Social media and inbound marketing are increasingly important assets for businesses to get found by and engage with potential buyers on the web.

Think about the way you find information about the products and services you’re interested in. You may be influenced by TV advertising or by some of the junk mail you receive, but what really influences your decision about a brand, is what you’ve been able to find online or more importantly, by what others have to say. Most of us have become experts at tuning out traditional “outbound marketing noise” and instead we revert to Google and social networks for answers to the questions we have.

Visitors are great but leads are even better. Last week we wrote about “calls-to-action” and how a well-designed call-to-action can dramatically increase your B2B's rate of conversion. However, a well crafted call-to-action is most potent when it leads to a revved up landing page.

If your B2B company is about to undergo a website redesign there are a few important design elements that need to be considered prior to reconstruction. The face of your organization’s website is not something that should be overlooked. Some may argue that the back end or ‘what’s under the hood’ is what’s most important, and who can argue with that? After all, most companies today are focused on increased traffic and leads, so naturally their attention to ‘what’s under the hood’ is to be expected.

According to the “B2B SalesPulse Survey” from business information company OneSource B2B sales cycles are longer than a year ago, but pipelines are growing. The survey found that traditional outbound prospecting still produce the most qualified leads for U.S. B2B sales reps. However, companies are relying more and more on their corporate websites as well as social networking sites like LinkedIn to help with lead generation.

We’ve written many a post exploiting the virtues of business blogging and the positive effect it can have on your company. But, we’ve never touched on the area surrounding your post – notably the ‘side panel’ that is quite often neglected space.

If your B2B company is in the process of a website redesign and you’re new to the methodologies of Inbound marketing, follow these 3 steps when designing your new website. Indulging in these principles will make a big difference in website performance.

Last week we wrote about the benefits of lead nurturing (The ‘Holy Moly’ of Lead Nurturing) and why every B2B company should be employing a process to keep in frequent touch with acquired leads. Forrester Research provides this incentive: companies that nurture leads have a closing rate 300% higher than competitors that don’t.

I attended HubSpot’s first annual user group conference in Boston on Tuesday. As an evangelist for Inbound marketing and a certified HubSpot partner, I looked forward to the days events and finally having an opportunity to meet up for the first time with the many HubSpot partners and staff that I’ve corresponded with over the last twelve months. HUG united customers, users, partners and experts to share Inbound marketing best practices, how-tos and more. Over the next few days I’ll recap some of the event highlights and takeaways that I found worthy and pass them onto you.

According to an Inbound Marketing Summit panel, experts predict that in 2011 and beyond, social media will start to drive more business value than search engine optimization (SEO).

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