Facebook becomes mainstream

Facebook is the leader of social networking space in numbers and popularity as it just reached half a billion users according to Mark Zuckerberg.
However there is a first sign of decay: according to this report on the latest study from eMarketer many teens are moving on from Facebook as they have lost interest or find it boring.

Although Facebook has reached unprecedented highs in number of users the future could be under siege as their original population is starting to leave.
This seems somewhat logical: Facebook has become mainstream:
- Mentions on broadcast channels: TV and radio
- Their parents are on Facebook
- The movie The social network.
Hence Facebook is no longer cool.

If this decline of youngster proves to be true, then in the long run the popularity of Facebook will start to decrease.

The Innovation adoption curve

This has happened many times before with many products and services as defined by Everett M. Rogers in his innovation adoption curve.
Examples on the Internet: eBay, MySpace,…
Examples in real life: DVD players, iPod, Plasma TV sets,…
First the innovators (2.5% of the population) leave before the thing becomes widely used or spread leave as they are always moving on to the next thing searching new experiences at whatever risk or cost.
Then by the time a product or service becomes mainstream and commerce (advertising – merchandising) takes over from the original initiative the early adopters (13.5%) quit.

They are soon followed by the early majority (34%) as they have noticed the early adopters are already onto something new and different.

Of course it will take long before the late majority (34%) and the laggards (16%) will leave.

Will this happen with Facebook? Probably but it can take log as the Internet spans the entire world.
Can this happen with your products ? Probably but at a different (slower) pace as you are in business to business. Still monitor your early adopters as they will indicate the first sign of beginning of the end.

On the other hand there is the Valley of Mediocre between the Land of Free and Premium Highland which flips the Bell curve of Rogers.

Any idea where your products are on the innovation adoption curve ?

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Creating analog content in the past
When people take pictures they shoot a series of them in order to pick out the best afterwards.
When people used analog cameras to take pictures they took the time to think about the picture, the positioning, the layout, the content, the expression, the lightning.
The entire composition was well-thought out as every image made was real out of the pocket money due to the high cost of the film and the development cost.

This slow creation process has been lost in this digital world.

Analog content is shooting pictures with a photo camera or movies on photographic film, writing on a type writer and speaking a text into a tape recorder.
The carrier of the content can be paper, film, wax disk, canvas, stone, …all unalterable and relatively expensive.

Digital content is all content that is being produced and generated using digital media which can be erased or altered easily.

Analog craftsmanship vs digital fast food
When creating analog content you have to plan, prepare and know exactly what you will be doing next as any creation results in real out of the pocket money: the carrier of the content and the time invested.
Changing analog content requires to redo the entire scene or page as the content in most cases is not erasable (except tape recorder) or modifiable.
This requires craftsmanship and a thinking process.

When creating digital content you work mainly using trial and error (erase).
Or even with post-modification using a tool like Photoshop or the backspace on your keyboard.
You don’t care so much about planning, thinking and organizing but point and shoot: like fast food.
After the content creation process the good content is selected from the all the content created and digitally improved.

Note: We have altered this text several times before publishing, but is this the best we could create?

Due to the fact the creator of analog content needs to plan, prepare, think over and use all his expertise before and during the creation it is likely the content will have higher value than digital. The brains of the creator have been processing the content several times before the physical creation.

Digital content creation is more like having a series of trials and select the best results or what approaches the most what you intended to achieve or present.

Could it be possible that due to the lacking long preparation and thinking process the better content is with analog content instead of digital ?

What do you think what generates the best content: analog of digital media?

Due to the high cost involved using and processing analog media we will stick to digital media even we are convinced analog content would be better

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This blog is getting ranked:
- It was named one of the “Top 50″ blogs by Evan Carmichael (rank 48)
- It is listed in place 34 by blogrank

And we are always happy being mentioned and praised by other blogs like Webbiquity.

It is an honor for us to be listed amongst all those famous and well-known bloggers. We find it quite an achievement for our blog that was started just to support our web service. Lets hope more people sign-up to read the blog regularly as we promise to keep the interesting posts with views and insights on marketing and sales.

(If possible: sign-up for the 30-day free trial of our web service too in order to know the companies visiting your website and their interest for more online leads)

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Product launch
If you launch a new product or service the conventional way using press releases, advertising and even post it on Twitter and Facebook your product will hardly get noticed as there are so many contenders in the attention competition. There is nothing to write about: your product just does what it promised to do in your launch campaign.
- A new faultless product or service is boring to write about.
Moreover praising a product or service feels like bribery from the masters of the blogging sphere.

Launching with bugs for attention
The better approach is to launch your product with several obvious bugs or problems using the conventional launch methods and present it to bloggers and reviewers.
These bugs or problems will give the social media masters something to write about together with the basic explication and benefits of your service.
- A buggy product or service is great to write about.
People prefer to complain over praising.

All this content, even negative content, created about your product or service generates interest and branding. It will spread the message about your solution with a greater reach than any of your press releases or advertisements.
If many blog posts are written, chances are people start discussing about the use or benefits.

Google applied this method for Buzz as we cannot imagine Google released such an under performing web service. In any case it grabbed the attention on the blogs and social media websites.

The updated version to leverage social media
The trick is to release an updated version as soon as possible or when the media interest starts to decrease. This second version should be ready at the moment of the first release.

Admit your mistake publicly
Just make sure this second version is bug free and that it will get positive reviews.
Of course you will need Press releases and advertising admitting the mistake you have made, but with the advantage the brand name is already branded in the minds of the potential customers.

Benefits of buggy product launches:
- Branding (just make sure the bugs are not major)
- Reach
- Linking brand name with the functionality
- Benefits of the solution
- Explication of the service or product to the public
- Admitting your mistake is a sign of being humble making you popular
- Low cost campaign compared to the number of Internet mentions

How successful was your last product launch ?

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Comparing conversion rates of online websites is more complex than just comparing the conversion rate numbers of the websites.
Typically B2B websites have conversion rates between 1.5 and 3.0 percent, however some website have conversion rates up to 7 percent (in 2007 before the financial crisis).
That is quite a difference.

Many factors have an influence n the conversion rate from SEO to website design.
However one of the most important factors is overlooked in many cases: where the funnel starts.

The start of the funnel is determined by how and why the visitor lands on the website and where did the visitor originate from with what kind of intention.
In many cases the funnel starts before your website.

Extended funnels
The funnel of a website gets extended by the sites previously visited by the visitor:
- The visitor has clicked on an online advertisement or banner
- The visitor has read a convincing blog post or editorial about your product or solution
- The visitor has investigated in a review of products
- The visitor has clicked on a link in your email from your campaign
- The visitor has seen a print advertising and has taken the effort look-up your website
- The visitor has followed the recommendation of a friend or colleague (word of mouth)

The funnel also gets extended by the intention of the visitor:
- The visitor was actively seeking for a solution you provide
- The visitor is already a customer
- The visitor is a customer of your competitor

Shorter funnels
A funnel should be shorter when the visitor accidentally lands on your website looking for something that is related to your business but not directly the services or products you offer.
In this case the visitor first needs to find and understand your offering and then get interested in them. If you take out this part of the website visit your conversion rate will be much higher as many will leave your website earlier (or even bounce).

Comparing conversions
When you compare conversion rates between different websites it is important to know how or why people actually landed on the website.
If there are many visitors coming from blog posts that promote your products or coming by advertising links, you should extend your funnel as these websites are part of your funnel.
This longer funnel will decrease your total conversion rate to the actual conversion taking into account all those visitors that have visited the other website, but haven’t clicked on the link provided.

On the other hand when most of your visitors accidentally land on your website, even if your conversion rate is low, it is quite an achievement to get any of these accidentally visitors converted into a lead, a sign-up for a free trial or becoming a customer.
These visitors first need to understand what your website is all about and then get interested to stay on your website in order to find out.
Only after having interest generated your funnels starts which can be several pages after landing on your website – or even on a next visit.

So don’t be disappointed if your conversion rate is low compared to some Internet stars with high conversion rates.
These typically have many blog posts or editorials preaching the benefits and advantages of their products or services, whereas your website has to attract and convert on its own.

What is your online conversion rate and where does your funnel start ?

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Pricing war
Many products, solutions or services are very similar, which will eventually leading to a pricing war. Once caught up in this war you may never get out of it again.
Still people and companies pay a premium price for certain brand names which sets them apart from the pricing war.

In order to give people the impression of a better or higher quality product or service a lot of creativity and efforts in marketing are required for brand and image building.

Pounding message
It is the pounding message that is communicated or passed on to the people in the target market that will achieve believe of a better or higher quality product. It has been proved that eventually people actually start to believe a message if it is being replayed regularly and consistently over time.

Taking away fear and risk
In many cases the message is about taking away the fear or having less risk if you buy the well know branded product.
Some marketers achieve to make people believe they actually will get much more from a product or even improve their lives by buying the product.

Smoke and mirrors
In the end is it just smoke and mirrors by marketing in order to make people believe there is something additional or beneficial to the product.
The price is what the fool wants to pay – not the real market value the buyer gets in return.

Thus the more and better smoke and mirrors efforts of the marketing department of a company, the higher the sales price can be or can remain.
The challenges are to reach to enough people in the target market with an appropriate message without annoying them and convince them of your superiority.

Thus if your product is similar to others, you need to avoid getting into a pricing war by the best smoke and mirrors your marketing can come up with.

How are you avoiding a pricing war ?

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The hate of ads
We all hate ads for their interruption, attention grabbing and disturbance.
Even worse: the blatant lies – the portraying of fake life styles – for selling them something they don’t want have made people hate ads even more.
We even have developed an ad-adverse attitude due to this, which has brought us to filter out the ads or to click them away or even to leave the website instantly.

The luring SEO
However when we get lured by SEO (Search Engine Optimization) to visit a website that was not our intention, we don’t care.
We seem to find it normal that the links provided by the search engines can sometimes end up on a less interesting site. This happens to us all several times a day.

Still irrelevant search results suck as we probably waste at least as much time visiting the wrong websites as with ads, but we seem to perceive this differently.

Probably because ads are intrusive, whereas clicking links in a search engine result page (SERP) is upon our own decision as we have a need for this type of information or information related to these links.

The perception differences of ads and SEO
Ads are intrusive – SEO is part of the canvas of the Internet: invisible.
Ads are aimed at a large audience or the ‘average’ potential buyer, whereas SEO is almost personal as it matches your personal search.

Put time, effort and money into SEO instead of spending it on ads as you will gain in appreciation or even popularity.

Do you hate ads and don’t care if you get lured by SEO ?

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Pull marketing
In his latest book “PULL” David Siegel predicts the change from a lead-push model to a pull-follow model of interacting with customers is coming.
In the pull era customers will pull everything to them on demand: information, knowledge, products, services and advice and be based upon the semantic web. A semantic web has an “unambiguous” structure for its data.

This change implies also the change from:
- Interruption marketing to content marketing
- Pushy boring advertising to entertainment advertising

Disruptive changes in marketing
These changes are dramatics and very disruptive for most marketers as previously they were used to order and pay for:
- Creativity for creating and designing the advertising
- Advertising space
This was almost a straight forward process with a very predictable outcome.

Soon or in some cases already these same marketers have to:
- Create interesting content
- Publish the content preferably in the right context
- Get the attention of the potential customers
- Converting potential customers interested in the content into customers
Inbound marketing which is a much more complex process with an unpredictable outcome.

Whereas previously spending money or more money could solve most problems, in the pull marketing era and the semantic web it is no longer money that is the main factor.
This is due to our complicated real-life social interactions on the Internet. The Internet is changing from a web of documents to a web of human interactions.
Over the Internet people are connected, relate to and influence each other.
The interactions on the web are changing from individuals to communities.

Unpredictability of pull marketing
All these challenges, the different content, publishing the content in the right context, and the interactions with individuals and communities will play an important role and make the outcome very unpredictable.
Most components and processes are beyond the control of the marketer.
No longer can marketers predict the effect of their marketing campaigns which will make it harder to get budgets.

Even in case the marketing campaign was successful for pulling visitors and interested parties to your website, another challenge presents itself: to know who is visiting, their interest and how strong is their interest in your products or services.

The change to the pull era is disruptive; the challenges to book success have become very different and unpredictable. Many marketers will be lost.

Are you ready for the pull marketing era ?

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Content marketing is too demanding
Content marketing is the hype as it uses content as a currency to get attention of your audience or potential customers instead of paying for advertising.

The main drawback of content marketing is the requirement of creating content.
For most people creating new original content is just too demanding.
If you want to create new content every day or several times a day, chances are you will run out of ideas after a few months (writers block ?).

The glut of content is an opportunity
On the other hand there is already an abundance of content on the Internet by professional writers, bloggers and user generated content that gets published on the Internet almost every second of the day.
Abundance indicates the overload of information and quantity of content to be read, consumed and absorbed. It has become too much to handle.
Hence an opportunity exists for filtering and aggregating the useful and relevant content for specific audiences and customer segments.

Content curation is aggregation in context
Thus instead of creating content you only have to find, evaluate, sort, filter through the glut of already existing content, then copy and aggregate this content and publish it by your channel in a different format.
Your added value is putting the content is in the right context.

If you have some creativity adding on your own point of view is still possible in order to have some personal input.

Although no creativity is required, but it doesn’t mean it will be less work. Actually you can end up with having much more work to do, due to the large quantities of information and content available and the drive to present the better or most relevant content to your public.
That is challenging too, but as with all tasks and work related to digital information the information automation will happen.

Content curation hype
Content curation is the new hype as it
- Looks like a feasible solution for many
- Relative easy to manage and produce
- No or little creativity required
- Generating interest from the target audience or potential customers
This could put larger companies or corporations back into the content game as they didn’t stand a chance with blogging.

Will your company start with content curation too ?

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One-way communication demo
Getting a potential customer to have a meeting for a demo is already an achievement.
Then in many cases the opportunity is being spoiled by turning out the standard presentation and the standard run through the solution.
The demo will explain the many functions and features but not specifically focusing or addressing on the problems or issues of the potential customer.
The demo can be perfect but is likely to miss the goal completely as you or your pre-sales engineer are mainly talking: a one-way communication like an advertisement.

A meeting should be a conversation
Between the handing over of the business cards, the initial small talk or chitchat and the actual presentation, one or more questions should be posed to find out what the issues or points of interest are.
The appointment of the meeting has been set-up with one person but normally he will have invited at least one or two colleagues to be in the meeting.
The drivers of the invited people can be quite different than your main contact.
Thus each person participating in the meeting should be somehow inquired about:
- Why he is attending the meeting
- What his requirements and needs are
- What problems or issues he has
- What’s a feasible solution for the company
- What’s an affordable solution for the company

For a start you can boldly ask:
- What their problems are.
Or less harsh by asking for:
- The possible improvements
- What is missing in the current solution(s)
- What is the goal of the demo meeting
- If they have seen previously other solutions
- Where or how they know your company or product from

The hierarchy problem
One of the problems is that the person who has agreed for the appointment and has set-up the meeting will probably answer all the questions and explain his views as he is probably in charge of the project and the people in the meeting.
However the problem might be broader and more complex or have different reasons or origins. Receiving just one point of view contains the risk of not getting the whole picture.

Your problem is to engage the others to add their view or explain other problems.
This can be achieved by carefully observing the people in the meeting for any reaction and after the leading person has had his say, address to the other persons with the continuity question:
- You wanted to add something
- What’s your point of view?
- What other issues did you encounter?
- What similar issues did you encounter?

If you don’t succeed in getting any response which can be for reasons of hierarchy, then the coffee break is the next best opportunity to find out. Although coffee breaks might seem a waste of time, they can be the opportunity in finding out about other problems, issues and drivers.
Maybe you won’t be able to find out as you are occupied with the main person, but your pre-sales engineer could get valuable information from the accompanying engineer or manager.

The goal of a meeting with a demo is not so much the demo itself, but the conversation. Without a real conversation your demo, as perfect it was, was a failure.

How perfect are your demo’s ?

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