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!
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?
Economic Turmoil Creating the Perfect Storm for Trigger-based Sales and Marketing - B2B Marketing and Sales Tip #160
Monday, October 20th, 2008Here’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.
Tune In For Tips on Predictably Irrational Consumer Behavior - B2B Marketing and Sales Tip #159
Thursday, October 16th, 2008A 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.
Help your Business Get Found with SEO Using These 5 Tips - B2B Marketing and Sales Tips #158
Wednesday, October 15th, 2008Monday’s Marketing Profs “Get to the Point” newsletter featured Mike Volpe’s 5 tips for starting search engine optimization. Mike is the VP of Marketing at HubSpot and blogger for HubSpot’s Internet Marketing Blog. These are great SEO tips and we wanted to be sure to share them with the readers of The B2B Lead.
5 tips you should be sure to include in your SEO strategy:
- Pick good page titles. The words that appear at the top of the browser window are what a search engine looks at first as it evaluates that Web page. Use keywords and unique titles.
- Be smart about URLs. If you’re using a URL like yourcompany.blogspot.com, then you’re building SEO power for blogspot.com, not your own company.
- Start a blog. Blogs help in two ways. They provide new content (search engines prefer new over old). Plus, the more interesting blogs tend to generate lots of inbound links.
- Leverage your PR program. Use press releases and externally distributed articles to drum up more inbound links. To maximize effectiveness, link back to your Web site from keywords.
- Use social media to build links. Find out where your customers hang out online, and start participating there. Remember to add value. Don’t lead with a sales pitch.
A Salesperson’s Biggest Asset - Targeted Marketing - B2B Marketing and Sales Tip #157
Tuesday, October 14th, 2008Written by Ryan Ohls, a Market Development Executive at ReachForce.
Before joining ReachForce I was a sales guy with no marketing department. Knowing how important and effective marketing strategy can be, I set out to try and do my own lead generation. I can remember investing days and days of work on this one project. As a sales guy, I had a particular interest in automated lead generation (that’s right, sales guys are typically lazy) and had been studying it for months. I finally grasped the concept of doing it right, I thought.
So, having never been blessed with the spiritual gifts of patience or discernment, I decided my next step was to find and buy a list of 1,200 names to send my message to. The plan was to do an email blast with an offer to download a new report.
The report looked great - guaranteed to attract plenty of hot prospects, turn them into customers, and make me look like the Dalai Lama. The email was perfectly crafted, engaging, and sure to catch the eye. I told my wife to get ready for the commissions to start pouring in.
So, with palms sweating and my reputation at my company completely mortgaged (side note - companies don’t like spending money on things they don’t understand), the time had come for launch. Three…two…one…CLICK.
Within 15 minutes my mailbox was full! The response was unbelievable…from “System Administrator, Address Unknown.” The list of 1200 contacts turned out to be about 60% accurate, at best.
I believe whole-heartedly that a company’s biggest asset are customers and happy ones are even better. I’ll even take that a step further, though. A sales and marketing person’s biggest asset is a database of FUTURE customers (prospects).
** WARNING – Here comes the ReachForce promotion. Your prospect database should be 100% accurate, up-to-date, properly targeted, and relevant to your business. Each name you have listed should be the right person inside the right company. You’re thinking “in a perfect world…”
If you’re not a ReachForce customer and you’re reading this, here’s a few interesting data points to consider:
- Industry listed (rented) deliver less than a 3% response rate
- Sales people can spend up to 1/3 of their time hunting down the right buyers in a prospect company
- According to Gartner, 30 million people out of the 138 million employed in the US will switch jobs in the next 12 months.
- 2.5 million businesses will move, according to the U.S. Census Bureau
If you’re interested in cleaning up the data you already have, check out this post on Dirty Data. If you’re interested in hearing how ReachForce can help, please contact me.
Sales people out there – please jump in here, tell your marketing counterparts to help you out and make sure they are marketing to the right people in the right companies so you can spend your time selling, not hunting.
