{"id":29,"date":"2009-12-06T16:08:23","date_gmt":"2009-12-06T16:08:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.eqsim.com\/blog\/?p=29"},"modified":"2010-02-21T16:09:16","modified_gmt":"2010-02-21T16:09:16","slug":"great-insights-by-david-meerman-scott-at-btobonline%e2%80%99s-digital-edge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.eqsim.com\/blog\/great-insights-by-david-meerman-scott-at-btobonline%e2%80%99s-digital-edge\/","title":{"rendered":"Great insights by David Meerman Scott at BtoBOnline\u2019s Digital Edge"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This past Thursday, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.btobonline.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">B-to-B Online<\/a> hosted a virtual trade show with <a href=\"http:\/\/www.on24.com\/\" target=\"_self\">ON24<\/a> called \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/www.btobonline.com\/apps\/pbcs.dll\/article?AID=\/20091204\/FREE\/912049996\/1001\" target=\"_blank\">Digital Edge<\/a>\u201c.\u00a0 I assume it will be up in archive form shortly (and you can download his slides, or watch the talk again), but as of today it is not there yet.<\/p>\n<p>I toured the exhibit hall a bit but I was certainly glad to catch the keynote address by David Meerman Scott.\u00a0 A number of his points really resonated with the approaches I\u2019ve been thinking about and trying to put into practice around online simulations, to give viewers a more engaging view of products and product lines.<\/p>\n<p>He described how he would like to see the shift away from \u2018product-oriented web sites\u2019 (and materials, presumably), to what he called \u201cbuyer persona\u201d focused approaches.\u00a0 Rather than sticking a company\u2019s products or brand in front of web site visitors and treating them as a faceless mass, he advocates trying to focus on, and relate to the different\u00a0types of people who are visiting the site, and what problems your company is solving for that\/those personae.\u00a0 In that vein, he offered the following questions\/insights (that I can remember!):<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>What does your product\/business look like for that person?<\/li>\n<li>Who are they and what information can you provide for them that they need\/want?<\/li>\n<li>Name him or her, and develop a strategy for each persona<\/li>\n<li>What are their problems, likes, etc.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>From an engineering perspective, I feel strains of\u00a0a \u2018use case\u2019 approach \u2014 identifying who is coming to the site, for what reason(s), and trying to orient the materials to accomodate these personalities.<\/p>\n<p>He followed the overall description of persona with a few questions we need to be asking when we develop our sites (and by extension, most types of distributed materials):<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>What do you want your buyer persona\u2019s to believe about your business or product?<\/li>\n<li>How are you generating attention?\u00a0 He spent a lot of time talking about \u201cearning\u201d or \u201cpublishing\u201d your way in with great content, blogs, videos, white papers, etc., instead of or in addition to traditional means to get attention (advertising, media contacts, etc.).<\/li>\n<li>What vocabulary is your buyer persona using?\u00a0 It is critical to speak to them in their own vocabulary (it seems from his blog that he is on the war path against gobbledygook [I never thought I&#8217;d actually have to spell out that word!], which is very refreshing)<\/li>\n<li>No coercion, just meaningful content.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>A lot of these points go directly to the message I want to craft with the term \u201csimulation-based product marketing\u201d (though I am still developing the ideas to an extent, and thinking about how they all fit together, for an upcoming white paper).<\/p>\n<p>Going back to the\u00a0bulleted list on top, for I would massage the question a bit\u00a0\u201dwhat does your product\/business look like for that person?\u201d into \u201cwhat does your product look like in the hands of, or typical situations, faced by that person?\u201d\u00a0 This blends into point #1, which is using virtual product demos (a.k.a. simulations) to demonstrate to your visitors what they should believe about your product.<\/p>\n<p>For example, I was looking for a smart phone recently.\u00a0 When I looked at RIM\u2019s web site, I saw some beautiful graphics and videos about the latest BlackBerry and their product line, but what was remarkably absent was what I really wanted to find out\u2013what does it look like when I receive or send emails, how easy is it to navigate the screens, etc., thing I wanted to do, not hope they\u2019ve filmed someone else (who I don\u2019t really relate to\u2013another great point by David, using real people, customers, etc. instead of the typical models shots we see) do it.<\/p>\n<p>I believe that using simulations\u00a0in\u00a0advertising\/marketing is an extremely strong way to influence what the buyer persona believes about your product. This is what I have advocated in the many years developing marketing materials to manufacturers.\u00a0 Create scenarios that involve the visitor to demonstrate the unique and\/or compelling features of the product\u2013show that the user \u2019saves the day\u2019 because he or she has the XYZ, implying (or letting visitors infer) thank goodness they didn\u2019t buy the competitor\u2019s ABC because then they\u2019d really be up the creek.<\/p>\n<p>In my domain, equipment simulation, the last point (point #4)\u00a0about \u2018no coercion\u2019 really struck home with me because of my frustration when I hear manufacturers asking \u2018how about we create a game to get peoples\u2019 attention?\u2019\u00a0 I argue that people who are looking for information about products, or are looking to engage with products, or need to develop a concrete set of skills, do not need to be entertained to be engaged, rather, one should create compelling interactive content around the product (my tie-in with the \u201csimulation-based product marketing\u201d I have been consumed with for the past several months).<\/p>\n<p>A bit out of order, but it emphasizes his point about point #3, creating great content.\u00a0 Essentially, if you create great content, content that is relevant to what the visitors want to do, you\u2019ve earned your way to attention, and people will want to come back.\u00a0 We created training scenarios for <a href=\"http:\/\/www.fireengineering.com\/index\/training\/fire_simulations.html\" target=\"_blank\">Fire Engineering\u2019s web site<\/a>, the premier training producers in the Fire Service.\u00a0 They\u2019re not video games, rather, they are instructional materials that have animated graphics, simulating emergency incidents, but under an instructor\u2019s control.\u00a0 Not only they receive a significant number of visits per month, but they have an\u00a0astounding return rate.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s no surprise that\u00a0we\u2019ve also been\u00a0taking these concepts and applying them to marketing products, under the umbrella of \u201csimulation-based product marketing\u201d, and \u201cvirtual product marketing\u201d\u2013with astonishing results.<\/p>\n<p>Thank you, David, for an insightful and meaningful talk!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This past Thursday, B-to-B Online hosted a virtual trade show with ON24 called \u201cDigital Edge\u201c.\u00a0 I assume it will be up in archive form shortly (and you can download his slides, or watch the talk again), but as of today it is not there yet. I toured the exhibit hall a bit but I was\u2026 <span class=\"read-more\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.eqsim.com\/blog\/great-insights-by-david-meerman-scott-at-btobonline%e2%80%99s-digital-edge\/\">Read More &raquo;<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[8],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.eqsim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.eqsim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.eqsim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.eqsim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.eqsim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.eqsim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30,"href":"http:\/\/www.eqsim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29\/revisions\/30"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.eqsim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.eqsim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.eqsim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}