Posted by JasonB on September 2, 2009
Fact: Social Media has changed how decision-makers search for and analyze information prior to making a buying decision. Where once an individual would place calls to or visit vendor websites to begin their service-provider selection process, now potential buyers are discussing solutions and vendor options with peers first in an attempt to receive real, unbiased feedback regarding an issue. To generate B2B leads using social media, your organization must have a presence in these early-stage discussions and deploy the proper social media marketing tools for each phase of the buying cycle.
Observe the chart below:
Problem Identification Stage: Some business issues are glaring, others aren’t thought about until someone brings them to your attention. The latter is happening on social networks by savvy would-be vendors daily. To prompt decision-makers to recognize an issue that their business may solve, thousands of companies are starting discussions on blogs, forums and video sharing websites. These websites create a forum for discussions whereby the participants don’t feel like they are being sold, but instead joining in a peer discussion about a topic related to their business. They promote ideas on issues and solutions.
Companies who start or participate in these discussions in an informative and helpful manner get instant credibility and a foot-in-the-door with decision–makers. However, it is critical in this stage to position your business as a resource, and not try to “close the deal”. Social networks are about peers talking to peers, not businesses selling to prospects. Jump in the discussions, be helpful, and generate early exposure for your business in the buying cycle.
Solution Development Stage: There are often a variety of solutions for every business issue. In one’s personal life, asking a friend for advice on solving an issue is often the easiest and most trusted way to gather feedback. Social networking websites now facilitate the exact same level of peer to peer communication. As I mentioned in a previous post, decision-makers have abandoned visiting corporate websites to investigate solutions, as corporate sites consistently tout that their solutions are the best…regardless if that is actually the case.
Having your thoughts (as a peer, not a company) on specific solutions published online will communicate that your organization is willing and able to help. To dispense industry advice, you can either publish a blog, or join in discussions on other blogs. To ensure your ideas get seen, search engine optimize your blog, and posts, to ensure major search engines can see your message and attribute it to your organization.
Resource Search Stage: During this phase decision-makers are looking for the best organization to provide a specific solution. Your strategy should be to (1) get seen and (2) stand out amongst the competition.
Search engine optimization and Pay-Per-Click will ensure your business gets found for certain keywords and phrases. Please note: Conversations, and the phrases used within, change constantly. Monitoring blogs and forums to derive what keywords are actually being used is critical to targeted search engine marketing.
Standing out from the clutter requires a quick, impactful delivery of your message. Web video has become the #1 tool used in social media. Video can clearly and concisely deliver your message in a memorable fashion.
Vendor Evaluation Stage: Three very good reasons for choosing a vendor are:
- Their breadth of knowledge on a subject
- Their success with other businesses like yours
- They were recommended by a trusted peer
Clearly communicating your ideas in a video or on a blog will make an impression on key-decision-makers. For example, a blog that discusses an issue from “soup to nuts” proves your company knows its’ stuff. Providing visibility to your answers on issues leaves much of the unwanted “guess work” out of the buying process for a decision-maker.
Providing a case study, preferably in digital format (so it can be forwarded to others), is another impactful way to communicate your success in solving certain issues. Case studies can be discussed within a blog, or portrayed in a web video. Leaving a prospect with the feeling that your company has already successfully solved the same issue for another firm can be the deciding factor in making a buying decision.
A personal recommendation by a peer speaks volumes. LinkedIn, for example, displays personal recommendations made by others who have worked with an individual. It is wise to have your company’s employees attempt to get recommendations from clients they’ve helped. LinkedIn users really do look at those recommendations. If they see your competitors have been recommended, and your business has not, they will notice.
So, some food for thought. I hope this post helps your business decide what social media tools to use for attracting decision-makers. As usual, please let us know if we can help. Please subscribe to this blog for future posts on generating new business for your business.
Posted by JasonB on August 21, 2009
Positioning your organization as a “Thought Leader” in your industry is instrumental in generating B2B leads via the internet. Today, the web allows companies to dispense large amounts of information across vast networks. How do you appear as a leader amongst the clutter, and how does this translate to generating B2B leads? Let’s take a look:
Defining a “Thought Leader”:
A “Thought Leader” is someone who creates, promotes and discusses innovative ideas within an industry. They are passionate experts who dispense their knowledge asking little in return. Often, they announce their ideas with confidence, as almost “self-endorsed, ready-to-use problem-solving solutions”. As time passes, and Thought Leaders build their reputation, their audience grows.
Steps to Becoming a Thought Leader:
1. Follow Before You Lead
To become a leader, you have to identify how high the bar is already set. To accomplish this, you must implement social media monitoring…a critical step in beginning any social media campaign.
By “listening” to social networks, you will observe what messages and media formats are attracting visitors. You will also glean what your competition is using successfully by the number of viewers reading (or following) their messaging. In other words, if a company has placed a video on YouTube discussing reducing costs in your industry, and the video has been viewed hundreds of times, then it would follow that the “cost savings” message is popular among industry participants.
The data gathered during your monitoring process should provide the framework for your Thought Leadership strategy.
2. Plan Your Delivery
Thought leadership relies on consistent, innovative and exciting communication. To achieve this, you must design a content distribution plan that outlines how often your company can publish content, and where that content will be distributed.
Viewers are more inclined to view or follow your organizations’ message if they have the promise of more information in the future. Creating a schedule that publishes a “series” of ideas or thoughts should prompt readers to stay tuned to your message.
Be generous with your gray-matter. The goal of being a thought leader is to gain a reputation. With a good reputation comes an audience. From an audience come B2B leads.
3. Become Visible
One of the primary concepts behind social media is getting your organizations’ message off of your website and in front of decision makers on social sites they are visiting. As mentioned in early posts, decision makers are now using social network sites MORE than corporate web sites to gather vendor information prior to a buying decision. This means that you must have a presence on these sites to have a chance at getting exposure during this sensitive buying cycle phase (that of gathering vendor information).
To cast your net wide and become visible to prospects, move your message off of your corporate site and onto sites like Facebook, YouTube and LinkedIn. These sites get hundreds of thousands of visits daily by people looking for information. For example, Google now displays video results for searches, and because video has become the #1 tool in social media, many companies are placing their message on YouTube.
People expect a true Thought Leader to be seen AND followed on the World Wide Web…being visible within social networks will promote your ideas to peers and begin generating attention.
4. Set Up Easy Ways for People to Follow (a bread crumb trail back to your company)
A Thought Leader must be easily accessible to develop an audience. Below are some simple, straight forward tactics for increasing your accessibility to prospects:
-Your Blog: Ensure your blog allows visitors to subscribe to posts or comments in a variety of ways (email, RSS, etc). Also provide visitors with the ability to “share” your blog post using “sharing tools” like Digg, Delicious and Twitter.
-YouTube: Create a YouTube channel for your organization. This provides your company with a high-traffic venue to host videos, and allows visitors to subscribe for future video posts.
-Facebook: A corporate Facebook page allows visitors to become a “fan” of your organization. This means they will receive future messages from your company. Even better, their Facebook “friends” will receive messages from your company.
-LinkedIn: LinkedIn not only provides contact information, it hosts forums for discussions and a Question & Answer area. Join these discussions and share your ideas. If visitors find your input useful, they should visit your LinkedIn page or corporate site.
Converting Conversations into New Business
Sales 101 teaches to “ask for the sale”. However, applying this concept to social media, or Thought Leadership, is a bit tricky. Social media, by nature, takes a more conversational peer-to-peer approach to communicating with prospects. That being said, if you never “ask for the business”, you probably won’t get it.
We suggest posting a call-to-action on most of your social media content. This can be as simple as a link saying “click here for more information”. Your call-to-action should, however, take a distant second place in visibility to your primary Thought Leadership message. An aggressive sales message such as “Contact Us Now To Receive X% Off” will quickly detract from your primary message and suggest to viewers that you are NOT a Thought Leader, but instead an organization trying to use a good idea to sell something. Visitors will enthusiastically follow (and perhaps eventually contact) a true Thought Leader, as by their nature they dispense good advice at no charge.
I hope the information in this post will help your company consider its ability to become a Thought Leader. As usual (here’s our call-to-action!), let us know if we can help in any way.
Please subscribe to our blog for future posts on generating new business for your business.
Posted by JasonB on August 10, 2009
Knowing who is talking about the need for your product or service, where they’re talking about it, and what terms they’re using is over half the battle in generating leads for your business online. The fact is, social media changes at the “speed of conversation”, so the only way to stay in the conversation is to have the ability to follow it.
I get asked all the time “Should we be on Twitter?” or “Do we need a Facebook page?” My response always consists of two questions; “Does your target audience look for information there?” and “Do your competitors use it?”
Starting your web marketing strategy with monitoring social communities allows you to better understand where conversations are taking place, by whom, and the topics being discussed. Learn more about your customers’ needs, wants, issues and frustrations. Also observe how many people are visiting AND participating on each site.
By monitoring your competition’s social network activity, you can gain an understanding of what they’re using, AND what’s working for them. For example, if your competitor publishes a blog, but upon review you notice they have very few subscribers and/or no comments on their posts, then their blog has missed the mark and their target audience is finding useful information elsewhere. Alternatively, if you see a competitors’ video on YouTube and it’s been viewed hundreds or thousands of times, it would follow that (1) participants in that industry are using video as a source of information and (2) your competitor’s message in that video has been well received.
The data gathered during your initial monitoring coupled with information gleaned from its analysis should give you the foundation and benchmarks to begin your web marketing program. If you’ve monitored properly, you should now understand what terms are being used by your target audience (now your potential keywords), what websites they are visiting (where you should place your content), and what tactics your competitors are using to achieve their search engine rankings (where they’re getting their message viewed and links to their site).
However, as mentioned above, conversations occurring online change their location and topics quickly. There are no “crystal balls” when it comes to B2B lead generation online. After you’ve launched your web marketing program, you MUST monitor again to see what’s working and what’s not. Monitor the traffic to your site and where it came from. See if your social media tactics and tools are driving traffic, and make adjustments accordingly.
Continue to keep an eye on your competitors’ tactics. One strategically launched press release from a competitor can quickly change rankings on search engines, so frequent observation of their activities is key in out-maneuvering them online.
Your web marketing strategy should not just include monitoring, it should revolve around it. Because monitoring social networks will tell you where to focus your effort, you shouldn’t be spending resources on social media tools that your target market isn’t viewing.
As usual, let us know if you have questions or comments, or if we can help. And please subscribe to receive future posts on B2B lead generation, both online and off.
Posted by JasonB on June 8, 2009
Web video is the fastest-growing content channel on the Internet, the Web Video Marketing Council reports. And while consumer video sites like YouTube make up a sizeable share of the web video explosion, web video is making inroads into B2B web marketing quickly.
B2B marketers have embraced the fact that online marketing channels, because of their lower delivery costs and higher response rates, have a much greater ROI potential than traditional mediums, such as print and television.
Today, the majority of internet users have a high-speed connection, and over 95% of their computers are flash compatible. This means there is a very good chance prospects will be able to easily access web video.
Time is Money – Reading vs. Watching
Simply put, decision makers at business are usually pressed for time. They need information quickly, so they can take action. If they’re searching for a service provider, it is probably because they have an issue that needs a solution now. So given the choice of watching video or reading print, which do you think they prefer?
Web video enables businesses to present key pain points and their solutions’ benefits in an easily comprehendible format, all in minutes. This shortens the amount of time and effort needed for a prospect to become familiar with, and understand, your brand and offering, thus reducing sales cycles.
Forrester Research predicts that websites will start to become video rich. Features like “virtual demonstrations” and “video FAQ’s ” help companies selling complex products and services deliver their message in a manner that is easy for prospects to absorb and remember.
Tracking Provides Insight
Who is interested in what you offer? Who could care less? If someone’s interested, what feature intrigued them the most?
Web video can provide the user experience of television, with the tracking ability of email. For salespeople, this means they can identify who opened and viewed a prospecting email containing a video, and then focus their follow up on hotter targets. For the Marketing Department, this means they can see that “product A” was viewed X% over “product B”, thus future messaging can be tailored accordingly.
Consistency in Message Delivery
Let’s face it, every organization has their “star salesperson”, and those that could use some help. Web video enables you to arm every sales person with the best presentation possible. Sales managers can take ease, knowing that their salespeople only need to get that video in front of a prospect and hit “play” to deliver the exact message they want to convey. Consider this….how many “pitches” do your salespeople make in a given week? 5? 10? A web video can essentially sit online and “pitch” prospects 24/7/365, always delivering the right message at the right time. It can be hosted on popular video sites like YouTube, emailed to hundreds of new prospects, or looped on a big screen at a trade show. Wherever it’s used, it’s consistent, inexpensive, and doesn’t require commission for a sale .
Posted by JasonB on May 29, 2009
In a previous posting, we talked about the general appropriateness of Pipeline Management and Web Marketing in B2B applications. The question you may now have, however, is what component of each will provide the best results for my organization?
How you answer the following questions will help you decide which combination will generate new customers for your business:
Does your industry have long or short contracts?
Some industries live and die by long contracts. Others seem to switch vendors at will. If your industry has a long, complex contract cycle, then the prospecting and nurturing components of Pipeline Management, combined with web video, will work best for you. Prospect to identify decision makers and contract-due dates. Once these individuals and dates are found, switch to a less intense nurture program, placing compelling messaging (web video, for example) in front of those prospects at appropriate intervals throughout their contract term. This will help you stay top of mind with the right person.
If your industry has no contracts or vendor turnover is common, Web Marketing, including social media, will allow you cast your net in the right pond to find prospects. In a world without long-term contracts, businesses are in the “search phase” of the buying cycle more often. This means they’re online, searching around, often looking for peer input about a solution. You need to ensure your business is present during this frequent searching phase. You can do that in a few ways. One way is to publish a blog, which should be aimed at dispensing useful, relevant information that benefits your target audience. The buyer wants to be in control of the vendor/prospect conversation and the more you can place them in the driver seat by providing highly relevant information, the greater the chances they will engage with you.
Search Engine Optimization and Pay Per Click will also work well in the no-contract environment. The frequency in which your audience is looking for a new vendor or solution should directly impact the amount of resources you allocate to being found online. Key word searches and social network monitoring can help you identify how often people search for what you offer.
Do you know your prospects, or still searching for businesses that could buy what you sell?
Simply put, if you know who you’re going after, life is easier and less expensive for B2B companies. The farther you get from the decision maker at a business that could use your service, the more complex things become.
Even with social media, in B2B marketing, the goal is to add targets to your list of qualified prospects.
If you have a list of companies that could use your service or know the profile of a company that could use your services, Pipeline Management is the quickest solution. If your Pitch-to-Close ratio is high enough whereby you can afford a fulltime prospecting resource, go for it. Granted, the better the prospecting resource, the lower your overall cost per sale.
Recognizing that most companies fall somewhere between, I’m going to touch on the other end of the spectrum. Let’s say there are thousands of companies that are a fit for your product/service. Almost every major city could have dozens or hundreds of prospects. If this situation resembles your organization, your first step is to profile your best existing clients. Go after companies like them, using prospecting, in every viable market. Only cherry-pick with prospecting. The rest of your resources should be allocated toward web marketing, as hundreds of decision makers could be entering the buying cycle any given month. It may take you a while to find that person using prospecting, but you can find where that prospect will go to find information online. Identify what industry portals, blogs, forums, and keywords your prospects are using, and place compelling, useful content in their path.
Large vs. Small Value of Client
How much is a new client worth to your company? $10,000 annually? $100,000? Pipeline Management provides direct contact between an organization and a prospect. However, with larger buying decisions, decision makers are searching for peer opinions and input online more than ever. Statistically, peer blogs and industry web sites are used more frequently than corporate websites to gather information about a solution.
If your product or service requires a significant investment from a prospect, then you need to focus more of your resources on web marketing, as again, your prospect will be spending more of their time online, collecting information prior to making a decision. Publishing a corporate blog would be important in this situation, but also participating on other industry blogs and forums will be critical for gaining exposure and credibility. The more industry related sites displaying input from your company, the better.
Web video, the fastest growing social media segment, can be a great tool for companies selling to prospects that have a low annual value. Web video can be paid for once, and then used indefinitely at no charge. It often has no, or very low, delivery cost. It also has a much higher response rate than more traditional marketing pieces. With this tool, companies can present a compelling message to thousands of prospects for very little cost.
Please keep in mind, the scenarios above may not be applicable to all businesses. Every business and industry is unique, and some marketing tools may work better than others in certain situations. That being said, remember this; Step 1 in your decision process of what marketing program to use for your organization should always be to identify your potential buyer, and where they look for information to help assist them in their job. Step 2…put a compelling message in that spot!
Good luck. Comments are always welcome.
