Over the past few years, as online options have increased, the world of B2B marketing has reinvented itself—several times. In order to be competitive, particularly in the Web 2.0 environment, businesses have to be ahead of the trends.  Marketers need to evaluate and utilize cutting edge online marketing strategies to keep up with the winds of change.  So just how do B2B marketers become cutting edge with their online strategies?   Knowing that a business prospect, will spend far more time researching the product or service that you provide, weighing the risks and implications, and looking for possible alternatives, B2B marketers need to be early adopters of online marketing strategies.

1. Consider Creating an Online Community of Interest Around Your Solution - social marketing continues to be an effective method for reaching new prospects and can provide access to leads that may have otherwise been overlooked.
2. Make use of Online Video or a Video Blog with Product/Solution Demos - with the surging popularity of online video with YouTube and Google Video, creating a video blog with a series of your solution demos or interviews with key company personnel is a great way to generate top of mind awareness and build trust with your potential prospects.
3. Use Mobile Marketing to Compliment your Online Presence – the number of cell phone users continues to increase.  Having a mobile marketing strategy through mobile ads can help promote traffic to your web properties.  Marketing on a mobile phone has become increasingly popular ever since the rise of SMS (Short Message Service) in the early 2000s in Europe and some parts of Asia.
4. Have Dedicated Resources for Search Engine Marketing – whether in-house or outsourced, the organizations that realize search is here to stay have dedicated budgets for online marketing.  Dedicated online marketing staff can keep on top of the latest online strategies and evaluate which strategies can be of the most benefit.
5. Check out the Competition – what are they doing?  What are they not doing?  Are they using some new online marketing strategy that you can leverage and make better use of?
6. Live and Breath Relationship Marketing – The longer, more complex buying cycle means that relationships have to be cultivated and grown over a lengthy period of time.  Having plans in place for building a long-term relationship for prospects through your website is critical in creating top of mind awareness and building the relationship between your organization and your prospects.
7. Learn, Understand and Utilize Widget Marketing - with a surging increase in the use of widgets, widget marketing can help help promote your product or solution as widgets are all about providing your users with the tools to promote your B2B business or any business/online property.
8. Determine your most important and actionable KPIs – Being cutting edge means that realizing that not all leads should be treated as equal.  Successful lead generation will rely on multiple KPIs to keep the online marketing program focused and effective—and to keep you from wasting time and money on leads that just don’t matter.  Three KPIs to live by: Leads Generated (This metric is very high level and should be considered a long-term trended KPI. As traffic fluctuates, leads will naturally fluctuate.), Lead Conversion Ratio (the conversion ratio is generally influenced positively by incentives including offers and negatively by barriers like poor navigation or onsite security concerns), Cost per Lead (Cost per Lead is a ratio and strategic metric, should never be managed independent of revenue)
9. Prepare for the Personalization of Search - the switch from a universal Search Engine Results Page (SERP) to a somehwhat unique results page for each and every user who performs a query for one of your keywords.  Ensuring that you have the relevant content to be found in "personalized" search results can improve your chances for consideration as your prospect goes through their buying process.
10. Have an Interactive Site – providing avenues for user generated content can help enhance the user experience and improve your presence in the search engines.  Updating your site to be search engine friendly and to allow for user interaction is a great way to generate traffic, interest and leads for your business.

In the end what does it mean for B2B Marketers?

According to the Direct Marketing Association, by 2008 online marketing efforts will be the dominant media for business-to-business initiatives.  Today’s B2B marketers need to keep up with the demands, and identify emerging trends before they impact efforts.  Becoming an early adopter is key if business to business marketers are to become cutting edge with their online marketing efforts