The Internet gives us the capacity to publish and widely disperse our best thinking and to become thought leaders in our markets. So why don't more business marketers seize this opportunity? Very often it's because they feel uncertain about their ability, or their company's ability, to produce engaging and interesting content. But it's not as difficult as it may seem. With planning and a little creativity, b-to-b marketers can create content that inspires response and generates action. Learn the tricks professional publishers use and how to apply them.
Unleash Your Inner Publisher - Paul Gillin's BMA Chicago Presentation 6/1/11
1. Unleash Your Inner Publisher Paul Gillin Author: The New Influencers Secrets of Social Media Marketing Social Marketing to the Business Customer
2. The Media in Collapse US Magazine Circulation Average age of US daily newspaper reader: 57 Reduction in US newsroom staffs since 2001: 45% Growth in NBC prime time audience, 2008: -14.3% Age of average network evening news viewer: 63 2001 2009 Change Woman’s Day 1.61M 410,000 -74% Redbook 556,300 154,600 -72% Playboy 522,800 203,200 -71% Country Living 380,200 134,900 -64% Nati Enquirer 1.65M 591,300 -64% Reader’s Digest 750,000 270,000 -64% ESPN Magazine 54,350 25,200 -63%
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4. The New Media Landscape Marathon schedule http://bit.ly/waCMc Shared bread pudding w/ @skydiver at Mother's. My life is now complete. How to Write a 1 Minute Video Marketing Script http://ow.ly/17xJE I'm at Palm Beach International Airport (PBI, West Palm Beach). http://4sq.com/4GeLz0 Best press photos of 2009 http://om.ly/fNhW I can't find my good black pants. Comparing Top Chef Masters Restaurants #topchef http://is.gd/8q4hN How To Get Well Prepared For The Website Creation. http://bit.ly/aTitVC I'm at Palm Beach International Airport (PBI, West Palm Beach). http://4sq.com/4GeLz0 Comparing Top Chef Masters Restaurants #topchef http://is.gd/8q4hN
11. Demonstrate Authority Today, you can take your message directly to your constituents without relying upon media intermediaries And why would you not want to do that?
12. Planning is Essential Color coding denotes responsible departments/people Tool Wk. 37 Wk. 38 Wk. 39 Wk. 40 Wk. 41 Blog Topic Topic Topic Topic Topic Newsletter Topic Video Topic White Paper Topic Webcast Topic Topic Podcast Topic Topic Chat Topic Topic Press Release Topic Topic Topic
13. Stagger Activities White Paper Promotion Timeline Task Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Home page link E-mail newsletter E-mail blast Blog promotion Twitter messaging
16. Well, Do You Have a… Hammer strategy? Plumbing strategy Landscaping strategy? Copier strategy? Stapler strategy? Social Media are just a bunch of tools, and tools are useless unless you have a specific need for them.
17. Tools for the Funnel Customer Prospect Quality Contact Sales Lead Impression Case study | Video testimonial Guided tour | Product demo Webinar | Press coverage Glossary | ROI calculator Free trial/Consultation Help desk | Chat | Forum Training | Usage tips Contact information White paper | eBook Analyst report | Publication Blog | Article | Tweet | Podcast Source: NowSpeed Marketing, Inc.
21. Just One Guy Estimated monthly visitors: 73,000 Google Indexed pages: 5,970 Alexa ranking: Top .15% Linking domains: 13,085 Twitter followers: 7,336 New York Times citations: 338 Computerworld citations: 360 InformationWeek citations: 169 Newsletter subscribers: 150,000
29. Lead Gen Excellence 73 blogs 17 bloggers 600% jump in leads Top quality “ Get engineers talking to engineers and get everyone else out of the middle.” Rick Short, Marcom Director
31. B2B SEO insurance directors and officers insurance directors and officers insurance maine time search volume Focus on Long Tail Keywords. Source: Eric Schwartzman Twitter: @pgillin
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33. Source: HubSpot 2011 State of Inbound Marketing Study Twitter: @pgillin Frequency Counts
34. Inbound Links Are the Secret Sauce Source: Eric Schwartzman Twitter: @pgillin
43. Feed Reader is a Topical Newswire Consolidate Feeds by Topic to Monitor Markets of Interest @pgillin
44. Trending Topics InfoSec Island Tag Cloud TechMeme TechCrunch Enterprise Google Insights for Search Social Tools Can Help You Choose Topics for Your Communications @pgillin
52. Have Some Fun! OK Labs uses "social objects," or distinct icons, to create a memorable association. “It’s been a way for people to feel that they know the company before doing business with the company,” says Marti Konstant, VP of marketing
65. Publish Everywhere 60 million members 600 million members 200 million members 2 billion daily views 20 million daily visitors 100 million members 10 million members 1 million daily visitors 1.5 million daily visitors
67. New Publishing Lifecycle Begins as a tweet Becomes a blog entry Feeds a podcast Stokes a white paper That gets tweeted!
68. These are NOT ROI Website Visitors Click-throughs Store visits Press coverage “ Buzz” Employment applications Retweets FaceBook friends Blog comments Video views Twitter followers Impressions Friends Coupons distributed But if you can quantify their financial impact, you have ROI!
69. Basic Business Metrics Lifetime Value of a Customer = (Longevity * Revenue) * Margin Conversion Rate = New Customers/ Visits or Leads Value of a Lead/Visitor = Visitor * Conversion Rate * Lifetime Value
70. OK, Let’s Make it Real Typical customer Curly spends $10,000/year with you Curly is with you for five years Your profit margin is 10% Lifetime value of Curly is ($10,000 * 5) * .1 = $5,000
71. Applying ROI: Value of a Visitor Monthly Visitors 10,000 Conversion Rate .5% Lifetime Value $5,000 Calculation (10,000 * .005 * 5)/10,000 Value of a Visitor $25
72. Value of a Blog Monthly Search Traffic 3,000 Estimated Traffic w/Blog 4,000 Value of a Visitor $25 Monthly Value of a Blog $25,000 Monthly Blog Expense $6,000 ROI ($25,000-$6,000)/$6,000 316%
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74. How Emerson Has Done It Source: Jim Cahill Twitter: @pgillin
75. Strategy - Expand Digital Footprint Videos Podcasts Source: Jim Cahill Pictures Presentations
76. Blog Has Made Emerson Experts Findable Source: Jim Cahill Twitter: @pgillin
77. Emerson People And Brands In Twitter Source: Jim Cahill Twitter: @pgillin
79. And the Leads Come In “ I have an e-mail on my wall from a company that asked us to bid on a nine-figure deal next to a sign that asks ‘Is there any value in blogging?’” Jim Cahill Blogger, Dir. Of Social Media Emerson Process Experts Twitter: @pgillin
80. Thank You! Paul Gillin 508-656-0734 [email_address] Site: gillin.com Blog: paulgillin.com Twitter: pgillin Free bi-weekly newsletter; sign up at gillin.com
Editor's Notes
The mainstream media in the United States is in a state of precipitous decline. Newspaper revenues have fallen by more than half since 2005 in circulation is at levels not seen since the Kennedy administration. In the magazine market, the news is not much better. Circulation at Iconic titles like woman’s Day and Redbook are off more than 70%in the past decade. While some new titles have made up the gap, the overall magazine circulation picture is trending steadily downward. In B2B publishing, the situation is even worse correct. A decade ago, technology publishers produced more than 1000 pages per week of printed magazine content aimed at business buyers. Today, almost none of those publications even exists anymore. The largest loser in magazine ad pages in 2009 was the business-to-business segment.
It’s no secret that social mediais growing at the expense of traditional media. The statistics are stunning. Facebook today has more than 600 million registered members, and the average Facebook user spends nearly one hour per session on the site. LinkedIn is about to surpass 100 million members and more than 200 million people use twitter. Search is the killer app of B2B social marketing. 93% of B2B buyers use search to begin the buying process and Google processes nearly 40,000 search queries per second. Social media has made it cheap and easy for businesses to publish content, a capability that was previously limited only to publishers with large capital investments. Search is the great equalizer: content that is judged useful by a large number of people voting with their links may be ranked more highly in search engines than content from venerable publishing brands. This is a key point. Everyone can now publish if he or she chooses to do so. Word-of-mouth popularity can elevate the visibility of one’s publish content very quickly. We used to rely upon the media to validate and spread our message. Today, we are the media.
While these developments are exciting, they also present new challenges. Visibility is no longer dependent solely upon the size of one’s advertising budget. It is now possible to gain influence by producing quality content. However, this creates new pressure on marketers to deliver a different kind of message: one that is useful and engaging. It is no longer enough to shout because customers do not have to listen.
Because of these factors, the social media tools favored by B2B marketers differ from those preferred by the to see marketers. Research by B2B magazine found that blogs and LinkedIn, which are relatively rarely used in B2C scenarios, are the top two choices of B2B marketers.
Characteristics of B2B interactions differ in some fundamental ways from B2C interactions. This has important implications for the selection of social media tools. Among the major differences are: B2B marketing is much more likely to focus on value than experience. Value can be expressed in many ways, including price/performance, the fit with the customer’s business objective, flexibility, and compatibility with existing systems. The “Wow!” factor that is so important to many consumer buying decisions rarely means much in business engagements. B2B buying decisions are usually made by groups, whereas consumer buying decisions are made by individuals. This means that B2B marketing programs must influence multiple people at multiple stages of the buying process, and each of those individuals has different priorities. The chief financial officer (CFO), for example, is focused on return, whereas the product manager may be thinking more about user experience or lead generation. Business buying cycles are longer than consumer buying cycles. This is primarily because more dollars are at stake and more people are involved in the decision. B2B companies prefer to choose suppliers for the long-term and avoid disruptive and expensive changes. This means that much more research usually goes into a B2B decision than a B2C decision. Business buying decisions are more likely to be a commitment than consumer buying decisions. The viability of the manufacturer, its quality of support, and its future product road maps have significant influence on these decisions. Once the sale is made, buyer and seller are bound together in an ongoing dialog. Relationships play a more important role in B2B than in B2C decisions. In some cases, business buyers bet their careers on the choices they make. They need to feel confident that their supplier will validate the soundness of their judgment. Service and support are essential decision factors. Down time is expensive. Business customers expect their problems to be solved when they need them solved. B2B sales have lots of moving parts. At the high end in particular, contracts are often custom bid and may include bundled services, special discounts, and detailed price schedules.
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B2B marketing uses the concept of the sales funnel to depict the process by which a prospect enters a company’s orbit and eventually becomes a customer. Content assets need to be deployed with the goal of addressing a prospects needs at each level of the funnel. Some of these assets, such as case studies and white papers, have been around for a long time. Social media adds new options for publishing this information, and some social media can be used at multiple stages of the funnel. For example, podcasts may be used to make a first impression and also to provide detailed technical information for a prospect who is in the later stages of a decision. Some people argue that social media flattens the funnel because prospects can now do significant research and can become quite educated before contacting a vendor. This adds a dimension to collateral development, since marketers can no longer assume that someone engaging with the company for the first time is at an early stage in the buying process.
PG Intro ES follow Blog are dead In Indium launched blogs to convert content to contacts to cash. But rather than just buy PPC keywords on Google, they decided to leverage blogs Leverage understand of buyer personas to escalate in the search rankings against low-volume search phrases indicative of a purchasing need. The content was written to answer buyer oriented questions. Blog posts are written by engineers. Headlines like: Wave soldering flux deactivation temperatures explained. Will Multiple Reflows Damage My Solder Joint? Using Integrated Preforms For Solder Fortification Starting to blog in Chinese as well Blogs allow them to: SEO their website for buyer oriented phrases, rather than their brand oriented phrases Continuously refresh their website with new content, which gets tweeted, shared and linked to Stay in front of a diverse stakeholder communities with different needs at your domain.com, rather than on a popular social network where B2B buyers may not be in work mode. In a recent blog post about how social media is changing the B2B marketing, Indium marcom director Rick Short wrote: TAKE AWAY: Business to business marketing is all about sales cycles. Offering business customers access to the information they need to qualify your products and services on a self service basis is a way to generate leads and accelerate sales cycles.
Page Rank is the new PR [CC 3.5] www.EricSchwartzman.com :: @ericschwartzman
ES [CC 3.5] www.EricSchwartzman.com :: @ericschwartzman
ES
In the posts I take advantage of content I’ve posted in SlideShare, YouTube, and Flickr to make the post richer and increase the digital footprint. I also do an audio podcast of almost every post. Customers and sales folks gave me feedback that they have long commutes and wanted the audio version of each post, so I created an iTunes channel and MP3 subscription.
The blog has increased the findability of our expertise, not only in the blog posts, but in content it links to back on the www.EmersonProcess.com website.