B2B Marketing: How to identify members of the buying center

How to identify members of the B2B Buying Center-StratoServe

One of the enduring challenges in B2B marketing is to identify the members of your potential client’s buying center(read buying center roles and definition). Who is really involved in the buying decision at your prospective client’s organization? Keep in mind that the buying center is part of the informal organization that includes formal committees and informal members. As one advertising agency confessed, the client Chairman’s wife – randomly decided to sit in at the agency’s pitch and did’nt like the pitch- which resulted in the particular agency missing out  on the account.

Despite such quirks of fortune,here are three ways to identify buying center members:

  1. The User is a good place to start: Some individual or department or group will be using your product or service.The user can be a machine operator (if you market machines) or a junior business analyst (if you supply/install ERP software). While the user may be fairly low in the heirarchy of the buying organization it’s that point in the value chain where rubber hits the road – literally. Your solution must make life more productive and more easier for the user …. are you trying to involve the user as you try to decipher the buying center for each prospective client?  Just ask if you can speak to a potential user- sometimes you will gain access to an user and if you are able to explain the value of your solution to the user- you will have a powerful advocate as the buying process unfolds.
  2. User’s Immediate and C-Suite Boss : Your user has an immediate  boss and a C-Suite boss. For example  the user -Machine Operator might report to the Shift Manager who reports to the Chief of Manufacturing. You just have to know who these people are and what’s going on with their inputs in the buying center. The immediate boss is accountable for production output and anything that seems likely to disrupt production like your new machine that needs training and getting used to seems a risky bet. On the other hand the C-Suite Chief of Manufacturing might want to move strategically to more computer controlled machinery and your offering might resonate at that level. Emphasize how you are going to keep production up with the Shift Manager and emphasize the futuristic computer control features with the C-Suite Chief of Manufacturing. In other words, each person in the user department might have a different priority depending on how their individual performance is evaluated. Ask – how are the bosses of my user evaluated ? Am I addressing their sometimes latent concerns?
  3. Purchasing and the CFO: The individual dealing with you is the Purchasing or Supply Manager who either reports or works closely with the Chief Financial Officer’s (CFO) office. More so when relatively high value purchases are involved. For anything that is somewhat specialized, the Purchasing department is more than happy to let the user department decide because if any problems arise during usage, the purchasing department wants to avoid any blame. However, even for specialized goods and services , you need to understand the contracting process,payment terms etc. that can be unique to each B2B customer. However, when you are supplying something that is considered a commodity by the buying organization (eg. raw materials) then the purchasing organization has far more say because standards are well defined, supply quality can be ascertained at or before delivery and there is little technical risk.

The three steps above can be useful in identifying buying center members and enable B2B marketers to communicate appropriately with the right people in the buying organization. About StratoServe.

RadioShack and now Staples: Five steps for retail businesses in the Internet Knowledge Economy

That Staples will close 224 stores by the end of the year is shocking just after the news that Radio Shack is closing 1000 stores. Shocking because a way of life in American strip malls and malls is changing- just as a Dollar Store replaced Circuit City a few years ago at our nearby Mall.

Staples CEO Ronald Sargent said in today's earnings call transcript:

"Our customers are using less office supplies, shopping less often in our stores and more online, and the focus on value has made the marketplace even more competitive."

The Staples CEO at least recognizes the Internet knowledge onslaught that is hitting the brick retail model of "expert knowledge -young store associates." Unfortunately Radio Shack is in the exact same denial mode that saw Encyclopedia Brittanica Executives ignore the free  CD-ROM encyclopedia disc at the turn of the millennium. According to BusinessWeek,  RadioShack executives  still believe in:

“knowledgable store associates who live and breathe technology.”

The trouble is that an 18 year old  store associate with a high school qualification will never be able to match the power of Google that the casual shopper checks on her smart phone when comparing laptop reviews and prices.

Here are some steps if your business or industry has a knowledge content that you try to provide at the point of sale. Knowledge content being expertise about the product being sold, its use, its maintenance or its service. The steps are:

  1. Assume that the consumer has already checked online before coming to your store or even restaurant. The restaurant visitor might be safely assumed to have read reviews on Yelp, might infact be carrying that Groupon deal you are running. Some impolite customers actually walk out of the restaurant after they start looking at the menu and poor average reviews.
  2. Acknowledge your online reputation instead of pretending that it is not there. Thus, if a particular sea food dish is highly rated online at your restaurant and the customer is asking for fish recommendations – suggest it and say so.
  3. Do not try to create artificial information assymetry ( the salesperson knows more than the customer can find out online). Some stores have computers but still don't allow Internet access. Instead, let the customer and sales associate work together to solve the customers problem.
  4. Reduce your retail space. It's far better to have two small store fronts than one massive store, you save costs on heating and cooling and encourage people to buy online…preferably right from your store.
  5. Move online…not as an afterthought like Barnes and Noble, but as core and fundamental strategy like Amazon.

Beyond office supplies, even high knowledge services like Doctors are not immune from the hyper-informed patient. But more on those high knowledge occupations in a later post. Contact StratoServe.

How Your Natural Google Analytics data can turbo-charge your paid AdWords campaigns

Analytics SEO Turbo-Charge AdWords-StratoServeMarketers everywhere are becoming more aware of the value of the free data available in Google Analytics for their websites. It's like having a camera on your retail clothing store with the ability to see what products prospective customers tried out ( and did not buy- why?) and which products have the highest number of  pick and feel (could a better picture or video help?). But the subject of this post is how your free and natural Analytics data can turbo-charge your AdWords campaign.

When you login to your Google Analytics account on the left bar go to Acquisition —> SEO—> Queries. The queries are what people are typing on the Google Search Bar that causes them to land on your website.  This is your "natural" traffic …. because you have a website and have worked hard to create useful content. Read Google's SEO Reports for more information on this.

But how can this help your paid Google AdWords advertising campaign ? Here are three ways:

  1. Leverage top SEO landing pages and queries: Go with the flow with your advertising dollars for products that are already attracting traffic,naturally. Create campaigns around some of these pages and keywords. You should have a high quality score for these keywords and a lower cost for advertising.
  2. Allocate your spend strategically: Let's suppose that you want to promote a product page that has poor SEO rankings. Put the majority of your budget on these pages (remember you are paying less for the good SEO pages in 1) and move to the third step.
  3. Strengthen content on market priority pages: You allocate advertising budget to your market priority pages. Just as you strengthen content on those pages. You'll see that your advertising costs per click are going down, conversions are improving as the combination of paid and better content SEO traffic starts working.

To summarize, your SEO reports in Google Analytics are free and give you a quick sense of what is naturally happening with your organic traffic that helps you leverage your spend on Google AdWords. Contact StratoServe.

What’s the difference between a start-up and a small business?

Start-up vs. Small Business-StratoServeIt's important to understand the difference between a small business and  a start-up just to be sure that you know what you are getting into. Here are three differences:

  1. Small businesses have a business model- start-ups are building the business model: Take any small business on main street America from a franchise, a liquor store, a restaurant, a nail spa and salon, a gym and tanning salon,an accounting and tax practice, a doctor's office or a chiropractor…. there is a well established business model. The prices you can charge, what customers can expect and how you can succeed is pretty easy to find out if just asked a few owners of the same type of business. On the other hand, start-ups are discovering their business model because they are trying to innovate. Start-ups have a passionate belief in their idea, have seen some validation and are trying to change the world as they aim to scale their business model. Small-businesses have an idea that's proven, discipline and business skills can make a huge difference to the success of their model. Small businesses create local jobs but a majority have no desire to innovate or grow.
  2. Business school  thinking works for small business – not for start-ups: Consider that a start-up has a hard time getting bank credit simply because the model is not proven to generate revenue despite a great business plan. Credit is  easier for small businesses, particularly when they have physical assets and a business plan for something proven like a popular franchise. The guidelines of the SBA for small business success, sound eerily similar to a typical MBA curriculum. On the other hand, innovation is risky business and start-ups struggle every day, to work on the goals they want to achieve, to change the world for the better. Just read about the struggles of Jan Koum and Brian Acton whose company Whatsapp was bought by Facebook for $19 Billion. Start-ups need business support in business functions like accounting and law but have to figure out the market and production themselves.
  3. It's easier to succeed in a small business than a start-up: This one is probably obvious from the above.Innovation is a risky business and start-ups fail over 90% of the time, for a variety of reasons. Once they get funding, start-ups probably become complacent and the "necessity is the mother of invention" dictum starts to fail. On the other hand only 50-70% small businesses fail in the first 18 months.

Small businesses do more for the economy and jobs than start-ups, because a good funded business plan for expanding or new small businesses, create immediate main street jobs. The start-up takes more time to figure out the jobs, as their model evolves and innovation takes wings.

When big companies innovate, they have resources and yet fail over half the time for they are not able to bring the entrepreneur's passion to the new product team and organization and the bureaucracy kills whatever spirit company innovators have. Since entrepreneurs are passionate visionaries and are used to rejection at every stage, those that persist do succeed in changing the world. Contact StratoServe.

Do not “spray and pray” with keywords in Google AdWords

Do not Spray and Pray with Google AdWords-StratoServeKeywords are what you pay for in Google AdWords. You do not pay for your Ad that is displayed (called impressions). If someone clicks on your ad, the keyword that triggered the Ad is what you pay for. But first the "spray and pray" phenomenon.

The term "spray and pray" has lots of non-military uses as mentioned in  the middle of the Wikipedia page on the topic and you can think of a lot more activities that follow the "spray and pray" model. For example, people send out (the same) resume for a variety of  jobs just in the hope that maybe one would stick – if only the numbers are large. Classic spray and pray with one major plus- you need only one job offer to materialize. In contrast, advertising online for a business is where you want a job – with every web visitor that comes your way through PPC advertising like Google AdWords. Every paid visitor costs you money and therefore the very first, and enduring principle should be – not to spray and pray with Google AdWords. Here is what we mean, with questions to ask:

  • Keywords are the spray drops: quite literally. You are trying to buy keywords from Google through an auction process by bidding some amount. The keywords can be suggested by the keyword planner  or keyword tool that can scan the content of your web landing page. Ask if this is how your customers search? Use only those words and then add/modify your web content to reflect the solutions of problems that your customers are looking for.
    •  Geography,time of keyword spray : Instead of following the default setting on the Google AdWords settings think carefully about where your customers might search, at what times and change the settings accordingly. A quick look at Google Analytics data gives great insights as to what is happening naturally, that is without PPC advertising. Where are your customers? What times do they search online? What device do they use ? ( Yes you can set devices to mobile.. if you think that's where your customers are).
      •   Small drops that hit target are better – the broad match problem. The default settings in Google AdWords is broad match, so you need to narrow things down as you get some clicks, and then get some sense of exact match keywords. What are prospects exactly searching for?
        • Negative keywords stop the expanse of spray : By defining negative keywords, you avoid the irrelevant searcher. Let us say you are "Visa" credit card. You do not want people who are looking for "US Visa" so you exclude US as a negative keyword. What are your negative keywords?
          • Do not accept Google keyword suggestions without thinking: The Google machine keeps giving you keyword suggestions. Consider them, are they helpful for your target market?
            • Avoid duplicating keywords across AdGroups or Campaigns. The keywords trigger Ads that are from AdGroups that belong to Campaigns. Avoid duplicating keywords because your keyword bid in one campaign – jacks up the price in another campaign due to the competition.What duplicate keywords do you have?

Think of every keyword like an investment once an Ad generated by the keyword is clicked. Does the keyword, triggered Ad and the landing page delight and attract your customer? … is the final question to ask. Contact StratoServe.

What’s different between Sales and Business Development ?

Sales vs. Business Development-StratoServe

Sales and Business Development are different- and there is a whole lot out there on the web, that consists of all manner of opinions and views on this very important topic. For, it lies at the very definition of marketing viz:

“Marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large. “

(Approved July 2013, American Marketing Association)………………………….. emphasis on the word value added by us.

But Business Development, is not Marketing- that is much wider in scope. When compared to sales, though, the orientation and mindset of  Business Development is very different from Sales although both are interested in getting a deal as Victor Wong puts it. Here are 5 differences between Sales and Business Development, particularly in B2B contexts:

  1. Sales is Transactional – Business Development is Relational: Sales is about push-push , meeting quotas, dealing with the sales funnel and using CRM systems etc with the primary goal of getting a deal. The focus is very much on what the seller is selling, preferably sold on an “as is” basis. In contrast, business development is more about creating value for the customer. The Seller ( or Business Development Executive- if you prefer) is trying to really understand the customer’s problem and see if the seller’s product might be a good solution. 
  2. Business Development is Solution Selling:  Business Development really puts the customer first. The focus is on understanding customer needs and adapting the product or service to meet those needs, i.e. provide a solution. The solution gets better better over time as the seller’s organization gets better at understanding the needs and goals of the buyer organization. And the buyer organization better understands the seller’s capabilities.
  3. Business Development builds trust, commitment=loyalty: Not that you can sell if the buyer does not trust you. But since the business development orientation is all about a focus on the customer’s needs and problems , a business development approach helps the buyer organization trust you. Upon dealing with your organization for a while there is commitment that builds up on both sides. Mutual loyalty results in ongoing business,new projects and happy referrals.
  4. Business Development is longer sales cycles: In sales there is a mantra to identify customers that goes something like: “Need,Now and have Budget.” In other words, focus on immediate prospects for whatever you are selling. Business Development takes a longer term view starting with need that is at least latent and building the relationship from there on. 
  5. Business Development CRM is different from a sales call list: Today’s technology i.e. CRM (Customer Relationship Management) solutions take the longer sales cycle Business Development approach. So after a first meeting, you enter details in the system so that you can follow up in a timely fashion, particularly when multiple people from the sales organization are talking with multiple people in the buyer organization.

There is no such thing as a single contact sale even when you are talking about low value grocery necessities like milk and eggs. Here, customers have store and brand preferences that have developed over time with multiple prior experiences and touch points.

Given that ultimately everything that is sold or bought is based on long-term relationships, its better to go the longer term business development route than the short term-immediate result oriented sales route. When you do have a good business development pipeline, you see that the sales and revenue you need- keep coming through as prospects develop to customers and then loyal referral creating customers. About StratoServe.

Our organization has a website: what next?

Have Website-What Next-StratoServeWe heard from several folks that our organization already has a website: but we are not sure what to do next. So here are  5 easy  steps to take:

1. Your stakeholders are on a journey-help them: Whether you are a business or a non-profit you have stakeholders. And these stakeholders are on a journey to engage with you.  For businesses your  stakeholders include (a) customers and prospective customers(b) suppliers  and prospective suppliers (c) employees and prospective employees(d) shareholders and prospective shareholders and alumni in each category. If you are a non profit you need to think of donors,volunteeers and beneficiaries. Your website should help them through useful  web content.

2.The web content secret- clear,concise and fun: Web content secret is not really a secret but seems rather unclear to most organizations. The secret is really to explain what you do,how you do it and what each stakeholder can expect, in engaging with your organization. Being simple and clear is the goal here. Follow  Mark Twain "I never write Metropolis for seven cents because I can get the same price for city. I never write policeman because I can get the same money for cop." Use hyperlinks to keep the text brief like refering to the Mark Twain quote, instead of writing it out entirely.

3.Synchronize web content directly from your organizations actions and plans: There is a crisis when it comes to updating website content. Synchronize or tie content updates to the daily stuff your organization is trying to achieve. Have an initiative? Have a great achievement or success? Stopping an activity for good reason? Putting out an annual report- don't just PDF it – spell it out. Your stakeholders would love to know.Once again do not delete old content unless it is completely dated, for example if you sold a    company division two years ago. Remember the holy grail of digital marketing is Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and it depends entirely on your web content.

4.Spend on advertising but only in addition to above.  Spending on  Google AdWords or other digital advertising and social media will magnify in impact if you have the above pieces in place i.e. your website is trying to help its stakeholders, content is clear, simple,helpful and updated.

5.Measure, Measure, Analyse and Reflect: The impact of your website and digital marketing efforts are easy to track. Even though Google Analytics is free, most websites either don't have it installed or they don't analyze data on a routine basis. Your content drives traffic that is free and is the organic traffic. A simple analysis of visitor behavior gives you clues as to what to do next. For example, people spend a lot of time  browsing some products, can you support those products with some digital advertising?

These five steps are easy steps that need to be done on a routine. Reviewing your web site marketing for just two hours a month will have much greater impact than making that one more sales call and,  you already know that each sales call takes more than two hours. Contact StratoServe.

What if you don’t have $4 million for a Super Bowl Ad?

Superbowl Ad $4 Million-StratoServeWith all the bone chilling cold from the Polar Vortex in the US , most folks are not thinking about the Superbowl party coming up in less than a month on Superbowl Sunday i.e. February 2,2014. Except off course the big ad budget companies who will pay the $4 Million for a 30 second spot.

You can be also sure that that Advertising agencies are putting final touches to the TV spots and sleepless nights have started for the marketing folks at the advertising companies, see the AdAge Superbowl Ad Chart here. After all, marketers don't know if someone really saw the ad or they had just gone off to get some more chicken wings and beer during the commercial  break. Most frustrating for marketers is when people remember the Ad, but can't recall the product and brand. Unless off course, an Ad ( maybe one or two ads of the entire ad line-up!) becomes viral on YouTube  and there are millions of views, media buzz etc.

So what if you don't have $4 million for a Superbowl Ad? Here are some tips:

  • Get a website: if you don't have one. Over 60% of US small businesses don't have a website and those that do hope to increase business by 40% in three years. That's because 97% people check online even when they buy offline. Check out some resources and the video on the Get your business online website.
  • If you have a website: It's time to implement the 2014 resolutions list in the previous  post. Have a meeting with your marketing team and think up a Superbowl promotion for your business. You don't have to be selling directly related products like chicken wings and beer associated with this almost  festival in America…. what you need is a Superbowl theme for your business and it's offering.
  • If you really want to Advertise for this Superbowl: Try Internet search and display advertising. For Internet search pay per click (PPC)advertising,like Google AdWords, you pay only when someone clicks on your ad and arrives on your website. Compare with the Superbowl advertiser who does not know if someone saw their ad, and we are not even talking about remembering the advertised product  at the store. A warming thought for digital marketers in the cold weather that is on its way out…

We do encourage our readers to watch the Superbowl and the Ads because a lot of marketing effort goes into each one of them apart from the $4 Million to broadcast. And anyway the TV ads increase the great fun of the Superbowl.Contact StratoServe.

Five 2014 Website Resolutions for Non-Profits and Businesses

2014 Website Resolutions-StratoServeAs we get into the 2014 New Year, here are five website resolutions for  non-profits and businesses. But why do we need a list of website  resolutions for 2014?

Because coming out of the great recession, people check out your website before and after they visit your physical organization. If you see some great products at a local store and mention it on your Facebook page at 11 at night, some of your friends might want to know more about the store (currently closed) but visit the website- that is always open. Suddenly, time along with money has become  a valuable resource, because you can save enormous time by doing stuff online as the last minute Holiday shoppers will confirm.

Here are the five website resolutions for 2014:

  1.  Add, but do not delete content in the knowledge economy: We explained in an earlier post about not deleting content. Business owners see their own websites a lot and get tired of it's look and feel and as they re-design, they tend to delete old content, which really is their knowledge that they are deleting.Let us say you had a product, that is bought once in a few years, that had only moderate success and you decided to discontinue the product. Say so on the product's page and  you may be pleasantly surprised to hear back from a loyalist who will give you new ideas. Resolve to add 300-500 words a week that relate to your products and services and demonstrate your knowledge. You could add content to existing programs, if you are a non-profit, like add a write-up about a success story where your beneficiary was helped, a video or a picture with some text explaining the picture. Add a blog if you have the resources to update it, preferably once a week or more. Strive to show your domain expertise in the content, more you share your expertise on your website, the more reason the search engines have to guide searchers to your website. This is at the core of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and the improving algorithms of search engines. Remember search engines like Google are loyal first to their searchers. If your website is the most useful for the searcher's query, you will be top ranked in search results.
  2. Synch Social Media content with website: Social Media like Facebook, LinkedIn,Pinterest,Instagram and Twitter can help only if you are committed to updating content on a regular basis. Once a day or more is great, but once a week is essential if you want to stay relevant to your searchers. Try to tie in your social media updates to your website updates so that you have everything available at one central place for your web visitor, i.e. your website.
  3. Install Google Analytics:  Even if you are not able to do the above due to resource constraints, install Google Analytics on your website. It is free and gives you a ton of insight about what visitors do on your website, what they find attractive and what turns them off – so that you can improve the relevant content.
  4. Become Mobile friendly: A mobile friendly site is absolutely necessary because people take to their mobile phones at every opportunity and this will only increase worldwide because it is far easier to install wireless towers than cable in most of the world. If you do have analytics installed and your site is not mobile friendly, you'll see that your desktop and laptop visitors spend much more time than mobile visitors on your website. Mobile visitors cannot read your content because the screen is too small !
  5. Advertise and look at  ROI: As the economy improves, keep up with your advertising both online and offline. For example,advertising on Google AdWords can be done at $5 a day or less, and you should be able to get at least three qualified leads to visit your website every day. These are folks that actively searched for your product or service and if you have relevant content they will engage with your organization. Tracking Return on Investment (ROI) is far easier today and you can get big data to tell you what returns your advertising dollars are getting you.

We wish our readers a very Happy Holiday season and a wonderful 2014. Contact StratoServe.

Power did not corrupt Mandela: lesson in leadership

Nelson Mandela-StratoServe

Every leader in business or public life must wonder at the enormous global goodwill and affection on display at the Nelson Mandela funeral today. What was it in Mandela that inspired people worldwide? Mandela was one leader who power did not corrupt.

But first some background about the quote ” Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Attributed to Lord Acton in the  19th century, the classic quote seems true even today. Wherever you look, you see leaders trying to hold on to power in different cultures,countries and organizations right from the village elections to national elections, let alone the out and out dictators of the world. The cynical part of  Lord Acton’s observation is that once someone has absolute power like Mandela the first black president of South Africa after ending apartheid, you can be be sure that the person would be taking revenge. Payback to South African whites for 27 years in prison and numerous insults under the apartheid regime.Revenge and retribution, given an opportunity, being a particularly noxious form of corruption. Shockingly, Mandela chose to forgive his tormentors and instead promoted peace,harmony and recociliation among all sections of South African society.

Just to recall, Mahatma Gandhi was thrown out of a first class railway car in South African because of his color in 1893, much before apartheid launched officially in 1948 and ended in 1994. It was the pre-apartheid experiences in South Africa that motivated Gandhi to liberate India from colonial British rule in 1947. Notably Mahatma Gandhi never held formal leadership positions in the Indian Government. Even if he had, he would not have sought retribution, despite an estimated 61/2 years in jail.

There are two conditions here. First a leader like Gandhi or Mandela is treated very badly for standing up for some much needed change including jail time. Second, the required change happens and the leader finds himself in power. Formal power for Mandela as President of South Africa and great and enduring power without formal office as for Gandhi. These leaders, when in power try to unite everyone rather than dividing them.

No “winner take all” policy here…. a new CEO comes and replaces everyone, in some cases several management layers in the entire organization, starting with the secretary and chauffuer. Whoever remains feels alienated. Contrast this with Mandela and the white Afrikaner guard Rory Steyn, who was tapped to be President Mandela’s personal security guard in 1994.

As President, Mandela served only till 1999 or 5 years. This one is quite remarkable when you see all manner of monarchs, political leaders and of course business leaders who just do not want to give up power. Hopefully, the fact that there were four US Presidents at the Mandela funeral including Barrack Obama, George W Bush, Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter sent a message to the assembled leaders and the world audience that the US has a cap of two terms for the US President that total a maximum of eight years. And that it’s perfectly alright to be a respected former President.

Some things to think about, in this holiday and giving season, as we remember Mandela.  About StratoServe.