The Content, Connection, Conversation, Conversion Continuum

Archive for the ‘acSellerant’ Category

The Content, Connection, Conversation, Conversion Continuum

Wednesday, January 20th, 2010

I am officially retiring acSellerant’s tagline – “Relevant and useful information builds trust. Trust sells.” When I first came up with that slogan, I was on a mission to convince B2B companies that:

traditional, interruptive advertising was no longer effective, and
traditional presales activities (educating prospects about your solutions) had been replaced by Google.

Largely due to the efforts of others, like Joe Pulizzi and Newt Barrett; and to the overwhelming evidence in the market place, my prospects now understand #1 and 2 above. So what’s next?

The Content, Connection, Conversation, Conversion Continuum

We all agree that to engage prospects we need to produce and publish relevant, useful, interesting and valuable content. You can’t just put it out there anymore, though. There’s too much competition for peoples’ attention.

We need to connect the content to our prospects. That means we have to deliver it to the online places where they hang out. That might be at industry-related websites like MSPmentor, or on special interest groups within Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

Once you’ve set your content at the feet of the people it was developed for, if you’ve made the content compelling enough, your prospects connect with you. You’ve piqued their interest and they want to learn more… or they want to voice their opinion. They will comment on a blog post, in your online discussion, or they’ll email you.

Conversation ensues. When a dialogue is created between you and your prospects, ideas are exchanged. This is the time to listen carefully. It’s a golden opportunity to find out exactly what prospects want. Let them tell you. If they feel they’ve been heard, trust is built.

Once they understand that you truly have their best interest at heart, the conversation will move from online to phone, and then face to face, as the topics move from features and benefits, to pricing, and to terms and conditions. The prospect converts into a customer. You close a profitable deal without selling anything.

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Tags: b2b, Bob Leonard, business to business marketing, LinkedIn, MSP, return on influence, trusted advisor
Posted in Bob Leonard, acSellerant, business to business, content marketing, digital relationships, sales enablement, trust | 2 Comments »

The Most Important Factor in Business Success

Saturday, January 2nd, 2010

Social media guru (and my neighbor here on Florida’s Gulf coast), Bernie Borges released his business predictions for this new decade. One of those predictions is the continuing growth and strength of Marketing as a critical business success factor. Not surprisingly, I’m in agreement. Here’s an excerpt:

Marketing
The 00’ decade began the transition to the mantra “marketing is the enterprise.” In the 10’ decade, marketing will be the most important factor in business success. No offense to sales-driven companies, but marketing is the central nervous system of the enterprise in the new decade. And, the cardiovascular system is communications. The marketing strategy is now all about the experience. Customers live in a digitally connected world at home, in the car, on the bus, at work, even at their kid’s soccer games. Brands who give their customers opportunities to experience their value proposition will win loyalty. Some B2B brands that do this already include Cisco, Indium Corp. and HubSpot. The secret sauce to creating an experience is to experiment with different communications that touch people through more than one sense including sight, sound, smell, taste, touch. Yes, even B2B brands can do this.

I’m not so sure about smell, taste and touch; but it’s apparent that multimedia (graphics, images, and sounds along with short bits of text) will increasingly become the lingua franca of the web. As for Marketing’s ascendancy, I think most everybody in the business world realizes that ‘order taker’ salespeople have been disintermediated by the internet. But for complex B2B products and services, sales people are still very much needed. Their roles, though, should be upgraded and focused. ‘Beating the bushes’, ‘cold calling’, ‘hunting’… whatever you call it, is less and less effective. Marketing’s role is growing through the addition of what I call ’sales enablement’ activities. These are primarily online pull tactics (including inbound marketing, content marketing, SEO and social media). The upside for professional B2B sales executives is that they get to focus their time and attention on building relationships and closing profitable deals.

You can read the rest of Bernie’s Predictions here.

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Tags: b2b products, effective marketing, multimedia graphics
Posted in acSellerant, business to business, content marketing, digital relationships, sales enablement, trust | 2 Comments »

100 Content Marketing and Social Media Predictions for 2010

Wednesday, December 16th, 2009

Joe Pulizzi, the de facto worldwide thought leader for ‘content marketing’, has included me (along with Seth Godin, Mike Volpe, David Meerman Scott, John Jantsch, and 55 others) in his list of contributors. I’ll give you the link (I’m about half way down the list), but first here’s my prediction:

Bob Leonard

In the B2B world, it’s going to require what Oliver Wendell Holmes called “simplicity on the other side of complexity”.

What I mean is that marketers are going to have to work hard to distill product and service information (features and benefits, competitive positioning, value propositions, etc.) into easily consumed, and quickly digested morsels. I’m not referring to slogans or tag lines. Marketers have moved beyond sales messages to delivering relevant and useful information. As the sheer volume of this information grows exponentially, marketers must learn to communicate to target prospects not only in a meaningful, concise way; but also using multimedia to engage more of the targets’ senses. To teach and to entertain simultaneously.

I happened to have a prediction ready for Joe because it’s something I’ve been thinking about quite a bit.

As a content developer, my primary communication vehicle has been the written word. As technology advances, and the amount of information available to people explodes, text on a page or a screen is becoming less and less capable of competing for peoples’ attention. So, I decided to work on something new. I was looking for something I could do largely by myself with just a PC, some software and an internet connection. I’ve found that thing. I call it ‘storyboarding’.

It’s a mashup of PowerPoint, video and podcasting (voice over).

I’ll be evolving this blog to that format within the next few weeks. And will be using it to help clients communicate to their customers and prospects.

Meanwhile take a look at Joe’s 100 Content Marketing and Social Media Predictions for 2010.

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Tags: b2b, Bob Leonard, business to business marketing, content strategy, joe pulizzi, trusted advisor, useful and relevant information
Posted in Bob Leonard, acSellerant, business to business, content marketing, trust | 1 Comment »

How Do You Communicate Value in a Digital World?

Wednesday, December 2nd, 2009

A client said something to me last week that I want to share with you. He asked me, “How do we communicate value in a digital world?” I asked him what he meant.

He said, “Our services are virtual. We remotely monitor our customers’ systems and applications, and we fix things before they break. We used to get to play the hero now and then… swooping in when there was trouble and saving the day. How can we communicate that kind of value when we’re invisible?”

I know the answer, and I’ll share it with you in a minute.

On an earlier visit to that same office, I was asked to wait in the reception area for a few minutes until my client (the VP of Sales) was finished with a con call. So I sat and checked my phone, etc. I couldn’t help overhearing a conversation coming through the open door of their Help Desk area. One of the technician’s was busy relating how he had ‘helped’ a recent caller. She had phoned with a question that this technician considered “stupid”. He recounted (to the amusement of his peers) the conversation during which he solved the problem… and humiliated the caller.

At the time, I decided it wasn’t my place to mention this to my client; but his question was the perfect opening.

How do you communicate value in a digital world?

You make damn sure that every customer touch point is pleasant and reassuring. That Help Desk call was an opportunity for the technician to establish rapport, help the woman with her problem, and make her feel important. She is important. Her company is paying that technician’s salary.

I can divide my clients into two categories. Those who realize that so-called ‘soft skills’ are just as important as technical skills, and those who don’t. Guess who’s more successful?

If you’re remote, and your customer touch points are limited to an occasional phone call, an email now and then, and your website; make the phone conversations, emails and website as high quality as you can. Make them the Ritz-Carlton of phone conversations, emails and websites. If they’re the Holiday Inn Express of phone conversations, emails and websites, that’s how your clients will perceive your business, no matter how sophisticated and skilled your people are.

Evaluate your entire business. Look at every customer touch point and make sure that the employee (or digital entity) involved is not only technically competent, but is delivering Ritz-Carlton level service.

When that’s fixed, start (and maintain) a social media campaign. That’s how you develop digital relationships. More on that in future posts.

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Tags: b2b, business to business marketing, execution, trusted advisor
Posted in acSellerant, business to business, content marketing, digital relationships, execution, marketing strategy, trust | No Comments »

Marketing Defined

Friday, August 28th, 2009

Let me preface by saying this isn’t a textbook definition of ‘Marketing’. It isn’t how the American Marketing Association, or Proctor & Gamble, or even Apple would define it. This is Bob Leonard’s definition of ‘Marketing’ developed over many years of learning what works best for my clients – small to medium sized (SMB), information technology (hardware, software and/or services), business to business (B2B) companies.

Brand communicates the ‘personality’ of the company and its products and services. Some people mistakenly believe that brand must be communicated through advertising and other promotional activities. Not!

The C suite should define and communicate what a company is about, so employees understand and transmit the brand message. ‘Brand’ is communicated through all customer and prospect touch points.

I define Marketing as “anything that helps Sales close profitable deals”. Branding is a part of that, but only a part. It’s an input to the process of Marketing.

Marketing can be used as a tool to help management develop market strategies (for each product/service) – which are built upon detailed descriptions of target prospects. Once we know exactly who will buy each product and service, and why, we can determine the best

messaging (benefit statements, value propositions, etc.)
offers (what will make them take action?)
vehicles (the most effective ways, online or off, to reach them).

Marketing can inject discipline into the Sales process. It can force the development of a strategy, plan and budget that eliminate one-off, shoot from the hip promotional efforts that do nothing to increase profitable business.

Marketing is a process that is composed of many parts. When conceived and executed properly, the return on investment is significant. Marketing is the planting of a seed, and the nurturing of that seed over time. Just as a farmer must water, weed and feed for months before reaping the benefits, Marketing takes time.

Marketing exists because Sales, by nature and due to compensation plans that reward short-term results, is unable or unwilling to perform that nurturing process. They just don’t have the time. Optimal results are achieved when Sales and Marketing work together. When each:

understands what the other is doing and why,
agrees on who is responsible for what, and
can clearly articulate a mutual definition of a ‘qualified lead’.

Marketing performs demand generation activities, and hands off warm, engaged leads to Sales when the time is right. Sales can then spend its time nurturing relationships with current customers to deliver upsells and repeat business; and developing and closing profitable deals with qualified leads.

Over time, I’ve devised a methodology for developing and executing effective ‘Marketing’ for my clients. The basic format is: ‘Strategy. Content. Design. Tools/Vehicles. Test/Optimize.’ More in upcoming posts.

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Tags: business to business marketing, execution
Posted in acSellerant, business to business, content marketing, execution, marketing strategy | No Comments »

New Bank Card Regulations Affect IT Shops

Tuesday, June 30th, 2009

I’ve reprinted an article from the July issue of Bank Technology News below. The author, Rebecca Sausner, writes that the new US regulations on credit card companies will eat up most of these companies’ IT budgets over the next couple of years. This is good news for ‘body shops’ who will benefit because internal IT shops at these banks will be overwhelmed trying to rewrite their applications to comply with the new regulations.

IT vendors who supply more innovative Card Company solutions will see their projects sidelined for the next 12 to 18 months. Opportunity always accompanies change, though. Innovative IT providers should study these new regulations and attempt to partner with the Card Companies on applications that can help them comply while also adding customer service functionality.

COMPLIANCE

Card Co’s Day of Reckoning Hits IT

Bank Technology News | July 2009

by Rebecca Sausner

The new federal regulations overhauling credit card industry practices seemed radical, until President Obama signed a law in May that upped the ante in terms of timing and restrictions, and then in June proposed the Consumer Financial Protection Agency. Either alone represent a sea change for card lenders, requiring them, as the American Bankers Association puts it, “to overhaul their entire business models, eliminate specific practices, and reconstruct the way they extend credit and interact with customers.”

“Overhauling” and “reconstructing” have technology implications, but not always good ones. What will happen with the proposed new regulator is unknown – every bank lobby in the country opposes the idea. But the card law is a done deal, and represents such a major short-term challenge for lenders’ technology operations that one banker told MasterCard Advisors that compliance could absorb as much as 70 percent of the coming year’s IT resources at his institution. Everything from customer service technologies, billing and payment processing systems, disclosure processes, and pricing models must all be rewritten or replaced. Best guess is that most lenders will band-aid existing systems to meet the deadline – or face stiff fines – and overhaul down the road. “When you combine that the changes affect every part of the process, and when every part of the process involves technology, it’s going to be a drastic and very burdensome thing for IT departments,” says Michael Brauneis, director of regulatory risk consulting at Protiviti.

Certain provisions require entirely new processes to be added to the customer information file. Among them is the requirement that consumers opt-in to the product feature that allows them to pay a fee in order to exceed their available credit limit. For this, banks will have to build permissions functionality. Some institutions are looking at ways to comply without losing revenue. One solution: instant opt-in via a text message sent to a consumer at the point of sale. “They’re looking for something that could realistically be done so that it will be legal and consumers will accept the charge for the over-the-limit transaction,” says Greg Hedges, managing director at Protiviti.

The changes in how card issuers can utilize delinquency and other information to adjust credit availability will also be onerous, requiring that the links between the risk analysis and servicing side of the system be revamped. “I think it would drive even more the move towards more flexible technology where you could have three pricing tiers or have thousands,” says Dennis Dixon, president of Zoot Enterprise.

The new law may also “serve to wash a lot of the innovation that’s existed in the market out of the market,” Hedges says. “Organizations that had very sophisticated risk-based pricing, who started to look at consumer behavior, are trying to look at how they can keep those practices in place and still stay in compliance.” And for some, the rules may be too much to handle. “I strongly believe a lot of the smaller firms are just going to exit the business,” Brauneis says, adding the understatement of the week, “It’s already less attractive than it was a few years ago.”

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Tags: card companies, regulatory compliance
Posted in acSellerant, banks, execution, information technology providers | No Comments »

Execution – Get’r Done!

Thursday, June 18th, 2009

This is the area where an outside marketing agency can most help an SMB IT provider. Precise targeting, compelling messaging, attractive design, etc. won’t result in more qualified leads if they’re never implemented.

Proactive Not Reactive

This is going to sound like advice from your Dad, or your high school coach, or your spiritual mentor – because it is. It’s common sense and it applies to many facets of life. You have to know what you want. You have to have goals and direction before you launch any endeavor. When you have goals and direction, you can put together a step by step plan to get from here to there.

If you don’t have that plan in place, you’re vulnerable to the influences of many. To put it in terms of a marketing plan for an IT vendor, (this is just an illustration) the desired goal might be to secure face to face meetings with five bank CIOs to brief them about a new SaaS back office banking application. You know your close rate is 40% when you meet with qualified prospects, so these meetings will net you two new accounts.

How do you get from here to there? You might:

develop a demographic description of the bank CIOs most likely to be interested in this solution.
rent a list of 200 CIOs who meet your criteria, containing their physical addresses and phone numbers.
send each of the 200 a letter on company stationary introducing yourself, listing the benefits of the solution, and giving a landing page address where they can learn more.
post the landing page where 20 of the 200 find more detailed information about the solution.
include a registration box where they can input their first name and email address to receive a case study re the solution.
send the case study as an attachment to an email to the 10 who registered. The email thanks them for their interest, and tells them that a ’solution consultant’ will be calling them within 48 hours to answer any questions they may have. The case study outlines an installation of the solution at a bank similar to theirs. It’s clear by the testimonials and ROI quote, that the case study CIO is a hero at that bank.
call the 10 CIOs and secure meetings with five of them.
meet with five of the CIOs, and eventually close two deals.

It seems like a lot of work to get from here to there, but consider the alternative. Cold calls, advertising, golf tournament sponsorships, etc. – all shots in the dark. You may or may not be reaching an audience that can actually buy what you’re selling. You’re messaging is generic and irrelevant, because you don’t know who you’re talking to. You’ll spend a lot of time qualifying and educating people who are never going to buy.

This is a typical scenario that I see every day. It’s wasteful. Just as much money is spent, maybe more, with little or no results.

Why Does This Happen?

There are five main reasons:

It’s nobody’s job to do the work described.
The skill set needed isn’t on the payroll.
There’s no plan, process or roadmap in place to provide direction.
You don’t want to spend the time necessary to source qualified external professionals (and don’t know where to begin).
You can’t afford the fees charged by full service agencies.

Most SMB IT companies can’t justify the expense of having an internal Marketing department. Those that are serious about gaining market share, even in a down economy, are finding external marketing consultants who understand their products, services and marketplace; and can quickly put together a team containing just the right skills and talents for a specific project.

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Posted in acSellerant, banks, execution, information technology providers | No Comments »

Bank Technology News Lists Top Ten Tech Companies

Thursday, June 11th, 2009

We’re overt in stating that acSellerant only works with smaller IT companies – 25 to 150 employees. Then why include a magazine article that references much larger companies? Because Bank Technology News‘ criteria for inclusion on this list isn’t size, but effect on the marketplace. The publication lists its reasoning behind these selections, and that gives us some insight into where the banking technology industry is heading:

Everything has changed and BTN’s 10 Tech Companies to Watch keeps pace with the times. In years past, the ranking called out innovative startups with the potential to impact the financial services landscape. This year’s list recognizes triumph via acquisition, the eminence of efficiency, and the importance of security.

From the ‘deals’ category comes this year’s most influential event, and BTN’s number one pick, Fidelity National Information Services’ planned acquisition of Metavante likely to unleash competitive pressures that rewrite the core processing landscape in the U.S. Also ranked in recognition of the power of strategic purchases are Mastercard, with its Orbiscom buy; Sybase365, which packs on mobile payments dominance with paybox; Oracle’s deal for Sun; and M-Com, likely to set in motion a mobile banking juggernaut thanks to its alliance with Fiserv. Efficiency plays can be found in Verari Systems, with its uber-efficient data centers in a box, and Encomia, which rids the lending process of paper. The final three companies: Secerno, Silver Tail Systems and SAS, all make the cut as security plays of a sort, with SAS given the nod for its impending release of a truly enterprise-wide GRC platform.

This year’s selection process was daunting. If only the list were longer we’d include uGenius, for its take on convenient deposits; First American, for its place at the heart of automated valuation; Passageways, for its community bank compliance training; Billeo, as a promising payments play; and Hyland Software for its ECM SaaS efforts. These recovery-focused efforts will hopefully engender a future dominated by the renewal of forward-looking R&D. —Rebecca Sausner, Editor-in-Chief

1. Fiserv / Metavante

For Jack Henry and Fiserv, it was the rudest kind of alarm for an April morning. Archrival Fidelity National Information Services agreed to buy Metavante, turning the already cutthroat bank IT vendor game into a battle royal.

2. Silver Tail Systems

When a company builds a website security product designed to detect and prevent fraud perpetrated via website attacks, the market ought to take notice.

3. Sybase 365

Hearing about all the cool advanced mobile payments applications in production around the world – particularly in developing countries – is enough to make an American mobile banking executive feel a little inadequate.

4. Mastercard

MasterCard acquired Dublin-based software company Orbiscom in January for $100 million, hoping to empower card holders with a new generation of tools that include budgetary features and security controls. If the deal delivers, it will be a game changer.

5. M-Com

The last year has been an interesting one in the mobile banking world, as players that used to lead the pack appeared to struggle and newcomers booked deals that gave them major leverage in the U.S. market. Enter M-Com, which inked a deal to power Fiserv’s Mobile Money product line.

6. Verari Systems

Where banks park their data these days is at the heart of countless technology initiatives – whether it’s in the cloud, in a newly-virtualized server environment, or, in the case of Verari Systems’ customers, in the parking lot.

7. Encomia

Everyone’s got an opinion on what caused the mortgage meltdown, but Andy Dubinsky’s is one of the rare public criticisms of the market embedded with a forward-looking solution.

8. Oracle/Sun

If Oracle’s planned purchase of Sun is successfully completed, it will gain a connection to myriad software platforms built on JAVA by a number of other tech firms. That would put Oracle on the 50-yard line of systems integration, data management projects, the advancement of remote employee and consumer access, and a number of other major tech initiatives impacting thousands of banks in the United States and abroad.

9. SAS

SAS this year will leverage its considerable analytic capabilities and four-figure client base to plot a sweeping grab for market share in this highly competitive segment by releasing a series of new GRC-oriented software.

10. Secerno

UK-based Secerno makes the Top 10 list based on its unique take on database security. The company calls it active database control – as opposed to database activity monitoring – but it essentially comes down to real-time whitelisting of allowed queries, and blocking those that aren’t approved.

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Posted in acSellerant, banks, content marketing, information technology providers, insurers | No Comments »

acSellerant Launches Blog!

Monday, June 8th, 2009

Welcome to acSellerant. acSellerant is a B2B marketing agency. This is our first blog post. We’ll be blogging regularly until we run out of relevant and useful information. Since we’re constantly researching online, reading relevant books and magazines, attending seminars and webinars, talking to colleagues, prospects and clients; we don’t anticipate running out of interesting topics to blog about.

Small to Medium Sized Information Technology Providers

acSellerant works exclusively with a well-defined target clientele. We work only with small to medium sized (25 to 150 employee) information technology (hardware, software, services) providers. And it gets even more specific than that. We work only with small to medium sized (SMB) information technology (IT) providers who sell primarily to banks and/or insurers.

Why?

Because we have a wealth of knowledge and experience in that specific niche. See the About page for more details. As for this blog, that well-defined niche allows us to deliver information that’s relevant, useful and interesting to our target audience.

TMI

We all are under siege by a barrage of information every day. It’s overwhelming. We try to sift the wheat from the chaff. Most of us just give up and block it all. This blog will do that sifting for you. Because of our narrow focus, we can clearly define what will be of interest to you. We will curate information, bringing you only what is relevant concerning the intersection of information technology and the financial services industry. And we hope that you’ll join the conversation by adding comments and pointers to appropriate content.

B2B, Content and Online Marketing

Your clients and prospects are under siege too. It’s become more difficult to get in front of them, to build relationships and therefore, to close deals. Your online presence, the content that you deliver via email and your website, are your sales enablement tools. Years ago salespeople built trust with a client through a series of face to face and phone conversations. That’s all but impossible today. So, this blog will also focus on the tools and processes to adopt to fill your sales funnel and nurture leads until they’re ready to talk to a sales person.

Getting Found and Building Trust

83% of financial services CIOs, CTOs and Directors of IT search for solutions online. It’s imperative that you can be found on Google and the other search engines. There’s art and science to Search Engine Optimization (SEO), and we’ll discuss that in detail.

Once they’ve found your website, you must establish an online relationship with them. The quickest way to turn them off is with a sales pitch. Give them relevant and useful information and they’ll come back. Keep giving them relevant and useful information and you’ll build a relationship. Over time, you’ll become a trusted advisor, and they’ll contact you when they’re ready to buy.

Please let us know what you’d like to learn about on this blog.

Thanks for your time and attention.

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Posted in acSellerant, banks, business to business, content marketing, information technology providers, insurers | 1 Comment »

Archive for the ‘acSellerant’ Category

The Content, Connection, Conversation, Conversion Continuum

The Content, Connection, Conversation, Conversion Continuum

The Most Important Factor in Business Success

100 Content Marketing and Social Media Predictions for 2010

How Do You Communicate Value in a Digital World?

Marketing Defined

New Bank Card Regulations Affect IT Shops

COMPLIANCE

Card Co’s Day of Reckoning Hits IT

Execution – Get’r Done!

Proactive Not Reactive

Why Does This Happen?

Bank Technology News Lists Top Ten Tech Companies

1. Fiserv / Metavante

2. Silver Tail Systems

3. Sybase 365

4. Mastercard

5. M-Com

6. Verari Systems

7. Encomia

8. Oracle/Sun

9. SAS

10. Secerno

acSellerant Launches Blog!

Small to Medium Sized Information Technology Providers

Why?

TMI

B2B, Content and Online Marketing

Getting Found and Building Trust

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