By Maryann Posten

Before the recession, SOHO was the hot ticket in B-to-B customer acquisition. It was widely known that small business owners would spend anything to help grow their companies faster than their slower-moving big business competitors. Price did not matter as much as speed. And the banks helped facilitate their spending with easy loans.

Then came the economic meltdown. Small business lending dried up along with marketing budgets and business capital. But many small businesses have weathered the storm. New ones have started up. And, today, The National Federation of Independent Business Optimism Index stands at 94.3%, the best reading since February 2011 and the sixth consecutive monthly gain. No surprise that small business hiring edged up in February and is expected to remain on an upward trajectory.

With confidence at U.S. small companies climbing to one-year high, more than one in four plan to increase the long-term investments in major assets like machinery and computers in the coming year up to the highest level since 2008.Twenty-eight percent have already increased capital spending in the past year.

Now lenders are jumping back in to support America’s perennial growth engine and small businesses are taking advantage by securing financing at very low rates. SBA loans are returning to pre-recession levels, which is priming the pump for long-term growth in years to come.

Over the past couple of years, business marketers have been hesitant to focus on the small business sector, but I advise any one who hasn’t revisited this sector in marketing strategies to reconsider. It represents a massive business opportunity. The ALC Small Business Selector which tracks U.S. companies with 20 or fewer employees now numbers over 12 million contacts. Our Executive Masterfile counts over XX,XXX,XX decision makers at companies with fewer than 300 employees. Both files include matching business email addresses for multi-touch campaigns. These are the small businessmen and women who are re-energizing our economy as they have done time and again.

B-to-B marketers — I say it’s time to think small again!

By Maryann Posten

Many occupations require licenses to prove competency on the job, including architects, optometrists and psychologists. While licenses are no guarantee of the service you can expect to receive, they do guarantee that a licensee has fulfilled a governing board’s requirements to serve the general public in certain professions.

A license to practice a profession is more often than not, also a license to make decisions for the practice. And licensed professionals are one group of the workforce that generally remains dutifully employed during good times and bad.

Take cosmetologists for example. The number of barber licenses in the U.S. is 250,000 and rising. According to the Maryland State Board of Cosmetologists the number has risen 60% in that state alone since 2008. The Census Bureau reports on the state of the profession as well as other licensed professions at its Bureau of Labor Statistics website. The Bureau expects the number of personal appearance workers to grow much faster than the national average for all occupations.

Other professions forecast to gain in employment through 2018

• Architects: Up 16% — 21% are self-employed
• Veterinarians: Up 33% — 80% work in a private practice.
• Chiropractors: Up 20% — 44% are self-employed
• Psychologists: Up 26% — 34% are self-employed
• Physical Therapists: Up 30% — Increasing demand from rising elderly population

It’s refreshing to see that many professions are registering growth in this tough economic climate. It’s not only good news for those working or aspiring to work in a licensed profession, but also for B2B marketers targeting small thriving businesses.

At ALC our Licensed Professionals Database makes it easy for marketers to reach them profession-by profession from Acupuncturists to Real Estate Agents to yes, cosmetologists.

Oh, that reminds me; I am off to my hair appointment. I may forgo some things in this economy, but not my hair!

 By Maryann Posten

According to an article I read at BtoB Online, B2B email open rates increased nearly 8% from Q3 2011 over Q3 2010. In that metric I see a few takeaways:

1. Business Marketers are getting better at crafting Subject Lines
2. B-to-B Lists are becoming more accurate
3. Multichannel business marketing is taking off as B-to-B marketers use more than one touch point to communicate

On the Subject Line front, testing is the key. I suggest you mine the expert opinion field out there and then challenge your copywriters to craft fresh, message-opening Subject Lines. There are many lists of words to avoid that may trigger spam filters to block your message. One such word is “Free.” However, according to legendary copywriter Robert Bly, even if 20% of your messages get blocked by the use of the word “free,” 80% will still make it through where the word will work its magic (as it always has) for an overall 60% lift in response. You can give it a test, but make sure what you’re offering for free has high perceived value.

On the B-to-B List Quality front, the use of email in direct marketing has matured and so has the quality of the data. Non-opt-in lists with lots of undeliverables are just not acceptable, especially if provided by a reputable DMA member data provider. In addition to legislation governing the use of email addresses, the technology behind the scenes is producing higher quality data and even matching physical addresses to business executive email addresses, which brings me to my third point.

Multichannel Marketing in the Business World is for Real!

Research proves that a combination of direct mail plus email messaging vastly outperforms single-channel campaigns. That is leading many B-to-B marketers to seek out email touch points in addition to postal and telemarketing leads to reach new customers. ALC B2B has responded to this demand with our new Email Performance+ Program, which makes it is easy to reach prospects at both their email and postal addresses.  We go beyond just pushing your message out to a list of email addresses with the value-added services of:

• Targeted data segment recommendations based on campaign goals
• Consultative services on email best practices
• Creative review so messages stand the best chance of being opened
• Minimum of 2 blasts per creative – spaced 1-2 weeks
• Detailed results reporting at the 1-day & 1-week mark
• Full record of all respondents to email campaign for future follow-up
• Matching postal records

That’s a lot of pluses! Now send me a message to get started so I can help you get your messages out!

In fact, author Michael Lowe writes:

“Personalization is the latest trend to hit trade show marketing. Show organizers looking to catch the attention of potential attendees are shifting their efforts to targeted marketing strategies, which requires breaking down a mailing list from one lump group into smaller segments, so they can send more relevant information to specific demographics.”

The key is finding those who want to learn new ways of doing things and who want to participate in industry events and continuing education.

ALC B2B Seminar Selector with over a million executives by name selectable by financial, sales & marketing, IT and HR responsibility is available at both postal and email address.

ALC B2B Meeting Planners Database features over 300,000 executives by name charged with planning corporate, association, religion, and medical events.

Today you must be more creative than ever to capture the business of Meeting Planners and Event Attendees. In fact, I read that Crowne Plaza Hotels are experimenting with “snore absorption rooms” to minimize the snoring effect on their neighbors. Guests can request to stay in a “quiet zone,” where they can be reasonably assured of a sleep uninterrupted by a noisy neighbor.

What a concept that would make for a direct mail piece mailed to Meeting Planners whose audience travels often, works hard and must be on their toes for the next day’s seminar or convention! “Come Meet Where You Won’t Hear the Roar of the Snore!”

Now if I could only create a quiet zone in my household for sleeping. Meanwhile, let me publish this latest blog and try to tune it out!

1. Communications Technolgy

More than half of corporate CIOs recently surveyed believe real-time workplace communications like IM are overtaking email. People are also “talking” to fellow employees, clients, vendors, and industry colleagues through social media like LinkedIn and Twitter. The lines between work and personal use of smartphones and computers are blurring. As this shift continues, it is the HR executive who is managing employee communications policies that cover etiquette, using the right medium for the message, and monitoring employee online time.

2. Healthcare Reform

Because of the complexity and administrative requirements of the healthcare-reform law, HR executives along with the CFO are navigating options their companies have in managing change to corporate insurance programs. Many are considering outsourcing health benefits administration to navigate the unfolding changes for help in identifying savings opportunities while remaining compliant with regulations. HR executives are looking for tools that can help employees and company officers alike decide which plans are best.

3. Flexible Pay, Time, Workplace

With the advent of the “Millennial” generation into the workplace also comes news ways of working facilitated by emerging technologies. Employees can now work in the cloud from home offices. Men are taking more of a role in raising families. Paid Time Off policies are consolidating sick leave and vacation days. HR execs must make flexible employment arrangements transparent and measurable so that corporate management can see the results while motivating employees.

Once viewed simply as the personnel hiring and firing division, Human Resources has risen to higher levels of importance within their organizations. Today it is critical for all areas of corporate management to include the HR executive in making company decisions, which is why you do not want to leave them out of the picture in B-to-B marketing campaigns.

ALC B2B makes it easy for marketers to reach out to over 80,000 HR contacts selectable by company size and sales volume as well as the other decision makers in their companies.

The problem is however, that a Google search on “Lucas Fayne,” turned up more than 50 of the same exactly-worded testimonials all over the U.S. for all types of contractor businesses.  Either “Lucas Fayne” was constantly on the move and had repairs done on all of his new homes, or perhaps Lucas Fayne had become the most popular name in America while we were all sleeping.

It turns out that all of the websites were created by software from Intuit, which offers web-design services for small business owners. The “Lucas Fayne” quote is included with a template for contractors, which has been bought by thousands of companies over the years. Obviously, the companies are supposed to swap out the fake name and blurb with a real customer name and testimonial.

Companies work hard to build a reputation and in this age of easy access to data on almost everything, you need to be as qualified and honest as you present your business to be.  Testimonials, especially from a recognized company (or even a recognized person in a local community), can go far in making your business stand out from the competition.  Word of mouth (and now word of fingers in the internet age) can be the deciding factor in businesses choosing your company, so keep it real, and keep it updated!

That’s according to an article in DM News, titled “Direct mail and digital most successful combo in driving customer acquisition.” The author states that the effectiveness of a new customer acquisition campaign is impacted through a combination of traditional direct mail with digital technology.

Three major B2B brands, UPS, Xerox and Zurich, are making an impact doing just that as they recently launched significant business-facing multichannel campaigns.

All marketers continue to struggle to generate leads as budgets remain under tight control. But with the economic uptick (The Dow hit a 2-year high recently.), now is the time for B2B marketers in particular to put more effort and investment into direct marketing campaigns. Businesses, small and large, are built to grow and need leads to do so. The challenge is to gain new customers at the lowest possible cost.

To get the most bang for their buck, my contacts at many B2B companies are employing a variety of tactics to reach as many leads as possible, while keeping a reign on expenditures. They are deploying cost-efficient direct mail strategies to keep lead-generation up by testing such formats as:

• Postcards
• Letters
• Slim-Jims
• Magalogs
• Self-Mailers

Many marketers either precede or follow up these lower-cost postal mailings with messaging to email addresses for coordinated multichannel marketing. The key is obtaining a quality list of matching email and postal addresses selectable by “firmographics” such as sales, industry, and job title.

Your takeaway?
Reach more prospects with greater frequency through savings gained by lowering production and postage costs and deploying a mix of print and digital.

In a New York Times article, a spokesperson for L.L.Bean stated that people found it easier to back out of sales when ordering online compared with ordering over the phone from a pleasant sales rep. One key difference is that on the Internet, shipping is more visible. Also noted in the article was that one of L.L. Bean’s main competitors, Land’s End, has also been offering free shipping promotions.

Whether for business or personal use, everyone is looking for value and you really need to clearly offer it to them. Free shipping is certainly one way to do it. Additionally, B2B marketers can take a page from the B2C playbook and test any appreciative offer/reward with prospective and current customers for acquisition, re-acquisition and retention.

B2C Offers to Consider Testing for B2B Applications Include:

• Free Samples

• Quantity Discounts

• First Time Order Discounts

• Repeat Customer Special Offers

• We Want You Back Promotions

• Rewards Programs
Be sure to track how each strategy is working in order successfully strategize in future mailings/e-mail/telemarketing campaigns. Let me know what works!

Watson only had trouble responding to a few categories, such as short clues with few words. The more information that was put into Watson’s database – the more accurately Watson was able to answer. More data equals more information and understanding.

Does the data you have about your customers tell you what you need to know about how to talk to them, when, through what channels, and with what offer? And does what you know about your current customers suggest who are the best prospects for new customer acquisition?

The more data you have about your customers – the more insights you can gain – and the more strategic you can be in your marketing efforts. At ALC B2B dozens of sources contribute to our Executive Masterfile database, resulting in a unique file with an unparalleled depth of executives and breadth of companies represented. You can leverage the power of this data by appending it to your own customer file. Then your data will really talk to you!

We all know that having meetings is crucial to staying to staying organized and keeping up to speed with your team, and incorporating new ideas.  If meetings are unproductive, they end up wasting everyone’s time, and many employees will drag their feet about attending or participating in future meeting.

Dale Carnegie comes out with a weekly e-mail about sales training, and I kept their last blast about: Tips for More Effective Meetings as a template

• Tip #1 – Decide If You Even Need a Meeting – perhaps an e-mail or brief report can do the job. Not only will scaling back meetings cut back on wasted time, but it will also make the meetings you have seem more necessary.

• Tip #2 – Prepare Objectives for the Meeting – you need to be focused – not overly specific, but not too broad. For example: By the end of the meeting, I want the team to…

• Tip #3 – Provide an Agenda for the Meeting – include a brief description of the objectives, the topics and who will be speaking about what. E-mail the memo a few hours before the meeting so the attendees can familiarize themselves to it.

• Tip #4 – Take Notes and Mark Action Items – EVERYONE attending should come with paper and pen, no one should be passively listening, all should be engaged by taking notes and marking action items.

• Tip #5 – Stay Awake (okay, just checking to see if you are still reading this)

Of course, there are big differences in meeting types, just department updates, or presenting new products and agendas, off site conferences – (hopefully in an exotic locale), but bringing a positive attitude can make all the difference.

And, if you are looking for the real experts in planning meetings for their companies and associations, check out the ALC Meetings & Convention Planners Database to sell your innovative promotional products, ideas, and meeting venues.