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.

Can a Great Guarantee Be Worthless?

Posted on August 22, 2011 by Jodi Kaplan

My brother (the geek) told me that one of the big computer memory manufacturers offers a two-year guarantee. If their memory fails, call them up and they’ll replace it.

Image via Wikipedia

It sounds great, doesn’t it?

And refreshing too, since so few companies seem to want to stand by their products lately.

When I first heard this, I was ready to write down the name, and tell other people how great this business was.

They believed in guarantees, they took care of their customers, and it all sounded wonderful.

Almost too good to be true.

Turns out it is too good to be true. The company will fix your problem, but there’s a “cost.” Not in money, but in something else that’s valuable (and not replaceable).

There’s a catch

Apparently, it takes two hours to convince them to honor the guarantee. Two hours that could be spent on something a bit more… billable. So, he’s stopped asking for it. If something fails, it’s faster and cheaper to just buy a new one.

Yes, you can get more sales by offering a refund. But you have to honor it in a way that helps your customers, not hurts them.

The idea behind a guarantee is to make your customers and clients feel good about using your products and services, even when something goes wrong. This company may have a two year guarantee, but the way they “support” it makes that guarantee worthless.

If this company honored the guarantee in a meaningful way, my brother would be singing their praises (as would I). This way, well, they just go in the crappy company file.

Does Audience Size Matter?

Posted on August 17, 2011 by Jodi Kaplan

In America, we tend to like stuff that’s big. Big cars (until gas prices rise), big houses, big audiences, big lists, everything big. The bigger it is, the more we like it.

Image via Wikipedia

Take the photo on the right, for example. It’s an image of the world’s largest piano.

Yes, it’s big. It’s also probably unplayable, unless you have a whole team of pianists who have carefully practiced playing in perfect unison.

It may be wonderful to look at, but in practical terms, it’s pretty useless.

Is a bigger list always better?

I belong to two different forums on similar subjects. One has about 4,000 active members (out of over 40,000 that signed up). The other has 15 people.

The larger forum is paid (not a large sum, but still they collect a fee every month).

With all those people in the first forum, you’d think it would be humming with posts and activity. It was, at first, but now it’s slowed to a trickle. The founder (who is very well known online) hasn’t been around in months and months. The person he hired to run it disappeared for weeks without warning or explanation.

Or is useful better?

The second forum is very active, and it’s free. The founder is not nearly as well known (likes to keep a low profile). But, he posts or comments nearly every day. Members ask questions (and get good answers). They support and help each other.

Forum #1: Useless

Forum #2: Priceless

The same principle applies to marketing (whether it’s an email list, a snail mail list, or pay per click). What counts is not large numbers of people, but whether you’re reaching the right people. A big list of 100,000 names, or a forum with 40,000 signups, won’t help if the addresses are outdated, the members don’t participate, or your service/product is irrelevant.

Marketing and Laundry Labels

Posted on August 15, 2011 by Jodi Kaplan

Have you ever taken a good look at clothing care labels? A friend posted a funny version which was just a meaningless string of symbols, then the words, “or just ask your mom, she knows.”

This got me thinking.

Those labels are broken

Apparently, all those symbols represent a full page of different clothing instructions – water temp, dryer settings, whether to use bleach (or not) and on and on. The trouble is, that the symbols are not intuitive. They make no sense unless you have a long ‘cheat sheet’ to crack the secret clothing care code.

I wonder how many garments have been ruined because buyers couldn’t figure out how to care for them. Those labels are there because the FTC requires them. Apparently, there was no requirement that they be understandable (though the FTC is seeking new comments).

Instead of those silly symbols nobody can understand, why not either a) get better symbols (get input from Apple’s designers) or b) write it out in words.

Even worse, I just bought something which has a label with pale gray symbols on a black background. It’s nearly impossible to see the symbols, let alone figure out what they are.

The same thing can happen with marketing or client communication efforts. You’re busy focusing on code and using terms like UX and UI. You’re talking about decision trees and canonical URLs and how critical it is to SEO.

Your client’s head is spinning around. They know you’re saying something important, but they’re not quite sure what it is. They also aren’t sure why it matters or how it affects their business.

Have you had this experience? Tried to talk to someone who was speaking in symbols instead of plain English? Or have you done it yourself?

Getting Raving Fans for Your Business

Posted on August 10, 2011 by Jodi Kaplan

Image via Wikipedia

I was listening to a webinar the other day with Peter Shankman of HARO (Help a Reporter Out). Peter’s got 188,000 people on his email list, and mails three times a day. He said he had an open rate of over 70% (pretty phenomenal for such a frequent mailer). His fans love his emails.

All creative types (and bloggers) want fans. We want people to like us, to leave comments, and eagerly await what we write. We want editors who never, ever kill our darling, favorite phrases. Clients who love our web designs, and never, ever spend an hour arguing over whether a design should be predominantly red or blue.

But, we know that may not happen. Certainly not all the time.

What we can do

We can’t all be Peter (darn), but is there anything we can do? What makes readers (and potential clients) respond?

Random rewards?
Giveaways?
Personal stories about successes (or even failures)?
Shoutouts?
Something else?

What other techniques can you think of? What have you tried? And which of them worked?

Scallions, User Experience, and Ease of Use

Posted on August 8, 2011 by Jodi Kaplan

Bunches of scallions / green onions (Allium fi...

Image via Wikipedia

You’re probably wondering what scallions have to do with marketing or user experience failures.

I was at the market the other day, and wanted to buy some scallions. I looked and looked, but couldn’t find them anywhere.

It was a new store, so I didn’t know where everything was.

Finally, I asked an employee. The scallions were right in front of me.

Poor User Experience

I didn’t see them because I was looking for the whitish bulbs and the roots. They were stacked the other way around. The green leaves were facing out, not in. It’s not a web site, but it was still a user experience failure. The produce department was failing “ease of use.”

Ease of Use Matters Both Online and Off

Something can be right in front of your client or your customer, but they may not recognize it. A big label saying, “scallions.” would have helped. Or, putting them the “right” way around.

Your menu, your navigation, and your site setup may make sense to you and your team (since you built it), but leave your visitors scratching their heads in confusion.

Here’s another example. Have you seen sites with “hamburger” menus? Those are the three straight lines usually on the top of a site. It looks like a burger with a bun (if you squint). The trouble with those menus is that they’re not obvious. Some older users don’t know what it is. And, it adds an extra step. You have to click the menu before you can see the options. They’re especially problematic on mobile, where it’s hard to type a tiny icon.

Skip the hamburger and use small icons representing each option (like a pin pointer for locations, a rectangle with a currency sign for gift cards, and a cart icon for shopping).

In a store, someone can ask. Online, they’ll leave.