BtoB Magazine just published their 2010 Lead Generation Guide. The guide contains information about trends, expert columns, market statistics and vendor lists.

Here’s a few of the articles that I found relevant in the guide:

• Social media tips for demand generation
• Maximizing online content to fuel conversations, conversions
• Creating e-mails that generate leads
• Finding new ways to maximize your list
• Telemarketing can still ring up sales
• 7 tips on using e-mail to drive webinar attendance
• Reach customers throughout sales cycle and beyond
• Data and Charts

I recommend you check it out.

Improving marketing performance is not just about implementing the right technology (i.e. marketing automation, lead scoring, nurturing etc.); it’s also about creating a strategic process to involve people in the process of lead nurturing and qualification.

You may have the best content in the world, but there are just some things that must be discovered through a human, two-way conversation. To put some perspective on how the human touch impacts marketing performance, I was interviewed by Christopher Doran VP, Marketing for Manticore Technology to focus on the importance of leveraging personalized outreach along with marketing automation to improve your success.

In the interview I answer the following questions from Chris:

• How can strategic phone outreach impact lead scoring?
• What do you think it’s critical for marketing to learn on the phone that they cannot learn through online behavior?
• What are the top 3 relationship-building impacts teleprospecting can help marketing achieve?
• Can you share an example of something learned in a call that enabled a company to improve their online marketing programs?
• What do you think is the biggest benefit for marketing from Marketing Automation systems?

I’d love your input… Where else do you see the human touch making a big impact marketing performance?

Read the interview: “How the Human Touch Impacts Marketing Performance”

In a recent post I talked about the most important B2B marketing metrics to CEO’s or what I believe CEO’s should be measuring. All too often Marketing is measuring one thing while the CEO’s are asking a question those measurements don’t answer. 

The biggest challenge for marketers is the quality vs. quantity tug-of-war. I think most realize quality leads are what sales wants (and the ones that will close) but the quantity of leads always seems to be top of mind with CEO’s which force marketers switch focus and bring in lots of leads instead of quality leads. What happens next? The CEO doesn’t see revenue (lots of leads don’t equal good leads) and then gets frustrated that marketing isn’t providing any ROI.

So, how do you build a lead generation program that generates quality leads, creates revenue, and meets your CEO’s goals? To answer this question I’ve invited Aaron Ross, CEO of PebbleStorm and the author of “PREDICTABLE REVENUE: Lessons Learned From Growing Salesforce.com’s $1 Billion Sales Machine”, to join me for this complimentary webinar on Thursday, June 10th.

During the webinar you’ll learn: 

• How to build a lead generation machine that will predictably generate leads month-after-month
• How to ensure sales follows up on every lead
• The two things CEOs care MOST about that you must understand
• A simple 6-step call agenda to help salespeople convert new leads into qualified opportunities

Get the slides (no registration required)

Register for the webinar.

When:
Thursday, June 10
11 AM PST / 1 PM CST / 2 PM EST (60 minutes)

I hope you’re able to join us. Please leave comment with questions that you’d me to ask Aaron during the webinar.

Lead generation remains the top reason most companies exhibit at events and tradeshows. And B2B marketers are constantly looking for ideas they can use to drive more ROI from their events budget.

I came across this helpful post by Mike Thimmesch on 100 Trade Show Lead Generation Ideas that’s worth checking out. The following is a sampling of Thimmesch’s tips that I though were useful:

4. Go to fewer trade shows, but put more effort into booth staff preparation and promotions for each remaining show.
6. Track leads to determine and expand in the shows with the best ROI
9. Get a booth space closer to the hub of traffic, or by a bigger competitor
28. Have your sales people invite their prospects to visit your booth and set up meetings in advance
29. Send an email invitation to the show’s pre-registered attendee list for this year, and the registered attendee list from last year
30. Use social media to reach more attendees
32. Post your trade show schedule on your website with a link to sign up for appointments
45. Giveaway something useful to your target audience
46. Have a contest for attendees in your booth

After reading the list of 100, here’s a few more tips I would add:

1. Follow-up quickly after the event. Think about your follow-up process before the event happens not afterwards.
2. Create event follow-up content pieces, talking points and email templates for your sales team to use to add value and continue the conversation in a relevant way rather than “pitching” everybody.
3. Develop a nurturing track that for event attendees connects with the theme or the content of the event. Try to do this at least for a few months at minimum.
4. See the event as a conversation (or conversation starter) not a acampaign. Don’t stop the dialog. Brainstorm ways you can keep the dialog going.

What other tips would you add to this list?

Related posts:
Lead Generation tips for Tradeshows Conferences

We didn’t start the group to become the biggest; we just wanted it to be the best.

Amazingly, in less than a year, the group has grown to over 5,062 members with hundreds of discussions and thousands of helpful comments. With a such big community, It takes time to manage the spam and to keep the group focused but Brooke Bower (our fearless group manager at InTouch) is doing a great job. In fact, Brooke was written about in this post Go for Brooke by Michael Benidt and Sheryl Kay.

Thanks to all of the members whose contributions make this group a success. I can’t wait to see what another year will bring.

Join the B2B Lead Gen Roundtable on LinkedIn

Corporate Social Responsibility, or CSR, is a term for describing activities and initiatives that businesses undertake as a means to connect with or give back to the communities in which they do business. CSR can range from charitable programs and community service, to environmental-impact awareness. The goal of CSR is to ensure that companies uphold and promote high ethical standards as they simultaneously pursue profits.

While CSR activities have long been part of the business fabric, companies have wrangled with the best approach for communicating these efforts. To some, making the public aware of charitable work is an excellent way to extend visibility and create goodwill for a company. However, to others CSR and PR should be kept separate to avoid the perception that a business is engaged in such activities for only self-serving purposes. It’s essential to understand the latest trends and regulations that companies now must consider as they strategize about their CSR activities.

Why Bring Attention to “Non-profit” Work?

The rise toward greater transparency has impacted all aspects of how companies are expected to communicate to their public. Investors, employees, customers, stakeholders and the media are all seeking more information on the companies with which they’re directly involved or have interactions.

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This focus on disclosure most often involves business activities and financial performance, but to many–especially those in the local community–the degree to which a company gives back to the greater good can be a deciding factor in how that business is perceived. Given this reality, one could argue that companies that fail to communicate their CSR work could be doing themselves more harm than good.

Whether a company is a global behemoth or a mom-and-pop, the value of communicating one’s hidden assets cannot be understated. In many cases, the value of a business is expressed as much by how it treats its employees, the programs it has for environmental sustainability or its charitable associations as it is its revenues or sales projections. Companies that are looking to gain an edge on the competition can actually benefit from making such hidden assets more widely visible.

Tools and Tactics to Communicate CSR

The press release remains a very effective way to communicate CSR initiatives and milestones, especially when companies make a fundamental change to the way they do business or address community concerns. Companies that make an effort to address social inequities and obstacles interest the media. A news story detailing such initiatives can create a great deal of social capital in the minds of consumers.

But it’s not necessary to rely solely on traditional marketing to communicate CSR causes. Some companies use social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook to communicate their CSR activities in real time as well as to garner feedback from the online community. Tweeting during a community cleanup or posting a status update heralding an upcoming food drive is a simple and effective way to communicate a company’s CSR initiatives.

Lastly, many companies are now building CSR-focused pages on their corporate websites where they are able to post press releases, news articles and even create interactive “calls-to-action” that highlight CSR programs and encourage engagement among all interested parties. Given the importance of maintaining a CSR presence online, many companies are turning to outside resources to help keep consumers informed about their CSR practices.

Will CSR Disclosure Become a Government Mandate?

On January 28, 2010, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission issued interpretive guidance on existing SEC disclosure requirements. The guidance indicates that companies must disclose to investors the physical impact that climate change has on assets and the consequences of regulations curbing greenhouse gas emissions. This is still not an official policy, but it clearly suggests that the SEC believes that environmental impact–a non-financial metric–may be material information to investors and should be properly disclosed. This is definitely the blossoming of a trend, no doubt.

CSR’s Shining Stars

Some companies are very successful at communicating their CSR activities by marketing a socially responsible service or product. Zipcar, for example, uses its website to promote the company’s positive impact on the environment as well as its cost-savings to drivers. Zipcar’s mission to reduce dependence on personally owned vehicles resonates with socially minded pragmatic consumers looking to cut pollution and lessen the consumption of oil. It’s estimated that each Zipcar takes 15-20 personal vehicles off the road.

Ben & Jerry’s earned a reputation for incorporating socially responsible and sustainable practices directly into their business model. When Ben & Jerry’s pledged only to use RBST-free milk in their products, they paved the way for others to follow suit and pressured the FDA to allow companies to label their products BGH (Bovine Growth Hormone) free. The company’s pledge to use hormone-free milk in their products and their strong support of family dairy farms garnered excellent media coverage both locally and nationally and cemented their reputation as a socially responsible business leader.

Starbucks is another example of a company that leads the way in showcasing their CSR efforts. The website includes a full “responsibility” page that features updated CSR practices and initiatives in community, environment, ethical sourcing, wellness and diversity. The responsibility page includes embedded video content for each area of CSR concentration, among them an extended clip about how the company spearheaded a grassroots effort to aid the city of New Orleans post-Katrina. There’s even a featured post each month written by a Starbucks employee detailing their personal social responsibility goals.

CSR Activities Worth Pursuing and Promoting

Most people associate charitable work, like fundraisers, volunteer programs and sponsorships, with CSR. All of these activities are suitable for promotion, not only for added visibility, but also for increasing participation in the events themselves. But charitable work is just one element of CSR. Environmental sustainability, public education and employee safety all fall under the umbrella of CSR and should be incorporated into a company’s overall communication effort.

Tips to Gain More Visibility for CSR Efforts

• Build exposure into your website: A company’s website can be an effective tool to communicate its CSR efforts. In order to demonstrate an authentic commitment, it’s important to embed pieces of CSR stories within each page as well as to have a dedicated page within the site that details CSR efforts.
• Use social media: Social media is a tremendous tool for issues advocacy. Through its use companies can better understand the concerns of their communities and direct their CSR efforts to address those concerns. Companies that are in touch with their communities and actively assist or lead efforts to better them (globally or locally), can use social media to organize and enlist others in their cause. This grassroots action can build supporters who take it upon themselves to help communicate the company’s efforts.
• Tap employees: Often employees are just as powerful as consumers in getting the word out about a company’s business practices. Encourage your employees to engage in the company’s CSR efforts. They’ll feel good doing it and will likely tell others about it.

It is often the little details that customers recall even more than the product they purchased or the service they received. Little details that customers notice, and that makes them feel good about not only making the purchase, but making the purchase from you, is a significant part of the overall customer experience. Here are six ways to go above and beyond good customer service and boost customer loyalty.

1. Attentiveness
   
   New York restaurateur Danny Meyer is a master of detail, and his employees are trained to notice, and when appropriate act on, even the tiniest scraps of information they observe or discover about a guest. If you happen to mention when making a reservation that it’s a birthday dinner, the manager will make it a point to come to the table and extend Danny’s birthday wishes to the appropriate person. If a staff member overhears a conversation in which one of the guests mentions they either like or dislike something, within minutes, everyone who might come into contact with that guest knows about it. And they tailor your food accordingly, too.

   
   For those to whom attentiveness is important, the experience one has when dining at any of his restaurants is a pleasure that is second to none. It’s no wonder that his restaurants regularly battle with each other for top ranking in the “Most Popular” list on the Zagat guide. His book, Setting the Table, is a treasure trove of wonderful business lessons that all businesses could model in one way or another, and it’s a great read to boot.

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2. Recognition
   
   Greeting your customer by name is a very meaningful and treasured detail that adds greatly to the way they experience doing business with you. If your office works by appointment, the receptionist should make sure he knows just who will be walking in the door next, and immediately greet them with eye contact, a smile and “Good morning, are you Mr. Morgan?” if she isn’t sure if it’s Mr. Morgan, or simply, “Good morning Mr. Morgan” if he is. One of the things a friend of mine always mentions when talking about her plastic surgeon is, “I love going there because they always know who I am and are happy to see me.”

   
   There is nothing more flattering, there is nothing that makes someone feel more special than receiving a warm, friendly greeting by name when walking into a place of business.

3. Personalization
   
   Don’t we all have a story about the coffee shop waitress who doesn’t ever need to be told how we like our iced tea, or the diner where the cook starts to make the same thing you always order the minute he sees you walk in the door? The salesperson who sends gifts in pink because she remembers that’s your favorite color. The florist who never puts a particular flower in an arrangement because they remember it makes you sneeze or the wine shop that calls you when a certain vintage comes in because they know you’re partial to it. These experiences add value, and they also instill an enormous amount of loyalty.

   
   Is there anything you and your staff can do to ensure your customers know that you not only pay attention to their preferences, but remember them and cater to them for each and every transaction?

4. Consideration
   
   Do you or your staff regularly walk customers to the door and open it for them as they’re leaving? Do you or your employees regularly help customers carry their purchases to their car, particularly “women of a certain age” or anyone who appears frail or a bit unsteady on their feet? If you have a waiting room and some of your clientele are older, do you have chairs that are a bit higher than usual and have arms on them so they are easier to get in and out of?

   
   When customers buy something that includes an outside component that’s integral to its use or makes it more user-friendly, do you ask if they have that thing or if they still have enough of it left? For example, if you sell birthday cakes, do you have candles to go with it? If you have a pediatric dental practice, do you have a little stepstool in the bathroom so the child can reach the sink? If you have a business that makes keys, do you have something that could be put on the key to identify it so the customer will always remember what the key is for?

5. Appreciation
   
   What do you do to show your customers, your clients or your patients that you appreciate them? After all, there are probably several other businesses that do what you do. Do you show the customers who choose to patronize you that you value and appreciate their business? Feeling appreciated is an experience that is universally meaningful.

   
   You could invite special customers to a sale a day earlier than the general public or you could have an invitation-only event one evening and give “VIPs” an additional X percent discount. You could gift-wrap their packages or periodically give them that thing they often buy for free. If you’re product is a service, offer a free check-up.

   
   Always be sure to let them know that you are extending this extra to them because they are a valued customer and you want to show them that you appreciate them. And one of the easiest and most overlooked ways to show them appreciation is to send a handwritten note on lovely stationary.

6. Delight
   Put a smile on their face and in their heart. You can do something special for their child, their parent, their pet. Make them laugh, thank them in a showy way for a major purchase, have a contest or a drawing for something fun that they could share with family and friends. Serve warm, freshly baked cookies in your office, give their child a bunch of balloons, offer a nice snack mid-afternoon.

The sum of the parts is greater than the whole.

Meaningful, memorable, fun, unusual and unexpected experiences influence the way customers perceive you in general and feel about you in particular. These little details are so easy to overlook, so tempting to brush off as unimportant. But add a number of seemingly minor details together, and you end up with something of far more value than you would without them.

It’s the little details that keep a customer coming back over and over, it’s the little details that cause a customer to rationalize paying more because she feels she is getting more, it’s the little details that keep people talking about you and recommending everyone they know to you.

Anyone can do the big things right; it’s the little things that differentiate one business from another and that influence customers to choose one over the other. Often, small-business owners cut out the little details when times get tough, and this is a big mistake. Attentiveness and recognition cost nothing, nor do personalization and consideration.

Sydney Biddle Barrows is a professional speaker, business consultant and a recognized expert on the Customer Experience. Her most recent book, Uncensored Sales Strategies, was co-authored with Dan Kennedy. Sydney’s information product–The Experience Formula: Your Step-by-Step Guide to Designing Your Own Customer EXXXperience, guides professionals through the process of creating a unique and compelling Customer Experience.

By Geoff Williams

Toyota, which stands to lose at least $2 billion due to problems with accelerator pedals sticking and floor mats that can become entangled with the gas pedal, isn’t the only one suffering from this corporate disaster. The automaker’s global recall is affecting other businesses, whether negatively or positively. Either way, this recall of over 9 million cars, including the 437,000 Prius and Lexus models that were just added the list, is creating a chain reaction. Here’s a look at some of the major winners and losers.

Loser: Toyota Dealerships. Consider all the Toyota dealerships that will have a worse 2010 than expected — and it’s not like 2010 was necessarily looking great for auto dealerships anyway. With the brand melting in the spotlight and pilloried by late-night comedians like Jay Leno (“It was a beautiful day in Los Angeles. It was so nice that a lot of people walked to work–at least the Toyota owners”), these dealerships are the businesses most obviously and directly affected.

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Of course, they may feel the effect way beyond 2010. Online, the evidence that Toyota’s reputation has suffered is indisputable. Before January 21, the buzz around Toyota’s brand was 81 percent, according to the marketing agency Zeta Interactive, and now it’s 70 percent, behind several competitors: Kia, GMC, Chevrolet and Subaru. In January, if you did a search on Toyota, the five most popular words you would find attached to it was “value,” “strong” and “like.” Now, it’s “recall,” “recall list” and “halts sales.”

Loser: Toyota Parts Suppliers. When orders for Toyotas inevitably drop, any company that supplies parts to Toyota–or cars made under its corporate umbrella, including Lexus and Prius–will take a financial hit.

Winner: Lawyers. “We’ll see a lot of direct lawsuits,” predicts Bunim. “[Several] deaths have allegedly been attributed to the problem, and some people will try to tie property and vehicle damage to this defect.”

Attorneys, in fact, are gearing up for a prosperous 2010. “A few law firms have already put up Web sites. There’s one that has the URL of ToyotaLexusRecall.com,” says Bunim, “and it’s basically just telling people, ‘Hey, if you want to sue Toyota, hire us.’”

Loser: Online Car Businesses. Toyota’s problems are also affecting companies such as LeaseTrader.com, an online auto lease transfer marketplace (as in: you want out of your lease, they’ll try to help you get out; if you want to take over a short-term lease with lower than normal rates, they’ll help you get in).

The recall isn’t sending shockwaves through LeaseTrader.com, but the executives have certainly noticed the issues. “We placed a temporary hold on all transfers involving the Toyota vehicle models involved in the recall,” says John Sternal, vice president of marketing communications.

Sternal says the Toyota vehicle recall affects about 7.4 percent of their marketplace inventory, and they’ve received about 20 calls in the last week from people who were going to take over a Toyota lease but have now requested another car.

Still, Sternal isn’t worried. “We’re keeping a close eye on what’s going on,” says Sternal, “but I don’t think there will be a severe negative effect on us. Toyota has built up a really good brand reputation, and while some people will put them under the microscope for the near future, we’re still confident that the public will be confident with Toyota.”

Winner: Insurance Companies. The legal profession isn’t the only one that will benefit from litigious consumers, says Bunim. He predicts irritable auto insurance companies will want to be reimbursed by the beleaguered car company if they think they paid out for an accident Toyota should taken the fall for.

Loser: Toyota Warranty Business. Another peripheral industry soon to lose money in the wake of the Toyota’s debacle: any business related to Toyota warranties, says Mark J. Bunim, an attorney, insurance expert, and chairperson and managing partner of Case Closure, LLC, which specializes in mediating between two parties that want to compromise before going to court. “Who will want to give an extended warranty on a Toyota?” asks Bunim. “Even if the car is fixed, people in the industry will have doubts about these models’ ability to function effectively.”

Winner: Rental Companies. Rental companies also stand to profit–at least in the short term–from Toyota’s problems, says Bunim, since plenty of cars are going to be stranded at dealerships, waiting to be fixed.

When will the ripple effect end? Nobody can say, of course, but Bunim admits that down the road, perhaps in months or years to come, he is half-expecting to mediate between some angry, sue-happy consumers and one very big, humbled car company.

Geoff Williams is a frequent contributor to AOL Small Business. He is also the co-author of the new book Living Well with Bad Credit.

Advice for the Toughest Selling Tasks

Posted by Paul Christ

May 25, 2010

Cold-Calling 101 (Inc. Magazine)
How to Close a Sale (Inc. Magazine)

As we discuss in our tutorial on The Selling Process, selling can be looked at as a series of activities salespeople undertake as they work to build relationships with customers.  Of the eight activities we highlight, two are especially critical and often separate star salespeople from average salespeople.

The first of these critical activities is Generating Sales Leads, where the salesperson must locate potential sales prospects.  As we note in the tutorial, there are several approaches to lead generation. However, for most salespeople, no matter which method they use, this aspect of their job is often the most time consuming.  Additionally, it is common for success to come only after a significant amount of rejection.

The other critical activity is Closing the Sale, where the salesperson attempts to get the buyer to commit to a purchase.  This is often cited for being the most difficult sales activity to master.  Closing requires the salesperson be skilled in both verbal persuasion and in the ability to interpret customer behavior in order to determine when a closing attempt should be made.

To help address these critical selling activities, Inc. Magazine has published two useful stories.  One story deals with cold calling, a particularly challenging, though often effective, form of lead generation.

Your chances of making a productive cold call will be vastly improved if you have knowledge about the companies you are calling and the industries they operate in. Read annual reports, news releases, websites, and any news reports you can find about the company.

The other story discusses techniques and philosophies for closing the sale.

For successful businesses, the sales process has become a communications process that evolves through a series of decisions both you and your customer will be making. At each decision point, you will be achieving mutual understanding and establishing clarity about what you are saying to each other and how you will proceed.

Several experts are quoted in these stories.  Which of statements made by these experts seem most surprising?

Image by mag3737

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Finally Our Weblinks Collection is Updated

Posted by Paul Christ

May 20, 2010

When KnowThis.com first launched in 1998 it was, at its core, a directory site.  During these early days of the Internet directory websites were quite common.  Made popular by Yahoo, directory sites contained a collection of links to other sites that, in most cases, were located, critically reviewed, and categorized by someone who had expertise in evaluating such sites.  Directory sites were popular with Internet novices, who at that point in time represented quite a large percentage of Internet users.  Since most novice users were stepping into unfamiliar territory and did not understand how to effectively search the web, directory sites were among the most visited sites during the 1990s.

Of course, this was before the introduction of intelligent search engines that scour the web for information using software robots instead of humans.  But back in the 1990s, humans did most of the heavy lifting when it came to locating information.  This included KnowThis.com, which was specifically created for the purpose of offering links to marketing sites.  As we mention on our About page:  “In November of 1997 a conversation between a university marketing professor and a university business librarian brought to light the lack of a centralized Internet resource dedicated to the field of marketing.  This conversation was the starting point for building an online directory of marketing resources.”

We accomplished this by developing a site with hundreds of categorized links (see our Site History page for images).  This was our bread-and-butter from 1998 until 2004 when we expanded into new areas such as offering tutorials, marketing stories and blog postings. Unfortunately, we have been so busy with these other areas that our Weblinks Collection has been neglected for much longer than we would like to admit (think years).  So today, we are pleased to announce that our Weblinks Collection has once again been updated.  We have trimmed a large number of dead links while fixing those that were giving errors but are still alive.  As of today our Weblinks Collection contains over 800 links.  Over the next few weeks we expect to enhance the Weblinks Collection as we have stored a large number of quality sites that are not currently included.

To go along with the Weblinks Collection update, we have also updated our unique search function enabling users to only search those sites found in our special Weblinks Collection.  In this way, a search is targeted to sites that, for the most part, are marketing specific or at least have a decent chance of offering marketing information.

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Marketing Strategies For Late-to-Market Products

Posted by Paul Christ

May 18, 2010

Many marketers believe one of the worst competitive positions to be in is being a late entry with a new product or service.  That is, competitors have gotten a head start entering a market giving these early entrants what some competitors think is an insurmountable competitive advantage.

In actuality, the advantage given to early movers can be overcome even by firms that do not enter until well after a market develops.  This may be especially true if the market is characterized by one or more of the following:

• The market consists of products that offer relatively similar advantages with no one product having features that are superior to others.
• Growth in the market is relatively slow but is expected to pick up speed as more customers begin to recognize the benefits of the product.
• Customers who have already purchased do not have a strong overall satisfaction level with existing products.
• A sizable percentage of product distributors have not added the product to their inventory or are not opposed to expanding their offerings by adding more selections.

In most cases, the key for late entrants is to accept their position and recognize that becoming the market leader is probably not in the cards (though not impossible).  More likely, the late entrant will do well to be a strong second-tier or niche player.  While not commanding the market position of the early entrants, second-tier positioning can still be quite profitable, at least while the market is growing.

For products that are late to market, several strategies could enable a successful run.  Here are a few:

Low Price Advantage
The most obvious strategy for late entrants is to gain market share by entering at a price that is lower than that established by existing competitors.  If customer loyalty is not particularly strong then a product offering similar benefits but with a lower price will be in a good position to capture a healthy percentage of the market – at least in the short-run.  If a company plans to compete on price they should brace themselves for retaliatory reaction by competitors, who will not take kindly to seeing sales migrate to a new, lower price competitor.  The early entrants are bound to respond by offering additional incentives to the market.  If the marketer has the strength to sustain a price battle, this strategy could help establish a foothold.  But the risk is high.

Create or Suggest Added Value
Since battling on low price is often a risky strategy, a late-to-market product may find greater long-term success by offering other benefits beyond those available in the basic product.  For instance, the company could develop features that provide extra value, such as easy-to-access service centers, attractive product packaging, product training, and extended warranty plans.  Alternatively, instead of creating value through the addition of new features, the marketer could promote features that already exist but may not be fully exploited.  Examples may include promoting the new product’s compatibility with other products sold by the company or directing attention to advantages in the manufacturing process (e.g., locally produced, state-of-art manufacturing process, dedicate work force, etc.).

Exploit Ease-of-Use Advantages
The classic Product Life Cycle concept suggests new products appeal to different user groups at different times with a small market of early purchasers (called innovators and early adopter) willing to experiment by purchasing the product well before much larger markets (called early and late majority) make the commitment.  Buyers in the early stage often seek benefits that are more personal in nature (e.g., status within their peer group), while customers in latter stages of adoption are often drawn to products offering significant usage benefits beyond those of existing products, such as how it can save them time or money.  However, this group is often opposed to a steep learning curve in order gain these usage benefits.  For this group, showing how easy the product is to use in order to start experiencing these benefits may trump other advantages offered by competitors’ products.

Non-Price Incentives
Another strategy for market latecomers is to promote incentives not offered by other firms in an attempt to gain buyers’ interest and confidence.  As we discussed, competing directly on price is often a short-term solution since competitors are likely to respond in-kind.  Yet the marketer could consider offering financial incentives that may not directly reduce price but still lowers the overall “cost of acquisition.”  For example, offering trade-ins for older products, money off coupons for future purchases or free add-on products and services will make the buyer examine the cost of the whole package in relation to what competitors are offering.  Other incentives can also be considered especially those aimed at the customer who lacks confidence in purchasing the product.  These incentives could include money-back guarantees, free installation and easy-to-follow instructions.

Outsmart and Outsell Competition
Finally, instead of spending significant funds in efforts to differentiate a product from those already on the market, why not just try being more creative AND work harder than the competition.   Investigate opportunities that have not been exploited by competitors, such as selling via new sales channels.  Or brainstorm to develop new promotion methods that are likely to capture media and buyer attention.  

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The Store-Based Video Rental Business Fads Away

Posted by Paul Christ

May 12, 2010

No. 2 Rental Chain Hollywood Video to Close (MSNBC)

The Product Life Cycle has been a valuable planning tool for marketers for many years.  As we discuss in this tutorial, the PLC is useful because it suggests “that products go through several stages of ‘life’ with each stage presenting the marketer with different challenges that must be met with different marketing approaches.” For marketers, the key concept underlying the PLC is in understanding that marketing tactics must change as a product’s PLC position changes. But the PLC is not only applicable to specific products (e.g., a certain brand), it can also be used at a broader level to analyze entire markets, where changing conditions affect all firms offering products within a particular product category.

For example, consider what has happened to the retail video rental business.  Renting videos through retail stores started in the late 1970s and the early 1980s when movies were first introduced on video cassettes (i.e., Introduction Stage of PLC).  During the 1980s and the early 1990s entrepreneurs saw opportunities in this emerging market and launched retail outlets renting cassettes to a growing market of VCR owners.  Soon retail chains entered the picture and the video rental market took off (i.e., Growth Stage of PLC).  When growth slowed down in the mid-1990s (i.e., Maturity Stage of PLC) these stores got a sales boost with the introduction of DVD movies (i.e., Extending the PLC).

But the video rental market would see their market suffer in the early 2000s as new technologies emerged.  First, in-store movie rentals slowed because of competition that offered new distribution options, such as direct shippers (e.g., Netflix) and kiosk machines (e.g., Redbox), enabling customers to place orders and make payment over the Internet.  Next was the real market killer, the evolution of on-demand digital movies available through cable television services and Internet websites.  By 2005 these combined to drastically reduce demand for in-store video rental (i.e., Decline Stage of PLC).

As this story makes clear, things have now gotten even worse.  While Blockbuster and a few other retail stores still remain, it is highly unlikely the store-based video rental model will be around much longer, thus bringing to an end the PLC for this product category.

Movie Gallery Inc., the owner of struggling movie rental chain Hollywood Video, is planning to close its remaining stores and liquidate as consumers are increasingly getting movies through the mail, vending machines and high-speed Internet connections.

Where do Netflix and Redbox fit within the PLC?  Are they likely to soon face the same fate as store-based video retailers?

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Tracking Research Draws U.S. Government Interest

Posted by Paul Christ

May 08, 2010

Consumer Groups Say Proposed Privacy Bill Is Flawed (New York Times)

As many seasoned marketers will readily admit, in just a short time span the Internet has transformed all areas of marketing.  Its impact can be seen in such decision areas as:  managing customer relations (e.g., offers marketers the ability to communicate rapidly with customers); product distribution (e.g., makes every company a potential global marketer); sales promotion (e.g.,  presents new ways to offer purchase incentives); competitor research (e.g., allows for instant connection to multiple sources of competitive information); and customer tracking (e.g., permits marketers to monitor customer activity).

In fact, some marketers take the position customer tracking is the Internet’s most significant contribution to marketing.  Customer tracking provides insight on customer activity that was previously a time-consuming process to obtain but is now available in an instant.  Through tracking research website marketers know what attracts customers to their site (e.g., used search engine, clicked on advertisement, etc.) and how customers behave when they are on the site (e.g., what pages they viewed, what promotions they responded to, etc.).

While marketers love the information they obtain from tracking, as we discuss in our What is Marketing? tutorial, tracking for marketing purposes is a much criticized research gathering method with many concerns raised regarding potential violation of customers’ privacy rights.  The critics of Internet tracking have been stressing these concerns for many years and it now appears their voice is being heard.  According to this story, the U.S. Government is considering implementing new rules that would have important implications as to how marketers track customers.

What is intriguing about this issue is that the potential new rules not only limit tracking over the Internet, it also would apply to other tracking methods such as information gained from customers’ use of loyalty cards during in-store purchases.

Essentially, companies would need to alert consumers whenever any information the companies are collecting can identify a single person or a single computer or device.

Significantly, the bill also requires companies to advise consumers even when they are collecting any of that information off line, which could include data houses and direct marketers.

As noted in the story, consumer groups do not seem pleased with the proposal.  What appears to be their main concerns and why do some marketers feel these concerns are overly exaggerated?

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This week marks the opening of MarketingSherpa’s Seventh Annual Search Marketing Benchmark Survey. If you’re involved in search marketing, please take the next 5 to 15 minutes to share data and insights via the following link:

http://www.surveygizmo.com/s/269878/k0tnd

As a thank you for your time, we are offering a complimentary Executive Summary Report that includes key charts and insightful commentary. You will also be invited to attend a free webinar to review highlights from the study.

In the last year, the search landscape has seen a number of dramatic changes. Between social media’s continual growth, search innovations like mobile search, real time search, and search personalization emerging and gaining importance, accompanied by increased competition, search marketers face greater challenges than ever before.

How are marketers perceiving and reacting to these new changes in search? This year’s Search Engine Marketing Benchmark Report will be stacked with information on balancing search and social media to achieve optimal success, as well as sections dedicated to search innovations.

In the meantime, let’s take a deeper look into the social media content that will be covered in this year’s report:

Applications and benefits of social media integration with search campaigns

-> Search Performance

The search landscape is growing more competitive, and this is partly due to social media. Social media has added another venue in which marketers must up their SEO ante, so to speak.

What tools and tactics are most effective these days in SEO? How many marketers are integrating social media into their search efforts? What are my industry’s current performance benchmarks? These are just some of the questions this year’s report will answer for you.

-> Search and Social Objectives

There are a number of target business objectives that can be achieved with social media, and improving search rankings is a popular one indeed.

Other popular objectives include:
o Increasing website traffic
o Increasing lead volume
o Driving sales revenue
o Improving brand reputation and awareness.

These objectives, of course, can also be achieved with SEO. The key is to balance your SEO efforts with social media in order to achieve success towards these common objectives.

Sections in this year’s report will include the effectiveness of search and social against key target objectives, and insights on search marketer’s greatest success stories and challenges.

-> The Impact of Social Integration

When used properly, social media can have a great impact on SEO. One of the most effective and most difficult SEO tactics is generating inbound links.

With social media, you can generate highly relevant inbound links to your site by attracting links from blogs, forums, social networking sites, and other social media channels.

Another great benefit search engine marketers are reaping from social media is increasing the number of listings that get displayed for their brand in the SERPs, pushing their competition to lower rankings and increasing the click through rates on their own listings.

We want to find out what specific goals are being most widely targeted for integrating social media into search campaigns, and what impact social media has had on results. As responses to this year’s survey start to come in, we’re becoming more anxious to see final results.

Stay tuned! The 2010 Search Marketing Benchmark Report is scheduled for release soon!

Please feel free to tweet or post the following invitation:

Search marketers share your insights. Take the 2010 Search Marketing Benchmark Survey http://www.surveygizmo.com/s/269878/k0tnd @MarketingSherpa

As a reporter, I will contact a company through any means necessary. I prefer using a phone number or an email address for a specific person — but sometimes I’m stuck filling out a ‘contact us’ form.

I’ve filled out more contact forms than I’d like to admit. I really dislike them. About a quarter of them do not work, and I’m never sure if my messages reach my intended audience: the marketing department.

Some common problems I’ve seen:
o Errors after clicking ‘submit’
o Tiny message length limits (such as 200 characters)
o Bounced emails in response
o Claims of ‘improper formatting’

Even worse is after receiving an error, you can lose your entire message. I learned long ago to write messages in a separate program and to copy-and-paste them into forms, in case I need to resubmit.

I’m just a reporter trying to get a marketer on the phone — can you imagine if I was a dissatisfied customer? My frustration level would skyrocket. If I was a potential business lead, I’d likely leave and never return.

‘Contact us’ forms are similar to social media in that they provide a way to receive customer feedback — which is very valuable. Broken ‘contact us’ forms send a clear message: “we don’t care about your feedback. Don’t contact us.”

But I’m sure that’s not true. You must care about your customers’ feedback. Their satisfaction keeps you in business.

So if you have a minute, check your website’s contact forms. Make sure they’re flexible, easy to use, and most importantly, that they work. A small effort can go a long way in preventing customers from walking away for good.

Editorial note: The following is an excerpt from Maximum Marketing Minimum Dollars: The Top 50 Ways to Grow Your Small Business, it has been edited for length.

Which would have a bigger impact on your intention to buy a particular product–reading about it in an ad or trying it out first hand? The fact is, real-life experiences shape our opinions and buying preferences more profoundly than what we see in advertising or hear from our friends. That’s the driving force behind the new wave of “experiential marketing,” which uses events to bring customers into one-on-one contact with a product to create memorable experiences. It’s the difference between telling people about the features and benefits of your product and allowing them to experience these benefits for themselves.

Experiential marketing generates brand recognition.

For example, a small-business owner who invented a new toy was elated when he was finally able to convince a major chain to carry it. Unfortunately, the product languished on the shelves and it soon became clear that it was doomed to be overlooked in major retail stores where it was surrounded by thousands of other products with well-known brand names. So the inventor began taking booths to craft shows to allow children to play with the toy. Once parents and kids had an opportunity to really see and experience it, his invention was a hit. Soon he added more experiential marketing venues, including Girl Scout meetings and other kid-friendly events across the country.

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It’s a low-cost way to introduce a new product.

The key to a successful experiential marketing event is to choose a venue that will attract the right crowd (such as a mall, fair, or even street marketing), or create your own event and invite your best prospects. Events that integrate entertainment with the opportunity to test a product are extremely well received. In a Jack Morton survey, 84 percent of women said they’d bring family or friends to a live marketing experience, and 75 percent said they’d tell others about the experience. The event itself is what separates experiential marketing from traditional “sampling,” and it’s the fun and excitement of participating that entices customers to make purchases.

It makes a one-on-one connection between your customer and product.
The cliché “seeing is believing” rings true when it comes to experiential marketing. When the Jack Morton survey measured the effectiveness of experiential marketing across 14 product and service categories, in 11 out of 14, consumers said they preferred to learn about new products and services by experiencing them for themselves or hearing about them from someone they knew. By giving your prospects an opportunity to interact with your product in a memorable way, you create a strong emotional tie and lay the groundwork for a loyal customer relationship.

(When done properly) it encourages customer trial.
When it comes to successful experiential marketing, smaller events in intimate settings are generally preferred over large events with too many people. Not only do smaller events allow you to get close to your customers and maximize one-on-one interaction, they also give everyone a chance to try out your product. Face-to-face dialogue and the ability to share the experience with others are among the top factors consumers say make an event most interesting to them. So avoid the crush and give all attendees a positive experience with your product. And since smaller events cost less, you’ll save money, too.

It’s guaranteed to build buzz.
Experiential marketing has an extended impact by virtue of building word-of-mouth. Three-quarters of the consumers surveyed by Jack Morton said they would be extremely or very likely to tell others after participating in a live marketing event. Furthermore, eight out of 10 people who participated in an experiential marketing event in the past said that they told others about their experience.

Measurement Issues With Location-Based Video Networks

Posted by Paul Christ

April 13, 2010

The Incidental Video Screen Is Seen by More Viewers Than Prime Time (New York Times)

Video screens showing television programs are popping up everywhere.  Screens are now found in such venues as gas stations, elevators, doctor’s offices, and public restrooms.  The screens are so ubiquitous that new research suggests a huge number of people are regularly exposed to video screens outside the home.  And this does not even count computer screens.

The implications for advertisers may be significant as they try to determine where to direct their promotional dollars.  This  advertising channel, dubbed location-based advertising, is currently dominated by specialized networks that carry programming and handle the delivery of ads.  However, as this story mentions, these location-based programming networks have a problem.  The problem is how to show advertisers how many people view these networks since an industry accepted audience measurement does not yet exist.  The apparent logjam seems to rest with Nielsen, the leading auditor of television viewing data, which has only now begun to recognize the special viewing situations faced by these networks.  This issue is critical because a standardized viewing measurement is needed to enable the networks and advertisers to determine advertising rates.

The networks have been pushing Nielsen to create a standard measurement so that they can better sell their ad time to agencies. “The agencies ask, ‘Why are you better, why should I take some money and not run it on traditional television or somewhere else, and run it with you?’ ” said David Leider, chief executive of Gas Station TV. “If there’s no legitimate measurement behind it, there’s no point for an agency or client to look at it.”

This story presents both sides of the argument for having standardized measures.  Which side appears to have the stronger position?

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How Marketers Are Ambushing Event Sponsorship Restrictions

Posted by Paul Christ

April 10, 2010

Stopping Ambush Marketers During the World Cup (Time)

Soccer’s biggest event, the World Cup, is an attractive promotional opportunity for marketers worldwide.  And like other major global sporting events, such as the Olympic Games, the organizers of the World Cup like to control the promotional activites taking place during this month-long event.  They do this mainly by requiring marketers to pony up big dollars for sponsorship rights, which give the sponsor exclusivity over promotion of products in a certain product category.  With such agreements in place, one would think those not on the sponsorship list would not bother running promotions during this event.  Well, not exactly.  There is always ambush marketing.

As this story discusses, ambush marketers look to take advantage of the attention surrounding high-profile sporting events by using techniques that make it seem they are sponsors, but in reality they are not.  In the past, ambush marketers have used methods such as erecting large billboards near event venues and, at last year’s British Open golf championship, floating a boat offshore containing an advertiser’s logo.  Considering the often unconventional techniques used for ambush marketing, some may think only smaller, unknown companies would engage in this type of marketing.  Yet, several famous marketers have also engaged in these techniques such as Nike, Pepsi and Boss.

In many ways, this is a cat-and-mouse game.  Though, one would imagine the creativity of ambush marketers will continue to be on display despite attempts by event organizers to stop them.

After Nike upstaged official sponsor Reebok at the 1996 Olympic Games by covering Atlanta with billboards, the International Olympic Committee called time on the practice. The result: the organizers of the 2012 Olympics in London have been required to make sure legislation is put in place to help secure key advertising sites — from city-center billboards to spots at the major airports and train stations — for the use of official sponsors.

Are there any ethical issues with the marketing techniques used by ambush marketers?

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What It Takes To Sell To Big Companies

Posted by Paul Christ

April 05, 2010

Sales Tips From the World’s Toughest Customers (Inc. Magazine)

Sales prospecting can be a tough business.  Depending on the industry and products sold, turndowns by buyers can exceed 80% of sales calls made by a company’s sales force.  In fact, in some industries, a salesperson may be viewed as successful if they convince less than 1% of their prospects to make a purchase.  But salespeople, who are effective in finding buyers, understand that much of their success comes down to a simple concept – know your customers.  Unfortunately, while this may seem relatively obvious, this concept is often lost on small businesses owners whose primary skills may not be in sales but must face the difficult task of getting major companies to purchase their products.

For smaller firms looking to establish their products within a large company, this story is worth reading.  It offers insight into the purchasing activities of several large firms, such as Coca-Cola, Northrop Grumman and Dell, and offers concrete suggestions for what it takes to do business with these firms.  While these suggestions may be identified as being specific to each of these companies, the advice given here can be applied to a broad range of potential buyers.  The suggestions can help a seller not only know about the workings of big companies but can provide clues on how to customize a sales presentation to meet a prospect’s needs.

What not to do: “The biggest no-no is not knowing our competition. People will say, ‘I’ve got this really exciting proposal I want you to look at.’ I’ll say, ‘Go ahead; send it to me.’ Then they send it to me by FedEx. It happens every day. Just be smart. Know the company you are pitching to and know their likes and dislikes.

What other “tips” not mentioned by the insiders quoted in this story are essential for sellers to know when trying to sell into large companies?

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The purpose of B2B marketing and lead generation is to help the sales team sell; however marketers can often get so wrapped up in driving campaign activity they seem to forget it’s about driving sales conversion and helping the sales team achieve better results.

Join me and Jeff Thull, author of Mastering the Complex Sale, Second Edition and President/CEO of Prime Resource Group, on Thursday, April 8 at 1:00 PM CST for a complimentary webinar where you’ll learn how to help sales:

• Establish relevancy, credibility and trust
• Receive executive sponsorship and privileged access to the organization
• Build and prove the financial case for your solution
• Ensure the solution is prominently on the executive’s dashboard
• Win more predictable and profitable sales

Register to attend Executive Level Selling: Connecting at the Level of Power and Influence

If you have any questions on this that you’d like me to specifically ask Jeff during the webinar please put them in comments.

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Going beyond the sales lead

NBC reported 58.2 million page views of its Winter Olympics programming on the mobile web and iPhone app through the first 11 days of coverage.

If the thought of your prospects fixing their attention on your company anytime and anywhere through their mobile phones sounds appealing, you’ll be happy to know that the options for reaching consumers on mobile devices are growing broader and less expensive.

Two of the most engaging options in the mobile marketing bag of tricks are mobile apps and mobile websites. A year ago, the two options were very different, and choosing the right one for your business might have been a bit of a no-brainer. Now mobile apps and mobile websites are more similar in the features and user experience they provide to marketers and consumers, and the decision to build an app or a mobile website–or both–involves more thoughtful consideration.

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Mass Market or Niche Appeal?

Apps only work on the phones they are designed for. Mobile websites, on the other hand, can be designed to work on any device with a web browser. In fact, the iPhone, the Palm, the new BlackBerry, and Google’s Android phones all support an open source framework. If you’re interested in mass market appeal for your content, mobile websites are the way to go. If you’re only interested in reaching a niche market represented by usage of a particular device and operating system, a mobile app is a good choice.

What User Experience Do You Want to Provide?
The next thing to consider when choosing between an app and a mobile website is your desired end-user experience. Mobile apps can provide more feature-rich functionality–at least for now–because apps can work seamlessly with a device’s native applications in more complex ways, and apps don’t necessarily require a connection to the internet to function. This means that apps are better for utilities and games. For example, a banking application that allows users to find ATMs via GPS data native to the phone offers a better user experience than asking the same users to go to a mobile website, type in a zip code and navigate through one or more pages.

Mobile websites are better choices for delivering content, catalogs and shopping functions since that content is accessible by search engines. It’s also easier to drive advertising traffic to a mobile landing page than it is to drive traffic to an app store to complete a download before visitors are able to interact with your content.

Since the number of mobile phone browsers that support richer versions of HTML is increasing rapidly, expect mobile website functionality to rival app functionality in the near future.

Starting Costs and ROI
Mobile websites are available on a number of do-it-yourself platforms, including mobisitegalore.com, wapple.com, and movitas.com. Sites like wordpress.com and drupal.com have mobile capabilities and plug-ins for mobile enhancements to existing websites on those platforms. More professional-grade mobile website platforms are available from netbiscuits.com and iloopmobile.com.

There aren’t any do-it-yourself options for mobile apps (unless you’re an expert programmer with extensive device experience and knowledge).

Mobile apps and mobile websites can both be expensive to develop from scratch, and aside from the DIY options, there’s another key difference in startup costs. With mobile apps, you need to develop a new app for every type of device you want to reach, while just one mobile website can reach anyone with a device that has web browsing. So if you have mass marketing goals, developing an app could be the more expensive choice.

Lastly, mobile websites tend to cost less to maintain over time. That’s because to change an app you (probably) have to hire a programmer, and you need approval from the app store. Plus, every time a particular device is updated, you’ll need to change your app accordingly.

If you’re just beginning to create your mobile marketing footprint, most experts agree that it’s better to start with a mobile website. That’s because well-designed mobile sites can easily be turned into apps later. If you just have to reach iPhone users, find a programmer with a good reputation, multiple deployments and good ratings from users.

Every day, I hear from someone who calls themselves a “software salesman” or an “insurance saleswoman,” and I wonder why they pigeonhole themselves this way.

And then it strikes me: They are product peddlers as opposed to salespeople.

What do I mean by this? Well, a gifted salesperson can sell anything to anyone. Not because they have great products but instead because they are supremely confident about themselves and know they can charm and intrigue virtually everyone they come in contact with.

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And the way they perform this magic act, of sorts, is not by touting themselves and bragging about how wonderful they are, but instead by revealing a genuine and unrelenting interest in others. They care about the following:

• What makes their prospects tick.
• Why they are passionate about their work.
• What they value about business, family, life and friendship.
• Who they are as “regular” people, as opposed to their executive titles.
• What their dreams and goals are.

When people recognize that you are truly interested in them, an extraordinary chain reaction occurs. First they think about themselves. Then they think about you, and they appreciate that you have genuine interest in the traits and attributes that make them unique.

They feel engaged. They feel connected to you in a way no sales manual ever discusses or recognizes. They feel a certain intimacy–that is the most powerful sales builder that can ever be unleashed.

None of this is manipulative. It’s based on a legitimate interest in and involvement with others that builds a bridge between you and the client. A bridge of faith, trust, mutual interests, even friendship.

When you obtain this level of intimacy, you can sell the world. But paradoxically, it doesn’t come across as “selling” because there is no product or service at the forefront. Instead, there is a personality, an intelligent and compelling human being, developing a bond with another.

How do you know when you have achieved this special status with your customers and clients? Consider the following checklist:

• They turn to you for advice on issues outside the realm of business.
• Your relationship evolves into a form that cannot be defined by an order or a transaction.
• It is clear to you that the other person truly enjoys your company. Being together transforms from a “have to do” to a “want to do.”

Do you still want to think of yourself as a “real estate salesperson?” Now might be the time to delete that product from your title.

When Vanessa Troyer and Chris Farentinos launched MailBoxes4Less.com in 2000, they didn’t give much thought to how they’d exit the online mailbox distribution company.

All that changed in 2006. Recognizing the huge growth potential in manufacturing high-end mailboxes for builders and retailers, the Los Angeles couple decided to channel all their efforts into a second business, Architectural Mailboxes. This meant selling the highly profitable MailBoxes4Less.com to free up the necessary funds. 

It wasn’t a scenario most entrepreneurs envision when they think about exit strategies.

“No one was sick,” says Troyer, 45. ‘We didn’t want to retire. Investors weren’t saying ‘I’m done.’ There was no reason to sell the business.”

But sell the couple did, garnering more than $1 million for the venture they’d founded eight years earlier with just $25,000.

It was the right move: Today Architectural Mailboxes continues to grow, with products in every Lowe’s store in the nation and more than half of Home Depot’s locations. Amazon carries 140 of the company’s products. And, Troyer says, the business is on track to grow by 38 percent by the end of 2011.

Hoping to follow in Troyer and Farentinos’ footsteps? Experts say the best way to ensure you leave your company when and how you want–with money in hand–is to start plotting your exit strategy now, even if you’re still developing the business plan. Sadly, study after study shows that a majority of entrepreneurs have no exit strategy whatsoever in place.

If this sounds familiar, don’t fret. You’re about to get a crash course in preparing for two of the most common ways to successfully exit a business: turning the reins over to a relative and selling the company.

Succession Planning vs. Selling to an Outside Party

Planning your exit strategy is about making “a proactive series of decisions” instead of merely reacting to unexpected events like a heart attack or an economic downturn, says Ted Thomas, managing partner of Sun Exit Advisors, a business transition planning firm in Chicago.

“It’s almost like the military: Before you go in, you want to know how you’re going to get out,” Thomas says.

The idea is to put in writing when you see yourself leaving your business, how much income you need to walk away with and how you see yourself transitioning out. Do you envision yourself eventually downshifting to consultant? Growing the business to sell it? Grooming an heir to take your place?

If your hope is to keep the business in the family, experts say the time is now to have the tough conversations with your spouse and children about whom you want to succeed you–and if they’re even interested in the job.

“If you have buyers coming to look at your business, one of the first things they’re going to ask is ‘Have you talked to your family about this?’” says Terry Mackin, managing director at Generational Equity, a Dallas-based firm that helps middle market companies plan their exit strategy. “They don’t want to come into a situation where the family is at odds about whether the business should be passed along.”

“One of the greatest mistakes people make is assuming that a family member will want to or be able to take over the business,” says Jack Garson, business attorney and author of How to Build a Business and Sell It for Millions. “Rather than trying to fit a square peg into a round hole,” he says, sometimes the best way to provide for an heir is to “sell the business to somebody else and give the money to your kid.”

If you do see selling as your exit, you need to focus your energy on creating a business that buyers will want. This means working on your profitability, competitive edge (so you stay profitable), sustainability (so you survive economic downturns), scalability (so the business grows) and corporate culture (so you hang onto good people), Garson advises.

“If you’ve got all this,” he says, “people will be banging down the door to buy the company.”

Finding the Right Advisors

As glamorous as selling your business may sound, entrepreneurs who’ve been there will tell you that it’s an incredibly stressful, time-consuming process fraught with dozens of moving parts and truckloads of paperwork. If you don’t hire the right financial, legal, tax and business advisors to help shepherd the sale through, you’re doing yourself a great disservice.

“The mistakes you could make just getting the tax part wrong could cost you 50 percent of the proceeds of the sale,” Garson says.

Along with an accountant and attorney well-versed in business sales and acquisitions, as well as a personal wealth manager, you’ll probably want an experienced professional in your corner who can broker the deal–namely, a business broker or an investment banker.

“If you’re selling the business for $500,000, you’re using a business broker. If you’re selling the business for $50 million, you’re using an investment banker,” Garson says, adding that the cutoff point between the two falls in the $5 to 10 million range.

Besides helping you set a realistic asking price and assembling the necessary marketing materials to entice sellers, brokers and investment bankers will discreetly contact potential buyers on your behalf.

“In general, sellers do not want anybody to know that they’re selling the business,” says business broker Sally Anne Hughes, owner of Hughes Klaiber a New York brokerage firm for midsize businesses. “If a client finds out the business is for sale, they might be concerned. Employees might also be concerned. Vendors might be concerned that they won’t get paid.”

To find a reputable broker or investment banker, get recommendations from your business advisors or entrepreneurs who’ve sold their business, Garson says. Be sure to vet any brokers or investment bankers you’re contemplating working with as they predominantly work on commission.

“Ask them the average size and price of the businesses they’ve sold,” suggests Architectural Mailboxes’ Troyer. “If your company is worth $1 million and most of their sales are $7 million, you’re not going to get much attention. You want to be with somebody who’s selling businesses right around the price of yours.”

Letting the Public Handle Your Marketing Activities

Posted by Paul Christ

April 02, 2010

Crowdsourcing Gets Companies Cheap Help Online (USA Today)

In our KnowThis: Marketing Basics book we take an extended look at an emerging concept which we call Open Development but is also known as Crowdsourcing.  The idea centers on recruiting people outside the marketing organization to help the marketer create and possibly execute certain marketing activities, often for no monetary reward.  The concept is well known in the software industry, where numerous products including web browsers (e.g. Firefox), content management software (e.g., Joomla), graphics programs (e.g., Gimp) and even operating systems (e.g., Linux) have been developed within the “open source” movement.

Those involved in marketing may want to take notice of this phenomena, not so much for identifying opportunities to develop collaborative products (though this has and will continue to offer exciting opportunities) but from the perspective of “outsourcing” the development of other marketing activities to a group of dedicated independent collaborators.

As this story discusses, Crowdsourcing is taking hold in marketing in several ways, though it will likely be some time before it becomes a commonly accepted practice.

Crowdsourcing is being used on everything from a Super Bowl ad for Doritos to improvements in movie recommendations on Netflix. Often the projects, such as logo design and open-source software, are largely created by a few individuals. For example, XLNTads acts as a middleman between major brands such as Procter & Gamble and Anheuser-Busch and its network of 15,000 videographers. The major brands pay XLNTads a fee to help them find creative types to create online and TV ads.

Other than product development and creation of advertisements, what other marketing functions could possibly benefit from Crowdsourcing?

Image by Dieter Drescher

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Successful Retailing Does Not Require Extensive Inventory

Posted by Paul Christ

March 30, 2010

Costco’s Success Secrets Revealed (ABC News)

Some retailing strategists believe general merchandise retailers must carry tens-of-thousands of products in order to satisfy the needs of their target market.  This often means carrying the same type of product (e.g., laundry detergent) from several different suppliers.  But in reality there are several large retailers who are quite successful carrying extremely shallow product lines to the point where they may only carry a single brand within a product category.

A case in point is Costco, a so-called warehouse store catering to both consumers and business customers (though technically not a retailer when they sell to businesses).  Their sales in 2009 exceeded $70 billion ranking them as the 3rd largest U.S. retailer and 9th largest worldwide.   What is remarkable is that they achieved this with an inventory of only 4.000 items compared to many other large retailers who carry well over 100,000 products.

As this video story points out, for Costco it is not about having a large number of different products, rather, it is about having the right mix of products.  And the right mix requires retailers have a clear understanding of what their target market wants.  Additionally, Costco’s low-cost-for-bulk-purchase approach has benefited from recent economic problems which has driven even more customers to their stores.  The story also discusses Costco’s store design and layout strategies.

“We keep our selection down so we can get the most of it and offer the best value, the best price.”  You may not always find the same brand names from month to month because Costco buys from whichever company has surplus stock. “We really just put the best items out there.  We try to keep it very simple.”

Anyone interested in retailing may want to check back with ABC News as they indicate this is the first in a series looking at the retail industry.

In what other ways, not mentioned in this story, does Costco differ from other major general retailers such as Wal-Mart and Target?

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Spring is a time of renewal for yourself, your home, your lawn and garden–and your business marketing, too. Could your newsletters use a little spring cleaning? You bet.

Here are seven ways to re-evaluate, refresh and revitalize your e-mail marketing communications.

1. Buff up your brand. Make sure your brand image and message are presented consistently in your e-mail communications and across all media–online and offline–and that your products, services and employees live up to that brand promise. Check to see if you’re including your logo in all your communications. If not, add it.

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2. Polish your design. Put a fresh, critical eye on your e-mail newsletter design. Is it professional and inviting? Does it pop and make you want to read it? Ask yourself (and a few trusted family members, friends and colleagues) these questions, and make adjustments where needed:

3. Refresh your content. Think beyond the message you want to convey to customers, instead focus on what they want to read more about from you. Here are a few ways to keep your finger on the pulse of your market and your industry, as you energize your newsletter content:
   • In a survey, ask subscribers what they want to learn more about in future issues. Give them a list of potential topics from which to pick.
   • Ask readers to submit questions about your business, products, or services. Answer the questions in a future newsletter.
   • Invite readers to contribute content (e.g., testimonials, success stories, challenges, creative problem-solving).
   • Reward readers whose questions or stories are selected for publication with a small branded gift. Everyone loves recognition (and a freebie).
   • Ask other industry experts for permission to feature their content in your newsletters. Or do a Q&A interview with a book author, colleague, or another thought leader.
   • Become an aggregator of “news you can use!” Include links to thought-provoking news articles, white papers, blog posts, etc., related to your field. (Social media sites are another place to do this; you can involve your fans and followers in a dialogue.)
4. Shake out your reports and statistics. Look at the open rates and click-through statistics from your campaign reports to see what’s working and what’s not so you can identify patterns, test new ideas, and make adjustments in your campaigns. Evaluate the effectiveness of elements such as subject lines, call-to-action links, and the day/time campaigns are sent. There’s a story in your reports and statistics. It’s worth reading–and using to improve your tactics.
5. Clean up your mailing lists. Look at your reporting data for spam reports, bounces, blocking, unsubscribes, address changes, etc. Identify problems or items that need attention, and get them fixed. Remove the addresses of people who haven’t opened your messages in a year. Once your primary mailing list is in order, you can segment your list into groups based on customer interests.
6. Invite new sign-ups for your mailing lists. Ask customers to join your mailing list wherever you meet them–online, offline, in stores, over the phone, and on printed materials. And if you haven’t waded into the social networking waters yet, now is a fine time to start promoting your e-mail newsletter on sites like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
7. Host a Spring open house. Now is the time to show off your business. Host a customer appreciation event, a fundraiser, a “meet your neighbors” mixer co-hosted with other businesses, or some other gathering where you can connect with customers face-to-face. Use e-mail marketing to promote your event.

Smart e-mail marketers regularly analyze their campaigns and look for ways to improve. They’re not afraid to try new things. The idea is to use all the tools at your disposal to enhance your e-mail marketing efforts and build stronger customer relationships. Start by giving your e-mail campaigns a good pruning this spring–and your business or organization may reap the rewards of a more fruitful year.

Related articles:

• 3 Ways to Move Customers to Action
• Promote Your Business With Coupons and Contests
• Rewarding the Repeaters

The great Shakespearian actor, Sir Laurence Olivier, reached the peak of his career playing King Lear. After a phenomenal performance, the audience gave him a standing ovation that went on for more than half an hour. Sir Laurence took his bows again and again, left the stage, went to his dressing room, slammed the door and wouldn’t come out.

The stage manager said through the door, “Sir Laurence, you don’t understand. You did wonderfully! They’re still out there applauding, forty minutes after the curtain went down!”

Sir Laurence yelled through the door, “I know. I gave the greatest performance of my life. But I don’t know how I did it!”

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That is the problem with not having a system or process. When we do well, we can’t be sure we’ll do it again because we don’t know how we did it. When we do poorly, we don’t know how to figure out what went wrong, which prevents us from fixing it easily.

Without a system, talent may shine through. We may succeed. We may be a shining star, but, more likely, we’ll just be shooting stars–fleeting and soon gone. With a system or methodology, we can become lasting superstars. Lance Armstrong has a system. Michael Jordan has a system. Donald Trump has a system.

Having a system doesn’t have to lock you down forever. You work the system and work on the system at the same time. When you get an idea that might make your system better, give it a try. If it’s an improvement, add it to your system. This is called continuous improvement. The best way to know how to do our work today is by making use of a system. We always do at least that well. And any day we do better, we can note what we did and improve our own system. This way, we keep getting better and better. Products get better, customer service gets better, and waste, hassle and costs all get reduced; business grows and becomes more profitable. We stay ahead of ourselves, and we stay ahead of the competition.

So for reliable success, we need to have a system, work the system, improve the system, and keep working the system. Systems also keep us accountable. Lance Armstrong doesn’t blame the weather, his competitors or his team. We can’t blame our competitors, customers, vendors or the economy. A system is all about the connection between what we do and the results we get.

In good economic times, those with a good system–and who work their system–will thrive. In bad economic times, working the system is the key to survival. The other option is burnout and bankruptcy, coming up a day late and a dollar short.

There’s an easy way to remember this–S.Y.S.T.E.M.:

Save
Yourself
Stress
Time
Energy, and
Money

To achieve lasting success and stay at the top of our game, it’s important to always be working, evaluating and improving our system as conditions change. And it feels good, too. Good systems ensure a flow without bottlenecks, backwater or stinking swamps. It’s working in the zone. And that’s a lot better than the alternative.

If we don’t get better, we get worse. The world isn’t going to stand still around us.

Small-business owners offer health benefits for a variety of reasons: they’re genuinely concerned about their employees being taken care of, it’s mandated in their state or they want to be more competitive to attract top talent (a large majority of employees consider a health plan to be the most important benefit they can be offered, according to a survey by the National Business of Group on Health).

A robust health benefits package can attract, retain and motivate talented people to work for you and help your company grow. According to the 2009 Mercer National Survey of Employer-Sponsored Health Plans, health benefits make up about 14 percent of the payroll for small businesses that currently offer health benefits; a skyrocketing expense making it more difficult to keep offering those benefits. A recent Kaiser Family Foundation study states that 59 percent of small companies are offering health care coverage, down from 65 percent 10 years ago.

If you do offer health benefits, it’s a safe guess that you only tend to think about these plans once a year, when open enrollment season comes around. However, it’s important to make the most of your investment. By making health benefits a year-round conversation, you can create a win-win situation for yourself and your employees. There are two key components to this win-win scenario: communication and utilization. Targeting both will provide you a better return on the money you invest in benefits, give your employees a better understanding of their plans, and should ultimately help to lower premiums.

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Communication Drives Better Utilization

It’s been said that a person needs to hear new information at least three times before it registers in their mind for immediate recollection. So you know employees aren’t tapping into all the available options when faced with a health care need. It’s important to repeatedly communicate all the additional tools and resources available to employees, all those plan supplements that they’ve probably forgotten or never knew about.

Better utilization of the components of a given plan will keep members engaged and promote proactive behavior. By the time open enrollment approaches, you can strategically tailor your plans to not only meet the needs of your company but also the needs of your individual employees, who are now smarter consumers of their health care plans.

An Ounce of Prevention is Worth a Pound of Cure

According to the Kaiser study found that only 14 percent of small businesses offering health benefits to employees also offer health risk assessment. That number needn’t be so low, as many carriers offer online programs to help identify risk factors for common chronic diseases (e.g.: diabetes, congestive heart failure, asthma, obesity, cancer) and offer prevention programs. Why is this important?Because it’s cheaper to prevent illness than treat it, that’s why.

Some companies offer incentive programs to encourage employee participation in health and wellness programs because learning about potential risks and screenings for early detection helps decrease large claims. There are even regulatory proposals that could incentivize businesses to push proactive care. So, work with your carrier to learn about the tools and preventative resources available and then share this with your employees.

How Do You Make the Info Stick?
Bombarding employees with too much information at once can be overwhelming, so consider spreading the conversations throughout the year. Try to tie reminders to specific months or causes. For example, heart health is typically addressed in February and March is “Save Your Vision” month, a timely opportunity to refresh your employees on their vision plan (especially those who stare at computer screens all day). Flu season starts to peak in November, so a friendly reminder on the benefits of getting a flu shot would be timely (and you should mention the benefits to the company as a whole, as well as to the individual).

Other topics such as promoting use of a plan’s nurse-line, using the mail-order program for maintenance medications, info about the costs of generic versus brand-name prescriptions or what hospitals and urgent care centers are in-network, are evergreen. Knowing these details before a crisis hits helps you capitalize on network discounts.

Consider how you’re going to deliver the information; due to sensitivities it’s important to select a medium that allows you to communicate with employees how they’re most comfortable. Traditional options include inviting carrier representatives to join a staff meeting, including articles in the employee newsletter or creating an e-mail campaign. Non-traditional options, such as leveraging social media or text messaging may also be accepted by today’s ever-growing digital population.

Too often, employees are disconnected from their health care plans–including proactive decisions they should exercise greater control over. Continuous conversations with employees will prompt them to make smart decisions moving forward, and help your company save money.

Marketers Take Their Lumps When Targeting Emerging Markets

Posted by Paul Christ

March 25, 2010

U.S. Food Giants Tailor Products, Marketing to International Palates (Los Angeles Times)

When it comes to marketing globally, all companies should clearly understand this truism:  just because a marketing strategy works in your home country does not mean it will work in other countries.  This story offers support for this truism as it presents several examples of companies who experienced problems marketing their products in different areas of the world.

In particular, companies are finding the marketing methods designed to meet customers’ needs in emerging markets (i.e., countries with small but growing economies) are often significantly different compared to methods used to reach customers in more advanced markets.  Unfortunately, many companies recognize this only after suffering significant losses.  Yet much of the pain experienced in their initial marketing efforts may have been avoided if companies had first engaged in extensive marketing research.

Catering to local tastes is vital, as New Jersey-based Campbell Soup found out in its first foray into China in the early 1990s. The company essentially slapped a Chinese label on its classic U.S. condensed soups, said Larry McWilliams, president of Campbell’s international operations. “They sold well for a while, but they were a novelty. They had no staying power,” he said. Campbell returned to China in 2007, but only after two years of research revealed that in China, as well as Russia, there’s a cultural disposition to cooking soup from scratch.

In addition to what is mentioned in this story, what other factors do marketers face in emerging markets that may not be present in more advanced markets?

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Not every marketer’s audience is waiting on Facebook or Twitter, especially marketers in B2B manufacturing. Tim Madel, Manger, Global Ebusiness, Kennametal, is one of these marketers, and his team experiments with social channels anyway.

“We know our current customers might not be using Twitter and Facebook, but we know that the next generation is, and we want to be there and ready for it,” he says.

One way Madel’s team is preparing for a new generation of metal workers is by using Lyris to add buttons to Kennametal’s emails to share content on social bookmarking sites and networks. Although the quick, low-cost tactic does not drive much traffic to Kennametal’s site (referrals from social networks are below 1%), the team hopes the buttons:

- Bring content to correct customers

Many of the team’s email subscribers are purchasing officers, who’re not their target audience. The team adds the buttons so emails can more easily reach people who use Kennametal’s tools.

- Help current and future customers

Customers who prefer to bookmark using Delicious or iGoogle have the option. And if more customers start moving to Twitter, the team will be comfortable sharing its content on the network having experimented. Other buttons the team includes are for:
o Digg
o Reddit
o Newsvine
o LinkedIn
o StumbleUpon

In a sample of two emails, the buttons captured between 40 and 50 clicks each. This is a very low percentage of all emails sent, but the team is undaunted.

“You’re not looking at high percentages, but in our world, that’s a great number to start with,” says Jennifer Altimore, Site Content Manager, Global E-Customer, Kennametal.

Why create a series of six related email messages when one will do? To increase your response and ROI, that’s why!

This is just one topic we cover in the MarketingSherpa Email Essentials 2010 Workshop Training, taking place in 10 locations around the United States; the next one is March 25th in New York City.

With average open rates in the 20% range and average clickthrough rates in the single digits, only a fraction of your list is likely to open, click on or convert from a single email message. If you send a series of messages over a period of time, you’ll increase your reach.

That was the logic behind a series of email messages I developed for a client last year; we sent six email messages over the course of about 12 weeks. But the magnitude of the increased reach amazed even us.

Open rates were pretty much consistent from send to send, but when we looked specifically at who was opening, we found that we picked up new people after each send:
- Our unique cumulative open reach increased an average of 11% with each send in the series
- The second send increased our unique open reach by 31%
- Even with diminishing returns, the sixth send increased our unique open reach by 6%

In the end, cumulative unique open reach was 95% higher than the open rate on the first email alone, meaning that the last five efforts nearly doubled the number of people that were exposed to the campaign.

The same was true for our unique clickthrough reach:
- Our unique clickthrough reach increased an average of 20% send-over-send
- The second send caused our unique clickthrough reach to grow by 63%
- Even the sixth send provided a 10% lift in unique clickthrough reach over the five earlier efforts

Our final cumulative unique clickthrough reach was 236% higher than the clickthrough rate on the first email; over the course of the campaign more than three times the number of people that clicked on the first email interacted with us.

But the real success story is about what happened to clickthrough on the key call-to-action link:
- Unique clickthrough reach increased an average of 25% send-over-send
- It more than doubled (a lift of 105%) after the second send
- The last email sent provided a 7% increase in our cumulative unique clickthrough reach on this key call-to-action link

When all was said and done, the cumulative unique clickthrough reach on this key link was nearly five times that of the clickthrough rate the link garnered in the first send, a lift of 392%.

Developing a Strategic Email Series

A strategic email series is different than a straight resend. Rather than send the same message over and over again, you craft a “message map” and use it to develop different content all focused on the same goal or offer.

Email series can be used effectively in a number of ways:
- Welcome Campaigns
- Reactivation Programs
- Lead Nurturing Initiatives
- Event, Product or Service Promotions
- Top of Mind Initiatives

Email series allow you to present much more information that you could in a single email. They give you the opportunity to build the case for your brand, product or service over time, while building a relationship with your readers.

The best part of many email series, especially welcome campaigns and lead nurturing initiatives, is that while they take some time and effort to create, they are evergreen. They can be used, without major changes, for years to come since they’ll be sent to different people on an ongoing basis.

Have you had success with an email series? If so, please share your experience in the comments of this blog and let’s get a discussion going!

Editor’s Note: Jeanne Jennings is teaching MarketingSherpa’s Email Essentials Workshop Training in 10 locations around the country this year; the next one takes place in New York City on March 25th. She’ll be blogging about the course material and her experiences during the tour. We’re excited to have her on board and contributing to the blog.

Personal travel arrangements often require coordination with other parties, whether it’s your spouse, friends or other family members. That’s why travel activity retailer Viator’s sharable wish lists are such a great idea.

Many ecommerce sites offer wish lists to visitors. They’re especially useful during the holiday season when families are figuring out what to buy one another. The impression I’ve gleaned from marketers is wish lists are useful, but they’re not a strong ongoing performance driver.

Online travel, on the other hand, has a more practical application for wishing. Friends and family members going on trips often coordinate what to do and send each other ideas. Viator’s wish lists make it easy for travelers to share ideas, and the team places “Add to my wish list” links prominently on their product pages.

I noticed these lists during a conversation with Kelly Gillease, Marketing Director, Viator. Visitors can view items on their wish lists directly on the homepage. From the homepage, with one click, they can view a form to send the list to up to three people with a personalized message.

“We do get a fair number of people creating wish lists, emailing them and sharing them,” Gillease says. “We’ve found it really does help boost our conversion rates.”

Gillease’s team plans to build on this success by creating account pages where site visitors can view all their lists, among other features.

Are there other effective applications for wish lists that you’re seeing? Are they helping lift your conversion rates? Let us know in the comments, and thank you.

Going through my mail a few days ago, I came across a letter from the U.S. Census Bureau. I read it and was baffled to find it alerting me to the census forms’ arrival next week.

“What a stupid letter,” I thought. “I’ll see the forms when they come.”

However, an editorial in my local paper the next day made me think twice.

In “Surprisingly Sensible,” the Spartanburg Herald-News’ editors report that while this letter cost about $50 million to send, it’s part of an alert and follow-up strategy. For the 2000 census, the strategy lifted the number of returned census forms 6 percentage points to 67%. How’s that for a response rate?

The letters arrived one week before the census forms. Ten days after the forms, a post card was sent reminding recipients to fill out the forms and return them, according the editorial.

The 6% lift reduced the number of houses the census workers had to visit, which translated into huge cost savings. So the $50 million may prove to be a sound investment.

The editorial goes into further detail on how much money the strategy could save. The important point for marketers is that even when a strategy does not make sense on its face — it still might lift performance.

As the mobile market continues to grow, mobile advertising opportunities are growing right along with it. The capabilities of the ads, too, are quickly expanding.

This week the Mobile Marketing Association released a Rich Media Mobile Advertising whitepaper. You can take a look at the free six-page guide to get a quick introduction to the types of rich mobile ads in the market (not including apps or games).

While mobile display advertising mimics some aspects of online display advertising, there is one key difference I noticed from the whitepaper’s examples. Mobile ads are more likely to expand into a full-screen experience—which is not a common feature in online display ads.

“As highly interactive and feature-rich smartphones continue to dominate new mobile device sales, rich media mobile ad units will comprise an ever-growing portion of the mobile advertisement display market in the U.S. and around the world,” according to the MMA’s whitepaper.

In the fourth quarter of 2009, an average of 19% of mobile advertisers used rich media mobile ad units, according to the whitepaper. These ads include:
o Ads with video, sound or interactive features
o Expandable ads
o Animated ads
o Floating ads

Take a look at the report for great examples from promotions involving The Weather Channel, Alice in Wonderland and Lincoln. The examples include high-quality screenshots and brief descriptions of the ads’ functionality.

If you’re interested in rich mobile advertising, the report can give you a few examples for inspiration, and a few guidelines around sizing, functionality, and why you should give users “close” and “skip” buttons in the ads.

Are you buying these types of ads? If so, let us know what you think of them in the comments…

Today CEOs expect marketers to provide metrics and to be accountable to meeting their numbers just like sales people. They do have a bunch of activity metrics and some squishy metrics like brand recognition.

At the same time, most CEOs agree that they aren’t getting enough activity at the top of the sales funnel. Thus their marketers are constantly reminded that more leads are needed…now! When the revenue doesn’t immediately materialize, CEOs will lament, why can’t I see ROI from marketing?

This is what CEOs should be asking?

1. What effect are our marketing investments having on sales productivity?
2. What can marketing do to lower the combined expense to revenue ratio of sales and marketing?

As marketers, I believe the key is to look at why are we measuring our marketing in the first place?

I’d love to get your input on what you believe are the most important B2B marketing metrics for CEOs?

As I’ve written before, when dealing with the complex sale, most people aren’t coming to your website to buy; they’re coming to your site for information. And people are hesitant about giving up too much info on forms before you’ve earned their trust.

Have you thought about your web forms? How much information are you asking for before you’ve earned their trust?

I’ve invited Dr. Flint McGlaughlin, Director of MECLABS Group (parent company of MarketingExperiments, InTouch and MarketingSherpa), to show us how to optimize our web forms to increase conversion of that traffic. 

During this complimentary webinar, Dr. McGlaughlin will be performing live
optimizations and providing specific advice on improving your online
lead generation efforts. You can check out this short video of Dr. McGlaughlin speaking on optimizing
email responses.

Watch Online Lead Generation Webinar: How to optimize forms to convert “window
shoppers” into leads

View recorded webinar on demand (no registration required)

Have you wondered about where you should put your online lead generation budget into search engine optimization or paid search?  Check out this new chart by
MarketingSherpa, “Comparing the Quantity and Quality of B2B Search-Generated Leads“:

(click chart to expand) According to Sherpa, “While paid search gives marketers more control, natural search page rankings driven higher by search engine optimization tactics generate as many high-quality leads as all paid search sources combined.”

What do you think? Do these findings match up with your experience with using search for lead generation?

Related Posts:

Tracking ROI From Web Generated Leads
Website Landing Pages impact Lead Generation results
Optimizing webforms to generate more leads through your website
Why Most B2B Sites Fail to Convert Sales Leads

Here’s few thoughts that I’ve had on lead nurturing that I’d like to share and get your input on:

• Lead nurturing supports the conversation of the customer before, during and after their buying process.
• Sowing + Nurturing = Reaping. As you sow, so shall you reap. A
  relationship properly sown, tended to, and helped along should reap a
  long and bountiful harvest.
• Lead Nurturing is about building relationships through relevant conversations, not campaigns.
• If your sales team is following up on nurtured leads, give them relevant/related talking points to use. The first impression matters.  So does the second.  So does every single touch after that. 
• Consistency and relevancy is key. Don’t let up. Be consistent. No matter how busy you are make time to do lead nurturing activities.
• Treat “leads” like “future customers” because that’s what they are.
• “Tell-and-sell” is a thing of the past. Become a trusted advisor by adding value with each interaction and sharing relevant information.What
  
  IS and ISN’T Lead Nurturing.
• Nurture your existing customers. Don’t just emphasize new
  account acquisition nurturing. From this point forward you should look to nurture your current customers with the same energy and optimism as you do with leads and you’ll be amazed with the results.

Share your your thoughts on lead nurturing in the comments.

Forecasting Clouds ranked the top 20 CRM blogs based on their content, readability and frequency of posting. As I read over the list of blogs, I discovered some new ones worth reading along with a number of others I already follow like John Jantsch, Duct Tape
Marketing Blog; Ben McConnell and Jackie Huba who write the Church of the Customer; and David Raab, Customer Experience Matrix. I was honored to be included on their list too and be included in such great company.

Here’s a partial list of the 20 CRM blogs on their list:

Getting your company featured in a news article or broadcast segment can be a great way to gain exposure, but what if the piece shows your company in a negative light? Suddenly, what was expected to be a cause for celebration takes an unwelcome turn, and your well-intended efforts bring harm to your company and brand.

Most media opportunities produce positive outcomes. It is the rare occasion when an article does not go as planned–but those occasions often leave the most lasting impression. The key to guarding against such a worst-case scenario is to approach public relations as you would any other business opportunity: Do your research, weigh the benefits and go in prepared.

Gauging the Reward

First, consider the value that your company or organization would derive from exposure in the press. Key questions: What audience does the outlet reach and how much visibility does the coverage potentially offer? Many publications provide a copy of their media kit online, and these often include details on audience size (circulation, viewers, page views, etc).

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It’s also important to look beyond the numbers and weigh the value of the audience of the publication (quality over quantity). Does this platform reach your target customer, investors, employees, business partners? A niche trade or enthusiast publication may have a small circulation, but a greater percentage of its audience may be more responsive to your product or service.

Hedging the Risk

It’s crucial to your media preparation to gather intelligence on the reporter. Visit the publication website and search for past articles. If it’s a freelance journalist, see if he or she has a website and find out where his work has been published. Get a sense of the reporter’s style and tone. Do articles tend to be positive, neutral or negative? If the reporter has previously written investigative pieces that are critical of the business’s practices or company in general, this may be a red flag.

Before the interview, ask the reporter for the scope of the story and sample questions or a list of topics that will be discussed. Also, it’s worth asking who else they plan to interview for the article, although reporters might not be willing to divulge this information.

Another important consideration is to learn the publication’s expectations for the story. Different media opportunities have different risk/reward profiles:

• Pay-for-plays and advertorials: These are always positive, but often the purported reach is inflated and may not be worth the cost–both in money and time.

  
  Potential Risk: Low
  
  Potential Reward: Low to moderate

• Bylined articles: Trade and industry publications often feature submissions from industry experts (you’re reading such an example). If you have an opportunity to contribute a bylined article, this is a great way to control the message and position yourself and organization as an industry thought leader. However, most publications will not allow companies to promote products or services in a bylined article. Rather, the selling point is your expertise.

  
  Potential Risk: Low
  
  Potential Reward: Moderate to high

• Coverage in print and online media: When considering a print or online media opportunity, focus on the beat that the reporter covers. This can tell you much about the potential risk of a story–a business reporter is likely to ask tough questions, while a lifestyle piece is more apt to be upbeat and light.

  
  In either case, you will only have marginal control over the finished piece. Reporters are expected to accurately portray the facts and use quotes verbatim; however, the way in which these facts and quotes are arranged (called framing) can significantly affect how the story is perceived. More often than not, reporters will strive for a balanced article, but there are no guarantees that the final product will meet your expectations. The best approach is to prepare for all contingencies and outcomes prior to the interview or when the story is published.

  
  Potential Risk: Low to moderate
  
  Potential Reward: High

• Blogs: While blogs can be an excellent way to engage an audience, it’s important to remember that bloggers have different standards and styles than traditional reporters, which allows them to be freer with their opinions–both positive and negative. As such, it is imperative to be deeply familiar with the blogger and her audience. Pay close attention to the tone of previous blog posts, and be sure to look at the comments section to see if there is an active and passionate audience.

  
  Potential Risk: Moderate to high
  
  Potential Reward: High

• Broadcast and online video: With print interviews, you have ample time to consider your responses; with broadcast, you are on the spot. And if the broadcast is live, there are no second takes.

  
  Before agreeing to a broadcast opportunity, think about your comfort level on camera and how you might react if you get hit with a tough question. Despite the potential for reaching a mass audience, if you are nervous on camera or are concerned that your interview may include difficult questions, the best bet is to walk away. However, if you’re committed to the opportunity, spend the money and hire a media trainer who will guide you through mock interviews and coach you on responses. Again, broadcast journalists strive to be balanced. However, there are no guarantees that this will occur every time. Preparation is the key.

  
  Potential Risk: Moderate to high
  
  Potential Reward: High to Very high

When Reporters Dig for Dirt

If a reporter calls you directly and catches you off-guard with a story, a good rule of thumb is to see if he would like to schedule an interview to discuss the subject. Get as many details about the story as you can, and then research the reporter’s work and assess the risk.

Keep in mind that when a reporter calls, they could be working on an investigative report about your organization, your industry or one of your competitors. In this case, you have to ask yourself an additional question: What is the risk of not getting your side of the story heard? Sometimes “no comment” is truly the safest response; however, “no comment” can also be perceived as an admission of guilt. Unfortunately, there are no hard and fast rules for determining the risk/reward of this situation. It depends on the specific circumstances.

Most media opportunities lead to positive outcomes, but there are no guarantees, and big rewards often carry big risks. If your organization can benefit from the exposure, just relax, do your homework and be prepared to answer any tough questions that come your way.

Rachel Meranus is Entrepreneur.com’s PR columnist and vice president, public relations at PR Newswire. Get more information about PR Newswire and public relations with their PR Toolkit for small businesses.

When do you want consumers to move to action after seeing or hearing your marketing messages? Now? Tomorrow? Next week? Next year? How about whenever it’s convenient?

If you’re investing time and money into getting your marketing messages in front of your target audience, it’s safe to assume that you want that audience to act sooner rather than later. Therefore, it’s essential that your marketing messages create a sense of urgency in consumers’ minds so they are motivated to act.

The key is, don’t just suggest an action in your marketing copy. Demand it. Motivate consumers to get up off of their couches and call you, come to your store, or visit your website now by using any (but preferably all) of the three techniques described below.

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1. Use urgent wording.
   
   Creating a perception of urgency can be as easy as choosing the right words to use in your copy. Don’t be tempted to overload your marketing messages with words that suggest immediacy, though. Instead, place these words strategically within your calls to action.

   
   Furthermore, don’t make the mistake of cluttering your messages with exclamation points in an effort to create a sense of urgency in your copy. One or two well-placed exclamation points can work, but too many exclamation points dilute their effectiveness. Instead, add a sense of urgency to your marketing messages with phrases like:
   

   • Don’t delay
   • Act now
   • Hurry in
   • Call today
   • Call now
2. Create time-sensitive offers.
   
   An excellent way to get the attention of consumers and make them move to action is to tie your messages to a specific time frame or deadline. This is particularly effective for marketing messages that advertise short-term promotions. Even if you didn’t originally intend to attach a time frame or deadline to a marketing message, review your message and determine if adding one could increase the urgency of your offer. You might be surprised by the positive effect it can have on your overall marketing initiative. You can create time-sensitive messages by using quantifiers like:
   
3. Make it easy to act.
   
   The perception of urgency in your marketing messages should go hand-in-hand with the call to action in your marketing message. But people are busy, so it’s your responsibility to make it as simple as possible for consumers to respond to your marketing communications in the way that you want them to. Ensure that it’s easy for your audience to get more information or make a purchase by telling them exactly what they need to do as soon as they’re done reading or listening to your messages.

   
   For example, don’t just include the address for your website’s home page in your message. Instead, take consumers directly to the page that provides the information they need to respond to your offer. That could be a contact form, a specific product page, or a specific landing page or splash page created just for this communication. Alternately, if you’re directing consumers to visit your brick-and-mortar location, include a map or landmarks along with your street address to make it easier to find your business or to encourage recognition of your location in consumers’ minds.

If you can’t get the attention of your audience within a few seconds and deliver your message to them quickly and succinctly, then you risk wasting your marketing investment. Just keep the three tips listed above in mind as you write your copy, and you’ll be on your way to boosting your marketing message response rates sooner rather than later.

Susan Gunelius is president and CEO of KeySplash Creative Inc., a full service marketing communications provider and branding consultancy, and owner of WomenOnBusiness.com, a leading blog community for business women. She is the author of several books, including Kick-ass Copywriting in 10 Easy Steps, published by Entrepreneur Press. Her newest book, Building Brand Value the Playboy Way, is now available.

If you sell a product, it probably happened to you long ago. If you sell services, it’s probably happened to you more recently. And if it hasn’t happened to you yet, just wait–it’s coming to a customer or client near you.

I’m talking about having to sell to the purchasing department.

It’s tempting to see this as a pure negative, particularly for those selling professional services. It represents the death of relationships, the triumph of price over quality, a barrier erected between you and your client–you’ve heard all these complaints, maybe even made them yourself. But there’s another way to look at the situation, and it’s this: The purchasing agent is your new client.

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Your New Client Is Just Like the Old Client

Against the grain of commonly held truths, purchasing agents aren’t all that different from the old clients we know and love. For example, despite their reputation, they aren’t all about squeezing the lowest price out of you. If anything, purchasing agents are more motivated to get the right provider for their clients than they are to save a few nickels getting the wrong provider.

There are more similarities. If all you can do is cite features and benefits and argue over price, you’re not going to have any better results with a professional buyer than you did with a “regular” client. While you may not be able to schmooze with a professional buyer, you’d still better figure out some ways to establish a relationship.

Don’t Attempt the End-Run
When first directed to go through the purchasing department, a common reaction of B2B sellers is to do an end-run–going around purchasing and getting back to the good old client, so they can put pressure on the purchasing agent.

You already know how politically dangerous it is to end-run a gatekeeper to get to a friendlier, higher-up decision-maker. You’re better off helping the gatekeeper get something he or she needs and keeping the game aboveboard. That’s clearly true for “line” clients. Yet somehow we have no compunction about trying to end-run the purchasing department.

Now put yourself in the shoes of the purchasing agent; are you any less displeased by that tactic than is a “line” client? I didn’t think so.

Worse, if you do try the end-run, you may find your client is not as predisposed to helping you as you thought. To talk to you, they probably have to go against the new policy. Few clients really want to do this; they prefer you work it out yourself with purchasing.

And worse still, they may find that they actually prefer letting someone else do the haggling; they’d never say so to your face, but frankly, it’s a relief not to have to bargain with you. Ultimately, you’re asking quite a lot of your client by asking them to intercede with purchasing, and they’re not likely to appreciate it.

Quick Dos and Don’ts:

• Resolve to go through the purchasing agent.
• Don’t complain unnecessarily–you’re not likely to win every sale, so deal with it.
• Don’t offer to do special services unless you suggest the agent seek the same services from all your competitors.
• Don’t obsess over the confidentiality of your materials–assume the agent is a professional and let them know you assume it–once.
• Don’t ask what the agent can do for you; ask what you can do for them.
• Be open, available and transparent. If you don’t know something, say so.

The purchasing function in modern business is becoming more, not less, important. It’s one of the faster-growing professions, and it’s more central to corporate strategies now. The idea that people buy from those they trust–those who pay attention to them and care about them–extends to the purchasing department. Purchasing agents are people. It’s important to treat them well. They are your new clients.

We certainly know 2009 was not a good year to sell for most owners who wanted to exit their businesses. In fact, closed business-for-sale transactions in the United States declined by 28 percent in 2009, according to a recent report.

The good news, is that 2010 shows strong potential for being a much better year for the business-for-sale market.

Indeed, the latter part of 2009 demonstrated clear signs of recovery that began mid-year. In fourth quarter 2009, the median closed-transaction sale price rose to $180,000–up from $177,500 a year ago at the same time–a level we have not seen since mid-2008. This represented a 1.4 percent year-over-year increase in median sale prices. To put that in perspective, the three prior quarters had each recorded year-over-year declines of 15 percent or more.

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Data from a BizBuySell.com study shows similar signs of strength emerging in other key metrics, from the number of transactions completed to the multiples used for valuing a business. Long story short, there are ample signs of recovery and there is growing momentum, all of which leads those of us in the industry to be cautiously optimistic about the prospects for 2010 business-for-sale activity.

What’s Driving the Rebound?

There are two driving forces behind the improving market. First is an increased demand for small businesses due to high unemployment rates, with unemployed individuals opting to give entrepreneurship a try rather than seeking a return to a traditional corporate job. Second is the return of capital to the market, which gives potential buyers the ability to finance the purchase of a small business.

Additionally, businesses that require smaller levels of capital investment, including select service businesses and restaurants, are helping to lead the evolving recovery in the business-for-sale marketplace. Business owners and buyers in these two sectors are seeing an opportunity to transact that wasn’t there six months ago. Restaurant sales were up one percent in the fourth quarter versus a year ago. While service business sales declined by only four percent, an encouraging figure in comparison to the 27 percent decline in sales of manufacturing companies and the 20 percent average sales decline reported in other industries.

What the Future Holds

Overall, 2010 is shaping up to be a much more productive year for small business transactions and we anticipate slow but consistent recovery throughout the year. Here are some key industry drivers that will help lead a resurgence in business-for-sale activity in 2010 and beyond:

• Latent supply: Throughout the recession, small-business owners have focused on running their businesses and staying afloat. Exit planning and considering the worth of their business were of little concern and the number of businesses for sale declined significantly. As the economy continues to improve, however, the latent supply of businesses will hit the for-sale market and generate a flurry of new activity.
• Unemployed Workers Seeking Jobs: Although the U.S. unemployment rate dropped to 9.7 percent last month, the number of Americans seeking employment is still at record high levels. As more time passes without the unemployed finding work, more workers will seek to replace their income with a small business purchase. The energy and passion of these new entrepreneurs should not be underestimated. New business owners bring forth new ideas, new innovations, new investment and new jobs to the companies they acquire. It is critical that we make it easier for would-be business buyers to become thriving business owners.
• Easing Credit: As the supply and demand for small business transactions continues to grow, the availability of purchase capital will be the critical element that determines the market’s return to health. On the bright side, the federal government and U.S. Small Business Administration are currently assisting banks by easing their lending restrictions and by making more capital available to the small business market.
• Baby Boomer Retirees: The U.S. baby boomer generation is reaching retirement age, a trend that will continue for another decade. This means the number of small-business owners seeking to sell their business and retire is increasing. As a result, an above-average number of small businesses will be available for sale in the years ahead.

It would be nice to see a more proactive approach on the part of policymakers to help speed the recovery of the business-for-sale market. After all, the U.S. economy relies heavily on the success of small business. The small business economy, in turn, is largely powered by the ability for those businesses to change hands, allowing existing jobs to be maintained and offering new business owners the opportunity to invest in additional employment and economic growth.

While there are emerging signs of recovery in terms of the number of small business transactions and a decrease in small business prices, the federal government, the SBA and the banking community must all still take steps to reinvigorate the flow of small business capital to fund business transactions.

Policy and regulations aside, for individual business owners it’s time to focus on your exit strategy. Would-be sellers should take advantage of the rising tide by getting ready to sell and then listing their businesses for sale.

Remember, preparing your business for sale takes time and a listed business will typically take five to twelve months to sell. If you want to sell within the next two years, you need to start the process now.

By Randy Myers
In this economy, making a sale in your own backyard can be a tough proposition. So why not try France? Or Spain? Or China?

Exporting isn’t just for big companies, especially now that the Internet has made it easy to reach customers around the globe. There are unique issues, no doubt–shipping, currency conversion, distribution, taxes and duties, marketing, packaging requirements, etc.–but nothing a business that’s motivated to expand can’t overcome.

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Case in point: eDimensional Incorporated, a maker of video gaming accessories, co-founded in 2000 by college friends Michael Epstein and Nathan Newman. With just three full-time employees (in 2007, the latest year for which U.S. Commerce Department figures are available, 72 percent of U.S. exporters had fewer than 20 employees), eDimensional has been selling internationally via the Web almost since inception. Today it generates about 40 percent of revenue overseas, and Epstein and Newman say getting things going overseas wasn’t all that difficult.

“We didn’t find too many challenges when we first started shipping internationally, other than actual shipping costs,” Epstein says. “And once we started shipping even a few units on a regular basis, we were able to ask our shipping company, FedEx, for preferred pricing. That allowed us to increase our volume even more, because customers were not as put off by shipping costs.”

To keep things simple for its international clientele, eDimensional includes a currency converter on its Web site to show customers what their costs will be in their currency. In a typical transaction, a customer charges a purchase to a credit card and the card issuer converts the buyer’s local currency to dollars before paying eDimensional. FedEx then acts as a customs clearing agent for the countries where it delivers, collecting applicable duties or taxes and unburdening eDimensional of a potential headache.

In the years since its launch, eDimensional has established relations with a network of distributors who buy its products in bulk and resell them overseas to retailers and end-user customers alike. To find those distributors, Epstein and Newman simply looked at who was representing other companies in their industry and asked if they’d be interested in taking on eDimensional’s line, too.

In addition to supplying information about labeling and packaging requirements in foreign markets, those distributors help eDimensional with overseas marketing programs. “We’re too small to go over there on any sort of regular basis for marketing purposes ourselves,” Epstein explains, “although we do sometimes attend shows and events.”

To be sure, selling internationally can present challenges. Depending upon what you’re selling and to whom, you may need a bank that can help you with accepting payment in foreign currencies, an accountant who is conversant in tax law as it applies to income derived outside the U.S., and an attorney who can advise you on international contract law. You may also need distributors or agents to represent you in foreign countries. Distributors typically buy goods from you and resell them; agents merely market your goods and let you or a distributor handle the physical exchange of merchandise.

Although eDimensional didn’t need that kind of help, other than finding distributors, Epstein and Newman still had to master the labeling requirements and safety certifications in the countries where they wanted to sell their products. They had to certify, for example, that their products comply with Europe’s Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) directive, which is aimed at reducing waste from electrical and electronic equipment. “We kind of came to understand this stuff through trial and error, or from our distributors providing us with the information,” Epstein says. “We only heard from customs if there was a problem, and we never had any problems we couldn’t fix at a reasonable cost.”

Like Epstein, Scott Krahn also co-founded a company, DH Krahn Spirits LLC, with a former college classmate. But unlike Epstein, he didn’t launch with the idea of selling outside the U.S. Rather, he and business partner David Hughes merely wanted to break into the New York City market with their gin. But just a year and a half after their September 2006 launch, a U.K.-based distributor, impressed by what the pair had accomplished, asked to ship their product overseas.

Krahn and Hughes got in touch with other companies already working with the distributor and liked what they heard. “A lot of the products they had in their portfolio were going to the same retail and restaurant accounts we would target,” Krahn recalls. “We thought this would be a great opportunity.”

They signed on. Today, the distributor assumes the cost of shipping DH Krahn’s gin overseas — along with insuring, unloading and distributing it, and paying applicable U.K. taxes. “It really hasn’t taken a lot of investment on our part,” Krahn reports.

In fact, the experience has gone so well that DH Krahn now works with distributors in Spain, Thailand and Israel. In addition, its U.K. distributor is acting as its agent throughout Europe, which has put its product into more than 15 countries with, Krahn says, “very little work on our end.” His fledgling firm, which still employs only him and Hughes, now generates about 10 percent of its revenue outside the U.S. “We’re not swimming in profits from overseas, but we’re not losing money, that’s for sure,” he says. “Our model is slow growth.”

If you’d like to tap into the international market for your goods or services, you’ve got a wealth of resources at your disposal. The U.S. Commerce Department, the U.S. Small Business Administration and the Export-Import Bank of the United States all offer help. A convenient starting point for all three can be found at www.export.gov. In addition, many states operate agencies aimed at helping small businesses export their products.

In the meantime, watch for my upcoming column on finding and vetting distributors who can sell your products overseas. Exporting may give your business the lift it needs in this difficult economy.

A former reporter for The Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones and contributor to Barron’s, Randy Myers is a contributing editor for CFO and Corporate Board Member magazines.

As an entrepreneur, the independence of running your own business can be a double edged sword: You are solely responsible for your company’s success. While most entrepreneurs strive for greatness, some fall into the realm of just good enough. But the truth is the more you learn about achieving greatness, the more likely you are to stretch outside your comfort zone. Michael Bungay Stanier, author of Do More Great Work: Stop the Busywork. Start the Work That Matters, shares some ideas on how to get from good to great.

Great work, is the flame that burns inside most entrepreneurs. It’s the work we care most about, that excites and challenges us. It’s work that has meaning and creates impact.

It’s also the work that helps your company survive. Great work is the work of innovation and strategic differentiation. This is where new products and services come from and where the long-term growth and survival of your company are to be found.

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So great work matters at a personal level–work that is meaningful and that makes us happy–as well as at a strategic level. In fact, a good strategy can be considered as the right mix of good work and great work for your company.

Good is the Enemy of Great

Jim Collins said it first, and he had it right.

Bad work is, of course, something to eliminate. Let’s take a leaf from the playbook of Richer Sounds, an electronics and home-entertainment company in the UK. The company has been in the Guinness Book of World Records for many years for its high retail sales. Richer Sounds also has a Cut the Crap Committee: a group of high-potential managers who look for the bad work that inevitably arises in any organization.

Good work is an even bigger problem. The steady churn of productivity, the meetings and e-mails and the day-to-day getting things done means it’s often easy to be seduced by the comfort and familiarity of good work and to never quite get around to doing enough great work.

So how do you manage the busywork so you can do less good work and more great work? Here are two simple and powerful tips:

1. Begin with the Great
   
   Ever get to the end of a week, a week where you’ve worked long and hard, and be unable to remember anything you’ve actually done?

   
   It’s because most of us start each day by jumping right into the good work stream and never getting out. We dive into and start processing our e-mails, and then the whirl of meetings and phone calls begins. Before you know it, another day has passed.

   
   There has to be time set aside for great work; protected time where you can focus on great work without interruption.

   
   For most of us, the sooner in the day you can get to it the better. Your great work requires you using your active brain, your prefrontal cortex. That’s the source of creativity, your problem-solving, your strategic thinking. And that part of your brain gets tired easily, whether doing good or great work. To put it bluntly, using your great work brain power answering e-mail is a waste of your best strategic asset. Block off time early on in the day for great work.

2. Find Great Work Allies
   
   Great work is difficult if not impossible to do by yourself. You need people to help. When gathering your great work allies, you’re looking for two types of people.

   
   First, find people who are extraordinary in the work that they do. In this hyper-connected world, you can find the best person in the world to help you with your challenge, not just the best person in your part of town. Find extraordinary contributors, then keep them close and nourish them.

   
   Second, find people who will provide the encouragement and support to keep you focused on great work. It might be a coach, a mastermind group or friends you have the occasional drink with. You’re looking for tough love, encouragement and support when you’re going through the inevitable dips; a reminder of your blind spots and familiar patterns when you’re spinning your wheels; and a willingness to push and provoke you a little, too, when that’s required.

An Apple a Day…
Steve Jobs said this: “Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. . . If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking, and don’t settle.”

And of course, he’s right. The secret is not to settle.

As entrepreneurs, we’ve a better chance than most to do great work. Our challenge is less about finding great work, which is often what got us to where we are today. Instead, the challenge is to avoid the seduction of good work while we continue striving for the great.

Michael Bungay Stanier is the senior partner of Box of Crayons, a company that helps organizations do less Good Work and more Great Work. His new book is Do More Great Work: Stop the Busywork. Start the Work That Matters. You can see a short animated film on Great Work at www.GreatWorkAlchemy.com. You can also follow Michael on Twitter at @boxofcrayons.

By: Toddi Gutner

Even in the best of circumstances, business partnerships can be fraught with conflict. To handle the twists and turns, smart co-owners put a well-drafted partnership agreement in place to act as a road map. Without one, lack of guidance in the event of a dispute can result in a free-for-all for partners, says Jonathan Levitt, a principal with Outside GC LLC, a team of former senior in-house lawyers who act as “on-demand” in-house counsel for clients.

For partners who don’t have an agreement, or even those who do, there are a few things they should consider in order to best protect themselves when conflict arises.

First, business partners need to evaluate whether they can mend fences and settle their differences. Difficult issues surface in all partnerships, and they can create stress in the relationship, “but if you work through these issues, you usually have a stronger partnership,” says Steven Thayer, an attorney with Handler Thayer LLP in Chicago.

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It’s important to figure out what’s at the root of the friction. Ask, “What is occurring within the partnership that is causing you to make a decision to [want to] sell or liquidate?” says Terry Mackin, managing director at Generational Equity, merger and acquisition advisor for small businesses. It can come down to rifts, family dynamics or other issues. “How are those things affecting the business?” says Mackin.

Business issues such as not making enough money, having too much debt or realizing your business model doesn’t work are situations that may require you to adapt and change your business plan to make it work, says Thayer. Of course, fundamental issues that are hard to move past–lying, cheating, stealing or other illegal activity, for example–can be deal breakers and a legitimate basis to terminate the relationship.

Whether conflicts are resolved to make the partnership work is a business decision based in part on each partner’s risk/reward tolerance level. “Each partner should regularly assess the risks and rewards associated with their business […] to make sure they are in check,” says Thayer.

To that end, ongoing communication and a periodic review of your partnership (especially the agreement, if you have one) is essential. Just as in any relationship, partnerships grow old and co-owners need to reassess how decisions are made, who makes what decisions, etc., says Kurt D. Olender, a corporate attorney in Manhattan.

What do you do if you’re unable to resolve your conflicts? At this point, business partners need to determine whether or not one partner buys out the other or both sell out to a third party. In the case of a partner buyout, the two important questions to ask are “Who has the most passion for the business, and who has an immediate cash need that requires them to cash out of the business?” says Steve Nielsen, CEO of PartnerUp, an online small-business networking community. As one would expect, both partners need to agree on the next course of action. In some cases, reaching an agreement may require a good business attorney to act as a sort of “corporate therapist.”

Whatever the decision, make sure you hire a good business attorney to help with the dissolution of the partnership. There is too much at stake to use your friend’s uncle or some other attorney who is not an expert in business law. Finally, “It is extremely critical that both parties either have their own independent valuations or that they agree on an independent business-valuation expert to determine the value of the business, ” says Nielsen.

Most issues, serious or not, can be resolved at the onset through good communication and effective negotiation skills. “Before you resort to the worst case, try working things out by talking,” says Nielsen.

Situation: Morgan and Jose are arguing about which steps to take next to implement the Micah Project. Morgan wants to move ahead immediately; Jose wants to rethink the situation and perhaps consult with other members of the department to avoid making a rash decision. Morgan becomes impatient and blames Jose for dragging his feet once again. Jose doesn’t want to ruffle Morgan’s feathers, so he does nothing about the differences of opinion, hoping that Morgan will let up on the pressure. The result is a stalemate.

This is a typical situation where conflict freezes progress and stymies many managers. We must first ask why Jose, like so many other employees, does nothing. The answer is because he probably believes in some very common and unfortunate myths about conflict:

• Conflict is bad and terrible things will occur if differences in opinion are aired.
• Conflict will rip apart the team or its esprit de corps.
• Other employees will be mad at him.
• He would be calling too much attention to himself by making a big deal out of the situation.
• It’s better not to engage in conflict; harmony must prevail at all costs. 
• The parties will never get over those negative feelings.
• The issue will cause a chain reaction that will halt or delay productivity and involve other people.

At this point, you as the leader might be questioning your own views of conflict, as well you should. But do you know how to actually define conflict? No, it’s not some terrible, unmanageable, out-of-control creature. Conflict is simply defined as tension, which is neither good nor bad. Positive tension, that energy that leads to increased creativity, innovation and productivity, is a dynamic byproduct of two or more people sharing their views, even if their views are inconsistent or out of synch with each other. Negative tension is an unproductive, off-putting, harmful result of people not working together to arrive at a positive solution.

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What causes tension? The list is endless and mostly individualistic. We all have our vulnerabilities and views that lead to tension, especially the more common negative tension. Most people experience negative conflict when they are supervised and fear an unfavorable evaluation. Similarly, tension arises when employees feel they are being compared with each other or are vying for the same resources, such as time, money, people or equipment. Other employees are conflicted when under deadlines, especially when they do not have the assistance of other helpful employees. Still others have great difficulty dealing with change; breaking or changing habits is almost always difficult. Even if a change seems to be positive, it often is accompanied by some form of conflict, simply due to the change or potential performance evaluation under a new system with new policies, processes or colleagues. And finally, negative tension easily and most commonly erupts with differences in opinions, especially those that are firmly held.

So what positive steps can leaders take to minimize the negative aspects of conflict?

1. Realize that conflict is natural and happens all the time. 
2. Stress the positive aspects of conflict; just because tension arises, the world is not going to collapse. In fact, if handled well, conflict often leads to innovation.
3. Realize that conflict can be handled in a positive way that leads to personal and professional growth, development and productivity.
4. Encourage others to bring up conflict and differences. Allowing them to fester inevitably encourages them to erupt later, usually at a most inopportune time.
5. Identify the root cause(s) of the conflict. You can’t begin to unravel the potential negativity in conflict and look toward progress until you determine the source of the issue.
6. Look at the issue from all sides. Inspect the positive and negative factors that each party sees to fully comprehend what is at stake.
7. Devise a complete list of actions to address the issue; ensure that each party believes that he/she has had input in the final product or decision.
8. Decide on the step that best addresses and resolves the issue. Again, all parties need to see that they have had input into this step.
9. Agree on whatever next steps are necessary to implement the mutually agreed-upon action.
10. Review the process that you used to arrive at the final decision, hoping to implement a similar successful plan when negative conflict next arises.

An effective leader is willing to address spoken and unspoken negative tension and helps transform it into positive, productive tension that leads to increased understanding of the issues, the parties involved and the final outcome.

As the economy glides into something that vaguely resembles a recovery, the workplace isn’t the battleground that it was at this time last year, but employees are nonetheless bruised and exhausted. There’s no escaping that a marginal economic recovery brings with it a brand new set of human capital challenges. In addition, carryover issues from 2009 have continued to increase in importance. Here represents what I think are key human capital strategies as we head into 2010:

Maximize productivity without fatigue
Indicators all point to a jobless recovery. That means small businesses will not be inclined to hire many new employees in 2010.

That makes sense from a business standpoint, but the people who have survived layoffs and sputtering business output are suffering from the corporate equivalent of post-traumatic stress disorder. They’re thankful to have jobs, but are dissatisfied with managers who’ve been pumping productivity out of them in order to compensate for the relative lack of manpower.

It will be paramount for executives and managers to communicate to employees that even if staffing ratios remain low for the time being, there are opportunities for greater responsibilities, career advancement and financial rewards down the line. Employees who have managers that help them understand their own stake in the business are more likely to be engaged in their projects and therefore offer maximum productivity. Implement the best possible performance management solutions, and train managers on how to use them. This will help managers find the right balance on their teams between an increased workload and issues of fatigue.

Make sure that hiring doesn’t start behind the curve
The economic recovery may be jobless, but only for now. The months ahead present a tremendous opportunity for opportunistic executives to begin hiring in the first half of 2010, even if doing so bumps up against their need to conserve cash.

The start of 2010 presents a chance to ensure that your organization gets star players before it becomes a candidates’ market again.

A robust talent acquisition system can support this initiative. That team should use technology to hone efficiency; from keeping onboarding costs down to the ability to target passive candidates. And the hiring strategy should leverage social media as well as traditional recruiting sources.

Only key hires should be made during this time, with a special focus on unique or hard-to-get skill sets. These players will be the most in demand as the economic engine recovers.

Social media gets even more socialized
Speaking of social media, its importance to the business landscape will continue to grow, and executives who ignore it do so at their peril. Social media offers significant advantages–such as the afore-mentioned recruiting tool–as well as providing a community for your employees to engage with one another.

But social media also carries significant dangers. Disgruntled employees can “tweet” their dissatisfactions, and ex-employees have been known to band together and form Facebook groups designed to smear their former employer’s reputation.

The most obvious first step is to ensure that your organization has a social media policy. But it’s also important to actively intervene in your company’s social media presence. It’s not possible to control the conversation, but by being an active participant–building a Facebook community or LinkedIn group, updating your company’s Twitter page–you can guide and influence that conversation.

Doing so will help you tell the right story when people encounter your company online, and go a long way toward building your employer brand as human, engaged and responsive.

And finally, I suggest that you remain as agile as possible. As economic conditions continue to fluctuate, and health care reform becomes something tangible and actionable, small businesses that can seamlessly adjust their plans accordingly will be best positioned to thrive in the new year. Stretching those corporate muscles and staying limber may turn out to be the best human capital strategy for 2010.

Burton M. Goldfield currently serves as president and chief executive officer of TriNet, an HR outsourcing company. In this role, Goldfield is responsible for setting TriNet’s overall corporate strategy and directing business operations; he also provides strategic guidance in regards to TriNet’s human capital offerings.

Smart business owners know it’s always critical to be technologically prepared, despite tough economic times. That’s the lesson from the results of a recent survey conducted by IT management solutions provider Spiceworks, which show that most small businesses are still planning to make significant investments in new hardware and software over the next six months.

Even as small businesses are squeezing more mileage out of their existing hardware–the average planned lifespan of desktops, laptops and servers increased 26 percent in 2009 from 40 months to 50 months–68 percent of businesses queried by Spiceworks said they are looking to add new hardware by year’s end, and 51 percent said they are budgeting for new software.

“Companies see that IT is critical to their future,” says Spiceworks co-founder and VP of marketing Jay Hallberg. “They’re still looking to stretch out the life of their existing equipment and looking at what they can easily upgrade, like storage and RAM. But once a machine becomes 4 or 5 years old, it makes sense to junk it and get a new one.”

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Fifty-six percent of businesses polled by Spiceworks are targeting new desktops, and 55 percent plan to purchase laptops. Forty-five percent are mulling new server purchases, 31 percent are looking to add printers and 27 percent are shopping for new network devices.

As for software spending, 32 percent of respondents plan to invest in security and anti-spam solution purchases by the end of 2009. Within this segment, 35 percent are targeting cloud-based security and anti-spam services. Forty-four percent are employing virtualization solutions. Spiceworks notes that within small and medium business networks, 21 percent of total server computing capacity is now virtualized, and 30 percent of businesses plan to deploy or expand virtualization in their networks. In addition, 22 percent are looking to hire additional full-time or part-time IT workers–only 3 percent plan to further cut staff.

Not all small businesses are expanding their IT horizons, of course. “We see some who are incredibly progressive and doing everything cutting edge, but others adopt an ‘If it isn’t broke, don’t fix it’ perspective,” Hallberg says.

Can You Guess the Top Brand Characters?

Posted by Paul Christ

March 23, 2010

America’s Most Loved Spokescreatures (Forbes)

What is the first thought that comes to mind when you hear the brand names Geico, Energizer or AFLAC?  If what you think about is an image containing an animal such as a gecko, duck or rabbit then the marketing people behind these products have done a good job in building a successful brand mark.

As we note in our Product tutorial, a brand mark can be represented by a symbol, logo, character or sound “that provides visual or auditory recognition for the product.”  To establish a successful brand mark the marketer must be able to associate their product with something that triggers the brand in the customer’s mind.  For instance, if a customer sees a certain image (e.g., animal, animated character) and they almost immediately think about a certain product.  Building an effective brand mark takes a great deal of effort, especially extensive promotional spending, yet many leading companies find the recognition value to be well worth the expense.

In this story, Forbes presents the results of a survey (conducted by an outside firm) asking consumers to rate the top brand characters.  While details on the actual methods used to collect the information is not presented and therefore the results must be viewed somewhat cautiously, the information is still quite interesting.

And the winner?  Surprisingly it is not an animal but you will need to read the story to find out who tops the list! Make sure to view the accompanying slide show detailing the top 10 brand characters.

E-Poll asked survey participants to rank 800 characters on 36 characteristics, including sincerity, likability and coolness. For our list, they ranked the characters by their appeal–whether people like the characters or not.

What companies have the worst brand characters?

Image by EMR

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The Right Way to Compare Web Advertisements

Posted by Paul Christ

March 18, 2010

Statistical Significance: Not Just For Geeks Anymore (Search Engine Land)

One of the true tests of what works in marketing is to use quantitative measurement methods to compare what happens when changes are made.  As an example, a company may test two different types of incentive plans with its sales force.  Calculating the results of these plans could help the company select the plan that leads to higher sales.

Comparative analysis is most widely utilized in advertising testing, especially online advertising.  With the immense amount of data available to those engaged in Internet advertising, comparing what works and what does not can simply be a matter of looking at the numbers.  Many companies do exactly that by employing so called A/B testing where effectiveness of one ad is compared to another (see MarketingExperiments for more on A/B testing).  Measures of effectiveness include click-through-rates, purchases or other user action.

Yet many marketers responsible for online advertising often do not take a deep look at whether the results truly represent a difference, at least not in a statistical way.  This story outlines what it takes for comparison of two ads to be statistically significant and paints a nice picture of how results can be misinterpreted.  It also suggests that certain tools available on the Internet to measure statistical significance may not be quite accurate.

Though the concepts I’ve described above are (hopefully) now very clear, unfortunately, some of the web-based tools for differentiating CTRs seem to have disregarded them completely.

Note: In the Comments area of this story there is a posting discussing a neat online statistical tool for evaluating A/B testing that may, in fact, addressed the problems raised by the author of this story.

Even if a marketer follows the advice presented in this story, what other issues need to be considered before the marketer makes a final decision on which advertisements are best?

Image by nDevilTV

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Small Business and Social Networks Are Yet to Be a Match

Posted by Paul Christ

March 16, 2010

Entrepreneurs Question Value of Social Media (Wall Street Journal)

It is virtually impossible to escape the hype surrounding social network websites (a.k.a., social media).  The buzz regarding social networks is so strong that all types of businesses are now seriously considering whether they MUST start incorporating it into how they do business.  In particular, businesses are wondering how social networks can be utilized as part of their marketing strategy.  They have heard about the success some companies have had with marketing through social networks and think the time is now right to jump in with both feet.

Yet, for many small business owners their initial experience with marketing through social networks has not gone well.  As pointed out in this story, many entrepreneurs are in the dark when it comes to understanding how social networks can be used to meet their marketing objectives.  And because of this experience they are questioning whether Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and other services are all talk and no action when it comes to being a valuable marketing tool.

Meanwhile, a separate survey of 500 U.S. small-business owners from the same sponsors found that just 22% made a profit last year from promoting their firms on social media, while 53% said they broke even. What’s more, 19% said they actually lost money due to their social-media initiatives.

In addition to what is discussed in this story, what other factors affect whether marketing through social networks is something a small business should consider?

Image by KateMonkey

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To Regain Importance MySpace Tries a Repositioning Strategy

Posted by Paul Christ

March 11, 2010

Once-Fading MySpace Focuses on Youthful Reincarnation (USA Today)

Five years ago MySpace ruled the social media world.  It was considered the darling of Internet startups and eventually was purchased by News Corp. for nearly $600 million.  But like many fast growing companies, MySpace tried to be everything to too many people.  Trying to appeal to many, diverse market segments with what amounts to being the same product is often difficult unless the product is a true commodity (e.g., milk) that nearly everyone wants.  Unfortunately for MySpace, customers in the social media market were not looking for the same product; they wanted a product that was customizable to their own styles.  MySpace’s limited offerings opened the door for other social network sites especially Facebook, which by 2007 surpassed MySpace in web traffic and today is far ahead.

As this story discusses, MySpace is now being forced to reposition itself.  It is altering its marketing strategy and taking a more targeted approach.  By narrowing their focus the company hopes to appeal to the under 35-year-old market, with even more emphasis on the under 25-year-old crowd.  The changes in marketing strategy include a new website design, online gaming, new content and renewed emphasis on music and movies.

More than half of MySpace’s estimated 100 million users are 25 and younger, according to market researcher ComScore. The 13-to-34-year-old demographic spends 84% of all user time on the service. MySpace intends to appeal to that demographic with a mantra of “Discover and be discovered,” a fancy way of saying it wants to be the online venue to find new friends, movie trailers, little-known bands and social games.

In addition to the changes noted in this story, what else will MySpace need to do to once again gain traction in the social network space?

Image by MySpace

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Consumer Ratings of Top Supermarket Brands

Posted by Paul Christ

March 09, 2010

America’s Favorite Brands (Stores Magazine)

What are the top brands of frozen food, bath soap and ice cream sold in U.S. supermarkets?  If you are not sure then check out this story which provides a nice ranking of brands in 20 consumer product categories (see this page for listing).  While this story and associated listing are worth reading (including the implications of why branding is becoming so important to retailers), a few additional issues should be considered.

First, it is important to understand that the results show the leading brands by category but do not necessarily indicate the top individual products within a category.  For instance, under the Breakfast Cereal category Kellogg is listed as the top brand but the results do not indicate which of Kellogg’s cereal products (i.e., Raisin Bran, Rice Krispies, Froot Loops, Corn Flakes, etc.) is the top selling individual brand.  In fact, the top individual brand in some categories may come from a company that is not ranked as the number one brand.

Second, the story does not offer much detail on how the information was collected other than indicating that consumer wrote down brand names.  However, the research company behind the numbers, BIGresearch, is known to use large consumer research panels and such panels can be very effective when the research is planned correctly.  By correctly we mean proper controls are in place including using appropriate methods for participant selection, data collection and data analysis.  More details on how the branding information was collected could offer more insight into the real value of these rankings.

Third, while the data collection details are not provided, it does not appear that these rankings reflect actual sales but instead reflect customer’s recollection of what they purchased.  If the research design is strong these results should be similar to market share information which typically is based on sales.

Respondents were asked to write in the brand name of the product they purchased most often in each of these categories.

Dish Detergent
Dawn 32%
Palmolive 10
Ajax 4

Paper Towels
Bounty 27%
Store brand/generic 9
Brawny 7

Which of the 20 categories listed in the rankings would appear to be least susceptible to competition from store brands?

Image by iboy_daniel

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