You hear lots of excuses reasons why B2B companies can’t participate in social media. One reason I hear frequently . . . “We’re a B2B company.”

This is code for, “We’re a traditional company,” “We sell widgets,” “Our products don’t lend themselves to social media,” “Our company is run by staid old men who don’t ‘get’ it,” “Social media won’t give us the leads we need,” or “There’s no real ROI.”

True, true.

I recently stumbled across Rabbi Jon Spira-Savett, of Temple Beth Abraham in Nashua, New Hampshire, who is using social media to reach out to busy congregants.

A little bit of back story: as with many organized religions, Jewish congregations struggle to reach people who are very busy with work, kids, etc. Education and learning is the lifeblood of Judaism — but getting people to temple on Saturdays, when kids have their athletic events and other activities, is difficult (even more so when parents of pre-teen kids have to schlep them to Hebrew school on Sunday mornings — who wants to blow off two weekend mornings at temple?).

Instead of making people feel guilty about not attending temple, or banging his head trying to develop “innovative” programming designed to get people in the door, Rabbi Jon has developed a series of weekly blog posts and monthly podcasts to reach people where they congregate — online. Think about what this outreach does:

It helps congregants feel connected to the temple, the Rabbi and the community and instead of a full meal, it gives people “bites” that they can consume in between dealing with kids and work.

It helps those people shopping for a new temple to get to know Rabbi Jon and his philosophies before they even set foot in the door.

Even better, however, it helps draw people back into the temple — for holidays, for events, and for Saturday services. Why is that? Because people feel engaged and connected.

Think about how you can use social media to help prospects and customers feel connected with your company.

Instead of saying, “We’re traditional,” use social media to become a little bit untraditional, the way Infor is doing with its “Big ERP” campaign.

Instead of saying, “Our products don’t lend themselves to social media,” look for ways to educate people about your industry and help solve their challenges / problems through information-rich content.

Instead of worrying about ROI, start engaging your prospects. Use social media to meet people where they congregate — online! — and get to know them. Offer them the content they need to make purchasing decisions, answer their questions, and introduce them to others in your network.

Once they feel engaged and connected with you and your company, they have a much higher chance of becoming long-term customers.

Related content:

B2B Social Media Strategies for Small Business: Get Your Feet Wet

Grasshopper Engages People in Order to Build a Global Brand

Social Media: It’s About Engagement, Not Page Views

GlobalSpec recently published its latest survey report: Understanding the Industrial Buy Cycle: How to Align Your Marketing with Your Customers’ Buying Process.

The 17-page report covers ground most marketers (should) already know regarding the four stages of the B2B buy cycle: Needs Awareness, Research, Comparison and Consideration, and Procurement.

Buyers in each stage use various sources to find the information they need to make purchasing decisions, including supplier Websites, print catalogs, trade publications, tradeshows, and of course search engines and social media.

In fact, a whopping 69% of survey respondents indicated they use social media (defined as Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn) to find information in the “Needs Awareness and Research” phase while 60% use blogs and 55% use search engines.

Even more important for B2B marketers, 33% of respondents indicated that supplier Websites and catalogs are the most important information sources by the time the “buyer reaches the Procurement stage.”

While it’s easy to read into the survey results that traditional marketing tactics no longer work or that marketers should move all marketing activities to social media, the exact opposite is true: Buyers need to be exposed to your company and its products / services before they know they need you.

This means that you must engage in a long-term strategic marketing campaign that includes tradeshows, direct mail, e-newsletters, social media, and industry portal Websites, Webinars etc. — on a continual basis. As the GlobalSpec survey authors point out:

From the beginning of the buy cycle to the end, the supplier that is eventually selected is exposed to the buyer many times. The company may have first become visible through an Internet search, or exposure to its online catalog, or a banner ad on an industrial site, or any number of ways. A marketer may not always know what specific exposure initiated the process that culminated in a sale.

In fact, the survey goes on to say, 62% of respondents type company names they know into a search box versus typing the URL directly as it saves time and reduces error (this is very true for how I search).

What matters in the end, however, is that in order to make a buyer’s “short list,” you must ensure your company and its content get found by potential buyers.

During the initial Research phase, 42% of buyers evaluate four or more suppliers but as buyers move toward the Procurement stage, only 26% get quotes from those four suppliers — meaning 74% go with fewer suppliers.

Those that drop off the list are often those who did not provide the right level of information to buyers or did not meet some other perceived or real need in the buyer.

So, what does this mean for small and mid-sized B2B companies?

1. Continually add new content to your site that helps buyers at all stages of the buy cycle make purchasing decisions and that educates them about how you’ll help solve their problems / challenges.

2. Optimize this content — and push it out via social media and other tactics — so that buyers can find it no matter where they are (i.e. using search engines or lurking on LinkedIn) as well as driving them back to your site.

3. Develop methods for keeping your company top of mind for not-yet-ready-to-buy prospects, including Webinars, e-newsletters and other methods.

4. Ask your prospects what kind of information they need to make purchasing decisions — and then give it to them.

5. Rinse, repeat.

Related posts:

• Your B2B Small Business Website is Not a Brochure
• Is Your Website a Small Town or a Thriving Metropolis?
• Leads from Websites Best B2B Lead Gen Tactic

March, 2010
Published by Dianna Huff
Volume 10, Number 2

Welcome!

One question I hear frequently, whether I'm speaking before a group or with clients is, "How do you find time for social media?" I admit it, social media can take up a lot of time, especially if you're a small business trying to manage multiple platforms (i.e. Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube, etc.). In this month's issue, I give you some tips and tools you can use to effectively manage social media -- versus letting it manage you.

This month also marks a huge change: I've incorporated this newsletter -- and my Website -- into WordPress. Be sure to mosey on through my site -- I've completely revamped my messaging, service offerings and learning center. Enjoy!

Regards,

Dianna Huff

Finding Time for Social Media -- Six Tips and Tricks

It's the dirty secret many marketers don't like to admit: yes, social media can be overwhelming and it does cut into work time. This is especially true for small business owners and marketers who run lean and mean and don't have time to fully integrate various social media platforms (i.e. Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Google Buzz, etc.) into their daily routines.

Ignoring social media isn't the answer either, especially since it offers so many business benefits, such as increased exposure and brand awareness, networking, customer feedback, and yes, even leads and sales.

So how do you manage it -- versus letting it manage you? I've listed a few of my tips.

1. Have a strategy in place first -- If you jump into Twitter or Facebook without a plan for why you're doing so, you'll become like Alice in Wonderland who runs down the rabbit hole with no idea where she's going. Before you make the social media leap, ask yourself the following:

• What is our objective?
• What do we want to achieve and how will social media help us meet these goals?
• How will we measure outcomes?
• Who on our team will monitor and respond to people who engage with us?
• How much time do we have to devote to social media?
• Which platforms are best for our business?

2. Don't be afraid to start off slowly -- Many people mistakenly believe they have to be and do everything all at once. Nothing is further from the truth.

You can start off with LinkedIn, and once you feel comfortable with it, move on to Twitter or Facebook or Google Buzz. And, you don't have to do Facebook or Google Buzz if you don't want to. (Honest.) What's most important is that you consistently engage with your platform of choice -- rather than opening a profile, posting a couple of things, and then abandoning it.

3. Set a posting schedule -- Tim Ferris, author of, The Four Hour Work Week, talks a great deal about how to manage email. One of his tips is to simply stop checking it 20 hundred times a day. (Guilty as charged.)

It works the same way with social media. Set a time of day where you'll check your LinkedIn group, your Twitter feed, etc. and reply to those who've engaged with you, post a question or answer to a discussion, or post links to content you've read.

I've found that it helps to set aside a half hour or so twice a week to read blogs and then post links to those articles I think my followers will find interesting. Not only does "batching" this task save time, it also cuts down on the overwhelm of too much information.

4. Use tools to help manage multiple accounts -- If you're a business with multiple employees posting on Twitter, or if you're a consultant / agency managing multiple client accounts, it really helps to use tools such as HootSuite or TweetDeck. These tools combine various other tools, such as a URL shortener, and they eliminate having to log in and out multiple times.

5. Announce when you're taking a break -- Let's face it, you can't be "on" all the time. You will have times when you need a break from social media so that you can focus on big projects. I, for example, took a 6-week break from my blog and other social activities so that I could work on my Website. Jeremiah Owyang, a prominent blogger and industry analyst, took a break last year from Twitter.

If you need a break, it pays to tell your network / followers that you are taking one, the reason, and how long it will last. This way people will know you're working on something else versus falling off the face of the planet.

6. Outsource it -- You can find lots of blog posts about the ethics of ghost-blogging or ghost-tweeting, but the fact is, if you're a small business, you may not be able to manage a social media campaign on your own.

Look for an agency, consultant, or even a virtual assistant who can help you. My virtual assistant, for example, knows HootSuite inside and out and manages accounts for multiple clients.

Social media is magic: you create content, you publish the content and alert your network that it exists, and then people come to your site, comment on it, download it, and tell others about it. Yeah!

The trick to making the magic happen is to manage your social media efforts the same way you would any marketing campaign: have a strategy in place based on your business and marketing objectives, set realistic expectations, and don't buy into the hype that you must be "on" 24/7. Follow the above tips and you'll find social media to be a rewarding experience.

Save Time and Money.
Hire Me to Write Your Next Website

Are you redesigning and/or rewriting your corporate Website and need help incorporating search engine optimization (SEO) and social media – while at the same time communicating your message?

Don’t try to do all of this yourself. Instead, hire me to help you manage your project start to finish. As a professional and experienced results-based B2B marketer, I'll help you:

• Determine your Website's objective (i.e.: what do you want prospects to do once they get to your site?).
• Develop your messages by interviewing key people within your organization and researching your competitors and industry.
• Write clean, energetic copy that compels site visitors (your prospects) to take action.
• Optimize the site so that prospects can find it in the search engines.
• Recommend how to create new content that brings in more traffic and links (important for SEO).

To learn more about my services, take a look at my B2B Website Development Services to see how you can put my award-winning expertise to work for you -- or call 603-382-8093.

“Dianna was referred to us to help write the copy for our new Website. Our goal was to have our company's dedication to customer service and industry experience come through to site visitors, and Dianna accomplished that extremely well. She listened to what we were trying to communicate on the site, organized it, and then put it into black-and-white. Dianna also made excellent suggestions to make sure the site was contemporary. Our copy was also ready when she said it would be! If you work with Dianna you are in for a very professional pleasant experience.”

Laura Soussan
VP Marketing
CommSat.net

Contact DH Communications

Telephone: 603-382-8093
Email: info@dhcommunications.com

Keep up with the latest MarCom news at The MarCom Writer Blog.

I’ve spent the better part of the last two months doing a serious update to my Website. If you’re reading this post through a blog reader, click on through and take a peek.

Because traffic to my blog had outstripped traffic to my site, and because I was tired of maintaining two sites, I incorporated the blog into my site and moved the whole kit and kaboodle to WordPress.

Woot! This is something I’ve wanted to do for quite a while now.

Working on a project of this nature is like redoing your bathroom. You take down the ugly wallpaper and realize you need to gut the entire bathroom.

I started moving content over and quickly realized my old copy did not describe what I now offer clients — my business having changed dramatically in the last two years.

As a result, I had an existential break-down trying to figure out what exactly I do for a living — and ended up calling Michele Linn, who graciously took over writing my Services pages and my “Why I’m Different” page. She also went through my entire site and made a bunch of recommendations — all of which I incorporated.

Michele, you are awesome! XOXOXOXOXOXOX

A huge thank you, too, to Stephen and Rachel at Cre8d Design who oversaw the move, redesigned the headers, and made sure everything works fine. If you need WordPress experts — call them. They’re the absolute best.

Take a look around and let me know what you think. And if you find any typos or broken links, let me know and I’ll send you a $5 Starbucks card.

Now I’m off to go have a cocktail (maybe two!).

One thing about blogging — you have to post content on regular basis (re: at least twice a week).

Consequently, I always feel anxious when I don’t post, especially since I said I would be posting new marketing e-books and reports every Friday.

Do I have a good excuse? Actually, I do.

I’ve been working on my own marketing — and in order to get the project done by the end of February (versus stringing it out for six months), I’ve let everything else fall by the wayside, including this blog, my e-newsletter, sleep, and cleaning my house.

So, until I resurface, please amuse yourselves with finding Waldo. Cheers!

My colleague, good friend and fellow blogger B2B sales lead expert Mac McIntosh and I are putting together an e-book on the top 10 silly B2B marketing mistakes — and we want you to be part of it!

Here’s how it works:

Use our special survey link to tell us what you think are the top 10 B2B marketing mistakes. These can be anything from PPC ad campaign no-nos and social media blunders to “old school” marketing snafus including trade shows, print ads, etc.

We’ll collect your lists for the next two weeks (submission deadline is February 12, 2010) and then collate the results to determine what you, our fellow B2B marketers, think are the top 10 B2B marketing mistakes that others are making.

Everyone who shares their list of mistakes will have their name listed in the e-book along with a live link to your blog, Website, or LinkedIn profile. (Just gives us the link you prefer to use.)

So what are you waiting for? Submit your top 10 B2B marketing mistakes list right now.

For Retweeting purposes, the Bitly URL is: http://bit.ly/9fsKNr

Joe Pulizzi of the Junta42 blog published his third annual 2010 Content Marketing Spending Survey. (Registration for this survey is free.)

One question the survey addressed: “Products deemed important to know about in order to execute marketing strategies” — with all of the usual suspects listed: social media, blogs, video, e-newsletters, etc.

What I found interesting is that respondents decreased the importance of all of these tactics from 2009 (e-newsletters, for example, decreased from a whopping 61% to 38%!) with one exception: mobile content. Mobile content increased from 24% to 38%.

Pulizzi doesn’t define “mobile content” in his survey. Hence, my question is, with the advent of smart phones, especially the iPhone and now Google’s Android operating system, isn’t *all* content mobile?

I bought my iPhone in August 2009 after fierce resistance. All I wanted was a phone that did its job — namely, make and receive phone calls.

Now that I have the iPhone, I don’t know how I lived without it and that’s because my iPhone is not just a “phone.” I use it for almost everything *but* a phone:

E-book reader – Thanks to the iPhone Amazon Kindle app, I now read business books using my phone. I love it.

Blog reader — Using Google Reader, I read blogs while waiting in the carpool line or while standing in line at the grocery store.

E-commerce — I particularly like the Fandango app, which lets me order movie tickets.

Social media – With apps for LinkedIn and Twitter, I can keep up with my network and respond to people, too, whether I’m at home, the office, or out and about.

Calendar — I used to struggle with keeping track of events and tasks as my life was tied up in ACT!, a desktop CRM application. Now I use Google Calendar and Google Tasks — and all of the information I need is available at the push of a button. (I ditched ACT! six months ago. What a relief.)

Yellow pages — With the iPhone, I can go to a company or business Website and click on a phone number and the iPhone will automatically call it. It will also map directions. Yet, I can’t tell you how hard companies make finding this important information. Even worse, some company sites don’t show up in the Google search results on my phone — which means they lose my business. (It also means that if your business isn’t optimized for local search, you are hosed.)

Restaurant finder — Thanks to the Urban Spoon app, my son and I found a *real* Mexican food restaurant in Massachusetts. (I mean real, as in California standard real.) Like everyone else, we rated it five stars. We often use Urban Spoon to see what others think of restaurants we’ve seen around town, which means that positive online reviews have become critical to many businesses.

Flashlight — Ok, I admit it. I LOVE the Flashlight app! I often use my iPhone to light my way in dark places.

Suffice to say, smart phones like the iPhone are no longer just for making phone calls. It also means content is no longer consumed by people sitting in a chair in front a desktop computer. It’s consumed by people in bits and chunks while on the go.

You can spend a great deal of time and money creating content for mobile applications. Or, you can take that marketing budget and ensure the content you already have is accessible to people on the go.

If you own an iPhone or other smart phone, how has it changed your content viewing / consumption habits?

How do you generate awareness for your company when your industry is defined by two Goliaths — namely SAP and Oracle? That’s the question that confronted Infor, a company that develops and sells ERP and other software solutions designed specifically for mid-market companies.

With over 70,000 customers, Infor has a strong mid-market presence — with very low name recognition. (In fact, I had not heard of Infor until I first saw their ad in the Wall Street Journal.)

Although SAP and Oracle have been moving into the mid-market with their own offerings, the market has been very poorly served. Designed for the biggest companies, “Big ERP” — as Infor calls it — was retrofitted for the mid-market, and in the process, has created a great deal of frustration.

“According to market research by analysts such as Forrester, people know of Oracle and SAP, and then you drop way down and a bunch of companies get mentioned, including ours,” says Dave Alampi, Infor’s VP of Marketing Strategy and Services.

“We wanted to move the needle on unaided awareness and preference and wanted people to think ‘Infor’ when they considered a business software solution. We wanted to take the big guys to task and create a campaign that would touch a nerve and connect what people were thinking about the market.”

Here’s how Infor set out to achieve these objectives.

Step #1: Develop a message and test it.

Infor’s Cambridge, Massachusetts agency PJA Marketing + Advertising, developed the campaign, which features the “Big ERP” characters who represent the frustrations mid-market companies have with regard to Big ERP software.

“We gave these characters personality,” says Mike O’Toole, President of PJA. “Our creative staff gave them a fun voice — and this voice worked naturally with the social media elements of the campaign. Infor began testing the “Big ERP” concept message to determine if it resonated with customers and prospects — which it did, in virtually every geography tested.”

Step #2: Get C-suite buy-in.

When asked if they had push back with regard to using social media and the Big ERP characters for the campaign, Alampi and O’Toole both said the top brass at Infor believed the campaign was the right thing to do.

One lesson marketers can learn is that it pays to have marketing strategy that’s based on business objectives and real world research — which is especially helpful when you have a new CMO come in when you’re in the middle of creating the campaign.

“We reviewed our goals with Robert Humphrey, our new CMO,” reports Alampi, “as well as the thinking behind the campaign, the details and media strategy, and our research and test results. He became a strong advocate very quickly.”

Adds O’Toole, “Infor isn’t opposed to social media nor do they believe in doing it just because ‘everybody’ else is. To back up our recommendation for social media integration, we used data from IDG Connect which showed that close to 80% of decision makers in the software adoption process use information from social media channels. We were able to prove that prospects and customers in Infor’s industry use social media to make purchasing decisions.”

Step #3: Create external and internal campaign components.

The campaign, which began running in November 2009, features print ads in business publications, a “DownWithBigERP” microsite, YouTube videos, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter.

In addition, Infor ran an internal contest for employees on who could develop the best video or submit the funniest photos. To generate excitement, the company created full-sized cut-outs of the Big ERP characters, mouse pads, etc.

“We had lots of employee engagement,” says Alampi, “and over 40 submissions, including three videos, from individuals and groups around the world. Our employees really understand the frustration in the market and are very excited about this campaign.”

Once the campaign went live, Infor and PJA began engaging market influencers by following editors and analysts who write about ERP. “We commented on their Tweets and blog posts and after awhile, they started commenting back. We have over 300 followers now for our Big ERP Twitter feed — and while that sounds like a small number, these are highly influential people,” says O’Toole.

Step #4: Measure results.

Because the goal of the campaign was to raise brand awareness, Infor will be looking at its market awareness every six months and retesting to see how far they’ve moved the needle. The team is also looking at the impact on its sales pipeline and the number of hand raises due to the campaign microsite and traffic to the Infor site plus the 29 country sites.

And, the company will be tracking RFPs and RFIs to see if these numbers increase as well as the impact of social media on the broader conversation. The team is using Radian6 to look at naturally occurring conversation around ERP and the mid-market within the blogosphere, list serves, and social networks.

“We want to know,” says O’Toole, “how much of this conversation includes Infor and how we can increase natural mentions within conversations.”

When asked what other large companies like Infor can learn from the campaign, Alampi said, “You have to follow through. Our CEO, Jim Schaper, wanted to be bold and make a bold statement. As a marketer, you hear this often but once the C-suite sees what ‘bold’ looks like, ideas get watered down or campaigns canceled altogether.”

“Schaper wanted a bold campaign with a sense of humor,” continues Alampi, “and this gave PJA the freedom to develop ‘Big ERP.’ It’s different, it’s getting people’s attention, and people are responding to it. The campaign, which has yet to be launched in Europe and Asia Pacific, is already paying off. In fact, we’ve even received a couple of leads via Twitter, which was completely unexpected!”

Leigh Anne Reynolds, in her ReachForce blog post, “Set Your Content Free for More Clickthroughs” writes:

I will be the first to admit that I have been very skeptical about “setting my content free” (not using forms in front of eBooks and whitepapers.) I feel like if my job is lead generation then I have to capture those downloading.

She goes on to state that after much consideration, she decided to follow David Meerman Scott’s advice and make her e-book, 101 B2B Online Marketing Tips, registration free.

Although she didn’t do a strict A/B split test, she did see a 1600% increase in downloads. Yep! “Be free, content, be free!”

Herewith, this week’s only featured e-book:

101 B2B Marketing and Sales Lead Tips, Volume 1, an e-book by ReachForce (no registration required).

Today, online marketing is vital to any integrated marketing program. With so many new avenues for reaching prospective buyers, B2B Marketers have to think outside of the box to stand out in the crowd. From significant improvements in marketing program metrics to greater efficiencies in your sales funnel, employing new online marketing tactics can create immediate benefits, if done right.

In Volume 1 of this e-book, you’ll find the first 30 online marketing tips from The B2B Lead, including information on the basics of SEO, optimizing your video for the web, boosting your blog using twitter, how to measure your online successes and much more.

Lots of great content for B2B marketers was published in the last couple of weeks — including white papers. I had to make a decision: should I include white papers in my E-Book Central posts or stick with e-books?

Companies posting white papers usually do so to generate leads — and they can post their white papers on syndication sites which are designed to help them get these leads.

An e-book, however, is different. It’s usually registration-free, it’s easier to read, and the company presenting the content is sharing ideas with industry influencers and ultimately purchasers.

Because I have yet to find a resource that lists the viral e-books being published for marketers, I decided to stick with posting new ones each Friday (I’m also going to include guides and industry reports based on research).

After spending a good hour researching various white papers and e-books, I have a few tips for you to aid your readers when they try to download your content:

1. Make a dedicated landing page or write a blog post for the e-book. On this landing page, give a brief abstract of the e-book and how the information in it pertains to your audience. Be sure to ask your readers to pass your content along to others.

2. Make the free content *really* free. A couple of the e-books I considered and ultimately declined posting here wanted me to log into various sites or programs in order to view the content. A simple PDF link to the e-book ensures that people can easily download your e-book and share it with others.

3. Include a “hero shot” of the cover. Most bloggers will include the cover of your e-book when they write about it — if you provide one for them. When I write content for myself and my clients, I have my designer make a small jpg of the report, e-book or white paper cover just for this purpose.

If you’re unclear on the concept of how an e-book differs from a white paper, be sure to read David Meerman Scott’s, “The New Rules of Viral Marketing” e-book where he covers what an e-book is and how to market it.

Herewith, this week’s featured E-book downloads.

1. Increase Sales Productivity: Sales Tools and the path to productivity gains, an e-book by Nancy Nardin, Smart Selling Tools (no registration required).

This 103-page report sets out to answer the most important question of all — “How do you get sales people to sell more?” How do get from where your sales are now to where you want them to be in the future? You can follow many paths — but the real key is to provide reps with tools that will help them meet or exceed demands through the use of productivity tools. This is a great book even if you’re not in sales, as Nancy covers productivity and presentation tools marketers can use, too. It also gives you great insight into the sales job. (To download the e-book, look for the link in the sidebar of Nancy’s blog.)

2. Social Media and Content Marketing Predictions for 2010, an e-book by Junta42 (no registration required).

This 75-page e-book covers over 100 social media and content marketing predictions for 2010 from the most influential marketers in the world.

3. Design Nurturing Programs to Drive Sales, a guide by Ardath Albee, Marketing Interactions (no registration required).

With longer buying cycles, unprecedented information availability and buyers delaying sales conversations it’s imperative to continuously evolve your lead nurturing programs to parallel their needs. In this guide you’ll learn how lead nurturing differs from lead generation, the 7 Stages of the buying process and how to address them, and the three types of content that influence buying decisions — plus lots more.

4. Gaijin Male Model: A Case Study in Conflict-Driven Business Writing, an e-book by David Meerman Scott (no registration required).

Sadly, very few marketers and business writers introduce conflict in their writing. We all see tons of this stuff instead: “Here’s our product. It is great. Here are customers who say it is great. Now buy some of our product.” In this e-book, David gives an example of conflict-based writing in the hopes of getting you to think about how to introduce conflict into your own writing.