Smart B2B marketing calls to action for 2010.

This morning, reviewing dozens of marketing blogs, I was overwhelmed with post after post about social media. I became worried that marketers were forgetting the channels that got us where we are today.

That’s why I was delighted to see Bill Gadless of B2B Web Strategy pass along advice from Jim Logan in “Try adding a call to action to the end of your white papers.”

Business buyers who are purchasing products and services do not want to be “sold” by high-pressure messages. That’s why social media is working. It’s also why today’s most consistently effective lead generation messaging identifies a challenge that prospects may be facing and offers a free white paper, checklist, guide, case study or other content that allows them to learn about ways to meet their challenge. But as soft as this approach may appear, once a lead is generated, every additional contact made should be followed by a new offer and a new call to action.

The suggestion in Bill’s blog is that the call to action could involve inviting leads to pass the content along to an associate or colleague, asking them to register for a newsletter or other subscription or inviting the reader to contact the business for a discussion.

These are all good suggestions. But to apply these calls to action randomly is not a good strategy. The fact is, there are specific stages in the buying cycle of a complex sale and the call to action or offer made should match the prospect’s place in the cycle.

As covered in Russell Kern’s guide “Direct Marketing’s Five Biggest Hurdles (And How to Get Over Them),” there are four stages in the buying cycle: Interest, Consideration, Evaluation, and Purchase.

As you can see, Mr. Kern’s examples — taken straight from his guide — involve matching the correct content offer to the prospect’s stage in the buying cycle. This approach is critical to enhancing the relationship with prospects and moving them forward to a purchase. Making mismatched call-to-action offers leads to email opt-outs.

There’s one thing that social media cannot do well and that is to “predictably” fill the sales pipeline and then — in a controlled manner — nurture leads until they are ready to be handed off to sales. Adding a call to action to every contact is a proven and effective marketing nurturing approach and businesses selling complex products can rarely succeed without it.

Are your sales people being naughty or nice?

Although this blog is about providing insight into B2B marketing best practices, it’s Santa time — so I thought it would be only fair to spread the giving into the sales department. Earlier in my career, I spent eight years in B2B advertising sales, so I do know something about it.

That’s why I am constantly astonished at how often I see sales people making the same big mistake. Sunday was a perfect example. It started off with a mailing we received inviting us to visit a BMW dealership nearby and take a test drive. In exchange for the test drive we would get a $50 pre-paid gas card. Since there is a strong interest in automobiles in my household, we registered online and, within minutes, the dealership called to set our appointment for 1:30.

When we arrived, the dealership was very quiet — meaning no other customers were in the show room. A sales person approached and asked if he could help. We explained about the appointment and that we were there to take a test drive for the gift.

He did not know anything about the promotion (I will be speaking to “marketing” about that later), but when he discovered the purpose of our visit, he very reluctantly — and very quickly — got the test drive over as fast as he could. He didn’t spend one minute “selling” the car. Didn’t tell us anything about it, didn’t offer to show us the features, nothing. He didn’t even offer us his business card.

We made it clear that we were not buying that day. But if he had been nice and friendly and helpful and interested and given us his card, the next time we were in the market for a car, we might have gone back to see him again.

It makes perfect sense that sales people want to spend time and energy on sales they can make quickly. But every time a sales person blows off a prospect, he or she may be losing a future sale.

In the B2B world (especially for high-ticket products and services) it’s marketing’s job to acquire and nurture qualified leads and not turn them over to sales until they are in the decision-making stage of the buy-cycle. But marketing doesn’t always do its job perfectly. That’s why it’s critical to the company and the sales person’s wallet to treat every contact as a potential buyer.

A sales person never knows at what point a certain process or function within a company will get painful enough for its management to start looking for a solution. Attention given today can pay back in a sale six, eight, or even 18 months from now. It makes sense that sales people cannot spend all their time paying attention to soft prospects. But to ignore them or blow them off completely is a big mistake.

Being naughty not only affects this holiday, but all of those to come.

Are your B2B marketing messages boring?

The key article in the December issue of Target Marketing Magazine, entitled “Big Ideas,” features experts predicting marketing trends for 2010. The information highlights many important issues, including integrated customer marketing, privacy issues, research, the continued rise of data and more.

But the trend I’d like to comment on is the one discussed by Nick Moore, Executive Vice President and Chief Creative Officer at Wunderman. Founded in 1958, Wunderman is one of today’s most respected direct marketing agencies. Mr. Moore perfectly defines today’s advertising ‘sensory overload’ with the dramatic image of “standing in Times Square surrounded by flashing lights and advertisements, bombarded by shouts from street vendors and buskers, watching traffic and readying to cross the street, all while trying to make a cell phone call.”

This is the environment in which today’s marketers must get attention. His advice is even more profound. “We are in a creative business. Data alone merely gets you to the right place at the right time. But if you say something boring, nobody is going to listen to you.”

His focus, of course, is consumers. Yet his point affects B2B marketers as well.

Back in April of 2009 I wrote a post titled “Not a creative bone in your body? That’s good news,” that advised B2B marketers not to try for creativity in their communications. But Nick Moore is right — in this crowded environment, messages can’t be boring.

So here are two tips on how B2B marketers can take the ‘boring’ out of their marketing communications:

1. Add energy: Marketing messages can come off as matter-of-fact or they can exude excitement, enthusiasm and energy. For example: An upcoming Webinar can ‘deliver the most valuable information you’ll learn this year.’ A white paper that talks about network security could be presented as dramatic and intriguing: ‘This white paper reveals the secret steps leading CIOs take to maximize network security.’ By being excited about what is being offered, prospects will get excited about it, too.
2. Make it about them: No matter how much a company thinks about itself or its product, marketing copy that focuses on those subjects is boring. Messages that focus on the challenges an individual prospect title faces — and how quickly, easily or cost-effectively that challenge can be met — is exciting. Why? Because it’s about them and the information has value. If B2B marketing targets the right person and focuses the message on the issues that person faces every day, the message will not be boring.

Before starting a B2B marketing program, it’s vital to conduct thorough and accurate data analysis and build an accurate profile of best prospective customers, then to choose the channels that best reach those prospects. Once you do, however, it’s just as important to follow Nick Moore’s advice and not be boring.

Why it’s OK to be anti-social media.

A colleague just forwarded me an excellent blog post entitled “Anti-Social Media Marketing” that I wish I had written. Despite its title, the blogger — Ian G. Heller of Real Results Marketing – does not pooh-pooh the use of social media. On the contrary, he says, “Without a doubt, there are massive marketing benefits available to marketers who can figure out how to harness the attention and preferences of audiences using social media tools.”

What he questions is the obsession for social media and the conviction that social media is the only way to go in this “inbound-driven” marketing environment.

Here is the most compelling part of his argument: “Social media, however, cannot yet substitute entirely for other, more traditional forms of marketing. Recently, I was on an ‘expert panel’ at a marketing event and the audience was breathlessly excited about social media. At one point, all of us panelists were asked to comment on the value of this new channel and, when it was my turn, I stated that, while I thought social media would someday provide enormous marketing value, I was concerned that people were focusing too much effort and attention on it. I said that, in my view, there was probably no huge “first mover advantage” in figuring out how to market successfully via social media and that it was important to continue to utilize email, direct mail, direct sales, telesales, advertising and other channels for now.”

Read his post for the full story, and you’ll be amused as I was at the reaction in the room when he made this statement.

To illustrate the point that some social media is being overhyped, I point to the recent Sysomos study “An In-Depth Look Inside the Twitter World.” This study shows that, although Twitter usage is going up, 5% of Twitter users account for 75% of all activity.

The reality is that social media is still in a stage of discovery and development and has yet to be proven a reliable source for business leads.

A marketer’s first job, after all, is to generate qualified leads that can lead directly to sales. That is, to build a pipeline of companies and contacts that can be nurtured and turned directly into sales and revenue. Until social media can directly generate those leads I would follow Ian Heller’s advice.

Email lead generation — perception vs. reality.

It’s my pleasure to introduce David Ariss, President of Ariss Marketing Group, a small, “boutique” direct marketing firm in Denver, Colorado who has agreed to share his insight with you today. Susan Fantle, B2BMarketingSmarts

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As this recession lingers on, more and more of our B2B and B2C clients are asking about using email in lieu of direct mail campaigns to generate leads and sales. The cost of email marketing is less and the results are learned quickly, so the perception is that email has great advantages over direct mail.

When this request is made, no matter the size of their company or their market, this is the story I tell:

A large national B2B publishing company on the East Coast hired us to develop a lead generation direct marketing campaign to generate qualified leads for its sales force.

Primarily using their in-house list, augmented with highly targeted outside IT industry lists, we mailed 100,000 surveys directing the recipient to a pURL (personalized URL). For completing the survey they received either an Amazon.com gift certificate or White Paper (a simple A/B split). The target recipient had the option to either complete the mailed survey or logon to their pURL and complete it online.

We also emailed 30,000 surveys with the exact same messages and split. No recipient received both the direct mail and the email.

The result: The postal mail pulled 3.1% (3,100 leads); the email pulled less than .25% (75 leads). As predicted, the responses requesting the white paper were better qualified leads, but the Amazon Gift Certificate offer generated more leads.

An interesting side note: of the 3,100 responses from the postal mail, 800 sent in the paper survey in the supplied reply envelope rather than filled out the survey online, even though they still had to give us their email address to receive their free gift. We assumed, because the audience was very IT oriented, that all of the responses would come in via online. Giving them multiple ways to respond significantly lifted response.

Because of the lower campaign costs, many say email campaigns are more cost-effective, but we have not been able to prove it yet, as the final determination in the effectiveness of the campaign is cost-per-sale. So, I recommend to my clients to test email lists if we are able to find appropriate selects for them, but test in small quantities.

Email is cheaper and faster. But direct mail has advantages that make a difference on the bottom line:

• Recipients can open the mail at their convenience and spend time with it. Emails, however, are part of a long list of other emails that are critical to that day’s tasks and that day’s business. So marketing emails get less attention.
• Direct mail allows marketers to tell the whole story. It provides room to satisfy even the most cogent arguments and includes all the graphics that help tell the story.
• Multiple pieces can make a huge difference as well. With email, prospects are looking at a monitor, but with direct mail they can see, feel, touch, and sometimes even smell the letter, brochure, lift note, or post card. There is just plain more emotion and interaction with direct mail.

I’m not against using email, but I recommend that my client tests them both to let the market tell them which will work best their company. That said, try combining direct mail with email in a campaign — done properly, this can greatly increase your response rates.

About the Author: David Ariss provides direct marketing services for B-to-B, B-to-C, nonprofit and political candidates through his company, Ariss Marketing Group based in Denver, Colorado.