LinkedIn? Facebook? Which is better for B2B marketing? The infographic at the end of this post offers some suggestions, but we wanted to dig a bit deeper. To help you decide which platform is better for you, we’ve had a look at some of the latest thinking on B2B marketing on each platform. By the end, you’ll have a better idea which one to choose.

And don’t forget to tweet the stats at the end of the post…

B2B Marketing on LinkedIn

1. How to Use LinkedIn to Generate and Qualify B2B Leads

Is LinkedIn just for job seekers? Jason Miller from Marketo says it’s not. He points out that a LinkedIn profile contains a lot of useful information for B2B marketers and presents a table with eight types of data that you can use for lead generation and qualification.

Key stat: LinkedIn is most used during the workweek, with peak time between 12pm and 3pm each day.

2. Top 3 Reasons LinkedIn Was Made for B2B Marketers

Frank Isca says B2B marketers should use LinkedIn because it’s easy to gain credibility with your target market. Already, 58% of B2B marketers are using the network. LinkedIn rocks, he says, because of its pre-eminence as a network for business professionals, the ability to communicate to prospects via company pages and the chance to grab leads via LinkedIn groups.

Key stats: LinkedIn has more educated professionals than any other network. High tech, finance and manufacturing sectors have the biggest worldwide presence on LinkedIn.

3. B2B Marketing – 3 Powerful Ways To Get More Out Of LinkedIn

They say the best things in life are free and Dawn Westerberg is feeling the love for the free version of LinkedIn. She shows how you can achieve marketing success by choosing and joining appropriate groups and checking for common connections to build your network.

Takeaway: Use the ‘who’s viewed my profile’ as a starting point for building a relationship by finding out why the person viewed your profile.

4. Linkedin for B2B marketing – Social Media Week

Who’s on LinkedIn? According to Tasmsin Fox-Davies since the site has somewhere in excess of 150 million professionals as members, many of the people B2B marketers want to target are there. LinkedIn is particularly important because of the rich data it provides via people’s profiles. The site can be used to build community (especially through groups), attract influencers and carry out a content strategy, as well as for lead generation and sales.

Key stat: One in four professionals has a presence on LinkedIn and 15% of European businesses use it every day.

5. How to Be Social on LinkedIn for B2B Marketing

Ron Medlin gives tips on using LinkedIn effectively, including identifying active profiles to connect to, choosing groups by industry and location and making good use of LinkedIn Answers.

Takeaway: To get impact from LinkedIn you need to network strategically.

B2B Marketing on Facebook

6. Five Ways to Find Leads from Facebook

Ann Handley outlines how to succeed with B2B marketing on Facebook. She highlights the size of the audience (only China and India have more people) and the competition from other kinds of Facebook messaging. She suggests using a business page to generate leads and increase customer engagement. Tips include integrating contests, varying posting times and asking for interaction with open questions.

Takeway: understand how the Facebook algorithm penalizes less interesting content and stay on top with compelling, enticing, interactive content.

7. The New Facebook Ads: Game Changer for B2B Marketers?

Spark Marketing shows how the new Facebook ads can provide a way to connect directly with your target audience. They allow direct promotion to your market and allow you to link previously written content with the ad. This takes advantage of social content advertising and will allow people to respond to the ads directly.

Takeaway: this combination of advertising and content will enhance marketing potential.

8. 6 Ways That Facebook is Better Than LinkedIn for B2B Marketing

Glenn Glow points out that Facebook is a better B2B marketing platform than LinkedIn because more business people spend more time on it, something our infographic also points out. In addition, Facebook allows you to reach the friends of your key audience, expanding your reach.

Takeaway: The ability to create closed groups on Facebook levels the playing field with LinkedIn.

9. Getting Facebook Right – Tips for B2B Marketing Success

Eloqua’s Joe Chernov suggests another way to look at Facebook – not focusing on fan count but on engagement. This includes trying out different techniques to see which ones bring in new fans, profiling the fans, and focusing on engaging rather than simply self serving content.

Takeaway: Manual publishing gets more eyeballs than automated publishing so a DIY approach is better. (Their stats show a 61% difference in visibility.)

10. A Guide To New Facebook For Busy Social Media Marketers

The big change for B2B marketers is the completion of the rollout of Timeline which changes how your pages work. Tips here include choosing a cover photo, getting visuals for the tabs or apps you want to feature, fixing your about content and considering how to use what’s already there in milestones.

Takeaway: check out the examples of Timeline in action as well as the additional resources.

Tweetable Facts:

So, have you made your mind up yet? Here are some stats for you to ponder and tweet:

• 61% of LinkedIn users use it for industry networking; 55% use it for networking with co-workers » tweet this «
• 55 million. Number of LinkedIn users in the US; 22.5 million are aged 35-64
  » tweet this «
• 326 million. Number of minutes spent on LinkedIn each month by US users
  » tweet this «
• 41% of people marketing on Facebook got a customer this way » tweet this «
• 155 million. Number of Facebook users in the US; 51 million aged 35-64
  » tweet this «
• Thought leadership is the top use for social media among B2B marketers
  » tweet this «

– Sharon Hurley Hall

In this post Carlos and myself (Oli) are going to analyze one of our customers – Vinoetic.com – landing pages (after they opted to allow us to get our opinionated hands on it). Our goal is for it to be an educational exercise that can hopefully help improve the page, but let’s have a little fun too, shall we? We’ll be scoring each point in our discussion with + or – points to arrive at a total score and we’ll be arguing on certain points to show that everyone has a different opinion – which shows the importance of testing.

Warning for the creator of the page: There are going to be some criticisms, but our goal is for this to be useful to you so that you can have a more successful campaign in the future.

Let the battle commence!

1. The Main Headline

2. The Call to Action (CTA)

3. Personas (who is this product/service for?)

4. Big Background Image

5. What is the purpose of this page?

6. Explain your benefits

7. What am signing up for?

8. Interaction

9. Privacy Policy

10. Is this a Landing Page or a Microsite?

Oli’s Final Score: -4 I guess I’m more of a hardass.
Carlos’ Final Score: -3

Sorry! We do genuinely hope that the discussion helps you and others when thinking about your landing pages.

Btw. If any readers think we missed something – it would be awesome if you added it to the comments.

– Oli Gardner & Carlos Del Rio

1994 was when banner ads first appeared? I bet they looked freakin’ awful.

Anyway, things haven’t necessarily improved much these days. A primary reason for their failure was “Banner Blindness” – a symptom of the predictable placement (and bloody ugly design) of the banners, making people blur them from their vision and focus solely on the content.

Marketers soon figured this out and started being even more annoying by putting them in the middle of blog post content (interruption marketing sucks!) so you tripped over them during your reading. Or more likely – hit the back button because you found it offensive.

Anyway, rant over. The point of this post is to examine who is looking at – and more importantly clicking – your banners. I think the most interesting stats in the infographic below are the ones about why people don’t click on your banners – you could learn something from that section.

I’ve also included a bunch of tweetable stats from the graphic at the bottom of the post so you can sound all knowledgeable ‘n’ such. You’re welcome.

This is my favourite:
“People are more likely to survive a plane crash than click a banner ad”
[ tweet this ]

Oh and don’t forget that if you do manage to get a click on your banners that they should go to targeted landing pages to help you convert that valuable click into a customer.

Who Looks At Banner Ads Infographic

Tweetable Facts:

1. People are more likely to survive a plane crash than click a banner ad
   [ tweet this ]
2. The average click through rate from banner advertising is 2.1% [ tweet this ]
3. Facebook is girding for a $100 billion IPO and its business is mostly based on banner ads [ tweet this ]
4. The average amount earned per click on a banner ad is $0.25 to $0.55 cents
   [ tweet this ]
5. 31% of people don’t click banner ads because they’re worried they’re being tracked [ tweet this ]
6. 54% of people don’t click banner ads because they don’t trust the ad
   [ tweet this ]
7. 58% of people believe your banner ad is not relevant to them [ tweet this ]

Got any interesting stats or case studies about your own banner campaigns? Share them in the comments, I’d love to know how you’re doing.

– Oli Gardner

If you’re here at Unbounce reading this sexy blog, it means you’re probably already familiar with landing page optimization. Which is good, because it’s far too rich and important a topic to cover in one post. (But, just between you and me, if you’d like to know lots more about the fundamentals of making your landing pages the best they can possibly be, you could do worse than to check out 101 Landing Page Optimizations Tips.)

I want to take a few moments to discuss the little things that make your landing page sing. “The devil is in the details”, as they say, and once you’ve got your pretty little landing page up and running, and you’ve worked through some of the major improvements you needed to make, that’s what you’re left with: little details.

So what tiny tweaks can you make to your established landing page to squeeze that extra 2% out of your conversion rate? Specifically, what kinds of changes can you make in just a few minutes in order to keep your optimization and testing program moving forward?

1. Building a better headline

By tweaking the headline, you can actually see much more than a few percentage points of improvement. And it doesn’t need to be a huge headline overhaul, tweaking your headline is often enough.

Consider these theoretical examples:

Good

• 88% of Americans Will Be Getting a Larger Tax Refund Than Usual This Year! You Could Be One of Them!

This is the current control, and it’s doing fairly well: the landing page is gathering leads for a tax preparation software company by offering a free white paper about maximizing your tax refund based on tax law updates. This page is pulling a 25% conversion rate with this headline.

Better
There are some tiny tweaks that can be made without drastically changing the headline concept or any of the landing page copy:

• 88% of Americans Will Be Getting a Larger Tax Refund Than Usual This Year! Make Sure You’re One of Them!

The “make sure” adds urgency, and “you’re” makes it more personal.

• Are You One of the 88% of Americans Getting a Larger Tax Refund Than Usual This Year?

By rewording it as a question, this may spark the visitor’s curiosity.

• 12% of Americans Will Not Be Getting a Larger Tax Refund Than Usual This Year! You Could Be One of Them!

Taking the negative view of a positive statistic turns an exclamation into a warning or even an indictment.

The point is, ten minutes with a pen and paper to brainstorm different ways to phrase the headline can provide you with 20 options that might improve your landing page conversion.

Special Tip: If you’ve hired a pro to write the copy for your landing page, they’ve probably come up with far MORE than twenty headline options in the course of settling on the one you have. Why not ask for their brainstorming list?

2. Messing with colors

Your original design may or may not have taken all these factors into consideration. Studies have shown, though, that color has a powerful effect on website visitors.

For a nice overview of how various colors affect visitors, take a look at this great infographic, The Anatomy of a Perfect Landing Page, from KissMetrics (especially the bottom portion, although the whole thing rocks.)

Based on those general guidelines, you can make large or small adjustments to the color scheme on your page.

As an example, if your product is being presented as time-sensitive, urgent information that can save a visitor a lot of money, (like our tax refund example above,) you may find that a bright red “submit” button or a red headline may convey that sense of urgency better than another color.

Then again, green is subconsciously associated with wealth and is easier for the eye to process. Maybe that’s a better choice.

It’s likely worth taking the time to test several different color variations of the background, the navigation, any call outs, and the text to make sure your landing page is not just visually appealing, but is tuned to have the greatest subliminal impact.

3. Moving things around

Assuming you’re working on a user-friendly content system (like the super-dependable Unbounce landing page software I’m recommending in a totally unbiased way…) moving elements around on your landing page should be as simple as point, click and drag.

If so, you can make these tiny tweaks very easily and quickly, and test to your heart’s content:

• Try making your headline font a little bigger. Sometimes, especially if your landing page has several elements, a headline or Call to Action (CTA) can get be missed and lose its impact.
• If your landing page includes video (which it should), try situating it “above the fold” by making sure the full video frame is visible above the fold.
• Then again, if you have important call-to-action text currently below the video, it may work even better to move that above the fold and keep just a glimpse of your video at the bottom of the screen so curious video-lovers will scroll down for it, and text lovers will already have what they want.
• Don’t ignore the captions on any pictures on your page. Decades-worth of direct mail conversion tests have proven that captions are the third-most-read portion of any sales collateral after the headline and the subheads. The Internet equivalent of the old direct mail sales letter – the landing page – is no different.
• Keep your page as simple as possible. Some products and services require more detail, but as a rule a landing page should be as simple as possible to understand, skim through and act upon. One goal, with one link and one CTA.

Final word

The bottom line is simply this: You should never be finished testing your landing pages. As time goes on, your audience changes, the market changes, and a static landing page could lose its effectiveness. Or, there could be a better-performing variation you’ve yet to try.

– Justin P Lambert

When it comes to sharing and promoting your stuff online, fragmentation seems to be the name of the game. Every day it seems there’s a new site that becomes the hottest destination for online marketers. Google+, Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Quora – how’s a poor web marketer supposed to cope? And does this mean that blogging is dead?

Uh, no… the demise of the blog has been greatly exaggerated (thank you, Mark Twain).

There are significant benefits to maintaining your own blog – and there’s a lot you can do with your blog content to amplify your marketing. Let’s look at the benefits.

Control

Not being in control of your own content strategy is like driving a car without a steering wheel. (Image source)

Owning your own blog puts you in control of your content which is important when it comes to web marketing. How many people do you know of who have built a following on Facebook or Twitter and then had to start again because of some supposed violation of the terms of service? If it hasn’t yet happened on Google+, that’s only because it’s new, but it will.

Social Hubs

Using any social platform you don’t own to house your content holds an inherent level of risk. Examples include: Tumblr, Facebook Notes, Posterous and now even Pinterest.

By doing this, you are at the mercy of the people who own those sites.

All they have to do is THINK (not prove) that you have violated their terms of service and they can yank your content offline in a millisecond. With your own hosted blog, as long as you don’t do anything really silly and your hosting fees are all paid up, you own that space and control what’s there.

And you aren’t relying on the success of another. While it’s hard to imagine the demise of Facebook, imagine the poor marketing team that made MySpace the primary Web presence for their brand.

You need all of these sites to extend the reach of your content, just don’t use them exclusively as the source.

Good SEO

Original, well written blog content is the purest form of white hat SEO. (Image source)

Nothing gets indexed as quickly as your blog’s content, making it by far the best way to broadcast word of your products, services and initiatives. Yes, Twitter and Facebook also perform well in search engine results, but if the SEO of those sites suffers, so does that of the content you’ve posted there. With your blog, a regular publishing schedule means more entries next to your name in Google.

With Google’s recent emphasis on verified authorship, that could be important in your search engine rankings in the near future.

Your best bet is to make sure you are identified as the publisher of your site and the author of your posts by implementing Google authorship and publishing markup. This iBlogZone tutorial on setting up authorship markup is a good starting point.

Boost Your Authority

Authority helps you market successfully on the web. It is the perception by your audience that you know what you are talking about and a blog can be a key tool in enhancing that perception. Since you own it, you get the chance to tell your story your way. You can pull together useful resources for your customers (even those that you haven’t created), comment on the trends of the day and show them that you are to be trusted.

Check out Chris Brogan’s Trust Agents for more on this and see the strategy in action on the Hubspot blog. Hubspot gives away free reports and great information like there’s no tomorrow and the result is an authoritative position in the inbound marketing niche. And you’d better believe they are making money too!

An Online Home

ProBlogger suggests developing a Twitter landing page

Every business needs a place where their customers can find them. For your small business or your professional persona, that place is probably your blog. Because you own (or at least have a long term rental on) the virtual space where it’s hosted, it’s the best place to point people to when they need to interact with you.

Sure, your blog won’t be the only place you interact online, but it can be the place you send all your social media contacts back to. There are lots of ways to do this. One good example is the creation of specific landing pages for visitors from different networks. Track these landing pages in your analytics program and you will soon be able to see where your messages are having the most impact – and that info is priceless if you’re a web marketer!

Five Ways To Syndicate/Re-Purpose Your Blog Content

By now you should be convinced of the need for your own blog, but there’s more to having a blog than a couple of updates. You need to get active to get even more web marketing and authority juice out of your blog. We’re not just talking about pushing your updates to Twitter – pretty much anyone can do that now. It’s about getting more bang for your buck with the content you already have.

Here are five examples:

1. Write a series of posts on a topic and then turn the series into a free ebook which you give to people who join your email list. Not only does this build trust, but it will encourage people to return to your site (remember it’s your hub) for more information. Don’t forget to put links to your key resources within the ebook.
2. Use your blog content as the basis for a podcast. Pick the posts that people have received the most comments, record a reading of them and look for places to add value. Put links to those podcasts in the original posts and publish new posts saying that they are available. That’s two more chances to reach your audience.
3. Have some fun making a video related to a topic you are an expert on. Many people respond well to people they can see and hear, don’t be afraid to take a lighthearted approach–if you have fun with it, so will your audience–and it might even go viral.
4. Publish your blog on Kindle via the Kindle publishing for blogs program. E-readers and tablets are big and you can’t afford to miss out on this audience.
5. Syndicate your expertise via content curation. There are dozens of tools for this, but some of the most popular include Paper.li and Scoop.it. Be sure to go beyond self promotion and share useful resources originated by others – your customers will thank you.

See how useful your blog can be?

– Sharon Hurley Hall

Running a link building campaign (shudder – who *really* likes link building? Raise your hands. Didn’t think so) is a lot like running for prom queen. First, you have to make ‘nice’ with the guy most likely to be voted prom king. In the world of Search Engines, Google is the front-runner. Next, you campaign for people to like you and your links and ask them to cast a ‘vote’ in your favor. As your peers like you, you become even more popular and, well, even more people like you! In true prom queen fashion, seek the highest authority and most popular support. 

So here are a few tips on how to run an effective campaign without sacrificing value, honor or giving away more link juice than you’re getting.

1. Quality content is (prom) king

Writing awesome content that is entertaining, relevant and useful to your audience is the single most effective link building method. Research your topic, incorporate personal experience and do everything you can to illicit a reaction from your readers. When your content provokes response and comment, is re-posted or quoted, tweeted, liked on Facebook and stumbled on StumbleUpon, your site will rise in the search engine rankings. This is the fastest and most organic way of creating link love.

TIP: A big part of what makes content worth linking to is the inclusion of “content enhancers”. Find these content amplifiers using social media.

The Official Google blog tells us (old but worth a read) that they have made it “harder for spammy on-page content to rank highly.” The search engine launched major changes and continues to look at methods to minimize rankings of low quality or “low levels of original content” sites. 

2. Be a guest (i.e. have a date at the prom)

If you're going to guest post - don't ruin your reputation in the process! (Image source)

Guest blogging on another quality website is a wonderful way to stretch your writing muscles, make alliances in your industry or market, build a larger audience and grab some inbound links.

It’s important to remember tip #1 above – quality content is crucial.

When you write for another site (or at the prom), be on your best behavior:

• Only ever use your best content – here’s an example of a guest post that’s generated hundreds of backlinks, been shared over 200,000 times and translated into about 12 languages.
• Write and edit according to the publisher’s guidelines and try to style your message for the audience of the site. Don’t lose your own voice, but a post or article that doesn’t fit with the host site won’t win you fans among the host audience or the site owner.
• While you certainly want to include links back to your site through a bio and within the text of your post, don’t abuse the opportunity to simply create backlinks. If it’s relevant, use it. But, be authentic and make sure the link refers the reader directly to the extra resource and not a generic page.

Tip: Read How and Why You Should be Guest Blogging

3. Participate and share your information

Do NOT share your cheese with Oli. (Image source)

To gain inbound links, you must get people to like you and your content enough to talk about it and share it. That means you also must participate online where people talk and share. If you’re an expert on financial matters, participating in forums like RichDad Community gives you an opportunity to share your expertise and establish yourself as an authority figure. There are forums and groups on social networks covering everything from art to zoology. Find one, set up a complete profile with links and start sharing, communicating and helping. People will soon begin to look you up and share your links and information.

4. Give it away (maybe not on prom night though!)

Like any great campaign, a few “bribes” won’t hurt. Seth Godin is one of America’s most sought after marketers, an excellent blogger and writer and he gives away information, helpful guides, even software for free all the time. He keeps his audience looking for freebies and coming back to his sites. Further, he encourages others to talk about and share his gift-giving, so there’s of lots of traffic to his site and many inbound links.

Your gifts don’t have to break the bank:

• Free e-books for download and sharing
• Awards and badges for those who participate in, link to or support your site
• Courses, tutorials and how-to guides
• Resource guides and lists from high authoritative and well-researched sources
• Guest post opportunities without any expectation of return

Check out an example of gift giving (lots of free info) in this guide to 50 Awesome Posts on Email Marketing.

Be creative in your gift giving, just make sure it’s legally owned by you and something you don’t mind others giving away.

– Joynicole Martinez

Knowing your target customer, or in this case, reader, is the foundation to producing a successful business blog, and it’s time every business understood that content marketing is the new marketing black and if you don’t have a blog attached to your business site then you need to start… NOW!

Identify your audience

According to The Beginner’s Guide to Blogging & Content Marketing Strategy, if you don’t know who you’re talking to, you can’t target and refine your message.

Describe your target reader in terms of demographics, interests, careers, hobbies, geography or whatever else is relevant to your business. Once an audience is defined, you can refine the relevant content to target readers.

Set goals

(Image source)

It’s important to set the goals you want to accomplish with your business blog. Without them you’re just pissing writing in the wind. Are you trying to convert readers to buyers, build an email marketing list or just increasing brand exposure? These goals will determine the content you produce. For instance, if you’re looking for readers to take a specific action, your posts should include a strong call to action. On the other hand, if you’re simply trying to enhance brand recognition, your focus will be more on delivering valuable content with no built-in sales connection. TIP: Give away your content for free – a free PDF with no form is a great way to create shareable content and appear trustworthy. Trust me (come on, laugh at that).

Create an editorial calendar

(Image source)

One of the most essential tactics of running a successful blog, and often overlooked, is an editorial calendar. An editorial calendar is essentially a long-term content schedule that defines the type and frequency of content over a period of time. Plan your content to coincide with important or newsworthy industry happenings and, of course, events, milestones and accomplishments specific to your business. It’s also a good idea to try and stay and consistent with the timing of your posts – i.e. How To posts on Mondays, list posts on Wednesdays, and maybe something funny on a Friday. And yes – that’s what we do.

An editorial calendar forces publishers to think about the type of content they’re producing in advance and can be a catalyst for a structured series, such as a weekly link round-up or a daily theme, wrote Gerard McGarry, on ProBlogger.net. You can use any method that makes sense to you: a day planner, an Excel spreadsheet, or even a Microsoft Outlook calendar.

To create an editorial calendar:

• Identify broad topics and themes you want to cover and possible themes.
• Place any industry events or relevant happenings on the calendar so that you can schedule content around them.
• Fill in the calendar with specific titles, topics and content types.

Make sure you read How to Creat a Successful Editorial Calendar

Share, share and share again

Repurposing old content (Image source) - ftr - that image was purely to make Georgiana (our marketing manager) happy :)

Expert bloggers know a great content strategy doesn’t end with the blog. Once you’ve established an editorial calendar and begin producing topic-focused content, share it. Make use of social media channels to build links, awareness and–let’s not forget–your reader base. You can republish your content on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Tumblr and many other networks.

You can also re-purpose your content by reformatting it into slideshows, webinars, PDFs and even videos. If you’ve written a series of posts focused on a central topic, repurpose that content into an ebook and offer it as a benefit to new subscribers to your email list. Or simply publish it for free and offer it as marketing collateral on other websites. Make use of SlideShare.net, DocStoc.com and the tons of document-sharing sites that will publish your expert business content for the world to see.

The give and take of guest blogging

Sharing your content (mixing your ideas with those of others) is a valuable inbound marketing method. (Image source)

While you have a lot of valuable information to share, one of the great things about blogging is that it’s a whole community of like-minded folks. Chances are there are others in your industry who are blogging themselves. Featuring other voices on your business blog can help you build valuable connections and offer more free advice to your readers.

Guest blogging, or guest contributing, is a give-and-take type of thing. Having guest contributors on your own blog can lend it greater credibility among readers, especially if you’ve secured a well-known blogger. Guest contributors also usually come with their own set of social contacts, and they’re likely to share the content posted on your blog with their network–earning both you and them more exposure. Likewise, offering to write a guest post for another blog, can be a quick and easy way to spread your name and message and earn a backlink to your own site.

If you’re looking for guest contributors, whether for single posts or as regular bloggers, start by posting an announcement on your blog. Your own reader base is likely to contain at least a few folks with some expertise to share. You can also reach out to your peers through their own websites or social media profiles.

Quick tip: Speakers and authors who work in your industry love to write guest posts.

Also, read How and Why You Should be Guest Blogging

Frequency vs. consistency

Ask five different experts (HiPPO's) and you could get five different answers (Image source)

Now that we’ve nailed down all those details, one major question is probably still lurking: How often do you post? Ask five different “experts” and you could get five different answers. The answer for your blog, of course, depends on your industry, the reason you’re publishing the blog and the amount of time you have to maintain it. (Although you should never let time alone dictate your frequency.)

Perhaps more important than frequency is consistency. Whether you post once per week or three times per week, you should remain consistent so your readers know what to expect from you. BloggingPro recommends a frequency of two to five posts per week for new blogs with reader growth as a primary goal.

Establishing the next great business blog isn’t an overnight accomplishment. It takes time to establish solid footing in the blogging world. If you’re starting a business blog, try to set a plan and stick to it for at least six months, but don’t give up completely for at least a year. Re-evaluate and adjust your plan once a month or quarterly. Remember, perseverance is a primary factor in your success.

– Angela Stringfellow

Online Marketing Strategy Infographic

Tweetable Facts:

1. Mobile searches increased by 400% in 2011 »» Tweet This ««
2. 70% of all social networkers are also online shoppers »» Tweet This ««
3. Over 50% of ecommerce store visits occur when consumers are logged into Facebook »» Tweet This ««
4. 68% of businesses plan to integrate social media marketing with their e-mail marketing »» Tweet This ««
5. Conversion rates are 105% higher for consumers who interact with ratings & reviews »» Tweet This ««

– Oli Gardner

Capitalizing on news events is a useful way to drive traffic to your landing pages through social media channels, like Twitter and Facebook. In addition to mainstream news, you can use company press releases to earn dozens of backlinks, driving more landing page traffic – we’ll learn about this later.

How to find news

A crucial component of using mainstream news events to drive traffic to any landing page is relevancy. Many marketers are stuck in analysis mode, not knowing where to look to uncover newsworthy topics. There are a few savvy tricks for keeping tabs on the news in your industry and even being the first to break it to your social network.

1. Google Alerts are an automated search which emails the results or delivers them to an RSS feed in specified time intervals. This trick can land the most recently-published industry news directly in a marketing director’s inbox right, in near real-time. What could be simpler?
2. Google Trends lets marketers know what’s trending among search topics. Marketers can use the tool to determine what key terms are being used for search in different topic areas, as well as to drill down to the most relevant hot topics on the web.
3. Google News, the journalist’s search mecca includes only search results from approved news publications. Websites earning placement in Google News must meet a strict set of qualifying criteria, so the likelihood of encountering total garbage, while it still exists, is minimized.
4. AllTop is the brainchild of author and entrepreneur Guy Kawasaki. The site compiles the most popular stories from well-known bloggers and media gurus, and users can even drill down to category-specific results.
5. Your social networks, like Google+, Facebook and Twitter are a fabulous place to find juicy news. Remember the day Seal Team Six successfully found and defeated Osama bin Laden? The news broke first on Twitter.

5 Ways to use news to drive traffic

There are a number of ways marketers can use news events to drive traffic to a landing page through any social network.

1. Create a press release “story” based on recent news and statistics

Businesses can create a press release using a combination of other news stories to prove a point, offering the company’s products or services as the solution. Home Instead Senior Care uses this tactic regularly as part of its overall content strategy.

Link to the press release in Twitter and Facebook news feeds. A press release, of course, can also be used to publicize the company’s own news, such as a new CEO, new product launch or accomplishment. Inc.com suggests incorporating links to social media channels within the press release to improve share-ability and even incorporating embedded YouTube videos, other media and links to related resources. These tactics make it easier for journalists to find what they need to build a story.

2. Lead in to a blog post with a current event, finish by directing readers to a landing page

CloutSmith.com recommends using “interesting posts, constant engagement and quality content” to drive traffic. Post links to the blog post on Twitter and Facebook to create a traffic funnel.

3. Write a Facebook note

According to FabAdsLab.com, Facebook notes have strong search engine optimization (SEO) value and can be used for just about anything: a full blog post, casual commentary or a list of tips and tricks. This tactic can be taken a step further by tagging a third party’s fan page mentioned in the story, so the note not only shows up in the original business’ news feed, but in the other’s news feed as well. Building links into the content naturally.

4. Participate in cause marketing and charitable events

Any business can get involved in a charitable event or cause and publicize the company’s efforts and support using Facebook and Twitter. Similar to a Facebook note, tagging the charitable organization’s own Facebook page will cause links and posts to appear in that page’s news feed as well, improving overall visibility. These partnerships should be mutually-beneficial and relevant, advises SelfishGiving.com, and both parties should research the other’s reputation and level of social media activity before coming to an agreement. NetworkforGood.com offers a useful checklist on planning a social cause marketing campaign.

5. Respond to and comment on relevant news-worthy posts and events

People tend to ask questions and pose problems on social networks (such as Quora and LinkedIn), actively seeking the advice of their connections. Marketers who actively seek out, respond to and engage with the community can quickly earn recognition as a subject-matter expert. Responding to appropriate questions with real solutions and a casual link back to a landing page (without shameless self-promotion) is an effective tactic for driving landing page traffic. This can also be done by responding using a Facebook page rather than an individual’s account, thereby increasing the brand’s visibility.

Using news events to drive landing page traffic is an effective way to gain visibility through taking a more active role in public commentary. Using this technique, marketers can easily jump into conversations and move beyond simply posting links to a company’s landing page in social media news feeds. Building conversations around relevant news topics moves a business beyond self-promotion and into true engagement.

– Angela Stringfellow

The goal of your landing page is simple. Conversions.

But what if you’ve developed a landing page that’s converting really well, but you’re at the point where you’ve resorted to just testing little tweaks to try and eek out a little more performance?

The danger of tweaking your landing pages

Tweaking is rarely effective. (Image source)

There are hundreds of things you can fiddle with when you’re optimizing a landing page, and each one has the potential to affect your stats and, eventually, your bottom line – or screw it up royally.

Why tweaking can be tough:

1. It can ruin an otherwise successful page.
2. It can feel futile if things don’t go your way, making you devalue the purpose of testing.
3. It’s not as easy as you’d think. Making effective changes requires insight into your customers which can take time to research.

There are only a few changes likely to have a significant impact on your conversion rates. And once your page is to the point where tweaks are only creating miniscule improvements, you’re going to want to consider moving on to bigger and better things.

Here they are:

Writing a completely different headline

Captivating headlines make all the difference. (Image source).

Tweaking a word or two can have a dramatic effect on your conversion rate, no doubt about it. But once you’ve nailed a solid headline that’s consistently drawing an audience, those little adjustments can do more harm than good.

Consider these instead:

1. What if you crafted an entirely new headline focused on appealing to a different demographic segment of your target audience? Create a new landing page targeted at just your female customers for instance, I guarantee that they will respond differently to male-centric messaging. Check out the first 2 landing pages here as an example of the same product targeted in 2 ways.
2. What about tying your product to an up-to-the-second breaking news story to make it more current? This will get you more click-throughs to the page from an ad.
3. What about re-wording a statement as a question? Adding a questions mark has shown open-rate improvements in email marketing as it adds an element of curiosity.

Check out this case study run by Marketing Profs on headline testing which increased leads by 27.76%.

The headline is the single most important factor in any direct response media, and landing pages are no different. No other factor can make or break a landing page’s conversion rate like the headline can.

Test Video vs. Text

changing from visual/video communication to text works for some - and it's the reverserse for othere. (Image source)

Many products or services lend themselves well to images and video (SaaS busineses that need product demos for instance) so a video-focused landing page makes great sense.

But, it’s important to remember that people learn and come to decisions in different ways. Some of your visitors may do better with text (if they need to be coerced and told a story that leads then to the conversion (think long sales letter). It’s like swimming the Atlantic, once you’re 70% of the way there you may as well keep swimming/reading. That’s how they get you.

So if your current landing page consists of a headline and an above-the-fold video, with little or no text below it, and it’s converting well, that’s awesome.

But you’re next test should probably be developing a text-heavy version of the same page (kinda like this section!), designed specifically to appeal to that section of your audience who prefers that method. Maybe even use a typewriter! (Then scan it, get it transcribes and post the poorly translated language – but hey! who doesn’t love a good old clickety-clack once in a while.).

Change your content entirely (wassat!)

Maybe your customers like new stuff too! (Image source)

Developing a landing page is not quick, easy or fun. (Unless you use a tool like Unbounce of course – which is quick easy AND fun ;)

When you’ve got a page that’s converting well, your first tendency is to leave it alone (it’s not like you’ll get any help from I.T. to make new changes anyway).

But how about rewriting the whole thing?

When you were in the brainstorming stage of creating your landing page, you likely considered and scrapped several concepts, settling on the one you now have. And it’s doing well. But how can you be absolutely sure that your #2 option – the one you ended up having to flip a coin over to decide on #1 – won’t do better?

If you’re honest with yourself, the only real answer to that question is to test it. And you can only do that if you put the effort into writing and designing a new page around that concept.

So what’s stopping you?

Your last conversion rate – no such thing

In online marketing, you’re only as good as your last conversion rate. Which is why we keep testing, rethinking, and re-testing again.

So, with that in mind, take a fresh look at those landing pages that are doing really well and ask yourself again: what’s the goal of this page?

And then ask yourself: am I absolutely sure there isn’t a better way to accomplish that goal than the page I’m running right now?

Do you have any good testing stories to share?

– Oli Gardner