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!!!

Hard-work + Taking Chances = Success

ego, Fear, Human Brain, losing, Worry

I was watching a video on Netflix, The Call to Courage by author & researcher Brene Brown today afternoon. Its about 80 minutes long, but she keeps you engaged all through the eighty minutes. Her talk is about vulnerability, shame etc. and all its various connotations. I had read a lot about her books, when reading other authors, but never quite got to the stage a actually reading one of her books. Today while doing some research on her, I actually found this video on Netflix, so I decided to spend time watching it. it was time well spent. I would highly recommend watching it. I have downloaded it so that I can watch it a couple of times more.

While there are a lot of Aha moments in the video, one which kinda stuck with me is a statement she made – Success is all bout doing the hardworking and taking chances. You could fail, but its about getting down into the actual field and playing and then figuring out how to win. You can keep sitting in the stands and comment about how things should be, but its all about playing which decides if you have the chops to win.

You cannot lose any game that you don’t play. A lot of us, including me a lot many times, take the easy way out because our brain does not want us to lose. Its hardwired to protect us at all costs. So even failing in front of others is a major set back to our brain. I have written about this in multiple posts over the years. But she put a different perspective and therefore I am recommending, watching the video. It will be time well spent.

Most of the times its our brain, which is the actual culprit – because it doesn’t want us to take chances. When I was watching the video I could recollect so many situations, where I din’t take a chance and maybe things would have turned out to be different. But then that’s history….

Till next next time then…take your chances…don’t have regrets in your life.

Carpe Diem!!!

The ability of your brain to give you the niggling feeling

Fear, Focus, Human Brain, Thinking, Worry

I am writing after a long time related to the brain functioning. This comes from he fact that I get to hear a lot of times and I am also a culprit sometimes, that I end up saying – “I did not have the time”. Or even if you don’t say it in the open, you are overwhelmed and always under pressure because you have so many things on your plate.

A lot of this whole situation arises because we are being reactive to our circumstances. Whether its the email which comes in – complaining about a problem or a phone call giving us a new requirement or even just a person interrupting us, asking if we have a minute. Suddenly you get pulled one after another into tasks that were not planned for the day. I have had the habit of keeping a To-Do list for many years, but by reacting to all these interruptions, the To-Dos only kept growing longer.

Now to top that when I try to switch off my phone or switch off my email, I have this constant fear, a niggling feeling, that there’s a disaster waiting to happen on the other side . Now my brain is designed to ensure my survival, so it will always keep warning me about impending danger. So what happens, its even more difficult to concentrate on a task. This happens because of the Zeigarnik effect and the lizard brain which still resides inside us.

One thing which I learnt from Dean Jackson is to do a brain dump for a concentrated 50 minutes, from time to time. I have mentioned this earlier also – please watch his YouTube video on the Fifty minute focus finder. Its an amazing detailing on how you can become more productive. I keep going back to that video from time to time and each time I watch it, I learn something new to make me less reactive.

This brain dump does help the brain become a little more restive, because it realises that I have put out the things on paper so I will execute on it. Its a very relieving exercise. But you need to do it without any kind of distraction.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!

The Value of a Lead

B2B, follow-up, lead generation, life time value, Marketing, Risks, Trust

Have you analysed the time it takes for someone who enquires something that you offer and eventually buys. And what is the Life Time Value of a client.

Not all leads will buy anything at all, some will buy, but not buy from you. But those who do buy from you, do you have an estimate of the amount of time it could take at an extreme for a lead to close.

About 10 – 12 years back, there was an MNC , who was into selling CPU chips, had come to us. Their sales team had a clear mandate from their management, if a lead was not closed in 3 months, it had to be pulled out of the funnel and dropped. Like us, they were also dealing in B2B.

Since we deal in considerably large value deals, it sometimes takes us even 24 months of effort to keep the lead live, to eventually come to us.

The timeline is an important aspect in deciding when a lead needs to be stopped from being targeted. One argument is never. To a certain degree, I agree with this argument. At the other extreme is an argument that if someone doesn’t buy in 3-6 months, then they will not buy. With companies running their sales and revenue targets from one quarter to another following a lead for more than 6 months is tough, because after 6 months the sales person may change.

Generating a lead is tough enough and losing it because you have an ad-hoc timeline to decide when to dump a lead can be devastating for the business. Depending on the kind of offerings you have, the more expensive the offering, the more people take time to think through their decision because, in the B2B segment, people can’t afford to Not Have Things Work. And because they still don’t trust you or the technology, they don’t want to take a decision. That’s where all the inertia and indecision comes-up.

You need to patiently nurture leads by educating them and motivating them to try you out (if they are engaging you for the first time) by doing POCs ( if its a complex technology) and eliminate all the possible risk from the buyer.

Once you have analysed the timeline of closing leads, then they will become an asset which will I’ve you annuity kind of business.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!