Buzz Marketing for Technology: March 2007

How to Start a B2B Community

If you love Web 2.0 tools the way I do, you probably came to the quick realization that they're powerful tools for creating a community

But added together they don't equal a community. You can launch all the Web 2.0 tools you can think of and still not have a community. So the question quickly becomes: How do you create a community, especially in B2B? It's easy to see opportunities in B2C around, say, yacht racing, NASCAR and even beer drinking (yes, Budweiser just launched bud.tv).

But what does it take to get a B2B community under way?

To answer this question, I enlisted the help of expert community builder Mukund Mohan. He's the CEO of Canvas Group and a fellow blogger who publishes BestEngagingCommunities. He will take us through the 3 reasons to start a B2B community, provide 3 examples of existing B2B communities, and dig into the what, when and how of community building. I hope you enjoy hearing this one as much as I enjoyed producing it!

About Mukund

Mukund Mohan is CEO of Canvas Group. Before Canvas Group, he founded and sold 2 successful startups. Prior to that, he was head of product marketing for Mercury Interactive with responsibility for the direction and customer success of the company’s application management solutions. Mukund also was Vice President of Operations at Consilient, a software company focused on process automation. In that role, he managed a team of sales and services personnel and was responsible for customer success. In addition, he has held product and management positions at Ariba and Asera. He began his career at Cisco Systems.

Labels: Social Networking

Calculating ROI on Web 2.0 tools

Many marketers are contemplating adding some form of new media to their marketing toolkit this year. How will this fit into their business? How to get started? How to get past the internal legal hurdles?

All excellent questions. But when marketers are asked to define ROI for their blog, it's the one question that really throws them over the edge.

As Web 2.0 tools become more visible, and expensive in terms of both time and money, supporting them with underground budgets and late night resources just won't cut it anymore. Marketers will need to provide a hard ROI for the dollars they spent.

Of course, the purists will argue that demanding accountability misses the whole point: The true value of Web 2.0 tools, they say, comes from the spontaneous expression of ideas and unstructured interactions such as through a blog or a podcast.

But there are ways to calculate return on your Web 2.0 investment. For example, for your blog, first get some highly targeted CPM numbers, such as you would when buying ad placements in any homogeneous community. Second, think about what it would cost to hire a dedicated company to just do WOM advertising for you. Next, think about the relative change in Net Promoter Score (NPS), and how that might be valued. Add these up, and it's a compelling figure.

Another way to think about it is to start thinking less about ROI and more about Engagement. My theory here is I only care about 2 measurements: conversion events (like a registration, download of podcast, post to a blog or wiki) and the path a customer or prospect takes to get there. That’s all I care about right now. Why you ask? When a customer participates they become more engage and invested in your brand.

So where's the Buzz? Arguably calculating ROI on Web 2.0 tools is not easy since there are so many "soft" aspects to it. But don't underestimate the potential when a blogger genuinely embodies your company's values, fueled by real passion, and has the ability to create entertaining content. Such an advocate can be a tremendous asset to your brand.

Labels: Web 2.0

What's Working in Lead Generation?

As a buzz marketer, how do you choose among the array of lead generation options - PR, word of mouth, interactive marketing, speaking at conferences, publishing thought leadership, conducting seminars, direct mail, and so on? And how do you know which mix will generate the most qualified leads?

A new benchmark report on What's Working In Lead Generation by RainToday can help you refine your lead generation strategy and choose the tactics that will have the greatest impact on your ability to generate leads. You should also use this report to benchmark yourself against industry best practices, which can help you defend your lead generation plans and budget for the years ahead.

After reading the research cover to cover, I talked with Mike Schultz, publisher of RainToday and principal of the Wellesley Hills Group, about what I felt were some of the key points I took away from my review.

About Mike

Mike Schultz is a principal with the Wellesley Hills Group, a leading firm focused on marketing, sales, and overall revenue growth for professional service businesses. The firm’s clients include the Monitor Group, BEA Systems, the American Management Association, Harvard Business School, and dozens of others. A renowned expert in services marketing, Mike has been featured in more than 100 publications including Inc., Sales and Marketing Management, Black Enterprise, and BusinessWeek. Along with his client and leadership responsibilities at the Wellesley Hills Group, Mike is the founder and publisher of RainToday.com.

Labels: Lead Generation

Top 10 Lame Excuses for Not Adopting Web 2.0

Ok, I couldn’t help myself when I saw this statement, in print no less, for not adopting Web 2.0 tactics – so I just had to point this one out:

"This group has been burned by being on the leading edge of technology," said a leading managed care provider. “Four years haven't erased the memory of a failed interactive voice-response (IVR) system.”

I hate to tell you this, but IVR was not leading-edge technology four years ago – speech recognition was at the leading edge. I know. I was there!

This inspired me to do a David Letterman-style list of The Top 10 Lame Excuses for Not Adopting Web 2.0 tactics:

10) My tech team just doesn’t have the bandwidth.

9) My CIO tells me we should just use email if we all want to collaborate.

8) Web 2.0 is just a fad anyway, it will all blow over soon.

7) Blogs are for losers with too much time on their hands. (ouch)

6) Podcasting is just Steve Jobs’s way of invading your company’s firewall.

5) Videocasts are just videos of dogs riding on skateboards for YouTube.

4) RSS is just cryptic code courtesy of Internet Explorer aliens.

3) Communities will never really exist for B2B.

2) I thought Wiki was Al Gore’s new nickname.

And the #1 lame excuse for not adopting Web 2.0 tactics ...

1) They might actually work!!

So where is the Buzz? Smart Buzz Marketers are not afraid of “doing things differently” to help their firms gain new marketplace leadership. Indeed, most marketers regularly do find ways to demonstrate their own kind of courage and innovation.

Labels: Web 2.0

Going Beyond Buzz: A Podcast with Lois Kelly

Last summer a former colleague referred me to an article, “Marketing is a Conversation” written by David Maister and Lois Kelly. A few months later I found myself speaking at an event along with Lois, and I got to better understand her position on Buzz Marketing and how she views Web 2.0.

Her view is that the old marketing model is dead, and conversational marketing is king. She has a unique point of view on how to listen to customers, identify what is important to them, and uncover ideas that resonate and spark conversation.

Lois just published a book titled Beyond Buzz: The Next Generation of Word of Mouth Marketing, and I was lucky enough to get an advance copy (blogging does have its perks). Her goal was to publish a book filled with insightful examples of conversational marketing at work, and I think she achieved that!

I caught up with Lois last week to discuss her new book and what it means to my Buzz Marketing readers. Please give a listen to our podcast, the first in a series I’m planning to conduct with thought leaders in the Web 2.0 space. I hope you enjoy it.

About Lois

Lois Kelly is the founder of Foghound, a communications consulting firm that helps companies more easily talk about their business or products in interesting ways. Clients have included Sun Microsystems, FedEx, and others. Previously, she was senior vice president of The Weber Group, one of the largest PR firms in the world. Her articles have appeared in USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, Brand Week, Advertising Age and other publications.

Labels: Buzz Marketing

Innovation's New Rules

In the past companies have looked outside their organizations to find other companies to partner with for innovation. But acquisitions, alliances, joint ventures and selective outsourcing are simply too rigid and not scalable enough, to drive growth and innovation at a level that will make companies truly competitive in today’s marketplace.

Smart companies are opening up their platforms to treat the world as their marketing department. Take Doritos for example that showcased a great Super Bowl advertisement created by a customer for a cost of just $12.79!

The point is someone outside your organization today knows how to answer your most pressing marketing challenge, or even take advantage of a current market opportunity better than you do. You job is to find them or find a way to work collaboratively with them.

Need more proof: check out P&G who launched its “connect and develop” initiative to help them source 50 percent of their new products and services ideas from outside the company. Can you say Swiffer Dusters or Crest Spin Brushes? Those are just some innovative products that came from outside their organization.

So where is the Buzz? Smart Buzz Marketers have long dispensed with the idea of focus groups in favor of harnessing the Web 2.0 tools to listen, contribute and engage with their customers and prospects.

Labels: Web 2.0

Web 2.0 Killed Coase’s Law

In 1937 Ronald Coase published a paper titled The Nature of the Firm, which explains why many large companies exist:

Firms will tend to expand until the cost of organizing an extra transaction within the firm becomes equal to the costs of carrying out the same transaction in the open market.

The Internet has caused transactions costs to plunge and made it easier for companies to innovate and outsource. Think about all those feisty upstarts that have put up a website to challenge the bricks-and-mortar outfits.

Now add in Web 2.0 tools, which are breeding open platforms, creating new communities to engage customers, and driving brand affinity and all the innovation that comes from truly listening to your customers. The net effect? Coase’s Law is, if not dead, at least mortally wounded.

So what does this all mean? Smart Buzz Marketers are working inside their organizations to increase differentiation. If you think broadly about Coase’s Law, your company may be able to outsource numerous processes, open its platforms and create communities with its customers, thus allowing you to stick to your core. But you better have a highly differentiated or specialized core. Otherwise, you’re headed for commodity status.

Labels: Web 2.0

Using Web 2.0 to accelerate The Tipping Point

Timing is everything in life, and I can’t help but think that Malcolm Gladwell was ahead of his time in 2000 when he published The Tipping Point. If you haven’t read this one, I highly recommend it.

In the book, Gladwell describes some excellent offline examples of how markets “tip” once influencers get a hold of the product. The Tipping Point can dramatically change the sales dynamic virtually overnight.

Now, fast-forward 7 years, and throw in Web 2.0 tools like blogging, podcasting, videocasting community sites and user-generated content. The result: a recipe that can actually help accelerate both the Tipping Point and the return on your marketing investments!

Here are a few ways to think about it …

Community Sites: allow your key brand influencers to have continuous discussions with other community members. As a byproduct of this, marketers get a steady stream of information they can use to better predict product demand and tailor new products.

User Generated Content: allow your mavens to produce content and even advertising – such as the Doritos Super Bowl ads – that help explain and translate your brand to the masses. This is the ideal role for the mavens. But better than that, it lowers your overall cost of content and ad creation.

Blogging, Podcasting, Videocasts: allow your influencers and mavens to more effectively use word-of-mouth marketing to connect to “connectors” who can spread your word virally. This speeds adoption and, again, lowers your overall marketing spending.

So where is the Buzz? Smart Buzz Marketers are looking for ways to harness the power of their brand’s influencers, mavens and connectors. By tapping into these groups, companies can tap into free expertise, as well as a powerful extension of their research department.

Labels: Web 2.0