Don’t Forget Where You’ve Been When Deciding Where to go Next… - B2B Marketing and Sales Tip #144
Wednesday, September 3rd, 2008As the summer ends and everyone comes back from vacation we’re quickly reminded that the end of the year is right around the corner. As Marketers that means we really only have about 10 weeks left to drive meaningful activity (sales-ready leads) this year.
With only limited time left we naturally want to target our marketing efforts at low hanging fruit first. Targeted lead generation requires reaching the right buyers in the right companies, right? Before you kick off new programs, why not start with what you already know and have?
Consider these starting points:
Sales Pipeline data - Customer win data and in-funnel opportunities can be a goldmine at your fingertips.
- Understand where you’ve been, where you won and who else is out there that match that profile.
- Look at what prospects are moving through the funnel the fastest, find more like these.
Website Analytics – Visitors are stopping by, but do you know who they are?
- Are there visitor profiles or patterns of interest? If so, do you have a plan to act on these?
- Web analytic tools can help you identify the company that is visiting, interesting. Identifying the right decision making unit inside these visiting companies, even more interesting.
Once you’ve identified the companies with the highest likelihood to buy, don’t forget about your decision making unit buying personas (influencers, evaluators, recommenders, end users and budget owners). What do your buyers look like? What do they care about? Why should they listen to you?
As you are getting ready to ramp your lead generation for the end of the year push don’t forget where you’ve been, who you’re attracting today and how you are going to use this information to get the best results possible.
LinkedIn Finally Goes Social – B2B Marketing and Sales Tip #143
Thursday, August 28th, 2008For awhile now, B2B Marketers have been caught in a bit of a Catch-22. Our community of B2B professionals are very well represented on LinkedIn. And, it’s fairly easy to set up a topic-oriented group on LinkedIn. However, there’s not much you can do to spread the word about your group to recruit members. And, worse, once you build your group, you can’t do much for them. There’s really no way to share information or gather feedback.
Facebook, on the other hand, offers a much more “social” atmosphere and once you create a group, you can not only spread the word but actually interact with your members. Seems sort of obvious. I mean, isn’t that what a group is for? Unfortunately, in my situation, test engineers and other IT professionals just don’t seem to use Facebook. It’s been frustrating because we’ve seen our LinkedIn group grow very quickly without much recruiting, and it’s a very qualified group of the professionals but we simply cannot engage with the members as a group.
Well, at last, LinkedIn has responded with the ability to interact with the members of your group! They just sent out this email to Group managers:
This Friday, we will be adding several much-requested features to your group:
- Discussion forums: Simple discussion spaces for you and your members. (You can turn discussions off in your management control panel if you like.)
- Enhanced roster: Searchable list of group members.
- Digest emails: Daily or weekly digests of new discussion topics which your members may choose to receive. (We will be turning digests on for all current group members soon, and prompting them to set to their own preference.)
- Group home page: A private space for your members on LinkedIn.
Thanks LinkedIn! Look forward to growing with you.
iGoogle – Stay Tuned In With a Custom Home Page - B2B Marketing and Sales Tip #142
Monday, August 25th, 2008When I started at ReachForce, one of the first things I did was set up my iGoogle page. With iGoogle, I created my own customized home page that included my personal interests, like sports and entertainment news, and access to everything I ever wanted to know about B2B Lead Generation. I think of it as a one-stop-shop for everything I need.
iGoogle pages can include things like today’s weather and news, RSS feeds you’ve signed up for and B2B gadgets or widgets. If you didn’t know they were out there, you should check out these B2B gadgets. Appirio has a tool to make widgits for key points for salesforce.com users, VerticalResponse to get your email and direct mail statistics real time and Etelos can help manage your CRM through Google.
Anyway, iGoogle is a fast and easy way to keep up with the new trends and information in your space. It is also very easy to set up and update. To set up your iGoogle page, go to Google.com and start with an account (you don’t have to use gmail), and then check out all the gadgets and themes that interest you. This short video can help explain iGoogle and all you can do with it.
If you already have an iGoogle page, what’s your favorite gadget?
Audio Content Delivered Through Podcasts – ReachForce Book Club
Wednesday, August 20th, 2008Let’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.
Business Blogging Tips - B2B Marketing and Sales Tip #141
Tuesday, August 19th, 2008Check out our rock star Leigh Anne on Hubspot’s Inbound Internet Marketing Blog! In her interview she highlights tips for business blogging and what has worked for us on The B2B Lead.
Some of her points/tips:
- Why the domain or URL of your blog is important, our domain is separate from ReachForce. We wanted to build a place for B2BMarketers to come and share tips and not have to worry about ReachForce corporate speak or promotion. Now don’t get me wrong, I try and slip it in every once in awhile but subtly, hopefully.
- Blogging is a great way to position yourself as a thought leader
- Blogging is a good tool for lead nurturing and can lead to speaking opportunities
- Don’t forget, you need to post frequently to keep readers engaged
- Be sure to re-purpose content for email campaigns and newsletters
- Most important – know your audience and produce valuable content
Sometimes It’s Time to Move On - B2B Marketing and Sales Tip #81
Monday, March 17th, 2008I’ve written about the average tenure of a CMO (23 months) time and time again here on The B2B Lead blog. And, even though I know full well the risks that come with this position, I made the leap recently. Fortunately, the new company is a ReachForce customer so I can continue to blog here on The B2B Lead.
Just as I was wrapping up projects and readying myself to take on new challenges, Six Tips for a First-Time or Newly Appointed CMO arrived in my inbox. More good fortune! It seems that Michael Sprouse had generously shared his lessons learned as a new CMO for Adzoogle. NOTE: You have to register to try the site for free. And, I highly recommend it.
I do believe Michael may have forgotten a very important piece of advice, however. I would suggest adding #7. Benchmark and begin tracking and reporting results of your efforts immediately. Perhaps with Michael’s advice and a fanatical commitment to accountability, newly appointed CMOs may buck the 23 month trend.
- Don’t jam Marketing down people’s throat—be a sponge
Everyone hates a know-it-all anyway. But in this particular case, for a new CMO or a CMO at an organization not yet comfortable with the CMO role, it’s important that your early efforts center on learning the organization, the business model, the customers, the staff and the infrastructure. - Make your first hire or personnel move very carefully and wisely
The perception of the CMO’s ability to build and run a team starts with the first hire or first major personnel move that he or she makes. Hire someone better than you at that particular function. - Get some small wins early
You will build a foundation of small wins that will then turn into larger ones shortly thereafter, all the while building credibility and instilling confidence from those around you. - Establish a close bond with other chief executives at the company
Most of the time, a CMO cannot succeed without other senior executive buy-in and support. Sometimes, that buy-in is already built into the fabric of the company. Other times, it is earned over time. - After a few months, immerse yourself in a few important strategic initiatives for the company
After gaining momentum, jump into big things right away and sink your teeth into important issues. - Always judge and evaluate your own performance
As a C-level executive, you should not need a CEO or anyone else to provide you feedback on how you’re doing. You should know.
Any other nuggets of advice to share with this first-time VP of Marketing?
Make Some Imaginary Friends - B2B Marketing and Sales Tip #78
Thursday, March 6th, 2008Didn’t get approval to fly to London for last week’s Search Engine Strategies? Never fear, Susan Esparza kindly live blogged from the event and shared a number of wonderful lessons including this super post from Ian Lurie’s presentation on Search Marketing & Persona Models.
When explaining the concept of personae, a topic we blogged about on this B2B Lead post a few weeks back. Ian provided a very “sticky” definition: “A persona is your brand’s imaginary friend.” He also shared these wonderful words of wisdom for building a campaign to woo your persona:
- Pick the persona you want to start with
- Refresh yourself with their needs, motivations, wants, fears, limitations, etc.
- Become empathetic to that persona - really put yourself into their head.
- Too hard? Get a team together to act the parts…but be careful in your casting choices. (Don’t cast a competitive person as a competitive persona. It’s cross contamination.)
ReachForce Announces New Data Service Offering for Events - ReachForce Capture
Wednesday, March 5th, 2008If you are a regular reader of The B2B Lead, you have probably noticed us all talking more about events and tradeshows than usual. This subject has been on our minds because we are today announcing a new data service offering for events called ReachForce Capture.
Our mission at ReachForce is to reduce the amount of waste in B2B marketing. Current marketing tactics, including direct mail, email, trade shows and search engine marketing, have conversion rates of 10% or less. We introduced ReachForce Discover and ReachForce Refresh to increase response rates for direct mail and email from the industry average of less than 3%. ReachForce Capture will enable marketers to convert more trade show contacts and increase trade show ROI.
ReachForce Capture enables you to turn your trade show scans/attendees into actionable leads. At a targeted trade show, most of the companies will be a right fit but the attendees may not be the right decision makers. By identifying the right person or decision making unit by their role within an organization, not just their title, ReachForce’s approach to contact discovery is unlike any other data provider. Targeting prospects based on their role in an organization increases marketing results and sales conversions, ultimately driving revenue.
Make the Most of Your Tradeshow Investment Using Word of Mouth Marketing - B2B Marketing and Sales Tip #76
Friday, February 29th, 2008Attention Conservation Notice: The following post provides a few tips on how to turn your tradeshow experience into a word of mouth marketing success.
When most B2B Marketers think of Word of Mouth (WOM) marketing, they think of online/viral campaigns or customer referral programs. But, tradeshows can be the perfect setting for some of the best WOM marketing campaigns. Where else can you get so many people of like mind together in one place, short of Internet forums.
There’s nothing like a good stunt to get everyone at an event talking about your organization which contributes to both brand awareness and demand generation if you handle the lead capture and nurturing process appropriately. The guys over at GamePlan Marketing have been praised for their stroke of genius, “Operation Blueshock¸ a guerilla stunt that involved sending 150 male and 150 female models dressed to the nines onto the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) show floor to talk up the Bluetooth Special Interest Group. For video of the stunt, visit http://www.gpexperience.com/work.php.
The results were staggering: on the day the models showed up at CES, the Bluetooth website had 18,500 hits– a 42-percent spike. In the post-show survey, 60 percent of respondents said they knew more about Bluetooth than just two days before.
So called “guerilla stunts” need not be one-hit wonders, however. A successful WOM event orchestrated by NetQoS has now become an increasingly successful yearly tradition. In an effort to catch the eye of Cisco and get a very target-rich environment to talk about the company, NetQoS marketers executed a WOM “stunt” at Cisco Networkers a couple of years ago. The company sent out invitations to an exclusive party at The MIX lounge in Vegas for an after-hours party starting at 11:00 pm. This generated a great deal of buzz on the show floor with attendees clamoring for an invite. Those lucky enough to attend were given shirts to wear the next day. This resulted in more than 200 NetQoS-clad advocates in sessions and on the show floor which helped to increase lead generation by 120% from the previous year. The next year, we expanded our presence further, booked the House of Blues and increased lead capture by more than 300%. We also gave out Flipcams to encourage attendees to spread the word via YouTube and the blogosphere.
How have you used WOM to improve your trade show experience?
Another 90% Statistic About B2B Marketing; Really! - B2B Marketing and Sales Tip #75
Wednesday, February 27th, 2008Tradeshows – Conferences – Users Group Events – May the religious wars begin. Sales loves them, marketing thinks they are cool as they make for a lot of creative fodder – CEO’s like the fact that their company is a player in the industry – businesses, at least high tech ones spend 25% or more of their marketing budget on events; to give away t-shirts and build “brand”. My view is that if you are a mid-sized business, the only branding you want to hear about is the one used to mark and track cattle.
Here’s another 90% WASTE statistic I heard about from Sirius Decisions – less than 10% of trade show leads are followed up by Sales. So what happens to the rest?
What are the best practices for reducing the 90% waste without all the rhetoric about branding – “was worth it because of the branding?” I get it, awareness on the business is important but why throw out the baby with the bathwater?
My view, as always, is to step back take a deep breath and think about this:
Why did sales only follow-up on 10% of the “leads”?
What was the makeup of the “good leads” or Glengarry leads?
Were the attendees (the companies) they came from a good fit?
Did you come back with the right company but wrong contact names (the IT Admin was at the event but our economic buyer is someone else that we want to target)?
How do we define the right company and filter them against those criteria?
Who is the right person/people at the company you want to reach out to?
Now that you have the answers to the question above, it’s time to turn the 90% waste into HIGH octane leads for marketing and selling. The yield will not be 100% but even if you end up yielding 1/3 of the 90%, you will be at 300% of where you are today with event leads.
Don’t let the data you collect from a tradeshow sit around – mobilize it to create actionable leads in your business. Take it from sludge to high-octane data!
