Smashmouth B2B Blog: Sales & Marketing Demand Gen

Harlem Shake for Demand Gen? Do something "social" today!

Have you seen the latest viral craze on YouTube -- the Harlem Shake?  It's been around a while, but there is a new resurgence of interest in it.  Our Green Leads London office decided to fire up the video yesterday and make a contribution to the Harlem Shake movement.  

Have you created a video that contributes to your demand gen, social media and branding programs?  Do one today!

ps.  Can you say "Elaine from Seinfeld"?

Inbound Marketing Summit: Video Highlights

This past week at the Inbound Marketing Summit, all the sessions were broadcast live by The Pulse Network.  Below is the clip of our session with Chris Brogan on Lead Generation. 

For the time constrained fans...you can find my contributions at time spots: 4:50, 19:48 and 26:30   ;)

Inbound Marketing Summit Speakers: Twitter List #IMS10

Today I'm attending New Marketing Lab's Inbound Marketing Summit at Gillette Stadium in Foxboro (killer spot for a conference, btw).

Highlight of the day is always Chris Brogan's down to earth, almost "stand up" quality talks.  He is always insightful, practical, and spot on with his delivery.

I thought it would be useful to create a Twitter List of the #IMS10 Speakers.  

Here you go: http://twitter.com/damphoux/ims10-speakers

Alex Beauchamp, Citrix Online	@alexthegirl
Alex Howard, O'Reilly Media	@digiphile
Amber Naslund, Radian6	@ambercadabra
Audrey McClelland, Mom Generations	@audreymcclelland
Benjamin Diggles, Webtrends	@mrdiggles
Bernie Borges, Find & Convert	@berniebay
Bettina Hein, Pixability	@pixability
Brad Blake, Office of Governor Deval Patrick	@bradmblake
Brian Halligan, Hubspot	@bhalligan
Byron White, ideaLaunch	@byronwhite
C.C. Chapman, Digital Dads	@cc_chapman
Chris Brogan, New Marketing Labs	@chrisbrogan
Claire Spina-Russell, PerkettPR	@jerseygrl
David Meerman Scott, Freshspot Marketing	@dmscott
Deb Orton, SAS	@deb_orton
Dharmesh Shah, HubSpot	@dharmesh
Erica Brookes, Vitrue	@ebrookes
Erica McClenny, Expion	@ericamcclenny
Gail Goodman, Constant Contact	@gail_goodman
Greg Cangialosi, Blue Sky Factory	@gregcangialosi
Jamus Driscoll, Demandware	@jamusdriscoll
Jeanne Connon, Daily Grommet	@jconnon
Jess Weiss, Office of Governor Deval Patrick	@jessweiss
John Doyle, Alure Home Improvements	@14str8
John Jantsch, Duct Tape Marketing	@ducttape
Justin Levy, New Marketing Labs	@justinlevy
Kiki Mills, MITx	@kikimills
Lisa Horner, Citrix Online	@lisahorner
Maria Pergolino, Marketo	@inboundmarketer
Mark Chaves, SAS	@markachaves
Matt Cutler, Visible Measures	@mcutler
Michael Damphousse, Green Leads	@damphoux
Michael Pranikoff, PR Newswire	@mpranikoff
Michael Weiss, Imagistic	@imagistic
Mike Schneider, Allen & Gerritsen	@schneidermike
Nichole Kelly, CareOne Services	@nichole_kelly
Pamela Meek, SAS	@pamelameek
Patrick Attallah, 90:10 Group	@bzpat
Patti Fousek, Mind Search Marketing	@pattifousek
Paul Gillin, Paul Gillin Communications	@pgillin
Pawan Deshpande, HiveFire	@tweetsfrompawan
Rand Fishkin, SEOmoz	@randfish
Ric Pratte, JitterJam	@ricpratte
Robbie Vorhaus, Vorhaus & Company	@vorhaus
Robert Brosnan, Seton Hall University	@brosnaro
Ron West, PaperThin	@notronwest
Sal Ferro, Alure Home Improvements	@sal_ferro
Scott Stratten, Un-Marketing	@unmarketing
Steve Garfield, SteveGarfield.com	@stevegarfield
Tim Hayden, Blue Clover Studios	@thetimhayden
Tim Washer, Cisco	@timwasher
Tom Webster, Edison Research	@webby2001
Valeria Maltoni, Powered	@conversationage
Vern Imrich, Percussion Software	@vimrich
Wayne Sutton, TriOut	@waynesutton

If I missed someone or they made a last minute change in speakers, let me know and I'll update the list.

Building a Demand Gen Tribe: The Seth Godin Lead Gen Program

I was fortunate enough to be asked by Gerhard Gschwandtner, of Selling Power to speak this week at his Sales Leadership Conference in Philadelphia.  The highlight of my day was listening to Seth Godin, blogger and author on topics b2b sales and marketing folks devour.

One part of Seth's talk was on building a tribe.  Not sure I've got the quote verbatim, but basically he was saying "marketers that build tribes of loyal prospects and customers will win."  He cited the Apple tribe -- all of us who rush out and buy new apple products just because.  I happen to be a member of that tribe.

It got me thinking, though. How can b2b marketers, especially those who DON'T have audiences of millions or hundreds of thousands, build a tribe?  How can upstart, small- to mid-sized companies build a tribe?  How can even large companies with very specific offerings build a tribe?

I was bouncing the topic around with my friend and colleague, Tim Dempsey (@tdempsey) of Elastic Brands, and he shared, "First and foremost, you have to define and articulate your tribe’s essence or mission.  A tribe is not a random pack of individuals – a tribe shares a bond, whether that’s around design and usability, like Apple, or around a technology like an open source project.  Tribe members are joining something.  Before going out to build your tribe, identify what it is that will bind your tribe members together.  And repeat that message throughout your communication with prospects and members."

Couple thoughts:

• Bring value to tribal prospects who aren't customers yet.  Give away lots of relevant info through blogs, twitter, industry events, etc.  Just follow the HubSpot marketing machine for how they spread the Orange Kool Aid and built a large and loyal tribe of inbound marketers.
• Gather, grasp and retain every prospect or client, every user or remote individual who touches your company and bring them together virtually.  LinkedIn Groups.  Build an online community.
• Create buzz.  Recruit those who create buzz for you and reward them through rebuzz or other methods.  Most buzzers love to be pumped up socially.  Retweet. Quote them in blog articles.  Write success stories with them.  Prop them up.  Thank them for buzzing.
• Encourage buzzers and tribe members to share stories.  As soon as you find out a tribe member has a blog, find a way to help them with a blog article.  Get them to interview your CEO or Evangelist.
• Make it cool to be in the tribe.  Be different.  Create awesome reasons for people to like you.  Be hip.  Youtube videos.  Viral fun.  Send fun gifts to known tribe members.
• Network.  Introduce tribe members to each other.  Host tweet-ups, or networking events.  Build that online community.
• Be genuine.  If you find yourself trying too hard, your audience will sniff you out.  Don't look like you hired an agency.  I recently saw a Fortune 500 company do this and, whadda ya know, 55 unique twitter addresses tweeted the exact same text at the exact same moment (sounds like an ingenious agency idea to me).
• Lead with leaders.  Find the leaders of your tribe and get them to lead by example.  Encourage them to step out in front of you occasionally.  Trust them.
• Create cool.  Be it a t-shirt or cap or stickers or water bottles. People like cool. SxSW is filled with hip tribal attendees who would give their right arm for the coolest t-shirt of the week.
• Invite two friends.  Every time you run anything, make your tribe members bring two friends.  Grow exponentially.
• Share.  Make it easy for your tribe to share ideas.  Be it Facebook, twitter, LinkedIn Groups, or your blog.  Sharing spreads the word.

What thoughts do you have for tribe building in a smaller universe than companies such as Apple?

Be a B2B Tweeter, Not a B2B Twit

Sometimes I think George Lucas just didn’t “get it” when he made the Star Wars prequels.  You know, the “other” Star Wars movies?  He had made the greatest trilogy in the world in Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi.  For years, with fans clamoring for more movies, Lucas said that either he wasn’t ready to make them or the technology in cinematography just wasn’t ready.  Then stars aligned and he was ready to make the rest of his story; three movies to be set before Episode IV (1977), to tell the story of how things led up to where they did.  To fans of the original trilogy, Lucas fell woefully short with Episodes I-III.  He didn’t get that what made the original movies was story, not special effects.  Sure, the newer movies had better effects, but the end result was miserable.

If you’ve spent any amount of time on Twitter, specifically in the B2B Sales and Marketing arena, you’re sure to see some people on there that deliver fantastic information.  This is information that I’m very thankful for, as are my colleagues in the industry.  However, with all of the good, there are still some on Twitter who just don’t “get it.”  I’d like to share with you some ideas on how you can “get it” and keep yourself from becoming a Demand Gen Twit:

1. Remember, it’s not always about you -- If there’s one thing that burns me up about Twitter, it's the people who are shameless self-promoters.  SHAMELESS.  Twitter is a great self-promotion tool, however, it’s an even better word-of-mouth tool.  It’s one thing to tweet about something you’ve done or your most recent blog entry, but it’s another if someone else does it for you.  What does that mean for you?  It means you’ve got to be writing great content.  Keep in mind what Chris Brogan says:  “[promote] the heck out of others”
   
   
2. Start the conversation -- One of the best parts about Twitter is the ability to have long-running conversations with a bunch of people.  That’s a great way to share new ideas (and get some, too) while keeping in mind my first point. Get involved and get people talking.  A number of people do this well; and for a great example, check out Mack Collier’s blog chat (#blogchat) that occurs most Sunday nights.
   
   
3. Learn -- If there’s one thing that I love about Twitter, it’s that for the most part the folks that “get it” share a wealth of new information -- new information that is relevant to you because others finding and sharing it have similar interests to you.  The opportunity to have great content and data at my fingertips, throughout any part of my day, is exciting for me.  The more you read, the more you’ll be able to share, and the more you share, the more you’ll keep yourself from becoming another Twit.

There are a lot of ways to be a better B2B tweeter, and these ideas are for me as much as they are for you (maybe even more so).  So, help me keep the conversation going, and share with the rest us some other ways we can keep from being a Twit.

Photo Credit:  PhotoJonny via Flickr

Jive Talkin for B2B Marketing & Sales Demand Gen Experts

Today at Enterprise 2.0 in Boston, Jive Software is rolling out a new agenda for social business that is worth a close look.

 We all wake up on Mondays to a mountain of data, feeds, and emails.  It's great to know that our best buddies "like" your latest blog article and left a comment that they miss you while they are surfing or mountain biking through your facebook fan page, or that the company we are following on LinkedIn just hired a VP of Demand Gen (nice lead for me), and that Chris Brogan just launched ManOnTheGo.com, which a colleague in sales recommends by retweeting a link from @chrisbrogan. That said, you still have hundreds of Google Reader articles to scan, a few new sales enablement presentations to review before publishing them to Slideshare, and two meetings to approve in the Appointment Setting queue...

I can go on, but you get the picture.  In the enterprise, we are flooded with internal and external data -- nuggets of information that we find valuable or our colleagues find valuable and that we need to know in order to do a stellar job.  Roll all these feeds, files, emails, tweets, micro-blogs, discussions, and public buzz into a cockpit-like environment and you have Jive What Matters, an enterprise class portal into this sea of social information that keeps us operating in real time.

My domain expertise is B2B Marketing and Sales, especially Demand Gen.  Here are some use case scenarios I see for the b2b executive:

• Competition - Aggregate feeds from multiple buzz sources. Follow keywords and specific phrases that can point you to competitive intelligence.
• Opportunities - Work sales opportunities in a team mode. Follow everything about that opportunity.  "Like" the feeds from the key account manager, feed in key words from the opportunity such as company name or project name, follow the status and feed updates from key decision makers in the social sphere.
• Sales Enablement - Monitor sales and marketing asset libraries.  Know when files change, are upgraded, or need collaboration.  Create/follow discussions focused on use case scenarios or sales tips.
• Reporting - Create feeds from certain reports that trigger when large opportunites change status, or when a company KPI changes.
• Follow Colleagues - That applications engineer from Calgary that you met last year with all the great opinions on how to demo software, follow that guy -- he's a wealth of knowledge.  
• Data - Most data sources (Jigsaw, LinkedIn, etc.) allow you to create RSS feeds on specific searches. Set some up for your best prospect titles, when a new record is created with "demand gen" or "marketing operations", and funnel that feed to your data analyst for addition to your nurturing/lead queue.
• Industry Leaders - Stay abreast of the emerging thoughts and trends in the industry.  Subscribe to the best in Lead Nurturing, Lead Generation, and B2B Marketing.
• Your Team - What better way to follow the activity of your team and key contributors.  Follow their feeds and know what they are up to, or what makes them tick.  Do the same for the execs above you.
• Buzz - Follow industry trends, keywords of interest.  Take advantage of Jives Chatter Filter [play on words?] and Jive Genius.  The two help filter and recommend only the best and relevant data for your needs.
• Social Graph - Visually see how your prospects are connected in the social network. Stunning representations.  Make that first call a warm call by knowing who they know.
• What Matters - The Chatter Filter and Jive Genius look like promising tools that can reduce the amount of non-relevant noise coming in.

What other B2B Marketing and Sales Demand Gen use case thoughts can you find?   I'm off to their launch event in Boston for some great Jive Talkin.

 

Lead Gen Tips: Use Google to Search LinkedIn

Since I was spouting all about LinkedIn at Chris Brogan's New Marketing Experience last month, he has recently been on a LinkedIn crusade to find all the tips and tricks burried inside.  Although I love taking a little credit, his recent articles have been full of LinkedIn Goodness.

Use LinkedIn Effectively
Your Network News
Keep LinkedIn Clean

With all the momentum, I thought I would share another LinkedIn tip, use Google to search the public profiles.  If contacts aren't in your network, they will still show up!

Google using the site:linkedin.com parameter.  For instance, looking for Mike Damphousse,

google: mike damphousse site:linkedin.com

Not only will it find my profile, but it will find answers I have provided and comments in groups. 

Let's try another one.  Looking for companies in the field of Demand Gen that work with Appointment Setting? 

google: demand generation appointment setting company site:linkedin.com

Trying to find a lead at a company that has a specific title, try something similar to this example where I'm trying to find someone at the director or VP level responsible for network security at company.

google: "network security" (dir OR vp OR vice) companyname site:linkedin.com

You think you can find some quality leads through LinkedIn now?

 

Inside Sales Trends: Then and Now...What's Your Big Idea?

This week I presented at the AA-ISP Leadership Summit in Minneapolis.  It kicked off two days of great sessions, discussion and networking.  Thanks to everyone who attended and supported the effort.  It was great to meet everyone and share our Big Ideas.

Special thanks to Bob Perkins, Larry Reeves and others at AA-ISP for having me.

The other piece I enjoyed was meeting folks from a competing company.  Being one of just a few By Appointment Only competitors is always a challenge.  Linda and I got our demand gen start at BAO, and they are a class act with good people -- competing with them on a daily basis keeps us honest.  Henry Glickel, BAO's top recruiter, presented on best practices for Inside Sales Recruiting.  Hiring and creating good talent was a common theme during the event, and Henry's take on it ensures steady and talented inside sales professionals.

There were also the guys from Vorsight. Having read their Sales Tips Blog for quite some time, it was very informative to listen to co-founder Steve Richard present his tips on how to become a power cold calling machine.

Nothing like Co-Opetition.

Below is my keynote address: Inside Sales Trends, Then and Now...What's Your Big Idea?

 

 

 

@chrisbrogan's New Marketing Experience, aka Inbound Marketing Summit: 5 Tips

Next week I'll be speaking at Chris Brogan's New Marketing Experience in San Francisco.  In a recent post, @chrisbrogan talks about the event:

"One thing that’s different with my events than with other events: Every sponsor and exhibitor and speaker is someone we think has something to offer you .... We appreciate their voice in our experiences. Thus, time spent with them is also time spent learning new marketing the way we see it ... it’s a 1-day event. There’s no fluff. It’s packed with info. We can hang out."

My highlight of the week is the Hang Out part.  That's all the discussion, debate, learning and putting faces to all the "social" B2B marketing community faces I've met online -- as well as meeting new ones.

Some recommendations to those of you attending, and even to those that aren't, on how to get the most out of a live event:

• Announce that you are attending.  Post it on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and any other place your status resides.
• Live tweet or live blog from the event and include the Hashtag in all posts.  Share your take-aways.
• Mingle, mix, get to know some new tweeps.  Don't spend the breaks in the lobby on your cell phone.
  
• Collect business cards.  If you get one without a Twitter address on it, ask for it and write it down.  When you get home, or during quiet time at the event, send LinkedIn invites.
• Don't cluster.  You already know the people you know.  Unless you are using the connection to get an introduction to someone new, move on.  Meet new people.
  

Bonus:

• Be there virtually.  If you aren't at the event, follow it on Twitter and the live blogs (links will be on Twitter).  Follow the hashtag.  Or better yet, make a last minute decision and REGISTER HERE with a 50% Discount Code GREEN50.

@damphoux: So a shout out to all the attendees next week -- find my icon in the crowd and come say "hello".

 

Speakers List on Twitter: http://twitter.com/#/list/damphoux/ims-speakers

B2B Marketing Predictions for 2010 - Reflections

I recently was asked to participate in Ambal Balakrishnan's (@ambal) ebook, to be published at year'd end and then available from her blog, Connect the Docs.  She asked a bunch of B2B marketing experts for their predictions for 2010.  Being one of those tweeps who always barks by mid-January that "if I see one more predictions blog article, I'll puke," I chuckled as I sat down to write.

For the full text, you'll have to check back with Ambal, and I'll promote it as well.  Until then, I give you more thoughts to ponder than predictions:

• Are marketing's goals aligned with sales?  Do your bonuses share quota?
• Are you shoring up those marketing techniques that are tried and true?
• Are you adapting to new areas that need adapting, such as Social Media?
• Are you measuring everyting?  Cost per lead?  Cost per opportunity?  Leads per marketing event (blogs, tweets, whitepapers)?
• Are you combining inbound marketing and outbound marketing and maximizing unified demand gen techniques?
• Are you going to take time to reflect on what's working, what's failing and make changes?

I'm sure there are some "marketing gurus" out there who still are investing 70% of their marketing spend on Google Adwords and the rest on PR. Too bad ... old-school mix.  So reflect on 2009.  Hit the ground running in 2010.

What are you going to think about or adjust?