Which of these two companies would you rather do business with?

Compare and contrast these two approaches for dealing with potential customers who are using your site for the first time:

Approach A:

I ordered my Christmas cards from VistaPrint last week.  While I was filling out their new user form, they had two privacy checkboxes.  The first asked me if I wanted to get promotions from VistaPrint, and the second asked about making my email address available to other reputable organizations.  The first box was pre-checked.

But as soon as I un-checked that first box, an interesting thing happened.  They added a third privacy question underneath, and its box was pre-checked!  (Click here to see animated screenshots of the form, illustrating what happened when I unchecked the first box)

I've never seen a web form designed with that sort of behavior before -- slyly adding another way to opt you in, after you've tried to opt yourself out.

Approach B:

A colleague sent me this email, because he was so impressed at how this salesperson handled his inquiry.

He went to the website of ExactTarget, a company that provides email marketing solutions, and downloaded a white paper from their site.  To download it, he had to provide his contact info.  After receiving a "lead" like this, companies normally either call or email you, trying to sell you their product.  But this email from ExactTarget was quite different:

Hi Frank,

Thank you for taking the time to visit our website, www.exacttarget.com and downloading Persona Whitepaper. In hopes to not take too much of your time, I was hoping to categorize your recent actions. Generally, when folks visit our website they fall into one of three buckets.

1) Thank you for the follow-up and material; however, at this point I am only educating myself on email marketing best practices.
2) While I am educating myself on email marketing, I am also interested in learning more about ExactTarget’s email solutions.
3) Please call me as soon as possible. I am looking to evaluate my email programs and take a look at what ExactTarget has too offer.

I’m a firm believer that any one of these answers could be right answer as long as it is what’s best for your business. Your response will allow me to better gauge your interests without bothering you during this busy time. Thanks again for your consideration and I hope to talk with you soon.

Best regards,

Jocelin Romero
Sales Development
ExactTarget, Inc.
www.exacttarget.com

Wow!  Most companies feel that after you fill out a form on their site, they have the right to contact you and try to sell you a product.  This email was different -- it asked for more information, and it also left open the possibility that you might not be in the market for email software right now.  By asking, ExactTarget established itself in my colleague's mind (and now in mine too) that they're a reputable company that actually listens to their customers. 

So think about what you've seen here...

Which company would you rather do business with?  A company that tries to backhandedly opt you into their list, like in Approach A?  Or a company that gives you the opportunity to dictate the terms of your future interactions with them, like in Approach B?

More about Epicor's "In The Key of ERP" campaign

Update: Celia Fleischaker, VP of worldwide marketing for Epicor, was kind enough to give me more information about In The Key of ERP, the campaign I wrote about last week (see previous post).

The program was done in conjunction with Big Fat Brain, an agency in northern Kentucky.  Another campaign Big Fat Brain did for its client TIBCO was Greg the Architect.  I checked out Greg the Architect and I wasn't as impressed with that one as I was with In The Key of ERP.

According to Celia, "The primary goal of the campaign was branding.  We wanted our name associated with the concept of ERP, but wanted to use an innovative way to try to accomplish that goal."  She said the mentions of Epicor were intentionally made low-key (no pun intended), to give the campaign a more viral nature and encourage pass-alongs for something that wasn't perceived to be a commercial.

Regarding measurement, Celia said, "We’ve been measuring success a number of ways – through hits to the site, mentions in blogs, etc.  We also have a landing page that is connected with the In the Key of ERP site.  We capture information from that form and those leads are sourced to the campaign."  This doesn't surprise me, since there's no single metric that could help a marketer draw a conclusion about the success of a campaign of this nature.  A mix of several metrics is needed, and often those don't even get you as much information as you'd like about the outcome.  When it comes to establishing benchmarks for a viral campaign before the program begins, that is probably one of the most difficult things marketers and their agencies have to do.  I'd love to learn about the thought process required for projecting these types of results, since it seems like a nearly impossible task.

Instead of talking about your product, sing about it!

I can't think of a polite way to say it: B2B marketing can be pretty boring.  Sure, there are plenty of creative people out there, putting out some fun and innovative stuff.  But if you look at the majority of B2B online marketing, it's dry and very matter-of-fact.

Enter, stage right:  Epicor Software Corporation's musical about enterprise software.  (Sort of)

OK, it's not really a musical.  But In The Key Of ERP is a creative marketing campaign, well-disguised as a fake stage production.  In fact, it's so well-disguised that some bloggers have thought it was real.  The campaign creators went through the trouble of making up a fake book -- and a fake book website -- that the musical is supposedly based upon.  They mention it's taking place in the recently renovated Pembleton Theatre (also fake), and they're issuing fake press releases too.  It's pretty elaborate.

This is easily one of the most creative B2B marketing programs I've seen in my 8+ years at IndustryWeek.

(Before I go any further, full disclosure: Epicor is a customer of IndustryWeek, although we haven't been involved in any way with this particular campaign.  I simply got an email from one of my contacts at Epicor saying I should check it out.)

A few reasons I like this campaign:

• It tells a story well.
  
  In its most fundamental form, marketing is about telling a story to your target audience.  In The Key Of ERP accomplishes that mission in an attention-getting, creative, and fun way.  It's effective at making senior management the stars of a show...but in a different and less serious light than they're normally portrayed within their companies.
  
  
• It chips away at negative stereotypes about the product category.
  
  ERP, or Enterprise Resource Planning, is a type of software that aggregates information from across a company's different functions, and brings it together to make business processes run more smoothly.  ERP has a reputation for taking a long time to implement, being difficult to implement effectively, and being expensive.
  
  This campaign realistically acknowledges in a subtle way that ERP selection and implementation is a dramatic undertaking within a company.  But at the same time, the In The Key Of ERP campaign could be a first step in breaking down some stereotypes people have about ERP.  This serious business topic is now fun and interesting, and worthy of a fake book and musical!  The five-part web video "mockumentary" -- the heart of the campaign -- entertains people who probably wouldn't normally be entertained by ERP.
  
  
• It's gutsy.
  
  At a rough economic time when many B2B marketers are pulling back on programs that don't generate leads, Epicor boldly invested in this campaign that's -- let's face it -- really subtle.  There are no Epicor logos all over it.  They don't mention Epicor's products or services at all.  The only places you'll find Epicor mentioned are on the Sponsors tab of the In The Key Of ERP website, and in a two-second "made possible by" note at the end of each video.  And even in those two places, they're listed second -- underneath a fake performing arts foundation!
  
  Many viral campaigns take a similar approach, keeping the sponsorship subtle.  Burger King's Subservient Chicken comes to mind first.  The ultimate goal is always selling a product, of course.  But smart marketers recognize the logo-in-your-face approach isn't always the best.

I wanted to learn more about this campaign, so I emailed a few questions to Epicor a couple weeks ago.  I asked whether it was an in-house effort or if an agency/consultant was involved.  I was also curious about the campaign's goals, how long it took, what the budget was, and how they were measuring success.  Unfortunately I never got a response, so I may never know the answers.

One thing I think is missing: Some sort of advertising campaign to get this "musical" out to the masses.  I'm guessing they could use a spark to get the viral aspect going, and advertising would accomplish that.

But details aside, In The Key Of ERP is a breath of fresh air in a marketing environment that is often repetitive and unoriginal.

[Update: Epicor provided me with more information about this campaign, covered in the blog entry here]

PR in 140 chars or <

The Web gives us unlimited space.  We can throw as many words out there as we please.  It’s great but dangerous.  Remember to keep it brief.

New PR tool called IvyLees is the Twitter of the PR world.  Boil your press release down to 140 characters.  (Hat tip to Paul Conley)

Whether you’re in PR or marketing, learn to keep your message short.  This is the future, because too much info is overwhelming.

Writing for IvyLees or Twitter is similar to writing Google PPC ads.  You get 25 characters in the headline, and 2 lines of 35.  Condense!

A favorite quote:  “I would have written a shorter letter, but I did not have the time.” – Blaise Pascal (often misattributed to M. Twain)

(With apologies to Jeff Foxworthy) You might be an eMarketing slowpoke if...

Nimble.  It's a funny word, but it's such a joyful one.  Who wouldn't like to be nimble?  Whether you're physically dextrous, your car is highly maneuverable, or you work for a company that acts quickly -- being nimble is always good.

Is your marketing nimble?  Are you quick on your feet?  When you commit to a project, whether it's something new and different or something you've done many times before, are you quick to execute it?  Or does it drag on forever, whether it's your fault or someone else's?  (Of course it's always someone else's fault and never yours...)


Most people know about Jeff Foxworthy and his "You might be a redneck" jokes.  Foxworthy, the king of blue-collar comedy, became a superstar with a simple premise -- giving people (humorous) benchmarks to judge their behavior.  People aren't good judges of their own actions, so they need his guidelines to give them a "hint" that they're being a redneck.

In the same way Foxworthy helps people determine their "redneck-osity", I think marketers sometimes need hints when we're being slow.  If you work in an environment that traditionally acts slowly, you become accustomed to a slower pace.  Many times you don't even realize you're not being nimble.  Maybe you think you got a project out the door quickly, but compared to your competitors or others in the industry, you're way behind the curve.

So, with apologies to Jeff Foxworthy (because his are funny and mine aren't meant to be)...here a few benchmarks for judging your organization's digital marketing dexterity.  Feel free to add your own in the comments section of the blog.

• If it takes more than 48 hours for you to get a mailing list or a database of customer information pulled, you might be an eMarketing slowpoke. 
• If you're waiting until a web advertising campaign is over before analyzing its performance and thinking about improvements, you might be an eMarketing slowpoke.
• If you spend a week trying to get an agreement for an advertising campaign to be signed, you might be an eMarketing slowpoke.
• If you need more than 10 minutes to come up with a list of your site's most important terms for search engine optimization, you might be an eMarketing slowpoke.
• If it takes more than a day for you to get fresh leads from a campaign into your company's CRM system or to your salespeople, you might be an eMarketing slowpoke.
• If you can't write, edit, and have text approved for an email campaign within a week, you might be an eMarketing slowpoke.
• If you can't respond to an emailed customer question, comment or complaint in a few hours, you might be an eMarketing slowpoke.

Photo by uberculture