Wouldn’t it be nice if we could just write an email knowing that the reader would simply interpret the direct message and respond accordingly?

All this reading between the lines and subtext is a pain.

Too bad.

Communications is about far more than just sending a message. Matter of fact, the overt message is almost the least important element of communication. While you’re struggling to be as clear as possible with your message, your prospect is evaluating your body language and picking out sub-text from your word choices.

Lose focus on your whole message and it can kill a deal.

My son is finally at the age where we’re ready to graduate from Cub Scouts (crafts, hand puppets and games) and move up to Boy Scouts (camping, fire and knives!). As we happen to live in a bizarre area with multiple overlapping Boy Scout Troops we actually have to put some time into touring and selecting the best-fit Troop.

I'm not sure your knot tying is up to our standards.

In most cases, it means scheduling a time to visit the Troop during one of their meetings to give your son a chance to interact with current members and get a sense for how the Troop operates.

In almost all cases, this has been a positive, if slightly bumpy process. Boy Scout Troops are run by volunteer parents. They have the best of intentions but may not respond to an email on a business timeframe. No big deal.

One Troop, however,  knocked itself out of contention because of the attitude conveyed in the response.

This is one of the bigger Troops in the area. I sent an email asking about setting up a Troop visit in the next few weeks and awaited a reply.

From a technical perspective, the reply was everything it should be. It shared the dates for upcoming meetings, talked a little about the Troop and let me know what I needed to do to schedule a visit. So far, so good.

However, through word choice and presentation, the primary message that came through on the email was pure arrogance.

It was a form letter email with no greeting. It didn’t even open with a “Thank you for considering our Troop, we’re excited to meet you!”

If I could paraphrase, this is what the message really said:

Dear Prospective Scout,

We’re a very large Boy Scout Troop and lots of people want to join. You can join if you want. The following procedures will let you do that with the least inconvenience to me.

Thanks,
Membership Chair

Now because I’m a classy communications professional I didn’t actually respond to the email, but here’s what was in my head:

Screw you.

It’s a large Troop. Recruiting and on-boarding prospective members is a daunting task. I get it. I’ve been there. But their “invitation” email told me all I needed to know. Being big is important to that Troop’s identity, and having my son join was only interesting if it was in pursuit of that goal and it wasn’t inconvenient.

I wish them the best. We’ll be looking elsewhere.

B2C marketers do some amazing work – particularly in efforts over the past decade to establish one-on-one connections with consumers by leveraging database technology in marketing campaigns.

Some of those ideas are appropriate for a B2B space. However, we need to remember that the “one-on-one” communications over on the B2C side are a simulation of close, personal interaction, not the real thing.

Often, B2B marketing involves communication to a much, much smaller, more targeted audience than consumer marketing. The term “smaller” can still include hundreds of thousands of prospects, so even on the B2B side its often not possible to have a genuine individual connection. Attempts to simulate that

B2C tactics are about reaching large audiences efficiently. That’s the temptation when planning out a B2B marketing approach. Adopt some B2C personalization tactics and in no time you’ll be neck deep in happy new clients.

If your marketing plan calls for one of these, you're in trouble.

The kind of high volume marketing that works in the B2C world often only does because the intended customers are content with a simulation of one-on-one interaction. It’s nice if Coca-Cola sends an email with my first name in the greeting, but I don’t really care.

That’s not true when we’re talking about a service provider that offers to fill a critical function in my company. That person need to actually know and understand me and my business. That’s about much more than inserting my name at the top of an email blast.

I’ve seen this dilemma quite a bit when it comes to producing articles, newsletters and other content. People can tell when a newsletter is build from semi-personalized generic content. Such things are ignored.

Take the time to produce something original and unique for your audience.

I’ve been doing a lot of business development work for the American Marketing Association lately to support the launch of AMA TV. Ok, “business development” is a fancy word for sales.

The point is that I’ve been on the phone. A lot. Calling. A lot of companies. In a weird way, it’s kind of fun.

In that time I’ve noticed a lot of bad habits. One in particular seems like a clearly missed opportunity.

At the moment, I’m calling through the AMA’s list of past advertisers and sponsors. Some of these companies no longer exist, many haven’t been contacted in a couple of years. No big deal, it just means that I often encounter a situation where I ask for a person who no longer works there.

Me – “Hi, can I speak with John Smith?”

Receptionist – “John hasn’t worked here for years” …  and silence.

Nothing illustrates "Who's there?" like a creepy eyeball picture.

There’s no follow up. No attempt to discover why somebody is calling and looking for a former employee.

I could be a past customer looking to start a new project. I could be a sales prospect who is finally looking to get started on a project.

Okay, I’m an sponsorship sales guy looking to sell stuff, but in the conversation above no one knows that yet. If I responded with, “Oh, thanks, goodbye” the receptionist would happily hang up the phone and go on with the day and have no idea whether a new customer just walked out the door.

Take the time to ask the next question.

“John actually isn’t with the firm anymore, but is there anything I can do to help you?”

It’s a simple question that will probably not yield anything useful 99 times out of 10. But it only takes an additional 2 seconds to ask it. You never know.

The phrase is the bane of consultants everywhere …

“Too soon”

We’re so impressed with your qualifications! As soon as we do all the groundwork and get this project up and running, we’re totally going to bring you on board!

Um, no.

You can't be trusted to brown ground beef on your own.

That’s called being penny wise and pound foolish. If you’re so impressed with the expert sitting across the desk from you, why would you make all the investments in building infrastructure, developing branding and communications and all the other details to your project before bringing that expert’s insights into the process?

If you’re going to take the trouble to bring in an expert for a project, then bring that expert in as early as possible. Early decisions block off later possibilities. That technology platform that looked so good a few months back becomes a dog once you realize that it can’t support the kind of online interaction you need for the project to succeed.

You wouldn’t be talking to the expert if you didn’t have enough self awareness to know what you don’t know. You need the knowledge, don’t shield yourself from it.

Principles of Job Board Marketing

The following items are a list of suggested tactics and approaches to marketing an online job board – particularly ones in the early stages before you’ve had a chance to build a base of employers and candidates.

Not all the elements below are a fit for every association, and there are likely some new ideas unique to your organization. The purpose of this document is to give some guidance on developing an easy-to-implement program of your own.

Do a few things well.

In many ways, that “easy-to-implement” part is the key to a successful job board. Your primary responsibility is running the marketing for the entire association. That means that core elements like membership, events and publications are a far higher priority than the job board.

Realistically, you won’t have the time to implement everything on this list, or everything you can think of to drive job board growth. That’s okay. Do a few things well. As you grow, you’ll have the resources to add more elements. Even if you only do a little bit to market your job board, as long as you do it consistently you’ll see results.

Balanced Equation

Keep in mind that a job board must have organic balance to grow. Candidates come in expecting to see jobs worth pursuing. Employers post jobs expecting a flow of plausible job candidates. You can’t have one without the other. Even though revenue comes from the Employer side, without healthy Candidate traffic you have no inventory to sell.

Your marketing must focus on developing both sides of that equation.

Passive Marketing

In most cases, the marketing for a job board is passive. You can’t predict when an Employer or Candidate is looking. You’ll know, of course, if someone creates a new profile or logs in, but that still depends on the Employer or Candidate acting first.

Look for ways to stay in front of Candidates and Employers without being intrusive. Stay on their radar, and when they need your job board’s services they will come.

Email newsletters are an excellent tool for this, but the newsletter has to have useful content that someone would want to read. Don’t send them that same “resume writing skills” article published on about 18,000 other websites. It’s cheap and easy to copy it into a newsletter and blast it out to your list. As a result, your members and prospects have now experienced a low quality, slapped together piece of spam with your logo on it. That does not engender loyalty.

Take the time to write a short article specific to your field. It can go beyond the standard resume/interview/dress-for-success garbage that fills most job board newsletters as long as the article topic has a plausible connection to careers. Write well. Look for opportunities to modify the articles you’re already writing for your blog and give them a career twist for the newsletter. Be efficient, but most important of all, keep a strong quality focus.

Existing Collateral

You already have several existing platforms to communicate with members ranging from your website to print publications, member newsletters, events and social media. All of these items should be leveraged for your job board marketing.

A few principles:

• Automate – The two leading job board platforms, Boxwood and JobTarget, both have strong RSS feed systems. Create an RSS feed box somewhere in the sidebar of your website. If you want to get fancy, coordinate the RSS feed with the type of content in that section of the site. Always have a low-key display of specific jobs on the pages of your site. People join associations for networking and career advancement – meet that need.

• Specific Jobs, not House Ads – The path of least resistance, particularly for print publications and email newsletters, is to simply develop a graphical house ad about your job board and run it when you have unsold inventory. This is better than nothing, of course, but let’s face it, no one cares that you have a job board. Your members respond to the specific title and company in a job listing. They’ll click to investigate a Director of Operations position at ACME Inc., but will completely ignore a generic house ad talking about your job board. Display three or four specific jobs rather than just an ad.

Care

I know, that’s all soft and fuzzy. But let’s consider for a moment the typical experience of an HR manager.

This person likely has about 20 open positions sitting on her desk. She’s likely not familiar with the details of many of the jobs, she only has the utterly boring job description. Ideally, an HR manager will post a job on one of the mass market job boards, then try to find a niche job board. Mass market produces volume (100 applications, maybe 1 worth pursuing). Niche produces quality (15 applications, but 4 worth pursuing).

She posts her job listings, sets the paperwork aside and hopes for the best for the next 30-60 days while the job ads run.

In 99% of cases, as long as the credit card she used to buy the listings checks out, the job board considers its work to be done. Thanks for the cash, best of luck with the search.

Be different. Take a few minutes to review your open job listings and, if one isn’t producing enough applicants, give it some extra love in your next newsletter. More importantly, tell the HR manager that you’re doing it. When the listing is done, send a survey to see if you produced good results (and find a way to make good if you didn’t).

I guarantee that of all the job boards that HR manager interacts with, you were the only one who gave a damn about whether she found the right candidate. She’ll come back.

This is often the most difficult element to implement of all the suggestions in this document. It takes time and you have a direct mail piece due out this afternoon. Book a standing appointment with yourself each week. Spend an hour, or half an hour, focused on service. It pays off.

Job Boarding is a Team Sport

I know, Job Board is not a verb.

It is, however, extremely difficult to build a viable job board alone. Large associations can do it to some extent simply because a large membership can sustain sufficient volume. Even large associations benefit greatly by teaming up. For a concrete example, take a look at a case study about some of my work with the American Marketing Association.

Your Candidates want to see a list of attractive jobs. Your Employers want a stream of attractive Candidates. Neither particularly cares where these items come from.

If you can team up with other associations, you can share Candidates and Employers and support each other. Together, you and your (I know) bitter enemies can each present a strong, viable job board resource to your member Candidates and Employers.

Both Boxwood and JobTarget do an excellent job of developing these networks. In many cases the networks can even include some revenue share benefits. That way a trade association with a large Employer base can source candidates from an individual membership association, and vice versa. Both sides make money.

Be careful to make sure that your data is secure. Many of the mass market job boards will bring attractive sounding offers for partnerships or even free use of their platform for your site. They’re actually after your member list. That list is your most valuable asset, so protect it.

By implementing the ideas above on a consistent basis, you’ll see steady growth and progress in your job board results. When you grow to the point where the elements above start taking up too much time, give Little Wolf a call, we can help.

Publishing articles is an excellent way to establish expertise in your field. Everyone knows that and in this case it’s one of the things that everyone knows that also happens to be correct.

However, submitting, editing and writing articles takes a considerable amount of time. Even if you are an excellent writer and the copy just flows out of you, we’re still talking about a substantial investment of time.

Therefore, be as selective in the publications you target as you would be about the employees you hire or even the kinds of clients you pursue.

When you’re preparing that prospect list for some sales efforts, you have to make these value judgments about the companies listed so you can focus your time pursuing clients that are most likely to say yes and be profitable afterwards. It’s not a perfect targeting system and you know you’ll eliminate some that would have been fantastic clients. Time is limited – you have to make some decisions and get going.

Go through that same process when you’re building a prospect list for a content-based marketing effort. Start out by brainstorming for every conceivable publication that your intended prospects would be likely to read. Reach out to the editorial staff to determine if they even consider articles from third parties. Then look at what you have left and make some decisions.

Clearly sir, my antlers are not worthy of one of your caliber!

In most cases, the first round could have as many as 30-40 potential publications – both online and offline. That first-pass where you eliminate those that don’t accept third-party articles will eliminate half to 2/3 of them. At the end of the process, you really want to select a group of 7-10 publications that you get to know well and focus your efforts there.

Publishing business articles is a sales process, but there are many kinds of sales processes. Some salesmen are in high-volume fields where the winner is the one who makes the most phone calls and shakes the most hands at a trade show. Others work in a field where there are far fewer active prospects out there and the key to winning is in making a connection and building a relationship of trust and respect.

Placing articles more resembles the latter strategy. There are only a few publications in your field that accept articles and have enough readership respect to be worth the effort.

Therefore, you have a small list of real decision-makers – usually the managing editor. Treat them with professionalism, courtesy and respect. Build a relationship over time through the quality of your work and your don’t-even-worry-about-it reliability.

One article per year published in a highly respected trade magazine is more valuable than 30 published in a “we’ll take whatever we can get” publication.

Pick your targets. Be selective.

Stop insisting that everything works.

The video below shares the insights of Tim Harford at The Undercover Economist. He’s spent several years studying failure  and apparently has a book coming out on the subject in the near future.

Failure is the key to success – or, more to the point, understanding failure is the key to success.

Organizations cannot accomplish new things without a willingness to court failure. Not all new ideas will work. From my experience, most ideas will rumble along with just enough success to justify keeping it going, but not enough to be truly considered  a success. The ideas that are a flop are almost a relief, because at least then you can pull the plug with no regrets.

Professional associations are often stuck in a rut because they don’t have an appetite for failure. That’s one reason why they tend to approach social media with such fear. It could be a fantastic tool to build a relationship with members and prospects, but no one has really figured out how to make that work yet.

Instead, associations either ignore it (because without the support of professional associations social media will collapse, right?) or they take such tentative steps that nothing concrete is accomplished.

Take the risk.

I’ve been doing a lot of work in the past year to introduce online video as a marketing tool.

Video is a compelling, easily digested form of content that is rapidly becoming the dominant messaging medium on the Internet. We’re not just talking about Diet Coke and Mentos fountains on YouTube. Businesses use them to showcase products or present thought-leadership pieces.

Individuals use them to discuss anything from politics to car repair or cooking techniques.

Video killed the radio star

Ultimately, the Internet is a visual medium. The written word is a powerful thing, but when given a choice between reading a white paper or watching a video – most users will go for the video.

I decided to practice what I preach so I put together what is intended to be the first in a running video series of “Two Minute Teachings.” These will be short, one-topic videos that cover specific marketing topics, ideas and observations. I’ll record some, and I’d like to bring some other voices into the mix as well.

Businesses should avoid the swamp that is YouTube. I posted this on a video player platform called VP Factory that I’ve been quite impressed with. At the moment this in on the free platform, but I’ll likely switch to the paid packages in the near future. It offers quite a bit of customization and analytics.

Let me know what you think.

Would it surprise you to learn that association job board candidate lists can be comprised of 70% to 80% nonmembers?

Allright buddy, I'm going to need to see a receipt for that membership.

I know what you’re thinking … those people will never join. They’re just using us to find a job and we’ll never hear from them again.

That’s probably true. The majority of those job candidates will never join your organization.

Of course, the majority of the people who take advantage of your “one time only” discount to the next conference won’t join either. The majority of people who received a complimentary copy of your trade publication won’t join. The majority who went through your certification program won’t join.

Here’s the difference. In all those other programs, the lead generation program cost you money, and those “never join” prospects are a drain on your resources.

For an association job board, the candidates are your inventory. Even if those people never join your organization, never attend and event and never subscribe to a single publication, their applications to jobs on your job board are what allows you to enjoy the non-dues revenue profits.

In other words, on that job board that you’ve been grumbling about you’re not only meeting what is probably your members’ core need – career enhancement – you’re building your member prospect list and getting paid to do it.

If you don't know what you did, I'm certainly not going to tell you.

There are a lot of things in life that I freely admit I don’t get. Fashion is one of those.

I don’t mean that I have a genetic inability to know what colors match and struggle with the tuck/untuck dilemma when dressing in the morning. Well … actually, that is a pretty accurate description of me.

Moving on, I don’t understand the whole high-fashion, runway model thing. The picture over there to the right was a teaser on the Wall Street Journal home page to get me to read an article on some amazing fashion trend.

Look at that model. Doesn’t the expression on her face just scream “Joie de vivre”? That means “Joy of Life” to those who lack my sophisticated understanding of foreign languages.

Why would someone looking to sell clothes have a model walk down a runway glaring at me?

Assuming the fashion writer isn’t just making it up as he goes along, presumably the point of this fashion collection was to somehow celebrate the joy of life.

The photo essay included nine photos. Each model looked angrier than the last.

I have no ultimate marketing wisdom here. I just don’t get it.