The O&Y Tech Marketing Blog

Demand Management > Demand Creation

2012-01-03T09:17:00.000-08:00

According to Forrester's Stephen Davidson, for 2012, demand management wins out across the board. "In years past, the top priority for our tech marketing members centered around 'driving leads into the funnel.' In 2012, tech marketing execs still care about driving leads, but there is an increased desire to trade lead volume for better lead quality... Quality that comes from strong nurturing activities to help leads move from the top of funnel into the middle and ultimately into a position where they are 'sales-ready.' " Needless to say, I couldn't agree more!

B2B in the World of Social Media

2011-07-07T10:39:00.000-07:00

.Top B2B players use social networks to help expand the reach of their marketing and demand creation initiativ

Does the hype that surrounds social media's influence on how and what consumers buy translate to the business environment? One can point to countless examples of how consumers have learned to block-out marketing messages, yet still put a lot of weight on the opinions of their social media "network," ultimately influencing the purchases they make. Since B2B buyers are, in fact, also "consumers," one might expect that the same behavior would carry over to their business purchases. But that's not always the case.

While business buyers are now starting to make heavy use of social media for business purposes, they still tend to rely heavily on "traditional" sources of information when making business purchase decisions — sources such as peers and colleagues, vendor rankings, magazines, reviews, consultants, analyst firms, and even vendors themselves. The appearance of "objectivity" means that the message is received with fewer "filters," and given greater credibility, than a similar message contained in traditional, sales-oriented marketing literature. A report by Forrester Research concluded that 84% of all B2B buyers are influenced by word of mouth... and social media presents an ideal platform for communicating this type of credible message.

The good news for marketers is that the business buyer is, without a doubt, increasingly "going social," starting from when when they first recognize that they have a problem which needs to be solved. As Forrester's Josh Bernoff says: "If you're a B2B marketer and you're not using social technologies in your marketing, it means you're late." Utilizing social media in much the same way they do in their personal lives, B2B purchasers are now looking to their social networks - and to social media, in general - to capitalize on the knowledge and experience of other users and experts in specific topic areas. Again, the search is for an objective, "credible" message.

One key to success for the B2B marketer is to interact with their target audiences much earlier in the decision-making cycle... this requires a big shift for many marketers, many of whom seem to be content to simply use social media to pump out the same old marketing messages. Success requires that marketers build trust and credibility early, long before prospective customers enter into an active buying cycle... Marketers need to demonstrate that they have expertise in the problem areas addressed by their products or services, and not just be pimps for their products.

Another — even more critical — component is creating (and nurturing) customer advocates for your product or service. Because the opinion of an actual user of your product or service carries far more credibility than that of you as a marketer. And this falls squarely in the realm of social media. But remember, the likelihood of a customer recommending you to a friend or colleague doesn't depend solely on the quality of your products and services or your efficiency... these are just qualifiers for your company to even be in the game. At the end of the day, it really depends on the genuine concern that you show them as stakeholders.

So, when formulating your social media marketing plan, you will want to concentrate on a couple of things:

Identify the Likely Online Venues (Facebook pages, blogs, etc.) where your target prospects might lurk. Look for any third-party research about social media usage specific to your industry. Conduct an informal study of your current customers to see where and how they get news and information, but more importantly, how they are influenced. At the same time, use a free search tool like Technorati, Google Blog Search, Board Reader, and Twitter Search to do some research of your own to determine influencers in your industry that are active online.
Determine Your Key Business Objectives. It doesn’t matter how viable social web channels are for your business, if you don’t align your efforts with clearly-defined business objectives, you're just wasting time and money. Schedule a meeting with all of your key stakeholders to review current marketing and business objectives, and determine how these online communications can be used to help support those objectives.
Develop a Plan for Tactical Execution. Social media marketing takes a lot of time. However, without a plan, you'll spend far more time than you need to. Make a list of all of the engagement work you need to be doing and all of the content that needs to be developing and then assign it on a daily or weekly calendar over the course of a month. This will be your guide and will help to ensure that your strategy is executed and your time — and money — is not wasted.
Identify and Nurture Customer Advocates, whom you can incorporate into your social media efforts, utilizing satisfied customer "quotes" and, if they are willing, even having them post their own comments, on your behalf.
Execute Your Plan. Make certain that you have the manpower to execute your social media marketing plan. Have you estimated how many hours per week it will take? Additionally, have you thought about other necessary resources, such as computers, video cameras, smart phones, and other items that will help facilitate online communications? If all the ducks are in a row, start posting your message to the venues you've identified.
Measure Your Results. With a clearly-defined objective, it's easy to measure your results. When it comes to social media, there are two very important reasons for measuring all of your efforts. The first is determine your ROI, to ensure that your initial strategy is delivering the needed results. The second is for determining how to tweak your focus, in order to improve the impact of your efforts. To properly measure your results, you'll need to capture as much data as possible. You'll need to ensure that your corporate web site is set up with analytic software such as Google Analytics, and that each and every web page and web-based collateral includes a "share this" function, to facilitate easy sharing of your product or service message; I use AddThis. Use a URL shortening service such as Bit.ly to help track clicks on each link shared on social platforms. And use all of the data that you collect to help evaluate — and refine — your efforts.

Social media is just one tool in the B2B marketer's tool box... but it's becoming more and more important with each day, so you really can't afford to discount its value. Proper planning and consistent execution will help to ensure that your efforts are productive and rewarding.

How Technology is Shaping the Future of Marketing - and everything else...

2011-03-15T10:26:00.000-07:00

The role of technology in our business and personal lives has changed dramatically; No longer does it merely play a "supporting" role. Now, it's driving business performance and providing enrichment in our personal lives in a way that couldn't even have been imagined just 5 or 10 years ago. Over the next 5 years, Social platforms will evolve into new and timely sources of business intelligence. Company web sites might no longer be the first stop for customers interested in your product or service. This has the potential to disrupt the way many companies conduct their business, posing new challenges – and related opportunities – for IT, not the least of which are centered around data security.

Also, expect cloud computing to become so pervasive that the term itself becomes meaningless. The focus will shift from simple infrastructure solutions to the development of cloud strategies that deliver increased functionality and flexibility, utilizing a mix of public and private cloud-based application and platform services, to deliver user experiences that will satisfy the needs of a population that is growing ever more comfortable around technology in their business and personal lives.

Is Social Media Killing Email?

2011-02-24T14:57:00.000-08:00

A recent study by ComScore suggests that traditional email is losing steam. They note that web-based email usage declined 8 percent from Dec '09 to Dec '10. But the largest decline - a whopping 59 percent - occurred among 12-17 year olds. The second largest decline, 18%, was in the "millennial" 25-34 age group. Communication habits are changing, and each new generation will find a way to supplant/replace email with new technologies.

Some suggest that the convenience of using a social network's built-in messaging tools are partially responsible for moving a lot of communication away from traditional email clients, especially for personal communication. Businesses still seem tethered to traditional email, and will likely continue to do so, until a) there is a petter mechanism for privacy within social networking messaging tools, and b) until the messaging tools become more robust. While these messaging tools are convenient, they have limited functionality and no real mechanism for filing and archiving records of communication... Look for more robust feature sets to begin showing-up in Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.

In fact, Gartner goes as fas as to say that, by 2014, social networking services will replace e-mail as the primary vehicle for interpersonal communications for 20 percent of business users.

They contend that, the greater availability of social networking services - both inside and outside corporate firewall - coupled with changing demographics and work styles will lead roughly 20 percent of users to make a social network the "hub" of their business communications. During the next several years, companies will be building-out internal social networks and/or allowing business use of personal social network accounts. Social networking will prove to be more effective than e-mail for certain business activities such as status updates and expertise location.

Says Gartner's Matt Cain, vice president of research, “The rigid distinction between e-mail and social networks will erode. E-mail will take on many social attributes, such as contact brokering while social networks will develop richer e-mail capabilities." He adds, "While e-mail is already almost fully penetrated in the corporate space, we expect to see steep growth rates for sales of premises- and cloud-based social networking services."

O&Y Launches New Web Site for Personetics

2011-01-12T08:22:00.001-08:00

January 12, 2011 - Trenton, NJ - O&Y Partners announced today that it has launched a new web site for Personetics, Ltd. - www.personetics.com - to promote their automated customer servicing solutions to the financial services vertical. Based in New York and with a development center in Tel Aviv, Israel, Personetics was founded by seasoned technology entrepreneurs with deep experience in providing enterprise financial services technology solutions. Personetics' offerings include Digital Personal Banker™, a revolutionary new platform for the automation of customer interactions in banking and financial services. In addition to the developing the web site, O&Y also developed their corporate ID and branding, and collateral materials.

Says O&Y founder David Z Orban, "Personetics needed to develop their web site and collateral materials under an extremely tight time frame. They came to O&Y, knowing that - with our deep experience in B2B technology marketing and with financial markets - we would be able to deliver an extremely high-quality product, quickly and with minimal direction. And they have been very pleased with the results." He added, "We are looking forward to helping them to further expand their marketing footprint, in the near future."

About O&Y Partners
Based in Trenton, NJ, O&Y provides a comprehensive range of marketing services to start-up and early-stage B2B technology providers. With a perspective formed by more than 25 years of real-world problem-solving in the B2B technology marketing arena, O&Y brings a level of strategic and tactical expertise that our clients find to be extremely valuable and highly effective. For more information, visit their website at www.oydesign.com.

About Personetics
Based in New York, with operations in Tel Aviv, Israel, Personetics provides next-generation technology solutions that enable financial institutions to re-think and improve the way they interact with their customers. For more information, visit their website at www.personetics.com.

E-Mail Marketing: Yea or Nay?

2011-01-07T09:37:00.000-08:00

Email marketing is all about creating a channel for meaningful communication between your company and your customers. The best email marketing delivers helpful, actionable messages to customers, resulting in increased brand awareness; enhanced good will; qualified leads; and new - or returning - sales.

A successful program of email marketing can result in a higher average order value; increased sales conversions, or increased repeat sales from existing customers. Email marketing keeps your brand or company in the minds of your customer. For businesses with both an online and bricks-and-mortar presence, email marketing can drive your online customers to make offline purchases from your brick and mortar store.

Is Email Marketing Effective?

Uh, yeah. 89% of retailers listed email as their most successful marketing tactic.

Should Email Marketing Be a Top Priority?

Both analyst firm Forrester and online retail research firm Shop.org seem to think so, with more than 88% of the retailers surveyed placing email as a "high" priority, largely for retaining their current customers.

Is Email Marketing Growing?

According to email service provider ExactTarget, in 2010, they expect 54% of marketers plan to increase their budgets for email marketing nitiatives.

How Successful is Email Marketing?

According to a 2009 study by marketing services provider Epsilon, 67% of email subscribers say they’ve purchased products offline specifically as a result of receiving an email from a retail company
A 2007 study by marketing research firm Marketing Sherpa found that consumers who subscribed to email newsletters generated 34% more product sales than those who didn’t
Online retail experts Shop.org found that the average order conversion rate for marketing emails is 6%
In 2009, the Direct Marketing Association estimated that, on average, email marketing generated an average Return on Investment of nearly $44 for every dollar spent

Here are some stats from email marketing service provider MailChimp:

Making the leap into email marketing is easy and relatively inexpensive; it can be launched extremely quickly; and it has been documented to be extremely effective. However, launching an email campaign must be done with some caution and common sense... you really don't want to flood your prospects with what might be perceived as unwanted "spam." Doing so can even get your IP address black-listed, and that's definitely not the result you're looking for. There are many reputable email marketing service providers (at all price levels) who can help you with the logistics of launching and managing a campaign. But perhaps the single most important component is the content of your emails... it can be simply informational, or provide an offer of some sort, but you want to make certain that whatever you are sending will be appealing to your target prospects... otherwise, it will be discarded before it's even opened.

Some Common Mistakes in Planning for Your Startup

2010-05-21T07:26:00.000-07:00

In working with startups and early-stage companies — both as a consultant and as an employee — I've been fortunate to have been around some extremely bright, ambitious folks. But no amount of ambition — or even school smarts — can offset insufficient (or just plain bad) planning. In my experience, the top three obstacles to planning for a successful company or product launch are:

Not formalizing your planning process. This entails documenting both your planning and your conclusions, and — more importantly — being prepared to revisit your findings frequently, as new information becomes available. Lots of folks start with great intentions and flawed research. The ones who succeed are the ones who can accept the fact that their research (or conclusions) were flawed, and can take corrective steps.
Not doing a sufficiently deep dive into the competitive landscape. It amazes me how folks can invest so much ego into their company or product as to be blinded to the realities of the marketplace. Sure, you may think your product is the greatest thing since sliced bread, but if your target market doesn't agree, you've got a big problem. Know your competitors, and not just their weaknesses. You have to understand their strengths, because that is what has made them viable contenders. And who knows, maybe the market doesn't even care about their weaknesses! Be thorough and objective about your company or offering, as it relates the the needs of the market and your competitors!
Not having a sufficient understanding of your runway and your cashflows. You need to have sufficient working capital to build traction and to foster organic growth. You need to have realistic, conservative expectations on both your revenue and your ROI, and you need a solid backup plan (or several) to put into play when your initial strategy fails to deliver the anticipated results.

Don't put tons of effort into writing a business plan, only to throw it into a drawer and forget about it. Your business plan should be a flexible, iterative document, one that will enable your to address all foreseen (and unforeseen) contingencies. And it should be revisited on at least a monthly basis.

Create Demand and Value with the Soft Sell

2010-04-16T07:46:00.000-07:00

Let's face it… most folks don't want to talk to a sales person. Unless they're looking to buy immediately, most people would rather walk around the showroom, kick the tires, and browse without fear of being pressured into buying something they don't need or want. And in the B2B marketplace, it's really not that different. In today's "do more with less" world, there's just not a lot of time to spare, and most of us really don't want to spend what little time we have being sold to. So that hard-sell approach that may have worked in boom times? It's probably not gonna work now… so as a marketer you need to come up with different approach.

The Hard Sell and the Soft Sell

Typical lead generation campaigns are all about the Hard Sell… "Respond Now for a Free Consultation" or "Act Now and Get Your First Month Free" are examples of a hard sell. A Soft Sell, on the other hand, is designed to provide high perceived value to your prospect, without too many strings attached. An example might be a complimentary White Paper that discusses typical pain points for your prospect base, along with an overview of how they can address them. Or, complimentary access to industry research, vendor reviews, or tips on how to increase productivity. And while you still need to capture contact information from those leads who elect to receive these items, the "threat" of a hard sell is greatly reduced in the minds of your targets.

The next time you are planning a lead generation campaign, put yourself in your prospects' shoes… think about how you would want to be approached, and craft your campaign and offer accordingly. And watch your response (and conversion) rates go up!

Email and Search Marketing Top List of Effective Marketing Channels

2010-04-13T08:22:00.000-07:00

According to Datran Media’s "4th Annual Marketing & Media Survey," which surveyed more than 5,000 marketers online, 39.4% chose e-mail as their strongest marketing channel for 2009, followed by 23.6% who chose search marketing.

Those selections far outpaced all other channels, including display advertising (7.1%), direct mail (6.3%), and social media (4.7%).

When asked if social media marketing will generate quantifiable results for them this year, 50.4% said yes, while 49.6% either were unsure or said no. So, it seems that the jury is still out on social media...

That said, savvy marketers will continue to pay attention to social media, if only for raising brand awareness. With the highly-granular targeting capabilities provided by, for example, Facebook Ads, it is extremely easy to conduct tests of specific offers and determine their effectiveness in near real time. I'll be talking more about this in the coming weeks, so stay tuned!

Building Credibility With Analysts

2010-04-02T06:37:00.000-07:00

It's not just "what" you say, but "how" you say it

Make no mistake: launching a new business or product — especially in this economy — can be brutal. One of the major challenges facing us as tech marketers is how to communicate the value of our product or service offering, not just to prospective clients, but also to individuals who can exert influence over a prospective buyer's decision as to which vendor will prove to be their "best bet." And while traditional Public Relations activities go a long way toward managing public perception, there is a limit to how effective you can be, especially when trying to communicate in a cluttered field of competitors, and hindered by limited resources. Which is where developing a relationship with select Industry Analysts can be particularly useful.

An industry analyst performs primary and secondary market research within a particular segment of an industry — for example, financial services or telecommunications — to determine market trends and business models and to evaluate technology providers and their respective technologies. Not only do analyst firms evaluate individual vendors and technologies, they also provide a reasonably objective perspective of the overall marketplace, key drivers, competing technologies and vendors, short- and long-term trends, and other equally valuable intelligence. Analyst firms such as Tower Group, Gartner, Forrester, IDC, and Yankee Group are retained by companies looking to make technology investments, and these analysts provide guidance with regard to which products to buy and which services to retain. These firms provide a combination of market research, competitive intelligence, and management consulting to their clients. From the perspective of the technology vendor, inclusion in an analyst firm's report or vendor ranking can provide a huge competitive advantage for even an established technology provider, and for a startup, it can mean the difference between success and failure.

As you can see, it's important to engage with analyst firms in order to get your message to them; they can't evaluate and report on a product about which they know nothing. But it's equally valuable to utilize their research services, in order to obtain a more comprehensive and more objective view of both the marketplace and competitive landscape. This can be extremely useful for your product development efforts, in understanding market requirements and pain points, as well as in honing your market messaging. Analyst firms can even advise on potential partners or customers, as well as providing insight into sales channel strategy. Many firms also produce national and regional events focusing on specific areas of interest, say, CRM or Business Intelligence. General research reports are typically purchased via subscription, or, in some cases, a la carte. For more intensive, one-on-one consulting and advisory services, most firms offer tiered consulting agreements, depending on the level of your need and length of engagement.

In this article, I want to focus primarily on how to go about developing relationships with analyst firms for the purpose of communicating your product message to them. But first, I want to state that it's vitally important that your CEO be fully on-board with your analyst relations initiative. An effective CEO is one who is completely aware of the needs of his customers, as well as knowing exactly what's going on in the marketplace. But more importantly, an effective CEO is both aware of and honest about their company's strengths and weaknesses. Analysts are always appreciative of a CEO who comes to the table with this kind of candor, and conversely, are keenly aware when a CEO is trying to bullshit them. Hopefully, your CEO is not one of that type!

How to Initiate the Relationship

If you're considering the establishment of an analyst relations function within your organization, here are a couple of things to consider: There are currently more than 700 (!) analyst firms across the globe, and their research and advisory staffs range from one person to several hundred.

Another important point is that these firms make their money from selling their research, either as reports or through custom consulting. In spite of a supposed "wall" between their research arm and their sales arm, it stands to reason that a "paying" client will get their attention more readily than a non-paying one. That said, I've had great success in obtaining good, positive coverage from the major firms without having been a paying client. It can be done, but it requires a methodical approach and some well-mannered persistance... and a little roll-up-your-sleeves "guerrilla marketing."

The first thing you need to do is to research which firms are covering verticals or technologies that relate to your product offering. That may seem obvious, but in situations where your product doesn't fit easily into an existing category, you may need to do some legwork to identify technologies that are similar, and see which firms are covering those technologies... if that's not working out, then you need to focus on analysts that are covering your target vertical(s). As you can imagine, Google will get a real workout! From this initial research, identify and rank in importance the firms that appear to be providing the most in-depth coverage of your technology or your target vertical. Start with the top 5 or 10, so you don't become overwhelmed.

Next, you'll need to identify which specific analysts within these firms are actually writing about both your target vertical and your technology type (or at least similar technologies). Again, Google will be your go-to source, and you should find plenty of information by typing-in a) the name of an analyst firm (i.e. Forrester) and b) the specific technology or topic, or a vertical (i.e. brokerage compliance). What you should find is a fair number of Press Releases containing "quotes" from specific analysts, excerpted from a research report or vendor ranking. Most analyst firms have an Analyst Directory on their website, including the analyst's name, research area of interest, and recently published work by that analyst. But you probably will not be able to access any of the actual research reports, without a subscription. To get around this, narrow-down your Google search, using the names of the specific analyst and the topic, you should be able to find some actual research reports, typically on the website of a firm that has been mentioned within the report. Many of these reports will be "restricted access," meaning that, in order to access them, you will most likely need to fill-out some information on that company's website (name, company, email address, phone, etc.) If it's a competitor, you may want to use a personal email account when completing this form. In any case, once you've been granted access to the report, you can begin to get a feel for the analyst's areas of coverage, etc. Most analysts also have public Blogs, where you can get a better sense of their interests and their perspectives, and possibly weigh-in on topics of interest to you or your company.

You will need to repeat this process for as many firms and as many analysts as you deem necessary. Your final product from this exercise should be a database of firms and analysts, with some basic information about both the firm and the respective analyst (including topics of reports and vendor rankings in which they've participated). Note that most analyst firms are very protective of their analysts, and do not list their contact info (phone, email) anywhere, insisting that you access them through a "Request Briefing" form on the firm's website. When you are ready to do so, you should, by all means, request a formal briefing through this mechanism, but you will also want to find a way to access the analyst through a "back channel." You may be able to decipher an analyst's email address by using one of the common email address protocols, such as firstinitiallastname@companyname.com, or firstname.lastname@companyname.com.

Time to Request a Briefing

When you're ready to actually request a briefing, do so through the "Request Briefing" form on the analyst firm's website. If you've done your homework, you already have a good idea as to which specific analysts cover your technology or vertical, and can request them by name. If you've read anything that the analyst has already written (and you should have, by now), you will have some sense of their perspective on the marketplace and its players, as well as their personal "hot buttons," and can hopefully find a way to address them in both your presentation "pitch" and in your actual presentation. Determine who from your organization will be on the call, and, as I suggested earlier, if you can get your CEO on the call, it signals to the analyst that your company takes the briefing process very seriously. Add analysts like that... a lot! You will typically need to provide a range of dates from which to choose, and the more flexible you can be, the greater the likelihood you'll get your briefing in a timely manner.

Prepare Your Presentation

You'll need to put together a Powerpoint presentation that provides an overview of both your company and your product. You typically have no more than 30 minutes to conduct a preliminary briefing, so it's important that your presentation is crisp and concise, with no more than 15-20 slides. Remember, this is NOT a sales pitch, so you really need to tailor your briefing around exactly what industry problem your product or solution solves, and exactly what differentiates you from other available products or solutions. Lastly, while this initial briefing is not typically focused on deep-level technology or architecture, most analysts are very comfortable discussing the inner workings of software applications, so it's a good idea to have a couple of "extra" slides that take a deep dive into the underlying architecture of your product, just in case the analyst is interested in reviewing it with you.

Write Your Script and Practice Your Delivery

You should prepare a written script for your entire presentation, and detail what you want to say for each slide. You (and whomever else will be presenting with you) should rehearse your presentation at least twice, and make sure that your entire presentation comes in well below the 30-minute mark. Be sure to leave at least 5-10 minutes for comments and questions from the analyst during your presentation, as well as for Q&A at the end of your presentation.

Preparing to Deliver Your Briefing

Most analyst briefings these days are conducted over the web, so if you do not already have web conferencing capabilities, you should arrange to get set-up with one of the various providers of this service. Webex, GoToMeeting, Microsoft Live Meeting, InterCall, and ConferencePlus are just a couple of the main contendors, and these services enable you to share Powerpoint presentations and other applications over the internet with individuals or groups. Some have integrated voice capabilities; for others, for others, it's an add-on. Once you've been set-up with web conferencing capabilities, be sure to do a "dry run" (or two) before you have to do your "live" briefing with an analyst. I've always found it useful to record my presentations (most of the web conferencing providers have a feature that enables you to record both what's on the screen as well as the voice), because it enables me to a) critique my performance and fine-tune it for the next briefing, and b) share the webcast with others in my organization, such as sales, client services, or new employees.

Deliver Your Briefing

When it's time to deliver your briefing, be ready and on the phone at least 5 minutes before your scheduled start time. Make sure that your web conferencing works, and your presentation can be seen. I will typically have a colleague in another office participate silently to ensure that the presentation software is working correctly, and who can alert me if there is a problem. I also take copious notes during a presentation, jotting down anything the analyst might have to say about either my product or about the market in general. Lastly, don't keep your analyst waiting.

Follow-Up

Immediately following your presentation, send a thank-you note out to the analyst, as well as to any of his (or her) colleagues who might have participated on the call. Be sure to reference any comments they might have made on the call (it lets them know you were paying attention), and if there were questions, either answer them within your thank-you note, or let them know when they can expect a formal response from you. Provide them with your contact info (including your mobile number) and encourage them to contact you if any subsequent questions arise.

Repeat

You need to remain on the analyst's "radar," and should plan on re-briefing each analyst at least once per year. If you are fortunate enough to be making significant enhancements to your technology, you may be able to brief them more frequently, perhaps twice per year. I typically shoot to do at least one or two briefings per month, throughout the year, and begin re-briefing them once I've gone through the entire cycle. Also, most analysts will want to keep apprised of your company's progress, and sending them periodic newsletters, notices of client wins, or other interesting news is usually welcomed. Just don't overdo it... communicating with them once per month is plenty. And, if they have a Blog, be sure to visit it periodically, and comment wherever it might appropriate.

At the end of the day, establishing credibility with the analyst community can have a huge payoff, especially for startups and emerging technology companies. When prospective buyers see your name come up in independent research, it raises their comfort level considerably, and gets you into doors that might not otherwise have ever opened for you!

LIST OF ANALYST FIRMS

Some of the better-known analyst firms utilizing traditional business models include:

• AMR Research

• Basex

• Burton Group

• Canalys

• Current Analysis

• Dittberner Associates

• EGI

• Evaluator Group

• Forrester Research

• Frost & Sullivan

• Gartner

• IBIS World

• IDC

• Informa Telecoms & Media

• Mercator Advisory Group

• Ovum Ltd

• SNL Kagan

• Springboard Research

• Strategy Analytics

• Verdict Research

• Yankee Group

Several firms are developing new analyst business models based on contemporary technologies, social media, open source licensing concepts, loosely-federated analysts, and/or a more radical and visible emphasis on offshoring. Notable examples of these types of firms include:

• ConneKted Minds

• Experton

• Experture

• RedMonk

• Macehiter Ward-Dutton

• Quocirca

• ResearchFarm

• Freeform Dynamics

• Wikibon

Got a tip you'd like to share, or maybe a question about any of the ideas presented here? Feel free to drop me a line at david.orban@oydesign.com.

"Why are there all those words on your website?

2010-03-25T09:39:00.000-07:00

A prospective client of mine who is looking at a possible website overhaul posed this question to me today: "I noticed that most of the web sites you build are very busy... lots of columns and a lot of words/sentences..."

His current site is, shall we say, "minimalist," with very limited information about either his company or the service they provide. He told me that he had deliberately made a choice to present it in that way.

I thought about his question, and what follows is my reply:

If you’re selling a product or a service to the business community, you know that you’re in competition with many, many other businesses. One of the many challenges you have as a businessman is how to communicate the business value of your offering to a prospective customer, as well as how “credible” are you as a provider of this product or service.

At its most basic level, a website should help you to overcome these challenges, by providing an easy-to-understand summary of exactly what it is that you are offering. With regard to building “credibility,” you can do so on the web by a) providing the credentials and experience of your key players; b) showing awareness of the business challenges of your prospective buyers; and c) demonstrating knowledge of your industry and any coming changes, regulatory issues, or general evolution.

In retail e-commerce, where you’re selling commodity items like shoes or power tools, prospective buyers presume that a name-brand product available through outlet “A” will be the same as the same product through outlet “B.” In these situations, price is usually the determining factor, followed by availability and level of service – i.e., how quickly you can get it. Consumers buying shoes from an “established” player like a Zappos or Shoes.com know that either retailer is “trustworthy,” and will typically base their purchase decision on availability of a style or size, or maybe shipping costs.

However, in the world of B2B, it’s a little different. First the prospective purchaser needs to have a clear picture of your product or service offering, and, presuming that it’s NOT a commodity-type of offering, they’ll need to understand the business value that you bring to the table. Next, they’ll want to understand what about your firm differentiates you from other firms offering similar services, as well as determining how “credible” you are. What about your experience enables you to ensure success for them? They will want to know how likely it is that you are able to actually deliver on your product or service, as well as looking to see examples of documented success in providing your services to other companies.

That's where your web site comes in. Prospective customers will peruse your site, and based on what they see there, will determine whether or not they feel comfortable doing business with you. The aesthetic quality and sophistication of your website are certainly important, as they say a lot about your company. And, more importantly, by providing a compelling “story” about your company and your product or service, your prospects will be far more likely to seriously consider doing business with you.

I presume that prospective clients spend time on my website, making their own determination about my background, experience, and qualifications. Rest assured that others will spend time on your site, for the same reasons. They may do it before they talk with you, and they will most certainly do so after they have spoken with you. But in either case, it will influence their decision to move forward (or to NOT move forward) with you.

Hope this clarifies things for any other folks out there with the same type of question.

Writing for Your Website

2010-01-08T13:37:00.000-08:00

Content is STILL King

For better or for worse, the words that we use set a tone, and form, in others, a distinct impression of our personality. Of course, when we communicate "in person," we augment our words with a continuous, real-time feedback loop in the form of facial expressions, body language, and gestures, all of which go a long way toward influencing how the listener responds to the messages we're trying to convey. These factors all contribute to whether or not our words are credible, and whether or not the listener "trusts" us as a messenger.

In the online world, we lose access to the non-verbal cues that are so important in our one-to-one communication. As a result, our audience evaluates our online messages very differently, and — without the ongoing reinforcement of our body language and expressiveness — it is MUCH more difficult to evoke trust and, in the case of say, a sales message, to move toward a "close."

Content is More Important Than Ever

Writing for the web requires a slightly different approach than, say, scripting what you'd say in person, or even in a telephone conversation, where some limited real-time feedback is still taking place. To compound things, according to web usability guru Jakob Nielsen, during an average site visit, users read only 28% of the words on the typical web page. So you really need to get to the point quickly... and convincingly. Nielsen says, for example, that the introductory paragraph(s) found at the top of many Web pages — what he refers to as "blah-blah text" — is typically skipped-over by readers, who tend to go directly to more action-oriented content, such as product features, bulleted lists, or hypertext links. So, Nielsen recommends that writers "cut to the chase" with their web content. Don't waste word count on generic, feel-good material. Hey... it's not going to make your prospects or customers "feel good" anyway, so why bother? Your site visitors only want to learn whether or not your product or service will help to solve their problems — and as quickly as possible — so they can leave your site and move on to other business.

When prospects — or clients — visit your website, they don't have the same opportunity to analyze what you're saying against a continual flow of non-verbal cues. Accordingly, it's really up to your choice of words to help them decide whether or not to trust what you're saying, and ultimately, your business and brand. The words you choose, and the way in which you present them, create an impression in the mind of the reader, so be respectful of your audience, and when writing web copy, try to put yourself in their place. Limit hyperbole— words like amazing or unbelievable — and stick to a more basic style of writing. Also, you should write in terms that reflect your audience's language, as well. If your audience typically calls something a "widget," but you refer to it as a "doodad," you're gonna have a communication problem.

Making Your Website Headlines Work for You

Writing good headlines for your website has nothing to do with writing great literature, or even articles in newspapers or magazines. Great website headlines are worth their weight in gold, but knowing how to create them is not particularly intuitive, nor is it something that you can learn by emulating what you read in newspapers and magazines. In traditional print media, the reader has clearly decided to engage and browse through the publication, while on the web, there are an unlimited number of distractions, all just a mouse click away. Folks who are browsing a website typically don't wander through the site looking for articles of interest, in the same way that they might with a magazine or newspaper. They rely on search engines to search and discover content, so once someone manages to find your site, you have an extremely limited window of opportunity in which to engage them and maintain their attention. For maximum effectiveness, you'll want to:

Ensure that your content is easily found via search engines
Increase your visibility and exposure on the topics about which you write
Attract better-targeted visitors who have real interest in what you have to say

While this article is not focused on Search Engine Optimization (SEO), there are many aspects of your writing style that can help to bolster your ranking in search engines. Headlines can be particularly important. To write effective headlines for your website, you'll want to:

Keep your title short — Three to six words is the ideal length, with ten words probably the limit. Search engines such as Google give "high relevance" to only the first set of words you use in the title, and they will typically display only around 8 to 10 words in their results pages (Google and MSN; Yahoo displays up to 16 words). Also, Google looks at the opening keywords of your title and checks to see whether or not they are reinforced in your own content before deciding where to place your page inside search engine result pages.
Don't try to to be "clever," by using irony, puns, plays on words, or any other journalistic approach. Your title should really be more of a "label" for your article, making it easy to find for folks who are using search engines to find articles (such as yours) that are actually of interest to them. Remember, too, that on the web, headlines are often displayed out of context. Make it easy for visitors to find yourcontent!
Your headlines should be able to stand on their own — If somebody was to read your title without the associated article, would they have a clue about the content? Your headline needs to be self-sufficient, and make sense when the rest of the content is not readily available.
Use the same terminology that your visitors would use — Put yourself in the shoes of your prospects, and think about what search terms they would use to search for your product or service... or, better still, your competitor's product. Use this knowledge to craft headlines that will be most meaningful to your audience.

Website Body Copy: Short and Sweet

First, make your "word count" for online viewing about half the word count you might use when writing for print collaterals. Many users find it tiring to read too much text on screens, and they also tend to read more slowly on computer screens than they do on paper. Use simple sentence structures. On the web, convoluted writing and complex words are even harder to understand than they are in print. Remember that web users are impatient and critical. They haven't gone to your site because you are a wonderful person, but because they have something that they need to accomplish. Write in a simple, non-hyperbolic style that allows them to quickly find the information they need.

Also, recognize that visitors — especially those arriving through a search engine — can enter your site at virtually any page, and they can easily move back-and-forth between pages, so make sure that each page is independent of the others, and covers its respective topic without assumptions about the previous page (or the home page, for that matter) having actually been seen by the visitor. It's also a good idea to provide links to background info or explanations to explain names or concepts that might not be clear to the casual reader.

Limit the amount of scrolling that your visitors need to do, and put your most important information at the top, so that it can be seen without any scrolling at all. If you do feel the need to have lengthy pages, make sure that you provide a "Back to Top" anchor link at both the bottom of the page. Also, the Web is a fluid medium, so update your content frequently. Statistics, numbers, and examples all need to be recent, or your company's credibility will suffer. For example, before a conference, your page about the event might have a link to a general info page or even a registration form; afterward, you might have a recap of the event, or provide links to slides or transcripts of a presentation that was given at the conference.

Lastly, most web visitors scan pages; they do not read word-by-word, so if you've got a lot of uninterrupted text, think of ways to make your document easy on the eyes. For example, to make important words or ideas stand out, use highlighting, as it will aid in their visual scanning of the page.

Fresh Eyes Can Improve Your Web Content

Keep your writing crisp and simple. Each paragraph should contain just one main idea; use a second paragraph for a second idea, since readers will often skip over any ancillary points as they scan over the paragraph. When you finally think you have a good finished product, be sure to have others proof it... not just for typos and grammatical errors, but also to see if it "makes sense" to a casual reader. Readers who don't really know much about your business can often make for great editors... their lack of industry or product knowledge enables them to spot problems that might not be obvious to you, so enlist your spouses, friends or relatives. The end result will be better for the effort!

Carving Out a Reputation

2010-01-08T13:27:00.000-08:00

The Crucial Role of Branding and Positioning for Tech Companies

Starting a B2B technology company is a tough business. Many companies try, but few succeed over the long haul. But not all of the companies that fail do so because of bad technology. Some that fail even have superior technology... but they didn't have a good handle on the marketing process. The B2B technology market is a demanding one, with buyers who are knowledgable, pressed for time, and, ultimately fickle. They have no interest in wading through products that are poorly positioned, with lousy collaterals, or confusing pricing models. Which is why a good working knowledge of Product Marketing is so vitally important!

There are typically two things that stand between a technology product and its intended market: The product itself; and a successful marketing plan. Products that don't adequately address market needs, or that perform poorly, already have two strikes against them. But even a killer product, without a sound, viable marketing plan, can quickly go down in flames. Now, if you've got a product that just isn't up to snuff, that's really a Product Management issue, beyond the scope of this article (we'll cover it in the next issue). But, having successfully marketed tech products that were, shall we say, not quite ready for prime time, I'd like to talk about positioning strategies that have proven effective.

First, I'd like to talk about the distinction between Product Management and Product Marketing... In an ideal world, these disciplines work closely together but are distinctively separate, because their roles are somewhat different. At the most basic level, Product Managers "listen to" the market — learning what the market needs and building a product that meets those needs; while Product Marketers "talk to" the market — telling them what your product is and how it can help them. Not a huge distinction, but an important one. Unfortunately, in this day and age, more and more companies are combining these roles into one, especially in startups and early-stage companies. Of course, in these types of situations, you'd better have a pretty good handle on the fundamentals of both disciplines; However, for this series, I'm focusing primarily on the high-level fundamentals of Product Marketing.

Product Marketing Basics

There are four basic components that are essential to product marketing:

Positioning — Providing a clear description to the marketplace of your product's purpose and functionality, as a stand-alone entity, as well as in relation to competing products
Launch — Announcing and releasing the product to the marketplace
Distribution — Delivering the product to buyers
Sustaining — Maintaining sales and market share through marketing and promotional activities Positioning, Naming, and Pricing

This month, we'll focus primarily on Positioning. Positioning is something that happens in the minds of the target market. It's the perception the market has of a particular company, product or service in relation to their perceptions of competitors in the same category. For example, you know the difference between, say, Microsoft and Apple, because of the considerabl work that each company has done on its positioning. Other examples in the automotive industry might be Volvo (safety); Porsche (engineering); and Subaru (inexpensive dependability). In the emerging technology space, though, it's scary how many tech products have gone to market without a clear understanding of the product's position in the marketplace. Until you've properly defined your product, your target market, and the all-important "why" someone would want to buy it, you can't even begin to market it. Positioning is the foundation for virtually all of your marketing activities. And it has to be clear and logical, to both your marketplace, and, equally importantly, to your company. More on that later.

There are many ways to position your product, but here's a good example of a product positioning statement "format," of the type that was used by Geoffrey Moore, author of Crossing the Chasm, from his days at the legendary Silicon Valley tech marketing consultancy Regis McKenna. Moore wrote that "Positioning is the single largest influence on the buying decision." An example of the type of format he used looks like this:

Product Position Statement
For (list the targeted end-user)
Who wants or needs (list a compelling reason for them to purchase),
The (your product or service) is a (list the product category)
That provides (list your key benefits),
Unlike the (name of competing product) offered by (list your main competitor),
Which does not (list the key points of differentiation)

So, the logical extension might look something like this:

For Retailers who need real-time point-of-sale transaction security monitoring, eVanta'sTransView is an enterprise Point of Sale transaction monitoring solution that provides live monitoring and real-time flagging of suspicious transactions, unlike currently available solution that only do so in batch processes.

Here's a slightly different approach — Imagine that you're promoting a service such as tax preparation that targets the self-employed. You might work through a thought process something like this

This service would be valuable because:
The provider specializes in tax preparation for the self-employed.
Customers would benefit because:
Expertise in this area would provide the maximum potential for tax savings.
Lower fee structure enabled because of a narrower band of expertise.
Quicker response (and quicker refunds) because expertise enables returns to be completed in a more timely manner.
This service would be useful for:
Business consultants
Freelance writers
Photographers
Artists
Musicians
The resulting short and long positioning statements might read:
Short
Bob Eckert, CPA, is a tax preparation service that helps self-employed individuals such as business consultants, freelance writers, musicians and artists file their tax forms quickly and correctly, enabling them to reduce their tax liability.
Long
Bob Eckert, CPA, meets the needs of self-employed people such as business consultants, freelance writers, musicians and artists. Customers will benefit from using Bob Eckert, CPA, because Mr. Eckert is an expert in this area and is knowledgable about self-employment tax law, enabling the maximum about of tax savings. Clients also benefit from a lower fee structure and quicker response, because Mr. Eckert's expertise enables him to complete these types of returns more quickly than a "generalist" Tax Firm.

The Essentials

As you see, there are a number of different approaches that you can take. But generally, the product positioning process involves:

Defining the market in which the product or brand will compete (who are the relevant buyers)
Identifying the attributes that define the product space
Collecting information from a sample of customers about their perceptions of each currently-available competitive product and their relevant attributes

Specifically, you need to answer a couple of questions:

Who is your target market?
What challenges do they face that your product can help them solve?
What are the major features and benefits of your product, and how to they align with the expectations of your target audience?
What other products are available, against which your product must compete?
How does your product stand up against these competing products?
What class of product are you selling (low-end, mid-level, high-end)?

Answer these questions truthfully and objectively, and you're well on your way to successfully bringing your product to market. You'll be able to:

Clearly define your target audience
Clearly define your product and product category
Build a product that meets the needs of your target audience (althought this encroaches into Product Management territory)
Determine what kind of distribution system (internal or external) you will require
Price your product competitively (and realistically)

The Competitive Matrix

Another tool that is often used in developing positioning is a matrix (example at right), on which you would plot-out the currently-available competing products within the marketplace, along with relevant attributes, from low-to high (i.e. price, features, innovation, etc.)

A competitive matrix helps you determine your company's competitive advantage (or disadvantage, for that matter). It provides an easy-to-read portrait of your competitive landscape and your position in the marketplace. This can aid in visualizing where you are versus your competitors, and can help you to better understand your strengths and weaknesses. As you can imagine, it is critical that you are coldlyobjective about where you actually fit in the marketplace. Attempting to fudge on this area will only mean that the decisions you make based on this delusion will be flawed... as will your results. An objective view of your "real" position within the marketplace can help you determine which steps you need to take in order to a) be competitive, and b) understand what you would need to do to, in order to be where you'd want to be on the matrix.

The Value of Your Brand

Branding and positioning are key to the success of your product, so it's crucial that your efforts convey a clear and credible promise of value for your intended audience. It's important to understand what a brand is. It's NOT a product, yet that seems to be a difficult concept for some marketers to understand. Sure, you can buy a company. And you can buy its brands. But you can NOT sell these brands to the customer. All you can ever sell are products and services. That's because the brand is just a symbol, an intangible entity that is the result of your company's hard work: PR, media and analyst relations; advertising; collaterals; testimonials; and — of course — a good product. The real goal of investing in your brand is to be able to charge a premium for your product, or to increase your market share. Or preferably both.

Communicating Your Value

In order to gain acceptance for your product or service, you'll need to create compelling value propositions that address not only the user benefits of your product, but also the benefits to decision-makers and key influencers, who may not be the same as the end-user. In B2B plays, your decision-makers and influencers are — more often than not — completely different from one another, and may even be in conflict with each other. For example, say you've developed an application that helps monitor financial transactions at a brokerage, identifying and flagging unusual transactions that might be inappropriate or even fraudulent. Your end-user might be a mid-level operations employee, but they aren't the actual decision maker. While they might recommend products or services, the final decision ultimately rests with a business manager or P&L owner. Similarly, technology products will usually need to be vetted by a technology gatekeeper, say, the CTO or the CIO. Of course, their interest might be in maintaining tight control over technology spending (hoarding it all for internal projects), and they might also be wary of technology (or technology purchases) that did not originate with them. And if there are consultants involved, that can add yet another layer of gatekeeper who must also be "managed."

In this type of scenario, you'll need to look at each participant in the decision-making process, identify their respective hot-buttons, and develop specific value propositions for each of them. Each participant in the decision process must be made to feel that your product or service provides them with real, distinct value, value that they can't get elsewhere. If you already have customers, you need to ask them "What value do users get from this product or service?" You need to determine how they are better-off, as a result of using your product or service. And, what characteristics differentiate your product or service from others that are already available in the marketplace? If you don't yet have customers, you need to be talking to your prospects, and determining what they feel are the most important aspects of your offering (hopefully, you will have already done this before you began your product development efforts). Starting with the answers to these questions, you can begin to create the first draft of your positioning statement. After you've done so, test it out on people who don't really know what it is that you do or sell, and listen for their responses. Once you've piqued their interest sufficiently so that they want to know "more," you'll know you're on the right track!

Employee Alignment

One last point that is too often neglected: It is critical that your employees — at all levels — are brought into the branding and positioning process at the earliest stage. They already have a perception — for better or for worse — of your company and its products. They also may be on the "front lines," interfacing directly with your prospects and clients, and may have valuable insight on how you are already perceived within the marketplace. In order for your brand positioning to be effective, it has to reach every area of your company, and be a part of every customer interaction. In order to have a strong brand, even your receptionist must know the central values, and these values should guide their day-to-day behavior. With proper employee alignment, each and every person in your company will deliver a consistent brand experience to each and every prospect or customer with whom they come in contact. And as a result, your prospects and customers — and the marketplace — will begin to regularly associate your products and your company with the values you've established!

Well Worth the Effort

Virtually every strategic marketing activity — from naming, to collateral development, to packaging, to PR, Media, and Analyst Relations — depends on having a clear and concise brand position. A well-conceived — andconsistent — brand and positioning strategy creates a strong brand equity, which is the added value brought to your company's products or services that enables you to charge more than what can be charged by similar, unbranded (or poorly-branded) products. An obvious example of this would be Coke versus a generic or store-brand cola. Because Coca-Cola has built such a powerful brand equity, it can charge more for its product — which is why customers willingly search-out Coke, and will pay a premium price. Position your company and its products correctly, and you will quickly build awareness and enhance profitability!

Hopefully, this article has provided you with some useful information that can help you in properly positioning your product or service.

Comments or questions? Drop me a line at david.orban@oydesign.com.

B2B E-mail Marketing 101: How to Ensure Success

2009-06-17T07:57:00.000-07:00

For small and mid-sized businesses, e-mail marketing is one of the most valuable and economical tools available. It's direct, it's inexpensive, and it's rapidly deployable. But how you go about crafting an email campaign can make all the difference between success and failure. One of the most important things you can do when preparing a campaign is to put yourself in your customers' shoes.

First, you need to ask yourself "Exactly what kind of information do my clients or prospects actually want?" What will attract their attention and get them to actually open and read — and hopefully act on — your e-mail campaign? What can you offer them that will be of real value to them? It's important to think of email as a fairly intimate mechanism for engaging with your prospects or clients. Any successful campaign will involve a well-designed series of communications that is designed to take them through an extended conversation, rather than just a series of unrelated, uncoordinated messages. Email addresses for your clients — and especially your prospects — are a valuable resource, and the best way to lose access to them is to abuse them. When we don't give sufficient thought to the messages we send, you can almost be assured of getting "unsubscribes" and, ultimately, the loss of that prospect or client. And, as we all know, it's much easier — and less costly — to maintain an existing client than it is to acquire a new one.

So, content is crucial. If it's not meaningful to your target audience, you'll lose their attention, and possibly their business. Stuck for ideas...? Here are a couple of ideas, just to get you started:

Highlight an Existing Client — When you get positive feedback from a client, reach out to them and ask if it would be O.K. for you you to highlight them on your website and in e-mail campaigns. Nothing sells better than success, and prospects are always looking to validate their purchase decisions.

Provide Useful Tips or Market Insight — As an expert in what you do, your knowledge can be extremely useful to your audience. These can be tips on how to make better use of your product or sewrvice offering, or they can be insights into the current state of your marketplace. You don't necessarily want to "sell" in these messages, you just want to demonstrate that you have market expertise that can prove useful to your prospective clients. They'll make the sales connection on their own, and they won't feel like they're being spammed.

Announce Upcoming Events — Got an industry event or trade show coming up? Announce it, and be sure to include a link to the event. If you'll be exhibiting, provide your booth location and on-site contact info. If you're just attending an event, let your audience know if you'll be available for meetings or general networking. And, if an event has already passed, highlight photos of you with clients or industry figures.

As you can see, ideas for content are limited only by your imagination. You can include sales promos, or even industry news. And once you’ve identified the types of content you'll be using, you can begin preparing the actual emailing, building your e-mail list and creating an email template that properly reflects your brand image. There are several ways to approach this, starting with using Microsoft Outlook as your basic foundation, to stand-alone email software packages, all the way to hosted email management solutions, which can range from simple (inexpensive) to complex (expensive.) Unfortunately, a serious discussion of the merits of each method is well beyond the intent of this article.

Finally, it's a good idea to send out a preliminary e-mail in which you introduce yourself and establish expectations about what type of information your subscribers can expect to receive, and the frequency with which they'll be receiving it. Encourage an ongoing conversation by asking for feedback. This will not only engage your customers, but their suggestions and feedback can also help you improve and better target future campaigns.

The next step is to draft an e-mail marketing plan for the entire year. Look at the calendar from the perspective of your customer, being aware of significant industry events that might be of interest to them. Map-out topics and promotions that can help you reach them with pertinent information at the "right" time, throught the year. The time you spend in front-end planning will greatly improve the performance of your campaigns, while ensuring that your audience receives information that is both relevant and timely.

When it's time to push-out your campaign, be sure to do a couple of "test" emailings, to your personal email account, and to family members or friends. Check against not only your "Office" email client, but also against web-mail clients like Yahoo or G-Mail, to be certain that everything looks the way you've intended. Make sure that any included graphics show up where they're supposed to. Proofread, then proofread again. And be sure to proof your "Subject Line," as well. Then, make sure that any included links function properly.

Lastly, be sure to include an obvious "Opt-Out" mechanism on your email, even if it's a simple "Reply with UNSUBSCRIBE in the Message Header" link. There will typically be some folks who — while appreciating your company as a resource — prefer not to receive unsolicited email promotions, and it is vitally important that you respect their wishes.

Five Tips for Better Presentations

2009-06-17T07:50:00.000-07:00

There are few things as deadly as a poorly-conceived business presentation. We've all sat through more than a few, so you know exactly what I'm talking about. So why, then, do we persist in making the same mistakes on our own presentations? Here are 5 simple rules to follow that can help you make your next presentation much more effective:

What's Your Point? — Before you even begin working on your Powerpoint deck, you need to ask yourself "What is the One Main Point I want to get across to my audience?" If you can't answer that question, then you probably aren't ready to even give a presentation. You presentation should start with this ONE Main Point, and each section or slide should essentially provide support for this One Main Point.
The "Jerry Maguire" Rule, a.k.a. "You Had Me at Hello" — Your audience will decide whether or not they like you (and your presentation) within the first 10 seconds, so you need to be completely ready to go, when it's time. Don't be fumbling with a microphone, or fussing with your laptop, while folks are waiting for you to start. Stand tall, make eye contact throughout the room, smile, and be confident. You should know your first three slides cold, and be totally prepared to speak about them without having to look at them. That will help you feel more relaxed, and will help set the tone for a successful presentation.
Repetition is Your Friend — Remember that One Main Point you're trying to get across? You need to make certain that your audience does, too. Even during the most compelling of presentations (you know, like the ones Steve Jobs gives), your audience's minds will wander. So don't be shy about repeating your main point or supporting argument. It's like that old, three-step adage: "Tell 'em what you're gonna tell 'em; Tell 'em; and lastly, Tell 'em what you've just told them..." YOU know your material. You need to be sure that, when you're done, that your audience knows it, too!
Include Audience Participation — Folks who make pre-packaged cake mixes figured this one out a long time ago. You know that Duncan Hines could have easily used powdered eggs in their cake mix, but they chose not to. They understood the power of having the "baker" contribute to the recipe and "create" the end product. You can do the same with your audience, by including leading questions and facilitated exercises within your presentation. Every time you involve an audience member, you bring them a little closer to accepting — and supporting — your point of view.
Deliver With Passion — Remember when you were a little kid, and a grown-up would read you a story from a book...? The uncle who read to you with an excited, animated voice is the one who got your attention! Bring that kind of passion to your presentation. Get out your old copy of "The Cat in the Hat," and record yourself reading it aloud. THAT is the kind of excitement you need to bring to your presentation. Because if YOU can't get excited about what you're saying, how can you expect your audience to get excited...? This, of course, really starts with the words themselves. So, when you're writing your presentation, think about that 10-year-old inner child, and try to bring that kind of excitement to your writing. And don't forget non-verbal cues and body language, all of which go a long way to creating a presentation that's memorable, long after it was given!

There are many other valuable ideas to consider when preparing your presentations, notably minimizing the amount of information that appears on each slide (It's a slide, not a book!), and having a script that doesn't just read what's already on the slide. But the five points listed above have been extremely useful to me in creating succesful presentations, and I hope that they'll be useful to you, as well!

Social Media Marketing: Where's the Value?

2009-06-17T07:48:00.000-07:00

As companies look for cost-effective ways to market in the down economy, many are experimenting with social media campaigns, employing a host of tools, from YouTube videos to blogs to applications on Facebook and Twitter. But it begs the question: Is Social Media Marketing actually paying off for marketers, and how can you measure ROI? While proponents of Social Media Marketing point to increased brand awareness, and — to some degree — more concise targeting, few are willing to go out on a limb and attribute any significant revenue growth directly to their Social Media marketing initiatives.

Social Marketing Initiatives Grow, In Spite of Lack of Useful Metrics

Still, according a report prepared for eMarketer by research firm Aberdeen Group, 21% of best-in-class companies plan to boost their social media marketing budgets by more than 25% this year, in spite of the fact that Aberdeen's research also showed that 39% of companies found it somewhat difficult to measure the impact of social media, and 20% said it was very difficult to measure.

So where does that leave you? Aberdeen and eMarketer believe that by 2013, an estimated 52% of all Internet users will be regular visitors to social networking sites. No matter how you slice it, that's a significant number of users, and many of them will be potential targets for your product or service. The steady stream of updates and news from "friends" are becoming a weekly — or even daily — habit for many people. That stickiness is good news for social network providers. The bad news is that — sticky or not — social networks are still struggling to develop workable revenue models.

"Yes" to Facebook and LinkedIn; But a Definitive "Maybe" to Twitter

To date, the more established social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook have gotten most of the attention, and, among business users, Facebook seems to have gotten the most traction. But a lot of attention has been paid of late to microblogging service Twitter, with celebrities and even politicians (using "ghost-Twitterers"), entrepreneurs, business leaders and everyday users apparently flocking to the service in large numbers, generating lots of attention and activity. Twitter enables the distribution of web-wide messages, called "Tweets," consisting of 140 characters or less, to "followers" and to other social networking sites like Facebook. The initial response to the service has been strong, and eMarketer projects that the number of Twitter users will jump from 6 million U.S.-based users in 2008 to over 18.1 million in 2010. However, Nielsen vp of research David Martin suggests that the retention rate of new Twitter account holders is not particularly strong, and that as the novelty wears off, Twitter use may well drop dramatically. Given that sites like MySpace, Facebook, and LinkedIn already provide a Twitter-like short messaging system through their "Status Update" functionality, many who have signed-on to Twitter have suggested that Twitter may have actually taken a step backward, in creating a web service that offers only a "Status Update" function.

Social Network Marketing Initiatives CAN Lead to New Opportunities

All things considered, Social Networking as a whole has gotten some serious traction, and savvy marketers are including it in their overall marketing mix. For many B2B tech marketers with big-ticket, complex sales and long sales cycles, there is a pronounced need to influence and to build rapport, with both clients and prospects. In this environment, creating demand is really about building relationships, and about establishing you and your organization as a valuable resource and a trusted advisor. Participating in social networks is just one way in which you can accomplish these goals. Your social network marketing initiatives don't need to be enormous, in order to increase awareness of your product or service, and to create additional channels of communication. Use networks like Facebook and LinkedIn to provide information and advice; to pose leading questions; to promote events (both traditional and web-based); and to build alliances and partnerships.

As always, be sure to provide a simple means for other participants to reach you, and even consider providing specific "landing pages," where necessary. And remember to track exactly where your leads are coming from (and what they're responding to), so that you can fine-tune your initiatives for the next go-round!

Smart Social Networking for B2B Companies

2009-04-02T10:24:00.000-07:00

Whether they realize it or not, businesses have been using the "social" power of email marketing for a number of years now. It's just that we've been referring to it as "viral" marketing. Sure, our email campaigns have gone out regularly to house (or acquired) lists, and recipients have been encouraged to forward these e-mails to friends and colleagues. Which actually happened, from time to time. And when it did, it was helpful. But not overwhelmingly so.

The problem, even with broadcast email, is that email that's just "pushed out" is lacking in the interactive dynamics that are essential to maintaining the interest of busy workers who are typically trying to do several things at once. So, while you might capture their attention momentarily, the lack of an immediate and meaningful interaction or a "call to action" means that, at best, your email might get filed in a "To Read Later" folder, or at worst, it just might be deleted outright.

So how do you engage your primary audience -- and, your secondary "network" audience -- more effectively, while still retaining the speed and economy of scale afforded by the web-based medium? A simple solution is to combine your e-mail marketing initiatives with currently-available social networking offerings such as Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter.

By including a Social Networking component in your email marketing mix, you enable the sharing of your content not just to an individual or two, but to an expansive network of individuals. This creates an environment conducive to discussion and feedback, all from just the click of a link. By capitalizing on the traffic found on uber-active networks like Facebook and LinkedIn, businesses can reach and engage both decision-makers and influencers, in ways that were never before possible.

Looking to start add a Social Networking component to your marketing mix? Here are a couple of ideas that can help get you up and running, quickly and cost-effectively:

First, if you're not already registered on Facebook or LinkedIn, do so now. By joining these web forums -- and by becoming active on them -- you can begin to establish yourself as an authority on both your company and the industry it serves. Once you begin participating on these forums, both asking and answering questions within the many "interest Groups" that are to be found there, you will find that more and more people are interested in what you're saying, helping you to establish yourself as a "trusted source."

By joining LinkedIn and Facebook groups, then responding to questions and getting involved in discussions, you set your company up as a resource and an expert.

Use your Facebook or LinkedIn "status" field to publicize your events, newsletters, landing pages or other initiatives. Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter all give users the ability to publish information in just seconds, so it's ridiculously easy to begin promoting your initiative, as soon as you have the basic details nailed-down. For example, if you have an e-newsletter set to publish on Wednesday, you could publish a status update a day or two before the drop, to get your audience talking about it. You could even send non-subscribers to your website, so that they can subscribe in time for the "new" edition, as well as giving them impetus to visit and peruse your web site.

Add clearly delineated opt-in links to all of your marketing collateral, print or web-based. If, for example, you post a new video on your Facebook page, make sure that video contains a link at the end so that your viewers can opt-in. Once it's shared across your new "virtual" network, you'll be reaching hundreds of prospective new customers. Give them an easy way to request additional information. And if you’re planning to send visitors from a social media site to your web site, or are asking them to download a white paper or view a video, opt-in links must be extremely visible. You don't want to bury the link at the bottom of a page. If someone cares enough to check something out, you need to give them a very obvious way to remain engaged.

Use the search power of the internet. You're already (or should be) following your company, products, and industry issues via Google e-mail alerts. You can essentially do the same on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, enabling you to gain valuable market knowledge and insight, as well as timely content for e-mail marketing initiatives. For example, Twitter's search function allows you to follow everything that's being mentioned about your company, giving you real-time access to things you might never otherwise hear -- or hear when it's too late. You can then take both the good and the bad of what's being said and respond appropriately within your e-mail marketing. For example, "Here's a tweet we recently heard about a problem with one of our products, and here's what we're doing in order to resolve the situation."

As you can see, Web 2.0 has provided businesses with many low-cost tools for carrying your brand and message to your target audiences, for a competitive advantage that can pay dividends for a long time to come!

Is Mobile Marketing right for your B2B business?

2009-03-27T10:30:00.000-07:00

The notion of "Portability" and "Beyond-the-Browser" has created potential new ways for brands and content owners to interact with consumers. Advances in smart phones are providing new options for delivering news, information, and social networking, on-the-go to a diverse audience. These advances have enabled content to become "unhinged" from traditional legacy devices such as radios, TVs, and even movie theaters. But what does this all mean for B2B marketers?

It really depends on what it is that you're attempting to accomplish. Are you looking to merely promote an existing brand, or to provide additional information to an existing (or target) audience? In countries like Japan and China, where consumers are generally much more mobile-savvy, current opportunities are more abundant. But in the U.S., B2B marketers will likely find more immediate success with traditional on-line marketing channels like Search. Still, it will pay to keep an eye on the Mobile arena, and smart marketers will begin setting the foundation for future mobile endeavors through optimizing their current online initiatives for mobile audiences.

Optimize your website content for the mobile experience. I regularly use my BlackBerry to conduct searches when I'm on the train. And a surprising number of websites have content that is virtually useless on a mobile browser. For example, a problem with many Flash-based websites is that the website content itself becomes unusable to the mobile browser. So, if Flash is vitally important to your company's online experience, be sure to provide "alternate" content for mobile browsers. Better still, limit the use of Flash to home page banners, or to interactive explainers within interior web pages. But keep your main content in html or xhtml format, so that the highest percentage of potential viewers can do so easily and without unnecessary obstacles.
Maximize Use of Mobile Tagging. Work to improve the mobile user experience via "tagging." Developed in 2003, Mobile tagging is still relatively new, but can be used for brand management and brand protection. Other opportunities with tagging include the recently announced "Microsoft Tag," (http://www.microsoft.com/tag/) which transforms physical media (such as print advertising, product packages, or even video images) — into live links to enable users to access related information online.
Optimize press releases and news stories about your company. When folks conduct searches, they're looking for specific information. Making certain that your stories and releases show up in aggregator's feeds is important, so pay close attention to the keywords and tags that you associate with each story or release.

So while mobile search and marketing are slowly becoming more mainstream in the U.S., B2B marketers should begin to leverage this innovative medium to improve brand awareness, and develop new touch points with both existing audiences and targeted prospects. As Mobile Search and the Mobile Web gain in both functionality and importance, the effort you make today to optimize your web properties for mobile will enable you to interact with your target audience in areas that were never before imagined… in a mobile environment.

Social Media Marketing Basics

2009-01-05T06:42:00.000-08:00

Social Media marketing lets you harness the power of "word of mouth," to help you circulate your message to specialized targets, quickly and cost-effectively. It's another marketing tool that can help you to:

Build and maintain brand awareness
Build website traffic
Track prospects and conversions
Increase ad exposure and page views
Expand customer reach

Interacting with others through the social web helps you to quickly create and promote content and events. The "viral" nature of social media can help you to reach key influencers, enhancing mind share and supporting a variety of traditional marketing objectives. Facebook.com is an example of a Social Media network that is being used to connect family, friends, schoolmates, and business associates, both individually and through "groups." If you don't already have a Facebook account, get one. Once you have it, you can begin searching for and connecting to family, friends, and colleagues, and you'll begin to see connections that might prove useful for promoting your business. Search Facebook Groups for groups that might be of particular interest to you or your company, and join them. Once you've gotten that far, it's easy to begin taking advantage of the power of social networking! Got an event or webcast you want to publicize? With a platform like Facebook.com, it's ridiculously easy to create an "event," and send "invitations" to your connections as well as to groups to which you belong.

Some general tips to increase the effectiveness of your social media marketing initiatives:

Establish Reasonable Social Media Goals. Establish goals and a process for how to get there. Too many companies dive in too fast, with no real plan. If you don't know where you're going in the first place, how do you expect to know when you "get there"...?
Research Your Audience and Identify Influencers. A couple of hours spent on Facebook, et al., will clue you in to which groups and sub-groups are generating the most interest and activity, as well as helping you to identify key influencers and thought leaders in the space. Reach out to these folks with a message that s polite, honest, and sincere, and you might be surprised by what this kind of "brand advocate" can do for you.
Create Quality Content. While people are reading a ton of material online, a much smaller group is actually contributing content. By providing interesting content that is actually meaningful to your social media audience, you increase the viral nature of your campaign, helping to ensure success.
Position Yourself for Your Audience. Social Media users are not just "all business," but have fairly diverse interests. You will need to tailor your message to the context in which it will appear, which may well vary from one Social Media group to the next.
Blog. If you don't already have one as a part of your web presence, now is as good a time as any to start one. Make use of that grey matter, and share, for example, your ideas about how others can improve their business results. It creates goodwill, and helps to elevate your "thought leader" quotient.
Technorati. OK, now that you have a blog, claim your blog at Technorati. This helps to ensure that you are indexed in their search engines for blogs, and updates are automatically broadcast across the network, along with your own blog network updates.
Make Generous Use of Links. Don’t be shy about linking to other blogs and websites in general. Links are the life blood of search engines, and linking raises your own search profile.
Make Use of Videos. Create a “how to” or “top tip” videos and submit to YouTube. It has wide reach, and you could conceivably have millions of people see it. For even wider distribution, you should try tubemogul.com or vidmetrix.com, tools that can help with automation. In generating your content, while it’s fine to brand with a URL at the end of the video, limit your use of aggressive, direct selling... it puts viewers off. Humor can work well, so don’t be afraid to "test" your work, internally or with friends and acquaintances.
Maintain a Schedule of Research. Subscribe to feeds, and use iGoogle, My Yahoo Web or other favorite RSS readers. Keep an eye out for changes (use Google.com/alerts also), and, when a topic of interest comes up, be the first to comment and engage in your topic. "First commenters" frequently get more visibility and traction.
Monitor Analytics. Open an account with one or more of the social networks from the list below, using your brand name as identifier. This will establish your brand or company name, and help to minimize "corporate" identify theft. Begin by working with one or two from the list below. Then, check your website's web analytics and track referring domains and review traffic movements, ,at least weekly. This will give you an idea of which sites are providing the most traction for you.

Here are some of the current top Social Media resources (in no particular order):

Facebook
Twitter
YouTube
Del.icio.us
StumbleUpon
LinkedIn (use the Q/A section to gain readership and clients)
Flickr
Digg
Reddit
Technorati
Techcrunch (subscribe to their feeds)

The real beauty of social media marketing -- and a key to its effectiveness -- is the central idea of developing and maintaining relationships. If you're ready to tap into the power of the social web through connected networks and consumer-oriented media, there are quite a few publications that cover it in greater depth. A couple of good starting points:

Social Media Marketing: An Hour a Day, by Dave Evans
Secrets of Social Media Marketing, by Paul Gillin
Facebook Marketing, by Steve Holzner
Marketing to the Social Web, by Larry Weber

Agility is Key in a Down Market

2008-10-22T19:21:00.000-07:00

Weathering an economic downturn won't be accomplished by a "business as usual" attitude. You will need to be quicker to respond to the market, and will need to take advantage of the full arsenal of Web 2.0 tools (email, web, social media, CRM, etc.), all working in tandem to create demand and generate revenue. You need to aggressively manage sales and marketing activities, and evaluate metrics in shorter periods -- say, every two weeks, monthly, and quarterly -- adjusting and refining your planning as new information becomes available. The idea is to compress the sales cycle, improve accuracy of forecasting, and, ultimately, increase revenue. Measuring your sales velocity is key to this. Sales velocity is a real-time measurement of the speed of your sales cycle. Important metrics to watch for determining your sales velocity are:

Length of sales cycle
Number of sales per cycle
Revenue per sale
Sales volume (total number of opportunities per cycle divided by percentage of conversions per sale)

Once you've arrived at your sales velocity, you should be focusing on actively monitoring key performance indicators (KPIs) to determine which tactical levers to tweak, in order to maximize effectiveness. Here, key marketing metrics to monitor include web initiatives, email, and direct response, as well as sales metrics like sales by lead source, win/loss rations, and customer gains and losses. Monitor these frequently, and be prepared to make ongoing adjustments. Do it pro-actively, rather than reactively, and watch your conversions rise.

Some Easy Tips for Enhancing Your Website

2008-10-22T14:05:00.000-07:00

Businesses live or die by their websites. But even the most savvy businesses don't always understand how to make them more effective, and wind up spending inordinate amounts of money of redesigns, Flash animations, and the kind of "gee whiz" functionality that might look impressive but really does nothing to enhance -- and is frequently harmful to -- conversion rates. What folks should be focusing on is ways to make it easier for visitors to find what they're looking for, and make it easier to convert them from visitors into paying customers. Seems fairly obvious, doesn't it? But a surprising number of businesses just don't get it. So, here's a collection of some easy (and cheap) to implement tips that can provide an immediate -- and measurable -- return on your online marketing investment.

Understand the Language Your Audience is Using. As a simple example, in the software business, some folks might use the term programmers, while others use the term engineers. Since you're not really sure which term might be used in searches, consider including both. That way, you don't have to be worried about which term is preferred by your prospective site visitor, and you won't lose out on prospective opportunities because of a simple linguistic concern.
Optimize Your Copy, Titles, and "Alt" Labels to Improve Natural Search Results. This is really low-hanging fruit, and doesn't involve engaging a whole cadre of programmers. Make sure that your headlines and subheads, as well as Alt tags utilize keywords that your intended audience will be searching on. Consider including a glossary of those terms elsewhere on the site, to improve orgaic search rankings.
Make it Easy for Visitors to Reach You. This is another one that seems painfully obvious, but once again, a lot of businesses don't take full advantage of it. You want to ensure that folks who already want to engage with you can do so easily. This means, simplifying the check-out (or even the "Contact Us") process by using clear language, eliminating superflous content or images, and ensuring that a "call to action" -- whether it be an "Order Now" link or just a "Contact Us" button -- is available on not only your main navigation, but also at the end of every page of significant content about your product or service. A simple "Learn more about we can help you to (fill in the blank)" link puts your call to action right in front of your site visitor, at the very moment when they're most likely to want to engage with you. Make it easy for them to do so!
Tell Your Visitors Where They Are on Your Site. Adding cues makes it easier for a visitor to navigate through your site. Let's day that they've reached your site as a result of a search, and landed on a third- or fourth-level page. By including "breadcrumbs" or other hierarchical links, this enables users to immediately determine exactly where they are on your site, and helps them to quickly find the content they came for.
Use Consistent and Persistent Navigation. Surprisingly, I recently came across a relatively "new" site for an established software development company that had no consistent navigation. Once you left the home page, a completely different navigation scheme ensued for each section. It was virtually impossible to figure out where you were, and while a lot of the site content was very informative, finding it was next to impossible. And because of the unnecessarily complex site architecture, it was extremely difficult to make even minor updates to the site. Of course, this site was done "in-house," by otherwise-talented programmers, albeit with limited User Interface experience, and directed by one of the partners, who really had no clue what he was doing, but insisted vehemently on doing things "his" way. Not surprisingly, they're on their third iteration of the site in as many years, and each iteration has been progressively worse than the previous one. Don't let this happen to you!

There are MANY resources currently available on the web to help you learn about best practices in site navigation, and you owe it to yourself to take advantage of them, and ensure that your site developers -- whether out-sourced or in-house -- are actually utilizing them. There's nothing worse than getting someone to your site, then losing them because they can't find what they came for!
Flash: Use it Where it Makes Sense, or Don't Use it At All. Flash is cool. Everyone knows that. Those great animations make your site look lively and encourage interaction. But did you know that using Flash in your navigation scheme actually reduces your ability to be found in web searches? The problem is that search engine "spiders" can not read text embedded in Flash files, at all. The links contained within a Flash .swf wrapper are not at all accessible to spiders, so you are automatically excluding important page content from being indexed by the major search engines. There are workarounds, but they involve creating an alternate version of your code, which means more work both to create and maintain. Not really a viable solution.

Bottom line? Flash works great for animating images, or adding interactivity within a page, say, for a demo or explainer. But for navigation? I strongly recommend against it. For simple animation of rollover buttons and such, Javascript or CSS is much preferable, and will allow all important parts of your website to be accessible to search engines, and, accordingly, to your intended audience.
Make Sure That All Key Functionality is On Your Home Page. Make sure that all important functionality -- such as customer log-ins, "Contact Us" links, and special offers on products or services -- is front and center on your home page. Instead of making your users click a link to get to that functionality, make it easy for them to find it. For navigation, drop-down and flyout menus provide your site visitor with an easy way of drilling into your site with the fewest number of clicks or keystrokes. Exposing subcategories like this will help create more awareness of your offerings, providing cross-sell and up-sell opportunities that might otherwise go un-noticed.

Not every website investment pays big dividends, but the tips listed above can be very affordable and very effective. By understanding the business goals for your site, you can make intelligent decisions about how to increase your site's search visibility, and improve its clarity -- and effectiveness -- to visitors who actually hit the site!

Some Tips for Successful Copywriting

2008-10-21T09:27:00.000-07:00

One of the biggest challenges for copywriters -- even professionals -- is knowing how to start. Brainstorming and outlines are, of course, incredibly useful tools, but for me, the most important thing is to try and understand the folks for whom your copy is intended. Because if you don't have a clear understanding of your intended audience, no amount of bullet points will save you!

Know who you're really writing for

This is especially true when it comes to writing about software or technology solutions. Typically, as a writer, you have several people feeding you information about the great new technology product or service that they want you to promote. There's the technologist, who is understandably proud of their efforts to bring all those zeros and ones together and assemble an attractive, functioning piece of software or web tools. There's the company owner, who is convinced that his technologists are smarter than any other technologists on the planet. And there's the owner's brother, who knows just about everything there is to know about writing... except how to actually do it. Taken all together, you've found yourself smack in the middle of several competing voices, all of whom may well have good points, but whose judgement is often clouded by their relative proximity to things.

Put yourself in the reader's shoes

What you, as the writer need to do, however, is to step back and try to imagine yourself as your intended reader, typically a prospective customer. In my business, the thing that resonates most with prospective and current customers is how focused we appear to be on helping them to solve their problems. Which means, not so much a focus on them as a prospective buyer, but more on how we can help them to solve challenges with their prospects or customers. So, you need to get deep into the minds of your prospects or customers, and gain some understanding of what their business challenges are... which means also getting into the minds of your customer's prospective customer, and identifying those pain points, as well. Once you've done that and have mapped-out this schema of interconnected challenges, then you can begin to see how your product or service can help them to address those respective pain points. Confusing, isn't it? But necessary.

Who's writing the check?

Next, you need to identify who is involved in the purchase decision for your product or service. For technology and services, there are typically several individuals who are influential. There a P&L owner or line-of-business manager, who is looking to impact some metrics, whether its decreasing cost, increasing revenue, generating a greater number of leads, or something like that. Then, there's usually a technology leader -- a CTO or a CIO -- who is suspicious of anything that was developed outside, or brought to his attention by a non-technical person. Lastly, is the end-user -- the employee(s) most likely to actually be using your technology or solution. As you can imagine, each of these individuals has their own (sometimes competing) agenda, and what is a benefit to one of them is not necessarily a benefit to all of them. Accordingly, you need to be able to identify a series of benefits for each of them, and communicate them clearly and succinctly.

Sounds pretty simple, doesn't it? But I can tell you that when I discuss this with my clients, many are surprised, and have never thought of it in this way before.

Write for all of your audiences

This customer-centric approach to copywriting applies not just to technology marketing, but to virtually all types of marketing. No matter what you're selling, if you can build your marketing message from the prospective of each participant in the value chain, you'll wind up with a message that is much more clear, more compelling, and more effective. Of course, taking this kind of approach requires a little more effort at the front end -- you need to understand the needs of your prospective customers and their prospective customers, and figure a way to promote your product or service as a tool that can help them to be more efficient and effective. More work, for sure, but well worth the effort!

Thankfully, there are lots of web resources that discuss copywriting in greater detail, and the time you spend researching will be time well spent. The Google is your friend...!

Welcome to the O&Y Tech Marketing Blog

2008-10-21T09:07:00.000-07:00

Welcome to our technology marketing blog. We'll be discussing trends and best practices in strategic and tactical technology marketing and demand creation, primarily for use by small and mid-sized organizations.

We'll review traditional and "guerrilla" marketing tools, to help you realize the highest return on your marketing investments.

We'll also look at how you can successfully adapt the strategies and tactics from some of the largest and most successful companies, without spending a bundle on external resources.

And, we're looking to engage in some healthy debate over these topics, so I welcome your comments and suggestions!