Mike Sweeney

As part of a marketing evaluation we delivered to a client this week, we covered Search Engine Optimization (SEO), and in particular how the volume of indexed content plays a major role in the success of any SEO effort. The situation was simple: one of this company’s biggest competitors showed hundreds of indexed content pieces, and our client showed around ten. Game, set, match to the competitor, right? Not so fast, my content marketing friends. First, think about the sales funnel: While there’s no universally accepted set of steps in the sales funnel, I typically use the following: Awareness Interest Evaluation Commitment Referral While volume of content is important, in the B2B world in particular, churning out content generates traffic that typically fills the top of the sales funnel—the awareness phase. So what’s a marketer to do about the middle and bottom of ... (more)

Startup Marketing: 10 Things To Do In Your First 90 Days

So you got yourself involved with a startup company.  It may have happened by circumstance or by choice.  You're either a founder or one of the first employees.  You either envision your concept as a potential single to be flipped in 3-4 years, or a grand slam that will allow you to socialize with the likes of Brin, Bezos and Cuban. Awesome.  We all love a good startup story.  Unless you've got an inherently viral concept on your hands (and by the way, keep in mind that there have only been about 5 inherently viral products introduced over the past 5-7 years), you're going to nee... (more)

B2B Lead Generation Tip #3: Identify the Metrics that Matter

Marketing and Sales If you haven’t addressed the first two steps in the lead generation planning process - establishing the right mindset and building a strong roster of stakeholders - you may want to go back and review those before you read this.  After all, if you’re a smart lead generation marketer, you know (or you’ll find out) that process is critical.  Skip a step or ignore part of the process, and you can expect a weakened lead generation program. Next up is identifying the metrics that matter.  Note I am using the phrase “that matter.”  Simple, but important.  Many market... (more)

Prediction: Marketers Will Publish Lots of Lists in 2010

I used to love lists.  I am a card-carrying list maker since 1980.  I still prefer a good pen-and-paper list on a notepad to a Word doc, wiki, or whiteboard. List-makers used to be somewhat unique, and kind of freaky types.  Now, everyone makes lists.  People Magazine publishes the Most Beautiful People list.  ESPN publishes the Top Athletes of the Century list.  Less known publishers distribute some really fascinating material, like the 50 Best SEO Blog Posts of 2009 or the Top 10 Most Important Tweets of 2009. I am taking a stance against lists, if only for about one week.  My ... (more)

Why Email Deserves to Be Part of Your Marketing Strategy

Sales Coaching on Ulitzer It’s been exactly three months since the  October 12, 2009 Wall Street Journal article Why Email No Longer Rules…And what that means for the way we communicate touched off a mini-firestorm in the marketing world.  This article wasn’t the first on the topic but really more of a culmination.  It seems for much of 2008 and 2009 there were many similar articles, in newspapers, industry pubs, blogs, etc.  And yet, if my inbox since then, the back-end analytics results we see, and the accompanying graph from Forrester Research here are indicators –- The rumor... (more)