Fear Factor Direct Mail - B2B Marketing and Sales Tip #247
Friday, June 12th, 2009
I am always looking for ideas on how to stand out in the crowd, so when I saw this idea on two different blogs, I had to share it. In case you missed Dianna Huff or Drew McLellan sharing this interesting direct mail they received themselves, both were sent a FedEx package with chocolate covered grasshoppers inside.
The package said, “You’re a risk-taker, a dream-realizer. What’s left to do that you haven’t already done? Eat a grasshopper. They’re farm raised, covered in chocolate and rich in protein. So, not only will you be breaking boundaries, but you’ll be eating healthy, too.” A note was attached with the real promotion, “Entrepreneurs can change the world. Join the movement now! grasshopper.com/idea”
According to a Fox News video, a company in Needham, MA sent the grasshoppers to 5,000 “of the most influential people in the U.S.” in the hopes that these people would then talk about the company and its campaign.
Drew and Dianna seemed to have different takes on the success of the campaign.
Drew loved the campaign - Bottom line — it worked. 3-D mailings may cost a little more money — but they deliver big results when they are done well.
The folks at Grasshopper.com decided to send out 5,000 of the attention-hopping packages to entrepreneurs, bloggers, celebrities, journalists and customers. They spent 3 months assembling the list and made sure the packaging and cross promotion (Twitter, YouTube, bloggers, their website, etc.) were all in order.
This was a very well thought out and executed campaign. Bravo to the Grasshopper gang.
While Dianna seems to have mixed thoughts - So, the company got me and lots of other people to write about its campaign — which according to the Fox News video, was the company’s objective. But, it didn’t get me to buy — or even consider its service. Is the campaign a failure or success?
To me, 5,000 doesn’t seem to be a particularly targeted audience but it did seem to get the company the coverage they were looking for. After all, I didn’t even get the chocolate covered grasshoppers, and I am writing about them.
Obviously this campaign worked best because the name of the company is Grasshopper but the idea of a bold direct mail piece is possible for anyone. Something else to learn from the campaign is to not just focus direct mail on prospects. You might get more bang for your buck with bloggers and thought leaders.
Photo credit: Drew’s Marketing Minute
Twittering Like a Journalist - B2B Marketing and Sales Tip #246
Thursday, June 11th, 2009I came across a great post by Ann Handley on Mashable, “Everything I Need to Know About Twitter I Learned in J School.” She goes over 8 mantras she learned in journalism school and how they apply to Twitter:
1. Make every word count
In traditional news journalism, and on Twitter, you only have so much space. On Twitter, of course, it’s a mere 140 characters. As I learned in journalism school, writing short is a lot harder than it looks. It’s a lot more work to choose your words wisely, and be concise, than it is to ramble on luxuriously.
Keeping a tweet really short – like close to 85-100 characters – also makes your tweet more “Retweet Friendly,” since it allows a little wiggle room for forwarding.
2. Keep it simple
The best news reporters tell a story simply and clearly. Similarly, don’t try to cram too much information into a single tweet. On Twitter, less is often more.
Also: Link directly to blogs or other online sources, and always link to the full story, rather than trying to juice up page views by, for example, linking to the home page. Shorten URLs through bit.ly or similar services. Most Twitter clients will usually condense your links, but I like bit.ly’s rich click-through and retweet stats.
Finally, avoid the temptation to fit more into a tweet by the liberal use of abbreviations. Such shorthand might maximize your character count, but they make your tweet read like a teenager’s text message.
3. Provide context
News reporters do this by plugging in some of the back story on any given news item. On Twitter, offer context by using keywords and hashtags, when appropriate, so that readers can more easily get the gist of a conversation, thread, or topic.
4. Lead with the good stuff
In journalism, the “inverted pyramid” style places the most important information at the top of any story, and then the ensuing narrative explains and expands on it. In other words, the first paragraph should contain enough information to give the reader a solid overview of the entire story. Approach sharing links or information on Twitter in a similar manner, giving the strongest and most compelling bit in the tweet, and then link to the rest of the story elsewhere.
5. Write killer headlines
Headlines “sell” a news story or a blog post much like a great tweet invites a reader to click. Author tweets that are short, punchy, and are compelling, either because they tell the reader precisely what you’re offering (”How to…” or “27 Ways…”) or because they’re clever or funny.
This applies to so much for B2B marketers - subject lines, blog posts titles, Press Release headlines, etc.
6. Graphics expand on the story
A good image or graphic complements a news story. Similarly, a picture on Twitter tells a story with far more impact.
7. People make things interesting
News reporters often focus on how people are affected by a given situation or event. On Twitter, it’s also the people that keep it interesting. That means talking to (or “@ing”) folks liberally, as well as adopting a conversational tone and community spirit.
And this applies even when you are representing a brand. This can be hard for B2B Marketers to remember but never forget that people buy from people. Personal outreach from your brand makes people feel like they are really connecting to someone.
8. Consider the reader
Journalists spend a lot of time coming up with the right angle for a story. On Twitter, be similarly thoughtful in your approach. The immediacy of Twitter might tempt you to dash off a tweet with little forethought. But if you respect your audience of followers similar to the way journalists consider their readers, you’ll spend more time thinking about what to tweet, than you will actually doing it. Believe me, your followers will appreciate your efforts.
A good question to ask yourself before you tweet - “Will anyone care?” If it is what you ate for lunch, probably not. If you ate the best buger of your life, maybe so, of course not if all of your followers are vegitarian.
For examples of each mantra be sure to check out the full article.
Retweeting to Build Your Following and Your Brand - B2B Marketing and Sales Tip #245
Tuesday, June 9th, 2009Notice: If you are a professional Twitter user, you probably already know this tip so please take a minute to share your favorite Twitter tip with The B2B Lead followers.
Now for those just getting started on Twitter, here’s a simple tip on retweeting.
When you are just getting started on Twitter, building your following and having quality tweets are two of the biggest challenges. A great way to solve both is retweeting. See a great tweet? See something interesting worthy of sharing? Think that your followers would be interested in it, retweet it!
Proper Twitter etiquette dictates that you begin your tweet with RT followed by the original tweeters handle. Example: RT @ReachForce: Building a Sales Enablement Playbook Part 1 - http://tinyurl.com/qotz4f.
When you retweet someone else, they are likely to start following you and there is a good chance they will retweet you in the future. When you are retweeted, your message is now seen by a new audience also creating a situation where you could gain more followers and build your personal brand.
Looking for a specific topic to tweet about? Try searching for it on Twitter first. If it is a hot topic, you might see a few people with similar tweets. Be selective about who you retweet when building your lead generation Twitter brand. Think thought leaders in your industry, prospective customers, customers and partners. This will help with general awareness as well as help demostrate your participation and thoughts on the topic.
Repurposing Lead Generation Content You Already Have – Sales, This is a TIP for you too! - B2B Marketing and Sales Tip #242
Monday, June 1st, 2009Creating new content on a regular basis is tough and very time consuming. Here at ReachForce with almost everything we create we create a plan on how we are going to make use of the content in as many places as possible. Things like converting eBooks or whitepapers into blog posts and vice versa or using surveys for lead information gathering as well as trend mapping.
Well, nurture marketers and sales teams out there here’s a GREAT idea! I got an email from an Account Executive at MarketBright (see his picture below) that simply invited me to visit the MarketBright blog. Then he went on to list a few of the most popular posts. I thought this was brilliant. He wasn’t trying to sell me anything, well maybe he was in the last paragraph but it was subtle. He was just letting me know they had a resource I may be interested in. No customization was needed, just a simple introduction and a list of the resources. Easy as pie.
Here’s what the email looked like –
Ok, I must admit I think the picture is a little cheesy. But it did make me giggle so I guess it worked, it caught my attention. But otherwise, his hook worked. Now I’m sure with the MarketBright email tracking, Jon was able to tell what I was interested in and now he knows what to follow up with next.
If you have a blog, steal some content from there. Big change your prospects missed it the first time it went out. If you don’t have a blog, pull out highlights from eBooks, whitepapers, webcasts, basically anything else you have and put together an email that links back to each of these.
I’m stealing this idea and going to do something like this for our pipeline nurturing program. No selling from me, just trying to be resourceful for our decision makers and help encourage further interaction. Jon, your email worked. You caught my attention and I acted. Thank you for the great idea.
Creating a Personal Background on Twitter - B2B Marketing and Sales Tip #239
Tuesday, May 26th, 2009Being a somewhat typical marketer, I pay attention to the look and feel of everything we do. I believe that a cohesive look for our brand is essential because we run so many integrated marketing programs. I came across a great post on Mashable, HOW TO: Create Custom Twitter Backgrounds by Ben Par. The post goes into why you would want a custom background and examples of some great ones but to me the best part is a list of tools to help you create your own:
- MyTweetSpace: MyTweetSpace is one of the simplest ways to create a Twitter background with minimal effort. It allows users to create badges, add graphics, play with text, and more to create elegant backgrounds and left-hand text columns. You can even log in with Twitter and MyTweetSpace will automatically update your background.
- TwitterBacks: This website provides a set of templates perfect for creating your ideal Twitter background. The templates come in PSD (Photoshop) form. In fact, my Twitter account utilizes a TwitterBack template as the basis for my design. Can you guess which one?
- TweetStyle: TweetStyle offers free background templates, custom Twitter backgrounds, and a few useful blog posts on the subject of the backdrop.
- Free Twitter Designer: This handle little app provides an easy-to-use image editor to help you create a professional-looking theme.
- TwitBacks: This is another tool for creating backgrounds. This one specializes in left-hand column-based backgrounds.
- TwitterGallery: TwitterGallery is a directory of themes based on color and category. You can even click the “install” button under any theme, log into Twitter, and poof!…your background is ready.
- Peekr: If you stumble across a great Twitter background and want to take a quick look at it in its pure form, the Peekr bookmarklet is the way to go. Click on the bookmarklet once to show only the background, and press it again to bring everything back to normal.
One tip I would add is to be sure to change your design colors to match your new background. When you are in your Twitter account, click on settings and then change design colors. You can change your background, text, links, sidebar and sidebar border to match your new background.
We have already done this for the ReachForce twitter page but I can’t wait to get started on my own personal background.
Lose Control of Your Marketing - ReachForce Book Club
Monday, May 18th, 2009Lose Control of Your Marketing is the latest eBook from David Meerman Scott. It is mostly composed of excerpts from his new book World Wide Rave. Readers of The B2B Lead already know I am a huge fan of Mr. Scott, especially his book, The New Rules of Marketing and PR. However, the ideas presented in this eBook were a little hard for me to accept whole-heartedly. As the name suggests, he encourages marketers to take down any barriers to their content and lose control to allow their ideas/content to spread. As a bit of a control freak and one who lives by the mantra that everything marketing does must be measured, I had a bit of an internal struggle while reading this eBook.
According to David, You need to think in terms of spreading ideas, not generating leads. A World Wide Rave gets the word out to thousands or even millions of potential customers. But only if you make your information easy to find and consume.
One of the most difficult ideas for me to accept is the idea that sales leads are the wrong goal. Isn’t my number one goal as a marketer to provide qualified leads to Sales? David’s most compelling argument is that he has seen content downloads multiply by as much as a factor of 50 when a registration form was taken off. I don’t know that I could ever take down every form on my website, but it is worth a shot on an eBook or two, just as a test.
The last part of the eBook focuses on how organizations should create a social media policy for its employees. At ReachForce we are very open to allowing all employees to participate in social media, but if you are trying to create your own social media guidelines, David gives some great tips.
Helpful hint: if you are strapped for time you can probably skip pages 16-21. And if you really don’t have time to read this eBook at all, let me leave you with David’s main point: The biggest requirement is that you change your behavior, so let me remind you of the most important strategies for successful marketing in a world of social media:
- Stop obsessing over the old measurements of sales leads and marketing ROI.
- Make your valuable online content free and registration-less.
- Give away lots of good information (videos, photos, data, graphs, audio, blogs, e-books, and the like) to enthusiastic or curious people interested in your products and services.
- Encourage an organizational culture of sharing.
Market Like it’s 1999 - B2B Marketing and Sales Tip #237
Thursday, May 14th, 2009Remember 1999? The tech bubble had yet to burst, times were good and our biggest worry was Y2K. Back then marketers had a positive attitude and spent time tailoring messages to their audience around how the benefits of their product would help the prospect.
We all know that times have been tough this year, we don’t need to be reminded in every email, direct mail, blog post and webinar invitation we get. If I want to be reminded, I just look at my stock portfolio :(. This is a plea to all marketers out there, STOP talking about the recession. Don’t remind your audience that their budgets have been cut or that they are now a man down.
If your prospects have had budget cuts and layoffs, there is no need to remind them of the current economic state; they live with the reminder every day. Instead, now is the time to focus on the positives.
Here are some reasons why you should NOT highlight the recession in your next marketing message:
- Stand out from the crowd. If you are sending out the same ways to recession-proof your X, as everyone else, your message will be lost. I automatically delete any email or webinar invite I get that has the word recession or economy in it.
- You are subtly reminding your prospects that their budgets are shrinking and that they should be spending less. FYI- your goal is to sell them something meaning you want them to spend more.
- Now is the time to really highlight how you are going to save your prospects time and money. Make them feel like your product is the one thing that cannot be cut from the budget.
- Perception is reality. As long as the media and we as marketers continue to propagate the idea that we are in a recession, then we will be in one. We can all do our part to be more positive.
My point is that we all know we are in a recession and although things are beginning to look up, we don’t need every marketing message to remind us of our budget cuts and staff losses.
Easy Newsletter Content - B2B Marketing and Sales Tip #232
Tuesday, May 5th, 2009Newsletters have come a long way. They have evolved from printed pieces that were once mailed to e-Newsletters of many different flavors. Some use newsletters to communicate with their customer base, some use them to grow their in-house database and some use them as a promotion vehicle for upcoming events, content or announcements. If you’re considering putting together a newsletter, here’s a few tips to keep in mind as you putting together your program plans and goals.
- Repurpose content you already have - Here at ReachForce we send out a monthly newsletter of the best B2B Lead tips from the last month. We live in a busy world and we realize that people can’t stop by everyday and some people just prefer to have the content delivered to their inbox so we give them highlights once a month. It seems to work, our newsletter list grows by 10% every month.
- Event invitations and news announcements - Let them know what are you up to – whether it be a webinar you’re hosting or a live event your sponsoring and exhibiting at. Newsletters are a great way to get the word out about where you’ll be.
- News – make sure everyone knows when you’ve released a new version of your product. Remember to highlight benefits not product features. Also be sure to include a call to action to drive interest for cross selling and upselling opportunities as well as new customer interest.
- Customer case studies – pick 1 and highlight your results. Be sure to include a link to the full case study on your website.
- Want to know what your prospects or customers are thinking? Ask them in a quick poll or survey. People like giving their opinion and this says you’re interested in it. You can post the result in the next newsletter.
- Social networks or a blog? Are you out there? Do they know where to find you? Here’s a great place to spread the word.
- Don’t make it all about you. The majority of the content should be useful and compelling to the reader and not a company promo. Otherwise, you risk an increase in unsubscribes.
- Don’t forget the newsletter sign up on your website, put it in as many places as it makes sense. Remember this is helping grow your inhouse list for lead generation.
Bottom line is whatever you decide to do with your newsletter, the goal is to keep communicating!
Sales - Here is How to “Work” Your Data, Love Marketing
Monday, May 4th, 2009Dear Sales,
Now that we’re on the same page about the data, let’s talk specifics on how to make this happen.
- You know that we work hard to segment the data before it goes into campaigns, so first, get to know how we segment things. Talk to us, find out why we do things the way we do and who gets batched together. Seeing the world the way we do will help you better understand why certain types of contacts are getting certain messages and will help you better reach out to and tailor your messages to those contacts. We are open to your ideas too. You know your prospects better than we do. Help us to help you.
- Get to know the companies in your database, ask for help from Sales Operations or export a report of your prospects. Spend time learning about each company on your list, what do they do, who do they sell to, what events do they attend, make yourself an expert on them so that when you talk to them they feel like you really do know them and their pain points. Make notes in the record so that you don’t lose track of this valuable information.
- Do you use mail merge fields in your emails or letters? If so, then really spend some time cleaning up the names of prospects and their companies. Make sure people aren’t listed like this: “John NO LONGER THERE Smith” or “Jane SHE IS A REAL JERK Doe” – there is a notes section in your CRM, use it!
- If you’re using salesforce.com, set up views that capture activity, for instance, if your marketing automation tool integrates and marks activity on prospect records, set up a view where you can see that kind of activity. Keep tabs on what people are doing so that you can reach out to those active prospects.
These are just ideas, but the idea is that if you are truly in the ‘weeds’ of the data, you’ll get a good handle on what you own, who you’re calling and hopefully begin seeing some great results!
Love,
Marketing
Targeting Someone Other Than the Cs and VPs - B2B Marketing and Sales Tip #229
Monday, April 27th, 2009By now you know that there is more than one person involved in a B2B buying decision. The DMU (decision making unit) typically consists of the end user, key influencers, management, a financial buyer and others that have their hands in the decision to buy or not to buy.
It’s pretty easy to find the management decision makers with just a little research, but what about the others? Here’s a few tips to help you identify and build out lead generation programs for those other than the Cs and VPs.
- Where have you been winning? This is always a good place to start. Hopefully your sales team helped you out a little here and included notes about everyone they talked to in the buying process. If so, are you able to define their roles? If not, don’t despair, you’re not alone and this is not the end of the road for you.
- Profile your best customers – talk to your best customer implementation team, talk to the sales person that sold the deal and if possible interview a few customers to better understand who all was involved in the decision to buy.
- Once you have your roles defined, do you have these people in your leads database? Remember you are matching roles, not just titles. If so, tag them with a role identity. If you’re missing roles, call ReachForce, we can help you fill in the gaps. (Sorry for the shameless promotion…sometimes it just happens…)
- You’re finally ready to start marketing to these people. You are now able to build out very targeted programs focusing on key influencer and end user issues. Here’s an example –
- Nurture – not all buyers are ready to buy at the same time so be sure you are nurturing all of your prospects as well as those involved in a sales cycle. Here’s a few ideas for offers for your nurturing programs -
- Email analyst reports supporting the pain and possible solutions
- Email customer case studies
- Invite to webcasts
- Be sure to share any new content you roll out (whitepapers, eBooks, etc.)
For best results, I recommend you engage with your sales team before launching your newly segmented programs and ensure they are onboard to provide guidance and feedback throughout the process. To execute a healthy, ROI generating program it’s important to map out each step of the building process taking into consideration budget, timing and appropriate follow up. Here’s a template if you need help.
