Inaugural issue of WordBiz Report

Vol. 1, Issue 1: July 2001

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.

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.

EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: Ruth P. Stevens

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:

E-NEWSLETTERS

They are the number one retention tool.

TRIGGERED EMAIL

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.

PRE-SALE LEAD MANAGEMENT

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/

PUBLISHER'S NOTE

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

HANDS-ON CONTENT TIP

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

B2B E-MARKETING RESOURCES

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

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