Making – Business – Sense

If you’re struggling with digital mailers and their open rates, this could be helpful.

Make sure you are being personal
The thumb rule is this – design a mailer better or at least like the one YOU would like to receive. Be personal – as much as possible. This doesn’t mean you send condolences for his Grandmother passing away. Be personal without getting personal. No crappy long sentences, awkward images, or text that’s not relevant.

Craft messages that evoke an emotion
Emotion is a strong aspect of human psychology. Leverage it. More often than not, you’ll find the ‘hook‘ to your content here. The challenge is to evoke a common emotion across a wide recipient audience. Which brings me to my next point – interest groups

Create interest groups in your mailing list
Ensure you’re not sending mailers that are irrelevant. The easiest way to prevent this is to create interest groups. How to start you ask? Start collecting feedback and documenting performance results from your mailers. You’ll know who’s clicking what. Which brings me to my next point – great tools.

Leverage only the best tools
If there is one thing almost everyone in India compromises on is the best mailer delivery tool. Don’t take my word for it – give Campaign Monitor a trial spin. Use our reference and get us some brownie points please.

Know the limitations of technology
Spend some time and research on what works across different browsers, mail clients, and handhelds. A lot has changed in the last 5 years. To give you a heads up – Gmail and Outlook 07 don’t support a css command for background images. Don’t blame me for it. Spend time with your software developer – he’ll have the answers. He better.

All Tech Marketers, oops … i mean MarTeckers – Join a gym. Not just any gym – a good gym. In fact – the BEST gym in town. Doesn’t matter if you have a chiseled physique or don’t care about your weight. Do it TODAY !

You better be asking why.

Basics first. What is the intent of working out – reduce fat % and increase Muscle %. If it’s already not obvious why, then here are some quick tips:
- You’ll look better (Muscle is what shapes our body – else its just bone n fat – not pretty !)
- You’ll increase endurance (Muscle can make you hold a glass of water longer without tiring)
- You can punch harder (Always helps in a street fight or screaming across the room)

Now that we’ve established increasing muscle is the way to go, joining a gym would seem a logical decision. And there in lies the juice to this post. Don’t just join any gym – join the best gym.

You see, increasing muscle is not just about lifting weights. You need a mix of cardiovascular exercises and weight training to achieve a balanced regime. The better the balance – the better and faster the impact. Not just that – the results of a balanced approach will be much more long lasting. A good gym has people who have studied about the human body. Sure – they’re not doctors, but they understand how muscles function and what is the relation between a good heart and muscle strength.

So when they will make your work out regime – they will take into account a more holistic plan. They will give you a mix of good cardio and good weight training. They will monitor you periodically, and they will overlook your workout on the floor. As a result, you will see effects faster, and you will be able to relish the results of your investment much earlier than expected.

If you don’t believe me – try it (if you haven’t already).

So why wouldn’t you join a good gym – cause it’ll be costlier. So let me ask you – end of the day – are you looking to save money, or achieve a result. Your call.

I shouldn’t have to relate this to your marketing vendor hiring process. As before – your call.

…I close my eyes and see cave men playing with sticks and rocks. I’ve seen on TV that the kids of yesteryears played with coins and marbles. But within the last 30 years of the computing growth, no other consumer industry has really benefited from the computing growth, besides the actual computing devices themselves. This is one industry that’s truly
led by enthusiasts and supported by the same.

Welcome to the Gaming industry. Are your gloves on?

Before we were made aware that the only way to be social was to be on Facebook, gaming was isolated. You could pick up an Atari or a Nintendo, buy a cassette and blow the hell out of computer generated bots in Contra. Unless you found a willing partner, you would be celebrating all success alone.

Today gaming has forayed into 2 spheres – immersive + hardware dependent gaming and social + software dependent gaming. Of course, the ideal would be immersive+software dependent gaming, but that’s difficult to achieve without disrupting the interface to the game.

Let me explain.

Immersive gaming is a situation where you wife/girlfriend/mother is screaming at the top of her voice but you are focused on the German soldier hiding behind the pillar. He’s not a computer mind you. He’s an unknown Mexican you found on XBOX Live – the multiplayer online gaming ecosystem that boasts of over 23 million community members.

This situation even today is dependent on hardware. That’s simply because this nature of processing and computing is still nascent on the web. Though the software a.k.a the game is still super – the porting to a cloud is still a business challenge more than a technology challenge. Sure there are OnLive and Acclaim is already claiming to have a better solution, but they’re still untested with the real gamer.

Social gaming is new. Its relevant. It’s powerful. It’s Farmville. This format of the game is dependent on software. It’s all about ease of use, successful connections, no time-outs, etc. Most of the existing hardware and infrastructure capabilities of the new world are geared for this. And that’s why this is dependent on software.

There’s quite many theories on where gaming is going. Companies like EA are investing on online social games like SIMS. Free and multiplayer game sites like Armor Games and Miniclip are beating the hell out of internet traffic. But at the same time, XBOX is betting on console gaming and their new project Natal is touted to be the best gaming experience ever. (So what if its only Microsoft that’s saying it)

For those who are in the business, on one hand is the opportunity to sell $1 to 10 million people. On the other hand is the opportunity sell a $500 experience to 1 million people. Don’t do the math just yet. These numbers can change rapidly. Besides the social and mobile aspect of gaming, here are some areas where I see lots of news in the next 40-60
months:

Changed interfaces
Gaming companies are already getting there. The idea is to step away from a 37 button controller and move to a more natural extension. Guitar Hero tried with an instrument add-on. But next in line will be controller-less gaming. (Yeah sure – even next would be mindgaming, giving way to search for a new word for ‘mindgames’.)

Family gets involved
This is pretty much an extension of new interfaces. Project Natal from Microsoft has forayed into this already and this new format of gaming will pave the road for a completely new dimension in entertainment. Family entertainment. Advertisers should gear up for a
fantastically gripping new WHO WANTS TO BE A MILLIONAIRE. Now interactive.

Continuous Gaming
Everyone’s busy. There are 2 ways to look at gaming for a busy person. Short 2 min games that help relax. And long 40 hour games that need time. The problem with most 40 hour games is that you cannot let go after a few hours. You gotta finish what you start – that’s how they are designed. I see a massive space for game architects in constructing strategic games that require time, planning, and effort. There are some versions already on facebook like Farmville. But they will move to more ’serious’ professions. Sometimes ones that high flying corporate executives dreamed about when they were kids.

Co-op Games
This is probably the single biggest space for game developers. There are isolated groups of individuals who are using the FlightGear framework to ring up their own aerodromes and flight plans to carry out detailed flights. There are air traffic controllers, there are ground crew, the whole setup is there ! Microsoft tried this with the Simulator-X, but it meant all the 30 individuals needed to procure the license. Now with the open-source (read free) platform, everyone can play. Though the communities are restricted and
you have to apply to be accepted as a member pilot. Talk about exclusivity !

Give a man a fish, and you’ll feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and he’ll buy a funny hat. Talk to a hungry man about fish, and you’re a consultant. Says Scott Adam. Of course he has modified it with respect to today’s world!

Means something for the Marketer within you? Well, let me elaborate. We have a hungry man – your prospective customer. What is he looking for? He is looking for some sort of solution. But how do you suffice his need? Well, he wants to know about a solution provider, he wants to see what you can do. He searches up in Google and finds what he is looking for – a list of solution providers. That’s his fish. He takes it home with him and is gone. But his hunger will return tomorrow.

Teach a man to fish and he’ll buy a funny hat –

He takes a look at your display of fish (resources, collateral) and he knows there is a solution that exists for his hunger (problem). He can get it – the fish from you or any other fisherman. He can “Outsource” fishing to anyone and he can bargain for a better price in all probability. The next time around he will not come to you – because you have just satisfied his anxiety for knowing what can be done to solve his hunger, nothing more. He did not see anything special for him. He wears his funny hat and moves on.

Talk to a hungry man about fish, and you’re a consultant.

Exactly my point. When a prospect approaches you (typically by coming to your website/presentation/ receiving your cold call) he is looking for fish (solution). But more often than not, for him its just fish and you are a provider of fish, so he comes and looks at your fish. He’ll have a look at the fish bow his hat and get going. But what makes a good fisherman a rich guy is not just someone with a good catch, but someone who can say it is a good catch. That is – what you communicate. Talk to him about fish and not just the ones on display, but also the ones that are in your freezer, about the one you sold to the gentleman before him. Open the gills for him and when he sees red he is impressed. That’s your collateral.

It speaks volumes about your capabilities. It tells the customer, whether you can give him fresh fish, good fish, and how you employ your knowledge to do the same matters in the bargain. Go on brag a little – but in a good way! After all, all of us here are Fishermen – aren’t we?!

More business <- Needs Relevant Leads <- Need Relevant web traffic <- Needs a SEO Strategy live and Kicking <- Needs Good Quality Content <- Needs a Good Content Strategy.

Hence eveything boils down to Content and its impact-value. Good content doesn’t mean stuffing it with keywords only. It means articulating thought leadership with relevant keywords without making it claustrophobic for the reader. Content that will change readers perspective. Content that will add value to the reader’s way of solving a particular challenge. Content that will empower the reader!

Alright there is the artistic world and the science world that we view everything in. What I mean is the ecosystem in which we fit in decides how we would look at things around us and interpret it. Makes sense? Let me put it into perspective.

In the scientific world we have explanation for everything (well most at least). Why does the sun rise from the East or rather it doesn’t rise but Earth rotates to expose different geographies to the light emitted from the brightest star in our galaxy. Positions are relative to each other in this world. Science can explain light, dark, hot, cold, wet, dry and anything else that our brain is capable of thinking. Heck it can even explain how the very brain works. But when it comes to the artistic world, we are looking at a different setting altogether. It perceives the human mind, not so much of the brain (thankfully it accepts the existence of one). Most things are feelings. Whether it is dry, hot, wet, cold. People feel it. The body the mind feels it. The sun rises, we are stationary while things around us move. There is sadness, love, hope and much more.

And then there is a marketing world that we are so fond of! At least I am. So how do things work in the marketing world? Let’s take a look.

Marketing by itself is a science. There is a deep study behind every action that is initiated in the marketing world. The theories have been researched, the calculus proven, the theorems have stood the test of time and yet new experiments are undertaken everyday. A whole lot of contributors in this field are trying to add value to the existing and yet others who merely manipulate the ground rules of this science to achieve success. But a closer inspection will tell you a different story. Most of the things in this world are make believe. Nothing that you do can be proven yet the mind accepts it, wants to experiment with more. Everything is relative. It is a perfect setting of the artistic world that a lot of things in marketing are dependent on hope. It depends on how the audience will react. It is so much like performing on a stage in front of a live audience. Only in this case the audience is yet to buy your ticket. If they like your performance you will not only be applauded but will further your cause amongst them. But what will please their ears comes from a little bit of practice & experience. The odd grey hair helps.

But the science part of it says that if the experiment fails, try it with a different set of assumptions or perhaps use a different technique and you will succeed. Much like Thomas Alva Edison said “If I find 10,000 ways something won’t work, I haven’t failed. I am not discouraged, because every wrong attempt discarded is another step forward”. Marketing is a big deal. It harps on the fact, that what you portray is felt by the observer in the right way. This will decide the success or failure of the experiment. Not only did Toyota contribute to the environment with its hybrid vehicle PRIUS but also successfully marketed it as the environment friendly cars to make it to the top 10 amongst American cars. It is not a standalone thing. It works in the true world through interaction. Marketing is thus a culmination of both the worlds.

Thus a marketer can be best described as a scientartist painting the canvas with brush of experiments, hoping they are successful. And that works!

You are B2B tech marketer. And you are responsible for starting off a conversation with a prospect. Right? Building conversations is your job.

The conversation could be on the phone, or through an e-mail, or a thought paper. The medium is a no-brainer, but building an impacting conversation is! Yes, impact, impact, and impact. The impact can either be good or bad. By good or bad

I mean, the conversation takes you to the next level or leaves you on a dead end. And this forms the basis on which you, as a B2B marketer, are evaluated.

Finally, any marketer would want every conversation with a new or existing prospect to generate revenue. And if you can’t generate money from building attention for what you are saying – you would be better off doing something else. Agree?

But, in the pursuit of new and more revenues, you are tempted to cross the socially unaccepted norms of the communication. And if you agree with me here, then you would want to read further.

I mean, a prospect is a human being. The way you communicate, how you communicate, and when you communicate matters. You may never want to tick him off.

Unlike the dinning table rules, there aren’t any rules for b2b marketing communication that one can follow. But, below are the 7 sins that a b2b tech marketer, like you and me, can avoid, while building a communication at any given stage of a sales-lifecycle:

Greed:

Over promising just to land-up with a new sale! That is what I define as greed in b2b tech communication. Imagine the credibility that will go down the drain when the curtain rises.

Gluttony:

Over communicating: in every way – both the frequency and content. For example – you would not want to send out your new discount campaigns every day. Also, while creating content for your communication, you need to cater to what your audience wants to hear. Stick to his problem and be well articulated while describing him your solution. Don’t talk about the atmospheric composition of the moon when all he is asking is to increase fuel performance in his space shuttle Orbital Maneuvering System.

Lust:

In b2b tech marketing world, I would say pestering your prospect to a limit where either he snubs you or if he is real smarty, puts you in a make believe world that he is going to buy from you one day, but never buys. That is called sweet revenge. But in both cases you have lost an opportunity. Therefore, know when you have stopped following up and are short of becoming a stalker.

Another way to look at this sin is in its conventional parlance. Lust is instinctive. And, every marketer has an instinctive drive to ‘sell’. For example – even after nurturing a lead for couple of months, your lead decides not to buy; your instinctive drive is to talk him out of his decision. Why? Because it is your instinct to sell him –sell him now. Rather you should not impose your purpose on him and channel all your energies to nurture it further.

Envy:

Envy competition? Is this because he has more or bigger customers than yours or because his products/services are better than yours?  And if your competition gets a slightest hint of your envious trait, he might just leverage it for his benefit! Won’t you too?

So basically don’t condemn your competition. Your communication should be healthy and not derogatory towards anyone else in your domain.

Pride or Vanity?

It is Vanity for sure. Pride is good. There is a very thin line that demarcates the two, but when crossed, it is surely a death knell. What I mean here is that your customer is literally looking into what you are saying. So, the only parameters that control you from crossing the line are your tone and sentiments. And boy, you need to find out how to work them in your favor. A written conversation can be checked before it is sent. But, what needs real attention is distinguishing tongue-in-cheek sarcasm and criticism. Therefore, it is an art, which can be developed with practice, as to how subtly you can build supporters and detractors within each conversation.

Sloth:

Rather, being lazy to consider your audiences’ preferences. Basically be sensitive.  DON’T be:

• Insensitive to his inbox pet peeves
• Insensitive to what he wants to hear in a particular situation
• Insensitive to how he wants to be contacted
• Insensitive to how frequently he wants to be contacted

Wrath:

In situations of extreme desperation or anger, inconsistency undoubtedly trumps clarity and precision in any communication.

And inconsistency stems from ‘losing cool’ or ‘losing control’ of a situation. For e.g. – if you’ve been chasing a prospect for sometime and he decides to buy from competition – it can blow the fuse for any sales team. The trick is to show restraint. Because restraint will help you build consistency in:

• Understanding what your customer’s/prospect’s problem statement
• What you provide as a solution
• Convincing him why your solution is better than the competition
• How you communicate with him
• Being able to build a win-win relationship or turn around a relationship that is about to become ugly
• The time spent to build this relationship

Building a yearly marketing communication strategy for your technology business can be very overwhelming.

There are 2 categorical challenges:

• Lack of past experience across the full spectrum of marketing and communication
• Lack of a free will budget that allows high risk

Unfortunately the only way to address both of these challenges is to fall right down the rabbit hole. As Nike proudly claims – just do it. Cause what lies at the end of the hole cannot be seen from the top.

Assume your marketing plan to be a disc with rings on it. Something like a compact disc. The bulls eye is revenue, sales, bookings, etc. The outermost circle is the brand and its perception to the customer. Over the years the disc grows in shape and continues to push each ring’s width. Something like the big bang. Its a proportional growth for each band.

So when you think of the innermost circle – think target advertising, Google adwords, and promotional messages that are intended to bump up sales. When you think of outermost rings – think of entertainment advertising and keynotes to address your brand.

If you were to cut the disc along a radius, open and flatten the disc vertically – it would resemble a disproportionate growth of the brand vs. sales over the years. Over the years, the disc grows in shape proportionally but laterally the surface area for each band changes disproportionately. So in effect – if you are spending X dollars on marketing, and you get Y returns on sales, you’d always get an exponential power of Y as a result on your brand.

You’re thinking all this works wonderfully for consumer based businesses – but seems like ridiculous waste for B2B businesses.

I said it seems like…

Why I say it ’seems like’ is because it brings me back to the belief system that there is almost nothing that justifies B2B today. The sales cycle is individualistic and purchases are made by individuals. They are your consumers. So it’s rather illegitimate to claim that a ‘business buys your offering’. Though the benefits will be enjoyed by your customer as an organization, key influencers and decision makers will still be the same when you present the next release of your offering.

And in this case your brand takes the shape of a thought leader in your industry.

And that’s why it’s imperative that you fall into the rabbit hole as soon as possible. You experiment and quickly draw out the communication landscape for your offering as it stands today; so you can make informed predictions of what your communication disc will look like tomorrow.

Formula 1 pit crews have got this philosophy timed so well that they can predict the impact of a change, as small as %difference in fuel composition, on lap time. Their sales team a.k.a the driver, is almost mechanical. He’s so well tuned that the pit crew assumes his laptime will remain unchanged if the parameters remain unchanged. And they’re not wrong in this assumption. Parameters like – suspension, tire pressure, fuel composition, etc. are all within the control of the pit crew. They change a parameter, and they can predict with near zero deviation what its effect will be on the team’s lap time. It’s all feedback and measurement that they have documented and referred to over the years to achieve this finesse.

It wasn’t easy – there were times when they had to take difficult decisions during the British Grand Prix final 4 laps when it started pouring suddenly and they had to take a call on whether to go for wet tires with 5% reduced suspension or dry tyres with the same suspension but 12 degree drop on the rear spoiler. They couldn’t predict the results immediately – but the pit manager could take a calculated risk since he had a lot of relevant feedback to refer to.

At the very start – you’re investing in marketing for sales and only sales. Google adwords, targeted advertising, strong promotions, etc. Ergo – the risk is small and the result is measurable immediately. As you cover the distance in years, you continue to use the same tools. However the world around you changes. Tools change, consumer acceptance levels change, perceptions change, and most of all competitors and their marketing and communications change. This dynamic change demands that you take chances – and take them now.

I’ve been told that B2B businesses live on relationships and relationships alone. There’s no room for marketing in such an environment.

Though that’s very practical – the true test of a business’ proposition can be judged best by a stranger. And doing business with strangers ensures the business relationship remains what it is – a business relationship. To ensure a stranger can appreciate your proposition, investing in a well planned communication strategy is all but imperative.

Go ahead – take some chances.

Bringing the much-ness factor in your communication…

I am sure you must have heard a lot of stories from your grand mother about them. But, let me start by giving you personality descriptions of these three fictitious characters in Indian mythology – Shekhchilli, Gangutelli, and Mithi Ka Madhav.  Ring some bells?

Shekhchilli is a person full of vision, dreams, and knows how to levitate people with his talk. He is brimming with excellent and futuristic ideas. But, has no idea on how to realize his ideas.

Keywords: Vision, Future, Ideas, Connection

On the other hand Gangutelli is a realistic individual. He believes in results and on ground execution. Give him any task to do and he will make sure it is successfully pulled off. He is a man of his words and always has the bigger picture in mind.

Key Words: Practical, Results, execution

Mitti Ka Madhav is a person who can mould his thinking, behavior, and how he acts as per the person whom he is interacting with. He has no form of his own but has excellent ability to customize himself as to what the situation demands.

Keywords: Mould, Customize, Interactivity

So, what and how does this relate to me? You may ask…

You are a B2B technology marketer… right?

Imagine these three characters as 3 different buckets, full of colored paint. Imagine one to be red (Shekhchilli). One to be green (Gangutelli). And the third one to be blue (Mitti ka Madhav).  Now, you need to pour them together in a healthy ratio on every piece of communication you create.

This means that every communication piece you create should have a healthy mix of these three personalities. A slight bent towards one side depends what type of communication you are creating. For example a success story will naturally embody Gangutelli. But, you shouldn’t forget to include the other two traits.

Now you may ask – a success story needs to talk about how successfully we executed a project. So why should it talk more than that?

For a simple and plain reason – You need to connect with the reader. The reader does not care about how it was successful for X. He wants to know how it can be beneficial for his organization.  I understand you want to make this communication as a resounding ring of glory. But, including hints of Shekhchilli and Mithi-ka-Madhav will only help your prospect connect his story with yours.

On the complete opposite side of communication spectrum, a thought article should not only talk larger than today without backing it up with what has been done in the past and how closely it can be achieved for the reader. You need to put your communication in his shoes and then talk. Otherwise, the person who is pounded by thousand of such success stories from your competitors will not be willing to invest his 10 seconds for you. You need to capture his interest in 10 seconds and hold on to it till the last line.

You need to keep playing with these traits off and on through out the piece. You need to connect with his challenges, let him dream what he can do with you. Feed him with some real Gangutelli type facts and statements.

I repeat… every communication piece demands different combination ratio. It can never be 1:1:1. It is upon you as a tech marketer to identity the right mix. There lies the challenge.

On many occasions I have been left wondering what is it with marketing and why some get it right while others don’t. Is there a fixed formula that ensures success?

Unfortunately, this is not how it works. Unlike mathematics, marketing doesn’t have a fixed formula and cannot be said to have the same effect if carried out in a certain way. It is affected by various other factors which decide the outcome of a particular activity. However, it has been observed on many occasions that experimentation can play a major role in the success of marketing. Its quite surprising  what a little innovation and thinking out of the box can do for a product or brand.

Some of the biggest and most consistent brands have had enormous success with their marketing activities. This is besides the fact that they have a very robust and efficient product on which their business and brand is built. The other day I had the opportunity to attend a seminar hosted by one of the leading (or I wouldn’t be wrong if I said “The Leading”) CRM companies in the world. The product is a highly proven and efficient product in the market today and the choice of companies across domains, regions and size of the businesses. But was this achieved merely because of the product marketing? This one question leads us to wonder what is it that the company got right. The brilliance lies in the fact that the engineers or product strategies have re-evaluated from time to time – the growth of the market and the direction in which it is moving forward. Being a Customer Relationship tool, the catch is to find out where the customer hangs out and position yourself to catch his attention.

The CRM developers have put their money on this theory and moved one step ahead in their game. The CRM extensions or flexibility has been developed in such a way that it can be integrated with any tool out there which can be used to draw customer data. Whether it is the digital office in terms of a website, social media, ease of use for its sales team to input data through a mobile device or the application itself. An unending list of features which can be overwhelming for a new user and if that was not enough a repository of open ended applications by independent developers to customize and suffice customer need. Of course it comes with a brilliant S-a-a-S model based service, again highly customized to the individual needs which only opens up more doors for it in newer markets. Its presence in every form of media and every market just strengthens its marketing efforts. This ensures that it stays at the top.

With companies today leveraging their interests across domains and creating a buzz about their products only adds to the chaos out there. But the ones which are able to create the differentiators are the ones who build their marketing on superior products. Marketing is much like the sexy lingerie on an equally super sexy model. Whether the lingerie is red or black can make a whole lot of difference on the outcome provided the one wearing it is equally good!