A dedicated IP address may be a valuable asset to your company. Below are a few of the positives and negatives to having your own dedicated IP address so you can decide whether a dedicated or shared IP is right for you.

Pros:

• Reputation – Sharing your IP address means you’re also sharing your reputation. Having your own dedicated IP address would put you in charge of your reputation and deliverability.
• Accreditation and Whitelisting – Some whitelisting programs require you to have a dedicated IP address. Being accredited can help improve deliverability.
• Monitoring – Being in charge of your own IP address allows you to monitor and take action immediately on any issues that arise.

Cons:

• Volume Spikes – Spikes in volume can negatively affect your reputation and need to be watched and managed carefully. Since your IP address is dedicated to you, you wouldn’t have your ESP balancing out the spikes with other clients’ mailings, so this would be your responsibility to manage.
• Volume History – Reputation is also tied into volume history. Since you’re starting fresh with a new IP address, you would not have any history. Some ISPs are throttling IP addresses with no volume history to stricter reputation standards, so your reputation would need to be built slowly over time.
• Cost – Most ESPs charge extra for this service (as a separate line item cost or added to monthly fees). Additional costs can be accrued from whitelisting and monitoring (direct costs to your ESP or costs incurred from taking the time and effort to monitor yourself).

For more information, please see this great article from Ezemail.com. Their recommendation is that marketers that frequently send large numbers of email blasts would benefit from a dedicated IP address, while those that send only occasional or monthly emails would probably not want a dedicated IP address.

Recently Todd Miechiels posted an article on How To Increase Your B2B Conversion Rates By Reducing Friction. Within this post Todd examines friction, how it causes people to abandon the conversion process, and what you can do to minimize it. Following are four areas to consider:

• Reducing friction. Friction, as defined by Flint McLaughlin in this context, is the psychological resistance to a given element in the sales process.  Friction exists in the mind of the consumer. When attempting to increase conversions and sales, many companies focus on high cost and low yield elements like rebranding, redesigns, flash demos, additional advertising. Instead, first examine your web pages for items that could be causing unnecessary friction. Examine the navigation experience from an outside user’s perspective and you might notice elements that could be enhanced for a better user experience.
• Simplify web forms. A very common area for friction can be related to a web form. Every additional form field that is asked within a form increases the amount of friction, especially those less pertinent  fields related to the stage in the sales process a prospect is at. Evaluate the fields you are asking and either simply reduce the volume of fields or use conditional profiling that allows to break up the form process into sections over the course of time rather than all up front. Also consider the complexity of the form itself and the requirements contained within the data you are asking for.
• Use friction to increase quality conversions. Evaluate your level of friction in comparison to the quantity and quality of leads you are receiving from those conversions. If you are receiving a high volume of leads that have quality support, think of how you could increase friction to a level that would eliminate some of the unqualified leads but still be at a level that qualified leads would convert. Depending on the reason for conversion, the benefits of converting, and situation as a whole are all items to evaluate when trying to find a qualified balance of friction.
• Understand your audience. As previously mentioned, take a seat within the driver’s view of a prospect. If you are targeting the high level C-Suite executives it might not be best approach to have an extensive, time consuming form process that asks for a high level of information up front for little return. Time is money and too much information means that a Sales Rep will be on you before you even receive the content that was requested. Again, evaluate the types of user’s and their consumer behavior’s and preferences.

Adjusting the friction in order to increase conversions as a whole or to reduce volume but increase quality of leads are all elements to evaluate when searching for an equilibrium in the balance of friction. Take a moment evaluate your current web processes and see where you can enhance to create a better experience for all parties.

BtoBOnline posted some predictions for 2009 Email Marketing Trends from the folks over at email vendor Campaigner.

They are forecasting that the following will be hot topics in the next year:

• Automation heats up. Everyone in 2008, it seemed, wanted to personalize and better target their campaigns, which led to better segmentation. However, human beings were still overwhelmingly pulling the trigger on so-called “triggered” campaigns. Next year, as companies start to take advantage of the avalanche of data sitting in CRM programs, triggering will happen automatically.
• Marketers tap integrated marketing programs more often. E-mail marketing used to be relegated to the Web marketing team or to someone hired specifically to do e-mail marketing. This coming year, as head counts shrink and companies realize the value of controlling the entire message, integration will take a bigger role.
• List hygiene becomes a must. “People will become less concerned about how big their lists are or how many people are opening their messages, and more concerned that the people who are opening them are finding that message relevant and are receptive,” said Luc Vezina, head of marketing for Campaigner. To that end, companies will integrate individual e-mail lists into a single, manageable list, he said, which will also make it easier for companies to comply with CAN-SPAM.
• Mobile e-mail marketing becomes a standard option.  By offering a mobile e-mail option, marketers will make sure messages are deliverable and readable.

While many people are busy trying to get their holiday shopping done and taking vacation time to spend time with their loved ones, it’s important to maintain your email communication with your clients and prospects. BtoB Magazine just posted some great suggestions for holiday marketing programs. As BtoB points out, if you’re not reaching out, you can assume your competitors will be. Here are the highlights:

• Say thanks & gather feedback. The holiday season is a great time to thank clients for their business over the past year and send holiday greetings to your prospects. It’s also a good time to gather their feedback on your products and services so you know what to focus on or improve in the coming year.
• Capture the “use-it-or-lose-it” crowd. Companies with money left in their 2008 budget will be eager to spend what they have left. Offering a promotion with a Dec. 31 expiration date or just simply reminding your prospects of your services can help convince them to spend their extra funds on your product rather than new office chairs or a copier.
• Give your subscribers an update. Just as friends and relatives may send you emails or greeting cards detailing their activities over the last year, companies can also send out yearly updates to their clients detailing features they have added and improvements they have made. This is also a good way to drive recipients to your website and blog posts and gather feedback.
• Update recipients’ preferences. The holiday season is a good time to ask recipients to update their preferences as they focus on goals for the coming year. Updates can be to the product lines they’re interested in as well as the frequency of the messages they’d like to receive. These updates will help you scrub your lists and target your messaging more effectively over the next year.

There are a number of free web-based tracking tools you can use to monitor the buzz surrounding your company online.  We’ve compiled a list of our favorites:

• Google Alerts: get Google to send you alerts at certain intervals to stay updated on mentions of your company, your product, and industry-related news.
• Technorati: lets you check the status of your corporate blog by monitoring your authority rank and viewing trend charts for certain keywords mentioned in blog posts.
• Trendpedia: provides keyword trend charts, but allows you to click on an area of the chart to view a list of articles mentioning that particular term.
• Tweetvolume: creates a bar chart to compare keyword mentions on Twitter.
• Co.mments: allows you to track conversation about your company beyond the blog post and track comments left on blogs that relate to keywords of interest.
• Compete: the “search analytics” feature allows you to see what keywords bring the most traffic to your site, and what sites are clicked on the most as a result of searching a particular keyword.
• Alexa: allows you to compare web traffic data for multiple websites across different time intervals.

A recent report by the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Council found that 76% of senior marketing executives are not realizing the full revenue potential of their existing customers. Only 46.5% report that they have a good handle on the overall lifetime value of their customers.

For companies that have the potential to sell upgrades or additional products, it is important to keep your current customers in mind as one of your best potential audiences. Since you already have a relationship with the client, they are more likely to trust your advice and judgment than when you are starting off with a new prospect.

In addition to following up with by phone with your clients, you can use automated programs to continue to keep in touch with clients, even after you make the deal. Sending updates, newsletters or product announcements can be a good way to leverage your relationships and uncover new opportunities within existing accounts.

Recently Matt McGee of Search Engine Land made a post: Google Offers SEO Starter Guide. Google has released a starter’s guide to search engine optimization that touches on the nuts and bolts to website optimization. This is a great reference for webmasters and business owners who need a basic training on search engine optimization.

Google’s Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide is a 22-page PDF that covers around a dozen common areas that webmasters might consider optimizing. Topics covered include:

• Page Titles
• Description Meta Tag
• URL Structure
• Site Navigation
• Creating Quality Content
• Anchor Text
• Heading Tags (H1s, H2s, etc.)
• Image Optimization
• Website Promotion
• Webmaster Tools
• Analytics
• More Resources

Take the time now to review search engine optimization best practices for what you are currently doing or learn new areas that can take you to the next step. Download Google’s Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide Here.

According to a recent article from B2B Magazine, while there is no one-size-fits-all answer to the question of best time to send email, a new study from Ball State University provides several valuable insights. The study followed working adults for a full day, recording what media participants used, where they used it, and for how long. Here are some of the findings:

• Working adults tend to log in to email first thing in the morning and have the longest period of uninterrupted time in their inbox.
• As the day goes by, inbox time becomes more fragmented.

So what do these findings suggest?

• People are most like to read a longer email message such as a newsletter first thing in the morning (between 8 and 9am).
• On the other hand, shorter email messages such as webinar invitations or white paper downloads may be best received later in the day when people are in “quick-hit” mode.

While these insights can be helpful when determining when to send your email blast, B2B Magazine says the bottom line still comes to down to evaluating traditional metrics such as open and click-through rates. With the new email wizard in Prospect Insight, you have the ability to schedule the date and time when your email will be sent. Additionally, reporting metrics for your emails, including bounces, opens, unique clicks and click-through rates are available within the Reports module.

In a blog post on Search Insider, Rob Garner assures us that though the economy is officially in a recession, search marketing will hold its own. Search engine marketing, in general, says Garner, yields much higher results than other advertising channels. Here’s a rundown of the reasons Garner says search has been so successful:

• Measurability – Simply put, search marketing tactics and strategies, combined with solid analytics and other management tools, offer marketers the opportunity to see both the forest, and the tree leaves, if they so choose.
• Qualifying Visitors with Search Queries – Good research helps advertisers target their ads or natural content strategies to a laser-sharp focus on the searcher, and offer the ability to target like-minded, laser-focused content with a higher degree and likelihood of conversion than other channels.
• Search traffic becomes an asset over time – Once natural search traffic gets rolling, the returns often last for years.
• Search is a fundamental touch point in the online experience – The bottom line is that search is a fundamental way to reach people online — such as more than 90% of all online users.
• Search is equally accessible by all advertisers and marketers, large and small – Search marketing is open to both enterprise marketers with $20 million in spend, and to the guy or girl sitting in their bedroom with a twenty-dollar budget.
• Search is the ad platform for future online advertising asset delivery – The 40% of online spend attributed to the search channel is likely grossly underestimated.
• The targeted relevance of the search channel – Giving credit where it is due, the search engines themselves help us find what we need, when we need it.

  Enhancing your online marketing with a marketing automation tools allows you to add two more advantages to that list:

• Increase measurability by associating opportunities won with specific search campaigns – Integrate Google Adwords to trace prospects back to their point of origin and find out which keywords are bringing in the most new customers.
• Add site search to your own site to further qualify prospects – Site search on your website not only creates a better user experience for visitors, but it can give your sales team access to view a prospect’s search queries, allowing them to target follow-up messages.