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MarketingSherpa Seeks Case Study speakers for 2009 B2B Demand Generation Summits. If you have a great B2B story to tell, think about sharing it with other B2B marketers at MarketingSherpa’s 6th Annual B2B Demand Generation Summit 2009. MarketingSherpa is looking for speakers for the events which will be held September 23-25... (04/24/09 09:00 AM)

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B2B Marketing Testing to Optimize Lead Generation Results. Discovering and knowing what really works and what doesn’t for lead generation is essential for every marketer. The best way to discover this is through the process of testing. Personally, I’ve met only a handful of B2B marketers who are... (02/25/09 09:00 AM)

MarketingExperiments B2B Landing Page Web Clinic Contest. I will be hosting a MarketingExperiments Web Clinic along with MECLABS Sciences Group Director, Dr. Flint McGlaughlin, this Wednesday, February 25 at 4 pm EST. This clinic is special because it will feature an interactive contest. Ten B2B landing pages... (02/25/09 09:00 AM)

Web Analytics for B2B Lead Generation . In the complex sale, the length of the buying cycle makes the connection between on-the-web activity and the off-line decision to purchase much more difficult to trace. So the challenge is connecting our website data (analytics), with marketing data (inquiries... (02/25/09 09:00 AM)

The 2008 Top of the Funnel List. Craig Rosenberg recently created a list of the most influential people in B2B Demand Generation, and I’m honored to have been included. Many know Craig through his blog, Funnelholic, or through his company Tippit. Funnelholic is a very insightful and... (02/25/09 09:00 AM)

How to use social media for lead generation. I’ve been blogging for over five years. When I started, there wasn’t a business case on the ROI of blogging, nor was there a lot written on B2B lead generation. I started blogging because I wanted to share with everyone... (02/25/09 09:00 AM)

BtoB 2008 Lead Generation Guide. B2B Marketers are increasingly emphasizing lead generation and as a result, BtoB Magazine just published their inaugural BtoB 2008 Lead Generation Guide today. I highly recommend you check it out. It has a lot of studies, expert columns, market statistics... (02/25/09 09:00 AM)

A five-step playbook that will optimize lead generation programs. Companies that adopt closed-loop lead management processes report higher return on marketing investment (ROMI) than those that do not, making this a key investment for B2B marketers. The challenge that many organizations face is that their lead management process is... (02/25/09 09:00 AM)

Learn how to create content that improves your lead gen conversions. B2B marketing efforts heavily rely on content as a lead generation incentive. To be effective in the lead gen cycle, this content has to be something your prospects yearn to read or view. You’ll want to create content that will... (02/25/09 09:00 AM)

Why Writing Blogs Just for SEO Will Inevitably Fail . Search engine optimization (SEO) remains critically important for B2B marketers doing lead generation online. And it's pretty common advice to hear: launch a blog because the relevant content will attract links and improve your search engine visibility. Blogs can offer... (02/25/09 09:00 AM)

Let's stop doing random acts of lead generation. I don’t know about you but I seldom meet a B2B marketer who has time to think. And it seems that the pressure keeps building as more of us seek to do more with less. That said, it’s vital for... (02/25/09 09:00 AM)

What are your 2009 marketing predictions?.

Welcome (almost) to the new calendar year! I hope that the buzz of Christmas is still with you!

It's that time of year where we shift our focus (if we haven't already) to the possibilities of 2009. I'd like to kick that off by asking what your marketing predictions are for 2009? I've started a new site specifically for 2009 marketing predictions. It's at http://www.2009marketingpredictions.com.

So, put on your Nostradamus hat and let me know where you see marketing and marketers heading for 2009 and beyond!

Here are mine (all explained in greater detail here):

1. Marketers apply lessons from the 2008 Presidential campaign.
2. Marketers will measure absolutely everything.
3. Insurgent marketers will win big market share.
4. Customer data will be the most precious marketing resource.
5. Everyone becomes a marketer.
6. Marketers focus on targeting.
7. Consumers expect feedback loops; companies respond.
8. Mobile and location really begin to matter.
9. Tactics will still lead before strategy.
10. B2B Marketers will increasingly seek a 'thought leadership' based approach to marketing.

Post yours here - What are your 2009 Marketing Predictions?

(02/24/09 09:00 AM)

Social Media Marketing Best Practice Tip.

I'm fond of saying that social media doesn't have 'best practices' per se, we just have 'current practices'. Those things that we know are working right now with very, very limited play in a real market. That said, I see that Mitch Joel, Six Pixels of Separation, has started a blog meme on pulling together the best practices and has challenged bloggers to write one post. I also see that Toby has already contributed some outstanding insights. Here's my take

Social Media Best Practice Tip:

Alignment: Yes, that's it. Alignment. If your organization is considering (or is well on their way) pursuing social media in your tactical marketing plans. It (social media) MUST be in complete alignment with your strategy and differentiator as an organization and in complete alignment with what you're already doing in your marketing plan.

Strategic & Differentiation Alignment:
If you've not yet read Seth Godin's book, Meatball Sundae, I highly recommend you check it out. In a nutshell, it gets after this very issue. If you're in charge of marketing for any organization that does not (and is not likely to in the future) embody openness, sharing, trust and all of those things that are required in a customer-owns-your-brand world that is social media, this might not be a strategic fit for you. Should you change, perhaps, but that's not the issue here. Just as I would rarely advise a B2B startup client to advertise on network television, there are some companies that aren't going to align on social media. One last thing - even though your company has some aligning characteristics...if your legal department doesn't, your social media marketing plan may have a hard time getting off the ground. I'm just sayin'...

Marketing Plan Alignment:
This one's a bit easier, but still a challenge, and we're still talking about alignment. If you decide to setup a Twitter account because it's cool, but you're not blogging and you're expecting things to just explode for you, that's unrealistic (but, you already knew that...) You need to align social media vehicles with that you're already doing and plan appropriately for their launch. If you have a customer database but you've never sent an email, maybe do that first...then put up the videos, then email your customers again, then get the blog going, then seed you customers with that and get the real conversation going... I'm still bullish on data and collecting it on prospects and customers (RSS subscribers and video viewers are not success metrics in the end) and employing that data in your marketing and social media efforts.

[UPDATE] One more thing... This 'social media thing' is new, and it's not...you know what I mean...right? Well, here's what I mean. Companies that do well in social media are those same types of organizations with the criteria identified by Jim Collins in Good to Great. They would meet the test of social media readiness. Examples of that criteria include: humility, acting as a servant leader, being able to accept brutal honesty, availability, a willingness to share credit (ideally, give full credit to others) and take sole responsibility and blame for failures.

(02/24/09 09:00 AM)

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What are your 2009 marketing predictions?.

Welcome (almost) to the new calendar year! I hope that the buzz of Christmas is still with you!

So, put on your Nostradamus hat and let me know where you see marketing and marketers heading for 2009 and beyond!

Here are mine (all explained in greater detail here):

Post yours here - What are your 2009 Marketing Predictions?

(12/28/08 09:00 PM)

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Social Media Marketing Best Practice Tip.

(09/11/08 09:00 PM)

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Want more signups/subscribers? Test your forms!.

This from Bill Flagg of RegOnline talks about how he has continuously works on optimizing the account signup page for the RegOnline website to maximize the conversion rate. [via Brad Feld]

What a great post to encounter first thing this morning. I just had this discussion with two separate clients in the past two days on how to optimize their account signup and newsletter subscription forms. Some great advice from Bill:

Here's what I learned to ask myself and my team... 1. Which information is a must-have? Do I have to know where they came from or can my web analytics tell me? 2. Which information could we collect later? For example, we collect billing information when the client goes live with their event. 3. Eliminate the rest. If a piece of information doesn't create a change in action, then I eliminate the field.

I agree with Bill 100% and often ask a couple more questions to get this right. Of course, you're never done asking questions. You should always be testing you forms to achieve greater conversion!

1. What data can you market to? If you're asking for address, birth date, phone number and the like - are you really going to market using all of that data or are you just collecting it because you think you need it (or your CEO thinks you need it)
2. How does the data tie into the rest of your CRM and database marketing efforts? If you're a B2B company you'll want to and need to know different things than a CPG company.
3. What's the "form fatigue" factor and how do you eliminate data point collection to ease up on your customer's patience.

(05/02/08 09:01 AM)

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Three Answers from the Web 2.0 Summit. I couldn't make the Web 2.0 Summit a couple weeks ago, but my colleague Jay Hallberg (Co-founder and VP of Marketing for Spiceworks) was there and answered my top three questions: If I were a brand company.... top three things... that would help my business: 1) Web 2.0 is moving into 'adulthood' and changing industries. There was a general feeling that web 2.0 has grown up. In fact, the Red Herring had a great piece on this: "Is Web 2.0 Growing Up?". Collaborative technologies are solving problems for enterprises and entire industries. It's no longer about whether your CEO has a blog or your company has a wiki. You better be paying attention to how Web 2.0 is helping your competitor or turning your company upside down. Half of the companies featured in the prestigious Launch Pad were "B2B": Cleverset optimizes website revenue, ClickForensics analyzes PPC click fraud, and Spiceworks (my company) has introduced free, ad-supported IT applications. Some of the crowd bemoaned the fact that Web 2.0 is no longer about the next YouTube or Flickr -- it's now about how it's impacting the bottom-line or up-ending industries. If you are still talking about blogs and wikis you may have missed the boat. 2) "Online" is everything. Brian McAndrews who runs Microsoft's ad business really nailed it when said that within 5 years online will be the center of all media, marketing and advertising strategies. It's where people should start. Frankly, it's hard to believe that this isn't already... (10/29/07 09:00 AM)

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John Moore's Marketing Lessons from Starbucks. Last week was the first event of this year for Texchange (my first as President). The speaker was John Moore, author of Tribal Knowledge and top marketing blog, Brand Autopsy. The title of John's presentation was "Business Wisdom Brewed from the Grounds of Starbucks". John was a senior marketing guy at Starbucks and Whole Foods. I told him Texchange was an audience of (mostly) B2B entrepreneurs and executives, yet his seemingly B2C message didn't disappoint. The lessons learned from Starbucks are applicable to any company. Essentially your employees are your marketing. The culture and passion inside is what becomes visible outside. John calls it inside out marketing. Another point I should make, that I brought up to my discussion table. In order to create a brand like Starbucks, or any great brand, the key is to decide what NOT to do. Again, what NOT to do. Strip away activities, messages, and resources from anything not core to your core. He presented several principles to the audience. Here are the two I liked most:Building the Business Creates the Brand GIST: Starbucks was too busy building a business to worry about something as nebulous as branding. Because Starbucks was busy working in and on the business, the by-product was the creation of a powerful brand which connects on so many levels with people around the world. Rarely, if ever, can you sprinkle magical branding dust to create an enduring and endearing brand. Starbucks Tribal Knowledge tells us you cannot create a brand... (08/23/07 09:00 PM)

Disruptors Video: An eBay for Manufacturers (MFG.com). Remember all of those B2B exchanges that were supposed to change the industrial landscape before they evaporated at the tail end of the last dotcom boom? Well, at least one of them survived—a small company based in Atlanta called MFG.com. Today, it is a thriving Web marketplace for manufacturers and their suppliers. I talk with CEO Mitch Free in this week’s episode of the New Disruptors. MFG.com is a Website where engineers and purchasing managers from places like Apple or Northrop Grumman can put up CAD diagrams of parts they want manufactured and get bids from suppliers all over the world. In the past twelve months, over $2 billion worth of parts have been sourced over MFG.com. But instead of trying to take a cut of each transaction like eBay does, MFG.com charges a subscription fee of about $6,000 a year to each supplier. Free says the company is on track to pull in $25 million in revenues this year and is running at break-even. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is the largest outside investor (he learned about it from one of the engineers at his spacecraft startup, Blue Origin). Germany’s Samwer brothers—their startup Alando became eBay Germany—also own a stake. Free wants to turn MFG.com into an online platform for the manufacturing industry. Last year, he bought Europe’s SourcingParts (a Salesforce.com for purchasing managers), and launched a manufacturing social network last March called MFGx.com. “We’ve borrowed some of the elements from Craigslist, MySpace, and Wikipedia,” he says. But perhaps the... (07/26/07 09:00 PM)

Women in Sales - Participate in a Groundbreaking Study. My colleague and B2B sales expert, Jill Konrath is working with The Center for Sales Innovation to reach out to women in business who make a living calling on corporate accounts through an innovative study. If you are a B2B... (07/13/07 09:02 AM)

Search marketing works for B2B, too.. Thanks to a reader, I learned that there was a 'B2B Case Study' session at the recent Search Engine Strategies conference in San Francisco. The article reviewing the session, titled, Search marketing works for B2B, too, starts with this gem:

"Most people assume search marketing works only to reach consumers, but it's actually quite effective for businesses wishing to connect with other businesses, as well."

Um, I'd counter that SEM is more effective for B2B, but I think this comment just shows the lack of knowledge of the author--obviously B2B is off the charts for some folks. The article throws up comments about basic SEM for B2B but this bit is probably of interest B2Blog readers:

"Rick Brown, President of NetTrack closed out the session with a discussion of the effectiveness of paid inclusion in vertical aggregator sites like ThomasNet, GlobalSpec and Industrial Quick Search. Brown articulated his endorsement of such aggregators cautiously, saying that they can bring in relevant traffic as well as provide valuable links to a company's homepage but that many of the metrics such websites use to promote their services (such as "reach," "page views," and "brand activity") don't have much impact on a client's bottom line.

He also noted that the value of the links from content aggregators is highest when the landing page can be controlled and there is a one to one relationship between the product category being searched and the landing page on a firm's website. Brown suggested than firms who invest in paid inclusion on a vertical aggregator site have their own analytics like ClickTracks to determine the value of the traffic coming in from sites like Industrial Quick Search. "

Um, get an analytics program? Duh. What most B2B folks don't do is actually look at the data and ponder its meaning.

One thing that Rick Brown said that is innovative, is that he proposes a 1-to-1 relationship between the seller's landing page and the product categories on the directories. I've opined before that part of the problem with directories is that once the user clicks-thru, they have to start their search over again.

BTW: A rather interesting post by Marketing Headhunter Harry Joiner about a SEO specialist looking for a new job. Key fact: $125-150K pay for specialists at SEO agencies. Wow! (08/28/06 09:03 PM)

Sponsoring B2B email newsletters. Globalspec's newsletter, Marketing Maven, posts a e-marketing 101 article titled What to Know About Sponsoring e-Newsletters that caught my attention. I don't think the subject gets talked about very much. Ultimately, she is making a case for sponsoring Globalspec's industry-specific newsletters.

"A compelling case exists for suppliers and manufacturers to add sponsorship of e-newsletters to their marketing mix. The benefits of the right sponsorship include:"
Brand visibility
Frequency
Low barrier to entry
Audience
Ability to test"

Okay, the Maven is right on these (and she explains more for each bullet), but there are two other issues that come to my mind:

1. Cost. Of course.
Globalspec has always positioned itself as costing about as much for a one year listing as a single full page ad in a trade publication (around $15K). Their newsletter sponsorships (three different positions available) are about $2,500 per issue. This was true regardless of the audience size (30K or 70K), but is on par with pricing I've seen with trade publications.

This expense could be acceptable for an advertiser with a large budget trying to round out their exposure triangle. For a partial-page advertiser like myself, this is a big price to pay for a extremely fleeting exposure. But that leads to my second point.

2. Effectiveness
Just how fast do people scan e-newsletters? Fast. The quality of content and the format is going to effect how the user reads the newsletter, but the process is fast nonetheless. While there is a 'low barrier to entry' as the Maven says, and it sounds good to get your promotion in front of 70K folks at one shot, I don't think that you can just throw money and a simple ad/listing and expect results. Particular care needs to be placed on what your ad says and looks like, and how it fits in the newsletter. Essentially, the same due-diligence should be applied as to a print ad in order to be effective.

So, in summary, I think e-newsletter sponsorship works when:

It is a smaller part of an overall marketing program
The newsletter format makes the sponsorship likely to be noticed
The advertiser prepares content that gets noticed
Sponsors should take advantage of the points the Maven calls out

Longtime readers may remember I once posted about a newsletter sponsor that got me to click, only to lead to a white paper as a Word file. Hopefully we're all past that by now. (08/25/06 09:02 AM)

"Finally, an event for those of you who wear too many hats!". So leads a mailer I recently received from ISA (Instrument Society of America). Seems that they are putting together their "First Annual Marketing & Sales Summit". Wow, a real B2B organization putting together a marketing program!

The ISA seems to be more about software and automation these days than instruments per-say, so maybe I'm overreaching in thinking they care about 'industrial' marketing vs. 'tech' marketing.

Anyway, it lands at a bad time for me to be able to attend (second week of September), but maybe some of you guys out there are interested. www.isa.org/rsvp/1 (08/21/06 09:00 PM)

Is CPA helpful to B2B AdSense campaigns?. Perhaps you've heard of Google's mantra, "do no evil". I was concerned that their going-public would shift the focus of their company towards profiteering, if not evil. As it turns out, they seem to have been too clumsy (and blessed by Wall Street) to be digging for profits.

Staying squarely in the 'no evil' category, the big story this week is that they are testing AdSense payment based on "Cost per action", or CPA. A click-thru would not be enough, the visitor would have to 'convert', or achieve a goal on the website. Advertisers using this model would only pay for traffic that matters, and risk of click-fraud (i.e. evil) would go away. For the sites hosting the ad, a potentially higher pay-off should offset their PPC income.

This sounds great, but there are questions that seem hard to resolve, especially for advertisers like me (which is maybe why Google is only 'testing' CPA).

The obvious technicality is that for a lot of smaller & B2B businesses, the most common 'action' coming from their website is a phone call. And these are the people who also are paying much more per-click in their current PPC campaigns. Which means they have a lot more at risk for click-fraud yet cannot rely on CPA to help due to the untraceable phone call.

The other problem is simply numbers. AdSense needs thousands of impressions just to create PPC activity worth mentioning. And of those clicks, only another 1-2% are going to convert. And because that conversion for small or B2B businesses is not a sale, we aren't going to want to pay a high bounty for 'just a lead' (unless quality can be determined).

Russ Perkins, at InfoCommerce Group, points out a deeper issue in this week's newsletter, titled Does CPA Add Up To Trouble? that this would once-again upset the apple cart regarding the job of advertisers and the publishers carrying the AdSense ads:

"If CPA takes off with advertisers, and I think it will, we have to watch it closely. If it remains limited to publishers getting paid (hopefully a lot) for generating hard sales leads, that's one thing, and a number of us could do quite well in this environment. If it morphs (as I predict it will) to advertisers demanding to pay only when they make a sale, we as an industry have to draw the line. The purpose of advertising is to stimulate interest, not guarantee profits."

While the CPA program may flourish with e-commerce businesses, I don't see it gaining a foothold in the B2B sphere.

In addition, I will go one further: As B2B advertisers look closer at their spending and conversion rates with AdSense (as compared to AdWords), they will start to pull out of AdSense.

The next smart place to try is Google's Site Targeting, which is paid on a CPM basis, but allows you to choose what sites to run your ad. That kind of human selection should provide a greater chance of clicks and conversions. (07/29/06 02:28 PM)

Guess what is the top B2B marketing tool?. Us poor B2B marketers...the top three things buyers look for in a product aren't under our direct control...price, service, quality. We can add sizzle to these, but ultimately, the buyer will discern the truth.

So what is our #1 marketing tool? Amazingly it is something we've only had for ten years...our websites. Results of a user survey by ThomasNet were summed this way:

"Of course, competitive pricing, good customer service and high quality are a given, but the next single most important thing buyers mentioned is a detailed, user-friendly Web site. "

The article has lots of other handy tidbits from the survey:

Comments by users like this:
"Provide enough information within their Web site for me to make an educated decision-? comparative product details, listed prices, and list of distributors that I can purchase from if they don't sell direct."

This factual gem:
36% of the time users will seek out new suppliers for a new purchase.

Look at the top two of '10 Things Buyers Look For In a New Supplier'
1. Easy-to-navigate Web sites with accurate, detailed product and pricing information
2. Companies that are easy to find and have a strong Web presence

This shouldn't really be news to us B2B marketers...but after ten years, we may have grown complacent about our websites. From the details of this survey, I say our target audience has become even more discerning and faster to pass on poor (to them) websites. We can't become complacent!

Read more: It's Not Who You Know. It's Who Knows You (07/29/06 02:28 PM)

B2B content trapped in need for completeness?. The one thing I like about writing is that I get to address the topic as completely as I feel I need to. Over the years I've found that the one detail I leave out in a email or brochure or webpage is the one piece of information that folks call back looking for. When blogging, I write until I feel I've addressed the topic until it is resolved in my mind. Writing saves interuptions and makes revising easy. The end result is a complete document.

Reading an article in this month's Wired called What Kind of Genuis Are You (a facinating article about two types of creatives, nicely summarized here at Reveries), I find myself identifying with 'experimentalist' creatives like Cezanne who only signed 10% of his paintings because he was never sure if they were complete or not.

Regardless, the point is that one goal of B2B marketing is communicating information effectively, which means completeness. But perhaps we are overachievers. Engineers need certain data from our materials, but they aren't dumb. They can connect the dots. We don't need to spoon-feed them.

Yet we continue to produce 'features and benefits' lists that treat them as dumb. That's because we are told that benefits sell, not features. And it becomes complete that way. How many of you have written something like this...

"Our latest model features a smaller footprint to save your valuable lab space."

Perhaps we are lacking feedback on our writing, because on the other side, this is what is happening:

Engineer reading web page: "Duh!"

How much smarter is it to leave your marketing incomplete and let the reader do the heavy lifting? The conclusion may be obvious, but the conclusion is now theirs. They own the idea now. Even complex concepts may fair better, because explaining them takes more effort then just pointing the reader in the right direction. (This happens in art and B2C advertising, but they also have the benefit of multiple mediums to make this more effective.)

Or to quote a Chinese proverb I saw somewhere else this week:

"Tell me and I'll forget; show me and I may remember; involve me and I'll understand."

I think I've reached the asymptote of completeness with this post, so I'll leave you to figure out what it means to you. (Of course I'm wondering if your reading this going 'duh', how obvious.)

UPDATE: Kathy Sierra latest post complements (adds to) this one: Hooverin' and the space between notes (07/29/06 02:28 PM)

DirectIndustry, or Direct Access?. On the last page of July's Test & Measurement World, there is an interview with Corentin Thiercelin, CEO of DirectIndustry.com. I haven't talked much about DirectIndustry here, but it is a directory targeting world-wide B2B supply.

The interview is typical of what you would expect, with bits like this:

"Google is so exhaustive that it can sometimes lack the order and logic necessary for professionals to compare products and brands effectively. As a search engine specialized for industry, DirectIndustry returns this order to the search, saving professionals time and headaches."

Info-commerce geeks and directory clients who read this blog should find the article somewhat interesting, which is part of the reason why I've posted it. This article leaves me with three questions, however:
1. Is this good content?
I've praised T&MW's content here before, but why this piece? Are engineers interested in the business of directories? The page subject is "Viewpoint, An exclusive interview with a technical leader". The most interesting part may be that Corentin was once a test engineer, which is why his website is lopsided towards test.

2. Is this a play to an advertiser?
DirectIndustry has been running a series of ads in T&MW celebrating their growth and longevity--is this why this interview is here? It's lack of typical editorial relevance smacks of direct access for advertisers. And the interview is all about his company, not really the 'role of the Web in purchasing decisions', as the intro promises.

3. What about loyalty to KellySearch?
T&MW is a Reed publication, which also owns KellySearch.com, a DirectIndustry competitor. T&MW has KellySearch as a tool on its website. Are the editors passive-aggressive towards their forced association with Kelly? Or trying to look unbiased?

What do you think? (07/29/06 02:28 PM)

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