Image is everything?

Here are contrasting posts about whether your company's 'look' is just vanity or all important factor:

1. Beyond Web Usability...Web Credibility, Trenton Moss says"Studies have consistently proven that the most important criteria of web credibility is... the way the website looks. That's it. "

2. How Important is a Logo? from Mike Boyink says "If it's hard to get people to notice or remember a bad logo, how hard is it to get people to notice or remember a good logo?"

3. Judging a book by its cover Seth Godin opins "Sometimes a great cover can help a lousy book (for a little while)...But for books, like most things, the stuff inside matters."

4. 8 Things Stores Don't Want You to Know by John Nardini points to the facts in retail, like: "Research shows that people say pastries taste better in a pink box than any other color."

And the funny thing is, I agree with all of them. So what does this mean? What should I do (or not bother with)?

IMHO, looks (logo, website, book cover, box etc) become just one part of the puzzle to making a complete impression. Just remember that the look (i.e. branding) should get proportional attention to your other prospect-facing items (content, sales-style, product). In other words, just because you have a great product, doesn't mean that you should skimp on the image you portray.

If that wasn't true, you'd never see another salesman come to visit wearing a suit. Image is everything, obey your instincts.

The ADD customer

We've all encountered customers who can't seem to digest the information you provide them and then struggle when they need to make a purchase. You know the type--the one who calls you on two separate instances to find out what color or size your product is, despite it being on your website, quote, and literature. Perhaps they have self or corporate-induced ADD.

From the Slow Leadership blog comes this snip from a book called The Attention Economy: Understanding the New Currency of Business:

"What are the symptoms of this kind of corporate Attention Deficit Disorder? According to Davenport and Beck, they are:

1. An increasing likelihood of missing key information when making decisions.
2. Diminished time for reflection on anything but simple information transactions such as e-mail and voice mail.
3. Difficulty holding others' attention (for instance, having to increase the glitziness of presentations and the number of messages to get and keep attention).
4. Decreased ability to focus when necessary."

Carmine from Slow Leadership attributes the cause: "People haven't enough attention because they're overworked, stressed and trying to do too much in too little time." I don't think there is a cure, but the patient salesperson is the one who is going to win this customer. Perhaps if you understand this potential cause, you will find the patience to be that person.

A great marketing role model

Why do so many people believe in Santa without ever seeing him? Great marketing, of course! Or so says Sean D'Souza:

"If you go to the heart of Santa's marketing, the one word you come away with is 'consistency'. Generation after generation have been exposed to one brand, one message, and the same powerful imagery. Just like Mercedes own the term 'luxury' and Volvo owns the term 'safety', Santa owns the word 'hope'."

Read the whole article: Why Santa's Marketing Works Better Than Yours!

Something to think about over the Christmas weekend. Merry Christmas to all my readers.

The marketing triangles

I've been bogged down working on phase two of our CRM program, which is a quotation system using QuoteWerks software. QW integrates with Goldmine, making a more complete solution. This phase consists of three basic tasks (But that's not the marketing triangle.):

1. Develop a consistent product database. Here I am trying to fix all the sins of our current system. Most of this is back-end stuff to manage our product information efficiently and accurately.
2. Create a new quotation form that presents only information that the customer wants. This means cutting out distracting content and making sure the info they do want is obvious.
3. The hardest task will be training our staff to use QW and make sure they are following the rules so that all my sin-fixes won't go to waste.

All this work makes me think of a favorite book by Jeffery Veen, The Art and Science of Web Design. In it he describes web design as a triangle of knowledge and skills:

I was thinking how much this applies to marketing in general, and how much technology has become the leading-edge of marketing. However, with web design, all this is concentrated around pleasing the user. I've got to come up with a system that satisfies everyone: prospects, salespeople, and the backend operation. Wait that's another triangle!
Looks like the marketing guy is in a bit of a pinch! (With leading-edges of technology and customers.) No wonder this project is so exhausting.

Google leads the way, again

If you've missed the news, Google has added a metric to its ranking of AdWords ads: landing pages. Is this big news?

Well, duh. If you are paying for clicks, you should make sure you are driving them to a worthwhile, actionable page. But of course a lot of small B2B marketers are just going thru the motions and haven't really considered their landing page. The fact is that the bar has been raised!

This step toward better quality results can only increase Google's dominance. As I pointed out at the InfoCommerce Conference, directories such as ThomasNet usually point at home pages, forcing the user to do more work (or click back).

So the threat isn't just to competitors within AdWords, but to competitors of Google.

B2B Marketing isn't Architecture

(I just dug this post out of my Blogger drafts, and seems even more needed after my recent post about a job definition for marketing manager. At the time I wrote this, I didn't like what I had to say, but don't remember why.)

In December Seth Godin wrote about someone looking to hire a senior marketing manager, whose job it would be to 'increase revenue'.

Seth wanted to know how much latitude this manager would have to change the business. The implication, which defines how Seth sees marketing, is that marketing is about the product, the process, and the business. He specifically used the word architect.

But, realistically, B2B marketers aren’t architects of strategy IMHO. The product and business process is already in place, and it is the context from which we must work. Instead, we protect the brand, create the customer, support salespeople, and advocate for the all three. This is tactical work, not strategic—the work of Guardians, not architects.

This is not to say that we shouldn’t advocate strategic changes. Guardians fix bridges, we don't redesign them.

Marketer's are guardians

Did you all see this post: Brand Autopsy: Broken Windows. Broken Business? John Moore is summarizing a book, which can be further summarized by this one sentence from his post:

"According to Levine, broken windows are telltale signs to customers that a business doesn’t care, that it is poorly managed, and or it has become too big and arrogant to adequately deal with little details."

Like John, I like this concept because it helps me understand why we do the things we do as marketers and businesspeople. We don't take short-cuts, we buy new, we overspend on making a good impression. It also makes me understand my feelings as a consumer, for example when visiting a small restaurant with chairs that look and feel like they cost $40 max.

I repeatedly talk about being a tactical marketer and 'the details will kill ya', but this only proves the point. We have to be guardians of the brand--making sure all the broken windows are fixed right away, putting a fresh coat of paint on, and sometimes rebuilding. There is no ROI, no increased sales, no appreciation for our efforts. It's strange how being a guardian is really just being a maintenance person.

So when being quized on your budget for next year, don't feel ashamed for asking for a website rebuild, or a new show booth. There is no ROI, but it needs to be done. Your customers (and fellow employees) will notice if you don't.

(Pictured is my favorite Guardian, Bob, from Reboot)

YAD: SourceTool.com

New B2Blog term: YAD-- Yet Another Directory

SourceTool.com B2B Directory Launched · MarketingVOX: "Former executives from B2B search directory ThomasB2B.com have launched a new supplier directory at SourceTool.com"

What's makes this YAD different:

• Conextual ad revenue based (i.e. AdSense)
• Use of UNSPSC (United Nations) business classification
• Search results are limited to companies and just link to their home pages
• The website is based on an open-source CMS back-end (Joomla)
• No salespeople to call me

Thomas had killed the thomasb2b project earlier this year. Looks like these guys want to take that idea and run with it. Unfortunately, the way the website is set-up, it doesn't encourage searching. Look at their home page, for goodness sakes (even their search page sucks, IMHO). The site is ready to go, I don't know why they are running the site this way.

Their search results are pretty good just because they are limited to business websites, but the stack of grey-text keywords below each is almost unreadable. They make a big deal of the UNSPSC classification system, but they make it invisible in the search results, so I'm not sure how our company is classified in their system.

In summary, this YAD gets a 'yadda, yadda, yadda' rating.

What do engineers respond to?

I sell to engineers. They're a fickle bunch. Unfortunately, I made it through the Mechanical Engineering program before deciding I didn't want to be an engineer. But the background was helpful to sell to them at their own level...and now market to them.

MarketingSherpa posts a white-paper on GlobalSpec's experience developing an online game aimed at engineers to promote their website. While this probably isn't a task I'm going to be faced with, the insights are useful to understand what engineers are willing to respond to.

B-to-B Web Site Game Thrills Half a Million Engineers

Paraphrased:
Rule #1. No easy wins.
Rule #2. Lots of details--Engineers love to tinker.
Rule #3. Educational (but still fun.)--"have to justify that playing a game at work is useful."
Rule #4. No engineering mistakes.
Rule #5. Variable time to play. (workfriendly)

They also tested their emails to registered users to announce the game, and found the word 'engineer' in the subject provided better response.

Here's a B2blog classic post on the same subject Six things you should know about marketing to engineers, and link to the original article by Robert Bly.

The magic missing columns

When I first griped about importing addresses into Goldmine, I had a problem with zip-codes losing the leading zero for New England. Russ was kind enough to suggest saving as a DBF file, which is effective. I've since learned a couple things through instruction and hard knocks about using DBF files.

1. Only visible characters in the spreadsheet are saved. It was suggested to use Courier font and then adjust all the column sizes to fit all text.
2. Numbers should be formatted as such (not 'general') to avoid truncating decimals.

And the one that got me today is more subtle. When exporting, I was losing about half my Excel columns. Turns out that because I had done a quick test with just a few columns, Excel had defined that as my 'database' despite my adding columns. Here is a better explanation:

"This is because, when you first exported the Excel file to a .dbf file, Excel created a "named range" for that .dbf file. If you do not modify this named range, Excel will continue using this original range and, thus, not include any added rows or columns on subsequent exports to .dbf of the same file." --Tips about uploading a dbf file

Keeping a theme going this week: I'm mastering my &@#$% tools!

A short list of good CRM software

It's been a year since I bought and implemented Goldmine as our new CRM system. It's not the most beautiful software, but it suits our needs well. But the Paradox of Choice still leaves me wondering if it was the best choice.

Last week Jim at CRM Mastery E-Journal posted a link to an article by SearchCRM.com reviewing Forrester Research's report on 'midmarket' CRM (which you can buy for $795). This report was only for real software, not online services like salesforce.com.

"Forrester found Siebel System's Professional Edition, Sage CRM's Saleslogix and Pivotal's applications best suited for midmarket firms, while FrontRange and Maximizer Software best fit the needs of small businesses."

Looks like I made a good choice, based on this comment. Cool.

Master your Firefox

Last post I tried to remind my readers to be masters of your tools. And that's why you should pay attention to the latest release of Firefox 1.5. It introduces new features for web designers to use.

And even if you aren't a designer, you will need to talk to one when you update your site. Like talking to an auto mechanic, you are more comfortable when you know the difference between an alternator and a starter. Maybe some of these new features would be beneficial to your website, but don't expect the designer to offer them...push them and remain the leader in the project.

To that end, here's a good review of the new features from the latest SitePoint Tech Times newsletter.

Get Firefox
BTW, now would be a good time to walk away from IE6 and join the Firefox world. My favorite feature of Firefox? A search box for your bookmarks. Second favorite is the on-page search. And I've finally decided that the Google toolbar is worth adding on (I'm a PageRank junkie and the simple extension to show PR doesn't work with 1.5). I've added a link on my home page where you can get both in one click, if you like (and Google gives me credit).