Marketing Briefs

Marketing 2010: Lead Your Customer and Prospect "Conversations"

My upcoming blog posts will focus on upcoming marketing concepts you should consider as you formulate your marketing strategies and plans for 2010.

Clearly, the advance of social media sites has increased the ability for your existing communities of users to interact with your potential pool of new buyers. This goes for any size company, in any industry, B2B or consumer.

Instead of "direct marketing" for 2010, think about your marketing program in terms of creating programs that create and nurture "conversations" with your current and prospective customers. Focus on what you want at the center of your "conversation" platform -- is it a social media site like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and others? Is this where your current customers "hang out?" Or will you focus on creating opportunities for on-going conversations and interactions through deploying a virtual event hub?

Seth Godin's recent book, "Tribes," explores this concept as it relates to tribes being any group of people who are connected to one another, in big groups or small, by a leader and an idea. While there is much more in the book, which I recommend, one core concept is that while the web and social media and virtual events platforms can do phenomenal things in terms of connecting you with your customers and prospects, the web doesn't provide leadership. That still has to come from you. From your company. From your marketing.

Don't miss the opportunity as your finalize your 2010 marketing initiatives to plan, budget and create opportunities to provide leadership in the conversations your customers and prospects are already having about your company and its products and services. Start with this concept and then focus on building the tactics to support it.

Current Customers Hold Key to Margin Enhancement

As you prepare your 2010 marketing plans, if you’re like many companies you’re wrestling with how to grow the business while holding the line on margin compression and erosion from current customers. Many businesses find themselves having 25 percent or more of their current customer agreements coming up for renewal each year. In this economic climate, current customers are going to be looking for price reductions to renew. B2B marketers should be looking to their current customers as the way to enhance their margins vs. eroding them.

 

How?

 

Now is the time to review your current product and service portfolio and analyze which customers are currently using which parts of your product portfolio. This segmentation and analysis typically takes some time due to data residing in a myriad of systems. That’s why most marketers focus their time and effort on aiding the sales team in adding new customers. Frankly, from a marketing perspective it is often more glamorous, fun and less analytical to continue to create new lead generation and awareness campaigns.

 

While new customer acquisition must continue to be supported, by focusing on the installed base with targeted marketing campaigns, you can protect your margins at renewal by ensuring your current customers are aware of the breadth of your offering and tailoring specific packages to customer segments. That way at time of renewal perhaps instead of losing margin you’ll be able to maintain or grow price and profits through having your renewed agreements include increased customer consumption of what you have to offer.

 

As you plan 2010 programs, don’t lose sight of tapping your current customers for increased  growth in revenue and margins.

 

 

Twitter Increases Relevance for B2B Marketing

While this isn’t “new” news, for those of you B2B marketers who view Twitter as the “social media flavor of the moment,” you may want to take note about the strategic moves underway that continues to increase Twitter’s relevance for B2B marketing. While I am not a personal fan of using Twitter to share updates about the “best fries ever” I just ate or feeling the need to post a picture of my latest pair of new socks or that Ashton Kutcher has over a million followers, B2B companies should care about both being in the conversation going on between their customers on Twitter AND how these posts are now showing up in Google (and Bing) search results.

 

 

Recently, Google announced that they believe Twitter adds value to search and Google is now including Twitter updates in Google search results. Google believes this near real-time data from Tweets can make search more relevant and timely. As an example, the next time someone searches for the product or service your B2B company provides, real-time observations (positive and negative) from your customers who are tweeting about your company will be included in the search results.

 

 

This is a meaningful validation of the Twitter business and the mark it is making on B2B marketing. I believe this agreement between Google and Twitter is a good thing and accelerates the imperative for B2B marketers to embrace Twitter and social media in general as important tools to infuse customer and market dialogue and insights into positioning, messaging and development of marketing programs. With Google and Microsoft partnered up with Twitter on search, Twitter is here to stay and marketers should ignore Twitter and other social media at their peril.

Let Your Customers Guide Your B2B Messaging

Today's issue of The Wall Street Journal. highlights how savvy companies and their agency partners are tapping conversations on the web to create messaging and campaigns around company product and service offerings.

While leveraging the "voice of the customer" research when developing messaging and programs, social media platforms make it easier and more timely to create and test messaging and campaigns prior to launching. Not only does this bring more relevance than ever before to a company's marketing outreach, but it puts it within reach of even companies with the most modest budgets for research and testing.

I think what's interesting is that the article (page B8: Marketers Find Web Chat Can Be Inspiring) discusses this like harnessing the insights of customers is a breakthrough resulting in learning how customers use a product or service vs. what the features and functions of the product and service include. The best companies have always focused on how a customer benefits from the product or service -- effectively looking at outcomes the customer experiences.

In the WSJ article, one of the examples is about a campaign Lotus business software, a division of IBM, created with its agency. The agency looked at customer web searches and comments they posted on YouTube and at conversations on social media sites like Twitter. They discovered that potential customers cared less about its technologies themselves than what those technologies could do for them. Instead of talking about VOIP or using the cloud as a delivery mechanism, the customers were talking about having conversations and meetings. That insight, in this instance, led Lotus to create a new print ad with the text, "Lotus knows you're trying to reach the person, not their phone."

While marketers shouldn't stop doing traditional research and testing of messaging and campaign-specific elements like what headlines and photos work best, this article is a good reminder that companies need to be considering a wider range of ways to gain customer insights as they shape their go-to-market strategies for 2010.

Are Your Marketing Tools and Sales Process In Sync?

One way to drive additional synergy between your marketing and sales investments, is to clearly map your sales process with your prospecting activities and supporting marketing tools and resources.

Typically companies do a good job of mapping out a defined sales process, with key "gates" that opportunities must move through from entering the sales funnel to coming out the other end as a new client. Against this process sales teams usually understand what prospecting activities they must execute to build the sales pipeline. Finally, marketing also usually has a strategic marketing plan or framework against which tactical programs are executed.

However, bringing these three streams together -- sales process, prospecting activities and marketing resources and tools -- is not an area where many companies excel. I believe marketing needs to take the lead in getting these points of integration to happen. While this leadership can come from marketing or sales, to ensure the marketing investment (read "cost center") is most effective with demonstrated ROI and programs that sales supports, marketing has the most to gain to ensure this integration happens.

This example is from a company where we had a successful partnership between marketing and sales with a collaborative approach to integrating the marketing output with the sales process and activities.

During this time of year as you're planning your 2010 marketing approach and activities, sit down with your sales counterparts to map out a plan that ensures you're in sync.

Make Every Dollar Work like Five Dollars!

Do your marketing and sales activities extract enough value for every marketing dollar you spend? Think about these ideas as you plan your 2010 marketing roadmap and budget.

 

Form Alliances and Partnerships that Deliver Co-Marketing Dollars: The return on your investment doubles when you only pay for half of the campaign.

 

Negotiate Extras: most marketing investments can be negotiated to include more than what is actually being purchased. Get online banner placements thrown in with ad placements. Have the printer use the extra stock from brochures to deliver direct mail postcards. Ask the trade show sponsor to upsize your ad in the program. Get maximum value from every dollar spent.

 

Close the Gap Between Marketing and Sales: In the end, sales delivers the real return on marketing’s investment. The ongoing battle between sales (they don’t utilize the leads!) and marketing (all of their leads are terrible!) is counterproductive to working as a team to maximize the efforts of both groups. Open communication and genuine integration are the keys to optimal return on the marketing investment.

 

Give Prospects More Than Just a Slick Marketing Pitch: As the competition to get customers’ attention grows, so does their skepticism of everyone trying to get it. The company that delivers meaningful information to help the customer address their business objectives will benefit by positioning themselves as an industry expert, and elevating themselves above the noise. For the cost of a flash pop-up window, a company can instead deliver a whitepaper – not on their product, but on the space. Web content can go beyond self-promotion to offer industry insights. Blogs can summarize current analyst reports, etc…through value, vendors build trust.

 

Leads – Decide What To Do With Them: Filling in the blanks between lead generation goals and revenue goals is key to realizing meaningful ROI. What is the process for qualifying and following up on a lead? Is that process consistent with the size and bandwidth of the sales team? How is it tracked? Who is accountable? What stages does a prospect go through as they move “down the funnel”?

Getting the Best Results Out of Your Agency Partners

If you use the services of an external marketing agency, to get the best thinking, ideas and execution ensure you treat them like a true marketing partner and not just a vendor supplier.

 

Listen to Them: You value your co-workers because they bring knowledge and expertise from previous experiences. You get shortchanged when you call on your agency merely to execute. Get more value by allowing them to offer opinions on how to achieve your objectives. Ask them how they have helped other companies with similar challenges, and leverage what has been proven to work for others.

 

Compensate Them: If a retainer agreement is not appropriate or realistic, consider structuring their fees to include bonuses when program objectives are met, to give them an added investment in the success of your campaigns.

 

Limit The Number: There is an argument for utilizing specific agencies for each area of expertise, but there has been massive consolidation in the industry so, in many cases, the PR firm, web programmer and social media agency are all one company now. Limiting the number of agencies you work with allows you to centralize your budget, thereby being a “bigger fish in their ocean” and receiving improved service and dedicated support. It also reduces the amount of time you spend training and cross-training agency teams on who you are and what you do.

 

Involve Them: They should be on every mailing list, e-message distribution, customer announcement, etc. The more information they have, the greater insight they have into your organization and the more able they are to act as an extension of your team.

 

Structure Them: Establish measurement objectives and reviews. They are expected to perform as a part of your team, and should be treated as such by being held accountable for clearly outlined objectives.

 

Trust Them: They are expert at standing outside the forest that you are in and seeing the trees. Remember that you are not your target audience, and work to provide direction to accomplish objectives that will address creating awareness and demand with your target audience.

Physical and Virtual Events Converge

Incorporating a virtual event component concurrent with a physical event is an attractive and cost-effective way to capture more audience participation at your event. Purely standalone physical events have been disappearing for years due to economic downturns, tightening T&E budgets and the ability for anyone to spare enough time to travel to a physical event location.

In fact, an even bigger factor to consider is the cost for a company sponsoring an event to get all of their executives and other presenters in one location at one time. Many companies, maybe even your company, has dropped most of your events and are doing webinars. While this is one way to engage with your target audience, it doesn’t incorporate the networking and community feel of an event.

There are a number of excellent virtual event platforms out there but I recently viewed the demo for Cramer Digital’s Event Hub virtual platform. It’s six minutes and definitely demonstrates how easy it is to integrate a virtual component with your physical event. (http://www.cramereventmedia.com/vblast/EventHub/EventHub.html).

I also like the idea for global corporations to leverage a virtual/digital event platform for launching new products simultaneously in multiple markets. Perhaps the physical event is held in the region where the “push” for the product service is strongest and the virtual event is marketed extensively to include attendees from other regions.  Also, integrating social media between both the physical and virtual event environments extends the reach of the event to networks of social networks.

With budgets continuing to tighten and driving the best ROI a “must-do” instead of just a “goal,” implementing a virtual event strategy in your marketing mix should be top on your list for 2010.

Big Ideas Still Matter

I was having breakfast with a friend and fellow marketer recently and, after covering updates on kids, cars and recent travels, the conversation turned to the marketing world. We started discussing how the rapid growth of social media as communication or interaction channels is changing the way traditional "old school" marketers approach building awareness and generating demand.

I believe that too many organizations are focused on "needing to have a social media strategy" vs. challenging their marketers for the best big ideas. It's true that social media like LInkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and others are revolutionizing the speed at which a message or campaign can go viral. However, it's still about the content and relevancy of the message or idea.

Too many marketers are getting caught up in the mania of having their channels of communication include social media rather than focusing on the big idea that generates buzz without requiring a ton of budget. Think about the resistance movement in other countries who are leveraging Twitter as a way to communicate updates, location of the next protest rally, etc. Yes, engaging via Twitter and other social media channels is a good idea but what MOVES people to ACTION is not the use of Twitter but the BIG IDEA that is being communicated.

An example of applying a modest budget to achieve a measurable result through implementing a creative, big idea happened this summer in Washington, DC.

Blackboard Inc. (Nasdaq: BBBB), a global leader in enterprise technology and innovative solutions that improve the experience of millions of students and learners around the world every day in education, professional, corporate and government organizations, is headquartered in Washington, DC. A major industry conference was being held at the convention center that is just steps away from headquarters. After pursuing some of the creative, but more costly ideas to capture the attendees’ (Blackboard prospects and current clients) attention and to welcome them to Washington (like hanging a multi-story sign on the outside of the Blackboard headquarters), the ProEd Division at Blackboard instead chose to “Think Big” and execute a low-cost, guerilla-style mock protest outside the convention center. The result not only caught the attention of their target audience, but generated measurable results. Check out this YouTube clip to see the protest and results.

Don't forget when incorporating social media into your marketing mix that big ideas still matter!

Market With Every Box You Ship

Don’t stop marketing and selling once you take an order and ship out the package. Take the opportunity to market and sell with every box you ship!

Market Outside the Box for Free Brand Awareness

On the outside of the box, you have the opportunity to use your packaging as a traveling billboard that anyone who touches your package in shipping will see. Include your company name, logo and web address on the outside of every package. If you ship many packages, have your box supplier imprint this messaging for you. If you ship in smaller quantities, use stock boxes shipping boxes and affix preprinted stickers with your branding information.

Market Inside the Box for Add-On Sales

Marketing on the outside of the packages you ship is only the beginning. Move inside the box to market additional products and services to your customers. Include brochures or fliers that advertise complementary products and services to what you are shipping to the customer. Include ordering information to make it easy for your customers to re-order consumables like ink cartridges or complementary products like a color printer to go with a camera. Another way to continue the marketing “conversation” with your customers is to include fliers inside your packaging that educates them on the various uses of your products or care instructions for your products. You can both sell inside your package as well as educate your customers. This also gives you the opportunity to follow-up each shipment with a phone call to see how they liked their order, to ask them if there is anything else you can do for them and to specifically ask if they would like to take advantage of a special offer you have included in their package.