eBay Live! 2007 in Boston

Solutions Center Floor
Originally uploaded by reillytricia2003

I got back yesterday from Boston where I attended eBay Live!. If you're not familiar with eBay Live!, it's eBay's biggest event of the year, gathering thousands of buyers and sellers from all over the world for three days of education, entertainment, and networking.

I'm not a big eBay user, but as I have worked on the demand gen plans and creative process for the event over the course of the past 8 months, I really wanted to see it come to life. And with guest speakers like Andy Sernovitz and Seth Godin, there was really a lot for a B2B marketer to make it a worthwhile event.

So here are my key takeaways from Andy Sernovitz's session:

1. Be remarkable and give people a reason to love you - The whole idea of Word of Mouth marketing is to give people a reason to talk about you and make it easy for them to do so. Think of the beautiful wrapping paper on a gift from Red Envelope, or free samples at Kiehl's.


2. No one talks more than a lover scorned - Piss off your customers and they'll tell five times as many people as they would if you had done something to delight them. With the permanent record that is the Internet (reviews, blogs, etc.), users have the ability to tell the world about how wonderful or awful your product/service is. So make sure the good stuff is going on your permanent record.


3. Marketing is what you do - not what you say - As B2B marketers, we tend to focus on the message when in reality the customer experience IS the brand. How professional are your sales people's emails? How does your call center treat a prospect? Is your company easy to do business with? All of the advertising in the world is not going to overcome the fact that your business isn't customer focused.


4. Find the people who tell your story and engage them - The "talkers" for your business might not actually be customers, but merely fans. Make sure that they are opted in to receive information from you (email, blogs, etc.) and get them to spread the word for you. If they are blogging, join the conversation but not with the intention of "selling." Dinner party rules apply here - speak if you have something to add but not to jump in merely to self-promote. Ask them to tell a friend.
   

Seth Godin's presentation on Flipping the Funnel touched on similar topics such as permission marketing, being "remarkable", and knowing when to quit. He talked about the "superstar shortage" and how you need to be an expert in your field. Once you get started there's a cumulative advantage which means that once you have a bit of a headstart, Google and the network effect will propel you ahead of your competitors. Here are a few of his nuggets of insight:

1. Flip the funnel - Marketers love the 100 to 1 rule (100 leads will result in 1 deal), but what we need to do is make the funnel a megaphone - focus on your happiest customers and let them tell your story for you.


2. Create a story about what you do - We are all selling to people, even in B2B, so tell a story about how your product works, how you came up with the idea for your newest product feature, etc. It helps people to connect with your brand.


3. If you're not blogging, start now -Blogs are given the highest ranking in Google's algorithm so it's a great way to improve organic search results. And the Facebook generation doesn't want to know about email, so you have to be prepared for what is coming next. Don't stop emailing just yet but Seth predicts that in three years, email marketing will be dead.