2

C-Level Guide to Growing

Awareness, Leads and Revenue
Part 1:
Powerful B2B Marketing Strategies to
Drive Awareness
By Christopher Ryan
Copyright 2011 Christopher Ryan
Published by Fusion Marketing Press, Colorado Springs, CO.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any
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or otherwise, without the prior permission in writing from both the copyright
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well as the book in its entirely, are protected by the copyright laws of the
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Requests to the publisher for permission should be addressed to FMP Press,
1915 Jamboree Drive, Suite 125, Colorado Springs, CO 80920, 1-719-357-6280,
or via email at info@fusionmarketing.com.
Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: While the publisher and author
have used their best efforts in preparing this book, they make no
representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy to completeness of
the contents of this book specifically disclaim any implied warranties of
merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be
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Neither the publisher nor author shall be liable for any loss of profit or any
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consequential, or other damages.
For general information on other products and services, please contact us at
719-357-6280, or via email at info@fusionmarketingpartners.com

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION .....................................................................4
CHAPTER 1 Why a Great Brand Promise is a Critical Factor
in Your B2B Marketing Success....6
CHAPTER 2 Whats the Big Idea? Taking the Time to Craft
Your Brand Promise.9
CHAPTER 3 Why Your Brand Promise Must Be Specific.....11
CHAPTER 4 PUSH Marketing vs. PULL Marketing: Which
Should You Pursue?..................................................................13
CHAPTER 5 Are You a RAM or PEACOCK Marketer?.......16
CHAPTER 6 A Word (or Several) is Worth a Thousand
Pictures.18
CHAPTER 7 How to Use Social Media to Build Awareness:
Pace Yourself!......20
CHAPTER 8 Blogging Your FIRST Tool for B2B Social
Media Success...22
CHAPTER 9 LinkedIn Your SECOND Tool for B2B Social
Media Success25
CHAPTER 10 Twitter - Your THIRD Tool for B2B Social
Media Success..28
CHAPTER 11
Five Rules for B2B Public Relations
Success..31
CHAPTER 12 Outside-the-Box B2B PR Strategies..33
CHAPTER 13 How to Expand Your Circle of Marketing
Influence..36
About Fusion Marketing Partners and Christopher
Ryan........................................................................................39

INTRODUCTION
"Because its purpose is to create a customer, the
business enterprise has twoand only these
twobasic functions: marketing and
innovation."
-Peter Drucker
Welcome to the first of our three-part series on how to
generate awareness, leads and revenue. In 13 short
chapters, I will provide you with some overall concepts,
plus specific and actionable strategies and tactics that are
designed to help you generate much more attention and
interest for your organization.
Although this book (and the other two in the series) has
been designed from the perspective of a business-tobusiness (B2B) company, many of the principles apply
equally well to business-to-consumer (B2C) companies
and nonprofits.
When we talk to potential Fusion Marketing
Partners clients, they often express the desire
(desperation!) for more leads and more revenue. What
they dont realize is that marketing and sales is a
continuum, and it starts with awareness. Business
decision-makers are much more likely to buy from a
company they are already familiar with, particularly if
that company is known to be very good at what the
purchaser happens to need at the moment.
This is the essence of the pull marketing strategy we will
be talking about in all three books in the series. First
making the maximum number of potential buyers aware
of your unique and defensible brand promise (building
awareness). Second converting that awareness into
permission-based responses (generating leads). Third

nurturing these leads and turning as many as possible

into customers (driving revenue).
The good news is that prospects who are already aware of
you are much more likely to buy quickly and with less
price sensitivity than those who are unaware. How can
you argue with shorter sales cycles, higher close rates and
greater profit margins? This is what you can get when
you put emphasis on building awareness.
Enjoy the read and the great results it will bring you. You
can find more information at our website,
www.fusionmarketingpartners. Also, please get in touch
with us directly if we can help you in any way:
info@fusionmarketingpartners.com.

All the best,

Christopher Ryan
Fusion Marketing Partners

CHAPTER 1
Why a Great Brand Promise is a Critical
Factor in Your B2B Marketing Success
With so much noise out there, I find its often beneficial
to define the fundamentals with no room for
equivocation. Clear thinking often leads to clear results.
If we cant agree what a brand or a brand promise is, how
can we possibly make it the basis for effective action?
Some people take it for granted that everybody in the
room knows what you mean when you start throwing the
word brand around. (Its a widely abused term!) Being
that its the core of a communication and marketing
strategy, I begin our talk with these definitions:
Brand Position: the place your company occupies in a
prospects or customers mind when he or she thinks
about you.
Brand Promise: what you promise to deliver to your
customers when they do business with you.
Your job is to make your brand position and brand
promise the same thing. In case you ever underestimate
how important this is, here are seven things a strong
brand promise can accomplish:

1. Explains what you do

2. Articulates the primary customer benefit
3. Establishes credibility
4. Creates an emotional connection

5. Arouses curiosity
6. Motivates action
7. Guarantees your place in heaven (just kidding on
this one)

Following are some examples of what I consider weak

and strong brand promises. First the weak:
Lockheed Martin: We never forget who we are
working for.
UPS: What can Brown do for you?
Ernst & Young: Quality in everything we do
Microsoft: Life without walls
Exxon: Were Exxon (Really!)
FileMaker Software: Whats Your Problem?
These companies are so large and well-known they can
get away with substandard branding. But most of us
dont have this luxury. We have to create a value
proposition that gives us competitive advantage.
Now lets look at some companies who (in my opinion)
have very strong and enduring branding promises.
Reebok: No matter what the situation, Reebok
has the sneakers, apparel and gear to fit your
needs.
GE: We bring good things to life.
Campbells Soup: Nourishing
everywhere, every day.

peoples

lives

FedEx: When it absolutely, positively has to be

there overnight.
Home Depot: You can do it, we can help
O'Douls: What beer drinkers drink when they're
not drinking beer.
BMW: The ultimate driving machine.
Im sure you can come up with your own list of good and
not-so-good brand statements. But regardless of what
other companies do, the most important thing you can do
for your organization is to make sure you have a
compelling and differentiated brand. If you accomplish
this, you will be more successful at all of the other
marketing and sales strategies discussed in this book.
The first step is to develop the Big Idea for your company
that will set you apart in the mind of your prospects. Ill
discuss the Big Idea, and why its important, in the next
chapter.

CHAPTER 2
Whats the Big Idea? Taking the Time to
Craft Your Brand Promise
Lee Iacocca once said, "When the product is right, you
don't have to be a great marketer." While I agree with
most of the things he said, I think Mr. Iacocca got this
one wrong. In reality, even a great product or service has
to be marketed properly to succeed. And it is much easier
to do a good job of marketing if you have a Big Idea. By
this I mean a true competitive differentiation the
value-add extra that makes what you offer resoundingly
unique and clearly better than your competitors.
If you are going to create a powerful marketing and sales
engine, then you must absolutely have a compelling
brand promise. This is one of the most misunderstood,
unappreciated, and neglected parts of the marketing
process. I think that advertising visionary David Ogilvy
was right when he stated that positioning (positioning
was his term for creating the brand promise) is the most
important decision made in promoting a service or
product. He was also on target when he said that
successful positioning has more impact on the results of
a promotion than how an advertisement was designed
and written.
This is why I urge our clients to devote plenty of time to
crafting their brand promise before starting any new
campaigns. Defining your brand promise erects the
guidepost against which you can track all of your tactical
activities. If your activities dont faithfully reflect your
core promise, then you know youve gone off-track.
The brand promise is what you promise people they will
receive when they do business with you. And as
mentioned in the previous chapter, brand position is

10

defined as "the manner in which an organization and the

products or services it provides are perceived by
prospects and customers." While people tend to use the
terms interchangeably, there is a big difference. While
you control your own brand promise, it is the
marketplace that controls your position. Of course, if
your brand promise is based on what truly differentiates
your company, it is much easier to align the brand
promise and marketplace position.
Every organization, as well as each product or service,
has its own unique brand promise and position. A
company can occupy different positions among different
target audience segments. And people can have their own
unique positions (Iacocca and Ogilvy are good examples),
often built and reinforced through social media. While
there are some pitfalls to avoid, companies can gain
major benefits from properly positioning their key
executives.
Since it is hard to be all things to all people, I strongly
suggest that you ditch the me-too approach entering
the market echoing the same value propositions as your
competitors and focus on a Big Idea. The best way to
think about this is to consider how you would answer if a
prospect asked you the question: Whats the big idea
about your company? Answering this question
succinctly is, in essence, your brand promise. Of course,
prospects ask themselves this question every time they
consider your offer. And the reason many of them dont
buy from you is they dont think your offer is a Big Idea,
because you dont tell them why it is.
The me-too approach may be safer, but it can also
make you appear to be a commodity, and commodity
companies are not successful in an era where consumers
have so many choices. The lesson is simple: be different.
Find the Big Idea in your company and capture it
succinctly. Its the guidepost that will help your team
forge the correct strategy for any medium and help your
customers locate you in a fragmented landscape of
competing messages.

11

CHAPTER 3
Why Your Brand Promise Must Be Specific
In the first two chapters, I talked
about the importance of a
specific,
compelling
and
differentiated Brand Promise to
achieve success in B2B marketing
and sales. And although it is a
B2C example, I think the
following will help you get the point.
It is almost guaranteed that if you spend any time on
Colorado highways, you will experience one or more
windshield chips. And if you dont have them repaired,
they can sometimes expand to massive cracks, and then
you need a new windshield. On a recent Sunday, while
driving home from a fantastic hike in the foothills (what
non-Coloradans would call mountains), I received such a
chip. Okay, time to get it fixed. Since I didnt have a
favorite chip repairer, I did what you would expect and
Googled the term windshield chip repair Colorado
Springs. The results came back in three general
categories:

1. General automotive services companies that also

happen to do chip repair

2. Windshield replacement and repair companies

3. Windshield chip and crack repair companies
This is a good example of broad, medium and narrow
branding. I chose a company from category 3 called Bobs
Windshield Repair. Their brand promise: We come to
you to fix chips, dings and cracks up to 14 inches in
length. Simple, direct and exactly what I was looking

12

for. It also helped that the company was in the first page
of search rankings and the site linked to an article about
the company where the owner (Bob of course) talked
about how he had repaired over 5,000 windshields in
just three years. There is good money in being specific.
If you are a small company competing with industry
giants, niche marketing may be your only path to success.
In a hypothetical B2B marketing example, your branding
(moving from broad to narrow) can be designed to
appeal to:
1. Buyers of general business productivity software
2. Buyers of business accounting software
3. Buyers of retail accounting software
If your prospects are retailers, which of the three brand
promises are going to have the most appeal? Most often,
it will be the one that is most specific to their needs.
However (and this is an important point), keep in mind
that when you define your brand narrowly, you not only
define what you are but you define everything you are
not. This means that you will not attract anyone who is
not in your market niche. Most of the time, this is a good
thing because you can achieve much higher close rates
and shorten the sales cycle by being more specific. But to
make this work, you must be targeting a market that is
large enough to support your value proposition.
The formula for success in B2B marketing is not easy, but
it is simple. First, pick a brand promise that articulates a
unique and compelling value proposition. Second, rank
high in Google and other search engines for your chosen
niche. Third, present a powerful offer that gives
prospects a reason to engage with you right now.

13

CHAPTER 4
PUSH Marketing vs. PULL Marketing Which Should You Pursue?
I am a marketer by trade, but as a consumer, I get as
annoyed as anyone by the persistent and unrelenting
intrusiveness of push marketing techniques. As hard as
we try to get away from unwanted promotions (using
TiVo, Sirius Radio, cable, etc.), marketers find new ways
to track us down and foist their messages on us,
regardless of our needs or receptivity.
I don't know about you, but the proliferation of pushy
and unwanted marketing pitches are driving me batty.
Here are a few examples:
1. My wife and I enjoy watching the Olympics but
detest the fact that the short snippets of athletic
activity are interrupted by large blocks of
mindless and repetitive commercials.
2. Our daily paper now comes with ads that are
wrapped around the editorial content, so you
have to go through gyrations to get to the news
stories.
3. Online, floating banner ads are becoming more
intrusive and harder to get around. They follow
your cursor until you figure out where the X
or "close" button is.
4. Although we are on the do-not-call list, we still
get plenty of unsolicited telephone calls except
they are now from so-called "market researchers"
and charities, who are exempt from the privacy
requirements. And these people almost never

14

take you off their call lists because they are legally
able to call you with impunity.
The problem with push marketing is that at any given
time, a majority of your audience whether theyre
listeners, viewers, or readers have no interest
whatsoever in what you are promoting. In some cases,
you may have a lead requirement that can only be met
with push marketing techniques. But often, you do have
an alternative, and that alternative is to practice pull
marketing.
With pull marketing, the idea is for you to
find where your prospects congregate,
make your information available to them in
educational and entertaining ways, and give
them incentives to come to you when they
have a need for what you offer. Unlike the monologue of
push marketing, pull marketing creates a dialogue
between you and the prospect.
Pull marketing is a subtle shift in thinking that is quite
powerful: the question becomes not How many people
can I sell to today? but How can I help people solve
their problems? In the first scenario, you are a seller,
almost an adversary; in the second, a helper whose
expertise (and smart placement of messages) sells itself.
Instead of ads pushing your value proposition, you
produce valuable content (through social media and
websites) that solves problems within your realm of
expertise. You become a trusted resource provider who
circulates a carefully crafted message that attracts the
people who need you.
The battle between consumers and push marketers will
go on, with the latter trying to come up with new and
clever ways to force the former to pay attention and
respond to their promotions. But I submit that a much
better plan is to figure out a way to attract a larger share
of the people who are already interested in what you offer
and then convince them to do business with you.

15

In the push model, the marketer is seemingly in charge of

everything the timing, content and frequency of
promotions. However, your consumer is truly the one in
charge, because only they decide whether or not to read
or listen to your promotion and whether to respond.
As you decide how much of your time and financial
resources to allocate between push and pull marketing,
keep in mind that the battleground has shifted. As the
marketer, you are not really in charge the prospect
holds the high ground. Rather than fight this fact, it is
better to accept who has the real control and find the best
ways to help people buy in the way they want to buy,
instead of the way you want to sell to them.

16

CHAPTER 5
Are You a RAM or PEACOCK Marketer?
I was recently on a conference panel, discussing lead
generation with a group of B2B marketing execs. I was
encouraging the attendees to find and articulate their
unique value proposition and use it to attract prospects.
In other words, I asked the audience to consider moving
their processes from the "push" model to the "pull"
model of marketing.
One of my fellow panelists suggested that pull marketers
are like peacocks they try to make themselves look as
attractive as possible to get their prospects to come to
them. Like many of the bird species, male peacocks try
to be as colorful as possible; performing intricate dances
for the ladies, including an elaborate fanning of the
feathers the more ostentatious, the better.
The peacock comment got my imagination going; I
started thinking not only about peacocks, but also about
how other animals attract their mates. You are probably
wondering where the marketing message is in this
discussion, but trust me, it is coming.
Rams,
unlike
peacocks, are
experts
at "push"
marketing. They don't sit around waiting for their
potential mates (ewes) to come to them and they dont
really care how they look to the ewes. They just want to
look tough to the other rams. So in they go, horns first, to
batter their target into submission.
According to NatureWorks (NHPTV.com), in the fall,
male rams engage in head butting contests to establish
dominance. They run at each other at speeds of up to 20
miles an hour and ram their heads together (perhaps this

17

is why they are called rams?). Head butting contests can

last as long as 20 hours and the dominant ram is
rewarded by mating with more females than the weaker,
less-aggressive suitors. In fact, rams are so aggressive at
breeding time that if you adopt a ram lamb as a pet, he
may one day come to see you as a potential rival for his
ewe group and attack you. In other words, rams take
their prospecting efforts very seriously.
Like the ram with a plan, aggressive push marketers
will often attract more prospects and close more sales,
but this is not always the case. Sometimes it benefits you
to be a peacock marketer and make sure you are as
attractive as possible to prospects who are already
looking for what you offer.
Push marketers will utilize more
traditional media tools (direct
mail, print ads, events, email,
telemarketing)
while
pull
marketers tend to utilize new
social media tools. There are
many other differences between
the two disciplines, but the major point is for you to
decide whether you are a peacock or a ram when it comes
to marketing, and adjust your strategy accordingly.

18

CHAPTER 6
A Word (or Several) is Worth a Thousand
Pictures
It is said that A picture is worth a thousand words.
While this can be true, it is also true that a mere handful
of words can have even more power. Words allow you to
form pictures in your mind that are sometimes as real
and vivid as actual images. This is why people often tell
you that the book was better than the movie.
Words help you develop your imagination and are a
unique pathway to the emotions. If you doubt the power
of mere words, consider these examples:
Never give up. Never, ever give up.
Winston Churchill
Ask not what your country can do for you
John F. Kennedy
I have a dream
Martin Luther King
Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.
Ronald Reagan
These are just four examples. I bet you can think of many
others. Words have caused people to march off to war,
fall in love, create empires, change addresses and change
their lives. It is said that Cleopatra, while not a raving
beauty, had a silver tongue that captivated the likes of
Julius Caesar and Mark Antony.
As such, words are critical components of the marketing
mix. The ability to present the right words (content) to

19

the right prospects at the right time can mean the

difference between success and failure. Timely,
compelling and relevant content beats bland, irrelevant
and weak content every time.
Take a look at your website as if you were a person
looking for what it is your company offers. Does it say to
you: No need to read any furthernothing special
herethis company is just like all the others.? Or does it
say: Stop.this is differentthis company has just what
I need....I better engage with them right now.?
Content is king in marketing and sales. Words have the
power to move countries or to move prospects. Words
can bore someone to tears or motivate them to take
action. By all means, use interesting photos, but dont
neglect the words. Dont be like Eliza Doolittle, who sang
the following in My Fair Lady:
Words! Words! Words! I'm so sick of words!
I get words all day through;
First from him, now from you!
Is that all you blighters can do?
The words you use are crucial both in creating awareness
and converting website visitors.
They are potent
marketing and sales weapons, so choose and use them
carefully. Are they reflecting your brand promise with
precision, or are they just sitting there on the page (or the
screen)? Did you write them with your audience and
strategy in mind, or were you just rushing through an
assignment? If its the latter, your prospects might be
rushing off to something else like buying your
competitors product.

20

CHAPTER 7
How to Use Social Media to Build
Awareness: Pace Yourself!
I have seen the following pattern repeated over and over
when it comes to using social media in B2B marketing: a
company executive or marketing manager drinks the
social media Kool-Aid and decides to make it a big part of
their pull marketing strategy. The next thing you know,
he or she is posting, tweeting, responding, bookmarking
and otherwise fully engaged in every social networking
outlet they can find.
This process goes on for a few weeks or months until the
person quits, realizing that social media didnt produce
much results in terms of generating awareness, leads and
revenue. This is the classic sprint scenario that we
witness when clients tell us they tried social media but it
doesnt work.
But actually, good social media engagement is more like
a marathon than a sprint. When I decided to run my one
and only marathon, I read every book I could find on the
general topic of How a slow, middle-aged guy can
survive 26.2 miles. The most important lesson I learned
was that the fast starters are seldom the fast finishers
(elite athletes excluded). The idea is to resist the urge to
start out quickly and rather pick up the pace as you
proceed through the race. In other words, start slowly
and finish strong. If you do this correctly, you finish the
race in a decent time and without killing yourself.
This principle also applies to social media. When we start
a new Fusion Marketing Partners client in social media,
it is usually with a plan that allows for a slow pace and
increases over time. For example, we will set up a
schedule that includes blogging every other week, plus

21

one or two daily Twitter tweets and two LinkedIn

postings (one to update the companys or individuals
status and the other to respond or post to a discussion
group). This is not an onerous schedule and can be
completed in a few minutes per day. Over time, the
schedule of blog postings, Twitter activity and LinkedIn
activity can increase, and we can start folding in
additional social media outlets.
As you gain more experience with social media, you will
find that you are able to generate more activity with less
time. You have a searchable history that shows you as a
credible, thoughtful participant in online conversations
and an expert that prospects will be more likely to
include in their discussions and problem-solving.
You can definitely generate B2B awareness, leads and
revenue with social media. But it is seldom an overnight
path to success. You usually have to gain your followers
and establish your reputation over a period of time. You
will be best rewarded by approaching your social media
adventures as a marathon, instead of a sprint.

22

CHAPTER 8
Blogging Your FIRST Tool for B2B Social
Media Success
In the book Naked Conversations, Shel Israel and Robert
Scoble observed, "In our vision, blogging changes
marketing more than marketing changes blogging."
Many companies and individuals have found this to be
true and have achieved spectacular marketing success
with blogging. Straightforward and easy to manage, a
blog is a good place for you to enter the world of social
media.
The important first question to
ask is whether your social media
efforts will be built around your
company and brand, or focused
on an individual. While personal
blogs can be extremely effective
at driving the company message, you run the risk of the
individual leaving your company and taking the blog
audience to their next endeavor. You can mitigate this
risk and increase exposure by using multiple bloggers
from the organization. If you like, you can have one or
more primary bloggers and several secondary or
occasional bloggers.
Do not expect instant results from your blogging
program. Unless your message is particularly timely and
compelling, it takes some time to build an audience. You
can supplement your efforts with paid media buys.
Always include your blog address as part of your email
signature, as well as a link to and from your Website.
Sharing your new posts on Twitter, Facebook and
LinkedIn is also good practice. You can pick up a number
of visitors this way.

23

Before you start your blog, remember that curiosity is an

important trait for a blogger. You should learn everything
you can about your potential readers. Find out what they
care most about and what they need to do their jobs
better. Discover their desires, interests, and what they
want most from their jobs and personal lives. Then write
about these things.
Here are some rules to help you create a compelling and
successful blog:
1. Be unique. Dont waste your time rehashing the
same content that people can get elsewhere.
Readers want a current and fresh look at your
topic. Give it to them.
2. Be relevant. Stick to your chosen topic area.
People read a marketing blog to learn about
marketing and a finance blog to learn about
finance. Keep extraneous text to a minimum.
3. Be interactive. Blogs that generate outside
comments tend to be a lot more interesting.
Without outside participation, blogs are just
another online newsletter.
4. Link back to your corporate website but try not
to overdo the company connection. Over-selling
is a quick way to chase away readers. Remember,
youre in the business of fostering fruitful
conversations and displaying your expertise to a
targeted audience which is different from
overtly pitching your product.
5. Incorporate search engine research. Use the
keywords that people search in your blog title and
text, and perhaps create categories that include
these terms. This will help more people find your
blog.

24

6. Use category tags on your blog. It will help people

find you and drive up your search engine
rankings.
7. Aggressively share the news about your blog with
the outside world. Send everyone on your
database a link to the blog.
8. Post new content regularly to keep the blog from
getting stale. Every other week is a minimum
schedule; post more often if you can.
9. Approve and answer comments as soon as
possible. I also suggest that you moderate
comments to keep out the spam and sales pitches.
10. Unfortunately, many comments will be almost
incoherent, so you should edit these before you
allow them to be posted.
One great way to gain blogging experience is to read and
respond to related blogs. Your comments on others blogs
can refer to your own and is a great way to build traffic.
You may also find that leveraging and repackaging things
youve already written can decrease the burnout factor
of constantly coming up with new material from scratch.
Chances are that you are overlooking dozens of potential
blog posts in presentations, meeting notes, and other
materials that you have already written. Leverage them
to keep your posting consistent. Just as we covered in the
last chapter, consistency over time is how you build a
fruitful social media presence for your company.

25

CHAPTER 9
LinkedIn Your SECOND Tool for B2B
Social Media Success
LinkedIn (linkedin.com) is a terrific social media tool for
those who market to businesses. WikiAnswers claims
there are over 40 million LinkedIn users, and unlike
more consumer-oriented tools such as Facebook, the vast
majority of people use LinkedIn primarily for business
purposes.
It is very easy to get started on LinkedIn and you can
grow your presence incrementally. Keep in mind that
LinkedIn is a relationship medium, not a transaction
medium, and you will receive negative feedback if you are
too blatant about promoting your business. You can let
people know what you do, but subtlety works better than
a hard-sell approach.
Here are some tips to make your LinkedIn experience
fruitful:
1.

Get started by posting your complete profile,

including education and past positions. This
allows more people to find you and request to be
connected. For example, I have over 900
connections and add several more every week.
Many LinkedIn members have thousands of
connections. You can choose to be more inclusive
and allow anyone to connect to you, or more
exclusive, and only allow true colleagues and
friends.

2.

Join groups that are relevant to your profession,

industry, and personal interests. There is no
reason to limit the number of groups to which you

26

belong. As I write this, LinkedIn allows you to

join up to 50 groups.
3.

Create your own group. It is easy to start and

manage LinkedIn groups, and this can get you a
great deal of attention with a highly targeted
audience.

4.

Each group has its own discussion forum. Start

answering other peoples questions and post your
own. This is a good way to get to know group
members; you might even learn something in the
process. If you provide relevant answers over
time, you can be awarded with LinkedIn expert
status.

5.

Use the recommendation feature. Recommending

others gains you exposure on their profile page.
Likewise, you can ask others to recommend you.
Do not neglect this because employers often
review their potential candidates profiles and
recommendations before making contact.

6.

Update people about your work, projects and

successes. This only takes a few seconds and
keeps you top-of-mind in your network. However,
do make sure updates are relevant and timely.
Leave the trivia for the social media platforms
you share with friends.

7.

Increase your visibility by making your profile

public. This allows search engines to index your
page.

8.

Fill out your company profile and provide links to

your blog and company website.

9.

Make use of your contacts. Find ways to keep in

touch. Ask for referrals and do whatever else it
takes to prevent these relationships from going
stale.

27

If you use it properly, LinkedIn can be a source of

awareness, leads and revenue. It can expose you to
industry leaders and potential employees and partners.
For many companies (including Fusion Marketing
Partners), LinkedIn is by far the most effective social
media platform.

28

CHAPTER 10
Twitter - Your THIRD Tool for B2B Social
Media Success
According to Twitter, the service now has over 190
million users, and this number is growing rapidly.
However, keep in mind that many Twitter users are
inactive they sign up for the service but seldom, if ever,
use it. Twitter started as more of a consumer medium,
but has made major inroads into business-to-business
users.
A useful way to look at Twitter is to consider it a microblogging tool. Twitter posts (known as tweets) are
limited to 140 characters of information, so you need to
learn how to share information in very small bites. It
enforces brevity and focus of message, especially when
you want to use tweets to reference your blog or Website.
Just as with blogging and LinkedIn, there is little or no
cost to use Twitter, other than the value of your time.
However, you must make a time commitment, or Twitter
will be a short-term experiment that will not benefit you.
The basic idea is to find and follow people who tweet
interesting and useful things, and contribute your own
valuable 140-character gems in the hopes of getting
others to follow you. You can make things happen very
quickly, assuming you can acquire a large list of
followers.
Here are some tips on how to get the most out of Twitter:
1.

Have a unique brand. This is just as important on

Twitter as in blogging. You have to differentiate
yourself and stand out from the crowd.

2.

Use Twitter for quick marketing research. You

can conduct an online poll and have the results in

29

minutes, but you must keep the poll or survey

very short.
3.

Monitor your company name to learn what

people are saying about you in real time.
(search.twitter.com) Do the same with your
competitors. Many large companies use one or
more employees to monitor Twitter posts that
reference their name. You may also want to
evaluate third-party software tools, such as
TweetDeck, that help you manage and monitor
your contacts. If you are tracking or starting
conversations important to your brand, you wont
want to miss a thing.

4.

Post only when you have something useful to say.

Just as with LinkedIn, please resist the urge to
post on inane subjects (e.g., what you had for
breakfast), especially if you are using Twitter for
business purposes. Too much irrelevant content
will cause your followers to ignore you or remove
you as a contact. Likewise, be careful about
sharing your political or social viewpoints since
this may turn away potential business contacts.

5.

You can create several tweets at once and preschedule them for specific times. I know Twitter
users who schedule their tweets as much as a
month in advance. TweetDeck is a good tool to
accomplish this.

6.

Never confuse tweeting with blogging. The 140character tweet limit means that you should post
only time-sensitive snippets and use your blog to
develop topics in more detail. (Although you may,
of course, want to promote a blog post with a
snappy, succinct tweet.)

7.

If in doubt, dont send the tweet. Twitter is like

email in that you can do a lot of damage if you hit
the send button too quickly. Your tweets are
easily searchable, and everything you say can

30

either add or subtract from your reputation. Just

because Twitter is a fast and easy medium doesnt
mean you should use it in a cavalier manner.
8.

Be conversational. Twitter is a less formal

medium, so do not be afraid to let your unique
personality shine.

9.

Publish your Twitter username on your blog,

LinkedIn, and other social media accounts. Mine
is @CRyanFusionMkt.

10. Blogging, LinkedIn and Twitter will together give

you a good foundation for social media success.
Once you become proficient at these three, you
may want to add additional tools.

31

CHAPTER 11
Five Rules for B2B Public Relations Success
We do a fair amount of public and media relations at
Fusion Marketing Partners and have seen companies
follow best practices and others make lots of mistakes.
And while there are lots of moving parts to PR, there are
also a few unassailable, always-to-be-followed rules that
can help ensure a successful outcome. Here are five of the
most important:
1. Base your outreach strategy on your Big Idea. You
dont want people saying, So what? when they
read your release. The Big Idea doesnt have to be
earth-shattering, but it should be better and more
relevant to the marketplace than ABC
Companys CEO Believes His Product is the
Greatest Thing since Sliced Bread.
2. Remember that the word public is part of public
relations. It isnt just about the media and
analysts. While media and analysts can certainly
influence buyers, they seldom make a purchase
themselves. The availability of many types of
online and social media makes it possible to reach
a far larger constituency, including prospects,
customers and partners.
3. Align your PR efforts with the rest of your pull
marketing strategy. Youll find lots of leverage
points if you look at PR as a component of a
coordinated B2B marketing strategy instead of a
separate activity. As one example of how to do
this, make sure all your social media messages are
similar to, and synchronized with, your latest
media outreach. Multi-channel marketing is
much more effective than single-shot efforts.

32

4. Have a goal. Public relations is considered by

most B2B marketers to be a soft art rather than
a hard science. However, it is always best to have
a goal for your PR efforts, particularly if the goal
(or goals) is part of an overall pull marketing
campaign. One of the strategic pillars of Fusion
Marketing Partners work for clients is the
creation of a strong website presence. We prefer
to work with companies who use their website as
an important selling tool, particularly at early
stages of the sales cycle. So a key objective for the
PR campaign is not only driving awareness
(somewhat tough to measure) but also driving
traffic to the website (easy to measure). If you
have an optimized website, you will create leads
and revenue from this extra traffic. If your
website is not optimized, now is a good time to
start.
5. Be consistent. While it is important to have a big
idea and coordinate PR with your other
marketing efforts, you must also practice
consistency of message. There should be a
similar theme running through all of your
outbound communications, and this theme
should always reinforce your brand promise.
Those of you who practice public/media relations can
add other important rules for success. But I do believe
that the five I mentioned above can give you a solid
foundation for ROI-based PR.

33

CHAPTER 12
Outside-the-Box B2B PR Strategies
In the previous chapter, we talked about some important
basic rules for B2B public relations success. Now that you
have this foundation, I will share some ideas about how
to think outside the box and
come up with messaging
ideas that will get you
noticed and drive response
from your target audience.
Make it personal There
are two important ways to
make your PR personal.
First, by the tone you use for your communications. You
do this by focusing on the human side of your target
audience. Communicate in the spirit of a person talking
to another person, not as a company talking to nameless
and faceless prospects. The second aspect of being
personal is to base your PR on a key executive who has
special and acknowledged expertise in your chosen
market.
Make it fun People like to do business with people
they like. One of the best examples of a fun personality
combined with great business acumen is Herbert D.
Kelleher, founder of Southwest Airlines. When asked
what made Southwest Airlines unique, Mr. Kelleher
answered, Whats special about Southwest Airlines? Our
peopleanybody can buy the tangibles, but nobody can
replicate the intangibles very easily. And I'm talking
about the joie de vivrethe spirit of our people.
Although Kelleher has retired from the airline, you can
tell that his spirit carries on when you take a flight on
Southwest.

34

Make it unique Make sure your PR strategy is in

complete alignment with your differentiation and unique
selling proposition. People notice uniqueness far more
easily than me-too-ism. Uniqueness also sells, and it
often sells at a premium price.
Make it sticky Stickiness refers to messages that are
memorable. There are two ways to boost stickiness: first
with a unique and powerful message, and second with a
good message repeated over and over again.
Persist Many companies practice just enough PR to
say they have done it, but a paucity of PR will have little
or no impact. A press release every six months is not
going to cut it. Send news out on a regular basis or the
(old) news section of your Website will make you look
stale.
Use social networking There are many social media
tools available to help you move the needle of public
perception, and gain far more awareness among your
target audience. For example, a blog is a great way for
reporters, editors, and analysts to find you and get the
word out about your company and products.
Align with search terms Coordinate your search
engine optimization (SEO) and pay per click strategies
with your public relations messages. Include key search
terms in the text of every press release.
Get published There is something about the written
word that adds to an individual's credibility and
reputation. The greatest credibility builder is to publish a
book. All you need to get started is special knowledge in
your field of expertise and a unique way of presenting
your information. If you do not have the time and
material for a book, at least publish articles.
Self promote Get your name out there with public
speaking, presentations, podcasts, articles, blogs,

35

LinkedIn, etc. If it helps the company, create your own

brand and establish thought leadership.
Aggressive public relations can have an enormous impact
on awareness and lead generation, and even more so if
you think outside the box.

36

CHAPTER 13
How to Expand Your Circle of Marketing
Influence
Starting with your organization at the core, everyone that
you can possibly do business with can be pinpointed
somewhere in relation to the center. As those individuals
in the outer reaches of our marketing influence are
brought closer to you, they become part of your circle.
Those nearest to the core are loyal, lifetime customers,
prospects in an active sales cycle and others that you
have direct influence on. Those farthest away do not even
know that you exist.
Traditional push marketing models chart this
movement through the marketing and sales sequence
using terminology such as suspects, leads, cold prospects,
hot prospects and customers. They try to find individual
suspects in the larger universe and convince them to
move up their purchase intentions. By contrast, in
todays social media-focused pull marketing model, the
idea is to broadcast powerful and consistent messages to
the universe and give people good reasons to engage with
you. The key point is that prospects engage with you
you do not have to chase after them.
Over time, the inner and middle circles grow as people
become closer to you. Because you are providing the right
message at the right time, people are educating
themselves and willingly engaging with you not
because of the persistence and brilliance of your
salespeople and the fact you push yourself on them, but
rather because they need your products or services. The
complexity of the sales process decreases and the sales
cycle shrinks.

37

Lets take a look at how the circle of influence relates to

your business. The Inner Circle is comprised of your Key
Influence Group, and this includes employees, partners,
customers, active prospects, personal contacts, and blog
contributors. The Middle Circle is the Moderate
Influence Group, and includes contact lists, blog readers,
suspects, social media followers, group members (e.g.
LinkedIn), affiliates, industry influencers, press, and
analysts. The Outer Circle is the Low Influence Group,
and includes your potential prospect universe email
lists, direct marketing lists, occasional blog readers,
media readers, and suspects.
Where you are today:

Inner
circle
Contact
list
Prospect
universe

This first graphic (the before situation) shows where

you most likely are in your current evolution as a
company. Obviously, the size of your key influence and
moderate influence groups are small in relation to the
entire prospect universe. Marketing is more expensive at
this stage because you must often first educate suspects
before turning them into prospects. It may be necessary
to do a fair amount of push marketing at this stage.

38

Where you are going:

This second graphic (the after situation) illustrates how

your pull marketing and social media efforts will help you
grow the number of key influencers and moderate
influencers. Over time, these parts of the circle of
influence will become a rich source of qualified buyers.
Your efforts will evolve from push marketing to pull
marketing and you will be able to generate leads and new
customers at a much lower acquisition cost.
The Circle of Marketing Influence is an excellent way to
remember that your mission in B2B marketing is to
continually expand the number of people who know what
you do and why you are the obvious choice in your
market space. Hopefully, you will find the tactics and
approaches in previous chapters helpful in expanding
this circle.
In the coming months, we will publish two follow-up ebooks focusing on growing leads and revenue. Fusion
Marketing Partners is a small, passionate team of B2B
marketing and sales veterans who focus exclusively on
strategies that achieve superior results and return on
investment. If you would like to discover how we deliver
increased awareness and leads, lower the cost of
customer acquisition and optimize sales and marketing
processes, please visit us at fusionmarketingpartners.com.

39

ABOUT FUSION MARKETING

PARTNERS & CHRISTOPHER RYAN
Proven B2B Marketing and Sales Experts
that Deliver Measurable Results
Stronger Brand Awareness
More Highly Qualified Leads
Bottom Line Results
Fusion Marketing Partners is a strategic B2B
marketing consultancy that analyzes and adds value to
every part of our clients marketing-through-sales
processes. The company was founded by principals with
deep experience in business-to-business marketing and
sales at leading companies like PeopleSoft, Sybase,
SpringCM, Zoot Enterprises, Group 1 Software, MCI,
Stellent, Optika, IDC, and FrontRange Solutions.
Christopher Ryan, Founder and CEO of Fusion
Marketing Partners, is the author of many books
including Creating an Unstoppable Marketing and Sales
Machine, written to provide companies with a repeatable
and predictable framework for generating awareness,
qualified leads and revenue.
We look forward to helping you achieve your important
B2B marketing and sales objectives. For additional
information, please visit www.fusionmarketingpartners.com,
contact us at info@FusionMarketingPartners.com or call
719-357-6280.

40

Fusion Marketing Partners

has been instrumental in
building our business and
helping us develop a great
marketing and sales model and
a strong value proposition.
FMPs extensive experience in
B2B marketing is invaluable in
helping us launch our
consulting practice into new
arenas in a way that
contributes to our future
success. I highly recommend
Chris and his team.
Jeanne Caldwell
President, Information
Management Specialists