Comments for Gossamar

Comment on Twitter for B2B Marketing by Axel

Axel — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 04:33:55 +0000

Twitter for business? A year ago I would have said “No Way”! But over the last year we’ve certainly seen some very real uses for those pesky 140 character messages.

Ignore Twitter at your peril!

Comment on Twitter Primer for B2B Users by Twitter for B2B Companies | Gossamar

Twitter for B2B Companies | Gossamar — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 20:52:18 +0000

[...] 23 Feb A Twitter Primer for B2B Users [...]

Comment on Holistic Websites – Does your site measure up? by Eric

Eric — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 03:42:18 +0000

Thanks Axel. Good point about pioneer days and their influence on immediacy versus strategy (deal with the alligators and then think). And yes, the plug-and-play solution appeals, but until there is one, by designing yours carefully and then building or renovating it, you can get one now.

Comment on Holistic Websites – Does your site measure up? by Axel

Axel — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 05:13:07 +0000

Nice post Eric! Most B2B websites I come across are a collection of ill fitting parts, stuck together with duct-tape.

I believe the fault lies not with Marketing Managers, who struggle to put all the pieces together, but with an software industry that is still fragmented like the early days of the PC industry. Remember how we used to buy a monitor from one place, a keyboard from another, and then a motherboard, hard drive, etc and pray they all perform together as planned. Silos everywhere. Same goes for building websites. No one has yet put together a truly end-to-end “plug in and go” solution. As you mentioned, players like Hubspot and Wordpress are working to fill the gap. But still not there.

Perhaps the new Holistic Website group/forum will create a groundswell of demand, and the suppliers will notice.

Comment on Designing an SEO-friendly website – from the ground up by Holistic Websites > Blog | Gossamar

Holistic Websites > Blog | Gossamar — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 04:47:03 +0000

[...] 10 Feb Designing an SEO-friendly website – from the ground up [...]

Comment on Designing an SEO-friendly website – from the ground up by Eric

Eric — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 15:00:28 +0000

Axel;
This is the best post I’ve read on why the structure, navigation and even coding practices of a website are critical to its SEO success. Great stuff!
After reading this, it’s difficult to understand how anyone would ignore it all and delay their SEO campaign till after the site is renovated. Now that we understand how important the SEO Design Considerations are, doing so would indeed be leaping before you look!

Comment on SEO Campaign Management: A Survival Guide by Eric

Eric — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 14:55:47 +0000

Axel;
What a great series of posts this is shaping up to be.
The concept is much needed – we all know of an SEO horror story: either where the so-called expert turned out to be selling expensive snake-oil, or where the website disappeared from every search engine.
Most people are aware of the importance of SEO – and they are also aware that it’s something of a minefield – your posts should help them to navigate the arena more confidently. And perhaps more importantly, at the right time!

Comment on ROMI Calculators – The top 10 on the web by Eric

Eric — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 04:27:07 +0000

Hi Uri – thanks for dropping by and leaving such an insightful comment.
As Axel said, “we like simple”, too. Our service was designed to make it easy for a marketing manager to begin using Inbound Marketing and Marketing Automation.
We are a one-stop solution – so its one simple phone call. Our experts then guide our clients through every aspect of designing, building and operating a state of the art website. Our custom websites are designed to suit each client’s specific needs, and we interpret their results and offer suggestions on a monthly basis. Basically, the marketing manager has to know enough to make the call – we do the rest. Not to say the marketers don’t have to know how to do their own marketing – they still create the campaigns – we just automate the running of them and the subsequent management of the resulting sales leads.

Comment on ROMI Calculators – The top 10 on the web by Axel

Axel — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 00:14:19 +0000

Uri:

Thanks for your in-depth comment. I agree, finding the R in ROI requires an end-to-end tracking system, from initial contact of the prospect by marketing to closing the deal by sales. No single software tool exists today that can meet the particular needs of both marketing and sales (although Salesforce.com seems to be getting closer and closer). Luckily many marketing automation suppliers are now offering native integration with the most popular CRM systems, such as Salesforce.com, bridging these two worlds with a seamless flow of data.

Like you, I like simple. If simple marketing automation gets the job done for the marketer, if it has enough flexibility to fit his business model (and not the other way around), and if it gives marketing and sales all the data they need to better attract, engage, convert, and nurture sales leads, then bring it on!

Comment on ROMI Calculators – The top 10 on the web by Uri

Uri — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 18:12:51 +0000

Thank you for this list and post. ROMI and general ROI are all the hype today because a lot of the marketing resources that before the recession went to traditional marketing channels, are now going into SEO and social media. These calculators are doing a great job in simplifying the calculation process and Dragon and frogloop’s calculators are making some good assumptions, but the main problem still remains; how do you measure the R in the ROI? While assumptions are okay, they are not concrete numbers and will never hold in front of a questioning BOD and shareholders, what really makes a difference is results – leads and sales – and the Challenge is how to show that your social media efforts drove those leads.
What we need are simple tracking tools that will make it easy for the marketers to know what efforts drove those leads (BTW, great post on website ROI – really addresses this problem).
The problem is that marketing automation and CRM systems became so complex that it created another “black box” that marketers don’t understand. You push from one end, and on the other end some results come out. It should be easier!
Not to just plug my company, I urge you to look at some simple marketing automation companies, that present the data, but also give you a simple way to look at it and understand it. It will help you become the marketing hero you deserve to be.
Check out Optify (www.optify.net) and specifically http://www.optify.net/real-time-web-analytics/

Thanks again for this series of posts.