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Inaugural
issue of WordBiz Report
EXCLUSIVE
INTERVIEW:
B2B direct marketing expert Ruth P. Stevens on why using email marketing for
retention (rather than acquisition) is the killer app for business-to-business
marketers.
| Be
sure to enter the book giveaway to win a copy of Ruth P. Stevens' The
DMA Lead Generation Handbook: Proven Techniques to Create Demand and
Drive Sales. CLICK
HERE to enter giveaway. |
UPDATE
 I
asked Ruth to update this two-year-old interview (which is otherwise right
on target). Here's how she responded:
"Wow, yes, I do have some updates for you!
First, as
we predicted, lists are now more available for B-to-B prospecting, and
B-to-B marketers are having success with them for acquisition. Most abundant
are publishing lists (subscriber files, like Cahners trade publications
and Business Week). But B-to-B catalog files are beginning to come onto
the email market, now, too.
On the other
hand, spam concerns have risen DRAMATICALLY in recent months, so list
renters must be very careful to follow the ethical and regulatory rules.
For example, make sure the list owner can demonstrate how the opt-in was
collected, and ask the list owner to serve as the "from" line
in cases where his brand is more powerful than yours.
When I listed
the leading e-marketing media types as websites, email, and webinars,
I now need to add search engine marketing. In fact, I advise my clients
to optimize their search engine work as a first marketing investment,
before they put dollar one into email or webinars. SEM is the lowest-cost,
highest ROI tactic for B-to-B today."
Ruth P. Stevens is president of eMarketing
Strategy. She teaches marketing to MBA students at New York University
and Columbia University. She was named one
of the 100 Most Influential People in Business Marketing in 2002 by
Crain's BtoB Magazine.
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Unless
you've had your head in a hole for the past couple of years, you’re familiar
with the commonly held assumption: email marketing is the magic bullet for fast,
cost-efficient, trackable customer acquisition. But is this true for B2B marketers?
We've
had a sneaking suspicion that B2B email marketing for prospecting is more wishful
thinking than reality at this point. There just aren't enough good lists. And
with good reason: how can you target precisely when your manager, director and
CXX-level prospects are playing musical chairs. First it was new titles, then
it was job hopping. Now many of your targets, especially if they're marketing
types with dot com companies, are out on the street.Take a look at the stacks
of business cards on your desk. Sadly, shouldn't you be tossing a bunch of them?
We
checked in with Ruth P. Stevens, a New York-based B2B direct marketing expert
(she's both president of eMarketing Strategy and an adjunct professor at N.Y.U.)
for her take on how B2B marketers should be integrating the Internet and the
Web - and specifically email - into their marketing strategy.
Lo
and behold, Stevens offered the same opinion I've been secretly holding (or
withholding) as the author of ClickZ's B2B Email Marketing column. "Email
marketing for B2B isn't there yet for prospecting," she said. "It's
strictly because lists are not yet available. If you're looking for high-tech
prospects, such as network administrators or database managers, you can find
some pretty good lists - that are both targetable and segmentable. But there
are no email files for widget buyers because the medium is still immature."
Will
this change? Yes, she says. As more email address files become available she
thinks this will be a very good way to do prospecting. Two reasons: 1) business
buyers want and need information to do their jobs; 2) viral marketing is a natural
for B2B. Everyone wants brownie points for passing useful information on to
their colleagues. It makes them look good.
In
teaching her direct marketing class, Stevens breaks down the B2B go-to-market
process into seven stages.
1)
researching customer needs
2) communicating
3) fulfillment (delivering more information)
4) generating and qualifying leads
5) the transaction (on or offline, depending on the product or service)
6) managing the relationship with the customer
7) getting referrals from satisfied customers.
What
she calls the "e-" of marketing, i.e. email and the Web, play a role
at every step. "The 'e' plays beautifully at each of these stages,"
she says. "You can take what you're doing now and automate it. Or do it
faster, cheaper, better."
Research,
which is an important marketing tool for B2B, is a perfect example. "Your
audience is so much smaller and thus each account has so much value... With
online focus groups you don't have to have a nexus of customers in any one city.
They can be all over the world."
Specifically,
online media offers FOUR powerful communications tools for B2B, she says:
1) Web sites, 2) email, 3) Web-based seminars and 4) search engine marketing.
The best application for email in B2B is for retention of prospects and current
customers -- folks a company already has a relationship with.
Her
B2B email and Web content tips:
They are the number one retention tool.
Number two is triggered email (also known as autoresponders or lights-out campaigning.)
This means a series of messages you've sequenced to go out automatically according
to a decision tree. I.e., if a prospect signs up to download your white paper,
she automatically gets a follow-up email from you in five minutes or in three
days (depending on how you schedule it) asking if she wants more information.
Another example: if someone has purchased something through your site, an automatic
message goes out several days later from customer service, offering support
and, if appropriate, cross sell or upsell.
If a prospect has requested collateral they can go to your Web site and download
a PDF spec sheet. Of course, you can update and customize your online collateral
as often as you want. Then you follow up a few minutes later with a message:
"How did you like learning about our product? What else do you need to
know?"
In
sum, email is so much better than the phone to qualify leads, she says. "When
you play phone tag you end up throwing leads away. Email is the greatest qualifying
medium ever to come down the pike."
Useful
Link:
Ruth Stevens is president of eMarketing Strategy:
http://www.ruthstevens.com/
This
might come as a surprise (it did to me) but launching an e-newsletter earns
a spot on life’s "significant challenges" list. After counseling
clients and advising ClickZ readers on top tips for killer e-newsletter content
and why placing a e-newsletter sponsorship ad is a good bet, you’d think
it would be a piece of cake.
Hardly.
There’s nothing like swallowing your own medicine for an icy jolt. From
plotting how to drive subscriber sign-ups on a limited marketing budget to deciding
what content would be useful, I agonized every step of the way. Of course, that
might be my style. I’m reminded of something that the late Kay Graham said
to a reporter who had just filed her first column. The gutsy former publisher
of The Washington Post died in July 2001 at the age of 84. "We (women)
are our own worst enemies... Do you think there is even one man out there who
is worrying about what he just wrote?"
My
goal is for this e-newsletter to evolve into a useful and provocative resource
for B2B marketers who struggle everyday with what to write and how to say it,
in order to make e-newsletters, email marketing and Web site content both reflect
and drive business objectives. It will also be an occasional vehicle for "outtakes"
from my ClickZ column; you know, the stuff I couldn't write, along with noteworthy
responses from ClickZ readers.
But
I'm especially looking forward to your comments and thoughts. As well as best
practice examples of how you are using online content to get business results.
For example, did you close a sale from a lead generated by your e-newsletter?
Who knows - maybe you'll be a featured interview! Don't hold back. SEND ME YOUR
FEEDBACK! debbie.weil@gmail.com
Warm
regards,
+1 202.333.2022 land
Useful Links:
Two ClickZ B2B Email Marketing columns referred to:
Top
Five Tops for Killer E-newsletter Content
http://clickz.com/article/cz.4057.html
E-newsletters:
A Smart (Advertising) Choice Now
http://clickz.com/article/cz.3882.html
Do
you have a content formula? An astute ClickZ reader responded as follows to
one of my recent columns on developing content for e-newsletters. "The
most successful content formula is situation/ problem/fix in a story or parable
format," writes Dan Lucas, a sales trainer. "The fix has to be brief
and usually fixes only one element or provides a structure for one to develop
some of their own fixes."
Great
point and a good example of two basic rules for e-newsletter content: 1) package
your information so that it's easy to grasp your key message and 2) "less
is more." "Global or complicated fixes lose readers," Lucas concludes.
His e-newsletter is directed at salespeople, sales managers and CEOs.
His most popular issues feature a story about "the big ones" salespeople
miss because of flawed tactics and strategies. His "fix" addresses
how they might have landed the sale or how to avoid spending to much time chasing
down a phantom opportunity.
Useful Link:
Dan
Lucas
http://www.lucasbusinessdevelopment.com
I've
got a good roundup of resources (including e-newsletters, Web sites and several
books) for information on B2B email marketing in a July 2001 ClickZ column:
"Summer Reading List"
Some highlights from the column:
B2B
Online
B2B's
Hands-On E-newsletter
iMarketing
News / DM News Email Marketing
eMarketer's
Email Marketing newsletter
Email
Marketing News (site no longer active)
MarketingSherpa's
B2BMarketingBiz
OptIn
News
Other
sites with great content for B2B marketers, especially
those interested in email and e-newsletters:
InternetVIZ
ManyWorlds
AccuTips
©
2001 - 2003 WordBiz.com, Inc. May not be reprinted without permission.
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