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B-to-B Firms Need Content Marketing

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Not everyone using device for notes! #converge...

Not everyone using device for notes! #convergesouth via soulati

You’re a business-to-business firm; perhaps a mid-sized business with no marketing team. You know you need marketing; however, beyond setting up a basic one-dimensional website you’re unsure what comes next.

Sound familiar?

It should and does, most likely. There are many organizations, firms, companies and business units scrambling to piece blended marketing together in order to communicate and sell to business audiences.

While there’s research everywhere saying B-to-B marketing is blending and blurring with B-to-C marketing, there are still firms that will never market to mass audiences of consumers. There are still businesses that will remain steadfast with its services offering and sell to other businesses and never to consumers.

It’s this type of business, often with an entrepreneurial approach I’m thinking about in this article today.

In order to elevate the firm’s brand and earn exposure, there are a variety of program elements to recommend. There’s one approach, however, that is the strongest recommendation and that’s content marketing.

Power Up The Blog

The first best recommendation is to launch a firm blog. The blog is owned media; you control the message and frequency of the writing. It can become the traffic hub for all types of content creation, including:

• Educational information
• Q&A with a guest
• What Is…Series
• Themes explored and explained
• Guest profiles/features
• Breaking news
• Events announcement
• Recap of a presentation + SlideShare deck
• New product launches

Share on Google+ and LinkedIn

Every B-to-B firm should claim its brand identity on Google+ business page and LinkedIn company page. The owners of the firm need to develop personal profiles on each and begin building their networks on these social channels.
All the blog content being written should get shared on these channels alongside industry articles relevant to the firm’s services and interest.

Blend Digital With Content Marketing

When we suggest digital marketing, it means developing content to generate leads. This content can be free downloadable material like an e-book, white paper or research. It can also be a thought piece on a related issue or perhaps a tip sheet or news bulletin.

There are landing pages developed to encourage people to submit an email for the content, and your firm starts creating a list with which to engage in the future.

It’s not as simple as it sounds; however, when you imagine the vast number of users combing the web for information, your content marketing has to be highly useful. Instead of giving it away free, add an email capture form and consider how you’ll keep people interested with your informational content.

Consider a Message Map

When you’re unsure of how to present the firm to external audiences, there is a nifty tool called a Message Map that helps provide answers to all the 5Ws of the firm. A Message Map is helpful in extrapolating answers from executives and getting approval from leadership on how best to position a company going forward.

This book provides a step-by-step approach on how to Message Map. You can consider its purchase right here https://MessageMapping.co.

Message-Mapping-Book.jpg

https://messagemapping.co

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Is The USPS Killing Direct Marketing?

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postage-stamps.jpgThe U.S. Postal Service (USPS) lost $3.9 billion the first nine months of 2013, according to BtoB in its Oct. 15, 2013 edition. The USPS has a proposal before Congress to raise first-class postage to $.49 from its current $.46, a 6.5 percent hike.

Direct marketers are suffering from the USPS’s “precarious financial condition,” and the two leading organizations paying careful attention to how this proposal wends its way toward possible approval are the Direct Marketing Association and the Catalog Mailers Association.

The article in BtoB providing the fodder for this post points also to internet taxation and data security issues as culprits to direct marketing’s pain points.

Postcard Mailings Still Viable

When you think of direct marketing, most thoughts turn to catalogs. The colorful, modelicious glam pages much like magazines selling everything from personal care, attire and furniture to hardware and technology are what we love to flip through, dog ear the pages and circle items for a wish list.

Think about postcards. How often do you get a postcard in the mail for the appointment for the dentist, vet, or next hair cut? How about the insurance agents, landscapers and roofers wanting your attention via a postcard?

There are many businesses using postcard mailings as the core of their lead generation and customer service. I, for one, count on the postcard from my dentist reminding me I have a six-month checkup coming up. Then, they call me to remind me, too. (I love that kind of personal touch.)

Postage for postcards would increase as well.

I recently had the privilege of working with an entrepreneur in Dallas who is a former architect. Chuck Frazier has put his energy and financial backing into a company he founded called SalesWave. He and his smart IT team have spent about five years on the backend of two postcard design, printing and mailing solutions for enterprises and small office, home office customers.

I got to write the news release for him right here to officially launch CRMail for those businesses that support six CRM solutions like Salesforce. For those smaller businesses without an existing CRM solution, SalesWave has created a SOHO product to help streamline postcard design, printing and mailing from a 10-step, time-intensive process down to minutes.

Is Direct Marketing Dead?

It’s the question people love to pose, and the answers in response are weighted with passion. I love this piece in Huffington Post assuring everyone that direct marketing is not dead; in fact, it’s more powerful than email in response rates.

I like this article Randy Bowden posted on Google+ which boasts a confusing title that direct marketing is dead, long live direct marketing. Apparently, the author blames it on branding.

Consumers & Postage

Is there anything we as consumers can do if postage increases again?

More people will do online bill pay; however, I recently had a negative AT&T experience with a paperless statement (they switched me without my knowledge) making my bill tardy. When I got the call, I said pay two months via automatic funds withdrawal.

More than eight days later, I got another email saying I still owed the money. AT&T said they pinged my bank and nothing happened; I called the bank and they said they never got a ping for payment, so I called AT&T again and wasted more time on the phone. The customer service agent with AT&T was great and fixed my issue; however, where is the trust in this process?

As a consumer, I’d rather keep control of my money and write checks. Call me antiquated; however, I don’t like all these companies up in my business, especially when I can’t trust that a permitted transaction went awry causing me a headache.

Here’s hoping the companies that rely on postcard mailings for their livelihood will be able to afford the postage to continue sending customers and prospects helpful postcard mailings so we know when our teeth need cleaning. Here’s hoping that companies will also consider SalesWave solutions for all their postcard mailing needs. Grin.

Content Marketing: Can You Master It?

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By Cision

The online world is awash in content; it’s ubiquitous, invading our every sense and cell of brain power.

Are you contributing to the torrential downpour of words to ether? Are you doing it well and have you mastered it?

It’s anyone’s guess who has mastered content marketing; in fact, I proffer no one. If you are a blogger, then your mastery of content marketing is slim to none, as blogging takes years of daily learning and there’s always more to figure.

The biggest culprit in content marketing is Google. Look every day at Google’s announcements, and you’ll find yet another app destroyed and algorithm rejiggered much to the chagrin of we onliners who think we’re grasping the solutions only to be dismantled with one flick.

Last Friday, I was keynote of the content marketing track at ConvergeSouth. This presentation truthfully made me ponder the meaning of content marketing and where people are headed on this journey.

Do you know?

In this SlideShare deck just below, I provide you with several ponderances:
1. Timeline of a Blogger – Years 1, 2, and 3 and what you may expect (from my POV, of course)
2. Content Marketing definition, data and ideas for content
3. Marketing Automation tools

Content Syndication

A successful content marketer needs tools to syndicate content. In a test campaign I did with Cision Content Marketing Suite, five of my blog posts were amplified to the Washington Times, USA Today and Bloomberg. In 13 days, I saw my traffic rise exponentially with 90 percent unique visitors. It’s a fantastic solution and for serious bloggers wondering about what’s next, this is a grand opportunity and especially for company blogs.

Attend a FREE Webinar

Are you familiar with Cision? It is the mainstay of public relations solutions for we who do media relations. Over the years (and I launched my career with Bacons, the precursor to Cision), the company has methodically innovated additional solutions and tools for public relations and companies to boost engagement and execute more systematically with an eye on results.

You’re invited to join me and Heidi Sullivan, SVP of Digital Content with Cision at 2 p.m. ET on Halloween, Oct. 31, 2013 for a discussion, What Is The Future Of Content?

It’s free to sign up, and based on my call with Heidi yesterday to plan our approach, there’s going to be a lot for you to hear.

Here’s the link:

If you have your own thoughts about content and its future alongside yours, please share in comments. Maybe you’ll sign up for the webinar and post your question in the online chat feature during our session?

Buy Message Mapping E-Book

Lastly, did you hear I launched my second book?

Message Mapping: How to Sizzle External Communication with a #RockHot™ Tool for Leaders

You can see why you need this business guide and get your copy (PDF ebook) via https://MessageMapping.co.

How To Message Map E-Book Debut

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Message-Mapping-Book.jpgWhat is a message map?

In Jayme Soulati’s (that’s me) new e-book, Message Mapping: How to Sizzle External Communication with a #RockHot Tool for Leaders, I explain the concept of message mapping and why any company small, solo, mid-sized, or large needs this tool.

The e-book, available only at https://MessageMapping.co, also provides a step-by-step example of a message mapping exercise for a fictitious company. Readers are walked through the exercise to create messages that form the foundation of external communication.

Message maps are born in the media relations field within the profession of public relations. I have been doing message maps for 20 years for a broad brush of companies in all shapes and sizes with expertise from Chicago’s agencies.

Those people who work in the crisis communications field also use message maps to ensure that spokespeople are on message and less apt to stray from the approved messaging platform.

In this era of social media, companies may be in the spotlight of journalists less. This doesn’t mean preparation is not required or necessary; to the contrary. Spokespeople need to be ultra prepared today to ensure they can answer questions from many different channels. Having a message map is the first step in ensuring that comfort.

My book teaches marketers, public relations executives, business owners, and more how to work with a facilitator, the steps in the process, how messages are developed, and finally the step-by-step process to making a message map come alive.

Buy my e-book now, right here.

It’s a tool every company needs for copywriting, social media, media relations, website development, internal communications, and more.

Big Thanks

A team was instrumental in bringing this book to market. Without the help and expertise of Scott Quillin of New England Multimedia; Glen Moyes of Glen Moyes Design; and, Jenn Whinnem, this book would still be a seedling. My heartfelt thanks.

Two Books

Within six months, I have authored two books.

The first, “Writing with Verve on the Blogging Journey,” available as an e-book or softcover via Amazon or Greyden Press, is a three-year collection of blog posts about blogging. It was a book that needed to be published first, and it showed the steps through the world of self-publishing.

Message Mapping: How to Sizzle External Communications with a #RockHot Tool for Leaders, is not available via Amazon or a publisher’s store. It is only available on https://MessageMapping.co in an e-commerce setting.

Once I understand more about this journey in the online world of e-commerce, I will have more learnings to share with you. For today, I’m so happy to launch my second book in 2013, and I’m hopeful it will be a hit for the business world.

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Dermatology, Advertising And Coupons

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Let’s face it (heh), who really goes to a dermatologist without any reason except concern for ungraceful aging? Unless you have a coupon, of course.

We’re living in the coupon era; I even see guys with wads of coupons in hand at the grocery. They might even be better coupon users than females. The point is, coupons are ubiquitous.

Thus, when I saw promoting the addition of a new dermatologist and a coupon for a FREE cosmetic consultation, I called right away. Maybe it was time for me to call in the experts and see how much sun damage and “fine lines and wrinkles” were invading my face space.

When I called to schedule the appointment with Darlene, I shared that I had a free consultation coupon and would it be usable. The nice lady said yes. The appointment was rescheduled three times, and off I went today only to take a look at the coupon and find NO address on the advertisement. Stupid.

The five receptionists asked for my insurance card and I said I had a coupon for a free consult. That’s when the fun began.

Apparently, the free consultation wasn’t for the new dermatologist who had just joined the free consultation was for him (if I wanted more boobs, a tummy tuck, cancer removal, or another wonderful procedure).

I was confused and asked for clarification and pointed to the descriptors in the ad. That’s when I needed to explain that I wasn’t there for moles, lesions, warts, skin cancer or anything else they could bill my horrid insurance for. I was just there to get a professional to tell me what I ought to be doing for my skin to attempt to age gracefully.

Finally, after about six minutes, the woman returned and said, “She’ll see you for a cosmetic consultation.”
Wait. I thought that was what you billed to the insurance company and it was for procedures, etc.? Isn’t that what you just said? Nope, that was medical and that gets billed to the insurance. Okay, thanks. Bah-bye; time to get back to work and remove myself from the circus of confusion stemming from:
An advertisement that was not written properly
An advertisement that was not going to be honored although the scheduler said it would upon making an appointment

Dermatology Practice Marketing Tips

  • When dermatology practices decide to print advertisements, please test them with prospective patients first. In fact, you might even hire a professional to copywrite for you.
  • Stop trying to write a book in a 4×6 advertisement; you confuse prospects and no one in your office can even interpret the ad.
  • When the prospective patient arrives for the consult, honor the coupon! It could not have hurt that brand new dermatologist to come out of her cave and say hello and apologize for the confusion.
  • It was obvious you didn’t want my business although I alluded to the fact that I didn’t need to carry around all this weight on my chest….hmm, a smart receptionist would’ve perked up to resurrect the potential relationship, right?
  • The FREE part of the coupon didn’t say it was ONLY for Dr. Reeder; if you’re welcoming new providers into a practice, the FREE consult should be for anyone named in the ad (there were three professionals in the ad).
  • A new customer walks in your office for an appointment lured in by your marketing program. Should you fight over the fine print and your interpretation of the coupon versus how that potential patient is reading your poorly written advertisement?
  • Or, should you head back to the cave and politely ask the new provider you’re promoting in the advertisement to see Jayme Soulati, professional blogger, marketer and public relations professional, who may turn into a long-term customer with medical needs one day?

EXACTLY.

No matter, I’m back to work and writing about it so I can put that experience behind me. I think I’ll schedule more time with an esthetician instead.

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