One of the trends in Social Media that I've been analyzing in some depth over the past few months is the dynamic of social media conversations that span traditional market boundaries. As marketers we typically understand boundaries as geographic, demographic or psychographic. But the Internet is a vast melting pot where conversations involve people that never would have connected in the physical world, so these traditional boundaries often don’t make sense.
And the new boundaries that define different groups of people online are often hard to figure out. The way this shifting of boundaries influences and transforms the discussion is remarkable. And from a market standpoint, it's game changing.
If you track the social media conversations in any of the hot consumer markets, a lot of the market driving memes emerge in the first couple of weeks. You learn quickly what kinds of questions consumers are asking, what they complain about, what they hope to see in the future. But when you follow those conversations across many different channels over a few months, some deeper trends emerge that are a clear sign of the future. I'll give just one example now, but I'll explore some additional examples over the next few weeks.
One of the clearest market changing trends is the globalization of market conversations. Back in the day when people talked about the Information Superhighway, the reduction of geographic boundaries was one of the most popular tropes that marketers used to signify the new world we were creating. You'd see commercials with a New York executive chatting on a cell phone with a Buddhist monk in Asia, or with a tribal leader in Africa. The exotic contrasts of business suits juxtaposed with colorful costumes made for great marketing imagery. But now that global dialog is a mundane reality, it's less the mixing of sharply different groups of people online that is changing the market than the reduction of smaller boundaries--the blending of parallel market segments into a larger homogenized whole.
One of the most obvious and striking examples is visible in the automotive market, where hundreds of conversations take place daily on every conceivable channel of social media across the globe. If you follow these conversations for any length of time, you begin to realize just how anachronistic our current marketing landscape is today. Our markets evolved in a world where large markets like Europe, North America and Asia were entirely distinct. As an American abroad, it was somewhat surprising to see entirely different and unrecognizable Fords being sold overseas, or seeing diesel sports cars that you can't buy in the US. In fact, the cultural and regulatory landscape that evolved in these isolated consumer megaspheres created entirely different but parallel markets. For example,both Europe and North America have evolved environmentally conscious automotive consumers, but in the US we've embraced hybrid vehicles while in Europe they've embraced clean diesels.
But social media is making these differences seem rather quaint. If you follow the dialog on blogs and forums, you'll find Europeans talking to Americans, who are talking to Asians, who are talking to Africans, and on it goes. And they're all asking why we have one thing and you have another, which inevitably leads to why can't I have what you have. Europeans increasingly want hybrids, and Americans increasingly want clean diesels. Honda recently announced a diesel hybrid for the European market, and within weeks thousands of consumers in North America had signed onto a petition demanding Honda offer the same car in America.
You don't have to be an ivory-tower marketing guru to see what will happen in the next five years. Automakers will start offering similar vehicles in what used to be sharply defined and isolated market segments, which will have enormous economic benefits for the automakers, and maybe for consumers as the cost of more standardized production and marketing falls. But the longer term future is a little less clear. While the initial impact of global social media seems to lead toward a large-scale homogenization of global consumer tastes, this is in striking contrast to the phenomena of long tail economics. There is plenty of evidence that mainstream tastes often spur a backlash against consumer conformity, and the ability for smaller consumer segments to congeal online does create demand for more highly differentiated products.
It may be that Social Media's long-term impact is a fundamental shift of scale that defined these large and small market segments. Social media seems to be accelerating the merging of isolated global markets in megamarkets, while what we now now as micromarkets will also grow in a similar scale under the influence of global consumer conversations. In any case, it's clear that Social Media is creating an enormous transforming influence on consumer markets, and the implications for marketing are just as significant. If you're not actively following the conversations that are changing your market--beyond just what your customers are saying about your product--you really should be. The future is being written right before our eyes.
Are You Trash Talking Prospects?
Do you find it hard to engage with prospects or customers? If so, keep reading…
I was recently on the phone with Jill Konrath, author of Selling to Big Companies. I explained a project I am working on and she said, with great excitement, “You MUST read this article I wrote.”
What follows is perhaps one of the best lessons on why we fail to engage.
It is simply a letter from a customer.
Here are some excerpts from Jill’s original article:
Dear Seller,I only have a few minutes, but I understand you’re interested in what you can do to capture my attention and entice me to want to set up a meeting with you.
Let me say this loud and clear right now - you have no idea what my day is like. You may think you do, but you’re missing the boat. Until you understand this, my advice to you makes no sense.I got into the office early this morning so I could have some uninterrupted time to work on a major project - something I can’t seem to squeeze into the normal business day, which is filled with back-to-back meetings.
But, by 9 a.m. all my good intentions were dashed. My boss asked me to drop everything to get her some up-to-date information on a major reorganization initiative.
Starting to get the picture? Welcome to my world of everyday chaos where, hard as I try to make progress, I keep slipping behind.Did I mention my how many emails I get daily? Over 100.
In short, I have way too much to do, ever-increasing expectations, impossible deadlines and constant interruptions from people wanting my time or attention.
And now for the good stuff:
Which gets us back to you. In your well-intentioned but misguided attempts turn me into a “prospect,” you fail woefully to capture my attention. I’m going to be really blunt here: I could care less about your product, service, solution or your company.I’m not one bit interested in your unique methodologies, extraordinary differentiators or one-stop shopping. Your self-serving pablum, while designed to lure me into your clutches, has the exact opposite impact.
Think about your life. You know that this could have been you writing this letter.
Now put yourself in the shoes of your prospects. They are just like you.
So my question to you: What can be done to get the attention of a person like this?
Think like a savvy investor with lead generation
I was recently talking to a marketing leader about his 2008 strategy and he brought up some concerns he had about the economy and its potential impact on him and others.
Can you blame him? In years past, marketing has been favorite target for cuts by CFOs and CEOs as they look to conserve cash and reinforce their balance sheets for tough times.
I’m less concerned about budget cuts and more interested in opportunities for him and other B2B marketers who choose to bring focus to their marketing efforts. We have to remember that regardless of the economy, sales people are still expected to perform. I seldom find sales quotas are lowered to fit the news headlines.
If you want to flourish regardless of the economic conditions, you need to look for ways to help your sales team execute and improve performance.
I’m convinced that one of the best ways to do that is to focus on lead generation. Kate Maddox's article in BtoB Magazine, "IDC: Tougher times for tech marketing," which supports that other B2B marketers are doing just that.
Much like a savvy investor who buys when the market is down, smart marketers can capitalize on this opportunity (and beat competitors), by bringing focus and attention to their lead generation efforts.
Maddox’s article highlights IDC's recent tech marketing barometer research. IDC showed that fewer tech marketers are increasing their budgets this year compared to last year. But I think the bigger story is how those dollars are being allocated. Maddox writes, “According to the [IDC] report. Lead generation is the top marketing priority for tech marketers this year…”
According to studies, the single biggest issue for contemporary business-to-business marketers is effective lead generation. Conversely, it has been pointed out that 80% of marketing expenditures on lead generation and collateral are wasted because the leads are ignored by sales people.
For this reason, marketers should direct their budgets away from traditional awareness building campaigns that quickly eat up budget and instead expand and optimize lead generation programs that bring measurable results. Finding better tools and processes for managing the leads or inquires that they already have is also a good investment in a turbulent economy.
You will optimize lead generation immediately if you can honestly answer “yes” to all of the following questions:
• Do sales and marketing agree on what the word “lead” means?
• Are you tracking the conversion rates of leads to sales opportunities?
• Can you/Do you close-the-loop on all leads that are being passed to sales?
• Does your sales team pass back early stage or "cold" leads back for lead nurturing?
You may also want to check out my complementary webinar archive based on the ebook "The One Piece Of Advice You Can't Generate Leads Without" by RainToday titled, “More Is Not Better If You Don't Know How To Nurture”
April 24, 2008
RSS Advertising Driving Leads & Traffic
RSS usage is growing in leaps and bounds.
According to the Avenue A | Razorfish Digital Consumer Behavior Study, 56 percent of online consumers now use RSS feeds, and so it was only a matter of time before someone figured out an effective way for publishers to monetize the content and also use RSS as an effective advertising vehicle.
A hybrid of online advertising, newsletter sponsorships, and content syndication, RSS advertising shows great promise of being a highly effective, targeted vehicle for driving traffic and leads from an audience that is influential, active online, responsive, and pre-disposed to relevant content. (According to Bloglines, the typical RSS user returns three times per day and consumes feed content for 20 minutes per session.)
CDI has been having great success recently working with our media partner Pheedo, a pioneer in the RSS Advertising space and the premier provider of what they call “in-feed” advertising. Working with Pheedo, CDI is now able to:
• serve client ads within a network of RSS feeds, tailored by channels (ex: IT Professionals, Consumer Technology) or even specific feeds (ex: Wired, Dr. Dobbs) that are most relevant to the client’s target audience, offer, or product category (see ad at right)
• develop and place so-called “feed-powered” ads, either in-feed or on traditional Websites, in which the client’s ad is populated by dynamic content powered by the client’s own RSS feed (see ad below)
One of the reasons we were drawn to Pheedo’s content-driven model is that it aligns with CDI’s own philosophy of “sell the offer, not the product.” RSS subscribers are pre-disposed to relevant content, so information-driven ads are particularly effective in this medium. And RSS feeds are (at least today) a relatively uncluttered space compared to the typical commercial Website.
RSS advertising is a great option for technology firms and other marketers looking to:
• further leverage their own RSS feeds or other content
• drive additional RSS subscriptions
• utilize blogs and other dynamic content to drive qualified sales leads
For our client Cisco, we’ve been using Pheedo as part of a larger, integrated online campaign to drive Web traffic, newsletter sign-ups, and RSS subscriptions for News@Cisco, an information portal that serves as a destination site and repository for Cisco-related news as well as for Cisco blogs, podcasts, videos, and other corporate information.
Alas, I’m not at liberty to disclose specific results, but suffice it to say that this is a vehicle competing very well with other online media such as search/PPC and more traditional banner placements.
April 22, 2008
On Optimizing Your Outsourced Telesales Partnership
This week I had the great honor and pleasure of being interviewed by Brian Carroll, author of Lead Generation for the Complex Sale and CEO of InTouch, a top notch lead generation firm. The topic was how to select and optimize outsourced teleprospecting. What prompted the podcast was a conversation earlier with Brian in which I'd shared some insights that we'd gleaned after having screened, hired and managed a number of telesales/teleprospecting firms for our clients this last year.
I hope you find the podcast informative. Click here to check it out. Your comments are most welcome.
But if you’d rather just read the talking points for the interview, read on here.
Can you tell me a little about yourself, Sridhar?
Sure. I was with HP for about twelve years with my last job being head of marketing for HP Managed Services (outsourcing) business unit, $1B+ when I left. I went on to found Pacifica Group, a boutique marketing firm seven years ago. We often play interim Chief Marketing Officer or VP Marketing, and in recent years been asked often to hire and manage telesales firms.
What is “telesales” and what are the different types of outsourced firms for lead generation?
• Telesales or Inside Sales is actually closing deals over the phone.
• Teleprospecting is outbound contacting to find qualified buyers.
• Other types include custom list development houses, profilers who deliver contact names and some details about them, inbound telesales firms handle customer phone calls for sales, and direct marketing agencies do campaign and response management.
The key is being clear on your business objective. What do you really want from this relationship?
Why do some of your clients choose to outsource telesales?
1. Expertise – most of our clients already had employees doing this function in the past but come to conclude that the inside sales and/or teleprospecting was so important that they knew they had to hire experts on this "mini business process" rather than trying organically to figure this out. It's the exact opposite of the mantra to focus on what's important and outsource rest. Most firms see that running inside sales etc is a very different animal than direct sales and demand generation.
2. Speed – there's no faster way to get qualified leads delivered to sales than to engage a firm that already has all the people, training, tools, database, process, etc in place and the only lead-time is ramp up on specific product knowledge. Trying to do this organically will take a minimum of 6-9 months.
3. Executive bandwidth – most VPs of Sales and Marketing already have plenty to do just to deliver sales, leads, and brand awareness. Every client of mine that concluded that outsourcing was the way to go decided that they just didn't have the bandwidth or desire to manage this function well.
4. Reporting – one of the big drivers here is data or information. Most clients don't have near the sophistication as a professional teleservices firm would to provide incredibly detailed and actionable data on the health of the telesales process/function. So clients see outsourcing as a way to better manage to a service level agreement (SLA) and to better support them in providing the executive team with measurable ROI that they wouldn't otherwise readily get. And lord knows they don't want yet another IT project to deal with.
What should you have ideally ready before engaging a telesales firm?
Doesn’t have to be perfect but the following are very very helpful in making the relationship effective. A good telesales firm will actually help prepare these:
• Detailed description of the target decision-maker and company demographics
• Statement of the problem or “pain point” this person/organization faces
• Unique value proposition you deliver to this person/organization
• Roles/responsibilities spelled out to minimize confusion
• Measurable objectives for what you hope to achieve
• Definition of a “lead” – use Brian’s universal lead definition
• How you would score a lead – hot, warm, cold, or 1-10 scale, etc.
What criteria should companies use when hiring a telesales firm?
• Skills/knowledge of the agents (specific domain/industry knowledge, etc)
• Selling style of agents (e.g. consultative vs. transactional)
• Process (closed loop process from lead generation to lead handoff to sale)
• Team chemistry – would they blend in and become part of your organization?
• Customer references – how long have customers retained firm? Why?
• Management team – does the firm have managers/execs that have held operational roles in sales/marketing, what is their track record?
• Value for money – lowest price isn’t always the best way to go because you get what you pay for. Compare monthly pricing at given service level.
What are some of the pitfalls to avoid in this relationship?
• No explicit agreement on the definition of a lead
• Exclusive focus on cost per lead
• Lack of feedback in both directions—quality of leads delivered to sales, quality of the value proposition, messaging, and quality of the list for teleprospecting
• Lack of follow-up – did sales act on leads delivered? Did telesales contact all?
• Infrequent communication and rep training
What are some practices that you’ve found very effective?
The flip side of above:
• Living, breathing lead definition that evolves over time across the whole team
• Use of several performance metrics; I’ll cover more on that later
• Quarterly team meetings with entire staff to exchange ideas on what’s working/not working, changes to script/message, get coaching, etc.
• Listening to recordings (or better yet sit in on live) callouts and offer coaching
• Find out from telesales reps what is really resonating and not resonating with customers—adjust your marketing message dynamically
What are some success metrics that you’d use to evaluate effectiveness?
You want to measure things that will help you check the quality of your customer lists, the strength of your selling proposition, the effectiveness of the agents, the sales reps, and the end-to-end process. Some suggestions:
Quantitative ones:
• % of dial-outs that result in live conversations
• % of live conversations that result in sales ready handoff (e.g. booked appt)
• % of booked appointments that are actually completed
• % of sales handoffs that are returned for re-qualification
• % of sales handoffs that result in closed sales
Qualitative ones:
• Teamwork across the whole sales, marketing and telesales staff
• Flexibility – how quickly does the team/process adjust to improve performance?
Any parting thoughts?
View this truly as a partnership, collaboration. I know it sounds trite but think of telesales firm as literally part of your team. You don’t distinguish their staff from your own employees in sales and marketing. Ultimately, the higher the level of collaboration, the better the results