You’re a marketer, we’re marketers. It’s good to share the things we like.

Here are nine companies you ought to know about. They all help marketers make more money for their companies; they’re all great at what they do; and they’re all Velocity clients – which says a hell of a lot about their judgement and commitment to quality.

Is this just an exercise in back-linking and backside-licking? Ummm: Yes. But we’re also massive fans of these companies. We can’t market what we don’t believe in and we really believe in these guys. Get to know them and you won’t be sorry:

EPiServer is the world’s best Microsoft.Net Content Management System. It’s incredibly easy for developers and editors and it does things no CMS even thinks about doing (it’s essentially got a marketing automation platform built in). If you’re a .Net shop, EPiServer is a no-brainer. And if you’re not, it’s still the best CMS out there.

Reevoo is the social commerce platform that helps brands and retailers harness the power of the crowd. It starts with ratings & reviews but goes way beyond that. This company is hot – and for good reason. If you collect ratings & reviews the old-fashioned way (sitting back and waiting), you need to upgrade to Reevoo.

Elateral helps major global brands localize and automate their campaign creation and deployment. Their Marketing Services Cloud helps companies like Coke, Mercedes and Cisco – if you’re big and in tech, FMCG or automotive markets, these guys are for you. It’s what Gartner calls Marketing Resource Management and Forrester calls Enterprise Marketing Management and we call a bloody clever way to get campaigns into the field and through the channel quickly, inexpensively and on-brand.

Econsultancy is the world’s best digital marketing community. They’re publishers of top-notch content like best practice reports and buyers guides; they do digital marketing training and qualifications and skills development for whole teams; they do great events like FUNNEL 2011, the B2B marketing event; and they have a killer digital marketing blog. Not a member yet? Shame on you. We really rely on these guys and use our membership in some way almost every week.

Marketo needs no introduction from us. They’re the hottest of the marketing automation and demand generation and revenue performance management software players. They also publish lots of great content for B2B marketers like the Definitive Guide series.

Baynote does dynamic personalization for e-commerce. It’s software that turns visits into conversions using the wisdom of crowds. Very clever.

MediaPlex is the ad server for brands that want a better return on their online display advertising and search advertising budgets. Unlike the vanilla ad servers owned by the giants, MediaPlex is incredibly customisable and comes with a team of marketing super-geeks who really know how to squeeze every last conversion from any online budget. Nobody gets online advertising better than these guys. Dell and Betfair benefit from it every day.

Smallworlders do intranets for distributed marketing teams – agencies, client-side brand teams and internal comms teams. Their Sandbox platform is ready to go when you are. Some huge names use Smallworlders as a smart, full-service alternative to all those DIY Sharepoint sites that never really work. Need an intranet fast with all the bells, whistles and social media stuff? You just found it.

MobileIQ is a mobile app and mobile website developer (they did the BBC News app). They also own PressRun, the tablet publishing platform that turns print magazines into fully interactive tablet experiences. Incredibly cool stuff, backed by a great team.

Looks like we’re developing something of a Marketing-That-Targets-Marketers practice here at the Velocity campus and sports-complex.

If you do get in touch with any of these excellent companies, say hi from us. No, we don’t get a commission, but we do get a warm fuzzy feeling without the hangover.

© Doug Kessler for Velocity Partners, 2011. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: B2B content marketing, B2B marketing, B2B marketing agency, Lead Generation, Web Marketing

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We’re big believers in the power of a great FAQ section on a B2B website — not just for customer support but for marketing.  So here’s our FAQ on FAQs:

What’s an FAQ?
For some, it’s a list of questions that people really do ask a lot. For others, it’s more like a list of questions you wish were frequently asked.

What’s it good for?
An FAQ does a few things that other forms of communication don’t do quite as well:

1) Let you tell your story in an informal, conversational  way from the user’s perspective

2) Address some common objections – without having to bring them up in the main ‘product’ copy

3) Provide a level of customer support – helping customers use your products and helping prospects make the right decisions

Who should use them?
Every website can justify an FAQ section but not every site needs one. We like FAQs for companies that are introducing a new category or new application because these tend to generate lots of questions about where the new thing fits into people’s lives. We did one for PressRun because they were pioneering a way to turn print magazines into tablet apps.

What makes a good FAQ?
I’m glad you asked that. A good FAQ is clear, well-organised, gives short answers, uses an open, conversational voice and links a lot to helpful content (on your site and — god forbid — elsewhere).

How many questions should I include?
Twelve. Unless you’ve got a really complicated story, then put in as many as you like, organised by topic for easy navigation.

How promotional should I be?
Go ahead and promote, but don’t be crass. The beauty of FAQs is that they feel like a friendly, open, honest view of your business. If you ask stilted questions like, “Why is your widget so popular among IT departments struggling to stay on top of power consumption ?” people will probably figure out that this is not really a list of questions that are frequently asked. It is a brochure in very poor disguise.

Why do so many leading technology brands choose to work with Velocity?
See what I mean?

Can I use my FAQ to pimp some of my content?
Indeed you must. You’ve produced lots of content that’s useful to your target audience. It would be malpractice not to steer people to this content in their hour of need. Again, don’t be crass about it. Make sure the content is relevant to the question.

Can I use my FAQ to bring up sensitive issues I’d rather not flag in the main web copy?
Yep. FAQs can be a really good place to raise and counter a common objection without broadcasting that objection to on your home page. For AppCentral, the enterprise app store folks, we covered issues like, “How is Mobile App Management different from Mobile Device Management?” and “Why can’t we just use the iTunes App Store?”

What if I can’t think of twelve good questions?
It doesn’t matter. Nobody counts.

Really?
Really.

You sure?
Well, some people do. So you might as well make a few extra ones up.

© Doug Kessler for Velocity Partners, 2011. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: B2B content marketing, B2B marketing agency, Copywriting, persuasion, SEO, Web Marketing, writing

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It was only at a recent Econsultancy web project management course (yes, I can definitely endorse it) that “agile”, a meaningless piece of jargon to me before, gained meaning. It’s actually something I’ve known and practiced for years without knowing the name or theory.

For those that don’t know agile project management, it’s a way of getting things done based on repeated executions that steadily gain additional functionality. Imagine a spiral. You have a complete circle. Then you draw a similar but different (larger) circle. And continue.

It’s opposed to waterfall approaches, whereby all of the functionality of a project is the only target, and each part of the project is unlocked by completion of what (needed to) come before it. The waterfall approach gains its name from the look of the GANTT charts that it uses.

Most pieces of marketing collateral proceed, hand-in-hand with a happily obliging agency, as a waterfall. A project is established with a closed-ended contract for Z, and a project is established to get from A to Z. Ideally, Z is the end-all, be-all and everyone will be delighted when Z is delivered.

One of the big problems with this approach is that life intervenes. Somewhere between B and Y, things change. Or things get held up at D, and E can’t even get started. Many projects simply fail, far short of Z. Nothing is shipped. All is lost.

An agile approach would say “the simplest implementation of what we’re after is D. Let’s deliver that first.” Then, all stops are pulled out to deliver D – a fully functional, high-quality product that can be shipped. The client can start enjoying it. It doesn’t have E, F, G….Y or Z, but it does a job.

Then, once D is live, you reassess. Maybe E doesn’t make sense anymore after D is alive. Maybe you find that D is a huge success, but skipping straight to S makes more sense.

Let’s escape the alphabet soup and imagine an example: A company wants to create a demo for a new product. Why not do this in complete iterations? The first executions would be based on a series of professionally commissioned sketches, and used in the blog and on the web-site. Feedback to this demo subsequently influences the product’s development. The second demo is an improvement on the first, and demonstrates the change in the product. And so on and so forth, for a number of iterations.

This way of thinking has boisterous supporting arguments, among the best being Mark Suster’s brilliant JFDI defense. How many marketing departments freeze under the influence of analysis paralysis? Get something good enough out there. Ship it. Then study it. Reprioritize. Renew. Republish.

Even progressive journalists are adopting this kind of thinking. The most influential among them may be the Jeff Jarvis’s and Mike Arrington’s of this world – both of whom argue that journalism works best in an iterative, dynamic process. A news story remains dynamic and is edited and improved again, and again, and again, as facts come to light and understanding grows.

I’m applying this methodology in my work as a digital marketer, and not just on web-site builds. How? By developing fully-formed products that fit the bill (you have to keep clients happy), but then – crucially – studying the product’s performance, reporting on it and coming back with a reprioritization. “Based on what we know now, here is what we do next. Here is how we make things steadily better.”

Critics/competitors will say that this leads to sub-optimal results. “If Z is wanted, why not go for Z?”, they’ll ask. For some things, yes, like the annual report or something. You’re not going to iterate that product too many times.

Most marketing ideas and pieces of collateral, however, would benefit from a project design that delivers what is needed and no more, shipping it, then reassessing before you proceed.

© Ryan Skinner for Velocity Partners, 2011. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: digital marketing, iteration, Web Design, Web Marketing

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There’s some yadda-yadda to go with it but you’ll probably get the idea…

More Project Open Kimono, in which Velocity exposes itself to the elements:

Project Open Kimono Part 1 – the one where we commit ourselves in public (Planning)

Project Open Kimono Part 2 – the one where it all kicks off (Thinking)

Project Open Kimono Part 3 – the one where confidence starts to rise (First results)

Project Open Kimono Part 4 – the one where the trick shots start (Cross-promotion)

Project Open Kimono Part 5 – the one where we share the first month’s results (Reviewing)

Project Open Kimono Part 6 – the one where we toughen up (Soul Searching)

Project Open Kimono Part 7 – the one where we find the world’s best marketers (Segmenting)

Project Open Kimono Part 8 – the one where we show that design isn’t everything (Style v Substance)

Project Open Kimono Part 9 – the one where lead nurturing proves its worth (Marketo)

Project Open Kimono Part 10 – the one where the form fights back (Form v No Form)

Project Open Kimono Part 11 – the one about autoDMs in Twitter

Project Open Kimono Part 12 – Re-purposing and atomising your content

© Doug Kessler for Velocity Partners, 2011. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: B2B content marketing, B2B marketing, B2B marketing agency, B2B social media, digital marketing, Lead Generation, SEO, Thought Leadership, Web Marketing

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Taking the theme “you never get a second chance to make a first impression” to heart, let’s talk first impressions: Landing pages. For many of your potential leads, they’re the first meeting with your company. Either you win enough trust to introduce yourself properly, or they’ll bounce right out.

This 11-slide presentation is all about first impressions: Some of the best product landing pages in the business.*

After the slideshow, look for the list of resources. In the slideshow, either use the arrows at the bottom to navigate or simply press right-arrow on your keyboard.

The Landing Page Resource List

♦ Google tells you how to ensure lightning quick landing pages: How can I improve my landing page’s load time?

♦ Landing pages should have a strong, clear and easy call to action. Check out Smashing Magazine for best practice in design of call to action buttons. For copy, Quora tells you what kind of text works best.

♦ Michael from SAP’s Integrated Marketing tells you how to shorten the B2B buyer cycle with landing pages.

♦ Brendan tells you just how to create a secondary call to action.

♦ Stan and Doug nailed it in the Content Marketing Workbook: You need to make yourself useful. A good landing page screams utility.

♦ Landing pages should be regularly experimented with using A/B testing. Try Google Website Optimizer for an easy way to do this.

♦ Landing pages often make a simple, sharp and absurdly ambitious promise. Many combine imperatives (“go here”, “do this”, “start that”) with a bold claim in the new naive style.

♦ Oli of Unbounce, the landing page specialists, provides a gorgeous 12-part landing page rehab program.

♦ If you like spending money on A/B testing (that is, if you want help to get it right), Visual Website Analyzer is a smart place to put it.

*The landing pages used as examples in this tutorial were pre-selected by the legendary UX (user interaction) community at Quora. The pages were offered as “killer landing pages for products“. As most are B2C, they may need tweaking for B2B purposes, but the principles abide.

What’s your take on the 11 landing pages? Drop a comment.

© Ryan Skinner for Velocity Partners, 2011. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Advertising, B2B lead generation, Demand Generation, design, Landing pages, Lead Generation, Web Marketing

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This 22-slide presentation is all about first impressions: Some of the best product landing pages in the business*, and a somewhat slanted visual introduction to me – all paint pretty arresting pictures. If one topic doesn’t churn your butter, maybe the other will.

After the slideshow, look for the list of resources. Just click on the thumbnail below and away you go; either use the arrows at the bottom to navigate or simply press right-arrow on your keyboard.

The Landing Page Resource List

♦ Google tells you how to ensure lightning quick landing pages: How can I improve my landing page’s load time?

♦ Landing pages should have a strong, clear and easy call to action. Check out Smashing Magazine for best practice in design of call to action buttons. For copy, Quora tells you what kind of text works best.

♦ Michael from SAP’s Integrated Marketing tells you how to shorten the B2B buyer cycle with landing pages.

♦ Brendan tells you just how to create a secondary call to action.

♦ Stan and Doug nailed it in the Content Marketing Workbook: You need to make yourself useful. A good landing page screams utility.

♦ Landing pages should be regularly experimented with using A/B testing. Try Google Website Optimizer for an easy way to do this.

♦ Landing pages often make a simple, sharp and absurdly ambitious promise. Many combine imperatives (“go here”, “do this”, “start that”) with a bold claim in the new naive style.

♦ Oli of Unbounce, the landing page specialists, provides a gorgeous 12-part landing page rehab program.

♦ If you like spending money on A/B testing (that is, if you want help to get it right), Visual Website Analyzer is a smart place to put it.

* The landing pages used as examples in this tutorial were pre-selected by the legendary UX (user interaction) community at Quora. The pages were offered as “killer landing pages for products“. As most are B2C, they may need tweaking for B2B purposes, but the principles abide.

If you want to share the landing page content, but not the Ryan Skinner content, I won’t hold it against you. Here’s the landing-page only content.

Got your own observations on these landing pages, or landing pages in general? Drop a comment. Or leave your guesses about the location of that big chicken….

© Ryan Skinner for Velocity Partners, 2011. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Advertising, B2B lead generation, Demand Generation, design, Landing pages, Lead Generation, Web Marketing

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The project name inside Econsultancy was LALP for ‘Long-Ass Landing Page (or Long-Arse for the Brits among us) and boy does it live up to its name. The page is over 400cm deep, which is longer than the wheelbase of a firetruck, taller than the average totem pole and higher than Neil standing on Stan’s shoulders.

It’s got six bright red calls-to-action after every chunk of text. It’s got two videos, 36 member logos, ten testimonial quotes and twelve bright, green tickmarks. It’s written in a fairly hard-sell tone but with a few winks to keep it within the Econsultancy brand voice.

Why did we want to go all long-ass on this one?  Partly because Econsultancy has a hell of a lot to tell prospective members – and there was nowhere where all this value was stacked up for all to see. But mainly because we studied a lot of landing pages (especially membership-focused ones) and believe it will sell more memberships. The idea is to test everything, so this hunch won’t be a hunch for much longer.

Here’s the page in all it’s glory, but to actually read it, you’ll have to visit the real thing. While you’re at it, become a member of Econsultancy – it will be the best career investment you ever make.

© Doug Kessler for Velocity Partners, 2011. | Permalink | 17 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Conversion, digital marketing, Landing pages, web analytics, Web Marketing

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A cool example from the consumer world:

The Coca-Cola Happiness Truck

Can Business-to-business do this kind of thing too?
I don’t see why not.

© Doug Kessler for Velocity Partners, 2011. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: B2B content marketing, B2B social media, digital marketing, Web Marketing

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I’ve never seen ‘visual persoanlization’ in an out-bound email before but it’s pretty compelling to see the faces of so many friends and contacts looking back at me.  I also like the little scribbled comments like ‘See Simon’s new job’.

The only question is whether the call to action is a bit weak. I wonder if they could have used this technique to get me to do something a bit more valuable to them — like upgrade to a Premium account (“If you were on Premium, you’d be able to ask Jason to introduce you to Richard Branson…”).

Thoughts?

Recognise your face?  Leave a comment.

© Doug Kessler for Velocity Partners, 2011. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: B2B content marketing, B2B marketing, Innovation, Social Media, Web Marketing

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Birth of a B2B Campaign.

The B2B Marketing Manifesto campaign map, kind of

© Doug Kessler for Velocity Partners, 2010. | Permalink | 4 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: B2B agency, B2B content marketing, B2B lead generation, B2B marketing agency, digital marketing, Lead Generation, SEO, Social Media, Thought Leadership, Web Marketing

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