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.

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.

"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

• 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.

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


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

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.

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)

• 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.

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).

In thumbing through the March 1 issue of BusinessWeek and the article on Customer Service Champs, I was struck by a quote from survey winner LL Bean's Terry Sutton, Vice President for Customer Satisfaction. The article was talking about Bean's decision to keep its service operations in ME vs. off-shoring the operation, and also about its employee wage and benefits packages. Sutton commented that the money was well-spent since happier employees translated in better service which improved repeat business. The quote that caught my attention was "The technology has changed the game, but the basics haven't changed. We treat customers like we'd want to be treated."

In our business, we are facing increased competition as larger companies step down to pick up work from accounts once below their radar, pricing pressure due to off-shoring, and still-shrinking marketing budgets. As a result, every day we balance the costs of servicing our largest accounts as well as smaller, but promising, new clients. In budget terms, strict adherence to our commitment might be financially prudent, but it could easily lead to a "nickel and diming" behavior that would annoy all parties. So, we are working hard to define approaches to pricing and account management that let our team and our clients work more fluidly, as partners, while still ensuring reasonable compensation.

It is easy to believe that somehow our services and technology offerings will also win the deal, just as it might be easy for LL Bean to believe their products are better and will always win the sale. In practice however, customer experience is typically the differentiator and if they, or us, lose sight of that, we lose our competitive advantage..and maybe more.

I started with Lands' End. I had ordered some items in January so I thought that was a good place to start. I have 18 e-mails from them since February 11 - that is an average of more than one per day! By my measure, not a single one is personalized or shows any effort to make me feel like the loyal customer I am. So, "A" for effort, "D" for execution (too much stuff), and "F" for relationship.

Dell was next. We have been buying their equipment at work for years. They send me a generic e-mail nominally tailored to my market segment, plus some sale direct mailers. Weak effort nets a "C-".

How about banks or brokers? For both business and personal accounts, nothing from my local bank, Bank of America or Webster Bank except solicitations for new credit cards. E-trade sends me transactional mail plus constant solicitations for new services. "Epic Fail" on all counts.

Grocery stores, nothing.
AT&T or Verizon for my corporate or personal accounts? Nada.
Cable company? Just my bill.

You get the point..companies are still making little headway cracking the relationship building puzzle. Just like junk mail, e-mails arrive and I throw away 90+% without ever opening since I am conditioned to know more will come the next day anyway. Most companies have very weak efforts at prompting users to move online...and abysmal or non-existent efforts to tailor content.

Building relationships means becoming attuned to people's preferences, interests, likes and dislikes. It means committing to helping them tailor their interactions with your company. For example, look at the MyIBM links on IBM's Web page. They let users create custom bookmarks to speed repeat navigation through their site. They offer lots of tools for specifying interests and they use the information to parse what is communicated. They are not perfect, but their efforts at least create tangible evidence of trying which a customer can appreciate.

Relationship building is a process, not a product you can buy. Every interaction with a customer presents an opportunity to ask a question, gather another small piece of information, and build out the profile further. The process means interpreting, adjusting and adapting as you go. If you are waiting for the perfect toolset, you are missing the point that learning how to gather and use data is not a one-size-fits-all protocol, and that learning what works for you takes time and commitment.

Enough...it's time to go back and delete more e-mails.

As marketers, we are wired to always believe that our information is the most important piece of news that our prospects need to know about. Of course, that is a fallacy. Let's use a pharmaceutical example to illustrate the point.

If you're a physician, learning the updated formulary status of a COPD drug is not going to nudge out taking care of patients, reading a journal article on novel treatment protocols for COPD, or spending time with your child building a snowman. (Yes, even physicians have personal lives.) And that scenario plays out in financial services, manufacturing, retails, etc., etc., etc.

Perhaps more important, every day, lots of drugs change formulary status in every state. That means our target physician could be getting dozens of update notices about formulary status every week. In a typical physician's schedule, that means the line between valuable and annoying gets quickly blurred.

Does this mean pharmaceutical companies should not be sending this type of marketing to physicans? No. The content is important, so the rationale is good. But, it does dicate an increasing focus on assessing content value, database segmentation, media preferences, and presentation style.

Not all physicians create scripts for COPD, just like men don't need to receive marketing materials for feminine protection products. Making sure the database helps target content is becoming increasingly critical to ensure that recipients don't develop negative impressions. Note...that simple obvious statement creates an "epic fail" for a host of major marketers. And in industry's like pharma, where sales processes are migrating away from reliance on face-to-face meetings driven by detail reps with a personal knowledge of physician needs, that puts extra emphasis on the underlying database.

Next comes media preference. More and more physicians (and bankers, engineers, CMOs, etc.) are migrating to electronic tools and mobile devices, reflecting their typically split schedules (private practice, hospital service, etc). But that does not mean all physicians want to clutter already crowded Inboxes. In pharma markets specifically, many physicans remain deeply concerned about missing important patient care information via e-mail, making the Inbox sacrosanct. Creating opportunities that let your target audience define their media preference is rapidly becoming de riguer.

Which leads to presentation format. Not all information is created equal. An announcement about formulary status can be transmitted in concise fashion, and can be easily complemented by links to more complete product data, etc. Short and to the point beats long-winded. However, if you are trying to communicate a breakthrough treatment regimen for a common condition (e.g. a new oral treatment regimen for osteoporosis), your content needs to be more complete. Proper targeting, media options and timing all now come into play to make the content more palatable to over-subscribed recipients.

In the end, if you look back at what I just wrote, it smacks of fundamental marketing. Which is why failure to adhere to this type of process can make your marketing materials even more annoying to critical prospects.

Despite its creative aspects, effective marketing remains a procedural science...more so than even in the new, Internet-enabled, social media driven, measurement obsessed current market. Don't let fundamentals trip you up.

1. Scrub your mailing lists. I cannot overemphasize how much waste happens because of lack of segmentation, targeting, list cleansing and maintenance.


2. Know your customers so you don't send them offers for things they've already bought. It's that targeting thing again and the lack of a customer/prospect distinction is the one I find most appallingly common.


3. Make sure every customer touch has a clear, simple and convenient way for a customer to respond or comment back to you. If you spend money creating a communication, it does not cost any more to construct it well!


4. Offer customers the chance to optimize how they receive information from you...do not make assumptions about "e" vs. "print".


5. Nurture, nurture, nurture. It is cheaper to nurture legitimate prospects than constantly mining cold lists for immediate wins.

The trend toward more open access to information is forcing dramatic changes in doctor-patient relationships, hospital-physician relationships, and the marketing of medical devices, pharmaceuticals and other medical/healthcare services. Like car buyers armed with facts and pricing when they walk into a showroom, patients are increasingly entering a doctor's office armed with questions. And when they leave the office, they are less likely to accept everything they are told unquestioningly.

So how does all this create opportunity for pharmaceutical marketers? What physicians need more than ever is access to convenient, reliable sources of information that they can trust. While the pressure to produce blockbusters is relentless, this information gap and its associated gap in delivery platform options, is an open invitation to establish new working relationships with healthcare providers.

Certainly, it is naive to assume that BIg Pharma will suddenly produce universally unbiased materials, but think back to respected publications like the Merck Manual. The world's pharmaceutical manufacturers are sitting on a wealth of information and have access to some of the world's most innovative information management, analytics and investigational resources. With the right partnerships, leadership could be defined not only by the drugs delivered, but the resources and services surrounding the products.

The industry leaders are already deploying a dizzying array of web resources to HCPs, but that is actually part of the problem. Delivering more information on current generation platforms is a recipe for information overload. In it earliest version, the Merck Manual represented a breakthrough innovation -- a published database of critical content assembled in a best-of-breed medium. The real openings today have yet to be devised and their delivery vehicle is more likely to be an iPad or Blackberry or some future-generation mobile device than a current gen desktop computer.

The services story has been borne out in multiple industries through the past two decades. Now, I see a growing number of openings for information services in healthcare with each passing day. Who will step to the plate first?

With newer and newer press technologies, including digital web and digital inkjet web presses, the ability to delivery on true cross-media microsegmented marketing is finally coming of age. Recent projects with customers in publishing, healthcare and financial services have taught us that pricing on digital print production is rapidly approaching offset pricing in many campaign/production configurations, opening up a new dimension of opportunity for marketing effectiveness. And none too soon.

McKinsey Quarterly recently published a brief titled "The Marketer's New Playbook" based on work original published in December 2008. The article illustrated dramatic differences in retail pricing/profitability across smaller regional geographies coming out from the current recession. The data supports what many marketers know inherently -- pricing is a function of local market demographics. Local market dynamics provide a dramatic and readily understood example of segmentation characteristics that marketing teams can leverage to better target promotions -- whether you are targeting consumers or business buyers.

While cost barriers are eroding, segmentation strategies that account for real-world personalization characteristics still require care in data collection, analytics and strategy. The leaders already recognize that and are investing in these areas. The laggards? Well they may be putting out creative mailers like the one I recently received with my name spelled out in cheerleaders, but they would be better advised to save some money and deliver me truly valuable, differentiated content.

List cleansing continues to be one of the simplest ways many companies can optimize marketing budgets. Creating simple customer suppression files to use in all your acquisition campaigns is not hard, and can be made part of routine process easily. At the same time, building customer loyalty by creating separate retention campaigns for customers is a simple way to reduce churn.

This is not rocket science, but from local clubs to large mailers like insurers, banks and retailers, the effective use of customer data remains amazingly inconsistent. It shouldn't be that way.

While I fully understand the logic of hewing to convention and stylistic guides, I think it is increasingly important for companies to know who they are and what their culture is first. Is your company approachable and personal? Or is you style analytical and informational? Do you have a large repository of information to offer prospects?

Especially as more and more websites are developed/guided by professionals with an understanding of the web world, the more that sites are all beginning to look the same. Going into meetings to discuss the subtleties of marginal differences in imagery instead of discussing the broader issue of corporate personality is a waste of energy.

Marketing isn't about being me-too. It is about differentiation. So, what is your company's "look"?

So, why do really big companies with the wherewithal to do things right, so often do things wrong?

Lately, it seems to have a lot to do with trying to compete/survive in turbulent markets. Marketers love silver bullets...things that will bring quick relief to challenges. But in the current market climate, so much of building customer relationships is about being methodical and consistent vs. being splashy. Splashy creates excitement and interest for a while, but real success comes from the hard work of being approachable, honest and communicative. Even splashy marketers like Apple or Nike do an amazing job of being consistent behind those big campaigns.

I understand the Comcast name had become a punching bag -- the virtual definition of "bad service". So a name change seemed in order. But, as an alternative, I might suggest that most companies would be better served by following an alternate path:

1. Realize that what customers really want is good service at a fair price. You could give your company a nonsense name...something like Google (!)... and as long as you are delivering the goods, you'll do well. If you're delivering bad service, a name change may be the least of your problems.


2. Be real. It is amazing how fast customers can smell a fake. If you give lip-service to "service" but deliver junk, the market will chew you up and spit you out. Not every company will want to flog themselves like Domino's, but telling people that you are rethinking and reinventing isn't a bad strategy...ask IBM.


3. Think about the experience. Our collective fascination with Super Bowl ads tells me that people don't inherently hate advertising. They hate they way ads are delivered, and their typical lack of relevance. Technology is changing that landscape. Remember that markets are conversations, and if you marketing is uninteresting, irrelevant noise, it isn't likely to connect with an audience. How would you want to experience the brands/companies you do business with?

Current marketing is a lot like the old tortoise v. hare tale. Slow and steady attention to building real conversations with real customers about real service needs is likely to be a better strategy that spending millions on flashy actions, campaigns or name changes that may or may not have any substance behind them.

What is good is that I realize it is bad. Marketing is about consistency, about developing virtual relationships with prospects, about delivering value. It takes commitment, time, care and effort. It is not easy.

It is this consistency that clients often fail to acknowledge. In an age of instant communication, clients crave quick lead generation programs. In that pursuit, even in B2B markets, they dream up larger and larger incentives and gimmicks to get people to give up their names and enter a "nurturing" program. However, especially in B2B, the best leads are those that are created in response to simple, legitimate presentation of the actual value proposition. These programs tend to not be flashy...rather they are consistent. And they take time to bear fruit.

In my lack of consistency, I have reinforced for myself the challenge of marketing -- there is always something to do in the business day, but to grow and be successful, I need to let prospects (and customers) know we are here, and how we can help them. Slow and steady wins the race, and right now, I am behind. It is lesson you can learn from too.

The 200x decade is about to become history. And with it will go a tumultuous time. For me personally, it was a time of rebuilding from a series of personal losses coupled with a period of great innovation and exploration. During the years that ensued, I moved the company from services, into software and now back to a blended software/services model. I experienced great highs and tremendous challenges.

Of greatest importance, I learned.

When I used to do interviews of prospective students for Dartmouth, my alma mater, they would sometimes asked what was the most important thing I learned in college. Never wavering, I would always answer..."I learned how to learn". That skill has been essential to making it through the past decade. And the upcoming one seems no different.

In 2009, we experienced profound cultural change as society broadly accepted the new ways of doing things that the internet has made possible. As we (i.e. John Q. Public) become more comfortable with these new tools, I can guarantee that many industries will be redefined. If you are an executive, Web 2.0, social media and beyond all represent the opportunity to build a new future. Miss the opportunity and the alternative may be the path of dinosaurs.

For 2010, I am committing to writing more on this blog, to focusing my energies better and to building stronger relationships with partners, associates, customers...in short, all the smart people around me who can help elevate my thinking and drive new ideas into realities.

Thank you for reading in 2009 and I look forward to connecting again in the new decade!