Bad Marketing

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Is display advertising a waste of time?

The "Good" - building your brand where consumers are spending over 50% of their media time

A comScore study last October showed that only 16% of Internet users click on display ads, with 8% of users accounting for over 85% of all clicks.  Does that mean no one should use display ads?  Hell no.  It means that display is for branding your business not trying to drive action (that is what Search ads are for).  Does anyone doubt that TV/Radio/Print ads can build awareness of a brand?  They typically don't drive immediate calls to a business but they do build brand awareness over time so that when a consumer has a need they evaluate that product and hopefully buy it. 

Studies by comScore and others have shown that display ads, regardless of clicks, generate significant lift in site visits and both online and offline sales by those exposed to the ads.  This "lift" is has been proven time after time so why do businesses think their campaign isn't working when they see a low CTR?   Just like TV ads or any other offline media advertising, display is about carving out space in someone's mind so they remember you when they are ready to buy. Fortunately, display advertising is so cost-effective (low CPM) that most businesses can afford to now brand themselves online where they couldn't with expensive traditional media alternatives. 

Can you have too many followers?

The "Bad" - having so many social followers that conversation becomes impossible

I just read another great article by Clive Thompson in this month's Wired Magazine.  "In Praise of Obscurity" points out that socializing doesn't scale.  This seems like a "duh" observation in the real world since we all know that its impossible to chat with everyone at a large party (40-50+ people). 

But online it's a bit easier to "converse" with lots of people since they all aren't "there" at the same time.  That said, once you get more than a few hundred followers social stops being social according to Thompson. "It's no longer a bantering process of thinking and living out loud.  It becomes old-fashioned broadcasting."  And further, "when the conversation gets big enough, it shuts down.  Not only do audiences feel estranged, the participants also start self-censoring.  There's no pretense of intimacy with the audience, so there's no conversation to spoil." 

The lesson for businesses is that while it may seem cool to have many thousands of followers, it makes it impossible to realize the value of the relationship and conversation with each person.  Why use social media if you're just going to blast messages like an email newsletter.  Wouldn't you rather use social tools to have relevant and timely conversations with your best customers?  And if so, are Facebook and Twitter the right tools?  I don't think so.  Business conversations seem out of place on Facebook where I go to check in with my friends, and Twitter is really better for short frequent broadcasts than long/deep conversations.  There is clearly the need for a better tool for businesses to connect with their customers. 

To Control, or Not Control your Brand That is the Question

The "Bad" - allowing employees to build their own brand at the expense of the company brand

 
The leading analyst firm Forrester announced last week that their analysts can no longer have stand-alone "off-site" blogs but rather need to blog on Forrester's official blogs.  There is a lot of chatter about this decision and Josh Bernoff provided a semi-official response on the popular Groundswell blog.  In summary, as an intellectual property company, Forrester believes blogging is an extension of their product which is intellectual property, and which they pay the analysts to create.  Therefore it is sub-optimal to have popular analysts build their own brand which they can then easily take with them should they decide to quit Forrester.

I am facing the exact same situation in my company and am struggling with the decision.  Should I allow all our field personnel to create their own blogs and market themselves under their own names?  Or should I get them to blog on our platform under the company brand?   There are pros and cons of each approach but I think I'm coming to the same conclusion as Forrester.  These folks are under our employment and as such are paid to promote the company and differentiate us from the competition.  The little brand benefit we get from all of their individual promotion is offset by confusion created in the market by 500 different brand voices. 

I need to explore a solution in more depth but my initial thought is that we need to create a standard company branded platform from which the field representatives can market themselves.  This is the approach that many real estate and financial services firms take.  I'm not saying it is perfect but the pros appear to outweigh the cons.  Let me know how you dealt with this issue. 

Leadership Lessons from Colin Powell

The "Good" - applying leadership principles to make your team more effective

I know this is loosely related to B2B marketing, but I read a great article about Colin Powell's leadership principles and thought about how I could apply them to my marketing team.

Here are my 5 favorites out of the 18 lessons in the article. You can find the rest at Chally.com.

1. Being responsible sometimes pisses people off. My thoughts -- You have to make the hard choices because most people won't. You can't procrastinate, treat everyone equally or worry about being nice. Doing that only makes things worse for everyone.

2. Never neglect details. When everyone's mind is dulled or distracted the leader must be doubly vigilant. My thoughts -- You have to execute the details or the strategy is worthless. Vision alone does not equate to success.

3. You don't know what you can get away with until you try. My thoughts - In today's hyper competitive market (especially in my space - online marketing) you can't be timid or sit around waiting for approvals. Better to try, fail and learn from it than to do nothing. Of course you need to take measured risks not reckless ones.

4. If it ain't broke don't fix it is the slogan of the complacent, the arrogant or the scared. My thoughts -- You have to constantly be trying to improve your strategy, tactics, processes and execution because the competitors are not standing still.

5. Plans don't accomplish anything. Theories of management don't much matter. Endeavors succeed or fail because of the people involved. Only by attracting the best people will you accomplish great deeds. My thoughts -- You have to have the best people to get the best results. And you have to create the right environment for success - that means managing by getting into the trenches, leading by example, rewarding hard work, innovative thinking and creativity while weeding out the poor performers (see number 1 above).

The Perfect Example of Good Reputation Management

The "Good"  - proactively managing your reputation with sincerity, clarity and transparency

Thanks to the good folks over at Outspoken Media for their post relating the NBC-Conan-Leno debacle to online reputation management.  Read the full post here, but to summarize, Conan won the reputation battle by taking his clear, honest message straight to the audience while Leno kept quiet so no one had any idea about his role/motivations and therefore everyone assumed the worst which was that he was screwing Conan over to get his old time slot back.  Outspoken summarizes the 5 key steps that Conan took to protect or even build his reputation:

1. Control the message by explaining, in simple and honest terms, exactly what happened/ is happening.
2. Don’t get emotional or look for sympathy. Just state the facts.
3. Admit any wrongdoing, if applicable.
4. Show grace and humor.
5. Offer a resolution or plan of attack for the future to calm fears.

These are terrific lessons for any business handling their own reputation, be it a crisis situation or just responding to negative reviews online.

Now that Conan has some time on his hands maybe he should be Tiger Wood's personal Reputation Management advisor ;)

Ignore Everybody and Crush It!

The "Good" - knowing that there is no such thing as overnight success

Over the holidays I read two good books :  Crush It! by Gary Vaynerchuk of winelibrarytv.com fame, and Ignore Everybody and 39 Other Keys to Creativity by Hugh McLeod of gapingvoid.com fame. 

I’m not going to do a full reviews here, since honestly I’ve hated book reports ever since 5^th grade.  That said, I recommend both books as they are quick reads with wisdom on how to turn your unique talent/passion into a business that provides happiness and hopefully some income.   While chock full of lessons on how build your personal brand via social media, the key message I took away is an old fashioned one that is lost on most people today….work hard! 

McLeod’s third chapter is titled “Put the hours in” and Vaynerchuk devotes a section to “Hustle.” 

Per McLeod:  “Doing anything worthwhile takes forever.  Ninety percent of what separates successful people and failed people is time, effort and stamina.”

Per Vaynerchuk:  “Too many people don’t want to swallow the pill of working hard every day….if you’re making money through social media, you don’t get to work for three hours and then play Nintendo….That’s lip service to hard work.  No one makes a million dollars with minimal effort unless they win the lottery.”

I know this isn’t exactly a new/original concept, but as a marketer I see a lot of business/creative people who think they can come up with a great idea and that is will take off virally via social media.  Overnight success is a myth and I like that these authors don’t go there just to sell more books (see all the authors of day-trading and real-estate investing books for that). 

Check out the books for loads of useful marketing strategies/tactics for harnessing the power of the social web to build your brand.   While it doesn’t fit into the theme of this post, I absolutely loved Vaynerchuk’s ninth chapter entitled “the best marketing strategy ever.”  It’s one word long:  CARE!  It’s so damn simple but so powerful.  I need to give it more thought and bake it into my 2010 marketing plan for my company, then I’ll write another post.

Paying for Search Ads on Your Name - Part 2

The "Bad" - not running paid search ads on your business name

I saw this great article in Search Engine Land yesterday which dovetails perfectly with my prior post.  While my colleague Nathan Hanks put forth the logical business reasons to "own" your name by bidding on your brand keywords, David Roth gives a semi-scientific way to prove the value.  He recommends that you run a test site visits both with and without the PPC ad for your brand name and then determine the cannibalization/lift that is caused by using the text ad.  Here's his definition:

“Lift” is the net amount of traffic that is added to the mix by virtue of the PPC ad. Cannibalization is the portion of PPC ad traffic that comes at the expense of the organic link. If you can quantify cannibalization and lift in any situation, you can then begin to think intelligently about what to do.

It sounds like the research proves the value since David says he was ecstatic with the results of his test.

Paying for Search Ads on Your Name

The "Bad" - not running paid search ads on your business name

Check out this blog post by my colleague Nathan Hanks over at Local Online Marketing Gumbo who answers the question many businesses ask "Should I bid on my own business name?"

A quick excerpt below...

When it comes to search engine marketing, bidding on business category keywords (ex: “Dallas spa”) is a must if you want your business to show up in a paid ad when someone is looking for your kind of products or services. But it’s just as important to bid on your business name keywords (ex: “Sally’s Swanky Spa”).  Here are some reasons why:

It’s your business name – so why pay for it? Because your competitors are! According to Performics, leading brands only receive 87% of traffic from their business name keyword searches. The remaining 13% are “poached” by competitors!* That’s because they know that when your customers search for your business, they have an opportunity to snatch the sale straight out of your hands with a well-worded sponsored ad.  Don’t give them the chance.

Check out Nate's blog for the other important reasons why you should bid on your name.

Online Reputation Damage Control

The "Good" - having a well-thought out plan for when your reputation is damaged online

I saw the article 5 Steps for Successful Social Media Damage Control by Sharlyn Lauby on Mashable the day after I posted my last entry on Managing Your Online Reputation.  She covered what I forgot in my post, that managing reputation online is just like managing reputation offline...

"Our goal, of course, hasn’t changed – work to increase the number of positive comments written about your company, product, or service and take care of those who have negative experiences. But, how do you make that happen in the social media world? What steps to you take to keep negative social media damage to a minimum?"

Here is the abbreviated list she recommends for addressing any reputation crisis.  Of course they key to have a well thought out plan/process developed and employees trained well in advance of any issue that occurs. 

1. Monitor social media sites 24/7.  My take:  you should be doing this already or you've already missed some issues/product/service reviews which might not be crises warranting damage control but are negatively impacting your brand none-the-less.
2. Respond quickly with a consistent message.  My take: just like the offline world, even if you don't have the answer yet at least let me know you care and are working on it.
3. Reply to the social media world.  My take:  It's not enough to just address the impacted person(s), you have address the whole community since often people on the sidelines jump into the fray and the last thing you want is a bench-clearing brawl ;)
4. Educate employees on proper messaging.  My take: you need to quickly develop and communicate incident specific messaging to all employees since even though they aren't on the damage control team you need to keep them informed and calm just like customers, and on the chance that they get asked you want them to deliver a consistent message.
5. Develop a crisis strategy.   My take: actually this should be #2 on the list.  I suggest you have a pre-identified damage control team that meets immediately once the issue is raised.  If necessary, they can then pull in the appropriate experts to better understand the problem and craft the response strategy...what will we say, who will say it, where and when...

Managing Your Online Reputation

The "Ugly" - not realizing that consumers now control your reputation

United Airlines is the latest in a string of corporations who have found out the hard way that the web has shifted power to the consumer. Businesses, large and small, no longer unilaterally control their reputation.  Consumers post comments and reviews online about every interaction with a company and typically they are about negative experiences...probably because they only get motivated enough to post when they are really ticked off.  Unfortunately for United Airlines, the Sons of Maxwell band had the skill and platform to make this music video about their bad experience that has spread virally. While this one and been written about all over the web, most businesses (especially small businesses) are ignorant of the fact that there are dozens/hundreds of online comments and reviews that comprise their online reputation. 

I see this all the time with the small business customers of my company.  They spend their precious few marketing dollars on a search or display advertising campaign and wonder why the results weren't as strong as they expected.  We advise them to "Google" their business name and sure enough they see some negative comments/reviews that turned off potential customers who researched them before buying.  While the consumer now has control, businesses can take steps to manage their reputation online.

1.  They can directly address negative reviewers by politely replying online and offering to rectify the issue.  This can be dangerous so the reply must be a sincere, well-written apology and offer (never argue with or flame the reviewer - it just looks like sour grapes).

2.  They can offset the negative reviews by getting lots of positive reviews from their happy/loyal customers.  It's pretty simple to hand customers a flyer or send them an email that says "If you had a good experience with our company please share it on x, y, and z review sites."

3.  They can try to push negative reviews down to the 2nd or 3rd page of search results by creating and posting more of their own content (blog, syndicated videos, Flickr, Facebook, Twitter, etc.) such that it gets indexed on page one by the search engine.  Research says that most people don't look past the first page of search results so if they can own the content on that page then consumers might not get down to the negative stuff.

Cooking up a new brand

The "Bad" - allowing too many cooks in the kitchen while you are redefining and redesigning your brand

Just a few weeks ago I left Entrust and joined a great VC-backed company called ReachLocal.  We are one of the biggest/best local search marketing companies you never heard of.  Hence the reason they needed a new VP of marketing.  On my 5th day we held a two day brand summit with 20+ execs, salespeople and product experts.  It was an excellent way for me to get up to speed on the company strategy, our core values, competitive advantages and persona.  As you would imagine the discussion was lively with lots of points/counterpoints but ultimately we locked down a brand pyramid that everyone agreed with.

Wary of design by committee we commissioned a small core creative team to develop the brand concepts with creative and copy points, as well as an updated logo treatment (always a risky thing to do but it really needs it).  In just a little over a week we developed 5 concepts, pitched them to the execs, selected the best one and got approval to move forward to execution. 

I write this post not to brag about achieving a quality brand makeover so quickly (though it is pretty amazing) but more to say that you don't have to pay an outside agency millions and take 4 months to achieve great results. I'll write another post in a few weeks when we take the site live and you can see for yourself.  At the risk of being stupidly obvious, I'll point out that you absolutely cannot allow design by committee -- and must shield your creative SWAT team from the interlopers who want to offer their commentary about liking/disliking certain colors.  I used the analogy of an award winning chili recipe with all the interlopers and it seemed to work...i.e. if a chef lets each of 20 chili experts add their favorite ingredients the chili is totally ruined.  Here's a great video that shows the disastrous consequences if you don't heed this warning.

MarketingSherpa does it again!

The "Good" - collecting and assembling hundreds of marketing best practices and lessons learned, then sharing them for free

 The good folks at MarketingSherpa just released their 7th annual edition of the 'Wisdom Report'.  Quoting their intro, "...this report compiles the shiniest gems of wisdom chosen by Sherpa's editorial team from hundreds of submissions by your colleagues. Many of these words of wisdom are not big-sky ideas.  Many are simple and straightforward tips you can plug into your marketing plans right now."

I am honored that they selected one of my submissions on building a simple, inexpensive dashboard to measure PR and Media Relations effectiveness (page 70). I originally wrote about our homegrown dashboard in this post last year. It has been a very useful tool that I would be happy to share so shoot me an email if you'd like a copy.

To push or not to push, that is the question

The “Good”– shifting from “push” marketing to “missing link” marketing – meeting the modern customer’s expectation of finding the right information at the right place at the right time.

 

Check out the article “Beyond Targeting in the Age of the Modern Consumer” by Augustine Fouin ClickZ.   It focuses on consumer advertising and targeting but the lessons definitely apply in the B2B space.   Fou points out the futility of the push or interruption model, even when the target is very narrowly defined. 

 

“So in a simple game of odds, if the advertiser starts with a small target and intersects that with near zero recall or very low response rates, the probability of success (driving the sale) is a rounding error to zero.”

 

This point really hit home with me since a while back we realized our team’s traditional direct marketing model was no longer working.  We sell enterprise security to a very select group of IT executives in F1000 companies (e.g. CIOs in top banks).  While we created some very strong integrated marketing campaigns to reach these highly sought after customers, the messages were probably never received  since our targets have stopped reading emails, answering calls, attending events, reading trade journals and opening mail.  Even in the few cases where we did get their attention, I’m sure we were quickly forgotten in the crush of other marketing messages.  Given this new market reality we shifted the majority of our marketing efforts from traditional direct marketing to what Fou calls missing link marketing-- delivering the right bit of information to the right person at the right time through the right medium (when they're searching for it). This solves many of push marketing’s shortcomings since the customer finds information that is relevant to them at their particular stage of the buying cycle. 

 

For example, we put this approach into practice in our marketing efforts to the aforementioned IT execs in large banks.  One of their primary pain points is compliance with identity theft regulations (FFIEC, Red Flags, etc.).  Rather than bombarding them with direct mail/email/calls about our products, we created unique content for each stage of the decision-making process:  a whitepaper on the issue, a podcast, a buyer’s guide to help customers write their RFP, and a webinar with a customer testimonial.  We placed that content on our websiteand on key banking industry portals.   Of course we drove visibility of the content with PR, blogging, SEO, Google Adwords and sponsored links on keywords associated with those regulations.

 

Now we aren’t hitting every single prospect over the head with our messages, but instead are getting the right information to the few who are actively researching solutions in our space.  And I’ll take quality over quantity any day!

The simple things pay off

The “Good” – reinvigorating online sales through web design

The other day I was summarizing my team’s accomplishments in 2008 and realized that this was one of the most satisfying.  Not because it involved some incredible strategic plan or creative idea on my part, but rather because it validated that focusing on the simple things can have a big impact on results.

What I’m referring to is a site makeover project for my company’s SSL certificate product line.  Certs are what organizations use to create secure (encrypted) sessions with users…i.e. the user sees https and the little yellow browser lock.  Anyway, we are a smaller player in the market (VeriSign is the 800 pound gorilla) and primarily sell certs the same way we sell our enterprise security software -- through our direct sales force. 

During strategic planning last year we identified a significant opportunity to grow the business via the online channel.  The problem was that our site was designed to mimic our enterprise site (www.entrust.com) and was NOT at all ecommerce friendly (i.e. “bad marketing”).  So we executed a plan to completely overhaul the site design and buy process in order to make it easy to buy a cert in just a few clicks.   

Here are the before and after screen captures.

It’s easy to see the huge improvement in design that came from our clear-cut focus on the user and their buying experience.  Of course we also added in lots of SEO, Google Adwords and display ads to drive traffic to the new site.

Our results have been great with substantial increases in unique site visits, conversion rate and most importantly, sales (we’re publicly held so I can’t share specifics).

The key takeaway for me is that you don’t always have to shoot for the stars in your marketing plan – launching an innovative new product, making a big splash at the huge trade show, etc.  Instead, it pays to focus on the simple projects like improving the web design for one of your smaller products.

B2B Marketing Then and Now

The "Good" - looking back to see how you've evolved and learned over the years

In the spirit of New Year's and being retrospective, I took a quick look back at my 8 years at Entrust and how we approached marketing then and now.  We've certainly learned a lot since 2001 and are more effective than ever...I just wish we had the same budget as back then ;)  I couldn't figure out how to create a table in this new TypePad editor so you'll need to click on the graphic to view the lessons in larger format.

 

More fun with Holiday eCards

The "GBU" - compiling a giant list of holiday eCards for all to enjoy

Kuddos to bannerblog for sharing this compilation of 120 holiday eCards they gathered from many different agencies.   As you would expect some are good, some are bad and some are downright ugly.  Enjoy.

Holiday eCards - the Good, the Bad and the Ugly

It's that time of year again when we are inundated with the the good, the bad, and the ugly Holiday eCards.  Here are some I've received in reverse order....

The "Ugly" – creating negative brand perception with a holiday eCard so unimaginative and uninspired that it turns people off.  I’ve received a lot of these this year so maybe the cost-cutting started with creative departments.  I’ll spare you the pain of seeing all of them and use MS&L’s card as the poster child for “ugly” marketing.  Clearly they get paid by the word, but do people really want to read about arcane renaming updates in a holiday card.  I expect a top tier global PR firm to be savvier than this.

 

The "Bad" – wasting the time and money to produce a boring holiday eCard.  The companies in this group at least put some effort into their cards, but clearly not enough to make them enjoyable.  They want to do a nice card but just don’t put enough creative energy into making it a positive brand experience for the recipient.  The card from lead-gen firm Madison Logic exemplifies a “bad” card with no music and some scrolling images of the staff…yawn!  Check out the screen shot below, or if for some masochistic reason, you want to see the “live” card then click here.

The "Good" – using imagination and creativity to make a holiday eCard that entertains the recipients and conveys a good impression of your company.  My favorite in this group is the one from The Loomis Agency which uses sock puppets singing a parody of The Carol of Bells.  PMSI created a cool card by mixing holiday tunes and a sketch artist drawing Santa. Check it out here.   And Eisenberg Associates offers up a simple but fun game in their card. 

The folly of the old B2B marketing approach

The "Good" -  using a song parody to explain that old ways of marketing don't work

Credit to HubSpot and Rebecca Corliss for this highly entertaining parody of Alanis Morissette's "You Oughta Know."  Check out the video on YouTube and the lyrics below.

 

If I make one more call
I might go punch a wall.
No one understands
That this doesn't work.

They hang up cause I'm a creep.
The mail I send they don't read.
They always find a way to
Ignore me.
I'm interrupting their lives
So they threaten me with knives.
I didn't think that marketing was like torture.

Cause the calls, direct mail
TV ads, they all fail.
And they aren't getting me anywhere. They don't work.
No!
And every time I try to sell
'Didja know that I'm told I should go to hell?
Then I cry. Then I cry.
And you wonder why.

I want leads
To come to me.
Fix our SEO
Get some inbound links.
RSS
Let's get blogging.
Why don't we just use inbound marketing?
You. You. You. Oughta know.

Get my page rank up.
Tag my content.
Fix my landing page.
Let them come to me.

Now I can blog I can tweet
Publish things you will read.
Won't have to bug you in the middle of dinner.
Google me organically
Search results one two and three.
You need my products? Uh huh. Yeah you'll find me.

Cause the calls, direct mail
TV ads, they all failed.
And they weren't getting me anywhere. They don't work.
No!
And every time I tried to sell
'Didja know I was told I should go to hell.
Then I cried. Then I cried.
And you wondered why.

Now my leads
They come to me
Fixed our SEO
Got some inbound links
RSS
Now we're blogging
Thank god now we use inbound marketing.
You. You. You. Oughta know.

CMO Council research: 2/3rds of us are not effective

The "Bad" - trying to compete with half a team

The CMO Council released research, "Driving the Bottom Line from the Front Line" (exec summary here and Marketing Charts summary here), that shows most companies still don't get it when it comes to Sales and Marketing effectiveness and go-to-market strategy.  While the study covers multiple issues with companies' go-to-market capabilities, I was particularly interested/saddened to see that less than 20% say their sales and marketing organizations are extremely collaborative, and moreover less than half have taken any steps to integrate and align the two functions.  That strikes me as a huge opportunity to improve effectiveness and hence competitiveness which ultimately translates into improved market share/revenue/profit/stock price. 

Note the image of the Indy car team on the cover of the CMO Council report.    Per my prior post on this subject (Marketing is a Pit Crew), the pit crew (Marketing) and the driver (Sales) must work seamlessly as one unit in order to get around the track faster than the other teams.  Its a simple concept but takes a lot of planning and hard work to accomplish (otherwise there would be ties every week in NASCAR).  It might be heresy to suggest, but in order to win the race for revenue Sales and Marketing need to be structured, measured and incented as one team, not two.  This idea scares both sides (each fearing subservience to the other) which is probably why so few have taken any steps to formally integrate the functions.