 |
 |
|
Posts Tagged ‘Integrated Marketing’
Tuesday, November 10th, 2009
 At yesterday’s Social Media World Forum in Santa Clara, CA, I attended a panel discussion entitled “Benchmarking Advertising on Social Networks.” The panelists represented American Airlines, Harley Davidson and Warner Brothers Records. I also recently attended a social media discussion with Dell Computer at the TechTarget Online ROI Summit. Here’s a recap on how these top brands are leveraging social media to acquire and engage with customers and fans.
How is Social Media Being Used?
- American Airlines (AA) uses social media in targeted geographies, known as “geo-targeting” to boost passengers on specific flights. They also provide travel-related content beyond flight information as a value-add to their passengers (restaurants, entertainment, lodging, etc.)
- Harley Davidson uses social media for new customer acquisition and to build a community of evangelists among its customer base.
- Warner Brothers recently brought its advertising in-house as it experiments with ways to monetize content that is often free on sites such as YouTube.
- Dell Computer uses social media to engage with prospects and customers and to track and respond to what people are saying about them. Dell uses blogs, online forums, bookmarketing/share widgits, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, flickr and LinkedIN. Through social media, Dell sold over $2M of product last year using a Dell Outlet promo code. Employees can engage with prospects and customers online and follow a code of conduct that requires them to identify themselves as working for Dell and to “use their best judgment”. (To see the largest collection of social media policies, check out the Social Media Governance website.)
Benchmarking Process
- AA benchmarks by setting measurable goals, such as the number of passengers on certain flights.
- Harley Davidson uses Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) such as 1) relationships (no. of fans or friends), 2) click-through-rate (CTR) on paid ads, 3) visitor engagements (number of times content was shared among friends) and 4) media value (profile visits, cost-per-click).
- Warner Bros. tracks and measures the amount of traffic that they drive to an artist’s site, and the number of Facebook friends and Twitter followers.
- Dell uses tools such as Buzzient to see the most active sources of a topic as well as Radian6, GoogleTrends, Google Alerts and TwitterSearch to measure their “share of voice” in comparison to competitors. They track changes in Twitter follower count, number of re-tweets, changes in website or blog traffic and their Twitter influence using a tool called Twinfluence.com.
Use of Facebook and Twitter
- AA uses Facebook to spur conversations among their passengers and to hook people to content, what they call “virtual hubs.” Twitter is used as a listening tool to monitor what people are saying about AA. Six full-time customer service reps monitor Twitter and reach out to people to assist them if appropriate. Twitter is used to deliver flight information as well – especially delays due to weather issues. As a result, calls to the AA customer support 800 number have dropped.
- Harley Davidson uses Facebook for initiating conversations with and among fans. Twitter is used by fans to see “what’s happening this moment” at Harley Davidson-sponsored events.
- Warner Bros. views Facebook as a place for conversations to happen. They post photos of fans with an artist and the fans will tag themselves. Twitter is viewed as a “digital billboard” to drive traffic to Facebook or an artist’s site. It also is used for scavenger hunts in which fans use clues delivered by Twitter posts to find CDs and concert tickets.
- Dell monitors Twitter for both positive and negative mentions of the company or their products as 20% of Tweets mention a product name or company. They have several Facebook Pages to build fans and discussions among their target user segments.
Summary
Key advice from these brands:
- Listen first – find out where your audience hangs out online and what they’re saying about you
- Integrate social media into your overall communications mix, being consistent with content and messaging
- Set measurable objectives and monitor results
At the end of the day, social media is another avenue to build a strong community and trust among your prospects, customers, partners and investors.
For more information, check out these blog posts:
Tags: Integrated Marketing, marketing trends, Social Media, social media monitoring, social networks
Posted in Marketing, Social Media | 1 Comment »
Tuesday, November 10th, 2009
 Social media is on top of everyone’s mind. Most professionals have already set up their profile on Linkedin. While many individuals are becoming conversant with Twitter and Facebook, the jury is still out on how effective and compelling these new tools are for selling in a business-to-business environment. Yet, that isn’t stopping marketers from integrating these tools into the marcom mix. Forward-thinking businesses of all sizes are being creative and clever in their social media efforts as they find new ways to dialog with and listen to customers and prospects.
A word of warning: social media is a different type of marketing tool where control of your messaging is an illusion. To avoid any miss-steps and potential embarassment, your company should have a policy on the “how, who, when, and where” questions of social media:
These are just a few of the questions which need to be addressed. The good news is that a number of companies have already penned a policy statement for their company. The marketing strategists at the Arlington Mill Group are experts in this area and wrote a blog post which offers some good advice on establishing a social media code-of-conduct.
Chris Boudreaux (of the Arlington Mill Group) has pulled together the web’s largest collection of social media policies. You’ll find policies from small companies, enterprises, non-profits, news outlets, and governments.
To quote directly from Arlington Mill Group’s recent blog post:
The ideal policy will look different for every organization, and change as your company shifts its participation in social networks over time. While developing this type of policy is hard work, it is worth it… If you haven’t examined this area of your business, now is the time to get started!
Tags: Integrated Marketing, Social Media, social media monitoring, social networks
Posted in Marketing, Social Media | No Comments »
Thursday, October 8th, 2009
In his article, CIO Tells Us How to Sell to CIOs, Sridhar Ramanathan interviews Walt Thinfen, CIO of Visioneer. This article is a timely reminder about the importance of customer relationships built on an understanding of the customer’s world. Especially in this difficult economy, marketers and sales people can fall into the trap of myopic short-term thinking centered on making the quarterly number. It’s easy to lose sight of the customer and the problems they are trying to solve.
One excerpt that I really like is the following:
Vendors do, of course, need to do all the usual things like webinars, trade shows, datasheets, whitepapers, analyst briefings, etc. But I actually find the most valuable ones are opportunities to speak with fellow CIOs whether it’s on the golf course or in customer reference calls. I never turn down “lunch and learns” and events where I can have quality time with a peer.
There are two key elements interwoven into this quote from Walt.
- Reading between the lines suggests that when all the features and benefits become commoditized, the executive relationship will become the only true differentiator. This is where and why customer forums and Customer Advisory Boards (CABs) become so important.
- While the traditional “push” marketing tactics (like webinars, datasheets, etc) will continue to be important, they are not sufficient for successfully engaging CIO prospects. Marketing teams need to consider “push” marketing tactics that make relevant content (information & experiences) available to CIOs in places where CIOs look. Consider that in today’s Internet-based, social media-infused marketplace, 90% of the average sales cycle does NOT involve a sales rep!
Bottom line: the tough economy is causing marketers everywhere to rethink their approach in order to balance push and pull marketing tactics. And, in the center of the marketing plan needs to be recognition and respect for the executive relationship.
Tags: customer marketing, executive relationship, Integrated Marketing, Marketing
Posted in Customer Advisory Boards, Marketing | No Comments »
Monday, September 21st, 2009
“I’m looking to hire a campaign manager to oversee our integrated marketing programs. What are the characteristics of the best campaign managers?”
I get asked this question a lot. Earlier in my career, I worked as a campaign manager at HP, Sun, and Ariba , so I’ve seen the good, bad, and the ugly. I’ll be up front with you and say that I’ve made my share of mistakes along the way. That experience opened my eyes to the marraige of marketing expertise with an appreciation for internal politics.
The biggest challenge campaign managers have is that they have a purview over an integrated marketing campaign (aka the “big picture”) but no direct authority over the team players who will execute the campaign. They walk a tightrope between meeting the campaign goals while aligning and carefully guiding a team of folks who have other masters.
With that in mind, the most effective campaign managers have these traits in common:
- A recognized, well-rounded marketing leader familiar with the target market
- Proven leadership experience in “managing by objective”
- Attentive to detail, but smart enough not to micro-manage
- Diplomatic and politically savvy
- Patient
- A good facilitator, seasoned in active listening techniques
- Excellent written and oral communicator (with the team, to upper management, and in front of the steering committee)
- Knows when and how to provide constructive feedback in real time during team meetings; knows when and how to provide direct feedback in one-on-one settings
- Is prepared to make hard decisions and trade-offs for the greater good of the campaign
- Most of all, doesn’t let their ego get in the way of sound recommendations
There’s art and science in this role. The science comes from understanding sound marketing best practices. More important than understanding the specific products being sold, the best campaign managers bring an awareness and appreciation for the customer and their business problems and opportunities. While they usually won’t know all the answers, their expertise comes in knowing the right questions to ask the team in order to define, architect, and execute the best, most effective integrated marketing campaigns. That’s the art.
Looking for more information on integrated marketing campaigns? Please visit my blog: Marketing Campaign Development.
Tags: campaign managers, Integrated Marketing, marketing best practices
Posted in Marketing, Uncategorized | No Comments »
Thursday, August 27th, 2009
This “best practice” comes from Carol Hague. Carol is an experienced integrated marketing campaign manager and offers a helpful approach to mapping marcom activities and content appropriately to the lead funnel.
She and I collaborated on this graphic and share it as a powerful reference tool for B2B marketers everywhere. This is by no means a comprehensive list of available activities and content types, but it is enough to help guide teams as they draft their marketing blueprints.
I offer this graphic as a companion tool to the marketing blueprint examples you can find elsewhere on this blog and in my book, Marketing Campaign Development.
What suggestions do you have to make this tool/graphic even stronger?
Tags: Add new tag, Awareness, Integrated Marketing, lead funnel, lead generation, marcom mix
Posted in Marketing | No Comments »
Tuesday, June 2nd, 2009
It’s common to get caught up in the “ready, fire, aim!” approach to lead generation. Executives and marketers scramble for action. But when the action is mis-directed to producing the wrong kind of leads, everybody loses.
With the help of a colleague, we’ve created a helpful graphic that illustrates the mapping of marcom mix activities and content to the appropriate stage in the lead funnel. Check out this blog post on the Marketing Campaign Development blog for more details.
Tags: Integrated Marketing, lead funnel, lead generation, marcom mix, marketing blueprints
Posted in Marketing | No Comments »
Monday, April 27th, 2009
For anyone looking to refresh or expand their integrated marketing skills, I invite you to check out San Francisco State University’s Integrated Marketing Program. The Program kicks off on May 12 at 5:45 pm with an informational overview about the program. The Summer quarter begins in June.
Marketing Education in the Bay Area:
SFSU’s Downtown Campus on Market St.
SFSU’s Integrated Marketing Program has been designed to provide working professionals with a solid foundation in marketing fundamentals. Topics covered include:
- What marketing is and how to develop a targeted marketing strategy
- How market research works and how to conduct it
- How to maximize search engine marketing
- Why branding is so important and how to use it
- The latest online marketing tools and trends
- How to develop integrated marketing campaigns
I’ll be teaching the program’s kick-off course: “Essentials of Integrated Marketing.” These are hands-on courses designed to share best practices being put to use at companies across the country. Plus, it’s a lot of fun!
For more info: please visit here.
Tags: Integrated Marketing, Marketing, San Francisco State, SFSU
Posted in Marketing | No Comments »
|
