Category Archives: Business to Business Marketing Strategies

Tips for improving your business to business marketing strategies and campaigns. Learn how to find a market niche, and why having a niche is so important. There are also posts about finding your ideal client (and why you need that too). Trying to market to everyone only leaves you “spraying and praying” without actually hitting anything.

These pages also cover common business to business marketing mistakes (made by companies both large and small). If you’ve made one of these, you’ll learn how you can fix the errors you’ve made (and avoid future gaffes).

Need more clients? Or better clients? Check out the posts on lead generation, how to set and negotiate higher fees, and what red flags to look for when prospecting for new work.

Finally, there are posts on creating your brand and your company’s “story.” What you are selling isn’t necessarily what you think. The way you present your products and services can make a big difference in your results.

Why Are Clients Like Fish?

Posted on December 2, 2009 by Jodi Kaplan

Fisherman know that if they want to catch any fish, they need to go to the right spot.

Marketers need to do that too. You figure out what kinds of fish (clients) you want to attract and go where they are. Right? But wait, you’re going to need one more thing.

Catch Clients With Bait

Worms, squid, and flies work for fish. Not so much for people. You’ll need the kind of bait that attracts people; specifically your preferred kind of people. Choosing the right bait can make a big difference in whether you catch a lot of fish (clients) or no fish at all.

How to Bait Your Audience

Free e-books

Put together a series of blog posts, articles, or write something completely new. Pick a topic that vexes your audience and help them through it (“How to Hire a Copywriter”, “10 Questions You Should Ask Before You Hire a Web Designer – and the Answers To Each One”).

You can either use ebooks as bait for a signup to your newsletter. Or, you can spread them virally, with no sign-up required. The first way grows your list of qualified prospects for your services or information products; the second gets more downloads and spreads faster.

Viral and How-to Videos

These can be viral videos – something that’s funny, interactive, and spreads the word about your company. Or, they can be how-to videos, showing how to create a “buy now’ button or a favicon.

Another idea would be a demonstration of your skills; reviewing someone’s Web site design and pointing out improvements that will boost conversions.

Build a community

A membership site or a community of some kind lets your clients and potential clients interact with each other. You can step in and tell them about projects you’re working on (guidance on how-to), encourage them to help each other, encourage them to connect with each other, and offer inside tips that the rest of the world doesn’t get (if the forum requires membership).

This strengthens ties to you, increases your authority and builds trust.

Teleseminars/Webinars/Podcasts

You can interview an expert, or give a series of talks. Make sure it’s informational, not a big sales pitch.

Like the ebooks, and the videos, you can use them to build your list (make sure you get permission for any further follow-ups), spread the word about your services, and establish yourself as an expert.

What other ideas can you think of? What experiences have you had with “bait”? What did you do and what results did you get?

grantsviews

Act Now and Ban Yellow Highlighting Forever!

Posted on December 1, 2009 by Jodi Kaplan

Ever seen one of those sites with a really long sales page?

You know the kind, the ones with big, urgent headlines (Act Now, Or You’ll Regret It for the Rest of Your Natural Life). They’ve got big, red headlines, and lots of yellow highlighter.

They’re what we call “Direct Marketing Ugly” – urgent, in-your-face stuff that screams and jumps up and down, begging for attention.

It’s still used because it still works. However, if you’d prefer something a bit more low-key, try engaging your visitors instead.

Get people involved. Ask them to submit stuff, biggest challenge, or offer a free analysis, or review. Build trust by asking for opinions.

Six Emotional Triggers Every Marketer Should Know

Posted on November 30, 2009 by Jodi Kaplan

What are emotional triggers?

Emotional triggers are words that generate an emotional, visceral response—a reaction that comes without a lot of analysis or thought, just straight from the lizard brain.

Emotional triggers work by building a connection that will prompt people to act. That’s why they’ve been used by copywriters for years, because they increase responses.

What are these emotional triggers?

And why are they so powerful?

Here’s a list of them.

One: Greed

Because people want something for nothing, or to get something they don’t have. That’s why “free” works so well.

If you offer investment advice, you’ll get a better response from saying, “I help people get rich and retire early, even in an economic downturn.” than you would if you just said, “Oh I help people manage their stocks and bonds and other investments.”

The first one certainly gets people’s attention. The second one is dull and doesn’t really say anything to anybody that tells them why they should really care about what it is that you do.

Two: Fear

People are afraid they won’t get promoted, or they will lose their jobs, or won’t do well as a new parent.

The fear here is people who are worried they won’t have enough money for retirement. So offer them something that gets their attention and appeals to this particular fear, such as:

Do you have enough money for retirement? Take this 30-second quiz and find out!

(That’s both an attention getter, and a call to action)

Three: Guilt

Guilt is effective, particularly for nonprofits or pitches to parents, because people want the best for their children or want to help others who are less fortunate.

Four: Exclusivity or scarcity

This works because people like to have things that other people don’t have.

If something is a limited offer, or only 100 will be made, it appeals to people’s desire to stand out from their neighbors, or to have something special and unique that few other people can own.

Five: Anger

When people are mad about something they often want to act.

If they’re mad about high oil prices, or a proposal to put a big, smelly landfill two blocks from their homes, they will get excited, they will get mad and want to do something to stop it.

So, they will pay more attention to your mailing or your ad if you’re telling them how they can do something about it.

Six: Problem-solving

It doesn’t have to be a big problem. It can be a small problem, such as digging through your whole purse or lots of pockets to find your keys. Or, it can be how to set up a blog when you don’t have a lot of technical skills.

Photo: gemsling

The Wrong Way to Run an Email Opt-Out

Posted on November 25, 2009 by Jodi Kaplan

A few months ago, I received a new newsletter from a publication I’d unsubscribed to long ago. I clicked on the unsubscribe link, but it wasn’t on the list of their publications (!).

So, I opted out of everything that was. Then, to make sure, I sent them an email asking to be removed from all their lists.

I got a reply back asking which newsletters I didn’t want.

I sent an email back saying, “Well I don’t want any of them. Suppress me!”

Then another reply, “From which lists?”

All of them!

The response to this was, “Well, we have 30 different lists, which one did you want to be removed from? And which did you originally subscribe to?”

I sent back, “I have no idea. I don’t remember, just take me off all of them!”

At this point, I was getting annoyed. Shouldn’t they have a universal opt-out? Doesn’t the FTC have rules about this?

It took 4 hours, 10 emails back and forth, and a little bit of luck (finding my account number) to get everything stopped and block my email address!!

If you have an email newsletter (and you should) you need to follow a few simple rules (they didn’t).

Here they are:

1) Tell recipients how to opt out of receiving future email from you. Your message must include a clear and conspicuous explanation of how the recipient can opt out of getting email from you in the future. Craft the notice in a way that’s easy for an ordinary person to recognize, read, and understand.

2) Give a return email address or another easy online method to allow people to tell you what they want.

3) You may create a menu to allow a recipient to opt out of certain types of messages, but you must include the option to stop all commercial messages from you.

4) Honor opt-out requests promptly. Any opt-out mechanism you offer must be able to process opt-out requests for at least 30 days after you send your message. You must honor a recipient’s opt-out request within 10 business days.

5) You can’t charge a fee, require the recipient to give you any personally identifying information beyond an email address, or make the recipient take any step other than sending a reply email or visiting a single page on an Internet website as a condition for honoring an opt-out request.

Full text of the rules here:

ftc email rules

Photo: Arnold Inuyaki

How the Post Office Killed Off Santa

Posted on November 24, 2009 by Jodi Kaplan

According to KTTU in Alaska (Nov. 17, 2009), the US Post Office has decided to stop handling mail addressed to Santa at the North Pole.

Post office disappoints children

A post office spokesman said they were concerned about security because a few people have gotten the letters and sent inappropriate things.

From now on, letters to Santa at the North Pole will be set aside, or probably recycled (?!?).

They’ve also completely disrupted local businesses in the town, which depends on Christmas-related revenue to keep its economy going.

Why not treat people like, well, people. Not like account numbers, or commissions, or names in a database you can manipulate at will. You’ll get more trust and more customers. Set up your policies to help your clients, not push them away. The post office’s numbers aren’t good (last I checked they were losing billions). Maybe a little genuine customer care would help. Couldn’t hurt.