“In the book of life, the answers aren’t in the back.”
-Charlie Brown

To which he exclaimed, “Good grief.” And rightfully so. Nothing comes easy, and you’re never really fully prepared for what’s to come. It’s impossible to forecast what’s coming down the pipeline. In the world of marketing (and beyond), it’s out of the question to know the exact outcome of a campaign you launch. There are many variables to said campaign that are setting you up for potential success and/or failure. And let’s be honest with each other here – nobody on the planet is successful 100% of the time. If they say otherwise, don’t trust ‘em! When it comes down to it, it’s just as important to embrace failure as it is to celebrate success. In a way, losing teaches us a far more valuable lesson than winning.

What’s admirable about Charlie Brown is his “never give up” mentality. Though he never actually connects with the football, he never backs down from trying again when the opportunity presents itself down the road. It’s in his pursuit that we can find inspiration. Even in defeat he gets up and tries again. We should all be so brave in all our endeavors. If everything in life was easy, nobody would be pushing ahead. There’d be no reason to “chase a dream,” and there’d be no point in competition for the good of an industry. In a word, it would be a pretty blasé existence, no?

“Sometimes I lie awake at night, and ask, ‘Where have I gone wrong?’ Then a voice says to me, ‘This is going to take more than one night.’”
-Charlie Brown

In the world of marketing there are trailblazers, and there are conformists. Both get the job done, but one is afraid to fail. Truth is, behind every success story are at least a couple fails. It’s just the nature of the beast. It’s the due diligence you serve in striving for greatness, or a new, fresh idea. Step out of your comfort zone for a day or just for a few minutes even. You never know what you might find outside these self-imposed boundaries. There could be an answer or an interesting story out there that you wouldn’t find or figure out otherwise. It’s an interesting world if you’re willing to take a chance. Sure, you might fall down and scrape your knee, or your ego might take a shot that will leave you feeling a tad uncomfortable; but the potential reward for trying something new and being persistent in chasing down the “dream,” could ultimately lead to an end result that will define you and your place as a professional.

If you end up one of the fortunate ones and actually place a strike on that ball, relish in the moment, but remember that even though the ball is airborne, it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s going to cruise through the uprights. Even the best NFL kickers don’t make 100% of their attempts. It’s never been done. Check the stats. A kick is a kick, but the path the ball takes after it leaves your foot is where the meat of the plan lies. The point is, don’t stop after one win. Keep on racking up the points. In a world that is constantly changing, stay a step ahead of the pack and keep kickin’. The definition of a legacy isn’t generally defined by one instance. It’s defined by the repetitive task of getting after your goals and conquering them. If Charlie Brown can continually get up and keep sprinting down the path – well knowing that Lucy is the variable that is holding him back – it’s evident he’s looking to teach us something. Remove the variable. Get a tee. And get to kickin’ while the kickin’ is good.

You’re a good man, Charlie Brown. Thanks for the lesson(s) and for blazing the trail for us to navigate with a fresh set of eyes, and ideas.

If you’re looking to make a big impact with a small marketing budget, it may be time to follow Alice into the world of Google. It’s a peculiar place where you’ll hear about keywords, CTAs, clicks, and impressions. But it’s a land chock full of wonderful surprises for B2B marketers—if you’re equipped for the journey.

A surprising number of people wrongly believe that Google AdWords is a service that works like eBay or that it’s designed just to sell consumer goods, like discount vitamins or overstock luggage.

That misperception blinds IT professionals to the fact that Google AdWords can be an extremely powerful tool for large-scale, enterprises. How large? Though Google AdWords may be effective at selling low-cost goods, it’s also just as effective (potentially more so on a CPM basis) for companies that sell six-figure software/hardware packages. In short, it’s wrong to think higher-priced, higher-value IT products and services can’t be sold through Google advertising.

It Looks Like a Toy

One reason that Google ads are perceived as “lightweight” is because the ads themselves look almost toy-like on screen. Can an ad that small and incidental really be taken seriously? How can a global software company expect to be considered a player with a little 95-character ad that appears above Google results? After all, aren’t companies that big supposed to buy print ads worth millions in publications like Forbes and the Wall Street Journal? Not exactly. In fact, do not let the size of the Google ads fool you, because many large enterprises effectively employ Google advertising campaigns today, and they do that for very good reasons: They can be highly productive and highly cost-effective when properly managed.

Google Search vs. Display Network

The first thing to know when jumping into the Google advertising game is the difference between Google Search and the Google Display Network. Google Search AdWords ads appear when linked to keywords that you choose. If you are selling database transformation services, the keywords you select can trigger an ad on the right hand or top ad section of the Google search results page.

Each time someone searches your keywords – which you likely share with other clever marketers – Google runs an automatic auction for the value of those keywords, and places your ad in a positional hierarchy depending on how much you are willing to pay and the quality score and relevancy of your ad.

The Google Display Network, on the other hand, conducts the same keyword auction, but your ad is linked dynamically to content in real time. If someone is reading a feature article on database transformation in a major online magazine or on a blog, your ad for similar services may appear, depending on your bid for the ad position. Ideally, the reader’s response will be something like, “What a coincidence, that’s just what I am interested in!” …as he or she clicks your ad.

When using Google AdWords, always keep in mind that there is a key difference between A) getting a prospect to click through to your campaign landing page / micro-site, and B) getting that prospect to take action from there, in the form of requesting contact or a product demo. If you have good Google AdWords performance, but low click-to-lead conversion ratios, the problem lies not with Google AdWords, but with what you have presented to the prospect who arrives at your site. You may need to beef up your call-to-action to ensure it is more enticing.

Blind bidding?

When advertising on Google AdWords, you do not have to bid blindly for Google keywords without knowledge of what your competitors are doing. You do not have to “pay tuition” in the form of high keyword bids just to learn where your ad ends up. The capabilities in Google AdWords make it possible for your campaigns to be driven by strategy and empirical data, not guesswork. Moreover, there are a number of “white hat” websites out there, like SpyFu, which provide remarkably effective competitive analysis that can help you fine-tune your ads in relation to what your competitors are specifying as their keywords, and what they may be spending to position their ad on the first page of Google results.

Easy to learn…hard to master

The dashboards that manage Google AdWords Search and the Display Network – and the tools that third parties offer to fine-tune campaigns – are relatively easy to learn, but they are hard to master. Indeed, there is a thriving outsource expert community that can manage and optimize your Google campaigns. These outsources can save you thousands of dollars and more just by, for one quick example, turning off the Google defaults that are arranged to insert your ads in a large number of locations unless you actively deselect targets.

So, knowledge of the mechanics of the Google AdWords dashboard is a baseline requirement for any outsourcer. A second requirement is knowledge of how to use product extension listings within the Google ad. Many users of Google AdWords are unaware of these features, which allow you to link deeply into your site with up to six URLs (e.g. for location, product, phone, site links).

This feature, which is offered at no additional cost, also allows greater tracking of the ads’ effectiveness, so users can justify (or withdraw from) campaigns that have low return on investment (ROI). Your outsource provider should also be aware of Google’s recent edicts on privacy and transparency, which must be honored. In fact, asking about those policies is a good way to start an interview of a potential Google marketing contractor, just to gauge their level of sophistication.

Google also offers a predictive keyword analysis tool that is essential for fine-tuning any campaign. Here too, the tool is relatively easy to learn but true mastery of it takes time.

Probably the most important asset that an outsource Google campaign administrator can bring is the most mundane: Daily maintenance. As sophisticated as the Google ad campaign tools are, someone has to be assigned to watch the campaign on a daily, sometimes hourly basis, and respond to what other companies are doing, fine-tuning the keywords and the expenditures, while consulting with the client to see if the clicks are converting to leads. While there is some automation possible, the best campaigns are run by people, not automated rules.

Candidly, the click-to-lead conversion ratios are usually out of the hands of the Google campaign administrator, and they are typically an issue of what’s being presented and how it’s being presented on the campaign’s landing pages. (If you can find an outsource company that is expert at both Google campaigns and landing page design, which includes optimizing the landing page for capturing data, all the better.) But getting that lead to the site through a clicked ad is more than half the battle, and it’s much easier to predict with expert help.

Would you like to learn more?

Sign up here to attend our Google Webinar on July 20, 2011.

The clock on the bomb is ticking; our hopeful hero (aka actor) is sweating profusely, agonizing over the decision that needs to be made. Should he cut the red wire? Or the blue one? What about the green? 10 seconds left… We watch in suspense wondering what his next move will be and what result will come of his action. The knife pressed firmly against blue, the fate of that decision becomes reality with one hard pull. The man begins to panic, but in the midst of all the anxiety has a revelation; he remembers all his past training and proceeds to move the knife against the red wire. 2 seconds now… A swift hard pull, the red wire splices and the timer stops, frozen at 1 second. Our hero has once again saved the day with quick thinking, ice in his veins, and one lightning-fast reflex in judgment.

Was the man the chosen one? Was he lucky? Or were we once again fooled by Hollywoodian (yes I made that word up) suspense? Hollywoodian suspense – you know, the way Hollywood makes us believe that the hero had no idea which wire to cut all along. I ponder this as I critique the movie that literally had me sitting at the edge of my seat for nearly 2 hours. Does it even matter? They had me… I was in tune, I was sweating, and I too cringed when the wire was cut.

What does this have to do with lead generation? Well, there are a couple of similarities that I’d like to share with you.

First, don’t you feel a little “under the gun” when delivering an opening statement? You know you have 10 seconds (give or take) to effectively introduce your call. What do you say in that short amount of time that is both informational and appealing? You may even panic knowing this may be your one chance for this particular point-of-contact (POC).

Secondly, wouldn’t the most successful opening statement be one that keeps the POC entertained with the product and/or offering that your company is proposing? Absolutely.

So how do we come up with an opening statement that is concise, to the point, and will have the POC wanting to hear more? Here are a few suggestions to help create an effective opening statement:

PREPARE YOURSELF.

“A winning effort begins with preparation.” – Joe Gibbs (NFL football).

Simple words from a three-time Super Bowl winning coach (Washington Redskins ’83, ’88 and ’92). Start by preparing what you are going to say ahead of time and say it out loud. Sometimes recording your own voice then listening to it will help identify if you are speaking clearly and at the proper pace. Smile. Smiling when you talk does make a difference in how you sound over the phone.

WHO ARE YOU?

Be sure to include your full name and the full name of the company that you are representing. By doing so, you will be carrying a level of professionalism that many people appreciate. People will find you more personable, allowing them to be comfortable providing answers to your questions.

WHAT’S THE PURPOSE OF YOUR CALL?

Be sure to explain in as few words as possible the product/technology you are calling in regards to. The reasoning behind keeping this as short and sweet as possible is because you need the emphasis to be on the business benefit, not the technology. So mention it, but don’t make it a longwinded topic of conversation. Remember that you are running out of time.

WHAT’S THE BENEFIT?

This may be the most crucial part of your opening statement and will require the most thought. Businesses don’t care about features anymore. Money is too scarce, so if it doesn’t have a solid business benefit to it, then it is considered a luxury and not a necessity. Be sure to identify benefits that match the technology with the type of company that you’re calling. Preparation is crucial when choosing this statement for each type of company.

ASK AN OPEN-ENDED QUESTION.

By asking an open-ended question you will gain more information, prompting further conversation; while a close-ended question can make for sudden doom. Be sure to ask a question that directly relates to the product or to the business benefit. I recommend asking a question that will relate back to the benefit if possible. Today, businesses focus on what can help them increase revenue, decrease risk, and control costs. Companies aren’t focused on what technologies they have and don’t have, but rather what challenges they are facing and what solutions are out there.

Once you understand the objective and prepare your opening statement, make sure you practice, practice, practice. Thus, when the point-of-contact answers the phone and the clock is ticking, you don’t freeze up. Instead, you become just like our fearless hero with nerves of steel and confidence backed by knowledge and preparation, turning a telemission impossible into a more entertaining and deliverable opening statement.

Today, October 26th, 2010, Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones releases his memoir simply (and aptly) entitled, “Life.” It’s been an awe inspired topic for decades now as to how a rock God like Richards could possibly still be alive after years of hard living. His weathered body shows the wares of time mixed with a steady blend of various substance fueled cocktails – but his whit, and his unbridled ability to take the world by storm is unmatched by anyone who has attempted to walk down the same path as Richards. He is an anomaly. In the discussion of whom or what could be in the running as the eighth wonder of the world, Richards would unquestionably need to be a part of that conversation.

Throughout his storied “Life” and the career that has arisen from the lifeblood of his existence, Richards has left marketers with plenty of food for thought at the core of his outward musings. Let’s dissect a few of his thoughts now and relate what he’s saying to copywriting and the art of creating appealing content that is the vehicle to piquing the interest of prospective clients.

“Everyone talks about rock these days; the problem is they forget about the roll.”

In a world saturated with content, how do you separate yourself from the pack? Everyone is creating copy (rock) that may or may not be making noise throughout the business world. The real trick of it is writing copy that resonates with your fan or client base. What’s making them move (roll)? People are not only looking to read your content – they’re also looking to engage with it. Where there is monotony there is boredom. People want to be surprised. They want to be moved. They want to be rattled to the core. And that in turn, initiates action. Where there is rock, there should inevitably be roll.

“If you don’t know the blues… there’s no point in picking up the guitar and playing rock and roll or any other form of popular music.”

In a nutshell; know your industry. With that comes the history. Know where your industry has been. Know its roots. Trace it back to its very foundation. For Richards and rock and roll, it started with the blues. You can’t be successful or hold any legitimate weight in your area of expertise if you’re looking at it with tunnel vision. You have to be able to backtrack.

Everyone and their Grandma claims to be a marketer/have their own marketing agency. It’s along the same line of thought that has everyone declaring they’re a guitar player just because they plug in and pound on some effect pedals. Anyone can make a claim, but very few actually know what they’re doing and can back up this claim. If you don’t know the history, you’re bound to sound like an idiot, and if you sound like an idiot, people aren’t going to take you seriously. If they don’t take your seriously, why would they want to conduct any degree of business with you? Know the roots. It’s only from there that you can really grow.

“You don’t find a style… a style finds you.”

In writing, you can’t force your voice or style. It’s an organic thing. You either have it, or you don’t. If it’s meant to be it will come to you. People can tell if you’re not being sincere, and if you’re coming across as fake – so be wary. You don’t want these terms to be associated with you or you won’t have anyone reading your content. If it’s not flowing, take a timeout. Forcing something is one of the primary factors in committing errors.

“Good music comes out of people playing together, knowing what they want to do and going for it. You have to sweat over it and bug it to death.”

When it comes to writing, you need to have a plan. Before you sit down and start in on the task at hand you have to know where it’s headed. You have to have an end goal in mind. Know what your clients are looking for. Talk to your peers. Have your head in other departments and actively engage in what information they may have that you don’t. Get out and pound pavement. Information is everywhere, you just need to get out there and find it. Furthermore, you need to be able to boil it down to get to the good stuff – the stuff that your clients are going to take something away from. Know what your audience’s wants, needs, and concerns are.

Doing your research is the most time consuming and tiring part of the job. Don’t be afraid to ask questions even if it’s at the expense of a few laughs directed at you. It’s okay to bug people to get inside their head, because if you don’t, how will you really know? If you don’t have your facts straight, the project is derailed right out of the gate.

“Anything you throw yourself into, you better get yourself out of.”

As a writer you best have the means to backup what you’re putting out there. You have to be grounded in the subject matter and refuse to inject fluff, or passages that hold no merit, because chances are you will be called out on it. If you treat your audience like they don’t know any better, then you will be burned. Stick to what you know, and if you don’t know, you’d better be checking the facts. If you can’t get yourself out, people aren’t going to be subjecting themselves to coming in (and hiring you). Honesty is indeed the best policy.

“I have no idea what the audience makes of me.”

It’s important to be yourself and to take chances; test the waters. In attempting to separate yourself from the pack, you may need to try some techniques that may be off-the-cuff and non-traditional. This is what gets you noticed. This is where your true voice steps in and ultimately develops. By being different you’re offering your client something they can’t get anywhere else, and this is a commodity they’re going to get back in line for. You may have some instances where you fall flat on your face. But on the flipside, you could potentially be positioning an idea that will propel you to the next level. If they like the work you’re doing, you’ll know.

“To me, as long as we’ve known each other, I’ve always thought Mick’s (Jagger) most brilliant thing was that he could work in an area two foot square and give a very exciting performance.”

Make the most out of any opportunity you’ve been given. If you’re not going to make the effort given a tight situation, someone else will assuredly step in and make it happen in your absence, which will lose you clients and tarnish your reputation. Copywriting won’t always land you the most glamorous gigs, but it’s in these less than desirable settings that you let your creativity and professionalism shine thru. If you maximize the potential and go above and beyond that of the minimal space you were given at the outset, people will notice. Not only will they notice – they will also wonder what you can do with more and will be more apt to give you those opportunities as they arise.

“You’ve got the sun, you’ve got the moon, and you’ve got the Rolling Stones.”

In conclusion: Be confident. There are two things that are going to differentiate you from the rest of the writers out there competing for work. One is an exemplary skill-set. The other is confidence. Don’t be afraid to exude this confidence in the way you walk through “Life.” Clients are going to hire you because you have an impressive portfolio and because you won’t back down from a challenge. If you balk, and come across as feeble – like you’re going to break if something doesn’t go exactly to plan – they’re going to hire the next writer in line. Stand tall, be loud, and be proud. Take it from Keef, for as far as he’s concerned, there isn’t anything on the planet that’s going to knock him down.

Image credit: Thuany Gabriela (Flickr)

-Michael Scott, The Office

Direct Mail: a marketing tool of the past or another valuable touch point for the future?

Direct mail marketing is a controversial subject these days considering many companies are trying to go paperless and take advantage of all the inbound marketing tools that are now available. But direct mail shouldn’t just be tossed out like last week’s leftovers. In the world of lead generation direct mail pieces are another touch point for customers, present and future, and help add value to your company’s brand.

Forming a strong brand identity for your prospects is what makes you a quality, trustworthy company your customers and prospects will want to do business with! Direct mail (DM) campaigns are not always easy to create and while being part of a “go-green” era many companies are asking why not just scan our postcard and send it in an email? Well, here’s a good reason not to: the more times your prospects come in contact with your brand the more your brand identity will grow and resonate with them, so do both!

Make your direct mail collateral victorious with this list that will help you not only reach out to your audience, but actually connect with them.

Know your customers and know them well

Having a deep, meaningful understanding of your customers leaves them feeling that your brand “knows” them and can anticipate their wants and needs. Targeting a specific need will help guarantee that your postcard is read instead of immediately making its way to the recycling bin.

Create a practical call-to-action

We all know there should be some form of a call-to-action within any direct marketing material, but for it to be successful it needs to be useful. Promoting a give-away drawing or a free gift card might get people to give you some information, but that is not what’s going to get them to buy. You want to target real prospects who will become loyal customers. Your call-to-action needs to solve a problem, save your prospects money, simplify a situation, or all three. Straight up, it needs to be legitimately beneficial to whoever is reading your direct mail. Without that added benefit you’re wasting your marketing dollars and your prospect’s time.

You’re only as good as your data

Having a plethora of contact info is worthless if your information isn’t updated! Your ROI will be much higher with a hot, concise B2B list versus a massive cold one. The plus to DM is that more often than not a change of address is filed with the post office, allowing mail to be forwarded to the right address. Most email address changes are not and leave you with a return to sender error message or no response at all because they are going to a ghost employee account.

See, smell, hear, taste, touch…

Scratch and sniff? Probably not. Musical postcards? You never know. But we truly hope people aren’t eating your postcards and really turning them into waste. The tangible nature of direct mail is a substantial benefit in and of itself. Being able to see and actually touch your marketing material is an advantage that online marketing doesn’t have. So design your pieces with fun images, eye-catching colors, and strategic headlines. The more they read, the more likely they’ll want to know more about your company. This will hopefully result in some form of direct contact with you.

Two for one deal

Not only do direct mailers serve as postcards delivered to someone’s desk, but they can be used as marketing collateral at trade shows, in-services, and seminars. Be thinking of this when designing your DM piece. In a world where we are becoming more environmentally conscious every day, it’s easy to feel hypocritical when sending out printed marketing material. So using your DM multiple ways is a great way to be conservative with your marketing materials. You also can still show that you are trying to reduce your carbon foot print by printing your postcards on recycled paper, using vegetable-based ink, and having a “please recycle” and recycle logo somewhere on your direct mailers.

These five simple aspects of direct mail marketing might make or break you. Be smart and don’t choose one medium over another. Include some direct mail within your marketing campaign; coupling email and online marketing with direct mail will allow you to stay in contact with a broad range of customers. You can utilize both the online and offline tools by sending follow up emails to your direct mail materials and creating landing pages for your direct mail promotions.

Don’t agree with me? Did I leave something out? Let’s hear your feedback in the comments section!

Curious George. You all remember him, right? Well guess what? We hired him to work the phone lines, cold call and generate leads, and wouldn’t you believe he is our top representative? (Ha-ha) okay, okay, you got me. He’s obviously not really an employee, but if he was, let me tell you why he’d be excellent in Lead Generation.

His name tells the answer-Curiosity. We’ve all heard, “not interested” in our days of cold calling. I’m willing to bet some of you followed some “objection resolution” manual and had planned responses according to what they said, right? Well we learned long ago when cold calling you need to sound personable, consultative and unscripted. So how does following a manual solve that? It doesn’t.

So maybe some of you tend to move on once you hear “not interested”… but when that call ends, you can’t get anywhere either.

Curious George has a unique skill that keeps the prospect talking while not sounding scripted. When George hears “not interested” he doesn’t quickly try to resolve the objection but takes the time to understand it. By being curious and talking about the objection, George shows the prospect a level of caring rather than a personal agenda.

The “curious” strategy assists in bringing down the guard that some of our prospects have with cold callers. When that guard is down, you have now succeeded in a giant aspect of your job… YOU ARE NOW HAVING A CONVERSATION! A two-way rapport building discussion about what the prospect truly cares for and doesn’t care for. Once this level of understanding has happened, don’t you feel much better pitching a solution? Absolutely! You’ve gained the background knowledge that can allow for a more tailored pitch that is more about the end customer than it is about a general strategy.

So the next time you hear “not interested” don’t give up or consult some manual… Think to yourself, “What would George do in this situation?” BE CURIOUS and get to the bottom of the objection. This will go a long way in building rapport, having better conversations, and in turn, providing you increased results.

“Curiosity is the wick in the candle of learning.”
-William Arthur Ward

It is amazing to think that just over a decade ago, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and the unbelievable bevy of burgeoning blog sites were but a glimmer in the eyes of hopeful entrepreneurs. Today however, social networking is the #1 most used marketing method. While being viral used to suggest the kinds of things that would get you sent to a quarantined colony, it is now THE way to boost your sales, maximize traffic to your site, manage or build your reputation. All this in a way that is fast, effective and makes you easily accessible – way better than being quarantined!

But in case you are still not convinced, here is a subset of recent data compiled by comScore…which I have extrapolated into my top 10 reasons your company needs to join what I call the social generation.

Years to reach 50 million users: radio (38 years), TV (13 Years), Internet (4 years), iPod (3 years)…Facebook added 100 million users in less than 9 months…iPhone applications hit 1 billion in 9 months…

Don’t make me have to hit you with the big hammer on this one!

178 million U.S. internet users watched online video content during July and Americans viewed 3.6 billion video ads in July.

How many of us would rather watch a creative 60 second video ad as opposed to sifting through massive amounts of content eventually feeling sensation akin to watching paint dry on the side of a barn? Good videos travel fast and can turn a modest marketing effort into an overnight web sensation.

93 million internet users visited Twitter.com in June, an increase of 109% from the previous year.

Tweeting is not just a luxury of the rich and famous, despite the insidiously vapid Paris Hilton postings, it is a version of “microblogging” that has taken word of mouth to an entirely new level. Content is sent in milliseconds with under 140 characters; a free, easy to use, extremely time effective method of reaching the largest possible audience in the least amount of time.

This year, 68% of social network users have become a fan or friend of a product, service, company, or group on a social networking site.

Social networking sites’ impact on business is growing. You can’t be tagged, friended, fanned, or otherwise referred, in the fastest growing marketing medium in the US, if you aren’t even there. From brand definition to reputation management, social networking is an undeniable conduit to explosive recognition and growth.

47% of people age 50-64 and 26% of people 65+ now use some form of social networking.

Not only do these older generations still have some influence with their younger counterparts, in political and knitting circles alike, but they have decades of work and life experience and these informed and educated opinions can go far in helping establish and maintain brand perception.

Social media has overtaken porn as the #1 activity on the web.

Um…enough said.

25% of search results for the world’s top 20 largest brands are links to user-generated content.

Many search engines including Google weigh the value of each link and the overall content of those links as they relate to your website. Even if you subscribe to an over-processed fast food lifestyle, the organic nature of link generated traffic will ensure the only thing getting clogged is your inbox full of inquiries.

34% of bloggers post opinions about products & brands.

This is the Viral Word of Mouth (VWM) hat allows your content to potentially zip through the online world. Once picked up it can gain tremendous momentum in a non-invasive manner; so users don’t feel like it’s forced on them and they trust the content even more because it was given to them virtually by referral.

24 of the 25 largest newspapers in the US are experiencing record declines in circulation because we no longer seek out the news, the news finds us.

No business can afford to sit on its collective keister and wait for the phone to ring. While you still need to maintain focus on your valuable existing customers you also need to be proactively targeting new customers. If YOU are not where THEY are looking, the only benefit you will gain is potentially slimming your back end while chasing them down – after your competition has scooped them up.

More than 1.5 million pieces of content (web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photos, etc.) are shared on Facebook…daily.

Social networking has become the straightest, most effective path to reach not only your existing audience and the target audience you were seeking, but potentially new crowds you didn’t even know could be of benefit to your business. Unless you’re looking into a second career as a “flasher,” overexposure is never a bad thing. Social networking is NOW (until the next big thing comes along). It’s time to embrace the NOW.

Lead generation: What is it? I decided to Google the answer and found this as the response:

Lead Generation

A marketing term that refers to the creation or generation of prospective consumer interest or inquiry into a business’ products or services.

While I will never test the validity of information found on the internet (haha), I did however come up with my own meaning. Lead generation, by all means, is partly creating or generating interest, but simply put – isn’t it an art of discovery? Companies have pains, needs, and projects happening all the time. Isn’t it the nature of the business world to constantly ask the question, “How do we improve from yesterday?” Of course it is.

Knowing that, it’s important to push forward with your lead generation efforts realizing that businesses need improvement and that technology can be used as the fuel. Lead generation at its core is discovery through questioning what’s on business leader’s minds for future improvement. As most of us already know, this can be a difficult task.

So how does one excel in “discovery” – otherwise known as lead generation? The answer is persistence. No one can deny that making more calls, asking for more contacts, updating profiles, and overcoming objections will ultimately help increase the level of success in what we do daily.

Now you might say to yourself, “I already do this,” or “I already do that.” But have you had the persistence and/or perseverance to do them ALL on a regular basis? It’s not easy, I know…
But was it easy for Columbus to discover North America? Was it easy for Benjamin Franklin to discover electricity? The answer is “no,” but what did they both have in common?

Persistence

The ability to learn through unsuccessful attempts and to try again with more knowledge and the mindset that “this can be done,” will lead you on a more promising career path. Keep telling yourself, “I can do this! I can be successful!” and great things will come.

“Perseverance is the hard work you do after you get tired of doing the hard work you already did.”
-Newt Gingrich

“I’d be less than honest if I didn’t say to myself, ‘What am I doing this for?’”

This, the question posed by coach Bobby Knight, is food for thought for fellow email marketers with new campaigns on their plate to design and execute. If you can’t look at what you have in front of you and make sense of it, what are you doing it for? If it doesn’t make sense to you, or the message/call to action feels empty, how do you think the recipient(s) of your message are going to react? Keep it simple. Keep it brief. Keep it straight and to the point – much like the coaching style of Mr. Knight. No fluff, no filler… lay it right out on the line and see how folks react. If you find yourself in a rut, always keep the notion, “what would Bobby Knight do?” in your head. If he would just crumple it up and toss it across the court, perhaps you should head back to the drawing board.

“We should not have to push you to work hard. You should work hard because you want to be a great player.”

Only you can improve your email marketing best practices. You can read as many blogs, and watch as many “how-to” tutorials as you want, but they’re not going to necessarily improve you and your work. You have to practice and hone your skills. And when you feel like you’ve had enough, you need to practice harder and hone in even more. Email marketing is hard. It’s ever-changing, and there is no clear best answer available. It takes work. And only you can make that work happen. If you want to be great at it, you can be. Challenge yourself to put out inspiring content that demands action, and you will ultimately achieve the desired results you set out to capture. Make Mr. Knight proud. If you can make him proud, anything is possible.

“People change over the years, and that changes situations for good and for bad.”

Coach Knight has cleverly aligned this bit of wisdom to follow his previous thought. It takes hard work to be a great player in the realm of email marketing. You have to keep your finger on the pulse of what’s going on in whatever industry you represent. People, places, things – they’re always changing. As is the way email is written, received and reviewed. You have to keep up with the times. And the times, as Bob Dylan so eloquently put it, “are a changin’” on a daily basis, for better, or for worse. Part of your job is to understand these trends, and roll with the punches. Else, you may see a steep decline in the performance of your work and the bottom line (ROI).

“Discipline: doing what you have to do, and doing it as well as you possibly can, and doing it that way all the time.”

When it comes to email marketing, there is no slouching around. Cutting corners will inevitably lose you potential leads, and may have many in your audience hitting the unsubscribe button. Create the content for your email campaign as though it will be your last. Pull out all the stops. Take an extra minute to fine tune the details. Your hard work will not go unnoticed. It’s when you start getting lazy that mistakes happen, and mistakes are details that your audience is bound to pick up on. If you can feel the eyes of Bobby Knight glaring through the back of your head you’re doing something wrong. Take pride in your work, and take to heart the words Mr. Knight has spoken above.

“The key is not the will to win… everybody has that. It is the will to prepare to win that is important.”

What sets you apart from the rest of the playing field? As Mr. Knight alludes to here, everyone has the capacity to implement a campaign, be it via email or otherwise. Everyone is looking for results from said campaigns. So what are you doing that differentiates your work from the work of others? The easiest (or not so easy, depending on which way you look at it) thing to do is to get to know the vertical you’re targeting. Know the ins and outs, and know who you’re reaching out to. Keep your message relevant and on point, and deliver it with confidence. Prepare yourself for a win. You can’t just shoot (send) blindly and assume (and hope) the end result is going to be everything you dreamed it would be. You have to work for that. You have to put all your ducks in a row. Research. Get on the same page as your audience. If you’re speaking their language they will respond. If you’re not, they’ll notice, and will ship your attempt directly to the trash can, without thinking twice about doing so.

“Everybody hears, but few listen.”

Truer words are rarely spoken, which is why we have Mr. Knight here with us today to help guide our best-practice email marketing techniques. It’s a busy world out there. There is a lot of traffic in every facet of life. People are inundated with information all day long. They look for a second, but are quickly distracted by all the goings on that takes place in a given day. They attend meetings, but are quite often multi-tasking at the same time. They’re listening, but how much do they actually comprehend? There’s a big difference between the two. So how are you, as an email marketer, going to grab their attention for a few seconds in order to actually let your message sink in? How are you going to get your message to resonate and have your audience react to the call to action you’ve put in place? You need remarkable content. You need something that is the distraction of all distractions. The distraction that makes them mutter, “Oh, there you are,” under their breath (okay, or in their mind). They’ll respond, and heck, they’ll probably even forward this messaging on to their colleagues and friends if you’ve done your job well enough. This takes careful planning, and even more meticulous implementation. Make them listen without taking up too much of their time. If it’s powerful enough they’ll end up spending a lot of time talking and thinking about it, and this is added bonus. Mr. Knight made a career out of making people listen. People knew that no matter what else was going on in the room, or in their life, if he speaks, you listen. Take the same approach.

“I think that – not only do I have to change some things, I mean, I think I have to eliminate a thing or two. Not just change it, but I mean, just get rid of it.”

Of course, before you jump in and become a pro at email marketing you have to understand that one of the most critical aspects of the job is testing. The only real way to figure out if something is working or not, is by testing out your content, as well as your calls to action and subject lines. Test internally amongst a group of peers. This will give you a basic idea of what resonates well with them, and what you need to fix before you go live. Another technique is a/b testing where you create two separate emails within the same campaign and split your list into smaller chunks to see which one gives you better results. If one is worlds better than the other, blast it out to the rest of the nurtured list that you have on reserve (nurtured lists – as opposed to random contacts, are very important in email marketing, and will greatly strengthen the success of your campaigns. Bobby Knight has expressed that this is a discussion for another time). You may think you’ve hit the nail on the head right out of the gate, but when you send it out for testing and find that it doesn’t behave the way you wanted it to, it’s time to toss it. Get rid of it. Start anew. It’s not a complete loss, because no matter what you do, or where you’ve been, you’re always learning. And learning, according to what could be Mr. Knight’s favorite action figures, is half the battle.

“Failure, to me, is not having the desire to try. Having the desire to try is in its own way success.”

It seems as though Mr. Knight is a firm believer in testing, and he will stop at nothing to drive this point home. You can’t be afraid to test. More importantly, you can’t be afraid to try something you’re not sure is going to work, or is going to have an immediate impact on your ROI. You have to try out new things to figure out what’s going to work and what’s going to fail in certain aspects of a given industry. Truth be told, there will always be calls to action and subject lines that fall short. It’s that initial attempt at exploring uncharted territories that, as Mr. Knight so eloquently puts it, “is in its own way success.” There are many different angles to executing effective email marketing campaigns. Don’t leave one out to pasture because you think it won’t work. Be sure it won’t work before you do away with it.

“A coach should never be afraid to ask questions of anyone he could learn from.”

When it comes to email marketing, these words hold a lot of weight. In the world of email marketing, there is no real authoritative source. You can be a coach as much as you can be a player, and vice versa. The point is, as the authoritative figure of your own email marketing campaigns; you should be seeking the advice and knowledge of all the aspects of your target audience. Trends are always shifting. People are routinely changing the way they view and consume information on a daily basis. Don’t be afraid to seek this wisdom, as someone may offer you a bit of advice that changes the way you go about doing things for the better. Learning and accepting the tumultuous landscape that is email marketing is the only way you’re going to be able to navigate the slippery slopes, and the inevitable steep inclines. There’s no such thing as smooth sailing in this game. You always have to remain on your toes, and keep your eyes on the prize. Take it from Mr. Knight. He knows a thing or (nine hundred and) two about winning, and he also knows a thing or two about making sure you stay on task and get the job done the best way you know how.

Do you have trouble falling asleep, staying asleep, and getting through the day?  Don’t turn to a sleeping pills at night, just crack open a B2B technology whitepaper, it will make you dose off instantly.  Let’s be honest, 90% of B2B brands are extremely bland, boring and dry. In this post I’m going to discuss some of the problems with current marketing communications, as well as share some examples of companies who are doing it right and getting positive ROI.

The Problem

The B2B space has a serious communication issues with both the visual imagery presented and the copywriting used.

I’m sick of those cliché and overused stock photos in the marketing collateral of business-to-business companies.  I’ve seen the same iStockPhoto model in literally hundreds of websites.  The writing doesn’t get much better.  You’ve got a flexible, scalable, groundbreaking, industry-standard, cutting-edge product?  Really? Wow!

Sophos is a good example of a homepage that breaks away from the clichés.

We are marketing to businesses, when we should be marketing to people.

Business buyers and decision makers are humans made up of flesh, blood, and emotions.  There is more to a large business purchase than just ROI and product specs.  It’s time for B2B marketers to connect with people, truly understand them, and of course, entertain them. I believe we need to shake up the B2B world with compelling and creative marketing that contains a good dose of humor.

Reasons to Use Humor in B2B

Humorous marketing often goes viral, bringing lots of traffic to your website.

When your messaging is spreading like wildfire, you’re likely to reach the desk of important business decision makers.  IBM’s funny video, “Mainframe: The Art of the Sale, Lesson One” has received over 270,000 views.  The video caused blog traffic to increase 25 times, and the campaign received mainstream press coverage. HubSpot, a marketing software company, simultaneously educates and entertains prospects, and four out of the 10 of their most read blog articles from 2009 are fun-based. One of my favorite B2B viral videos is from Cisco for their ASR 9000 router.

Funny marketing has a longer shelf life.

Eloqua’s The Conversation campaign was launched over a year ago, but is still relevant and continues to consistently drive leads for them to this day.  It’s hilarious, interactive and it tackles real problems that companies are having today – without being overly salesy.  Funny advertising can, in fact, directly lead to sales, even in the B2B world.

Eloqua does a fantastic job with e-mail marketing as well.

Humor makes you seem…  Human.

Incorporating personality into your company’s brand makes you seem friendly, approachable and authentic.  This can help you to differentiate your brand from the vast array of competing companies.  Most importantly, you will be remembered.  And don’t think you need an exciting product to have exciting marketing.

Marketing for networking products doesn’t have to be dull, as
seen by this hilarious four page Playboy parody for Sun's Server of the Month.

Why You Shouldn’t Use Humor

Humor may be misinterpreted

What has one person laughing, may have another person furiously angry and offended.  The marketing piece may fall flat, or it may backfire.  I had a lot of positive feedback on my article, “Treat Your Landing Page Visitors Like 5-Year-Olds With ADD” however there was a complaint from a reader whose son has ADD. Also take into account if you’re an international company that the humor may not translate well in other cultures. If humor isn’t appropriate for your audience or might easily be misinterpreted, tone it down or avoid using it all together.

Challenges

There are many barriers in large companies where a marketing piece has to pass through legal, sales, marketing, branding etc. before being approved.  But I encourage you to get in touch with your inner Michael Scott, and at least try.

Feel free to share your experiences or any examples on humor in B2B marketing in the comments below.