Testing testing testing : the B2B marketer's mantra

I was having lunch with a B2B marketing peer recently (he'll remain nameless) who was struggling to get traction with his CEO in order to justify/demonstrate the full value of marketing.  

His problem was marketing just wasn't seen as strategic enough and he wasn't getting the funding to do the sort of thing he just knew would add bags of value. You know the situation - marketing's all about slide decks and collateral, and doesn't get to the table for revenue and market conversations. 

He was convinced that his company could benefit from customer-oriented messaging, solution selling and better targeting. And that marketing should be leading the charge. So, like any diligent marketer he had set about writing a strategy document to convince his board to invest more. It was based on industry best practice & other-company case examples.

Whilst I applauded him for being so rigorous, I do believe there is a better way. As B2B marketers we're surrounded by stunning insights about our business that are within our reach right now. There's such a wealth of data available to us through customer behaviours and digital interactions it's phenomenal. And all of this can be exploited not only in execution, but in strategy.

So rather than writing a strategy document, I suggested to my peer that he do some simple market tests. I gave him three ideas which were like light-bulbs to him, but I guess sometimes got lost in his desire to think big:

1. Run a webinar. Think a topic is hot? But struggling to get management buy-in to sponsor value proposition development/sales training/solution development? Set up a 30 minute webinar and invite a portion of your database. Use an event platform like eventbrite or amiando and the whole thing's free. See who signs up and use the names as proof of interest to your management, And if you get no response, then you have your answer too. You can even A/B test the email invitation's subject line to try out which message resonates the most along the way.  

2. Take out Linkedin ads. Arguing over product-oriented vs customer-oriented messaging? Use Linkedin ads to test out different messaging, e.g. "See how Watton Version 3 is fab" vs "Find out how retailers like you have reduced operating costs by 10%". Present the click thru rates to your management team.

3. Analyze wins. Want to illustrate which industry segments to go after? Dig into your CRM system and find out your company's last 10/50/100 wins. Build out your own analysis of each win (sub-vertical, av. deal size, company size, ERP system etc,) and then find out the addressable market size. All of the data is available at little or no cost. You can then present a market opportunity vs likelihood of winning boston matrix as a way of getting the conversation going.

What I love about all of the above is that they are:

• relatively cheap to do
• don't require executive sign off
• can give you results within 48 hours

But more importantly, they are real, tangible expressions of what your customers, not your company, think.

What's more you can tweak, scrap, improve and learn. Quickly. This continual running of small tests should be how we all do our marketing. Its an injection of data into our gut & rapidly transforms our marketing.

Hopefully I inspired my peer to try it out!

EMEA vs Global B2B Marketing – culture clash or culture club?

Working in the software technology industry and based in the UK means invariably you're working for the European subsidiary of a US-headquartered business.

This often throws up lots of challenges, many of which I've experienced over the years.  There are inherent differences between planning and executing campaigns in EMEA vs US (let alone differences between different European countries). Languages and cultures, budget centralisation (or over-localisation) and global team structures can all result in marketing friction.

Its a topic dear to my heart, which is why I'm pleased to be taking part in a panel discussion on how EMEA regional marketing teams work most successfully, with (often US) centralised resources.

In this event you’ll learn how me and other practitioners from Zuora and Brother address issues related to running EMEA marketing in a global business.

The event's on Feb 28th at BPP Business School in London

If you want to hear some interesting debate you can sign up on the event website.

Tracking content effectiveness using Squeeze

Producing all this great content in marketing is just fine. But do you really know which pieces have most impact or which channels are most effective?

I've struggled with those challenges for a while, so was excited to find a new tool called "Squeeze". It's currently on invitation-only Beta, but I think its easy enough to get an invite.

I've been using it a few months now & I've found it really useful in gaining insights into the content being produced on this blog. I'm going to explain how I use it, but please this is NOT a product review or a user manual. I'll leave that to the guys over at Squeeze.

How do I use it? Whenever I produce a post, I feed the URL into squeeze and it produces a custom, shortened URL for each of twitter, G+ and Linkedin (you can also extend this for email, blog & facebook). See Fig 1. You can then either copy these URLs into your favourite tools or share straight from the page.

Fig 1 : Creating custom URLs

I personally use hootsuite, and like to use the auto-scheduling feature rather than publish as i post. Which means I do have to make two separate updates in hootsuite for Linkedin & twitter (hootsuite doesn't do G+) but its not much hassle.

Fig 2 : YTD clicks by channel

How does that all help? The custom URLs then give you the ability to track traffic to the site by channel. So the first insight is which channel gets the most clicks.  FIg 2 shows all traffic to my blog, with twitter constituting 86% of all all traffic (vs 13% Linkedin and 2% G+). No surprise really as a) I have more engaged followers on twitter and b) I publish posts multiple times to twitter, but only post once on Linkedin/G+.

The other interesting insight is which day & time are best to publish. In terms of day, it turns out Friday is best for twitter (Fig 3). But it's not so clear cut for Linkedin with Thursday & Friday (Fig 4) pretty equal.

When it comes to time of day, Fig 5 shows 5AM EST (i.e. 10AM UK) is the best time for me to publish my posts. That's when I get the most engagement.

Fig 3 : twitter performance by day of week

Fig 4 : Linkedin performance by day of week

Fig 5: performance by time of day

Finally I can stack rank my posts to see what has been most popular. Fig 6 show that my "7 UK B2B Marketing Experts to Follow in 2013" is my most popular post yet. Leading me to interpret that you all LOVE a list!

Fig 6: Top content assets

So there you have it. Pretty cool stuff, and definitely one of the "6 marketing tools that save my life as a B2B marketer". If anyone's had experience of squeeze or can suggest another tool like it, I'd be delighted to hear from you!

You've got to build an emotional connection

A big thanks to Velocity Partners for immortalising the panel of today's G+ Hangout in stencil & spray paint. That's definitely a first for me! 

There's still time to register - over 100 B2B marketers have signed up already. Should be fun.

Apple and anti-behavioral marketing

I'm a big fan of Apple. I first used their products in 1989 (an Apple Macintosh SE) and never looked back. After a long hiatus in the world of the PC (and a short stint working for the Evil Empire), I returned to the World of Jobs with the iPod in 2003 ish and since then I've probably owned every Apple form factor.

I now own (wait for it) ten Apple devices: MacBook Air, MacPro, Apple TV x 2, iPod Touch, iPod Classic, iPod Shuffle, iPhone 4s, iPhone 5, iPad2 and iPad Mini. Its fair to say I'm a fan.

But Apple doesn't know that. In fact, it probably doesn't care. In another world I would be a Platinum customer, being loved, cherished and nurtured. But not in Apple's. Despite running the infamous "walled garden" iOS, demanding at every juncture that I let them get insight into what i'm doing and having me sign into iCloud for everything, they know nothing.

Never more is that obvious that in the communications I receive for them. The latest is "Buy an iPad for your loved one for Valentine's Day". No recognition of any loyalty. No offer and no discount. In fact its not even a new idea. I get the same email every holiday/season event saying much the same thing, the same as everyone else, with no personalization and no targeting.

It's the total opposite of what most marketers are trying to do. That's because using a one-size-fits-all approach may work for Apple, but its a road to disaster for the rest of us.

Tailoring communications based on behaviors has been proven to increase conversions and maximize retention rates. In Apple's case they know who I am (i've been registered on iTunes for nearly ten years) what products I've owned (I register them all), what music i like (i have all my 13,099 songs in iCloud), which emails I've opened, what I've clicked on and what web pages I have browsed.

And you likely have a similar wealth of information on your customers too. This demographic plus behaviors information is a goldmine for all of us that don't have the brand equity of Apple. How about using dynamic content in emails that reflects what the individual browsed on your site? Or an onsite experience that is tailored based on what emails they opened? Or scoring interactions to guess whether consumers are in active buying mode, sending offers at the right time, tailored to their profile.

This is the world of behavioral marketing and its the end of spray & pray marketing. Brands who ignore this do so at their peril. So for once, don't try and emulate Apple.

Checking out of foursquare

After just over 3 years of regular use, I'm checking out of foursquare.

Sorry guys, I just don't get it. This promised land of special offers, location based promotions and serendipitous bumping into friends never materialized. And to think for a while there I was checking in to gowalla (RIP) as well! What was I thinking?

I stuck with foursquare though, believing the glorious personal benefits will come. I think i've been tolerant. I've made over 2,500 check-ins and earned 46 badges. But there's just no value. It's just turned into something to do - another reason to fidget with my smartphone, an activity I'm trying to reduce thanks very much. 

As it turns out most of my friends agree. I have 1,700+ followers on twitter and only a handful every signed up to foursquare. Plus the community on foursquare ends up generating (with a few notable exceptions) a maddening set of social minutiae i can do without. Bus stop, supermarket and petrol station check-ins? Checking in to locations when you're clearly on a train? Don't get me started. Plus how can someone be consistently top of the league when all they do is check-in to Sainsbury's, their home office and their kid's primary school?

There's no doubt location based data is useful when supporting other online activities (photo sharing for example) but as a standalone community? No thanks. There's plenty of other ways to tell people what I'm up to. 

Enough. 

.....Unless someone can make the case otherwise?

3 simple (and free) ways to make sure your content doesn't suck

It's not rocket science, but the industry has made a meal out of content marketing. 

So let's cut to the chase. Good content marketing is nothing more than telling your story to people who want to hear it in a way that means something to THEM. This is also essentially the basis of good selling. But as John Sweeney of marketing automation services firm DemandGen said to me recently "It feels that not enough marketers are aware of ‘how’ sales colleagues sell."

You can over-engineer this thing, but there are three simple (and free) ways to improve your content massively without employing the interpretative dance explorations of a "content marketing guru".

1. Problem > Consequence > Solution > Benefit or PCSB

Write all of your content from your customer's viewpoint using this simple structure:

• P(roblem) : What is the problem they're facing?
• C(onsequence) : What's the consequence to them of that problem (i.e. why should they care)?
• S(olution) : What do you have that solves that problem (and how you do it)?
• B(enefit) : What is the benefit to them? In their terms!

Forget writing that Release 2.2.1.2 is 30% faster than Release 2.2.1.1. They really don't care. If they're failing to retain customers or their costs are spiralling out of control focus on that.

Oh, and when it comes to benefits there are only four answers:

• It saves them money.
• It makes them money.
• It makes them a hero.
• It saves them from being fired.

Quite simple really.

2. Visualize your customer.

Forget Segment A1, D4 or C3PO. Visualize your customer. Give them a name, find a photo that reflects who they are. It'll help put you in their shoes.

Even better, speak to a real live one. It won't hurt. We all have friendly customers. Why not run your caffeine-fuelled, offsite-enabled, no-ideas-a-bad-idea messaging past them? Does it make sense to them? Does it speak to them in their language? If it doesn't, find out how it falls short and take it from there. You don't need big market research budgets to find this stuff out.

3. Bin everything.

If your content doesn't pass points 1 and 2, bin it. No seriously, bin it. Unless you're employing smart content tracking tools (like squeeze) that prove people download your stuff then you're wasting your time. In fact, your customers are binning your stuff anyway. 

Easy.

Behavioural Marketing: The End of Segmentation in B2B Marketing

Join me at the B2B Marketing Forum 2013, March 14th in Amsterdam.  I'll be sharing the stage with the likes of Phillips Healthcare, Sirius Decisions, Swiss Post, and TNS NIPO.

I'll be on at 15:25 to discuss how Behavioural Marketing marks the end of segmentation in B2B Marketing. My thoughts in preparing my session are this: 

• Today’s B2B buyer is not only digitally savvy but is also driving the engagement.
• As B2B marketers we need to make a shift in how we market.
• Successful brands are going to be those that move from a segmented to a personalised approach, using behaviours to drive relevant, profitable relationships.

For more details visit the event website. Come along!

Using Social Behaviours as part of B2B lead generation

I'm delighted to be part of Brighttalk's upcoming B2B Social Media Summit 2013. I'll be presenting a 45 minute webinar at 1pm GMT, Feb 14th, titled "Using Social Behaviours as part of B2B lead generation". 

Social media presents new opportunities for customer engagement and lead generation. But to get it right requires a whole bunch of new skills that are both creative and process oriented. I'll be talking about how a behavioural marketing approach to lead generation will net amazing results, and how social media can be a key tool in a multi-channel lead generation strategy. Full details and registration below!

6 (and mostly free) marketing tools that save my life as a B2B marketer

2013 is an incrediblly exciting time to be a B2B marketer. Never before has it been so easy to plan, execute and measure marketing programmes. And what's more, you can do it all with technology that is within even the most modest budget, and in some cases at almost no cost. 

Key to being successful is using data and digital marketing tools to better drive your marketing. So here's the 6 tools that i can't do without, and that have not only made my life as a marketer easier but also extremely fun too!

1. salesforce.com I remember a time before salesforce.com. It was a bleak and dark time where marketers in small businesses used simple "database marketing" tools and those in larger companies splashed out $$$$ on inflexible CRM systems such as Siebel. Salesforce came as a breath of fresh air in terms of ease of use, accessibility and cost. Pioneers of CRM, no software and no cloud I don't know why any business doesn't use salesforce for their CRM. Its an invaluable tool for me to connect with my sales team, and has been the backbone of my last 6 years as a marketer.

2. Marketing Automation. If you haven't done so already, you have to get on the marketing automation (MA) train. It'll save your life in terms of reducing workload, improving ROI and providing clear results for your business. Modesty prevents me from recommending my current employer's offerings in this area, so I'll stick to the general concept. I've implemented MA over many years and its transformed my life. It lets you automate customer interactions (online, email, social, mobile), getting not only the right message to the right prospect at the right time, but also engaging your sales team at the right time too. It also changes the internal discussion about marketing, especially with sales. In my past everything centred around awareness, events and brochures. Now its about Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs), inquiry to MQL conversion rates, Cost per Lead and $ attributed to marketing pipeline.  Plus you can push back on sales activity further down the pipeline. A much more grown up, business-oriented role awaits you!

3. Hootsuite. My preferred tool to connect with the social media world. Its great for managing multiple accounts (twitter, facebook & Linkedin). I've tried others (tweetdeck, bottlenose, socialbro) but I find myself coming back to it every time. I make heavy use of lists which allows me to order those I follow into manageable columns. So my "B2B marketing" updates get separated from my "craft beer" updates. (BTW you can add accounts to lists without having to follow them. Which means follower counts become a little inaccurate).  Also i love the auto-scheduling feature. This lets the system decide the timing of a tweet/post based on its knowledge of when your followers/fans actually click on your content. So sometimes you'll see posts from me at odd times of the day.

Finally I've set up key phrases for my business, and check daily for any buzz/customer support issues around my company's domain, competitors and our brand itself. Useful to stay up to date on what's going on in my industry

4. Google analytics. Get over this "i'm not giving my data to Google" attitude. Unless you're Apple or Microsoft your business probably isn't that important to Google anyway. If you haven't done so already, install GA on your site. It's free, and gives you a fire hose of great information. Whilst I don't run an eCommerce business I use it to monitor macro traffic trends, ensuring we get the biggest share we can of that Search Love.

5. Squeeze. A new addition to my marketing armoury, but an incredibly useful tool to track content usage. Use it to create URLs for your content, customized for twitter, facebook, G+ and Linkedin. This allows me to track which channel is most effective for when i distribute this blog post for example. Not only that, you can also track which of your content is more popular, letting you refine your content marketing strategy. Pretty neat, eh?

6. LinkedIn. Whilst I can monitor and post content to Linkedin via Hootsuite, the underlying connections in the Linkedin network are the what delivers most value to me. Its not just a site for people looking for jobs. I've forged new business relationships, unlocked interesting partnerships and discovered exciting new companies. It's the core of the network I manage as part of my daily business life. So if you haven't already, invest time in getting your profile updated.