According to a recent survey by emarketer.com, B-to-B clients are going to increase their spending in the social media arena in 2010. It certainly makes sense that the ones who have tried various aspects of social must be getting some traction or they wouldn’t be spending more. It’s interesting to note that the 3 top areas they plan on increasing are web sites, e-mails and search. The three main reasons are:

1. Thought leadership
2. Lead generation
3. Customer feedback

What are you planning for 2010?

Source: flickr (User: sassycrafter)

Back in August, I jumped the gun a bit and wrote a “year in review” posting about virtual events.  Now that we’re in December,  I think it’s high time to peer into the Magic 8 Ball and speculate on what’s in store for the virtual events industry in 2010.  Away we go…

Widescale adoption and integration of video conferencing

Virtual events have incorporated a lot of on-demand and live video – however, to date, the majority of attendee interaction has been via text (e.g. private text chat, group text chat, etc.).  Many platforms have enabled the use of attendee webcams (a la Skype) and that was a nice start.  In 2010, I believe that the virtual event platforms will integrate with third party video conferencing technologies in a big way – stirred largely by client demand for it.

Think about it – multinational corporations have adopted high-end video conferencing to encourage collaboration and save on travel costs.  They have the budget to invest in Cisco Telepresence or HP Halo.  As those same corporations look to adopt virtual events (e.g. for an annual virtual sales meeting), it’s only natural that they incorporate the video conferencing technology that they already have running.

To capture mid-market and small business interest, virtual event platforms will look to integrate with mid-tier video conferencing systems, such as Tandberg (whose acquisition by Cisco is pending) and Polycom.

Another interesting player is LifeSize Communications, an Austin-based provider of “mainstream telepresence” that was acquired by Logitech in November.  LifeSize recently launched an offering called Passport, which they term “a portable telepresence-quality system” that fits in the palm of your hand.

I see continued use of consumer-grade webcam technology in 2010 virtual events  – however, the game changer will be the incorporation of multi-party, HD video conferencing.

Emergence of global players

We’ve already seen the emergence in Europe of virtual event platforms – IMASTE in Spain and Ubivent in Germany.  I expect to see another European-based platform emerge in 2010, along with one or more in Asia Pac.  In addition, we’ll see services companies launch to capitalize on the demand (for virtual events) from publishers, corporations and event marketers.  The companies will provide both strategic and logistical services around virtual events.  You’ll see some start-up companies and you’ll also see physical event marketers spawn service offerings around virtual (or more logically, hybrid) events.

Industry consolidation

We’ll see the merging or acquiring of virtual event platform companies.  Some providers will look to acquire/merge out of platform capability gaps – while stronger players will look to complementary/synergistic technologies offered by the competition.  As the economic environment comes back around, companies (and their investors) will be more apt to combine forces to fuel the next phase of growth.  Lastly, larger and more established players in the “collaboration space” may look to acquire virtual event platform companies, to add a complementary piece to their product portfolio.

Decrease in “relative response rates”

Virtual events had a great run in 2009, but we’re now past the novelty, “wow, this is cool” phase.  In the B2B market, we now have plenty of users who have attended two or more virtual events.  If virtual event show hosts continue to use the same graphical templates, organize the same presentation agenda and re-create an identical experience to their last event, then “relative response rates” will drop – meaning, it will become harder and harder to recruit users to register and attend.

Decreased response rates are natural as any new “content type” grows beyond infancy – and the supply/demand ratio begins to tilt towards having more supply than demand (e.g. lots of virtual events).  Virtual event show hosts will need to consider the incorporation of gaming, the creation of affinity programs and more.  The solution to decreased response rates will be fun to watch – innovators will step to the table to find creative ways to engage and attract virtual event attendees.

Platforms take first step towards immersiveness

While virtual event attendees may not “require” the immersiveness of Second Life and other 3D virtual worlds – immersive capabilities provide real value in a B2B setting.  The most obvious use case is an immersive rendering of a complex product – consider the high-end video conferencing system, the high-end router, the latest luxury car model.  Instead of a 2D PowerPoint slide that highlights the capabilities of the video conferencing system, how about an immersive experience where attendees (aka prospects) get to experience the system and interact with it?

Client interest and demand will drive some platforms to add immersive capabilities in 2010.  I don’t expect a software download, however – it would serve platforms well to support the immersive experience within their existing framework (e.g. Flash, JavaFX, Silverlight).

Those are my 2010 predictions for virtual events.  I’d love to hear your’s!

In 2009, Cisco moved their annual Global Sales Meeting from a physical gathering to a 100% virtual event called Cisco Global Sales Experience (GSX).  I authored a posting on the InXpo blog regarding GSX – with numerous insights from Angie Smith (Manager, Global Sales Experience at Cisco), I covered:

1. Best Practices – Virtual Sales Meeting
2. Considerations for a Hybrid (Physical+Virtual) Sales Meeting

Here’s a link to the full blog posting:

http://inxpo.wordpress.com/2009/11/30/the-hybrid-model-comes-to-global-sales-meetings/

Based in Mannheim, Germany, ubivent has entered the virtual events platform market with a recently launched platform.  According to Michael Geisser, Managing Director Market Development, the ubivent co-founders “met at university, working together in an IT research program and pursuing our PhD”.  The co-founders then spent several years working at multinational corporations, where they held numerous roles in IT and IT management.

In fact, Geisser and co-founder Thomas Butter (Managing Director Research and Development) were recently with SAP, where they worked on some of SAP’s first virtual events.  Ubivent is off to a fast start – they received 12 months of funding from EXIST, “a program of the European Union and the German Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology” designed to support innovation.  In addition, in late November, ubivent was selected as the most promising young company in Mannheim.

Target market

Ubivent’s initial target market is to serve large and distributed corporations – large companies have already adopted the basic technologies required for virtual events (including sufficient bandwidth capacity) and distributed companies can immediately leverage the convenience and cost savings of virtual collaboration (versus in-person).

“However, this does not mean that we do not offer our services for small, non-IT organizations”, noted Geisser. “We’ve also done projects with local authorities. Obviously, the entire project size has been not that extensive as for a global event with multiple thousands of participants.”

Since the European market for virtual events has not developed as quickly as the U.S. market, Geisser sees plenty of opportunity in Europe.  Geisser sees opportunity in all sorts of event types, but notes that “the type of the event is not as important as the content and the participants. We see the advantages of virtual events especially for knowledge-intense content (e.g. software, finance, etc.) with globally distributed participants”.

In comparing the U.S. and European markets, Geisser believes that while “US based customers put more emphasis on the look and feel, the European customers are very keen on getting a technically scalable and secure platform. Fortunately we’re combining both.”

Technology platform

Ubivent is a member of Microsoft BizSpark, a program that provides “software, support and visibility” to software start-ups.  While most virtual event platforms are built on top of Adobe Flash, ubivent’s platform is based on JavaFX, a platform for building rich internet applications that runs on top of JRE (Java Runtime Environment).

According to Geisser, the use of JavaFX serves as a competitive advantage for ubivent over competing Flash-based platforms – “JavaFX is one key advantage of our platform. This opens the door for completely new functionalities which are not possible with other technologies (e.g. Flash)”.

Ubivent developed an accessibility framework to assist visually impaired people in using their virtual events platform via a screen reader.  The source code for the accessibility framework has been published as open source.  The framework is built on top of JavaFX, which means that other platforms seeking to incorporate it would need to run JavaFX as well.

Virtual events vs. immersive virtual worlds

Geisser has taken a look at 3D immersive virtual worlds, such as Second Life and Twinity.  He believes, however, that the immersive virtual world is currently more suited to B2C or C2C use cases, whereas his B2B market is more focused on quick and convenient access to selected content.  Notes Geisser, “In a B2B context, the desire for avatars and the ability to walk through a virtual world is less distinct. Here, the focus is more the ability to quickly access information and other participants. The need to ‘walk’ through the virtual world to access this information or participant is considered adverse with regard to this goal.”

In closing

It will be interesting to watch the European market for virtual events in 2010.  Ubivent and IMASTE are two of the leading European-based providers – while they may encounter each other in common client accounts, I’m sure the providers from the U.S. market will be looking towards Europe (and Asia) as well.

Related links

1. Follow ubivent on Twitter
2. Ubivent’s Facebook page
3. Ubivent-developed accessibility framework, fxaccessible
4. Ubivent’s executive management team
5. Audio interview – ubivent speaks about their JavaFX-based virtual events platform

Considering that blogs are, by in large, highly personal ramblings, the inspiration of mine since I launched it a few weeks ago has been how I’ve shifted from being a fairly hard-core journalist to becoming more a part of the marketing world. I’m still a journalist by trade. But now that I’m a free agent who’s been busy lining up freelance marketing work while seeking my next full-time endeavor, I’m looking to produce content that contributes more directly to the bottom line.

Being a career business-to-business journalist, I represent a portion of the half of the media team that has made, or is trying to make, this shift. Like other fading or transforming trades victimized by the steady death of print and the rise of the immediacy of the internet, B-to-B journalism isn’t nearly as profitable as it once was. I was laid off, because my position was eliminated, thereby saving the company the money it needs to continue operating my publication profitably.

While other B-to-B publishing companies have gradually slimmed down their editorial staffs over the past few years, some have gone a step further by forcing editors to take furloughs. A former company of mine forced its editors to work four-day work weeks this past summer. That amounted to a 20% pay cut while the editors were forced to do what already was about six days worth of work in four days.

Most B-to-B publications are free to readers and paid for by advertisers. But the vendors who advertise in the trades aren’t doing so anymore. Either their ad budgets are getting hacked or they’re turning to less-expensive online ways to generate leads. Even webinars that B-to-B publishers stage supported by advertiser sponsorship money are a tough sell, because many vendors are putting on their own webinars.

That leaves many B-to-B journalists like myself out looking for the kind of work that companies will be willing to pay for. And I’m finding that unless I can bring some sort of tangible, bottom-line guarantee to the table, I’m not going to be very marketable. So I have to join the part of the media team that’s more closely tied to marketing.

That’s not a bad thing. Journalistic objectivity and integrity aren’t going away in the B-to-B journalism world. You just have to look a little further to find them. If you want the true stories, the behind-the-scenes scoops, you best turn to the newswires for them. BusinessWeek and the Wall Street Journal are still around (in theory, those journalists play for the other media team, the one not directly connected to marketing). But they’re not very healthy either, so who knows how long that team is for this world.

Dans le secteur médias, le meilleur taux d’ouverture, de clic et de réactivité sont constatés le mardi et vendredi. Il est déconseillé d’envoyer un e-mailing dans le domaine de médias le mercredi et le samedi.

Il est important que les acteurs de la vente privée communiquent avec leurs clients et prospects par l’e-mail. Experian CheetahMail désigne le dimanche est souvent employé pour annoncer les ventes de la semaine - comme la journée la plus performante. Le taux d’ouverture, le taux de clic et les taux de réactivité sont le moins élevés le mardi et le samedi.

En ce qui concerne des e-mailings dans le secteur de B to B, le dimanche enregistre le meilleur taux d’ouverture, mais à ce jour là le taux de clic est particulièrement faible. Au contraire, le samedi enregistre le meilleur taux de clic et le faible taux d’ouverture.

Source: http://www.journaldunet.com/

I was riding on the railroad from my Westchester County, N.Y., home to New York City this morning with a fellow who recognized me. Nice guy. I sort of recognized him, but didn’t know (or remember?) his name. But he knew mine, because he used to watch my son play on the high school basketball team. We talked almost the entire hour-long ride about a myriad of subjects. Inevitably, the issue of my forthcoming unemployment came up.

Explaining to people what I’ve done for most of my professional life — editing, writing and reporting for a B-to-B publication/newsletter/Website serving the retail/catalog/e-commerce business — has never been easy. I get a lot of quizzical looks. Sure, they perk up a bit when I say “y’know, companies like Lands’ End, L.L.Bean, those…,” but more often than not, they just don’t get it.

That’s fine. I’d venture to guess that about 30%-50% of the world’s professions can’t be easily explained to the average Joe. But the cool thing about my profession — if there is a cool thing about it, and while it lasts — is people have heard of the kinds of companies I’ve covered over the years.

So this gentleman and I got into a whole involved conversation about our families and he talked about his family’s devout love for skiing and lodging up north. Then he got into some of the brands he’s either bought from over the years or received catalogs from, like REI, Patagonia, Eastern Mountain Sports, and others. He really led the conversation, raving about REI, its service and its cooperative set-up to which he gains annual dividends. I was quick to inject that I wrote up a big cover story on REI just last May (see http://www.allaboutroimag.com/article/the-camping-gear-marketer-has-changed-its-approach-but-not-its-focus-406552_1.html). We had a nice connect.

But he wasn’t done. And keep in mind that this kind gentleman is in the financial world, but has no sort of business connections to the retail world. He continued to lead this conversation. Somehow we talked our way into Abercrombie & Fitch, sharing recollections of the Sharper Image-Meets-Brookstone A&F used to be back in the ’80s before it became a racy teen clothing phenom.

That led him to discuss Eddie Bauer and its latest comeback. He boasted that recently he had these two bags (I think they were backpacks?) he had bought from Bauer some 20 years ago — and what? three or four ownership changes ago? — and the inner lining of both had fallen apart. He decided to try to send them back and see what Bauer would do. Much to his surprise and joy, Bauer gave him a credit for comparable new ones.

It seems as though anybody can tell a good story about a merchant they’ve done business with at some point in their lives. People clammer to favorite retail brands and often get caught up in those brands’ evolution.

Everybody loves a story, and in retail or mail order or even e-commerce, they’re looking to be part of newer stories. As retailers and businesses of all types continue to tighten their belts, they shouldn’t lose track of the stories they tell – past, present and future.

Social Media or Social Marketing is overwhelming. This is especially the case for the B-to-B world since, in many ways, this group has moved slowly in embracing the Internet for the purpose of marketing and communicating. Now, on top of all of the other caveats to Internet Marketing, many are seeing this dimension come into play and there is more to learn. Going forward, this will be a critical component to your business and it is not a matter of “Do I want to develop a Social Media plan”? It’s a matter of HOW SOON can you develop and implement a Social Media plan? This is what this writing is about.

A recent study released by Business.com of 3,000 Professionals across the United States indicates that Social Media is alive and vibrant within the professional environment. Some of the compelling statistics that stood out:

-69% indicate they use Webinars and Podcasts to obtain business information
- 83% Chose Facebook as the overriding favorite of the social networks
- 7 social sites - The average company that responded stated they participated in
- 65% of them staffing the initiatives in-house
- 71% of responding companies had less than 2 years experience using social networks

If this doesn’t validate that business professionals use social media then perhaps the fact that LinkedIn (a business social site) has over 50,000,000 registered users or that Facebook is adding 500,000 New Users each day should confirm this.

Data is out there to support the growth of Internet usage, for social purposes, among business professionals. As a result of this expansive growth, many sites have risen to the heights of popularity and each of these domains has unique functions that have propelled them to this status.

The more that a company looks at this as an expense of resources and weighs the pros and cons of such an endeavor, the more risk they face at missing the opportunity to get people connected to them. Meanwhile, their customers and prospects are thriving online and excitedly, they’re connecting with like minded individuals in many different ways. They’re connecting on Community sites like LinkedIn, Plaxo, CR4, Facebook, or any of the other popular domains. More myopically… they’re connected in Groups within these sites. They are most certainly connecting! Realistically, a company should look at this more as an investment of resources than an expense of resources.

In the following paragraphs I am going to explain the core components of what you can do to begin this plan and start servicing the people that matter most to your company. By no means is this a detailed plan. I will make suggestions using components that are FREE or of minimal cost. The most costly component will be time.

At the end of the day what you hope to create is a funnel. At the wide end, you message the masses in many ways in order to create interest in you and your Community. In the middle, you have your Virtual Community which is where your clients and prospects interact with peers and your company’s pros. The small end of the funnel is your website or your company directly. The result is keeping your people close to you and doing so in a way where they do not feel the pressure of sales but feel the essence of inclusion and bond.

The components that you should look to utilize in fulfilling the core of your initial plan are Management, Messaging, Community, and Participation.

Management – Designate a person or team that will dedicate time to organizing, implementing, and managing this side of your business. This is not a full time responsibility yet but it will be down the road. In time, you will want to create a position to act as the liaison to the aggregated Community. In the interim, it can be managed simply as part of the day to day tasks of your current team with an understanding that this piece of your current marketing effort will undoubtedly grow.

One of the initial responsibilities will be research identifying where the hot spots are on the net that attract your buyers. You can find this out by simply polling your current database and asking them directly where they go, what they do, and why they see value in these venues. You should also look to your current advertising partners and vendors. Ask them what they’re doing to satisfy their subscriber’s desire for Community. If they are active, they are working right now on this very same service. You will want to know what they are doing. Spend time using Search Engines to locate all of the domains that operate in the fields of expertise that your clients and prospects do. Search the groups and gatherings within these popular sites (And join them). Also, consider spending time speaking with some students at colleges that are pursuing careers in your target markets. Why? These important people will be buying your stuff in the coming years. They have their ear closer to the ground regarding the Internet and emerging technologies than you could possibly imagine. These folks will keep you ahead of the curve going forward.

You are gathering this information for two reasons. First, you’re going to be engaging with these resources to capture mind share, develop a following, and ultimately bring awareness of your Community. Secondly, in this process you will be developing an understanding of how this whole Community thing works. You will gain valuable knowledge that can then be leveraged in the construction of your own Community..

Community – All of the research that you have accumulated is for the purpose of escorting people into your Community of clients, prospects, and in-house pros. One of the benefits of having an established Community is that you can communicate, in near real-time, with your constituents. You can immediately get messaging out that could influence positive perceptions and have them work for you in utilizing the tools of Social Media to spread the word. Adversely, you can address and resolve many situations that could point a negative light on your company in venues that you are not active in.

A good place to start would be a facebook fan page on facebook.com. Developing this area is pretty simple and I’ve provided a link on the right (and within). From a personal perspective, your targets have a familiarity with this venue as it pertains to keeping up with their own personal networks. Facebook gives you the opportunity to be where they are. It means that you are in their neighborhood. Your clients and prospects can become “Fans” of your business page and they can see what other “Fans” have to say about their experiences with your company. Facebook, like a mini-site within a site, also gives you additional functions to provide for your “Fans” including Events, Additional Info, Press, Discussions, Video, and a “Wall” which becomes your primary landing page. People speak on your wall in the form of brief messages. The nuances of this informative resource can be discussed in a later writing but it is a powerful ancillary benefit of Social Media.

I referenced Facebook and strongly encourage you to have a presence here but you will find other reputable venues that offer similar functions. You should be there too. Do not limit your exposure and take advantage of every venue out there that is relevant to your demographic. However; you should make every effort to point them to a single source and I do think that Facebook is a good place. It is all about Aggregate and the more people that you can get to stick to your Community the better off you will be in terms of management, analysis, and messaging.

Good examples of Business Fan Pages: Sprint - GM – Girl Scouts – Papa Johns Pizza. (Require facebook registration to access)

Messaging  – This is the fan to the fire of your Community build and management. NO ONE will know that your Community exists unless you make them aware. You will want to harvest your House List and create an ongoing campaign that encourages them to seek out and join your Community. A series of email messages incorporating the link to your Community and informing them what you hope to accomplish with their involvement. Additionally, this message should be included in your periodic Newsletters and informative correspondences. Many of the resources outlined above offer the ability to embed your link to your representation in the form of a graphic in your emails and websites. USE THEM!!!

Going forward, this will become a permanent inclusion in all of your marketing and communications. Hundreds of millions of connected individuals have spoken in the form of action that this is here to stay. Once you create the Community you will always see the need to feed it. You should require the links as part of the email Signature of each employee, include logos and links on letter head, speak of it in your automated telecom systems, and include it in ALL Mar-Com materials. You need to drive people to your Community page. This is NOT about traffic. The more encouragement you give to your prospects and clients to enter and contribute to your Community, the more effective it will be for you. The best way to encourage is to consistently keep access to this portal at the fingertips of people you want to be close to your company.

Participation – This is where you get other members of the company on board and involved with your Community. Designate a representative from Customer Service, Sales, IT, etc. to keep an eye on the subject matter being discussed and to access the messaging features that you choose to utilize. Near real-time response goes a long way today in satisfying a question, comment, concern, or buying question. Put your best people in line to represent your company to your Community.

In addition to your own Community site, your company can gain a lot of credibility in other forms of participation within the sites that feed your Community. I have referenced LinkedIn a number of times and I do so as I believe that this is a great resource in meeting and connecting with like minded professionals across all spectrums of careers. In the sense of participation LinkedIn has a fantastic number of Groups that represent everything from Candy Makers (1,900 Members) to Orthopedic Surgeons (295 Members). In these groups are ways to seek job opportunities, review the latest news, and post & participate in discussions. It would only add value to your brand and the build of your Community if you had people from your company involved in these Groups as well. Again, you will want your company representative to communicate their messaging in non-salesy language and provide access to your Community page or corresponding web page (which also will have a link on it that can allow a person clicking-through to join your Community / Fan Page). Also you can look to your Vendors and their websites as a forum to leverage your community. Talk with them to understand how you can interact with their members as well. It could be through editorial content, sponsorships, advertising tools, or they could have Groups within their domains that allow your people to participate in discussions or answer relevant questions. The objective is introducing people to your Community.

Twitter - What is it and how can it help me help my business grow? Simply put, twitter is a real-time short messaging service that works over multiple networks and devices.(their words exactly). This is how it works: You set up an account under your company name and you begin “tweeting” (sending relevant 140 character messages from your account to your followers). You get followers in a number of ways. You broadcast your twitter name in all of your media and communications and get followers organically, you can share “tweets” with informative content and your followers will “re-tweet” out to their network increasing followers if your content is valuable to them, and you can share tweets sent to you from your network of followers with the rest of your followers. There are certainly many other ways to increase followers but they are complicated and best saved for a later time. These basic methods will build your following and over time, you will be quite surprised at the ongoing growth. The key to success using twitter is to continuously feed the following with relevant information w/o trying to sell to them. Whether it’s a new Data Sheet, New Product Announcement, Appointment of Personnel, Discount, Recall, Discontinuation, Award, Acquisition, New Technology, New Equipment, New Client, Webinar, On-line Video, Job Opening, Investor Messaging, and anything else that positively influences your company’s perception within your constituency. Twitter allows you to get messages out in real time in 140 character snippets. Twitter, is an extension of your company’s Mar-Com resources and doesn’t necessarily tie directly into the Community environment being discussed here. However, your presence and participation within this domain allows for a number of ways to direct people back to your Community and to your website. This is another piece of the Social Media puzzle.

Social Media on the Cheap is possible and not that difficult an endeavor.

1) Create a Fan Page on Facebook

2) Involve yourself with as many social networking resources as possible

3) Create Profiles of your company everywhere possible

4) Encourage employees to contribute to discussions / answer relevant questions

5) Blog about business issues your company can resolve

6) above all else – point them back to a Community (Facebook Fan Page) and allow them functions to interact with you and with each other.

The reality of Social Marketing or Social Media is that it really is not that overwhelming. It does require an investment of time in terms of management as well as learning the tools that are at your disposal. If you begin by developing a plan utilizing these simple resources you have the starting point in creating your own personal foot print in the world of Social Media. More importantly, you are on the way to creating a long term relationship with all of the people that matter most to your business’ success.

My Two Cents…

Die BÄKO-Zentrale Süddeutschland eG ist ab sofort mit einer neuen Corporate Website online. Die Netzbewegung hat die Zentralgenossenschaft von 25 Bäcker- und Konditorengenossenschaften beim Relaunch betreut und die neue Website vollständig realisiert.

Nach der Neugestaltung fallen zuerst die großformatigen Hintergrundbilder mit ansprechenden Food-Motiven ins Auge. Die Grafiken sind voll skalierbar und passen sich so dynamisch an die individuelle Größe des Browserfensters an.

Neben dem Layout konnte die Netzbewegung auch die Usability der Website optimieren. Der Content ist nun noch übersichtlicher in zwei Spalten angeordnet, die Navigationsstruktur wurde an die Klickwege der User angepasst. Exemplarisch für die verbesserte Nutzbarkeit ist unter anderem der optimierte Prozess zur Reservierung von Präsentationsmaterialien. Die „echte“ Mehrsprachigkeit der www.baekosued.de Website erlaubt den Wechsel der Sprachversion auf allen Unterseiten mit einem einzigen Klick. Für mehr Frische auf dem umgestalteten BÄKO-Portal sorgt tagesaktueller Content. Dafür werden unter anderem redaktionelle Inhalte vom Auftritt der B2B-Publikation „BÄKO-magazin“ über eine RSS-Schnittstelle eingebunden.

Link zur Webseite: http://www.baekosued.de

Netzbewegung – Agentur für interaktive Markenerlebniswelten:

Die Internet-Agentur Netzbewegung entwickelt interaktive Anwendungen und Markenerlebnisse, die durch kreative Ideen, hochwertiges Design und zukunftsweisende technische Lösungen begeistern. Sie betreut bekannte Marken und Unternehmen wie Haribo, Griesson – de Beukelaer, Maoam, Sun Rice, Gubor, FruchtZwerge, Actimel, Capri-Sonne, Prinzen, Babybel, Kiri, UHU, Bruder, WAS IST WAS und Merck Selbstmedikation.

Die Agentur wurde 2000 gegründet und beschäftigt heute 32 feste Mitarbeiter. Das Leistungsportfolio der Agentur umfasst die Realisierung von interaktiven Marken-Erlebniswelten, Corporate-Websites, Online-Promotions, Online-Games, Communities, E-Shops, Online-Kampagnen, Multimediapräsentationen und Content Management Lösungen.

Pressekontakt:

Alwin Roppert
Netzbewegung GmbH
Pforzheimer Str. 132
76275 Ettlingen

Tel.: 07243/2159-0
Fax: 07243/2159-79

Email: roppert@netzbewegung.com
Web: http://www.netzbewegung.com

Für den Keks- und Gebäckhersteller aus Polch hat die Netzbewegung einen neue Internetpräsenz geschaffen, die appetitliche Frische und Natürlichkeit ausstrahlt. Werte, die zum Erfolgsrezept von Griesson – de Beukelaer zählen. Das Erfolgsrezept der Website lautet: Eine raffinierte Kombination aus PHP und JavaScript als Basis, abgeschmeckt mit ein wenig Ajax und einer guten Prise Flash.

Zentrales Element des neuen Webauftritts ist das so genannte „Rich-Media-Modul“, das unterschiedliche Inhalte aufnimmt – von Fotos über Animationen bis hin zu Videoclips. Der entscheidende Vorteil des Moduls: verschiedene Inhalte lassen sich ohne Reload der Seite direkt per Ajax-Request aufrufen. Besonders gut ist das im Bereich Geschichte zu sehen.

Ein weiteres Highlight der Seite ist der Keksfinder, der gemeinsam mit den Experten von Griesson entwickelt wurde. Mit ihm findet jeder das passende Gebäck, entweder durch gezielte Selektion oder als Empfehlung für die aktuelle Kekslaune. Sie haben Lust auf Gebäck bekommen? Dann probieren Sie den Keksfinder am besten gleich aus.

Inhaltlich wendet sich der Webauftritt nach dem Relaunch mit noch mehr Informationen an unterschiedliche Usergruppen. Endverbraucher erfahren alles über das Traditionsunternehmen und sein Sortiment mit acht Marken (unter anderem DeBeukelaer, Leicht&Cross, Prinzen, Tekrum, TUC) und mehr als 90 verschiedenen Produkten. Medienvertretern und Handelspartnern steht ein umfangreicher Bereich mit relevanten Downloads zur Verfügung. Und Stellensuchende finden aktuelle Jobs und Informationen im Bereich Karriere. Abgerundet wird der Auftritt durch kleine aber feine Infografiken, die eigens für den Auftritt neu kreiert wurden.

Auf ausdrücklichen Kundenwunsch wurde die neue Seite entsprechend den Anforderungen für barrierefreies Webdesign gestaltet. So zeigt Griesson – de Beukelaer mit seinen hohen Standards auch in dieser Hinsicht Verantwortung und Vorbildfunktion.

Link zur Webseite:  http://www.griesson.de

Netzbewegung – Agentur für interaktive Markenerlebniswelten:

Die Internet-Agentur Netzbewegung entwickelt interaktive Anwendungen und Markenerlebnisse, die durch kreative Ideen, hochwertiges Design und zukunftsweisende technische Lösungen begeistern. Sie betreut bekannte Marken und Unternehmen wie Haribo, Griesson – de Beukelaer, Maoam, Sun Rice, Gubor, FruchtZwerge, Actimel, Capri-Sonne, Prinzen, Babybel, Kiri, UHU, Bruder, WAS IST WAS und Merck Selbstmedikation.

Die Agentur wurde 2000 gegründet und beschäftigt heute 32 feste Mitarbeiter. Das Leistungsportfolio der Agentur umfasst die Realisierung von interaktiven Marken-Erlebniswelten, Corporate-Websites, Online-Promotions, Online-Games, Communities, E-Shops, Online-Kampagnen, Multimediapräsentationen und Content Management Lösungen.

Pressekontakt:

Alwin Roppert
Netzbewegung GmbH
Pforzheimer Str. 132
76275 Ettlingen

Tel.: 07243/2159-0
Fax: 07243/2159-79
Email: roppert@netzbewegung.com
Web: http://www.netzbewegung.com

With a rapidly growing and highly engaged user base, Twitter can be a great vehicle for driving registrations and attendance to your next virtual event.  Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to get that done:

1. Find your target audience on Twitter – first, of course, you need to define the target audience of your virtual event.  Once you do, go seek them out on Twitter – you don’t need to engage with them on Twitter just yet, but you can start following them – and identify the “places” where they tend to congregate (e.g. read their tweets, click through on links they’re sharing, read their blogs, attend chats they participate in, etc.).  You may find that by following folks, they’ll follow you back – and, may engage with you on their own.  Next, leverage Twitter’s search capabilities – search on key terms associated with your virtual event and observe who’s tweeting about them.  Sign up for a service like tweetbeep and you’ll receive daily email alerts with all tweets about your selected terms.  Start following the folks who seem to know what they’re talking about, as your virtual event may be of interest to them.
2. Identify Twitter users whom your target audience follows – if you handled Step #1 well, then you’ve half-way completed this step already.  By researching topics (and users) on Twitter, you’ll begin to build an authority map – those with more authority on topics tend to have more followers.  Identify users whom your target audience is following – then, determine which users they’re following (and so on).  You’re now starting to build potential promoters who can help in the outreach efforts of your virtual event.
3. Leverage prominent or active tweeters in your own company – is your CEO or VP Marketing an active tweeter?  If so, them reach out to their multitude of followers to promote the virtual event.  On your corporate web site, use a service such as TweepML to share a list of your company’s Twitter users – giving web site visitors a single-click option to start following every member of that list!
4. Identify other prominent / relevant Twitter users – find prominent industry bloggers and start reading their blogs.  Engage with them by leaving comments on their blogs or send them @replies via Twitter.  Making these folks aware of your virtual event is a good thing (e.g. perhaps they’ll attend) – having them promote the event on your behalf is even better.
5. Build your Twitter following - if you’ll be using a corporate branded Twitter account to focus your marketing efforts, use the aforementioned steps to start building your list of followers.  For me, quality always trumps quantity with Twitter followers – I’d rather have the right people follow my corporate branded account than have 200 “non relevant” folks follow me (in the hopes that I’ll follow them back).  Especially with a corporate Twitter account – make every tweet count.  Potential followers will often review your last 5 or last 10 tweets – if you tweet too often about breakfast or the weather, then you will NOT be followed.
6. Start promoting by adding value – first, you never want to over-promote your virtual event.  Doing so will only turn users off from your corporate branded Twitter account.  Each time you promote the virtual event, you want to add value.  So again, make every tweet (promotion) account and give users something useful each time.  Similarly, ask your fellow promoters to start spreading the word – and suggest phrases or facts they should be using in their tweets.  Use a link shortener such as bit.ly and track the number of clicks you generate – this way, you can start to determine what’s working and what’s not working.
7. Define (and use) your virtual event’s hash tag – make sure all tweets (e.g. from you, your colleagues and your fellow promoters) utilize the hash tag that you’ve created for your virtual event.  Ask your event’s exhibitors to pitch in as well – have them tweet about their presence at the event.  Once you’ve seeded the discussion with your event’s hash tag, you may see the interaction and commentary spread – if a few prominent tweeters jump in (e.g. >100,000 followers) and their tweets are then re-tweeted by other prominent tweeters, then awareness of your virtual event can spread beyond even your wildest dreams.
8. Leverage other (relevant) hash tags – the hash tag can be a wildly effective means for promoting content to indirect followers – I may only have a few hundred followers, but if I post something insightful with the #eventprofs hash tag, I may have my message seen by the 50,000 (this number used merely as an example) users who monitor that hash tag.  Make sure the hash tag is relevant to your virtual event – assuming it is, including that hash tag along with your event’s tag. [Addendum, 10/27/09: be careful not to over-promote to the related hash tags, as constant promotion of your virtual event will surely turn off the followers of that hash tag - you'll even receive backlash from them]
9. Think outside the box – instead of continually pointing users to the registration page for your virtual event, try to mix things up – link to other areas, such as: short video of the keynote speaker; text quote from a prominent presenter; a testimonial (quote) from a pre-registered attendee; a twitpic (image) of the event’s show floor or auditorium; a page that lists titles or companies who have already registered.  Of course, on all of these pages, place a link to your event’s registration page.
10. Have fun – Twitter can be an effective business tool – but remember, it’s also fun!

Tweet this posting:

How To Promote Your #Virtual Event On Twitter: http://bit.ly/n74Aj #eventprofs

The Hype over Social Media
Social media is currently the darling of the online world and is well known for its ability to provide a platform for end-users to “micro-publish” content.  The hype over sensational stories such as Ashton Kutcher’s race against CNN to be the first Twitter account to 1,000,000 followers focuses squarely on the consumer-facing (and, in that particular case, more vacuous) aspects of the medium, but can B2B marketers leverage this rapidly growing channel to deliver true value to clients and drive additional revenue? I believe the answer to that question is an absolute, “Yes.” Social media’s true promise lies in its ability to allow organizations to better listen and respond to its constituents and, if done right, can lead to tremendous gains in loyalty, decreased support costs and increased revenue.

The Hype Affects Your Brand
Most organizations (consumer-facing and B2B) are coming to the realization that they no longer own their brand. The digital channel has allowed anyone with a blog, Twitter account or Facebook page to be a globally-known critic capable of creating a viral meme that can significantly affect your organization’s reputation. While there’s no way to completely control every individual, many organizations are learning that providing an environment for open dialogue and the delivery of rapid, honest (read: no sales pitches) answers can win over reluctant, or sometimes hostile, customers.

B2B marketers need to understand that, although their target audience is most likely smaller than the typical B2C target market, the members of that group are consumers who utilize social media technologies every day. In other words, your B2B clients are also shopping at Amazon, posting their status on Facebook, or commenting on their latest experience via Twitter – and they have expectations for their relationship with you.

So, How Should B2B Organizations Get Started with Social Media?

Listen
Identify what clients and partners are saying about your organization by monitoring the digital channel. Take advantage of tools as simple as Google Alerts or as robust as Spiral16, Radian6 or Nielsen’s BuzzMetrics to find out first-hand what clients and partners are interested in.

Plan
Building from the results of the “Listen” phase, develop a clear understanding of your audience, how your organization needs to engage with them and how to measure success, and then identify an iterative roadmap to get there.

Share
Utilize one of the several proven community platforms (e.g., Jive, KickApps, Ning, Pluck) to create a sandbox for clients to communicate or exchange information – allowing for open conversation and commentary and providing timely and direct feedback. On top of everything else in their arsenal, B2B marketers have a tremendous amount of content that can be shared with clients and partners. Let customers view, listen to, or read it, and allow them to share it in turn.

Engage
Your influencers in the space should be engaged, not courted as one would when trying to sell to a prospect. Take advantage of the built-in two-way communication lines of social media to actively engage with participants in your social media ecosystem. Value-added and honest communication will go a long way to building trust with your constituents and converting them into long-term partners.

Rinse and Repeat
Use your listening tools or service to monitor your engagement, measure it against your pre-defined success metrics and adjust your plan as necessary.

Wrapping It up
Engaging with customers via the channels they expect is critical not only for end consumer-facing organizations, but also for B2B enterprises. B2B customers are migrating their personal online behaviors to the work environment, and organizations must be prepared to engage.

A good social media strategy should take into account a business’s core strategy and drivers, customers’ primary needs and communication channels, overall brand/reputation management and, of course, budgets. Organizations that first listen to what customers are saying and then engage appropriately can build mutually beneficial long term relationships.

So, where is your organization in their social media evolution? Have you seen any successes or failures with social media in the B2B space?

You may also want to read our previous posts: B2B is the new B2C and Why B2B marketers chase Amazon.com.

Like the first line of “Money” by The Beatles, “The best things in life are free.”  And while most everyone would like to agree with
the comfort in that sentiment, most everyone knows you don’t get something outright for free without at least some strings attached.

Take Jell-O for example. In 1902, Jell-O placed ads in the Ladies’ Home Journal proclaiming Jell-O to be “America’s Most Famous Dessert.” Jell-O remained a minor success until 1904, when it sent salesmen out into the field to hand out free Jell-O cookbooks, a pioneering marketing tactic at the time. By showing how easy it was to make Jell-O with floating pieces of fruit inside, the popularity,
and thus sales, of Jell-O rose.

Making it easy for prospective consumers to interact with a product is a tactic marketers continue to use today. But instead of going door-to door, it’s become much easier to reach a broader audience via the Web. We all know this.  And we’re all savvy enough to know about those “hidden strings.” We know we can get the coupons if we just input our contact information to receive them. But we do it because we want the offer. This is a great way for consumer product goods companies to capture data and build a list of prospective customers that can be targeted with appropriate offers.

This is also something that should be employed in the business-to-business realm. You can offer a free product sample, product or service evaluation, or market research. By offering something of value (that’s the key – of value to your prospect), you can start to build your own list and develop an ongoing communication with your target market.

Becky, Account Supervisor

Virtual Events - Twitter

In 2009, Twitter has taken the world by storm – in fact, it wouldn’t surprise me if Time magazine named Twitter their Person of the Year.  In my opinion, Twitter’s success hinges on its simplicity, celebrity (use by celebrities, that is) and portability (users stay connected to the service from nearly anywhere).

While virtual events have been around for a few years – they too took the world by storm in 2009 – mostly, the business-to-business world.  As we look forward into 2010, here’s what virtual events can learn from Twitter:

1. 140 characters or less – I often find it a challenge to condense my thought into 140 characters – the usual trick is to lean on acronyms (or abridged versions of words) to get under the limit.  The better approach is to be more efficient, using less words to make the same point.  While I still get frustrated at times (having to distill my thought down to 140 characters) – other times, I find that my message comes across clearer and more elegant in the shorter form.  In virutal events, a lot of chatter (e.g. group chat in the Lounge) is long-winded.  It would be interesting to participate in a group chat in which each chat message was limited to 140 characters.  I get the feeling that the chat would be much more enjoyable and productive.
2. Application Programming Interface (API) – Twitter was recently valued at $1B – it couldn’t have possibly reached that valuation without it’s excellent API and the rich ecosystem that’s been created by developers and start-ups.  The API has made possible desktop clients such as Tweetdeck and Seesmic Desktop, along with numerous third party services, such as Tweetbeep, Twimailer and many more.  Virtual event platform providers should look to “open up” their platform via API’s – allowing show hosts and exhibitors to tap into underlying registration data; customize the look and feel of their events; and develop functional mini-apps that ride on top of the platform.  As Twitter discovered, opening up the platform creates a “wealth” of opportunity.
3. Mobile support – Twitter’s API allow for applications like TwitterBerry (for BlackBerry) and Tweetie (for iPhone).  Users are increasingly on the go these days – whereby less and less interaction with the web occurs from their desk and keyboard.  Virtual event platforms that can extend their reach to smartphones will stand to benefit greatly – adoption will increase, as will average session time and overall session counts.  Twitter also integrates with the Short Messaging Service (SMS) – making access nearly universal (e.g. from non-smartphone cell phones).  Perhaps there are capabilities in a virtual event that can also be triggered via “commands” transmitted via SMS.
4. Connecting with others – Twitter’s growth in 2009 has resulted from (a) needing to connect with your friends, family and colleagues who are already on the service and (b) a desire to “follow” celebrities or sports figures.  In business-to-business virtual events, you won’t have this same sort of dynamic (wanting to follow others) – however, the platforms can do a better job of finding and recommending folks you should be following or connected to.  For instance, a CIO at a small-and-medium sized business (SMB) may want to know that a CIO from another SMB company is also in attendance.
5. Self service / self starter – Many companies are now active on Twitter, to provide customer outreach, customer service, outbound marketing and even e-commerce sales.  Other than learning the basics of social media and Twitter etiquette, the process to get started with Twitter is very straightforward.  Virtual event platform providers ought to provide a means for curious/inquisitive users to set themselves up with a test event – some day, configuring your virtual event (a basic one, at least) should be analogous to creating a new blog in WordPress.

And there you have it – adopt these five principles and your virtual event platform may some day be worth $1B as well!

by Bill M via Flickr

In working with numerous virtual tradeshow exhibitors, I’ve witnessed some common mistakes – I believe that these mistakes can impact an exhbitor’s Return On Investment (ROI) for the virtual event.  The good news is that we’re here to help.  So if your prior virtual tradeshow resulted in low attendee engagement – or, a low number of actionable leads, read further for tips and tactics to use at your next event.

5 Common Mistakes – Virtual Tradeshow Exhibitors

1. Assume that visitors will naturally engage (proactively) with your booth staffers – first, understand that the dynamics of a virtual trade show are different than a physical trade show.  In a physical event, you can (at minimum) make eye contact with a visitor to your booth.  From here, you can gauge the visitor’s interest in speaking further and determine whether you want to strike up a conversation.  You don’t get the same sort of signal in a virtual event.  However, leaving your booth is but a single mouse click away – so if you do nothing, there’s a chance that your visitor will depart and never return.  What I like to do is welcome visitors by way of your booth’s Group Chat – letting them know that you’re there to answer any questions they may have.  Alternatively, send them a vCard (virtual business card) with your contact info – inviting them to contact you at any time (within the event or via email/phone).  Don’t assume that visitors will engage with you – instead, utilize proactive means for reaching out to them.
2. Fail to have product experts staff your booth – in a b-to-b event, your booth may receive visits from qualified buyers – folks with purchasing authority and budget who are finalizing their short list of solutions vendors.  They’re likely to have some detailed product questions to help them narrow their list.  If your booth is staffed with sales and marketing staff who are unable to answer product-level questions, then you’re missing out on a great opportunity.  If instead, you had product experts staffing your booth (e.g. product manager, sales engineer, technical engineering manager, etc.) – they can engage with these prospects and provide them with all the information they need.  Leverage your product experts, as they’ll move prospects down the sales funnel along the way to a purchasing decision.
3. Fail to visit the event’s Lounge – not satisfied with the number of visits to your booth?  Go find the attendees in areas where they tend to congregate, such as the Networking Lounge.  Send your marketers into the lounge to observe the chatter.  Then, send your product experts in to help attendees and address/answer their questions.  Notice that I mentioned “help” and not “sell” – you don’t want to pitch your product in the Lounge (that’s another mistake by exhibitors) – instead, you want to demonstrate thought leadership in a way that attracts attention to your company (and then on to your booth!).
4. Fail to host a presentation/webinar – if the event host allows exhibitors the option of spending extra for a webinar, it’s well worth the investment.  As the exhbitor, you then become part of the event’s agenda and gain the attention of a captive audience for 30-60 minutes.  Have a well-known industry name (whether from your own company or from an analyst firm) as a speaker in your webinar – and invite viewers to your virtual tradeshow booth afterwards if they have additional questions.  In one virtual tradeshow I attended, an exhibitor’s expert speaker delivered a great webinar, then spent the remainder of the day engaging with attendees in his own booth, along with the Lounge.  That exhibitor achieved the highest count of booth visits during the event.
5. Fail to follow up promptly and appropriately with attendees – if you sourced some “hot” prospects at the virtual event, follow up with them right away (e.g. the next business day).  Your follow-up should be meaningful - if the prospect asked for product or pricing information, send her an email with all of the requested details.  Do NOT hand hot prospects over to tele-sales or send them vanilla emails about the virtual event – rather, provide compelling touchpoints that are tailored to that prospect’s interactions with you.  If the prospect engaged with a product expert, Cc that expert on the email!

We can’t un-do the past, but we certainly can learn from it.  Let us know which of these tactics work for you at your next virtual tradeshow!

Tweet this on Twitter

5 Mistakes of #Virtual Tradeshow Exhibitors by @dshiao via @InXpo blog: http://bit.ly/4RGBq #eventprofs

Netzbewegung realisiert für die plazz entertainment AG eine Online-Unterwasserwelt mit neuartigem Community-Ansatz.

Mit AT.LANT.IS hat die Netzbewegung GmbH aus Ettlingen einen sicheren Online-Treffpunkt für Kinder zwischen 8 und 14 Jahren geschaffen, der Kommunikation und kindgerechte Unterhaltung auf innovative Weise in einer Community vereint: Alle vom Individuum in AT.LANT.IS erbrachten Leistungen kommen der Gesamtheit der User zu Gute. Die Bürger von AT.LANT.IS erweitern im freundschaftlichen Wettbewerb miteinander die frei begehbare Community. Durch gute Ergebnisse in den Online-Games können unter anderem ganze Bereiche von AT.LANT.IS zusätzlich freigeschaltet werden.

Zwischen den ersten Grobskizzen mit der Vision einer Unterwasserwelt und dem komplexen interaktiven Erlebnisportal, das jetzt online gegangen ist, liegt insgesamt über ein Jahr internationale Teamarbeit und aufwendige Projektkoordination. Idee und Grundkonzeption für AT.LANT.IS hat die plazz entertainment AG entwickelt, während für das Character-Design der Avatare mit Stephane Tartelin ein bekannter französischer Künstler gewonnen werden konnte. Die Gestaltung der Unterwasser-Umgebung der Community wurde von der Netzbewegung übernommen. In detailverliebter Illustrations- und Animationsarbeit entstanden mehr als 17 unterschiedliche Räume, welche den Avataren der User eine Heimat bieten.

Auch die technische Realisierung des Projektes hielt einige Herausforderungen bereit. Nach der ersten Konzeptphase wurden zunächst auf Basis der Character-Studien die Avatare in 3ds Max umgesetzt. Dazu kamen über 100 verschiedene Items, die der Spieler für seinen Avatar erwerben kann. Alleine der hierfür betriebene Aufwand ist immens: Insgesamt wurden für die verschiedenen Zustände über 15.000 Einzelbilder exportiert.

Neben der Realisierung der Grundmechaniken wie dem Pathfinding auf Basis der OpenSpace-Engine hat die Netzbewegung für die Community eine sehr aufwendige und komplexe Flash-Applikation in AS3 entwickelt, sämtliche Online-Games realisiert sowie ein Backend für Moderation und Administration aufgesetzt. Für die simultane Verwaltung tausender Useranfragen wurde in enger Zusammenarbeit mit der plazz entertainment AG das Kernstück der Hardware, der SmartFox-Server, aufgesetzt. All diese unterschiedlichen Aufgaben wurden von einem großen, international vernetzten Projektteam bewältigt. Allein seitens der Netzbewegung waren mehr als 20 Mitarbeiter an diesem Projekt beteiligt.

Der Entscheidung für die Netzbewegung als Partner in der Entwicklung der Online-Unterwasserwelt ging eine ausführliche Screeningphase voraus. Neben der langjährigen Erfahrung in der Entwicklung von Communities und Games speziell für Kinder und Jugendliche gab auch die technische Kompetenz den Ausschlag für die Zusammenarbeit mit der Online-Agentur aus Ettlingen.

Nach einer Entwicklungszeit von gut 12 Monaten ist AT.LANT.IS am 28.08.2009 aus der Betaphase aufgetaucht und hat seine Schleusen nun für das Publikum geöffnet. Das Interesse der Zielgruppe spricht schon jetzt für die neuartige Community – bereits in den ersten beiden Wochen haben sich mehr als 15.000 User registriert. Die Netzbewegung freut sich gemeinsam mit der plazz entertainment AG über den erfolgreichen Launch des Großprojektes und hofft auf eine möglichst erfolgreiche Zukunft dieses ambitionierten Projektes.

Weiterführende Informationen: www.at.lant.is / www.netzbewegung.com.

Die Internet-Agentur Netzbewegung entwickelt am Firmenstandort Ettlingen bei Karlsruhe interaktive Anwendungen und Markenerlebniswelten, die durch kreative Ideen, hochwertiges Design und zukunftsweisende technische Lösungen begeistern. Die Netzbewegung betreut internationale Marken wie zum Beispiel Haribo, Maoam, Sun Rice, Gubor, FruchtZwerge, Actimel, Capri-Sonne, Prinzen, Babybel, Kiri, Bruder Spielwaren, WAS IST WAS, Perwoll, Weißer Riese und Merck Selbstmedikation. Die Agentur wurde 2000 gegründet und beschäftigt heute 32 feste Mitarbeiter.

Webinare sind ein hervorragendes Mittel im B2B-Marketing zur “Lead Generation”. Da die Planung und Durchführung von Webinaren komplex ist, gibt es dementsprechend viele Fehlerquellen. Nachfolgend findet sich eine Aufstellung mit den 12 häufigsten Webinar-Fehlern:

Fehler vor dem Webinar

Fehler Nr. 1: Keine differenzierten Webinare für unterschiedliche Kundensegmente
Je zielgerichteter eine Nachricht ist, desto besser verstehen sie die potentiellen Kunden – das Involvement steigt.

Fehler Nr. 2: Langweilige “me too” Themen und Überschriften
Die Webinar-Themen müssen so interessant sein, das der potentielle Teilnehmer überzeugt ist, dass es sich um “need-to-have” Informationen handelt.

Fehler Nr. 3: Keine Fragen während  bzw. nach dem Registrierungsprozess
Durch Umfragen fndet man heraus, wer an einem Webinar teilnimmt und was seine konkreten Bedürfnisse sind.

Fehler Nr. 4: Keine Unterlagen & Informationen vor dem Webinar
Bereits vor dem Webinar sollten erste Informationen, z.B. in Form von Downloads zur Verfügung gestellt werden. Denn bis zum Webinar vergeht viel Zeit und man sollte die Aufmerksamkeit und das Interesse während der Registrierung nutzen, um bereits Informationen zu lancieren. Die Vorabinformationen sind ein Appetitanreger und steigern das Interesse am Webinar.

Fehler Nr. 5: Kein Einsatz von Videos vor dem Webinar
Durch den Einsatz von Videos bereits zur Webinar-Promotion prägt sich das Webinar-Thema bei den potentiellen Teilnehmern besser ein.

Fehler während des Webinars

Fehler Nr. 6: Langweilige Inhalte
Kling banal, ist es aber nicht. Wichtig ist es, Stories zu erzählen und zu unterhalten. Die Aufzählung von Fakten sollte vermieden werden. Die Fakten müssen in die Stories verpackt werden.

Fehler Nr. 7: Selbstbeweihräucherung
Das Webinar darf sich nicht um eine Firma oder Produkte drehen – zumindest nicht primär.  Das Webinar muss sich in erster Linie um die Teilnehmer und die Lösung ihrer Probleme kümmern.

Fehler Nr. 8: Folien vorlesen
Das Vorlesen von Folien ist langweilig. Es lenkt die Teilnehmer auch vom wichtigsten ab: dem Moderator bzw. Redner. Statt dessen müssen Fragen gestellt werden, besondere Ergebnisse angezeigt oder Grafiken eingeblendet werden, die das Gesagte unterstreichen.

Fehler Nr. 9: Keine Beweise
Die meisten Leuten denken darüber nach, wieso sie ein Produkt nicht kaufen sollten. Deswegen sind Testimonials, Fallbeispiele aus der Vergangenheit, Grafiken, Charts etc. extrem wichtig, um Bedenken zu reduzieren.

Fehler Nr. 10: Keine Aufforderung zum Handeln
Zum Ende des Webinars müssen klare und konkrete Aufforderungen zum Handeln folgen und nicht nur “Rufen Sie uns an”.

Fehler nach dem Webinar

Fehler Nr. 11: Kein Multi-Channel Follow-up Prozess
Nach einem Webinar dürfen die Leads nicht einfach nur an den Vertrieb übergeben werden. Das wäre suboptimal. Es muss ein Multi-Channel Follow-Up Prozess erfolgen: E-Mails, Print Mails, Telefonanrufe, Einladungen zu Messen und Veranstaltungen etc.

Fehler Nr. 12: Nicht-Käufer ignorieren
Die wenigsten Kunden kaufen beim ersten Kontakt mit einem Unternehmen. Viele kaufen erst nach mehrfachen Kontakten. Deswegen ist ein kontinuierlicher Follow-up Prozess notwendig.  Potentiellen Kunden muss es erschwert werden, dass sie einen vergessen oder ignorieren.

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Quelle: Basierend auf Michael Cage: Teleseminars, Webinars & Videos

Kathy Cabrera kirjoittaa uusimmassa Journalistics-blogin kirjoituksessa otsikolla “Before you Start a B2B Social Media Program…“. Aiheelta ei voi – eikä onneksi tarvitsekaan – välttyä yhdessäkään markkinointiin tai viestintään liittyvässä palaverissa.

Cabrera nostaa esiin esimerkiksi nämä asiat:

Miksi lähteä mukaan?
Väärä syy lähteä mukaan on  “koska kilpailijakin on siellä.”

Oikeat syyt ovat:
- Sitoutuneemmat asiakkuudet
- Lisäväylien löytäminen ajatusten, tuotteiden ja yrityskulttuurin markkinoimiseen
- Luoda kirjoittajasta oman alansa pääasiantuntija

Huomioitavat asiat:
- Kuinka paljon aikaa ja rahaa voidaan investoida
- Missä on/ovat maali(t)
- Mitä sosiaalisen median kanavia tulisi käyttää
- Kenen yrityksessä tulisi osallistua? Kenellä on vastuu sosiaalisen median kampanjoiden johtamisesta
- Kuinka menestystä mitataan

Saatavat edut:
- Vilskettä sivustolla
- Wom-suosituksia (word-of-mouth)
- Lisääntynyt bränditietoisuus
- Lisääntynyt brändilojaalius

Muista: sosiaalisen median trendit muuttuvat nopeasti!
- MySpace oli selvästi Facebookia suositumpi kaksi vuotta sitten
- Facebook on nyt selvästi suositumpi, MySpace kävijämäärä ei ole enää noussut
- Twitter aloitti kolme vuotta sitten ja kahden vuoden jälkeen (marraskuussa 2008) sivustolla oli jo miljardia viestiä

Source: flickr (User: Samuele Storari)

The virtual events industry got its start in replications of a physical trade show or conference – the very first virtual events were virtual tradeshows, whereby platform providers re-created the look and feel of a physical trade show within a web-based environment.  These sorts of virtual events continue to gain traction and I expect to see continued growth as additional corporations (and entire industries) enter the mix this year and into 2010.

Due to the flexible nature of virtual event platforms, however, we’re seeing parallel growth occurring via many other virtual applications that ride atop the same shared infrastructure and platform.  As I wrote in a blog posting titled “Virtual Events: Available In Many Flavors“, we’re seeing virtual job fairs, virtual sales kickoffs and virtual partner summits running on vendors’ virtual event platforms.

Another application/venue that’s gained traction in 2009 is the virtual business community.  Rather than a discrete and fixed event that occurs over a live date (or a series of live dates), the virtual business community is a 365 day/year service that users leverage for explicit business benefits.  In my opinion, the Intranet of 2001-2008 will be moving towards virtual business communities, powered by the same platforms that service virtual tradeshows.

For me, the concept of intranet does not inspire much excitement or enthusiasm.  I’ve used intranets to find information (specifications, pricing, a phone number, etc.), but have never yearned to log into the intranet while bringing up my morning email.  “It’s just there” was the mentality I used to have.  I believe that virtual event platforms can create a vibrant and virtual business community, significantly moving the intranet concept up the value chain.  In fact, the business community becomes a virtual office, tearing down physical walls (and cubicles) to turn a globally distributed workforce into a close-knit and collaborative team.

Here are key tactics in building a vibrant business community:

Get users to keep coming back

You want your user base to login to the business community each morning before they even fire up their email client.  In fact, a truly successful business community may support email-like communications within the platform, making users less dependent on email.  To get your users to return over and over, you need:

1. Content - it needs to be timely, relevant and useful.  Business-critical content should be housed here – the type of information that users need to get their job done – pricing sheets, internal contact information, customer contact information, product documentation, competitive analysis, etc.  Don’t lose sight of the timely angle – have your executives post company updates/news and make them available via videocasts or video webcam.
2. Network effect – a bit of a chicken-and-egg problem here – but, you need to get a critical mass of engaged and sought-after employees interacting in the business community.  Once you have that critical mass, you’ll see the community grow, as the “draw” will be access to and interactions with key colleagues.  This is the same network effect that AOL Instant Messenger, Facebook and Twitter enjoyed – users sign up because their friends, family or colleagues were already there.
3. Enable social and interactive tools – today’s intranet needs to be empowered with the capabilities of AIM, Skype, Twitter and Facebook.  This way, I not only find documents to download, but I interact with key people who have the answers I need.  If I’m a product manager and need an answer from a lead software developer, he might not answer my phone call or return my email right away, but if I connect with him via text or video chat, perhaps he will.  After all, I’m finding him in an (online) environment that he’s most comfortable operating in.

Enterprise-enable your Business Community

Today’s most successful social networking sites/services are used in a consumer setting (i.e. friends and family) – ask yourself what makes them successful and determine how those features can be adopted in a 100% (internal) business social network.  I could see parallels of the following services made available internally within the business community platform:

1. flickr
2. Yahoo Answers
3. Skype
4. Facebook
5. Twitter
6. StumbleUpon
7. del.icio.us
8. Google
9. digg

The key, I believe, is not just to enable social tools for the sake of being social – it’s to enable social tools while simultaneously connecting those tools to your business applications and business processes.  Possible ideas:

1. Integration with your HR / Human Capital Database – if you have a rich profile on each employee (birth date, interests, job function, etc.), expose shareable information within your social tools and auto-fill that information to make it convenient for all users.  So if I’m sending out an internal tweet, my user ID is hyperlinked to a rich profile that describes all shareable information about me and my job role.
2. Integration with CRM Database – are users posting links to industry news and analysis?  How about doing a keyword search by company and matching those up to sales opportunities in your CRM database?  If an article was posted about Acme Corporation’s latest product launch, let Acme’s sales rep know, so that she can contact them about applicable services that you offer.
3. Integration with ERP systems – perhaps a crazy idea, but what if you could tweet about your latest business trip and have the expense management system parse your (internal) tweet and auto-generate a row in your online expense report?

All told, the possibilities are endless and quite exciting.  I foresee the virtual business community (powered by a virtual event platform) to be a significant trend in the coming year.  I believe this to be the future of the intranet for 2010 and beyond.

“BtoB” hat auch in diesem Jahr wieder von fünf Webdesign- und Usability-Experten zehn goßartige B2B-Websites wählen lassen. Die ausgewählten B2B-Websites müssen den Besuchern klare und prägnante Produkt- und Firmeninformationen liefern. Sie müssen die Marke widerspiegeln und den User motivieren, eine Konversation mit dem Unternehmen zu starten.

Der Trend geht davon weg, zu viele Produkte oder Features auf der Homepage zu zeigen oder zu verlinken. Es sei nicht gut, auf einer Website ein Mischmasch von Produkten anzubieten.  Unternehmen sollten überlegen für einzelne Produkte separate Websites zu erstellen oder Produkte nach Kundenbedürfnissen zu separieren und dafür getrennte Internetpräsenzen zu konzipieren.

Weiße Flächen und klare Texte sind in, schwere Design-Elemente sind out. Dort wo bislang animierte Grafiken benutzt wurden, sind jetzt statische Bilder. Das bedeutet jedoch nicht, das interaktive Elemente wie Videos nicht mehr vorhanden sind, sondern sie werden nur sehr viel überleger eingesetzt – eben nur dort wo Sie den Nutzern einen echten Mehrwert bieten.

Eine Ausnahme von der “weniger ist mehr” Tendenz ist der Einsatz von Feedback-Möglichkeiten – sprich Interaktivität.  So sollten die Marketing-Verantwortlichen die Website-Besucher nach ihren Bedürfnissen befragen.

Die  innovativen Marketing Manager helfen  bei der direkten Kommunikation zwischen ihren Kunden, denn einen Weg zur Kommunikation untereinander finden die Kunden ohnehin. Darum kann man es den Kunden auch gleich erleichtern, miteinander in Kontakt zu treten. Sie wissen es zu schätzen.

Folgende 10 Websites wurden von der Jury ausgewählt:

• 37signals: http://basecamphq.com
• ADP: www.adp.com
• Getty Images: www.gettyimages.com
• Iridesco: www.getharvest.com
• McMaster-Carr: www.mcmaster.com
• Office Depot: www.officedepot.com
• Ounce Labs: www.ouncelabs.com
• Smith & Fong Co.: www.plyboo.com
• Spiceworks: www.spiceworks.com
• Trane: www.trane.com/commercial

Quelle: BtoB vom 14. September 2009, Seite 14.

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If you’re just starting out with a blog, I know the scariest thing for me was wondering who in the world was going to find my blog, no less take the time to read it. If you’re passionate about a subject, market or cause, you may have more people than you think that would be interested in reading and sharing their thoughts. Ours is a passion to get to the Professional Tradesmen.

From a B-to-B  perspective, here are some simple ways to get the ball rolling so you can become the super star blogger you always knew you could be. Don’t ignore the obvious. You already have a business network to tap into.

• Current customers
• Potential customers
• Suppliers
• Distributors
• Fellow employees
• Industry groups
• Associations

Here are some inexpensive ways to promote your blog:

• Add your URL to your email signature (have everyone in the company do it)
• Add your URL when printing letterhead, cards, invoices, etc.
• Make it very visible on your web site
• If you do trade ads, add to the signoff as one of the calls-to-action
• Promote through your social media pages

One of the best ways to identify readers is using LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. Most of my new readers come from one of these sources. Weekly I go up on my LinkedIn page and post a topic on either the discussion page or the news page that directs them to my blog. The key here is to have groups to link to, but that’s another post. Facebook is the same way — at least once a week I post something. With Twitter, I use socialoomph (formerly Tweetlater) to put out posts hourly. I have over 100 tweets a week going out automatically. The point is it’s no good having these social media pages if you don’t use them. Remember, the power of social lies in it being viral. All it takes is a few readers who have a big following to like what you’re saying and Bingo, they will introduce you to a whole new audience.

Enough about how I find readers. I’d like to know how you do it. Please share.

Other posts that might be helpful:

5 ways to improve your blog

Blogs: How to take advantage of them to reach Professional Tradesmen

Miksi B2B satsaa yhä enemmän sosiaaliseen mediaan? Journalisticsin mukaan yrityksillä ei ole varaa olla tekemättä näin. Asiakkaat ja potentiaaliset asiakkaat ovat siellä – sosiaalisen median käyttö on ohittanut suosiossa meilin. Kaikki ovat siellä.

Toinen asia on (väitetty) helppous. Esimerkiksi Twitterissä voi blogin mukaan saada nopeasti uskollisia seuraajia seuraamalla itse yhteisön jäseniä ja twiittaamalla säännöllisesti, jotta kohderyhmä pysyisi informoituna yrityksen edelläkävijyydestä, uutisista jne. Tämä voi tosin olla helpommin sanottu kuin tehty.

Mistä päästäänkin siihen, että sosiaalisen median kautta yritykset pystyvät kuulemaan ja kuuntelemaan, eikä pelkästään tuuppaamaan yksipuolisesti sanomaansa toivoen, että joku toinen kuuntelee. Asiakkaille on tärkeää, että sinä kuuntelet.

Tämä voi tosin olla toissijaista. Blogissa siteeratun eräänkin tutkimuksen vastaajista 51 % oli sitä mieltä, että sosiaalisen median kampanjan suurin hyöty on – yllätys yllätys – alhainen hinta.