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.
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
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.
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
The People in the Room
Crowdsourcing at the Highest Level
I recently made a career change, joining Fleishman Hillard in their Chicago office as a Digital Strategist, primarily working on B2B accounts. As chance would have it, the company-wide FH Digital group was holding a Digital Leadership conference in Washington DC shortly after my last day with ARENDS, wherein they assembled as many of their best and brightest Digerati for a meeting of the minds. Through sheer dint of fortuitous timing, with a little on-the-fly schedule adjustment, I was able to attend this conference on my very first day on the job.
It was literally a global event, with attendees from Milan, London, Toronto, and Hong Kong as well as a number of other US cities and the large digital hubs in Washington DC and St. Louis. I found it simultaneously exhilarating and bewildering to be thrust deep into this community without much preamble or preparation. On the one hand, it was a tremendously valuable exposure to this deep and multifaceted network. An office like Chicago can tap into many resources across the world, with specialist skills available for any tactical or strategic need. Case study after case study was presented demonstrating the breadth of capabilities we can offer clients. It was great to meet these team members, and to be able to have a face with which to attach a name as we interact in the future.
On the other hand, there was a good deal of discussion relating to policies, processes, and procedures to which I was unable to add much (given my relative unfamiliarity with the agency). Even this was instructional, of course, exposing me to nuanced discussion of how things really work in an agency this large. It was especially illuminating to see so many brilliant minds, literally at the peak of their profession, bending to the topics at hand.
In fact, the leadership of FH Digital were quite open about tapping this talent mass to help solve (or at least inform) the challenges facing the practice. There were many exercises specifically designed to elicit quality input on business problems, such as how to market ourselves and how to describe the value we represent to our clients. These are things that traditionally come down from management on high; in this case, we were helping build them from the ground up.
Which struck me as being both obvious and inspired. The concept of crowdsourcing is pretty well-established at this point in the interactive space. Wikipedia is the most obvious example, but others abound. The entire Open Source software movement, for example, is based around the idea of presenting a concept to a talented and capable group, and having them dive into it and bang it around so that changes will be found to improve and expand on the original idea. Similarly, some web sites have sprung up that facilitate the outsourcing of graphics projects. Members of these networks review online requirements for a particular need, such as a logo or an illustration, with a posted budget. If the members choose to participate, they submit designs that they develop on spec with the hopes of winning the project. They are then paid the posted price for their work. Most people agree this process is less effective for complex creative projects, but it is a good way of leveraging the web to expand on the traditional creative process of submitting three options for the client to choose one.
However, I am not sure how many companies utilize the strength of their own people in a similar way to approach the challenges of business operation. Collaboration is encouraged and supported in many, of course, or at least in theory. Large manufacturing technology companies will use intranets to facilitate sharing of ideas and information between design engineers, for example, and the growth of blogs and wikis as tools for feedback and data-gathering is certainly part of this. But these are all based around support for the effort of the individual member to address his or her individual problem; for a company to use the collective abilities of its own people to work on corporate challenges is a little more unique and maybe even visionary.
It’s not hard to hypothesize why corporate leadership might not leap to the concept of using its own workforce to advise on strategic or even tactical challenges. Leaders are supposed to lead, after all. In any industry, the managers are charged with the planning and vision to direct the company in all areas. The worker bees, no matter how sophisticated their abilities or extensive their training or how broad their experience, are the ones who have to actually do the work. It is difficult to imagine that management of any company would willingly cede their authority and control to labor.
But it makes enormous sense to realize that the ones “in the trenches” have a depth of practical knowledge that can be keenly valuable in planning and strategy. And if one has the capability of mining information from each of thousands of persons who do a particular professional task every day, and do it very well, then the sheer aggregate of data will likely produce insight that can point to solutions. Statistically the crazy or poorly considered ideas will be minimized and can be ignored, but any broadly-suggested concept represents the collective wisdom and would merit support. A smart researcher can devise poll questions or other methods that will produce optimal results; technology is available that can make it very easy, and very rewarding, for subjects to participate.
While the FH Digital gathering was limited to the people in the room, and the data collection was not rigorous in methodology (admittedly, according to the FH Digital Research Group which was well-represented), it still revealed the value of approaching an executional work force (in this case dedicated to interactive communication strategy and tactics on behalf of clients) for input on organizational challenges. The feedback received by our leadership will go a long way toward crafting worthwhile strategy effective tactics that represent real-world conditions.
A common trope is to talk about the “smartest people in the room;” if you have a situation where everybody in the room is smart, then it is a smart idea to tap into that talent, especially if the “room” can be metaphorically extended across your company. That’s crowdsourcing taken to a higher level.
I recently made a career change, joining Fleishman Hillard in their Chicago office as a Digital Strategist, primarily working on B2B accounts. As chance would have it, the company-wide FH Digital group was holding a Digital Leadership conference in Washington DC shortly after my last day with ARENDS, wherein they assembled as many of their best and brightest Digerati for a meeting of the minds. Through sheer dint of fortuitous timing, with a little on-the-fly schedule adjustment, I was able to attend this conference on my very first day on the job.
It was literally a global event, with attendees from Milan, London, Toronto, and Hong Kong as well as a number of other US cities and the large digital hubs in Washington DC and St. Louis. I found it simultaneously exhilarating and bewildering to be thrust deep into this community without much preamble or preparation. On the one hand, it was a tremendously valuable exposure to this deep and multifaceted network. An office like Chicago can tap into many resources across the world, with specialist skills available for any tactical or strategic need. Case study after case study was presented demonstrating the breadth of capabilities we can offer clients. It was great to meet these team members, and to be able to have a face with which to attach a name as we interact in the future.
On the other hand, there was a good deal of discussion relating to policies, processes, and procedures to which I was unable to add much (given my relative unfamiliarity with the agency). Even this was instructional, of course, exposing me to nuanced discussion of how things really work in an agency this large. It was especially illuminating to see so many brilliant minds, literally at the peak of their profession, bending to the topics at hand.
In fact, the leadership of FH Digital were quite open about tapping this talent mass to help solve (or at least inform) the challenges facing the practice. There were many exercises specifically designed to elicit quality input on business problems, such as how to market ourselves and how to describe the value we represent to our clients. These are things that traditionally come down from management on high; in this case, we were helping build them from the ground up.
Which struck me as being both obvious and inspired. The concept of crowdsourcing is pretty well-established at this point in the interactive space. Wikipedia is the most obvious example, but others abound. The entire Open Source software movement, for example, is based around the idea of presenting a concept to a talented and capable group, and having them dive into it and bang it around so that changes will be found to improve and expand on the original idea. Similarly, some web sites have sprung up that facilitate the outsourcing of graphics projects. Members of these networks review online requirements for a particular need, such as a logo or an illustration, with a posted budget. If the members choose to participate, they submit designs that they develop on spec with the hopes of winning the project. They are then paid the posted price for their work. Most people agree this process is less effective for complex creative projects, but it is a good way of leveraging the web to expand on the traditional creative process of submitting three options for the client to choose one.
However, I am not sure how many companies utilize the strength of their own people in a similar way to approach the challenges of business operation. Collaboration is encouraged and supported in many, of course, or at least in theory. Large manufacturing technology companies will use intranets to facilitate sharing of ideas and information between design engineers, for example, and the growth of blogs and wikis as tools for feedback and data-gathering is certainly part of this. But these are all based around support for the effort of the individual member to address his or her individual problem; for a company to use the collective abilities of its own people to work on corporate challenges is a little more unique and maybe even visionary.
It’s not hard to hypothesize why corporate leadership might not leap to the concept of using its own workforce to advise on strategic or even tactical challenges. Leaders are supposed to lead, after all. In any industry, the managers are charged with the planning and vision to direct the company in all areas. The worker bees, no matter how sophisticated their abilities or extensive their training or how broad their experience, are the ones who have to actually do the work. It is difficult to imagine that management of any company would willingly cede their authority and control to labor.
But it makes enormous sense to realize that the ones “in the trenches” have a depth of practical knowledge that can be keenly valuable in planning and strategy. And if one has the capability of mining information from each of thousands of persons who do a particular professional task every day, and do it very well, then the sheer aggregate of data will likely produce insight that can point to solutions. Statistically the crazy or poorly considered ideas will be minimized and can be ignored, but any broadly-suggested concept represents the collective wisdom and would merit support. A smart researcher can devise poll questions or other methods that will produce optimal results; technology is available that can make it very easy, and very rewarding, for subjects to participate.
While the FH Digital gathering was limited to the people in the room, and the data collection was not rigorous in methodology (admittedly, according to the FH Digital Research Group which was well-represented), it still revealed the value of approaching an executional work force (in this case dedicated to interactive communication strategy and tactics on behalf of clients) for input on organizational challenges. The feedback received by our leadership will go a long way toward crafting worthwhile strategy effective tactics that represent real-world conditions.
A common trope is to talk about the “smartest people in the room;” if you have a situation where everybody in the room is smart, then it is a smart idea to tap into that talent, especially if the “room” can be metaphorically extended across your company. That’s crowdsourcing taken to a higher level.
Thursday, October 1, 2009
Display Ads, Whither to Wither?
According to the "Natural Born Clickers" study (released recently by ComScore and media agency Starcom), the number of people online who click display ads has dropped 50% in less than two years. They conducted a similar study in 2007 which found that 32% of the respondents affirmed they clicked on banner ads; now, two years later, the figure is down to 16%.
Ad Age, in their article discussing the study, leaps to the question of whether Click-Thru-Rate is the proper metric for online display advertising. They report ComScore as determining, through "client studies," that banners generate significant lift in brand-site visitation, trademark search, and both online and offline sales among those exposed to the ads.
I have to confess to skepticism about this. I'd have to see those "client studies" to determine their scientific rigor.
While I believe in the importance of branding, and I am willing to admit that display ads might be able to help lift a brand's awareness or mindset penetration, I doubt very seriously that really accurate data can be identified to prove this. We in the interactive marketing space like to tout metrics as a core part of the web's value, but in the case of display ads, the most obvious or intuitive metric (clicks) are usually SO LOW as to be worthless as a way to make money. I sure wouldn't pay thousands of dollars for at best a 0.4% CTR...so it behooves publishers to try and justify, however possible, this revenue-generation method with which they are stuck.
The paradigm needs to continue to shift and we need to continue to innovate. A reader identified as "ivak99" makes a very good response to the Ad Age article in which he points out that internet users are "active" while banner presentation, like TV commercials, are intended for a "passive" viewer. Marketers need to leverage the strengths of the medium and craft content, as well as traffic-generation methods, that DO work on the web. Banner ads really don't and we should not be wasting money on them when we can innovate and figure out new and exciting ways to get our customers the stuff they need, and when they need it.
Ad Age, in their article discussing the study, leaps to the question of whether Click-Thru-Rate is the proper metric for online display advertising. They report ComScore as determining, through "client studies," that banners generate significant lift in brand-site visitation, trademark search, and both online and offline sales among those exposed to the ads.
I have to confess to skepticism about this. I'd have to see those "client studies" to determine their scientific rigor.
While I believe in the importance of branding, and I am willing to admit that display ads might be able to help lift a brand's awareness or mindset penetration, I doubt very seriously that really accurate data can be identified to prove this. We in the interactive marketing space like to tout metrics as a core part of the web's value, but in the case of display ads, the most obvious or intuitive metric (clicks) are usually SO LOW as to be worthless as a way to make money. I sure wouldn't pay thousands of dollars for at best a 0.4% CTR...so it behooves publishers to try and justify, however possible, this revenue-generation method with which they are stuck.
The paradigm needs to continue to shift and we need to continue to innovate. A reader identified as "ivak99" makes a very good response to the Ad Age article in which he points out that internet users are "active" while banner presentation, like TV commercials, are intended for a "passive" viewer. Marketers need to leverage the strengths of the medium and craft content, as well as traffic-generation methods, that DO work on the web. Banner ads really don't and we should not be wasting money on them when we can innovate and figure out new and exciting ways to get our customers the stuff they need, and when they need it.
Friday, August 28, 2009
Don't Believe the Hype
"Social marketing is a shiny new toy and almost everyone is wising up and getting involved, as they should...There's no question that social applications are becoming central to our online lives, and soon social apps will be a central part of the very operating systems we use...Still, at the heart of it all for marketers is the message. Never forget that these new social technologies are just new ways to communicate. And technology by itself is not persuasive. Beware not to get the media mixed up with the message...Every status update, tweet, and inbox message is nothing more than a communication between a sender and a reader. What you say and how you say it matters."
I love Bryan Eisenberg. He almost always hits the proverbial nail right on the head, and in this case his words ring truer than ever over the buzz around Social Media.
From the earliest days of technology-aided communication, the temptation of the new has always been the demon of the effective, or at least of the cost-effective. Many of us remember the client refrain from the early days of Web 1.0: "We just need a web site!" In other words, we haven't thought at all about what to put in the web site, or how it can help us, we just want one because everybody is getting one. It is the classic case of substituting the tool for the finished object, and that is what Social Media is--a tool, and only a tool, for communicating. Just having a Twitter account means nothing, you have to use the tool in the proper way and most important you have to create good and appropriate content for that tool.
Please don't get caught up in the hype. Think carefully about how you would use Social Media applications to further your business objectives, how you can properly support it, and whether your target audiences will utilize your Social Media presence in a way that furthers your goals. If not, don't bother. Use the money and time you might otherwise put into it for channels and initiatives that will help you achieve your success metrics.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
