What’s Working in Marketing

This week’s top five had some good news for B2B marketers on growing budgets and some executives speaking out on what they are doing in this economy to be successful. We’ve also got a couple of other interesting, not marketing-related posts to share from Punxsutawney Phil’s shadow statistics and a bonus article to vote for your favorite Superbowl Ad… Here we go:

1.  Most Practical:  Close-up with Randy Tinseth, VP-marketing, Boeing Corp.
The unique challenge Boeing has is their finite customer base, yet they seem to well position their business for growth despite the economy, never mind dealing with all the cost cutting measures happening in the airline industry.  Tinseth speaks about the challenges with managing their customers, and how they handled dealing with dissapointed customers when they had to cancel a test flight of their new Dreamliner.  I liked his practical, common-sense approach throughout the Q&A.

2.  Hope on the Horizon: B-to-b online marketing spending to increase this year

This was some good news for B2B marketers, online marketing budgets are back in the black this year, and will grow 12% over five years.  What I also thought was interesting was the last sentence in this short article that idenfitied a gap between what publishers are offering for lead generation and what we (as marketers) are looking for.   Innovation is desperately needed there!

3.  From the Dark Side:  Gartner Reveals Five Social Software Predictions for 2010 and Beyond

I jest about this being from the dark side, but Gartner does spell out some important issues for adopting social software.  It’s not all roses.   The report highlights the challenges ahead for enterprises who will be implementing social software  for collaboration and communication purposes.  They are predicting major behavioral changes such as  social software will replace email for at least 20% of social users, and that many enterprises will fail in their social software strategies before they succeed.  Good food for thought.

4.  From the Far Side:  An Analysis of Punxsutawney Phil, the Great Weather-Predicting Chuck

So, you thought you knew everything about Punxsutawney Phil?  I always get a kick out of how we measure whether or not we will see 6 more weeks of winter or not…it’s usually the latter.   Get the latest statistics here…

5.  Most Fascinating: Extinct Scotch Found in Antarctic Ice

Scotch on the rocks, please…literally!  Wouldn’t you love to find any kind of remnant from Sir Earnest Shackleton’s journey, never mind a rare scotch?  How cool a find this is!

6.  Bonus:  Vote on your favorite Superbowl Ad!

Technically from this morning (vs. last week), I couldn’t resist sharing this link. Especially if you missed some of the commercials, you can get your fix here.  Be careful with the volume on this one, the first video commercial plays immediately…

Until next week…

I was on a conference call Friday afternoon when the phrase came up again around marketers “have lost control of the message.” (Hat tip to our dear friend Walt Boyes)…but Walt went further and described the “Wac-a-mole” scenario which made laugh…then cry.   Actually, I thought it was a pretty accurate depiction of the state of some communication strategies, which goes something  like this : Once a company acquires a new contact, they wack ‘em with endless email communications, and just keep wacking them over and over..just like the game.   Now while this image is funny, it’s not too far from the truth as to what companies are doing today for the communications strategy.  Tsk..tsk…we need to remember that this is why some companies can really mess things up when it comes to social media and building brand trust.

Why?  Because email communications are a far cry from “dialoging” with your customer.   And taking a “telling” or “megaphone” approach in all your marketing programs will not build trust, instead people will leave skidmarks and remember those who really annoy them.  Remember, in our survey we published in the e-newsletter, the #1 annoyance factor for many buyers is too many emails.

But also, the role of influence has changed, as has how trust is built.  I liked how Eric Fulwiler described a new “horizontal” flow of trust that exists now with social networks.  We can very quickly get the opinions of others without much effort, and typically bypass the company itself.  And if you are on a web site to purchase a product, we can look at customer reviews and see what others are saying before buying.

This makes marketing more challenging, because influence which was once more a trickle-down type effect, is now amorphous and comes from any and all directions.

That’s why another thing Walt said that resonated with me is this: Marketers and PR folk need to act as mediators vs. moguls of information. A mediator enables communication, they listen, and are instrumental in helping build and maintain trust (especially in difficult situations).   In the social world, mediators serve to help connect people with the right subject matter experts in an organization, and act as traffic directors to find answers to the questions people are looking for online as well as mitigate problems.  As more companies loosen the reigns and invite their subject matter experts to participate directly in social networking, PR and marketers will need to find a new “place.” The days of owning relationships, especially in the media/editorial world, are over.  Social networks remove those barriers.  A mediator can gain tremendous insight by listening for customer and buyer queues, help make the right connections, and facilitate dialog where possible with the right people.  Now this is what builds real trust.  We couldn’t agree more.

This week had several articles to parse through, but I have it narrowed down to five that I think are worth reading.  Here it goes:

#1.  Salt to the Wound: After Three Months, Only 35 Subscriptions for Newsday’s Web Site

I forgot to reference this article in my post last week about the troubles of newspaper publications to find a sustaining revenue model.  This is just so pitiful.  It costs money to put together newspaper stories.  It’s people, their time, blood, sweat and tears.  Is there no  value in that?  I started wondering if whole industry moves to a subscription model to access content?   If they all move in that direction, won’t we have to comply?  But it really needs to be all of them, together.  Here there may be power in numbers.

2. From the Far Side:  GSA CIO tweets from endangered plane

This was like reading something out of the Twilight Zone.  What’s going on airplanes these days anyway? Can’t we all just relax for once and not have some ridiculous passenger causing a problem which then creates huge process upsets that affect each and every one of us? Come on now… Not to mention Twitter breaking the news…

3. Most practical: The Best Way to Add Video to Your Marketing (and the Biggest Mistake You Should Avoid): A Q&A with ‘Get Seen’ Author Steve Garfield

This is just a really great, no-nonsense article that is useful for anyone considering adding video to your marketing mix.

4.  Most Fascinating:  Engineer works to tap energy from icy crystals | Business | Chron.com – Houston Chronicle

This came across my radar after Mike Boudreaux shared this article on Twitter earlier this week.  I like that we are finding alternative energy sources, and for some reason I thought this approach sounded extra promising.

5.  Add to Reading List:  You need to read Seth Godin’s Linchpin. Or be a cog in the machine. Your choice.

Last week, Seth Godin released a new book called Linchpin.  This review caught my attention because it challenges traditional business models and the way we work. We are a product of our past, and well, many businesses are organized and operate on old models that have been in place for years and years.  What worked then doesn’t necessarily work now.  I like challenging the status quo, and that’s what Seth’s book is about. Do we all need to be sleeping while we are awake?

This morning I was reading a Harris poll from the Mediapost about daily newspaper reading habits, which had some very revealing statitstics that are surely going to hurt the newspaper industry more.

In fact, content wars are heating up all over the place.  I was reading up on DomesticatingIT’s article roundup last week, and Jon highlighted several articles about the struggles of online content, and monetization of that content.

But the problem is, people aren’t reading newspapers as much anymore, that’s a fact.  And it appears they don’t want to pay for it either.  Some stats:

• Two in five U.S. adults (43%) say they read a daily newspaper, either online or in print almost every day
• Just over seven in ten Americans (72%) say they read one at least once a week
• 81% read a daily newspaper at least once a month.
• One in ten adults (10%) say they never read a daily newspaper

With that shift in readership that is only going to continue in this direction, AND the fact that most daily newspaper readers are in the 55+ bracket, who will be willing to pay for content?  Not many suvey said…

• 77% of online adults say they would not be willing to pay anything to read a newspaper’s content online.
• One in five online adults would only pay between $1 and $10 a month for this online content
• Only 5% would pay more than $10 a month.

So what are newspapers to do?  They need to generate revenue, and they are losing subscriptions by the day.  It all feels messy.  And it could go very wrong, like in the music industry.  We all stand to lose though.
What would you be willing to pay for?

Photo: Free Foto

UPDATE:  2-5-10

Just wanted to add this to the conversation here, I happened to read another study about where newspapers are fitting in with our internet reading habits.  Where do we get our news?  Where do we turn to?

For “news right now,” 57% of news users now go to digital sources, up from 33% a few years ago. 31% are likelier to turn to an aggregator than a newspaper site (8%) or other site (18%).

So, where can newspapers bring value?

Local topics, news, family events, and entertainment, remain the domain of local companies. National topics are going both profoundly digital and national.

I would concur with this trend, as it reflects my own viewing habits. I have turned away newspaper sites, even my own local newspaper that requires paid access when I cannot access the full article. Check out the article, though. Some juicy comments too, not all in agreement with my thoughts either.

2009 was a turbulent year, to say the least. Manufacturing and high tech took a good hit. Not quite as dramatic as 2001, but painful nonetheless. For marketers, this turbulence means more attention is being paid to tighter and tighter budgets. The pressure is on to make each dollar, each click, each conversion targeted and relevant. Not surprisingly, that means more of our budgets will be spent in the digital domain.

No matter what industry you’re in, odds are your total marketing budget decreased but your e-marketing budget increased. In part 1 of this multi-part series, let’s take a closer look at search and e-mail marketing.

Search Marketing
According to MarketingSherpa’s 2009-2010 Search Marketing Benchmark Report, “Text ads accompanying search results came into the world with little fanfare, but the real-time, individually targeted, bid-based buying system they spawned is now on the verge of becoming the dominant method for all commodified media buying.”

Search engines are in and industry magazines are suffering. The good news is that the volume of paid clicks on search engines has been steadily increasing over the last few years; Google remains the dominant player. The bad news is that we’ve seen many of our favorite publications go out of business or decrease their frequency because of shrinking advertising dollars.

E-Mail Marketing
On the e-mail side, changes are afoot. In MarketingSherpa’s 2010 Email Marketing Benchmark Report, they ranked the effectiveness of various e-mail marketing tactics. In order, from most to least effective, we see:
• Delivering content relevant to segment
• E-mail to house lists
• Event-triggered autoreponder e-mails
• Sharing e-mail on social networks (less than 10%)
• Ads in third-party e-newsletters (less than 10%)
• E-mail to rented lists (less than 10%)

Content is still king but is the hardest component of the e-marketing program to conquer because it takes work to churn out a regular series of informative and relevant articles.

The one area above that we’ll disagree with is their conclusion about the relative ineffectiveness of ads in third-party e-newlsetters. We find there are some great vertical vehicles within the engineering and technology markets that produce both clicks and conversions.

But changes are coming to the world of e-mail marketing. As the Gen Y’ers age, they bring with them new communication habits. In a recent speech, John Chambers, CEO of Cisco, cited a company survey that found most kids graduating from college today rarely use e-mail. Instead they rely on social media: texting or instant messaging via AIM or Yahoo or Facebook or MySpace. Yes, they will all be assigned an e-mail address once they hit the corporate world, but they may be more likely to rely on messaging than e-mail over the long run.

Next post, we’ll look at social media and what’s in store for 2010.

This week we take a look at a few different articles, and run the range of topics from what Rockwell is doing with their social media strategy to a great blog post that outlines how to create a world class customer experience.  Enjoy!

1. Rockwell Automation Makes Social Marketing a Strategic Channel

I was pleased to read this article and see that large companies like Rockwell have the right approach when it comes to social marketing.  Web site visits are not the goal for Rockwell, can we get an amen there? They are looking at how to integrate this into all their marketing efforts, and are experimenting with more sharing activities with technical personnel and more.  Love to hear it.

2.  Cisco, Social Media, and the Art of the Press Release

What I liked about this article was it highlighted that we really need to be careful with our strategic marketing messages.  In this article, the author talks about being able to read the tea leaves a little too clearly in Cisco’s attempt to instill “fear” as a method to drive further action.  Easy does it a transparent world….

3.  Twelve Steps in Creating a Bootylicious Facebook Page

Is bootylicious a word?  Lol…I still love it.  And to be clear this article was actually published the week before last, but it is still worth sharing.  Many clients we work with have put up a Facebook Fan Page, but then don’t know what to do next.  John Hayden shares 12 no-nonsense tips to making your Facebook Fan Page stand out.

4.  Email for Life

How well do you re-market your products and services to your customers and prospects?  This article highlights how we can remarket more effectively by watching how buyers engage. For example if your system notes that a buyer has abandoned a shopping cart for your product catalog, do you re-engage that buyer within a couple of days to remind them?  How often have we all abandoned our shopping efforts due to a life distraction?  This article talks about a recent research report called “The Remarketing Report” and while some of the data is B2C (and B2B), there is a nugget or two in there to learn.

5.  Is Your Customer Service World Class?

Written by Frank Eliasson, the well-known customer service master behind @comcastcares and recently highlighted in BusinessWeek talks turkey about what it takes to create a world class experience for your customers.  If you are thinking about how to bring social tools to your customer service functions, then check out this post.

I happened to listen in to a webinar last week by Jeremiah Owyang and Charlene Li from the Altimeter Group about “Understanding Your Customer’s Social Behavior” that highlighted emerging behavior characteristics that we are discovering in the social networking world.  The  days of targeting by geography, gender, age are taking a backseat now that virtually every category and age group of consumers/buyers are participating in social networks.  Intricate relationships are being built online everyday, and the “carpet bombing” approach of market targeting is old news.  I wanted to share some of the highlights that help draw the difference between socialgraphics and demographics:

First one that clicked for me was this:

Source:  Altimeter Group

These are different questions than the normal approach for defining a target market. Social networking blurs the traditional lines that we (marketer’s) are comfortable with, but I do believe there’s a goldmine here if we can get this right.

Here we are trying to figure out the line of influence among our buyers, and how decisions get made in a social world.   It goes beyond connecting traditional dots.  The first question is one we hear alot:  Where are our customers online?  Do you know? Are you putting the right listening tools in place to find them?   If you don’t know, then it’s time to start thinking about how to find out.  As Jeremiah and Charlene said, “go whereever they are.”

While I am not reviewing each question,  I do want to highlight another one that further illustrates the difference in approach:

Q3 What social information does your market rely upon?

Do you know what type of information is being shared by your audience? Are they talking about products, themes/topics regarding work, personal, what links do they share and what are they?  The old approach was much less insightful or personal, it was more about where masses of audiences were and to put together programming that best matched the reach for that audience.  And, the approach was for us vendors to tell our audience something, not necessarily  care about what article they read in a magazine, but just that have been noted as a READER the magazine.  There’s a fine line there.  While it may seem like more digging around that is time consuming, it is really important to get your arms around how your social networks  are evolving.  They are like living organisms, and if you try to disrupt their sensitive nature by barging in and making assumptions about what information they rely upon, you’ll find yourself on the outside.  Watch first, learn what they are doing, how they are sharing, and what they are sharing.  It all matters.

Climbing the social behavior ladder

Classifying social behaviors

Source: Altimeter Group

Building off the 90-9-1 Principle by Jay McKee where in a given social network 1% are creators, 9% are editors and 90% are audience, Altimeter wanted to update the framework where engagement is the key element that drives each one of these social behaviors outlined above.

• Watching – is the majority of people participating in a social network – the 90% as mentioned above..  They watch what other people say, watch videos, download podcasts, and they want to keep tabs on what their network is up to.  Engaging this audience requires to first understand what content they are consuming, find a way to develop relevant content so that they are more likely to consume what you are offering.  Here you are building social capital, even though it can feel like nothing is happening.
• Sharing:  These people are updating their status’ in applications like Twitter, forwarding photos, videos, articles to friends. They get satisfaction sharing information with their friends and colleagues.
  Engaging this audience requires making your information “sharable”.  Do you have tools like “ShareThis” or “AddThis” built into your web site, blog for your content and events? How easy are you making it to share information with others?  Here you can start to actually see progress, and measure engagement activity.
• Commenting: These people are the ones who actively participate and respond to others, it could be commenting on a blog post, responding to an article posted on a web site, writing reviews or rating products.  They may not do this activity every day, but do make themselves known.  Engaging this audience requires providing mechanisms to encourage commenting behavior.  Add places for comments on your product catalog, web site and blog.  Altimeter suggests every web page have commenting features.  In some cases it may mean looking at social network platforms like Awareness, Mzinga, or Lithium because the complexity of interaction may not be readily available in your current web site host or design team.  I still see some blogs that require a special sign-in to make comments- eliminate this and make the commenting process as easy and accessible as possible.
• Producing:  Continuing up the pyramid, people who fall into this category create and publish their own content, i.e. articles, blogs, podcasts.  They desire to express their identity, creativity, and want to be heard or recognized.  Engaging this group requires a different approach than the others. Here we want to appeal to their desire to be recognized and known.  Provide opportunities to recognize people in your network who are doing this, allow these people to become “a platform for the voice of your customers”.  Organize sponsored discussions, tap these people to lead/participate/promote with you, get them involved when and where possible.
• Curating:  These people are heavily involved in online communities, are the first to set up Facebook Fan Pages or a Wikipedia page, post to discussion boards, and do this daily.  It’s a natural extension of how they work, they have the desire to give back in knowledge or service and also want to be recognized like the producers above.  In the webinar, Jeremiah and Charlene described how Coca-Cola’s Facebook Fan page was started up by a couple of fans.  It became so popular that Coke invited them to stay on to manage the page full time.  While many us do not work for Coca-Cola, we probably can think of one or two people who fall into this category.  They are easy to find, they are continuously out there sharing, commenting, and producing.  Engaging curators is recognize their efforts and rely on them as trusted advisors and even as “non-paid” partners.  They are evangelists at heart, work with their passion, give them support and kudos, and you will be rewarded by gaining social credibility instantly.

All in all, it was helpful webinar that highlighted the changes that I’ve been feeling as we are putting together our 2010 programs for our clients.  Driving web site visits is no way to measure marketing program success, there are many more layers to it now.  While demographics will not completely go away, we are smart to embrace new trends that will affect our marketing programs, as well as have a new #socialgraphic framework to relate how to support, promote and engage our audiences who are swimming around social networks.

This year we wanted to turn over a new leaf at the Telesian blog, and do more regular updating with both opinion articles as well as sharing information we read in a given week.  

In fact, we are taking a page out of our good friend, Jon DiPietro’s DomesticatingIT blog where he puts together the “High Five” series and shares the top 5 articles he read in the last week.  So, we are going to experiment with our own version of the High Five, calling it “TT’s Faves for the Week.”    Let me know what you think about this, we’d love your feedback.

Our favorite reading picks over last week, week ending Jan. 15th:

#1: AW: Social Networking Tools Penetrate Manufacturing

From January’s Automation World, Wes Iverson takes a closer look at how social tools are penetrating manufacturing, and things like Wiki’s are taking off for internal sharing and such. What was also interesting to learn was how users of ERP systems are pushing for social sharing tools in their ERP applications.  It’s a logical extension, but is interesting to see the huge turnaround that 2009 had in the role of communications across all dimensions of business.  Can you say acquisition?

#2 A New Age for Social Media Marketing

Brian Solis is an author and thought leader in new media and its role in business.  In this article, he breaks down a recent MarketingSherpa 2010 Social Media report, which outlines the shifting nature of new media  in our businesses  – from the initial trial phase into  the transition phase into the third and last phase, which is strategic.  2009 was the year of trial, as many folks got their feet wet in social networking.  So, where’s it all heading?  Brian shares his thoughts, along with a few great charts shared that may be useful  in an upcoming presentation you may have on social media strategy.  Charts like the “Technology Buyer’s Voice of Choice by Social Media Platform” was interesting and along with “Aligning Social Media Objectives with Metrics”.

#3 BtoBOnline Gartner: Mobile to dominate, Internet marketing at risk

While this is not a shock, it’s something we need to be thinking about in 2010.  Are your web sites, blogs, wiki’s, etc optimized for mobile?  Is there a mobile-type application that could be developed that would increase the value and use of your products and services?  All very important thoughts for this year. Gartner suggests that smart phones will replace computers by 2013.  Wow.  How ready are you?

#4 BW:Zappos Retails its Culture

Zappos is one of those companies that has a fascination element to them, especially around their culture.  WIth their fantastic growth and acquisition last year from Amazon, clearly they are doing some things right.  One of those things is their culture..  This article highlights some of CEO Tony Hsieh’s thoughts about the culture at Zappos, and why it’s so essential in business to succeed.

#5 Funny: NYT:  Forget Gum. Walking and Using Phone Is Risky

Have you ever bumped into something while you were talking on your mobile phone?  I know I sure have.  What I didn’t know is that more than 1k people visited an emergency room in 2008 due to not paying attention when talking on a cell phone.  And I’m sure this number will only rise for 2009.

***

Well, I hope you enjoyed some of these links. Would love to hear your feedback!  Thanks for reading, and watch for these posts every Monday.

We are big fans of building internal e-mail lists, and often recommend this strategy with our clients. Homegrown email lists  trump any bought list of any kind, and we continually see good business opportunities come out of well managed, consistent email newsletter programs.  Even our own, “What’s Working in Marketing” e-newsletter has been a big conduit for new business opportunities.

How are your email lists doing? Are you running a committed and consistent e-newsletter program?

In case you were thinking about scrapping an e-news program  in favor of social media or PPC programs, we say hold on a minute.  A recent MarketingSherpa study showed that opt-in email lists are growing, slowly but surely:

Opt-in lists continue to grow for two-thirds of all email marketers, which includes 11% who describe their list as “growing quickly.” This is great news considering the complaints email users have expressed about the volume of email they receive. Even more surprising is that a mere 3% of organizations report negative growth or subscriber attrition.

This year in particular was challenging for maintaining good email lists with so many layoffs and job changes occurring across the world.  But we’ve seen that it pays to be vigilant with keeping your email list clean and in tip top shape.

If you feel that your list is in need of a good scrubbing, then send out an email to your current list with a request to re-subscribe to your list.  This is perfectly fine to do, and it allows you to identify bad addresses, invites your audience to opt back in which people appreciate, and illuminate what information has changed in the last 6-12 months.

I will just puke. Ok, There. I said it.

One of the most obnoxious things about social media is the hype that comes along with it.  I know I am tired of hearing about “rock stars” in social media.  And now the Intel commercials have jumped on the rock star bandwagon – or maybe they started it. It’s the chicken and the egg. But do we have to create a high school caste system in our work lives? I’m just sayin.  I didn’t like it then, I don’t much like it now.

I like real rock stars like anyone.  And I’m the first one to get excited about these new social  tools that are available. I also appreciate people who do good work.  I love to learn from anyone who has something to offer.  But do we need the self-proclamations?

I know I’m not the only one who feels this way. A good discussion happened recently on LinkedIn’s Process Automation Social Media Club

and I just read this post by John Cass who makes good points about needing rock star ideas vs. rock stars themselves.

Do you notice it?  Does it bother you?