B2Blog

My AdWords program has produced quality leads for my company for years … visitors who convert at more than twice  the rate of normal visitors.

My biggest challenges would be to increase the number of click-thrus, and especially the number of conversions.

I know it’s been around for a little while, but Google is now expanding ‘remarketing’ programs for AdWords, and make them easier to manage.

Remarketing with Google Analytics helps you create remarketing lists based on certain audiences who visit your website and show interest in your products, without having to tag your site twice. This can help you more easily create remarketing campaigns to show ads across the Google Display Network GDN.

via A simpler way to re-connect with your website visitors – Analytics Blog.

I can gently nag those non-converting visitors for days and weeks after they’ve visited our site. I haven’t tried this yet, but with streamlining like is promised by Google, it won’t be long.

I’m happy doing what I’m doing. But maybe you aren’t. Maybe your willing to move to a different city or state … I’m not.

But this job service seems to have some good openings. I’ve been getting their weekly alerts with about five strong opportunities listed. I’m not sure how good it is behind the paywall ($40/month or less).

Netshare.com

“And no job postings are acquired via bots; positions listed are real jobs from real people searching for qualified executive candidates.”

If you have any experience, or comments, leave them here, of course!

It’s always an interesting experience when I have to flip thru my spam box making sure I didn’t miss an important email. Besides all the usual seedy stuff, I saw several emails that were from publishers I already know I get stuff from. Newsletters, webinar invites, magazine or trade show bulletins. Nothing that I couldn’t live without, but why didn’t these emails get thru, while others did?

There were a some emails I recognize from previous trips to the spam box. Not v*iagra offers, but legitimate B2B email list stuff. Well, maybe not legitimate because I know that I never subscribed. So I’m happy to let these losers have their stuff go to spam (we use Google Apps for email). I’ll bet its been years like this. You’d think they’d not be so stupid to send multiple emails a week and not improve their deliverability.

After that experience, I jumped on Twitter and saw this tweet by Brian Reilly:

I normally wouldn’t click to the MarketingSherpa article, but I was inspired to learn more, it may help my measly little newsletter. I was struck by this basic fact that separates B2B email:

Deliverability is a complex topic that challenges every marketer using email. However, it is an even greater challenge for B2B marketers.

B2B marketers must meet unique deliverability rule sets for each individual domain in databases filled with hundreds or more.

Every company has their email filtered and managed differently. Throw on top of that the number of B2B recipients running Outlook with a likely customized spam filter set-up, and you have a HUGE challenge to get your messages thru.

Wow, I found something useful on Twitter. Who’da thunk?

You can follow me on Twitter at @b2btw

One of the big buzzes this week is radio/podcast show This American Life’s episode Retraction, documenting the errors of their previous episode about China’s suppliers to Apple, called Mr. Daisey and the Apple Factory.

As I listened to Retraction, I couldn’t stop this feeling of deja vu … that I’ve seen these same mistakes made in B2B.

In essence, TAL took a story that was already being presented for monologue, and reproduced it for their show. Mistakes made include:

• Working with someone outside their group
• Not getting primary content or research
• Assuming things that can’t be checked out are okay.
• Relying on email communications

But their biggest failure was this:

• Trying to fit a ‘theatrical’ story into a ‘journalistic’ story.
• And not realizing how much more work (or what work) needed to be done to do this.

In B2B sales, we often have to fit our product to suit the customer’s need. That’s okay up to a point, and I’m sure you’ve been there. The company struggles a bit, the order runs late, but ultimately the customer gets what they wanted, and your company learns something new.

But sometimes the solution for the customer is outside what your company should be doing. The opportunity can overshodow your objective opinion of how your company can deliver on this order. It’s a big new customer, or a potential new market, or a potential huge margin.

You might not know it at the time you accepted the order, but as your ship time slips and rework cost accumulate, or your engineering manager is flying out to the job site, everyone at the company regrets accepting the order. (And yes, the salesperson is the one blamed.)

Dang it though, in business you can’t just issue a retraction and be done with it. The problem festers until it is resolved.

Hopefully, like Ira Glass, you learn something from this painful process. No, not hopefully. You must learn one of two things from such a poor decision:

1. We now know how to handle orders like this
2. We now know to avoid orders like this

This is how B2B companies grow. It is painful, but important.

I might even squeeze in a comment that Apple itself is probably so successful because it has gone thru this process so much, it becomes a habit. I’ll leave further commentary to the business pundits who always use Apple as case study. I’ll stick to using This American Life as my example.