MarketingMuses

Does “Like It” Mean They’ll Buy It?

Social media is now an essential element of many companies' marketing programs, but how should social media marketing and advertising be planned, executed, and measured.

Yesterday, I was at the San Francisco headquarters of Racepoint Group (RPG), a public relations agency that is very effective at combining traditional PR with social media. I’ve worked with RPG at a couple of my prior companies, and I was introducing a present consulting client and RPG to each other.

We all had heard a couple of reports about Facebook on NPR that morning: GM Will No Longer Buys Ads On Facebook, and Pizza Delicious Bought An Ad On Facebook. How Did It Do?  Both reports raised questions about the value of Facebook advertising.  A quote from the GM report, attributed to the Wall Street Journal, stated:

"Asked about the move, GM marketing chief Joel Ewanick said the Detroit auto maker 'is definitely reassessing our advertising on Facebook, although the content is effective and important.' Content refers to the unpaid Facebook pages many companies use to promote their products.

"GM, started to re-evaluate its Facebook strategy earlier this year after its marketing team began to question the effectiveness of the ads. GM marketing executives, including Mr. Ewanick, met with Facebook managers to address concerns about the site's effectiveness and left unconvinced advertising on the website made sense, according to people familiar with GM's thinking."

The report on Pizza Delicious details how Facebook advertising performed for a New York-style takeout pizza vendor in New Orleans.  After targeting people who had other New York likes failed to produce results, Pizza Delicious targeted New Orleans fans of Italian food.  As the graphic shows, Pizza Delicious got close to 20 times the number of Facebook fans it usually gets in two days.

Unfortunately, the new fans didn’t turn into new customers.  According to the report, “After a long night of asking every single customer where he found out about Pizza Delicious, not one said it was through Facebook.”  The report concludes, “Maybe at some point, the new Pizza Delicious fans will show up and buy some pizza. But social advertising is so new that nobody knows for sure. It's still unproven, untested and largely unstudied.”

After this interesting diversion, we returned to the specific question of how to use social media effectively in a B2B, rather than B2C, marketing program. Social media can be very effective in the first two stages of the three-stage B2B buyer’s process. In the first stage, buyers want to understand opportunities and gain more knowledge about solutions. Videos, podcasts and white papers that describe the opportunities and solutions can be effectively distributed through social media channels. In the second stage, buyers want to define their specific problem and evaluate different solutions.  Case studies that show how companies have used your solution to solve their specific problem can be effectively presented in different media (video, audio and print) through social media channels. Social media is less effective in the final stage of the B2B buyer’s process, when the buyer is selecting the best option and negotiating terms. 

Research by SiriusDecisions shows that while B2B buyers spend 80% of their time in the first two stages of the purchase decision process, and only 20% in stage three, sellers devote 80% of their marketing resources to stage three and only 20% to the first two, most formative, stages. In my experience, social media is best used in the first two stages of the B2B buyer’s process using the following guidelines:

A Social Media Strategy – Understand how social media can best serve as part of your larger B2B marketing strategy.  I described this in a previous post Groundswell: A Guidebook for the Social Media Journey.

Understand How Your Audience Uses Social Media – When developing a B2B social media strategy in 2009, I reviewed research from Outsell that showed while 50.8% of scientists and engineers had Facebook accounts, and only 28.0% had LinkedIn accounts, the target audience firmly segregated their use of the two: Facebook was almost exclusively for personal use, while LinkedIn was used for business. Although LinkedIn had lower overall use, it was, by far, the best choice for B2B purposes.

Think Like a Publisher – In The New Rules of Marketing and PR, David Scott Meerman describes the content that is best suited for social media, “What works is a focus on your buyers and their problems. What fails is an egocentric display of your products and services.  When you understand your audience, you can construct an editorial and content strategy just for them.  In order to implement a successful strategy, think like a publisher.”

Integrate Social Media into a Unified Digital Marketing Operation – A unified digital marketing operation integrates social media along with other new and traditional marketing techniques in a manner that aligns with the B2B buyer’s three-stage decision process and allows you to measure the effectiveness of all marketing and lead generation channels.

 

A Unified Digital Marketing Operation

 

A unified digital marketing operation can help small and mid-size B2B companies:

Compete successfully with much larger companies

Produce a better return on investment (ROI)

Generate incremental revenue

Increase enterprise value

This short eBook describes how a unified digital marketing operation can be designed and built to fully utilize new digital marketing and communication technologies and achieve optimal demand generation performance.  

 

A Unified Digital Marketing Operation

View more presentations from Bruce Pharr

Is Your Social Media Strategy Ready for 2011?

 

Yesterday, I attended a half-day forum presented by Tony Jaros (Research SVP) and Jim Ninivaggi (Research Analyst) of SiriusDecisions, titled Balancing Change and Results: 2011 Planning Assumptions.  SiriusDecisions provides research and advisory services focused on the operational intelligence sales and marketing executives in B2B companies need to maximize top line growth.  Each year SiriusDecisions looks at the top issues of its clients during the year, analyzes these issues, and presents its insights for the coming year.  This year the insights focused on three goals:

1. To improve the productivity of the sales organization
2. To build a robust, repeatable demand generation engine
3. To have communications make more of a defined, concrete contribution

For each goal, SiriusDecisions presented a progress report, a gap analysis and action items for 2011.  I was pleased to see that three of its four recommended actions for communications involve social media.

SiriusDecisions identifies five critical marketing tasks for generating demand.  The first recommended action for 2011 is to build a social media strategy that uses the most appropriate social outlet at every stage of the cold-to-close process.  Here’s a definition of the five tasks, and a modified reproduction of the graphic that accompanied the recommendation.

• SEED  The use of traditional and social media to set the stage for demand to be created.
• CREATE  The generation of “original” demand, with the focus on quality versus quantity.
• ENABLE  Helping reps move marketing-created demand, and to source their own demand.
• ACCELERATE  Efforts geared to help sales move deals more quickly through the pipeline.
• NURTURE  Care and feeding of prospects that have fallen out of the funnel.

  

TASK	BLOGS	SOCIAL SITES	COMMUNITIES	MEDIA SHARING	PODCASTS	WIKIS
SEED	X	X	X	X	X
CREATE		X		X	X
ENABLE	X		X	X	X	X
ACCELERATE			X	X	X
NURTURE	X	X		X	X

 

The second recommended action is that a balance of centralization and decentralization is necessary to enable functions to best leverage social media.  Many companies have initially placed social media in their marketing communication functions.  However, as companies better understand the role of social media and develop integrated strategies for its use, the communications function will retain centralized responsibility for policies and procedures, while content development will be decentralized throughout a broader range of marketing and sales functions.  This will enable more active involvement of subject matter experts and more timely creation and deployment of subject matter important to prospects and customers.

The third recommended action is to leverage social media internally for collaboration and knowledge management.  This could include:

• Wikis for content creation and offering roadmap collaboration
• Podcasts for product training of new sales reps hired
• A sales and marketing collaboration community
• Internal sales and marketing blog

Most current providers of marketing automation and CRM are working to integrate social media capabilities into their platforms.  While Jive, a relatively new company, is offering social business software they claim 1) fosters employee collaboration, 2) connects customers across disjointed channels, and 3) monitors social media.

My major takeaway from the forum is that companies are beginning to recognize the power of social media for business, and vendors are providing more capable and effective tools to harness and focus the power.  However, as with most marketing technologies and tools, the key to achieving measurable value creation and ROI is developing and executing a comprehensive marketing strategy that integrates social media with other communication and demand generation tools, rather than simply bolting it on to your present (and probably outdated) strategy.

Groundswell: A Guidebook for the Social Media Journey

“A social trend in which people use technologies to get the things they need from each other, rather than from traditional institutions like corporations.” – Definition of the Groundswell

Groundswell is, without a doubt, the best single book I am aware of for understanding the power of social technologies and learning how to use that power effectively.  It is full of data that supports its premise, and is a detailed guidebook that shows you how to successfully navigate the best path to reach your desired social media destination. 

There are several powerful tools described in the book.  The first is the Social Technographics profile, which is similar to demographics and psychographics but focuses on social technology behaviors.  The tool allows you to understand how social technologies are being adopted by a group of people, which, in turn, allows you to build an appropriate social strategy for that group (e.g., your customers). 

First, it segments seven levels of social technology use as shown below.

 

Second, it provides two simple Web-based tools: a consumer profile tool and a B2B profile tool.  The tools allow you to view the profile of your target group versus a benchmark reference group.  For example, the following profile shows the behavior of U.S. small-business owners relative to the behavior of [a representative sample of] all U.S. adults.

  

The profile of your target group is used in the first of a 4-step social media planning process called POST—an acronym for people, objectives, strategy and technology.  Answering these questions, in this order, is the best way to formulate a social media plan. 

People: What are your customers ready for?  This is determined from the social technographics profile.

Objectives: What are your goals?  Following are the five primary objectives that companies successfully pursue in the groundswell, and how they relate to business functions.

  

Strategy: How do you want relationships with your customers to change?  By answering this question, not only can you plan for the desired changes, but you can also figure out how to measure them once the strategy is underway.

Technology: What applications should you build?  After having decided on the people, objectives, and strategy, you can move on to select the appropriate social technologies—blogs, wikis, social networks, etc.

Social technology is a powerful tool with the potential to help marketing perform more effectively.  Unfortunately, many marketers are, “going about their strategy backward.  They start by thinking about technology.”  In Groundswell, Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff have given marketers a guidebook to avoid the pitfalls and chart a course to social media success.  Read it, absorb it, and use it.

What I Learned in School: Social Good Marketing Can Go Bad

Unless your business model is based on social good, can you develop and execute a successful external social good media program without first developing, nurturing and embedding it into your company’s internal culture?

I spent August 8 through 18 as a member of the 2010 Strategic Marketing Management executive education program at Stanford GSB.  It was an exceptional experience.  Fifty students from around the world covered a broad range of marketing and business topics with professors and business leaders.  I will be reviewing some of these in the coming weeks.

Jennifer Aaker led a session titled The Dragonfly Effect: Harnessing Social Media for Impact.  It included the very effective and moving example of Sameer Bhatia and Vinay Chakravarthy Using Social Media to Save Lives.  Jennifer also discussed brand authenticity.  She reviewed survey results showing that 59% of participants couldn’t or didn’t name an authentic for-profit brand, and 49% of participants couldn’t or didn’t name an authentic non-profit brand.

Discussions among members in class and at dinner that evening led to the following question: Unless your business model is based on social good, can you develop and execute a successful external social good media program without first developing, nurturing and embedding it into your company’s internal culture?

Organizations such as Kiva, and companies such as The Body Shop and World of Good were founded on social good principles.  Kiva’s mission is to, “connect people, through lending, for the sake of alleviating poverty.”  World of Good describes itself as, “the world’s first online marketplace to convene thousands of People Positive and Eco Positive sellers and products all in one place, empowering you to shop in ways that align with your personal values.”  The Body Shop states that it, “has constantly sought out natural ingredients…to enhance your natural beauty,” and, “strives to protect this beautiful planet and the people who depend on it—not because it’s fashionable, but based on the belief that it’s the only way to do business.”

In these examples, social good is embedded in the business models.  Unless the company acts in a way that is inconsistent with or contradictory to its business model, its brand should be associated with social good.

But what if you launch a social good marketing campaign that may not be consistent with your company’s business model?  What if the “espoused values” of one of your company brands is directly contradicted by the advertising campaign of another?  This is exactly what Unilever encountered when the message in its Dove Self-Esteem Fund advertising and social media campaign, targeting women of all ages, conflicted with the message in its Axe Effect advertising and social media campaign, targeting teenage and young-adult males.

Here’s a Dove Film titled Onslaught produced by the company.

Here’s the same video shell (intro and audio) edited with video images from the Axe Effect campaign.

It seems to me that incorporating social good messages into an external marketing campaign when that message is not part of your company’s business model or internal culture is inauthentic and, as a result, risky.  I tried to think of a company that has created an authentic external image of social good without first establishing it as part of their internal culture either through their business model or values (e.g., The HP Way before Carly, Pat and Mark).  I can’t!

Can you think of one?  If so, please comment with an example.

A Recipe for a Winning Webinar

Here are the essential elements of a webinar that outperforms the norm, with case study results from a recent one that followed the recipe.

 

1. Address a Hot Topic - The more relevant and timely the topic, the higher the attendance and level of interest will be for the webinar.
2. Partner with a Respected Third Party - Partnering with an analyst group, professional organization, or respected publication can improve the quantity and quality of attendees in a couple of ways.  First, co-sponsorship with an independent, respected third party implies that the webinar is more balanced and less biased than one sponsored by your company alone.  Second, the third-party will usually publicize the webinar to their membership or readership, which can significantly increase your reach, registration and attendance.
3. Use a Third Party Moderator - A third-party partner can usually provide an analyst, editor or other unbiased expert to moderate the webinar.  This adds greater credibility than you or someone from your company moderating the webinar.
4. Have a Customer Present a Case Study - Similar to partnering with a respected third party, a real customer reviewing a real process, decision and result is much more credible and interesting than you doing it yourself. 
5. Try and Limit Your Involvement to Answering Questions - Answering a question is much more powerful and effective than making a statement.  First, you know the audience, especially the person asking the question, is interested in what you have to say.  Second, people listen more closely to answers than statements.  Have the person most knowledgeable about the webinar subject answer the questions, and stay on topic.  This is not the time to try and broadcast your marketing message.  Just answer the questions clearly and concisely.
6. Follow Up with Next Step Options - A few days after the webinar, contact attendees with options for them to learn more and take the next step.  Make sure that there are options for each phase of the buyer education and decision process: awareness, discovery and validation.

 

A Webinar Case Study and the Results

Symyx Technologies recently conducted the most successful webinar in its history: one that significantly exceeded average webinar metrics and produced an exceptional return-on-investment.

Symyx partnered with the American Chemical Society to present a webinar on the electronic laboratory notebook (ELN), a fast-growing software technology that is moving from early adoption to mainstream acceptance.  The webinar was promoted by Symyx through direct marketing, its website, and its social media channels, and by ACS to its 160,000 members.  Rick Mullin, a senior editor at Chemical & Engineering News (an ACS publication) moderated the case study presentation by Gabriel Weatherhead, Ph.D., Lead Systems Engineer at Millennium: The Takeda Oncology Company.  Gabriel described the process Millennium used to select an enterprise ELN for chemistry and biology disciplines.  A Symyx Vice President of Product Management and Strategy was available to answer questions after the presentation by Gabriel.

ACS co-sponsors and conducts webinars with companies every couple of weeks.  Based on its metrics for these events, the Symyx webinar generated 3 times more registrations and attendees than the average, and it generated 145 questions.  Also, the co-sponsored webinar generated 10 times more registrations and attendees than webinars publicized and conducted by Symyx alone.  The average cost of attendee acquisition was about $20, well below the average cost per inquiry from other demand generation activities. 

Attendees were contacted after the presentation and directed to an ELN microsite where they can access a pdf copy of the Millennium case study, as well as other ELN marketing assets that allow respondents to learn more and take the next step in the buyer education and decision process.  
Symyx, in turn, can nurture and track prospects going forward, and eventually provide sales with a well-developed profile of a well-qualified prospective buyer: the definition of a sales opportunity. 

Use Social Media to Cross the Chasm and Nurture Prospects

The hallmarks of a buyer in the awareness phase are research and education. – Digital Body Language: Deciphering Customer Intentions in an Online World

A study conducted by Atrium Research in 2008 showed that despite a decade of market exposure 47% of prospective users knew “very little” to “nothing” about electronic laboratory notebooks (ELN).  Although ELN began to cross the chasm from early adoption to mainstream acceptance in 2009 and 2010, there was still a need to provide a general ELN introduction to nearly half of the $1.3B total available market.

Videos are best for punching through the noise—the awareness problem. – Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies

Just remember that (if you succeed), you’re about to enter into a conversation with people who read the Web address at the end of the video. You need to be ready to convert all of that interest into action and consideration. – Groundswell

A microsite allows those who view the video to learn more about an ELN by attending webinars and reading thought-leadership articles. And when ready, they can take the next step to the discovery phase, where they begin exploration of potential solutions through customer case studies.

Think Like a Publisher (to become a more effective marketer)

What works is a focus on your buyers and their problems. What fails is an egocentric display of your products and services.  When you understand your audience, you can construct an editorial and content strategy just for them.  In order to implement a successful strategy, think like a publisher. – The New Rules of Marketing & PR by David Meerman Scott

Scientists are a special class of B2B technology customer.  They are very skeptical of advertising and publicity, which they consider to be largely “hype and spin.”  On the other hand, scientists live to publish.  One way to take advantage of this inclination is to publish a high-quality periodical. 

Case studies are one of the most effective means of addressing a potential buyer’s question, “How does a product or technology meet my specific business need.”  Case studies are also very effective in helping an emerging technology “cross the chasm” by providing a, “well-established reference,” as to how, “other people have fared with the product.”

At Symyx Technologies, a scientific software company, we produce Molecular Connection, a semi-annual scientific R&D publication, as our primary thought leadership vehicle.  It includes state of industry commentaries, by industry analysts and experts, and technology reviews.  But the core of the publication is the customer case studies from scientists, laboratory managers, and information technology professionals at biopharmaceutical leaders AstraZeneca, Bristol Myers Squibb, Elan, Eli Lilly, Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer and Millennium.  The case studies have three common characteristics: 1) they name the company, 2) they describe the benefit the user derives from the product or service, and 3) they liberally quote specific users.

We print a small quantity of the publication (about 1,000) as a leave behind for sales personnel (they rate it as their most effective sales enablement tool) and we use it as our primary handout at major events.  In fact, it is the only collateral we still print (all other collateral is only available in electronic format).  The case studies also are used individually in electronic format for automated direct marketing campaigns, where they are our most effective incentive for demand generation, and on our website, microsites, and blog. 

While the case studies are powerful new media assets, I am certain that it would be difficult or impossible to obtain the cooperation of customers to produce them if they were not part of a print publication.  Think like a publisher, and become a more effective marketer.

Come and See the Show! (Part 6)

We would like it to be known the exhibits that were shown were exclusively our own—all our own, all our own. - Emerson, Lake & Palmer

 

Share the Experience Globally Through Social Media

Tweets and blog posts allow those you cannot attend the conference to follow it remotely.  Guest bloggers and video interviews with speakers expand the point of view and enhance coverage.