Are Webisodes Just for B2C? Who Hired Bob?

Kraft has an interesting new microsite that follows the life of Bob at his workplace and his quest to replace the existing coffee machine with a Kraft Tassimo. Bob is one of those crazy co-workers that has a few screws loose. In fact, you could probably open a Home Depot with the trail of hardware he leaves. However, as someone that has seen like 20 different coffee machines at work over a span of three years that all produce putrid coffee that makes me run to the local Tim Horton's (Dunkin Donuts for the Southern Folk and I go for Starbucks when I'm working around the clock and need something superhuman to keep my eyes open - what is in the bold coffee? Probably something that Nasa found on mars), I can sympathize with Bob. You can check it out at www.whohiredbob.com. Here is a clip I found on Youtube.



While I think the webisodes are funny and entertaining, will it bring Kraft the desired effect of getting businesses to use Tassimos in the workplace rather then just at home? Possibly. I watched the first video and I got bored fairly quickly. There was little mention of Tassimo and what it can do until well into the video. What I did like was the contest that was encouraging web visitors to submit stories about their own Bobs to win a prize. We'll see if this site brings about the desired objectives but I think it's a step in the right direction on how to use video and user generated content (of course the fact that I'm blogging about this probably helps. You can thank me later Kraft).

Using Paid Search to Enhance the Campaign

I would use a tool like WordTracker to see which terms are searched on the most in search engines like Google and Microsoft but Tassimo may want to consider creating sponsored ads on Google for Keywords (have you checked out www.google.com/trends? it rocks!). I checked out SpyFu which tells you which keywords your competitors are bidding on. They don't seem to have any Google AdWords that are specific to this campaign. Here are some examples of keywords for Kraft to consider if they go this route:

• Tassimo
  
• Crazy co-workers
• Coffee in the workplace
• Bad coffee at work
• Who hired bob
• Don't you hate when someone drinks the last cup of coffee at work and doesn't make another pot? Don't you want to find that person and hunt them down?
  

Ok, that last one may be a bit extreme but it may also be part of the long tail of search. Some additional ideas may include advertising on The Office's (TV show) official website.

Webisodes and B2B Companies

The budget for this Tassimo campaign is probably out of the reach for most companies and is most likely only doable on the B2C side. However, B2B companies are creating entertaining videos to draw attention to their product and services. Here are a few samples (click on these - they're great!):

• Get the Cat by Lawson Software. This is a good laugh.
  
• Bob Kent by Bluecoat Systems (by far the funniest - why is it not on YouTube?)
• NetQoS Netcosm by NetQos. The success of this campaign was featured on MarketingSherpa.
  

Well, I hope you enjoyed these. Let me know if you're company has done anything similar or if you're planning to.


Chad H.

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Anything Goes Marketing is Attracting Attention

Although I`ve slowed down my blogging (too many things going on and I have a new project brewing - more details soon) I`m getting some attention from around the marketing universe.

Bulldog Solutions has quoted me recently on their BullBlog from my post on using video with email: ``Anticipating concerns about the complexity of video, blogger Chad Horenfeldt of Eloqua notes, "If a three-year-oldcan play Guitar Hero and have it posted to YouTube, your marketing team can handle this." Thanks Bulldog! You even spelled my last name right (it doesn`t happen very often).

I also just found out that my post on Google Customized search was selected as one of BtoB Magazine’s Blog Posts of the Week. Thanks BtoB Magazine!

I will write more soon but I thought this post may inspire other bloggers out there to keep writing as your posts do get noticed. I would be interested to hear from Bulldog and B2B Magazine how they found these articles. I suspect it was through searching or via a customized RSS feed. In any case, people are listening out there and blog content is like a search engine magnet or a web traffic firecracker.

Chad H.

Technorati tags: blogging success, b2b magazine, bulldog solutions, bloggers unite

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Give web visitors the resources they need - Customized Google

Raise your hand if you answer yes to all of the following questions:

• My company has a website
• We have great resources on our website
• Some of these resources help our customers and prospects learn more about what we do and affect the buying process
• It's difficult to find these resources on our site
  

Your hand raised? I've got a fairly simple solution. If you're on my blog (that's directed to my RSS reader friends), you'll notice a shiny new Google search box at the top of the site. This is an example of AJAX (new technology that doesn't require the browser to reload). Try it out! Search for anything you want (here's a good one: "Google Rocks"). Notice how the search results appear as a layer over the current page - isn't that cool? What I like about this is that you don't need to worry about the design of the search results pages and you get the power and authority of Google on your site. In addition, with this Web 2.0 technology, you never leave the page you are on so it's a better web experience.

The best news is that it's easy to implement Google Custom Search Engine and it's FREE. Here's what you do:

• Go to: http://www.google.com/coop/cse/
• Click on "Create a custom search engine"
• Fill out the form fields on the next page (add in any number of sites you may want to index)
• Within the search results hosting option section, select the new "overlay" option. The drawback for bloggers is that you can't get Adsense but hey, if I was blogging for the money I would have quit long ago.
• Copy the code and paste it on your site
• You can customize this but I really didn't do any customization and it looks fine.
  

There is also a business upgrade for $100 a year. I've set this search engine up for a non-profit site (because I make tons off this blog - heavy sarcasm) which means that no ads will appear in the search results. Businesses will probably want to purchase the business edition as you'll not want ads on your internal search engine (could be competitors). I think it may be the best $100 your company has spent. If you don't have a site search, you're missing out on an opportunity to help web visitors to find information on your web site and better leverage your web and overall marketing investments. The easier it is to find the right information, the better chance at conversions and eventually closed deals. I haven't tested this out but you can probably use Google Analytics to track what people are searching on and additional data. If you have an enterprise site, you may want to look at some of the more feature heavy tools out there like Inquira.

Let me know if you have questions or tried it out.

Chad H

Technorati tags: Google Custom Search Engine, AJAX

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Email Tips for the New Year Part I

Greetings! I've finally had the chance to go through a number of email newsletters and reports and I wanted to highlight some interesting email tips.

Email Subject Line Tips: Use Personalization and Search Engine Optimization

I can blog about keeping your subject lines short but you already know that and I just reminded you. :) Here are some additional interesting tips:

• MailerMailer's latest Email Marketing Metrics Report (pdf) indicates that personalized subject lines (eg: "Chad, open this amazing email") dramatically increased open and click rates. The average open and click-through rates for non personalized emails were 15.86% and 2.09% respectively while the averages for personalized emails were 18% and 5.02%. This is very easy to do and worth testing
  
  
• Use the search engine optimization terms that drive the most traffic to your site within your subject lines. This is also easy to do by examining the search terms from your analytics program. Thanks Stefan Pollard over at ClickZ for mentioning that tip
  
  If your marketing database and your CRM data are synched, you may even be able to find out which words are used by customers vs. prospects and further segmenting the search terms to use for various campaigns.
  

How to Target the "Inactives" in Your Database

Wendy Roth explains in her article 6 tips to win back inactive subscribers suggests targeting those people that have not responded to your emails in the last 6 months. One suggestion is to send on an email to these "inactives" with an incentive to update their profile by entering them in a contest. This does a few things. It lets you know if these "inactive" contacts are still alive if you get a response and you can use the opportunity to ask these people additional lead qualification questions to round out their profiles. With this additional information, you can target these people accordingly. You may find out that there are some diamonds in the rough (as well as some bad apples). Overall, it's most likely cheaper to give away some IJunk (I use that word to summarize IPods, IPhones, ITouches etc...) then the cost to re-build your database.

This process can be automated by creating a program that sends 2-3 emails over a 3 week period with the offer described above. Other strategies may include further segmenting these inactives by the lead source and other qualification data and creating customized messages for the different segments and using different marketing channels (call campaign, direct mail). I would recommend that the first step is to determine the number of inactives in your database. This should give you an indication as to how active or inactive your database really is.

Various E-mail Tips from MarketingSherpa' Marketing Wisdom Report

I've read through MarketingSherpa's "Marketing Wisdom for 2008" which includes 101 real life marketing stories and lessons learned. Here are a few items I liked:

• Send a text follow up email to those that didn't open or click on your initial newsletter/event (my tip: automate this process if possible using email automation tools). However, text based newsletters may not be received too well if they are used instead of graphical based HTML versions. The best bet is to conduct tests to see if this boosts response.
  
• Have emails sent from Account Executives if possible. The more personalized the email, the better the response. Consider adding a personal touch above the email header image. For example "Chad - check out this great newsletter below. I think that there are some interesting articles that may be interested in."
  
• Slightly change a headline or subject line in emails sent to different contacts using standardized information in your database. For example, for a newsletter change the subject line slightly for your different database segments by highlighting an article in the subject line that appeals most to that specific segment.
• Consider using social media sites like Facebook and MySpace to grow your lists. Does your company have a Facebook group? Create one and use it to advertise events, product releases etc... Have a look at MarketingSherpa's facebook group. There are videos, pics, job postings, discussions - it's awesome!! PS - you will need to join Facebook to see it so stop saying "Facebook is for my 14 year old and I have enough 'friends' and have no intention with reconnecting with people from high school that I didn't really know in the first place". Seriously - join already. There is no such thing as private information in the 21st century.
  

I just realized that I waited too long to blog as I have a bunch of tips saved up. I will post a part II soon - I need to go see if any of my Facebook friends is celebrating a birthday this week and finish up that game of Scrabulous with my mother in law.

Hope the tips helped!

Chad H.

PS - feel free to look for me on Facebook.
PPS - Thanks Bulldog Solutions for mentioning my blog and quoting me for my post on using video in email.

Technorati Tags: email marketing, segmentation, tips, e-mail best practices

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Lessons Learned in Cost Rica - Being Customer Centric

My brain is slowly de-fogging from my trip to Costa Rica. My wife and I had a wonderful jammed pack week full of tours, hikes and R&R at the beach. Beyond the beauty of this country and the relaxing siestas in the sun, I was reminded of a valuable lesson - go above and beyond for your customers.

We booked an eco-tour which means that we travelled to various areas of Costa Rica to learn more about this wonderful country and the different species that inhabit it. We thought that we were going to be traveling with a bunch of other tourists but we ended up on an empty bus with just a driver and a tour guide. Over the next 5 days we were treated to an entertaining and informative tour through the rain forest and beautiful country side of Costa Rica until we reached the beaches on the pacific side for a few extra days.

Going that extra mile for the customer

What made the trip was our tour guide Jonathon and driver Daniel from Central American Tours. Whatever we needed, they provided for us. They ensured that we got the most value out of our trip by:

• helping us save money
• telling us what was the real coffee to buy to bring back home (and taking us to a shopping center to buy the coffee for the best price)
• suggesting authentic yet inexpensive restaurants
• taking the time to answer all of our questions about the thousands of plants and animals as well as the culture, history and politics of Costa Rica.
  
• providing multiple touring options that enabled us to do what we wanted.
  
• being as flexible as possible.
• Doing the unexpected. Here are two examples:
  1. We wanted to buy a special rosewood walking cane for my father in law. Our tour guide overheard my conversation with my wife and called ahead to the souvenir shop so that they would reserve the cane we wanted (it was the only one of its kind that we saw and we knew what it would mean to my father in law).
  
  2. Our driver provided us with a CD of some beautiful photographs of the Arenal Volcano that he took because it was cloudy when we went and we couldn't see that much. I've included one of his photos (while he couldn't speak any English, he was a wizard with his camera and loved showing off the photos he took).
  
  Now that is going above and beyond. Did it take a lot of effort on their part? no. Was it expensive or resource intensive? no. Would I recommend this tour company and my tour guide? I don't think I have to answer yet. They key here is the effort that was taken, the thoughtfulness and responsiveness. This experience is a good reminder for everyone as you begin 2008 -how can you easily provide greater value to your customers?
  

Happy New Year everyone!

Chad H.

PS - Here are some pictures from my trip that I posted on Facebook if you are interested.
Here are a few sample videos that I posted on UTube:

• Our monkey adventure
• Attack of the crazy creatures called Quadimundi

PPS - We met some great people from our trip and some of them joined our tour when they found out what a great tour guide we had. I plan to keep in touch with many of them via Facebook. Thanks for help making our trip a great one!!

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Anything Goes Marketing on the Globe and Mail

Here I was minding my own business, taking in some caffeine while I scanned my web traffic. What did I find? I`ve been added to the blogroll on Canada`s largest national newspaper. The blog is called Hard Sell Blog by Keith McArthur who writes for the Globe and Mail. His blog is about the latest in marketing and advertising. I know my American friends are saying `Whoppie` but it`s nice to be listed up there with Seth Godin on a widely read and respectable website (unlike those others that we will not mention at this time - kidding!). So there Seth and Keith, I am open to do an interview!

Chad

PS - Ok, so his last post was from June 2007 but you can`t take that screenshot away from me!

Tags: Seth Godin, Globe and Mail

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Resources on Aligning Marketing and Sales for B2B Companies

If you somehow stumbled on this post and said "Yes, this is just what I was looking for and will help save our company" you really need to get a hold of yourself! This article may give you some additional information that you didn't have but it's not going to make your sales team start using the CRM properly or get marketing to only pass on qualified leads to sales. It's time to get a grip and at least know that you are not alone.

I visit many companies and I repeatedly see the same issues that revolve around marketing and sales are not being on the same page. I do see a few exceptions but I typically see the following:

• Marketing and sales do not have a common definition of a lead (or anything for that matter).
• Marketing and sales are not in alignment in regards to the sales and marketing funnel
  
• Sales do not follow up on leads passed over by marketing
• Marketing passes on "crap" (unqualified) leads to sales
• Sales do not attribute opportunities or closed deals to marketing campaigns (sales is the broken link in closed loop marketing)
• Sales use excel to manage their lists and pipeline which limits marketing's visibility into the effectiveness of their efforts
• Marketing does not provide sales with the materials and/or messaging needed.
• There is no defined process to route leads to sales
• There is no defined process to handle leads that are qualified, yet not ready to buy
• Sales are given the tools to make their jobs easier but refuse to adopt to them.
• Marketing doesn't pass over enough leads
• Sales don't follow the sales/marketing process as it's not enforced by management
  

I think I could probably go on here forever - please feel free to add a few more. If you can relate to any of these items above, I've assembled a few resources that you may find useful.

Five Resources on Aligning Marketing and Sales

• B2B Marketing and Sales Tip #65 - Defining a Lead: This post deals with the issue of how to get sales and marketing on the same wave length in terms of defining what a lead is. This post is part of B2B Lead website and is run by true marketing professionals - worth taking a look for some actionable marketing and sales alignment tips.

• 7 Tips to Improve Sales Follow-up & Close More Leads: This post provides some quick tips that can help you steer marketing and sales teams through the rough waters of alignment. What I like about Brian Carrol's post is the give and take. marketing promises to get leads to sales as quickly as possible but if sales doesn't follow up with a lead by a certain time, it will be reassigned. I highly recommend Brian's Lead Generation Blog.
  
  
• What Sales Really Needs from Marketing: Jill Konrath over at Selling to Big Companies has been there and done that when it comes to working with sales and marketing teams. She has written and excellent e-book which will help marketers get a better understanding of how they can get sales better aligned with their marketing objectives. It really comes down to providing sales with what they need to succeed.
• Marketing & Sales with a Single View: This post is a good one because it provides some immediate action items and brings everyone back to the reason you are in business: to serve the customer. Ardath Albee at Marketing Interactions stresses that a common definition of what the customer is looking for will help bring together the various strategies and tactics that are being deployed by individual marketing and sales groups.
  
  
• Need to Improve Salespeople’s Behaviors? Don't Bother with Sales Training or CRM Until You Face the Facts: I really enjoyed Michael Webb's post over at Six Sigma Selling. He doesn't pull any punches. If you want sales to buy into new processes, then make sure that the process has been firmly established, it's proven it will succeed and that management is completely bought in.

I hope that you find these resources useful. If you have any additional articles or posts, please share them by adding a comment below.

Chad H.

PS - here is a additional article that I liked that refers to aligning metrics in the sales and marketing funnel: You're Measuring What?! Why Marketing and Sales Metrics Aren't Customer-Aligned

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