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What are your customer’s stories?
In an interview with Krista Tippet on the On Being podcast Seth Godin provides typically insightful answers to the question, “what is marketing?” Modern sales and marketing are indeed in transformation. This requires new thinking about these professions, the principles and practices that inform best practices. We dismiss this at... -
12 Demand Management Competencies for Success
Too many companies struggle to realize their demand management improvement expectations from investments in marketing automation. Marketing automation initiatives are often considered the next step beyond email marketing. As a result, campaign oriented thinking carries forward and limits the approach and results. Have we not learned from CRM and other... -
IDG On Connecting the Dots Between Content and Sales
The opening lines, and most of the lines that followed, really grabbed my attention: “Marketers spent more than $40 billion on custom media in 2011. B2B marketers are allocating one-third of their budgets to content marketing, and more than half plan to increase content marketing spending in 2013. However, as... -
Change Selling Behavior — Really?
Another terrific Boston SMEI breakfast discussion this morning. Lisa Dennis lead a discussion about changing selling behaviors using ideas from Dan Pink’s latest book, To Sell Is Human. Here are my takeaway observations and related thoughts. Core conclusion: rather than try to change behaviors, select, enable and incent desired... -
One Hour Content Marketing Reality Check
Take an hour in the next week to objectively assess whether you have created a competitive edge in the way you engage buyers through online content. That is the first competitive battle you have to win. If you are outsold here, you may not get a second chance. You may not... -
Continuously Acquire Customer Stories, Insights, and Ideas
If content is the fuel for content marketing, sales and customer enablement, then customer stories or insights are the active performance enhancing ingredients. Well-developed messages targeted to address key buyer questions are better understood when the right customer stories create context. This is particularly important with innovative products, where... -
Learnings From A Content Strategy Hangout
I “watched” last week’s Google+ Hangout lead by the team at Velocity Partners in the UK: Content That Stands Out: A Content Strategy Google+ Hangout. The link will take you to the recorded show, or click the video image below. I have learned we tend to apply new technologies... -
Business Video — it doesn’t have to be this way
Your colleague walks through your office door and announces, “let’s make a video!” Quick, what images come to mind? What feelings hit your gut? “We need: cameras, lights, production people, someone to shoot, where, when is it needed, how long will it take, what will it cost, how will we... -
I Need A Plan for 200 Videos for the Channel, Chapter Five
Collaborating with the Channel Max Wilson, Director of Marketing at WE-CAN Technologies, has been asked by his executive team, (Chapter One), to develop an execution plan for delivering 200 videos for use in the channel. He has responded with an email validating that 200 videos is approximately what is needed, (Chapter Two), and... -
I Need 200 Videos for the Channel, Chapter Four
Investment Decision for Video Initiative The executive team at WE-CAN Technologies is considering investing in the development of videos to drive growth through its channel partners. They asked Max Wilson, Director of Marketing, at WE-CAN Technologies, to develop an execution plan, (Chapter One). Max has already sent an... -
I Need a Plan for 200 Videos for the Channel, Chapter Three
How to Produce 200 Videos For the Channel Chapter Three Max Wilson, Director of Marketing at WE-CAN Technologies, is responding to a request by the executive team to develop a plan to make 200 videos to use with the channel, (Chapter One). They had five questions for Max to answer.... -
Who’s going to stock the (content) pond?
I love to look for paradox in life. Take content, for example. Content creation is undergoing a major shift from a few, centrally managed professionals, to many people, through out the organization, with varying skills, process understanding and techniques, who aren’t often managed in this process at all. And... -
The Role of Content in the B2B IT Buying Process
Forgive the redundancy, but Ardath Albee has another good post talking about the role of content in the b2b IT buying process. She is referencing the recently released IDG 2012 Customer Engagement Study report. One major finding is enterprise IT Decision Makers engage with an average of 10 content assets... -
I Need 200 Videos for the Channel, Chapter Two
How Many Videos Do We Really Need? Max Wilson, Director of Marketing at WE-CAN Technologies sent the following email to Jim Everett, VP of Marketing at WE-CAN. Jim, This is my first follow up to your previous email outlining the executive teams request for 200 videos, (Chapter One), to support our... -
I Need a Plan for 200 Videos for the Channel
Chapter One Max Wilson, Director of Marketing for WE-CAN Technologies, received the following email from his boss on Monday morning. October 1, 2012 Max, Our executive team has been visiting customers and partners for the past two weeks to identify sources for our next phase of growth. The consensus is... -
But it is so easy to Buy Technology
The message has been the same for more than two decades. It is easy to buy technology. All you have to do is write a check. Getting the technology to deliver results depends on the strategy, the vision of how a new process will be enabled, and an understanding of... -
Asking the Right Questions of Your Marketing Scoreboard
Your marketing metrics, or your scoreboard, should measure both activity and results. Unfortunately it is the hidden insights into the relationship between the two that creates actionable intelligence. Cause and effect relationships in a complex B2B environment characterized by multiple buyer touch points across a buyer driven buying cycle are... -
New Thinking About Video Opens New Video Usecases
Demand by your audiences for video formats is escalating precipitously. Social and mobile marketing favor video content. The high desire for video by selling organizations has never been well fulfilled. Video is a critical content format for marketers to leverage. But video has been inherently difficult to produce. It requires... -
Rethinking Video
When you think about video, do you consider it predominately a visual or audio medium? I suspect most people would say visual. When we think video, we think camera. We think motion (video). But I have come to think of it as predominately an audio medium, albeit with important visual... -
Yogi Berra on Content Marketing
Yogi Berra had the brilliance to bring wisdom and insight to the obvious. I recently heard his famous phrase, “It’s like Déjà vu all over again.” It reminded me that there are lessons available in history that we can all benefit from. Having participated in the making of business innovation... -
Theory of Postponement and Content Marketing
The theory of postponement is well understood in the supply chain and manufacturing world. With solutions that have several variants, or that require customization, the process is designed to postpone adding variant features or customizations until the last possible moment. Common sub-assemblies may be built to stock, but variants are... -
Talking head video
Talking head video is the lowest form of video. It should be minimized as much as possible. It is certainly boring, and generally not very effective. It’s also a poor use of the video medium. Let’s look at why. Talking head is completely dependent on the attractiveness and delivery expertise... -
My customers don’t use social media
This post is for my current and future clients who think they won’t deal with social media because their customers don’t “use” it. This thinking is the first cousin to the “we’re different” thinking that every vendor encounters when they try to bring proven solutions to new prospects. Both limit... -
7 reasons an internal slide library is an imperative
PowerPoint management isn’t sexy, but it is a productivity and effectiveness enhancer. In many organizations PowerPoint is a lingua franca. It is a primary way knowledge is captured and shared. Where are slides created in your company? Marketing (marcom, product marketing, field marketing), multiple vendors or contractors, training, field sales... -
No Marketing Momentum? What Now?
Competitive athletes know that momentum can make all the difference in winning games. You develop momentum by either executing a well thought out strategy or making a spectacular play that shakes up the competition. When you have momentum you play your game and emphasize your strengths. When you lose momentum,... -
Got “content” challenges? Apply the problem-cause model
Serious practitioners of content marketing inevitably face significant content challenges. But sales professionals do as well — especially to conduct effective change conversations with customers. Surveys, as well as client discussions about top content challenges, reveal the operational nature of the underlying causes of many of content related problems.... -
To lower video costs while volume grows, change your process
Over the past year we have had the privilege of working with two large software companies: SAP and PTC. I’ve heard a common refrain from each that is applicable to organizations that want to lower their cost of video, even as their requirements scale. The refrain is: true value and... -
Four Lessons You Should Learn from Publishers
Content marketing would be easy if it didn’t require a steady stream of fresh, engaging, relevant content. It’s not that developing great content is new. It’s creating the volume and continuous development required that is new. A number of companies confront this problem by hiring a staff of writers. As... -
Content Marketing Discussion With Marketing Made Simple TV
This week I had the privilege of joining Joe Pulizzi of Junta42 and Doug Kessler of Velocity Partners on an online video discussion hosted by Jeff Ogden‘s Marketing Made Simple TV online show. Takeaways and Insights Content Strategy — This is the starting point and essential first step for an... -
Content Curation in Practice
My day started like most days. I opened and read email, a few blogs and checked out Twitter streams. An article about recent research results on content marketing spend caught my eye. As I glanced at it (how seldom we really read things these days) data about the surge in... -
New Thought Leadership Metric for Buyer Driven Markets
The new realities of B2B marketing has made thought leadership, and the development of big ideas, an important differentiator. The new realities are also driving a change in buyers’ expectations. Buyers want relevant and actionable content that enables them to turn big ideas into operating realities. The traditional role of... -
Video — the second best way to create for content marketing
Content marketing has created a content conundrum. Content marketing is fundamentally about creating buyer relevant, education oriented content, that supports the buying team as they progress through a buying journey. With this shift from vendor to buyer orientation comes great pressure on traditional content production methods and costs. Blogs have... -
Create (More) Video Without A Camera
The traditional video production process and techniques have a clear role for many video purposes. This approach requires specific skills and tends to be inherently expensive, time consuming, and doesn’t scale efficiently. When you shift the purpose for video from entertaining or promoting to explaining, proving and educating, different criteria... -
New Criteria for Video
Let’s make a video! What images immediately come to mind? Gotta get a camera, lights, green screen, Adobe Premiere or Final Cut Pro, etc.? What about skepticism? Is it worth it? Will it work? Will the useful life be longer than 4 months? What distractions and un-intended costs will you... -
Best Practice B2B Resource Center as a Hub for Relevant Content Delivery & Lead Nurturing
A B2B web site resource center is a key hub for any B2B marketer looking to transform their web site from a billboard which prospects view but bounce off – never to return again – to a trusted resource where prospects engage over time as they move through their buying... -
Selling to On-Demand Buyers
Most of us are well aware the world of B2B buying has gone through fundamental shifts in the last five to ten years. Why hasn’t the way we sell fundamentally changed as well? We all feel the perception from buyers that, to them, all vendors and their products look pretty... -
35 Days to Great First Sales Meetings
35 Days to First Conversation — do the math For prospects who actively engage your content, assuming a two day lag in viewing, here is a possible sequence to your first call appointment (elapse time not work days) (“your mileage may vary”): Day 1 – send initial invitation touch... -
Move Beyond Concept to Create Content Like a Publisher
For marketers who have embraced the publishing mindset in support of inbound and content marketing strategies, execution has emerged as the new barrier to success. You understand the need to think like a publisher. You have shifted content focus from vendor and product collateral, to customer educational content. You blog,... -
Why Create Content Like a Publisher?
When you hear the phrase “think like a publisher,” what does this mean to you? Why think like a publisher? How would you explain this concept to your colleagues or managers? Perhaps most importantly, what would you do differently if you and your organization were to create content like publishers?... -
Content Marketing Support Resource
I’ve just completed reading Rebecca Lieb’s new book, Content Marketing: Think Like a Publisher – How to Use Content to Market Online and in Social Media. I’m immediately buying copies for my people and to use with customers. It’s a terrific introduction and summary of the principles and top level practices. This... -
Content Publishing vs. Traditional “Point Production” Process
People regularly ask me to clarify the differences and reasons for adopting a content publishing process rather than the traditional point production process. The publishing process is at the core of our Leveraged Content Supply Chain ideas. Here is a simple list of reasons. We believe organizations face new... -
Ready or Not, Here’s Your Content Challenge
To capture attention and deliver value, your content challenge is to be relevant to your buyers and readers. It might be cliché to say buyers are inundated with information, but I don’t see organizations really committing to strategies that deal with this reality. While many have changed the way they market... -
Content Governance in the Content Marketing Era
Today’s content marketing requirements and opportunities are straining traditional corporate thinking, policies and processes. How has your company adapted policies and procedures to accommodate the “democratization of content creation” with the shift from centralized, “professional” production processes, to a distributed or (hopefully) agile creation process? A common occurrence we experience... -
Customer Interviews for Marketing and Selling Content
At our recent sales and marketing breakfast we had an excellent conversation on customer — and video — interviews. As a result, I suspected that most B2B marketing professionals don’t have a successful framework for thinking about, much less acquiring, effective customer interviews for marketing and selling content. Follow on conversations with organizations large... -
Content Marketing Best Practices from Joe Pulizzi
Hubspot Inbound Now Video Interview also a Case Study In How to Create Content Like a Publisher Whether you are new to content marketing or an advanced practitioner you can learn something from the recent Hubspot Inbound Now interview with Joe Pulizzi of Junta42 and founder of the Content Marketing Institute.... -
Are You Communicating Synchronously in an Asynchronous World?
We live in a world that prefers to receive information asynchronously. But we tend to focus on using live, synchronous delivery methods. This is a key source of high costs and low results in every area of a business. I cannot overstate the importance of this idea and distinction, as well... -
What “Job” Do You Want Content to Do?
Marketing professionals who are trying to understand the principle behind content marketing can take a lesson from Clayton Christensen of the Harvard Business School and his “jobs-to-be-done” marketing ideas. This core Christensen idea is presented in the HBS Working Knowledge article, Milkshake Marketing. The article describes a fascinating study his... -
Lead Nurturing and the Inside Sales / Telesales Role
We are working with several clients to help them improve their lead nurturing program to deliver a higher volume and quality of sales ready leads to the outside sales team. We have found a tendency on the part of Inside Sales to conduct their work from what I would term... -
Content and Social Media Marketing Predictions for 2011
I’ve just read this compilation of insights and predictions published by the Content Marketing Institute (CMI). Two strategic insights I found especially helpful: Must have a real-time mindset (David Meerman Scott) The “consumerization” of B2B marketing (Tom Pisello) This summary of especially salient points looks like a pretty good content checklist: Content... -
Additional Thoughts on 10 Rainmaker Selling Principles
As we all plan for a new year and for changes that will make a difference, a good place to start is with core selling principles and practices. Mike Schultz gives us a useful checklist in his recent blog 10 Rainmaker Principles and Keys to Sales Motivation, which I highly recommend. Given my commitment to... -
Another Case for Marketing and Sales Collaboration
We have to be careful not to take words too literally. Consider the idea that marketing delivers sales ready leads to sales. By doing this, marketing has moved the buyer X% (30% -70%?) of the way through the sales process, right? Well, maybe, but maybe not. Let’s look at what... -
Content Marketing Principles and Practices
Subtitle: Lip Service or Disciplined, Consistent Execution? A research briefing on Focus Marketing website called Best Practices in Content Marketing presents summary recommendations, a set of principles really, for conducting content marketing. Executive Summary “A content marketing strategy involves the creation of content for the purpose of engaging and establishing relationships with current and... -
New B2B Marketing and Selling Truisms
This is my list of new marketing and selling truisms for B2B selling organizations. They provide context for most of our services and writing. I post them prominently here so as to not have to repeat them in any conversation or material I create. If you agree with these truisms,... -
Sharing a customer’s story
I’m just back from a client review meeting. We assist our customer with lead management and content. This week they started a campaign, here is their story. As a result of our customer’s ability to track and score buyer consumption of content, initially delivered through an outbound campaign, and supported... -
Twitter — What do you read at breakfast?
I’m often asked, “how do you use Twitter for your selling activities?” Twitter is a primary resource for me to listen, learn and conduct research. I find great ideas, articles and people through Twitter. I curate important and long-life content as an essential, almost daily practice. My rule is, if... -
Content Strategy for the Web
If you’re accountable for creating content for marketing and sales I encourage you to immediately get copies of Kristina Halvorson’s Content Strategy for the Web for everyone on your team. There are many parallels and insights that apply to building non-website content. The core premise, that organizations must take a... -
Focus On Your Sales Conversations
Scott Santucci of Forrester’s Technology Sales Enablement Group has an important blog post regarding your sales conversations. (The Key To Sales Enablement Success Is To Focus On The Conversation) “A B2B sale is really the synthesis of many discrete conversations, and value is best communicated when they are focused on a common goal:... -
Repurpose Content, Important, Not a Panacea
The tactic to repurpose content is a hot topic right now among marketers as they look to reduce content development time, effort and costs. Our company has repurposed content for customers for over fifteen years, and developed several techniques. But first, a warning. Repurposing content is not a panacea to... -
Keeping PowerPoint in Perspective
A recent New York Times article — We Have Met the Enemy and He is PowerPoint — is the latest in a (seemingly) never-ending series of articles deriding the tool. This is a good opportunity to move from the “cool” perspective of bashing PowerPoint, to consider it’s significant possibilities —... -
For a Stronger Content Strategy — Begin With Purpose
I remember reading about Norman Cousins. He developed a serious illness in the seventies and received a poor recovery prognosis. Convinced of the power of positive emotions, he used humor and laughing to support his recovery. He rented funny TV shows and movies. This experience was the basis for his... -
Second Voice Vignettes for Telesales and Prospecting
As a sales professional, telephone selling is a key element of my sales job, especially in the critical, initial stages of prospecting and engaging new customers. For many sales people this is a frustrating, time consuming, low probability of success activity. Here’s an approach that significantly improves your odds, provides... -
A Content Engine Drives Lead Management
I was walking my dog past the school playground recently and watched a dad with a young child playing on the monkey bars. The boy could barely jump up and reach the rungs, but seemed paralyzed at the distance between the rungs to begin his navigation. Then I heard him... -
How long is your sales process?
One of the early questions I ask prospective customers with a complex, B2B sale is, “how long is your sales process?” The answer is almost always, “it depends, it can be three to eighteen months depending …” In the past few years we’ve all gained a stronger appreciation for the... -
On Sales Enablement
As I listen to the sales enablement conversation, it sounds like sales enablement is a euphemism for training, skill development and knowledge sharing. The conversation is heavily influenced by system vendors. These systems improve access to content that delivers selling knowledge and customer collateral. Reminds me of the old expression,... -
Avitage POV on Marketing and Sales Communication
My company, Avitage, has recently updated our point-of-view. Over fifteen years the core vision has not changed: to enable front line business communicators to assemble and deliver buyer relevant and useful content, tailored to each audience — even an audience of one. We even learned how to do this with... -
Risk of User-Generated Video Content
I’m really interested in John Jantsch’s new book The Referral Engine. But I’m not sure I’ll be reading it. I have a full reading list and limited time. I primarily read material referred to me from a trusted source. It’s a new book, so I’m waiting for reviews to emerge.... -
How I Blew a Sales Layup
A layup is the easiest shot in basketball, if you’re not able to dunk. But it’s not unusual for a player to miss a layup. Why is that? Most likely because they overlook fundamentals and fail to concentrate. We recently had a sale not close — neither lost nor won,... -
Sales VPs CEOs and the New Revenue Engine
Our business partner, Marketo, has been articulate promoting a shift in thinking in B2B selling organizations from a sales engine to a new revenue engine. This is an important read. The key impacts of this shift include: Lower Customer Acquisition Costs Reduce Wasteful Spending –(reducing cold calls, direct and email... -
(Inside) Sales Needs Visual Support for Key Conversations
In the B2B complex sale, more selling is occurring over the telephone than ever before. This ups the ante for effective visual support that makes it easier and faster to communicate important points. But visual support also helps customers convey those points to colleagues, usually without sales rep assistance. Whether part... -
What does your company do?
“It’s Not about the Bike” — the title of Lance Armstrong’s excellent autobiography. Becoming a world class cyclist requires far more than the bike. Strategy, practice sessions, workouts, diet, and mental aspects impact performance far beyond the equipment. The implications of his statement occurs to me every day. For example,... -
Creating Relevant Content
The shift from building content about a company and it’s products and services, to building content that speaks to specific interests of target audiences, raises the issue of content relevance. What makes content relevant? How would we gauge the degree of relevance of a content item? This shift is being... -
How to Think Like a Publisher
In 1982 I joined Ziff Davis publishing company in a special group that Bill Ziff set up to figure out how to migrate his print publishing empire into electronic publishing. This experience fundamentally changed my thinking and my life path. It taught me how to think like a publisher. Content... -
