The BuyerSphere Project puts into context all that is changing with B2B marketing and B2B buying behaviors and purchases. It goes in depth on virtually every topic affecting how business buys from business in a digital marketplace. The content of this book is the result of an extensive research initiative conducted by Enquiro with the support of Google, Marketo, Covario, Business.com, and demandbase. While I purchased a copy of the book at Amazon, Enquiro also graciously offers the the book as a free download at the Enquiro web site.

In my Twitter #B2Bbookclub interview with Gord Hotchkiss, Author and CEO of Enquiro, we cover several topics presented in The Buyersphere Project. One thing you are certain to recognize in this interview is that Gord is one of the leading thinkers in understanding the B2B purchasing process and the phycology involved in it that many of us have overlooked for far too long. If you are responsible for or involved in B2B marketing, The BuyerSphere Project is a must read. There is little chance you will find as much useful, helpful information on the changing nature of B2B marketing as Gord has packed into these less than 200 pages. Enjoy!

Jeremy: Gord, thanks for joining us today. I enjoyed reading The BuyerSphere Project tremendously. It stretched my thinking and I think that is what all of as B2B marketers need right now, new thinking. Is this what prompted you to write the book?

Gord: It was a few things. I felt there was little research out there into how companies buy. Also, we had our own experiences that showed there was more to the process than we knew, looking at it with our vendor hats on. So we decided to peak under the hood

Jeremy: It was a good decision. The BuyerSphere Project is filled with useful, helpful information. How is the book being received so far?

Gord: I think it sneaks up on people. When people read through it they find a lot of information. They are surprised at how much is packed into 200 some odd pages. One marketer called it a fire hose…so, it’s definitely building momentum.

Jeremy: I can definitely see why. Let’s start with the definition of “The BuyerSphere.” And why should it be mapped.

Gord: Okay. The premise of the book is to really understand your prospect – to see the process through their eyes. That’s the BuyerSphere. There are three dimensions: their view of the product, their view of the market. And finally, their reality as the buyer. What type of organization, the degree of risk, their role.

It needs to be mapped to allow us to shift our perspective to that of the buyer. And the more risk there is in the purchase (for the buyer) the more we need to invest the time to map the BuyerSphere. Risk is the overwhelming critical factor to understand.

Jeremy: Where do you think generally we are in the adoption curve with B2B marketers viewing their customers this way?

Gord: Very very very very (you get the idea?) early! This is very uncommon, at least from what I’ve seen. It’s a little more common in the B2C world, as they have more of a history of ethnographic customer research, literally, observing their customers “where they live”.

We seem to accept that emotions are common with consumers, but what I think our research showed was that emotion is very much present in the B2B market as well. It’s not a rational marketplace. So, B2B marketers are slow to come to the table in understanding the need of a deep understanding of their prospects emotional reality and the psychology at play here. There just isn’t a big body of info about this.

Jeremy: I’d agree is super early, but when you step back and consider that’s where we are in 2010, it seems almost imcomprehensible. What challenges are b2b marketers having seeing this shift?

Gord: We get caught up in technology, and we forget that what’s really important are the people using the technology. I think B2B marketers are struggling to realize the magnitude of the shift that’s happening. There was a lot of talk in 1999 and 2000 about frictionless B2B markets. That idea was appealing to B2B marketers.

In theory, it commoditized B2B purchasing, Made it rational.But what really happened was that buyers had more information than ever before, which made things more complex, not simpler. The internet introduced a number of new dynamics, just not the ones we expected.

Jeremy: Compounded by the irrational nature of B2B purchasing?

Gord: Exactly. B2B purchasing is all about mitigating risk. And the internet gives us some powerful new ways to do that. Many of which would be surprising to vendors.

Jeremy: This was my first “a-ha” moment in the book. Humans (people) make B2B purchases – and there are often many different people involved in the decision, each with multiple priorities, fears, uncertainties, and doubts.

Gord: For example, we found existing relationships with vendors to be hugely influential in eventual purchases. An early chat with a favored vendor can essentially define the landscape of the purchase. And face to face is still vitally important in high risk scenarios. The web doesn’t change that.

Jeremy: On the topic of risk – will you define Risk Gap for us? And how the emotion of fear impacts the purchasing process?

Gord: We have this vision of a buying funnel, an ideal model of prospect behavior. There are some assumptions there – the process is linear, all prospects are treated equally, and that it is rational and logical. That’s almost never the case. There are incumbent vendors that block the funnel. New prospects come from nowhere. And above all, there’s a risk gap. The process starts with what we call “doers” -the people using the product.

But at some point it switches to “buyers,” -the ones who control budget and that’s usually where you find the risk gap. Suddenly, the decision criteria changes. It switches from product risk to vendor risk. That’s where the funnel often blows apart. Suddenly, vendors disappear from it and new ones come in.

Jeremy: You stress the importance of face-to-face interaction, does the amount of face-to-face interaction needed rise with higher risk?

Gord: Absolutely. We’re built to communicate face to face. There is a richness of communication that other channels can’t match. We need to be face to face to build trust. That’s just how we’re built. Online is efficient communication. Face to face is effective communication. [<--editorial insertion: brilliant quote]

What you need to do is plan a persuasion strategy so you’re using each channel to it’s advantage. Use online to get the right information in the hands of the right people. I called those IQ friction points – the need for information. And then there are EQ friction points – the need for persuasion. That’s the place for face to face.

Jeremy: To your firehouse metaphor earlier, we’ve only scratched the surface of Chapters 1 & 2. You really have packed this full. Let’s move to Maximizing Online Touch Points. Why does the influence of online factors increase with risk?

Gord: It comes to something called information asymmetry. The higher the risk, the more information we need. It used to be that the seller always had more information than the buyer, hence the asymmetry. The web changed that. That’s why we have some much more online activity in high risk purchases. Another thing, the “doer” goes much further down the path now, thanks to all the information available online. There’s more of an overlap between doers and buyers. This makes things a lot more complex for the vendor to understand.

Jeremy: How should marketers adapt in the face of this new found “information symmetry” between the buyer and vendor?

Gord: It sounds cliche, but understand that this is a partnership. You have to meet them halfway. Take a servant based approach to the process. You’re there to serve their needs. The better you do that, the more successful you’ll be. And you can only understand needs by getting to know them. Use online to enhance traditional sales practices, not replace them. There is an exponential increase in effectiveness.

Jeremy: And back to your definition of The BuyerSphere – looking at it through their eyes and note your own, right?

Gord: Yes! Absolutely. You can get by without a deep understanding in low risk, commoditized purchases (although this understanding would certainly help), but it’s essential in high risk purchases.

Jeremy: A few more questions before we finish up. First, why do you believe a company’s website is its most important digital asset?

Gord: Our research has shown that it’s the biggest factor in influencing purchases. There is a lot of interaction on it. Increasingly, we have a portfolio of digital assets: podcasts, videos, etc..but the website is still the crown jewel. That’s why it’s essential to understand what people are looking for on it. The rule is, make sure you do the basics first. Pricing, product info, comparisons with the competition, in forms that’s easy to pass along. People love info that they can quickly scan..random access info. Serial access..videos, flash demos, etc, come after. But you have to know who you’re talking to. To be a servant, you have to know “who do you serve?”

Jeremy: So what is your take on those that are beginning to say a Blog is the main hub or most important digital asset?

Gord: Blogs are great for thought leadership. That’s higher up in the chain. It’s essential in carving a niche in the market. It serves a different purpose. It’s an important one, but it’s not a replacement. Again, if you map the buyersphere. You’ll understand the role of a blog in risk mitigation of your prospects. Then evaluate it’s place in your strategy.

Jeremy: Great Quote (pg 145) Information gathering has to support the prospect, not violate the relationship. Question… Why are marketers reluctant to accept this and continue to place the same “lead form” in front every piece of content?

Gord: It’s all about control. Marketers want to control the process. It’s probably the single biggest mindshift that’s needed. They don’t realize other choices are just a click away. This is a path that you’re walking down with your prospect. You direct that journey by providing persuasive paths to follow, not forcing them into dead end alleys. Forcing only works if you prospect has no choice..if you’re a “vending machine in the desert” to use example from the book. And that is probably the single biggest reason why B2B marketers are behind the curve. They hate giving up control.

Jeremy: Just one last question. I agree with you that digital marketing is just preparing to cross the Chasm, what words of advice do you have for today’s B2B marketers?

Gord: Take nothing for granted. With chasm crossings, there is inevitably a changing of the guard. That means there is a dramatic shift in the market place. Treat this as a warning. Things are changing. Nimbleness, responsiveness, boldness and a willingness to make mistakes may not be a guarantee of survival. But they are by far your best bets for success. Online pure plays have eaten the lunch of the big guys in the consumer world. Expect the same to start happening in the B2B world.

Jeremy: Gord, thanks for your time. As a reminder…the book is available as a free download for anyone interested, visit http://www.enquiro.com/b2bresearch.

I had a chance to sit down with YouSendIt’s Director of Product Marketing, Angela Sanfilippo, at their office in California just before our latest B2B Expert Series: Face-to-Face event. We talked through the advances her team has made over the past few months with their paid search campaigns. This success has led to increased investment in SEM moving forward.

This webinar will be of interest to other marketers that have struggled to get budget increases for paid Search. It also highlights the power of campaign segmentation, vital for a company like YouSendIt that works across various markets, and in B2B/B2C.

The Opportunity Cost of PPC

Date: January 19, 2010
Time: 11 am PST
Length: 30 minutes
Webinar registration >>

What would happen if you turned off all PPC advertising for a month?

This is exactly what the YouSendIt marketing team did last October, a risky manoeuver which ended up proving the value of their search marketing program.

In this 30-minute case study webinar, an Enquiro client shares her recent B2B/B2C marketing success that has been driven by paid search.

1. Improved SEM performance through proper segmentation of campaigns

We take a look at how YouSendIt increased the number of subscriptions to their service by 70% while also reducing overall ad budget. Strategic adjustments effectively reduced cost-per-click by 18%, and increased the amount of qualified traffic from paid search.

2. The importance of nurturing a lead

Once they’re in the door, it’s important to maintain the conversation. Search marketing’s effectiveness increases when coupled with email nurturing.

3. Demonstrating the value of search internally

YouSendIt’s Director of Product Marketing, Angela Sanfilippo, was faced with the challenge that many marketers face: prove to the board that the money you’re spending on paid search is actually driving revenue. In this webinar, Angela walks us through the numbers and her approach.

Case Study Background
YouSendIt offers an online solution for independent professionals and businesses for sending, receiving and tracking large files and digital content without email and ftp limitations. YouSendIt has over 10 million users across 220 countries. Prior to initiating an SEM partnership with Enquiro, YouSendIt was running a paid campaign that drove few leads and qualified visitors at a high cost per lead of $442. They needed help in developing a more robust sponsored search strategy that would increase the number of registrations and subscriptions while reducing overall costs.

Presented by:

Angela Sanfilippo
Director of Product Marketing, YouSendIt

Angela Sanfilippo has over 13 years in the marketing industry with a multi-faceted background in brand strategy and awareness, marketing communications, product marketing and demand generation strategies. Currently, Angela Sanfilippo is the Director of Marketing for YouSendIt Inc, the number-one secure digital file delivery company serving professionals, businesses and government agencies on the Web. As Director of Marketing, Angela is responsible for establishing YouSendIt’s market leadership in file transfer services and oversees the company’s demand generation and user acquisition strategies. Prior to joining YouSendIt, Angela held various management positions at Rainmaker Systems, an outsourced provider of sales and marketing services managing B2B technology clients such as HP, CA, Lenovo, Sybase and Symantec and the HotJobs.com division of Yahoo! Inc.

Angie Dzwonkiewicz
Search Marketing Strategist, Enquiro

Angie brings forth a background knowledge and expertise in email marketing and community relations with skills in reporting and analysis, building strong operating mechanisms and process management. She manages several of Enquiro’s B2B client accounts, and worked with YouSendIt to deliver impressive results for their PPC campaigns.

Hosted by Bill Barnes – Enquiro’s EVP of Business Development

Mr. Barnes is a marketing veteran who has been in the marketing, advertising and promotion industry for over 20 years, the last 10 of which have been focused on Search Marketing. He co-founded Enquiro along with Gord Hotchkiss in 1999. Mr. Barnes is a featured speaker at events presented by Search Engine Strategies, Ad-Tech, Jupiter Media, SIPA, Forrester Research and Frost and Sullivan. He has also conducted workshops designed for Marketing, Editorial and Public Relations departments.

At Enquiro Bill has overseen explosive sales growth. In fact, Enquiro was listed on Deloitte’s 2004 North American Technology Fast 500 and has appeared on Profit Magazine’s Top 100 for three consecutive years. Bill has extensive experience in setting up and implementing Search Marketing and Research campaigns for such companies as AIG, AT&T, IBM, HP, Lexis/Nexis, Siemens and Grainger and strives to always help companies succeed in Search.

We have a total of 7 speakers joining us for the half-day event. Graham Mudd, comScore’s VP of Search and Media will be arriving from SES Chicago to deliver the opening keynote. Gord Hotchkiss, Enquiro’s CEO, is currently moderating the Search Insider Summit in Park City, Utah. He will join us to present B2B buying research and show us highlights from his newly published book: The BuyerSphere Project.

An “expert hot-seat” panel will kick off the second half of the morning. The panel brings together some of the sharpest minds in b2b marketing right now. During this part of the session, the audience gets to field their tough questions to the group. To round things out, we’ll listen to a demand gen. case study featuring Marketo’s VP of Marketing, Jon Miller.

We’re looking forward to the event and hope to see you there!

B2B Expert Series: Face-to-Face
Thursday Dec. 10, 2009
7:45am – 1:00pm
Redwood City, CA
Registration info >> www.enquiro.com/face2face

The Presenters:

Leslie Hernandez, Industry Marketing Manager for B2B Markets at Google, Matthias Blume, Chief Analytics Officer at Covario, Jon Miller, VP Marketing at Marketo, Patricia Neuray, VP National Sales at Business.com, Enquiro CEO Gord Hotchkiss, and comScore’s Graham Mudd. The event is moderated by Enquiro’s EVP and co-founder Bill Barnes.

Agenda:

7:45 Breakfast & Registration
8:30 Welcome/Introductions
8:40 Keynote #1: The Current State of Search Advertising – Graham Mudd, comScore
9:20 Keynote #2: Welcome to the BuyerSphere – Gord Hotchkiss, Enquiro
10:00 Networking Break
10:30 Panel “Hot Seat”: The BuyerSphere: How Business Buys from Business, Moderated by Bill Barnes, Enquiro
11:45 Case Study: Marketo’s Secret Sauce for Demand Generation: How We Use the BuyerSphere to Drive Revenue – Jon Miller, Marketo
12:10 Closing Remarks
12:15 Lunch
* Google will be conducting 1-on-1 video interviews with speakers and interested attendees during the breaks, collecting insights and footage for its Fast.Forward YouTube Channel.

Graham Mudd of comScore presenting at previous B2B Expert Series event

At a conference like SES, you’ll find search agencies, representatives from the search engines, consultants, bloggers, … and marketers. The marketers will fall into dozens of categories, by industry, company size, etc., and B2C and/or B2B. I’ve spent a great deal of time with B2B marketers over the last couple of years at trade shows like this one, as well as in sales calls, webinars and client meetings. These are some of the questions you will hear them asking in San Jose. They will come up in sessions, in the coffee line-ups, and yes, maybe even occasionally at the #SearchBash.

It often starts with the standard challenges tied to Search, like increased visibility, traffic, lead quality, and brand management. But a lot of it goes beyond search:

1. Am I getting everything I can out of our analytics software? The answer I hear most of the time is a convincing: NO.

2. Is Search working in tandem with other online channels? If I outsource SEO and PPC, will they work with our web developers, ad agency, PR, etc.? Also, can a search agency understand my vertical industry well enough?

3. Is my paid Search cannibalizing traffic that would otherwise be coming from SEO?

4. Do we have an accurate model of our customer’s buying process? This question is often followed by, “it depends”, or even silence. How does the buying funnel model apply?

5. How much of our marketing/sales cycle can be handled online? Is it siloed off from our face-to-face meetings with prospects?

6. Marketing automation software – how much can it do? How does it tie in to our sales CRM? Lead nurturing: how much can be automated? What are we supposed to nurture leads with?

7. How do I measure engagement over a long sales cycle and multiple buyers at the same time?

8. Reporting: how do I attribute a sales opportunity to the proper marketing campaign(s)? Who gets credit for the sales lead?

9. Social media: is it relevant to my buyers, really? Can’t we just start our own social network? Who in the company should be managing the Twitter account? The Facebook profile? Should our YouTube videos be professionally done? How do buyer demographics affect the way they buy from us? Do digital natives operate differently than digital immigrants?

10. What about tools like PPC bid management software? At what point can we afford to make the investment, and will it be more effective?

11. If only our whole marketing team really got search… How can we get everybody on the same page?

12. Is a thought leadership strategy effective? How can we get started? I think this is especially relevant for service-based B2B companies seeking to establish their brand. There are several examples of companies that have built a fabulous reputation and wide visibility this way without spending a ton of money on advertising.

These questions don’t have quick answers, and each one is worthy of an in-depth panel discussion in itself. But if you’re at SES today, you might want to check out one of the following four sessions on the B2B and verticals track, including Gord Hotchkiss’ panel called The BuyerSphere Project, Understanding B2B Buying Behavior.

Originally posted at www.marketingfinger.com.

My SES San Jose Survival Guide

1. Follow the SES San Jose hashtag #sessj on Twitter. You will find a lot of great people there. And if the hashtag isn’t enough, here are two Twitter accounts you’ll want to follow right away: @matt_mcgowan and @SESConf.

2. Become a fan of the Search Engine Strategies Conference & Expo Facebook page. They currently have 503 fans and counting.

3. Join the SES LinkedIn group: over 8,500 members and counting.

4. Subscribe to the SES YouTube Channel. You’ll find over 300 videos which have been posted over the past couple of years.

5. Flip through the July 2009 edition of the SES Magazine. There will undoubtedly a lot of these to be found at the conference itself, but you may not have known that they also have an online version.

6. A closer look at the SES San Jose conference agenda. I won’t reveal my favorites in this post, but take a look at these buzz words, courtesy of wordle.net:

7. Watch SES San Jose social media metrics on socialmention.com.

8. Check out the Search Engine Strategies blog.

9. For more official PR material, take a look at the SES press room.

and, last but not least…

10. Don’t forget to pack good walking shoes, a generous stack of your business cards, and an RSVP to the WebmasterRadio.FM Search Bash Tuesday night.

Have I forgotten anything? Please let me know by leaving a comment below!

Originally posted at www.marketingfinger.com.

As a preview to the upcoming Search Engine Strategies conference in San Jose, Byron Gordon of SEO-PR caught up with our CEO & President, Gord Hotchkiss. Gord will be presenting at the search marketing conference as part of its B2B & Vertical track on August 12. He will be joined in person by the same B2B panel of experts that participated in our popular webinar series.

The BuyerSphere Project at SES San Jose
August 12, 4:00 – 5:15pm

- Gord Hotchkiss, President & CEO, Enquiro
- Mark McMaster, Senior Planner of B2B and Technology Markets, Google
- Ben Hanna, VP Marketing, Business.com
- Chris Golec, Founder and CEO, Demandbase
- Jon Miller, VP Marketing, Marketo
- Matthias Blume, Chief Analytics Officer, Covario

A major B2B research initiative, conducted by Enquiro with input from Google, Business.com, Covario, Marketo and DemandBase, showed that most marketers are not effectively leveraging online assets to their best potential. Among other things, the notion of a strictly followed, traditional buying funnel is simply not accurate in many instances, risk dictates buying behavior, search is incredibly important as an integrator across online and offline channels and face-to-face persuasion is still necessary in many high risk, complex purchases.

The BuyerSphere project looks at how online strategies became artificially separated from traditional best practices, how they can be more effectively integrated and the part search plays as a major influencer. This panel will review the research from over 100 face-to-face interviews, hundreds of eye tracking sessions and over 3,000 survey responses in total. The project represents a major step forward in understanding B2B buyer patterns and the part online marketing can play in influencing them.

For more background the B2B marketing webinar and white paper series, see www.enquiro.com/b2bresearch.

Our final webinar in the series will be – in my opinion – one of the most fascinating and thought provoking.  We’re calling it The Rise of the Digital Native: B2B Buying in Flux.  Gord Hotchkiss and his panel of experts are taking a look at a very basic but fundamental question: Does age play a role in marketing?  What does Enquiro’s latest research show us about B2B buying behavior as it relates to the buyer’s demographic, and more specifically, how and when the buyer grew up?

For the first time ever in an Enquiro webinar, we’re also joined by Danny Sullivan and Rand Fishkin, two very big hitters in the Search Marketing industry.  They will be part of the panel along with our own Gord Hotchkiss, Ben Hanna (Business.com), Chris Golec (Demandbase), Matthias Blume (Covario) and Mark McMaster (Google). 

As an attendee of the live event, you will get to hear the discussion as it happens, plus be able to send the panel your marketing-related questions.  We will also be touching upon the highlights of the rest of the series, so if you’ve missed previous webinars, don’t miss out on this one. To top it off, one lucky attendee will win a BuyerSphere hard copy white paper package, plus a 15-minute search marketing audit with an Enquiro account manager.

The Rise of the Digital Native
Live Webinar
Wednesday, June 24  2:00pm Pacific
Register now –>

The webinar explores:

• The differences between a Digital Native and a Digital Immigrant
• Why the brain gets wired differently in Digital Natives
• How this impacts interactions with technology and the web
• What are the implications for B2B buying
• How the landscape might shift in the next decade

Panelists:
Gord Hotchkiss – President and CEO, Enquiro
Rand Fishkin – CEO and Co-Founder, SEOmoz
Danny Sullivan – Editor-in-Chief, Search Engine Land
Ben Hanna – VP Marketing, Business.com
Mark McMaster – Senior Planner of Technology/B2B Markets, Google
Chris Golec – Founder and CEO, Demandbase
Moderated by Bill Barnes, EVP Business Development, Enquiro

Rand Fishkin, CEO and founder of SEOmoz, and Danny Sullivan, Editor-in-Chief of Search Engine Land will be special guests at the wrap-up to the BuyerSphere webinar series, June 24.

But where does the funnel fall short? One of the main messages I’ve taken away is that we shouldn’t look to the funnel model to imply a clear top-to-bottom progression in the sales process. Gord Hotchkiss refers to new research that shows buyers are prone to experiencing a “risk gap” which, if not addressed by the marketer, acts as a plug in the funnel.

Risk is a fascinating concept in the field of B2B buying. One of the webinar presenters, Jon Miller, pointed out that a bad purchase decision can cost you your reputation or even your job, while good decisions will often benefit the company more than the individual.

So how does an individual mitigate risk? In-depth interviews with buyers, which were a part of the research methodology, show that buyers gravitate to six ways of dealing with it:

1. Rely on own past experience and drawing upon company-approved vendors
2. Listening to word of mouth and experience of others
3. Asking their existing vendors for advice
4. Assessing the credibility of the potential vendor
5. Checking out the vendor online, including on search engines
6. Weighing price options

Keep in mind that there is the risk to the individual, other individuals involved in the purchase decision, and risk to the organization as a whole. It becomes complex very quickly when risks to the different buyers aren’t the same – and they rarely are. And while companies have ways of giving structure to buying, e.g. through RFQ processes, findings show that the important decisions on a personal level aren’t always necessarily rational. We depend on our own library of heuristic shortcuts to come to decisions which can be irrational. Gord Hotchkiss also talked about these shortcuts, and how they are based on existing belief structures in this post on Herbert Simon’s concept of bounded rationality.

While it may be difficult to market against irrational buying decisions, there is hope, especially if we understand how irrational behavior is linked to risk. Part of eliminating the risk gap includes going back to basic sales and marketing principles, identifying and developing a market before we sell to them. As marketers, it is vital that we understand the specific risk gaps associated with buying from our company, in our industry, and help the buyer bridge those more effectively.

The 60-minute webinar was recorded and is available on demand. In it, you’ll hear Gord Hotchkiss present the new research along with Mark McMaster (Google), Ben Hanna (Business.com), Jon Miller (Marketo), Matthias Blume (Covario) and Chris Golec (Demandbase). This webinar is part of the B2B Expert Series of webinars, moderated by Bill Barnes.

Skittles, a candy produced by Mars Incorporated, created a bit of an online uproar on March 1 when they made a dead simple, yet effective change to their web home page, www.skittles.com. Instead of a rainbow-colored product site as one would expect, users saw a Twitter feed for the search term Skittles.  The page was superimposed by an intercept survey asking users for their age, and acceptance of a simple terms and conditions statement:

"Just a heads up: Any stuff beyond the Skittles.com page is actually another site and not in our control.  This panel may be hovering over the page, but SKITTLES isn’t responsible for what other people post and say on these sites. Click the box below to acknowledge that you know SKITTLES isn’t responsible for that stuff."

Tweets containing the word ’skittles’ automatically appeared on the new Skittles homepage, along with any tweets making reference to the change as they contained the same keyword.  The buzz on Twitter grew to a point where Skittles became the number one trending keyword in buzz monitoring tools such as Twitscoop.
 

Several Twitterers used the opportunity for creative expression:

Incidentally, this user claimed that Skittles look like a Rick Astley YouTube video.

Users quickly caught on to what Skittles was trying to achieve with the campaign, but were also having fun in being part of the action.

Others gave in to the urge of turning a new found brand awareness into actual consumption.

With this social media marketing campaign, Skittles effectively held up a mirror to the Twittersphere, a mirror which reflected and amplified whatever ’skittle’ was thrown into it.

It will be interesting to see if and how others brands follow suit.

Michael Stelzner is one of the leading authorities on the topic of writing and marketing white papers. He has written more than 130 white papers for many of the world’s most recognized companies, including Microsoft, Dow Jones, FedEx, Motorola, Monster, Hewlett-Packard and SAP.

In this 17 minute interview, you’ll hear me ask Michael about white paper promotion from a b2b marketing perspective, including:

• What prompted the book Writing White Papers?
   
• Which promotional channels work best for white papers?
   
• What is the life span of a white paper?
   
• Should companies charge for white papers?
   
• What about white paper registration forms?
   
• What options are out there for white paper syndication?
   
• Where is white paper publishing and promotion headed?

 Michael is also the author of the bestselling book, Writing White Papers: How to Capture Readers and Keep Them Engaged. His work is used as required reading at major universities such as MIT and Johns Hopkins.  You can find him on Twitter at @mike_stelzner.