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

The Superbowl is a great reminder of the cost of TV marketing, and there's no denying that a spot on the Superbowl will get lots of attention (many say more attention than the game). And yet, as is always the case, I find myself comparing what that cost and reach gets you when compared to a social media execution. So, if you're thinking about whether or not to spend $3 Million on your 30 seconds of exposure, here are some thoughts about what $300,000 (note: one less zero) would get you.

Superbowl: $3,000,000
New Marketing Labs: $300,000

Superbowl: 30 seconds of ad time viewed by millions.
NML: 6 months of content marketing (blogs, video, audio, webinars) viewed by a more targeted hundreds of thousands.

Superbowl: One shot at your creative
NML: we come up with new creative ideas and projects all the time, versus a one-shot attempt.

Superbowl: one way push
NML: six months of two-way conversation and community building on all the appropriate social platforms, with concerted effort on lead generation and sales prospecting, as well as existing customer loyalty and retention focus

Superbowl: ...
NML: hundreds of new earned inbound links to your site, improved search rankings.

Superbowl: ...
NML: Event enhancement and extended coverage, including media making, promotion, distribution.

So, I might be biased (hint: I am), but I think New Marketing Labs is a better bargain than advertising during the Superbowl. Get in touch. We'd love to work with you.

Photo Credit: Dan4th

For years our family saved to visit the Magic Kingdom and last year we finally got a chance to visit.  It was a wonderful experience for all of us.  In addition to being a wonderful place to visit, Disney provides social media marketers powerful lessons:

Sometimes, I tell people we do digital marketing. Other times, I tell them we do social media marketing. Still other times, I talk about digital channel development. In the end, when I think of marketing, it's all about one or two things: engagement and sales. If we get the first, we hope that translates into the second. If we bypass the first, then the second is still a nice outcome.

Every few days, a blog post comes along to define the space, to explain the terms, to tell people how to look at it all. In some ways, these translations are useful. We're all learning a new language that doesn't yet exist, and yet, is as old as people shaking hands. But while others want to make definitions, I want to make our client partners happy. I want to help them see results for their money. I want their leadership to say, "Wow. This is amazing. Why didn't we do this before?"

Marketing is defined as selling goods or services. Once abstracted, it's defined as making products or services desirable for purchase. Abstract it a bit more than that, add a few digital terms in there, and we fall away from the basics: we're here to sell something.

What's different with how we use social media? Depending on WHO uses it, what's different is that we care about engagement, and we care about relationships that yield more than we care about raw numbers. In old marketing, we asked how big your database was. In new marketing, we talk about how many "very active" people are in your database. We work from that angle, that aspect, and we shine up the opportunity to promote and develop even more "very active" people.

Is it PR? Is it Marketing? Is it sales support? Is it customer service? Yes. Move on.

It's okay to explain, but at the end of the day, I'm getting paid to deliver more customers, more active participants, more rings of that register, and that's what I spend my time thinking about.

You?

Photo Credit: Giant Ginko

With the ever-increasing popularity of social networking sites, there are many companies working fervently to get a social media campaign in place before the trend has passed. Unfortunately, many companies rush out to create a Twitter, Facebook, and MySpace accounts without a clear understanding of the tools, not to mention any sort of strategy or plan. This practice does not lead to a successful social media campaign, and can hurt a company more than it can help.

In order to truly succeed with social media, companies need to focus more on the wants and needs of their audience, and less on the individual tools. Here is a strategy to help determine what social media can do for you:

Forget the Tools

The first step to figuring out what to do with social media is to forget everything you know about social media. Stop thinking about Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Delicious, Digg, and start thinking about WHY people are using these tools. People use Twitter to communicate ideas and share links, Facebook for connecting with Friends and sharing media, etc....

Understanding the concepts behind the tools will help guide you in the right direction.

Start Listening

Next, take a look around the web and see where your audience is living online, by listening, searching through blogs, community sites, and other places where you may find people interested in your product. Pay special attention when you find people complaining about your website or lack of social interaction, and use these criticisms to enhance your overall visitor experience. In a sense, we can think of the social web as the world's largest (and least expensive) focus group.
 

Set Goals

At this point you should have a general sense of what your audience is looking for in the social media space, and you can start to build out some simple goals for your efforts. Goals should clearly state what you hope to gain from social media interactions:

•    Increase conversations within community
•    Increase traffic to landing pages
•    Increase in blog subscribers
•    Decrease custom service complaints
•    (You get the idea)

Then you must decide on how you're going to measure your social media efforts.

Select Tools

Now that we have talked through the audience needs and your goals, we can finally begin to think about the tools again. However, before you start planning the color scheme for your Twitter page, you still need to think about how to get the most out of these tools. One company may find value in an internal community platform, while another may utilize YouTube and Twitter -- it all depends on what you are trying to accomplish, and who you are trying to reach.

So, before you embark on your next social media campaign I would urge you to toss out the tools, and start thinking about how and why your audience will engage with your brand online.

Thoughts?

Photo Credit: Eric Gjerde
 

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

Miriam Kutcher, VP of Marketing at IDC Insights was kind enough to sit down with me earlier this week to discuss the IDC Insights community.  Our discussion covered the community's goals, process, milestones, as well as success metrics for the community.  Miriam does of a fantastic job of talking about how she is linking the community to real sales at IDC! A video of our conversation is below:

To see the IDC Insights community in action, just visit: http://idc-insights-community.com or follow them on Twitter at: @IDCInsights.  You can find the blogging tips presentation that Miriam refers in an earlier post of mine: 10 Tips for Better Business Blogging.

I love the way Miriam measures her community's ROI through the SalesForce integration.  I would love for others to comment on how they are measuring their community ROI (if they are measuring it)?  

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

I've always believed that tapping into passions and open communications are the corner stones of success for digital engagement, community building and social media.   We hear about these successes within consumer focused and B2C social programs all to often.  P&G, Home Depot, Sharpie and H&R Block are all examples as well as New Marketing Labs' own B2C successes with Sony's DigiDads program and Citrix Online's WorkShifting.com.   Yet the same unique strategy of listening, storytelling and sharing that make B2C digital engagement programs a success hold true for B2B, perhaps even more.   They tend to be less well known for the unique nature of B2B which tend to be focused on addressing niche vertical market needs.  
 
Not every household needs an IBM Mainframe or a German engineered, industrial level, self-cleaning toilet system.  But you will find ideas and eventual success within B2B business by encouraging personal and professional interests from within the company's employee base who have a keen drive and unique knowledge to share.  A sense of humor, personal touch and authenticity help as well.

These invaluable resources have no unique title, hold no particular degree, years of training or experience and most often are not part of the communications or executive teams.  They are within your R&D, Customer Service, Product Development, Human Relations, IT, Sales, Training, Financial, Operations, Marketing, Branding and even Legal departments.

Emerging social teams within B2B companies today need to ensure they tap into all resources, divisions, departments and business units to educate and harness these invaluable gems.  Social media is not another department within a company.  No more silos.  Social media can become the digital bridge that runs through every touch point of a company and then out to your customers, partners, market influencers and industry.  This happens just like the energy of one of natures most powerful elements - water.  Tap into and harness it.   Identify those rich giving resources within your employee base - encourage, support them.

How do you tap into the your teams' potential and harness it?

Photo Credit: Post Scriptum