Think about us here, in our creative playpen…

We poked heads up over daily projects to survey our B to B customers earlier this year. Clients rewarded us with some insightful responses. In our 2016 Client Marketing Survey we scored a proverbial 30,000’ view of client priorities. Thank you for helping us focus! How do their priorities compare with yours?

2016 Client Marketing Priorities

Top 5 client marketing priorities:

• #1 & #2 (tied): Sales Leads & Better Client Communications (73%)
• #3: Website Design & Functionality (64%)
• #4: Building Market Awareness (46%)
• #5: Improving Brand (36%)

Proceeding down the marketing priorities list:

• Customer Education, More Social Media, Website hosting & management issues, keeping projects on track (~25%)
• Learning what does/doesn’t work, getting more outside/inside marketing help (18%)

Lowest marketing priorities:

• Addressing concerns about “Not messing up a good thing” (9%)
• Keeping up with customer demand (0%) Not on any client’s radar.

Then, we drilled down to discover where clients may be looking for help…

Where Clients Need Help in 2016

• Advertising - All want creative and content help (100%), but not everyone is looking for planning and management assistance (20%)
• Website - Almost all (88%) are looking for website design help, followed closely (62%) by 3 other ongoing website-related priorities that include: adding site functionality, content, and SEO.
• Branding - A third (33%) want help in all areas of logo design & branding, including how they apply their brand in the form of Logo Use Manuals, and unifying their brand across multiple channels.
• Brochureware - Who says print is dead among business to business agency clients? Half (50%) will be looking for design & creative help. A third (33%) feel they need help with content and production.
• Direct Marketing, print and/or digital - Half (50% will be needing assistance in all areas of direct marketing, including sign, content, production.
• SEO - A third (33%) want help in all areas of Search Engine Optimizing, including creative, content and ongoing management.
• PR - (75%) seek writing, imaging and distribution help.
• Trade Shows - Less than 20% (18%) completed this question, but those who did acknowledged they needed help in booth design and booth production.

We've always got your back! For marketing, advertising, PR and general lead acquisition and client retention marketing services give EJW Associates a shout.

Notes for the B to B marketer adjusting to new advertising

by Emil Walcek, President, EJW Associates Inc

The good news & the bad news: gone are the days of facing down this buyer.
However, just as advertising is always about stimulating interest, the B to B marketer is challenged to creatively deliver relevancy within the context of a consistent brand strategy. To be effective, marketing messages must be tuned for extended purchasing cycles and a buying chain with an ostensibly ‘just the facts, ma’am’ mindset.

With buyers having instant, stealth access to every vendor’s vitals, B to B advertising must adapt accordingly. First, there are more channels to weigh. Second, you are more likely to have more on your plate because, after all, Internet is synonymous with easy, ubiquitous, cheaper, better and faster. How hard can it be to decide, come up with the right 90 characters in a search ad, or compelling content before producing a tight banner ad?

It wasn’t always this way.
Before we hung everything out online, business buyers had a more tedious task as dramatized in the now-classic McGraw-Hill ad. The buyer represented by the man-in-chair acquired his grumpy moniker sitting through endless sales calls and visits. He was tasked to manually sort fact from marketing fiction with due diligence from diverse resources as best he and/or his staff could. Adding to the exercise he then reported findings and recommendations to many more accountable colleagues just like him up and down the buying chain.

Trade advertising in print was the only media that made sense for reaching B to B decision makers. Advertising had many more square inches to accomplish a much bigger job to soften the B to B sale, addressing timeless concerns from beleaguered decision makers:

I don’t know you.
I don’t know your company.
I don’t know your company’s product.
I don’t know what your company stands for.
I don’t know your company’s customers.
I don’t know your company’s record.
I don’t know your company reputation.

Now—what was it you wanted to sell me?

B to B advertisers of old had it tough:

• Narrowing ad campaign choices typically involved less than a handful of vertical market trade magazines for each market.
• Marrying an optimum ad size, frequency, & positioning within the publications of choice with an appropriate marketing budget. Production and proofing was horrendous compared to digital.
• Balancing the right mix of trade advertising, trade press (PR, content articles), direct marketing, trade shows & events.
• Deciding how much to do themselves or entrust to outside vendors.

Old challenges are replaced by new ones.
On the plus side for your customers, B to B buyers today can pretty much learn everything they need to know about a you and your company within minutes. A marketer’s sales staff is unlikely to be in the hot seat opposite a grumpy man in chair. He still wants to know, but he’s at ease getting more information than you can control about you and your company. Worse, you won’t even know who, when, how, or even if you’re being evaluated.

B to B advertisers today must balance the incumbent advantages of better, faster, cheaper against many more more options:

• Online media choices have multiplied an order of magnitude. Print is not dead, but diminished, and its role is still evolving, i.e. especially internationally. Advertising that once had to directly or indirectly address all of the ‘I don’t know’s’ in a print ad is now reduced to a single value proposition in a click ad or banner campaign. Conversions that are a secondary action from an ad are now the measurement standard for ad campaigns. Gone are bingo card responses, with letters and phone calls not far behind.
• Determining an appropriate marketing budget is still a challenge, especially when weighing interactive, video, social, mobile and target market media choices. Rat holes abound.
• PR for awareness and articles for educating are now part of an overarching Content strategy.
• Direct marketing includes eMail, trade news, house lists and 3rd party distribution options with more stringent privacy and security issues.
• Unchanged: deciding how much to do themselves or entrust to outside vendors.

Like in yesteryear, tools alone do not make for effective campaigns. Outside B to B pros bring a focus and efficiency from implementing effective marketing tactics on a daily basis. Conversion metrics demand creative dramatization and integration like never before. The wrong 25 character headline and no custom landing page to close the sale can flush click dollars and ROI.

A meaningful value proposition and a campaign integrated with your other media properties is essential to avoid waste and maximize conversions. Sorting through the most cost-efficient media channels and developing the most appropriate creative for requires dedicated resources marketers must properly staff, or bring in a partner to accommodate.

Advertising agency, Inhouse, or freelance contractor?

The heart of this question posed by Brian Regienczuk in Linkledin, speaks to tools, ability, and management when it comes to jobbing out creative services. We are perhaps not too different from our advertising agency clients when it comes to resource allocation. As a small business we know what it means to be agile in augmenting our internal resources with reliable contract help.

However, big difference: our clients are typically not immersed in the advertising industry - with expertise to properly select, manage, and take full responsibility for a complete marketing project of which creative is but a single component. Art, design, illustration, videography and copy writing is highly subjective. Unless a company has a really well-rounded art director on staff, this is probably outside most managers' scope of work - regardless of who they know that does any one discipline either on staff or works outside as a freelancer.

Our agency lives in the B to B world where many smaller accounts understandably feel like they have to do everything themselves. But how much more marketing value could a client receive if a well rounded, empathetic, B to B advertising agency were brought into the picture?

I would say to companies who are actually at the point of realizing they need creative help: make an effort to find an advertising agency, and be prepared to form a real partnership. Raise your sights to find a group with whom you feel comfortable sharing challenges, not just an order taker.

Who knows? In the best possible outcome the company gains a fresh resource to serve as their de facto marketing department. Save overhead while getting (on demand!) new market communications ideas professionally-created and designed to boost sales. Visit http://www.ejwassoc.com/what-we-do/creative/

Brochure Series completed in 19 days for show

Enlarge

Print thrives, but client expectations for production and delivery now verge on real time. After all, "it's digital, isn't it?" With a looming trade show deadline we committed to our client to deliver not one, but a series of product/corporate brochures in less than 19 days. Answering your question at the outset: Print, who needs it? Fewer folks than before but, then again, who needs trade shows, either? And yet, decision makers continue to rely on both.

In today's everyday world squeaky wheels of marketing tend to languish. Projects to effect performance 30, 60 and 90 days out is considered long term by many, particularly in small to mid size B to B businesses. Marketing plays a back seat to a daily grind of product management and sales.

That is, until a major event threatens to spotlight a company's market commitment. Then, the specter of inadequacy looms large to focus attention on marketing basics, such as: show booth graphics, Powerpoint & video presentations, visitor handouts, brochures. Pre-, during -, and post-show advertising, direct mail and promotions.

Another plus for trade shows. WIthout them how many marketing projects would languish in the lands of Hurry-Up-And Wait. This brochure project, originally approved without a particular timeline weeks before, now leaped to life with company stakeholders on red alert. Design concepts and rough content now moved forward with all due speed to meet impossible milestones. Failure is not an option when 10's of thousands of dollars in company resources are at stake, not to mention image and reputation.

In this industry show of mechanical systems, an all-out, full court analog experience was deemed essential. Brochures arrived on time and had the desired effect on the industry represented there and then and beyond.

In fast-tracking any new creative development, two factors rise in importance to ensure success to avoid crashing and burning: client focus and a solid agency vendor resource.

Call in a trusted partner. In this story, EJW had been working with our client for years. Every project with essential building materials is double archived. On the same wavelength we push the right buttons, ask the right questions, know what works in tight situations. To keep projects moving we become the shepherd herding the proverbial cats when milestones need attention.

Form a project team that includes agency & company personnel. To keep projects moving, fully prep members for expected participation. Assign point persons to manage all of the content likely to be required in any marketing project, such as: special image files, 3D renderings, content sources, vertical market expertise, product and application knowledge.

To Social, or not to Social, that is the question for B to B marketers

A B-to-B company looks back on one of its customers and the history of its last profitable sale. The purpose? Uncover telephone calls, sales visits, dinners, handshakes at trade shows that may have had an impact. An investigator also documents responses to direct marketing, ads, press release programs, and website interactions. A company may even have a social program that has yielded reactions.

What role did each "engagement" play? Which had more sales impact? Most importantly, and the reason we study marketing response, how should we separate marketing activities that are nice-to-haves versus those we need-to-have for next year's budget?

The real questions wrestled by business marketers when building budgets can be boiled down to priority.

It has been said in B-to-B land that Social media is social, more for customer service and not to be judged for lead generating. In that sense it takes on a more foundational role in marketing.

The fact is, for better or worse, Social opens up one more channel from which to support customers.

Instead of asking how to meaningfully count B2B Social interactions or impressions, a company would be advised to carefully study its customer base to determine its current perceptions and likely use of Social before rolling out another communications channel.

Sure, "Ready, Fire, Aim" marketing might work...

...but let's not kid ourselves - it's still a gamble. 

Who are we to judge? We've all been at the crossroads of Time, Money, & Results.  At some point, every marketer has shot from the hip, and shot themselves in the foot, too! In "just doing it" to make a campaign happen - without knowing everything there is to know about a product, its market, and expectations - a marketer is rolling the dice. You can win, but odds are you could have won bigger. And, with Las Vegas odds always with the house, more often than not you'll not meet campaign goals doing READY. FIRE. AIM. marketing.

Some rationals for shooting first and asking questions later include:

• I need results yesterday.
• Don't have the time or money for market research.
• I feel real good about this. Success is in the bag!
• My boss respects the "act now, apologize later" methodology.
• Cost of failure may be judged another day.
• Potential for success is simply too great to delay.

Experienced marketers I've known have almost always regretted not doing a campaign right the first time. Others simply write-off bad results by blaming everything and everyone but their own choices. In "Ready. FIRE. Aim." mode a marketer completely by-passes the vetting we all know should be done.

Yet, I have to say I've seen marketing shortcuts work. Better than doing nothing, or when perfection becomes the enemy of good, a niche, industrial or technology marketer may have just enough insight and experience to take a marketing risk and achieve some ROI.

But here the kidding stops. Marketing is as marketing does. Hero one day, loose cannon the next. There's a reason process, buy-in, creativity, and accountability win out in the end. Ready, AIM, Fire not only reduces risks, but improves the probability of long-term success while gaining the marketing practitioner respect within an organization and (most importantly) among customers!

And if you think you can't afford it, think again. Learn about Marketing Consulting for B to B marketers here. Than look for another link to a "Unique Outside Looking In Trial Marketing Consulting Offer" at the end.

Marketing, shmarketing. Who needs it?

Everything starts with a sale. Marketing does not equal sales, or vice versa. Yet, smaller organizations frequently get along fine without a formal marketing function - for a time. Many companies view the sometimes complex functions of marketing as a cost-of-sales, rather than a driver of sales. They wait too long before seriously considering an investment in marketing. Marketing is best implemented before the first dark clouds appear on the sales and profit horizon. With marketing in place, businesses can even circumvent sales and profit-zapping issues as they crop up, and new challenges arise.

Every sales professional knows instinctively what it takes to prospect for leads, right?
Yes, and no. The vigilant sales person:

1) sows the seeds for sales throughout a network that extends to industry groups, peers and acquaintances;
2) is in personal touch with customers to short circuit any customer service issues while probing for new ways to add customer value.
3) provides market intelligence for future product or service development.
4) cannot consistently deliver the same message to every customer all of the time.

Sales is king, but even a king needs support
The need for improved sales and profitability - the multiplication of sales - manifests itself when existing sales processes need a marketing kick, i.e. help that goes beyond one-on-one selling, especially as sales goals change.

Marketing is the multiplication of sales efforts, and comes into play before, during and after a sale. More than simple one-shot-wonder promotions and advertising, marketing orchestrates many tools to help develop and maintain customer dialog - and profitability.

Marketing:

1) softens the field for sales.
2) gets prospects to raise their hands for a sales contact.
3) Perhaps most importantly, marketing helps convey a company's brand to knock down barriers to a sale, lift customer expectations for doing business with a company, creating a preference in the market for a company's goods or services.

Send in the clowns
Prospecting, networking, customer support, and all aspects of customer development that lead to long term customer value is a continuum to be broken at great risk to sales and profits.

Marketing, the anecdote
Marketing is comprised of the strategy, tactics, and the creative implementation of a plan to ensure: fresh sales leads, timely customer communications, non-stop customer service, and continuous development of relevant product and services leading to improved sales, market share, and profitability. Coordinated advertising, PR, website, and other media campaigns create value in a customer's mind. With these tools savvy marketers are able to rise above their competition with better profit margins.

The Dirty Little Secret of SEO

SEO is not a one shot deal. It's not a magic wand. What's more, it can ZAP marketing resources better applied elsewhere to boost sales. Optimizing a web site for high search rankings (Search Engine Optimizing) can be a slow and steady effort over time, or major investment up front with ongoing maintenance to match. Regardless, SEO as a marketing budget line-item must be cost-justified based on traditional marketing parameters, including its role in contributing to customer value.

Because SEO demands so many unique skill sets, in-house SEO is rife with just as many management and execution challenges as an out-sourced solution. SEO demands industry, product and sales knowledge coupled with writing, website development, and marketing management expertise.

Just like in brick-and-mortar retail, not every business can cost-justify the overhead of a prime real estate location. If not justified and held accountable like any other marketing project, SEO can become the proverbial bottomless money pit for B2B marketers.

Yet, because every business has clamored for first page search visibility ever since top management twigged to the idea that a website really can effect sales, SEO companies have sprouted like mushrooms with some very slick salesmanship - eager to match expectations with acronym-laced rhetoric and a hefty contract.

Alas, after signing and the honeymoon ends three months into a Search Engine Optimizing contract, many marketers are left wondering just what they got after lots of boilerplate SEO reports, to-do lists that never get done, and account reps that call less and less frequently. When will the magic kick in?

Or, on the other hand, an SEO project plays out the proverbial "be careful what you ask for" scenario. The SEO provider is successful in gaining top ranking for the client, but site visitors are not converting, leaving the marketer to play catchup while would-be customers and costly sales leads vanish.

So, how badly do we need yet another marketing tool like SEO?

A subset of the general category of search marketing, SEO demands a healthy investment in time and/or expense to achieve a reasonable return on investment. Place SEO in perspective before initiating a search optimizing program. Treat SEO as just one more arrow in the marketing lead-generating quiver that includes:

• Search Engine Optimizing

• Adword or "Click" advertising

• Direct marketing e-Promotions

• Integration with traditional advertising, PR, events, and other sales and marketing promotions

Planned properly within the scope of an overall marketing program, the right dose of SEO at the right time will yield a respectable ROI. An independent marketing services company that combines SEO, business marketing experience, and relevant industry expertise can ensure all pieces of a marketing puzzle come together. On the other hand, highly specialized SEO companies exist solely to get more eyeballs on a client site. Never mind that your site may be ill-equipped to handle new-found visitors, capture relevant visitor information, track traffic patterns, or otherwise encourage visitors to raise their hands and identify themselves as sales prospects.

How much SEO should you be doing?

As with any lead generating program, budget as much SEO as you can realistically handle. By that I mean working a plan, developing a conversion process, tracking and measuring against a target ROI. eCcommerce sites can clearly benefit from higher volumes of high quality traffic from both natural and pay per click campaigns. B2B sites without a direct ordering mechanism or other clarion call to action may have a harder time cost-justifying the resources required for an SEO program that consumes more than its fair share of a marketing lead generation budget.

The really big question comes back to your choices for implementing SEO. Realize that even legitimate third parties committed to providing the best SEO services will inevitably require more than your cash to make their services work for you. Improving a site's natural ranking with the major search engines (at this time these include Google, Yahoo and MSN) requires just three major things of your web site:

• Tons of relevant, keyword-rich content

• Lots of relevant links to your site (popularity)

• Easy to follow site structure with relevant naming conventions

In other words, even when outsourcing be prepared to do more than write a check when it comes to both content and link-building especially if you are a manufacturer, technology products/service company, financial services provider, or other industrial company. B2B marketing departments will be tasked with developing much of the new site content, regardless of who does the final SEO. For SMB (small to medium business) marketers on a limited budget, the following proves to be cost-effective SEO choices:

• Moderate investment in a site upgrade that includes SEO best practices coding.
• 
Regular site content additions that improve a site's worth to prospects and customers.

• Ongoing research and registration on important industry directory sites.
• Well-planned click advertising campaign.
• Integration of existing PR, article and lead generation programs into your website.

• Add site analytics that work across all search engines - study what’s working and what is not.

• Add staff capabilities as appropriate to handle one or more of the diverse components required for SEO.

Remember to fulfill the promise

Does your existing website separate curious visitors from sales prospects?
A business website can be both a destination to fulfill market information needs, and a revenue-generating tool. Its marketing function is to service existing customers and encourage new ones. Number one: it must "fulfill the promise" that drove the visitor to it in the first place. Just as your Unique Selling Proposition (USP) draws prospects, your site must work to inspire qualified visitor interaction. SEO is important, but the marketer must first get his marketing house in order.

EJW Associates offers powerful marketing solutions