There’s been a lot of discussion online about the adoption of social media as a marketing practice. Last week, the Wall Street Journal posted a story on their blog citing a report that claims the vast majority of online communities fail. One of the authors of the report quickly took issue with the interpretation of the data, and an online debate caught fire across Twitter, Friend Feed, and all the A-List blogs. Do “most” communities fail? Or just “many”? And is this a sign of the unrealistic expectations and hype over social media as a marketing phenomenon?
Controversy sells newspapers, and it also drives Web traffic. The cycle of buzz, overhype and claims of disaster are predictable, but they don’t tell you much about the viability of social media as a marketing practice, or how it’s really being adopted by marketers. So I’m excited to have some data to share that shows some of the trends in social media adoption by marketers over the past year.
Last year, MotiveLab syndicated a whitepaper with Netline, entitled “12 Essential Tips for Success in Social Media”. We were a little overwhelmed with the results. Over the course of the past year, nearly 3000 people downloaded the whitepaper, and more than 1800 registered for the download and answered a short survey about their attitudes and approach to social media marketing. Recently we analyzed the results as two separate data sets divided into six month periods, and compared the first six months to the second six months to see any changes in attitudes and opinions. The report is available for free at the MotiveLab Web site, and the results are fascinating. I won’t belabor all the data, but it shows a clear acceleration in the adoption of social media as a marketing practice, and fairly balanced opinions about its value and application, despite all the frothy hype and counter-hype in business reporting.
To me, it looks a lot like the trend in adoption of the Internet over a decade ago. Lots of initial hype. Lots of backlash and debunking. But under the layer of media babble, a solid upward trend of adoption that tracks along with the experiences of businesses as they process the cycle of innovation, failure, adaptation and optimization. So don’t believe the hype. Find out for yourself what social media can do for your marketing.
July 25, 2008
Why The World is Tuning Out (and why you need to change)
If you are a blogger, marketer or a writer you face a very serious challenge.
What’s the problem: People don’t pay attention anymore (I am a prime example).
Think about it:
- Hundreds of TV channels to surf from home (at home and on your cell phone)
- Your email inbox crammed with a never ending-stream of messages
- Millions of possible websites to surf
- A mailbox full of junk mail, catalogs, …
- More commercials (on TV, the radio, …)
- Music over radio, satellite and TV
- Did I mention voicemail and newspapers?
- Let’s throw in social media, like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn
All these choices create a huge problem for you. But there is a solution.
When I was a kid. There were pretty much three TV stations (ABC, CBS, NBC), the local paper and radio stations.
Now we live in the most fragmented information society that has ever existed.
In fact, it is overwhelming. So much so, that people are literally tuning out (my friend just canceled his cable TV service)!
This spells trouble to a lot of us!
So what can we do?
What are obvious the options?
Option A: Try to communicate across all the channels
Option B: Ignore how the world is changing and do what you have always done?
If you attempt to engage all the channels, it will cost you a fortune and kill you. There’s just too much and new channels seems to be emerging annually.
Hiding your head under a pillow will also lead to your demise. If you cannot see the need to change, you will slowly shrink your audience or kill your business.
So what’s the solution?
Narrow casting. This is a word I crafted to help convey the point. You now have an opportunity to build favor with very focused groups of people that have very specific interests.
Unlike the past, you can now build businesses, blogs, etc. in micro niches that are under served by the general market (and would be impossible to build 20 years ago).
For example, let’s say you are an artist who likes to teach people how to turn their junk into useful household products. You could very quickly build an audience and a rather large following by simply leveraging social media.
OR, you could use me as an example. I would have never been able to build 20,000 followers on a niche topic of white papers in the past. But now I was able to pull people together from all around the world that share a single thing in common: the creation and marketing of white papers.
The take home message: When your message is unique and highly relevant to a special group of people, all you need to do is focus on that group. Other like-minded people will flock to you.
How do you need to change: Stop being a generalist. Focus on doing one or a few things exceptionally well. Hand pick the channels where your people area and begin marketing. Ignore everyone outside your ideal target. Tweak, enhance, expand and repeat.
What do you think? Are you a narrow caster who has found success? I’d like to hear from you.
Marketing to Small & Medium Business
I went to a NorCal-BMA breakfast on March 20th where Drew Meyer (Senior Product Marketing Manager at Network Appliance’s StoreVault division) spoke about selling to SMB – a hot topic among many enterprise companies looking to expand their footprint into this space.
Drew spoke about his experiences in selling to this segment and his findings made a lot of sense.
There was good discussion about this segment (if we can call it that). I’ve worked now with a couple of clients who sell to SMBs and I want to share some thoughts with you based on this talk and my own experience. Tell me if this resonates.
The fundamental challenge of this space is rooted in the fact that SMB is far from a monolithic entity. In fact it’s a diverse group that can be segmented in as many ways as there are dimensions. I wonder sometimes if the whole SMB terminology is based in an enterprise paradigm of “there is us — enterprise — and then there is the rest of the world all of who can be lumped together into SMB”. Even from an overly simplified “company size” perspective, the very small business segment (1-5 employees) behaves very differently from the SB vs. the SM vs. the MB. In fact the larger MBs take on the characteristics of an enterprise and often lose all resemblance to a small business.
A few observations and principles that I’ve found to be helpful are outlined below. These stem from my work with clients targeting this group, from interviews I’ve done of target customers in this segment, analysis of market research I’ve done for clients and some excellent discussions I’ve had with inside sales teams (who are a wealth of knowledge in this space):
i) Finding the true Target Audience: Break down the SMB into smaller segments. Who is your true target, sweet spot? This is dependent on many questions (criteria) such as:
a. What are some of the pain points your solution alleviates?
b. For which segment is the pain point(s) most relevant? Most acute?
c. How much are they willing to spend to alleviate it?
d. How does that map to your offering? Your price point? COGS? Margins?
ii) Cost-effectively Reaching them: Think broadly — VARs, direct-online, inside sales, wholesale, discount warehouse, retail, etc.
a. Can your products align with VARs offering to create value (margin) for them?
b. What kind of support will your offering need? Will you offer this or should/can this be a value add offering the VAR can provide?
c. If you are going the VAR route you better make sure you can support them AND not compete with them.
iii) Solutions to Business problems – not Technology, not Products, not Features: We often make the mistake of selling our products. But SMB like all smart buyers are not interested in products, they are interested in a solution for their problems. So sell them on the business benefits they will derive — time saved, money saved, faster/better customer service they can deliver, and greater revenue, etc. — from your solution. Higher order benefits such as “peace of mind” can also work as long as they’re rooted in business-related benefits.
iv) A true SMB solution: Often large companies think they can take their enterprise solutions, strip them of a few key features and put them out there at a lower price and the SMBs will come. Not so. For example I found that “ease of use” and “ease and speed of setup and maintenance” were overwhelmingly important and an enterprise-based solution simply could not deliver on this front no matter how stripped down it was. Talking to your target audience and conceiving and developing the product from scratch is sometimes the best answer. As Drew mentioned, acquiring a true small business solutions company is another way to get a head start especially for a larger enterprise trying to get into this space.
v) More than Competition: You may think your competitor is that other company that is selling something similar. The bad news is there’s a lot more to consider. Think of all the ways in which your target audience can alleviate their business pain e.g., can they limp along without doing anything for a while i.e., do nothing? Can they hire two more people to do it? We may think of the problem in terms of the lack of product capability we are offering but the real problem is cost increase or revenue suppression or lack of a business function. For example a VoIP company may think they compete with another VoIP provider that can also offer efficient call response, etc. However from the customer’s point of view, can they solve this problem by simply having two receptionists?
vi) Value is everything – but not Everything: Small businesses are stingy. They want good value for money and want the lowest price. I understand this – I am one. But they don’t shop just on price. They are great at measuring value – and over time. So sell them on the immediate and the long term benefits. Show them how your solution will scale easily – up when they grow AND down when they are going through a rough patch. Offer them “pay for what you use” if you can. And don’t forget to talk about the “total cost of ownership” of your offering and your competitor’s (see 5 above). They will understand — and warm to — that.
Have you found these to ring true? Please write back if you’ve had similar — or different — experiences.
Go-to-market Success Depends on Execution
The biggest obstacle to go-to-market success (and lead generation ROI for that matter) is the lack of good execution.
A recent Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Council's study, “Driving the Bottom Line from the Front Line,” assessed the go-to-market processes and capabilities of global companies.
According to the study, "Surprisingly, over 46% of respondents gave themselves failing grades when assessing their own go-to-market effectiveness, with only six percent giving their capabilities the highest marks, and just 29% calling themselves quite effective."
The study concluded that poor collaboration between sales and marketing is a key reason for go-to-market failure and this is where the leadership from upper management plays a vital role in successful execution. Todd Ebert over at the BAD Marketing Blog gives some additional insights on the CMO study here.
I agree with their findings. With that said, it requires more than just effective upper management involvement. I believe that effective collaboration requires each of us to better managers ourselves.
Becoming an effective marketer goes far beyond creativity and careful campaign management. Like any other functional role, marketers will execute successfully, more often, if we are first and foremost good managers.
Collaboration between sales and marketing and go-to-market execution will come more naturally if we each focus on our basic management skills: Leadership, communication, planning, organizing, staffing, and controlling.
I encourage you to check out The Effective Executive: The Definitive Guide to Getting the Right Things Done. If you only read one book about how to improve your personal effectiveness I think you will find this book to be a good choice. It was written quite a while ago but it's a wonderful resource.
Related post: Why CEOs Must Be Actively Involved in Lead Generation