MarketingSherpa Blog

“You’re not the people we want to sit down with,” Karyn Scott, Director of Enterprise Marketing, Cisco Systems, Inc., said during her B2B Summit 2012 presentation, echoing the voice of her target customers.

Years prior, Cisco’s reputation had perpetuated sales, but it was now losing sales on the margin.

According to the MarketingSherpa 2013 Marketing Analytics Benchmark Report, 42% of software companies relied on gut instinct for its non-analytical decision making, which is exactly what the team at Cisco was doing. When Karyn and her team began to investigate, they discovered the company’s target customers found only 3% of what the sales team had to say was useful to them.

The marketing strategy had to change.

The above video excerpt from B2B Summit 2012 underscores the importance of identifying customers and Karyn’s team’s goals to strategize marketing around customer motivations.

Once Karyn’s team identified their audience, they had to completely rebuild their strategy to create a relevant sale.

In the above video excerpt, you’ll see how the marketing team equipped the sales department and gave them the supplies they needed to make convincing sales, help the customer and incorporate a two-way conversation into the overall strategy.

To see the rest of Karyn’s presentation and see how she integrated role targeting into marketing strategy, watch the entire free presentation. See her metrics, what her sales team had to say and the new ways Sales appealed to diverse customer segments.

Read more…

Originally published on B2B LeadBlog

As marketers, we’ve all heard the buzz about native advertising.

We’ve heard how it’s going to revolutionize advertising and begin to phase out traditional display ads. But despite all of the hype, it seems like everyone still has varying ideas of what native advertising actually is.

In today’s B2B Lead Roundtable Blog post, I wanted to share my view on native advertising from a business intelligence perspective and the role I believe it has in the future of Internet marketing.

Question #1. How can we use native advertising?

What do you think of when you hear the term “native advertising?” An advertorial? Valuable content with a paid placement? Promoted tweets? Search engine marketing ads? Promoted stories and posts on social media networks?

Over the last year or so, I’ve heard countless different arguments about the true meaning of native advertising.

So, I asked myself, “Why does everyone seem to have such differing views?”

Why isn’t defining native advertising as black and white as some of the other marketing concepts we deal with on a daily basis?

Well, if you ask me, it’s because that’s essentially what a native advertisement is.

There is no current standard for native advertising, nor will there ever be one, and that’s the point.

A native advertisement is supposed to adapt to the content surrounding it in order to engage a potential customer by using their previously indicated interests. If there were set standards for native advertisements, that would essentially eliminate the advantage native ads are claimed to offer.

Which brings me to another point…

With all of the tools available today, we have the distinct advantage of knowing far more about our potential customers than marketers in generations past.

All of this knowledge allows us to create highly relevant content to attract the attention of those potential leads based on their decision to interact in a specific environment.

So, if there was a set formula, wouldn’t it essentially eliminate the ability we have to provide a user with highly relevant content that, if presented correctly, will engage them when they may have otherwise been disinterested?

Consequently, I would suggest marketers take a moment to stop focusing on a rigid definition of what native advertising is and isn’t to embrace what it can do for your marketing efforts given the adaptability native ads offer.

Question #2. Is native advertising really a new tactic?

Not really.

One thing that has me confused is why everyone seems to think that native advertising is such a new and revolutionary concept.

When I first started to hear the buzz around native advertising, I immediately thought back to my high school cross country days.

I remembered reading an article in Runner’s World about precautions you can take to avoid injuries. As I flipped through the pages, there was an ad placed for Asics shoes that outlined what causes many common running injuries and how its shoes were scientifically designed to help prevent these problems.

I knew it was an advertisement, but it was also highly relevant to the content I was reading. I chose to divert my attention to the ad instead of the content around it.

So, I would argue that Asics’ idea of designing an ad that was relevant to the content surrounding it was essentially a “primitive” utility of native advertising.

Although my example is not a direct B2B example, it’s not a far reach to find native ad adoption in white papers or sponsored posts on Facebook that are also dispelling other myths about B2B social media use.

Question #3. Do our ads offer value and relevance?

Delivering valuable content that is relevant to your prospects is the key to a successful native ad campaign.

Generating quality content can be a difficult task, but it’s certainly not impossible if done correctly.

Producing valuable content that not only relates to the interest of the user, but is also relevant to your business should be the goal of every native advertising campaign you undertake.

So, what does a successful B2B native ad campaign look like exactly?

Well, according to Buzzfeed, it looks a lot like the consumerization of B2B marketing.

GE Aviation created a “flight mode” campaign designed to promote its presence at the 2013 Paris Air Show. When users visited BuzzFeed.com, the flight mode campaign transformed the Buzzfeed homepage into a grid of articles readers could “fly” over with a little plane icon.

Whenever users stopped on content they were interested in, they could hit the space bar and read the article in the normal view.

While a lot of the buzz was centered on the seemingly odd pairing of an ad campaign for an aviation giant’s presence at an air show running on an online publication, the campaign has been considered as a success so far, which brings us back to my point…

Offering quality content that is relevant is central to successfully using native ads as a B2B marketing tactic.

Question #4. What are the risks?

I see a future in native advertising, but from a business intelligence perspective, “Careful you must be when sensing the future.”

Yes, that was a quote from “Star Wars,” but Yoda’s advice actually holds a lot of truth when it comes to native advertising.

While I will not dispute there is a future in native advertising for B2B marketers, I wanted to offer caution to use the tactic of native ads responsibly and here’s why.

Imagine a scenario where your ideal prospect is researching a new product, let’s say software that lets small businesses share voice mails across cloud storage.

Eventually your prospect comes across an article outlining all the benefits of using Brand X’s voice mail clouding over Brand Y’s service.

If the information appears to be from a reputable source, the article may ultimately influence a prospect’s purchase.

But, what happens to Brand X’s credibility the moment the prospect realizes that “article” was actually a carefully constructed advertisement produced by Brand X attempting to appear as impartial, informative content?

Well, I don’t know about you, but for me, the brand is taking a big credibility gamble.

Although this is a completely hypothetical situation, problems could very well arise if companies try to disguise native ads as unbiased content.

Which brings me to my final question…

Question #5. Are we trying too hard?

I know … it goes against everything you have ever been taught.

But when it comes to native advertising, trying too hard to disguise your ads can be the difference between a successful campaign, and losing a prospect for good. My suggestion here is to avoid trying to “disguise” an advertisement as unbiased or pragmatic content.

If the content is native, you won’t have to disguise anything as it engages prospects without jeopardizing your organization’s credibility. I know I’d rather see a brand recognizing and embracing the potential of an advertisement than attempting to trick me by masking it behind the illusion of an unbiased expert.

So, to sum it all up, while I do think native advertising has proven its potential as a content marketing tactic and is now being adopted more frequently into B2B marketing, I want to reinforce that a native advertisement is just that — an ad.

Positioning it otherwise may very well damage the credibility of your business and drive away prospects.

But, if you embrace the ability you have to provide prospects with relevant and valuable content, there is potential for innovative new ways to turn native advertising campaigns into ROI.

Related Resources:

B2B Marketing: 3 reasons for adopting video content into your marketing mix

Lead Generation: Content among the most difficult tactics, but also quite effective

Content Marketing: Slow, steady pay off for manufacturer

As a research manager, when I look at a homepage, I always ask myself two questions …

• Who are the customers?
• Was the homepage designed with those customers in mind?

I often find a homepage design makes perfect sense to the company’s executives, but not to the most important audience, the customers.

As homepages increasingly become the center of a company’s marketing and sales universe, making sure your focus is on the customer is more important than ever.

In today’s MarketingSherpa Blog post, I wanted to share three common telltale signs your homepage is driven by company-centric marketing.

I’m sure this post is likely to raise a few eyebrows, but my goal here is to help you raise revenue by helping you see your marketing efforts through the eyes of your potential customers.

Sign #1. Our homepage is a collage of department products instead of popular products

I generally tend to hope the most popular products and services offered on a homepage within direct eye-path, which is also prime real estate on a homepage, are what customers came to your homepage to find, versus products and services the company wants to sell.

However, it is not always that simple when you are in a large company with various departments with different sales goals all competing for that prime real estate on the homepage.

The big issue with this is when departments become only focused on the product or service, and marketers lose sight of what the customers want.

If a product or service that is not the primary driver of your sales traffic is overtaken on the homepage by a minimal interest product or service, should it really be placed within the customer’s direct eye-path?

The obvious answer is no, and I understand it is more complicated than that.

I also understand the chances of success for a business model that tries to force the sale of products or services to people who don’t need or want them are also slim in the long run.

So, if you find yourself in this position, I encourage you to take a step back and develop a strategy to work collaboratively with other departments to build a homepage that improves the overall customer experience.

Sign #2. Our value copy talks “at” our customers instead of “to” our customers

Have you ever read about a new product and still had to ask yourself, “What is this thing and what will it do for me?”

Unfortunately, this happens frequently.

Sometimes, we try to impress our customers with creative copy, hoping to sound professional and intelligent. This is great as long as it makes sense to the customer.

Remember, you understand your products/services inside and out and your potential customers are more than likely just learning about it for the first time.

The value copy from a customer’s perspective should answer one essential question – what is in it for me?

For example, I did a quick search online about cloud services, which is a complex product, and the first homepage I found left me even more confused.

Some of the cloud’s value copy explained this company’s service features“Open architecture based on OpenStack technology with no vendor lock-in.”

That may be an awesome feature, but I have no idea what it means.

Some of this company’s customers may understand this terminology, but the majority of customers are likely left just as confused as I am. Failing to provide clear and digestible information for customers could induce anxiety, increase frustration and ultimately leave visitors with no choice but to exit your page.

So, when I looked at the next cloud service homepage in my search, here’s what I found …

This homepage makes no assumptions about my level of IT sophistication.

It offers a short video and even lays out copy explaining what cloud service is and how it can help me.

And, there’s more …

Further down the page I found links to the options available that offer additional short videos combined with value copy explaining what cloud computing is and how the option can help me.

Now don’t get me wrong, there’s plenty to optimize on this homepage as well.

The overall point here is to understand that I left the first homepage confused about how a solution could help me and I left this one with a clear understanding of what cloud service is and how it could help me.

  Read more…

Having a multitude of fans and followers on Facebook is a good thing. However, getting more fans on Facebook does not mean you’re getting more customers. In fact, it could be the opposite.

At MarketingSherpa Email Summit 2013, Jay Baer, President, Convince and Convert, presented, “More Alike than Different: Why email is Madonna, and Facebook is Lady Gaga,” in which he explained the relationship between email and Facebook and how marketers can take advantage of the two channels of communication to customers.

In this excerpt, Jay discussed a myth he spends of half his time working on disproving.

“When we talk about social media, there’s this tremendous myth, and I spend about half my time fighting against this concept. This one concept epitomizes what’s wrong with social media for business today,” Jay said.

Many marketers believe they must have as many fans as possible on Facebook. However, as Jay explained, this is not always a good approach to marketing on Facebook. Having more fans does not necessarily mean you have more customers.

Jay explained 44% of corporate social media marketers look at Facebook as a way to get new customers (Wildfire, 2012), but 84% of fans of company Facebook pages are current or former customers of those companies (DDB, 2011). People who have never used a product or service are less motivated to like it on Facebook.

“We like on Facebook what we actually like,” according to Jay.

Watch this excerpt to learn more about the biggest myth about fans on Facebook, and also how your fans and followers can become accidental marketers for your brand.

View Jay’s full free keynote from Email Summit 2013 to learn why social media and email should be integrated at your company, plus many insights on how to make this possible.

Read more…

Originally published on B2B LeadBlog

Content marketing is one of the most effective and widely used lead generation tactics, according to the MarketingSherpa 2012 Lead Generation Benchmark Report. Although it is one of the most difficult forms of marketing, second only to trade shows, 62% of marketing budgeters expect an increase for content marketing, according to the same report. Developing a content marketing strategy remains a big undertaking.

To help you learn more about content marketing ideas and tactics at Lead Gen Summit 2013 in San Francisco, we’re sharing this video replay of Edwin Jansen, Director of Business Development, The Ian Martin Group, presenting on content marketing from B2B Summit 2012.

Jansen explained by generating content from within Softchoice, a technology solutions and services provider, it empowered employees throughout the company to become advocates of the content they created. Educating departments on the use of social media and recognizing talents and abilities within the team increased the quality and reputation of the content that the company generated.

This clip features the first of four lessons that Jansen learned in his quest to transform his company’s marketing strategy into a content-rich experience for customers. Others include:

• Managing processes that best serve customers
• Using the right tools
• The one thing he wished he knew before he started.

To hear the rest of Jansen’s lessons and confessions in his journey towards “pull” marketing, watch the full, free presentation from last year’s B2B Summit in the MarketingSherpa Video Archive.

Related Resources:

Lead Gen Summit 2013: Sept. 30 – Oct. 3, San Francisco

Event Recap: MarketingSherpa B2B Summit 2012

Content Marketing: Your questions on B2B online lead gen, metrics, content from SMEs and more

Content Marketing: Targeted persona strategy lists sales leads 124%

Content Marketing How-to: 7 steps for creating and optimizing content in any size organization

Here at MECLABS, we talk a lot about the testing process.

How to optimize and improve emails, landing pages, lead generation forms, shopping carts … all things Web. But, the testing process isn’t just a way to improve website performance. The general principles are transferrable to so much more.

One thing I’ve been particularly interested in recently is how to use testing to improve office and employee productivity.

Consider you’re a manager and have an employee who has been having problems meeting deadlines.

What do you do?

Step #1. Identify the problems with productivity

You’ve already identified the overall problem – missing deadlines.

Most people immediately jump to solutions and try to answer this question: “How do I get this employee to stop missing deadlines?”

Obviously, it’s because they need more resources, right? Maybe it’s because they weren’t clear on the requirements and what was expected of them. Or maybe, they just didn’t see the point and weren’t properly motivated.

That’s the same thing as saying, “My Landing Page isn’t converting,” and immediately jumping to solutions like, “I need to change the offer, add a video, or add more testimonials.”

But, what step did we miss in that jump … Analysis!

Step #2. Dive deeper to identify the elements that impact productivity

You can’t solve a problem unless you have a deeper understanding of the root cause.

For a website, we’ve been trained to ask, “What problems or obstacles are impeding a conversion on this page?”

Thankfully, we have a handy Conversion Sequence heuristic to help us identify the elements that impact conversion by asking the right questions during analysis:

• Is it because there’s a lack of value?
• Is the value clearly communicated?
• Is the process is too confusing?
• Are people concerned about what’s going to happen with their information?

All of these answers could be the possible culprits to your low conversion rate, but you’ll never know without identifying these possible issues and testing possible solutions.

The same thing goes for your people.

For someone missing deadlines, the question isn’t “How do I fix this?” Instead, the first question needs to be “Why are they missing deadlines?” or:

• Are they confused with the exact date/time of the deadline?
• Do they have a clear understanding of all the steps involved in the project?
• Do they know all of the resources they’re going to need?
• Are they able to build a timeline backwards from the deadline with reviews and milestones?
• Do they not understand the impact the missed deadline will have on them personally or the company?

As you can see, the list of questions goes on and on, just like for your website.

Read more…

At MarketingSherpa Email Summit 2014, attendees will hear a wide range of case studies and keynote addresses covering many aspects of email marketing.

At last year’s event, Jay Baer, President, Convince and Convert, presented, “More Alike than Different: Why email is Madonna, and Facebook is Lady Gaga,”  in which he explained the relationship between email and Facebook and how marketers can take advantage of the two channels through integration.

In this excerpt from his presentation, filled with 16 ways to integrate email and Facebook into marketing plans, hear highlights from Jay’s session, including why this integration is so essential for businesses, now and especially in the future.

00:10 “If somebody is subscribing to your email newsletter on your website, on your thank you page, why not ask them to also like you on Facebook?” Jay asked, citing many brands he has audited have not tried this approach.

2:26 Jay explained why marketers who are doing advanced segmentation should turn to connecting Facebook accounts to websites to collect information from customers. Instead of having customers fill out a lengthy form with their information, allowing them to connect their Facebook accounts makes it easier on them to give up their information and faster for marketers to collect this essential data.

2:56 Jay revealed in this session how any time a marketer sends something, it is likely only 25% of the audience will see it at any given time. This is precisely why it is essential for marketers to surround customers with many options for communication, including email and social media.

4:08 While the integration tactics discussed in Jay’s keynote address are not difficult technically, they can be difficult to accomplish culturally, operationally and tactically. But, email marketers’ jobs depend on doing these things “because email isn’t going anywhere, but social media is getting a disproportionate amount of attention, and you know that to be true.”

Watch the full, free session from Email Summit 2013 to hear all of Jay’s insights about integrating email and Facebook.

Read more…

Originally published on B2B LeadBlog

Using online video advertising as another channel to support your lead generation efforts can help you craft a global audience of potential leads.

Digital video can help keep your brand top-of-mind when it’s time for a purchase decision — if you create content designed for sharing versus selling.

Today’s B2B Lead Roundtable Blog post features three reasons why you should adopt video content into your B2B marketing mix.

Reason #1. The digital video audience is growing

In a recent article on what makes streamers abandon video content, an interesting chart was included projecting digital viewer growth in the U.S. from 2010 to 2016.

According to those projections, 61% of the U.S. population alone will have adopted digital video viewing within the next three years, bringing the total to a staggering 77% of all Internet users viewing digital video content online by 2016.

A similar article focused on the online activities of U.S. Internet users by age revealed video sharing was a top Internet activity among U.S. Web users in every age bracket, ranking only beneath shopping and social networking in popularity.

As a result, digital video content production and/or digital video advertising will have the potential to reach what truly constitutes a growing global audience.

Reason #2. It’s no more difficult to produce online video content than it is to produce a white paper

For B2B and/or B2G marketers, concerns about adding video content in terms of difficulty, time, effort and expense are understandable, but considering the findings of previous MarketingSherpa research, where B2B and/or B2G marketers were asked…

Please indicate the DEGREE OF DIFFICULTY (time, effort and expense required) in creating each of the content products your organization is using.

Producing white papers ranked nearly equal across every range of difficulty with online video and phone apps, which leads to one important question…

What are some of the tangible benefits for adding video?

Reason #3. Digital video can improve SEO and drive multichannel traffic to your website

When I asked Gaby Paez, Associate Director of Research, Conversion Group, MECLABS, how companies could benefit overall from adopting video, she explained using video content can improve SEO campaigns.

“Not only is video a great way to share your story, it’s also a great way to build links back to your site. And, if users engage with your video, it helps to increase time on site,” Gaby explained.

Here are some of the additional benefits Gaby mentioned for adopting video:

• Branding — craft a consistent message for a 24/7 global audience
• Add human touch to testimonials — increase value and credibility of testimonials by sharing customer stories/case studies in video format
• Repurpose existing content — creating short videos using slides with the content of existing blog posts
• Boost awareness, visibility and reach — share product information, training, tips, or instructions with demos or video tutorials

When I asked Gaby how video could be used by B2B marketers to highlight products in the e-commerce space, she used software as a service (SAAS) and traditional e-commerce as two examples of where video content could supplement or even improve the customer experience.

“See video as a natural progression of customers’ expectations. In the past, they expected to see a product picture to make a purchase decision, then a gallery of pictures and now a product video,” Gaby explained.

I asked Gaby if video could also be also used to drive traffic mobile, and she explained video content was a great way to accomplish this.

“Absolutely,” Gaby explained, “You want to spend time developing mobile content that encourages potential customers to spend time on your website,” Gaby explained.

Related Resources:

Lead Gen Summit 2013: September 30 – October 3, San Francisco

Lead Generation: Content among the most difficult tactics, but also quite effective

Human Touch: 8 Questions to Steer Your Marketing Priorities

Lead Qualification: Stop generating leads and start generating revenue

Ever since I was a little girl, baking has been a hobby of mine.

There has always been something satisfying about attempting to master the complexities of baking.

Although the realist in me knew I wasn’t going to hit the big bucks through baking, I have found a few ways to apply some of the lessons I’ve learned from baking to my work as a research manager at MECLABS.

In today’s MarketingSherpa blog, I wanted to share three insights into how I think about testing and marketing as a result of my baking attempts.

Don’t stick with the directions on the box

Some of my best cakes have come from getting creative and literally thinking outside the box by adding different ingredients, or from asking friends what kind of crazy cake ingredients they’d like to try.

When working with one of our Research Partners to create a testing strategy, I often find myself confined to my own thought track – which I’ll admit can cause the creativity of test ideas to become stale and truthfully, can even get a little boring sometimes.

So, brainstorming with others in our peer review sessions is a great way to add those “new ingredients” to a test design to hopefully help our Research Partners learn more about their customers.

Beware of offering coupons in the Sunday paper too soon

Betty Crocker’s coupons excite me every time, and it’s a marketing tactic that stretches all the way back to 1929.

That’s when the company first decided to insert coupons into the flour mixture part of the box mix. And, I’ll admit the tactic works on me because I often find myself staring at the Save $1.00 off TWO boxes of cake mix coupon and debate a trip to the store.

But, here’s the big question … am I being motivated to buy more because of my aggregate experience with the product, or because of the value proposition offered in the coupon?

Before I even saw the coupon, I wasn’t planning on buying cake mixes, but now I’m thinking about it – why should I buy more cake mix from you?  It will cost me more regardless of the coupon savings.

Now, I understand the idea of incentives and they can work – people have a hard time letting savings slip through their fingers, but offering incentives right off the bat isn’t always the best answer to increasing conversion and here’s why …

At MECLABS, we generally stress incentives should be the last resort in your testing efforts to see a quick win. The reason for this is offering incentives can skew your understanding of true customer motivation, as you can tell from my coupon example above.

My need for cake mix is why I initially purchased, and a coupon incentive may not be the optimal solution to keeping me as a return customer or attracting new customers.

So, before you worry about the coupons and other incentives, try to make sure you have the basics covered first:

• A website that visitors can easily navigate and find what they’re looking for.

• A simplified purchase flow for potential customers.

• Easy, accessible support for your customers when they can’t figure things out.

If those items are in place and you’ve tested for the optimal user experience, then you can begin to explore incentives.

Read more…

In today’s MarketingSherpa Chart of the Week, we looked at the long list of organizational email marketing goals marketers told us they are focusing on for the next 12 months, and I implore marketers to narrow their focus to just the three or four goals that will really move the needle in their email marketing program this year.

This is not an exercise I’m unfamiliar with. As we launched the Call for Speakers for MarketingSherpa Email Summit 2014 at the Aria in Las Vegas, we also had to decide the email marketing pillars to focus on – and in the spirit of simplifying, this year you can enter MarketingSherpa Email Awards 2014 and submit a speaker proposal using the same form.

At Email Summit 2013, we built the agenda around five email marketing goals and two elements. Frankly, it was just too much. If you focus on everything, you focus on nothing.

So this year, we’ve narrowed down the Email Summit Call for Speakers and Email Awards Call for Entries to four topics. These topics are below, along with links to MarketingSherpa reporting to help you improve your email marketing, and perhaps get your juices flowing for your own proposal/entry.

Build and Cleanse: Efforts to build up email lists, or strengthen the program overall through cleansing make up this pillar. List data and management, database hygiene, list testing and optimization are examples of the types of campaigns to fall within it.

List Growth: 11% increase from sweepstakes for Waterford Crystal

Email Marketing: CNET win-back campaign sees 8% subscriber re-engagement

Create and Design: This pillar will recognize message testing and optimization, as well as delving into marketing efforts involving design creative, copywriting, messaging.

Email Marketing: User-generated content helps drive 16% clickthrough rate

Email Marketing Optimization: How you can create a testing environment to improve your email results

Deliver and Automate: This pillar will focus on marketers’ efforts with marketing automation and deliverability. The function and theories behind testing and optimization will also be discussed within this pillar.

Marketing Automation: 416% higher customer lifetime value from auto-email strategy

Personal vs. Robotic: How to turn automated email into personal experiences that drive new and repeat sales

Email Deliverability: How a marketing vendor with 99 percent delivery rates treats single opt-in lists vs. double opt-in lists

Connect and Integrate: The optimization of email integration tactics with social media, websites, mobile, offline and testing will make up this pillar.

Social Email Integration: Sony Electronics nets 3,000 clickthroughs from email to “pin” on Pinterest

Email Summit: Integrating mobile, social and email marketing channels

But, enough from us. We want to see what you’ve been working on, and more importantly, how your marketing peers can learn from your work. If you have any questions, we’re here to help. You can check out the FAQ … or just ask us.

Also, we put together a quick video to show you what it’s like to be an Email Summit speaker…

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