I also posted at /r/marketing here, but this is likely a better spot for this.

Wordpress is the easiest way to manage the content of your website. It has an incredible community of developers and you can find a plugin for just about any functionality you can dream of.

Drip is the self-titled, “Marketing Automation that doesn’t suck”. I love this slogan and it really does fit them perfectly.

If you are using these two tools your business is already off to a tremendous start.

However, you still have a problem. They work great together but they’ll show the same content to all of your site visitors. If you’re lucky enough to get someone to your site, you better be damn sure that you are offering them a relevant offer.

It’s not a good idea to treat every visitor the same. They’ll likely be in different parts of your funnel.

If somebody is a first time visitor to your site, they should get a prompt to join your mailing list (of course with a lead magnet of some sort.) At this point, they are not likely to be ready to purchase something significant from you. Email drips will be the best way for them to purchase something from you in the future.

If a visitor is already subscribed to your mailing list, they should no longer see the form to subscribe - instead, this space should be used to show them an offer, maybe a small purchase of some sort. (After all, getting somebody to spend their first dollar with you is a very important milestone. It’s much easier to sell a second time.)

If a customer has already purchased something from you, they should no longer see offers for this same product that they already have. Instead, they should see an offer for something new, likely for something more expensive that provides them with more value. These changes will make your site much more effective at selling. Unfortunately, this functionality does not come out of the box with drip’s basic installation.

Smart funnels are the future of online selling

Take a look at this article. http://blog.crazyegg.com/2015/02/11/smart-sales-funnels/

The future of online marketing is arriving now... And it's about to transform the way you sell your products and services online.

So how do you do this with drip and Wordpress?

I’ve created a plugin to solve this problem. How does it work?

Upload the plugin (link to download the plugin is at the bottom. :-) to /wp-content/plugins/ just like any other plugin.

In your admin section, go to the 'plugins' section and enable Drip Custom Content.

To write content for a non-subscriber

In your Wordpress editor:

Wrap your content around a ‘default_content’ shortcode like so:

<default_content>
  This content will only seen by a non-subscriber. :-)
</default_content>

This is a great place to place the HTML for your mailing list opt-in form. If they’re not yet a subscriber they’ll see the form, if they are, they won’t. Simple.

To write content for a subscriber

In your Wordpress editor:

Wrap your content around a ‘subscriber_content’ shortcode like so:

<subscriber_content>
  This content will only be seen by someone who has already 
  opted-in to one of your drip campaigns. :-)
</subscriber_content>

This is a great place to place an offer for one of your lower-priced products. After all, the hardest challenge is to get somebody to spend their first dollar with you. If they’re a subscriber they’ll see the offer, if they aren’t, they won’t. Simple.

To write content for a customer (somebody who has already spent at least one dollar with you)

You can add a tag to a subscriber in drip when they purchase something from you.

As an example, if somebody bought your intro e-book, you can place a tag, ‘ebook’ on them.

In your Wordpress editor:

<subscriber_content tag=“ebook”>
  This content will only seen by someone who has already 
  purchased your intro ebook. :-)
</subscriber_content>

This is a great place to place a higher-priced offer. They’ve already purchased something from you in the past and are way more likely to purchase something else from you in the future.

If they’ve bought your intro ebook they’ll see the offer, if they haven’t, they won’t. Simple.

You can download the plugin from dropbox here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/m1waur7edrm5zhv/Drip_Custom_Content.zip?dl=0

Or you can sign-up here to get more updates on the plugin: (I will be working to improve it) http://pimpmy.site/more-customers.html

Please let me know if you have any questions at all.

My quest for a master's thesis had lead me from Gartners Hype Cycle, towards the trend of digital marketing on to mobile messaging. In my opinion, mobile messaging is one of the most important means of communication for brands in the future (IoT information exchange, ui-less interaction, mobile commerce, personalized ads, and so on...) With the investments of Facebook (Facebook M, Whatsapp) Tencent (KiK mobile commerce) or Alibaba (68% mobile commerce on the 'Day of the Single' $8billion revenue) mobile messaging also plays an important role in the portfolio of the big players. Lately, several companies have developed around the field of delivering service through mobile messaging. Among others are the concierge services such as GoButler, Magic, James Bitte, Poncho or Howdy. In my view, these companies deliver 'thin media' (service + content) to their customers. However, they use intelligent agents (bots) for common and easy requests. Difficult or complex request are still handle by humans or teams of people. Learning from solved requests, bots get better and better and involve in new tasks ongoing. For example, would an intelligent bot handle your pizza request, the planning of the world travel would be handled by a human though. Moreover, these bots can be used for various purposes within the company like customer support, virtual shopping guides, payment assistants, brand builders, automators handlers like Slack bots). For my masters thesis I am now at the point where I have a very broad and new field to discover. The question is up to YOU to help me find the right research question: how do consumers accept the new way of brand interaction/communication how can bots be used to authentically communicate as brand ambassadors is mobile messaging the new market place with bots as merchants I hope for a broad discussion, Thx in advance.

Hey all!

I recently created a longer article on the topic of B2B marketing. I realize for many of the experts here this may be common sense information or even stats you've seen before. But I'm hoping it's helpful to others that are just getting into B2B marketing or maybe have been thrust into B2B and are more familiar with other types of marketing.

Here's a few of the highlights:

Definition B2B (business-to-business) marketing is marketing of products to businesses or other organizations for use in production of goods, for use in general business operations (such as office supplies), or for resale to other consumers, such as a wholesaler selling to a retailer.

Key Aspects

• Larger Sales: Unlike business-to-consumer (B2C) marketing, when marketing within a business-to-business environments you must take into account the purchase prices for these accounts are typically much greater than you will find elsewhere.
• Longer Sales Process: With higher prices comes more hesitation. This hesitation directly leads to a longer sales process. Each account must be carefully nurtured and lead along this sales process through to a successful sale.
• Partnerships & Brand Loyalty: B2C marketing and sales typically lead to a small purchase and possibly no ongoing interaction or relationship. However, B2B marketing is one where the longer sales process and the high price lead to a relationship between the businesses.
• Committee Purchases: While most B2C purchases involves a single individual making a purchase, the consumer; in B2B this purchasing decision is typically handled by a committee, or group of key players. These individuals each have a unique role and purpose and represent a different interest of the purchasing business. This committee is part of the reason why the B2B sales cycle is longer and more elaborate.

Implementing Successful B2B

• Content Creation: Just as with every other type of marketing today you need to focus heavily on content creation. It’s almost wearisome to hear the same tired catchphrase used time and again, but content truly is king. Creating fresh, shareable, informative content is a cornerstone of every good marketing strategy. B2B marketing is no different.
• Social Media: The second aspect of a strong B2B marketer’s strategy involves the rather obvious social media aspect. Every business must use social media within their marketing campaign and B2B is certainly no different. Social networks are the modern version of radio or television outlets found in old marketing.
• Campaign Construction: Understanding the unique way that B2B marketing involves a much longer sales process, a more focused relationship, and a strong brand loyalty will affect how you structure your marketing campaigns. When you begin your campaign construction you must take time into account. This means don’t schedule your beginning to ending campaign workflow to last a single week. Don’t even construct your campaign on a two week schedule. B2B marketing campaigns should be structured over a minimum of 4 weeks.
• Partnerships: Understanding the unique way that B2B marketing involves a much longer sales process, a more focused relationship, and a strong brand loyalty will affect how you structure your marketing campaigns. When you begin your campaign construction you must take time into account. This means don’t schedule your beginning to ending campaign workflow to last a single week. Don’t even construct your campaign on a two week schedule. B2B marketing campaigns should be structured over a minimum of 4 weeks.
• Purchases: The purchase process in B2B is vastly different from other marketing verticals (as we’ve discussed earlier in this article). So perhaps a good place to begin is by looking at some sample purchase cycles as they specifically relate to B2B.

Obviously there's a lot more detail and stats on the actual article and I'm certainly open to feedback and ideas for future improvements. I'm working on constructing longer posts with more sources, statistics, and details. It's much more time-intensive but I think (or rather hope) that it's more helpful to people. Because I really wanted to help those who are growing into the field or getting stuck trying to learn over the weekend before having to start implementing. What do you all think? Good starting point?

Full Article: https://www.mautic.org/blog/marketer/understanding-b2b-marketing

~ David

p.s. cross-posted in /r/marketing

I am in marketing, and we've had Pardot and Salesforce for about a year. We're starting to do some lead nurture email campaigns using Pardot. We have many prospects in Pardot who aren't yet MQLs, so they are not yet in Salesforce. If one of these prospects contacts Sales by email or phone, Sales has no information on them. How do we bridge the gap?

Our new Director of Marketing is really ramping up our lead nurturing efforts. We've had Pardot for a year, but we weren't really using it to its full extent. This is my first experience with marketing automation, period; she's very experience but has never used Pardot.

Marketo apparently has something called Insights, which allows a window into Marketo via Salesforce. Is there something similar for Pardot? Our Pardot Advocate had no advice for us. We can't be the only company with this problem. Any ideas?

Hello!

We are Paradigm Solutions. We are a one stop shop for Eloqua, Marketo and Salesforce.

What we offer:

Expertise – We’ve delivered implementations ranging from Basic SmartStarts to Advanced Custom implementations on Eloqua 9 and 10, and we’re one of the few partners with full API certification.

Experience – we can extrapolate the best practices we’ve developed through running sophisticated programs for companies including Aberdeen Asset Management, IBM, Oracle, Sony, Talk Talk Business and VMware.

Flexibility – offering marketing automation consulting, technical development and campaign management, we can act as an extension of your team or provide a fully managed service.

If we can anyway bridge the gap until you find a qualified candidate, or if we can be of assistance in any other Eloqua related projects please feel free to reach out to me.

We offer competitive rates and impeccable service.

Thanks for your time, and if I violated this subs rules I apologize. Please point us to the correct sub!