Yellowbook + Microsoft = A New Marketing Force for Small Businesses

Google has advertising and search-empowered marketing offerings for small and mid-sized businesses (SMBs).

So does Microsoft.

Google has online search tools that are popular among users and buyers, and among at least some advertisers. So does Microsoft – more so now that it has partnered with Yahoo! in select arenas.

Google has online applications growing in popularity among SMBs and larger enterprises.

So does Microsoft.

But now, Microsoft has something Google doesn't have, at least not in the same ways. What? Here's a direct quote from the relevant news release, issued June 14 by Microsoft and its new partner, Yell Group, owners of Yellowbook among other related resources.

“Thomas Hansen, vice president of SMB Worldwide at Microsoft, said, 'Yell Group has one of the largest dedicated sales forces partnering with small and medium sized businesses and provides customers with valuable, locally focused internet directories that see over 50 million unique visitors per month. We are very excited about our plans to form a strategic alliance with Yell, as it offers us a way to better reach and serve small and medium sized businesses across the globe.'”

Here's another quote from the same release.

“Yell currently provides print and digital marketing services to over 1.3 million customers across the United States, United Kingdom, Spain and Latin America. Capitalizing on the Yahoo! and Microsoft Search Alliance and the growing consumer audience of Bing and Yahoo! Search, Microsoft and Yell will join forces to offer compelling search, mobile and local advertising solutions to small and medium businesses and to make the most of emerging business models delivered through the cloud. Under the plans, Yell will also offer the full suite of Microsoft’s SMB productivity and business software and cloud services, including Microsoft Office 365, Microsoft Dynamics CRM and emerging SMB-focused communications solutions. In addition, Microsoft will assist Yell to accelerate its new cloud-based services, which will provide Yell’s customers with access to these new digital offerings.”

Yell already offers a number of interesting, sometimes innovative marketing and advertising services through Yellowbook in North America and other divisions across the globe. Now, Yell Group reps will have a new, different and growing portfolio of advertising, marketing and business support services to offer.

The day after announcing the Microsoft alliance, the company announced a strategic partnership with Bazaarvoice, provider of cloud-based solutions designed to enable businesses to manage and monetize online customer conversations and communities. The day after the Bazaarvoice announcement, Yell announced a completely new corporate strategy. The company is now focused on evolving from a provider of advertising services to the outsourced marketing department for millions of SMBs.

This means SMB decision makers may soon be able to buy services for contact, lead and customer management (CRM), email marketing, online data backup, Web conferencing and other unified communications (UC) options and more from a single Yellowbook rep. Which could give those decision makers some interesting, valuable options not easily available elsewhere.

Now, Google, Salesforce.com, SugarCRM and others offer all kinds of platforms, add-ons and plug-ins intended to enable all kinds of business service combinations. But at most SMBs, one of the first questions to which they want answers is about interoperability with...Microsoft Office. So why not start with offerings that come from the source, so to speak? Especially for those SMB decision makers already doing business with Yellowbook or some other Yell Group entity? After all, "the cloud" is still basically a wild and poorly mapped environment, making the value of a known, proven guide pretty darned high to those users.

Speaking of which...

If your company already works with Yellowbook, you and your rep should be having a heart-to-heart talk very soon now. You should ask about everything from what services will be available and when to how and whether you can move and share spend dollars across multiple online and offline opportunities. You might want to focus a few questions on how Yellowbook + Microsoft might help you to offer more and better local and daily deals.

If your company does not do business with Yellowbook but does work with one or more of its competitors, you might ask your rep what their company plans to do in response to Yell Group's moves. Meanwhile, keep a close eye on what Yell and Microsoft do, and on what Google and others do in response.

PointClear's Dan McDade: Lead Generation and Beyond -- a 3-Q Interview

Dan McDade is President and CEO of PointClear, the prospect development company that helps business-to-business (B2B) companies drive revenue by nurturing leads, engaging contacts and developing prospects until they're ready to close. The Sales Lead Management Association (SLMA) named Dan one of the 50 most influential people in sales lead management in 2009. So I thought I'd ask his opinions about lead generation, management and nurturing. Those opinions follow almost immediately.

Q1: What's the single biggest challenge facing companies trying to succeed with lead generation, management and nurturing right now?

A1: The lack of effective targeting. Many companies target too broadly. These companies do not take advantage of segmentation to the degree that they could and should. And, for whatever reason, the same company that will spend $10 on a “lumpy mailer” will balk at spending $1.00 per contact name [for] a decent list. (Well, there is no such thing as a good list [available for purchase] – but you have to build a base list, and then develop it over time on a prioritized basis). Effective targeting is 60 percent of the battle in most marketing programs and most companies do not do a good job of targeting prospects correctly.

Q2: What's the single biggest challenge facing companies trying to sell solutions and services related to lead generation, management and nurturing right now?

A2: MarketingSherpa recently published their 2011 B2B Marketing Benchmark Report and in that report they document that the number-one most pertinent challenge marketing departments face is generating high-quality leads. At the same time, many if not most marketing departments are measured on the number of leads and the cost per lead. The marketers I talk to stress about having to produce more leads each year with reduced budgets. Do you feel that this might be one reason why fewer than 50 percent of sales reps are making their quota this year, according to CSO Insights?

The other challenge marketers face right now is that marketing automation (MA) is being touted as the Holy Grail – put e-mail addresses in one end and out the other end come freshly minted leads. Not even the MA vendors believe this, but it is hard for them to migrate users from a "black box" mentality into a more sophisticated “MA is a tool, not a standalone solution” mentality. The biggest problem facing those of us who sell high-end, quality solutions is that though companies say they want [high-]quality leads, many won’t pay for them and they default to forcing their sales force to do what it least likes to do and does poorly – prospect.

Q3: What's the "next big thing" in lead generation, management and nurturing for which decision makers at user and provider companies should be preparing right now?

A3: “The next big thing” in lead generation, management and nurturing for B2B companies is actually “the same old thing” for sophisticated, B2C [business-to-consumer] direct marketers – it has been around for 30-plus years. That is a data-driven approach to prospecting with a lifetime value approach to measuring ROI. The more companies measure themselves on quarterly results, the more they are mortgaging their future. I recommend that companies stop the carousel on dollars going out without any realistic hope of getting those dollars back in ROI.

Dortch's Recommendations

Dan is incredibly good at talking about lead generation, management and nurturing in ways that seamlessly tie those critical topics to what should be the larger goals of every business. You know – things like investing in necessary resources wisely, tracking actions, developments and their effects accurately and consistently and balancing short- and long-term goals optimally. Those kinds of larger goals.

I am naively optimistic enough to believe that these and other large, short-term and long-term goals are best achieved by focusing on making every customer successful and happy. This approach, I believe, provides the highest likelihood of sustained success and happiness for everyone else in the customer's value chain. Critical to success with this approach is identifying, engaging, managing, nurturing and converting the highest-quality leads available. Because that's how you maximize the value of every effort and resource you invest in each and every one of those leads.

And how do you maximize the quality of your leads? I recommend that you start by taking an approach to the challenge pretty much aligned with Dan's comments above. (You might also take a look at what Dan's company does and how they do it, as potential partners and as a guide to what to look for in other vendors and solutions you consider.)

It may also help to encourage a view of leads as more than just chunks of data on a list. They're actually people who have needs and goals, same as you and your business. This could help to accelerate progress towards a more holistic, conversational and consultative relationship with each lead and customer, and with the marketplace you're in more generally. Which as I understand it is how much marketing's evolving these days. I'm not necessarily recommending; I'm just sayin'…

By the way, Dan's new book, "The Truth About Leads," should be at or near a purveyor of books near you sometime soon. I also recommend it. Highly. I got to read an advance copy, and felt a lot smarter about the whole lead thing afterwards.

Find New Customers – Jeff Ogden of Find New Customers: the Dortch on Marketing 3-Q Interview

Jeff Ogden is a lead and demand generation specialist and  a self-styled "Fearless Competitor." He's also the president of one of the best-named companies I've ever encountered: Find New Customers. But enough of what I think. Here's what Jeff thinks.

Q1: What's the single biggest challenge to companies seeking new customers today –technological, operational or otherwise?

A1: To quote sales expert Jill Konrath, prospects are crazy, busy today. So your messages must adhere to her SNAP approach:
1) Simple - very basic and uncomplicated
2) iNvaluable - focused on their needs and not yours
3) Aligned - don’t talk about A when they care about B. You need to talk about B when they care about B.
4) Priority - You need to focus on what's at the top of their to-do list.

But the interesting thing about this challenge is that solving it requires deep buyer intelligence. Buyer personas are critical today. Deep knowledge leads to finely honed and effective messaging.

Q2: What's the single biggest challenge to companies seeking to sell solutions to companies seeking new customers today -- technological, perceptual or otherwise?

A2: The biggest challenge for companies selling solutions like marketing automation is commoditization. To prospects ears', they all sound alike – Marketo, Eloqua, Silverpop, Pardot. The average business person cannot see a difference. Vendors need to do a better job of demonstrating unique value and ensuring success. Chances are this will come from a different selling approach, rather than a product.

Q3. What's the "next big thing" coming in the continuing search for new customers for which users and vendors should be preparing now?

A3: Buyer empowerment. Vendors will need to become more value oriented and recognize the need to be everywhere (Twitter, Facebook YouTube, iTunes, etc.) with a clear, concise and consistent message.

Dortch's Recommendations

Pay attention to how your buyers buy, whether you're selling marketing automation solutions or anything else. When I look at Jeff's answers collectively, what I take away is that differentiation enhances competitiveness. Oh, and that the only differentiation that matters to buyers is differentiation that demonstrates alignment with buyer goals, needs and priorities.

Be where your buyers are, and pay attention to, capture, aggregate and leverage what they say and what they do. Employ IT-empowered solutions that help you to do these things effectively and consistently. That's how you'll find – and keep – new customers.

Scott Albro of Focus: the Dortch on Marketing Three-Q Interview

Scott Albro is founder and CEO of Focus, where business decision makers can get complimentary research, market analysis and community that helps them to make better purchase decisions. (In the interests of full disclosure, it's also where I'm director of research, but I'd be fan anyway, for reasons you can read here.) Scott describes himself as "Builder, Leader, Knifefighter." I figured he might have some interesting opinions about the current state and imminent future of business-to-business (B-to-B) marketing -- and I was right.

Q1: What is the greatest challenge facing modern B-to-B advertising/marketing/media companies today?
A1: How to use the Internet. Right now the Internet is good at delivering quantity, as opposed to quality. That works in consumer markets but amounts to an epic FAIL in most B-to-B markets.

Q2: What is the greatest challenge facing the clients of modern B-to-B advertising/marketing/media companies today?
A2: How to deliver something that the sales organization actually cares about. [Editorial comment: Oh, Snap!]

Q3: What is poised to be "the next big thing" In modern b-to-B advertising, marketing and/or media -- technological, cultural, financial or otherwise?
A3: We're working on it and it's a secret.

Dortch's Recommendations:

Focus.com is innovative, interesting and gaining traction. It is establishing a leading presence in an area many marketers know little to nothing useful about: cyberspace. Scott and his team are not the only smart people who realize this and are taking steps to address it. But they are some of the first, they're really smart, they work really hard, and they have a good head start.

If you're an advertiser or marketer trying to reach business decision makers, you should probably already be talking to Focus. If you are a business decision maker, you should be making use of the research, analysis and community at Focus.com. And if you're involved or interested in the evolution of business-to-business marketing and sales, you should definitely be watching Scott and the Focus team.