Posted by Rebekah Donaldson on Wed, Oct 29, 2008
There were dynamite questions to Laura Ramos and me on today's Forrester teleconference about B2B Marketing Obsolete, Really? (Part III). Let's continue the conversation!
Impact of social media on B2B marketing
[11/24 update: The archived teleconference ($250) is up.]
Laura has blogged and tweeted on the topic Will B2B Marketing Become Obsolete? In this presentation, some of the key questions she addressed were: What is the state of B2B marketing, and what factors increase the risk that marketing will become obsolete in B2B, high technology, and services firms? What is B2B marketing's biggest challenge in light of these changes? What are the five best practices for improving B2B marketing's standing inside the organization?
Top b2b social media platforms
During the presentation I mentioned a marketer's question late last year about whether social media platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn, etc, are used mostly by a younger set. It's a reasonable question - isn't a 48 year old corporate decision maker going to be a later adopter of these tools than, say, an 18 year old?
Overall, probably - but check out this Quantcast info showing that it's far more likely that a LinkedIn user is age 35-49 than 34 or younger.
On top of that, look at the thumbnail showing LinkedIn user growth charted over the last 18 months - there's been several hundred percent growth.
What IS b2b marketing?
Before the call I too tapped colleagues - asking for input on this topic via this blog, tweeting, and posting a query on LinkedIn.
On LinkedIn, I asked
"What IS b2b marketing today? how will it change or stay the same in the next few years?"
The question elicited more and stronger reactions from colleagues than I'd expected. Several said emphatically that *of course* businesses will always need to tell their story, ergo marketing will always be essential as the storyteller.
B2B Marketing Teleconference Q&A
Questions that I noted from attendees this morning included (I'm roughly paraphrasing based on my understanding of what I heard - and also giving these not in the order received):
Q1: Won't B2B buyers "see through" businesses' use of social media... and possibly resent that the platform is being used to subtly pitch them (albeit in a new way)?
A: I think this is an incredibly insightful question! The short version of my own stab at an answer was that there are good practices and bad practices when it comes to businesses engaging with buyers through social media. Per excellent advice about business blogging from Tom Pick, David Meerman Scott, Laura Ramos, and others, good practices seem to include:
- Transparency
- Letting your personality show
- Being authentic
- Being humble
- Writing without company approvals/editing
- Being consistent about contibuting
If you’re thinking about getting started, I think it’s a good bet to
- Cite data or personal experience as a starting point for framing an issue
- Ask for help from readers in answering tough questions
- Acknowledge other bloggers thinking about similar issues
- Offer your frank opinion
On the flip side, it’s a bad bet (and, in some cases, just ethically wrong) to be
- Self-centered, as in never or seldom acknowledging others who are contributing to the marketplace of ideas
- Excessively proud, as in using a ‘do this, do that’ tone as if you’re the consummate guru
- Lazy, as in dropping the ball once your audience gives you their attention
- Salesy, as in pitching your products or services
- A robber, as in using others’ ideas without giving credit (ala the recent 3M fiasco)
Q2: With social media in the mix, how should b2b marketers measure ROI now?
A: It seems to me that frequently and closely examining correlations between CRM data and marketing efforts is important. And I suggested not settling for a “sorry, no impact/correlation” report from Sales unless you (the marketer) have talked with customers themselves.
- I cited an example where a marketer I worked with had to record in the CRM of marketing’s role in some major deals — this was overcome by asking customers directly for their perspective.
- In another case, cross-tabbing CRM data with which customers had participated in case studies helped to uncover a possible connection between case study participation and higher customer lifetime value.
Q3: What about PR efforts to reach traditional media at trade shows – worthwhile or not worthwhile?
A: I fielded this one, responding that I’d suggest having both traditional and non-traditional media contacts on your radar. Coverage in traditional media outlets is still useful and important because not all B2B buyers follow industry blogs or discussion forums and, even with those that do, there is still credibility imparted through coverage in some pubs.
Last but not least, traditional media contacts want a 2.0 style two-way dialogue with PR people, too. There is more on this idea in the bottom section of my interview with Ron Trujillo, editor of the Sacramento Business Journal.
There was also a question about research and examples showing how to make social media work for business. For that, Laura’s recent report Making Social Media Work In B2B Marketing is a recommended resource.
B2B marketing’s future — your thoughts?
What do you think the answers are to the above questions? Did we get it right? Did we leave anything out?
Posted by Rebekah Donaldson on Tue, Oct 21, 2008
Yesterday I participated in the CSUS Symposium on Personal and Professional Integrity in Business. I think I was the lone Sacramento marketing consultant. The event was excellent - it surpassed my expectations.
Congratulations to
Christina Bellon,
Russell DiSilvestro, and the whole CSUS Philosophy Department on a job well done.
Rick Shubert introduced me, moderated, and paraphrased questions from the audience - the better to capture them on the video recording and to clarify the essential point for speakers. I nominate Rick to moderate the presidential debates in 2012. Can I get a second?
Standouts in business ethics
I was thrilled to see colleagues, including Elisabeth Brinton, in the audience, when I offered my session, "The New Rules of Business Communications - Business Ethics and the Rise of Business Blogs." My only regret is that, because of a client committment, I missed the morning keynote by Ed Hartman of the Stern School of Business at New York University.
Business blogging questions posed by the audience
Some of the questions from the audience yesterday:
- What can be done [in the blogosphere?] to recognize and support the authenticity of the individual voice?
- What can be done to protest against false accusations online?
- Do you think that the anonymity of online forums creates a tendency on the part of participants to fight against rather than for a cause? Do you think it gives rise to conflict-oriented interactions?
- Do those in marketing have a robust fiduciary obligation to their employers or are they merely a means to their employers ends (so long as those ends aren't evil)?
If you attended or have on-topic feedback, comments (or, please, for heaven's sake, answers!), use the Comments area below to chime in.
Posted by Rebekah Donaldson on Fri, Oct 17, 2008
A couple of months ago, bizjournals.com rolled out a feature that lets readers comment on stories. Since then I’ve posted comments from time to time (example 1, example 2, example 3). I wondered about overall use of the online edition’s comments feature and other neat interactive elements I’ve seen rolling out.
I asked Ron Trujillo, editor of the Sacramento Business Journal, for an interview. He obliged. Here are the highlights.
Discussion with a B2B news decider
Rebekah E. Donaldson ("Red"): I love your succinct audio updates archived at Cap Radio's site. If you stopped recording them or they stopped posting them, I might get out of date re Sacramento business news highlights. Are other Biz Journal readers/Cap Radio members accessing those?
Ron Trujillo: We get a decent response from listeners and readers, especially those who miss the daily reports, which air in the late afternoon and early morning. I'm uncertain how many listeners/readers access those reports, but it's great marketing for the newspaper and gets some of our best - at least those easy enough to digest in 45 seconds - stories some air time, hopefully reaching potential subscribers.
Red: You came from the world of daily newspapers. Who do you see as the core audience of this paper? What do you see as the key differences in the kinds of stories the Business Journal wants and how they are reported? Any difference now vs a couple of years ago?
Ron: I’ve been at the Business Journal for about 30 months, after almost 20 years in daily journalism — and about half of that time as an editor. So, I have limited experience with business journals, except from what I have learned on-the-fly during the past couple of years.
The Business Journal’s readers are definitely the decision-makers in the business community, from the chief executive officers to the small-business owners. Our demographics are quite impressive, especially when it comes to annual income, net worth and positions held. So, our business stories are a bit more sophisticated compared to daily newspapers, which often tend to educate readers to some rather common business terms.
However, that said, I’ve made an attempt to also expand the knowledge of our readers. Our subscribers may be comfortable when it comes to banking and finance, but could need to learn some new terms when they come across a health care or high-tech story.
We always ask ourselves if the average reader –- in our case, the business person — knows of these phrases and terms. We also do not want to be the newspaper just for the chief executives or business owners. There are many middle managers and sales managers who do — and would — benefit from reading the newspaper. The more stories that attract a diverse audience, the better. But we have to make sure that the business basics are followed.
Before I arrived, I came across a few stories with hard-to-define terms in the newspaper, and I’ve made a great effort to eliminate jargon and some phrases. For example, we always clarify Medi-Cal, which seems like a rather simple idea, but that’s far from the case. It’s a never-ending balancing act, between what our readers already know and what we may need to address, without talking down to them.
Business reporting continues the same, hard on facts and figures whenever appropriate and possible. Again, we want to create a clear report on the numbers, but we also must include some real people and add more meat to our stories.
Daily newspapers do a good job giving you the basics, especially about big companies; our goal is to take those numbers and go the next level — tell our readers why the company across town has succeeded.
The best compliment is an e-mail from a company who has found a way to make money by connecting with another firm in the region. It’s certainly not our mission, that is to educate business leaders, but if they can find a way to connect dollars to the stories, then that is just a bonus and we hope those folks see the value of the newspaper.
Red: Jumping off my post Interactive PR beats Microphone PR: a blogger named Tom Pick wrote that
“The practice of PR has changed more in the last five years than it did in the previous fifty… Prospects and stakeholders no longer want to be an audience for corporate news, they want to be participants. And through various forms of social media—blogs, video, wikis, forums, podcasts, social bookmarking and networking sites—they have made themselves participants. PR practitioners can no longer practice “microphone PR,” which, as the term implies, is about one-way, one-to-many communication controlled by the PR person. Social media has shifted the practice to interactive PR , or, if you prefer, social PR or conversational PR. The role of PR is now to start the conversation, which is two-way or many-to-many, then monitor and participate in that conversation…”
Red: What do you think about Pick’s view?
Ron: I think it’s dead-on, and something few newspapers — heck, just about everyone — do very well.
Blogs, regardless of your outlook, are becoming a much bigger competitor for newspapers, and an outlet for marketing and publications firms. The Business Journal, and its parent company American City Business Journals, has launched a comment service with stories, RSS feeds and even podcasts in some markets. So far, we have received mixed results. But it’s definitely a beginning.
The best thing journalists — and newspapers, daily or business journals — can do is educate readers and get the conversation moving forward. Sometimes it can be as simple as a three-paragraph report on the Web, other times it’s a much-longer report on why the delayed state budget affects California’s credit rating — and every resident in the state.
If nothing else, we educate and report. In a perfect world, blogs would compliment our reporting, and vice versa.
I still believe that readers rely on newspapers for the facts and the unbiased story (though that can be debatable, given some one-sided stories I have read in other publications), and then turn to blogs for some of the behind-the-scenes info. Newspapers have to find a way to become even more of a must-read with the latest, developing stories and some compelling reports. It’s definitely a daunting task.
Posted by Rebekah Donaldson on Mon, Oct 13, 2008
A recent post by Shandi on the Golden Capital Network blog alludes to the challenge of keeping up with the latest communications methods. He alludes to Twitter as an example of a new technology that’s reached a tipping point.
He writes:
Brooks Jordan discusses trends, for instance, Twitter and why and how some things are successful, when some are not. In the digital age there is so much growth. How does one keep up with it all and who gets left behind?
(In my own experience it’s more challenging to keep up with questions/comments on LinkedIn, and questions/comments in business blogs I follow, than it is to keep up with Twitter updates — but that’s probably just me. Also, I find Malcolm Gladwell the most illuminating regarding tipping points – his ideas are summarized in this Tipping Point wikipedia entry.)
Anyway, after the long excerpt from Jordan, Shandi says,
Everyone needs to realize that the digital world will go on whether we learn to change with it or not. Might as well, roll up our sleeves and stop sniveling and get down to business.
Cone’s 2008 Business in Social Media Study Fact Sheet says that sixty percent of Americans use social media, and of those, 59 percent interact with companies on social media Web sites. One in four interacts more than once per week.
I’ve posted two of their charts at our site.
To Shandi’s point: yes, let’s roll up sleeves and get cracking. After all, what’s the alternative? Not striving to keep up? That would be like deciding not to use email anymore because I get alot of it.
On the bright side
If you would like to tone your business-participation-in-social-media networking muscles, you can meet me in these forums:
Twitter: http://twitter.com/b2bcommunicate
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/b2bcommunications
Red On Marketing Blog: http://b2bcommunications.com/blog" href="/blog" target="_blank">http://b2bcommunications.com/blog
Posted by Rebekah Donaldson on Sat, Oct 11, 2008
Do you think there are any feature-talk lovers?
B2B marketers agree that if you pound your audience with "we-we" messaging - meaning talk about your products and services and what they do and how they're different - they'll be turned off.
Writing B2B tech marketing content - are we due for a shift?
I espouse this very message with clients - or, I should say, most clients. The paradigm shift that so many companies need to make is articulated by David Meerman Scott in his video "Nobody Cares About Your Products and Services."
Still, when I watch this video I think about how business decision makers and most consumers are Solution-Talk Lovers, while technical decision makers are generally Solution-Talk Haters.
Here's my case: I've been business to business technology marketing since about 1997. And I've found that there is a strong correlation between geekiness and love of feature talk. But geekiness is not limited to just high tech geeks (who, like Devo and Napolean Dynamite, are totally hot...).
For example, think of the Car Geek who reads articles about the design of a new type of overhead cam. The Camping Gear Geek who reads all the Consumer Reports rankings on sleeping bags then goes to the store and reads all the pull sheets on sleeping bags at REI. There is the Coffee Geek who hand roasts coffee - but only coffee grown in the shade of native trees and without supplemental watering. Diaper Geeks who review the latest diaper tape innovations in parent forums.
Writing for B2B tech marketing: if the shoe fits...
And there are guys, like my husband, who want every feature of their full size operating built-from-the-ground-up R2D2 to exactly match the movie version. Getting features right is intrisincally valuable, in their view... not just pragmatic. The features themselves are art.
The only Feature-Talk Lovers who have rattled me, though, are the mid-level IT guys. They are Solution-Talk Haters and proud of it. They'd rather chew their own leg off than listen to a bunch of girly marketing fluff about how I understand their problems and have a solution etc etc. They want to get down to brass tacks and hear what the damn features are without the patronizing spoon-feeding of conclusions, thank you very much.
Writing B2B content: toward a solution
How can we reconcile the existence of Solution-Talk Haters with the marketing worldview that says ‘features talk bad, solution talk good'?
Do we have to do this?
No One Cares About Your Products and Services*
*Unless your best customers really do
Posted by Rebekah Donaldson on Thu, Oct 09, 2008
Two good sessions are coming up in Sacramento on business ethics - one on Oct 20th and one on Nov 18th. They're listed from most to least important (Elisabeth's talk will be twice as good as mine) - which turns out to be reverse chronological order. Turn the monitor over and read upside down, and you'll have it straight.
Nov 18h: "Moral Courage & Ethical Decisions" at eWomen Network
Elisabeth Brinton will give a talk on Moral Courage & Ethical Decisions at November 18th eWomen forum. Registration
Brinton was recently named one of the "Women Who Mean Business", 2008 Business Women of the Year award winners for the Sacramento region by the Business Journal. She serves as an appointed official in Governor Schwarzenegger's Committee for the Employment of People with Disabilities, helping in job creation and equal opportunity for all California citizens.
Here is part of the talk's description:
As businesswomen and leaders we have the opportunity to address the need of our times: re-establishing moral courage and ethical leadership. Each of us has the opportunity to lead by example...
Oct 20th: "The New Rules of B2B Business Communications: Business Ethics and the Rise of Business Blogging" at CSUS
I'll lead a discussion the week after next at the CSUS Symposium on Personal and Professional Integrity in Business. It's a day-long event on the Sacramento State University campus, in the Hinde Auditorium of the University Union. Here's a campus and parking map.
The keynote is 9:30-10:50 a.m. by Dr. Edwin Hartman, Stern School of Business, New York University, on "Aristotle on Character and Integrity"
My session runs 3:00-4:15 p.m. Session III - title: "The New Rules of Business Communications - Business Ethics and the Rise of Business Blogs"
The new rules of corporate communication
Building on the popular ideas in the book "The New Rules of PR" by David Meerman Scott, I'll try to describe "New Rules of Corporate Communications." Roughly, the idea (not originating with me - credits below) is that, unlike a few years ago, in today's world corporate communicators should:
- Be an individual with a personality, not a unit with a title
- Speak in a real, authentic voice... be vulnerable (credit: D.M. Scott)
- Invite dialogue and improvements
- Avoid patronizing guru-speak (credit: Tom Pick)
- Zap jargon and double-speak before it starts (like gingivitis!)
- Don't be boring (this has nothing to do with ethics. Just don't be boring.)
I'll use 3 examples as a jumping off point for group discussion of the relationship between professional ethics and the New Rules of Corporate Communications.
More info
Posted by Rebekah Donaldson on Sun, Oct 05, 2008
Cris Rominger and I will lead the Sacramento Area Regional Technology Alliance (SARTA) Leadership Series seminar titled “How to Succeed at Web Marketing in 2009″ on Wednesday, October 15, 2008.
About this web marketing seminar
Succeeding at web marketing is important for virtually all businesses – but none more so than early stage and small firms. Web marketing can bring outsized returns for a relatively modest investment. Plus, you can see what exactly works with your audience, unlike in offline mediums.
In a recent survey of 1,000 business decision makers by marketing research firm Enquiro, 92 percent of respondents said they turn to online resources in the early stages of the buying cycle. And 77 percent named Google as their first choice among all search engines.
In this session we’ll show you charts and examples of what works and what doesn’t in web marketing today and 9 ways to make your business website work harder for you. You may be able to do all the steps yourself.
Attendees get a briefing and question-and-answer session plus a checklist, charts, samples of effective websites, and case studies.
Posted by Rebekah Donaldson on Fri, Oct 03, 2008
David Meerman Scott (aka DMS) had some great advice about B2B marketing in his March 24, 2008 article in BtoB magazine, “Quit Living in Yesterday’s World”.
B2B marketing under the new rules
Scott is the author of “The New Rules of Marketing and PR,” published last year by John Wiley & Sons Inc. Some of his suggestions date from before the Internet era, such as keeping the focus on how your product or service makes the customer’s life better. Scott’s big difference is in showing how to take advantage of the Internet to get maximum impact for minimum cost.
Instead of buying expensive advertising or begging the media to do a story about you, go straight to your audience online with great Web content. Give people compelling videos, blogs, podcasts, white papers, e-books and webinars, and they’ll be eager to bring it to the attention of friends. Scott calls it “word of mouse” marketing.
Viral marketing explained
Scott tells how his own free e-book on viral marketing found more than 50,000 readers in the first month and caught the attention of more than 100 bloggers. Use the Internet wisely and you can engage in genuine two-way dialogues with your target audience instead of just firing a barrage of marketing material at them.
Now, I just need a 25th hour in the day in order to implement all of Scott’s great advice – and make sure I’m walking the walk.