Marketing-Gimbal

Are Mormons Better Marketer's Than Jews?

Be a Mormon and not a Jew when it comes to your viral marketing according to Jonah Peretti, CEO at Buzzfeed. Peretti posts 5 tips on how to make a message or idea go viral in todays environment:

· Create media for the Bored At Work Network: There are hundreds of millions of people around the world bored at work sitting in front of their computers connected to high speed networks.  This network is bigger than any traditional media network like CNN or ABC. Create something they will want to pass around.

· Practice The Mullet Strategy: Business up front, party on the back.  If you have a Website, keep the front page serious so as not to scare off the casuals.  Give all the crazy commenter’s and contributors space in the back, and only show them to the rest of the world when they create something that catches on.

· Try Big Seed Marketing: If you are  brand trying to create  a viral campaign, it might be hard. True viral memes are hard to reproduce.  It is much easier to make something that still gets passed around, but you might have to spend some money to seed it around the Internet.  The more seed you spread, the more chance it will grow. “Buy the seed, get the viral for free,” he says (this is basically BuzzFeed’s business model).

· Target The Maniacs: The Web is ruled by maniacs, people who get worked up about things and push their ideas out.  ”Content is more viral if it helps people express their personality disorders,” notes Peretti.

· Be A Mormon, Not A Jew. This one is tongue in cheek.  But Mormonism is a growing religion, whereas Judaism is stagnating in terms of population.  Why?  Mormons are better evangelists.  ”The problem with Jews is that they suck at marketing,” says Peretti.  ”It’s almost like they don’t want anyone else to be a Jew.” His point is that it is not just the quality of an idea that counts, it is how much effort you put into spreading it. via techcrunch.com.

 

Perriti posts some humorous stats on the difference between Mormons and Jews in the growth of their respective religions, and points out that Judaism may be relevantly stagnant when compared to the growth of the Mormon religion. His main message in this comparison is that while Judaism may be a high quality religion, in the viral and socially connected environment that we operate in that quality of message is not a growth strategy. Whereas, with the Mormon religion, they want you to be a Mormon, and make "Evangelism" central to their strategy, and mission. The key take away is that you need to focus not just on the idea or message, but more on the mechanics of how a message is spread in todays socially connected world.

When it comes to viral I have always hated the term “viral” as it conjures up terms in “managements” mind of “high-volume” for “no money” or worse “free advertsiing”. As Perriti points out the reality is that most successful viral business attempts have come on the heels of a large, well funded and integrated mixed media campaigns.

 I also believe that good social-viral attempts are those that ultimately give your target audience a chance to emotionally connect with your brand experience; a lesson that I think the recent Irish Spring campaign brought to light.

There are some interesting correlations in thought between Perrtti’s notion that you need to connect with the “maniacs” to the thoughts of Malcom Gladwell in that Connectors, Mavens, and Salesmen are key recruits in making an idea tip into the mainstream. This is interesting to note as part of the social aspect of the Irish Spring Campaign was to produce a series of near real time tweets, but the selection of, who to tweet to, in response to the campaign was made based on the tweeters “influence”. This is an interesting notion as we see the rise of “influence”  as part of an integrated campaign with a social extension, and also interesting to note that a little “science” was used in making that determination.

In today’s socially networked world strategy and planning, leverage of key influencers, a somewhat bored audience, some good old school marketing, backed up by some decent budget seem to be what is required to make the best use of viral messaging and ideas for marketing. Most attempts will be dismal but a few will be brilliant in that they will enable the audience to emotionally engage with the brand in an entertaining and fulfilling way. Now isn’t that worth a college try?

Nuff Said.

Six Social Media Sins

Quick little post I did for Businessweek online. What other sins would you have added?

Six Social Media Sins

Posted by: Today's Tip Contributor on July 9, 2010

Social media are not intended for you to syndicate your corporate message. Social media are here to facilitate open and honest dialogue with other individuals. If you are not open and honest, no one will want to engage with you, just as in nondigital life. When using social media to promote your business, avoid making the following mistakes:

1. Believing that if you build it, they will come. Just because you brand a Facebook page, YouTube channel, Twitter feed, or blog does not mean that you are using social media.

2. Not being authentic. You will soon be sniffed out if all you’re doing is using social media tools to promote your one-sided message and make sales.

3. Thinking you are in control. If you think you can control negative comments on your blog or other avenues, you will soon learn that you can’t.

4. Not listening. Social media is about open, two-way dialogue that entails both giving and sharing.

5. Thinking social media is not work. Social media is the most unscalable tactic there is in digital media. It takes a human being on the other end of the channel to engage and converse.

6. Not knowing your audience. Lacking an understanding of what your audience is passionate about or wants to engage in will result in a poor experience both for you and your audience.

Social media is about two-way communication and engagement, so enjoy the tools that are out there that help you further engage with your key audience

via www.businessweek.com

Why Social Media is The Least Trusted Source of Information For B2B Buyers

Earlier this year Edelman released their annual Edelman Barometer 2010. The Edelman Trust research has been most interesting in the last few years due to the global economic climate, and the lost of trust in institutions from governments, to financial institutions and Businesses.

This years trust report showed some interesting changes, namely in the loss of trust one finds from peers. This is important in B2B Marketing as most research indicates that potential prospects in a buying cycle trust peers the most when making decisions. This fact, and the rise of social media as a channel for peers to access each other has placed social media, and B2B marketing strategy in very close company.

In looking at the Edelman report this year we see that Peers are the only group to have fallen in the context of groups or roles that are most likely to be trusted when hearing information about a company.

If you look at the Edelman Trust Barometer over the last two years you will see a large decline in trust from peer groups, from 58% in 2008 to 44% in 2010. While this blog post is related to B2B marketing the Edelman Trust Barometer Survey was one of the early resources to clue marketers into the fact that traditional mass media channels were becoming less and less effective, as they were increasingly seen as being less trusted.

So how does this relate to B2B and the loss of trust in Social Media? In a recent Sirius Decisions’ Conference the latest research on he B2B buying process was presented, and in it “Peers” remained the most trusted source of information within a B2B buying process. This trust factor actually increased some 7% from 2006. What would be interesting is to look the data from 2008 to 2010, to see if Peers have fallen, as the Edelman data would suggest.

The other really interesting part of this research is the rise in the influence of Vendors and Partners as trusted sources of information within a B2B buying process, and the associated decline of search as a medium of trusted information. Now the same research also identified the least trusted sources of information.

 

Surprising here is that Vendors have significantly improved in the context of a being a trusted source since 2006, and that social media is far and away the least trusted source of information for B2B buyers. Especially shocking as the current mantra in B2B marketing follows the logic that your prospects’ peers are the most trusted, they use social media to communicate, therefore you must use social media if you are to influence or be seen as a trusted source. Not an unreasonable assumption or logic; however what has really happened?

I have long held that social media is a conversational medium and if corrupted for the purpose of lead generation it would not be effective. That being said if you read 99% of the jargon related to B2B marketing and social media it is in the context of generating sales or leads, quickly followed by how hard it is to show the ROI of social media, which is usually followed by “insight” that says measuring social media is not that hard. Of course what is actually being measured is the “media” and not the “social”.

I don’t know of any easy way to truly relate social media into cost reduction or revenue generation to prove ROI as I have always defined it. Since social media is conversational should you even try to prove ROI? You have to converse in order to even have a chance of conducting business, so from the perspective social media is just good for business.

This brings us to the next reason why we see a lack of trust in social media, and that is the lack of thought leadership or relevant content from the vendor community to their audience through social media channels. I stress social media channels because you will note that vendors are seen as more trusted than in past years. What could be causing this?

The focus on content marketing could be one reason. Any B2B marketer worth his or her salt knows that they need to have an understanding of the audience, the buying process and what the relevant content needs to be along each stage of the buying process. This content then must be used in online marketing efforts, like search and SEO, to generate inbound inquires, and poor content means poor inquiry generation in most cases.

If the content quality has improved then I could see how vendors could be viewed as a more trusted source of information; however if we as a B2B marketing community, are simply using social media today as a way to “sell more” then we are missing an opportunity to position our point of view on leading issues and engage with our community, regardless if we sell something or not.

 

There is also a larger trend afoot where any mention of a vendor or product in social media circles is becoming increasingly suspect. Just look at the paid mommy bloggers, paid celebrity endorsements for mentions on twitter, and product placement in every mainstream channel from talk shows to movies. It is hard for anyone to really discern today what is real or paid for. As social media is becoming a larger communication medium and peer groups are viewed as significant influencers, then means to reach both these audiences will naturally become commercialized and, in doing so, will also become less trusted. You can’t even trust a doctor anymore to prescribe what’s right.

In closing, I’ll leave you with these thoughts:

• 1. B2B Markets must establish strong thought leaders and associated content if they want their company to be viewed as an industry leader within their extended ecosystem.
• 2. B2B Marketers should refrain from viewing social media channels as simply new communication mediums to use in generating leads and that can be used to influence, discuss, and debate points of view that are relevant to the extended community.
• 3. B2B Marketers must utilize social media to amplify their voice, listen, engage and innovate.
• 4. B2B Marketers must have something relevant to say; no matter which medium they communicate in.
• 5. Do not undervalue the power of your internal thought leaders, content, or company web site and partner channels as ways to establish yourself as a trusted thought leader.
• 6. You must influence the influencers with relevant thought leadership, insight and tools.
• 7. Don’t assume your personas consume information via social media. Know what channels they prefer to receive information through.

 

One thing about old school marketing that hasn’t changed is that people still buy from people, and not from companies. If you’re like me, you prefer to buy from people that you find highly knowledgeable on their topic, whether it’s your mechanic or your software vendor. With increased knowledge comes an excellent opportunity to establish dialogue, and dialogue leads to an opportunity to establish a trusted relationship. After all in business it’s the long-term relationships that generate the greatest value to the business. Nuff said.

Forrester Consulting's Moronic Blogging Policy

 

On Friday our PR firm sent this post fromSageCirclerelating to Forrester's recent decision (some say it has been in effect since mid to late 2009) to ban all personal blogs from analysts that relate to topics they are researching for Forrester. Forrester states "We believe we can best serve our clients in their professional roles by aggregating our intellectual property in one place – at Forrester.com.

The reality behind this policy is that it is most likely due to the recent departures of several analysts to form their own venture called Altimeter Group. This company was started by Charlene Li who coauthored the book:Goundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies.

For those of you in marketing, and involved in social media, Jeremiah Owyangis a very well known figure in the space who has been delivering his insights, and industry musings on social media through his blog Web Strategy. Ray Wang likewise has built up a very successful following on his blog “A Software Insiders Point of View”.

Jemimah, was who many of us turned to for insight into how social media technology was changing the landscape in which we operated in. Jemimah freely gave deep, and compelling insights, and his blog delivered lots of value to that end. His association with Forrester, in my view, really heightened the brand of that analyst company, and positioned them as a leading consulting firm in social media and marketing.

The action of Forrester limiting the blogging of their anlaysts made me recall the musings of David Armano and his “Brandividuals”: “Brandividuals are people who represent your brand and their own, balancing the two may be something we see more of, not less as companies and brands try to figure out how to engage on a web that’s become increasingly social and personal.”. David uses several examples of well known brandividules who are associated with their company, for example Scott Monty at Ford, and Frank Eliason of Comcastcares. David also pointed out last year that there were going to be some sticky issues arising out of the convergence of personal, and business brands.

Basically today when you hire someone you bring their on-line social network into your company, and when they leave they take it with them. I love to draw parallels in the context of what's old is new again, and this case really makes the point. It used to be that if you hired a well known sales guy in the industry you hired him for his skill, and his “Rolodex”. If you hired a great PR firm you hired them for their relations with relevant media in priority industries, and you generally wanted your key people to speak at conferences, as it was “good for the brand”. At those conferences they met people which would undoubtedly lead to opportunities, and in some cases that would lead to opportunities outside of your company.

Whats ultimately changed is that it used to take the leverage of a strong business brand to fuel the development of a strong personal brand in the off line centric reality of the old world. What's new today is that, in a growing number of cases, the individual has a powerful individual brand associated with them prior to coming to the company brand. These days more companies want and desire a strong personal brand coming to work for them for a variety of reasons. In many cases a strong personal brand is becoming a requirement, as the first thing that everyone does when they hear of a new hire is to Google them, to see if they know anything about what they were hired to do.

This reality is driving many individuals to become cognizant of the need to develop a reputable on-line “brand” reputation. When I say on-line brand I'm not speaking in the sense that we will become Brittany Spears.com, but that we have commentary on our industry, or have points of view relevant to our profession. What will need to change is the new set of engagement rules between business, and individuals in this will new networked environment where social-business become one.

Forrester's policy of stopping analysts from blogging on their own personal blogs about industry research is ripe with old world thinking about controlling the message and the individual. Old ways of thinking where the businesses can control the brand experience and the buying process have fallen by the wayside as a result of near frictionless way of communication and accessing information. There is no doubt in my mind that Forrester is trying to hang on to the old way of thinking by instituting a moronic policy of trying to control their analysts voices. I believe that, from Forrester's point of view, if they force analysts to only blog on Forrester-branded blogs this will then add equity to the Forrester brand and more revenue.

Why is this moronic? Because Forrester's core brand experience and value ultimately lies in the brain matter, notoriety, skill, and engagement that each individual analyst has with potential and current customers. The individual analyst is the brand, not the Forrester logo or the CEO. In an age of frictionless communication, why would you control the voice of your #1 sales person, which is your analyst. This is part of a common problem of business today.

It used to be that business knew their customers and had personal relationships with each of them. Technology and scale created a distance and ability for us to hide behind-- email, voice mail, and web sites. How many companies out there today answer their phones with a human? How many companies put pictures of their product managers and how to contact them on the website? We are moving back to the future where people buy from other people they trust, and who they think are knowledgeable.

Jeremiah was the #1 marketing machine for Forrester, and drove substantial business their way. Furthermore, if you lock your analysts only into Forrester blogs you are, by default, limiting the web surface-area that people can find these analysts on. In using the Forrester reasoning, you might as well limit their involvement in industry events or other social media channels like Twitter and Facebook, because they could build up a presence and contacts that could lead them away from Forrester at some point.

Forrester didn't realize that the equity of the on-line brand reputation of Jemimah Owyang was tightly integrated to the equity of Forrester in that space. To be honest, Forrester added a lot of equity to the personal brand of Jeremiah as many business paid a little more attention to him since he was part of a respected tier 1 analyst firm. I'm sure many of his calls were taken, as a result of the Forrester association, than if he were making calls as Jeremiah the blogger. So, the relationship is a two way street. What would have been more productive than issuing some mindless policy would be to explore ways that both brands could continue adding value to each other. For example:

1. Find ways to co-brand and co-market each other. A star analyst is like a star basket ball player. They bring in tickets.
2. The obligatory disclosure that this is my personal blog and does not reflect my employees view
3. Develop ways to funnel inquires on the personal blog directly to Forrester.
4. Co-blog on both a personal and a branded site.

The real issue here of course is money. As Jeremiah grew in notoriety more clients came to the door. Jeremiah worked triple duty in his spare time driving insight and content and building a social media practice at Forrester that in turn brought in more clients. At some point the question was asked as to what am I getting for this. Forrester obviously had a different view for the relationship than say Jeremiah. Now I'm speculating on all this, but I think its a safe bet as to how things evolved.

There wouldn't be any issue here if Jemimah never left and that is where the convergence of personal and business brands or 'Brandividuals” will continue to collide in a growing fashion. It's always been tricky when a star employee leaves for a competitor or starts his own business in your industry. That has always happened, and always will. Again whats old is new.

Just as a star sales person who has built a new line of business for you will undoubtedly ask for a larger piece of the pie so to will brandividuals. Technology and social media is bringing back the individual with a vengeance, and companies will need to realize that new engagements, and new business models are required. Not a policy that limits how you communicate. Nuff Said.

Big Ed’s Top 10 B2B Marketing Trends For 2010

 
The great global economic meltdown of 2009 has passed, and we are still here and breathing, mostly a sigh of relief. It’s been a tough year for B2B marketers as many of us had to deal with decreased budgets, staff and a return to basics. Hopefully, we focused on improving our core processes, measures, and databases so we are ready for whatever the economy and market brings our way in 2010. In 2009, I put forth my Big 10 Trends for B2B Marketing, and in keeping with tradition I thought I would do it again for 2010.

1.    Mass Adoption of Social Media in The B2B Marketing Mix

I hope that in 2010 we will finally see an end to the monotonous message of “Why Marketers Should Use Social Media” and hopefully an end to the ubiquitous “5 Ways to Use Twitter to Improve Your Marketing”.  I think we can all say that social media officially jumped the shark when Ashton tweeted all of us a picture of Demi in her underpants.

 To that end there should be only be a few of us left that do not fully understand that social media, must become part of our integrated marketing mix in order to get our message out, and to build a dialogue with our customers. While not in such large numbers yet, marketers are beginning to understand that they have lost control of the brand experience to the customer, and that they must engage if they have any desire to partake in their brand experience. 

Are there any of us left that aren’t using social media in one form or another today? Granted some of us may be using it ineffectively, but we are using it, and therefore we are learning. Unfortunately get ready for the onslaught of the a-typical social media campaign: “take a video of how you use our product and we will show it on You Tube.”

2.    Social Media ROI Remains Confusing and Elusive as Ever

 

 

With the mass adoption of social media we will now be inundated with an ever increasing amount of articles, and blog posts on how to “Increase Leads & SEO with Social Media”. The reality is almost all of us confuse “the media” with “the social” in trying to identify measures that get us to some form of ROI. Today most of us are focused on awareness, and lead generation as noted by this recent research from Sirius Decisions.

I, for one, do not believe that social media will prove an effective lead generation tool as social media is inherently about dialogue, listening and engaging. I don’t think there are too many people, customer or otherwise, that want to be sold to in every dialogue they have with a brand. Someone once said “Social Media Works Best When it is Earned and Not Paid for”.

We will see continued ROI assertions with the “media side” of social media, but I don’t think this is the relevant measure to look at as these measures are usually short-term in their focus. Social media is inherently about value creation and, as a result, much more long-term in its value add that is ultimately reflected in trust, advocacy, and sentiment towards our brands. This is where the true ROI/Value in social media lies, but it will be a long and arduous path for most of us to realize that, let alone convincing our management. In addition we are hampered by a lack of effective and efficient tool sets that can aid our measures on these more subjective value drivers.

 

I think that we must all go through an evolution of social media learning before we can truly be enlightened on the real ROI, or better yet, value generation of social media. In my view this evolutionary curve follows a distinct path of enlightenment for B2B marketers:

· Awareness: The stage where most of us begin our journey. Here the focus is on utilizing social media channels to drive market/brand awareness and SEO. Marketers confuse Social Media ROI with media measures such as page rank, organic vs. paid search, page views, and leads (we also confuse inquires & leads but that is another issue). Social media strategy is often confused with social media tools and channels (i.e. the tactics) at this stage.

· Engagement: After awareness we realize that social media can actually be used to converse in a two-way dialogue with our ecosystem. Metrics get a little more focused and try to relate to other ongoing tactics in order to monetize the value of such efforts and convince management of the need for continued investment. For example, using a blog to gain feedback on a company’s products can be monetized against the ongoing cost of focus groups.

 

 

 

· Listening: Once we are engaged we discover the power of listening. Here we start to use social media to listen to the market, and to what people are saying about our products, brands, and engaging more directly to assist with the service aspects of the company’s offerings. Social media metrics get more sophisticated, and are viewed in a much longer time frame than media measures. This new level of social media measurement is focused more on advocacy, brand sentiment, and service experience. While sentiment and advocacy are difficult to measure, as tool sets are still emerging, advancements will be made on the monetization and measuring the service aspect of social media (i.e reaching out to a compliant heard through twitter and solving the issue via social media channels).  Comcast Cable use of Twitter  is a good example of this stage of evolution.

· Innovation: At this stage we start using social media to crowd-source, and to co-innovate with our ecosystems. This is the most advanced stage of evolution where our products and services actually converge with community and social media capabilities to foster greater and faster co-innovation. At this stage the value derived from social media can be extraordinary as smaller brands can compete effectively with larger brands. SalesForce.com and Starbucks are two companies with examples of community based innovation frameworks in place.

 

3.    Focus On Database Accuracy

Last year I said that database marketing will be a major priority for us as the recession will require us to focus on cross-sell, and to leverage our database for more effective and efficient demand generation. Now we have a new issue at play in our databases, and that is the accuracy of the contacts. While we will always be searching for the holy grail of accuracy in the database, this issue has been exacerbated in 2010 due to the recession that has left many of these databases defunct due to the massive job losses seen. Efforts need to be undertaken to cleanse and update existing data bases this year versus focusing on adding more quantity to the marketing database.

 

4.    B2B Buyers Continued Shift to Online Sources of Information

As I said last year Print is dead. 2009 saw the continued demise of B2B print media and the large industry events have been called into greater question, as their real value became more suspect in an increasingly digital world. Influence of the virtual event and webcasts continues to grow as effective communication and lead generation channels for B2B marketers. Yet there remains a gap in how we, as marketers, view the channels that our prospects are using to conduct their buying research. Here is some recent Tech Target IT buyer research that I found particularly interesting.

When asked how frequently they use the internet to conduct buyer research IT buyers said the following:

 

Note the disconnect between Marketers and the people they are trying to reach. IT Buyers don’t view the Vendor Website in such high esteem as we do (imagine that), nor do they view conferences, trade shows, associations or editorial articles in evaluating technology as highly as we do.

 

 

 

The key point here is that now, more than ever, we truly have to understand our persona’s buying process and how they conduct and consume information in order to optimize our marketing mix across online and off-line channels.

5.    Understanding & Optimizing the Buying & Selling Cycle

While much has been written about how we, as marketers, have lost control of our brand experience, and the need to understand our buyer personas in a way to more effectively deliver content to support the buying process, very little has been written about the impact to the sales cycle. The reality is that sales has lost control over the selling cycle in the context that sales must control relevant information in order to force an engagement with the prospect, and to ensure that the sales is guiding the decision making process of the prospect. While that may have worked 10 years ago, nothing can be further from the truth today. How many times have you heard your sales team say “Don’t put that on the website. They need to come to me for that information”?

In today’s world, our prospects are getting their information including pricing, technical details, etc. from our past customers and, in most cases, now know more about the product, and the business terms than our own sales teams. This puts our sales teams into ever increasing positions of justifying their value add.

Note some recent B2B buyer research from Forrester where 70% of business decision makers prefer to develop their own knowledge online.

In short, they don’t want to engage with you until they are ready (I know. It’s a novel concept). This creates a few challenges for B2B marketers:

1.    Understanding the buyer process and personas of the target audience in order to develop an optimal content model and delivery channels.

2.    Extending Marketing programs to cover the sales process and understanding our sales persona in order to develop an optimal content model for sales that adds value to the customer buying process.

3.    Optimizing a cohesive content model that supports both the buying and selling process.

Ultimately this reinforces the notion that Content Is King, but if we don’t understand both the buying and selling process, as well as our buying and selling personas, we will be producing content for the sake of content and not meeting any of the true requirements of our customers or our sales teams.

6.    Content is King, but Comparative Content is The Kings Ransom

Content may be King but it is comparative content that your buyers want—

Content that compares how your solution stacks up against your competitors. Closely following comparative content is pricing information. These are the two most valued types of information and searches across buyers when using the internet for research, yet these two types of information are most resisted by marketers and sales alike, in an attempt to control information and force engagements with the brand.

 

2010 will see an increase in comparative and pricing content on vendor websites by aggressive marketers who want to define the competitive framework. First movers will gain leverage by introducing this content first. Do the following search:“enter your company/solution name here” vs  “enter your competitor’s company/solution name here” . You may be surprised at what comes up.

 

7.    Segment Based Nurturing

By now we have all learned that it is important to nurture, and most of us have put in place the Ubiquitous Newsletter that touches our base at least a few times a year or month. Some of us have even put into place some automated touches of emails that are sent out at predefined intervals to inquires in an attempt to get them to re-engage or push information to accelerate a buying process. Segment based nurturing is the next stage of this nurturing process where we put into place a very comprehensive communications flow whose message evolves over time based on actions taken.

 

In short, segment based nurturing revolves around the notion that the conversation you have today is different from the one you have next month based on level of interest, need, actions, content taken, etc. To do this well you must have the right tool sets in place (i.e. Eloqua, Marketo, Genius-I’m a customer). The tools sets are rapidly evolving and coming down in cost. If you don’t have this type of capability, you need to make 2010 the year you implement a basic marketing automation platform.

 

As I said last year, many of us that have these platforms in place are still only using them as glorified email engines, but the real power is when we leverage them as segmentation engines that happen to have email as a feature.

 

 

To realize this value we must bring together an enriched and accurate marketing database, a well designed web site, improved understanding of our content model, and its relation to the buying process, and persona requirements.  When this happens very advanced and segmented-automated nurturing can be applied. In 2010 we will see more companies move to this more advanced level of nurturing, along with increased adoption of marketing automation platforms.

 

8.    Operationalizing the Marketing Convergence of Art & Science

Is marketing an art or a science? The answer is yes. When the science meets the art in a more structured way, exciting marketing messages, creative, campaigns can and will result. More companies are realizing this benefit, and are looking to formalize the “marketing gearbox” where art meets science.

 

This may take the form of a dedicated operations role or through process where the analytics works side-by-side with the creative process. Increasingly we will see this convergence become more formalized across more and more companies in 2010.

 

9.    Social CRM Takes Root

 

 

 

The year 2009 saw Social CRM start to hit the main stage with the announcement of twitter integration into

Salesforce, Comcast Cable use of twitter to serve customers, and Best Buy’s Twelp Force. More companies, including my own, are increasingly monitoring social media channels in an effort to support customer issues, both positive and negative.  

 

2010 will see accelerated integration of these channels into CRM and service systems as it represents an ideal way for companies to have an efficient dialogue and improve overall brand and customer experience. This is one area of social media that can be quickly monetized and measured.

10.   Rise of Community Thought Leadership

Thought leadership has been around for some time as an objective for marketers to drive. In most cases thought leadership takes a more strategic approach to a company’s messaging or positioning objectives, such as “trying to educate a market”, “influence opinion makers”, “position the company’s vision as the industry vision”. In my view, thought leadership is an important part of the overall marketing mix and should be invested in.

 

However I do believe that there is a new dimension coming to thought leadership and that is “community thought leadership”. Scott Mersey of Genius.com recently blogged that the difference between Community Thought Leadership & Thought Leadership is:

“The key difference between Community Leadership and Thought Leadership is that this approach means that help and relevant content is provided freely and without strings so that any member of the community - whether or not ever a “prospect” to become a customer - comes away with actionable information and insight into how to solve their problems. It’s leadership that’s vendor agnostic and broader than a piece designed to capture leads.”

Henrik Ibsen once said that “A community is like a ship; everyone ought to be prepared to take the helm.”  This really denotes the difference, in my view, between our traditional approach to marketing thought leadership and community based thought leadership. In the traditional sense we are focused on getting our message out, and not so concerned with dialogue, or as Mersey states “Focused on Monologue”.

 

In community thought leadership we are a member of a relevant community, and focused on influencing and building advocacy for our views across many community members. In doing this we take part in meaningful dialogue, and debate where our initial thought/idea/position is subject to evolution based on input from the community.

Community thought leadership is growing more important to B2B marketers as communities are becoming increasingly important as vehicles where our ecosystem engages, and shares ideas in an increasing manner. So how does one define a successful community thought leadership effort?

1.    Become part of a relevant community.

2.    Share your ideas freely and provide information that is free of vendor speak and requirements such as registration.

3.    Have thoughtful debate and dialogue.

4.    Be willing to evolve your position.

5.    Focus on building advocacy, not monologue.

 

In 2010 we will see more push on community thought leadership as part of a comprehensive thought leadership program.

 

I wish all of you great success in 2010. Nuff Said.

Marketers Wake Up! Google’s Sidewiki Brings New Social Dimensions to Your Company's Digital Doorstep

Last week Google announced on their blog the addition of a new feature called the Google SideWiki. This new feature is being positioned as a feature that allows you to learn and get help from others.

The  Google Sidewiki, allows you to contribute comments, information, point of view directly to any webpage. The Google Sidewiki appears as a browser sidebar, where you can read and write entries along the side of the page. You can then syndicate your posts through other social media channels including Twitter and Facebook.

The ramifications for marketers, I believe, are significant if this takes off, and I have no reason to doubt that it won’t. First it makes every web page on your company web site social. That means that as prospects, customers, partners, media come to your website they can see the comments that others have left, both good and bad and post their own comments. I would imagine competitors can even leave comments now on your website if they would like to.

Why is this important? Word of Mouth is the #1 or 2 (depending on what survey you read) influencing factor on your buying cycles. Through Sidewiki Google has now brought word of mouth right to your companies door step.

This ultimately means that if you aren’t listening or monitoring what’s being said about you that you really need to start, as your website is your company’s primary communication and marketing vehicle today. If you’re not engaging, or conversing through social media channels, than you better start thinking about it.

 

Jeremiah Owyang does a great job of providing some key steps to take to help you formulate your strategy in response to this at his website. I recommend you read them.  After reading those suggestions I recommend you do two things:

1.   Download Sidewiki at google.com/sidewiki  and contribute your own entries alongside some web pages and syndicate out to some social media channels, so you see it and get it

2.   Have a meeting with your team to discuss what this means to website strategy, how you will monitor, and how you will respond to disgruntled customers, employees, and competitors.

  

Let me know your thoughts. Nuff Said…

In the Age of Social Media Brands Would Do Well to Take Every Complaint Seriously

Should you care if some irate client complains on Twitter that he wasn’t happy with your service? After all he only has a few followers. Most people look askance when you ask them if they blog, or tweet. What’s a tweet ?, is a common question I get. According to Forrester most people are really not engaged all that much across any social media channel. So does it really matter?

Here is a great example of when the power of publishing is put into the hands of a disgruntled customer. Apparently United Airlines broke this guy’s guitar and according to him after a year of going round, and round they refused to replace/repair or fix it.

Being a creative chap with creative friends he did a “protest” video, and put it on You Tube. Well 550K views later, after being picked up on national news broadcasts United’s brand is taking a hit in the world of web 2.0 and beyond and is being positioned  by a single individual as “The Brand that Breaks Guitars”.

Should brands care when people complain in social media? Granted there are only a few of us who are active and make our voices heard across social media channels. @Delatsucks tweeted that “Last Delta representative I spoke with literally said, "We do not care about social media. It has no impact on our business model."

Well social media may not have a direct impact on your ability to sell tickets and fly planes, but it can and will have an ever increasing impact on your brand, and that does have a direct impact on your business model. The change today is that a single individual could conceivably position your brand to millions of prospective customers without your knowing or control. Does United really want to be positioned across 550K people (& growing every second) that it is the airline that breaks guitars?

Perhaps the guitar carrying segment is fairly small and would have a negligible impact on United. However what about the larger population who could be influenced to think about United as a company that does not provide good customer service, or cares very little about its customer. Would United care about that?

The real question is does any brand care when anyone complains regardless of communication channel, and are they authentic in their desire to resolve the issue in a fair and amendable manner. This directly relates to the brand experience the company wants to create. In today’s environment companies big and small must take into account the frictionless word of mouth communication era that we live in, where there is unlimited publishing capacity for creative individuals. Today’s brands must begin to view complaints as an opportunity to engage and build a positive brand experience. Just as the age old adage goes” I’d rather know when someone is unhappy versus not knowing, and then I can do something about it. Nuff said.

 

 

 

 

 

B2B CMO’s Still Don’t Get Social Media

BtoB Online caught up with several CMO’s to get their take on what they are doing different this year versus last year. In short:

·         Trend to Online media

·         Much more use of social media in marketing programs

·         Greater use of rich media (i.e Video)

·         Using marketing tactics in a more integrated way to build thought leadership

·         Leveraging social media to bring the voice of the customer into play.

I’m very surprised at the number of CMO’s who use the term social media, marketing, and lead generation/sales in the same sentence. I have a hard time bringing social media into that context. Social media, in my view, is about the conversation first and foremost and in being authentic, transparent and honest in that conversation. Lead-gen, and sales are nice things that may, or may not happen, but to focus on those areas as the primary objectives of bringing social media into the mix still confirms to me that most of us in B2B marketing view social media as tactics instead of communication.

(Too be fair to all. These comments are short and may not represent the ideal context of their intentions)

Tom Haas, of Siemens, did say that their goal was to really support a conversation between their company and its customers and I think that is the right goal to have. I also liked the thoughts from Jack Mason, of IBM, who said that IBM has launched a new program using rich media to capture a much more personal, and real side of the people that make up the their brand. This is a brilliant agenda, in my view, as we too often hide behind technology, and don’t get the individuals that make the brand out in front. Of course it may be that I’m the one who doesn’t get it. Nuff said

The Evolving Role of PR and Social Media: 5 Questions with Lois Paul of Lois Paul & Partners

 Lois Paul co-founded LP&P in 1986, with the aim of building an agency that did high-tech public relations a different way. Prior to founding LP&P, Lois was executive editor/features and a founding member of PC Week (now eWeek). During her tenure, she was responsible for more than 50 percent of the newspaper’s editorial content and specialized in reporting on the computer software industry. Prior to the launch of PC Week, Lois was senior editor/software at Computerworld, the leading computer weekly publication at the time.

Disclaimer: The Company I work for, “Lumension”, is a client of LP&P.

1. There has been a lot said and written in recent months that with the advent of social media there is no longer a need for Public Relations firms. What’s your take on that point of view?

There is no question that Public Relations has had to evolve over the past few years, in particular, as the marketplace has changed and social media has become a more critical communication channel to customers and the industry.  The Public Relations professionals who have embraced this change are in higher demand than ever.  Social media adds a new element to a marketing mix that requires careful strategy, monitoring and measurement to be truly successful and high ROI.  It fits perfectly into a good Public Relations firm’s mix of programs that are customized based on each client’s market and needs.  Beyond this, the opportunity afforded by social media to speak directly to customers means companies need to speak their language.  A good Public Relations firm can help with this.

2. Lots of companies today are trying to figure out how to use social media tools within their business. What is your advice to those companies on how to begin?

Just this week I talked with several companies who are at this beginning point.  My advice is always to determine your end game – who are you trying to reach with social media and what is your ultimate goal for the conversations you want to engage in with those people.  Once you clarify your target and mission, you need to assemble your assets to determine what content you have and what you need to assemble; who will ultimately own content development, monitoring services, etc.  Essentially you need to build a social media plan, just as you strategically plan all aspects of a solid communications program and measure their results.  At the same time, you should spend time listening to online conversations on blogs, Twitter, FriendFeed, LinkedIn, and others to learn who is talking about you, your products, competitors and problems you’re trying to solve.  This provides valuable data that can help formulate the strategy.

3. What are your thoughts on the “Social Media Press Release”? Does it replace the tried and true press release we all grew up with?

In short, there’s a place for both social and more traditional news releases.  We have used the social media style releases for many of our clients, but not in all circumstances.   A strategy release that really needs to document a story cannot be handled as well with this type of release, for example.  In many ways, the traditional press release needs an overhaul, whether or not it is to shift it to the series of links that is essentially the format of a social media release.  We often suggest news advisories or bypass releases entirely and strategically target news dissemination.  Many sales forces feel that a win hasn’t happened unless there is a press release.  In those companies, we suggest a shorter format for releases that are less labor intensive and will require shorter review cycles to achieve their ultimate goals.

That said, companies should use social media releases to offer atomized pieces of content that complement the information in the release itself.  This allows bloggers, (increasingly) traditional media and members of a company's buying community that are publishers/ creators of information to embed in their own posts or online articles about the subject of the release.  The other aspect that's more important now in the age of microsharing is to include triggers that prompt people to share the news, such as a "Tweet This" summary that is hyperlinked so someone can more easily distribute it. 

The other view we have is that there is not a one-size-fits-all template that should be followed for every release. That said, the templates that are out there help to determine what people and companies should consider adding to releases.  There are certain elements that should be in every release (links to company web site, Twitter summaries, straight URL's to content/channels on third party services like Flickr, YouTube, related links, calls to action with simple links to a purpose landing page for the release so it is measurable, etc.), but not every release should be in a bulleted format, nor should every release include multimedia content.

4. What type of policy issues should a company consider before embarking on a social media/blogging program? Do we now need safe zones in the company where twittering or blogging on items discussed is not allowed?

Public companies in general need to be mindful of all of the rules related to selective disclosure before they embark on a social media policy.  Public or not, all companies really should establish a policy that helps everyone understand how to proceed – whether it is with regard to a company-sponsored blog or Twitter channel or a personal blog, Twitter feed or Facebook or MySpace pages.  Just yesterday I talked with a company that has some strong contributors to Twitter building relationships on that channel.  Their CEO wants to pull them back a tad, just to make sure they are careful about disclosing information too soon that might come out of conversations with clients, prospects or partners.  Twitter is such an immediate medium that it’s key that all heavy users are well versed in corporate guidelines before they inadvertently reveal information prematurely or inappropriately.

5. The approach Johnson and Johnson took to its product tampering issues in the 80’s has long been viewed as the gold standard in crisis communication. How does this approach to crisis communications hold up in the world of web 2.0?

I think J&J’s approach, which I remember well, still stands up today.  I have done many blog posts talking about how companies or even individuals would have been better served by being straightforward in the face of a crisis.  It’s important to determine the facts, the key stakeholders, and the designated official spokesperson.  Then it is key to be as clear and transparent as possible, using all appropriate channels.  If you cannot answer a question, you should be clear about that.  But you should provide as much information as you can as quickly as you can.  Social media is just another channel in this type of communications approach.  A corporate blog gives companies a perfect forum to disclose information in a controlled way, linking to press releases, videos, etc. that will help them communicate the facts in a clear way.  Twitter is a way to push this out more broadly.  When I was a journalist, I always sensed that information one of us would dig out was always bigger news that information that was revealed to us.  I think that still holds in the world of Web 2.0 and social media gives companies new tools to control and self-publish that information.

5 Key Insights for CMOs from CMOs

I’m a member of great social media community called The CMO CLUB. The community is for senior marketing leaders to come together and share ideas, and thoughts on the issues of the day.

 

Pete Krainik, started the club and has done a great job at taking the club to the next level. Earlier this year Pete asked the Truman Company, an executive marketing consulting firm, to help The CMO Club develop a set of actionable insights, gathered from club members in an effort to help navigate these trying times, and build successful strategies for 2009 and beyond.

 

The result of this effort was “Insights from CMOs” — the collective wisdom of nine CMO Club members based on in-depth interviews with the Truman Company conducted in early 2009. I thought I would share the top 5 insights as I think its good advice in this age we are in:

 

1.   Customer Centricity: Marketers must take responsibility in brining the voice of the customer into the organization and help the organization identify where, and how to add value to these customer relationships. I agree, but I also think this is one of the most challenging areas. With more pressure on short term revenue generation, and decreasing budgets this reality is harder to achieve, but we shouldn’t lose focus of the importance.

 

            "It’s marketing’s job to make sure that the consumersare at the center of the process."

2.   Marketing must secure a strategic role in the organization: Marketers must focus on demonstrating how they add value and ROI to the business in order to have a voice at the table. True, and depending on the organization this can be a tough one. Sometimes marketing is viewed as nothing more than the “cake & cookies” functions or “those guys that make pretty pictures”. If this is your reality, then it is imperative that you shift the discussion, and the function of marketing as the full value of marketing is not being met.

 

                    "Every time I sit down in front of the CEO or the CFO, I should act like I’m pitching an idea to venture capitalists."

3.   Marketing must become the key agent of change within the organization-Marketing can do this by shedding light on the customer. If you’re successful in points 1 & 2 you will naturally be the agent of change.There are also several dimensions of change taking place that marketing must lead in as noted below.

 

 

4.   Internal stakeholders are just as important as external stakeholders. This is a key insight in my view as marketing must align itself with sales, product development, service and the c-suit if it is to be a successful function. One reason why the turnover is so high in the CMO role is due to this insight.

 

            "Spend 50% of your time educating your internal stakeholders on the value of marketing, and speak in their language."

 

5.   Drive short term revenue but ensure the longer term view. This is especially true in this environment. Marketing must focus on driving revenue but not at the expense of keeping our eye on the long term strategy, and in supporting and enhancing our brand promise to our customers and markets.

 

 

All quotes and graphics in this blog post are from the executive presentation which I have posted here: Download CMOInsightsPresentationforNYSummit19May09. The full report can be found for members of the CMO Club.