The discussions among social media experts about emerging trends in marketing range from the ridiculous to the sublime. For all the ubiquitous two-bit pundits holding forth on the latest new definition of brand 2.0, there are also incredibly thoughtful and provocative dialogs on practical marketing strategies among groups like the Online Community Unconference, run on the West Coast by Bill Johnson.
Forrester is supporting some great work on the frontier of social media marketing, with analysts like Charlene Li, co-author of the latest social media must-read Groundswell, and Jeremiah Owyang.
But when you step out of the social media echo chamber--when you turn off Twitter and Facebook and sit down face to face with enterprise marketing teams to discuss the application of social media to immediate business and marketing objectives--the reality of how much ground we still need to cover to improve marketing's responsiveness to market changes becomes clear. It's a classic Crossing-the-Chasm adoption scenario, and we're still only establishing a beach head.
In the past few months I've been meeting with a lot of marketing organizations to discuss social media challenges and opportunities as we build our pilot program for SocialRep. There are a few visionary companies that are really diving into social media as a competitive marketing strategy. But for most companies, a couple of trends are becoming very clear.
1. In most marketing organizations, no one truly owns Social Media as a marketing function--not even the VP of Web Marketing in most cases, at least in any proactive sense. Social Media programs are championed here and there by innovators in the trenches, but there's little if any coordination among different programs, much less with general marketing strategy.
2. Few marketers can mount or defend a compelling business case for social media programs. Most get tripped up by the demand for marketing ROI and stall out, waiting for point-solution vendors to come up with an ROI story, or for someone on high to suddenly get social media religion. If you're a savvy marketer and you don’t already have a clear case for ROI, there isn’t one. If you’re planning a social media campaign to drive customer acquisition, chances are you already know how to measure the ROI. If you’re trying to build a community, or drive more market engagement, forget about ROI—you’re in the domain of Brand Equity, and it will cost you more to measure it than it will to get started building something on the cheap. Start talking to your CFO about opportunity cost and a budget for innovation. I ranted about this in depth here.
3. Many marketers still don't understand the fundamental shift that social media represents. I know that sounds hard to believe given the volume of discussion about the Shift in Control Over Brand, but there's a serious disconnect between buzz theory and practical application. Numerous times over the past few months I've connected with marcom people driving social media programs still under the impression that conversations are generated by the outbound PR cycle--social media has just changed the venue. Natural consumer behavior is not to go online to discuss your latest technology or licensing partnership, but to dialog about why your product sucks, what consumers want next, and where can they get something better than you offer today. When you point that out, everyone gets it, but somehow that message hasn't reached critical mass in the marketing trenches.
4. Saas has done a tremendous job in freeing marketing from the leash of IT. Eliminating the cost and risk of data integration is a huge boon to marketers and has opened the floodgates for new marketing applications. But it's an overwhelming sea of options for marketers who are finding it hard to make sense of what will really help them move the needle. I see companies spending months in paralysis of analysis over platforms and point solutions, forums and blogs, mashups and viral video, desperate to make the "right" choice before stumbling forward. It's so much cheaper on every level to go out and fail today, get over it already. Do something cheap. Do it quick. Take your lumps and get smarter so the next time you succeed.
5. The baton is inevitably going to be passed to a new generation. You can already see the transition environment starting to merge with savvy social operators figuring out how build communities all across the web. There's a huge opportunity for tech-savvy marketers to take up positions of influence in the purchase decision-making process--particularly those who are in their 20s and social media native. But there's also a big smug factor in this demographic, and not a lot of appreciation for depth on marketing fundamentals. Companies would be smart to put together a partnership program between older and younger marketers. Tons of value to share.
I'm sure there's a lot I'm missing, which is why I'm continuing my research project to identify and interview the smartest marketing and technology people I can find and hear what they're up to. I'll be posting some more videos in the coming week. If you missed the first set of videos, you can find the first one on this post with John Girard. Then just click forward through the posts for Matt Roche and Jack Jia.
If you have suggestions on who I should interview, please let me know. I'm particularly interested right now in finding CMOs from companies that are forward-thinking on social media. Send me some introductions. Please!
May 27, 2008
Being Smart about Competitive Intelligence
Andy Grove said “only the paranoid survive” referring to the hyper vigilance that all businesses should have when it comes to competition. Your product marketing managers are usually the ones charged with being the keepers of competitive information. But they often struggle to meet the demand for current, relevant competitive information. Why is that?
It’s too much work for the people who know the most about competitors (sales reps and applications/systems engineers) to enter and keep the data fresh in a repository somewhere. Plus these field folks aren’t motivated to input competitive information.
So what should you advise your Product Marketing Manager to do? I recommend you send the practices below to them so they can do a better job gathering and disseminating competitive intelligence on an ongoing basis.
Customers
• Losses —just ask the customer for a de-brief on why you lost. Sales reps can usually book a phone call with the customer as part of a post mortem, and customers are only too eager to justify their purchase to you. Push for this.
• Wins – some customers may even share competitive documents and pricing with you even though they are not supposed to do so. Ask them how all the vendors fared against their evaluation criteria and what the deal came down to in the end.
Sales
• Befriend the top performing reps and ask them the following questions:
• Which competitors to you run into the most often?
• What differentiators do you find work the best? Why?
• What is the real “street price” that you see versus our list price?
• What competitive traps do you set? For example, if the customer is writing an RFP, what requirements should they bake into the RFP doc?
• What are our biggest strengths? Weaknesses?
• Application/system engineers are among the best source since they pay extra attention to product differentiation. Ask them the same questions above.
Partners:
• VARs/SI’s often resell competing products and have a vested interest in improving your competitiveness if it will help them make more money by hitting their volume targets. Behind closed doors, ask them the same questions you ask your sales rep. Believe me, your competitors’ reps are doing this already so you can’t afford not to do so.
Web:
• Download and read whitepapers off their site even if it means using a dummy hotmail account. Count on them doing the same for your collateral.
• Type in your competitor’s product/company and other words like “complaint” or “disappointment”. You might pull up comments in a blog that some of your customers are using actively. And, by the way, you might be surprised what you discover about your own company.
• Scan industry analyst reports, editorials, and job postings on the company’s site to see if something is up—new partnerships, acquisitions, rumors, etc.
Best Practices:
• Customer Advisory Board -- dedicate a session on competitive inputs –customers may give harsh criticism but it is all intended to force improvement in the product/company that they chose in the first place.
• Competitive alerts -- email weekly or on-demand snippets to your sales force alerting them to competitive moves. Ideally, make them one screen worth (no page downs) and state succinctly: what’s new, why they should care, and what they should say in response when customers ask about it.
• Sales meetings -- ask for 15-20 minutes of time at a sales manager’s district meeting to present a few competitive nuggets, ask a few open questions and shut up and listen to what the reps are seeing out there—what is working and what’s not?
• Customer visits – I used to make my Product Marketing Managers at HP present at least once a week to customers during executive briefings at the customer visit center. You may not do so as often but make it a goal to have reps want to invite you to present on important topics—product roadmap, architecture, industry trends, and customer requirements in general.
Your product marketing managers can usually handle many of theses practices by just reserving 2-3 hours per week. Remember, being smart about your competitors builds their credibility within the organization, makes them more valuable to you and the field, and ultimately results in winning products in the marketplace.
Keeping Competitors Away From Our White Papers
Is fear of the competition preventing you from releasing a masterful white paper?
Are you certain your ideas will be embraced by prospects, but are scared the competition will simply copy you?
These are big questions—and surprisingly common concerns.
Indeed, I recently received an email from Julie on this very topic. Let me address this directly here.
But first, here is Julie’s full question:
“We are in a quandary about putting white papers on the web for free. Perhaps you could give some guidelines?We still have a good deal of innovative ideas we would like to publish – that would be useful to distinguish us from our competitors.
We know, however, that whatever we publish on the web will be copied by others. So, we’re trying to find ways to put those ideas out there, but control them away from our competitors.
We are considering bundles – a public white paper, a pay-for white paper with more details, and a product we can “drop in” as part of an implementation.
Any other ideas for keeping some of our materials “out there” but a little protected?
White Papers Are Always Free
First about the “pay” white papers you mentioned above. BAD idea.
All white papers are free. And they are expected to be free by readers.
Instead, I might come out with a comprehensive report that perhaps works in a sister relationship with a white paper. You COULD charge for that.
Competitors ALREADY Have Your Stuff
Let’s be super honest here. You have all of your competitor’s confidential PowerPoints on your desk. And you got them from your customers. Guess what, the competition has all of your “secret” data also.
If you provide a paper to a prospect (for pay or for free), it WILL end up in the hands of people you consider a competitive threat.
This is just a fact of life and we need to accept this in the business world.
I know all of my competitors have my stuff. In fact I just slammed one last week for literally taking content right from my book and placing it in his white paper–word for word!
If your goal is to distinguish your business, then what are you waiting for? Get those papers written and start using them.
Sure the competition will find them. They might even attempt to copy you.
However, you have one major thing going for you. You were the company that gets the credit for the great idea.
AND, you get the benefit of hot leads and new opportunity because you have a paper on the topic and the competitors do not.
My Final Answer: Get the first mover advantage now. Create a well-crafted and compelling white paper. Market the heck out of it. Win business during slow times. Come out of nowhere and shock the competition. Let them try to catch up. The rewards of your efforts will outweigh any threat from those guys.
Let’s hear from you? Is fear holding you back? Have you moved forward on a project despite competitors? If so, what happened?
May 23, 2008
Should Lead Generation Ignore Current Customers?
”We know more about our prospects (leads) than we know about our current customers” was a shocking statement I heard from a client and it stuck with me. In fact, it's the impetus for this post.
When you have a complex sale, it can be easy to think of lead generation as only a process for acquiring new customers rather than a process that can also be applied to generating new or more business from current customers.
A while back I was in a meeting with a marketing leader of a Global 100 software firm. He shared a story about their new CEO at the time. The CEO asked 10 members of the executive team to write a list of their top-10 customers. Amazingly just 4 of the 10 executives got 5 of more of the customers correct! Their VP of Sales faired best, with correctly listing 8.
In the same meeting it was pointed out that the top-10 customers accounted for over 50% of their $300 million in revenue. The CEO immediately declared that, “we're focusing on our customers first!” From that meeting they dubbed their new initiative as, “The Customer First Plan.”
As a result of reaching out and talking to their customers, they saw a net revenue increase of 15% from current customers and their customer referrals increased by over 100%.
Still, I’m amazed at how many marketers seem to only emphasize new account acquisition when they could also be going further with their existing customers.
According to research by the CMO Council, “Marketers Are Flying Blind When It Comes to Leveraging Customer Data.” The study showed, “just 6 percent of marketers say they have excellent knowledge of the customers when it comes to demographic, behavioral, psychographic and transactional data, while over 50 percent report they have fair, little, or no knowledge of the customer.”
Conducted in late 2007 and early 2008, the CMO Council's “Business Gain From How You Retain” study undertook a wide-ranging evaluation of where and how marketers are "operationalizing" customer intelligence and insight to reduce customer churn, increase lifetime value, improve the customer experience, and increase the effectiveness and targeting of marketing spend.
The CMO Council concluded, “Only 50 percent of global marketers report having a strategy for further penetrating or monetizing key account relationships. In addition, a surprising 45 percent rate the effectiveness of customer relationship management (CRM) systems as deficient or needing more work, with only 15 percent of companies rating themselves extremely good or effective at integrating disparate customer data sources and repositories.”
The solution to solving poor customer management is to leverage a processes that you already have (or should have!). A lead generation program that includes teleprospecting, lead nurturing and lead management.
Adding a customer program to the lead generation mix can be fairly straightforward. The messaging is a bit different, but ultimately we still need to be a relevant resource to people.
Often the first task in a customer program is to update the database. How long has it been since the database was verified? Are your contacts still there and are they in the same role? If you don’t already know the condition of your data, you can pull a random sample of data to test. Make sure you pull enough data to insure the test is statically valid.
Once the database is in working order, then question becomes, “How can we educate our current customers and affirm their decision to be working with us?” Nurture those all important relationships. Just like when reaching out to prospects, positioning you and your organization as trusted advisors is essential to building trust that starts AND maintains AND expands relationships.
From this point forward you should look to your current customers with the same energy and optimism as you do with your prospect and you’ll be amazed with the results.
So, do you have a Customer First Plan?