Five B2B MarCom Strategies to Increase Sales Now - ReachForce Book Club
Thursday, November 6th, 2008In this inspiring and award-winning eBook, Dianna Huff lays out five strategies that all B2B Marketers should be employing and, as the title suggests, will help drive sales and ultimately revenue. During these uncertain times, marketers need to prove their worth and tie their activities directly to increasing the bottom line.
DISCLAIMER: This blog post in no way replaces actually reading the eBook. This is a great one, completely devoid of self-promotion and full of great tips. Not to mention, it is a quick read.
I don’t want to dilute or regurgitate what Dianna wrote, but I do want to highlight some of the best tips.
“Strategy #2: Determine Your Campaign Objectives Before You Start Writing.” I have always been a planner and someone who thinks a project through to the end before starting. I often have to ask other members of my team, “Why are we doing this? What is the ultimate goal?” The course of action you take to update your collateral, re-do your website or create a new email campaign should be dramatically influenced by your goals. Your boss may be pushing you to get it out the door as fast as possible but without planning and execution tied to specific objectives, results will suffer. Check out pages 7 and 8 for questions to ask before you start.
“Strategy #5: Focus on Your Customer, Not on Your Company.” Dianna is not the first and definitely not the last to say this. However, it is amazing how few companies actually employ this strategy. No one likes talking to someone who only talks about themselves, so why do companies think that their buyers want to read about the company’s latest award, product release features or “unmatched customer service?” Every buyer wants to know, “What’s in it for me?,” so tell them. Dianna gives great tips on what you should be telling your buyers on pages 16 and 17.
I am not giving away anymore, but I hope I have given you enough of a taste to entice you to read the entire eBook. And if you don’t trust me, Five B2B MarCom Strategies to Increase Sales Now just won a platinum award from the MarCom Creative Awards
Dianna Huff is principal of DH Communications, Inc. and is the author of the B2B MarCom Writer Blog.
Our New President, Barack Obama - Marketer of the Year
Wednesday, November 5th, 2008Did you know that our new President Barack Obama was named Marketer of the Year 2008? Last month, Advertising Age named Barack Obama “Marketer of the Year”. Congratulations, on both counts. It doesn’t matter if you voted Republican or Democrat this year; I think we can all agree Barack Obama took campaigning to a whole new level. As an independent first time voter, I was impressed as a Marketer by the campaign overall. The dimensions of marketing they put to use stretched my marketing brain. With the use of direct marketing, event marketing, online marketing and new media the Obama team understood the need to reach out to voters as individuals – demographics and targeting were central to the campaign.
Obama and his team understood their target demographic/markets and how to use a mix of multi touch, multi level and multimedia platforms to reach these people where they were already hanging out. By using video game ads, Twitter, an active online community, and a list of other marketing vehicles, the Obama marketing team understood the importance of motivating the younger demographics and using multiple mediums that worked for them.
B2B Marketers take note. Our new President has something to say about reaching the right audiences with the right kinds of messages through the right vehicles. Below is a list a few places you can find Barack Obama marketing. Are you there for your business and what lessons can we learn from the reach created by his campaign?
Email marketing
- event based - I would receive text messages and emails while Obama was at an event or debate
- 1:1 with key players - email messages from Barack, Michelle Obama and Joe Biden - For example, I got a message from Michelle Obama reminding me it was the last day to give money to the campaign.
Community – currently over 1 million members. Through the community supporters can:
- find information about local events or groups
- connect with other supporters
- share information or real-life stories
- donate to the campaign
PPC – 14% of Barack Obama’s online traffic in August 2008 came from paid search
New Media – Barack Obama is out there, are you?
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Polls are showing more young voters have registered to vote than ever before. I have no doubt that Obama and his team’s approach to reach them drove this involvement.
Thank you President Obama. You are proof that targeted marketing does drive real results…oh, and I’m sure your messages and positions on the issues helped too.
Customer Experience Tips for Indexing Relationship Metrics to Find, Keep and Grow More Customers - B2B Marketing and Sales Tip #168
Monday, November 3rd, 2008My Granddad used to say, when times are tough hang on to those that love you. Is the same true for tough economic times and B2B relationship marketing?
Your market is fundamentally made up of three types of targets. Customers you have, those you’ve lost, and potential accounts who – so far – have decided to do business elsewhere.
This is the first of a serial discussion (please join in) about measuring and connecting some specific customer experience management dots for minimizing customer churn, growing key accounts and identifying new revenue opportunities with companies that share common profiles with those with whom you do well.
Over the decades I’ve devised and managed dozens of customer retention programs. As a deliberate marketing proponent I was an enthusiastic Net Promoter adopter because of its implied relationship with corporate growth and its sheer simplicity – something very appealing when trying to achieve internal buy-in for major (sometimes costly) customer experience initiatives.
But in times like these where the outcome of a company’s customer experience strategy can make or break quarterly revenue plans, a one dimensional measurement such as NPS may help to know how many loyal customers there are, but isn’t very good for knowing about problems or –more importantly– how to fix them.
So while I love the idea of NPS as a simple advocacy index (as well as the role it’s had on increasing the importance business owners now place on these types of marketing metrics) I’ve found it to be just one of the many dots that need connecting to drive revenue growth. The most common mistake in the B2B world today is confusing loyal customers with satisfied customers.
The difference between satisfied customers and loyal customers is distinctly a matter of emotion. And while metrics dealing with both are very different and have unique implications – they are interdependent as two halves – quantifiable (satisfied) – and subjective (loyal) of the complete customer relationship picture.
This means customer feedback must be secured, structured, analyzed and acted upon in both concrete and abstract formats. To this end I have developed an arsenal of best practices that can be used for the following:
- Optimize the flow of information and feedback that captures both quantifiable and emotional responses to “customer experience” surveys.
- Analytical methodology for connecting and measuring quantifiable and emotional feedback to determine a “CEI,” or Customer Experience Index for each customer on your list.
- Templates and guides for using CEI scores to craft short, mid and long term account plans for retention, up-selling and cross-selling.
- Templates and guides for using highest CEI scores to locate new prospects using rule based company profiling and role-based targeting.
- Templates and guides for using lowest CEI scores to plan and deliver action plans aimed at reshaping customer attitudes and opinions
Over the next few weeks my blog posts will address these subjects one-by-one. Again, I’d really appreciate your feedback as we go.
Rock Your Tchotkes - B2B Marketing and Sales Tip #167
Friday, October 31st, 2008Getting 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:
- 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.
- 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.
- 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?
LinkedIn Adds Applications - B2B Marketing and Sales Tip #166
Thursday, October 30th, 2008New 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?
ReachForce Book Club - Great B2B Marketing eBooks
Thursday, October 30th, 2008We 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!
The Most Important Question Salespeople Should Ask Themselves - B2B Marketing and Sales Tip #165
Tuesday, October 28th, 2008Another 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.”
Dirty Data Keeping You Up at Night? - B2B Marketing and Sales Tip #164
Monday, October 27th, 2008A 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.
Turn Web Analytics Into Valuable Prospect Data - B2B Marketing and Sales Tip #163
Friday, October 24th, 2008Web 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:
- What did the visitors from those sources do? Download a white paper, watch a video, or just look at our Careers page?
- 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.
How to use LinkedIn Answers in Marketing- B2B Marketing and Sales Tip #162
Thursday, October 23rd, 2008Hopefully 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?
