Marketing Profs Daily Fix

Beth Harte: Are You a Jack/Jane of All Marketing Trades?

Thu, 09 Jul 2009 10:41:17 -0500

As marketers, sometimes we are siloed in one area or a few areas during our careers. For example, there are branding, lead generation, PR, sales, supply chain and product marketing experts. Some companies favor hiring an expert or specialist versus “a Jack/Jane of all trades” when it comes to hiring or developing their marketing departments. Specific experts are also sought out when hiring agencies or consultants.

While I think being an expert in any given marketing area is important, I also think it is limiting (I’ll explain why a bit later). The other day I wrote a post called “PR 2.0 will double your workload” to demonstration to today’s PR professionals how Web 2.0 and social media isn’t taking away their work, but doubling it (whether client- or agency-side).

Whether it’s a PR or Marketing (I am of the integrated school of thought that PR falls under marketing), social media and Web 2.0 are doubling our workloads and as practitioners of our craft, we need to understand that. (Heck, Web 1.0 did the same thing back in the day!)

Jack Wojcicki (@PRJack), Media Director at Veritas Communications, left an interesting comment on the post (I have paraphrased his comment here):

“I disagree that all of these skills/responsibilities will be added to the required competencies of all PR people... The thought that one PR person can, or should do it all, while admirable isn’t the most efficient way of doing things. Sure it’s possible, but more often than not the reality is that ‘A Jack of all trades is the master of none’... Those people in one discipline don’t need to understand the intricacies of other disciplines; they just need to understand how the different disciplines connect. For senior level people there needs to be enough of an understanding of other disciplines so as to make sound decisions, but in the end it usually comes down to the guidance of a skilled practice leader to guide the way.”

Jack has a great point. But where my thoughts lead me is to think that it’s not incumbent upon just senior level people to have an understanding of other disciplines and how they connect. Every marketer, no matter their level, should have an understanding even if they don’t master the task or discipline. Even the best skilled practice leaders have a blind spot. That’s why it’s important for all marketers to learn beyond their expertise. Not necessarily the “intricacies,” but enough to know what they don’t know. Not doing so might negatively affect marketing capabilities, decisions, and budget.

Over the years, I’ve bumped into several of these situations. I had a marketing friend recently tell me that their PR agency said that his news releases couldn’t be optimized for search engine optimization (SEO). And he believed them because, well, they were the experts. I told my friend that it wasn’t true and that moving forward he should provide a list of keywords (natural search) and links to be used for every release. As well, he needed to take it upon himself to tell the agency to use a wire service that offers optimization as part of their services.

Another example is a company that had a fully optimized website that was changed to an entirely Flash-based website. They started having all kinds of SEO challenges and their budget was being tapped for all sorts of little changes that never affected them before. I asked who approved the change and was told it was the VP of Marketing. I naturally wondered how that decision could have been made, I mean shouldn’t the VP have known better? Well, the VP trusted the expertise of a manager who trusted the expertise of an agency. Now, they are stuck with the limitations of an all Flash site because they don’t have the budget to change it back.

I think there’s a place for a “Jack/Jane of all marketing trades,” and it is a place of value within the marketing organization. Being the Jack/Jane that understands the importance of knowing a little bit of everything allows them to see the integration of any given project or campaign. A Jack/Jane could have also helped with the above scenarios. Jack/Jane might not be an SEO or website development expert, but if they know the basics, they could have added value and helped the company not waste budget dollars and gain or keep valuable SEO rankings (and that’s really Web 1.0 knowledge, not Web 2.0).

I am a Jane of all marketing trades and I personally see value in that as a marketer. But, not everyone does.

Given your experience, can someone be an expert at being a Jack/Jane of all marketing trades? Is that a good or bad thing? What are the benefits? The limitations?

Ann Handley: Guest Post: A Brand's Largest Social Media Obstacle

Thu, 09 Jul 2009 10:26:21 -0500

by Samir Balwani

Would you believe me if I told you that most of the time the reason a social media campaign fails is because of a single obstacle? What if I told you the brand itself was the reason?

Interestingly enough, a brand's point of view, and culture can be sabotaging their online marketing.

Why It Happens?

I've made a pretty bold statement, saying that brands shoot themselves in the foot, but why?

The first is the stereotypical follower brand. These brands enter the social space because their competitors are. Without a real reason for connecting with consumers, the brand has no drive to foster their relationships. Most of these campaigns are lackluster and fall apart after a few months.

Many brands know they should be in the social space but their culture prohibits them from taking risks. An aura of fear permeates every decision, and the tried and true wins out over innovation.

These brands introduce a host of problems. Most importantly they don't invest in innovation. Since it's difficult to directly assign or forecast ROI in social media, money is never spent on it.

Social media is cheaper than print; true, but it is not free. Without resources, especially human resources, a social campaign will have no longevity.

Secondly, fearful brands are deathly afraid of failure. A savvy brand will realize that by humanizing itself, mistakes are understood, and with proper PR can be managed. But a brand that is too afraid to fully engage, never truly humanizes itself, always portraying itself as above its consumers.

Another stereotypical brand is the one that just doesn't understand their own consumers. Many times employees are insulated from store customers, and the disconnect between vision and reality grows.

A major part of social media is connecting with consumers. A brand that cannot or will not recognize their consumers is doomed for failure.

Overall, a brand may place brand reputation over users engagement. In this instance, the brand is naive to the changes in marketing.

Consumers trust brand advertising less and less; instead they are looking to friends and family for recommendations. If a brand doesn't recognize the importance of tapping this organic marketing, they'll continue to see a decline in their brand reputation.

It's important to realize that just entering the social space isn't enough. Social media requires a corporate paradigm shift, a chance in culture that places the customer above all.

How to Change

The first step a brand can take is to start with calculated risks. Use that "my competitors are engaging online" mentality and put it to good use.

Are your competitors campaigns exciting or intriguing? Are customers engaging their brand? Is this a space that consumers want to egnage with a brand?

Once you've found that there are consumers online looking to engage the brand, begin investing in social media, especially for human capital. Use these employees to begin building your social media profiles.

At the same time, begin shifting your brand culture. Transparency, openness, customer service, and altruism describes a positive social brand culture.

Realize that in order to truly take advantage of social media, the brand must make a number of fundamental changes from the top down. Most brands don't make these changes, and see little return from their social marketing.

Many make the changes, but do it wrong. For those committed to social media, a consultant can be invaluable. A consultant with diverse experience can help guide a brand through the transition, while helping build strategies to build a brand presence online.

Please, don't enter the online world because you saw your competitors, or because a magazine wrote about Twitter. Take the time to understand the space, recognize the importance of engagement, and really dedicate yourself to the new marketing shift.

Samir Balwani is an Internet marketer who helps businesses create effective web strategies. With a degree in political science and economics, Samir takes a unique approach to new media marketing. He posts regularly on his blog, "Left the Box". You can also follow him on Twitter and get his newsletter.

Ted Mininni: Runs on Dunkin’ with the iPhone?

Wed, 08 Jul 2009 09:50:29 -0500

“America Runs on Dunkin” goes the tagline. Now, apparently, Dunkin’ Donuts has added a new site: www.DunkinRun.com, that is being touted by the company as a new venture in social media, as recently reported in MediaPost’. “The designated ‘runner’ can now initiate a group order through the site via computer, mobile device or a free iPhone app downloaded from the iTunes Store,” according to the report. Interesting, to say the least.

Here’s how it works: the “runner” sends an alert to his group that a trip to Dunkin’ is being planned. Group members, at the office or in the neighborhood, can then check out the menu online and “order” through an interactive program. All of the orders are combined into one single online page. The runner can then either print out the order for Dunkin’ Donuts order takers or hand them their mobile device so they can view it. The idea: a more accurate, more quickly filled order.

Okay. . .but this raises some questions. First: has Dunkin’ really thought this through? I mean, if this is a “social media app” in the company’s view, rather than a mere convenient service, why doesn’t it go further? Why can’t orders be actually filled for pick-up at the correct location for a specific time, for example? Why can’t customers and brand loyalists form a community around this new site, conversing with each other and with Dunkin’?

Of course, the company says it’s planning to add direct order placement in the future, but is it a good idea to wait, or will the site as is become blasé so that if more features are added later, consumers will have already moved on?

According to the article, the new site is being promoted “to influential press and bloggers, and customers who are heavy users of its loyalty cards are being mailed special preloaded cards. The marketing plan also includes radio promotions and advertising, online advertising, messages integrated into Dunkin’s sponsorship of the Boston Red Sox (remember they’re based in Canton, Massachusetts) and advertising in elevators in key office buildings in Boston (where Dunkin’ has its highest concentration of locations”.

But what’s your take on this whole foray by DD into the social media sphere?

Questions:
• Do you think this new site and a free app for the iPhone will be embraced by brand loyalists? Or do you think it will be received in a lukewarm manner?
• What do you think DD could have done differently with its new site? What opportunities is the company missing?
• Would you personally interface with a site like this and encourage your social media groups to join? If not, why not?

I’d love to hear from you.

Paul Chaney: Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen Social Media Strategy

Wed, 08 Jul 2009 09:41:40 -0500

Recently, I had opportunity to speak with Alicia Thompson, VP of Communication and PR for Popeyes, the fried chicken restaurant chain started in New Orleans years ago by restaurateur Al Copeland, regarding their social media marketing communications strategy. (Popeye's corporate offices are now located in Atlanta.)

Strategy Centers Around Facebook and Twitter

Thompson said they started incorporating social media into the marketing mix mid-year 2008 utilizing Facebook and MySpace. Later, they set up a Twitter account as well. They eventually discontinued the MySpace page because, according to Thompson, "unlike with Facebook, we could get no traction."

She indicated that Popeyes has a "cult-like" following and there were already a number of Facebook groups devoted to the brand. The company saw an opportunity to connect with those fans and engage them in a more personal, direct way.

Popeyes now has two official Facebook Pages, one for the brand itself, Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen, and one tied to a special promotion for their bone-in chicken, called Bonafide. The company chose that term for two reasons: First, the word means "authentic," something that fits very well for use in social media. Second, it's a play on the word "bone."

In regard to their use of social media, "We don't do a lot of marketing via Twitter," Thompson said. "It's a tool for engagement to engender conversation with our customers, not for marketing promotions." While that philosophy pervades all their social media interactions, product promotions are run on the Facebook Pages.

The company uses online reputation monitoring services from Radian6 to keep an eye on references to their brand. "Most of the conversation is on Twitter, though we see some discussions on blogs, mainly in reference to customer service," she said.

Though the company's strategy revolves around Facebook and Twitter for the time being, there are plans for additional foray's into the medium, including the creation of an online community to replace their brand promotion site, Bonafide Krewe. No timeline has been set for that transition, however.

Sharing Social Media Marketing with Franchises

Popeyes is a franchise-oriented company. In fact, Thompson indicated they're trending toward 98% of the restaurants being franchise owned. That led me to inquire as to whether they have a strategy for co-opting social media marketing with franchisees.

To that, Thompson indicated there is ongoing debate about how to work with franchisees and that they are having discussion with leadership on the franchise side. The chief concern, as you might expect, is protecting the integrity of the brand.

That topic is one that should be discussed by other large franchise-oriented brands. Should a local franchisee be given liberty to do their own social media marketing? Or, should there be a coordinated strategy that takes advantage of both what corporate has to offer on a national scale and what the franchise brings to the table from a local perspective? Developing such a strategy makes perfect sense and I'm hopeful Popeyes will take the lead in creating such.

Benefits to Popeyes

As to the benefits of using social media, "For Popeyes, first and foremost it's about engaging with customers and giving them input into the brand," said Thompson.

(NOTE: If you don't mind me giving a little plug for the brand, as a Louisiana resident and long-time Popeye's customer, let me tell you, it's hard to beat their chicken. If you have a Popeyes restaurant in your locale, do yourself a favor and give it a try. If not, then next time you're down my way, it's my treat!)

Stephanie Miller: What Will Your 2009 Legacy Be?

Tue, 07 Jul 2009 10:35:39 -0500

I predicted back in January that 2009 would be the year of the email marketer. Times got rough mid-last year and executives were scrambling to maintain revenue and keep customers happy. With email marketing's high ROI and low investment - and seemingly endless capacity for earning higher and higher revenue from the same database - we got quite a bit of notice.

Earlier this year, this executive attention got me all excited. "We email marketers generate the most revenue off the lowest costs, so now is our chance to really take center stage! Bring it on!” I think this is still generally true – that email marketers have a chance to optimize now, and get resources now, that we didn’t have before the recession.

Perhaps I was overly optimistic. I just returned from two months on the road, speaking in the Online Marketing Summit Whistle Stop Tour - a great series of local events around optimizing digital marketing from search to email to social to web analytics.

I must report honestly. It is woefully apparent from dozens of conversations that email marketers have mostly squandered our time in the spotlight. Most have not taken advantage of this executive attention in any meaningful way, and not enough have plans for the second half of the year that incorporate the kinds of investments that will move the needle on subscriber experience and drive higher response. Investments like deeper eCRM data integration, triggered behavior messages, testing programs and inbox deliverability data. Truly, batch & blast remains a prevailing mindset.

Heck, we even had the opportunity to educate executives about the real business drivers of email: Subscriber experience and satisfaction. And the very real penalties for short term thinking: List churn, ISP complaints and low inbox deliverability. Seems we missed that chance, too. Sigh.

Perhaps this is not terribly surprising. Right now in any digital channel there isn’t as much innovation as preservation: Preserving our jobs and our team, our database assets, our list hygiene and deliverability budgets. Marketing budgets do not seem to be growing, but the investment continues to be strong with email and search, where the immediate revenue is.

For that reason, it's not too late. Executives should still welcome advocates for the email program - especially if you use the data you have to make the case for how a little investment will go a long way toward more revenue in Q4. Take forward a few ideas to build retention and revenue, and email marketers can still be the hero of the year. Consider:

1. Test the lift in response when you customize the first five messages after sign up - like an extended welcome series. If you can engage with 10%-25% more new subscribers, and earn revenue faster, what does that mean for the bottom line and loyalty? Plus, you gain in word of mouth from happy new customers, who will be delighted that you created something special for them. Segment by source, geography, product, customer status or profile. Use this data to get resources for automating these triggers to more segments.

2. Seed your email campaigns in order to track your true inbox deliverability. When you know the domains (e.g.: Yahoo!, Hotmail, Comcast) that are most important to you, you can focus on sending practices valued by those particular ISPs. Most ESPs will give you a "delivered" number which is really your bounce rate (usually 1%-5% is lost to bounces). If you don't see true inbox deliverability for your campaigns, ask for it or engage a deliverability service provider. Most email marketers lose about 20% of their messages to the spam filters with every campaign. What's a 15% or 20% lift in revenue look like? That's an easy case to make for investing in deliverability reports in order to optimize your sender reputation.

3. Analyze complaints to improve customer satisfaction. A complaint is registered every time someone clicks the Report Spam button. You can sign up for feedback loops from the major ISPs (e.g.: Yahoo!, AOL, Hotmail, United Online) and they will send you the list of subscribers who complained. Remove these folks from your file, but also analyze this data. Is there a day of the week or a message type or a source that generates disproportionate numbers of complaints? That tells you a lot about subscriber satisfaction - and gives you actionable data to fix whatever is irritating your subscribers. Use this data to make the case for advanced segmentation, dynamic content and database hygiene.

4. When is the last time you took a look at your templates? Unless you update them regularly, there is likely a whole bunch of stuff that has been added in over time, and the result is a lack of cohesive layout or priority. Clutter = confusion = lower response. We recently helped a marketer match the email offer and image to the website and earned a 28% lift in response. Another client removed a bulky navigation bar and found a 32% jump in clicks. An investment in a great new design could shore up your engagement levels well before the Q4 rush.

5. Frequency testing is hard to do, but there are some simple alternatives. Over a 90 day period, track those who opt-out against the number of messages received by each in a given week or month. You may find that you could bump up some subscribers to a higher frequency with no increase in the unsubscribe rate (but presumed increase in revenue from an additional mailing). You may also find that the unsubscribe rate jumps when messages come three days in a row, but not when they arrive every other day. Use this data to fund investments in relevancy and deeper analytics.

I'd like to think that everyone reading this will nod their heads and say, “I’ve been meaning to have this exact conversation with my CMO/CEO." I say, "Go, marketer, go!"

I do believe that come New Year's, we marketers will be judged. Did we only scramble to protect our organizations to survive in the downturn, or did we go further and strengthen our market position and our brands for the recovery?

What will your legacy be?

Jacob Morgan: Forget Social Media ROI, What About Marketing Accountability?

Tue, 07 Jul 2009 10:33:50 -0500

There has been a lot of much needed discussion around social media ROI but I think this is just a small topic in the overall world of marketing accountability. Here are a few things for you to consider...

A study by the CMO council found that LESS than 20% of top technology marketers surveyed had developed “meaningful, comprehensive measures and metrics for their marketing organizations.”
68% of marketers were unable to determine the ROI of their initiatives (according to the last major survey).

According to the Prophet Annual State of Marketing Study in 2007 which surveyed companies with revenues between 1-10 billion:

60% don't have the right approaches or analytic tools to measure marketing accountability and ROI

45% don't have the right data or market research

45% employ too many programs or make frequent changes

Measuring any type of ROI for any type of marketing effort starts with building a foundation and an infrastructure that allows you to begin looking at marketing accountability to begin with. For example, if you want to track social media ROI and the company doesn't have customer information or analytics/metrics then guess what, you're going to be tracking and measuring a whole lot of nothing.

Here's another interesting thought:

How come some organizations have marketing directors, senior marketing directors, executive marketing directors, senior executive marketing directors, VPs of marketing, senior VPs of marketing, etc. Is it me or does it feel like everyone at every company is some sort of VP or director. Who on earth is accountable for all of the marketing efforts? This isn't creating a hierarchy it's creating a totem pole.

It's great that we are talking about social media ROI but to be honest most companies in the world are having enough trouble justifying ANY type of marketing spend, let alone justifying something that most social media "consultants" say can't be justified with a dollar amount.

What about the ROI from that giant bill board?
What about the ROI from SEO efforts?
What about the ROI from the party the company hosted?
What about the ROI from that giant full page spread the company purchased?
What about the ROI from that television or radio commercial?

If I sound a bit uneasy about all of this it's just because I'm passionate about ushering in and encouraging individuals and companies to really focus on measuring MARKETING accountability and ROI across the board. Going forward it's not going to be good enough to tell executive teams that marketing is an "art" or that the "ROI can't be measured" or that something is "impossible to track."

This post isn't necessarily designed to criticize and critique marketers, instead it's a challenge and an offer for marketers to work with each other and with their organizations to help tie marketing spend to results. I certainly don't have all the answers and I don't think any one person does, but if marketers want to make their jobs easier then one thing is clear, we need to remove the "black box" around marketing and we need to start focusing on marketing accountability.

There are a lot of things that organizations can do to improve marketing accountability, I'll give three:

Understand your customers, deploy analytics/surveys/etc to find out what your customers want, who they are, and where they exist.
Make sure your marketing and finance departments are closely working together and aligned (actually you should really make sure that all of your departments are aligned)
Understand the RIGHT metrics that you should be measuring and tracking

I encourage everyone to watch these series of videos on marketing accountability and ROI

What are your thoughts on this? What do you perceive to be some of the greatest obstacles for marketing accountability and how can we get over them?

Want to continue the discussion? Send me a message on Twitter.

Stephen Denny: Note to CMO: In Praise of Mono-Tasking

Mon, 06 Jul 2009 09:20:15 -0500

Dear CMO:

A few minutes ago, Roger Federer defeated Andy Roddick in the 2009 Wimbledon Gentlemen’s Singles Championship, 16-14 in the final fifth set. I’m the last guy to pick apart a world-class athlete’s performance at the top of his game and at the apex of his chosen sport’s culture, but an enduring lesson holds here for anyone doing anything important. Thus, the post.

Tennis, more so than most other sports, is absolutely unforgiving. It is a game of complete and unwavering focus. Unlike golf, you are engaged in a zero-sum, winner take all competition, face to face, against your opponent. Unlike boxing, there’s no clinching, rope-a-doping, or dancing around the periphery of the ring. No letting a pitch go to wait for the perfect opportunity, no stepping out of the box. You have to respond to each and every shot your opponent chooses to give you.

Tennis, in short, is a game that requires you think of absolutely nothing but what you’re doing – not what you’re doing today, or this match, or this set, or this game, or even this point – what you’re doing with this particular shot, which exists only here and now, in this moment.

In a life of business, where performance is measured over time, tennis gives us another opportunity to explore the “micro drama” of the here and now. We live in an age of extreme multi-tasking. We pride ourselves – often secretly and sometimes ostentatiously – on how many emails we get on our collective Blackberries while we take multiple conference calls while we have meetings at the airport on our way to other meetings elsewhere.

More often than not, we are spreading our abilities so thinly that our actual output is very often “good enough,” and rarely “word-of-mouth-worthy.” Multi-tasking may be a necessity, but let’s stop for a moment and give proper due to “mono-tasking” – focusing on one thing long and hard enough to see it through to absolute completion.

Mono-tasking means thinking of nothing but what’s critical to get done – finished, completely and resoundingly – right now. It means not answering the phone, hitting Twitter half a dozen times, checking all ten of your email accounts, or going for a walk to the cafeteria. It means, as Dave Lakhani would say, “fierce focus” on getting done what must be done well. How often in a typical day do we do this? It probably depends on your personality, your function, your company culture and the luck of the draw.

Once upon a time, a long, long time ago, I had a middling national ranking as a singles player with a first serve that often popped perfectly good tennis balls. (My rotator cuff hurts just thinking about it now.) As a strategic consultant focused on helping clients in marketing and influence strategies, my tennis background has served me well (no pun intended, sorry for that). There are no off days. No “gosh, not getting much done today” days. Days are deadlines, launches, proposals, presentations, and everything needs to have instant impact for the person writing the check. I like this, actually, but then again, I’m used to it.

The real point is that I have the luxury of being able to focus intently on what needs to be done now. Intense focus on the single most important thing is what separates good enough work from great work, and yet it seldom happens.

Focus takes practice. Focus takes hard work and preparation. And sometimes, it takes experiencing what it feels like to momentarily lose that focus when you're serving at 14-15 in the fifth set.

Regards.

Matthew Grant: You Don't Need Fans, You Need Junkies

Mon, 06 Jul 2009 09:18:00 -0500

I thought that the Godin One (or possibly Mack Collier) had come up with the idea that companies should emulate rock bands and cultivate fans, not customers. But it turns out the genius behind this concept was the equally bald (as Seth, not Mack) but far nerdier Roger Blackwell, erstwhile professor at Ohio State University but now resident of a federal prison in Morgantown, West Virginia.

While I appreciate that in his book, Brands that Rock (2003), Blackwell compares Neil Diamond to Velveeta Cheese (though I'm not sure to whom that is more unfair), I think, first of all, that few companies actually sell what rock bands sell (an experience, an attitude, an identity, oh, yeah, and music) and, secondly, that fans are over-rated, especially when compared with paying, return customers.

Let's face it. "Fandom" has been cheapened by platforms like Facebook that allow you to be-fan everything from Michael Jackson to toast. Beyond that, though, fans don't necessarily pay the bills. As one of my guitar idols, Matt Pike of High on Fire told Rolling Stone after they had praised his epic Art of Self Defense, "Goes to show that you can have fame and still have no money."

Don't get me wrong, I understand that fans can be a great marketing channel, especially once you've handed them the other end of the funnel, but, when push comes to shove, you don't need people who find your offering remarkable and accordingly remark about it to others. No, you need people who are hooked on your stuff and can't live with out. In other words, you don't need fans, you need junkies.

The good thing about junkies is that they will seek you out. They really, really, really want what you got. They are also willing to pay and, bad for them but good for you, they are not always very discerning when it comes to quality. On the flip side, the bad thing about junkies is, well, they're junkies, which means they can be unreliable and, what's worse, broke.

The other bad thing is that the junkie economy is kind of sketchy. Since the revenue is pretty much guaranteed, the business attracts unscrupulous competitors who may use violence as a differentiator. Oh, and there are a number of governmental bodies who take an intense interest in this particular sector and regulate it VERY aggressively.

Look, I'm not telling you to start selling heroin (which the Bayer company already tried a hundred years ago) or any of the other addictive substances that are surefire moneymakers (sugar, alcohol, caffeine, nicotine, sex, etc.). I am merely suggesting that you think about making your product or service something that your customers and clients view as vital, something they depend on, and, moreover, something they simply cannot imagine living without.

After all, if they could live without it, if it is something that they don't really need, why are you selling it in the first place?

Paul Williams: The Five Stages Of Idea Acceptance

Fri, 03 Jul 2009 09:53:23 -0500

You feel a little jittery. Is it the presentation? Or the pot of coffee you drank this morning while rehearsing? You gather your laptop and index cards and head to the conference room.

This is the big day. You've been working on the plan for weeks now. You're ready. It's time to present your big ideas for the Summer 2010 plan.

The team is there. Laptop syncs with the projector. You're hitting your key points beautifully. You pause for questions...

And then... it starts going sideways.

John, at the end of the table casually mentions, "You know, we tried an idea similar to this in '98 and it didn't work." He is followed by Julie, "Do you think this is a good idea in this economy?"

Matt chimes in... (*phew* a friend).

He corrects... "Sure, in any economy, Julie! And, John...'98 was '98 - that was last century. I think this is a good idea. The only problem with it is...."

Noooooo!

You've just witnessed the Idea Killers. Killjoys armed with their favorite invisible weapon - killer phrases.

In his book, What A Great Idea! 2.0, Chic Thompson writes about - among other things - how new ideas are often struck down with killer phrases. These phrases reflect the lack of acceptance of something new or different. He also points out that killer phrases "are as inevitable in the innovation process as ideas themselves."

Psychologists say the human reaction to a new idea unfolds something like below, which Chic calls the Five Stages Of Idea Acceptance.

The door-lock analogy is pretty accurate... You can have four of the five locks open, but the door won't open until all five are unlatched.

How To Apply This

By knowing the stages you can either: (a) have already figured out how to...

make it relevant,
prove it,
make it safe, and
show it is saleable

...when you present it. Or at least: (b) be aware each of these need to be unlocked as you champion the idea.

Happy locksmithing!

Paul Barsch: Why Capacity Management Matters to Marketers

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 09:19:25 -0500

In a challenging global slowdown, the world seems awash in capacity. Scans of major business publications show airlines reducing flights, companies furloughing or firing employees, and manufacturers closing plants. If you agree that it appears there is more unused capacity than demand, why should capacity management matter?

It would seem in the “Great Recession,” capacity planning and management should be a minimal consideration. In fact, capacity utilization for many industries is at an all time low.

For example, from January 2008 to January 2009, according to the Financial Times, the demand for automobiles in the United States fell from 15.9 million to 9.6 million per year. And Wall Street Journal reports Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke told the House Budget Committee recently, "The slack in resource utilization remains sizable".

As companies attempt to cope with a “new normal,” painful restructuring processes have included reducing “capacity” in human resources, plants and equipment, information technology, number of brands, distribution channels, and even debt covenants. All this restructuring is intended to pare down capabilities to what is perceived as a new reality in market conditions.

Indeed, observing macro-economic conditions, it’s tempting to write off “growth.” However, “growth” is far from dead.

Take for example, the exponential growth trends of Facebook and Twitter. In January 2009, Facebook touted its 150 millionth user, and in May 2009 surpassed 225 million users! One site projects Facebook to have 300 million users by the end of the year. Twitter’s growth has also been phenomenal—audiences grew 40% in just 30 days (March-April 2009).

In fact, “growth” exists (often exponentially) in areas such as data volumes, populations, energy usage, Moore’s Law, GDPs of select countries (India, China etc), education expenditures, and unfortunately—state and national debts!

Growth also can be found in micro-segments and categories such as increases in market share of private label brands vs. national brands on grocery store shelves, or Apple’s share of the smartphone market. Once our eyes are opened to growth trends, it’s quite easy to see signs of expansion everywhere!

The ability to meet the needs of your customers now and in the future is a critical function of any business. That’s what capacity management is all about. Spikes in demand could mean that your company is leaving money on the table and/or failing to meet customer needs. Need proof? For customer reaction, simply perform a web search on keywords “Twitter down time” or “Twitter outage” and you’ll gain evidence of how important capacity management really is.

Indeed, capacity management isn’t a one-time, annual event. It should be a continual process of making sure your business can scale up or down to meet customer needs. With a thumb on the pulse of demand, marketers have a responsibility to help establish a well documented capacity plan and process that considers future business requests.

Sound like simple, common sense, right? Properly predicting demand is anything but easy. Considerations must include a clean and accurate set of historical data, an analytical infrastructure to compute and analyze data, an understanding of the current state of the business and its capabilities, future growth projections based on applicable trends, and then a gap analysis of what it would take to scale based on various “what-if” scenarios.

Capacity management is all about reducing surprises. Take a good, hard look at your business. What’s growing? Something surely is.

What marketing campaigns are you preparing? What happens—for goodness sake—if they’re too successful and demand exceeds available supply? McDonald's in India had to scale back marketing campaigns for Chicken McNuggets because they couldn't keep up with demand. Good marketing is making promises your company CAN deliver.

Can you accurately predict if and when you’ll run out of resources to meet customer needs? Can you afford not to properly manage “capacity”?

Questions:

• There appears to be a glut of capacity worldwide (i.e. shipping, telecommunications, manufacturing etc.). Should marketers be concerned with the concept of capacity management?
• What are the ramifications of getting capacity management wrong?
• Businesses are adding flexibility to meet spikes in demand through vehicles like cloud computing, temporary labor and outsourcing. Can you think of others?
• Suppose “capacity management” is built into the function of an annual strategic planning exercise. What might be a pitfall of this approach?

Ann Handley: B2B According to Me: The Winners

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 09:47:37 -0500

Attendees who blogged about the MarketingProfs B2B Forum (and let us know about it) had the opportunity to win a pass to our Digital Marketing Mixer this fall in Chicago. Well, the votes are in, and here are the winners!

We looked for blog posts that talked about the 2009 B2B Forum in Boston, and awarded recognition to posts in five specific categories. (Details of the contest are here.)
Before I get into the winners, let me just say Thank You to all who contributed. All of the posts were truly great, and the staff here loved pouring through them all. But as your mother always told you, you can't win every time, right? The winners in each category are:

Most comprehensive Two winners:
Nathan Burke, Lessons from the MarketingProfs B2B Forum (Entire event)

CB Whittmore, Sandy Carter Integrates Social Media Into The Marketing Mix (Individual session)

Most creative Two winners:

Becky Pearce, Summary of MarketingProfs B2B Forum (for format)

Mack Collier, Five reasons why your business/social media conference sucks (for content)

Best written:

Steve Woodruff, MarketingProfs B2B Forum Re-cap: The Book

Best series:

Peg Mulligan's series of posts here

Mike Damphousse's series of posts here

And the winner of the free pass, drawn at random from the above category winners, is:

Becky Pearce Congrats, Becky!

Thanks for everyone who played along! You can still register for the October event, by the way, at our Best Price Ever.

Three quick disclaimers:
1. Category winners were chosen at the discretion of MarketingProfs. Employees of MarketingProfs (Beth Harte, this means you!), were not eligible for winning.
2. Grand prize winner was chosen at random from the list of seven category winners.
3. Prizes are not transferable.

Ted Mininni: How Can Supermarkets Truly Differentiate?

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 09:46:23 -0500

Good question, isn’t it? Have you ever found yourself in a mall store and due to being in virtually the same environment as every other store, and being surrounded by virtually the same merchandise, have you had to step back outside the store and glance up at the sign to ascertain which store you’d ambled into? I’m willing to bet most of us have at some time or other.

What about supermarkets? That’s why a recent BusinessWeek article dubbed, “Supermarket Strategies: What’s New at the Grocer” didn’t grab my attention at first. The subhead under the title did: “From ready-to-eat meals to eco-friendly offerings, food retailers are finding more ways to distinguish themselves and win customers”. Now that line did pique my curiosity.

The gist: consumers are cutting out luxuries, and focusing on purchasing necessities instead. No news flash here. However, since housing, health and food costs constitute consumers’ largest cash outlays, customers are getting ever more frugal. Even with necessities. Upshot: “margins in the $547.1 billion dollar food market averaged just 1.84% nationally in 2008 according to the Food Marketing Institute.”

Since most supermarkets stock pretty much the same merchandise, have cut prices to the bone without much room for further cuts, with few “wow factor” new product offerings on the horizon, what next? The article states: “. . .food retailers are seeking out new trends and technology that might differentiate them from competitors."

So, what are they?

• Smart shopping assistance. Consumers can breeze through stores with smart shopping carts that tabulate the products as they are added, and download available coupons for the products in the carts on their cell phones. They can then allow payment for the groceries without the consumers ever having to queue up in a cashier line. A number of large supermarket chains have implemented some or all of this; others are in the process of doing so.
• Convenience. Many large supermarket chains are opening up smaller stores in specific locations, stocking them with basic needs and ready-to-eat meals. Message: no need to travel out of the way to pick up a few items. Extra services like in-store baby-sitting make it quick and easy for consumers to shop. Wal-Mart’s Marketside, Safeway’s Market and Supervalu’s Urban Fresh are among those doing this. The thinking: a lower average sale is the likely scenario, but consumers will shop with more frequency.
• Catering to minority purchasing power. In areas where ethnic minorities live, smaller locations are catering their product mix and meal offerings to meet their needs. Examples: Wal-Mart’s Supermercado and Publix’s Sabor.
• Targeted in-store advertising. Example: Wal-Mart’s Smart Network features a technologically advanced in-store television that provides detailed product information and advertising on individual screens.
• New RFID technology. Wal-Mart and Walgreen’s are testing new RFID embedded microchips to signal to employees when store shelves need to be restocked and to help them restock product where it belongs. It is also being tested to make certain stocks are replenished to coincide with promotional ad campaigns.
• Development of niche private label products, such as new organic brands.
• In-store amenities like healthier restaurants; Whole Foods and Wegman’s have terrific ones.
• More eco-friendly store environments like Kroger and Price Chopper are building.

Implementing these ideas can lead to highly differentiated stores for consumers. Of course, when one supermarket chain implements any of these ideas successfully, can it be long before their competitors jump on the bandwagon? Then what?

Questions:
• What do you as a consumer, and as a marketer, think of these ideas as differentiators among food retailers? Do you think these will eventually be adopted by every major chain, thus losing their ability to be differentiators?
• What kinds of services/amenities would you like to see in your supermarket from the list above? What about services that don’t appear on the article’s list?
• Lastly, do you think these kinds of differentiators matter most? Or, would you prefer to see helpful, well-trained, service-oriented personnel in your supermarket instead? What matters most to you?

I’d love to hear from you.

Paul Dunay: Social Search: Could It Be a Google Killer?

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 09:45:14 -0500

This morning I typed into Google the search term: VoIP (which stands for Voice over Internet Protocol) and I got 64 Million responses. 64 Million!! How archaic is that?

Does Google have any idea how long would it take me to go through 64 Million responses? One day we are going to look back at the days of searching and getting 64 Million responses to anything and equate that to a Commodore 64 or Betamax tape.

I know, I know the point is Google is trying to bring me the best responses to the term in the first few pages (if not the first page). But the best responses according to who? Why don’t they know I work at Avaya (who sells products and services in the VoIP space) and therefore I most likely have a very different mission in typing in VoIP?

Microsoft just launched Bing a new search service which is supposed to rival that of Google. To me it looks like Google but in a new wrapper with a few enhancements. This post is not an indictment of Bing, my point is they didn’t take it far enough.

Someone can (and will) connect search to my social profile (say on Facebook) thereby making a truly intelligent search engine that will know where I work, and who my friends are. Then when I Google a term like VoIP – it will know I work for Avaya, it will know my friends and can present me with a way to filter the web based on my social profile – call it Social Search.

Then I will be able to narrow down a search for VoIP down in seconds based on the company I work for, members of my marketing team, friends I have in my network and get a completely different view of the internet that I can’t get now.

24 months from now Social Search should be common place – we should see social tools like Facebook Connect or OpenID which are already out there, used for search. I feel everyone wants to make the search market more competitive (right now Google has 87% of the US marketing and 90% of the European market) so perhaps Yahoo or AOL can revive their search business by going Social!

For more ideas like this please check out my latest eBook called 7 Ways Facebook will Change your Life!

Beth Harte: A Grand-Slam for Denny’s?

Mon, 29 Jun 2009 13:33:47 -0500

Have you heard about the Denny’s Allnighter? What about the Denny’s ‘Creature Comforts’ campaign? No? That’s okay; I didn’t either. It’s probably a sign of the times that I am too old to appreciate staying up until 2AM and heading to Denny’s for some grub after a night out.

That said, I do remember trips to Denny’s many moons ago that included a cranky waitress or waiter who hated us being there (okay, so we were a bit wound up) and food that was, well, not a grand-slam by any stretch. Sound familiar?

My, how times have changed!

Who knew that Denny’s has been serving up food to bands and music fans since the 1950s?! Well, that heritage lives on with Denny’s Allnighter, which is sponsored by Dr. Pepper.

Today’s Denny’s is all about enticing night owls with alternative music and affordable food from 10pm-5am (that's the 'allnighter' part). And not just any music, but music from bands they adopt as well as more well-known bands such as Good Charlotte, Sum 41, and Rascal Flatts. And not just menu food, but food created by the bands that drop by Denny’s while on tour. The staff also dons relaxed uniforms and serves up food to the sounds of Envy on the Coast (that's the creature comfort part). Hmmm, doesn’t sound much like the cranky wait staff or Denny's that I remember.

So aside from inviting bands to cook and eat and their fans to join in, what makes this campaign cool? Denny’s has, of course, totally embraced social media to reach out to the 20-something crowd with their campaign including the usual suspects: Twitter, MySpace, Facebook, Lala, YouTube, and an iPhone app.

It's not enough to just use the tools...it's about the buzz.

And they are definitely creating a buzz. With Denny’s sponsoring after-parties and special giveaways for this summer’s Warped Tour, they buzz will most likely continue to grow.

Denny’s isn’t using social media just to blast out messages…they are actually talking to people on Twitter, every month people have a say on the bands that Denny’s adopts and, ironically, if you plan on dropping by Denny’s after the Warped Tour, you’ll need to RSVP to hang out with the band.

An RSVP to eat at Denny’s?! Yep, you read that correctly and that's where the buzz comes in to play.

I don’t know about you, but I think this is a grand-slam. Why? Aside from some PR and some late night advertising, the campaign is not mainstream and that’s what’ll keep it a success…for now.

Paul Chaney: When Is a Web Site Not a Web Site? When It's SharpieUncapped or Building43

Mon, 29 Jun 2009 09:20:28 -0500

When I wrote about the experiment Mars did with its Skittles.com site a few months ago, some people turned up their nose considering it little more than a rip-off of something advertising agency Modernista tried a year earlier.

Basically, Skittles.com itself is a "widget." Links in the primary navigation go to Facebook, YouTube, Wikipedia and Twitter search. In other words, it links to sites other than itself and does so as part of its architecture.

Guess what, it's not a rip-off, it's a trend, and at least two more such sites have entered the landscape: Sharpieuncapped and Building43.

SharpieUncapped

SharpieUncapped is a site devoted to showing off the creativity of its customers. From the home page on, links take visitors to Flickr, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and the Sharpie blog, which, itself, is a separate site.

Click the Flickr link and you're taken to a search page for the term "sharpie," which returns groups set up by customers and fans. The YouTube link goes to Sharpie's channel, Facebook to the official Sharpie Page, and so forth. In fact, the site refers to these as "communities," which, of course, they are.

Building43

This is the latest project from Robert Scoble, and is a site that focuses on the newest, cool stuff happening on the Web. It's sponsored by Robert's new employer, Rackspace.

The Building43 Manifesto, written by Robert, gets to the heart of what's truly going on with the site: "We could have taken six more months and built our own forum, our own video distribution system, or our own content management system, but instead we just got started by using WordPress, Blip.tv and FriendFeed, among other technologies."

While it's reminiscent of what Scoble started years ago at Microsoft with Channel 9, this site takes that concept and reinvents it in a more socially-oriented form.

Brains on Fire

One more contender in this space, a site that certainly deserves honorable mention, is Brains on Fire, the Greenville, SC-based advertising agency. Agency principal, Spike Jones, told me that as much as 90% of the content on the site comes from other places, like Twitter and YouTube.

Do you see the trend here? The Web as decentralized, in the cloud, a chain of shared connections where no one site is the begin-all, end-all, but a hub leading to other destinations. That's what the Web is becoming and you had better see that clearly now, rather than later.

Does your current company Web site reflect this shift in mindset? If not, perhaps you should look for another Web design firm the next time around, one that does understand this new mentality.

Lastly, if you know of similar examples that might be useful to our readers, please feel free to list them in a comment.