Social Media Leading Questions
Thursday, June 19th, 2008Social Media is one of the hottest topics in B2B Marketing right now. I interviewed a variety of marketers at MarketingProfs B2B Forum. Check out this video to see what marketers from Marketo, HubSpot, Manticore, Enspire Learning and IDC have to say. See how they answered the following questions:
- Do you participate in social media both personally and professionally?
- How do you think social media is changing B2B PR strategies?
How would you answer those questions?
12 Ways to Turn 300 Webinar Attendees Into 3,000+ Part II - B2B Marketing and Sales Tip #107
Thursday, June 19th, 2008In the first half of the B2B Lead blog series on 12 Ways to Turn 300 Webinar Attendees Into 3,000+, I shared 6 tips for getting the most out of your webinar. I recommended that you start by getting into the right mindset. It is important to realize that webinars are just another part of “the conversation” you are having with your customers and the community as a whole. Think about using them as a way to keep the relationship alive, build a community of followers, to spark group discussions or change the way people think about an issue.
In today’s post covering tips 7-12, I’m going way out on a limb to suggest some other cutting-edge practices that a new generation of B2B marketers are using.
7. Turn your webinar into a twebinar –a webinar and Twitter mash-up where conversations take place in real-time before, during and after the webinar, on Twitter. Twitter is a great way to spread the word before the day of the webinar, and an even better way to facilitate Q&A or capture suggestions during and afterward.
8. Don’t wait to reach out and engage with registered attendees. Contact those who registered early to offer more information and continue the conversation. Some ideas for this include sharing a white paper on a relevant topic, distributing event materials or research findings. Bulldog Solutions claims that this will enable you to engage with 10 % of the registrants before the webinar takes place.
9. Pick one core slide that is most intriguing or highlights your core content. Draft a few soundbites around the slide and excerpt the content for a Podcast. Embed the slide image and podcast in a press release or on your community site. Use this to market the archived or “on-demand” version of the webinar.
10. Don’t forget to promote your webinar series via all of the programs you are normally producing including: trade shows, press releases, PPC search engine ads, web pages including your home page, community, blog and customer support pages.
11. Continue the conversation on your blog by using it for Q&A. If your material is good, the Q&A segment can produce lots of great content. Take the conversation to your Community area to show prospects all of the materials they can find there. This will help you keep a loyal audience.
12. It’s officially the “Remix Era,” so take the materials you developed for the webinar, remix them and post where appropriate. Issue a press release with highlights embedded. Transcribe and post the content as a contributed article on Hub pages or Scribd. Syndicate the archived event on sites like On24.
I’m really interested to hear what you have found to be successful on the Webinar marketing front. Is a twebinar really effective? Do attendees really convert to blog readers? Can you effectively engage with registrants before they attend the Webinar? Chime in with your thoughts.
Crossing the Chasm by Geoffrey Moore - ReachForce Book Club
Wednesday, June 18th, 2008This chapter in the book couldn’t have come up at a better time! Tonight I’m going to see Geoffrey Moore speak at a Texchange event here in Austin, TX. I hear he’s got a new book coming out and he’s going to be previewing it tonight. I’ll be sure to share anything interesting with The B2B Lead readers later this week.
Now on with Crossing the Chasm - I’m guessing most of you have read this book, probably back in the late ‘90s. Ten plus years later we as Marketers are still challenged with crossing the chasm from early adopters to more mass markets.
If you’re working a start up, make sure you read this chapter. As start up Marketers we must remember that the marketing tactics and strategies we used to acquire our initial customers may not work as well for the majority of our audience.
We do everything we can to get these first customers in the door and ensuring they are happy. But this isn’t a strategy for growing into the mass markets. As Marketers we must analyze what is working with these lighthouse customers and use this to figure out our real market.
Here’s a piece from the book I thought was worth sharing, a little something for all of us to think about as we are moving into mass markets or as we are considering a new vertical or market segment.
“In the context of this book, the work marketing means taking actions to create, grow, maintain, or defend real markets, not to create illusions. For high tech organizations that real market is defined as
- a set of actual or potential customers
- for a given set of products or services
- who have a common set of needs or wants, and
- who reference each other when making a buying decision”
I think this is a good basic definition of marketing and a great list of guidelines for us to consider as we are putting together programs for our audiences.
Anyone else have anything that really stood out?
Leading Questions from MarketingProfs B2B Forum 2008
Tuesday, June 17th, 2008When I attended MarketingProfs B2B Forum 2008 in Boston last week, I took along my flipcam to ask leading marketers some leading questions. I plan to share my findings with you over my next few posts. I interviewed attendees and sponsors to find out their views on the conference and several B2B Marketing hot topics.
To start things off, I asked, “What was the best thing you have learned at MarketingProfs B2B Forum 2008?” Watch the short video below to see the answers and you might just learn something yourself.
I also interviewed several of the sponsors to find out what is the biggest pain point they solve for B2B Marketers. Here are the responses from Marketo, Manticore and HubSpot:
Although I didn’t get a chance to get to interview them all, other great sponsors included AG Salesworks, Eloqua, Business.com, Aquent, Boston Business Journal, Emma, The Kern Organization, Near Time, NowSpeed Marketing, UnisFair, VisitorTrack and Vtrenz.
Using Sales Wins Analysis for Focused Lead Generation - B2B Marketing and Sales Tip #106
Monday, June 16th, 2008Do you know your best customers? Can you easily identify your sweet spot-the vertical markets in which you sell the most or the fastest? Are there other business buyers in your sweet spot that you should be targeting? If you can’t answer these questions but wish you could, follow the five steps below to gain insight into your sales funnel.
Five Steps to Effective Laser-Targeted Lead Generation Using Sales Win Analysis
The following five-step process gives you a roadmap for fast and efficient Sales Wins Analysis. By following this path, you will be able to eliminate false starts and quickly identify top performing vertical markets so that you can execute laser focused programs that produce a higher response rate, more sales conversions and faster pipeline velocity.
Step 1: Review and categorize the opportunities in your Marketing and Sales pipeline.
Effective Sales Wins Analysis begins with a thorough review of your Marketing and Sales pipeline including open opportunities and closed deals from current and previous years. By analyzing both the size of the deals, as well as the velocity of those deals as they move through the pipeline, and categorizing those deals into distinct market sectors, you can begin to identify markets that are producing the most revenue for your organization. To get started, compile customer account data from your CRM system and build a data model that answers the following questions:
- In which vertical market segments am I closing the most deals?
- In which vertical market segments are deals closing the fastest?
- What other vertical market segments share similar characteristics?
Step 2: Build a profile of your top accounts.
After identifying the most lucrative target markets for your product or service, you will want to discover additional prospect accounts in those markets with characteristics that are similar to your best buyers. These prospects will undoubtedly have the highest propensity to buy from you, so target your Lead Generation programs at this group first. Consider the following when building your profile:
Qualification Criteria: Profile your best customers to define a set of three to five common characteristics that will serve as qualifying criteria for identifying new prospects. Look at company revenues, locations, number of employees and other easy to find data. Do most of your customers fall into the Fortune 1000-size range? Are more deals closing faster in the Small and Medium-size business sector? Is the number of employees a critical success factor? Are there key trends you can identify in certain industries that are driving the need for your product? For example, you may find that you close more deals quickly with organizations that have revenue greater than $500,000,000 USD and global operations with a minimum of five locations. If so, use these as minimum qualification criteria for selecting your new prospects in your best vertical markets. Then make sure you capture this type of data for all new leads so that you can better qualify the leads you provide to Sales.
The Customer Buy Cycle: Next, map the buy cycle for your best customers to identify and describe the roles and responsibilities for the decision-maker, economic buyer, end-user, and other key players in the buying process. The number of roles depends upon the number of people typically involved in the buying process. You’ll want to understand their roles both in the buying cycle and within the organization. Make sure you phone screen a sample of these targets to understand the responsibilities for each of your buyers. This will give you the insight to produce high impact Marketing messages and a strong call to action for your multi-modal Marketing campaigns.
Step 3: Identify additional target accounts in your top markets.
You now have a blueprint of the best possible prospects for your business. Apply that blueprint to the universe of buying organizations in your top vertical markets to hand pick the best possible targets for your Direct Marketing campaigns. While these companies have not yet purchased from you, they share many of the same characteristics of your best customers, and therefore will likely have a higher propensity to purchase your products or services.
Step 4: Conduct Contact Discovery to identify the right buyers in your target accounts.
With your target Accounts list compiled, you’ll need to identify prospects in the right roles within these companies. Make sure you verify more than just contact information and titles. To ensure you are getting to the right buyers as quickly as possible, identify your prospective buyers by their role in the organization and more importantly the buying process. Survey a sample of your contacts on their pain points, decision drivers, triggers, and trusted information sources. Gather as much information as you need to capture your prospects’ attention and communicate your value to them.
Step 5: Execute a multi-modal marketing campaign to deliver the right message to the right buyers.
Multi-modal Direct Marketing involves a carefully executed campaign that delivers targeted messages to buyers using their preferred means of communication. Not all buyers like to receive product information in precisely the same way, so it’s best to tailor your messages based on your buyers’ preferences. In fact, a recent Marketing Sherpa research project surveying 3000 IT buyers and vendors demonstrated that B2B Decision-makers or Executive-level buyers prefer to learn more about products via Webinars, whereas Contributors or End-users prefer white papers. Map out and execute your multi-modal campaign focusing on key vertical pain points with messages that appeal to each of your target roles. Start with an offer that requires a low commitment to respond like a white paper download and work your way up to a more involved call to action such as a product demo.
Ongoing Marketing and Sales Pipeline Monitoring
With this five-step process for Sales Win analysis, you’ll be able to laser-target your Lead Generation programs to produce more impressive Marketing metrics, align your demand generation programs with Sales, and improve your funnel efficiency by driving greater revenue faster. Keep in mind, however, that just as customers and markets evolve, your Marketing programs must transform accordingly. This is why it is important to conduct Sales Wins Analysis at least quarterly so that you can monitor your pipeline closely to uncover new opportunities and spot trends. Maintaining visibility into your Marketing and Sales funnel will give you the insight you need to boost Marketing results and revenue.
All of this sound a bit daunting? No worries, check out our Insight Lite product on the salesforce.com AppExchange:
Or Schedule a Demonstration of ReachForce Insight Pro version and analyze not only your customer win data but also in funnel opportunities for trends.
Airline Charges By Weight and We’re Not Talking Luggage - Marketing WTF?
Friday, June 13th, 2008Here’s a clever advertising campaign produced by Philadelphia Media Holdings, publishers of The Philadelphia Inquirer and Philadelphia Daily News, and the Gyro ad agency.
http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2008/06/06/ap5090444.html
Readers of those papers were treated to ads for a new airline called Derrie-Air, which purportedly charges passengers by the pound. Apparently, the goal for these faux ads was to “demonstrate the power of our brands in generating awareness and generating traffic for our advertisers, and put a smile on people’s faces.” Sadly, I’m not sure if even this clever creative can save today’s ailing newspapers.
How To Drive Your Competition Crazy by Guy Kawasaki- ReachForce Book Club
Friday, June 13th, 2008In this chapter Guy Kawasaki uses some of his own great experiences (as well as other well known marketing moves made by companies we all know) to outline 11 ideas for driving your competition crazy. I’ve highlighted a few here for you.
1. First Things First: Know Thyself – Ask yourself these questions:
- What business are we really in?
- Where do you see your business in 5, 10, 20 and 50 years?
- If prospects don’t buy from you, from whom do they buy?
It’s important to keep these things in mind as we are building our strategies to drive our competitors crazy. Remember not to lose focus by trying to be everything to everyone.
2. Next Step: Know Thy Customer – A couple of more good questions to ask yourself:
- Who is using your product?
- How are products in your category used by customers?
- Are regulations or societal pressures changing your marketplace?
There are also some recommendations on how to go about getting to know your customers on page 152, check them out.
3. Know Thy Enemy – Ways to Get to Know Them (only sharing a few here, check out the rest on page 153 and 154):
- Become a customer – if possible, this is a great idea. This way you get exposure to how they treat their customers as well as any new product/service information.
- Talk to your competitor’s customers - This can do nothing but help you figure out ways to drive your competitor crazy. When talking to your competitors’ customers always remember you are representing your own company too.
- Attend trade shows and meetings – companies use events to announce new strategic direction, new products and customer wins.
4. Focus on Customers – “The best way to drive your competition crazy is to make your customers happy.” Enough said.
5. Concentrate on a Decisive Point – Find a Niche or Provide Alternatives
More great examples here on pages 156 and 157.
6. Turn Customers in Evangelists –
- Create a cause – Evangelists need something to believe in.
- Find the Right People – Go to the end users of your products not executive management, they’ll help spread your word much faster!
- Don’t Forget Employees – All employees should be Evangelists.
Don’t stop here, go back to your book and check out the remainder of the list. This one was a quick read, great ideas we should all consider when building out our lead generation programs.
Any of Kawasaki’s other ideas stand out for you?
Be sure to check out Kawasaki’s latest project, Alltop. And don’t forget to look for The B2B Lead on marketing.alltop.com!
12 Ways to Turn 300 Webinar Attendees Into 3,000+ Part I - B2B Marketing and Sales Tip #105
Thursday, June 12th, 2008A Roadmap for Webinars in a Web 2.0 World
This week’s Marketing Profs B2B Forum has been an enlightening experience. Not only have I picked up a few great social media ideas and techniques (thank you Erickson Barnett), but I’ve started to shift the way I think about the role of traditional Marketing techniques in our Web 2.0 world. In this case, I’m referring to Webinars–that old staple of lead generation for B2B Marketers.
So, as I prepared for my presentation on Webinars in a Web 2.0 world, I came up with a list of tips for producing and promoting webinars or really any form of educational content. Thought I’d share them with you in a 2 part post. Here are the first 6 tips. Feel free to chime in with any others that I missed.
- Start by getting into the right mindset to make the most of your webinar. It is important to realize that webinars are just another part of “the conversation” you are having with your customers and the community as a whole. So stop thinking about marketing them like an event. Think about using them as a way to keep the relationship alive, build a community of followers, to spark group discussions or change the way people think about an issue.
- Next, package the webinar to make promoting it more successful. You might consider breaking it into a series of webinars to be held every 6 weeks to keep your followers interested in what you have to say. Produce complimentary content such as white papers, assessments, tools, etc. that you can email to registrants.
- When you draft the promotional copy, remember to write for your target personae. Use simple, but compelling language. Drive home the WIIFM (What’s In It for Me) message. NOTE: You should also use the right words in your copy. Use Google Trends to see which terms your audience is using to search. For example: the word “webcast” is searched for far more often than the word “webinar.”
- Here’s another important tip for packaging your webinar. Post your slides prior to the day of the webinar so people will have a good idea of the content you will cover. Several years ago, I engaged in a survey with Webtorials to assess the effectiveness of podcasts vs. webinars and understand why – for my company—customers responded better to webinars. The key: the slides. Funny, how people love to hate PowerPoint, but when it came down to it, they really needed the slides for comprehension to assess whether they wanted to spend a precious 30 to 45 minutes listening in.
- Use social media to trigger viral distribution of your invitation. Identify a list influencers, reach out and ask them to help you spread the word about your webinar. Use Twitter to tap the influencers with a large following and “direct message” them. Post to Facebook groups interested in the topic. And, share with your LinkedIn network. After all, you are offering a service to these folks – the opportunity for free education on a topic of interest.
- Post your slides using slide sharing sites to get your content in front of people who are actively seeking content/education. If your slides are crafted well, you will trigger what the authors of Made to Stick call the “pain of knowledge gaps” which should entice the viewer to tune in to your webinar.
And, speaking of knowledge gaps, there’s more to come in the next post with 6 clever ways to get additional mileage out of the actual content you produce.
Easy to Take Lead Scoring Surveys Help Drive High Response Rates - B2B Marketing and Sales Tip #104
Monday, June 9th, 2008Written by Cody Young, ReachForce Customer Success Manager
When developing lead scoring survey questions that effectively determine need, interest, timing and budget, remember these things:
- Don’t over use industry jargon and acronyms when crafting the questions
- Use simple and direct language
- Avoid use of passive messaging and sales pitches
- Offer as many multiple choice questions as possible
- Randomize presentation of multiple choices to avoid bias
- Design questions to maximize meaningful cross tab analysis
- Use as few questions as possible
For more info on lead scoring surveys check out my last post, Using Surveys for Lead Scoring.
In Pursuit of the Unexpected - Get Inspired Hunting for Cool - B2B Marketing and Sales Tip #103
Friday, June 6th, 2008I often write about the inspiration I take from Chip and Dan Heath’s business book Made to Stick. The book presents very compelling reasons why some ideas thrive while others die. According to the authors, there are six principles of sticky ideas – ideas that are easily remembered and passed along virally.
The book and its valuable lessons have been top of mind for me lately as I raced to prepare my company and its products for relaunch. Most importantly, the principle of unexpectedness or unexpectedness in the service of core principles. Here’s an excerpt from the book:
PRINCIPLE 2: UNEXPECTEDNESS
How do we get our audience to pay attention to our ideas, and how do we maintain their interest when we need time to get the ideas across? We need to violate people’s expectations. We need to be counterintuitive. We can use surprise — an emotion whose function is to increase alertness and cause focus — to grab people’s attention. We can engage people’s curiosity over a long period of time by systematically “opening gaps” in their knowledge — and then filling those gaps.
I’ll be tackling the pain of knowledge gaps in a future post on SEO and link baiting. But today, I wanted to share a great tool for seeking inspiration by hunting for cool (it just sounds so uncool saying that): TrendHunter unlocking cool is the world’s largest community dedicated to trend spotting and cool hunting. It is chock full of surprising, unexpected and “cool” ideas and products that you’ve probably never heard about. It strikes me that this must be the source of many of the “breaking news” posts on popular blogs today. Might even provide a good blog post or two for you.
Got any other great ideas for seeking ways to surprise your customers?
