When we first begin working with clients, phase 1 of our engagement begins with the development of a marketing strategy and tactical plan.  Part of our process involves meetings with the sales team to understand the existing sales process, discuss their perspectives on target markets and opportunities and provide a platform for gaining insight into their needs and wants from marketing.  This first step involves the sales team at the outset, lets them know the organization is working towards a marketing solution and allows them to share their perspectives, insights and overall needs.

The second step is to share the marketing plan with the sales team once it’s completed.  Doing so provides sales with an understanding of what marketing activities will take place, how those activities support the sales process and they can see that the perspectives and marketing needs they shared have been played a role in the development of the plan.

As we move into marketing implementation, the third and final step of our process takes place.  And that is to coordinate and facilitate an official marketing kick-off meeting whereby management, the sales team and other key staff are brought in to review immediate priorities, discuss marketing processes and ignite an ongoing dialogue between sales and marketing.  Moving forward, this often takes the form of bi-weekly if not weekly meetings to review action items, metrics and collaborate on new opportunities and customer needs.

As marketers, our job is to support the company in securing more revenues.  This happens by raising awareness of the company, by enhancing perception of its brand, by generating leads and supporting the sales process.  We work to fill the sales pipeline with qualified leads that sales can nurture into a closed deal.  Each function has a specific role to fill, yet relies heavily on the other for the full process to be successful.  By working closely together from the beginning, we foster a stronger relationship, create a stronger plan and ultimately generate stronger returns.

If you’d like more information on how to integrate your B2B sales and marketing activities, give us a call at 416-598-4684 and speak with Lisa Shepherd.

Clearly, design is increasingly a focus in conveying information… so does that mean everyone’s game has to get better? And, if yes, where does this stop? Can I show my clients (or prospects) a simple graph or do I have to make the lines themselves a cute part of the story (e.g. a stack of bills to show money instead of just a flat bar)? Does this help or hinder getting the message across? Whether you’re looking to create a data visualization or just a really attractive white paper, I think design is increasingly important, and increasingly attainable. An application which is touted as having the potential to be the PowerPoint of infographics was recently unveiled by Visual.ly at the SXSW festival, although its power is currently limited to depicting Facebook and Twitter data.

To illustrate (no pun intended) how quickly design is getting democratized via crowdsourcing, 99designs is a marketplace that lets you name your price for the design – logo, business card, website, you name it. But the DIY approach is not for everyone and, while the overall benchmark for basic design is unquestionably rising, I would argue that not everyone should be rushing to create complex integrations of data into design quite yet. Here are some reasons to proceed cautiously:

• It can be expensive – Facebook’s new Timeline is a lovely example of the integration of data and design, but it was a massive project that cost millions to create.
• It’s time-consuming – integrating sophistication in design is a whole other cycle in the development process, and sometimes it’s best to just get your content out there. Not everything needs a 3-D data visualization to get across. Pick something that gets the point across simply and get on with it.
• It’s easy to get wrong – bad design that’s overly complex is awful, and not all of us can recognize it when we are in the midst of it. It’s distracting and confusing and takes you off-message. Here’s a great example of an infographic attempt that really doesn’t work.
• Design can be do damage to the truth if you let the design overwhelm the content (this article has examples of graphs + graphics = confusion).

Fundamentally, there is no substitute for thinking through what your main message is, and how to get it across. Here’s a fantastic example with unlovely graphics but a highly entertaining presenter.

But with the increasing sophistication and accessibility of new design tools, any of us who are in the business of conveying information to others, particularly online, should be thinking about new ways to do that. We should all be sharpening our eye and thinking about how design can improve how we get our message across, or reinvent the kinds of messages we can imagine sharing with others through various media.

And if you want to see where we ended up in our discussion about white paper design, here is What’s Hot (And What’s Not) in Canadian B2B Strategy and Marketing, and our white paper on Strategic and Tactical Planning for Professional Associations and other non-profits.

While qualitative research can be invaluable to the decision making process, this type of research can be challenging to conduct. Over the last year I have conducted hundreds of interviews and often the hardest part is just getting the interviewee to agree to speak to you. Generally, people are busy and can often be skeptical of a sales pitch in the guise of “research.”

In order to increase the chances of successfully booking and conducting a qualitative interview, here are some suggestions that have worked for me:

1. Providing an incentive can be extremely effective, especially for those that will not speak to you just on the basis of goodwill alone and need to justify the time they are spending with you. Deciding which incentive to use depends largely on your target market. If you think they will be interested in cold hard cash then that is the way to go; however, if your target market is known for being interested in research, or works in an industry where very little market research exists, offering to share some of your findings can be more effective.

2. Leveraging your network can be surprisingly effective, especially if it means using your network to connect you to those you would never be able to reach out to on your own. Generally speaking, an interview booked through this method will result in insights that are usually richer and deeper when compared to a cold call, since the interviewee already trusts you.

3. Get to the point – When you finally get someone on the phone make sure to not spend too much time explaining who you are and focus on the research topic and what’s in it for them (e.g. an incentive, helping improve the level of service they are experiencing, etc.).

4. Think about what time of day is the best to call. Some industries are known for having certain times of the day that are better to call than others.

5. Despite your best efforts sometimes it just seems impossible to get people on the phone without calling them again and again. The silver lining here is that if the interviewee knows that you have been trying to get hold of them for a week (or longer), very often they will agree just based on the fact that you showed such dogged determination to speak to them (so obviously they must have brilliant and expert insight!).

For a customer research blog click here

And he did.

Our entire team was impressed with this student’s ability and hunger to learn new activities and tools, to step up when needed, to understand our business and to deliver . . . continuously.

Marketing interns can be incredibly valuable to a company who needs some extra support to execute on its marketing activities – it’s a win-win.  And there are government incentives such as tax benefits for hiring co-op students and even grants such as the Small Business Internship Program (SBIP) which provides up to $10,000 toward a marketing intern.

If your company is considering a marketing intern, here are 5 things to look for when you are recruiting.

1)      Initiative – A critical attribute for anyone team member, this is about anticipating needs, asking if help is needed and always staying in front of the task.  Whether it’s as simple as asking if you need anything else before they leave or overhearing an urgent matter and offering their assistance, initiative is a sign of an achiever.

2)      Passion for Marketing – Of course, you want an intern that loves what they are being hired to do.  While they are still getting their feet wet in terms of practical work experience, someone who is on top of trends, gets excited about new clients and seeing work come to life, is key.  Especially, if you are a business to business company.  You can meet many students, who love B2C, but do they love B2B, it’s a different mindset.

3)      Eagerness to Learn – They need to be willing to learn . . . and learn a lot.  And show they want to move beyond the theory of textbooks to gain in depth knowledge and experience in a variety of marketing tactics and tools.  Being open to using platforms, whether it be CRM, Marketing Automation, Email, Social Media, is critical, it makes them more valuable and allows you as a company to give them opportunities to develop.

4)      Willingness to Embrace the Unknown – While we can describe the activities that they will be responsible for, you need an intern who can be flexible and adaptable to changing demands and needs.  For small companies that are growing, priorities can shift.  And look for someone who is willing to step into unknown situations and figure it out.

5)      Team Player – And last but certainly not least, look for a team player.  Someone who wants to immerse themselves in your business – and forges relationships with staff and aligns with your culture.  It makes for a more positive, productive and ultimately more rewarding experience (for you and the intern).

That first intern has now lead to three –and we’re excited to see what they will deliver.

For information on other government programs that support marketing, click here.

Now, as any good marketer knows, if you send out a newsletter, it’s important for the content to be relevant, which usually means segmenting your list and creating targeted content for them, always thinking about why they might be reading it. Without this kind of discipline and focus on the audience’s needs, your read rates will plummet. (And no, nobody wants to hear about your company holiday party – keep it tightly focused on the needs of the audience – what’s in it for them?)

But in fact what I’m advocating for is subscribing to newsletters that are off-centre for you – where the content isn’t your usual fare, and it isn’t necessarily 100% on-topic for your business or your role.

If you read this blog regularly, you might have guessed that I’ve been subscribing to Co. Design’s newsletter, which is about the role of design in business, and the business of design. I’m far from a designer – I’m the one who says “whatever you like” when we’re making decisions like choosing a final graphic design for our whitepapers  – but that’s exactly why I subscribe. I get exposed to thinking and to questions that I don’t normally get deeply involved with.

Another way to do this same thing is have multiple RSS feeds, or some other way to set up your inbound information flow so that you are regularly exposed to perspectives that are vastly different from yours. What I like about e-newsletter subscription is that it forces things into my attention at odd times. One critical element of this approach, though, is that I never, ever let a backlog get created. If I’m having a busy day, I delete without a second thought. That’s about the same way I use my Twitter feed, but something about the newsletter format forces me to consider information just a little bit differently. (It’s possible, as technology continues to evolve, and my brain continues to fuse with my iPhone in new and strange ways, that I may consider this blog quaint within a few years or even months, I recognize.)

Here are a few interesting blogs and newsletters to consider adding to your reams of emails or feeds:

-          The Executive Roundtable – always compellingly curated perspectives on career management.

-          Co. Design – really, truly, not just for designers!

-          Instant MBA – a quick nugget of wisdom (or not) from a variety of leaders – ten seconds at the end of your day/

(And if you have an iPad, do yourself a favour and investigate Flipboard. It’s an amazing to read this kind of content – accessible, browseable (in the old-fashioned, reading-a-newspaper way), and not at all overwhelming.)

How do you put yourself in the way of new perspectives? How do you find that changing as your use of technologies changes, and your methods of paying attention change as well? What’s surprised you lately, and where did it come from? How do you think your audience is incorporating the messages you are sending them?

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Here are some things to keep in mind to ensure they are an effective tool that actually yields helpful results:

• Keep it short.  Really – don’t make it so long that they close the survey window half way through.
• Keep it simple.  Make it easy for someone to reply, use wording that limits confusion and avoids ambiguity.
• Keep the options clear.  Make the options as mutually exclusive as possible. If you are trying to learn something you need to make sure that you can in fact interpret the data once you get the answers. Overlapping answer options or repetitive questions tend to confuse the results.
• Lead with interesting questions.  Engage the respondent if you can. This is especially true for surveys that have no incentives for the respondent to participate.
• Leave the simple stuff to the end.  Any of those demographic, quick, click-through question should be left to the end. It’s better to engage the respondent on the more interesting questions early on.
• Give them a good incentive.  Okay, so this is not always possible, but any incentive is good. You can offer selected research results, discount on memberships or services, gift cards or cash incentives to improve your response rates.

Suggestions aside, one thing to keep in mind is that surveys really are both an art and a science. There are best practices for how you ask questions, what you ask, how long the surveys are, etc. But the real art is in knowing your audience and adapting to what will work for them.

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1. Goals:  Marketers are using content marketing to support multiple business goals: brand awareness (69%), customer acquisition (68%), lead generation (67%), and customer retention/loyalty (62%).
2. Usage and Effectiveness:  51% of B2B marketers use white papers. This represents an increase of 19% from last year.
3. Budgets and Production:  B2B marketers dedicate 26% of their total budgets to content marketing.
4. Challenges: The greatest challenge is producing content that engages prospects and customers (41%). Other major challenges include producing enough content (20%), finding the budget to produce content (18%) and lack of buy-in from higher-ups (12%).

The data shows that for B2B companies to stand out in the increasingly crowded market, white papers are an effective tool.  The only challenge – white papers are probably the most challenging type of content to create (ebooks aside). They require a deep understanding both of a product’s technology and its application in solving real-world business problems.

Here are a few tips on how to produce quality white papers that will help establish your company as a thought leader:

• Choose a topic that aligns with your brand and is of interest to your main target market. Writing whitepapers is a huge amount of effort – there’s no point doing it if your target market isn’t going to care.

• Write a clear and attention-grabbing title. Avoid buzz words. Be slightly provocative, if that will work with your audience. For example, “The Pitfalls of Manual Time-Keeping: Making a Case for Automating” by a company that sells workforce management software or “The Top 5 Online Database Attacks and How to Stop Them” by an Internet security company.

• On the first page, include a brief overview describing who the paper is for and what it covers. Should business development managers be reading this? CEOs? Let the reader know.

• White papers take an educational approach – they include market overviews, key trends, projections on market evolution, relevant findings from third party research papers and articles, historical data, and expert advice. A well-written white paper gives readers the impression that you have proprietary expertise and are willing to share it.

• White papers should be between four and fifteen pages long.  Use sidebars, pull-out quotes, text boxes, and bullet points and lists to emphasize key points. Including charts and graphs will further support your arguments, and add visual interest.

• End your white paper with a summary of implications for the reader.  Including a point of view on how the reader can use their new knowledge will help readers take a next step, which may involve your company.

• White papers are meant to inform, don’t mention a specific company or advertise your company in the content of the white paper.  Prospects want subject-matter expertise.  If they feel they are being sold to, you will lose them.  At the end of the white paper you can credit yourself and include an ‘About’ paragraph with info on the author and company, including contact information.

Once your white paper is ready, you’ll need to actually promote it. For tips on how to promote your white paper, read my colleague, Lisa’s, blog on Ten Ways to Becoming a Thought Leader.

But the Internet has changed this process dramatically. Online searches are now the top way that B2B buyers identify possible solutions to their issues. Forrester reports that 50 – 70% of the buy cycle is now completed before customers ever engage with a sales person.

What this means for B2B companies is that their marketing efforts have to step up. With buyers in greater control of the purchase process, B2B companies have to make sure their marketing serves up the information that prospects seek. If they don’t, their sales teams will never have a shot at the deal.

One of the central ways that companies can do this is through their websites. Unfortunately, too many B2B firms are still treating their websites as brochures. They only provide a description of the company, its offerings and contact information. Sometimes they make the effort to ensure their site is visually appealing.

But this is only a small portion of what matters. I’ve seen dozens of B2B companies spend thousands (and tens of thou­sands) of dollars on new websites that don’t deliver strong marketing performance. These sites aren’t built to ensure that search engines will list them when prospects are searching for particular solutions and they aren’t built to engage users effectively once they land on the site.

If your B2B company is considering a website overhaul, here are four things to consider so that your site delivers results, not just pretty pictures:

1. Search engine optimization. Is your site optimized for the right keywords and search terms? Are you sure that you have identified the right keywords?

2. Engagement process. Does your site offer users the content they seek? Does it provide users with ways to easily engage with your company?

3. Brand presentation. Does your site portray your company’s brand effectively?

4. Ongoing management. Can you update your site easily, or do you have to rely on an outside provider to do so? Google increasingly favors fresh content, so waiting three years between updates to your site is no longer an option.

B2B companies have the opportunity—and the obligation—to use their websites more effectively in marketing themselves. But they have to know what a good website can do for them and how to get it. For more details on planning a B2B website upgrade, this whitepaper offers a comprehensive website audit guide.

As buying behavior con­tinues to evolve in the B2B world, an effective website isn’t just beneficial—it’s essential. Is your website doing everything it can?

The essence of a good marketing strategy is to reach your target audience - who has the desire to need, know and trust you – and ultimately to get their attention and engagement.  Direct mail, if used wisely, with careful selection of the creative design, content and printing, can still be a powerful tool to win new customers.

For a marketing plan to capture the best of both online and offline worlds, it’s important to have a balance between the tangible marketing (direct mailer) and the virtual marketing (online). Here are 6 tips on developing an effective direct mail program:

1.   Keep it Relevant

Spend the time to strategize and plan out the approach you want to take. Think about the industries and verticals you are going after and what is the most appealing message – otherwise you’ll be wasting your time.

For example a business could design a beautiful and compelling mailer promoting a new skylight for custom home builders that clearly communicates the big benefits achieved with the skylight; however, if its mailing list is full of builders of apartment buildings then the company may be wasting its time and money because the information is not relevant.

2.      Provide an Incentive

Direct mail works by getting your prospect to respond to an offer. Remember that incentives do not always need to be costly to the company; nowadays it is more about making the offer relevant to your audience.

For example this could be a limited time offer, a complimentary pass to a trade show, a free trial or sample or some other reward for taking action.

3.  A Healthy List is Key

Getting your hands on a list isn’t the challenge; it is getting your hands on the right mailing list that could be some work. You want to ensure your mailer gets to the right person and not in the trash bin. Pulling data and spending the time to review it for accuracy is critical. And above all, double-check that you have permission to use the list.

4.   The Personal Touch

Take advantage of variable data printing to create highly personalized direct mail pieces with unique images and call to action based on your database. Personalization creates a sense of familiarity and emphasizes their importance to your business.

For example, include printing personalized postcards or letters as people will rarely ignore a communication if their name is on it. Are you more likely to read an envelope that states “Valued Customer” or “[Your Name]“?

5.   Lead Customers to your Website, or Videos

Many small businesses and entrepreneurs have missed out on the chance to tie in direct marketing programs with other marketing efforts. Large corporations have become successful at integrating their direct mail with email marketing initiatives (it’s all about the balance I mentioned earlier).

For example, on your direct mail piece drive each recipient to a personal online landing page relevant to the offer. Such as more details for a special event, contest submission, sign-up for a webinar, download a white paper, register for a trade show or special product launch incentives.

6.    Track Results

Most likely you have more than one way to recruit new customers so you must find a way to identify which tactics are working and which ones are not.

For example of you begin a direct mail campaign and the first month you send out 5000 mailers and receive 50 calls, how do you know which leads came from the direct mailer?  Easy, just create ways to ask prospects how they heard about your company, such as simply asking them if they happen to call in and if you are driving prospects to a landing page you can get them to fill in a field ‘how did you hear about us.’

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Marketers need to report various types of statistics (revenue, website traffic, segmentation analysis) and that requires mastery of large datasets, even in quite small companies. And often, in B2B marketing, the value proposition is expressed in terms of data – dollars saved, energy conserved, resources reclaimed, efficiencies gained, total cost of ownership reduced. In our practice, also, we deal with large amounts of data. It is frequently qualitative data which we distil into meaningful nuggets for clients to assess, internalize, and act upon, as well as survey data and secondary research which can derive from a wide range of data sources. We are always thinking about how to order the information, how to tell the story, how to bring all the information together in a coherent way.

Not all of these infographics work for me, and often it’s necessary to slice them in a few ways to get at what you are really interested in. It’s also worth noting that the infographics that have been exploding online in the last year or two are not practical for the average marketer or consultant to use on an ongoing basis quite yet, since they require custom graphic design at the very least. However, this process is democratizing, as is shown by an application which is touted as having the potential to be the PowerPoint of infographics was recently unveiled by Visual.ly at the SXSW festival, although for now its power is limited to depicting Facebook and Twitter data.

Of course, there can also be some atrocious infographics that really don’t work – here’s an example, and there are many more online. But there was a time when even a fairly basic graph was pretty groundbreaking – for instance, did you realize that Florence Nightingale as an early infographics pioneer? (Neither did I.)

The key, as always with conveying data in a meaningful way, will always be figuring out what questions you’re asking of the data, and how you can tell that story. It’s inspiring to me to see these examples of how some people take data – often staggering amounts of it – and turn it into a picture that means something.

Are you experimenting with new ways to unite data and design? Any tools or ideas that you’d recommend? Any favourite (or not-so-favourite) infographics example of your own? Where do you see the applications?

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