High-Tech Communicator

A Grand Experiment in Marketing

During the Mad Men era, advertising was much more of an art than a science. When Don Draper tried to sell his clients on a new campaign, more often than not, he relied on his good looks and gift for storytelling to beguile clients. Sure Sterling Cooper occasionally threw in a few focus groups to test out concepts, but the dozen people they polled were hardly a representative sample.

In short, it was never truly possible to measure the impact of a campaign.

Today, art remains a critical component of marketing. But it’s married to hard science. Because much marketing is now online and online marketing is imminently trackable, marketers can easily measure results. In addition, analytics tools make it possible to look for deeper meanings and uncover hidden trends. 

The Advent of Agile Marketing

Marketers are using this ability to obtain accurate feedback on their campaigns to take a page from the software developer’s handbook. Software developers are increasingly using agile development techniques originally popularized for use in mobile app development. With agile development, programmers quickly create an app with a limited number of key features, deploy it to customers, solicit feedback, incorporate suggested changes, and then repeat the process—all in a short period of time.

Developers deploy applications much more quickly than with traditional “big bang” deployments that deliver hundreds of features at once. And, because developers revise their apps continually based on feedback from end users, the applications are much more likely to offer what customers are looking for.    

Similarly, marketers are increasingly using an agile marketing approach. They now try things, see what happens and change their marketing on the fly. For example, Maia Tihista, Vice President, Global Marketing for Flexera Software noted, “We try different tactics for our email campaigns to see if open rates improve. When we run nurturing campaigns, we use marketing analytics tools to see what’s generating pipeline and bookings and make adjustments accordingly. For example, we might find that one solution has a long buying process and buyers want to consume technical content. We can easily determine what papers work better for them.”

Course Corrections

Constant monitoring allows marketers to pinpoint necessary course corrections quickly. For example, Sowmya Murthy, Head of Marketing, Technology Product Group for Unisys is constantly testing whether her messaging hits the mark and makes changes as needed. “We monitor ferociously as we roll out campaigns. We talk to customers to determine whether a particular problem area cited in campaigns exists or matter as much as we think it does. If an issue turns out not to matter so much, we scrap that piece of the campaign and focus on areas where we’re hearing about problems. This allows us to course correct on a regular basis.”

In one example Murthy said, “One of our messages that we used in an email campaign wasn’t nuanced enough. Open rates improved dramatically when we made our messages sharper.”

Murthy rolled out the improved messaging not only within the original email but to other downstream elements of the campaign such telemarketing scripts. “We use our findings to influence not just one area of a campaign, we apply them where applicable along every point in the road to the sale.”

Mixing Art and Science

Of course, it can be easy to go too far and base campaigns on data alone. But the best campaigns retrain their spark of inspiration, using analytics to measure whether that spark translates into sales.  For example, Andrew Spoeth, Head of Social Media Marketing for CA, noted, “As a social marketer, it’s an exciting time because you can be creative and analytical at the same time.”

 

 

Print: Down, But Not Out

Pity the poor print publication. The popularity of print of all types appears to be in freefall. 

Only 11 percent of marketers expect to increase their print ad budget over the next 12 months, while 32 percent expect to cut print ad budgets, according to the Association of Business Information & Media Companies. Many companies that once put out print publications for thought leadership and customer retention have moved to digital only versions. For example, CA cancelled the print version of its externally facing Smart Enterprise publication and has moved to a strictly online publication in partnership with Wired Magazine.

The reasons for this move are clear. Physically publishing a print magazine and sending it out using the postal service is far more expensive than digital distribution. It’s also harder to determine ROI. While you may be able to track circulation figures and response to individual ads —tracking print results will never be as sophisticated as the simplest online tracking capabilities that instantly show you how many people read an article, liked it, and passed it on.

Nonetheless, print publications are not without their advocates. The Association of Business Information & Media Company’s Research found that 96 percent of readers peruse both print magazines and websites. And while readers turn to online publications more frequently—73 percent use websites at least weekly and 67 percent read e-newsletters at least weekly—print publications still made it into the top three channels. Indeed, 45 percent of respondents report that they consult magazines at least once a week.

The savviest marketers then are not abandoning print. Rather, they’re using it strategically. As Michael DiLeva, Senior Product Marketing Manager at Bentley Systems noted, “Print is still important. The key is knowing your audience. We’re seeing mass customization. Different people consume content in different ways. We produce engineering software. Engineers may look at video, but they also want written long-form content that’s more outcome oriented.”

When companies publish their own print publications, they reap numerous qualitative benefits that nonetheless directly support sales.

Providing an Entrée to Decision Makers

Articles, particularly those in a company’s print publication can serve as a way to get sales reps in front of high-level executives. Loni Frazita, a marketing manager based in Long Island, New York, found hat, when working with a previous client, the company’s sales force would have a relationship at a manager and director level, but might have trouble getting in to see the VP or CIO level of decision maker. Sending a reporter to interview that high- level decision maker for a trend article could open doors.

 “Once the article came out, we had a relationship with them,” said Frazita, “The article acted as an icebreaker and allowed us to start a conversation. The sales rep could call and ask if they could drop off the magazine. By then, the customer was often more willing to listen.”

Lining Up Customer References

Most companies find that customer success stories are among the most valuable pieces of content they can produce. But it’s not uncommon for the sales reps handling the accounts to fiercely guard access to their customers. Reps typically fear that asking the customer to participate in a success story will compromise their ability to renew the customer’s contract or upsell them on additional products or services.   

Esri, the geomapping company, has used print publications to help line up elusive customer success stories. 

“There can be trepidation,” said Jesse Theodore, Communications Manager at Esri. “One of the greatest ways I can get buy in from the sales team to allow us to approach contacts for customer success stories is to show them an example in a print publication. I can then say, this is what we want to do for your customers. The printed stories are very compelling. The light goes on in their eyes. It does a lot to build bridges and assuage concerns. This happens much more with a print article than a PDF. People just get it.”

Building Strong Relationships with Prospects and Customers

Esri still publishes several publications that have both print and online versions. One magazine, Arcnews, reaches more than 750,000 people and talks about the what and why of geomapping. Another publication, ArcUser, maintains a circulation of 500,000 people and talks about the company’s products and how to get the most out of them. They also publish 8-12 page newsletters for various industries.

The company is convinced that the print publications provide that special something that helps cement relationships  with customers and prospects.  Said Theodore, “Our marketing and sales people love print publication leave-behinds. There’s something visceral about seeing a story in print versus seeing it in digital.”

While the response may not be as measurable as the clicks and likes in the online world, Theodore says, “Anecdotally, we get a lot of positive response. Our editors get emails. People come up to me all the time on the road.”

 “We promote digital but we’re not excluding print,” said Theodore, “People want their print pieces. There’ll always be a place for print.”

 

 

When Good Marketing Ends Badly

As a marketer, your mission is to tell stories about your brand. And to make sure those stories have a happy ending. After all, you’re Chief Cheerleader for your brand, and your job is to spur your potential customers to root for it, as well. 

Unfortunately, in marketing, as in life, not every story ends the way we’d like.

This is the tale of a brand whose marketing began with the best of intentions and tactics. But whose discord and dysfunction resulted in an ending that was more tragic than fairytale.

I’m telling this story—with the names and pertinent details changed to protect the guilty—because we can all learn as much, perhaps more, from mistakes and missteps than we can when everything sails along according to a well-laid plan.   

A Cautionary Tale

I happened upon this tale as I was soliciting people to participate in my blog series on real marketers.  

Cassandra (not her real name) had just been laid off from a marketing job at a mid-sized software company after a new marketing executive was brought in to do a marketing reboot. 

By this point, the company had undergone several years of chaos and upheaval. Three years ago, the company had completed a merger that looked good on paper but whose execution had been painful and had resulted in numerous layoffs. Before long, the CEO of the company stepped down.

In cases like this, it can be difficult to discern which is the chicken and which is the egg. It may have been that dysfunctional marketing caused the company’s travails. Or it may have been the other way around. Most likely, each one contributed to the other.    

Fire-Drill Marketing

By the time we spoke, Cassandra had had plenty of time to mull over what had happened and was anxious to share her thoughts.

“The biggest challenge we faced was the conflict between sales and marketing,” Cassandra explained. “We kept being asked to meet short-term demands from sales for us to fill the pipeline immediately with whatever leads we could find. We never had time to address our long-term needs as marketers to provide education—so we could mentor customers in our space or build trust—so we could ultimately develop customer advocates.”

Among the long-term projects that the group never seemed to get around to completing was the creation of buyer personas. Another deficit was content strategy. They’d created quite a bit of content, but they didn’t know if they were doing the right content. To make matters worse, there was no expiration date for content; it floated around for years. While work had begun work in addressing these issues, it had progressed only in fits and starts.

Rather than completing long-term efforts that would allow the company to pinpoint the right prospects and nurture them through a sales cycle that averaged nine months, the company regularly sent large, “spray-and-pray” email campaigns to thousands of people. 

Of course, plenty of companies have success with email campaigns. But they need to be targeted. That’s where the company fell down. The company hadn’t taken the time to break down the list into relevant subsections and create targeted messaging for each audience. As Cassandra pointed out, “It takes time to analyze the database, understand the prospects’ roles, and learn how to tweak the message to address what was most important to each one. And we never took the time to perform these tasks.”

Predictable Results

The results were predictable. “When they’d get 16 attendees to a webinar, people would deem the campaign a success,” said Cassandra. “But no one ever addressed the elephant in the room that this was 16 people out of 5,000 invited to the event.”

Like many more successful companies, the company also spent considerable time and effort creating integrated lead-nurturing campaigns. The team might build a webinar, a case study, and an article, and use the company’s marketing automation tool to send out email touches with links to these assets every week or so for lead nurturing.

Said Cassandra, “We put the cart before the horse. We hadn’t looked at where the person was in the buyer’s journey. Instead, because we were so rushed, we had a daisy chain of content that we hoped made sense to the buyer without our having done the analysis.”

For most marketers, the final step in the demand-generation process is coming up with a sales-ready lead. Here once again, the company’s efforts fell short. This time it was because sales and marketing failed to come to a consensus about what marketing success really meant.

“We hadn’t had discussions of what was a sales-qualified lead versus a marketing-qualified lead,” said Cassandra. “Without that understanding of when we’ve generated a lead, marketing would think something was a great lead and sales wouldn’t agree.”

Lessons Learned

During her experience, Cassandra gave a lot of thought to what her department could have done better. She came to three conclusions:

First, marketing can learn a tremendous amount from defining personas and the buyer’s journey. Those are really the foundation of getting marketing right. Moreover, it’s not something you do once and forget about for the rest of the year. You need to look at them at least twice a year and test your assumptions. 

Second, it’s critical to get sales in the same room and talk about how to achieve the goals of the company. Sales has their numbers. Marketing needs to discuss these quotas, what a qualified lead looks like, and if the lead isn’t qualified, what should happen. “A lot of the information you need for this discussion,” Cassandra noted, “comes from analyzing the buyer’s journey.”

And finally, marketers must use modern technology to measure results. “What’s exciting is the immediate feedback you can get,” said Cassandra. “Before you’d send out a direct mail and wait and hope. Checkbox marketing doesn’t work anymore. Now you can see how an email is performing in real time. That means you can test headlines and calls to action. There’s so much more opportunity to learn what’s working. If you’re given the time and inclination, you can constantly learn and improve.”

 

 

 

 

6 Ways Small Companies Make a Big Marketing Splash

Pity the poor small company marketer. Like their counterparts at large companies, they face all the challenges of reaching their target market over ever more competitive channels. At the same time, they have to outshout competitors with bigger bullhorns while armed with smaller budgets. Regardless of the quality of their product, it’s much harder for these companies to get noticed.

As Victoria Grey, Chief Marketing Officer for Gridstore noted, “One of our biggest challenges is getting our name out there for customer consideration. We’ve got a great product, so if we can get in front of a solid prospect, we’ve got a good chance of closing the deal. But we don’t have as large a marketing budget as many of our competitors so it’s a challenge.”

What’s the small company marketer to do?

I talked to a number of marketers at small companies and here are some of their tricks.

1.     Start with a unique differentiator

It should go without saying that the most important marketing strategy is having a unique product that solves a real problem. (Although with all the me-too products out there, it’s clear that many companies missed the memo).  A product that addresses a new problem in a new way can provide a true differentiation regardless of the size of the company. And these companies earn the right to claim thought leadership. 

For example:

• Blucarat is an eCommerce company with a twist. It allows companies that sell over the internet to harvest user-generated content from Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and so on and showcase it on eCommerce sites to inspire purchasing. This means companies of any size can take advantage of the same social proof as Amazon.com.
• Gridstore provides backup capabilities specifically for Microsoft’s Hyper-V.
• Druva, established in 2008, was one of the first companies to secure data in the Cloud.

2.     Keep costs in line

Smaller companies must be particularly careful to watch their pennies. Luckily, many new technologies give small companies big-company tools tailored to their needs and budgets. Said Kieran Taylor, CMO of Blucarat, “We look at burn rates and maximize every one of our campaigns. Luckily we can do that by relying on lower cost options. For example, we use MailChimp for our email campaigns and Act-On Software, which is a poor man’s marketing automation system.”

3.     Produce super-targeted content

With all the new tactics and channels available, many marketers are trying to cover all the bases. They produce content of all types (albeit often through reuse) including white papers, webinars, podcasts, info graphics, and infograms. 

Smart small companies take a different approach. They look carefully at their buyer personas and painstakingly match the content produced to their personas.

“To do things cost effectively,” said Taylor of Blucarat, “We need to be extremely targeted in terms of who we send things so we can improve the signal-to-noise ratio.”

Taylor is careful to target not only the right buyer, but also where they are in the buying cycle. “We’re constantly looking at where the prospect is in the nurture cycle and identifying the right offers for that stage,” Taylor explained.

The company also takes care to create just the right content for that audience. For example, one of Blucarat’s personas is the social media manager. This persona acts is an influencer and has a medium age of 27. The company creates more videos for this audience than it does for its personas of older buyers because millennials are less likely to read longer documents.

Druva, in contrast, is a small company that produces data security products for the cloud. Its customers are highly technical, which means that they’re skeptical of marketing of any type. Therefore, the company focuses on creating content for its demand-gen campaigns that’s highly credible. The company works with industry analysts to create research that it can use in thought leadership and reports chock full of new insights. The company also creates content based on conversations with customers in their own words about their challenges, experiences, and successes.

4.     Target your social channels

Smaller companies are also more targeted when it comes to spreading the word. Both Blucarat and Druva carefully select the social media they use to get their message across. Blucarat finds Facebook and Twitter to be quite effective in generating traffic and click-throughs because their market of online commerce companies is by nature B2C. Additionally, the CMOs and Vice Presidents of Commerce tend to be fairly social. The company also does geographic targeting to reach the prestige beauty and fashion brands in New York City that are prime targets.

 In contrast, Druva focuses on LinkedIn Groups and online developer communities, such as Spiceworks. “It’s less about one-way broadcasting and more about participating in groups and sharing valuable content,” said Jennifer Burnham, Director, Marketing Communications and Content at Druva.

5.     Collaborate with partners

Another strategy small companies choose is to multiply their efforts by collaborating with partners.  Because Gridstore is designed specifically to complement Microsoft’s Hyper-V solution, the company has the good fortune of being able to ride on the coattails of its partner.  Said Grey, “Because we have such a targeted market, we work with Microsoft and go to their events. We’re a big sponsor of Microsoft’s TechEd. We go to the Microsoft worldwide partner conferences. If Microsoft is hosting an event, it’s easy to line up leads. We also do banner ads, advertise in Redmond Magazine and other Microsoft -centric magazines, such as Microsoft SQL Server Pro, Microsoft Windows IT Pro.”

But even when the partner isn’t a behemoth with all that Microsoft has to offer, small companies can still benefit from partner marketing. In addition to partnering with Microsoft, Gridstore also partners with smaller companies.Said Grey, “Our advertising budgets are very limited, so we leverage co-marketing with resellers. We’ll provide marketing content, expert speakers for webinars, content for email blasts, etc. They invite their customers and have the opportunity to earn a margin on the sale.”

6.     Make the most of your marketing  

Any company, particularly a small company, needs to squeeze the most out of everything they do. For example, when Lisa Snyders, Senior Manager of Marketing, Denodo Technologies, embarks on a marketing program, she makes sure she looks at how she can capitalize on her efforts from every angle.

“When I go to events, I plan rigorously,” Snyders said. “I look at: Which analysts will be there? Who should we brief beforehand? Which speakers will attend? Can these speakers potentially reference our technology? If so, I’ll brief them because sometimes they might include a slide about our technology in their presentation. I’ll get a list of companies who might be there and have inside sales try to make appointments before the event to maximize return. After the event, we follow up on the leads as quickly as possible when it’s fresh on their minds.”

 

Spray and Pray 2.0

 

For today’s marketers, “spray and pray” is the ultimate pejorative. Also known as “spaghetti against the wall,” spray and pray 1.0 was when marketers would buy a huge list of, say, 5,000-10,000 names and send out an email blast hoping that someone, anyone, would bite. 

Like its predecessor, spray and pray 2.0 is an attempt to blanket prospects with the vendors’ message. But while spray and pray 1.0 sent minimally-targeted messages to large numbers of people, spray and pray 2.0 goes to a more targeted list in as many ways as possible—emails, white papers, webinars, articles, videos, infographics, tweets, LinkedIn, and more.

Spray and pray 2.0 addresses a couple of modern facts of life. The first is simply that different people learn in different ways—some are visual, some are auditory, some are kinesthetic learners. So it makes sense to present them with the type of information that helps them learn best.

The second is that buyers no longer make their way through their buying process in a linear fashion. Today’s buyer’s journey meanders across channels and social media the way teenagers wander around the state fair. They head over to the Ferris wheel, watch a little Nascar, take a detour through the heritage pavilion, throw a few bean bags to win the stuffed SpongeBob SquarePants, scarf down a deep-fried Snicker Doodle, milk a cow, then check out the baby chicks and the half-ton pumpkins.

The result is that campaigns need to be far more comprehensive. “It’s a surround strategy,” explained Todd Craig, an Atlanta-based marketing consultant and Oracle Modern Market Leader finalist. “You have to think in terms of multi-asset, multi-touch, multi-channel, multi-time period. You also have to reuse content by breaking it down and repurposing it so you can have an impact across all channels.”

Multiple Touches

Virtually all marketers begin their spray and pray 2.0 campaigns by creating a multitude of content that they can push across multiple channels.

For example, BMC used to do a lot of white papers. But now, said Alison Munn, Senior Social Media Marketing and Engagement Manager, “We’re doing more video, more eBooks, more bite-sized infograms, more blogs. Every time I create a piece of content, the first question I ask is, ‘What images can I use to promote that over social?’”

Certain, Inc. puts the word out about its thought leadership, which explains how the company’s event-management solution fits into the larger ecosystem of marketing automation, through webinars, partner webinars, articles in the press, social channels like LinkedIn and Twitter, and participation in  industry events. As Michelle Schofield, Director of Marketing explained, “We take a cross-channel approach and use all these elements in a cohesive manner to create a successful campaign.”

Different Learning Styles 

Different types of content accommodate different preferences and learning styles. Blucarat, which offers a solution that brings social media to eCommerce channels, targets millennial social-media managers with short videos because this audience prefers video to longer white papers.

 In contrast, Victoria Grey, Chief Marketing Officer at Gridstore, which provides storage solutions for Microsoft HyperV, uses not only videos, but also white papers and other written content. Said Grey, “We do everything. We do video, papers, customer testimonials and more because people have different preferences for consuming content. Some people only watch video, others like to read technical briefs or what another customer might have to say. For example, for me personally, if I’m in a meeting I can discreetly read, but I can’t watch a video.”

Concur Technologies is concerned with addressing different learning styles. Said Amy Higgins, Senior Manager of Content Marketing, “Everyone learns differently. Studies show that video and photos work best. The more interactive it can be the better. You rarely see postings on Google+ without a photo. Twitter is getting more and more into that. We might imbed a SlideShare in a tweet. As a result, our mix tends toward different learning styles. We’re still playing with that. It’s all trial-and-error and testing things out.”

All Stages of the Buying Cycle

But spray and pray 2.0 goes well beyond mere integrated marketing. More marketers are looking to coordinate content-marketing and demand-generation efforts across the entire buying process. “We’re evolving to get better at using content to address key buyers at the right stage in the buying process,” said Frank Barry, Director, New Growth Ventures and Partners at Blackbaud.

Jessica Primanzon, Senior Campaign Manager at Deltek, has created a methodology that ensures that Deltek has the content it needs at each stage in the buying process. She performed an audit of all the content her group had produced and mapped each one to where it fit in the sales process. Said Primanzon, “I use that architecture assessment to see where I need to produce new content as well was what type of content I need to accommodate different learning styles. The content architecture allows us to take personal preference off the table and produce the content we actually need.”

As companies master marketing automation, this mapping process will only become more sophisticated. As Craig explained, “Marketing automation is helping us assess impact. We can evaluate the complexion of every touchpoint. We can determine how many touches it takes to close a customer; for example, how many webinars they attend and so on. With this data, we can start to understand what it takes to go from prospect to customers and map content back to the buyer’s journey. We’ll eventually get to the point where we can create the right combination of content that speaks to multiple personas in an organization, develop a value proposition for each one, and come up with a compelling event that pushes them over to help us close a deal for with a $250 million manufacturer in Kansas.”

Marketing over the Long Term

Because today’s spray and pray 2.0 campaigns cover the entire buying process, they’re far longer than older campaigns. While older campaigns may have run for three weeks and might have included one to three email blasts, modern campaigns take advantage of marketing automation and can run for six months. 

Said Craig, “It’s really powerful when you can map things out and have a program that lasts that long. You can really start to see which channels click, where you’re moving the needle in concert, what kind of content, and what combination moves the prospect.”

Real Marketers Share Their Most Valuable Demand-Gen Tips

If you drive the winding roads of the Sierra foothills and look for one of the many streams, you can still spot modern-day 49ers prospecting for gold. Decked out in thigh-high waders, these miners dig up vast quantities of sediment from the riverbed and use pans to painstakingly strain the sand and gravel in their search for gleaming grains. 

Lead-generation professionals are post-modern miners. Rather than splashing through cold mountain streams, they sift through thousands of names in a database in their never-ending search for prized customers.  

But not all miners or lead-generation professionals are created equal. Superior knowledge of geology, topology, and good old tricks-of-the-trade can mean the difference between ending your day with a shiny nugget—or a few sparkling specs floating in a vial of water.

As I interviewed marketers about their lead- and demand-gen efforts and successes, I asked them to describe their own hard-won lessons learned. Here’s what I found. 

1.        Understand Your Audience

All marketing campaigns start with understanding your audience. “With endless money, you can do everything,” said Victoria Grey, Chief Marketing Officer of Gridstore. “But if you don’t have that, you need to be targeted and understand your audience, how to reach them, and why they’d respond to you.”

2.        Expand Your Audience

While you may think your decision maker is obvious, there can be more to your audience than meets the eye.  For example, if that decision maker relies exclusively on a gatekeeper or influencer and your marketing neglects that person, you could be out of luck.

 “Don’t be afraid to think outside the box,” advised Kieran Taylor, Chief Marketing Officer of Blucarat. “We really believe that developing and testing multiple user personas is key. We’ve found that it’s useful to think beyond the decision maker to see who else we can activate to see our message. This is one way to avoid clutter and competition and ultimately get your message seeded within the company.”

3.           Build Your Campaigns Around Useful Content 

 “I’m a believer in useful content,” said Frank Barry, Director of Digital Marketing at Blackbaud. “We try to understand our buyers and personas and create content that’s extremely interesting for them to consume. To determine what’s interesting, we talk to current customers and sales reps. We write about interesting events. We read news and see what’s going on in social. We have a blog and publish to see what’s shared or viewed the most.”

4.           Be a Contrarian: Go Where Your Competitors Aren’t

Marketing channels are incredibly crowded so it’s important to be strategic about which ones you choose. Kitty Franklin, a marketing consultant based in Southern California, recommends, “When you’re looking at allocating marketing spend, figure out where your competitors are spending. Instead of going toe-to-toe, see where they’re underinvesting so you can capitalize on that.”

5.           Measure Results that Matter

When you’re dealing with online marketing, you have a wide choice of metrics to choose from. But it pays to make sure you measure the metrics that really matter for your business. “Eyeballs and clickthroughs are a mere stopping point, not an end point,” said Grey. “I care about opportunities and the associated pipeline. Real deals. In fact, when I set goals, I set my Q4 lead-gen goals based on the salesforce’s Q1 revenue targets. My job is to build a pipeline for sales so they have the right number of leads to meet their goals.”

6.           Keep Trying and Keep Testing

Today’s market is constantly evolving. Just when you get one tactic to work, the market veers in a whole other direction. To respond, smart marketers exist in a state of perpetual experimentation.

“You need to keep trying things,” said Maia Tihista, Vice President of Global Marketing for Flexera Software. “We have a good marketing-analytics tool. We keep trying tactics to see which ones have better open rates and which are generating pipeline and bookings. We keep looking at those numbers and making adjustments. We do this for each of our product lines. For example, we know that one of our solutions has a long buying process and buyers need to consume technical content. In that case, white papers work better. In another area, pay-per-click was working so we invested more in that area.”

Overall, said Tihista, “We develop something and test. It’s an ongoing cycle.”

7.      Make the Most of Your Marketing  

Any company, particularly a small company, needs to squeeze the most out of everything they do. For example, when Lisa Snyders, Senior Manager of Marketing, Denodo Technologies, embarks on a marketing program, she makes sure she looks at how she can truly capitalize on her efforts.

“At events, we go through a rigorous plan,” she said. “I look at: Which analysts will be there? Who should our executives brief beforehand? Which speakers will attend? Can these speakers potentially reference our technology? I’ll get a list of companies that are attending the conference and cross reference them with our internal list of prospects and contacts that sales can use to schedule onsite meetings. In other words, I look at all the angles to maximize our investment in the event and draw up a plan to drive all activities before, during and after the event so that we get the most out of it.”

 

Do you have a fascinating story about content marketing, lead generation, demand generation, or social media? I’d love to share your story in an upcoming post. Please contact me at: [email protected] or on Twitter at @cherylgoldberg8.

When Your Audience Distrusts Marketers

What would you do in this situation?

You’re a marketer with a product that’s Number 1 in its category. And the people who know about it rave about it.

The trouble is, you’re a startup. Few people are aware of your brand. And you must cater to a highly technical audience that clamps both hands over its nose the instant the slightest whiff of marketing wafts in its direction.

That was the challenge facing Druva’s marketing department. Founded in 2008, Druva provides integrated data protection and governance software for enterprise laptops, PCs, smartphones, and tablets.

“It’s a fun challenge. We’re leading a new conversation and talking about a new space—moving data governance to the cloud,” explained Jennifer Burnham, Director, Marketing Communications and Content at Druva. “But there’s no built-in audience, no established conversation, no standard keywords. We’re bringing something fresh that people haven’t thought about.”

A Foundation of Content

Burnham, who started at Druva in May of this year, set about meeting the challenge by designing and implementing a targeted content-marketing strategy and then promoting the content with carefully chosen social-media and integrated-marketing campaigns. 

The cornerstone of the effort was hard-hitting technical content. Burnham’s group commissioned fresh surveys and research from analysts such as IDC, Forrester, and Gartner. They then fashioned the results into thought-leadership content and reports chock full of new insights.  

“With a technical product, you have to lead with well-informed opinions and new research to educate audiences. You can’t get away with fluff,” said Burnham.

In addition, Burnham created content based on conversations with customers in their own words about their challenges, experiences, and the benefits of the solution. “Listening to our customers talk about their experiences, challenges, and successes keeps us rooted in the real world,” explained Burnham. “We use this information to create content that’s in their language with no buzzwords. It helps build rapport.”

Burnham’s team is also working hard to create an ecosystem with partners. When they bring on a new partner, they work with their blog editor and communications people to collaborate on joint blog posts and webinars so they can tell a bigger story. For example, said Burnham, “Talking about the challenges of moving to mobile is more compelling when you include viewpoints from a partner like Mobile Iron, and it allows us to play in a bigger sandbox.”

Integrated Campaigns and Social Media

With research and case studies in hand, Burnham created integrated campaigns that reuse content in different ways to maximize its impact. First, Burnham makes the most of the content by repurposing it into blog posts, infographics, and podcasts. Then, she sends content to prospects in the company’s email database in an effort to entice passive members of the database to engage with the company and become activated.

Social media also plays an important role. “It’s been a trial-and-error effort,” explained Burnham. “We’ve talked to front-line end-users and asked them, ‘Are you on social? Where?’ If I was going to put an effort into a channel, I wanted to know why.”

This research told Burnham that Twitter didn’t make sense for day-to-day customer conversation, but is a good channel for reaching media and analysts. Spiceworks is a great forum for customer engagement. Facebook works for recruiting. And the team can best reach prospects and customers by participating in the appropriate LinkedIn Groups and developer communities.

“Developers are pretty heads down,” Burnham explained. “They use LinkedIn to stay connected, not to build a social persona. And we find it’s best to be on communities like Spiceworks, Quora, and LinkedIn Groups. And we’re researching others. It’s less about one-way broadcasting and more about participating in groups and sharing valuable content.”

Data in the Wild

One campaign that’s been particularly successful has been the company’s “Data in The Wild” campaign.  As part of that campaign, the team created a SlideShare deck called “40 Scary Stats of Data at Risk.” 

The team has been very happy with the results. “For the SlideShare presentation, we got 5,000 views in the first 48 hours and our slide deck made it to the first page of SlideShare. It was picked up by the press. And our regional teams have used it,” said Burnham.

Blurring the Lines between Social Media and Customer Advocacy

The biggest lesson Burnham has learned from her efforts is the importance of tying all of its content-marketing, lead-generation, social-media, and public-relations efforts together in a careful manner—and of ensuring that customers play a central role.  

“I’m seeing a blurring between social media and customer advocacy. Content created in the voice of the customer makes the company’s social efforts more powerful. That content becomes even more powerful when it’s connected to your PR strategy,” said Burnham. “The overall challenge is to find advocates, and then stoke the fire by listening and involving them in your marketing efforts through case studies, blogs, video and, of course, in-person events. At that point, the company is in a really good place.”

Do you have a fascinating story about content marketing, lead generation, demand generation, or social media? I’d love to share your story in an upcoming post. Please contact me at: [email protected] or on Twitter at @cherylgoldberg8.

A Compelling Case for Thought Leadership

The Number One factor that separates top B2B sales organizations from their challengers is that they educate buyers with new ideas and perspectives, according to a recent report by the RAIN Group. The report was based on an analysis of more than 700 actual B2B sales opportunities from buyers responsible for $3.1 billion in annual purchases. It asked buyers to reveal what tactics differentiate first-place sellers from second-place finishers and found that bringing something new and valuable to the table is the most important thing that top sales people do differently.

At the same time, the report also determined only 21.5% of sales winners educate with new ideas and only 7.4% of second-place finishers do it. Since only one in five of the best-selling organizations follow this strategy, it stands to reason that creating thought-leadership content for your sales force to use—not to mention for your marketing efforts — is an overlooked opportunity.  

The next time you’re searching for ways to stand out from the crowd with content that will grab buyers’ interest, it pays to spend the time and money developing new ideas and packaging them into thought-leadership content.

What should you do?

A recent article in Forbes Magazine explained that thought leadership is about becoming an authority on relevant topics by answering your audience’s most important questions. The key is asking the right questions: You need to figure out what the most important questions that your audience cares most about.

Buyer persona research can help you figure out the right questions. Among other things, buyer persona interviews are meant to specifically ferret out buyer’s business goals and challenges, questions they have at various stages in the buying cycle (not to mention what their buying process is) and what misconceptions they may have. This is exactly the type of information that tells you what questions are important to buyers.

You can then come up with unique perspectives or solutions or even create research that answers these questions. Create thought leadership content to report on the results.

The next time you wonder what to do to improve your efforts to support the sales force, look no further than thought leadership. It’s a highly effective, yet underused category of content that research demonstrates can help you truly distinguish yourself from your competitors.

How does your organization take advantage of thought leadership content?

10 Ways to Turbocharge Your Email Calls to Action

In my last two posts about writing emails for B2B marketing, I talked about email subject lines and body copy. The third element to consider is the proper way to construct and use calls to action in your emails.

When you communicate with your customers through email, your most important objective is for them to take you up on your offer, whether that’s making a purchase, downloading a white paper, or attending your booth at a trade show. Writing a good call to action and placing it appropriately can improve your response rates.

Here are some tips to improve your email calls to action:

1. Minimize the number of calls to action. I once did some work for a company that liked to lard three or four offers into each email. They’d have the primary offer that was promoted in the email, and then two or three secondary offers listed in the sidebar. The idea was to have something for everyone — if the person didn’t like offer X, maybe offer Y would be more appealing. However, it’s better to pick one offer. The more decisions you ask users to make, the more likely they are to not make any decision at all. One click is better than no clicks.
2. Mention the same call to action several times. Although you only want to give readers one choice of offer, you want to make it as easy as possible for them to click. Give them two to three opportunities to respond.
3. Above-the-fold action. Place one of your calls to action as early in the email as possible. Some of my clients specify that there be one call to action in the first paragraph. I even worked for a company that included a call to action in the headline. This will ensure that the many people who don’t scroll through will see your offer without having to scroll. As people increasingly read their emails on smartphones, access to a call to action immediately becomes even more important.
4. Make sure that your call to action stands out. People will spend only two to five seconds reading your email. You don’t want them to miss your call to action. Emphasize at least one of your call to action links by surrounding it with white space.
5. Keep it simple. Use powerful, direct and easy to understand terms. Keep it simple. “Like us on Facebook.” “Download our eBook” or “Register for the webinar.”
6. Communicate value. Subscribers want to know what’s in it for them and the call to action should tell them. “Click here to see how XYZ invoicing software reduces data entry time by 50%.”
7. Tell users exactly what to do. In addition to communicating value, the call to action should tell users what to do next.  For example: "Save 50% by clicking here," or "Subscribe to our newsletter by entering your email."
8. Command action. Make your email call to action persuasive with action words and commands.
9. Make it easy. A subscriber may hesitate to take action because they think the action will be difficult, costly, or time consuming. If there are additional steps in the conversion process, let them know and convey that the action is simple and won’t take much time. For example, a call to action that says “30-day free trial, sign up in 60 seconds” explicitly defines the time it would take the user to sign up and tells users that signing up is costless.
10. 10.   Test, test, test.

By following these tips, you’ll increase the likelihood that your readers will take you up on your offer. What other ways have you improved your email calls to action? 

9 Best Practices for Writing Email Copy

When it comes to sending permission-based marketing messages, you can’t beat email. According to the 2012 Channel Preference Survey, 77 percent of customers prefer to receive permission-based marketing communications through email. 

In my last post, I talked about how to get people to open your message by optimizing your subject line. Here I’ll talk about best practices for writing your message copy.

The most important factor to keep in mind when writing email-message copy is that you have two to five seconds to capture someone’s interest once they open your email.

The following best practices will help you get the word out — fast.

1. Have a clear, narrow purpose. With a two-to-five second deadline, you can’t sell your product or company. All you can do is sell your reader on taking a single step. In most cases, that step will be to click through to one offer — which you should carefully select based on where your reader is in the buying process. For example, an email designed to promote early stage, brand awareness might offer a thought-leadership or educational white paper or eBook. The email copy itself should simply describe how your reader will benefit from downloading the offer.
2. Let your landing page and your offer do your heavy lifting. The sole purpose of your email should be to get someone to your offer. But that doesn’t mean you can’t give people instructions or make your case. You just have to leave your heavy lifting to your landing page and the offer itself.  Use your landing page to provide a more lengthy description of your offer as well as any technical aspects of fulfilling your offer. For example, the landing page is where you should ask people to register for your webinar or download a white paper offer. The offer itself will do the work of educating your reader or providing useful information designed to advance your customer through the buying cycle.
3. Keep your body copy short. Your body copy should be no more than 200 words — although some studies have shown that copy half that long may be even better.
4. Front load the email with the benefits of your offer and the call to action. An increasing number of subscribers will be reading your message on their mobile device. With the smaller screen size, you’ll want to make sure they see the good stuff. To that end, your headline should contain the unique selling point of your offer — whether that’s the key information they’ll learn by reading your white paper or an exclusive discount. You should also place a link to your call to action within the first paragraph. I work with one client that routinely includes both the headline and the call to action in the first line of their email.
5. Use second person.  People are accustomed to email as a very personal communication medium. Your tone should be that of a conversation that provides useful information. Don’t do a direct sales pitch.  
6. Load up on benefits. Mention one benefit for every feature or function of your offer that you mention.
7. Break up your copy. To make your copy as easy to read as possible, use short paragraphs and bullet points to break up text. I typically use bullet points when describing the benefits of the offer. While this is important for emails of any type, it’s even more important when people read email on their mobile devices.  
8. Get consensus. Nothing is as credible as other customers. Where possible, put social proof in your email copy by getting a nice quote from a customer. If that quote includes quantitative results, even better.
9. Use personalization. Use automated personalization to address the email to the particular reader.

In the third part of this series, I’ll give you tips for creating a compelling call to action.

What are other ways you’ve improved your email copy?