Lessons Learned are Not Rocket Science

I was reading through the April 15 edition of the American Marketing Association’s magazine Marketing News; sifting through their coverage of the Mplanet marketing conference held in January of this year. Luminaries of all types were present as speakers. I didn’t attend, but the special section listed four key lessons marketers need to learn for 2009 and beyond.

1. In a tough economy, innovation is king.
2. Effective marketing must begin with customer engagement
3. Nurture and build your brand
4. For B:B, engagement and retention are key

I’ll admit, I was surprised that this was the list of key takeaways. I mean, duh! Any marketer who has been paying attention for the last 2-3 years could have pulled these themes out as important. In fact, I would guess that about 50 books have been written on these four subjects in the past five years, so none of these lessons should be a surprise.

However, what strikes me as notable is that these key lessons CONTINUE to be key lessons; which means either marketers are not getting it, or the playing field keeps changing and we are having to reboot back to the basics. Or, it’s a bit of both.

I am reminded of a book title by Harvey McKay, Dig Your Well Before You’re Thirsty. In his book he is primarily referring to building your network prior to needing it, but in many ways that thought is the umbrella lesson for the four noted above. This tough economy is NOT the best time to begin working on these issues. If you’re just now starting on innovation, customer engagement, brand building, or retention strategies, you’ll be pushing rope uphill and against the tide. Those companies and marketers who did this important work before the economy tanked are much better suited to the situation and may just be the ones to knock you out of the game.

You can click here for more Mplanet wrap up coverage.

-- David Kinard, PCM

[photo: screen shot of Mplanet 2009 Web site.]

Brands Using Twitter

Former radio show guest Paul Dunay has compiled a list of various corporate brands that are using twitter to stay in touch with their communities. I especially like this this for two reasons:

1. Many corporate marketers today are decrying the inability of businesses to use and engage with social media tools like twitter to connect and nurture communities of followers. Well, this list puts that to rest. Big and small, they're on here and likely many more exist that just didn't make Paul's list (see the comments for proof).

2. This list makes it clear that non profits must use tools like twitter to tap into the communities that already exist around their cause. No excuses. If you're a member of the American Marketing Association, sign in to your Marketingpower.com account and listen to the member-only Webinar that I hosted back in December. We had three amazing marketers on the program (Toby Bloomberg, Julie Fleischer, and Greg Verdino) give very specific advice and perspective on social media and how it can be used in your own marketing. (And as a side note, all three of these people will be at Mplanet later this month.)

And for those who think that that using twitter may be a silver bullet, let me dissuade you from going down that path. Like any other social media tool, twitter is a mechanism that equips you to dialogue and communicate only. It won't create relevancy, it is a poor substitute for integrated communication plans, and it will never overcome an inauthentic voice.

-- David Kinard, PCM

A Lot of Talking...But is Anyone Listening?

Over the past two weeks I've had the pleasure of moderating two panel discussions on Beyond Analog: Becoming Part of Today's Digital Marketing World. The Webinars were sponsored by the American Marketing Association as member-only events, and were precursors to the AMA's Mplanet 2009 conference slated for January in Orlando, FL. On the panel were Julie Fleischer of Digitas, Greg Verdino of crayon, llc, and Toby Bloomberg of Bloomberg Marketing.

One of the slides Toby shared had to do with a graphic created by Brian Solis and Jess3 called the Conversation Prism. This masterfully illustrated wheel identifies all the various ways the social Web is integrating itself into peoples' lives...or the other way around. Either way, it is an amazing look at the proliferation of engagement technologies. But with all the ways we have to talk to one another, to review, share, tweet, input, output, post, publish, update, and edit -- the larger question is if anyone is listening, or are we all just talking into the ether.

There are already many places where you can find the number of estimated blogs, Web sites, and users of social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace, Second Life, and cyworld. Needless to say, there are a lot. People are publishing at an amazing rate -- some of it relevant, much of it personal, most of it just noise.

Listening to the presenters, and sorting out the questions from the audience, here are a few items of note I took away from the event:

• The opportunity to add digital to the marketing mix is appealing, but not the first thing a marketer should start doing. Marketers must first ensure what they have to say is relevant and builds relationships. Let the message and the audiences' reception requirements define if the mix has more digital or analog in it.
  
• Digital is not a silver bullet, and it is not a panacea for the insufficiency of an existing marketing program. Many marketers will start a blog, add their company to Facebook, or attempt to find ways to widget and wiki, but unless the marketing program is based on consumer insight, tactics -- whether they are digital or analog -- are just tactics. The responsibility is to customize the marketing program to your audience.
  
• ROI is not as elusive as many marketers think. The problem is not that we can't measure the ROI of digial initiatives. Rather, the problem is that we don't have targeted, specific goals in the first place. Remember, measurement starts at the mission/goal articulation phase of the planning process, not as an after thought at the end of the campaign.


• Waiting is not an option. Many marketers are waiting for someone else to figure out what digital is and isn't before they do something. The fallacy of this approach is that your consumers are already engaging in digital. Waiting simply means that your consumers are building relationships and engaging with those businesses, products, and services that are doing things right now.

-- David Kinard, PCM