A Solid Communication Platform? TEDMED Ad Shows How It Works

May 7, 2012 — Laura Ramos

2012 Xerox Corporation – All rights reserved.

As the Xerox mistress of TEDMED last month, I learned a few lessons about how a strong communication platform can help create a distinctive brand voice that delivers a consistent brand message. The Xerox TEDMED 2012 program advertisement (shown here, since it only appeared in print during the conference) had one simple objective: convey our support, in a thoughtful sponsorship message, for the event and its purpose. 

While creating a “proud sponsor of” message may sound easy enough to accomplish, several other communication objectives come into play when deciding exactly how this ad should look and what it should say. The ad also illustrates what a solid communication platform can do to inform a campaign and why communication platforms are an important prerequisite to any marketing program.  A bit of background may be helpful before sharing what I learned from working with the Xerox team and our agency on this ad.

“Ready for Real Business” is what we call the Xerox master brand communication platform. It’s not a tagline, but a platform that tells customers what we do and what we provide – technology and services that help you manage your business functions better so you can focus on what you do best, your core business. It defines the rational or emotional territory that the brand intends to own over time. It forms the foundation for how we act, sound, and look in all internal and external communications. It frames how we do this in a consistent manner while providing the flexibility for each product and field marketing function to accomplish its goals.

While this simplifies the process a bit, to activate the platform you must answer three key questions:

  • What do customers do? What is truly core to their business?
  • How does Xerox help our customers do this?
  • How do our customers benefit as a result?

How well does the TEDMED 2012 ad accomplish this and meet the requirements of the communication platform? Pretty well, I think.  (Special thanks to Jason Bartlett here at Xerox, and the Roberts Communication team, for all their hard work that really hit the mark on this ad.) Here’s how I see it address each of the three key questions:

1) What’s core to the business of healthcare? — “Caring for people is the real business of health care.”
2) How do we help do this? — “…by working behind the scenes to free up resources and simplify the way people work.”
3) How do customers benefit? — “… ensure they have more freedom to deliver the level of care that everyone deserves.” (The last question/answer also supports the key TEDMED theme of exploring how to make the future of health and medicine happen today.)

Through the image and headline, the ad also creates a connection between a diverse audience of practitioners, medical students, entrepreneurs, public officials, educators, researchers, and administrators and Xerox, a company with a serious commitment to the healthcare industry. Rather than stethoscopes and scrubs, we picked an image that is medical but ambiguous — he could be a physician, researcher or other healthcare professional. However, he is someone intent on his activity and serious about what he is doing. Alignment between audience and message was really key here and hard to do when you bring other factors — like art selection with unlimited rights at a reasonable cost — into play. The headline is straightforward in its attempt to connect Xerox to the TEDMED audience by saying “Just like you, we’re here to make things better.”

The key lesson for me is about using language and imagery to evoke an emotional response, and how to do this while getting a message across that fits the parameters of a very specific communication platform — one intent on preserving the integrity of the Xerox brand. I have to confess, I’m an old product marketer. I’m all about the facts and getting straight to the point.  Isn’t that what B2B marketing is all about?

Who needs emotion to do that?

I think the ad demonstrates a beautiful answer to the question. It shows how you can deliver a message (Xerox is proud to sponsor TEDMED with a passionate commitment to the healthcare industry) in a simple, elegant manner that creates a warm, human bond with the reader. It’s a lot for one little ad to accomplish, and it think it does it quite nicely. I also think its a lesson more B2B marketers could learn: how to connect with prospects and buyers in a way that goes beyond jargon and hype to show how you really can help customers improve their business.

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Anatomy of a Corporate Video…Xerox Makes the World Simpler

April 27, 2012 — Laura Ramos

From “A World Made Simpler” – all rights reserved Xerox Corporation.

What happens when a globally recognized brand needs to change what it means?

This is the fantastic challenge facing our CMO, Christa Carone, as Xerox evolves from “the copier company” into something more – a company dedicated to providing simple answers to complex business problems.  Last week, Xerox introduced a new video that highlights how where the company has been shapes where it is today and where it will go tomorrow.

Through advertising agency Y&R, Xerox teamed with visual storytelling studio, Psyop, and production company, Blacklist, to produce “A World Made Simpler… by Xerox” – a 2-minute video that uses printer paper, stop-motion photography, and a bit of computer-generated graphics to tell Xerox’s story. I think you will be surprised to learn what the copier company does to help doctors monitor patients and deliver better care, set up call centers during natural disasters, provide tamper-proof drug packaging, and make public transportation easier.

Xerox also published a “behind the scenes” look into how Y&R, Psyop, Blacklist and the Xerox team produced this video.  As you watch both the original and the background versions, I think there are a few key lessons B2B marketers can learn about storytelling and why video is such a compelling medium in B2B communication:

1) History matters – so stick with it. Chester Carlson invented xerography almost 75 years ago for one simple reason: finding an easier way to replicate and share information. Xerox embraces this legacy by using what people know us for — paper — to tell a story about what most don’t know us for — providing services that make business simpler. Many will look at the video and say “it’s all about the paper” — which is exactly the point. Having a strong sense of who you are as a company helps you to remain true to your brand identity even as that identity changes. And it also makes for a mesmerizing experience as you watch to see what the paper will unfold to reveal next.

2) Video illustrates intangibles. The value of IT services — and why a company would outsource parts of its business to another — is sometimes difficult to understand. Rather than bury the message in meaningless techie jargon or hyperbole, the video uses concrete examples of ways Xerox solves customer problems (without specifically naming names) to show how we’ve moved beyond our technology roots.

3) Emotion and B2B marketing are not mutually exclusive. The production of ”A World Made Simpler” is inspiring and surprising without being overbearing or maudlin. It evokes an emotional response to some very important problems that we relate to easily.  

If I have any criticism, I wish that the behind-the-scenes explained more about the motivation behind developing the spot.  Xerox bought Affiliated Computer Services in 2010 to expand business opportunity beyond its document reproduction origins, but now faces the challenge of communicating the new Xerox without losing the old. That’s the business problem behind a story worth telling.  A bit more transparency into that challenge would make the “inside view” video more interesting to me than watching technical details about the production. Alas, a fascination with technology is something Xerox will never leave behind, and the how-we-did-it video remains true to this cultural quirk.

Video also represents a great opportunity to receive peer recognition.  Congratulations to Barbara Basney and team for winning AdWeek’s coveted “Ad of the Day” for A World Made Simpler. Watch both and let me know if you agree — it’s the right step toward writing a new chapter in the Xerox brand story.

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Xerox Asks TEDMED: What can we do to simplify healthcare?

April 17, 2012 — Laura Ramos

TEDMED 2012 – courtesy of TEDMED Facebook page

Last week TEDMED 2012 was an amazing experience. More than 200 phenomenal speakers and entertainers took the stage to explore challenging issues in healthcare and to inspire innovative, cross-disciplinary thinking. Many of the topics – that I will share with you as TEDMED makes the videos available over the coming weeks – are complex, complicated, and sometimes controversial. Is it even possible to make thing simpler in the business of healthcare? It’s a challenging question when posed to an industry recognized for complexity in the study, processes, technology, and science needed to advance new therapies and address increasingly more complex diseases, health problems, and social issues.

During the past couple of months, I’ve had the great fortune to work with an exceptional TEDMED team to engage Xerox as a sponsor of this unconventional event.  Healthcare? You may wonder where Xerox fits in this world, besides supplying printers at nurse stations, doctor’s offices, and admissions desks. Though my TEDMED journey, I’ve learned a bit about how Xerox plays a surprisingly diverse role inside the research, clinical and operational side of healthcare.  Here’s how:

• Helping caregivers.  Through its investment in innovation and research, Xerox employs ethnographers who study how caregivers work. These folks help to develop solutions that can free floor nurses from paperwork so they can spend more time with patients.

• Reducing complications.  Xerox helps hospitals convert mountains of clinical data and health history into electronic format and monitor it to assess risk and prevent potential emerging complications. For example, we use text-mining technology to analyze information such as symptoms, drugs prescribed, and types of bacteria found in the environment to help detect and prevent hospital-acquired infections.

• Going electronic.  It always amazes me how much paperwork still exists in healthcare. Besides transforming paper charts to electronic records, we deliver them to mobile devices and the Cloud securely. Electronic medial records not only reduce the cost and trouble of managing truckloads of documents, but helps providers better coordinate treatment and therapy across everyone involved in a patient’s care.

Our Chief Innovation Officer for Healthcare, Markus Fromherz, goes into a bit more detail if you are interested in what else we do.

Despite these accomplishments, it is humbling for me to listen to the speakers at TEDMED – and talk with other delegates – and see first hand how much work truly remains to be done. I am proud to see Xerox join the TEDMED community and work to simplify the business of healthcare.

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What is TEDMED? – Lessons Learned on Corporate Sponsoring

April 6, 2012 — Laura Ramos

TEDMED is the medical version of TED. This unique 3-day event applies the successful TED format to the world of healthcare. Hosted next week (April 10 – 13) in Washington DC, TEDMED stands to become the nation’s premier gathering where folks from inside and outside the world of medicine. Delegates explore key issues and think up new, out-of-the-box ideas for solving some very big challenges facing our nation as healthcare becomes the largest line item in our GDP. It is a multi-disciplinary collaborative experience that aims to develop a lasting community – not just an annual event –  dedicated to imagining how we can make the future of healthcare happen today.

For me, TEDMED is also a crash course in corporate sponsorship. Back in January, I moved over to Xerox corporate to head up industry marketing across the enterprise. Coincidentally, Xerox had signed up to sponsor TEDMED as one way to continue to demonstrate our long-standing commitment to healthcare innovation and to simplifying the business of healthcare. So, guess which new kid on the block got the nod to activate this sponsorship?

It’s been a thrilling, busy, exciting time acting as the head mistress of all things TEDMED at Xerox. Here are a few lessons I’ve collected along the way regarding advertising, event management, and message communication:

  • A well-planned creative brief is essential to any large event or sponsored program. So is a detailed program plan. But the brief is the centerpiece for communicating what you plan to do, with whom (audience), why, and what you want to convey in the process (message).  It’s the scaffolding that supports the whole event and makes a myriad of decisions flow smoothly. Other key elements include: proof points/evidence, creative mandatories and key assets to draw upon.
  • Avoid the temptation to view advertising and messages through your eyes, not the audience’s. I was surprised at how easily I fell into this trap. I’ll share the ad with you in a later post – after it’s aired at TEDMED – but the key was to appeal to the full TEDMED audience, which includes educators, lawmakers, inventors, medical students, investors, and health activists.  Pictures of people with stethoscopes looking at x-rays cast too narrow a net.
  • Hire a good meeting planner. This is very tactical, but very necessary. Meeting, incentive and travel firms – like our partner BCD M&I – make life easier, handle all the tricky last minute details, and keep you from going bonkers.  Perfect example of why outsourcing client registration and travel to experts is essential and cost effective.
  • Get your friends to help out. In this case, help comes from our friends at FORTUNE magazine, who will co-sponsor a dinner event for our guests, Xerox executives, and select delegates. Besides wonderful counsel on great places to eat in Washington DC, FORTUNE (more importantly) adds provocative conversation as Marc Gunther, contributing editor, MCs dinner commentary.
  • Small details can make a big difference. Case in point, as one of the major sponsors for TEDMED this year, we worked closely with our hosts to ensure delegates see Xerox equipment when they queue up at registration. Will anyone notice?  Maybe not.  But, then again, what if they do? If you are a major sponsor, you need to make sure to sweat the details and act like a major supporter, not just someone contributing their name to the program.

There are 20 more lessons I could add to this list. But this experience proved to me that successful corporate sponsorships have been and will continue to be a useful and productive way to get your company’s name and message in front of a key audience – industry-specific, role-based or otherwise. The best lesson I have learned, however, it that the folks at TEDMED are very, very committed to being the best partner to their sponsors. It’s very easy – and productive – to work with a team that is always willing to say “yes” – but who have a solid vision and purpose that helps to keep you on the straight and narrow as you work to provide the most differentiated, exciting, and memorable experience for our delegates.

Like Xerox, I am a proud sponsor of TEDMED 2012  — and so very excited to be there next week!

PS: For a sample of the TED experience, go to this link and watch the presentation.  It will blow your mind.

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Creating Content for a Digital World – At Digital Edge LIVE

March 27, 2012 — Laura Ramos

Last week I had the privilege to attend and present at BtoB Magazine’s Digital Edge LIVE conference in San Francisco. I joined HP’s Alex Flagg and Tellab’s George Stenitzer on stage to talk about what it takes to develop great marketing content for an increasingly digital world.  While the number of digital channels increased exponentially since the late 1980s, the challenges around reaching prospects and customers through these channels have not. 

At Xerox, we’ve found thought-leadership — featuring specific people with specific points of view — and digital environments featuring our customers and their successes work best to produce content that business-to-business buyers find interesting and relevant. During the conference, I shared some success we’ve had with our thought-leadership destination and Real Business Live.  If you’d like to see the slides from my section, you can view/download them from Slideshare.

Creating good content consistently is a major challenge all marketers face as they work to find new ways to engage buyers and feed the growing demand of digital channels.  Surprisingly, understanding that good content starts from the buyer’s perspective, not your company’s, is a key lesson many B2Bers still struggle to learn.

For a great summary of the day, visit the Digital Edge Live site, read coverage by Kate Maddox and Christopher Hosford, and scan through the tweets. I thought the panel on social media, featuring marketers from Cisco Systems, Hitachi Data Systems and Royal Dutch Shell, was particularly insightful. Social media continues to push the boundaries into new ways to generate and share content.

For me, the highlight of the day was BtoB’s third annual Social Media Marketing Awards.  Top honors went to Aon and CenturyLink Business.  In the non-tech category, Aon took the “People’s Choice” award for its “Pass It On” program that featured a contest challenging employee teams in different geographies to share knowledge and create a sense of common purpose by competing online in games that required them to answer questions, upload video, and share details of local events. Winners then got to share the best results with customers and prospects. 

In the tech category, CenturyLink launched its “Ultimate Problem Solver” program to challenge technology-oriented customers to participate in an interactive, 50-stage trivia game. Solving problems – where some answers could be found in CenturyLink marketing materials — let participants unlock passwords to get to the next level in the game. The game also encouraged players to interact and share their experiences to earn rewards faster. During the eight-month timeframe, almost 90,000 people played the game with about half registering on the site, giving CenturyLink a valuable well of leads.

I found it interesting how both award winners focused on gaming as a key element of creating innovative marketing programs – one focused on employees and the other on prospects. It also highlights leading-edge applications that use social interaction in the B2B space.  And who said social was only for consumers?

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B2B Brand Voice Speaks through Social Media — Successfully

January 26, 2012 — Laura Ramos

Yesterday, Xerox retired the ACS brand. It was a huge day for our brand team.  The culmination of a lot of work. 

Did Xerox put out a big press release?  Call up the Wall Street Journal?  The local news?  No. 

Our CMO, Christa Carone (@ChristaBC) explained the change to the world in a simple, well-written blog post.  I point this out because it’s a wonderful use of social media to help get out some news that not all of the mainstream media may consider newsworthy. The post also offers B2B marketers two important lessons:

1)  Top B2B brand masters can stay on message AND come across as personal.  Of course, this is a subjective assessment that you may debate. Some may find the post language a bit arrogant.  Others may find it reflective of the pride many of us feel for the Xerox brand and our story.  (I know Christa feels this way, deeply.) However you view it,  I think a clever, engaging, pithy voice comes through clearly that, while representing brand message, tells a unique and interesting story about why we will ask the ACS brand to ride off into the sunset. I also know that this post reflects Christa’s voice, not that of a Xerox agency.

2) Sometimes a personal touch is all that’s needed for a big event.  Sure we talked to the analysts and Wall Street beforehand, handled millions of internal inquiries, and armed our account managers with letters and talk tracks to enable them to explain this change to Xerox and ACS clients alike. But it’s also nice to hear from the head lady behind the change about what it means to Xerox, in a voice that respects the significance of the event but remains true to her role as the chief marketer. And to hear it through a medium that is geared toward social sharing, not just broadcasting.

So here’s a big “hats off ” to Christa for demonstrating one great way for a B2B, Fortune 150 brand to use social media to lend a little insight into an important company milestone.

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“Between the Lines” – Xerox Shares a View on the Future of Documents

November 21, 2011 — Laura Ramos

"Between the Lines" by John Kelly of Xerox

One of our top Xerox executives — and my boss’s former boss — recently published an ebook about documents in business and why documents will remain important. (Note, a document does NOT mean a printed page in this context — what a novel concept for Xerox, huh?)  I’d like to invite you to download and enjoy this ebook over the Thanksgiving holiday.  I would also like to plagiarize heavily from a great blog post that Karen McDermott, one of my colleagues, wrote last week. I think her perspective is clever and interesting — so I have basically replicated the post here:

A Businessweek article from 1975 entitled, “Office of the Future” predicted the paperless office. In this article, George E. Pake, the head of the (then) newly formed Palo Alto Research Center, predicted“… that in 1995 his office will be completely different; there will be a TV-display terminal with keyboard sitting on his desk. “I’ll be able to call up documents from my files on the screen, or by pressing a button,” he says. “I can get my mail or any messages. I don’t know how much hard copy [printed paper] I’ll want in this world.”"

Fast forward 35+ years and that “TV-display terminal” (better know as a computer screen) that George envisioned sits on our desks – but we still have a lot of paper sitting there, too. What happened? Maybe the future of the lowly document is more resilient than we first thought.

John Kelly, Executive Vice President, Major Account Development at Xerox, published a book called “Between the Lines”, that looks at the future documents as we know them today. You can read the ebook on your Kindle or iPad, or print it as a PDF if you’re still a “paper person”. (We are “digital vs. physical” neutral on this one.) But do have a look, especially at the first chapter. While Xerox moves, together with our clients, into more and more digital media, we still recognize the role that the document — as the primary person-to-person and human-to-computer interface — plays in our lives and the value it delivers to business regardless of its physical form.

John’s book is full of real world examples about how companies use documents to reduce costs, improve investment returns, and achieve other business advantages you might not expect. It also talks about futuristic technology like erasable (reusable) paper. Here’s your chance to get a glimpse at other innovative technology that — like the computer screen — might become commonplace over the next decade and beyond.

I hope you will download it. It reads quickly and may get you to look at documents in a whole new light.

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I’m “Honored” To Be A “Top 25 Digital Marketer”

September 23, 2011 — Laura Ramos

Here's the award and plaque -- nice, huh?

Last week I had the pleasure to join 17 senior executive B2B marketers at the Julia Morgan Ballroom at the Merchants Exchange in San Francisco for the BtoB Magazine Top Digital Marketer awards luncheon. This event truly brought together a ”who’s who” of business marketing professionals. I thought I would share a picture of the awards with you in this post. 

I was humbled to share the stage with Scott Anderson from Hewlett-Packard, Julia Atalla from Microsoft, Kevin Cox from SAP, Pam Didner from Intel, Paola Dovera from Sybase, Martyn Etherington from Tektronix Inc. — many of whom I’ve met through BtoB Magazine events or from my prior experiences with Forrester — along with others from Corning, Oppenheimer Funds, National Starch, Intuit, Motorola Solutions, AT&T, USG , Cisco, Makino and American Express OPEN. The stars were certainly out in the afternoon that day.

Congratulations go to Linda Boff, executive director-global digital marketing at GE, who was named BtoB’s Top Digital Marketer of the Year.

After lunch, Linda and the honorees assembled on stage for a panel discussion where BtoB’s Kate Maddox asked each of us to comment on the following two questions:

What is one important lesson you’ve learned about using social media for marketing?  Of course, no one could limit their advice to one lesson. I followed the crowd and said “know your audience — and understand whether they are socially active” and “relevant, rich content is the key to attracting those active, online audiences”.  If you don’t have something of value to share, it won’t get noticed in the social media world.

As you look to next year, where will you invest in online marketing?   I said, “Video.”  Used in two ways: for thought leadership (to demonstrate Xerox Document Services unique, executive points of view) and to tell our customer/success stories. I also said database and analytics because online allows you to be much more targeted, but you need to know HOW to be more targeted.  Data is the cornerstone to that success.

If you would like to learn more, check out the recorded video responses to these questions at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msZxDnNaYG0  and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NvKGfkTWm8E

During the award presentation, BtoB singled out Xerox Document Services digital marketing work in thought leadership, customer testimonial, and industry blogging as highlights of our digital achievement.

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George Colony and Ursula Burns Speak at the Churchill Club, Palo Alto

July 6, 2011 — Laura Ramos

As Vice President of industry marketing for Xerox’s Global Document Outsourcing services organization in North America, and a former Forrester research analyst, I had an amazing opportunity last week to see my former CEO and current CEO take the stage together.

In it’s more than 25 year history; the Churchill Club has become the Silicon Valley’s preeminent, independent forum where business leaders who drive change exchange ideas, opinions, and viewpoints. It sponsors a variety of programs for bringing “important people together to say important things”.  Last Wednesday’s dinner featuring George and Ursula was no exception.

I had the honor of attending in person — thanks to the generosity of my Forrester account executive, Ashley Emmons. However, you can watch their entire conversation on YouTube, as the recording is exceptional.  It’s long (90 minutes) but worth scanning. The “conversation” between George and Ursula starts in earnest around (5:10). You may want to skip to:

(6:17) to hear Ursula talk about what it means to her to be Chairwoman and CEO of Xerox
(15:20) for her views on what Xerox really does (we’re not just the “copier company” any longer),
(21:25) for thoughts on the economy,
(30:05) on why the best and brightest from our universities need to go into the tech business, not Wall St.,
(42:00) on innovation
(46:00) on competition and instilling more competitive spirit in young people,
(1:00:00) on what’s ahead in the next 10 years. (Q&A follows at the end)

I put the word “conversation” in quotes because — as you will see — the dialogue is one-sided as Ursula grabs the spotlight. With all deference to George, who I know more personally and for whom I will always have a warm spot in my heart, Ursula is a force of nature.

In my short tenure at Xerox, I have found her to be a natural, frank, honest communicator. What you see in this recording is what you get with her all of the time. She avoids the corporate memo and gravitates toward video when talking to the troops. She’s a great story-teller, loves the analogy, and doles out criticism and praise with an even hand.

Above all she is inspiring. Listen to her talk about her background (46:30) and it is easy to see that she embodies the American Dream. I am honored to be a part of Xerox’s history at this time and to have Ursula at the helm.  I hope you will watch parts of the video to learn first hand about the woman who leads Xerox today, and to gain inspiration from her as well.

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BtoB Online Names Its “Top 25″ Digital Marketers

June 19, 2011 — Laura Ramos

I feel a bit sheepish writing this, but I’ve had so many friends and colleagues (including the Xerox CEO!) contact me about this award that I wanted to take the opportunity to offer my thanks and share the news. 

On June 13, in its inaugural Top Digital Marketers special report, BtoB magazine recognized 25 B2B marketers doing “exceptional” interactive work. If you look through the list at the bottom, you will see my name.  BtoB explains, “The winners were selected by BtoB staff, based on criteria including strong interactive vision and strategy as part of their overall marketing efforts; innovative use of digital technologies; and proven results.”  Wow, that’s quite an honor! And one I would like to share with my team and coworkers because I am never alone in these endeavors.

Here’s how I see it: Digital marketing is an essential part of any marketing program today – it should never stand alone. As buyers take more cues from online content, community, and experts, marketers can no longer depend on “interruption marketing” — tactics that try to get in front of prospective customers regardless of the prospect’s level of interest or qualification. B2B marketers must engage with potential buyers, determine their interests, and share useful, relevant information if they want to excel online. Here’s an example of how our industry marketing team approaches digital marketing to illustrate how we translate this perspective into practice.

Earlier this year, we decided to host a webinar featuring a well-recognized vertical industry expert. For those of you who know Ellen Carney, senior analyst at Forrester Research, she is one of the bright lights among the property, casualty, annuity, and life insurance industry luminaries. (And, yes, I adored working with her while at Forrester, so there’s my bias out in the open.) Our goal was to build Xerox Service’s reputation in the insurance industry, demonstrate a thought-leading point of view, and attract prospects to our story.

To do this, we wanted to produce fresh, interesting content that we could repurpose in different ways to drive traffic and interest. Now, to be honest, Forrester is not the cheapest resource with which to partner on this, so we wanted to make sure that the Webinar lived beyond its broadcast date. Here are a few highlights detailing where we focused our effort:

1) Relevance. We learned Ellen planned to publish a new report (not yet available on Forrester’s site) about the key trends shaping the future of the insurance industry. To associate ourselves subtly with what we expected to be ground-breaking research, we introduced Ellen to Gary Cole, who heads up our customer communications line of business for the insurance industry. Ellen liked Gary’s perspectives and decided to interview him to help provide background for her report.

2) Podcasts/audio files generate content — quickly.  We didn’t want to spend a lot of time writing, reviewing, and rewriting new content. Leading up to the webinar, we asked Ellen to talk to Gary about her findings. With Forrester’s consent (and — full disclosure — hired advice) we recorded and published three separate snippets of a Q&A conversation between the two of them, and featured each podcast in a separate blog post.  You can find them here:

Insurance 2020,  Insuring Against a Hole-In-One and Other Calamities, Going Green, Big Brother Evolves into a Risk Manager, and National Dog Bite Prevention Week: CA Tops National Liability List. We started promoting the Webinar in the fourth and fifth post in this series; we didn’t lead with it.  We tried to use catchy, off-beat topics to grab attention. We also tried to steer away from Xerox-centric language — this had to be about the industry, not us.

3) Highly targeted contact list.  This is probably the most important part. We market and sell managed print services contracts valued at multiple millions of dollars and spanning 5 years or more. There is a rather short list of companies that would be interested in this type of outsourced service. Knowing existing customer profiles, we crafted a list of specific accounts from which we generated a refined list of over 5000 contacts using internal databases and external sources.  To B2C folks, this may not sound like many, but for us, this was significant. While we welcome anyone interested in the future of the insurance industry to attend, we wanted to make sure that key folks at companies — like Allstate, the Hartford, New York Life, Prudential, State Farm, Travelers, USAA, and others — had the opportunity to hear from Xerox about Ellen’s new research.

4)  Industry-specific landing page. Nothing fancy, but we wanted one destination to focus our blog and outreach efforts toward that would also serve to tell interested parties a bit more about what we have to offer.  This way we could focus the Webinar content on what is interesting to clients and minimize the sales pitch from Xerox. It was also vital to record the event (again with Forrester’s paid permission) and make it available as a resource to those who couldn’t attend live.

5) A personal touch. We reached out to friends, fans and followers on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. We answered every email inquiry promptly. We sent personal emails to people we knew in the industry and promised to minimize the promotional content. We sent a reminder 30 minutes before the broadcast so that registrants didn’t have to dig through their email to find the links. We crafted separate thank-you notes for attendees and “sorry we missed you” messages for those who couldn’t make it. We made the replay available to everyone and encouraged them to share.

As a result, this Webinar enjoyed an 80% attendance rate against registrations. I don’t know about you, but — while at Forrester — I was thrilled to get 30% or more of the registrants to attend Webinars. 50% attendance is exceptional and 80% is out of this world! Also, this was the second highest attended industry-specific Webinar my team conducted so far. (So, for those cynics out there, 80% does not mean 4 out of only 5 individuals attended. We had many more than that participate.) We also generated three “leads” prior to the event — people interested in knowing more — as well as many requests wanting to see if the event would be recorded so they could access it on-demand.

What’s next? Measurement and tracking. We will enter attendee information into our database and track influence the influence of this Webinar and digital content against new opportunities and pipeline.  We will extract key questions, quotes, and other tidbits from the Webinar and use those content chunks to promote the replay. We will create customizable emails — featuring content elements and key talking points from Ellen’s research — for our sales people to use to follow up directly, and personally, with clients using our Business Builder tool. And we will do more – but I can’t give away all my secrets!

While the BtoB award is so appreciated, I hope in sharing this, you can get a glimpse into some of the activity that creates fundamental, straight-forward digital marketing. And I also hope to remain worthy of the recognition. Thank you again BtoB!

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