Posts filed under 'marketing'
Geez - it’s been some time since I blogged. Work became extremely busy and as a one-person shop, clients superceded blogging. Oh well - I think the presentation accompanying this post adds some value to readers about emarketing for B2B organizations although many of these lessons can be trasferred to B2C marketers.
I had the pleasure of having speaking to a group at Mount Royal College that was taking a continuing education class on emarketing. Doug Lacombe, a marketer in Calgary, invited me to deliver a presentation to the class. As we discussed the curriculum, we landed on having me deliver a presentation I delivered early last year to a marketing team at Telcordia. This presentation helped to paint a complete picture of what emarketing means to an organization.
The main point of the presentation was to develop an effective program, it is important to not forget allocating budget across this spectrum of the prospect/customer lifecycle from Awareness -> Education -> Sales Support -> Client Management. Emarketing is about all these things and many marketers become so focused on awareness they forget about the rest of the lifecycle.
I posted the presentation to Slideshare if you’d like to view or download it.
Thanks again to Doug’s class for listening to me drone away 
Please contact me if you have any questions.
November 9th, 2009
If the business owners and decision makers I spoke to in mid-sized firms last week are indicative of a broader sample of this same target audience, social media, let aloneTwitter, is not even on their radar.
Last week I delivered presentations about social media to peer advisory boards run by Rick Holbrook at Renaissance Executive Forums . These peer advisory boards are composed of business owners and senior executives who operate companies (most of which had 50+ employees). All the owners served B2B markets. View the presentation.
Less than 25% of the board members were using some form of social media for marketing, recruiting or any other manner. Most members had limited knowledge of Twitter and had a high degree of skepticism about its value.
Twitter is still in is infancy and I’m of the mind that if you had to pick and choose between various social media alternatives due to limited resources, you’d be better served demonstrating thought leadership and subject matter expertise using blogs, Youtube, podcasts, wikis/discussion boards, etc. And I think this is the major issue. If you’re a 50 person company with one person in marketing and resources stretched to the max, do you make an effort to use Twitter? If you’re a 200+ person company with a deeper marketing bench maybe you can experiment? You need to decide if it makes sense.
Whether or not you have the resources, you may want to be aware of how Twitter can add value and not dismiss it as a useless tool. Four good reasons are outlined below:
- Boost your search engine rankings! Twitter status pages are starting to be indexed by search engines and increased traffic to your site achieved via Twitter increases the relevance of your site which search engines love (see end of post for links to articles on the topic).
- Promotions: Some companies such as Dell are using Twitter to offer exclusive promotions to Twitter followers (see ZDNet’s Blog).
- Reputation Management/Customer Service: Some companies are appointing staff or “ambassadors” to scour the web and seek out conversations about their company to contact Twitterers who are speaking negatively about their company. At a minimum they use these conversations to assess what is being said about their company and using the intelligence gathered to improve their business. Savvy companies reach out to Twitterers who are expressing dismay about their products and services and offer to solve problems or using Twitter as a customer service communications channel (See AT&T’s use of Twitter during a power outage).
- Recruiting: This may be more appropriate in technology industries where workers have a higher propensity to use social media tools like Twitter but strategies to use Twitter to recruit are now part of recruiting.
SEO & Twitter:
The net of all this - stay on top of Twitter and every time you’re planning or rethinking your marketing efforts, ensure social media is part of the discussion and Twitter can be a part of the conversation.
June 20th, 2009
In a previous post, I referred to a common question I’m asked about LinkedIn: Does it really work (i.e., will it help me generate sales)? Is there an ROI?
There is no simple equation to say “yes” or “no”. I liken the question to: Does advertising really work. The answer is “yes it can” although sometimes it’s hard to determine a precise correlation between an ad and a sale, or its ROI. This may sound like blasphemy to many marketers. Of course we strive to understand ROI. But creating brand awareness via “less accountable advertising” can be a part of your marketing mix.
So back to LinkedIn. One notion I’ve suggested is LinkedIn’s value equation includes time saved to conduct research. Let me illustrate this point.
I’m looking to crack into the financial services sector with a social media offering. I identified a specific company I felt was a strong prospect to pursue - let’s call them Company X. Using LinkedIn I conducted a search on Company X and located a former employee with 2 degrees of separation.
- So a phone call went into my colleague who knows this person.
- She introduced me via email to the former employee - let’s call him Joe.
- We had an email exchange and set up a phone call.
- I spoke to Joe and not only got the inside scoop on Company X’s use of social media and its marketing department dynamics - but I took the opportunity to ask Joe how social media is being utilized in the financial services sector.
- I learned lots. While Joe was at Company X, he was part of a team that conducted an in-depth competitive review on how competitors were using social media. I learned about successful social media initiatives at various banks, attitudes of marketers in the sector toward social media, top objections to selling Company X on social media services, top blogs in sector for consumer banking, and much more.
- I’m now more prepared to sell to this prospective client.
LinkedIn was the sole reason I located Joe. This chat has saved me hours of research and has provided vital intelligence to help in the sales process. If you’re a VP of sales, how much more productive can your team be if they can identify valuable contacts using LinkedIn? Think about how you can compress the sales cycle.
So my question to LinkedIn pundits and curiosity seekers: What’s the ROI on this experience? Massive!
June 2nd, 2009
In my previous post about LinkedIn, I discussed the notion that business professionals question if you can use LinkedIn to generate sales. My basic premise is that LinkedIn will indirectly generate sales by enhancing your company’s brand (and your personal brand). So how do you create awareness using the tool? I’ve included some suggestions below:
Basic Tactics
The “Network Updates” feature is a regular summary that publishes activity in your network. Each time you update your profile the change is tagged. Your contacts will read about these changes in emails sent out by LinkedIn or when they visit the web site. What kinds of updates are published in this feature?
- Build Your Network: Work at inviting your contacts to LinkedIn or spend time periodically reviewing the contacts of people you’re connected to. You’ll be surprised at how many people in yoru network use the tool. Not only will reaching out to contacts remind them of you and your services, but your network will learn about the connections you’re creating.
- “What are you working on now?” Use this feature whenever you start a new project. The update is broadcast to your network and can illustrate to your network what type of work you’re handling. Perhaps you’ve developed new capabilities or services? Your network will never know unless you tell them.
- Updating your profile. When you receive promotions, take on new volunteer activities, receive a new degree/designation or write a testimonial your network will learn about the change.
- Request testimonials: B2B marketers know the power of testimonials. Not only will your network receive a notice about you, but they’l learn that someone is taking the time to write a positive note about you.
- Create a company profile page. This page should provide a high level summary of your services. The detail needs to be at your web site but with a concise summary of your services may spark enough interest that a contact or visitor clicks through to your web site when they’re viewing the page.
These are some basic tactics to be utilized to create awareness using LinkedIn about your company. (On a side note, it’s worth mentioning that building up your LinkedIn profile also increases your search engine rankings). So get started!
April 24th, 2009
I recently made a presentation at the Calgary Marketing Club to provide an overview on social media and business to business marketing. Click here to download the presentation. The presentation provided an overview of three social media tools: blogs, LinkedIn and Twitter. I was unsure of the audience’s makeup prior to the presentation, so I decided to include a brief history on social media.
The experience made me realize that varying levels of understanding of social media among business and marketing professionals. I’ve been working in the Internet space for a good part of the past 10 years and take it for granted that others in business are as familiar with the many social media tools that can be used to market your one’s business.
So I think that offering insights and learning that I’ve accumulated over the years regarding key social media tools would be of value to readers of my blog. Over the next few weeks, I will take a look at the most popular social media tools that business to business marketers should consider including in their marketing arsenal. I will share thoughts on best practices for using these tools and search out case studies and success stories to stimulate ideas on how you might use these tool. I will focus on: the key tools that many business to business marketers agree are the top tools to generate leads and win business. They include:
- LinkedIn
- Twitter
- Facebook
- Blogs
(Note: Although the jury is still out on Twitter and there is no consensus on the effectiveness of Facebook.)
This discussion will augment the material in the presentation. Feel free to share your thoughts with me on this topic.
April 21st, 2009
Assessing the impact of marketing is often a difficult topic for marketers to address. How does one measure the ultimate impact of an advertising campaign for example? How does one assess the impact of speaking engagements at a seminar? What’s the right time frame to be assessing the results? All good questions and there is only one adequate answer: It depends (I know this is a cop out to some extent).
Based on recent experiences and a review of marketing literature throughout my career, some business owners and executives try to oversimplify their answers. For example, while conducting market research for a client that produces a business publication, I asked business owners and marketing managers how they measure the effectiveness of their advertising with the publication. A common response was: “If it works, I’ll keep advertising”. When asked, “how they know if it’s working”, answers typically included “I get an ROI on the dollars, or it leads directly to sales”. Certainly small business owners must tend to their marketing dollars much more closely than a large business, and I’m all for assessing the relative impact of advertising in different media, but one has to be careful not to take an approach that is too narrow and too short term focused.
A past client provided me with a point of view that was refreshing. I was helping his company develop a brand strategy and marketing plan; and also develop essential marketing collateral that included a web site and brochure material.
Prior to my work with them, this B2B company did not have a formal marketing and sales program, collateral was non existant and past efforts were ad hoc . All business was generated through growing client accounts by word of mouth and personal contacts; and periodically introducing new services to existing clients. I asked him how he would determine if the plan would be effective. Here were the highlights of his response at the time:
1) While the roll out of the program began at the start of a calendar year, he felt he’d need to wait until the Fall of that year to assess the impact of the marketing program.
2) He went through a budgeting process with his leadership team that included projections for sales growth. This was a sales target he felt his team could achieve if they operated status quo. If at the end of his fiscal year, the team exceeded that sales target, he would have largely attributed that difference to the marketing of the firm.
3) If there wasn’t a huge sales lift in year 1 of the program, he would not have panicked. He viewed the year as a learning experience will be a year of learning with respect to marketing.
4) He admitted there are many things that need to go right to achieve growth and make a profit. He planned to develop other metrics that can provide indicators his company was doing the right things.
I’d moved on to other client work before seeing the results of this engagement. I circled back with the client two years after the fact. His company had achieved 50% year over year growth over that 24 month span. While I would have liked for him to state the marketing program we developed was the reason for this growth, he stated the real impact of that work was:
1) The marketing efforts created a tremendous amount of credibility for his company. Before the work began, they did not have an image; nor was there company understood in the marketplace (even by their own clients). The brand strategy helped to reinforce positive attributes of their brand that were recognized by clients; the company had developed an elevator pitch that helped clients better understand their business and marketing collateral provided case studies, client lists and complete service lines that helped their existing clients (and new clients) understand the breadth of their services.
2) He described the marketing work as THE catalyst for their sales and marketing efforts. If nothing else, it generated excitement among his team about the prospects of marketing the company and feeling proud about their story.
If only every executive that hired marketing professionals had this kind of outlook? What’s important to note is my client wasn’t suggesting irresponsible marketing and frivolous spending of dollars. He wanted to get the most bang for his marketing dollar. However, he didn’t expect results in 3-months and defined success from a broader point of view for his company.
So what does this all mean? Deriving the answer to the question: “How will I assess the impact of my marketing dollars” is a personal answer and needs to be placed into context. Here are some key elements to consider before developing your answer:
- Whats’ been my organizations’ past experiences with marketing?
- What’s the right time frame to measure the impact given my situation?
- Where is my business at in it’s life cycle?
- What am I really trying to achieve with marketing?
- How much risk tolerance do I have with respect to my marketing investment?
There are many other elements to consider when trying to answer this question. But hopefully this helps move the conversation beyond cliche answers like: ROI, response rates, cost/lead.
I hope this this story helps you think differently about measuring the impact of a marketing program.
January 8th, 2009
A past client wanted to develop a brand strategy and also produce its first decent set of collateral material after being in business for over 20 years. I reported directly to the company’s President for this initiative.
I conducted many customer interviews and researched the clients’ competitors to inform the development of the brand strategy.
The management team eventually approved the tag line: “Whatever It Takes”. However, several months later the tag line discussion reemerged during a meeting as were were preparing to produce collateral. The client’s tag line for the three previous years had been, “To Make a Difference”. We developed the new tag line, “Whatever It Takes” to position the company as a team of deeply committed people who were relentless at delivering results: (versus positioning the company based on it technical competencies which was how all its competitors were selling themselves). When executives talked about the company, they often used these exact words to describe how they ensured work was completed to high standards, on time and on budget. The customer interviews also told us the real point of difference for the client was this attitude and deep commitment to customer service.
I felt we had a winning tag line that encapsulated their promise as a company and in three words provided a window into the psyche of this firm.
Much to my dismay, I felt the client was retreating into safe mode by wanting to reuse the same tag line they’d been using for the past three years. The President was shaking his head. Sensing panic, I suggested we run the two tag lines by clients who had previously participated in one-on-one customer research interviews to inform the discussion.
More surprise. Five of sixteen clients responded and here was their feedback:
Client 1: I prefer “To Make a Difference”. It’s classier. Not to be crude, but “Whatever it Takes” just sounds desperate.
Client 2: I think the ” Whatever it Takes ” implies taking short cuts , not following the rules. So I would go with ” To Make a Difference or simply ” Make a Difference ”
Client 3: OK … Neither of them work for me. “whatever it takes” while generally positive; can have several negative connotations; “not in control”, lack of ethics … “to make a difference”, doesn’t engage me at me at all, a slight variation “making a difference” is somewhat better but doesn’t target any specific audience
Client 4: I prefer: “To Make a Difference I think it sounds more professional and better represents what the company’s objectives.
Client 5: To make a difference.
So what to do? Was “Making a Difference” the winner?
I decided to speak to the President about the issue. I let him know about the results, but offered the following reasons as to why I was hesitant about the old tag line:
a) It was off strategy. We spent countless hours developing a brand strategy that determined we were to position the brand based on the company’s ability to service the heck out of their customers.
b) While “Making a Difference” resonated well with current clients , I felt it was an internally focused message that would not resonate well with prospective customers who were unaware of my client’s business.
c) My gut was telling me that “Whatever it Takes” was the right type of message, we had just chosen the wrong words to communicate the company.
We eventually settled on: “Outstanding People - Outstanding Results.” This message resonated better with the team, worked for clients and reinforced the commitment of their organization to meet their clients’ needs. Further discussion with clients suggested this tag line was a strong reflection of the company.
The customer research was invaluable because:
- The preliminary market research helped us to understand how the company was perceived by clients and how the company stood out versus competitors.
- The follow up interviews with clients was critical to understanding we missed the mark with the first tag line. While a sample of five is not statistically valid, zero for five suggests a trend.
Ultimately, the research helped me make the case to the management team to think differently about their business and pushed them out of the safety zone. Movement was made toward a renewed position that reinforced what the client was truly about.
January 8th, 2009
