Discussing the marketing value of branded online communities with some of the area’s top marketers
Tags: branding, Twitter, messaging, credibility, marketing, metrics, social media, mike dover, wikibrands, communities
Perspective, Empathy and the Art of Marketing
Oct 09, 2013
It struck me on a recent visit to a local playground: "Boy that play-set is small!" I had first visited this park when my child was just a toddler. Back then, this play-set looked enormous to me and I shadowed my youngster's every step, nervous they would plunge into the mulch far below at any moment.
Tags: big data, messaging, marketing, personalization, perspective, psychology, character, personas
How to Localize Social Media Marketing
Jul 23, 2013
We’ve spent a lot of time on this blog discussing the challenges and benefits of localizing your marketing strategy across both traditional and digital marketing channels, and you’d be hard-pressed to find a marketer that doesn’t see the value in the practice. But there’s one marketing channel where questions about localization remain and answers are hard to come by: social media.
When I was at the Integrated Marketing Week Conference in June, this was a continuing theme and topic of conversation, whether it came up in presentations, questions to speakers or simply conversations among attendees, so it’s clearly an issue of great consternation in the marketing community. That being said, let’s take a look at some possible strategies that can help businesses overcome the challenges of social media localization.
Tags: branding, facebook, Twitter, engagement, LinkedIn, messaging, marketing, social media, localized marketing, local marketing, customer segmentation, SMB, integrated marketing week conference, content, strategy
A Look into Seth Godin’s ‘Connection Economy’
Jul 16, 2013
We are in an age of "permission marketing." This was the topic I had the pleasure to hear Seth Godin speak about at the Integrated Marketing Week Conference last month. One of his main points: All media is optional. If people don’t want to talk to you or listen to you, they don't have to. We're past the time when marketers can just cram messages down people's throats. Everyone skips the commercials on DVR. In the subject line of an email, you essentially are asking them to open your email. In the opt-in form on your website, you have to ask them to sign up for your newsletter. You can’t just say attack the audience with your product; you have to build a connection first.
The Connection Economy
This significantly reduces the value of the mass market, according to Godin. The real value for your marketing dollar is on the edges – the places where specialized info will be most valued. The edge is more receptive to specific messaging. Think politics and religion if you want more vivid examples – the edge craves content on their subject and consumes it at much deeper and higher rates because there’s more passion there. That's where you’re making your connection, and that’s what drives Godin’s notion that we are living in a "Connection Economy."
Tags: branding, content strategy, messaging, B2B, content marketing, marketing technology, marketing resource management, connection economy, seth godin
Making Sense of the ‘Data Cycle’
Jun 20, 2013
Everyone has caught themselves daydreaming of a scenario where they said the right thing at the right time in the right place. Maybe it was about a marriage proposal, or falling into a dream job; either way, that goes to show that all (or at least most) of us at some level recognize the inherent value in the relationship between message, time and place. These elements are no less valuable when it comes to marketing and sales. Think of all the legislation that exists to prevent businesses (legit and non-legit) from saying anything in the “wrong place.” The CAN-SPAM Act and the National Do Not Call List are the biggest examples that come to mind.
The point is, no matter if it’s getting engaged or sending a webinar invite via email, it’s hard to know exactly what the right thing to say is, when to say it and where to say it. In business, the challenge is two-fold:
Tags: big data, data analysis, sales, messaging, relevance, digital age, marketing, business results, audience engagement, can-spam act, technology, metrics, measurement, data
Engaging Employees as Brand Ambassadors
Apr 18, 2013
The proliferation of information has empowered consumers like never before. There are all kinds of third-party resources at their fingertips for them to get the skinny on brands, products and services, and more ways than ever before for them to share their own experiences and opinions about those same brands, products and services as well. The scary thing about this for marketers and CEOs isn’t that so much information as out there, it’s that this information is unregulated and unfiltered. They feel they’ve lost control of their message, and to a point, they have. But the real issue managers and leaders should be concerned with isn’t control- it’s communication.
Consumers no longer have to go on your word as a business, but that doesn’t render your word meaningless. According to the Edelman 2013 Trust Barometer, the way businesses need to communicate their message has changed greatly. Influence no longer takes place as a fixed monologue dictated by the few with goal of control. Instead, it’s flexible dialogue co-created by many that is all about empowerment.
Tags: branding, trust, messaging, brand advocacy, employee engagement, MRM, marketing technology, marketing resource management
Think like a human, not like a company
Tags: branding, silos, messaging, organizational leadership, brand image, marketing, communication, customer relations, MRM, marketing technology, marketing resource management
Whether it’s trust in the product, trust in the brand, trust in the content or trust in the person making the pitch, trust is the vital element upon which nearly all deals are made. But as statistics show, trust is hard to come by these days. So where do consumer attitudes toward businesses stand, and what can businesses do to change those attitudes?
Trust issues
Tags: branding, internet marketing, risk, trust, rapport, messaging, credibility, marketing campaign, financial services marketing
There was a time in the not-too-distant past when e-mail marketing was becoming the aging dinosaur of Internet marketing. Sure, businesses still used it as a marketing tool, but it was much less exciting than the ever-dynamic possibilities social media was offering up and, in many industries, it became background noise – part of the routine mix, but nothing more special than anything else. And then smartphones entered the picture, and all of the sudden e-mail didn’t wait for users to get home and fire up their computers; it tracked them down to wherever they were.
The rise of mobile e-mail
Tags: mobile marketing, tablets, mobile e-mail, open rates, mobile optimization, smartphones, messaging, email marketing
