Social business will begin disrupting B2B sales & marketing in 2012, and CSRA's Social Business Education Series shows executives how to take advantage of it. This manufacturing case study shows how Indium, which designs and manufactures soldering materials and industrial equipment, used blogs and videos to make their engineer thought leaders accessible to prospects, driving search results and leads, and cutting events costs 400%.

1. CSRA Social Business Education
Series
How Social Business Is Changing
the Game in B2B: Sales,
Marketing, Human Resources,
Product Development and Others
2012 Roadshow
http://www.socialbusinessservices.biz/resources/

2. Enterprise Social Business Strategy & Execution
Christopher S. Rollyson and Associates
Plan | Learn | Scale | Integrate | Manage
Social Business Disruption
of B2B Sales and Marketing
Study Guide: Indium
Part2: B2B Case Studies
Manufacturing | Healthcare | Supply Chain | Financial Services
05/05/2012 Entire contents © 2006-2012 by Christopher S. Rollyson

3. Copyrighted
material
Manufacturing Case Study
Background
Indium is an engineering
firm that manufacturers
•Manufacturer, soldering materials and
Designer & supplier equipment. Its subject
matter expert engineers
• Industrial soldering are respected by
materials prospects, and blogging
proved to be the most
• Electronics assembly efficient way to deliver their
equipment expertise and personalities
to market. The firm
committed to listening and
developing relationships
from the start.
05/05/2012 Social Business Disruption of B2B Sales and Marketing: Rare 2012 Opportunities 3

4. Copyrighted
material
Blogs & Thought Leadership 2.0
• Blogging most efficient for lead generation
St u d y Gu i de
• “Relationship” started with listening
• Leveraged existing engineer/research So c ia l
community
Business
• Allowed engineer experts time to accept
social business value proposition Highlights
• Engineers’ expertise a magnet for prospects
• Blogging and video worked well together
• Search results & leads “through the roof”
• Cut trade show costs 400%
05/05/2012 Social Business Disruption of B2B Sales and Marketing: Rare 2012 Opportunities 4

5. Copyrighted
material
Blogs Connect Engineers & Prospects
• Increased firm commitment with strategy,
St u d y Gu i de
defined mission and goals
• Blogs packed a potent combination; Lessons
thought leadership and interactivity
among readers and firm experts Learned
• Met experts’ objections with patience
• Forms/process made blogging easier
• Let bloggers be “real” with pictures & emails
• Anticipate global community
• Show transparency & trust by sharing
your blog strategy & results
05/05/2012 Social Business Disruption of B2B Sales and Marketing: Rare 2012 Opportunities 5

6. Copyrighted
material
Blogs Core to B2Bs’ Ecosystem
• Social business usually doesn’t change
St u d y Gu i de
what you share but how
• Blogs’ ROI often dwarfs white papers’
Insights
• Be careful with measures; B2B readers
often use email rather than blog comments
• Trust dramatically increases the value of
the information you share
• Critical success factors:
– Plan for a steady adoption path: use strategy
to lay out goals, measures and scale-up
– Commit to being open, sharing information
readers want and interacting
– Let bloggers be themselves; it’s not “a job”
05/05/2012 Social Business Disruption of B2B Sales and Marketing: Rare 2012 Opportunities 6

7. Copyrighted
material
Blogs & Thought Leadership 2.0
• Marketing led Indium's blogging initiative, and their goal was to drive
down marketing costs by connecting with prospects and clients. But it St u d y Gu i de
wasn't easy to convince engineers to blog because they considered it
frivolous.
• Engineers valued traditional, high-investment white papers, so
Marketing had to explain blogs' value proposition in engineers'
Detail1
language; they used quantitative metrics, for example time required to
new lead, money per new lead and reuse percentage. Indium began
slowly, with a prominent engineer writing thought leadership posts
that prospects and clients loved.
• Marketing proved blogging had the highest value, and they grew the
effort by organizing simple forms to make blogging easier. Today
Indium has 73 blogs (and counting); blogs are the core of their
ecosystem, and SEO and leads have gone through the roof. They
also use videos to highlight some of the blogs' key themes. They've
found that engineers' personalities and knowledge are magnets for
prospects.
• Indium's cost of relationship has fallen sharply, and trade show costs
have fallen 400%; they now show up with a small, bare booth and just
continue blog conversations. They get the same number of leads at
one fourth the cost.
05/05/2012 Social Business Disruption of B2B Sales and Marketing: Rare 2012 Opportunities 7

8. Copyrighted
material
Blogs Connect Engineers & Prospects
• Define a business mission, commit to realistic goals, and build. B2B
prospects want high-value information, so learn how to give it to them. St u d y Gu i de
Plan on a period of exploration; you'll rarely get it perfect the first time.
• Blogs put thought leadership on steroids; the information is easier to
find, and people can interact right out of the box. Blogs are content-
rich and ideal to serve as the core of your ecosystem.
Detail2
• Tackle thought leaders' objections honestly, and solve them together.
Related to this, recognize that most people are afraid of writing, so
help them by organizing simple input procedures. Finally, anticipate a
global audience; today, Indium blogs in Chinese as well as English.
• Social business doesn't fundamentally change *what* information
your clients value and why; it *does* change how you deliver it and
how you interact. Firms that get this shift first will profit enormously.
• B2B prospects have two main channels of value: first, information
about relevant aspects of their business problems, along with insight
into how to apply it. Trust is the second channel; it magnifies the first
channel because it lets prospects gauge how seriously they may
value the information. B2B blogs can deliver both in spades--very
economically.
• Don't be thrown off by using "social media" metrics: Indium's blog
readers often respond via email rather than using public comments..
because they don't want competitors to know what they're thinking.
05/05/2012 Social Business Disruption of B2B Sales and Marketing: Rare 2012 Opportunities 8

9. Copyrighted
material
Blogs Core to B2Bs’ Ecosystem
• Watch the video
St u d y Gu i de
– http://youtu.be/vAMNiBtZGPw
• Case study home page Mo re
– http://tinyurl.com/sbscaseindium
– Podcast (audio only) (L i n ks )
– Other B2B case studies
– More insight into business drivers
– Action steps
• Catch the whole series
– http://www.socialbusinessservices.biz/resources
05/05/2012 Social Business Disruption of B2B Sales and Marketing: Rare 2012 Opportunities 9

10. Copyrighted
material
CSRA Social Business Education
Series
How Social Business Is Changing the Game in B2B:
Sales, Marketing, Human Resources, Product Christopher S. Rollyson
Development and Others Managing Director CSRA
chris@rollyson.net
+1.312.925.1549
http://about.me/csrollyson
http://rollyson.net/consulting
Part1: The Dynamics of Change
Part2: B2B Sales & Marketing Case Studies Resources
Part3: Action Steps: Evolving Sales & Marketing
2012 Roadshow
http://www.socialbusinessservices.biz/resources/
05/05/2012 Social Business Disruption of B2B Sales and Marketing: Rare 2012 Opportunities 10

11. Copyrighted
material
Social Business Services
http://www.socialbusinessservices.biz/resources/
How to evolve sales and marketing
05/05/2012 Social Business Disruption of B2B Sales and Marketing: Rare 2012 Opportunities 11