Let's stop and think about where we are with regard to B2B Enterprise Sales and Marketing.
Nobody wants to be interrupted anymore, the days of interruption marketing and broadcast marketing are over. Thing about it, we all filter out the constant bombardment of messages that we get every day. We either do this through our heads, through legislation or through technology.
We don't watch or remember adverts, GDPR has killed off email marketing and has pretty much killed off cold calling. We can now use ad-blockers and growth of them is 30% year-on-year, we can filter unsolicited emails into junk as well as exercising our rights under GDPR to be taken off email lists. Even standard iPhone functionality enables me to block cold callers.
Our ability to interrupt and broadcast is getting less and less. Some companies have turned to using employee advocacy tools to blast out those corporate messages that we have blocked elsewhere. Now there is a reason why we blocked them.
Corporate marketing is boring, it says the same as everybody else, "we are number one", "we are the market leader", "we won an award", etc etc. We know this is dull and boring, so do our employees and so do our prospects and customers. So why do we continue to pump this out?
A friend of mine said he recently unfollowed a sales team because all they did was post corporate stuff, so instead of getting the content once he got it 10 times. Turning what is probably good content into corporate spam.
Employee advocacy is about not forcing, but empowering your employees to talk about your company in an insightful, educational and funny way that their followers, people who love them, will share and amplify this content.
You don't know content is good until you have read it. What you want is to know that if I read an article it's good, which means I'm more likely to read new content next time around. If it's dull I won't read anymore and I won't share it.
To activate employees they need to be taught etiquette as well as a social mindset, which includes how to have a personal brand a strong network and the rights and wrongs of what to post on social.
The business case in terms of competitive advantage and additional revenue is clear, employees are your only unique selling point. Maybe it's time to activate it?
Your B2B marketing plan should be monitored carefully and adjusted where needed. Yet, we are not in a time where that plan needs the employee-meets-social mindset. Employees can be a powerful marketing opportunity for your company – but only if you approach this channel with focus, rigor, and a systems mindset. Think about your goals quantitatively to reverse engineer your process. Once you’re up and running, make sure to look beyond numbers to understand what your team members are thinking and feeling in addition to what they’re doing on the aggregate. But most importantly, don’t be intrusive. Focus on big-picture data to tell your story. If you’re too focused on individual employees, your marketing program will do the exact opposite of engaging.
unknownx500
