To a business, kick-starting social media engagement may either appear to be too daunting, or too easy. It is neither. But a formalized process can help get it going without getting mired in the what-ifs, how-to’s and why-for’s.

Presenting B2Bento’s Quickstart Guide to Social Media for Business. It’s nothing new, nor is it rocket science nor holy writ/”best practice”, etc. It’s the distillation of our experience working with our clients, knowledge gleaned through our readings and interactions with some of the finest minds in the B2B marketing space. In that sense it truly rides on the shoulders of giants.

Adaptation and assimilation are the name of the game. Feel free to distribute and share this with your customers. It’s also open to improvement and refinement. If you have any ideas, let us know. Download Hi-Res version from Flickr.

Download Hi-Res version from Flickr.

Quickstart Guide to Social Media for Business by GetIT COMMS is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://www.getitcomms.com

Infographic – Quickstart Guide to Social Media for Business is a post from: B2Bento

To smash the proverbial champagne bottle on our new toy, a shiny condenser microphone that had me doing my best “Band Aid” impersonation when it arrived, the folks here at B2Bento have decided to use it immediately in an exclusive interview. So we have selected not one but two (yes two!) of our colleagues and set some questions upon them.

Asuthosh Nair and Santo Thie gleefully stepped up to the plate and yes … they were not harmed in the making of this video. Since they obviously enjoyed tackling those queries on camera because the video ran for more than 30 minutes, we have sliced the entire video into three. Part one delves into a general overview of B2B marketing content.

Disclaimer: The views expressed in the video are the personal views of the interviewee and and do not necessarily represent the philosophy or viewpoints of their organization or clients.

(Updated with questions by Anol)
Transcript of the Interview

Asuthosh is the Chief Operating Officer of GetIT Comms while Santo is Program Manager and Team Lead on AV Media. Both of them have fantastic technical insight, experience and expertise as well as having a great handle on B2B marketing content.

B2B marketing content: a bird’s eye view

Asuthosh: I think B2B marketing content is crucial because of the very nature of B2B audiences, which is somewhat different from those in the B2C world. B2B customers or buyers tend to be at various stages of the buying cycle when we are talking to them. So you must have content that addresses their different needs. You also have different decision makers and buying influencers who may not actually make the decision but have a strong role to play in the purchase decision so the kind of content you produce has to appeal to a wide range of audiences.

In a B2C marketing slogan / campaign, a passing customer sees an ad and if they understand and get impressed by it then they might actually head down to the store and buy it. In B2B, buyers are going to take a longer time to make their decision and they will be doing lots of research as well. If we just produce an ad in a newspaper or put a flashing ad on the web, you are not going to be able to hit those groups of customers who have a very prolonged characteristic to their buying patterns. So the more content you produce, the better it will be because it’s going to solidify their research and they will be able to justify their decision to the ultimate person who’s going to sign on the dotted line.

B2B buyers also tend to have a lot more conversations with their peers in terms of evaluating the solutions that they are looking at and in terms of discussing the long term aspects of those solutions like support and so on. There are things that an average B2C customer may not look at thoroughly. In B2B, since the decision and money outlay is much bigger, there’s going to be a lot more discussion in that way.

If you create content you’ve got conversation starters for salespeople. They can then start using this content so that they can get into conversations with their customers. Those are some of the things that show, when it comes to B2B marketing, why content is important.

I would also think that trust is key and good content helps build trust. Paul Dunay spoke about how you need to really drum in the message at least three to five times until people start believing the message. If you’re just going to say it once or twice and conveying those using very trite sentences (which really don’t say much) then your buyers are going to have a tough time believing what you say.

If you produce good content it kind of fortifies the message and the more times you say it (and in different ways too) then the better it would be for them to believe the message. I think it comes down to the nature of the B2B buyers, how it facilitates conversations and how it helps solidify trust which of course has its relation to thought leadership and so on.

Santo: We can’t say that the content is not as important as that in B2C. It’s the same importance and the difference lies in the nature of the content itself. In B2C they try to encourage individuals to buy. In B2B, clients or targets are actually businesses themselves. So it’s not about the end target. And we also have to think about how these businesses can develop their business.

The difference may be on the content that not only pertains to buying but also delves on business development. So you have to help the client to develop their trade in a manner where it would help them sell their business to their own clients. That’s a major difference also in the content between B2B and B2C.

According to your experience, what has worked so far?)

Asuthosh: Storytelling is key to this. We recently wrote about it and discussed three things which matter to a good story. One is that it has to be transmittable which means that you can tell that story over and over without losing much information and impact. So it has to be simple and short like an Aesop fable which everyone understands and the story never gets changed.

It has to be tangible which means that people must be able to take something solid from your content. For example, if it’s a job you did for a customer and they are happy about it they will say “I went with this … I went with you … and I saved 50 million dollars.” Now having a tangible amount would be better than saying “I have productivity gains”, which of course will fly away over everybody’s head because it doesn’t really have a number to it.

The whole thing has to be remarkable. It has to be something that people will be willing to share at a party for example. Definitely something which people can make a point about, build upon and ultimately add on to. It’s about making that aspect of storytelling come true to all the content that you develop.

It’s also important that you pace the cadence of your messaging. Something that’s too frequent becomes spamming and something that is the opposite becomes neglected. Perhaps how you can look at it is how you pace your messaging and how you tell the same thing in different ways so as to capture different audiences. The way some people look at a communication on a Monday will of course be different compared to say looking at it on a Friday. Modify your message accordingly.

If you have finished with the initial steps then you should consider the kind of media through which you can communicate your B2B content. Usual suspects include case studies, video testimonials, white papers, etc. And then you have e-books which everyone is creating right now. In general these are some of the more common ones but there are also some of the more “in vogue” things these days which is using social media channels to create content.

Being current also is key to making your B2B marketing content work well. It has to be able to talk to the particular audience which means that you have to make sure that everything you are sending out is measured. Don’t just post it out there and hope that people will latch onto it. Through constant feedback, make sure that your B2B marketing content is fresh, tangible and useful to the person who is getting it.

Santo: I just want to stress on the re-using or re-purposing of content. When you create the content, you can’t just think about creating one just for a singular purpose. You can make them for different levels of audiences. When you prepare something that is very technical you also have to think that later on you might also be able to use that same content on other things like a business presentation. So you just can’t have a focused target or focused purpose for one content. It has to be flexible and must be re-usable because it’s just the nature of B2B content.

Parts 2 and 3 will follow within a week. Look out for it.

Exclusive Interview: Asuthosh Nair and Santo Thie (COO and Project Manager, GetIT Comms) – Part 1 of 3 is a post from: B2Bento

Wii Tennis – that shiny wonder of a game that has managed to consume our after office hours and saturate them with über competitive fun amidst a soundtrack of cheers, jeers, and exasperated grunts.

If Wii Tennis makes so much sense to us as a fun-loving group at play, then would it still make sense when juxtaposed against the nature of our work? Is it really possible to gleam some sort of common ground between B2B marketing and Wii Tennis? Here’s my take on general B2B marketing concepts (particularly those that involve social media) as they hold court under a Wii Tennis light:

1. Wii Tennis is not a passive game and so is B2B Marketing, especially when using social media. Obviously, you have to constantly return the ball (or at least attempt to) in order for everything to work. So just like B2B marketing in social media terms, engagement is of utmost importance. To serve the ball would equate to putting out content in the hope of generating leads and returning the ball after it is served at you would translate to having meaningful and contextual conversations with your market. It’s so simple it hurts.
2. Be fast enough to be able to return the serve or volley. In B2B marketing, this would equate to being able to engage with your customer effectively while being able to adapt to the constantly evolving trends and innovations in technology, content consumption and vehicles/media/tools that deliver the content to your target.
3. Lead nurturing takes time and patience and so does waiting for the computer to sweat and make a mistake. Yes it sometimes gets tedious as the ball goes back and forth in an almost clinical fashion. But it’s the same thing in B2B marketing as well. You have to be patient in order for you to get an “advantage”. Rushing things would only serve to undermine your whole effort. And it’s especially worth it to wait for the computer to sweat profusely because it is just fun to look at.
4. You have to map out how the opponent will react to your style of play in the same vein as you would map out how a customer would accept solutions that would suit their business context. You must always keep in mind that clients must be handled in such a way that the solution must fit their needs. So, no matter how fantastic your Tim Henman-esque serve is, there is always somebody out there to whom your serve has no effect on whatsoever. So you must learn to adjust accordingly.
5. Every gamer has a style that mirror themselves and their peers and in B2B marketing, your content is personalized in such a way that they mirror your connection with your audience. Either you are the clinically calculating tennis geek or the über fidgety “Shaolin Tennis!” kind of goofball … both can present compelling styles that would fit you and the way your manner of play (or story in the case of B2B marketing) would be perceived and received. And on both accounts, it is up to you to determine the style of play that would work.
6. In Wii Tennis you can measure your player progress as you beat the computer everytime you play. In B2B marketing you have ROI and matrices that help you pinpoint what works and what does not. Both are absolutely essential.

So there you have it — general B2B marketing concepts extrapolated  from Wii Tennis. Well not that we need to. But it sure beats not engaging with people who might appreciate such eclectic tangents. That and because my right arm still hurts from all the swinging.

Advantage B2B… say what again? is a post from: B2Bento

In this exclusive interview, we feature Isman Tanuri (Social Media Enthusiast / Marketing Communications Executve, HRG Singapore). It was quite a pleasure talking to Isman over coffee as we discussed about the merits of social media within a company environment.

Isman works as a Marketing Communications Executive for HRG Singapore and is a very avid fan of social media. You can read more about the cool stuff that he writes about via his blog and you can follow him on his Twitter account.

Disclaimer: The views expressed in the video are the personal views of the interviewee and and do not necessarily represent the philosophy or viewpoints of their organization or clients.

Transcript of the Interview

My name is Isman. Professionally I’m a communications guy at Hogg Robinson. I’m trying to build a community to make clients more aware of what we are doing because it’s a very “invisible” industry. I’m trying to get people to be more aware of what we do by putting out the stories that revolve around the people and the company. For example, my company was involved in the last World Cup … things like that which keep the audience interested in a very informal way. That’s mostly what my role is right now.

Social Media Interests

Personally I’m very much interested in seeing how social media can be translated into a vehicle “within” a company instead of just looking at it from a marketing perspective or from a public relations standpoint. I think that there is so much potential within the company. There are so much more things which can be done on how we communicate, how we share, and interact with our employees and colleagues. Unless you are really groundbreaking in your approach, most people would still think that social media is still a marketing tool and is more like reaching out to customers. But like what I have mentioned, it’s a good tool for brand building within your employees as well.

So where do we start?

That would have to happen from the top. It has to be the directive of a business leader to adopt a much more open environment for communication. Naturally, anyone in business would initially feel against being so open because they fear that competitors might know about the “this and that” of their company. But companies like Zappos (and locally like The Garden Slug) have proven that as long as you are truthful, as long as you are transparent with your clients and employees and as long as you get things done … business can still be profitable. How exactly can being open harm a business really? By taking away your customers? It’s only natural for such a thing to happen with or without being open. We just need to get them back if that happens. Being more receptive to open communication within the office environment will result to productivity, transparency, honesty and many more things like that.

The issue of privacy and sharing

I think the crux of the matter is that people perceive privacy as something that is holy and it’s something that is on a pedestal. People mistake that with being open and there’s a difference between the two. I have an open Facebook and Twitter account and for me it’s a matter of what you share rather than trying to keep it all in thinking that anything you share will come back to haunt you. If people are educated enough to know what they can share and can’t share then I think there would be no problem and it will make a lot of difference.

Loving your career can do wonders

You have to be happy coming to work and essentially loving your career in order to make the difference and to be able to share the virtues of your company and brand. I’m sure it won’t work for everyone within the company but as long as someone or something out there is making your life better it probably will. Love and affection can do wonders to a brand. Just take a look at the number of Apple fanatics out there. These people are not even paid by Apple to be outspoken for their brand.

Turning employees into brand evangelists

My experience of producing public content concerning the brand I work for and by sharing it with colleagues has taught me a lot. I believe that if a person is happy and contented with work, they will be more than happy to share content on their own network that will be good for the brand. Everything will stem from that. It’s ok to share something that concerns work. But then again it comes back to the question of reeling an employee to become an evangelist for your brand. So I would take you back to the idea of creating a culture of open communication within your company. That’s very important if you want to turn your employees into brand ambassadors. And it also would help if you would start to explore social media, Facebook for example, for the office. I really believe in the potential of tapping those tools.

The merits of failure

Today my blog post revolved around complaining about something. I believe that complaining is good also and that failure is fine since it’s also about learning. But even if I think that it’s fine, sometimes bad things will happen on your social media page. So there needs to be a policy in place that can clearly define what you can and cannot say about the company. Everything you do there should have a particular plan set in place.

Why the sudden need for a policy about social media?

Well it’s a new thing you know. You might get fired because you’re on Facebook. It’s still not de facto standard that’s why there’s a need for some sort of guidelines for that. The perspective that social media is open and all that, there’s the fear in there as well.

What other things do you want to find out about more?

I’m interested to find out what social media has done within organizations. I was once within an organization where we had our own Facebook, our own Twitter, our own Wiki platform and anything that was meant to be collaborative and social. It was there. But the failure was that there was nobody driving the adoption of the tools. No one was telling everybody to go out and be there and use the tools. I thought that it was sad. So now I want to know what the big companies are doing about the adoption. Do they build things just for the sake of building things? Or is there a particular need or vision for building that platform?

Has marketing tainted social media?

I don’t come from such a total mindset. I think it is fine yes. But one thing I don’t quite understand is why some companies are so in love with social media (in terms of engaging with customers) but they are not harnessing the power of the medium internally. There’s really something wrong with that you know.

Exclusive Interview: Isman Tanuri on social media within the company environment is a post from: B2Bento

Marketing is supposed to be a field sprawling with constant innovation … a domain where ‘new new things’ are born every day. But unfortunately, reality begs to differ. This is especially true when it comes to B2B Marketing, where creativity and innovative ideas can sadly be regarded as endangered species. Apart from a few exceptions, most of the B2B marketers are always racing against each other armed with their very own ‘me-too’ campaigns and mindsets. From content marketing to social media, almost all marketing programs are unfortunate carbon copies of each other. It can be said that sometimes, even the best practices are not translated well when copied. This is especially true in B2B marketing because it’s a field where standing out is your utmost goal.
So let me ask you these questions. How can we, as B2B Marketers, stand out from the crowd without risking too much?  And how can we form strategic frameworks in place for our marketing campaigns for brand awareness to lead generation? The following ideas will hopefully answer these queries.

Formulating an effective B2B marketing framework via Strategy Canvas and ERRC Grid from Blue Ocean Strategy
Blue Ocean Strategy is a great way to leap beyond the competition. It (as a concept) first emerged in a book (of the same name) written by W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne and published by Harvard Business Press in 2005. Now it has blossomed into a global institution that offers consulting, training and presentations regarding Blue Ocean Strategy. The main gist of it is simple. Rather than compete in what they refer to as the bloody red ocean where all your competitors are, why not be better off by finding a blue ocean where no one else is in yet.
Take note though that in this article, we are going to use Blue Ocean’s framework purely from a marketing activities / programs / campaigns point of view rather than from a holistic strategy for a product / organization standpoint.

Strategy Canvas
Strategy Canvas is both a diagnostic and an action framework for building a compelling Blue Ocean Strategy. It quickly captures (into one simple picture) the factors that an industry competes on and invests in, the offering level of each factor that buyers receive, and the strategic profile of a company and its competitors across the key competing areas.
The “as is” strategy canvas depicts where a company stands today in the known market space. The “to be” strategy canvas, on the other hand, describes a company’s proposed future strategic profile in its attempt to create a blue ocean. For a B2B marketing strategy framework, Strategy Canvas with ERRC Grid can visually represent the points which will help you determine the areas wherein you should focus your energy. Let’s have a gander at the grid shall we?

Eliminate-Reduce-Raise-Create Grid (ERRC Grid)

Eliminate. We should first determine which of the factors present should be eliminated? Specifically those factors that are taken for granted in the B2B Marketing industry. Of course there is no straight answer here because it all depends on your industry. Obviously, we should weave out what works apart from those that doesn’t. For example, Hubspot decided that they would no longer participate in tradeshows since they determined that it’s not working for them. Ben & Jerry’s, on the other hand, stopped sending out email newsletters because they felt like it was not the way to go. Another example is Apple, who has never actively taken part in social media (amidst all the hype and furious activity surrounding it) because their brand is so ubiquitous to begin with. The thing is … do we have to be compelled to go for the same old things (even if they don’t actually work for us) just because we are habituated to do so? The sensible answer is no that is why there is a need for us to sift through our methods and eliminate accordingly.

Reduce. We must then ask ourselves which factors should be reduced well below the industry’s standard. Everyone is practically doing the same things and aping each other and that’s a huge reason why mediocrity is so prevalent especially in the world of B2B marketing. Yes, methods or mediums that work are always good essentially and we can always take our proverbial two-cents from classic campaigns. But if everyone’s using those methods or avenues, then such a system is usually destined to crumble under its own magnified weight. If your goal is to set yourself apart, you should consider if it’s really worth resorting to a ‘me-too’ campaign just like what everyone else is doing.

Raise. The third part of the grid is raise. There are elements to your B2B marketing campaign which you can consider raising above the industry’s standard instead of reducing like what you did in the second step. By isolating key areas showing promising results and clear ROI, we can determine the elements worth elevating. Of course we’ve stated earlier that we must essentially veer away from what everybody else is doing and mark our own paths. But there are things worth doing and there are also things worth doing more. Having isolated what you need to raise (on the strength that they work and have defined ROI), raise the frequency and do it more.

Create. The final part pertains to creation. Sometimes we take ‘norms’ and ‘standards’ too seriously in such a way that they become an encumbrance to our success. We are usually afraid to adopt marketing strategies which have never been implemented before. But we also need to be able to heed to the call of creating something that is entirely new or different because this may help us place ourselves in a completely different position apart from our competitors. Study other industries and B2C marketers and learn from them. Also revisit your buyers persona. Finally, think hard if you are missing out on any tiers and then figure out how to target them accordingly.

B2B marketing can stand to benefit from Blue Ocean Strategy’s core lesson of creating new demand in an uncontested market space. Adapting Blue Ocean Strategy to our campaigns and suppressing the tendency to go for the ‘me-too’ mindset would give us a fresh angle to our approach that could lead to positive results from our marketing campaigns for brand awareness to lead generation.

This article was originally posted at Paulwriter.com.

Paul Writer believes that there is a rich pool of innovation in B2B industries and all that is required for this potential to be unlocked is marketing.  Founded by Jessie Paul, author of No Money Marketing, Paul Writer aims to be a membership platform that provides B2B marketers resources, research, insights, benchmarks and tools that will make their professional lives simpler, more efficient and richer.  And make their social networking more relevant.

Blue Ocean Strategy for B2B Marketing is a post from: B2Bento

Not all prospects are ready to buy immediately, especially in B2B. Lead-nurturing campaigns therefore become imperative for transforming prospects into sales-ready opportunities. Success hinges on planning, creativity and technology working in tandem.

Lead nurturing was the topic of discussion for last week’s #B2BChat, and it was yet another fast-paced exchange of insightful input as our participants tackled the ins and outs of lead nurturing. The chat zoned in on hot questions that dealt with the various lead nurturing strategies that would work, the kinds of content that would have the most impact and success, the significance of lead scoring, the tools that can be used, etc.

This is a summary adapted from the complete transcript and if you want to read the full version then you can just drop by here.

What strategies work for lead nurturing, what doesn’t, and what could be improved upon?

@asuthosh: Nurturing implies constant and strategic engagement and that’s the fundamental basis of nurturing

@fearlesscomp: Story telling process – problem to solution works. Random messaging does not work. To improve, develop deep buyer personas.

@paige_oneill: thought leadership and best practices work well in my experience

@utollwi: Understand the buyers cycle and stage – test the message and call to action – optimize and repeat.

@shelleyryan: Most marketers think of webinars as lead GENERATION events, but they work for lead NURTURING, too.

@andrewspoeth: also, build your lead nurturing strategy around customer trust. High trust = low risk.

@kseniacoffman: Research & understanding the customer – always better than throwing darts in the dark

What content works well for lead nurturing? How can it be effectively marketed?

@NathanRKing: Content needs to be new and relevant to your target audience.

@fearlesscomp: Tough question. Good content appeals to the recipient and is in the media they like. That’s why insights so critical.

@robbtrost: Provide solutions for the participants. Intriguing content w/ brevity will keep ‘em coming back

@paige_oneill: our best performing pieces by far are all “top 10 steps” “best practices” Everyone hungry for how-tos.

@asuthosh: Content that customers can use, not blatant marketing collateral. Content that helps solve their problems. Trust follows

@andrewspoeth: Use different content for different stages of the purchase cycle in lead nurturing

@utollwi: Good educational content pertinent to the buyer persona and the stage they are in. ROI examples, 3rd party expert info etc.

@chadhorenfeldt: we’ve found from benchmark data that not only content is important but the timing. If it’s timed well, response increases

@ExoPoirier: educating with content on marketing operations basics, helping prospects build their marketing dept, works well for my targets

@kimgeralds: Monitor the conversations to determine what customers are discussing. LinkedIn groups r great. Use content to respond.

What and how significant a role can lead scoring play when nurturing leads?

@fearlesscomp: IMHO Scoring is critical. Cannot know status of nurturing unless we can watch for the “hand raise”

@AGB2BPro: Lead scoring helps determine how far they go along the nurturing path/how much content they receive

@joezuc: Scoring is critical – after all, the nurturing is all about “grooming” the lead for submission to Sales.

@fearlesscomp: Lead nurturing and lead scoring need to be married. Work best used together.

@b2bento: Lead Scoring is the bridge between Marketing and Sales silos too. It’ V.V. Important!

@utollwi: It can be important if honest lead scoring is done recorded Helps set budget for each segment of leads

@joezuc: Lead nurturing w/o scoring serves the firm no purpose. It must always be about moving the ball to the goal (conversion/sales)

@joezuc: and scoring tells the marketer whether to keep nurturing the lead ( to get to sales eventually) or to dump it.

What lead nurturing tools are you using/considering to use? What have the results been to date?

@mcbru: We use intelligent dialogs that survey customers about whether *they* think they’re a hot lead.

@ExoPoirier: hubspot and Sugar CRM tightly integrated

@andrewspoeth: I’ve mostly used Marketo. Very easy to build lead nurturing campaigns and track results. Q4

@fearlesscomp: Marketo is great, but pricey, which is why we use Genoo.

@paige_oneill: That’s what we do (@aprimo) (www.aprimo.com) so I’m lucky to use it. Challenge is adapting people to processes. myself included.

@sharonmostyn: I attended @Eloqua (www.eloqua.com) conference in ’08 & was impressed w/them-I’m sure they’ve made even bigger strides but new emplyr can’t afford

How do you want to see lead nurturing evolve? What’s your wish list?

@joezuc: I want to see lead nurtuing truly become personalized w/content that is individually tailored to a buyer rather than impersonal

@cuferg: More integration of tools, combine offline and online analytics.

@fearlesscomp: My hope is that B2B companies will finally go beyond the bare minimum and craft highly personalized campaigns.

@utollwi: better reports in the tools and always better training for all teams sales & marketing…make them believers

@joezuc: I hope that mktrs consider variable data publishing to include personalized direct mail also during a drip marketing effort.

@sharonmostyn: Lead nurturing wish list: inexpensive automation that easily delivers personalized msgs to the right person at the optimal time.

@ExoPoirier: Lead nurturing OUTSOURCED to specialists like us! Client B2B sales team concentrating on hottest leads. Tried it and it works

@jeremyvictor: Let’s make it “customer nurturing”. We are starting the relationship wrong by calling human beings “leads”

@jeremyvictor: Let’s make it about them not us …

As expected, it was an insightful session indeed. Many thanks to all who participated. Join us for next week’s #B2Bchat, Thursday, August 19, at 8pm Eastern (5pm Pacific, 8am Aug 20 in Singapore). Follow @B2B_chat for updates.

Originally posted at B2BBloggers.com

Lead Nurturing Best Practices [#B2BChat] is a post from: B2Bento

We are hard-wired to lean on our sense of vision as our default setting and this is very much evident in the way we communicate. As the saying goes, pictures speak a thousand words. And in the world of business, the art of utilising this fact has been practised since time immemorial.

That’s why it’s no surprise that visual communication in marketing has long flourished in the world of B2C. And in an age where proliferation of new media has exponentially and blisteringly improved the way people get introduced to, digest and accept visuals, it’s not unusual for us to wonder if the same thing is also true for B2B. So, here are 5 reasons that stress how visuals in B2B marketing are as relevant as those in B2C:

1. Visuals give an advantage in conveying ideas and messages regardless of the subject. The ability to speak and engage with your market is something that is truly prized in the world of business and every means necessary are taken to enhance the relationship that is formed. And in B2B, this can be a key aspect in giving your brand a visual language that would help set you apart from the rest of the pack.
2. More and more B2B companies are investing on visuals to build up their brand. B2B products are usually more formal, complex and/or sophisticated and many examples involve technological solutions and advancements. Marketing them will always include the presence of cold hard data that is why it is only natural for people to argue that visuals won’t work as well in B2B. But on the contrary, B2B markets still need the presence of great stories/content and visuals accompanying those stories would always prove useful at enhancing them. In the aspect of industrial design of B2B products for example, companies are investing in a particular “look” because well-designed packages or casings differentiate your product and build equity for your brand.
3. Accepting the difference between B2B and B2C makes your visuals more relevant. By doing so, you will have more empathy towards the type of market that you are conversing with. For example, you just can’t put a B2B advertisement on the famous Super Bowl Half-Time ad block along with other fantastic debuting B2C ads. Obviously, it won’t work as well as it’s supposed to. Not that you have to do that since your entire target is different to begin with. But the point is, it’s a different ballgame in the world of B2B. So you just have to address your marketing strategy accordingly. Accepting their difference would enable you to digest the bearing of visuals on both types of market.
4. Media is perennially vital in marketing. The fact remains that no message in marketing exists without a vehicle or medium of some sort. And among all those kinds, visuals can deliver the most immediate (if not the best) punch of them all. The way visuals can compress several ideas into one image gives it an advantage regardless if your market is B2B or B2C. After all, even if B2B clients deal with a lot more solid data like numbers and statistics (instead of tackling emotional needs and wants), they are still people and are still receptive to visual stimuli.
5. Visuals reach into nearly every aspect of your communications plan. That is how entrenched visuals are into your marketing strategy. From the onset to the last stages, you will find that visuals are essential to your campaign. B2B businesses employ a vast array of visual strategies like info graphics, eDMs, videos, etc. and all of these are utilised to achieve the desired results.

Even if most people consider visuals in B2B marketing as a tad “duller” compared to their consumer counterpart, it’s safe to say that the evidence of their relevance is not lost. The difference between B2B and B2C just renders the relevance in varying degrees of shade.

Do you have other related points in mind? Feel free to let us know in the comments section below. For further reading you can check out our whitepaper on using video for B2B Marketing.

Visuals in B2B marketing – Are they as relevant as their B2C cousins? is a post from: B2Bento

Guest Post by Sharon Lim, research analyst at StrategiCom, a leading B2B brand strategy consulting company with offices across the globe.

Your brand holds the key to the success of a business in a competitive market that no longer relies in distinguishing products or services based on quality and functional benefits alone. Here are some key considerations when communicating your brand.

1. Presence of a brand champion (typically the CEO or founder of the company or any of such stature) and an army of brand ambassadors (key personnel). As the ultimate brand champion, business owners must stand at the forefront of the company and take charge of developing and executing the brand communications strategy. The roles that the brand champion and brand ambassadors play are different but complementary. The brand champion is the “chief storyteller” who develops a “good story” carefully angled to target each of the identified stakeholder groups. Besides developing a “good story”, the brand champion needs to convince employees that as brand ambassadors, they need to play their part in repeating this same “story” to all the company’s external stakeholders. A “good story” also meets the “3 C’s” detailed later.
2. Repeatedly communicate brand values. Apart from conducting regular training, devote time for frequent dialogue sessions, display posters with the corporate position statements, utilise notice boards, and circulate internal communication (newsletters, emails, written memos, etc.). Furthermore, non-verbal communication elements such as dress-codes and the way employees are addressed are subtle techniques that could have an effect in encouraging brand-supporting behaviours.
3. The three C’s. A “good story” embodies three essential Cs of brand communication – clarity, consistency and constancy.

“Clarity” dictates that a strong brand message is clear and authentic about what it is and what it is not.

To achieve “consistency”, the content of the brand communication should ideally be developed once, then tailored slightly for each medium.

“Constancy” is about constantly reiterating the same brand messages so as to ensure that these messages are not only heard, but more importantly, remembered. In the absence of these qualities, it is nearly impossible for the brand communications strategy to succeed because each ambassador will be telling a different “story”.

Achieving the three Cs of effective brand communications is undeniably no mean feat. However, the reward for successfully achieving this is far reaching.

Adapted from a research paper by Sharon Lim.

Brand Communications – Inside Out Through Your People

Author’s profile

Sharon Lim specialises in Brand Communications and her list of clients includes Hu Lee Impex, Shao Fook Engineering and Chemilink Technologies Group, amongst others. Sharon has been actively involved in various franchise development, intellectual property management and branding projects for clients such as Old Chang Kee, Fragrance Foodstuff and Griffin Kinetic. She is currently involved in a national Employer Branding Correlation Study conducted jointly with the Singapore National Employers Federation.

About StrategiCom
StrategiCom is a global B2B brand strategy consulting firm headquartered in Singapore with 11 offices and 110 consultants & researchers around the world. The industries it serves include Information Technology, Oil & Gas, Petrochemicals, Commodities Trading, Business Services, Pharmaceutical, Medical & Healthcare, Transport & Logistics, Construction & Real Estate, Precision Engineering and Electronics Manufacturing. StrategiCom’s consultants, researchers and proprietary methodologies provide the catalyst for companies to transform from traditional businesses into differentiated brands.

Three essentials to brand communication is a post from: B2Bento

In the eyes of B2B marketers, social media is today’s shiny new object – our very own digital gold and the tech world’s hantise du jour if you will. It’s like the gold rush all over again. Staking and claiming your own piece of heaven amidst this exciting frontier has never been as paramount as it is today because having a slice of this action is considered a contributing key to eventual success.

But before jumping onto the bandwagon of social media marketing for your B2B organisation, you should first do your own strategic homework. And no it’s not about writing a social media policy. Here are 5 things to keep in mind before starting off on the mad dash towards the digital badlands:

1. Answer the question “why” first before answering “what”. Instead of asking about the things that you can do in Facebook, Twitter, etc., you should tackle first the question of why you should be there in the first place. Have a specific goal in mind before you start. Are you going to use social media for branding awareness, customer engagement, lead generation or lead nurturing? To help you decide, you can discuss it with everyone (upper management, sales, customer support, etc.) so that you can form a clear and common goal for your social media venture for your B2B organisation.
2. Form the buyer’s persona and identify their pain points. Find out their procurement procedures and media consumption pattern. Tackle questions like “what do they read” or “do they read blogs”, etc. Do your research thoroughly using LinkedIn, Twitter, Google and all that lot. More importantly, don’t forget to ask your field staff.
3. Harness informal networks by conducting short surveys of your sales and service reps because, chances are, they are already in social media and are connected with your customers informally. Find out what social media networks they are using and where they are most comfortable adding clients and prospects as friends. Through this you can get a good grip on where your customers are and how they can be engaged eventually. And you’ll also be laying down the path for the time that you start developing content for B2B marketing on an informal channel. You can send those content pieces yourself or via service reps to those particular clients and prospects.
4. Choose your channel(s) and focus. Regardless of how big a team you have, time and resources are limited. It’s better to pick up on a couple of channels and focus all your attention on them rather than being everywhere and spreading yourself too thin in the process.
5. Get buy in from upper management before you venture into something. Half-hearted attempts without full support are a very dangerous thing in social media. Not only do they lack the authenticity (because you’d like to have your head honchos involved in the social media presence of your company), there are many loopholes wherein things can easily turn towards the wrong direction. If that happens then you would want your management completely behind you during those times.

So there we have it, 5 tips for embarking on a B2B social media journey for your organisation.

Feel like adding some more? What has worked for you? Comment away.

Do your homework: 5 tips before joining the B2B social media gold rush is a post from: B2Bento

In this exclusive interview captured on the sidelines of CommunicAsia 2010, we feature Preetam Rai (Educator, Technologist & Traveler). It’s always nice to converse with an enthusiastic person such as Preetam, who is as passionate about his work as we are about ours.

Preetam is a distinguished educator and an established blogger who has one foot dipped in the tech world and the other in travel and living. Here he talks about social media, consumer engagement and mobile as a marketing platform.

Disclaimer: The views expressed in the video are the personal views of the interviewee and and do not necessarily represent the philosophy or viewpoints of their organization or clients.

Transcript of the Interview

My name is Preetam and I am a traveller and blogger. These days I’m travelling around South-East Asia helping run non-profit participatory events that we call “Bar Camps”. We get people to come in and learn about technology, social media, education, and a wide variety of other topics.

Venturing out into the social media space

If you look at Asia in general, you can see that not a lot of the population has an online presence. Of course in big cities like Singapore and Hong Kong you can definitely find a very high percentage of people online but there are still a lot of people who aren’t. So a lot of the traditional methods are still useful. Also, depending on the region you are in, you will have to look into the content and see if it fits the local target audience. For example, I probably won’t put a lot of YouTube videos for a project in Cambodia. More importantly, your content must have ample local language content available and you must ensure that you are using local language keywords for search so that the target audience would find their way to your site.

Balancing social and traditional media

It would depend on your product more or less. To illustrate, let’s say, I’m a university and I want to get more students. I would probably start by going to forums where students converge to ask questions, mingle, trade information and the like. For me that would be better than setting up a blog or setting up a Facebook page. I for one would look at the actual avenues. For example, I would go to Vietnam (or any other city for that matter) and ask people around about where they search for their schools. And then I would narrow down the places where they look and then try to put my input there. If people are asking questions try answering them. If there is somebody who has some wrong information then maybe you can try and correct that. I think one very important avenue is Wikipedia because if you search for something, most of the time this site is the first or second hit that will be displayed. So make sure that your Wikipedia page is accurate. Don’t go in and spice it up and make sure the facts there are correct and that the links are properly updated to ensure that people are directed to your site.

Tips on consumer engagement

The first thing is to not go for the bloggers with very high traffic. To explain why this is so, I’ll cite myself as an example. I have my own blog and I may have quite a number of hits but it may not automatically mean that this is because of my posts on consumer products. It might actually be attributed to my posts on travel since I also write about that and many people can search for it and can find it. I may not be the best guy to refer to about the new Samsung phone or iPhone since people can or are reading about that on HardwareZone.com or anywhere else. My point is, look for a person in a particular area of interest rather than in a general manner. The next tip, which I touched on earlier, would be to pay attention to forums. I think online forums in most of Asia are still among the biggest places where one can interact with people. It’s definitely bigger than any blog. I don’t find companies monitoring forum activity or attempting to engage consumers through it. And my last tip, which might help in countries that have better bandwidth and if you have a product and/or service, is to make descriptive YouTube videos or anything that would be appropriate to a certain region. For example in China, Tudou is more popular so it would be wiser to make content for that over there. To illustrate, let’s say that I’m with Singapore Tourism. I can make videos on how to fill certain immigration forms or make instructional videos on how to buy a bus ticket. I would make these videos available online and also give the option of letting people download it onto their mobile phones and so on and so forth. Have a lot of information available for downloading.

Ideas on mobile as a platform for marketing

People have traditionally been using things like SMS blasts, but I think that it has gone to a point where people are no longer so interested in it because it’s something akin to spam now. But if you have value added stuff then that can spell the difference. For example I’m selling an Asus notebook, along with the CD I can give like some video files which teach people how to use a particular software. That would be more helpful obviously. People can put it on their phone and while they are doing the task they can listen and learn how to do it. Providing some media for their mobile phones to help them accomplish tasks is an interesting thing to do.

Exclusive Interview: Preetam Rai (Educator, Technologist & Traveler) is a post from: B2Bento