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I love getting emails. Well, I get so many that I can’t keep up. BUT I love to see how competitors, vendors, clients, and other B2B firms are messaging their offerings and solutions. I attended the #forrb2bsummit last week, and I’ve been BOMBARDED with emails!

I’ve noticed that we really lack any sort of imagination in emails – I got so many from different vendors with similar subject lines and top-level messages. It all just becomes noise – very disappointing. Let them say what they want, but it’s not being heard!

Let this song by the Cars knock you around as we hear what the experts are saying this week.

Let the Stories Be Told

Not surprisingly, the role of Generative AI was prominent at the Forrester B2B Summit last week. Some key takeaways from the various keynotes:

• Don’t wait to implement your Generative AI strategy. If you don’t have one, then develop one. “You might not be interested in Generative AI, but Generative AI is interested in you.”
• Why is now any different? Big tech change is difficult to predict and typically arrives in ‘thunderstorms’. What triggers that change? A substantial shift in the user interface evolves access to the technology, making it available to a significantly wider set of the population. That’s what just happened.
• SEO in its current form will be obsolete. Why drive people to a website when Generative AI can simply tell you the answer?
• Websites in their current form – also obsolete. The future website is a large language model, made available to Generative AI. Rather than a dump of marketing information on a set of pages, data is simply made available and AI can sort through it.
• B2B sellers are MORE IMPORTANT THAN EVER. As more of the buying process becomes digital, human interaction and sellers will be integral. These sellers are ‘fast’ relationship generators. When AI can tell you so much, the differentiator becomes associated with how fast the seller can build a solid relationship.

What do you think? Things are getting more automated and more decisions can be driven through AI, so it’s good practice to let AI be on your side. But at the same time, the relationship matters more than ever – so don’t let it suffer!

Let the Good Times Roll

It’s been 45 years since the Cars released their first album. Wow. I remember playing that album over and over in my parents’ basement – my brother or sister bought it, but I wore it out! At the time, these guys were groundbreaking – they always embraced the latest technology and equipment… even if they knew it would be obsolete in two months!

As a guitar player and tech nerd, I tend to get a little too excited about gear. Do you know anyone that’s similar? A musician that has more gear than they know what to do with? Perhaps they suffer from Gear Acquisition Syndrome!

It’s a tongue-in-cheek ailment, but the behaviour is real! The trigger stems from a deep-seated emotional connection coupled with the satisfaction received from the pursuit of the instrument at hand.

For me, it’s a connection with Gibson Les Pauls, since I was obsessed with Led Zeppelin when I was learning how to play rock guitar. Seeing those guitars takes me back to that precise moment in time when I first heard Zep.

B2B impact? How can you get your customers to have that same emotional connection with YOUR brand? Consider those innovators and early adopters – the ones that HAVE to have the coolest and newest technology. Don’t let them leave you up in the air – foster those relationships and cross the chasm into the early majority!

As always, don’t hesitate to call me to brainstorm or just say hello!

Looking forward,
Rick

Rick Endrulat, President | ricke@v-causeway.com | www.linkedin.com/in/rickendrulat

The post AI: The B2B Worm for your Early Bird appeared first on Virtual Causeway.

When reading about social media, much of the information and success is geared toward B2C strategies. While these may be great and show promising results, they’re just not going to cut it when trying to reach your B2B audience.

You can likely land a sale after only one quick introduction when selling to the average customer, however, with B2B the cycle is much longer and the product is likely much bigger and more expensive. It’s like splurging on a new pair of headphones for yourself versus a business department spending a large chunk of their annual operating budget on a piece of software. It will also require a lengthy integration process along with many hours of training to train their employees how to use it. You didn’t make quite as big of a decision as the startup did. In this case, it’s going to require significantly more effort to convince the business to purchase the software than it is to convince you to treat yourself to some shiny new headphones.

That means the objective of social selling is different for B2B than it is for B2C.

For B2B it’s about presenting yourself as a credible expert and addressing pain points, while B2C is more about establishing a connection with your customer and speaking to experiences.

Here are some of the key practices to adhere to in your social media strategies:

Identify your target audience:

Depending on your product, you will want to identify whom you are trying to market to. You can attempt to simply cast a wide net and attempt to get your message across to as many people as possible, but you will be wasting your time and your money. It is important to cast a very narrow net and be selective with the leads you capture. It’s about quality, not quantity.

Check out our last post revealing the 7 tips to earning higher quality leads to getting the highest return on your marketing efforts.

In order to achieve the highest possible quality leads, you’ll want to focus on the problem your product or service can solve, and identify those who need it most. If the product or service is new, take a look at your competitors to get insights on who they are targeting and who is following and interacting with them.

Some of these people might include:

-Current clients

-Potential clients

-Associates of current/potential clients

-Thought leaders

-Bloggers/Journalists

-Affiliate businesses

Choose the channels that work best for you:

Once you have identified your target audience, you can appropriately choose the channels that will reach them most effectively. Read on for a breakdown of our top 5 social media channels for B2B businesses.

• Twitter

Twitter is a wonderful way to build credibility and influence. It should be used throughout the day to share a steady stream of information. Content should be entertaining and easy to consume. Most importantly, posted content should provide value to the reader. You will get better engagement by liking and retweeting posts by customers, influencers, and employees. Search for mentions of your company or key industry terms and when someone has a question or problem, respond to provide support and build relationships.

Services such as Tweet Full and Meet Edgar make Twitter easy by automatically sharing posts and engaging with customers without you having to lift a finger.

• LinkedIn

LinkedIn is the largest network of professionals in a single location. This makes it easy to connect with others and build relationships in order to provide valuable information and support. Use it to promote educational content relating to your service and any announcements you might have. Join industry groups to take part in discussions and meet like-minded people, influencers, and potential customers. Provide solutions to those who express pain points.

• Facebook

What was once created for college students to meet their classmates soon turned into a networking site to keep in touch with friends and family and now, has turned into a multifaceted marketing mania with over 2 billion users. 81% of B2B businesses are currently using Facebook to distribute content. Facebook has many ways to segment and target specific information to ensure you’re reaching the right customer profile. It’s important to avoid selling things on Facebook and trying to convert leads immediately. People on Facebook like to share and engage in content. Provide entertaining and informative content that your followers will want to share with others.

• Instagram

While Instagram shouldn’t be your focus, it is an up and coming channel with B2B, especially startups, and can be used sparingly. It’s a great way to bring followers behind the scenes and show off your company’s culture and values. For example: Sharing fun pictures of the annual holiday party, featuring employees on their birthday, or a sneak peek of your latest project.

• Snapchat

Snapchat can be useful in a similar way to Instagram, especially if you market to a younger audience. You can partner with influencers, offer exclusive content, and provide entertainment value. This will help customers develop a connection with the brand and help you build a solid foundation of trust by reminding them that there are real people behind all of those blog posts, advertisements, and sales calls.

Learn more about how to use Snapchat by reading our recent blog “Do you even Snap?”

Develop and maintain a consistent voice:

In order to develop and maintain a consistent voice, it is important to create a brand persona; not a buyer persona — a brand persona. This will serve as the voice of your company across all your social media channels. Not only does it help to humanize your social media presence but will ensure it maintains a consistent tone throughout, especially if you have multiple people posting.

Build a following:

Once you have identified your target audience, choose your channels, and created your brand voice, its time to build up a following. This step and the next step will have to be executed multiple times before you notice big results. They should remain in constant motion to make the most of your efforts. Once you learn what content your current followers enjoy, use the metrics you will receive in the next step to target your future content based on things that did well in the past. By focusing your efforts and providing great content, more people will want to follow you and current followers will invite like-minded people who they think might be interested in your content.

Tools like Quuu can help source curated content to share, Buffer to schedule it and upload to your channels as you find great content, and SocialQuant to grow your follows quickly in an automated fashion.

Measure and monitor your results

When you properly measure your social media marketing efforts, you are able to gain profound insights on which piece of content and messaging is resonating with your audience and impacting your sales funnel, or which piece was a flop. You can then use this information to better target your content and gain greater customer engagement. You can do this by making use of the analytical tools provided by the various channels or you can opt to use of one of the many, many services such available as Buffer, Google Analytics, Hootsuite, or Sprout Social.

Conclusion

As B2B marketers are increasingly adopting the use of social media, it’s easy to become overwhelmed by all of the different networks. It’s important to know that you don’t have to be on every social media network to be successful and to see results. Choose a few that you believe will provide the biggest return for your business and become an expert in those instead of wasting your energy and resources trying to keep up with them all. No one single strategy will work for every B2B company. It’s important to tailor your social strategy to the needs of your company and the expectations of your customers. Happy Tweeting, er Linking, er posting!

The post A B2C Social strategy isn’t going to cut it for your B2B audience appeared first on Virtual Causeway.

Introducing you to CASL

Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL) came into effect on July 14, 2014, to protect Canadian’s while ensuring that businesses can continue to compete in the marketplace. This means that if you are a business in Canada, or send information to Canadian residents, you are required to comply with CASL. The law covers a range of activities that are considered spam but for the purposes of this post, we’ll focus on the email kind.

That’s a great law but what counts a spam?

There are two types of spam, the first one is the use of electronic messaging to send unsolicited, undesired or illegal messages to others without their consent and may be used to send other electronic threats such as spyware and viruses.

According to the Government of Canada’s website Fightspam.gc.ca (which contains no spam), electronic spam includes:

• Electronic messages you did not ask for, including email, social media, text messages;
• Messages from anonymous senders or senders you don’t know;
• The installation of apps or program without the express consent of the owner of the system;
• Promoting fake or misleading products or services;
• And the collection and or use of personal information without permission.

The other kind of SPAM is processed pork meat, which electronic spam is actually named after. We’ll focus on the electronic kind for now.

What is not considered spam?

• Newsletters and updates you did sign up for (but may find annoying) and provided implied consent;
• Email messages from a person you know (who you may also find annoying), or someone who is trying to contact you personally.
• A terrible chain email from the early 2000’s sent by a friend you know telling you to forward to 10 people or else you’ll have bad luck forever. (sadly, not spam either)
• Generic Luncheon Meat. It’s essentially the same product, but it’s not authentic SPAM.

How can I remain compliant with CASL?

The goal is to be the king, or queen, of CASL and remain compliant with these regulations set out to protect citizens. If you choose to not take part you may be faced with a serious fine of up to $10 million for businesses. Don’t believe me? See here how just last year, Kellogg’s was fined $60,000, just for sending messages to recipients without their consent. They’re not kidding around with this.

FunFact: In Italy, you can actually be imprisoned for sending spam. It is important It be informed of these rules as some services such as Mailchimp have rules that are actually more stringent than some local laws.

To be compliant with these laws the government of Canada has set out some tips to keep you in the clear. These include:

• Ensure you have implied or express consent to contact someone. Never collect email addresses that were not provided to you by their owner. This is where CASL differs from the US CAN-SPAM law. In the US, you can send someone an unsolicited email but you must provide an opt-out. In Canada, you must first obtain permission to contact a person, or they must ”opt-In” before you can send them commercial electronic messages.
• Always provide a way out. Include an obvious opt-out or unsubscribe option in your email messages.
• Make sure you and the viewer can easily identify your organization. Otherwise, your credibility is questioned and you might be considered spam.
• Be truthful. Lay everything out on the table. No surprises, no nonsense.
• Don’t harass people. If someone isn’t interested in what you have to offer and they ask you to stop, stop. There’s a good chance they’re not interested in what you’re trying to sell.

Here’s the full text of the law, if you’re into that or here’s 4 Tips for Contacting Clients Electronically and 3 Things to Think About When Sending Messages. It’s always better to be safe than sorry.

Conclusion

It’s important to note that I am not a lawyer and this article should not be taken as legal advice. This article is intended to be a helpful tool to inform and to begin your own research on the law or to refresh your knowledge for those who are already familiar with it so you can remain in the clear and be the King of CASL.

The post How to Be the King of CASL appeared first on Virtual Causeway.

What does this mean for you as a business leader? For your company as a whole?

•Technology is constantly growing and developing – marketing automation allows a 1 to 2 employees do the job of 30 employees. This includes managing contacts – from event management, webinars, data records, contact profiles and records. Managing leads – everyday you can track your web leads, managing lead scoring and drip campaigns. Also managing campaigns – from e-mail campaigns, web pages and forms. A tool that, once mastered, is very, very powerful!
•All marketing automation systems are different and require different amounts of training. A common example that we see is a a marketing automation system put in place, however it is just being used for e-mail.

As an executive you have a choice – outsource the job or develop the in-house staff. Both approaches have a cost in terms of time and money. However, both approaches also have some compelling benefits.

PROS to investing in staff 

-Staff will develop the required knowledge and skill – a trade that can be used in any marketing and sales position.
-Staff works around set schedule

CONS to investing in staff
-Keep in mind the turnover rate in marketing – staff can become certified in a marketing automation system and then leave the company
-Staff can be used in other high priority areas

PROS to outsourcing staff
-You know will be be working with a certified marketing automation partner
-Pricing is agreed upon before hand
-Your company is contracted to convert leads into customers (who doesn’t want that!)

CONS to outsourcing staff
-If you are a small company, it can sometimes be pricey

What do you think? Outsource or invest? Leave us with your thoughts!

The post Marketing Automation – Do I outsource or invest in my staff appeared first on Virtual Causeway.