Beyond Good is Useful

Think about 'why' we use the web. We' are looking for something. Right? It may be information or perhaps entertainment but either way we are looking to consume something. In the marketing game, providing your 'something' meets the 'what I am looking for' criteria, the player which efficiently acquires & retains the most consumers has the best odds of winning.

Previously, 'retain' was a big challenge. If our audience must continually seek out what we offer, we run the risk of losing them to other 'somethings' that may have caught their fickle interest. In the last few years a common 'good' marketing tactic is to provide consumers with an opt-in tool that 'pushes' desired content/information to them - think an RSS feed of your newsletter for example. This way consumers do not have to seek us out - we go to them. For the nimble, this tactic was a source of significant competitive advantage. The problem with a competitive advantage of course is that it's fleeting. Once others pick up on it, it becomes a common commodity with a tonne of competing noise a.k.a. no loner an advantage.

Today competitive advantage can be found in providing consumers with a relative 'something' that transcends your product/service. This 'something' is often a digital share or web social tool.

Branded widgets and apps are clever and 'useful' push tactics that can regularly prompt our audience to perform a personal-positive-outcome action. This is clever because the benefit activity [X] delivers, is then psychology connected to your brand/products/services. Executed well, widgets can be an excellent launch point for achieving today's competitive advantage goals.

Here are a couple of examples of big brand widget implementations.

• Having a tough time remembering to drink your daily recommended water in-take? Millions of us are. Try this Johnson & Johnson widget. http://bit.ly/Hydration-tracker_TLblog13
  

• Have you ever forgotten to send someone birthday greetings? Hallmark can help you to remember. http://bit.ly/Hallmark-reminder_TLblog13

• Want to know which products or services can earn you bonus membership rewards points? American Express to the rescue. http://bit.ly/Amex-rewards_TLblog13

When we embrace digital technology, the possibilities are endless.
So also remember to think beyond the web for 'useful' tools. How about offering trade show delegates a branded USB stick with your promotional materials loaded on it. It costs less than a 10 page glossy brochure and there's a high probability the recipient will keep, use, and appreciate you for it. [Sit outside near the convention facilities doors and watch delegates as they leave. You'll be shocked at the volume of promotional materials that are dumped already at that point. Many don't even wait to do the purge at their hotel room.] For a fraction more money you can add more value by attaching the USB on a lanyard. Delegates can wear it around their neck for convenient access to load other materials. Now you have walking billboards. A prime real estate billboard I might add. The USB should hang at the same eye level and beside everyone's name tag - the first place you look when introducing yourself to someone at an event.

Finally, when architecting a marketing campaign, rule one is we cannot rely on one great tactic, no matter how useful, to accomplish our goals. We must economically incorporate as many 'in-line' touch points as possible to guide our audience toward the finish line. Therefore, don't abandon tried and true 'good' tactics. Integrate the new with the old and proliferate for increased breadth, loyalty, and acquisition.

Here are a few links to widget provider sites to get you thinking...
Widget Box
Widgets Lab
Web Wag

What is a Marketing Director / Strategist / Manager?

Recently I've chatted with executives and recruiting teams charged with hiring a Marketing Director, Marketing Strategist, or Marketing Manager. There seems to be a good deal of confusion among the non-marketers as to what to expect from these roles. For this post I thought I'd offer my generalized but otherwise accurate definition.

A marketing director/strategist/manager is... part architect and part technology enthusiast. We are always passionate about the big picture and mentoring the individuals that bring the vision to life. We are perpetual students of business, business intelligence, and numbers. Today more than ever, we are knowledgeable as to the technical capabilities, compromises, and requirements of the electronic tools that empower our profession. Finally, through experience we've acquired the real-life wisdom for creating and guiding marketing strategies, budgets, plans, assets, systems, processes, and KPI's that will truly effect profitable business results. We wear a dozen hats and juggle them well.


A marketing director/strategist/manager is not... an expert in the physical creation of all the individual components that make up the marketing plan. For example, I am very knowledgeable as to what a well optimized website looks like, and in a 2.0 world how it should perform. I've even developed a few sites myself! This knowledge however, is a far cry from being a qualified website developer. These web professionals have intimate knowledge of database architecture, design, flexibility, and scalability. They dream about the intricacies of usability on the multitude of browsers and platforms. They have strong working knowledge of all of the various development languages and tools one can employ on the web. Each and every category of marketing includes a similarly lengthy list of competencies. A qualified director/manager will bring on professionals with the required qualifications.

In short, it's your marketing director/manager/strategist's job to determine what is needed to meet organizational needs, architect an integrated plan that delivers on those needs, put together a team with the specific development expertise that is required, guide and mentor the creative process, monitor on-going results, and massage the plan, the mix, the controls, the team, and the assets as situational events occur. Shake-it-up and repeat.

CONTENT WAR Is Google truly stealing revenue?

My take on the search engine vs. publisher debate.

Admittedly as a marketer my job would be significantly harder should I not have access to the plethora of free news content I now enjoy. This said, I firmly believe neither I, nor anyone else, has a fundamental right to consume for free what others have paid to create.

Let's compare the attempts at 'free' bike share programs around the world to 'free' news share on the internet.

First, because a large influential institution has enlisted the participation of multiple entities to provide 'free' access to bicycles does that mean that everyone's bicycles are up for grabs? Even if we lock ours up, does any passerby with an interest have the right take our bike out for a spin? No. We paid for our bike and may have even taken reasonable precautions for its security. Someone just helping themselves to our bike is not OK.

Second, the bike share programs have significant positive attributes for all concerned. Lowered emissions and congestion with improved user health and regional awareness to name a few. The same benefits could be spun as an argument for free digital access to news. The reality? The ideal in its free form is not sustainable. From Amsterdam in The Netherlands, through LaRouche in Paris, and Portland, USA these free bicycle programs have gone the way of the Dodo bird. Why? 1"An inability to compensate for the cost of theft and vandalism."

...or is the real threat exposure?

I am by no means a fan of most news publishers. In my humble opinion their financial woes have nothing to do with Google, Yahoo, Bing or any other search engine. Their decreasing revenues are in most part the result of poor product development. A fact that search engines highlight. With the aid of search engines we can quickly filter for quality content. If a publisher chooses to pump out unstimulated content or thin rehashes of the same stories they have spun for the last week, they will feel the effect visa vi fewer consumers. Online or offline, fewer consumers means fewer advertisers and lower premiums. After all, publishers sell promo space in both mediums. The same thin content pain goes for magazines and journals as well. Just as I'll get up and leave a conference room if the content of a presentation is laden with marketing fluff [and I'm a marketer] I'll take my valuable readership else where when articles are peppered with brand mentions and product plugs.

What is obvious in the search engine vs publishers debate is that they can generate far greater revenue as partners than they can individually. For both parties, the bulk of their revenue model rests on their ability to deliver an audience. I suspect recent plays in the media by Rupert Murdoch and some other newspaper owners are more red herrings than accurate predictions of a future without 'ready access to information'. Indeed the days of making off with locked bicycles may soon be gone. But just as bike share programs are evolving into sustainable models, so too shall search engines and publishers figure out a mutually beneficial model.

Google's floated answer to the problem today was the catalyst for my writing this post. Here's my quick assessment of their solution.

As I understand it, a single visitor will be able to access a maximum of five articles per publication after which the reader will be required to sign in. I can't imagine that publishers will sign on for this. For one I'd be interested in knowing how many visitors to any given site read more than five articles per viewing. Sadly, as mentioned above, the majority simply don't produce that much new and interesting content. Also the ability to track a session is traditionally the result of cookies; something a visitor can easily delete in order to extend their access. Granted Google is one heck of an intellectual power house [the driving reason why I think they're amazing] so the tracking tool[s] they use to monitor a session may very well not be cookies.

Final thoughts...

I'd wager many of us categorize Google as Robin Hood in this scenario. Taking from the rich to give to the poor. They reinvest a respectable percentage of the wealth in building powerful tools that they make available to each and every one of us - free of charge. Right, wrong, or indifferent, it certainly makes it hard to not love them.

Citation:
1Wikipedia article re bike sharing initiatives: http://bit.ly/WP-bikeshare_TL-post11

Post Image:
Freely sourced from: http://bit.ly/JFenzel-image_TL-post11
[note: original image source unknown]

Citation:
Google's floated solution. American Free Press [AFP]: http://bit.ly/Google_PR_TL-post11

Social? Contribute where and what will add value.

A rising number of B2B executives over the past couple of months have said to me 'they feel their organization needs to be actively involved in social networking'. This, followed very closely by their request for advice as to how they can gain an appreciable presence on Twitter, etc.

Aside from discussion surrounding my questions... why? and to what end? My 50k-foot advice is always the same. First determine where your relevant communities are interacting. This requires a decent amount of research. Is it really Twitter? Maybe. Or are we knee jerking? In B2B, the answer is just as likely to be news groups, forums, or other less sexy but potentially more relevant spaces.

Once the space is determined, listen & learn. Another investment. Understand what a valuable contribution sounds, looks, feels, and tastes like. In the introduction to the book 'Built to Last', authors Jim Collins and Jerry Porras write "What is the true price of a book? Not the fifteen- to twenty-five dollar cover price. For a busy person, the cover price pales in comparison to the hours required to read and digest a book." Applying a value rational to our posts, where our intended consumer has no vested interest [they didn't buy it] and can easily click away, our contribution should at minimum be worth the equivalent value of the 'read & digest' professional time. Think about the quality of content we often see. Do we really care that Joe is at the airport waiting for his flight, or Mary is anxiously awaiting Susan's keynote speech? For most of us the resounding answer is NO. We tune out and turn off... quickly. However if Mary posted highlights or nuggets of wisdom from Susan's speech AND it was relevant to us, our business and it's needs, would we positively take note? For most of us the resounding answer is YES.

In short, the concept of community 'share' is not new. Not by a long shot. And yes, there is very little doubt any B2B organization can benefit from some logical, intelligent form of contribution. The challenge is, we are playing with very easy-to-use tools that only require a click of a button to publish [community/social platforms] and an incredibly powerful publishing engine that never forgets [the web]. My advice? Employ the tools well... think twice, get creative, and contribute where and what will add value; for all parties.

Associated reading material: AIIM Industry Watch Report
Collaboration and Enterprise 2.0; Work-meets-play or the future of business?
© 2009 AIIM - Find, Control, and Optimize Your Information

Determining marketing strategy: step one

First we need to understand where we are currently positioned in the minds of our target market[s]. Spend, thus strategy needs to be aligned with positioning. The five stages of consciousness [positioning] we typically focus on acquiring are....

awareness = you exist
interest = sticky trigger that resonates
top of mind = automatically on the ‘to be considered' and/or ‘take the call’ lists
preference = standard by which others are measured
conversion = best resolved ‘what keeps them up at night’

Logically we cannot achieve stage 5 'conversion' unless we have achieved the preceding stages. This excerpted video from a live staging of the classic McGraw-Hill "Man in the Chair" ad at the Business Marketing Association's 2009 national conference does a spectacular job of bringing this point home.



Additionally, the more stages we need to acquire the longer the process. To a certain extent the greater our resources the better empowered we are to speed up acquisition, but we also need to be very cognizant of 'diminishing returns' and 'waste'.

Our marketing strategies are typically segmented into three time sensitive categories; short term results, mid term results, and growth & sustainability. As discussed, the shorter the time frame the fewer stages we can appreciably affect; therefore the more granular our target and subsequent strategies. The following representation of the three categories and the goals I have associated with them is typical of B2B environments where our product/service falls under a high consideration/high investment purchase category. If your offering falls outside of a typical six to twelve month sales cycle adjust the time line accordingly.

short term results
6-12 month time line
acquisition goals: preference thru conversion
reach: targeted prospects
strategy: direct dialogue.

mid term results
13-24 month time line
acquisition goals: interest thru conversion
reach: targeted market[s].
strategy: community dialogue.

growth & sustainability
3-5 year time line
acquisition goals: awareness thru conversion
reach: broad opportunities.
strategy: seed and steward.

Our top down organizational needs will determine the percentage of marketing resources we can apply to each of the three time sensitive categories. If for example our organization is in 'critical care' mode, with an immediate need for revenue infusion, we may be forced to allocate >70% of resources toward short term results, but this is risky. Focusing almost exclusively on the bleed without at minimum stabilizing overall health is not sustainable. The best strategy is to architect a plan that nourishes a healthy state at all stages while continuously monitoring and adjusting for our vitals.

When branding interferes with persuasion.

I read two papers in the last week re Web Analytics Assesment/Usage.

Appraising Your Investment In
Enterprise Web Analytics

● research conducted in Q2-thru-Q3 2009 by Forresters

● authored by Forresters Consulting
● commissioned by Google.

The Cost of Free

● based on research conducted in Q2 2009 by Forresters
● presented by web tech experts
● commissioned by Omniture.

Both are informative reads - thank you to all contributors for making them freely accessible. And both appear to present the data and subsequent analysis in the light most complimentary to their commissioners business interests - S.O.P... Aside from the content of each paper, what I find most interesting is the profound differences in positioning.

Should you read each paper you'll notice...
Branding

• the Google version includes a persistent but relatively obscure mention of Google as the host through out.
• the Omniture version includes logo and their standard collateral look & feel through out.

Scripting

• the Google version is academic, void of product mentions or associative need/solution based content.
  
• the Omniture version is promotional with a high volume of product mentions and associative need/solution based content.

Objectivity

• the Google version includes full disclosure of research methodology. Is authored by the researchers, Forresters.
• the Omniture version discloses competitors. It employs the reputations of web tech experts cited as the presenters; John Lovett [senior analyst at Forresters Research] along with Tony Bradshaw and Tim Munsell [senior DaveRamsey.com representatives]. Note... presenter vs author may be a matter of semantics.
  

My questions is...
Which approach do you believe to be more effective?

My take...
If the consumer believes the data and conclusions presented adheres to unbiased and accepted research standards they are more apt to use the information to assess competitive 'value offered'. Therefore perceived 'truth of data' is a significant factor in the probability of tactic persuasion. Google's hands-off approach feels more objective, thus credible, thus able to persuade.

Given the Omniture paper is categorized as a 'workbook' it may not be entirely fair to make an apples-to-apples comparison. As a workbook I would suspect presenting participants with the data and interspersing it with [carefully crafted] questions, allowing them to form their our own Omniture affirmative conclusions, may be a more persuasive variation on the original approach.

To access a link to each paper please click on it's corresponding image above.

Asking for the cheque.

In yesterdays post I wrote about the frequent opportunity we are now provided by freeware developers to donate a few dollars in trade for using their application. This is a smart revenue generation tactic on their part. One I assume most of us do not mind being requested to participate in... providing we gain value for our contribution.

My question is 'How successful are these appeals?'

Situation
This morning when I opened my Firefox browser I was greeted with a number of 'thank you' pages from developer groups whose add-ons I had installed last night. All included some variation-or-another on an honest and simple request... "Should you like using the application we would appreciate a donation". And conveniently they provide a donate button directly underneath the appeal.

Problem
We are making the appeal before our consumers have had a chance to test drive the app.

A good comparative is when our server at a restaurant asks us 'how is everything?' right when we're taking our first bite. Not only is our mouth full of food, rendering us pretty much incapable of a legible response. But more to the point, we haven't had a chance to start forming a 'value' opinion yet.

Suggestion
First, change that initial communication experience. Simply thank our consumer for...

• taking the time to download and test our app
• trusting our solution
  

Second, set expectations... i.e.

From time to time we release feature updates for 'X'. [browser name] will prompt you when these are available. Our ability to continuously add value to this and other applications is in great part determined by you. Should you decide to upgrade when new features become available we would appreciate a small donation. Your support keeps our computers humming, your applications free of ads, and engineers working hard for you.

Third, update often. Requesting a donation at that time.

Providing our consumers are satisfactorily engaged with us/our product [?] our efforts should be well rewarded.