Kung Fu Wisdom:

Ask yourself the following question every time you train: How would I feel about my school if everyone trained as I train? This query has nothing to do with your skill level. It refers to the amount of effort you put into your workout.

(Note: substitute ‘school’ for work, family, friends, etc.)

What really makes the difference in people’s lives?  Why is it that some people are given everything – you know the type, they have parents who love them, care for them, they have a great educational background, all the economic resources, yet they end up spending their lives in rehab.  And then you meet someone who’s been abused, no-one’s been there for them, and they turn out to be some of the finest human beings you’d ever meet in your life, helping other people, making a difference.  What makes the difference?

Your CEO’s favorite color is green. Marketing tells you that red is a more action oriented color, and your designer says that you need chartreuse to blend with your site.

So, who’s right?

Why not hire the ultimate arbitrer to find out – and use a multi-variant testing tool to stop the speculation and get real data-based decisions.

Split testing has long been the go-to tool of choice for larger, well funded companies with dedicated marketing teams.  But today, thanks to SaaS technologies and web applications, anyone can A/B test a page, headline, image – virtually any element on a website.

Remember – if your real goal is customer conversion, it’s not what the CEO, VP of marketing, or local designer thinks that counts the most. It’s what the customer thinks.  So, let them tell you.  If you’d like to learn how to put A/B or multi-variant testing to work on your site, and put an end to wondering what works best – tell us here.  One of our super friendly marketing experts will respond with the ROI you can expect from A/B testing, how to execute it quickly and within budget, and how fast you can get actionable customer intelligence.

In just a few hours, it’s officially over. 2011 will be history, and the slate will be cleaned once again.

How will 2012 be for you? Will it be the same as years gone past? Will this be a break-out year for you or your business? Will you struggle with an ever-changing competitive landscape, or will you rise above the noise and stake out a leadership role?

One thing is certain… No Change=No Change.

During 2011, the internet was a great disrupter for many businesses. Companies that relied on phone books and newspaper ads saw decreasing ROI from their ad spend. Companies that leveraged Google for inbound marketing either thrived (because their platforms were set up correctly) or saw their high rankings plummet if they used “black hat” techniques to manipulate the search engines.

But one group of marketers succeeded no matter what. Content marketers. Especially those that practiced solid direct-response strategies, who focused on the needs of the audience, not the features of their products and services, and who then build their own lists of subscribers by providing great content that their prospects and clients could use and benefit from.

Their advantage? Once they built their lists, they could “push” market to the list at will – creating business on-demand.

If you don’t have a list-building strategy for 2012, get one. Activated Marketing will be hosting a “State of the Internet” webinar where you can find out what worked, what didn’t, and what savvy marketers are doing in 2012 to predictably generate more leads and more business at a lower cost then before.

To register for the Webinar, Click here. It’s free. Will last about an hour, and will equip you with new strategies you can deploy starting right away. All free. All content. All with our compliments.

Amy Porterfield is the co-author of Facebook Marketing All-In-One for Dummies and creator of the Facebook marketing training program, FBinfluence. You can join her on Facebook at facebook.com/AmyPorterfield or read her blog at AmyPorterfield.com.

For most of us, football season means it’s time to grab our jerseys and clear our Sunday afternoons. We’re the weekend warriors.

But super fans are another breed entirely. They’re the ones who purchase season tickets, paint their face with team colors and endure below-zero weather to catch every game. Their loyalty is absolute.

SEE ALSO: How to Increase Facebook Engagement Using Custom Page Tabs

Your brand might already have plenty of weekend warriors on Facebook, but it’s the super fan you want to attract. In terms of purchasing power and word-of-mouth promotion, one super fan trumps a dozen weekend warriors.

Moontoast’s “Anatomy of a Fan” infographic identifies different Facebook fans by their level of engagement:

Potential fans
Engaged fans
Advocate fans
Purchasing fans
Super Fans ― the best of the best. They are the fans that have given you data permissions, purchased from you, and sparked other fan’s purchases.

If we look at these levels as stages, we can take a more sophisticated approach to Facebook marketing. Engaged fans are great, but advocates are better. And even 1,000 engaged fans are no match for 100 super fans.

Here are four ways to start moving your fans through the ranks.

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1. Attract Your Ideal Fan With Engagement Ads

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Anyone who doesn’t care deeply about your product or service will not become a purchaser, much less a super fan. Your advertising should target high-value fans, not more weekend warriors.

Engagement ads promote links within Facebook, like events or apps — or in this case, your page — to users selected based on interest, demographics and other targeting data. All a user has to do is hover over your ad and click “like” (the link’s included in the ad) to start seeing your updates in their News Feed.

To create an effective engagement ad:

Target the right audience. Leverage Facebook’s massive trove of user data to laser focus your targeting. For example, if I sold running shoes and I wanted to grow my fan base, I’d probably target people who have already liked my competition’s page, because their leads are leads for me, too. I would also target Facebook users who have any mention of running in their profile.
Incite action. Your 25-character headline should prompt action or ask a question to grab your potential fans’ attention. Check out this example from a NYC personal trainer who targets women between the ages of 23 and 35.

Grab attention with a real image. Logos get you nowhere on Facebook. And a smiling, happy face works better than an abstract photo. Remember, Facebook users are exposed to lots of ads. Your headline and image are your one shot to get them to specifically click on yours.
Measure performance. Facebook’s self-serve advertising system provides you with plenty of feedback. Run multiple ads at one time to find out which one is performing the best. You can change your ads as often as you want, so monitor their performance closely — and adjust as you go.

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2. Create Word-of-Mouth Advocates With Contests

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Word-of-mouth advertising is a cost-effective and powerful way to move engaged fans up the ranks. Unfortunately, you can’t buy it — you have to earn it.

Contests are a great way to generate authentic word-of-mouth activity. Assuming you’ve already used Facebook ads to attract more high-value fans, then you can bet that many of your fans’ friends share similar interests.

Every time one of your fans interacts with or promotes your contest, they’re reaching pre-qualified leads for you by exposing your contest to their friends ― and this word-of-mouth advertising is completely free to you. It sounds easy, but most Facebook contests fail because they offer the wrong incentive.

Back to the running shoe store example, let’s say you hold a contest to give away an iPad. You whip your fans, and their friends, into a frenzy — everybody loves a high-tech giveaway. But when it comes time to promote that hot new running shoe, your conversion rates are disappointingly low. Why?

When you give away prizes that are extremely popular, like an iPad, but are completely unrelated to your niche, you attract a bunch of people who want to win something — not fans you can move up the ranks to super fan status. Instead, when designing giveaways and contests, choose specific prizes your ideal customer would want.

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3. Grow Your Lead List While You Grow Your Fan Base

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You might already have a welcome tab — a landing page for users who haven’t yet liked your company. At a minimum, welcome tabs need a call-to-action. Ask users to like the page, and then include a brief video or copy introducing your company and page.

Users go to your page because they want a solution to a problem, or an answer to a question — so give them one, in exchange for their name and email. Offer valuable content on your welcome tab that shows you’re an expert, such as a free tutorial or video series giveaway.

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4. Convert With Calls-to-Action

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Selling on Facebook is an art and a science. Most users are on the site for both personal and social reasons, so it’s a space where loud salesmanship rarely succeeds.

But providing targeted value will work — and the best way to do that is with content.

If you’re new to this, start small. Guide your fans to your best content with short CTAs, like:

“Click Here” — Link to your latest blog post.
“Watch This” — Link to an entertaining video.
“Check This Out” — Post an interesting stat.

Every time a fan likes what’s on the other side of those links, you foster affinity and trust. You can then progress to more robust CTAs that focus on your brand’s specific services or products.

Good CTAs are content-rich, engaging, and promise something better outside of Facebook. This moves the relationship to your website, where you can convert fans to buyers using your existing sales funnel.
The Bottom Line

To turn potential fans into super fans, you need to start with the right kind of fans — those who are truly interested in what you have to offer. Then you can focus on generating buzz, nurturing your list and moving that relationship off of Facebook to the point of purchase.

If you consistently provide stellar content and real engagement, you’ll develop a core group of super fans to show up, bring their friends, and be your cheerleaders, come rain or shine. The only question is, can your brand afford not to have at least a few super fans among its ranks?

Source Mashable

Over the past few months, we’ve introduced you to some of the most impressive CEOs in the digital marketing and tech space. While the businesses have flourished online, so too have the social profiles of the CEOs — they realize the power of Twitter, Facebook and other social platforms, and they use them regularly.

In case you missed it, here’s a recap of the five posts in our Social CEO Series. Below that, you’ll find an infographic that highlights data about how some in the C-suite are using social media sites, how they consume news and the benefits of being a socially savvy CEO.

1. Why Richard Branson Always Makes Time for Social Media

Where most corporate blogs still house formal announcements, the Virgin Group website hosts a blog written with Branson’s first-person flair. Many of them read like diary entries.

Branson’s Twitter, Facebook and Google+ profiles are all equally personal and active. Much of what he posts is related to his many philanthropic efforts. But other times, he’s just tweeting his thoughts or writing about his active globe-trotting lifestyle. Here, he explains why he puts in the effort. Read the full story here.

2. Why Evernote Bet the Company on Mobile & Social Media

At the helm of Evernote, an emerging digital note-taking empire, is the personal-memory-assistant-obsessed Phil Libin. As a blogger, active Tweeter and Google+ neophyte, Libin is the quintessential social CEO, and he bet the success of his company on mobile and social media before it was cool to do so. Read the full story here.

3. How Jetsetter’s CEO Keeps the Travel Conversation Flowing With Social Media

Drew Patterson is the CEO of Jetsetter, a two-year-old travel startup and member of the Gilt Groupe luxury flash deal family. The site offers 20 to 40 sales each week on “Jetsetter-verified” hotels, villas and adventures all around the world to its two million members. The site uses social media to maintain a dialogue about travel with consumers about travel. Everything from dream destinations and honeymoon planning to customer service and feedback is filtered through social media. Read the full story here.

4. How Kiva.org’s CEO Uses Social Media to Spark a Dialogue of Change

What does it mean to lead a non-profit in the social media age? For Matt Flannery, the CEO of micro-lending network Kiva.org, it’s about maintaining personal connections with thought leaders and engaging in constructive dialogue with his organization’s supporters.

The site, founded in 2005, has grown up with social media and matured with the platforms that are now so active in driving awareness to causes and campaigns. After lending more than $241 million to entrepreneurs in developing countries, we can’t help but wonder if the worlds of micro-finance and micro-communication have somehow become intertwined. Read the full story here.

5. How Social Media Helped Kate Spade Become a Global Brand

We spoke with Craig Leavitt, who joined Kate Spade in 2008, about the fashion company’s gains in digital media and ecommerce, the latter of which is approaching triple-digit growth this year. Read the full story here.

For years, marketers have been told that if you want to target 40 something male executives; general wisdom taught to incorporate a pretty female model. Marketing Sherpa challenges this notion and puts it to the test.

Does Sex Still Sell in B-to-B Marketing? New Web Site Study Reveals Answers

I’ve always wondered why so many B-to-B homepages feature photos of beautiful young professional females. I mean, why should Web sites for companies selling proxy servers, enterprise software, electronic components and the like use stock footage of pretty women on their homepages?

Back when I graduated from college, one of my very first jobs was as an assistant in the circulation department for The Oil Daily. Sometimes I’d hear whoops of laughter from the art department down the hall when a new space ad came in. We called it the Sex Sells Syndrome. The advertiser figured their new pipeline or oil platform equipment wasn’t exciting enough to catch attention by itself, so they’d stick a naked babe on it.

It was the art department’s job to clean up the ads, carefully drawing bikinis onto models before the issue went to press.

In one of my next jobs, I was in the aerospace publishing industry, marketing for Jane’s. They didn’t have a problem with the advertisers — thankfully no one I heard about thought to stick a naked babe on a missile. But I did run into the whole booth-babe world.

There, I would be at the big trade show standing proudly in my serious-young-executive Ann Taylor suit at the Jane’s booth, ready to meet customers. But it was a bit difficult to sustain conversations because of the babes in the next booth over in their white leather-with-zippers-all-over micro-miniskirts.

In fact, many attendees figured that because I was a young woman who dressed professionally, I must, ipso facto, be military and not corporate. “Air Force?” they would inquire looking at my navy suit.

But, that was nearly 20 years ago …

B-to-B marketing has grown up and far beyond those old Sex Sells days, right? Well, almost. My rough guesstimate is that perhaps 30% of B-to-B Web sites for sales-driven organizations often feature a woman’s photo on their homepage. Generally, the young woman has absolutely nothing to do with the company because the picture was purchased from a stock footage company.

So, I guess this proves the B-to-B marketers of the world still think a pretty girl can help to sell a melody. But, can she? Does it work?

Striking data from MarketingSherpa’s new B-to-B Web site Homepage Study suggests it does to some extent. (See below for info hotlink.) In every single instance when a female face was above the fold on a homepage, both the male and female executives in our lab spent time looking at her. Men’s faces didn’t get nearly the same level of attention.

Unfortunately, lots of other elements didn’t get as much attention either. In some cases, a female face got more eye-time than promotional offers, sales copy and company news on the same page.

In other words, yes, businesspeople, male and female, alike will absolutely look at a beautiful woman. But, that look could be distracting eyes from the copy and hotlinks more important to your business. So, you’re getting attention in the wrong place.

One B-to-B marketer actually tested the “does sex sell?” concept for a lead generation campaign MarketingSherpa gave an award to last year. Results: a cheerful male model got 53% more responses than a beautiful female model.

The marketer wasn’t sure why the male model worked better for a campaign to 40-something business executives. But, now that I’ve reviewed our B-to-B Homepage study, I’m inclined to believe the male model worked better because he was ignored. His smiling face didn’t distract email recipients from reading and responding to the offer at hand.

Does this mean you should eliminate all women’s photos from your Web pages? No, of course not. However, you might:

o Post critical must-read in positions most likely to be read near a women’s face (generally underneath as a caption and/or in the direction her eyes are looking) to take advantage of the extra attention she generates.

o Consider using a “real” woman, such as an executive working at your firm or one of your happy customers, rather than stock footage, in order to promote your organization instead of a stranger.

Source – Marketing Sherpa

Especially for the B2B world, LinkedIn is such a valuable resource for generating leads, finding potential employees and general marketing. See what HP, Dell and other companies are doing on LinkedIn.

7 Lessons From Successful Companies on LinkedIn

Brands are beginning to establish best practices communicating with their customers and prospects on Facebook and Twitter. But many companies large and small have yet to fully leverage the social network for professionals, LinkedIn. With over 120 million user accounts, LinkedIn has also become an essential social network for companies, especially those in B2B, to leverage in their communication plans. Success on LinkedIn isn’t just about individual efforts, it’s about team efforts.

Below, find seven companies large and small that have found success on LinkedIn. We’ve included some takeaways on what they do right and how you can emulate their success.

Dave Kerpen is the CEO of Likeable, a social media agency that has worked with more than 200 leading brands including 1-800Flowers.com, Verizon and Neutrogena. He is author of the New York Times best seller Likeable Social Media.

Brands are beginning to establish best practices communicating with their customers and prospects on Facebook and Twitter. But many companies large and small have yet to fully leverage the social network for professionals, LinkedIn. With over 120 million user accounts, LinkedIn has also become an essential social network for companies, especially those in B2B, to leverage in their communication plans. Success on LinkedIn isn’t just about individual efforts, it’s about team efforts.

Below, find seven companies large and small that have found success on LinkedIn. We’ve included some takeaways on what they do right and how you can emulate their success.

1.  IBM

Source – Mashable

It’s a flat out lie that infographics are just for the B2C industry. Econsultancy found great content on automated marketing, funnel optimization, LinkedIn, and social media specifically tailored for Business to Business marketers. They provide hard data and great strategies for any B2B company looking to improve its marketing.

10 informative B2B marketing infographics

I’ve rounded up ten recent infographics on B2B marketing and related issues, including funnel optimization, marketing automation, and B2B in social media.

Where possible, I’ve added the infographics to this post in a readable size.

B2B content marketing (Buyersphere)

B2B lead nurturing guide (EBM)

LinkedIn strategies for B2B (Leadformix)

B2B social media marketing (via Mashable)

QR codes for B2B marketing

B2B marketing strategies (KISSmetrics)

B2B social media landscape (elearningexamples)

Funnel optimisation (via MarketingSherpa)

Use of LinkedIn by B2B marketers (mindjumpers)

The current state of marketing automation (Funnelholic)

Source – EConsultancy