We've been meeting with a variety B2B companies lately.   All of these companies are very successful and market movers within their industries.   As we've been planning out ways to build their digital channel, extend their brand equity online and help grow their business - part of our conversations have lead to storytelling.

At its very core, good marketing is storytelling.  The best marketing programs - service engagements, product experiences take us on an emotional journey appealing to our wants, needs and passions for something larger, deeper, more personal and connected.   

All the while, connecting with their customers - with the best traits of good storytelling.   Grabbing your attention from the start, pulling us in and taking us on an adventure along with characters and situations you can believe in and associate with elements of humor, drama, spectacle, action or mystery as catalysts to spark attention and interest.  All the while cutting through any marketing hyperbole and inwardly focused messaging because good storytelling is about engaging with an audience - tapping into their needs, passions, fears  - not talking about yourself.   

Storytelling Can Become Your Differentiator


Facts and figures, function, specifications and price all still matter, for certain.  But it takes stories to connect with customers on an emotional level.  The motivation to choose one brand, solution provider over another - when the choices are vast.

Now Comes The Creative Content Strategy - Theme Focus: Humor

IBM used Humor to humanize their Mainframe business.  A mainstay and very profitable business line for IBM but perhaps not the coolest or easiest to excite people about.

IBM turned to Tim Washer , a bona fide, professional comedian and storyteller to humanize their complex product line.   I met Tim last month at a Harvard Business School event where he spoke about his role as head of social media productions for IBM.  What first attracted my attention to Tim works was an article in TEXAS magazine, followed by a blog post about this viral video he helped produce for IBM.    And to Tim and IBM's credit, they've measured the impact of these humorous Office like produced videos.  
 

View more presentations from Tim Washer.

More recently, software giant, Infor, launched an interesting marketing campaign against their competitors, SAP and Oracle.   The campaign revolves around an Infor sponsored website called DownWithBigERP.com.

The campaign includes a "Declaration of Software Independence" and describes their competitors as "Big ERP".   And they've  moved their storytelling beyond its main website - establishing its main messaging persona on Twitter and cross multiple social and digital channels.  

To be a successful brand storyteller, you must first understand how your brand's products and services meet a customer's emotional needs.  Even business-to-business products and services fulfill emotional needs:  I will get promoted. I won't get fired.  I will be a hero if this works.
Next, understand not only where your customer will be exposed to your message, but what their emotional state will be when engaged with that media.

Lastly, tell a consistent story about your company, your product or your service regardless of where the message is delivered.  Inconsistencies degrade the power of the story and cause mistrust.  

Every brand has a story.  Tell it well, and you'll give your customers a reason to believe.

Photo Credit: Sean Drellinger

Would you use a free tool to generate leads and sales if it took less than 30 minutes a day?  

I work mostly with large companies and known brands, so it was interesting for me when I recently had several conversations with owners of various small to medium sized enterprises (SMEs), including family members and friends, about their sales processes.

For the most part, the sales cycle was described as long and expensive relative to sale value and the size of the company.  Marketing more often than not ranged from print ads in trade journals to cold calling.  Sometimes we get so close to the business, or to certain parts of the business, we forget that not everyone sees what we see.  So, it was as an afterthought that I asked whether anyone was active on LinkedIn.  None were active.  There were various reasons for this, ranging from technophobia to a scoffing at social media in general.  There was also a generational divide, and a belief amongst the boomer owners that because their peers weren't using this network that there was no value.

I understand that new technology is a pain, and that it takes time away from other things, particularly during the first phases.  But if you use a personal computer, you can figure out a social network.  And, while your peers may or may not be members, you will be surprised to learn potential customers that make buying decisions are.

So, surprisingly, there are a lot of strong companies out there owned and managed by clever folks that for various reasons have not adopted social media for business purposes, be they SMEs or larger companies that typically lag.  To them, I say there is no downside to joining LinkedIn.  In fact, as showing up is nine tenths of success, or whatever that saying is, doing the basics on social networks can have a profound effect on your business.

What impact?  Lead generation.  And, a warm - not cold - relationship with decision makers which can lead to them championing your bid.  So, why not build your pipeline and gain a competitive advantage?  

Try it actively for six months.  Track all the leads generated by your network and also your hit rate.  Given LinkedIn is free, and the only cost is your time (which you need to manage effectively - a separate issue), your net return numbers will be through the roof.

How? Follow the basic protocols.  Think about how you are approaching people.  These are social networks, and you need to be social.  The social networks are like cocktail parties.  If you are going to introduce yourself to someone, it's better to have a mutual friend make the introduction.  If you don't have one, it's going to be hit or miss.  That's just the way it is.  However, as you network, chances are you will find a mutual friend.  It's simple math.

So, some good tips to follow:

1. Create a compelling profile - know what you are trying to achieve, and build your profile around that objective.  Be brief.  Provide contact information.  Don't embellish.
2. Build your network - connect with others that can help you achieve your objectives.  Import your email contacts, but personalize each invitation.  Quantity is not quality.  Do you like spam?  They don't either.  
3. Get the most from your network - ask and answer questions.  Recommend and introduce colleagues.  Learn, create and engage.  Develop a relationship before you ask for something.
4. Manage your social network - join groups, be active, don't be lazy.  But don't waste time, either.
   
   

Want even more insight into LinkedIn?  Check out this fun video:



There is some secret sauce - tell me what works for you?  Can LinkedIn drive sales?  Can you sell through social platforms?

Oh, and by the way, if you want to connect with me on LinkedIn, invite me to your network.

Photo Credit: nanpalmero

During a meeting today, we were discussing the different strategies that companies use in working with their sales and marketing teams.  More often than not, companies provide sales staff with a roadmap for selling and a menu of solutions to sell, and then charge the team to go out there and produce.  That got me thinking that there is a new way of selling that is forming.

After training them on thinking outside of the norm and using new tools and techniques to reach customers that previously were hard to reach and hard to communicate with, challenge those sales people to be innovators for the company.  It used to be that people would talk about "solution selling" as a technique to teach sales people to sell solutions that speak to customer issues and customer returns.  But "innovative selling" is different.  The task is to have the sales staff work with customers and potential customers to identify advances in the current products and/or solutions that are being offered, and to come back with information that will lead the company to the next generation offerings. 

The sales staff, when they truly understand the concept, react in an amazing way because they feel, often for the first time, that their mission it to really lead the direction of the company and to chart the course for the future.  But even more important, from this, the innovations and feedback received directly from the prospects or customers provide an amazing set of insight to company leadership and the product teams that will be charged with development. 

As the digital marketplace continues to grow, the connection between customer and product grows closer as the "middleman" continues to disappear.  This level of innovation-based sales will become a driving force for the next generation of business.

What are your thoughts on this?  Agree?  Disagree?  Let's chat about it.

Photo Credit: Jeremy Brooks

Chris Brogan has been talking about the human element of B2B for some time - as he says, there is another person on the end of that line regardless of whether your customer is a SMB, a large corporation or an individual consumer.

At New Marketing Labs, our partner base is comprised approximately a third each to B2B, B2C and those that are hybrids.  We are asked, however, disproportionately often by potential B2B partners how digital media can be useful for them.  Fortunately, we have demonstrated long term success with our B2B partners, so describing case study details makes this a relatively short conversation.  That said, the more we work with both B2B and B2C partners, the more it occurs to me that our approach doesn't differ according to whether a partner falls into either camp.  Instead once we do our deep dive, the approach is based on the objectives of the partner, and many of the methodologies are the same.  In fact, across social networks and the digital channel, I am not sure there needs to be a distinction along the lines of consumer or business customer focus.  The social network might change, but there will still be a social network, and knowledge of how to engage in that network's community is key.

Given this, it seems we really are focused more on a business to peer model, rather than one which differentiates between consumer and business facing brands.  What differentiates a digital initiative is not whether you are B2B or B2C, it is what you are looking to achieve, e.g. thought leadership, sales, traffic, branding, and so on.

Once you clearly identify your business objectives, it is up to partners like us (shameless NML plug) to put together and implement the plan for you.  We basically do this by finding where your target audience is on the web, and engaging them.  The type and nature of the engagement will depend on the audience, platform and the objective.

For a traditional B2C partner, we seek and find the target audience, focusing on the peer leaders.  It is more effective to engage peer leaders, as there is a ripple or multiplier effect when this is done well.  We have had 100% success in our outreach programs to these peer leaders.  That success is not a given, as there are protocols that have evolved already across the digital channel, and they are different than traditional media outreach protocols.  Hence, across digital, B2C has become a business to peer or B2P model.

For a traditional B2B company, we similarly seek and find the target audience through what amounts to an extensive platform analysis and listening effort.  We find where the CTO, CIT, CSO or other relevant company representatives are 'living' on line, and we engage them.  Ultimately, we find - shock - that said representative is a real, live person, who just happens to share our partner's interest in a specialized product or service.  If there is no such environment - which can happen given the specialized niche nature of some products or services - we just create the environment which allows them to talk about issues relevant to an industry.  Most times, this environment is a very lightly branded one, where direct sales attempts are not made, but where the community members make an association.  The environment is driven by continually fresh content, and the topics ultimately drive enough traffic and interest that leads are inevitably generated and the sales funnel starts to fill.  Many times, this is a bonus, as most branding and marketing folks are happy with the eye balls and the mantle of thought leadership.  In these communities and networks, our partners are engaging their business peers who share very specific expertise and interest.  Because business representatives are finding their peers, in the digital channel, B2B has also become a B2P play.

How to find, create and engage within communities is one of our secret sauces, but across the digital channel we are seeing a fundamental blurring of the line which has separated B2B and B2C business models - yet another demonstrable way that digital media has stimulated real peer to peer conversations and humanized businesses.

Do you see a relationship between B2P and digital media?

Photo Credit: enriqueburgosgarcia

Earlier this week I had an interesting meeting with a partner (remember, we prefer partnering) who was being approached by a "web site and social media consultancy" about how he should be marketing his organization via social media.  The client organization focuses on selling specialized services to a high end B2B market.  The consultancy suggested to him that his organization needed a Facebook Page and a YouTube channel along with a Twitter strategy and blogging strategy.  The client said to me "It did not feel right to me, but each time I asked a question they seemed to have an answer and response."

I wish this was the first time I had heard of a partner being sold like this.  There is no question - NOT EVERY SOLUTION WORKS FOR EVERY COMPANY.  Moreover, trust your instincts as only YOU know your business.  You know your clients.  You know your prospective clients.  You may not know or may be learning the world of social media and digital marketing, but this learning should not overshadow your knowledge and instincts.

For this partner, not only were these solutions the wrong solutions, but in fact a Facebook Page and a YouTube channel might have actually hurt the brand that was created.  In the end, we agreed that he needed to position the organization as thought leaders and initiate a newsletter with them as curator (a newsletter that is an aggregation of interesting industry articles with commentary and observations from the organization) and ultimately look at creating a coinciding blog.  Once the momentum from that has been created, a Twitter strategy would follow suit immediately and from there other social and digital marketing techniques could be implemented. 

The point of this story - there is no magic bullet, no panacea.  There are solutions and opportunities out there to do things differently, smartly, and intelligently using the latest tools and techniques.  But, if you think it does not make sense - it probably does not.  If you think it is interesting, it probably is.  Open your mind.  Listen to ideas.  And then implement the solutions that will work.

Photo Credit: Matthew Burpee

Often at New Marketing Labs we discuss the concept of innovation and its impact on clients and their businesses.  What is interesting to note is that often people are looking at innovation as fundamental changes to the way things are done.  For instance, the introduction of the internet was innovation. As was the car, the plane, the boat, the telephone, the light bulb, and many other inventions that created change in the way we function as individuals or businesses.  People often look at these types of innovative ideas and think - to be innovative we really need to BREAK THE MOLD and fundamentally change things. 

At New Marketing Labs, we realize that while exciting, the fundamental change ideas that create innovation are few and far between and more fail than succeed over the long term.  In contrast, we look at innovation as an incremental change that may seem small in its implementation but is huge in its impact.

For instance, when we launched our event technologies business many years ago, we decided we needed to be innovative to have an impact and be noticed.  To accomplish this, we decided to turn the computers at our registration desks around and allow people to register themselves.  We called it "Self-Registration" and won huge acclaim and accolades and ultimately a significant amount of business because of this "innovative idea" when in fact it was an amazingly simple one - literally just turning the computer around.

When companies are looking to be innovative, they need to look at their current processes and offerings and determine which incremental adjustments would have the largest impact.  To do this, companies need to look from the outside in, not the inside out.  Often, people are looking at being innovative by trying to figure out "What can we do" or "what can we do different".  Instead, ask yourself these questions:

1. What are our clients / customers looking for us that we are currently not providing?
2. Where are our clients / customers spending the most time that is NOT providing the most value and how can I change it?
3. What 3 things that we are currently clients / customers doing as a part of our offering are the most "frustrating" or "annoying" or "inconvenient" for our customer?
   

Once you see the answers to these questions, you will then see where an incremental innovation will have the most impact and provide the most value.  From there, you have the roadmap and the opportunity will be clear.

Photo by: Clearly Ambiguous 

Social media is here to stay.  Social media is a fad.  Which is true?  I say both.

I wrote last week that digital marketing wasn't a piece of the marketing pie, it was a key ingredient in making the pie.  Well, social media is a key ingredient in leveraging digital marketing.  It is called out today as being a separate phenomenon.  Social media is being used as a buzzword. It is hot.  It is a fad.  I think the fad is calling it out as separate from digital marketing.  The long term reality is that social media is here to stay, and it should be embedded in the fabric of the digital marketing blanket, not a throw set on top.  

The ability to reach and engage with customers has changed and will continue to change as a result of digital connectivity - convergence, communities and content will evolve, not disappear.  There are two general observations on this front which have wide ranging implications for business today.

First, there are offline and online sales/marketing campaigns that might appropriately be kept independent of the other by virtue of the business objectives at hand.  However, the first assumption should be that they will be coordinated, and the exception are those times when the message is just better in the Wall Street Journal.  Most PR, marcomms, sales or branding campaigns simply benefit from a coordinated approach, with varying mixes.  And, as social media is part of the fabric of online, unless there are reasons not to include the social elements, they should be a component of all campaigns.  Any determination not to include social elements should be made on an enlightened basis, however, hand in hand with those who bring that expertise to the table, not due to a lack of understanding.

This gets to my second point.  Effective digital marketing requires enterprise wide change.  This sounds like a bold statement, but it really isn't a new one.  Traditional media can cut across multiple business units, including PR, marcomms, branding and sales.  Digital marketing 'bridges' these, as well as other departments such as legal, IT, CRM, product development and research and development.  It is just a different way to do business and interact with customers.  Done correctly, there is tremendous value to be realized through lower acquisition and customer service costs, higher customer service ratings, lower R&D costs, and so on.

Of course, there are legal elements related to most business units, but digital media will keep lawyers busy for a while developing new policies, procedures and precedents.  IT needs to ensure the right equipment, software and support are available, particularly if social media is being used by staff in addition to corporate initiatives.  Customer service through chat or Twitter really works to cut costs, both in head count and in addressing issues before they become crises or risks to your brand.  R&D can benefit from lower costs through crowd sourcing, and product development can benefit the same way through community evaluations.  This is very high level, and the tools for each vary, but they all exist today in the digital domain.

At New Marketing Labs see the challenges faced by large enterprises, both B2B and B2C, but we also have measured partner success gleaned from constructing and leveraging the digital bridge.  Businesses can lead or follow, but the land grab enabled by digital marketing is in the form of developing real relationships with customers.  Once these relationships are built, it will be very difficult for competing others to break the bonds.

What is your take on social media helping to build the digital bridge between different departments?  Have you seen it within your company?  If so, what were the results of it?

Photo by: WildVanilla

Every few days, I wander into Twitter Search and Google Blogsearch and type in a few brands and product names. I look around to see who's complaining about these products or companies. Then, I see whether or not there's been any contact (at least out in the open) by the company or product line in question. 

The good news is that "more often than before," I see someone come to answer a negative comment or a frustrated blog posting. The bad news is that there are still many companies not responding. Many.

This is baseline customer service. A customer or prospective customer is complaining and no one's taking an action. The excuse? Well, they didn't fill out our official web form or they didn't call our 800 number. Do you think that will hold up for long?

How You Can Jump In and Listen

There are two levels of listening available for your company to take with regards to the social media space. You can start with some free tools cobbled together, and then, as you start to see some value, you can consider upgrading to professional tools. At New Marketing Labs, we help companies implement the professional tools, but more often than not, we start them by pointing out how to use the free stuff.

• Build a free listening station base by getting an account for Google Reader. This is a tool built for gathering up RSS feeds (RSS = Really Simple Syndication), and the way we'll build your free listening station is by plugging RSS feeds to your search results into the reader.
  
  
• Go to http:// search.twitter.com and plug in your desired search terms (your company, your product, things like that). There's a syntax to the searching. For instance, if you're searching for our company, I might plug in (in quotes) "New Marketing Labs" OR NML. The "OR" means that it'll return results based on either the name of the company, or our abbreviated name. Repeat this step as often as you want?
  
  
• When you get your search results, look for the "Feed for this query" in the upper right hand corner, after an orange RSS graphic. Right-click that link, and copy that link location. 
  
  
• Go back to Google Reader. Click "Add a Subscription" directly below the Google Reader logo, and paste the search result into that box. Click ADD.
  
  
• You've just entered a search result. 
  
  
• Now, go to http://blogsearch.google.com and type in a search query. When the results pop up, look down to the middle-left part of the screen, to where it says "Subscribe." Right-click the RSS link, select copy link, and then bring it back to Google Reader, where you'll do the "add subscription" and paste step again.
  
  
• After a few tweaks, you have yourself a free listening station.
  
  
• A few other sources: http://www.icerocket.com , http://twingly.com , http://news.google.com

What To Do With These Results

You will suddenly find lots of information. It might take some tweaking and prodding to make it more accurate. Once you've got the results such that you start seeing actionable information, what do you do with it? We recommend making the results available to both customer service and public relations. There are two reasons for this.

In some cases, someone's tweet or blog post will be an actual customer complaint. In other cases, it will be an opportunity for education, or perhaps conversion. This isn't always readily apparent. Making the results of listening a function of customer service overlooks opportunities for corporate storytelling and relationship opportunities. Making the results of listening a PR function means adding lag to someone's already frustrated customer problem. Besides, having two ears on the track is much better, as it will add to response time, opportunities for interpretation, and spread the work load.

Why Buy the Professional Tools?

The problem with the free tools is that they require a lot more work to interpret the data, and a lot more manual hand-holding, and a lot of holes in where to search. They're good enough for starting (and I'm using them for tracking some of my personal projects), but if you want the full picture, features like "group response options" and more, you'll need a professional tool.

We are friends or friendly with most of the professional tool makers in the listening space. We have the potential for bias. I'll list a few of the professional listening tools we're familiar with here, but know that the list isn't at all exhaustive, nor are we advocating one tool over another:

• Radian6
• Scout Labs
• Sysomos
• Crimson Hexagon
• Spiral16
• Nielsen Buzzmetrics
  
  

There are many more. They all have different values, different takes on listening, different mindsets on how to get the job done. I won't break out their values or merits here, but if you're going to evaluate listening tools (or if you want to work with New Marketing Labs and want us to evaluate them), you'd best consider at least these choices above, at the least.

Listening is Table Stakes

These days, using listening tools to field customer concerns as well as to hear potential opportunities for relationship-building is a must. Many companies have adopted at least the free methods, and several are moving into the professional tools. It's a heated space, investing-wise, and many new products are coming out every few months. Not having a listening platform is like not having a customer service function. 

What's your experience been so far? Have you used listening tools to augment your other functions? Are there other departments taking advantage of the information? What concerns do you have? We'd love to talk more.

Photo by: Steve Rhodes

No doubt it means something unique and special for everyone, honoring different traditions and creating new ones.   For my family, it's about the stories - the conversations in the kitchen - catching up and sharing moments among familiar faces, meeting news friends and creating new treasured moments.  

Sure - there may be thoughtful gifts and great food - but it's spirit of giving, the special care & thought behind the gift, the people, the shared conversations, anticipation of excitement that makes the Holidays so alive and full of wonder.

And I ask, what would Christmas be like - if boxes arrived without a story behind the gift?  If stockings were filled with packaging peanuts and a shipping invoice?  Or not being able to see the sheer joy and excitement of a child tearing into a present to find the latest Dr. Grordbort's Atomizer RayGun he's been dying for.  

That tends to be the experience many businesses exemplify online.   There may be some great content (Gifts) and a sense of branding (Tradition), but too often there is no heart, or sense of personal touch or community.   No place to share an experience and have a conversation with the business or others who are excited or have questions about their offerings.  

Businesses need to take a lead from 'ole Saint Nick and infuse a greater sense of spirit, wonder, family and community when it comes to engaging their customers.   Businesses need to instill a welcoming hearth for all to post pictures, videos, share their stories and comments of their experiences.  To be become engaged, listened to and passionate and excited - just as we are when we think about what excites us about the holidays.   Help your customers create and capture the treasured moments in their lives.

Also, thought I'd share some additional Holiday Treats:

• Behind the scenes: NORAD's Santa tracker - CNET News
  
  

• 10 Ways You'll Know Santa's Embraced Social Media - by David Alston with Radian6

• And be sure to say hello to Santa Claus over on Facebook who has over one million followers.

Happy Holidays!

Photo by: kapten

Anyone who has modeled ROI or IRR knows that inputs can be tweaked to get to the desired percentage or return.  That is why falling in love with a deal or program is so dangerous - you can always find a way to get to the return which justifies doing it.

That said, ROI is a necessary part of any business.  I share the philosophy that if you can't measure it, you can't manage it.  Or sell it to your boss, for that matter.

A key in digital media is to understand the value drivers.  The key to understanding the value drivers is to understand the partner's underlying business and business objectives.  Understanding of the drivers and objectives, matched with digital channel skills, will enable the creation of a useful ROI model, based on direct or correlated data.  Cursory understanding or lip service, absent an old school push campaign or click to action, will probably beget a BS ROI measurement.  That is why New Markeitng Labs' most successful client relationships are partnerships, and include inputs from executives across business lines on both sides.

It helps to follow a few simple steps with the partner:

1. Meet with all stakeholders (PR, marketing-communications, IT, sales, branding, C-suite) to make sure you get the skinny on the business, the digital channel objectives, the internal politics, who controls the budget at hand and who is the digital channel's champion.
   
   
2. From this hodge podge of (often conflicting) interest groups, extrapolate what success really means to the partner, and work hard to understand the partner's true objectives in on and off line marketing.
   
   
3. Develop a campaign around these objectives, including a long discussion (up front) on what metrics will be tracked for success, what they will mean, and how they will be reported.
   
   
4. Build a business case - up front - on these metrics which justifies, or not, the investment.
   

This is 2010.  Enterprises are realizing that convergence is here, externally across platforms and internally across business units.  The digital channel is more than banners or social, and it impacts all parts of a business.  Digital is not a separate piece of the marketing pie, it is one of the ingredients.  The proportion of spend dedicated to digital is going up, and so are the eyeballs on the projects.  Without metrics, a partner will ultimately fail to achieve much, and the budget will disappear.

I was at a reception last week where someone told me about a social media campaign he had just run.  He said he had gained x thousand Facebook followers.  Then he looked at me and asked me if that was good.  I had no idea.  And, he didn't either.  Make sure the metrics are relevant.

And, what if the data being measured shows a poor ROI?  Give it ample time, then change the metric or the program.  Fast.  It doesn't take months to turn the digital boat around, it takes days.  If it can't be assessed with any certainty, figure out why and fix it.  If the answer continues not to make sense, change the team.

A recent Babson study reported that 84% of worldwide professionals using social media tools don't measure ROI.  This will change in 2010.  Digital budgets are growing, and so is knowledge and accountability.  I can't measure it, but I know it's true.

What are your thoughts on measuring ROI in social media?

Photo by: Darrren Hester