An interesting assignment popped up recently on Blogdash, a website that connects bloggers with folks who need them.

On October 28 — and again on November 1 — I received a pitch from an organization that wanted me to post a 100-500 word article about their “charity” on OurFoodNews. The assignment specified that I include at least one photo and a link to their landing page (both of which I would do anyway).

Sniff, Sniff: Yuk!
The payment offer of $60 was silly, but the topic fit OurFoodNews, so I thought maybe I could do some good. Upon further inspection, though, this particular pitch began to take on a bad odor.

• For one thing, the “link” I was required to include took the reader directly to a video appeal for money. I mean it started playing as soon as I hit the link and I couldn’t turn it off.

• Second, in independent research, I was unable to verify any of the “information” in the press release. For example, when I went to the website, I found a board of directors list. Despite considerable online research, I was unable to verify anything about the reputation, history, profession, or standing of anyone on the board, including the president, who appeared to have no “history” at all.

• One article about the group was published at Examiner.com, so I telephoned the gal who wrote the piece. She couldn’t genuinely vouch for the organization, since she had simply spewed their press release. Two more articles on Grapevine, a local news outlet, appeared to be paid content and featured the same appeal for money.

• Despite citing a social media director on staff,  the organization and board members had no LinkedIn, Twitter, or Facebook presence. Any Facebook links that I suspected might relate to the people in the group magnified my concern that this is, indeed, a con game.

Do It Anyway
Here’s the surprise: This unsavory group—unfortunately—is onto something. I  do recommend that legitimate organizations turn to bloggers in their industry as a  way to build website traffic. Here’s why:

1. Legitimate bloggers write because they’re passionate and/or knowledgeable about the topic. A few may be “for sale,” but bloggers also know garbage on their blog creates trash. Few of us blogging for a living want to risk that.

2. All bloggers need content. I didn’t know anything about this organization and now I do. Granted, what I know stinks, but at least the experience led to this TDN article.

3. If this had been a legitimate cause germane to my blog, I would have posted.

4. Like most serious bloggers, I did some independent research so that my story wouldn’t be a press release regurgitation. Bottom line: If you’re a scam or a con, a careful blogger won’t take the bait.

The ultimate kernel of this story is that bloggers will help you if …

• your content fits their blog;
• you ask the blogger to help and tell them why;
• you provide background info and interview opportunities;
• you’re legit;
• you approach them personally, via email, on a good day.

As I mentioned in my previous post, research shows that many business buyers do not contact suppliers directly until 57 percent of their purchase process is complete. It’s Marketing’s job to influence that 57 percent of the market opportunity before Sales contact, to position your company as a thought-leader and to make sure that customers don’t get locked into a requirements definition that locks you out of the sale. Since the majority of that process occurs on the web – or from colleague’s referrals based on what they have seen on the web, how you talk about your services online makes a big difference in potential sales success.

There are many ways to present your company online:

• Your own website and blog (you do have a blog right?)
• Partner sites and blogs
• Company page on LinkedIn (or Facebook if appropriate for your business)
• LinkedIn Groups for target vertical markets or print procurement
• Pinterest (if you have interesting visuals)
• Comments on news and industry sites

Online content (on your website and beyond) should position your company as a source of answers. Think about using content marketing in the form of articles, white papers, case studies with response metrics, Youtube videos and design tips rather than just posting lists of services and equipment. (See the Advanced Content Marketing Guide by Neil Patel and Kathryn Aragon – it’s FREE.)

Consider how customers and potential customers will use your website. Ideally it should be a draw for prospects while keeping existing customers coming back for new information – thereby exposing them to your new offers. Keep in mind that most real prospects are not going to come to your site due to a web search for your services. Web searches may be common for other industries and products – but research shows that print buyers use printer’s websites to validate a printer based on a personal referral or because they saw interesting content published by that company somewhere on the web. To meet their needs, make sure that your online content does the following:

• Educates – provides interesting solutions to industry problems like reducing customer churn, meeting new regulations or serving different market segments. Provide thought provoking information to ensure that key requirements are included in the customer’s solution definition.
• Validates –shows your ability to deliver services in a quality manner and scale to meet customer demand. This may include information on plant and equipment but should also include information on quality programs, customer service and company culture.
• Activates – provides methods for taking action such as registering to download whitepapers, requesting a quote, or emailing key staff. Consider promoting dialogue by allowing visitors to post questions or share experiences. You can make certain areas for customers only to promote community without exposing information to competitors.

Don’t get locked out of a sale before you even know that a buyer is on the prowl. Make sure your online presence extends beyond your website and that you are talking about the things that matter: your customer’s market, the customer’s needs and your unique understanding of both.

Elizabeth Gooding is the President of Gooding Communications Group and editor of the Insight Forums blog. She writes, presents and provides training on trends and opportunities for business communications professionals within regulated vertical industries.

We are hearing about lead scoring more and more these days. As print providers and their customers grow increasingly comfortable with personalization and multichannel marketing, those programs are becoming more sophisticated and automated. That is opening the door to lead scoring, lead nurturing, and trigger-based content delivery.

As you begin to develop automated lead scoring and lead nurturing for your customers, there is a critical point to remember. Lead scoring is typically based on information people input into online forms and triggers the appropriate lead nurturing path that follows. However, people lie.

It’s not necessarily that they are awful, horrible human beings setting out to mislead you. It’s that those online forms are often monstrosities unintentionally designed to frustrate. Respondents just want to get to the information they are looking for (watch a video, download a white paper, access a presentation). They don’t want to spend 10 minutes filling out an endlessly long, frustratingly complex form first. I know I don’t. Consequently, they will often select the first thing on the list — accurate or not — just to be able to move on.

I was reading a great post on Eloqua’s blog this morning that made this very point:

How many contacts have you generated from those who have selected Afghanistan in the country dropdown menu? It’s the first country available in most dropdown lists, and frequently selected to bypass necessary information and proceed to the next option to access gated content.

Amen! If you try to gather too much information, if the level of depth and complexity of those forms is inappropriate to the target audience, you can set yourself up for disappointing results. So when setting up lead scoring for yourself or your clients, don’t just think about the information you want to gather. Think about what respondents are most likely to actually provide . . . and provide accurately. Balance your goals with the likelihood of getting what you want.

The goal with lead scoring isn’t to get it done. It’s to get it done right.

Got any lead scoring disaster stories to share? Sometimes the best lessons are learned while laughing . . .

If you haven’t downloaded a copy of “The Big Potential of Big Data: A Field Guide for CMOs,” it’s worth your time.

Put out by Rocket Fuel and Forbes, it’s a free 22-page report based on a survey of 211 senior marketers designed to gauge their perceptions about the success of their marketing initiatives, as well as their use of and the benefits of big data.  Granted these were bigger companies than most of those in this industry (revenues of at least $500 million and marketing budgets of $10 million or more), but it supports the trend line and will give you great talking points with your customers.

(Download the report here.)

Key data points from the survey:

• Of the organizations that used big data at least 50% of the time, 60% said that they had exceeded their goals. By contrast, of the companies that used big data less than 50% of the time, just 33% felt they had.
• More than nine in 10 companies (92%) who had “always” or “frequently” made sufficient use of data said that they had met or exceeded their goals, while just 5% who said that they were making sufficient use of data said that they were actually falling short.
• Eight in 10 (79%) marketers and advertisers who use big data more than 50% of the time felt they were able to pick out the right audience in all or almost all of their media. This compares with just 35% of those who used it less than 50% of the time.
• Of those who use big data to drive more than half their marketing strategies, 75% said that they were able to monetize their audience.
• Likewise, 75% believe their company is making the right media buys, compared with just 50% of those who use big data in less than half of their programs.

There is lots more, of course, but what’s interesting is the focus not just on reaching customers and increasing revenue, but undersatnding customer behavior, including the channels most effective at reaching them.

Also interesting about this report is how it is interwoven with personal interviews and mini case studies that flesh out these issues and put the data into a real-world context.

Check it out.

When we think personalization, we think data. But as I’ve said on here many times before, data is just that — data. It’s how you use it to create relevance and engagement that makes it personal.

This point was driven home this morning as I flipped through yesterday’s mail. I ran across an envelope that appeared to be trying to be personal but in fact was downright scary. It reminded me of my dog who thinks no matter what trick you ask him to do, rolling over is better. “Shake!” (rolls over). “Sit!” (rolls over). Rolling over is more complicated and flashy, so no matter what my master asks me to do, I’m going to roll over — and he does.

So we have here. Real stamps make things seem more personal, so we have a real stamp. Handwriting fonts make the addressing seem more personal, so we use handwriting font. Oh, and color helps get attention, so let’s add some of that. First-class mail gets better responses than other classes of mail, so let’s draw attention to that.

The result is, well, you can see for yourself.

• They are using a last name I haven’t had in years.
• The barcode is located directly above my name and address, obliterating any accidental identification as real handwriting.
• The real stamp is undermined by the tacky “print ‘em by the hundreds of thousands” graphics on the preprinted envelopes.

I’m sure there’s more, but this is tough to look at.  The point that it drives home is that personalization isn’t real stamps, handwriting fonts, or data. It’s how those elements are used to create the sense of relevance and engagement. This has multiple elements that could be used to more powerful effect. Instead, I didn’t even open the envelope.

Are you talking to clients about the difference between data and true personalization (relevance)? If so, how?

The USPS Every Door Direct Mail program has been a great boon to direct mailers looking to focus on specific geographic areas very inexpensively. But the trade-off for the lower postage rate has been inability to include names or sort by demographic categories. You purchase addresses by carrier route, but otherwise the mail is undifferentiated — including by name.

The program was screaming for demographic overlays, and overlays have been made available by individual service providers, but now the USPS is offering limited demographic overlays at no charge as part of the program.

Starting this fall, EDDM now offers the following demographic overlays at no additional charge to the mailer:

• Household income
• Age
• Home ownership
• Gender
• Presence of children

The program is called HeatMap ROI. It’s not deep demographic segmentation, and names are still not provided as part of the program, but it does allow marketers to better select carrier routes to match the demographic profiles of their target audiences.

So if your clients are producing geographically targeted mailings and have been hesitant to use EDDM because of lack of differentiation by demographic, it’s time to take another look.

Want more information? Check out this video from EDDM.

Mobile gaming developer Clicklabs says, “Audience attention is waning from traditional interrupt marketing … Branded games (or advergames) are the perfect solution: They reinforce your brand’s credibility through an enjoyable, engaging experience.”

Case in point? “Scarecrow,” Chipolte’s recent triumph in the advergame arena.

Comprised of three parts (the game, the film, and the facts), “Scarecrow” features a three-minute video portion that’s gone viral. From the strains of “Pure Imagination” sung by Grammy Award®-winning artist Fiona Apple, to the animated mastery displayed in muted fall colors, to the power of emotion extracted from simple objects, the video grabs. Since its release September 11, over 7 million viewers have hit “play.”

To Chipolte, “organic,” “family-farmed,” and “local” are serious food issues. “It’s all fun and games until someone wrecks a planet,” the website announces. And, much to its credit, Chipolte stays solidly on message in merging the three-part strategy. Steve Ells, Chipolte founder, chairman, and co-CEO puts it clearly,”At Chipolte, our mission is to change the way people think about and eat fast food.”

Digital marketing expert Eder Holguin, CEO of content discovery platform www.IdealMedia.com, praises Chipolte’s innovative effort. “With the costs of developing advertisement games getting cheaper, we will see more and more brands engaging in this untapped opportunity… the innovative advertisement-game hybrid will certainly go down in history as one of the most successful marketing campaigns.” Not everyone is so enthusiastic, though. Washington Post writer Alexandra Petri quotes one of his friends saying, “That doesn’t make me want to eat Chipolte. That makes me want to curl up in a vegan coma and never eat again.”

Meanwhile, the buzz goes on.

Advergaming isn’t new (a 2007 article in BloombergBusinessWeek noted that the basic model of the advergame was pioneered in 1995 by a company called Skywork). Still, “Scarecrow” definitely blurs (erases?) the lines between information, advertising, and entertainment, giving marketers one more channel to consider.

Game on!

p.s. For additional examples of advergaming, check out www.adverblog.com or www.advergames.com.

This morning, my heartbeat skipped a little when I read the headline: “CVS Unveils Personalized Circulars.”

Anything I read that reflects growth in print personalization is exciting to me, but especially outside direct mail, transpromotional, and marketing collateral. Could it be that CVS is going to start mailing coupon books the way my grocery store does, except personalized to my shopping habits gleaned from my loyalty card?

What would it look like? Stapled with the three perforated coupons per page? I get one from the grocery store, and I love it. Even though it’s not personalized, I use it too. What would it be like to get one that is user-friendly and personalized? I couldn’t wait.

But alas, CVS was to disappoint me. When they said “circular,” what they meant was circulated via email and mobile. I don’t love that.

I belong to the company’s loyalty program, but it hasn’t provided me with any benefits so far. I either get coupons on the bottom of my receipts that expire too quickly for them to be of any use or I get rewards by email that send me onto a wild goose chase and require me to input information I don’t want to input to download an email-back coupon. If I’m a rewards member, why can’t they just send me the coupon outright?

You know what I want? I want hard copy coupons from CVS the way I get them from the grocery store. But personalized. Not like the email offers. No, no tricks. No gimmicks. No online switcheroos. Just value in perforated form in my mailbox.

The value of coupons is well documented. The value of personalization is, too. When are retailers going to begin to combine them on a regular basis?

I just wrote a case study on a great automated multi-channel marketing program based on MindFire’s Studio. The client is overwhelmed with leads and no longer wants its name being used because it doesn’t want its competitors to know the secrets because its success. The PSP is so busy managing the underlying strategy, creative, data management, and business logic, as well as content delivery, that it was unavailable for consultation during production of the study. That’s success!

As I was writing, I was given the privilege of seeing some of the background campaign development materials, and there were several components of the program that really stuck out to me.

• Lead scoring model developed by the PSP
• Development of “personas” used to drive segmentation and targeting
• A/B testing (twice per month)

In this industry, we’re using to focusing on list selection, variables, multiple channels, and workflow, but those elements are so commonly discussed nowadays that we don’t pay them much mind. Every case study has them. But lead scoring, personas, and A/B testing? Those are topics that catch attention.  Their inclusion in the PSP’s proposal — and the client’s adoption of them — is a huge reason for the program’s success.

It’s time for PSPs to move beyond simple list purchases, variable selection, and demographic personalization. Adding leading scoring, persona development, and A/B testing is the next step towards being a true marketing partner if you aren’t already.

Don’t feel qualified to offer these capabilities? Fortunately, your 1:1 or integrated marketing software provider does. They have the expertise to help, so take advantage of it.

Selling with social media seems like it would be a no brainer. Sales is sales, right? Not quite. Social media is a different animal. And you can’t treat your audience the same, nor can you use all the same tactics you use to get those qualified leads via other channels.

1 – Know how to measure and what to measure…and what those results mean. It’s not about the number of followers or likes. In fact, your follower or fan number, your number of “likes,” should not be an end goal because you need qualified prospects to sell to, not just a horde of followers – so this should not be a metric for social media sales success. You need to determine other ways to measure your social media sales success. Look at the reach of your updates and postings, and inquiries generated.

2 – Learn from your interactions. This isn’t just about engaging your audience. While social media is a great way to connect, it means nothing if you keep doing the same thing and that “thing” isn’t resonating with you audience and generating sales. Pay attention to what’s going on and test, test, and test some more to learn what works and what doesn’t.

3 – Have a content strategy – this is no time to just wing it. You should have an editorial calendar – just as you should with your blog. Mix it up with various media and different pieces of information. Look closely at your content and see what’s missing. Do your blog posts have calls to action? Do your posts that link to your blog have conversion points that create a virtual landing page for the audience? It will take some time to test what clicks with your audience, but taking the time to strategize your content and test what works will help you gain serious traction and make sales via social media easier.

4 – Be consistent with your social media actions. This is important with not only posting content, but also with social media customer support.  You have to show your audience you are present and available, and consistency displays this.

5 – Know your customer. This isn’t the time or the place to try and be all things to all people. You are trying to sell to your ideal customers, not everybody in the social media universe.

6 – Invest in training. Social media is constantly evolving and there are so many social media platforms to choose from. But you want to be where your future customers are and connecting with them in a way to get them to trust you and want to work with you.

7 – Be a good “listener.” Don’t always go for the hard sell. Sometimes conversions take time and a soft touch. Soft leads can and will turn into sales if you nurture them appropriately. Present opportunities to convert your interested social media audience members into email subscribers. As you provide relevant and valuable information to these soft leads, you will gain their trust and you can “listen” (by tracking click-thrus and actions) to their needs and wants.

8 – Use tools that help you integrate your efforts and track them. New tools and services pop up all the time. What you want to look for is something that provides analytics, allows you to see your social feed from different networks (Imagine viewing your Facebook and Twitter feed on a single page), and post across various social networks. Some tools offer additional capabilities, such as team management, which is useful when more than one person is managing your social media content.

9 – Manage your time wisely – it’s easy to get sucked into social media and not actually be “effective.” This is where that content strategy can come in handy. With an editorial calendar and a plan you will ensure that your team knows what to do moving forward. But also work in time for team members to cruise other social networks, check out competitors, engage with the audience and research potential ways to exploit (in a good way) your social networks. It’s important to put an emphasis on time management because it’s easy to fall down the proverbial rabbit hole.

10 – Make sure social customer service is given the attention it needs. You can’t look like a schlub on your social media profiles and expect to have stellar sales. And this goes for prospects and current customers. If prospects reach out to you, then you need to have the people in place to respond, quickly and with expert knowledge. And if current customers are lodging a complaint or bringing an issue to light via social networks, you need to address it. It won’t go away and if you don’t handle it with composure, it will leave a bad taste in your customer’s mouth and any other audience members who witness the debacle. So have a social customer service policy in place and empower your team to address issues that pop up via social networks.

11 – Make it easy for your audience members. Many social networks have ways for you to optimize for conversions. For example, does your Facebook page have a tab that allows your fans to convert within Facebook? Or do they have to click through to your website and then track down your products and services from there? Spoon feed your audience. Your audience likes easy. They don’t like to feel as if they have to jump through hoops to get to the point of sale.

***

At the end of the day, if you start with a plan, you’ll be extremely successful. Need a push? I’d be happy to work with you and your team. Learn more by visiting JohnFoleyJR.com/consulting. I’d love to help you grow!

Don’t know me?

I am the CEO of interlinkONE and Grow Socially. Myself and my team consult with companies on marketing, business transformation, sales techniques, write strategic online marketing plans to get companies on a path to online and social success, and I speak frequently about selling with social media. Just for reading this post, go ahead and download a free white paper on Inbound Marketing at ilink.me/IMP.

Now that we’ve gotten to know each other, let’s make sure we’re connected socially! Here are direct links to my social networks; I look forward to connecting with you.

Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
Google+

I love to hear about successful 1:1 print marketing campaigns. But you know what I love to hear about even more? Recurring 1:1 programs in which the PSP is able to help the client see the bigger picture and how personalization fits into it. Here are 5 reasons PSPs should be focusing on recurring programs (including lead nurturing programs) rather than one-offs:

1. The sales cycle for 1:1 campaigns tends to be much longer than for static programs.

You want to be spending your time developing and producing live marketing campaigns, not selling them.

2. Recurring programs amortize development time and cost.

Upfront time and financial investment for 1:1 campaigns can be significant. Both you and your clients will benefit from amortizing that investment over multiple campaigns or as part of a larger lead-nurturing program.

3. Recurring programs are more likely to get better results over time.

Programs tend to be more effective (translating “earn more money”) after they have been tested and refined over time than they do right out of the gate when you are basically guessing at what is most likely to work.

4. You don’t have to continually re-prove program value.

Even if a campaign is successful, you are essentially starting from scratch for each successive 1:1 program in the one-off world. In a lead nurturing or broader program, by definition, the value is in the rollout over time.

5. You are more likely to retain the account.

When I ask the question, “Why wasn’t this campaign repeated?” the number one reason I hear isn’t that the campaign wasn’t successful. It is because there is generally a champion of 1:1 printing within a given organization, and if that person leaves, the commitment to 1:1 print marketing goes with them. Once a program is in place, especially if it’s sold on an annual contract basis, you have the opportunity to retain the account long enough for the new contact to understand its value.

One-off isn’t the way to go for data-driven campaigns. Success with 1:1 is really driven by taking a longer-term view.

Do you have any points to add to this list?

People are chattering more and more about “Content curation” as a vital part of “content marketing.” How does it work?

In hopes that a comparative demonstration might help, I’ve applied three popular curation technologies — Scoop-It, PaperLi, and RebelMouse — to one of my  websites, OurFoodNews. All three technologies are free for the basic service.

A. Scoop-It
Scoop-it was my first foray into content curation. Actually, I first set this up 2 1/2 years ago for another of my websites, HomeInvasionNews. I saw that Scoop-It  sent a lot of people to that website, so when I created OurFoodNews, I set up another account for that.

Scoop-It is easy to use. You set up an account, tell the program what to search for on the Internet, and then wait for the program’s “suggestions,” which show up 100 at a time. You click on your choices and they display on your pages. My favorite dimension of “Scoop-It” is its capability to search the net based on your selected keywords. The other two programs are based on pre-designated “topics” and/or Twitter.

Also, Scoop-it offers you, the creator, the option to include your own “insights” on what you’re choosing to post. I like this personalization feature.

Google can find your Scoop-It pages, so I always make sure to feature a post directly from ourfoodnews.com (after all, I am trying to drive traffic there, right?). In addition, though, the program  will “create a newsletter” for you. This newsletter can feature between 4 and 24 of your “posts” and it uses “MailChimp to deliver the goods. It’s a decent looking eNewsletter and an easy way to send out  relevant news to your customers … which brings me to PaperLi, the second option.

Example No. 1: http://www.scoop.it/t/our-food-news

B. PaperLi
PaperLi is the first auto-generated newsletter I’m aware of. PaperLi builds its content from Twitter — which includes your own tweets or tweets gathered around the Internet, all based on pre-determined “topics” you designate. Unfortunately, the “topics” from which you can choose are restricted.

In OurFoodNews, for example, there is no “food” topic, so my PaperLi is generated from tweets related to four words: environment, health, education, and science. And, since the content is generated from broad topics, lots of stuff I don’t want comes in… but I also can go through the newsletter pretty quickly and delete anything I don’t like.

What’s best about PaperLi is that the service offers to generate daily, weekly, or monthly editions automatically and PaperLi will “tweet out” each edition to the Twitter folks from whom the content was generated. That’s a nice touch that helps you reach out to folks with whom you might have otherwise not connected.

Example No. 2: http://paper.li/OurFoodNews/1362060987

C. RebelMouse
Say hello to the new kid on the block: RebelMouse. This technology is still in beta, but I like it a lot. I set up my first issue last night. It took about two hours, including choosing design and figuring out which logos to upload, etc.

This newsletter is noteworthy for its design savvy and layout options. If you’re visual, you’ll love the many different looks from which to choose — or, you can build your own.

As with Scoop-It and PaperLi, RebelMouse invites you to get very involved in choosing the content, deleting content you don’t like and moving items around on the page.

RebelMouse offers the option to email the page you’ve created, but, so far, it looks like you’ll need to make your own email list (somebody out there, correct me, please, if I’m wrong). Still, I’m expecting great things from this particular “content curation” machine, which offers content curation options tailored to individuals, bloggers, publishers, brands, and events.

Example No. 3:  https://www.rebelmouse.com/OurFoodNews/

So, what’s your thought? Opened side-by-side, which content curation technology do you like?

We’re hearing a lot about inbound marketing lately — instead of reaching out and pulling people in, you create an environment that allows people doing online searches for products and services like yours to find you.

You may not have paid much attention to inbound marketing because it’s not a service you feel ready to offer your clients, but you should be paying attention because it’s something you should be using to promote your own business. (Then, once you’re in a groove and really “get it,” you can then start offering it as a service, too.)

HubSpot recently created a great, free e-book on the ABCs of Inbound Marketing. It lists the components of inbound marketing in the form of an ABCs list.  There are 26 of them, each corresponding to a letter of the alphabet.

A = A/B Testing

B = Blogging

C = Conversion path

D = Dynamic content

E = Email marketing

And so on. (You get the idea.) It’s a great, concise checklist for the components of a well-rounded inbound marketing strategy. In marketing your business, it’s worth a look. Especially since it’s free.

Can anyone guess what “Y” is? (Without downloading the e-book first!) It might be fun to see what ideas you come up with. Take a guess.

Download HubSpot’s e-book here.

If you haven’t seen the IBM study “The Customer-Activated Enterprise,” it’s worth a look. (View the infographic here.) There are lots of great data points that continue to confirm the trends we are already seeing.

For example, in the next 3-5 years, C-level executives see the following emphases:

• 33% see growth in emphasis on customers as segments, while 54% see growth in emphasis on customers as individuals
• The area in which CxOs expect to see customers influence strategy the most is business strategy development
• More outperforming organizations collaborate with their customers (60% vs. 39% of underperformers)
• Integration of cross-channel touchpoints is a primary goal of 16% of CxOs, growing to 87% in 3-5 years
• Analytics to capture customer insights is a primary goal of 13% of CxOs, growing to 83% in 3-5 years

How do they plan to do this? Overwhelmingly, it’s through the implementation of more and better technology.

But as with data, technology is just technology. It takes a human being to select it, implement it, and when it comes to data, make decisions about what that data means and what to do with it once you’ve got it.

Ironically, that’s been the challenge all along — the human being part of all of this. We are always our own greatest limitations.

What this study tells me is that even the biggest companies are still made up of people, and those people need help. That’s why if you’re offering big data services and feel competent in the area of big data, this study may give you some great insights into the talking points for pitching those services. It is filled with great data to help you craft those marketing messages right to the pain points and technology, marketing, and data goals of your prime customers.

Check it out.

At Print13 event last month, Howie Fenton and Andy Paparozzi of NAPL delivered a presentation on “The Secrets of Leading Digital Companies” in which they propose that industry leaders are characterized by a willingness to change. They talked about changes as seemingly simple as buying a new piece of equipment to complex challenges like acquiring a company or moving into new areas of service. The latter issue was a major focus of the talk as more and more companies are diversifying their services in order to add value to customers.

“Despite economic challenges and structural changes, between January 2000 and March 2013, Leaders’ sales are up 54.2%, while the industry at large is down more than 21%,” according to Paparozzi.  The leaders are better at recognizing the need to change and are better at implementing that change and, I suspect that these changes extend beyond the operational aspects of the new technology or service that they have adopted. Which leads me to the topic of this post: you can’t change what you sell and expect to sell it the same way.

The very factors that are causing printers to offer new services, channel complexity, tidal waves of technological change, shifting demographics and intense competitive pressures are the same factors that are causing major changes in the buying behaviors of their target clients. Consider that:

• Today’s business buyers do not contact suppliers directly until 57 percent of the purchase process is complete (source: Corporate Executive Board)
• 10% of print sales originated online and this trend is expected to reach 18% by 2014 (source: InfoTrends)
• 4% of B2B executives have made purchases of over $100,000 via their mobile device (source: Google and Forbes Insight)

This means that multi-channel marketing is not only a service printers should consider offering to their customers, it is one that printers absolutely need to be using for their own business development. Many printers, even relatively large ones, have operated without significant marketing resources and often with no dedicated marketing department. Now, more than ever, they need to consider the buyer’s full process from awareness through purchase and all of the potential touch points along the way. If buyers are researching solutions, ranking options, setting requirements, and benchmarking pricing before ever having a conversation with a sales rep – it’s marketing that has to close the gap by making sure that their company is on the buyer’s radar during this research process.

Marketing support and lead generation will become increasingly critical as service portfolios and related selling tactics become more complex. Printers may need to look at making investments in marketing as well as redistribution of sales resources to include focused selling teams and inside sales support.

Marketing support is what helps keep your pipeline full and your sales people efficient enabling them to focus on what’s important once they get in front of the customer. However, your strategy also needs to consider that literally getting in front of buyers is getting harder and harder. In 2011, American businesspeople took a total of 445 million trips and over 124 million people telecommuted in 2012. That means that part of your sales and marketing strategy needs to include making it easy for “on the go” executives to find information about you from their mobile device, making it easy to engage with you from their mobile device and making it easy for them to track the progress of their business with you using their mobile device. Buyers are transacting big business directly from their smart phones – how will your site show up on the small screen? Don’t overlook mobile and get your sales force comfortable with Skype.

Printing leaders are diversifying their offers. Printing leaders are better at change and therefore their sales growth is nearly double that of the industry at large.  Printing leaders understand that to diversify your capabilities requires a complementary diversification of your sales and marketing tactics as well. Selling has evolved along with the industry. Today, how you sell is as important as what you sell – and the leaders know that too.