Category Archives: B2B

I’ve Been Writing A Lot Lately, Just Not Here

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I only update this blog occasionally because most of my writing these days appears on other people’s websites. But my blog is still my home base. Here’s a round up of what I’ve been scribbling about elsewhere of later.

Social is the Future of Search (Profitecture Blog)

BuzzFeed HQ

(Photo credit: Scott Beale)

What could possibly unseat Google as the king of the Web? The answer might be incubating in fast-growing media operations like BuzzFeed (right) and Upworthy. These publishers eschew search optimization in favor of creating content that people want to share. From an SEO perspective, they do a lot of things wrong. And they’re killing it online at the moment.

Marketing’s big miss (BtoB magazine)

A new McKinsey & Co. report reveals a startling disconnect between B2B companies and their customers that should give every marketer pause to reflect on his or her priorities. The research shows that the themes that B2B companies emphasize in their marketing messages are wildly inconsistent with the factors that B2B buyers care about most.

Short on content? Repackage (BtoB magazine)

A lot of marketers are frustrated by the perceived need to turn out a lot of content, but the problem is much more manageable if you reuse and repackage creatively. Here are some ideas for how to get more mileage out of the stuff you already have.

Rewarding Bad Behavior (Godfrey Blog)

Marketing and sales organizations at most B2B companies have a relationship that can be politely described as strained. Sales complains that marketing gives them lousy leads while marketers charge that sales wouldn’t know a good lead is it bit them on the nose.

Both sides are correct. That’s because many organizations reward their sales and marketing people for the wrong things. Improve lead quality and a lot of the bad karma disappears.

Altimeter’s Brian Solis: ‘It’s the Customer Experience, Stupid’ (Huffington Post)

Brian Solis at Upload Lisboa, Portugal.

Brian Solis (right) is one of the most consistently provocative and perceptive analysts in the world of new media and social business. I caught up with him shortly before his Pivot conference in October to find out what’s on his mind. He believes few CEOs know how dramatically their businesses will change as a result of customer empowerment. And he thinks any business can enchant its customers. Even one that makes hammers.

Five Important Differences Between Paid and Earned Media (Profitecture Blog)

Many marketers treat social or “earned” media the same way they treat advertising and direct mail, but the two forms of media are very different. Earned media is more valuable because people volunteer to share your information. This benefits small and patient companies disproportionately. If you talk at customers in earned the channels the way you do in paid channels, your results will probably disappoint you.

 

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Bidding Fond Farewell to BtoB Magazine

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BtoB_logoI was sad to learn this week that BtoB magazine, which has existed under various brands for nearly 100 years, will be swallowed by Advertising Age at the end of the year. I have worked with BtoB for nearly seven years, publishing about 120 columns and articles during that time. The staff has always been a joy to work with, and BtoB has played a critical role in my own education about the transformation of media. It’s the most important publishing brand I’ve been affiliated with during my eight years as an independent consultant, and I’m truly sorry to see it go.

My association with BtoB began as a happy accident. Shortly after going on my own in late 2005 I encountered the then-editor-in-chief, Ellis Booker. Ellis had worked for me at Computerworld years before and our mutual geekiness had cemented a friendship. At the time I reconnected with Ellis I was becoming fascinated by the changes in the publishing world driven by social media. I pitched him pretty hard on stepping up BtoB‘s focus on that area. Ellis has always been a forward-looking guy, so he began to feed me some assignments, which I tackled with zeal. Here was a chance to learn by talking to practitioners on the leading edge and earn a few bucks and a byline in the process.

In late 2006 Ellis offered me a monthly column on the editorial page called “New Channels.” I’m still writing it more than six years later. I’ve never been paid for it, but I would probably pay BtoB for the privilege.

New Channels gave me an opportunity to share what I was learning with more than 30,000 subscribers and perhaps to materially impact the way B2B companies were thinking about social media adoption. I sweated every one of the 450 words I was allocated each month and still think it was some of my best writing of the past six years. When you have so little space to say something, you have to focus and minimize waste. Length limits are a great way to improve your writing.

Looking back on some of those early columns dramatizes the speed with which things have changed. In 2007 I remarked on how big brands were embracing blogging and YouTube, completely unaware of the impending arrival of social networks. In 2006 I wrote about Microsoft’s Port 25 blog, which invited its critics in the Linux community to heap abuse on it in a Microsoft-branded channel. Thanks to Facebook, such interactions are common today across hundreds of brands.

John Obrecht took over from Ellis in 2010 and was kind enough to ask me to continue writing the column. I understand John will be leaving Crain Communications when BtoB shuts down. If you want a top-notch business editor and writer who understands B2B markets, be sure to give John a call. He’s in Chicago and hopes to stay there.

Gillin_at_BtoB_eventOver the years I’ve had the opportunity to be involved in many of BtoB‘s social media-related projects. I’ve helped judge its Social Media Awards for the last four years and also contributed to the annual Interactive Marketing Guide since 2010. I’ve been privileged to be on the stage for the past four years to present awards to some remarkable companies that are innovating with social media and to participate in numerous other BtoB events. The association with the BtoB brand has been invaluable to me. Despite all my blogging, books and contributions to other websites, the BtoB magazine association is the one people still mention most often when I meet them.

Many readers of my blog probably know that I also maintain a blog called Newspaper Death Watch, where I’ve commented on the massive changes sweeping through the newspaper industry for more than six years. BtoB is a victim of those same forces. The advertising market for business publications is in free fall, and since most of the magazine’s advertisers are themselves B2B media companies, BtoB has suffered along with everybody else. Crain Communications is notable for its commitment to print publishing. It sustained a print presence for BtoB long after most publishers probably would have opted to go online-only. The decision to shutter the brand isn’t surprising, but that doesn’t make it any less disappointing.

 

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8 Data Points about the Importance of Customer Experience

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I was asked to prepare some background information on the importance of delivering a positive customer experience, and I thought I would share some of the research with you.

How much does the market reward companies that deliver excellent customer experience? Consider that the Fortune list of the world’s 10 most admired companies in 2013 includes seven that are renowned for excellence in that area: Apple, Google, Amazon, Starbucks, Southwest, Disney and FedEx. The world’s two most valuable brands – Apple and Google – are considered world-class.

Recent research worth noting:

  1. Dell has published internal metrics showing that 97% of dissatisfied customers can be rescued with proactive intervention and more than 40% of those people actually become raving fans.
  2. Siegel+Gale’s 3rd annual Global Brand Simplicity Index reported last year that nearly 1/3 of American consumers would be willing to pay an average of about 4% more for simpler brand experiences.
  3. Gartner estimated last year that by 2014 “failure to respond via social channels can lead to up to a 15% increase in churn rate for existing customers.” You have to wonder why one-third of large corporations still block social network use by their employees.
  4. Research published by Temkin Group last year reported that only 7% of the 255 large companies it surveyed could be described as reaching the highest level of customer experience maturity, although nearly 60% said their goal is to be the industry leader in customer experience within three years. That’s gonna be a tall order.
  5. A July, 2013 Lloyd’s survey of 588 C-suite executives found that customer loss was their second biggest concern, exceeded only by worries about high tax rates. Respondents also indicated they are under-prepared to address this risk, with executives giving themselves only a 5.7 rating on a 1-to-10 scale (see chart below).Areas of Biggest Business Risk As Defined by CEOs
  6. Sixty-two percent of B2B and 42% of B2C customers purchased more after a good experience, while 66% and 52%, respectively, stopped making purchases after a bad experience, according to a recent survey of 1,000 people who had had recent customer service interactions. The research also indicated that customers are somewhat more likely to share bad experiences through social networks than good ones.
  7. Executives talk the talk but still don’t walk the walk. An Oracle survey of 1,342 senior-level executives from 18 countries earlier this year found that 97% agree that delivering a great customer experience is critical to business advantage and results, and that the average potential revenue loss from failing in this area is 20% of annual revenue.  However, 37% are just getting started with a formal customer experience initiative, and only 20% consider the state of their customer experience initiative to be advanced.
  8. A survey of 2,000 adults last year found that 83% are willing to spend more on a product or service if they feel a personal connection to the company. One-fifth said they would spend 50% more on companies that they felt the company put the customer first.

How to Get Salespeople Aboard the Social Media Train

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One of the most common frustrations I hear B2B marketers express is about the difficulty of getting salespeople interested in social media. Outside of prospecting with LinkedIn, few sales pros are willing to make the investment of time to learn and use tools that promise a payoff months or years down the road.

Jeffrey HoffmanJeff Hoffman says he knows precisely why salespeople are so reluctant because he was one of them for a long time. Hoffman, who runs the Boston-based MJ Hoffman and Associates sales training and consulting agency, shared four ideas for getting salespeople off the social media dime in a presentation at the Inbound13 conference in Boston today. I think they’re worth sharing.

Hoffman listed four characteristics of salespeople that make them poor candidates for social media success:

They’re reluctant to share. Information is competitive advantage in sales. Whispered tips from insiders and competitive intelligence can make the difference between closing the deal or losing it. Many salespeople see no upside in sharing information, which is a practice which is essential to building social capital.

They’re short-term thinkers. Sales pros are driven by quotas, which are measured in monthly increments. Telling them that social media prospecting will pay off in a year or two doesn’t interest them. They’ve got a quarterly quota to meet.

They express only neutral opinions. Anything that ticks off the prospect can sabotage the sales, so salespeople are trained never to express strong opinions, especially negative ones. How good is a competitor’s product? It’s great, but we’re different and let me tell you how we’re better. The problem is that visibility in social media accrues to those who have strong opinions to share. By keeping their opinions to themselves, salespeople limit their potential social capital.

They’re natural quarterbacks. Salespeople are lone wolf decision-makers. They want to be given goals and also the latitude to figure out how to achieve them. If you know any successful salespeople, you know what I mean. Don’t waste time collaborating on a solution; give them the ball and they’ll run with it.

Lemons into Lemonade

So how do you convince people to be more social media-savvy when their natural inclinations go against the grain of everything they need to do? Hoffman says you turn a handicap into a virtue. Here’s his advice for dealing with each of these anti-social behaviors in order.

Reluctant to share? Make it a contest. Sales pros are naturally competitive, so make the process of building social capital a game. Set measurable goals like the number of Twitter followers, number of LinkedIn connections of number of contributions to the corporate blog, then put rewards in place. People will try to cheat, but that’s OK. The point is to get them involved.

Break down long-term goals into short-term milestones. Using the technique above, share the numbers with your sales team as social quotas. Post a leader board that shows each rep’s progress toward that goal. Make sure everyone can see the rankings. Salespeople take pride in beating their quotas, so make sure they know their up-to-date progress toward this one – and also everybody else’s.

Make it safe to express opinions. Ask for a blog entry on what they like best about sales, why they came to work for your company or 10 reasons to love the local football team. Find topics that enable them to exercise their opinion muscles without risking backlash. As they gain confidence (and see response), they’ll feel more comfortable venturing outside their comfort zone.

Turn quarterbacks into captains. Give sales reps the same control over their social capital as you do over their territories. The conversations on Twitter and LinkedIn will go on with or without them. Don’t change quotas, but create incentives for sales brought in through social channels. Then let the reps figure out how to achieve them.

The one theme that runs through all four of these tactics is competition. Sales people respond better to challenge than they do to opportunity, and better to short-term than to long-term goals. Make the process of building social authority a game and let the instincts of your sales people take over from there.

 

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How to Summarize Content for a Business Audience

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In my previous post about How to Read and Summarize a 20-Page Research Report in 20 Minutes, I showed how to skim through a complex document and gather essential information to use in summarizing the material for a business audience. Now let’s build our summary from the material we highlighted.

We start by going back through the document we marked up earlier (it’s embedded in the previous post) and copying and pasting each highlighted section into a new document. Organize each element under one of the categories you used when marking up the document (for example, Key Point, Take Away, Summary Trend and New Insight). The result looks something like the document embedded below.

Then we plug our highlighted information into an “inverted pyramid” template. Inverted pyramid is an organizational technique that was invented many years ago in the newspaper industry when space was finite and stories often had to be cut at the last minute. Inverted pyramid dictates that information is presented in order of declining importance. That way, if the story needs to be cut to one paragraph at the last minute, the key points are still preserved.

You don’t hear much about inverted pyramid anymore because length isn’t an issue online, but it’s a very reader-friendly way to present information to time-pressed people. That makes it a good technique to use in business writing.

The technique of journalism writing.

Just the Facts? No

A good summary does more than just relate facts, though. It also provides context for why the facts are important and filles in background information that helps the reader understand how this new information moves their understanding forward. Here’s a typical example from an Aug. 1 AP story:

The number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits fell 19,000 last week to a seasonally adjusted 326,000, the fewest since January 2008. The decline shows the job market continues to strengthen.

The Labor Department said Thursday that the less volatile four-week average slid 4,500 to 345,750. The July figures are typically volatile as the government has a difficult time adjusting for seasonal layoffs in the auto industry.

Still, the trend in weekly unemployment claims has been positive and offered hope that a better job market could help lift a sluggish economy later this year.

Look to this model when summarizing content. Your outline might look like this:

Paragraph 1 Key Point
Important Data 1
Key Takeaway
Paragraph 2 Important Data 2
New Insight
Paragraph 3 Callout or Quote
Paragraph 4 Important Data 3
Paragraph 5 Important Data 4
Potential Gotcha or
Summary Recommendations

Each paragraph should ideally introduce new data that moves the story forward. After you’ve introduced two or three new data points, step back and offer context for what you’ve just said. The exception is the middle of the summary, where the quote typically appears. Quotes shouldn’t be random or perfunctory. They should comment upon the data and insights already presented.

Putting It All Together

By dragging and dropping the highlighted information into this outline and then rewriting for consistency, we come up with this summary:

New research finds that midsize businesses are applying the same principles as big companies to extracting untapped value from data both inside and outside the organization. They are also motivated by the same goal as their corporate counterparts: to create a competitive advantage. The research challenges common perceptions that only big companies have the scale and computing power to realize the opportunity of “Big Data.”

A survey of more than 1,100 business and IT professionals in 95 countries – nearly half of which are midmarket businesses – also suggests that data quality is an important variable in the effective use of big data analytics. Researchers suggest that a fourth “V” – veracity – be added to the “three Vs” of big data that are commonly accepted. They include volume, variety and velocity.

“’Veracity emphasizes the importance of addressing and managing for the uncertainty inherent within some types of data,” the researchers say. Acknowledging that there is no such thing as perfectly clean data, they recommend that “the need to acknowledge and plan for uncertainty is a dimension of big data that has been introduced as executives seek to better understand the uncertain world around them.”

Customer-centered objectives are the principal drivers of big data projects, the research revealed. Other frequently mentioned goals include operational optimization, risk/fi­nancial management, employee collaboration and enabling new business models.

In order to get the most from big data, companies of all sizes need a scalable infrastructure and strong analytics. Even then, most are struggling to find the skills needed to analyze the deluge of unstructured data like voice, video and conversations in social media.

Note the third sentence in the first paragraph, which states that the research challenges conventional wisdom. This is an attention-getter. Whenever you can counter commonly held perceptions, you have a good chance of grabbing the audience’s attention.

Note the third sentence in the first paragraph, which states that the research challenges conventional wisdom. This is an attention-getter. Whenever you can counter commonly held perceptions, you have a good chance of grabbing the audience’s attention.

Paragraphs one, two and four primarily introduce new information. Paragraphs three and five step back and provide context. Again, this is a cadence that readers are comfortable with.

This is just one of many ways to write a business summary, but it’s a reliable one. It uses a cadence that’s familiar to most people and gets across the key points of the research in declining order of importance.

Next we’ll talk about writing headlines for different audiences.

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A Content Marketing Gem from Marketo

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Marketo's Big Marketing Activity Coloring Book

Marketo calls the Big Marketing Activity Coloring Book “30 pages of pure, unadulterated marketing activity fun!” It is that. It’s also brilliant.

The theme of fun runs throughout this e-book, and the content maps perfectly to Marketo’s message that marketing is fun again. There’s a crossword, connect-the-dots, Mad Libs, a comic book, word search, a word jumble and all the standard fun-book activities, but the marketing them runs throughout and the content is highly relevant to professional marketers. I was delighted to be included on page 12, but that’s not why I’m writing this post. The Big Marketing Activity Coloring Book is one of the cleverest pieces of content marketing I’ve seen in some time.

Congratulations to Jason Miller and the team and Marketo that dreamed up this gem. There’s even a “This Book Belongs To _________________________” on the cover. Hilarious! BTW, if you get five other people to download the PDF Marketo offers to send you a printed version and a box of crayons.

Marketers See Value But Remain Wary About Social Media

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This article originally appeared in BtoB magazine.

For the past year, business professionals have connected to each other online as never before. Now marketers are trying to figure out a way to monetize these new networks.

The MySpace effect finally seeped into the business world, triggering explosive growth for the new darlings of social networking: Facebook and LinkedIn. Both networks had breakout years, with Facebook breaching the 60 million-member mark. LinkedIn, with 20 million members, broke from the pack to become the place where business people make contacts, find jobs and develop professional relationships.

Social networks are proving to have the kind of stickiness that marketers have long dreamed of. People give up all kinds of details willingly in the name of furthering friendships. Facebook’s early 2007 decision to open its platform to developers has created a gusher of 16,000 new applications. While few have gained much traction, marketers are pushing ahead in hopes of inventing a megahit like Scrabulous.

The battle for supremacy in the broad social network market is effectively over. MySpace and Facebook together account for 88% of all visits to social network sites, according to HitWise (LinkedIn wasn’t included in those totals). Although MySpace holds a three-to-one advantage in total visitors, users actually spend more time on Facebook, according to comScore Inc. Emory University surveyed its incoming freshmen last fall and learned that 97% had Facebook accounts.

YOUTUBE A BIG WINNER

Another big social networking winner is YouTube, with 66 million videos. Although widely perceived as a playground for backyard videographers, YouTube has had some notable b2b successes. IBM’s tongue-in-cheek “Mainframe: Art of the Sale” videos have grown traffic to its associated blog tenfold. JetBlue Airways CEO David Neeleman took to YouTube to explain the February 2007 crisis that left thousands of travelers stranded.

Social networks are now springing up in vertical professional communities. Sermo claims to have 50,000 members in its online physicians network. Big winners overseas are virtually unknown here. They include Orkut.com (Brazil), Cyworld.com (Korea), Mixi (Japan) and Grono (Poland), to name a few.

Now the vexing question is how to market to these groups.

Social networks have remained stubbornly resistant to promotional campaigns. Many experts believe that’s because the intensely personal interactions between members prohibits traditional interruption marketing. MySpace has made the most progress. Researcher eMarketer expects it to generate $820 million in advertising this year, nearly four times the estimate for Facebook.

But there have been disappointments. Google’s subpar fourth-quarter results were blamed, in part, on MySpace advertising shortfalls. And recent data has indicated that social network traffic is leveling off.

B2b marketers have been wary about social network campaigns. For one thing, the conversation is unpredictable. Reliable metrics still don’t exist and the paucity of success stories has also dampened enthusiasm. Then there was the outcry over Facebook’s social shopping experiment, called Beacon, which let members see each other’s purchasing activity, sometimes without their knowledge. Marketers wrestle with how to engage an audience that shuns messaging. Visit top10bestpro to learn more about online shopping services.

Social media thus stands at an awkward transition stage: businesses overwhelmingly understand its importance but are unsure of how to take advantage of it. While 78% of respondents to a Coremetrics survey said social media marketing is a way to gain competitive edge, they’re spending less than 8% of their online marketing budgets there.

BLOGS GO MAINSTREAM

They aren’t nearly as curmudgeonly about blogs, however. Corporate activity in the blogosphere has ramped up even as the hype has died down.

Recent entries into the blogosphere include Marriott, Johnson & Johnson, Toyota and Wal-Mart and other car and scooter brands. Even the Transportation Safety Administration has gotten into the act, giving five midlevel employees the green light to blog on behalf of the organization about the practices that befuddle frequent travelers.

There’s a trend here. B2b marketers are finding that employees can be powerful and persuasive advocates of the company message. Microsoft and Sun both claim to have more than 5,000 employee bloggers, and corporate giants like Southwest Airlines and Kodak have structured their blogging initiatives around ordinary employees and even customers.

The surprise social media winner has been podcasting. Those downloadable radio programs have turned out to be a hit with time-challenged business people.

Emarketer estimates that the U.S. podcast audience grew 285% in 2007 to 18.5 million people and will hit 65 million people in 2012. More importantly for b2b marketers, Arbitron reported that 72% of podcast listeners are older than 25 and 48% are older than 35. General Motors, Purina, HP, IBM, Kodak, Wells Fargo and many others are using them to reach business influencers.

It all adds up to a chaotic scene, although there are signs that consolidation is setting in and the flood of new services is slowing.

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Slides and Video Cover What You Need to Know About Search

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A client asked me to prepare a one-hour seminar on the basics of search engine optimization (SEO), and I thought it was worth sharing. I live in Birmingham and was having a hard time find the best SEO in Birmingham, until I came across third.co.uk. This is more than your standard chalk talk. I pulled together slides from several presentations I’ve used over the last few years, updated them and wrote a complete script, which is included as slide notes in the in the PowerPoint. You can download the presentation and read the notes or watch the video.

I’m not an SEO expert by any stretch, but I’ve learned a lot by osmosis. For those who are mystified by Google magic, this deck will get you up to speed. If you’re already a guru, skip it and head to more advanced sites like Search Engine Land, SEOmoz, TopRank or Biznology.

Thanks to Mike Moran, HubSpot and McDougall Interactive for permitting me to steal from them.

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Interesting Threads in Dell’s 2013 Social Media Predictions

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I happen to be one of the 14 people quoted in this Dell e-book, Social Media Predictions for 2013, but that’s not why I’m pointing out to you. I have great respect for every one quoted in this book, but what’s interesting is the common themes that emerge. For example:

  • Several of these experts see a strong year for Google+, while most believe Facebook is in for slow growth or even decline. I agree completely. The more I use G+, the more I like it. In contrast, I think Facebook is increasingly a place for backslapping and trash talking without the means to sustain meaningful conversations. In other words, I think the novelty of Facebook is wearing off. BTW, Pinterest and Tumblr also draw a lot of praise.
  • There’s a strong subtext of the need to make interactions more meaningful and personal and for brands to unleash their people to speak as themselves. Stop using social media as another kind of fire hose and start using it for listening, which is its most basic value.
  • There are some good quotes on context and sourcing. Basically, stop throwing content against the wall and start making it more meaningful. Geoff Livingston’s comments on creating trusted content are particularly good.
  • A couple of the interviewees call for more civility online, which is something I think we can all support. I like the way Shel Israel phrased it: “It seems to me that that people on social networks were adversely influenced by the…recent presidential campaign. They feel the best way to be right is to demean people who disagree with them.”
  • Lee Odden’s passage on hash tags is a riot: “#lets #just #stop #with #the #hashtagging #of #every #word #in #a #tweet #OK? #You #keyword #spammer #you.” Completely agree.

Here’s the embed, which links to the document on SlideShare.

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What Makes a Good B2B Online Video

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I spent some time with comic video whiz Tim Washer (also @timwasher) at B2B Forum last week, and he followed up with a few questions about how B2B companies are using online video as part of their content marketing programs. I shared some opinions with him, but why not share them with everybody else as well? I’d like to hear your answers to these questions, too.

What companies have succeeded/failed at using videos for B2B marketing?

There are numerous successes, and Tim’s list on SocialMediaB2B is a good starting point.

I would add Cisco to that list. Cisco has long done a good job of leveraging video in almost every kind of communications, from product announcements to contests to customer testimonials. Here’s one:

I like IBM’s customer videos a lot (example). Its Centennial video was outstanding, and it used video very effectively for the wholeWatson Jeopardy challenge. (Full disclosure: Both Cisco and IBM are past or current clients.)

Of course, you have to hand it to Corning for the most successful B2B viral video ever.

PTC’s “I Am a [Pro] Engineer” is a great example of how to use a theme.

The Ben Heck show on Element14 is perfect for its audience.

Google also does a great job. The Project Glass video is inspired. You might argue that this isn’t pure B2B, but it’s pretty damn good.

As far as failures, I don’t want to name names, and there are so many candidates that it wouldn’t be fair to do so. Here are some of the most common fails I see with business videos in general:

  • Long, monotonous monologues by talking heads. I believe three minutes is about the threshold for the audience’s attention span. If all you’re doing is reading a script, then video adds no value.
  • Scripted but poorly rehearsed stunts. Someone writes a parody song or a comedy skit and a group performs it without any attention to staging or even without any apparent rehearsal. The result looks amateurish, and I think that reflects badly on the company.
  • Poor quality lighting/sound/composition. You see this in a lot of do-it-yourself videos, particularly if they’re composed in a work environment. The content may be interesting, but the sound quality is poor or there are distracting images or noises in the background. It’s worth investing in a wireless mic and a couple of spotlights if you’re going to make video part of your public image.

What is the value of using a “non-messaging” approach to B2B videos, e.g. storytelling, entertainment, humor?  

As I frequently tell audiences, storytelling is the most basic form of human communication. We instinctively relate to the experiences of others, and that’s why framing your point in the context of a story is so effective. Ronald Reagan knew this. He drove his critics crazy because of his ability to shoot down a well-researched and  supported argument with a single anecdote.

The reason non-messaging is becoming critical is because people don’t have to listen to messages anymore. It’s become very difficult to interrupt people and deliver a message, particularly online. We have to attract them to come to us because our content is useful, interesting or entertaining. In a world in which people have developed ways to block nearly all messages, it’s the only way to get their attention. That’s why “content marketing” is now so hot.

Which metrics most accurately measure the success of videos?   

Look for engagement metrics: subscribers, likes/dislikes, favorites, comments, shares. I really like YouTube’s “relative audience retention” metric, which shows a video’s ability to retain viewers during playback by comparing it to all YouTube videos of similar length. The point isn’t to measure whether people start the video, but whether they complete it.

Do you see any new trends developing around online videos and B2B marketing? 

I think business videos are becoming much more professional. In the early days of YouTube a lot of companies posted videos simply because they could. The quality was spotty and most of them were too long. This is natural with any new technology. People triangulate until they get it right.

Now the technology to make good quality video has become affordable to nearly everyone. A lot of professional videographers have developed the skills they need for fast and high-quality online production and people are learning some basic best practices:

  • Have a story to tell and a script to work from.
  • Keep it brief.
  • Have good lighting and sound quality.
  • Rehearse and re-take until you get it right.
  • Keep the pace brisk. Even static images can look more interesting with panning, zooming and creative camera angles.
  • Use sound bites. Avoid monologues.
  • Identify people in the video.
  • Use attractive title and closing screens.
  • Edit aggressively to keep down the overall length and quicken the pace.
  • Use restraint with transitions and music. They should accent the content, not overwhelm it.