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- Study: Fewer B2B brands used paid search in 2012
The number of companies that ran business-to-business paid search campaigns dropped by more than 10% last year, according to a B2B Optify study. Marketers who persisted saw paid search contribute to 23% of visits and 16% of lead-generation efforts. Conversion rates rose, but engagement rates per visit dropped. Social media referred only 5% of overall traffic to B2B websites, with Facebook contributing more than half of that and LinkedIn generating only 8%, the study showed. MediaPost Communications/Online Media Daily
(1/23)     
| Eye on Marketing | | |
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- Case study: Better buyer personas aided content push
Creating informed buyer personas helped Skytap net better results with its content marketing, according to this MarketingSherpa case study. The cloud-automation provider segmented its audience into natural groupings, used customer-relationship management, behavioral data and sales-gathered info to understand the segments better, then created various buyer personas. The ensuing targeted-content campaign yielded year-over-year increases in site and organic search traffic, nearly doubled the leads from online marketing and grew overall leads by 124%. MarketingSherpa
(1/23)
- Yahoo purchases Pinterest-like discovery site Snip.it
Yahoo has purchased a Pinterest-like content-sharing and -discovery site called Snip.it. A year ago, according to founder Ramy Adeeb, the site had 7,000 users, about 40% of whom were active. It's the third deal for Yahoo under the direction of CEO Marissa Mayer, with the company having previously bought Stamped and OnTheAir. CNET
(1/22)
| Tech Edge | | |
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- Marketing experts split on value of Facebook paid messaging
Marketing experts are divided on the potential value of Facebook's paid messaging feature for B2B. "I view this as paying $1 to annoy a customer or prospect. It's a sure-fire way to paint your company as a spammer that doesn't understand real engagement," Marketo social media strategist Jason Miller says. But Salesforce Marketing Cloud manager Jeffrey Cohen says paid messaging could be effective if seen as a breed of content marketing. "While it is an interruptive method of reaching prospects, B2B companies need to make sure they are providing content that offers value," he says. BtoB Magazine
(1/23)
- BlackBerry Enterprise Service 10 arrives a week before BB10
Research in Motion has made the BlackBerry Enterprise Service 10 available to download, a week in advance of the expected arrival of BlackBerry 10 devices. The software enables ITs to provision handsets, manage applications and implement security. The product can handle Android and iOS devices, although it was "designed with BlackBerry smartphones and tablets in mind," Jennifer Scott writes. ComputerWeekly.com (U.K.)
(1/23)
| Innovation | | |
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- Struggling to innovate? Blame your HR team
Hiring practices can have a big impact on a company's innovation culture, writes Liz Ryan. Needlessly pompous and arbitrarily complex recruitment policies mean many firms' hiring practices reward compliance rather than creativity. "The whole encrusted recruiting process ... makes it easy for organizations to hire drones, and it makes it hard for them to hire the brilliant and complex people they need to solve their problems," Ryan writes. Bloomberg Businessweek/The Management Blog
(1/23)
| Association News | | |
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- BMA Atlanta Chapter -- Sponsorship
Atlanta sincerely thanks all its sponsors for contributing time, resources, staff and underwriting support, and appreciates their commitment to the Atlanta chapter. Because they support BMA Atlanta so generously, please consider these sponsors' products or services. Read more.
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