innerbridge blog

Tracking Green Marketing: Take a "Green" Survey

2008-05-16T20:51:53Z

Being "green" is all the rage in marketing these days. Print, TV, radio, and online advertisements pitch eco-friendly products and offerings. Riding on the back of intense media coverage of the climate change issue and the dramatic increases in energy costs, especially oil, marketers see an opportunity to differentiate their products and tap into the underlying consumer desire -- or guilt -- to "do the right thing."

At innerbridge, we personally have a green hue. But we are also avidly tracking and advising companies on the topic of green marketing, including concepts such as greenwashing (pretending to be green to improve PR or to get sales from sympathetic customers). As part of this effort, we continually discuss the concept of green marketing with clients, as well as with executives we interview for other projects. We also track media coverage of green marketing initiatives and take note of green-tinged advertising.

In addition to these activities, we are embarking on a long-term process of directly tracking green marketing trends -- using surveys to tap into the thoughts and opinions of business executives and consumers. We want to know their views of the value, reason behind, and return of "going green."

Attached is the link to a survey for business executives on green marketing. Feel free to take the survey yourself -- its just 10 questions -- and/or pass it along to relevant peers and friends. We will cull the data and post the results of this initial foray.

< See or take the green marketing survey >

Highrise SFA Offers Value to Users and Lessons for Marketers

2008-05-06T13:40:07Z

If you are part of a small or startup business, you need to manage your contacts -- the prospects, clients, partners, member of the media, and vendors that you interact with. Besides just keeping track of organizational (Web site, main phone number, billing address, etc.) and individual (email address, cell phone number, etc.) information, you should track who you have talked to and when, to dos, and other aspects of your interactions. The more data you capture the better (although, as always, the key is find a balance between information capture and the time spent entering the data).

So with the need for a contact management, sales force automation (SFA), or customer relationship management (CRM) system established, here's what you should look for:

Online access. Most personal contact managers are based off individual PCs, with the data residing on one hard drive. Online solutions work for most businesses that have online, reasonably fast, access -- which is almost everyone these days. The benefits of an online system (access from any PC, data secure in remote and backed up servers, and instant functionality updates) outweigh the cons (inability to access data when not connected to the Net).

Offline access is not much of an issue these days, as many businesses have guest WiFi, and it's relatively easy to find free WiFI at retail establishments, such as Panera Bread restaurants.
Shared data. In any organization with two or more people, it is critical to have current, accurate information available to everyone (with access controls on private data). Sharing data ensure that everyone knows what is going on with an account, as well as ensures continuity to interactions. For example, if someone is on vacation and a contact's information is only on their hard drive, other users can't get access to the information.
Low management overhead. Any server-based system enables easy sharing of data, but it also involves managing a sever. For most companies, adding information technology (IT) staff overhead doesn't make economic sense, particularly when hosted solutions take care of all server hardware and software provisioning and maintenance. The combination of a Web interface with a manager server backend let companies focus on generating or doing business, not technology management.
Ease of use. If users can't understand how to use a system, it won't be used. Cryptic fields and non-intuitive, multi-step processes ensure that data is never entered. For example, what's the difference between a lead, a contact, an opportunity, and an account? For many salesforce.com users, they will ignore these distinctions and choose the method they find most reasonable -- unfortunately, it may be different from the one chosen by colleagues, resulting in data in multiple places.
Reasonable cost. "Reasonable" is a relative term, but an online service that makes sense for small organizations should offer both a low entry-level cost (less than $25 per user per month) and be billable on a per month basis (versus having to sign up for a year of the offering). Obviously a restricted, free, but limited capability offering is a great way to test the real world applicability of the service.

Most options don't fit small or startup business needs

That said, what are your options? For those coming form the corporate world, signing up for salesforce.com immediately comes to mind. The problem is that that solution costs more than most small businesses want to spend and delivers more than they need (and delivering more means a hard to user interface). Other online sales force automation (SFA) or customer relationship management (CRM) system are free. For example, SugarCRM is essentially an open source salesforce.com knock off. However, it's only free in terms of license costs. Small organizations will have to spend time to install and manage the software or sign up for a hosted solution -- choices that make it look very similar to salesforce.com.

Popular inexpensive solutions all come at a cost. For example, relying on the built-in contact management and calendaring in Microsoft Windows of Apple's Mac OS X is one option, but it really only works for an individual -- there's little to do it terms of sharing information. Some rely on spreadsheets, but they don't handle data well and, again, the problem of sharing arises. A third path involves investing in a pre-packaged SFA client application, such as ACT! or Goldmine. But the license costs and the increased time needed to manage shared database limit the appeal of these solutions, too.

Highrise: A strong solution for those with basic needs

By far the best solution we have seen so far for a small business is from 37signals. The Highrise offering is essentially salesforce.com extra light, with a dash of Apple look and feel -- all in an inexpensive, hosted package (in fact, it is only available on the Web -- there are no options to install it yourself). For experimentation or piloting, the price can't be beat -- there is no cost for an unlimited, two-person account (some of the "higher end" features are not available or are limited).

For those with heavy-duty sales support needs (tracking the pipeline, extensive reports, etc.), Highrise is not the tool. But its ease-of-use and no to low cost make it an exceptional product. As always, your mileage may vary, but it is certainly worth looking at if you are in the need of a contact management system.

Marketing lessons from 37signals

Highrise is useful to look at from a marketing perspective, not just a tool/service provider. Its success -- in many ways, grass roots -- comes from the quality of the offering, as well as the supporting collateral. For example:

It is free to use, not just for a demo period. It has a zero-cost option that will work form most small, two-person shops. It will take a while for a few people to reach the point they will need to pay for the service. When that does happen, there is unfortunately no a la carte selection of upgrades, so the for-pay tiers may not be aligned with the needs of those graduating from the free product.

Lesson: Make it easy to try your offering. Allow a long-term, marginally limited offering to keep people involved. Its better they use your free product and help you scale and understand features than abandon your service.
It has an intuitive interface. Highrise is jarring for many users because it is easier to use than most software -- whether PC- or Web-based. And while there is no doubt there could be additional features added to Highrise, we wouldn't argue for many if the product began to look as complicated as salesforce.com or SugarCRM.

Lesson: Take a page from the Apple design philosophy: Make a product or service easy to use, visually appealing, and limit its options to the necessary (if you add non-essential capabilities, hide them from most users). For more on Apple and marketing, see this previous post.
The site offer lots of demos on using the product. For the technically inclined, it doesn't take much of an effort to learn how to use Highrise. For those who typically avoid or minimize their technical exposure, even this product can be somewhat confusing. 37signals provides a wide range of demos and a FAQ (frequently asked questions) to help users over the initial hump. And even when a client signs up, the default for each section includes tips or a demo.

Lesson: No matter how well designed your software, users need to learn how to use it. Every system has quirks and process paths that have to be learned. Some may even be better implementations of accepted practices, but just by being different, they will require guidance. Adding online demos and clear FAQs make it easier for customers to see what you offer, even before they sign up. It also reduces support calls -- always a positive step.

Time to End PDF Press Releases

2008-04-09T13:10:52Z

It is amazing, but some vendors continue to serve press releases as PDF (portable document format) files -- not standard Web pages -- from their Web site. It is not that common anymore, but it is still surprising to stumble across companies adhering to this outdated practice. Don't get us wrong -- we love the PDF file format. But for online press releases, it makes no sense.

PDF has its place ...

Why use PDF at all? It's not like the PDF file format as a bad thing for companies or the tech industry. It has done much to ensure consistency among documents across platforms on a global basis. The top reasons to push the format today include:

PDFs are great for preserving formatting, particularly for printing. The PDF format was developed almost fifteen years ago by Adobe Systems and is considered an open standard today -- and is on its way to becoming an international standard. It's two most useful features initially and now are: 1) Its ability to retain formatting (other file formats often provide different visible results in different applications or even the same application on different computer platforms); and 2) its extensive cross-platform support (a PDF can be read on many flavors of Microsoft Windows, on Apple Mac OS X-based computers, on Linux systems, and on a variety of other devices).
PDFs are excellent for offline, PC-centric storage. Archived Web pages, such as press releases, never look that great, and usually the process isn't as smooth as vendors claim. What about just preserving links? It's easy to bookmark a page, but what if the content changes or is moved? A PDF "hard" digital copy of a file means that a user can store that file and access it on his or her PC.
PDFs give producers more content control. PDFs by nature resist editing in many standard software applications. They can also be locked down and secured to limit reading, editing, and even the cutting/copying of text and graphics. A determined user can always find tools to hack almost any PDF security and access control schemes (simple screen shots are impossible to stop), but for the most part, PDFs are a much more reliable format for control than the raw HTML of Web pages or other application-specific file formats, such as those used by Microsoft Word.

... but not with press releases

Why do we think that PDFs make no sense for press releases served from Web sites? The top three reasons are:

They hurt search engine optimization (SEO) efforts. Marketing spends -- or should spend -- a lot of time optimizing site content, keywords, and other digital assets to help improve organic (user initiated, non-pay) search and paid search results. Press releases are a good source of content and are chock full of keywords, but the PDF format makes it harder to reconcile the content with search engines. At best, it is not the best in terms of SEO; at worst, it seriously hinders SEO efforts.
The viewing experience is jarring to site visitors. While it certainly makes sense for some Web content to remain in PDF format, such as some documentation and white papers, press releases should not be PDF files. Users simply do not need the primary benefits of the document -- formating for display and printing and the ability to store the document. While it may seem that a little bit of sacrifice of usability is not the end of the world, recognize that as marketers, you spend hours upon hours trying to smooth over usability issues, so knowingly introducing a UI hiccup makes little sense. Also note that many technically-inclined sites have long taken to warning visitors not only of external links, but also of links to PDF files.
They don't work well for many mobile devices. With the increased popularity of Web standard-compliant devices like Apple's iPhone, users expect their Web content to seamlessly integrate with their mobile, online experience. While many non-PC devices can read PDF files, that doesn't mean it is the best experience for users. Users would be better served by uniform text formatting based on HTML and cascading style sheets (CSS), where navigation is the same as any browser-accessed Web page (versus PDF, which usually has different navigation, search, and display options than a Web page).

We have never seen a press release that actually requires the tight formatting control of PDF files. Almost every release is a simple five to six paragraph text page -- easily handled by HTML and CSS. And if you desire fancy formatting, a good HTML/CSS designer can accomplish much with standards and core Web technology (see one of our favorite sites, CSS Zen Garden, for lots of examples how CSS can easily manipulate content display).

Perhaps you are one of the few that still publish releases in PDF. We'd love to hear about your reasons, as being in the minority doesn't make you wrong, it just makes you in the minority.

For those without valid reasons, we suggest you find a break in your marketing activities to plan for the end of your PDF press release habit.

Aiming for Neutral: Saving Time on Marketing Decisions

2008-04-07T20:09:01Z

One of the keys in any marketing effort, such as naming a product, choosing a Web site URL, designing a logo, or selecting an email tool, is to make a decision that will at the very least be neutral and at best be positive. What stalls projects, wastes time and other resources, and limits revenue opportunity is overthinking the decision. This is not to say that rash decisions are the goal -- rather, that decisions should be made in a timely manner. They don't have to be perfect, but they need to be made.

For example, naming a product can take a huge amount of time. Time loss is driven by:

The need to get consensus. The only problem is that everyone has an opinion, and all these divergent opinions slow the process down and limit forward momentum.
The need to consult with "experts." Many organizations rely on external PR agencies and other vendors specialized in naming products, services, or sites. Besides a huge cost -- naming issues can eat up tens of thousands of dollars in budget -- the external sources are often not that much more helpful than internal resources.
The impossible quest for perfection. Whether relying on internal, external, or a combination of resources, the goal of having the perfect name is unattainable. The name game is a zero sum game -- some will lose, and others will win. Usually, the C-level executives have the last word anyway, and their own desires may or may not align with the advice of marketing or third parties.

Similar trouble occurs with Web site design. For example, we see this with almost every Web site project we engage in. The process gets stalled because some on the Web team want green while others want tan, some want drop-down menus and others want simplified navigation, some want a Flash animation header while others want an iconic, static graphic.

In the end, a strong product offering, solid support, well-prepared sales people, a full pipeline, and smart PR have a more beneficial impactful on sales -- and success -- than the orientation of the logo, the colors in the menu bar, or even a product name.

Success makes all decisions look better. For example, is Google a good name? For most companies, the name would never make it past the brainstorming stage. In the music world, bands spend a huge amount of time trying to select the perfect name, trying to make five people happy. Is U2 a good band name? Maybe or maybe not, but the band's success makes the name's "goodness" irrelevant. With success, people will accept almost any name. Without success, the name is unlikely to impact sales unless it is negative.

With positive unlikely, aim for neutral

A goal should be making decisions based on a three-point scale of negative to neutral to positive. Anything negative should be tossed out of consideration. In our naming example, any name that has a negative connotation, will offend or annoy a portion of the target audience, will consume PR resources as marketing tries to explain its meaning to the media, or that creates a false impression of the product should be scratched off the list. If a company stumbles upon the perfect name, than obviously that's the one to go with. But in the vast majority of cases, a neutral name is the correct choice. Neutral will allow marketing, sales, and engineering to define the product in their own collective terms. Market success will validate the choice.

Pragmatism, particularly in business-to-business technology marketing (but even with business-to-consumer activities), should be a core philosophy. It is better for most companies to quickly cap discussions and get on with the dirty but necessary work of lead generation, scheduling prospect meetings, influencing the press, and improving the product to meet current and expected client demands.

Addendum: Naming tips

A few tactical points on naming:

Domain availability. Companies should factor in the availability of the domain name before finalizing any naming decision. This applies to both the company and product name. The product name may become a better draw than the corporate name. Register the domain ASAP and start driving targeted traffic to the product.
Avoid anything not ".com". People looking for your company or product -- whether in the role of consumers or business users -- are generally not informed about alternative domain suffixes, such as .net or .info. Rather than lose prospects to other sites with the more ubiquitous .com domain, it makes sense to spend the time upfront searching for a neutral domain with a .com suffix.
Hold the hyphens. With use of hyphens and acceptance of alternative domain suffixes, nearly any domain is available. However, visitors are unlikely to remember the right spelling when hyphens are involved in a URL, and having a non-.com suffix will just confuse matters even worse. No one remembers domains with hyphens in them.
Forget about taken/parked domains. If necessary, take a moment to hex the individual who is making $2 a day misdirecting traffic to the parked domain you want. But then move on. In general, domain parkers are not interested in selling the domain. By inquiring about the domain, you are simply reinforcing their notion that they should hold on to the URL.

Getting Marketing into the Product Development Trench

2008-04-01T17:31:03Z

Imagine this scenario:

A marketing executive presents market data suggesting there is a need for product X to serve market Y. A healthy discussion ensues at a board-level meeting, which results in agreement that the idea is worth pursuing.
When presented with a business case, the chief developer logically dissuades the management team from trying to develop product X because the problems are too hard to overcome (lack of skill sets, few resources, etc.). Typically, the management team and board buys into this argument as building product X would cost money, take time, and be a distraction from current development efforts.
The result: The company may have missed an opportunity to establish itself in a market. The engineering team continues to keep the company on a divergent path -- a path potentially away from the needs of the market. The board tells marketing to figure out how to sell what is available.

This scene is one of the more common situations we have seen at innerbridge, while running vendor marketing, and while observing vendor decision making as an analyst.

Marketing problems: Focus on No. 2

What vexes marketing executives? First and foremost, they usually bemoan lack of budget. They are tasked with increasing market awareness, strengthening the brand, and providing tools and pricing that make it easy for sales to do their job. Yet, few feel they have the money or staff to properly manage these activities. While budgetary complaints are most likely as old as marketing itself, the second major issue is marketing a weak offering. This is something that can be more readily addressed. Almost everyone in high-tech marketing at some point in his or her career has grimaced trying to sell an under-powered, feature-starved, or buggy solution. For many, helping sell weak products defines a technology marketing career. That does not have to be -- and should not be -- the case.

Apple and Microsoft as examples of extremes

While budget issues will always remain, the key to addressing issue No. 2 is to get marketing involved earlier in product definition and development. High tech vendor poster children Apple and Microsoft are useful as examples.

Apple thinks about the customer experience throughout the engineering process, whether it's when discussing or designing case bevels, ambient keyboards, graphical design, or even packaging. Microsoft, on the other hand, seems to design products in a more typical high-tech fashion. Marketing and other executives have input on the initial design, but soon engineering and review committees take over and the product gets a life of its own -- often devoid of the view of the customer. Windows Vista is a perfect example, where executive decisions, engineering choices, and a thin veneer of consumer desires resulted in a product that has little momentum of its own, despite a multi-million dollar marketing campaign. On the other end, Apple's iPhone generates waves of free publicity for the company, brand, and product with each small or large bit of news.

Should companies adopt the Apple approach? No, but they shouldn't stick with the Microsoft -- or typical high-tech approach -- either. Most companies simply don't sell products where the ultra attention to detail is needed or offers enough return to be worth the investment. But somewhere in the middle ground makes the most sense. To get to that space, marketing needs to change its primary entry point from after manufacture to much earlier in the product assembly line.

Marketing reality for many: Product triage

Today, marketing is essentially a triage operation at many high tech companies. The product or service that needs to be sold is at best, OK, at worst, a weak or poor market offering. With little money to spare, marketing executives act like a typical politician, spinning their product story in order to get the most traction from the media, analysts, bloggers, and other third parties. For prospects, that spin can be dangerous as the instant, public Internet feedback loop will quickly expose overzealous marketing efforts. The results is market distrust, brand erosion, and stalled sales. Since many vendors don't have much brand power to start with, over extension of product claims can create a chicken-or-egg blame game in the company. Engineering will point fingers at marketing for false advertising, while marketing will point out that it has to sell whatever its been given to keep the lights on.

Marketing and engineering will always butt heads to some degree. Both do what they do to be successful. Marketers want to sell more product, and therefore they want to make a product appeal to prospects -- sometimes they have to invent that appeal. Engineers want to deliver on what they have promised and what they feel is possible. They don't want to hear or have to back up inflated claims about their software, and animosity develops as they feel marketing is overselling the product or forcing them to weaken the offering by constantly changing the requirements.

Marketing in the product development trenches

So, how does marketing help create better products and improve its relationship with developers? By injecting itself earlier into the product development assembly line. But just sitting in on development meetings won't get the job done. The marketing representative needs to be:

A forceful customer advocate. The top job of the marketing liaison is to promote customer needs and the need to generate revenue (remind developers where their salary comes from). Marketers should come equipped with actionable customer data, not only to help understand what customers want, but to help show data-centric engineers that marketing has a clue.
Knowledgeable of engineering constraints. Developers already are suspicious of marketing, so a representative that comes in without knowledge of how software development works won't improve the situation. Pushing engineers to deliver promised features on time is the right thing to do; constantly adding to product requirements, particularly late in the development cycle, is the wrong thing to do.
Flexible in the face of reality. Though the first two points are valid, in the real world, marketing needs to be flexible as development schedules slip or market changing events force product re-evaluations.

The key to a more successful marketing and engineering relationship is twofold: 1) the reliance on data to make points or support positions; 2) the ability to compromise in order to make the best, most marketable offerings. While a marketing director and an engineering director will always, to some extent, think the other "doesn't get it," they can learn to work on the same page.

Putting marketing in the product development trenches -- and making them useful while there -- will help deliver products customers want and products the media and blogger community want to talk about.

Measuring the Effectiveness of Your "Core" Search Terms

2008-03-28T19:37:53Z

Although there are many automated tools to measure your company's search engine optimization (SEO) performance, sometimes the simplest approach is the most effective. This post will walk you through a relatively simple process that can be used to measure your core search terms effectiveness.

How does it work? A marketer saves a series of Google searches that include terms that measure a product's or brand's optimization efforts. The results are available in real time. As a bonus, this approach also quickly shows who else is using your terms -- a valuable bit of competitive intelligence.

In this example, we are trying to gauge the effectiveness of the SEO and search engine marketing (SEM) efforts that support the Pleo dinosaur and its parent company, Ugobe.

Step 1: Define a set of "core" search terms for your organization

Most SEO/SEM experts will try and convince you that you need to have a multitude of search terms and keywords to support your campaigns and results. That is sound advice ... but only if you have established credibility with the basic terms. The simplest kinds of terms you should "own" are:

Your company name
Your product name
Key executive names

Step 2: Organize your saved searches

Start the process by creating a new bookmark folder in your browser (Firefox, in our example). Let's call it: "PLEO SEO/SEM Test."

Step 3: Google the obvious term

Go to Google and enter your search criteria for the most obvious results -- in this case, "pleo."

Step 4: Save and bookmark

Save the search results page as a bookmark in your "PLEO folder."

Add other search examples prior to going to the next step.

Step 5: Running and save

Now that you have a series of saved searches, it's time to run them all at once.

You should see a series of tabs open automatically in your browser, with each tab displaying the search results for your saved query. At any point in the future, you can simply repeat this step -- "Open All in Tabs" -- and compare your search effectiveness over time.

Step 6: Analyze your findings

As you move through each of the tabs, understand the relevance of both the paid and organic results. To help judge your SEO effectiveness, consider the following questions:

Are the results relevant to potential customers?
Are any of the results being sponsored by your company? If so, are they pointing to the most appropriate pages?
Are any of the results being sponsored by our competitors?
What improvements can you incorporate into your site copy to improve your position in the results?
Compare these results with your Web site analytics (Bonus points for those who save a Google Analytics bookmark for your site in the same folder).

Final thoughts

Although there are a number of factors that influence the results of these saved queries, following this process will serve as a somewhat crude but useful guide to the stickiness of your "core" corporate search terms. In addition, the results will enable you to make data-driven, quick, tactical modifications to your Web site and marketing campaigns.

Overcoming Blogging Hurdles

2008-03-24T18:14:24Z

Vendor blogging initiatives offer great reward, but a project can stumble when facing the inevitable challenges of creating and approving content and reacting to feedback criticisms. These issues should not and do not need to derail an otherwise successful effort, but internal project champions should be ready to identify the problems as they emerge and have a ready-made strategy for dealing with them.

In this post, we will examine some of the issues that we have seen arise as part of vendor blogging, look at ways to easily spot and try and mitigate these issues, and, finally, we will talk about the role of third parties, such as innerbridge, in providing a blog management service that can reduce the likelihood and impact of these issues.

[See this previous post for the steps to launch a blog.]

A look at some blog realities

The most critical issues we have seen emerge in the post-launch phase of a vendor blog include:

Dealing with negative feedback. The blog was originally greenlighted to help the organization, but sometimes posts can seem to deliver the opposite effect. A seemingly innocuous or well reasoned post may generate an unexpected wave of negative comments. The reality is that there will always be negative feedback -- usually negative comments outnumber any positive comments. In a common situation of 20-to-1 (in terms of readers to feedback), often most of that feedback will be critical.

For executives, negative publicity can seem to outweigh the value of the blog, particularly since it is non-traditional form of PR without years of acceptance. The blog champion often has to then manage the irate or concerned executive while trying to preserve the essence of the blog.
Controversial posts get more readers. A post with a respected author that is controversial will get the most readers, the most feedback, and the most exposure. A well-known industry luminary can get away with few details and words and a heavy dose of opinion. And his or her force of personality and history can lead to a major reader reaction.

The challenge for blog champions is that while controversy drives readership, it also drives executive concern (see the first bullet). The organization needs to understand the dilemma. Controversial posts will increase the impact of the blog, but they may also create enough internal unease to significantly author the style and tone of future posts.
Many authors burn out. Contributor burnout occurs most often because the authors are a) not driven, prolific writers, and b) because the most worthwhile posts they have written most likely were somewhat controversial. The internal, executive backlash has taught contributors that gaining readers and generating feedback is not often valued over playing it safe.

Blog champions need to recognize contributor fatigue, which is most obvious in terms of posts, but can also be seen in terms of post topic contributions. First and foremost is to identify trends, and the second is to identify remedies. We will deal with both below.

To do's: Tracking, understanding, and revisiting

We discussed some issues above and examined how a blog champion could identify and begin to address them. In this section, we will spend some time on specifically actions the internal blog champion and the team can do to overcome the hurdles. Actions include:

Tracking post ideas from cradle to grave. It is critical to not only know what has been published, but what topics have been contemplated or abandoned. Blog champions need to see what topics were tried, and importantly, which were rejected. The pattern will enable the team to understand where an author' passion or the groups' passion lies (based off the number of topic suggestions) and where the reality of the blog, at least in terms of the executive sponsors, lies (the type and topics of published posts). For just this purpose, innerbridge has developed a comprehensive blog management tool. Organizations need to work with a third-party provider with such a tool or build their own. A simple spreadsheet or Word doc will quickly become unusable, or, in many cases, hopelessly out of date.
Understanding popular and unpopular posts. As mentioned above, controversy always generates readers both on site and at other blog and community sites. Benchmarks or product comparisons will reliably generate traffic, but most likely, since it is controversial, it will bring out all the negative commenters. As with tracking ideas, the organization needs to understand the popularity of posts by post type or post content categories. Sometimes, non-controversial posts will generate a strong response simply because it meshes exactly with the readership's interests. Post popularity should not be a guiding influence, but it is a valuable point for understanding if current reader and organizational markets are in sync.
Revisiting the goal of the blogging effort. One of the first stages in the blog process is to identify why to blog -- why spend the time and invest the resources? Over time, as the readership grows but some controversial posts spook more conservative executives, the enthusiasm or support can wane, leaving the blog champion to choose between his or her goals and those of his bosses. It's important to keep the short description and goals of the blog in a form of "live document" that can reflect that original and than enhanced goals. Skeptical executives that are nervous because of feedback -- no matter how small in terms of overall readers -- will need to be reminded about the value of the blog to overall marketing efforts.

The role of a third-party blog manager

Having an internal team run a blog often results in a blog that's initial goal is eventually subsumed by the organizational pressure to "play it safe" and the gravitational-like force that makes executives want to reel the blog in and make it more like a traditional, highly managed PR, such as press release and podcasts. Readers will quickly notice that the once controversial and interesting posts have given way to mostly PR shovelware, and they will dump their RSS subscriptions and delete the bookmark.

One way to avoid this fate is to contract blog management with a third-party provider. A third-party manger will (or should) provide the following benefits:

A tool to manage the content generation and publishing, feedback, and tracking process.
Editing experience, both for overall content as well as grammar, spelling, etc.
A useful external point of view on the value of certain posts and the risk-reward for more controversial posts.
An external source without internal political ties that can push to keep the content flowing.
Insight on why to continue on with the project and an ability to deliver that message to the executive team.

Telesales Models for Success

2008-03-10T20:28:03Z

Successful sales and marketing organizations understand their limitations -- they are not afraid to call for specialized help when necessary. This is especially true for small- to medium-sized businesses that are constrained by budgets and manpower. For these companies, it makes sense to outsource certain operational functions, such as telesales. Over the years, we have worked with a variety of outsourced telesales/telemarketing organizations with mixed results. In this post, we will examine the various models for managing telesales and discuss what practices are required to be successful.

Fine-tune The Processes You Deliver to Outsourcers

A common mistake that many start-ups make is that they outsource the telesales process before they have mastered it themselves. Outsourced telesales organizations are not product marketing specialists. In some instances, they can help refine your pitch a bit, but understanding and explaining your product's features and benefits are not their core competency. Presumably, they are able to hit the phones hard -- harder than your people. That's why you pay them. But to achieve the desired results from hiring a telesales outsourcing firm, you need to follow some best practices in terms of developing processes.

With that in mind, you will need to:

Develop an effective script. Your script needs to be tight and to the point. It must be compelling enough for prospects to agree to a meeting or Web conference with one of your sales executives. Remember, anything that's not in the script won't make it to the prospects, so iterate and improve the script to make it as effective as possible.
Segment your prospects. Part of the point of the telesales process is to qualify prospects so that you don't waste the time of the sales team by inviting everyone to a meeting. While it sounds obvious, you need to name the individual titles and specify the types of organizations you are selling to. For example, the process could specify only a certain type of individual: The VP of Application Development in Telecommunications companies with greater than $200 million/year in revenue.
Insist on the use of your SFA/CRM solution. Every phone call, email, and meeting needs to be logged in your sales force automation (SFA) or customer relationship management (CRM) system. With cheap hosted solutions available from vendors like salesforce.com and SugarCRM, there is no reason not to implement an SFA/CRM system from day one. When you do outsource telesales, your vendors must be required to work within your system -- not theirs.

Note: Here are two tips for giving outsiders access to your CRM: 1) Protect yourself legally with an NDA in case the outsourcer decides to unscrupulously use your contacts; and 2) seed the database with a few vague, but reasonable contacts that lead back to you via 3rd party email (Yahoo, Gmail, Comcast, Verizon, etc.). In the event that your employees or partners share your prized database without permission, you have proof.
Measure to gauge success. Some organizations push numbers -- almost to a fault. If you ask telesales to make 300 calls per day -- they will. But those calls will not necessarily deliver the revenue you are looking for. Sending your telesales department on a forced march will lead to misqualified leads, sloppy entry in the SFA/CRM system, and other problems that will diminish the effort's return.

The best metric for telesales success that we have seen has been to measure the reps based on how many meetings -- not phone calls! -- they establish between qualified prospects and the sales team. Getting meetings is much harder work than dialing and reading a script -- but it will make your sales team more efficient and make the outsourcing effort worthwhile.

After developing and rolling out a solid process for your internal sales team, you can then consider how to mange the telesales process. Here are three possible models and some pros and cons for each:

Internally managed. Most SMBs have an internal sales function, where a small team is responsible for populating your SFA/CRM system with new leads, qualifying those leads, and setting appointments for the team.

Pros: This model affords the most control for your team. In addition, processes can be changed quickly.

Cons: The team is only as good as its previous experience. While good telemarketers can quickly move up the sales food chain to become outside sales directors, telesales managers with little experience will languish.
Fully-outsourced. Companies like By Appointment Only (BAO) want to manage the entire process of lead generation. You give its people some script pointers and provide access to your SFA/CRM software, and the BAO reps will call prospects and schedule appointments for your sales executives.

Pros: Service providers like BAO will generate meetings for your team. An added benefit is that a company like BAO uses its own database -- a database with many contacts you most likely don't have in your system.

Cons: These types of all-inclusive service providers can be very expensive, they can deliver inconsistent results, and, in some instances, prospect meetings will be declined at the last minute with no explanation.
Hybrid. Your organization may benefit from having an inside team but also supplementing its activities with outside representatives from an experienced outside agency or consultant.

Pros: Your team can improve its own activities and success rate from the exposure to reps with their own best practices.

Cons: Like the full-outsourced model, hybrid solutions can be very expensive. Accountability is also diluted.

How do you decide which model will work best for your organization? Ideally, your VP of marketing and/or sales will have the experience to put the right model in place given his/her intimate knowledge of the strengths and weaknesses of the organization. If you need help making the decision, we highly recommend bringing in an outside expert, such as Teledirect Partners. In another life, we worked with the company and found that it helped create a process that meshed well with the goals or our organization -- an organization that measured success by both qualitative and quantitative results.

innerbridge Goes with Green Hosting

2008-03-06T21:08:43Z

A hosting solution should be affordable and it should be reliable. A vendor must support all the software you need, such as a Web server, a mail system, blog software, and associated databases and scripting languages. But what about hosting and "going green"? For anyone who runs a data center -- or even a room full of servers -- the issue of energy efficiency is important. It takes energy to run the servers, the HVAC system that dissipates the heat, and the related electronics, such routers, monitors, drive arrays, and UPS systems. For many organizations these days, being green -- in this case, energy efficient -- is more about the bottom line than hugging trees. It's about reducing costs first; saving the planet -- or claiming to -- comes in second place.

So what about companies that simply need outsourced hosting and other services and want an affordable, energy-efficient or green solution? The good news is that -- as in many industries -- green has become a way to differentiate and market technology products and services. That means there are now many vendors to choose from. The bad news is that it's often hard to tell if being green is actually the best course of action, and it's hard to tell if vendors are really green or just claiming to be. For example, some recycled paper products can be worse for the environment because of the process needed to clean the used material, while non-recyclable products may come from carefully maintained forests (where trees are planted as others are cut down). And in terms of the latter concern, like any marketing tool, the green label can be abused by companies hoping to attract new customers (i.e., they claim to be green but aren't really doing much).

Going green at innerbridge

The issue of green hosting came up at innerbridge as a result of problems with our initial hosting provider -- a large company that starts with a "Y" and ends with "!" With constant email problems that could not be ironed out, and with no native support for the latest-generation of our favorite blogging software, Movable Type, we thought it was time to make a move.

The idea of making the switch to a green hosting company was appealing. While we aren't chaining ourselves to Redwoods to save Spotted Owls, we prefer to "go green" whenever it makes business sense. Like anyone in our situation, our top needs are:

A reliable service provider. Reliability doesn't just mean excellent server uptime, which is a must. It also means the ability to support the latest Web server software, email system, and version of Movable Type (4.x).
An affordable provider. It's great to be green, but too much of a premium can take a green solution out of the running.

After whittling down a spreadsheet of green hosting companies to a short list, we identified our No. 1 choice: Affordable Internet Services Online (AISO). What was compelling on the green side of the equation (we had separate testing/review criteria for the technical side of the equation)? It is a 100% solar-powered Web hosting company.

Why is this important? In the process of searching for hosts, we found a number of potential service providers that were doing their best to position themselves as "carbon neutral" or green, but their green solutions were not always that compelling. For example, many claim the green mantle because they buy carbon credits/offsets or they buy green energy -- energy from a utility that says it was created by renewable sources, such as solar, wind, geothermal, or other power sources (this blog entry over at Hostjury discusses AISO as well as the issue of green hosting in general). The fact that some hosting companies buy carbon credits or purchase green energy is OK, but without opening a contentious political discussion about the merits of that approach, let's just say that we prefer eliminating middlemen -- we prefer our green energy to come straight from a green source if possible.

Green as an investment in the future

On a final note, we don't just care about solar-powered hosting because it's green. We are technology optimists, and we believe that revolutionary technology products and services will become commonplace if organizations and consumers invest in them -- even if they cost a few dollars (but not too many) more than a competitive product. Our hosting choice is obviously a drop in the bucket in terms of shifting business to green service providers, but if more companies put "green" as a check item on their technology and services list, it will only drive investment in alternative energy and creative new technology offerings.

Improving Online Registration and Web Site Forms

2008-02-07T19:05:32Z

Whether trying to download software or a whitepaper, we've all had issue with onerous, lengthy, intrusive site registration forms. Being in the marketing and PR profession, we know what those registration forms are trying to do. They are intended to voluntarily extract full and accurate information from site visitors, information that can be automatically populated into a SFA/CRM tool so that marketing can track campaigns and sales can fill the pipeline.

But most online registration forms suffer from a fatal flaw -- they don't work. Few site visitors want to take the time to fill out tens of fields or have the inclination to enter real information when they are just kicking the digital tires. The result? Visitors either bail out of the process or enter false information, such as not_myname@fakedomain.com. Organizations end up with no or bad data, and visitors leave with nothing or with a bad memory.

Registration dos and don'ts

Let's cut to the chase: We believe that the current use of forms is completely backwards and is a vestigial process based on how we used to generate leads online -- back before there were inexpensive and sophisticated tools and service for Web site analytics, monitoring, trends, etc.

B2C and B2B buyers will use their criteria -- not yours -- to make their decision to buy. More times than not, forms are a sales inhibitor. Prospects in all industries resent the requirement that they divulge a lengthly list of personal information before you give them any value. With frequent stories of lost backup tapes, stolen laptops, and compromised databases, not to mention spam and dinner time sales calls from harvested personal information, we have all learned to be cautious giving out information. Nobody really reads the site privacy policy, just as they don't read software licensees. They assume the worst -- the data they provide will results in undesired sales contact at best, the loss of that information to hackers at worst.

As Internet marketers, we completely understand the rationale for using extensive registration forms. In a perfect world, a robust form enables good data that automates the sales proces. But in the real world, forms create bad data and drive away prospects. This impact is particualry true for starups that don't have the company history, market penetration, or brand that wil make prospects more willing to part with personal data or spend the time to fill out form. The outcome? Web forms enable:

Prospects to self-qualify ... but they don't provide good information. Forms try and wring out as much information as possible, relying on a seemingly endless list of qualification questions. But its just this endless list that encourages visitors to fill the form with garbage.
An automated lead generation process ... that stalls as the garbage comes in. With a fleshed out form driving leads, an organization can do without -- or limit the size of -- an internal sales team. But bad data means that the direct team is flooded with unqualified or dead end leads, mitigating any savings from shrinking the front line team.
Instant market metrics and measurements ... that don't point out anything real. Forms allow marketing a real time, instant window into the lead generation process, highlighting the effectiveness of ad, email, and other campaigns. But while a spike in registrations may make your boss happy, the bad data that doesn't lead to sales will eventually make it clear that the process is not working.

Good data can be seen as bad, and bad data can be seen as good

The problem with relying on forms is that you may overlook good data while you focus on bad data. For example:

Visitors with free email address can be great leads. Some of the best prospects we have seen from mandatory Web site registrations used Yahoo! or other free email addresses -- and many were almost deleted from the system before we researched the names simply because of a *@hotmail.com or *@gmail.com suffix. Why is this the case? Many of the smartest and most qualified visitors what to explore a product on their own terms, and they don't want their work email box or their work phone line to be bombarded by well-intentioned but undesired sales activities. They often become the best prospects when they voluntarily re-engage with the company once they have done their research.
Form finishers aren't necessarily good prospects. Those that complete forms are not necessarily good prospects, and they must be re-qualified by your sales teams anyway. .Edu, .org, and other domains are generally not tagged as "hot" leads in many SFA/CRM systems. These potentially unprofitable inquiries can consume a lot of organizational time. The registration numbers may look good, but the all important conversion numbers are really what matters.

Forms aren't a good way to lock out the competition. A common reason for placing whitepapers, product sheets, analyst reports, and downloads behind a registration form is to keep competitiors from accessing them. But every vendor we have talked to gets around the form by logging in from home or using dummy accounts (hint: anything you do to get competitive information, your competitors will be doing that, and more, to get yours). It just isn't worth the effort to lock up these items. The barriers will only keep out those who might actually become customers.

Our recommendations

So, what should you do about forms? Try to:

Develop a forms strategy -- not just a form. Use forms judiciously -- it is okay to have different forms for different resources on your Web site. For example, you can have a simple form that allows visitors to enter their email address to be added to the contact list, and a longer information form to request a sales person contact them.
Have a mini-form on the home page. Make it very easy for an individual to opt into your marketing database. A one-line form on the home page won't attract much garbage. It also won't collect much information, but it will allow you to spread the word of your offerings and eventually track whether that email address becomes a customer.
Use as few key fields as possible. Not only will more people complete the form, but it makes it easier for those Web site visitors coming from handheld devices, such as an iPhone or Blackberry, where screen size real estate is limited. The key is to find balance. One company we worked with had a poorly performing form and felt they were not getting enough registrations. They dramatically reduced the number of fields and saw an incredible 60% increase in the number of registrations. They have since added two additional qualifications fields and have seen only a 10% drop in registrations.
Rely on more thorough forms only for more valuable assets. If you are offering an onsite visit or a source code analysis, you can demand more information to qualify the lead. As mentioned above, use the long form sparingly, and don't use it for less valuable items, such as product overview PDFs.
Use analytic tools to understand the health of your forms. What do visitors do when they reach your forms? Do they bail out before completion? What percent complete the form? Of those that complete them, what percent are qualified prospects? It takes some work, but without measurement, you can't make informed decisions and fine tune your forms for maximum effectiveness.

In summary, consider the long-term sales impact of your Web registration process and the associated forms. Invest your time in creating great sales collateral -- not protecting it.

If you have encountered a good registration form, send it along and we will do a follow-up post on well designed registration forms.

And for those who want some extra reading on the topic, visit these sites:

Some Random Dude Blog and this section on forms
CSS Web 2.0 form design and this post on forms

How to Create an Effective Corporate Blog

2008-01-20T17:01:51Z

So you think you might want to start a blog for your organization. Blogs can provide tremendous return, expanding your market awareness and automatically filling your sales pipeline. They can offer a creative outlet for your people, whether they are well-known industry figures or articulate but unknown CTOs. Interactions with readers can uncover potential product opportunities, test marketing concepts, or provide insight into competitive offerings.

It sounds like the decision to blog is obvious -- do it! But should you resist the temptation or sign up at Blogger or download a free version of Movable Type and start posting today? There are a variety of factors that will help you answer this most basic question. At innerbridge, we have worked on a variety of vendor blogging projects -- some that launched and some that never launched (for good reason). As a result, we can provide you some real world advice based on actual experience -- not based on theoretical do's and don'ts or arm's length research.

In this post, we will reduce the process to three steps. In reality, the process is more in-depth, but these steps should give you a sense of how to proceed. Obviously, steps 2-3 on apply in situations where going forward with a blog make sense. That said, here are the key steps, which we will detail in following sections:

Identify why you want to blog, and, more importantly, what you intend to get from blogging
Determine if you have the time, resources, energy, and will to blog effectively
Plan to measure your effectiveness in order to justify, tweak, or shutter the blog

Step 1: Identify why you want to blog, and, more importantly, what you intend to get from blogging

What's behind your blogging needs or desires? Is it because you want to do the "Web 2.0 thing," or because your competitors have a blog? These are not good reasons to invest in a blog. Or is it because you feel your PR efforts aren't allowing you to maximize your market exposure; you want a new channel of communication with prospects, peers, analysts, etc.; and you want to help fill that ever-thirsty sales pipeline? Now you're onto something worthwhile. Exploring why you might blog won't determine whether you should -- initial, not-so-persuasive reasons may give way to valid, justifiable reasons -- but it is the first action to take. So, start with a list of the reasons to do it (later, in step 2 & 3, we will see if you can do it).

Once you have a list of why you have that blogging itch, the next thing to do is to analyze how those needs and desires match to business return. What do you hope the blog will deliver? Simply having a blog to keep up with the Jones, Inc. won't populate your SFA/CRM system with leads and drive sales. A shiny new blog with no coherent and reader-recognizable theme won't increase market awareness if readers are coming by to read posts about a developer's cats or an executive's California wine country odyssey.

To close out step one, which will determine if you even need to spend your time on the steps beyond, you need to iterate and polish your "why" and "what we get in return" lists, combine them, and create a solid, defensible, concise list of the justification for the blogging project.

An example of such a list might look as follows:

Acme Corp. Blogging Justifications

The Acme blog is designed to increase readership among prospects; as a result, we will see an increase in sales leads

The Acme blog is designed to increase our overall PR reach; as a result, direct blog readership, trackbacks, comments, and mentions of the blog in other media will lead to a greater organizational and product awareness

The Acme blog will enable the market to better understand the technology and capabilities of our offerings; as a result, more qualified leads will enter the pipeline and the sales cycle will be reduced

Step 2: Determine if you have the time, resources, energy, and will to blog effectively

Once you have identified the business justifications for blogging, the next step is to figure out if you can actually do it.

Understand why blogs are not effective. Even if a blog makes business sense and there is clear return, the effort can fail because of poor execution. To understand how to succeed, you need to know why most vendor blogs fail. The biggest reason for failure is lack of readership. Without readership, you can't generate leads and you can't create a vibrant, interactive community that cares enough to look for the next post. Readers don't come -- or leave -- a blog mainly because of issues around post timing (infrequent or inconsistent posts) and post quality (e.g., content that does not appeal to the readers, either in total or because each post is so different, or content that is obvious PR shovelware).
Sketch out the blog architecture. Critical questions to understand are, for example, how many authors will the blog have? What is the blog's central theme? Will it deliver controversial posts that will engage the market, attract readers, and inspire feedback, or will it "play it safe" and adhere to the watered down, PR agency-approved company line? Will the posts be short and full of links to other content, or will they be drawn out and detailed, offering content and opinion not available anywhere else? Will there be graphics, or is it just about text (graphics add more time to the post process outlined below)? Will the blog look like or even be part of the corporate site, or will it have its own identity? Will the blog have advertising? Will you encourage feedback (comments)? These are just some of many questions you should answer.

The answers will enable you to map the process and determine resource needs.
Map out a process for managing the blog. To blog effectively, you need to not only manage an editorial calendar to ensure consistent and timely content, but you need to outline the content creation process (e.g., are the author's on their own, or do they get help working on ideas), determine how the editing process (e.g., how will you handle group edits for content and nit-picky edits for grammar, spelling, etc.) will work and how you will respond to comments (e.g., comment moderation, as well as author replies to feedback). Also, how will you publicize the blog (i.e., let it grow organically, promote it via your usual PR methods, astroturf other media and blog sites, etc)? And what is your measurement plan (see below for more on the topic)?

innerbridge often ends up running this part of the process because many companies don't have the resources or desire to do it internally, and using an external provider also enables the company to cap the blog cost.
Recheck whether there is an internal will to publish engaging content. At this point, with a basic look and feel of the blog and process map determined, it's time to go back to the management team and ask, once again, are they willing to allow potentially controversial posts. In addition, are they ready for controversial or negative feedback from readers? Obviously, profanity, ad hominem (personal) attacks, and unrelated comments aren't going to be allowed, but what about feedback that logically and with evidence takes on the company position or product? The effectiveness of the project can hinge on the type of content (posts and feedback) that are allowed, as readers will quickly abandon ship if they feel the blog is to constrained.

A final thought on this subject: Even if you get buy in, expect some internal contention when those first controversial posts generate a wave of negative feedback! And remember, readers that provide feedback are almost always on the extreme sides of an issue, and negative feedback outnumbers digital pats on the back.

Step 3: Plan to measure your progress in order to justify, tweak, or shutter the blog

Building a blog and then ignoring it will defeat its purpose. You need to be able to measure overall readership (visitors and subscriptions), feedback, and the contribution of the blog to the sales pipeline. Free tools like Google Analytics and the auto-generated code that can be inserted in blog pages to track readership are an easy and low-cost way (the cost being time) to determine the success of the effort. For RSS subscription tracking, FeedBurner is another easy and free tool.

Popular metrics and measurements include:

Weekly or monthly measurement of readers and feedback.
Reports on posts, both timeliness and popularity.
Action plans for "hot" posts, posts that generate an abnormally large volume of readers or feedback.
Comparisons of primary site traffic and blog traffic.
Comparisons of lead generation and blog popularity.

Final thoughts

This post is just an overview of the process of deciding to and than implementing and measuring a vendor blog. You can also read about the topic in a New Rowley research note (read about it here). If you have questions or comments, let us know.

Apple PR Lessons for the Rest of Us

2008-01-18T19:03:03Z

It's January, and that means every marketing and public relations (PR) expert in almost any industry -- not just the technology and consumer electronics (CE) markets -- must deal with the awe, jealously, and bewilderment of the media frenzy generated by Apple. The event at the root of this PR explosion is the annual keynote speech of Apple CEO Steve Jobs at the Macworld Conference & Expo (a third party event run by IDG). During the talk, Jobs unveils the latest Apple products and services. This year, his talk was dominated buy the introduction of a thin notebook computer, the MacBook Air; a movie rental service for the iTunes Store; and an iPhone software update that added cool features, including a GPS-like location capability.

Apple so dominates the tech industry that the company manages to overshadow the news coming out of the massive CES expo (officially called the 2008 International CES; CES stands for Consumer Electronics Show) in Las Vegas the week before -- a show with a keynote by Bill Gates and booths from about every CE and CE services vendors on the planet.

You can't recreate the Apple success, but you can take lessons from it

No other company can expect to duplicate the success of Apple. Its premier products are consumer-focused and therefore excellent targets for media stories. Its loyal fan base creates an immediate pool of consumers for all Apple-related musings. And its CEO ensures that the most important products -- ones that will gain the most PR traction -- are delivered at crucial events (note that the relatively boring Mac Pro and Xserve were released a week in advance of the keynote).

So outside of being green with envy, the key is to understand what aspects of the Apple PR machine -- and how the media responds -- can be used to your advantage. Learn where you can, imitate when you can, and explore how to improve your PR efforts.

Understand the breadth of today's "media." Apple's PR is fueled by traditional and non-traditional media type. Members include traditional media (mainstream and trade press, such as the New York Times and Computerworld), bloggers (community and individual sites, such as slashdot, Engadget, and Daring Fireball), and analysts (industry and financial, such as Gartner and American Technology Research). But these are just the first wave -- the initial content producers. The other critical half of the equation -- the part just now being embraced by traditional media -- is the recommenders and commenters. These are the readers who take a story to the next level by recommending it on a site like Digg or posting feedback on a site like Ars Technica.
Walk a fine line between active, aggressive promotion and simply riding the wave. Nobody likes a person or organization that tries too hard to be cool. Advertisers and marketers sometimes can't see the fine line in advance -- or can't slow down a bad decision -- but consumers and corporate buyers can. For example, the latest Peyton Manning ad -- with his brother Eli -- for Oreo cookies is not only not funny, but its forced attempt to be clever makes it a target for scorn. The key is to follow a simple rule: At worst be neutral; at best inspire; never invite ridicule. Trying to be cool is a sure way to invite ridicule.
Remember to have a plan to turn coverage into revenue. Many Apple products are hot -- the iPod, iPhone, and Mac notebooks. But that's not always the case. Despite lots of initial exposure, the Apple TV has so far not enjoyed much success (in comparison). Hype and exposure that is not turned into dollars feeds the ego but not the bank. Good PR is tied to value propositions, pricing, and the ability to acquire the product. For example, while the iPhone was launched last summer with lost of hype (generated initially from last year's Macworld), the product was easy to buy and easy to activate -- two aspects absent with most glitzy new phone product launches.
Sometimes promote style, but always have substance. Apple is the master of spending time, effort, and money on the minute details of products -- even product packaging -- that most companies would ignore. Most companies can't follow suit as the bean counter crowd usually will point out that these touches are unlikely to contribute to the bottom line. However, Apple's carefully considered product bevels, retail store layout, and online product guides don't seem like resource drains as it sells millions of devices, has the most profitable retail stores per square foot in the US, and helps ease the transition of customers to new product and interfaces, such as on the iPhone.
Customers may like road maps, but secrets with substance create more impact. In the computer industry, IT customers like long-term road maps. Companies like Microsoft and Intel offer as much guidance as they can. Apple, on the other hand, won't tell most of its own employees the big news at an upcoming Macworld, let alone people from outside the company. So while having secrets is sometimes good for generating publicity, for most organizations withholding major information has to be somewhat rare. It can't upset most customers, there must be enough hype leading to an introduction to make people want to see the reveal, and the offering must live up to the hype (i.e., don't back the PR equivalent of Geraldo Rivera's unveiling of Al Capon's secret vault).
Clear, compelling messages go farther are less prone to distort. Products and services aren't simple. No one is trying to sell the Pet Rock today. For CE products, there's usually a device, connectivity, and a related service. All those who helped create each of those elements, particularly engineers, continually try and inject correct -- but irrelevant or confusing -- details and specifications into product pitches. The key is to deliver a crystal clear message, but one that is not watered down. Apple's advertising for its iPhone and its online demos and guides are good examples about keeping the message initially simple, but delivering lots of details in easily digestible form.

Infomercials Inspire Us to Argue for Better Demos

2008-01-08T16:07:45Z

It occurred to us after watching some particularly bad product demos on the Web that marketers at software companies don't watch enough late night TV. And we're not talking about the re-runs of Three's Company or M*A*S*H. We are talking about the ubiquitous infomercials (and no, not the one of they really happy guy who can't stop grinning). If marketers paid more attention to how consumer household products are hawked, they might use that knowledge to create more compelling online demos -- demos that lead to fatter sales pipelines and shorter sales cycles.

Tub scrubbing viewers are motivated to call while tech prospects endure most demos

Infomercial creators are not haphazard in their approach to pitching their seemingly unnecessary gear. They know that the key to get consumers reaching for their phone and their credit card is a compelling demo. And a compelling demo at its heart is built around showcasing something the viewer can relate to. For example, when promoting a product to rid a bathtub of crud, the infomercial didn't waste time -- and test viewer patience -- by detailing all the technical aspects of the product (in this case, its ingredients and chemistry behind how the brew defeats crud). The video also didn't spend time showcasing how the product would remove crud from obscure places, such as behind the furnace or in the garage. It focuses on the tub, shows the product in action, illustrates the ease-of-use of the crud-removing process, and highlights the happy user who now has a crud-free tub.

That all may sound pretty obvious, but if it is, why do so many tech companies product truly bad or off-message online demos? It's not the design agencies fault -- their Flash gurus and artists can do whatever a client asks for (depending on the budget, of course!). What is missing is the connection between the tech product and the needs of the prospect. Specifically, a prospect wants to know what the product does and how it does it. A good demo will also infer what a user can do with the time and resources saved from using that product (the tech version of the happy tub scrubber).

Tech companies usually rely on a "horizontal approach" to demos that targets all prospects. The demo takes the viewer on a short journey that describes the radical inventions and cutting-edge-capabilities of the offering and then dives into speed and feed land. All the work marketing has done to segment and target users takes a backseat to the horizontal pitch that ends up as a "aren't we smart and we'll prove it" exercise. Occasionally, marketers take a vertical approach, but usually without the same gusto as the tub scrubbing marketers.

Some cool tech examples: Working products, long videos, and complementary animation

There are some good examples of demos out there. Not all demos need to follow the same path, and many can't. For example, some software can offer prospects a full user experience. The folks at SugarCRM, an hybrid open source/commercial product customer relationship management (CRM) company, offer online demos of the working product, complete with dummy data (SugarCRM demo).

Other companies offer length product demonstration videos. The interactivity is limited to forwarding, rewinding, and pausing the video, but when done right, it can be compelling. Apple's iPhone "guided tours" are a great example of this style (iPhone Getting Started demo).

But demos don't have to be lengthy or interactive. A great example is form Bose. Its L1 Model II performance speakers are radical in design, and musicians will wonder what they are like to set up. The company provides a very short Flash animation on speaker setup right on the product page that is unobtrusive yet instantly delivers a huge amount of value (see it here).

Final thoughts

It's not surprising that Apple spends the time and delivers strong demos. But the SugarCRM and Bose examples show that other companies and different styles of demos can be effective.

Our advice for the typical software vendor is to focus energy and resources on developing one compelling demo based on real world problems that you know -- through data, such as sales calls and market research -- that your most important prospects are facing. The demo should live on a variety of different landing pages on your site. The landing pages are cheap -- the demo is already paid for and the different pages are tied to different marketing campaigns (email, online advertising, parter referrals, third-party sites, etc.). Once in place, make sure you have those Web analytic tools ready so you can measure and improve on both your campaigns and the demo itself.