Integrated Marketing

Don't let the velociraptors loose!

2012-02-26T03:45:53Z

When developing a Marketing campaign, it’s useful to consider the studies of Dr. Ian Malcolm the fictional mathematician played by Jeff Goldblum in the classic movie Jurassic Park. Dr. Malcolm was a Chaos Theorist who tellingly described his fascination with the Butterfly Effect on an uneventful jeep ride into the dinosaur compound. To sum it up, the Butterfly Effect describes how a very small change in a system can result in significant unanticipated consequences elsewhere in the system through an example of a butterfly flapping its wings in the rainforest causing a hurricane to form in a distant ocean. Things didn’t turn out too well for the doctor and his companions when a Butterfly Effect-like sequence of events coincidentally turned Jurassic Park into a feeding ground for dinosaurs featuring humans as the main course.

Marketing campaigns can have a significant impact on numerous other business functions within an enterprise. In fact, if not adequately planned for, a marketing campaign can have devastating business impacts that quickly erode initial success into a degraded customer experience, lost credibility and negative financial impacts. There have been many notable examples of marketing campaigns causing such chaos. Promotional flyers that were not properly forecasted have caused immediate out-of–stocks and angry mobs of one-time customers. Marketing campaigns that have not been well communicated to field sales have resulted in confusion and angst. Web promotions have been so successful they’ve crashed sites (and careers). Rebates have choked customer service and back-end systems to death. Guerilla marketing campaigns amped up by social media have led to problematic PR and legal situations, and in some cases, social disorder.

Unlike the Butterfly Effect though, marketers have the capability to anticipate and plan for many impacts elsewhere in the system. A fundamental approach to mitigating many of the risks associated by a marketing campaign is to assume a leadership role across a wide swath of business functions to relentlessly integrate planning. Marketers need to have the acumen to think first as business people to identify, educate and coordinate all business functions that contribute to a positive customer experience. Prior to any campaign, a good marketer should invest the time to understand Purchasing and Supply Chain functions and how they can anticipate and react to demand spikes. Prior to any campaign, a good marketer should work with IT to understand how best to plan for significant spikes in web traffic. Prior to any campaign, a good marketer should consider all the steps their business needs to take to fulfill the customer promises they are creating with their campaign.

Taking the time to learn and integrate the disparate business functions that deliver the customer experience is hard work that is a combination of active listening, self-education, proselytizing and politics. But, it’s an investment that’s well worth it for a marketer. Becoming a business leader who integrates and focuses all functions on the customer experience is powerful and fun. And, it will help keep the dinosaurs in the compound!

Chart the course before adjusting the sails

2011-12-06T02:07:38Z

It’s fairly typical to hear marketing leaders lament their inability to prove out the return on investment of the tactics they’ve deployed. By nature, the relative return on investment of many marketing tactics is practically measured by level of activity versus level of results. For example, numbers of qualified leads, number of impressions or growth in website traffic are frequent success measures used to evaluate return on marketing investment.

Activity-based marketing analysis is a result of many factors, but typically has its roots in lack of data, business-process and infrastructure that hamper true line-of –site between tactic and result. Best-in-breed consumer packaged goods companies or retailers have built results-based analytics capabilities over decades, but for most companies, this capability remains elusive. Complexity in the B2B purchase-cycle exacerbates this gap. Merger or acquisition activity that mismatches data, process and infrastructure can set back even the most proficient results-based marketer.

Activity-based measures do provide timely feedback to manage marketing tactics and course-correct in real-time. But, although activity-based measures are valuable to understand relative performance to manage marketing tactics, they quickly become irrelevant in an executive-level conversation regarding profitable revenue growth or EBITDA contribution. Since marketing budgets are typically one of the few operating expense levers available to manage quarterly financial performance, aggressive short-term reductions in marketing budgets is often more palatable to an organization than reductions in research and development or headcount.

To balance short-term management with long-term strategy, marketing is ideally suited to play a major role, or perhaps even lead, strategic planning. By definition, marketing should be closest to critical business levers including market dynamics, voice of the customer, competitive actions, pricing, channel efficacy and product assortment.

A leadership role in strategic planning provides a unique opportunity to position marketing initiatives as critical contributors to achievement of strategic business goals such as customer acquisition, channel efficiency or customer retention. This alignment in the strategic planning stages provides a platform to temper the pressures on marketing of short-term financial performance with achievement of the longer-term strategic goals of an organization.

The closer this alignment, the greater the chances that short term adjustments don’t distract an organization from reaching its long-term strategic destination.

Easy to Buy. Easy to Sell

2011-07-30T02:13:21Z

The partnership between Marketing and Sales is clearly a critical one in ensuring the achievement of business objectives. A lot of vendors in the CRM space build their business around the promise of helping a Marketing organization “break down the barriers between” or to put it more kindly, “integrate” Marketing and Sales. A more fundamental approach is for Marketing to think about the achievement of mutual goals. At a certain level in any viable, commercial organization, the goals between Marketing and Sales are pre-ordained, mutual and aligned around the profitable growth of the organization.

There are a lot of approaches to help ensure this alignment of profitably growing an organization down to a practical and tactical execution level. One is to consider marketing efforts through the lens of making a company and its products and services easy to sell. The passion of Marketers to ensure a customer-focus, to establish a customer needs-based narrative, to create a customer purchase cycle-centric dialogue, to improve the overall customer experience – to make it easy to buy - sometimes distracts from also considering the need to make a company, and its products and services, easy to sell.

How does Marketing play a role?

A starting point is the establishment of a credible, relevant and simple value proposition that can be internalized, personalized and reinforced by anybody who interacts with a customer or prospect. Also important, is addressing a customer’s basic buying criteria, what it will take to be included in their considered set for purchase – or value equation. The value proposition piece is where many Marketers excel. The value equation piece is harder, as it often requires coordination across multiple disciplines such as pricing, engineering, supply chain, packaging or customer service. Employee engagement – ensuring a value proposition is internalized, personalized and conveyed as the anchor for any customer interaction – is more challenging, and many times glossed over in a marketing plan.

Sales enablement is another area where a thoughtful approach towards achieving mutual goals can realize rich dividends. Content and tools which focus a sale team and enable it to be more effective in accelerating the sales cycle, and more efficient in managing their productivity, effect not only top line growth, but also the S&GA operating leverage which contributes to overall profitability. Marketers need to realize that a natural tension exists between the efficiency of meeting the needs of many across all sales scenarios, and the effectiveness of meeting the needs of one in a specific sales scenario. Mass customization in the field of sale enablement is itself now enabled by the digital tools afforded marketers and their sales partners.

A form of sales enablement is demand generation. Demand generation is Marketing’s most prevalent sales enablement approach, and that with the most immediate and discernable impact. Leveraging marketing analytics to identify high-margin market opportunities that represent a high propensity-to-buy is art form that can be done behind the Marketing curtain, but will translate into higher close-rate efficiency for sales. Leveraging permission-based marketing to nurture customers through the purchase cycle and pre-qualify opportunities for sales is a case study in how the Marketing/Sales partnership can drive profitable growth. A perception amongst a sales channel that Marketing delivers high-quality, qualified leads – or even better, converts opportunities on its behalf – cements the Marketing/Sales relationship on the basis of aligned goals and mutual benefit.

Marketers are trained to focus on making whatever it is they are marketing easy for a customer to buy. Just as important, is the practical consideration of making it also easy to sell.

Feed the Machine

2011-03-23T23:58:00Z

As marketers, we know what we need to do. The idea of matching the right content to the right person in the right place at the right stage in the purchase life cycle to accomplish a marketing objective is pretty straightforward. It's a concept that fits nicely onto a Powerpoint slide.

But, myriad communication channels exist to facilitate our conversations with the market. The most important channels being those that our customers prefer to utilize. As we fire up our content delivery machine to be more targeted, more personalized, and more social with the hope of becoming more credible, more relevant and more effective, the fuel for our multi-channel machine – our content – becomes a critical consideration.

A recent Seth Godin post defined today’s market as a swarm of fleas with our customers and prospects flitting about from one attraction to another with steadily decreasing spans of attention (and an ever increasing buzz of influence from their fellow fleas). I like the metaphor. That the life span of a flea is about 90 days reinforces how fleeting the relationship with our customers can sometimes be. As marketers, we’re seeking to connect with an individual flea (and those in the swarm which influence that flea) with relevant and credible content where and when it matters to drive a behavior.

To improve our chances, the machine for personalized conversations exists. Database analytics and modeling provide a pretty good idea of who our targets are and how they will probably behave. Implicit profiling which our customers and prospects carry in their digital footprint provides an introduction. Explicit profiling through which our customers tell us about themselves can be the foundation for a powerful dialog and a longstanding relationship.

But, we need to live up to our end of the bargain. If we commit to a customer that we will get to know them and tailor our engagement to meet their specific wants and needs, we have to deliver. Once we don’t deliver on our promise of personalized, compelling content delivered how our customers prefer, we lose credibility, we lose relevance and we may lose permission to continue our conversation.

The type of content needed to realize the potential of personalized engagement is new to many brands. To engage in a fleeting moment, we need storytellers. But, a new breed of storyteller who can establish a customer-needs based narrative – sometimes in a simple headline., sometimes in a multi-media format such as video. And, create with things like brand voice, social media and organic search in mind.

Also, the volume of content needed to realize the potential of personalized engagement can be staggering. A new paradigm for content creation is needed– one that produces content with reuse across multiple channels in mind from the beginning. A content creation paradigm that strikes a balance between the effectiveness of personalized content, and the efficiency of a thoughtful production model. One that enables core content to be tailored to multiple audiences. One that aggressively leverages user-generated content.

Personalized engagement promises rich dividends in improved performance against key marketing objectives such as conversion rates and brand loyalty. Just remember, once the machine is unleashed, it will always be hungry for fresh, compelling, relevant content.

Walk the Talk

2011-02-19T21:18:00Z

I am a true believer in the power of Organizational Purpose, the articulation and manifestation of the difference a brand makes in the world. I have seen firsthand the ability of Purpose to inspire and engage an organization to deliver value to the market with passion and focus, and create sustainable competitive advantage. It’s true, however, that to be effective (as with any Marketing), what you say must be clear, compelling, relevant and credible to your audiences.

Credibility is a hard thing to earn and an easy thing to lose. Since its founding, Walmart has experienced phenomenal growth anchored in its core purpose of saving people money so they can live better. Walmart’s purpose-based branding has never varied too far from this core idea; Walmart today promotes the brand promise of Saving Money and Living Better and it is reinforced across all internal and external audiences, across all touch points, with an almost fierce consistency. Walmart has established a self-propagating credibility engine fueled by its Purpose.

Southwest Airlines remains one of the most profitable airlines in an exceptionally challenging category. It was founded around the idea of the democratization of the air; a core Purpose to give people the freedom to fly. With the introduction of boarding classes on their planes and a focus more on freedom from fees, than freedom to fly, Southwest is subtly deviating from the core Purpose that made it great, eroding credibility with employees and customers along the way.

When it comes to credibility, not many organizations can match Google for truly delivering against its Purpose of organizing the world’s information and making it universally accessible and useful. Google has stayed true to its Purpose and refused to do business in main land China due to Internet censoring concerns that are contrary to its core Purpose. Google is postponing aggressive business growth in the world’s largest Internet market, 400 million users (double the U.S.), to stay true to itself. Recently in Egypt, Google executive Wael Ghonim became a de facto leader of government opposition groups in a country that had just shut down the Internet to quell revolt. The best way to establish credibility with both internal and external audiences is through actions that unflinchingly and without compromise back your words.

Anyone can say the words. The brands that back those words with action and truly live their Purpose will convert the cynics, convince the skeptics and nurture employees and customers for life.

Purpose Is the Path To Relevance

2011-02-18T23:34:53Z

The role of Marketing within an organization can sometimes be limited. Despite academic definitions and best-selling books by guru marketers, many times Marketing continues to be defined by the broader business by the tactics that are executed; advertising, events, sales tools. Unless you’re a consumer packaged goods company with institutional mechanisms to measure purchase behavior, many of these tactics are only measurable by activity versus results. It’s easy to measure how many people attend an event, use a tool or visit a website. It’s hard to measure what impact these individual marketing tactics have on the financial metrics of an organization. The inability to prove out Marketing as an investment that drives financial results versus an expense that drains quarterly budgets continues to challenge most Marketing departments.

The evolution of digital marketing and the ability to tie online and offline customer behavior to sales force automation and financial systems continues to close the gap between investment and expense, but in the meantime, Marketing as a function needs to show its relevance to an organization in strategic areas which don’t have visible ties to short-term business results.

A strategic area that is receiving attention lately is the idea of organizational purpose – the need to create a clear sense of internal value within an organization as a driving force behind organization, investment, behavior, and long-term relationships with employees and customers. A great summary of this idea accompanied by case studies of organizations that have embraced the idea and thrived as a consequence is the book It’s Not What You Sell, It’s What You Stand For by Roy M. Spence Jr.

Defining organizational purpose leverages the core strengths of Marketing. It’s an exercise in developing a unique, clear and credible value proposition based upon the strengths of your organization, your culture and belief system, and where you can make money. It’s an exercise in targeting a message against a core audience segment (and a surprising number of sub-segments) which is often times not paid its due in the marketing mix: the internal constituents of an organization. It’s an exercise in redefining the marketing mix to include vehicles that aren’t typically considered such as recruiting, performance management, rewards and training platforms. It’s an exercise in complex and cascading communication that combines rational and emotional cues.

Making Marketing relevant at a strategic level is a worthy aspiration within any organization. Organizational Purpose may provide the path toward that relevance.

Have Yourself A Very Mobile Christmas

2010-12-11T03:31:00Z

The smart phone has truly become a mobile extension of the online shopping experience.

It has changed online shopping behavior by adding mobility and immediacy. The in-store experience is blending together with the benefits of on-line shopping, in real-time. Applications such as Google Goggles or RedLaser accelerate the ability to compare features and prices from a smart phone, product ratings based on all sorts of criteria are now available real-time on a smart phone through applications like GoodGuide , and smart phone applications which enable real-time recommendations from a consumer’s social network are now launching. Consumers can experience a product at a retailer, and then buy the product from the website of another retailer in real time.

Intersecting elements of the fundamental value proposition of mobile (e.g. it moves with you, it connects you, it can tell others where you are, it supports rich media experiences, it has immediacy…) and social media (e.g. it’s authentic, it’s relevant, it’s personalized, it scales, it’s opt-in….) will result in an unparalleled pursuit of the monetization of social-centric mobile commerce applications.

Having access to a consumer with knowledge of information like who they are, where they are, what they like, what they own, what they want to own, who they listen to for advice, where they shop and how they like to receive information and offers represents an unbelievable opportunity.

Recent research from InsightExpress surveyed the intended shopping behavior of smart phone owners. Study data reveals that during this holiday season, 29% of all smart phone owners intend to use their device to compare prices, 23% for product reviews, 22% for sales alerts and 20% to search for products at another store. Shoppers also plan to make use of additional features such as barcode scanning (19%) and mobile couponing (19%). 34% plan to take pictures of products in store and 25% plan to send pictures to other people to solicit opinions. According to Google’s retail advertising blog “while m-commerce (buying over phones) is still small, shoppers plan to use smart phones during Holiday 2010 by comparing prices, locating retailers, looking for promotions, etc.”

There are still technology issues to work out (e.g. robustness of location based services, viability of mobile sharing technologies, interoperable networks to support rich media, application interfaces…), business issues to work out (e.g. how to monetize, how to deliver accurate and actionable database analytics, privacy…) and societal issues to work out. A failure may result in feeling the amplified wrath of the same socially networked consumer a company is trying to engage.

We’re in a classic technology adoption curve with the early adopters from both retailers and consumers jumping in. Ultimately, consumers will define how they want to be engaged, challenges will be overcome and it will all get figured out. Combine location-based services inherent in smart phones with savvy retailers, and a new world of local, targeted, personalized, crowd-sourced, rich-media offers sent real-time to smart phones will emerge and further revolutionize the online shopping experience.

Not to mention redefine the impulse buy.

Your Most Important Audience

2010-11-11T01:41:00Z

When considering a multi-channel, integrated marketing program, an often overlooked channel are your employees. There are more efficient channels which can reach thousands, or millions, of current and potential customers. But, there may be no channel as effective as a customer service representative or a front line salesperson to unlock customer lifetime value within a company’s best customers. I’ve often observed that integrated marketing programs treat internal audiences as just that, another audience. Usually, not a primary audience. Usually the recipient of downstream visibility and training just prior to launch.

As a powerful alternative, I’ve also observed what can happen when internal audiences are considered as the most important audience. Informed way up front and included in a brand building exercise or the development of a marketing program. Inspired by a program and how it relates down to a very personal and individual level. Asked to engage and become an ambassador of the brand and an extension of the program. Empowered to take action. Encouraged to unlock the passion. Human Resources can be a non-traditional, but powerful ally and advocate to make it happen.

Think not about employees as an audience, think about employees as The Audience.

The bridge to an effective product launch

2010-02-05T02:39:00Z

In the ever-evolving world of search engine marketing, organic search still prevails as the great equalizer. With thoughtful keyword management, search-centric content creation and tagging; a search friendly infrastructure and an ongoing strategy to adapt and evolve to manage rankings, David can seem like Goliath in the page rankings. Knowing that the majority of click-throughs and conversions come from organic search listings versus paid truly enable you to outsmart instead of outspend the competition.

A gap does currently exist, however, during the time it takes for search engine crawlers to discover something new that you’ve posted and optimized. Sometimes it’s not a big deal. In the case of a major event such as a product launch, it’s a very big deal. If the product launch isn’t accompanied by a major promotional investment, it can be a very, very big deal. A strategic investment in paid search can be a great bridge to accompany a product launch to establish online presence and credibility until the algorithms of the search engines take over. And, the keywords associated with a new product can sometimes be exceptionally affordable.

So, build that bridge.

Marketing Lessons From George Bailey

2009-09-07T03:13:00Z

Very challenging economic times have resulted in an interesting bifurcation of marketing strategies. As to be expected, many companies have looked to the bottom-line, reducing marketing spend to help manage near-term profitability as an alternative to head-count or R&D reductions. Reductions in marketing spend and headcount leads to re-organization and oftentimes chaos that can easily translate into a defensive marketing stance; a reactionary approach dictated by market forces. Some companies have taken a seemingly contrarian view, not necessarily investing in additional marketing spend, but taking an opportunity to “sharpen the saw” so that when the economic conditions improve, they will be the firms best suited to take advantage of the inevitable upturn. One major opportunity is a transformation of talent. Whereas many marketers will stay put in time of downturn until security is assured, these are not necessarily the marketers needed to drive transformation.

Those that can embrace risk and bring optimism and enthusiasm in this market environment can be a tonic to an organization on the verge of greatness. Another major opportunity is a fine-tuning of marketing strategy, which can pay rich dividends as customer, and prospects, begin to plan their way into growth cycles. As competition waits to react and economic pressures redefine markets, a reassessment of the unique value a company can deliver articulated through a uniquely relevant and credible brand strategy can be of significant advantage. And can represent significant share gain or new market growth opportunities. George Bailey (a great fictional niche marketer with the Bailey Building and Loan in the classic “It’s a Wonderful Life”) recognized the savvy of his nemesis old man Potter when he observed during a financial panic, “Everyone-else is selling, but Potter’s buying!” Leave the malicious intent of Potter aside, but as marketers, now is the “time to buy” or your market just might become Potterville!

Facebook and Twitter and Blogs. Oh My!

2009-06-14T20:24:00Z

Social media is certainly a hot topic in B2B marketing right now. In the consumer world, U.S. congress members tweet commentary and criticism to constituents, YouTube creates instant celebrity and social media addictions are being diagnosed. New digital tools are being created to help people link together all of the networking services which are linking them together. How can any self-respecting B2B marketer sit by and let the consumer marketers have all the fun.

As with any marketing trend, pundits are emerging. But, no one has yet figured out how best social marketing will play a role in the relatively complex world of B2B marketing.

I'm considering social media a family of marketing tactics that depending upon target audience, marketing objective and how audiences engage with social media through the purchase cycle, may or may not be appropriate.

I'm loosely grouping social media in my own mind around the themes of engagement, connection and listening.

Engagement is represented by social media tactics like twitter, flickr, youtube, wikipedia, blog, blog influence. It can deliver the right information to the right person at the right time to start a two way conversation and accelerate the purchase cycle. And, positively impact your "off-page" search engine results.

Connection gets into communities, forums, facebook, linked in, virtual trade shows etc. and is about connecting like minded customers and prospects to your company and/or each other into a truly global sphere of influence. I'm observing the most relative value in this area right now especially against loyalty and advocacy objectives.

Listening relates to service available now to monitor the "blogosphere" to understand who is talking about you or your area of interest to discern influencers and engage them actively or passively in your marketing efforts.

There's a lot going on right now in the realm of social media and the consumerization of B2B. And, a lot more coming. I recommend you try piloting some tactics that are aligned with your audiences and objectives in a way that can measure performance against your objective. I also caution against signing up for a social media tactic (e.g. blog or twitter) without having a clear strategy on keeping content and brand interactions fresh.

Power Point. Has the servant become the master?

2009-05-01T03:27:00Z

In B2B communication (and the broaderbusiness world), Power Point has become synonymous with high-touch customer engagement. But, has the servant become the master? Power Point is the internal corporate currency. The opportunities to easily churn out rich media presentations is evident; entire off-shore agencies have emerged to quickly and cost-efficiently produce power point. And, Power Point has become the presentation vehicle of choice in academia. Not just university, but primary and secondary schools in the U.S. now include power point as part of the curriculum. Power Point is indeed a high-impact presentation tool with increasing capability to use rich multimedia assets in storytelling.

A picture is truly worth a thousand words in a B2B high-touch engagement and showing solutions at work, showing a rich 3D rendering of a product still on the drawing board, or showing a customer reference singing your praises is certainly effective.

I do see a couple of risks. One is the vehicle becomes too much of a crutch for the content and the delivery. If the prospect is staring at imagery flying around a screen, she may not be paying attention to the root message specific to her situation which is the core objective of the engagement. Will the presenter become lazy knowing that the story will tell itself? I recently had a hardware malfunction and had to present an hour strategy session on a white board from memory. It turned out to be pretty invigorating and raised my level of engagement significantly.

Some of the best sales presentations I have seen have been forty minute conversations based on 1 or 2 key ideas (albeit reinforced on 1 power point slide on a screen in the background). I’ve also detected a subtle shift in the high-touch environments where basic Power Point is perceived as indistinguishable from the competition.

One observed answer to this dilemma, flashier and fancier power point with embedded video, thunderous sounds and high-flying animation.  An unfortunate side-effect is computer crashing file sizes and the potential need to cart around external speakers and other paraphernalia. Another observed approach, a retro movement towards customer-tailored physical boards just like the ad agencies use on t.v.

High-touch engagement across the sphere of decision-making and influence is exceptionally important in the later stages of the B2B sales cycle.

But, vigilance is required to ensure the differentiated “what” that needs to be communicated doesn't’t get lost in a rich media clutter of “how” it’s presented. And, sometimes the competition can be outflanked by redefining the media supporting the message instead of seeking to win the power point arms race.

Social Networked Genius or Giving Up the Brand?

2009-03-08T22:28:00Z

Or, just a very clever viral marketing gimmick?

Skittles (www.skittles.com) has launched a new website that may be a harbinger of things to come as the web evolves from destination to distribution. The Skittles brand is now represented in the digital world by an amalgamation of all things social networked and crowd sourced. The home page itself is the Wikipedia listing for Skittles. A chatter tab takes you to the twitter page for Skittles. Another tab takes you to the Skittle Facebook page. Even video is supported off-page via a You Tube channel. And pictures? Flickr, of course. (Interestingly enough, there seem to be quite a few people who name their pets Skittles.) All of these off-page resources are managed fairly cleverly by a branded navigation bar to keep a visitor grounded.

What’s a marketer to make of this integration of relevant and credible content sources that are shaping the Skittles brand through grass-roots discussion, debate and consensus? More importantly, what’s a consumer to think? Is it credible, or are we going to find out later all the passionate posters of Skittles pictures on flickr are actually employees of a PR firm working incognito a la Lonely Girl? The Wikipedia entries seem to be coming from trusted sources exclusively within the Skittles organization and its digital marketing firm. Plus, the opt-in content disclaimer up front is a little creepy for a candy brand.

Regardless, it’s a shot across the bow on how marketers think about the interaction of customers and brands in the digital space. Most marketers have already been thinking about how best to leverage the power of viral content and crowd sourcing to improve customer engagement and keep brands timely and credible.

Skittles has launched an aggressive approach, which has basically handed the brand over. It may be a well-executed gimmick, but a thought provoking one in the integrated marketing space. (Photo credit: PiccoloNamek)

Practicing Football without a Football

2009-01-19T19:15:00Z

There’s a very poignant story circulating right now, “The Last Lecture” by Randy Pausch.

The video of the lecture is inspiring and I also recommend the book which has some additional material and perspective. If you’re not familiar, it’s literally the last lecture of a Carnegie Mellon professor afflicted with terminal cancer (who has since passed away) where he reflects back on lessons learned.

One particular anecdote I’ll paraphrase is his experiences with a youth football coach he describes as “old school”. The first day of practice, the players quickly notice that the coach has arrived without any footballs. When asked, the coach retorts, “How many players touch the football at any given time on the field?” When someone answers “one”, the coach continues “We’re going to focus on what the other 21 players are doing…. the basics”.

As I continuously monitor topics related to integrated marketing through the digital toolkit, I am struck by the same lesson…focus on the basics. There are a lot of new digital tactics emerging in both B2C and B2B some will win and proliferate others will fade, but it’s important not to lose focus on the basics. For most marketers, their web site is the media channel garnering more customer interactions and engagement that any other media channel. Ensuring the right information awaits the right person in the right place on a website is an exercise in content management which isn’t the hottest of topics, but critical to the credibility of a brand.

And, the movement of customers from one stage to the next in the purchase cycle is intrinsically tied to not only the right information, but also the basic taxonomy of the website and effective calls to action. It’s an exercise in basics that takes internal fortitude and discipline. Similarly, the most efficient means by which many companies can bring people to their interactive experiences, their most prolific media channel, is search engine optimization. Again, an exercise in ongoing discipline and institutional focus as SEO is a journey not a destination.

The ongoing evaluation of keywords, copywriting, tagging, taxonomy, urls and other algorithm affecting variables is roll-up-your-sleeves, basic marketing.

Just as in sports, a strong foundation in the basics of digital marketing will make the rest of the mix more effective.

Retail 2.0

2009-01-10T22:30:00Z

The emergence of computer generated imagery (CGI) as a viable production alternative for very flexible creative platforms has been proven to me as I’ve used it as an alternative for traditional photography in both on-line and off-line marketing components.

I know most photographers no longer use film as the flexibility and cost-effectiveness of digital photography have taken hold. I wonder if someday the photo shoot will become obsolete and creative production will occur only on high-performance workstations.

After seeing this article another dimension emerges. Will a computer generated shopping world be a viable alternative channel now that it’s moving from a gimmick in Second Life to a stand-alone replication of a world-class shopping different. My retail marketing experience has taught me the importance of the “last 3 feet”, the moment of truth when final purchase decision re made.

The retail sales representative continues to have significant influence on this moment of truth. I wonder if Artificial Intelligence-based sales avatars are in development to help close the sale in the virtual world?

B2B and B2C- just one letter apart

2009-01-05T03:35:00Z

Having had the opportunity to market in both B2C and B2B (and B2B2C) environments, it’s been interesting to take a step back and evaluate the similarities and differences between the approaches necessary in both to achieve success. At the core, both share certain basic similarities founded in classical marketing convention. Customer-needs based brand positioning which is relevant and credible, and creates distance from the competition (through uniqueness within a category or creation of a new category) is the structure upon which I’ve been able to build successful marketing programs in both B2C and B2B environments. From this commonality; however, diverge two very different marketing lifecycles. B2C customers are typically much less brand loyal and often make buying decisions emotionally. My B2C experience has substantiated that a consumer will quickly change brands should another meet a relevant need better with more credibility and differentiation. My B2B marketing experiences have dealt with customers who consider brand quite important in the purchase cycle (“no one ever got fired for buying IBM”) and engage in a very rational purchase process. The purchase process itself is exceptionally different. Whereas B2C marketing can encourage the “impulse buy”, B2B is a much longer and complex sales cycle with typically a large sphere of influencers impacting the ultimate purchase decision. This difference in purchase cycle leads to much different channel marketing strategies, with the complexity of B2B solutions often requiring multi-step distribution across a number of partners who bundle together a solution of parts for the ultimate end-customer. These differences impact the integrated marketing approach as target audiences (buyers and influencers) respond to different marketing vehicles. One thing I have noticed is a convergence of both B2C and B2B in the digital space, as digital marketing proves effective across the audiences to nurture a dialogue with the end-customer regardless of speed and complexity of the sales cycle. Many of the digital tools once focused on the B2C space to help the consumer easily research a product and hopefully convert them are now being successfully utilized in the B2B space. B2B customers now the ability to holistically research solutions (and marketers now have the ability to accelerate the sales cycle) through the digital toolkit. Search any major B2B company on YouTube and it’s likely you will find a channel focused on the B2B customer. This convergence in the digital space is turning what used to be two different types of marketing skill sets into different points along the same spectrum.

The genesis of the integrated marketing mix is often against "corporate nature"

2008-11-23T18:15:00Z

I am a passionate proponent and frequent champion of avoiding what in my view is a common marketing mishap, the "ready, fire aim" method of running with a marketing tactic prior to clearly understanding a couple of things: the business objectives which drive the marketing objectives and corresponding integrated marketing mix, but also, and more important to the overall effectiveness of a marketing program, the unique positioning of a product or a brand as the genesis for all marketing. I define "brand" as a promise to customers, employees, channel partners, employees and even competitors. I define positioning as how a company (or a product as representative of a brand) uniquely delivers on that promise. Typically, my most effective work developing positioning has been done through the lens of relevance, credibility and distance. Relevance related to how the attribute of a brand are translated into the terms that are aligned with customers in a particular segment of the market. How does a brand or a product deliver against their specific needs, help them achieve their goals and aspirations? How can they relate to a brand in their own context, in their own language and vernacular? Credibility builds upon that relevance to articulate the reasons to believe that a particular brand can deliver against those customer-specific aspirations and goals. Why should anyone believe your promise? Any brand has that information at the ready. Some are challenged bringing that to the forefront. It's often corporate nature to focus inside-out. To want to talk about what makes your product cool, to focus on a technology instead of benefit, to list features etc. etc. And conversely, against corporate nature to think about positioning, what makes you unique in a way which is relevant and credible to your customers? Continued discipline is needed not only to establish this type of philosophy, but also adjust and evolve it as the market, customers and competitors, evolve. The third element, distance, speaks to how different and differentiated you are from the competition. How do you deliver your brand promise with relevance and credibility that's unique to other choices in your category?

With all that said, as I reflect upon this blog to-date, I've started with tactics loosely affiliated under the confederacy of the integrated marketing mix. In hindsight, this topic should have been the genesis of any integrated marketing discussion.

Out of Home 2.0

2008-09-06T04:36:00Z

Visual clutter has unfortunately extended from the digital world into the physical resulting in an interesting evolution of out of home advertising space. The leader with whom I’ve had good experience is JC Decaux (http://www.jcdecauxna.com/ ) an agency consistently pushing the envelope in the intersection of new technology and out of home advertising. What used to be static is now dynamic as lighting and movement is integrated into what used to be static small form out of home such as bus shelter advertising. JC has also put a green spin on out of home with advertising kiosks in Paris which catch and store rain water via roof basins that’s stored in the body of the kiosk and then used to clean and post material on the kiosks with out requiring a water tanker truck to drive around and service the kiosks. Interactive store windows that sense and interact with the movements of passers-by are exceptionally engaging; check out the weird soundtrack for Diesel in Milan http://www.trendhunter.com/trends/diesel-interactive-store-window-sculpture . I am intrigued by the whispering window http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxd_CeQPAbY and the potential it represents for personalized interaction when combined with other technologies, but a high cost may never move it out of a promotional state. Bluetooth enabled out of home which passes content to passersby as seen at http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-9755102-1.html has the potential to target but also annoy. Mini did interesting work with RFID enabled billboads that utilize RFID keyfobs and user contributed personalized messages to flash targeted messages as the MINI drives nearby http://www.engadget.com/2007/01/13/mini-usa-rolls-out-rfid-activated-billboards/ . Really cool, but doesn’t change and gives rise to big brother conspiracy theories.

Back to the Future with Direct Mail

2008-06-04T02:27:00Z

The digital marketing mix is top of mind for the obvious reasons of targeting and efficiency of spend. A couple of traditional mix elements have recently caught my attention for innovation that seeks to achieve the same benefits of digital marketing in the offline mix. Traditional direct mail is under attack not only from the efficiency angle, but also the environmental perspective. I recently attended a very interesting presentation from the US Postal Service www.usps.com which focused on driving efficiency into traditional direct mail. A movement is under foot to convert the traditional direct mail model from pay per unit sent to pay per unit converted. In other words, an advertiser doesn’t pay for postage unless the direct mail piece results in a conversion. A less measurable perspective from a likely biased presenter: direct mail is now exceptionally effective with millenials as a direct result of their living in a digital world; since they don’t get very much mail in the mailbox anymore, they are more likely to pay attention. Also, a sound byte on the environmental impact of catalogs and direct mail: less than 2% ends up in landfills.

Is paid search the new Sunday newspaper insert?

2008-05-12T02:55:00Z

I heard an interesting opinion recently that in general, search engine optimization is more effective in reaching customers and prospects during the awareness stage of the purchase lifecycle and that paid search is more effective during the acquisition stage. The implication being the message and context which accompanies the search result can be optimized to best anticipate the desire of the customer. It will be interesting to see more research supporting this premise as I find myself negatively inclined to click on paid search banners as I find them generally more contrived and too direct in their engagement. I react in this manner with full knowledge that the activities impacting natural search rankings make the result rankings no coincidence. Maybe the ongoing evolution of the search algorithms provides a comfort level that I am not missing a better deal by clicking on the first banner I see-one that is an obvious advertisement. On the other hand, if the paid search banner is a trusted source, I will readily click through and accelerate the sales cycle while avoiding potential competitive links. There must be precedent from traditional advertising. Judging from the stacks of car ads in the newspaper and the apparent continued effectiveness of inflatable guerillas on car lots, an in your face approach must be generating significant ROI. The research and results will be interesting.

I recently viewed research data from leading search engine marketing agency which stated that over 70% of click throughs are driven by the first five results in an organic search listing, with paid search banner results for the same search ranking a distant third in overall click through rates. An overwhelming case for an effective search engine optimization strategy to create and maintain effective organic search optimization. The big question remains at what point does paid search need to play a role in the search marketing activities. Does the ROMI play out to invest to own keywords beyond the optimization investment required to own and maintain first and second organic search listings? The one thing paid search does deliver is certainty. The third most effective search position can always be owned regardless of competitive activity or change in search engine algorithms. The elasticity between paid search investment and investment and maintenance of organic search strategies to influence click through rates leading to more financially salient results is now a critical equation