As content marketing becomes a continually popular strategy to connect, engage, and hopefully provide value, there is no doubt that the question of return on investment will rear its head.

As you can imagine, content marketing takes time, planning, and effort. It is hard work. How then will content marketing find its rightful and respected place in our short-term, short-patience, short-strategy marketing world?

There is evidence revealing that shortsighted interests— just like with social media—are driving marketers to dive into content marketing with a tool first mindset. Cool tools are fun, sexy, and popular. Who wouldn’t want to be seen as all of that? There is just one little thing to consider, tools are worthless without objectives and strategies dictating which tools are required to meet a set goal.

The tools first philosophy is akin to buying a money pit with the intention to flip in it a down real estate market and then asking what went wrong when it does not sell.

What is the answer? Can content marketing able to deliver a return on investment? Of course, it can. However, the investment will not show a return if marketers do not figure out first what problem they are solving. Once that is settled, then careful planning, creating, and tracking must happen. That sounds like a lot of hard work that takes time to pay off, doesn’t it? What is a marketer short on time and a lead generation beast to feed to do?

And what about what customers want? We know customers have grown allergic to corporate content, as it always seems to carry a sales pitch, call to action or some other hidden cost. What then is the best way to approach content marketing from a true customer perspective?

That might just be a bigger challenge than figuring out Return on Investment.

Copyblogger: Is Content Marketing Worth The Effort?

“Attract the right kind of traffic by creating exceptional content.

Engage your audience so they know, like, and trust you. Let them know you’re the likable expert who’s going to give them the information (and eventually the products and services) that won’t let them down.

Then use smart copywriting and conversion techniques to turn those raving fans into customers.”

Conversation Agent: Top Ten Reasons Why Your Content Marketing Strategy Fails

“The definition - content marketing is a marketing technique of creating and distributing relevant and valuable content to attract, acquire, and engage a clearly defined and understood target audience – with the objective of driving profitable customer action.

It’s the opposite of interruption marketing. You create great content that attracts customers and prospects, educates them, and potentially engages them in a conversation with you.

(8) You want too much, too soon – there’s no relationship and you’re already asking your customers and prospects to give you something substantial.”

Digital B2B Marketing: Stop Advertising and Give Them Content! [The Numbers Prove It]

“Content and social outposts, compared to advertising, are performing very well. If you aspire to move your marketing to a media and publishing model, the results are impressive. Even a small audience can drive significantly more engagement than a large advertising program. Just how much more engaging is editorial content?

Content Curation Marketing: Content Marketing ROI: 3 Ways Content Curation Optimizes the B2B Content Supply Chain Featuring @McKQuarterly

“As digital marketers continue to expand and build their current content marketing strategies around professional publishing, it is critical that these organizations continue to identify and optimize their content marketing return on investment, both as marketers and as publishers. Unfortunately, the means of measurement for marketers are still evolving, while business must execute in the online channel, today. Without complex ROI measurement tools, marketers can leverage content curation to deliver immediate, digital marketing optimization opportunities in the B2B content marketing process.”

Content Marketing Institute: 5 Steps to Using Data to Maximize Content Marketing ROI

“One of the biggest challenges for content marketers is tying their activities to return on investment (ROI). Numerous case studies show that content developed using insights from customers, also known as data-driven customer insights, produce increased customer engagement and generate significantly higher return on investment. Properly leveraging data analytics to deliver data-driven communications is the key to successful content marketing development.”

MarketingProfs: Three Steps to Generating Higher ROI From Content Marketing

“Where does content marketing contribution show up from a financial perspective? The following three primary metrics, which indicate the contribution from better-educated and engaged contacts, must be measured and managed:

1. Higher sales-conversion rates indicate those more likely to buy.
2. Higher customer value indicates those more likely to upgrade to higher-tier products/services; buy more, and more often (greater share of customer); and engage in more profitable and loyal relationships.
3. Faster conversion velocity indicates shorter sales cycles, which tend to both increase conversion rates and decrease the resource cost of internal sales staff.

Without insight into these profit-driver metrics, marketers tend to rely on quantities of short-term behaviors: counting engagement, views, or leads. That is a big disconnect between content strengths and measured impact.”

Happy reading!

I just received an interesting comment on my “For Hire” post that asked:

“Are there really any leading authorities – aside from published authors – on integrated marketing and communications? There are a lot of self-promoters who claim expertise in what is usually “the obvious”.

This comment, while obviously an attempt to discredit my experience, made me realized that there are probably many marketing professionals out there that have the same misunderstanding and misperception when it comes to understanding the theory and benefits of true integration.

I want to help fix that.

From the dawn of its time, which would be about 1993, when the “Fathers of Integration” Schultz, Tannenbaum and Lauterborn wrote The New Marketing Paradigm: Integrated Marketing Communications, integration has always been based in customer-centric (putting the customer at the center of the organization) and data-driven marketing. Unfortunately, marketers conveniently ignored the customer-centric, data-driven part of integration. We’ll get to that in a bit…

What Integrated Marketing Is Not

Integrated marketing is not consistent branding and messaging across tactics alone.

Yes, you heard that correctly.

One of the many challenges that The New Marketing Paradigm attempted to address were silos (other challenges included the lack of customer-centricity, planning, and measurement). Messages and branding from marketing, communications, branding, and PR were consistently out of whack with each other—leaving customers and prospects to put the pieces together themselves. Talk about ineffective.

Fast forward. Silos still rear their ugly heads (we see social media putting a spotlight on them), but for the most part organizations have gotten smarter about why it is smart to integrate their branding and messaging.

That said, marketing and communications today still seems to be lead by the basic and simple act of integrating tactics to feed the lead generation beast. That mindset presents new challenges. By thinking that tactics have been integrated across channels it’s a job well done, marketers put themselves at risk of wasting precious resources, time, and budget. Why? Because integrated tactics alone do not deliver on*:

• Relevance
• Receptivity
• Response
• Recognition
• Relationship

Without truly knowing who customers are, when they are open to messages, how they prefer to respond, if they relate to the brand, and how they feel about the organization, it is nearly impossible to be targeted. That is where the data-driven part of integration comes to bear. Without outside-in data, “spray and pray” marketing will continue to be prevalent.

Obviously, I am simplifying this to make a point. It would take a book to dive in deeper!

(*To learn more about the Five R’s and the value they deliver, be sure to pick up a copy of IMC, The Next Generation : Five Steps For Delivering Value and Measuring Financial Returns by Don E. Schultz and Heidi Schultz.)

What Integrated Marketing Is

“GE executives described a stagnant GE when Jack Welch took over as CEO in 1981: “[GE is a company] … with its face to the CEO and its ass to the customer.”

I pulled that gem of a quote from Ranjay Gulati’s most excellent book, Reorganize for Resilience: Putting Customers at the Center of Your Business.

Which direction is your organization facing? Let’s dive in before your backside catches a chill.

IMC: The Next Generation presents eight guiding principles of integration:

1. Become a customer-centric organization
2. Use outside-in planning
3. Focus on the total customer experience
4. Align customer goals with corporate objectives
5. Set customer behavior objectives
6. Treat customers as assets
7. Streamline functional activities
8. Converge marcom activities (this one we get, what about the others?)

The main struggle for product-centric companies when it comes to integrated marketing is the ability to realize customer-centricity and treating customers as assets.

Understanding Customer-Centricity

In Reorganize for Resilience, Gulati observed the following traits of truly customer-centric companies. They:

• Changed the conversation with their customers to one that is more outside-in and focused on how they can help address customer-articulated needs;
• Became problem solvers, not sellers;
• Focused on the set of customer problems they want to solve and are less concerned with the means and more focused on the ends;
• Developed a culture where customer centricity and outside-in behavior is their way of life.

Jay Galbraith describes the same tenets in his book, Designing The Customer-Centric Organization. Customer-centric companies focus on:

• Personalization and customization for the best customer solution
• Strategy supporting the most profitable, loyal customers
• Structure based on customer segments, teams and P&L
• Rewards given to employees who save customer business
• Sales bias on the side of the customer

Integrated Marketing, It’s “The Obvious,” Right?

We hear about the success of the same companies repeatedly. You know who they are: Dell, IBM, Cisco, FedEx, Lafarge, Best Buy, Target, and Southwest. There is a reason for that. The pool of customer-centric companies with truly integrated marketing is more like a puddle.

It has been with purpose for the past year that I have blogged about integration. I truly believe in integration and the value it delivers (how can the evidence be disputed?). As well, I have helped companies with integration in my career and know that it works.

(Note: integration is tough work and it’s not easy to become truly customer-centric, but that isn’t an excuse to move forward with it.)

For those marketers solely guided by revenue generation and shareholder wealth, try this stat on for size:

“…customer-driven companies were significantly more successful than shareholder-driven ones, providing a 36 percent advantage in shareholder returns, compared with their industry median; shareholder-aligned organizations provided only a 17 percent advantage.” – Reorganize for Resilience

Who wouldn’t want those returns?!

Your Job Moving Forward

The next time an agency or consultant is offering integrated marketing be sure to request a plan that is truly integrated (especially the five R’s)  and data-centric and see what you get in response. If it’s  full of tactics that have been “obviously” integrated with lack of regard for much else, you know what to do.

Integrated marketing: it’s the not so “obvious” marketing… after all. (Sort of like the “other white meat.”)

P.S. If you truly want to understand integrated marketing and it’s benefits, pick up the books mentioned in this post along with Kellogg on Integrated Marketing.

[Image Source: hypebeast.com]

A simple shift in thinking can have amazing beneficial results for customer and company.

The first time I heard of this story was from PR and communications expert and good friend, Leigh Fazzina. The lesson she shared is a poke between the eyes:

“Sometimes we need to change our strategy. If we always do what we’ve always done, then we will always get what we’ve always gotten.”

What’s holding you back from change?

Dear CEO:

The last two years have presented us with a rough economy and no doubt, many people—employees, stakeholders and customers alike—are feeling its tight squeeze and so are you. Layoffs, cutbacks, delayed product and service upgrades, lack of innovation, competitive pressure, unsure stockholders, lost supply chains, and more, likely keep you up at night or at least in the office for countless hours when you would rather be home with your family.

With or without a bad economy, the business tides have certainly shifted over the past five years.

Customers are now more vocal than ever when it comes to your brand and the promises made on its behalf. Yes, even B2B customers.

It used to be that customers would share their positive and negative experiences through customer satisfaction surveys, focus groups, industry association meetings and even with the media. Now they have tools right at their fingertips that allow them to reach thousands—if not millions—of buyers in your target market via the Internet. These tools put a microscope on your brand and magnify it more than you have ever known was possible.

I am sure you have read or heard about social media and its importance. However, it is not enough to be aware that your customers are using social media channels. It is your job to understand why. The why lies in the fact that you do not know them… not really.

I am sure your focus is on what products and services your company makes, what is the highest margin you can earn without overpricing compared to the competition, what distribution channels make the most sense without adding more cost, and generating media attention and leads to generate revenue.

That mindset is broken. Your customers don’t care.

They care about whether you sell a product or service that they need or that eases their specific business challenge. They care about what their overall cost is (and that cost goes well beyond the invoice they will be paying you). They care about the convenience they will experience in doing business with you. They care about being able to search for a solution to their problem and not being interrupting with needless promotions for a product or service they could never use.

See the difference? They really want you to know them.

So how about it? Will you consider leading from a customer-centric perspective?

Best of luck,

Beth Harte
The Harte of Marketing
@bethharte
beth@harteofmarketing.com
www.theharteofmarketing.com

I know that you also have smart advice that you’d like to share with CEO’s to help them understand today’s business environment!

Here’s your chance.

The first ten people to share customer-centric advice get a FREE PDF copy of Dear CEO via e-mail.

Let others benefit from your advice by sharing this post using the #DearCEO hashtag on Twitter and sharing it on Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. There’s no better way to learn then from one another’s experiences.

If you’d like to buy a copy of Dear CEO, head on over to Arment Dietrich’s Spin Sucks, where they are available for purchase.

[Image sources: life123.com, Spin Sucks]

One of my biggest pet peeves as a marketer (and PR practitioner, too!) is not having access to customers.

Fortunately, I have worked for many companies that have trusted me and allowed access.

Of course, I have also received my fair share of Heismans from sales and management. Heck, by their blocking you would have thought I was requesting their first born for a ritual sacrifice or worse… their yearly bonus.

Today, in our social world there is absolutely no reason to refuse marketers access to customers. Unless, of course, said marketers are raving lunatics running around high on tactical crack because their sales team is demanding leads. Then yeah, they shouldn’t be allowed to chat it up with customers.

Reality Check

Customers do not silo their experiences with companies—they never have and never will.

When a customer gets a direct mail piece, they don’t think “Oh, wow. How nice of those direct marketers for sending us this little card with a discount code.” Nor do they think, “Hey thanks PPC manager! I appreciate that you put that Google ad squarely in my face when I was looking for new shoes.”

If marketers understand customers from that perspective, they will understand that any outreach, touch point, or interaction must represent the brand, not the silo.

From that regard, all interactions that marketers have with customers must be authentic and transparent in nature. Remember, you are the brand. For example, if your reason for interacting is to collect insights for a new product or service, be clear about it. Customers often appreciate being able to provide feedback if they think the company is willing to listen and implement their suggestions.

Learning From Our Friends In Customer Service

As we know, great customer service never goes out of style. Companies like Southwest Air, Best Buy, and Publix have made a business decision to put the customer in the center of their organization in order to serve them better.

Marketers need to make a concerted effort do the same thing. Servicing the customer isn’t just smart after the sale, but long before one.

CMS offers 65 Customer Service Best Practices and many applied to marketing. The below list falls under the category of things that MUST be implemented in marketing.

• How can we make it easier for our customers to do business with us?
• Instant chat lines set up to answer customers concerns
• Have a profile and complete record of each customer
• Focus groups/Brainstorming sessions with customers
• Be accessible to customers
• How do we meet and exceed expectations?
• Customer advisory board
• Anticipate problems and solve them before the customer complains
• Determine customer expectations
• Set guidelines for being more reliable, responsive and credible
• Listen to them
• Ask the right questions to find real problems and concerns
• Open communication
• Say “NO” less often
• More recognition for both internal and external customers
• Showing the flag – get in front of the customer more often – visit

Where does your customer service IQ fall? Would you have selected these items for marketing? What other customer service best and effective practices should marketers implement?

[Image source: Savage Chickens]