McDonald’s Canada released an online video ad that showed the truth about how they market their products. B2B marketers should sit up and take note of why it was successful, and what it means for business-to-business marketing.

Many years ago when I lived in San Francisco, one of my friends was a food photographer. I learned that a lot goes into photographing food – so much so that you would definitely NOT want to eat the food in the photography shoot. McDonald’s Canada capitalized on food industry behind-the-scenes secrets by creating a video of how they “pimp” burgers in photo shoots. They created an ad about it – a reality advertisement, if you will.

The ad has been written about by ad industry pundits because it was primarily created for online use – a new tactic that many marketers are taking advantage of. (Read the blog post by AllThingdigital.com’s Peter Kafka, Here’s the McDonald’s Ad All the Web Guys Think Is Genius.) To date this McDonald’s video, Behind the scenes at a McDonald’s photo shoot, has had 8.5 million views.

Here’s why the McDonald’s ad is significant for B2B marketers.

People want the real story. They want to know what you do behind the scenes. They want transparency – no more smoke and mirrors, especially if there is some controversy about your industry.

I think McDonald’s behind-the-scenes “reality” ad (yes, I know it was all staged, just like the “reality shows”) was brilliant! (View the ad below.) In an industry that gets a bad rap for having processed food full of fat and salt, the ad invites consumers to take a peek behind the curtain to see what really goes on. The ad tells “the truth” – the burger you see in an ad does not look the same as the one you buy in the store. We all knew this was true, but now the restaurant is publicizing this truth, in an industry in which outsider exposés have hurt restaurant reputations.

B2B marketers, what’s your story? Can you turn it into an online reality ad? Is it about how your company’s founders left their industry to do things differently? Is it because your leadership believes in its people? In innovation? Whatever your story is, find a creative way to tell it online. Maybe you’ll get millions of views like McDonald’s Canada.

Google came out with a new concept about how consumers buy things: the Zero Moment of Truth. While this may be relatively new for business-to-consumer buying, it’s always been present for buyers of technology.

What is ZMOT?

Recommendations from others is essentially what the ZMOT is. Before the Internet, consumers would see an ad (the stimulus), go to the store and buy the product (first moment of truth) and use the product (second moment of truth). Now, after seeing an ad, people will consult on average 10.4 different sources (online and offline) before buying something. This is the Zero Moment of Truth.

Why ZMOT is Not That New for Technology Companies

In 1991 Regis McKenna wrote Crossing the Chasm, in which he detailed the behavior of technology buyers. One of the key factors of the technology buyer’s purchase decision is a peer referral or review. The number one influence on people buying technology are recommendations from their colleagues. To me, this is ZMOT, just 20 + years ago, before the Internet.

Technology Buyers Have Had ZMOT All Along

Technology buyers have always had their zero moment of truth. Granted, it might not have been on the Internet, but they were consulting respected sources before they bought software or computers and other technology. It’s nice the Internet has caught up other types of buyers in making more informed decisions before they buy.

What Does ZMOT Mean for You?

Whether you’re selling business-to-business technology, smartphones or even shoes, the ZMOT matters. You need great content and testimonials online shared by you and your customers that buyers can access when they’re making their decision.

Other articles about ZMOT you might find interesting:

Google’s “Zero Moment Of Truth”: Why They’re Right And Why They’re Wrong

Why Your B2B Marketing Needs a Hub and Spoke System

Do you want to establish a better online presence? Contact New Incite today for information on how we can help you create a strategy, a tactical plan, and implement the plan.

If you decided late in the game that you must attend a sold-out trade show, there’s still hope. You can create a presence without exhibiting in a booth.

For years I have been saying that there are many ways to market at trade shows without buying an exhibit space. An article in B2B Magazine, No booth? No problem. How one company used partnerships, guerrilla tactics to get the word out, inspired this blog post. The article is about Brickstream, a company that has in-store devices that analyze and reduce customer wait-time. Brickstream wanted a presence at the  National Retail Federation’s Annual Convention & Expo, but the show’s exhibit space was sold out.

Brickstream bought other marketing opportunities – a large floor tile right at the entrance of the show and a sponsorship ad on the event’s mobile app. They dressed up representatives in matching costumes that went with the same theme in the ad and floor tile, and the reps walked the show with handheld tablets to provide information and demos. They did manage to get a partial booth space with a partner, and in the end they got 30 leads and talked to hundreds of prospects. Kudos to Atlanta-based Arketi Group for providing the marketing approach for the show

I know the concept of not buying exhibit space may not be that popular with show management, but some companies just don’t have the budget to go all out on a trade show. Plus, if it is the first year a company attends a show, they may want to dip their toe in the water and check it out before taking the risk and going all in with a booth plus multiple sponsorship opportunities. (I actually recommend this to ensure that a trade show is not a complete bust. Speak at the show or just attend it for the first year to check it out.)

So, if the trade show is sold out or you don’t have a big budget, there are still things you can do to take advantage of the opportunity. Here are other posts with trade show ideas that you might find helpful:

• Trade Show Tricks to Maximize B2B Marketing ROI
• 8 Social Media Marketing Ideas for Your Trade Show Exhibit
• Trade Show Trends B2B Marketers Need to Know
• Why Spending More on Your Trade Show Increases ROI (maybe this will redeem me with the show management companies!)

Do you need help establishing a marketing or trade show strategy? Contact me today – I’ve helped many B2B companies get better results in their trade shows and overall marketing programs.

In today’s world of fast-paced and competitive product launches, a marketer’s ability to get attention and attract potential buyers is critical. But many product launches fail to capture the attention of target audiences. Here’s why.

1. Not enough runway to launch

Product launches fail because they don’t have enough runway to get off the ground successfully – entrepreneurs and inventors don’t start the marketing process early enough. The earlier preliminary marketing activities get started, the more impact and success the launch will have. See my previous post on this, Countdown for a Successful Rolling Product Launch.

2. Too few industry connections

Inventors always think, “Build it and they will come.” But, they will be much better off during product launch if they make connections to industry analysts and experts early. They may even provide a little preliminary information about their new product before it’s launched. Today’s social networks make it easier to connect with key people in your industry in advance of the product launch. Read more in my previous post, Why Product Launch Plans Need to Include Social Networking.

3. The wrong messaging for the launch

In a Sales & Marketing Management article 5 Steps to the Most Influential Customer Communications, author Michael Cannon points out that typical product launch plans fail to answer the question of why prospective customer should buy. There is a rush to get slide decks, webpages and other materials cranked out in time for the launch, with not enough attention paid to the needs of the customer. (I believe this happens all the time in marketing, not just in product launches).

4. Lack of a deep understanding of buyer needs, desires and behaviors

The way to create great messaging is to really understand both the market for the product and the potential buyers. For this you need to analyze not just competitors and opportunities but also your buyer personas. What makes your buyer tick? Where does he or she get information? What preferences do they have for learning? What’s important to them? See my post on this, Why B2B Marketing Buyer Personas Rule. Without this understanding, you may have a great message, but if it doesn’t appeal to your specific buyers, it will fail.

When it comes to your product launch, start early, know the right people, answer the “Why?” question, and know your buyers.

If you need help analyzing your market opportunities and buyers for product launch success, contact New Incite today. We provide strategic marketing analysis, marketing planning and implementation of the plans.

Do you want a practical approach to using LinkedIn? LinkedIn has a lot of features, and it’s not easy to understand how to use them and what to do to get results. Here is a checklist for making sure your LinkedIn implementation is successful.

1. Make sure your profile is 100% complete. LinkedIn will prompt you if your profile is incomplete. Some of the key factors are adding a photo, getting at least 3 recommendations, adding your education, creating a list of skills.

2. Make sure you connect to your Company Profile on LinkedIn, and other Company Profiles for past jobs. This allows searchers to view what companies you’ve worked with in the past and quickly see what they do. If you don’t have a company profile, as your employer to add one or create one if you’re the business owner.

3. Connect strategically to people you know. Past classmates and co-workers are great connections to stay in touch with, but also make sure you connect to clients, customers, strategic partners and industry

4. Post updates on a regular basis. Keep in mind that your connections may get emails for every update you post on LinkedIn (this is a preference users can modify, but many don’t know how). The frequency of your updates is up to you. It could be monthly, weekly, daily. The topics of your updates can include links to articles others have written, links to blog posts you’ve written, announcements about your speaking engagements.

5. Comment on your connections’ updates. Watch what your connections post and “Like” them or add a comment.

6. Start new, join existing and participate in LinkedIn Discussion Groups. Add discussions and create polls in the discussion groups. Ask how-to questions, request recommendations for solutions. Answer others’ questions.

7. Recommend and endorse co-workers and colleagues judiciously. Take time to write an intelligent, thoughtful recommendation for your connections. Use endorsements, but make sure the person you’re endorsing actually does a good job at the skill before you click on “Endorse.” (See my previous post on this – Are LinkedIn Endorsements Too Easy?)

LinkedIn now has somewhere over 100 million users (see Liz Gannes’ post on this on All Things Digital). Over 90% of corporations use LinkedIn to search for resources and skills. Most recently, LinkedIn is making a bit push to become a go-to website for content. Are you a part of this growth, or still on the sidelines?

Do you need help getting results from LinkedIn? New Incite provides LinkedIn workshops, training, consulting, and ongoing updates for clients. Contact us today for more information.

The days of marketing handing off leads to sales and retreating to their creative, lead gen  marketing silo are over. Now more than ever, marketing needs to work with sales to maintain an accurate customer relationship management (CRM) system that will serve both departments as they nurture prospective customers through the buying cycle.

Buying cycle, you say? Yes, the buying cycle. Today marketing has been forced to change because of the power of the buyer accessing what they want when they want it online. Now marketing must provide content and information online where their prospective buyers go. In order to do this, they need to thoroughly understand the prospective customer profile and behaviors through the buying cycle (not the sales cycle) and co-own the quality of the CRM system.

A Harvard Business Review article titled Rethinking Marketing cited statistics about ownership of the CRM system. According to a Harte-Hanks survey of 300 North American companies, 42% reported that IT owned the CRM system, 31% sales and only 9% marketing. According to the article:

“Information is tightly held, often because of a lack of trust, competition for promotions or resources, and the silo mentality.“

Marketing must be hands-on when it comes to CRM systems and support sales to make sure that communications through the buying cycle are in alignment with what prospects want and need. A critical factor in marketing success is having accurate, current data with which to make decisions.

Does your CRM system need work? Contact New Incite today – we provide consulting and assessment services for marketing systems, including CRM.

According to the Harvard Business Review, the four P’s of marketing are over. The new model is SAVE, Solution – Access – Value – Education. Here’s what it means for B2B marketing.

Market Solutions

Instead of marketing products, we need to focus on solutions. Solution selling is not new – for years marketers have been stressing selling benefits, not just features.

Provide Access to Your Solutions

Today there is less focus on a physical or geographic place to sell a product (such as in what media do we advertise, at which trade shows, etc.) than there is on access – do you have your product well-positioned online so that when someone wants or needs it, they can find you?

Market the Value of Your Solution

Value-based pricing has been used for years because B2B marketers realize that their ability to differentiate from the competition drives pricing. Selling on price, for example with a cost-plus pricing approach, is not as profitable.

Educate Prospects about Your Solution

Instead of promoting your solution with cool ads, catchy phrases and “push” marketing (marketing that is pushed upon prospects), educate prospects about your solution and attract (“pull”) them to your solution.

I would add to this that the type of education depends on the stage of your solution lifecycle (this used to be called the product lifecycle).

In the early stages of a solution’s lifecycle, you need to educate prospects about what your solution is and  why they need it. As the market for your solution begins to grow, you need to get more aggressive and get market share quickly. Then, as the market matures, you need to differentiate and perhaps choose a niche on which to focus. In a declining market, continued value-add information about your solution can help keep sales going.

Do you need to SAVE your marketing? Contact New Incite today. We provide analysis, planning and marketing execution to help you achieve your business goals.

The image used in this post is from The 4 P’s of Marketing No Longer Apply in B2B Today.

Have you ever tried to get projects done when working with a micromanager? Sometimes managers of marketing projects need to handle the micro-details, but if it’s constant and unproductive, it’s time to do something differently.

Micromanagement may have its pluses when you’re running a business and on multiple deadlines, but it can make the marketing work environment stressful and unproductive. When a micro manager is breathing down the neck of anyone, especially a creative person, it may cause more problems than it solves.

I think one of the reasons for micromanagement in marketing is that so many people think they are just as good as anyone else when it comes to marketing. They know what colors are best, they critique the wording, they react to photos and images. Why shouldn’t they direct the details?

Micromanagement leads to poor morale

The answer is that micromanagement often leads to poor morale. It can even lead to a not great design, because too many people are involved and the design loses its cohesion and original intent. Then, the designer “loses heart.” They may lose that sense that they are contributing to the greater good or that the design is losing its design integrity. They might stop making recommendations (although this is a bit passive/aggressive – they really should speak up and ask to discuss the process and the micromanagement before giving up).

Set up guidelines and let go of details

One of the things that I’ve found, especially with creative people, is that if I set up a marketing project correctly by defining the purpose of the project and identifying the characteristics of the target audience who will see or receive the marketing piece, it’s best to let them have some free reign. The creative mind should not be pressured, but allowed some space and time to… …well, to create!

A few times, especially when I was new to creative direction and management, I loaded up my designers will all kinds of directions. They came up with a fabulous design, that had NOTHING to do with what I told them. Bless their hearts. Note to self, “Provide guidelines and client desires, but let the creative process go!”

Help your micromanager focus on what’s important

If you have a manager or business owner who is doing a deep dive down in the weeds with the creatives at your company (graphic designers, writers, videographers, and web developers and programmers, who are creatives, not techies!), help them bring their nose and eyes up. Ask them to focus on business objectives, results reporting and strategy. Don’t allow them the time and space to be in those weeds, messing up the free flow of creativity!

Hire an outsource marketing resource

Another way to remove the micromanagement factor is to hire an outsource resource to manage your marketing. I know, this could be seen as a shameless plug for my CMO for Hire services, but outsourcing works! Businesses need to focus on their core competencies and not get bogged down in processes and tasks that can be outsourced.

If you need help with your marketing, contact New Incite today. We design strategic marketing plans and provide training, consulting, set up and actual marketing execution for companies that want to grow faster.

Effective marketing is not about winning design awards. Effective marketing is about getting results.

Over the years as a marketing consultant (I founded New Incite in April of 1997), I have observed that a lot of people get bogged down in the details and don’t pay enough attention to results. This is evidenced in the value the marketing and advertising industry and some businesses place on creative and design awards.

Don’t get me wrong, I think that awards are great. Kudos to the award winners. But, as a marketing consultant, I need to ask – did the campaign, ad or website get you results? Results in the way of leads, revenue, brand awareness?

In the book, Professional Services Marketing: How the Best Firms Build Premier Brands, Thriving Lead Generation Engines, and Cultures of Business Development Success, authors Mike Schultz and John E. Doerr provide a list of marketing details to avoid. I think it’s a good one:

1. Keep your eye on the prize: the end marketing result you need to achieve, not on little design details.

2. Collaborate with few. Keep those committee and team sizes to a minimum!

3. Observe Ockham’s Razor – the idea that, in trying to understand something, getting unnecessary information and details out of the way is the fastest way to the truth or to the best explanation. See my previous post on this – What Does Occam’s Razor Have to Do with B2B Marketing?

4. If you are not a professional graphic designer, don’t try to be one! Ask questions like, “Will this attract visitors to our exhibit at the trade show?” instead of, “Don’t you think this shade of green will be better?”

5. Don’t dither, become dilatory, or be delusional (thinking marketing is graphic design rather than growing revenue).

What do you think? Have you observed some of the above in your marketing projects? Do you think things are changing as we can now report on more results with digital marketing?

If you need help focusing your marketing on results, contact New Incite today. We provide strategic marketing analysis and planning and implementation services, including traditional marketing, websites and social media.

A recent survey of traffic to the websites of small to medium-sized business (SMB) provides some interesting insight into what works and what doesn’t for online marketing.

As usual, I have to provide information about the source of the survey, which few bloggers ever do. Optify, the source of the survey, sells inbound marketing software that helps you track social media and email campaigns.

The survey, the 2012 B2B Marketing Benchmark Report by Optify, analyzed over 62 million visits and more than 350,000 leads from 600+ small and medium-sized B2B websites. It concluded that Google is tops for traffic to websites from organic searches, social media provides a small fraction of traffic to these websites, email is a top lead generator and conversion activity, and that paid search is declining among B2B marketers.

It’s no surprise that Google is tops – at least two thirds of all searches online are done through Google. And, there are those of us who know that social media works, but the fact is few B2B marketers have succeeded in implementing social media successfully. I think that is why the survey shows social media is a small fraction of traffic to websites. I’m also not surprised by the decline in paid search (we’ve done little paid search since 2005; see my recent post on this, PPC Joins SEO as a Tactic that Should Go).

The success of email as a driver of traffic to websites is not a surprise either – this has been a top tactic for the last 15 years, and while it’s true younger people have moved to social media and text messaging, baby boomers are still big email people (and for some marketers may constitute their biggest target audience).

One interesting result of the survey is that, of the small portion social media contributes to B2B website traffic, Twitter constitutes 82%. According to the Optify survey, Twitter leads have a higher conversion rate than organic search. The fact that Twitter constitutes the most social media traffic surprises me, but I wonder if it’s because Twitter is much easier to implement than LinkedIn, Facebook and Google+.

I recommend that B2B marketers continue to focus on Google as they optimize their sites and content, continue email marketing but (please) try to keep it fresh, creative and spam-free. And, make sure you have a good presence on Twitter – don’t be a robot like many B2B companies who get on Twitter and just spit out boring sales statements. Add value, tweet other people’s content, and engage with people by having conversations.

Do you need help with social media, email marketing, getting found online? Contact New Incite today. We provide strategic planning, training and consulting, and implementation services for B2B companies.