Although ‘marketing’ is an English (American ?) word it are the French who have been the first and maybe still the best in marketing as many things we take for granted or have been applied first in France:

- Style:
  Versailles defined how to design a palace with gardens. The world followed the style.
- Perfume:
   Selling smelly water at an incredible high price.
- Wine:
  The best wine is still French or is it the best marketing ?
- Fashion & luxury products:
  Paris is associated with them and is still the capital of fashion and luxury products.
- Père Lachaise (famous cemetery in Paris):
  Problem: people didn’t want to be buried far away from their church
  Marketing: the remains of many famous people were moved to this cemetery.
- Feuilleton in newspapers:
  To keep people buying everyday their newspaper stories were published in short parts.
  The most famous French writers have written their books in this way.
  The soap opera’s still use the same concept.
- Spring water:
   Bottling free water and selling it at a steep price.
- Statue of Liberty:
   Representing the friendship between France and US – established during the American Revolution.
   The entire world recognizes and knows it.
- Eiffel tower:
  The World Exhibition tower was a sample for the planned multiple bridges over the Seine.
- Viral marketing:
   Road marking in France by Michelin
   Goal: to have more people driving their cars into the country side and sell tires.
- Passion marketing:
   The car brand Peugeot was the first to market ‘Passion’ in design.
   Instead of performance and engineering numbers.
- Holiday destination #1:
  France is still #1 holiday destination in the world. Why? Probably marketing.

In the eighties -1981: Tomorrow I will take off my top!

The origin of marketing lies definitely in France as they have achieved many ‘firsts’.
Although they coined a word for it: “mercatique” - it hasn’t spread.

IKEA is a company that dares to experiment with Social Media Marketing: they took a walk on the wild side with social media marketing during the autumn of 2009:

Platform used: Facebook
Attributes: pictures – images and pictures help to engage people
Engagement: contest – the first person that tagged the picture won
Their friends noticed the win of their friend and spread the news.
More pictures were demanded.
Pictures spread to thousands of people promoting IKEA.

Of course this is consumer social media marketing for a giant retail store.

Could anything similar be applied to BtoB using one of the typical business social websites like:
LinkedIn (US)
Ecademy (UK)
Viadeo (FR)
Xing (GE)
as a platform using the existing functions?
Engage the members by offering something related to your business services.

At the end of any recession changes will be happening as this is a new start, thus in order to anticipate:
Take a walk on the wild side using social media marketing now!

The bigger the company the more cautious for experimenting with new methods in marketing and sales and thus they will use the traditional channels further on as they know and control them:
Advertising, Press Releases, Advertorials, PR and even paid reviews.

Only a few of the larger companies will take the risk of entering the Social Media Marketing.
Especially public traded companies have issues to use social media as all their communications need to be controlled and in line with their other communications due to (internal) regulations and SOX.
This requires a long approval process. So long the market or marketing opportunity has probably passed by a long time ago.

Due to the shorter and less hierarchic approval process, the smaller or medium sized companies will be leading in social media marketing. Whereas bigger companies are sitting on the side, not being able to make any movement or take any decision.

Social Media Marketing: reluctance to engage

On the other hand there are more reasons why companies don’t take a walk on the wild side of social media marketing:
- The scary image
- The uncontrolled magnitude
- The required time
- The 2-way communication

The scary image of social media marketing painted by consultants
In order to sell at a high price and make themselves indispensable, consultants will paint the image of many dangers and hazards of social media marketing.
If they make it look simple, then there is no reason companies would pay for their services.
Thus mainly larger companies will have fear using social media marketing.

The uncontrolled magnitude
However it is partially true as the effects, the reactions and the magnitude of social media marketing can reach far beyond the traditional marketing channels.

Social media marketing takes time
Instead of immediate results like email marketing or advertising, social media marketing requires time as it needs to grow on a large number of people.
Social media marketing is not hit an run like many other marketing methods.

The 2-way communication
Companies were used to have one way communication using the interruptive marketing of advertising and email marketing.
Social media marketing is two way: social interaction;

This is something new and difficult to handle: especially for companies that have been used to one way communication since many years and their sole feedback was a controlled customer service facility.

The time is now to embrace Social Media Marketing

Still the time is here for all companies to take a walk on the wild side of social media marketing.
Experiment and start small in order to learn.
Don’t fear social media marketing – embrace it for the better.
Be the Transformer of your company.

This is especially true as the economy and thus companies are coming out of a recession and a new era lies in front of us all.
Don’t stay behind.
A new world with different rules of the game of Marketing.

Said, hey babe, take a walk on the wild side.
Doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo

During any conversation a moment of silence can happen.
Even during a meeting with a potential customer or a client.

There is nothing wrong with the silence itself if the conversation picks up afterwards naturally.
It is probably not that bad to have a short silence in any meeting or discussion.
However it could be an indication of disconnection between the 2 parties involved.
In some case it can become unbearable and give discomfort for both parties. You all will feel the pain.
However it can also be used as advantage for your sales process if you keep your mouth shut.

Some people feel the need to jump in and fill the silence immediately.
This can be:
- You the Salesman.
- Your Support engineer.
- The Influencer.
- The Decision maker.

Not breaking the silence

You as the Salesman
As the salesman, you should be able to keep the uncomfortable silence for a while and if nobody speaks then re-launch the conversation that engages both the decision maker and the influencer.
If you can pose an adequate open question the discussion will start again. Still it is not easy to ask such a question.
In any case avoid starting a sales pitch!

Your Support engineer
The worst case is when your support engineer tries to open the discussion again: especially with technical matters.
Technical matters as he probably is mainly interested in the more technical or features aspects of the solution or the problem and not the business itself.
Thus just hope he keeps silent or in the best case poses an open ended question.

The customer should break the silence

The Influencer
If the Influencer starts talking, let him talk. Make sure you engage in a conversation that the Decision maker finds interesting.

However chances are the Decision maker is not interested in the specific items or matters the Influencer finds interesting.
If the Decision maker is not interested, you need to change the subject as soon as possible by asking an open question to the Decision maker.
Else you will loose attention of the Decision maker or he will start a second conversation with the Support engineer which will beyond your control.

The Decision maker
The best case is if the Decision maker starts talking again as in this case he probably will tell too much by:
- Elaborating about the problems to be solved
- Your competitors or competing products
- Explaining more about the internal matters related to the decision.
Whatever he tells it will be interesting for you and your sales process.

The silence after a question

In case after you have posed a question there is a silence, then wait at least 10 seconds.
Typically you or your Support engineer will interrupt the silence within 3 seconds mainly by repeating the question or even by suggesting the answer.

People being questioned need up to 10 seconds to formulate an answer. Thus give them the required time.
Remember they need to speak out and inform you – not visa versa.
Thus take your time and wait until they answer you or continue the conversation without answering the question.
If after 10 seconds they haven’t answered the question then repose the question.

What did you do with unbearable and uncomfortable silences during a meeting?
Did you start talking again? Did you start your sales pitch again?
Or were you able to pose an open ended question?

Challenging social media marketing
The reason social media is challenging is that it challenges people at the top of any company. Hierarchies are thrown over; habits are changed as the rules have been changed.
Gone is the straightforward method of marketing that could be solved by spending money on the agency, creating the ad, buying ad space and measuring.
The marketing mangers or VP marketing had the entire messaging chain under control by using advertising, editorials and press releases.

Now these advertising and PR methods have become vulnerable and the leaders need to change their thinking, acting and decision making.

Drivers of social media marketing
It is no longer the bigger budget that is being spent that is important, but the impact of your social marketing (campaign) is key. This is not necessarily related or there can be even no relation to the amount of money spend or invested as other factors can be more important like:
- sentiment
- emotion
- passion
- fun
- involvement
- messaging

The content drives the awareness of the customers and the potential buyers.

The problems of management
The main problem for any management are:
- The complete lack of control over the people getting involved by discussing topics concerning the products or solutions.
- Management has no accountability for the content created by others whatsoever.
- Acquiring the mindset of the different social media platforms available
- The involvement of two-way communications instead of sending out communications (one way)
- Participation instead of indoctrination

In a few cases VP Marketing or even the CEO orders to engage into social media in order to show the effort they do. However is it not by setting up a blog and getting a Twitter account that any company will be successful with their social media campaign. Much more in needed to reach the customer or potential customer.

Where to start ?
As the effect of social media campaigns or efforts are hard or different to measure, the normal evaluation criteria of management cannot deal with social media marketing.

Social media requires new thinking, new channels, new process all fitting into a strategic and tactical marketing plan which are worlds apart from the traditional advertising and PR plans.

Maybe a good start is by listening and surveying social media for your products, brand names and competitors. You will learn from listening on SocialMention, Collecta, WhosTalkin or BackType
After wards try to participate.
Then you are ready to launch a social media marketing campaign.

Although we believe in our product (and our customers seem to do so too), we feel the path from website visitor -> to free trial user customer is suboptimal and could / should be improved.
There are enough website visitors; still we have a feeling that the conversion rate could be higher. In order to know you need to measure and to compare different alternatives.

Most visitors either land on our homepage (about 24%), or enter our site through a landing page and pass in many occasions to the homepage during their visit. In any case their next visit will almost certainly start from the home page.

Due to this importance of the home page it is logical we try to enhance the home page. Thus a new home page layout was cooked up based on the original layout.

So far we only changed the top part (above the fold) to be more focused and clean:
- Less information thus more straightforward.
- Less distraction of too many items
- Less keywords in the top fold
- Less screen shots
We’re planning on taking small steps at a time, making sure each step can be measured.

Google Website Optimizer

We placed the 2 pages head to head using Google Website Optimizer, using the free trial page as the goal.

Google Website Optimizer is a free service from Google that enables you to test different pages or parts of pages and find out which converts better.
As you need to be able to make changes to your web pages, so some technical knowledge is required but GWO (as it’s often called) helps you through the process.

The Results

More than the double amount of visitors who passed by the new homepage went on to visit the free trial compared to the original homepage! (Though not sure how many of them will become paying customers – that we’ll see that later on)

When examining the difference between the 2 visitor segments in Google Analytics we were in for even more of a surprise:
The bounce rate has improved 12%: 63% vs 67% (vs 75% for the whole site) -> From 33% to 37% is a 12% improvement!

On the other hand the visitors entering by the new home page spend on average 44% less time during a visit, and visit 17% less pages! This is bizarre – does that mean they are less engaged? Or they understand faster the purpose of LEADSExplorer?
On the contrary, my dear Watson: New visitor rate: 74% vs 89% – a 15% improvement! This means visitors who see the new homepage are more likely to visit multiple times!

Conclusion

People watch less pages and leave our site earlier.
However a lot more of them come back later to continue visiting our site and eventually ask a free trial, or are convinced earlier in their visit to request a free trial.
This is reflected in the ‘Visitor Loyalty’ view of Google Analytics, which really shows a ‘long tail’ of repeat visitors for the new homepage.

Where should we focus next when optimizing our site?
How can we improve the flow from home page or landing page to the free trial?
What makes people decide to sign-up for a free trial?

What are your experiences with Google Website Optimizer?

Did you or do you understand the problem of the customer that he just explained?
Most people (even in Sales) don’t listen or just hear half of the story or the problem.
As soon as they see or recognize a pattern, a recognizable event or an indication they have seen before, they jump on conclusions and start their sales pitch.

Ask, listen and learn about the problem

So did you understand fully the problem of the customer ?
No:
Then shut up and start asking questions.
Listen to what he has to say or how he describes the problem.
Maybe you will understand and can offer him help.

Yes:
Then shut up and ask questions in order to be certain of the best suiting solution or to be able to dig deeper into his problem.
Listen to what he has to say or how he describes the problem.
Maybe you will understand and can offer him help.

For all meetings and all telephone calls the goal is to have a conversation, not a reason to start your product pitch.
During your conversation you can evolve slowly into your product pitch when you are certain that you are offering your best matching solution.

The internal selling is the hurdle

As it is in only rare cases people can decide without approval of their superiors, your buyer, influencer or decision maker needs to sell internally your solution too.
If there is something missing or there is a uncertainty about the solution in relation to the problem, it will cause a delay in the decision or the internal selling will even not stand any chance.
If there is an uncertainty or missing part in the sales pitch, your internal seller needs to come back to you and formulate the difference or the perceived difference between the solution you proposed and the problem he had defined or has been defined by his internal audience.
Being able to define or describe this difference requires effort and attention: causing delays or even missing the deal completely if your competitor has done a better job of listening and asking.

The 7 benefits of asking to understand the customer

Thus the better you understand the problem:
1. The better match you can provide with your solution.
2. The better explication you can provide supported by suiting reasons.
3. The less missing parts there will be between problem and solution.
4. The better you can drill your internal seller about your solution.
5. The lesser questions that will be raised by the others.
6. The higher the likelihood the internal selling can be successful.
7. The better you stand out compared to your competitors.

Thus the next time you think you understand the problem, just ask a few questions more. As people always tell you more than they want to, you will get more information and learn about issues and even about your competitors.

How well do you listen?

PR or Press releases used to be the main non-advertising method of sending out a marketing message: A controlled one-way communication.

Content marketing or attraction marketing works as a two-way communication:
- You publish content for free and hope that people find it
- You hope that they will like it enough to forward, repeat or refer your content
- In the best case they might even communicate back to you and give you insights on how you can refine your content

Jep Castelijn of LeadSloth clearly explains the differences using diagrams between the Old and New situation.

If content marketing is the new PR or Press Release then some problems are apparent:
- Publishing content requires creativity as it needs to be interesting
- Not everyone is capable of writing interesting content or giving it an interesting angle
- Plagiarism: Copying and adjusting content to hide that it’s plagiarised is rather easy
- Getting found (in an organic way, without breaking the bank) is the real problem
- The copy of the original content can have a better SERP than the original
- Although written content is very good for search engines, people prefer visual content which is:
   - Even harder to create
   - Hard to index by search engines – thus less likely to be found
- Even if you create a lot of content somehow it needs to get found to submerge from the rest
- Content marketing requires time as it needs to brew over time
- The decay of content on search engines in time is a problem as new content is valued higher than older content
- Similar the decay of importance on book marking websites over time
- If too many content creators are in your market, there’s fierce competition to be on top

Content marketing is not the Holy Grail that will bring instant interest, gratification and success.

Content marketing requires dedication, creativity and patience.
These requirement are not feasible and accessible for all companies: not all solutions and products are interesting enough to generate content about. Not all companies have the time to wait for content to get created, indexed, found and climb up in the SERPs (if all goes well) or live with the uncertainty if the content will even attract visitors at all.
Content marketing will stay a method with limited distribution.

Thus Houston we have a problem: we can’t solely rely on content marketing as it will not take off instantly.

In Brains on Fire Spike Jones claims that “Remember, 90% of word of mouth happens OFFLINE”

However as there are both:
- Word of mouth offline
- Word of mouth online
Word Of Mouth can be initiated or ignited by messages or events offline and online. Once the fire started it can spread both online and offline.

The real stories are not solely created offline or online as many stories can be online or offline and both can even exist side-by-side.

The medium used to spread is decided by the public, not by the creators, the originators or the starters.

The ignition and spreading of Word Of Mouth

It is not solely the segregation of online or offline as the word of mouth can ignite, come from many different sources and media not necessarily on- or offline.
The spreading of the Word Of Mouth Word can happen:
- Oral communications: face-to-face, remote: telephone or mobile.
- Verbal broadcast communications: radio.
- Written printed communications, written online communications, written mobile communications like texting/sms
- Visual communications in print, visual communication online
- Audio-visual communications broadcast like TV.
…All media can contribute to the ignition and the spreading of the Word Of Mouth: not just on- or offline.

Once a word of mouth has started it can crossover from online to offline and visa versa or from verbal face-to-face to mobile texting.

The Rules of Word Of Mouth

The rule is there are no rules for Word of Mouth as each case is different and operates differently.
- No rules
- No secret formula
- No manual

If there were rules then marketing could use to well the word of mouth. Apparently this is not so. A word of mouth campaign stays a unique event with unpredicted outcome and not related to the amount of money invested.

The main rule of word of mouth is the unpredictability.
That’s what it makes them so attractive and so difficult to put in place and to operate.
You can control most parameters and try to influence, but the set of parameters and the timing need to be right which comes down to luck.

And even if the Word of Mouth project gets going and becomes successful, it is to be seen if it will bring additional revenue or just branding.

Did your marketing ever got into a Word of Mouth project?
If so was it any successful?
Did they get any traction?
Did it result in any sales?

Market research: jumping on the hype

Whenever a new hype emerges, consultants pop up like mushrooms, portraying themselves as specialists.
Although hardly anybody has any experience with the new media, consultants claim they have the key to unlock its secrets.

The truth is these consultants:
- Happened to get involved into a project that was dealing with these new matters.
- Have spoken at a number of events and written some articles and blog-posts.
- Accidentally became successful (at best)

Marketing: Their main asset is to sell the right stuff on time: when the hype is there and at its’ best.

Sell the fear

Their main objective is to re-use their newly acquired unique experience or knowledge to charge you high fees as they boldly go where no man (of your company) has ever gone before.

In order to state the value they are bringing, they project the image of a hazardous and dangerous journey through this new found territory, requiring specialists to navigate you through if you want to be able to reap the benefits.

They’re selling themselves by fear: claiming that only they are good enough to offset your investment in them and that you will fail miserably if you don’t use them as your guide.

Consultants sell and market themselves

We have seen this happening with SEO consultants, SEA consultants, SEM consultants, Email Marketing consultants, Social Media Marketing consultants, Viral Marketing consultants, Usability consultants, YouTube consultants, … and the latest fad: the Twitter Consultants.
It is all in the image they create in order to bring you more claimed value.
Remember: the price is what the fool wants to pay for it.

Usually, these people’s #1 asset is being able to sell and market themselves using the current hype projecting the image of a quantum leap forward that you as a company will be missing and your competitors will take advantage of.

Most salesmen are selling products or services of their company, whereas consultants sell mainly themselves.

Consultants are top salesmen

Consultants are very good in sales – maybe even the best – as they:
- Sell a concept without much or any hard facts.
- Sell a novelty that still has to prove the business viability.
- Sell at a high price as they have a unique offering.
- Sell fear without really knowing the drawbacks if not applied.
- Sell their skills and knowledge that can be razor thin.
- Sell without any demo.
- Sell the belief they will bring a quantum leap.

Are you as good in sales as a consultant?
How good are you in selling yourself?