easy. Today we showcase a client and their challenges and a book and a blog post. Together they give you the one principle you need to write a B2B online brand strategy.
How to get customer community integrated into your marketing
Three things we read and discussed coincided this week:
- Planning with the Silver Fern Farms marketing team
- Reading The B2B Social Media Book
- Commenting on Confused of Calcutta’s blog post – Musings about communities and prices
Start with the blog post - there are three main points: Everyone in the community is a customer; Communities expect a range of prices for each product or service; A connected community converges to act as a single, composite customer.
Take the range of prices – some customers are happy to read free offerings; others will contribute to comments or test purchase items while others are avid fans. The Silver Fern Farms team were discussing how to organise messaging across different geographical marketplaces – not all their range is sold in each country. [They sell lamb and venison in supermarkets.]
Treating all the customers and prospects as a single, composite customer enables us to deliver into separate marketplaces with variable messaging. Yes, we do not use the same message to each group. BUT we know the customer is smart and can read. Being clear about what products are available in which supermarkets matters. It builds awareness of the wider product range and helps customers appreciate the global nature of the Silver Fern Farms business.
Is B2B any different for online?
Slant these ideas into the business to business B2B world. This is where I find clients have the greatest problems “coping” with a singular community. And ironically, this is where the greatest opportunities exist for B2B.
Read this quote from the Book
Most B2B companies live with fear. The fear of giving away too much information, saying something wrong, giving competitors an advantage.
But I know B2B companies have another fear. Integrated messaging.
This is perceived as hard to do. Mainly because of the territoriality of the agencies and staff who service the brand.
Each market, each customer, each group of buyers fits into a hierarchy of customer-types. From the inquirer who wants to read for free but not participate up through to the possible purchaser. Your brand needs to set up its marketing to allow and
enable each customer type to engage at the participation level the customer chooses.
I wrote that in bold because this principle is the key to your strategic marketing plan.
How does engagement work in practice?
Set up a range of marketing activities that allow any customer from the vast pool of possibles to enable customers to get what they need.
Think of it as a staircase, each step has an increasing level of engagement and possibly a higher price.
When planning your online messaging think of your brand’s online presence as if it were a niche magazine. You should aim to be the best ‘trade journal’ magazine you possibly can be. Dominate your niche and the customer will figure out which of your offerings (from free to paid) she wants and where/how to acquire for herself.
When it comes to hooking a customer and encouraging them to speed down the marketing funnel by way of a website landing page, your greatest tool is your wording, your language, how you communicate.
How to get started planning your landing page
A client of ours was recently re-creating their website (no small feat), and commissioned the Creative Agency Secrets team to write the content. Our task was to a create a series of landing pages specifically designed for different types of prospective consumers.
Certain features of our client’s product are appealing for different groups, so rather than bombarding visitors with all of the product features at once, we wanted to focus specifically on their unique needs.
Customers as individuals
No one likes to be viewed as just another number. You have to know your customers, know the different types of customer and speak to their individual needs.
To show our customers right from the start that we acknowledged them as individuals, we made it so that from the main web page they had the choice of clicking on one of five different tabs, identifying themselves. How did we achieve this?
Take a look at Dell - they ask you to self-identify when you first visit their site, showing products “for home”, “for small office”, “for education, government, and healthcare” etc. Dell had the right idea but again, it’s all about wording. If they had phrased their options so that they identified the consumer rather than the product, (are you a student? work in a small office?) the effect would have been more powerful. After all, it’s expected for a salesperson to know their product, but it’s much more impressive when they know their customer.
In order to do something like this, background knowledge is a must. That’s why we spent hours researching the five main groups of consumers that our client’s product catered to. We studied their lingo, learned about their needs, and recognized their goals, so that we could better tailor our wording for each landing page.
Single focus landing page
Landing pages are meant to have one main focus, which, in marketing, is often “you want to buy our product: here’s why”. But that’s boring, plain vanilla, and doesn’t give a visitor a compelling reason to purchase.
There are many different ways to go about writing content for a landing page, but the major components that we included for each were
- what a customer wants, needs, and expects out of this service
- how our product addresses those wants
- testimonials
- pricing info
- the final promotional push
Road map in place, it was time for the real task: tailoring content to each specific consumer audience. This is where our research paid off. With our background knowledge we were able to highlight product features and market persuasively to each group.
Calls to action on landing pages
Calls to action are another key feature for any promotional work- they are a way to speak directly to a consumer.
In this age where just about everything can be done online, (social communication, purchasing, publishing, and more) it’s of the utmost importance that a market does whatever they can to keep the sales relationship personal. A call to action (“tell us your experience more about your needs, contact our excellent customer service”) is personally asking a customer to take part in something.
But what is the most important call to action that you could have?
Let’s take a moment to look more closely at that final promotional push listed above. If you’ve reached this point, you have given out all of the information showcasing why your product is right for a customer and now there is only one thing left to say: “Click here to begin your 30 day free trial”. It’s not too blatant to say something like this, and, so long as you’ve proven why a customer should buy your product, they won’t mind hearing it. It’s expected.
So…
Get personal! Speak directly to your consumers and they will respond, by purchasing your product.
]]>Get one for yourself:
I’d like help writing landing pages that work
If you think that that was a coincidence, think again. It was newsjacking.
Interview with David Meerman Scott
On an episode of the radio show Internet Marketing for Smart People, Copyblogger interviewed David Meerman Scott, marketing strategist and author of Newsjacking: How to Inject your Ideas into a Breaking News Story and Generate Tons of Media Coverage.
So what is newsjacking?
Newsjacking is a marketing technique where a company strategically coincides a product development, company promotion, etc. with a larger-scale news-worthy event. Essentially, a company rides the wave of another news piece, gaining coverage and promoting their product with minimal effort.
Meerman Scott identified the insurance company TIO as a prime example of a newsjacking success story. When the company heard that President Obama was visiting Australia for the first time in his Presidency (an event sure to gain extreme media coverage), they decided to offer him an insurance policy against crocodile attacks. It may sound ridiculous, and in truth it is a little, but it worked. For the short amount of time that it took TIO to announce that they were offering Obama the policy, they gained a huge amount of media attention.
But why does it work?
During his interview Meerman Scott explained that there has been a shift in journalism. Where it used to be that companies would seek out journalists for coverage, journalists now venture out themselves and seek news. Their search includes a variety of sources, including blogs, twitter, and more. That’s how a company can release one snippet of information into the cyber tide pool and have it become viral, often gaining a second paragraph nod.
The benefits of newsjacking are enormous…
- minimal time input
- avoidance of through-the-roof PR expenses
- viral media coverage
- anyone can do it
All it takes is a post and well-planned timing!
Have a listen to this show and decide for yourself: is newsjacking the PR technique of the future?
Take a look around the other books written by David Meerman Scott - yes that’s an affiliate link. Thanks for supporting Creative Agency Secrets.
]]>Here’s how.
We had a client commission us to do a lovely campaign to promote a national holiday with “21 Things to do ….” type of activity. Trouble was, the main focus was to build social media followers on Facebook.
Making a landing page on a website is easy. Facebook was a challenge.
We like challenges.
Our first big discovery was the ebook How to Master Facebook Marketing in 10 Days. Here we learnt that you can create custom welcome tabs with an iFrame application and set it as the default landing page for visitors who have yet to “like” your product.
A welcome tab fit right in line with our purpose, because it encourages liking and boosts followers while highlighting our clients creative holiday campaign. But it had some shortcomings too.
As suggested in the ebook, we used the Wildfire iFrame app. For this clients’ needs, the welcome page was to be predominately made up of text, which meant that it was time to roll up our sleeves and do some coding.
Having to translate our text to HTML programming was doable, but a bit of a pain. Ensuring that our page had the look and feel that we wanted required switching between the html backstage look, and the finished product, to check and recheck that our links were in fact opening in another tab, that the right words were bold and underlined, and that we approved of the overall look of the page. It was tedious, but we did it.
Our ‘hack’ here was to create the page in our WordPress blog and when we were satisfied with the look and feel, to then copy the HTML into Facebook.
Next step was to take it live.
To set the newly-created welcome tab as the default landing page, we (as admins of the page) hit the ‘Edit Page’ button in the top right hand corner, taking us to the Manage Permissions tab of the Page Dashboard. Selecting the drop-down menu next to the Default Landing Tab section, we chose the name of our newly created welcome tab (which, unless you change the name yourself, will automatically show up as ‘Welcome’). Our page was up.
But the happy “ta-da” moment quickly wore off, when we refreshed and still ended up, by default, on the wall of our page, rather than our sparkly new welcome tab.
Did the hack fail?
By testing different accounts and comparing, we discovered that only viewers who have not yet liked our page will automatically land on the welcome tab. Admins and consumers who have already liked your page will be taken directly to the wall, skipping the welcome tab altogether.
Well, that just wasn’t going to work for us. To get around this unfortunate feature, for each post that we made about our list, we linked back to the welcome tab, which featured the list in whole. Although, something to note, each time we posted a link to the Welcome Tab, a preview of our ‘about’ section showed up.
But with all of the glitches, our Facebook welcome tab did just what we had hoped. Before the welcome tab launch our client had under 50 followers, now, not even a week later, they have over 500.
It was a learning process, but a successful one.
Tell us about your experiences – ever tried something like this?
]]>If you have a newsletter or an online sign-up, you know the usefulness of an auto-responder. Once it’s set up, it takes over and you get to sit back, relax, and have a drink while your auto-responder does all the talking.
But in order to get to that point, you have to write the copy and set it up. Check out our how-to guide for Auto Responders.
The autoresponder marketing analysis breakdown
First off, know what you are marketing, who your auto-responder audience is, and how long it will go for. Also, identify the main goal of the auto-responder: “to guide customers through our technology”, “to thank a customer for choosing our product”, “to sell a customer on our product during their free trial”.
Once you’ve established the background information and know the goal that you are hoping to achieve, it is time to write the copy for each message.
Remember that the purpose of an auto-responder is to lead a consumer through to a goal. It is a guide. The content in each step should be supportive and relevant.
Although each post will differ, it is wise to have a consistent format for each. This can be as simple as intro, info, and customer support details on each message.
Let’s take a look at a breakdown of an example series of messages.
-
Welcome
The first auto responder message should be dedicated to welcoming and thanking the customer for signing up for your service.
-
Road Map
One auto-responder format is to “tell them what you’re going to tell them, tell them, then tell them what you told them”. In that case, the second message should let consumers know exactly what to expect from the series. Some guiding questions to consider are how long duration the responder will be, what you will disclose in each message, how to contact customer support, etc.
Then…
-
Let the Show Begin
Whereas the other messages gave an overview and instructions, the third message in your auto-responder series should give out the information itself.
This is the meat of the auto-responder. The length of this middle, informative section depends on the details and purpose of your series. Just remember, that when it comes to an auto-responder, it’s best to keep each message as one-pointed as possible.
-
Goodbyes
With your information given, it’s now time to say your goodbyes. It’s nothing fatal, but it is your last chance to summarize your teachings, promote your product, and say adieu to your customer audience.
Make it count. The last message is usually the one that will stick the most, so show your appreciation for their choice and encourage them to continue on with your product.
One nice feature we found in Feedblitz who we use to deliver client auto-responders is the ability to use the end of an auto responder sequence to trigger the start of something else (a coupon discount; a subscription to a mailing list). That saves you having to re-engage with the customer in future. Hopefully they like what you’ve been saying and are happy to remain in touch.
Your turn
Sounds easy enough, right? And just think, by taking the time to write what we’re sure will be a superb auto-responder, you have saved yourself from having to respond one-by-one to each of your eager customers. And saved time, means saved money.
Read more about how to Create Opportunities in our biz dev methodology category 6 – Creating Opportunities
Well you’ll be glad to hear that there is an effective way to quickly become skilled at handling “any” objection whether you’ve heard it before or not.
So how’s it done?
Simple, all you need to do is “reframe” the objection in your mind into a question from the prospect using this simple phrase “show me why…”
For example a prospect says “It’s too expensive”. Simply rephrase the objection in your mind so you hear it as a request i.e.
“show me why I should spend that much”, or
“show me why it’s worth me spending that much”.
Now, instead of an objection you have “reframed” it into a request for you to prove your case, which you can do by listing the benefits that justify the price.
Another example: “We already have a supplier”. Reframed in your mind into
“show me why I should switch over to you?”
And now prove your case by listing all the benefits of you over their current supplier.
What are your worst objections?
So what about the ones that seem to stop you in your tracks?
For instance you take two weeks to deliver and the prospect says they want it by Monday. Reframe this to “show me why I would be better off waiting for two weeks for your product rather then getting one from somewhere else now”. At least now, if this is a “want it by Monday” and not a “need it by Monday” you have a shot at stacking the benefits of waiting in your favour.
Play around with this, it works for any objection and once mastered makes your objection handling smooth and flowing and so much more effective.
Paul Foley runs Noodle Coaching.
Related Articles by Paul Foley
]]>Over the past seven weeks I’ve covered six steps that can transform your search marketing campaigns into lead- and revenue-generating machines. We’ve come to the final step:
Step 7: Do it all over (and over) again!
SEO and PPC are ongoing endeavors. The more you put in, the more you get back. To see continuous improvement, you need to commit to continuous effort in the areas of:
- Keyword Discovery and Negative Keyword Discovery
- Keyword Grouping and Organization
- Keyword and Keyword Group Analysis
- Content Production, Content Optimization and Prioritization
- Search Campaign Refinement
It sounds overwhelming, but it doesn’t have to be. With one robust platform that handles all these keyword management tasks, you can create large-scale, high-performance search marketing campaigns without sacrificing productivity or blowing away your advertising budget.
If you want to start taking steps to build a better search campaign, contact us today to set up a live demonstration with one of our customer service representatives, or start a free, 14-day trial to see what WordStream Keyword Management can do for your business.
]]>He is outlining seven highly effective keyword research tactics that will help you generate more leads and sales from your search marketing campaigns.
Step 6: Clean up your Research with negative Keyword Discovery
Last week’s email covered the importance of prioritizing workflow based on your top-performing keywords. Now we need to talk about the keywords that aren’t working in your campaigns.
Focusing on top keywords is important, but it’s just as crucial to your long-term success to identify keywords that are hampering performance and filter them from your research.
This will save you time and money on both the paid and organic fronts. For PPC, negative keywords reduce wasteful spending on irrelevant impressions that drag down CTR and irrelevant clicks that don’t convert, ultimately boosting your Quality Scores. Eliminating those same keywords from your SEO research prevents time and money being wasted on optimizing content for the wrong audience.
So how do you go about finding negative keyword candidates?
- You can start by brainstorming. For example, if your business is cabinetry, your negative keywords should include “cabinet members” and other queries that reference the U.S. Cabinet. In addition, you can find negative keyword lists online for your industry.
- You can look at your search query reports and identify negatives on a case-by-case basis. This will help you catch negative keywords that wouldn’t have otherwise occurred to you.
- You can set up rules, or filters, that actually learn from your behavior and eliminate irrelevant PPC or SEO keywords from your research before you use them in your campaigns.
WordStream’s smart negative keyword tools do just that—it’s faster and easier than identifying negatives keyword by keyword, so you can start saving money faster. To try out our keyword tools with your own data, sign up for a free trial of WordStream Keyword Management for PPC or SEO.
Next week you’ll receive the last email in our “7 Steps to a Better Search Campaign” series. There’s just one more element that will bring everything we’ve talked about together for high-performance search marketing.
]]>He is outlining seven highly effective keyword research tactics that will help you generate more leads and sales from your search marketing campaigns.
Step 5: Focus on your top Keyword Performers
Web analytics are a window into your search campaigns’ performance, and integrating analytics with your keyword workbench enables you to act on that valuable data, as we discussed last week. The next step, of course, is to actually start taking action!
There’s no end to the number of activities you can carry out in search engine marketing. The trick to finding continued success lies in being able to determine where best to spend your time (and your money). The most powerful way to prioritize workflow? Use analytics to ensure you can closely follow your best performing keywords and recognize opportunities you’re not currently capitalizing on.
There are a couple of ways to approach this:
- Focus on the groups of keywords that drive the most traffic and spend. Remember, your top-performing keyword group may not be the same as the single top traffic-driving keyword. Target your ad campaigns and organic content at these groups first.
- Identify gaps in your PPC and SEO campaigns by analyzing them side by side and against potential traffic gains. With keyword source analysis, you can easily compare the performance of keywords from paid and organic search to each other and to traffic estimates from a keyword suggestion tool.
A great way to start identifying your most important keywords is to take advantage of a free trial of WordStream’s PPC Management Software or WordStream’s SEO Tools depending on your search focus.
All this positivity is good, but for fully optimized search campaigns, we need to spend some time on negatives too. Next time I’ll talk about how identifying negative keywords can reduce wasteful PPC spending and even save you time and money on the SEO side.
]]>He will be outlining seven highly effective keyword research tactics that will help you generate more leads and sales from your search marketing campaigns.
Step 3: Build a smart keyword infrastructure.
A segmented list is smarter than a disorganized mess of keywords. Even smarter than that is a flexible, dynamic keyword structure that makes it easy to expand and improve on your list. This means taking your keyword list and transforming it into a keyword database.
A keyword database has a number of advantages over a keyword list:
- It’s private and proprietary, unlike lists generated by third-party tools.
- It’s easier to organize and manage than a static spreadsheet, supporting smart relationships among data sets.
- It’s easier to update, encouraging expansion over time so your campaigns can grow.
- It’s actionable, so you don’t just analyze your keywords, you take steps to get better results.
- It’s collaborative, so multiple members of your team can work simultaneously toward common goals.
We offer three great tools to help you create such an infrastructure:
- Our keyword management white paper (as mentioned in the first email in this series) provides you with 10 effective steps for building a better keyword list.
- If you’re trying to create a strong keyword foundation for paid search marketing, you’ll want to look at WordStream Keyword Management for PPC.
- If you’re interested in getting better SEO results, you can take WordStream Keyword Management for SEO for a spin for free.
Once you have a strong keyword infrastructure in place, you need to start monitoring your campaign performance.
Next week we’ll talk about tracking your search marketing success to the keyword level, and how it can help your bottom line.
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