Dude, It's Marketing

Are Tradeshows Worth It?

Last week, I attended an industry tradeshow as an exhibitor in a partner booth. It's been a while since I was at a tradeshow so this gave me a chance to take a step back and see what had changed in the last few years. Basically, I wanted to see if all the efforts and money put into tradeshows are worth it for a start-up.

As you may remember, tradeshows were all the rage a number of years ago and most companies, including many start-ups, felt they needed to exhibit at them if they were going to be considered a serious player in their particular market. This line of thinking never made a lot of sense to me, especially for a start-up, since the costs are high not to mention the fact a lot has changed in the last few years and there are many new ways to reach your audience.

To really decide if a tradeshow is worth it, you need to figure out what your objective is for attending that show and then measure it carefully. For example, are you looking to launch a new product and get some exposure, are you looking to generate some leads, are you looking to meet with some partners and establish a stronger relationship, are you looking to meet with some key editors or analysts and tell your story, and the list goes on.

I believe the majority of start-ups still do tradeshows to launch a new product and/or generate leads. My experience at this show was that I could wander the floor and not have my badge scanned even once. I don't even remember being approached by any booth staff. The booths that seemed to be busy usually had some show, such as a magician, or were giving away something free, in some cases beer and food which was a hit. While these booths had some good traffic, you have to wonder how many of these people were actually prospects for the company or people looking for free stuff.

This confirms, what I had already thought, in that the majority of companies may spend a lot of money on these shows but then they do not have a plan to reach the right prospect that will ultimately turn into a sales lead. In the end, they are going after a large number of leads regardless of quality but after the show do they capitalize on them? In these cases, the money and effort spent on tradeshows is definitely wasted.

To do a tradeshow in this fashion and make it worth the money invested, I strongly believe it needs to be part of an integrated program so that you are also hitting the prospects before and after the tradeshow using other media and tactics. You also need to clearly identify the top leads from that show and pass those immediately to sales so they can follow-up quickly while the others need to be nurtured until they are sales ready. In the end, I am left with further proof that tradeshows aren't worth it from a lead generation perspective as there are far cheaper and more effective ways to get better leads.

The one advantage that a tradeshow does hold is the ability to meet prospects, partners, or media and analysts face-to-face. This aspect of a tradeshow is extremely hard, if not impossible, to replicate with other marketing tactics and can go a long way in building your credibility with that audience. Building relationships that are started using other tactics can make a tradeshow worthwhile if you can find a way to do it cost-effectively, which as you know is extremely important for a start-up.

For example, setting up a number of meetings with prospects and showing them a demo at the tradeshow can be effective and cost less money than visiting them on a number of different trips. You can also capitalize on the fact that media and analysts attend these industry shows, willing to meet with companies, so you can have several meetings in just a couple of days compared to setting up media tours in several different cities. These are just a couple of ways to do tradeshows cost-effectively. The tradeshow will still cost a lot of money but you are comparing that to not having to make several trips which would also be expensive.

Maybe the best way to do a tradeshow cost-effectively is to try and leverage the presence of one of your partners, like I did at this one, and see if they have a partner pavillion or extra demo station in their booth. Many larger companies have this type of setup and if you can get in their booth, you not only save money (even if they charge you it will be less than having your own booth) but you also get to associate yourself with a trusted and more recognizable brand which is a key step in making your marketing more credible. This approach makes a lot of sense to me for a start-up.

As with other marketing strategies though, it's imporant to know your objective, set some goals and then measure the effectiveness of the tradeshow in reaching these goals. Only then can you decide if the tradeshow is worth it. I encourage others to share their thoughts on tradeshows and any tips to make an existing tradeshow program more effective.

Book Review - Crush It! by @garyvee Inspires

I read Crush It! by Gary Vaynerchuck (@garyvee) a couple of months ago and have been meaning to write a book review on this blog as it's a book that all start-ups must read.

This book is very inspirational as it explores how you need to do things that excite you and failure is OK as you can learn from that as much as success. Now isn't that the perfect recipe for any start-up?

Gary, in his book, talks a lot about passion which is absolutely critical for the success of any start-up. Because of the long hours and hard work you are going to need to put into making your company successful, you need to be doing what you are passionate about or it just won't take off.

Even though Gary, argues that you should do what you are passionate about, he does realizes there is the reality of life and that your family is still the most important thing. I believe this is another key message that start-up founders too often forget so it was a great reminder.

While not as important, for me, as the inspirational aspects of this book, Gary does look at the social media tools and techniques he used to build his family's wine business. This case study has been covered widely as Gary has become an online superstar but it's great to read about it from his experience. 

One concept that he covers, which I agree with wholeheartedly and have written about before, is the need to create great content. Gary sees choosing the right medium, choosing the right topic and telling a story as the keys to creating great content. I couldn't have said it better.

Don't get me wrong, you can definitely learn from the tools and techniques Gary uses to build your start-up, and you could view this book as a how-to guide but then you would be missing the key take-away. For me, the true inspiration found in this book is Gary's message that "passion is everything" and you can build a business that creates wealth with passion and hard work.

For that lesson alone, everyone should read this book. I know it inspired me. What was your key takeaway from Crush It!?

[Image courtesy of Gary Vaynerchuk's Crush It! Book website]

Earn Awards and Endorsements to Build Credibility

A few months ago, I started a series of blog posts about why it’s important to make your marketing credible and how you could do it through thought leadership and creating valuable content. With the refined focus for Dude, It’s Marketing, this series of posts is more relevant than ever, as start-ups need credibility to secure their first few customers and begin to build a brand.

In this post, I’ll look at another way that start-ups can make their marketing more credible, which is to earn awards or endorsements from outside organizations. Outside or third party is obvious as you can’t just create an endorsement for yourself or give yourself an award. You’ll also note that I use the word earn, which is intentional, as there are clearly different types of awards and endorsements in terms of exposure and credibility.

I’ll address the elephant in the room first so we can move on: you can buy awards. There I said it and I’ll admit I’ve done it. I’m not sure how surprising this is to all of you, and I hope it isn’t, but I have seen shocked looks on some peoples faces when I tell them this is possible and that all awards are not created equal. Suffice to say, if you are trying to make your marketing credible, this is not the type of award I’m referring to and that’s why “earn” was used intentionally.

Winning an award that has been judged by a panel of industry experts, who are credible in their own right, can quickly raise the awareness of your company and provide strong third-party validation of your products or services. Even better, if the award is the result of a product review, or some other testing or validation was involved, that will increase the credibility of the award and the impact it will have on your marketing.

When you earn a respected award like these, you definitely want to promote them as they will increase your company’s credibility but make sure you do it in a subtle way. You want to get the word out but work with the third-party that granted the award so that you follow their guidelines as doing anything they don’t approve of will only undermine the award for you and others.

Awards aren’t the only way to make your marketing more credible. Endorsements and references from trusted third parties can be even better than the awards. Think of how much more credible your marketing will be when a well-respected industry analyst talks about how a specific problem needs to be solved and you have a solution. Or, think of an article in a trade publication that is written by an editor or a post in an industry blog that highlights the need for a solution similar to yours. In fact, I want to explore the media and analyst endorsements further in a subsequent blog post because I don’t want to get sidetracked here.

In the end, the very best kind of endorsement is from your customers. Every start-up needs to find their first one or two customers which are always the hardest but also absolutely crucial to success. Once you get someone interested you need to nurture this relationship to make sure the customer is always happy so they will act as a reference for other customers and hopefully provide a public endorsement in the form of a quote or a positive review on a web site.

Now I know every start-up wants to land the tier 1 customer or key influencer and have them issue a news release or do a customer testimonial but in the early days you can’t always just try and hit the grand slam home run. Start-ups are built by securing many smaller victories along the way. If you get the big win early, leverage it as best you can, but don’t wait for that.

In the early days, go after any customer, get your product installed and take whatever form of endorsement they will give you from answering a few questions from a prospect privately, to providing a quote, to writing a positive recommendation on a third-party site. Success breeds success and these small wins will lead to the big customer and testimonial.

Start-ups need these award and endorsements to make their marketing credible just like a prospective employee needs references. Companies want to go with the product or the person that they know someone else has recommended. Some award and endorsements are better than others and will vary by industry. Earn the ones that are respected and that you would be proud to show.

Creating Your Virtual Marketing Team

One of the big challenges many start-ups face is the need to preserve cash before the revenue begins to come in and the company is break-even or cash flow positive. The balancing act is to grow the company to capture significant market share versus making sure the money lasts as long as possible.

Marketing is one of the areas that is likely affected most by this predicament. I'm not saying for a minute that other groups in the company don't face this too but marketing can at the same time help grow the company while spending a lot of money to do it. For that reason, in this economy, companies are tending to grow their marketing spend more slowly although there are exceptions.

While many new social media tactics have allowed companies to generate awareness and build a brand without spending thousands or millions on advertising, you still need people to develop the strategy and run the programs. And for the program to be successful, you need people to generate content, build websites and blogs and do all the other things that need to be done.

Unfortunately, hiring a full marketing team is a luxury many start-ups don't have and may not have for quite some time. So what is a founder to do to kick-start the marketing efforts and put his product on the map? Or, what is the original marketing hire to do when the company wants to ramp up its efforts and you already work around the clock to get things done?

What I've found works quite well and gives you the biggest bang for the buck is to create a virtual team of marketing, communications, web, SEO, PR, and the list goes on, contractors. Basically, find the person who works out of their home and applies their specific skills for a number of companies rather than working full time for one. In some cases, it may be a small agency and small is the key word here as the larger the agency gets, the higher the rates they will charge which hurts the budget you don't have yet.

Initially it may be hard to find these people but they do exist and they are experts in their field while not charging what a large agency might bill you. The other huge advantage of going this route is that the person who pitches you to get your business is very likely, and in some cases definitely, the person doing the work.

Don't underestimate how important this is compared to the bait and switch you might get at the larger agencies. You know what I mean where you get the principals pitching you the business but the most junior person does the work, yet you pay the senior or at the very least inflated rates.

Now don't get me wrong, there will be a time and place where you need an agency and some larger agencies are better than others at servicing start-ups but now is not the time, or even possible, for you to spend large amounts of money.

The other option is to hire a "junior" person in house but the way I look at this is that in the early days do you really need a designer full time or do you need them part time or a few days a month? What about that web developer? You likely only need them full time at the start of the project and then part time as the site launches.

Well, the good news is that there are a lot of people who make a good living working for a number of companies doing something they are experts in. You get top notch talent without having to pay a full time salary for them. It's a win-win situation as they can also make more money as their day rate is higher than if they worked full-time.

Now, if you are the founder and have no one in marketing you will likely need a person in house to manage your virtual team as you have other things to do. If you can afford it that's the way to go. Look for someone who is more of a generalist and strategists rather than expert as they can fill in the blanks as needed and will know what specialists are needed and when.

Building a virtual team is not only a cost-effective way to do your marketing but it can also result in an extremely successful marketing program and put your start-up on the map in ways you can't imagine. You've got a team of free agent, all-stars who excel at specific marketing tactics all working for you. What could be better than that to get you started?

A More Focused Dude, It's Marketing Blog

So I've been away from this blog for a couple of months and I apologize for the absence.

What can I say... life and work sometimes get in the way of side projects like this blog.

The past couple of years I made a resolution to do more blogging only to not quite live up to what I had hoped to accomplish. This time I thought I would wait until February to make that commitment and see if it turns out better. Kidding...

Working more on this blog is still a priority for me and I'll try to find more time to do it. However, during my absence I was also trying to figure out what this blog is really all about. I talk a lot about focus when it comes to marketing and messaging so why don't I apply that here.

The more I thought about things I realized that what I really want this blog to do is help start-ups use marketing to be successful. I believe it's a critical piece and there are many things start-ups can do on the marketing front whether they have a large or small budget. That's what I'm passionate about when it comes to marketing and has been the focus of what I do for much of my career.

So, the more focused Dude, It's Marketing will look at all the different strategies and tactics that can be used to put your start-up on the map. I won't tend to go into any one area too deeply as there are many great blogs that go really deep into specifics of certains areas like blogging, social media, demand generation, etc.

I will touch on all of these areas and more but what I plan to focus on in this blog is what marketing can do for your start-up, show you what works and what doesn't work and help you launch your company so you find yourself on the wave to success.

This blog is for many different people from the founders of a new start-up looking to kick-start their marketing program to the first marketing hire at company, who is trying to do everything with no resources and sometimes just needs a place to find new ideas or confirm what they are doing makes sense. I've been in first marketing hire at a few companies so trust me I know how it feels.

My goal since I started blogging is to share what I've learned from my past and ongoing experiences, explore new ideas with you, learn from your ideas and be a sounding board for your thoughts. So let me know what questions you have or issues you face and we can discuss in the weeks ahead.  

Be a Thought Leader to Make Your Marketing Credible

I recently started a series of blog posts on strategies that you should consider to make your marketing more credible. This week I want to look at the next strategy in more detail which is about becoming a thought leader in your industry.

First off, you need to decide who is the best person to become a thought leader. In some cases, it's the CEO of your company. But in many cases it's the founder, the CTO or some technical expert with many years of experience. In addition to knowledge though, this person needs writing and presentation skills along with a lot of time (more on this later) and true dedication to making the industry better. This role is not for someone who is going to fake it or is not willing to give everything they have to help people so choose carefully.

Finding the right person is not easy but that's only the beginning. Not surprisingly, creating valuable content, the strategy I wrote about previously, is a major step in helping you become a thought leader. In fact, creating new, relevant and useful content is the key to being a thought leader so the two are very intertwined. 

In addition to creating and publishing this content, you need to get out there and share your knowledge within your industry. You can speak at conferences, write articles or columns for industry publications, become involved in industry consortium or organizations, write a book or industry-focused blog, or become a go-to person for editors and get quoted in articles. All of these tactics help spread your content more widely and raise your profile with your target audience.

The important point with all of this is that you need to communicate how to solve your market's problems in new and compelling way so you will get calls from editors, get invited to speak at conferences, or get other opportunities to share your knowledge and content. No one is going to call if you only talk about your product.

Essentially, you need to build a personal brand as a respected expert on your industry's trends, with a deep understanding of the problems your target audience faces, and simple, clear solutions to these problems. There are many great example of individuals that have built strong, personal brands and helped their companies become credible through their thought leadership. 

One last consideration which I alluded to earlier - if you think this strategy is easy to implement and that you, or the person you selected, has the desire to succeed and the knowledge to share, you must realize that becoming a thought leader and building your personal brand takes an insane amount of time and effort.

You'll need to continually develope new content to tight deadlines so you get a book published, create a successful blog or write a column in a key publication. You need to travel to many conferences, in some not so exciting locales, not to mention the time it takes to develop the presentation you deliver. You may be interviewed multiple times about a certain topic and only have a small part of that interview appear in the article. It's all of these tasks and more in addition to your day job, as rarely is the thought leadership role a job in and of itself.

So before you embark on any of the tactics listed above for becoming a thought leader, you need to ask yourself long and hard to see if you have the right person. You need to make sure they have the time, dedication and patience to become a thought leader. If the right person is you, then look in the mirror long and hard to make sure you can handle it.

In the end, being a thought leader is not as glamorous as it first seems but it will bring many rewards for you and your company including making your marketing more credible. And, to all the thought leaders out there that we all learn from, you have my utmost respect and admiration. You make your industry better as a result of your dedication so thank you and please tell us your stories in the comments below.

Create Valuable Content and Make Your Marketing More Credible

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about some of the initial strategies that you should consider to make your marketing more credible. You don't need to execute on all of these strategies to increase your credibility but you do need to pick the ones that will have the greatest impact with your audience. 

Over the next few weeks I want to look at each of these strategies in more detail so you can pick the best ones for your start-up. The first strategy I want to explore is around creating valuable content.

It's no secret that being found is crucial and search loves fresh content. A lot has been written about this topic by the various experts in search, content marketing and inbound marketing. But creating valuable content is not a new strategy.

Content that your audience finds helpful and educational will, and always has, made your marketing more credible. At the same time, content is the cornerstone of all successful marketing campaigns. Prospects will continue to engage with you if they see you as a valuable and trustworthy resource.

What is news is the number of different tactics and content types you can create and how this content can be disseminated to your audience and help you get found.

Previously, your options for creating content were limited to different types of marketing collateral like white papers and application notes plus the content that was posted on your website. Increasingly, more content moved online and webcasts became important along with video and podcasts. 

Now, with social media platforms from Twitter to blogs and YouTube to Facebook, the ability to create and share content is easier than ever. This has clearly led to an explosion of content in different media types with some content being more compelling than others.

And that's what you need to capitalize on to make your marketing more credible. You need to create valuable content. It's not about the platform or the media type.

You need to create content that is more compelling to your target audience because it is educational not promotional, easy to understand not full of jargon, and helps your customer solve their problems. That valuable content can then be easily adapted to the different media types and spread across the different platforms.

Without compelling content, your marketing will not be credible, your company won't be found and you won't have successful marketing campaigns. Creating valuable content is THE key to your marketing success and a strategy you don't want to ignore.

Make Your Marketing Credible

There's no question that it takes time to build a trustworthy brand in the marketplace. So how can a start-up trying to sell their products prove themselves to prospective customers? A big part of this is through credible marketing as I recently discussed. 

In this and other upcoming blog posts, I want to explore some strategies and ideas for how you can make your marketing credible.

Create Valuable Content
Being found is crucial and search loves fresh content. But content that your audience finds helpful and educational will also make your marketing more credible. Prospects will continue to engage with you if they see you as a valuable and trustworthy resource.

Be a Thought Leader
Creating valuable content will also help you become a thought leader in your industry. You can speak at conferences or get quoted in articles to help raise your profile with your target audience. Focus on communicating how you can help solve your market's problems in a compelling way so you will calls from editors to be quoted and invited to speak by conference organizers.

Win Awards from a Third-party
There are clearly different types of awards, but winning one that has been judged by a panel of experts, quickly raises the awareness of your company and provides strong third-party validation of your products or services. Promote these awards to increase your credibility.

Associate Yourself with Trusted Brands
There is a certain truth in the saying that you are judged by the company that you keep. Developing strong partnerships with trusted brands will not only increase your credibility but will also lead to sales opportunities with customers that may not have considered your offerings before.

Build or Participate in a Community
Prospects trust what their peers and/or friends say most of all. You need to find the relevant communities where these conversations are taking place and then listen and participate in a helpful way. In industries where there is no focused community, you could start one and invite other companies to join you as well.

The good news is that you don't need to execute on all of these strategies to increase your credibility. You need to pick the ones that will have the greatest impact with your audience. The even better news is that with the multitude of tactics and tools available to marketers you can definitely implement many with a limited budget.

This post contains some of the initial strategies that you should consider to make your marketing more credible. I will continue to add to the list and explore how to execute on them in more detail over coming weeks. In the meantime, let me know what you would do or have done to make your marketing more credible.

No Competition equals no market

Have you ever heard a start-up, or other technology company, claim that there product or service is so revolutionary that they don't have any competitors? Well, I know I have more times than I can count.

I was reading an article recently called Twelve Ways to Ace a Product Demo–or at Least Avoid Flopping by Harry McCracken where he lists one of the twelve ways as "Don’t claim you have no direct competitors." This reminded me of how often I hear that phrase so I thought I'd talk about it further even though I alluded to that point when I talked about the need to Differentiate Your Message.

So often, when I'm developing messages for a company or prepping someone for a media interview, I ask  who is their competition and more often than it really should happen, especially with an early stage company, the answer is that there is no competition because there product is new and so innovative.

The reality is if that was actually true this would also mean there is no market and if I was an investor I would thank them for their time and move on. Do you really think these entrepreneurs believe there is no market for their product? That seems unlikely so why do they believe there is no competition?

What I think most people do mean, when asked this question, is that there is no one doing exactly what they do in the same way they do it. That may be the case, but you need to look at how other offerings  solve a similar problem as that's how your audience or market will judge your product. You need to identify these indirect competitors, as some call it, so you can use them as a frame of reference but clearly differentiate from them.

Because it's all about how you solve a given problem, I can safely say if you have no competition you also have no market since that would mean there is no problem to solve and I challenge you to show me a successful product that doesn't solve a problem. I guess in some extreme scenarios you may be solving a problem that people don't know they have but that presents a whole new set of issues as you need to educate and convince your target market that they have the problem in the first place then. In the end, it's better to see your competitors for who they are and spend your efforts in differentiating your solution.

As McCraken goes on to say in the context of product demos, "claiming you have no competitors makes you look clueless, or full of misplaced hubris, or both." No one wants to look like that so the simplest way to avoid it is to make sure you clearly answer the question with how you solve the problem in a unique way than these would be competitors.

Don't fight the reality here, identify your competitors and create a compelling message that differentiates you and communicates how you are better. Your next product demo and all you marketing will be better for it.

Credible Marketing: Oxymoron or New Reality?

In the past, there is little doubt that most would have said putting the word credible in front of marketing is definitely an oxymoron much like jumbo shrimp or organized mess. Instead, people would have used words like creative or talk about marketing being about building awareness, creating perceptions or generating leads.

Today, with the advent of new technologies and social media I've heard words such as relationships and engagement used to describe what marketing is all about. While I believe these words to be accurate and that it's nearly impossible to only come up with one word, I thought I'd throw another word out there for consideration: Credible. Put another way: does you marketing lead to credibility for you company? Or more simply: Is your marketing credible?

While maybe not as exciting or flashy as some other words. Credible can be defined as "worthy of belief or confidence; trustworthy." In today's skeptical environment, would this not be a great attribute for your brand and marketing efforts to have?

There remains a tendency for many marketing or advertising campaigns to really stretch the truth and make claims that are too far from reality. There is also a frightening tendency to over promise and under deliver. When you deceive your customers in some way, it's so easy for them to tell the world through social media what issues they had with your product or service.

If this happens, then all future marketing campaigns will be viewed with a high degree of skepticism that will be difficult to overcome. Think about it. If you buy a product that promises to deliver X and it does not, then you are very unlikely to believe their next claim even if it's 100% true. Similarly, if you miss a meeting or call with a prospect then they are unlikely to take your call in the future.

Ensuring everything your company does is trustworthy, or credible, is crucial if you want to build lifelong relationships with your customers. That's why I argue that you need credible marketing before you can engage prospects, develop relationships, and create brands that people trust.

Do you think credible marketing is an oxymoron or the new reality?

Frequency and Different Tactics

What tactics you use form a key part of your lead or demand generation campaign. But, is it more effective to use the same tactic multiple times or to use different tactics fewer times each to increase response rates. For example, should you send 5 emails to the same target list or should you send an email, send a direct mail piece, run a Facebook ad, run a Google PPC ad and do a webinar targeted at the same audience?

It's well understood that targeting the same list multiple times does increase response rates. However, are you still limited if you rely on only one tactic or channel to reach your audience?

I believe that you definitely need to use multiple tactics for better lead generation. At the same time though, these tactics need to be implemented as part of an integrated campaign. You need to use the same messaging, imagery and related calls to action across these tactics so that you are in effect hitting the same audience multiple times.

Basically, the best way to increase response rates would be to do a combination of tactics but use some of them multiple times, depending on your budget of course. If we look at the example used at the outset, instead of 1 email being used 5 times or 5 different tactics being used once each, we should send 2 direct mails, 2 emails and host one webinar for example. That way, we are hitting the same audience multiple times but also using different tactics and media for the widest possible effect.

While I've focused on outbound marketing tactics so far in this blog post, you should always make search part of your marketing campaign so that people can always find you. What I mean here is not just the SEO of your web site but adding terms and corresponding landing pages that are campaign specific. You should also consider including some social media tactics such as Facebook, Twitter, and others, if your audience spends time on these social networks.

The beauty of search and many of these social media tactics is that they will not take up the same budget that many traditional tactics may have cost. Granted they will take up a lot more of your time but in many companies this is easier to get than additional budget. Therefore, you can add even more of these tactics to the mix we outlined above if you budget is small but you're willing to invest more time.

Whatever the tactics, this marketing mix is a crucial part of the planning of your marketing campaign so don't sell it short. Make sure you find the right tactics that fit your audience and not just jump on the latest trend or what you did before. And, make sure you measure and look at the results of previous campaigns using these tactics so you can continue to improve your mix.

Integrated marketing campaigns are very effective and I'll talk more about this in subsequent posts. To increase response and ROI though, these campaigns need to use multiple tactics and media and run multiple times so the message and call to action hits, and gets through, to your audience.

Why Demand Generation?

While demand generation is not the marketing buzz word it was a couple of years ago, it still must be the cornerstone of your marketing efforts. But, it is also crucial to realize that demand generation has changed significantly with the advent of social media and the decline of some traditional marketing tactics, like tradeshows and direct marketing.

I use demand generation and lead generation interchangeably quite often but I want to highlight the point here that, whatever the term, this is about more than just generating as many leads as possible. Demand generation is about reaching the right prospects, at the right time, with the right message, to turn them into customers.

Demand generation involves creating awareness of your solution, qualifying the leads, sending the sales-ready leads to sales, nurturing the others by building relationships with them until they are ready to buy, while working with sales to move the qualified leads along the funnel until the deal is closed.

A successful demand generation program combines the appropriate marketing tactics (more on this in a subsequent post) with sales tools and online presences that result in increased revenue for your product of service. Demand generation must be measureable, continually optimized and entirely in sync with the sales objectives of your organization.

If this doesn't sound like the marketing you are familiar with then you need to get with the times. While the program and tactics may change, the need in every organization for demand generation never goes away. In good times and bad. As marketing tactics and technologies come and go. Demand generation needs to adapt but always remain focused on the prize of getting more sales for your product.

Differentiate Your Message

Earlier I wrote about the need for simple and consistent messaging for your company.  But there's another key concept that must be incorporated into your message for it to resonate with your target audience. You must differentiate your message as well.

Even the simplest message will not be remembered if the audience can't understand how you're different from the competition. It's as confusing as a complicated message because in the end your message needs to not only be understood but must also set you apart from other solutions in your marketplace.

When you develop your message, you need to ask who you are competing with and what makes you different from them. However, when you answer these questions you need to still be clear and concise. At the same time, you need to ensure the difference you are communicating is also meaningful to that audience. Very few people are going to switch to your solution if you are only 2x better. In many cases, they may not even switch if you're 10x better.

Most important, to differentiate your message, you need to explain how you solve their problem better than your competition, which may be by being faster or more powerful, but it could also be by making life easier or more efficient for that organization.

Now, I know many startups believe they don't have any competition because their product is soooo innovative. But, in the eyes of your audience there is always competition because even if your product is new they have been solving the problem in a different manner so far. This is quite often called indirect competition and in many cases it is more important to differentiate from those solutions than the direct ones.

Also, keep in mind that you do want competition because if you don't, you may be targeting a market that doesn't exist, is too small, or you may be solving a problem that the audience doesn't know they have which will cause other issues from a communications perspective.

In the end, your goal from a message and branding perspective is to own a space in the mind of your target audience. This space must be clearly defined so they can put you in the right bucket. And then, you must clearly differentiate your message from the competition in that bucket or a similar one. Together, a simple, consistent and differentiated message is the key to your communications.

Defining the Stages of the Sales Funnel

If the sales funnel is the heart of lead generation, then defining the stages of the sales funnel is critical to a good healthy heart. While some (it should be all) organizations have embraced the concept of the sales funnel, the stages selected and what makes a lead be in a certain stage vary widely. In an ideal world, there would be a common definition that all marketing and sales organizations could just implement much like development organizations implement standard protocols. But we know this is not an ideal world. In fact, many of us know that these standards take forever to define so you can only imagine how long it would take to get the sales funnel defined in a standards body since in many cases marketing and sales in ONE organization can't agree.

This last point is what absolutely needs to be fixed if any lead generation program, and for that matter any organization, is to be successful. Sales and marketing must agree on the stages of the funnel, what defines each stage and use the same terminology across the entire funnel. This is definitely a tall order and if you're in the midst of defining these stages I feel for you. However, I can't stress enough how critical it is for each stage to be clearly named and defined and then have each lead be ranked with this criteria in mind. If this doesn't happen at the outset, and I've seen it many times, marketing and sales will become increasingly frustrated and always point the finger at each other about why the lead generation programs aren't successful.

I really wish I could post a clear definition for all the stages of the funnel but the reality is that it varies for each organization and type of sale. It is clear that the prospects that marketing identifies by collecting information about them are the first stage of the funnel. While some would dismiss this stage as not important since theses leads are not  sales-ready leads, it is still crucial to define this stage in terms of the criteria that needs to be collected since these prospects will be the sales-ready leads in the future.

To define the other stages, I propose that marketing listen carefully to sales and ask them to outline what they see as an ideal account. Then take as many of these attributes as possible and use that critieria as the basis for the next stage in the funnel which I normally refer to as A leads. Another set of key criteria involves BANT (budget, authority, need, timeframe), and while it's not always easy to collect, it definitely needs to be a key part of the next stage which is what I call qualified leads, or sales-ready leads. The next couple of stages really depend on the target audience, the technical nature of the product and the sales process involved in closing deals. Quite often these are called technical closure and business negotiation, but may go by many names, and may also involved some business case closure or trial stages as well.

In the end, and I've said it many times, the number and name of the stages are not what's important. What is important is that marketing and sales agree on ALL of it and also what it takes to move a lead from one stage to the next. While funnels will vary between different industries and organization, it must NOT vary within the organization.

The Heart of Lead Generation

Without a doubt the sales funnel is at the heart of lead generation. The understanding of how you move leads through the funnel is crucial to any successful marketing campaign and more importantly to the company's ability to sell more products. But before we talk about that process, the first step is for sales and marketing to work together and define the sales funnel for their organizations.

In general, the stages of the sales funnel may include: prospects, leads, qualified leads, serious opportunities, trials or evals, call-to-close phase and closed deals. And while the concept is similar across most sales processes, it's imperative that each stage be clearly defined and agreed upon by all parties so that it can be consistently applied, analyzed and adjusted as appropriate. Above all else, agreement on the stage where marketing passes leads to sales and the definition of these qualified leads is imperative. I'll have more on that in a subsequent post.

Once the stages are defined, then it's important to understand the number of leads from all prospects (10-20%) and the ratio of qualified leads to closed deals (15:1-20:1) so that marketing can generate sufficient leads to meet the revenue requirements for the year. Of equal importance, you need to understand the time it takes to move from one stage to the next (1 to 2 months per stage depending on market maturity).

While everyone would love these ratios and timelines to be smaller and shorter for their industry, I've seen time and time again that these are quite consistent in technology companies and can be even longer when selling to certain verticals. This means it's pointless to use unrealistic ratios or timelines when planning but only adjust them when you have concrete metrics and evidence built by carefully tracking this information in addition to other ROI metrics.

Since I strongly believe the sales funnel is the heart of lead generation there will be several additional posts on this topic. For now, it's important to understand that the concepts mentioned here are more scientific than most traditional marketers would like to admit so you need to accept them and work for improvement rather than ignore the process.

Targeting the Right Audience

You would think that everyone knows that the more targeted your message, the better the response, and the more successful your marketing or lead generation campaign. But you would be surprised how often a shotgun approach is taken to communicating your message to anyone and everyone.

To better target your marketing and communications efforts, you must carefully identify your audience or audiences. Identifying this target audience is not a trivial task, since the more specific you can be the better, but I would recommend you start by looking at the audiences you have been successful with selling to, looking for verticals where your product provides the most value, and talking to your sales force to find out the profile of their ideal prospect. The more details you can collect here the better in order to build a prospect profile.

Then it's a matter of developing the value proposition for that audience, figuring out a compelling offer and then and finding the best way and vehicle to target this prospect profile. I'll go into details on all of these area in subsequent posts but for now I want to focus on the media aspect. 

The good news is that there are multiple media types and publishers that can be used to target your audience. The advent of social networks has made this list even longer but just because there are more ways to communicate your message doesn't mean the right people are  listening if you don't target the right audience. If you're going to use Twitter, Facebook, MySpace and the many other networks, make sure your audience lives in that space or it's wasted effort.

Similarly, you need to find a publisher that has the capabilities to be very specific and will work with you to target your audience. If you're using a publisher that targets a general audience then you may be paying for an audience that's too broad and not targeted a not unless they can help your focus your efforts. What I find is better is to look at some of the more topic specific and/or vertical-focused publications because you can likely find one that also targets your audience with some research.

In the end, any successful marketing campaign can be even better by targeting the right audience by developing a specific audience profile, then formulating a simple and compelling message for that audience and finding the right media to communicate with them. While this isn't easy, it is possible and your marketing program will reap the benefits of this approach.

The NEW Dude, It's Marketing

I'll start this blog with a confession... It's been started before but I've never been happy with what it said or contributed to it enough. I also started it on Blogger and found many of the limitations frustrating. So instead of just copying that blog over, I've decided to start over but will repost any of the more relevant posts with some updates so that it fits this new one.  

By day, I am a seasoned technology marketing executive with over 12 years experience at four different start-ups and one publicly-traded company where I’ve created some very successful and memorable marketing campaigns. At all five companies, I’ve learned a lot about what works and what doesn’t work from a marketing perspective. Experience as well as making your share of mistakes (come on we’ve all made some) do that to a person.

More important for this blog, is that I’ve seen and heard a lot of “marketing ideas” from people who think they know how to do marketing because it’s so simple that anyone can become a successful marketeer overnight. As a marketeer, I'm sure you've seen and heard that many times. You’d also be surprised how many times I’ve seen companies build marketing plans that are very tactical in nature (i.e. lets go to 10 tradeshows, do 5 direct email campaigns this year, and we’ll throw in a bunch of money for PR to do news releases). To make matters worse, these tactics are done in isolation as one-offs. In other cases, companies believe marketing is just creating a flashy website or pretty powerpoint slides. Sound familiar?

At the same time, marketing is undergoing a fundamental transformation with the advent of social media from Facebook to Twitter that is easily the biggest change since online/digital/Internet marketing began. The result is that many of the tactics used before have to change as well.

In the end, the purpose of marketing is still the same: it has to be a strategic activity that is all about getting more customers for your products and generating revenue for the organization. Together, in this blog we'll see what's needed to catch your wave to success because... Dude, it’s marketing!