Social media marketing matters. Even for B2B companies.

Social media has the potential to generate B2B leads for your business while being cost-effective. Other than a little bit of labor expense, social media marketing is virtually free.

Your B2B prospects are already sharing information online. It’s time to make that information yours.

LinkedIn used to have a reputation of housing recent college graduates begging for a job. But now, businesses have noticed it has evolved into a networking empire where leaders in all industries are engaging in world-changing conversations.

How do you promote your business at a trade show? Aside from attention-grabbing booth setups, you can reach attendees via their mobile devices with highly targeted Google Ads. 

If you're getting ready to flip the switch on your inbound strategy for online lead generation, you'll need to decide what platform to use to power the strategy.

Two of the most common options for inbound marketing software are HubSpot, and what we call FrankenSpot, or WordPress with a bunch of plugins and 3rd party tools integrated.

If you work in digital marketing, you’ve heard of Databox. Maybe you’ve even used Databox. It’s a pretty neat online marketing analytics tool - convenient, timely, interactive, and groundbreaking in many ways. However, it’s not the best option for all businesses.

Do you have an internal marketing team? How about an internal sales and marketing team? Is your "team" or "committee" 1 person? 

If you don't have anyone in-house that's working on marketing your business, you're not alone. I'm always astonished at the number of decent sized companies that we work with that don't have a dedicated staff for marketing. When a company doesn't put thought into the nuts and bolts of how they get new clients, who they are, and how to best reach them, it creates a challenge for companies like ours.

Lead generation is an essential element to every trade show. If you’re spending the time and resources to attend the trade show, you’re going to want to re-engage with potential leads after.

First things first — segment your leads appropriately before following up. Not all trade show leads should be treated the same. Once you have a list of all of your potential leads from the show, you can segment them and determine how to get in contact with each lead.

Once you’re back in the office, take the time to reach out to all the trade show leads you made connections with. The frequency is completely up to you, but remember — don’t be too pushy. Reach out the first week after the trade show, and then continue to keep in contact as much as you see fit.

According to Software Advice's Marketing Automation Buyer Report, 85% of manufacturers cited the need to nurture leads due to a relatively long sales cycle associated with their product. 

You may believe that your inbound marketing tactics will be over at lead generation --  but, you're wrong. In order to carry out a lead during the marketing funnel process, you need to nurture it. Lead nurturing is a vital role for all inbound marketers in order to gain valuable and sustainable relationships.

Manufacturing has a long buying cycle -- which is why lead nurturing is especially essential for this industry. B2B companies should be making consistent contact with prospects at all stages of the buying cycle to receive all of the awesome benefits of lead nurturing.

HubSpot’s reporting tools and custom reports give you the flexibility to see all of your data in one place. Making it easier than ever to make data-driven decisions.

Analysis is the most overlooked part of sales and marketing strategies. Knowing what’s working -- and perhaps more importantly, why -- ensures you’re not throwing your money away on crappy campaigns. And what’s a better source of smug satisfaction than a chart showing how great your campaign is performing?