YOuTube still of Air NZ safety video with Stephen Adams

Airline safety videos are a great messaging platform

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I read an article about airline spend on glossy safety videos and found some great marketing reasons for investing in high production values.

YOuTube still of Air NZ safety video with Stephen Adams

4.8 million views and counting

First – aligning cultural values with education. Air New Zealand partnered with the Department of Conservation (DOC) to promote the importance of wildlife protection. That was after they did a movie hook up from Men in Black featuring the All Black rugby stars.

The baton was picked up by United whose $1m spend and 160 crew on their current Safety in Motion video boggles – but apparently viewers love it.

Qantas uses a true customer romance story (with actors and the actual people in the credits – no they don’t look alike at all), British Airways features home grown “national treasures” like Gordon Ramsay. So far so good – but did you know some of these get millions of YouTube watches? Sounds like a new revenue stream from people who won’t even be paying to fly with you.

In these straitened times, does this make the cost of production a worthwhile marketing investment?

Sources:

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Melinda Martin-Khan on Unsplash ">colourful shirt and denim jacket with pin badges

New ideas often receive pushback

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New ideas often receive pushback.

That’s because they’re new, they represent change and that can be threatening to jobs, budgets and ‘the way we work round here’.

It doesn’t mean they are necessarily a bad idea. I find that frequently it takes a couple of goes to overcome the pushback and also it takes some time – maybe a year or more.

There’s nothing more powerful than “an idea whose time has come”. But that doesn’t just happen. The marketing communications outreach that builds the comprehension, that challenges the status quo, that offers alternative pathways is where us B2B marketers can prepare the ground so that you overcome the pushback, get acceptance for a pilot or a trial and then move towards adoption.

Here’s a case study.

I’m the MC for a B2B marketing careers event at the Marketing Association which I first proposed as an un-conference a year ago. Now the event is re-framed and is happening next week.

Let’s talk?

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Marielle Ursua on Unsplash ">a computer and phone being used to write a job application and CV

Not everything is enhanced with AI.

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Use your experience of life, of human communication and decision making to work out times in the customer journey when personal, individual, manual actions will have greater effect.

I love using letters, phone calls, SMS – all great tools for use cases when you need cut through and to effect human-to-human contact as a context for making a sale.

PM me and I’ll tell you one use case I’m doing right now with a CV for a job application.

No it won’t do the whole job for you, yes you will use your human insight and creativity to frame up the AI supplied text. It’s so satisfying.

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Petr Macháček on Unsplash ">computer and phone headset for outbound sales calls

Getting a “no” is a good result for the sales pipeline

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The inexperienced new business development marketer will disagree with that statement. Why wouldn’t you want more prospects in your pipeline?

The customer doesn’t owe you their business – but they do owe you an answer.

Creating marketing tactics that provoke the prospect to answer “no” is a good thing. Sales know not to pursue them and can focus their efforts elsewhere.

And remember, no is just for now.

95% of B2B prospects aren’t ready to buy at any one time. So going back to them later, may mean they’re ready to hear your brand message and review their plans.

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Academy for Women Entrepreneurs, Pacific Women in Business

AWE Pacific Summit 2023

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I am a panelist at the Academy for Women Entrepreneurs summit talking about Social Media, Marketing and communications.

Three talking points and answers

From your experience in B2B Marketing, what do you think our Pacific & Maori business women who target businesses as customers should focus on for their marketing activities?

  • Understand the customer – walk in their shoes
  • Keep good records – CRM
  • Businesses may look daunting as sales targets but they are made up of people – befriend them.
  • Use LinkedIn – buy a Premium membership and Sales Navigator
  • Build your email list from day one
  • Don’t build your house on rented land
  • Focus on local marketing first

Can you give some examples of SME women led businesses you have supported with your digital marketing insights expertise?  

  • Sue Skeet – Notice Match
  • Climber Property – Grace Hu
  • Equal Exes – Bridgette Jackson
  • PICMI – Genevieve Griffin-George
  • Catherine Stewart  Barrister
  • Method Recycling – India Korner

What are some tips you can give our Pacific & Maori business women for their digital marketing activities & campaigns? 

  • Buy expertise if you don’t have it yourself. Fiverr, Upwork
  • Learn how to brief
  • Find your tribe…. start very very narrow for your audience
  • Keep your owned digital assets at the core of your strategy.
  • Stay in touch regularly
  • Build community
  • Join the Marketing Association B2B SIG

Happy to give guidance to anyone who needs more detail on these topics.

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Simplify your martech stack

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I attended the Marketing Association’s B2B meetup and here’s my write-up on the event.

Key learnings

  • Use what you have to the fullest extent – all functionality
  • Simplify your stack NOW
  • Check your use case matches your technology
  • Bring the team with you – upskill them to be confident using technology

Match your MarTech Stack to your needs

Technology is an essential component for successful B2B marketing – but the plethora of choices is beyond confusing – it’s daunting.

The Marketing Association’s Special Interest Group for B2B marketing hosted a panel discussion “Does your martech stack fit your needs?” to tackle this giant question head on.

Ably led by Cassandra Powell (Assurity), the panel shared their insights and experiences using technology to support marketing activity.

Find the right tools

Half the panel confessed that they were in the process of simplifying their technology at the moment. Traverna Addenbrook (Spark) assesses each based on whether it supports Spark’s data unification goal while Sharn Piper (Attain) always matches the tool to the job which needs to be done and then tries to use that tool to its fullest extent.

Datacom’s Alex Mercer confessed that when she joined they had 220 websites! Her team are integrating platforms in support of their brand development. Getting the data talking across platforms is a sizeable job. Simon Wedde (Stitch Tech) strongly advocated seeking native integrations between different software tools and to never use custom integrations, because one software update can cause you headaches. He also recommend to use your own data when doing demos of new tools so you can assess tech platforms’ suitability to your unique use case.

Bring the team with you

Many marketers inherit ‘hangover’ software which is already in place. This is not necessarily a disaster because if you assess the adoption rates for each, you’ll quickly be able to make a case for getting rid of the ones you don’t like or have become outdated. By surveying your team and understanding the landscape of actual use Travena managed to simplify her stack and improve both the integrations and the processes which support the marketing team. She had a word of caution about fear. Some team members may not use technologies which are in place and you need to understand your team’s capability around each tool before deciding which to sunset out of the tech stack.

Get the most out of your stack

Many marketers already know that we use only a small percentage of the capability of the software tools we buy. Relax says Simon, just use that part really well – but also build your use cases to confirm that the tools are aligned with business needs.  It’s important to understand where your data is and how clean and up-to-date it is says Traverna. She reminded the meeting that sometimes things turn out in unpredictable ways – this isn’t a disaster. Don’t blame the model is her advice. If you understand data lag and the implications you will not have any trouble explaining to stakeholders what happened and why. If you’ve already done your internal PR with these folks you can remind them why they invested in this tool, that they should trust your marketing process and trust you. Marketers need to be comfortable around technology so they’re empowered to make informed decisions.

What about AI?

Sharn is not worried about AI tools replacing marketers, but he is worried about a marketer who knows the AI tools better than you replacing your job. The AI itself is not what you should be concerned about. His team is already running tests using AI to save time or money in the business. Get it done, know what works and what fails and build your knowledge about how to write AI prompts.

Rebecca Caroe

Member of the B2B Special Interest Group Board

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3 simple new business hacks for 2022

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I”m always looking for new clients and customers when working with a B2B brand n their marketing.

Sometimes I see a cute tool or tactic and today I’m sharing three of them.

Home page call to action

Loved this because it shows light humour and a pretty persuasive message. Yes, I have scrolled a long way down the page (this is just above the footer) and so maybe I SHOULD be booking a demo or contacting the sales team.

The copywriting is clear, simple and unambiguous.

Home page website call to action graphic. Clear copywriting.

Clear B2B copywriting

LinkedIn last names

Frequently on LinkedIn, people with whom I’m not closely connected have their last name (surname) hidden or only the first initial letter published.

For many, this is easily solved.

Clicm on the person and open their full profile.

Check the URL

LinkedIn uses your full name (as registered on the site) as your unique URL identifier.

You can probably work out the last name and first name from this URL.

How to find last name in LinkedIn URL

 

Improve your Social Media Bio

There are lots of list sites which allow you to publish a list of URLs which you’re associated or have profile on. Here’s a new one set up by Squarespace – BioSites.

As their launch promo says

  • Select a custom URL- Claim a free username to create a URL. Add it on Instagram, TikTok, or to any social bio.
  • Add unlimited links. Connect your followers to your websites, social pages, stores, videos, and more with your Bio Site.
  • Publish and share your link anywhere.
  • Connect your content
  • Use your mobile device to update your Bio Site in seconds and build consistency in your online presence.
  • Accept payments and more.

They make it easy for you by supplying template designs.

Alternatives are Linkkle and Allmylinks.

BONUS – my reflections on LinkedIn Groups and Company followers

I am constantly frustrated by LinkedIn Groups – they used to be great places to build community but since their prominence in the news feed has been dialled down to zero, most are invisible.

These used to be good places to find prospects – folks interested in your products and services. Since few people join groups nowadays, they are becoming a redundant part of the LI platform.

Time to make an offline list of the members and try to connect with them elsewhere – preferably on a platform or medium which you control.

Company follower lists are another good place to find prospects – and often competitors!

There are a range of ways to download these – contact me to find out the latest easy method.

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marketing education

B2B Marketing education ideas

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I’ve got a red book – and it’s where I write notes from any educational things I do. It’s fascinating – the current book starts with “Trusted Content Creation” by Brian Clark and the most recent entry is about YouTube Video production by Evan Carmichael.

The thing I like best about it is not the factual notes, it’s the ideas they spawn. I like to draw a light bulb in the margin next to these…. they are scattered around and it delights me that I can innovate in the B2B Marketing I do for clients just by going and listening to experts.

What’s the latest thing you studied? And where do you record your notes / ideas?

#continuingeducation #b2bmarketing

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LI Search filter, B2B marketing, LinkedIn Marketing,

Build your B2B audience on LinkedIn

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Here’s a case study with a difference – it’s repeatable, copy-able and also very do-able. By you.

You’re a B2B organisation and seeking an audience for your products and services. I’m assuming you are interested in content marketing as one part of your marketing strategy – you wouldn’t be reading this article if you weren’t. And if you discovered it through online search, you’ll realise the power of search engine optimisation for B2B marketing.

Either way, welcome. Let’s get started.

Find your B2B audience

I helped several clients build an opted-in email marketing audience of thousands using LinkedIn as the start point. After building an audience and communicating (two-way) with them many became paying clients.

So what’s the step by step process to getting this going?

  1. Define your ideal customer persona
  2. Find individuals within LinkedIn who meet the criteria
  3. Test your messaging by manually connecting with them
  4. Refine messaging (if needed)
  5. Find LinkedIn Groups who serve this audience
  6. Join the group(s)
  7. Once in the group, you can direct message any member of the group without being a connection (you don’t have to pay LI for in-mail).
  8. Start your prospect acquisition campaign methodology using the messaging from 2 – 4 above.
  9. Migrate your audience off LI to a platform you control as soon as possible.

LI Search filter, B2B marketing, LinkedIn Marketing,

How did this work?

For my first client we built an audience of >800 contacts, assembled an amazing ‘voice of customer’ research database and were able to validate the brand’s go to market strategy as well as identify a core group of global influencers to work with.

For my second client, we tested a range of groups, refined the audience selection criteria and worked on two core messaging texts. The voice of customer research delivered key phrases which copywriters incorporated into campaigns. During this we discovered a missing block of content currently unfulfilled by any other brand – BONZA – a key positioning decision which led to creating in-person and virtual community building on Meetup which hadn’t been in the original plan.

The third used Sales Navigator – LinkedIn’s paid sales tool – to deepen the research phase into a much more targeted set of prospect accounts. This enabled us not to use the Groups tactic described above, and to change the focus of the first filter. This worked because the brand was mature and had a very tight minimum viable audience already defined.

Messaging is key

When you’re ready to work on these tactics, understand that finding the audience is really the easy part. Getting your message noticed, replied to and acted upon is where the ‘magic’ happens.

Having a skilled B2B copywriter on your team is essential –  invite me for a scoping discussion here.

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