Microsoft Uses Twitter Testimonials to Launch Windows 7

This has to be the most innovative use of Twitter for marketing that I’ve seen yet. Microsoft has changed their main screen to be one big Windows 7 add. On a side note, I like the look. It’s clean with some catchy call to actions that almost had me clicking.


But the really innovative approach is the rotating tweets about Windows 7. I've seen an occasional tweet used on other sites, but this is the most effective use I've seen yet. These tweets aren't a side not to the message. They are the message. And, when it comes to adopting technology like Windows 7, Microsoft knows that what the early adopters say about their product carries far more weight than anything they could claim.

These tweets should also carry more weight than the customer quotes you usually see on a website. Those quotes are often from customers who see something in it for them. I’m not saying they are paid quotes. It could be as simple as liking the attention they get from working with marketing.

Tweets are, presumably, spontaneous and unedited. The skeptics could say that these tweets came from Microsoft employees. I suppose that’s possible, although I’m not quite that jaded. Plus, Microsoft left off the Twitter ID, but they did give the time and date of the tweet. Those of you with time to waste could probably track down the original tweet.

And, yes, there are probably tweets out there that don’t shine such a positive light on the product. I don’t know that for sure, but it’s Microsoft – a pretty big target for those who like to sling arrows.

I like what they’ve done, but if I think about it further the take away for me is that Tweeps might hold more promise for many B2B marketers, especially in the technology industries, than even the bloggers. This is certainly true if you are trying to launch a new technology product. It’s a way to leverage the opinions of the early adopters who might be incredibly intelligent, but not always wonderfully articulate.

Outreach to bloggers should be part of your launch planning but the effort in writing a blog about your product is far greater than a 140 character tweet. Because of that effort you really have to have something spectacular for them to blog about. Plus, bloggers may only be reviewing your product. If they aren’t actual users, the blog can loses a slight amount of weight.

As you are planning your product launches and deciding who you want to be in your beta or in your early adopter phase, consider adding some of your customers who tweet.

Melissa

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The Joy of Brevity

I always hate the posts that start with “sorry I haven’t posted in awhile,” as though the reader of the blog was just hanging on every word. Believe me, there are enough other blogs out there to fill the void. Unless you are a Seth Godin or Chris Brogan I’m not sure anyone notices the absence. (And, maybe not even if you are Seth or Chris.)

I too have been incredibly busy lately with no time to blog. I joined forced with GrowthPoint a marketing agency that will allow me to offer a fuller line of marketing services. One of their specialities is lead management for channel organizations which I think is so cool – and much needed.

But, the other day as I was reading a post suggesting that you should blog before you Twitter, a point I mostly agree with, I realized that I was overlooking Twitter and the advantages of microblogging. (BTW, I am still looking for the link and as soon as I find it I will update this so that you can join that discussion. It's quite lively.)

I hate to let my blog lapse and my readership to dwindle, but you do what you have to do. If I have a client with deadlines, as I do now, I’m all over it. But that doesn’t mean I can’t continue to interact, I just need to be more brief. Twitter’s 140 characters is perfect. I can tweet my ideas and insights and continue to retweet posts from other thought leaders.

You can follow me at Melissa Paulik. I won’t promise to follow everyone back. See my personal Twitter guidelines. They've evolved somewhat since the original post, but are still relevant. For those of you who are interested in continuing the discussion I look forward to many more, if somewhat briefer, interactions.

And, yes, I will continue to blog between deadlines.

All the best!

Melissa

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Should You Leave Your Content Up to Your PR Agency?

There has been a lot of discussion in recent forums on whether PR is dead, evolving, being reinvented etc. I think the general consensus is that a good modern PR agency looks dramatically different from the agency of the past that tended to operate in a sort of “black box.” In the old days, you worked with them on a press release and then they worked their magic to get in the hands of the media and analysts. The end result was a “clip book” of your stories and mentions but little else.

In the modern era of PR the lines between PR and traditional marketing are blurring a bit. No doubt, a modern agency today uses social media tools such as blogs, Twitter, LinkedIn, and facebook to reach out to the audience. And, although the agency is focused on reaching out to the media, influential bloggers in your space, and your key analysts, they are also reaching out to your target customer as well. The content they create is easily accessible to a potential prospect doing a search on your keywords and can drive visitors to your website.

But, the area where I tend to draw the line between traditional marketing and PR is content creation. If, by “content creation”, you mean press releases and the types of content that go into your online media room, that works for me. But, I don’t think you should abdicate your entire content creation strategy to your PR agency. Unless they are truly content creation specialists and deeply understand the role of content in nurturing prospects, I don’t think you should be relinquishing the responsibility for the materials you use for your nurturing programs to your PR agency. Telling the story for the customer through a solid content strategy is different than telling the story to attract the media and analysts.

So do you agree? Disagree? Especially those of you who work within the PR agencies, has your product offering changed enough that you feel you can own the entire content creation responsibility?

All the best!

Melissa

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Where Will You Invest in 2010?

As this year draws to a close and we hopefully look forward to a better year in 2010, it’s time to start thinking about what we will do differently in the coming year to improve our results.

There is no magic answer to where to invest your marketing dollar for maximum effect in 2010. Lead nurturing programs would certainly rank high on my list if you don’t have an effective one in place. Aligning your sales and marketing team could also be of primary importance. Fortunately, this is often not so much a question of dollars as much as it’s a question of aligning your processes.

There is one area that I see holding technology marketers back that one could argue should be the first thing fixed – the website.

The problems vary from company to company, but take a look at almost any technology website and you’ll see common issues. Here are just a few, as told from the perspective of the visitor:

Self-centered verbiage. An incredible amount of “me, me, me” with most of the language focused on how great the organization is.

Very poorly written value prop statements. It’s darn hard to tell what value some of you add.

No clear indication of what types of companies you serve and what you do for them. I can see on your website that you “help global organizations succeed in today’s tough competitive world…” but what exactly is it that you do?

No evidence of any expertise. You tell me you can solve all my problems, but you don’t give me any evidence that you can. Where are your white papers and webinars that will give me the confidence that you know what you are talking about?

No calls to action. I would give you my contact information so you could follow up if you gave me something worthwhile to download.

No value in your downloads. I see I can download a brochure but that’s hardly worth parting with my email address.

Asking for too much information. You do have a couple pieces of information that I might be interested in, but it’s kind of hard to tell what’s really in them. I’m certainly not going to give you my physical address so you can send me junk mail. (Plus I suspect you might sell my personal information since I don’t see anywhere that you say you won’t.)

Poorly placed calls to action. I didn’t see that call to action because I had to scroll down past all of your self-centered self-talk about how great you are to actually see it. I never got that far.

While the website isn’t the Holy Grail of marketing any more than any other program is, it is a central hub for your marketing programs. Very likely your outbound marketing campaigns are pointing your prospects to a website for more information. Certainly inbound relies heavily on your website (or micro-sites) to convert visitors into prospects.

For many of your potential customers the website is the first (and sometimes the last) look they get at your company and what you do. Make sure you put your best foot forward in 2010 and spend at least some of your effort working on your site, testing it, and then reworking it again.

All the best!
Melissa

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Don’t Give Me a Tour of Your Company. Give Me a Tour of Your Marketing!

Did you ever go on one of those interviews that ended with a tour of the company’s facilities? You pass by rows and rows of cubicles… “This is marketing.” This is support.” “And this is our finance department.” You’re still so wound up from the interview that you couldn’t remember anybody’s name or department any more than you could remember the way back to the conference room you came out of.

The whole process seems at best anti-climactic. But more than that, it doesn't really tell me what I need to know.

Don’t get me wrong. Your people are important. After all, they are your biggest asset. (It says so right on your website.) I can already tell from our discussions that I am a cultural fit for your organization and I’m sure I will love working with the team.

What I can’t tell yet, and I am dying to know, is how much value I can really add. I’m sure I can fulfill the functions on the job description or I wouldn’t be wasting your time and mine. But you want someone who adds real value and not someone who just fills a slot on a chart. And, to fully understand my value-add, I need to get my hands on your marketing.

Just once, I’d like to be able to conduct the interview instead of the other way around. Here are a few questions I would ask:

1. What are your marketing KPIs?
2. Show me your website stats. I want to see what kind of traffic you are getting and where it’s coming from.
3. Tell me about your lead management process. Do you think it’s working well? (Please be upfront with me. I will keep everything confidential.)
4. Tell me about the relationship between marketing and sales. What opportunities do they have to collaborate?
5. What sales tools has marketing created for the team? How well are they being used? (I’d love to speak to a sales person)
6. What is your value proposition?
7. How are you generating the majority of your leads?
8. Do you have a lead nurturing program?
9. How does the organization feel about social media tactics like Twitter and blogging? (I need to know how forward thinking you are or if you are going to expect me to do the same things you’ve always done.)
10. What is your annual marketing budget? (Always good to know what you have to work with.)
11. Tell me about the marketing team. Who are the stars? Who needs coaching or mentoring?

There’s more, but this should give me enough details to know where I can make the greatest impact, or if I am better off looking for someone else who really needs me.

I know that many of the executives and HR managers who conduct the interviews may not be able to answer those questions. After all, one of the reasons they need someone like me is because they don’t have time for the details and they need someone who can steer the ship toward their vision. That’s why I’d prefer a round of interviews with several members of the team.

It goes without saying that I’d share my ideas and give my thoughts on the kind of impact I could have on your organization. In the end, you’d gain valuable insights even if we decided that I wasn’t the right fit. And, if I was, we’d both feel a lot more comfortable with the decision.

The other nice thing about the reverse-interview is that it’s a lot easier on the interviewer. No more sitting through a lot of rambling answers from people who aren’t qualified, can’t get to the point or just aren’t giving you enough info to get a feel for their fit.

What do you think? As a hiring manager or an interviewee, would this work for you?

All the best!
Melissa

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To Get the Right People, You Have to Ask the Right Questions

The business software and services industry is filled with start-ups and smaller companies led by very smart people with a vision. (I’m sure that describes a lot of industries.)

To put these visions into practice these firms need marketing staff. They usually start out by hiring some energetic and smart marketing professionals with a few years of marketing experience under their belt. If they hire well, they find marketing professionals that are great at execution.

After a couple of years, they realize that they have a problem. While they have the vision and their marketing staff has the ability to execute, neither have the marketing experience needed to bridge the vision and the tactics. They need someone to manage marketing who can help make sure that the company is doing the right things right. (To paraphrase Tom Peters)

It's still a small(ish) company so this “someone” needs to be a player/manager. In other words, they need to be able to manage the team as well as roll up their sleeves and do some of the work. You don’t need CMO level talent, maybe not even VP level, but you do need someone who can be strategic as well as tactical.

Marketing budgets are tight and you can’t afford to make the wrong decision. There’s lots of talent on the market right now (a.k.a. marketing professionals looking for work), but how can you be sure that you are choosing the right professional if you aren’t a marketing professional yourself?

To get you started, here are a few questions that you may want to insert between the “Tell me about yourself” and “When can you start?” I’ve added my two cents on what you should be looking for.

How were you measured in your last role? Was it appropriate?

You want someone who is comfortable being measured. One of the key benefits of a manager at this level is to take you from just doing more marketing to doing the things that count. A manager at this level should be able to tell you exactly which metrics make sense for the role.

However, just because someone was measured via a certain metric, doesn’t mean that it was appropriate. For example, if they were measured on click-throughs, give them the opening to tell you why that measurement was irrelevant.

How did you collaborate with sales? Are there other ways that sales and marketing can work together to improve business performance?

The closer the role is to closing business e.g. demand creation or collateral development, the more collaboration the team needs to have with sales. You want a leader that sees the sales team as a partner in driving business.

How do you keep your skills fresh?

Marketing is a constantly changing profession. You want a leader who understands how to leverage all of the great educational opportunities, many of them free, on the web in order to keep their skills fresh. This will be especially important if the marketing leader needs to mentor other, less experienced professionals.

What new ideas have you tried lately?

You want marketers who aren’t afraid to try new things. If they are doing marketing the same way this year as they did last year, they’ve gone stale.

Have you experimented with any web-based techniques? What are you favorites?

For those of you with limited marketing budgets, you want someone who is capable of leveraging the web. Chances are social media techniques will play a part in their answer, but I’d give a marketer extra points for talking about what makes a good web website. You can take away a few points if all they talk about is SEO.

What tactics have you stopped using?

This is just as important as the new tactics that they’ve tried. If they keep doing the same things the same way chances are they are great at wasting money.

Tell me about your lead nurturing program that you ran in your last company.

Even if they didn’t have a good lead nurturing program at their last company, they ought to turn this into an opportunity to expound on how important it is and how they should have had one. Any marketer who gives you a blank look or tells you that they put their leads on a call back schedule is not a strategic thinker that you are looking for.

For those of you who are marketing managers or have hired at this level, please add to this list. Let’s see if we can’t help put the right people in the right places.

All the best!

Melissa

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With Social Media Everyone IS in Marketing

It’s often said that everyone thinks they are a marketer. Marketers receive unsolicited opinions from colleagues on everything from the color of the logo to the target markets that the company should expand into.

I think one of the reasons why everyone has an opinion on marketing is because intuitively they know that marketing is fun and they want to be part of it. Yes, it’s not always as glamorous as it looks from the outside. As those of us who are professional marketers know, it’s a lot of hard work. However, you have to admit it can be one of the coolest jobs there is.

A recent post on the Left The Box marketing blog called 8 Ways Social Media Should Change Your Marketing got me thinking. One of the points made was that you should involve everyone – customer service, product development, and even public relations.

These days, everyone from the Director of First Impressions (formerly receptionist) to that slightly strange developer (the one that only works nights and seems to live off of pizza and M&Ms) can set up a Twitter account, a facebook page, their own blog, as well as comment on other blogs. And, if you are in the technology industry as I am, chances are they will.

Each of these online impressions, especially those that are clearly tied to your company, can have an impact on your online brand perception. You no longer have the choice but to involve everyone in marketing because you can no longer control it.

Since the choice is taken out of your hands, why not look on this as an opportunity to leverage these creative juices? Here are some ideas to get started:

Set clear social media guidelines. For example, everyone should understand what types of information is confidential. And, black and white rules such as “never disparage a customer or business partner” can really help keep everyone inbounds.

Provide training to those who are interested. Provide training sessions for those who are new to social media to show them how to use it. If you have some great enthusiasts from outside marketing, leverage their expertise by having them do the training. You'll increase your buy-in if marketing isn't always in charge. “Lunch n’ learns” are a great format for this.

Create an idea board. Pull together your best social media enthusiasts to form a group that meets to discuss ideas for leveraging social media. It doesn’t matter what department these team members come from, but don’t call this an “advisory board.” This implies that they are advising you on what to do. The ideas generated from this group may very well not be marketing’s responsibility to execute.

Monitor. You don’t want to turn your back on what is happening. Your role isn’t to be the social media police, but you do want to be sure that you spot practices that could cause a problem for your organization. You can incorporate the course corrections into your company guidelines, training sessions, and idea boards as a way to subtly set things on the right path.

All the best! (and have fun!)

Melissa

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