I attended a great event Tuesday on social media marketing strategies for B2B and B2G technology companies, hosted by Women In Technology, a Washington, D.C. association of women technology professionals. Although the event focused on tech, the strategies and principles shared can be used in any industry. Here are the slides from the presentation.
Although I didn’t expect many of the 80+ attendees to be active in social media, as the event was an overview not deep-dive, I was surprised to be the only one in the room that knew what Technorati is. Many of the people had never heard of Twitter, although I did speak with a few who recently began using Twitter for personal use and 1 using it for their company (Jen Krupey (Twitter name: @krupey) of Viget Labs (Twitter name: @viget), one of the event speakers). A few people using Facebook for personal use, but didn’t hear of anyone using it for business. Quite a few people interested in starting a blog for their company, but having a hard time justifying time and resources to executives since ROI can be difficult to measure. LinkedIn was also brought up, but the only people using it for marketing or business is recruiters. New LinkedIn applications may make it more effective for marketing purposes.
Marketing IS technology - think about how technology can make every marketing program more effective, efficient, or measurable
The Web should be viewed by marketers as a buying engine for customers, not a selling engine for companies
Figure out how your customers want to purchase and do it their way
3 parts of the digital ecosystem:
Engagement - the user experience
Distribution - the social media outlets used to provide user experience
Analytics - the technology/systems used to measure results
Don’t fall into the “fad trap” - just because there are new technology-based marketing techniques doesn’t mean they are right for your business
Measure real success (revenue, new customers), not the steps along the way (leads, mentions, etc.)
Think of your website as a neighborhood or marketplace, make it vibrant and interactive
It’s the content stupid… Good content distributed widely to the places your target audiences are already visiting is best, especially for up-and-coming companies
Embrace two-way communication
Start a lot of fires and see which ones burn - Don’t wait until you feel you’re a social media master before trying different avenues. Social media is ‘learn as you go’, as no way to tell what will be effective for you until you try it
Don’t forget search engine optimization (SEO), but don’t rely on just SEO to drive people to your online materials. Must seek out where people already are online and meet them there.
Adopt the mindset of a direct marketer - test, measure, lather, rinse, repeat
Always be transparent. Don’t try to fool your audience, it will get ugly.
Have you ever spent days creating a webinar campaign that had
a highly relevant topic
terrific line-up of speakers
finely tuned list of contacts in a very specific audience
great email copywriting
multiple emails deployed strategically over time
a good amount of registrations
….but only 2 people actually listened in?
How do you increase actual webinar attendance vs. registrations?
Reminders
Outlook Calendar Appointment
In the webinar registration confirmation email or webpage, include a link to an Outlook appointment that registrants can quickly add to their calendars. Make sure you designate a reminder within the appointment so registrants will get an Outlook pop-up reminder 30 minutes, 15 minutes, 5 minutes or other time you decide prior to the start of the webinar.
It’s very helpful for registrants if you include the link to the webinar, any login/password information, and telephone dial-in instructions directly within the Outlook appointment so they don’t have to find the registration email buried in their inbox. Including a phone number or link to live chat for assistance with any problems registrants may have accessing the webinar is also a good idea.
Many people also use Google calendar, so including a link for a Google appointment may also be useful for registrants.
Some online event management software includes a feature to do this (something to look for when deciding which software solution to use), but if yours doesn’t, Chad Horenfeldt over at the Anything Goes Marketing blog created a document with step-by-step instructions on how to create an iCalendar appointment and include the link in your confirmation email or webpage.
Reinforce Webinar Value in Email 30 Minutes Before Start
Ever registered for a webinar, but when the event time came you’re buried in work and say to yourself “I don’t have time for this” and skip it?
Remember that your prospective customers have many things demanding their time and attention. In order to tear them away from those things, they need to know that the time spent with you will be worthwhile.
Reinforcing the value of the webinar - answering the all important “what’s in it for me?” - by sending a reminder email shortly before the start of the webinar can persuade more registrants to stop what they’re doing and attend. My suggestion is 30 minutes prior, as that gives registrants enough time to wrap up what they’re doing, go to the bathroom, get a drink, or whatever they need to do, but not so far ahead of time that they forget about it.
Again, include a link to the webinar and dial-in instructions in the email.
Create Pre-Webinar Excitement with Survey
Send registrants a brief email survey prior to the webinar asking what they feel is important in regards to the webinar topic, and what they most want information on. Listening to your audience’s needs not only makes the webinar content better, but helps them feel more engaged with the event and more willing to spend the time attending.
Give Compelling Reasons to Attend Live Event Instead of Viewing It Later
Most companies record their webinars and make them available on their websites for viewing after the event, or send registrants the presentation slides. It’s a very good idea to do this, but it can dissuade registrants from attending the live event. Why bother attending at the time of the event when they can just get the slides later and view it whenever they want?
Offer something only live attendees can take advantage of, such as
live Q&A session with attendees submitting questions via chat feature or special phone number to call
ask attendees questions about the topic during the webinar, and give prizes to first person to answer each question correctly via chat or other means
B2B marketing research firm Marketing Experiments uses a great tactic in their webinars on landing page optimization, pay-per-click advertising, and other marketing avenues. On the webinar registration confirmation page, they offer the opportunity to submit your materials for live review by several experts during the webinar and receive feedback that you can immediately employ afterwards.
It’s great information for all attendees, but if someone has submitted materials then you can bet they’ll be more likely to attend the live event and find out if their materials will be reviewed.
What techniques are you using to increase attendance?
By the time the U.S. Presidential election is over, the two candidates will collectively have spent close to a billion dollars on the largest, most complex political marketing and PR campaigns in history. Although most of us will never have the huge budgets and manpower behind these campaigns, here are six valuable tips business-to-business marketers can take away from the election campaigns that can be applied regardless of the size of your company or budget.
1) Find Smart, Trustworthy People to Advise and Help You
One of the first things McCain and Obama did when deciding to run for President, well before they announced themselves as candidates, was surround themselves with exceptionally talented, passionate people with proven track records of success in their respective areas (yes their choices of advisors is debatable, but the concept is solid).
If you’re like many marketers I know, you’re smart, talented, hard-working, and capable of forming effective marketing strategies and tactics and implementing them. But trying to do everything yourself (or not being able to rely on your colleagues or staff) means you’re making decisions in a vacuum, not necessarily based on the best knowledge or information available. An outside perspective can be very valuable in making decisions objectively. Also, being able to focus on your core responsibilities allows you to perform at your best, while other capable people handle other details.
Who can you turn to for help?
Marketing/PR consultant
Virtual assistant (to aid with administrative tasks and campaign details)
Industry associations and interest groups such as MarketingSherpa, MarketingProfs, Business Marketing Association for third party research and professional opinions
Partner with other companies and utilize their expertise
2)Multi-Channel Marketing/PR Strategy is Best
Most voters I know don’t just view, listen to, or read one source for information on who they’re going to vote for, and the Presidential campaigns certainly know this and take advantage of the available communications avenues: TV, radio, Internet, blogs and social media, telemarketing, direct mail, signs, bumper stickers, word-of-mouth, you name it.
You may be thinking, “If I had the huge budget that the candidates do, my company could do that too.” But it doesn’t have to take a huge amount of money to make multi-channel marketing effective for any business, and it’s necessary as your customers, just like when their ‘voter’ hat is on, gather information about solutions to their problems (i.e. what you’re selling) from many sources. Using a mix of traditional and online marketing and PR tactics ensures you’re reaching your key audiences.
However, it is possible to do too much marketing, which leads me to my next point….
3)Don’t Wear Out Your Audience
I live in Virginia, and if you’ve been watching the news you’ve maybe heard it’s one of the states both candidates most need the electoral votes from. For the past 3 months not a day has gone by that I haven’t received a direct mailer from one or both candidates (and local election candidates as well), much less seen them on TV, Internet, etc. At least 15 campaign volunteers have visited my door in the past 2 weeks alone, and the telemarketing calls are endless. I care deeply about the election and the future of my beloved country, but ENOUGH ALREADY!
Your customers and prospects will begin to feel this way if your company is over-marketing, particularly when it’s outbound marketing such as emails, phone calls, and direct mail. It’s been proven that it takes multiple encounters with your company and/or your products or services before someone purchases, but if you ‘interrupt’ your audience and demand their attention too often, you become like the boy who cried wolf and your audience will either ignore you or be irritated. When they are ready to buy those negative feelings may carry over and prevent them from contacting you, because they don’t want to be marketed to even more frequently if they do.
Some signs you’re over-marketing:
High rate of recipients un-subscribing from your email campaigns
Email recipients reporting your emails as SPAM (even if they opted-in to your list)
Low rate of subscriptions to newsletters
Telemarketing campaigns contact same people repeatedly in short timeframe
4)Embrace Social Media
Both candidates used social media marketing via Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, blogs and several other outlets to “reach younger voters,” but many older voters have also caught on to the value of social media to stay up to date on the candidates and campaigns.
Using social media for B2B marketing is valuable on its own (see my blog post re: use of industry peer blogs and RSS to influence B2B technology buyers), but using it to support your other marketing efforts makes it twice as effective. For example, if you’re launching a new product or service to a specific market, posting about the problem it solves on your blog, discussing it on other industry peer blogs, using videos on YouTube to demonstrate it, and using Twitter to drive like-minded followers to your blog or website are effective, low-cost avenues of promotion.
5)Face-to-Face is Effective and Valuable
There is a reason Obama and McCain spent so much time traveling the country to speak to groups in person and rally supporters – it works. Both candidates and their campaign advisors are well aware that trust is a big factor in deciding whom to vote for, and one of the most effective ways to gain and maintain trust is for voters to see them up close, to listen to them live, maybe shake their hand and have a brief word. Although the vast majority of people that go to campaign rallies and events are already supporters, they need to be reassured that their candidate will meet their needs once the candidate is in office. The actual number of voters who attend rallies is very small compared to the total number of voters registered, but the ‘hard core’ supporters are usually the most vocal and will carry the campaign message to others.
A similar scenario plays out in the business-to-business world. When comparing products and services of similar type and cost, people are much more likely to buy from (and continue to buy from) people they trust and like. The ability to meet your prospective and current customers in person at some point in the sales cycle and/or after the sale gives your company a big leg up in gaining and keeping their trust and confidence and subsequently a steady stream of repeat sales.
How do you meet your customers face-to-face without breaking the bank:
Several regional or local events hosted by the sales team responsible for that territory, instead of one big annual event
Attend industry conferences and events, you don’t have to sponsor it to enjoy the great networking benefits. Let your customers know what events you’ll be attending, they may be attending as well (via e-newsletter is good option). Gather those you meet and take them to dinner or drinks after the event is over for the day.
Since your top 20% of customers normally produce 80% of your sales revenue, concentrate your efforts on them first before reaching out to meet with others
6)Help Your Supporters Help You
As I mentioned above, the biggest supporters of each candidate are the most likely to vocalize their support and actively campaign on their behalf. Each campaign has many regional and local offices, special websites, and a multitude of other tools used to ‘mobilize the troops’ and make it as easy as possible for supporters to use offline and online means of convincing others to vote for their candidate. Does your company have particularly happy customers, partners, industry analysts, media, or other fans of your products or services? Make it as simple as possible for them to pass along your information to others, and most people are happy to do so.
Some simple ways to accomplish this:
Post a ‘referral toolkit’ on your website, or better yet your customer intranet site if you have one. It can be as simple as a .zip file containing your company brochure, a couple of customer case studies, and a white paper or article. It enables supporters to easily email the information to others.
Ensure you post a press kit to your website and send it (ask permission first) to industry analysts and media you know are fans
Encourage your website and/or blog readers to share the information posted by using widgets that enable them to quickly share it with others via social media or email
During a customer feedback survey, provide the option for them to write a brief testimonial quote (if they wish to be named)
Include a ‘forward to a friend’ button in your e-newsletters and ask readers to pass it along to non-subscribers who may be interested
Always give out 2-3 business cards to contacts you meet, one for them to keep and some to share
What marketing or PR lessons have you gleaned from the Presidential campaigns? I’d love to get your thoughts.
You Can’t Make This Into Filet Mignon- Ditto for Your Website
Oh. My. Gosh. The writing on this website was terrible.
Run-on sentences galore. Rampant misuse of punctuation forced my eyes to pause after every third word. The same few words and phases repeated over and over. And what the heck does that paragraph even mean?
It was a case of SEO copywriting gone horribly wrong. No wonder the site wasn’t converting visitors into quality prospective customers. Once visitors got to the site, they couldn’t understand in 3-5 seconds why they should be there!
The person in charge of the poorly written website was a marketing director who had been charged by the V.P. of marketing with increasing the ranking of the site on Google to attract more visitors, which they thought would lead to increased volume of prospective customers. In an effort to save money, the
marketing director hired a cheap copywriter through eLance. In a case of ‘you get what you pay for’, the site was packed with keywords and vague, overblown copy but little else. When I asked why they accepted the copy, she said, “My boss thought that’s what SEO copywriting was supposed to look like.”
When I asked how I could help, she said, “Can you just tweak it a little so it sounds better and put in some keywords?”
As much as I wanted to say yes - no, I can’t. And that’s because you can’t take ground chuck and make it into filet mignon. Translation: If the copy is already bad, “tweaking” it won’t help. The only thing you can do is scrap it all and start over.
I understand why she was afraid of a total website re-write. The site was on the first page of Google for their keywords and driving OK traffic. Her first concern (which makes sense) was “if we change the site, what happens to our rankings?” But, getting rankings is just one piece of the search engine conversion pie. A top position means nothing if the website doesn’t drive high conversion metrics.
Wondering if your website falls into the “ground chuck” category? Here are some things to check:
What do your site analytics say? Are people staying at your site, maybe going to several pages per visit – or leaving mere seconds after they arrive?
Are your rankings OK, but your conversions are non-existent?
Do you know deep down in your gut that the copy is bad? (It’s OK to admit it. We’ve all been there. The first step to recovery is admitting your problems.)
To eliminate your ground chuck status, your only help for salvation is action. There are ways to re-write the copy so the rankings aren’t ruined. In fact, that’s the easy part (more on that in a future post.) A smart copywriter can easily craft new copy that maintains your keyword positioning.
Will re-writing your copy be painful? A little. Yes, you will be spending time and money. But, like all things worth having, the pain is definitely worth it. Although a SEO copywriting overhaul sounds overwhelming, it will more than pay for itself in increased conversions. Besides, once you’re at the bottom the only place to go is up, so the sooner you take action, the sooner your visitors regard your website and company as “filet migon” and start asking how they can get some!
One of my all-time favorite Calvin & Hobbes comics from late great cartoonist Bill Watterson, I have this on the wall of my office to remind me that the most effective writing is straightforward and easily understood. So often I see writing in BtoB marketing that uses terms like “on demand business process solutions provider.” While I understand the need to convey a tone that business audiences relate to and respect, good writing speaks their language, not the language sometimes made up internally within companies that ‘makes us sound smart and industry-leading.’ Going over the heads of the people you’re speaking to is never a good idea.
Inspired by Jon Miller at Marketo’s Modern B2B Marketing blog, who published the Big List of B2B Marketing Blogs, I thought a comprehensive list of B2B marketing podcasts would be a helpful resource. Here are 12 podcasts directly related to B2B marketing, search engine optimization, copywriting, and social media. I’ll periodically add and remove podcasts from this list to keep it current, if you have a podcast and would like it listed here, please leave a comment. Here’s an OPML file if you want to import the podcasts into your RSS feed reader.
B2B Marketing Podcasts
10 Golden Rules Internet Marketing Podcast - Jay Berkowitz offers weekly tips for business owners about the leading internet marketing trends, including Web 2.0 and search engine marketing.
B2B Marketing Minute - Arketi Group covers business-to-business marketing news, ideas and best practices
The B2B Lead - Reachforce discusses B2B marketing and sales tips
HubSpot TV - Karen Rubin and Mike Volpe at HubSpot host live Internet TV show discussing inbound marketing including SEO, blogging, social media, landing pages, lead generation and analytics
MarCom Strategist - Dianna Huff delivers news, riffs, and commentary on all things relating to B2B marketing communications
Marketing Edge - Albert Maruggi weaves 25 years of marketing and PR experience across business, technology and national public affairs in interviews with newsmakers, authors and business leaders
Marketing Online Live - Alex Mandossian and Paul Colligan share practical advice on how to get the best from Internet marketing
Marketing Over Coffee - Christopher Penn and John Wall cover both classic and new marketing
Modern B2B Marketing - Marketo’s latest thinking about B2B marketing, from best practices in search engine marketing to lead nurturing to marketing accountability
When do you listen to podcasts? Do you listen via your iPod (or other similar device), or via your computer? I like listening to podcasts on late Friday afternoons or weekends on my computer, to take a break while still doing something productive, and on my iPod in the car and while outside walking.
During the summer of 2008 I visited the websites of 300 business-to-business technology companies looking for one thing: RSS feeds.
RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is a Web feed format used to publish frequently updated information such as blog entries, news headlines, audio, and video in a standardized format. Website or blog visitors may subscribe to RSS feeds through a widget button on a site using Feedburner (recently acquired by Google) or other free service.
I found that 70% of B2B technology companies are not using RSS at all, and of the 30% that are using it, only 10% are using more than one feed in order to offer targeted information updates.
What’s the big deal about RSS? MarketingSherpa and KnowledgeStorm surveyed over 3,000 B2B technology decision makers, asking them “How important is RSS in helping you stay up-to-date on technology information?” 8% responded that it was a “necessity”, 24% responded that it was “important”, and 39% said it was “nice to have.”
While only 16% of the general public uses RSS feeds, 71% of technology buyers assign at least some value to their RSS use.By not offering this option, most B2B tech marketers are missing out on a valuable opportunity to influence this audience.
According to Rok Hrastnik, author of “Unleash the Marketing and Publishing Power of RSS,” the problem with most RSS marketing plans is that the marketer doesn’t go beyond providing a simple RSS feed for all of their online news or blog.
Marketers need to correctly plan their RSS marketing strategy, starting with deciding how RSS content will be delivered. Mr. Hrastnik recommends providing individual RSS feeds for:
A KnowledgeStorm research report found that 53% of B2B technology buyers had already been influenced by blog content at least once when making purchase decisions.
Industry peer blogs differ from a vendor’s blog or industry analyst blog because the information and opinions offered are perceived as being from an independent source not influenced by any particular company or organization. Technology purchasers consider these blogs to be similar to word-of-mouth, with the blogger leading the discussions and other peers volunteering information and opinions on the topics.
The Big Mistake 90% of Marketing Directors Make When Engaging Bloggers
A great way to use industry peer blogs to influence tech buyers is submitting a public comment on a particularly relevant post that all readers of the blog can view (comment settings are different for every blog, some require blogger approval before comment is public). Most blog systems enable you to enter your name, e-mail address, and website along with your comment, providing other readers (and the blogger) an opportunity to go to the website you entered. It’s a terrific opportunity to increase your credibility with your target audience while driving quality website traffic.
However, according to professional blogger Darren Rowse of the ProBlogging blog (#27 on Technorati’s
list of Top 100 blogs), manycomments left on some blogs are for shameless self-promotion purposes only and aggravate both bloggers and readers, and many are made by marketing or sales personnel.
Instead of adding value to the ‘conversation’ and knowledge exchange, comments that blatantly have no other purpose than advertising only serve to ruin your credibility, brand image, and chances of having bloggers link to your website or blog.
In the short time I’ve been blogging, I’ve already seen the tremendous value in driving traffic to my blog by posting useful, actionable comments on industry peer blogs - I highly recommend it.
Ever wondered why you do the things you do, make the decisions you do, or why someone else behaves a certain way? Ever wanted to get inside the minds of your potential customers, partners, investors and other people important to your company and know their hidden fears and thoughts so you know how to overcome them?
If you’re a fan of Malcolm Gladwell’s book ‘Blink‘, you should check out ‘Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions‘ by Dan Ariely, a MIT professor and researcher who looks at behavioral science and sociology in terms of how it affects every part of our lives.
Knowing why people do what they do and how we’re all influenced by different mediums has always interested me, I think it’s part of what drew me to marketing and PR. Seeing test results of landing pages, headlines, etc. and seeing the big difference just one or two simple tweaks can make is fascinating to me and makes me want to dig deeper into WHY. During college I took an entire course in persuation theory, and it was a great class, but didn’t offer much in the way of practical, real-life examples that I could relate to.
Ariely has discovered in 20 years of researching behavioral economics that people tend to behave irrationally in a predictable fashion. Drawing on psychology and economics, behavioral economics can show us why patients get greater relief from a more expensive drug over its cheaper counterpart, why honest people may steal office supplies or communal food, but not money, why people trying to lose weight can’t pass by the dessert cart, and other “irrational” behavior.
According to Ariely, our understanding of economics, now based on the assumption of a rational subject, should instead be based on our systematic irrationality. Ariely argues that greater understanding of previously ignored or misunderstood forces (emotions, relativity and social norms) that influence our economic behavior opens opportunities for reexamining individual motivation and consumer choice.
I’m about 70% of the way through the book, and I’m already forming ideas for how to apply what I’m learning to my business and my clients’.
As someone who has been on both the in-house corporate client side and the independent creative contractor side of marketing projects, this really hit home for me.
Loading ...