The Awkward Prom Date of B2B Social Media

It’s so not fair. Everywhere you look, all these B2C retail brands are getting engaged. (With their consumers. In social media spaces.) And most B2Bs are still poking their toes in the dirt trying to figure out how to get people to “like” them.

Look, B2B. It’s not that they don’t like us, their banks, utility companies, paper manufacturers, chemical fertilizers… They just don’t, you know, think of us in that way.

To a laid-back B2B brand that’s built its marketing program on ads and trade shows, clamoring for consumers’ attention in social media can feel like a shouting match or a good way to get elbowed in the eyeball. After enough rejections, false starts, and failed strategies, you might start asking yourself if you even belong in social media.

The answer is YES. But not in the same way as Doritos or Kleenex.

Consumers expect you to be social. Social media is nothing more than a means to being social. It’s not a gimmick, it’s a communication tactic that supports traditional media. It’s a way of interacting with consumers. Brands that do it well not only successfully engage consumers but also build brand equity.

Yes, it’s a popularity contest. But the only losers are those who don’t participate. Two things:

It’s okay to be used.

Consumers may follow a B2C brand because they identify with it. You’re likely not slick, or sexy, or pretty, or macho. So, think about the squat, weird-looking kid you always see in a group of friends. Why do they keep him around? Maybe he has a great personality. Maybe he always has a pack of gum to share or is willing to cover the cost of a movie. The point is, if you offer value (real value – special offers, contests, deals, or the kind of information they couldn’t have gotten anywhere else) consumers will follow you, keep following, and pay attention when you have something to say.       
                     

Don’t be a poser.

So you’re not one of the “cool” brands. So scores of people aren’t likely to shoot viral videos of themselves holding your product (or service). The sooner you let go of the need to be that, the better. Here’s what you do have: a unique voice. You know what that voice is, it’s what makes your company a success.

Don’t change who you are just because you’re using a different communication vehicle. Think of social as an opportunity to express your company’s core message and beliefs, but from a new angle.

Now, loosen your tie a bit and shake hands with @JoeConsumer. As you sit down together, think about it: What is he expecting to hear from you?

Close the WIIFM gaps in your marketing message

What do you stand to gain (or lose) when deciding on a messaging strategy? The difference between casting a wide net with a catchy, catch-all, safely generic slogan and closing in with a tightly targeted benefit statement is simply a numbers game.

Whether consumers realize it or not, every ad is subconsciously measured against their internal WIIFM(“what’s in it for me?”)-o-meter. Ads that fail to immediately and compellingly answer WIIFM will fade right into the buzzing advertising backdrop that consumers have trained themselves so well to ignore. In fact, a study last year showed as many as 66%of people don’t even see online advertising when it’s prominently placed – and as few as 25%of viewers will even notice ads “below the fold.” It’s just visual noise.

So if someone does happen to glance up out of that stupor for one instant to take in a message that already has a 66% chance of never being read? It had better be 100% WIIFM.

A successfully targeted message requires an understanding of three things:

1. Your audience
2. Your product or service
3. What your audience wants from your product/service

The reason I call it a numbers game is the first item on this list, the audience. There seems to be a popular school of thought that in order to widen your net and draw in more prospects, all you have to do is add more demographics to your campaign – right? Just be a bit less specific about how the product does what it does and for whom, and it’s sure to resonate with someone.

We call this approach throwing a bunch of stuff* against a wall and hoping some of it sticks.

(*except we don’t say stuff)

With the amount of capturable and usable demographic, and even psychographic, data available on today’s consumers there’s absolutely no excuse for not intimately knowing who the users of your own products are.

From their likes and dislikes, to communication preferences, to their level of education, to whether or not they like cats – think of these as clues in a treasure hunt, or a paint-by-number portrait that fills in the composite personality of “Jill Consumer,” a hyperreal persona on the receiving end of your highly targeted message.

The payoff is a tighter net, extended to fewer prospects, but woven in such a way as to convert a larger percentage of those prospects to truly loyal, lifetime buyers.

Will Work for Praise

There have been days when I’ve really, actually, seriously considered making this into a sign and hanging it outside my cube wall.

One, because I think I’m funny.

And two, because I think it’s also a universal among Creative Services types. Raise your hand if you haven’t gotten all giggly inside just because someone gushed about the amazing work you did on that one thing. Anyone?

I’m also guilty of this ridiculous activity: If a client replies back about how much they really loved something I wrote, I have to go and open the document and re-read it with a big stupid grin on my face. And while I’m reading my own writing back to myself, I’m puffing up like a big stupid peacock and thinking, “Oh wow. Oh my god. I am so genius.”

I really hope I’m not the only one this desperate for validation.

If people think creatives are a little off from the rest of the business population, it’s because our job requires the constant generation of new ideas. When you're in the idea business, you're in the business of taking risks. You have to invest enough of yourself in an idea to bring it from idea-germination stage to idea-executable stage. You gamble that the idea you think is smart, clever, beautiful, or on target is going to be seen that way by other people too -- and 90% of your ideas get rejected. Because... "meh, I dunno."

Can you just imagine that happening in any other line of work? Spending your entire day on a project that you’re really proud of, and then showing it to a coworker who simply shrugs and says, “Not what I was thinking. Try something else.”

What is wrong with us that makes us keep trying?

When my husband was a kid, one of his best friends owned the dumbest dog in the world. This dog was so blissfully dumb, that every day was like waking up to a whole new life. All of yesterday’s lessons, mistakes, and painful encounters would be wiped clean from his slate every morning as he burst forth into a new, freshly optimistic state of consciousness.

And just about every morning, I find myself completely jazzed up as I start sifting through my inbox, thinking, “I’m going to make something amazing today!”

Am I just that dumb?

Concept after concept, idea after idea, approach after approach, rejection after freaking rejection – even for the worst clients from hell… why do we keep coming back with more?

Because when somebody finally loves something of mine, I get to spend five minutes hugging myself and reveling in what a goddamn genius I am.

Creative strategy: What is it, and how to play nice with marketing so you can do more of it

I don’t know why this is true, but if you put ten copywriters in a room with ten marketing managers, half will be wordsmithing copy and the other half will be timelining the product launch -- and it’s never the half you’d expect. There’s a strange bleedover that happens between marketing and advertising, or maybe it’s an irresistible siren call from one side to the other, that makes experts in one field decide they’d rather do the other expert’s job.

Because we all tend to play in the same sandbox, it’s worth the minor effort it takes to draw out a few lines differentiating where marketing strategy ends and creative strategy picks up.

Marketing: The “who, what, why”

First of all: caveat. I’m not a marketer. I don’t even pretend to be. All I know is that my favorite clients are the ones who not only have the great plans, they’ve also taken the time to think them through. That doesn’t mean you’ve come up with a snazzy tagline and color scheme for the banner ad. It means you’ve thought about who your audience is, what kinds of things matter to them, and why your product or service fills a need for these folks. That kind of information is like gold.

Before I can start writing any sort of promotional copy, there are some fundamental questions I need my friends in marketing to answer:

• Who are we talking to? (audience/demographic information)
• What is the most important messaging point to convey to the audience?
• Why will the audience care?
• What is the call to action -- and what will compel them to act?

 Creative: The “how”

Those questions are like loaded ammunition for the next step in the process, developing the creative strategy. If marketing is essentially asking, “What do we want to say to these people?” then creative should be asking, “How should we say it?”

The “how” is only one question but it’s like a mother duck that always has a trail of loudly squawking babies following along behind. These follow-ups are what help shape the content. How asks:

• In what tone of voice? Humorous or strictly professional? Peer-to-peer? Conversational?
• How aggressive is the sales pitch?
• What is the format of the message? Online or print or multimedia? Is it part of a campaign?
• What should the message look/sound/feel like?
• How do you want people to react emotionally to the message?

If these questions look familiar, it’s because you've seen them before in a creative brief. Those things matter.

There’s no way to develop a good creative strategy without marketing input, and a marketing strategy that tries to be all-inclusive of marketing and creative will never be as powerful as it could have been. That’s why it’s absolutely essential to have a climate of collaboration and mutual respect between the marketing and creative teams, so that experts from both sides can bring insights and ideas to the table, as opposed to throwing information and concepts over the wall.

The more you throw over, the higher the wall seems to get. Am I right? It’s weird how that works.

Challenge the way you think right now

I love a new idea. I love to take something that has always been done one way and find a completely new way to approach it. There’s always, always a way to do it better. Don’t get too comfortable, because I’m likely to start rearranging the furniture or something just to keep it fresh.

That’s why I love the fact that this blog post completely threw me for a loop me. Now granted, I don’t claim to know the first thing about sales. I don’t know when this post was written or what the context was. I don’t even know what I was looking for when I found it. But instead of leading with the benefit, which is pretty much the set-in-gospel way to hook a prospect, he advocates this:

“Most people who have a need for your products or services already know that they have the need. Those prospects want a clear, very brief description of what you are selling, and they want to know a couple of important features. If they can perceive the benefit of at least one of those features, you will usually get a positive response.”

Mind=blown. Of course people today know when they’re being fed a line. This explains my overwhelming irritation with companies that shroud their actual products in mystery while gushing about what they can DO for me. Creepy, right?! It’s a little like being on a blind date and never actually seeing the guy before he’s promising you 2.5 precocious children and a cozy, ranch-style house on lakefront property.

If the benefit is the 3/4-inch hole your drill bit makes, if it's the ultimate thing your customer is buying when he buys your product... then what role should features play in your messaging strategy?

Features create points of differentiation. They paint a picture that allows you to create emotion. They generate want. And you know what that means: emotion + want = compelling reason to buy.

What I’m seeing is that today’s consumers are sophisticated enough to recognize marketing for the powerful tool that it is, making it a mistake to rely on stale tricks, gimmicks, and even “best practices” in place of honest, true communication that shows a product or service in its best possible light.