This tip comes from one of our favorite marketing partners, Christa Kleinhans Tuttle. Christa is the Founder and President of Launch Marketing here in Austin.

Typically, a company engages a firm when it lacks time or internal resources to accomplish certain tasks. While this reasoning is effective and can deliver results, the most significant value of working with a third party is the opportunity to gain an unbiased perspective and deep subject matter expertise.

As the owner of a marketing firm, it is my goal to provide the best service and deliver the best results possible to every client.  So, I recently went out and spoke with multiple marketing executives to better understand what’s important to them when hiring an outside firm.  Questions ranged from discovering common pain points to successes experienced when working with a third party. I also asked about the selection process, priorities, communication styles and much more. After analyzing the results, the following are three of the top points from a client perspective:

1. The Right to be Understood. It is often seen that some firms ramp up for a client pitch by preparing their resume of accomplishments instead of taking the time to do the homework necessary to gain an understanding of your company, products or solutions. The best pitches ‘feel’ like the firm is part of the company, so much so that it should be seen as extensions of your company’s internal team. The further the firm is along on that path of alignment in early stages, the better your odds are that it will add value to your team.
2. The Right to Accountability. As a client, you have the right to receive work from a firm or consultant that is of absolute value to your company. If a firm is running up against obstacles on a project for a client, it is the responsibility of the firm or consultant to notify the client of the situation, and proactively provide an outline of alternative solutions to implement to help achieve projected goals.
3. The Right to be Number One. Most importantly, you have the right to feel like you are the only client; the top priority. Regardless of how busy your point of contact is, he or she should always be responsive and accountable to your needs. If your point of contact can’t immediately start working on your request, he or she should at least respond with a phrase such as, “I can’t get to this today, but I can do so tomorrow.” A quick response to let you know they received the message and will work on it as soon as possible is priceless.

Know Your Rights
Make sure whichever firm or consultant you choose can meet these and any other needs specific to you, your internal team and your company. The expectations you outline up front can help you build a successful and long-lasting relationship with the third party you engage. To read the expanded version of this article with all ten “rights”, click here.

I’d love to hear your feedback and any points you think should be added.

About the Author
Christa Kleinhans Tuttle, is founder and president of Launch Marketing, which acts as a virtual marketing organization primarily for technology companies, and offers a range of services from developing and implementing integrated marketing plans to completing one time projects including launches, conferences, tradeshows, Web sites, print materials, online campaigns, direct marketing and more.

HubSpot’s ebook, Get Found Online, is right on the money. Today’s marketing is changing from outbound to inbound, and “consumers are going to the Internet to start their purchasing process.” For businesses to remain competitive, their websites need to be found online through search engines, the blogosphere and social media sites.

Luckily, this eBook gives detailed steps on how to be found on each of these inbound marketing techniques. Here is a short outline which should entice you to read the eBook for all the great how to tips (pages 5-9) to get found online.

How to get found on search engines:

1. Find Keywords – choose keywords that your target market is using
2. On-Page SEO – place keywords in the page title, URL, headings and page text
3. Off-Page SEO – build more links
4. Measure & Analyze

How to get found on blogs:

1. Read – other industry blogs
2. Comment – join in on the conversation (even link back to your own blog)
3. Write – find the right blog software, blog weekly and promote your blog
4. Measure & Analyze

How to get found on social media:

1. Guidelines for Engagement – join communities and provide useful information, don’t just sell your company
2. Publish, Share, and Network – everyone can publish and share anything, everyone can network with anyone (through content placement sites, linking to others an online communities)
3. Measure & Analysis

I manage all the online media for ReachForce, and found these tips extremely useful. It is really cool to see how many people go to our website from our blog and social media sites. Think of any other useful tips while reading Get Found Online? Please share!

HubSpot is an inbound marketing system that helps your small or medium sized business get found on the Internet by the right prospects and convert more of them into leads and customers.

No book club next week for Thanksgiving (you have an extra week to read)! Look for us on Thursday, December 4th talking about Marketo’s Best Practices in Lead Nurturing…enjoy!

As I was working on my FREE list last week I noticed I seemed to also be building a list of things that we as B2B Marketers can do that require minimal cost, like less than $100.

• StumbleUpon advertising – be very targeted with your ad and your landing page.  Each click only costs  you $.05.  I’ve only heard good stuff about this, we’ll be trying this one immediately.
• Long Tail PPC keywords – think niche, pick words or phrases people would use to search for your EXACT solution.  The landing page is just as important as your ad.  You’re goal is to convert unknown visitors into known leads.  Remember you can track companies visiting your landing pages using ReachForce Convert.
• Survey Monkey or Zoomerang – both have free versions or subscription pricing (for more features) of about $20/per month.  Create a survey and use it for lead generation, thought leadership or PR.  People are interested in what their peers think and are doing, share your results with the participants.
• PRWeb – write a news release and link it up.  Add an offer to the news release or offer additional content on a landing page with the full announcement.
• Start a blog – you can do this for free but you might consider investing in your own look (vs. stock templates and photos).   Regularly updated content helps your SEO too.
• Video/Podcast Series – you can add them to your website and use them for lead generation programs.  Get a FLiP camera and set up your YouTube account and you’re ready to go.  Remember to keep your videos and podcasts short and to the point.
• Email campaign – If you don’t already use an email or marketing automation system, check out VerticalResponse.  Emails start at less than $.02 a piece.

I’m sure my short list is only a beginning of things you can do for about $100, please feel free to add to the list if you’ve got more.

Many B2B Marketers, along with most Americans, are wondering what is going on with our economy.  Now that we have elected a new President, will that help?  How long will this slump last?  How is this going to affect budgets and jobs and new sales opportunities?  While wondering all of the same things and how it will affect ReachForce, I decided to make a list of FREE things that we as Marketers can do in a recession.  Some lead generating tools and some awareness building tactics, but all things you can do at no cost.  Here’s what I came up with, please feel free to help add to the list.

Twitter – free social networking and micro-blogging service that allows its users to send and read other users’ updates (AKA tweets), these text-based posts can contain up to 140 characters.  Feel free to share links to other good content in these micro posts too.
Here’s 10 tips for building a following a Twitter.

Commenting on other industry thought leader’s blog or other blogs related to your business – Get in on the conversation and get your view point out there.

Submit your best practice content to free sites – The content will be indexed by the search engines allowing people to find your article when searching for something related. Some examples are Scribd, Docstoc and WhitePapers.org.

Website Grader – Website Grader is a free seo tool that measures the marketing effectiveness of a website. It provides a score that incorporates things like website traffic, SEO, social popularity and other technical factors. It also provides some basic advice on how the website can be improved from a marketing perspective.

Email signatures – Set up a standard email signature for all company emails and include things like your blog, or events you’re attending or a customer testimonial video.  Easy to do and everyone that gets an email from someone at your company will also get your mini marketing message.

ReachForce Insight Lite -  Do you know your best customers? Can you easily identify your target market sweet spots – markets that you sell the most or the fastest? Are there other business buyers in your sweet spot that you should be targeting with your Marketing campaigns?  Download ReachForce Insight Lite on the Appexchange and see.

Re-purpose content you already have – or create a Top 10 list or a list of Top 5 things to Avoid.  People love lists and you probably already have all of this information at your finger tips.  At ReachForce, we’ve recently turned our best 101 blog posts into an eBook series.  We didn’t have to create anything new, we just pulled the best posts and put them together in an eBook format.  We’re currently using them for lead generation campaigns and getting GREAT results and feedback.  Also, it has increased our daily blog traffic.

LinkedIn – just sign up and start linking up.  LinkedIn is rolling out new applications and group features all the time, take advantage of these free networking tools.
Once you’ve set your profile up, check out LinkedIn Answers.

Facebook – Facebook is somewhat of a new thing for B2B Marketers, here at ReachForce we are still figuring out our strategy but know their endless opportunity out there.  Here’s a few tips on getting started and promoting your business via Facebook.

Google Analytics – why wouldn’t you use this?  Here’s a few more ideas on Tracking Tools.

ReachForce Convert 30 Day Trial – You are probably tracking web site visitors and your best PPC keywords, but are you capturing those visitors and turning them into actionable leads? Only 3% of web visitors fill out a form or announce themselves; what happens to the other 97%? ReachForce Convert, a software-as-a-service application, empowers Marketers to proactively target lead generation efforts at passive web visitors.  Why not try it, it’s free.

Press Release Grader –   “Press Release Grader rates a press release based on a checklist of criteria – from content and structure, to search optimization and link analysis. The free tool is designed to optimize a press release so it can be found more easily by media, bloggers, customers and prospects. Press Release Grader provides an analysis and recommendations that will help you improve the way your press release is structured.” It only takes a second and the recommendations for improvement are typically easy fixes.  Again, why wouldn’t you use this tool?

What FREE stuff are you using out there?  Please share with the rest of us.  Who knows, it could save your fellow Marketer’s job.

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about how to use Trigger-based marketing techniques in a down economy by leveraging Web 2.0 tools. Some of these tools are also great for online reputation management, as well, you’ll just want to focus on a different set of search/scan criteria.

To get started, you’ll need to identify keywords that are important for tracking your industry, key trends or issues, the competition, your company and product brand names, as well as company spokespersons’ names. Once you’ve come up with a manageable list, configure the following tools to scan and collect that data.

1. Google Alerts, Google Blog Search, and Google Reader: We’ve written a lot about using Google Alerts here on The B2B Lead. What we haven’t written about is organizing all of the discoveries you’ve made using these tools in Google Reader. It’s a great way to collect a bunch of sources of insight about your keywords and feed them into a list of must-read links each day.
2. Tweetscan: This is one of the most important feeds in your Google Reader list as you can use it to monitor what people are saying about you or your competitor throughout the Twitter universe. It’s also another good way to find people with shared interests.
3. For my company, most of the conversations are taking place on tech forums and message boards. I just discovered Boardtracker.com which will enable me to keep an eye on popular forums and alert me by RSS feed if my company is mentioned. But, you have to know which forums to track.

Need more? Marketing Pilgrim published this great post with 20+ others.

In this inspiring and award-winning eBook, Dianna Huff lays out five strategies that all B2B Marketers should be employing and, as the title suggests, will help drive sales and ultimately revenue.  During these uncertain times, marketers need to prove their worth and tie their activities directly to increasing the bottom line.

DISCLAIMER: This blog post in no way replaces actually reading the eBook.  This is a great one, completely devoid of self-promotion and full of great tips.  Not to mention, it is a quick read.

I don’t want to dilute or regurgitate what Dianna wrote, but I do want to highlight some of the best tips.

“Strategy #2: Determine Your Campaign Objectives Before You Start Writing.”  I have always been a planner and someone who thinks a project through to the end before starting.  I often have to ask other members of my team, “Why are we doing this?  What is the ultimate goal?”  The course of action you take to update your collateral, re-do your website or create a new email campaign should be dramatically influenced by your goals.  Your boss may be pushing you to get it out the door as fast as possible but without planning and execution tied to specific objectives, results will suffer.  Check out pages 7 and 8 for questions to ask before you start.

“Strategy #5: Focus on Your Customer, Not on Your Company.”  Dianna is not the first and definitely not the last to say this.  However, it is amazing how few companies actually employ this strategy.  No one likes talking to someone who only talks about themselves, so why do companies think that their buyers want to read about the company’s latest award, product release features or “unmatched customer service?”  Every buyer wants to know, “What’s in it for me?,” so tell them.  Dianna gives great tips on what you should be telling your buyers on pages 16 and 17.

I am not giving away anymore, but I hope I have given you enough of a taste to entice you to read the entire eBook. And if you don’t trust me, Five B2B MarCom Strategies to Increase Sales Now just won a platinum award from the MarCom Creative Awards

Dianna Huff is principal of DH Communications, Inc. and is the author of the B2B MarCom Writer Blog.

Did you know that our new President Barack Obama was named Marketer of the Year 2008? Last month, Advertising Age named Barack Obama “Marketer of the Year”. Congratulations, on both counts. It doesn’t matter if you voted Republican or Democrat this year; I think we can all agree Barack Obama took campaigning to a whole new level. As an independent first time voter, I was impressed as a Marketer by the campaign overall. The dimensions of marketing they put to use stretched my marketing brain. With the use of direct marketing, event marketing, online marketing and new media the Obama team understood the need to reach out to voters as individuals – demographics and targeting were central to the campaign.

Obama and his team understood their target demographic/markets and how to use a mix of multi touch, multi level and multimedia platforms to reach these people where they were already hanging out. By using video game ads, Twitter, an active online community, and a list of other marketing vehicles, the Obama marketing team understood the importance of motivating the younger demographics and using multiple mediums that worked for them.

B2B Marketers take note. Our new President has something to say about reaching the right audiences with the right kinds of messages through the right vehicles. Below is a list a few places you can find Barack Obama marketing. Are you there for your business and what lessons can we learn from the reach created by his campaign?

Email marketing

• event based – I would receive text messages and emails while Obama was at an event or debate
• 1:1 with key players – email messages from Barack, Michelle Obama and Joe Biden – For example, I got a message from Michelle Obama reminding me it was the last day to give money to the campaign.

Community – currently over 1 million members. Through the community supporters can:

• find information about local events or groups
• connect with other supporters
• share information or real-life stories
• donate to the campaign

PPC – 14% of Barack Obama’s online traffic in August 2008 came from paid search

New Media – Barack Obama is out there, are you?

Polls are showing more young voters have registered to vote than ever before. I have no doubt that Obama and his team’s approach to reach them drove this involvement.

Thank you President Obama. You are proof that targeted marketing does drive real results…oh, and I’m sure your messages and positions on the issues helped too.

Hopefully by now you have an account on LinkedIn, or at least plan on joining in the near future. LinkedIn is a professional online network that enables you to connect with classmates and colleagues, and then 6 degrees of separation later, connect with your connections’ connections.

LinkedIn’s main purpose is for business professionals to network with other business professionals. Other ways LinkedIn has become more interactive (and something you should look into) is to join groups, discussions happening within groups and what is really cool…LinkedIn Answers.

LinkedIn Answers is a great tool to showcase yourself as a thought leader in your industry, listen to what other people in your industry are talking about and find out answers to some questions you might have. I browse questions people have posted a few times a week and look for questions that pertain to BtoB marketing, lead gen, social media, etc. I will answer it or pass it along to someone in ReachForce that would be better qualified.

Recently I got our sales team on board to look and see what potential prospect’s questions are.  This gives them a chance to look like thought leaders as well and gain valuable insight into their prospects needs. When you ask a question, it shows on your profile so all of your connections can see it and you can interact with anyone that answers you.

Other proof of value? Got it. Last week on one of my browses, I came upon a question that ReachForce could be the solution and passed it along to sales and now they are talking. Also at a conference I attended, one of the speakers said he was asked to be a speaker because of his answer to a LinkedIn Question. Pretty cool, right?

How to find and get started with LinkedIn Answers:

• See “Answers” in the top header
• Once clicked, scroll down and browse the categories on the right (I usually look in Marketing and Sales category)
• Start scanning questions

Have you been using LinkedIn Answers? Any tips?

Monday’s Marketing Profs “Get to the Point” newsletter featured Mike Volpe’s 5 tips for starting search engine optimization. Mike is the VP of Marketing at HubSpot and blogger for HubSpot’s Internet Marketing Blog. These are great SEO tips and we wanted to be sure to share them  with the readers of  The B2B Lead.

5 tips you should be sure to include in your SEO strategy:

1. Pick good page titles. The words that appear at the top of the browser window are what a search engine looks at first as it evaluates that Web page. Use keywords and unique titles.
2. Be smart about URLs. If you’re using a URL like yourcompany.blogspot.com, then you’re building SEO power for blogspot.com, not your own company.
3. Start a blog. Blogs help in two ways. They provide new content (search engines prefer new over old). Plus, the more interesting blogs tend to generate lots of inbound links.
4. Leverage your PR program. Use press releases and externally distributed articles to drum up more inbound links. To maximize effectiveness, link back to your Web site from keywords.
5. Use social media to build links. Find out where your customers hang out online, and start participating there. Remember to add value. Don’t lead with a sales pitch.

With economic times the way they are today, it is more important than ever that Marketing and Sales teams be aligned. Together you must decide and figure out what activities make the most impact to the top line of the business. Focus on all types of initiatives
1.    To retain, cross-sell and up sell current customers
2.    New customer acquisition programs
3.    Channel partner marketing opportunities

We recently rolled out an ebook, 10 Tips for Marketing and Sales Alignment, with our partner Marketo. These 10 tips are just a few ideas on how Marketing and Sales can play on the same team to generate qualified leads and drive revenue.

Here’s a few more tips to think about as you are building out your Q4 Marketing and Sales plans.

1.    Marketing and Sales teams should have shared goals

• Bookings and new customer wins are jointly owned by marketing and sales, and marketing bonuses are directly tied to the joint success.
• Revenue alignment and continued success programs for current customers ensure happier customers.  And we all know it’s more expensive to find a new customer than it is to keep your current ones happy.
• Shared goals means shared success -  when sales wins, marketing wins…and when marketing wins, sales wins … and overall the business WINS!

2.    Do Reality Based Planning

• Use TRUE funnel conversion metrics to set marketing lead generation targets.
• Understand and plan based on sales team behavior – how many leads can they work at time, how many calls does it take each sales team member to identify a hot or qualified lead, etc.

3.    Don’t forget those stuck in the funnel

• Deals get stuck in the middle stages of the funnel.  Let marketing help by trying to engage with the prospect through best practice content offers, event invites, or new media outlets.

4.    Don’t forget them when the deal is done

• Engage in current customer marketing programs.  Use a newsletter, blog or customer community to stay front of mind for cross-selling, up-selling and renewal opportunities.
• Case studies and references are powerful sales tools, but marketing needs help with the set up and creation of these.

5.    Communicate, Communicate, Communicate

• Share what’s working and what’s not – closed loop marketing is essential here
• Marketing should be involved in new sales rep training
• Celebrate WINS together

Organizations talk a lot about aligning their marketing and sales teams but many never put plans into action.  By implementing the five steps above and adhering to the plan, Marketing and Sales teams can align for shared success.

I welcome your thoughts and feedback (successes and other tips you want to share).