Archive for the ‘Marketing Strategy’ Category
Best B2B Marketing and Sales Strategy Guides and Insights of 2011
Tuesday, January 3rd, 2012Social media, content aggregation and curation, user-generated content and other developments have dramatically changed the B2B buying cycle over the past few years. Marketers need to think like publishers not only to improve their company’s visibility in search (which is where 93% of B2B buying cycles now start) but also to address the differing information needs of buying team members, at different stages during the decision process.
This evolution has changed life for sales reps as well. Prospects often don’t surface until much later in the buying process than they did just a few years ago. Buyers are better informed (and expect sales reps to be better informed about their industry and likely challenges as well), and often need only a few key questions answered (most critically, price) by the time they contact a sales person.
How can B2B organizations, marketers and sales professionals adjust to, and thrive in, this new environment? Find out here in some of the best blog posts and articles of the past year offering strategic guidance and insights for B2B marketing and sales executives.
B2B Marketing Trends, Tips and Strategies
The Top-10 B2B Marketing Trends for 2011 by Everything Technology Marketing
Holger Schulze laid out these ten predictions in January 2011. For the most part, the predictions were on target. And also, for the most part, these predicted areas of focus (e.g. social media ROI, lead quality, content marketing) will remain priorities in 2012.
Just What Do Marketers Do, Anyway? by MarketingProfs
Barbara Bix and Olga Taylor craft an intriguing case for focused market research and targeting using the example of a violin virtuoso playing in a subway for $32, after having sold out a concert with $100 tickets just days before. Bix and Taylor explain that “Quality and price are important, but only in front of the right buyer, at the right time and place,” then provide guidance on determining those attributes in order to maximize profits.
You’ve Got New Visitors at Your Site. Now What? by MarketingProfs
Contending that “Only by creating rich experiences—in the form of content, features, interactivity, and the like—can businesses convert visitors into more than just passing window shoppers,” Gretel Going details a process for creating the right kinds of content based on buyer types, stage in the buying process, and differing content preferences, utilizing an array of different formats from ebooks and webinars to video and mobile apps–in addition to great web page copy.
B2B Websites NOT Great At Demand Gen by Business2Community
The insightful Ardath Albee picks up on the theme of the post above, noting that while B2B marketers expend great efforts on SEO and social media marketing to attract visitors to the websites, research shows that their websites are then often “ignoring the very audience they worked so hard to attract.” This post details a conversation she had with Craig Rosenberg about B2B website usability, effectiveness and conversion rate optimization.
Is Youtility the Future of Marketing? by iMedia Connection
Frequent “best of” contributor Jay Baer writes that “The difference between helping and selling is just 2 letters. But those letters make all the difference. Your company needs to become a YOUtility. Sell something, and you make a customer. Help someone, and you make a customer for life.” He illustrates the concept of YOUtility with real-world examples and explains how any company can do this.
3 Tips on How to Use Search Engine Marketing Effectively by ePROneur
Because “getting to the top of the search results requires work and the understanding of not only what tactical methods you need to use to get there, but also what foundation you need to build and have in place to be most effective,” Rania Kort outlines three high-level strategies for optimizing a company’s presence in search.
101 awesome marketing quotes; A presentation by Thewebcitizen
Ilias Chelidonis shares 101 marketing quotes from a HubSpot presentation, such as “Remarkable social media content and great sales copy are pretty much the same–plain spoken words designed to focus on the needs of the reader, listener or viewer” and “Make the customer the hero of your story” (so true).
10 rules for entrepreneurial survival by TECHdotMN
Getting your attention by opening his post with “If you’re an entrepreneur, there’s something wrong with you. You have a genetic predisposition for risking it all…You are a masochist who is mentally prepared to run an ultra-marathon with an invisible finish line. Yet, you are confident in the pursuit of your destination,” Lief Larson of Workface goes on to list 10 survival rules for entpreneurs. For example, #8: “There are no shortcuts. There is only one right way to do things: the right way. Dig your heels in and be prepared to endure. ‘Overnight success’ can take years in the making.”
Why lead generation and branding aren’t mutually exclusive by iMedia Connection
Chris Chariton shares five ideas on how “sales and marketing can work together to generate leads and build the brand as part of the same effort.” Among her ideas is increasing your company’s “findability.” As Chris notes, “pushing information out to customers and prospects is not nearly as effective as it once was. Instead, you have to make sure they can find you when they’re looking” (which is why web presence optimization is crucial).
Addressing Changes in the B2B Buying Cycle
No One Wants To Read Your Whitepaper. Let’s Hope They Recycle It. by Marketing Automation Software Guide
Writing that “I have no interest in reading a War and Peace-style sales pitch — and, let’s face it, that’s what most whitepapers are these days…Companies need to find new and more direct ways to reach the buyer 2.0 without going all Tolstoy on them,” Lauren Carlson recommends alternatives focused on providing the information that buyers need, when they want it, in forms that are more digestible and engaging.
The Future of Buyer Relationships by Business2Community
Tony Zambito outlines seven aspects of changes in the buying cycle brought about by social media and the explosion of user-generated content, including the importance of building an online reputation, understanding how social algorithms work, and producing real-time content.
The Blurry B2B Buying Process | New Breed of B2B Buyer #2 by Chaotic Flow
Joel York offers his insights on reaching “the new elusive B2B buyer” who seeks to engage with sales “only when there is clear value to be gained, not just to get information.” He demonstrates the imperative of marketing automation through some interesting variations of the traditional sales funnel model.
Five Ways B-to-B Marketers Need to Change Their Game by Biznology
Citing dramatic changes in the typical B2B sales cycle – “Buyers don’t really want to talk to vendors until somewhere akin to 70% of the way down the road, at the stage of writing RFPs and getting quotes…Business buying processes are getting longer, and—most important—involving more parties than ever before. The so-called Buying Circle in large enterprise B-to-B—the influencers, specifiers, users, decision-makers—comprises as many as 21 people, according to Marketing Sherpa”—Ruth Stevens challenges marketers to “think differently” and use these specific techniques to maximize impact with buyers.
B2B Sales Trends and Strategies
Salesmen are Dying and Other IT Trends by IT Marketing World
Tom Pisello details changes in the B2B buying cycle resulting from the immediate access to vast amounts of information now available online. It isn’t exactly “death of a salesman” but it does mean death to the old way of selling. Pisello concludes that “Advanced ROI business case tools and training should be provided to direct and channel sales professionals to help them advance from traditional product / solution selling, to the value selling buyers now demand.”
Gartner: 5 Questions for Anyone Selling Technology by Inflexion Point
Bob Apollo shares five questions posed by Steve Prentice of Gartner in a presentation on the use of technology to drive business innovation, along with his interpretation of what those questions mean to those focused on selling technology-based products or services in a B2B context.
5 Ways To Influence B2B Group Buying Decisions by Social Media B2B
Noting that B2B purchases are normally group decisions, Adam Holden-Bache suggests “five things to consider as you create social media content targeted at B2B group buyers,” including highlighting the value of your offering (based on buyer roles) and showing how it will integrate with the buying company’s existing tools, systems and processes.
And Finally…
Future Trends: 2012 Online Marketing & Technology Predictions by TopRank Online Marketing Blog
This post opened with Holger Schulze’s predictions for 2011, and fittingly closes with Lee Odden’s prognostication for 2012. He challenges marketers to think how their audiences will be consuming information in the coming years (evolving online and device technology) rather than narrow concepts, then presents seven compelling reports and infographics outlining “key technology, social business and digital marketing trends for 2012 and beyond.”
Book Review: The Power of Strategic Commitment
Thursday, December 1st, 2011Many books fail to live up to what’s promised on their covers: exciting title, raving blurbs, boring content. But The Power of Strategic Commitment
Power is written for leaders at all levels of any size organization. After defining what they mean by “strategic commitment,” the authors explain why it is so crucial to organizational success.
Basically, most organizations operate at a sub-optimal level because employees are more concerned about protecting their status quo than with making bold changes that will propel the organization to higher levels of success. This isn’t because they are bad employees, but because they don’t have effective leadership. (As the writers note, “Only when leaders are willing to ‘own’ the current state of affairs, and admit to themselves that they have caused the current levels of apathy, resistance, or resignation, can they begin to address and improve the situation.”) The authors then outline explicitly why this is the case, and most importantly, what to about it.
Often, it isn’t so much what an organization does that determines success, but how it does it. As a case in point, the authors cite Apple’s retail stores: “Online purchasing has created a new legion of buyers who aren’t willing to wait for bored salespeople to attend to them inn retail outlets. Yet Apple, Inc. was able to create very successful retail outlets by assigning a salesperson to customers from their moment of entry, through all purchases, right up to departures. (As one woman shopper was heard to remark, ‘Life should be like this, with a man assigned to you for as long as you want him.’).” Ouch!
The authors contend that many books about execution, motivation, and leadership fail to provide the information needed to really move the needle because they deal with only single factors of organizational excellence. What’s needed is true employee engagement with the corporate mission; commitment, as distinct from compliance.
Noting, from their observations in years of business consulting, that “when strategy fails it is almost always due to poor implementation, not poor formulation,” the authors argue that consensus is not the same as commitment. “Consensus is not commitment. People agree to ‘live with’ something, but that doesn’t mean they would ‘die for’ it.” They point out that in highly effective organizations, there are often passionate disputes—but these organizations are not disrupted by internal politics.
Along the way, the authors enthusiastically skewer “flavor of the month” management fads:
“In the early 1990’s, process reengineering…was the most popular organizational business response to improve effectiveness…By the late 1990s, it had become apparent that you could improve processes until the cows came home, but if people and functions were not genuinely on board ad buying in, then productivity gains would be ephemeral at best…In a leading manufacturing organization, the CEO’s engineering background and belief in the ‘science’ of Six Sigma drove him to ensure his managers and employees were rigorously complying with the process rather than truly owning the need to improve quality and the customer experience. As a result, Six Sigma was pervasive but customer satisfaction levels continued to decline. No customer ever proclaimed ‘Wow, I love what they’re doing with Six Sigma,” or ‘Quality teams have really improved by loyalty!’”
The lesson they draw is: “Organizational commitment to a CEO’s strategy is…perhaps the key factor in the success of the strategy and its organizational objectives.” In a nutshell, they recommend dictatorship in setting objectives (the “what”) but democracy in determining the means to achieve them (the “how”), and conclude “Including and engaging employees so that they can fully commit to the strategy is the ultimate factor in whether strategy succeeds or not.”
Leibner, Mader and Weiss identify two key issues at the heart of strategic commitment: content and context. Content is “the plan.” To be effective, it must be valid (the correct path for the organization based on research and independent thought) and it must be clearly communicated so that everyone in the organization can “get on the same page.”
Context has four key drivers:
- • Credibility (are leaders and managers being straightforward and honest?)
- • Courage (do leaders have the resolve to see the strategy through? Do employees believe that management will be “open to hearing the real, often negative feedback, and will they have the guts to deal with the real issues?”)
- • Competence (are the organization’s leaders capable of executing the strategy; do they know what they’re doing?)
- • Caring (do the leaders understand the impact that the plan will have on employees? Will they give employees the freedom to contribute, and recognition for those contributions? As the authors sum this up, “the more that people believe that management values them as resources and not as expenses, the more committed they tend to become.”)
Leiber and Mader are the founders of Quantum Performance, Inc., a strategic management consulting firm that has worked with numerous Global 1000 clients. Weiss is a consultant, speaker, author of 32 books, and head of Summit Consulting Group. The three bring years of experience to this book, and illustrate many of their points with true-life stories from name-brand clients. But the principals and guidance presented here apply to organizations of all sizes, and non-profit and government agencies as well as businesses.
The book closes with appendix containing several helpful tools, checklists and tips to help put the authors’ ideas into practice.
The Power of Strategic Commitment
Be Everywhere Online – Without Your Foot in Your Mouth
Monday, August 15th, 2011Guest post by Kristin Zhivago
Tom is right. As he contended in Web Presence Optimization Reloaded, you should be “everywhere.” You have to appear in all the channels where your customers may be lurking.
But—and this is big—if you appear in those channels with a message that does not resonate with your potential buyers, it’s worse than not being there at all. You will be convincing potential buyers that you really don’t understand their issues, don’t know what they really care about, and aren’t really going to be able to solve their problems. You will be “unselling,” rather than selling.
Details about the revenue-growth method (including the questions you should be asking customers), are in Kristin's new book, Roadmap to Revenue: How to Sell the Way Your Customers Want to Buy.
How do you make sure your content—wherever it appears—is relevant and convincing?
You ask your current customers a tested set of questions that will result in you knowing exactly what you should be saying to your future customers. Using this method, you will actually be able to reverse-engineer your successful sales so you can produce new sales in quantity. Fortunately, you only have to interview 7 – 10 customers of any given type to see ironclad, bankable patterns emerge. These patterns will direct your company’s efforts going forward, and will result in higher revenue.
You should ask your questions on the phone, in a conversation. Your customers will be more relaxed and tell you more on the phone than they will in person. They will also give you more usable information than you’d ever get out of an emailed or webform survey. People tend to “clam up” when they’re typing something that could be used against them in some way. And “listening” to social media won’t tell you what their buying process was, or what they were thinking as they made the purchase. Even social media companies hire me to have these conversations with their customers.
The interviewing is just the first step to increasing your revenue. Equally important is what you learn, and what you do with the information after you have analyzed it and discussed it.
You will learn:
- Why they came looking for your solution—the problem they were trying to solve, and how they describe it. These words and phrases will become the magic words that resonate with customers. They won’t have to translate your internal jargon into the words and phrases they would naturally use.
- What their concerns were as they were trying to buy. I say “trying,” because only a few companies in the world actually make it easy for their customers to buy from them. Most companies place one barrier after another in front of buyers when they’re attempting to buy.
- What they like about your company, products, and services (which you should be promoting), and what simply isn’t working (which you should fix).
- What they wish you were selling. It could be a small tweak to your existing product line, a new service associated with your product line, a new way of packaging or supporting the product, or even a new product that would provide a new revenue stream.
Armed with what you’ve learned, you will then map out their buying process. You will create marketing and selling tools that make it easy for them to take the next step in their buying process, encouraged by what they see as they go.
Using this approach, all of your online and offline content—and the tools produced for salespeople—will resonate with customers. Your product developers will know exactly what they should be focusing on. Top executives will know what should be offered, how the business should be structured, and even what people are willing to pay for those products and services. You will know the promises that they want you to keep, and you will make the necessary changes to your company so you can keep those promises. You will create a revenue-growth action plan that lays out the steps you need to take to make all this happen. You won’t have to guess and experiment anymore.
As you make these changes to your website, marketing and selling tools, products, and services, customers will respond positively. They will buy more. And, they will tell others how great you are, which will increase your sales even more.
Kristin Zhivago is a revenue coach who helps CEOs and entrepreneurs sell more by understanding what their customers want to buy and how they want to buy it. She blogs at http://www.RevenueJournal.com.
5 Questions Every Business Website Must Answer
Monday, August 8th, 2011Twitter, YouTube videos, text messaging…there’s no question attention spans are short. Everyone is busy, asked constantly to “do more with less,” including most critically their time. To connect with buyers in this environment, your business website needs to provide them with the information they need—quickly and concisely.
By the time a buyer reaches your site, he or she has likely done the basic research. The problem is defined, the solution set narrowed, and now it’s time to choose between competing vendors. In order to make the short list, and ideally to win the business, your site needs to quickly answer five critical questions.
1. Who are you? Unless your brand is a household name, at least within your industry, this is a critical element. Don’t waste your “About” page company history and trivia—make it “sell” your company. Write about awards, media/analyst recognition, number/importance of customers, length of time in business, the experience of your founders, funding, growth and financial performance, and/or any other information that conveys the message: we are the “safe” choice to buy from in this industry.
2. What do you sell? While that is obvious to you, it isn’t to prospects unfamiliar with your company. Use keyword research tools to make sure you are using terms your prospective buyers use, and make it clear and concise. Do you sell a point solution or something that’s part of a broader product suite? Products only or also associated services? For example, suppose you sell web content management software. That could mean a free or low-cost content management system, enterprise content management software, or a web marketing system that includes CRM and email capabilities as well as a CMS.
3. Who do you sell to? No company, especially a small business, can be everything to everyone. Make it clear who your target customers are; this will help weed out prospects who aren’t really qualified and enable you to tightly focus your web copy on your best potential buyers. Do you sell to consumers or to other businesses? To what specific demographic? To big companies or small? In a particular industry or set of industry segments? Make it clear to your site visitors if they are “in the right place.”
4. Why are you the best choice? This is where you differentiate yourself from the pack. Be as direct and factual as possible about your differentiators: service, price, features, capabilities, technology, experience, focus, expertise, acknowledgments, TCO, ROI…tell your prospects what makes your product or service uniquely suited to their needs.
5. How do I buy from you? If a qualified buyer has landed on your site and you’ve done a good job answering questions 1-4 above, this is the critical final question. What do you want the person to do next? Can they buy directly from your site or is it a more complex, high-value purchase that requires a sales cycle? If the former, give them a clear and simple path to the purchase. If the latter, you may need to provide more than one option—but don’t offer too many choices, which may overwhelm the prospect. Possibilities include downloading a white paper or report, signing up for a newsletter, contacting you for more information, following you on Twitter or Facebook, signing up for a free trial, viewing an online demo, or registering for a webinar. Different options likely make sense on different pages. Keep it simple and clear. Test different calls to action.
Much of this may seem obvious, but many business websites still either overload visitors with too much content or make key information hard to find. Differentiate your organization from competitors make it an effective sales tool by concisely answering these key questions for your prospective customers.
Business Lessons from the Woodtick Theater
Monday, August 1st, 2011A few weeks back, I had a chance to get away for a few days “up nort” as Minnesotans say, for some fishing and relaxing with the family. While there, my mother-in-law took us to the Woodtick Theater, a bluegrass music show in the huge metropolis of Akeley (population: 432). The show itself wasn’t really my kind of thing, but then again, I wasn’t the target demographic (see below). But as I thought about it later, this little theater definitely has some marketing and management lessons to teach any business.
You’ve almost certainly never heard of the Woodtick Theater and are unlikely to see it written up in any business book, but consider:
- • The theater is in its 20th season.
- • It’s always been profitable.
- • It has raving fans and an extraordinary level of repeat business.
- • The employees love working there; many have been with the theater for a decade or more.
That’s an impressive set of performance metrics for any business. So how do they do it? Here are five keys to the theater’s success than any business can apply.
Focus on your target market.
Looking around the theater, I felt…young. While there were a few 20- and 30-somethings, and even some teens, in the crowd, the vast majority had hair that was grayer or less present than mine. The target audience for the show is definitely the post-retirement, AARP, RV-driving, early dinner crowd. Other than a Keith Urban song from the late 90′s, the newest song in the troupe’s repertoire was the Beatle’s Penny Lane. And it was these folks who were clapping most enthusiastically, singing along with many of the songs.
The point is—no business can be all things to all people. Particularly for small businesses, focus is critical. Identify your target market, as precisely as possible, and focus on producing messages that appeal to them and products and services that delight them.You’ll likely pick up some “bonus” business from outside your defined target market, which is great, but don’t let that dilute your focus on your core market.
Do the simple things well.
As noted above, the Woodtick Theater plays bluegrass music. As guitar players know, one can play nearly any bluegrass tune with just four chords: G, C, D and E minor. That’s not so say the band members weren’t talented—they were. They may have done just fine playing something from Lady Gaga or Nickelback, or Tchaikovsky for that matter. The point, rather, is that their audience likes the simple songs, ones they know and can sing along with, played well.
Likewise, your customers don’t expect you to be able to solve every problem under the sun, but to be competent (or better) at getting the basics right. Set realistic expectations, then strive to meet or exceed them. As blatantly obvious as that may sound, it’s surprising how many enterprises fail at the basics, like making it easy to contact customer service or returning sales calls promptly.
Make it easy to recommend your business.
The Woodtick Theater hands every guest a “keepsake” printed program; it not only talks about the show, but includes a few corny jokes, the history of Akeley, and most importantly: a discount coupon for the show. This encourages patrons to either come back for another show, or more frequently, recommend the show and pass along the program and discount.
How can your business make it easy for customers to recommend you? That depends on the type of business you’ve got, but a few tactics include producing an email newsletter that’s worthy of forwarding, including social sharing buttons on your blog and website, being active in social media, having a presence on review sites like Yelp (if applicable), or even developing a formal referral program with discounts or other incentives.
Constantly gather, and incorporate, customer feedback.
It’s easy to ask customers “how are we doing?” But the fact is, unless the customer is extremely happy (or unhappy), their answer is likely to be along the lines of “just fine.” Not terribly helpful.
The manager of the Woodtick Theater told me that he constantly watches how the audience responds to their act. “We change our songs frequently in order to keep the show fresh, so we watch how the audience responds. If they are smiling and singing along, we’ll keep that song in the act. If they don’t seem to really love it, we’ll throw that song out and try something different.”
Most businesses can’t collect feedback or witness customer behavior that easily, so they need to employ other methods to monitor and observe customers in action. The best companies find ways to understand how customers are using their products in the real world and utilize that information to constantly improve their products, add new features (or drop features that aren’t needed or valued) and produce new innovations. For example, LEGO Group is known for involving its most passionate customers intimately in its new product development process.
Make customer satisfaction everyone’s job.
Everyone we encountered at the Woodtick Theater—not just the performers, but the emcee, the lady at the ticket booth, the young guy who sold us our popcorn–was pleasant and smiling. All seemed to enjoy being there and wanted the audience to enjoy the visit as well.
Employees want several things from their jobs: an income, benefits, a comfortable work environment, a supportive boss. But they also want to feel that their efforts make a difference. Regardless of whether or not an employee is customer-facing (and through social media, that definition has expanded), every employee should understand how well the organization is performing on customer satisfaction metrics, how that satisfaction is measured, and how their individual efforts contribute.
That may be obvious for sales or customer service personnel, but what about the data entry person in accounting, the guys on the loading dock, or the janitor–how do their efforts impact customer happiness? Well, customers may not rave about accurate billing or consistently getting their orders right, but they will certainly notice if those tasks aren’t done correctly. And if customers visit your office, fairly or not, how neat and clean it is will affect their perceptions of your company.
If you ever find yourself in northern Minnesota and the prospect of hearing a couple of retired music teachers perform a song like “Ghost Chickens in the Sky” (seriously, that was on the playlist) appeals to you, you may want to check out the Woodtick Theater. But regardless, any organization can benefit from the business practices that the theater exemplifies.
