The Invisible Marketing Blog » marcom

What’s sabotaging your B2B marketing campaigns?

Christie Turner — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 15:08:56 +0000

It’s probably data quality — labor intensive, behind the scenes stuff.

Good data is like jet fuel. The plane is beautiful and lovingly engineered, and it’s the part that the users actually see. But that gorgeously branded vehicle isn’t going anywhere without some liquid nourishment under the hood.

Kudos to by Ben Bradley at Macon Raine for describing a common phenomenon: focusing on everything but the data. Data quality is about (1) figuring out who we want to talk with (segmentation), then (2) databasing all the important things we know about this customer, so we can reach them with interesting information they might want, and (3) maintaining this data consistently forever.

Here’s what I’d add to Ben’s recommendations about CRM data quality.

A task you give to interns can get done well, if it’s managed. Position a task to them as menial and unimportant, and why would you think they’d perform it with diligence and integrity? Whether you’re delegating data quality to interns, temps, vendors, or tech savvy staffers, show respect toward the work you’re asking them to do. It’s only unglamorous if you say it is.
Data integrity isn’t obvious to the uninitiated. Plan to invest quality time with the people who are going to fix and maintain it. Explain what the data is, how the CRM/database technology works, and how the data cleanup will affect your customers and company when the data is used. Give them the nickel tour of relational databases and CRM and data hygiene principles. Consider writing up a list of things that need to be done to the data and how you will test it to see if those things have been done. Chaotic data won’t get better unless the people tasked with organizing it have a frame of reference for what success looks like.
Don’t pay people to do things that technology can do better. Give your data quality intern(s) some automated tools (or ask them to go find some for you) to do things like remove duplicate records and add/correct ZIP+4.
Data quality will never be a pay-side activity for sales people. Good sales people, in my observation, don’t deal very well with data quality and are too focused on pay-side activities to become better at it. A worthy experiment: give them a person (on staff or outsourced) who’s good with data and say, “Call or email this person when you learn something new that should be updated in your account/contact data.” If the sales person sees value in what you’re using CRM to accomplish, perhaps that’s incentive enough for them to use the resource.

CRM data doesn’t get better until it meets people who understand and love it.

Lead nature vs lead nurture: which is it?

Christie Turner — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 14:36:34 +0000

Is lead nature — who the prospect is — that matters in B2B marketing?

Or what I do to keep in touch and build a relationship — lead nurture — that predicts lead value and conversion to sales opportunity?

Well, it’s both.

Most companies fail to define lead Nature in any but the most basic terms, rendering their efforts at connection stilted at best. Without an ability to carry on an intelligent conversation with your prospects through the various media of your outreach, it doesn’t matter how often you call on them. Your buyers will avoid, reject, and resent your intrusion if you talk at them like you don’t know (or listen to) them.

Many of us also do a perfunctory job (at best) in reaching out to these leads — lead nurture. And with nurture, compelling value helps but even simple consistency (just showing up) makes a notable difference.

This means more homework for marketing projects and plans upfront. And more detailed follow through.

Add these distractions to Marketing’s not-to-do list

Christie Turner — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 14:47:17 +0000

In a world of limited time, finite means, and pressure for results, what not to do?

When marketing is under-resourced, it tends to stop listening to the customer (if it ever did), because listening requires a cessation of action. What happens next? Recycling whatever you said and did in the last campaign. Talking to all customers as if they’re all the same.

Four marketing temptations that are common in a down economy (and ways to avoid them):

Not to do: Try anything once.
Try instead: When results are off (or direct marketing is new to the organization) it can be tempting to churn through new tactics, media, messaging, target industries. Revisit your plan, fine, but spend the energy to first analyze what’s there today. It’s easier, faster, and potentially less risky to incrementally improve an existing program than to chuck everything and start over.

Not to do: Get something out there NOW.
Try instead: Urgency and timeliness are important in marketing. Make the most of them by talking to each of your customers (and prospects) as if their current goals and worries are important to you. Start with the customers you know best and who are most valuable to you. Think about whom you’re trying to reach and what’s important in their world. Just making noise isn’t enough.

Not to do: The Unfunded Mandate.
Try instead: Ruthlessly cut what doesn’t have a budgeted spend, allocated time/project plan, and a revenue stream it’s directly intended to influence. Say no to everything else, regardless of who’s asking. Create a backburner list for nice ideas that need some more time to bake.

Not to do: Abandon everything.
Try instead: Don’t simply stop doing marketing. Establish an ROI objective linked to how your program or tactic will help a salesperson and/or a prospect. Test with a fraction of your sales force and prospects before investing big.

For the concept of the not-to-do list, thanks to @gerhard20 for the post 15 Things Salespeople And Sales Managers Should Put On Their Not-To-Do List.

5 Reasons your customers and prospects don’t listen to you

Christie Turner — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 14:28:24 +0000

Which of these is true for your company? How are you going to fix it?

Your customers are focused on their own issues — and don’t see you as relevant to those concerns. Are you talking to the wrong people or companies? Are you trying to sell too broadly? Do you simply need to better explain the relevance of your work to customers’ problems?
Your company talks about itself, forcing customers to navigate your bureaucracy, jargon, products. How can you put aside your internal bureaucracy and help customers solve their own problems? Can you organize around customers and their problems?
Your company talks about solutions without correctly defining your customers’ problems. Ask existing customers, target customers, and your sales and marketing people what the customers’ problems are. Where are the common threads? Where are the disconnects?
When your company talks, it sounds like a bunch of other companies. What’s the difference?
Your company talks in language they don’t trust. Too tidy. Too pat. Too good to be true. Find out how your customers talk about their problems. And don’t overpromise what you can do about the problem. Respect your audience’s intelligence.
Your company doesn’t admit what it doesn’t do. Draw a line: Here’s what we do well — that is, where a customer gets the most economic value from us. Here’s everything we don’t do so well — can we send customers elsewhere for those things?

Getting customer attention is already hard. Why make it harder?

Why Business People Speak Like Idiots: A Bullfighter’s Guide

Christie Turner — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 16:07:17 +0000

Book report time. This one is good summertime reading – lightweight, and short.

The Elevator Summary: A witty lampoon highlighting the jargon, obfuscation, and paint-by-numbers habits which cloud business communication and impede selling.

Standout Moments: The chapter “You’ve Been Templatized.” A favorite nugget: “Business idiots are the sheep that use any shortcut available to automate their voice, and PowerPoint is a prime example.”

And another: “It’s good to have the company name somewhere, but the customary fluffy opening about how great the company is and how the execs owe it all to the worker bees sounds contrived. How about starting with a controversial statement? Or just something unexpected? We would all read a memo that begins, ‘Are you about to trash this memo? If so, good!’”

The chapter on selling is simple, practical. A sample: “Most people, when they want to persuade, immediately begin talking about ‘me’. This works if you have a great anecdote that puts you on familiar terms with your audience. But if you really want to convince people of something they wouldn’t otherwise know, think, or believe, you need to take yourself out of the equation. Take a hard look at the words ‘I’ and ‘we’ in your last brochure or speech.”

Not so much: The book will appeal to grammar curmudgeons more than most mortals. Not a recipe for mass appeal.

Who should read it: Business people who find themselves using the English language to communicate with other business people. English majors who somehow snuck into the corporate community and need a laugh.

Bottom Line: Witty, valuable, easily digestible insights into business communication. Worthwhile airport or beach reading.

More about the book: Why Business People Speak Like Idiots: A Bullfighter’s Guide

Pretty vs. Gritty

Christie Turner — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 01:19:42 +0000

Pretty marketing:

…Does all the things it’s supposed to do.

…Is entirely unobjectionable.

…Often passes extensive legal and functional reviews with flying colors.

…Probably follows the brand standards and logo usage guidelines pretty well.

…May be professionally produced.

…Looks great.

Unfortunately, it also sounds just like everyone else in our space. Maybe it doesn’t even clearly state what the company does.

Gritty marketing:

…Speaks the language of pain. Business pain. The customer’s pain.

…Is clear, direct, and to the point.

…May also be professionally produced. But it prioritizes the interests of buyers and sellers, not cleverness.

…Probably makes people a tad uncomfortable at times. Just like our best sales people do. Because it’s uncomfortable to admit pain and weakness, but this must be done if we’re going to sell anything, because people in pain are people who buy.

…Probably was created iteratively, because it takes a few tries to learn the customer’s language and absorb their priorities. Actors have to practice, too, when getting into someone else’s head.

…Deals with imperfect solutions to difficult problems. Admits to imperfection: we don’t solve everything for everyone all the time.

The real world is messy. But we all know the Pretty World isn’t real.

Marketing voodoo…the fluff formerly known as collateral…and why we made the logo blue.

Christie Turner — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 03:01:29 +0000

A friend and colleague was recently describing common failings noticed at marketing departments, especially in startups, with a number of companies where he has consulted (not as a marketer).

His first observation:
What marketing VPs do often looks like voodoo to him. And a lot of it looks like a me-too game. “If I pull up our website, and a competitor’s website, they sound like the same company. And I can’t tell what either company actually does.”

His second observation:
When he asks honest questions about the how and why of marketing tactics that are going out the door, he often gets a huffy response.

Now, even a patient professional (in any discipline) can tire of being second guessed within their zone of expertise. But I think my friend is correct in viewing his observations as signs of trouble in a marketing effort. Here’s why.

– Even if your strategy has all the validity in the world, if the rest of the company doesn’t understand the marketing message, you’re in trouble.

The rest of the company doesn’t necessarily have to understand why the CIO picked Microsoft or why the COO closed the plant in Guangdong. (Though it’s better if I understand how these visible decisions serve the same larger strategy that my daily chores do.) However, the marketing message is closely tied to the entire company’s strategic purpose. We shouldn’t all parrot the same canned phrases to describe why customers buy from us. But if we really have no shared ideas about what our customers expect to get from us in exchange for their money and trust…that’s going to breed problems in delivery. Marketing messages are greatly handicapped if they are concocted in a vacuum. They are much more powerful when rooted in past operational results, and in companywide shared beliefs (okay, how about overlapping beliefs?) about customer needs.

– Differentiation isn’t what I say it is in my meticulously crafted positioning statements. It is what my customers say it is.

Quite frankly, good line managers and strong sales people usually know more about the customer than their marketing executives do. They also know more about what the company does and how the sausage gets made. Carefully observe the reaction of your delivery organization and sales people to a big redesign of your website (or other marketing materials). I would argue that any silence, hesitation, question, or concern they express is a red flag.

If they want to know why the logo is blue, well, you may not need the most sophisticated of answers to that. If they think the logo is ugly, it’s worth hearing why. If they don’t understand the tactics, you can be gracious about others’ lack of expertise in your profession. And not everyone has to love the tactics. (Only some customers, some sales folks, and the CFO do.)

But if good people in other parts of the company don’t see a connection between what you’re telling your customers and what those people think the company is about, then drill down and understand that one.

Even if the campaign tactics and strategic approach are defensible, getting questioned about them creates a chance to lead. We’re never done building that shared (OK, overlapping) vision of what the customer needs and what we’re all supposed to be doing about it.

A thing of beauty…

Christie Turner — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 03:56:10 +0000

Question: “I see a logo (or matching stationery, rebranding, whatever) as an investment. What should I spend to make a beautiful brand for myself?”

Answer: As a marketer, I can’t care too deeply about the logo until something is actually happening.

Why? Your first customers won’t buy because of the logo. They’ll buy because they need something and trust you to deliver it for them. Start with your relationships and your message. Get some traction in sales. Prove your ability to deliver. Now you’ve got valuable things like references and testimonials and revenue.

When starting out, focus on doing what you need to do, not on what it looks like.

Now, if you find yourself spending inordinate time creating forms and stationery and things you need to get things done, then spend the money to get help with them.

If you find that your clients aren’t taking you seriously because your presentation is a little too homemade, or if they’re having trouble understanding what you do, then get some help and deal with the issue. By all means.

If you aren’t losing out for the lack of pretty materials, save your precious cash. Create value, not art.

Is it clear to everyone else?

Christie Turner — Wed, 27 Oct 2004 03:52:21 +0000

Often overlooked by business owners, internal communication is much more than announcing birthdays, deals, charitable campaigns, quarterly financial results.

Many leaders focus on near-term execution and problem-solving. This is a function of survival, and there’s nothing wrong with surviving.

In volatile times, though, you have to tell everyone what you want next, not just what you want now. This is as true for the Fortune 50 as it is for a 5-person startup. This is just as true in times of growth as times of downsizing or trouble. Even good change is still change.

An infamous round of teambuilding sessions, off-site meetings, and training exercises can be laid at the feet of internal communication.

Maybe your company needs that. But probably not. People need regular, informal, personal communication.

There’s also a place for forums in which tough (or innocent) questions are posed to and by top leadership.

Common gaps in internal communication include:

- What issues are personally significant to the employees, and are they aware of the company’s stance and activities regarding them? Examples: employee benefits, safety (especially in dangerous industries), job security, outsourcing plans and policies, productivity enhancement.

- In plain English, what changes are happening in the organization? goals? expectations? environment? And why? And how will those changes affect the rank and file?

- What is important to the top brass? How does that big picture relate to the rank and file? Examples: where the company has to get better in order to survive or meet goals, what goals are being chosen and why

Many companies use confidential employee surveys to help find specific gaps in their internal communications and how these gaps can be fixed. The larger the company, the more likely you are to need a feedback loop like this.

Peter Drucker told us in the 1960s that the expert is responsible for making information clear to the layman. What that means to leaders is that your team, partners, vendors, investors, and civic constituents aren’t responsible for reading your mind or guessing your intentions. Repetition is as important in leadership and negotiation than in marketing and sales. And for the same reasons. Thought leadership of any kind involves repeating yourself many, many times more than you think you’ll need to.

What matters is that what’s clear to you becomes clear to everyone else. Share with your team the way you see the world. It can only help.

Building a case = Building a brand

Christie Turner — Fri, 03 Sep 2004 03:18:45 +0000

Everything in marketing is building a case for something, as a skilled lawyer would do in a courtroom. Think of branding as arguments made at an emotional level about your company.

To brand a company effectively, be very clear about the case you want to make. What the marketplace is to believe and feel about your company – customers, potential customers, investors, regulators, and others – is your lodestar.

Building a brand involves a blend of analytical research, creativity, human insight, and business strategy. It happens over time, not in a single project.

It also doesn’t happen in your marketing department.

What the company does is the brand. The people who deliver the company’s products and services will ultimately own your brand. Whatever the brand is, they will deliver it.

It helps if everyone carrying the flag for your company has meaningful, coherent messages to pass along about it. Preferably messages that build your case and don’t conflict egregiously with each other.

Your marketing and PR people must grasp – in fairly rigorous operational detail – what the company does in order to facilitate a case for what’s special about it. And their role is to facilitate the organization’s telling of its own story.

Are your marketing materials are more compelling than the message they deliver about your company? If so, then marketing isn’t helping your company. It’s just giving your marketers something to do.

Everything you do and say builds a case for something. Let your case be compelling. Customers are always willing to discover greatness.