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I recently attended the Sales 2.0 Conference, East at the Renaissance Waterfront Hotel in Boston and was impressed with all the energy at the conference. Sales people are an interesting group, they are full on enthusiasm, eager to talk and mingle and learn from each other. The conference emphasis was on tools that are used to help sales people with prospecting, managing accounts, and making their jobs more efficient. By having tools to help with these areas of sales, the results would be better revenue numbers creating a win-win situation for both the company and the individual sales person or sales team.

I think social media was on the mind of people in the audience and in the overview for the conference, but it didn't come up in any session, at least the social media marketing that I know and is on the mind of most companies today. When asked what was the most important sales tool for you, each panel expert named a tool they felt was important like Salesforce, Kadient, Jigsaw, Hoovers and Marketo among others. What I was surprised about is that not one of the panel members mentioned their website as a tool for sales. In fact the website as a tool for sales never came up at all. Knowing what I know many companies get 80% of their sales from their online marketing and web leads, I felt this was a shocking discovery. The real shock is that somehow the message of a well built website from a sales and marketing perspective is not the first thing a company today ought to be looking at is what amazed me.

I question, what does it cost to hire, train, manage, and compensate one sales person? I am not saying that building a website as a tool for sales is the only thing that a company should do, but it is certainly an important thing to do right. The cost of a well built website that is built from a sales and marketing perspective would be a very cost effective way to use the Internet channel to not only support the sales team but to generate business. So why is it not done? Are companies not ready to do this? Is it they don't see a payback or are there not enough web developers that build it from a marketing and sales perspective? Either way, it should be done, and it is a must to find a company that can actually address the Internet as a channel for business and find a company who can actually build it right, put in all the analytics to measure the results correctly and know how to tweak it continually to make the website the most effective tool you can have to generate sales and position your business against your competitors.

In the end, I was glad I attended the conference, met some wonderful people, ate some delicious food and attended a break-out session in the afternoon that gave me a great take-away, that being “Harness the trigger events that turn prospects into customers” from Craig Elias who has a book called, Shift, which discusses this principal in effective selling. I also got to meet the conference guru, Gerhard Gschwandtner the Founder & CEO of Selling Power.

On May 6th, 2010 Advanced Media Productions gave a presentation at Clark University on the importance of social media in the new buying cycle. Consumer habits and the prevalence of social media networks on the web are changing traditional sales practices. Broken into 2 parts, Social Media, Search and Digital Asset Optimization discusses the importance of properly executed social media campaigns not only as a sales asset, but also as a tool for branding your business. Louise Rijk, VP of Marketing and Sales at Advanced Media Productions, discusses in-depth the ripple effects a social media campaign can have in accordance with the more traditional marketing techniques, and how rapidly the buying cycle is evolving on the web.

The first half of the presentation focuses on the changes occurring within the online buying cycle. In the past, traditional sales have followed a pattern that was supplemented with television or radio ads. On the internet consumers follow a different pattern. Gone are the days when marketers needed a sales pitch to entice a customer to purchase items or services, consumers online begin their quest at a different stage in the buying cycle. Online shoppers are already committed to a product or idea and log on to their computers to perform the next step, seeking information. This is where the changes in the online buying cycle become the most significant to marketers. Information about your product, as well as presentation, can make or break a sale online. Converting what would have been a quick glance at your homepage, landing page, or PPC ad into a purchase is a methodical process and unlike marketing techniques used offline.

The second half of the presentation discusses social media and the importance of its presence for online marketing campaigns. Social Media, Search and Digital Asset Optimization clarifies a common misconception among marketers that social media may stand alone as a marketing tool. When a proper online campaign is built and executed social media is the ultimate complement to enhance traffic, increase branding and familiarity, and attract a new audience to your product. Facebook, Twitter, and other various social media platforms are easily accessed, free or low-cost, and enormously popular among online consumers.

Knowing why consumers fulfill their needs online is only the first piece of the puzzle, running a successful online marketing campaign is a learning process, Social Media, Search and Digital Asset Optimization touches upon fundamentals relevant for both the online marketer and consumer.

On April 26, 2010, Advanced Media Productions conducted a presentation on the important, though frequently overlooked, facets of search marketing entitled Deep Understanding of Search Often Falls on Deaf Ears. In this four-part video series, Louise Rijk, Vice President and Head of Sales at AMP, outlines the algorithms and basic functionality behind search marketing and how becoming familiar with different aspects of search can enhance the online presence and branding of your business.

The first half of the presentation offers a brief introduction to search marketing and provides statistics and numbers highlighting the value of search. 85% of internet users, when they sit down at a computer, kick off their online experience with a search of some sort. Whether they're looking for a company's home on the web, a product's Facebook page or the YouTube channel and Twitter feed of an individual they're interested in learning more about, consumers look to the search engines for direction when it comes to finding the results they're after. For those looking to benefit from search marketing and promoting their sites and products using organic search, keyword research and the incorporation of particular keywords into highly optimized copy are essential for achieving a strong standing in searches. Optimized copy doesn't just stop at the written material for your website, either: The search engines pull from multiple sources, including social networks and sharing sites, meaning that links to your Twitter, YouTube and LinkedIn accounts also rank in searches and could easily redirect users to your website.

Deep Understanding of Search Often Falls on Deaf Ears concludes with tips and tricks for financing your search marketing research, as well as the reiteration that expanding you and your company or product's presence across various social media and sharing networks is vital for the sake of monopolizing search results. Optimizing your website for improved organic search results is an essentially free endeavor, though you absolutely get what you pay for when it comes to utilizing various keyword research programs and other tools that provide you with the information you need. With these integral points in mind, a dedication to generating “buzz” about your site and a commitment to putting time into research for optimizing your website's copy, Deep Understanding of Search Often Falls on Deaf Ears is a strong introduction to the ins-and-outs of search marketing.

In our recent six-part video presentation, Twitter and Blogging for Business, we explore the connection between blogs, Twitter, and how the two forms of social media can partner together to greatly benefit any business’ internet marketing campaign. Blogs and Twitter, a micro-blogging platform that allows users to share information with messages using 140 characters or less, have been used successfully by entrepreneurs and corporations alike to enhance various attributes of their business, including customer service, branding and sales. Twitter and its integral functions are spelled out so that the components of this micro-blogging platform are emphasized in order to highlight its importance as an internet marketing tool.

Twitter and Blogging for Business continues on and provides a rundown on the benefits of blogging: Businesses can publish content regarding their products or mission while inspiring interaction with consumers on blogs, and blogs are assets to businesses when used for direct communication, brand building, search engine marketing and reputation management. Given that tweeting and blogging both encourage customer participation while working to solidify a business’ branding strategies and promotional outreach online, it’s a given that when Twitter and blogs pair up the results are extremely beneficial for a business. Twitter and Blogging for Business concludes with this point, that tweeting and blogging together make for effective internet marketing tools that generate buzz for any kind of business while improving and building upon a business’ presence online.

Courtesy of recent trends in social media, truncated, shorter blog postings are proving to be useful for those looking to embed links and information in Facebook statuses, Tweets and away messages. Several free link-chopping sites are out there to transform a lengthy URL into a web address that clocks in at 25 characters or less. Sure, this is a great way to promote your link and get it out there on multiple social media networks, but what about SEO? What about stats, numbers, and tracking the success of your website now that you’ve significantly shrunken a link to it?

Enter: Bit.ly. Unlike other link-shortening sites, there’s now a new option that enables viewers to see the statistics and clicks to the link in question that’s as simple as typing in an extra character. After you shorten your link using Bit.ly, all you need to do is add a plus sign (“+”) to the end of your URL: For example, instead of leaving your Bit.ly link as “http://bit.ly/14d7yE”, you would type “http://bit.ly/14d7yE+” in order to see all the tabulated statistics regarding the traffic your link has seen.

This helpful hint was provided by Danny Dover in his talk, “Make SEO Tools Work For You” at the SEOmoz 2009 PRO Training Series in Seattle. For more helpful SEO and search marketing-related tips and tricks, SEOmoz is a proven dependable resource and forum for online marketing professionals.