The Lonely Marketer

There is a major shift happening in the world of marketing. Actually, it’s been happening for some time, but many industries chose to ignore it.

As calls from ad reps start coming in trying to get business for 2008, I can’t help but notice that many traditional print magazines are leading with offers related to online marketing. I’ve watched the print trade magazines shrink in size for three years, but this is the first year that the sales reps are leading with online marketing mediums and opportunities.

I guess this should be no surprise to anyone, right? BtoB recently report that:

Internet advertising revenue for the first half hit a record $9.993 billion, up 26.4% from the year-earlier period, according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau and PricewaterhouseCoopers, which released a report Thursday.

Yet, it surprises me that “old school” magazines and reps are so quickly changing their tune. I’ve spent alot of my career in the telecommunication and data networking industry that has always been slow to evolve. There are many other similar industries. But, maybe this is a sign that they’re coming of age. How the magazines write and act are typically an extension of their audience.

BtoB also reports that the channels by which we reach our audiences online is spreading out:

Forrester said interactive spending will total $18 billion this year and jump to $24 billion next year. By 2012, it will reach $61 billion, the research firm said, driven by marketers that leverage multiple channels: e-mail, search, display advertising, online video and emerging media ad channels such as social and mobile.

Now, that is what I call a shift! It’s important to keep in mind that these stats are not just a representation of a bunch of marketers - these stats are a representation of the audiences and users that those marketers are trying to reach. We need to stay on top of that and make the shift as well.

Small business marketers need to stay aware of these statistics. Our budgets don’t allow for falling behind the times.

I have a feeling this month’s BrandingWire project is going to be popular for many marketing bloggers. I’m hoping it elicits some strong opinions! Our project is to tackle how a small B2B marketing consulting firm should brand and market themselves. I know many bloggers who participate in the marketing blog community and many of them own or work for B2B marketing consulting firms. From branding to search engine marketing, the type of marketing consulting varies but the goals remain the same.

A side note - you’re going to get a different perspective from me. I happen to be on the client side BUT, have some strong opinions on how a marketing consulting firm should go about getting my business.

On occasion over the last few years, I’ve interviewed some local B2B marketing consulting firms to help us with various problems or improvements we’ve wanted to make. Rarely do the engagements go past the first meeting. Maybe it’s me. Maybe I’m expecting too much, but when my small budget is on the line I better have confidence that they can perform the task at hand better than me.

Here is how I believe a marketing firm should market and brand themselves.

Stick With Who You Are: Marketing has evolved so much over the last few years that the amount of marketing functions is hard to track. There is branding, email marketing, SEM/SEO, web design, blogging, paid search, etc. We had considered outsourcing our SEO and had interviewed many consultants. I would ask each firm on the phone if they had SEO professionals in house and each would say yes. When they arrived for a meeting it was obvious the company’s web designer was now an SEO professional or they would say they’re “partnering” with another firm on this project. Well, I know a bit more than your average person about SEO so it was easy to see that they really didn’t understand the trade. I think you need to brand and market to your skills and not pretend you’re something you’re not.

Speak Out: If you’re primarily a local consulting firm, than I think you should be working at getting speaking engagements and local or national industry events. Being seen as a speaker promotes yourself as an expert and therefore shines positively upon your consulting practice.

Be That Company People Have Heard About: Getting involved in local chamber events and doing the networking side of the business is a must. I believe alot of customer engagements start with meeting potential customers or people that can point you towards those customers at local networking events.

Be Heard: I’ll be honest, the top two or three consultants we had in were people who had blogs that I read or podcasts to which I listened. I felt like I had the chance to get to know them and learn that they were experts in their field before we even met.

Be Search-able: Whatever you do online - whether that is a website, blog, podcast, etc. - make sure you’ve optimized for local search. The first thing I did was go to Google and look for Minneapolis consultants. If I couldn’t find you online, I was going to have a tough time finding you.

Be Prepared: As a buyer of consulting services, I can tell you that I need to know about your company and with whom you’ve done business. In our first meeting I’d like to know how big or small you are, what areas of expertise you have in house, and examples of projects you’ve recently done.

How Will We Work Together?: This might not be a popular opinion, but I think alot of branding happens as you present yourself to a prospect. I think companies can set themselves apart by how well they present their processes. Too many companies have walked into my office and left me wondering how we were going to work together. Professional presentations and outlines of how you typically go about working with customers goes a long way.

Price Wisely: I’m not the type of buyer that always jumps at the lowest price. In fact, I think the lowest bidder usually gets tossed out of consideration. How you price your services says alot about how you perceive the work you will do.

If I stepped out today and turned the Lonely Marketer into a marketing consulting firm, these are the elements on which I would focus when developing my branding and marketing strategy. Marketing consultants are in a competitive field and each step in the vendor/customer relationship is crucial.

Get more high-voltage ideas at BrandingWire! Also, stop by and see what others in the group had to say on this topic: Martin Jelsema, Lewis Green, Kevin Dugan, Valeria Maltoni, Steve Woodruff, Drew McLellan, Gavin Heaton, Becky Carroll, Olivier Blanchard.

For those of you new to the Lonely Marketer, I typically don’t just pass on links to articles without writing some kind of opinion or commentary. But, there has been alot of interesting content lately - some of which I’m planning to write about and some I’ll pass on to you to pick through.

I wrote on Saturday about all the great blog posts I’ve read over the last few weeks. Well, I’ve also been keeping my eye on other good articles that I thought might be off interest to you. I tried to pull a variety of information…hopefully, you’ll find something good!

• An Insider’s View on Email Delivery Reporting: As you know I’m a believer that email marketing has a place in a marketing plan. I’m also a believer that metrics can help you succeed. Check out this article for some tips!

• 5 Ways to Drive a Media Professional Crazy: I liked this article. I write often about being on the buying side of the media table, but what are the pain points for sales people selling ad and media placements. You can also check out my take on being a media buyer.

• Get Your Audience to Take a Trip, with Video: More video talk! With our BrandingWire project on Estes Park recently, the travel industry has been on my mind. I thought this article did a good job of highlighting the use of video.

• Want Leads? Get Creative: With only seconds to keep the attention of prospects/visitors, these tips will help you make the most of those brief moments.

• Panelists: Banner ads, direct mail still effective: But for how long?

• Personalization, blogs bolster search: Great article about search marketing and what factors can play a roll. I like the point about blogs being very “spider” friendly and helping to drive traffic from search engines!

• How to Do Social Media Marketing Right: It’s easy to do it wrong so I suggest reading up on how to do it right!

BtoB Online reported the results of an iProspect survey that found that 48% of search marketers place content on social networking sites like MySpace and YouTube.

“The study was based on an online survey of 794 search marketers, conducted in February.

It found that the top reasons for placing content on social networking sites include driving traffic (51%); creating brand awareness (32%); direct selling (25%); and influencing a purchase decision (15%).”

I was not surprised to see the reasons why marketers use the social networking sites. But, I was surprised to see which ones were chosen:

“According to the survey, search marketers placed content on the following social networking sites: MySpace (18%); YouTube (15%); LinkedIn (15%); del.icio.us (14%); craigslist (14%); Amazon (12%); Yahoo Answers (10%); Facebook (3%); iVillage (3%); and TripAdvisor (3%).”

Recently, I’ve been trying to get my hands around many of the social marketing tools available to see which ones could have a positive impact on my marketing plan. I just don’t see MySpace and YouTube making the cut. I know that they could be very powerful for certain industries, but I was surprised to see them so high on the list.

I’d be curious to see the results if they were split between BtoB and BtoC.

What are your thoughts? Do you think they would be lower on the list for BtoB markets?

I love finding examples of stodgy, “old school” marketing doing a 180 degree spin and trying today’s social marketing mediums to market their products. I spent quite a few years marketing products and services in the telecommunications market - many of those spent trying to market telcom equipment to service providers. I’ve enjoyed watching companies such as Cisco and others re-brand themselves using social media.

I was searching for some information on the TelephonyOnline website which is a popular magazine and online resource center for telecommunications related news. On the main page is this banner ad (right) from Tellabs. The banner ad consists of a 4 minute video clip highlighting the stories of 5 “echo boomers” - a generation of people who are constantly connected and in need of the highest level of service from service providers.

Tellabs is a manufacturer of telcom equipment used by service providers in their networks. Instead of the usual “here’s are product - see how it can fit into your network” approach, Tellabs is saying to the service provider, “here is your end user, this is what they need and want, and this is how we can help you provide what they need”. In the words of my favorite Guinness characters, Brilliant!

Plus, check out the landing page they put up for people who click through. The themes are carried over right into the website experience which truly enhances the campaign. There is also a place for interaction where they’re letting people tell how “on the go” technology has inspired their life. Thus letting the service provider’s customers create a viral life for the campaign.

The “Inspire the New Life” campaign is new, fresh and grabbing attention. This article also points to their campaign and talks about other examples of businesses looking to social media for interaction with their customer base.

A case could be made that they went a bit too far with the music, screensaver, and wallpaper downloads. The service provider executives who are going to sign off on the Tellabs equipment purchase may not have much of an interest, but the point is they created a buzz and brought their customer in touch with the end user. They created a marketing campaign that solves a problem for their customer - that’s what it’s all about!

What are your thoughts after looking at their campaign?

This article on BtoB Online is a very quick blurb announcing that ComScore Networks has announced an R&D effort to measure conversational media and blogs.

“ComScore Networks announced a research and development initiative to provide measurement of social media such as blogs and online communities. As part of the research project, comScore said, it will build a database that will use a customized weighting and projection system designed specifically to measure conversational media and blogs. ComScore said the measurement system will help advertisers quantify the value of blog audiences. “

I found this press release on their website as well announcing a partnership with Federated Media.

This type of measurement would be very large for small businesses who want to get into social media, but want data to back up their efforts. Who knows how far ComScore will get with this, but it’s worth watching.

I’ve come across some very useful blogs, posts, and news this week! I knew you all were looking for more weekend reading, right?
Great Blogs and Posts…

Brian Carroll’s B2B Lead Generation Blog has an interesting story about Budget Wars: Sales & Finance vs. Marketing. I’m glad I found this blog - tons of great information.

The BizMord Search and Marketing Blog had an interesting article about the CEO of Marriott Properties, Bill Marriott’s Blog. Did I mention that Bill is 74?
I came across a good Email Marketing Best Practices blog by Tamara. She has some very useful articles and is on top of all the latest trends in email marketing.

News and More…

Six Ways to Prepare Better Collateral for Sales Teams by Jonathan Kranz on the MarketingProfs website is a good read on strategies to improve sales collateral.

Search, video, Web 2.0 top online ad trends by Kate Maddox on the BtoB Online website talks about online marketing and what to expect. She includes this stat (WOW):

“Another big trend will be advertising on social networks. EMarketer forecast U.S. advertisers will spend $865 million this year on social network advertising, up 147% from $350 million last year.”

Web U: How to Measure SEO Success by Todd Friesen on the Media Post Publications website gives a simple overview of metrics that define the success of SEO campaigns. A good overview if you’re interested in a top-level description. Many of my readers are not experts on SEO so I thought this might be of use to some.

Image-Blocking Scorecard, Part 2 by Jeanne Jennings on the ClickZ site talks about email marketing and what you can do when your email images are blocked.

That’s all folks…have a great weekend!

I’m in Orlando this week attending a trade show so my posts have been slower, but I did get the chance to read some great posts today. There is some interesting content floating around! I’ve also come across some good articles which I’ve listed below.

First, some great posts:

• Matt McGee of Small Business SEM had two posts worth noting. In one post he responds to Danny Sullivan’s viewpoint regarding small business and the use of search engines vs. social media sites. Read Matt’s stance with which I whole-heartedly agree. Matt’s Ultimate Guide to Building the Perfect Link is also a great read.
• Drew’s Marketing Minute has a post about a PDF he created out of a series of posts he did regarding the marketing wisdom of Walt Disney. Very well done!
• Nick Rice of Small Business Branding had a post regarding 9 Branding Tips for Small Businesses. I know I have quite a few small business readers of this blog so this information should be of interest.
• Paul Dunay of Buzz Marketing for Technology had a relevant post regarding the rise of online advertising and its popularity in the UK.

Second, some quality articles:

• iMedia Connection had a couple articles worth checking out - 5 Reasons Why Search Campaigns Fail and Customize Email for Pull Marketing.
• They also ran a good article about guidelines for promoting B2B sites on vertical search engines.

Hope you can find some good information in here!

A brief synopsis at MediaPost.com of a white paper prepared by Omniture, Inc. describes some interesting statistics about how online marketing efforts will increasingly drive business to business initiatives.

“Traditional direct mail, industry print, and events and promotions will take a back seat to more efficient and sophisticated online efforts.”

This should come as no surprise to the small company marketer. B to B audiences are becoming more sophisticated as online resources grow for analyzing and determining products, services and vendors. Small companies need to step up and make sure they’re on top of online marketing and lead generation tactics.