Helpful Resources for B2B Marketers and Small Business Owners
As a B2B marketer or small business owner, you’ll find these online marketing resources helpful. Most of the items listed here have been developed by other companies and are free, except for a few things that require paid subscriptions or Association dues.
Also be sure to check out my E-book Central blog posts. Each Friday I post any new B2B marketing e-books or reports that have been published in the previous week. You can find E-book Central on my blog — just click the E-book Central category. And, if you have a B2B marketing e-book or report you’d like me to feature, shoot me an email and tell me about it.
Third-party B2B Web Marketing Tools and Reports
The Role of Search in B-to-B Marketing — A free download from MarketingSherpa and Enquiro, this report will show you why having an optimized site should be your number one priority if you want to increase sales leads from online traffic.
Enquiro’s New B2B Survey — The objective of this survey (which is an update of the 2004 survey listed above), conducted with over 1000 B2B buyers, was to discover how people research B2B buying decisions online and how this varies by role within a company and by purchase phase. A must read for all B2B marketers.
Business-to-Business Lead Generation Tactics: A Recipe for Success — Mac McIntosh, America’s sales lead expert, offers a free how-to guide filled with proven B2B sales lead generation tips and techniques.
We We Calculator — One of my favorite newsletters is “Grokdotcom” from Bryan and Jeffrey Eisenberg at Future Now, Inc. They also have a great customer focus analysis tool, the “We We Calculator.” Simply type in your URL and the We We Calculator scores your Web copy on whether it is focused on your customers . . . or your company. Test your site and see how you do.
Yield SEO Analyzer — Is your Website not working for you? You can learn some of the reasons why using Yield Software’s free SEO Analyzer. The tool analyzes your site based on key SEO factors and then gives it a grade. If you get less than a 70, give me a call. I can help you improve your grade to 90 and above.
Google Webmaster Tools — Google Webmaster Tools provides you with detailed reports about your pages’ visibility on Google. You’ll see how Google views your site as well as any problems Google may have with crawling your site.
Google Cheat Sheet — Have you wondered how to get better search results? The secret is knowing how to type in specific words plus things like “and,” “or” and “~”. Google shows you everything with this handy cheat sheet.
B-to-B E-newsletters and Magazines
MarketingSherpa — A free e-newsletter that goes out to over 225,00 advertising, marketing and PR professionals. Each issue features a real life marketing case study.
Direct Magazine — A free magazine for B-to-B professionals that regularly features in-depth articles and studies about advertising, search, and email marketing. Tom Collin’s “Ad Makeover” column is the first thing I turn to each month.
BtoB — The magazine for marketing strategists, this free publication features all things B-to-B, including online marketing, blogs, advertising, and database marketing.
ClickZ e-newsletters — No matter which newsletter you subscribe to, you’ll get great, in-depth (and free) information from industry experts.
Associations
Business Marketing Association — The BMA is the leading professional resource for business-to-business marketers and communicators.
New England Direct Marketing Association — A regional association for anyone interested in all things direct marketing.
Search Engine Marketing New England — SEMNE is a great organization geared toward helping search engine and Web marketers develop better Websites. The group holds monthly meetings around New England.
Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization — SEMPO is a non-profit professional association working to increase awareness and promote the value of Search Engine Marketing worldwide.
International Association of Business Communicators — The IABC provides a professional network of more than 13,000 business communication professionals in over 60 countries.
