Reputation to Revenue

B2B ads worth spreading

The always interesting TED announced the winners in an intriguing new competition the other day: Ads Worth Spreading. Building on the nonprofit's overall mission, Ideas Worth Spreading, TED decided to try and make a virtue of necessity. Advertising supports the free site; why not challenge advertisers to create ads compelling enough that people actually want to watch them and tell their friends to watch them, too. 

It wasn't an original idea. Super Bowl marketers, among others, have always tried to get people to seek out and pass along their creative flourishes (Apple's 1984 Macintosh ad is still my personal favorite). BMW made a huge splash in the ad world in 2001 by commissioning top Hollywood directors to create short, high production value films promoting the ultimate driving machines. More than 2 million people registered on the BMW film site, and an incredible 94% of them recommended the films to others. Most agencies today at least hope their productions will catch the popular imagination and go viral.

So what's the B2B connection? For more and more B2B firms, thought leadership and educational content are the new advertisements. We're cutting back on traditional ads and shifting resources to content marketing (white papers, expert video interviews, ebooks, blogs, and the like)  in hopes of getting our customers to pay more attention, raise their hands as "interested," and accept entry into our shiny new lead nurturing systems.

But here's the question: Are these "ads" really worth spreading? If you pulled together a group of your customers and asked them to review your thought leadership content side-by-side with that of all your competitors, would they pick yours among the winners? Would they rush to their email, Twitter, and Facebook accounts to tell their friends and colleagues that they simply must check out your new white paper or ebook?

Am I setting the bar too high? Perhaps, but consider how often you spread the good word about ads that cross your laptop or iPhone. Not very often, right? If your educational content is not good enough for you to pass along, why should it be for your customers? And if it isn't, how are they going to convince the myriad other people in their firm that ultimately need to agree that your solution is worth the investment?

Do you agree? Is your thought leadership worth spreading?

Four levels of B2B content sharing: Publishing isn't everything

Consistently creating engaging content is one of those programmatic challenges that strikes fear in the hearts of many B2B marketers looking to take more advantage of social media.

It shows up regularly in surveys on the obstacles to social media success; it came up repeatedly in the group of manufacturing and distribution company marketers I had the privilege of working with last week in ISBM's workshop on B2B social media.

As Chris Iafella reminded us in a post on content curation for pharma the other day, though, creating fresh original content is not the only way to provide value to the customers and others with whom you're trying to connect. 

Indeed, there are four levels of content sharing that B2B marketers should include in their social media mix.

Four Levels of Content Sharing

• Commenting on other blogs, articles, community sites, tweets, and other social sources provides a fairly simple way to build visibility, demonstrate knowledge, and make or strengthen connections. As with all social media activity, you want to focus on the most relevant sources while being constructive, concise, and non-promotional. Brief comments are no substitute for serious thought leadership or educational publishing, but they are absolutely a useful complement.
• Curating interesting and informative content from other sources is another way to build and maintain visibility, become a useful resource, and, not incidentally, keep on top of important industry developments yourself. Effective curation is not simple. You have to bring real value which typically means really understanding your audience's needs and having a skilled editorial hand on the wheel rather than simply stringing together some automated alerts. Done well, though, a well-curated news or information service can be another vital complement to your own publication program.
• Publishing your own thoughtful and useful content remains the foundation of most effective social media programs in B2B. It's difficult to truly demonstrate expertise on core customer issues without it; it also provides a much stronger basis for deepening connections and relationships than the relatively simpler approaches of commenting and curating. Within a broader, integrated approach to content sharing, however, the demands on regular publishing of original content go down a bit, while also making it that much easier to share in other ways. What and how to publish are enormous topics in themselves, of course. Suffice it to say here that the more you can invest in a issue-based, thought leadership approach, the better. 
• Syndicating your best content is the fourth element of an integrated approach. Once you have a bit of a track record with publishing engaging and useful content, there are any number of other social publishers (bloggers, community managers, etc.)  anxious to share the content wealth. Syndication provides a powerful means to expand awareness and interest, enhance credibility through positive associations, and support friends and advocates looking for more sources to curate. The more you build visibility and connections through commenting and curating yourself, of course, the easier it will be to find opportunities to syndicate.

Sharing content is far from the only element of a successful social media program. Listening, building networks, and convening stakeholders in forums and communities are just as important. But content remains an essential component, and it continues to bedevil even the best B2B marketers. Building an integrated approach that complements your own publications with additional avenues for sharing can ease the publication burden at least a bit and while adding new value and connections along the way.

Do you agree? What's your content sharing strategy?

Strengthening thought leadership marketing: Five steps to excellence

I've just had the privilege of helping judge ITSMA's Marketing Excellence Awards, and was impressed in particular with the submissions in the Thought Leadership Marketing category. 

As recently as five years ago, thought leadership marketing was mainly the province of the top consulting firms. Few other B2B firms took it seriously. Boy, has that changed! The submissions in this year's awards program reflect a substantial increase not only in spending but, more important, in the programmatic discipline that is necessary to make a serious impact with customers and market influencers.

I can't name names yet because ITSMA is still selecting finalists and then the ultimate winners. It's clear from the submissions, however, along with working with many of these companies over the years, that there are five important ways in which the best of the best stand apart from the crowd:

1. Focus and depth: Lots of companies practice "random acts of content," dashing off periodic white papers, articles, videos, blog posts, and the like with little focus or depth. But when you're dealing with high level customers facing serious business challenges), the scattershot approach provides little value. Indeed, according to a major study of business technology buyers last year by ITSMA and Pierre Audoin Consulting, only 16% of these buyers believe that their solution providers are very helpful in showing them the possibilities to solve their business challenges. If you're going to join the ranks of the "very helpful," you need to pick one or a few issues, stick with it, and go deep.
2. Do the research: A lot of so-called thought leadership is really just opinion, perhaps based on a project or two. Our customers want evidence, and evidence usually requires research. The best thought leadership programs are built around serious research, including analysis of existing literature, new customer surveys, and in-depth case studies. One of the main reasons that the industry analyst firms remain so influential with buyers is that they are constantly cranking out new research. (Yes, marketers sometimes question the quality of that research, but it is generally miles ahead of the "thought leadership" content that vendors themselves produce.) To help make "thought leadership" worthy of the term, start from the beginning and don't skimp on the research.
3. Engage and empower internally. Too often, marketers publish thought leadership content but forget to tell anyone else in the organization. At best, this can mean losing the opportunity to have more colleagues representing that good thinking in the marketplace. At worst, customers start asking your people questions on an issue about which they have no idea. Especially as you begin to integrate social media across the business, you want more people engaging directly with customers, prospects, and other stakeholders. Engaging and empowering your customer-facing employees with thought leadership gives them something valuable to talk about, and can quickly become an essential multiplier for overall program impact.
4. Leverage your best content. Market engagement today is about pervasive presence and ongoing conversation, not just traditional publishing and speaking. Customers want to chew over and debate your ideas, often without you in the [virtual] room. To help make this happen, you need to leverage your best thought leadership content by publishing compelling bits and bytes in appropriate formats across the networks and channels where your customers congregate. If you're working on a white paper, for example, you want to think: Is there a short video we can produce? Where can we blog about this? What articles can we publish? Where are there opportunities to brief our best customers on our new thinking? Is there a debate I can set up?
5. Invest in expertise. Ultimately, great thought leadership programs are built around experts -- experts in the subjects at hand, of course, but also experts in research, analysis, publication, social media, and collaboration. The most successful programs invest in their people in at least three ways: Funding full time staff positions, recruiting for necessary skills and helping existing staff develop the right skills, and investing in partnerships for complementary capabilities (including brand recognition, as with prestigious academics, universities, and/or outside media and research organizations).

Building a successful thought leadership marketing program is a long-term process. The companies that are best, such as McKinsey, Accenture, IBM, Deloitte, and others, have spent years doing the research, building market presence, and refining what works. They pick key customer issues and stick with them. They go deep. And they invest in their people and programs. 

What's missing from my list? What works best for you?

The lure of cheap content, continued

I wrote the other day about the lure of cheap content in B2B marketing. A few weeks back, I also wrote about the potential of marketers taking a journalistic approach to marketing. 

Now comes news that more mainstream media companies are themselves falling prey to the lure of cheap content. According to AdAge, major publishers including Thomson Reuters, Hachette Filipacci, and Cox Newspapers are outsourcing article production to cheap content mills that pay freelancers as little as $5 per article.

Here I am holding up journalistic standards as something marketers should emulate and the journalists run off to build a "content candy store," as one editor from Thomson Reuters put it. Aargh! I know times are tough for the media, but really folks. This ain't the way forward.

It's certainly not anything for B2B marketers to look at. Candy stores may sell a bunch of stuff, but the momentary buzz from even a great piece of chocolate doesn't last. With B2B, we need to focus more on content that helps create lasting relationships, not quick sugar highs. And that means quality. And quality ain't cheap.

Am I ranting too much here? What do you think?

"Quality isn't Job One...

...Being totally frickin' amazing is Job One."

The great Hugh MacLeod (gapingvoid) has cleaned up one of his greatest hits. Wall-worthy even in the most conservative office. Check it out.

Can corporate journalism work?

Read an interesting post by Ike Pigott today (thanks Amber) suggesting that as mainstream journalism continues to shrink, struggling journalists should consider jumping to the dark side and plying their trade as corporate journalists. 

Ike distinguishes his notion of the corporate "embedded journalist" from the age-old tradition of reporters simply leaving the newsroom to go work in corporate communications. What's new, he says, is that the decline of mainstream journalism means that companies increasingly are going to forgo pitching stories in hopes of coverage and just start publishing themselves.

To some extent, this isn't that new. Even before social media, smart companies have worked to bring  their message directly to customers and others through thought leadership and other publications without the filter of earned media. And for journalists, it may simply be a matter of survival. A job is a job, after all. As traditional journalism jobs and news outlets decline, companies will step in even more to tell their own stories and take up the slack.

Can this really work on a large scale?

Well, maybe. I have little doubt that some companies will make the effort -- and I think it's important to try. I agree with Ike that if companies do indeed hire real journalists and (this is crucial) give them the support and leeway to tell real stories instead of marketing puffery, then people will respond positively. 

Even more, I believe that companies, customers, and other stakeholders could all benefit if companies shifted substantial marketing resources away from their minimally effective promotion efforts toward more thoughtful and independent coverage of the industries and issues their customers really care about.

But will they? I assume Ike chose the term "embedded journalist" deliberately in reference to the Pentagon's similarly named and quite controversial program to "embed" journalists with military units during the Iraq War. That program did lead to some interesting inside reporting but whether the program overall actually served the public interest in terms of independent coverage is far from clear. 

For now, B2B companies are mostly still struggling with how much to allow their own employees to go beyond strictures of message control and engage freely in social media and networks. If they can't even do this, it's hard to believe they'll turn trained professional journalists loose in an even more ambitious effort to provide "accurate and fair" reporting with all the risks this may entail to their own reputation.

For companies willing to try, and I hope there are many, here are a few suggestions:

• Good journalism is, first and foremost, about reporting, not making product pitches or solutions delivery examples sound better. Focus on the issues your customers, partners, and employees care about and then go do some digging to cover and analyze what's really happening. Talk to the experts, interview customers and your own employees, crunch some data...be a real resource for news you can use.
• Good journalism has (or should have) real standards for accuracy, quality, and fairness. Notwithstanding the endless blather that fills so much of both corporate marketing and social media, most people can still tell the difference. Take standards seriously and don't skimp on quality.
• Good journalism takes time and is ongoing. If you're going to do it, have patience and keep at it. Like social media, positive results will not come overnight. But becoming a trusted source for customers and others will pay dividends for years to come.

B2B marketers know that the demand for content is growing every day, and that thinking like a publisher is increasingly central to making marketing work. Corporate journalism can make a huge contribution as we move in this direction. And if we can save the jobs of some worthy journalists along the way, so much the better.

What's your take? Can corporate journalism work?

Photo credit: Valeriana Solaris

Marketing lessons from the Grateful Dead

Crazy week last week, but it was hard to resist the HubSpot webinar, Marketing Lessons from the Grateful Dead -- at least for me and 800+ other Dead-loving marketers.

Along with loving the music and concerts, I've always thought the Dead's freewheeling, performance-oriented approach represented a great example of American entrepreneurship.

Indeed, long after the vast majority of hit-focused, corporate rock bands had faded from view, the Dead kept on trucking to become one of the top grossing bands of all time despite a distinct lack of mass appeal. No less than the Atlantic magazine recently published an ode to the Dead's business acumen, Management Secrets of the Grateful Dead.

For marketers, the HubSpot webinar, led by certified Deadheads Brian Halligan of HubSpot (100+ shows) and social media writer David Meerman Scott (42 shows), was filled with great examples of how the Dead's success foreshadowed so much of what we're just now taking seriously with the shift to social media. 

For me, here are four key takeaways (leavened by my own experience at 20+ shows over the years):

1. Build an authentic experience, and never mind the critics. The Dead always went their own way with hours-long shows, little attention to rock band or radio format convention, and minimal effort to create hits. Lots of people never liked them, and that was fine. The lesson here is do what feels right, focus on your fans, and forget about trying to be all things to all people. 
2. Give away great content and make it easy to share. The Dead were notorious for actually encouraging their fans to tape their concerts and spread the music around. Far from obsessing over intellectual property, the Dead understood that the more their music spread, the more they could build a fan base and sell tickets to their shows. Once the Web arrived in the mid-90s, they jumped on board to post and broadcast as many shows as possible. The lesson here, of course, is to open up the organization, encourage your experts to connect freely with customers and others, and tear down the registration walls that require detailed business information in exchange for simply downloading a white paper or subscribing to a newsletter. 
3. Embrace new technologies and experiment aggressively. The Dead were also famous for pouring a huge amount of their early money into an enormous, state-of-the-art Wall of Sound that they trucked around the country rather than relying, as did most bands, on whatever sound system was in the venues they played. They constantly tested new sounds, new musical styles, and new media. The lesson here, as social media pundits opine constantly, is push the envelope, accept the inevitability of experiments that fail, and move on to the next.
4. Put your best customers first. Early on, the Dead realized the value of giving extra attention to their top fans with early and special access to tour information, tickets, and recordings. Rather than offer special deals to new prospects, the lesson here is to provide preferential treatment to your best existing customers. Keep them happy with customer councils and forums, executive access, and early warning of new products and services, and they're much more likely to remain loyal, provide useful insight, and spread the word on your behalf. 

Last year, I saw the Dead play in Worcester, MA (my hometown), 14 years after the death of spiritual leader Jerry Garcia. The experience was invigorating, the music was great, and the ethos remained true more than four decades from creation. Inspiring, to say the least.

Master narratives and framing the debate with B2B marketing

Years ago, when I was a lowly graduate student at MIT, I learned an essential lesson about communications while taking a course on "framing" the news. The lesson, as my professor Bill Gamson so ably taught, was that he who frames the terms of the discussion is halfway home with a public debate before it even begins. 

Politicians understand this the best. They (and their marketing consultants) spend lots of time crafting simple narratives with the goal of framing the debate. Back when I was in graduate school, the most obvious example was Ronald Reagan, who dominated the politics of the 1980s with the simple idea that government was "the problem." Most recently, it was the health care debate with dueling narratives about "government takeovers" and "universal coverage."

It's critical with B2B marketing, too. While trying to promote the value of our products, services, and solutions, we need to focus as well on the master narratives that frame the relevant market conversation. For example, technology and consulting companies pushing Green IT need to worry about the larger debate about the value of going green. Regardless of the merits of their offers, if the dominant narrative frame is skeptical, they'll have a much tougher job winning new business.  

Ideally, you're leading that discussion or changing the terms of the debate. IBM did this recently with its Smarter Planet initiative. The company defined a new way of thinking about the role of technology in a whole host of social and economic issues. Others are now jumping on board, but if you buy into the frame, you're probably going to favor IBM.

Thought leadership marketing is supposed to create a master narrative for B2B organizations. It's the intellectual substance behind the basic brand promise. 

Accenture does this with "High Performance. Delivered." The brand promise is helping clients become high performing companies; Accenture's thought leadership research and publications flesh out the story with data and case studies of how this actually happens.

HubSpot does this extremely well, too. The fast-growing provider of "inbound marketing" tools promotes the concept relentlessly with a daily dose of useful content for marketers on how to build awareness and generate leads through search engine marketing and social media. For small business marketers and consultants focused on social media and search, HubSpot's master narrative about the why and how of inbound marketing is beginning to frame the whole conversation.

The problem with so many B2B marketing programs, however, is that the master narrative is lacking. Even when companies invest in thought leadership, it's often with a fragmented collection of disconnected articles, white papers, videos, blogs, etc. There is no connecting tissue, or at least none that stands out from the competition and helps frame the larger industry conversation. 

Topical consistency is the first challenge, but that is just a start. It's better to have a consistent flow of thought leadership content on the same basic subject than not, but if there is not a compelling and differentiated point of view to drive a sustained and integrated program, you stand little chance of framing the debate.

Here are two simple questions you might ask yourself to gauge progress with your master narrative:

• To what extent is there a "big idea" that animates your thought leadership marketing?
• To what extent does that idea currently drive the larger industry dialogue around a key customer concern?

If your answers are "not much," it may be time to step back from the crush of daily deadlines and ponder the possibilities.

Make sense?

Photo credit: jonny goldstein

TL in 4D: Four dimensions for thought leadership success

B2B marketers know that thought leadership is essential, especially when selling high-value solutions. Business buyers tune out most traditional marketing, but they are always looking for new ideas. If we can produce interesting and useful content, and use social media and other platforms to spread the good word, we at least have a chance of getting into the conversations that our customers and prospects actually want to have. 

Perhaps not surprisingly, thought leadership topped the list when ITSMA recently asked marketing leaders at big tech and IT services firms which tactics will be more important in 2010. According to ITSMA, 77% of respondents cited thought leadership development as a priority, beating out references and testimonials, senior executive programs, and social media. 

For most B2B firms, however, thought leadership is getting a great deal more lip service than investment. Other than top consulting and professional service firms like McKinsey, Deloitte, and Accenture, few B2B firms have yet created a focused and well-organized thought leadership marketing program. My own recent review of 72 corporate members of the Institute for the Study of Business Markets, for example, found that only 24 of these manufacturing, industrial, and technology companies even had a link to thought leadership content on their home page.

All too often, thought leadership in B2B is thinly funded (if at all), episodic, and superficial. 

• There is no dedicated staff, no editorial calendar for content production, and a heavy reliance on subject matter experts "volunteering" their nights and weekends to bang out a few white papers, articles, and blog posts. 
• Content tends to overemphasize company promotion and underemphasize customer and market evidence. 
• Publications typically are one-off productions with little coordinated effort to leverage new thinking into multiple formats, networks, and channels.  

To make a real impact with customers and create real distinction in the market, thought leadership needs focus, depth, and continuity.

Consider, for example Accenture's years-long in-depth research on high performing companies. They focus on strategic challenges facing each industry the company serves, orient primary research and publications to different executive roles among their client base, and deliver insights across a wide range of online, face-to-face, and social media platforms.

Not every company has Accenture's deep pockets, to be sure, but the lessons are clear. And it's not just a matter of blogging more and getting more content onto Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube -- although social media clearly IS critical for thought leadership dissemination and engagement. 

At a more fundamental level, companies looking for greater impact with thought leadership need to consider four essential dimensions of program development:

1. Points of View: Effective thought leadership is rooted in compelling, differentiated, and evidence-based points of view on important business challenges -- not product features or quick opinions or the experience of a single client engagement. Companies need to invest the time, research budgets, and analytic expertise it takes to create points of view that really matter. You've got to take a stand, but in ways that are not simply provocative but rooted in primary research and real world experience. (For a guide to developing effective points of view, check out Solutions Insights' Point of View Development Template.)
2. Internal Education: Especially with the rise of social media, you're relying more and more on a great many employees to tell your story, not just a few executives or subject matter experts. Investing in internal education around your points of view is critical to equipping marketing, sales, and other customer-facing employees (which could be anyone online) to engage constructively on the issues that matter in ways that demonstrate real expertise. It's also a great way to generate more insight and tap more internal experience to feed into Point of View development.
3. Market Engagement: Publishing and disseminating content is what most people think of when they consider thought leadership marketing. But the traditional reliance on white paper publishing, conference speaking, and pushing for mainstream media coverage is far too limited in today's always-on, socially networked world. Market engagement today is about pervasive presence and ongoing conversation; publishing is just the beginning of the process. And the development of more substantial points of view makes it much easier to produce steadier streams of useful content across multiple platforms.
4. Program Operations: Making this all work requires dedicated staff, disciplined processes, and clear metrics and accountability. This doesn't have to mean huge staffs or budgets, but it does mean accepting that the "volunteer" work on nights and weekends is unlikely to have a serious impact or create distinction against competitors with a more organized and funded approach. Rather, you need to bring together people, processes and tools that can do the research and analysis, generate compelling points of view, and sustain the internal and market engagement required to reap the benefits effective thought leadership can provide.

Based on our own research and experience working with thought leadership programs across the IT and professional services sectors, Solutions Insights has developed a four stage roadmap for thought leadership program development, as you can see below. It's a simple model that necessarily abstracts a great deal of nuanced reality, but it should be useful in evaluating your own programmatic maturity and considering next steps for improvement. We'd love to know what you think of the roadmap -- and please weigh in with comments on your own approach and experience. We're still learning, too.

 
 

More evidence that give-to-get is the key to success

It's pretty much a cliche to say that marketing today is all about give-to-get. You provide customers and prospects with new ideas, new experiences, and new connections in order to earn their attention. You keep at it until they open up to a conversation that, over time, can lead toward an actual sales opportunity.

In B2B, though, I'm constantly surprised at how often marketers pay little more than lip service to this essential idea. 

You see it in companies that persist in spending more on promotion and pitch than on interaction and collaboration. 

You see it in the cutbacks to customer research and insight (how can you "give" something of value to customers if you don't even pay attention to what they're facing?). 

And you see it when marketers hand off the first hint of a "lead" (e.g., a name from a trade show or white paper download) to the inside or outsourced sales team to begin "qualifying" opportunities.

A new survey from B2B agency Doremus and the Financial Times provides yet more evidence that the old ways are of little use. As noted by Doremus president Howard Sherman:

Recently, Doremus and the Financial Times collaborated on a survey called Decision Dynamics in which 470 worldwide senior level executives were asked: Which supplier is most likely to get work from you in tough times as compared to prosperous times?

Interestingly the top answer was not the cheapest or the supplier with the best/longest relationship, or even the one who could prove ROI. The answer was the supplier most proactive in helping you [emphasis in original].

Sherman goes on to list some types of help that marketing agencies in particular might be able to provide, including being more nimble, strengthening internal relationships, and rebuilding trust with investors and customers.

For me, the key point here is that give-to-get is more important than ever. The executives in the survey are saying "help me." 

Your customers need help, they want it from you (so long as you have something valuable to offer), but they're typically so stressed out by the daily grind that they barely have time to ask. And they certainly have little tolerance for promotional marketing. As such, the idea of "proactive help" should be front and center.

Practically speaking, this means:

• Investing more in understanding your customer's businesses and challenges; you can never have too much customer insight
• Putting more energy into developing real thought leadership in the market that demonstrates truly news ways to help customers solve problems
• Reaching out to your best customers with offers to provide legitimately useful briefings and demos (i.e., not sales pitches)
• Investing in social media skills, tools, and initiatives to help share the wealth of knowledge and experience that lies throughout your organization.

The concept seems easy. Is the execution so hard?

Photo: sekimura