How to Use Twitter in Your Web 2.0 Marketing Strategy

The economy has significantly changed customer and vendor behavior. Spending marketing dollars in the wrong place limits the information available to your prospective customers. Making sure you are connecting well with your customers is the ROI that will truly fuel your company's growth. Before you allocate your reduced marketing budget, make sure you are connecting with your prospective customers online. Here, Knowledge Center contributor Mary Van Zandt explains how to use online communities and social media sites such as Twitter to maximize your company's marketing strategy.

"Our marketing budget was just cut!" These are words that every marketing person hates to hear. Unfortunately, in these current economic conditions, these words are being heard in nearly every company around the world. Even information security vendors-whose job it is to protect against computer threats that can bring companies to their knees-are not immune to budget cuts.

Too often, marketing is viewed strictly as an expense, instead of as an investment in positioning, promoting and educating customers. When it comes to marketing, it is always easier to figure out where to spend money than to determine which marketing campaigns should be cut.

During a management discussion, the first question typically asked is, "What marketing programs or campaigns are not delivering a solid ROI?" While this seems like a reasonable and simple question, we must not forget that our world has changed drastically in the last six months. There is a growing communications gap between vendors and customers that has a negative impact upon both groups. Spending marketing dollars in the wrong place results in lower revenue for vendors and limits the information available to companies when they're making buying decisions.

At a time when marketing dollars and resources are scarce, a better question to ask is, "Where are my customers going in order to learn about products and services?" The first step is acknowledging that a potential communications gap may exist. Closing this gap will provide the marketing ROI and make more information available to help companies make better buying decisions.

Taking steps to better understand your prospective customers is not as difficult as you might think. The following are four tips to help you close the communications gap and set the right course during this economic storm.

Tip No. 1: As a vendor, understand how your company will respond to marketing budget cuts

In a recent survey of vendors and enterprise customers, 49 percent of vendors said they rely on their business partners to provide information about products and services. Too often, training on products and services is limited to the technology. If this is part of your marketing strategy, review your partner training materials. Make sure they clearly define the problem that your product solves, how your product solves the problem, how it differs from the competition, and the top benefits the customer can realize. A product or service that is well positioned and easily understood will help ensure your partners are more effective in educating and selling your solution to customers.

Tip No. 2: Understand how your customers will be impacted by budget cuts

With less information available about products and services, 35 percent of enterprise customers surveyed said they feel that they will have to rely on their peers to get information about security solutions, and 24 percent said they will have to do more product trials.

This year, online communities will take on a substantially more important role in bringing together and educating not only customers but also prospective customers. Companies are creating their own online communities and making these communities open to everyone. If your company has not yet created an online community, make it a priority to create one as part of your 2009 marketing plan.

For the 24 percent of customers surveyed who said they feel they will have to do more product trials (but may be constrained by resources that are already stretched too thin), an alternative is to seek out published, third-party product reviews.