Social Media Darwinism » Lead Nurturing

Microsoft’s Future in Digital Marketing

Paul Dunay — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 01:15:33 +0000

Over the weekend I got to meet with Romi Mahajan the World Wide Director of the Digital Marketing Platform Group at Microsoft. His role is to create the vision for Digital Marketing as it relates to Microsoft SharePoint 2010 for Internet Sites, and Microsoft FAST Search Server technology to create great digital experiences for its customers and leverage its extensive partner network. I was really surprised and excited to learn that Microsoft is taking the Digital Marketing place very seriously since they are one of the largest players in the space!

Below is a transcript of some Q&A that I captured with Romi …

1) What is your vision for Microsoft and Digital Marketing?

I believe digital marketing is at the center of a set of tectonic changes happening in the marketplace, across enterprise and consumer-based scenarios (which are converging quickly). Companies have a core set of common questions (How do I create loyalty in my current and potential customer base, how do I create new forms of commerce, how do I expect my brand in meaningful ways, how do I connect to my value chain (partners etc) in a seamless, efficient, and exciting way…) and in each case, digital marketing can provide either the foundation for the solution or elements of the foundation. Meanwhile, at the same time media, advertising, technology, and brand are all moving towards a singularity and, as such, digital marketing becomes the easy moniker with which to refer to all these changes. Microsoft as a company not only understands the changes afoot, but is the only company that has direct involvement in all the different aspects of digital media like paid, earned, and owned media, back end and front end technologies (from the OS to the presentation layer), and a solution for all sorts of computing devices. I see Microsoft at the forefront of digital marketing in the next 5 years.

2) How much of the Digital Marketing spectrum does the Microsoft’s Digital Marketing cover?

The Microsoft Digital Marketing suite covers many but not all of the aspects of the digital marketing. That is why the partner ecosystem (Agencies, ISVs, Integrators, Consultants) are core to rounding out the offering. In areas, we excel, in others we have “ an answer” and in some areas we rely 100% on partners. That I believe is the winning model and the only one that scales.

3) How is Microsoft helping brands to connect with customers using the Microsoft Digital Marketing suite?

Microsoft has powered thousands of dynamic websites including sites like Dell.com, Ferrari.com, Energizer.com, Chesapeake Energy.com and more. Through interactive elements on websites to the provision of winning digital experiences via mobile, Microsoft is working very hard to help brand connect to customers. I don’t want however to overstate the case. There are many great firms out there who we partner with and who help us understand the customer in new and exciting ways. There are also other great companies who compete directly with us. The key is not “who wins” but how the customers’ customer is being taken care of and served in the process.

(4) What stand out examples can you give us of Brands using the Microsoft Digital Marketing suite?

So one of the best examples we have is Ferrari.com where they used SharePoint as the presentation layer and content management system. Few people know that SharePoint is one of the largest content management software’s out there, not just inside the enterprise but also outside the enterprise.

Ferrari wanted to make its Web site as state-of-the-art and captivating as the cars it manufactures! They migrated from a Java-based infrastructure to Microsoft Office SharePoint to streamline development, simplify content management, and improve the user experience. And with the new site, Ferrari has created a stronger audience connection while increasing traffic by 237 percent, with a 150 percent increase in unique visitors.

5) Where are Microsoft and Digital Marketing heading next?

The future is an exciting one for both Microsoft and for the Digital Marketing industry in general. While aspects of digital marketing have “jumped the shark,” the change is here to stay. Look for more adaptive, dynamic websites, set of services that when combined intelligently create new digital marketing platforms, a lot more ‘closed-loop’ marketing in the digital marketing space, the rise of what I call “The Gaming Metaphor” as the central “method of interaction” that dominates digital experiences, and a host of others that I’m not smart enough to predict!

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Mapping Content to the Sales Funnel AND Buyer types

Paul Dunay — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 23:29:39 +0000

You often hear about the concept of mapping content to the sales funnel (especially in B2B Marketing) but it’s not so common in practice. I will self confess that I have ignored this one for a while. The other version of this is the mapping of content to your buyer types and this too is one I have ignored for a while … until now!

Ok so I took a look at my sales funnel and started to take the content my team produces and map it against the funnel – for simplicity sake I like to use Awareness to Consideration to Purchase as my 3 major stages of the sales funnel.

For Awareness I like to use broadly appealing content that can be shareable (the new KISS as I like to call it – Keep it Shareable Stupid). This would include eBooks, Research, White papers, etc. Not all of these have hooks for gathering download information (that’s just not acceptable these days). We use 2 distinctions – Premium content and Non Premium content – the latter being free and the former being behind a registration page.

For Consideration I like to use more in depth tools like webinars and live/virtual events – derived from the lists of folks who downloaded and have been interacting with us on a particular topic. These are typically better than the broad brush webinars because we can have a real consideration discussion that includes such things as use cases, ROI modeling and even self funding ideas.

And then for Purchase I like to use case studies, customer references, press releases on new wins etc. This gets to the final decision makers desk and helps out the sales force immensely since they can never seem to have enough of these in their toolkit.

So then I flipped to another chart where we started to map the content we create to the buyer types and for simplicity sake I like to use End User, Influencer, and Buyer/Executive as my 3 major buyer types.

What we realized pretty quickly was the content we were using to attract Awareness – was the same content we would use to attract End Users (now I always hope to get an influencer or a buyer in there) but in reality when we look at the leads we are nurturing we are seeing more end users which is ok since we have a ton of end users in the 200,000 customers we have!

For the Influencers – we like to use the same content we have for the consideration stage – webinars, live events, virtual events and so on. Here is where we see more influencers show up to get the detailed info that they need to make a recommendation for a major technology purchase.

And finally for Buyers/Executives – we see we need the same type of content we need for the purchase end of the funnel – since they have the recommendation from the end user and influencer but they need evidence that this is going to work and that they are not the first person to buy which is why case studies, customer references and new win stories really help speed the sales process.

What’s been your experience with mapping content to the sales funnel or buyer types? I would love to know.

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B2B Marketing needs to Curate a Vibrant Community

Paul Dunay — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 15:59:44 +0000

If you ask the members of my leadership team – they will tell you I keep talking about how I think we have B2B Marketing backward.

Let me explain …

We focus a lot of energy on the acquisition part of marketing looking for new customers and getting them up the awareness to consideration to purchase cycle. The results being most of the time we get ambivalent buyers into the top of our funnel and we have to work hard to close them in order to prove value to the organization and contribute to growth.

But what if we focused on those buyers who have already purchased from us? Those already predisposed to buying our products and create a level of service and differentiation for them that is commensurate with their buying habits?

I think we owe it to our organizations to really take care of them. If you look at the interview I did with Sean Geehan – he talked about the typical number of customers in B2C versus B2B and the high concentration we have in B2B that account for the most of the revenues.

My suggestion would be to create a vibrant community with them – one which is both online and offline, one where you can get instant feedback, one where their ideas matter to your research and development groups, one where they co-author thought leadership with you and one that rewards them for their loyalty to your firm.

This is something I am working on for FY11 and will be more than just a social network for our best customers. Stay tuned as I begin to launch this for next year.

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Closed Loop Marketing – still a long way to go

Paul Dunay — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 15:58:36 +0000

Ok I know we all talk a good game about Closed Loop Marketing and I don’t want to burst anyone’s bubble here but frankly we aren’t there yet.

Yes we forced the loop to close with some great technologies over the last few years. CRM systems, MRM systems, Lead Nurturing systems and the list goes on. But do we really have an all in one Closed Loop market system that does it all?

In my last post I talked about the shadow pipeline created by sales teams who don’t act in real time. The software may be real time but the sales people aren’t. How about your partner community and the leads you have given over to them. Are they reporting back to you in real time? Doubt it.

That’s on the business impact side. How about on the front end with your budget and invoicing? Are those invoices rolling in real time? Probably not. And can you optimize across all media? – no – with the fragmentation of media because of social.

Add in webinars and in person events, calling plans, telesales, SEO, PPC campaigns, promos, price incentives, spifs for the sales force and you have a recipe for leakage in the system that is hard to account for. But wait there’s more! Even if you had all that at your finger tips would you be able to optimize across all those angles?

Here is where the true art for marketing will come in to play – when we are finally able to optimize our portfolio of investments like a hedge fund manager. Seeing and getting data in real time, with a closed loop return on marketing dollars invested system.

We may have come a long way over the last few years in this area but there is still a long uphill climb from here. Let’s keep working toward getting to the summit!

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Could Facebook become a Lead Nurturing platform?

Paul Dunay — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 16:46:41 +0000

When you think of lead nurturing platforms you typically think of firms like Eloqua, Marketo, Aprimo, LeadLife, Market2Lead, Silverpop, even Salesforce.com is getting into the lead nurturing space.

But Facebook?

Lead nurturing starts by taking many touch points and pulling them all together into one spot so you can see patterns of activity across your customer base and get a true profile of what they are doing. It involves seeing from the front end of the sale all the way to the consummation of the sale and I believe Facebook has or is planning to have some of the most critical elements all on their platform (and all for free!).

Element #1 – Advertising – like most lead nurturing platforms today they allow tracking of your ad spend online – specifically spend on Google AdWords and the conversions from online banners (CPC and CPM spend). Well Facebook Ads are already wired into the Facebook platform using the same type of tracking on the same types of ad spends across the Facebook platform giving you a picture of what a prospect is reacting to.

Element #2 – Email – the most critical element of a lead nurturing platform is email. Being able to send and receive email to someone in your database and gauge the interest of that person in the content you send them is essential. As you may know Facebook’s Project Titan is about to unveil 400 million plus POP/IMAP access emails to all their users and they also plan on enabling Facebook Pages for this same type of access. Therefore you can take the conversation you started on Facebook Ads and continue that conversation via email this will be another big step toward Facebook becoming a lead nurturing platform.

Element #3 – Events – throwing events in Facebook is easy, but taking that data and adding that to a profile isn’t. If you can take the data from Facebook Ads, combine that with the interaction you are getting via email you get another great touch point with your new potential customers.

Element #4 – Personas – from there you can compile a buyer persona with a minimal investment. A persona of your buyer that could tell you what their favorite movie was, what their favorite music was, what their favorite TV show was, what their favorite books were, even their average age and marital status with Facebook. A very powerful side benefit of being on the Facebook platform. (to learn more see my blog post on generating a buyer persona with Facebook)

Element #5 – Storefronts / Marketplace – the final part of the lead nurturing process is the ability to send a prospect who you attracted with an ad perhaps, nurtured with email, invites to events, targeted with their persona a specific offer and converted them with your product or service that you offered on the Marketplace or coming soon Storefronts. Even conduct the sale with payment options like PayPal in the future.

Bottom line – I think you need to keep an eye on Facebook as this platform develops. The rich interactions we are having on this platform is starting to make sense and as marketers start to really engage in advertising and events and adopting new features as they roll out – there will be a real need for collecting the data to create a rich profile that becomes the basis for lead nurturing on Facebook.

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Social Media Lead flow in B2B Marketing

Paul Dunay — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 16:46:01 +0000

Word spreads quickly in Social Media – sometimes more quickly than you can keep up with. You must keep a constant eye on mentions of your brand, your products and your services in order to survive in this market landscape.

In the last post we covered Social Media Listening for B2B Marketing and while providing outstanding customer support is always a good choice when it comes to building a business case that will stand up in the boardroom, another very fertile area to consider is creating a stream of leads from all those conversations out there.

There are several types of conversations that you can encounter out on the social web anything from a complaint to a compliment to what I like to call the Expressed Need. The best way to watch for expressed needs is to look for keywords often used to describe those needs. People make known what they are doing and often ask the general public for advice when they are about to make a purchase. Both of these situations provide an opportunity to reach out with an offer of assistance, information, or even a free demo or sample. People appreciate when a company listens, and they don’t mind offers of assistance, especially when done in a helpful, friendly way.

The Expressed Need can be as simple as this tweet: “[Competitor] or Avaya? Time for a new phone system very soon,” Moments after this tweet was posted we responded with this tweet: “@[prospect] – let me know if we can help you – we have some Strategic Consultants that can help you assess your needs.” I am happy to say that the potential customer did, and 13 days later, we closed a $250,000 sale. (based on his original tweet that’s $4000 a character!).

But the Expressed Need can also be much more subtle such as this tweet: “I’m looking to replace my old PBX – anyone have a strong preference?” This one is harder to find since they didn’t directly mention a particular brand name. You would need to be monitoring for “replace” and “PBX” to pick this one up. But its worth it if that question is so relevant to your brand.

If you think hard enough you can come up with a list of situations where someone might say: Replace Competitor, Upgrade Competitor, Remove Competitor, or New X System which would correlate to a potential conversation where a sale that is relevant to your brand is happening. Then all you have to do is feed this list into your listening platform and you should be able to create a steady stream of Social Media Leads!

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In B2B Marketing: Content is Media

Paul Dunay — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 16:43:41 +0000

For some reason there is a lot of confusion about the word Content lately. Back in the late 90s when the internet was just heating up we all heard alot about how “Content is King”. But these days for B2B Marketers I think we need to take it a step further and say that “Content is Media”.

If you have been following my thoughts on the 4 C’s of Marketing – it all starts with content. Building a solid content creation engine is critical to B2B marketers today. Why?

Its the content that gives you the opportunity to have a discussion with the Media, its the content that gives you the opportunity to create conversations socially, its the content that gives you the opportunity to re-engage with leads in your system that you may be nurturing on that sames topic, and its the content that allows your sales team to start a conversation with their accounts about that topic.

If you follow Seth Godin at all you will know that Mass Media in forms that we are used to like Advertising isn’t working for or B2C breatherin. Sure anyone can take out an ad in a major publication but his point is more about the sustained effort over time to create a brand using advertising hasn’t worked for years and is just too expensive and too inefficient to build a brand.

I think B2B marketers really need to think and act more like a media house themselves. What is your publishing calendar? Can you stick to it? Does it relate to the major growth initiatives of your company? Your Content engine should be able to answer all these questions – and when you do then you will be able to use your Content as Media!

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B2B Marketing Content: Lure or Lasso?

Paul Dunay — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 16:43:39 +0000

I picked this saying up from Gary Vaynerchuk’s new book called Crush It.

I really liked the idea of content having dual purposes and not just the purpose of posting to your website or blog.

The lure part is really about a steady stream of content that is consistent in its frequency which is why as people come to depend on it brings people back to your site time and time again. You can call it Inbound Marketing (like the folks at HubSpot do) or you could call it Content Marketing (like the folks at Junta42 do) but whatever you call it its the basis for all your online activity.

The lasso part is really about an “away game” for your content. Gary defines in the how to build your personal brand sense of commenting on blogs and inserting yourself in to conversations. Which is a space that everyone can improve upon because it engages a new audience with the way you think. But also you can think of this as where you can use your content in other social spaces. Perhaps on Facebook, or syndicated to another group blog, or just other places to get you exposure.

The hard part is creating the content – the fun part is finding ways to get it seen by others and have them drive back to your site or blog and engage with you!

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The 4 P’s to Social Media Marketing

Paul Dunay — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 18:03:07 +0000

Ok ok – based on the great response I got from my readers on my last blog post The 4 C’s of B2B Marketing I thought I would try to apply the same principle to Social Media Marketing. Frankly, I have been brewing this post for a while now and its time to let it loose. It combines a few things you might have read about into one new concept around social media – the 4 P’s of Social Media marketing. So here they are:

#1 Tell Good Stories – think Idea Virus by Seth Godin
#2 Make them Sticky – think Made to Stick by Chip and Dan Heath
#3 Package them to be Shareable – think World Wide Rave by David Scott Meerman
#4 Launch them using all available Social Media- think Inbound Marketing by Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah

The concept here is to create good content and allow that content to spread as frictionless as possible to as many people as possible.

Truth be told – no one cares about your product or service but they do care about how buyers have responded to purchasing it. You need to tell those stories in as sticky a way as possible then package them to be shareable and then spray them in as many social media channels as appropriate for your content. (ex dont list a white paper on YouTube)

I idea is to max out your distribution strategy by maximizing the appearance of your content in the proper social channels since you never know where your prospects might be hanging out on any given day. This means you need to find a way to take the “core idea” of a piece of content and package / distribute it into every possible niche of social attention.

I think this strategy is exceptionally good for B2B marketers with long lead cycles. It shows a sustained commitment to creating good content and tons of energy around the product or service you are marketing as well as a consistent and aggressive appearance in as many social media channels that make sense for your product or service.

Slide 1

4Tell Good Stories

4Make them Sticky

4Package them to be Shareable

4Launch them using all available Social Media

4Measure Reach Efficiency and Value

4Max strategy – maximize appearance in channels

4Find a way to take the core idea and distribute into every possible niche of consumer attention

4But maybe only the core one makes money

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The 4 C’s of B2B Marketing

Paul Dunay — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 18:30:02 +0000

We’ve all heard about the four P’s of marketing.

Product
Price
Placement
Promotion

The four P’s were created mainly to describe the ideal “marketing mix”. The term “marketing mix” became popularized after Neil H. Borden published his 1964 article, Concept of the Marketing Mix.

I would argue this killer combo of marketing is mainly for B2C marketing and thus it is best applied to the marketing of products, especially mass retail products.

So let’s take a look at another more contemporary framework for B2B marketing – the Four C’s. This framework is newer, and in my opinion, more applicable to a wider range of today’s marketing challenges.

The 4 C’s of B2B Marketing are:

Content – the creation of a steady stream of engaging content
Connection – connecting with the audience you wish to attract
Communication – communicating with them in an ongoing conversation
Conversion – and then converting them at the illusive moment of need

Since B2B Marketing is arguably more of a marathon than a sprint in marketing – you need to always have your 4 C’s engine going – creating the best content, finding the connecting with your target audience, sustaining the communications pattern until they are ready to convert – this way you have a fighting chance at making all your marketing efforts count toward one goal – Sales!

In the next post I will show you the new 4 S’s for Social Media Marketing …

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