There were several key announcements by Mark Benioff, CEO of Salesforce.com, at this year’s Dreamforce conference in San Francisco. Over 45,000 people attended the event while 35,000 streamed it live. It was the first time I had to wait in line to cross Howard at Fourth to get to the keynote.

The theme of the conference was the “social enterprise” – showing how social media and new collaboration tools are changing the way we do business. According to the Salesforce.com press release issued on August 31st, the social enterprise leverages …”social, mobile and open cloud technologies to revolutionize companies’ relationships with their customers.”

Here is a quick summary of a few of the announcements made during the keynote that sales and marketing professionals will find of interest. All offerings are scheduled to be available in late 2011.

• Chatter Now: Salesforce.com’s social collaboration tool, Chatter, will allow users to see who else is logged in Salesforce.com and fire up an instant chat session and screen share.
• Chatter Customer Groups: Chatter will also allow people from outside your company (partners and customers for instance) to privately collaborate on projects such as RFPs, account plans, and product implementations.
• Chatter Service: Creates self-service, social communities that allow customers to ask a question in a social feed such as Facebook and get an instant answer from agents monitoring the feed. This offering leverages Radian6 (which Salesforce.com bought earlier this year) for social media monitoring.
• Data.com: Salesforce purchased Jigsaw in April 2010 and has now entered into a partnership with Dun and Bradstreet. The combined offering has been renamed to “Data.com” which according to it’s website offers over 30+ million contacts and 200 million companies. For $99 per user per month, a Data.com button will appear on the Contact or Account screen allowing users to populate Accounts with D&B information or Contacts from the crowd-sourced Jigsaw database.
• Data.com Clean: This is an offline cleansing of your Salesforce.com data by the Data.com team. Pricing is based on the number of records processed.
• Data.com Lists: In addition, marketers can purchase lists from data.com. The records are refreshed quarterly and the license is good for one year.

Technorati Tags: dreamforce 2011, salesforce.com

Charlene Li, CEO & Founder, Altimeter Group, coauthor of Groundswell and author of the newly-released book Open Leadership, spoke at the Northern CA DMA club last week. Here are some highlights from her presentation entitled “Social Media Revolution and Evolution” in which she shared her social media expertise from three different perspectives: past, present, and future.

Past: Coherent Strategies
It’s amazing to think of the global impact social media has brought in such a short period of time. It was only in May of 2007, four years ago, that the Facebook platform launched. Now with 650 million users, Facebook is easily on its way to 1 billion! The iPhone App Store launched in July 2008, less than 3 years ago. How did we get by without the 350,000 apps now available?

Even though Groundswell was published before any iPhone apps hit the market, the concepts and strategies Charlene and coauthor Josh Bernoff wrote about are still relevant today. The primary message: it’s not about the technology, it’s about the relationships you form with others. To build better relationships using technology, Charlene recommends four goals to define your social strategy:

1. Learn: all employees can now listen to customers via applications such as Twitter and better understand their needs.
2. Dialog: employees can not only listen, but converse with customers. For example, Dell Outlet uses Twitter to drive sales.
3. Support: a community forum can become a corporate asset and differentiator versus being viewed as a cost center. SolarWinds’ forum Thwack, for network engineers, is just that.
4. Innovation: suggestions from customers should drive innovation. Starbucks involved 50 people via their My Starbucks Idea program to evaluate ordering and paying for a favorite drink via the swipe of a card.

Present: Rethinking Leadership
Corporate leaders are not in control of the customer relationship (and never were) but must still be in command. They can do this by being authentic and transparent when communicating to the market. Charlene defines “open leadership” as “having the confidence and humility to give up the need to be in control, while inspiring commitment from people to accomplish goals.” She referenced an example of the CEO of Dominos Pizza coming out and saying “our pizza sucks” and then working to do something about it.

Leaders are those who have followers and now can emerge from anywhere in the company. Chatter, the Salesforce.com enterprise collaboration application, has enabled employees to become leaders within their own companies by allowing them to post relevant content or answer questions to help their co-workers. The top 25 “Chatterati” at Salesforce.com are invited to a leadership offsite.

Future: Building Resilience
There are so many ideas and technologies popping up daily, how do companies know which ones to react to? Charlene has developed a three step framework to help companies evaluate and prioritize trends:

1. Does it change the user experience? Is is easy to use? Can people connect in new ways?
2. Does it change your business model? Can you tap into new revenue streams or lower costs?
3. Does it shift power in the market or change the ecosystem value?

Here are some trends that Charlene is keeping an eye on and evaluated using the three step framework:

• Likenomics
  What is the value of a “like” based on the behavior of the person? Do they like everyone or are they selective? Rohit Bhargava, SVP Global Strategy at Ogilvy 360 Digital Influence, defines this as “how personal relationships, individual opinions, powerful storytelling and social capital are helping brands…become more believable.” Evaluation: User experience impact: moderate; business model impact: moderate (around the notion of “social currency”), ecosystem value impact: none.
• Social Search
  Social search brings search engine rankings beyond friends to others who share your interests. Bing is ahead of the curve here, Google is trying with Google +1 which is similar to the Facebook “like” button. The goal is to present content that is most relevant to an individual. Evaluation: User experience impact: moderate (making search more relevant); business model impact: moderate (SEO changes and rewarding companies with social currency); ecosystem value impact: moderate (new players capture activity data and profiles).
• Big Data
  Social monitoring combined with web analytics is a hot area with players such as Omniture/Adobe, Coremetrics/IBM and Webtrends. Also hot is technology to store massive amounts of data, like Facebook’s Cassandra (structured storage system), Amazon Dynamo and Google BigTable. Evaluation: User experience impact: low; business model impact: high (as new companies leverage big data at low points of entry); ecosystem value impact: moderate (due to “owners” of big data asserting control).
• Game-ification
  Turbotax uses games to encourage sharing and support among users. Technologies such as Gamify, BigDoor and Scvngr can be used for training, collaboration, support and hiring applications. Evaluation: User experience impact: high (as experiences get more engaging); business model impact: moderate (work is performed faster); and ecosystem value impact: low.
• Curation Tools
  Applications such as Storify, thoora and Klout are emerging to help people pull content, mash it up and put their own spin on it. Evaluation: User experience impact: moderate; business model impact: moderate (easier to create content); ecosystem value impact: moderate (individuals challenge brands and media as authorities, impacting ad dollars).

This was a great presentation, packed with insight. Thank you, Charlene! For more information on Charlene Li and to buy her book, Open Leadership, visit open-leadership.com.

At last week’s Sales 2.0 Conference in San Francisco, I attended the panel discussion “Practices & Technologies used by Top-Performing Inside Sales Organizations” led by Anneke Seley, CEO and Founder of PhoneWorks and co-author of Sales 2.0.  On the panel, Sales 2.0 co-author, Brent Holloway, Regional Sales Director, Verint Systems; Matt Benelli, Group Vice President – Sales, OracleDirect; and Jennifer Brandenburg, VP Corporate Sales, Good Technology.  Here are some of the key points from the discussion.

Inside sales is leading the Sales 2.0 transition and is growing at 15x the rate of field sales.  McKinsey & Co. reports that “shifting from face-to-face to inside sales can actually increase satisfaction and renewal rates.” According to IBM Market Insights, “buyers are increasingly open to using inside sales and the Web to buy more sophisticated and higher value IT products and services.” For example, Inside Sales at Oracle Direct will exceed $1 billion in revenue this year.

The model for Inside Sales is evolving and consists of three primary functions:

1. Sales Development: non-quota-carrying reps responsible for prospect development. Sales Developement reps work via phone and email and typically follow up on marketing-qualified leads (MQLs) as well as penetrate target accounts.  They are often compensated for meetings booked. They may team with inside or field sales to cover a region or vertical territory.
2. Inside Sales: quota-carrying reps who sell via phone, email and Web.  For companies with field sales, inside reps often are responsible for a segment of the market, such as SMBs as defined by a level of revenue. For Good Technology, the revenue for SMBs is <=$500 million, whereas Oracle defines SMBs as <=$50 million. In some cases, inside reps will actually “dispatch” field sales reps to meet face-to-face with a prospect if needed.
3. Hybrid (Inside Sales/Field Sales): Senior Inside Sales reps who can travel to meet face-to-face with prospects and customers as needed. This makes for a nice career path to field sales. Reps in this role at Verint can earn in excess of $200,000 annually.

The goal in these models is to use the right resource for the right job and to sell over the phone whenever possible. Buyers prefer it and it drives down the cost of sales while boosting productivity.

Sales Development and Inside Sales reps can be located at corporate headquarters, in branch offices or other countries such as India and South America.

Verint has 10 Sales Development reps who report into marketing, 18 Inside Sales reps who manage deals up to $75,000 and 50 Field/Channel reps.

The panel members discussed the Sales 2.0 technologies they have deployed to drive productivity in their organizations.

• Verint uses Eloqua for marketing automation and InsideView to provide reps with company and contact information.
• Good Technology uses Marketo for marketing automation, Salesforce.com for CRM, InsideView and LeadLander – which notifies reps when prospects/customers have hit the corporate website. They also leverage LinkedIN for prospecting. The PR team manages the company’s Facebook page and Twitter accounts and escalates any customer issues to the Inside Sales team.
• Oracle uses LinkedIN for hiring, Twitter to drive people to events and Skype and Skype TV for remote employees to help with retention. Oracle also uses an internal Twitter system called Oratweet to help employees communicate and collaborate.

The role of Sales Development, Inside Sales and the new Hybrid model continue to evolve and leverage Sales 2.0 technologies to provide a better customer experience while efficiently driving revenue growth.

Technorati Tags: good technology, inside sales, oracle, phoneworks, sales 2.0, sales development, verint

Kathy Klotz-Guest gave a very educational and entertaining presentation at the NorCal BMA Marketing Strategy Roundtable last week. The topic: “What’s the Story with Video Strategies?” Kathy is founder of Powerfully Funny whose mission is to help organizations improve their innovation efforts, marketing and communications through humor, playfulness, and fun. As a marketing strategist and storyteller, Kathy specializes in helping her clients craft compelling stories to educate and drive awareness among their prospects and customers.

Recently, Kathy conducted a study of 130 B2B and B2C businesses to identify best practices for marketing with video. The study was sponsored by the Society for New Communications Research (SNCR.ORG). Here are the key take-aways from the study and her presentation, which focused on three areas: content, integration & distribution, and measurement.

Content
According to Kathy, “content is king, but story is queen!” Begin with a clear strategy for how the video or videos will be incorporated into the marketing mix. Video is a public-facing medium and is best for education and generating awareness. One study participant, an SVP at Cisco, stated it best – “video is a conversation starter, not a sales endpoint.” Engage the audience in an ongoing conversation and think through what action you want them to take after viewing the video. Other tips:

• Tell a story that is relevant to the audience, or “tribe”; the best videos have a powerful, unique story
• Don’t worry about making it go viral; focus on a tangible business objective
• Often the best storytellers are not in the C-suite but are employees, customers or fans
• Be brief, 2-3 minutes max
• Don’t push a sales message; think “community” not “product”
• Quick, non-professionally produced videos are fine and often seen as more authentic. Information outweighs slick production. Strive for a balance of both.

There is no single winning template to follow. Try humor, newscast formats, whiteboard techtalks, serial stories and monitor what resonates with your audience. Experiment, learn, adjust and repeat.  Check out Cisco’s “Valentine’s Day” and IBM’s “Art of the Sale” videos for examples of something fun and unexpected.

Integration and Distribution

• Include a call to action such as a white paper download, subscription or case study
• Post the video on your website and include title, description, tags and a video sitemap to boost SEO results
• Post on YouTube (the most important), and consider other video sites such as iTunes, Viddler, or Yahoo! Video
• Promote it via Twitter, LinkedIN, Facebook, your blog and email
• Send links to the video to key influencers and your tribe

Measurement

To gauge success of the video, measure:

• Number of views
• Offer downloads
• Tweets and retweets
• Press coverage
• RSS subscriptions

There are other important measurements as well, the key point is to make them meaningful.

Bottom line: tap into your audience/tribe and engage them in a compelling story. As with any marketing medium, be creative, try new ideas, test, adjust and repeat.

For more information, visit http://www.powerfullyfunny.com/ and http://kathyklotzguest.wordpress.com

Technorati Tags: BMA NorCal, Kathy Klotz-Guest, Powerfully Funny, video

I attended a great DMA Northern California presentation yesterday by Ayush Agarwal, Head of Products at CoTweet. The topic, “What’s Twitter Up to Next?” Here’s a brief recap…

In the last two years, Twitter has grown from 500,000 to 145,000,000 users. Each day there are 350,000 new signups, 80 million tweets and 14 million new followers.

According to Ayush, “if you have a business, you have to have a social presence so you can be where your audience is.” It’s important to monitor what’s being said about your company and your brand and be proactive in engaging with prospects and customers in a two-way dialog. He thinks of a company’s brand as the sum of all of the conversations about it.

Twitter has made several enhancements recently, including these new features:

PROMOTED

• “Promoted Tweets” are paid tweets mixed in with other tweets but that show up at the top of the list in search results. For instance, if you search on “coffee” you may see a paid tweet from Starbucks at the top of the list.

Starbucks Promoted Tweet

• “Promoted Trends” are trending topics that have been paid for by an advertiser and are displayed without searching on a topic. For instance, my trending topics for San Francisco area include a New Selena Album that indicates it’s promoted:

Example of a Promoted Trend

• “Promoted Accounts” are paid suggestions on who to follow.

VERIFIED ACCOUNTS

• If you see “Verified” next to an account name, it means that a public figure is really who they say they are. Right now this is a closed beta program.

Twitter's Own Verified Account

CONTRIBUTOR

• Contributors are employees of companies who are tweeting on the company’s behalf. Each employee has their own Twitter handle that includes their name and the company name. Ayush recommends that, if needed, Twitter users have a Twitter account for work and personal account to keep those two worlds separate.

In the “New Twitter” being rolled out gradually to all users, you’ll see “everything in one place”. For instance, you will see people who retweeted a tweet at the top of the page, and you’ll see rich media (images and video) in the right pane of your browser screen. However certain service providers will need to be used to upload photos, etc.

Thanks to Ayush for a great presentation. His company, CoTweet, owned by ExactTarget, is a Web-based social media engagement, management and reporting solution that helps companies such as Citibank, Delta Airlines, Kelley Blue Book, McDonald’s, Microsoft, Sprint, Staples, Universal Music Group, Whole Foods and others engage, track and analyze conversations about their brands across Twitter and Facebook. Check them out at www.cotweet.com.

Technorati Tags: cotweet, DMA Northern California, promoted trends, promoted tweets, Twitter, verified accounts

The other day I was interested enough in a demo on a company’s website that I filled out a form to view it. Next day, I received a call from a very personable sales rep offering to answer my questions. Smart! They know that a person who checks out a demo is interested and perhaps a prospective buyer. And that’s the kind of lead that Sales wants — a prospect with a high likelihood of buying in the near term.

The demo was a piece of Content. We marketers have been talking about the importance of content in drawing prospective buyers in to the sales funnel. When I wrote newsletter articles about Content and about Inbound Marketing, I encouraged marketers to post digital content suited to different phases of the sales cycle and apply relevant tags and keywords so the content can be found via Search. And of course, we don’t leave it there; we use Social Media to invite people to view the content, because if it’s really good, people will share it with their friends and followers, increasing the volume of interested buyers who visit your website.

Nice! But once the visitor reaches your website and views the content, what’s next? How does a visitor become a buyer? Let’s consider some ways to keep the sales momentum going.

Different content for different stages in the sales cycle
Consider which stage of the sales cycle is served best by each piece of content. Here are some digital content types:
•    Blog posts – May be generated by Marketing or by someone else in your organization
•    Customer reviews – This type is generated by outsiders on other sites.
•    Proprietary research reports
•    Tools – ROI calculators and/or other self-qualifier tools
•    Video – demos, customer stories
•    White papers
Each must carry searchable keywords and tags and a URL pointing to more content. At some point, a prospect may drop from pursuing further information, probably because they have gathered enough for where they are in the buying process. But they know you better now and know how to get back to you when they’re ready.

Different types of content are more useful at different stages in the buying cycle. The vast majority of marketing messages aimed at people do not “reach” them because they are not seen at the right time in the individual’s buying processes. The beauty of Inbound Marketing is that, rather than trying to grab buyers’ attention, you draw their attention at the time when they are already curious, and you lead them to content that explains what they need to know at that stage in the cycle.
•    Attention – Content that is useful at the earliest phases of the buying cycle needs to be educational. Avoid being too promotional at this stage. You’re just helping the buyer sort out your qualifications, attributes and special capabilities. Consider using a White Paper here.
•    Consideration/Interest – Help your prospects identify the attributes that best meet their most important requirements. At this point, a demo video that shows buyers how they can use your product can elevate the prospect to the Desire stage.
•    Desire/Decision – Here is the time to bring in an honest competitive product comparison. Or offer compelling customer testimonials (in text or video, if you can get it). Because this is high value information, require them to register to reach it.
•    Action/Purchase – Provide a Call to Action and link to a landing page where the buyer can take action — buy (e-commerce) or be contacted by Sales. Set up a situation where the prospect can move on the decision. At this point, a promotional offer can seal the deal.

Registration forms – When is it a good idea to ask a visitor to register to see your content? Not until you pass the Attention (education) stage and, at the earliest, at the Interest stage. But keep it simple. Ask for too much information and you discourage people from looking at your content. Definitely gather information at the Decision stage.

Closing the loop – Make sure there is a “next” place for someone who is ready to go on. Use:

• A Call to Action – Include a “Contact Us” or “More…” link on every bit of content, even if you believe it is early in the buying cycle. Make sure the page or email you offer helps visitors move forward in the buying process if they’re ready.
• Share Buttons – Add a Share widget that let’s your readers share the content via email or on their social networks. It gives visitors an easy way to automatically include the URL.

Make sure your content is never a dead end. Make it easy for your prospects to move on to the next step, and always with appropriate content. If you don’t have relevant content for all the stages of the sales cycle, your first job, right now, today, is to make sure to produce and post it and make it abundantly available via SEO and social media.

Technorati Tags: content marketing, inbound marketing, lead funnel, SEO, Social Media

For years I’ve talked about transitioning in tech from Sales through Product Management and ultimately to Outbound Marketing. But lately, I’ve been talking about inbound marketing and am frequently met with puzzled looks. People inquire, “What is inbound marketing?”

In fact, the term “inbound marketing” has been around at least since 2007. The earliest mention I can find is in a January 2007 Forrester Report, How Technology Enables Inbound Marketing by Suresh Vittal.   It spoke of using interaction management software and real-time analytics and was technology-focused.

Later in 2007 a company called HubSpot (founded in 2006) began using the term Inbound Marketing and branded their product Inbound Marketing Software. They pointed out how customer buying habits had changed. It was time, they said, for companies to begin “getting found” by potential buyers when they are already looking at products or services in your industry. In the past businesses began shopping by visiting trade shows; now it starts on Google.

A Venn diagram in a post from HubSpot blogger, Rick Burnes, really brought the concept to life for me. It shows how three of today’s familiar marketing techniques overlap and interact to create an integrated inbound marketing approach:

Image from HubSpot blog

• Content marketing – Content is the collection of interesting and relevant information that attracts potential customers to your site or to your business.
• Search engine optimization – SEO makes it easier for buyers to find your content.
• Social media marketing – Use of social networks (SMM) extends the reach, spreads and amplifies the impact of your content.

Rather than finding customers as traditional outbound marketing has done, inbound marketing helps customers find you. You need not interrupt your target customers to get their attention. They’ll be looking for you when they’re considering a purchase, although they may not even know who you are yet when they start looking.

When they search (SEO) on a search engine or on their social network using phrases you use to label your content (content marketing), you’ll be findable. Social networks (SMM) serve to spread and amplify the message to a broader audience.

Inbound marketing uses the magnet approach (pull) vs. the bullhorn  approach (push) of traditional outbound marketing. The intent is different, and so is the result. It’s a different way of growing demand.

For more on inbound marketing and how to use different types of content to reach potential buyers at different stages of the buying cycle, see Inbound Marketing: Just Another Marketing Buzz Phrase? in the KickStart Accelerator.

Why inbound marketing?

• Value – Inbound marketing is less costly. Freely placed content can be as attractive and successful as Pay-Per-Click, and when found organically via search engines is less expensive. The 2010 HubSpot survey reports that inbound marketing is 60% less expensive per lead than outbound marketing.
• Effectiveness – Outbound marketing messages are becoming less effective because, a) buyers are bombarded by a high volume of messages each day and either blocking them or turned off by them, and b) people trust social sources more than paid sources of product information.
• Self-qualifying – Rather than marketing trying to guess who might become a customer, potential buyers identify themselves. Inbound marketing’s messages reach prospects at the time when they are considering a purchase and are most receptive to marketing messages.

Beyond inbound marketing
Social media is not just for marketers. Other areas where your business should be using social media are:

• PR – Remember, there are two sides to social media — what you say about your business and what others say about your business. Reputation management belongs in PR (as in Public Relations!). Someone should be monitoring and responding to what various communities are saying about your organization, positive and negative. The rest of the world pays attention to how companies react to customer complaints that surface in social media.
• Customer service – A number of companies (notably Comcast, with @ComcastCares on Twitter) are putting social media to good use in their Customer Service operations.

Involve other functions besides Marketing in your company’s larger perspective on social media. Establish a Social Media Council in your organization that represents all the other functions that touch customers and the public, and make sure your company’s message and policies are reflected throughout their conversations on social media.

And finally…

…no, I do not work for HubSpot. I just believe their approach is very much to the point. The individual components of inbound marketing are just that — components. Together they are far more powerful than their sum.

Technorati Tags: content marketing, inbound marketing, SEO, Social Media

The DMA Northern California (DMANC) recently hosted a presentation by Scott K. Wilder, former GM of Intuit’s Small Business Online Communities. The topic: “Getting Closer to the Customer Using Social Media: A Case Study from Intuit.” Here are a few key “take-aways” from Scott’s presentation.

Leading companies, like Intuit, have a relentless drive to understand their customers. Intuit’s founder, Scott Cook, started the “follow me home” program in 1989 to observe real customers using Intuit products in their home environment.  It is part of Intuit’s culture to use every interaction with prospects and customers as a learning opportunity and to ask the “5 WHYS” – drilling down to the root of problems.

Based on this culture, it was natural for Intuit to embrace online communities with their customers. In 2003, Intuit started a Small Business online community then added Facebook and LinkedIN in 2008.  In 2009 the company built community right into their products. Users have become company ambassadors and today, 70% of users get their answers from the community site versus customer support – significantly driving down support costs. Intuit is also leveraging Twitter and observing customer-created videos on YouTube that showcase Intuit’s products.

Before you launch into your Voice of the Customer initiatives, consider Scott’s “Top 10″ list of tips:

1. Ask “what problem are you trying to solve?” Use objectives and metrics to build a business case. Be open to the unexpected.
2. Have a clearly defined learning plan including how feedback will be shared and used. Scott’s team reported on customer issues to cross-functional teams as well as externally on the community site. They captured the issue, a quote from the customer, a link to the customer’s post,  the action taken and the learnings.
3. Look at qualitative as well as quantitative feedback.
4. Understand technology adoption curve of your customers.
5. Understand how your products or services are being used in the customers’ environment  (ie: in their office)
6. Understand the ecosystem and persona of different types of users – their title, their job function, the type of company they work for, what’s important to them, how you can help them succeed.
7. Strive for continuous improvement in products and processes. Go for the unexpected “wow.” Scott often met with customers to have them help prioritize new product features by asking “tell me how to spend your money.”
8. Understand the difference between what customers “say” and “do.” Intuit uses Omniture to observe behavior as well as Radian6, Buzzmetrics and Google searches (which are free) to monitor what people are saying about the company.
9. Start simple. Don’t try to build every feature possible.
10. Learning can happen at any time. Learn => teach => learn.

At the end of the day, the best advice to truly understand your customer is to be humble and let the customer lead. According to Scott, “It is important to start simple adding only a few features at a time– and to be in a constant learning state of mind, listening to what the customer says, how they say it and the language they use.”

Scott recently accepted a new position as SVP and Social Media Architect at Edelman Digital. Edelman is the world’s leading independent public relations firm, with more than 3,500 employees in 51 offices worldwide. You can follow Scott on Twitter at skwilder.

Technorati Tags: DMAnc, intuit, Scott K. Wilder, Social Media, VOC, voice of the customer

Want to get some quick market research on how your product stacks up to a competitor?  Ask the Internet.

I teach a course at San Francisco State University entitled, “Essentials of Integrated Marketing.” In that course, I have a case study that has proven to be a lot of fun as well as very insightful when it comes to gathering ”product comparison” data.  The case study is called Video Game Wars and follows the exploits of the Microsoft Xbox, Sony Playstation 3, and Nintendo Wii.

In developing the case study, I needed to somehow find a way to educate the class on these products quickly.  So, I turned to the Internet.  My first course of action was to do a Google search on each of the products.  This yielded the expected corporate-esk press releases, data sheets, and website info.  All of this was helpful in building “awareness.”   But I wanted more practical information when it came to comparisons.

So I tried a search variation.

I went to Google and Youtube looking  for specific product comparisons.   As an example,  I typed in “Xbox versus PS3” and “Why buy a Playstation?”  This produced an “Aha!” moment.

The search results provided a perfect example on how the dynamics of search have changed the way people gather and process information.  Here’s what I mean:

• Much of the “product comparison” data I gathered was produced by users, not corporate executives.
• I couldn’t help but feel that the more “unpolished” the presentation, the more genuine the information.
• Many of these search results also included some sort of social media commentary, meaning that the material was actually being used and discussed.

Lest we think this is only useful for consumer products, I started testing this “product comparison” research tactic on a few projects I’m working on with B2B clients.  I’d do the same thing: go to Google and YouTube and search on “product A vs product B”.   In every case, I found very interesting information.  Now, while I don’t take everything I find to the bank, I do find that the results have added to my cumultative knowledge.  It’s helps to further my skills as an investigative marketer in order to discover which product differentiators are true and meaningful, and which are bogus.

Lesson for marketers

Based on this insight, it is important for marketers to consider a couple things as they are architecting their integrated marketing campaigns:

1. Producing only the traditional marketing datasheets and collateral are no longer sufficient.
2. There is a mountain of “awareness” information available; but customers are also keenly interested in product comparison data (see Content & the Buying Process blog post)
3. Consider adding your own product comparison articles and videos.  Some companies do this already, and I applaud them for it.  Prospects are looking for this information.  Why not provide them with short snippets of useful information?  Otherwise, someone else might do it for them.
4. As you develop your own marketing materials, do a comparison search to see what people are talking about.   Do your expectations match up to the user community’s reality?  Might be worth checking out.

Technorati Tags: Integrated Marketing, Marketing, San Francisco State, search engine marketing, Social Media, social networks

Share-to-social (S2S) or Share With Your Network (SWYN) is the process of incorporating widgets into emails or other online content so that viewers can easily share the information with their social network friends and colleagues. According to a study conducted by Silverpop, email social sharing achieves click-through rates several times higher than forward-to-a-friend (which is typically under 0.1%) and adds an additional 1% to open rates. Most people on social networking sites have between 150 and 200 friends. Adding share-to-social widgets into your emails can increase average reach by 24%. Additional source: MarketingSherpa

So, how do you go about incorporating S2S in your email campaigns or newsletters? There are currently two options:
1) Check with your email service provider (ESP) if you use one. Silverpop, for instance, has developed a S2S tool which inserts links to Facebook and MySpace into HTML emails. I imagine more and more ESPs will make S2S a standard feature offering in the coming year.

2) Generate the code yourself. The blog site business.com has a post with code generators for Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIN and delicious. This code is then customized and pasted into the HTML email.

I tried this myself using the Facebook Share feature – located under the Facebook Advertising section.

I entered the URL for the December 2009 issue of our KickStart Accelerator newsletter and it generated the following code:

<a name=”fb_share” type=”icon_link” share_url=”http://www.kickstartall.com/documents/KSAdec2009.html” href=”http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php”>Share</a><script src=”http://static.ak.fbcdn.net/connect.php/js/FB.Share” type=”text/javascript”></script>

I pasted the code into Dreamweaver and viewed the result in a browser:

Clicking on “Share” took me to the Facebook login page and after logging in, I saw the following “Post to Profile” screen.

Just like “Follow us on Twitter” or “Become a Facebook Fan” is commonplace today, you’ll be seeing more Share-to-Social (S2S) in B2B emails in the coming year.

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