How IBM Uses Social Media as Glue for Connecting Events

Using social media as a glue to connect traditional marketing tactics such as events is the most effective use of social media in B2B services marketing today, according to ITSMA interviews with services marketers. Rather than treat social media as standalone channels or replacements for traditional tactics, marketers should look for ways to use social media to support and enhance the successful programs they already have in place.

Based on ITSMA’s research with B2B services marketers, we’re seeing companies successfully using social media to drive more attendance and interaction at events. Social media becomes the glue that binds events together, driving registration and discussion prior to events and enabling conference attendees to continue the dialogue between events.

Use Social Media to Drive Event Participation

For example, IBM’s Software Group used social media in 2009 to help drive participation in its live user conference, Impact, which is targeted at buyers of IBM’s WebSphere software for service-oriented architectures (SOAs). IBM promoted the live event through such channels as event-specific Facebook pages, LinkedIn groups, and Twitter feeds, leading to a 10% increase in registrations for the live event. But it also went beyond those simple uses to create a virtual companion event to the conference. For a company like IBM, with its global customer base, an online companion event meant that many more people could attend virtually than could afford to make the pilgrimage to the live event.

But the virtual conference did not simply piggyback on the live conference. It had its own share of exclusive sessions. For example, IBM made subject matter experts available to chat with online participants during pre-specified times and promoted these encounter sessions both on- and offline.

Avoid Creating Social Media Silos

All told, the combination of the live and virtual events generated more leads for IBM at a lower overall cost per generated lead than previous conferences.

Many marketers view social media tools such as blogs and social networking sites such as Twitter and LinkedIn as distinct channels, but IBM’s Software Group is determined to manage them as links in a larger strategy.

“For me, having a separate standalone social media campaign doesn’t work. It’s all about integration,” says Sandy Carter, vice president, IBM Software Group Business Partners.

To get the full scoop on IBM’s plan, read IBM Software Group: How to Integrate Social Media into the Marketing Strategy.

How Providers Can Help Customers with Their Business Cases

Ask B2B buyers how providers can help them develop their business cases for new services and solutions and the answer is usually clear and concise:

They can’t.

The problem is that buyers see a yawning chasm between what providers know about their solutions and what they know about their customers’ businesses. But providers know more than buyers may think. And providers have valuable input to give to buyers trying to make a business case for a solution.

As long as buyers will accept it.

There are different levels of participation that providers can have in the business case—everything from constructing the whole ball of wax for them to getting shut out of the process entirely.

Providers that contribute to business case development have an advantage over those that don’t. ITSMA research has shown how important it is for customers to be able to measure their solutions’ value. In fact, almost all customers are required to make a business case for and validate a solution’s value before they receive approval for buying it.

Business cases are sometimes developed during the epiphany stage of the buying process, long before buyers have formulated their RFPs. Helping buyers with business cases at this early stage could boost you onto the short list of contenders for the deal, or even give you preferred provider status.

Rejection Is Natural

Buyers’ natural reaction is to reject our help. Our real problem, though, is that we accept that rejection at face value. We should understand that at least some of that rejection has to do with buyers and not with us.

It’s part of human nature to think that we are unique and special. It helps us get through the day. We apply that same perception to our organizations. How many times have you heard customers say, “Yes, I know we have 12 competitors that do roughly the same thing as us, but we’re unique.”

It’s also human nature, given our tribal backgrounds, to mistrust outsiders. Acknowledging that providers may already know more about their businesses than buyers think causes the same kind of discomfort as when a complete stranger approaches us already knowing our name. Customers are highly skeptical of providers’ claims, and they don’t necessarily want to collaborate with solutions providers to measure or document value delivered.

So how can we break into the business case development process? Here are some ideas to consider:

• Realize that not all business cases are alike. Although ITSMA research has shown that the vast majority of buyers are required to provide some kind of formal justification for purchasing a solution, sometimes those decisions are made based on the solution’s features and functions rather than on hard ROI numbers. Providers can offer evidence of the benefits of those features and functions with detailed case studies of customers in similar situations.Furthermore, companies frequently implement solutions to comply with regulatory changes, such as Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX); increase the company’s level of security; or support the company’s strategic direction. In these cases, ROI is often irrelevant. ’The features and functions are what allow a company to comply with SOX, increase security, or achieve sustainable competitive advantages that are important. In this case, providers can offer thought leadership on regulatory compliance to support the case.
• Build evidence for soft benefits. Many customers in our research look at soft metrics when building a business case and measuring a solution’s benefits, things like customer and employee satisfaction, brand equity, internal collaboration, communication, and service quality. Soft benefits cross all industry and company boundaries. Providers that can demonstrate how their solutions have improved these soft metrics with customers will have a more receptive audience among customers looking for the same improvements in their own businesses.
• Provide ideas for ways to save money. By focusing less on what solutions do and more on how they save money, we can help customers make their business cases. For example, a solution can reengineer a business process to reduce needed headcount or increase efficiency, leading to substantial savings. Providers should point out all the ways that customers have saved money using their solutions. Buyers may see opportunities for savings that they themselves hadn’t envisioned, thereby strengthening their cases.
• Establish best practices and benchmarks for processes. Business process improvement is at the core of many B2B projects. Showing objective evidence that there is a better way to do a current process helps prove the business case for a project. Providers can try to do it themselves or they can contribute to efforts by third-party business process standards organizations to benchmark and define best practices.
• Help measure post-implementation business improvements. Validating the business case via a post-implementation audit is not a priority for many customers. Such audits are costly and time-consuming. But by stressing that post-implementation measurement is a path to continuous improvement and that the solution can help by making it easier to measure the value, providers can help buyers build their business cases. For example, if a customer’s reason for buying a solution is to improve customer satisfaction or increase productivity, the solution needs to make it easy for that customer to measure improvements in these areas.

Providers that follow these five guidelines will lay the groundwork for strong, trusted, and reciprocal relationships in which customers are better able to build their business cases and are more likely to share the information providers need post-implementation to win more business.

What other ways can we help customers with business cases?

How to Develop a Social Media Voice

One of the great things about social media tools is that they are dead simple. You need a second hand on your watch to track how long it takes to set up a Twitter account, for example.

But developing a social media voice is a more complicated proposition.

A good starting point is to create a social media policy for the organization. But these policies are more like guardrails than signposts. Writing style guides can also help, but who has time to plow through them? Employees and subject matter experts need active support from marketers to develop their social media voices. In ITSMA’s social media survey, 68% said that marketing is the catalyst for social media. It’s worth our time to develop a brief guide to social media voice for employees that takes into account the unique attributes of your target audience.

Here are six important qualities to have in a social media voice:

• Authentic. Social media ups the ante for saying what you mean and meaning what you say at the time you’re saying it. In social media, buyers can connect synchronously with you and their peers, they can react instantly, and they can do so through easily accessible tools like Twitter. Obfuscation used to be a way to buy time in an era when buyers had to write letters to the company president to get their complaints heard (and they had few ways to determine whether others were having the same problems). In social media, obfuscation only brings a swift, often large-scale, backlash.
• Relevant. In social media, it isn’t just what you say, it’s the company you keep. Creating a responsive social media network means focusing on a subject that you know well and sticking to it so that people know what to expect from you. Remember that it’s as easy to disconnect from people in social media as it is to connect with them. Lack of relevance is a ticket to deletionville.
• (More) Informal. Social media are designed to elicit conversation, yet most of that conversation happens in written form. That means we need a new standard for ourselves. We should make our writing sound more like the way we speak (when we’re at work). One way to judge whether you’re being too stiff or overly casual is to read your writing aloud before posting it. If it sounds too stuffy, is overly long, or is overwrought, simplify it. On the other hand, if it sounds like you aren’t old enough to have a driver’s license, put more thought into it.
• Grammatical. Sure, social media are more informal by default, but informal doesn’t mean you should sound unprofessional. Indeed, the more personal nature of the communications makes good skills even more important because all the misdeeds can be easily tracked back to their source. It’s OK to split an infinitive now and then, but the really obvious stuff—misspellings, misunderstood words, bad punctuation, and internet shorthand (unless you are really short on space)—reflects poorly on the reputations of the communicators and their companies.
• Responsive. Just when we think no one is listening to what we’re saying in social media, we’re likely to receive a message, often from someone we’ve never conversed with before. If we ignore these messages, we lose opportunities to have interesting conversations that could contribute to our social media success. Blog comments, for example, should all receive a response from the blogger, even if it’s just one message thanking everyone for their time and good thoughts.
• Generous. Sharing is the currency of social media. By pointing to content from others that you think is interesting, you build your social network and help other social media participants build theirs. For example, Twitter updates that come with a link to something deeper to read (such as news, opinion, tips, research, and thought leadership) are more likely to be passed on, or retweeted, to others. Rarely do those links lead to paid content. Those who make their content freely available will have many more readers than those who don’t. Besides, it makes us feel good. Acts of generosity, it turns out, light up the same primitive, feel-good area of the brain that sex and food do.

Want to see some other qualities or add your own? Read 13 Qualities of a Social Media Voice.

ITSMA Research Results: Who Is Investing in the Lead Management Process?

Throughout the year, you’ve heard ITSMA say that 2010 is the year of marketing transformation. One important aspect of that transformation is determining the most effective marketing mix.

To create the most effective mix, you must first discover which tactics best serve the goal of accelerating the buying process. However, most marketers hand leads off to sales and have no way of knowing what happens from that point.

The main obstacles to visibility are lack of systems and disparate data. Tracking leads and marketing activities in spreadsheets just won’t cut it anymore. Companies need a closed-loop system for demand generation and lead management.

Unfortunately, very few have formal lead management programs. In fact, in ITSMA’s Budget and Trends Study, this was a priority for just one of the companies surveyed. Nevertheless, for 43% of respondents, spending on marketing automation software, tools, and processes is expected to increase in 2010.

Companies that have these systems in place are experiencing many benefits:

• Ongoing personalization of marketing materials
• Closed-loop feedback with sales
• Lead tracking
• Performance metrics

And perhaps most important, these companies are gaining the ability to demonstrate the impact of marketing on the sales pipeline and on closing deals.

To hear more about the Year of Marketing Transformation, join us at our 17th Annual Marketing Conference on November 2 and 3 in Cambridge, MA.

Ask ITSMA: What Benefits Should We Offer in Software Support Contracts?

By Dave Munn, ITSMA

Each month, ITSMA receives a number of queries through Ask ITSMA, a resource designed to give members a quick and easy way to get insight on important services and solutions marketing questions they face. In this column, we will publish some of our favorite questions, along with excerpts from our replies.

Q: Do you have any guidance or input on what you are seeing for best practices or trends on features/benefits of software support contracts?

A: In the research we have done for our members, we have found that the top drivers of value for software support are:

1. System upgrades and updates, including compliance updates
2. Bug fixes
3. Phone support
4. Online knowledge base

There are other benefits, of course, but buyers consider them secondary.

There are different approaches to packaging the support offerings. Some companies allow anyone to search their knowledge bases. Others allow only support customers to access the knowledge base.

Many companies take a tiered approach. At the highest tier, they offer an all-inclusive premium package. At the lower end, they sell a self-service support offering that allows access to the knowledge base and little else (besides updates and bug fixes). We have seen this work well in many cases. Customers like having the tiered option, and our research has found that they are generally more satisfied with the product they purchased than if they were forced to buy the one and only version of the support package.

	Do you have a sales or marketing question? Visit Ask ITSMA to access our experience, insight, and research results.

Services Marketing News

Interviews with social media leaders at SAP and IBM, the CMO at Siemens, and why you’re spending too much money marketing to new customers.

• Interview with SAP’s social media director
• Excellent analyst reports on social media community software
• Is the rebound in services softer than we thought?
• Cisco wins social media award for simulation game PlanNet
• How IBM Uses B2B Social Media
• Interview with Siemens’ CMO
• SAP working on augmented reality for business
• What matters in the cloud? Data. EMC buys cloud data company Greenplum
• Why you’re spending too much on marketing to new customers
• When NOT to Pursue a Case Study

For up-to-the-minute services marketing news, follow ITSMA on Twitter: @itsma_b2b.

Upcoming ITSMA Events

Creating and Using Effective Thought Leadership

Roundtable
September 14, 2010
12:00 – 3:00 pm London time
Marble Arch, London

Technology and professional services companies agree that thought leadership is becoming more important to their marketing strategy, yet many organizations struggle with developing consistently good thought leadership. At this roundtable, ITSMA executives and Fiona Czerniawska, one of the world’s leading commentators on the consulting industry, will discuss the amount and quality of technology related thought leadership; examples of good—and bad—thought leadership; and why some companies produce good content on a regular basis while others produce inconsistent or mediocre materials.

The Next Generation of Sales Enablement

Basking Ridge, NJ
September 14, 2010

Newton, MA
September 16, 2010

Santa Clara, CA
September 21, 2010

(All three events are free for ITSMA members)

Join executives from ITSMA and SAVO Group, the leading provider of sales enablement solutions, and learn why so many technology and professional services companies are investing in sales enablement. The interactive discussion will cover the five areas that marketing can focus on to improve performance in sales enablement, proven techniques for driving productivity, and ideas for building a winning sales enablement strategy. You will gain insight into the innovative techniques that continue to transform many of today’s leading companies, including VMware,IBM,First Data,Experian, and Akamai.

The Year of Marketing Transformation: Doing Things Differently

November 2-3, 2010
The Charles Hotel, Cambridge, MA

The Annual Marketing Conference is ITSMA’s pinnacle event, showcasing the best of the best in marketing and in the industry. This year’s conference theme is The Year of Marketing Transformation: Doing Things Differently , and the plenary sessions will focus on what we as marketers need to start doing to be seen as true business leaders. Top marketing executives and industry thought leaders from Cisco, Cognizant, HubSpot, IBM, The Farland Group, PAC, SAVO, Wellesley Hills Group, and Xerox; ITSMA’s Julie Schwartz; and others will offer their perspectives. Recipients of the ITSMA Marketing Excellence Awards will share their winning practices. Attendees can also sign up for one-on-one meetings with an ITSMA expert or associate during the conference. Get more information and register: http://www.itsma.com/events/2010-conference/ .

To view all events, please go here.

Recent ITSMA Thought Leadership

How to Create a Services Development Process
Given the poor odds of success with new product and services introductions, it is important to find ways to minimize the risks of new services development. Here’s how to develop a services development process that will increase your chances of success.
Read How to Create a Services Development Process

Marketing Organization Model, Structure, and Competencies of the Future
In this online briefing, David Edelman of McKinsey & Co. considers the impact of digital marketing on the needs of the wider marketing organization ; Peter O’Neill of Forrester discusses the balance between global and local marketing; and John Lenzen of Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) explains some changes that are underway within his own organization.
View Marketing Organization Model, Structure, and Competencies of the Future

Why Marketing Must Be the Catalyst for Social Media
In ITSMA’s recent social media survey, we found that in most organizations, marketing is the catalyst for social media being used by others in the company. In this online briefing, ITSMA’s Chris Koch and Katie Espinola will examine marketing’s role as the catalyst and offer case studies from top B2B technology companies.
View Why Marketing Must Be the Catalyst for Social Media

Globalizing Marketing: How to Sync Headquarters and Field Marketing
Globalization is making it more important to maintain an effective localized touch with field marketing. Marketers must differentiate between the marketing processes and content that can and should be centralized, and what must remain under local management. In this Viewpoint, Peter O’Neill, VP and Principal Analyst, Forrester, explains how marketers can localize while they globalize.
View How to Sync Headquarters and Field Marketing

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