Later this week I’ll be moderating Silicon Valley American Marketing Association’s event on Social Media for B2B Lead Generation. The keynote speaker and panel are as well-informed a group on this topic as you’re likely to find: David Meerman Scott, author of New Rules of Marketing and PR, Brian Halligan, CEO of HubSpot and author of Inbound Marketing, Mike Linton, former CMO at eBay and before that at Best Buy, and Zack Urlocker from MySQL (now Sun Microsystems).
What would you ask this group about using Social Media to drive a sales pipeline? Here are some of the questions I’ll have for them:
- How do you move from conversation to lead generation within social networking environments, and without angering the people you’ve engaged?
- How does a company select the social media hubs that are most important to their business and their audiences?
- What constitutes a “qualified lead” in the social media context?
- How do you estimate the resources required to create a presence in social mediums?
- What can B2B companies learn from BtoC practices?
- What’s your advice for the change agents who are advocating greater investment in social media by their companies?
- How should resource-strapped start-ups allocate the time and resources for social media?
- What are the top three do’s and dont’s for using social media to feed a sales pipeline?
Your turn! What would you ask? I’ll post some of the answers to your questions here after the event.
Given that segmentation is the cornerstone of marketing, I am often surprised at how little of it B-to-B companies actually do. Company size and geography are often the only criteria for segmentation, with industry being a distant third. There are other ways to slice and dice. A few ideas:
1. Look at customer characteristics such as tolerance for risk, speed of technology adoption, core business driver (are they technology-driven, customer-driven, supply-chain driven, etc.) – some may be much more likely to buy from you than others.
2. Separate customers with different levels of familiarity and experience with your company and products – your objectives and sales approach will be very different.
3. Split companies up by specific situations, business processes, or use-cases that are common to an industry or a business models. The solutions and services you offer them will vary drastically.
4. Define audiences based on their roles and responsibilities within an organization or within the decision-making process. Also consider segmenting by organization structure and culture – highly hierarchical, process-focused companies need a different sale then flat and agile organizations.
5. This seems painfully obvious, but then again, its rarely done: Segment based on actual customer objectives. This one is difficult and takes account-specific research to determine who fits where. So we tend to just assume that all companies in an industry, experiencing the same pressures (you know, the slide that says “Increased competition, Decreasing customer loyalty / ease of switching, regulation and/or deregulation, growing complexity of IT environment..”) must have the same objectives. But in fact, some are looking to get bought, some want to grow internationally, some want to raise revenue from existing customers, while other are focused on boosting profitability.
Most companies also under-utilize the insights that segmentation provies. Next time we’ll explore the uses of segment characteristics in various parts of your organization.
Comment and share some innovative segmentation criteria you’ve seen used by BtoB companies.
What advice would you give small companies trying to prioritize target industries? Robbie Baxter of Peninsula Strategies, an expert in on-line, recurring revenue streams, asked me a this very interesting question!
At companies with a sales history, industry-specific activity and resources are focused in two kinds of areas: Where most revenue is coming from already (this is by far the more common focus area), and where there is greatest opportunity for growth in the future. There can be lots of complex analysis, but in reality few big companies do much proactive planning. That’s a whole other blog, though.
With a smaller company, the first part of that equation is missing. They don’t have the sales history, references, and channels to naturally leverage into an already-active vertical market.
So, here is a try at some things I’d look at as a small business deciding where to focus.
1. What industry will value what you do most? Where will you impact mission-critical results?
2. Over time, what group of customers are going to be needing you more and more (and feeling increasing pain you can solve) due to external pressures and trends in their industry?
3. Where are you best able to access the financial decision-makers? (This is a combination of your company’s existing connections and lists, and the target industry’s propensity for doing business with small companies.)
Note that its easier to find ways to reach financial decision-makers than to change the core value of what you do or convince an industry to focus on non-critical issues. Unfortunately, many small companies start with #3 as the first, not last criteria for selecting target markets.
Please comment with your own thoughts on selecting target industries at small companies.
After 2 days at the Sales 2.0 conference, I fear we may be on the same path CRM took in its early days. Though some of the new tools are great, and MUCH easier to adopt, there is too much talk of technology, not enough about behavior and cultural changes. All things 2.0 are really about interaction and collaboration with customers. And that requires a change in mindset.
Basic example of 2.0 principles in action, that actually requires less technology. (A version of this focused on customer references was used very successfully by Beverly Chase and the BEA marketing team)
Instead of arming your reps with the new and improved power point presentation, design a white board talk. Script it with questions and discussion points instead of spiel. The result is a conversation where customers contribute ideas, and the content evolves based on the here-and-now in the room, and not what marketing thought up a month ago back at corporate.
More ideas on cultivating customer contribution and creating opportunities for interaction by turning traditional marketing into Marketing 2.0
6. In-person events – These are expensive to put on, so why spend the entire time lecturing on information that’s already in your collateral? Third party presenters can be more interesting, but any lecture can get dreary fast. Give attendees lots of time to interact with you and with each other, while you listens and takes notes. Consider a workshop rather than presentation format so that the entire event is interactive.
7. Trade Shows – This seems like a highly interactive event, but most booth staffers are so focused on doing the demos and spewing the spiel, that the opportunity to listen is lost. (I adore alliteration.) To change the mindset, make it clear you’re at the show to interact with and listen to customers, not just to be seen and heard. Set objectives of specific information you want to gather from booth visitors or people attending your sessions. Ask a few questions or give a short (5 questions max) survey before handing out the tchachkis, or organize mixers and events that have information gathering as an explicit objective.
If a widely open a conversation seems too much of leap, try these by first letting a small group of customers you know well contribute and participate, then open further when you’re comfortable managing a broader conversation.
Have you tried these or other ways to engage customers in conversations? Share them in your comment!
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Turning Marketing into Conversations – Part 2
Turning Marketing into Conversations – Part 1
by Lilia Shirman on March 3, 2009
in Economy
It was great to be speaking to a room full of entrepreneurs last Thursday at the TechCoire panel, Strategies to Drive Revenue in a Recession. Gopan Madathil masterfully organized the event. The big takeaways form our panelists (Igor Shoifot of Fotki, Rajat Paharia of Bunchball, and Vadim Rosenberg of CA) for generating revenue in this economy:
- Listen more carefully than ever to customer requests and use them to create new revenue-generation initiatives
- Look at the ideas you’ve accumulated but never executed. This might be the time to finally try a few.
- Don’t walk away from customers who like what you’re offering but don’t have the budget. Instead get creative about restructuring the deal – change payment terms, deliver in phases, start with smaller volumes, etc.
- Always be on the lookout to great sales people – those who know how to connect and build rapport with customers.
- MOST IMPORTANTLY: Revenue generation is the top priority for just about any company right now. Resuscitate stalled deals and accelerate the close by showing how you can help customer sell more.
Got more ideas for driving revenue while everyone clutches their wallet ? Comment!
More ideas about how to transform traditional marketing tools into Marketing 2.0 vehicles.
3. Websites – Don’t hide customer feedback and support in a corner of your site. Place feature request and comment links right on product pages, so that customers can respond immediately to the content they see. Asking a question gets the customer more engaged than downloading a white paper. Involve product management and engineering in responding to the queries. It’s a great way to for them to touch the customers they otherwise rarely or never see. Post the most interesting questions and answers or turn them into additional content.
4. Press releases – What if your PR people became your customers’ and partners PR people? Lots of stories would best be told by someone other than a vendor. (And would be more likely to get picked up for coverage.) Build relationships with your customers’ and partners PR departments to understand how and where they want to be seen, and how talking about your relationship can help with that. Have your PR staff assist partners and customer with replying to PR opportunities.
5. Webinars – Yes, by now, this is a “traditional” marketing tool. But many companies tend to make webinars too one-directional. Use all the interactive tools (and the many webinar hosting services that offer them). Polls, chat, and Q&A are the common set. Use surveys both before and after your webinar. And don’t limit the surveys to questions about the webinar like the all too familiar “Did you find this useful?” Instead, ask questions that help you understand customers or that customers will be interested in too. The latter gives you an excuse for a follow-up contact that actually delivers value.
Have you tried these or other ways to engage customers in conversations? Share them in your comment!
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Turn Marketing into Conversations – Part 1
Turn Marketing into Conversations – Part 3
Social networking channels are not the only way to make your marketing efforts more interactive. While you experiment with social media, you can make traditional marketing methods conversational too.
Getting customers to contribute to the substance in your marketing content, events, products will raise the value and trust customers place in them. Dan Ariely, author of Predictably Irrational, demonstrates that “labor enhances affection for its results.”
This week I’ll be posting a series of ideas on adding interaction and soliciting active customer engagement and contribution through traditional marketing tools. Here are a few to start off.
- Value proposition and messaging – Starting with the obvious here: when crafting your claims of benefits, value, and ROI, ask your customers what benefits they’ve actually received. Use these results to create your messages about benefits and value. Then go back and ask customers if they “buy” the story you tell about how your product leads to business results. You’ll have messages that really resonate, and your will have created references that back up your story because they ARE the story.
- Collateral and White papers – Create a Wiki instead of static product data sheets, brochures, and white papers. Provide a framework and some base content, then give customers the ability to contribute. You can moderate to ensure accuracy, of course. With customers contributing, you’ll have more complete, relevant, and trustworthy information.
Have you tried these or other ways to engage customers in conversations? Share them in your comment!
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Turn Marketing into Conversations – Part 2
Turn Marketing into Conversations – Part 3
As a follow-up to the previous post, here are some practical differences to keep in mind when planning for solutions marketing.
Solution marketing differs from traditional product marketing. This is a partial list, of course, but 7 is supposed to be a lucky number, right?
- Solutions marketers understand what motives customers to allocate budget within the broader context for a purchase
- Solutions marketing content is focused on the buyer and their objectives, not the product or its features
- Solutions-oriented value propositions focus in on specific use-cases or situations in which the customer is involved.
- The solutions marketing process and programs provide information or resources that are valuable to the customer
- Thought leadership and value creation are critical components of solutions marketing
- Solutions marketing activity often involves collaboration with other companies (see broader context in #1)
- To ensure that all of the above are truly relevant, current, and valuable to your audience, Solutions Marketing must engage the customer in conversation and dialogue at every available opportunity.
Speaking of dialogues, please add to the list with your comments!
