BeeTooBee: digg for b2b

I recently subscribed to digg's news feed. It certainly feels like digging to get thru the 100+ headlines it posts every day. I'll probably drop the feed from Bloglines soon.

Here's a tailor-made site for us B2B marketing bloggers: BeeTooBee:

"What is BeeTooBee?
Benefit from the collective intelligence of your peers to discover the best internet marketing strategies and thought leadership. Vote on what you like by clicking on the 'vote' box to the left of the stories. The most popular content makes it to the front page. "

It's all anonymous, so adding posts and voting are easy to do.

Back when I started five years ago, I was a rare voice covering b2b marketing. Now that we have our own web 2.0 tool, I think we can say there is a b2b marketing blogosphere. How neat is that? So, go, add their RSS feed, post and vote!!

UPDATE (3/29): I realized after posting this that I should also add a link to the Marketo Blog (a great blog by Jon Miller, BTW), which has the Big List of B2B Marketing Blogs, with over 50 blogs.

ThomasNet helps us focus on conversion

Last week I attended a local seminar by ThomasNet, focusing on website conversion. The two hour event featured TN Content Manager Ed Edwards. Experienced with both TN’s website, as well as client sites, he was a good pick to make this presentation. Ultimately, the presentation was a subtle vehicle for expanding TN customers into web design/content clients. Here are some take-aways:

63% of website visitors are looking for shipping info (on top of everyone looking for pricing information, as we have discussed before).

86% of visitors will not return to a website they decide has insufficient content.

One attendee brought up poor follow-through on web-requests. In my notes, I called this mystery meat response—you never know what you get until you try it. This could be a post or two all by itself.

Good content improves the quality of the leads generated by a website. (Or more importantly, the corollary: a poor website generates poor leads, leading managers to think the web doesn't work to generate business.)

Ed made a very obvious, but valuable example of the benefit of improving conversion, basically assuming all is the same except the number of submitted RFQs goes up 1%, the example company realized 20% increase in sales.

Product search keyword-phrases can consist of the following three elements:

• Product type
• Application
• Product attributes

Overall, good, if seemingly obvious information. Of course, I’m reminded every time I go to a seminar like this how little some marketers understand the web or are simply behind. Hopefully they all got a good kick in the right direction.

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Now for those more interested in what ThomasNet product positioning is like these days:

Ed showed how TN’s ‘Quick Links” features allow visitors to ThomasNet.com to drill down to product content quickly. That content comes in the way of a 'catalog' hosted by TN. The example he used showed a TN listing that went from 12 actions & average 35 seconds/viewer to 38 actions, 113 catalog pages viewed, with average duration of 3:09.

My take on this example is that this catalog traffic probably would have happened on the clients website if the Quick Links went straight to the customer site (assuming they had the same content there). I do like the Quick Links concept, and that some clients can benefit from the tools TN has to organize products in their Catalog offering.

The classic ‘vertical site’ justification was made, comparing TN aggregation of vendors as similar to Expedia or Travelocity. You don’t go to Google to get plane tickets, it was pointed out. Yea, but...

Also noted that in the search discussion, Ed used examples where TN Catalog pages were ranking high. While you can debate the use of their catalog service, it seems one should not discount TN because they are SEO experts who can get content ranked high. The online catalogs and ‘quick links’ are TN’s entrée into parametric search, but they are vendor specific, unlike GlobalSpec.

More on sales: doing cold-calling right

Okay, I've been rough on salespeople making cold calls recently. And they deserve it. This is risky stuff because it is so easy to blow...so if you (or your sales staff) are doing cold-calling, how can you improve?

Harry Joiner, the "Marketing Headhunter" has a recent post that asks the question Does Cold Calling Work? Really, it is question he asks at the end, but the post is filled with thoughts, links, and advise for the cold caller.

Some points I found:

• Remember you are interrupting someone
• Cold-calling is a chess game
• Nurture the leads: "Take things a step at a time: You can't get from first base to third by running across the pitcher's mound."
• 50% of salespeople don't make more than one contact
• Easy 5-step process to get to a second contact

Oh and here's the sales-dork move of the week:
A sales guy visited our offices and left his business card with the receptionist for me. So I've got to go off what the card says, which isn't much, or go to his website. Biz cards are fun to see if you can toss into the trash! 2-points for Dave!

The same old directory scam, will it never end?

Here's the same old 'renew your listing' scam I've dealt with for the last 10+ years. It's only worse because their name is "Reed Directories", that sounds like the very respected "Reed Publications". Matter of fact, if someone from the real Reed is out there, I'd jump all over these guys.

A little whois search tells me they are from Quebec which virtually guarantees its a shady operation. It also links shows their parent company, Mediacorp.

So, they almost sound legit because they haven't hidden their ownership too well, and Mediacorp's website says they are in the business of making directories. Here's where the fish starts to smell tho:

• The Reed Directories website doesn't list any company information.
• Introduction as 'white/yellow pages' directory (white pages, for business?)
• The salesperson's pitch started with the 'need to verify your listing'.
• At the end, told they will be sending directory via UPS (not mail, to avoid postal inspectors?)
• Asked to provide billing information for 300-some dollars.
• Told I was being contacted because I was already in their directory.

The Game Show

I loved being a B2B sales guy. The best part was that we are 'demand driven', which means no cold calling.

Sales people are the weak link in our marketing, re-interpreting our plans or materials, or worse ignoring them. They tend to think like billboards when cold-calling, not gatekeepers.

Its worst when they think its a game show. Have you heard this one come out of your salespersons' mouth:

"Dialing for dollars"

I just hung up with a guy who was obviously doing just that. Adios muchacho!

UPDATE: Third message from a translation service. Third time at lunch. Non-committal message. This time "I'm sure your busy, so I'm going to take the liberty of sending you some literature". NO, you called at lunch and left a message that you didn't make compelling to return.

Print drives web traffic: the proof

I received a newsletter from a trade publication with this interesting case:

"The leading industry brand abruptly cut advertising, and traffic to its website quickly followed suit. While overall traffic dropped 75% in eight months, the drastic 90% decrease in direct traffic (buyers who type in a specific URL) reveals that consistent advertising frequency is vital in order to attract new buyers to a website."



The chart shows the website going from 18,000 visitors/hits (chart shows both) a month to 4,500 over an eight month period. I'd be curious to hear how much their web-inquiries dropped during that same period.

In any case, an interesting tale of the power of trade-pub advertising. If you aren't using print advertising, perhaps you should flip this chart and see how your site traffic could increase if you started advertising.

Um

You really aren't supposed to say 'um'. While the speaker doesn't realize that he's said it, the listener, who is waiting for a response, can find it rude or distracting.

Even more so, 'um' is not something used in written communications. You don't need to stall, as you are writing at your own pace. You can craft the words to make your message appropriate.

When you do say 'um', it means you are thinking. Or stalling. Or stalling that is supposed to look like thinking.

If the listener thinks you are thinking, the delay is probably acceptable. If she thinks you are stalling, well, that's not good!

Enough stalling

What I really want to get to is this: I've found myself writing 'um' in a few emails and instant-messages recently. Usually in response to direct questions for information or help by colleagues. I might have used it commenting on other folks' blogs, too.

I already know the answer when I start typing. I've added the 'um' to indicated that I understand their question is a thoughtful one. And to indicate that my response is also thoughtful.

What I fear is that my 'um' sounds more like a stall, a delay to the response that is there when someone is thinking 'this is an easy question, but I need to stall to make it look harder than it is'. Could it make me sound arrogant?

The internet has begot us emoticons, which I've used as well, when words fail to communicate the tone of what I am writing. (I once posted here wishing there was a rolling-eyes emoticon.) Similarly, this 'um' is a crutch to communicate tone. And just like communicating in person, it can still be interpreted different ways.

Summing it up:

Well, I have no summation. This is just a concern/issue in the back of my head. I want to appear thoughtful. I don't want to sound arrogant. Which is it? I don't know.