when the apple does fall far from the tree

Today's story is about apples [b2b kind of apples, to keep my blog topics relevant].

Let's consider that your company sells apples. Say your company was established in a market where the tastiest apples are [almost] exclusively grown in your orchard.

That places your company in a very comfortable position vs. competitors and potential new-comers on the market. Customers have little choice if they are looking for good quality apples - they know you and have to come to you whenever they want their fruit.

Now think that your master-of-apples company expands internationally.

new to a new market?

OK, maybe this post's title holds too much newness, but when a company expands internationally, there are two types of market situations it can encounter: either the sector is well established & pretty much everyone in that market knows the product, or the company brings a new-to-market kind of service.

The later is the most interesting marketing challenge: how to market your new b2b service and find early adopters. 

sales battle cards

In my previous post about competition analysis, I was talking about a system to collect and disseminate information about the company's competitors.

Rather than piling up PDF brochures, Powerpoint presentations or scanned articles originated by the competitors, and have your sales people read through them in order to understand what they might be facing during a sales negotiation, you can collect all this intel in a unique, easy-to-update structure, under the name of Battle Cards.

trust me, I'm a marketer

Having worked in the credit risk management services, I've found out firsthand how difficult marketing of fiduciary services is and what it takes for the company you represent to be taken into consideration as possible supplier.

What I had in front of me was a highly specialized target market, of credit analysts, CFOs, risk managers, the professionals in financial services industry.

Being a start-up, our company was relying on marketing to initiate the conversation with our targeted, specialized audience. We eventually started a good one, after lots of trials and tunings.

how we made our product best on the market

This is a story about a B2B international company entering the Romanian market a while ago, finding a rocky territory, taking the challenge and achieving to produce and market the best product available in its sector - fiduciary B2B services.

You have to know that the raw "material" used by this int'l company to create its product - company data - is found, in Romania, in a diversity of sources, more or less known, accurate, concurring or updated. Ergo the difficulties, later turned opportunities, of creating a complete and coherent product to offer to the market. 

Initially, this company came with a product similar to what the competitors were offering, but soon it stepped out of this "safe" zone and steps were taken in the direction of leadership:

don't judge me [only] by my leads

As this Entrepreneur turned VP said it here, selling is about 3 essential questions:

• Why Buy Anything?
• Why Buy Mine?
• Why Buy Now?

I'd like to spend some time on the Why Buy Now, as I'd like to rehabilitate the shady side of marketing, the one that's not generating direct leads: brand awareness.

the silent victories

Legal Cartoon by Andertoons 

I was gonna wait and build more content before getting to the communication side of marketing, but today I figured out why some successes need to be silent.

I'm in the type of business where references help you sell: software. So I'm always looking to produce press releases announcing new clients, case studies, testimonials, clients' logos uploaded on our websites.

And there's often the opposition I encounter from the sales team: Don't say a word about this client yet. Do not mention this customer name anywhere.

competitiveness or why awards matter

Almost every medium and large company from relatively competitive industry have a section on their website called "Awards and Prizes".

Awards are a seriously exportable fact regarding the quality of your company & of its products and they can be leveraged in all kinds of marketing communication.

These corporate competitions are typically organized by research companies, media groups, event organizers, non-profit associations or various other organizations.

where to track b2b events

The sales force we [marketing] serve is asking for our help to set a foot in the client’s door: bring me face to face with a potential client, they say, and I will do all the heavy lifting. 

To do: bring sales guy in front of potential client. Or even better, in front of several prospects, which can be found in clusters at industry events.

Working from the headquarters to discover the interesting events in another country is part of the initial research that models your marketing decisions for the respective market: participation, sponsorships, product showcasing, exhibiting your company products, giving a speech.

recipe for: direct emailing

Email marketing is increasingly challenging as lead generation method, as more and more email services seem built to reject approach attempts and protect the account holder from the thousand random spam messages landing in inboxes.

In case you're cooking (or overcooking, like me) a B2B direct emailing campaing with the purpose to generate leads, here are the ingredients you should have on the table before geting your hands into the task:

international professional groups

Interacting via LinkedIn is part of my daily marketing activities, since I can reach some of my international audience with no cost.

I got very excited about having professionals reunited on criteria of industry, job title or target segment. I started joining one group after another, until I've reached the 50 groups limit. Seeing there's a limit, I started withdrawing requests, studied little bit better the groups profile and how active they really were; eventually I somehow stabilized a list.

leads, actually

This is a post on why I consider events to be one of the most lucrative methods to generate leads, on the condition that they are well chosen and the participation & involved staff are very well prepared and coherent with the overall brand image of your company.

the silver bullet

The competition analysis provides valuable information about the strengths and weaknesses of your company, ultimately helping you answer the client's question: Why should I work with you, rather than with your competition? 

Do you have in place a system to collect and disseminate information about your competitors? 

Or do you occasionally trip on articles or pieces of data you'd like to keep, but haven't quite found the right storage format? 

associations: the hands-on type

Following my previous post on key bodies and assessing them on how up-to-date their statistics are, I'll add several other signs that you can rely on these sources in your online industry searches.

The local key body is the main authority that gathers and publishes yearly the industry overview and the local market statistics. That being said, you should expect to find 2011 data on their website or in their publications.

However, before taking this source into consideration, first check their number of members and what percentage of the industry to make, to make sure their facts and figures are relevant and that their representation warrant comes from the majority of the industry players.

direct marketing: you're doing it wrong

If you're a beginner in direct email campaigns, read the 10 items below to see if you're doing it wrong.

Three important things about this post:

- it addresses rookies
- it refers to cold campaigns
- it speaks mainly about preparation & sending, not about content.

Read below what are the basic mistakes to avoid if you want your emails to catch the eye of the targeted person. The first two are the worst, I'm sort of stating the obvious with them:

it's who you're connected with

LinkedIn Visual Network Mapping Tool – InMaps

I'm going to document several dilemmas I've had for a while and publish the info I've gathered, with the prospect of putting them in action.

So these posts come less from my experience and more from research; I'll follow up on these actions and explain what has indeed worked for me and what hasn't. Or you can visit my LinkedIn profile and know I've succeeded if I have 500+ connections.

Today's question is how to connect with target professionals on LinkedIn and transform them into leads.

key bodies: call it like it is!

This one is about how I assess the key industry bodies before starting a dialogue with them or using them as data sources.

Typically, these organizations have a website where usually there's a description of the association and its scope, its initiatives, list of members, market trends, a section with press releases, and a calendar of events.

If you intend to work with such organizations for your marketing actions, you must discern the difference between active channels and dead ends. 

searching for clients abroad? so am I

As I'm indexing in my mind my the topics I should write about next, I feel the need to explain why there will be a significant number of posts about web directories, databases, direct mailing, online and social networks for b2b. That's what happens where you're trying to reach for estranged potential market for your product or service.

I was lucky enough to start my professional career in a company that was managing a huge worldwide B2B directory of companies.

So I was part of a huge network of companies in seventy-something countries, each contributing locally to this central web database, plus I was promoting to my home market the access and usage of such marketing-purpose database.

with best compliments, to UK

Being the active marketer that I am, I have poked my nose, respectively my contact data, into various websites, associations, groups, publications, networks and event organizers.

You know, to read some news, download a free study, ask for a media kit, start a debate, what we marketing people do: draw attention to ourselves and our products.

This kind of interaction has happened with people from various countries in Europe, giving me the occasion to learn about certain specificities and the local business culture. But I was particularly impressed by the consultative selling skills of professionals in the UK.

discretely launching this

This is a somehow secret blog on international marketing stuff.

I found myself browsing through intl_mkt pages full of criptic or niche information, without finding an actual good source on how to market your b2b services internationally.

This is why www.zoominglocal.com is happening.
As long as my free time will allow it, i'll post about my experience.

Because I've been on both ends of an international business: I've worked in subsidiaries of  B2B services company, and I've worked in the headquarters of a software producer & exporter.

My other expectation from this page, besides offering my views and what I know, is maybe get answers to my unsolved dilemmas, learn more by documenting for my posts, and receive advice from my peers.

The secret part, well, that i'll explain later.

Until then, check out this Blog's Presentation done with Prezi - a cloud-based presentation software with zoomable canvas.

intlmkt blog prezi on Prezi

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Disclaimer: this blog reflects my own opinions. Everything published here is my personal view, built from my overall professional experience and from the educational content I've absorbed.

P.S. My Technorati blog code is E4FRU445SA9R.