Shortly after I got up this morning, I strolled over to Marketing Over Coffee for a quick shot before heading off to work and found this great article, entitled How to restore the faded luster to marketing by Rich Guha.  In my opinion, it’s a “must read” for anyone looking to build a business or aiming to build a career in marketing.

It’s about the big picture

Referencing management heroes such as Peter Drucker and Ted Leavitt, the article discusses what companies have lost as marketing becomes more specialized. Guha advises marketers that wish to add significant value to the business to:

• Step back from tactics and understand the “theory of the business.”
• Understand what are the ways to measure performance which drive market value.
• Understand which levers in the business will increase market value.
• Regard tactics as components that can only be used with an understanding of the entire business plan.
• Understand the customer and end user intimately.
• Focus on Product, how it is priced, presented, and where it is available to customers.

It takes intimacy and integration to hit the mark

In short, he emphasizes the importance to successful businesses of a) understanding customers’ needs across the spectrum (yes, back to the 6 Ps*) and b) understanding which levers in the business will increase market value.  Without these important capabilities, front and center, companies often end up missing the mark and spending way too much on “marketing”.

Guha quotes Drucker as saying, “If Marketing were to do its job perfectly, Sales would not be needed.”  In other words, if you really understand all aspects of a prospects’ needs , products would sell themselves.

This is not the same as “build it and they will come”.  The needs to which Guha and Drucker are referring, go way beyond the product features and benefits.

Upfront investments in market intelligence save money

Nevertheless, Marketing can’t do the job perfectly.  That would require mind reading.   Still, an upfront investment in marketing research can save a lot of money down the road–if either the product, or its promotion and distribution, will cost a lot to accomplish.

There  are many ways to gather prospect  information from surveys to customer shadowing to watching click streams.  The key is knowing what you’re looking for, and how to use the information you get.

Else, you’re likely to miss the market window.  Or, if you’re “lucky” spend a lot of money on  rework until you get it right.

Start with deep customer insights

Therefore, a lot of companies are investing in developing buyer and user personae before making the much larger investments in product development and content. They capture the “voice of the customer” and then create archetypes for the three to five most important roles at the companies in their target market.

To bring these archetypes to life, many companies give them names.  These examples help multidisciplinary teams discuss and figure out “What Jane would do” or how “Mike would like to receive information”.

Test, iterate, refine

The most successful companies do this in an iterative fashion.  They gather information, form hypotheses, test their hypotheses, and then refine their hypotheses until they hit the measures they’ve set as goals.

Use high-fidelity prototypes

In the development world, see Eric Ries and Cindy Alvarez’ work on lean start-ups (although there is broad applicability for other product development groups).  In the usability world, see Jared Spool’s and Carolyn Snyder’s work on high-fidelity prototyping.

Watch customer behavior

As for communications, hypothesis testing is now the province of analysts that study click streams.  There, however, companies are still working out the timing .

Since digital communications are relatively inexpensive to produce and deliver,  many companies delay testing until after they launch.  It’s too early to have definitive data on how early missteps affect branding, or the extent to which upfront research could have prevented extensive rework.

Marketing never stops, always changes

Nevertheless, it’s not a perfect world.  You can’t anticipate all customer needs upfront.

Things are always in flux.  Economic conditions improve. Regulators introduce new rules.

Technology innovations make the improbable possible. Competitors’ actions cause priorities to shift.  For these reasons and others, it’s essential to gather information on an ongoing basis.

Assess which actions will have the greatest impact

As mentioned above, however, it’s equally important to know how to use the information you gather–or as Guha notes know which levers will increase business value.  This is especially important in a tight economy where companies can only afford to take the most effective actions.

Too often, companies focus too much on one of the “P’s”, to the detriment of the overall marketing effort.  Engineering firms will sometimes focus all their efforts on fine tuning the product, while “marketing organizations” expend too much on a particular type of promotion, relative to the return they’ll get on that investment.

Embrace diversity

This is where true marketers, who work with multidisciplinary teams, add their greatest value.  By understanding the whole customer, his/her environment, and impending change, he/she can help the company optimize the resources it takes to unite customer and solution.

Wondering where to start?  Test your preparedness by drawing on your market knowledge to create a compelling value proposition.  Or, learn more about the value creation process, first.

*Product, positioning, packaging, pricing, promotion, placement (sales channels or distribution)

No related posts.

Stimulating? Exciting?  Scary? Each of these are words that came to mind this morning as I listened to Google National Industry Manager, Seth van der Swaagh’s presentation to members of the Associated Industries of Massachusetts (AIM) on Google’s Digital Vision – The Acceleration of Everything.

Accelerate with AIM

The topic and the speaker were an interesting choice when you consider that AIM represents companies in industries that have been around since the Industrial Revolution.  Yet, one of the conversations I had prior to the meeting shed light on how the Digital Age affects everyone.

Manufacturing in Massachusetts

The man with whom I spoke runs a manufacturing plant that is operating at full capacity.  In fact, he’s even importing ball bearings to other parts of the world.

This came as a surprise.  After all, isn’t this a down economy?  Isn’t MA a high cost state?

Manufacturing in the digital age

As the manufacturer explained to me, he  runs a high tech operation.  Ten percent of his employees are engineers.

Because he has almost-fully automated his operation, his quality is better and his costs are only slightly higher than factories that produce similar parts elsewhere.

Skilled work forces make the difference

With currency fluctuations now in his favor, and long lead times in China, demand is outstripping supply.  His main problems are keeping up with the technology and finding enough skilled workers to maintain production.

Experience Google’s vision here

So, after helping ourselves to coffee, we settled in to hear about the Google’s vision–and what “the acceleration of everything” would mean for each of our businesses.  Just click  here to read what we heard.

The presentation was excellent–and itself fast-paced.  I highly recommend reading it–and perhaps exploring some of the links–before continuing.

The media is the message

One of the main messages I took away was that the media is truly becoming the message. By the time Seth finished, I think everyone in the room was worrying about their business’ mobile and video strategies.  Without new media strategies, Seth warned us, our content would neither be relevant–or engaging.

Whither brands?

The other significant takeaway was that everyone and everything is moving toward commoditization–now that consumers can comparison shop anytime and anywhere.  According to Seth, even TV stars with strong brands are at risk.

He pointed out that a pre-teen amateur named Fred has a larger following on YouTube than does a famous late-night comedy host on broadcast TV.  Although after viewing his performance, I have no idea how he accomplished this feat.  That said, I don’t stay up late enough to have viewed the competition…

Now what?

So, what does that mean for the rest of us?  Seth says his advice to his own kids will be to explore broadly, stay open, and try many things before going deep.  After all, he noted, when he graduated college Google didn’t even exist.

Download our SEO and social media starter kit and place your messages where your best prospects seek information.

Related posts:

1. Will marketing consultants and agencies switch places with in-house staff in a digital world?
2. Digital Marketing: 4 steps to success

Learn from the past, capitalize on success

At the end of 2008, in Shorten the sales cycle next year:  Year end marketing planning, I advocated taking stock of what worked and what didn’t—so that you can capitalize on your successes and avoid repeating what turned out to be mistakes.   In particular, I suggested focusing on buyers’ perceptions in four areas: the desirability of the solutions, the reputation of the vendor, the effectiveness of the communications, and the responsiveness of the individuals leading the sales or business development effort.

Sales enablement software prods companies to focus on customers’ buying process

Two years later, few companies do the kind of structured analysis I recommended on an ongoing basis.  Yet, prodded by their acquisition of sales enablement software, many more companies are beginning down this path.

They’re developing buyer personas (based on past experiences) and mapping their best customers’ buying processes to identify points where they can influence the ultimate outcome of the sale. So, we’re making progress.

Product teams incorporate customer feedback throughout the development process

On the product development front, product teams are increasingly using a process called “customer development” that calls for learning and iterating rather than linear execution.  This methodology, introduced by Steve Blank in the Four Steps to the Epiphany, and popularized by Eric Ries among others, advocates using minimally viable products (prototypes) to gather customer feedback throughout the development process.  This methodology also requires developers to validate the product market fit–before they launch new products–by finding early customers who will pay for the product under development.

Strategy trumps tactics

Last year, I questioned the seeming emphasis on demand generation and lead gen–at the expense of longer term strategic investments.  At the time, the economy was at its worst and  a lot of companies felt they couldn’t afford to invest in gaining deep customer insights.

Today, with increasing competition, many realize they can’t afford not to invest in learning about their best prospects’ buying processes.  Moreover, automation has dramatically reduced the cost of gaining deep customers insights.  No longer do companies need to invest a lot of money in travel or convening a group of users at a common location to get deep customer insights.  In fact, they have lots of relatively inexpensive options for doing so:  social media, online communities, web analytics, online marketing research, and online usability tests to name a few.

Automation prompts strategic thinking–and makes it affordable

Each of these avenues is:

• relatively inexpensive to administer (the bits travel, the administrators stay put),

• offers greater reach and access than more traditional research methods (anyone with an Internet connection can participate), and is

• more usable (automated tools for compiling and analyzing the data each creates are now accessible the non-statistician).

In fact, one of the experts I interviewed for a blog post, pointed out that digital marketing, by making it so easy to relate behavior to outcomes, has opened the door to strategy.

Customer research has crossed the chasm

I ended last year by asking, “Will 2010 be the year of the customer?”.   Twelve months later, I think it’s safe to say that we’ve crossed the chasm–and that we’re definitely marching in that direction.

Too bad I couldn’t locate that crystal ball.  I’m wondering what the future holds….

Related posts:

1. What are your marketing priorities for 2010?
2. The future of marketing will be all about customer data
3. Inbound marketing starts with deep customer insights
4. Price or customer experience–which matters more?

This post discusses what Dave sees as the four steps to digital marketing:  Segmentation, Integration, Automation, and Optimization.  In it, I will tie together all three posts, and return to the questions I raised on behalf of B2B marketers at small companies at the beginning of the first post.

Segmentation

As I mentioned in the last post, Dave recommends on focusing on one segment at a time to help better discern patterns.  In that post, I wrote about how Dave’s marketing team focused on the segment of prospects that helped it achieve a particular marketing goal.

The team then worked backward from the achievement of the goal to identify the behaviors that led to those actions.  In so doing, they identified ways to improve marketing performance.

Integration

To improve the efficacy of your marketing efforts, it can be helpful to integrate multiple marketing tools. In an integrated marketing campaign, he calls “waking the dead”, Dave integrated his CRM system, email marketing, and web analytics to identify which of 40,000 inactive prospects were the most promising.

Dave used the CRM system to identify the inactive prospects.  He used email marketing to send them coupons that provided an incentive to try the company’s services.  He used web analytics to determine which prospects clicked on the coupon,  thereby demonstrating an interest in the company’s services.

Another example of integration is sending prospects personalized email.  In this case, you might use your CRM system to group your customers by products they’ve bought in the past, your analytics to determine the types of offers that motivated these individuals to buy before, and different versions of your email newsletter to reach each group with the offer he or she is likely to find most compelling.

A third example of integration is using social listening to develop your editorial calendar.  You might use Tweetdeck to identify what people care about, or who is active in complementary areas, by searching on terms related to your space.  You can then specify content that addresses frequently asked questions or increase your reach by asking professionals who are active in complementary areas to write a guest post for your blog.

Automation

The next step to is automating a part or all of the process to scale your efforts and/or reduce the time you’re investing in digital marketing.  You may get email-marketing software that shows you open and click-through rates.  You may get sales enablement software that provides a better view into prospects’ behavior,  or a tool that automatically extracts the data you require from your CRM system to prepare your campaigns.

Optimization

The final step is optimization.  Optimization refers to the ongoing experimentation that digital marketers perform, to identify the best combination of marketing strategies and tactics for achieving their goals.

What are the implications for solo or small B2B marketing departments

As I mentioned in the first post, Dave asserts that savvy small B2B marketing departments can use digital marketing to gain competitive advantage, because so few companies are doing it well.  He observes that from an analytics perspective, their marketers can become professionally useful in a matter of months.  He also notes that they can accomplish a lot just using free tools like Google Analytics and Tweetdeck.

Another of my concerns was whether small companies accumulate enough visits in a year to obtain meaningful data.  Dave pointed out that while they may not have enough data to reach statistically significant conclusions, their analytics will tell them what’s broken and provide directional signals that tell them if they are positively affecting performance.

Talent beats tools

Finally, I wonder about how these marketers using free tools, and a lot of manual labor, will compete with larger organizations.  Here, Dave responds that talent beats tools every time.  He concludes by saying that the most successful marketers will be generalists who are creative, expert at analytics, possess strong writing skills, and have a large personal following.

I’d be interested in any thoughts you have about digital marketing.  What are you doing?  How’s it going?  What advice do you have to offer solo or small B2B marketing departments?

Related posts:

1. Digital marketing: How B2B marketers can use it to improve their performance against goals
2. Digital marketing: How B2B marketers can use it to pick the best marketing strategies
3. Will marketing consultants and agencies switch places with in-house staff in a digital world?
4. Drip campaigns keep your company top of mind: 5 steps for success + an example

This post is the second in a series about how B2B marketers can use digital marketing to help them make the most of their resources online and off.  The series summarizes insights from an interview with Dave Wieneke, a Director of Digital Marketing who blogs at UsefulArts.us

The first post described how B2B marketers can set up digital signals to help them monitor marketing performance.  This post describes how B2B marketers can use digital marketing to determine what they need to do to improve marketing performance.

Start with market segmentation

Every market includes a number of constituencies–each with its own goals, priorities, and ways of pursuing their goals.  When you look at the entire market, it’s hard to discern patterns.  The behavior of the various groups can cancel each other out and create a muddy picture.

Therefore, Dave recommends focusing on one segment at a time.  For example, you may want to focus on the prospects that helped you achieve your goals and try to figure out what distinguishes them from everyone else.

Identify the funnel by working backwards from the goal

One way to find out what distinguishes the members of the market segment that contacted the firm is by taking a look at the behavior that lead up to achievement of the goal.  To do this, B2B marketers examine the cookies that visitors set on Google.  These cookies collect information about the paths visitors take to reach websites and the frequency with which they visit.

Dave has helped B2B and B2C marketing teams start with the prospects that help them achieve their goals, and the work backwards to find where qualified prospects come from and what they do before becoming leads.

At Sokolove Law, to find the behaviors that lead up to the display of the “thank you” note, Dave’s digital marketing team searched for other behaviors these prospects had in common.  In so doing, they determined that the behavior that was most likely to lead to filling out the form, was a visit to a page that shows how Sokolove Law helps clients recover financially from injuries.  Knowing which pages are important to getting leads then helped the firm improve its websites.

Other ways to determine if what you’re doing is working

In this example, the behavior that had the greatest likelihood of helping the marketing team achieve its goal, was visitors’ engagement with a particular piece of content.  In other cases, it could be any one of a number of behaviors.  Examples include the total number of pages qualified prospects viewed before achieving your goal, the time they spent on the site, and the path that brought them to the site.

There are many ways that web analytics can help marketers determine what’s working.  Examples include comparing the traffic from social sources to the traffic from search, looking at the amount of time spent on one page versus another (does it make sense given the content of each?), or determining whether visitors who see a particular combination of campaigns are more likely to help the marketing department reach a goal than those who view only one.

Digital marketing can help marketers improve the efficiency and efficacy of their marketing campaigns

Once you learn what works, you can explore ways to increase the efficiency and efficacy of your marketing initiatives.  To improve efficacy, you’ll want to explore ways to achieve your goals more often.

For example, you might try increasing your investment in the search terms that, you determined, were most likely to send the prospects that helped you achieve your goals to your site.  Or, you might try placing the marketing that you determined sent the prospects who achieved your goals to particular landing pages, to see if that increases your success rate.

Or, you might want to try to improve the efficiency of your campaigns by exploring ways that you can improve the return you’re getting on your investments.  For example, you may want to see whether reducing the frequency of your direct mail campaigns affects performance–or if switching from direct mail to email makes hurts your performance against your goal.

The digital marketing paradox

In speaking with Dave, I came to realize that while digital marketing may complicate the lives of B2B marketers at small firms in the short run, it has the potential to free up resources in the long run.  Once they have data that demonstrates which marketing investments yield the greatest returns, B2B marketers may be able to justify eliminating some of the programs they’re running today.

This post, and the first in the series address my original questions about where to focus and where to start.  In the next post, we’ll look at Dave’s four step methodology and attempt to address the questions about what investments small marketing departments that want to pursue digital marketing need to make immediately , how long it will take to get up to speed, and what it will take to remain competitive in the long run.

Related posts:

1. Digital Marketing: 4 steps to success
2. Digital marketing: How B2B marketers can use it to pick the best marketing strategies
3. B2B marketers struggle to reach decision makers and measure marketing results
4. Can B2B marketing strategies for the complex sale help improve health outcomes?

Here’s an example of how a professional service provider can apply the do-it-yourself guide for creating value propositions in 3 steps.    It uses the same formula as the green value proposition example I posted last week (immediately below).   This time, I’ve used it to describe the value I offer my clients as a B2B strategic marketing consultant (below the value proposition formula).

The value proposition formula

We help [your most promising prospects] that [need help with the pressing concern you address] succeed by [providing the material improvement you will deliver].  Unlike [the alternative solution], [your solution] [describe the reason why your company is a better choice] as demonstrated by [evidence that you will deliver as promised].

A B2B strategic marketing consultant’s value proposition

BB Marketing Plus works with [B2B companies that have long sales cycles] to [increase sales productivity].  Unlike [companies that make cold calls for you or develop lead generation campaigns], we use [our Revenue Accelerator Methodology] to[ help you get the right message to the right person at the right time about the right solution--and motivate them to act] as is evident from our [our clients' testimonials].  [Start today with a free consultation to discuss your situation and the marketing strategies and marketing programs] [it will take to speed the sale].

In the last post, I promised to elaborate on one aspect of the value proposition with each new example.  In that post I focused on how to ensure that your value proposition captures attention.  In this post, I discuss the importance of adding a call to action.

Motivate prospects to act to receive the value you offer

The purpose of your value proposition it to elevate your organization, and its solution, above the competition.  Nevertheless, your ultimate goal is to get your best prospects to self-qualify by “raising their hands”.

Use a call to action to get qualified prospects to “raise their hands”

Without a call to action, your value proposition is just information.  Your call to action accomplishes two objectives.

One is that it tells prospects exactly what you’d like them to do–and how they’ll benefit.  Providing people with a specific request increases the likelihood that they will act.

In this example, the requested action is that prospects “start with a free consultation to discuss their specific situation”.  The promised benefit is that they’ll get ideas about marketing strategies and programs that will help them speed the sale, thereby improving sales productivity.

Use your call to action to test your value proposition

The other objective that a call to action accomplishes is that, if you set up a way to capture their responses, you can use your call to action to help you test the efficacy of your value proposition.  If prospects don’t take the desired action, your value proposition may not be effective.

On the other hand, the problem may be with your delivery or with your call to action, rather than with your value proposition.  In a future post, we’ll discuss how you can use digital marketing campaigns to quickly get to the heart of the matter.

What’s your company’s value proposition?

Every successful business delivers value.  Please feel free to use the comment area of this post to test your value proposition and call to action.  I’ll post any comments that use the formula to describe the value that one business offers to another in a professional manner.

Looking to improve your company’s sales productivity?  Download 5 actions you can take today to generate sales-ready leads.

Related posts:

1. How to create a compelling value proposition: Do it yourself in 3 steps
2. Green value proposition example
3. Capturing buyers’ attention: What makes a value proposition compelling?
4. Software value proposition for prospective health care customers

MITX, under the umbrella of FutureM, organized dozens of  (mostly free) events dedicated to exploring and sharing how the newest technologies and insights are changing the way that marketers think, create, engage, and measure.  It was information-packed, exhilarating, and exhausting.

This post focuses on what excited me most as a B2B marketing consultant.  Hint:  My company’s tagline is “using customer knowledge to increase sales”.

Get it right the first time

Speaker after speaker referred to the fact that many products fail simply because they don’t address a compelling market need–something that companies could have determined prior to building and shipping the product.  Therefore, a lot of talks centered on various techniques that companies can use to gather customer information before and during the development process–and after the product ships.

Gather customer data early and often

While companies talk about being customer-centric, many treat marketing research as “one and done”.  They gather customer data at the outset of a project, perhaps once or twice during the development cycle and right before the product ships, rather than doing so on an ongoing basis.  Moreover, few companies perform research after the sale to find out why they won or lost.

A lot of the speakers, on the other hand, gather customer feedback weekly, others bi-weekly, and still others monthly throughout the development process.  Many recommended getting to market quickly with what Eric Ries referred to, in the Customer Development session, with a Minimally Viable Product (MVP)–and iterating post-launch to magnify the learning.

The point they emphasized is that everything is always evolving:  the surrounding environment, enabling technologies, the competition, customers’ requirements, and a company’s understanding of its customers’ needs.  Therefore, the development and marketing processes must be iterative,  and so must customer research.

Go where your customers are

Conventional marketing research relies on filtered information.  The sieve may be through the lens of particular functions such as Sales or Customer Service or the choice of questions for a survey or focus group.

Panelists encouraged audiences to gather feedback directly–and from multiple perspectives.  At the Customer Development session, they recommended going on site and observing customers’ environments directly, watching them work, and seeing with whom they interact.  At the Product Strategy session, they also recommended involving whole teams, rather than just individuals with a particular perspective (such as design, marketing, development, etc.)

Focus on actions not words

How many times have you seen market researchers ask a prospective user which features matter most–or what they would pay for something?  As we’ve discussed in this blog before, users have no idea–because they don’t fully grasp the circumstances under which they’ll be making the decision.

Instead, panelists at the Digital Marketing session recommended focusing on actions rather than words.  That is, learn from customers clicks.  At the Product Strategy session, Katie Rae suggested putting up PPC ads to see what attracted user attention.

At the Customer Development session, speakers recommended asking for the order, even if the product was not finished yet.  That way, you know that prospects truly value what you plan to deliver.

At the Customer Engagement session, panelists encouraged participants to focus on the big picture.  In addition to finding out why people came to the site, they recommended finding out where people went when they left the site and what they did with the information they got during their visit.

Engagement fosters relationships

At one of the sessions, a panelist pointed out that it’s now up to marketing to build and nurture relationships.  As we’ve noted elsewhere in this blog, by the time they contact a company many prospects have made their buying decision and just want to negotiate the terms of the deal.

Therefore, panelists at the Customer Engagement session noted that marketers must find out where prospects congregate and what they are discussing.  Doing so will enable marketers to engage prospects in a way that prospects find relevant.

At the Digital Marketing session, panelists said that in the future marketers will deliver less content and more utility.  They may engage prospects by facilitating conversations among them, rather than through direct participation.

They may also provide utility by helping improve users’ offline experiences–even those that don’t directly relate to the company’s offerings.  For example, a pharmaceutical company may sponsor an exercise program and a law firm may help hospital inpatients learn from others’ experiences.  When it comes to providing utility, mobile will often be the platform of choice because phones travel with their users.

Analytics are no longer optional

Another recurring theme was the importance of analytics–especially post launch.  Here, panelists focused on some of the related challenges including the rapid pace of change, integrating the various systems, making sense of all the data, and using the insights to empower communicators throughout the organization.

The marketer of the future?

At the Digital Marketing session, the panelists agreed that the marketer of the future must be a strong communicator, love technology, embrace qualitative and quantitative analysis, and adapt easily to change.

Visit these hashtags to see what others had to say #engagem #custdev2 #futuremdigital #prodstratm

Related posts:

1. Customer research makes gains in 2010
2. B2B marketers struggle to reach decision makers and measure marketing results

To illustrate his point, Dr. Fader looked at the data underlying a study that concluded that Hispanics were more likely to purchase DVDs than Caucasians.  He began by acknowledging that the conclusion was accurate–but not particularly useful.

Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics

First he called our attention to the difference in purchases between the two demographic groups which, although statistically significant, was only separated by a couple percentage points.   A difference that he said would not yield enough revenue to justify unique marketing campaigns.

Then he presented a second graph which showed side-by-side comparisons of the two groups’ purchasing behavior.  The curves were identically shaped bell curves–although the level of the curve representing Hispanics’ purchases of DVDs was slightly higher.

In short, the differences within each group–which recorded purchases under varying circumstances–trumped the differences between the two demographic groups.

Data you can use

His point? In the old days, our only option was to segment markets by visible (i.e. demographic) differences.  Today, however, we have access to behavioral data–which is often far more useful–thanks to the web.

His suggestion? Follow the clickstream to learn how your buyers behave, especially the ones that purchase, and plan your marketing campaigns accordingly.  Rather than grouping those in similar demographic categories, group those with similar behavior (e.g. the order in which they do things, the events that trigger action)

The catch? Fader says that other studies show that you can’t predict the behavior of individual participants, only populations, so you’ll need a lot of data to gather enough information to segment your market in a meaningful way.

Takeaway? The principles underlying Marketing 101 remain the same, the execution is constantly evolving. That’s what keeps marketers awake at night…

No related posts.

TopRank used Twitter to promote the poll–and did so on multiple occasions.  Presumably, a lot of people received notice of the poll:  @TopRank has 6061 followers, the update was retweeted 262 times, “liked” by 45, and likely got additional visibility through other social sharing media*.

How Odden attracted responses

Odden followed all the recommended steps to motivate engagement:

1. He posted the poll in a blog that attracts a highly targeted audience–online marketers interested in obtaining high search engine ranks.
2. The post’s topic is highly relevant to the target audience, a group whose success depends upon selecting cost-effective marketing tactics that will elevate their messages above the noise.
3. The post is even more valuable because it promises timely data that is not readily available.
4. Odden heightened readers’ awareness of the challenges they face by asking questions such as “Are social media and content marketing the glue that brings multi-channel marketing together?”, “Is 2011 finally the year for mobile?”, and “Will companies focus on more holistic online marketing?”
5. He also encouraged engagement by soliciting readers’ advice on whether he focused on the right areas.
6. He offered a “Top 10″ list–something all the pundits recommend to engage interest–and delivered by providing a running tally of the poll’s findings.
7. Following best practice, Odden promoted the poll a number of times–which is an important factor in increasing response rates since not everyone responds the first time they get a post.

Calculating success: the response rate and conversion rate

Odden’s stated goal was to get 200 respondents.  At first glance, this seems conservative; however, it is well in line with industry statistics.  Consider the following loose assumptions for demonstration purposes:

• 6000 people received the initial tweet from TopRank when the blog was posted
• Retweeters and Facebook followers average 10 followers (feel free to use your own numbers)
  • 2000 (262 x 10) received the post via retweet
  • 450 (45 x 10) received the post via Facebook
  • 500 saw the post on social bookmarking sites (again, my swag)
  • None of the indirect respondents forwarded the link
  • Twitter follower response rates (assumptions, once again)
    • 5% the first time TopRank tweeted the post
    • 2.5% the second time TopRank tweeted the post
    • 1.25% the third time TopRank tweeted the post
    • 1% response rate from indirect recipients

The logic underlying the assumptions

Most direct response campaigns, of which this is one, anticipate getting response rates of less than 1%, more if the list is as highly targeted as the @TopRank list is.  Direct marketing typically yield low response rates since most people only attend to messages that they see as relevant when they receive them.

Resending messages increases the number of responses because recipients’ views of what is relevant depend on what they are doing at the time.  Nevertheless, each subsequent communication gets a significantly smaller response rate than the one preceding it.

Response rates, however, are not conversion rates.  Here the response rate would be the number of people who clicked through to the poll.  The conversion rate is the number that chose to participate in the poll.

The result of using best practices

Using these assumptions, TopRank would receive 1230 responses (plugged the above assumptions into Excel) and the 232 people that completed the poll would represent a 20% conversion rate of those responses.  That said, the assumptions are just guesses, so feel free to recalculate using your own inputs.

So what’s my point?

What struck me about the response rate is that it is a clear demonstration of how difficult it is to convert others.  Odden is well-known, well-respected, offers high value, and in short, did everything right.  Yet, even he didn’t draw enough responses to perform the cross-tabulations it would require to answer questions about the applicability of his information.

What does this mean for the rest of us who are trying to sell a product or a service?  Here are my thoughts.  We need to:

• Do everything that Lee Odden did
• Find a way to reach many more prospects, all of whom are ideally as qualified as Odden’s are
• We also need to articulate the value of our offer in a number of ways in an attempt to increase the percentage of our highly qualified prospects that will find the messages relevant
• We need to communicate our messages more often than Odden did, which translates into running our campaigns over much longer periods.
• Then, once we achieve the first conversion, we need to do it over again; since unlike Odden, we are selling a product or a service and require more interim conversions than Odden did.

The paradox of search and social media

In short, search and social media can help marketers identify more qualified prospects and accelerate the process, still it’s as challenging as ever to achieve our goal: getting the most qualified prospects to “raise their hands” when they’re ready to buy.  Everyone says that social media is the answer, but what if–no matter how trusted the source is–others still don’t have time to attend to the message?

What are your thoughts about this analysis?  Is it on target?  Does it address the right questions?  Reach the right conclusion?  More important, what are your perspectives about where marketers should spend their resources to elevate their messages and accelerate conversions?

* Numbers on the day I wrote this post.

Make the most of your social media opportunities

Interested in learning how your company can get more value from social media?  Download the social media primer: What’s the best use of social media for your organization?

Related posts:

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2. Will social media increase users’ influence over product development?
3. Social Media Marketing for Job Search
4. Social media adoption: How will marketing spending patterns change?

Sales people and others responsible generating business for their organizations will find LinkedIn a valuable tool.  Unlike sites such as Facebook and MySpace, LinkedIn tends to attract those looking to develop business relationships, as opposed to friendships.

But while many of us are familiar with the basic features of LinkedIn, we don’t always know how to best leverage them to drive sales. Here are five tips you can use to create a Linked In profile that will motivate prospects to come to you–without your having to “sell” them.

1. Position yourself as a thought leader

People buy from those they know and trust.  Especially when it comes to important purchases, people also want to buy from experts that are ahead of the curve.  LinkedIn offers multiple tools, many of which are discussed below, that you can use to demonstrate thought leadership and reinforce their confidence in you as a trusted advisor.

2. Get and give recommendations

What impression do you suppose a prospect will have after reading glowing endorsements about you from former coworkers, bosses, and, especially, clients?  While they may suspect those clients likely did not volunteer to write those recommendations, they also know that clients would not agree to do so if they did not feel comfortable legitimately endorsing you.

Get started by writing one for someone else.  Doing so accomplishes three things: one, it clearly flatters the person you write it for; two, it helps him or her look better to people viewing his or her profile; and three, it creates a desire to reciprocate.

2. Use polls to engage interest

People like giving their opinion about issues that are relevant or important to them–and reading what others have to say about topics that matter to them. Every so often (once a quarter or so) use LinkedIn’s polling feature to take a poll.

Moreover, your name will appear on their status updates, reminding your connections you’re out there, and in so doing, keeping you top of mind.  When combined with your other LinkedIn activities, it will increase the likelihood, they’ll remember you when they’re ready to buy.

3. Find and share news that will help others

Each group has a news section that contains news articles other members post, and increasingly, blog entries.  You never know what interesting tidbit you might come across that the difficult-to-reach prospect would appreciate receiving (and reward you for sending with a return call).

4. Demonstrate your value

Adding your experienced-based comments to existing discussions in the groups to which your clients and prospects belong is an unobtrusive, but powerful, way to demonstrate your thought leadership and your willingness and ability to provide value.

For example, I contributed to a discussion in one of the Mergers and Acquisitions groups. The very next day, I received an email from a boutique M&A firm on Long Island saying they “would like to learn more about my firm and services as they may be beneficial to his prospects and client base.”

5. Post documents, presentations, share what you’re reading

While you may not sell people on LinkedIn, your marketing materials may.  Use LinkedIn Applications such as SlideShare Presentations, Google Presentations, Box.net Files, and Reading List to passively communicate about your company and yourself.

I’ve used this to post my standard sales presentation, which promotes what I offer, and a couple of books I’ve read and recommend.  This helps others get to know me better as a person, effectively building my personal brand.  Others use it to establish thought leadership by posting white papers their firms have authored.

Bonus: Search for status updates for trigger events

In addition to these ideas, there are a few I’d like to share courtesy of a fellow business owner.  David Leaver of Opus Partners recommends that his clients identify some trigger events—events that, when they occur, will create a need for a product one sells—among the weekly updates mentioned above.  For Leaver, who provides sales training services, one trigger is when a VP of Sales changes jobs; often he or she will want to bring in a sales or marketing consultant to evaluate the staff being inherited.

Premium LinkedIn Extra: Target your most promising prospects

Premium LinkedIn users have a host of additional benefits that are beyond the scope of this article.  One that I’ve found extremely valuable is the ability to search for contacts using premium-only demographic criteria, such as company size, function, and seniority level.  This provides me with a reduced, and more targeted, list of prospects.  I can then zero in on the exact person or persons I want to reach, in the size of organization I want.  This enables me to send a custom, targeted message to those prospects via InMail, or, if I don’t have a premium account, via a connection.

Share your LinkedIn sales and marketing tips

As we have seen, there are a plethora of easy-to-use tools available to you on LinkedIn that can help you improve your sales results.  Start by picking one or two, and use them for about a week, until they become second nature.  (Nigel Edelshain of Sales 2.0 disciplines himself to devote 15 to 30 minutes each and every day.)  Then, gradually start using the rest of the features presented here, until you find yourself becoming a bona fide LinkedIn maestro.

Do you have other LinkedIn tips for generating sales?  If so, please share them here.

Looking for other ways to generate sales?  Download 5 actions you can take today to get more sales-ready leads

Related posts:

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