Market GoGo

B2B and the Sales Funnel

2011-07-26T07:42:00.000-06:00

Today I was going to write about B2B Marketing Strategies. But I couldn't really do that until I had dipped into the B2B Sales Funnel.

The sales funnel demonstrates the sales process. B2B marketing and sales team seek to fill their
sales funnel, and then to track and predict sales. These are critical functions and metrics given the
typically long and complex sales cycle for B2B relationships.

The funnel is shaped like a funnel (was that too obvious). At the top of the funnel, there are
millions of prospective customers. But, really there aren't many real prospective customers in
there. So, as these people fall through this funnel, you find that there are fewer and fewer and
fewer real potential customers. At the end of the of the sales process very few prospects become real
customers.

Depending on the funnel you look to, you will find different stages and different numbers of stages. The Marketing team is responsible for the "top half" of the funnel - i.e. attracting qualified leads - while the sales team takes the relationship from there and closes the deal. A good B2B organization tracks the funnel and customers at each stage to know how much potential business they have in their funnel. This helps a business to accurately predict sales.

A B2B sales organization uses Marketing Automation software like SalesForce.com to help track the funnel.

Next up ... a discussion of a more complex B2B sales funnel which shows some additional dynamics.

What is B2B and what makes it different?

2011-07-22T07:30:00.006-06:00

Let's start by understanding what B2B is. B2B describes commercial transactions between businesses. In a B2B transaction the commodity being sold is typically an input - like a raw product or a machine - to help a business produce another product. B2B transactions can include anything:

Services (like legal servcies, IT services, marketing services, accounting services, etc.),
Products (like chemicals, plastics, steel, concrete, wood, rubber, glass, and so on), or
Information (e.g. customer lists, demographic information, geological studies, weather reports, etc.).

B2B can be contrasted with two other major B2's. The first is the B2C. Those are transactions that are between a business and a consumer - and the transactions that most of us bump into daily: buying your groceries, buying some clothes, buying a new car. This is also where the majority of advertising appears to take place.

The other B2 is B2G. B2G is a bit like B2B and a bit like B2C. It is Business to Government. These sales are all about selling items to Governments. Typically this requires participating in complex bidding processes and negotiations. But, the payoff can be very high. The goods and services that are purchased by governments are sometimes "B2B" in nature - for instance a government might buy a telephone system to run a call centre (e.g. an input to other deliverables). Sometimes the government might be buying tourism brochures to mail out to their citizens (e.g. consumers).

Finally, there is also C2C. This is rarely considered but is Consumer to Consumer sales. Good examples of C2C are classified ads (like in a newspaper ... hey, what's a newspaper). The modern and more effective equivalent is Kijiji, Craig's List or eBay.

(I wonder it C2B is when a consumer returns something to a business - effectively selling it back to the busines ... hmmm ... deep thoughts.)

According to Wikipedia -

The volume of B2B (Business-to-Business) transactions is much higher than the volume of B2C transactions. The primary reason for this is that in a typical supply chain there will be many B2B transactions involving sub components or raw materials, and only one B2C transaction, specifically sale of the finished product to the end customer. For example, an automobile manufacturer makes several B2B transactions such as buying tires, glass for windscreens, and rubber hoses for its vehicles. The final transaction, a finished vehicle sold to the consumer, is a single (B2C) transaction.

B2B and B2G are substantially more complex than your average "2C" marketing and sales transaction. Major differences include:

Multiple Buyers - A B2B/B2G sale will often involve many people in the buying process - such as the user, the influencer, the decision maker, the evaluator, and a purchaser.
Sales Team - Due to the complex nature of many B2B sales there is often a sales team in place to handlea variety of specialized tasks that take place through a sales funnel - such as prospecting (marketing), sales lead, technical analyst, sales engineer, and so forth.
Needs vs. Wants - A B2B transaction is precipitated by a NEED. A Business needs a product, service, or information to achieve a goal. They NEED steel-toed boots for their workers so that they can meet safety standards. On the other hand, a consumer often may just want to have a new pair of shoes. There's a bit of artistic license in that ... consider a business that builds a new building and has an architect design a unique and enormous tower. They don't need that. They WANT that.
Long cycles - Back in 1988 I became interested in B2B sales when I read an article about a Sales Executive with GE who had worked for 10 years on selling one set of generators to one client. In the end he closed the deal. As I recall that was something to do with the Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River. I wonder what that commission was like?
Significant evaluations - It doesn't always happen, but the chances are that before a decision maker will commit to buy something, the B2B decision maker will demand substantial technical evaluation of the product and will have a "bake-off" among several competitors. It is often a winner takes all contest. Consider how long an airline will take to choose the purchase of a new plane and the due diligence they put into buying a $350 million jet that will carry 800 people more than half-way around the world. Initial cost, operating cost, performance, longevity, comfort, efficiency, and safety (among other things) all get evaluated over many months or years.

Even with all of the scrutiny in a B2B transaction, it would be wrong to think that emotion doesn't enter the equation in a BIG way. In head-to-head comparisons the scoring between products will often be pretty close. The final decision may come down to the sales executive who has the best handshake, or the one that makes the least mistakes. To that end, I worked for a company that was vieing for the IT Services of a very large credit card company. The two companies that were in the final running for the work each took the client out for supper. The company I worked for picked up the bill and paid with a credit card from the client's company. The other contender took the client out on another night and also picked up the bill. Unfortunately (for them), they used their corporate credit card. It wasn't the client's brand. The client saw. Can you guess the emotion? Can you guess who won the business?

(With thanks to Steve Woods for his blog that provided me some additional direction and information for my post.)

Next up ... B2B Marketing Strategies.

B2B Marketing

2011-07-20T07:30:00.001-06:00

Over the next several days I'm going to dig into the strategies and trends in B2B Marketing. I'm also going to poke away at "what makes a good B2B product demo", and B2B sales close techniques.

As I write this it will be interesting to see where the topics lead and how close I'm able to stay to my outline.

Check back over the next days and weeks for the details.

Make sure you check TripAdvisor.com

2011-07-12T07:30:00.006-06:00

If you are in the travel industry, be sure to check TripAdvisor for reviews on your business. This week my family was planning a side-trip to the Dells in Wisconsin. This is an area famous for amusement parks and especially water slides. We were going to go to the Mt. Olympus Water Park and Hotel. That was until my wife read through the reviews on TripAdvisor. Maybe we could have stayed and played somewhere else. But this review turned us off the entire area.

Lessons for Hotels and Attractions - Check and respond to reviews on TripAdvisor and other similar reviews.

Lessons for Destination Marketing Boards - Do the same for everyone you look after.

Google vs Bing vs Yahoo (Update for July 2011)

2011-07-11T07:30:00.000-06:00

Over a year ago I wrote a blog looking at how the top search engines were doing. I thought it was time for an update. An article on Search Engine Watch, called "May 2011 Search Engine Market Share from comScore, Compete, Hitwise" by Danny Goodwin, (June 19, 2011), gave me the input for that.

Back in April 2010, Experian Hitwise reported that Google had 71.4% of share, Yahoo was at 14.96% and bing was hovering at 9.43%.

Now?

According to comScore, in May of 2011 that looks like: Google is at 65.5%, Yahoo is at 15.9%, and Bing has grown to 14.1%. (You probably aren't asking, but in case you are curious, Ask.com is continuting to linger way, way down in the rankings.)

So, year over year Google has dropped somewhere around 6%-8% in search rankings (depending on the web analytics company's stats you look at). At the same time, Bing is enjoying growth!

I kick butt on a First Beer

2011-07-07T07:30:00.000-06:00

A long time ago I wrote a blog called "Bad Buzz ... Yeah I remember my first beer". This blog was part of a series talking about how to respond to social media that goes bad.

What I get a kick out of is that that page is my most popular blog page BY FAR.

I suspect that people are finding my marketing-focused blog based on searching for information about really having their first beer. It does make you see the potential for stuffing a page with top hot words to build traffic to your page.

How do you find hot words? Have a look at the Google Hot Trends in the left column of this blog and similar stats like Trending Now on Yahoo.ca, or Trending Topics on Twitter. But stuffing a page with hot words is something Google really frowns on. So I won't and you shouldn't either.

Focus on relevant and interesting content, and your audience will follow. At least, that's the theory I'm working on.

Advertise, Advertise, Advertise

2011-07-06T07:30:00.011-06:00

An economic downturn brings opportunity for those who are willing to take a leap of faith and who have a cash cow they can use to buy advertising when times get tough. When you go looking for success stories - or survival stories - from the Great Depression, you read that there are a number of examples of brands becoming successful through the trying times.
The most widely quoted are Chevrolet cars, Camel cigarettes and Procter & Gamble. Each of these relied heavily on advertising because they realized that they needed advertising to create and maintain brand loyalty.

In 2008, Dave Chase wrote "How brands thrived during the Great Depression", and provided a good rundown on these three:

Procter & Gamble. To this day, P&G maintains a philosophy of not reducing advertising budgets during times of recession, and the company certainly did not make any such reduction during the Depression. It's not a coincidence that P&G has made progress during every one of the major recessions. While competitors cut ad budgets, P&G increased its spending. While the Depression caused problems for many, P&G came out of it unscathed. Radio took P&G's message into more homes than ever, and P&G became a pioneer in effective use of that medium, including its role in creating the notion of soap operas.
Chevrolet. During the 1920s, Fords were outselling Chevrolets by 10 to 1. In spite of the Depression, Chevrolet continued to expand its advertising budget and, by 1931, Chevrolet took the lead in its field. It is believed that Ford's weaker balance sheet entering the Depression rendered it unable to respond to Chevrolet.
Camel Cigarettes. In 1920, Camel was the top-selling tobacco product. American Tobacco Co. then struck back with the Lucky Strike brand, and by 1929 Lucky had overtaken Camel as the No. 1 brand. Two years later, in the heart of the Depression, Chesterfield also overtook Camel. Camel countered with a dramatic increase in ad spend and, by doing so, demonstrated the power of advertising during depressed times. By 1935, it was back on top.

Advertising Lesson #5 from the Great Depression: Advertise ... Hard.

This is my final installment on Depression Marketing. Hope you enjoyed it, and found it uplifting.

SCARE Them

2011-06-29T07:30:00.024-06:00

Fear is a very powerful motivator. In an economic downturn, people are particularly vulnerable. Preying upon those fears is a food way to sell your product (questions about ethical considerations aside, perhaps). To use fear, you need to understand individual's fears and how your product can solve those:

Will I lose my job?
Will I be able to buy groceries?
Can I keep my house?
What if something happens to me? What will happen to my kids?
Can I afford to buy that car?
Should I cut-back my cable service?

Robert Bruce Donald in his article "Buying the Dream" wrote about advertising in Life Magazine:
"Another reaction within the advertising community was to insinuate guilt for products such as insurance, which, when not purchased, put family in an unreasonable situation in "these times"."

Russell Johnston in his article "Opportunity Knocks" wrote: "Many agents turned to fear campaigns to sell their goods, admonishing consumers not to let themselves get yellow teeth, bad breath, unsightly clothing, or a host of other socially disagreeable ailments that might lead to lost opportunities. For instance, in 1934, Gillette ran a series of ads for its Blue Blade line suggesting that men who were careless about their appearance were more likely to lose their jobs."

Advertising Lesson #5 from the Great Depression - Fear Sells.

The sun will come out, tomorrow

2011-06-28T07:30:00.006-06:00

When you are in the depth of a financial crisis it is hard to believe thing will ever get better. You have to know that they will. They always do.

How long is a recession? The average length of the ten recessions since World War II has been 10.4 months, with a range of 6 months in the 1980 to 16 months in the 1981-82 recession. Of course, the big Depression is the thing that everyone worries about. The Great Depression lasted from 1929 to 1941. US GDP contracted by 28% between 1930 and 1932 and hit the bottom in 1933. The Great Depression featured global impacts of massive bank and business failures, and crazy unemployment. Not a fun time.

When a recession hits, adjust your strategy to the future. Robert Bruce Donald looked at advertising in Life Magazine between 1936 and 1939, in his article "Buying the Dream"

… In truth it seems that 30s consumers must have needed to have one foot in a "dream world" of aspiration while one foot remained firmly on the planet, with the pendulum swinging toward the dream as the duration of the hardship lengthened.

In summary about the Great Depression:

What was illusion and what was fact?

Advertising twisted the message to serve an admittedly self-serving, yet useful purpose. Many of the products advertised were just beyond the reach of the consumer who read Life. That was absolutely as it should be and Life along with its advertisers knew it. Striving toward a better grade of whiskey, a smoother smoke, and even down the road perhaps a new automobile, served a very useful purpose: it reinforced the cultural imperative that if you were not climbing the ladder of success, you were not buying into the American Dream.

If you were not buying into the American Dream, weren't you just fooling yourself?

Advertising Lesson #4 from the Great Depression ... Remember that the economy and prosperity will improve. When it does, you want to be sure that your products are top-of-mind and something for which your prospects have a yearning. Give them something to need.

They still need to buy things ... make sure they are your things

2011-06-27T07:30:00.003-06:00

Over on Profy.com, back in 2008, Svetlana Gladkova wrote “Are We Sure About Pending Collapse of Ad-Supported Internet?”

Svetlana wrote a great story about the impacts of the depression on companies and how they responded to it. Svetlana found that advertising remained a relatively healthy industry through the depression. Why? Given the very bad economy, why would companies continue to advertise?

Simple answer really when you think about it. People still need things. Those things may be pretty basic. Those things need to be really cheap. Those things must be the things you are selling.

The first thing to keep in mind is that people will not stop buying products that are essential to them. True, people will hardly buy luxury products when they need to make decisions on what is really important and what they could live without given limited resources. But that does not mean people will not buy anything at all - it simply means the focus will change for them. So the first conclusion is that we will obviously see less luxury brands advertised. But it does not mean that manufacturers of those essential products will stop advertising as well. What’s more, they will have to compete with each other for those scarce money people will have in their disposal.

What’s more, in a bad environment consumers will be actively looking for better deals to spend those scarce money wisely. And if a company can offer a better deal to a consumer, it should advertise this opportunity because if no one knows you have something better to offer when compared to your competitor, how will you manage to make consumers make a choice in favor of your product.

So ... Lesson #3 from the Depression is ... be a value-product and make sure your target market knows about your value through clear and concise advertising.

The dirty 30s and advertising your way through 2011+

2011-06-24T07:30:00.017-06:00

Back in April 2008, Russell Johnston wrote a great article on "Marketing". The article - Opportunity Knocks - tells a great story about the horrors of the Great Depression, and the actions of advertisers.

At its worst point, in 1933, more than one in four Canadians was out of work and the average farm income dropped to less than half its peak from the 1920s.

... radio experienced phenomenal growth despite the hard economic times. From 1928 to 1933-the year before the crash to the depth of the Depression-the number of licensed sets in Canada almost tripled to 763,000. ... the actual number of sets might have been closer to one million ... Radio offered one winning advantage during the depression: once a set was purchased, the programs were free. If you could build a crystal radio, the sets themselves were free.

... the trick of radio advertising lay not in the medium itself but in the careful pairing of product with program.

Fast forward a few years (okay about 80 years), and here we are with more new media in our hands. The web is getting old, and it is being quickly eclipsed by the small-screen (a.k.a. the third screen) mobile browsing. Is this the radio of our generation? It's a great place to be (and generally pretty cheap) in this economic time. There is also plenty of opportunity to pair with a product with a "program" - also known as an "app".

Lesson #2 from the Great Depression - Look for opportunities and be relevant.

How to advertise in 2011, based on lessons from the Great Depression – Public Relations

2011-06-23T07:30:00.025-06:00

To understand the Great Depression and how it affected people, it is important to understand some of the psyche at the time. Travis Scott Luther, President of Luther Media wrote a really good piece a few years ago which described the economic climate:

During the Great Depression of the 1930’s, a backlash against corporate America gained more traction than the bull of the 20’s market ever had. Citizens displaced and bankrupted by the financial fallout of the markets came to call on government for strict regulation and oversight. …

Understanding the increased challenges they faced in earning not only the populations’ business, but their trust, corporations were forced to find ways to bridge the widening gap between themselves and the consumers they so desperately needed to continue to operate. Deconstructing a world-view of large corporations as anti-person, evil teeth gnashing machines grew a new industry usually retained by government, “public relations.” One PR man told Standard Oil Company it would have to alter fundamentally the way it explained itself, saying “Identify yourself not with bondholders,…Wall Street, but with labor, with Americans.”

Public Relations is an element of marketing which is used to build relationships with customers, employees, investors, and other stakeholders. Public Relations may be called corporate communications, media relations, investor relations, or community investment.

Community Investment is perhaps the most visible form of Public Relations. This includes financial sponsorship or active involvement in community programs.This typically works best when it is closely aligned with the corporation’s target market and their interests.

For instance – McDonald’s Restaurants involvement with the Ronald McDonald House has very close alignment with their target market (families) and their interests (their kid’s health).

Lesson #1 from the Great Depression … Public Relations is important.

Where's the economy going ... and what can you do about it

2011-06-21T07:30:00.006-06:00

The current noise is that the economy is teetering on disaster once more.

What is the best marketing strategy when the economy is in the dumps? Cut back? Well, yes, in some areas of your business you should cut costs to the bare bones. But, history of “tough times” has shown that companies that invest in marketing and selling value will come out the other end of an economic slump as the champions.

I'll see what I can dig up as evidence over the next few days.

Ask the question

2011-06-19T22:16:00.000-06:00

Are you a sales person? Do you spend your days in front of customers?

Next time you meet with a prospective customer, check out how much you talk versus how much you let them talk. Then decide if you are a Sales Professional or an order taker.

More than anything, your prospective customer wants to be heard. They want you to ask them questions that will help them describe the problems they are facing. They want to tell you how badly they need your help. They want to tell you their dreams and visions.

If you are an order taker, you can wait for nothing more than the chance to tell the customer all about what you are selling. You want and need to talk. You don't ask questions. You talk.

As a Sales Professional, your job is to ask the questions that will help the prospective customer tell you what they need. The who, what, when, where, why, and how questions from many angles are the ones that make the difference. Then when they are really done telling you what they need (and only then), you get the opportunity to describe how your solution will help the prospective customer see a clear and easy path to achieving that state.

Are you a sales person? Do you want to be an order taker or a Sales Professional. It is in your hands.

Bing's not cutting it

2010-05-11T07:30:00.001-06:00

When Microsoft rolled out Bing they were intending to beat up Google. Unfortunately (for Bing) that's just not happening. When it launched, Bing enjoyed an uptick on the search-o-meter. It stole share from Yahoo!. Google marched on.

Now, Google is marching up.

MarketingProfs.com reported (through Experian Hitwise) that Google's market share actually GREW in April. At the same time, Microsoft's fell. Oh, Yahoo!'s fell too. And, if you're asking (which you probably aren't), Ask.com's share also fell (dramatically). Have a look at the results on MarketingProfs.com.

What a dilemma

2010-05-10T07:30:00.001-06:00

MarketingProfs.com reports that Consumers Prefer Verizon Service, but want an iPhone). It sounds like there should be an opportunity there. Customers who have switched over to Verizon were happy to pick up a Google Android phone back in December.

Project Management is – fundamentally – a simple process

2010-05-07T07:30:00.002-06:00

You simply:

Define what you want to accomplish
Determine how you are going to accomplish that, who will help, and how long each of those tasks will take
Do it
Enjoy the results.

Unfortunately, it isn’t that easy. It is complicated by people.

Personalities,
Overly optimistic and pessimistic estimates, and
CYA plays.

For marketing projects involving technology it is further complicated by people. The technology may be a billing system enhancement, an interactive web-based ad, or a new product. One way or another you are pitting your red/yellow/green hat marketing personalities (energetic, creative, emotional, positive) against your black/white hat technology personalities (critical and facts).

The way through this is to use a defined project methodology that enables the Marketing people to generate creative solutions and to know when they will be able to actaully use them, and the IT people to know what they need to do, and how to deliver it. That methodology might look something like the following:

The beginning of the end for Buick

2010-05-06T07:30:00.002-06:00

Months ago I blogged about the lunacy of GM killing off the Pontiac brand. Pontiac is (was, or more appropriately, should have been) a fun, sporty, and slightly upscale (from Chevy) brand that would appeal to a younger car buyer.

News comes now that GM is setting up to roll out a Buick (which, with its average age of buyer at nearly dead (a.k.a. 65)), which is smaller and targetted at younger buyers. What's a younger buyer in that model? 64? 60? Holy moly ... they mean someone who is 30ish and still has a pulse. Perhaps, someone who would have bought a PONTIAC. ARGGGHHHHHHhhhhhhhhh. Now GM is setting out to dumb down the Buick brand in order to make it appeal to a group of people to whom it won't appeal.

But wait, there's more. They are planning on basing a new Buick on the Chevy Aveo. Don't they remember what happened when they based a Cadillac on a Chevy Citation?

Read more about this fancy new Buick (please read with thick sarcasm) on CBC.ca.
Remember the Cadillac Cimarron at any of a million sites or so out there reminding each of us to never, ever make the same mistake that GM is about to make AGAIN. If you don't believe me, then check in with TIME, who classified the Cadillac Cimarron as one of the 5o worst cars of all time.

I got a free coffee

2010-05-05T07:30:00.006-06:00

On Monday I was at Starbucks, and I was lucky to get a "long receipt". The long receipt has a section that invites you to participate in a customer satisfaction survey - which I did. The questions were really straight forward, including: what did you order, did you intend to buy some food, and did you buy some food, was the place clean, was the service good, and so on.

The survey only takes about five minutes (as promised by the Barista). The best part is that I got a free coffee out of the deal. Great pay off for five minutes of work.

I did find it interesting that when I 'Google'd "Starbucks Customer Service Survey" I didn't come across very much about this survey. You'd think that there'd be lots of Marketing people out there blogging their heads off about this. The only story I found out there about this specific survey is a write-up by Biff Motley that shows up on several different pages.

I did find one very interesting piece of information about Starbucks customers. Did you know that chocolate and vanilla ice cream lovers are more likely to visit a coffeehouse (such as Starbucks) on a regular basis. I do love chocolate, and I do my fair share of spending at Starbucks. Their research is accurate.

How does Formula 1 sustain itself?

2010-05-04T07:30:00.000-06:00

Formula 1 racing - something I find oddly very fun to watch and follow - is probably the most expensive sporting activities anywhere. When one considers the costs to run a team, to develop a car, to pay for drivers, to build and operate a facility, to take the circus all over the world, and so on, the cost is staggering. I wonder what it is? Anyone, anyone?

Sure, the facilities, series, cars, drivers' overalls, drivers' helmets, and so on are all splashed with sponsors logos. But, what is the return on investment to those sponsors. Does it matter to me in Canada that Santandar (a bank) and Vodafone (a mobile phone company) sponsor the events and drivers? I'm sure not running out to open a Santandar account ... among other reasons ... because I CAN'T. They don't do business in my neck of the woods. This is a waste of their advertising budgets.

Would these sponsors be better off to invest more locally in their own communities?

Community Investment
Local & targetted advertising
Personalized relationship management with their current customers

Of course, this sponsorship game is one that is repeated in NASCAR, football (soccer), golf and many other professional sports.

I like Banned Ads

2010-05-03T10:29:00.002-06:00

Why?
Well, because most of them are really funny, and I'm sure most of them were intended to be banned. They are typically off-color to the point where they wouldn't make it on TV. These quickly become viral. Good examples...

Now THIS will make it harder for tobacco companies to brand their products

2010-04-30T07:30:00.000-06:00

(Thankfully)

Australia is introducing legislation that will remove all branding from cigarette packages. So, the only thing they will be able to compete on is the best picture of lung cancer on the box. I can see the conversation at the cash register:

Customer: Can I get a pack with lung cancer on it
Sales Clerk: Sorry sir, we're all out of lung cancer. What about gum cancer? I have 96 packs of gum cancer left.

Read the story on CBC.ca.

Marketing isn't Advertising

2010-04-28T07:30:00.002-06:00

Marketing is often confused for Advertising.

Advertising is a sub-set of Marketing.

Marketing is a broader discipline that covers:

Brand - What does your company stand for?
Product / Service - What are you doing to live up to the Brand?
Communications - How do you engage in a conversation with your customers?
Pricing - What is the right revenue management model to drive sales?
Place - Where and how do you sell and service your product?
Target Market - Who is your 'tribe' and where do you find them?

Just a part of the equation.

How much advertising $ is enough?

2010-04-27T16:25:00.002-06:00

I recently read a very open-ended question that was posted on a forum. It was simply "How much should I spend on advertising?" That's a good question. But, you can only answer the question in the context of:

What are your advertising goals?
Who is your target market?
Where is your target market?
How do you enter the conversation with your market?

Is the answer multi-millions, and you are spending like crazy to promote new software (e.g. the Windows XP roll-out a few years back, or the Microsoft Bing roll-out of late), or is the answer almost nothing, and you build through word-of-mouth (e.g. Apple's iPad).

You can't know how much you need to spend until you set your goals, build a strategy and a plan.

The next big question, is what is your return on advertising spend? Advertising should be an investment, not a cost.

Responding to Social Media Buzz - Step #5 ==> Craft meaningful responses

2009-09-15T07:30:00.000-06:00

What is a meaningful response? A meaningful response:

Lets the person know they’ve been heard
Let’s the person know who you are and that you represent the company
Thanks the person for their feedback
May ask for additional information (perhaps in a phone call)
May attempt to offer an explanation and an apology

(The rest of this section refers to “blogs”, but that applies equally to vlogs, tweets, reviews, and so on. Whatever the Social Media is, you should respond to the Social Media using that Social Media. If the original contributor creates a video about you, then you should respond with a video.)

Here’s how you do it:

REALLY read the blog … Seek first to understand what is being written about you.
Keep your emotions out of your response ... Count to 10. Personal criticism – or in this case, criticism of the business you are standing in front of - is too easy to take to heart, and difficult to really listen to and understand. Put down your shields and defenses. Stay objective. Focus on the content, and get prepared to listen and enter into a productive conversation.
Seek first to really understand ... Perhaps your first response should include a variety of non-confrontational questions like: "Can you give me more details …”. Additionally, it should make use of appropriate Active Listening techniques such as restating key points, and asking permission to resolve the situation. Through asking and listening you should attain concrete and constructive details.
Accept the criticism ... No matter what, the criticism is somone's feelings - right or wrong - of your company’s performance. No matter whether you agree or disagree with the criticism, it is time to accept it, and get ready to respond. By letting go of your own resistance and resentment and becoming at ease with criticism and disapproval it is easier to learn lessons and comfortably assert your own perceptions.
Thank the person for the feedback ... This has a triple impact with your critic: (1) the critic hears that you heard them, (2) the critic's perspective of you is raised, and (3) it gives you an opportunity to "count to 10" again, and set up your questions.
Have a discussion about the issues ... Check your "Lecturer" hat at the door, and engage your critic in a conversation. Ask, listen, chat, discuss, with a focus on open-ended questions. Listen carefully to see if you can understand the problem, and then seek a solution together.

Responding to Social Media Buzz - Step #4 ==> Determine if you should engage

2009-09-14T07:30:00.003-06:00

Image by fredcavazza via Flickr

You’re out there watching for Social Media Buzz about your company now, and you start to find content. Now it’s time to determine if you should engage with Twits, Bloggers, Vloggers, and so forth.

On average, each blog post is looked at something like 25 times. Now, that makes for a pretty big cross-section as most blogs are looked at once or twice (and one of those may be the person who wrote it), and some are looked at hundreds of thousands or even millions of times.

One of your first questions might be, “Is this guy important?” There are few ways to really determine if any one Social Media activist is important in the overall scheme of things. One proxy to determine if a person’s blog is important is Technorati.com’s “Authority” ranking. Technorati calculates authority by looking at all links from unique blogs from the past 6 months. That means a blog’s rank will change daily based upon the blog's activity from 180 days ago up to today. As older links fall off the count and new links are added, the blog’s link count may increase, decrease, or stay the same.

Perhaps a good rule-of-thumb is to not spend your time trying to determine a given post’s or poster’s importance, but simply to spend your time engaging with them.

What about Social Media that is filled with profanity or cursing? When customers are unhappy they may tend to write with words that would make your mother blush. The challenge is to figure out if it is worth paying attention to this type of feedback. One way to do this is to take some time to engrain yourself in the other content from the contributor. Do the words that were used spill from bad habit (and consequently reduce the credibility of the contributor), or do they come from the passion or pain of the experience with your company? In the latter case, you really should respond. However, you need to tread cautiously.

Another good rule-of-thumb when experiencing Social Media is to pretend you’re experiencing a customer walking up to you and complaining about their experience with your company. If the person is using the F-bomb as an adjective, adverb, and a figure of speech, then you probably don’t want to engage with that person. On the other hand, if they are using it out of frustration, then you may quickly recognize the need to grit your teeth and engage in the conversation with them.

Responding to Social Media Buzz - Step #3 ==> Build out your Tactics

2009-09-11T07:30:00.001-06:00

Now’s the time to get into the nitty-gritty of how you’re going to respond to Social Media Buzz. There are several points to consider.

Brand your blog responses ... Your blog responses must reflect your brand, and must be from your brand. You must never masquerade as a third-party trying to shout the praises of your company. You must always be up front about who you are, and that you represent your company. But, you may not be the person who is actually responding to the Social Media. So, before you even write your first Social Media post, write up a description of the "persona" - the person and his or her personality and "voice" - that you want to respond to Social Media. For instance, if you are responding for a stodgy old bank, then your perona should use a greeting like "Good Afternoon", and always use full and proper grammar. On the other hand, if you are a mountain bike company, your persona should use all the right slang: "Hey dude", "shred", and so on. Everyone that is going to respond to Social Media Buzz must present this branded persona.
Set a standard and branded greeting ... like “Hi There – It’s from ”. In addition, you might hyperlink your company’s website into the name each time.
Define the name of your responder ... You have a choice to make here: for the sake of consistency, you may want to use the same "virtual responder" so that all of your responses have the same pen-name on them. The advantage of this is twofold – first off it is easy to search for and find your Social Media responses. Secondly, if over the years you end up with 3-4 people responding to Social Media, they can all respond under the persona's name like "Thanks, Ivy". On the other hand, you may want to use the names of the actual responder. The upside of this is that it is more personal.
Find the Social Media Buzz … Blogs, Vlogs, comments, reviews, and so on - using Technorati, Google Blog Search, IceRocket, and other suitable searches and feeds. Set yourself up searches and RSS feeds so that it is easy to find Social Media Buzz in the future.
Set up accounts … Each social media service typically has a defined account. By using an account, rather than an anonymous response you build a history on each social media service and also build credibility with people who follow Social Media.
Staff and train your team … Assuming you get a team. Otherwise, perhaps you are training yourself.
Join the conversation … Now you’re ready to get involved with social media. Search out good and bad feedback about your company, and get ready to interact with it.

Responding to Social Media Buzz - Step #2 ==> Set out your Strategy

2009-09-10T07:30:00.000-06:00

Setting your strategy is an iterative process, which goes something like this:

Listen to the conversation ... Before you jump in with both feet, find and read Social Media about your company and get an understanding of what those conversations are all about. Determine what the buzz is, and how much you need to be involved with it.
Set some goals ... This is a tough thing to do, given that the metrics on Social Media are few and far between and it is even harder to see an immediate positive benefit to any responses. This is also the time and place to start doing one of the toughest things … drafting your business case. Take a look at the benefits and consider how you’re going to make or save money by responding to Social Media Buzz. Be cognizant that benefits will not magically happen overnight. They will take time to be realized, and consequently you should stage your benefit calculations over several months or years. Also, be careful not to overstate the potential benefits and costs savings. If you state that you will be able to cut your advertising budget by 50% as a result of improved Social Media Buzz, then your CFO will come calling in short order. In reality your benefits have to outweigh your costs only by a reasonable amount. Potential benefits might include:

increasing positive buzz about your company (thereby driving up the value of your brand, allowing you to reduce advertising costs, and at the same time driving sales up),
reducing negative buzz about your company (reducing the amount of time you need to spend defending yourself in the media, and the amount of cash you have to spend on PR),
increasing your Organic Search Ranking by propagating relevant links to your own website (and thereby both driving more traffic to your site (hopefully leading to more sales), and saving advertising dollars), and
operational improvements driven by keeping your ear to the ground (improving the engagement and brand loyalty of your customers, reducing advertising costs, and improving the utility of your product or service (which likely has a self-fulfilling effect of bringing more customers to your door)).

Plan for success ... You will need to give Social Media care and feeding - Social Media isn't something you should step into once and back away from. You have to get into and stay in it. That means that once you determine how you will respond to good and bad social media and you will need to set aside time on a regular basis to participate in Social Media. You may even need to have staff in place to keep up with it. Even more, you may need to involve professionals to help you engage in social media. This is the time to draft up the second part of your business case. Now you will start to develop an eye for how much meeting your goals will cost. How many people will need to be involved in listening and responding to buzz? How often will you do it? How often will you need third parties? Be careful not to dig too far into too many details at this point. Focus on the “why” and not the “how”. You probably want to keep your plan to a few PowerPoint slides featuring big concepts, a couple of examples, and your high-level business case. Also, you might want a short-term and a long-term plan. Your short-term plan will look at the immediate future of Responding to Social Media Buzz. This may be a 6-month plan to staff up a team, create a library of responses, and so on. The outcome will be that you are in the game of Social Media. The longer-term plans may include how you may become involved in other types of social media, in creating your own company blog, or in creating your own customer forum. Put your short-term plan on the table. Keep your long-term plan in your back pocket.

Now for the final - and perhaps most complicated step, because it forms your "make or break moment" ...

Sell the idea ... responding to Social Media as a representative of your company and brand can test your company's culture and its leadership. Before you do the “big sell”, you will need work the slow and soft sell to a variety of individual executives and your peers to ensure that you understand and are cautious of their concerns, and that they understand what you are setting out to do. To do this well means that you must not be married to your plan. You need to listen to the executives and adjust your goals and plan accordingly.

The Definitive Guide to Responding to Buzz in Social Media - #1 Commit Yourself

2009-09-09T07:30:00.000-06:00

I've taken a few weeks away from blogging, but now I'm back into it and ready to write "The Definitive Guide to Responding to Buzz in Social Media". This guide comes from several pieces of research that I was doing back in the summer which looked at the best ways to respond to criticism in other fields. Taking that, and some of my own experience in responding to social media, I will be posting an 11-part guide which will give you the tools you need to respond to both good and bad buzz in social media. Join me now as we begin the journey...

#1 == Commit Yourself
As a BIG first step you must commit to responding to social media. To do that is a process in and of itself. But, first off you have to really decide that responding to social media is an important thing to do. You need to believe it deep down in your gut, and you need to be able to make others believe it as well.

To commit yourself means that you have to plan and execute actions that are really the next 10 steps in the responding process, which are ...

#2 ==> Set out your Strategy
#3 ==> Build out your Tactics
#4 ==> Determine if you should engage
#5 ==> Craft meaningful responses
#6 ==> Reply based on the context
#7 ==> Follow some basic etiquette
#8 ==> Enlist your critic's help
#9 ==> Create a response template library
#10 ==> Bring in a professional when you need it
#11 ==> Get metrics

Join me on the journey to Social Media Response happiness over the next couple of weeks. I'm looking forward to it.

Finding Buzz about you on the web

2009-08-03T07:30:00.002-06:00

You've decided that you want to track and respond to social media - blogs and reviews - and you're getting things lined up to make that happen. Excellent.

Now, how do you find it?

There are (at least) four places you can go to start your search.

With each of these tools you can set up your search with your company's name (or even your competitor's name ... but I don't generally recommend responding to posts about them). Then you can set up an RSS feed so that you can easily watch for updates out there in the blogosphere.

Also - while the tools are always being updated, they may not do a very good job (if at all) of hitting social networks like MySpace or FaceBook. So you may need to search those separately. On top of that you may want to look for other feeds that are industry specific. For instance, if you are in the travel or tourism industry, you likely want to do a search of TripAdvisor.com.

Interestingly, each of these tools may bring you different results. So, you may want to start by using them all and then pare back to the few that seem to work best for you.

Finally - you may wonder if a given blog is worth responding to. One way to know is to look at the "authority" of the blogger. To determine this, head over to Technorati. They calculate authority by looking at all links from unique blogs from the past 6 months. That means your rank will change daily based upon your blog's activity for a rolling 180 days. The higher the authority, the more people probably look at the blog, and the more likely that the blog is worth responding to. However, just because a blog doesn't have high authority doesn't mean you should ignore it. It can always become the mouse that roared.

Bad Buzz - Handling personal criticism in an evaluation

2009-07-30T07:30:00.008-06:00

In the search for "How to respond to bad social media buzz", I've touched on comparisons to Responding to a bad report card, and Handling a heckler. Today I'll look at another touchy point that has some similarities - Handling personal criticism in an evaluation.

My sources today included:

EzineArticles.com, Five Steps For Handling Personal Criticism by Olimpio Zapanta,
FashionSenseClub, Personal Image Services, Responding to Personal Criticism, and
LifeHack.org, Handling Criticism: 6 Options to Get Through It by Thursday Bram.

Handling Personal Criticism in an Evaluation
One of the most stressful moments in anyone's life is the dreaded Annual Evaluation. We're all familiar with this drama where your boss & critic spends a half-hour filling out a report about you and then invites you into a private meeting where they terrorize you with their impression of your performance. Okay - so hopefully it isn't actually that way, but it would be hard to deny that it always feels like it is going to be that way.

No matter what, there will likely be some criticism of you in that Annual Evaluation. Criticism can either be helpful and constructive feedback which will lead to a performance improvement or help you climb to the next level, or it can be mean-spirited and destructive which will lead to a reduction in your motivation and performance.

Whether you think you deserve the criticism or not, here's how to deal with it:

Keep your emotions out of it ... Count to 10. Personal criticism is too easy to take to heart, and difficult to get into your head. When you are criticized, it is much easier to get defensive than to stay objective. But, getting emotional or defensive when hearing criticism tends to draw things out, give power to the critic, and eliminate your opportunity to improve and grow. So, when your boss criticizes you, "count to 10", focus on the content, and get prepared to listen and enter into a productive conversation.
Thank the person for the feedback. This has a triple impact with your boss: (1) the critic hears that you heard them, (2) the critic's perspective of you is raised, and (3) it gives you an opportunity to "count to 10" again, and set up your questions.
Seek first to understand. That's one of the Steven Covey "habits". Quite simply it means that you need to ask questions, and get your boss & critic talking - regardless of any feelings you may have that the criticism is inaccurate or unfair. Questions like: "Can you give me an example of ...?" or "What makes my work unsatisfactory?" are good starters. When your critic is answering, be sure you engage with your critic through Active Listening techniques such as good eye contact, an engaged posture, allowing the critic time and space to talk, restating key points, and non-confrontational questions. Through asking and listening you should attain concrete and constructive details. If you haven't already got it, you may even want to ask for the criticism in writing, or for your official evaluation to be amended. You might even write the criticism down yourself, and ask your boss to confirm it. One clear advantage of this is that it gives you a written and mutually agreeable foundation from which to begin improvement.
Accept the criticism. No matter what, the criticism is somone's feelings - right or wrong - of you and your performance. No matter whether you agree or disagree with the criticism, it is time to accept it, and get ready to respond. By letting go of your own resistance and resentment and becoming at ease with criticism and disapproval it is easier to learn lessons and comfortably assert your own perceptions.
Deal with it. After counting to 10, listening, and accepting, it is time to deal with the criticism from your boss. You have several choices to be made:

If you have made a mistake, admit it, apologize and move on. Among other things this lets your critic know you've heard them, and avoids a fight about the problem.
Give your side. Ask your critic if he or she is willing to hear your side of the situation, and if they are, say, "I see it differently" or "I remember it differently." Then tell your critic what you remember and how you feel. But, remember, don't become confrontational.
Reject. Some bosses spend their days dreaming up ways to criticize you. We're all programmed to do it. Think about the volume of block-buster and mean-spirited reality TV that's on-air, and you'll know what I mean. Consequently some criticism is unfounded, unacceptable and filled with negative energy. In this instance, your choice might be to reject the criticism. Speak up for yourself-- you'll feel better. Of course you might also find yourself out looking for a new job ...
Ignore or Divert. These are the good cousins to "Reject", and you may not find yourself looking for a new job right away. Simply ignore the criticism. Perhaps pretend you didn't hear it. Or, start with the topic they were beating you with, and then take the conversation to a new place. Either way, launch a new conversation where you're in control, not your boss. Of course, that behavior simply shows that you aren't really listening to your critic, and it may just show up on your next evaluation. The long-term impact is that you might find yourself looking for a new job ...
Resolve valid criticism. Take steps to improve by setting a plan with the critic. This gives you an opportunity to ask for help through their support, extra training, other assignments, and so on.

Enlist your critic's help to monitor your progress. You need to actively change your behavior, and also to monitor your own progress as you work to act on criticism and improve. However, it is also important to ask your critic (boss) to give you ongoing feedback (and to seek it out if they don't). Be sure to let your critic know that you want to change and improve, but that you nee their help and feedback to help you do it.

So, for fun and improvement, here's a comparison to my guidelines for responding to bad social media buzz:

Be careful - Absolutely. "Count to 10". Focus on the content, and get prepared to listen and enter into a productive conversation.
Contest fraudulent / wrong comments - This is a choice you can make during the conversation, and only after you have asked questions and understood what the criticixm is. At that point you can choose to tell your own side of the story.
Write a response - During a performance evaluation, you are typically engaged in a conversation. If you get into writing a response you've ratcheted things up a notch, and you should probably have a look at Monster or Workopolis while you're at it. However, the conversation of an evaluation should give you lots of time to ask questions and learn more about your opportunities to improve.
Fix the problem & upload a proof (like a picture) to prove the fix - This step is highly parallel to responding to bad social media buzz. In a job evaluation you should set a plan to fix the problem with your boss and ask your boss to provide you ongoing feedback about your progress.
Report findings back into the company - By involving your boss in your performance improvements your boss should be able to participate in and enjoy your success with you. Consequently your next evaluation should be half-written by the the time you get to it (and it should all be good).
Participation becomes content - As in the last point, when your boss participates in the improvements, it is a no-brainer that your performance appraisal will reflect the improvements.
Bring in a professional - This is aligned with ratcheting things up a notch and going to your HR department for help (if you can't get your boss to help you improve, and / or if the criticism is completely unfair. Alternatively, it may be aligned with getting additional training by taking a course.

To sum up, the model for dealing with personal criticism in an evaluation is very similar to the model for dealing with bad social media buzz.

Now that I've gone through all of this research over the last few days, I think that next week I'll update my guidelines and process for responding to bad social media buzz. Stay tuned ...

Bad Buzz - Yeah, I remember my first beer ...

2009-07-29T07:30:00.001-06:00

In the search for "How to respond to bad social media buzz", I found a number of comparisons to responding to other social circumstances. Yesterday I blogged about the comparison of Responding to a bad report card vs. Responding to bad social media buzz. Today I'm blogging about a similar comparison of Handling a hecker vs. Responding to bad social media buzz.

Today's title reflects a famous retort by Comedian Steve Martin who in response to a heckler threw back "Yeah, I remember my first beer."

Handling a Heckler
Today my sources are:

eHow.com by Blake Guthrie,
Toast Masters by Mary Ward Menke, and
Wikipedia, by a cast of thousands.

Hecklers heckle for a couple of reasons:

Some people may just want to participate with the performer, or
Some people want to to give them something to bounce off of and add humor to the show.
Of course, the third reason is that they just may be so dumb and drunk that they don't know what they are doing :^)

You have to be very careful about how you respond to a Heckler. Generally, there are three ways you can respond to a Heckler:

Ignore the interruption and continue,
Use humor, such as good-natured joking, typically to land a well-placed insult that embarasses them into being quiet, or
Ask them to behave or get out.

If you can't control the Heckler through these methods the Heckler can take control of your show, and ruin you!

If you choose to go the route of using humor, then it is critical that you:

Study some of the greats ... Steve Martin, Andy Kaufman, Jerry Seinfeld, Rodney Dangerfield, and so on. Watch for their responses, and timing.
Be aware of your timing. You can't be too slow, you can't be too fast. You have to allow an appropriate pause. You can't let it sit too long. Your response has to make it apparent that you have a sharp wit, and that the Heckler shouldn't re-arm and take a second shot at you. Your response should also not take over your show or presentation. It must be controlled. It must not be obsessive, but it should be really fun and also make other people think twice about heckling you.
Have a stash of great comebacks and know how to improvise on them to fit the situation so it seems like you just made it up. Don't copy the comedic greats. Perhaps borrow from them, but don't copy. Also, practice your delivery. But ensure you keep yourself crisp. Every comeback line must seem fresh and spontaneous

The final approach is to simply call the person out, tell them they are rude, and ask them to stop or leave the show. If they won't do either, call on a bouncer to bounce the Heckler the heck out of there.

In comparison to the guidelines for responding to bad social media buzz:

Be careful - Absolutely. Being careful is key, otherwise the Heckler will own you and your show. Same deal with social media. One badly placed response to a blogger, and you will live with your brand will be flogged on the web in perpetuity.
Contest fraudulent / wrong comments - This is clearly different. In responding to a Heckler you want a one-way conversation. On the web with Social Media, you are trying to engage in a conversation.
Write a response - While with the response to a Heckler you are trying to be inflammatory and make them stop talking, with the response to a Blogger you either want to engage them in a conversation or choose to ignore them. When you engage them your goal is probably to let them know you hear their problem and find a resolution that leaves them singing your praises. On the other hand, when I choose to ignore a Blogger it is typically because their blog is full of profanity or generally their credibility seems really low (that's a judgment call you have to make some times).
Fix the problem & upload a proof (like a picture) to prove the fix - Well - it is kind of the same. When you are responding to a Heckler you fix the problem by making them put a cork in it. Okay, really, the two approaches are not the same. When you fix the problem in a response to bad social media buzz, you need to actually solve the problem and provide proof in a Blog response that the problem is fixed. You may even fix it so well that you blog about the problem and the fix on your own corporate site!
Report findings back into the company - If you fix a Heckler, then the Heckler shuts up or leaves. When that happens it is important to make a mental note of how you did it. What you said, what your timing was, and what the audience's reaction was. Then repeat that in the future! Same sort of deal for responding to bad social media buzz. You should create a stock library of conversational responses that you can use to start your response to blogs. You will probably find a lot of similar social media buzz, and consequently you can customize and re-use responses that have already proved effective.
Participation becomes content - Ever so true! You only have to think about Steve Martin's "I remember when I had my first beer," Rodney Dangerfield's "Hey buddy you oughta save your breath. You'll need it later to blow up your inflatable date, no offense, " or Jerry Seinfeld actually visiting a Heckler at work.
Bring in a professional - This is parallel to joining Toastmasters or going to a stand-up comedian course to help you learn how to respond.

So, there we go, the model for dealing with a Heckler is somewhat similar to the model for dealing with bad social media buzz.

By the way, the Wikipedia entry is great because it lists 30 or more famous heckling responses - including the Steve Martin quote.

Bad Buzz - Aye carumba ... my kid's report card was awful!

2009-07-28T07:30:00.003-06:00

In the search for "How to respond to bad social media buzz", I found a number of comparisons to responding to other social circumstances. If you consider a "social circumstance" an open conversation between people, and if it involves bad buzz then the circumstances are "just right".

Similar bad social media buzz situations may include:

Responding to a bad report card,
Handling a heckler, and
Handling personal criticism in an evaluation.

Today I'll start with the "bad report card" scenario, and compare that back to the guidelines for how to respond to bad social media buzz. Over the next couple of days I'll also look at the heckler and the evaluation.

Responding to a bad report card
I'm a happy guy ... I haven't had this situation with my kids yet. Looking around on Google I found three good sites right away:

To paraphrase the three articles, here's what they say to do when you do run into the bad report card:

Keep your response in check. Your first reactions to the report card - whether good or bad will have a major impact. If you see a bad grade(s), take time to respond. "Count to 10", even up to a full 24 hours! Think about your goal and your child's needs and feelings.
Reevaluate your expectations. Maybe your child is actually fulfilling his potential with the grade he got. Maybe you know that there are reasons that your child got that grade (e.g. maybe you aren't helping him wiht his homework). Consider your child's natural strengths and weaknesses and not just your desired strengths and weaknesses before forming expectations.
Think about the things that matter most to you and your child. Likely that is learning and progress, and not the ugly grade on the paper. Concentrate on the learning process and ask questions, like "What did you learn (in science, math, art. etc.) this term? What did you enjoy? What was the easiest thing? What was the hardest thing? Why do you think you got this grade? What do you think you could have changed or done differently? What do you want to work on next time?"
Have a discussion about the issues. Check your "Lecturer" hat at the door, and engage your child in a conversation. Ask, listen, chat, discuss. Again - more open-ended questions like: "Are you having problems with the subject matter? How do you get along with your teacher? How do you get along with your classmates? What are your tests like? How do you think you could do better at them?" Listen carefully to see if you can understand the problem, and then seek a solution together.
Meet with the teacher - ideally in person, and ideally with your child along for the conversation. Stay objective in this conversation, and keep your emotions in check. Discuss what the teacher views as the problem and compare this with what your child views as the problem. Ensure you have a meeting of the minds on the reasons for the bad grades. You might even ask the teacher to provide you with updates on how your child is doing in order to help everyone evaluate progress and avoid future surprises.
Solve the problem. Set a plan, based on your child's input, his teacher's input, and your input. Ensure your child is doing the work and homework he is supposed to do (and help him schedule & do it), adjust your expectations, hire a tutor or get extra help from the teacher. Also, get feedback regularly from your child and from his teacher.
Discuss and consider natural or logical consequences. The natural consequence of not having good grades is ... bad grades. While a parent may be tempted to remove important things from a child's life - such as activities, toys, and so forth in order to "punish" the child, or "encourage him" to work harder, these consequences are not directly tied to bad grades. The best natural consequence is likely to set aside time each day where your child site down and do & review their homework each night. Sometimes this may mean cutting back on activities and play time.
"Start Anew". Wipe the slate clean, with your new expectations and goals - and more importantly your child's goals. Focus on your child's positive personality traits that you know will carry them well into the future. Boost your child's confidence by telling them that they can do it and then help them achieve it.

In comparison to the guidelines for responding to bad social media buzz:

Be careful - That's the "Count to 10" step.
Contest fraudulent / wrong comments - That's part of the "Have a conversation" step. You may need to ask some questions in order to contest an inaccurate comment.
Write a response - Again, part of the conversation. Ask for more details if you need them, and even ask that the blogger contact your customer service department directly (you probably don't want to have a heated conversation in the open public domain of the internet, and you probably also don't want to give out your own contact information).
Fix the problem & upload a proof (like a picture) to prove the fix - That's the step related to "Solve the Problem".
Report findings back into the company - These are the "natural consequences". When you report back into the company, people get to hear real-life stories about your customer's experiences, and the fix that makes everyone happier. This will reinforce the fix
Participation becomes content - This correlates with your first reaction to the report card. Becoming a tempest in a teapot will only sour your child's image of you. Writing a bad blog response will sour your brand.
Bring in a professional - This is parallel to hiring a tutor to help you.

So, there we go, the model for dealing with a bad report card is similar to the model for dealing with bad social media buzz.

Responding to Buzz

2009-07-27T10:57:00.004-06:00

(I unintentionally took a week off. But, now I'm back.)

I didn't know I was doing it, but some time ago I did an experiment in responding to buzz (both good and bad) in social media - including blogs and reviews. At the time, I drew up a list of guidelines to use when responding. The experience was fun, and the results were very positive.

As part of my "series" on responding to buzz, I did some poking around to update my list of guidelines. My research took me through a wide variety of business sites, consultants, educational, and miscellaneous sites.

To summarize my findings ... Responding to social media buzz requires an honest, polite, actionable and timely approach.

In general ... you must:

Sell the idea ... Company culture will be tested - Determining that you are going to start responding to social media may test the culture of your company. Are the executives willing to let you respond to social media? Ensure you understand what you are setting out to do, and find a great way to sell that it needs to be done.
Join the conversation - Get involved with social media. Search out good and back feedback about your company.
Be responsive - Respond. Participate. Do something.
Be honest - Make sure you tell the truth in your responses. If you say you are going to do something to research and follow-up on the post ... DO IT.
Be timely - Find and respond to blogs and reviews quickly.
Be human - Don't respond with legalese, process documents, and gobbledygook. Respond as if you are part of a conversation.
Acknowledge Consumer’s experience - If the consumer says something happened. Believe it. Good, bad, or otherwise. Let the consumer know you believe it.
Do not offer a bribe (e.g. a gift certificate for their post) - Keep things open and honest. You must not "pay" for a post either in advance or afterwards, regardless of it being good, bad, or otherwise.
Give Social Media care and feeding - Social Media isn't something you should step into once and back away from. You have to get into and stay in it. That means that once you determine how you will respond to good and bad social media, you will need to set aside time on a regular basis to participate in Social Media. You may even need to have staff in place to keep up with it.

When dealing with positive feedback, the additional guidelines are pretty short and sweet ...

Thank the blogger for the positive feedback - Say thanks. Keep it short. Reference your website with an actual link, and ideally deep-link to a page on your site that is relevant to the blogger's post.
Remember that the blog or review belongs to the blogger - The blog isn't yours. Don't resort to using it as your advertising forum. Say thanks, reference your site, and get off the blog.

Now, for the tough stuff. Dealing with bad reviews in social media provides you with a make or break opportunity to build many new brand champions, or create many instant enemies. Good luck to you. Here's a short list of guidelines.

Be careful - Be really careful about what you are wading into when you start firing responses out onto the internet. Escalation and communication expands rapidly online. Especially when your response ends up making you look stupid.
Contest fraudulent / wrong comments ... If you have proof of inaccuracy - I heard of a hotel chain who had their pool lambasted on TripAdivsor.com, with a picture of a hotel pool full of slime. This was a surprise for the hotel chain, since they didn't have a hotel pool at that destination. So they were able to easily contest the review, and TripAdvisor removed it.
Write a response - Let the blogger know that they've been heard. Acknowledge their feelings. Let the blogger know what action you are going to take (and really take it).
Fix the problem & upload a proof (like a picture) to prove the fix - Imagine that it was really your hotel whose pool caused a wave for a customer. Your response should be to explain the problem, explain what the fix is, and describe that it's all better now (e.g. Our most humble apology ... Our pool filter was broken ... We fixed it as soon as we got the new part ... It looks great now and the water is crystal clear.)
Report findings back into the company - Don't stop at your discussion with the blogger. Ensure you have the ear of your company through a well-placed executive who can help to take action in order to eliminate problems in the future.
Participation becomes content - Remember, that whatever you write becomes part of the fabric of the web. It will start to show up in searches all over the place. You want to be sure that your content reflects your brand for the long-term.
Bring in a professional - If responding makes you uncomfortable, or if the bad review is a really hot topic, then you should bring in someone who can handle it for you. Google it, and you can find lots of people who can help like Hill & Knowlton.

Finally, one thing you can be sure of is that someone on your Executive will demand metrics. Social Media Metrics are very hard to produce. Even if you can find some that satisfy a VP or an EVP at a point in time, that snapshot will likely not demonstrate full benefits of Social Media. On top of that, at the point where you manage to alleviate negative buzz with great, honest, polite, actionable and timely responses, the metrics won't ever reflect this.

Go and be social!

By the way, in the next few days I'll give you some hints on how to find social media buzz. Check back often ;^)

Responding to Bad Buzz

2009-07-16T07:30:00.003-06:00

Following along on my train of thought about "Buzz", and considering the United Airlines fiasco that Sons of Maxwell have unleashed, today I want to start thinking about what to do when you find you are facing "bad buzz". That is to say, if your product or service breaks, you don't recover well, and a customer discovers that your story isn't true ... then they tell the world about it through a blog, YouTube, or any of the other plethora of internet based tools at their beck and call ... WHAT SHOULD YOU DO???

Over the next several days I'm going to bring together posts from diverse subjects about "responding" - from things like responding to your child's bad report card, to responding to a bad review of your writing. Along side those, I'll bring in blogs from Seth Godin and others. By the end, I hope to be able to publish a good set of guidelines about "How to respond to bad buzz online"

Buzzing about "Free Prize Inside"

2009-07-15T07:30:00.004-06:00

Cover of Free Prize Inside

More vacation reading ... and more buzzing.

I read Free Prize Inside by Seth Godin over my vacation as well. It was very, very, very good. The premise is that to be successful you need to build a product or service that people will talk about, and the only way to do that is to live on the "edge". You have to design something that is so far from normal that it is exciting.

My copy is now full of highlighting and I've gone back through it twice. I'm going back through it again for sure!

Great book, and I'm "buzzing"about it.

Buzzing about "All Marketers are Liars"

2009-07-14T07:30:00.003-06:00

Image via Wikipedia

While on vacation I read Seth Godin's All Marketers Are Liars. Now I'm going to
"buzz"about it.

The premise of the book is that Marketers must be in the business of telling honest stories about their products and services that their community will believe, embrace, and spread. In each separate case a marketer's community is a group of people who share a common worldview, perspective, or set of beliefs. If the community finds the marketer's story to be true then they will spread it amongst themselves and lead the marketer to be more successful.

There's a whole lot more to it, and Seth definitely does a great job of describing this theory. As a matter of fact, it seems to be a good companion to The Anatomy of Buzz: How to Create Word of Mouth Marketing by Emanuel Rosen.

In any event - I'm part of the community that shares the worldview that a Marketers role is to tell a great story.

Some buzz about a Lu'au

2009-07-13T07:30:00.000-06:00

Image by SparkyLeigh via Flickr

Still more "buzz" today from my vacation to Maui. (I am still enjoying "United Breaks Guitars")

Today I want to recommend a Lu'au. Yesterday I blogged about trying to find a good snorkeling trip in South Maui. We had the same challenge in booking a Lu'au. Well - we settled on the Drums of Makena Sunset Luau" at the Maui Prince Hotel. We booked it through Snorkel Bob's.

The Drums of Makena was a smaller Lu'au than others we've been to previously. But, this made it a more intimate and enjoyable evening. The food was great. The entertainment was great. Best of all, our kids didn't want to go home at the end of the evening.

There we go ... more buzz being sent through the Internet to you.

"United Breaks Guitars" nears 2.5 MILLION views

2009-07-12T20:35:00.003-06:00

Sons of Maxwell via last.fm

Power to the people. Buzzing about the negative impact of a business' actions is proving to be very powerful against United Airline's bad customer service and the experience that Sons of Maxwell experienced. Tonight, about a week after Sons of Maxwell launched their ballad "United Breaks Guitars", their video is poised to break 2.5 million views.

Might as well watch it again!

More Buzz and Holiday Recommendations

2009-07-10T07:30:00.002-06:00

Image by J. Stephen Conn via Flickr

I'm still full of "buzz". However, as opposed to my buzz yesterday about "United Breaks Guitars", today I'm buzzing about some good times I had on my holiday to Maui.

My wife and I wanted to take our two young kids out snorkelling, but couldn't find a short "cruise"
to take. Then, when we were at a Lu'au my wife found a short snorkelling tour that leaves from the Maui Prince Hotel. Rather than a 5 hour excursion, the "Molikini Express" is a 15 minute boat ride over to Molikini. After a good long snorkel there, they bring you on a short 10 minute boat ride back over to "turtle town". From there you could pretty much swim back to the shore (except that all your stuff is still on the boat). so, from there, you jump back on the big catamaran and it is a simple 5 minute ride back to the beach. My kids had a great time - snorkling with the fish and the turtles, eating, and not getting sea sick.

The Molikini Express features a big catamaran (the Kai Kanani), and a great (friendly, helpful, and funny) staff. You can book them at 808-879-7218 or www.KaiKanani.com.

Buzzing more about "United Breaks Guitars"

2009-07-09T20:20:00.001-06:00

Image via CrunchBase

Yesterday when I first heard about this story, the "United Breaks Guitars" video had been watched nearly 200,000 times. Sons of Maxwell had only published the video to YouTube two days earlier. Tonight there around 750,000 views!

Also - there are lots of comments like:

Like a SPinal Tap amp, your revenge goes up to 11. Amazing job sir - hats off to Sons of Maxwell. It is exactly this kind of systemic anti-customer culture that makes people dislike companies like United. Fire the baggage handlers and make every United employee view this video. Oh, and if they repeat their interest in this video for training purposes...SELL IT it them. Say, free airfare for life and first class seat for your guitar. Brilliant vid!!!!!
damn! I could write a full Broadway musical and it still wouldn't cover all the crap I've taken from Air Canada over the years!
One of the best You Tube videos ever. Beautiful way to get back at the impersonal airline industry in general. United and the others badly need to get their act together and start delivering good customer service again.

(There are a lot of inflammatory and unnecessary comments as well - these are a few good ones that apply to United Airlines, and the airline industry in general.)

Buzz Works

2009-07-08T22:20:00.006-06:00

I'm fresh back from holidays. I have just finished reading a couple of great books, and am also about half-way through "The Anatomy of Buzz: How to Create Word of Mouth Marketing" by Emanuel Rosen. It is a good book, and I'll spend the next couple of days "buzzing" about a few experiences I had on my vacation.

To start with, I wanted to buzz about United Airlines. Maybe this is an "anti-buzz". It is amusing and ever so telling about their overall way of doing business. It also shows the power of a consumer with a good story in the internet age.

For some background, check out CBC.ca's coverage of the story - United Breaks Guitars. Then you might want to read more from Dave Carroll's own story on his own blog. Finally, you can't miss the actual protest song.

Web advertising builds brands ... and I believe it

2009-06-23T07:30:00.000-06:00

OPA study demonstrates Web advertising builds brands :: BtoB Magazine

A recent study by the Online Publishers Association (performed by comScore, and called “The Silent Click: Building Brands Online”, but not available until June 25) indicates that online advertising builds brands.

Now you might think ... "Hmmm, that's not too surprising. A study by the Online Publishers Association shows that there are deep benefits to online advertising." But, I believe it - and more than just from a potentially biased survey - but from real-life experience. At my last job I initiated online banner advertising, and advertising through behavior-based advertising networks. Not too surprisingly people who were exposed to our ads were exposed a lot (and for very little $$ relative to traditional media). The results? When ad recall was evaluated across media (TV, radio, newspaper, out-of-home, and online), the TV ads had the highest proven recall. But only a bit behind were our very simple and cheap banner ads. There was a huge space beteen those two media and the next (newspaper).

The lesson? Online media is a very important part of a branding effort, and must align tightly with all other media, including:

TV,
PR,
Radio,
Newspaper,
Out-of-home,
Etc..

PR is a very important ingredient to building brand value

2009-06-22T07:30:00.001-06:00

Research by Text 100 (a PR firm) called "Media Prominence: A Leading Indicator of Brand Value. How Effective Public Relations Contributes to Brand" shows that PR builds brand for complex products better than ads.

Key findings from the research were interesting:

"Media prominence accounted for 27 percent of differences between the brand values of Interbrand’s Best Global Brands.
"The relationship between media prominence and brand value depends on “product involvement” – i.e., the degree to which customers research a given product or solution prior to purchase. Media prominence was more associated with brand value for “high involvement”products compared to “low involvement” products. Advertising expenditures, however, were a leading indicator only for “low involvement” products, and accounted for very little brand value among “high involvement” products.
"Media prominence was a particularly important component of brand value for computer-related industries, such as software and hardware manufacturers, as well as computer and Internet service companies, accounting for 48 percent of differences between companies’ brand values.
"The results suggest that, in general, media prominence accounts for approximately one quarter of brand value, although this value is often higher for high-involvement brands, and particularly so in technology. This underscores the importance of managing and growing brand value through public relations efforts."

I wonder ... the results show that PR heavily influences brand perception, and this result was delivered by a PR company. Hmmm ... Okay, not that I really doubt it, but it is kind of humorous.

I believe that a key important point that needs to be made is that Public Relations is a critical type of communication that needs to be managed by a company as part of its overall media strategy.

Poorly Placed Advertising

2009-06-19T07:30:00.000-06:00

Just for fun ... from the good folks over at Trendhunter.com. It is time to sit back, relax, and enjoy some Poorly Placed Advertising.

Top 10 Internet-Advertising Websites - and other neat charts

2009-06-18T07:30:00.000-06:00

The team over at MarketingCharts.com continues to provide good information.

Top 10 Google Advertisers - April 2009
Top 10 Internet-Advertising Websites - May 2009
Top 10 Online Retailers by Conversion Rate - April 2009

and ... my favorite:
Best and Worst US Cities for Hair

Top Brands in 2008

2009-06-17T07:30:00.002-06:00

CoreBrands has released its 2008 ranking of brands. At the top are perennial favorites (with a couple of minor changes between 2008 and 2007):

Coca-Cola
Johnson & Johnson
Harley-Davidson
Hershey Foods
Campbell Soups

The listing makes for great reading.

Will the economic slump throughout 2008-2009 hurt any of the top 100 brands, or help others into the top 100? Watch for next year's release!

Viral Video Chart - Top 20 Viral Videos

2009-06-16T07:30:00.000-06:00

Want to have some fun wasting some time? You have to check out the latest top 20 viral videos, as compiled by Unruly Media.

Why waste any more time here ... check out today's Top 20.

Pricing vs. Social Networks: "We Boobed"

2009-06-15T07:30:00.001-06:00

It is all over the news and the blogosphere ... an interesting story about pricing and sizing. The gist of it is that British retailer Marks & Spencer was charge more for bigger bras. It makes sense ... more bra, more engineering, more costs, higher prices. Well, okay, it made sense to someone at M&S.

How did this play out? A group formed on Facebook called "Busts 4 Justice". Sign-ups for this group took off, and the publicity they garnered was overwhelming.
After embarassing itself with bad responses to the campaign, M&S reformed their pricing policy and kicked off a "We boobed" campaign (see creative below).
The, er, upside for M&S is that there sales have, er, bounced back substantially after all of the publicity.

This experience demonstrates three things:

Social Media is WAY powerful. Companies need to pay attention to it and respond to it quickly, with honesty and integrity.
Bad pricing is just bad business. Bad PR is worse.
You can win when you are up against the wall - if you are smart. Pick a good strategy, put some great advertising behind it, and go win.

Advertising Methodology (16) - Measurement

2009-06-12T07:30:00.000-06:00

Recalling the old adage of “you can’t manage what you don’t measure”, it is time to focus in on measurements.

Earlier in the Advertising Methodology the point was made that you have to plan and prepare to know what measurements you are going to make, and build tools to make those measurements.

Now that your campaign is in production, measurements are taken, taken again, taken again, taken again, and so on. But the purpose of taking measurements is not just to create pretty pie charts (but, hey, who doesn't like a pie chart). The purpose of taking measurements is to tune the campaign. This may reflect back on changing elements of the campaign plan – including the media, the concept, and the creative itself.

Ultimately, the campaign must achieve its desired results. If everything has been done right, then these results should equate to the goals that were set out at the beginning.

Advertising Methodology (15) - Media Buying

2009-06-11T07:30:00.000-06:00

After it is established that the campaign should work, media space is bought. This one small line represents a lot of work. The planning and buying should actually happen much earlier in the process. But, it is at this point in the plan that the rubber hits the road, and the media space must be there. It is also the point where, if the campaign development slips, negotiations will need to be pulled off with the publishers to save the campaign.

Make sure you have a good media planner and buyer that you can trust and treat as a strong ally, and who will negotiate with publishers and other media companies to your benefit.

Advertising Methodology (14) - Testing

2009-06-10T07:30:00.000-06:00

After building the creative, it is tested. Depending on the type of creative it may be subject to technical tests. For instance, if a web-site is built, it must be tested to ensure it meets typical technology norms such as functionality, security, performance, and so on. If the campaign is a pull-tab, it must be tested to ensure that you can’t see through it, modify it, or otherwise determine the game piece’s outcome. This test should be carried out by a test team that is separate from the development team.

The next step will be to test the ad in front of Stakeholders. Stakeholders may include employees and customers. Like a review of good art, the test at this point isn’t to see if the ad is funny or well-liked. The point is to ensure that the ad is:

On-brand, and
That the message is clear, actionable, and memorable.

Again, this test should be conducted by someone other than the team that built the campaign.

Just to reiterate (because it is really important) ... the point of testing isn't to see if people like the ad. A good point here is that it is well documented that advertising that is funny (i.e. well liked) isn't advertising that is easily recalled.

Advertising Methodology (13) - Preparing for Measurement

2009-06-09T07:30:00.001-06:00

While the Creative is being built, the Measurement tools also must be built. Measurements may come from a variety of sources including web statistics, sales statistics, customer surveys, and so on. This is the time to dig in, figure out how to measure the results, and build the methods and score-cards to catch the results.

Advertising Methodology (12) - The Creative Process

2009-06-08T07:30:00.000-06:00

From this point, the Advertising Campaign enters a Development Realm. The project takes on a distinct creative flare. The Creative Team looks to the strategy work done to date, and brings in previous campaigns and the brand standards to start building the campaign’s Concept.

The Concept will be vetted with the client. This is often a very passionate moment for the client and the Advertising Agency. If the Concept survives this trial at all it may be chewed up and spit out as a sad semblance of its former self. How do you avoid this trauma? There are two tasks that the Advertising Agency has. First of all the Concept shouldn’t be a surprise to the client. The Agency must socialize the Concept with the client throughout its development. Secondly, the Agency must constantly evaluate the Concept against the Advertising Plan and everything that went before it.

The Creative Build may be a relatively long and complex process, and can include everything from writing copy, to shooting & editing commercials, to animating banner ads, to setting up landing pages, to building interactive games, to recording voice-overs, etc., etc., etc.. If the creative involves integrating with a client’s systems – like their web-site, transactional systems, CRM systems, and so on – then the appropriate IT or similar teams from the Client should be closely involved in the development of the system.

Advertising Methodology (11) - The Advertising Plan

2009-06-07T07:30:00.000-06:00

Having done all of this research you develop a deep understanding of the company, its products, its customers, and its brand. You also understand the consumer, how they perceive the brand and learn about the product, and how and where shop. Most of all, you get a really good understanding of the bottle-necks and challenges that will prevent a campaign from achieving its objectives. This should lead you to be able to put together a really good first draft of the advertising plan, which will include:

What are the goals? What does the company need to say to the customer? What is the message?
How will we reach those goals? What will we do, and what will it cost?
How do we measure results? How do we determine whether we have accomplished our goals?
What is the media strategy? What is the best “place” to reach the target market?
In addition, the Advertising Plan should include the “Plan B”. That is, once the Campaign is in market, and measurements start to pour in, the “Plan B” reflects actions that may be taken if the Campaign is not achieving its objectives.
Note – by describing the brand, target market, etc., the plan will recognize the expected campaign media but should not dictate the creative. While there may be some assumptions about the creative, the plan should not limit the creative (other than by budget and other practical or relevant dictated constraints). The plan frames the brand, the goals, and how to reach the target market.

Advertising Methodology (10) - The Message

2009-06-06T07:30:00.001-06:00

At this point you can define the message that the company is trying to deliver to the customer. This isn’t anywhere near the copy of the ad. It is an important input to the creative process. You have to know that the creative team is getting excited to go crazy with ideas, and this message is a key ingredient to ensuring they head off to do the right thing. The message needs to be a concise and objective document that the creative team can use to understand the salient points you have learned about the company. In that light, the message must include:

The brand expression
The audience
The information the audience needs to hear
The action that the company wants the audience to take

Advertising Methodology (9) - Purchase Channels

2009-06-05T07:30:00.002-06:00

So, now you know what you are selling, who the customer is, how they shop, and what their options are. Now you need to understand the point where a customer drops their money on the counter and buys the product.

What are the channels?
How do the channels perform (sales, profitability)?
What responsibilities does the company have to represent or support 3rd party channels?
What responsibilities do 3rd party channels have to support the company?
How or what advertising are the 3rd party channels doing?

Advertising Methodology (8) - Competitive Analysis

2009-06-04T07:30:00.000-06:00

Now it is time to understand the competitors. What options are available to the Target Market?

Who are the direct competitors?
Are there other substitutes?
What are their strategies and brands, strengths and weaknesses?
What are their market shares?
Where and how are they advertising, and what are their campaigns?

From this you can determine what the sweet spot is to advertise against your competitors. How and who will you pick a fight with? What is the unique thing that you can claim your product / service is the "only" one?

Advertising Methodology (7) - Media Influences

2009-06-03T07:30:00.000-06:00

The next step in conceiving and creating great advertising that works is to learn about where the customer looks for information. If your ad is going to get the prospect’s attention, generate interest, make the prospect desire the product, and get the prospect to take action to buy the product … then your ad better be where the prospect is going to be looking. In that light, you need to learn:

What media does your prospect spend their time with?
What media does the customer turn to in their purchase funnel? Who or what media do they trust?

From this you may find that your best ad is no ad at all. Maybe you learn that your new strategy should be an email to existing customers, a viral campaign or something else.

Advertising Methodology (6) - Purchase Funnel

2009-06-02T07:30:00.002-06:00

Closely related to the Target Market is a need to understand how the consumer buys the product. How do they choose the product they are going to buy and where do they look for information? Looking at a simple sales funnel model, it is important to understand how a member of the target market moves from being a prospect to a customer.

What is the purchase cycle for this product?
Who is involved in the purchase cycle?
How long is the purchase cycle?

You might even consider a trip to a point-of-purchase to observe the shopping behavior.

Advertising Methodology (5) - Target Market

2009-06-01T07:30:00.002-06:00

It is now time to learn about the Target Market. Who uses the company’s product, how, and why? What is the benefit to the consumer? Who is the consumer? How do you find the buyer?

Digest all the research that the client can provide you
Look for additional research from 3rd parties
Consider performing additional research

Can you ever really know too much about the Target Market? You don't want to spend your entire project learning about who buys the product and how they use it. But be sure you spend enough cycles on this so that you are communicating with the right crowd and doing it the right way.

Advertising Methodology - (4) Goals / Objectives

2009-05-30T07:30:00.003-06:00

Now that you know the brand, you can learn and understand the campaign that you are being asked to run. What are the goals or objectives of the campaign (e.g. brand, retail, communication, etc.)? What does the client believe they need you to do? As part of the overall Strategy exercise, you might find that you need to help them learn about better objectives as you proceed through various iterations of this method:

Who are they trying to communicate with?
What are they trying to tell them?
What do they want them to do?
What is the time horizon for them to do it?
What’s the urgency that a customer should respond to?
Why?

As you learn more about the company, the brand, and their objectives, you may need to ask each of these questions several times (of both your client and yourself) in order to understand the branding, retail, or other communication goals of the upcoming campaign.

Advertising Methodology - (3) Understanding of business strategy and brand

2009-05-29T07:30:00.003-06:00

The old adage of “you can’t manage what you don’t measure” is an important one. We’ll come back to that, but we’ll start with a new adage, “you can’t advertise what you don’t know”. What does that mean? Start at the top. Understand what the company is all about:

What’s the overall business strategy? For instance, Porter’s generic strategies include: Cost Leadership, Differentiation, & Segmentation
What is the brand all about? What are the marketing and brand plans, and how do they align with the business plan? What do Senior Management believe the company stands for? What does the company stand for in its constituents' eyes (customers, employees, suppliers, etc.) and how do they believe the company supports the brand promise?

Get to know that, and you're over the first hurdle to creating great advertising that works.

Advertising Methodology - (2) A "V-Model" for Advertising

2009-05-28T07:30:00.005-06:00

The “V-model” for Advertising represents how strategy must be considered as a critical part of creating and executing an advertising campaign. Of course, depending on the Client, the campaign, the available budget, and so forth, this methodology would be customized for the Client. To that end, there may be fewer or additional steps to take throughout the Advertising Campaign method.

So, here it is ... the "V-model" for Advertising:

Weaknesses with Advertising usually happens before the Creative process takes place. So, over the next several days I'll focus on the things that happen up to the point that an Advertising Plan is created. Watch for:

Understanding of business strategy and brand
Goals / Objectives
Target Market
Purchase Funnel
Media Influences
Competitive Analysis
Purchase Channels
Message
Advertising Plan

Advertising Methodology - (1) Introduction to the "V-Model"

2009-05-27T09:34:00.004-06:00

Most advertising campaigns pull at a subset of activities that allow an Advertising Agency to produce a TV commercial, a newspaper ad, a banner ad, or some other “media insert”. Imagine if you will the conversation between the Advertising Agency and the Client,

Client: I want more people to know what I sell, … I want a TV ad, … and my budget is $x.
Advertising Agency: [pause on a brief consideration of the stated goal. Then, toss out easy or crazy creative first, second, third idea, etc.. Concepts that could win awards. Concepts that could change their world. Then ... Make a leap of faith at a Concept and heads for the Pitch.]
Client: [Salivating] Let's do it.

After that, all that is left is the actual production of the creative and some media buying. No one ever measures the results. So, the campaign must be working.

Hmmm … There must be a better way!

There is, and it starts with a "V-Model". A "V-Model" is a representation of a project that aligns "Responsibility" for activities horizontally on the diagram. At the same time, as you step through it from left to right (i.e. from top to bottom on the left side of the "V", and the bottom to top on the right side), you get a clear representation of the steps necessary to deliver the project. Here's what a simplified "V-Model" might look like.
In this diagram the train of events for a project is simply:

Senior Management has a vision of what they believe they need to achieve results
Middle Management boils that concept down and provides instructions to their teams on what to build and potentially how to build it.
Workers (be they knowledge workers, laborers, or a combination) set out to design and build the "thing".
Workers (preferably other workers than those who designed and built the "thing") subsequently test the "thing" - perhaps by editing it, running it through a formalized test (e.g. a focus group or systematic IT testing) with the goal of ensuring the "thing" works or fails, and then getting the Builders to fix it as necessary.
Middle Management reviews the results of the test and makes the decision that what was built actually works as it was supposed to, is what they asked for, and more importantly, will deliver on the vision. They sign-off to put the "thing" into "production".
The "thing" produces results which either are satisfactory to the Senior Management or are not. If they aren't then the Senior Manager failed at any or all of (a) the vision, (b) ensuring a good system was in place to communicate the vision and requirements in order that the right "thing" was produced, or (c) creating, uniting, and aligning a great team that could produce.

... Next up in this series, we'll look at a "V-Model" for Advertising. Stay tuned.

Advertising Methodology?

2009-05-26T13:01:00.003-06:00

The Information Technology world and software industry has the Systems Development Life Cycle (SDLC). The SDLC is a standard practice which helps to ensure success in imagining, defining, designing, building, testing, and deploying a new system. Every IT organization in the world has their own flavour of the SDLC. A common thread is that without a well managed SDLC a project is doomed from the outset.

What does the advertising community have? The software industry is rich with engineers and people who like a clearly defined process. The advertising industry is rich with creative people who want the space and place to be random to a fault in order to allow creativity to blossom. Consequently, the advertising community doesn't appear to have any common creative practice like the SDLC which ensures that the business rationale for a campaign is well understood, that the campaign is designed to meet the business rationale, or ultimately that it is ever measured back against the rationale.

Over the next week or more I'm going to layout a framework for an Advertising Development Life Cycle (ADLC). Check back often to find out what that looks like.

GM's blaming the unions and pensions? What the???

2009-05-04T11:01:00.002-06:00

I just heard that GM is blaming the unions and their ridiculous pensions for their failures. Why don't they haul their brand managers out and flog them!

They should consider cutting their brands. That will help them focus their efforts, cut their costs ... and save themselves from failure.

Kellogg's Guidelines for Ethical Advertising to Kids

2009-04-30T16:43:00.003-06:00

Kellogg's has published a lot about their ethical guidelines for advertising - particularly to children (i.e. people 12 years old and younger). They have various sites which provide a whole bunch of good guidelines:

Kellogg's advertise across media, but its core focus is on TV. Their TV ads focus on individual brands, and TV ads are targeted based on shows, time, and consequently audience to aim the message directly at the target market. On top of that the in-store advertising is predominantly the packaging. Again - and not surprisingly - the packaging is designed to appeal to the appropriate target market.

Back in 2007, Kellogg's changed their advertising principles when targetting children. Among other things, their new policy was aimed at ensuring that their breakfast cereals met specific minimum nutrition guidelines. If they didn't then Kellogg's determined not to advertise the product.

Kellogg's did this voluntarily. Did Kellogg's do this just because they are good people? Well, it would be nice to think they did. But the impetus to doing it was that they were threatened with a lawsuit for their advertising practices.

One thing that I really respect about Kellogg's is that they published their Marketing to Children Practices. This is good because with Kellogg's model in hand, other companies can benefit from their deep thinking.

(If you want a brief backgrounder on Kellogg's advertising or background you can find it on Kellogg's site or in an article in the New York Times, or some general information on Wikipedia, or you can watch David MacKay, their President & CEO talk about this in 2007, below.)

Kellogg Strengthens Marketing To Children Practices - Free videos are just a click away

Another one begins to bite the dust

2009-04-30T07:30:00.002-06:00

The National Post will stop publishing their Monday edition throughout the summer. Will anyone notice? Will Tuesday be next? Followed by Wednesday ...

Their competition doesn't seem to mind:

The Globe & Mail bragged about it,
CBC.ca reported on it,
CTV.ca didn't miss it.

I feel bad for the old traditional media. It is a dead business model. But, it is dying a slow and painful death.

Here's a great (and green) idea

2009-04-29T09:54:00.005-06:00

Mannequin Madness in Oakland, California sells and rents used mannequins.

Their business strategy seems sound, following Porter's generic business strategy of cost leadership. Mix in a green and fun brand, and you get a great business. Plus, you get to hang out in an office full of co-workers like this:

I added the bikinis using The Gimp. Hey, this is a family-oriented blog (most of the time).

Another bad move by GM?

2009-04-28T13:33:00.004-06:00

Yesterday GM announced that they are going to axe the Pontiac brand.
My guess is that it won't take long for two things to happen:

GM will notice that it no longer has a "sporty" line.
GM will increase the line-up of Chevrolet cars to compensate for not having the crazy variety of vehicles they currently sell.

That is to say that the Chevy line (entry-level family cars) will suddenly have more sporty cars. Existing models will be supplemented with new models. The Buick line (um ... upscale family? ... really, what does Buick stand for? ... what the hell are they thinking with keeping that alive?) will suddenly have more sporty cars. The Buick line-up will get bigger. The Cadillac line (snobby luxury, which is just what it ought to be) will have cheaper sporty cars added to it, perhaps as an "entry level Caddy" (anyone remember the Cimarron? Watch for an instant replay). In every case my money would be on GM growing the line-up of each of these brands. In the end, they won't narrow their focus and win the markets. They will extend these brands to death.

GM has lost touch with their brands. I don't think they need to cut their sub-brands as dramatically as they need to cut hard at the models in each of those sub-brands. What they should do is carefully and tightly define what each of their main sub-brands is all about, then hack out everything in the brand line that isn't inside the very tight definition of that brand.

GM needs to apply the "Keep it Simple Stupid" principles. There are two things that really define a company. The first is the brand - what does the company stand for and how do they support that on a daily basis. The second is the basic business strategy - cost leadership, segmentation, or differentiation.

At this point, I'd recommend that the GM management team should read:

22 Immutable Laws Of Branding by Al Ries, and
Competitive Strategy: Techniques for Analyzing Industries and Competitors by Michael Porter.

Then again, I think it's too late. Maybe they should be reading What Color Is Your Parachute? by Richard Bolles.

Look out GM & Chrysler ... Here comes China

2009-04-26T22:01:00.002-06:00

In a video story by on CNN.com today, they tell an interesting story about China's roaring fast development of an electric car industry. It makes sense:

They have the cash to do it,
It is a top-down government mandate to do it, and
They need to make their own cities cleaner, so they need to do it.

Will they have viable and cheap electric cars to market before the fools in Detroit manage to figure out their own brands and models? Not likely.

$1 Billion Invested in 35 Virtual-World Companies in Past 12 Months

2009-04-09T07:30:00.000-06:00

Because the real world doesn't suck enough and suck up enough of my real time, it appears that lots of money is getting stuffed into Virtual Worlds, according to MarketingCharts.com (and Virtual Worlds Management).

Boston Globe choking

2009-04-08T07:30:00.000-06:00

As evidence that newspapers face an unfortunate but certain end ... The New York Times which owns the Boston Globe is talking about shutting down the Boston Globe.

Other newspapers that recently have, gone bankrupt, closed or have made noise that they are drastically cutting back and could possibly get out of the print business include:

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Tucson Citizen
Ann Arbor News
Miami Beach SunPost
Rocky Mountain News
Halifax Daily News
Tribune Company (owner of The Chicago Tribune, The Baltimore Sun, & The Los Angeles Times, plus a whole bunch of other things)
Minneapolis Star Tribune
The Philadelphia Inquirer
The Philadelphia Daily News
San Francisco Chronicle
Sun-Times Media Group (owner of the Chicago Sun-Times, & dozens of suburban newspapers, etc.)

There must be a good comprehensive list like this somewhere. Have you seen it?

Saving the company. Slashing GM's Brands and Sub-brands.

2009-04-07T07:30:00.001-06:00

The Chevrolet line goes from the Aveo (starting at about $12k), to the Malibu ($26k+), to the Express passenger van ($33k+), to Avalanche truck ($36k+), to the Corvette ($106k+). Also, you'll find some really ugly things in there too like the "HHR" and the "HHR Panel" ($19k+). Remind me again ... what does the Chevy brand stand for?

If I were in GM's shoes, I'd redefine each of my master brands with a big butcher knife. I'd be really clear about what each of them mean. Then I'd cut the snot out of their sub-brands that don't support that. For instance:

Chevrolet = Affordable cars, whether you're a young kid buying a first car, or a family buying a practical car.
Axe the Avalance truck, HHR, Equinox, Traverse, Cargo Van, Passenger Vans, Suburban, Tahoe, Colorado, Silverado, Avalanche, Equinox, Traverse, and ...
I might be left with the Cobalt, the Aveo, the Malibu, and the Impala. I might include one family-sized SUV/ Crossover, like a modified Trailblazer, or a redesigned (and good) mini-van that could reasonably compete against the Honda Odyssey, Toyota Sienna, and the Kia Sedona (I don't think GM even makes a mini-van anymore. All you'd have to do is look at any school drop-off zone between 8:30 and 9:00am to get an understanding of the importance of a mini-van).
I'd cut down the options on those - for instance the Cobalt would only come in a 4 door model. (The two door model would only be available as a Pontiac ... and Pontiac would only sell the two door model.)
I may even axe the legendary Corvette. At a minimum I'd change it dramatically so that it fit into the brand mold of "affordable". It might be sporty and affordable, which would mean dumbing it down a lot. Alternatively, I might toss it over to the Cadillac label.

Chevrolet would drop from a confusing 32 vehicle line-up to a sensible 5 to 7 vehicle line.

Let's pick apart the Pontiacs. They currently have 12 models.

Pontiac - Sporty fun, performance cars.
Axe the G3, the Vibe, the G5 Coupe (too similar to the G6 coupe), the G6 Sedan, Torrent (an SUV in the Pontiac line - blech),
You'd be left with the G8 (a sporty sedan), G6 Convertible, G6 Coupe, and the Solstice. I'm on the fence on an SUV/Crossover on this line. Maybe the Torrent could make sense, but not in its current format.

Pontiac had 12 models ... now they have 4 or 5.

The 3 Buick's would die. Why bother with them. 3 models down to zero!

Cadillac currently has 14 models. 14! Are they nuts. What is a Cadillac when you have 14 versions of the darn thing.

Cadillac - "You've made it." People will notice you've made it.
Axe the SRX Crossover (it's just ugly and isn't premium enough), the Esclade EXT (buy a truck if you want a truck), the Esclade (which competes with the Esclade ESV), the DTS (it competes against the better looking STS, and isn't premium enough), the XLR convertible (don't worry, there's another model that will be kept)
Keep the STS V6 only ($47k+), the CTS-V ($60k+), the STS -V ($84k+), maybe the Escalade ESV & Hybrid (SUVs) ($65k), and the convertible XLR-V ($106k+)
I might even swap the Corvette into the Cadillac line up and dump the XLR line.

Cadillac would drop from 14 models to 5 or 6.

A quick slash at their other brands ...

GMC = Trucks. They currently have 21 different models. I'd slash that to 7 or 8, including: a large passenger van, a cargo van, a smallish SUV, a large SUV, a small pickup, a mid-size pickup, and a large pickup. There may be more options in this line, including 2 or 4 door cabs on the larger truck.
Hummer = GONE. (3 models down to 0)
Saab = GONE. (6 models down to 0)
Saturn = Technology leader. The brand would become the "Smart" or "Mini" for GM. They currently have 8 vehicles. That would be slashed to 2 to 3, along the lines of a 2-seat zippy fun electric commuter, a 4-seat zippy fun hybrid, and a flying car (just kidding on that one ... but if GM wanted to play, Saturn would be the "play" brand).

Total ... GM started with something around 100 vehicle brands. I'd have them down to about 28. On top of that, each sub-brand would have its own standard power train, and those would at a minimum be hybrids. Power trains could be shared across product lines. For instance the 4-door Chevy Cobalt could use the same power train as the Pontiac G6. GM could limit the engines if necessary to allow the brands to be differentiated.

Recognizing that the dealerships want to be able to sell a variety of different vehicles so that they can attract a variety of customers, there are options available to make things work for them. If you look at how Mini is sold by BMW in Canada, there are many BMW dealers who carve off a piece of their showroom and make it an entirely stand-alone Mini dealership. GM dealers could do a similar thing with their big and ancient showrooms. Throw up some glass walls, and make "boutiques". In a given dealership, one boutique would sell Chevy cars, another would sell GM trucks, and another might sell the Saturn line.

There are lots of advantages to this slash and burn practice:

Focuses the brand. The general result of focusing the brand is that you end up selling more. So, production may not go down at all. GM's production and sales may actually go up!
Reduces cost dramatically. You don't have to design, engineer, repair, and warranty the dramaticly huge number of product variations. It would be cheaper and easier to build, sell, and service cars. This strategy wouldn't make GM the low cost producer. The reality is that they still have lots of legacy costs, and are competing against startups from Korea and elsewhere with lower cost structures. But, it goes a long way to helping them survive.

What do you know, there are Michael Porter's business strategies showing up again. Focus and Cost Leadership.

There you go President Obama. :^)

Saving the company. What should GM do with its Brands and Sub-brands?

2009-04-06T07:30:00.009-06:00

Is the problem with GM that they've screwed themselves over by giving up way too much to their unions over the years? Yes, partly I'm sure it is.
Is the problem with GM that they're costs are out of line with their selling prices, and consequently they just aren't making a dime on any car they produce? Yes, partly I'm sure it is.
Is the problem with GM mostly that GM has screwed up their brands? ABSOLUTELY.

Let's look at some of GM's North American brands, and take a shot at what they should mean: (it should be noted that they have several others serving the rest of the world)

Chevrolet - Affordable cars, whether you're a young person buying a first car, or a family buying a practical car.
Pontiac - Sporty fun, performance cars.
Cadillac - "You've made it." People will notice you've made it.
GMC - Trucks
Buick - Um... what does that stand for? I think it is supposed to come somewhere between the "affordable" and "you've made it" lines.
Hummer - "I'm an idiot" ... whoops I meant to say rough and tough upper class.
Saab - "You've made it ... and you have European taste". (Sounds a lot like Cadillac)
Saturn - Modern, affordable cars for young people or families. (Sounds a lot like Chevrolet)

Now, the interesting thing is that when you plug away at each of those brands there are glaring exceptions to how they have managed the sub-brands in each of those products. For instance, the Chevy line has something like 32 vehicles in it. It is like everytime someone from an Executive to a Janitor thought "Hey, what if we made a ...", they went ahead and made it. Think about the expense of designing, producing, and building each one of those models.

Does Chevy stand for an Aveo? It is a cheap "first" car. It would seem to me that Chevy does stand for that. What about a Cobalt? Yes again. A Malibu? Yes - that's a good affordable family car. How about the Cargo Van, Tahoe, Colorado, Silverado, Avalanche, Equinox, Traverse, and ... HHR (yuck). I can't imagine that Chevrolet really stands for any of those.

I'll pick on GM's SUV line-up for a moment. I feel bad doing this ... it is too easy.
Here's what GM makes for SUVs:

Chevy HHR ($19k+)
Saturn Vue ($23k+)
Chevy Equinox ($25k+)
Pontiac Torrent ($25k+)
Saturn VUE Hybrid ($28k+)
Chevy TrailBlazer ($29k+)
Saturn Outlook ($31k+)
GMC Envoy ($31k+)
Hummer H3T ($31k+)
Buick Enclave ($35k+)
Chevy Avalanche ($36k+)
GMC Envoy Denali ($37k+)
Chevy Tahoe ($37k+)
GMC Yukon ($38k+)
Cadillac SRX V6 ($41k+)
... Etc. There are 34 of the damn things! Topping out with the Cadillac Escalade Hybrid at $74k+

Pickup trucks? 14 models across their brands.
Crossovers? 13 models.
Vans? 12 models (and you can't tell me that there is any significant difference between the Chevy Savana Passenger 2500 ($30k+) and the Chevy Express Passenger ($30k+)).

And they wonder why they're in trouble.

What should GM do? GM should tightly define each of their brands, and then slash and burn the sub-brands to ensure that the line-up of vehicles closely matches their master brand.

GM's withering ways.

2009-04-05T07:30:00.003-06:00

In the good old days - and I am talking about the 1950s here - GM targeted brands to different segments, and it distinguished each of its brands for that purpose. The brands had shared components but completely unique styling. The branding created a clear upgrade path throughout a consumer's life. You'd start with an affordable Chevy, and then as you became more affluent, you'd move to a Pontiac, a Buick, an Oldsmobile, and ultimately a Cadillac.

Around the 80s, the GM and its peers screwed up. They decided that they'd fool the idiot consumer and start selling the same car with different labels. The Chevy Citation (my family had one), the Oldsmobile Omega, and the Pontiac Phoenix were all almost identical. Similarly in the mid-90s when GM upgraded its popular Chevy Cavalier model, they introduced the new Cavalier and the Pontiac Sunfire. Again, nearly identical. I had a taxi driver tell me once that his opinion was that GM intended the Cavalier for men, and the Sunfire for women. Whatever, it was still a bad choice to make virtually identical cars.

But, perhaps the best example of GM's worst branding practice was the introduction of the Cimarron. Their hope was that they could attract younger buyers to the Cadillac brand (hmmm ... everything Cadillac doesn't stand for). The Cimarron was based on the same platform as the Chevrolet Cavalier, Buick Skyhawk, Oldsmobile Firenza, Pontiac J2000, etc.. Out of the gate Cadillac only had a four-cylinder engine and minimal styling differences from the considerably cheaper Cavalier. Yet it was almost twice as expensive at the Cavalier!

Has GM learned? Apparently not. All you have to do is look at their line up of SUVs and Trucks to see that they are as confused as ever.

Over the next couple of days I'm going to review the GM brands and suggest a major strategy shift that would lead them back to profitability and success.

(Here's a hint ... Look at the strategy of the 50s to restore their prominence in 2010 and on. Narrow the focus of each brand, and then slash and narrow the focus of each sub-brand.)

Are you reading this blog on a small screen?

2009-04-04T07:30:00.002-06:00

Did you know that the US is now the #1 consumer of mobile browsing? I wouldn't have guessed it, but the February 2009 mobile browsing rankings compiled by Bango are:

USA 29.3%
UK 20.3%
India 11.1%
Indonesia 5.5%
South Africa 5.4%
...
Portugal 1.2%
Sweden 1.1%
and on, and on, and on.

To put that in some context for Canadians ... South Africa has a population of about 44 million. Portugal 10 million, Sweden has a population 9 million. Canada has a population of 33 million. Yet, we don't even rank in this report. Well - I assume we are lumped in with the 198 other countries that make up the 21.6% of mobile browsing traffic.

Why haven't Canadians hit the mobile web yet? It isn't due to a lack of mobile handsets that can browse the web. It is more to do with the outrageous fees that our mobile service providers are charging.

Some interesting statements in the report on MarketingCharts.com:

"Bango also said that this growth in traffic is being matched by a corresponding growth in users paying for content on the mobile web, in part because of publicity behind the Apple iPhone, as well as increasingly improving payment experiences that encourage more people to buy mobile content.

"Though the use of the mobile web is growing quickly, the increase in mobile browsing has taken many businesses by surprise, Bango noted, adding that a large number of companies do not yet have mobile websites.
"The statistics also show that while some countries such as India and Indonesia have a good appetite for browsing on their mobiles, it doesn’t always convert into purchases. In fact, only five countries in the Top 10 browsing chart are also in the Top 10 payments chart - USA, UK, Portugal, South Africa and Spain.

"No matter how high the browsing rate, it is only converted into a high purchase rate where people have a good disposable income and can pay for content on their phone bills, Bango said. In regions such as India, South Africa, Indonesia and Egypt the driver for mobile browsing is a lack of fixed-line broadband and PCs for accessing the internet which means that the mobile device is the only way people can get onto the internet."

For Marketers in the US this report should convince you of the immediate imperative to optimize your website for mobile browsing, and also to start measuring mobile traffic. Perhaps you should check out Bango for the analytics component.

For Marketers in Canada (and the rest of the world) this report should remind you that:

The world is round. If some of the 245 million people from the US currently access your site through the web, you can bet they are also visiting it from their mobile devices.
The wave will hit. It is only a matter of a time before our wireless service providers drop their outrageous fees and Canucks follow the behaviour patterns of the rest of the world. We will be doing some heavy mobile browsing and spending in short order.

The coming death of Facebook

2009-04-03T07:30:00.001-06:00

Do you "Facebook"? CTV.ca reported recently on "Death by boredom -- the slow demise of Facebook." I get this. How many times do you need to know that your buddy is eating chips, watching bad TV, or countless other tidbits of personal hygiene that people post as updates?

Most of us who are on Facebook went on there to find out about friends from the past (and maybe more to the point, significant others like girlfriends). Once the thrill of that is gone, you don't have much left.

Something will eclipse the Facebook fad at some point in the not too distant future ... and we'll all be back on there too.

For marketers the point is that you shouldn't blow your entire marketing budget on something like Facebook, and you definitely shouldn't look to it as a long-term strategy. It can make up a piece of your advertising strategy for now. But that's all.

Looking for some SEO Software. Here's a shortlist.

2009-04-02T07:30:00.001-06:00

Not that this is the "right" shortlist. It is really just my results from a simple Google Search of "SEO Software".

Some of the tools that I'm going to look at as options to help me with my SEO are:

HubSpot (who also provide the HubSpot Grader for free)
SEO Suite by Apex Promotion (this site includes a complete hack job on the next product in the list. They lose points on the "classy scale". Still, I'm going to check into their accusations.)
WebPosition by WebTrends (A pretty thin site. Well promoted through affiliates. Hardcore on the call to action.)
Web CEO (Probably the best site. Already, I'm leaning towards using them)
SEO Elite
SEO Suite
Internet Business Promoter (IBP)
lotusjump (This is Software as a Service, i.e. you pay a subscription and use their website to optimize your site)

Watch for a few more posts on this subject over the next few days. I'm getting closer to selecting a SEO software package. In the next couple of days I can tell you what I've chosen and why. After that, I'll let you know how it is working.

Have you used SEO Software? Please post a comment to this blog to tell me what you chose, why, and how it has worked out.

Looking for some SEO Software. But I don't want to wear a Black Hat.

2009-04-01T13:30:00.005-06:00

My mission to find the right SEO system continues...

The one thing to be really careful when selecting (or using) SEO software, are Black Hat SEO techniques. These are techniques that were once legitimate, but have been heavily abused by SEO practitioners, and consequently are hated by the search engine companies. Additionally, they are hated by you, me, and everyone else who uses search engines to find what we are looking for quickly.

Once the search engines discover you are using Black Hat techniques (and they will), they will heavily penalize your rankings. Black Hat techniques include: Keyword stuffing, Spamdexing, Spam blogs, Cookie stuffing, Page indexing, Invisible text, Page cloaking, and Doorway pages. You can find out more at About.com or on Wikipedia.

In short, if you ensure that every page you generate has great content on it, and follows basic rules, then you will end up ranking well.

Watch for a few more posts on this subject over the next few days. Ultimately, I'm going to select some SEO software and kick its tires. My intent with the SEO software is to help me ensure that I am following the basic content rules. I'm excited to give it a whirl.

Have you used SEO Software? Please post a comment to this blog to tell me what you chose, why, and how it has worked out.

Looking for some SEO Software. A big extra is SEM capability.

2009-04-01T07:30:00.002-06:00

I'm still searching for the right SEO software for me. Yesterday I listed out what SEO software should do, and talked about some of the extras I'd like to have. Today I'm hitting on one big "extra". It would be nice if the SEO software has SEM capabilities.

SEM is Search Engine Marketing. That means that you bid on keywords - sponsored links and the like - on the search engines like Google. Using SEM you pay only when someone clicks on your ad.

SEM capabilites include:

Submit and manage your user name and profile setting in one place for multiple search engines
Manage your account settings
Manage account funding, billing, and so on
Synchronize PPC accounts - Download campaigns and keywords from your existing PPC accounts
Manage multiple PPC campaigns with a single interface
Make recommendations about words that are working and words that aren't
Campaign budgeting - make recommendations on where budgets should be spent, and change your daily budget setting
Manage campaign status - set campaign online or offline
Search Network management - change your campaign coverage for Search Network or Content Network
Create and add AdGroups - create multiple Adgroups or import Adgroups from the program directly
Create and edit Ad Creatives - from the program directly
Disable and Enable Adgroups
Preview Ad creative - improve your Ad Creative quality score
Maximize your keyword coverage - Keyword Builder to help you to generate more relevant keywords
Add or Remove keywords - allows you to add new keywords or remove keywords directly from your account
Keyword forecasting - provides you a quick overview of your Minimum and Maximum position and CPC
Set keywords online or offline
URL bidding strategy - allows you to bid above or below a particular URL, enabling you to always be on top of your competitor, or below (if you choose)
ROI bidding strategy for CPA and ROAS
URL verification to make sure the url you have entered in you ads is correct.
Automated email notification when your bids or position have been changed
Comprehensive bidding & ROI performance reports
Export keywords and ranking results to Excel database
Competitor Analysis - determine competitors' detailed information and approximate PPC bidding price

Watch for a few more posts on this subject over the next few days. Ultimately, I'm going to select some SEO software and kick its tires. It would be great if it does SEM as well. That's something that I haven't done for Market GoGo yet. I know SEM kicks butt, so I need to get that done.

Have you used SEO Software or SEM Software? Please post a comment to this blog to tell me what you chose, why, and how it has worked out.

Looking for some SEO Software. What about the Extras?

2009-03-31T13:30:00.004-06:00

So, there are a few extras that I'd really like to have in an SEO package. This is a short list. As I poke into the software more, I'll probably have some other ideas about other things that would be really nice to have.

Online training - Free and included.
Web Site Performance Analysis - Help to speed up your site
Link validation tool- Check for broken links

Watch for a few more posts on this subject over the next few days. Ultimately, I'm going to select some SEO software and kick its tires. Hopefully I get it right, and find a good way to legitimately improve my page rankings.

Have you used SEO Software? Please post a comment to this blog to tell me what you chose, why, and how it has worked out.

Looking for some SEO Software. What should SEO Software do?

2009-03-31T07:30:00.004-06:00

I'm a Marketing Strategy Consultant. I "get" the importance of SEO. But, I'm not an SEO expert, and as you can probably tell from my website, I'm not a technical expert. So, I've been looking for a Search Engine Optimization tool that will help me to "SEO" my own site. This is a "learning experience" for me.

The purpose of Search Engine Optimization is to improve your organic search ranking. That means when someone searches for phrases that are important to your company, that your site comes up on the first page right near the top. That's the goal, but of course it can be very hard to do depending on your industry, your size, and your competition.

What does Search Engine Optimization software do? Here are some things it should do. Wait a minute ... maybe it should do these things. It is important that you manage the use of the SEO software carefully so that you don't end up in trouble with the Search companies (more about that in another post or two):

Search engine submission - helps you to submit your website to the search engines. This should hit all of the major search engines, as well as multiple "little ones". It also should allow you to do this manually and / or scheduled.
Search engine optimization (SEO) - Provide practical advice and tips on how to improve your pages to increase their ranking advice for multiple search engines. Optimization advice touches upon factors such as general page properties, head and body areas and off-the-page parameters.
Pinpoints possible and existing search engine visibility problems
Give a complete breakdown of problems by the area of page
Recommend changes to be made so that your site is found by prospective users
Density Analysis Report - this search engine optimization report gives a breakdown on the density of phrases used on your page. This report helps you to see what keywords and phrases your page is actually optimized for and whether your optimization efforts influence your on-page parameters.
Web ranking - Organic keyword rank reporting which tells you how you are ranking for each of your organic search terms. Reports should also show trends.
Link popularity check - allows you to independently measure the number of incoming links to your website.
Meta Tag generator and editor - creates or modifies keywords, descriptions, and titles for your web pages.
Page Creator - Creates a "Doorway Page" or "Landing Page" automatically with the keywords you choose. You should be able to edit and customize this page subsequently. (Hmmm ... be careful with this one. A doorway page is clearly Black Hat. The page that is created should be a Landing Page that will be useful to a human.)
Google Friendly API - Support for the Google API
Keyword Library and Builder - a keyword research tool that will generate a list of suggestion keywords based on the keywords you provide or that it gleans from your site, in order to create or modify a keyword library database and use them for your web sites. You can target important keywords and phrases generated by Keyword Builder to use them to optimize your meta tags.
Keyword Competitive analysis - Research each keyword's competition thoroughly.
Page editor - Automatically tune your web pages for top-ranking in the major search engines
Competitor Analysis - ability to see how your competitors rank and also what they are doing to rank where they are ranking.
Maintain reciprocal links
Generate new links from search engines
Send "Personalized" link invitation messages
Track and verify your link partners
Create link pages automatically and promote them
Site saturation monitoring - this number represents how many pages of your website are indexed by the search engine. (You can find this easily by querying on Google with the phrase "site:www.yoursite.com query".)
Live product support
Multiple URL capability - the ability to do run analysis on multiple URLs.
Reports - capability to check & track your web site position on all major search engines, based on your list of keywords.
Custom Reports - the ability to customize the reports with things like your logo, company name, and details.
Send reports by email.
Export stuff to Excel.
Engine data renewal - Most of these SEO tools need you to renew your "license" with them each year.

Watch for a few more posts on this subject over the next few days. Ultimately, I'm going to select some SEO software and kick its tires. Will I get banned by the search engines ... I hope not :^).

Have you used SEO Software? Please post a comment to this blog to tell me what you chose, why, and how it has worked out.

Market GoGo's Blog is ranking well!

2009-03-30T23:09:00.003-06:00

I was happily surprised to find out tonight that this little blog is ranking in the top 6.85 % of blogs, according to Technorati. The Market GoGo blog has a Technorati rank of 4,793,965. That doesn't sound great, but apparently it means that this blog is in the top 6.85% of blogs tracked by Technorati. SUPER.

This little tid-bit came to me courtesy of HubSpot's Grader

Charlie Booker's Ten Biggest C***s in Advertising

2009-03-28T07:30:00.000-06:00

Have you ever heard of Charlie Brooker? He's an English comedian who is (at the least) profane. In any event, I was searching Google the other day for Marketing Trends (as part of researching my 2009 trends) and came across some of his satirical "commentary".

The following two videos really needs to come with this disclaimer:
"The following videos contain mature subject matter". Interesting however, as they weren't tagged that way on YouTube.

Brooker's: 10 Biggest Cocks in Advertising

10 biggest Cocks and she cocks in advertising

Did you know that March 14th is "Pi Day"

2009-03-12T22:00:00.004-06:00

Think about it ...

March the 14th is the 3rd month and 14th day (3.14)
Pi is that mythical number associated with circles 3.14159265 ... (typically referred to simply as 3.14).

March 14th also just happens to be Einstein's birthday (coincidence ... I think not!).
Apparently the big celebration is officially at 1:59 in the afternoon. Shouldn't it be 1:59 in the morning on March 14th? That might be better, then the party could start on the 13th!

Why is this interesting to the average web marketer? Well - take a look at Google's heat meter on the hot-ness of queries for "Pi Facts". It's on fire!
(That's as of about 1opm mountain time on March 12th, 2009. There are still 2 days to go.)

And, that's not the only "pi" term that is burning up the Google rankings:

"Pi Facts" are currently#7
"Pi Jokes" are #13
"Pi Digits" are #15
"Pi Poems" are #16
"History of Pi" is #19
... and so on!

Google "Pi Facts", and the rest of those terms. You'll find that virtually no one is bidding on those terms. I'd buy them up over the next 2 days if I sold:

PCs
Pies
Educational Supplies (like those giant wooden compasses they used when I was in Grade 6 ... do they still use those?)
Party Supplies
... I'm sure there are more great ideas!

Sticking with the concept, I wonder what other "trivial" days there are out there that would be a fun opportunity to win with relevant and cheap search engine marketing?

(Here's a link in case you want more information about Pi Day.)

What should TV do to save itself?

2009-03-12T07:30:00.003-06:00

The PVR will kill TV advertising, so how can TV save itself?

I have a few ideas. If I were making a TV ad for the "PVR generation", I'd:

Sight hooks - Perhaps an ad solely for PVR people shot in slow-mo, but with signs held by the actors, an introduction pop-out saying "PVR tuned ad from ". In my mind's eye I keep thinking of those kids books where you flip the corner of the page and create a movie. You could do the same thing for a PVR ad, by showing ten frames, each held for 3 seconds. Watched at regular speed it would look odd. Watched at PVR fast-forward, it would suddenly come to life.
Silent ads - Why waste the sound. Plus, a silent ad will attract the attention of a viewer who is watching the ad in real time. With the appropriate pop-outs during that ad, there will be a touch of appealing humor. To that end, you could have sound that is totally out of synch with the pictures. There would be a double joke here. The script could be along the lines of "Thanks for listening to this ad. Since you are actually paying attention and listening to us -- unlike the people fast forwarding through this ad with their PVR -- we thought we'd give you a bit extra ..." The copy would offer "more" of something. Perhaps a tip on life, or an incentive to buy (e.g. "tell your sales person you heard this ad to get an extra 10% off".
In-show Ticker overlay or Corner Pop-outs - People aren't going to speed through the show. If your ad shows up at the top or bottom during the show, then you can be sure people will see it. If you had a text ad scrolling by like a ticker randomly during the show, and featuring a company's URL I bet people would be more likely than ever to hit their computer and have a look at your ad.
Brand Centric - The brand name should be displayed throughout the ad, and should be featured large. Even filling a full 1/4 of the screen the whole time. Maybe another 1/4 of the screen should have bullet-point copy about the purpose and benefits of the product.

Reuters reports that the Seattle Post-Intelligencer may shift to online-only

2009-03-11T13:30:00.001-06:00

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer may become the first large newspaper publisher to dump the newsprint and become e-only. Reuters reports that the newspaper's print edition may be shutting down.

Hey - Winnipeg Free Press and Ottawa Citizen ... are you paying attention?

YouTube's Super Bowl Results

2009-03-11T07:30:00.001-06:00

Who won the game? WHO CARES! Who took top honors with the best ad. That's what matters.

YouTube's Super Bowl ad ranking contest is over, and the winner is ...

DORITOS. It is hard not to watch this ad without both cringing and laughing. Then, you have to watch it again. This ad was created out of a contest, and the winner walked away with $1,00,000,000,000,000. Wait a minute, that was a few too many zeroes. It was just a million. Doritos clearly got their money's worth and then some out of this contest.

The ad has been viewed more than 2,000,000 times on YouTube alone (not including all the other duplicate posts and responses to it, which would have generated many million more impressions)
Their contest micro-site was one of the most popular on the internet according to Alexa.com
Their ad improved their brand impression according to Comscore.

Just in case you didn't see the ad yet ... here it is:

4Q Survey - I'm seeing results

2009-03-10T13:30:00.002-06:00

I have the 4Q user survey up and running on the Market GoGo website. I blogged about this a few days back, and I am very enthusiastic about what iPerceptions is doing to help websites improve their customer satisfaction. Plus, giving away the opportunity to try a customer satisfaction survey is a great way for them to whet the appetite of their prospective customers and ultimately generate more business.

A screen print of one of my 4Q results tabs is shown to the right here.

So far my results are pretty good. I can already learn a lot about why people are visiting my site. I can see that satisfaction is low at 40%, but that everyone was able to complete what they were looking to do. Apparently what people are doing on my site is research!

WAIT A MINUTE. When I look at some of the details, I see that only one person has completed the survey so far.

"Out of the box" only 20% of people were being asked to complete the survey. I don't have a tonne of traffic to MarketGoGo.com (although my traffic is higher than similar sites - according to Google Analytics). So, I've just turned up the crank on asking more people if they want to participate in the survey. Now 90% of visitors to the site should be asked to complete the questionnaire. Maybe for my next post I will have some additional details to share about the survey.

The data I'm collecting from Google Analytics and the 4Q survey will eventually lead me to re-vamp the MarketGoGo.com site.

What are you doing to improve your visitor's satisfaction, the way your site works, and ultimately your business?

For some thoughts on this, please don't hesitate to email Market GoGo.

Doritos Super Bowl Ad Improves Brand Most; GoDaddy’s Does Damage

2009-03-10T07:30:00.000-06:00

The results are in for the Super Bowl Ads. Comscore reports that:

One-quarter of respondents in comScore’s pre-Super Bowl survey indicated that watching the ads is their favorite part of the day’s festivities.
Ads which people would most like to see again were Bud / Bud Light, Doritos, Coca Cola, Pepsi, and GoDaddy.com.
Ads which most improved their brand image were for Doritos, Bud / Bud Light, and Denny's.
Results indicated that GoDaddy.com's ad may have hurt its brand image. However, it also had the third highest ad recall.

Have a look at the full story and charts over at Marketing Charts.

Everything on table as Winnipeg Free Press looks to cut costs

2009-03-09T07:30:00.002-06:00

CBC reports (online) that the Winnipeg Free Press is working hard to cut costs. The poor old newspaper industry sure is in rough shape:

Many of them are leveraged out the wazoo as they were bought with enormous debt (suddenly Conrad Black looks like he might have been smarter to get locked up in jail, then saddled with a newspaper empire)
People are going online to get timely news that doesn't get your fingers dirty and smelly, and not picking up an outdated paper
Advertising revenue is plumetting as advertisers chop budgets and look for better ways to get their messages out.

As one comment on the CBC site says:

"This is classic Darwin, the Media version.
Years ago, television killed radio and radio adapted.
Recently, digital cameras killed print film and Kodak adapted (barely).
Today, the Internet is killing print media, and print media had better adapt."

The times they are a changing

2009-03-08T15:30:00.002-06:00

With apologies in advance for to Bob Dylan for today's blog title.

I checked the Google top searches today, and what do you know ... People are searching for the correct time. Presumably this is a spike due to the time change last night and not just a wild and crazy new thing to search for.

Here's what the Hot Trends looked like at 11:30 on Sunday. Or is it 12:30? :^)

Anyhow ... Here's Bob:

Low cost or cheap?

2009-03-08T15:28:00.007-06:00

In my post earlier today I talked about buying a new (used) cell phone.

A few weeks back I brought my old Palm IIIe back to life. My Palm IIIe was my second Palm product (my first was the original Palm Pilot). Both Palm PDAs were fantastic. They were durable (I can't tell you how many times I dropped them), and were great on batteries. The mono-chrome screen was okay and easy to read.

I found my trusty Palm IIIe in the bottom of a box a couple of months ago and hit the power button. Dead. I threw in a pair of new batteries. LIFE.

A bit of searching around led me to the Chapura PocketMirror, and in no time I had Calendar and Address Book synchronization with Outlook.

I should also note that the cell phone I'm using is a hand-me-down from my wife. It is a first generation Motorola 2G phone, that is in baby blue and missing the antenna. Still, the reception is fine and the battery lasts forever. Also, it will probably haunt me and last longer than anything else I buy. I won't be shocked if I am back using it again by this fall.

In any event, the phone I bought on eBay that I'm waiting for (hopefully it arrives tomorrow), is a Palm Treo 650. It of course has the old faithful Palm PDA applications, and also the phone. It also has a camera and video camera. So, I can also pull my Flip video camera out of my pocket and leave that at home too.

It will be sad to re-retire my Palm IIIe. But it will be nice to only have to schlep around one device again.

So - am I low cost or cheap? I'd like to think that reviving an old cell phone and PDA, and then upgrading by buying a used device on eBay makes reflects my low-cost business strategy.

Well done UPS

2009-03-08T07:30:00.001-06:00

I bought a new ("previously enjoyed") cell phone on eBay this week. I'm really looking forward to receiving it. The phone is being shipped by UPS, and I received an email from UPS yesterday telling me that my phone is on the way. I clicked through on the tracking link from the UPS email, and found a great deal of detail about the shipment.

I'm not sure what to do with all the detail, but I find it fascinating that UPS provides this.

What a great use of the web.

Can you think of ways that your company can do something similar to "wow" your customers by publishing information on the web?

The PVR will kill TV Advertising ...

2009-03-07T15:09:00.003-07:00

... which will kill TV.

So, someone better figure out a way to make money on TV soon.

A few weeks back I blogged that the PVR won't kill TV ads. I had just bought a PVR and had only just started recording shows. Now I know more about using my PVR, and am watching TV faster and watching far fewer ads.

I was wrong, the PVR will kill TV Advertising. When advertising revenues dry up then TV networks will go bankrupt, and the only broadcast source will be the internet.

Ottawa Citizen removing more newspaper boxes

2009-03-07T09:39:00.004-07:00

CBC.ca reports that the Ottawa Citizen is removing all of their newspaper boxes. Are they doing this because people really don't like to buy newspapers from a box anymore ... or because people really don't like to buy newspapers anymore?

One of the comments to the story is:

Why go to the trouble to remove the boxes? Because they're probably worth more as scrap metal to the publisher, than as the revenue generating devices they were originally designed to be.

Customer Satisfcation Survey -- Up & Running on MarketGoGo.com

2009-02-26T07:30:00.002-07:00

Thanks to the good folks at iPerceptions and Avinash Kaushik, I have put a customer satisfaction survey on the Market GoGo website.

Why is customer satisfaction important to measure through a tool like the 4Q survey? You may already be using an analytics program like Google Analytics, WebTrends, or Omniture. These will tell you how people surfed around on your site, but they won't tell you what they were trying to do, if they achieved that, and what would have helped them better. A good customer satisfaction survey will. Subsequently, that will help you figure out what changes you need to make to your site to help you ensure that your site achieves your goals.

While the 4 free questions will suit my needs for now, a bigger or more complex organization will probably want to be able to ask a few more questions. That's where iPerceptions can offer you a more customized solution that will provide even better information.

What's it like? Check it out at www.MarketGoGo.com.
(You may have to surf around a bit on the Market GoGo site to find it, as it pops up randomly.)

Narrowed Focus

2009-02-25T07:30:00.004-07:00

It's been a few days since I posted. Apologies to everyone who follows this regularly. Thanks for following me as a matter of fact!

I've been busy working on a web tourism marketing report for a client, so I haven't had a chance to get to my blog or site.

Yesterday ... I updated Market GoGo.com.
Now I'm only focusing on three things:

Brand Audits,
Web Marketing (advertising, sales, & service), and
Marketing Project Management.

Now, the site still needs to be made to look better and do more things ... but that's all just part of the ongoing maturity process for the site. While my focus is on the business and brand strategy behind Brand Audits, Web Marketing, and Marketing Project Management, I'll admit I'm no artist or technical wiz in terms of actually putting a site together. So, part of updating MarketGoGo.com is the journey of learning more about how a website actually goes together.