Rnordman

Consistency is both the most important part of being successful in blogging and the most difficult. The journey often starts with passion but then it needs to become a habit.

At first, you have a fountain of never ending topics that you can tackle. You jump in with both feet and probably start writing once a day, or at least several times a week. But it doesn’t take long to begin feeling burnt out, which is where the hard part begins.

How are you supposed to continue blogging on a regular basis, and still keep your posts interesting, relevant, and high quality? There are only so many times you can rehash the same information before it becomes stale, and your chosen niche might not change often or drastically enough to provide you with fresh content outside of the standard.

Here are a few useful tips to make sure you get past blogging block and remain awesome while still blogging a lot.

1. Write every time you have a good idea

I write my best content when I feel inspired. I feel inspired when an idea just came to my mind and also when I have had enough coffee!

Don’t just write on certain days. If you have a good idea, you should expand on it as soon as possible. Then that post can go into draft and await a day when you either think it would be best to release it, or for one of the many times you don’t feel like you have the juice to write more.

Having a handful of posts prepared in advance and always at the ready is important. Whether you get sick, are burned out, or out on vacation, it ensures there is something that just needs to be scheduled to publish without any work on your part. By writing these posts every time an idea enters your head, you will make sure you have fresh content at the ready, and on an interesting topic you won’t forget about if you put it off.

Tool for this tip:

I use Google Docs to write my articles down for a few reasons.

I really like their iPad app which allows me to write articles while on the go while being sure they are all stored in one place

I love the variety of free addons that allow me to easily add collaborators (editors) to my doc. For that, I love the free addon called Workflows which makes it easy to manage editing statuses.

2. When brainstorming, don’t multi-task

If you want to come up with ideas, you need to spend some time just focusing on the task. That means eliminating distractions, and only putting your mind to brainstorming ideas for the coming week.

More often than not, when I start brainstorming and go deeper into the subject, I have 2-5 article ideas instead of one at the end – just because I take time to get really focused when expanding on my initial idea.

Overall, I love multi-tasking (and I usually do) but not when I brainstorm. Scaling your news and trend tracking process is a huge help for getting productive with brainstorming.

Tool for this tip:

I find myself much more productive when I curate social media updates and collect ideas within Cyfe dashboard. You can archive lots of data through Cyfe: Twitter search results, Google Alerts, Google Plus search results, etc.

3. Learn the value of re-packaging

When was the last time you went through your old posts and found out how much of it was still relevant? If the answer is “ages” or “never”, it is time to take a peek at that old content. See if anything has changed in recent months that would impact how that information is presented. If so, it is time to revisit the topic with a brand new post.

Take a post you wrote, and start thinking of different media forms you could use to express the same information. Some popular options are Slideshare presentations, infographics, videos, voice overs, podcasts, charts, and comics. You may ever want to gather several posts, and offer up a case study.

Re-packaging content will attract a new kind of a reader using the same posts you have written before. After all, not everyone likes to read; some are visual or audio learners. Here’s a well-organized list of what types of content and in which formats you can create for your blog to diversify your content and re-package old content.

Tools for this tip:

My favorite two tools to create media are (1) Haiku Deck for creating awesome-looking Slideshare presentations and (2) Animoto for creating videos. Both are affordable, fast and great tools that allow you to re-use any article visuals to put together high-quality media content.

4. Set times for writing every week, and stick to it

Sometimes you just have to use some good old fashioned force to get yourself to work. Set times that you will absolutely write your blog posts, and don’t allow yourself to skip it. Turn off all distractions, and focus 100% on the work ahead. Only search the Internet for related information, or potential topics.

Having a firm idea of when you want to write will push you to find something interesting to talk about, and in an interesting way. A lot of your creative block might just be procrastination in disguise.

Tools for this tip:

This one is obvious for most people but I use Google Calendar for recurring commitments. It syncs with my iPhone (which syncs to my Mac) ensuring I’ll get the scheduled notification to different devices.

5. Collect expert opinions and quotes

There’s the reason why group expert interviews have become so popular with bloggers: You get your content partially written by those providing quotes. Plus, you get those experts on board to promote the final piece. Connect to people and ask them share their opinion or experience on what you are going to write on. You’ll find your article half-written down the road!

Tool for this tip:

MyBlogU helps you get experts’ quotes on your specified topic. Create a project, describe your question and ask users to send you their case studies, tools and stories. Here’s how the tool boosted my blogging productivity. MyBlogU WordPress plugin allows you to collect ideas right within your WordPress dashboard.

6. Do a theme day

I am a very productive and motivated: I probably write more than most people in my industry, yet I do have trouble with blogging regularly. One thing I realized recently: To commit to blogging on schedule, you need to create traditions your readers would look forward to (One thing I CANNOT afford to do is to fail to meet my readers’ expectations!)

I’ve done this with Twitter chats. I have promised VCB members to run a weekly Twitter chat. Since my whole community knows that, I never let them down. Since a weekly Twitter chat requires quite some effort, I re-package it into our blog content (to make the most of my time). This way I am positive every Tuesday our official blog is sure to have a fresh expert article on the topic that interests our community. There’s no way around that schedule!

Having a theme day is a great way to always know what you are going to be writing about. Many bloggers will have multiple theme days a week, sometimes a theme for every single day of the week. Since followers will always know what is coming they can be a great help. Ask them to contribute for these days, such as sending in reader stories, and take part in creating your content. They will be more likely to engage, that way.

Tool for this tip:

Trello is the best free solution when it comes to planning your future columns/theme days out. You have lots of options to organize your boards, invite contributors and / or editors, set up deadlines, etc.

Wrapping it up

Blogging productively is hard when you always have to come up with something new and interesting to say. Hopefully the above tips will help you to get past any creating blocks, and continue writing fresh and interesting posts.

I have to admit, part of the reason I’m writing this post is to ease my conscience (Yes, I do have one). Yesterday, I was doing a deal review. It was a very exciting opportunity and a very large deal–one of the largest this sales person would have for the year.

Fortunately, he was very early in the sales cycle. He had done a pretty good job at qualifying the customer. It was a real deal for a significant amount of money. As he described it, he focused on the technology of the solution (he sold technology products/solutions). He had made significant progress on the technology issues the customer was having and the superiority of his products and technology.

I asked, “Why do they need this new solution?”

He came back, “The current solution is very old. They are starting to have some problems with it. It’s not performing as well as it should, there are problems the remote sites are having, there are some reliability issues, there are some things they would like to do, but they can’t do.”

I replied, “I understand that, it sounds interesting, but why do they need the solution?”

He looked at me, eyes slightly crossing. He repeated himself, speaking a little louder and slower (we were having this conversation in Frenglish–a mix of French and English). Rightfully, I didn’t understand some of what he had said, but I responded to his re-explanation, “Je comprendre, but why do they need the solution?”

At this point he started getting frustrated. I tried to explain, mostly in English. “People don’t buy technology just to buy technology, they buy it to solve a business problem!”

He was a strong sales person, replying, “But they are having problems with their current technology, so they need to replace it with the new stuff!”

I replied, “Yes, but the easiest way to solve the problem, in this case, is to just turn the system off.” He looked at me cross eyed and said, “They can’t, it’s a vital system, they can’t turn it off.” To which I replied, “Why can’t they, why is it so vital?”

At this point we had a long pause in the conversation, we were at an impasse (a French and English word). I felt bad, I was pushing the sales person very hard and he was getting frustrated, thinking we were going in circles.

Part of the problem was that he didn’t know the answer to this question because the customers he was working with didn’t know the answer to the question. They were technologists, as well. They knew they had an unhappy end customer.

This is the crux of so many issues we face in selling–particularly if we are selling technology products. We don’t understand why they NEED the solution. We understand why the people we are talking to might need the solution, but that may not be the fundamental business reason driving their need.

Every sale, regardless of what we sell (in B2B), is fundamentally driven by a business need. Opportunities we are missing, revenue we can increase, revenue we won’t lose, costs that we can reduce, customers we can acquire or retain (both of which translate into revenue/cost), quality we can improve.

Unless we can understand these reasons, our ability to maximize the value we create, maximize our differentiation, and close the deal–producing the return the customer wants, is always in jeopardy.

If the customers we are dealing with don’t understand this, then we must help them understand why this is important to their success in solving the problem, and help them get the answers from their end users.

Without this understanding, without knowing the specific business impact of the current problem and the improvement the solution would provide, no major purchase will be approved. Our customers know they have to go up the food chain to get approval for major investments–even if they have the budget. Senior management is driven by business impact/results, and if we and the customers we deal with can’t address these issues, there is no reason the customer should buy because we haven’t demonstrated the compelling business reasons to buy.

This applies to everything we sell! No if’s, ands, but’s!

There is a happy ending to this story–at least the prospect of a happy ending. As we further discussed the deal, we believed we understood the potential business need, though we had to meet with end users to understand the specific impact. We believed the business problem was severe, they were losing sales and potentially losing customers. So there was sound business justification.

But there’s more, because it was a large complex project, the technologists at the customer were looking at a 3 year roll out. As a result, they would be losing some revenue (a declining amount over the project implementation) through the 3 years. It might amount to 10’s of millions of Euro’s.

In thinking about this business impact–which we had to verify–we realized, we could provide not only the product but an implementation plan and services to dramatically accelerate the implementation, avoiding the 10’s of millions in lost revenue. We could help the customer solve the business problem much faster than they ever expected! In doing so, we more than doubled the revenue my client would get from this deal. A true win for everyone.

So we have to answer the question and possibly help our customers answer the question, “Why do they NEED to buy this?”

C’est une bonne idee!

There are a lot of things about modern Internet security that come up short when it comes to providing real protection but easily the biggest offender is passwords. We use passwords for everything, from logging into our mail and social networks to our banks and medical records. And the not so big secret is that, for the vast majority of people, passwords provide no security at all.

Anyone who has seen a released list of actual passwords that people use knows that in most cases, passwords are trivially easy to figure out. And even those who try to come up with good passwords can get quickly frustrated when it comes to defining effective passwords for many sites, which leads to the problem of repeat password use.

The funny thing is that no one expected passwords to last this long. In the mid-90’s when ecommerce and secure web use first arrived, they were mainly a stop gap measure. Most people were sure something better would replace it fairly soon. And here we are, twenty years later, still relying on passwords that aren’t secure, sending them over connections that can sometimes be compromised, and storing them (along with sensitive personal information and credit card numbers) on tough to secure servers that become high value targets for bad guys.

However, there may finally be light at the end of the tunnel. A new specification for strong, password-free authentication was just released, and it could lead to passwords being buried just like that useless old shoe that your dog put in a deep hole in the backyard.

FIDO 1.0, from the FIDO Alliance (which is made up of over 150 companies from across the business spectrum) is designed to use either secure password free authentication, or strong multifactor authentication, to boost overall internet security, make it harder for the bad guys to steal data, and make it much easier for end-users to securely access services without needing to remember 100 passwords.

I recently had the opportunity to speak with Phillip Dunkelberger, who is well known in security circles as co-founder of PGP Corp. and who is currently the CEO and President of Nok Nok Labs and a FIDO Alliance member, about FIDO and what impact it will have on secure authentication.

When asked how FIDO could lead to an end for passwords, Dunkelberger said, “FIDO is designed to make common things you use, like a camera, a voice print, being able to speak into a microphone, or something as exotic as fingerprint sensors, and then using those for multifactor authentication, a much stronger way of authenticating.”

While biometrics are making some inroads, especially with Apple iPhones and in their current implementation of Apple Pay, FIDO does not rely solely on biometrics to provide secure authentication. Dunkelberger said, “The fundamental idea behind it is that there’s a range of things that you want to use. Biometrics is just one. There are other types of exotic biometrics, like your heartbeat. Those are all really exciting but FIDO encompasses much more than that. Simple things like something you plugin, think of a USB key. “

Two-factor authentication is typically described as something you have and something you know. So something you know can be a password, PIN or secure phrase. And something you have can be a fingerprint, a secure token or even a smartphone. According to Dunkelberger, the “something you know” need not be a complicated password, it can be something as simple as a short pin. “My personal favorite is secure PIN. The way FIDO works is that it makes secure PIN, or simple PIN, as viable as a long complicated password.”

The other key benefit for FIDO is that it makes what businesses store much more secure and far less enticing to the bad guys as a potential target. Because it uses standard public/private key encryption, anything stored on servers is useless without the individual’s private key and secure authentication device. “Really the way FIDO works, you’re not doing anything where your storing something, like a password, in a big database in the cloud. All of your credentials stay local and it uses the concept of public/private key exchange. Something we know is very secure and very well documented. The only thing anyone can ever get access to is the public key, which is useless without your device and the private key.”

Interestingly, while the overall concept of FIDO seems radical, there is nothing here that is really groundbreaking. All of the concepts and technologies are mature and have been well-known for a while. Hopefully the time is finally right to put in place a more secure method of authentication, and say a long overdue goodbye to passwords.

Last month Sam Altman wrote a post about board members and why you should want them. I read it and then tweeted it out:

This is a great post by @sama about board members and why you should want them http://t.co/09Har9cfpb

— Fred Wilson (@fredwilson) November 11, 2014

In Sam’s post, he says:

Personally, I think the ideal board structure for most early-stage companies is a 5-member board with 2 founders, 2 investors, and one outsider.  I think a 4-member board with 2 founders, 1 investor and 1 outsider is also good (in practice, the even number is almost never a problem).

I’ve been serving on boards for 25 years. I’ve been in every conceivable configuration. To my mind, the perfect board is either five or seven and it looks like this:

Founder CEO, Two Independents, Two Investors

Founder CEO, Three Independents, Three Investors

If the Founder is no longer the CEO, then I like this configuration:

CEO, Founder, Two Independents, Three Investors

If you have less than three investors (yay!), then replace investors with independents in each formula and you’ve got a winning configuration.

An entrepreneur the Gotham Gal is invested in asked me this question via email a few weeks ago, and I told him this:

This is a long way of saying that you aren’t done once you put one independent on the board. You are going to need a bunch.

Finally – don’t try to satisfy your VCs. They will want “names” “trophies” and the like. Satisfy yourself. Find people, ideally peer CEOs, you like respect and want to spend time with who you know can and will add value.

There are so many different buzzwords and tactics floating around in the marketing world that it can be tricky to keep them all straight. Between search engine optimization, high converting landing pages, content marketing, email marketing and inbound marketing, creating a cohesive strategy can seem like an insurmountable obstacle.

Inbound marketing can drive results when you implement it properly. Marketing as a whole is increasingly moving toward the Internet, which makes inbound tactics even more essential. In fact, 85 percent of companies are already employing inbound marketing tactics, according to Forbes. Most customers start their purchasing process online, even for smaller consumer items.

People want to be sure they are making the best decision, and there’s a wealth of information on the Web, whether it’s brand-provided content or reviews from previous customers. Companies that don’t have the solutions in place to capture leads from their websites could be missing out on significant lead generation opportunities.

One of the ways to maximize the effectiveness of inbound marketing is to invest in content. While it’s easy to lump these two tactics together, content and inbound marketing are separate, although content can improve other inbound results.

Inbound techniques drive traffic to your blog, so it’s important to have quality posts to keep visitors on the page.

Don’t Believe the Rumors About Inbound Marketing

The reason you may not be seeing the results you want from inbound campaigns is because you’re falling victim to some common rumors about the effectiveness of these techniques, Kelly Fitzgerald stated.

When you implement inbound marketing, you can’t let everything else fall to the wayside. Some marketers operate under the assumption that content doesn’t need to be targeted for a specific buyer persona or it isn’t as important to keep up with a social media strategy. Content and social media are crucial for guiding leads through the purchasing journey, and these tactics provide a useful supplement to other inbound marketing methods.

There shouldn’t be any lapses in your content marketing strategy. If you cater to more than one customer segment, you should outline specific buyer personas to ensure each piece of content speaks to a certain target audience. However, you need detailed information about your target audiences to put buyer personas into practice. The more data you have, the more you can highlight buyers’ specific pain points.

Additionally, you need to be careful to not overlook the huge power and potential of social media. Even in the business-to-world, potential customers use these platforms to learn about industry news and connect with colleagues to discuss trending topics, particularly on LinkedIn and Twitter. Inbound marketing doesn’t lessen the strength of social media.

Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other platforms are crucial for supporting inbound marketing goals because they allow you to reach your audience through channels leads already use.

Include Inbound in Your 2015 Marketing Budget

Another reason some companies shy away from inbound marketing is because they think it’s too difficult to measure return on investment.

However, there are a number of metrics you can track from online channels, such as conversion rates, clicks, opens and many more.

This can help you determine progress toward your goals.

Because of the growing strength of the Internet, it’s important to include inbound marketing in your plans for 2015.

This form of marketing can help you make deeper connections with your target audience and nurture potential customers through the buying process, especially because this gives you the chance to provide the kind of information they want.

What kind of inbound marketing campaigns are you using?

It's a bittersweet day for mathletes: Dec. 13 or 12/13/14, marks the last sequential date of the century.

Unless you count 01/02/34, but who does that? That doesn't count

Being that most people reading this will probably not be alive when the next sequential date rolls around in 2103, we've decided to commemorate this important day with a few pertinent details — significant facts for a significant day.

1. The next sequential date won't happen for 88 years and 21 days.

That's 32,162 days until 01/03/2103. Will they be filled with darkness and dread? Or perhaps light and joy? How many royal babies will be born in that timespan? Read more...

More about Lists, Math, Watercooler, Conversations, and Sequential Date

Ask 3 different people and you could get 3 different definitions of a project deadline. Is it something that must be respected? Should be respected? Or rather an option to be exercised if you feel like it? To make deadlines work properly for you in project management, it’s important to have a clear notion of what they are and how to handle them. Project management apps can then help you set, track, manage and update them.

So – Are We Talking about a Deadline or a Target?

A deadline is just what its name indicates – if you cross the line without delivering what you should, then you’re dead (figuratively speaking). For example, a deadline may be defined for getting a sales bid in by a given date after which no further bid will be accepted. If you miss the deadline, you will have wasted time and effort for nothing. Dates for filing your company accounts or paying your company taxes are also often considered to be deadlines, although if you miss them, there is often a solution – pay the additional financial penalty!

On the other hand, a target date is something you aim for, but that you might conceivably miss. It might be the installation of a new IT system or the completion of an office move. It might even be a product release date, depending on any commitments made to customers or stakeholders. Miss a target date and you end up with egg on your face, but usually you can still salvage something afterwards.

Who Wants to Know?

Many people may be interested in deadlines, and how they are going to be met. They include:

• Project managers – personal pride and career prospects may depend on meeting the deadline
• Team members – will want reassurance that deadlines are achievable given what has to be delivered and when
• Customers – will be eagerly expecting (hopefully!) your product or service
• Other stakeholders – including management and company shareholders looking for revenue and profitability

How Can You Figure Out How to Meet Deadlines?

The conventional way to calculate the time and resources needed for a project is to start at the beginning and work your way through the end. This gives you a target date for your project deliverables (whatever they may be). However, deadlines are imposed and immutable. So if your first cut of a plan extends beyond the deadline, you’ll have to rethink it until it fits. Project management apps have tools to take the pain out of this process. They can automatically flag scheduling or resource conflicts, and let you dynamically adjust your planning on-screen.

• Critical path planning. A well-known PM tool for planning tasks and resources along a timeline is the Gantt chart. This is an intuitive graphic built with rules to make sure that tasks are correctly sequenced. Some tasks can be done in parallel, thus saving total elapsed time. Others must be done one after another. This may be because certain key people cannot work on two tasks at the same time, or because the output from one task is used as the input for the next one. Wrike, Clarizen and Zoho Projects offer Gantt functionality, among others.
• Critical chain planning. This approach reverses the planning process. You start from the deadline and estimate tasks working backwards. In applying this technique, you also consolidate the individual task safety margins into a global (and overall smaller) buffer. Advantages include increased productivity by avoiding the trap of ‘work expanding to fill the time available’. Sciforma offers this functionality.
• Multiple projects, multiple deadlines. Sometimes you may have more deadlines than you can handle. It may be possible to prioritize according to returns, risks and resource availabilities. Project portfolio management from PM apps like EPM Live and Projectplace let you assess the best mix of projects taking into account these different criteria.

Getting the Deadline Message Out

Once you’ve figured out which deadlines are to be met and how you’ll do it, the next step is to tell the others. Project management software for SMBs can help encourage, manage and schedule the vital communication for deadlines to be a) understood, b) remembered, and c) met. Examples of tools and PM apps providing them are:

• Social project management (Clarizen)
• Email-centric project management (Wrike)
• Wikis and microblogs (JIRA)
• Project meeting scheduling (Projectplace)
• Reports and notifications from (Mavenlink)
• Real-time project collaboration (AtTask).

Sticking to Deadlines – 7 Things You Should Never Do

A deadline needs to be achievable, even if it is imposed. Achieving the deadline should then be good for the business, good for morale and a normal (not exceptional) state of affairs. However, it’s possible that you’ll have to deal with deadlines that are not just aggressive, but simply unachievable. This may be because of changes in business objectives or the competitive environment. It may also be because of a manager’s desire to appear ‘results-oriented’. Here’s a list of seven deadline sins it pays to avoid:

1. Pressuring your project team to work harder. Quarts don’t fit into pint pots. Reduced timescales means either reduced deliverables or more resources.
2. Making unrealistic promises. Use your PM app to help spot potential problems or conflicts up front. Use it again to politely but firmly demonstrate project limits to others if required.
3. Confusing urgency and importance. This alone can wreck a good project schedule and derail meeting deadlines.
4. Setting arbitrary deadlines. Don’t let personal satisfaction interfere with real business objectives.
5. Giving teams incentives for meeting deadlines. Meeting deadlines should be the norm. Making a big deal out of meeting a deadline suggests that it’s the exception instead. Saying “thank you” after the fact is fine, but beware of offering bonuses, etc. up-front.
6. Amputating parts of the project process. Testing and quality assurance are often victims here, squeezed out in the hope that everything will work. In that case, you’d better hope you can persuade customers to stay after you deliver faulty products or services.
7. Being driven, instead of driving your project. Luckily, good PM apps give you ample functionality to schedule, communicate and manage your project properly, and to show stakeholders that you’re already making the best use of available resources.

Start meeting project deadlines better today. This list of project management apps available via GetApp will help you compare solutions that are right for your business. You can try out PM apps for free as well to choose the one you like best.

 With the horror of the Sony Pictures breach unfolding in slow motion before us, we are reminded that operational security – OpSec – is absolutely key at any company. Whether or not you traffic in high-value data, the expectation that your servers are secure enough and that your data is worthless is foolhardy. You will be compromised and it will hurt. Read More

In enterprise IT, things move so quickly that it’s often hard to keep up. But you can listen to industry leaders and learn what they’re seeing.

Tidemark CEO Christian Gheorghe is one of those visionaries. After successfully launching three startups, including his last one that sold to SAP for $500 million, Gheorghe is now running a business analytics software company called Tidemark.

We caught up with Gheorghe this week to see what the latest trends are in business software. Here’s what he had to say:

1. Back office is the new front office. What used to be an isolated, IT-oriented, back-end management software is now sexy. It’s become easier to use, has better features, and targets a broader user base. It’s simplifying a lot of the complicated back end work, like payroll or employee benefits, and is reimagining the entire workflow process, Gheorghe says. And VCs are pouring their money into it. For example, Zenefits, which is changing the way HR is done (benefits, payroll, tracking vacations) has raised over $83 million, and is expected to grow its user base 1,600% this year. Its CEO Parker Conrad claims Zenefits is the fastest-growing business software Silicon Valley has ever seen. “It’s leading to the grand disappearance of the traditional enterprise stack,” Gheorghe says.

2. Big data is moving to smart data. It’s been quite a while since we’ve heard about big data. In fact, most companies still don’t know what to do with all the data they collect. So there's an explosion of software that promises to offer ways to extract real value from data. For example, Gheorghe’s company Tidemark allows finance people to ask any type of question, and it automatically answers with charts and graphs. Salesforce.com has also been making a move in this space with the launch of its big data analytics platform Wave, and the acquisition of RelateIQ, another big data startup. “How do you extract things from a sea of data? We answer things people didn’t even know they could ask,” Gheorghe says.

3. Security. This is a big brewing story in enterprise software, as hacks of major companies like Target and Sony are suffering huge exposure from recent hacks. There are a bunch of enterprise startups trying to help companies stop these attacks, like FireEye (which monitors networks for weird occurrences), Tanium (which lets companies look at individual machines), and Area 1 (which is trying to help crack down on social engineering). He also mentioned offhandedly that he thinks Amazon is a lot more secure than iCloud. 

 

Join the conversation about this story »

Inflation is rampant in Russia, and the collapsing value of the rouble has triggered panic-buying and food-hoarding among ordinary Russians.

Food prices in Russia will have shot up by 25% over 2014 as Russian's confidence in the country's future starts to evaporate, according to the Association of Retail Companies (ACORT).

The prices are reacting to pre-emptive food hoarding by worried Russians, our sources say. It's not that there's an actual shortage of food. Rather, the price of food is so unstable that Russians are worried that their neighbours are going to start hoarding it — so they're hoarding it first.

One Muscovite resident told Business Insider that ATMs in the city are being routinely emptied by people eager to withdraw as much cash as they can either to change into dollars or purchase goods with before the value falls even further. He said the mood there is unlike anything he had ever seen "including during the crash of 2008-9".

Pork and sugar have risen by 25%, while the price of fish and seafood has also leapt up by more than 15%, according to Russian newspaper Nezavisimaya Gazeta.

The latest data from the official Russian statistics service Rosstat showed that in the first week in December the price of Russian staples continued to rise. Buckwheat, a Russian staple, leapt up by 5.7% while eggs, tomatoes, cucumbers and cabbages rose by between 4.3-6.2% over seven days.

Food prices are helping to drive headline inflation in the country even higher, hitting 9.4% last month according to the Russian central bank.

While the press have been focused on a leap in Russian purchases of high-end cars — a not terribly surprising trend considering that the falling rouble effectively means that rich Russian with large stacks of dollars can now purchase them at a discount — they have overlooked the real story:

Buckwheat.

Buckwheat is something of a leading indicator of Russian consumer sentiment. The grain is used to make bread, porridge, pancakes and local delicacy cutlets. Fears over the future can (and has) resulted in panic buying. Indeed such is the concern that the Russian state has frequently considered building up strategic buckwheat reserves to try to mitigate acute shortages.

Yet these efforts have not been sufficient to hold down the price as it rocketed by 65% this year.

And it's having a massive impact on Russian people's confidence in the future. A study conducted by VTsIOM in late November found that only 51% of those surveyed felt confident in the future, compared to 58% in the third quarter of the year and 61% between April and June. Around 7% of respondents said that they could no longer tolerate the situation.

Falling confidence and sharply rising prices of staples could be a worrying sign that Russians are losing faith in the authorities' ability to protect the value of the currency. The central bank hiked interest rates again on Thursday by 1%, following a 1.5% increase at the end of October as it seeks to halt further rouble falls. However, following the announcement the rouble shifted lower again with $1 now buying just under 56 roubles compared to 33 at the start of the year.

The price rises are predominantly being driven by a 40% collapse in the rouble, according to ACORT executive director Andrey Karpov. Russia imports a significant amount of its food from abroad and these have become much more expensive due to a combination of the falling rouble and tit-for-tat sanctions imposed by the Russian government against imports from the European Union.

In 2013, Russia imported $6.7 billion (£4.3 billion) worth of meat and meat products in total, with more than 20% purchased from countries now on the blacklist.

With no end of the sanctions in sight and inflation continuing to rise it seems as if the Russian consumer is set to be squeezed even further over the next few months. If sentiment turns even more against the rouble on the street, the central bank may have a much harder task on its hands than it currently expects.

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Would you like to know what’s ahead for B2B marketing? A look back at 2014 may provide some clues to what marketers can expect in 2015.

2014 saw more than a few new marketing trends established, and marketers had plenty of opportunities to learn both from their own mistakes and the publicized experiments, both successful and unsuccessful, of their peers.

Looking forward to 2015, what are some of the things marketers can expect?

1. Consumers will continue to be better informed than ever

Consumers have been empowered by the amount of information on the web and they are using it for more than simple entertainment and social engagement. The vast majority of consumers, both B2B and B2C, do massive amounts of online research before making purchases.

The rule of thumb is the higher the cost, the more informed the customer will be. Often, this research is conducted prior to a potential buyer ever contacting the company in any way. This trend will become even more prevalent in 2015.

Gain the upper hand:

• Distribute product information across multiple platforms
• Enhance your positioning in search results
• Post more testimonials and reviews
• Conduct informative webinars and product demonstrations

2. Social media will dominate marketing plans

Social media will continue to be the best way to reach broad swaths of your target markets with your content. While most marketers have not had effective ways to measure the effectiveness of their social media initiatives in the past, this is changing, and the overwhelming evidence is that social media adds value to marketing efforts.

That said, the social media experiment is far from over. B2B offerings from the various social media platforms continue to evolve, and marketers must prepare for these changes.

Gain the upper hand:

• Budget for initiatives and experiments with new offerings
• Plan structured experiments that allow for comparison of results

3. Everyone will use video in some way

Video made huge gains in 2014 and will continue to dominate online content in 2015. Production costs will continue to go down, but the demand for higher quality video will be reserved for higher impact branding initiatives. How-to videos and other information information-based videos will focus on the caliber of content with a corresponding easing of emphasis on video quality.

Gain the upper hand:

• Prioritize what is most important to the customer for each video
• Ensure videos are viewable across all devices used by your customers
• Keep video content fresh

4. Relationships will matter more

Referrals and word-of-mouth marketing have always been the platinum standard for marketing, and this will continue to be the case in 2015.

Gain the upper hand:

• Ask loyal customers to refer you to someone just like themselves
• Go out of your way to make referrals easy
• Provide referral incentives that are meaningful

5. Storytelling will dominate both sides of customer engagement

Brands have more ways than ever to tell their stories. Customers also have access to the same capabilities, often with greater impact, especially if they have a compelling story to tell about a negative experience.

Brands must be vigilant in their efforts to keep the story themes available to customers, regardless of their source, unified, consistent, and steered in a positive direction.

Gain the upper hand:

• Emphasize customer stories and testimonials to create greater empathy
• Repurpose story content as much as possible
• Turn dry product content into dramatic stories featuring customers

Bonus: Listening will be more important than telling

This has always been the case. It is one of the basics for marketers that will always be part of the marketing equation. A deep understanding of your brand’s customers has never been more important. Customer behaviors are changing more rapidly than ever before, and you can expect this to accelerate in 2015.

It’s not just technologies that are causing demographics to shift and customer profiles to evolve. Macro-economic trends are a major influence on consumer behavior and the volatility of these influences is likely to increase in 2015.

Gain the upper hand by:

• Monitor comments and hashtag references on social media
• Get out of the office and talk to customers
• Show customers you care about their lives
• Continue to deliver great value in online content

2015 will have plenty of surprises for marketers, so it will be more important than ever to be vigilant for new lessons while sticking to the basics and continuing to experiment with emerging tools, techniques and online offerings, especially in the social media arena.

 

 

 

While some businesses sell their products, others thrive in the business of marketing sheer knowledge. Whether it’s financial strategy, infrastructure planning, and even self-help, there’s always a market for raw expertise.

But more than products however, expertise can be dangerously subjective and their value is often volatile. As the world once again nears the end of another year, lead generation strategists have to wake up to this reality. It could mean the loss of vital information unless they know how to pitch its value properly to a new generation.

It’s no question that one generation of workers will eventually replace the currently existing one. But in the midst of that transition, lots of things are being lost. Or at least, they are being consigned to history. Sometimes this can actually be good thing (like in the events of old marketing strategies no longer applying). Though in other cases, the baby’s also thrown out with the bathwater.

The challenge though is not just in separating the two. It’s how that separation can improve or cripple lead generation initiatives for age-old yet still vital insights.

• Pitch it as something to contrast – There’s a lot you can learn when you put the perspective of one generation with that of another. Differences can help you understand why some lessons no longer apply or alternatively, why the best idea could still be among the old ones.

• Align it with new values – For example, financial strategy could be just an extension of a Millennial culture’s short-term thinking. On the other hand, it’s also because they value other things besides raw finance. How can you align with this when you’re offering management consulting?

• Helping older customers transition – It’s especially helpful when you’re dealing with older prospect organizations whose contacts are also retiring. Use them to help you pass on to their successors on what it means to be a good buyer or why your product/service has always been a good fit for their company all these years.

In less than a month, a new year will dawn and the world’s businesses will be closer to passing the torch compared to the previous one. Are you prepared to do your part in marketing and passing on vital expertise?

Here on CONNECT!, it’s something we can’t emphasize enough – in an intensely competitive industry, value, not price, is what cuts out continuances, puts an end to pending, and stops you from stalling out. Join us this week for an interview with Don Hutson, author of “The One-Minute Entrepreneur” and a founding board member of […]

You’ve probably noticed over the last few months that there have been some noticeable changes to Pinterest, especially in the feed of pins you get on your home screen. As with most websites and social media, Pinterest wanted to give the user a better experience and deliver the most relevant content to them at all times. To ensure their users are receiving personalized and content rich pins in their feed, Pinterest adjusted their smart feed to enhance certain elements. What does this mean for your pins and how does it affect your exposure? We’ll outline this, as well as how to use these changes to your advantage when using Pinterest for your business.

What’s Pinterest’s Smart Feed?

Pinterest’s smart feed is a new algorithm based on these elements:

1. Pinterest Rating

Pinterest rates pins by putting them through a range of criteria called the “smart feed content generator.” The generator picks which pins they think are best for the smart feed based on the current pin, as well as the source for that pin, and the performance of other pins from the same source.

2. Pin Quality

The highest-quality pins are moved to the top of the queue and stay there depending on its engagement levels. If it receives quality interaction (repins), then it is more likely to stay at the top. This is similar to what Facebook does with popular posts in the newsfeed.

3. Source Quality

The quality of a pin’s source is decided by how often users pin or repin content from a blog or website. This is important because you’ll need to make sure your pins have a destination when you click on them. They should lead to reputable site with good content. Spammers are known to change links in the source to something other than what is indicated in the pin image.

It’s beneficial to pin your best content. According to Pinterest, the best pins have high-quality images that are relevant and clear, with minimal text and no borders, and include helpful pin descriptions.

Pinterest no longer places pins in your feed based on when you pin. In the smart feed, pins are placed best first, not newest first. This is why you no longer see 10 pins on how to plant cilantro in a row if someone you follow is on a gardening pin binge.

What You Need To Do To Help Your Pins Stand Out in the Smart Feed

1. Use beautiful photos

Pinterest is a visual social network and people are attracted to the things they like and want. Think of Pinterest boards as visual portfolios and make your pins as appealing as possible. To help with this, you should optimize your image sizes for pinning on Pinterest. Create tall, vertical images without distracting text, and use high resolution, professional-quality images. You can even create a branded image for pins that work in line with your website and blog. This way your images will be recognizable and have your URL on them.

2. Make sure your pins are helpful

Like mentioned earlier, your pins need to link to useful and relevant websites and content. At a glance, your pins should be simple and useful. Remember: the smart feed relies on quality of a pin, so be sure your pins and destinations are helpful and add user value.

3. Write thoughtful descriptions

Compose descriptions with user-friendly language and include keywords in this text. This information should still be minimal and of value to the user; no keyword stuffing allowed. As with many web surfers, Pinterest users are there to learn and get inspired. By providing ideas and answers in the text of your pin, you’ll encourage users to repin or click through to your website.

4. Repin high-quality pins

Discover quality pins to repin and analyze your own pins using analytics. Pinterest now offers business accounts where you can track and analyze your impact. It’s important to use Pinterest consistently and find pins that add value in order to stay on top of the smart feed.

5. Optimize your blog for Pinterest

If you haven’t already, add the Pin It button and widgets to your blog to make it easier for your readers to pin your content. The more times your blog content is repinned, the better your pins will perform in the smart feed. Besides installing the Pin It button, you can optimize your blog for Pinterest by making all images pinnable, adding the Pinterest follow button, using rich pins, and using the Pinterest Pin Widget to embed pins into your blog content to further engage your blog with your Pinterest content.

Now that you know what the Pinterest smart feed changes mean to you and your business, you can start pinning away once again. This time your feed won’t be bombarded by one pinner who is on a binge and your business’s thoughtful and helpful pins will make it to the top of the feed. As seems to be the trend with social media, we’re happy to see Pinterest improving user experience and making pins more valuable for businesses.

[Photo Credit:  Dr. Cloud / Shutterstock.com]

B2B marketers know there are a number of people involved in a complex buying decision. What often goes overlooked is understanding not only who the marketing programs can reach and engage but how content gets shared among the group. It’s common sense that the more people within an organization your content gains exposure with, the more opportunity your ideas and expertise has to gain sway.

But, it’s not as simple as we could hope for. The CMO Council report, The Content Connection to Vendor Selection, finds that there are three nearly equally weighted scenarios for content sharing among B2B buyers:

• 35% from the middle out
• 30% from the bottom up
• 29% from the top down

While the study arrived at definitions for 6 “personas” – two for each type of researcher, influencer and decision maker – for how people source content and what types they favor, the problem I have with establishing “grazers” or “authority leaders” is that they’re nearly impossible to identify through online behavior in a way that’s meaningful.

Rather than aiming for one type of content sharing, B2B marketers need to take into account all three, as well as all the different types of content people choose to source. From the projects I’ve helped my clients develop and run, there are a few things I’ve found to be helpful for getting content into more hands of the folks in the buying group:

Suggestive Prompts:

Present ideas that are relevant to one buyer persona along with why another persona in the group would find the idea valuable. Prompts can be subtle influencers that become conversation starters and promote content sharing. Make sure to do this without breaking the context of your content.

Statements along the lines of: “While [persona 1 – your target audience] will find value in this capability, [persona 2] will appreciate this outcome as it helps them to achieve objective X.”

Content Asset Balance:

Hat tip to Shelly Lucas (@pisarose) for this term.

While marketers tend to focus on pre-sales content that builds awareness and informs short-list selection, they need to focus on an asset balance that addresses all stages of the continuum buying experience. People on the buying committee will come in and out of the process depending on how the decision will impact them, their role and their workflows.

Different levels of depth and formats of content are more valuable at different times. By relegating marketing content to the pre-sales or even to the very earliest stages of the buying process, we’re leaving a lot of opportunity to impact the decision up for grabs with our competitors. Map the entire process for each persona, as well as the overlays that may drive further interaction.

For example, in the case above, if Persona 2 becomes interested and comes looking for more about how your solution can help her gain the outcome mentioned in the content that was shared with her, will you have it? Will your salesperson know where to find it if she asks the question?

Assess Access First

During the development of buyer personas is when you find out how easily you’ll be able to reach a specific persona. In every project I work on, one or more of the people marketing needs to engage and influence for sales conversations isn’t an easy target. By figuring out who invites the most open access, you can then tailor your strategy for how to ensure your content is spreadable once access has been granted. Think of it as a Trojan Horse approach.

The whole point is to get your company’s ideas and expertise used to set the agenda for how to best solve the problem. And it is doable. It just takes a little finesse.

Having a well-planned content strategy is an important tool for your personal brand. It’s the way in which your business can establish itself as an expert in your industry both online and off. The type of content you choose for your target market and social media marketing is also important.

There are several ways that the right content can work for your brand, which can bring more website visitors with the potential to be converted into sales. Knowing the needs of your audience enables your company to know what topics to write about, and encourages people to come back for more.

Building the right content marketing strategy takes time, and involves a steady, consistent flow of good information. Here are several ways your articles can be more successful:

1. Remain consistent. Whether you are writing your first blog post or re-energizing an existing one, it is good practice to keep a steady flow of information going for your audience. Mix up your topics, add great images and videos, and keep your articles fresh with helpful tips and information. This not only keeps your readers engaged, but encourages more subscribers to your website.

2. Use email marketing to your advantage. Make sure that your personal brand’s website has a good option to capture leads. Then, follow up with your subscribers with helpful tips, event invitations, special offers, and exciting news announcements. Include your RSS feed in your emails with clear links to help your readers find your company.

3. Write for other blogs in your industry. After establishing expertise and authority for your brand, you should be participating in and engaging with other professional bloggers in your target market. As you comment and share their information you build rapport, and this could eventually lead to guest blogging opportunities for more exposure.

4. Be active online and offline – Social media is the obvious choice for sharing your content and communicating with others. It is equally important to nurture relationships outside of the Internet, such as an event or meeting. The more influencers you connect with and create meaningful relationships the better for your personal brand. Make it easy for them to contact you on social media and at your company when you’re not online.

Creating content throughout the month on a consistent basis will keep your personal brand on top. Not only will this create more visibility, but also shows that your are knowledgeable in your area of expertise. The process may take some time to build up, but is well worth the effort in the end.

The general who wins a battle
makes many calculations in his temple
before the battle is fought.

– Sun Tzu

It is common practice in business to have field sales reps (those in a closing role) present Quarterly Business Reviews (QBR’s). The reviews are held just before a new quarter begins. Sales Development Reps (SDR’s), however, usually participate in the QBR presentation vs. prepare one themselves.

If you’re an SDR, knowing how to prepare a QBR is beneficial for two reasons: It influences you to plan your work and work your plan; and strengthens your competency for when you ARE in a closing role. So, whether or not you’re required to prepare and present QBR’s, get good at it anyway.

QBR’s are typically created in PowerPoint, so I’ve built a template for you to download. But first, let’s inspect the essential components of a strong QBR.

The following suggestions assume the SDR is in a business-to-business selling environment. They support field sales reps in a given territory, and are responsible for inbound lead qualification, outbound prospecting, or both.

Questions You Should Consider While Preparing

Thought-provoking questions (of yourself) will ensure you’ve thoroughly planned through the upcoming quarter. They’ll also open-up your mind, allowing you to approach your QBR creatively and with confidence.

• How well does my QBR align with the overarching goals of the entire sales team?

• How closely have I looked at the data in my CRM?
• Can I articulate the milestones and trends in this territory?

• Have I reviewed this with the field sales rep(s) I support?
• Is this QBR insightful, informative, and concise?
• How well have I anticipated and prepared for questions that may come up?
• Is this the best I can do?

Most QBR presentations last one hour, so plan to build no more than five, maybe six slides. Tell a tight story for each slide, stick to the agenda, and you won’t need more slides.

For example, when reviewing the previous quarter, you could talk about the challenges you faced at the start of the quarter, and how you planned to address them. Then, show the results of your efforts, and what insights you now have, heading into a brand new quarter.

Agenda Items to Include in Your QBR

When considering the agenda, think past, present, future. Use a tone of ownership, accountability, and leadership – telling things like they are, and no worse than they are; with an action plan you’re excited to execute.

The QBR summarizes your most current 30-60-90 Day Plan for the territory.

1) Review of the Previous Quarter

Wins. For SDR’s, wins could mean a few things. Show the results, and also highlight how well you did against quota.  Examples to share are:

• # of opportunities created from inbound leads or target accounts
• # of completed meetings
• % of completed meetings with decision makers
• # of completed online demos

Losses. For SDR’s, losses are defined by opportunities NOT added to the pipeline…or added, but removed, within a specific timeframe. Other examples are:

• # of opportunities created that fell through (Closed Canceled or Closed Lost)
• # of leads or contacts that have not responded
• # of competitive takeaways
•  % of target accounts not yet contacted
• % of meetings booked that have not yet occurred

Findings. Tell the organization what you’re seeing in the territory or in the role. Are people taking your calls? Have you run into the same competitors over and over again? Is your product offering resonating in the territory? Is Marketing supportive of your efforts? Examples to consider are:

• The territory is comprised of only two verticals (oil & gas and manufacturing). We sell very little to those verticals.
• There are two potential channel partners in the territory that we should contact.
• In 80% of my conversations, these 3 features drove the whole discussion.
• The competition will continue winning these RFP’s if we can’t update this particular piece of our product.

2) Approach for the Current Quarter 

When qualifying accounts or prospecting in a territory, you DON’T want to wake up and learn your high-value prospects went with a competitor. That news stings even more when you never even had a conversation with them.

Approach the quarter proactively – get started on the action plan, meet with key stakeholders (territory managers, counterparts from other departments, colleagues from your Sales Development team, your sales leader), and manage risk. Example areas to consider:

• Key logos you have targeted, plan to engage, and intend to convert to pipeline
• Competitive landscape (incumbents, FUD they’re spreading in your territory, news)
• Action plan (Demand Gen efforts, upcoming industry events, referrals, outreach cadence)

3) Recommendations

This is your chance to suggest where help is needed and from what resources. Perhaps Sales Engineers can get involved in more initial calls, or maybe Marketing can craft relevant case studies to align with your territory, or the Sales Enablement team can invest in a tool to help automate and track your emails?

Whatever the need, back up your observations, suggestions, and requests with data. And socialize the need with the respective department, prior to raising the issue in the QBR.

One More Thing

Start preparing your QBR 2-4 weeks in advance of the new quarter. If Q1 begins on January 1, for example, then start framing-up your QBR around December 7.

If you’re NOT in Sales Development, and want to see what QBR’s look like for other roles, check out these articles:

• The Power of the Quarterly Business Review, Lincoln Murphy (@lincolnmurphy), via Gainsight
• Sales VPs: How to Prepare for Your Quarterly Business Review, Lindsay Kolowich (@lkolo25), via InsightSquared
• How Sales Reps should Prepare for their QBR, Gareth Goh (@gareth_giggs), via InsightSquared
• Nail Your Next Quarterly Business Review, John Rode (@johnrode), via Preact

 

A recent study shows 67% of SaaS companies receive some percentage of their new customers through free trials. If your company offers free trials or a freemium model, it’s important for you to find ways to increase trial conversion rates in order impact new customer acquisition. While it’s widely accepted that increasing your trial conversion rate is one of the fastest ways to build the customer base, it’s not always clear how to improve it. Below are four tips every SaaS company should keep in mind to help increase their trial conversion rate and user signups.

1. Identify evaluators vs. tire-kickers
During the trial process, most of the interaction between you and your customer is within your application. Measuring usage within your product allows to see who is actually spending time in the application, as opposed to those who registered and forgot about it. Once you’ve to identified those you are serious about evaluating your service, you can then prioritize the high-value leads within your sales effort and channel. The low-scoring trials can be pushed through a more automated nurturing program until they are ready to actually start their evaluation.

2. Drive evaluators to first value

When a user downloads a trial, they are generally looking for a specific value and they will not buy your product or service unless they experience it. In order to convert more trials you need to focus on driving your evaluators through the journey so they experience whatever the value is that you are trying to offer. To do this, it is important to identify what that first value is. Here are some examples:

• Cloud storage product: the evaluator needs to have saved some files and accessed them from another device.
• Online survey product: the evaluator has to have built and shared a survey.
• Online radio product: the evaluator has to create a radio station and listen to it.

Once you’ve identified first value you can put programs in place to help customers reach this stage in their journey.

3. Communicate intelligently

At some point or another, we’ve all used those generic emails after 1, 7, 14 and 21 days to try to convert trial users into paying customers. The problem is that they don’t take into account where the user is in their evaluation so they are often poorly timed. Instead use the usage data that you have to target users as the complete (or don’t complete) specific actions so that you are further driving them on their journey toward first value. If you notice that the usage from a particular account has stopped all of a sudden, it may mean they have reached a bottleneck in their trial experience. Reach out to them to understand what it is and how you can help them through it.

4. Measure your results

To ensure that you are pushing the needle on trial conversions, it’s important that you not only measure your conversion rates but also look at the data to see other ways you can improve trial conversion. The trial data can tell you a lot about evaluators in the trial process, but it can also shine a light on bottlenecks that could be impacting your conversion. For example, if usage drops off significantly at one point in the journey it may mean that the product is too complex at this point or that better instructions are needed to help the user continue with their trial. By solving these issues you can dramatically improve the rate at which your trials convert into paying customers.

Practical techniques to increase response to your marketing emails, from copy to layout to product

An effective email is so much more than just finding some pretty images and filling the copy with superlatives and hype words, in the hope that someone will be motivated into action by this. Based on a recent breakfast seminar I’ve pulled together 15 of the best tips for better emails.

Pick images that speak for your email

We’ve all been told an image speaks a thousand words but the skill is picking an image that speaks the right 1000 words!

• 1. Show your products. An attractive woman or handsome man might make the email look beautiful but if you are selling products, a high quality product image is the better choice. It’s an absolute must in fashion and many retail verticals. Depending on your product showing it in use or context can help too. It helps customer imagine themselves using the product.
• 2. Use the top-left. Eye-tracking heat maps illustrate that users frequently read email content in an F-shaped pattern and read from top left, so make sure the top left image and copy is engaging, as that part of the email has a big impact on what happens next.
• 3. Control movement. Images grab attention briefly before copy is read and how the reader move through the email is influenced by the image. For images showing people the readers eyes will follow the direction of gaze of the person in the image. Or if there is obvious motion the reader’s eye will move in the direction of that motion. Place your key copy relative to the image to ensure its the next point of focus.
• 4. Images carry emotion. Whilst copy is good at clarity images are good at creating a feeling and emotion. Consider what emotion the image might give and how that fits with the email copy.
• 5. Be irregular. Standard regular shapes are more easily ignored than irregular shapes, to grab attention and standout use irregular shapes.

Motivating email copy

Your email is not only about images. Copy is needed to explain your message and offer. Answer the questions the reader is likely to have before they are happy to click and address possible objections.

• 6. Add a pre-header. The very first bit of text shows up in the inbox next to the subject line in some email clients. Don’t waste this space with phrases like ‘If your email doesn’t display correctly’, etc. Rather use it to expand the thought in the subject line. Make sure when both subject and pre-header are read together they work as a pair.
• 7. Write dark on light. Avoid white text on a black background, or any light font on a dark background. They are harder to read and tend to be ignored. The traditional black font, white background is often the best choice and in all cases ensure high contrast. Think too about smartphones in bright sunlight, high contrast will make it easier for your customers.
• 8. The first few words are key. The first two sentences of the email and the first two words of every paragraph are those that encourage (or don’t) recipients to read your email further and engage with its content. Keep sentences and paragraphs short, front loading the key words to the start of the sentence.
• 9. Keep the email text simple. Pick the simplest and the most relevant content for your email marketing campaign. Your customer will not get excited about the numerous colours and fonts you have squeezed into your email.
• 10. Make best use of space. Especially on mobile designs space it limited, so consider carefully what’s most important. As an example, social sharing buttons get very few clicks. Are they really the best use of space? Don’t use the space at the top for such low value content.

Carefully consider your email layout

What about an effective email layout? In order to create exceptional email content, you need a structure to your copy to take the reader through a thought process and into action.

• 11. Allow for your email to be scanned. Plan your layout in a way that will enable subscribers to easily scan your email according to headings, pictures, bullets, calls to action and other important elements.
• 12. Capture their attention. In addition to eye-catching images and user size to grab attention, hit with the main benefit first. Don’t hide away the benefit until the end
• 13. Convince your customer. After you have gained the customer’s attention, make sure they understand why it is important to engage. Highlight benefits using bullets and short explanations.
• 14. Click to close. The emails should sell the click. Always include a call to action at the end of your email, so any readers who scroll to the end have a call to action of what to do next. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t also include calls to action sooner. Some people will be ready for action faster than others. So repeat the main call to action in different ways and positions throughout the email.
• 15. Selling multiple products. When you’ve several products, or different items being promoted, each needs its own attention grabber, convincer and call to action.

This article first appeared on the Zettasphere blog. Thanks to Mailigen who invited me to explain effective email design and copy at a breakfast seminar at their offices in Riga. The above tips are based on the lively discussion during the seminar.

Everyone at some time or another has worked on the service side of the business – trying to manage the client’s expectations while, many times, acquiescing to their demands, just to make them happy.

Smaller companies and start-ups, whose customers are everything to the business, cannot afford to leave any of their paying clients unhappy. But that does not mean being at the beck and call, or relenting to customer demands.

Working in the new media space, we find ourselves educating clients on the new best practices and the new way of marketing, many times to an audience akin to receiving our message like a deer-in-headlights. They respond to our presentations with hesitating nods and uncomfortable grins. They love the approach (or so they say). They want to move ahead of their competitors and capitalize on opportunities, “So tell us what we need to do”, they say.

Customers buy from those they trust

Everyone goes through a decision-making process. They ask friends/family for recommendations. They go through the exercise of researching, comparing, and contrasting prices and services detail. For B2B clients, they go through an RFP process, exhaustive meetings and legal due diligence and at the end of this process, they’re quite confident at the choice they’ve made.

The honeymoon period doesn’t last very long. The agency says all the right things. The client nods their head in agreement, excited to begin the process of developing this new program that has promise of reaping them amazing rewards!

Everything goes right until it goes wrong….

And that’s when the honeymoon ends.

When things go wrong, the customer is NEVER at fault

I recently read a post from my colleague, Amy Tobin, who had written a post for the restaurant industry. It’s here she stated:

The Customer Is Always Right – one of the most cliched and repeated phrases in marketing. And frankly, I don’t believe it’s true. I know that in some circles it’s scandalous to say, but the reality is that, the customer is wrong, and ANYONE who has worked as a waitress or in the restaurant business probably knows this. There, running into an irate, expectant, obnoxious customer is part of the job… and understanding how to handle and diffuse the situation is also ‘part of that job.’

When things go wrong, someone needs to be blamed. The client will never take responsibility because they don’t have to. When a deliverable is late to market or when things go awry, this knee-jerk reaction to find the culprit always points the client in one direction: the onus is always on the agency to explain what has happened.

A friend, who founded a start-up explained this to me [paraphrased]:

An irate customer called me on the phone, and told me of a glitch in his system that caused some of the end-terminals to improperly process customer transactions. He indicated it was working perfectly before we had made changes to it. He asked us what we had done to cause the problem. I immediately apologized and said we’d look into it.

A few hours later, we realized that the customer, himself had changed a setting within the system that inadvertently defaulted the system to a prior setting. Since the code had been changed, the reset had resulted in the problem identified. When this was brought to the client’s attention, he remembered what he had done and apologized for the mishap. And all was well “again.”

So, we let bygones be bygones… but to the point of complete submission. All for the sake of protecting a revenue stream.

Are we all yes-men?

I read this post the other day from Entrepreneur, 30 Ways to Show Your Customers They’re Always Right: This primer on customer service will leave your clients happy and your business booming.

One particular area angered me. It read,

• “I will take responsibility.” Tell your customer you realize it’s your responsibility to ensure a satisfactory outcome to the transaction…
• “I will deliver on time.” A due date that has been agreed upon is a promise that must be kept. “Close” doesn’t count.
• “Monday means Monday.” The first week in July means the first week in July, even though it contains a national holiday. Your clients are waiting to hear you say “I deliver on time.” The supplier who consistently does so is a rarity and will be remembered.
• “It’ll be just what you ordered.” It will not be “similar to,” and it will not be “better than” what was ordered. It will be exactly what was ordered. Even if you believe a substitute would be in the client’s best interests, that’s a topic for discussion, not something you decide on your own.

What follows is something more horrific, in my opinion:

Neglecting any of these steps conveys the impression that you were interested in the person only until the sale was made. This leaves the buyer feeling deceived and used, and creates ill will and negative advertising for your company.

Now, I’m not advocating for any company not to make those promises to clients. In potentially 80% of the cases, if all goes according to plan, an agency can deliver all those things. However, the reality is things will happen. Directions change in the process; strategies are diverted; decisions get delayed. And yes, many times, miscommunication can lead the agency to make unfortunate errors. But 100% of the time the blame cannot lie solely on the shoulders of the vendor.

When the agency has to come, yet again, to explain the mishap, they must do so without somehow alluding to some client-side mishap that led to the eventual outcome. This is a perpetual state of disrepute that many agencies find themselves.

A friend, Sean McGinnis, recently shared a post that made me aware of one such situation that made me applaud, Chicago ad agency fires client Panera, calling company ‘difficult’.

CEO says Panera was a difficult client and “in the end, no amount of money makes it worthwhile”….

The memo cites “the constant last-minute shifts in direction, the behind-the-scenes politics, the enormous level of subjectivity that disregards proof of performance — all churn people at a rate that becomes much too much even in this crazy business.”

The “environment of inconsistency” at Panera Bread apparently drove the decision to walk away from a major client.

“That’s hard to do in this increasingly low-margin, high-churn business,” Krivkovich said. “Most agencies just suck it up and take it.”

The ultimate relationship comes back to trust

In my later years, I’ve become so much different than when I was a young account executive for a large ad agency. Back then we were trained to properly manage the client expectations. We needed to be one step ahead of the client at all times. If you’ve worked in agency, all contact reports, follow-up emails were necessary, all for the purpose of CYA documentation (i.e. Cover your Ass) and limiting agency liability.

However, I’ve also come to believe that clients come to you because of your expertise. You have something that no other agency has. People who hold the purse strings can easily blame the vendor because they have nothing to lose.

What changes the dynamics in the relationship between the client and the agency is a true understanding of the value that the chosen agency brings. Many times clients, who think they know better, will make decisions they feel are best for the business and decide to go in a different direction than what has been recommended.

While this may be true, clients may also feel pressured to perform and they can easily fall back into the tried-and-true. And many times this isn’t communicated.

The need for transparency between the customer and the agency

Where many of my relationships with clients have come to a head, we begin to have transparent discussions about the client’s anxieties, investor expectations, management pressures. When that happens, it opens the doors to having full context into their world, and what they are up against on a daily basis.

That’s the opportune time to have the conversation that addresses each of those issues – one by one – and giving the client a new-found confidence that you’re there to do everything in your power to give them the best result possible. But it means a quid-pro-quo:

• Identify the issues when they happen. This allows both sides to give each other the heads up before situations get worse. For better or worse, the investment in this relationship means that both sides need to work together to produce a better outcome.
• Educate the client. In many cases, the best way to get a program approved is to take the client through a learning curve and teach them what you know. They, in turn, will advocate the program internally.
• Insider scoop. Until there is trust between customer and agency, will the former keep the agency at bay. But once this has been built, it’s incumbent upon the customer to provide as much ‘necessary’ information to help the agency succeed. This has happened in our favour countless times, and we were able to over-deliver on client expectations time and time again. In the end, the client looks like a hero internally.

In the end is a true understanding that doesn’t leave two parties on opposite sides of a fence. In the end, the customer does not feel the need to continuously test the agency. In the end this ‘relationship’ puts both on an equal playing field that allows each to do their job without feeling the anxiety or mistrust that befalls many of the client/agency relationships today.

[Photo source: Flicker: Beltzner]

Social media, content marketing, and search marketing are evolving and changing the face of online marketing.

A good website is needed now more than ever. It is the one item that you have control over and it should be the focal point when working with these other marketing channels. I want to show you how I have changed with respect to these marketing channels and it is a significant change!

Social Media

Old Way – It was a way to simply engage others and build a group of followers. Content was often off-the-cuff-dialogues. This is not sustainable in the long run for me. Others, might disagree, but I like the fact that I have developed a new approach to this channel.

New Way – It is the voice of my content marketing. Every day I need to have a message to share. This message resonates on a company website or my professional website. I try to connect with others who also build their own content on their own site. From here, this information is shared with others. For me, Twitter and Linkedin are the best places for this process.

Content Marketing

Old Way – It was a way to establish a blog and develop content on a regular basis,

New Way – It is a whole new concept which needs to be incorporate across multiple mediums. Read more in an article I wrote this past week: Moving Content Marketing to Another Level in 2015.

Search Marketing

Old Way – Organic is the way to go. If I am not on the first page of Google, I am not doing my job. It was all about keywords and links

New Way – It is just one part of a person’s search for data. Google is changing search rules almost every quarter. With good, quality content, Google will find your site. Now, a presence on social media like Linkedin, Pinterest and Twitter are places where people are searching for information. People only have so much time to search on their mobiledevices. Put your efforts into Google Places, Google Maps, and make sure people can find your business and have a way to call you. Make your site mobile friendly in 2015.

Is Your Website Value Going Down?

Many people will tell you websites are a thing of the past. These are the same people who do not update content on their website. Also, I have seen a resurgence in people going back to websites because they are tired of the noise on social channels. Aren’t the best communications on social media, those that post links to legitimate websites that are easy to read and access?

SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT: PERFORM THIS LITTLE TRICK ON YOUR MOBILE PHONE – CONDUCT A GOOGLE SEARCH – – Use the terms “Marketing Director Blog” – Do you see in your Google Search Results: ( ( Mobile-friendly )) before the rest of the context. Mobile is here!

It is time to get with the program and make sure you are making a site that is easily accessible through mobile. Continue to make your website simple to read and navigate. Continue to produce quality content and look for ways to bring all of these ideas together. Don’t put all your efforts into one of these areas.Continue to marry them together. Remember this process is ongoing and changing constantly. Stay on top of it and understand the value that each of these area bring!

Image courtesy of renjith krishnanat at FreeDigitalPhotos.net.

In the early 2000s, I was vice president of marketing and PR for two publicly traded companies.

Back in the day, I spent millions of my companies’ dollars and thousands of hours of my teams’ time trying to get mainstream media to pay attention to us.

This was pre-social networking, pre-YouTube, pre-easy blogging. While we had a fledgling content strategy using an email newsletter, information rich site, and direct to consumer news releases, we didn’t have today’s real-time communications tools so we primarily generated attention using the old rules of public relations: Press releases and pitching journalists.

A decade ago we measured by how thick the spiral bound PR clip book was. This isn't the best approach today, yet many organizations are still working based on the old rules.

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What kinds of marketing tips do a VC firm’s startups share?

Bowery Capital hosted in Manhattan its second annual CMO [chief marketing officer] Summit on Thursday to find out. It brought together nearly a dozen companies in its portfolio — including marketing analytics firm TrackMaven, training platform Codecademy, and mobile data platform MParticle — along with related vendors and invited guests.

The VC firm holds similar tactical workshops each quarter, focusing in turn on common problems facing chief revenue officers, chief financial officers, and chief technical officers.

Bowery Capital founder and general partner Mike Brown Jr. offered the first set of tips — three marketing tech trends that startups selling to large companies should know:

• There’s an emerging C-suite position, the chief marketing technology officer (which VentureBeat reported in 2012). Brown said this role, which combines marketing with IT skills, is showing up at such companies as Kimberly Clark and American Express.
• “Buying cycles for selling into Fortune 500s are getting shorter and shorter,” driven by the delegation of buying authority by older marketing management to younger, often mobile-first types. He pointed to Walgreens as “an example of the CMO not making many [digital] decisions; mobile is doing everything, with [an unnamed] 36 or 37 year old making huge decisions.”
• You “have to be way more on your game” in making pitches. “Three or four years ago,” Brown told the gathering of several dozen, “the buying cycle was the initial pitch. You figure out [the client’s] requirements and come back and meet stakeholders.” Today, he said, the younger generation “buyers don’t want that.” Like many buyers these days, they want to presell themselves. ” ‘Give us case studies, a trial access for 30 days to your software, and we’ll get back to you,’ ” Brown said is the current attitude.

‘The new lingua franca’

Margaret Molloy, the CMO and head of business development at branding agency Siegel + Gale, noted in a panel on “How Big Brand CMOs Work with Startups” that startups should be aware of another new trend among CMOs: They’re learning to code.

“It’s the new lingua franca,” she said, with some CMOs apparently trying to get a better handle of how to simplify their businesses.

When talking with enterprises, she also advised that startups shouldn’t “have too much religion about what you call [your technology].”

Startups need to be flexible in how they describe what problems their tech solves, Molloy noted. “Sometimes your tech is so visionary, it’s ahead of the budget [because] there’s no budget item for it.”

Alan Gannett, the CEO and founder of Bowery Capital-backed marketing analytics firm TrackMaven, advised that it’s best to think of modern digital customers as hummingbirds, visiting many flowers (sources of information) in their journey. The analogy sorta worked in his presentation on the history of multichannel marketing.

“The [sales] funnel is under attack,” he added, noting an oft-cited stat that self-informing B2B buyers are, on average, 57 percent toward their purchase decision before they even engage with a salesperson.

He said that countering strategies should include marketing that is channel-specific, an “always-on” rapid-response approach, understanding that “data-driven marketing will win out,” and maintaining a commitment to win “the attention war.”

What not to do

Kipp Bodnar, the VP of marketing at inbound marketer HubSpot, presented a smorgasbord of tips from his company’s history — mostly of things not to do.

In its early days, he said, his company created a very successful Website Grader that evaluated a site’s marketing effectiveness, and then, wanting to mine the same vein, followed it up with a Marketing Grader and others. While the initial product was a hit, the others offered “too much information,” he said.

The lesson, he said, is that if you create “a successful, free tool [to] solve a prospect’s painpoint,” don’t layer on more tools of the same type unless they also are pinpointed directly at a problem’s solution.

He advised that startups invest in building blog subscribers — especially email subscribers — as a way to build a permanent fanbase.

Bodnar also shared two tips that go against the tide of much marketing advice:

• “Email sharing is still king.”
• “Too much A/B testing is a waste,” because you end up testing things that are too small to be worth the time.

And Namely CEO and founder Matt Straz recounted how he “did everything the opposite of what VCs tell you to do” as he discovered ways to boost the brand recognition of his fledging HR/payroll software company on a modest budget.

‘No such thing as too small’

Instead of focusing primarily on digital environments, his company ventured into the real world outside the door of his New York City offices. His team created large, colorful posters with a simple message that adorned dozens of bus stop shelters, Metro North railroad stations, and taxi roofs. They also showcased at industry events.

When Namely conducted online content marketing, Straz pointed out that the key was finding an agency that could help with the right placement.

And, in a fitting closing comment, he brightened the prospects of early-stage startups everywhere.

“There’s no such thing as being too small to create brand awareness,” he said. One ad agency showed him research, Straz said, that response rates for direct marketing corresponded almost exactly with brand awareness in a given market.

In fact, the ex-ad exec said, small startups living on seed money or even Series A “can get better pricing from ad agencies.”

The agencies know we don’t have much money yet, he said, but “they want us to use their tools” so we will keep doing so when we’re loaded up with later rounds.

In today’s Interesting Infographic, we focus on the buyer – who do B2B buyers purchase from and why? What resonates best with a B2B buyer? We can use this information to re-energize our B2B demand generation. The introduction to the Infographic summarizes it as follows:

Buyers are attracted to people that know their stuff, who generate trust and help them make informed decisions throughout the process. A recent study by LinkedIn revealed that 92% of B2B buyers are more likely to buy from someone known as a thought leader in their industry.

The following visual describes the underlying motivations behind today’s buyers, platforms that they prefer and specific content types that help move them down the sales funnel.

Becoming Thought Leaders

Putting in time, effort and resources to become a thought leader is worth the effort because as the research indicates, B2B purchasers are more likely to engage with someone who is known as a thought leader in their industry. Plus, with the wide variety of publishing platforms available, every member of your sales team can be seen as a thought leader. In addition, on average, decision makers consume 5 pieces of content before being ready to speak to someone about the product or service.

Choosing the Right Platform

This where B2B social media plays a role. Not surprisingly, the majority of B2B buyers used LinkedIn to support their purchase process.

Finally, it all comes down to producing the right content for your buyers in your B2B demand generation play. The infographic below uses a very useful illustration of a funnel with the most popular content types at each stage. I think this makes this infographic a terrific resource – remember to bookmark this page the next time you need to create content.

The biggest shopping season of the year is in full swing. Although brands and consumers are used to the traditional direct mailers and TV spots, holiday shopping – and shopping in general – has gained a significant presence on YouTube.

Whether it’s a Beauty Guru doing a haul video about the amazing makeup deals she found, or a consumer-electronics influencer unboxing the latest must-have tech, YouTube is changing the way consumers understand and evaluate the year’s biggest day for holiday sales.

For retailers and brands that haven’t already considered the impact YouTube could have on their holiday sales, here are five reasons to start now:

1. YouTube Dominance

According to Nielsen, YouTube reaches more 18-34 year old adults than any cable network, and it is now the second largest online search engine. For brands, that means free access to a platform that reaches some of the top shoppers – millennials – better than any TV channel or mailer.

2. The Power of Fans

Even if you are not on YouTube yet, your fans are, and they are creating content on behalf of your brand in droves. At ZEFR, we discovered that an incredible 90% of a brand’s activity on YouTube is coming from fan-uploaded videos. This phenomenon is so important, we actually released an ebook called the “Anatomy of a Fan” because it is imperative that a brand finds, understands, and leverages the “earned media” it gains from these communities. A fan video can be anything from a haul video where a YouTuber reveals their favorite products from shopping at your store that day to a Sneakerhead (a massive YouTube fan community) posting about the shoes they are collecting. Because customers often trust consumer opinion more than branded content, these videos are pure gold for brands.

3. Custom Content Delivers Value

While fans are off creating content about their favorite brands, retailers should simultaneously create premium, valuable content for their customers. ZEFR helps a number of brands do this correctly by helping them build, manage, and monetize their YouTube channel. For instance, ZEFR helped Hasbro Studios, the production company behind My Little Pony and Transformers media, hit 83 million lifetime views and increase its channel subscribers by 135,000 in one year from inception. That’s 135,000 potential buyers who are not only aware of Hasbro’s toy products, but are engaged with them on an entirely new level.

4. A Content-Hungry Audience

More than 6 billion hours of video are watched on YouTube each month, which equates to least an hour for every person on Earth, every month. Consumers demand visually rich and valuable content from brands they love and about the brands they love. Online video is becoming shoppers’ go-to source for quick, consumable information. Video plays an especially large role in high-dollar purchases such as buying a car. Shoppers often taken weeks to research options and find the best car for their needs. According to a study conducted by Tremor Video, 66% of car shoppers use online video for research. For brands looking to leverage online video, it is also important to note that video increases customers’ understanding of a product by 74% (Mayer and Anderson).

5. Don’t Be Left Behind, Act Now

According to our research, 53% of shoppers are influenced by YouTube. If you have yet to take advantage of the offer, the holidays are the perfect time to start building your YouTube following and ultimately, drive additional sales.

Additionally, it’s likely that your competitor already has a YouTube presence and is benefitting from the increased exposure and consumer engagement opportunities. Enormous communities have been built around some of today’s most influential brands, including Lego, Go Pro, and Playstation. At ZEFR we help brands understand not only their fans, but also how their competitors are participating on YouTube through our Brand ID platform.

…

This is not the way it’s meant to be. It’s far too complicated. Christy Dignam’s plaintiff voice crept out from the Bang and Olufsen surround sound system in Jack Swenson’s new 7 Series. Jack always felt that Dignam, the lead singer of Irish rock band Aslan, was one of the world’s undiscovered singers. “Damn right, it’s far too complicated” Jack mused as he nudged the BMW forward on San Francisco’s Montgomery Street.

As CMO of JKHiggs, Jack was thinking about his conversation with Matt Langton, one of JKHiggs’ star sales performers. Or, perhaps better said, one of the company’s past star performers. Matt’s results had not been great recently, and Matt felt that Jack and his marketing team were to blame. Jack was going to meet his CEO, Kelley O’ Brien at the Starbucks near the Hyatt on Drumm St, just around the corner from JKHiggs’ new offices on California. Matt had told Kelley about the loss of the DeepEarth Oil account to Innopartners and Kelley wanted to discuss it.

Kelley was already sipping her double espresso when Jack arrived at the coffee shop.

“Sorry, traffic on Montgomery was just a nightmare.”

“Sit down Jack. Here’s what I heard.” quipped Kelley, flicking through her iPad. “Matt, one of our top performers, just lost DeepEarth to a new sales person from Innopartners. He’s not happy. Frank, our sales leader is not happy. I’m not happy. They’re the facts.”

“Now the opinion: Matt thinks that Innopartners – or at least this Mandy Adamson person who won the deal – are better equipped to compete than us. I called Joanne over at DeepEarth, and it seems she agrees. She says that Mandy unveiled for her a whole new set of issues to think about in her business. She deflected a little when I asked her if she thought that Innopartners has a better solution than Dynamix14, but I’d say she thinks it is good enough for what she needs. All of the R&D we put into Dynamix14 makes no difference. Joanne thinks that Mandy rocks and knows more about her business. Given that we did not bring any fresh insight, or new perspective, Matt’s credibility, and ours, is now damaged. What’s your plan Jack?”

When Kelley had suggested they meet for coffee, Jack had expected an open discussion. Kelley was the main attraction that brought him to JKHiggs. He enjoyed spending time with her and often sought her advice on big corporate issues. He certainly was not expecting this frontal attack.

“I think you know that I agreed with Frank that what his sales team wanted was a central repository for all marketing collateral. Suzanne and Robert worked their butts off to get that done but the sales guys are just not using it.” Jack shuffled in his seat, waiting for Kelley’s response. She was just looking at him with no reaction, so Jack continued. “Frank committed to me that his team would follow-up all of the leads, but over the last quarter, only 47 percent of what marketing delivered was acted on by sales. What else does Frank want me to do?”

Kelley sighed. “Do you have some paper and a pen?”

Jack rummaged in his bag and handed Kelley one of the expensive JKHiggs branded leather-bound notebooks. He liked the feel of the quality leather and felt that it would give people like Joanne at DeepEarth a sense of the heritage of JKHiggs. He hadn’t really got to meet many customers since he ordered the notebooks, so he had plenty left.

Kelley opened the notebook and drew a big triangle on a blank page. At the left edge of the base of the triangle she wrote the letter ‘S’. At the other end of the triangle’s base she scratched a capital ‘M’, and at the apex of the triangle she put a big question mark.

“Jack, winners take ownership and take action, so let’s fix this. Frank will be joining us soon to give us his perspective as our sales leader – actually, he should be here by now – but, here’s how we have to think about it.”

Kelley turned the notebook to face Jack and ran her finger along the base of the triangle.

“This is where you and Frank are focused. ‘S’ is sales, and you can figure out that ‘M’ is marketing, right? You’ve both invested a lot of time in trying to make sure you are on the same page. You agreed to build the marketing portal and he agreed to follow-up on the leads, right? You both probably think you have nailed this sales and marketing alignment thing. You’re probably on the same page alright, but is it the right page?”

Jack’s emotions tumbled over each other as competing feelings and thoughts fought to come to the surface. Was he going to get fired? Wow, even thinking about that seemed weird. His record throughout his career was stellar, but did he still have his finger on the pulse of the market? Did Frank or Matt Langton throw him under the bus? Was his relationship with Kelley as special as he thought? Where the hell was Frank? Was this incident at DeepEarth as big a deal as Kelley seemed to think? Have things changed that much? He realized that he really wanted to keep working with Kelley. But what did she mean by the big question mark at the apex of the triangle?

“Look Kell’, we know each other well enough. Where are you going with this? Do you want me out of Higgs? I don’t think that would be in the best interest of the company, but if you don’t want me here I don’t want to be here. And where is Frank? I thought you expected him by now. And what’s behind the bloody question mark?”

“Stop Jack, ok? I want you working closely with me to figure this out. I’m surprised you don’t know that. Really. But, I’m CEO of JKHiggs and we have a strategic problem that we need to fix. So let’s move on.

“I sent Frank to meet with Mandy Adamson from Innopartners. I told him to get her to come to work here – money no object. We need to figure out why Joanne at DeepEarth is so enthralled with her. Joanne is no one’s lay-up, if you know what I mean.

And what’s behind the bloody question mark, as you call it, is the most important question we need to answer, if we are to survive.”

Jack leaned forward. He loved that Kelley had sent Frank out to poach Mandy Adamson from the competition. He was relieved that Kelley saw him as part of the solution, not part of the problem. He was beginning to see where Kelley was going. He thought he knew what the question mark signified.

“That’s brilliant, just brilliant. If we can get Mandy Adamson in, I think we can learn a lot. But isn’t that just part of the problem? I know the DeepEarth loss is really painful, but maybe it’s just the wake-up call that we needed. Let’s get to the question mark on your drawing there. I think I see where you’re headed.”

“Jack, before I answer that – and it is the most important question we need to answer – one last thing.” Kelley smiled, put her elbows on the table and cupped her chin in her hands. “Do you know why we developed the Dynamix14 product? Do you know, and do you think Matt Langton could tell us?”

Jack chuckled to himself, thinking that it must be Kelley’s Irish heritage that meant that she often answered a question with a question. Kelley’s grandparents had immigrated to the United States from Ireland in the 1950s and she had often visited. In more recent times, as Ireland had become the technology hub in Europe, JKHiggs had set up their European HQ in Dublin, alongside Google, Facebook, Salesforce and many other leading software companies. There was something about Irish creativity that seemed to make for great innovation. It was on one of Jack’s visits to Dublin that he had first come across Aslan, and the Irish band’s back catalog was a staple on Jack’s iPod.

“Well I know what our esteemed head of engineering would say. Henry is really proud of the world-beating energy efficiencies from Dynamix14. I guess that is what Matt would tell his customers as well, though now that I say it out loud, that doesn’t seem to be working, does it?”

Kelley circled the question mark at the third point of the triangle. “That’s just the problem. We didn’t build it because it delivers world-beating energy efficiencies.” She circled the question mark again. “What’s really critical for everyone to understand, and for our sales team, and your marketing team to communicate, is that our customers need exceptional energy efficiencies to deal with things like the Kyoto Protocol and that’s why we invested heavily in R&D on Dynamix14.“

“Behind this question mark is a customer, and behind every customer is a series of business goals and pressures that they need to solve for. Our job is to help them shape the projects they need to initiate to relieve those pressures, and to identify what’s stopping them being successful today. That’s what Innopartners did for DeepEarth. Mandy helped Joanne get a better understanding of her business and what she might need to consider if she is to get ahead of the Climate Change issues.”

Jack understood that the Kyoto Protocol puts a heavy burden on developed nations, who through 150 years of industrial activity had created a big emissions and climate change problem. He just never connected it to the fact that JKHiggs could help businesses like DeepEarth Oil to respond. He never considered that this might be how the sales team should frame the issues they could solve with Dynamix14.

“You are so right. I can’t believe I didn’t see it this way. “ Jack wrote down four headings: Goals, Pressures, Initiatives and Obstacles. “Our customers can learn everything they need to know about our products from the Internet – so we need to think about this in an entirely new way. We have to be Customer-First in everything that we do and how we sell. We need to focus on their business issues first, before our products, or we are going to be in real trouble.”

As Jack sat back to think, Kelley’s phone pinged with an incoming text message. She glanced at the phone, and then slowly and deliberately put the phone down on the table.

“Jack, it just got much tougher. Frank has just resigned. He is joining Innopartners to lead their West coast sales team. He says Innopartners are more in tune with the customer than Higgs. Damn!”

-o-

The message here of course is that Kelley has recognized this as a strategically important issue for the company. Unless you take a customer-first approach to your sales and marketing efforts you are unlikely to be successful.

One approach might be to use a smart software solution to help you figure this out.

There will be more details about this problem and some possible solutions on this December 17 webinar: Bridging the Buyer / Seller Credibility Gap.

Part 1 of the story is here: A Sales Story for Our Time

 

 

 

Despite rapid advances in technology like Big Data, behavior based marketing automation, customer engagement platforms, and intent data through content consumption marketing; the lament of CEOs and Boards of Directors on the ineffectiveness of marketing is growing. Their beef with marketing is over a disconnect between budget, priorities, and revenue ROI. For CEOs the only thing that matters is revenue – driving quality leads, getting sales in front of the prospect, and helping them to close the deal. While every CEO likes to see his or herself on TV and mentioned in print, in the end their own jobs depend on meeting revenue numbers. The vagaries of marketing’s metrics around visitors, conversions, likes, etc. and the black art of attribution doesn’t create a sense of formulaic predictability CEOs are looking for.

While much of the conversation is focused on marketing’s challenges, sales is not immune from the same complaints. In the era of the customer and social selling, CEOs are baffled by less sales productivity where more is expected. The battle over lead follow up, forecast accuracy, opportunity aging, and understanding the customer’s needs should be won already rather than becoming harder. Sales methodologies have been changed, predictive technology that helps sales to respond more effectively to customers based on behavior patterns has been implemented, and coaches employed to work mano-a-mano with sales teams.

No one is claiming that the world of B2B marketing and sales has gotten easier and that technology makes these jobs a cake-walk. Nor is the claim that CEOs and Boards are, more or less, unreasonable or forgiving than in years gone by. But it does beg the question why sales and marketing keep struggling.

One reason is training – or the lack thereof.

According to an ANA and McKinsey 2014 Marketing Disruptio study 77% of marketers recognize that they need to deeply understand customer journeys and how to align their programs to them. Yet only 13% have reached a point where they’re taking action and achieving measurable impact.What’s holding marketers back from stepping up is a dogged addition for outdated best practices and marketing models but also an alarming reticence to invest in learning new skills and methods.

According to ANA/McKinsey, 89% of marketers admit that training and skills development is critical to being successful in the future. Yet training investment are anemic and often the first line item to be cut when funds get tight.  No wonder a third of marketers are unable to make data-driven decisions and don’t know what tools to use or how to use them.

Sales believes in training but has not evolved their content to meet the needs of front-line sales staff. Brainshark’s recent State of Sales Training study highlights a startling discrepancy between what needs to get done and what’s actually getting done. For example, 38% of sales training professionals say their organization’s training content needs quarterly updates. However, 42% say that, in reality, their organization’s training content gets updated once a year at best – leaving them open to inconsistent, incorrect and/or outdated messaging, and even potential compliance violations.

“Engaging, timely content that is accessible when needed is vital to sales training and overall sales success,” said Brainshark Inc. CEO Joe Gustafson. “The survey results highlight a great opportunity for organizations to meet this need – with stimulating sales content that’s both easy to access and consume. For organizations, this often means taking advantage of rapid content authoring and updating capabilities and ensuring just-in-time training delivery – to make sure that training works and sticks, and help reps be better prepared to close more deals.”

The study showed the most prevalent methods of sales training for organizations today include: Live classroom training (80%), live Web conferencing (65%), on-demand training (67%), video (49%) and social learning (28%).  However, struggles related to live training include:

• Difficulties aligning schedules (61%)
• Reps easily distracted (45%)
• Lack of coaching and reinforcement (35% and 36% respectively)
• Lack of rep engagement (36%)

The track record for on-demand training isn’t much better.  Organizations face challenges including deadlines not met (25%) and an inability to track completion/progress (23%).

Both marketing and sales need to get with the times and deliver ongoing training, coaching, and onboarding support in order to effectively understand and respond to customer lifecycle engagement expectations, increasing uncertainty, and digital transformation. While in-classroom training will never lose its effectiveness, it needs to be supported with just-in-time, bite sized consumable training units.

According to the Brainshark study, the two areas where pace-setters are reversing the skill gap are with video and mobile-based learning.  “Consider providing just-in-time learning content within the context of workflow as a form of performance support,” shares Joan Babinski, VP of Corporate Marketing, Brainshark. “So when reps have to do somewhat tedious or confusing processes, give them content that can pop up on their screen right when they need it – rather than making them wade through materials or try to recall hours of previous training.”

For training to be effective, it needs to be viewed as a strategic enabler. While who owns the training problem may vary within any organization, all parts of the organization have to align and work together to improve training content effectiveness.  As long as Sales and Marketing don’t address the link between training, performance, and meeting customer engagement expectations, this blindspot will result in a redefinition of their perceived value; one neither function will relish.

Some B2B marketers know exactly what accounts are in their target market. What a luxury! These marketers can eliminate the old “spray and pray,” and focus all their attention and investment in a finite universe of prospects and current customers. It’s almost like mass customized selling, with maximum coverage and minimal waste. Best of all, a number of new tools and tactics are now available to do the marketing job efficiently.

I’ve been involved a few situations like this recently. At DMA14 in San Diego last month, I heard a fascinating talk by Mark Rentschler, marketing director at Makino, a large manufacturer of machine tools. They have spent a few years building a database of the 6,000 accounts they already do business with in North America, plus another 6,000 prospective accounts. Makino’s approach? “Laser focus,” says Rentschler. “These are the accounts we pay attention to.”

A similar focus occupies Warm-Transfer, which tele-qualifies leads generated by very large insurance companies, and warm transfers the prospects to the clients’ sales teams. “We need volume of at least 1,500 leads a month to serve a client efficiently,” says Jeff Feuer, CEO. “In the insurance category, there are about 500 companies large enough for us to serve well. We know who they are, and our marketing is designed to attract them, while at the same time discouraging smaller insurance players.” Feuer has a similar target account list in categories like mortgage and higher education.

To support this kind of marketing, a variety of tools and tactics are available, some old and some new. If you’re targeting only a finite universe, you want to know everything about them that you possibly can. To populate your database, look at:

Data append. Business marketers can fill out their customer and prospect records by appending certain data elements purchased from third-party data vendors. Infogroup, for example, offers as many as 45 data elements, like industrial classification code, company size, executive contacts, title, and phone number. Append is priced very reasonably, ranging from $50 to $150 per thousand. You can also tap the resources of B2B “deep data” providers like Avention and HG Data.

Data discovery. B2B append match rates can be disappointingly low, so the next step in filling out the customer record is “discovery,” whereby you call into the target account and collect the missing data by hand. Expensive, to be sure, but well worth it for hard-to-get information like additional contacts, job titles, buying role, and direct phone numbers. Another approach, albeit less productive, is LinkedIn research.

Specialized third party databases. MeritDirect’s Boston Management Team offers a service that combines append and discovery for named accounts. They run your contact files against the 35 million names of Merit’s Omnibase, by job title, to report on your contact penetration rate by job category, in your target accounts. You can then append additional names to broaden your access across the buying circle, and then plug the holes with supplementary outbound discovery calls.

Then there’s communications. To talk to customers and prospects in a limited number of accounts, you want to ratchet down your broad-based general advertising, and go for a narrow range of communications options, including:

Addressable media, using real personalization. When you know details about the target—like job roles, buying roles, and where the account stands in relation to your company—there’s no excuse for sending general messages. Here’s your opportunity to use personalized messaging via addressable media like email, phone and direct mail. If the target is already assigned to a particular sales territory, it’s likely you’ll want the messages to be signed by the rep.

Banner advertising targeted by account. Some publishers offer IP address driven delivery of banner ads, which vastly reduces waste. Bizo offers banner ad serving based on company level targeting, using cookies. These targeted ads will cost more on a per impression basis, but think of the efficiencies.

Account-based website design. It’s eminently possible today to customize the experience of your site visitors based on the company they come from. Demandbase, for example, offers a platform that enables this kind of personalization, as well as IP-address driven banner ads.

It’s so refreshing to focus on a limited universe, and concentrate all your efforts there. Have you come across some tools and techniques that I have missed?

I am sure most of you will agree that creating a buyer persona is crucial to any successful B2B lead generation and marketing campaign. However, in case you need more persuasive proof of the power of targeting, read this infographic created by Single Grain.

Traditional Demographic Marketing

• Targetting through demographics is now too large and too diverse to be effective.
• As an example, if only 1 out of 10 people in your target audience needs your solution, then 9 of them are not prospects and you have wasted 90% of your time and resources.

Targeting Very Specific Groups

• Using marketing personas made websites 2-5 times more effective.
• Personalized emails improve click-through rates by 14%.
• Personalized emails also improve conversion rates by 10%.
• Segmenting and creating a “catered” email marketing experience will drive 18 times more revenue than broadcast emails.
• Behaviorally-targeted ads are twice as effective as non-targeted ads.

Case Study: SkyTap

• Targeted personas lifted sales leads 124%.
• 97% increase in online leads.
• 55% increase in organic search traffic.
• 210% increase in North American site traffic.

Initial Research

Affinity Mapping

• A customer-facing team will compile assumptions about user needs and attributes.

Focus Groups

• Focus groups should be between 6-10 participants lasting no longer than 90 minutes.
• Ensure the group is mediated by a skilled moderator.

Ethnographic Research

• Research forums and do keyword research to determine your target consumer/prospect.
• Follow social activity to observe target consumers.

Multiple-Choice Surveys

• This is where you collect the demograhic information about your target audience.
• Did you know if you include paper and phone response options, this can result in an 11% higher response rate than web-based surveys.

Internal Data

• Remember to use your internal background data as well as you build your persona.
• This can include sales, calls and outcomes, returns and user profiles.

Analytics

• As always, measure, measure, measure.
• Metrics you can use to measure include page traffic, bounce rate, referring site, overall sales revenue, conversion rate, etc.

Steps To Construct The Buyer Persona

1. Name the persona which helps paint a picture of a real individual with an unmet need.

2. Clearly define the goal. Your call-to-action should be based on the unmet need of your target audience.

3. Gather the research you completed above.

4. Analyze and segment your data. Identify behavioral and demographic trends.

5. Construct the profile of your buyer persona. This is your hypothetical customer description which should include behavior, lifestyle, demographic, and product/service use or gaps.

Congratulations! You now have your Buyer Persona!