The Silent Conversation of Lead Generation Content Marketing

Permission-based content marketing is built on a foundation of trust and reciprocity. The silent conversation goes something like this.

Potential Customer: I have a challenge for which I need to find a solution. Based on the description of your content, you seem to understand at least part of my challenge and it seems as though via your research, expertise and/or technology development you might be able to help me to solve at least part of my problem. I am going to trust that our exchange will be equitable, so I going to give you my contact information and answer your question or two. In exchange, I trust that I will be granted access to a rich piece of content that is inline with the quantity and value of the information I gave you.

Solution Provider: I ultimately need to sell my product or service and I believe that a great way to begin creating opportunities is to share my expertise and solutions-oriented information with customers and potential customers who have a problem I can help to solve. If I can solve a problem, I will have a solid opportunity to build or further develop a mutually beneficial client relationship. Because I understand that this opportunity creation tactic is built on mutual trust and respect, I will under promise and over deliver. The content I provide will be even more valuable than my customer or potential customer believes that it will be
prior to registering to access my content.

Potential Customer: I also trust that this solutions provider will respect my by providing information that is in-line with my needs, not spamming me and not sharing my contact information with other people without my permission. If that trust is broken, it does not bode will for our potential relationship.


I have a great number of concerns relating to this issue with the pharmaceutical manufacturing space of the b2b media industry. Trust is being broken; short cuts are being taken that ultimately are not good for anyone within the marketing value chain.

A series of three to five posts sharing thoughts, best practices and ultimately solutions on this topic will be posted during the next few weeks. Stay tuned!

Pharmaceutical Manufacturing’s Print Magazine Investment

Many of your know that Putman Media, the publishing company that owns Pharmaceutical Manufacturing, has invested heavily over the course of the last seven years in digital media. We have invested heavily in technology tools, continual optimization of our websites, and most importantly in human capital (knowledge and training of our people).

Digital media investment is continuing at Putman Media, there is no question about that, but I would like to call attention to our renewed investment in our print property.

Have we lost our minds? “Print is Dead” has been the rallying cry within the B2B marketing press for several years now. I could wax poetic about our emotionally attachment to the printed word (including why I still get excited when the new issue of the magazine arrives at the office or how I have always loved the smell within the stacks at a university library), but our decision to invest in print was a specific and thoughtful business decision. There are multiple reasons, but I will highlight three:

1. From audience studies, we know that half of our audience (roughly half of your clients and prospects) prefer print and engage more heavily with Pharmaceutical Manufacturing magazine than with digital media. We needed to add investment dollars to a medium half of your customers prefer – hopefully you will see the importance of this too.

2. We know that print still carries an authority that digital media does not always. How do I know this? When our editors approach their sources and share that the source's contribution will run online only, there is typically mild enthusiastic. When our editors share that the piece will run in print and online – the source is excited.

Many of our clients today only want to spend against digital media, but want their PR activity to run in print and online (the magazine typically being the priority). Hmmmmm……scratching my head over this one. If digital media is most important for advertising, shouldn’t it be most important for PR as well? From my experience, this is not the thinking of many of our clients and it does not make sense. Actually, I understand why some companies are thinking this way (measurability primarily) but, when you put the strategy/tactic against the light of reason it does not make sense.

3. Everyone’s e-mail box is jammed and their mail box is pretty sparse. We believe that we are offering an expanded opportunity for our clients to break through the marketing clutter allowing them to better communicate with clients and prospects.

So….what will this investment mean in reality?

• 18-20% more editorial pages per issue
• An even greater emphasis on content quality (and the bar was awfully high before)
• The addition of some new regular features and content approaches that we have not had the space for in a while
• More premium advertising positions to offer our advertisers

For more on these sentiments, you might be interested in a blog post on this topic: “Seven Reasons Print Will Make a Comeback in 2011”

Updated Spam Trigger Words

Basically all e-mail services, servers and spam filters are set up on a point system. Spam words are assigned a point(s) and once the magic number is reached (whatever the magic number is) the given e-mail is determined to be spam and delivered to a user's junk folder rather than their inbox.

When writing e-mails and e-marketing materials we have to be careful. Some spam works are "light offenders" like the word "download" or "download now" and just cannot be used too much within a given piece. Some spam words are "heavy offenders" like the word "free" and likely should not be used at all. Other words/phrase nearly guarantee that an e-mail will go directly to the junk folder. However, most of these words are words that have no place in legitimate B2B marketing communications - words/phrases like "stop snoring," "reverses aging," "cash bonus."

I don't worry a whole lot about the extreme spam words/phrases as they are simply not part of business dialog in our space. However, light offender spam words and some heavy offender words like "free" are common and tally spam points quickly.

Newer spam words/phrases (many of which we don't have to worry about):

Reverses aging
Hidden assets
stop snoring
Free investment
Dig up dirt on friends
Stock disclaimer statement
Multi level marketing
Compare rates
Cable converter
Claims you can be removed from the list
Removes wrinkles
Compete for your business
free installation
Free grant money
Auto email removal
Collect child support
Free leads
Amazing stuff
Tells you it's an ad
Cash bonus
Promise you ...!

A more comprehensive list of words can be found within the following post: Top Spam Words and Phrases--Updated April 2010

If you are concerned about your e-communications and want to check them, there are a number of free spam checking tools like SpamCheck out there. A quick Google search will give you plenty of other options,

Is Digital Media Testing a Sign of Weakness?

There are many days I feel like a broken record as I interact with our Pharmaceutical Manufacturing team internally and with our clients. To settle internal debates (and the very occasional professional spat within the ranks), my favorite response is...."I am not sure if we know how our audience will respond, let's test it." I often have a similar reply when working with our clients. "Our previous experience suggests that 'this' approach will perform the best, but we should do some testing."

Part of the reason I love digital media is that it is humbling and challenging. Every time I feel that I have the game figured out, our audiences prove me wrong. I fully believe that digital media success requires the confidence in one's professional knowledge and abilities because we will be wrong on regular occasion. But, digital marketing then requires that we dive in passionately to figure out how to fix or to optimize whatever it is we were wrong about.

Back to the question posed in the title of this post, "Is Digital Media Testing a Sign of Weakness?" The question beneath this question is..."Is a lack of certainty a sign of weakness?" Absolutely not in my opinion. In fact, I believe just the opposite it true. Too much certainty (without very specific analytical reference points) makes me nervous and it should make you nervous too. A lack of willingness to test will deliver nearly certain failure over the long haul.

There is a difference between a dedication to accomplishing the objective and knowing with 100% confidence precisely how the objective will be achieved. There have been plenty of times on the Pharmaceutical Manufacturing team in which we have an objective to achieve, but our original plan simply did not work. If Plan A does not work, the smart digital marketer starts testing Plans B and C. On particularly rough days, I am thankful that there are 26 letters in the alphabet and a frosty beer at the local sports bar.

I think that you will find this post from Marketing Profs quite interesting. "One Very Convincing Reason to Test." Fascinating and further proof that some of the sharpest minds in digital media and marketing can be dead wrong.

Happy testing!

Pharma Replay - Newest PharmaManufacturing.com E-Newsletter

This morning Pharmaceutical Manufacturing deployed the first edition of Pharma Replay, the newest additional to our suite of digital products. Pharma Replay will be a monthly deployment containing "Quips & Quotes Heard 'Round the Industry."

Pharma Replay is designed to deliver important information about issues within the pharmaceutical manufacturing industry in a fun and interactive manner. Although the first edition has only been out for about two and a half hours, the initial open rates and click thru rates look quite promising. Stay tuned for more information, or contact Jeanne Freedland, Sr. Digital Specialist, at jfreedland@putman.net to learn more.

Twitter....Why? Five Great Reasons for Tweeting

I don't think I am the first person to ponder the best use of Twitter. For a good while I was a Twitter hold out. Not a complete hold out, but far from a regular participant and avid user. I puttered around from time to time working to figure out where Twitter fit within my personal and/or professional lives.

I am at Pittcon in Atlanta this week and feel as though I have found some wonderful uses. Below are five:

1. Following #Pittcon was very helpful as I worked to prepare for the conference, setting my agenda, etc. It also has been extremely helpful during the show to keep track of happenings, events and interesting "finds" of fellow conference attendees. I have been following #Interphex for the same reasons.

2. Posing a question to a very large group. Pharmaceutical Manufacturing is publishing a special report on green chemistry and sustainable manufacturing next month. I knew that a lot of Pittcon exhibitors have been actively involved in green chemistry initiatives and I knew some specifics, but I knew there are many solutions in the area that I was not aware of. I posed a question to the group via #Pittcon and learned of a few solutions I was not aware of via responses to my post.

3. Made new friends. I participated in one of the Pittcon Tweet Ups and it was a lot of fun - interesting conversation and I learned a lot.

4. Promoting the Pharmaceutical Manufacturing brand, myself and our clients to Pittcon conference participants.

5. Reminder of the value of reciprocity. There is a code of conduct on Twitter, as there is for most areas of life I suppose. A great deal of the Twitter code of conduct is strongly rooted in reciprocity and a "give to get" mentality. I like this approach, believe that there is great karmic benefit to it and believe that by approaching Twitter life in this manner more of this mentality will carry over into my offline conduct.

The Pharmaceutical Manufacturing (@PharmaMfg) and PharmaQbD (@PharmaQbD) brands will actively be participating in #Pittcon for the remainder of the conference, as well as #Interphex. I will also be making comments from my personal feed (@ToniaBecker). If you are not familiar with Twitter and how to use it, Michele Vaccarello, our Sr. Digital Editor, created a HowCast that I think will be really helpful.

Happy Tweeting!

You Have a Click, a Lead, a Visitor…..Now What? Ten Questions to Ask Yourself.

We know that many marketing communications tactics are now very measurable. You can include vanity tracking URLs in your print ads or print brochures. You can include code within various landing pages to track conversion rates. You could create a pretty sophisticated and effective lead nurturing program.

All of these things can be done, but are you doing them? Everyday I interact with our clients who are providing various solutions to pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical manufacturers. Nearly all of these marketers know that they should be measuring the effectiveness of their marketing communications programs, that they want and need leads for their business development efforts, that branding and awareness is still critically important and that they should be strategically developing engagement amongst their customers and prospective customers.

Most marketers know these things, but many (probably most) are quite unsure how to execute. Although executing effective marketing communications programs is now a constant and fluid activity that we are always working to perfect, it might be helpful to ask yourself at least some of the questions below.

1. A new visitor was driven to deep link within your website as a result of an e-newsletter ad you placed with one of your media partners. The web page discusses the attributes of one of your products. What do you want the visitor to do now?
2. Is the action you are hoping for from the website visitor described above reasonable or should you provide intermediate engagement opportunities?
3. Do you have enough content to support your lead generation goals?
4. Is the content you do have focused on helping your customers and prospect solve their problems or is it focused on your products?
5. What do you do with the contact information from an industry member who meets your target customer profile, but does not have a need for your product or service at this time?
6. Are you thinking about all of the various places and information delivery formats your customers are engaging with?
7. How are you measuring success or failure of a given marketing communications strategy or tactic?
8. Are you setting realistic performance success expectations among all stake holders on your team?
9. Are you testing, measuring and refining your efforts within all of the marketing communications mediums in which you participate?
10. What messages, content, themes do your customers and prospects most actively respond to?