MarketingSherpa Blog

In 2004, the marketing team at Ciena Corp., a global telecom equipment supplier, had a major image problem with management.

As VP Global Marketing Bill Rozier explains, “Marketing was seen as a press release and trade-show team, a tactical group with marginal business value. At best, marketing was a ‘cost of doing business.’ ”

Today, just three years later, the same marketing team has a seat at the executive table, is invited as a key player to all sales meetings and is credited with building a fully qualified sales funnel of $120 million.

How do you go from nobody to superhero status so quickly?

One of the many factors Bill cites is his in-person partner meetings. Every July, just as the teams are prepping ideas for their big end-of-year push, he and handpicked staffers go on a personal tour of key vendors’ offices.

He calls it his “Tour of Talent.”

Why not make vendors come to his office instead? After all, he’s a busy guy and they are supposed to serve him, not the other way around. Bill says you simply don’t get the same benefits from the “vendor dog and pony show.” He explains, “If you’re really talking about your relationship as a partnership, then you should put the effort into visiting them.”

That in-person meeting can turn you from one of many clients into a most-favored client and build communications that can make-or-break you when things get insane during the height of promo season. Plus, you’ll get to dig deeper into the vendor’s organization — meeting the juniors, techies and creatives who serve your account — instead of just the principals.

Although Bill’s meetings have a formal agenda, he says the most valuable interaction is connecting on a human level — laughing and breaking bread together.

So, while he and I heartily endorse all the technology that can help keep a team connected throughout the year, from shared analytics dashboards to video conferencing, for true success you have to go eyeball-to-eyeball at least occasionally.

I think this is tough for many marketers because as a breed we are not very outgoing animals. We tend to be readers and writers, introverted thinkers, rather than social gadflies. If you’re that great at socializing, you’re probably an account exec or in sales!

Personally, this weighs on me, because, of course, I have to hang out networking at MarketingSherpa Summits. I’m probably an absolutely prototypical marketer — sometimes I yearn to run up and be alone in my hotel room instead of networking with all those customers and partners at the cocktail party.

Yet, when I force myself to conquer my nature and meet people eyeball to eyeball, that’s when the magic happens. That’s when together we come up with new ideas for research projects, better ways to help people and a big rush of fellow-feeling. I walk out of each cocktail party on a total high, determined to serve our readers even better now that I *really* know them.

My advice? Copy Bill and meet with your key vendors in person at their locations. And, while you’re out there, see if you can fit in some customer meetings, too. (Note: not just hiding behind that focus group mirror.) Your entire world view changes once you have hung out in person with your partners and customers.

You can never be too busy for the kind of value this will bring you. Never, ever.

BTW: If you would like to meet Bill in person, he is speaking at Sherpa’s B-to-B Summits in Boston and San Francisco this fall. I’ll be there, too. If you see me gulp as I enter the room, now you know why.

Like nearly everyone else in the ad world, especially those us of over 40, I avidly watched the first two episodes of AMC’s new Mad Men TV series.

As its ‘Making Of’ trailer on iTunes explains, the show’s creators leapt through hoops to make sure the show accurately depicts Madison Avenue ad agencies in the spring of 1960. I was bemused by the show’s relentless in-office smoking, drinking, tie-wearing and, of course, rampant sexism.

However, a mistake in the first episode broke that spell for me.

To illustrate how hung over the agency’s creative director is, we’re shown a close-up of two Alka-Seltzers fizzing away in a glass of water. The image works great, except for the fact that the idea of using two Alka-Seltzers (instead of just one) wasn’t invented until about five years later, in an ad campaign during the mid-sixties.

Plus, the creative team behind that breakthrough (which wound up nearly doubling its client’s sales), was lead by not by an ad man, but by an ad woman–Mary Wells.

Mary Wells wasn’t the sole top woman in the field back then. In fact, nine out of the 54 greatest advertising creatives of the past featured in ‘The Ad Men and Women’, a fascinating collection of bios edited by Professor Edd Applegate, are women.

While watching ‘Mad Men’ is an entertaining way to spend an evening, if you’re looking for inspiration from ad pros of the past, I suggest you get yourself a copy of ‘The Ad Men and Women’ instead.

Discover how dead-honest copy (to the point of calling your product “rotten”) can dramatically raise response; how to rename a product to increase sales (example: war bonds vs. peace bonds); how to use a silly contest for seriously big publicity (example: Scientific American’s paper airplane fly-off in New York), etc.

Plus, you’ll find this book insightful if you’re considering your own career trajectory. Should you move from client-side to agency-side (or vice versa?) Should you join a bigger name firm? Should you defect to launch your own ad shop?

If you’re marketing for any of the brands named in this volume, from Alka-Seltzer to the YWCA, you’ll learn how they became so famous in the first place, leading perhaps to an idea to sustain that fame in the 21st century.

Very few of us have any sense of ad history outside of dancing cigarette boxes on 1950s TV shows that we’ve seen in movies. So, it’s easy to presume marketers of yesteryear were a bit amateurish and dumb. As this book proves, nothing could be further from the truth.

We, marketers of 2007, have enormous shoes to fill — and it just so happens many of them were high heels.

Last week, I outlined six ways to calculate if a particular blog is worth sponsoring.

However, getting pricing and cutting an insertion order is work. Deciding which creative to use is work. Measuring results is work. All this work isn’t usually worth it to reach a few hundred or thousand qualified readers per month. (By qualified, I mean ready, willing and able to buy the sponsor’s product.)

That’s why most sponsors prefer ad networks — mainly Google AdSense but also sometimes BlogAds, Pheedo and others — where they can make a single buying decision across dozens or hundreds of blogs based on topic or keywords and let it ride.

Contrarian view: here are four reasons why you should create your own network of handpicked blogs to sponsor, plus some tips on what your sponsorship should entail:

#1. Competitive positioning

Google ads show up as a group of generally 3-4 on the blog. Even if you show up in there for every posting on an influential blog (not always a sure thing given your PPC budget and keyword selections), your competitors are probably in there, too.

Do you want to be one of three or four somewhat related offers based on keyword or do you want to be the brand that stands in its own prominently placed spot alone? For the top blogs, I assume the latter is true.

#2. RSS ads

Google (for now at least) doesn’t offer RSS feed ads to bloggers. Much of some bloggers’ readership is via RSS feed — both fans who subscribed to the feed and third party sites which carry the feed as part of their content. (Of which the latter may often be the biggest share.)

If you create your own network, you may also be able to insert ads into every 7th-10th RSS posting they run. (Any more and it’s a little spammy. See below for ideas for creative.)

#3. Expanded creative options

If you own the ad spot, you’re not restricted to the ad layout (generally brief text-only) of outside networks.

I’m not saying you should go crazy with colorful banners; instead, I suggest inventing a banner type which is informational and educational in nature — useful vs salesly — to fit the blog environment. The types of offers to run might be:

o A list of your top three most popular white papers or ecommerce bestsellers
o Sign-up link for your next webinar
o Free download link for samples, trials, or ecoupons
o Hotlinked headlines from your own newsletter or corporate blog
o Hotlinks to your new branded videos or podcasts
o Quiz or survey offers (for lead gen or market research purposes)

Plus, I recommend placing your logo at the top left corner, of course.

The content within the banner itself can be routinely updated on your end via syndicated XML feed into the banner so the bloggers don’t have to do any work to change things out. (Note: This also can work extremely well for affiliate network banners.)

You will want to offer bloggers two versions, one vertical and one horizontal — so they can pick which fits their layout the best.

#4. Loyalty

I vehemently believe in church and state when it comes to editorial vs advertisers. So, I don’t think you should use ad dollars as a stick to lead (or chastise) bloggers in your niche.

On the other hand, bloggers may be your brand’s biggest evangelists and most intelligent critics. Why not support them? As MarketingSherpa research shows, your prospects are more likely to listen to a third-party blogger’s opinion of your brand than they are to your own marketing messages … or even famous-name analysts. Often bloggers are perceived to be “in the trenches” with an “everyman” voice that’s nearly trustworthy as the guy in the cubicle next door.

If you treat these bloggers well, giving them “special most favored nation status,” they will treat you well in return. Yes, they may still criticize you on occasion, but at least they’re more likely to contact their “evangelist hotline” person at your company for answers before haring off on rumors.

For this reason, along with ad dollars, you should set up a named blog-evangelist within your own organization to maintain relations with external blogs. I suspect that job will be in your PR department and routinely interact with advertising, sales and investor relations.

That point person becomes bloggers’ evangelist in your own company. The goal: to treat key bloggers as you would highly influential press and analysts. Some areas:

– Invite bloggers to private meetings — If they are in the area, invite them for a tour and meeting once a year. Also invite them to private webinars for key announcements and new product views in the same way you would other press and analysts. Advance and insider knowledge is gold to bloggers. Don’t treat them like the rest of the public.

– Offer key bloggers press passes to your own user conferences and also to conferences where your CEO is giving the keynote. You can even do a private bloggers-only dinner party at the event.

– Add relevant hotlinks to key external bloggers on your own corporate blog’s blogrolls and posts. (Bloggers adore hotlinks sometimes even more than cash for sponsorships.)

– Sponsor them directly — a monthly flat fee paid quarterly would be sufficient for many. I would advise against CPM or PPC because they won’t be adequately recompensed for their true influence, plus the admin burdens in both are extra work you don’t need to take on.

How many should you sponsor? My suggestion is to conduct a research project every six months or year and review who is most influential. Then contact these folks directly to ask if they would like to join your sponsorship program. Be sure to note this includes insider meetings, but also that you too believe in church and state.

You’re at the start of a beautiful long-term relationship.

Useful links related to this article

My blog last week on how to calculate a blog’s influence:
http://www.marketingsherpa.com/article.php?ident=30044

Past Sherpa Case Study: How CafePress tested offering affiliates (mainly bloggers) contextual ads based on tags:
http://www.marketingsherpa.com/article.php?ident=29702
(Note: This is Members-only. Membership trials are free.)

Last week, Microsoft held their huge annual Worldwide Partner Conference. Despite hordes of official media reporters and partner press releases at the event, independent blogger Paul Mooney’s postings dominated online search results for it.

In fact, he told me that he’s one of more than 200 independent bloggers — employed neither by the company nor by the media — who routinely get high rankings and readership for news and views about Microsoft.

“How many readers do you have?” I asked. Turns out that was the *wrong* question. Paul said that if you’re considering sponsoring an independent blogger, determining their reach requires at least six separate calculations:

#1. Traffic (don’t trust it alone)

Media buyers usually ask, “How much traffic is there and how much is unique?” and leave it at that. Paul notes the problem with traffic stats for blogs is that so much may come from search engines and other sites linking to one particular posting.

So, a blogger who is otherwise unread may get insanely high traffic to a single posting that’s not even likely to be a current one. And, given the meandering nature of many blogs, that posting may not even be about the key topic the blog generally focuses on.

If you look at monthly traffic figures, one particular posting that may have little to do with the main subject of the blog could be pulling in the lion’s share of traffic. (Note: I’ve definitely seen plenty of evidence of this phenomenon elsewhere.)

#2. RSS feeds

In some markets, especially the high-tech field, RSS feeds may represent as much or more of the traffic of the blog than Web traffic does. However, as Paul noted to me, RSS feeds are a *much* bigger deal than this. Why?

Hundreds of thousands of sites — ranging from automated splogs to high-profile online media — use RSS feeds from good independent bloggers as part of their content. Paul noted that his own posting headlines often show up on places, such as O’Reilly media. That’s pretty impressive reach.

#3. Inbound hotlinks

As with other media, traffic volume can be far less important than traffic quality. In the blog world, quality usually equates with influence. A blog read by a tiny group of people can have gargantuan influence if they are the right people.

For measurement’s sake, you can often figure this out by tracking back hotlinks. Key: it’s not just how many other bloggers hotlink to a blog, but how many blogs hotlink in turn to them. One single hotlink from an influential blog (someone with 50 or more incoming hotlinks of his/her own) is worth way more than 50 hotlinks from bloggers no one links to.

And don’t forget hotlinks from key social networking sites. If a blog is highly linked to from Digg, StumbleUpon, etc. (or the current Holy Grail, Wikipedia) then that blog may be far more influential than it appears to be at first glance.

#4. Search position, part one

You can research a blog’s search position in two ways — first, does that blog appear for key terms related to your business or brand? Paul sometimes gets first page rankings for keyword related to Microsoft. This, in turn, means press, customers, investors, prospects, etc., all see his postings positioned in such a way that they appear to be highly influential and even somewhat “officially” sanctioned by the search engine itself.

(Remember, it’s not just the click, it’s the general visibility and what words are near your brand’s official postings. If, heaven forbid, a blog post dissing your brand appears on page one of search results for your brand, your CEO will not be happy.)

#5. Search position, part two

Separately, also review a bloggers’ general search ranking under keywords associated with his or her own “brand,” such as their personal name, their blog’s name, their tagline, etc. This tells you how much search engines notice them in general — so if they were to post about you, how much attention such a posting might get.

For example, as Paul pointed out, if you search for him by first name alone, his blog is more than likely to show up in the first two pages of listings … despite the millions of competing Pauls (including McCartney and the Apostle.)

#6. Voice

Last, as with any other media, read the blog to discover if the brand voice feels influential, sounds like they know what they are talking about, feels even-handed and trustworthy. If you’re considering a media buy (even via Google AdWords), you may not want your message appearing on an angry rant site or even on one filled with irreverent humor.

That said, a media buy on a blog that doesn’t always spout your company line can be a benefit. You can appear to be strong, considerate, above-the-fray, even concerned about the “little guy’s concerns.” You’re not limiting your ads to yes-men only. That’s advertorial, and few people trust it wholeheartedly.

It’s just that you want to allay your brand with the type of voice that you feel your audience (investors, press, customers, etc.) would respect.

Plus, has your company sponsored, influenced or worked a partnership of some sort with an independent blogger? Let me know if you have some lessons learned (especially how to measure results more accurately) so I can share them with MarketingSherpa readers. Click on the comments link below — thanks.

In the meantime, here’s a link to Paul’s blog so you can see it for yourself:
http://dotnetjunkies.com/WebLog/paul/

A new ScanAlert research report, revealed exclusively to MarketingSherpa for publication this morning, shows that consumers now delay on average 34 hours and 19 minutes from the time they first click to an ecommerce site and when they finally buy something there.

So, any marketer who measures conversions solely by click-to-immediate-sale is blind to the vast majority of his or her success.

But, the bigger news broken in this report is stunning trend data. You see, back in 2005 when the study was conducted for the first time, consumers took an average of 19 hours to covert. Over the past two years, that delay time has risen by 80%. So, more consumer comfort in shopping online equals *longer* conversion cycles. That’s something I don’t think any of us ever predicted would happen.

The problem seems to be that consumers are comparison shopping more, rather than buying at the first place they click to. However, as studies for the past seven years have concurred, price is rarely the biggest deciding factor. Instead items such as shipping speed, guarantees, on-site merchandising, merchant name-brand and, of course, site trustworthiness, all play a role.

Tomorrow, you’ll be able to get the full report on this data from the folks at ScanAlert, who offer the HackerSafe service to ecommerce sites. It’s worth a read. In the meantime, thanks to ScanAlert’s Director of Marketing Communications Nigel Ravenhill, who slipped me a copy early, I’ve had time to consider its practical implications.

My top four tests you should consider in trying to win the delayed conversion wars are:

#1. Add “About Us” blurbs to every conceivable entry point

Nearly every site page you have now is a landing page for a click (especially if you have fabulous SEO.) However, by bypassing your homepage, consumers also bypass much of your warm-fuzzy content about who you are as a brand.

Merchant brand matters. Have you tried adding an “about us” blurb sidebar or extra copy block to all landing pages? Does the content in it emphasize why people should buy from you rather than someone else offering the exact same item? Do those reasons go beyond price alone? (I sure hope so.)

This is a good place to pop in all that feel-secure info, including various icons of trustworthiness and “as seen in” fame. It’s also a great place to put any evidence of tangible offline existence, such as a photo of your flagship store or a real-life customer service person waiting to answer questions.

#2. Grab emails early on — before the shopping cart

This is especially important if you don’t have a truly famous household brand name. Don’t rely on consumers’ memory alone to get them to return to your site — and, for gosh sakes, don’t pay for another click for the same exact person.

Instead, consider testing a DHTML overlay offering an email opt-in offer (perhaps a % off coupon for first purchase to be sent via email) triggered to appear when first-time visitors add something to their carts, or when they spend more than three minutes examining a particular item.

If you wait to ask for email permission until the actual checkout, then you’ll miss the opportunity to promote to fleeing shoppers.

#3. Content: give more product info than the competition does

If you rely on data feeds from manufacturers alone, chances are you don’t have enough content on product pages to convert those “in consideration” shoppers. This type of thoughtful shopper is the perfect person to become engrossed in:

o Long copy — as in more than 150 words, better yet, more than 400 words
o Tech specs, product details and trivia of all kinds
o Shipping data and in-stock data
o Reviews — customers, “experts” and press
o Comparison charts with similar products

#4. Exclusive here-only bonuses

If you sell something that’s truly indistinguishable from items available elsewhere, consider creating a line of “extras” to offer as free gift with purchase for your top-sellers.

Often, that extra can be nothing more than a PDF eBook on something related to the topic. (Top 100 Tips to Get the Most from Your Digital Camera; 5 Mistakes to Avoid When Buying Gifts for Men; Easy Recipes; 25 Best Web Sites for New Parents; User Handbook for … etc.)

Depending on your product, the eBook doesn’t need to be more than five pages long, as long as it has some entertainment or practical value.

Or you can toss in any extra your fulfillment department will let you come up with that extends your brand without raising shipping costs too much. This could range from an extra single long-stemmed rose to a bag of scented confetti or silly imprinted balloons.

My personal favorite? ArchieMcPhee.com will ship your order to you for free along with your NEW CAR when you order $1 million worth of items from their catalog or site.

Have you tested anything to improve those pesky delayed conversions? Let us know in the comments below … and someday a Sherpa researcher may be calling you up!

Useful links related to this article

ScanAlert’s home page, where, no doubt, a hotlink to the PDF of this study will appear on Tuesday, July 10:
http://www.scanalert.com

My past blog on — rather shocking — data CareerBuilder’s marketers discovered when they tracked delayed conversions:
http://www.marketingsherpa.com/article.html?ident=29684

Past Sherpa Case Study on a personable ‘about us’ page:
http://www.marketingsherpa.com/article.php?ident=28532
(Note: Members only)

If your brand offers only one product or service, deciding what to promote in your paid search ads is easy.

But, what do you do if, like Microsoft, your brand has a bunch of line extensions or, like Amazon, your site is a land of 100,000 SKUs. How should you handle PPC ads for your company or brand name as a whole?

Here are the four main options I see being used by big brands on search engines these days:

#1. Official Corporate Offer Copy

Let Corporate Communications hold a meeting with the branding agency, Investor Relations and maybe the CEO to figure it out. Your PPC ad for your brand name is considered on par with logo and tagline decisions.

Example: Honda
The Official Honda Site
www.honda.com
See new Honda pictures & specs. Get a Free Dealer Quote today.

#2. Promo du Jour

Let the product marketers teams duke it out among themselves. Whoever has the biggest promo or launch gets to own that real estate for the week or day. House email list blasts and homepage real estate are probably decided at the same scheduling meeting.

Example search: Microsoft (as seen on Google)
Microsoft Updates
www.Microsoft.com
Detect & Remove Malicious Software. Free Removal Tool from Microsoft.

#3. Let Affiliates Eat Crumbs

You own the top organic result, so why bother paying for traffic? Let the affiliates mop up any crumbs left on the table.

Example: Keds
Best of Keds Shoes
Piperlime loves Keds Shoes!
Free shipping and returns.
www.piperlime.com

#4. No Ads Allowed

After, no doubt, negotiations with Google and other search engines, you suppress all potential ads against your brand name. Nothing appears except organic listings, and you’ve made darn sure the top organic listing has a brand statement about your company as a whole that you can be proud of.

Example: Nestle (no ppc ad, just SEO)
Nestlé is the largest food and beverage company in the world. We aim to become the world’s leading Nutrition, Health and Wellness company and we are …

So which option is the best? You’ll have to run tests (including brand awareness) and tweak numbers (including traffic stats and affiliate data) to decide. My main point is that this is something worthy of consideration and investment.

The top ad (or lack thereof) that runs across your brand name is increasingly as critical for your brand’s health as traditional media is. If you spend ages in committee meetings about logos, TV spots, spokespeople, PR, etc., then your brand’s search presence should be examined in those meetings, too.

The Internet is no longer a branding afterthought.

Useful link related to this blog:

MarketingSherpa’s search marketing topic microsite:
http://www.marketingsherpa.com/search-marketing-category.html

MarketingSherpa reader Raquel Hirsch of Hirsch Strategies Inc. in Vancouver just wrote in response to my blog last week about MySpace and Facebook replacing email for Gen Y:

“I have two daughters, both away at University. For the last few years (one is on her second degree), whenever I *absolutely* had to get them to get back to me on something, I would text message them (as an “over 40,” it motivated me to learn how to do it :>).

However, as you point out, since both have been home for the last few weeks I’ve noticed they are constantly not only checking their Facebook account, but updating their profiles and messaging (so, being a persistent mum, I got an account … now I just have to get them to agree to link up with me … but that’s a different story).

BUT, and it’s a huge but, my youngest commented to me this weekend that there is starting to be too much spam on Facebook and that she is starting to delete messages without reading.”

The first thing I did when I received this note from Raquel was to call across the office to our college intern, “Hey, do you ever get spam in your Facebook account?”

Why, yes, she answered. In fact, she got her first Facebook spam just last Wednesday.

The spam message came from a friend. “Well, he’s not a real friend, he’s a Facebook friend,” she explained. The difference? Through various Web 2.0-style connections, this young man joined a Facebook group that our intern was a member of. And now he’s starting to post what she considers spam — in this case a promotional message for White Stripes.

She doesn’t think it’s the band’s fault, or the marketing team behind the band. She just blames the young man. There’s little anger, just bland resignation.

Will she stop joining Facebook groups now that members sometimes post spam? “Oh, no. Of course, I’ll continue to join groups. You get these invitations all the time, and it’s rude not to say yes. If I don’t like something I can just delete it.”

And that’s the crux of the matter.

Best practices in email permission (I’m almost tempted to say “good old-fashioned email permission”) dictate that you only send messages to consumers who have eagerly raised their hands by proactively giving you their email addresses and perhaps checking a special box.

However, now Gen Y increasingly uses their Facebook or MySpace accounts as their primary online personal messaging accounts, leaving traditional email, together with traditional permission, behind in the dust.

What’s Facebook permission? Well, it’s a lot like classic email discussion groups, where once you join a group you’ll get all the messages sent within that group. If you’re not interested, you have to leave the group.

However, the difference now is, it’s often personal. Your groups may have been started or initiated by a personal friend or a friend of a friend. And this person, or someone they know, might be personally offended if you decline an invitation to join a group … or if you leave a group.

So, as our intern explained, when she gets an invite to join another Facebook group — which occurs about every week or so — she politely clicks on the “join” button.

Generally, she’s not joining because she wants to give “permission” to receive messages about something she’s fairly interested in. She’s joining because she doesn’t want to decline someone and, what the heck, some of the messages might be interesting.

So, on the one hand, she’s more personally connected to this group than to many email lists she might also be on. On the other hand, she may be far less interested in the group’s messages than she is in email she signed up for. The permission wasn’t given for the sake of the content, it was for the sake of the connection.

I can’t predict how this whole thing will play out, but I can tell you that there’s a whole new ballgame in permission. And spam, in any media whatsoever — even hip hot 2.0 — will be ignored by its recipients.

Related links:

Last week’s blog on Gen Y and email:
http://www.marketingsherpa.com/article.php?ident=30010

Raquel Hirsch’s company site:
http://www.hirschstrategies.com

Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/

My 23-year-old stepson is driving me crazy. He’s a lovely young man, wonderful in every possible way except for one. He never-ever checks his email.

Why would I care? Well, sometimes I send him things to print out for his father, who doesn’t even have an email account, let alone a computer. Then, when I get home at night and say, “Did you print out that thing for your dad?” he says, “Huh?”

Then he reminds me, “Anne, you know I never check email.”

Why would a young man, who is so much a part of the Internet generation that he does university homework at night “with” his friends via live webcam, never check his email account?

Apparently, email is old fashioned. Email is used only by ancient people over 40. Turns out being a card-carrying member of Generation X can only get you so far in understanding the Internet these days. Generation Y has new rules.

So, what has replaced email? For kids, apparently it’s still text messaging … but by “kids” I mean true children. For anyone over a certain age of consent, texting is apparently no longer cool unless you’re stuck somewhere unbearably boring (such as a nine-hour car ride to Yosemite with your family) and there’s nothing else to do.

Instead, according to my college-age kids at least, for Generation Y, communication is all about MySpace and Facebook. So, instead of saying, “Email me” a Gen Y might say, “MySpace me.” And, in fact, that’s just what my son does. MySpace is now a verb for him and his peers, replacing “email” and/or “text message.”

Alternatively, if you yourself are a college student in the US and you meet another student you’d like to get to know, you no longer ask for his or her phone number. “What’s your Facebook?” you ask instead.

What does this mean for marketing? Well, it may betray an entire generation’s lessening of broadcast-to-one email messaging availability. In a world where there are zillions more ways to reach people than ever before, the generation just now entering adulthood is retreating behind newly built walls.

So, don’t phone them, don’t email them, don’t text message them. Instead, look them up via search and post a personal note on their blog or MySpace account. Maybe they’ll consider getting back to you if it’s good enough.

This morning MarketingSherpa research partner KnowledgeStorm sent out a press release revealing the data you see in the headline above.

At first glance, it’s an obvious truth. Let’s face it, when a site asks for your phone number, it’s akin to saying “Sales Rep Will Call.” Many folks figure they would rather not be pestered by a sales rep so they lie about their phone number.

MarketingSherpa has additional data, on both the B-to-B and consumer marketing side, that if your online registration form asks for a phone number, the presence of that question alone can — and usually will — reduce response rates.

So, when you ask for a phone number people will either abandon your page or flat out lie.

What’s a marketer to do? Your lead qualification team needs a phone number to follow-up. If you don’t follow-up, you may lose a sale, or waste a lead.

Plus, other new MarketingSherpa data just released last week (link below) indicates at most only 11-17% of business prospects are actively annoyed by the phone call when they get it. In fact, 53-45% of the executives admit a cold call they received made a positive difference in their new vendor or technology selection decisions. The cold call helped the vendor leapfrog onto the consideration shortlist.

My advice?

#1. Do you have to get the number from the prospect directly?

If your marketing database is remotely up to snuff, chances are you have a phone number — at least a main number — on file for that organization already. Even if you market to fairly small organizations, these days in B-to-B you’re marketing to a committee. So, several members may have already given you that data via other media (such as trade show contacts.)

You can also buy and append main company phone numbers for your database fairly easily, without breaking any privacy regs. Or you can use look-up services such as JigSaw.com to append manually.

#2. Can you get the number further down the pipeline?

If you get an email opt-in or a webinar RSVP, you have a chance to get a phone number later. Do you need the phone number right now … or do you need it when the prospect is a bit further along in the sales cycle? For example:

– Could you ask for the phone number on the sign-in form for a webinar rather than on a webinar invite form?

– How about asking for phone number as one of the questions – preferably the last – for a survey or giveaway to your email file?

#3. Pre-fill a phone number and get it corrected by the prospect

One nearly guaranteed way to raise response rates to a B-to-B offer is to pre-fill a registration form so prospects don’t have to type in their contact information. It’s already there for them. All they have to do is eyeball it for possible corrections, answer a further question or two, and then click submit.

This requires more work up front from your team, but personalized URLs and pre-filled landing pages have come a long way in the last few years. And, your content offer conversion rates could go from an average of under 10% to over 40%. That’s a big enough difference to be worth testing marketing tech investment.

If you have a generic phone number on file, put that in and see if the prospect fixes it. Or, ask for their extension as your extra question.

#4. Consider not *requiring* a phone number on forms

I’ve seen Case Study evidence that when a marketer asked for a phone number but didn’t make it a required field, he ended up with both better phone numbers and more responses as a result.

Prospects may see the non-required field as a sign of respect. You as marketer respect their privacy. If they don’t want to get a call, you won’t call. You won’t force the issue. That respect can engender respect in return.

#5. Budget extra for phone number research

Lastly, use this data to get your database budget increased. The fact is, humans are humans, so they’re going to lie about their phone numbers. Your job as a marketer is to gather the information for the CRM system or sales database that your team will need to follow-up properly.

Consider making “getting the correct phone number” a separate line item from “getting registered leads” in your budget. After all, even if you don’t budget that way, your prospects are responding that way.

Here are two hotlinks related to this blog:

The Executive Summary of MarketingSherpa’s new Business Technology Marketing Benchmark Guide which contains a chart showing response results for cold call telemarketing:
http://www.marketingsherpa.com/exs/BusTech07Excerpt.pdf
(Open access)

The formal press release about the findings with our research partner KnowledgeStorm
http://www.prweb.com//releases/2007/6/prweb532433.htm

I’ve always wondered why so many B-to-B homepages feature photos of beautiful young professional females. I mean, why should Web sites for companies selling proxy servers, enterprise software, electronic components and the like use stock footage of pretty women on their homepages?

Back when I graduated from college, one of my very first jobs was as an assistant in the circulation department for The Oil Daily. Sometimes I’d hear whoops of laughter from the art department down the hall when a new space ad came in. We called it the Sex Sells Syndrome. The advertiser figured their new pipeline or oil platform equipment wasn’t exciting enough to catch attention by itself, so they’d stick a naked babe on it.

It was the art department’s job to clean up the ads, carefully drawing bikinis onto models before the issue went to press.

In one of my next jobs, I was in the aerospace publishing industry, marketing for Jane’s. They didn’t have a problem with the advertisers — thankfully no one I heard about thought to stick a naked babe on a missile. But I did run into the whole booth-babe world.

There, I would be at the big trade show standing proudly in my serious-young-executive Ann Taylor suit at the Jane’s booth, ready to meet customers. But it was a bit difficult to sustain conversations because of the babes in the next booth over in their white leather-with-zippers-all-over micro-miniskirts.

In fact, many attendees figured that because I was a young woman who dressed professionally, I must, ipso facto, be military and not corporate. “Air Force?” they would inquire looking at my navy suit.

But, that was nearly 20 years ago …

B-to-B marketing has grown up and far beyond those old Sex Sells days, right? Well, almost. My rough guesstimate is that perhaps 30% of B-to-B Web sites for sales-driven organizations often feature a woman’s photo on their homepage. Generally, the young woman has absolutely nothing to do with the company because the picture was purchased from a stock footage company.

So, I guess this proves the B-to-B marketers of the world still think a pretty girl can help to sell a melody. But, can she? Does it work?

Striking data from MarketingSherpa’s new B-to-B Web site Homepage Study suggests it does to some extent. (See below for info hotlink.) In every single instance when a female face was above the fold on a homepage, both the male and female executives in our lab spent time looking at her. Men’s faces didn’t get nearly the same level of attention.

Unfortunately, lots of other elements didn’t get as much attention either. In some cases, a female face got more eye-time than promotional offers, sales copy and company news on the same page.

In other words, yes, businesspeople, male and female, alike will absolutely look at a beautiful woman. But, that look could be distracting eyes from the copy and hotlinks more important to your business. So, you’re getting attention in the wrong place.

One B-to-B marketer actually tested the “does sex sell?” concept for a lead generation campaign MarketingSherpa gave an award to last year (see link below.) Results: a cheerful male model got 53% more responses than a beautiful female model.

The marketer wasn’t sure why the male model worked better for a campaign to 40-something business executives. But, now that I’ve reviewed our B-to-B Homepage study, I’m inclined to believe the male model worked better because he was ignored. His smiling face didn’t distract email recipients from reading and responding to the offer at hand.

Does this mean you should eliminate all women’s photos from your Web pages? No, of course not. However, you might:

o Post critical must-read in positions most likely to be read near a women’s face (generally underneath as a caption and/or in the direction her eyes are looking) to take advantage of the extra attention she generates.

o Consider using a “real” woman, such as an executive working at your firm or one of your happy customers, rather than stock footage, in order to promote your organization instead of a stranger.

Useful links related to this blog

Info on MarketingSherpa’s new research study into B-to-B homepages:
http://www.marketingsherpa.com/article.html?ident=29999

ProspectZone B-to-B Email Test – Does Sex Sell?
http://www.marketingsherpa.com/emaw2006/35.html

Got feedback – have you tested “sex sells” for B-to-B marketing recently? Post a comment below.