I want to get to know you. Love, Besa You can’t nurture prospects if you don’t know their names. Another marketing goal of mine for this year is to get to know software buyers better. Capterra is (hopefully) past the days of generic emails to [first name], but we could always do a better job tapping into business people’s needs and specific pain points.  What makes people come to the decision that they need software? What would help them most in their search?  What do they find most difficult about finding software?  How do businesses of different sizes budget for software?  Once we know the answers to all of these questions, it won’t be quite as awkward when I end my emails with “Love, Besa.”
4. XOXO SEO In 2012, I will show SEO how much he means to me—and if that means hugs and kisses then XOXO to you!  When Capterra writes all that Coke-inspired content, I will do a better job promoting it through search engines. Sure, it’s nice to Tweet our blog posts and send new research and ideas to journalists and bloggers… but if we really want the right people to see our content I’ve got to do more SEO.  That means finding out what people are searching for and tagging posts with those keywords and working to get more backlinks with relevant anchor text.
5. Analyze This Remember that movie from the late 1990s?  Me neither. I was way too young in the 90s.  But if I had seen it, I would probably remember the part when Dominic says “Times are changing. You’ve got to change with the times.” And Paul Vitti (played by Robert de Niro) asks “What, am I supposed to get a #%!&ing website?”  Safe to say we all have websites in 2012, but are you looking at analytics?  I admittedly don’t look at ours enough, and that means I’ve been missing valuable opportunities to segment our website users, see what they find (and more importantly, what they don’t find) interesting, and track how what we do each day makes an impact.  In 2012, analytics will be my friend… since I’ve got to change with the times and we already have a website.

Ok, all done. Time for a run… or maybe another glass of champagne?

What are your New Year’s Resolutions for marketing?

One of the most common rebuttals I hear from B2B marketers is, “My prospects may be on social media, but they’re there to connect with their friends; they’re not using Facebook at work to shop for software.” And that may be true. I find this argument to be somewhat ironic though, because isn’t that the case with most marketing channels? I don’t know about you, but I watch television for the shows, not to check out the commercials. I browse blogs and news sites for the articles, not for the banner ads. And I download your white papers and sign up for your newsletter for the information, not so your sales rep can call me every Tuesday. 

You can poke holes through all of these excuses though when you look at the staggering numbers. According to recent social media statistics, 11% of people worldwide have a Facebook account, the site is visited more than Google, and the average user spends 700 minutes per month on the site (that’s nearly 12 hours!).  And that’s just Facebook – we’re not even taking into account other wildly popular social media sites like Twitter and LinkedIn. Surely some of that time is spent online during the workday!

If you’re like most marketers, you’ve likely read these articles and seen the stats, so you’ve dutifully set up your company Facebook page and started a Twitter account. You may have even seen some re-tweets and comments on your wall. You know millions of people are using these sites every day, so common sense tells you some of them must be your prospective customers, but being active in social media hasn’t boosted your sales funnel the way you’d hoped. The purists say you’re not supposed to be selling through social channels, but your boss keeps asking how it’s impacting your bottom line. What’s a software marketer to do?

Below, we’ve listed a few simple steps you can take to not only use social media to identify sales opportunities, but to actually generate warm leads and track conversions through social media (just like you do with Capterra!).

1.  Make a list of keyword phrases people might use to discuss your software on social sites – and not just your brand name. For example, if you sell EMR software, your list might include EMR, EHR, PHR, Electronic Medical Records, Electronic Health Records, Patient Health Records, Medical Record Software, Health Record Software, Patient Tracking Software… and so on. You probably already have a list of terms you use for search ads that you can borrow for your social media search, and you may want to add your competitors’ names to the list, as well.

2. Find prospective customers on social media by searching your list of keywords. To narrow the results so they’re more relevant, combine your keywords with buying signal phrases, such as: looking for, buying, searching, switch, recommend, use, suggest, best, and compare (just to name a few). I like to use free tools such as Twitter Advanced Search, LinkedIn Answers, and Quora to search for new posts daily, but there are a host of social media monitoring tools you can use. You can even set up alerts or sign up for RSS feeds for your keyword phrases to automate this process. Also, join several LinkedIn groups specific to your industry and sign up for the daily digest email. A quick scan each morning will show you whether anybody has posted questions about finding software. Here are a few examples that turned up for our hypothetical EMR vendor search:

Quora:

Twitter:

LinkedIn:

3. Next, respond to these questions with helpful information and resources (preferably ones you’ve developed yourself, but if you have to link to another site, that’s better than nothing). Note: Here’s where the social media purists have it right – you can’t just enter the conversation guns blazing, saying “Pick me! Pick me!” That type of hard-sell approach would turn anybody off. Instead, you need to answer their question in an honest and transparent way. But that doesn’t mean you can’t sell at all on social media. For the first example above, you might say – “I work for XYZ EMR Software company, and we have found that the biggest differentiator among providers is how well the system is tailored to your specific practice. For instance, our software is ideal for large hospitals, but it may have too many bells and whistles for a small family practice. Here is a link to some of our clients’ case studies that detail how they made their EHR decision- (link). I hope this information helps, and regardless of which system you decide to go with, feel free to reach out if you’d like to discuss your options!”

4. Before you hit “post” on that response, add a tracking code to your link so you can measure conversions from your social media efforts. Regardless of which web analytics system you use, you can likely measure lead sources and inbound traffic with some sort of tracking code. I use Google Analytics- the same code you would put on a Google PPC ad. You can simply copy/paste something like ?utm_campaign=SocialMedia&utm_source=Quora on the end of your URL (more info on Google tracking codes here). Then shorten your coded links in a URL shortening service like bit.ly or ow.ly so they don’t look so long and confusing. And Voila! You can now start tracking when that Twitter follower clicked your link, and depending on your web analytics, whether they subsequently signed up for a demo, downloaded any content, or checked out your pricing page. Pretty powerful information, huh?

5. On Facebook, use custom tabs and post updates on your wall to convert page visitors into leads. For example, you can create a tab on your Facebook page to duplicate your most successful landing page offer- maybe a demo incentive or a content download that has been popular on your site. Then, as you release new campaigns, update your Facebook tab and post updates about the new campaign on your wall (like, “Check our our latest eBook!).  While it may be true that most of your Facebook fans are either already customers or employees of your company, they may still see your post and “Like” it or share that content with their friends. In turn, their engagement could put your offer in front of potential new prospects. While you can’t proactively reach out to people on Facebook from your company page, you can take advantage of Facebook’s advertising features to target your audience. Facebook’s targeting criteria is constantly improving for B2B advertisers. In keeping with our EMR example, you might create Facebook ads targeting anybody whose work info on Facebook says “doctor,” or anybody employed at a hospital. You could also try targeting anybody who lists certain medical terms in their “Likes”.

6. Integrate your social data from step #4 with your CRM system (ask your CRM provider if they have any social tracking included). If they don’t, you can also start to integrate some of this data manually. For example, on sites like LinkedIn, you can see the prospect’s name, company, and job title even if you aren’t connected to that person. So, when you respond to their question, you may want to input that contact into your CRM system and log the conversation, just like you would an email or phone call. Or, if your web analytics system is already integrated with your CRM provider, you can pull all of your social media leads (from the tracking code in #4) and run a report to see which of those contacts converted into a sale. That report will likely get your boss off your case about whether social media is “worth it”!

These tips only scratch the surface on the myriad ways B2B companies can generate leads through social media, and some may make more sense for your company than others. However, if you haven’t figured out how to get around the social media ROI question yet, these might be some good places to start.

Is your company using social media to generate leads? How do you go about it?

While we once were entertained at the idea of fruitless efforts, those games just don’t seem so amusing anymore. Likewise, nobody enjoys making hundreds of sales pitches to uninterested buyers.

Purchased email lists are like a very un-fun game of pin the tail on the donkey–you’re groping around in the dark with the hopes that against all odds you’ll hit your mark once.

Wouldn’t it be nice if there was a lead program that provided legitimate leads for actively searching buyers who have provided specific information regarding their needs, technical requirements, and budget?

At Capterra, these guys spend their whole day talking to buyers about their software needs. They contact every buyer to verify that they are actually looking for software and parse out any additional information such as number of users, time frame for the purchase, budget, and company information.

When you call a Capterra buyer you are not making a cold call. You’re calling someone who has expressed serious interest in purchasing a software system, has clearly outlined their desires and expectations of a system, and wants to hear from software vendors.

Want more proof that our leads aren’t like frustrating birthday games? Take a look at the comparison between the incoming buyer request for information and the Capterra verified lead excerpts below:

Is your time better spent emailing a hundred people like the one on the left and never reaching an actual software buyer or calling the person on the right and making your sales pitch to somebody who actually wants to hear it?

Contact Capterra and ask about their PPL program so you can experience the difference for yourself!

But today, we launched our first infographic: The Top 20 Most Popular Marketing Automation Software Solutions.

So why a change in heart?  Why a popularity index now?  Two reasons:

1. There are more data points than ever before. Private software companies are more often disclosing stuff like their revenue and customer counts.  Websites have become a central hub for software marketing efforts, and several indicators exist for measuring web traffic.  And, of course, social media has become a platform for widespread community engagement, and the number of followers a company has is public domain.
2. If someone feels more comfortable beginning a process by knowing who the “big” players are, then so be it.  While our end goal remains the same – helping them make a fully informed, smart software decision – we can still answer buyers’ initial questions, show them the most popular vendors (not to be confused with “best”), and then try to persuade them to open up their software search efforts.

The Data

We started with every software company listed in Capterra’s Marketing Automation Software Directory.  We strive to list every single solution – vendors do not have to pay to be listed.  (If you see any missing, let us know!)  We then collected Alexa, Compete, Google and Twitter data for all the vendors.  We recognize that none of these are perfect indicators.  Alexa and Compete, for example, are notoriously inaccurate for B2B websites and tend to underestimate web traffic.  However, each provide a decent starting point for identifying relational and trend data.  And the four combined provide a fairly accurate picture of overall web activity.  We considered Facebook fans and LinkedIn company followers, but found both to be less indicative of a software company’s popularity.

Here is the web data for each of the four channels:

Once again, we looked at this data for all of our marketing automation vendors (more than 180), but these four indicators allowed us to narrow down our considerations to about 40 vendors.  Then, for those 40, we performed additional research to identify their number of customers, users, and revenue.  Three of the vendors had been acquired and the two we included had released the acquisition values to the public.  (The third was Oracle’s asset acquisition of Market2Lead) Here is what we were able to find:

A few things worth noting:

1. The Unica and Aprimo revenue numbers are estimates.  They are both owned by public companies and are not required to break out their revenue separately.
2. Infusionsoft, Hubspot, and Signal all made the Inc. 5000, which requires revenue data.  The numbers you see above are rounded.
3. Companies that did not disclose their numbers of customers or users were bumped down in the popularity index due to lack of data.

This is the first time Capterra has ever published popularity rankings.  We welcome all feedback and suggestions.  If you have ideas for other publicly accessible information worth including, please send it our way!  We are considering doing something similar for other software categories (Capterra has 360 categories on our site), and we’re also considering updating this one down the road.  Something tells me the Marketing Automation space will continue to change rapidly.

Some marketers think that trying to reach business prospects around the holidays is pointless. But even though you’re selling to other businesses (known to be less active during the holiday season), the people you’re selling to are still people at the end of the day. What does that mean? They’re probably focused on the same things you are this time of year – shopping and planning.

Contrary to popular belief, the whole world is not out of the office for the entire month either. Look around your office right now (if you’re there) – do you see people? Right… I do too.  So what are business people doing this time of year? They’re checking emails and actually reading them because they have more free time during the day; they’re preparing their budgets for 2012; they’re running reports to see how they performed this year; and they’re tying up loose ends and finishing projects to start the New Year with a clean slate.

So before you say “Bah, humbug” to December marketing efforts, think about this: you still have some time left to plan a holiday software offer that can impact your bottom line – through email, PPC campaigns, display ads, on your website, and/or using social media. While you might not be able to bring in a cold lead and warm them up to the point of purchase in the next two weeks, that doesn’t mean it’s a futile effort.

Take advantage of this time, when your competitors are probably closing up shop, to put yourself in front of prospects so that your software is the first solution they consider in 2012. You may even land yourself a couple of those last-minute shoppers who have money leftover in the budget they need to use up!

When planning your B2B holiday marketing campaign though, make sure your message comes across more like something Santa would say rather than Scrooge (who’s only interested in counting his money). These two holiday icons offer some valuable lessons on what works and what doesn’t in your holiday marketing campaigns:

Santa

• He’s making a list, and checking it twice. Oh right – and so are your prospects. You want to make sure your software is on their nice list. Design your holiday campaign with messaging such as “How to budget for XYZ software for 2012” or “Tips on justifying XYZ software to your boss.” These types of content pieces are just the types of helpful gifts Santa would give, and your prospects will appreciate the gesture when it comes time to compare solutions.
• Offer a simple phrase – to kids from one to ninety-two. Thanking your existing customers with a simple holiday greeting (Santa-style: with no sales message included) can actually generate more than just goodwill. Not only does it keep your brand top-of-mind as they are planning and prepping for next year, but it could prompt some end-of-year upsells. For example, it could inspire this thought…  “I was just looking at our year-end reports and think I may need to increase my usage of this software next year. I’m glad they emailed – let me give my rep a call.”
• The best way to spread holiday cheer is by singing loud for all to hear. Santa is pretty good at getting others to spread the word about him, and you can be too by encouraging social buzz this time of year. Run a campaign through email and display it on your site (perhaps on your login page) to ask for customers to leave reviews and recommendations of your software, which they can do on sites like Capterra and your LinkedIn Company Page. Also, embed social sharing icons on your web content, emails, and promotions. After all, it is the season of giving – so make it easy for others to share your gifts!

Scrooge

• Don’t be the ghost of Christmas Past. If you are cold calling prospects twice a day that you haven’t talked to in months and leaving messages that say “Still waiting to hear from you! Call me,” chances are, there’s a reason you aren’t getting any calls back. Just because they expressed interest, at some point, in your product and you need to make sales now does not mean that now is the best time for them. Unless you have a new offer, lower pricing, or content to help nurture the lead, it’s best to leave dead leads in the past.
• Don’t have dollar signs in your eyes like Ebenezer. Your prospects can see through veiled attempts to bring in extra revenue at the end of the year. Statements like “Last Chance!” or “You’ll Only Get this Offer Once!” often go ignored when they know that you’ll probably offer the same pricing at the end of the month in January. Unless you’re really ready to back up those statements, use them sparingly. Also, be wary of offering a discount so great that someone you just closed comes back to demand they get the same pricing. It’s better to offer a variety of rewards and incentives over the course of the year instead of just a flat discount to new customers at the end of the year.
• Don’t give people a reason to come back to haunt you. Scrooge was only concerned about himself and his finances, not about the people he did business with. Be careful that in the rush to launch holiday campaigns that you’re still minding your manners. Even though it’s the holidays and you might think any marketing is better than nothing, you still want to double check for details; make sure that your emails are CAN SPAM Compliant, that you’ve set up proper tracking so that leads are put on the right campaign tracks, and that you’ve tested and refined your targeting criteria on display ads and PPC campaigns.

Does your software company market to new prospects during December? Leave an example of a successful holiday marketing initiative that you launched!