Anyone that knows me, knows that I’m a gamer. You can read all about it on my other blog. Sometimes I spend some time looking through videos on YouTube of games that I’m interested in buying so that I can see if they’re worth the purchase or not. Why then are video game companies forcing YouTubers to take down videos of playthroughs and such? Don’t they understand that this is how gamers find their products? I just saw a video by a well known YouTube commentator that pretty much sums up my feelings as well. He uses some vulgar language so it may not be safe for work, but here’s a link to the video anyway.

This is what happens when you let accountants and financial folks take control of your business. They do a great job of organizing, and re-investing your money. But why are marketers letting them do their job for them? As a marketer, it’s your decision as to how your products and / or services get promoted. I’m of the philosophy that you should use any and all tools in the box to get your message across.

In this day in age where consumers (especially gamers) are spending less time watching / listening / paying attention to commercials, why would you want to take your products out of a media that they are paying attention to? It makes no sense to me. I was just talking to a friend yesterday about how video game marketers usually do a horrible job (someone please hire me, I won’t let you down), and today I see yet another example of that.

If you are a decision maker at your company, please do not limit your marketing opportunities, or alienate your customers by trying to stop them from using current technology to promote your products or services. Use these guys to your benefit, and profit by them. 

What do you guys think? Agree, disagree? Are there any other examples out there that you can think of where companies have done this? Let me know in the comments below. 

Check out any marketing blog today and you’ll see pages of posts about social media and relationship marketing. While social media is a very important and effective tactic, I think we all need to step back and realize that it will take more than one tactic to win in this game called marketing. While you may say that traditional marketing is not as effective as it has been in the past, I would argue that these tactics are the foundation of a solid marketing plan. Perhaps they need to be applied in a different way to be effective in this new era of marketing, but whatever. Anyway, I’m beginning a new series: Traditional Weapons of Marketing, starting with my favorite subject marketing research.

Marketing research is my favorite of the traditional tactics, but that’s not the only reason why I’m discussing it first. Your marketing plan begins with solid research. Let me be very clear, all of your marketing decisions should be based on facts (I didn’t understand this when I first started my career, but it is in fact true). Research is where you get those facts. You can either collect and analyze the data yourself, or you can take it from a 3rd party’s already established results. This breakdown looks like this:

- Primary Research: If you need to know something specific, sometimes the best way to find out is to conduct your own research. There are alot of elements to gathering quality data, such as your collection methodology, survey design, incentives, analysis methods, and so on, but I’ll leave that for the research pros to discuss… or maybe for a future discussion.

- Secondary Research: Why go through the expense and effort of conducting your own research when the hard work may have already been done by someone else. There are tons of research findings, reports, and statistics out there for you to find. Sometimes it seems like these findings have nothing to do with you or your business, but you still may be able to apply them somewhere. The new US Census data for example is invaluable to marketers in that it describes what the standard US household looks like in each geographic region. Pretty handy if you’re looking to open a new market, or simply gain a better understanding of your current market.

All research is either quantitative or qualitative. Meaning that it can either be expressed in numbers or in a more abstract way. I’ve seen many companies only focus on quantitative research, or statistics. This is a mistake and is the reason why focus groups exist. Talk to your prospects and customers and try and understand their mindset. You may have a great product, but it may not be practical for the common user. Your inexpensive food may taste excellent, but perhaps your customers want a healthier choice. You need to know the right questions to ask so that you can get the information you need to make a good decision.  

Just one type of research isn’t going to cut it. So you put together an excellent survey, and collected data from a very good sample. You’re still only looking at the results of one study. You should also look for existing data (like the census), conduct focus groups (have a discussion with your prospects and customers), and in general find ways to conduct research in your everyday business (go to a fast food restaurant and look at your receipt… you see that phone number to take a survey?). Research is not something that you do and then forget about, it should be conducted year round so that you can be sure that you are making sound business decisions.

So how can I use social media to conduct research? In this era, people are more connected than ever before, not just to each other, but to your business as well. Use this connection to open discussions with your customers. Ask some questions, and you may find some eye opening points that you never realized before. There are more obvious ways to use social media to your benefit (emailing surveys to people and so on), but you should look at the non-obvious and most importantly the non-intrusive ways to getting your information.

Anyways, enough of that. You get the idea. To paraphrase one of my favorite lines from The Godfather, a marketing plan that doesn’t include research is not really a marketing plan. (the original line is “A man who doesn’t spend time with his family can never be a real man.” and is my favorite line of that great film).

I was going over some data at the marketing charts website and was kind of surprised to see a report stating that business to business companies don’t have much of a social media presence. I read the report, and it got me thinking. What could these companies accomplish with social media, and how should they use it to their advantage? It seems we (as marketers) focus alot on business to consumer social media marketing, especially when it comes to Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube, and maybe that’s the major problem. So I’d like to discuss some ways that business to business companies can use social media to their advantage. Let’s start by discussing…

Top barriers to social media for business to business companies

According to the report, there are 4 main reasons why b2b companies don’t focus as much on online marketing. Here we go…

1. Insufficient personnel to maintain - It’s not surprising that this is number 1. So many companies have downsized, and they are continuing to do so (HP just let go of a ton of people the other day). However, why do you need to hire more people to do this? Here’s what I think. I would solicit blog entries from employees and offer some sort of reward for entries that are picked. Wow, pretty simple. Every one of your employees should have a presence on LinkedIn. If not for the company, then for their own good. Encourage them to post and answer questions. Now you have a social media presence and you didn’t even have to hire anyone.
2. Lack of organizational knowledge - I’m not sure what they mean by “organizational” knowledge, but I think that if you don’t know something you need to go and figure it out. There are a ton of online resources to find out more about online marketing. There are tons of books out there. If you don’t have time to research them yourself, then pick a different career. To think, these guys call themselves marketers. You should always make time to educate yourself.
3. Preference for traditional marketing - Let me say something here (like you have a choice). I prefer traditional marketing. And yet, I still engage in online and social media marketing. Why? Because I see the advantages, and also because a marketer needs to use any and all weapons at his or her disposal. If you aren’t using social media, you’re leaving a big weapon in the armory collecting dust. There’s no reason for that.
4. Perceived irrelevance to their field - Bottom line: you have to go where your customers go. This is 2010, take a deep breath and say it with me now, twenty-ten, soon to be eleven. People go online to find information. When you go fishing, you probably go to the lake where there are tons of fish. Why is marketing any different. Sure you’re dealing with a company, but that company is made up of individuals. And individuals like to go online to educate themselves. If you have a presence online and provide relevant information, then those individuals will find you. That’s called marketing.

What can b2b companies do to take advantage of social media

1. Start a blog - We’ve talked about it before. People go online to find information. Provide useful information to people and they will find you (and your company). Provide information on all aspects of your industry and your business. Like I said before, solicit entries from your co-workers (you’ll be surprised at all of the great ideas and talent that you have on board). If you can become an industry expert, then you can’t help but increase your brand awareness… and your profits.
2. Get on LinkedIn - People go to Facebook to interact with friends, relax, and play games, and all that good stuff. People get on LinkedIn to interact with other professionals, and to learn. You and every one of your co-workers should have a presence on LinkedIn. You should spend time asking and answering questions, linking up with other professionals in your industry, and basically becoming a part of the community.
3. Be one of the few - The fact that not many b2b companies are using social media means that the ones that do are ahead of the game. Going back to the fishing analogy, if you’re the only one at the lake, you’re going to catch alot of fish. Get started, stop making excuses and do it. Your competition will hate you, but your customers and prospects will love you.

What do you guys think? How can b2b companies take advantage of social media? What other obstacles do they need to overcome?

By now, most business people understand the benefits of social media and especially blogging. A blog can help turn you into an authority on your given subject, it provides useful information to your customers that will keep them coming back to your site, it provides a way to interact with your customers, etc. When you are developing a blog for business, rather than just a hobby project, there are some things that you need to keep in mind. The folks at Problogger.net have compiled a list of the 9 (really 10) things you need to do before launching your small business blog. Here are my thoughts on this list…

1. Define your customer: I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Rule #1 of marketing is to segment the market (aka define your customer).

2. Determine if you’re going to create a blog within your business website or on its own: It depends on the situation / company, but in general my thought is that you should keep your blog separate from your business site. This way you have multiple ways for your customer to find you, and also so that you aren’t seen as someone just trying to sell something, but as someone that is offering value. This is definitely not a one size fits all decision though so what do I know?

3. Keyword research for domain name: I’ll be honest with you, I didn’t do this before setting my domain. I just thought that Evil Marketer was a cool name. But just like your parents used to always tell you, do what I say not what I do. The Google keywords tool (this can be accessed by signing up for Adwords, which you should do even if you don’t use the ads) is your friend. Use it.

4. Choose a blogging platform and select a design or theme: We’ve talked about choosing the right platform before. Obviously I like Tumblr (especially for a beginner), but do some research and find out what will work best for you.

5. Register your social media accounts: Social media is a great way to promote your blog. Use it. Sign up for Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and whatever else you’re going to use (then come back here and use that share button at the bottom of my posts). In the immortal words of Arnold Schwarzenegger “Do it! Do it now!!”

6. Measuring ROI, listening, and your blog’s feed: There are tons of tools you can use to keep track of your success. I’ll probably talk about this in more detail in the future.

7. Draft at least ten posts in advance and have them loaded with preset publish dates:  I don’t really agree with this, but I guess it’s sound advise. In my opinion, if you already have 10 posts ready to go, then you may get lazy and skip days that you know you should be writing. I would say, instead of this tip, that you should come up with topics to discuss, and come into blogging with a commitment to continue for some period of time.

8. Spend some time in forums: This is great advice. Whatever your subject is, go out and find the online communities and forums that relate to what you’re doing. Don’t just spam them with links to your site. Instead you should interact with the community and participate. 

9. Reach out to key influencers: I totally didn’t do this, but perhaps I should have. Who knows, try it out, and let me know how it worked for you.

10. Draft a web optimized press release:  I thought there were only 9 tasks. I guess this one was a bonus. Anyway, if you’re running a business get in the habit of writing press releases. It doesn’t hurt and can only help.

Well there are my thoughts. What do you guys think?

Here’s a link from a fantastic website called Problogger that lists tons of online tools for you fellow bloggers out there to use. Within the link is a list of recommended tools that is also worth looking at. Do yourself a favor and check out these tools and see what each of them can do to help you.

Do you have any suggestions that aren’t listed in the link? What are your favorite blogging tools? Let me know in the comments or email me at edwardviator@evil-marketer.com

If you blog, podcast, create videos, whatever, check this out. Some very good tips in here. Thanks Chris.