I thought WPP chieftain Martin Sorrell covered all the bases as he described his firm’s motivation:
“Growth is being driven by continuous pressure on clients to raise their like-for-like revenue growth and to optimise their investment against a backdrop of changing demographics, decreasing product differentiation, intensifying global competition, the fragmentation of the media and the impact of digital development.”
The forces at work here are disruptive to say the least. The big agencies are getting pressure from clients to move away from costly print and TV ads and move to more conversational forms of marketing and advertising. It’s not enough to just deploy a microsite and track page views. Customers want real-time information and they’re demanding it on their terms.
If I were a mid-market or large brand, I’d cut down on the one-off microsites and email-based newsletters and move the conversation to more interactive environments. Many companies have figured out that tapping the collective wisdom of their customer base provides huge value. Evidence of this is the large number of customer-driven communities and B2B networks getting sponsorship deals from consumer brands and software companies. It’s likely these communities are where your customers are lurking anyway or they’re building their own versions. Why not engage with them on their terms and in their environments?
I’m not calling for the death of traditional marketing techniques - unless there’s no infusion of 21st Century smarts.
Recently I’ve been pretty hard on content management vendors by pointing out some of the mistakes that can drive them out of business. While vendor elitism with customers can be a big problem, I can’t let content management clients completely off the hook. There’s a few mistakes that I’ve seen over and over in every vertical.
Hiring Resources Based On Price Let’s take marketing, for example; it’s hard to show the clear ROI for a dollar invested. I’ve seen more companies that choose to hire a communications or marketing manager that’s inexperienced in the industry, but fairly cheap. This is the person controlling your content, your message to the outside world. If they don’t understand the dynamics of what it takes to manage a modern-day Web site, your brand will suffer. We can make a similar argument within the IT group — if the collaboration software is handled by a non-collaborator, you’re probably doomed to live out your collaborative existence in the meager confines of Outlook. The end result is the usually powerful combination of content and collaboration is deemed another shiny, new technology failure.
Choosing A Vendor Based On Personal Reasons, Not Technology Similar to reason No. 1, choosing a vendor based on any reason not related to the ability to ensure you look like your own media company is unacceptable. In the past year, I’ve seen companies hand over their content strategies to the CEO’s brother-in-law, the founder’s nephew, the co-founder’s fraternity buddy, and more. I’m not saying some of those folks aren’t capable of providing value, it’s just that most of the time the expectations are unrealistic. Some of the results are actually really funny, in a sad, "how much did you pay them?" sort of way.
Using Technology That Dates From The Wrong Decade So maybe your company has avoided the first two pitfalls; you picked a solid vendor that delivers good results, and you’ve got the right team in place. Don’t cripple them by refusing to invest in the right technology. Yes, the market moves fast and it might feel like just yesterday you spent a fortune updating your infrastructure. But the best jockey in the world won’t win the race on an old horse. Listen to the recommendations of your team; chances are they’ve already used other tools that might be complementary to what you’re trying to do.
And you know the routine: Send me your customer experiences and we’ll post them here periodically. Don’t worry, we won’t expose them or you unless you give us permission. All details will be removed to ensure everyone can return to their office without having to worry about the content management walk of shame.
I read this PCWorld story and I couldn’t help but think how indicative it is of of the typical command and control mentality within enterprises. I know there’s a balance between fighting the external social network (SoNet) effect and creating a corporate one of your own. With all the technology horsepower and APIs gone wild, shouldn’t we be able to figure out how to create some harmony between the two? The quote from one of the Gap’s web engineers sums it up pretty well:
“Do you really want Facebook to manage it for you in the outside world, or do you want to do it yourself so you have control?”
Control. It’s a word I hear over and over: How will we maintain control of what’s being said by the community?
I’ve talked to more companies than I can count about social publishing, social media, and setting up communities. The enterprises that typically lead the charge tend to be the ones that want to sell software or services to setup the community. But like communities in the real world, who wants to pay for the roads that others will use? When we talk to the brands in the community cross hairs, well that’s when you see the cold sweat start to break out.
The big brands hire in teams of marketing folk from the best B-schools to manage their content. They pay the most expensive consultants to determine what color has which meaning for their brand; what word has which association in middle America vs. big cities; heck how does this kid think vs. that adult. It’s been done this way for years, decades, and now, that level of tight brand control is showing cracks.
For the last decade or more, people with passion for products are expressing their views over the web - the enterprise fear originates when the views aren’t all that rosy. With all of their collective experience, too many companies still have the fear of shelling out big bucks to develop a social publishing strategy. Do they really want to give the rest of the world a forum to say what they’re really thinking?
The bus has already left the station folks; the negative views are already finding their ways through other sites and locations. I try to encourage brands to embrace both the negative and positive discussions their consumers have, preaching that it’s important to learn from the negative and leverage the positive.
But for all of those brands who don’t want to build the roads that provide more interaction with their consumers: your consumers are taking other roads already available. Enable them to speak freely with and about you.
Last week I mentioned the danger to companies that disregard trends in the content management space. I’m going horizontal this time and taking a crack at one of my favorites lines of business — marketing.
Here’s some ways content management is changing marketing:
3: Killing direct mail. I learned years ago that a successful direct mail marketing campaign has a 2% response rate. That would mean that 98% of the papers cluttering our mailboxes are meant to be unused. Whether we consider this a junk mail issue, a snail-mail spam issue, or a green issue, does anyone really need to incur the costs associated with stacks of unread fliers anymore? Deliver your content over a more targeted electronic medium, and maybe you’ll have the added benefit of also annoying fewer potential customers.
2: Improving measurement and analytics. People get Ph.D.s studying and trying to generate ROI models for marketing. It’s difficult, if not impossible, to tie back exact dollar amounts to individual marketing campaigns. That said, many of the newer ways to deliver content to target markets allow for immediate and measurable responses. If you have the right content analytics in place to track clickstreams and other behaviors, marketing programs can be tracked immediately, something that helps marketers re-tool strategies in almost real time.
1: Marrying IT and marketing. Marketing always has held the creative types, while technology holds the rest of us geeks. If this split is maintained now, though, the best marketing content won’t be delivered over the latest platforms, and entire market segments may be missed. Mobile applications, targeted e-mails that make it through spam filters, optimized Web sites, and ad widgets weren’t part of marketing history, but are taking over the present and the future. Internal company departments need to work together now more than ever. The marketing types don’t always need to understand exactly how to set up a blog or track feedback, but if no one on the team does, well, what a shame to waste good content.
Several months ago a content management vendor told me that the oncoming recession was causing it problems with revenue generation. I said perhaps, but it’s also possible its problems were related to the fact that its customers were really angry and really vocal. It’s too easy to blame market conditions without taking a hard look in the mirror sometimes.
For this top 5 list I won’t name any names, but I encourage everyone to try to clean their own closets occasionally. Maybe these items will add up to survival in either a recession or peak market conditions. The top reasons a content management company will go out of business:
No. 5: You forgot to eat your own dog food. I’m amazed at the number of companies that offer content management options while their own Web content and marketing materials haven’t been updated since 1997. If you have the teams that can deliver for your customers, let them practice on your real estate first. Would you buy a suit from a man wearing rags? Maybe, but many people wouldn’t.
No. 4: Your customers hate you. The best technology in the world won’t save you if your own customers tell everyone that you’re a jerk. Please don’t ever tell your customers that it’s their fault if they can’t figure out how to use your products. Yes, content management is not rocket science, and yes, some people are amazingly nontechnical. That doesn’t excuse elitism, and if the words “The customer is just stupid” have ever come out of your mouth, you may deserve to go out of business. It sounds like I’m making this up. I’m not.
No. 3: You try to develop everything in-house. The market is moving fast, your R&D teams can’t always keep up. This isn’t necessarily a weakness — sometimes you need to pick your differentiators and source the other items. If you find that you’re missing release deadlines again and again on items readily available from other vendors or as open source, please evaluate your business model. You’re burning cash for fun, not profit.
No. 2: You disregard trends. I’ll say it again. The market moves fast and what’s on the horizon sometimes seems just plain silly at first. But we’ve all heard the famous miscalculation that the world only has need for about five computers — the smartest people have made mistakes. For those who have told me that “Green is just a fad” and “Blogs are overrated,” (both of those are direct, recent quotes) be careful of what you dismiss. Don’t fall behind your competitors because you personally drive a Hummer and wear polar bear fur earmuffs (that’s a green reference, people). Fads and trends have a way of catching on, becoming important, and filling real business needs. Be open to change, and maybe your revenue will grow.
No. 1: Your employees turn over faster than the toilet paper is changed in the corporate restroom. Whether the job market is tight or technology workers seem a dime a dozen, employees are the face of your company. If they’re leaving in droves, or you’re replacing them quarterly, it’s a morale killer and your customers sense it.
This post wasn’t meant to be a soapbox for why you need a widget strategy. That’s been broadcast numerous times and there’s even events dedicated to all things widgety.
But before leaving the pulpit, I will reinforce that if you or your clients aren’t exploring the ways to distribute content via widgets, you’re missing out. Sharing and syndicating information via web snippets doesn’t seem particularly revolutionary at first, but dissect things a little more and you’ll find it encompasses some of the fundamental things that we talk about everyday on the web. Simple things like giving users control of content to larger notions like telling your client they need to act more like a media company. Yep, all embodied in widgets. So when I noticed a few slick renditions from Real Time Matrix (for Social Media Today) and CoBrandit (powered by SpringWidgets), I thought I’d pass along a friendly reminder why they’re important. Some are obvious, so bear with me.
Facilitates content distribution. (remember when you had to send content to webmasters and the IT bottleneck?)
Ensures brand integrity. It’s the easiest digital billboard you’ll ever create.
Highly portable and mobile-friendly. Great newsletter and email marketing add-ins.
Feeds users’ habits of consuming bite-size chunks of micro-content.
Zero maintenance as content is automatically updated via XML and RSS feeds.
Drives blog and RSS subscribers.
Social Network (SoNet) ready content that’s easy to integrate and publish to.
They’re a poor man’s enterprise mash-up.
You don’t need a “Dummy’s Guide to Widgets” to create them.
Whether you say “media is the new creative” (like AdWeek) or simply think the marketing landscape has been turned on its head, the message is the same. Adapt or get left behind.
Laurie Petersen, executive editor of MediaPost, had details recently about a new study (”Marketing & Media Ecosystem 2010″) from the Association of National Advertisers and management consultants Booz Allen Hamilton that confirmed just that.
And for the record, I really like the “communications integrator” term. Dissect what you do as a marketer and you’ll find a large portion of your time is spent mapping out how to integrate everything. After all that’s marketing nirvana right? Everyone wants an integrated approach.
What do you think about the five trends below?
Marketing as Conversation:
It’s less about sending a message and more about conversing. More than half the marketers say they plan to increase their PR budgets to help in this regard.
Insight into Foresight:
Technology enhances targeting capability and 80% of marketers surveyed place a high importance on behavioral targeting.
Media is the New Creative:
Distribution and context rivals creative execution in importance. A new role of “communications integrator” is emerging that bridges the gap between media, creative and brand strategy. More than 80% of participants say communications planning capabilities will be critical moving forward.
Marketing + Math + Technology:
Data quality, quantity and accessibility mean that math is everywhere. Leaders are more likely to have the metrics and capabilities to judge the effects of new media.
The Network Effect:
Digital media requires a far higher level of collaboration and coordination across all players. Nearly 60% of survey respondents believe creative, strategic and media capabilities should be rebundled–but there is no consensus as to which type of agency should lead.
After mooching off the open source world for 10 years and making millions, Backcountry.com finally threw the Postgres community a bone in the form of a database synching tool curiously called Bucardo.
And judging by their PR firm’s (Base Camp Communications) transparent writing style, they clearly architected it. Good for them.
If you’re familiar with Twitter, you’ve probably figured out there’s some interesting things you can do with these types of SMS-based apps. If you’re a power Twitterer all of you know it’s way more than “what am I doing”. Jaiku’s the other one, and although essentially both provide the same capabilities, I give an aesthetic edge to Jaiku for its slick looking badges. That aside, while working on a community project yesterday, we started thinking about how these tools can benefit the business. If you extrapolate what’s being done by some of the big brands, it’s pretty easy to see the evolution. Take ZDNet for instance. Their approach aggregates all of their blogs into one Twitter feed. Using something like TwitKu, (screenshot below) I get a pulse of what ZDNet is covering that hour. And ZDNet knows most people won’t have the inclination to subscribe to all of their blogs, so they give us options. That’s an important notion when building your business case. Always give the user options. If you want to be a media company, act like one. Show me how to consume, repurpose, mashup, and deliver your content not just in ways you want but ways I want.
Other companies, including Dell and the NYTimes, also use use Twitter to push out all sorts of content, from product updates and discounts to industry information and news. And isn’t it a bit ironic that the NY Times is so prolific on Twitter? They came across as a skeptic back in April.
So know that we know there’s some real-world scenarios for this stuff, the question becomes how to best incorporate these communication tools into an integrated and cohesive marketing strategy? I’d suggest start by stripping away all the Web 2.0 monikers and buzzwords and boil it down to content and communication. From there think about what everyone else is thinking about. How do I come up with creative ways to distribute my content? After that, think about how to be a facilitator. Once a brand becomes a trusted information source or content provider, conversations happen. Tools like Twitter and Jaiku can drive those conversations. And conversations build brand.
Bill Ives points to a recent Forrester report by Oliver Young that discusses what works when selling Enterprise 2.0 to the corporate set. It sparked some thought on the old Web 2.0 adage that goes something like..”if you can’t introduce your offering into the enterprise for less than $10 or $20 bucks a month..” I’m sure I slaughtered that so I apologize to its author. But you get the idea. Once you identify the digirati, empower them and work from there.
And it seems simple, but his recommendation about a highly tailored pitch is dead on. The deeper you dig while uncovering the needs of the business, the more diverse those requirements tend to be.
A well-crafted marketing plan will target each constituency and use its interests to drive value and revenues..
If you’re not, take a look at a recent document I received from Scott Niesen, head marketer at Attensa. If you don’t know Attensa, you’re in for a treat. Their new feedreader tool sits nicely inside Outlook and brings a unique spin to feed reading via their “River of News” view and AttentionStreamâ„¢ technology.
Through ongoing analysis of AttentionStreamâ„¢ data, including the time and frequency that feeds are accessed and articles read, deleted and ignored, Attensa displays feeds in a prioritized list based on the likelihood that they will be of interest to the reader. Subscriptions can be displayed in a “River of News” view that simulates a single news feed, regardless of how many RSS feeds
And Scott and I had a good exchange about sharing some of Attensa’s inner RSS workings. When I told him I should just blog the whole document, he quickly fired back that “marketing is all about experiments and a little risk.”
My tough love for CMOs these days is “adapt or die”. Your required portfolio (as well as other c-suite peers) is changing fast and that change is usually summed up in one word. Digital. The CMO in today’s organization better be a curious technician, a keen analyst, and comfortable building a business case. If XML, RSS, and SaaS look like alphabet soup, you might want to keep reading.
They (CMOs) often don’t have the direct marketing, analytic/segmentation and customer-relationship-management-consultative skills to lead integrated media and marketing programs, combining general advertising, branding, direct, promotion, PR and digital elements.
Today’s marketing world is less and less about stand-alone campaigns that use one medium at a time and more about an integrated approach that speaks to your customers when and where they want. The kicker there is just because you find your market, doesn’t mean they’re ready to engage. Gundersen expands a bit further using the increasingly pervasive “micro” term, used to describe everything from the nature of today’s content to the characteristics of markets.
We are moving toward a marketing world that is driven by a direct-marketing opt-in, predictive modeling and tracking approach. Marketing in the future will not be about the masses but about understanding micro-segments of customers and using tools that enable marketing to get more granular and take campaigns to a one-to-one level.
I heard someone describe it recently as “customers are now looking for marketers instead of marketers looking for customers”. That’s earth-shattering, if not exciting.
Yesterday’s BusinessWire breakfast was proof that some PR firms do get it. It also proved if the jury’s still out on their capabilities, they’re plugging in the right people to execute. Enter Waggener Edstrom and their new digital duo Jim Olson and David Almacy. Both were asked by BusinessWire to host their so-called “wireside” chat about PR in the Digital Age. I actually Twittered some of the session from my Blackberry Pearl, at one point looking up during a post as Almacy remarked that, “some of you might be Twittering this presentation right now.” I looked up to see a bunch of blank stares. Oh well, nice try David.
Olson, a big brand guy and former VP at Overture, kicked off the discussion with his list of digital trends. One of the things he confirmed was what we’re all seeing happen in front of us — video. As he put it, the web now is in full motion and has a voice. Video is mainstream.
( Jim Olson and David Almacy | Pics taken by Blackberry Pearl)
The second point was the broad notion of “interactivity“, where users are now part of the mix — like it or not. Citing the oft-used citizen journalism term, Olson explained how media companies have had to rethink the way news is produced and delivered.
Individual Addressability was another term Olson used to describe the ability to tailor content to the right constituents. This is a big one in a lot of ways. It brings the Long Tail into the fold and helps all of us get a clearer picture of the impact of our marketing and advertising spend. Olson quoted the old advertising saying, “I know half my advertising dollars are wasted - I just don’t know which half!” Well folks, that’s a changing. And that’s the lure of content with digital DNA.
The last few points dealt with the potential ramifications of a growing global internet community and the proliferation of mobile devices. On the former, Olson pointed to statistics showing how China will soon surpass the U.S. with more than 200M internet users. The numbers aren’t so surprising for a country of more than a billion, but the message was more about preparation. Think about the challenges (cultural, technological) that poses for U.S. marketers. Olson was dead on titling the slide, “The Revolution is not being televised.”
The last digital piece he dissected was the mobile movement, drawing a definitive stake in the sand by proclaiming, “Mobile is the new PC”. He reminded us more than half the planet’s mobile devices are in developing countries. A fitting end to his pitch was a quote from GE’s CEO - “I want my communicators to be role models for creativity and innovation.”
David Almacy took the floor next with a little faster tempo. A well-traveled political advisor and former web guru for the White House, Almacy came across as part geek and part strategist. That’s just what the Doctor ordered for the big PR agencies being called on by the big brands.
His White House 2.0 discussion was fascinating. It’s daunting to even think of developing a Web 2.0 strategy for the leader of the free world. Even more interesting was hearing Almacy talk about the early backlash from the President’s office when he launched the first Presidential podcasts. Once the first distasteful threads started to bubble up, he was asked to remove the content from iTunes. But in true web evangelist form, Almacy stuck to his guns, finally winning out after the comments evened out with an acceptable positive and negative mix.
I told my colleagues, we can’t take the podcast down, we’re on the front page of iTunes!
The other thing Almacy knifed through was the bevy of social media tools and services. He obviously caught me nodding as he rattled off all the newest Web 2.0 kids on the block, everything from Digg to Twitter and Pownce. The takeaway though wasn’t being jargon-capable, it was more about curiosity and exploration. As he put it..
I only have a few Tweets out there but I had to see what it was all about.
And that’s really the sense I got from yesterday’s event. There was a lot of tire-kicking, a lot of curiosity, and heck of a lot of passion. It was apparent the room was full of communicators trying to keep a foothold on the shifting ground beneath them.
If you’re hunting for a new PR firm or just need a gut check to see if you’ve hired the right one, head over to Room 214 and read their brief on “Firing Your PR Firm.” (Hat tip to my fellow SMT blogger Sterling Hager)
James Clark of Room 214 astutely points out many of the the reasons why the PR industry is spinning from a Social Media hangover. The thing I liked the most was his description of the “Conversation Analyst”, a person he describes as part web technician and part media-type.
Must have mainstream media experience as a journalist or communications practitioner. Strong social and analytical capabilities. Has experience with and enthusiasm for blogging, podcasting, RSS feeds, tagging, wikis, e-mail publishing, web analytics, cross-campaign management, adserving, affiliate marketing and online news aggregators. Has maintained a personal or corporate blog for at least one year. Has managed pay-per-click search marketing campaigns across Google, Yahoo, Looksmart, and other services. Can read and understand web analytics and tell a client with confidence what market to speak to. Applicants please submit a brief resume with links to your current and past sites or blogs, as well as your del.icio.us bookmarks. HTML skills required.
So the real question is how many of you reading this thought to yourself, damn that’s me. If you’re a PR practitioner, probably not many.
A few weeks back we worked an Art Fest in Addison,Tx, helping promote my sister-in-law’s jewelry works. And like any good marketer, my head’s always on a swivel absorbing the ways companies try to reach us. My wife and I liked the fact the Jack FM set-up was green and clean. No emissions, low power usage, etc.
And speaking of clean, the other image is from Micro Target Media and comes straight to you from a genuine Addsion, Tx Port-o-Potty. It cracked me up that the PROs — portable restaurant operators — got into the acronym game. But apparently I should have done my homework. PRO is a common term as you can see in the comment thread.
And you wonder why social media and brand measurement is so hot. It took what, less than 48 hours for somebody to track me down. WOW.
I haven’t been a big mind mapper in the past, mostly because of the complexity of the applications. In Web 2.0 times, anything with a learning curve of more than a half hour and my login credentials grow stale. But MindMeister, an Ajax-based mapping tool, has converted me. At least in the short-term. I used it a while back to document some of the things I found myself doing over and over on certain projects and thought I’d just publish to the web. It’s by no means meant to be comprehensive, it’s more about open sourcing my social media workflow. And on a Web 2.0 app note, I really like the Twitter integration allowing you to be alerted of updates to the mind map via SMS. That’s smart.
I saw this report from Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Council pointing to some of the challenges us marketers are facing in 2007. The aggregate of the data validates why Chief Marketing Officers are moving into the C-Suite. Long time coming.
The study was designed to identify key trends from 2006, and capture insights and opinion about where and how marketers are focusing their efforts in 2007. Fielded in the fourth quarter of 2006 to 350 top marketers, the study’s findings show that most top marketers had no interest in gathering moss or paying homage to the status quo last year.
I noticed some of the buzz surrounding Ad Age’s Digital Marketing Conference this week and couldn’t help but think of Jerry Bowles’ recent post about the Social Media Content Audit. He makes the point that a lot of the stuff we need to establish a networked community is right under our nose.
Cadillac’s top ad exec agreed.
..some marketers might be surprised to see the communities that already exist online. Liz Vanzura, global director of advertising for Cadillac, found 300 Cadillac communities in Yahoo Groups and 1,500 YouTube videos tagged Cadillac when she went out to create MyCadillacStory.com. They were already there. We were just providing a unique forum where they could interact using video technology.
Could finding the starting point for social media strategy be as simple as combing through an annual report and a few press releases? You bet. When you’re evangelizing how the new web creates value, you better know your client’s business and be able to identify the folks most likely to champion the cause. Good job Jerry.
This post has been marinating for a while in my Live Writer queue. It’s one of those “take a step back and quickly observe” posts. You know, when you realize there’s knowledge to be gleaned from some of your web creations. And with some recent developments in the internet advertising space, I thought it was a good time to resurrect some quick observations. In this case, I’m referencing Google’s AdSense, but I run ads from the other usual suspects as well — namely MSFT, Yahoo, and FeedBurner.
Before you call me a sell out, hear me out on some coffee-shop observations
View George Dearing's profile
Last week Reuters UK reported that Taylor Nelson Sofres (TNS) rejected the latest bid from WPP, the world’s second largest ad firm. 
