I learned everything about b2b marketing from infomercials!

I learned everything I need to know about b2b marketing from watching Infomercial!

OK, so I'm spinning a bit of a lie.  I didn't learn lead scoring or progressive profiling or email design from infomercials, but in the spirit of catchy subjects, that seemed to work well.  The point is, however, that we can learn a lot of valuable and practical strategy for developing b2b marketing campaigns by paying close attention to the structure, language and flow of an infomercial, particularly the short ones (7-15 minutes).  Forget the late night 30-minute sessions.  I'm talking Sham-Wow, OxiClean and Ginsu Knives.  These 10-15 minute vignettes are constructed with a great deal of planning, purpose and the single minded goal of getting the sales.

Our b2b marketing campaigns can learn a lot from the late great Billy Mays. One of the consistencies you will find in any infomercial is that they are crafted  very much the same way as a typical b2b pitch is crafted.  Whether the pitchmen are selling cleaners, onion choppers or the next great cell phone holder, they are adhere to the a strict format in selling their products

• Situation
• Pain 
• Solution

This simplified version of the popular "Solution Selling" model found in ever b2b company, is carried out with rigorous process and attention to detail in the infomercial.  Each infomercial begins much the same way.  Let's take the fictional OnionChopper2000 as an example.  The infomercial opens with a frustrated cook attempting to cut raw onions with small knife (situation).  The cook is frustrated, the onion is making their eye's tear (pain) and the announce clearly states the problems with the current solution to onion chopping.

Enter the OnionChopper2000.  It is the solution to the pain and situation created by the lack of adequate onion chopping tools.  The infomercial dazzles the viewer with the numerous ways one may chop an onion (or pretty much anything in your fridge).  The features/benefits of the OC2000 are clearly stated and the problems each feature solves are directly related to the various pain points established in the situation portion of the infomercial.

Now, as a direct marketer for many years, I watch these shows with professional curiosity. I also respect the producers for creating a natural pain/solution chain in 20 minutes.  This is what every good b2b salesperson should aspire towards.  Beyond being a good lesson for a b2b salesperson, these vignettes also provide a blueprint for how b2b marketers should approach our campaigns.

Situation
Pain
Solution

In breaking down these 3 areas, we can relate how each can and should apply to creating good campaigns that illicit high response and lead conversion for our companies.

Situation:  What is the situation our clients face that causes business (financial) pain?  Let's take the healthcare space an example.  If you sell to hospitals, you must understand that the "Situation" (not to be confused with the endearing Jersey  Shore character) hospitals face is about money and the ever-changing regulations to reimbursement from both government and insurers.  This "Situation" causes pain for your prospective buyers.  This pain creates need.  The need is for solutions that maximize their reimbursement without sacrificing patient care.

In creating campaigns for this market, you have to build your campaign around this model.   Campaigns must paint the picture of the problem and quickly tie the solution to the pain you provide, caused by the situation.  Simple examples are a white paper outlining best practices for managing claim denials from Medicare.  The situation outlined in the campaign is "Reimbursement Changes Increase Denials".  The solution is providing a software application that manages claims more effectively by incorporating new regulations.

Too often, marketers fall into a trap that a lot of junior b2b sales persons fall into.  Show up and throw up is a phenomena wherein a salesperson comes to a meeting, throws up a powerpoint and blindly presents all of the great things that their solution can do for the prospect....without asking questions and identifying the situation/pain.

When designing an email campaign or a landing page, for example, how many times have you over-designed the email or the landing page to include a not-so-small subset of everything on your website?  I have seen this time and again in PPC landing pages in particular.  The marketer behaves like a dog chasing a car....when you catch it, you're so excited you don't know what to do with it!  The same holds true for a landing page or email....you design because you're excited someone has actually opened it or clicked on it...and you try to cram tons of extraneous information into it.  Your campaign will suffer because it is not focused on the task at hand. 

It is much more productive to create several micro-campaigns than one big all encompassing one.  Reason being is the conversion rates on the emails, landing pages, direct mail will be much higher when the message is focused on the 3 elements mentioned above.

So, before you hit send on that next campaign.....watch and infomercial first.....and take heed to just how focused the messaging is on those somewhat corny....yet extremely effective advertising vignettes!  And don't laugh...they're on TV because they MAKE MONEY.

Email marketing's evolution challenges some popular notions about new marketing channels

So email marketing is a dying channel? Social media has taken over and now rules the roost?  Not so fast.
In the trenches, where actual marketing and lead gen occurs, outside of the scope of industry articles and blogs that state otherwise, email is growing in use at an exponential rate among b2b marketers.

While the days of generalist mass email blasts are going the way of the dinosaur, the use of email as a nurture marketing and content delivery vehicle are rapidly expanding.  We may not see a similar volume of email, but the usage by savvy marketers is certainly growing fast.  This post explores the new ways smart b2b marketers are using email to increase their lead conversion and improve their overall marketing  presence.

Get personal - the b2b marketer should rethink email marketing firstly from the perspective of what it is attempting to communicate to the potential buyer.  Personalization in email is not a new concept.  Marketers have been applying personalization to email for some time.  So what do I mean when I say "get personal"?  I mean get personal in the the content you deliver and how you deliver it with email.  Go beyond dropping the person's name/company in the email and start to deliver the right content to the right people at the right time.  That is the essence of getting personal in email marketing.   In order to execute a more personalized chain of communications, you need data.  What data you needs depends on how automated you want to go or how deep your content catalog is.  A simple example is you have solutions that support 3 vertical market segments.  A lead comes to your website and downloads a white paper relevant to Vertical segment 1.  You will then execute a series of follow up emails (usually automatically based on triggers) that provide supporting and relevant content.
A typical email trigger series may look like this:

Action - Download vertical white paper 1

• Trigger 1 - "Thank you for accessing white paper - cross promote white paper 2"
• Trigger 2 - "Thanks for accessing white paper - here is a link for product data sheet for vertical 1
• Trigger 3 - "Promote webinar/event relevant to vertical 1

In this example, you will need the basic name/email and the information about the asset that was downloaded.  this information will then trigger the subsequent communications.

Save Time and Money with Triggers
Trigger-based emails are becoming extremely popular amongst savvy marketers.  The reason is simple, Triggers never sleep.  While you're on vacation, in a meeting, at a trade show, home sick....whatever, you're triggers are sitting there, faithfully doing what was once a rote task that you had to be there for.  Well, I'm here to tell you that while they may sound simple, trigger-based emails are not as easy as an auto-responder.  Like any good campaign, they should have expected outcomes, planning and follow up actions.  Trigger-based emails, like the ones found in SalesFUSION, are often tied to the website.  You're website is presenting content out to the masses.  Someone comes in and accesses an asset.  The trigger-based email fulfills the asset automatically, then waits a day, thanks them, waits a few more days, thanks them again.

The importance of triggers cannot be understated.  They allow the marketer to always be on.  They also enable you to make actionable the content on your website.  You can also ensure that all leads that hit your website are treated equally, at least initially.  This has a real and measurable impact in your lead conversion rates. 

Drip Campaigns 
Unlike trigger campaigns, drip-based marketing campaigns are used more as a series of communications that are related to each other.  The primary difference between drip-based email and trigger-based email is who receives it and when.  In drip campaigns, you are communicating initially with a group, segment or list on a specific calendar date and time.  Most typically, the drip campaigns have specific follow up emails that are sent to groups who have behaved or interacted with the previous email in a certain way.  This string of communications can be relatively short (say 30-days) or long (90-days).  The benefit of drip campaigns is that they allow for continuous branding and messaging of relevant content to a group of people over time.

Email marketing has not succumbed to social media, or any other channel for that matter.  It is rapidly growing in usage amongst b2b marketers.   Email is being used more efficiently and effectively and has grown up in its overall efficacy as a marketing channel in and of itself.