How white papers help make sales.

Savvy B2B Marketing is a blog I recommend for powerful, well-researched advice on a broad range of B2B marketing subjects. It’s a perfect complement to the tips and techniques I cover here. I encourage you to visit it now to see a new post on white papers by Stephanie Tilton. It tells the psychology of why leads generated by white papers and other “informational” offers are more likely to lead to closed sales.

Two copy-revision rules that save time and money.

I look back with a combination of pain and fondness on writing marketing copy for Ashton-Tate’s dBASE in the late 80s. Some may remember dBASE as the supreme leader in database software. Long release delays and bug-ridden upgrades eventually brought the original version of this giant down from its position of leadership. But my memories of those early days center on another issue altogether — copy revisions.

 

Here was the scenario:

 

• The level-1 marketing person responsible for working with the marketing agency would review the copy, find items that she thought needed revising, had the agency make the revisions, then passed the revised copy up to the next level for review.
• Level-2 did the same.
• Level-3 did the same.
• Level-4 did the same.

 

By the time the often-revised copy made it to the desk of the grand poobah of marketing, this VP took one look at it and declared it to be “%^)%&^.” Of course, by then, that’s exactly what the copy was. Each revision cost more money and reduced the effectiveness of the message. In the end, the copy had to have a major revision to be strong again.

 

You can and should avoid this approach, as it is costly and time-consuming. It’s easy to do. Just follow these two revision rules to prevent the Ashton-Tate copy syndrome:

1. Limit the number of people who must review the copy.
2. Read the copy through only once. If something reads awkwardly or is technically incorrect, have it revised. If not, leave it alone. Remember, your prospect will read the copy only once. So if there is a problem on the first read, fix it. Otherwise, leave it be.

4 (and only 4) times to involve sales in marketing.

On the phone the other day a client (who shall remain nameless) said he would be asking sales what they want marketing to do for them. After recovering from the immediate and serious threat to my self-control, I gently cautioned my client against this dreadful tactic.

 

That’s because sales will always answer that question with “We want highly qualified leads that are ready to buy.” If your B2B sales group ever responded differently than this, then I’d like to move into the netherworld in which you live. Under most circumstances, the LAST thing you ever want to do is ask sales how to market.

 

However, there are four areas in which the insight of sales is invaluable, because . . .

 

1. Sales actually talks to customers and is therefore a vital resource to helping you understand the pains, hot buttons and objections that your marketing messages must address.
2. Sales must help marketing build a profile of your best prospects by industry, title, decision-maker, influencer, company size, etc. This information is what marketing uses to choose the best channels and marketing techniques for reaching qualified prospects.
3.  Sales is critical in establishing your system of lead scoring (A, B, C, D leads) so marketing can know where leads are in the buying cycle, how they should be nurtured, and when they are ready to be turned over to sales.
4.  Sales must assist in tracking by providing marketing with the outcome of the leads it has turned over to them — closed or lost.

 Of course, sales must be kept in the loop on what marketing is doing, but beyond that and the above, smart marketers keep sales a safe distance away.

The B2B lead offer “name game” is all about the numbers.

Providing valuable, targeted, FREE information to your prospects is still one of the most powerful ways to generate qualified leads. White papers, checklists, booklets, guides, self-assessments, how-tos — they all work. The content of what you send is important for several reasons:

1. Your prospect must find some value in the information even if it is to just confirm what they think they already know.
2. The quality of what they receive is a positive reflection on your company image.
3. You can position your company as a reliable resource of information that can help them.

But, in addition to the content, the most important element is the title. Without a compelling title, response to your lead generation offer won’t be a strong as it could be. And in spite of how “old-fashioned” they sound, the use of numbers in the title still provides a strong image for what the prospect is going to get.

Here is how a few companies successfully used numbers in their lead offer titles:

DICE…………… “Accounting and Finance Recruiting: 2-Minute Checklist”

eFUNDS………. “10 Payment Processing Best Practices”

GEAC………….. “How Five Global Companies Turned a T&E Challenge into a Financial Win”

VeriSign……….. “Find out your Web Site’s 5 top security issues”

Golden Rule….. “3 Easy Steps to Finding Health Insurance That Fits Your Budget”

Proxima……….. “15-Minute Guide to Winning Presentations”

Numbers aren’t the only way to go, but they are a smart way to strengthen the titles of your informational offers and improve the response to your lead generation programs.

Click here if you’d like to see some of these informational offers.

Knowledge of human behavior is a marketer’s best asset.

Today a colleague forwarded an excellent article by Kaila Colbin — “Understanding Human Behavior,” published online on MediaPost. It discusses human behavior and states that, when dealing with people, the important question to ask is, “What will people do if given a certain stimulus?”

 

The example that comes to mind is that, if you raise taxes on a product or service, the first thing people will do is stop buying it. But then, moving my mind into the realm of marketing (where it dwells most of the time), I know that this question is also at the heart of successful direct marketing. For instance:

 

• What will prospects do if you offer them a free white paper discussing best practices relating to a business process that affects their job?

 

Answer: They will request the white paper and you’ll gain a qualified lead — whether they want to find out how to improve their processes OR if they think they are doing everything right and just want to confirm it. This approach is likely to ensure marketing success when generating leads.

 

Why is this? It offers an immediate reward and carries no effort or obligation.

 

• What will prospects do if you invite them to a Webinar to learn more about your product and how it can solve their operational problems?

 

Answer: They will sign up to attend only if they are already actively evaluating solutions to solve this problem; otherwise, they will ignore your message. Your response will be small.

 

Why is this? The offer does not deliver an immediate reward and requires a commitment of time (which, these days, is a precious thing).

 

Both of the above offers have value — just at different stages of the buying cycle. The key to making the right offer at the right time requires knowledge of human nature and the reward vs. the effort.

Keeping social media in its rightful place.

As with anything that is fresh, new and holds so much promise, social media discussions are everywhere. Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and other social media are the focus of topics on Webinars, at seminars, in articles, and at conferences. Heck, social media is being discussed on social media.

 

And rightly so, as social media provides fresh opportunities for word-of-mouth branding and engagement with prospective customers.

 

Seen from your company’s bottom line, however, social media should probably command no more than 10% to 15% of your overall marketing budget. That is because marketing offering free information, Webinar invites, product demos, operational assessments, and other campaign tactics — delivered via email, direct mail, and online and offline ads rather than social media — directly yields trackable leads and sales, and will continue to do so.

 

Supported by a strong buzz in targeted social media and other public relations outlets, those marketing campaigns will now perform even better.

Your marketing needs a GPS.

The phrase I hear too often from clients is, “Can you do it for me sooner?”

 

Yikes! Writers, designers, agencies, printers, list managers, lettershops — we all hear this from clients and prospective clients so many times it’s practically de rigueur on the part of today’s marketers. But every time it happens my reaction is the same — “Doesn’t anybody plan anything any more?”

 

The first and most essential step in successful marketing is just that — planning. Your GPS recalculates when a detour or a wrong turn sends you off your route. Well, just like your GPS, marketing plans can be adjusted and adapted as market conditions change. But if you don’t have a guide to where you want your company and marketing to be in the short and long term and how you plan to get there, then you might as well just sit in the driveway.

 

If you’re saying you don’t have time to plan, it’s like saying, “I don’t have time to do it right.”

 

My direct marketing bible (“Successful Direct Marketing Methods” Seventh Edition by Bob Stone and Ron Jacobs) outlines the ingredients and steps necessary for creating this plan. I highly recommend you read this book available from Amazon, paying close attention to Chapter 2 on Business, Strategic and Direct Marketing Planning.

 

Included in that chapter are the ingredients needed for a business strategy, marketing strategy and creative strategy. It’s not a complicated process, but putting together a plan forces you to think through all the elements that are essential to reaching your marketing and business goals. Then you can be sure that every campaign you create will support the strategic goals of your business. Like a GPS, it will guide you successfully to your destination.

5 Big B2B Lead Generation Marketing Blunders

Working over the years — with hundreds of companies on thousands of B2B marketing campaigns — I continue to see marketers making these five big B2B lead generation blunders:

1. Selling your product and not your offer (white paper, Webinar, etc.)
2. Not including a strong, clear, prominent call to action
3. Not getting to the point of the communication and the offer fast enough
4. Using design elements that force prospects to work to read the message
5. Giving prospects no clear reason to respond immediately

You thought business decision-makers were busy before. In these times of layoffs and reduced staff it’s a miracle your prospect has one free second to read your marketing. The easier you make it for them to get your message, the better your marketing will perform.

Is your marketing doomed?

In one of my own marketing campaigns recently I offered a free review and analysis of any single marketing effort (email, direct mail letter, product brochure, Web site home page, SEM ad, banner, etc.) to evaluate how well the messaging followed best practices.

Those who responded clearly fell into two distinct groups:

1. Marketers who were genuinely looking to improve the performance of their marketing
2. Marketers wanting confirmation that they are smart, wonderful and perfect

Frankly, if anyone in Group #2 had sent me a marketing piece that actually followed best practices in every way, I would have told them that they were smart, wonderful and perfect. But I didn’t see any of those.

What I mostly saw were efforts that followed some best practices but missed a few tactics or elements that would probably improve performance.

Since I gave the review and analysis by phone the reactions were easy to gauge. Group #1 was grateful and glad to have tips on how to improve what they were doing. Group #2 reactions ranged from dead silence to statements about why they had to get off the phone quickly.

I was not “selling” my writing or consulting services, but just giving free advice and demonstrating the value I can bring to them if they are interested. So the cold reactions I got from the Group #2 folks were not to avoid a sales pitch. It was clear that I was telling them something they did not want to hear, in spite of the fact that it would help their marketing programs perform better.

So the moral of this story is — if you care more about what people think about you and your abilities than how your marketing actually performs for your organization, your marketing is doomed.