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Power of the Markets

November 7, 2011 By Candyce Edelen Leave a Comment

Sasha Dichter of Acumen Fund gave the keynote at FPL Americas on Tuesday. It was a great talk, just as inspiring as I’d hoped it would be.

Here are a few observations from his talk:

The Well Being of the Tribe is Everyone’s Responsibility

The concept that “charity begins at home” is relatively new in history. Traditionally, there was more of a sense that the well-being of the tribe was everyone’s responsibility. If a member of the tribe was struggling, the rest of the tribe chipped in to help the struggling members without expectation of recompense or profit. Sasha quoted Deuterotomy 23:19-20 “Do not charge a fellow Israelite interest, whether on money or food or anything else that may earn interest. You may charge a foreigner interest, but not a fellow Israelite, so that the LORD your God may bless you in everything you put your hand to in the land you are entering to possess.” (NIV). He also told the story of the Potlach ceremony. This was a practice common in many west coast Native American tribes. During the ceremony, the wealthiest members of the tribe passed out gifts to the other tribe members. In this social setting, status was based not on how much you had, but on how much you gave.

Sasha’s point was that the concept of the gift economy – of charitably helping members of our tribe without expectation of recompense – has shrunk in much of the modern world. It first shrank from the tribe to the extended family and now has shrunk even further to exclude most everyone outside our nuclear families.

Shockingly, some of this transformation has actually been driven by our government. According to Wikipedia, the Potlach ceremony was actually made illegal in Canada and the United States in the late 19th century. The ban was only repealed in 1951.

I wonder what the world would look like if we eliminated the axiom that “charity begins at home” and started accepting responsibility to help the less fortunate across the board? (Note: Politically I’m actually a fiscal and social conservative. While I feel it’s everyone’s responsibility to help each other, I’m not convinced that the government welfare system is capable of delivering a sustainable solution.)

Can the Power of the Markets Inspire Innovative Solutions to Poverty?

The developed nations have created tremendous wealth and provided innovations that changed the lives of most people who live in the Western world. But there are still massive problems with extreme poverty throughout the world. More than 3 billion people still live without basic sanitation (which is vital to health). More than 2 billion lack access to safe drinking water.

The Acumen Fund asks, “Can we take the best of philanthropy and the markets, the best of accountability and patience, the best of innovation and extend it to solve the problems of extreme poverty?”

The Acumen fund works in some of the poorest parts of the world – in Pakistan, India, and East and West Africa. In these areas, basic infrastructure such as roads is terrible; they have no access to electrical grids, clean water supplies, or sanitation. Corruption is high, trust is low, and interaction with the markets looks very different than it does in the developed world.

They apply a concept Sasha calls “non-profit venture capital.” They invest in innovative solutions to fundamental problems – such as providing villages with inexpensive access to clean drinking water, building electricity generators powered by rice husks, and providing lower cost lamps to replace kerosene lamps. They allow longer time horizons for the return of their capital, and they look for long-term social impact instead of short-term financial gain. At the same time, they understand that having a long-term impact demands a sustainable business model. While not all of their investments are successful, many are having significant impact and are gradually figuring out a business model that allows for scale and financial sustainability. Acumen Fund lives up to the old Taoist proverb, “If you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. If you teach him how to fish, he’ll feed himself for a lifetime.”

I’d like to hear your thoughts. Have you seen other innovative ways to solve extreme poverty?

Warm regards,

Candyce

 

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Filed Under: Capital Markets Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

A Refreshing Take on Capitalism

October 21, 2011 By Candyce Edelen 3 Comments

Planning the FPL Conference

I’ve been heavily involved in planning the FPL Americas conference this year. I’ve served as co-chair of the marketing committee and was also very active in the program committee planning out the conference content. In this role, I had the opportunity to suggest and secure this year’s keynote speaker. I’m very excited about the keynote, but before I tell you about it, let me give you a sense of WHY I recommended this particular speaker.

Protesters Blame Wall Street for Everything

The past three years have been incredibly difficult, and it seems that the news isn’t getting much better. We all struggle with the consequences of the economic climate. Many of us are facing more layoffs and spending cuts. Most are expected to do the work of 2-3 people to fill the gaps from earlier layoffs. And just to get to and from work, many have to skirt Occupy Wall Street protesters who blame Wall Street for practically every wrong in the country today. While I feel that the protesters are poorly informed in many respects, I do think it’s important for Wall Street to pay attention.

Why the Capital Markets Exist

African mosquito nets being manufactured

Jim Northey wrote an interesting note to his Global Finance students at Michigan Tech. Northey points out that we seem to have forgotten why the capital markets exist. It’s important to remember that equity and debt markets were established to provide the capital to build businesses and industry and fund government investments in infrastructure and public services. In return for risking their capital, investors have an opportunity to grow their wealth. Futures markets were created to manage risks involved for the producers and consumers of commodities. Derivatives markets were developed as a way to hedge the risk of investments in other vehicles.

Trading Practices Obscure the Purpose

But as Northey points out, in many ways, trading practices have obscured the purposes of these markets. “Don’t get me wrong,” Northey clarifies, “I am an ardent believer in markets, likely I would sacrifice well-being and even life to defend a free capitalist based society….”

He goes on to share his hope that “this industry can be changed and can return to its rightful place as the engine that drives societal growth and prosperity.”

A Different Perspective

Family with mosquito net

I agree with Jim. The capital markets and a capitalist system can do incredible good in the world. So for the FPL conference this year, I’d like to introduce a different perspective of the capital markets – one that uses the power of the markets to help solve some of the toughest social problems in the developing world – things like providing safe drinking water, making affordable healthcare available, bringing power to poor and remote corners of the world.

Our keynote speaker, Sasha Dichter, has a different message than that of the Wall Street protesters: that the power of the markets can bring real and significant change to our lives and the lives of others.

Patient Capital

Sasha works for a firm called the Acumen Fund. Their mission is to create a world beyond poverty by investing in social enterprises, emerging leaders, and breakthrough ideas. They bring together the best of market approaches, equity investment and philanthropy in something they call patient capital. The Acumen Fund has been pioneering this work since 2001.

Sasha is a Talented Speaker

Sasha is a recognized blogger and speaker on philanthropy, generosity and social change. He was recently featured as a TED.com “best of the Web” speaker, has been profiled as an Innovation Agent by Fast Company magazine, and is a Top 10 Business Blogger on Say:100 media.

Here are some links to learn more about Sasha and the Acumen Fund.

http://blog.acumenfund.org/2010/04/20/acumen-fund-and-ecotact-on-pbs-newshour/

http://www.youtube.com/user/acumenfund

http://www.acumenfund.org/ten/

 

Come to the FPL Americas Conference on November 1 and hear Sasha speak. I’m certain you will find the stories he’s going to share inspiring and uplifting. The keynote starts at 8:35 am, and this is one talk you won’t want to miss.

Warm regards,

Candyce

 

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Filed Under: Capital Markets Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Social Media Compliance Policies For Financial Firms

October 10, 2011 By Candyce Edelen 5 Comments

The following is a guest blog post from Jeffrey E. Kopiwoda and Seth A. Stern with the law firm Funkhouser Vegosen Liebman & Dunn Ltd.

Develop A Clear Social Media Policy

Social media offers significant opportunities for financial firms but also poses commensurate risk to firms that are unaware of legal issues affecting the medium. Financial regulators so far have shown little willingness to adapt to the instantaneous sharing of information.  Social media – which thrives on real-time communication – is therefore subject to rules designed for traditional media.  Firms should implement clearly worded policies to ensure their employees do not unknowingly draw regulatory action.

For instance, the NFA requires podcasts and YouTube videos to go through the same ten-day approval process applicable to television and radio ads under Rule 2-29(h).  Further, regulators including the NFA and FINRA will treat tweets qualifying as promotional or advertising materials the same as formal reports.  Even “liking” someone’s post on Facebook arguably could be considered a regulated endorsement. Firms should not assume that social media will be treated leniently due to its informality.

Know The Rules

Regulated entities’ social media activities (like their offline activities) must comply with rules including:

  • NFA Rule 2-9, which requires Members to diligently supervise employees in the conduct of their activities on behalf of the Member (including social media posts).
  • NFA Rule 2-29 and 2-36, which prohibit fraudulent and misleading communications and include numerous specific requirements for “promotional materials” and other categories of communications, including mandatory disclaimers which are not particularly Twitter-friendly.
  • NASD (now FINRA) Rules 2210(b) and 3010, requiring advertisements and other correspondence and literature to be approved in writing by a principal.  Social media sites, blogs, and bulletins (both corporate and individual) must be reviewed prior to their launch and “static” content qualifying as advertisements also must be reviewed in advance.  Content qualifying as a “public appearance” (including chat-rooms and comments to others’ social media sites and blogs) also requires supervision.

Keep Accurate Records, Supervise Diligently

Record-keeping and archiving requirements also apply to social media.  NASD Rules require firms to retain all advertisements and business communications – including information posted on websites and social media posts.  This includes communications sent from smartphones and other devices.  NFA Rules also require Members to maintain promotional materials.  A proposed amendment to CFTC Rule 1.35(a) would require regulated entities to record all communications which lead to the execution of transactions and categorize them by counterparty and transaction.  This would include “digital or electronic media” communications.

Moreover, Firms’ supervision requirements extend beyond their own employees.  You may have heard that website hosts are not liable for third-party content such as comments on blogs and wall posts.  While this is true for most online publishers under federal law, the NFA has issued guidance to the contrary.  According to NFA Interpretive Notice 9063, a Member or Associate must “regularly monitor the content of the sites it hosts, take down any misleading or otherwise fraudulent posts, and ban users for egregious or repeat violations.”  The more successful a site becomes the more it attracts third-party content that must be monitored. Unfortunately, smaller firms without compliance departments may find it difficult to regularly monitor content.

Adopt, Update, Enforce

All firms using social media should adopt, update, and enforce policies governing social media use.  Regulators will want to see such policies, as well as proof that they are enforced, in the event of an audit or investigation.  Firm policies should cover both the firm’s own online activities and employees’ independent activities.  The NFA suggests that policies require employees to notify their employer of any participation in online financial or trading forums and provide screen names so employers can monitor their posts (though employers should be cautious of privacy concerns when doing so).  Polices should make clear that a firm’s procedures manual applies to online communications.

Handle With Care

While this post focuses on issues specific to financial firms, such firms are subject to the same legal considerations that affect all social media users.  Members of our law firm have written extensively about issues affecting both publishers of social media content and employers of social media users.  Also note the National Labor Relations Board’s recent crackdown on employers who discipline employees for their social media use.  Financial firms may be especially interested in recent cases involving the “hot news doctrine.”  A federal appellate court held that a website was within its right to republish, virtually instantaneously, analyst reports banks published for paying clients because the banks’ reports constituted news of interest to the public.  Firms may want to limit how much they share via social media even where they believe content is accessible only to “friends,” “followers” or password-holders.

When In Doubt, Consult With Counsel

This post is by no means an exhaustive list of all regulations and legal issues facing financial firms utilizing social media, and the law will continue to evolve with new technologies and as regulators enact rules to comply with the Dodd-Frank Act.  Regulated firms and individuals should consult with counsel to determine which regulations apply to them and what policies are appropriate given their circumstances.

Jeff Kopiwoda () and Seth Stern () are attorneys with the firm Funkhouser Vegosen Liebman & Dunn Ltd. (FVLD).  They and other FVLD attorneys regularly counsel clients in the financial services industry and elsewhere regarding social media and numerous other compliance issues.  This article is merely informational and does not constitute legal advice.

Warm regards,

Candyce

 

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PropelGrowth B2B Marketing [r]Evolution Video

October 4, 2011 By Phil Donaldson 5 Comments


Creating powerful and relevant content is hard work

As just about anyone involved in content marketing will tell you, creating relevant content is challenging. Generating great content is downright difficult. It requires a lot of thought and attention to the dynamics of a particular topic. With that in mind, we marketers can be sure of one thing — businesspeople love statistics and quotations; they are the pixie dust of many white papers and research reports. Compelling stats and quotes have a magical effect on this audience – they get attention. Creating a piece of content that is front-to-back stats and quotes can be like serving up a sumptuous feast prepared by Emeril Lagasse.

A compelling social media video inspired us

Earlier this year, Candyce and I were introduced to one of Erik Qualman’s inspiring Socialnomics videos at the Social Markets website. As we watched the video, we were amazed and amused by the compelling social media stats that animated across the screen to Fatboy Slim’s “Right Here, Right Now”.  This video was so evocative that we decided to use it to open up our session on social media at the National Introducing Brokers Association (NIBA) Conference in April 2011. You should have seen the faces on the audience as they sat with rapt attention! Every once in a while there would be a quick intake of breath or chuckle to indicate surprise or amusement. The video was a hit and made a wonderful “waker-upper” for a mid-afternoon session. It brought the audience on board with us and prepared them for the presentation and panel discussion that followed.

There were no videos on B2B marketing stats

In my search for other similar videos, I came across an interesting one on the emergence of mobile media, but nothing that covered business to business marketing. It was a foregone conclusion that I wasn’t going to find anything made for the Capital Markets. So when Candyce and I were asked to participate at the NIBA Conference in Chicago, we knew that we’d need another video to open up our session on inbound marketing (at 3:45 in the afternoon, I might add). Having been inspired by the Socialnomics video, we agreed that we needed to create a video of our own that would add impact to our session as well as fuel PropelGrowth’s marketing efforts. We needed a video that would help tell one of our stories while adding value to the industry. It also made sense to begin creating video content, since in our talk, we cited YouTube as the second largest search engine in the world.

Making the case for content marketing

Building on some of the issues we covered in the April NIBA presentation, we agreed that we needed to tell a story beginning with reasons why customers have taken control of their buying process and ending with a compelling case for content marketing. Our goal was to leave the viewer with a sense of, “Oh crap, I need content and I need it now!” We also wanted to provide advocates for PropelGrowth services with content that would help them to convince other decision makers within their organizations.

Telling the story

We began by compiling more stats and quotes than we would ever need. Once done, Candyce suggested that we print them out, cut them into individual strips and lay them out to “storyboard” our content. I thought she was nuts, but this helped tremendously as we were able to interactively move data around, find the holes in our story, and “trim the fat.” We had to make sure that we could transition smoothly from one topic to another while keeping it relevant to our main audience. Once we were satisfied with the result, it was up to me to fire up After Effects and start animating.

Creating the sizzle

Donning my Art Director hat, I began with establishing a typographic style, which in this case could be a little looser than normal, yet not over-the-top. I started by designing the text with an eye on making sure it was consistently legible without being monotonous. Every little element that can keep the audience interested is helpful. From there, I began conceiving visuals to help expand the look and feel of the video. What I wanted to achieve was a bit of intermittent sizzle, then build to a crescendo and the all-powerful call to action.

Composing the music

For the soundtrack, we initially inserted music as a placeholder because there was no time for me to compose something original in time for the NIBA meeting (I also had to get the Powerpoint presentation done). We knew we wanted an original soundtrack to work in harmony (no pun intended) with the motion graphics.

In my past professional life, I created video presentations for High-Def, desktop and web video. It was exciting to bring these parts of my background to bear here, fulfilling our “use every part of the buffalo” mandate.

Senior executives like video

PropelGrowth is in the business of content marketing and we wanted to show our clients and prospects that we are capable of developing more than just written content and live events. We also wanted to meet a perceived need in the industry for innovative B2B subject matter. Video is growing steadily as a vital piece of content marketing strategy. According to a 2010 Cisco report, internet video traffic is expected to increase from 30% to 90% by 2014. Forbes Insight found that “59% of senior executives prefer to watch video instead of reading text, if both are available on the same page. 80% of executives are watching more online video today than they were a year ago.”

Oh yeah…

…In case you have an “oh crap, I need content, and I need it now” moment after watching the video, give us a call. We can help.  +1 212.738.9445 and select option 2 for sales.

Stats used in the video

If you’re interested, here are the sources for all the stats we used in the video:

83% of people report that they no longer trust corporate or product advertising
Edelman Trust Barometer

70% do trust recommendations from users online
Nielsen Global Online Consumer Survey (2009)

“People are more likely to engage with and share content surfaced by people they trust.”
— Malorie Lucich, Facebook Spokesperson

In May 2011, Google exceeded 1 billion unique visitors.
comScore Data Mine

There are more social media accounts than people on earth:
Earth population = 6.93 billion
Social media accounts = 10 billion
In-Stat (by way of John Rich of Studiocom)

Time to reach 20 million users:
Facebook = 1152 days
Twitter = 1035 days
Google+ = 24 days
Leon Håland

In 2010 more than 66% of all US Internet users were using social media.
Nielsen

Social media accounted for 22.5% of all time spent on the internet in 2010
Nielsen

The average hours spent per user grew 30% over 2009
Nielsen

If Facebook were a country, it would be the third largest in the world
Facebook

Unique visitors to Twitter increased 959% year over year in 2009
Nielsen

Social media is the number one activity on the Internet – exceeding pornography
Huffington Post

If the pen is mightier than the sword…
… then Facebook and Twitter are mightier than the governments of…
• Tunisia
• Egypt
• Bahrain
• Yemen
— Phil Donaldson, Director of Marketing, PropelGrowth

“Hedge fund bets $40M that Twitter can predict the stock market”
Huffington Post

92% of B2B buyers use online resources to research products and services
Enquiro

… 90% of senior executives start their path to purchase with informal online research around business problems online
— DemandGen Report

Most buying cycles are 70-80% complete BEFORE companies are willing to engage with sales people
—SiriusDecisions

“Content is the fuel that drives demand.”
— Joe Chernov, Vice President of Content Marketing, Eloqua

Publishing compelling content builds credibility
— Ardath Albee, Author, Emarketing Strategies For The Complex Sale

Today, there are more than 200 M blogs
China Internet Information Center, Technorati, Wikipedia

72% of companies who blog weekly have acquired customers through their blog
HubSpot

Average cost per lead:
• Outbound channels – $373
• Inbound channels – $143
HubSpot

54% of B2B companies increased inbound marketing budgets in 2011
HubSpot

Average budgets on blogs and social media increased from 9% in 2009 to 17% in 2011
HubSpot

“Instead of focusing on market share, focus on mindshare.”
— Candyce Edelen, CEO, Propelgrowth

Filed Under: Buying Trends, Lead Generation, Marketing Strategy, Sales and Marketing 2.0 Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Is Klout Inversely Related to Real Influence?

September 29, 2011 By Candyce Edelen 6 Comments

Getting serious about social media

A few months ago, PropelGrowth got more serious about how we were using Twitter. We committed to tweeting daily, we set up a strategy for what to tweet, how often, and how to engage. As we worked on it, we found our Klout scores slowly rising.

Klout became my virtual report card

While I’ve never been convinced that Klout is actually worth watching, I found myself checking it daily, as if it were a report card on my social efforts. During the month of August and the first week of September, my score gradually rose to a 47. Not much compared to some of you influencers out there, but a nice jump from where I started.

As live interactions and influence increased, Klout decreased

But then I started getting really busy. I traveled to speak at a conference in Chicago and to meet with clients in Connecticut, I’m involved in planning several capital markets industry events, which is taking a lot of phone and meeting time. We’ve got quite a bit of new business demand, requiring me to spend more time working with clients to devise their strategy, prepare proposals, develop thought leadership programs, refine messaging, plan events, and oversee content development.

So as my in-person influence increased, my Twitter activity naturally took a hit. The week I went to Chicago, where I was having a lot of real influence, my Klout score fell 12 points.

A social media mistake

Then I read an interesting blog post on the {Grow} blog about a big social media mistake. As I considered the points Stanford made in his blog post, I thought about the fact that most of my Twitter following is made up of social media, marketing, and sales training people. Not my target market. No offense intended to these wonderful people, but my business depends upon my influence with a Capital Markets audience.

Is Klout inversely related to real influence?

My goal is to communicate with the thought leaders in financial technology companies, broker-dealers, exchanges, asset managers and the like. These people are connected to me on LinkedIn and through professional organizations and client relationships, but most of them are not following me on Twitter. So I ask you, could Klout actually be a scorecard of how much I’m NOT influencing my target market? If my Klout score is going up, is it because I’m interacting a great deal on Twitter, but not spending enough time on the phone or in meetings with clients and prospects where I have the greatest influence? So as my Klout score goes up, is my real influence declining?

What say you?

Are you a big believer in Klout? Do you agree or disagree with my premise?

Warm regards,

Candyce

 

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3 Takeaways from Nielsen Social Media Report

September 21, 2011 By Candyce Edelen 6 Comments

I just reviewed Nielsen’s State of the Media: The Social Media Report for Q3 2011. They have some interesting stats there. While it’s primarily focused on consumer use of social media, there are some important trends for B2B marketers.

Here are three key takeaways for B2B marketers from the report:

Blogging

Blogs and social media now dominate nearly 25% of Americans’ time online. Blogs and social sites lead by a very wide margin. In comparison, Americans spend 9.8% of their time playing online games, 7.6% on email, and 4.4% on streaming video and movies.

Blogging sites Blogger.com and Tumblr.com are the most popular sites on the Internet after Facebook. Tumblr (an emerging social site that combines blogging and twitter-like updates grew its unique visits from Americans by 183% last year.

Takeaway: If you’re not blogging, you’re missing a key opportunity to connect with your prospects and clients. Studies have shown that nearly 90% of senior executives start their path to purchase by researching online to find solutions to their business problems. Your blog can help them understand their problems and find solutions.

Mobile Internet

Mobile access to the web is growing globally. In fact, 40% of all social media users report that they access these sites via their mobile devices at least some of the time. Older users aged 55 and over are driving growth in social media sites. They’re also driving growth in mobile with 109% growth in seniors accessing social sites via mobile devices over last year.

Takeaway: Ensuring that your website, blog, and content are all mobile-friendly is critical to your company’s success in delivering content to this audience. With iPhone’s dominance in the cell phone business, consider how heavily your site uses Flash. iPhones and iPads do not support Flash.

Video is Growing

Video is a very important content class. Over 31 million Americans viewed video content online in May 2011. They watched nearly 157 million video streams.

Takeaway: Video should be an increasingly important aspect of your content strategy. Studies show that compelling video is more likely than other content to convert visitors. Our clients are confirming that. Those using video report that this medium is turning out to be one of the best components in their lead generation toolbox.

What Say You?

Now it’s your turn to share your thoughts and comments. What types of content is your firm finding most effective?

Are you blogging? Has your company generated revenue from the blog yet? Have you tried video? How is it working?

Warm regards,

Candyce

 

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Reality Check: Content Marketing for the Capital Markets (Redux)

August 30, 2011 By Candyce Edelen 1 Comment

In the Capital Markets, we are seeing a trend where buying cycles for new technology and service solutions are getting longer and more complex. This trend makes it more challenging for providers to get deals done, resulting in longer sales cycles and higher cost of sale. There are a number factors contributing to this increasing complexity.

In the past, different lines of business were often able to make independent decisions about their technology, buying best of breed solutions to support their specific businesses. However, in the massive wave of regulations resulting from the financial crisis, banks are facing increasing pressure to consolidate risk and exposure monitoring across the enterprise. As a consequence, new technology decisions usually impact more than one asset class, trading or operating group; meaning that more people need to have a voice in the decision. More voices and more competing priorities add complexity to an already challenging evaluation and decision process.

In addition, banks are under ongoing profit pressure and continue to look for ways to reduce operational overhead. In most organizations, technology consolidation offers a tantalizing opportunity to reduce costs. This makes it more difficult for teams to justify best-of-breed point solutions. It also means that every purchase decision must be considered based on its impact to the overall goals of reducing the number of platforms in use.

This trend is not unique to the financial services industry. Analyst firms IDC and IDG Connect did a webinar (registration required) a couple weeks ago where they talked about the complexity of the buying cycle and what customers need from sellers. According to research from IDC, technology buyers would like to reduce their buying cycle by up to 40%, but in reality, their buying cycles are getting longer and more complex.

The webinar made several observations that can help companies selling to the financial industry can improve the way they support their prospective customers.

Too Much Content That is Not Useful
IDG found that content on the average corporate site has grown by more than 60% in the past couple years, but customers are finding that much of that content is not helpful.  We find this to be particularly true in the institutional trading and technology space. Your customers need information that will facilitate their decision process; content that is relevant to the various roles and departments who are involved in the buying decision. Buying decisions involve diverse teams with competing priorities, so your content needs to address the specific needs of those different groups.

Sales Can’t Find the Content Customers Need
Your customer needs to rely on your sales team to deliver the right content at the right time to support their process, but IDC found that 41% of sales people surveyed aren’t sure what content to use  or can’t find the relevant content their customers need.  Because they’re not sure what to send, most sales people overcompensate, sending way too much information all at once, taking a shotgun approach and hoping something will stick.  That just serves to overwhelm the customer and is NOT helpful.

Content That is Not Relevant
In many cases, the usefulness of content is determined by how relevant it is when it is provided.  Relevance is dictated by three key issues:

  • Relevance to the industry segment
    Content targeted to exchanges is not going to resonate with the buy-side, and vice versa. Your content needs to take the reader’s niche into account and be specifically relevant to their business needs, technical issues, and strategic drivers. These drivers are very different in each of your target niches.
  • Relevance to the role of the reader
    Just as important as industry segment is the role of the reader. Strategic and trading teams generally don’t have interest in reading content that is full of technical details. In contrast, your technical audience is going to quickly discard content that doesn’t go into depth on technical issues. Writing a single white paper for multiple audiences pretty much guarantees that most of your readers will find it irrelevant. You will probably need to consider multiple buyer groups as you develop your content strategy. The C-Suite, strategic planning team, trading, risk, compliance, trading technology, operations, information technology, market data management, etc. all have different needs. Make sure that your content is relevant to the groups that will participate in your buying decision.
  • Relevance to the stage in the buying cycle
    Every purchase follows a buying cycle that generally progresses from awareness to researching the problem to committing to change to  evaluating options to selecting vendors to managing risk. Each stage has its attendant information needs. I wrote about this in an article called “Thought Leadership to Support the Entire Buying Cycle.”

Not Enough Educational Content
If you’re selling a complex product or service, then your buyer needs to be educated as part of the sales process. According to a survey by IDC where they interviewed technology buyers, the best sales people spend their time educating clients rather than trying to close. But that means that your marketing team needs to provide Sales with that educational material.

IDC found that 56% of customer time during the buying process is spent searching for and reviewing educational and promotional content. Customers are incredibly busy, and they don’t have time to dig deeply in the process of educating themselves. So companies who provide the content they need and make it easy to find will be the companies they listen to the most.

Everything Provided is Too Long and Takes Too Much Time
Studies consistently find that customers prefer content that is no longer than 7 pages, but marketing continue to pump out 20-30 page white papers and other lengthy treatises. I have news for you. Your customer is not reading all 20 pages. They stop at page 5 and quickly scan the rest to see if something catches their eye. Then they file it away, fully intending to review it later, and forget about it. Don’t blame them. They’re too busy to read your dissertation.

Remember, the value of your content is not measured by the pound (or kilo). It’s measured by its relevance to the prospects’ needs and its ability to progress prospects through their buying stages. We recommend that you modularize the content. You don’t need to describe every aspect of your platform or service in one document. Focus on specific business needs or capabilities and create short documents that sales can spoon feed to clients or that visitors can find on your website when they need the information.

Too Many Documents Rather than Video and Audio
Customers are looking for a variety of content — both to support different learning styles and to facilitate the delivery of information.  We recommend that you provide a mix of video, audio, webinars, live events, and documents to support your clients’ education process. Remember, there are multiple learning styles — visual, auditory, and kinesthetic; and different preferences in how people like to consume content. Ideally, your content should support all of those styles and preferences.

Join the conversation.  What kinds of content do you look for when you’re the buyer?

Warm regards,

Candyce

 

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Inbound Marketing for IBs and CTAs

August 26, 2011 By Candyce Edelen Leave a Comment

At the NIBA conference next month, Phil and I will be talking about how IBs and CTAs can leverage inbound marketing to improve the effectiveness of your marketing programs and attract more leads. To prepare, I thought it might be helpful to introduce some of the concepts we’ll be discussing.

Inbound Marketing Versus Interruption Marketing

Traditionally, marketers have used various forms of what is now called “interruption marketing” to gain attention from their target prospects. Whether the technique is radio advertising,  email marketing or cold calling, the marketing message essentially interrupts the prospect’s train of thought. This approach is becoming less and less effective over time for two reasons:

  • Noise: It is estimated that your prospects encounter 2,000  marketing interruptions per day. It’s very hard (and expensive) to ensure that your message is heard above the cacophony.
  • Filtering: Your prospects are finding new and creative ways to block your messages (defecting to satellite radio, filtering their inbox for spam, avoiding calls with caller ID and voice mail).

By contrast, “inbound marketing” is about attracting the people who are actively looking for your services or researching the kinds of problems you can help them solve. This approach requires a different way of thinking. Instead of figuring out how to reach your prospects, you have to figure out how to help them find you. Inbound marketing includes online content marketing strategies, but it can also involve online and offline events – seminars and conferences where prospects attend to get educated. Regardless of the tactic, inbound marketing requires that you make available high value content and make sure it’s easy to search for and find online by someone who is looking for education but might not be familiar with your company.

In our session, we’ll talk about some of the strategies and tactics you can use to get found by your prospects.

Marketing to Tribes

Futures trading appeals to a small group of people who likely have a number of similar characteristics. It’s also likely that many of them network either through professional societies, social media networks, and/or other on- and off-line communities. As IBs or CTAs, you each have your own unique trading strategies and approaches to working with clients that will appeal to some customers and not to others. What would interest a mass market of investors might not interest the small group of customers you serve. Marketing to tribes is the practice of identifying the unique characteristics of your target market, figuring out what communities they participate in, and actively getting involved in that community. Social media offers a powerful medium to find these groups and participate. Here’s an interesting video on this topic: http://freevideolectures.com/Course/2752/Future-of-Marketing/2 and a helpful blog post: http://www.tribebuilding.com/2009/04/10-steps-to-marketing-in-a-tribe.html.

We’ll explore how the tribal concept applies to your marketing efforts, and how you can use social media to find and gain access to the right tribes.

Educating versus Selling

The average corporate website has grown by more than 60% in content in the past couple years, but customers are still finding that most of the content available is not helpful to their decision process.  We find this to be particularly true among brokers.

Content marketing is all about educating your prospect. Your customers need information that will facilitate their decision process — content that helps them understand the opportunities and attendant risks in futures trading, that teaches them strategies for managing their risk, and shows them how to evaluate products and performance.  Mark Melin published an excellent article in the NIBA newsletter that discusses the areas where you should be educating your clients and prospects.

Please join us at 3:15pm on Monday, September 12, at the NIBA Conference. You will learn how you can immediately put Inbound Marketing Strategies to work at your firm to increase your marketing visibility.

Warm regards,

Candyce

 

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Passing Responsibility

August 22, 2011 By Phil Donaldson Leave a Comment

This morning, as my daughter and I were on our way to work, we spotted a maintenance man at an apartment building. With a portable blower on his back, this man blew leaves and garbage into the street. Seeing a teachable moment, I pointed out to my daughter that there are people who are in the habit of passing responsibility to someone else, rather than do the job properly themselves. Essentially what that maintenance man did was to pass a mess he was responsible for cleaning up to whoever is responsible for cleaning the street. Or just adding pollution to the neighborhood.

Sadly, this behavior is practiced in many organizations. A lazy or indifferent attitude adds to someone else’s “task pollution.” Rather than doing a job properly, it seems easier to make it the other person’s responsibility.

Back in the day, Freddie Prinze, Sr. worked a phrase in his comedy routines — “It’s not my job, man.”  How much more efficient would our organizations be if we embraced the motto, “It is our job”?

Are you blowing leaves and garbage into the street or sweeping them into a bag and properly disposing of them? In other words, are you taking responsibility or passing it on?

Filed Under: Sales and Marketing 2.0 Tagged With: , , , , ,

Knowledge Communities and How to Use Them

August 15, 2011 By Candyce Edelen Leave a Comment

On Thursday, August 18 at 4:00 ET, join PropelGrowth as we host Greg Crawford of the TabbFORUM, Scott Albro of Focus.com, and Dan Hubscher of Progress Software to talk about online knowledge communities and how firms can take advantage of these professional social media communities to establish team members as trusted advisers, stay abreast of technologies and trends, learn, connect with industry peers, and drive awareness and demand.

Industry-specific knowledge communities are a great place to share thought leadership, engage with other capital markets industry participants, establish your team as trusted advisers, and build awareness in your target market. At PropelGrowth, we use TabbFORUM extensively, and both PropelGrowth and our clients have benefited. So I’ve asked Greg Crawford to join us and talk about the purpose of TabbFORUM and how companies are using it. I’ve also asked Dan Hubscher from Progress Software to join us. Dan is the industry marketing manager for Capital Markets at Progress, and he’ll talk about how he uses communities like this to promote Progress.

Focus.com is a non-industry-specific expert community that has grown very quickly. They now have over 750,000 members and 5,000 experts covering a variety of topics. They have a very interesting business model of helping experts gain visibility by sharing their expertise for free for the benefit of the Focus membership. Scott Albro, the CEO and founder of Focus will join our panel to talk about how Focus was started and use cases for how firms use this channel. I’ve been participating in this social network for a while, and am listed as a Focus Expert on inbound marketing and content marketing.

In this 45 minute round-table discussion, we will talk about the purpose for these knowledge communities, how companies and individuals engage to share knowledge and expertise, and how marketers can take advantage of these specialized social networks to promote thought leadership. The discussion will cover the following areas:

  1. How the communities build membership
  2. The types of content, members, and engagement each community attracts
  3. Use cases for how companies have benefited from the communities
  4. The types of content that attracts the most readership and engagement
  5. How Dan and Candyce use the communities to promote their businesses

As a member of the audience, you’ll have a chance to listen into an unscripted conversation amongst the four participants and come away with ideas for how you can use these communities.

Click here for the dial-in information. No registration is necessary.  http://landing.propelgrowth.com/KnowledgeCommunities.html

We’ll record the event and post a link to the recording a few days after the live event. So bookmark the address to come back and get the recording if you want to listen later.

Warm regards,

Candyce

 

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