B2B Brand Strategy l Positioning for complex offers
Being hunted down and persecuted was the farthest thing from my mind. To be honest my intentions were noble and sincere. Little did I know that for the people I helped experience a better work life, there were just as many who viewed me as a rogue. Continue reading “Living In The Shadows of IT”
Raise your hand if you are in marketing and have embraced the need to deliver content across multiple media and channels. It is a virtual certainty you have. It supports SEM strategies, increases impressions and communicates multiple perspectives. Content teams are working harder than ever to deliver quality content in a variety of forms.
Now, raise your hand if your budget and resources have increased proportionately. Note to self – no raised hands are visible. So without additional resources what options remain? Work harder or work smarter ( or both is a third option of course).
The dynamics of digital content are very different than non-digital. I recognize that this is obvious, but how much have your content creation strategies changed? Not much… is the response from most organizations.
The business world still has a documents-first mindset. Oh sure, they are tweeting, some are blogging, a few are socially active, and if my email inbox is a barometer, everyone has a marketing automation tool. But the source, focus and process is typically based on a document, which marketing then repurposes across digital channels.
Repurposing content is reactive, not proactive
“Repurpose your content.” You’ve read it, I’ve read it, it is everywhere. It makes sense – at first glance. But when you look deep into your goals and digital tactics, it’s backwards. Repurposing content from high-value documents like whitepapers or eBooks, is inefficient. It’s a reactive retrofit, not a proactive strategy.
I’m not saying that your whitepaper is not valuable, just that how most create them today is inefficient considering additional digital content goals.
Engineer you content, don’t retrofit
The idea of content engineering is based on the need for scale and orchestration of message. It is an evolution guided by content, communication and promotion strategies designed to articulate value to an audience where they will find it and in a form appropriate for consumption. Fish where the fish are. The challenge (as if there is only one…) is that there is no longer a large school of fish, but many ponds and baits.
I embrace the engineering approach because it is rooted in strategy and progressive steps. Strategy is a top-to-bottom approach, defining the core conceptual message, goal and tactics. Strategy guides the framework – your message pillars that can both stand-alone and support the big idea. Each pillar has it’s own foundation and unique conversational value.
What is more unique than non-digital approaches is the idea of creating functional components from the bottom up. Developed incrementally and progressively, guided by the broader strategic message, each pillar is functional along the way and does not need to be reverse engineered to become smaller assets later.
This process is efficient and delivers incremental content throughout the process. It provides a roadmap to inter-connect supporting ideas and will often uncover relationships that were not initially obvious. Most importantly, you won’t be waiting for the completion of the ‘next big thing’ and then working backwards to extract messages and content to promote it. Instead, you’ll have time to orchestrate how it is delivered and shared with your target audience.
What is your experience – care to share?
Improved business outcomes. Isn’t that why any business invests in technology? According to Thomas Lah, co-author of a new book, B4B – How Technology and Big Data Are Reinventing The Customer-Supplier Relationship, the focus on measured business outcomes is growing. Moreover, shared risk and responsibility for those outcomes is becoming a differentiator and a new source of revenue for systems integrators and solution providers. Continue reading “Business 4 Business – A New Model”
“CIOs and CMOs should know enough about each other’s field of expertise to be interchangeable” according to Jim Davis, SAS’s global marketing chief in a recent CMO.com article.
I had to read that statement more than once.
After considering this concept further, I thought to myself why don’t we also add the CFO, COO and CEO into that prototype and include a couple of engineering PhD’s and legal counsel. Now that is an executive persona. Clone them into a board of “Mini-Me’s.”
Think of the synergy in that boardroom. No hidden agendas, no bitter debates or personality conflicts. The enterprise now has complete strategic alignment across operations, product development, IT, marketing and sales. Dream team.
Don’t get me wrong; Mr. Davis makes many important points. As a former CIO his emphasis on technology is no surprise. To be clear, I agree with the majority of his opinions. I just don’t’ agree that the CMO and CIO roles could be interchangeable.
In fact, it’s not that I completely reject the ideal of that concept. It’s just not realistic. Culturally speaking, no one sits at more distant ends of the boardroom than the CIO and CMO, assuming of course that the CMO has a seat. Their training, skills, experiences, and often personalities, are polar opposites.
Technology is a tool; it’s not the solution to marketing’s mission. There is no debate about the unprecedented potential it represents as a production, delivery and measurement mechanism, but to confuse marketing with technology is naïve and doomed to failure. And B2B technology vendors are often the worst offenders.
Marketing has become distracted by technology and automation.
Marketing is ultimately about awareness, communication, persuasion, and audience experience. It begins with a compelling message and story that delivers unique differentiation that your audience cares about. To quote Leo Burnett, effective messaging “does not just circulate information. It penetrates the public mind with desires and belief.” It is human, empathetic, and most of all, memorable.
These basic building blocks do not come in a box. The technology and the applications – they are tactical tools for delivery and measurement. Ultimately success is measured in terms of customer acquisition and retention, not the size and quality of your database or email open rates.
As a technology marketing and content strategist, I agree with Mr. Davis’ philosophy at the tactical and execution level. Marketing does need a better understanding of what’s in the technology box, and how they can use it. But do not become distracted by it. Without simple, memorable, inviting messages, it will not achieve the objective. Garbage in, garbage out, it’s just being distributed more efficiently.
The CMO and CIO are not interchangeable, but the evolution of digital technology does require that their roles and objectives be synchronized and complimentary. The digital age has also created at least one shared reality – it has forever changed the IT and marketing roles. The changes these executives have seen in the past 15 years are unprecedented, turning both their professional worlds upside down.
To succeed as business leaders in this new age, the CMO and CIO will need to transcend isolated and historic roles. As digital interactions and devices continue to mature, the two business groups will become inseparable in the customer experience conversation. Marketing and IT will represent a new business ecosystem that will ultimately be defined and measured by customer experience.
As always, your thoughts and comments are welcome additions to this conversation.
Marketing, you have become distracted; you’ve lost your focus. Somewhere along the way you lost site of your roots and abandoned your heritage. You have forgotten that content is king, communication is personal and your audience has issues and needs other than your own. They really don’t care about your goals; it is all about them. Selfish, isn’t it?
You have been seduced by technology and automation. It’s understandable, and it’s not entirely your fault. We all listen attentively to the promise of technology. We wait anxiously for the next digital release and the new roadmap to success. So does your management team.
Marketing, your distracted relationship with technology and automation at the expense of message and story will not end well. Laura Ramos eloquently captured this in a recent Forrester blog post:
“Once upon a time, there was a little marketer with a big problem. Her sales executives said, ‘We need more leads.’ So she bought a big new shiny marketing automation engine . . . Stop me if you’ve heard this one before, but I’m sure we all know the end of the story. The marketing engine didn’t live up to expectations because data and content didn’t come in the box”.
I’m waiting for the culmination day when I receive the marketing automation email that simply tells me to fill in the registration form. No exchange offered, nothing of value for me, just the naked opportunity to give up my email, phone and address information and wait for the telemarketer to call.
Enchanting and powerful as technology is, it will remain a tool and not the solution. To believe it has all the answers marketing requires is both naïve and doomed to failure. But there is hope. Every pendulum swings both ways and ultimately settles into a balanced state.
Marketing is ultimately about communication, persuasion, and audience experience and success is measured in terms of customer acquisition and retention. It begins with a compelling message and content that delivers unique differentiation that your audience cares about. These basic building blocks do not come in a box; they are inherently human, emotional and memorable. The technology and applications are important tools for the digital age, but they are the mechanics, devoid of vision and empathy. Even the technology vendors realize this.
I wanted to share this post from Harvard Business Review, written by Tim Riesterer. What initially “engaged” me was a great headline: Stimulate Your Customer’s Lizard Brain to Make a Sale. Points for Tim; the title stopped me immediately. It made me act. Just like Tim intended.
“The lizard brain” is a phrase first introduced to me by Seth Godin who defines it as “hungry, scared, angry, and horny.” It is primal. It cares what everyone else thinks and is the source of resistance to change. It is our autopilot, its sole purpose is to survive and it embraces status quo. The lizard brain is afraid of change; change is not safe.
The core premise of Riesterer’s message is that to be successful, marketing and sales must overcome a prospect’s primal resistance to change, but that most focus on the wrong message.
Any message designed to change behavior must create a compelling sense of urgency. It must change the perception of the survival instinct, to convince it that change is now safer than the status quo.
Riesterer cites several research findings in his analysis:
In complex B2B marketing and sales, decision makers need companies to be consultative. Vendors who provide experience, vision, and insight into increasingly complex business challenges are the ones that offer true value to the role of any decision maker.
The tendency of companies to talk mostly about themselves is a messaging problem pervasive in B2B marketing. For internal marketing groups in particular, it is safe lizard brain behavior. After all, every organization embraces the message about how well their solutions perform. Drink the Kool-Aid, share the Kool-Aid.
The digital world is in hyper-drive competing for our attention. Messaging must instantly capture attention and hold it. Which means the message must have meaning and context for your target audience. Know them; speak to their business needs in their terms. Create urgency and communicate a vision for change and proof points that trump the evil status quo.
Don’t get me wrong; status quo can be a great thing. My wife, my kids and my friends – those are the parts of status quo that I wish I could preserve in perpetuity. In business, marketing and sales, status quo is dangerous. As a marketer and content strategist, I hate “status quo.” It is lethal.
Please share your own thoughts and experiences.
Change is hard. “An A+ for stating the obvious” you are thinking to yourself?
B2B marketing is stuck in “old ways”. Like any generalization, there are exceptions, but they remain the minority. I’ll explain.
Business thrives on process. From process comes efficiency, which is a critical element of success. Consider FedEx and the UPS. Process is their competitive advantage and they have embraced new techniques, structures and core processes to capitalize on fundamental shifts in technology, audience needs and service models. They are winning big because of it.
Process is key to efficiency but a process based on an old set of rules is disaster. In many ways this is the status of B2B marketing.
Marketing is about message, content and audience reach. B2B is adapting to the audience reach part of the model. But it needs deeper analysis. Marketing has not adapted to the message and content processes required to truly capitalize on new distribution models and audience consumption preferences.
The Internet and “digital” has forever changed how buyers evaluate and make purchase decisions. In response, Marketing no longer prints collateral but publishes PDF’s on their websites. Many have adopted “marketing automation” tools to leverage their database. Some discovered video, audio podcasts, eBooks. The list goes on.
Communications teams are blogging and tweeting all day long to capitalize on the power of social media. Many new tools, formats and media are being used, all powerful and with tremendous reach.
But here’s the thing. Few marketing and communications teams are working together to consider the synergy of each effort, or the content required to support each channel. The activities are related and inter-dependent upon each other, though they are often not executed as such.
Engagement is the new buzzword in marketing. Engage with customers, prospects, and partners. “We need to engage online. Establish a conversation.” But for many organizations the teams responsible for customer engagement are not truly engaged with each other. They talk, have meetings and conference calls, but they are not engaged. Why?
Old habits. The approach to content creation, communication, and the structure of organizations has not evolved. B2B has historically undervalued creative, message and content, and they have not yet recognized the need to adapt the process of creating content. One team creates collateral, another press and media communications, and a third owns marketing automation. Other teams own the web, video, and training. Each is focused set of deliverables but not the coordination or relationships of the messages they are delivering.
Unless co-developed, creating a PDF whitepaper to publish on the web and writing a blog post for LinkedIn, without a strategy to leverage their inter-dependencies is not a new approach, just a new distribution method.
Would love to hear your own opinions on this.