B2B Marketing and The Two-Phase Approach

In B2b companies, sales closures can take anywhere between 3 to 12 months and sometimes even more. Once potential prospects or leads are identified they may require nurturing. A relationship needs to be built between the company and its prospect customer to ensure, their solution is the prospect’s first choice, when they finally decide to buy.

This is why it is essential to adopt a two phased approach when it comes to B2B marketing. Your B2B Marketing plan should ideally focus on generating leads in the first phase and nurturing them in the second phase. While the first phase is wider in its reach and more generic, the second phase of marketing should be customized to suit the needs of the lead you are trying to nurture.

Phase I – To generate leads

Identify your target audience and the channels they frequent, this is key to your reach out – this ensures you only attract serious customers with your messaging. What is the problem your product/solution is trying to solve and how will your target customer benefit? Should essentially be an integral part of your messaging.

Whatever channels you use – PR, Social Media, Advertising – online or offline or both – the focus is to educate and inform your target customers about your offerings. This process of generating demand for your product/solution is critical to your business. This is the only way your company can get interested/potential customers to even inquire or consider your offerings as a solution for their problems.

Some key activities which help in this phase are Press releases, Corporate blogs(establishing thought leadership/expertise in your industry), attending industry events and trade shows, engaging with your target audience on social networks, optimizing your website for search engines, paid campaigns( advertisements, sponsorships) etc.

It is best to engage as many marketing channels as available to reach out to your end customer initially. A review after 2-3 months of engaging these channels will give you an idea on which one works best for your company (which campaigns resulted in more responses, inquiries, interest, lead generation)- you can then put all your effort in maximizing your reach using those channels only.

Create a two phase marketing plan

Phase -II – To nurture the leads, till they are sale ready

All visitors who come to your website or call your office are not people who are ready to buy. Its worth it to spend time with these visitors, who filled an inquiry form on your website or called up your sales rep for more information to understand their exact requirement. Apart from these traditional methods of leads reaching you, there are a number of marketing automation solutions available in the market today, these help your company define a good lead and match those specifications against the visitors on your website – rating people on the basis of their activity on the site (form fill, whitepaper download, request for demo etc.).

No matter what method you use – once you are aware, that the visitor or caller is a good lead but not yet ready to buy, it is time to kick in your second phase of marketing activities.

Once you have an insight into the requirements of the lead, feed him with more information on your solutions that best fit his requirements. This should be done over a period of time. Also, this phase requires going beyond self promotion and researching the interests of the lead, engaging him in a conversation, helping him with his decision making process by being an advisor to him.

Some of the key activities that you can use to engage your lead during the nurturing process are – sending well researched whitepapers in the space, sending articles relevant to your lead  that comment on his domain or on the problem he is seeking a solution for. Send news updates about your company or industry which are relevant, case studies which showcase how your solution solved a similar problem for another client. Or send invitations to Webinars where he can learn more about your solution and how it solves his problem.

Emails are the most preferred mode of communication during this phase of marketing, which requires building a relationship of trust with your prospect. If the lead nurturing program is customized to suite the needs of a customer it also ensures faster sales closures as the marketing content shared during this period helps in the decision making process of the lead being nurtured.

Finding the balance: When we forgot to be social on social media

I recently came across the 2009 Business Social Media Benchmarking study report by Business.com. The report is based on insights provided by nearly 3000 North Americans on their social media usage for promoting their Business.

The report brings forth some interesting revelations……..

To begin with, it shows a visible gap between social media channels used by companies to promote and popularize their business offerings and the channels used by people for searching or seeking business related information.

It also explains why certain social media channels work better than the others when it comes to using social media as business promotion tool.

Nearly 70% of the respondents found that the most popular social media resource for seeking a business related information is to attend a Webinar or hear a podcast. Followed by reader user ratings & reviews and then company profile pages on social media sites and company blogs.

Now compare this with the most popular Business social media initiatives by companies – or to simplify, channels companies use in the social media space to popularize their offerings.

70% of the respondents said the must activity they undertook was maintain company- related account(s) or profiles on social media sites followed by maintaining one or more company blogs and micro-blogging on Twitter. Only 30% of respondents actually voted for producing Webinars and podcasts as one of their priority social media initiative.

Do you see what I meant by interesting revelation? Yes, as marketers we all thought the more we showcase our companies, more the chance of us getting visibility and leads but in the process we forgot that social media is about being social and not merely about self promotion. If you really want to use the social media as a business tool and for self promotion it has to bring value to the reader or seeker of that information.

Think of this scenario wherein there are two companies A & B in the online marketing space competing for the attention of similar kind of social media users.

Company A – creates profiles across various social media networks, channels, gets reviews of its services and tweets about its offerings and related things on twitter.

Company B – decides to do things a little differently – they organizes a free webinar on ‘Most effective tools for B2B Marketing online’ offer a huge list of tips (free know-how) while showcasing their offerings. Record the important parts of the webinar as podcasts and upload onto various channels, so that those who could not attend the webinar also benefit from the interaction. They also started a blog on B2B marketing which discussed various aspects and related subjects showcasing their know-how without really screaming ‘promotional’. All this in addition to creating social media profiles etc. Who do you think will have won more leads and a stronger following using social media? Company A or Company B?

Social media is the biggest reality of our times. You love it or hate it but as we all are realizing or have realized we cannot ignore it. Social media in its entirety is a very democratic forum, of the people, by the people and for the people. It thrives on the fact that anyone and everyone here is for a reason. Everyone has a point to make or an opinion to express. Everyone out there wants to be heard no matter how influential or insignificant they are. So how does one ensure – others hear you in this chaos, take note of what you have to say? It’s simple say something they would like to hear or something they would gain from, something that will get you their attention, their fellowship. Say something that is useful to them.

If achieving social media success is part of your Company’s marketing agenda in the coming year maybe you should change your approach towards social media. Zero in on who you see as your audience in the social mediasphere,  give them what they want or need (fill in a gap), win their trust and then make your pitch.

Wishing you all a socially successful 2010!

'Disclosure' The New Way Of Sharing In Social Media?

The new rule by Federal Trade Commission (FTC), requiring bloggers to disclose to their readers if they received any freebie or money for writing about a product came into effect this Tuesday. The first amendment since 1980, the new FTC Guide Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising, states, “The post of a blogger who receives cash or in-kind payment to review a product is considered an endorsement. Thus, bloggers who make an endorsement must disclose the material connections they share with the seller of the product or service.”

The initial reports had stated that, bloggers who failed to disclose that they had received freebies when they write about a product could be fined up to $11,000 per post.

However, later in an interview to PR Newser, Richard Cleland, FTC assistant director and division head for advertising practices, cleared the air and said “The FTC does not have the authority to impose a fine for a violation to the FTC act. There is a provision that allows for a proceeding in federal court that allows for imposing of a monetary penalty for violation of trade regulation laws. The guidelines are not trade regulation laws.”

We are just three days into this new law and I am yet to see any disclaimers on posts for product reviews. But, what I would like to discuss in this post is how is this law which does not penalize the offenders going to make a difference to how we blog? Or how we follow bloggers? 

Blogging is an integral part of social media and the foundation of social media is based on mutual trust. It thrives on the trust we share with those we follow and those who follow us – friends, colleagues, acquaintances or even complete strangers with whom we manage to build online relationships. Using your personal credibility to influence people who rely or believe on your word, in exchange of cash or kind is definitely a breach of this trust. 

As a marketer, who believes in exploiting every possible medium online and offline to spread the word about my clients and their offerings – It is good have people around on the Internet who are ‘influencers’ in their own right and who do not mind getting an incentive for using their word to influence others. Getting them to talk positively about my client makes good business sense because not only does this bring my client, some good publicity helping create a social reputation but also in many cases brings in convinced customers and assured sales. 

However, as a regular internet user who uses this medium to research and seek the correct information before making purchasing decisions – it feels bad to look back and wonder if the last cool gadget review I read was paid for? I trust some of these reviewers and treat their knowledge and opinions as gospel when it comes to technology. I feel they have the know-how and they can help me make better choices…now I am not so sure. 

When I look at the larger picture I feel this new FTC law (not sure how effective it is going to be and how many people will actually add such disclaimers to their paid for posts/reviews) might just be able to restore some amount of honesty in the way we function both as marketers and bloggers. 

I see that as a consumer I will be more skeptical of taking a review on face value if it comes attached with a disclaimer of being paid for in cash or kind or having any association with the seller. The review might be very critical in its approach but still, I will probably take it with a pinch of salt.

I think I will search further for unbiased opinions and take them more seriously even if the blogger is less influential and less known than the more popular ones I used to follow. 

If as a customer, my reactions are such, as a marketer I will have to make a Choice.

Choice between a blog post which shows it is paid for and one which is genuine and purely merit based.

More than money I would like to depend on the qualities of my client’s offerings when pitching to a blogger, to ensure he posts a review which is genuine and not influenced by the lure of an incentive. Because only these unbiased posts might now bring my client real value and real customers. 

There is another change I am hoping to see as a fall out of this law – Blogging will hopefully go back to being what it was – sharing a truthful relationship with your readers. The top bloggers will have to give up on the lure of incentives if they want to maintain their supremacy and personal credibility among their followers and the social mediaspere. Marketers will have to follow suite, for now – they will have customers who will know if a post is a genuine review or a paid endorsement. 

Moreover, it’s not just blogging, other social media channels will soon and should see such regulations in the near future. Today we know that influential tweeters on twitter are getting paid huge sums of money for tweets that endorse a product, service or person. And if they do not disclose, their one of the many ‘must try’ tweet was paid for heftily…..they have actually cheated those who made them this influential. 

Personally, I see this law as the system’s way of pushing back a trend which was trying to ruin the very foundation of Social Media – TRUST.

Update: December 3 – 6:10 pm

Adding the Google point on this new law -

Google’s Matt Cutts in a conversation with Jeff Jarvis said, “As a Google engineer who has seen the damage done by fake blogs, sock puppets, and endless scams on the internet, I’m happy to take the opposite position: I think the FTC guidelines will make the web more useful and more trustworthy for consumers. Consumers don’t want to be shilled and they don’t want payola; they want a web that they can trust. The FTC guidelines just say that material connections should be disclosed. From having dealt with these issues over several years, I believe that will be a good thing for the web.”