In this chapter, I didn’t really feel like David was talking to me. He gave great examples of a non-profit who used their website to spread their ideas and increase awareness as well as a large company who has policies and procedures to make sure all of their business units’ websites are aligned. And while I absolutely agree that content is key, I could not really relate to his case studies. Maybe I am just lucky that I work at a small company where I, as a marketer, am in charge of our website. I am amazed that I still meet marketers who work for much larger companies than ours and have no control over their website. I have to ask that company, “What is the goal of your website?” Because if the answer is to reach buyers, marketing should be the ones creating the content.

As I myself am heading towards a redesign I am asking the same question. We have so much content that we could put out there but the way we organize it varies based on our goals. Also something that David did not touch on is that great content leads to better SEO. So, if one of your goals is to improve SEO, should you put your best content behind forms? This is a battle I face everyday. Is it more important to get your content out there or know who is downloading it?

Next week we will be discussing chapters 10 and 11 on Building your Marketing and PR Plan and Online Thought Leadership.

Chapter 8 is full of great viral marketing case studies. The most interesting part, and David points out, most of these weren’t planned acts of marketing. Well maybe the GoldenPalace.com strategy of buying random things on eBay, hoping for some news pick up, was a bit planned. Sometimes it worked so maybe you can plan buzz that goes viral?

B2B Lead blogger and Viral VIP, Pam O’Neal Mickelson, also created buzz that went viral. Check out how she built a viral campaign around a simple video an engineer at NetQoS created. Pam – please jump in here – As an experienced viral marketer, are you now trying to create new ideas to build viral campaigns around or do you think these kinds of things just happen and you have to know when to jump on something?

Whether a viral opportunity happens to you or you create one of your own I think the most important thing to remember is to make sure you are doing everything you can to support and drive the “viral aspects” of the video or campaign. One of the case studies in this chapter was the Mentos exploding when dropped in Diet Coke. While neither brand created the video, Mentos embraced it and Diet Coke ignored it. Mentos leveraged the video to help boost their brand. So the lesson here – If people are talking about you or your brand online, don’t ignore it.

David does a good job of closing this chapter. I’d like to close with it as well.

“Viral marketing – having others tell your story for you – is one of the most exciting and powerful ways to reach your audiences. It’s not easy to harness the power, but with careful preparation when you are sitting on news and with clever ideas for what has the potential to create interest, any organization has the power to become famous on the Web.”

Do you know anyone who is not online? I even know an 87-year-old who uses eBay. The fact of the matter is that everyone is online. The question is – are they talking about you and do you know what they are saying? David Meerman Scott gives some great examples of how different companies responded to negative comments on forums and blogs. I think there are two great lessons to be learned from these examples:

1. You need to know what people, especially your customers, are saying about you
2. You need to respond swiftly and genuinely directly to your audience. Do not do what Sony BMG did and respond to bloggers by going on the radio, respond where your audience is, online.

Hopefully most of you are already using Google Alerts to help you monitor blogs and news stories but it will not catch everything. Here are some other monitoring tools you should check out:

1. search.twitter.com – you can search on any keyword, like your company name, to see who is tweeting about you
2. blogsearch.google.com – again you can search on any keyword and add an RSS feed of it to your Google Reader. Tip: you can exclude your own blog or website by adding -site:yourwebsite.com after the keyword. So if I want to see who is talking about ReachForce I would search: reachforce -site:theb2blead.com.

I have discussed this before on The B2B Lead, but you should also monitor an RSS feed of blogs and forums that are in your space. These are the most likely targets for your customers and prospects. Have someone in your company who can add value to the conversation be involved. This is not always easy, but can have great benefits.

The point is:

• Be involved online and know what people are saying about you
• If you see something negative, don’t go dark, respond to try to make it better and admit when you have done something wrong. Everyone appreciates an apology when it is genuine.
• You can gain credibility by having an in-house expert active on forums and blogs – remember no sales pitches

What have you found to be successful online. We would love to hear any success stories. Know of any good monitoring tools? Please share.

Stay tuned next week when we will be covering chapters 8 & 9 on going viral and content rich websites.

Let’s start from the top here.  Does everyone know what a podcast is?  If you do, skip the next paragraph.  If not, you need to know so keep reading.

“A podcast is simply audio content connected to an RSS feed.  The medium does not specifically require iPods although that’s how the word was derived.  You can listen to a podcast on an iPod (or any other MP3 player) or directly from your computer – no iPod required.”

Simply put, podcasts are another way to reach your audience.  Some people prefer to read information (whitepaper downloaders), some prefer to participate in events and other prefer to have access to information they can consume on their own time at their own pace.

Podcasts have become a viable option in our marketing toolkit.  David includes a few good ideas to help get you thinking about how you might use podcasts as a part of your marketing mix and I threw in a few ideas too.

• Customer service depts. can use podcasts to deliver “how to” information about the products a customer has bought
• Podcasts are great for marketing to a mobile/traveling audience.
• Podcasts can be lead generation offer options – “You’re 5 minutes away from learning…”
• Don’t forget to turn your webcasts into multiple podcasts for niche targeting
• Instead of writing another dreaded customer case study, consider interviewing them live and creating a podcast to post to your website.

According to David Meerman Scott, Press Releases are virtually dead having been replaced by News Releases to reach buyers directly. Here are David’s “The New Rules of News Releases:

• Don’t just send news releases when “big news” is happening; find good reasons to send them all the time.
• Instead of just targeting a handful of journalists, create news releases that appeal directly to your buyers.
• Write releases that are replete with keyword-rich copy.
• Include offers that compel consumers to respond to your release in some way.
• Place links in releases to deliver potential customers to landing pages on your Web site.
• Optimize news release delivery for searching and browsing.
• Add social media tags for Technorati, DIGG, and del.icio.us so your release will be found.
• Drive people into the sales process with news releases.”

You can check out what we have already discussed about Keyword Optimization for News Releases. News Releases are really just another way to put fresh content out there to help buyers find you.

Do you feel like you have made this switch yet or are you still writing press releases in hopes of being picked up by the media? All marketers feel pressure from upper management to drive more leads and bring in more buyers. Well done news releases could be a great tool for this, however, upper management are also the ones that want to see their name in print. I think news releases are the future, but a few press releases are good to keep everyone happy.

Does anyone have good ideas or examples of reasons to send out news releases to fulfill David’s first rule?

Next week we will be covering Ch. 6 &7.

How many B2BLead readers are bloggers? Do you have a corporate or company sponsored blog? If so, do you have set goals for the blog?

Chapter 4 is all about blogging. David (I feel like we are virtual friends now, so I’m referring to him by his first name) talks about the history of blogs and outlines a few different ways to use them. In this chapter David tells a story of Alacra, a company that creates online technology and services for financial institutions. The CEO of Alacra said and I absolutely echo the thought, “We didn’t know what would happen, but we wanted to try it.”

This week The B2B Lead turns a year old. In fact, we’re having a birthday party to celebrate. We’ll be sure to share the pictures later this week. Anyway, back to the book…

When we were putting together our ideas for what the B2BLead would be we knew we wanted a place where we could interact with customers and prospects about their day to day jobs as Marketers. This was not going to be a place for ReachForce promotion (although I do try and slip it in every once in awhile). Our goal was to serve up bite size tips and tricks that could be used in our real jobs.

Still not sure how this was going to increase ReachForce awareness or drive more leads, we jumped in with both feet. And much to my surprise, The B2B Lead has taken off. Here’s a few exciting things that have happened to us since launching the blog –

• We have connected with key industry influencers that we’d been trying to reach for over a year.
• We are able to engage with and leverage our partners via joint thought leadership
• One of our tips was picked up for MarketingProfs newsletter (we didn’t pay for this)
• A post about us was ranked #1 on Sphinn
• Provided us an opportunity to be seen as thought leaders in our industry
• As bloggers, we’re building out a Twitter following
• The B2B Lead was added to Guy Kawasaki’s Marketing Alltop list
• Through this book club, David Meerman Scott now knows who we are

In addition to the external PR, we felt like we’re putting great content out on The B2B Lead and we wanted to be able to leverage it in different ways. We’ve now also developed programs around repurposing the stuff out there. Here’s a few examples of what we’re doing.

• We use The B2B Lead content for our lead generation programs.
• We use blog content in our newsletter.
• The blog is now also integrated with other programs, both lead generation and PR.
• We now get net new leads every week from the blog.

Since we tend to share Tips on The B2B Lead, here are a few tips that have contributed to our success.

• Don’t use your blog as another version of your website or a sales pitch.
• Don’t just post boring press releases.
• Humanize your authors, provide some color around them, their experience, what they are going to contribute, etc.
• Good content will take you a long way.
• We try to post at least 3 times a week (usually more like 5 or 6). We don’t want people to forget about us.
• Linking is REALLY important.
• Set goals for the blog and stick to them.
• Don’t be everything to everyone. Know your audience and speak to their needs. It is better to have the right readers rather then just a lot of readers.

If you’ve got a blog, how are you using it? Any big successes you’d like to share?

So of course I have to talk about chapter 3 – Reaching Your Buyers Directly. As you know this is the foundation ReachForce was built on, targeting the right companies and reaching the right buyers, every time. Anyway, back to the book…

Know the Goals and Let the Content Drive Action – this is what I really want to talk about. “On the speaking circuits and via my blog, I am often asked to critique marketing programs, Web sites, and blogs. My typical response, ‘What’s the goal?’ often throws people off. It is amazing that so many marketers don’t have established goals for their marketing programs and for Web sites and blogs in particular.” This struck me for some reason. As B2B Marketers we are constantly creating, writing and inventing new content and new outlets for people to reach us all with the intent of building awareness and driving leads to revenue. This doesn’t necessarily mean goals for each outlet are the same.

We are about to do a ReachForce website update. Leigh Anne had just come back from SEO conference and was filled with great ideas on helping us stay focused on our goals at hand. As Leigh Anne and I discussed what we wanted to change and things we wished we could do with the site, she stopped me and asked – “What is the goal for our reachforce.com site?”

Is it to provide general information or are we trying to get people to download our best practice content or are we trying to get them to contact us directly? Navigation, page lay outs and landing pages would be created differently based on our intent and goal. For example, if our goal is to get people to call us, then we should have contact information on every page. If our goal is get people to download content via forms, then we should be creative with the way we continue to collect info. so we can use it to better qualify leads. We should also be sure to mention the resources we are offering on multiple pages.

We are still deciding what we want our overall goal to be with our site and how we are going to refresh it to meet these objectives. As Scott did, I’d like to close with, “Ultimately, when marketers focus on the same goals as the rest of the organization, we develop marketing programs that really deliver action and begin to contribute to the bottom line and command respect.” Ok, all you B2BLead readers out there, my guess is most of you manage some if not all of what happens on your corporate site. Do you have a goal for it? If so, what things are you incorporating to achieve that goal?

Next week we will be covering chapters 4 and 5.

In the first chapter of The New Rules of Marketing and PR, David Meerman Scott really lays the framework for the old school way of running marketing and PR. In case you have not yet received your book or didn’t get a chance to start reading, here are the old rules given by Scott:

The Old Rules of Marketing

• Marketing simply meant advertising (and branding).
• Advertising needed to appeal to the masses.
• Advertising relied on interrupting people to get them to pay attention to a message.
• Advertising was one-way: company-to-consumer.
• Advertising was exclusively about selling products.
• Advertising was based on campaigns that had a limited life.
• Creativity was deemed the most important component to advertising.
• It was more important for the ad agency to win advertising awards than for the client to win new customers.
• Advertising and PR were separate disciplines run by different people with separate goals, strategies and measurement criteria.

The Old Rules of PR

• The only way to get ink was through the media
• Companies communicated to journalists via press releases.
• Nobody saw the actual press releases except for a handful of reporters and editors.
• Companies had to have significant news before they were allowed to write a press release.
• Jargon was okay because the journalists all understood it.
• You weren’t supposed to send a release unless it included quotes from third parties, such as customers, analysts, and experts.
• The only way buyers would learn about the press release’s content was if the media wrote a story about it.
• The only way to measure the effectiveness of press releases was through “clip books,” which noted each time the media deigned to pick up a company’s release.
• PR and Marketing were separate disciplines run by different people with separate goals, strategies, and measurement techniques.

I’ll admit, I am really too young to remember the days of the old rules. Do any of you out there who have been doing this a while really think that your organization functioned like this? To me, smaller companies have always had to be renegade and with the advent of the web now really have the venue they have been waiting for.

Here are what Scott outlines as the new rules:

The New Rules of Marketing and PR

• Marketing is more than just advertising
• PR is for more than just a mainstream media audience.
• You are what you publish
• People want authenticity, not spin.
• People want participation, not propaganda
• Instead of causing one-way interruption, marketing is about delivering content at just the precise moment your audience needs it.
• Marketers must shift their thinking from main-stream marketing to the masses to a strategy of reaching vast numbers of underserved audiences via the Web.
• PR is not about your boss seeing your company on TV. It’s about your buyers seeing your company on the web.
• Marketing is not about your agency winning awards. It’s about your organization winning business.
• The internet has made public relations public again, after years of almost exclusive focus on media.
• Companies must drive people into the purchasing process with great online content.
• Blogs, podcasts, e-books, news releases, and other forms of online content let organizations communicate directly with buyers in a from they appreciate.
• On the Web, the lines between maketing and PR have blurred.

Although I would say I am far from old school, I can’t say I am still completely hip to all of the new rules. I hope that as a group we can learn from David Meerman Scott and from each other. Since the publishing of this book there have been even more advances and new technologies via the web which I hope we can help teach each other about. What do you hope to learn from reading this book and participating in the book club?

We started the ReachForce Book Club as a way to continue our relationship with our current customers. 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. If you are a ReachForce customer, you should expect to receive your book soon, if not already. If you are not a customer, click here to buy it online.

Our second book is The New Rules of Marketing and PR by David Meerman Scott. It promises to teach us “how to use news releases, blogs, podcasting, viral marketing & online media to reach buyers directly.” Each week, Leigh Anne 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. Next week we’ll be reading and chatting about chapters 1, 2 & 3.

Happy reading!

“…companies should always be looking to renovate the offering – in other words, don’t look to do new things, look to do more of what makes your products successful in the first place.”

I think this statement does a good job of summing up this chapter. Sergio Zyman gives some great reasons and examples to why we should focus on what we have and the reasons why our best customers buy from us before investing in innovation.

The one tip that really stood out for me was “Don’t Slash Prices”. As we are just wrapping up the end of the quarter, Sales teams are willing to go to the extremes to close business. Companies are willing to do everything they can to get those last couple of deals in and often slashing prices is at the top of the incentive list. Does the value of the offer change with the seasons? So why does the time of year determine how much a prospective customer pays?

Consider this – “Everything you do communicates something about your brand to your customers and prospective customers. Even your prices communicate something about your business”. So does that mean discounting the price is also discounting your value and brand? I think it might.

Zyman goes on to say, “Temporary price breaks tend to become permanent.” This is definitely true. Price breaks make it difficult for a customer to pay full price again and even more difficult for a Sales team to ask them to pay full price. So does this mean we have permanent discounted our value with this customer? Or does it just mean we have to work harder to prove our true value? I’m not sure on the answers to either of these questions but it makes me wonder…

I’ve gone off on a bit of tangent here, sorry. This chapter has lots of great ideas to consider if you are at the fork in the road trying to decide where to go next. Innovation seems to be the “in” thing but that doesn’t mean it’s the right decision for every business. I think the overall message here is, consider what you have and why your customers by from you before deciding to move on.

And that’s it. We have made it through our first ReachForce Book Club book. Thanks to everyone who joined in the conversation. Stay tuned to see what book we will be discussing next.