Is B-to-B Harder Than B2C?; A Webcast Case Study; Ideas from Europe

*** MarketingSherpa.com’s B-to-B MarketingBiz.com ***
Practical News & Tips for B-to-B Marketing on the Internet
August 1, 2000 - Vol. I, Issue 10

1) News: Ideas from EC Europe, Net Market Makers Reviewed

2) More Headlines

3) Case Study: How a Major Real Estate Broker Launched
Their New Site with a Webcast

4) Interview: Repositioning from B2C to B-to-B : Wanted
Technologies’ Tracey-Lee Batsford VP Marketing

* Yes, forward this email to your friends!!!
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* ECEurope’s Testimonial Success Stories are Great
Marketing

Studies have repeatedly shown that client testimonials
written in their own words can be far more powerful sales
tools than your marketers’ most skillfully written copy.
B2B trade lead site ECeurope.com gathers testimonials on
its site more proactively than many American B-to-B sites we
know of. One satisfied client states disarmingly, “I used
ECeurope as a last result and cannot imagine how else I
would have achieved our intention.” This is the kind of
sticky, utterly believable sales content that’s worth gold.

Also worth noting, the site’s monthly email newsletter
entitled, “The Fat Cigar” (!), features a Top 10 listing of
the most used European bulletin board system trade sites.
As everyone in the media knows -- readers LOVE top 10
lists. This will certainly grow their opt-in circulation.
http://www.eceurope.com/aboutus/successstories.asp
http://www.eceurope.com/Newsletter/

* Campaign Review: Net Market Makers by “Invite Only”

Ah the irresistible lure of exclusivity! Jupiter’s Net
Market Makers, a portal for people who lead B-to-B vertical
marketplace sites, used to sell tickets to their regular
events to just anyone with a couple of thousand bucks to
spare. But you can't just whip out your Amex to register
for their latest event, “First Mover Advantage.” You
have to “apply” to get invited to buy a ticket. Esther
Dyson used similar tactics a decade ago to build her
“private” PC industry affairs into the must-go shows.
These are definitely tactics that you could apply to other
B2B marketing challenges, such as getting industry leaders
to show up to your party at a trade show or to opt-in for
your site’s newsletter. This campaign’s a winner!
http://www.netmarketmakers.com/events/fma

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MORE HEADLINES
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Here are more exclusive news headlines you might be
interested in from other MarketingSherpa.com channels:

* Top Four Lessons netgenShopper Learned From Email Marketing Tests
http://www.marketingtosmallbiz.com/sample.cfm?contentID=547

* SPECIAL REPORT: Cutting Edge ecommerce Solutions for
Content Sites, FizzyLab & Nexchange
http://www.contentbiz.com/sample.cfm?contentID=577

* Wheelhouse Tests Banners and Email Campaigns Offering an
Emarketing White Paper
http://www.marketingtowebmarketers.com/sample.cfm?contentID=568

* Media Buy of the Week: Inc.com’s Opt-In Newsletters
http://www.marketingtosmallbiz.com/sample.cfm?contentID=548

Note: if you'd like to run MarketingSherpa.com headlines
on your site or Intranet for free, go to iSyndicate.com
http://www.isyndicate.com/directory/partners/all/marketingsherpa.html

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CASE STUDY: NAI Direct
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CHALLENGE
NAI Direct, one of the largest commercial real
estate organizations in the world with more than 3,400
professional members worldwide, needed to introduce the
press, investors and members to their complex new Web site
enabling transactions over the Internet. VP Marketing
Robert Verstege walked us through their unique campaign.

CAMPAIGN
Verstege felt a full demonstration of the news
site was needed, “People need to experience it, to touch
it. With space ads they just don’t have that opportunity.
If they go to the site by themselves they may not
understand the full benefits. You need a teacher, otherwise
people say, ‘yes it’s a nice site but how much is there for me?’”

So the NAI Direct decided to launch with a webcast
demonstration. The President walked attendees through the
functions of the site for about half an hour and then
answered live questions emailed in for about ten minutes.
“We debated whether the Webcast should be 30 minutes or an
hour,” said Verstege, “40 minutes felt right and no one
left the site until the presentation ended.”

Verstege used a two-step approach to get highly qualified
attendees to attend. First they cast out a net of
invitations to generate interest. “We used our PR agency’s
strength to reach the more general press, BusinessWeek, CNN
and the like. We used our personal strength to get to the
industry people who already knew who we were.” The company
also ran a half page ad in the US and International
editions of the Wall Street Journal, which generated about
100 emailed enquiries from qualified investors, potential
clients and press.

Next NAI Direct ran a follow-up campaign two days before
the event to maximize attendance. “We followed up via
email to the individuals we didn’t have a strong personal
relationship with already. The others we actually called
on the phone. About 20% said they wouldn’t be able to
attend so we asked them for the name of someone else in
their office. We got a good response from that, people
gave us replacement names and they did attend!”

Verstege timed the Webcast cleverly to take place during an
exhibit hall break at a major industry conference. “We got
a 40 inch monitor and had about qualified 20 attendees we’d
invited there standing at our booth watching it. They felt
it showed everything about the product that was promised
was given, so they were happy.”

After the presentation Verstege followed up with thank-you
emails asking for input on the site and presentation.
“Many attendees responded back asking for more
information.”

NOTES: Verstege doubled the usefulness of this webcast by
putting a canned version onto the site for future visitors
to use. He also had a CD ROM version created to send to
all 3,400 NAI Direct members around the world who could use
them to explain the site’s benefits more easily to their
local real estate clients.

COSTS: The webcast only cost about $26,000 to produce. NAI
Direct spent an additional $20,000 having the related CD
ROM produced.

VENDORS: PR was managed by The Star Group. The video
webcast and CD ROM were created by MediaLink.com. Visit
their site for a handy “Web Casting Handbook.”

http://www.naidirect.com (need windows
http://www.stargroup1.com (need flash plug-in to view well)
http://www.medialink.com

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EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: Going from B2C to B-to-B
-------

Over the past seven months, Wanted Technologies has
successfully transformed itself from a business-to-consumer
Internet software company to a business-to-business ASP.
We were fascinated to learn from VP Marketing Tracey-Lee
Batsford just how she managed it.

Q: Can you first describe what you did as a business-to-
consumer company and what changed in your model?

Batsford: In 1997 we created a windows-based software
available for download on sites like Cnet that job seekers
could use to simultaneously search 30 jobs sites. Late in
December ’99 we were kind of going into a game where even
though we weren’t competing with job sites, software was a
thing of the past. So instead of attracting them to us, we
thought why not become an ASP and furnish software to
consumer sites grappling with decreasing rates?

To be quite honest our first business client Hoovers came
to us, they triggered the idea by telling us ‘We need
this.’… Simply slapping syndicated news content on a site
may not help retain users. Why not help users accomplish
day-to-day tasks instead? If they are at Hoovers looking
for financial information, why not give them job
opportunities to view there instead of having to go
elsewhere?

Q: Once you made the decision to switch from B-to-B , how did
you handle the transition? Did you just dump your old B2C
clients?

Batsford: Conversion was difficult at first. We literally
switched overnight. We converted hundreds of thousands of
our consumer users to using one destination
[http://www.wantedjobs.com] by sending a carefully spun
preliminary to all users, ‘in order to serve you better…’
putting everything on the line. We spelled out the
benefits, no downloads, faster search time, etc. We also
told them we’d be furnishing software for other Web sites,
‘if you’re in the finance profession you may want to visit
Hoovers.’

We converted them because you never know when they could be
potential customers. It was politically correct to do so.
You’re not closing doors. You’re not ‘the guys who made
that software and now you’re not supporting us any longer.’

The wantedJobs.com site also serves a dual purpose as a
showcase site for potential B-to-B clients. We became our own
ASP client! Instead of bringing B-to-B prospects to existing
clients, we could show them what it looks being implemented
by us.

Q: Have you found B-to-B harder or easier than B2C marketing?

Batsford: Marketing-wise it’s been so much easier for me to
explain what we do now to journalists and potential
business partners. It’s easier in terms of positioning and
getting a clear message across. B-to-B is such a load off my
shoulders! With B2C there are so many different types of
verticals, you use the same message but you have to tailor
it differently for each one in increase your ROI.

Q: What specific marketing campaigns did you do to get new
B2B clients?

Batsford: We haven’t done any broadcast marketing. The
dot-com noise out there is insane and our budget was
limited. Direct email used to be great but the pendulum
has swung backwards and direct mail works better now if
you’ve got a well-done, glossy, print brochure and it has a
very pertinent message. People think, ‘anybody can do
email, but these guys can afford 4-colour process brochures
so they must be fairly established.’

The average amount of time it takes to make a deal depends
on the client. You can send the contract and do the back
and forth and everything within a month to six weeks. I’ve
seen less. We don’t harass people. The sales team will
call back but they won’t call back every day. Our
politeness and non-harassment approach works better.

Q: What’s your other advice on doing successful B-to-B
marketing?

Batsford: The big thing that applies to any business is
target, target, target. I don’t know how many times I get
pitches from content and tech providers who if they had
done just a little homework they would have known it was
stuff totally not applicable to us.

You have to find out who your client really is. You’re
marketers, it’s your job! I don’t want to sound clichéd
because you hear it all the time, but it’s one-to-one
marketing. I’d rather target directly to one prospect
addressing their needs than to do a mass mailing and get a
.5% response rate!

I also wish marketers would remember prospects don’t care
about corporate blah-blah. How cute and wonderful your
product is. They care what’s in it for them. That’s all
they care about. They don’t have time for anything else.

Your value proposition should be on the first page of your
Web site. No Flash demos. Just what’s in it for the
customer. An end user will spend three seconds on your
site, if they don’t see what they want in three seconds
they are out of there!

Q: You’ve had a lot of success getting media mentions,
maybe because you once were a professional journalist so
you know how their minds work. Can you give us any tips?

Batsford: It’s a long process. There are so many
aggressive PR people and so many press releases that make
noise that it’s hard for people to pitch stories. Yahoo
Internet Life voted one of our clients their “Best Online
Career Center” so we tell that to reporters and explain we
power that site. It gave us the stamp of approval.

You can’t start at the top and work your way down. Start
at the mid-tier and work your way up. The biggest aren’t
the be all and end all.

We’ve had tremendous success with mid-tier publications.
The story has to be funky. We monitor traffic and noticed
that people were using software the most at 3pm -- so they
were looking for jobs while at work. The Red Herring did a
story on that.

Other successes include Office.com, DigitalCoast Daily,
eCompany, VentureWire, Forbes Small Biz, etc. -- they’ve
produced quality leads. People who ask ‘have you been in
Wired yet?’ they don’t understand.

Remember journalists are just so sick of being pitched fly-
by-night stories and non-relevant stories. It’s been a six
month process. We’ve tailored our pitch to each journalist.
We take a very ‘Canadian Approach,’ we’re aggressive in
terms of sales but polite. If you’re polite to
journalists, furnish them with what they need and only
pitch relevant stories you’ll be successful. I’d rather
send a release to five highly relevant publications than a
mass release to five hundred publications.

http://www.wantedtech.com (head office)
http://www.wanted.com (London office)
http://www.wantedjobs.com (end-user demo site)


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