Practicing what I preach

Last few days I haven’t had the time to write my blog posts. I keep talking to you about getting coaching to sharpen your saw. So I recently decided to take one more coaching which will last a few weeks where there will be some teaching and then we are supposed to practice. So its not that I just tell you to get coaching in the areas where you can improve, I also find ways to constantly improve myself.

If you choose the right coach, you can shorten your learning curve dramatically.

So I was busy testing out how I could utilise what I had learnt for Linkedin. As I have mentioned earlier also, each medium has its nuances. If you want to become proficient with any medium, you need to become aware of the nuances, the psychology of the customer using the medium.

As an example if you are doing an on-prem seminar. This seminar is where everyone is together and you are talking or addressing a lot of people together from a stage. On the other hand if you are using email as your medium, then it is a one-on-one medium. No one reads their email aloud to everyone. They read it privately.

LinkedIn also as a medium has its nuances. Its a place where things are less formal since people are in your direct connect or in your network of connects.

So my agenda is to improve my prospecting skills on LinkedIn given that we work in the B2B environment. Similarly I am looking at how I can utilise LinkedIn to get better candidates for our jobs as well as advertise for our offerings.

Will keep you posted on what I learn and how it helped me improve my capabilities further.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!

Testing for your lead generation engine – 4

B2B, campaign, Marketing, media, medium, single target market

In the last post couple of days back, I had shared how I had created advertising for YouTube for the video production company that I aim advising. Today I worked on adding one more medium- Linkedin.

Since we are B2B focused in this business, Linkedin is a good medium to directly target the kind of businesses we want. The segregation and segmentation possibilities are also good. The challenge that I have observed with Linkedin is that unlike Google, YouTube, they charge a considerably high price even for putting the impressions in front of your audience.

On the other hand, since you have the ability to tightly control the market to whom your advertisement is shown, you can manage the costs involved.

I would also like to put a caveat here. You should not look at the cost of a lead as the primary cost. This can be very misleading. You may get a lot of clicks at very low cost to come to your website. But if they didn’t stay on your page and give you their email id, then they are of no use. Getting this low cost traffic has no significance. On the other hand, getting more expensive traffic, which is closest to your single target market can help because they may resonate with your content and share their email id. This is what you are looking for. Once you have someone’s email id, you can nurture the leads over a period of time.

If you have the capability, you should go one step further and monitor from which source, which email id was obtained and then when you get an order you can track back to the medium which was used. This will actually showcase which is the most effective medium for you.

Till next time then

Carpe Diem!!!

Doing the medium – market, message match – 3

B2B, Character, Marketing, media, medium, messaging

Assuming you agree with my opinion – that I shared in the first two posts on this topic – that we should first look at the market and then decide on the medium and message, today is a take on the personality or characteristics of each medium. Again you may not agree with my view, but this view has helped me characterise what kind of message would be good for what kind of a medium.

But before we get into that, there’s some clarification with respect to what I consider as a message. The message and the medium kinda go hand-in-hand and the characteristic of the medium will put constraints on the type of message. Since I primarily deal with B2B, most of my terminology would be related to that kind of customers. However even in the B2c segment you would have similar kind of messages.

When it comes to B2B, a message could be a white paper, a case study, a webinar on a given topic, an email, a physical seminar or event for a specific product/service, a physical or virtual conference to showcase the company and a whole lot of others. The size of the message could vary, depending on the medium you are using as well as the duration. So a webinar could be 45 minutes talking about the features and benefits (the message) or it could be a full day workshop , where you are teaching the nitty gritty of the product (another kind of message). Since the workshop is more long form your message will need to be designed accordingly.

Now coming to what I started with, each medium has its own character. A conference is a good place to send a message en-mass while an email is something more personal one-to-one. An email expects a response, to take the next step, a conference is primarily one way. Like a bill board is a one way medium in the B2C segment.

So when you are sending an email its got to be personal, short and expecting a response. On the other hand a webinar would be something which is longer with minimal interaction planned, expect maybe at the end. You can’t use the message that you would put out in the webinar in an email and vice-versa.

So device your message based on the medium that you intend to use.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!

Doing the medium, market, message map – 2

campaign, content, Marketing, media, medium, messaging, single target market

In the previous post on this topic, I had given my views on why starting with the medium first is not a good idea. As a matter of fact a lot of people may give a lot of focus on the message also. No doubt creating the message (all kind of content) is a creative capability and requires skill but sending an amazing message to the wrong audience will be ineffective.

Let’s take a few examples, to showcase my logic.

Suppose you were selling lingerie but your database or list of people to whom you were sending the message was primarily men, there’s quite a big chance that the campaign would not be successful.

Suppose you were selling diet pills for men and your database primarily had women and lean men, would you be able to sell a lot of packages of your diet pills.

In both the the above examples you may have some success either because the amazing message you wrote got the spouses buying somethings or relatives buying something but it would not be what you are actually looking for.

On the other hand even a mediocre message to the right list will get a large response. This is not to underscore the importance of copy. It is however important to emphasize the importance of identifying clearly the single target market that you’re focusing on.

Hope I have been able to place my viewpoint clearly over the last 2 posts. I would to hear if there are any counter arguments that any of you have to the logic I have placed. Please list your comments below.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!