Posts Tagged ‘graphic design’

Common Marketing Challenges of B2B Marketers – Part I

Thursday, July 8th, 2010

B2B covers a broad range of products and services, so to pick some common marketing challenges is no easy task. The challenges can vary hugely depending on whether you are selling a product or a service, but one common characteristic for all types of B2B organizations is that they don’t invest enough in marketing.

Not big budgets, budgets set for impact

Some may argue that B2B companies often have a limited number of organizations that they can sell (or market) to, so they don’t require big budgets. Versus companies that are selling to the masses, it is true B2B marketers don’t require big budgets. However, the argument here is not for creating big budgets, but for allocating budgets that are big enough to allow your organization to “out shout” the competition. To stay in the prospects mind so that, when the time comes to purchase, your firm is high on the list of potential vendors. Ideally, to be looked at as being different and better than the competition, so in any pitch or bid situation, you come from a position of strength.

In categories that have only a handful of customers that may buy from them, the marketing plan and recommended spend is going to look a lot different than for companies that have hundreds or even thousands of prospects.

What is the right amount for a marketing budget?

So how does one decide what the appropriate spending levels are? A common approach is to look at the competition and figure out what they do and how much they spend, and to make sure you invest similar amounts and do more impactful things.Another approach is to put together a detailed marketing plan. If you do not have the right resources internally, outsourcing a plan can be a great way to bring rigor to the process, and to look at the possibilities from a fresh perspective. A good marketing consultant should be able to take your experience and industry knowledge, combine that with information about your market, your prospects and techniques that have worked in similar industries, and provide you with a disciplined plan that will deliver against your objectives. B2B marketers often lack the discipline to do a plan and execute it faithfully, let alone measure the results. No wonder spending levels are low!

The wrong way to go about setting the budget is to either base it on what was spent the year before, (unless that budget was set based on the methods described above) or what you think you can afford. Unlike rent or other expenses that are necessary evils, marketing should be looked at as a “spend to get” approach. If you are strategic, your marketing spending should pay back, sometimes many times the original spend.

Be aware

Incidentally, the organizations with the fewest prospects can often have marketing budgets that are much bigger than you would think. Marketing budgets that allow for sales to take decision makers on high-end trips, play regular golf games or go out to events on a regular basis.  Don’t get caught thinking the playing field is level without getting a full perspective on the decision making process from the customer’s viewpoint.

Social Media – How to Separate Personal From Business.

Wednesday, June 30th, 2010

Last week I participated in a panel discussion on social media for SugarCRM. One of the questions that came up was ‘how do you keep business and personal separate?’ The three panelists gave various answers, the main theme being whether used for business or personal, as a salesperson or an employee,  remember that it’s there forever so be careful, professional and aware.

However, a more advanced way to help keep them separate is to go in with a plan and share it with all company participants. Give them the tools and training they need to be successful in this new arena.

Don’t Just Dive-in – Social Media is a Marketing Tool

I’m often heard to say that using a social media platform is just like any other marketing tool. Before jumping in you should figure out who your target is, where to find them (Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn?) and what they’re looking for from a company like you. You would use this information to strategize on the best way to communicate with them and use your marketing tools effectively.

Are you using social media to raise awareness, educate about your service or industry or stay in touch with existing customers? What are they doing there? What’s their pain?

Social Media and Your Brand

Also like any other marketing tool, you’d need to hold it up to your brand and consider it in relation to everything else you use, like your website, brochures, etc. Chances are you’ve developed a look, a voice, a style, and specific marketing objectives. Though social media is often more of a personal approach, corporate brand should apply here too.

Your Social Media Marketing Plan

Your plans for social media should include:

  1. Where you should focus efforts (Twitter?)
  2. What you should do there (ie: discussions on LinkedIn)
  3. What you should talk about, your angle
  4. How it fits in with other efforts
  5. What are the objectives and guidelines for our participants (ie: no personal political comments)

With this basic plan in place it will be much easier to keep business separate from personal.

Educate Your Team

Just as you provide brochures and help prepare presentations, give your people the guidance they need to represent your company using social media. Remember that if you’re asking your professionals to be active like blogging, they may not be aware of brand guidelines at all and need briefing. It doesn’t hurt to do a little awareness education with other employees as well so they know what you’re doing and a little guidance as to what you’d prefer they did or didn’t do with their personal accounts. You can’t control their personal accounts but it doesn’t hurt to say ‘because our message is ____, we’d prefer if you didn’t mention ____.’

How to Ask for Feedback

Monday, June 14th, 2010

At lunch today, my favourite writer told me a story about a client of ours whom she worked with while I was on vacation. She’s writing his brochure. After initial direction was approved, then a couple of back-and-forths between them, he took the draft to his advisory board for feedback. He got so many and such varied responses his head was spinning and couldn’t sleep that night.

We encourage clients to run their creative by an advisory board or, even better, ideal clients at exactly the stage our client did. However, if you simply say “what do you think,” the question is too open-ended. Here are some tips on how to get the most useful input.

This applies to anything from logos, to web design to any kind of content.

Give Them Some Background

Tell them who the audience is, how it will be used and what you were trying to achieve. For example, it’s going to a specific audience like financial controllers in large corporations (very different than the head of HR at a smaller company). It will be handed out at a tradeshow and you’re hoping to get meetings out of it. Also, tell them what specific result you are after, if applicable, like getting them to call directly versus sign-up through your website.

It helps to give a bit of background on your discussions with the creative team involved as well, like what led to the format or approach taken This may eliminate a lot of questions that can have you second-guessing yourself. Like ‘why didn’t you just do a tri-fold brochure’? You could pre-empt it by saying ‘we discussed doing a tri-fold brochure but realized it would be inserted into large folders and we also wanted to email it so…’

Consider sharing some of the market research that was done to help put it in context, like ‘client interviews indicated what’s most important to them is ______’

Create a List of Specific Questions

What about the piece is important to you – that a certain message get across? That people take a specific action at the end? That it builds a feeling of trust and stability or makes people feel warm and fuzzy? Use this as a guideline to come up with specific questions. Like, ‘did it make you feel warm and fuzzy?’ Same goes for concerns you have – ‘or did it seem too corporate’.

Also think about what you are sure of and don’t intend to change when framing questions. If you definitely like the design but are not sure about the colour, ask them specifically ‘what do you think of the colour?’ Tell them what message you are trying to convey and ask them if they get that from the design or copy. If not what did they get from it?

Broad Questions Are Okay

‘If you had one impression from this piece what was it?’

However, you may want to have follow-up questions ready. If you want it to convey that your services are delivered quickly because of the technology you’ve developed, and they got that, you could ask something like ‘but does it make our service sound cheap because it’s so fast?’

Make the Most of Your Community

Asking for feedback from people who represent your ideal clients or peers you trust for business advice is a great idea. Just prepare for it and know you may get some conflicting input. Don’t be reluctant to ask – most people feel privileged that you value their opinion.

Social media provides additional ways to get objective, anonymous and/or professional feedback. You can ask for feedback via the major channels like Twitter and LinkedIn, but there are also great places, both free, like Get Satisfaction or User Voice and professional/paid like EntreBahn (full version coming soon)

PS. It’s a great way to get a little social media exposure too.

Then What?

The best thing to do is gather the feedback and go over it with your creative team, who should be completely open to that. We’d discuss each bit, hold it against the creative brief and objectives, decide what’s important and what’s not, and make some executive decisions.

Building Business Growth Momentum

Thursday, June 10th, 2010

The first year or so in business I mostly freelanced for other people: Neil, who encouraged me to start in the first place and whom I shared space with, and another old colleague. Neil had great dreams of us forming a partnership and building business together. When Neil’s work dried up, he became very angry and frustrated. We began to spend a lot of time at Betty’s, in a dark booth where he’d say things like ‘but we’re so talented, they should be knocking down our door.’ One afternoon after weeks of this, plus angry bouts in the office I realized two things: one, Neil didn’t know how to drum up new business and two, no one was going to find us in our dark booth at Betty’s.

I needed to find them

I literally stepped out into the sunlight and went back to the office where I Googled things like ‘business development’ and eventually ‘networking’. I didn’t even know what networking was, but I found some great options and started participating. I think a CAWEE breakfast was the first. I also tried Wired Women’s Network and Small Business Meet-up where I met my very good friend Richard. He introduced me to another group and on it went. In very short order I was co-hosting a Toronto event, met tons of new people online and offline. Not only actual clients, but great referral sources and like-minded business people I could identify with and learn from. They were positive and driven, like – as it turned out – me.

Payback is not instant

I don’t know the typical length of time it takes to start seeing results from networking efforts, I’ve heard six months. However, just know you are unlikely to meet a million dollar client your first time out. It takes time to build  trust and a proper understanding of what you do. The key is to keep at it, find a group or two you like and go regularly to build relationships, while also trying new places – online and offline.

For me, I started networking in May 2003, got my first related client in early July, then my business exploded in September that year. The rest, is history.

The small business community is, well, small.

I built my business through word-of-mouth. I did meet the occasional direct client at events, but for the most part I was referred by people I met at networking events, and then later by happy clients.

When you are out there meeting a lot of people they grow to know, like and trust you, and understand what you do. Then you are top of mind when their friends, colleagues or clients are looking for your services. I often saw the the same people over and over at events – building great relationships. I also looked for opportunities to speak at some and began to build my reputation as an expert in the field.

People talk. The community is small and I soon found that a surprising number of people in the small business community knew who I was. I was being introduced to people as ‘great designer’ or ‘the one who gets things done’ which was an early favourite and became an important differentiator for Rapport.

The best fuel for sales momentum: deliver a great experience

I didn’t find I was up against a lot of competition, but was certainly up against negative stereotypes of flakey freelancers and difficult divas. When Scott Stratten of Un-Marketing called me for the first time he said something like ‘I advise people to get professional logos and websites… I need someone to send them to. I’ve been burned by designers who couldn’t deliver before, so you have one chance and one chance only.’ He referred me to one client, I took great care of her and he referred me many more after that.

Unfair as it is, referrals that don’t work out reflect badly on the referrer. On the flip-side, great referrals make them look good and turns them into your biggest fan.

For clients, a great experience is essential to keep them coming back and prompting them to refer you to others. This is where it’s great to understand how they feel about your services. See our newsletter on how to do this. When we had clients interviewed as part of our own re-branding and saw that good design and competitive rates were just table-stakes. What they loved about us was the relationship, how easy it was to work with us and how well taken care of they were. That may sound soft, but remember the negative stereotypes I was up against – it was huge and wonderful to have that reputation.

Now we work extra hard to ensure work is done well and delivered on time, to create a professional but friendly experience from start to finish. This has been a mandate of mine since my solo days, but has developed into a strong culture and internal processes that work just as well for the ten of us.

Marketing To Women. Contrary To Popular Male Belief, There Really Is A Difference

Tuesday, June 1st, 2010

One of our clients has decided that they would like to do a campaign that targets women. As a man who professes to be in touch with the feminine psyche, (with female partners in and aside from business), my assumption was that I would not find all that much of a difference between marketing to men and women.

But the question of what the differences actually could be was intriguing so I decided do a little digging on the good old world wide web.

Now you have to be careful when you research anything on the web, because it is the great equalizer when it comes to information, and it’s really hard to separate the political agendas from the honest information, especially with issues like this. But like anything in life, if you dig around enough, you will start to see patterns of opinion.

Rather than bore you with the longer version of the results I found, I have distilled this research down to what I call “The 10 Commandments of Marketing To Women.”

What you will hopefully find as you read through it is that there is a high level of interconnectivity between all of these characteristics, which is not something you can always observe in men.

Here they are, in my opinion, the 10 most important things to keep in mind when marketing to women.

  1. Women Are Focused On Connections: They look for similarities as opposed to points of difference. They focus on creating cooperation, good relationships and ways to help each other.
  2. Women Trust Common Experience, as opposed to men who tend to put more faith in authority. The reason for this is that men think vertically as in hierarchies whereas women tend to think laterally as in common ground or level playing fields, where everyone can benefit.
  3. Women Prefer Win/Win Situations, as opposed to men who think win/lose. That is not to say they are less competitive than men, just competitive in a different way.
  4. Women Plan Ahead To Avoid Negative Outcomes. As a result women tend to be better long term thinkers and planners.
  5. Women Put More Time And Research Into Their Decisions. This means that if you are marketing to them, you are obliged to do a very thorough job of communicating information to them, as they will take it all into account.
  6. Women Are More Loyal To Those With Whom They Do Business. This has to do with the fact that women are simply much more confident in their decisions, whereas with men, not so much.
  7. Women Refer More Often Than Men. This is an adjunct to 6. It’s a lot easier for women to be good and frequent referrers, because they are more confident in the decisions they make in the first place and because it is more in their communal nature to recommend products and services they are happy with to others.
  8. Women Are Much More No-Nonsense Than Men. If a woman has an objection to something, she will tell you about it and expect you to address it immediately. She is a big believer in testimonials, as opposed to marketing hyperbole because she has highly developed B/S meter.
  9. Women Prefer Stories Not Facts. To women, stories are more memorable than features and benefits. She will relate stronger to stories involving people’s experiences with your product or service. This makes an emotional connection that can motivate them to take action. This means that things like testimonials and product reviews are something they will take a good deal of interest in.
  10. Women Believe That Quantity Is Not Quality. Women tend to look at just about everything in their lives from a qualitative perspective. Quality of life. Quality of service. Quality of products. Quality of experience.

A Wisened Man’s Perspective

Now being a man writing this post naturally puts me at a disadvantage. Because on the one hand, you could look at the aforementioned things to keep in mind when marketing to women and think, well OK, that’s the man’s point of view.

But then I would have to politely correct you because the sources I used to derive this list all come from blogs and web sites that are run by women. Just wanted to clarify that point.

Now if you’re a woman out there reading this, very little here is going to come as a surprise. But if you’re a man, most of this is quite a revelation…at least it was to me. It might be worth reading a couple of times, and seeing if there aren’t some things we men could do to be more like women. Maybe then the world would be less of a ‘dog eat dog’ place than it is now.

When Disaster Strikes

Sunday, April 25th, 2010

This month I discovered how important it is to have great rapport and support within the company.

My father died recently and I was forced to be away for a period of time. As VP in charge of Client Development and handling a major portion of our clients, that is bad enough. But at the same time our senior web developer was off, our client manager’s husband died suddenly and our art director’s beloved dog passed away. If this all sounds like a story that couldn’t possibly have happened, your wrong, it did.

Having four senior people away at the same time during a relatively busy period would normally spell disaster for a small firm. Not for us, I was amazed at the dedication and team spirit this brought out in the rest of the people in the company. Not a beat was missed as everyone who was not bereaved stepped in to take on extra duties to make sure our clients were all taken care of and deadlines were met. That’s definitely team spirit and what every firm wants in their organization.

What makes this possible?

Firstly, we have a great understanding between management and staff. Everyone is involved in the day-to-day workings of the organization and has a good high-level understanding of how everything works outside of their role. This also makes them more engaged in and personally dedicated to the company’s success.

Secondly, we celebrate life and special dates together, we care a lot about each other and are all good friends. Partially due to our president Faith Seeking’s warm attitude towards everyone, we have a great working atmosphere and a lot of respect for each other.

Thirdly, it’s a joy for everyone to come to work when you are not just allowed but encouraged to have fun and enjoy your day while you work. Under those circumstances who wouldn’t step up to the plate and pitch in.

How do you create this environment?

It’s easy: build a system of trust, get to know your people and their needs as well as letting them know the needs of the firm. Make sure employees understand the importance of their job in the overall picture of the firm. We all need to know our value. That’s why yearly reviews and honest critiques make sense. Reviews reinforce why we work, our sense of worth and that we do a good job or how we can improve.

Way to go everyone at Rapport!

They used to say it takes seven points of contact to make a sale…

Tuesday, April 20th, 2010

These days that number is much higher due to the massive amounts of sales messages we see in email and on the web. Even in the B2B space – there are lots of newsletters and Google ads, LinkedIn messages, blog posts, etc. Even if that number is now 50, the key is still the same: the more and more kinds of points of contact the better.

What are points of contact?

Any time or way in which someone comes into contact with your company. Including: business card, networking, call from your office, newsletter, website, they see you speak, an ad, blog posts, articles you write, Twitter messages, etc.

The reason I say the more kinds the merrier is because, for example: if they met you once and only continue to receive your company newsletter, it gets monotonous and they start ignoring it. Meanwhile, if they also see an ad, an update pops-up on LinkedIn, then notice you’re speaking as an expert, or spot your brochure on a colleagues desk, then get the newsletter again; suddenly you are top of mind for whatever you do. Plus, you provide more opportunities for them to sell you to decision makers and more ways to refer you (ex: send your newsletter to a peer). You provide more opportunities for them to see your brilliance and understand all of what you do.

I want to do something bold!

This is what a very action-oriented and adventurous client said to me. Doing a specific campaign, something one-time and flashy is great for bringing people into your funnel – the most fun projects for Rapport actually. However, if you succeed in bringing people in, then what? You need to have other points of contact ready to go to keep them engaged and coming back, or leading them to your pre-sale action step. For this particular client once she brings them in en masse, she needs to build trust with them to move to the next step in the buying cycle, so we have to make sure mechanisms for doing that are there to support the initial big effort.

Sounds like a lot of money and effort.

This is also why variety is good. The best thing to make it easier is include items that happen more automatically and can impact a large number of people at once, like a newsletter. The second thing is to decide what marketing things you’re going to do and then plan and budget for them over a quarter, if not a year. An action plan really makes things much less daunting.

Remember, if you don’t plan for and support one effort with other points of contact, you’re probably wasting time and money on the first one anyway.

Bring all that marketing together.

Be strategic and smart. Spend your time and money wisely by planning, making sure you’re talking to ideal clients in the right way, but also by ensuring all your points of contact are leading prospects on a consistent and compelling path towards your pre-sale action step. Rapport has developed a great tool for helping you do this: the Rapport Marketing Map.

Website Strategy Integrating Social Media Part II

Friday, April 2nd, 2010

My last post was answering a question: should website strategy be driven by social media?

I wrote no, it should be considered as part of an overall marketing plan. However, if you’ve done your research as Excoted  Twitter fans, are your clients?Terri suggested in her post Social Media: How Much of it is Hype? and found that your target audience is huge into it, then yes, it should be one of the stronger factors in web strategy. With the Rapport Marketing Map, we talk about the journey people take moving from one marketing tool to the next (ie: when they look at your business card then go to your website, do they see the same colours and logo?) and how to keep them moving along that path, towards your pre-sale action step. If you think about going from, say Twitter to your website, there may be opportunities top make that transition more meaningful.

What happens when people go from your Twitter page to your website?Showing  diverging paths, through your marketing

Imagine that the first place someone finds you is LinkedIn and read your profile. They liked your style and click-through to your website. What’s the experience like? What opportunities are there to create a continuation and encourage they travel further through your marketing map? For example, some people create special landing or squeeze pages, depending on where they come from that ties the two together. I saw one that said ‘welcome fellow Tweeters… here’s how I want to use Twitter… etc.’ One Twitter user sends a very friendly ‘thanks for the follow message’ to new followers that invites them to take a fun, interesting, no strings attached quiz, getting people to her website.
Interactivity with Polls is good for websites
Depending on how your target audience uses social media may change the approach to content writing for your website, or the bells and whistles you add. Those big into it appreciate brevity, a more casual and human approach to writing. They also expect lots of interaction, like blogs and polls, etc.

Don’t forget that the website’s main function will always be a place prospects come to learn more about your company and it’s services, so I wouldn’t rush to turn it into it’s own social media platform. I’ve been to sites that look like the home page of LinkedIn or Facebook. Though fun that they let people post things on their home page (like a notice board), it was major overload and it took me way too long to find out what they did and who their customers were. Visitors should always be able to find out basic information about you there, which will also make the site good for visitors who don’t use social media or didn’t find you that way.

Why Face to Face Presentations Work

Wednesday, March 24th, 2010

Design presentations used to be made in person, art mounted on boards and accompanied by a detailed rationale. Concepts had reason and were sold to the client so that they understand the nuance and logic of a concept, beyond just liking it or not. What designers work on in the studio – which can be many different ideas – is the basis for what’s eventually presented, but should not be seen outside. The designer and/or creative director must review all ideas and choose the one that suits the clients needs best, then develop that version for the presentation.

Then, as the professionals, we make the presentation with the recommendation and justification for what is best for that client. Confident that what is about to be presented will answer the clients requirements.

These days many designers create numerous rough designs and email them all to the client to make choices without attempting to inform them on which is the best and the reasons why. Skipping narrowing down the options and presenting the rationale often leads the client to feel the need to direct the designer, ask for many more combinations, tell them what is good or bad and make decisions that affect the outcome of the design.

What’s Wrong With the Client as Art Director?

Clients don’t usually know much about why a design works or why it should be executed in a particular way, or how to avoid letting personal taste intrude on decisions. It easily leads to numerous rounds and a design with what they admire as their personal stamp, but which may well make the design not right for the company and its audience. They just don’t get the great results they could if left up to the experts.

Imagine if a lawyer was defending you in court and sent six documents and said, Here are six versions of how I can present your case, take some time to review them and let me know which you would prefer.” Then you to go back to him and say “take sections from three of the documents and and present another version or two.”

The answer would undoubtedly be “I can do what you are asking but I can no longer stand behind the outcome.” That is that what we would expect from a lawyer since we know little about law.

Trusting the Professionals

Being a good designer takes more than knowing how to operate a computer. It takes talent, knowledge and skill. Experienced designers know what makes for good, effective business-building design! That’s why the designer has to sell the merits of creating the right fit for the future of the company not the individual. By telling the client what it takes, and presenting what the designer believes is the best option, taking client comments into consideration without letting personal ideas over-ride good design that fits the need, builds confidence and rapport between the client and the designer.

This kind of great working relationship often starts with a presentation made in person, or at least by Skype, with emailing a fine option for finalizing the project.

Website Strategy Integrating Social Media

Thursday, March 11th, 2010

Someone asked us how a company should go about developing their website strategy – from participating in social media or does the updated/new website lead to the social media participation? How do we integrate the two successfully?

Get Back To Basic Marketing

My answer is first: offline marketing questions are still important when developing a website strategy:

• What do we want to accomplish with this site?
• What is our position in the marketplace?
• Who are my ideal clients?
• What do they want from a website, what is impRetro Robot for Back to Basic Marketingortant to them?
• What can I build in to make it useful and engaging?
• Where else are they spending time (coffee shops or on Facebook)?

How are your ideal clients using social media? We have a client who was gung-ho to start a Facebook fan page but when we researched this by literally asking her clients (specific demographic), we discovered they are not using Facebook.

Web 3.0 Website Strategy

Website strategy shouldn’t develop solely from social media participation, but the core of it has had a very positive influence on “Web 3.0″ sites in the way it fosters building communities based on common interests, generously sharing information and creating two-way dialogue with customFuturistic Web 3.0 Roboters.

Gone are the days of closely guarding your secrets and being all about ME. Now are the days of being open and giving away information to create communities of enthusiastic supporters. No more broadcasting, but creating discussions and having two way conversations with the public.

All companies can integrate this idea through creating interesting and meaningful elements in their website – whether built right in like a blog or polls, or making use of Twitter and Facebook.

In fact, Google recently changed the way they rank websites to be heavily swayed by social relevancy. They want to see a blog, a conversion form, a Twitter account related to the company, etc.

Ideas to Integrate Social Media Into Your Site

Add useful and interactive devices to your website. Include activities people can participate in, use blogs, forums, polls. Use dynamic content to keep it fresh, pulling in information that’s useful to ideal visitors. Become the site to go to for info in your industry. Add multi-media like recorded teleseminars, webinars and videos.Marketing and Web Integration
Use outside platforms and communities. You don’t need to reinvent the wheel within your own site when tools like MailChimp and dynamic Google maps works fantastically. Actively participate in existing communities like LinkedIn and the like, where the eyeballs already are, instead of trying to build your own version. Include links to follow you on these on your website. Use YouTube and FlickR to host your videos and photos. Add ‘social share’ buttons where appropriate to make it easy for people to share your brilliance.

Make it Part of a Larger Marketing Plan

Developing your website strategy and then managing your participation in social media should be part of your overall marketing plan and budget. Many think of social media as free or low cost, but it’s often time-consuming. Think of how often you blog, how much time you spend on LinkedIn, etc. If you incorporate elements right into your website, you should commit to keeping it up-to-date or there’s no point. Create a plan around it, like regular blog posts, checking all the dynamic links are still working properly, etc.

It’s Part of Your Brand

Remember, above all that websites and social media participation should be a carefully considered part of your brand.