A friend sent me an article this morning which he thought might interest me, detailing a poor review of a technology conference. The article itself (published yesterday morning) was amusingly written and highlighted everything that is commonly wrong with a lot of poorly executed conferences, it made me smile.
Then I looked at the Twitter and Facebook share buttons on the side and winced a little on behalf of the organisers, upon reading it, 55 of The Telegraph's techie readers had decided to share it with all their friends and followers...who turned out to be 80,000 odd people.
The lesson here is clear not just for event organisers but all product and service providers, it is even more important than ever not to upset your influencers - they just got hold of the world's biggest megaphone and when they shout, your customers listen!
Tuesday 21 December 2010
Monday 20 December 2010
Marketing has got to be remarkable
Now that in and of itself isn't news. However, I was struck by just how entrenched this idea has become when I read a recent interview about web phenomenon Groupon's rejection of the Google billions.
Groupon works by getting local businesses to offer remarkable deals for a very limited time span; when enough people sign up, the seller and Groupon split the cash. For enough people to sign up, the offer has to be jaw droppingly exciting and Groupon uses this principle to select which offers it promotes (it is approached by an average of 8 sellers for every 1 promotional spot).
The contrast between this model and the conventional advertising set up could not be more extreme. For Groupon to make money, they have to be sure your product and offer make your proposition virtually impossible to refuse for your target market.
They have structured their whole business model around this principle and have refused a mammoth $6 billion from Google, confident that they can take what is currently the fastest growing company in history (they are 2 years old) and make Google's offer look like small change.
The message for marketers? Being remarkable, not just in your content but in your value proposition, your service and your offers is no longer just a way to get ahead, it is essential for your survival. The world has rebuilt itself around new rules, evolve or die.
Groupon works by getting local businesses to offer remarkable deals for a very limited time span; when enough people sign up, the seller and Groupon split the cash. For enough people to sign up, the offer has to be jaw droppingly exciting and Groupon uses this principle to select which offers it promotes (it is approached by an average of 8 sellers for every 1 promotional spot).
The contrast between this model and the conventional advertising set up could not be more extreme. For Groupon to make money, they have to be sure your product and offer make your proposition virtually impossible to refuse for your target market.
They have structured their whole business model around this principle and have refused a mammoth $6 billion from Google, confident that they can take what is currently the fastest growing company in history (they are 2 years old) and make Google's offer look like small change.
The message for marketers? Being remarkable, not just in your content but in your value proposition, your service and your offers is no longer just a way to get ahead, it is essential for your survival. The world has rebuilt itself around new rules, evolve or die.
Monday 8 November 2010
3 ways to decide if a good idea isn't good enough
I came across a great post on HBR the other day focusing on killing off good ideas in order to concentrate your resources on a few that then come to fruition. I really liked this as an approach, perhaps because marketers are so often in a position of being idea rich and time poor, often inadvertently positioning themselves as ineffective as a result. (You've all worked with people like that - super creative types who never complete a project because they've got all wrapped up and excited by their next big idea).
So how do we decide which ideas to keep and throw our weight behind and those to let fall by the wayside?
Before I throw in my 2 pence worth, I want to make it clear that I know there are hundreds of possible ways of doing this and these are just my own, another opinion on the pile!
1) Does the idea align with your strategic objectives? Ideally all major projects should support the pillars of your annual strategy and move those lofty strategic aims forward towards a reality.
2) Can we put a dollar value on the benefit of executing the idea? I'm not saying that if we can't we shouldn't pursue it but I'd rather we could, as no idea that fits into this mould can really be a nice to have if the bottom line impact is significant.
3) Who would your team be? Again, you don't always want to avoid pursuing ideas that involve working with people who are likely to let you down and make your life more difficult. Sometimes it is unavoidable; yet I'd allow it to rule things out if confronted with a list of things with similar possible levels of benefit to the business.
So how do we decide which ideas to keep and throw our weight behind and those to let fall by the wayside?
Before I throw in my 2 pence worth, I want to make it clear that I know there are hundreds of possible ways of doing this and these are just my own, another opinion on the pile!
1) Does the idea align with your strategic objectives? Ideally all major projects should support the pillars of your annual strategy and move those lofty strategic aims forward towards a reality.
2) Can we put a dollar value on the benefit of executing the idea? I'm not saying that if we can't we shouldn't pursue it but I'd rather we could, as no idea that fits into this mould can really be a nice to have if the bottom line impact is significant.
3) Who would your team be? Again, you don't always want to avoid pursuing ideas that involve working with people who are likely to let you down and make your life more difficult. Sometimes it is unavoidable; yet I'd allow it to rule things out if confronted with a list of things with similar possible levels of benefit to the business.
Friday 22 October 2010
The death of an idea
It is an accepted thing to refer to someone as an "ideas person". I was pondering this concept the other day, trying to establish whether it is actually a compliment or not. I reached the conclusion that it is only really a positive asset if people mean that you come up with and execute great ideas, execution being the key bit as an idea is only really truly great if it results in a successful outcome.
Why do ideas fail to become reality?
1) Lack of support from those whose help is needed to execute
2) Lack of commitment from the idea originator and/or team
3) The obstacles are allowed to become bigger than the idea
4) They weren't truly great in the first place - not enough point to motivate people to execute
5) Lack of understanding of either the objective or the route towards it
I'm sure there are many more but these are the ones that annoy me most...
Why do ideas fail to become reality?
1) Lack of support from those whose help is needed to execute
2) Lack of commitment from the idea originator and/or team
3) The obstacles are allowed to become bigger than the idea
4) They weren't truly great in the first place - not enough point to motivate people to execute
5) Lack of understanding of either the objective or the route towards it
I'm sure there are many more but these are the ones that annoy me most...
Monday 11 October 2010
3 Tips For Better Content Creation
We all know that creating content and “publishing our way in” is the way forward right? Marketing gurus who espouse the benefits of content marketing are ten a penny, however as with many things (social media being a classic example) the theory and the execution can often fail to match up due to real world pressures and variables.
For what its worth, here’s a few ideas on how to make sure your content does what you want it to do, rather than negatively impacting your business:
• Create a content creation process map – understanding what all the steps are for successful content creation and how long they take will highlight when you’re trying to cut corners on production because you are busy. Make sure if you are using a variety of different types of content or different mediums, you have a map for each.
• Invest in relevance and value for your customer – I’m not necessarily talking about an expensive all singing all dancing market research project but you do need to spend time making sure you understand what your customer would find most useful. Easy starting points? Look at what already exists that is popular in your space, run a short survey across your database, call some of your key accounts and talk to them.
• Test and record – all too often (and I know I am guilty of this) we form opinions based on what we think we know, rather than making judgements with all the data to hand. Content has so many variables; you need to try altering one at a time and recording the test results faithfully so you can create a detailed picture. Don’t fall into the trap of thinking “My last podcast got no attention, neither did the first one I did – my market must hate podcasts”.
For what its worth, here’s a few ideas on how to make sure your content does what you want it to do, rather than negatively impacting your business:
• Create a content creation process map – understanding what all the steps are for successful content creation and how long they take will highlight when you’re trying to cut corners on production because you are busy. Make sure if you are using a variety of different types of content or different mediums, you have a map for each.
• Invest in relevance and value for your customer – I’m not necessarily talking about an expensive all singing all dancing market research project but you do need to spend time making sure you understand what your customer would find most useful. Easy starting points? Look at what already exists that is popular in your space, run a short survey across your database, call some of your key accounts and talk to them.
• Test and record – all too often (and I know I am guilty of this) we form opinions based on what we think we know, rather than making judgements with all the data to hand. Content has so many variables; you need to try altering one at a time and recording the test results faithfully so you can create a detailed picture. Don’t fall into the trap of thinking “My last podcast got no attention, neither did the first one I did – my market must hate podcasts”.
Monday 20 September 2010
It's all about the people
My initial management training was conducted by a wise man who told me, "It's all about the people; you get the right people and there's very little you can't do, you get the wrong people and you can't do anything".
Time and time again this has been proved correct, both in my own team and in the wider business. Selecting the right people to join your team is an art, but one that can be learned and perfected over time; but what do you do about other people's people?
What can we do when our colleagues make poor hires that impact us and our teams?
1) Understand what a good hire is - This isn't just about who you like to work with or what is right for your function. Make sure you really understand what makes a successful team member for other functions before you start judging other people's decisions. Ask team leaders what they look for in a candidate and why; it may not be your ideal but that doesn't make it wrong for the organisation.
2) Say something - Too often we don't mention our fears to our colleagues about their questionable hiring decisions because we are scared of upsetting them or giving them the impression that we think they are bad at their jobs. Often when I've had a brave moment and said something, the person I am talking to has just looked relieved and been glad that someone else observed the same thing and therefore had the confidence to deal with the issue.
3) Restrict their involvement - Reach out to these poor hires only for the things no one else in the organisation is capable of doing. Leverage your own support network to cover the gaps and minimise the risks posed by that individual to the business as a whole.
Time and time again this has been proved correct, both in my own team and in the wider business. Selecting the right people to join your team is an art, but one that can be learned and perfected over time; but what do you do about other people's people?
What can we do when our colleagues make poor hires that impact us and our teams?
1) Understand what a good hire is - This isn't just about who you like to work with or what is right for your function. Make sure you really understand what makes a successful team member for other functions before you start judging other people's decisions. Ask team leaders what they look for in a candidate and why; it may not be your ideal but that doesn't make it wrong for the organisation.
2) Say something - Too often we don't mention our fears to our colleagues about their questionable hiring decisions because we are scared of upsetting them or giving them the impression that we think they are bad at their jobs. Often when I've had a brave moment and said something, the person I am talking to has just looked relieved and been glad that someone else observed the same thing and therefore had the confidence to deal with the issue.
3) Restrict their involvement - Reach out to these poor hires only for the things no one else in the organisation is capable of doing. Leverage your own support network to cover the gaps and minimise the risks posed by that individual to the business as a whole.
Friday 10 September 2010
It's ok to be grey
The gist of the lesson: data doesn't have to yield concrete conclusions to be useful
I used to live in a world where data proved things one way or the other. If the results were inconclusive there was inaction.
Since then I have been able to observe how the grey areas often reveal more subtle nuances of an issue, suggest contributions to situations or issues, may present opportunities or challenges that a person just looking for black and white might ignore.
So next time you are analysing something and there are no immediately obvious conclusions, don't get frustrated - look a little closer, you never know what you might see.
Friday 3 September 2010
The ethics of the piece
Last night as I left the office I walked past 3 girls of maybe 7 years old. They were talking about one of their mothers' friends who they had never met but was at this girl's home where they were all headed. Quite naturally they were pondering what she might be like; "perhaps she will be pretty with nice clothes" said one, "or ugly and single" giggled another.
I found it pretty depressing that these carefree young spirits had already established a link, consciously or not, between beauty, material wealth and your chance of landing a partner.
More disconcerting was that I then realised we marketers were entirely to blame. Whether directly or indirectly our message to women that you can buy happiness and success had managed to put a filter on the world view of these children.
As someone whose messages are directed at businesses, did I need to worry? Where do we draw the line between effective copy and pushing people's buttons? Where does using people's motivators become taking unfair advantage of insecurities that are perhaps caused by market factors beyond their control? (How many of us tacitly implied that our products or services would help our customer survive the recession?)
There are no clear rules, probably no real answers that make both commercial and ethical sense in equal part, but an interesting thought to puzzle next time you need a break from writing a communication strategy.
I found it pretty depressing that these carefree young spirits had already established a link, consciously or not, between beauty, material wealth and your chance of landing a partner.
More disconcerting was that I then realised we marketers were entirely to blame. Whether directly or indirectly our message to women that you can buy happiness and success had managed to put a filter on the world view of these children.
As someone whose messages are directed at businesses, did I need to worry? Where do we draw the line between effective copy and pushing people's buttons? Where does using people's motivators become taking unfair advantage of insecurities that are perhaps caused by market factors beyond their control? (How many of us tacitly implied that our products or services would help our customer survive the recession?)
There are no clear rules, probably no real answers that make both commercial and ethical sense in equal part, but an interesting thought to puzzle next time you need a break from writing a communication strategy.
Friday 27 August 2010
How much is enough?
Ever asked yourself "Am I spending enough time on this?" Or too much?
An easy way to find out is to work out:
1) What do I expect to achieve? The simple act of goal setting will give you an accurate picture of the relative scale and importance of the task or project compared to others in your remit.
2) Time evaluation: We are looking to assess value out vs effort in; the simplest way to do this quickly is to work out how many hours you have in total. Then assess what percentage of your time will have to be expended to achieve the result.
Ideally the time % should be lower than the result % but equal is fine too. Pursuing more than the occasional effort where the % goes the other way is a quick route to late nights and under productivity.
An easy way to find out is to work out:
1) What do I expect to achieve? The simple act of goal setting will give you an accurate picture of the relative scale and importance of the task or project compared to others in your remit.
2) Time evaluation: We are looking to assess value out vs effort in; the simplest way to do this quickly is to work out how many hours you have in total. Then assess what percentage of your time will have to be expended to achieve the result.
Ideally the time % should be lower than the result % but equal is fine too. Pursuing more than the occasional effort where the % goes the other way is a quick route to late nights and under productivity.
Thursday 19 August 2010
Ringing the changes
You may often feel frustrated, isolated and like you are making no headway at all. I've listed a few things below that are helping me keep my chin up at the moment:
- Mark out your milestones or key achievements, put them somewhere in clear view and cross them off as you get through them. This will help you feel like you are making progress.
- Find a mentor (or several) to bounce ideas off or get advice from when you get to a sticky patch. This will not only increase your effectiveness as a change initiator but it makes you feel less like you are going it alone.
- Make time for your change and make time for you. It is easy in a busy job to get caught up in your day to day and not devote meaningful chunks of time to your project. It is even easier to forget to go home! We are fresher, brighter and better at making changes when we haven't been working 14 hour days for 3 months.
If anyone has any others I would love you to share them, like I said it's a tough job!
Wednesday 11 August 2010
Interesting visual representation of social media tools
I found this cool Banner B2B Social Media Map on SlideShare via HubSpot and thought it was interesting as a follow on from a post I read that covered marketing as a whole as a map.
Banner B2B Social Media Map
View more presentations from Jay Ball.
Tuesday 10 August 2010
KPIdiocy?
I spent this morning struggling to piece together conclusions by analysing data from 40 different spreadsheets, all containing different data sets, from which I wrote an entire essay of commentary and strategy. It took me 8 hours of straight slog, as well it should.
I then sat down to write the annual KPIs into a table; a task that should have taken 20 minutes tops given all the work I have just completed. 1.5 hours later, I'm still here with a blank table, writing my blog and not getting any closer to completing the task at hand.
Why? Because setting KPIs feels counter intuitive in modern marketing. Sure we have to have something to measure against, it helps us be effective and fair managers right? It gives us a nice neat little yardstick by which to measure our progress.
But it also feel prescriptive, formulaic and just plain wrong in a world where marketers have a million options, a thousand possible permutations of each of those options and there isn't just one right answer any more.
8 blog posts per plan anyone? One Tweet a day or 5? 3 emails to your engaged leads or 33? We can't take a one size fits all approach to event marketing any more and so KPIs have become nigh on impossible to set.
My current plan is to have a set of evaluations, rather than concrete metrics; a set of things that the marketer must show they have considered and decided to use or not.
Any bright ideas, please shout! :-)
I then sat down to write the annual KPIs into a table; a task that should have taken 20 minutes tops given all the work I have just completed. 1.5 hours later, I'm still here with a blank table, writing my blog and not getting any closer to completing the task at hand.
Why? Because setting KPIs feels counter intuitive in modern marketing. Sure we have to have something to measure against, it helps us be effective and fair managers right? It gives us a nice neat little yardstick by which to measure our progress.
But it also feel prescriptive, formulaic and just plain wrong in a world where marketers have a million options, a thousand possible permutations of each of those options and there isn't just one right answer any more.
8 blog posts per plan anyone? One Tweet a day or 5? 3 emails to your engaged leads or 33? We can't take a one size fits all approach to event marketing any more and so KPIs have become nigh on impossible to set.
My current plan is to have a set of evaluations, rather than concrete metrics; a set of things that the marketer must show they have considered and decided to use or not.
Any bright ideas, please shout! :-)
Friday 6 August 2010
"Edge Work" and drawing satisfaction from incremental change
Yesterday I was introduced to the concept of edge work, the idea that we work away at the edges of an issue and gradually, over time, effect significant change. There was only one problem with this concept as far as I can see, that is the marketer who introduced this idea to me clearly has far more patience and zen-like abilities than I do.
So, how do impatient people who want everything done right about yesterday in one big glorious change revolution derive satisfaction from this inching almost imperceptibly closer to the goal?
I talked to a friend about it later in the evening and they came up with a very unlikely answer. WeightWatchers.
Huh? How is a weight loss programme going to teach me to be satisfied with moving at the pace of a heavily tranquilised snail? Her answer was this:
At WeightWatchers they ask you not to try and weigh yourself every day, but to wait for the weekly group weigh-ins. The reason for this is that your weight fluctuates daily even though it is ultimately on a downward trajectory. If you look every day you see ups and downs and get demotivated with the whole effort.
By monitoring your progress over a longer period, you see it for what it really is. Progress in the right direction. To help me understand she showed me her week to week chart; the line wasn't straight (in fact sometimes it was pretty flat and sometimes moving significantly downwards) but the direction was clear.
So there you have it; set a goal, set sensible increments to check your progress against it and board the train for zen-like patience and deep satisfaction in what you have acheived. (I'll let you know how it goes!)
So, how do impatient people who want everything done right about yesterday in one big glorious change revolution derive satisfaction from this inching almost imperceptibly closer to the goal?
I talked to a friend about it later in the evening and they came up with a very unlikely answer. WeightWatchers.
Huh? How is a weight loss programme going to teach me to be satisfied with moving at the pace of a heavily tranquilised snail? Her answer was this:
At WeightWatchers they ask you not to try and weigh yourself every day, but to wait for the weekly group weigh-ins. The reason for this is that your weight fluctuates daily even though it is ultimately on a downward trajectory. If you look every day you see ups and downs and get demotivated with the whole effort.
By monitoring your progress over a longer period, you see it for what it really is. Progress in the right direction. To help me understand she showed me her week to week chart; the line wasn't straight (in fact sometimes it was pretty flat and sometimes moving significantly downwards) but the direction was clear.
So there you have it; set a goal, set sensible increments to check your progress against it and board the train for zen-like patience and deep satisfaction in what you have acheived. (I'll let you know how it goes!)
Tuesday 27 July 2010
The Plan Is Broken
Continuing in the vein of addressing common problems with fitting our old mentality and systems to the new marketing landscape, I got thinking about how we actually write a plan. How do you accurately plan and record all the individual interactions and conversations that make up the interactive or social part of the modern marketing plan? I mean you can't "schedule" taking part in a conversation can you?! Or can you?
You can if you initiate it! One of my newest team members was searching for information to use for a paper he wanted to write around his event but he couldn't find anything weighty enough on a particular subtopic. He posted a question to the relevant LinkedIn community and within an hour received 9 helpful responses.
Aside from finishing his paper more easily, he started a conversation with 9 people passionate enough about the subject matter to invest time in helping someone in their community learn. He "planned" to send them a copy of the finished content to say thanks. A couple of them asked about the event. A relationship was born and providing he continues to nurture it through "planned" interactions, he has created a handful of potential customers and advocates who were previously unaware of us and how we serve the needs of our market.
To a certain extent we have to roll with the punches in this new environment and accept that a lot of what we do will be reactive and we'll have to record it after the fact. Which raises a question I have often heard asked, do we need to record it? After all its just one short exchange with maybe one other person right? Wrong.
It is more important than ever to record these interactions because they are far more personal than the 10,000 piece direct mail shot of yesterday. Recipients of old-style communications for the most part knew they were mass volume and impersonal. Participants in our new marketing are just that, they are not passive and they are talking to you. Not a big faceless company, you personally. And they expect to be remembered.
Don't believe me? You must have met someone at some point (maybe at a party or other social gathering) who on second meeting can't remember the first and introduces themselves again. Maybe you were offended, maybe you just thought them a little stupid, but I guarantee you didn't think "wow this is someone I want to get know better and spend more time with".
So we shouldn't be looking at how to fit the new marketing into the plan, but how we can totally change the fundamentals of what we consider essential to a "plan" to fit with the new marketing. The plan is broken and there is no glue in the world that is going to put it back together again.
You can if you initiate it! One of my newest team members was searching for information to use for a paper he wanted to write around his event but he couldn't find anything weighty enough on a particular subtopic. He posted a question to the relevant LinkedIn community and within an hour received 9 helpful responses.
Aside from finishing his paper more easily, he started a conversation with 9 people passionate enough about the subject matter to invest time in helping someone in their community learn. He "planned" to send them a copy of the finished content to say thanks. A couple of them asked about the event. A relationship was born and providing he continues to nurture it through "planned" interactions, he has created a handful of potential customers and advocates who were previously unaware of us and how we serve the needs of our market.
To a certain extent we have to roll with the punches in this new environment and accept that a lot of what we do will be reactive and we'll have to record it after the fact. Which raises a question I have often heard asked, do we need to record it? After all its just one short exchange with maybe one other person right? Wrong.
It is more important than ever to record these interactions because they are far more personal than the 10,000 piece direct mail shot of yesterday. Recipients of old-style communications for the most part knew they were mass volume and impersonal. Participants in our new marketing are just that, they are not passive and they are talking to you. Not a big faceless company, you personally. And they expect to be remembered.
Don't believe me? You must have met someone at some point (maybe at a party or other social gathering) who on second meeting can't remember the first and introduces themselves again. Maybe you were offended, maybe you just thought them a little stupid, but I guarantee you didn't think "wow this is someone I want to get know better and spend more time with".
So we shouldn't be looking at how to fit the new marketing into the plan, but how we can totally change the fundamentals of what we consider essential to a "plan" to fit with the new marketing. The plan is broken and there is no glue in the world that is going to put it back together again.
Thursday 22 July 2010
So many platforms, so little time!
It came up in a conversation I was having today with a group I was training. The killer question.
"So with all these different channels and platforms and ways of interacting with people, how do we pick what to do so we get the results but don't have to sleep in the office?"
And I feel their pain, I really do! However I reckon that it all has to come back to the basics. Just because the rules have changed that doesn't mean we jump the gun and forget the sound principles of good marketing that got us here in the first place. Not everything that worked in the old world works in the new one but these do:
Know where to find your people
Often cited as "fish where the fishes are", this is a no-brainer when it comes to focused and effective marketing activity. You have to identify which channels and platforms your customer is using.
That awesome YouTube video you did that still hasn't got any views recorded, that killer discussion you posted in that forum that no one responded to; are you sure, hand on heart that your target audience are definitely actively, regularly using that platform in significant numbers?
But I don't know for sure and I can't afford market research!
Well firstly, yes you can. There are loads of free profiling and surveying tools out there (you've heard of Google right? Yeh, it is that simple. Search and you shall find.) that enable you to engage your target audience in a cost effective, time economic way and find out what their typical behaviours are. Sure you might have to provide some sort of incentive in exchange for the information but what's a voucher or a bottle of bubbles compared to hours of your (no doubt pretty expensive) time spent getting it wrong?
The second point here is that you ought to be tracking the effectiveness of every activity rigorously so if you are getting it wrong, you can stop, pronto! Again there are lots of free analytics programmes and plug ins to help with this even if your senior management team don't want to shell out for a paid for solution.
So there's your answer. Don't do it all, do it right. You really don't have to be a genius to figure it out, you've got nothing to lose except the overtime.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)