The world leader in …
The Fortune 500 companies are our customers.
The company is leading in this business for over 25 years.

You have seen these tag lines on trade shows or used in advertising or even have used them yourself).

Why should any potential customer be interested in becoming a customer as such a tag line doesn’t tell anything about how the company will:
- Solve his problem
- Improve his operations
- Decrease operational costs
- Save money
- Increase potential sales

These tag lines are to impress the potential customer.
However this type of impressing the potential customer will lead nowhere:
- Why should he be interested in the first place as nothing addresses his objectives or solution he is looking for?
- The projected high profile will put off many potential customers due to the high price tag associated
- A vendor dealing with large companies is unlikely interested in small or medium sized businesses
- The past successes are not a guarantee for the future
This type of marketing will not bring in leads.

Instead being humble could generate sympathy for your company.

However after the interest is generated by the main benefits, advantages and other messages, then you can mention:
“We are the world leader in …”
“The Fortune 500 companies are our customers”
“The company is leading in this business for over 25 years”
In order to overhaul the suspect as these will enhance your message by building trust.

Did you ever used such tag lines as first statement?

Although according to MarketingVOX over 80% of the population online uses social media in some form, we still wonder if social media marketing is really worth the effort?
Is it effective ?
Can any business leverage it?

Whatever media marketing gurus have told us, whatever the hype was: how big is really the impact and the effect on business?

The observations: bots and content duplication

- There are more bots scanning social media than people are reading it
- There are more bots publishing content than people posting posts or commenting
- Limited participation: only a minority (<1%) of all people on social websites generate content
- Most people don't create content but they republish content: just duplication
- Viral success is minimal and unpredictable for every brand large or small.

The questionable effectiveness

The portrayed image of low budget social media marketing campaigns has not become reality in most cases.
Instead it are expensive operations.
Although the platforms and communication channels of social media are free, the social media marketing campaigns are not cheap initiatives:
- It costs time and creativity to have any effect in this type of marketing.
- Due to the amount of possible channels and platforms available where messages can be posted and conversations can emerge the costs is high.

Can you measure the effectiveness of your investments in time and money in social media marketing ?
Probably not.
The relation between efforts and results are almost impossible to track and to prove.

So how can you explain the costs related to social media marketing to your management or Board Of Directors ?
Not.

The lack of capability measuring, proving the effectiveness and Return On Investment (ROI) of social media marketing leads to a not sustainable operation in a business environment.

The uncertainty and risks of social media marketing

Businesses prefer to have certainty and want to remove most or all risks.
The flow businesses prefer is: 1) order 2) pay 3) deliver a certain outcome 4) calculate the return.
Social media marketing cannot be ordered and the outcome is completely uncertain.

Social media marketing comes with uncertainty and risks involved:
- Businesses can spend large amounts of money on a social marketing campaign and still one of their competitors with a minimal budget gets rewarded more by the consumers or buyers.

- Businesses can invest a lot of time and money and one simple event can wipe out all these efforts.

- Businesses can try to build tribes over many years and one person with one issue or one event can kill the tribe in a very short amount of time.

Coexistence of different types of marketing

- Social media marketing is over and it appears not to be the Holy Grail.
- Neither is the traditional interruption advertising.
- Content marketing has its’ benefits too.
Therefor we should compare social media, interruption and content marketing for their cost, durability and effectiveness.

The future is probably in the coexistence of these 3 types (or even more types) of marketing.

Let us know if you know another type of marketing that would be complementary to social media, interruption and content marketing.

SEO
If you want to increase the SEO of your website – start a blog and keep blogging.
The hard work.
Eventually you might get loads of traffic and reach far.

Ideation
If you want ideas from your visitors and users – set-up a forum and moderate it.
That’s less work.
Eventually the posts on the forum can generate interest to many people.

Blogs
Blogs are for people who have the ability to create content and present their ideas and concepts in an interesting manner.
This generates interest.
Blogs will draw in people who want to learn and listen to your advice. Maybe some will comment.
You control completely the amount and the quality of the content in your blog.

If only a few people read your blog it is a waste of time, but nobody will know.
The main problem is to get people reading your blog, appreciating the content and tell their friends or colleagues about your blog.
RSS Feeds can help to spread your blog posts.

If your blog generates interest and thus traffic, it can have your brand or product reaching far at little cost.
Still it will only occasionally start a conversation.

Forums
Forums are for people not good in creating content but are eager to get ideas about where the product should go or do in the future.
Forums can draw in people who want to present and share ideas.
You don’t control the amount and the quality of the content on your forum.

If only a few people (or none) post on your forum it is a problem as empty forums are a sign of failure.
The main problem is getting people on your forum and getting them to post.
You need good engaging subjects.

If your forum gets posts you will engage many people, get ideas and start conversations.

Of course you can have both on your website as the people are probably different.

Solutions for blog or forum
Blog: Free: Wordpress – Blogger – and many others.

Forum: Free: Tal.ki – Freeforums (with ads) – and several others.

Do you have a blog on your website?
Do you have a forum on your website ?

What are your prospects buying ?
- The perfect Powerpoint presentation ?
- The great looking glossy brochures ?
- The video message of your CEO ?
- The $500,000 video movie about your company ?

Even without all this your competitor with lousy sales material can win the deal.
Whereas you with your well-rehearsed sales presentation using the best Powerpoint, video’s available and pitch don’t come even close to close the deal.

What’s the value for the prospect in all the shiny sales material ?
It can be entertaining or interesting but will it sell?
The prospect is not into buying a Powerpoint presentation. He needs a solution to his problem.
Is your proposed solution matching the need that the prospect has ?

Why are prospects buying ?
It’s not just the sales material and the pitch, but the confidence and trust you build as a salesman with your customer.
Your main task in B2B sales is to take away or minimize the risk for them, as risk is the main pain point for decision makers and purchasers.
The less risk the less risk they have in their function or even career.
Whatever the cost of the solution or product, the less risk will be favored.

Risk avoidance
Taking away the risk can be done by:
- Having a sales engineer at your side, who promptly and professionally responds to any question and knows his matters
- Having a good reference list
- Having a recognized brand name
- Being referenced in a Gartner, Forrester, Burton, Meta research (or similar) report
- Being a top salesman who can make people believe your company represents less risk.

Sales skills
Instead of relying too much on the perfect Powerpoint and other sales material you should believe in your own sales skills.

Maybe even due to all the overwhelming sales materials and your perfect trained slick pitch you miss to hear the real problems and issues that needs to be solved for the potential customer.

Your sales skills that include asking open questions and listening are more important than your Powerpoint presentation.

How much do you rely upon the sales material for selling ?

In our opinion there are two ways to use social media:
- Hit and run
- Invest and leverage

Hit social media and run

Think social media but act business wise
You consider the occasional social media impacts on your business as short term opportunities. You just take these social media efforts and successes for granted in order to get a quick profit or temporary improvement of your operating income.
Your social media efforts are not the main part of your long term marketing plan or business plan.

In the end your business goals using proven marketing methods are more important than the uncertain effects of social media.
Social media marketing is chaos compared to business where order and accountability rule.
In this case you probably prefer interruption marketing (advertising) as it more organized, systematic and proven.

Invest and leverage social media

Think business, but act social media
You consider and care for your business, but your actions are geared towards social media as these can have a bigger impact on your business in the long run.
Your goal is to leverage the effects of your social media efforts for your business. This will require investing heavily and systematically in social media marketing as it is quite different than the more organized and straightforward methods of interruption marketing.
The larger uncertainty makes the risk larger.

Your real roots for marketing are in the social media as it is your main focus.
The sustainable benefit, thanks to your social marketing efforts, in the long run is more important than a quick business profit.
However due to the uncertainty and outcome of social media marketing the investment to be made in time, creativity and efforts can be quite important before any significant return is noticed.

Social media marketing: company, management and business dependent

Both alternatives have a reason to exist as both can bring success.
The decision to be made is related to the type of company or the company management or the business.
There is no single rule and no good or bad in using social media marketing or not.
If you want to avoid frustration and annoyance then stay away from social media marketing due to the uncertainty and the chaos.

If you like risks, have or are able to create interesting content and have time, then you can aim to leverage your social marketing efforts.

Even if social media marketing seems the most cost effective at first, there is more investment needed to be successful (or you have beginners luck).
These investments need to be increased by the probability of being unsuccessful over a long time.

What do you do?
Think social media but act business ?
Or
Think business but act social media ?