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.

Is Advertising Broken?

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Chris Brogan argues that it is.

As the comments on his blog noted, the traditional advertising ad in The New York Times is an “all about me” (the advertiser) message. Not much of a conversation. They present the news (and the ads) and we read them (or not).

However, the Times’s slumping ad sales proves that the old big media/advertising model of talking and interrupting, the idea that the audience has to listen because the advertiser said so, is broken.

Instead, even large companies are starting conversations, monitoring their brand on Twitter and other social networking sites, and taking positive steps to help customers solve their problems. For example, Comcast’s Frank Eliason monitors Twitter. When he sees a customer complaining about a poor phone experience, a modem that won’t work, or a billing problem. He responds with offers of help, tips on how to reboot the modem, and technicians if needed. He’ll send direct messages, call customers, and give a friendly, helpful, human face to a big corporation.

(Imagine if AT&T or Verizon did that…)

Faced with a whole brave new world of reading options, declining book sales, and the Internet, HarperStudio came up with creative ways to build a following. They’re encouraging authors to start blogging after the book is acquired, showing them how to use Twitter, myspace, facebook, and stumbleupon. Authors are given flip cameras to create video stories about their books. Fans can watch the videos, send them to friends, and “stumble” the links.

Other book sites, such as librarything, offer ARCs to devoted readers, or first notice of new books to fans, with authors joining in on discussion groups. Same thing with musicians, who must now make the music part of a larger experience with blogs, souvenirs, special editions, etc.

What are you doing to build a “tribe” of loyal followers and fix the broken old advertising model? Share your stories here.

Photo: jpcurio

The Three Step Elevator Pitch

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Step One:

Name the kinds of people you help. This is your ideal customer. It can be schools, small businesses, oil companies, busy moms.. whoever it is that you work with.

Step Two:

Identify a problem they have. Take the example of busy moms. If you offer time management and organization services, say something about how moms have to manage kids, the house, often a job, a husband, manage household expenses, carpooling, activities, etc. and often find themselves trying to go in five directions at once.

Step Three:

Describe how you solve the problem. You offer time management systems that let moms do twice as much in half the time – so they have time left to relax!

What you want is a statement that clearly identifies your target, the problem, and the solution.

For example, on 4/16/08, Kim asked for a review of her elevator pitch on Marketing Pros Exchange. She said, “I’m the president of an event marketing company that specializes in developing innovative events for businesses that want events with a big impact. We custom design each of our events to our client’s specifications, while also providing you with creative marketing ideas and a fresh perspective on emerging trends that can make your event uniquely memorable.”

Listening to that doesn’t help me make a decision whether to hire Kim. I don’t really know what kinds of companies she works with, the problems they have, or how she solves those problems.

She’s not qualifying herself in any way or saying anything which builds trust.

When she asked the question, I suggested she try something like, “I’m the Corporate Event Wizard. I take all the stress out of organizing, scheduling, and planning your corporate events. All you have to do is call, then relax, and be a guest at your own party!”

This states what she does, defines the problems that she solves, and offers a solution.

Need more help?

Try the pitch wizard at http://www.15secondpitch.com.

Photo: billaday

Are You Well-Rounded? Or Sharply Pointed?

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Someone told me recently that when he went to the local supermarket, he found the store selling TVs, fans, and refurbished Dell laptops.

What happened to food??  And, who will support those laptops if they break or the software crashes?

Don’t try to spread yourself too thin by being all things to all people.  Instead, focus sharply on one or two things that you’re really passionate about. Decide on your ideal customer, and your ideal market.

Be able to describe what you do in just a few words. It can be as simple as “I paint schools” – what you do, where you do it, who you do it for. The more you add, the more it confuses your audience.

Even better, do something that stands out and offers a benefit: “I paint schools using non-toxic paint, so children stay safe.”

title of this post (i) by Joel Canfield, the Commonsense Entrepreneur

Photo credit percita

What Response Rate Will Your Direct Mailing Get?

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direct marketing response rate

photo by marfis75

You want to start a direct mailing campaign, but you’re not certain what your response rate will be or how much money you can expect to earn. Every campaign for every company is different, but here are seven ways to estimate what your response rate will be.

1. Whether you’re trying to generate leads or actual sales.

The response rate for a mailing with a free guide or consultation will be higher than one asking for a sale because there’s less of a commitment.

2. The relationship between the appeal of your offer and the investment required.

A chance to win a free Ferrari will get a high response rate because it has a high appeal, and a low commitment.

On the other hand, a mailing offering a prospectus to buy vacation homes in Vermont will have a lower response rate because purchasing a home requires an investment of many thousands of dollars.

3. Generally, response rates go up as prices go down and vice versa.

For instance, if you sell $5 ink cartridges, you may need a 2% or 3% response rate to make money on your mailings. On the other hand, if you sell Ferraris and a letter mailed to 2,000 people nets you three sales (a response rate of only .15%), you’ll be very happy.

The important thing to keep in mind is how many sales you need to make a profit on your mailing.

4. Whether the names are current buyers or prospects.

The response from people who have already bought something from you can be double that of those who haven’t.

5. If your list is your own house list or a rented list.

The house list will perform better than an outside one, because your own customers already have a relationship with you.

6. How well the names on the list match your target audience.

The more closely the names you select match your ideal buyer (business size, industry, job title, etc.), the more likely it is that they will respond to your offer.

It is better to reach 5,000 of the right people than 50,000 of the wrong people.

Again, in-house lists will perform better than one you buy or rent from someone else. Even when mailing to your own list, it’s important to make the right selection of people from that list. Choosing the wrong people can be disastrous. Someone at Ebiza (an online catalog company) mistakenly send a big holiday mailing to customers who were “least likely to buy again.” The results were so bad the company went out of business!

7. The “creative”.

This includes the words you use, the design, the colors, the paper, the size of the mailing, whether it’s a postcard or a letter, and how many components it has.


BONUS

A new report from Mailer Mailer on email marketing campaign results shows that the email open rate across all industries averages 15.25, and clickthroughs were 2.16%. Get the free Mailer Mailer report here.

It’s a Toy! It’s a Business Tool! It’s Wordle!

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The creator of Wordle says it’s a toy. It’s true that is fun to play with, but it’s also got a serious side. It’s a mini application that creates a graphic image of the word on your Web site or other text. The more frequently you use a word, the larger it will be in the picture that Wordle generates (like a tag cloud).

Two ways to use this:

One: As a SEO tool. It’s a quick, visual way to see whether the words on your site match the keywords you want to use for your SEO program. If not, change them!

Two: See if your site (or letter) focuses on on selling points and benefits, rather than how long you’ve been in business.

Try it at http://www.wordle.net/create