“Summertime, and the livin’ is easy”….well this year it’s more like…
“Summertime, and the livin’ is busy!”

We are thrilled to have new clients, new fun projects, and new additions to Marsden’s Associates. I’d like to introduce you to Ann Strople, our newest member of the team – though no newbie to marketing. Ann brings a strong background in building brands, crafting communications and developing on-line marketing presence for companies both large and small. For Marsden & Associates, Ann is focused on helping our clients hone their message and ensure it is hitting the mark in both on-line and traditional channels.

We’re already excited about Ann’s contributions to our clients’ marketing initiatives. Now we’re also looking forward to what she has to contribute to our blog. Please give her a warm welcome – and don’t hesitate to sing out if her message strikes a chord. (Yeah, I know that got a bit cheesy, but musicals always do that to me….)

It’s me again! I’m dedicating this blog post to Sam Deiner, he commented on When email sucks” saying, I”m curious what you think about cold email….”. Well here’s what I think.  Enjoy! ~ Erica Williams

Have you ever been to a restaurant, starving, you’ve already made up your mind what you want, way before you reach the table. In one quick breath you rattle off your order “I’ll have the steak with loaded mashed potatoes and green beans”.  As soon as the words leave your mouth your stomach growls with approval and anticipation. Fifteen minutes later, you spot the waiter walking toward your table, holding a tray of steaming hot plates. Your mouth waters, and you slide your glass of wine to the side to make room, you can almost taste that steak! The waiter stops at your table and plops down a delicious plate of sautéed salmon and steamed vegetables?  *record scratch*. “

Ummmm….I didin’t order this.” You politely say to the waiter. For a half second you almost tell him to leave the plate, you’re hungry and you do like salmon. But you ordered the steak, you send it back. That’s kinda how I feel about “cold” emails.

I’ll be honest; I have a steak/salmon (love/hate) relationship with cold emails. I love them, because they usually have some information that I could probably use. On the other hand, I hate them because well-I didn’t order (subscribe) to them. I have enough emails in my inbox, which I asked for, and sometimes I don’t even get a chance to read them. Yeah you may have awesome info but chances are I’m going to send it back (unsubscribe).

My advice for sending emails…I’m undecided. Send? Don’t send? It’s a toss up for me. If you decide to send, follow these simple guidelines:

• Tailor your cold emails to be more appealing to the recipients…if you obtained email addresses from a partner/vendor, shape your email message to appeal to that vendor’s buyers.
• In a B2B world, go straight to the value add –what information/education/assistance are you providing?
• Don’t ask them to answer questions (bogus survey), don’t try to sell – provide some truly valuable info/insight/research.  Earn their trust and they may give you the chance to talk to them again (by not unsubscribing, or worse, reporting you as spam.)
• Give them something free. You want them to actually subscribe to your emails right?

Don’t be discouraged; If your cold emails aren’t being read, just find another way to get your message across. Be creative. Just remember, no matter how good your salmon (cold email) looks, I ordered the steak and that’s (usually) what I want!

This isn’t going to start off like a B2B Marketing topic, but stick with me. Honey bees

I have somehow gotten the bee bug. OK, sure, I  love honey, nature, gardening, and am always open to adventure… but mothering 6000+ bees in hopes of producing a few pounds of honey is still a strangely random interest.

And strange it is. Beekeepers are as varied and vocal a community as Harley Davidson riders …with some decidedly different expletives.

Living in the internet age, I felt fairly confident that I could learn, rapidly and relatively easily, from the avid bee keepers around me. I went to beekeeping school, I found and follow blogs on the topic, I joined a local beekeeping association for those (fool)hardy enough to try to keep bees in an inner city. I ordered my 2 NUC’s (a nucleus of a bee hive each holding ~3000 bees, a queen, and the basic start to a bee colony).

But now – where do I put them? What type and size hive? What about the placement? Do I feed them to help them get established?  Or as many beekeeping hobbyist say “Let them bee”?

I”M SO CONFUSED!!!

So afraid of doing the wrong thing! Of wasting time and money and worse still – killing a whole bunch of bees because I don’t’ know any better…

And that’s when it hit me – like any inexperienced, under-informed, over-achiever that wants to do the right thing – I’m going to latch on to whomever makes me feel the safest – the least scared – through this journey.

The website that talks to me the best – that offers comfort and a sense of “You can do it!” is the one that I’m going to listen to and the one from whom I will either buy – or will go wherever, and buy whatever they recommend.

I knew it the minute I was placing orders for a boat load of equipment – from a site that I knew next to nothing about – except that a beekeeper with an “Authentic Voice” said “Here’s what I did, here’s what I learned, and here’s what I recommend.”   Good enough.  Granted, this isn’t a multi-million dollar investment that my career is balanced upon.  But the emotional angst is still the same.

So – if you are a company that understands that your potential buyers (including B2B buyers) start their education and buying process on-line.  If you want to get to them while they are finding their way…when they have a desire – a need -  then you need to remember that they learn, and they make buying decisions with their hearts with as much, if not more than, their heads.

Which means you need to be the Authentic Voice they hear.  The voice that says, “I went through this.  I was scared. I learned.  And I found this approach worked best.”

Then you won’t be a voice in the wilderness.  You won’t be the voice preaching to the choir. You will be the voice building new colonies.

Bee Happy and Prosper.

Savvy B2B marketers are keenly aware that without quality Search Engine Optimization (SEO), their websites are about as effective for generating leads as an unlit billboard is on a dark stormy night. If you aren’t generating high page rankings on the right keywords (words that real prospects use, not words guessed at by your internal staff), then you are alone in the wilderness, preaching to the cacti, which rarely have a budget and are notoriously bad at buying things.

So, OK, yeah you for being up on the curve.  For doing the research, for finding the right words, identifying the long tail of real prospects versus the wild wild universe of surfers, and for mapping those key words and phrases to good content on your site, hence securing your place on the first few pages of SEO results for your prospects. That’s great – you got your potential prospects to your website – now what?

NOTE: If you’re not quite there yet – or if you haven’t even started, resolve to make 2010 the year that you do!  Because if you don’t, you’ll be watching your competition pull away by attracting your potential clients.  Studies show that in 2009, over 70 percent of B2B purchasers began their buying process by searching the web.  But your potential clients don’t find you when they do their research  – they find your arch rivals.  So get started, get SEO’d, and then after a brief pat on the back, ask yourself  “Now What?”

After getting SEO-ready, it’s time to get SCO-ready.  SCO = Sales Cycle Optimization.

SCO is the active process of providing content on your site (and beyond) that speaks to each of the key phases your prospects go through as they progress from curious informational researcher to active evaluator, and ultimately, hopefully, to buyer.  SCO also addresses the reality that your buyer is often more than one person.

Every sales cycle is unique to its product, though factors like technical complexity, breadth of organizational impact and the financial value of the deal all correlate directly to the length of time and number of people involved in the decision. The process of Sales Cycle Optimization is more complicated and time consuming for bigger, more complex sales – duh, but marketing even modest value and complexity products benefits from SCO.

To get SCO-ready,  here are 5 essential steps:

1. Map your sales process.  If you have multiple products or services, start with the top priority ones for your company in 2010.  Even if your cycle is pretty quick, it’s useful to put it in writing (better yet, in a diagram).
2. Involve your sales department.  They already know what the key milestones are and the typical time frames to move through the cycle.  The sales force also knows the decision influencers and their informational needs/biases.  Working with Sales will not only result in a better map, it’ll reinforce your common objectives while demonstrating Marketing’s goal to generate quality leads that the sales force can actively pursue.
3. Review the content of your website.  Assess how much of your content is targeted to each phase of your sales cycle.  Assess how much of your content actively speaks to the informational needs of each decision maker/influencer.    This will quickly point out where to focus new content development.
4. Review your lead conversion offers (i.e.Free White Paper, Webinar, etc.) to see if your offers cover all the steps in the sales cycle, and where you are getting the most conversions.  Are all your offers  front end loaded (Free Research Report)?  Or, god-forbid, back end loaded (20% off if you sign up NOW!)?
5. Finally, look beyond your website…how does your overall marketing plan and extended web presence drive support your lead generation campaigns?  Evaluate how well you’re getting seen and heard at the industry level.  From industry articles  to blogs; social media sites to webinars and conference speaking engagements.  All roads should lead to your website and ultimately, your sales force.

With these data points, you are armed  to get Sales Cycle Optimized.  You’re now ready to create new content.  Content for your website and content for other venues to shine the light on your thought leadership and superior solutions.  Content and offers that will create conversions at each stage of the sales cycle, so that when the visits move from curiosity to interest, you can send to Sales actionable leads while you nurture those still moving toward that goal.

Happy SCO’ing.  I’d love to hear your SCO ideas and war stories…

Well, I don’t really know that for sure, but then again – do you?

When was the last time you worried if you had bad breath? Going into a meeting? Hot date? Job interview?

What did you do about the nagging uncertainty? …Mouthwash? Gum? Ask a friend?

See, that’s the problem. Bad breath is a silent stalker and an intimacy killer. You really can’t tell if you have it – and practically no one but your mother will voluntarily tell you if you do.

The same is true for marketing communications. You can put a lot of thought and effort into what you tell your prospects and clients.  You’ve developed tons of good information to put your best face forward, build your brand and create a connection between you and your buying audience. You’ve created multiple channels – from your search engine optimized website to email campaigns to white papers and video presentations to banner ads – all to convey that great information…

But are they working?  Or is there some invisible barrier that is turning off potential prospects, costing you lost business and revenue?  How do you know?

Good news – unlike real life personal interactions, where you can’t really ask the “Hot Date’ if your breath offends – you CAN find out if prospects are backing away before getting to know you.  You already have the tools…your website is your company Breathalizer!

No matter how big or small your organization, from a Fortune 50o to an up and coming start-up, you can combine the information readily available from Google Analytics (for free) or any number of more sophisticated tools (with comparable costs) with the data you’re gathering from your lead generation programs to see if your marketing communications is drawing them in like honey, or making them drop like flies.

Every B2B marketing professional knows they need a strong website – it is the company’s face to the world and often center of their lead generation universe.  Smart marketers rely on analytic tools to monitor various metrics, like site traffic.  But are you measuring the right things? And most importantly, are you creating places that ask the visitor to share some of their information with you?

It isn’t until you create a TWO WAY communication that you have the opportunity to convert a site visitor into a lead.  Are you creating opportunities for two way communications?  Do you have Landing Pages tied to the key product or service areas of your site, offering valuable, relevant information to visitors interested enough to let you send it to them?  If you answer yes, then you already have the means to  measure your marketing communications effectiveness.  If your site visits are strong, but nobody is “Converting” (i.e. filling out the form to get the free information), then you’ve definitely got bad breath.

The offense may stem from the perceived value or relevance of your offer (Hint: a “Free Needs Assessment” is great for someone that is ready to buy tomorrow but most of your site visitors will translate that offer into – “Warning – A salesperson will be bugging you from here on out!”).  Or maybe the malodor is the fact that you’re asking for their bank account and Social Security number just to download your Case Study.

Whatever the barrier is to getting conversions -  you now have the ability to test and evaluate: to compare the number of site visitors to the number of conversions, and the number of conversions for each offer you provide. Now you’re on your way to measuring whether your lead generation program is working – or if it has a problem.

So start thinking about your offers and calls to action – do you have different ones that appeal to buyers in different stages of the buying process?  Are you helping the newbies who are just leaning about their perceived need as well as actively pitching those that are in the later stage selection process?  (More on lead nurturing in an upcoming post).  Are you testing the effectiveness of various communications styles and tones?

The systematic use of multiple testing parameters, including comparative offers, different fonts, colors, page layout etc. are tactics commonly used by B2C companies.  But for B2B marketers who are communicating complex services of high value and long sales cycles, the use of landing pages and the testing around them to monitor their effectiveness is the best defense against bad breath.

Need help developing your company’s lead generation program and website “breathalizer”?

We all know the 80/20 rule…

• 80% of most results come from 20% of the input.

• 80% of most companies’ revenues come from 20% of the clients.

• 80% of the sales are made by 20% of the sales force.

• and 80% of marketing results come from the 20% of effort focused on the “how”.

Yet failure to recognize and apply this truth seems to afflict 80% of all companies -  regardless of size or industry. From small technology start-ups to Fortune 50 industry leaders, the amount of effort spent on choosing the right strategy, the right logo, the right communication channels, the right ad mix, and the right lead generation programs dwarf the amount of thoughtful effort spent on executing each element well.

This is not to say that Strategy isn’t important – of course it is.  But it seems that particularly for Marketers, after we think the big thoughts and come up with all the cool creative ideas,  we rush through the implementation with not nearly the same attention to detail.

So if you are trying to UP your performance, here are 3 key “HOW” questions to focus on:

1. “How” do you engage your prospects? It’s not so much that you have a website, or that you conduct webinars, or that you have a Facebook page. It’s how you make your value proposition compelling and different through each of the channels you have.
2. “How” do you make your prospects and customers feel?  Purchase decisions are 80% emotional and 20% intellectual. So is loyalty.  Weaving the stories around your products that engender feelings of security, of confidence and of success are far more effective and definitely more sticky than the technical spec’s you may be so proud of.  Technologies rise and fall but love affairs go on and on and on – just ask any Mac computer or English sports car owner.
3. “How” do you listen to your customers? Are all your communications channels on Broadcast?  Are you all  Output?  The top performers actively create ways to get real input from their clients.  Top companies listen to what’s coming in on the support  and help desk lines.  Top companies create forums to learn about user problems and they take advantage of the creativity of engaged customers to find solutions.  Top companies use their social media connections not just to hype but to learn.  Top companies integrate the feedback from all these sources rather than allowing them to be buried in departmental silos where managers instinctively try to hide negative feedback.  And in so doing , top companies not only stay ahead in product development, they make their customers feel engaged, appreciated, and heard. Ah ha!

And included with each of these key “how’’s, top performing companies always include this one:

• “How” do you measure the impact and success of each program, each initiative?    Almost anything can be measured, and we sometimes feel like numbers justify our existence.  But numbers aren’t necessarily understanding and measuring the last inch of a rubber band doesn’t help much.  So top performers spend as much time on the “How” of measuring each campaign as they do reviewing reports and dashboards.

So what’s your 80/20?

I’m involved in a  Love/Hate relationship…with my Iphone.    The thing is simple, sleek, incredibly easy to use and has elevated my on-line mobile experience so far above what I had with my BlackBerry that I can barely imagine life without it.

Except for the nearly every single day that I am either banging it in frustration when it takes FOREVER! to dial a number or load an email message, or the equally frequent times when I am frantically searching for a power source as it tells me I have less than minutes before it self destructs.  I mean PLEEZ, can’t it have enough power to allow me a modest “iMapMyRun” with a brunch stop thrown in before it wimps out?  Can’t it download new emails without freezing all other email actions in the interim?  Can’t I have  a conversation without it dropping the call?

So I have to ask myself – Why put up with such maddening irritation?

Granted, I’m more of a techno-geek than many, and therefore more willing to suffer through guinea pig-dom than most.  But by most Market Researchers’ standards, I am not a bleeding edger.   I typically wait  1-2 years for new products to work the kinks out.   So, if I am wiling to wait – to forgo the cache of sporting the hottest new gadget – then why am I still screaming at my phone as if Apple or AT&T Customer Service could actually hear me?

As a B2B Marketing person, I was seduced by the styling but it also had to have the email and synchronization tools to support my business.  It did.   The IPhone represented the perfect union of business tool and toy.  And there’s the rub – it is – not so perfect, but a such a game changing combo of features and functionality for both business and pleasure that I refuse to go back.  Even as I rant and yell.

Reminds me of my first cell phone…oops make that car phone (back when they were hard wired into the car because if we weren’t in our offices or our houses, we were in our car!).  The thing was ugly, bulky, hard to hold between ear and shoulder while shifting gears and drinking coffee, had no hands free attachment, and dropped at least one in three calls.  (There’s a good reason Verizon has done so well with “Can you hear me now?”) And talk about expensive!!!  It was almost more hassle than it was worth.  Almost.

But when something comes along that is both startlingly innovative and useful; when it provides that elusive combination of  productivity and “can’t touch this” cool; when nothing even comes close,  then no matter how maddening, we just put up with the inconvenience and hope the fixes happen sooner than later.

Oh, I expect Apple will fix the battery issue.  So far they have focused on customer acquisition, market share growth and extending their dominance in mobile applications.   But the time will come when market saturation will slow growth and competitors start catching up on cool features and applications.

And AT&T will fix the network issues.  When contracts start coming up for renewal, and Verizon and Sprint have their own cool smartphones.  Or when Apple decides it isn’t in their best interest to continue network exclusivity.   But that’s a different story – innovation is the story here.

And so, love and hate, the affair continues.

As marketers we are programmed to be constantly thinking of ways to get people to notice us, our company, our product. We strategize and agonize over how to get more share of mind and hence more market share. We SEO our websites,  join social networks, court bloggers and Industry Analysts, apply for industry awards, write white papers, present at trade shows and conferences, ad infinitum.

But we often forget that one of the best ways to get talked about, and generate real, positive market awareness, is to do something for someone else.  I was reminded of this just this weekend, when I attended a fundraiser staged by Muss & Turners Restaurant for the benefit of…a competitor’s staff.

In case you haven’t watched the news lately, Atlanta, GA has had more than its fair share of rain the past few weeks.  In what meteorologists are calling a 500 year flood, six people died, hundreds of homes were damaged or destroyed and businesses were shuttered.

One of the businesses particularly hard hit was a local favorite restaurant, Canoe.

Photo courtesy of Jessica Dauler

The flooding was so severe that  the restaurant is expected to be closed for at least 2 months.

That means that the waiters and bartenders, Cooks and busboys are all without jobs.  Canoe plans to reopen and would like to know their “family” of trained staff will be there when they do.

While some companies will secretly smile at a competitor’s misfortune, not Muss & Turners.

This  hip gastro pub decided to hold a fundraiser to benefit Canoe’s staff.  What did they do?  They hosted a dinner -  a three course meal  – with libations – and 100% of the receipts went to Canoe’s staff.  They encouraged local purveyors and alcohol distributors to donate all the food and beverages, they solicited FaceBook fans to get the word out  and got other chefs and restaurant professionals to donate their services for the night.

The results?  Over 300 people were seated, served and more than satisfied – quite a feat for the small space.  Over $10,000 was raised and everyone felt a sense of community and camaraderie.

And here’s my point.  EVERYONE is talking about Muss & Turners.  EVERYONE has a warm spot in their hearts for Muss & Turners.  Their Facebook fans have jumped significantly and their buzz is way high.  And what did it cost them?  A fair amount of time over a two week period in planning and logistics, and the cost of keeping their store open on a night they’re usually closed.

Not bad ROI for a marketing campaign that had nothing to do with them.

If you haven’t heard about SideWiki – you’re about to.

To shorten the learning curve, check out:

If you create online content, Google’s SideWiki just changed your world – The Viral Garden.

I couldn’t agree with Mack Collier more!  This new widget from Google allows anyone to post comments for all the world to see – right next to your website!  Anyone with this tool can comment on your site – or on any specific info on your site.

Yep, that means anyone – ANYONE – can heap praises or throw sticks and stones at you or your products.

And if your company has been unwilling to engage in the exciting world of social media – either because you didn’t think it really mattered much to you, your industry or your brand, or because out of site (pun intended) has been out of mind…..well social media has now come to you.

Every Marketer had better install this thing and check out what’s being posted on your website(s) – not just daily but several times a day – to see if:

A) anyone is visiting your site and leaving comments about it for all the world to see (at least all the world with SidiWIki enabled).  If not – then you can turn your attention to figuring out why, or

B) there is a very public conversation going on about you  – and in that case, you better get to the head of that parade – or get busy sprucing up your resume….

I got an URGENT call from a new client the other day, saying that they had a serious issue with an Industry Analyst.  The Advisory firm was about to publish a report that unfairly positioned the company’s products. Something had to be done to stop it from going out the way it was!
The client was about to send a letter to the author’s boss, and wanted my input on the letter.  Needless to say the letter was a rant against the analyst, his lack of professionalism and a statement that the Analyst was unreasonably biased toward another company whose coverage was considerably more positive.
After reading the report, I agreed that it seemed to favor my client’s competitor, and there were definitely instances when my client’s coverage was more negatively skewed than seemed justified on the surface.  So, I asked a few questions, and the client’s responses told the rest of the story:

1. Do you know and have a working relationship with this Analyst? Yes, we know him – and he’s never liked us…every time we tell him about a new feature or upgrade, he seems to brush us off and he never writes nice things about us.
2. Are you a client of this Advisory firm? No, we can’t afford to spend money on Analysts.
3. How often do you provide this Analyst briefings on your company and your solutions? We send him our press releases like we do everyone. Since we aren’t a client, they don’t really want to talk to us.

So, the company hadn’t invested much time or effort with the Analyst, yet expected positive, or at least neutral, coverage of their products. Since the coverage was negative, the assumption was that the Analyst was biased.
Reputable Industry Analysts – and this was one – are not unduly biased. But they are human beings and they can be influenced. Influence comes from proximity and it builds on the basis of a relationship.

• Had the competitor invested the time to regularly brief the Analyst? Most Analyst firms accept company/product briefings at least once a year, even from non clients.
• Had the competitor taken the time to learn about the interests and coverage areas of the Analyst? Reading the reports and listening to the presentations of an Analyst provides valuable insight into their points of view. That insight can guide how to position your company and services, while demonstrating to the Analyst that you care about what they have to say.
• Had the competitor engaged the analyst’s firm – not just to gain favor with them – but to learn from them and to assist the company in its product development and go to market strategies? A relationship is a two way street. Inviting and incorporating an Analyst’s industry knowledge and expertise into your product development road map and marketing materials is a sure way to create support.  At the very least, if you decide to go a different direction you’ll know in advance what the Analyst thinks – and give you the chance to talk about it before being surprised by a negative opinion in their next report.

If you want to change someone’s action, you have to change your reaction.  If Analysts are important to your target market, get ahead of the curve and shape the interaction.  It takes an investment – but often much less than you think.

What have your experiences been with Industry Analysts?
What’s worked and what’s fallen flat?

Share your experiences with us…