Is 2008 going to be more of the same for you in marketing?
Is the lure of communities and new media marketing speaking to you in a special way?
Are you going to continue down the same path as you have for the last several years of rinse and repeat marketing?
As the new year has come and you begin to solidify your 08 marketing plans, try to think a little bit outside the box and talk to those folks who can bring in a fresh perspective to perhaps your stale ways. Don’t get caught in a marketing rut and don’t think for a moment that what you did in 2007 or 2006 will work again in 2008.
1. Vow to do more attracting than selling.
To use a high school analogy: Be the charismatic kid with a winning smile, a charming personality and a good dose of humility. Don’t be the tard who farts and throws firecrackers at cats in that desperate vein of “Look at me! Look at me!”
2. Adopt the 5th P.
If your company relies on the classic marketing model of the four P’s, add a fifth one: Participation. Build a model of how customers, partners and employees can meet, share and participate with the company or with one another.
3. Build a niche.
The future is micro-specific. It starts with people who share highly specific characteristics that defy traditional demographics. Define an ideal customer to the n’th degree, like unemployed college professors who wear corduroy sport coats (with elbow patches) and drive old Volvos.
4. Conduct a word of mouth audit.
Put every customer-facing experience up for review, from reception to the floor person, to accounts payable. Does the customer experience generate good word of mouth, or bad word of mouth? Adjust then measure again.
5. Create a social network.
Do it on Facebook, or Ning or the good ol’ analog way: a customer advisory board. Any form of social network among customers, partners or employees (current or former) is a tangible asset. Treat it as you would your grandparents (respectfully), not as you would your younger brother whom you randomly punch in the head.
6. Vow to eliminate a stupid rule.
You know what it is. Customers (or bloggers) have already told you. So eliminate it already. For extra points, give it a funeral.
7. Create a social media training program.
In 2008, expect word of mouth and customer evangelism to be accelerated by social media considerably more than it was in 2007. What people say online will reach deeper into the B2B world, too, like long-term services contracts and enterprise-wide computer systems. Understanding the basics of social media, how it works and the effects it can have on reputation and sales should be part of annual training programs.
8. Ban use of the word “consumer.”
Nothing says “I’m like Borat” more than using “consumers” to describe your customers, or end-customers. If you call the sales channel your customers, then their customers are your end-customers. To call them consumers is so Borat-like.
9. Raise the ethics bar.
Be a hero to people who still believe in ethics. Make 2008 the year you set higher standards for ethical behavior. Make the standards clear to employees, partners and vendors. Enforce them. Gaming the system is for congressmen and crooked military contractors.
10. Do what you love.
It may be trite but if you don’t love what you’re doing, how can you expect anyone else to?
Cord has a great post today about explaining what Social Media is all about. Glad to see he is going back to the basics as we all could use a good “101″ class again. Great stuff Cord.
Wanted to share with all of you a piece of marketing goodness that my company produced. Our theme is that if you want to be a SQL Server Rock Star, use our tools which I think is pretty compelling as well as kinda uber-geek cool.
Bill at the Buzz Saw on Duct Tape Marketing has a great post on listening to social networks. To me this all ties in with monitoring your brand and understanding what people are saying about you and your competitors. Well said Bill!!
Do you have some time to kill? I mean..do you have like the next 3 months straight to do nothing but explore Web 2.0 technologies? If so or if you want to see a really complete list of just about everything out there nicely laid out in a directory style, then visit GO2Web20.net
I was introduced to a new video site yesterday called MEGAVIDEO. According to their About page “Megavideo is aiming to replace YouTube as the leader in online video.” Hmmmmm…lofty goal and I wish them the best of luck, but it also seems like they are trying to climb Mt. Everest in a swimsuit. I think that instead of preaching that that they want to “beat” YouTube, why not think of a different marketing strategy like “a better alternative to video”.
They have a “10 reasons to use MEGAVIDEO instead of YouTube” video posted on their front page. To me..this is like giving free advertising to YouTube….you never want to say publicly why your product is better or why others should use it over something else…especially when it comes to this stuff. Granted, MEGAVIDEO has a few advantages like 5 gig upload’s, earning money for vids without rewards program, download files and last not but not least “MEGAVIDEO loves you more” (said with a wink and a smile)
I think the pitch of we are better than YouTube will fail and fail big time. Rather than the in your face we are better pitch, differentiate yourselves on your features and let the users decide that this is a better place. Don’t stick your pitch up front and center on your site..its tacky and educated web folks like me can sniff this tactic out.
I have blogged about this before, so I thought I would bring up another favorite of the 95 theses from the Cluetrain Manifesto.
64. We want access to your corporate information, to your plans and strategies, your best thinking, your genuine knowledge. We will not settle for the 4-color brochure, for web sites chock-a-block with eye candy but lacking any substance.
How many software companies can claim to do this today? Ummmm none…..I don’t see it and if you do, please let me know. When are companies going to wake up and smell the coffee and learn about transparency? When are some going to learn that collaboration works and without some companies will wither and die?
The average IT software buyer doesn’t care or want to know how great you think you are. They want to know what you can do to solve their problems. They want to know if your solution won’t cause them anymore problems. They want/need to hear from those on the inside in a genuine sort of way. They want a trusted vendor, one who is willing to stick with them thru thick and thin. Sorta like a way a marriage should work…communication being the key and most important aspect to a marriage. Sure…your stuff may look all sexy on the web, but talking is one thing.
Some of the best software out there comes from companies who don’t pound their chest about every little thing. They give me access to their folks and let me participate in a real honest to goodness dialogue with them. They don’t frown on me when I mention their competition, they give me a plain and simple answer.
Wake up software vendors..the alarm has been ringing…don’t press the snooze button anymore cause soon you will be late for the party.
I was driving my son this morning to summer camp and noticed something that perplexes me. First off, this morning in the Chicago area it was 70 degrees and sunny, which I would consider a darn near perfect morning. On my short drive, I saw 5 convertibles all of which had their tops and windows rolled up. Great weather mornings in Chicago are not as prevalent as in Southern California, so I am totally confused as to why someone would invest in a convertible and not bother to put the top down on such a gorgeous morning. On a day like today, I would love to feel the warmth of the sun and the cool breeze.
In software marketing its the same thing. Why use stale techniques and close yourself off from the rest of the world when the landscape and environment is so beautiful. In marketing, you need to try something new and smell the smells and experience the warmth and excitement of something fresh. Sure, sometimes you might get burned..but it pains me to no end when people in marketing do not want to put the top or windows down to experience something new.
Don’t buy your car if your not going to use it the way it was intended. Consequently, don’t sit around a marketing meeting wondering why your latest campaign didn’t work cause you failed to let in fresh air or fresh new ideas.
“XXXXX service-oriented management solutions provide a modular and future-proof approach to managing highly diverse and widely distributed IT infrastructures”
This is by far the dumbest thing I have ever read. What the hell does it mean to be “future-proof”? Does it mean that their software can defy all of the technology still to come. The wiktionary defines “future proof” as “designed not to be obsolete in the future” Well howdy doody..thank god for that….they are making something that wont be shelf ware in like 12 months. Of course, that is when I will have implemented this software.
I looked up in wikipedia what modular means, cause again I am not that smart. Here is the definition:
“something is modular if it includes or uses modules which can be interchanged as units without disassembly of the module.” it also defines it as “A module is a self-contained component of a system“
Huh?
Again..what in the world are people thinking when they write this stuff?
This company makes a big claim and I sure hope they have the goods to back it up…..but I doubt it.
Buzzbarf score: 9.75 (I have not found a 10 yet…but I will)
****NAME OF COMPANY DELETED TO PROTECT THE GUILTY****
“BSM Routes to Value are exactly that—targeted solutions that help IT drive business value, with defined milestones that guide and measure your progress from basic achievement to higher levels of maturity”
I am still trying to figure it out and I think I get it, but if you remember from a few of my earlier posts, I am all about simplicity. As a man of average intelligence I am having a hard time relating to this piece of marketing glob in trying to figure out what this actually means…..in plain English. I understand driving business value, but what the hell are defined milestones and what is basic achievement to high levels of maturity mean? Does it mean that if I apply this particular piece of software it will mean that my environment will become more mature.
Plain speak please. Don’t cloud your message with buzz-barf and expect the common man, let alone an educated IT person to understand what this means.
Here are 2 other examples of some of this buzz-barf that I found on this page…again..plain English please!
“integrates service impact management with event processing automation to build a service model that maps IT components to the business services they support, consolidating, enriching, and correlating events, as well as determining root causes and the impact of events on business services.”
Not only is the above a run on sentence, but it is so fragmented I am still trying to comprehend how the word “enrich” can be in the same sentence as some of the other fairly technical jargon that we are obviously supposed to understand. In addition, I am also on a power bar high at the moment..so my brain is at maximum capacity.
Here is the other nugget of fun that we need to decode.
“provides a proven suite that adapts to processes to align identities and access requirements, offering capabilities that include user administration & provisioning, password management, Web access management, directory management & visualization, federation, audit and compliance”
Another run on sentence…there is a shocker. It also appears that that this piece of software does alot…I wonder how much it is and how long it will take to implement to get all of what they say it will get me. Chances are, by the time I implement it, this piece will obsolete and it will become shelf-ware.
While I will not call out this company publicly, I will say this. Please for the love of all that is Holy…simplfy your message to the market. This goes for all of the software companies out there. Please stop the buzz, incoherent, ramble barf that is so prevalent in large software company environments.
I am a big fan of Ron McDaniel. He had a recent post on the whether buzz marketing is the next SEO that you should really check out.
Buzz marketing is the new marketing period. (if done strategically and within reason) (buzz marketing encompasses alot so don’t jump on the bandwagon to jump) There are many methods to marketing and while I can only speak intelligently on software marketing the more buzz you can create via traditional and non traditional methods gets you noticed in the marketplace. The iPhone is a great example. Anyway, thanks Ron for the post. Enjoy everyone
A recent article on the WOMMA site talks about how Ford in a recent webcast urged it employees to become avid advocates. Now, I am all for word of mouth marketing, but if I were an employee of Ford I think I would react with a bit of negativity towards what they are asking to do. I truly don’t think that a company should have to ask its employees to become advocates, they should want to do it on their own. Lets face it, Ford is in trouble and they need people to become advocates for their products and what better way to start is with their employees. Sounds simple enough huh? Well I disagree.
I had a post back in February about Volvo which is owned by Ford on just how stupid their pitch is for the new S80. Coincidentally, I own a Mazda and am totally happy with it so far, but when I bought it 2 years ago, I received a 4 year warranty. Now that Ford has infected that brand, they have pushed their current Mazda warranties back to 3 years. I know this as my wife is currently considering purchasing their CX-7.
In my heart of hearts, I don’t think any company should ask their employees to be advocates for their brand…it should be either just a part of their job because they enjoy working there or because they are proud of the organization that they work for. Perhaps I am naive and perhaps it is because I enjoy my current position and I don’t need to be asked to do it and/or its because I am a marketing person at heart and I know that value of pushing brand via WOM and truly becoming an advocate.
Here is a off the wall suggestion…..make better cars, stand behind your products with longer warranties and people will begin to trust and or talk about your brand more often. This goes beyond Ford…I think we can all learn a lesson here in any company that we work in.
Ron McDaniel has a great post on creating a buzz culture at work. Since we have over 130 people in our marketing org at Quest, I wonder if Ron would give us a discount if we bought the book
Also any tips on getting 130+ to think like this small accounting firm is greatly appreciated. Can you imagine…even if I were to inspire 55 people to wanting to create buzz….how much more powerful we could be as a company.
A dude by the name of Will commented and pointed me to a newer reputation monitor available. I just wanted everyone to know that I will be checking out the free version for accuracy and seeing what this is all about. Stay tuned and if any of you are doing reputation monitoring at your organization, check it out with me and let me know your thoughts.
If you already use these guys, let me know as well.
My director pointed me to this new site that just went live: mycybertwin.com
Over the course of this week, I am going to check it out. If any of you have any experience with this site, please let me know, but once I do a full on trial with them, I will give you my thoughts.
I read an article from eMarketer this morning stemming from the same report that TechTarget and the CMO Council put out on “IT Media Consumption Trends and IT Buyer Purchase Intention” Basically it points out that IT buyers are leveraging Podcasts more in their evaluations.
This article and study screams one thing to me: WAKE UP….what we did 3 or 4 years ago may not work today. And we as software marketers need to adapt to this.
I am 100% convinced that those companies that don’t adapt to this new way of marketing will be left in the dust. Old school folks who believe that what was done 3 years ago to promote software will work in today’s ever changing landscape will quickly and painfully learn that the IT buyer wants more flexibility. They want the software vendors that they deal with to be the educators or “trusted advisers” in their fields. They typical “in your face”, download, try and buy mentality is slowly dying. Heck…even live webcasts are losing their appeal….people want it “on demand” and don’t want to be tied down to a particular time.
Wake up marketers of software………overcome your fears and doubts.
