There has been a literal smorgasbord of recent studies on the power of white papers in the last few months.
This one is fresh from MarketingSherpa’s 2009 Business Technology Marketing Benchmark Guide.
There is SO much gold in this report that I'll be making multiple posts related to it.
But first, a little gem: Do readers respond better to specifically targeted white papers?
The answer: a big YES.
Content is most valuable when it is targeted to one of the following categories:
• Specific industry (82% found this significantly or somewhat more valuable)
• Job function (67% found this significantly or somewhat more valuable)
• Company size (59% found this significantly or somewhat more valuable)
Take home lesson: If you want to engage readers, focus on an industry AND a job function (and why not get down to a specific company size while you are at it!).
How do Techies Use White Papers?
Here are some interesting findings related to engineers and how they use white papers:
• Negotiating? Then give them a white paper: When negotiating a deal, white papers are one of the most important things you can give an engineer. Engineers placed them just below search engines and ranked them as the 2nd most important thing they turn to.
• White papers important for evaluation stage as well: Engineers turn to vendor white papers before analyst reports, newsletters, case studies, social networks and vendor webinars, with 44% reporting they like to review vendor white papers.
• How do engineers primarily find white papers? They look on search engines (61%), email newsletters (48%), vendor website (45%) and industry search engine (36%).
• What do engineers typically do after reading white papers? They visit the vendor’s website (70%), shop the competition (46%), contact the vendor (45%) or pass the white paper to a peer (37%).
There’s some really awesome findings here. I hope they help you make the case for white paper.
Let me know if these findings match your experiences??
February 23, 2009
Using Thought Leadership Tactics for Lead Generation
As marketers look for ways to optimize lead generation, they are recognizing the value of using educational content and thought leadership to help attract more customers.
I've written a number of times on using educational marketing and certain aspects of thought leadership to generate leads, and I thought this post by Dana VanDen Heuvel over at the MarketingProfs Daily Fix blog was useful reminder.
So what is a thought leader?
First of all, thought leaders don't really refer to themselves as thought leaders. Thought leadership is an outside assessment based on what others say about you NOT what you say about you.
A thought leader is a recognized authority in one’s field. Elise Bauer wrote an article on thought leadership that I referenced in my book that's still relevant today, and it gives some good tips.
Bauer writes, “What differentiates a thought leader from any other knowledgeable company [or individual] is the recognition from the outside world that the company deeply understands its business, the needs of its customers, and the broader marketplace in which it operates.” She continues, “Trust is built on reputation and reputation is generally NOT built on advertising or looking smart.”
I agree. People have a natural "BS" meter. We can sense when someone is just trying to sound smart rather than be authentic. Most of us can recognize a charlatan, one who pontificates about their expertise only to pitch us. These so-called thought leaders are only just trying to edify themselves.
Thought leadership is not just about what you say or write. It is a way of being. Thought leaders genuinely influence others by creating, advancing and sharing ideas. And there are just a select few thought leaders in every industry and field of study. Their objective is to genuinely help others. In business, thought leaders revolutionize the way others (both inside and outside their companies) do business. That's true thought leadership.
Bauer concludes, “Become a thought leader in your field and it won’t matter as much how big you are. Companies and people will look to you for insight and vision. Journalists will quote you, analysts will call you, and websites will link to you.”
If you're looking to develop more educational content or leverage thought leadership check out the following posts to get you started:
On giving away ideas
How to Become a Thought Leader and Attract Customers
Leverage Thought Leadership to Win More Sales (with Nurturing)
Using thought leader content as a lead generation tool
Content ideas for lead nurturing and tactics to use
February 18, 2009
Launching your Product: What to Avoid
I've worked with many clients to help bring new products (and services) to market and even when the offering has real value to offer and a strong, differentiable place to occupy in its universe, I find some common mistakes get in the way. Often a launch that can be great, is simply good or worse, mediocre. Such an undesirable - and in many cases, undeserving - fate can be avoided. I offer here a check-list of some of the most common mistakes I've observed.
These are based on my experience helping consumer-focused companies but they apply just as well to business-to-business (B2B) enterprises:
• Product is Not Ready: It's tempting to be on an impossible timeline (who isn't?) and I've myself been on the product management forefront urging the technical team to "just get it out". On the other hand you don't want to be a perfectionist organization that cannot launch to save their lives (I've been there too). These two extremes can be a problem and need to be managed strategically. The solution lies in i) understanding clearly your promise to consumers (ultimately when all is said and done, what does your new offering stand for?) and what cannot be compromised? ii) prioritizing the features /functions of your product and knowing where to draw the line; this needs to be a criteria-based call and ideally a discussion that's happened early on in the process and iii) testing, testing, testing - concept testing, feature prioritization testing, prototype and product testing, beta testing (in software scenarios) and finally a controlled release or soft launches; all these can give you early feedback that you can take into account before you do a full blown launch. All these mitigation scenarios take work and planning -- and may have some trade-offs too -- so they need to be carefull thought through.
• Overestimating Adoption: Often this is couched in "not spending enough on marketing, promoting" and while that is the problem, it is rooted in the fact that people close to the product often will overestimate its appeal and consequent adoption. Again testing early in the process can help; developing an adoption model for new categories and tracking share and distribution trends for exisitng categories are all ways to mitigate this risk. I'll run into people who say, "If I get 0.001% of this category..." and I know we're in trouble. That's not a good methodology and can land you in trouble. Instead I urge marketers to take a look at other offerings in their category, at adjacent categories and other completely new categories (perhaps with behavioral parallels) that were launched. How did their adoption build, what "events"/trends/factors had a major impact on their build. How did their distribution track? And compare their strengths and weaknesses (do you offer similar accessibility? ease of use? channels? pricing advantage?) to your own situation. While it is hard to do for completely new categories, it can be done and is an exercise well worth it. You may also find that for your category, you can only afford to launch in one segment - geographical area, industry vertical or distribution channel - because that's all you can afford to spend on. But even if you learned just that, your marketing dollars will go a much longer way vs. a poorly thought out effort that fritters your resources away.
• Underestimating Competition: Marketers will launch and competition - even the ones you did not think were your competition - will redouble their customer acquisition efforts, lower their price, launch a promotion and/or enter new channels. I've seen this in mature catergories where competition is fierce and the incumbents are not giving their share away that easily no matter how compelling your offering is; but I've also seen it in relatively new categories where when a completely new product/format is launched the incumbents lower their price. And suddenly you're up against a new barrier to adoption. Planning for a stronger-than-you-think competitive response - both from a positioning and promotional perpsectives - is a good idea. It will help you put a mitigation plan in palce, allocate dollars for it and be ready to move without losing precious time and customers.
• Not Having Tested - Adequately: I cannot say this enough. Use exsiting market research where you can but have solid, evidence-based plans for most of your risks. Often questions such as feature/function prioritization, pricing, positioning are left to the "judgement" of launch team. Their judgement is crucial but we can all be dead wrong. Talking to your consumers, customers, influencers, channels, partners -- every chance you get is a recipe for success. All the data you gather will require your judgement to sift through and analyze -- but judgement without evidence is simply prejudice and can land you in trouble.
• Not Developing Success Criteria / Metrics: A product gets launched and in the first six months the team cannot agree on how successful it is? and related to that what the causes are? and as a result how to fix them? Avoid this easily. Create a success matrix. Call out your assumptions clearly - this is important - and then lay out what you would consider success, how you will measure it (sometimes you need multiple measures for a single criterion and this in itself is a valuable discussion to have) and what it will take to get there. This latter point is extremely valuable in that it can become the crux of the discussion when you're trying to make sure you get the resources you need for a successful launch. (Bonus: it also helps you manange your deliverables -- and career -- better).
• Not Leveraging ALL Your Influencers: Make sure your marketing plan has at least one, if not more, line items for all your influencers - industry influencers whether they be analysts, endorsers, people who have an impact on how your customers think. Your PR team will likely have a well-thought out plan to do this. But don't forget who else has a significant impact on your consumers' thinking, their experience of your brand and who they encounter at the various touch points: your partners, channel, customer service, help-desk, etc. Make sure you've sold all these constituencies on your offering and you've also gathered their feedback. Besides becoming a marketing force for you, these customer touch points are often the source of great market data for you.
• Not Supporting Adequately - and Long Enough: Often products are launched and after year 1 they are forgotten. This becomes a default approch vs. a well thought out one. And the product loses share and never delivers on its promise. It perhaps could have had a longer life but you did not plan to support it longer and as a result come year 2 everyone's forgotten about it. Every product that is in the market needs a conscious plan for effective, profitable and actionable portfolio planning. Otherwise you run the risk of having a negative impact on your profits, poorly using your resources and worst of all, confusing your customers - and channel.
I can think of several other launch issues but I wanted to capture these since they encompass what I see most often. Let me know your thoughts and what gets in the way of your successful launches.