B2B Demand Generation | Find New Customers policy on advertising

Every Thursday evening we do a Twitter chat on B2B marketing. Recently, the topic of online No ads advertising came up recently - Google Pay per Click (adwords), Linkedin ads and Facebook ads.

The question posed was this:

Which advertising strategy works best for you? Google adwords, Linkedin or Facebook?

Our answer: None of them.

When the participants heard of our company policy - they were shocked. “Find New Customers does zero paid advertising?” They did not understand. Every business spends a fortune on advertising. Why not? That’s needed to get leads.

How the hell do you make it work? How do you uncover potential business without advertising?

No paid ads has been our corporate policy from Day One. You will never see a Pay Per Click ad, Linkedin ad or a Facebook ad. You won’t see us on TV or hear from us on radio. Find New Customers is not in newspapers, trade journal, signs at events, etc.

Why not? Because our business strategy is to develop legions of fans who talk about us and refer us to their friends. (When the folks on the Tweet chat heard this, they were wowed!) Folks like Paul Dunay, Don F. Perkins, Arthur Germain, Margaret Malloy, Jim Burns, Dan Paulson, Doug Kessler - all industry experts who support us. Happy clients (Aprimo, Act-On, a local insurance agent) also refer us.

While we don’t advertise, we do publish great content on B2B demand generation, content marketing, lead nurturing, lead scoring and more, write a wildly popular blog and stay active on social networks. We also have a presence on YouTube, Google Profiles, FourSquare, Crunchbase and every other online site. Find New Customers is on Facebook and Linkedin too. We rank highly for our keywords too. In fact, the #1 source of traffic to Find New Customers is organic search.

What do you think of this policy? Do you applaud it or think it is a mistake? We love comments and those who share.

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Jeff Ogden (@fearlesscomp) is the President of the B2B lead generation consultancy Find New Customers. Find New Customers helps companies dramatically improve revenue results by transforming the way they attract, engage and win new customers. Contact Find New Customers by calling (516) 495-9350 or sending an email to sales at findnewcustomers.com.

“If more companies listened to (Find New Customers) a lot more would be sold.” Dan McDade, Pointclear.

B2B Demand Generation | The Made to Stick Success Model

The New York Times best-seller, Made to Stick - contain a model on sticky ideas. I share

because is it a perfect model for content marketing professionals. Want to create compelling content? Ensure it adheres to these principles.

Here are the Made to Stick Principles, which follow the acronym SUCCESS:

S- Simple
Find the essence of the idea. (Southwest is THE low-fare airline.) Less is more.

U - Unexpected
To get attention, do the unexpected. Appeal to curiosity by asking questions. “What are Saturn’s rings made of?

C - Concrete
Paint a mental picture. (This is why story-telling is so powerful.) Use sensory C - language.

C- Credible
Use outside experts or anti-authorities. This is why every business needs to compile a list of the top 12 thought leaders in their industry.

E- Emotional
People care about people, not numbers. Appeal to the person using What’s In It for You.

S - Stories
As the authors say, “stories drive action through stimulation (what to do) and inspiration (the motivation to do it) Story-telling is immensely powerful in B2B demand generation.

Leverage the SUCCESS model in content marketing and watch the results. Please let me know how it goes.