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If you’ve read my other posts on this topic, you may be wondering: How can I control the effect word of mouse has my brand? Well, you can’t ––but you can certainly influence it. Last fall, Microsoft launched Aggrega8, a social networking and collaboration space for the IT community. Now Global Spec has officially announced CR4, a forum for engineers, scientists and technical researchers to discuss engineering news, seek technical help and get answers. At the annual conference of the Association of National Advertisers last October, Procter & Gamble Co. CEO A.G. Lafley went so far as to urge companies to "let go" of their brands. To underscore the point, he then proceeded to show an animated Pringles commercial made by a teenager. For those unfamiliar with the controlling ways of P&G, this marketing “heresy” should serve as a wakeup call to the rising power of word of mouse. Conversational marketing (responding to comments on boards and blogs, both positive and negative), incorporating customer feedback into marketing planning, podcasting, wikis and even social networking are all ways that marketers can influence the increasingly pervasive word of mouse.
— Brian Davies, Managing Partner
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Let’s face it, business-to-business buyers are savvy: They fully understand the marketing game. They resent being patronized, hate the old corporate cliches and won’t stand for hyperbole. To retain their customers and build market share, they need to ensure that they deliver on their promises and keep their brands relevant. That means entering into a dialogue, not a monologue. Most importantly, brand owners must recognize that they no longer have (and never will have again), the same level of control they once enjoyed. In the word-of-mouse world, measuring the effectiveness of advertising will become increasingly difficult. Not because the quantitative tracking capabilities that we all love will suddenly become less valuable. Rather, the Internet’s ability to spread messages on a one-to-one basis has the potential to build –– or undermine –– brands more quickly than ever. Marketing planners will need to stop thinking about campaigns purely from an exposure-and-response point of view. They will need to look at how ideas can engage customers, then go on and create positive buzz. More often than not, viral elements will need to be incorporated into campaigns if they are to achieve their true potential. Word of mouse will also create a new planning discipline –– one that will have to work in concert with more traditional media strategizing. (Movéo already has a such a person on staff.) In the near future, this discipline will be required to increasingly monitor, not just measure, the web –– particularly, the blogosphere. Understanding what customers are saying about your brand and then aiming to influence this debate will be the new challenge. This discipline will require a novel combination of skills: research, branding, creativity, interactive media with customer service, and old-fashioned journalism thrown in for good measure.
— Brian Davies, Managing Partner
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Like their consumer counterparts, business-to-business brands are only as good as their customers’ experience with them. The difference today is that the Internet affords customers lots of ways of communicating those experiences to their peers. Chat rooms. Blogs. Rating and review sites. Think of it as “word of mouse” –– a phenomenon that’s influencing marketing strategy as never before. Of course, business-to-business marketers have always recognized the power of word-of-mouth marketing, but the Internet dramatically enlarges the scale on which that model operates. So it’s possible to spend thousands telling your target audience how great your company is, while their fellow customers are quietly contradicting you. Another reason word of mouse is compelling is that it’s not just words, but images (often moving ones, thanks to YouTube and sites like it). When a video of a Dell computer self-combusting appeared online, it spread like wildfire (pun intended) –– something a pre-Internet, word-of-mouth story never could have achieved. Not to pick on Dell, but the company also recently suffered in the blogosphere when serious customer-service issues surfaced and then multiplied. This phenomenon, a kind of Industrial Strength Web 2.0, represents nothing less than a fundamental shift in the nature of business-to-business relationships. Brand owners are no longer the sole masters of their messaging. Business-content consumers are online, sharing thoughts and information, and taking away control from brand and media owners. If business-to-business marketers want to continue connecting with customers, they need to embrace word of mouse and build brand-loyal user communities.
— Brian Davies, Managing Partner
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Today Google announced their intention to launch a venture capital arm led by David Dummer, senior vice president. The question why is answered by what does Google have to gain, and why now.
Google has several things to gain. The most prominent is the current credit crunch and the effect it is having on many start-ups. The market is currently in the favor of those willing to supply, this gives Google the ability to pick and choose the best new start-ups to fund, or spread their capital around and have a better chance at a stake in the winner. The second thing Google has to gain is the ability to diversify their profit center. With the uncertainty about how Google’s deal concerning the Overture Patent usage went down Google may be looking for an alternate ad serving platform that a start-up is developing. The third thing Google is hoping to gain is the goodwill of the industry.
Google’s motto is “do no evil.” It looks like Google is looking to be more than just “not evil” in a time where venture capital and economic stimulus aimed at innovation is greatly needed to grow our economy.
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Keeping up with the latest developments in PPC marketing has led me to be very involved in the Online social media space in general. I have experimented with countless new media marketing techniques and participated in developing everything from article marketing programs to the latest apps like Twitter.
I was listening in on a webinar my wife was participating in and the group consensus on the state of social media was ranking the top three new media applications/websites for B2B marketers.
1. Facebook. The Driving force behind why Facebook is preferred for professional development over similar sites like MySpace is the beginnings of the network as a way for college students to connect and keep in touch. This education level of the base user is distinctly different than the more artist/teen targeted MySpace.
2. Linked-in. Linkedin is designed to be focused around professional contacts with job postings, a Q/A board, and the ability to get a recommendation from a colleague.
3. Twitter. The leading edge of social applications is Twitter. Twitter is a micro-blogging format that limits any post to 140 characters. users are able to follow other users, and the other person can choose whether they want to follow back. In addition users can direct message each other. Twitter posts are indexed by Google. Many corporations such as Comcast are building their outreach on Twitter by having a tech support account that is monitored 24/7. Twitter is like the latest version of a chat-room, but everybody has control over what part of the room they see.
I agree with 2 out of the 3 above for B2B marketing and public relations. Social Networking sites are not a place to market unless you are a solopreneur. Facebook and MySpace are simply not perceived as professional forums, and are often not completely controlled by the user. Control over voice and branding when using new media and social media make using these outlets seem risky for many large organizations, but a well thought out strategy directly related to branding and target audience can make new and social media outlets a source of prospects, clients, and goodwill for any size business.
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In my life, before the Internet became the center of my business and professional life I was a Financial Advisor with one of the largest firms in the US. I wanted to crunch the numbers and find the opportunities and help people actually retire. If you would have asked me about CPA online advertising at the time I would have probably responded that a CPA’s advertising options online are pretty limited, since they are such a highly regulated group. As a Financial Advisor the industry jargon defined CPA as Certified Public Accountant.
In online advertising with Google AdWords CPA stands for cost-per-action/acquisition. It is a bidding system that requires the use of conversion code, and a specific number of conversions per month. CPA is essentially an autopilot for bidding and daily budgets where Google automatically sets bid level, position and budget levels to meet a target cost per action set by the user. This type of structure is set up for use with campaigns that generate large numbers of conversions. Foe example, an e-retailer that sells designer hand bag shoe sets can utilize CPA pricing to optimize their campaign for buyers of a new item in stock, or last season’s items by properly organizing and targeting their keywords, ad groups, and campaigns.
The lesson here for B2B advertising is to be aware of that other industries use the same terms as yours. Usually a few Google searches of individual words can really open up ones eyes as to the true complexity of the English language and the meanings we assign to words.
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Companies across the country are being squeezed by rising food and energy prices. At the Chicago American Marketing Association BrandSmart 2008 Conference, Kim Feil, former Chief Marketing Officer of Sara Lee North America, briefly discussed the current economic situation and its impact on consumer brands. At one point, she asked the audience which one premium brand we are not willing to give up. In other words, what brands are we truly loyal to even as we tighten our purse strings. Someone in the audience said Charmin, another said Jif and someone else said Starbucks. (I must point out that some might argue that Starbucks has not taken care of its loyal customers and is now closing 600 stores.)
Business-to-business companies are also strained by the current economic situation, and we will hear a lot in the coming months about the economy’s impact on B2B marketing budgets. Budgets for branding and advertising will be questioned. However, we can’t forget that brands matter in B2B.
In a sense, this is a very exciting time for well-managed B2B brands. B2B companies that have already spent resources identifying, cultivating and managing their loyal customers have a leg up in their industry. B2B companies that have already communicated how their products and services address the needs of customers also have a leg up in their industry.
Would your customers call out your brand if they were asked to identify a B2B brand that they could not part with despite possible budget cuts?
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I’ve been thinking more about why it’s important to build a compelling employment brand. I shared some in an earlier post; here are some additional reasons to consider:
A strong employment brand helps you get more out of your HR budget.
A properly developed employment brand will include messaging that convincingly communicates the benefits and value that you offer to prospective hires. Developing your HR and talent acquisition collateral and tactics around your employment brand and its related messages allows you to focus your resources and communicate more effectively. This will aid in getting more out of every HR dollar you spend on recruitment and retention.
It helps you deliver on promises made to employees.
Your employment brand has both outward (to prospective hires) and inward (to your current employees) applications. A well defined employment brand aligns employee and management expectations so that promises made during the hiring process are delivered. This continuity is critical to retaining your employees and fostering a more productive work environment. Disconnects between expectations set before accepting a job and the actual employment experience can have a significant effect on employee morale and retention rates.
It helps your employees "live the brand."
Good employment brands complement, leverage and are aligned with the power of their companies’ corporate brands. In many ways, your employment brand is the employee manifestation of your company brand. It helps set expectations for how employees should represent your company and how customers should be treated. A strong employment brand helps employees commit to your business and its mission by clearly laying out the value they receive from their place of work. Here at Movéo, we believe in the power of employment brands to enhance recruitment and retention efforts and deliver benefits that reach well beyond HR. Is yours doing all it can?
— Mark Shevitz, Brand Strategist
The Case for Building Your Employment Brand – Part 2
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When it comes to emerging media marketing, search engines are one of the most popular options. Search marketing deals with website pages and their relationships with words and phrases that are associated with your company, brand or products. According to Jupiter Research, more than 40 percent of the average marketer’s budget is devoted to search. In large part, this is due to attractive pay-per-click models. But while search is a great tool, marketers must also understand its limitations. Online behaviors can vary dramatically from one user to the next — two users searching for similar information may not visit the same sites or conduct online research in the same way. By relying solely on search, marketers are missing users who may not know they have a need for the product/service, who are loyal to the competitors’ brands or who simply are not aware of the appropriate search terms to use. Therefore, marketers need to seek ways to broaden their reach, so that they are impacting new audience segments that may not be searching “on their terms.” Marketers should consider both search and behavioral targeting to reach the target audience. Behavioral targeting involves finding out the target audience’s interest in specific topics and trying to capitalize on it. By using both strategies and taking advantage of their complementary relationship, marketers gain maximum value from each. In addition, they reach customers at the moment they express their intention (i.e. during a search) and then re-market to them throughout their online experience. One more point before signing off: Don’t get too comfortable. To be successful, B2B marketers must continually challenge assumptions about the media use habits of their target audiences. Online media are always changing; new advertising models are being introduced, as well as new technologies and creative capabilities. Be ready to reevaluate your strategies on a regular basis, and you’ll continue to meet customers and prospects on their terms.
— Matt Webster, Director of Emerging Media and Planning
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It has become increasingly difficult for companies to reach large groups of business decision makers through traditional B2B channels. Historically, marketers could rely solely on the trade press or a well-attended tradeshow. One of the fundamental arguments for participating at a tradeshow is that these forums provided a unique opportunity for buyers and sellers to come together because they could not (as cost-effectively) find each other on their own. This may still be true, but the impact that any one tradeshow can have on an organization’s ability to develop new leads has diminished. At the same time, the Internet is creating new complexity, as well as opportunity, for marketers in the B2B mediascape. Of course, that means understanding emerging media — specifically, new online tools and strategies — to effectively reach target audiences. The good news is that B2B customers are spending more and more time online. Consider this 2005 study by Reed Business Information: It concluded that Engineers are on the Internet seven hours a week for business, visiting 12 different industry sites monthly, on average. Plus, the lines between "at home" and "at work" are blurring. B2B targets have access to the Internet in both places, and use their home connections for work purposes.
Matt Webster, Director of Emerging Media & Planning
