The F word in B2B marketing
March 9th, 2010 <...by Doug Kessler
Is it just me or is typical B2B marketing utterly joyless? Why is that? Why do people who are passionate about carp fishing and bicycling and the Beatles become robots when they sit down to tell the world about the thing they do for a living — the thing they spend a THIRD OF THEIR LIVES doing?
Whatever happened to fun? Don’t you prefer to do business with people who enjoy what they do? Don’t you find yourself attracted to companies that look like they’re glad to be doing what they’re doing?
A good friend of mine, Nick, is an accountant. Boring, right? But he’s incredibly successful and his clients love him and recommend him because, to him, accountancy is the furthest thing in the world from boring. Nick loves accountancy. He loves business and the hydrodynamics of finance and the way small, sound decisions can have big, positive impacts on businesses and the people who care about those businesses. There’s nothing boring about that.
You might sell software that helps trucking companies improve their fuel efficiency. Or a service that helps IT departments protect their databases. Or a piece of middleware that improves the way some ERP application interacts with some other ERP application. But if you love what you do; if you really see the value in it; if you enjoy the challenges or the tech problems or the look on a customer’s face when he gets it… why in the world would you want to bury that passion under layers of business-speak and techno-babble?
Maybe it’s time to lighten up. If you can’t muster some enthusiasm for your work, find another job. And if you can, share it with the people who most need to see your passion: your customers and prospects.
How does fun manifest itself in a B2B context without becoming frivolous? Here are a few ways:
- Light, honest, human blog posts – a blog is a great place to have a bit of fun without jeopardising the hallowed brand values.
- Social media – another place to let your hair down and give the world some evidence that your company is not driven by robots.
- Video fun – quick, short videos are a great way to have a ‘play’ with your story and your brand. Stick them on YouTube, embed them on your site, email them to prospects.
- The home page – you might think this real estate is too precious to muck around with. Actually, it’s the perfect place for showing a bit of attitude and energy. You’ll increase time on site and page views by giving people an open, friendly, accessible story. By having fun.
- Data sheet or case study ’seasoning’ – Even hardworking technical documents can have a bit of fun without detracting from the business at hand. A sidebar, a striking metaphor, a surprising quote…
The list could be endless because the principle applies to everything you do. Before you publish, think “Can this be a bit more fun to read/watch/listen to?”
Of course, done badly, attempts to lighten up can fall flat. That’s probably why B2B marketers tend to shy away from it. The point is not to aim for hilarious. You’ll fail and look silly. Aim for honest and plain-speaking and you’re a lot more likely to hit the target. But for God’s sake have a bit of fun with it!
New B2B buying influences
March 5th, 2010 <...by Doug Kessler
Just came across an excellent post by Matt West of Connected Marketer called A Glimpse Inside the Mind of the New B2B Buyer. It’s based on a study done together with DemandGen Report into the new buying influences in B2B.
The data supports the trends we’re all seeing out there (buyer-driven purchase cycles, the role of content, social media and peer conversations) but it did surprise me how fast things are changing — some of the numbers are a lot higher than I’d have guessed, including:
New Influences in the Buying Process
- 78% of buyers started with informal info gathering
- 59% engaged with peers who addressed the challenge
- 48% followed industry conversations on topic
- 44% conducted anonymous research of a select group of vendors
- 41% followed discussions to learn more about topic
- 37% posted questions on social networking sites looking for suggestions/feedback
- More than 20% connected directly with potential solution providers via social networking channels
Even better: almost 95% of recent purchasers said the solution provider they chose “provided them with ample content to help navigate through each stage of the buying process.”
Cancel that six-figure ad budget. Start generating killer content and spreading it across the web.
Exploiting your tacit knowledge
March 2nd, 2010 <...by Gesu Baroova
We’re always a bit sceptical about the jargon du jour. But one buzzword keeps cropping up and we think there might be a reason: Tacit Knowledge.
Tacit knowledge, first conceptualised by Michael Polanyi, is knowledge that is hard to put into words — the stuff that’s difficult to articulate and transfer to another person.
Companies and individuals accumulate tacit knowledge over time through front-line experience — often they don’t even realise that they have it. In contrast, explicit knowledge can be easily described in words and transferred to another person (think software demo).
Very often it’s the tacit knowledge that gives successful companies their competitive edge – (or ‘sustained competitive advantage’ for jargon lovers).
It can live in a number of places in organisations – but most often with employees who have a way of doing things that works but find it hard to explain exactly how or why.
It’s what goes on in the head of that great salesperson or that unassuming techie who can crack a problem in minutes (but explain how in hours). It can even be dispersed across a group of people doing things a particular way. Like that business unit that consistently outperforms every other– what do they have that the other units don’t?
It’s a knack, its an insight, its in their gut. It comes with experience. The good news is - it can be brought out and shared. It’s hard but not impossible.
That’s where marketing plays an important role. If tacit knowledge is indeed so important to gaining and sustaining that competitive edge, then its marketing’s job to identify what tacit knowledge the company has, where it is, how to bring it out and make it easy to understand – not only to use internally but also to communicate the advantage it brings to customers.
There’s no short cut: marketers need to get up close and personal with these experts. Talk to them about their work, how they go about it day to day, observe them doing it then question them hard (but lovingly). Fall in love with the word “Why”. Find ways to articulate their knowledge. To make the tacit explicit.
This will take time, patience and most of all a genuine interest in finding out your experts’ hidden pearls of wisdom. But one thing is certain - put in the hard work and the results will be worth it.
Image Copyright Zitona
Read this or the world will end
February 18th, 2010 <...by Lucy Longhurst
So Gesu was wondering aloud the other day whether negative or positive headlines are more effective. By negative and positive we mean, respectively, the ones that say things like: ‘Ten things you’re doing wrong in your life’ or ‘How to be even more lovely than you are already’. The first, obviously, grabs you by your insecurities, holds a conceptual gun to your head and threatens total and catastrophic failure if you don’t do what the headline wants. The second tries to be your friend and woos you by offering unsolicited advice/help. But they both boil down to the same thing: fear.
Wouldn’t it be nice if everyone was nice?
Judging by some discussions on LinkedIn’s forums, marketers don’t like the first type of headline. There’s a sense that it’s a) lazy or b) mean. Or both. It’s as though it counts as cheating. Or like someone’s going to call up your parents to tell them you’ve been bullying your audience. But the analytics we’ve done suggest (albeit tentatively) that the scare-mongering titles produce the most click-throughs. We wrote an eBook and alternated between a positive and a negative-tone headline at random. The negative one got the most reads.
This may not be what people want to hear: it would be nice if it was true that lovely positive headlines made people want to read more, and made them think of your product/brand in a lovely positive way. Perhaps it just seems disappointing that people respond more to being scared. But that’s treating people’s response to advertising as being more cerebral than it actually is. It’s much more visceral than that.
People don’t think ‘Aw, how nice. They must be a really good company’. They think ‘Holy Mary Mother of God I need help!’. Then you can reassure them that help is at hand, and in the absence of divine aid your product or service will do the job just as well. Then they’re so glad you can help they’ll listen to you. Being rescued in the nick of time from the Deadly Flesh-eating Serpent of Doom is a better story. That’s why it works.
Hey, we can be nice… sometimes
At Velocity we use both, depending on the tone and the context. If you’re talking to a hard-bitten marketing cynic with his nose spread across his face and a cauliflower ear, the nice approach won’t work. The marble slab where his heart should be just doesn’t want Butlins-style encouragement. Similarly, the sensible guy who just wants to do his job better probably won’t take too kindly to being shouted at. We tend not to threaten people with poisonous serpents*, but you can’t ignore the fact that putting a small firecracker under your audience’s seat does work, so long as you don’t go overboard. Getting too nasty puts people off. But too much nice and you run the risk of being ignored.
*because the last lot escaped and caused havoc on the Underground
Photo credit:
Oabie
In Which The Hero Helps SmallWorlders Sell Intranets To Marketers
January 6th, 2010 <...by Lucy Longhurst
We’ve been working with a great company called SmallWorlders. They produce smart, sociable intranets for marketing types. Their Sandbox™ platform, hosted model and marketing-savvy service teams combine to deliver the best marketing intranets on the planet.
When we started working with them they knew who they were and what they did but only a select few outside the company had any idea. And, as they would probably be the first to admit, their website didn’t shed much light on the matter. But they had a really good offer, so our job was to clarify the company’s positioning and messages, then bring the new story to market, starting with a spanking new website.
The website had to appeal to that most discerning of audiences: brand executives and marketing agencies. So we gave it a cool-as-a-cucumber look, with witty text and quirky graphics, all underpinned by a sleek site architecture. The website had to look enough like a creative agency’s but not so much that SmallWorlders lost their identity. It was about balance.
Here’s what we did:
Tweaked their positioning to focus on marketers –so they weren’t spreading themselves too thin
Recommended packaging up products and service levels – so customers are clear they’re getting what they want
Gave them a new language and terminology – so their products and services sound as exciting as they actually are
Gave them a website that looked and sounded right– so they could walk the walk and talk the talk
Promoted SmallWorlders’ unique approach – through thought leadership pages, laying the groundwork for eBooks, web seminars, white papers, video…
SmallWorlders liked us so much they put us on their Christmas card list:
We love this card
The scribble inside:
‘Stan: Thanks for selling me Velocity’s services…I’m very glad you did!’
–Kevin Cody, MD
Woo hoo! John Watton, B2B Marketer of the Year
November 26th, 2009 <...by Doug Kessler
Deer... headlights...
Woke up in a haze on a strange sofa in an unknown flat. Looked down: dinner jacket. Weird purple stain on shirt. Ah — it wasn’t a dream then: John Watton, our intrepid ShipServ client really did win B2B Marketer of the Year in the B2B Marketing Magazine Awards last night…
It all came rushing back. The ‘gala’ tent pitched somewhere in Moorgate; the Glaswegian comedian abusing the crowd; the backless dress gliding past; the clump of beetroot risotto (see ‘purple stain’ above) propping up a dessicated slab of sea bass; the lights, the music, the envelope please…
When we met John Watton, he didn’t know the difference between PPC and CPM. He thought search marketing involved bloodhounds. Now, he’s reached the pinnacle of his profession. We’re not saying it was easy. We spent countless hours with him, explaining how email really works (Stan wanted to let him go on believing in ‘little digital courier bikes’); why a website is really a good idea in times like these (”Can’t we just have a brochure?” Bless.); what Marketo is and why it’s so powerful (”Those names are called LEADS and, one day, with a little nurturing, they might become SALES” — sheesh).
Okay, when we met him he had done some pretty important marketing jobs for small outfits like Microsoft, Oracle and Ariba. But we’ll always remember the tears of joy that welled up in his eyes when, after long deliberation, we gave him the good news: yes, we saw just a glimmer of something in him (talent: yes; enthusiasm: in spades; but really it was his willingness to learn) and that he had made it on to our client list.
Colonel Tom Parker, once said, “When I met Elvis, he had a million dollars worth of talent. Now he has a million dollars.” (that was a lot then). Well, when we met John Watton, he was a crazy kid with an electric keyboard, a pirated copy of Garage Band and some big ideas. Now, he’s the FUCKING B2B MARKETER OF THE ENTIRE BOLLOCKING YEAR.
This, in a nutshell, is the Velocity Effect. And if you want yourself some of that action, well, take a number*.
[Disclaimer: 99% of the above is false. John came to us fully-formed.]
[Added disclaimer: well, 100%]
As an Agency, we also pulled down a Highly Commended for our snappily-titled “Content and Social Media Marketing Campaign for ShipServ” (hey, it’s how you tell them). If John’s triumph feels like winning an Oscar, our Highly Commended feels like a pat on the head by the neighbourhood wino. (Kidding, judges, we’re thrilled to bits and you look marvelous).
We’d like to say that we created the entry that won John this well-deserved gong (why didn’t we?); but it was Laura Mishima at Marketo, the fast-growing, arse-kicking, lead-scoring giants of Demand Generation. John works Marketo like Jenson Button works a Skoda. The results are now a part of B2B marketing history.
Purple stain aside, we enjoyed ourselves last night and are proud to have played a part in John’s annus (mirabilis).
John Watton reflected in his shiny new gong
*+44 208 940 4099
The Content Marketing Workbook
June 11th, 2009 <...by Doug Kessler
It’s here. The book of the webinar of the movie: The Velocity B2B Content Marketing Workbook. Over 45 breezy pages of good, solid advice about thought leadership and content marketing for B2B marketers like you.
In the era of information overload, Content Marketing is probably the single most important thing a B2B marketer can do. You can have lousy brochures. You can be conspicuously absent from Twitter and the Facebook Widget Group. But if you can get content marketing right, the world (or a highly relevant subset of it) will beat a path to your door.
The Workbook covers topics like these:
- What Content Marketing and Thought Leadership are
- Why you need to get good at them (and fast)
- Why you’re perfectly placed to do it really, really well
- How to pick a topic prospects care about
- How to go beyond the dry, stale white paper
- What we think ‘good’ looks like — lots of examples
It’s free, it’s fun and it’s as fresh as new-baked bread plucked from a hot oven.
Go on and download it. A little bit of insight and inspiration never hurt anyone…
How strong is your B2B positioning?
April 16th, 2009 <...by Doug Kessler 
Positioning is one of the essentials of B2B marketing but it’s very rare to see it done well. It’s a simple idea: as a marketer, you should explicitly manage the place your brand holds in the minds of your target audience so that it’s clearly differentiated from the competition.
The concept gained currency in a series of Ad Age articles in the ’70s by Al Ries and Jack Trout and has kept its place in the marketing lexicon ever since — a sign that there’s something real going on.
A clear, compelling positioning statement is a kind of touchstone for all of your marketing efforts. If everyone in the company knows what you stand for, it’s a lot easier to judge whether a given tactic, headline or video is on-strategy.
We’ve adapted some ideas about positioning from the 1980s work of Bengt Anderson and Steve Trygg, two talented B2B marketers from Sweden, and over time, made them our own. We still use their simple, three-point test that says a positioning has to be:
Relevant –It has to speak to a real need at the front of the prospect’s mind.
Available – No other competitor can ‘own’ the positioning.
Attainable –It has to be credible; you have to be able to deliver on it (and prove you can).
A good positioning passes all three tests. Two out of three is not good enough. Some examples that fail:
“Cures the common cold” – relevant, yes; available, yes; attainable… no.
“The only purple blade server on the market” – available and attainable… but irrelevant.
“The safe car company” – relevant and attainable, but not really available (Volvo built a brand on it and many others chase safety now, too).
And a few examples that have succeeded so well, we don’t even have to tell you who they are:
“CRM without software”
“The computer for the rest of us”
“The open source operating system”
The fact that we struggled to come up with even these three tells you how rare it is for tech companies to create and sustain a clear, compelling positioning.
Sometimes, a positioning can be summed up in a strapline. More often, it takes a bit more than that — and might only have meaning for the target audience (not a bad thing). Here’s a few we prepared earlier:
ip.access is the ‘mobile over IP’ company.
They take mobile network traffic and route it over broadband to cut costs and improve network coverage and capacity.VNL is the microtelecom pioneer.
They’ve re-engineered GSM networks specifically for remote rural communities (just as microfinance did for banking).Psion Teklogix helps companies maximise their Return on Mobility™.
Their rugged mobile computers increase productivity while driving down costs.
We think these ideas pass the triple test for these companies: they’re relevant, available and attainable. And by driving them into the marketplace over and over again, we’re helping carve out a sustainable positioning that, in a world of me-too marketing, is a real competitive advantage.
How clear is your company’s positioning? Can you get it on to a T-shirt?
RSS feedsThere are literally thousands of blog posts, eBooks and articles called, “The 24 Most Common Mistakes in Social Media Marketing”. But no one ever covers the really rare mistakes in social media marketing — the ones almost nobody ever seems to make.
Content Marketing is probably the single most important weapon in the B2B marketing arsenal. This eBook takes you through velocity’s approach to the art. Download it and see what you think…
London-based B2B marketing agency Velocity today announced its acquisition of a new, high-capacity teapot to support its growing team of B2B marketing professionals. The new teapot, a 10-cup, 3.2 litre Globe from the London Pottery Company will go into service…
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