3 New Year’s Resolutions For B2B Marketers

Did you know that only 8% of all New Year’s resolutions are ever kept?

The reason for this total failure of will power is most likely related to the fact that people tend to push off difficult decisions until New Year’s Even. It’s as if some magical change will happen at midnight on December 31st that will make quitting smoking, eating better or going to the gym easier than it was on December 30th.

As B2B marketers, it’s time for us to get rid of bad habits; we owe ourselves this much. There are a few simple resolutions we can all make this coming year that will help us shake off our old, ineffective ways and grab 2014 by the horns.

3 New Year’s Resolutions that all B2B Marketers Should Make:

Measure Goals

A major study from this past year 2013 elucidated a real problem plaguing B2B content marketers in the digital age.

According to a recent report, conducted by “B2B Marketing Community on LinkedIn,” 71% of B2B marketers cited lead generation as the number one goal of their content marketing. This statistic is completely understandable, as lead generation is the main goal of all marketers. However, the section of the study that looked at the specific metrics these same content marketers use to measure their success was far more puzzling.

It turns out that the number one metric used by content marketers – the very same content marketers that cited lead generation as their main goal, was website traffic and not number of leads generated. This disparity highlights a serious issue: the lack of tools for measuring the ROI of content marketing and of social media as a distribution channel in particular.

For us B2B marketers, 2014 needs to be the year of measurement! We need to provide hard evidence to the powers that be that our activities, particularly those related to social media, are bringing real business value to the company. Although there has been a severe lack of tools available to measure such performance, Oktopost, the B2B social content marketing platform, provides a solution that lets B2B marketers see actual ROI of their social media marketing.

Stop Writing Only Promotional Content

Content marketing, by definition, requires you to generate useful content for your target market. While the eventual goal is to always generate leads, it’s important that the content you create is not a straight sales pitch. Far too often, I see B2B marketers utilizing content marketing incorrectly, and blasting out overtly sales-y posts across social channels. Not only is this ineffective for generating leads, it is also counter-productive and might even get you SWAM’d on LinkedIn.

Get your year started off right by sitting down and crafting a content strategy that focuses on creating real content that will establish you and your company as a thought-leader.

Start Using Social Media

It seems a bit mind-blowing to me that some marketers still aren’t using social media. As the younger generations flee from the “old” social networks like Facebook, professionals are filling the void: LinkedIn has emerged as a powerhouse channel for B2B marketers. It is imperative that we, as B2B marketers, tap the potential of social media as a tool for our marketing activities, particularly when it comes to content marketing. If you aren’t using social media for your marketing activities; you are leaving money on the table.

I am extremely excited for 2014. Given the growth we are seeing in new and innovative tools for B2B marketers, this year is sure to bring some amazing new opportunities!

via Business 2 Community http://www.business2community.com/b2b-marketing/3-new-years-resolutions-b2b-marketers-0726976?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=3-new-years-resolutions-b2b-marketers