Red On Marketing Blog

B2B PR: Get inside reporters' heads to grab their attention

Can you get reporters at top-tier business publications to take you seriously? Of course you can.

Take a hint from the classic Five W’s that a reporter or blogger needs to put in a story

Not every B2B marketer has worked previously as a news reporter. Few news reporters have ever worked in a marketing consulting company.

Is it any wonder that sometimes the two don’t get along very well?

That’s only the half of it. Say you are an account assistant in your mid-20s, pitching ideas to the top-tier business publications with reporters who have been covering your client’s industry since you were in junior high school. Can you get them to take you seriously?

Of course you can.

One key is to pitch with authority rather than bravado. Take a hint from the classic Five W’s that a reporter or blogger needs to put in a story, then gather some information yourself.

Who

Within the publications or blogs, who writes about your industry? Names are important, so get them right. I’ve known several co-workers who would save the most outrageous misspellings of their own names and tape them to their computer monitors. You can bet they remembered who sent the worst howlers.

What

Now you know who covers your industry. But what aspects does each person cover? Some may look only at the stocks of public companies in your industry. Others may look only at new products. In this age of layoffs, one person may have to do it all. Know before you pitch.

When

Even with the Internet available 24/7 to showcase their prose, writers and bloggers have deadlines. Find out what they are. They may have special reports of publications scheduled throughout the year. See if they’ve posted that editorial calendar online. If you are trying to get them to interview the CEO of your client company, first make sure the CEO will be there to pick up the phone or see any incoming email.

Where

Some organizations cover the world, others cover only the United States, still others stick to a region. If you want to get a Boston company noticed, don’t waste the time of a writer who only covers Northern California -- unless the Boston company is opening a San Francisco office, or just landed venture capital from a firm in Silicon Valley.

Why

Readers turn to business publications for a reason. Usually, they are looking for a way to make money. How is your pitch going to help the readers do that? Nail this one and you can get a writer’s attention fast. Remember, a story doesn’t have to be a profile of the client company. If the client CEO can speak as an industry expert about current trends, that’s gold.

Proceed with caution

Those are some Do’s. Here are a few Don’ts:

• Don’t rush things. Research takes time, but it’s a good investment. You may discover that you don’t have anything right now that’s likely to interest your target writers. It’s better to wait until you do, instead of annoying them with an idea that’s off the mark. Likewise, good relationships take time to build. The salty reporter has to learn to trust you. And you have to learn to trust Old Salty. It won’t happen on the first phone call or email.
• Don’t ask, “Will the story be positive?” For one thing, what’s positive to you might be negative to someone else. Suppose office space is getting cheaper to rent. That’s negative if you own a building, but positive if you are looking for space. A good reporter will write an honest story and let readers love or hate the facts as they wish. But even if a reporter knows what kind of reaction to expect, that might change during the reporting as new facts come to light. So don’t expect the writer to know how your client will be perceived.
• Don’t be a control freak. Guide, yes. Control, no. Let’s say the reporter asks you about something the company would rather keep quiet for right now. You might be tempted to say, “If you hold off, we’ll give you an exclusive.” The problem is, you can’t really control that. Think about it: The reporter already heard about it. So the story already is floating out there. How are you supposed to control whether somebody else gets wind of it? Reporters want to report news, not the CEO’s second-day reaction to a story that somebody else ran with while the first reporter was waiting for you to give the green light.

Now get out there and win one

Follow these simple tips ... and you still won’t bat a thousand. Nobody does. Even Old Salty strikes out sometimes when he’s pitching an idea to his editors.

Your thoughts?

Plain English Guide Helps People Learn About Quality Health Care

National Business Group On Health publishes "Choosing the Right Hospital" toolkit with our help

By Molla Donaldson, DrPH, MS and Rebekah Donaldson

With all the talk of health reform, one issue that keeps coming up is that people should have access to affordable quality care. But how can we know what quality of care is when it is so complex? Part of the answer is to make quality of care information publicly available. Another part is to take the language of quality ("mortality" "risk" "variation" etc.) and translate it to plain English.

 

See the Toolkit and Employer's Guide we helped write. What do you think? Please comment in the Comments area below.

The National Business Group on Health has published “Choosing the Right Hospital,” an online toolkit developed to help people choose the hospital where they are likely to receive the best care. Molla Donaldson and I helped prepare it, under the leadership of National Business Group on Health President Helen Darling, and Director of Benchmarking & Analysis Karen Marlo.

We also developed a guide for Human Resources officers to help employees use the guide.

“We are grateful that Molla and Rebekah were able to lend their expertise to the development of these valuable tools for employers and employees alike,” said Darling. “Helping employees understand the importance of using quality hospitals and providing them with tools to do just that is imperative to improving the safety of care in our hospitals and helping to control health care costs.”

The National Business Group on Health is an association of many of the country’s largest self-insured businesses. Their website and publications provide a large employers’ perspective on national health policy issues and practical solutions to its members’ most important health care problems.

Through this project, I (Rebekah) learned how frequently medication errors, surgical mishaps, and other patient safety issues occur.  The Institute of Medicine (with Molla’s help in 2000) alerted the public to medical errors almost 10 years ago in a widely publicized report.  There was great hope that safety would improve.  But in a follow up study, the federal government’s 2008 National Healthcare Quality Report found that hospital patient safety measures have worsened by nearly 1 percent each year for the past six years.

When people can choose a hospital, it is most likely based on their insurance, where their doctor practices, and advice from family and friends – but this information may not be accurate.  There are good web sites now, and our work tried to make it easier to understand the quality and safety information–and what patients themselves report — at the federal government’s site, Hospital Compare.

We’ve written in the past about how organizations do well by doing good. The National Business Group on Health has merged doing well with doing good. Choosing the Right Hospital helps everyone compare quality and safety. We believe that the more people know about and insist on safe care, the more likely it is that health care will improve.

 

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(Note: comments were imported 11/6/09 during migration from Wordpress)

B2B Lead Generation Results, By Source

Visits and conversions by source for www.b2bcommunications.com Sept 7 to Oct 6 2009

By Rebekah E. Donaldson

Here is a screenshot showing the sources of our website traffic that converted to leads over the last month. Looking at the chart, I answer:

• What does this chart tell you about lead sources?
• How much did you invest to get the site working this way?
• We need to generate leads - what's the best way?

Visits and conversions by source (1 month)

This chart shows how different sources have driven visits, leads, and customers to www.b2bcommunications.com. The key on the right shows the sources tracked.

What does this chart tell you about lead sources?

To see our lead sources, we open our Hubspot account (more on this below) and go to the "Reports" tab and pick "Sources". There we have a chart showing visit to lead ratios by source:

Totals for Sep 7-Oct 7, 2009
Sources	Visits	Visit to Lead	Leads
Organic Search	590	0.68%	4
Referrals	265	2.60%	7
Paid Search	0	0%	0
Direct Traffic	547	1.50%	8
Email Marketing	0	0%	0
Social Media	86	8.10%	7
Other Campaigns	0	0%	0
Totals	1,488	1.75%	26

According to the chart, visitors from social media sources convert at the highest rate. A visit-to-lead conversion rate of 8.10% means that in the last month, eight out of ten visitors who came to the site via LinkedIn or other networking sites, responded. Visitors referred to our site from an article, blog, or website are the next most likely to respond.

How much did you invest to get these leads rolling in?

Hundreds of hours and tens of thousands of dollars over several years. The site re-launched in 2007 and it's been an ongoing process to make it so visitors find what they need and take the next step. And there's still so much work to do! Meantime, we've been at blogging, search engine marketing, and social media marketing since 2007 - and public relations since 2001. We've tried to always close the loop (see below), so we know which B2B lead generation activities work and which to avoid.

What is Hubspot?

Hubspot provides advice and software that helps businesses get found on the Internet by the right prospects and convert more of them into leads and customers. We use it to build landing pages, attract traffic, nurture contacts, track leads, and connect records about leads and sales with records about marketing efforts.

We need to generate leads - what's the best way?

Here are just two of many ways to get started. Do both or pick the one that work for you:

Get a 60 Minute Internet Marketing Planning Session.

Try Hubspot - Use all the powerful features of Hubspot for B2B lead generation. Free for 30 days.

NOTE: We are pitched weekly by companies looking for affiliates to rep their stuff. So far, we've partnered only with MarketingSherpa and Hubspot. In each case, we bought their stuff and recommended it to others before we were ever a partner. Now that we are a partner, we get a small % of sales we help generate. Just so you know.

Rebekah E. Donaldson ("Red") has led Business Communications Group since 2001. More >>

 

B2B marketing ROI of a blog – with traffic and leads chart

By Rebekah E. Donaldson

I talked with Sacramento Business Journal senior reporter Kathy Robertson this week about the return on investment from the Red On Marketing Blog. Her questions got me thinking about why I do it, and this post is the result. 

To ground things in real world and tangible results, you’ll see a screenshot showing where our website traffic and leads came from this week.

I’ve written the Red On Marketing Blog since Fall 2007. Yes, one reason I started it was to market our company. Another is that we help our clients with staying at the top of certain search results in Google, and social media (which includes blogging) is part of how we do it. We need to walk the walk.

We track everything with lead management software. Social media has tangibly helped us. Leads are up 400% this quarter over the same period last year. We have new leads every day – many from our website. So social media might sound like a fad or B.S. to some CEOs. But it’s moved the needle for our company.

Referrers — week of June 15 2009

Of our current clients, most found us online. For example, one Sacramento CEO found us when he searched “Sacramento search engine optimization”; another when he searched in LinkedIn for “B2B marketing Sacramento”; and so on.

Blogging is part of Social Media

The Red On Marketing Blog is intertwined with other efforts. It doesn’t stand alone. I’m active on LinkedIn – mostly I try to answer questions – and on Twitter. Sometimes, helping in those forums means pointing to B2B marketing articles, and other B2B Communications resources.

One realization I’ve had is that a marketer’s mindset can backfire with a blog or other social media participation. When I started blogging, I thought about it in terms of

1) Make a calendar of article topics.

2) Chip away at the calendar.

But that can lead to really boring blog posts. And everyone hates boring.

You Said WHAT?

Before starting the blog I’d been reading other people’s blogs for a couple of years. People like Josh Bernoff and David Meerman Scott publish edgy stuff that gets people talking (and pisses off some readers – a cost of being interesting).

The threads of comments after they post are crazy – dozens and dozens of smart people write in to respond.

I really wanted to do that.

Stirring Things Up

Fortunately, I have strong opinions — especially when it comes to cases of marketers getting things terribly wrong.

When I gave stronger opinions, you (readers) did too. Example: “From the Shocking Marketing No Nos Department.” When I published that piece, our blog lit up with comments and backlinks. It was referenced in many more places online. The lesson to me was: Speak up! Call it like you see it!

So after that I co-wrote an ebook. It took 9 months and was like having a third baby. Kind colleagues promoted it with social media (thank you Dianna Huff, David Meerman Scott, Peter Kim, Peter Caputa, and other colleagues).

Behind the Scenes Battles

One behind-the-scenes struggle I have is over topics appropriate for the blog. On the one hand, there is value in publishing about basic marketing techniques and issues. In fact, my colleagues at B2B Communications keeps reminding me that some of you may want intro material . But I fear you’re bored with the same old stuff like ”segment your audience!” “get the word out!” It seems like recycled, regurgitated truisms. (Who’s right? Please comment.)

Girl’s Dream Comes True

One thing that surprised me was that our blog helped us become a MarketingSherpa Affiliate. (MarketingSherpa is like Consumer Reports for marketers – loads of objective data that helps you make good decisions.) I think we’re the only one in Sacramento, California and surrounding regions. It gives us a lot of credibility – most marketers really admire Sherpa – as well as access to their material and the ability to pass along discounts.

One of their big decision criteria was around the quality of guidance we provide through our blog. They looked and said we were doing a great job. So the blog helped us stand out among much bigger agencies. It’s also led to interviews, invitations to speak, and other exposure with organizations like Forrester Research and Hubspot. Each of those organizations reaches tens of thousands of subscribers with their updates. The blog is also one of our top sources of search engine traffic and exposure for our services.

Most importantly, it’s sparked interactions with hundreds of small business owners and business to business marketers.

Keeping it Real

Still, even if we didn’t get the business benefits I’ve listed, knowing what I know now, I would still write a blog. Blogging helps keep things real. It makes me stay abreast of new data and ideas, instead of throwing up my hands because there’s too much. It makes me a better thinker, a better listener, a better writer, and a better salesperson.

Your turn

My hope is that, if you’re one of those business folks who has been blogging, but doesn’t know if it’s worth it, or you’ve held off because you don’t think anyone wants to read a blog written by you, maybe hearing about my experience will help you keep at it or get started.

Do you blog? Why or why not?

B2B ecommerce: best practices in 2009-2010

If you’re looking for practical, best-practices marketing advice on what works and what doesn’t, you can’t beat MarketingSherpa’s research. Nothing but tried-and-true findings straight from the trenches. The recently released 2009 Ecommerce Benchmark Report is full of new information to help drive sales. Here’s why I’m a fan…

We’re loyal followers and avid readers of their products – and also affiliates. That means you can purchase new reports at a discount from our site. Very cool.

Zero in on what matters to you

I especially like how MarketingSherpa acknowledges that not all organizations are created equal and what works in one industry doesn’t necessary work in another. That’s why they’ve separated out lessons to be learned from “High Knowledge” organizations that are making use of advanced web analytics and automation. And why they’ve broken out data for B2B vs B2C products and B2B vs B2C services.

That means, as a B2B marketer, I can look at products or services data and zero in on:

• Trends, benchmarks, and challenges
• Metrics for cart abandonment, tools and promotions, and shopping cart tests
• Free and paid media tactics and tests
• Email, offline, search, and social media tactics
• Conversion rates

Think beyond pricing

Knowing we’re all coping with lean economic times, the report also highlights tactics and tools that can increase revenues without further chipping away at slim margins, such as:

• Limited time/inventory promotions
• Loyalty programs
• Customer reviews/ratings
• Product videos

 

Find answers to top questions

Most importantly, the report answers questions that are top of mind for many ecommerce marketers, such as:

1. How can I lower shopping cart abandons?
2. What percentage of repeat customers should I expect?
3. What motivates online shoppers to buy?
4. What marketing tactics bring the best ROI?
5. What’s the average ecommerce search click conversion?
6. How does my site’s search presence stack up against our competitors’ visibility?

We’re conducting a shopping cart audit next week. As an e-retailer, it’s too easy to lose touch with your customer’s experience. Having an objective third party test the waters can help ground you in the user’s perspective and answer questions such as:

• Is it working the way we expect?
• Where are the leaks?
• What is causing friction?
• How can we make it easier?

Help a marketer out

Here’s where you can do your part for the greater good. We’ve likely all had a bad online shopping experience. If there was one thing – or two or three – that you’d change to make a process easier, what would you suggest?

My pet peeves are 1) being asked to enter my shipping address, even if it is the same as my billing address. Couldn’t you just give me a checkbox: “Use billing address as shipping address”; 2) wiping out all my data if I try to submit without filling in a required field; 3) not letting me change the quantity ordered once I’m hit with the grand total.

What are some of your online shopping rants?

Cris Rominger joins Red On Marketing Blog contributors roster

I’m pleased to introduce Cris Rominger as a contributor to this blog. 

In a world where 92% of B2B buyers turn to the web first when looking for service providers, effective internet marketing is essential. Cris will be writing about web marketing, search engine optimization, writing for the web and search engines, usability, conversion optimization, and user-focused design.

Cris’ insights are based on what works in the real world. Her 20 years’ communications experience spans web development, information architecture, user-interface design, usability, web copywriting, and search engine optimization.

Cris joined Business Communications Group in 2007. She helps our clients build B2B websites that engage business decisions makers, get to the top of Google search results through advanced SEO, and, through it all, stay focused on what it takes to build trust with savvy buyers.

Check out two of her recent articles posted at our company site:

• Website Content Tips
• Writing Web Content for the Online Reader

Someone always pays

By Robert Celaschi

By now almost everybody has heard the Internet mantra that “information wants to be free.” What it really means is, “I want someone else to foot the bill.”

Advertisers paid for most distribution…

There’s nothing new about that. It’s how radio and television have always worked in the United States. The audience never paid for the broadcasts. Advertisers did. The model wasn’t much different for newspapers and magazines. The subscription price covered only a small fraction of the cost of making and delivering the product. Advertisers paid the bulk of it.

The same principal drove the press release and the story pitch. You tried to coax an editor into assigning a story that featured your business or executives. Advertisers covered the cost of getting it out to the world.

The difference on the Internet is that advertisers aren’t nearly as willing to pick up the tab. It’s true that they are starting to support some video sites. If you want to watch shows on Hulu, for instance, you have to sit through commercials. But you probably haven’t been using TV sitcoms as a conduit for your business-to-business marketing.

Selling content gets tougher

Newspapers and magazines are having a tougher time convincing advertisers to pay big bucks online. Most don’t even charge a subscription fee from online readers. And those that do are still working out the bugs.

Businesses are in a slightly better position for getting the word out. There’s already a structure in place for selling content such as whitepapers (see examples). People recognize that it’s worth paying money for. Most businesses also are used to footing the bill for straight marketing materials and press releases, and build it into their budgets.

DIY-ers can flourish

Now it’s time to apply that thinking to areas where you used to rely on coaxing an editor or reporter into telling your story.  As that platform shrinks, other opportunities arise for a do-it-yourself approach.

First, the Internet has made distribution relatively cheap and easy.  Today you can make information available to millions of people around the world without having to own a printing press or a broadcast tower. The White House, for instance, is going straight to the public by posting candid photos straight to a Flickr account.

The lower cost also has inspired the creation of new ways to pass information around, including blogs, Twitter, business networking sites such as LinkedIn, and social networking sites such as Facebook.

Who pays to build the audience?

But now you’ll get stuck with the bill for some of the functions you used to hand off to the print or broadcast media: gathering useful information, organizing it, and presenting it in an attractive way to an audience. You need people to write the profiles and cases studies, others to provide photos, still others to make the material easy for search engines to find on your Web site, and to bring items to the attention of bloggers and people seeking information through social media.

Information has never been free. All that’s happening now is a shift in who pays for it. Don’t let that chase you away from opportunities.

Do you have some tips to share about how you are getting someone else to foot the bill for your marketing efforts? For instance, maybe you’ve made presentations at a conference. Who paid to gather the audience? Not you.

How are you beefing up your marketing budget to deal with the changing media landscape?

How are you getting somebody else to foot the bill for your B2B marketing efforts?

NOTE: This post is Robert Celaschi’s first bylined contribution to the B2B Communications Red On Marketing blog.

Robert Celaschi joins Red On Marketing Blog contributors roster

I’m pleased to introduce Robert Celaschi as a contributor to this blog.

Robert has been reporting and editing business stories since before there was a Web. He spent many years on the editorial staff of the Sacramento Business Journal and is a former managing editor of the Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal. He joined Business Communications Group in 2005.

For this blog he’ll be contributing items about effective ways for a business to talk about itself, and how to get others talking.

This he knows. He has helped our clients produce dozens of clear and consistent case studies, press releases, contributed articles, executive profiles, blog and newsletter content, and in-depth guides.

So don’t worry, he won’t be giving grammar lessons. It’s all about what works in the real world.

Please stay tuned!

B2B lead generation: Bye bye, list biz?

When a local list broker asked me for career advice last month, I realized that a human element is often missing from discussions about marketing trends and forecasting.

I realized too that inbound marketers can learn from the performance of companies like Harte Hanks - a company that essentially wholesales data to channel partners like list brokers (in addition to selling directly to its client base).

"Should I retrain?"

Last month a list broker wrote to me asking,

"Are email and postal direct marketing to prospect lists truly going to become less effective in the next decade? If so, would you recommend a transition to social marketing, mobile marketing...? Maybe I need to institute some changes right now..."

He'd been reading my stuff about the future of B2B marketing, and where the numbers point. And how it's clear that one of the most effective communication tools over the next decade will be each company's own online presence.

That means hard working Web sites, of course, that ensure prospects find you.

And, on the flip side, it means less print advertising and purchased lists.

That's an ominous prospect for list brokers - professionals who sell lists for purposes of direct mail, email, and telemarketing.

The macro marketing environment

Let's get clear about terms here. Very roughly speaking, list brokers retail wholesale data collected by companies like . No brokers I know collect data themselves - they do, though, analyze and interpret data, create direct marketing campaigns, and sometimes manage campaigns.

Here is a chart showing the performance of Harte Hanks stock from May 2005 to May 2009:

Credit: www.tradingmarkets.com

The Harte Hanks CEO says in a May 5th 2009 press release that,

“There continues to be economic uncertainty that makes it difficult to predict when conditions will improve. While we face challenges, we have a terrific client list and our businesses deliver products, services and marketing solutions that are even more necessary in this environment.”

If I go along with him, I have to infer that his clients don’t get the HH value proposition. If they got it, they’d buy. But who could be better at conveying value through marketing communications than a Harte Hanks? There must be something else going on.

Truth be told, Harte Hanks has, itself, moved into the website building business (see paragraphs under “Selected Highlights” near the bottom of this release).

Bye bye, list biz?

So yes, colleagues in the list biz, I’d recommend changing your focus. And I don’t take the issue lightly. It’s your career and livelihood we’re discussing.

A September 2008 post here called Is B2B marketing going obsolete? said 

“The marketplace has experienced a significant shift in power. No longer are just vendors hunting prospects. Prospects, now, are experienced marksmen too. So… what now? What does this mean for B2B marketers? Should we change professions? Retool our company’s marketing? Wait and see?”

More recently, ”The State Of Retailing Online 2009: Marketing Report,” the 12th annual study conducted for Shop.org by Forrester Research Inc., showed that 88 percent of retailers surveyed said email is a high priority for the coming year, largely to retain customers.

Notice those last three words. These are emails to people who already have a relationshipwith the retailers. Not to prospects from purchased lists.

In fact, the study said 71 percent of retailers plan to send segmented emails to customers based on stated preferences or purchase data.

Challenges of being in the school of push communications

In What won’t fly in that 2009 marketing plan I suggested that B2B marketers consider skipping traditional marketing techniques in their 2009 marketing plans.

The reason: Purchased lists, whether they involve emailing, snail-mailing or telemarketing, belong to the school of ‘push’ communications.

Core skills of a successful list broker

So where does that leave list brokers? Many have been very, very successful for a long, long time with lists.

I’d venture that the best list brokers are particularly savvy about:

• Client relationship management
• Audience segmentation, including
  • Behavioral targeting
  • Psychographics
• A/B testing 
• Quantifying ROI

What are some other strengths of a well-trained list broker? How can they apply their skills to newer marketing methods?

Resources — please add

I’ll start us off with a suggested resource — an article in the Hubspot blog. Please add your ideas.

1. Ten Tips for Marketing Job-Seekers in the Class of 2009

Using social media: copying others doesn’t work

It’s no secret that social media have become part of the mainstream culture: blogs, YouTube, online forums, networking sites and so on. We’ve been writing about the topic for a while, such as the impact of social media on B2B marketing and tipping points for business participation.

The secret is how to master these new tools for B2B marketing. There are few success stories out there, and copying others doesn’t work, according to Forrester Research Inc.

 

Finding your prospects’ venues

A sensible starting point: learn who is showing up at these new venues and why. To get the answers for one slice of the business world, Forrester Research surveyed more than 1,200 business technology buyers and packaged the findings in a report titled “The Social Technographics Of Business Buyers.”

A full report is accessible to Forrester clients, or access a free replay of Laura Ramos’ talk on the subject.

One of the first things you’ll notice in their findings is that, regardless of how involved they are with social media, this audience is still overwhelmingly male. The “creatives” among them, the ones who publish their own blogs, video and music, are 83 percent men.

 

Making sure social media efforts are integrated

If you are trying to reach these folks through social media, make sure the effort is integrated with the rest of your marketing. Forrester discovered that while most of them view social media very favorably, they still fall back on more traditional marketing materials when deciding what to buy.

For example, word-of-mouth has a big impact, but they tend to pay attention to their colleagues at work much more than their counterparts online.

 

Social participation doesn’t automatically give you influence

In other words, business buying is still complex, Forrester says, and social participation doesn’t automatically give you influence.

Does that mean we should give up on it for marketing purposes? Not a bit. In fact, it means just the opposite.

 

B2B buyers believe social media will be a bigger part of decision making

The survey results show that in the coming year, buyers believe that forums, virtual trade shows, and online reviews will be a bigger part of their decision-making. These are the social media options that most closely resemble the user conferences, exhibitions, and buyer guides that these buyers have been relying on for years, without requiring them to physically be there.

Question: B2B buyers believe social media will be a bigger part of their decision making. Do you?

 

Learning more

• A full report is accessible to Forrester clients
• Access a free replay of Laura Ramos’ talk on the subject