One important question B2B marketers have is, “How can I increase sales to customers (also known as ‘increasing wallet share’)?”

It is six to seven times more expensive to acquire a new customer than it is to retain an existing customer (Bain & Company Study). Bain & Company’s study also showed that a 5% increase in customer retention can lead to profit increase of 25-100%.

How can you increase your customer wallet share?

Know your customers. Know which customers are profitable. Know what your customers want and need (and what they don’t know they need).

Track and increase customer satisfaction. Survey your customer’s satisfaction levels and then take action to improve the levels. Do a customer touch point map to analyze each point at which you “touch” the customer. Identify points of friction and resolve them!

Engage your customers. Add value to your customers experience by providing information and learning opportunities related to your products or services. Give valuable information for free to your customers. Increase your customer touchpoints (making each touchpoint a positive experience). Interact with them on social media as well as through traditional marketing channels. More positive touch points will increase brand awareness, which has a direct correlation to wallet share, according to a study done by Ipsos Loyalty and professors at Fordham University and Vanderbilt University’s Owen Graduate School of Management.

Other articles and information I found related to this topic that you might find helpful:

Engagement: The Secret to Profiting From an Upside-Down Economy, by Chris Cottle, Allegiance, Sales & Marketing Management 

Increase your “Share of Wallet” through Customer Experience Management and “Trusted Relationships”
by Rick Graves, CoreBrand, Interactive Intelligence blog

Know Your Customers’ Wallet Share to Retain the Best Customers, by Laura Patterson, Customer Think blog

I’ve never been much of a believer in focus groups for market research. They are expensive and, like some, I believe that focus group dynamics lead to group think, which may not amount to true customer response. Now with research being done in neuroscience and the emerging practice of neuromarketing,  there is more thought that focus groups are not effective.

In a Psychology Today blog post, Mind control: Neuroscience in marketing, Ray Williams cites Natasha Singer’s article in the New York Times, “Making Ads That Whisper to the Brain.” In her article, Singer argues that because most of our brain’s activity is unconscious, neuromarketers believe that traditional surveys and focus groups are inaccurate.

The New York Times article also provides some words of caution – that neuroscience doesn’t have all the answers. According to Dr. Robert T. Knight, a professor of neuroscience and psychology at Berkeley, “EEGs can be used to determine whether a person is engaged, but not to decipher the nuances of that engagement…. …That means that neuromarketing may distinguish whether a person’s emotional response is positive or negative, but not whether the positive response is awe or amusement. This is not a mind reader we can only measure whether you are paying attention.”

I believe that primary market research in the form of one-on-one interviews and behavior observation yields more cost-effective results for business-to-business marketers – perhaps for business-to-consumer marketers as well. What do you think? Are you a B2B marketer or researcher who has gotten great results from focus groups?

My firm New Incite offers marketing research and analysis services. Please contact us today for more information on how we can provide “new incite” for your marketing.

About to jump off and launch a new product or service? You should “look before you leap,” and do some market research.

Business to consumer (B2C) companies spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on market research before they brand and launch new products. Business to business marketers should do the same. You don’ t have to spend that much or take months or a year in research. Just take a pragmatic look at the opportunity before you start marketing. Here are some of the things you should look at:

1. What research already exists about the product or service you are launching?

2. What do your existing customers need or want around this product or service?

3. Who are your competitors in the product or service space?

4. How are your competitors positioned? What are their prices? Their market share?

If you are launching into an existing industry, there may be a lot of market research already that you can access. If you are launching a new product or service, you can do some primary research by interviewing potential customers, conducting surveys or even polling on social media platforms.

My point here is do the research. By looking before you leap, you will have a better chance of success with your marketing.

New Incite provides pragmatic research and analysis for B2B product or service launches. Contact us today for more information about our market research and analysis services.

You may not know it, but your company page already exists on Facebook. And, it’s blank.

Why? Because your employees are on Facebook, and when they created their personal profile, they said they worked at your company. If your company page did not exist, Facebook created a blank page for you.

If an employee types in a variation of your company name, Facebook will create another company page. This can happen even if you have a branded Facebook company page. The employee may misspell the company name, abbreviate it, or use an old name. All can result in the creation of a blank company page.

So, even if you don’t plan to enter business messages on Facebook, you should consider creating a basic company, firm or organization page with your brand on it. Then, give your employees the link to the correct Facebook page and ask them to make sure they connect to it. You’ve invested in your brand – don’t allow blank!

New Incite provides social media planning, Facebook page creation and outsource social media messaging. Contact us today for more information on how we can help you establish a credible Facebook presence.

It’s efficient to re-purpose content into your B2B marketing blog. But, there is some content that really doesn’t belong.

Be careful. Your B2B marketing blog is not a place to cut and paste just any existing content, so you can make your per week blog post quota and bump up your SEO performance. Done right, your blog should add value for its readers. With that in mind, here are lists of the content you should add and what you should not add to your blog.

Content to Add to Your B2B Marketing Blog

• Product how-to’s. Tips, techniques, video how-to’s all apply here.
• Service what’s and why’s. (If you sell services, don’t give away too many of your how-to’s)
• Industry news, with your opinion as to why it is important.
• Employee news that conveys the humanness of your organization.
• Company news with an explanation of what it means to employees, customers and the community.
• Interviews with customers, vendors, suppliers, employees and industry experts.
• Excerpts from whitepapers and articles that are re-written to be more conversational.

Content You Should Not Add to Your B2B Marketing Blog

• Verbatim copies of your press releases.
• Cut and pasted verbatim copies of industry news.
• Abstracts of any news that don’t include your opinion of the news.
• Blog posts less than three paragraphs.
• Product user guide excerpts that don’t have an explanation about when or how the customer can use them.

The most important thing is that you add value for the readers of your blog. If you’ve seen some ridiculous or meaningless blog posts, please describe them in the comments below.

New Incite provides strategic planning, set-up, training, and blog ghostwriting for your blog. Contact us today for more information about our blog and social media consulting and services.

Effective blogging takes a lot of time and effort. Over 90% of blogs that get started are abandoned. One solution can be to hire a blog ghostwriter. Here are three important things to consider if you hire a blog ghostwriter.

1. Your blog should reflect “the voice” of your company.

Any business-to-business blog must reflect your business’s marketing persona. The marketing persona is important whether or not you outsource your marketing. You should know what style, tone and voice you will use when you “talk” to your customers and prospects. The persona is even more important when you outsource marketing tasks to writers or consultants. (If you want to learn more, I’ve blogged a lot about marketing personas – perhaps the post I wrote that best explains what they are is Why B2B Marketing Buyer Personas Rule.)

2. You need a strategy for your blog.

What other blogs exist within your industry? How will your blog be positioned? What are you going to say? Who is the audience? What are your topic categories? What kind of graphics or images will you use? (Note I did not write that question as, “Will you use graphics or images?”!) These questions should be answered before you start the blog, or it won’t be successful.

3. You should have a plan and timeline for the blog.

With a written plan and timeline, you can map the process of blogging. How frequently will you blog? Can you re-purpose content from other marketing or company materials? Who will write the blog posts? Does someone need to approve them? Who will respond to comments? Who will comment on other blogs in your industry? What topics will you write about ? (You should brainstorm topics on a regular basis, and keep a list – the longer the better. I keep my list on an Excel spreadsheet that now has 165 topics – 83 of which were published. As of today I have 167 total blog posts on my blog. )

It’s my opinion that as long as someone in your business or organization reviews and approves the blog posts, a blog ghostwriter can be highly effective and  an authentic reflection of your business. B2b bloggers, what do you think? Please comment below.

If you are a business owner and want to start a blog, please contact us at New Incite. We provide blog strategic and tactical planning services as well as blog ghostwriting.

If you’re going to invest time and effort in writing a blog, you want to get as many customers and prospects as possible to read it.

How can you promote your blog? Here are eight ideas:

1. Increase the frequency of your blog post writing.

2. Engage with other bloggers by commenting on their blogs and other social media.

3. Advertise the blog in your email signature line, newsletters, and other marketing collateral.

4. Send a press release out about your blog.

5. Get your blog content in front of content curators who use utilities like Paper.li and Scoop.it.

6. Invite guest bloggers to write posts on your blog.

7. Write blog posts that include long lists (known to increase traffic) – e.g. 50 Tips; 101 Links; 100 Ways….

8. Provide links to your most popular blog posts via the newsletter or other emails.

Readers – please add any other promotion ideas you have in the comments below!

New Incite offers blogging services including blog plans, set-up, training, and blog ghost-writing! Contact us today for more information about our blog services.

But, spending more decreases ROI, doesn’t it? You’ve heard the adage, “To make more money, you’ve got to spend more money.” I believe this is true when it comes to tradeshows.

You see, what most businesses do is just show up.

Then they go home.

They don’t plan strategically. They don’t have a special offer or promotion. They are not launching a new product or service.

I get it! Trade shows are hard! You scramble around getting your exhibit and brochures shipped on time, you get the right people in the booth, they spend long hours on their feet with a smile plastered on their face. When they get home and back to the office, their family needs attention, and they are playing catch-up with work meetings, phone calls and emails. To add insult to injury, everyone is too busy to follow up with the trade show leads. That’s why over 70% of trade show leads are never followed upon.

If you do commit to a show, I encourage you to do it right. You’re spending at least $15,000 – $20,000 just to show up. Invest in pre-show campaigns to invite more people to see your exhibit. Once they engage with you at the show, keep that conversation going with post-show campaigns. Connect with them on social media. Offer free, valuable content. Call them, email them, send them something in the mail. Invite them to a webinar. Spending 10 – 30% more on your trade shows has a big impact. A trade show done right can have a huge return-on-investment (ROI).

For help with your trade show strategy and campaigns, contact New Incite today. We can help you increase your ROI.

Get more trade show ideas from my previous post, Trade Show Tricks to Maximize ROI.

Social media is not a silver bullet, the be-all and end-all, a panacea. It’s just another tool to add to your marketing toolbox.

In his book Good to Great, Jim Collins wrote that great companies never saw or tried to use technology as the way to greatness. Rather, technology was an accelerant, but only if the company had built a sound foundation, knew their strengths and what they stood for.  Collins’ called the concept of knowing one’s business purpose and mission and sticking to it the Hedgehog Concept. Hedgehogs plod along a steady course, never straying or getting distracted. See my previous post on this, B2B Marketers: Are You a Hedgehog or a Fox?

So, I know, being foxy seems so much more appealing than being a hedgehog. But, truly, technology based on an unsure or shaky foundation is what trips up foxes. Wanting social media to be that silver bullet, too many businesses have jumped on board, only to fail. That is why Jason Alba wrote the book, I Am on LinkedIn, Now What? That is why the blog abandonment rate is over 90%. That is why, after stumbling around Twitter for a while, many delete their profiles.

Start any marketing program with a solid foundation and understanding of what your business is now and what you want to be. Then, plan your marketing strategically on top of that foundation. Choose technology and programs that will accelerate your strategy and be practical in your implementation. Social media works, but only if you do it right.

Before you go live with your new logo, you should run it through several tests. Logos take time and effort to develop. You don’t want to launch a new logo and sink money into print materials and other collateral, only to have to redo it.

1. Fax. Yes, there is a good chance your logo will be faxed. (Still.) Do all the logo elements come through on a fax? Can you read the company name or other words on the logo?

2. Copy. Same as fax. Make sure you can identify the logo graphic and read any text.

3. Social media. You will want to use your logo on your social media profiles to ensure your brand is consistent. A lot of social media sites require thumbnail or square graphics. Some parts of a horizontal logo can become illegible in a thumbnail. Read my previous post on this, Why a Square Logo is Better for Online Marketing.

4. Promo items. Will you have the logo embroidered on shirts? Imprinted on giveaways for trade shows? Make sure your logo will transfer to these formats.

5. Signs. Do you plan to have your logo on a building sign? Maybe you’re not ready for that on day one, but why not plan for it?

6. Your audience. Does your new logo appeal to your customers? Prospects? Some companies are crowdsourcing logos and other designs through social media. That’s one way to go. At the least you can show the new design to a few select customers and partners. Get their feedback before you launch.

7. Your company. Last but not least, does your new logo reflect your company? Your values and your culture?

What other tests should be run on logos? Feel free to comment below.

If you need a new logo design, contact New Incite today. We’ve designed dozens of logos and can step you through the process: from concept, to design, to testing, to launch!