Every year of the Digital Age produces exciting new technologies, bright industry superstars, and the purported decay or demise of some hereditary company, platform, or application that (in an earlier time) we previously could not live without. The only constant is change, as somebody probably said at some point while playing Space Invaders on his Commodore 64.
Even in the B2B world, where traditional ways of selling still reign supreme and early adoption is a dirty phrase, this past year has been one of evolution and innovation. In particular, there has been explosive growth in the use of digital technologies and social media for sales, marketing, and communications. The challenging business climate of the past couple years has resulted in very sharp marketers who know how to do more with less, always a key digital/social strength, and the improving economy has now created even greater opportunities for smart technology-driven initiatives.
This constant change is what excites me about 2011. Trends that are just now sprouting will blossom and grow in the coming year, and B2B marketing professionals will be in an excellent position to help clients leverage these evolving memes into sound business strategies for growth and market expansion.
Here are some of the things I look forward to in 2011:
Mobile keeps moving. The continued growth of mobile device use, especially smart phones, tablets, and other advanced platforms, will be a dominant story in the coming year. The ubiquity of consumer use will continue to cascade into the B2B world, as business customers come to expect the same capabilities and user experience as in B2C. Engineers and the R&D crowd have always been eager adopters of personal gadgetry, but in 2011 even the crusty traditionalists and old-timer sales reps will have advanced Blackberrys or even iPhones. The brands that provide a seamless experience on all mobile devices between web site content, email, social media channels such as LinkedIn and Twitter, and online video and audio media will have the competitive advantage.
Clients get real. This year I expect clients to become more sophisticated in their understanding of the potential business value of social media…and in what they can expect from these channels and the expert partners they hire. In the B2B world, Return on Investment is a key consideration for any expense. It is surprising to learn a recent survey found that less than 15% of surveyed companies measure ROI for their social media programs (SmartBrief, The State of Social Media 2010). That percentage will certainly increase as the buzz and resulting hyped desire to participate or get left behind, is replaced by an acceptance of social media as a mature marketing/communications channel that should be subject to the same measured consideration as any other. The ability to measure impact and demonstrate ROI will be key to continued growth of social media use for consumer brands as well as B2B.
The Cloud and the Crowd take over. From a technology perspective, the development of “Cloud” computing is almost as compelling as the growth of mobile. From the corporate Facebook page to Salesforce.com lead tracking to the branded YouTube channels, hugely important marketing, communications, and enterprise operation elements are now hosted completely outside of the corporate IT structure. This results in an unprecedented freedom of access for both audiences and employees, but also raises huge questions of security and risk management. Savvy technologists are thinking long and hard about ways to leverage the Cloud for business gain while mitigating the risk of loss of control.
In a similar vein, brands have lost a great deal of control because of the growth of social media which is fueled by the Cloud. Customers now communicate with each other about, with, and through the brand in ways they historically never could. Influential voices in an audience community now have power to directly impact brands with a broader reach than ever before.
However, this also means the learning from customers is now easier and more effective than ever, in particular with the use of social channels for almost real-time feedback and crowd-sourcing innovation. One thing is clear: brands have got to understand how to operate within the new reality to deal with both crowds and their angry incarnation—mobs--if they want to avoid public firestorms like those famously experienced by BP and Nestle in the past year.
This is a key reason why Public Relations professionals are very important in the management of social media: identification of influencers, and engaging them as champions, has always been a core PR competency. In an agency like Fleishman-Hillard, this is now coupled with expertise in social media technology and practice to create powerfully effective client programs.
One thing I know about the coming year: it is going to contain innovations and developments that nobody can predict. Something new will come along to fire the imagination and attract all the attention. The key is to be ready to decide whether and how a given splashy innocation can help a business succeed and grow, while still capitalizing on the evolving strategies and tactics of previous technological revolutions. That’s what really excites me about 2011.
Thursday, December 30, 2010
Monday, October 18, 2010
Vital Statistics for B2B Marketers
Back in June the folks at Earnest Media decided that B2B needed its own catchy video, like the Socialnomics "Social Media Revolution" video that has embedded itself in our digital consciousness.
Well, for some reason, I never caught it when it was released but happened to come across it today. I love it! And not simply because it has a kickin' Dave Brubeck tune as a soundtrack. So I provide it to you, in case you missed it the first time around.
Well, for some reason, I never caught it when it was released but happened to come across it today. I love it! And not simply because it has a kickin' Dave Brubeck tune as a soundtrack. So I provide it to you, in case you missed it the first time around.
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
B2B Companies: Do They Believe the Hype?
Parsing the eMarketer Report on B2B Social Media
Earlier this month, eMarketer released a report titled “B2B Social Media Marketing Heats Up.” eMarketer bills itself as “a business service unlike any other.” It is different from other well-known business intelligence companies, such as Forrester Research, in that it conducts no primary research itself; instead, it aggregates and analyzes all the available research, surveys, and data on a given topic.
I took a careful look at this report and have some thoughts about the following key points, as well as additional observations that might be helpful for B2B marketers thinking about social media.
· Spending on B2B social media is expected to increase significantly
· There are still barriers to adoption for many B2B companies
· Lead generation remains keenly important and is being achieved by many via social media
· Measurement and ROI are also key for B2B companies
· The differences between how B2B and B2C companies approach social media illustrate the differences between audiences and the respective marketers’ needs
B2B Social Media Spending to Increase (or as the kids say, “Duh”)
One obvious conclusion reached by the report is that spending is on the rise for B2B social media marketing (their term, not mine). They lead with a Forrester prediction: B2B firms will spend $54 million on social media marketing in 2014, up from just $11 million in 2009. The $ figures seem small to me, although the report does specify that internal costs such as staffing and training are not included. Since most of the social media channels are currently free or cheap (which may not be the case forever), it stands to reason that increased person-power will comprise the bulk of expanded social media efforts and thus would not be represented in these numbers. Still, given the consistent trend of exponentially increased online budgets from year-to-year, these amounts seem very cautious to me especially over a five year period.
One trend worth noting: the flight of budget from other media to social, especially that of online display advertising.
Nielsen reported that in 2009 B2B display advertising overall declined 8%. My assumption is that this was due to a couple of factors: the failure of many B2B trade media titles and associated Web sites, and an increased understanding by B2B marketers that display ads don’t work, especially when compared to tactics like SEM and email.
However, spending for paid advertising on social media (mostly Facebook ads) increased by 184% (probably reflecting the small $ from 2008 as much as the increased interest in social media).
Barriers to Adoption
The key question B2B companies have about social media is the same question they have about any marketing approach: can it help with their business objectives?
· The number one concern for B2B companies, in survey after survey over the years, is lead generation. If social media can generate leads, then it will be embraced.
· The other main concern is ROI; if the value of social media can be measured and documented, and proved to be acceptable, then they are more likely to use it.
At this point in the evolution of social media, I begin to worry about oversaturation. Users of social media can easily find themselves bombarded with input, and many are simply unable or unwilling to read everything or engage with brands as they had in the past.
Despite this concern, it is worth noting that a significant percentage of B2B companies are NOT using social media and represent a worthwhile business opportunity for communications agencies. 37% said they did not know enough about social media or how to begin, according to an Equation Research study in August 2009.
It’s About the Leads, Stupid
Some important numbers discussed in the report:
· DemandGen June 2009: 14% of companies surveyed were getting more than 10% of their leads from social media (218 companies surveyed); 28% were getting more than 5%
· 35% of respondents expected their number of leads generated via social media to rise by 1% to 5% over the next year.
· Hubspot reported in January of 2010 that the following percentage of B2B companies using the indicated channel have acquired a customer from that channel:
· Company blog 43%
· Facebook 33%
· Twitter 38%
· LinkedIn 45%
These figures are both encouraging AND somewhat daunting. Clearly, social media channels are effective at generating B2B customers as well as qualified leads; however, more than half of the companies surveyed in these various polls have not had success using them. Sobering reality, reminding us not to jump at the hype but rather consider the facts and realize there is risk in every venture.
Measurement of B2B Social Media
As my colleague Don Bartholomew puts it, there is a difference between value and ROI. Sometimes you can clearly demonstrate value without necessarily being able to calculate ROI, which is a financial metric.
Still, being an internet-based engagement process, there is an assumption that social media should be able to be measured and tracked the way that Web site traffic or email opens/click-throughs can be tracked. Lack of clear metrics is a major reason some B2B marketers choose not to engage with social media: 37%, according to Equation Research ("2009 Marketing Industry Trends Report, "August 18, 2009).
It seems clear that more marketers are expecting and demanding a clearer measurement of the value of social media engagement. A lot of people who have built their careers on the fuzzy values of “engagement” or “community” have pushed back that social media cannot fit into the dull box of ROI because its inherent value is much higher than simple metrics.
I am not sure B2B companies will accept that. They are clearly leading the charge over their consumer-oriented brethren when it comes to identifying success metrics and tracking results. Business.com’s report of November 2009 identified the percentage of companies (engaged in social media marketing) using the following criteria for success:
· Website traffic: 68%
· Brand awareness: 61%
· Engagement with prospects: 60%
· Engagement with customers: 52%
· Brand reputation: 47%
· Prospect lead quality: 40%
· Revenue: 38%
· Prospect lead volume: 37%
· Useful product feedback: 26%
To Don’s point, most of these indicate value, but to calculate ROI is complicated. Attributing success to any of a variety of factors can be difficult, so even a clear financial metric like revenue is not easy to connect directly to social media. At FH, we conduct a significant period of discovery and definition to fully understand what factors contribute to a business’s success, and we carefully choose the trackable events that form a basis for suggesting ROI or value attribution to the social media programs we develop for our clients.
Differences between B2B and B2C
The report identifies two key differences between the business audience and the consumer audience:
· Multiple influencers/deciders
· Longer buying cycle = more need/opportunity for interaction
The consumer is usually the sole decider and often susceptible to the spur-of-the-moment purchase. The business decision, in contract, is almost always subject to group input and careful financial scrutiny. The purchasing process is often hard-coded to enforce consideration of multiple providers in pursuit of the best choice and lowest cost. With a buying cycle in multiple stages, the B2B customer will benefit from consistent and appropriate input, which social media can facilitate.
Business.com noted some important differences between B2B and B2C in their survey (September 2009) of social media initiatives.
· B2B companies are much more likely to maintain corporate blogs (74% of respondents vice 55% consumer)
· Business marketers were also more likely to upload content (i.e. white papers, videos) to third-party sites (50% vice 32% consumer); vertical sites like GlobalSpec certainly promote and encourage sharing content via their platforms
· Not surprisingly, Facebook and MySpace were more popular with consumer companies, while more B2B companies were using LinkedIn and Twitter
One more note on Twitter: an October 2009 survey from Chief Marketer, Direct, and Promo found that B2B marketers were more likely than B2C marketers to use Twitter to announce new Website content. On the other hand, B2C marketers tended more to tweet about special offers and locate brand fans.
Ed Linde II, senior marketing manager for Web marketing at IBM.com, seems to be an excellent provider of illustrative sound-bites because he is quoted several times in the report. On this topic, he points out: “In B2C you’re looking for a lot of interaction and collaboration between the individuals who tend to be a youthful audience, and from time to time there’s a celebrity element. In the B2B space, you want subject matter experts who are known authorities on particular topics. They’re credible experts on a particular area that people are trying to learn more about and make educated decisions on.”
I think his latter point underscores what has always been a key difference between B2B and B2C, and why social media is such a good fit for the former: the need for technical credibility. Expertise in B2B is valued in a different way than popularity in B2C, and the technical audience has always sought guidance and instruction on how to apply a given technology to its own needs and application. Social media facilitates that in a more direct and immediate way than any other interaction besides face-to-face meetings, or as we now call it F2F.
Conclusion: Heating Up, but No Slam Dunk
Pardon my mixed metaphors, but it’s important to realize that few B2B companies are willing to jump onto the social media bandwagon simply because of the hype. The ones that have adopted these strategies and tactics are doing so because they see the value, not simply because it is “hot.”
eMarketer concludes the report with a set of conclusions that seem achingly obvious but are nonetheless worth making:
· B2B marketers need a social media strategy
· Social media can and does generate leads
· It is very important to monitor and measure your B2B social media efforts
B2B social media is certainly riding the buzz wave, and most companies are aware of the various channels and interested in learning more, but they approach all marketing efforts with a critical eye and will not gamble their hard-earned and only now slightly-rebounding budgets on strategy or tactics that they don’t understand or can’t properly value. It’s up to us as communications and marketing professionals to explain the value and demonstrate the worth of social media for B2B companies.
We’ll give the final word to Ed Linde from IBM who pretty much sums up the bottom line:
“…at the end of the day, the marketer’s job is to facilitate collaborations between the customer and the seller. If we can use social media technologies to help do that, we will.”
—Ed Linde II, senior marketing manager for Web marketing, IBM.com
Earlier this month, eMarketer released a report titled “B2B Social Media Marketing Heats Up.” eMarketer bills itself as “a business service unlike any other.” It is different from other well-known business intelligence companies, such as Forrester Research, in that it conducts no primary research itself; instead, it aggregates and analyzes all the available research, surveys, and data on a given topic.
I took a careful look at this report and have some thoughts about the following key points, as well as additional observations that might be helpful for B2B marketers thinking about social media.
· Spending on B2B social media is expected to increase significantly
· There are still barriers to adoption for many B2B companies
· Lead generation remains keenly important and is being achieved by many via social media
· Measurement and ROI are also key for B2B companies
· The differences between how B2B and B2C companies approach social media illustrate the differences between audiences and the respective marketers’ needs
B2B Social Media Spending to Increase (or as the kids say, “Duh”)
One obvious conclusion reached by the report is that spending is on the rise for B2B social media marketing (their term, not mine). They lead with a Forrester prediction: B2B firms will spend $54 million on social media marketing in 2014, up from just $11 million in 2009. The $ figures seem small to me, although the report does specify that internal costs such as staffing and training are not included. Since most of the social media channels are currently free or cheap (which may not be the case forever), it stands to reason that increased person-power will comprise the bulk of expanded social media efforts and thus would not be represented in these numbers. Still, given the consistent trend of exponentially increased online budgets from year-to-year, these amounts seem very cautious to me especially over a five year period.
One trend worth noting: the flight of budget from other media to social, especially that of online display advertising.
Nielsen reported that in 2009 B2B display advertising overall declined 8%. My assumption is that this was due to a couple of factors: the failure of many B2B trade media titles and associated Web sites, and an increased understanding by B2B marketers that display ads don’t work, especially when compared to tactics like SEM and email.
However, spending for paid advertising on social media (mostly Facebook ads) increased by 184% (probably reflecting the small $ from 2008 as much as the increased interest in social media).
Barriers to Adoption
The key question B2B companies have about social media is the same question they have about any marketing approach: can it help with their business objectives?
· The number one concern for B2B companies, in survey after survey over the years, is lead generation. If social media can generate leads, then it will be embraced.
· The other main concern is ROI; if the value of social media can be measured and documented, and proved to be acceptable, then they are more likely to use it.
At this point in the evolution of social media, I begin to worry about oversaturation. Users of social media can easily find themselves bombarded with input, and many are simply unable or unwilling to read everything or engage with brands as they had in the past.
Despite this concern, it is worth noting that a significant percentage of B2B companies are NOT using social media and represent a worthwhile business opportunity for communications agencies. 37% said they did not know enough about social media or how to begin, according to an Equation Research study in August 2009.
It’s About the Leads, Stupid
Some important numbers discussed in the report:
· DemandGen June 2009: 14% of companies surveyed were getting more than 10% of their leads from social media (218 companies surveyed); 28% were getting more than 5%
· 35% of respondents expected their number of leads generated via social media to rise by 1% to 5% over the next year.
· Hubspot reported in January of 2010 that the following percentage of B2B companies using the indicated channel have acquired a customer from that channel:
· Company blog 43%
· Facebook 33%
· Twitter 38%
· LinkedIn 45%
These figures are both encouraging AND somewhat daunting. Clearly, social media channels are effective at generating B2B customers as well as qualified leads; however, more than half of the companies surveyed in these various polls have not had success using them. Sobering reality, reminding us not to jump at the hype but rather consider the facts and realize there is risk in every venture.
Measurement of B2B Social Media
As my colleague Don Bartholomew puts it, there is a difference between value and ROI. Sometimes you can clearly demonstrate value without necessarily being able to calculate ROI, which is a financial metric.
Still, being an internet-based engagement process, there is an assumption that social media should be able to be measured and tracked the way that Web site traffic or email opens/click-throughs can be tracked. Lack of clear metrics is a major reason some B2B marketers choose not to engage with social media: 37%, according to Equation Research ("2009 Marketing Industry Trends Report, "August 18, 2009).
It seems clear that more marketers are expecting and demanding a clearer measurement of the value of social media engagement. A lot of people who have built their careers on the fuzzy values of “engagement” or “community” have pushed back that social media cannot fit into the dull box of ROI because its inherent value is much higher than simple metrics.
I am not sure B2B companies will accept that. They are clearly leading the charge over their consumer-oriented brethren when it comes to identifying success metrics and tracking results. Business.com’s report of November 2009 identified the percentage of companies (engaged in social media marketing) using the following criteria for success:
· Website traffic: 68%
· Brand awareness: 61%
· Engagement with prospects: 60%
· Engagement with customers: 52%
· Brand reputation: 47%
· Prospect lead quality: 40%
· Revenue: 38%
· Prospect lead volume: 37%
· Useful product feedback: 26%
To Don’s point, most of these indicate value, but to calculate ROI is complicated. Attributing success to any of a variety of factors can be difficult, so even a clear financial metric like revenue is not easy to connect directly to social media. At FH, we conduct a significant period of discovery and definition to fully understand what factors contribute to a business’s success, and we carefully choose the trackable events that form a basis for suggesting ROI or value attribution to the social media programs we develop for our clients.
Differences between B2B and B2C
The report identifies two key differences between the business audience and the consumer audience:
· Multiple influencers/deciders
· Longer buying cycle = more need/opportunity for interaction
The consumer is usually the sole decider and often susceptible to the spur-of-the-moment purchase. The business decision, in contract, is almost always subject to group input and careful financial scrutiny. The purchasing process is often hard-coded to enforce consideration of multiple providers in pursuit of the best choice and lowest cost. With a buying cycle in multiple stages, the B2B customer will benefit from consistent and appropriate input, which social media can facilitate.
Business.com noted some important differences between B2B and B2C in their survey (September 2009) of social media initiatives.
· B2B companies are much more likely to maintain corporate blogs (74% of respondents vice 55% consumer)
· Business marketers were also more likely to upload content (i.e. white papers, videos) to third-party sites (50% vice 32% consumer); vertical sites like GlobalSpec certainly promote and encourage sharing content via their platforms
· Not surprisingly, Facebook and MySpace were more popular with consumer companies, while more B2B companies were using LinkedIn and Twitter
One more note on Twitter: an October 2009 survey from Chief Marketer, Direct, and Promo found that B2B marketers were more likely than B2C marketers to use Twitter to announce new Website content. On the other hand, B2C marketers tended more to tweet about special offers and locate brand fans.
Ed Linde II, senior marketing manager for Web marketing at IBM.com, seems to be an excellent provider of illustrative sound-bites because he is quoted several times in the report. On this topic, he points out: “In B2C you’re looking for a lot of interaction and collaboration between the individuals who tend to be a youthful audience, and from time to time there’s a celebrity element. In the B2B space, you want subject matter experts who are known authorities on particular topics. They’re credible experts on a particular area that people are trying to learn more about and make educated decisions on.”
I think his latter point underscores what has always been a key difference between B2B and B2C, and why social media is such a good fit for the former: the need for technical credibility. Expertise in B2B is valued in a different way than popularity in B2C, and the technical audience has always sought guidance and instruction on how to apply a given technology to its own needs and application. Social media facilitates that in a more direct and immediate way than any other interaction besides face-to-face meetings, or as we now call it F2F.
Conclusion: Heating Up, but No Slam Dunk
Pardon my mixed metaphors, but it’s important to realize that few B2B companies are willing to jump onto the social media bandwagon simply because of the hype. The ones that have adopted these strategies and tactics are doing so because they see the value, not simply because it is “hot.”
eMarketer concludes the report with a set of conclusions that seem achingly obvious but are nonetheless worth making:
· B2B marketers need a social media strategy
· Social media can and does generate leads
· It is very important to monitor and measure your B2B social media efforts
B2B social media is certainly riding the buzz wave, and most companies are aware of the various channels and interested in learning more, but they approach all marketing efforts with a critical eye and will not gamble their hard-earned and only now slightly-rebounding budgets on strategy or tactics that they don’t understand or can’t properly value. It’s up to us as communications and marketing professionals to explain the value and demonstrate the worth of social media for B2B companies.
We’ll give the final word to Ed Linde from IBM who pretty much sums up the bottom line:
“…at the end of the day, the marketer’s job is to facilitate collaborations between the customer and the seller. If we can use social media technologies to help do that, we will.”
—Ed Linde II, senior marketing manager for Web marketing, IBM.com
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
What's Driving Lead Generation in 2010?
Consumer marketers have been at the forefront of the effort to capitalize on the explosive growth of social media, but Business-to-Business communicators are also coming to realize how the new modes of connection apply to them. The social Web, and the development of communication tools that optimize peer to peer and community conversation in real time, have allowed the customer to completely control the marketing process in the B2B space as well as B2C.
Forrester has some particularly useful data regarding how business technology buyers are now willing to use social media:
· 51% would use social media to try and solve a work problem
· 36% would turn to peers via social media network for answers or opinions
· 30% would use social media to find new ideas or insight
(Source: Forrester North American And European B2B Social Technographics® Online Survey, Q1 2010)
Lead generation has always been a key part of all B2B marketing. Social media has opened up new ways to find, qualify, and nurture prospective customers in 2010. To address some of these trends, Fleishman Hillard will present a Webinar on May 26 entitled “What’s Driving B2B Lead Generation in 2010?”
Here are a few other key B2B ideas that were topics of discussion during the Marketing Profs B2B Forum 2010 held in Boston in early May.
· Think like a publisher, not a marketer
· Lead nurturing supports the longer buying cycles of B2B
· Search and Email are still B2B’s best friends
Think like a publisher. Content is king, especially for the modern B2B buyer, but not just product literature or application studies. The length of the buying cycle, and the increased restrictions on purchasing and decision making because of the economy, typically mean that multiple influencers and deciders might enter the process at any point. Providing value at any touchpoint increases our worth to the prospect and reinforces our position of thought leadership and industry expertise.
· Provide content with true value to your customer, not simply materials to market your products
· Use social media channels to push that content out, but also use it for feedback and engagement from your customers
· Change, adapt, and improve based on that feedback
Use lead nurturing to support the buying cycle. Too many leads fall by the wayside in B2B companies, for any number of reasons:
· Prospect is not immediately ready to buy, so Sales team discards the lead
· Sales is oversubscribed because of economy-driven force reductions and cannot follow up
· Sales simply does not value leads from Marketing
Implementing a lead nurturing program can sort out hot opportunities from longer-term possibilities, and keep prospects engaged with your company as they move along the buying cycle without requiring time-intensive involvement from your busy Sales team.
· Score leads both for value but also where they are on the buying cycle, to help qualify for quicker action
· Use marketing automation technology to manage ongoing communication
· Email is still a hugely important and effective way to touch your prospects
Search and Email are still B2B’s best friend. Despite the huge attention rightly given to the social media revolution, and all it means to the future of business communication, the kings of B2B engagement remain Search Marketing and Email.
· Marketing Sherpa reports that 75% of daily social media users say email is the best way for companies to communicate with them.
· While 66% of marketers plan to increase social media budgets in the coming year, 54% plan to do so for email AND 64% intend to do so for SEO/SEM (from a 2010 study commissioned by Exact Target and eConsultancy)
· Integrating email delivery with social media engagement promises to be the most effective way to connect with B2B buyers at each step of the buying process
Search hashtag #mpb2b to see Tweets from the conference and afterwards, including links to photos, live blog entries, and thoughtful commentary on the subject of B2B marketing.
Please join us on May 26 at 11 am CDT for our Webinar, “What’s Driving B2B Lead Generation in 2010?” Register here and please feel free to share the invitation with any B2B clients, prospects, or colleagues interested in lead generation.
Forrester has some particularly useful data regarding how business technology buyers are now willing to use social media:
· 51% would use social media to try and solve a work problem
· 36% would turn to peers via social media network for answers or opinions
· 30% would use social media to find new ideas or insight
(Source: Forrester North American And European B2B Social Technographics® Online Survey, Q1 2010)
Lead generation has always been a key part of all B2B marketing. Social media has opened up new ways to find, qualify, and nurture prospective customers in 2010. To address some of these trends, Fleishman Hillard will present a Webinar on May 26 entitled “What’s Driving B2B Lead Generation in 2010?”
Here are a few other key B2B ideas that were topics of discussion during the Marketing Profs B2B Forum 2010 held in Boston in early May.
· Think like a publisher, not a marketer
· Lead nurturing supports the longer buying cycles of B2B
· Search and Email are still B2B’s best friends
Think like a publisher. Content is king, especially for the modern B2B buyer, but not just product literature or application studies. The length of the buying cycle, and the increased restrictions on purchasing and decision making because of the economy, typically mean that multiple influencers and deciders might enter the process at any point. Providing value at any touchpoint increases our worth to the prospect and reinforces our position of thought leadership and industry expertise.
· Provide content with true value to your customer, not simply materials to market your products
· Use social media channels to push that content out, but also use it for feedback and engagement from your customers
· Change, adapt, and improve based on that feedback
Use lead nurturing to support the buying cycle. Too many leads fall by the wayside in B2B companies, for any number of reasons:
· Prospect is not immediately ready to buy, so Sales team discards the lead
· Sales is oversubscribed because of economy-driven force reductions and cannot follow up
· Sales simply does not value leads from Marketing
Implementing a lead nurturing program can sort out hot opportunities from longer-term possibilities, and keep prospects engaged with your company as they move along the buying cycle without requiring time-intensive involvement from your busy Sales team.
· Score leads both for value but also where they are on the buying cycle, to help qualify for quicker action
· Use marketing automation technology to manage ongoing communication
· Email is still a hugely important and effective way to touch your prospects
Search and Email are still B2B’s best friend. Despite the huge attention rightly given to the social media revolution, and all it means to the future of business communication, the kings of B2B engagement remain Search Marketing and Email.
· Marketing Sherpa reports that 75% of daily social media users say email is the best way for companies to communicate with them.
· While 66% of marketers plan to increase social media budgets in the coming year, 54% plan to do so for email AND 64% intend to do so for SEO/SEM (from a 2010 study commissioned by Exact Target and eConsultancy)
· Integrating email delivery with social media engagement promises to be the most effective way to connect with B2B buyers at each step of the buying process
Search hashtag #mpb2b to see Tweets from the conference and afterwards, including links to photos, live blog entries, and thoughtful commentary on the subject of B2B marketing.
Please join us on May 26 at 11 am CDT for our Webinar, “What’s Driving B2B Lead Generation in 2010?” Register here and please feel free to share the invitation with any B2B clients, prospects, or colleagues interested in lead generation.
Friday, April 30, 2010
More Thoughts on Social Media and Investor Relations
The Fleishman Hillard "Pros & Conversation" Webinar on this topic featured Paul Argenti, professor at Dartmouth, and Tom Laughran, Senior VP and Fleishman Hillard Financial Communications Practice Global Co-chair. I also got to sit in on the Q&A portion and join the discussion. We had a good turnout, lots of engagement from the audience, and lots of followup interest.
As Social Media continues to increase in popularity for distributing company news and marketing information, it has also naturally become a topic of increasing interest in investor relations. While many IR professionals are taking a wait and see approach to implementing Social Media tactics into their programs, some are strategically incorporating tools such as corporate blogs, YouTube, and Twitter as part of their communications around a company’s quarterly earnings announcement.
Tom and I have been thinking about Social Media and IR for several months now, in response to a growing interest among clients and prospects. Social Media is a hot topic for IROs, as it is for many other communications professionals. In fact, the National Investor Relations Institute devoted all of their March 2010 IR Update publication to the phenomenon. We at FH have responded to several prospective clients who want to better understand the space and learn how Social Media might be used to better inform, update, and educate investors, analysts, and shareholders.
The investor community has long exhibited similar traits to what we now call Social Media in the Web Age.
• Community is hungry for information
• Certain individuals are highly influential and put out advice that is eagerly consumed by many
• Investors are susceptible to rumor, hearsay, and innuendo that is often relayed quickly or triggers immediate action
The difference today is that internet technology has increased the speed of communication and the spread of the audience.
· Market impact can happen very quickly
· In previous years, impact might have been localized and kept minimal
· Crisis situations can spread globally in a very short time
Key takeaway: at the very minimum, it is important to be monitoring the online conversation and be prepared to act if a crisis arises or if misinformation is being spread. Listening is as important as speaking.
Another key realization is that your company may already be speaking to the investor community via Social Media, and you as the IRO need to know about it. ANY communication from your company falls under Fair Disclosure regulations.
· Marketing may be running a Facebook page and engaging in dialog with investors without realizing
· Employees are tweeting and blogging about their workplace
· Public relations may be operating a senior leadership blog
It is keenly important for the IRO to be aware of all this dialog and be able to hear and react if an impropriety occurs. Monitoring is the minimum in today’s digital space; you need to be listening even if you are not prepared to be active in the conversation.
Social Media (conversation enabling tools, social networks, content sharing, and open platforms) can be a valuable and important tool for communicating with the investor community, boosting awareness among stakeholders, and increasing value for shareholders.
It is keenly important to meld the understanding of technology and community use of Social Media with a thorough understanding of traditional Investor Relations in order to ensure strict compliance with all regulatory requirements and maximize effectiveness of the program. I think that's where B2B Digital strategists can really bring value, mixing expertise in the channels with understanding of the business needs.
View recording of the Webinar: “Investor Relations and Social Media: Analyzing the Investment”
Buy Paul Argenti’s book, “Digital Strategies for Powerful Corporate Communications”
Thursday, April 15, 2010
Investor Relations and Social Media: Analyzing the Investment
This is a topic that has been occupying my mind for several months now. There is a growing interest in the investor relations community about whether/how Social Media can be used for IR.
Basically, my point of view is that Social Media (conversation enabling tools, social networks, content sharing, and open platforms) can be a valuable and important tool for communicating with the investor community, boosting awareness among stakeholders, and increasing value for shareholders. However, it is keenly important to meld the understanding of technology and community use of Social Media with a thorough understanding of traditional Investor Relations in order to ensure strict compliance with all regulatory requirements and maximize effectiveness of the program.
We've done a lot of thinking on it at FH, merging our expertise in Financial Communications with our Social Media knowledge, and would like to offer the following webinar as part of the discussion.
Mon, Apr 26, 2010 10:00 AM - 11:00 AM CDT
This webinar will feature a discussion on the growing impact of social media on investor relations. Learn how companies of varying market caps and ownership profiles are integrating social media and digital communications to directly support business, IR and communications goals — not just because it's trendy. We'll focus on:
- Key trends driving the need for social media awareness
- When it's necessary to integrate social media and digital communications — and how much
- Balancing the digital needs of institutional and retail shareholders
- Strategies for using social media and digital communications when dealing with shareholder activists, crises and routine IR
Our experts will include:
- Paul Argenti, professor of communications at the Tuck School of Management at Dartmouth College and author of newly released "Digital Strategies for Powerful Corporate Communications"
- Tom Laughran, senior vice president, partner and global co-chair, financial communications and investor relations, Fleishman-Hillard
Hosted by Jack Modzelewski, president, client relations, Fleishman-Hillard.
Register at: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/510140609
Monday, March 1, 2010
Actionable Awareness
For months now I've been thinking about digital communications for public relations, especially in the B2B space. This of course coincides with my joining a PR agency, and getting deeply immersed in how PR views digital. In most cases, there is a heavy emphasis on social media support, most obviously Twitter and Facebook, but that's not always a viable area for B2B companies. Social media in a broader sense, in the sense of community building, has been an important part of interactive B2B for many years, but for most manufacturers of highly designed products (with long, carefully considered buying cycles) the worth in engaging with those kinds of channels is still under review.
In my mind, even beyond social media there is constantly a question as to how we measure success and therefore how we structure our efforts to bring real value to clients.Traditional PR metrics like share of voice or impressions have value but the B2B world is so focused on achieving specific results (i.e. generating leads, making sales, etc.) that PR metrics are often denigrated. Budgets for interactive PR often suffer because of this perceived notion of vague attribution and suspicion about ROI.
I've come to the idea of "actionable awareness" as a concept that leverages both the intrinsic goal of public relations (awareness) with the measurable impact of digital (action):
actionable awareness = ability for web users to not only BE aware of brand but also immediately act on that awareness in a way that helps drive business goals and objectives
Tactics like Search Engine Marketing, Email Marketing, and other inbound efforts clearly fall within this concept, but in the digital world, so does media relations, blog posts, Twitter links--anything that mentions your client can allow them to find your web site or landing page with just a few clicks, especially with text links that many publishers now routinely insert.
And that of course allows us to measure any number of data points which can indicate spread of our messaging, value of our communications, level of influence, and the $ metrics like data capture (lead generation) or even ecommerce sales.
For me, this means that actionable awareness is a good handle on which to hang one's B2B digital PR efforts.
In my mind, even beyond social media there is constantly a question as to how we measure success and therefore how we structure our efforts to bring real value to clients.Traditional PR metrics like share of voice or impressions have value but the B2B world is so focused on achieving specific results (i.e. generating leads, making sales, etc.) that PR metrics are often denigrated. Budgets for interactive PR often suffer because of this perceived notion of vague attribution and suspicion about ROI.
I've come to the idea of "actionable awareness" as a concept that leverages both the intrinsic goal of public relations (awareness) with the measurable impact of digital (action):
actionable awareness = ability for web users to not only BE aware of brand but also immediately act on that awareness in a way that helps drive business goals and objectives
Tactics like Search Engine Marketing, Email Marketing, and other inbound efforts clearly fall within this concept, but in the digital world, so does media relations, blog posts, Twitter links--anything that mentions your client can allow them to find your web site or landing page with just a few clicks, especially with text links that many publishers now routinely insert.
And that of course allows us to measure any number of data points which can indicate spread of our messaging, value of our communications, level of influence, and the $ metrics like data capture (lead generation) or even ecommerce sales.
For me, this means that actionable awareness is a good handle on which to hang one's B2B digital PR efforts.
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