In this video, Jeff Ogden of the B2B lead generation and global marketing company Find New Customers (and the host of the popular online show, Mad Marketing TV) shares insights and common mistakes companies make in their lead nurturing programs.
“You Don’t Know What You Don’t Know” The Problem Caused by Insular Thinking
March 7, 2012 2 Comments
Insular Thinking hurts lots of companies
While it’s imperative that companies look outside and at other industries for ideas, some companies are insular. For instance there’s a marketing software company in the Midwest we did quite a bit of business with over a year ago. The marketing leadership there (except the Chief Marketing Officer) tells me, in effect, “Don’t Call Us, We’ll Call You.”
A VP there said this to me: “As I’ve said numerous times, we will let you know if we have any additional engagements. We are not planning any with you at this time.”
That says to me that they see the global marketing company Find New Customers as a task provider – engagements.”We need X and we’ll outsource it to you. ” But that attitude misses a key point for companies like theirs. In fact, when I interviewed demand generation expert, Brian Carroll on Mad Marketing TV (publishing next month), Brian showed data from MECLABS about how marketing tactics were losing effectiveness. This pointed to need for experimentation and thinking holistically about the entire engagement process. If tactics are dropping in effectiveness, what will replace them?
The Need for Fresh Ideas
Innovative companies are doing remarkable things out there – like very popular Mad Marketing TV show I host. (It’s now becoming a major source of leads.) And our friends at Avitage are doing great things too – around content and partners.
What companies need more than ever are fresh ideas and perspective. Companies like Find New Customers and Avitage bring those fresh ideas and perspective. But the “Don’t Call Us, We’ll Call You.” smacks of insular thinking. Like this image, they have their heads in the sand. For a related article, check out Why Marketing Outsourcing is Growing So Quickly.
New ideas are the proverbial life-blood of business. Forgo those at your peril.
The Marketing Take-Away? Always keep your ear to the ground and be on the lookout for fresh perspective. How much does a 30 minute phone conversation cost?
What do you think? Do companies need to look outside for fresh ideas and perspective? We love comments and those who share on social media.
The Critical Importance of Quiet Time for Executives
March 5, 2012 Leave a Comment
I was struck by a comment from one of our guests on Mad Marketing TV, Dan McDade of PointClear. He told me that one day he decided to take the day off and went for a very long hike. He said he had hours to reflect on the business and it was one of his best days (business-wise) in a long time.
Quiet reflection time – makings of a great day?
I always find the best time to reflect is in the shower. The warm flow of water, the hum of the fan and no interruptions means a fountain of fresh ideas for my B2B demand generation and global marketing company, Find New Customers.
Dan’s comment and my experience illustrated to me the importance of quiet time for executives. So many of them run from meeting to meeting without any time to ponder. I believe that adversely impacts 
their careers and companies.
I urge every executive to take one day a week to get out of the office with nothing to do. Spend it doing something you enjoy – shopping, rides, etc. But relax, recharge your batteries and reflect on the business. You’ll be glad you did. And you’ll have a fountain of fresh and creative ideas.
What do you think? We love comments and those who share on social networks.
How to Turn Your New White Paper into a Great Lead Generation Product
March 3, 2012 2 Comments
B2B Lead Generation: Great content or a great lead generation tool. What’s the difference?
Jonathan Kantor of White Paper Company also blogged about this. In this post, we explain 
how to turn that great new white paper into a superb lead generation tool using the best-practice approach of one of our favorite companies, Kinaxis.
Do you want a trickle of leads or a flood? What are current best practices on white paper marketing?
We’ve penned 4 great white papers to date – all are free at Find New Customers.
- lead generation - How to Find New Customers (Marketo)
- b2b sales – Definitive Guide to Making Quota (self) and
- email marketing – Moving from Transactional to Conversational Email Marketing (Genius.com) – so we know lots about this topic.
- CMO issues – The CMO’s Guide to the Crazy New World of Marketing (Silverpop)
To illustrate, let’s look at an example of how to turn a nice white paper into a great lead generation program:
Let’s say you hire a company like the B2B demand generation company Find New Customers to write a white paper for you.
Why go outside for creation of content? Outside experts have far more credibility.
Edelman Trust Factor asked “If you heard information about a company from one of these people, how credible would that information be?” They found that academics/experts like Find New Customers are the most credible. (70%) Industry analysts are high too, but regular employees are low and even peers are low.
Their conclusion: Current media landscape plus increased skepticism requires multiple voices and channels.
The point here is you need to reach out multiple times using different approaches for maximum effect.
We craft a great white paper, like our highly acclaimed white paper on sales lead generation How to Find New Customers, sponsored by Marketo. Then what do you do with it?
How to Find New Customers
You post it. You tweet about it. You blog about it. What happens?
A handful of leads trickle in and you get some decent leads.
Is there a better way? There sure is.
In fact, the company that was awarded the BtoB Marketing Idea of the Year award from Find New Customers uses this best practices approach.
Let’s look at the Kinaxis best practices approach. Use your keywords and everything points to the landing page:
Write and post the white paper to a landing page, then
- Video interview of the author (YouTube)
- Audio summary with the author (iTunes)
- Transcript of the video interview (blog articles)
- Slide presentations with audio from the author (SlideShare)
- Small bite-sized summaries, like our new cheat sheet 7 Keys to Successful Lead Nurturing (Content marketing)
Post that content everywhere with a call to action for the landing page.
Use this approach with your next white paper and watch that trickle turn into a fast flowing stream of leads.
What do you think is the best way to market a white paper?
Jeff Ogden (@fearlesscomp) is President of the B2B lead generation consultancy, Find New Customers. Find New Customers helps companies dramatically improve revenue results by transforming how they attract, engage and win new customers. Contact Find New Customers by calling (516) 495-9350 or sending an email to sales at findnewcustomers.com.
Emotional Branding: 6 steps that you need to climb (Guest post by Alyssa Clark)
March 2, 2012 Leave a Comment
Undoubtedly, there are a lot of similarities between B2B marketing and B2C marketing. But we also need to remember the adage – people are people. That CEO who buys from businesses is also the same person who shops for gadgets like iPads and iPods. Making an emotional connection matters in both B2B and B2B. That’s why we chose to run this guest post. Thanks, Alyssa.
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When you plan on marketing something, you must know what the number one rule is – establishing a tight bond between the customer and also the brand i.e emotional branding. You might think that this type of marketing is impossible and it never occurs because the market is vast and you have a wide variety of brands to choose from, so people rarely stick to just one brand. Let me give you one of the most common examples. When you think about music and music players, what is the first thought which comes to your mind? Yes it’s the iPod or the company we know as Apple.
This is the company which is the epitome of design, innovation and customer friendly interface. The consumers or users simply wait for any advance version while using any of their products. You can see Apple reaching this level of fanaticism with their consumers. They have done this by being the most creative and innovative on this earth in the domain of computing and cellphone devices. If you are looking forward to create this kind of affinity for your brand or simply want to go for emotional branding, make sure you follow these six steps as discussed as under:
For the first step you need to think about the ways in which you can get the person interested. Start off with thinking about the product. Ask them what would lead them to stick onto a particular brand. What are the things they look for in a brand to get attached to it.
The second step is to ask them what they look for in a brand or a product before buying it. You could conduct a survey to find out the answers. Ask people what the factors are for which they would think of before they want to purchase something.
For step three you need to come up with ways by which you can keep reinforcing the decision of the consumer to purchase that particular product or brand. Study the marketing strategies of various other companies and see what helps to keep them up top. Try implementing them when it comes to your marketing strategies.
For step four, you need to find out how you can get loyal customers. Sometimes customers buy your product once and they never come back. The trick is to get them to continue buying it and from your brand only. This is the really tricky part but with a lot of observations you will be able to figure out a way to get it done.
The fifth step is creating a brand ritual. These rituals actually help to build up loyalty. You need to make sure that the brand ritual you create is completely unique because millions of companies out there have brand rituals.
Finally you need your audience to act like your cheerleaders. You need them to preach to millions of other people and this is the main thing which is going to make your brand name stronger. In order to make your brand name stronger you need to bring in a lot of clients. If you follow these steps you will be able to climb up the ladder and one day achieve a strong clientele base like Apple. With perseverance and hard work and also a lot of research emotional branding will turn out to be a piece of cake for you.
It takes years to build such a thing about your brand among your consumers. But once you make it, make sure you have reached to the zenith which any brand would always dream to have in their business life.
About the author: Alyssa Clarke is a blogger who also happens to be a tech buff. She is always on a lookout for latest tech stuff and is currently hunting for some cool Android tablets and portable speakers.
Content Marketing 101 – Learn from Three Top Experts
March 2, 2012 2 Comments
Creating and publishing great content is the key to getting new customers for your business. But how do you go about creating and publishing great content?
Fortunately, three of our great guests on Mad Marketing TV interviewed by me, Jeff Ogden of Find New Customers, are content marketing experts. And you can watch and learn from all three below.
Using Story-Telling in Content Marketing, with Joe Pulizzi, founder of the Content Marketing Institute
“Thinking Like a Publisher” with Jim Burns of Avitage
Leaping Out of the Content Ocean, with Doug Kessler of Velocity Partners
Here is a quick snapshot of the 2011 Content Marketing survey findings: (by Holger Schultz, Email: hhschulze@gmail.com
Twitter: @HolgerSchulze)
- Content marketing is growing dramatically in popularity with over 71 percent of respondents doing more of it than a year ago (in contrast, only 2 percent are doing less).
- The biggest motivator for content marketing is its ability to drive awareness, leads, and engagement with prospects to compensate where where traditional tactics are falling short.
- The most popular content formats: case studies, presentations at live events, white papers, online articles and videos.
- The biggest challenge: producing truly engaging content.
- Companies spend an average of 20 percent of their budgets on content marketing.
- The most popular channels to deliver content: website, live events, email.
- The top performance metric for content marketers is leads.
Your Guide to Creating a World Class Program | How to Find New Customers
March 1, 2012 1 Comment
This white paper can be obtained for free at our newly simplified home page at Find New Customers
“For all the hype and talk surrounding the demand generation movement, there still hasn’t been that one piece that puts everything together for marketers. How to Find New Customers IS that whitepaper — making it a Must Read.” Craig Rosenberg, the Funnelholic, Focus.com
The reviews were overwhelmingly positive.
- Paul Dunay, CMO of NetworkedInsights called it a “must read” and he shared it with his whole marketing team. (at his former company, Avaya)
- Ardath Albee of Marketing Interactions wrote it up for her popular blog.
- T.J. McHugh of the Sales Rescue Team described it with one word “Terrific!”
This white paper covers a poorly understood and critically important business area – how to design and deploy a world-class demand generation program in your business. Buyers are in control today and reaching them is harder than ever. This 41 page white paper explains how it is done.
Get your own copy of How to Find New Customers by clicking on it. We ask for very little info.
Good luck and good selling.
Jeff Ogden is President of the B2B demand generation company, Find New Customers. He’s also the host of the very popular marketing show, Mad Marketing TV.
The Remarkable Growth of Social Media – an Infographic
February 18, 2012 1 Comment
You can poo-poo social media all you wish. “It’s a fad.” “It’s not a productive use of time.” But as this infographic by Search Engine Journal shows, social media now a pervasive part of life. Ignore it at your peril. B2B companies need to use social media in their B2B lead generation and global marketing programs.
We also invite you to check out the hugely simplified home page at Find New Customers – where the verbiage was slashed by 95%. Please tell me what you think.
Happy Valentine’s Day from Find New Customers
February 14, 2012 1 Comment
Take today and tell a special someone that you love them. To my wife of 23 years, Kathy, I say “Happy Valentines Day.”
Do the laundry, vacuum the house, cook or buy dinner.
What do you think? We love comments and those who share on social networks.
Super Bowl 46 – By the Numbers
February 11, 2012 1 Comment
When I found this great post at Mashable by Charlie White, I thought it perfect for the weekend after the Super Bowl. But since I live in the NYC area, I’m a big Giants fan and am thrilled that they won. You can read the original post here.
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Super Bowl 2012 is in the books and we can recap. It’s a weekend of superlatives, with astonishing numbers swirling around those brave warriors on the field.
In the Super Bowl, everything is larger than life. Instead of a dozen TV cameras for normal football game broadcasts, NBC rolls out 57 cameras. Instead of betting a couple of bucks on the game, people bet hundreds. And instead of eating a couple of chicken wings, an entire nation gangs up to eat 1.25 billion of them in one day.
Want more? We have numbers — a long list of them, taking into account the technology of the big game, the behavior of a nation and the world during the contest, the security necessary to keep everyone safe, the enormous amounts of money changing hands and lots more.
So sit back and prepare yourself for a gigantic triviafest, giving you plenty of ammunition to be the Super Bowl know-it-all when the game starts at 6:30 p.m. ET on Sunday. Warning: Recite these numbers at your own risk.
- $10 billion: to be gambled on Super Bowl XLVI internationally, expected to be the most bet-upon game in Super Bowl history, according to ESPN (not a dime from me.)
- 1.25 billion: chicken wings eaten Super Bowl weekend (I’m stuffed.)
- $720 million: construction cost of the Indianapolis Lucas Oil Stadium, built in hopes of hosting a Super Bowl
- 111 million: last year’s average U.S. TV audience, the largest in U.S. TV history. It could hit 113 million viewers this year, according to an unscientific poll by MediaLife
- $4 million: price of the most-expensive advertisement, according to Reuters (waste of even more money.)
- $3.5 million: for a 30-second ad, on average, up from $3 million last year (It’s 2 cents per viewer. No bargain.)
- 68,000: number of seats in Lucas Oil Stadium for Super Bowl XLVI
- $3,985: Average price paid for one Super Bowl 2012 ticket (Think of the massive TV you could buy for $4 grand!)
- 3,000: hours of video content to be acquired, encoded and transported by NBC
- 475: crew members NBC will employ for the pre-game and game productions
- 180: countries and territories in which Super Bowl XLVI will air
- 77%: accuracy of the stock market predictor that if the NFC team (Giants) wins the Super Bowl, the market will rise for the year, or drop if the AFC team (Patriots) wins
- 75: cameras installed in Indianapolis in and around Lucas Oil Stadium for Super Bowl security, according toPublic Intelligence
- 70: national network ads NBC will air around this year’s game, sold out shortly after Thanksgiving weekend, according to Reuters
- 60: miles of cable for NBC’s cameras and microphones
- 57: cameras NBC will deploy for the broadcast, including the pre- and post-game shows
- 50%: price rise of a Super Bowl commercial in the last 10 years
- 47%: of Super Bowl viewers will check their smartphones up to 10 times or more during the game, according to a survey by Velti.
- 46: It’s the 46th Super Bowl (XLVI)
- 40: cameras NBC will devote to game coverage
- 29: Trucks and trailers NBC will use for the broadcast
- 25: languages spoken on the international broadcasts
- 12: number of Super Bowl appearances for Giants and Patriots combined
- 6: channels of DTS Neural Surround 5.1 technology integrated into the HD broadcast
- 5: Super Bowls for New England coach Bill Belichick and QB Tom Brady
- 4: Hi-Motion II super ultra-motion cameras, shooting at 1000fps at a resolution of 1080p
- 3: $0.03 — average cost to advertisers per viewer for 30 seconds of ad time during the Super Bowl (Wall St. Journal said it was 2 cents,)
- 2: dimensions — broadcast will be in 2D HDTV, no 3D HDTV broadcast this year.
- 1: winner. Will it be the Patriots or the Giants? (It was the Giants!)