I copied over the posts from here, so I just have to hope I won’t get penalised by Google for duplicate content.

Anyway, it will be rather quiet here from now on. Please follow me to the new vistas…

I won’t shut this account down, though. I’ll probably find a new use for it in the future.

See you in my new home!

But have you thought about using your annual report as a marketing tool?

Although the opinion has been voiced that analysts and serious investors laugh at the “official account of events” in annual reports and will do their due diligence regardless of what the annual report says, the truth is that for the majority of your company’s potential audiences the annual report is an important document for finding out what you stand for.

To whom are you talking—and to whom you could

Current shareholders and potential investors are, naturally, important audiences for your annual report.

Authorities, suppliers and the general public should also be on your target list.

Existing and potential customers, however, can be your most important target group. They may not be interested in the financial statements in any great depth, but the numbers are important for them to determine whether they can expect you to be around in future as well. In other words, whether you are a serious contender for their business.

The reports for your individual business divisions or units will interest decision-makers who work in businesses that could use those divisions’ products or services.

Nothing prevents you from highlighting your products, for example in the form of mini customer case studies complete with testimonials. In an annual report, they carry more weight than in traditional marketing literature, because an annual report is considered an official document that is subjected to strict scrutiny.

Employees and future employees should also figure prominently among your target groups. Employees will read the company’s official voice in the report (also helping them talk about their employer to their social circle), while it doubles as a vehicle for creating a good employer image. Why not interview some of your employees for the report?

For corporate image, or good corporate citizenship, an annual report is ideal. You can include a sustainability report or an environmental report in it, thereby outlining the ways you are doing responsible business. Instead of company values, which many readers won’t take seriously anyway and which may draw criticism from your present dissatisfied employees, tell the readers how you have translated the values into practice.

Design sends a message

An annual report doesn’t need to look boring, although too many do. Employ a good visual designer to give the report an interesting, polished look. Don’t overdo it, however—it will only make you look like you’re trying to present yourself in a different light from what you actually are. Not a good start for a business relationship, if you’re targeting potential customers.

The legal department, the board of directors or the PR department may not be the wisest choices as writers. Hire a copywriter to do the writing. This will avoid convoluted corporatese and make you look more human.

Simple things like the choice of paper stock also send a subconscious message. Too much gloss and glitter won’t fare well in today’s world increasingly aware of environmental issues.

Distribute through all possible channels

Your annual report should be easily available both online and offline. Make it easy for people to order a print version, and place it on your website. Normal web pages in HTML are better than a downloadable PDF file, and try to avoid Flash based publications (you know, those that you can “leaf through” on your screen). The more you deviate from the way people expect to read online, the less useful your effort will be, and anything else than plain old HTML will make it more difficult for search engines to bring people to your content.

Done right, your annual report may get you both new investors and new customers. Unlike conventional marketing literature, it has an aura of reliability, and perhaps most importantly, it has a long shelf life. When was the last time someone kept your brochure for 12 months?

The story about a Finnish businessman’s dog trained to lift its paw in a mock Nazi salute is in itself both amazing and hilarious. There’s some sloppiness, however. Although the people’s names are spelled correctly, a total of three typos have managed to find their way to the name of the businessman’s company, two words.

The company was called Tampereen Rohdoskauppa Oy, later to become one of northern Europe’s largest pharmaceutical wholesalers under the name Tamro. The article, however, spells it Tapereen Rohduskuppa Oy (the “Oy” is the Finnish abbreviation of the company form, roughly equivalent to “Ltd”).

First, “Tapereen”. It should, of course, be Tampereen, from the name of the city, Tampere.

Second, “Rohdus”. There is no such word in Finnish. The correct form, Rohdos, means ‘drug’.

Third, “kuppa”. The typo here is rather unfortunate. Instead of kauppa (‘store’), the writer says “kuppa” (‘syphilis’).

Of course, foreign names can be difficult as the words don’t say anything if you don’t speak the language. I don’t think, however, that this can be an excuse. If you don’t know what words mean, you should take extra care to get them right.

This is particularly important when writing about people. A person’s name is one of the most important components in his or her identity toward the outside world, so it is almost an insult not to make sure it is spelled right. Even more so because when you do make a mistake, Murphy’s law dictates it will probably result in something obscene (for some unfathomable reason, typos seldom create innocent humour).

So whether you’re writing for a publication or for your company, please take special care with names. Companies, products, people are all named the way they are for a reason. As much as it is your duty to get the facts right, it is to get the names right.

—

Update: Within the scope of two days, AP seems to have corrected the “Tampereen” bit of the company name. The other two typos still exist.

Let’s just call it a day. Tomorrow’s Christmas Eve, and we can look forward to almost a week of just lazing around reduced working capacity before we land into the New Year 2011.

Maybe that’s something to celebrate. The year 2011 is the beginning of the second decade of the new millennium, and the world hasn’t come to an end yet.

I’m entering the second decade with high hopes. Are you?

The inspiration came to me in the form of Mark Palony’s blog post The Rebirth of Written Communication. Before the time of online tools that allowed you to be in touch with and found by practically the entire world, written documents were pretty much all historians could rely on to put together a picture of famous personalities, major events and so on.

The telephone posed a threat. How can you trace telephone calls made years ago? There’s no trace in history about what was said during those potentially revolutionary discussions.

We’re in exactly the same situation today.

Video is touted as the number one traffic generator to your website. Okay, that may be so. But if you’re going to enjoy the proverbial 15 minutes of fame, will that be enough? No contemporary search engine knows how to index that video of yours for posterity (that’s the 15+ minutes most of your customers will find themselves in), however ingenious its content. And whatever indexing they do, it’s based on—you guessed it, text.

Also, not everybody looks or sounds good on video. Do you really want the entire world to know you have a lisp, or that you speak with a horrible (to natives) accent? Who wants to see yet another talking head anyway?

I’m not trying to play down the efficiency of video or audio, don’t get me wrong. But the old adage still holds: it’s words that sell. In the online world, words are not spoken but written. For the search engines to pass along. For people to understand your thoughts are important, whatever you look like or however you speak.

Now hit that comment button to let me and the world know what you think. (That’s text, too…)

While it is certainly true that all marketing should shift more toward a one-on-one style of talking to be efficient and engaging, the differences between the B2C and B2B buying/selling process have not disappeared. Let’s make some comparisons:

The list could go on, but let this suffice for now.

Even looking at these examples, it is obvious that you will have to “talk to people” in substantially different ways if you’re selling to B2B customers. The differences also play a role in why you shouldn’t assume that using social media to engage B2B customers is similar to engaging B2C customers.

Or perhaps you disagree with my reasoning. Either way, shoot me a comment. I’m looking forward to a debate!

In recent times, there’s been a clear shift toward locality. I’ve seen at least this:

• Web searches give higher prominence to results that are geographically close to your location.
• Websites attempt to figure out your location based on the language of your operating system and where your IP address is physically located and give you a translated version of themselves.
• People calling themselves internet marketing experts are busy extolling the benefits of high rankings in location-based searches for businesses.
• Google ads seem to favor those of businesses relatively close to you.

But there’s a flip side to this trend.

First, local businesses might not benefit from location-based services (LBS) at all. As a Mashable article says, “most local businesses can’t consider access to a small, occasionally interested local audience via LBS to truly move the needle on revenue and profit”.

Second, the new-found idea of promoting local over national or international will harm businesses that are far away from their markets. Take myself as an example: I have no serious prospects within a 150-mile radius—in fact, they’re all in other countries. The more local searches are getting, the more it will hurt companies and individual professionals who need to be found by clients located far away from them.

Third, if I’m looking for a solution to my problem, I will want to look further than my immediate vicinity. Even more so if I’m a B2B company. For example, a Brazilian forestry company might find a Finnish solution the best, but how will that solution ever come up in searches that don’t go beyond, say, the Americas?

Fourth, although I’m not a big fan of conspiracy theories, I’m beginning to think the big move towards local is not something that’s being done for the benefit of the internet population. It’s something that’s being done to attract more advertisers. Think of Google, Gowalla, Foursquare. They are all making money out of selling advertising space (while we enlightened marketers are busy talking about inbound marketing…). Not that there’s anything wrong with targeted advertising, it’s just that when someone else is making my decisions for me, the decisions are usually wrong because they are not making those decisions based on my preferences but theirs.

Of course, if you operate in a densely-populated environment where even within a fairly short distance you have a sufficient potential customer base, there’s no problem. On the other hand, if you reside in a sparsely-populated location, the more local searches are becoming, the less useful they will be.

The big players in location-based services and online search are all US companies. Should the rest of the world then just succumb to their idea that they are providing their services only for US businesses—and for the benefit of US advertisers?

I’m fully aware those companies couldn’t care less because they are getting most of their revenue from their home market. I do think, however, that there should be a way for us in other parts of the world to switch off the “local” aspect. Both in looking for content and in publishing content.

But how? I honestly don’t know. Do you? Please tell me in the comments.

The danger of sounding only half-useful

A recent email offer I received for a training program promised “full access to the program for $250 off the regular price” for a certain time-limited period. With the squeeze page finally disclosing that I could now enroll in the program for $297, this makes the usual price $547 and thus the initial offer at almost half-price.

Sure, if “an up-and-coming B2B copywriter could earn $50,000 (or more) his first year”, as the offer said, the $297 investment is not much at all. It is common practice to give an initial discount for a limited period to create traction for a new product.

Looking at the issue from another angle, though, what will happen if you on day X almost double your price?

Perceived value vs. tangible value

I’ll be willing to bet that most people’s reasoning goes like this. “They’re now offering me this at $XX. They’re not selling it at a loss. Tomorrow the price will double. Why the heck should I pay twice as much for something tomorrow that today is worth $XX?”

A quick online research seemed to indicate that initial offerings usually cap at somewhere around 35%, and even this for commodities like computers. Therefore, the more specialized your product or service, the less you should lower the price. If you do, you may seriously risk your credibility as a company that can provide real, tangible benefits.

Any experiences, either as a vendor or a buyer? Please share.

I must confess that although I knew of the existence of the B2BTOTY Awards, I hadn’t paid much attention to them. I’ve long held the view that most advertising contests, for example, are little more than mutual backslapping events marinated in booze (although some say that awarded advertising tends to work better than non-awarded). If, on the other hand, a contest is about quality, relevance and results, not just about a pretty exterior or inflated numbers, I’m all for it.

The B2BTOTY Awards fall solidly in the latter category. Point 10 of the Guidelines clearly states “The B2BTOTY Award is not a popularity contest. The number of votes you receive will only be one piece of the criteria used by the judging panel, it will not be the sole reason for the winning selection.”

This is excellent.

Manipulating the results won’t work as there’s a limit to how many votes you can cast, and the final decision is made by a panel of judges comprising eight acknowledged B2B experts. In other words, there’s a clear preference for quality over quantity: “It’s not about how many followers you have, or how many tweets you tweet. It’s about creating a community, the value a B2B entity brings to it, and the integration of Twitter into the operation of your business and becoming a more social enterprise.”

I’m honored and humbled to be nominated. It encourages me to try to provide even more relevant content in even larger amounts for my audiences. Improving its quality while increasing its volume.

Of course, I wouldn’t be writing this if I didn’t want to toot my own horn a little. If you have read me online and found my content useful, please head over to the B2BTOTY site and cast your vote for me at http://www.b2btoty.com/kimmolinkama

If you haven’t yet met me on the web, you can, in addition to this blog, do it here:

• Twitter
• Unorganized thoughts around marketing (more freewheeling marketing stuff, rants etc)
• My company website
• LinkedIn
• XING

Even if you don’t feel I’m worthy of your vote, I still urge you to visit the B2BTOTY site. Take a look at the nominees in all the different categories and pick your favorite. Should you not want to vote at all, you will still find an extraordinary collection of the B2B social scene’s finest to follow and to learn from.

I think I’ll now go visit the site myself. Maybe I will see the votes accumulating…

PS. I haven’t voted for myself. If I were a politician, then maybe—but let’s keep it straight.

A squeeze page is “a web page that is specifically designed to compel visitors to opt in to your web site”. In other words, the page leads to an online order, capturing the viewer’s email address or some other single, measurable action with as little distraction from its objective as possible.

Because the squeeze page wants to walk your viewer down a path that finally results in one single yes/no decision—preferably yes, of course—it usually contains a large amount of argumentation and testimonials to convince the reader. These tactics are borrowed from offline direct mail. If you want to learn more about them, just type “direct mail techniques” into an online search.

But my point today is that you can potentially hurt your conversions and sales with your squeeze page.

What do you want to achieve?

If you think of your potential buyers, what will they most want to know about your product? Right:

1. Does it solve my problem?
2. What does it include, how does it work?
3. How much does it cost?
4. Is the vendor credible?

Depending on the price sensitivity of your audience, this order of importance may be different. For example, if you’re selling to small businesses or individuals struggling to make ends meet in a down economy, price will probably top the list as budgets are limited. In other words, you may have clients who, instead of wanting the best solution for their problem at a price they can accept, are looking for the best solution within a certain price bracket. “I can only afford to spend this much, what is the best solution I can get for my money?”

How long should the copy be?

I’m using a recent promotion of a training program for freelance writers by three well-known copywriting experts as an example. The link to more information led to a squeeze page about the program in more detail. The gist of the story was that besides being able to write well you have to know how to land lucrative clients with well-paying gigs. The copy promises to teach you how to get jobs that will lead to your B2B writing being “the surest route to earning six-figures as a freelance copywriter”.

This clearly positions the course. The potential buyers are freelance writers who don’t yet earn six figures. From this we can deduct that their price sensitivity is high.

That’s why it amazed me that the vendors of the program, themselves acknowledged copywriters, fail to match their sales pitch to their most probable audience: cash-strapped writers wanting to earn more. Cash-strapped meaning that price will be near the top of the potential buyers’ priorities.

Instead of addressing this issue, the squeeze page makes you read 3,069 words before the price is mentioned for the first time. Considering that 800 words on paper fill about two letter-size pages, the program vendors expect you to read 4 pages of sales pitch before coming to the point.

The length of copy isn’t a deal-breaker in itself. Good copy is as long as necessary. But four pages is huge overkill.

If we again look at the four things the buyer will want to know about the product—does it solve my problem, how does it work, how much does it cost, are you a credible vendor—all these points can be addressed within the scope of one or two pages.

So what’s the takeaway?

Four things.

1. Match your message to your audience’s needs. (A buyer persona exercise is useful. A good introduction is Tony Zambito’s 10 Rules for Buyer Persona Development on SlideShare.) Address your customer’s pain points, not the features of what you have on offer.
2. Arrange your sales arguments in the customer’s order of importance. You may regard certain aspects of your product or service as the most important or beneficial, but your customer may approach it from a totally different point of view.
3. Get to the point. You can’t bore people to buy.
4. Leverage your clout. When you’re well-known in your industry, use it to your advantage. Let your goodwill do part of your pitch. If you sell like an unknown startup you’ll just erode your credibility.

What’s your experience with squeeze pages? Working? Not working? Did I leave something out? I’m inviting you to share in the comments!