Thought Leadership

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Great articles roundup: Startup customers, hypercycle planning, 2013 B2B content marketing report, marketing research, thought leadership, and innovation

By Alexandra Reid

As a regular feature, we provide our readers with a roundup of some of the best articles we have read in the past week. On the podium this week are StartupCFO, Harvard Business Review, Content Marketing Institute, MarketingSherpa, Forbes, and Fast Company.

How customers evaluate your product

If you sell to B2B customers then you know how hard it is to get that purchase order. It goes without saying that it helps to put yourself in the shoes of your prospective customer to try and see how they perceive your company and product. What would their concerns be? How would they go about evaluating this opportunity? Mark MacLeod shares a valuable framework for determining how customers think about a startup’s product.

Traditional marketing planning is wrong for your new venture

Traditional marketing planning activities have been a mainstay for the past four decades, but the theories behind them have limited relevance for new ventures facing extreme uncertainty. The old routine of analyzing existing markets, predicting an optimal outcome, and then designing marketing plans to capture that outcome is too slow and cumbersome for today’s startups. Authors Peter Whalen and Samuel S. Holloway make the case that, to be successful, new ventures must eschew these theories and instead rely on effectual marketing planning. This strategy uses a different set of management processes focused on speedy action, learning through failure, and a premeditated approach to market experimentation that creates instant feedback. They argue that it can help new ventures be more successful, more informed, and more fully understood.

2013 B2B content marketing benchmarks, budgets and trends (research report)

Just as we have seen in the previous two years, content marketing remains a top priority for marketers going into 2013. In fact, nine out of 10 marketers are using content marketing. In many respects, content marketers are doing more, but uncertainty still exists. CMI shares key findings from this year’s report.

Marketing research: Only 25 percent of marketers can show value to the organization

David Kirkpatrick shares valuable research from the 2012 ITSMA/VEM Marketing Performance Management Survey, revealing that marketing’s satisfaction with its ability to measure, analyze and improve performance is shockingly low.

Thought leadership as a core marketing platform

The concept of building thought leadership as a platform for marketing is strange because so many companies use thought leadership as a complement — “Here’s why we think we’re experts, so we wrote about it.” Author Emily Jasper argues that shifting our mindset to use thought leadership as a foundation means that we’ll develop expertise at the core of our businesses: through our products, services, technology, and more.

How successful companies sustain innovation

Innovation is widely regarded as the single most important ingredient in today’s economy. But innovation as a destination isn’t enough. Sustained innovation is a high-productivity state in which an organization strives to innovate in all aspects of its business, including management, divisions, operations, customers, and suppliers. It requires a seamless, structured management approach that begins with board- and CEO-level leadership and connects all the way through technology investment and implementation. Above all, sustained innovation is a journey, not a destination. The enterprise doesn’t stop innovating after attaining one goal; it’s engaged in a continual process of reinvention, invention, and discovery.

Technorati Tags: StartupCFO, Harvard Business Review, Content Marketing Institute, MarketingSherpa, Forbes, Fast Company, Mark MacLeod, startup, entrepreneur, customer, feedback, traditional marketing planning, marketing, marketing strategy, new venture, effectual marketing planning, hypercycle planning, content marketing, measurement, ROI, return on investment, thought leadership, authority, innovation

The case for inbound marketing: What’s in it for you?

By Alexandra Reid

Hubspot’s Brian Halligan coined the term “inbound marketing” to distinguish marketing activities that focus on the consumer experience from traditional outbound marketing tactics.

Inbound marketing is about earning the attention of prospective customers, media and other market influencers. This approach is different from traditional outbound marketing tactics which push messaging on target audiences.

While outbound marketing tactics still hold an important place in a company’s marketing mix, inbound marketing is gaining steam because of a fundamental shift in consumer behaviour. With new technology at their fingertips, people are more in control of what information they receive and how they receive it. As reported by Hubspot, people are skipping over TV advertisements, unsubscribing from company emails, and leaving websites because they aren’t providing them with information they value. Businesses are realizing that they have to communicate on their interest groups’ terms to earn their attention, trust and loyalty.

Inbound marketing helps companies build authority

One of the best ways to earn attention is to use content, such as blog posts, podcasts, videos, newsletters, whitepapers, and updates sent through social media channels, to establish a company and its representatives as influential, connected and responsive thought leaders in their respective marketplace. When a company is viewed as an influencer, trust and loyalty for that company grow and it earns more clout to persuade its community to respond to a specific call to action, whether that is to buy a product, download a whitepaper, subscribe to a newsletter, engage in a discussion or like or retweet an update on social media.

Inbound marketing is Penguin’s best friend

Fast Company recently reported that updates to Google’s algorithms mean that social engagement will yield top results for search engine optimization, which is vital for boosting a website’s ranking and getting noticed online. The Penguin update “was a body slam to websites still trying to ‘trick’ the search engines into ranking them ahead of their competition,” said author Veronica Fielding. “The update emphasized the importance of quality content, originality, and overall user experience.”

Fielding went on to explain that the Penguin update implies that “search engines are openly acknowledging that a website isn’t the only place on the web that a brand needs to maintain a strong presence,” and that Google is now placing a larger emphasis on the interactions people have with each other and brands on social media channels for website rank. Having a presence on social media and producing content that engages audiences is now essential to getting noticed online.

Inbound marketing nurtures longer sales cycles

Inbound marketing is particularly valuable to authority-based businesses with long sales cycles, such as B2B businesses, because it helps those companies build influence and nurture relationships over time. Quick wins in both B2B and B2C sales environments are certainly possible from inbound marketing activities, but more often prospects are convinced to buy after digesting content from a number of different channels and engaging in multiple conversations with a company and its representatives over a longer period of time. While generally less expensive than outbound marketing activities, investment to build and maintain a long-term content marketing program can be considerable, but it’s absolutely necessary to attract and maintain the attention of today’s connected consumer.

Inbound marketing provides invaluable customer information

A large part of inbound marketing involves listening. Often, a company will hire a community manager to listen to conversations on social media and blogs for opportunities for the company and its representatives to engage with their marketplace. Listening to people’s opinions of, and experiences with, your company and competitors also provides invaluable information that can inform your marketing and sales activities, products and services and overall company direction. For instance, marketers are now able to generate far more intricate buyer personas thanks to information gathered through inbound marketing activities.

Inbound marketing lets you have your say

Your audience is talking about you, whether you’re listening or not. Maybe they’re saying good things that you could acknowledge, but they might also be venting about a bad experience they had with your company. Because inbound marketing generally includes building a social media presence, it gives you the opportunity to publicly acknowledge problems people are having with your company and provide helpful solutions. This is a level of customer service many consumers now expect to receive from companies. If you don’t have a presence on social media, they will find another outlet for venting, and that might just be your competition, a journalist or prospective buyer.

Inbound marketing is measurable

Inbound marketing activities that take place online can be measured against goals to determine effectiveness as well as return on investment. Unlike a billboard or TV advertisement, marketers can track the activity of people online with precision to determine how they respond to messaging. Marketers can determine exactly how many people read a blog post, how long they spent on the page, and where their attention was directed afterwards. They know how many people downloaded a whitepaper, or responded to a social media campaign. The amount of data available for inbound marketing activities can be overwhelming, but marketers worth their salt will be able to determine what information is relevant and if a goal was achieved.

Technorati Tags: Inbound marketing, outbound marketing, marketing strategy, B2B marketing, sales cycle, social media, content marketing, Hubspot, Brian Halligan, customer experience, customer loyalty, customer service, authority, influence, thought leadership, Google, Penguin, search engine optimization, SEO, market information, buyer persona, measurement

How B2B entrepreneurs can establish and access thought leadership using social media

By Alexandra Reid

I have discussed thought leadership here before, but never laid out just how important it is and the critical social media steps entrepreneurs can take to establish themselves as, and tap into the minds of, thought leaders in their industries.

In a study conducted for The Society for New Communications Research called New Symbiosis of Professional Networks, 44 percent of respondents said the primary reason they visit online networks and communities is to access thought leadership and information they couldn’t get elsewhere, while 43 percent said the primary reason is to showcase themselves or their companies.

The same study proved that there is a “relatively high inclination for decision makers to use various forms of social media to support their decision-making.” Top methods for doing so include reading other blogs, seeking peer referral, gathering opinions and researching other companies.

I have outlined before specifically how B2B companies can benefit from social media:

Social media supports the typically long sales cycle for B2B products.
Social media allows B2B companies to express their humanity, which is particularly beneficial because they traditionally have fewer opportunities to connect with others on a personal level.
Social media awards value to niche B2B industries that are underserved by traditional media.
Social media is a great knowledge centre for B2B leaders, providing them with information about their industries that they may not have been able to find elsewhere.

Entrepreneurs of new B2B companies should take advantage of the power of social media for all of these reasons. But first, they must understand what characteristics comprise a successful thought leader, and learn how to showcase these qualities within real time social media environments.

The key qualities of a social media thought leader

According to Social Media Today, corporate thought leadership needs four things to work well:

The enterprise has to be entering new markets where it also needs additional credibility
The thinking has to lead change, not contribute to a status quo
The thought leadership has to be integrated with products and/or services
It needs to identify the competition, however subtly, and say why you will win the battle

Embracing these qualities shouldn’t be difficult. New ventures and their entrepreneurs naturally exhibit all of these qualities, as they are typically in the process of bringing new products and/or services into new markets, changing the status quo, and constantly working to set themselves apart from the competition.

However, the real time nature of social media is demanding, and requires frequent and continuous participation to garner significant attention. Furthermore, because social media is about people, the most powerful form of social capital is personal, not corporate. Therefore, entrepreneurs who take the time to participate as individuals are more likely to rise to a position of thought leadership. As most entrepreneurs are stretched for time, the challenge is making the time for such activities.

There are ways around this. One way is to hire an agency or outsource a community manager to do the social media heavy lifting on your behalf. While many people will offer to do everything for you, including participating in social forums under your name, this method won’t get you far if your goal is to become a thought leader. The best approach, in my experience, is to have an agency sieve through the heaps of content and present opportunities where you can participate.

The top platforms for B2B entrepreneurs to establish thought leadership

Blogs

According to Ben Yoskovitz, an entrepreneur and founding partner at Year One Labs, “Blogging is the single most effective way of getting your message out, building reputation, creating authority and demonstrating thought leadership.” Furthermore, Yoskovitz argues that you can’t build authority and thought leadership through Twitter or other microblogging services (or aggregator-type services) like FriendFeed unless you previously had authority and reputation through blogging. I agree with Yoskovitz, but I wouldn’t limit authority-building platforms to blogs; rather, I would also include other platforms that allow users to reply in long form, such as LinkedIn and Quora.

LinkedIn

LinkedIn Groups and Answers provide ample opportunities for you to showcase your knowledge in specific areas. I use this site religiously for clients, monitoring my news feeds of subscribed Answer categories and discussion Groups twice daily for opportunities to engage. As LinkedIn allows users to contribute long responses to questions and discussions, it is an excellent way for entrepreneurs to demonstrate a breadth of knowledge, as well as comment on the contributions of others, and distinguish themselves as leaders in their industries. It’s also a great way to keep a finger on the pulse of your industry. We subscribe to a number of startup-related forums, including On Startups, Ultra Light Startups, Area Startups, Startup Entrepreneurs Network, Silicon Valley Venture Community and Startup Specialists, where we meet, discuss and connect with potential clients and industry thought leaders. LinkedIn adds a new user every second, with about half of all new accounts being created outside of North America. This enables you to reach a huge and global market of potentially valuable individuals.

Quora

It’s no secret that Quora weighs heavily on startup entrepreneur queries. Just read this post by Social Times, Why any serious Internet entrepreneur is on Quora, and you’ll understand its merit. However, this post fails to mention that Quora also allows entrepreneurs to answer the questions of others, in long form. One of the many beauties of Quora is that it preserves its participants’ thought leadership, banking questions and answers forever and allowing individuals to search out information for years to come, which can situate you in a long-term thought leadership position. Also, because attention to quality questions and answers is fundamental to the success of Quora, the Quora team ensures that you always sound professional by enforcing proper spelling, grammar, punctuation, style and accuracy. People can also vote on your answers, which can quickly elevate you to expert status.

Specialized forums

There are also a number of specialized forums designed specifically for entrepreneurs to connect. Mashable compiled a useful (although dated) list of the top 10 social networks for entrepreneurs, which I recommend you check out. Since contributing to blog discussions is important for entrepreneurs to build online communities and establish thought leadership, Fast Company compiled a useful list of the best social entrepreneurship news sites, which I also recommend you check out. As the National Angel Capital Organization’s Bryan Watson suggested in an earlier interview, AngelList and AngelSoft are also good platforms to connect with other entrepreneurs and investors. He also offers best practices for how startups can use social media to court angel investors.

Did I miss any good ones? What are your favourite sites and why?

Image: Flickr

Technorati Tags: B2B, entrepreneur, thought leadership, social media, The Society for New Communications Research, New Symbiosis of Professional networks, Ben Yoskovitz, Year One Labs, FriendFeed, Twitter, Blogging, Quora, LinkedIn, National Angel Capital Organization, Bryan Watson, AngelSoft, AngelList, Mashable, Fast Company

Earth to startups: They won’t come just because you’re on social media

By Alexandra Reid

Earlier this week, we explained that so many startups fail because they adopt a “build it and they will come” mentality and neglect to define the market opportunity for their products. In an even earlier post, we looked at the findings of two studies into the factors that contributed to the demise of 50 startups. In both studies, issues related to market research and customer engagement ranked high among the reasons for startup failure.

As a community manager, I can’t help but draw parallels between these reasons for startup failure and the reasons they also fail at social media. I’ve seen and read about many startups that build social media accounts and then sit back and wait for their communities to build themselves. Sure, this method may work for well-established brands like Coca Cola and Disney that have developed loyal communities outside their online accounts. But for developing startups, waiting for a community to build itself is, quite frankly, wishful thinking and a waste of valuable time and opportunity.

Through social media, startups can engage existing and prospective customers, build credibility by establishing thought leadership, boost their online presence, research their markets, build SEO and even court the interest of Angel investors. However, like the process of bringing technology to market, social media requires research and engagement. And this is no short-term, passive task to be thrown on some unsuspecting intern. You can pave a path to your social media account and line it with bright lights and people still won’t follow unless they know they will receive something valuable when they arrive.

Building value with social media: what you need to give

When you bring a product to market, you are directly competing with the other businesses in your space that produce products that solve comparable needs. What you build is either an improvement of an existing product or something that solves a need in a whole new way. In either case, you are bringing something outstanding to the table that outshines the competition. The same is true on social media. Instead of joining the chorus of businesses shouting about themselves, provide your community with something more valuable and win the social media market share.

Customer service

Social media beats out call centers for customer service because of its amplification. You can share a solution with everyone who has the same question on a platform instead of addressing each individual separately. It is, therefore, also much more cost effective for a startup budget. Social media enables instant communications with customers and prospects so that issues can be addressed as soon as they occur. I suggest you read this post, written earlier this week by Dave Fleet, on the subject of social media crisis communications for more information.

Helpful information about your marketplace

Promising startups keep on top of the daily happenings in their marketplace. Reading articles on major news sites, trade publications and blogs each morning is a good way to stay informed. In addition, social media acts as a deep resource for current and relevant information in your industry, with commentary to boot! Instead of hoarding all this information for yourself, share content that indirectly adds value to your market with your community through your social media accounts. This will attract a community and maintain their engagement for the long haul.

Advice

Constantly monitor your social networks for people in need of help. TweetDeck and Hootsuite make this easy by allowing you to create streams that follow keywords. Spend a little time in the mornings reading through your streams and advising people in need. Reaching out to people with free support shows your community that you are listening and care. You are also communicating directly with prospects, which subtly nudges them to engage in business with you. This need not take a lot of time — perhaps only 30 minutes to an hour each day — and the payoff will make it all worthwhile.

What you get

Engaging a community through social media is a great opportunity for startups that should not be underestimated. As in any relationship, you get back what you give. The more time you spend reaching out and engaging prospects, the bigger your community grows, which enables more businesses opportunities to present themselves. Business opportunities are not limited to prospects but also include relationships with angel investors and other businesses that could take interest in your product or service. Lots of startups are able to engage through social media themselves, but many also require assistance. If you are one of those that needs guidance and support through this process, we’re here for you. We welcome you to ask your questions here, or contact us directly through whatever channel you prefer, whether that’s social media, email, telephone or Skype.

That being said, have you any questions about engaging a community through social media? How are you currently fairing through this process? It’s a tough grind, but let me assure you, it’s most certainly worth it.

Image from: Pundit Kitchen

Technorati Tags: social media, startup failure, startup, entrepreneurship, build it and they will come, market opportunity, market research, market engagement, thought leadership, online presence, influence, engage, Angel investments, search engine optimization, SEO, technology to market, customer service

Getting a return on analyst briefings

By Danny Sullivan

The majority of smaller tech companies approach dealing with technology analysts in much the same way. That is, brief them on key milestones such as new products, major customer wins and so on, and hope to eventually make the breakthrough into one of the industry reports covering your sector.

This is still a valid approach to dealing with analysts, but there are other ways of addressing them. Beyond being advocates of technologies and observers of trends, analysts are recognised thought leaders in the sectors that they cover. As such, they are always interested in new perspectives and visionary approaches to addressing the challenges in their markets.

Tackling this does not necessarily mean using a briefing to explain in depth how your latest product addresses these challenges – you may be better served by organising a briefing where your company’s top thought leader will simply raise the concept and discuss it in detail in a non-commercial conversation.

Why do this? Well, analysts have to sit through countless briefings and often are rarely engaged more than to silently take in the information being fed to them. By hopefully engaging them in more of a discussion of a concept than a barely altered sales pitch, you may raise your company’s estimation in their eyes, but more importantly, you may bring some influence to the perspective of a key thought leader in your market. Even if you don’t receive direct coverage, your reward may be that your vision sparks debate and commentary at the analyst level… Not a bad return on a conversation.

For more on working with analysts, check out my previous posts titled Analyze This and Analyze This (continued).

Technorati Tags: analyst relations, thought leadership

PR insights from the wise and otherwise

By Leo Valiquette

Oh nuts

A few weeks ago in a blog titled, The interview is never over, Francis talked about how one should never assume an interview with a journalist (or a blogger) is over until said journalist is out of earshot.

In the age of citizen journalism and the blogosphere, those ready with a notepad or tape recorder aren’t as easy to identify as they once were, so it behooves anyone concerned about how their comments and opinions can impact not only their image but that of their organization to avoid provocative, off-the-cuff remarks. Bottom line, if you don’t want to see it in print, don’t say it. And that doesn’t apply only to your discussions in public, it also applies to comments made in a public place where there could be a recording device lurking nearby.

Case in point, last night The New York Post featured the headline Jesse Jackson says he wants to cut Obama’s ‘nuts out’. Unfortunately the good reverend, who once aspired to be the first black U.S. president, made the comments off camera in a TV studio and failed to realize a microphone nearby was recording.

Tapping into the brain trust

41bifbVLSsL PR insights from the wise and otherwise In recent meetings with a new client, we discussed the wealth of knowledge stored in the grey matter of the company’s chief tech guy. We talked about the value of being able to tap into this resource to position the client with the media as a thought leader in its space. This is an excellent way to maintain media exposure and interest for a client when there are no major corporate announcements in the pipeline. Editors and journalists are always looking for subject matter experts to comment on trends and issues.

The challenge, of course, is getting this busy executive engaged in the process of expelling his knowledge, perspective and cutting insight onto paper or a corporate blog.

It’s a common problem. At the PR Communications blog, author John Cass offers some tips on how to kickstart the process from his book, Strategies and Tools for Corporate Blogging.

You’re boring, other people aren’t

Lastly, there’s the issue of networking. Some people are natural social butterflies for whom it comes naturally. For introverts like me, it’s a skill that requires practice and focused effort. Regardless of whether or not it comes easy, it’s a necessary business development tool that must be mastered, regardless of whether you’re a hack, a flack, or an executive of a start-up seeking potential partners, customers, investors and employees.

Piaras Kelly on his blog offers some insights of his own on how people can overcome their inherent aversion to networking at gatherings and make the most of the business development opportunity before them. One obvious tip: talking about yourself is boring, talking about others is interesting.

Technorati Tags: media relations, thought leaders, thought leadership, networking, business development, blogging, corporate blogging, New York Post, Jesse Jackson, Barack Obama, John Cass

David J French : This same message is applicable to patent clients.

Lindsay Bell (@belllindsay) : Hi Hailley, SoCap was great wasn't it? :) I just wanted to say thanks for including Gini here in your roundup - and how happy I am that you enjoyed her t...

Gini Dietrich (@ginidietrich) : Grumble, grumble. I misspelled your name, Hailley!

Gini Dietrich (@ginidietrich) : Thanks Hailey! I was kind of on a rant with that one...I'm tired of people saying digital marketing works for us because it's what we do. Uh, yeah. And it'll...

Danny Brown : Hi Hailley, Thanks so much for including my post over at Jay Baer's blog, seems to have been received well, which is always nice. :) Looking forward to...

Joe McFadden : "If, for example, your product is sold largely to high-income baby boomers, why would you sponsor an event, venue, charity or team that primarily draws 20-so...

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