Paul Woods

If you're new here, and are interested in my thoughts on "Life as a B2B Technology Marketer"... you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

If you were like any good marketing (or wannabe engineering) student at university, you would have skipped a few of those early morning Strategic Marketing lectures to hit the beach, the shops, or the pub.

If you need to brush up on your Porter, struggle with your “4 P’s”, or can’t remember what BCG stands for (and where on Earth the ‘Cash Cows’ fit in!), MIT, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (not Harvard, the other one in Boston) have released lecture notes, reading lists, even course assignments (with example submissions!).  Through their Open Courseware initiative, MIT have released 100’s of courses ranging from Aerodynamics and Quantum Physics to Feminist studies and Game Theory. 

The courses most relevant to marketers come from MIT’s Sloan School of Management, and are:

• 15.810 Introduction to Marketing, Spring 2005
• 15.812 Marketing Management, Fall 2002
• 15.818 Pricing, Spring 2005
• 15.834 Marketing Strategy, Spring 2003
• 15.835 Entrepreneurial Marketing, Spring 2002
• 15.821 Listening to the Customer, Fall 2002
• 15.822 Strategic Marketing Measurement, Fall 2002

Plus almost any other course from the Sloan School of Management might come in handy - especially 15.356 How to Develop “Breakthrough” Products and Services, Spring 2004.

AMAMI you say?  What on Earth does that mean?  It means I am now an Associate Member of the Australian Marketing Institute.

Who is the Australian Marketing Institute?
According to their website, the Australian Marketing Institute “represents professional marketers throughout Australia, including practioners from all marketing functions and industries.”

According to me… its simple.  Accountants who want to go places join CPA Australia, Marketers who want to go places join AMI.

Why did I join the Australian Marketing Institute?
Tax Deduction… no just kidding (it is though)… I joined AMI 100% for my professional development as a Marketer.  I have already sunk my teeth into a few of the podcasts they have on offer, and am putting a few networking and learning events into my calendar.  Lets see over the next few years if this professional development pays off

Paul Woods. 
AMAMI. 
All round good guy.

… Tomorrow!  That’s right… are you in Brisbane tomorrow (18 April) and interested in Marketing?  You need to get along to the next Networx Marketers Meeting.

The session is all about Memory and Memorability - the key to making a lasting impression and succeeding with others.  Pretty interesting topic if you ask me.

I attended my first Networx meeting last month and it was great - great topic, great venue, great food (and booze of course!), but most importantly… great people!  If you want to get to know your fellow marketing and communications professionals this is a great place to start.

If you are free tomorrow night I recommend you check it out - you can register here.

… and make sure you put an appointment in your diary for the following Networx Marketers Meetings…

• 16 May: Buzz - Word of Mouth Marketing
• 25 July: New Media Grows Up - Online Marketing Panel

Technorati Tags: Networx, Marketing, Communications, Networking, Brisbane

I was sitting in a meeting today with a few folk from a communications firm that we have engaged to look at our brand… and this pearl of wisdom came out of one of their mouths.  This quote is probably attributable to someone a long time ago, and has been passed along through meetings just like the one I had today.  I think it hits the nail right on the head.

“The difference between B2B marketing and B2C marketing is that in B2B customers don’t want your product, they need it, and in B2C the customer doesn’t need your product, they want it”

Food for thought next time you are positioning your B2B campaign.

Technorati Tags: B2B, B2C, Quote

“A year from now you may wish you had started yesterday”

-Karen Lamb

I spent most of this afternoon reading through Tom Peters‘ master slide deck for some inspiration for a workshop I have to run at work over the next month or two.  I love flicking through his decks every month or two - there are some absolute gems hidden in that presentation!  I would love to actually see him run through it in person, slides are 10%, the speaker is where you get the value!

Anyways… one point that hit home more than most was this one: Do > Think

Think about it (no - don’t think - just do it!)

Marketing without Money?  Can it be done?  I guess that depends on your definition of marketing

On Friday I had the pleasure of attending a local AIIA (Australian Information Industries Association) lunch with a few of my colleagues.  This was the fourth AIIA lunch that I had been too - they are the usual corporate affair… roundtables, alternate drops, beef or chicken.

The topic of the lunch was “Give yourself a competitive edge“.  The speaking spot was in the hands of John Lyons, a Brisbane based marketer who recently (which I found out later was 2003!) wrote a book with Edward De Bono titled - “Marketing Without Money: How 20 Top Australian Entrepreneurs Crack Markets with their Minds“.  After I finished off my chicken (which was very good - about the only time I have won playing alternate drop bingo!), John launched into his presentation.

The good bits…

The highlight of the presentation for me was that both Lyons and De Bono had drawn on the experiences of a wide cross section of Australian business folk.  From the regulars like Gerry Hervey, and Dick Smith, to the likes of Graham Turner from Flight Centre, and Therese Rein from Ingeus.  Despite the wide cross section, the messages kept coming home:

• Don’t just surround yourself with good people, surround yourself with GREAT PEOPLE!
• Look at what others are doing, copy it, and improve what you can (Dick Smith is the great example here!)
• There is always something else you can do to improve things
• Great processes make great businesses

And on top of that, it was great to see a presentation WITHOUT BULLET POINTS!  First one I have seen this year (and a very refreshing change from a Cisco presentation I saw last week!)

The bits that need improving…

I know I shouldn’t expect passionate speakers at corporate events like this - but when I saw the slides I thought I was in for a treat.  Instead it was the same… low risk… monotone… corporate… zzzzzzzzzz fest.  AIIA - we need passionate speakers!!! Like… YESTERDAY!  And… some topics, especially this one, needed more than 25 minutes.  I think it would have been better to focus on one of the key points, and go a bit deeper on it, as opposed to brushing over 3 key points with some light examples.  I know we were supposed to run out and buy the book, but I was left wanting a little more.

The next step…

Apparently my employer is purchasing a few copies of the book, so when I have had a read through it I will get back to you all with my verdict.  My gut feeling is that a lot of the ideas in this book are already widely available on the interweb (through the usual suspects - Seth, Tom, Guy and the rest).  We will see.

B2C marketers (and their blogs) are everywhere… but B2C marketers are BORING!  Where are all the great B2B bloggers?

A few months ago I searched and searched for blogs of other Aussie B2B marketers, and only came up with a handful.  So I needed to spread my wings and look at the global marketplace.

Luckily I didn’t do too much work!  Jon Miller over at the Marketing & Strategy Innovation Blog has put together a list of over 50 blogs that talk about B2B marketing, as well as some that look at selling, search engine marketing, and copy writing.

And on top of that, he has put together a OPML which you can import directly into your feed reader.  Jon will update the OPML as more B2B marketing blogs are discovered.

Good work Jon!

Paul W

Technorati Tags: B2B, Marketing, Blogging

And the result is…  read on to find out!

Before we begin, I would like to put some context around my tests.  Firstly as an Australian B2B Marketer, who really wants to sell to other Australian businesses, I restricted my ads to only be displayed to Australians

One big tick for AdWords - Geographic Targeting.  In the case of Australia, I can target to individual states.  For example if I wanted to focus all my effort (and budget) into the Victorian market, I simply target my ads to only display to people located in Victoria.  If I want to target both Victoria and Queensland, I can do so, whilst ignoring the rest of the country, and the rest of the world!

Secondly, I wanted to run a number of different versions of what was essentially the same add to see what ad copy got the most traction.

Another big tick for AdWords - Multiple Ad Versions.  The let me test the copy and identify the best strategy for both the current campaign - because I could change the characteristics of each ad in real time, but also for future campaigns.

Thirdly, as the decision makers I was really targeting would only surf the net during business hours (say 8AM - 6PM, Monday through Friday) I wanted to restrict the display of my ads to those times.

Once again - another big tick for AdWords - Campaign Timing!  And it is granular down to 15 minute blocks! 

So at this stage things are starting to look good for AdWords - but what about the cold hard facts - the quantitative data - click throughs, impressions, positioning and most importantly how much did it cost!

The Results

My test campaign lasted for five days - and was designed to sell a reasonably priced piece of office productivity technology.  Which meant some very targeted keywords (on top of the geographic targeting I had used).     Overall I was very happy with the results.

• Just under 23,000  (Australian) impressions (~575 per hour the campaign was alive)
• ~80 clicks (~0.33% Click through rate - 2 per hour)
• Average cost per click - $1.38
• Average position - 3.2

Not to bad when you just look at impressions alone.  For example if I were to advertise in CRN Magazine (a local IT reseller/channel magazine) I am looking at a circulation of about ~10,000 readers.  If I were to choose the smallest ad unit in their rate card, I would be looking at about 1500 bucks.  And those readers would not be as highly targeted as those in my AdWords campaign.  The AdWords campaign cost just over $100!  That’s 15 times more value for money using Pay Per Click than that of traditional print advertising!

But lets have a look at my ad variations…

1. 9,944 Impressions, 0.42% ctr
2. 1878 Impressions, 0.90% ctr
3. 8939 Impressions, 0.14% ctr
4. 2182 Impressions, 0.27% crt

So what was so good about variations one and three to get that many impressions?  and what was so special about variation two that saw a click through rate 272% higher than the average for the campaign?

The title of the ad in variation one was pretty much a statement of the product name.  It was very closely aligned with the keywords that I had selected for the campaign.  The copy of the ad also included a special offer, if you purchased the product before the end of the month.

Variation three was similar to that of variation one, however it lead with the offer, and had the keywords in the copy of the ad.  I suggest the similarity of keywords was the reason why the impressions were fairly consistent between these two versions, however leading with the product name in the title worked three times better.

When I look at variation four, which had the lowest click through rate (and almost the lowest impression rate) I feel the main reason for its poor performance was that I used the model number of the product.  I think it was too specific for what people were searching for (it was for a specific product, not a category of similar products).

That leads me to variation two - the most successful of them all.  Whilst the impressions were low, the click through rate was far superior than that others.  Why?  The title of the ad focused on a category of similar products, and not a specific model number.  That category of products was a large enough funnel to gain peoples attention and take them to the next step of the sales process… the landing page.

I will save my analysis of landing pages for another post - in this case I used some pretty stock standard copywriting techniques, and managed to get ~7% conversion rate (7% made a phone call to a sales rep - no online ordering!).

From those discussions we were looking at a number leads in excess of $10 000,, some of which have closed already.  All that from a measly $107 AdWords campaign, and some creative copywriting.

Key Takeaway

From a marketers perspective it was a pretty successful test - plenty of ad impressions to build the profile of the organisations brand name around these very specific keywords - plus the added advantage of lead generation.  And then there is the best thing of all - fantastic ROI!

Still… this campaign was focused on a product that we sell.  Next time I would like to test some of our more in depth services engagements, and see how they go - I will keep you posted.

Also - I feel that I can refine future campaigns to drive impressions, and to increase the click through rate hopefully by a few percentage points.  That will take some time though!

Anyone else had success with AdWords and want to share it?  Drop a comment below.

Cheers

Paul W

Technorati Tags: AdWords, Pay Per Click, ROI, Analysis, B2B

I have been interested for a while now whether or not Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising (for example Google AdWords) has a place in the B2B world.  Sure, it is great for B2C markets, where you have short sales cycles, and even shorter attention spans - you can get a quick lead, quick conversion and quick sale.  But in the B2B world (and especially in Information Technology where I play) it is normal to have sales efforts go beyond six months from positioning of the offering through to a purchase order.  In some instances I have seen sales cycles than span years! 

With lengthy sales cycles, can a PPC advertisement on Google, Yahoo, nineMSN or <insert your flavour of MSN here!> actually help increase the pipe for your sales force?  Does PPC accelerate the sales cycle? Does PPC accelerate a customers time to value?

That is what I am about to find out.  Time to test!  Time to experiment!

To start with, I will be experimenting using Google AdWords.  Why?  Well they have a significant share of the search market both globally and in Australia.  Why is that important?  If I plan to be use niche, targeted keywords (like any good B2B marketer should), and restrict the display of advertisements to users located only in Australia (the only market I can effectively deliver services to), I will need a big pipeline of searchers to click through.  Basically the more people that are searching, the more chance I have of Australian’s looking for these keywords, and the more chance I have of getting some meaningful test results. 

Once the test is complete (and assuming I can find some quantifiable value of PPC) I am sure I will use PPC on other search engines as well.

It will be interesting to see the results - are you a B2B marketer that has played around with PPC?  What are your thoughts?  Any success stories of nightmarish tales?

The short answer is… Day one = No, Day Two = Got it across the line

I must admit I had some pretty high expectations of this conference.  After reading a lot of the buzz around the New York show in November, ad:tech Sydney had a lot of promise.

Unfortunately my first day at the conference didn’t start off as well as I thought.  I flew down to Sydney on one of the early flights on Wednesday morning.  Not normally an issue, however I had suffered from a pretty intense headcold the last few days.  Note to readers - Aircraft pressurisation and sinus trouble does not mix!  The result… my ears didn’t pop during the decent into Sydney, and remained in that very painful state for about 10 hours!  Despite the pain, and the slight loss of hearing I ploughed on into the Sydney Hilton for the Keynote from Shawn Gold, MySpace.com’s Chief Marketing Officer.

Opening Keynote: Shawn Gold, CMO, MySpace.com

It is amazing some of the figures that Shawn mentioned during his keynote.  I was quite impressed to hear that HUMANS! check every image and video upload to MySpace - from memory that was on average 300 000 images, and 40 000 videos every day! 

One of Shawn’s more interesting topics was about the evolution of social networking.  From the days of the church through to the online world.  He then went onto “why did MySpace succeed when the likes of Geocities and Friendster didn’t?”  I think he hit the nail on the head - it was just pretty good timing.  As MySpace rose to prominence, so did the pervasiveness of the Digital Camera!  Now people could really express their individuality in a way that they couldn’t do easily before.  And MySpace let them do it!

The one disappointing thing about the opening keynote was the Q&A style - obviously most of these are scripted, and this one was no exception.  It was not as smooth, not as natural as it should have been and I think that alone distracted quite a few in the room.

The rest of the two days…

I will not give you a run down on every session I attended, however I thought it would be best to talk about the best (and worst) sessions of the two days of ad:tech Sydney.

The WORST session of the entire conference:
Website Design and Navigation Best Practices

I don’t know about most people, but when I see a session about “Best Practices”, I generally expect to hear at least one “Best Practice”.  The speakers looked as though they had spent a good 5 minutes preparing their presentations, and to top that off there was no ‘meat’ there that anyone in the audience could actually use in the real world.  The only takeaway I found from this session was to “Listen to your Customers”… hmmm I am glad my employer paid $1400 for that pearl of wisdom!  I think this session should have been called “The bleeding obvious: Business 101″.  After talking to a few other attendees at the lunch break the consensus was similar - a very very poor start to the conference (yep, this was the first session that we attended!)

The BEST sessions (tied) of the entire conference:
Email Optimisation, and Building Brand Preference through Digital Platforms

It was very hard to pick a winner out of these two sessions.  They were both very well constructed - Email Optimisation covered all areas where you could increase the performance of your email campaigns (not just about the copy!), and Building Brand Preference was the only meaty branding session of the whole conference, with case studies from big players like QANTAS, Telstra and NineMSN.

ad:tech Sydney in general:

The one hot topic I picked up on from the conference was “Lifecycle Marketing”.  Lifecycle marketing is about taking the maturity of your email campaigns to the next level.  Taking the marketer out of the driving seat and running your email campaigns based on user behaviour, not “It’s Thursday, time to send out the newsletter again!”.  Basically, from push to pull.  Not much content available online about this yet (no Wikipedia page!), but there are a few vendors like SilverPOP and Vision6 who are leading the way.

The other glaringly obvious thing I (and a few others) picked up was how poorly many of the speakers were at getting their message across.  From PowerPoint decks that used 8pt fonts (I am not kidding!), to presenters who always “flick passed” their questions to their “technical guy” in the audience… there were some very bad performances.  What amazes me the most is that the presenters were representatives of MARKETING AND ADVERTISING agencies… yet they could not get their message across!  Why would I engage one of these agencies in the future when they can’t get a simple message across to me, let alone my customers?

The verdict:

All in all, whilst the conference got off to a poor start, by the end of the two days I felt I had gained more value than the $1400 ticket price.  My suggestions for next year:

1. Make the speakers rehearse beforehand
2. A track that focuses on B2B, with some real case studies would be great!
3. Bring some of the content over from the US - there were some great sessions on in New York that would have been fantastic here as well!
4. Give the speakers a view of their presentation - many complained that because of the placement of the plasma screens they could not follow their own presentation (might have something to do with point 1., but I will give them the benefit of the doubt on this one)
5. Not everyone eats scallop cocktails at lunch - maybe get back to basics just a little for lunch
6. More money behind the bar at the party!

To the ad:tech organisers - I want to help!  If you are looking for a speaker for next year, leave a comment and I will get back to you!