Getting ready for your next trade show? Don’t skimp on the tchotkes with boring and ineffective promotional items like hats, stress relievers or mints. Take a lesson from the queen of self-promotion Madonna and go for something unexpected and memorable.

Successful Promotions magazine just ran a cover article on the killer goodies rock stars like Madonna distribute to promote their albums and/or tours. For her recent Sticky and Sweet tour, Madonna had giant lollipops made with her album cover emblazoned on them. Other musicians mentioned included Ice-T who distributed body bags and the Black Crowes who produced rolling papers.

If those options seem a bit inappropriate for your business, keep these tips in mind for selecting giveaways that help support your message and make your brand more memorable:

1. Think visual branding. To help your message or brand promise “stick” in the minds of your target market, go with a promo item that underscores your brand promise or the message of your latest campaign. For example, if your product promises to install within minutes instead of days, give out a stopwatch and invite users to put you to the test.
2. Create a must-have collectible or invest in a hot product that works as an incentive to draw people to your booth. NetQoS created a series of collectible t-shirts that were popular enough to draw 3500 booth visitors year after year. Other companies have accomplished this with less expensive product like buttons.
3. Come up with a giveaway that will garner press coverage or blog commentary. At Pervasive we created a campaign that involved jog wallets stuffed with different denominations of money. This clever program netted press coverage in Information Week magazine.

What are your favorite tchotkes — either for giving or receiving?

New stuff to do now!

I got the heads up from Chris Brogan, and now I want to share with all The B2B Lead readers about the new applications LinkedIn has released. On first glance I was really impressed. The list is not sooo long with applications (like Facebook) that have nothing to do with the business world, and I really think these apps will make LinkedIn much more interactive and useful.

So far I have downloaded the 2 apps for blogging and My Travel (to tell everyone I’ll be at Dreamforce next week), and am still exploring the others. Other applications let you show what books you are reading, upload slideshows and more.

Go check it out and start using. What other applications would you be interested in seeing?

We started the ReachForce Book Club as a way to continue our relationship with our current customers and foster our community of smart B2B marketers. In today’s online world there are many more options for B2B Marketers to stay connected to their customers like through social networks and online communities.

At ReachForce, we decided to mix a little old school with some new school and start a book club with a twist. Instead of meeting at a local coffee shop to discuss the book, we will be discussing it here on The B2B Lead.  Usually we send out a hardcover book to all of our customers but this time around we are going to cover some of the great B2B Marketing eBooks out there.  So many smart marketers are putting great content out there and we want to be sure to cover it.

Our first eBook is Five B2B MarCom Strategies to Increase Sales Now by Dianna Huff, author of the MarCom Writer Blog. It promises to deliver “five proven B2B marketing communications strategies you need to help increase leads and sales.”  Dianna has a great blog full of worthwhile B2B Marketing tips, so I am really looking forward to discussing this eBook next week.

Each Thursday, Amy and I will share our perspectives to get the conversation started but will rely on you to join in to share your thoughts, opinions and ideas. We will begin the conversation next week in order to give everyone a little time to get started.

Happy reading!

Another sales tip by Ryan Ohls, a Market Development Executive at ReachForce.

My sales career started when I was a 22-year old kid…and let’s just say my phone skills were not very polished at that point.  However, in one of my first weeks of making calls I had a prospect ask me a very poignant question.  He said, “Why should I do business with you when there are so many other options available to me?”

I had no answer.  To this day I have no clue what kind of mealy-mouthed response I came up with.  At the time I thought the guy was just a jerk.  Looking back though, I see how significant that question really was.  In fact, it’s possibly THE single most important question every salesperson should answer.

Why should your prospects do business with you?  What makes your offer and your company unique?  How do you know you’re not being perceived as a commodity?  You should be able to wake up from a deep sleep in the middle of the night and immediately be able to answer that question if asked.

But wait – there’s a catch.  When you go through this exercise always follow each of your answers with “So What?”

“We offer full installation and a 12-month warranty…So what?”

“We use prettier colors than everybody else…So what?”

In other words, “why should your prospects care?”  Eventually you will get to the root of what THEY find important, not you.  Chances are they don’t care about the things you think are impressive about your company.

How can you distinguish your company in the minds of your prospects to the point you literally have no competitors?  A company or a salesperson that figures this out has adequately answered “the most important question in business.”

A recent survey report from ResearchCorp and Pinpointe collected input from sales and marketing decision makers of medium and large enterprises.  This report, Marketing Automation Survey: Cross the Chasm, was conducted in August 2008 and was designed to gain insight on the following three questions:

• What are the top challenges that keep marketing and sales professionals up at night?
• What infrastructure do companies have in place to address SFA and marketing automation?
• What is the ‘state of the market’ with respect to SFA and marketing automation implementations?

Results showed that keeping prospect databases ‘clean’ and useful was the top challenge keeping Marketing Executives up at night. Not far behind poor data was the ability to calculate meaningful ROI from marketing spend and getting enough quality leads to keep the sales machine properly fueled came in third. The graph below lists other concerns mentioned.

Poor data still topping the list…I’m not surprised.  Exactly 2 years ago, Forrester Research (B2B Marketing Needs a Makeover) also listed data problems at the top of the challenges list. Top 3 challenges in this report included: reaching decision-makers, measuring marketing results, improving lead quality and generate more leads.

Caution – shameless promotion ahead – REACHFORCE CAN HELP WITH YOUR DATA PROBLEMS.  Having trouble determining your target audience, check out ReachForce Insight or ReachForce Convert.  Struggling with getting to the right decision makers?  ReachForce Data Services help you identify the right buying ROLES (with full contact information) in your target market.

Want to attack dirty data head on?  Check out the whitepaper, Is Dirty Data Sabotaging your Marketing Results?  This whitepaper presents the QuickStart Data Refreshing Methodology to help you quickly identify your data cleansing requirements, align your marketing strategy with your data refreshing and collection processes and produce better results from your marketing programs.

Do data problems top your list of challenges?  If not, please share what keeps you up at night.

Web analytics fascinate me. I can spend hours looking at trends in visitors, referring sources and content. It helps me set and achieve goals and identify popular content so I can create more. But, it always leaves me wanting more. Especially when it comes to Google and social media, which are always at the top of our referring sources list. Unfortunately, it’s been very difficult to report on the results we see from the traffic these sources generate. Essentially, I would like to know two things:

1. What did the visitors from those sources do? Download a white paper, watch a video, or just look at our Careers page?
2. Who is the visitor? Or at least what company they work for.

As B2B Marketers, we work really really hard to attract website visitors. There’s typically a direct correlation between web traffic, leads and revenue. So, this is a top metric. Yet, according to statistics quoted by ReachForce, only 3% of web visitors fill out a form or announce themselves. What can we do to get a little insight into the the other 97%?

Right now at BreakingPoint, we are testing out two very intriguing tools for identifying web visitors:  ReachForce Convert (sold by the producers of The B2B Lead) and Get Clicky.com. Here are a few details on each:

ReachForce Convert provides reporting on where inbound visitors are coming as well as where the companies are geographically located. This is key for identifying the right prospect. Convert also profiles top visitors by industry and appends these records with industry verticals, SIC codes, revenue and employee size. With this data, you can better target unannounced visiting companies but also get contacts from companies with similar profiles. Now, here’s the real value: Once you have identified the companies that are visiting your website unannounced, ReachForce Discover data services are available for role-based contact discovery within these new target companies.

Get Clicky is much more of a low cost analytics tool with rich data. According to its site: “Get Clicky is a web analyzer that was originally targeted towards smaller web sites and blogs because it tracks a high level of detail on every visitor, and these types of sites find this information very interesting. Since then, many additional features have been added to Clicky, such as the customizable dashboard full of Ajax love, and our amazing filtering interface that gives you actionable data on any subset of your visitors (see screenshots on the right hand side). These features, along with many others, make Clicky one of the best web analyzers on the planet.”

I tend to agree. They even have a cool iPhone interface.  Take a look at how it compares to Google Analytics.

The net net: Both products enable marketers to capture detailed visitor information and spot trends. While ReachForce Convert claims to help turn these visitors into actionable leads, Get Clicky will show me if my social media sources are actually converting into engaged visitors or prospects.

Hopefully by now you have an account on LinkedIn, or at least plan on joining in the near future. LinkedIn is a professional online network that enables you to connect with classmates and colleagues, and then 6 degrees of separation later, connect with your connections’ connections.

LinkedIn’s main purpose is for business professionals to network with other business professionals. Other ways LinkedIn has become more interactive (and something you should look into) is to join groups, discussions happening within groups and what is really cool…LinkedIn Answers.

LinkedIn Answers is a great tool to showcase yourself as a thought leader in your industry, listen to what other people in your industry are talking about and find out answers to some questions you might have. I browse questions people have posted a few times a week and look for questions that pertain to BtoB marketing, lead gen, social media, etc. I will answer it or pass it along to someone in ReachForce that would be better qualified.

Recently I got our sales team on board to look and see what potential prospect’s questions are.  This gives them a chance to look like thought leaders as well and gain valuable insight into their prospects needs. When you ask a question, it shows on your profile so all of your connections can see it and you can interact with anyone that answers you.

Other proof of value? Got it. Last week on one of my browses, I came upon a question that ReachForce could be the solution and passed it along to sales and now they are talking. Also at a conference I attended, one of the speakers said he was asked to be a speaker because of his answer to a LinkedIn Question. Pretty cool, right?

How to find and get started with LinkedIn Answers:

• See “Answers” in the top header
• Once clicked, scroll down and browse the categories on the right (I usually look in Marketing and Sales category)
• Start scanning questions

Have you been using LinkedIn Answers? Any tips?

For a while now we have been focusing a bit more on the marketing side of our B2B Marketing and Sales Tips.  Here are a few great sales tips from Brian McRae, Market Development Manager at ReachForce.

1. Remember that you are selling to PEOPLE, not to rows of data on your daily call sheet.  People require you to reach through the phone and deliver an articulate, powerful, and succinct message.  Every person is different, so use the cues you hear over the phone to help you understand how best to communicate with your prospects.  I live in Austin, Texas, however, my territory is the Northeast United States, including New York.  I’ve found in my prospecting activities that these professionals prefer I be direct and exactly on point, because their time is not to be wasted.  This is somewhat different from the laid back and casual environment I work in.  But that nuance of personality provides me with the ability to understand how these professionals prefer to be communicated with via phone and e-mail.  You can bet the house that my language on a call or an e-mail is powerful, bold, and succinct, because I must connect using my prospect’s culture rather than my own.
2. People buy from people, not companies.  Be likable and easy to work with.  Develop a relationship with your prospects.  Make each one feel like they are your number one customer.
3. Develop a consistent process that you repeat every day.  As a salesperson, it is your duty to be as disciplined and productive as possible.  Develop a routine that you follow every single day to take full advantage of your working hours.  Applying that disciplined approach over time is guaranteed to keep you productive, make you a better salesperson, and ultimately close more deals.
4. Be crisp and impactful in all your communications.  Think about how many sales or marketing related e-mails the average decision-maker receives on any given day.  How many of these messages use the same tired clichés at best; and at worst are fraught with grammatical or spelling errors?  The only way to rise above the fray on the phone and in email is to absolutely compel your prospect to learn more about your services.  Create that need with clear, concise, and complete language – a language devoid of all filler-words and “ums”.  Take the time to use the power of language to your advantage.  That alone will place you head and shoulders above your competition.
5. Don’t believe the myth that people hate being sold to.  The truth is that people hate being sold to by BAD salespeople, and there are plenty of those to go around.  But if you think back to your most positive buying experiences, whether it was for a car or a multi-million dollar enterprise software package, every one of those positive experiences was driven by solid and professional salespeople.  Salespeople are the engines of commerce.  Good salespeople explore, analyze, and create a mutually beneficial need between two parties.  Good salespeople develop relationships with their prospects that lead to mutually beneficial deals.
6. Have a long-term strategic view.  The best and most successful sales professionals that I have worked with in my career all shared a single trait – they were with their respective companies for a long time, usually more than five years.  They all understood that developing a territory was a long-horizon project, and that success would come only if they executed every day.  You’ll also become an expert not only on your product, but on the entire competitive landscape.

Here’s another one of those bad news, good news posts about marketing in a bad economy. The bad news is about as cliché as it gets: it’s tougher than ever to get prospects’ attention and close deals today. The good news, however, is a bit of a surprise: clever B2B Marketers and Salespeople have a tremendous opportunity to beat the competition by capitalizing on trigger events that will undoubtedly be a side effect of our struggling economy.

Breaking it down: with all of the turmoil in the markets today, companies are going to be looking for new ways to become more efficient, save money and expand globally. Basically, we are about to see lots and lots of changes such as mergers and acquisitions, facilities consolidation, technology acquisitions, career moves, etc.—in other words–“trigger events.” This is where smart Marketers can fuel their Sales pipeline.

We all know great Marketing and Sales programs are about timing–being there when the prospect needs a product or service. But, how do you know when one of these events has happened or who to contact once the event is announced? How can you move beyond an ad-hoc program of reading about trigger events and chasing down the right buyer?

Enter the perfect storm:  combine today’s economic turbulence with the growing popularity of social media tools, search functionality, and web analytics, and you have the perfect conditions for a powerful trigger-based marketing program.

Let me explain. There is now more information online than ever before. You have RSS feeds with immediate updates of corporate news such as mergers, funding, new hires, etc. You have professionals who go online (to Google and other forums) to search for purchasing data. You have automated intelligence tools such as CI Radar (which also includes a trigger-based Sales module) and other free search tools such as Google Alerts and Tweetscan. You can also combine all of these market intelligence tools into an automated feed of market intelligence to identify companies and buyers who are searching for products and services.

Most marketers also have an unbelievable wealth of information produced by web analytics tools such as Eloqua or Clicky. Yes, visits to your web-site can also be considered a trigger-event.

All of this market insight can be gathered and fed into a role-based contact gathering program to give your sales team fast access to actionable leads from companies in active purchasing mode. In many cases, through role-based qualifying, you can provide Sales with the actual buyers.   For more information on that, check out ReachForce’s Funnelnomics.

With the right combination of automated either free or paid market intelligence tools, social media programs, conversation monitoring, and role-based data programs, you can weather today’s terrible economic conditions.  Would like to hear more about how your company is fairing today.

A few months ago I spoke at a Marketing Profs conference and had the good fortune to meet and listen to Dan Ariely, author of Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces that Shape our Decisions, discuss the paradoxical choices consumers often make.

Recently, Ariely spoke with the Marketing Subgroup of the Bootstrap Network on the topic of consumer behavior. Brian Massey of Conversion Sciences captured and posted a Podcast of the discussion. If you can suffer through the first few minutes of boring introductions, you’ll be treated to a very interesting discussion on the value of “free” and how it influences behavior.

Ariely claims that “free” is the Kryptonite that cripples our decision-making no matter how rational we think we are. He claims the “freemium” models that Web 2.0 sites use to lure audiences are not as effective as a discounted service. He argues that once free is introduced, that’s its perceived value.

Perhaps, but in the B2B world, there’s nothing like a free widget or product trial to capture visitors and contact information. It all depends on how you structure the offer. A wonderful example of this is HubSpot and their Website Grader tool. The allure of using the free Website Grader tool was enough to get me to give them my contact information. Once I used it to identify problems that needed solving, I was all too eager to buy the product to help me fix the problems.  Oh, and there’s also the issue of how I found Website Grader…giving away a free tool is great link bait – the most powerful SEO tactic I know.

For more predictably irrational fun, check out the Predictably Irrational Blog.