The Funnelholic

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Can the B2B lead generation world accept whitepapers without reg forms?

Two pieces are talking about/with this company Docmetrics known better as the smart reg form:

1. Writing whitepapers blog article on smart pdfs
2. Podcast with Paul Dunay interviewing Vitrium Sytems CEO creator of docmeterics tool

The idea here is that these guys have created registration forms that are embedded in the PDF. Now, you don’t have to force prospects to fill out a reg form in order to access the whitepaper. Instead you can give the whitepaper and collect registration data as the reader begins to access the document. Docmetrics will tell you when the document is actually opened, how many pages were read, and how much time was spent on each page.

So now what?

First let me say, I love the massive innovations taking place today in the marketing world. This is an interesting idea that would seem to have tremendous benefits to marketers and, as such, I will watch closely.

Right now, the buyers potential frustration worries a bit:
1. Is this going to be a bad buyer experience? I mean, I personally will be really bummed having to fill out forms all the way along my reading experience, I wonder what buyers will say?
2. Whether it is eco-friendly or not…most people print the whitepaper and read it in the spare time including the toilet.

From the vendor point of view:
1. This concept is worth the test, primarily for sophisticated marketers who are doing dynamic lead scoring (ie scoring leads not merely when they enter your system but continually scoring after the lead has entered you system and has “interactions” with your various sales and marketing actions). Conceivably the disposition data you receive from docmetrics can be fed back into your marketing automation that will trigger the following:
a. A change to the dynamic score of the prospect.
b. An action like an email or a call

2. The concept that these leads are more sales-ready will lead to disappointment. This tool should be used to help a Lead Development/Inside Sales rep whose job it is to qualify leads before they go to bag-carrying reps. In other words, the “I don’t remember downloading it” or “I haven’t read it” issue may go away but another objection will arise. Lead Development reps overcome those types of objections, sales reps use them against the marketing folks. So YES this is a great tool, but NO this doesn’t open the flood gates to send white papers to sales reps.

3. On the other hand, what about using this as a post-contact tool for sales reps? That is, passing a docmetrics whitepaper for followup…Half the battle on the sales side is the connect and as part of the connect, figuring out where to spend your best time. If we know a guy read what you sent and when, that has real strategic value to both lead development and sales.

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The irony here is I was about to post about how the Social Media revolution was over-hyped.  I had just gone out to lunch with an SMB b2b analyst and we talked about how no SMB buyers were on Second Life or LinkedIn. As a matter of fact, they weren’t not online that much at all. I had this big negative post all ready.

Then, something happened.

Our US Women’s Olympic water polo team has an exhibition match on July 10th against their arch-rival Australia before they head to the Olympics in Beijing.  The game is being played at Stanford which has a large pool venue. In the past (the Stone Ages…pre-facebook’s advance), we would do word-of-mouth…some email, etc.   The goal is to: 1.  Get people to the event 2.  Get people excited about the event so that they come ready to cheer.  In b2b lead generation terminology: both lead gen as well as education and branding.  Water polo is very tough as very rarely do people NOT involved in the sport go to its events so the key is to hit a very narrow target market: people involved in the sport, families with kids wanting to expose their kids to the Olympic movement, and people who used to play.  All of this on a meager budget.  Here is what we did:

Facebook:
There was a late decision to throw up a facebook page supporting the event: [here].  And POW, the page took off.  Kids started RSVP’ing, commenting, and inviting their friends.  Then something really cool happened: the national team players started RSVP’ing and commenting. All of this killer publicity: FOR FREE.  Everyone involved (all aged over 30 minimum) learned the power of Facebook over the last week as we watched the page take off. Facebook may have deals with the NBA and other big organizations but it’s a niche organization like ours hitting our target audience and becoming believers.

We also did some “comment spam” against a number of the water polo groups on Facebook.  Comment spam is the “art” of posting comments with leading links back to your page.  The term spam is inappropriate here  because it is a welcome notice as water polo events are typically few and far between.

We posted a video which we hope to have kids and others forward along.  See Below

YouTube
We still believe we could’ve done YouTube better but something was better than nothing.  We might get a small attendance spike from this, but as importantly we believed this would add enthusiasm for the event.  Watch the video here.  We don’t just email everyone and put fliers up at Jamba Juice, we put up a Facebook page and dropped a video on YouTube.  The local coaches are telling their kids to watch it and forward it to their friends.  We are posting out on Facebook and sending it to bloggers. See below.

Blog Outreach
We hit up the blogosphere. (if you are working online social media channels, you know the deal here) and got our site posted on theirs.  For example read this.

Net, the event hasn’t happened but we have already seen a large number of Facebook RSVPs from outside our core base of people and 10X the number of pre-ordered tickets.  In the next Olympic cycle, we will have online ticket purchasing so we can watch the effectiveness in real time.  The greatest part of this experiment is how we could reach a wider net of our extremely targeted audience fast and inexpensively.  I’ll have to save my negative social media article for later  (or never)…

Tags: Facebook, Olympics, Water polo

Believe it or not, some INTERESTING stats on white papers.

I found this great blog that I read ALL the time, Michael Stelzner’s Writing White Papers. As you can imagine, the premise of the blog is about the art of creating and marketing whitepapers which he calls the Educational Marketing Revolution. He is really smart and writes some great stuff. People ask me what I recommend all the time, and I for one still recommend whitepaper syndication. (By the way as part of a marketing mix along with webinars, etc).

One thing about whitepaper marketing is that it is actual a bit ‘old school”, its been around for awhile and whitepapers certainly continue to face new lead generation types such as webinar, video, etc.  Nonetheless, marketing spend continues to support whitepapers.  Stelzner’s blog excerpted a quote from Don Hawk of TechTarget:  “The number of orders for white paper-related programs increased by over 60% in Q1 ‘08 versus the first quarter of last year. “

Does this surprise you?  When I was in lead development and inside sales management, I HATED Bitpipe and Knowledgestorm whitepapers leads.  Those were the old days.  If you or your sales people are still complaining about whitepaper leads, it is likely because you are processing them wrong and/or under the wrong expectations for these types of leads.  What you need to know is that the best technology companies in the world ALL spend millions annually on whitepapers for lead generation and awareness, and that nurture marketing programs and lead qualification processes have given these companies the confidence to invest in whitepaper programs heavily.  If your sales guys complain about whitepaper leads it is because you are actually sending them straight to them instead of nurturing them -  and that my friends, is the bottom line.

I grabbed some cool statistics off his site about whitepapers:

A study by KnowledgeStorm and MarketingSherpa found that users and marketing folks rank whitepapers as content they would register for. In fact, 79% of users said they will register for a white paper.  That’s number #1 in the marketing mix according to the study.

Here is the breakdown. Nearly 2400 readers ranked their willingness to register for items as follows:

• White paper (79%)
• Case study (62%)
• Analyst report (56%)
• Product literature(45%)
• Demo (38%)

Interesting but not surprising, 72% of users said they were lured by a detailed pre-reg summary of the paper.  Only 25% of the marketing professionals agreed. (Hello disconnect.  By the way, Mr. Marketer, that statistic better be equal next survey or that proves that whatever one thinks about you, you live in La-la land)

What does this mean?  Whitepapers still work as a form of lead generation.  So when you say a “program didn’t work for us”, I hope it is measured after having gone through the proper lead qualification/nurture processes.

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Since this is my blog, I feel like I can divert from B2B sales and marketing for a moment to talk about two profound lessons from my old boss Stu Silverman that made me better and guide my management philosophies today. First thing is: I always talk about Stu.  When you have a real mentor,  that is what happens.  I regard him so highly because I not only enjoyed working for him: I left his organization a better leader, businessperson, and a better guy.

Anyway, I love sharing the things he used to always tell me which I took with me that guide how I run my life and my business and what I expect from my team.  One is what I call the “Henry Kissinger/is that your best work?” story.  First let me give you the context.  Stu worked in DC not for Henry Kissinger but near Henry Kissinger.  It felt like myth to me until I asked my best buddy who is a major hitter on the Beltway.  I said, ”You know my boss always tells this Henry Kissinger story.”  He said: “You mean the ‘is this your best work’ one?”  Bingo…it was real.  Then this little web application called Google came along and I found out that this is Washington DC legend not myth, not folklore but legend.  The simple story has guided tens of thousands more people than me.

If you look on the web for this story, people substitute “who” it was dealing with Kissinger (chief of staff, etc).  Also, the time in between “is this your best work” varies.  The story is set during Kissinger’s run as Secretary of State. This is how the story was told to me:

• One of Kissinger’s young associates was asked to write a report on XXX.  He worked furiously to get it done.  He walks into Kissinger’s office to deliver the report.  Kissinger asks very simply:  “Is this your best work?”  The associate says “yes,” Kissinger says again, “Is this your best work?”.  The associate knows it’s not his best, just good enough and grabs it, announces “I can do better” and goes back to work on it.
• After two all nighters, he brings rev 2 to Kissinger, who asks “Is this your best work?”  The associate realizing it is still not his best work,  grabs it back and goes back to work.
• Finally, the associate walks into Kissinger’s office, hands him the report, and says: “Mr. Kissinger, here is my best work.”  Kissinger replies: “Great, now I will read your report.”

The job of The Funnelholic  is not to go Tony Robbins on people and is certainly not to preach.  But the role of The Funnelholic  blog is to share what is in my head every once in awhile…and add some value and have some fun every once in awhile.  All I have to say about this is that “good enough” is not “good enough” and never will be.  And when I am on the verge of getting in front of a client or presenting to my boss, I always ask myself “Is this my best work?”

Tags: Google, Henry Kissinger, Kissinger