2012topcasestudies-130524124121-phpapp01

BtoBs Top 50 Marketing

Case StudiesReal-Life Success Stories to HelpB2B Marketers Connect, Convert

and Boost Response

By the staff of BtoB magazine

2012 Crain Communications Inc.

ContentsChapter 1: Email

How Teradata stands out in a saturated market .....................................................................7How First National Corp. hired the right ESP ............................................................................9How Wasp Barcode Technologies lifts open rates ................................................................11How F5 Networks uses voicemail to support email .............................................................13How Crestline uses analytics to its advantage........................................................................14How Constant Contact promotes webinars............................................................................16How Volvo Construction Equipment increases email opens .............................................18

Chapter 2: Lead GenerationHow Pyramid Consulting manages leads................................................................................21How TDS gets sales, marketing on same page.....................................................................23How CDW generates sales-ready leads ..................................................................................25How Cbeyond uses online video to increase leads .............................................................26How National Starch improves leads with trade show microsite ......................................28How HP Extreams traveling exhibit finds new revenue......................................................30

Chapter 3: Social Media How GridGain Systems connects with customers................................................................33How Cisco heightens brand loyalty ..........................................................................................35How Sanbolic boosts leads .........................................................................................................37How Mongoose Metrics drives, traffic, leads .........................................................................39How AT&T blog leverages internal ambassadors ................................................................41How Morgan Stanley manages Twitter to its advantage......................................................43

Chapter 4: Direct Marketing How AT&T boosts direct mail response rate ..........................................................................46How Ryson raises conversions, visibility..................................................................................48How VisualSonics improves its search ranking .....................................................................49How Aetna better targets small-business owners.................................................................51How Yoh Services raises its profile locally and nationally...................................................53

Chapter5: EventsHow HP promotes event app.....................................................................................................56How Uniface user conference evolves....................................................................................58How Fresh Intermediate uses group-buying at trade show................................................60How KM Canada launched product at industry show .........................................................62How Canon introduces product in person .............................................................................64How 2X Software boosts webinar attendance.......................................................................66

ContentsChapter 6: Integrated

How AmEx helps rebrand SMBs ...............................................................................................69How Nihon Kohden raises its profile .......................................................................................71How IBMs Watson produces big business...........................................................................73How Pitney Bowes highlights new mail technology .............................................................75How Thomson Reuters increased sales opportunities for Eikon ......................................76How Motorola Soluntions introduces its new brand.............................................................78

Chapter 7: VideoHow Cornings Day Made of Glass went viral ......................................................................81How ScaleMatrix keeps bounce rate down............................................................................83How Opera got the word out about new product.................................................................84How Intergraph ramps up video strategy................................................................................86

Chapter 8:10 Great B-to-B WebsitesAmerican Express OPEN Forum ..............................................................................................89Approva.net ...................................................................................................................................90Carnival Cruise Lines GoCCL.com ..........................................................................................91Citrix Onlines GotoWebinar ......................................................................................................92Grainger ...........................................................................................................................................93GrouponWorks.com......................................................................................................................94Heroku..............................................................................................................................................95Shopify.com.....................................................................................................................................96Siemens.com...................................................................................................................................97USxpress.com ................................................................................................................................98

Chapter 1

EMAIL

7BtoBS TOP 50 MARKETING CASE STUDIES

EMAIL: CASE STUDY #1

Crowd ControlHow Teradata stands out

in a saturated marketBy Karen J. Bannan

The CRM market is a competitive one. Getting a CRM product noticed in such a toughmarket can be a challenge, especially since there are multiple stakeholders involved in apurchase decision. CRM software provider Teradata, which also sells analytics tools, data-base software and data appliances, used an integrated campaign to get customers atten-tion, said Erin Fagan, director of Marcom programs at the company.

We addressed the confusion straight on, she said. Our key message was that theCRM market is very cluttered, and were creating breakthrough CRM performance withour product.

The three-pronged campaign, launched last June, was created in conjunction withinteractive agency Tocquigny, Austin, Texas. It targeted VP- and director-level recipients at310 companies, and touched more than 3,000 contacts via e-mail, direct mail and salescalls. Approximately 10 days elapsed between each follow-up e-mail or direct mail piecesent to prospects.

The first element in the campaign was an e-mail, Fagan said, using customer testimoni-als. We used customer quotes, with them talking about their experience, she said. It wasa customer-led strategy to get people thinking about why they might need our product. Inaddition, recipients were able to click through to download a white paper that discussedboth technical and business benefits. It was collateral that didnt inspire a single opt-out,Fagan said.

The second e-mail upped the ante, offering a free session with John Lovett, senior part-ner at Web analytics and optimization consulting firm Web Analytics Demystified. A lot ofpeople think they cant afford to hire a consultancy, so this was an important offeringsomething that really resonated, Fagan said.

The final e-mail and corresponding direct mail piece went out soon after. Both con-tained a hard call to action as well as an offer of a free iPad that was preloaded with e-brochures, sales tools, a Flash demo, white papers, and a podcast featuring Web AnalyticsDemystifieds Lovett.

The iPad was a tool, an educational tool that the prospects could use within their owncompanies, Fagan said. We wanted to put information into their hands that they couldshare with others [at their companies] who shared the decision-making process.

Anyone who didnt respond to the e-mails or direct marketing piece got a final touch,too: a last chance letter sent via USPS reminding recipients of the free iPad offer and urg-

8 BtoBS TOP 50 MARKETING CASE STUDIES

ing them to schedule a meeting with the Web Analytics Demystified consultant. During thecampaign, when a prospect responded to one of the offers they were removed from otheroffers in the campaign cycle and received a follow-up phone call within 24 hours from asalesperson.

To date, the campaign has received 355 responses, a 17% response rate. The audiencereached was about 60% IT people and 40% from the business side, Fagan said. In total, 301people downloaded the companys white paper, and 55 in-person sales meetings were gen-erated. About 15 people requested the free consultation with Lovett. The iPads were hand-delivered to prospects.

Since Teradatas sales cycle is about 18 months, its too soon to say whether the cam-paign will result in identifiable revenue, however Fagan said she and her team were veryhappy with the results. I call it associated revenue because you can never say one thing,one piece of marketing, was the main reason someone makes a purchase, Fagan said.Were really pleased, however, with the number of meetings that the campaign gener-ated.

Originally published March 15, 2011



Choose WiselyHow First National Corp.

hired the right ESPBy Karen J. Bannan

In 2008, leasing and finance company First National Capital Corp. decided to employan email service provider to help with its marketing program. Unfortunately, the company,which offers funding and debt syndication services to a variety of industries (including avi-ation, construction, manufacturing, retail, and energy) found its provider to be expensiveand difficult to use, according to Mike Curtis, First National Capitals VP-marketing andsales operations.

We spent about $69,000 during the first year, he said. While I was impressed withthe benefits, I felt for that kind of spend there had to be other solutions out there. I wantedto do what we were doing more effectively and spend less money.

In the second quarter of 2009, Curtis decided to hire ESP Pinpointemostly, he said,because of reduced costs. But he quickly discovered Pinpointe provided more flexibilitythan his old system.

For instance, since First National Capital has many different customer segments, Curtiswanted a way to segment the companys contact database so targeted emails could be sent.Using Pinpointe, hes been able to create segments of several hundred people just as easilyas several thousand, and he can create one-time segments without having to do too muchleg work. The switch also allowed First National Capital to be more hands-on, somethingthats important since the companys marketing department is Curtis himself. I can con-centrate on hyper-hyper-personalization and be very targeted and very specific, he said.Im not stuck using templates or sending to specific, preformatted segments.

The email program touches customers on average three to four times per quarter,including a quarterly email newsletter and other segment-specific offers and messages.Content is designed to build the companys reputation as a thought leader and raise overallbrand awareness, Curtis said. All emails are personalized and come from individual salesrepresentatives as well as the corporate office.

For example, a recent email went out to 11,000 people who own airplanes. I pulled anarticle out of an aviation magazine about the fact that the federal government wants toeliminate the tax break and depreciation [related to owning a private jet]. We got a lot ofemails back thanking us for educating [our customers.]

The segmentation also lets Curtis send out email to clients based on past behavior. Wesent a message out this week to people who bought planes three years ago, he said. Themessage was very targetedRegarding your Learjet 450 three-year anniversary. That


went to 400 people. I sent out the email this morning, and were averaging a 21%-to-24%open rate so far on that one little campaign.

Curtis doesnt rely exclusively on templates, sometimes opting for plain text messages.Another email, sent right before the July 4 holiday, was extremely simple; it contained clipart of a flag and text wishing recipients a great Fourth of July. That email generated fiveleads sent directly to sales reps, Curtis said.

Since moving from its old marketing automation system to Pinpointe, Curtis has saveda lot of money, but the real benefits are the business results, he said. The company grew40% during 2009 while the rest of its industry was flat or losing revenue.

While it was more than just email, of course, its made me say, Wow, thats the realpower of email marketing. I can finally be more hands-on and communicate effectivelythe way my customers want to hear from us, and it shows in our sales.

Originally published July 28, 2011



Pulling the TriggerHow Wasp Barcode Technologies

lifts open rates By Karen J. Bannan

Customers are more receptive to messaging when it resonates with their current situa-tions. A customer who just purchased a software package will be more interested in a setupguide than a longtime client who hasnt made a similar purchase recently. In June 2010,Wasp Barcode Technologies decided to leverage this idea, creating and rolling out a cam-paign of nine timed emails aimed at new customers.

The companywhich sells barcode technology such as printers, labels and acces-sorieswanted to reach its existing small-business customers with more timely informa-tion and offers, said Brian Sutter, director-marketing at Wasp Barcode Technologies.Customer surveys indicated that time constraints were causing business owners to delayimplementing [our] MobileAsset software after a purchase, he said. The campaign wasconceived to improve the onboarding process and encourage users to engage with thesoftware immediately after activation, to increase the likelihood that small-business own-ers would recommend the software to their peers.

The campaign took the form of nine triggered emails over a post-purchase; the emailswent out after a customer activated the software license. Once the product was activated,the data was passed from Wasps CRM system into the companys MarketFirst email mar-keting system (from CDC Software) and the campaign automatically initiated. (Lets say[the customer] bought an entry-level product and upgrade within 60 days, Sutter said.Our system knows to move them to that upgraded products list.)

The first emaila message about the companys free trainingwas sent 24 hours aftera customer activated the software, encouraging them to watch an online session or attend alive, one-hour Web training. It really gets them started using the product, Sutter said.

The next email, which provides details about tutorials that can be downloaded, wentout three days after the first email was received. Emails three through nine were spaced 30days apart. Each tried to improve a users experience and satisfaction. For example, emailNo. 3 is an offer to buy an extended warranty. Since people only have a 60-day window tobuy an extended warranty, we want them to know about it before time is up, Sutter said.Emails four and five offer more how-tos and tips; email six offers accessory upselling; andemail seven offers a product upgrade. Email eight is a satisfaction survey.

The series has a low opt-out level, Sutter said, adding that the activation campaign opt-outs are 60% lower than in other campaigns. Even more significant are the open rates,which have yielded a 105% lift over previous efforts. Another perk: 50% of new testimo-


nial leads have come directly from the email campaign, and click-throughs for complimen-tary products are averaging 25% higher than previous in campaigns.

A big reason for our success is that were sending relevant emails, Sutter said. Werenot sending training help for a product that a customer has not purchased or has purchaseda long time ago. By helping our customers get a return on investment, we are validatingour product and our service commitment, and really creating a relationship.

Originally published July 26, 2011



Make the CallHow F5 Networks uses voicemail

to support email By Karen J. Bannan

E-mail is a huge component of IT infrastructure provider F5 Networks marketingplan. The company, which sells hardware and services to data centers and service providernetworks, segments its database and generates a combined 11,000 to 12,000 leads permonth from the more than 50 marketing campaigns it runs at any time. And because itsprospects include both lower-level IT people as well as CIOs and VPs of IT, the company iswilling to test new strategies, said Jeanette Geary, senior marketing programs manager atF5 Networks.

CIOs or director level and above are not interested in an e-mail nurture program; theywant a peer-to-peer program or a direct touch, she said. They are not opposed to us send-ing e-mail, but how they are going to digest or learn is not going to be through e-mail.

So F5 Networks turned to Toronto-based guided voicemail provider Boxpilot to helpget its e-mail programs a more receptive audience, said Kirby Wadsworth, F5 NetworksVP-global marketing. Basically, this lets us reach out and leave a message on an execu-tives voicemail that says, Youre going to get an e-mail about something important, sowhen you get it, you might want to open it, he said.

F5 Networks used Boxpilot at the end of 2010 for a campaign promoting a series of fourdisaster recovery guides. The guides highlighted F5 Networks disaster recovery solutionsincluding BIG-IP Global Traffic Manager, BIG-IP Link Controller and BIG-IP Local TrafficManager. F5 Networks sent out e-mails and on the same day Boxpilots call managers leftpre-recorded messages for prospects on the list. The process was more than just an autodi-aler because the Boxpilot call managerslive agentscalled each company asking to betransferred to the correct persons voicemail box. The process also allowed F5 Networks toclean its list because prospects who had left a company or had moved to a new departmentcould be removed from the list and a new contact name added. The campaign also includeda second follow-up call from telemarketing representatives.

Overall, using Boxpilot to remind people to read their e-mail helped boost the responserate by 2%no small achievement considering the cost of the F5 Networks products. Theextra personal touch definitely helps with awareness, Wadsworth said. Even if the subjectmatter doesnt pique the persons interest, they get to know us and might have interest insomething else down the line, he said.

Originally published Jan. 17, 2011



Testing, TestingHow Crestline uses analytics

to its advantageBy Karen J. Bannan

When Mark Murphy joined the marketing team at Crestline, a company that providesimprinted promotional products to businesses, he immediately jumped into a completeoverhaul of the companys email marketing program. Murphy, who is Crestlines e-com-merce marketing manager, said the move was part of a complete revamping of the com-panys interactive strategy, which also includes a new e-commerce platform.

One of the biggest changes, Murphy said, had to do with the use of analytics. The com-pany in the past wasnt taking advantage of data from previous campaigns, so he and histeam started looking at years worth of data, he said. In addition, the company startedpaying closer attention to what its competitors are doing.

Were keeping an eye on the products that are offered [via email], and the timing ofthe emails as they relate to what were putting forth, Murphy said. Were looking at, Arethey putting out an offer six weeks before a key date and were putting it out five weeksbefore. Were taking that data and our own data and using it to do an enormous amount oftesting and analysis.

Subject line testing has yielded some changes that are the easiest to make, he said,although the company is also testing various list segmentations, as well, sending specificsubject lines to individual segments. Crestline has increasingly used A/B testing to opti-mize subject lines over the previous six months, Murphy said.

One recent test of multiple variants helped the company identify an email whose openrate was 15% higher than other versions. This approach was confirmed through furthertesting, and then introduced to Crestlines entire mailing list with similar and very positiveresults, he said.

Another winning strategy, Murphy said, is the companys revamped email sign-upprocess. When Murphy came on board, the company had around 60,000 addresses on itslist. Hoping to boost that number, Crestline tossed its old form, which required visitors toenter a lot of information before they could be added to the email list. Today, visitors cansign up for emails via a prominent widget that appears throughout the site. The widgetrequires only an email address and first and last name.

Previously, signup was a series of complex steps, Murphy said. Now, its much,much easier, and our reach is greater because the signup has increased exposure through-out the site. The list has grown more than 10% in less than six months, he said.

Murphy said the team will also ontinue testing and tweaking content. The scorched-


earth approach for everythingemail, content, templates, everythingreally worked, hesaid. We have changed the branding strategy completely, changed our templates; [weve]moved to more image-centric designs, copy is lighter and were seeing really good results.

Originally published June 9, 2011



Blast AwayHow Constant Contact promotes webinars

By Christopher Hosford

The tension between inbound marketing and outbound direct marketing can be a goodthing when they work together. Axicom Inc., a Westlake Village, Calif.-based technologyconsultancy focusing on networking, backup solutions and training, is doing just that withan aggressive email program in support of educational content.

Our services are based on providing infrastructure and general tech support, saidMarketing Director Christa Nonnemaker. We do a lot of managed services, remotely[making] sure servers and computers are running. What differentiates us from others isthat we provide education on the technology we know our customers are using.

This year Nonnemaker has leveraged the companys use of Constant Contactanemail service provider catering to small-to-midsize companiesto publicize a series ofwebinars on the use of Microsoft Office modules such as PowerPoint and Excel. Its thiskind of basic education thats complementary to the companys overall tech support serv-ices by helping cement customer loyalty and encourage prospect interest, she said.

We sent out email blasts about the webinars, and used the Constant Contact eventmarketing module to have people register for it, Nonnemaker said. That, in turn, pro-duced an auto response via email.

Registrant emails were captured, and those were sent eight regularly scheduled tips onthe use of the Microsoft Office product being highlighted in that time frame. We contacted[people] nine times for a month and a half, said Nonnemaker.

Axicom also sends out regular e-newsletters and focuses on strong subject lines. The more provocative the subject line, the better response we get, she said. In the

computer business, unfortunately, there are built-in opportunities for that, such as [circu-lating] virus scares. With subject lines that warn about possible significant problems, theopen rates are incredibly high.

Nonnemaker is exploring combining social media with email to drive prospects back tothe archived newsletters. Like many ESPs, Constant Contact offers the ability to embedpopular sharing icons, like Facebook and LinkedIn, in outbound emails.

Kelly Flint, regional development director with Constant Contact, feels that Axicom isdoing a good job combining inbound and outbound marketing with informative content.

Theyve done something smart [with] the use of help tickets, she said. When cus-tomers have questions, they share them with all their other customers. For example, itmight take the form of Top Five Questions That Are Asked About Your Business. That canbe great content for email marketing and social together.

Nonnemaker feels she can do more with social media in support of her other channels.


Im still grappling with the efficacy of social media as compared to email, she said. Ireported in our September e-newsletter that while social media usage is up to 65%, itsactually a young demographic who uses it. Our clients are in a different demographicentirely, with mostly men over age 45 as our primary clients. So while I use social media,Im not ready to give up email. I still feel its very effective for us.

The ROI of Axicoms content-supported email campaign is still a work in progress, butNonnemaker is encouraged.

I wouldnt say its been incredibly influential on the bottom line, but its been good inbranding, in how people regard us, she said. Now, theres an impression that we are aleader. Were not just a bunch of computer guys who amble in and out. Our customers arestrong local businesses and our credibility is important.

Originally published Oct. 24, 2011



Personal TouchHow Volvo Construction Equipment

increases email opensBy Karen J. Bannan

In the early days of the InternetB.F., before Facebookthere were social media sites.TechRepublic, a peer-to-peer networking site for information technology professionals wasone of them.

We were social networking before social networking was even a term, DougLlewellyn, VP-CBS Interactive Business Technology, said in an exclusive interview withBtoB.

TechRepublic debuted in 1999 to offer content and the opportunity for IT professionalsto interact online. A CBS Interactive company, TechRepublic on Sunday unveiled a newdesign for its website that encourages more interaction from users and offers new opportu-nities for b-to-b technology marketers.

The new design enables users to share content more easily via Facebook and Twitter.Additionally, the new site provides a greater emphasis on interaction with TechRepubliccontent through voting, discussions and questions.

With the new website design, user questionsand the answers and commentary sur-rounding themare now captured on a single page. Users will find at-a-glance views ofthe most active discussions and questions throughout the site.

Users can find each other more easily, and they can ask and answer questions in amuch more efficient way, Llewellyn said.

In redesigning the site, TechRepublic gathered input from users. About 40 users gath-ered in 2009 for a meeting at TechRepublics editorial offices in part to provide input onhow to improve the site. About 60 users did the same last year.

The new site also offers new advertising opportunities, such as the Tech Blueprint adprogram, which has been used previously on sibling CBS Interactive site ZDNet by promi-nent b-to-b marketers, such as Google, Hewlett-Packard Co., Microsoft Corp. and OracleCorp.

With Tech Blueprint, TechRepublic said marketers can own a content category, withbrand advertising that surrounds relevant content, such as news, blog posts and whitepapers. Marketers using Tech Blueprint have their messages run across the top of the pageand down the sides, and they move along with users as they scroll down the page.

HP Enterprise recently ran a six-month program on ZDNet using Tech Blueprint thatpromoted storage products. I would consider it a 360-degree engagement with customers,because of the way the content was presented, said Julie Price, advertising manager at HP


Enterprise Business. You were able to brand the page across the top and down the side.There was HP messaging everywhere. It was a true customer experience where every-where they looked they saw an HP message.

Price said the campaign performed well and delivered a 750% increase in click-throughs compared to previous executions. TechRepublic anticipates similar results whenthe Tech Blueprint launches on the newly revamped site.

TechRepublic offers marketers a unique environment because our users have told usthat they want to hear from vendors, Llewellyn said in a statement announcing the siteredesign. They care about the latest technologies being brought to market, and vendorinformation is a critical piece of helping them make decisions to get their jobs done.


Chapter 2

LEAD GENERATION


LEAD GENERATION: CASE STUDY #1

Keeping ScoreHow Pyramid Consulting manages leads

By Jon VanZile

After a decade of blistering growth, Pyramid Consulting reached a point that will befamiliar to many marketers: it was time to formalize and organize its lead-generation system.

Pyramid provides global IT services and IT staff augmentation services. Headquarteredin Atlanta, in 2010 it was named one of Inc.s 5,000 fastest-growing companies, but it did-nt have a lead-management process in place, according to Randall McCroskey, PyramidVP-enterprise solutions.

Most lead generation was done through events, cold calling, referrals and network-ing, McCroskey said.

Pyramid decided on an email marketing strategy and brought in LeadLife Solutions,Atlanta, to help design the program. LeadLife is a marketing automation company thatoffers lead-generation solutions, including email programs.

The goal of Pyramids program was to establish a framework for lead generation andincrease engagement rates with the companys product line, as well as helping the salesdepartment score leads to determine which were hot and should be followed up immediately.

The challenge was tackled from two angles: a content strategy and a simple lead-scor-ing system that operated in real time.

The approach to content was built from the ground up, using material that was alreadyavailable to Pyramids marketing department or writing new content.

The strategy was to educate our audience on why they needed to engage Pyramid formobile technology services, said Nancy Thompson, account executive at Pyramid Consult-ing. The content was unique to the emails. Pyramid had some white papers and othersales collateral, but most content for this program was created from scratch.

As for qualifying leads, LeadLife helped design a system of email marketing metrics topaint a picture of a prospects behavior and interest.

[The program] tracks all [of a] prospects digital behavior, such as clicks, page views,time spent on pages, frequency of visits and form-fills, said Lisa Cramer, president of Lead-Life Solutions. For Pyramid, the scoring was used to measure each prospects engagement,which was a combination of clicks and page views. Based on their scores, they wereassigned a rating to indicate whether they were a hot, warm or cold lead.

One of the advantages to this system, McCroskey said, is that it operates in real time. We are able to see behavior of accounts we are currently calling on, some of which

were slow to respond to traditional methods of engaging, he said. Real-time notificationsallowed for warmer calls for the sales team, and the scoring and rating system helped usprioritize our time.


Ultimately, the program allowed Pyramids sales team to schedule more sales meetings,and it increased engagement rates in the companys email marketing efforts 100% com-pared to previous email marketing campaigns.

LeadLifes Cramer said Pyramids success was due in part to observing a few bits of advice. Start simple and build on your lead-management campaigns, she said. You dont

need to have it all figured out at the outset. Also, use technology to fit your businessprocess, not the other way around. And finally, always measure what you do. Otherwise,you wont know how to improve.




Mutual UnderstandingHow TDS gets sales, marketing

on same pageBy Christopher Hosford

Telephone and Data Systems, the Chicago-based telecommunications service company,knows what happens when sales and marketing arent aligned: Things deteriorate quickly.

In 2004, the company instituted a process to better align sales and marketing. Over thepast several years, skeptical sales reps were not convinced of the programs value until mar-keting, which spearheaded the initiative, tested its effectiveness by going dark with itssupporting program.

Sales would instantly drop 30% in that time period, and wed quickly get calls fromsales asking, How fast can we get that program up again, said Jennifer Stearns, formerlymanager-commercial promotions at TDS and now manager-marketing operations atAccenture.

Stearns boss, Michele Falkner, supported her in her efforts to build a bridge betweenmarketing and sales.

Integrating sales and marketing is always a work in progress, something that everycompany is talking about, said Falkner, manager-commercial marketing at TDS. And itsalways a challenge because sales has to hit the street running while at the same time buy-ing in to what marketing is doing.

But there has to be buy-in at each stage of the process, Falkner said. TDS worked with Nielsen Co. to develop prospect lists and tools, but realized its sales

force automation options were limited. Consumer database marketing has lots of tools available and lists that already are seg-

mented, said Bill Macauley, director-product management at Nielsen Co. For businessdata, it has to be customized for the clients needs.

Developing prospect lists was key to the TDS effort. The company used precise market-area demographics in several Midwest states to assign equitable territories to an outsidesales force numbering 130.

A direct mail campaign was augmented with tight sales buy-in; reps were required tomake at least three contacts a month with each prospect, and at least one of those neededto be in-person. Since this was initiated, the company has adjusted its contact quotas toreach decision-makersits now up to an average of almost 10 efforts at contacting anyparticular decision-maker. Incentives feed the effort.

TDS has devised metrics on how presentations convert to sales, so it focuses on face-to-face sessions rather than revenue.


We know that if our salespeople get in the door, our close ratio is very high, Falkner said. Prospects are rewarded with gifts such as iPads or GPS units as thank-yous for agreeing

to see a rep and receiving a proposal. Meanwhile, the company developed an in-housesales force automation tool accessible by both sales and marketing.

My staff goes out on sales calls to understand the world of sales, Falkner said. Wecall them blitz days, and the ultimate goal is for sales to be successful. But well make itcompetitive. Marketing will make our own calls, challenging sales to make more calls thanus. Were putting our money where our mouth is.

Sales arent the only ones with incentives and quotas. Marketing actively participatesin the sales process, and compensation is tied to metrics. It must directly contribute to atleast 20% of the companys revenue.

As the program has matured, Falkner said, marketings attributable influence actuallyaverages 30% to 40%, although in certain periods its direct influence on sales has rangedas high as 70%.

I hold everyone on our marketing team accountable to look at our ROI, detailing boththe cost of acquisition and the cost to get an appointment, Falkner said. Then we look atoverall marketing contribution to revenue.

To address prospects that need further nurturing, the company uses lead-scoring solu-tions from Eloqua and employs e-mail drip campaigns.

Marketing and sales regularly sit down to discuss each others activities. From thesemeetings, marketing develops campaigns directly tailored to sales needs, such as helpingpush conversions in a particular stage of the funnel.

In addition to boosting marketings contribution to revenue generation, the programkeeps close tabs on cost-per-customer-acquisition. Both sales and marketing are driven toreduce that by 5% to 10% for each program. But Falkner added that cost-per-acquisitioncan be a difficult number to pin down.

When we use lead nurturing, our costs are a lot less than when we use salespeoplecontacting prospects, she said. Its a balance we have to watch, and use both effectively.




Get them on the phoneHow CDW generates sales-ready leads

By Sean Callahan

CDW Corp. is a b-to-b technology marketer. Its customers and prospects are early adopters,and the company engages in plenty of online marketing of all kinds. However, CDW is having asurprising amount of success marketing with a 135-year-old technology: the telephone.

Telemarketing is an area where weve placed a lot of time and attention the last yearor two, said Mike Weir, CDWs senior manager-data center solutions marketing. Itsincreasingly important to us.

For its telemarketing program, CDW uses CNET Direct, a unit of CBS Interactive. CNETDirect, which is affiliated with CNET, TechRepublic and other tech-oriented websites, offersintegrated direct marketing programs and helps marketers in the U.S. as well as in Aus-tralia, China, France and elsewhere around the globe.

CDW uses CNET Direct for a number of marketing communications programs that pro-mote the companys virtualization, security, unified communications, cloud and otherofferings. CDWs integrated program revolves around the TechRepublic site. The programuses banners that direct prospects to content such as videos, webinars and white papers.

Telemarketing, however, is also a critical part of the program. Telemarketing helpsbridge a gap, Weir said.

The gap he referred to is between the leads that are ready to be forwarded to CDWssales team and those that require more nurturing. CDW gauges prospects willingness tobuy through short online questionnaires that ask, for instance, about their budgets andtheir buying time frames.

Prospects that have active budgets and are ready to buy relatively soon are passeddirectly to the CDW sales team. Prospects higher up in the sales funnel are given to CBSInteractives telemarketing squad.

For CDW, CNET Direct over the past year or so has attempted to contact 16,000 leads.CNET telemarketers have contacted 30% of them. Of these completed contacts, 70% havebeen converted in some way; they have, for example, downloaded a white paper, regis-tered for a webinar or even been qualified as a sales-ready lead.

Weir said having a third party make the calls has been very effective in havingprospects share information. He also said the program is selective. Were not bombardingthem with a bunch of calls, he said.

Weir said the telemarketing program has helped boost CDWs sales-ready leads by asmuch as 12% in 12 months, which adds up to more than 1,000 additional leads going tothe sales staff on an annual basis.

Originally published Nov. 8, 2011



Fast-forward to successHow Cbeyond uses online video

to increase leadsBy Karen J. Bannan

Cbeyond provides voice, data, mobile backup and cloud services to small companies.Two years ago, the company wanted to get its message out to a wider audience, so itplanned an integrated campaign that combined print placements and online display adver-tisingboth of which contained links back to a microsite.

The Grow campaign, rolled out in June 2009, showcased about 40 video testimonialsfrom Cbeyond customers talking about the benefits of using the companys services. It ranuntil last December.

The videos help people connect on a more emotional level with what were doing,said Shana Keith, Cbeyonds director of public relations, who also handles interactive mar-keting efforts. It shows how our customers are improving their own businesses using ourservices.

Cbeyond, with help from digital agency Arketi Group, Atlanta, decided to use videobecause the company wanted to put a face on its customer testimonials. Prospects dontwant to read the written word, Keith said. They want quick communication with a faceon it.

The banner ads that supported the campaign appeared on various business sites,including Entrepreneur.com and Inc.com. Print ads appeared in Go magazine from AirTranAirways, a lower-cost airline that small businesses seem to fly on, Keith said.

Once customers typed in the vanity URL (cbeyond.com/grow) they were taken to thesite where they could find videos of customers who were geographically close to them,Keith said. The site also had a small-business resource center, featuring a section aboutCbeyonds products and services.

In addition to the paid placement, Cbeyond also leveraged elements of the campaign inits social media efforts. We consistently put videos on our blog, where they get a lot ofplay, Keith said.

The campaign produced significant, measurable results, Keith said. In 2008, before theGrow effort was implemented, Cbeyonds marketing produced 50 trackable leads. In2009, the Grow campaign generated 1,100 leads; last year, it generated 2,700. The salesteam also uses the videos to educate themselves, as well as sales collateral when customersask for references, Keith said. If our customer is looking at [Cbeyond product] VirtualReceptionist, we have a video about it so our salespeople can use it and, in effect, bring aproduct expert to the sale, she said.


Since seeing the power of video, Keith has made it a point to include video assetswhenever and wherever she can. For instance, she embeds video links in press releases asmultimedia content, uses them as Twitter fodder and includes links in direct marketingpieces, she said; and today, shes using the Grow videos on a group of new local sites.

Originally published May 3, 2011



From Zero to 60How National Starch improves leads

with trade show micrositeBy Kate Maddox

National Starch Food Innovation, a food ingredient manufacturer that is part of CornProducts International, has improved the quantity and quality of its leads through an inte-grated trade show microsite program it uses to drive traffic to events.

National Starch launched its first trade show microsite in July 2009, a month after theInstitute for Food Technologists (IFT) Food Expo conference in Anaheim, Calif.

The learning was, even in a good year, only a fraction of your customers and prospectswill attend, said Marc Green, senior manager-marketing communications at NationalStarch Food Innovation and Corn Products International, noting that the 2009 IFT confer-encethe food industrys largest eventwas held at the height of the recession.

How do you then present information to the people who didnt attend? The internaldebate was [about] having a webinar, which is a lot more intense and requires moreresources, or a microsite?

National Starch decided to launch an event microsite, which featured content from theFood Expo conferencesuch as product announcements, video interviews with foodindustry executives and highlights from an award ceremonyat which National Starchwon an innovation award.

It promoted the event microsite through an email campaign to its internal list of customersand prospects, which garnered an open rate of 16.0% and a click-through rate of 3.9%.

But this was just the beginning of a successful program that National Starch has contin-ued to build on over the past two years.

We went from zero to 60, Green said, pointing to the differences between the 2009campaign and the campaign for last years IFT Food Expo conference, which was held inJuly in Chicago.

We went from a one-page microsite and two email blasts to building a multipage sitewith a 10-week preshow campaign and a four-week postshow campaign, Green said.

Last year, National Starch used heavy email as well as social media, including Twitterand LinkedIn, to promote the event microsite and drive traffic to its booth at the show.

Over the course of the 10-week campaign, an average of 12% of all emails wereopened, and 6% of its customer database clicked through to the microsite.

Green said the success of the email campaign was due in part to writing compellingsubject lines and testing different subject lines among the target audience.

Some of the subject lines used in the email campaign included Cut development time.


Improve texture, and Improve your texture and your bottom line, to promote foodingredient products that would be shown at the event.

National Starch also sent out an email survey to its internal list two weeks before theIFT show.

We collected information on potential attendees and their issues, and trafficked it outto the sales force, Green said.

National Starch also used LinkedIn ads to promote engagement with its target audienceand drive traffic to its booth at the show.

National Starch created LinkedIn ads with four-to-five-word headlines, such as Newfood ideas at IFT, followed by more detailed copy, such as Want to improve or differentiateyour products? Then check out our booth at 4036, with a link to the trade show microsite.

All of these tactics resulted in increased traffic to the National Starch website in theweeks leading up to the event, and improved leads at the trade show.

It improved the quality of the interaction, Green said.Originally published May 23



Driving ResultsHow HP Extreams traveling exhibit

finds new revenueBy Erin Biba

In yet another case of what to do with falling travel budgets, Extream, a division ofHewlett-Packard Co., an electronics and computer company, decided to save its clients andpartners the trouble of travel and instead brought the HP Extream booth to them.

With the economy the way it has been, a lot of people dont have travel budgets, saidTami Webster, HP Extream marketing manager, Americas. When you have an event, evena small seminar at a hotel, its an inconvenience. So we decided to bring the tech and theevent right to their door.

Webster enlisted the assistance of event marketing company Pro Motion to nail down amarketing strategy for the coach.

When Tami came to us, we got into a conversation about putting the end in mindfirst, said Steven Randazzo, president of Pro Motion. What does this program need to do?We have to get the right people on the bus and show them the software. We thought aboutengagement and how long they were going to spend on the motor coach. How do we keepthem on? What are they going to be interested in?

Webster and her event team customized a bus, outfitting it with a living room, a meet-ing area, a plasma television and three demo stations to highlight HP products.

The software is very complex and has a lot of features, Webster said. We had testingdemos for each. We could have three people using them at one time.

Over the course of four weeks last April and May, HP Extream took the coach to 23cities, traveling 10,100 miles and demonstrating the software to 28 customers and 18prospects. The bus spent two to four hours at each site and, in the evenings, transportedclients to executive dinners. According to Webster, this helped the marketing and salesteam reach more high-level decision-makers in their client organizations then in the past.

We closed a deal in four months instead of nine, said Webster of the significantlyreduced sales cycle experienced while using the traveling event. All of the salespeople saidthey wanted to do this again, without hesitation. There was access to a wider variety ofpeople and it was no pressurethe environment was like sitting in a living room, and thecustomers were much more relaxed. They shared more information, and the environmentfacilitated the sales relationship.

There are so many clients that are cutting budgets that the decision-makers cant getout of their office, Randazzo said. HP is showing clients and prospects how importantthey are to them. Its making the accessibility convenient for the decision-maker and shows


the prospects and customers that HP cares.In addition to creating accessibility to customers, Webster also suggested that the coach

had some benefits over traditional meetings. At one stop, we had 30 people from onecompany come through the bus, she said. That would have taken months to set upmeeting upon meeting. But we had the users and decision-makers all at the same time.

HP Extream opened up nine new revenue opportunities. Some are completely newand some are existing customers that we uncovered a new business opportunity with,Webster said.

The success, she said, means the team will be integrating the bus in its event mix inyears to come. It was a hard sell internally when we first presented the idea because itsnew and a little different. But now that weve got a track record, we have been asked toinclude it in the budget again.

Randazzo agreed that the traveling coach is an effective addition to HP Extreams mar-keting strategy. This is part of an integrated outreach program, he said. They still doadvertising and trade shows, but they really saw the value of getting decision-makers tomake decisions quickly. They sold millions of dollars of product during this program.


Chapter 3

SOCIAL MEDIA


SOCIAL MEDIA: CASE STUDY #1

Tweets to SuccessHow GridGain Systems connects

with customersBy Karen Bannan

GridGain Systems provides a Java-based cloud application development platform thathelps developers turn software into software as a service. The first version of the applica-tion, developed as an open source project, debuted in 2007. Since then, company CEONikita Ivanov has traveled around the world to promote the product. From the get-go, wewere cash-strapped, he said. So weve been doing cheap marketing: getting on a plane,on a train, in a car; speaking for two hours in front of the people who might use it; and thencoming home again.

Their best venues: Java user and application development conferences. They let youget in front of the 20, 40 or 60 people who you know have come out to hear what you haveto say, said Ivanov, who estimated that hes done dozens and dozens of presentations inthe U.S. and Europe over the past few years. Still, the pace was getting to him and his 10other employees, so late last summer Ivanov decided that it was time to change his market-ing strategy.

The company had already been focusing on Facebook; however, Ivanov said, that was-nt working out for GridGain. Many people on the technical side realize that theres not ahuman being behind what youre doing on Facebook, he said. Its not interactive and, ifsomeone came to our Facebook page, they would have to wade through a gazillion posts tofind the technical information they were looking for, he said.

Consequently, Ivanov began exploring Twitter. Soon he realized that all his currentcustomers, as well as his competitors and peers, were already using the platform. Plus,Twitter had potential to be something that Facebook never did: a personal connection withcustomers and prospects. Twitter really has a human touch to it because you cant auto-mate writing 140 characters, Ivanov said. Youve got to have a person listening to tweets,coming up with tweets to send out, choosing who to follow.

GridGain Systems started using Twitter as a marketing tool last August, with someoneat the company devoting 30 minutes per day to the platform. The staff also began bloggingand tweeting weekly to expand the companys social networking presence. All of the indi-vidual developers within the company are now tweeting, Ivanov said. As a way of encour-aging their participation, he does not restrict subject matter. As long as its an exchange ofideas and links, thats what were looking for, he said.

The new strategy is working, Ivanov said. Its very hard to get a developer to read along piece of material, he said. Its much easier to get them hooked on a tweet about a


blog post or something interesting were doing with the technology. The results, he said, are in the number of actual leads coming into the company. While

he wouldnt disclose specific numbers, Ivanov said the increase has been tangible. Inaddition, GridGain has been able to increase the amount of Web traffic coming to the siteby 20%, he said.

Tweeting is humanizing our software, he said. Even for us, its been shocking at howwell this is working out.

Originally published March 1, 2011



Social EngagementHow Cisco heightens brand loyalty

By Kate Maddox

Cisco Systems is deploying an integrated social strategy to interact with customers andprospects that is resulting in improved customer service, more engaged customers and loyalbrand advocates.

We look at four pillars within our integrated social strategy: listening, planning, engag-ing and measuring, said Petra Neiger, senior manager of social media marketing at Cisco.

Neiger manages the consulting arm of Ciscos global social media organization, whichprovides strategic and tactical guidance on social media marketing to various teams withinthe company.For the listening component, This is not about monthly and quarterlyreports, she said. We do real-time, active listening of social media channels to see whatpeople are saying about Cisco.

By monitoring conversations about the company on Facebook, Twitter, its own onlinecommunities and other social media channels, Cisco is able to uncover and resolve issues asthey come up.

The planning component involves routing customer issues to the appropriate peoplewithin the company. For example, when customers of Tandberg, a video communicationscompany, voiced concerns on Tandbergs Facebook page about Ciscos acquisition of Tand-berg last year, Ciscos social media monitoring team contacted the appropriate salespeopleat Tandberg to respond to the customers and reassure them about the acquisition.

The sales reps were able to allay any concerns about the acquisition and what it wouldmean to Tandberg customers, and since that time, the user with the most negative com-ments removed them from the Tandberg Facebook page.

For the engagement piece, Cisco uses a broad array of social tools to interact with cus-tomers and prospects.

One effective program is Cisco Channels Chat, a regularly scheduled live videobroadcast featuring often hard-to-reach Cisco executives, who talk about industry topicsand answer questions from partners and customers via integration with Facebook, Twitterand other social media channels.

The program, which has had eight broadcasts to date, has received more than 50,000live views and many more replays.

Another effective approach Cisco uses to engage customers and partners is turningthem into brand ambassadors by using them to moderate and engage in social media con-versations.

For example, Cisco has more than 280 ambassadors in its Cisco Networking Academyon Facebook, who help educate other users about Cisco products and industry issues.


The last piece is measurement, and Cisco uses both quantitative and qualitative analy-sis to measure the effectiveness of its social media programs, Neiger said.

On the quantitative side, it uses hard metrics such as page views on blogs, number ofvideos viewed and unique monthly visitors.

On the qualitative side, Cisco measures company sentiment, industry sentiment andother areas on social media channels.

Originally published Dec. 12, 2011



Go Forth and MultiplyHow Sanbolic boosts leads

By Karen J. Bannan

Sanbolic Inc. provides businesses with distributed data management software for criti-cal enterprise workloads, virtual desktop infrastructure and cloud computing deploymentsthrough a network of value-added resellers. Like other companies that compete in thecloud and virtualization industry, it faces tough competition from industry behemoths. InSanbolics case, the companys marketing budget is very much David-like, up against mar-keting campaigns with Goliath-like bank accounts behind them, said Momchil Michailov,the companys CEO.

Hoping to find a way to maximize its marketing spending, last October the companyanalyzed three years of its marketing activityincluding trade show participation, blog-ging, LinkedIn campaigns, Facebook campaigns, search engine optimization, GoogleAdWords campaigns and display advertisingand found there wasnt anything to beproud of, Michailov said.

For example, an average trade show might cost $15,000 to $30,000. We found we hada closing rate of 3% of leads. Our average cost-per-lead was out of this world, Michailovsaid. The market we play in is very convoluted, and its pretty clear if we go the typicalmarketing route, were going to get swamped.

The solution, Michailov said, was a new focus on thought leadership and providingpotential customers with information about virtualization, cloud computing and VDI. Thesales angle would be downplayed whenever possible, Michailov said. Social networkingwas the cornerstone of that strategy, he said.

We found that social media is a little like TV in the early 80s; there are all these chan-nels and a desperate need for content, Michailov said. Social media provides an outstand-ing delivery vehicle.

However, even within the social networking realm there were channels that workedbetter than othersCIOs, for example, are not going to Facebook to find their next cloudimplementation. So Sanbolics marketing teamcomprised of consultants from WaldenTechnology Partners and Diligence Technology Advisors and the companys own executiveboarddecided to drop its Facebook efforts completely. Take [VMWare parent company]EMC. They are huge and they only have 20,000 people on their Facebook page, he said.

The companys thought leadership comes in the form of blog posts, which are automat-ically tweeted via its half-dozen or so Twitter accounts. Since the Twitter accounts arelinked to a whole bunch of LinkedIn accounts, those tweets also populate LinkedIn. Thismeans that the companys partners, customers, resellers and prospects are constantlyreceiving educational materials about VDI, virtualization and the private cloud, Michailov


said. Leads are tracked via a fairly extensive integration between the social channels and

Salesforce.com. All of our activity is directly linked to Salesforce so we can flag and tagwhere the leads come from: webinar, blog, search, a partner page, leads that come fromTwitter, said Michailov, who said the company spent three months developing the custombackend to enable this. This information is used in conjunction with Google Analytics, soSanbolic can see where leads originated from.

While the new social media focus has only been in place for a little over four months,Sanbolic has seen an uptick of leads coming in from social media, Michailov said. Itsworking because, rather than brainwashing someone about how wonderful we are, weresaying heres what you need to know about this industry. Now you can make your owndecisions, he said. Its really about credibility and trust.




Traffic JamHow Mongoose Metrics drives, traffic, leads


Last year call-tracking company Mongoose Metrics launched a Twitter outreach cam-paign to raise awareness about the value of its services and technology. In the process, itpositioned itself ahead of competitors that were less active in social media in educatingprospective customers about the little-understood world of call tracking.

We started looking at Twitter in March 2010, said Kathleen M. Colan, the companysdirector-marketing and content. We didnt know what to expect, but we said, Lets take alook at this and see what all the buzz is about.

Colan kicked off Mongooses Twitter effort with educational content focusing on thebenefits of the companys call-tracking technology, which analyze how the volume andquality of inbound phone calls can be attributed to performance-based advertising cam-paigns, such as paid search.

As one of the first in our industry on Twitter, we did not set any real expectations orgoals to start, Colan said. However, as our Twitter presence grew and our competitorsfound their way to the medium, we quickly defined objectives for our Twitter campaignand then committed the necessary resources to achieve them.

Specific goals included increasing site traffic, conversions, number of followers,retweets, mentions and favorites, as well as an assessment of rising social influence asmeasured by Klout Inc.

While some social media gurus debate the use of these metrics, we found that incre-mental improvement of each of these [key performance indicators] provided an accuratebarometer of our success, Colan said.

Colan uses HootSuite to monitor up to 10 categories of information, including thephrase call tracking, to gain insight into whats being said about Mongoose. And now thatthe competition is catching on to social, she said, the monitoring process shines a light onwhat competitors are talking about and who they are engaging with.

Colan estimated that she spends about three hours each day monitoring Twitter, interact-ing with tweeters and participating in conversations using hashtags related to what the com-pany does, such as #measure, #SEO, #CRO (conversion rate optimization) #usguys and #PPC.

And since the value of call tracking itself needs some explaining, Mongooses Twittercampaign relies heavily on offering white papers and research. Tweets invite followers tolink to such titles as Five things you can do with call tracking to help your conversion rate.

The viral nature of social quickly became obvious to Mongoose. The influential websiteMobile Marketing Watch noticed the companys mobile marketing white paper, retweetedit and asked permission to offer it on its own site.


Weve been getting leads from this since March, Colan said. Another tactic Mongoose has used is appending UTM tags to tweeted offers, a process

that identifies which links traffic is coming from. Say we put out that Five things you cando white paper, Colan said. By connecting this information to our back-end marketingautomation software and CRM system, were able to quantify the results of specific tweets.

The program has paid off well for Mongoose after just a year. The company now con-sistently responds to customer inquiries and comments, and currently has almost 12,000followers.

The power of retweeting has been very instructive. Through the end of December,Mongoose saw its own tweets retweeted 1,248 times, for a total retweet reach of 2.9 mil-lion eyeballs.

Last month, Mongoose won first place in BtoBs annual Social Media MarketingAwards for the best marketing use of Twitter.

Twitter is the public face of our brand, Colan said. There already is a conversion theregoing on about your business and, if youre not taking part in it, youre really missing out.




Humanizing the brandHow AT&T blog leverages

internal ambassadorsBy Jon Vanzile

Trish Nettleship, social media lead for AT&T Business Solutions, knew what she wantedto doto better connect AT&Ts deep pool of internal expertise with the companys b-to-bcustomersbut she wasnt sure how best to do that.

That is, until she came up with AT&Ts Networking Leaders Academy. The academy concept is a new type of social media outreach thats popping up

throughout corporate America. For AT&T, the idea was simple: After recruiting internalthought leaders to write for the companys Networking Exchange Blog, launched inDecember 2010, the company launched its Networking Leaders Academy in July.

The goal of the Academy program: to encourage these internal ambassadors to promotetheir blog entries via their personal social channels.

It was about humanizing the brand, Nettleship said. We have a lot of expertise, and Iwanted to expose that to our potential clients. Its about trust. Its easier to trust individualsthan a brand.

Because the original Networking Exchange Blog was a relatively new project, the ideawas to keep the effort small and tightly focused. It focuses on only three specific b-to-bbusiness areascloud computing, security and mobilityand the companys internal blog-gers were encouraged to promote their posts on their private social networks to the degreethat there was some overlap between these topics and their personal connections.

Further, the project wasnt a typically controlled corporate marketing effort. Accordingto Nettleship, transparency and even debate were important.

Were a pretty risk-averse organization, but we wanted to encourage debate, she said.Weve had a few posters with differing opinions, and we wanted to open up comments.

Nettleship said AT&Ts legal department initially was concerned about allowing thisdegree of openness, But weve managed to keep it open, she said. We filter for spam andprofanity, but thats about it. There have been a few comments I dont like very much, butwe havent had any real problems yet. The point is to be open.

The program is also low-cost. Blogs themselves are basically free since AT&T doesntcompensate any of its internal participants for writing.

Its 100% percent volunteer, Nettleship said, which means shes actually courtingtwo audiences at once: an internal one of potential experts who lend their names and timefor free and promote their efforts through their private networks, as well as an externalaudience of potential customers.


Nettleship said noted that AT&T offers its bloggers education in personal networking andhow to build a personal brand. As a result, some of her bloggers have received speaking offers.

Our motto internally is: Helping you become a better networker, she said. The program shies away from product-specific posts. Instead, the company focuses on

its blogging ambassadors being expert in specific areas. Were not really looking for huge numbers on the blog, Nettleship said. Were look-

ing to focus very tightly on customer needs and thought leadership. Nevertheless, the Networking Leaders Academy, just five months old, has had a big

impact on the companys Networking Exchange Blog. Launching the Networking Leaders Academy ambassador program was like flipping a

switch, she said. When we launched it, we didnt expect much since it was the summer.But we saw an immediate increase in visitors and shares.

In all, Networking Exchange Blog traffic rose about 50% in the first five months of theinternal ambassador program compared with the previous months when the blog didnthave benefit of the internal ambassador program.

For companies that want to pursue internal ambassador programs, Nettleship has thefollowing advice:

Focus your effort, find a good mix of people who have expertise and are good net-workers, make sure whatever youre doing is tied to your business objectives, and defi-nitely get executive buy-in, she said.

Originally published Dec. 14, 2011



Preapproval requiredHow Morgan Stanley manages

Twitter to its advantageBy Christopher Hosford

The relationship between the financial services industry and social media marketing isan uncertain one. Banks, asset management companies, brokerages and insurance compa-nies are heavily regulated, and financial services management generally has been reluctantto explore the Wild West of social.

Those financial services companies that are venturing into social media are establishingclear guidelines on how they want to use the medium to avoid running into trouble. ForMorgan Stanley Smith Barney, that means viewing Twitter content as static content,requiring preapproval of a growing library of potential thought-leadership tweets andclosely monitoring its use by financial advisers.

We all know that social media is a global phenomenon, not just a passing trend, saidLauren Boyman, director-social media at the brokerage and wealth-management com-pany, during a webinar last week titled Social Networking: Embracing New Media at Mor-gan Stanley Smith Barney, hosted by online publisher FierceFinance. But financialservices have been slower to adopt it. As an industry, we have regulatory obstacles holdingus back, in addition to the real-time, fast-paced nature of social media.

Boyman said a solution for most financial services companies has been to talk aboutanything but their products and services.

Firms attempt to build brands by talking about social responsibility or sports sponsor-ships, for example, she said. As a result, sometimes there are even requests or questionsthat are just left idle, which is worse than not being on social at all.

Last June, Morgan Stanley launched a test with some 600 financial advisers to see howthey cope with social media content as static, as opposed to interactive, communications.That is, all so-called static postings on Twitter are considered to be like advertising andrequire preapproval.

I know its not ideal right now, Boyman said. Its a very new communicationsmedium, so everyone is getting used to the tool.

Boyman said Morgan Stanley treats LinkedIn differently. Here, initial professionalbiographical overviews must be preapproved, but after that such scrutiny isnt necessaryfor interactive communications with potential customers. However those off-the-cuff com-munications are captured and archived for future review, the same way Morgan Stanleymanages email, based on its reading of social media compliance guidelines for financialservices companies.


Other financial services companies, especially those with consumer-oriented products, aremore aggressive. Last month, J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. wrapped up a $1 million Facebooksweepstakes giveaway encouraging customers to like its Chase Freedom credit card. Bank ofAmerica is hoping an aggressive Twitter outreach will help improve its poor public reputation.

Also last month, American Express Co., whose AmEx OPEN portal provides services forsmall businesses, teamed with Googles YouTube video-sharing site to launch a video con-test encouraging businesses to tell their stories. The campaign promotes AmExs OPENportal of small-business advice, and its Small Business Saturday promotion, encouragingshoppers to patronize local businesses on the Saturday after Thanksgiving.

Listening to the social buzz is key to finding appropriate topics, said Chad Bockius, CEOof Socialware, a social consultancy and software company that focuses on the financialservices industry, who shared the webinar panel with Boyman.

For example, if someone is reading a lot about 529 plans, for educational investments,the more content you can put out the better on educational thought leadership, Bockiussaid. If 401[k] rollovers are a top topic, you may want to focus on that.

For Morgan Stanley, that means a gradually growing library of preapproved tweets,ready to be distributed as needed.

Providing our own thought leadership is a competitive advantage for financial advis-ers, Boyman said. Most arent even sending out their own unique content, even giventhe option.

Originally published Nov. 2, 2011

Chapter 4

DIRECT MARKETING


DIRECT MARKETING: CASE STUDY #1

Hi-Tech Snail MailHow AT&T boosts direct mail response rate


According to a 2010 hotel guest index satisfaction study by J.D. Power and Associates,hotel guests rank wireless Internet service as the most important amenity they requirebefore checking in. AT&T Inc. recently aimed to impress that fact on hotel chain decision-makers with a campaign in support of the companys WiFi solutions.

The campaign, launched in November, was supported solely with that venerable ana-log standby, direct mail. It featured an emerging technology called video in print, how-ever, for a powerful cutting-edge feel.

I know that digital is the future, but I get a ton of e-mail in my inbox every day, saidJennifer Young, lead manager-marketing communications at AT&T. With our direct-mailcampaign, we wanted to break through the clutter with a high-impact piece that prospectswould appreciate and would pass along to colleagues.

AT&Ts campaign was well-suited for a direct-mail program for another reason: Thenumber of high-level decision-makers focused on implementing this type of product isextremely small. For AT&Ts campaign, the target list was no more than 75 individuals atmajor hotel chains nationwide, who needed to be reached with a compelling, dramaticmessage about buying propertywide WiFi systems or replacing existing systems with anAT&T alternative.

AT&Ts goal was to get a sales rep in front of these people, said Laura Yarbrough,account supervisor with Rodgers Townsend/DDB, St. Louis, the Omnicom Group agencythat spearheaded the campaign. The client was thinking postcard or letter, but didnt havea budget or timeline. Strategically, we took a step back to think about the audience.

Also challenging Rodgers Townsend and AT&T was that these high-level decision-mak-ers are usually shielded from vendor overtures by a variety of gatekeepers. The mailed itemhad to be so dynamic that it would break through any initial resistance while going on tointerest the final recipient.

The program became known as the Power Button campaign and consisted of twomailed elements. The first was of a real WiFi locator device, complete with a personalizedsticker attached saying, Locating WiFi at [insert chain name here]. Sales reps followed upwith calls to check on the items receipt and request a meeting.

A second item, targeted at nonresponders to the first mailing, was a custom dimen-sional piece consisting of a cardboard mockup of a netbooklike computer, but with a sur-prise: Instead of a working screen, it featured video-in-print technology that, whenopened, played a 2-minute video customized for each hotel brand.

The production cost of each piece, including video, was about $700.


To amplify the importance of the pieces, the items were sent via FedEx next-day deliv-ery and required the signature of the recipient. Each mock netbook was enclosed in a fancysleeve, adding to its exclusivity.

The video-in-print technology is quite new, Young said. I knew that if I got a FedExpackage with a cool video, Id say, This is great!

Sales followed up by phone within two or three days of the mailings, and also used spe-cial e-mail messages in support. Multiple efforts to contact recipients were made.

Sales was engaged 100% of the way, Young said. We had weekly meetings about thecampaign and where we were in the process. Sales was aware of all drop dates and fol-lowed up in the most appropriate ways.

As a thank-you for agreeing to a meeting with sales, prospects received an actual net-book computer.

ROI for the campaign was strong. The program not only greatly exceeded the typical2% response rate of most direct mail campaigns but also resulted in an actual face-to-facemeeting ratio of 9%that is, seven meetings with key hotel decision-makers.

It blew the typical response rate out of the water, Young said, adding that the cam-paign also dramatically raised the AT&T profile within the hospitality industry.

Without question, this campaign is on track to become our most successful program,said Alex Calle, advertising manager at AT&T.

The WiFi installation campaign will be adapted this year for other verticals, such asrestaurants, coffee chains, stadiums, arenas, colleges and big-box retailers.




Keywords to SuccessHow Ryson raises conversions, visibility


In January 2010, Ryson International, a Yorktown, Va.-based manufacturer of spiralconveyors, was doing well in its rankings for the term spiral conveyor, landing near thetop of Googles search results. There was a problem, however, said Ken Rygh, the com-panys marketing manager. The equipment we manufacture is called by many differentnames, he said. They are called anything from case elevators to lowerators to verticalincline conveyors. Theres no one word for all distributors. And unfortunately, Ryson was-nt doing as well on those other keyword phrases.

Meanwhile, its universal search rankings were OK, but again, only with that one par-ticular keyword. We had our videos posted on [b-to-b supplier search site]Kellysearch.com and other industrial catalogs, so we were getting some video to show upin universal search through association with them, Rygh said.

Hoping to boost its search rankings in both natural and universal search, Ryson in April2010 hired ProspectMX, a search marketing company based in Lancaster, Pa. The projectstarted with keyword research to see how Ryson customers and prospects were searchingfor products. ProspectMX tapped keyword research tools such as Wordtracker and GoogleAdWords as well as its own in-house solutions.

Then, the company helped create authority pages (pages fully optimized for the key-word silos for which the website is trying to rank) within Rysons website that couldinclude relevant product keywords and also did on-page optimization. For example, one ofthe internal pages that ProspectMX optimized was Rysons Bucket Elevators link.

Finally, the company executed a link-building campaign and started optimizingRysons social networking campaigns, which had been in place previously but had not beentaken full advantage of, Rygh said. Rysons executives did some guest blogging, releasedsome press releases and expanded the companys presence on packaging industry directorysites.

Originally published Feb. 14, 2011



The Missing LinksHow VisualSonics improves

its search rankingBy Karen J. Bannan

Googles organic search algorithms change frequently, but theres one thing thatsalways constant: Contextual inbound links help boost natural search rankings. The morelinks you have coming in from related sites, the better your ranking. Shailja Tewari, direc-tor of marketing at instrumentation manufacturer VisualSonics, said she had this in mindduring a recent site redesign.

VisualSonics sells high-frequency ultrasound imaging equipment to researchers andprimary investigators at universities, research institutes, pharmaceutical companies andbiotech companies. The devices are used to peer inside small animals to cure diseases andassess the effectiveness and safety of medicines, among other things. Prospects find theVisualSonics site by searching for very specific nomenclature, Tewari said. The principleinvestigator looking at cancer, for instance, has a very, very narrow focus, she said. Forhim to go to Google, he wont be looking for cancer imaging. He might be studyinghypoxia, so we need to place high in the rankings of those very specific terms.

This time last year, the company was ranking around the 45th placement on Googlesnatural search for many of the key terms that might bring a researcher to the VisualSonicssite. In response, Tewaris team started working on building in-bound links with Toronto-based Search Engine People. At the same time, the site went through a redesign, segment-ing the content by research type and bringing in more keyword-specific terminology.

Search Engine People, Tewari said, spent time visiting scientific forums and industrywebsites, seeding them with content and links back to the VisualSonics website. Contentcame directly from VisualSonics. They post in response to other peoples questions or startnew threads, she said. One of my team members is responsible for working with them ona weekly basis. We try to incorporate and integrate all the [marketing] campaigns wereworking on. The team member is also responsible for making sure the brands reputationis positive, monitoring the sites and looking for any negative commentary, she said.

Other inbound links come from guest blog posts, trade show participation (such as thecompanys recent participation at the American Association for Cancer Research confer-ence) and technical documentation. Work with Search Engine Peoples link-buildingprocess is ongoing, Tewari said, because inbound links must be relevant and recent. Youneed to be constantly active on a site for those inbound links to count, she said.

A year later, the companys website traffic is up 50%, and search rankings have movedup considerably. Tewari, who credits both the vendor and her own team for the success,


said VisualSonics now has natural search rankings for key terms that are on the first pageand, in many case, between the first and seventh spots.

At the end of the day, its a tool. Its not something you can just outsource and forgetabout, she said. You need to be an active participant every step of the way.

Originally published April 12, 2011



Database DetectiveHow Aetna better targets small-business owners


Marketing to the smallest of businesses can be dicey. Entrepreneurs tend to make busi-ness purchases the same way consumers do, which can hinder the crafting of messages tothem. Even getting true addresses for such enterprises can be tough, since many small-business owners operate from home or conduct business there despite having an officelocation.

That was the challenge facing health insurance company Aetna Inc. in trying to targetsmall-business owners in need of health coverage for themselves and their employees.Because of the difficulty in distinguishing them apart from consumers, campaigns oftenresulted in redundant delivery of multiple direct mail pieces to the same location at thesame time.

Apurva Varma, strategic marketing head at Aetna, wanted to better target sole propri-etorships with one to four employees, as well as small office/home office (SOHO) busi-nesses, with employees often from a single family.

The big challengeto identify who does not have insurance coverageis actually notobjectively possible within the small-business owner space, Varma said. So weve beentargeting all micro-business owners.

Varma wrestled with another issue: Aetnas prospect lists typically are sorted by Stan-dard Industrial Classification (SIC) or years in business, but as these contacts get marketedto over and over again by many companies, saturation rises and profits drop.

Varma figured he could do better. In 2009, Aetna turned to database marketing agencyMerkle, which cleansed and standardized basic data supplied by Dun & Bradstreet as wellas new list sources, teasing out business owners from the bulk of consumerlike prospects.

The company did this by accounting for variations in addresses, as well as using ananalytically based fuzzy logic attribution, examining possible links between homes andnearby businesses, said Sandeep Kharidhi, VP- analytics practice leader for Merkles insur-ance and wealth management practice.

Out of 10 million to 15 million contacts as a consideration set, we may have a base of 5million businesses, based on performance, a statistical propensity model and historicalcampaign performance, Kharidhi said.

Merkle removed duplications and those records projected to produce low value, andreturned the records to Aetna to better identify those micro-businesses that would bestrespond and convert.


For its campaign last spring, the company relied primarily on direct mail, augmented bysearch keyword buys and online display ads via a handful of ad networks. The creativestressed affordability and financial security, historically important triggers for health insur-ance buyers. Aetnas creative agency was TDO, Irvington, N.Y.

No special small-business branding was employed. The broad Aetna corporate brand was emphasized, not a separate line of messages

associated with this campaign, Varma said. He said the appropriate insurance product,whether individual or group, was recommended after a prospect contacted the company.

The programs ROI was strong. The available universe of prospects was nearly doubled,even as the targeting became more selective and saturation decreased. Aetna estimatedthat its more-careful targeting resulted in savings of more than $1 million annually, whilecost-per-acquisition was lowered by 10% to 25% across campaigns.

In December, Aetna and Merkle were named top b-to-b award winners at the annualexpo and conference of the National Center for Database Marketing managed by the DirectMarketing Association. The pair were cited for their innovative method of combiningbusiness and consumer data sources.

Were proud to be associated with Aetna in helping them solve the difficult challengein identifying small-business owners separately from individuals, said

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