What’s Working in Marketing

You are invited to submit an abstract for ISA’s 5th Annual Marketing and Sales Summit, In Search of the Holy Grail: Integrating Marketing and Sales, sponsored by the ISA Management Division. The Summit will be held 1-3 September 2010 in Atlanta, Georgia.

Don’t miss your opportunity to share your expertise, solutions, and best practices for how to survive and excel beyond 2010 with other marketing and sales professionals.

How to submit an abstract

Abstracts should be submitted based on the summit theme and topics below. Abstracts should be 500 words or less and describe what the presentation will cover. If your abstract is accepted and you agree to submit a presentation for the conference proceedings, you are also agreeing to present at the 5th Annual ISA Marketing & Sales Summit.

Conference Theme: In Search of the Holy Grail: Integrating Marketing and Sales

Conference Tracks:

• Strategy and Business Development
• Integrated Marketing and Sales
• Online Marketing
• Sales Best Practices

Sample topic areas include best practices in social media, guerilla marketing, brand marketing, winning complex accounts, market-driven product development, business development and engineering, product marketing management vs. product management, sales vs. marketing, branding in the web 2.0 era, redefining advertising in the digital age, and more.

In order to be considered for the 2010 program, please submit your abstract no later than 16 April 2010 to Shari Worthington, program chair at sharilee@telesian.com.

Conference Location

ISA’s 5th Annual Marketing & Sales Summit
1-3 September 2010
W hotel Atlanta-Downtown (tentatively)
Atlanta, GA

This week’s top five faves covers a range of topics including discussion about the state of US manufacturing, email marketing, taking a page out of Domino’s book for true transparent marketing, and that MadLibs-style communicating may be alive in marketing!   Oh, and how could I forget about the great article about the management secrets of the Grateful Dead…I loved that band back in the day and have my share of bootleg cassette tapes from a number of concerts. They were truly ahead of their time.  So let’s get to it…

1.  Most Informative:  US Manufacturing Is Not Dead
A thoughtful blog post that makes that claim that US manufacturing is not dead, but perhaps US manufacturing jobs are.  It includes some interesting statistic s to support the author’s claims, along with some great comments that take the discussion even further.

2.  Most Practical:  Taking Your Email Segmentation for B2B Marketing to the Next Level
Adam Needles from Silverpop takes us through the paces about how to consider segmenting email marketing from applying the buying cycle, using personas and more. It’s good food for thought for our marekting friends.

3.  Most Honest:  Transparent Marketing: A slice of honesty from Domino’s Pizza
Many companies worry about  being called out on the carpet in social media networks, but Domino’s is taking the bull by the horns in their latest marketing campaign.  Instead of hiding behind a problem, like Toyota, they are hitting their problem of “lousy pizza sauce” in their latest marketing campaign.  They are keeping the lines of communication open with their progress, and I have to commend them for this approach.

5.  Most Enjoyable: Management Secrets of the Grateful Dead
“….the Dead were visionary geniuses in the way they created “customer value,” promoted social networking, and did strategic business planning.”  They really were, they were among the very first to give their product away for free, and went to great lengths to cater to their customers.  Imagine that?  Apparently they teach classes on this at the University of CA/Santa Cruz, I’d sign up for that class in heartbeat!  In all seriousness, there are nuggets of wisdom we can realize from their approach in business.  Read on…

We’ve been producing podcasts at Telesian for the last year or so, and this year we want to step it up a notch.  Sometimes our podcasts work hand in hand with an article we have written, and sometimes we produce more educational podcasts, like the one we just released  “PR in a Social Media World.”  A library of our podcasts can be found here.

I wanted to invite you (our blog readers) to make suggestions topics that you feel you’d like to learn more about.  Or perhaps an interview an industry leader?

We are open to all suggestions, and would really appreciate your feedback.

To kick things off, here’s some topical suggestions on my list:

• Email marketing tips
• SEO tips
• Blogging best practices
• Measuring Social Media ROI

Thanks, we look forward to hearing from you.

Newspapers have really taken a big hit since the rise of the Web. Many struggle to find a way to compete against the enormous amount of free information sources online. A recent study by comScore, on behalf of the Newspaper Association of America, found that local newspaper web sites remain the most used and most valued online resource for credible and trustworthy local content AND ADVERTISING.

57% of consumers cite their local newspaper web site as the top online source for local information, followed by online portals (54%), and local TV web sites (53%). In addition, consumers say local newspaper web sites are the most trustworthy sources of online advertising, with ads that are perceived to be more current, credible, and relevant to them.

According to the Newspaper Association of America, newspaper web sites attracted a record 75 million visitors in January 2010.

The economy has been harsh for much of the last year and a half. In the last quarter, we can describe it as sluggish, at best. But 2009 was a banner year for digital marketing. The Internet and e-marketing tools allow us to reach out and engage prospects and customers efficiently and at lower cost than traditional methods.

In comScore’s new report, The comScore 2009 US Digital Year in Review, we find some interesting analytics that provide insight into what’s working and how well.

• The recession put downward pressure on discretionary spending. As a result, the total US ecommerce market was down 2% at $209.6 billion. This was the first year on record with negative growth rates. The 2009 holiday season showed some growth, hopefully a good sign for things to come.

• The search market grew 16% overall. There was a 6% gain in unique searchers and a 10% gain in searchers per searcher. Google continues to hold a strong lead with 65.7% share, up 2.2% from 2008. The introduction of Bing helped Microsoft move up from 8.3% to 10.7% market share, but it’s a small blip and even that may not be sustainable.

• Social networking was big in 2009. Twitter saw massive growth, especially in the first quarter; they ended the year with about 20 million visitors to their site. Facebook also saw massive growth and is now the #1 social networking site. They had 112 million visitors in December 2009. Both sites are popular with the 25-49 year old crowd. MySpace is struggling to redefine itself as a music site for the 24 and under crowd.

• Online display advertising grew in 2009, with an 8% increase in the number of people exposed to display ads online and a 12% increase in average frequency. The year saw a total of 4.3 trillion display ads run.

• Online viewing video grew in 2009. 19% more people viewed videos for longer periods of time. In December, 86% of the total US online population viewed video content. The average online viewer watched 187 videos that same month, up 95% from 2008. The duration of the average video viewed rose from 3.2 to 4.1 minutes.

• In the mobile device market, 17% are smartphones. Smartphone ownership was up from 11% to 17% and 3G devices were up from 32% to 43%. Market share at year’s end was RIM/Blackberry 41.6%, Apple 25.3%, Microsoft 17.9%, and Palm at 6.1%. Amazing how fortunes can turn as this is a market that Palm owned outright not too long ago.

One of the critical issues that STILL faces us is the ability to effectively harness the marketing intelligence inherent in the way people communicate online and make it actionable. The good news is we can track these digital channels; from there, we can analyze and make improvements to their performance.

Last week I had the opportunity to talk with two well respected editors from the automation industry, Walt Boyes, editor of Control Magazine and Gary Mintchell, editor of Automation World Magazine.  I wanted to find about how PR is changing with social media from their point of view.  Social media has opened up many new outlets for marketing and PR folks, and editors are actively participating in social media too.  What has changed, if anything?

So we recorded a podcast interview with Walt and Gary about how this has affected their role as editors.  Have things gotten easier or harder? Both editors have been blogging for years, they were ahead of that curve and have quickly adjusted to working with social media tools like Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook.

Here are a few of the questions we explored together:

• What is the single biggest thing that has changed in PR with social media networks?
• Blogging and apps like Twitter seem to be the first to break stories, does that change the way you get and treat news?  Has the integrity of journalism changed with social media?
• How has pitching changed for vendors? Is there a difference between an online pitch and print pitch?
• Has editor accessibility changed from a PR point of view?
• What’s the best advice you can give to PR professionals when it comes social media and the press?

Download now to listen to the podcast:  PR in a Social Media World

What I learned is that stupid is as stupid does in PR.  Heck, Walt is known for calling out PR pros on the PR Wall of Shame.   Sure, social media is changing the way we can share information.  And there are many more outlets, that’s all good.  But social media is not necessarily changing our relationships with editors and the press.  Any good PR pro worth their salt knows that ALL relationships are important and care needs to be taken.  Just because we have direct access to an editor or blogger’s Twitter ID doesn’t mean that’s the best way to pitch your idea.  It could be, but every instance needs to be evaluated.  PR professionals STILL need to take time to understand what an editor will be looking for and work from there.

The other take away I wanted to share here, without giving away the whole interview… is the role of blogging… and if you were thinking that it might be too late to start up a good technical blog, think again.  More are wanted.  Chop chop people….

If there are any follow on questions you want me to ask Walt and Gary, just add your comment below.  We’d love to keep this conversation going.

Here are the blogs/links mentioned in this podcast:

Walt Boyes Blog

Gary Mintchell’s Blog

Jim Cahill, EmersonProcessXperts Blog

Emerson’s Life Sciences Blog

Eric Murphy’s MatrikonOPC Blog

Charlie Fialkowski’s Process Safety Blog

Siemens PLM Blog

Greg MacMillan’s Modeling and Control Blog

This week’s top 5 faves are insightful articles that we hope will  help improve your marketing efforts – or at least give you a different view on it.  From SEO, to SMS, to social networking, I can pretty much guarantee that there’s something on this list that will raise an eyebrow or trigger a divine insight.  And just for something bizzare….are we ready for virtual tattoos?

Here’s our picks:

1. Most Encouraging: Does Social Sell?
What I liked about this article was that it provided some updated statistics about digital marketing in general, and shared three successful case studies.  One was new (for me) – Pepsi’s Refresh Everything and their decision not to advertise during the Superbowl.  There was an oldie and a goodie – Dell – the story covers it’s history from it’s first customer service problem to where they are now. They are making social work for them, that’s for darn sure.  And three…H&R Block and how they use social networking to improve to customer service.  Good PPT fodder…

2.  Most Interesting:  Texting Trumps Talking in U.S., Just Not as Ad Platform

This was an eye opener for me, in the sense that it’s not the hugest surprise but it is taking over quickly. Much like earlier this week when Facebook Surpassed Yahoo in site visits.  We cannot deny opportunities looking us in the face, and that’s how I feel about texting.  At the same time,  I don’t want to receive ads in text messages unless I sign up for them. Borders had a good text program that I liked, they have since abandoned it.  It’s too bad because it was convenient to have information on my phone when I needed it. There’s got to be a way to offer texting so that it will engage our customers.  Same with Facebook.

3.  Most Practical:  Success factors for a B2B blog: Emerson Process Experts

I know last week I highlighted Emerson’s blog, but I came across a new article last week that offered more insight to their success in the blogging world.  The So.Me. guys took a deep dive with Jim, and share some intereststing statistics such as the blog…”gets 40,000 monthly visitors, more than 1000 RSS subscribers and most importantly 10-15 prospective sales and information inquiries a week…”  It’s worth a read.

4.  Most Surprising: Fortune 500 Companies Fail At SEO

It’s unfortunate the companies are missing this boat.  This is just too important to mess up, and I was surprised that  “…many still don’t link paid-search keywords to SEO campaigns, although they collectively spend about $3.4 million daily on 97,559 keywords…”  Heavy sigh.  So much money, so little results…  If you are unsatisfied with your SEO and paid search campaigns, we gotta talk.   Buyer beware when a “SEO specialist” promises you the world.  It’s always too good to be true.

5.  Most Refreshing:  Social Media ROI: How 3 B2B Technology Companies are Achieving Revenue Results

Another good overview of how B2B tech companies are making social media work for them. I had not heard these stories before and it was refreshing to read new B2B examples.  Thanks to Kim Cornwell Malseed for sharing this info from an event she attended last week.

BONUS:

6.  Most Bizarre:  Augmented Reality Tattoo Makes Your Skin Come Alive [VIDEO]

Are we ready for virtual tattoos? While this example is an early concept, it has potential.  Imagine if we didn’t have to permanently scar our skin and we could change images when we wanted?   Do you think something like this will become popular?  Or am I underestimating the degree of pleasure/pain that many tattoo customers enjoy…enough to go back again…and again….?

Thanks for stopping by….

Apparently, there could be some sunshine with blue skies in 2010.  This is a welcome relief for many of us, compared to the last time we blogged about marketing budgets.   In a recent Mediapost article that highlighted a poll by ANA, it seems that the worst of budget cuts are in the rear view mirror.  This doesn’t mean that budget cuts are not happening, just not as drastically.  Here’s what’s the survey shared:

The majority of marketers forecast no change in spending for the first half of 2010:

• 59% think budgets will stay the same
• 22% think budgets will be reduced
• 19% are hopeful budgets will increase

This sounds most promising, but it doesn’t paint the whole picture.  That’s why we must look at other data points in the survey:

• 41% of respondents are planning to reduce marketing budgets by 1-5%
• 70% plan reductions of 1-10%, up substantially from 55% in the July 2009 survey
• Only 7% plan reductions greater than 20%, which is down sharply from 30% in July 2009.
  

This sounds more realistic.  So what does this mean? That most marketers are working towards  a “New Normal” and are looking to squeeze another 10% out of the bugdet this year. That’s not as bad as it sounds, and is more typical for budgeting processes in general.  I don’t know about you, but when I was on the corporate side, reducing the budget by 10% was normal fare.  I did it kicking and screaming, fighting for every last dollar, but it gone done.

So where are the cuts happening?

The top four ways marketers are reducing costs and spending:

• 75% are challenging agencies to reduce internal expenses and/or identify cost reductions
• 73% are reducing departmental travel and expenses
• 53% are reducing advertising media budgets
• 50% are reducing advertising production budgets

Any of this a surprise?  Not to us either. And I’m not sure travel will ever go back to what it was, especially with all the tools we have to virtually connect with our customers.

The silver lining we are seeing, even without the ANA survey, is that things are relaxing a bit.  People are looking to be more innovative, creative and want to find a way to stand above all the deafening noise that has been created with social networking.  And that’s the stuff that gets us jazzed up – creating new, innovative ideas that inspires us and others…  We’re moving away from the same old, groundhog-day marketing programs….and we are one more seasoned year into using/evaluating social media so it’s not about the hype, it’s about the practicality and usefulness to business.   2010 marketing is more about integration and less about the tools….

Who knew?

What are you seeing at your company?

Hope everyone had a nice Valentine’s Day weekend! Last week was a whirlwind of news and information from Toyota recalls, to the starting of the Winter Olympics and more.  We even had a good blog discussion about potential B2B publishing models, feel free to add your ten cents.

This week’s articles continue on the theme of trust and lies.  Are we getting too comfortable with hearing and processing information that we may think or believe is not true?  I know that I’m starting to tune out a bit, and that’s not really good.  Desensitization is not going to address the problem.  Here’s what I’ve got to share today, plus a bonus link that shows some really cool pictures of earth from space.  Love that stuff!

1.  Most interesting:  The Social Impact of Friendships and Lies
In this article, Jason Baer outlines some of the challenges that we experience in our social world, and how many “friends” do we need”  He asks “With Friends Like These, Who Needs Friends”?  Good question.  Also, Jason shares data from a recent study that shows who we trust is changing, and decreasing in many instances.  No big surprise there, but it was an interesting read about the dynamics of friendship and trust (or not) that affects us all in our social networks.

2.  Most disappointing: Secretive Culture Led Toyota Astray
I don’t want to go on and on about the Toyota mess, but this article points out how their culture build on quality was a bit of a facade.  I’m not a Toyota driver, but I’m not a big fan of hiding in plain sight either.  Learning of this culture is certainly enough to start changing a buyer’s mindset.  Time will tell.

3.  Most thought provoking:  Freemium—A Plan for ISA Resurgence
ISA has been a topic for discussion for the past few months as the association struggles with finding a new identity that brings value and builds stronger communities for professionals in the automation industry.  This is also a matter of trust, and whether or not an association can listen and hear its change agents and their vision.  Many associations are struggling with how to move into free-wheeling social world of content while preserving their own roots and historical value, and it will mean letting go of things that no longer work.  That takes trust.   Jim has a suggestion or two that he and a few others think will help build ISA into a stronger, self-sustaining community that preserves its values and history and offers a value path for members.  Will ISA listen?

4.  Most frustrating: Marketers Miss The Mark With Twitter
This was frustrating to read because it’s something we see too.  Mitch Joel is calling businesses out on the Twitter carpet.  So many companies get on Twitter, and use it in very limited dimensions, such as another advertising channel.  They will never see the real value to their business, and are missing the opportunity to do something very positive for the brand.  Remember the old Wendy’s commercial: “Where’s the beef?”  Yea, that’s what we’re wondering too when it comes to some brands on Twitter.

5.  Can we get an Amen?  A Call to Collaborate
Since several of these links were highlighting what’s not working, I wanted to spend a minute and highlight an example of a company that is dong the right thing when it comes to marketing, social networking and more.  In this post, Jim Cahill shares the details from a recent article written by an Emerson executive (Tom Moser, president of Emerson Process Management’s Micro Motion) who is encouraging more businesses in automation to take advantage of Web 2.0.

BONUS!

6.  Most fascinating: Astronaut Tweets Beautiful Earth Images From Space
There’s nothing like looking at a pictures from space to remind us how magnificent a universe we live in.  Enjoy.

The Internet has pushed hard on businesses and business models, in some cases upsetting entire industries. Case in point…publishing. Juliann recently wrote about the newspaper industry and their struggle to survive in a world of aggregated news content that’s freely available to anyone with a browser. Now we see the B2B publishing industry showing significant signs of wear.

ISA’s InTech magazine, for instance, just reduced its print frequency to 6x per year from 12x. And Penton Media — home of well known publications like Industry Week and New Equipment Digest — has filed for Chapter 11 reorg. While some would argue this was a long time coming, as B2B publications have generally been slow to adapt to new communication tools, the situation presents a serious problem for marketers. Which gets back to Juliann’s post about brand trust.

Industry magazines, like Industry Week or CONTROL or Power Engineering, have spent years building their subscriber base. That much attention to building a list is pretty much guaranteed to improve its quality significantly — real people who want specific products and usually have money to spend. But if these publications start reducing their frequency or go out of business altogether, where do marketers turn to get to these qualified lists? List brokers? The Internet?

We have had such mixed results with lists from brokers, they are never our first choice. We always turn to industry publications or associations or partners first. And the Internet is just now developing into a useful source of qualified leads. PPC campaigns, for instance, when done correctly, are converting to sales at significantly better rates than web site leads or other lead sources. But you have to work hard to get these campaigns to produce results.

The problem, as Walt Boyes, Editor of CONTROL magazine, stated, is that the B2B publishing model no longer works. B2B publishing mostly sends free copies of magazines to people in the industry, those who “qualify” in terms of purchasing authority and titles. Money is made from the advertisers who want to reach those readers. But fewer and fewer people respond to magazines ads (or TV or radio etc) in the Internet age and so advertising revenue has shrunk significantly. As it did. so did the number of pages in the publications and, often, the frequency, potentially undermining the branding work that had been done over the years.

Industry publications have tried to compensate for this loss by creating Web portals. Most still haven’t figured out a profitable formula primarily because they are competing against “free” content online. Also, because there are so many digital options available, customers haven’t really decided where they are going to settle down…if they ever do. Communications are in a tremendous state of flux.

The challenge now is…will B2B publishers be able to create a new, sustainable business model for the Internet era? If not, is there another avenue where we can affordably get to buying customers?