I strongly believe mobile is the next major shift in marketing, and will dramatically change the nature of the relationship we have with brands.

Throughout the past few years, mobile marketing has not been able to live up to the hype and has largely been confined to push-based text messaging by mobile providers.

Three trends have now changed that – meaning we are about jump head first into an entirely new marketing universe.

In short, the mobile internet will do for offline marketing what the Web has done for online – take things to a whole new level. Consider the following applications:

• Smartphone users using location-based services like Foursquare not only to “check in” at specific locations, but getting brownie points for inviting their friends or hosting last-minute social events at a location of their choice – and getting an exclusive deal;
• Retailers using mobile channels to deliver extremely short-term promotions to nearby shoppers, sending push messages to only those that opted-in with a time-based bonus for acting quickly;
• Event agencies hosting last-minute “mini events” for a select few – not those that are “in the know”, but those that are “on the go”;
• Multiplayer mobile treasure hunts where luxury brands create a unique customer experience by working together with art galleries, museums and exclusive clubs – as consumers unlock one key, they are given a clue for the next, resulting in a citywide merry-go-round;

The point is, mobile marketing has the potential to take marketing from what is still primarily a one-way “selling” of ideas to creating shared experiences where consumers interact with the brand in a way that really delivers an experience – as opposed to just pretending it does.

The true advantage of mobile marketing is not (merely) that it reaches consumers on the go, but that it gives them someplace to go in the first place.

So which brands are out there, using mobile in a new way ? Who is not just recycling old ideas in order to push them through new channels ? What do you see happen next ?

Flickr.com, CCL, DerrickT

Why do we feel compelled to choose between two extremes ?

After all, by choosing one side over the other, we automatically ignore one side of the story. Thus, we prevent ourselves from being able to see how things really are, experiencing the richness that comes from taking into account different perspectives, and integrating them into a single whole.

Maybe it is a byproduct of information overload, where we seem increasingly unable to see through the mountain of data we consume each day, forcing us to look for coping mechanisms that help us regain sight of “the trees in the forest”. Maybe it is due to our desire to classify, put things in boxes and label them as we like. Or perhaps it is just a form of cultural bias that forces us to choose, to favor some things at the expense of others – there are many examples of oriental philosophy and religion being able to integrate seemingly opposite ends of the scale. Yin and Yang, anyone ?

As I spent some time mulling this over, it struck me how many of those seemingly obvious things in fact reduce our ability to take into account different perspectives, thereby somehow cutting us off from the richness that the world offers.

1. Left-brain OR right-brain

Even though we love to put people in boxes and label them as “left brain, right brain” types, my experience tells me most people are quite capable of doing both. In  fact, some of the most successful individuals I know apply both sides almost continuously in the way they approach business – and life in general. In doing so, they are almost universally more successful, respected and achieve significantly superior results.

2. Form OR Function

Why do we continue to believe that something needs to be either functional, or beautiful ? Some of the best designs combine both, combing strikingly good looks with superior performance – winning over consumers heart, as well as their wallets.

3. Macro OR Micro

One of my long-held favorites, if you want to be successful in business, you’d better be able to combine these two. Tackling complex challenges require us to constantly shift between both perspectives, and see how one supports the other. After all, even the entire cosmos is made up of quarks.

4. Structure OR Creativity

There seems to be a long-held belief that structure and creativity do not go together – yet anyone who has ever attended a good (great) brainstorming session understands that both need each other in order to be truly functional. Structure without creativity is boring, creativity without structure is going nowhere.

5. Price OR Luxury

Increasingly, income-bases segmentation schemes are proving this just no longer works: the same people drive big luxury SUVs, buy t-shirts at H&M, buy luxury leather goods from LVMH and drink cheap beer. Outside of the super-rich, most of us are becoming increasingly value-oriented and will go for that deal without thinking twice.

The point ? Any brand that is doing well in the marketplace is somehow able to integrate these different perspectives, and mesh them into something that makes sense to consumers. We love brands that seem to be “all things to all people” and invariably seem to reward them with our business.

So, for those entrepreneurs or companies out there looking for ideas, here is one way of thinking about it. How can you create, develop and launch a new product or service that integrates one of the seeming opposites above, and create the “next big thing” in the process ? What unmet needs are out there that would be well-served by creating a service offering that integrates both ends of the spectrum ?

After all, who does not want to have their cake and eat it ?

First, there was the launch of the iPad, which according to Retrevo had more customers willing to buy one before it was announced than after. Then, Google launched Google Buzz, which equally failed to convince anyone it was really going to “kill Facebook”.

Interestingly though, Google Buzz is today’s top trending keyword on Twitter. And, believe it or not, the iPad seems to be firmly stuck in second place. In spite of the fact everybody seems to agree the iPad does not address a real and pressing need and Google’s product is perceived almost universally as a “me too”-strategy, the Buzz is certainly on – at least in the Twittersphere.

Which leads me to the following question: to what extent are people talking about a new product or technology, just because one of their Most Valued Brands (“MVBs”) is behind it ? Is there a decline in distinction between, say, the brands of Paris Hilton and Apple ? Are we now increasingly talking about major consumer brands in the same way we talk about “celebrities”, gleefully standing by as they seemingly fail to live up to our expectations ?

Leading brands  create strong emotions, and social media provide a uniquely suited channel to voice them. Smart marketers understand this, and “listen in” on the conversations users are having. Is Twitter becoming a social media lab, an outpost where marketers and product managers can gauge initial market reactions, and then adapt their products in subsequent versions ?

The PR world has an old saying – “bad publicity is better than no publicity at all”. It will be interesting to look back in a few months, and see how Apple and Google adapted their strategy, product and prices based on widespread discussions in the social media space.

In a very data-driven analysis describing the current state of affairs in B2B sales, the authors come to a simple conclusion with important repercussions: there is an immense disconnect between how vendors assess their own performance in the sales process, and the way in which their customers do.

According to the authors, “The interviews bring to light a number of improvement areas in both the skills and competencies of salespeople, as well as vendors’ overall sales process. By addressing these areas, vendors can create competitive advantage through a more professional sales approach. Today, vendors do not capitalize on this opportunity, and perceive their differentiation efforts as being more effective than they are.”

Many industries are increasingly subject to commoditization and downward price pressure – as corporate procurement departments become increasingly involved, the pressure to compete on price increases significantly, resulting in structural margin reductions, often across entire industries.

The only way to avoid this is to compete on other elements of the Consumer Value Proposition – which unfortunately is not as easy as it sounds. My own experience on the buy- and sell-side for corporate professional services confirms several of the conclusions of the report.

Sales = listening > talking

The first golden rule of sales is still to listen to your client – really listen, that is. Most sales reps are so focused on countering clients’ statement or putting forth their carefully crafted “USP”, they forget to focus on what really matters: the customer’s need, and (crucially) how they intend to help him resolve it. Instead, they choose to inundate the customer with information that is often true, but irrelevant.

“Slick Jim” (R.I.P)

Increasingly, customers are expecting sales people to be knowledgeable about their industry, jargon and challenges. Consultative sales is increasingly becoming the norm, especially in highly technical or complex environments. This means sales reps increasingly need to be well-informed, highly educated and adept at thinking through complex problems  – “don’t worry, we’ll take care of it” is no longer an appropriate answer.

The Proof Is In The Pudding

Increasingly, clients expects a numbers-based, factual approach to sales, clearly demonstrating how your offering can add value to their business using criteria such as ROI, performance improvements or cost reduction benchmarks. Unless you are ready to back up your assertions with a load of data (and spend the time and effort required to build a model and do the research), you’d better get ready to start offering large discounts. Lasting competitive differentiation stems from superior products and services, backed up by ample evidence – not smooth-talking sales reps and polished decks of slides.

Professionalism is (still) a key differentiator

Like first impressions, customer interactions with sales representatives often set the tone for the entire relationship. Not respecting deadlines, client demands, criteria or other elements are a sure-fire way to blow the deal – especially as corporate procurement departments come into play, which are even more focused on respecting the rules of the game.

Marketing + Sales = 3

Marketing and sales really need to work together in order to generate deals; both have an integral part to play in identifying, understanding and successfully responding to client needs. Marketing is more than just a department that cranks out glossy brochures with pretty pictures, and a sales representative is not “a channel”.

Marketing can help drive sales by performing market analysis and segmentation (meaning sales can target the most appropriate clients, ignoring everyone else), provide valuable sales support (meaning sales loses less time and is more efficient) and collect and analyze customer feedback (ensuring sales becomes increasingly effective over time”.

Sales can bring back important information on market trends and customer needs, provide the basic input for competitive intelligence or customer benefit analysis and – crucially – build long-term relationships with key accounts.

Most professionals that specialize in a particular area, whether it is HR, marketing or communications spend a disproportionate amount of their time interacting with their peers, navel staring or “thinking about the future of the profession”. This leads to precisely the type of internally focused thinking that the CommScrum team talks about in their latest blogpost.

Kudos to them for coming out and saying what a lot of us have been thinking for a long time now.

From my own personal experience, functional disciplines often suffer from a lack of  confidence – they all want to be “seated at the business table”, but fail to deliver when they get there. Surprisingly, most communications professionals sin against one of their own cardinal rules: adapt your core message in line with your target audience.

Business executives do not want to hear about communications, marketing or HR-related issues, they want to hear about business issues. How much did this campaign contribute to the bottom line ? How much has our increase in brand value contributed to our market capitalization (and how does this facilitate our access to external funding) ? What increase in sales have we seen as a result of our latest (social media) campaign ? And, yes, they do want to see numbers – but think EBITDA, not CPM.

I agree wholeheartedly with Dan Gray’s analysis of the situation:

“Getting incrementally better at what you already do is becoming an irrelevance. The true value of communication lies in making sense of complexity and revealing the simple meaning beneath – a creative, synthetic process that distils a compelling core idea and handful of supporting messages that people can actually relate to, and which actually adds value to the business.For that, you need to be able to see beyond functional fiefdoms and start joining thing up. Failure to cross the “T” will forever condemn communicators to a life of downstream tactical execution.”

So here are five things that can help all of us get out of our “functional rut”:

1) Spend more time talking to people outside of your department – finance, accounting or audit are often a good place to start. For brownie points, think business managers or – gulp – the CEO

2) Do NOT talk about communications-related issues, but talk about the business instead – what is on the CEO agenda ?

3) Read more books, but not the ones you normally read; instead, brush up on business strategy, history or global politics

4) Spend more time thinking outside of the box – how can you apply what other disciplines are developing to your domain ? How can you learn from nature, the arts or science ?

5) Focus on the why, not the what – ultimately, your job is to help the company perform, not to get to 5M followers on Twitter

Some of the smartest and best-performing people in the marketing and communications area that I have have known, actually came out of “the business”. By maintaining their focus on business issues, they succeeded in getting their newly adopted disciplines a seat at the table – and more often than not, the ear of the CEO.

It has been scientifically proven that increasing choice beyond a certain point leads to confusion, indecisiveness and consumers opting out by buying the same old, familiar products. For example, in retail, it is a well-known fact that most new product launches fail. One of the primary reasons for this is the lack of differentiation; in a world where everything starts to look more and more alike, what real choice is there ? When was the last time you really looked at which detergent to buy ? What hair gel ? What brand of soap ?

With rapid advances in technology, it has become increasingly possible to cater to niche audiences and develop products that would have never “gotten to market” even five years ago. As described by Chris Anderson in “The Long Tail”, there is a mass of niche consumers out there waiting for uniquely targeted products that appeal only to them. Wanna make music by drumming on empty bottles ? Sell heavy-duty vandal-resistant mailboxes ? Or how about 43 minutes of the world’s best fly fishing action ? Perhaps the world’s most expensive soapbar, containing pure gold ?

The point is: increasing choice can lead to consumer confusion, or it may lead to a world where consumers increasingly opt out of the mainstream, and buy products that are catered to their unique individual needs. What do you offer that is unique ? Which of your products or services have the potential of attracting a crowd of loyal followers ? How do your people feel about your products ?

Marketers tend to spend most of their time thinking about how they can get their products to stand out in the marketplace. In a postmodern consumer society, this is proving to be increasingly difficult. Perhaps we should spend more time thinking about how we can develop products that stand out in the first place ?

Historically, marketing and sales have been considered to be two sides of the same coin. Classic marketing theory states that marketing supports sales by creating an environment in which demand for products is enhanced through the (clever) use of the marketing mix.

Where this was no doubt true up until around the 1950s, things have moved on since then. Commonly referred to as “the 4Ps”, marketing was long equated to the strategic management of Product, Placement, Price and Promotion.

At some point, someone started adding another P (People) in an effort to expand the model, but no matter how many Ps we add, we cannot continue to avoid the facts: the classic marketing model is broken.

Like many corporate disciplines, marketing has increasingly become embedded in the organization, and interacts with a wide variety of aspects. Like the “Hydra” coming out of Greek mythology, marketing has given birth to a variety of sub-disciplines that are all more or less related – and often used interchangeably. Whereas organizations often insist on making clear distinctions between the different disciplines, in the real world, nobody cares.

Increasingly, marketing harnesses the power of branding to create strong trademarks that project desirable characteristics in order to help consumers make purchasing decisions based on emotional rather than cognitive criteria. In a world where consumer choice is increasingly leading to “information overload”, a strong brand acts as a lighthouse – guiding consumers to the safety of what is known – and sometimes deeply loved.

What is often overlooked is that the power of the brand goes well beyond merely external advertising campaigns, but extends deeply into the enterprise itself. Concepts which often remain difficult to  communicate like vision, mission and values can be woven into the brand, thus creating a strong beacon to rally around, providing purpose and meaning. If used appropriately, the brand then becomes a lens through which the organization looks at itself, and finds meaning and purpose.

Truly engaging brands go well beyond this, and strive to build strong emotional ties with their audiences, whether they are internal or external. In that sense, brands are as much about engaging employees as they are about connecting with clients. A strong brand helps attract and retain the right kind of talent, and helps people understand what exactly is expected of them.

A strong brand resonates with people, and unites them in their quest for a common goal. A strong brand is iconic, purposeful and inspiring. According to lovemarks.com, “Lovemarks transcend brands. They deliver beyond your expectations of great performance. Like great brands, they sit on top of high levels of respect – but there the similarities end. Lovemarks reach your heart as well as your mind, creating an intimate, emotional connection that you just can’t live without. Ever.”

As consumers are increasingly oblivious to the deafening roar of advertising and “tune out”, leading brands instinctively understand the need to adapt in order to survive. In a world characterized by rapid change, uncertainty and the erosion of trust, things like authenticity, purpose, unity and community are needed – now more than ever.

Sure, sure – social media can be a valuable complement to your brand, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves: last time I checked, the vast majority of business was still conducted offline.

When comparing “Black Friday” with “Cyber Monday” Bloomberg commented that “online purchases rose 14 percent as of 3 a.m. New York time compared with last year. Forecasts called for growth of as little as 5 percent. While e-commerce orders are growing, they represent about 6 percent of total spending, according to Forrester Research Inc. That mutes the impact of Cyber Monday — the first Monday after the kickoff of the holiday season.”

So, even though e-commerce is on the up, there is still a convincing case for keeping your focus on “business as usual”. The majority of sales still occur in stores, stalls and offices around the globe. Hence, so does brand building, and the people representing your company continue to have a disproportionately large impact on the perception consumers have of your brand.

In spite of the fact that social media seem to be very much at the forefront of the CMO agenda, they are not a cure-all. Like any other form of marketing, social media requires a clearly defined strategy and a willingness to open up that goes well beyond more traditional forms of media. Used wisely, social media can have an impact that goes well beyond merely the adoption of a few tools, but can be a catalyst for change or a strong signal to the external world.

Even though I have at times made a case for the inclusion of social media as a valuable marketing tool (see here and here), it is important to remember it is only a part of the solution. Customer service, branding, PR and marketing are (some of) the other parts.

Leading professional services firm Gartner has been known for years for their “hype cycle”, a graphic representation of the maturity, adoption and business application of specific technologies. In their “2009 Hype Cycle Special Report“, they map various technologies in different parts of the cycle – putting Twitter right before the “trough of disillusionment”.

Just because it spends money, doesn’t mean it is a “cost centre”

Too many CEOs and CFOs continue to think of marketing as a cost centre. Not only is this counterproductive, but it also reflects an organisation that is lacking maturity in terms of marketing, which is likely to have a negative impact on how marketing ultimately contributes to the bottom line.

In a typical “chicken and the egg” style approach, organisations refuse to align marketing with the business strategy, and then proceed to treat it as a cost centre – virtually ensuring a self-fulfilling prophecy where marketing is seen as a big spending machine that makes no measurable contribution to the bottom line.

Smart organisations understand one thing: indirect cost pools are not “murky waters”, but need to contribute to the bottom line in a measurable and clear way. Only by putting in place a clear cost (and profit) measurement process can executives identify the value of marketing within the organisation

Measuring Bottom-Line Marketing

Clearly identifying marketing’s role in growing business profitability means one thing: putting in place clear goals and objectives, with a measurement framework that helps identify who does what, when and how (much).

• Define marketing goals and link them directly to the organisational  goals (mission, vision, strategy)
• Set clear objectives, and put in place appropriate measurement criteria
• Introduce accountability for marketing spending – especially outside the marketing department
• Track marketing expenditure across previously defined criteria and measure the net marketing contribution
• At the end of the period, revise goals and finetune metrics – then, “lather, rinse, repeat”

In the recently released “2009 Marketing ROI & Measurements Study“, The Lenskold Group/MarketSphere concluded that “companies that indicated their marketing was highly effective and efficient (9% of the total) showed much greater strengths in having data, facts, and insight to better guide marketing spending decisions (75% vs. 33% of all other firms), using good measurements (69% vs. 30%), using customer analytics (65% vs. 31%), and having marketing operations processes to improve the business of marketing (64% vs. 29%).”

This article is part of a series, entitled “The 10 Biggest Myths In Marketing”, which will be published as a whitepaper on this site. Check back for more information, or get in touch in case you would like to pre-reserve a copy.