This is a follow up to my previous post on Reasons to Build an Online Community Around Your Products. Here are two business-to-business examples of how small (to midsized) businesses have used social media marketing and online communities. One BtoB example is for lead generation and the other for product development.
Thanks to Marketing Sherpa for the Information Builders case study and to eWeek for the Chordiant story.
Getting Good Customer Product Input
Chordiant (Enterprise Software)
In late 2006, an eWeek article demonstrated how big and small firms are conducting online conversations and collaborating with their customers on important topics. The article talks about how companies use wikis to collaborate about important things like what functionality the version of their software should include.
The highlight of this article is the part about Chordiant, a smaller software company selling to big companies. Could your business adopt the wiki idea of collaborating online on product requirements from Chordiant? (Think of all the travel $$ and time you’d save.) You can read the complete article here.
Information Builders markets and sells business intelligence software to companies. (Source: Marketing Sherpa.)
Social Networking Site Participation Challenge
How can a company participate in new media such as an industry online group, bulletin board or other social networking site without appearing to be simply, well, “selling”?
Kudos to companies like Information Builders that do the pick-and-shovel work to learn about the members of the online community and participate fully. The company researched and found that ITToolbox was a popular online community of IT professionals—just their target market. They followed the ongoing discussions and joined in by commenting and adding to the conversations at the web site.
According to Information Builders’ Director of Internet Marketing, Chris Boylan, “…there’s only so many times you can jump into a discussion without seeming to be invasive.” Boylan wanted to find a way to use the B-to-B social networking sites as a way to provide relevant content, his firm’s white papers, to offer assistance to the professionals/community members debating key industry issues.
Information Builders’ B-to-B Social Networking Site Campaign
Information Builders tried to reach prospects that were early in the product purchase research stage (just ‘shopping’) and those openly seeking advice about business information systems (maybe ready to start a short list of potential vendors).
Information Builders followed 5 steps:
Step 1: Joined the ITToolbox.com community and learned about the social networking site’s member interests. The company designed a new white paper series around the issues being discussed at the online site. They also sponsored an email discussion group in the network.
Step 2: Created a mix of white paper titles. Information Builders addressed several subjects to demonstrate both their industry thought leadership and their ability to manage tactical issues such as software implementation.
Step 3: Promoted the white papers across the network. They leveraged the different sections of ITToolbox.com to mine potential prospects. They used their multiple channels such as RSS feeds dedicated to Business Intelligence, Weekly email newsletters, ITToolbox’s white paper alert, as well as the site’s blogs, and discussion groups.
Step 4: Used a customized registration web page to capture lead qualification information.
Step 5: Added leads to their Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system for sales or marketing follow up. They used disciplined follow up to identify prospects. Those that identified a budget went directly to sales for immediate action. Those without a budget were directed to marketing for a nurturing campaign.
Results
The ITToolbox community was receptive to the white paper offers that were relevant to their online activities. Information Builder’s campaign exceeded its goal for total leads by over 42 percent. The campaign turned out to be one of the best online marketing performers for the company. Sales made as a result of this program delivered a 750 percent return on investment.
Impressive results by any standards. Information Builders has demonstrated that your B-to-B company can successfully generate leads and sales using industry social networking sites.
Interesting article! Learning customer needs from existing community discussions is a great way to create targeted campaigns. People often underestimated the value of local, industry and online communities to their business. Here’s a great article I came across that highlights how to use each of these communities to build a business – expanding on what was said here.
http://www.sbimonline.com/content/small-business-community-using-your-local-community-and-online-community-build-your-business
Hi John,
The article you reference is talking about existing online communities for small biz owners–useful as a starting point. I encourage small businesses to build their own online communities. Not as a campaign, as a way of doing business. And to become a trusted source of help, knowledge by “hosting” an online resource. Then online visitors to the trusted source will become customers.
Your thoughts? Do you think a small business owner can benefit from building her own online community, around her customers and prospects?
Cynthia
Yes – I do. And I have seen it work. In fact, this is essentially what the business model of Ning (ning.com) is based on. People and businesses building their own niche communities to connect with their friends or customers. If you have the time, I’d encourge any business to build a community starting with their existing customers, sharing their knowledge to attract new customers and connecting online.
Hi John–Thanks for reminder about NIng. Can you share small business examples of how they’ve used Ning? For example to generate leads, increase email newsletter signups, etc.?
Thanks,
Cynthia