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A New Study Seconds That Emotion Should Have a Strong Place in Your Marketing

by Media

Participate in a Community of Character. Honor Veterans. Reach Out to Friends. Take a Real Look at Self-Care. These are just four of the month of constructive suggestions provided by long-time SIPA member PaperClip Communications to their audience of “hard-working campus professionals” in their November Support Calendar.

 

Each item on this wonderful calendar—located on their Free Resources page—links to follow-up ideas, tutorials and resources. “PaperClip Communications knows how difficult and uncertain this time is, and we’re happy to offer these complimentary resources [their bold] to help our colleagues during this crisis,” they write on the homepage.

 

Back in March and early April, many organizations moved quickly to build COVID-19 microsites to accompany their regular website. While many of those produced huge bumps in traffic, they also created a new vibe—we care about you, your health and how you are coping. Stephanie Williford of SIPA member EB Medicine has talked about the pushback she got when their COVID site first appeared behind a paywall. They quickly moved it in front.

 

These are emotional lifts at a time when we all still need it most. It’s also smart business. A new report from global B2B marketing agency Stein IAS, In Search for the Emotionally-Qualified Lead (EQL), seconds the notion that emotion-charged marketing remains very important in B2B buying decisions.

 

“In an age of purpose and now a time of crisis, human emotion is front and center,” Reuben Webb, chief creative officer at Stein IAS, told MarTech Series (MTS). “This is a B2B revolution that’s been building for some time. In embracing digital marketing and marketing technology, many B2B marketers, have placed over-emphasis on such measures as Marketing-Qualified Leads (MQL) and Sales-Qualified Leads (SQL). At Stein IAS, our view is that another measure—the EQL—may be the most meaningful measure of all.”

 

Of course, it’s not just B2B. A quick look at Chesapeake Family’s homepage shows emotional connections through photos of families, kids trying to learn at home, and even a penguin. It’s just that B2B heartstrings are a little more of a surprise. According to MTS, a major study by Google and Gartner indicates that, while the average B2C brand has an emotional connection with between 10% and 40% of consumers; seven out of nine B2B brands have emotional connections with more than 50% of their customers.

 

Two years ago, at a SIPA Annual Conference, Rick Wilkes, OPIS director of marketing, talked about the importance of emotion in marketing.

 

“I think emotion is underrated in any kind of marketing, particularly with websites,” he said. “On the new OPIS site you see a refinery at sunset, and that’s the best a refinery is ever going to look. You’d be amazed in stock photography how many fuel places are within sunsets. It’s very soothing. So it’s a big bold image [and the words,] ‘Buy & sell oil & gas products with CONFIDENCE’—and the confidence is the emotional hook there.”

 

OPIS has had that up for a while so it’s obviously working—including the words, “OPIS delivers pricing and analysis you can trust…” “A successful brand is based on a connection that includes trust and an emotional bond which fosters a long-term relationship,” said Nick Hague, head of growth at B2B International. Indeed, with Harvard Professor Gerald Zaltman finding that a whopping 95% of all purchase decisions are made subconsciously, it’s clear that B2B brands cannot afford to forget the importance of emotion.”

 

“The best marketing doesn’t feel like marketing,” said the famous “Marketoonist” Tom Fishburne, quoted on the site Instapage. They write: “Does it feel like marketing when you watch a poignant advertisement and connect emotionally with the subject? Does it feel like marketing when you read a genuine positive customer review of a kind waitstaff and great service?

 

“Emotional connections happen because we’re human, and we’re built for these connections, wired for them, and rely on them to live a rich, meaningful life. Despite our significant advances in science and technology, human emotion (mainly our subconscious) will always be core to our DNA. Marketing by appealing to raw and genuine human emotion is essential, smart, and pays off.”

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Exclusivity, ‘Wow,’ and Valuing Products Are Keys to Price Hikes and Upsells

by Media

Elizabeth Green (pictured), CEO of Brief Media—a leading publisher in the veterinary medicine field—once delivered a dynamic keynote at BIMS titled Disrupting Goliath: Tales of a Small Cap Media Innovator. “I’ve spent my entire tenure as a publisher watching Goliath,” she said. What she learned helped her to build one of the top brands in the field.

 

 

 

“Adapt and choose an unconventional strategy, and the tables flip,” Green told us, meaning David can come out ahead. During tough economic times around 2010, she raised the cost of print ads 20%. The strategy worked. Their print advertising dollars went up 40% the next year. “We went to see our clients to explain why,” she said. “The key was the exclusivity and valuing of our products. If you value them, [your customers] will value them.”

 

Seeing customers now and print ads have certainly waned, but raising prices—at times—and focusing on upsells should not. Here are five examples:

 

Ask with confidence. “Renewal time is also a great time to upsell or raise prices,” Dan Fink, managing director of Money-Media, said on his SIPA webinar last month. “If you have a great product and people are engaging with it, you really need to raise the price. If you can’t do that, you have a content or product problem.”

 

Offer add-ons. Coleman Report publisher Bob Coleman once told me about one of his upsell opportunities—where a customer could purchase a data report for $95 or access to the whole database for a little more. I said, “Wow,” which was just what he wanted to hear. “There are two parts to my philosophy of the upsell: The wow factor—someone telling me that it’s a good deal—and if it doesn’t cost me anything extra. Also, with webinars, Joseph Coleman would reach out to attendees to confirm and try to upsell with transcripts and unlimited access. They get about 20% conversions.

 

Build on something that suits the times we’re in. Knowing the state we’re in, Netflix recently announced that it would be raising prices for its monthly subscriptions in the U.S. A standard plan will go from $13 to $14 per month, while its premium tiers will go from $16 to $18. Greg Peters, Netflix COO and chief product officer, said that as the company invests more into both content and tech developments, they’ll “occasionally go back and ask [customers] to pay a little bit more to keep that virtuous cycle of investment and value creation going.”

 

Make it easy. In a webinar a few years ago, Adam Goldstein, publisher of Business Management Daily, spoke about their webinar upsells. After signing up for one, customers are offered an upsell to a season pass. On their website you see this language: “Save 90% on a complete year of training webinars. If you bought all our webinars offered for the year individually, you’d pay $39,400. What gets even more expensive (and dangerous) is when labor law mistakes you could’ve prevented end up in court. But for just $1,599, you can access all our webinars and get your team the HR training they need to be compliant with the law.”

 

Entice with content and gentle urging. “We use our own content to promote upsells,” said Joe May, marketing director at Pro Farmer. Snippets of grain reports and online videos might bring audience in. A free download might lead to a $29 report. And the report might lead to a trial membership for Pro Farmer. This way they can catalogue people over time—if they signed up for two free trials, Pro Farmer will ask, why don’t you give us a shot?

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‘You Can’t Get That Kind of Reach in Person’; Take Advantage of Being Virtual

by Media

“Virtual events break down geographic barriers to attendance. Stretch your event across time zones so participants can experience it live wherever they are. Leverage digital conferencing platforms… that enable live captioning and translation for speaker remarks so audience members can view subtitles in their local language.”

—Bob Bejan, Microsoft corporate VP, in a Fast Company article titled “8 Ways to Rethink Virtual Events for the Age of Social Distancing”

 

There’s no doubt that there are some drawbacks to virtual events. After all, we are social creatures. But there’s also a lot to embrace. Bejan, who will be delivering a keynote fireside chat at our upcoming BIMS event featuring the SIPA Sales & Marketing Leadership Summit—see the incredible list of speakers here—has some definite ideas on how to make your virtual events shine.

 

Here are some of those and other ways publishers can take advantage of virtual events.

 

Think outside—or extend!—the box. There’s no reason anymore that your event has to be just 2-3 consecutive days. Do a special hour of content every Monday afternoon and call it your Magic Monday conference. BVR’s Divorce Conference scheduled sessions weeks before and after. Instead of their annual conference, the United Fresh Produce Association created United Fresh LIVE! 365, a year-round online platform featuring a permanent expo, social gatherings, on-demand education, webinars, conference programming, and networking opportunities for the global produce industry. “We basically built a year-round convention center,” John Toner, VP of convention and industry collaboration, said.

 

Go global. As mentioned above, there should be no barrier besides time difference why you can’t have a bigger global audience, if that works for your niche. Content from virtual events can also be put on-demand, so if the time difference is a hindrance, they could watch it anytime. “At Microsoft, we publish event recordings to Stream and Yammer for people to watch when it works for them,” Bejan writes. For Pro Farmer’s first virtual Crop Tour in August, four online, 90-minute broadcasts brought in more than 18,000 total viewers coming from all 50 states and 12 countries. (Historically, the typical audience across the four days and seven Midwest locations has ranged between 2,000 and 3,000.) “You can’t get that kind of reach in person,” said Joe May, marketing and sales director, indicating that Pro Farmer will most likely keep some of that digital component in future Crop Tours.

 

Make it a conversation. You want your audience engaged with presenters throughout a virtual conference, Bejan writes. “For example, connecting via your social communities where your customers are already engaged can help build conversation leading up to the event and get people in the mindset to learn and ask questions. Enabling attendees to engage with each other and ask questions ahead of time can also help presenters prepare to address what’s top of mind for their audience.” He also points to the importance of a good moderator to encourage that conversation.

 

Parse the data, while the event is going on. “There’s definitely more data that we were able to collect with the virtual event than with an in-person event,” Enit Nichani, vice president of marketing for North America at IGEL, told TechTarget. The article said that a reporting feature in vFairs—their digital platform of choice—enabled their marketing team “to see how many times a user visited a particular booth, what sessions they attended and how long they stayed for those sessions.” You should use the data to even make changes during the event, if need be. Maybe some type of Q&A worked particularly well on the first day or a chatroom or exhibitor showroom didn’t. You’ll know.

 

Always think about what’s different. Eric Shanfelt, founding partner of Nearview Media, told us how important it is to provide opportunities for people to meet one-on-one. But then he also warned not to make these too short. One “speed dating” type session he attended gave just two minutes and that was barely enough time for introductions. Again, in person, 3-4 minutes could be okay to say a couple things and tell someone you’ll see them at happy hour. But virtual is different. He also advised integrating sponsors into sessions and Q&As, making sure they’re not just dumped into separate areas.

 

Again, watch Bejan live at our BIMS event featuring the SIPA Sales & Marketing Leadership Summit, Dec 2-4. Also see a Power Panel on the Future of Events.

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‘Give Them Quick Wins’; Onboarding Should Be Personalized and Thorough

by Media

“It’s critical to onboard new subscribers successfully,” Dan Fink, managing director of Money-Media, said in a webinar last week. “Make sure they can easily log in. And if they haven’t accessed anything or they’re not receiving your news alerts, you’ve got a problem.”

Fink’s comment made me recall a survey that Joe May, marketing director of Pro Farmer, helped to distribute for his audience. “Our survey resulted in multiple concerns about user log-ins and passwords to the websites. So what we did was proactively remind our users the basics—how to reset their password; how to set their browser to remember their credentials so they don’t have to enter it every single time. That’s a simple action that we probably all take for granted…”

If we do take that for granted—speaking as someone who loses patience when my digital Washington Post doesn’t easily open for me—then we shouldn’t. If anything, onboarding has become even more important now, when our virtual patience may be on the thin side.

 

Here are lessons from the publishing world and Lia Zegeye, senior director of membership at the American Bus Association, in a story on Associations Now.

 

Be more personalized in your onboarding. Schibsted, a large media site in Norway and Sweden, created a “newsroom onboarding guide to welcome subscribers in a more personalized way. Now new subscribers can choose one of their renowned editors or journalists as a guide through the onboarding period. These personalized onboarding emails have a higher unique opening rate: 63% versus 38% for the standard onboarding process. The retention rate after the first renewal is also five percentage points higher.”

 

Show, don’t tell. In the personalized onboarding webinars that Zegeye conducts, she “shows a short promotional video from ABA’s tradeshow, providing a testimonial about the value of the event from a member’s perspective. Zegeye said she often gets thank-you notes from webinar attendees who say, “Wow, I had no idea you guys did all of these things!” “It’s a great way for me to connect with our members,” she added. The webinars immediately put a face with a name, and members are more likely to reach out to her directly with questions. “Mailing out packets has become a thing of the past,” she said.

 

“Remind subscribers and members why they signed on and reinforce that decision,” said Jim Sinkinson of Fired Up Marketing. “New customers—especially trials—forget why they subscribed. Don’t let them forget. Tantalize them with the valuable information they will be receiving. Onboarding materials should address three things: Motivation, method and making them heroes—give them quick wins.” I recently found out that I get PBS2 (channel 800!) from my cable provider; they should have informed me of that earlier based on my preferences.

 

Target. Speaking of preferences, from a data perspective, “this [opening 30-day] period is also crucial for us to gather patterns of user behavior,” said Katrina Bolak, manager, customer onboarding and engagement, for The Globe and Mail in Toronto. “We need 30 days of data to accurately serve up future content based on interests and for our email segmentation.” After that, content consumption patterns begin to form—good and bad.

 

Design matters. “We don’t think of onboarding as a discrete activity,” Aaron Steinberg, publisher at insideARM, said last year. “It’s the beginning of our ongoing member service and engagement. We want to be in touch with our customers all the time, and we do a good job of that.” He spoke about the importance of design in the customer service chain. “Our materials are good, our onboarding is good, but in the middle there was a design” on the website that needed to be clearer. That changed, thanks to that good customer communication.

 

Engage with social media. Zegeye shows new members all of ABA’s social media platforms and asks them to follow ABA from the start. “Members tend to gravitate toward Facebook to discuss their challenges, which gives the membership team a good way to tap into what members are experiencing and engage with them in a meaningful way, she said.”

 

Emphasize any incentive programs and key website features. ABA has a member-get-a-member incentive program, with the prize being a $50 gift card and entrance into a raffle with a chance to win $1,000. “Your members are your best ambassadors” for recruiting new prospects, Zegeye said. She also walks new members through key parts of ABA’s website.

 

Get members talking. Having ambassadors reminds me of something I heard once from Elizabeth Petersen of Simplify Compliance. Their conference app allowed people attending the event to have conversations before they attend. “So the week before the session, people started posting who they wanted to meet and what they wanted to see,” she said. “Then they started posting pictures of their dog wearing a conference tee-shirt. And a drink they were having before they got on the plane. So they were onboarding one another… That’s a million times more powerful than me standing in front of folks saying, ‘You must come to this session; it’s going to be the greatest thing.'”

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‘An Acceleration of Innovation’; Virtual Events Can Provide a Place to Grow

by Media

This morning I happened on a release posted by Craft Brewing Business titled, Here’s a How-to Guide on Virtually Attending PACK EXPO Connects Next Week. Although I do like craft beer, I found it because PACK EXPO is produced by PMMI Media Group, a member of our sister Connectiv division.

 

This guide is actually an excellent idea for anyone producing virtual events. “The PACK EXPO Connects site, search and planning tools are all designed to help registrants easily identify opportunities that are relevant for their company,” says Sue DaMario, director of marketing, PMMI Media Group. “Planning ahead will ensure a rewarding online experience.”

 

The recommendations for attendees include:

 

1. Build a MyConnects Planner: “Once registered, attendees can search a multitude of ways including keyword, product category, new products and more in order to start building their MyConnects Planner.”

 

2. Add sessions and live demos to your personal calendar. “Check out the incredible line-up of Innovation Stage sessions. Be sure to add those of interest to you to your MyConnects Planner…”

 

3. Plan ahead for live chats: “Attendees can add companies they want to chat with, then during the chat hours can immediately strike up a conversation. To connect outside of show hours, attendees can click the envelope icon under the exhibitor’s contact information to send a message.

 

“Research shows that engaging with product engineers and technical folks is a top priority among equipment and material buyers. We’re excited about the ability for registered attendees to make direct, live connections with technical experts who are staffing showrooms. It couldn’t be easier,” said Dave Newcorn, senior VP of digital and data at PMMI Media Group.

 

This is all so sensible for a few reasons. First, the event being just a few days away, it reminds people to attend—especially when registration is free. PMMI Media also gets customers such as Craft Brewing Business to send this to their audience. It’s helping both the customer and the attendees. And as we know, nothing’s better than a third party actively supporting something you are doing.

 

I was fortunate a couple weeks ago to do an email Q&A with Joe Angel, president of PMMI Media Group. He could not have been any nicer and praised DaMario, Newcorn and the entire staff for the great job their doing in these challenging times. He emphasized the responsibility they have—“Almost all the manufacturing markets we serve are deemed essential”—and that, above all, they were actively listening to their audience.

 

“Our editors conducted multiple surveys to gain insight into what was happening in packaging and processing plants across the country. We were uniquely positioned to be able to share industry-specific intelligence with essential businesses,” he wrote.

 

That kind of inside information then became the basis for their pivot to PACK EXPO Connects—and to innovation.

 

“The new virtual show caused an acceleration of innovation for our media products,” Angel wrote. “And, while I can’t speak specifically to revenue, we have generally experienced an increase in media sales over the same period last year… Many of the features available at our virtual event were developed exclusively for us by Map Your Show, the platform on which PACK EXPO Connects is built. We also modified some of our traditional media offerings to support suppliers navigating a new way of doing business. And we developed new products, like our Virtual Event Guide, which is polybagged with our October issue of Packaging World… What we have learned will position us for future hybrid models and potential new virtual events.”

 

All of this doesn’t come out of thin air. The biggest criticisms of virtual events have been with difficulties for sponsors and vendors to connect with attendees. PMMI approached this event with sponsors and exhibitors in mind. On the PACK EXPO Connects site, there’s an Exhibitor Blog with articles such as: How to Continue Generating Leads After the Event; How Your Virtual Showroom Can Stand Out; and Seven Steps to a Successful Show Without Live Demos.

 

As for that future, Angel is “cautiously optimistic about 2021 but [is] budgeting conservatively. With no vaccine or proven treatment for COVID-19, it is hard to say where we’ll be. PMMI Media Group has a tremendous portfolio, and PMMI is known for its very successful trade shows.”