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March 21, 2010

Friends and Followers in STM Markets

Reading Edward Boches very thoughtful post title 'Social Media and Brand Consistency', I began to think how disconnected his concepts were from the day-to-day behaviors of many marketers in scientific, technical and medical markets. In some cases, the "change comes slowly" modus operandi of the medical community is built on reasonable concerns about process, privacy and caregiving. But in other markets, the challenge of how to integrate a new way of thinking about marketing based on being 'present, visible, searchable and useful', is complicated by the realities that the audience is more targeted, not always social by nature, and often 'reclusively elusive' in behavior.

Social media's role in STM markets is evolving, in part because even doctors, chemists, engineers, etc. are people. Emerging social networks like Sermo.com are providing a way for technical people to connect and are helping break through barriers of reticence.

But for many manufacturers or service providers seeking to engage with these audiences, getting a social media program off the ground is proving to be a patience-taxing exercise. Social media requires a clear strategy and clear benefits to encourage readers to engage. In a world trained to talk about products/services and applications first, this soft concept of engagement can be challenging.

For example, Mettler Toledo AutoChem (a customer) makes in-situ process chemistry measurement devices. They are are also skilled marketers who understand benfits-driven marketing. They recently opened a Twitter account that now has 107 followers. Unfortunately, nearly all are journalists, consultants or other non-customers. So where are their customers? The answer is in their own affinity groups (e.g. Biotech & Pharma Professionals Network on LinkedIn) trying to avoid advertising messages from manufacturers. Reaching into those fragmented groups is a more time-consuming process less aligned with traditional measures of marketing ROI.

Does that mean social media activity is a waste of time? The answer is a relatively clear no. As Ed Boches points out, companies today are measured daily for the consistency of their "behavior" and not for the strength of their marketing messages -- meaning great products, supported by great service, is more important than ever. Today, social media tools are the most direct means for listening to the markets assessment of your efforts as a company, and thus gauging your prospects for growth.

As a result, we encourage STM clients to create at least a basic social media plan, first to ensure they maintain a pulse on their customers, and second to ensure the development of core social media skills which we believe will only become more important over time, not less important. Social media engagement is a journey, not a destination. And while the buzz is in consumer segments, the relevance of these techniques in STM markets is real and marketers must learn how to apply them to use these once arcane, but incresingly mainstream, techniques like any other element in a well-planned marketing mix.

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March 18, 2010

What Gets E-Mail Opened

Brand. Brand. Brand.

This afternoon, I got an e-mail from sender 'isales'. Normally, that is a fast "spam" click for me, but something in the corner of my eye caught the fact it said Verisign in the Subject Line. If I do not know the Sender, i normally do not waste any time killing the message, but intrigued by the possibility it was Verisign, I carefully opened the message and validated the source. When I realized this really was a Verisign e-mail, I could not help but wonder how a company so knowledgeable about security could use such bad practice in e-mail.

So, here once again are some important facts to keep in mind if you are sending out an e-mail campaign:

• Brand gets an e-mail opened. Brand can be a person or a company and that information belongs in the Sender Name field, since that is the only truly reliable position for display in e-mail readers.


• Subject line amplifies the desire a reader may have to open an individual message. After a reader has checked out the Sender, if it is someone they trust, they will scan the Subject Line to get a hint about what is inside. Make sure your subject line is clear and informative, keeping as much info as possible in the first 60 characters.


• Once they open, make sure you have a text intro clearly stating the contents of the piece and linking readers to an online view, as well as a mobile view for many topics.

E-mail marketing is a technique that relies on disciplined, thoughtful execution. Simple things like a proper Sender Name make a huge difference in reader response, so don't waste time and money because you failed on the simple stuff.

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March 17, 2010

Clever Is An Option. Connected Is Not.

Last night I saw the P&G Tide "Style Is An Option. Clean Is Not." ad that broke in January yet again. It is bubbly, energetic, friendly, diverse. It is getting nice comments online from consumers. In short, it works. That got me thinking, how is it that P&G seems to get marketing right so often, with ads like this or promotions like Loads of Hope, when other well-funded, high profile brands like Burger King so often seem to get it wrong (its creepy, masked King ads aside...)?

Large sums of money certainly help. But, as Burger King aptly demonstrates, money doesn't guarantee success.

Tide ads reflect a deep consumer connection that has proven amazingly resilient through changing marketing environments, because it has become inbred in operation. P&G's Beckett Ridge Innovation Center is a high visibility example of the companies consistent use of consumer insight, an example of which is chronicled here by ex-P&G executive Franz Dill. The company was also one of the first to "crowdsource" product ideation...before crowdsourcing became a cause celebre of social media gurus, with former CEO A.G. Lafley's bold pronouncements that 50% of P&G's new products should come from outside the company's walls.

And P&G's consumer aware, experiment-ready culture extends into marketing. P&Gs Digital Night in March 2009, in which it hosted superstar bloggers like David Armano and Peter Kim in a social media outreach challenge to support Loads of Hope, showed its ability to learn from others and adapt to a changing market zeitgeist and a new set of tools.

Advertising can be a lens into a company's culture -- reflecting an ability to connect with consumers on a consistent basis vs. those lucky times when an agency "just gets things right." In a expanded view of the concept, P&Gs Tide ads are just as 'consumer-generated' as Doritos, because the ideas were driven a clear relationship with the people who make Tide a perennial category leader.

So, whether you are selling laundry detergent, lab equipment, books or breakthrough pharmaceuticals, I believe the new marketing landscape dictates "Clever is an option. Connected is not."

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March 15, 2010

Offline Ad Sense

It seems common sense to me that all offline ads in B2B markets, and the majority of offline ads in B2C markets, should not only contain a link to Web content, but in the interest of measurement and tracking, a link to a targeted landing page related to the ad content. Even better would be a differentiating link that allows some distinction of source in the tracking process. Yet, in a recent survey of ads in Bloomberg BusinessWeek, I found plenty of ads listing just the corporate web address (including Barclay's Capital, RBC Capital Markets, GrantThornton, and Accenture), more that linked to a common landing page (i.e. all media placements to the same source, including Sharp, OfficeMax and Sun Life Financial), and only one that seemed to clearly differentiate the landing page by source (an IBM add).

With media budgets under scrutiny, it seems amazing to me that more companies are not leveraging 'gURLs' (Generic URL landing pages) or other tools for ad tracking, as well as ignoring the testing of integrated cross-media tools like QR codes. (Certainly, QR codes have not taken off in the US or Europe to the degree that they have found adoption in Asia, but I find it unusual that there is not more testing.)

Given the ease with which ads are versioned using modern layout tools there is little excuse for not incorporating better tracking links that can provide definitive data on the relative impact of specific media placements. Measuring the the relative volume of "intermediate expressions of interest"...i.e. visits to the website from each insertion...provides an easy way to gauge audience interest and message targeting. Using a non-differentiated Home Page link and chalking it up to "brand development" ignores the growing mass of data which shows that ads that don't "move people to action" are unlikely to be sufficiently memorable at decision time.

Today, people make significant purchase decisions using online research. Helping guide a reader to your content and encouraging them to bookmark it is an increasingly vital component of measuring ad success.

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March 14, 2010

The Subtlety of Curation in the Information Age.

Lately, there has been a sudden surge in the use of the word curate in social media circles. I certainly have used it myself in meetings. This appears to be creating some strong opinions, as seen in these Twitter posts from Ben Kunz (@benkunz), Director of Strategic Planning at Mediaassociates.com:

"Curate is a pretentious word for manage. When SM gurus aren't sure how to control something, they curate it instead ;)"
and
"I think curate is next in line for this game here ;) http://www.bullshitbingo.net/cards/bullshit/"

Ben is a very smart, and very capable marketing professional, so his rage against curate piqued my interest, since I happen to be in the camp that says curation is a skill that people need to learn. Don't get me wrong, I agree with Ben that there are 'SM gurus' employing the term loosely or incorrectly.

But, in defense of the term, here is my rationale for using the word in recent meetings. I think the subtleties in use make all the difference.

Using Merriam-Webster as the source, curate is a 14th Century Middle English word derived from the Latin word meaning 'care' and was used to define a clergyman in charge of a parish or the clergyman serving as assistant in a parish. By the 16th Century, a curator had come to describe a person who 'has the care and superintendence of something; especially : one in charge of a museum, zoo, or other place of exhibit'.

There is a subtlety here -- a curator cares for or supervises the use/display of content that they do not own. While we could call that "managing", there is an academic distinction that I think we are well-served to maintain as we explore evolving content management trends in marketing.

In recent months, facing meeting after meeting with clients (especially B2B clients) struggling to find ways to deliver value-add to customers and prospects, we have begun to stress the opportunities in creating an editorial service that would hyperlink people to not only company-created content, but also third-party sources of content. I am not talking about the 'old school approach' of taking articles delivered in Word format that you publish in your newsletter (although that certainly good too), but the more 'current' process of creating Web links to online third-party content -- a concept that many clients still struggle with. With so much potential content available (good and bad), that is where I believe 'curation' applies.

In my definition, a "manager" is an operations role, while a curator is an artistic or editorial one. Often, content managers are becoming technicians...working to define the best way to display content libraries to visitors or readers. They are not as concerned about the source material injected into those libraries. I believe that in addition to the rote process of "managing content" as Ben Kunz describes, many clients need to think about "curating" as well...that is making the subtle decisions about what will constitute the highest-value end product from their selections. In effect, management is the technical process of serving up materials that the curator has negotiated the rights for.

To me, one of the reasons you see a lot of horrible content passed off in B2B marketing is that too many people are busy managing junk, instead of thinking about how to curate an exceptional deliverable. If they incorporate third-party content at all, it is often drawn from the easiest sources and not selected on having the highest value. They are not really taking the time to be like museum curators who think out the subtleties of alternate content options to create the best exhibition possible.

There are certainly legal, licensing, and technical questions at play in this process, making it less than simple. But, that is my point. A curator's job is not necessarily simple...but it is necessary. And more clients, especially but not exclusively in B2B markets, need to learn that skill.

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March 13, 2010

Software Microsolutions or The Rise of Situated Software.

I recently came across an article written by Clay Shirky, a highly-respected author, blogger, consultant and adjunct professor in NYU's graduate Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP), titled "Situated Software" . Originally written in March 2004, Shirky explored the changing patterns of development that he was witnessing in his student interactions. He defined situated software as "software designed in and for a particular social situation or context." A key point in the article is the focus on the adapted use vs. design for scale.

In our work at Cierant with enterprise customers over the past two years, I think this concept has matured into a pervasive business applications development trend. We are seeing more demand than ever for applications that specifically address a point demand vs. generic apps that force trade-offs in functionality, usability, etc. -- what I have termed here as microsolutions. The trend reflects several facts:

• First, we can develop and deliver customized applications faster and cheaper than ever. Put differently, it is an economically-viable proposition for both developer and customer.


• Second, business is evolving so fast that customers increasingly acknowledge that ROI on large-scale software implementations cannot be guaranteed. Small, targeted point applications that drive immediate ROI are easier to rationalize and approve.


• Especially following the 'Great Recession', users are more focused on their immediate tasks, goals, results...and less-focused on big picture objectives. Right or wrong, this is driving interest in point solutions.

The arguments over suites v. best-of-breed in software are not new, and certainly, custom solutions have always existed in software development. What has changed is user expectations for specificity and simplicity, user need for speed of interaction, and developer tools that empower fast, affordable creation of relatively sophisticated applications. In a world where simplicity of design often outweighs completeness of function, the drive to smaller point solutions gains momentum. With individuals experiencing increasing access to applications for everything imaginable through their desktops, portables or mobile devices, it is not surprising that they are translating those experiences into their business requests.

A recent example in which we created a campaign management tool for a pharmaceutical client that specifically, but narrowly, addressed the needs of a small group of users, is a case in point. This narrowly targeted application does one thing, guide users through execution of specific types of marketing campaigns, but it does it well, and has seen broad acceptance. Comparatively, more generic tools provided to the same client do not generate the same degree of attention and utilization.

One could argue that this example resulted from a client simply exploring a business problem -- and that is certainly true. But is also reflects a growing comfort with the potential and value of software applications. Ten years ago, the client would not have asked if there was a way for software to help. Today, there is a tacit presumption that software CAN help. That evolutionary change in user mentality will continue to drive requests for targeted point solutions, which will drive innovation in tools and techniques, which will drive more demand....and on goes the evolution.

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Fun With Paper Sizes -- ISO v. ANSI in Latin America.

A couple of days ago, I was asked about the preferred letter size (ISO A4 vs. ANSI - American National Standards Institute - 8.5" x 11") by a client doing a direct mail campaign to small/medium businesses in Latin America. They had gotten some conflicted input and were also trying to minimize cost and simplify production. After my initial quick reaction about the cultural sensitivity of using the correct document formats, I did a little research.

The international paper size standard, ISO 216, evolved from the German DIN A4 standard adopted in 1922. Most Western European countries adopted the standards after World War II, and it quickly spread around the world. Today, only the US and Canada have not adopted ISO sizes are their standard.

Why did ISO become so popular? ISO paper sizes are based on a single aspect ratio of square root of 2, or approximately 1:1.4142. The advantage of the system is convenient scaling, which is advantageous in printing, for office imaging systems, etc. The standards also make is easier to calculate weight...very advantageous for direct mail work or calculating shipping charges.

But just because a county adopts the standard does not guarantee its use. Economic considerations (NAFTA, CAFTA, common manufacturing/distribution) coupled with global document distribution have led to an increasing use of US standard sizes in many Latin American countries, which is why the client was getting some conflicting input.

I reached out to some contacts at Ricoh Corporation which manufactures/distributes office imaging systems in Latin America -- a perfect reference point since they reach small businesses. I got a response from Esteban Davila, the Latin American Regional Sales and Business Development Director. He noted that in most of Mexico, Central America and Colombia today, ANSI popularity had grown significantly, so it would not be viewed badly if you used ANSI sizes in a mailing. But in Ecuador and the Southern Cone countries (Brasil, Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Paraguay, Bolivia, Peru), A4 remained king.

The bottom line? if you are mailing into Latin America, metric remains the way to go unless the mailing is only targeting Central America and possibly Colombia, in which case the option for using ANSI sizes would be considered acceptable.

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March 9, 2010

IBM Gets Personal

In doing some research for a project last week, I came upon the IBM website and its My IBM Links tab off the Home page. The functionality helps users bookmark content on the site, connect to communities of interest in the IBM world, link up IBM accounts, grab RSS feeds from IBM's long list of company/employee blogs, install IBM-supplied widgets and apps...in short, everything you would expect from a leading-edge, socially-conscious, content-rich, transactionally-active company. Not necessarily what many people would expect from IBM. It reflects an IBM messaging strategy squarely focused on customers, applications and community, reflecting the company's shifts from its product-centric past.

In fact, many large enterprises are pushing the envelope in marketing and customer service to compete. P&G is a renowned researcher and innovator in new marketing tools and techniques. Nike is relentless in its application of marketing, but is sometimes overlooked for initiatives like NIke+ which has successfully held together a large community of runners with tools for tracking training activities (and drawing upon the inherent competitiveness of many athletes...including beginners.)

Not all companies have the depth of content, human resources or access to technology that IBM has. But there are a lot of great lessons to be learned from IBM's current web initiatives. Here are three that any company can apply:

• Great content isn't about products. It is about how to apply the products to solve business challenges. It is 2010 and this lesson still seems to not sink in on the vast majority of corporate websites.


• Community happens; better that is happen in your arena. Customers will find each other, aggregate and communicate. Give them a place to do so to make it easier for you to spot trends -- positive or negative.


• Test and learn. IBM has been evolving, changing, adapting and enhancing its website for years. This is not an overnight sensation. Your company, big or small needs to start that same process. Your website is either getting better or worse...there is no such thing as "staying the same." Better only happens if you make it happen.

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March 7, 2010

The Changing Face of Content...and Content Creation.

Joe Wikert is General Manager and Publisher at O'Reilly Media whose legendary "animal books" have been supporting software/tech developers for years. Being embedded in the tech world, you expect a certain degree of forward-thinking in his perspectives on and use of technology. But in a March 1, 2010 post on his blog Joe Wikert's Publishing 2020 titled "The End of Ebooks" he touches on a topic of universal interest -- the value of content and the impact of what he calls the "network effect".

Simply, the "network effect" is hyperlinking. In his description of an iPhone app called Logos, he describes how a unique Bible application hyperlinks interior content to related content or services. The effect amplifies the value of the content -- a big deal to a publisher.

But there is a lesson there for all marketers. Content is no longer constrained by physical media, e.g. a book or brochure. In the online world, content can be connected in context which can aide understanding, interpretation or utilization. And making content convenient to access/use, increasingly from mobile devices, is an important part of the marketing challenge in many B2B markets or information-centric consumer markets (e.g. healthcare, insurance or financial services). In the Logos example, Joe emphasized how Logos created a title with greater economic value. Note...Logos created something with more value by creating the links. That editorial role is a transferable skill.

Manufacturers, healthcare companies, insurers...all create content, but that information exists in a much larger framework, one that is often confusing and challenging to customers and prospects. The ability to curate content, editorially link related third-party information, embed useful tools, etc. into your internally created information can amplify value in the same way the Logos application does.

Content, or lack thereof, is a topic of constant debate in marketing departments at companies large and small. Learning the changing roles of content creation, curation and management is becoming an important part of the job description for marketers who want to succeed in the new media environments emerging today.

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March 5, 2010

Let's Talk Social Media Monitoring. (Listen In!)

This past weekend I did a post titled "Creating Relationship" in which is criticized Lands End for the volume of e-mail. On Monday, I received the following Comment to the post:

"We have read your blog and wanted to let you know that you are able to reduce the amount of emails you receive from us to just one per week. You may reduce you (sic) emails by clicking here: http://bit.ly/LEnewsletters. Click on unsubscribe and you will be prompted to choose once a week or unsubscribe. We do not want our newsletter to harm our relationship. Customer service is our top priority at Lands' End, which is why we appreciate all of our customer's feedback, and value your insights."

Obviously, I am impressed by the response, and I DO believe that Lands End does care. But now, I want to focus on the practice and tools of social media monitoring, since their response is reflective of a practice that market leaders are doing well....but the bulk of the market has no understanding of.

In the Cluetrain Manifesto, the words "Markets are conversations." has become a rallying cry for social media specialists. My blog post was not a direct e-mail to Lands End...it was a publicly-posted piece of information in the primordial ooze of the Internet. Some person in the Lands End infrastructure was tasked with keeping track of what people are saying about the company online. In social media parlance, that is "monitoring" or "listening" and constitutes one of the most important new disciplines in marketing today. It is how market leaders are able to address small issues while they are still small.

By posting back a helpful, friendly reply on my blog, Lands End responded to my concerns and offered a positive solution...in effect they conversed with me. In social media parlance, that is "engaging". While social media experts may scoff at this simplistic presentation, in my experience with very large corporate enterprises, these simple concepts are neither widely understood nor practiced regularly.

A few quick rules. Engaging is a combination of art and science....just like the delicate art of human conversation. In online conversations, just like in e-mail, it is easy to have people mistake your "tone" or your "intent". In addition, people who post content online are inherently "empowered" and, by their nature, do not like to be told they are wrong...even if they are. So, as a brand/corporation, trying to crush negative comments or squash objections can quickly create a 'cause celebre" out of minor incident.

The above comments are the tip of the iceberg regarding social media practices and I will spend more time over the coming weeks exploring some of the ideas in more depth. But for now, if you want to begin monitoring (we ALWAYS recommend that you start by listening and refrain from responding until you get used to the dynamic of online conversations), how do you do that?

The number of social media marketing tools popping up resembles mushrooms in a field of.... you get the idea. They range from free to moderately costly to slightly pain-inducing in price, with the completeness of search and quality/amount of analytics/reporting support varying accordingly. Here are a few tools that we use, along with a couple of market leaders grouped into some categories:

JUST GETTING STARTED

• Google Alerts: Free, easy-to-use and the most basic tool available. You set up alerts that appear in your e-mail or on Google's RSS reader.


• Others: Twingly Blog Search, Social Mention Search, Addict-o-Matic, StepRep Reputation Monitoring

GETTING SERIOUS

• Scout Labs: Affordable, easy-to-set up and with reasonable aggregation and trending tools. We use this for multiple customers.


• Cloudtrackr: A promising newcomer focused on the global nature of SM.


• Filtrbox: Good tools and interesting graphical representations. Now owned by Jive Software and part of Jive's broader social business software solutions.

PROFESSIONAL GRADE

• Radian 6: Powerful, thorough monitoring and engagement tools with good visualization tools.


• BuzzLogic: Large enterprise and media solution with broad capabilities.

At Cierant, we believe B2B companies or mid-market organizations should start simple to learn the ropes then evolve to more expensive tools as experience and needs dictate. If you are a larger enterprise in industries where online conversation is critical (e.g. CPG, pharmaceuticals, publishing, retail), starting at ScoutLabs or Radian6 at a minimum makes good sense.

Social media may seem new or fad-ish, but the changes it has brought to consumer/customer mindset are now a permanent part of the sales and marketing landscape in every industry. Getting used to the processes for monitoring and engaging are no longer optional for any marketing professional.

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March 4, 2010

Innovation Begins With You. (Whoever You Are.)

Over the last few days I have been bogged down working on some tedious projects doing simple marketing tasks and using no new techniques or technologies -- work we call "foundational". Twice, I was taken aback at how unsophisticated the client's processes were since the work was for large corporations.

So, as I was reading the current issue of BusinessWeek and came across an article titled "And Google Begat..." it was a not-so-subtle reminder of the evolving business climate.

Here is a little excerpt from teh article:
"Since going public six years ago, Google has generated more than $170 billion for its employees and investors. Many of the millionaires the company has produced are young, wired into the latest developments in tech, and at ease with risk....... More than 40 ex-Googlers have invested in about 200 fledgling companies since 2005."

These entrepreneurs, ranging in age from mid-20s to mid-40s, sometimes are starting/investing in "traditional" companies (in a staid, New England defintion) -- companies like MotionDSP (video enhancement software), Airline Intelligence Systems (aerospace technology solutions), or Pathwork Diagnostics (molecular diagnostic for oncology). More often, these very smart and very wealthy individuals are pushing the envelope...funding companies like Tapulous (social/game apps for iPhone), Etsy (handmade items exchange), or Yapta (airline fare tracker). And they've backed some game-changers like Facebook and Twitter.

In a world of open APIs, web services, high-speed connectivity and increasingly mobile computing, they are consciously or unwittingly accelerating the rewrite of the most basic rules of business, like:

• where should data, photos, or music be stored/archived (the cloud)


• what is a mobile phone used for (everything)


• how is software written (open source/rapid beta)


• how do you communciate with customers (social web)


• how is news reported (citizen journalists/real-time)


• who manages your corporate/product image (your customers)

Of course, if you are sitting in an office trying to determine how to design a new drug, how to sell a mass spectrometer, or how to build customer loyalty for your chain of bookstores, this may seem like nice information, but not very actionable. I disagree, and counter with these concepts that I believe need to be integral to every operations in business today:

• Step back and rethink your business (jobs)...before your customers (employers) do it for you. No business model is safe...or forever. Ask newspapers or broadcast networks...or healthcare companies in the face of potential healthcare reform.


• Understand the new tools for communication or your business will be left behind. Anyone with a little knowledge and a few pounds of hutspah can create a movement. (Think Lady Gaga in entertainment, TwitterMoms attack on Motrin, or the Obama election.) That is a powerful statement that can propel product success (if you know how to manage it), or doom a company to failure (if you don't).


• Speed matters. Globalization, Internet technology, etc... all have accelerated the pace of change. Markets wait for no company. Even mighty Microsoft has been left behind on mobile applications, online search, web conferencing, and more. Speed remains a cultural change initiative in many companies used to operating in the more cautious fashion of 20 years ago.


• Innovation never ends. AOL. MySpace. Both learned that getting to the top of the mountain was not as hard as staying there. So, "what you you done for me lately?" is a good question for everyone in a company to think about.

Whatever your job/role in a company -- from CEO to junior sales -- these concepts apply. Is your department as efficient as it could be? What tools does your sales team use to track opportunity? How does your company measure customer satisfaction? How do you converse with customers?

Which leads to my most important princple. There is no restriction on where good ideas come from in today's world. Meaning...innovation begins with you (whoever you are).

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