Get customers do stuff for you: No!

As Spike Jones in “Brains on Fire” states: “Get your customers to do Stuff for you” is not realistic.
Even though many sales and marketing people talk and blog about customer engagement and advocates, in reality there is nothing as such. Except for a few companies like Apple.
Customers just won’t blog, comment, engage, evangelize, be an advocate or whatever for your company.
Way too much effort, risk and why should they? What is their benefit? What is in it for them?

Be happy if they read your emails or your newsletter. Then you already have a good interest build up and engagement for your products or solutions.
Just don’t expect them to forward your newsletters or to distribute your news.
Customers need to be entertained, and then they might retain your information. That’s all in most cases.

Only if beneficial for the customer too

Customers are mainly interested in their own purposes or benefits.
Thus if you, as a company, can help them to achieve something that improves their life, income, business or experiences, then they might talk about your company or solution. Especially if they can bolster their ego, impress their peers or increase their power over others. That’s why you can get your customers to speak on a conference about your products or solutions for their own benefit or ego.

Our web service provides the customer more with leads from their website than online lead generation or improves their customer retention significantly all at a marginal cost increase (our sales), which normally should lead to more revenue, more profit. Happy customers.
Still they don’t talk or write about the solution.

What’s your experience with customer engagement and advocates?

People ask us the strangest questions.
Like if they have already Google Analytics, why should they implement LEADSExplorer?

Google Analytics doesn’t give you:

1   The name of the company by visitor
2   The language of the employee in the company
3   The geographic location of the employee based upon the time zone
4   The interest of the employee of the company: search terms uses, pages visited by importance
5   The click path by visiting employee
6   The origin by company: organic, paid, linked, from an email campaign
7   The method repeat visitors use to get to your website: search or bookmark/email
8   The interest by company: search terms used, pages visited by importance
9   The duration of the visit by the employee of the company
10 The total duration of all visits by the company.
11 The number of unique visitors by company: the more – the more interest
12 The reaction by visits upon your communications with the lead or customer represented visually.
13 What companies have been visiting a certain page.
14 Company information retrieved from the Internet and other resources.
15 Alerts when a company visits again.
16 Daily or weekly reports by email concerning visiting companies

Google Analytics: optimizing website – LEADSExplorer: leads and customers

We know Google Analytics is great for the purpose it has been made: optimize your website – to improve you online results – to increase conversions.
LEADSExplorer is intended for online lead generation, website lead capturing and customer retention using your website.
To improve your cold calling by allowing to cold call on warm companies.

See the introduction movie here

Any more questions?
Please don’t hesitate to ask.
Or sign up for a 30-day free trial.

Trust is needed in face to face purchases.
Even more trust is required online in order to make someone to buy.
Trust is the #1 requirement on the Internet to buy.
You need credibility.

The question is how to build trust for your online offering?
How to get credibility?
Although your offering is online from your website, your trust and credibility can also be build off-line in real life.

1. Business website
- Having a decent looking website.
- having a website that reflects business.
- Having a website that is easy to navigate.
- Having a website that informs.
- Having a fast loading website.

2. Referrals
- Having referrals from several companies.
- Having referrals from your previous achievements.

3. Testimonials
- Having testimonials on your website from several customers

4. Getting recommended within your own circle of friends:
- Your friends recommending you
- Online friends recommending you

5. Getting recommended by trusted parties like:
- Well-known bloggers
- Industry blogs
- People on forums that have a track record for recommendations

6. Building online trust by presence
- Presence by website
- Presence by blogging
- Presence by micro-blogging

7. Building trust by findability in search
- A high number of links in search results on your company name or product name.
- Appearing high and frequently in different keyword search results.

8. Achieving trust by authority
- White papers.
- University Research paper cooperation.
- Publish an industry report with interesting data.
- Blog on the subject.

9. Piggy-backing
- Knowledgeable comments on other blogs.
- To the point letters to the editor of printed magazines.

10. Reviews in specialized magazines
- Getting reviewed in a industry magazine
- Being one of the vendors in a solution review in an industry magazine

11. Building trust in public:
- Speaking at conferences: you are recognized by a trusted party

12. Selling your knowledge for a price:
- Publishing a book in print: if people pay for your knowledge, it must be valuable

13. Getting recognition by another trusted party:
- Writing for a magazine: the editor is the trusted party that trusts you.
- Speaking on a radio show: the radio host is the trusted party who trusts you.
- Appearing on TV shows: the host is the trusted party who trusts you.
   (If possible have the video clip embedded in your website – using Youtube)

14. Winning an industry award
- The industry organization grants you trust by the award.

15. Certifications
- Having the solution certified.
- Having the company certified to a certain standard.

16. Being a celebrity
- If you have already managed to be a celebrity in your industry, people will trust you more.
- If you have already managed to be a celebrity in general, people will trust you more.

17. Advertising
- Appearing frequently on many pages related to your industry solution: the more the better branding.

18. Pictures of management team
- Have the management team pictures (if you don’t look ugly) on your website or blog.

19. Offering a free trial
- If none of the above is possible, the last resort is offering the real thing for free.

Tell us if you have more suggestions for online trust and credibility.

The branding short-cut

In 1986 Tommy Hilfiger had a billboard on Times Square in New York that mentioned his brand together with other well-known brands in men’s wear.
It said:

THE 4 GREAT AMERICAN DESIGNERS FOR MEN ARE:
    R . . . L . . . . .
C . . . . . K . . . .
  P . . . . E . . . .
  T . . . . H . . . . . . .

(Ralph Lauren, Calvin Klein, and Perry Ellis)

Three months after the campaign was unveiled, a furious Calvin Klein said:
“Do you know it took me twenty years to get to the point where Tommy Hilfiger is today?!”

If you can get your brand name alongside other well-known brand names, it makes it easier for people to know what you product or solution without explaining anything and they will file your brand or product in that category.

Lead generation and CRM sales solutions brands

This made us think: If this has worked for Tommy Hilfiger, it should work for us too.
If we could get our lead generation and sales solution LEADSExplorer listed with other similar solutions, it would help significantly.

This would give something like:

THE 4 GREAT AMERICAN POST-CLICK MARKETING SOLUTIONS ARE:
    L . . . L . . . . .
A . . . . . C . . . . . . . . .
D . . . . . B . . .
   L . . . . E . . . . . . .

The problem is these brands are US based.

We could easily define a European version:
THE 4 GREAT EUROPEAN WEBSITE LEAD GENERATION SOLUTIONS ARE:
       E . N . . . .
W . . . . M . . . .
  W . . . O .
 L . . . . E . . . . . . .

In both cases the brand awareness of our competitors is rather low as this it is still an emerging market.

Thus we could opt for a broader category: CRM Sales solutions
THE 4 BEST CRM SALES SOLUTIONS ARE:
    S . . B . .
S . . . . F . . . .
    A . . !
L . . . . E . . . . . . .

Of course people will argue these are not all On Demand solutions.
THE 4 GREAT ON-DEMAND CRM SOLUTIONS ARE:
S . . . . F . . . .
S . . . . B . . .
      R . L . . . .
L . . . . E . . . . . . .

Even though these brands are much better known as they are in the more popular and widespread CRM business, it will not have the same effect as with Hilfiger. Moreover the CRM is not the core of the business of LEADSExplorer and would give it the wrong branding category.

Advertising: where?

Even with 3 well-known competing brands, where should we advertise and how?
A billboard is out of the question.

On-line seems most obvious as our service is On Demand.
Banner ad: Not very popular anymore as not that effective.
Contextual Ads: Too long for Google Adsense or Text Link Ads.
As we hate Interstitial Adverts (in between pages) or Floating Ads, we won’t use it for lead generation.
Anyhow it won’t be low cost as it needs some space.
 

The competitors of LEADSExplorer
Do you want to know who our competitors are?
Come visit our blog again this week or email us at:  info (at) LEADSExplorer.com

Broadcasting the new product

You can launch a new product or service in many ways by a website, press releases, blogs, commenting on blogs, micro blogging, advertising (print or online), advertorials, conferences and trade shows.
Explaining in different ways through different communication channels, addressing the different audiences or the same audiences from different angles of attack, all with the sole purpose and in the hope they will notice.

The website plays an important part in most of these communication types as it is the online presence of the company that is being referenced.
This is like broadcasting over multiple channels in order to reach as much people in your target market.

Comparing to competitors

Those people need to understand quickly what problem it solves and what it does in a short amount of time.
By just telling the basic benefits and functionalities we will only reach a small part of the market as the audience needs to understand the message and needs time or even requires some effort.

However if you could compare your solution with other established offerings on the market, it is likely people will understand it faster and better and retain the differentiator(s) mentioned.
Thus comparing similar well-known solutions with your solution helps to get across faster and more efficiently, as people can “file” your solution amongst the peer group.

The Youtube era

Still even if people understand the problem and see the benefit, they need to know how to use it.
This might be an even bigger problem as you have to learn them something new.
Learning is hard to do (the thing you had to do during school).
Actually only a few people want to learn something new.

Explaining using extensive texts, chances are nobody is going to read it.
Explaining using screenshot or image stories isn’t working neither as this seems to require too much effort and isn’t appealing.

In the era of Youtube, people expect the convenience and easy of learning from a streamed video.
People are so used to see and having explained everything on their TV-sets or on video, they expect the same for your product or solution.
Thus in order to provide what the public wants; you need to have a short introduction video showing and explaining the use of the solution.

The LEADSExplorer case

In our case of the web service LEADSExplorer we launched it using the website, this blog and press releases.
We haven’t compared it publicly yet, but that was taken care by the WebMarketCentral blog on December 8th 2008.
Currently we have a decent amount of traffic on our website (Alexa ranking about 407,000).

In order made this introduction video about discovering the companies visiting your website and saving the interesting ones for further use.

The best was to present a web service is to make a screen cast showing the use of the actual screens of the application.
As the website is provided in 3 languages, having verbal explications the costs and issues would have been significantly increased thus we opted for text balloon. These relatively simple text balloons in 3 languages are probably as effective and have the potential to be even more widely understood as all visitors are not native English speaking.

Features:
- As people do click away when a video is not loading fast, we have made it auto-loading.
- Clearly state the length of the video, in order to let people know how long it will take.

How was your company able to get customers using their solutions?
What are your experiences?

Think positively even during this recession

Even in these times of recession and downfall, think positively.
Just like Monty Python sings: “Always look on the bright side of life”.

Especially, if you are having a conversation with a customer or potential customer.
You have to make believe him things and business is going well: for both of you.
If he feels a negative tone or indications of you being negative, he might not buy or try to take advantage by asking a bigger discount or additional free services.

Be negative when analyzing

However once away from you customer, you have to analyze the different situations or circumstances:
- Yours’
- Your competitors’
- The customers’: what are his driving forces? What are the changes he encounters?

This analyzing and thinking can be pretty negative as you have to factor in all bad news and possible events that could prevent you from getting the sales deal.

Moreover you have to estimate a Return On Investment: how much time will you need and how much efforts are needed in order to close the deal?

The different ROI from different sales opportunities need to be compared as you can not pursue every opportunity with the same dedication.
You have to make choices in your business.

Be positive and analyze negatively

Thus:
- Be positive when you face your customer.
- Be negative when you are analyzing the circumstances for evaluating the ROI of any sales opportunity.
- Still in general be optimistic as life and changes will keep going on.

Always look on the bright side of life by Eric Idle is from the Monty Python movie “The Life of Brian“.

Extract:
If life seems jolly rotten
There’s something you’ve forgotten
And that’s to laugh and smile and dance and sing.
When you’re feeling in the dumps
Don’t be silly chumps
Just purse your lips and whistle – that’s the thing.

Be optimistic, even if your business is not looking good for the moment.
Times will change, as changes is the only constant in life.

No interest in your trade show booth

Although this is a blog about online sales and marketing, all sales people will end up one day on a trade show booth.

Many visitors pass by and only a minority will address to you or show any sign of interest.
As the goal of any trade show is lead generation and customer retention, you are not achieving any of these goals. Even though there must be several potential customers amongst the people in the passing crowd there is no interest.
Maybe it is the booth or the messaging on the booth or the location or the booth of the competitor or the hostesses on the booth in front. Whatever!
In any case if you don’t start acting, you are wasting your time and the investment of your company in the trade show is wasted.
Some people start replying their emails on their portable others start calling with their mobile phones. Seen the cost of the trade show this will only increase the loss.

What not to ask:

- “What are you looking for?”
- “Do you need help?”
- “Can I help you?”
- “Do you want a coffee?”
- “Do you want to drink something?”
- “Do you want to see a demo?”

Using these questions, the chance of getting into an interesting conversation is minimal as in most cases people will say “No thanks” or ignore you.
Even if they say yes, then the problem remains as you have asked something to engage into a conversation.

Also handing out freebees will not get you into a conversation and the freebees cost money.

What could you do:

First: Look for eye contact with someone passing by.
Then: Ask: “Do you know what we sell?”

Then there are 4 possibilities:
1. No response at all
Let it be. Let him go.
There are enough other people to address to.
Moreover chances are he will be back later as he remembers you.

2. “No”
Thus the visitor clearly doesn’t know.
Then you have the chance to have a 20 seconds sales pitch:
- The main problem that your solution is solving with the hope he recognizes the problem.
- The concept or approach of the solution.
Even you have very little time, speak at a normal speed and only promote one or two benefits.
In most cases you have started a conversation, still you need to get the person engaged into the conversation, thus the need to ask an open ended question.
“Do you face similar problems in your business?”
“What do you currently use as solution?”

3. “Yes” with correct description or positioning in the market
Then you can ask:
“How come you know so much about it?”
“Where did you get the knowledge?”
“How come you have so much knowledge about our solution?”
“Do you have experience with these solutions?”
As these are open ended questions that include an appreciation, the person will probably start to explain briefly.
You have engaged him into a conversation.

4. “Yes” with a wrong problem or the wrong solution
You have the chance to explain that:
- The problem your solution solves is different.
- The concept of solving the problem is different.
You can ask “Why he was thinking differently”.
Again you are getting into a conversation, but you need to get the person to respond and further engage into the conversation, thus the need to ask an open ended question.
“Do you face similar problems in your business?”
“What do you currently use as solution?”

Of course this questioning method doesn’t always work, and is not applicable for all products or solutions, but it can be applied in many cases on B2B trade shows. And it keeps you busy watching and evaluating the visitors.

As this is not the sole method to approach the visitors, what do you use for engaging into a conversation?

Please note: Trade shows are in decline as people use the Internet for searching and retrieving information to solve their problems or find new suppliers.

Content marketing

In the current quest for companies to get found on the Internet, Gemalto (#1 supplier of SIM cards for mobiles and leader in digital security) has launched JustAkGemalto.

The website contains the information and knowledge gathered by and from their 10,000 employees, thus providing a single source of information for consumers (and businesses) about digital security. All this can be searched.
It is like a Wikipedia, however the contributors and editors are the employees of the company, thus the content is controlled by the company.

The purpose is multiple:
- A source of digital technology information: giving straight forward information and advice to non-technical users.
- Repeat visitors as they like the source of information over other information source.
- Branding: the satisfied searching visitors will remember Gemalto
- SEO: the search engines have many pages to index all related to Gemalto.
- If the site becomes popular it will increase Gemalto’s Internet presence.

This set-up is only affordable for large multinational corporations having sufficient employees with knowledge.
Gemalto has taken the lead.
This is an initiative one wouldn’t expect from a French company.
Being French requires having a version in the French language too. This doubles the content creation cost and the maintenance cost of keeping the two versions up-to-date.

Launch support

The message is: Enjoy your digital life!

The press release indicates the site is intended for consumers.
However Gemalto sells to businesses.
How do these two fit together?

The launch is supported by a microblog on Twitter and a Facebook page in order to enhance the SEO.

And video’s:

Great idea and concept, but it requires persistence, dedication and continuity from their employees.

Good and bad news

Good news spreads slowly.
Bad news will spread 10 times faster as Robert Scoble explains about bad disks from Seagate.
The defective disks aren’t the problem; the late response from Seagate was the problem.

When a customer is happy about a product, he will tell his peers or colleagues. This might be 3 to 5 people.
When a customer is unhappy or angry about a product or service for whatever reason, he will tell about it to his friends, peers, colleagues and anyone who wants to listen to him.

Broadcasting customers

Previously the distribution of bad news was limited as it was from person to person. Moreover it could be controlled on the mass media as there was no distribution channel available for individuals.

Now there are many channels available on the Internet to broadcast information or anger.
The Internet provides an even better channel to trump the bad news:
Form stock exchange forums ( like Finance.Yahoo.com) to social network sites (Facebook, Netlog).

Even if the webmaster of these sites deletes the post (upon request), then there is another channel available on the Internet that the complaining customer will use to shout out his anger.
Or he can shout out on Twitter to his followers.

The world has changed.

Damage control

Normally the customer will first try to address the issue to your company.
The problem is that he can address everybody in the company and not solely customer service: Form the reception desk to support to sales and even the shipping dept.
Thus all the departments and all employees need to think about the damage control when they receive a complaint.

Additionally people need to check their emails inboxes for complaint emails and forward them to the appropriate manager. No time to waste as the unhappy customer is already nervous and the customer expects an almost instant reply.

Public Relations

If the problem applies to a range or a product series, the Public Relation responsible needs to manage and act as early as possible with the appropriate response or statement of the company.
Public Relation also needs to get involved in case the unhappy customer has broadcasted the issue over the Internet to a large population.

In both cases due to the number of people involved, the damage can become significant once the bad news gets distributed over a larger population.
In order to repair the damage done, large amounts of money in marketing, branding and advertising will be needed.

The best is to keep your customers happy.

Did you ever experience an issue or problem that got broadcasted over the Internet?

Branding in B2C or B2B sales

In Business to Consumer product branding is utmost important as people have a wide choice of products in the shopping mall or the large department store. The branding helps to decide because of the trust that has been build and the name recognition.

In Business-to-Business sales the corporate branding has influence for regular or frequently bought products as the brand name stands for quality and service level.
Corporate branding has even more importance if it concerns catalog products as the brand name will let the products stand out. People will choose a familiar name from a catalog or online.

Branding in Complex B2B sales?

However for the complex B2B sales, product branding exists rarely and corporate branding is only feasible for the very large players: like IBM, HP, SUN Systems, Citrix, Cisco, Symantec.
Small companies don’t stand a chance to get any recognition even if they spend a relatively large budget on corporate branding.

In complex B2B sales product branding is very difficult as the products are rather unique and sold in limited quantities. Some large international corporations are capable of branding their products effectively: IBM Tivoli, Microsoft Office, Blackberry (RIM), Boeing 747.
And in many cases the company name is also the product name: Salesforce.com, SAP S/3.

This corporate branding will give the Sales teams support during their sales cycle by the trust it has build over the years of branding.

Importance salesman skills

Still in the complex sales, the proposed solution and the skills of the salesman (and his sales team) are more important.
The prospect needs to become convinced the salesman provide the best solution and the best opportunity for the company.
The salesman plays an important role in the buying process and the final decision. The better he has listened and defined the problem, the more likely he has proposed the best suited solution.

In the end at the moment of the decision, all the advertising, trade show sponsoring or conference pitches have lesser impact compared to the skills and the relationship build by the salesman and his sales team.

The branding helps in B2B Complex Sales, especially in order to get selected onto the vendor list. However it has less importance and influence once the buying process has started.
The Sales team or Salesman are then the most important and of course the quality and/or benefits of the solutions.

Does your company have a strong branding or do you have to make the difference?