Marketing Interactions

B2B Marketing Zone Launches

Tony Karrer (Browse My Stuff) and Tom Pick (WebMarketCentral) have created and launched the B2B Marketing Zone as a filter to aggregate content for us in one spot. Similar to the idea of The Customer Collective for sales and marketing professionals and My Venture Pad aimed at SMBs and Junta42 for content marketing, this site focuses on a niche.

I'm excited to be one of their launch bloggers along with the terrific expertise provided by Brian Carroll, Paul Dunay, Newt Barrett and Jon Miller. I love that it also includes some new perspectives such as Cece Salmon Miller (PR Meets Marketing), Jay Lipe (Smart Marketing).

There are a couple of unique features of the B2B Marketing Zone that I think you'll find useful.

Navigation: On the left you see navigation around Concepts, Tools, Types and Companies such as Forrester. This makes using the site much easier than only having a list of bloggers or a blank search field. They've recognized that it's not about us (the bloggers) as it is about getting you the information you want, faster.

Participation: Rather than being a site that only focuses on well-known bloggers, the B2B Marketing Zone is asking for input, content suggestions and blog recommendations for inclusion on the site. See this post to learn more and find out how you can join in.

Subscribe Options: Instead of just one full feed to the site, the B2B Marketing Zone offers you the option of subscribing to a "Best of" feed that "will consist of posts that are limited in number and point to the content that is the best stuff based on social signals." I like this added filter and am looking forward to seeing how it works out.

Widgets. Located at the bottom of the pages are options for widgets you can add to your own blog. There's one that enables keyword filtered content display and one for search. And, you can even specify which featured blogs you'd like to include or choose all of them.

Go take a look at the B2B Marketing Zone for yourself. I'm looking forward to seeing how the community evolves over time.

Working Smarter Network Created for Entrepreneurs

The folks over at Working Smarter have developed a consortium of expertise blogs to provide business people with access to a variety of information to help them accelerate their business success.

Paul Stannard, CEO of SmartDraw.com explains, "There are dozens of sites, in addition to our own devoted to providing valuable business and marketing information. The problem is that most people who can use this knowledge don't know they exist. We started the WSN as a way for a businessperson to readily identify sites-in one location-that offer only relevant, truly usable and proven business strategies, tips and tactics that can help them succeed."

There are 13 charter members, and I'm excited to be included in this great group of experts. Take a look at the other charter members.

1. Altman’s Better PowerPoint
2. B2B Marketing Confidential
3. The PowerPoint FAQ
4. Selling Magic Sales Journal
5. B2B Sales & Marketing Knowledge Sharing
6. Drew’s Marketing Minute
7. Indezine – PowerPoint & Presentations
8. The JF Selling Resources Blog
9. Marketing Interactions
10. PBR – Sales Training & Leadership
11. The Sales Hunter
12. The YouBlog - Presentations & Communication
13. Wilder Presentations

I'm sure you'll find useful resources to take your business to the next level.

B2B Needs Personality to Go Social

There've been a number of posts recently about strategy for social media. Beth Harte wrote a great one about companies who say they can't begin "socializing" until they can figure out how to prove ROI. Jason Baer wrote about the 7 must-haves in your social media strategy. Chris Brogan is prolific about the subject.

For B2B companies, it can be difficult to figure out how to give your brand some personality. To make it more human. That's because B2B tends to be more product focused, which is a tough mindset to shift.

But, shift you must -- if you want to add social to your emarketing strategy.

Something most B2B companies are familiar with is call guides and scripts for inside sales qualifying calls or marketing outreach. Every time I receive a call like that or read a client's call guide, I'm a bit taken aback.

Go get yours. Read it out loud. Can you do this without stumbling, stopping mid-sentence to gasp for breath or, ahem, laughing out loud at the ridiculousness of it?

Now that you've read it out loud, think about what you just said. Does it matter to the person you just said it to? Does it invite a response better than, "not interested" or "I'm not sure this is important to me" or "we've got this handled, thanks."

Most B2B call guides are pulled right out of product value propositions or, even worse, brochures and corporate mission statements. Basically, it doesn't work. It doesn't work because formal, stiff and jargon-filled corporate text about products doesn't exist on the same planet as conversational fodder.

This is why listening has got to be the first thing B2B companies do when they want to go social. It's not about your product's value proposition, it's about your customer's value perspective. If you don't listen first, you won't know what that is.

I read an article a while back (can't remember the source) but it said that by exposing what happens behind the scenes of your company, you humanize it. I suppose this means that instead of a building, people will see people and feel more inclined to engage.

But, that's not enough.

People are basically self-interested. They want to engage about stuff interesting and important to them. Not just with people for the sake of human interaction. So push yourself farther to figure out what their needs are, how you can be responsive and helpful within the context of the ongoing conversation. And then contribute in a conversational voice without all the corporate rhetoric.

Go get Jason's social media strategy worksheet and think about how you can expand it. For example, I'd add that across from Business Description you put Customer Description. And, across from Value Proposition for your business you add Value Perspective for your customers. Refine them until you develop strong correlations that add value for both your company AND the people you want to reach out to.

Go read Beth's post about getting a plan for social media so you can figure out your ROI. Lots of great stuff to think about that will also help you complete Jason's social media strategy worksheet.

As emarketing strategy options expand, your success will depend on your abilty to weave together all your online efforts to tell an ongoing, consistent story about the value you provide to customers. Social media deserves a role in your emarketing strategy design.

By thinking it through, you'll be able to create a sustainable conversation that builds your company's personality and pulls customer engagement.

The Customer Collective Gives Back

Many of you may know that I participate on The Customer Collective - a social networking community for marketing and sales experts. I'm in terrific company with many of the top sales and marketing experts, including:

• Jill Konrath
• Jonathan Farrington
• Colleen Francis
• Paul McCord
• Elana Anderson
• Brian Carroll
• Leslie Buterin
• Greg Verdino
• and so many more

BusinessWeek – in partnership with CNET, Oracle and Social Media Today — has created an online community where senior sales and marketing executives discuss/share/debate strategies for impacting the customer experience. The online community features fresh insights every day from some of the best bloggers in the world discussing how to penetrate the market and close the sale. It's a great place to find solid information from a variety of experts—all in one place. Not to mention the connections you can make and the discussions you can have.

Because of the success The Customer Collective is experiencing, they want to share these terrific insights with more people and generate more conversations. The stronger the community gets, the more impact we can all have in working together to answer today's complex marketing and sales challenges.

I'm pleased to be able to extend this free special offer from The Customer Collective to my readers - Just by joining, you'll receive a box full of great stuff:

• Book: Sales Blazers by Mark Cook
  The author called on top sales earners at leading organizations worldwide to discover their secrets for sales success. The results revealed trailblazing strategies for dramatic growth — which can be repeated by salespeople at any level and used to lead sales and support teams in any industry. You'll find out how to apply these strategies to your own sales efforts to achieve high-level growth on an annual basis.


• Subscription: Business Week Magazine
  Receive a free trial offer for BusinessWeek, where 4.9 million success-minded professionals get information and inspiration they can’t find anywhere else.


• Useful Stuff
  Hey, they want to leave some goodies for you to discover when you open the box.

How can you possibly pass this up? You'll find a wealth of valuable information on the site, plus you'll get some great gifts just for joining.

In case you're still not convinced, here are a couple of posts I've found really valuable recently:

Why online communities fail - and how many succeed by Francois Gossieaux
The 2008 Tribalization of Business Study that was released last week led a lot of people to conclude that online communities do not work and that companies are spending too much money on making them happen. Well - there is some of that and then there is a whole other side to the story...

Fusing Relationship Marketing and Online Marketing by Elana Anderson
She talks about how the offline and online channels are converging. Elana has an interesting perspective and her post will give you a lot of things to consider as you evolve the way you market. What's interesting is that companies are trying to reinvent the wheel instead of repurposing skills they already have.

And that's just a taste of what you'll find. So take advantage of this generous offer and join the forum for sales and marketing excellence at The Customer Collective. Do it today...the offer won't last forever.

Is Your Corporate Blog Boring?

It's sad to read a headline like this one, but not unexpected. Readers bored rigid by corporate blogs, finds study. Yes, it's a real article. It's based on a research study conducted by Forrester Research.

In 2006, 36 companies were promoting corporate blogs on their public websites. In 2007, that number dropped to 19. "Of 90 enterprise-sized companies with corporate blogs that Forrester examined, 71 percent of the content was 'light company or business topics,' with only 16 percent injecting "moderate personal insight" and only 13 percent using personal anecdotes."

Additionally, Forrester found that 56% of these blogs are just regurgitating corporate news or product information.

Sheesh. Do you blame your readers for being bored?

One thing I'm not quite sure I agree with is Forrester's opinion about comments. More people read than share or participate. So, if your readership is up and returning visitor ratios are good, you can figure that your blog readers are not bored stiff. They wouldn't come back if there was no value. There can be a lot of reasons why people don't comment on blogs, but as long as they're reading consistently, you're doing something right.

If your company wants to publish a corporate blog, consider these 5 tips:

1. Define your purpose. What's the point of the blog. Pick a theme that readers you want to attract will be interested in. Stick with it. Think of it as an expertise showcase on that topic.


2. Resist the urge to restate information found on your company's website. Unless you can add new information and then link to the piece that prompted you to write that blog post, please don't give readers things you're already telling them somewhere else.


3. Do not write in corporate speak. Write conversationally. Loosen up. A blog gives potential and existing customers a way to get to know you and your company.


4. Every blog post should provide insight about something important to your readers. Every single one.


5. Don't talk about your products - talk about what they enable. Talk about industry issues, challenges and opportunities. If your readers want product information, they'll go to that section of your website.

Blogs can be excellent forums and platforms for sharing expertise. But, they are also time intensive commitments that take a lot of thought and effort. They look easier than they are. It's the relevance thing coupled with the already overloaded work schedules on people's desks.

While you're thinking about this whole bored stiff finding, you might want to think about your websites too. If readers are bored with your corporate blog, and that blog is representative of your public website, how fast are they falling asleep while reading said website?

Just makes me wonder...

Update 7/10/08: I stumbled across this post on Alan Weiss' blog today. He takes a contrarian stance about the validity of blogs as a way for consultants to generate business. I disagree, but what's interesting is the comments and emotion that happened in response, including the attention he received from a group of pretty influential and connected bloggers.

One thing that's evident, Alan is definitely Contrarian! Personally, I think he just loves to stir the pot and watch what happens. And in fair warning - don't follow this link unless you have some time to burn. It's fascinating, in a strange sort of way. To each their own, I say.

Joe Pulizzi Talks about Junta42 and Content Marketing

Joe Pulizzi is the master mind and Chief Content Officer behind Junta42 - the new community site that's all about content marketing and custom publishing for marketers. With their recent posting of the Junta42 Top Blogs list for content marketing insights, and the site formally coming out of beta, I thought it was time we got to know a bit more about what Junta 42 is all about.

What is content marketing?

Joe Pulizzi (JP): Content marketing is the idea that businesses can and should be their own publishers. Technology, as well as significant changes in buyer behavior, has given businesses the opportunity to communicate directly with their customers without going through the media as distributors. Content marketing isn't just any content though...it is the creation of valuable content that meets the informational needs of the target audience. By delivering meaningful content on a continuous basis, businesses are positioned as thought leaders, experts and solutions providers for their customers.

Which marketers does Junta42 aim to bring together?

JP: We are trying to create a place where marketing professionals of all shapes and sizes can learn and interact with other marketers who believe that content marketing should be a significant part of their business model. Junta42 was created out of a frustration of the lack of educational sites around the creation of great business content. There have always been sites out there to help distribute and market, but simply not enough about bringing the content equation together.

Why do these marketers need an application like Junta42?

JP:The biggest complement we've heard from marketers is that they don't feel alone any more. Also, marketing professionals are now saying, "Yes, we've been focusing on content marketing, we just didn't know what to call it." Ultimately, it comes down to the fact that businesses can't market the way they used to. Buyers today are smarter and technology is better. In order to engage our customers, we need to give them information to help make them smarter - to help make their lives better. Businesses can't just sell products anymore, they must provide solid, consistent, educational information.

What's been the return on Junta42 for you so far?

JP: When we launched the site, the plan was to work to create a community around content marketing, and it's all beginning to come together. We wanted to do that first before we launched any "revenue-generating" products. We've turned down advertising to this point as well - it's too important for us right now to just get the community going. Content marketing is just starting to catch on - and we are glad to be a part of it. This practice is just way too important.

Is 'digg for content marketing' an accurate description for Junta42?

JP: Technically, we are probably somewhere between a social media and a business bookmarking site, but "content marketing community" probably best describes it. As we continue to launch new products and initiatives, we'll probably end up looking like more of a media site than anything else.

What makes Junta42 unique? What about alternatives such as vertical groups in diigo, blinklist or simpy, beetoobee, ...?

JP: Those are all good sites and serve different purposes, but we are the only ones that really focus on the practice and evolution of content marketing - how to create it, distribute it, market it, and measure it. We may be close to sites like marketingprofs or even BtoB magazine, we just happen promote the social media aspect of content more.

What does Junta42 offer that these alternatives don't?

JP: Other than the above, it will be the continual focus on just content marketing and nothing else.  Those other sites get into all aspects of business information and marketing...we are working to keep a laser focus on business content and the marketing of it as the future of marketing communications.

Why should content marketers and custom publishers engage in Junta42?

JP: We are the only online location that can bring these two business groups together. With the launch of Junta42 Match this spring, marketing professionals will have the only place where they can find the perfect match for their business content needs. For custom publishers, new business is the most challenging part of the business. We believe that Junta42 Match will be the perfect place for custom publishers to find opportunities to help businesses generate the best outcomes from their content marketing initiatives.

How will the Junta42 project be sustainable in the long run?

JP:Junta42 Match will be the revenue component to the business (free to marketing professionals, a paid service for publishers who wish to be a part of the system). Over the next 12 to 18 months we will be launching premium educational initiatives for both marketers and custom publishers, which will continue to grow the business. Other than that, we'll continue to have fun trying new things to solve the challenges of today's marketing professional.

If there's anything else you'd like to know about Junta42, post your questions and I'm sure Joe will be happy to answer them. If you haven't checked it out, now's your chance.

In case you don't have it yet, Joe has also co-written an eBook Get Content, Get Customers, which can be downloaded free from the Junta42 blog - so go get a copy.

The Craft of Connections

For many organizations, an intranet, sales or customer portal is about having a place to display information of relevance. What if these online portals can create a connected base of expertise that organizations can tap to improve performance, as needed?

There's an ongoing debate about the difference between information and knowledge. In the past, online initiatives have been about making information available. However, that information is only as rich as it's presentation. In other words, how often does it change to keep up with market, industry and company changes? How do insights in practice get applied to the information available on a portal?

By creating a database of "experts" and giving them the interactive tools to connect to each other at the right time, you can improve and extend the knowledge of your organization beyond traditional boundaries. The idea is to create "communities of practice" by connecting people to those who can help them learn what they need to know to be more effective in real-time situations.

Creating a portal as a community, whether it is internal (intranet), goal-specifc (sales portal) or reaching outward (customer portal) is one way to start. But, it's not about just the exchange of information. It's about connecting expertise that can be useful. Which isn't easy. A community effort needs facilitation to generate participation. This is not an "if you build it, they will come" situation.

In an article, The Craft of Connection, by Tim Laseter and Rob Cross, they state, "People participate because they see value. Experts get recognition. As time goes by and people in the community start to know each other, they develop reciprocity. An individual in need today may be tomorrow’s expert providing the knowledge to help solve a problem. Gradually, we see much higher trust, and the community changes from the mode of ‘getting the right information to the right person at the right time’ to truly start building on each other’s ideas to find a solution to a problem. In other words, that’s when we start creating knowledge.”

They talk about using "natural brokers," the natural leaders that people gravitate to for information. These people usually have more connections throughout your organization than others. They are the ones who can help boost participation and be proactive in helping others make connections.

"...the greatest challenge in the world of intelligence gathering occurs not in data collection, but in making the connections that generate insight. A poorly connected intelligence community has a lower chance of turning data into useful knowledge..."

By creating a knowledge base of experts, your organization can begin to share the insights that are useful in obtaining strategic objectives. Give each person a profile. Include their picture. Also include a few professional details that help people who don't know them personally engage them in conversation more easily. Have each person select from a keyword database that will help others find them when their expertise, insights and opinions can help with a problem, project or innovation.

Use your natural leaders to facilitate discussion forum topics and encourage others to submit thoughts, comments and even articles about related issues they are passionate about.

If you are skeptical about the impact of establishing communities of practice, read the article. Some of the achievements companies have made are tremendous. The way to achieve improvements of scale through interactive expertise portals is to facilitate participation. If you don't connect the people in a meaningful way, then you'll have an information portal. Somehow, I think having an active community of practice portal leads to greater effectiveness and to a better experience.

What's a Sales Portal?

As my last post for 2006, I thought I'd spend some time talking about Sales Portals. I do a lot of work closing the loop between marketing and sales. It still amazes me the blank responses I get when I start talking about the usefulness of a good sales portal.

Part of that may be the word "portal" itself.

A portal is an online interface that delivers information and interactions that help accomplish a goal. So, a sales portal should increase sales effectiveness through delivering actionable information and tools that help salespeople close deals. It should also be an internal collaborative community for the organization.

Realistically, every department in the company has some kind of role in Sales. Since sales is the end-goal of a company, then  everyone from HR to Finance to R&D to support & service has a role in the sales process.  The context may vary, but everyone plays a part in either getting customers or keeping them.

The sales portal should inform, educate, nurture and connect the employees of a company to help them engage with each other in productive activities that increase the company's overall success at achieving strategic objectives.  Yes, all based around the customer. Existing customers, future customers and perhaps most importantly, lost customers.

Participation should be encouraged and enabled.  Ask yourself the following questions:

• Do you know what each person's specialty or expertise is at your company? 
• Do you know who's working on what projects in what capacity?
• Do you know all the initiatives underway at your company?
• Do you know what's coming down the pike for new product launches?
• Do you know the best uses your customers have found for your products?
• Do you know why you lost customer X last year?

Suffice it to say that you can "do you know" yourself to death and probably come up with the "No" answer more than the "Yes" answer. Streamlining processes and creating transparency between departments that improves customer experiences dramatically is the goal of the sales portal.

Okay - I know some of you are rolling your eyes, thinking, "No - a sales portal is for salespeople."

I will agree that there are some tools that should be specifically for authorized/permissioned salespeople - like quote and proposal tools and such, but think about this for a second. Shouldn't everyone at your company know what values your products/solutions/services deliver? Shouldn't your front-line service and support staff know  what customers are being promised so they can deliver on those promises?

Insight should be available about what leads have been exposed to, what they've pulled to them and used and what they've participated in with your company. From the lead nurturing process to the sales process, marketing's efforts should seamlessly transition to sales processes and be available to see on the portal.

If Sally finds out her neighbor's company is looking for a solution you offer, shouldn't Sally be able to enter a lead and submit it to the sales process? If Evan finds out why a lead is looking at a competing vendor, wouldn't it be helpful if he could log that information and alert the sales rep working on that lead? Yes, some structure and process is needed here, but this is a blog post...

If you enable the participation of all employees in relevant ways, your company is building a knowledgebase that will evolve as it is used.  An actionable knowledge system that organically grows with each addition and provides insights to customers and about the workings of the company that many of your employees may not currently have.

It never ceases to amaze me that many companies still operate on a "need-to-know basis." Is that an illusion of grandeur or just over-controlling at it's finest? The more horizontal your company can become, the more in-tune it will be with creating and sustaining valuable customer experiences.

Finally, consider how much email could be cut out and how much knowledge reused if the sales portal is built for and encourages participation. How much knowledge is floating around your company being shared between a few individuals and lost to the company as a whole? How much could customer experiences be improved and how would the sales process be impacted by creating an actionable sales knowledge system, AKA a Sales Portal?

What activities will your company take next year to build better customer experiences?

Making Knowledge Sharing Easy

In March, a survey conducted by IBM found that 80% of CEOs see collaboration as being critical to growth. Yesterday, I wrote about how difficult it is to get salespeople to buy in and use a sales portal managed by Marketing. Yet, if the two departments continue the standoff, the ability of companies to meet their strategic sales objectives will stall.

I see part of the problem as "ownership."  Salespeople "own" their knowledge and they are resistant to sharing because they see allowing their knowledge to become a company asset means (to them) they are expendable. Salespeople are competitive.  By their very natures, they are driven to be the best at what they do. For the sales portal to be effective, it has to give them tools that make a difference in elevating that perception.

Marketing is charged with providing the messaging, value propositions, information and presentations that sales is supposed to use to sell. But sales says it doesn't work. Marketing says they ask Sales what they want, give it to them and still, Sales turns up their collective noses.

Salespeople probably don't know what will help them be more effective in a way they can articulate. At least not when they're asked directly and they aren't in the midst of experiencing a frustration. This is why it's critical to have the sales portal be a collaborative zone that connects the two departments.  But, in order for it to be a bridge, contributing to it has to be easy and it has to come from both sides.

Sales needs to be allowed to contribute without much effort. Their contributions will aggregate and provide marketing a better idea of what's missing and how to deliver tools Sales can actually use to be more effective at selling.

Some ideas are:

• comment boxes that allow portal users to add notes and reactions to content


• rating systems that allow them to quickly check a box that says "this content is worth a 1 - 5 in my sales arsenal


• a WYSWYG content editor for them to post sales success or loss stories that are tied to the materials they used (your system can be smart enough to know this)


• discussion threads with company experts around competitor objections


• suggestion boxes that post the suggestions to the portal and make marketing accountable for responding (not necessarily doing them, but acknowledging the suggestions and saying what they can do and by when)


• Notifications to sales when something new is posted to the portal so they don't have to search. And for heaven's sake, put it out there prior to the free world getting knowledge of the latest campaign. Sales should always know what's going on before they hear about it from outside.

It may sound like this is putting a lot on Sales, but Marketing doesn't get a free ride here.  What they do get is feedback on what value their materials are providing to sales. They are able to see usage rates for content and know if something is falling flat or not being utilized.  If the CRM system is hooked in to track the materials salespeople access when planning for a phone call, email, meeting, demo, presentation, and proposal, then marketing can track which content is used and how often. 

Marketing can also produce metrics about how strong a roll they play in contributing to the company meeting it's overall sales goals. The materials used by salespeople to close a sale will be tied to the lead.  Marketing can start to see trends by segmentation as to what's effective and what's not working.

Important to remember that collaboration is conversation between people, not something tossed over a wall. Response is important and it needs to be constructive.

The key is that Marketing has to modify and adjust content that doesn't work and they need to do it quickly. They need to be responsive to whatever knowledge the salespeople share. If they are not, then this whole collaboration thing is for naught. There will be no bridge and marketing and sales will continue to work at cross purposes.

Sales will find out their knowledge becomes bigger and better when used collaboratively and their success will increase demonstrably through having better tools and messaging that works. They will spend less time researching for every meeting and sell more.

The company's brand will become stronger through consistency.

This isn't an easy process and it may not be particularly pretty at first, but as Marketing strengthens their relationship with Sales through collaborative work that provides better tools, the respect will grow.  Being able to produce metrics that tie it all together for the C-level will give Marketing the credibility it needs for that seat at the executive table.  And for bigger budgets that have demonstrable ROI.

What efforts are being made at your company to bridge sales and marketing?  Is it working?

The Problem with Lurkers

One of the most common "problems" with creating conversations in the online world is that many people are lurkers.  There's a ratio that gets bandied about that most all of the content comes from one or two percent of the users who access a site/portal. Which means the majority of your site users are lurkers.

But, is this a problem?

Many of my clients want everyone to participate.  They think that the folks lurking are not interested or engaged and that this is a problem that needs to be solved.

I don't think this is going to happen.  At least not with the results they would like to see.

Think back to school.  In your classroom, I bet there were the kids that always raised their hands.  You know, the ones that made you nuts because they always knew everything. Or thought they did. The participators.  The brown-nosers, we used to be called.  Yes, I was one of those.  Sigh.

How about conversations you participate in offline?  Do all of you talk equally or do one or two people monopolize the conversation?

Let's get back to our online lurkers.  They are the audience.  They are participating, maybe not by contributing dialogue or input with words, but by paying attention.  That's a terrific thing and should not be minimized.  They wouldn't be there if there wasn't anything of significant value for them to get.

You need to think about the purpose of the site.  Is it to educate? What interactions are happening there?  If content is being read, downloaded and used, then the site is likely interacting with your users in a way that works for them. That's what's important.  Plus, if there's no audience, who are you talking to?

If your site is an internal portal, are you seeing a shift in something your content is designed to impact? How does the content you add to the site/portal impact the direction of the conversation?

I've been doing a lot of thinking about this type of thing and will be releasing an eBook about the subject of online interactions in the next couple of weeks.  Stay tuned.

In the meantime, if you're interested in finding out more about lurkers, Jack Vinson has a post you should read that also links to another post by Jakob Nielsen on the same subject.

Then make sure to remind yourself that the feedback you get from that one or two percent may not be representative of the entire set of your site users.

Comments?