Posts Tagged ‘Marketing Management’

Recently, Valeria Maltoni, the Conversation Agent and expert in community facilitation asked me to participate in her ebook, “Marketing in 2009.” To which I said “but, of course!” I have known Valeria for almost nine years and her ability to build communities & networks on-line as well as off-line never ceases to amaze me!

For this free ebook Valeria didn’t want marketing predictions for 2009, which was lucky for me because my crystal ball has been in the repair shop for quite a while and I have recently run out of eye of newt, toe of frog, wool of bat…

The path set before us contributors was executive direction. For my contribution, I focused on developing internal brand loyalty. By creating internal accountability for customer brand experiences and building internal evangelists, marketing executives can build the brand pride necessary to get employees to understand, embrace and champion external social media initiatives and customer conversations.

As an aside, one of the comments Valeria received was that this was really an ebook on social media thought leadership with little other marketing reference and, perhaps, it might have been misnamed. That’s an interesting perception and I think it might show that there is still a disconnect between social media and marketing…and that’s why this ebook is so very important! Marketing executives need to recognize that social media has become an important set of tools (albeit ever changing) that leads to dialogue and that dialogue might just be about their company, products/services or employees. And in that regard, social media and conversation have changed marketing forever. (Okay, one lil’ prediction…I think marketing executives know this already and 2009 will be the year that they start to implement social media if even just by sticking their toes in the wading pool.)

Thank you Valeria for including me to contribute to an invaluable marketing ebook (my first!) with so many marketers that I respect, admire and consider to be friends! Without further ado, here’s a little snippet of the contributions marketing’s brightest (courtesy of Valeria):

• “Basic metrics you can initially use to match up before, during and after sales deltas are frequency, reach, and yield” – Olivier Blanchard, The Brand Builder, @thebrandbuilder

• “There are three imperatives for execution programs in 2009 – start with measurement, create content for the open Web and for mobility” – Matt Dickman, Techno||Marketer, @MattDickman

• “The foundation and core of what social media is, consists of the five C’s. Conversation, community, commenting, collaboration and contribution” – Mike Fruchter, My Thoughts on Social Media, @Fruchter

• “With social media as a platform for participation, people can behave the way they were hardwired to behave in the first place – humanly, tribally” – Francois Gossieaux, Emergence Marketing, @fgossieaux

• “Companies with greater social intelligence have stronger bonds with employees and customers, and that translates into revenue” – Lois Kelly, Beeline Labs, @LoisKelly

• “Change ensures our own livelihoods – new opportunities and trends to capitalize upon, unique products and profit centers that merit development, robust innovation to leverage”- Christina Kerley, CK Epiphany, @ckepiphany

• “Social media interaction allows us to have… well, interaction with our customers. It lets us see them as people instead of statistics and it lets us hear their voices” – Jennifer Laycock, Search Engine Guide, @JenniferLaycock

• “Goals absolutely must be built on business objectives” – Amber Naslund, Altitude Branding, @AmberCadabra

• “A proper social media education is more than just learning new tools. The most important lesson we can impart is the necessity to think ‘humans’”- Connie Reece, Every Dot Connects, @ConnieReece

• “Social media isn’t causing problems, but it is revealing them. And the problems aren’t new; they’ve been around for a while” – Mike Wagner, Own Your Brand!, @bigwags

• “The secret of success in social media is a product or a service that people actually like and use” – Alan Wolk, The Toad Stool, @awolk

Let me know what you think…are we on the right track?

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• Your “Industry Experience Only” Requirement Is Hurting Customers, Employees and Shareholders
• Is Personal Social Media Experience A Negative For Job Seekers?
• For Hire! Searching for My Next Career Opportunity
• Saturday Morning Reads (Late Edition): What Were They Thinking?

In the July/August issue of the AMA’s Marketing Management magazine there is an interesting article, “Wooing Luxury Customers,” by Suzanne Hader (Principal, 400twin). Suzanne covers a lot of great points such as what is luxury, what defines wealth, and what shapes luxury habits and how luxury brand customers look for a rich, emotional experience and great service rather than being ‘sold’ to.Not being a luxury brand marketer, I went on the hunt for other articles about luxury brand marketing and came across a few older items such as an article in Chief Marketer, a keynote on Luxury Branding Marketing and a scholarly article.

In reading all of these pieces, the one thing I consistently noticed is that the luxury brand marketing advice, for the most part, focuses on traditional marketing and branding—talking to the customer and creating an experience for the customer.

• The BMW Forum
  (Members: 183,864, Threads: 978,328, Posts: 13,296,986)
  
• The Fashion Spot
  (Members: 66,746, Threads: 45,987, Posts: 4,529,436)
  
• The Mercedes Forum
  (Members: 33,931 , Posts: 105,042, Topics: 31,073)
  
• The Purse Forum
  (Members: 128,573, Threads: 299,826, Posts: 7,153,120)
  
• The Rolex Forum
  (Members: 14,970, Threads: 44,550, Posts: 685,615)

• international
• influential and persuasive
• passionate and loyal
• purchasers that range from extremely wealthy to average income
• brand experts that help to educate non-experts
• developing on-line friendships that lead to off-line meetings
• vocal about price, features and quality
• discussing off-line sales/service experiences and are relaying them on-line

[Photo: iStock]

Even More Goodness! Related Posts:

• The Marketing & PR Conundrum: Lying to Customers
• Are you stuck in a box?
• Your “Industry Experience Only” Requirement Is Hurting Customers, Employees and Shareholders
• Saturday Morning Reads (Late Edition): Is Social CRM Bringing Companies & Customers Together Yet?

A few weeks ago Jason Falls of Social Media Explorer suggested in a post that social media is the responsibility of public relations. My visceral reaction to that notion required an immediate comment [note: I am a PR practitioner as well]. And it didn’t end there; I spent the entire weekend thinking about the post. Come the following Monday, I went back for another comment to strengthen my position on why social media is the responsibility of marketing. In doing so, I noticed that Brian Solis of PR 2.0 posted a comment: “Truth is that Social Media is the responsibility of the champions that demonstrate how it will benefit the company and the brand.” Interesting.

In the spirit of debate, I then posted this topic on Plurk to see what the smart folks there had to say. Frank Martin of Marketing Magic plurked: “this debate is so old school it misses the point of New Media, which will cut across all aspects of companies: Marketing, PR, Customer Service. We need NOT to put it in a little box of yesteryear’s definition!”

In reading Frank’s comment [and others] I realized that I was indeed stuck in a “marketing box” and looking at social media through a cracked lid.

After some consideration, I’d suggest that social media is the responsibility of the revenue generators. How so?

• Customer Service/Technical Support provides support for purchased products/services
• Finance/Accounting collects payment for the product/service
• Sales sells the product/service
• Marketing Communications/Public Relations publicizes the product/service
• Operations/Manufacturing delivers/builds the product/service
• Engineering/R&D designs/tests the product/service
• Marketing develops the product/service
• Human Resources hires the people that develop, design/test, deliver/build, publicize, sell, collect payment and support the product/service

Before becoming a social media champion consider becoming, if you’re not already, a brand champion first. Doing so just might create the brand pride necessary to get employees to understand, embrace and champion social media initiatives.

• explaining that the value of a brand—first & foremost―comes from the inside-out and bottom-up
• embracing that the brand is a living, changing thing—it can’t be controlled
• understanding that all brand experiences affect revenue—positively & negatively
• respecting that a brand is owned in part by the prospect or customer

Are you stuck in a box? Do you think brand champions will help social media efforts? What other steps would you recommend?

[Photo: rustiman]

Even More Goodness! Related Posts:

• The Marketing & PR Conundrum: Lying to Customers
• Where have all the references gone?
• Outputs, Outtakes, Outcomes…Oh, my!
• A Best Practice in Social Media Marketing