“What we call the beginning is often the end. And to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from.”

T. S. Eliot

The Beginning

When I first put up my blog in June 2008, I had no plan and certainly no ambitions for it. It was just a place to put my thoughts on customer-centric marketing, public relations and communications. With all of the millions of blogs out there, heck, I really didn’t expect anyone to actually read it!

But then… slowly, people did begin to read my blog and comment. It was humbling to know that people were actually reading my words, my thoughts. People didn’t always agree with me and my sentiments, but there was a great conversation around the topic.

As you can imagine, a lot of the conversation included debates around social media. Here are just a few of the lengthy conversations:

• Is Social Media the Same As Marketing?
• Social Media Certification: For the low, low price of…
• Top 25 Ways to Tell if Your Social Media Expert Is a Carpetbagger (written with Geoff Livingston)
• Social Media Ghostwriting: The Great Marketing/PR Debate*
• The Four Faces of Social Media

The End

There are many (!) blogs out there for people to read and for the past three years, I have really appreciated you all for taking the time out of your busy days to read my posts, generate conversations, provide insights, and share experiences. It has been a pleasure to get to know everyone throughout the years!

All things must come to an end, including this blog. I’ll leave it archived, but I won’t be posting to it anymore. I plan to spend my “off-hours” with the really important things in my life that I am called to: family and friends, volunteering and outreach, reading (even more!), getting to old and new hobbies, and teaching.

I am not done with blogging. I hope to share some posts at the MarketingProfs Daily Fix and over at the Ruters University Center for Management Development blog. And maybe—if I am lucky—some of my blogging friends will allow me to come visit and drop off a guest post now and again.

Here’s to a new end!

[Image Source: incourage.me]

For the past few months, there have been discussions in various PR communities regarding defining public relations and it seems to be a continual challenge. If PR theorists throughout he decades have different definitions*, it makes sense that the industry as a whole might be challenged to operate in one cohesive fashion.

Part of the challenge in defining PR, it seems, is that most companies, agencies and their practitioners consider PR the art of getting ink. Ink slingers, if you will. With such a huge misperception, we should be curious as to what other misunderstandings might be out there.

For this post, the working definition of PR will be:

Public relations is a management function that establishes and maintains two-way, mutual relationships and communications between an organization and the publics and stakeholders that often determine their success or failure. PR management includes on-going research, analysis, planning, and evaluation in order to understand, develop, and nurture strategic relationships.

Stakeholders are Publics, But Not All Publics Are Stakeholders

When PR is looked at as media (or blogger) relations only, a funny thing happens… Every reader begins to look like a potential customer (or donor, etc.). More ink equals more impressions equals more potential customers! (That philosophy usually adds up to a big ‘ol nothing if the only goal is revenue generation.)

It’s key in PR efforts to understand that not all publics are stakeholders. Stakeholders are the groups that have an actual stake in the organization: customers, donors, employees, students, shareholders, investors, etc. Publics are any group that might have a common interest or values in a given situation, but they do not have a stake in an organization. That certainly does not mean that other publics are not powerful groups.

With this in mind, the question is:

Who wields more power to determine the success or failure of your organization… stakeholders or publics?

Getting Closer To Publics

Let’s take a look at typical groupings of publics.

Latent, Aware, Active

Latent publics are the trickiest. They might be aware of an organization’s values (i.e. implicit brand), but they are not aware of the relationship they might have with the organization. Aware publics understand their own values and how they intersect with an organization’s values. Active publics recognize the relationship between themselves and the organization and they manage that relationship on their own terms.

Intervening Publics

This public will work with an organization to send a message to another public. For example, the media or a non-profit group that might work closely with your organization’s industry.

Primary and Secondary

Any public that directly affects an organization’s goals and holds the resources the organization requires, it’s a primary public. Secondary publics don’t really affect an organizations goals, but they shouldn’t be ignored.

Internal and External

This one hopefully doesn’t require explanation. The trick here is to understand that some external publics feel closer to the organization (or a right to be involved) and therefore the line between internal and external gets a little thin. Just take a look at college alumni sports fans, private investors or donors/benefactors and you get the picture.

Domestic and International

Again, this should make sense. However, keep in mind that just because the organization might be domestic, it doesn’t mean that international publics might not have a hand in the success or failure of the organization.

Stakeholders Already Have a Stake

If stakeholders already have a stake or interest in an organization, does that put them in a position of more or less power? Is it conceivable that some stakeholders, like employees, actually have less power? Do we assume customers and investors (or donors) have more power than other publics because they hold the purse strings? Would we ever consider that groups of stakeholders would ban together in an action? We see it with labor unions.

Getting Blindsided by Chasing Ink

If PR practitioners are out chasing ink, they might focus on the publics that can do the most damage to impeding your organization’s ability to achieve its goal. It happens all the time. How many times have we watched a situation build to the point of explosion? Yet the organization seemed relatively unaware that there was even an issue.

Timberland vs. Greenpeace

What does a CEO do when a public becomes a very active one? Active in setting out to tarnish other publics’ views of your brand, that is. That’s exactly what happen to Timberland’s CEO, Jeff Swartz.

Unbeknownst to Mr. Swartz, Greenpeace had produced a report that stated Timberland (among other companies) as being “of supporting slave labor, destroying Amazon rain forests, and exacerbating global warming.”

As Timberland was bombarded with e-mails from concerned publics, they were trying to figure out what had happened and how to best respond to the grassroots effort. In doing so, Timberland and its supplier weren’t even sure that the Greenpeace report wasn’t valid. They needed to review their entire supply chain to determine specifically where their leather source, which was going to take time.

Lesson learned? If an organization does not have an understanding of their all publics or have only focused on a few, they may be caught off guard by not only how the public taps into every tool available to spread its message across the Internet, but how they will control your business as well. Timberland did what they should have done from a PR management perspective and in working with Timberland, they were able to meet in middle ground.

So back to the question…

Who wields more power to determine the success or failure of your organization… stakeholders or publics?

Is this something you’re even thinking about?

[Image Source: PURObueno.com

*Be sure to check out this wikispaces project to review all of the definitions of PR.

It’s Mother’s Day weekend! Let’s celebrate moms and how they have turned marketers upside down.

As a marketer, I have been impressed with how moms have worked with companies to make their voice heard and to get companies to understand that if their needs (and the needs of their children and families!) are met with applicable solutions, they will become brand loyal. As people become as comfortable with social media tools and sharing their voices as moms, I am confident that they will follow this path and forge partnerships with the companies that serve them.

I have tapped into four wonderful moms (of all boys!), Christa Miller, Shelli Johnson, Jeannie Cusick Walters, and Becky Carroll who just also happen to be some of the smartest communicators I know. Here’s the advice they’d like to share with fellow marketers and communicators:

Christa Miller, owner of Christa M. Miller Communications and mom to two boys:

“Don’t assume that all mothers’ experiences are alike. Some are very similar, of course, but motherhood is so intensely personal that even our reasons for (example) going back to work, self-employing, or leaving the workforce altogether to stay home are not as cut and dried as the actions you see. (Mothers forget this, too.) Parenting cuts to all our deepest wishes, hopes and insecurities, our most personal life experiences and the way we see this awesome responsibility. Respect that, whether in humor or seriousness, and you’ll win my trust.”

Shelli Johnson, own of Frontier Consulting Group and Have Media Will Travel, and mom to three boys:

“Share a story that I, as a mom, can relate to—any story that some mom will relate to—and you’ll have my attention. If you get personal and make it real, you have me. Promise.”

Jeannie Cusick Walters, owner of 360Connext and mom to two boys:

“I wish there were more messages about how awesome moms are to each other. We’re always helping each other out and supporting one another – it’s not this crazy competition some marketers want to make it.”

Becky Carroll, owner Customers Rock!, author of The Hidden Power of Your Customers: Four Keys to Growing Your Business Through Existing Customers and mom to two boys:

“Don’t forget that not all moms (and mom bloggers) are mothers only of little ones. We who have teenagers are still moms – and we fondly remember the tiny hands and warm hugs that are sometimes missing at this age… market to that.”

Marketers, understand this: humor, trust, and understanding wins! Moms, what advice would you share with marketers?

Momentum: Moms won’t like your brand if you clutter up her Facebook page with promotions

“Facebook is the place Moms love. 91% of the Moms surveyed have a Facebook account and 62% claim to access it multiple times a day. A very high percentage, 76%, have liked or friended a brand or product on Facebook. Why? Because they liked the brand’s personality or wanted first-hand knowledge on new products or deals.

Why does she choose not to like or friend a brand? She doesn’t want you cluttering up her page with promotions and she’s concerned with privacy. And she feels Facebook is for her “real friends”. Plus she takes into account she’s probably already receiving emails, catalog, direct mail and mobile messages from the brand.”

Yahoo! Advertising Blog: Tips for Marketing to Moms Online During “Me Time”

“Content-matching combined with day-parting is key …it’s not just about reaching moms; it’s about reaching them at the right time with the right message.

‘Whether it’s on a PC or a tablet, the approach should be about creating content and messaging that respects a woman’s need to have both productive time and me time…’”

Marketing to Moms Blog: 8 Changes in the Mom Market over 5 Years

“Millennial moms have redefined Burger King’s old tagline, “Have it your way”. Today’s new mothers expect to customize products, media and even the lifestyle of motherhood. They are applying their pre-baby style to post-baby life and customizing motherhood to their daily activities, personal values, goals and philosophies and expect the products they purchase to be customizable to the motherhood they define for themselves.”

Material Instinct: Product extensions: why new isn’t always better

“When it comes to new products for moms, here’s my litmus test: solve a real problem without making more work for her. Creating another thing for a mom to pay for, own, maintain, and find in her purse is not progress unless it’s truly useful. Otherwise, let’s call it for what it is: preying on her insecurities while pocketing more of her cash.”

Social Times: Marketing to Moms on Twitter? Make Them Laugh

“A new study says that a majority of moms (52%) like to see humor in businesses’ tweets. Further, what moms want most from businesses’ tweets are links to interesting articles/news (71%) followed by links to sales or special offers on their websites (67%) and links to downloadable coupons/discounts (63%).

On Twitter they’re looking for good deals, too, but they also want to be kept informed about news and articles that are relevant to their lives.”

Happy Mother’s Day!

[Image source: SheKnows.com]

“Industry only experience” is not a new requirement, of course, and exceptions have always been made for talented candidates. However, in a down economy, it seems industry experience becomes a highly enforced criterion used to close the door on marketing talent.

I am not in Human Resources (HR), so I cannot tell you why it happens (I have my suspicions though). However, I have been a hiring manager and will say industry experience is something I avoid like the plague when reviewing resumes. Why? Because industry experience has absolutely NOTHING to do with the level of experience, talent, drive, problem-solving skills, enthusiasm and passion a candidate has to offer, which should always be the benchmark when hiring. A smart employee can learn any industry. It isn’t rocket science—unless you are handling marketing and PR for NASA.

[Sidebar: Please do not use the ‘regulations excuse.’ Again, a smart employee can learn regulations. An exceptional employee, however, learns them and then figures out how to stay within mandatory regulations without allowing them to chokehold company goals and objectives (Read: Growth).]

According to Executive Staffing Solutions’ latest newsletter, there is good news and bad news when it comes to filling open positions. The good news is that there are many good positions opening up for candidates. The bad news is companies are not recognizing top talent when it comes through the door.

Back to my suspicions. Hiring companies are not recognizing top talent because they have their heads in the proverbial sand when it comes to “industry experience only” being a benefit (something that promotes well-being; an advantage). It is not a benefit, it is a disadvantage that is hurting your customers, employees, and shareholders (or whoever is backing your business financially).

Customers

Customers (whether B2B or B2C) are not in need of the products and services that ‘industry experience only’ people develop. Customers ARE the industry (or market) and they have seen it all already. Unfortunately, inside-out driven product and service innovations often miss the boat when it comes to providing customers with much needed solutions because they usually never take the time to ask the market what they needed (even if that need is as simple as a new pair of jeans. The Gap has learned this lesson).

It doesn’t take industry experience to “break the code” for what customers want. It takes employees with the willingness to step back, listen, understand, and work to aggregate common customer needs (an outside-in perspective) and work towards fulfilling them. Employees with alternative industry experience are often more capable of identifying unfulfilled needs because they don’t look through the same rose-colored glasses. They are the employees that will topple the competition and secure long-term loyalty from customers for an employer. Yes, these employees buck the system, turn their backs on the status quo, and rock the boat. All of the uncomfortable things that the industry experience only mindset made comfortable.

Employees

When companies hire within the industry a certain inbred mindset develops, which leads to complacency. “This is the way we do it.” If the way you have always done it has always worked then why are companies losing market share and revenues or barely holding steady? Sure, learning new techniques, tools, and strategies from outside the industry can be scary, challenging and… make you work harder than you ever have.

Whoever said marketing, PR or communications was easy?

Employees with the same industry experience and backgrounds stifle each other. Energy, creativity and problem-solving occurs when unique backgrounds are brought together.

Shareholders

According to Ranjay Gulati’s latest book, Reorganize for Resilience, “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.”

Who wouldn’t want those returns?

Unfortunately, any company that stays with an “industry experience only” mindset won’t be able to deliver because they have already set the precedent for the status quo. In a down economy, more of the same is not the solution. Customers have limited budgets and they are only willing to spend it with companies who fulfill their exact needs and treat them as valuable assets (versus a marketing expense).

Perhaps it is time for a new criterion. “Customer Experienced Only” need apply.

[Image Source: Joseph Paul Haines]

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!