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What is the difference between business to business marketing and business to consumer marketing using email?  Answer: there is no difference. If you are approaching a client via email you must treat them as you would a potential consumer. This article Highlights 4 important notes that should stay fresh in the minds of all B2b marketers.

What can b2b marketers learn from the b-to-c world? A lot, according to Ryan Phelan VP-strategic services at BlueHornet Networks, an email service provider that caters to retailers and other b2b and b-to-c clients.

Phelan's company earlier this month released a new report that focuses on consumers' views of email marketing. The report, “Consumer Views of Email Marketing: A Revealing Look at How Consumers Use Email,” is based on video interviews of more than 1,000 consumers in the U.S. conducted  in February. Though it is a consumer-based survey,  many of the findings have implications for b2b marketers, he said.

“I always start a discussion about b2b marketing with a discussion about how email applies to the consumer,” he said. “That's how we all learn to be online—as consumers—and we take that behavior with us into the business world.” Here are four key takeaways from the report and how b2b marketers can use them in their campaign planning.

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An emarketing strategy is something that every company needs to move forward in this technology and social media driven market. Budgets are tight in this economy and every company is trying to leverage online marketing techniques for the lowest cost. Even though budgets are tight, businesses are finally realizing that they need to loosen the purse strings on their marketing and learning to embrace what can be gained from email marketing in 2012.

via Small Biz: The world’s economic future in 2012 seems bleak, and could become even bleaker.

The debt crisis in Europe still has not been fully resolved. Greece is getting it’s financial affairs in order, but there are other problems within the European Union.

Image: Kookkai_nak / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

My friend Joel Book is a very smart guy. As the (handsome) face of ExactTarget, he often has some great research, products, and ideas to share. In a recent article on the ExactTarget blog, he shared the need for marketers to be able to view all of their cross-channel integrations in one, real-time manner and dropped some great marketing 2.0 nuggets in there as well.

Joel’s Article: Effective Customer Engagement Means Real-Time, Cross Channel Service
Marketers have long relied on multiple channels to drive engagement, but today marketing requires a new approach – one built on a single view of the customer that values real-time interaction over static channel-focused campaigns. The antiquated one-to-many monologue of mass marketing has given way to the one-to-one digital dialogue of engagement marketing that is fueled by customer data and enabled by interactive marketing technology.

In “The Age of the Individual,” the most successful marketers are using a carefully integrated mix of Email, Mobile, Social media to attract, engage and retain customers. This “triangle offense” strategy is enabling brands like Scotts Miracle-Gro, Belk, and Papa John’s to accelerate their ability to engage customers in real-time and dramatically improve marketing and sales performance.

From “Campaign Management” to “Interaction Management”

The days of the “single-channel” customer are gone and they’re not coming back. Today’s customer interacts with a brand through multiple online and offline channels. Every conversation, every interaction a customer has with a brand – whether it occurs face-to-face, through Email, on the phone, on the website, on Twitter, on Facebook, or SMS – shapes the customer’s opinion and influences how he or she talks about the brand.

When these channels operate independently – instead of cohesively as one – messages often conflict, offers are not consistent, and the customer’s perception is that the brand is dysfunctional and totally unprepared to anticipate and respond to his or her needs. Not exactly a positive brand experience.

On the flipside however, when a brand creates a single database of knowledge about that customer and uses it to deliver consistent messages and timely offers across multiple channels, the customer’s brand experience is quite different.

This is the fundamental difference between “Campaign Management” and “Interaction Management.”

Customer Data is an Asset. Manage it Accordingly.

A company’s customer base should be managed like an investment portfolio, and like a good investment advisor, Marketing, Sales, and Customer Service all share responsibility for maximizing the performance of that portfolio. And that requires a single source of reliable customer data that fuels the operations of each department.

That’s why it’s so important to manage information about each and every customer interaction in a shared business system that all customer-facing employees can access and use to communicate with and serve the customer. This way, the customer is treated correctly and consistently because Marketing, Sales and Customer Service are all aware of his or her needs and interests, previous purchases, and value.

Not only does this single view of the customer make it easier for employees to make smarter marketing decisions and interact with customers more effectively, it also creates a better experience for the consumer. Integrating cross-channel data in a single database creates an invaluable corporate asset, and accelerates the ability to interact more effectively with individual customers in real-time.

Serving has become the New Selling

To truly serve customers better, companies must learn to market to a “segment of one” because today’s customer wants more control over the content that is being delivered through Email, Mobile, Social Media and Website channels.

No longer is it appropriate or acceptable to guess what information or offers the customer wants – in fact it is destructive to the customer relationship. The recent Subscribers, Fans & Followers research conducted by ExactTarget revealed that 90% of consumers unsubscribe, unfan, or unfollow when the communication received from brands is too frequent or the content is irrelevant.

In the “Age of the Individual” consumers expect to be served, not sold. When companies make the commitment to understanding individual customer needs and interests, and using that insight to deliver content that is timely, relevant and useful, they not only sell more, they create a community of “brand advocates” who become some of the company’s most effective marketers.

Read More of Joel’s Insight on the ExactTarget Blog

image: ExactTarget blog

Just in case you haven’t read Part 1 of our 2 part blog series on Acquiring Better Leads in a Ravenous Economy, the gist of it was: Economy Bad. Marketing Budgets Microscopic. Businesses need new clients. Businesses wants lists. Not all lists are created equal; here are some things to consider before investing in lousy lists.

So what’s the best solution for businesses looking to expand their prospect databases in quality and not just quantity?

Here are a few suggestions to get you started:

1) Go social! – with the right tools, ideas, and team you can monitor and grow your social media profiles and engage users in relevant discussions and with relevant offers. Whether it’s LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, or a niche site of your choice – the info is there and ready to grasp!

2) Wake the dead! – Don’t ever assume that a dead email address is a dead contact, or that a list with only partial contact information is worthless. Your contacts can be found on the web today even if they’ve switched companies , careers, or continents – and when you’ve given them years of great service, they’ll likely even be happy to hear from you when you find them!

3) Let them come to you – establish yourself on social media sites and discuss openly the topics that you are passionate about. Just like you are constantly looking for prospects you need online, potential clients are always looking for services that they need online and well. The more spaces that you converse in often, actively, and respectively – the more likely you are to find relevant leads that come to you!

Those are just a few “starter ideas” on how to get your brain buzzing on potential prospects and clients you didn’t even know you had! For more ideas – subscribe to our newsletter to the right of this post, follow our RSS feed, and keep in touch with ListEngage on Twitter and Facebook!

Here at ListEngage we think about this stuff all the time – and have a full-service team that specializes in email appends, data-mining, and matching the absolute best (opt-in) prospects with the absolute best permission-based marketers (aka – you!). Email us if you have any questions — or wanna talk shop.

For more information on our Data Mining services — including email and social media — visit our website here.