Marketing Interactions

Constant Contact Really Knows Their Customers

I had the pleasure of speaking with the folks at Constant Contact last week about their new Event Marketing tool. It sounded pretty cool. So I tried to push them about how it could be useful to mid-size and larger companies whose marketers get stuck in the IT queue, waiting for their stuff to get posted. The timeline is horrific.

I pushed about customized templates, about integration, about a lot of ideas that occurred to me.

You know what they told me? That's not our market.

Bravo!

They then went on to share with me just how well they know who they are and who they serve.

"Constant Contact helps small businesses and organizations grow customer relationships and succeed by delivering professional, easy-to-use online services and coaching at a reasonable cost."

Because they stick to their guns, they successfully serve over 300,000 customers. And they do it by helping their customers (most with less than 10 employees) have access to professional tools and coaching that helps them look professional and be more successful without investing a lot of time. They know their customers really well.

Then they gave me a demo of their new Event Management tool (launched today) and I was suitably impressed. They've obviously put a lot of time into making it as "click and go" as they can. The interface is slick and the process intuitive. And the integration with PayPal makes it easy to launch paid-attendance events.

They told me that they do so well because they solicit feedback from their customers and then actually listen to it to drive product innovation.

I know - refreshing, huh!

So, why add Event Management to their already successful Email Marketing and Online Survey offerings? Because they learned that, "66% of their customers hold 6 events or more a year, with an average of 20 - 100 attendees at each event."

That's a pretty good reason. Built in demand from people they already have a high level of credibility with and loyalty from!

Their customers wanted:

• To convey a professional image
• Easy to use tool
• To be more productive with automated technology
• Consolidate their marketing efforts
• Great value with predictable pricing

So that's exactly what Constant Contact gave them with the new Event Marketing hosted solution that includes:

• registration form
• payment collection
• an event homepage
• public events calendar
• email invitations and notifications (with automated scheduling, confirmation emails, reminders, etc.)
• tracking and reporting
• $15 per month for up to 5 events (pricing per event, not per attendee)

I'd say that's exactly on target for their market.

I write a lot about the need for segmentation and for knowing your buyers as intimately as possible. What I usually hear is "we're okay with just using demographics" or that it's too hard to do more than that.

But, just look at what happens when it's not.

Go ask yourself if you've got your stake firmly planted in the ground when it comes to not just defining your markets, but knowing them.

I wish the best of luck to Constant Contact with their new product. I can't wait to see what they come up with next! Oh, and if you're in need of some cool tools as an SMB, go check them out.

Many B2B Websites Still Suck Wind

Why is it that B2B websites are so terrible at engaging the people they're designed to serve?

The simple answer is because companies tend to design websites based on what they think is important, rather than what their prospects and customers value. This has been said again, and again...and again. In fact, one of my most highly read posts, even today, is B2B Websites Not Effective—a post I wrote June 5, 2006.

The other issue is that websites are political hot potatoes. For some reason, there seem to be a lot of territorial turf wars. Not sure why, when the goal is to engage prospects and customers to build new and ongoing relationships that result in your selling more stuff.

But, that's a conundrum for another post.

What I'd like to know is who wrote the rule that says all corporate websites must follow a standard navigation format?

You know what I mean. That siloed, uninteresting and uninformative menu that includes stuff like:

• Products
• Solutions
• Resources
• Case Studies
• News/Press
• About Us

Does this navigation say "All About You" or "All About Us?"

Confronted by this navigation, visitors look at your homepage to try to find a clue about what to do next based on their purpose for the visit. [Read try to find something valuable to them.]

Unfortunately, the top half of most websites is now consumed by a big banner graphic or flash widget that immediately requires us to scroll down if whatever it features is not why we came.

Then, perhaps there are a span of boxes across the bottom that offer choices like:

• Latest News/Press - see more about why we're so terrific.
• Solution Focus - click to learn more about our product feeds and speeds.
• Customer story - gosh, I hope that's about a customer like me...oh, only the first paragraph. The rest of it talks about your products with a couple of obnoxiously Rah! Rah! testimonial quotes called out in the sidebars.

Or maybe you're featuring a new white paper with a snazzy cover on a topic I'm actually interested in learning more about.

Now we're getting somewhere. Oh...you want me to give you 20 fields of my personal information? Hmm. Let me go do a search and see if I can find out the same stuff somewhere else...

Hmm. The only other text on the page says, "We're the leading provider of..."

Oh, wait. There's a tiny link to your corporate blog up in the little navigation at the very top of the page. Maybe I can find something interesting there...click. Hmm. More stuff all about you. No wonder independent blogs are more highly thought of than corporate ones.

Doesn't this scenario make you wonder what you can do to improve user experience at your website? Your company's website may not be this bad, but I'm pretty sure that it can use some improvement to meet your prospects' ideas about value delivery. [Read immediate gratification for dropping by.]

Here are a couple of tips:

• Figure out the top 3 reasons people who need what you sell visit your website. If it's a complex sale, I can guarantee you that they're not looking for the "contact a sales rep" button on their first visit. Then make sure your homepage addresses those three things in a noticeable manner.


• Create navigation that actually makes sense to your website visitors based on the problems your offerings help them solve. [Even if you must keep the standard format, you need to figure out how to immediately engage your visitor traffic. Hyper links, call outs in your sidebars, something.]


• Eliminate dead ends. When your visitors have enough gumption to click on a link, make sure you deliver on the promise for that click and that you've got a pathway to pull them more deeply into the topic they've just told you they find valuable.


• Make engaging with you simple. Allow them to dole out their information a bit at a time in exchange for content they value. Choose when you do that carefully. For example, you might provide an excerpt or executive summary of a white paper to prove it's worth it for them to part with information. Be sure you're only asking for information you need right now based on our relationship.
  
  For example, do you really need my street address when I download a white paper? Short forms will deliver a much higher opt-in rate. Just saying.

Addressing your website engagement is not about structural redesign so much as it's about the words used and the options provided. Nothing a little website content renovation can't fix, in most cases. It's all about perspective. Theirs—not yours.

I'll leave you with the same quote I used to end the 2006 post. For many b2b companies, this quote is—unfortunately—still true:

"Companies are still designing for themselves rather than for their customers. They place serious barriers in the way of prospects who use the Web to discover companies to put on their shortlists."

 

The 60 second marketing website challenge

We all like to think of our websites as destinations that serve to engage our prospects and customers. But this article from eMarketer — Has the Internet Made You More Productive — delivers a clear challenge to your website content.

The article quotes a Nielsen Online survey from January 2009, showing that respondents visit 131 domains per month and spend 60 seconds on a web page. Their November 2008 report showed that people visited 1,594 web pages per month, averaging 43 pages per web session.

This means your content has to be on target. Obviously people are not satisfied with limited information. Since the eMarketer article began by referencing a survey about productivity — and yes, 71% thought the Internet improved their productivity — it would probably be prudent to believe that if they're on a mission to find specific information when they launch a session, they'll be looking at a variety of sources.

The 60-second challenge requires that your web pages deliver something interesting enough to keep website visitors engaged. It also means you need to provide a clear path for them to continue to click deeper into your website. You want as many of those 43 pages as you can get, right?

It might be interesting to evaluate your website based on the 60-second challenge to learn if it's delivering the right level of engagement. Looking at your website analytics alone, without evaluating your content simultaneously, may not tell you what you need to know.

Here are some ideas for your website content assessment:

Read each page at normal speed and see how far you get in 60 seconds.

• Compare highly visited pages to those that sit idle. See any differences?

Consider that people may not dive in immediately, but look around first to see what's there before they start reading your main content.

• How long does it take to ingest all the surrounding content options? How much remains of your 60 seconds for the main content? Is it enough?

Now scan and scroll through your web pages and see what catches your eye.

• Take a look at which search terms are pulling people to the page. Is what's catching your eye related to those terms, and the expectations they set?

If you look at your website's navigational paths, which links are visitors clicking on? The ones above the fold? The ones in the sidebars? The formal navigation? Or the hyperlinks within your main text?

• The key question is, are they going where you want them to? Or are they wandering around, clearly not engaged in answer to the need that brought them?
  

Chances are that if the average web session includes 43 pages, yours aren't the only ones your website visitors are reading. This is one reason why it's important to spread your content around online—well, once you've made sure it's engaging.

And, consider that if the norm is 60 seconds you should consider a test by displaying a track/storyline of your content in one-minute chunks with clear paths to continue the storyline. Monitor behavior to determine if engagement with your content improves.

I'm wondering if anyone's done a study that shows the impression made by the number of relevant web pages visited? Seems to me that if each click (and they're obviously not afraid to click) delivers value, that should make a lasting impression—as well as a reason to return for more. [If you've got a data source for this, I'd love to see it.]

How's your website handling the 60-second challenge? Or, do you think this doesn't apply to your situation? I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Proof Customer Experience Impacts Your Business

The 3rd annual report on Customer Experience Impact was released today by RightNow Technologies and Harris Interactive. I didn't see anything surprising in the report, but what you will find is proof that what you've been hearing, experiencing and seeing is true and not going away any time soon:

Customers care deeply about the experience they have with your company.

Yes, they do. As a matter of fact, they're getting even more demonstrable about how much they care.

The report found the following outcomes of BAD experiences:

• 87% have stopped doing business with a company that provided a bad experience. In fact, more of them are taking action in response to bad experiences—28% more since 2006.
• 84% will tell others about their bad experience—22% of them blog about it or post negative feedback online.

What's interesting to me is comparing this research of consumer perspective in regards to experience with company viewpoint on the same subject. According to Forrester Research, 62% of companies don't view the customer experience as critical for the future.

This makes me want to ask these companies what kind of future they forecast? Going down in flames? Selling to a different species?

With the increasing ability and propensity of people to take control of their purchasing by walking away from companies who provide bad experiences—and tell others about it—companies are crazy if they're not focused on shaping their customer experience to meet excellence - as defined through their customers' perspective.

In fact, here are the payoffs for serving up excellent experiences to your customers:

• 58% will pay more for excellence in service—even in a down economy.
• 57% will recommend your company to others when they receive outstanding experiences.

Considering the 2008 Edelman Trust Barometer reports that people trust most "people like them," can you afford not to deliver excellent experiences to your customers?

The Customer Experience Impact Report also discovered which facets of experiences have the most impact in encouraging people to engage with your company.

• Improving the overall experience.
• Easy access to information of value–improve website usability and search.
• Ease in asking questions—web chat was favored highly.
• Ability to speak to a human being when they reach out.

It's also interesting to note that receiving content via mobile device was only favored by 5% and increasing a company's presence on Facebook or MySpace was only favored by 4%.

Although this report is tailored to consumers - these are the people we interact with for B2B complex sales. If they feel this way personally, don't even start to think this perspective disappears when they walk through their office door. It's time for companies to flip their focus to customers and embrace the things they value. The implications of this report can't be more clear.

Thanks to RightNow Technologies and Harris Interactive for the report.

I'll leave you with this quote from Bruce Temkin, Analyst at Forrester Research:

“In all of my work with large organizations, I’ve never heard anyone say 'we spent too much on customer insight.' That’s because most companies spend too little in this area. Customer research, including ethnographic field studies, makes sure that we truly understand our customers’ needs, interests, and desires."

Update 10/08/08: Coincidentally, CMO Council announced their latest research report, Customer Affinity from Optimized Content Delivery, which stated

"According to a 2007 Harris Interactive poll of more than 2,000 adult consumers, 80 percent of consumers will never go back to an organization after a negative experience. Seventy four percent of unhappy customers would register a complaint or tell others about their experience, the poll added."

You can download the Executive Summary for a minor registration.

Is Your B2B Website's Backside Droopy?

Go to a search engine and type in your company name or product or a keyword and take a look at the search results. Notice anything?

Most likely, only one of the links takes people to the home page of your website.

All the others invite visitors to enter your world through a back door.

Click on some of the search results links, wipe your mind blank [I know, it's a challenge], and ask yourself if you arrived on that page by chance, what kind of impression would the website leave with you?

Can you pick up your company's story in mid-stride? Do you understand where you are in the scheme of things and is there a clear path to either take a few steps back to catch up or easily move forward on your exploration of the topic?

In other words - how engaging is your website if entered from the backside?

A few things you may want to check and adjust to make sure your backside isn't droopy:

• Start with the search results.
  
  • Are the pages that returned for your website responsive to the search term entered?
  • Are there some better choices for keyword optimization? Does the content deliver on the promise it made by returning on the keyword the user searched with?
• Now look at the page the search return links to:
  • When was it last updated? Will the information still be considered current and be of high interest?
  • How does it invite people into your company's story?
  • Assess the options for your visitor - where can they go next? Where might they rather go?
  • Are there clear choices related to the subject matter or topic that motivated them to visit your website?
  • Can you improve their response by freshening the content? Adding links that extend the story they've stepped into the middle of?
  • Is it obvious how they can interact with you?

Yes, this takes some effort. I suggest you start with your most highly visited pages and work your way down the list.

Most people will visit your website or learn of your company for the first time because of a search result that directs them to an internal page. That's the beauty of search, and for savvy folks who've figured out how to reduce the shoveling they have to do to get the information they want.

Take a look at your bounce rates for specific pages. Are they higher than they should be? The object is to pull your website visitors into your world, so high bounce rates on key pages are indicators that change is in order. You not only want them to stay, you want them to invest time in learning more about how you can help them answer their needs. Right?

Depending on the topic or search, they will want proof that validates the assertions your content makes and potentially more information about the subject that motivated their visit. And, please tell me the content is not all about you.

Everyone spends a lot of time making sure the homepage looks great. With the advances in search technology every page needs to pass that test. Start hoisting that backside and get it in shape to engage visitors and deliver the outcomes you want.

What tone is your marketing?

Have you ever considered the tone of your marketing communications? I'm asking this not so much from your perspective, but if you've put yourself in your lead's and customer's chairs and read your messaging like it may impact them.

Are you the kind of company that spreads fear and hopes the upset will send leads running to purchase your products? This tactic is often referred to as "stick" marketing.

Or, do you present them with the opportunities they can achieve with the added benefit of your products? This would be the "carrot" approach.

Most marketing is a combination of both - presentation of problem followed by outline of solution and the opportunities your customers capitalize on, given the use of your products. However the way in which messaging is done can evoke quite different responses in your audience.

A few things to consider:

Humor is tricky - what is funny to you, from your side of the fence, may not necessarily make your audience laugh out loud. It may even make them cringe. If you're attempting to use humor in a B2B marketing situation, make sure you put yourself in the audience's shoes first. Seriously. What might work here is metaphor.

Fear isn't fun - Being a bit scared in business is pretty normal. In fact, at the speed business moves today and the mounting array of goals set in front of us, fear is likely hovering in some form or another. Do we need more of it? Fear adds pressure and stress. Think about how much more you'd "enjoy" adding more of that to your day. Business is risky enough. If you're going this route, think about how you can emphasize mitigating the risks your leads and customers encounter. But, do it nicely - take a long hard look at impact.

Possibilities are inspiring - learning about problems - their causes, outlying effects followed by a presentation of viable options for solving those problems can be motivational. It can instill a sense of power in people that makes them want to take action. This is where expertise is a good focus.

Opportunities generate power - if you're a company faced with overcoming a hurdle to get to the next level of growth and competency, the wall you need to scale to get there may look huge. This is where thought leadership gets huge play. Helping people envision not just possibilities, but the opportunities that become available once they can move past whatever challenge is holding them up, today. By becoming knowledgeable, people develop confidence about moving forward.

These are just a few ideas about how you might evaluate your message context and shift it to create better connections that evoke the responses you want. Using a carrot is often better than using a stick. At least in my experience...

Let Leads Opt Out!

As many of you have probably experienced, those of us actively researching online and registering to download information, it's not hard to end up on all kinds of email lists. Depending on whether you're really interested in the company or just in the sponsored paper, eBook, podcast or webinar, you may not be a candidate for their future email campaigns.

What amazes me is how hard it is to unsubscribe. It leaves me scratching my head. Why would a company want to keep me if I'm not interested or don't intend to buy from them? Especially if I've tried to tell them so.

The only reason I can think of is that the marketing department is being evaluated on how many new leads they add to the database or the overall size of the database. But, surely that's antiquated and stupid thinking...isn't it?

With more marketing departments being charged to positively impact sales and demonstrate their contribution to customer acquisition, why then, would the number of leads matter? Are companies still transfixed by quantity at the expense of quality?

I'll tell you one thing, if I have a database of 2,000 leads, but only 500 of them are actively interested, I'd really rather know which 500 they are and focus on those. Wouldn't you?

Don't you want valid metrics, open and response rates? Wouldn't it be more impressive to report that you had a 42% response rate than a 10.5% one? I'm just not getting the justification for the quantity angle here...

Wouldn't you rather have sales anxiously anticipating the next hand-off because they know that prospect is going to be sales ready and they've got an excellent shot at closing the deal?

I think it all comes down to walking the customer centric walk...and meaning it. If you're going to focus on what your prospects find meaningful, don't distract yourself with those who don't care. They are not your target market.  If you try to be all things to all people you will miss everyone. If you try to shove an idea down someone's inbox that they don't want, you will be deleted or junkified. Why waste effort that can be spent better elsewhere?

Plus, the easier every interaction is with your company, the more likely someone will be to come back the next time they have reason to be interested in what your company provides. Are you sure you want to leave a bad taste in their mouths by making them relegate you to their junk mail queue? Oh, and just to clear up any misconceptions, I don't read mail in my junk mail queue. I just empty it. Don't you?

End User Acceptance Key to CRM Success

Users in a recent Forrester poll ranked end-user acceptance as the key factor in a successful implementation of a CRM system. Let's face it, people are used to what they're used to. They avoid change unless they have a darned good reason not to.

I see a lot of companies implement systems and consider only the immediate users (sometimes not even getting below an executive decision) and wonder why they have problems at implementation. Technology only enables when processes drive use because there's an advantage for the end user.

How to tackle this against-the-tide change is as important a strategic initiative as the system itself. Users must find value in incorporating it into their daily work environment or your organization will have major problems in seeing the expected results.

Consider the following:

• In what ways can the system become immediately relevant to the way they do their jobs?
• What processes can easily adapt to encompass the system without total upheaval. Start with those.
• If the system is adding work in one area, is it reducing effort in another? What's the trade off?
• What informational silos will the system remove? What's the direct benefit of that improvement?
• Will the system connect departments that have been operating separately? How will you handle that impact? What are the benefits?
• What types of communication can you employ to show them what's in it for them well before the launch? How can you build enthusiastic anticipation instead of increased anxiety?j
• Ask and listen to concerns. Answer questions. Involve them in process re-engineering and utilize their input.

One of the keys to a successful implementation is in creating connectedness that streamlines your sales cycles. The hardest part about much of this is creating the information the system needs to drive increased productivity and effectiveness. It is important to have a plan for content/collateral production that coincides with CRM utiliziation. It is also important to measure relevant contribution for all parties involved.

You'll need to consider how the sales cycle will be impacted and how you'll connect marketing into the sales process. An additional consideration is the way in which customer support and service will utilize the system. Make sure you extrapolate out across the enterprise and fully understand the implications for every department.

As Mike Santoro points out in his article, Winning Friends for CRM: Five Keys for Gaining, "Parallel systems are an open invitation for end users to skip the step of running data through CRM and practically ensure that the solution will never be fully accepted as the norm."

Which factors of a CRM implementation has your company overlooked and how did it impact the absorption of the system into the work environment?

Marketing Goes Beyond Tactical Communications

Marketing is more than tactical communications about awareness and consideration. Companies that want to compete at the speed of business today will need to engage existing customers and prospects in experiences that set their products and services apart from other choices.

Nurturing is a big consideration. Creating the experiences that delight customers and build loyalty because the company they interact with is attuned to them and consistently answers their needs is now the expectation.  The fact that many companies fall short on providing this experience is common knowledge.

In fact, every time I have to find a new vendor, I cringe, thinking that the devil I know is better than a new one I'll have to learn how to minimize the pain of interacting with. The problem with what many call the "touchy and fuzzy" stuff of experience management is that it's hard to financially justify.

In the short term.

There is a study out that shows 60% of senior executives don't think they deserve their customer's loyalty and that 66% don't have the tools or authority they need to serve their customers, and 51% think their products and services are not any different from others in the marketplace. We've all read or heard about the customer feedback that goes unused and isn't even provided to the people who could impact change.

We can continue to minimize and ignore these statistics but, in the end, our companies will suffer. However, if you take the long-term vision about experience management, you'll see the results and be able to quantify them financially. For example, if your average customer longevity is 2 years, and you consistently work to improve their experiences with you, will you see that longevity increase? Or, if marketing provides a more informed and responsive, personalized nurturing process, will your sales cycle be shortened? I think yes, to both.

But you have to plant a stake in the ground and start somewhere. And, you have to provide the tools and processes to support the effort.

It begins with marketing. If marketing is responsible for the corporate messaging and the brand (what your customers believe about your company), then marketing needs to be involved in driving the experience across the enterprise. It goes further than the message to the behavior of the company as a whole.

This is why analysts talk about reinventing marketing to take a seat at the executive table and why much of the latest advice to marketers is to learn how to talk business with the best of them. The bottom line is that it is all about the financial health of the company. But the impact on that financial health starts with marketing.

Personas and Marketing Websites

B2B Complex sales are usually decided on by the consensus of a group. Addressing the needs of each stakeholder in the group is important. Each one of them will have different concerns, interests and accountabilities.

Most marketing websites for B2B sales I see today have the same kind of content, arranged in the same ways.  About Us, Products, Solutions, News, Customers, Partners, White Papers, etc. label the main parts of their site. Search is a crapshoot. And quite often, particular content is only suitable for one person in the group.  For example, if the product is technology, chances are the data sheet and specs are written for the techie in the group, but won't really mean a thing to the business-line manager/exec.

What if your website offered a way to email the appropriate content to the other people involved in the purchase?  For example, Send a case study to the business-line manager. Send integration to legacy apps specifications to the VP of Architecture.  Whatever your different personas are that are part of the decision-making group.

Doesn't that make more sense than using content that has no impact on the intended reader?
Thoughts?