8 New Year’s Resolutions for B2B Marketers

Dec. 29, 2010

Web Marketing New Years Resolutions Alright, with the new year coming up fast, us B2B marketers need to get our priorities in place, and what better (and more seasonal) way to do that, then to create some good old fashioned resolutions for the New Year? Every business is going to have their own resolutions that relate to their individual business goals, but here are a few that we think are important for most organizations to take into consideration in 2011.

Optimize calls-to-action. Your calls-to-action are what convince your visitors to convert on yours goals. They are not some insignificant aesthetically pleasing aspect of your website’s design. Testing and improving your calls-to-action is a crucial aspect of your conversion rate optimization and 2011 is a great time to start really getting the most you can out of them.
Expand social media horizons. Just in case some of you aren’t aware, there actually are more social sites than Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin. We suggest you use them, especially since there are hundreds of niche social sites where it will be much easier for you to become and influencer due to lower competition. Sounds good right?
Finally recognize that SEO is more than just on-page optimization. For those of you planning new websites, incorporate your SEO from the beginning! Your SEO needs to be a part of your design, build, content and website optimization strategies and it needs to involve design concepts, content creation, off-site promotion and link building. If your website doesn’t currently take this stance towards SEO, it’s time for a change in the New Year.
Implement a content management system (CMS). If you don’t already have a CMS in place this is a must for 2011. In today’s fast paced internet space it is almost impossible to remain relevant and current if you’re not able to quickly and easily update your website. A CMS offers this capability and many newer ones also include marketing automation and email marketing functionality as well. Let 2011 be the year that you make your website the most effective it can be!
Move away from Flash! HTML5 was a big topic of discussion in 2010 and its adoption is going to be a big star in marketing in 2011. As Steve Jobs has said when discussing why many apple devices don’t support flash, “We don’t spend a lot of energy on old technology,” so why are you? We’re not saying that Flash is dying out, that’s not the case at all, we’re just saying that there is now a viable (and SEO-friendly) competitor and it’s definitely worth taking a look at. If you want to read a little more about the differences between flash and HTML5 take a look at this great blog post from VentureBeat which we first read about on Douglas Karr’s Marketing Tech Blog.
Focus on engagement rather than your number of followers. Engagement is more important that the number of people you have following you. We know that all of you have heard that before, and maybe most of you even agree, but we also know that you still jealously monitor the slowly (or quickly) increasing number of people who befriend you on social media sites. 2011 is the year that you really should begin to BELIEVE that engagement is more important. Remember, most of those people are only barely interacting with your content. One solid, outspoken fan is much more important for your business then hundreds of mediocre followers.
Re-evaluate your goals and mission. If you’re marketing goals are specific and targeted enough, then they should be frequently updated. Developing new goals that are relevant to your business is a good way to consistently improve your online marketing and track your improvement and sometimes those goals will end up encouraging you to take a look at your current company mission and re-evaluate if it still speaks to the real strengths of your business.
Stop procrastinating! This is resolutions actually applies to all the ones that have come before it on our list. Stop talking about your goals (or even reading about them on blogs like this one) and start implementing them. Whether your resolutions are on the list above or not, talk is cheap, getting doing!