Day: October 21, 2010

How Duct Tape Marketing legend John Jantsch uses social media

You probably already know John Jantsch from his wildly (and still) popular book Duct Tape Marketing. The book, and the movement it spawned, is based upon simple, back-to-the-basics, marketing systems any business owner to apply TODAY to grow business. John’s taking things a step further in his new book, Referral Engine. He’s a kindred spirit: he starts with a working definition of marketing and then builds a process based upon it.

I especially appreciate where he places social media in the process. Too many of us present social media like it’s a cure-all or the ultimate marketing toolkit. Many have even gone so far as to proclaim the death of direct mail, death of print, death of newspapers, all listing the killer agent as social media.

John has a gorgeously balanced approach. He says, “While the notion of community-building online has become a very commonplace practice, the opportunity for community-building offline is richer than ever.…The converged business [the business blending John’s balance] uses every advance in technology as an opportunity to forge a deeper, more personal relationship with its customers.”

Marketing is a series of decisions and actions. John says, “For the converged, high-tech, high-touch business, the primary decision filter for every marketing process, customer touch point, and tactic is how technology can make the customer experience more fun, more convenient, more engaging, and more frequent.”

Bravo. It’s not about tools or tactics or even policies and profits. It’s about using everything possible to create something for someone ELSE.

John is as delightful in person as you’d imagine he would be. It was fun to grab a few minutes to talk with him on camera while we were together at Conquer & Grow, hosted by InfusionSoft.

Trey Pennington

Is Social Media Just Another Channel? The Potential of Social Media for B2B Markets.

Is Social Media just another channel? Yes, it may be, but it is so much more than that. Social Media is forcing corporations (brands) to look at how they engage with their clients, how they use information, and how they respond to events. It is forcing companies to treat Social Media as part of their overall value chain.

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B2C vs B2B Marketing: Do the Differences Really Matter?

As a professional marketer, you have to know your customers and what motivates them to make a purchasing decision. But are the buyers of products and services in the B2C world really that much different from their counterparts in the B2B world?

The primary differences between B2C and B2B marketing are derived from the emotional perspectives of the buyers. Often, the consumer is focused on quality, comfort, and price, while the business buyer is concerned with increasing profits for his/her company.

“As a general rule, B2B marketing relies more heavily on rational–rather than emotional–product or service benefits,” said Kim Hennig, a B2C marketing veteran and principal of Kim Hennig Marketing, who has delivered record sales, award-winning advertising, and profitable marketing plans for some of the nation’s best-known brands, including McDonald’s, 1-800-Flowers, and Subway. “This is certainly not to say that the business buyer doesn’t have emotional connections to the brands he or she purchases, but there is a far greater need to justify how the features or benefits of a product will have a demonstrable impact on the company’s bottom line.”

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A sad truth about most traditional b2b marketing

“People who don’t care, selling products to people who care even less.”

I was at a conference recently where the senior executives spent the entire day talking about profits, market share and growth… they never once mentioned that the pharmaceuticals they were selling were saving lives, or that changes in the product or its pricing could reduce side effects or the load on the patient and her doctor.

This disconnect is becoming less common, but it still happens. It’s okay to be passionate about what you sell, even if it’s an industrial chemical. It’s okay to be connected to your suppliers and vendors, even if you’re spending company money to buy from them.

Many businesses focus exclusively on saving money (or so they think) when they publish an RFP and take bids for this product or that service. It’s only later when they discover the sticky gas pedal or the customer angry about a stock out that they realize that paying attention to their suppliers beyond price is a good idea.

If you’ve ever met someone who is passionate about tax accounting or warehouse roofing systems, you understand the power that this passion can have in transforming a client. The challenge is for the supplier to hire passionate people and then give them the room and support to actually care.

“Without apology, we care about what we make and the companies (and people!) that help us make it.”

Not an easy thing to say, because if you rely on numbers alone, you get deniability. Blind bidding means you don’t have to care about anything but price. An RFP means you don’t have to compare apples and oranges. Anonymous business clients means you don’t have to answer the phone when it’s easier to send it to voice mail.

Except that caring works. On both sides.

Seth Godin

B2B, Social Media and Search

Search is especially crucial for business-to-business (B2B) enterprises and it seems that social media is playing an important role to improve B2B’s search performance.

According to data from BtoB magazine and Business.com, almost half of the B2B marketers surveyed indicated that social media has had positive influence over search performance.

So, how does social media improve search? Generating inbound links is the trick and social media is the vehicle to do just that. Businesses, which are capable of producing compelling content, usually see better results. Great content is easily sharable and garners engagement. The more clicks the shared link receives, the better the quality of the inbound link becomes.

Other than link building, B2Bs also use social media to expand their profiles and presence to increase their rankings on major search engines on an overall basis.

But while all the focus is on search ranking, it’s important that B2Bs also have a kick-ass webpage that converts visitors to clients. Otherwise, it would be just adding more non-performing pretty statistics to your Google Analytics totals.

Social media for B2B isn’t just about search, but it can be a powerful tool if used correctly.

Willis Wee

Penn Olson Social Media