The CMO's Guide to Social Business and Advisory Firms

As chronicled in marketing budget reports that have been shared in MENG meetings over the years, most line items in marketing budgets have been shrinking at many brands with the notable exceptions of email marketing and social media.  Social media has seen a prolonged adolescence characterized by promise and hope but little substance from a 'mature' business point of view.  As I have long argued, social-media-as-content-channel will continue to lose relevance:  its novelty has largely dissipated, and backlash against brands that try to 'get personal' is increasing because brands come across as insincere.  People see that they just want to promote themselves, and promotion increasingly turns off stakeholders. CMOs who perceive the need to transform how they relate to stakeholders/customers will need to think carefully before choosing advisory firms.  As discussed at length in CSRA's Advisory and Service Firm Social Business Adoption research, very few advisory firms fully grasp the depth of change in stakeholder attitudes, nor how to relate to them using social technologies, nor how to advise brands on how to transform their relationships, practices, and organizations.  We'll tackle that here.

Business Is Personal

Social technologies are personalizing business in general, but brands and industries have distinct cultures and are adopting the personalization trend at different speeds.  CMOs need to assess the sense of urgency to invest time and funds appropriately.

Businesses in all categories are becoming personal because people are using social technologies and relating to each other en masse.  They share joys, frustrations, and hopes about every conceivable situation, including those in which they use your product or service.  Prior to social technologies, people were not accustomed to requesting and giving opinions and experiences on using products and services at scale.  However, now people increasingly expect to find other people's opinions about every product and service.  The fact is that people communicating with other people is profoundly changing expectations.  People are personal.  In comparison, brands increasingly sound insincere and craven.  People listen to them less, and their relevance falls.

CMOs that understand this shift have a rare opportunity to change how they relate to customers and other stakeholders, become relevant on a personal level and increase profits.  If you think about it, this is quite a complex undertaking because it means transforming the brand relationship with stakeholders as well as the communications and interactions that reflect the change in relationship. Transformation requires new competencies in advisory firms as well.

How to Transform While Running Your Current Business

Here is a broad three part framework to the transformation process.

Assess Stakeholder Behavior

• Analyze your stakeholders' participation in digital social venues; adoption varies significantly with industry and types of stakeholders.
• Conduct an in-depth study of stakeholder behavior and measure the change over time.  Baseline it going back four or five years, and measure the change in stakeholder behavior annually since then.
• Note the types of conversations stakeholders are having, the situations they are in, and what their frustrations and aspirations are.
• Develop a strategy for participating in these conversations.  Assess your organization's resources (knowledge, expertise) and organize how you can share knowledge with stakeholders efficiently. This will require simple business process design.
• Analyze how competitors and substitutes are involved; learn from early adopters.  If there is minimal activity in your industry, look in other product/service categories that involve your stakeholders in similar social contexts.

Test Interactions

• Put your strategy to the test and begin interacting.  In most cases, actively seek to nurture conversations among people in the venue so that you do not dominate.  Unless you are on your own venue, you will drive people away if your presence is too strong.
• Plan for a learning process in which you develop your style for 'being personal.'  A business being personal is different from a person being personal.  Digital social venues make this easier because interactions are easy to capture, analyze, and measure.
• Develop models for measuring stakeholder attitude changes as a function of your team's interactions with them.  You want to measure changing trust and intimacy. Here is one model.
• Learn and adjust your approach through several pilots and repeat your analyses (under 'Assess') to measure stakeholder, competitor, and substitute activity outside of your pilots.
• The process outlined here, when pursued with rigor, will net you a comprehensive understanding of stakeholders' adoption over time as well as their willingness to interact with others and you.  I don't suggest planning a transformation process until you have a firm understanding of stakeholder adoption.
• Assess and Test phases will take most brands six to twelve months, depending on how vigorously they pursue it and how well they diligently create and execute their strategies.

Transform Your Relationships and Organization

• Your interactions with stakeholders will automatically begin to evolve as you interact with them online.  Moreover, your team(s) will experience change that may seem abstract until you see it.  I have seen significant client-stakeholder transformation in client work; your team will see that marketing's legacy impulse to 'make everything positive' is no longer necessary because stakeholders reward them for their 'realness' and helpfulness.
• Once you see predictable outcomes, you will want to reevaluate your interactions at the brand level, which will affect legacy marketing communications, promotions, advertising, ecommerce, and other parts of the marketing mix.  This is where transformation begins in earnest.
• Plan for some fear and resistance in team members who feel less comfortable with the increased transparency that the new messaging will require (being 'real,' not 'positive').  Your online interactions with stakeholders will give you extensive insight into how to do this in other areas because you will have seen how they respond to various interactions.  Depending on your relationships with them, you could even ask their opinions on various messaging elements.

Choosing an Advisory Firm

• As the reports on six types of advisory firms detail, each type of firm has various strengths that are relevant to different parts of the Social Business Life Cycle.  For example, strategy and Big Four firms are strong in Feasibility but weak in certain aspects of Strategy and Pilot.  Social business pure plays have the highest average scores in Pilot and, possibly, Scale.  Strategy, Big Four and enterprise I.T. firms are your best bets for Integrate.  Integrate refers to the Transform phase above.
• Categories of advisory firms are useful because they are based on firms' DNA, their core competencies, how they monetize their expertise, and their attitudes toward social business transformation (some firms experience more opportunity, others more threats).  For example, marketing/PR firms and advertising agencies will experience extensive threats due to the shift away from social media, toward social business.  Pure plays are obviously focused on opportunity. Enterprise I.T. has huge product and service businesses, so their point of view often revolves around their products.
• All this said, the team is usually more relevant than the firm, but teams do reflect their firms' DNA.  The most important and rare competency is hands-on experience with interacting in public to serve people, to solve their problems, and to support their endeavors.  Very few advisors show their professionals' abilities in interacting, being 'real,' online'except pure plays.  When the firm proposes a team, evaluate their individual interactions online.
• Sociality and being 'real' are the differentiators in social business.  Therefore, look for individuals, regardless of the logos on their business cards, because early adopters that practice and have explicit knowledge of sociality are your best leaders.  Look at their blog posts:  does a healthy portion deal with humanness, relationships, trust and sociality?  Promotion is a small part of being human; don't be seduced by clever wittiness.
• When evaluating teams, keep in mind that social business focuses on interacting in order to increase trust and develop relationships with stakeholders.  It is significantly different from social media, which largely promotes.  Stakeholders have long tired of being sold to.  Don't evaluate your teams on their social media interactions.

Resources

• The Advisory and Services Firm Social Business Adoption
• This may be disconcerting, but your agencies are probably not the advisors you need.  The agency category ranked lowest in Overall, Practice, and Leadership scores.  See the Agency Report. Access all reports via the research survey home page.
• More detailed information on assessing behavior and testing interactions.

The Three Keys to a Good Website

The Three Keys To A Good Website

Some people think that just having a good website is key to online success. But I have to ask, what constitutes a GOOD website? Beauty (or GOOD in this case) is in the hand, eye, and mind of the beholder. Let me explain.

The Hand

Your website visitors generally have two attributes' good muscle memory and short attention spans. Good muscle memory means that people have a pre-defined expectation about navigating your website. They expect pages to be labeled in a way they understand and in an order that they are used to. To learn more about this see my post on 'The Microwave Effect'.

In today's Short Attention Span Theater, you have two minutes and three clicks to get your main message across. After that, you will see a drop off in interaction or even worse, an exit from your website.

Both of these are very measurable, using a tool like Google Analytics, but how people use their hand to use their mouse or finger to navigate your website is key.

The Eye

The Internet is becoming more and more visual. Ever since Pinterest jumped into the social media mix, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn have raised the bar on their visual content and interaction. So if you want to know what the bar is for your website, look at those four websites.

The days of animated gifs, moving buttons and cartoony stock art are long gone. Clean, creative and distinctive photography is the norm. Websites have to make it clear what the brand of the business is visual, through select but complimentary colors and fonts. And just using plain stock photos (like those from IStockPhoto.com) without some added creativity is rampant on small business websites. Nothing says stock art like seeing the same graphic on a competitors website. There are so many tools that let you creatively add personality to your own photos and stock art (just look what you can do with free apps like Instagram).

The Mind

A mind is a terrible thing to waste, and so is your viewers' time. It used to be the norm for every web page to read like a Manifesto for your products and services, and why your website was the De facto place to be. Then once the SEO guys got a hold of your text, these pages would become so keyword laden, they'd be rendered almost unreadable by the casual visitor.

In this short attention span theater, less is more. In Google's eyes, the optimum amount of website content is 300 words per page. With only 300 words, each page has to be crafted for content readability first, and SEO content second.

Final Thoughts

Ultimately what matters is how your visitors and end users perceive this. Very few of us are blessed with user interface design, graphic art or Photoshop skills, and creative writing talent with SEO knowledge. Chances are, you're excellent at one, good at two or serviceable at all of them.

Maximize your strengths, utilize your experience, but know when to ask for help in making your website successful by making users hands, eyes, and minds happy!

Protect Your Online Assets ' Even if You Don't Think You Have Any!

We've said it many times before, but a website really is a non-negotiable part of doing business. I spoke to a prospect earlier today who said that he doesn't do any marketing, online or otherwise. Yet this same prospect had a website, has local directory listings and has clients leaving opinions of his services online, Google even brought up a newspaper article from last month that mentions his name and business directly. All of this was (except for his basic website that has been in place and unchanged for years) was without his knowledge and out of his control.

It's never been easier for potential customers to find out what others think of your business. Likewise, it's never been easier for existing customers to leave their opinions of you, good or bad, very publically and without contacting you to let you know.

Even if you are like the prospect that I spoke to earlier and don't wish to actively market your business online there are steps you should be taking to protect your online interests that shouldn't take you too much time, but will ensure that you are protecting your assets to a certain extent.

Claim your Google+ Local Listing.

Every business in the world has a Google + Local page or they can claim one. The vast majority of businesses haven't done anything with theirs as they haven't even realised it's there to be claimed. If you claim your Google + Local page you can give yourself an advantage when potential clients are searching for businesses like yours in your local area because Google wants to offer its own results over and above anything else. An optimised Google + Local page will also help when people search directly on your business name, because Google will recognise this as another citation of your business being valid.

Claim your local directory sites.

Sites such as Yell, Thomsonlocal and Yelp are like the evolved version of the old phonebooks. They list business contact details, addresses and usually a brief description. This information will most likely have been auto filled from your website, but won't necessarily have been refreshed even if your website information has been. These local directory sites hold a large amount of credibility with search engines who recognise them as a valid source of information. Many local directory sites have been online since the early days of the internet, which adds into their trust factor as far as the search engines are concerned. If you claim your business listing in an online directory you are given the opportunity to add additional information, for example pictures, offers, or even just give more accurate detail about what you do.

Set up Social Media sites in your business name.

You may have no desire to represent your business on Social Media, but the fact is that millions of people do use it, and you may have customers or potential customers looking for you on there. The worst thing that could happen is that someone else could set up a page using your business name and pretending to be you. Ensure this doesn't happen by setting yourself up, and if you don't want to use the sites leave a message clearly stating the best ways to get in touch with you. Once you've set the sites up, set up email notifications for if anyone does write on your wall or send you a tweet just so nothing slips through the cracks.

Make sure your Business Name, Address and Postcode are correct.

Each business has a unique Name, Address and postcode (NAP) and Search Engines use this information to ensure that information they return is about the same business, not another business with the same name. If you have moved premises you're likely to remember to update your stationary and forward your post, but you also need to make sure that you update your address details with all local directories, Google and on your own website so that online searchers can find you too. It's also important to keep all citations of your name and address the same, for example if your building number is 24-26 High Street, some people may just list it as 24, or 26. Whilst a postman would hopefully understand and deliver your mail, a search engine would see these as different things and therefore not give you the same credibility in the search results.

Encourage Positive Reviews

It's an unfortunate fact that people are more likely to complain than they are to praise. Your business may have had hundreds of satisfied clients over the years, and you may even have a box full of glowing testimonials, but it only takes one dissatisfied client to vent their frustration publically online to ruin your online reputation. Whilst the obvious solution is to always provide excellent customer care, there's always going to be an occasional slip. If you already have dozens of happy customers talking about you online then one bad review will be a drop in the ocean. If you have no positive reviews then the bad one is all that anyone can see. Take pre-emptive action by encouraging everyone you deal with to leave a positive review of your business online. If you've followed the advice above and claimed your local directory listings then you can even ask people to go to a specific site to leave their reviews. We set up private review portals for our clients to make sure reviews can be captured and posted as easily as possible.

Not every business wants to actively manage their online profile, but it is important to have some kind of system or process in place as even if you aren't interested in being online, I can guarantee people will already be talking about you and your business on the internet.

To find out how you could make it easier for clients to share their great reviews about your business online click here!

Three Ways Effective Leaders Influence Change

Most leaders have given up on influence. They cope and carp rather than influence and lead.

For example, one VP of Sales knew precisely what his sales people needed to do in order to double their sales. But he'd concluded it was impossible to influence his global sales force to follow these proven practices, so he focused his attention on selection. He hoped just finding people who naturally behaved like top sales people would be the path to boosting sales. It wasn't.

Over the past 20 years, we've sought out and studied a different kind of leader. We've tried to find those who had remarkable abilities to influence change'rapidly, profoundly and sustainably. Here are three things these influencers do that accounts, in part, for their remarkable and repeated success:

1. Find Opinion Leaders. Ralph Heath at Lockheed Martin had to get the F-22 Raptor from design to production in record time'or risk losing a multi-billion dollar program. To do so, he had to influence the behavior of 5000 engineers and skilled craftspeople who had developed a slow-paced prototype-it-forever culture. Heath knew he didn't have time to develop the rapport and relationship he'd need to lead change with all 5000 of his people. So he did what all effective influencers do'he focused on influencing the influencers. He spent disproportionate time with both the formal leaders and the opinion leaders in the organization. Opinion leaders are those who may not be bosses, but who are highly respected by the rank and file workers. It turns out you don't have to have relationships with everyone to influence change. You just need to have relationships with those who do!

2. Change the data stream. Few leaders use one of the most potent and relentless sources of influence available: their influence over an organizations' data stream. The data stream is the universe of reports, emails, charts, metrics, signage and other sources of information that set the mental agenda of an organization. Most organizations are clogged with data flying everywhere'so there is no coherent message or mental agenda whatsoever. When leaders want to get attention and issue a new report, it competes for attention with everything else'and gives no influence.

Pat Ryan, a senior manager at Oklahoma Gas and Electric, discovered that one of the most important ways community members judged the responsiveness of their company was on the speed with which light poles were repaired after reports. The problem was that the company treated streetlight repairs as 'backlog work''something to be done when there's nothing else to do. Ryan reset the mental agenda of the organization by eliminating distracting reports and instituting one that reported all the light poles that had gone more than five days without repair. Within a month, late repairs dropped by over 90 percent.

3. Connect to Values. Many behaviors are tough to get people to take action. For example, leaders in hospitals have tried for 50 years to increase compliance with hand washing requirements. In many hospitals employees wash as little as 30 percent of the time they should. The result is millions of infections spreading through hospitals yearly.

A middle manager at one East Coast hospital attempted to influence this intractable problem. One element of her influence strategy was to help people realize the vital, moral issue at play every time they made a decision to wash'or not. People are willing to do even tough, boring, routine or painful things'if these things connect to their deepest values. And yet, leaders spend so little time helping people reflect on the moral implications of their behaviors. As a result, these leaders have little influence. This manager began tracking the consequences of every unnecessary infection in her hospital. Each time an infection occurred, she gathered her team and told them the story. She'or a member of her team'described the additional pain, cost and injury that resulted because of this lapse. Over time, as people began to think more carefully about the values they were putting at risk, hand washing compliance soared.

The fundamental job of leaders is to influence the behavior of others. If leaders expand the number of ways they know how to influence change, they can move from carping and coping, to influencing and leading.

This article is an original contribution by Joseph Grenny.

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5 Signs Your Marketing Isn't Integrated

Integrated marketing is hard.

Every single marketing touchpoint should be working together. Executed well, it is a great example of 1 + 1 + 1 = 5.

However, integrated marketing isn't an exact science, there is not a simple litmus test that tells you if your marketing is integrated. Often it is easier to spot the signs your marketing is not integrated.

So with that, here are five signs that your marketing is not integrated.

1. Your Landing Pages Don't Fit

Do you have landing pages for your search and email campaigns that have a totally different look and feel from your regular site or your emails? Alternatively, do you have great content available on landing pages but you don't link to it from your homepage or elsewhere in your site?

If so, you are missing one of the simplest places to integrate your marketing.

2. Your Database Isn't Broadly Used

Delivering a consistent experience across multiple channels requires good data about your audience and the infrastructure necessary to use it.

If your marketing automation doesn't talk to your email which doesn't talk to your display advertising which doesn't talk to your site CMS, the only way you can deliver a consistent message and experience is if you treat everyone the same way.

3. You Still Have Channel-Specific Ideas

Do you have social media ideas, TV ideas or event ideas? Oops. The channels and tactics used should be a natural outgrowth of an audience centric idea.

4. Your Social Accounts Are Disconnected

Integrated marketing touches every touchpoint with your company that is in your control.

If a search for your brand name returns corporate social media accounts that don't reflect the same core values and message as your corporate site (for instance, if they are full of promotions and discounts while your overall message is about premium quality), you have a social media disconnect.

5. You Are Still Ignoring Mobile

For most target audiences today, mobile is another screen used to access the web, not another channel. If your website cannot handle mobile traffic, then you are not actually presenting your audience with a single integrated experience.

Your Turn

Let me know which is your favorite or share your own sign in the comments below or on Twitter (@wittlake).

Photo Credit: doobybrain via Flickr cc

Don't Let 'After Sales' Be an 'After Thought'

With competition for new customers fiercer than ever, keeping the ones you've already found happy is essential. Don't fall into the trap of thinking the job is done when the package lands on their doorstep.

The product arriving at the customer is not the end

Problems with the way you handle after sales customer interaction can have a significant impact on your business. The customers' money may be in the bank, but it's far from the end of the story. Customers who do have issues with the product you've delivered need to be addressed quickly and accurately if you're to protect the future revenue they represent to the company.

Control is key

The returns process needs to be carefully controlled. Unauthorized replacements are responsible for significant costs that at best are hard to accurately assign, and at worst unnecessary. Fulfilling your obligations is essential for protecting customer satisfaction, but warranty and repair issues incur expense that should only be actioned when appropriate. Furthermore, those costs then need to be fully traceable and correctly assigned within the administration.

Protect people from making the wrong decisions

Workflow functionality is again of benefit here. Building permission structure into workflow requests can help to ensure expensive procedures are only actioned when they should be. All activities can also be tied to customer history, ensuring that the bigger picture is always kept in mind and that customer service levels are appropriate to the client. Showing detailed knowledge of the relationship history shows that you're in control and that you care.

Know the one-off from the persistent problem

Flexible overviews of all after sales activities will help you correctly differentiate between trends and anomalies, and action strategic changes accordingly. Unknown customer costs not only hurt the margin, but are very difficult to analyze and prevent from happening again. ERP that handles after sales activities can significantly reduce the impact of these issues ' recording, tracking and reporting on requests and the resulting activities. In addition to creating financial overviews of their impact, all returns and repairs information can be directly linked to customer and supplier information for simple traceability.

Support new extensions to the business

Increasingly, wholesalers will be looking to added value activities that complement their assortment to drive revenue growth ' particular in terms of after sales activities. The right ERP system will help here as well. Companies looking to supply support services can manage the processes from embedded planning and materials functionality. Linked to the customer account data, businesses will be able to register timely service alerts, allowing them to be proactive in supporting their customers. Service personnel can then be dispatched with full information on the previous customer history, real time insight into spare part availability and access to a full suite of relevant documentation.

Here's How to Tell If You Are Ready for Marketing Automation

This is an excerpt from our latest comprehensive guide, the 100-page Definitive Guide to Marketing Automation. Download the entire ebook here for free to learn everything you ever wanted to know about marketing automation.

Let's do an exercise. Raise your hand if your company has the ability to send marketing emails.

I mean it. Don't just read along ' really, raise your hand. This one's easy. I'll wait.

OK. Now, keep it raised if your company can easily create new landing pages for each campaign.

Is it still up?

Now keep it raised if your marketing team can set up all the emails for an event before it starts, and let it run 'lights-out'. No one looking. All parts whirring'and working.

Yes, I know'that one's a little trickier. Just a few more. I know your arm may be getting tired.

Do you have the ability to look at a list of potential customers and prioritize them based on fit with your business and likelihood to buy? Can you filter leads by level of engagement and interest in your brand?

Is your hand still up?

Last question. Keep your hand raised if you can measure the revenue contribution of each of your marketing programs.

If your arm is still up, you probably already know what marketing automation is and you are using it effectively. Congrats ' give yourself a fist pump!

Marketing Automation Readiness Worksheet

Everyone else, use this worksheet to determine if your company is ready to use marketing automation.

For each category, select the appropriate number. If you strongly disagree, choose 1. If you strongly agree, choose 5. The numbers in between 1 and 5 correspond to your level of agreement, neutrality, or disagreement. Tally your score when you're finished, and follow the instructions at the end.

**This evaluation was based on research from Gleanster.

To interpret your results, tally your score.

• If you scored > 35, you're ready for marketing automation.
• If you scored between 20 ' 35, you're moving in that direction. You should consider getting started with a system very soon.
• If you scored under 20, you may not be ready quite yet, but perhaps if you can learn more about the technology you can start building a business case

Download the Definitive Guide to Marketing Automation

Regardless of how you scored, grab a free copy of our ebook, the Definitive Guide to Marketing Automation. We made a fun video to show you what you'll learn by reading the guide:

The 100 page-guide is designed to comprehensively answer any and all questions you have about marketing automation. It will show you what marketing automation is and how it can help your company. It will show you how to select the right system, and what investments are required for success. It will also explain:

• Why marketing automation is so hot right now
• How marketing automation differs from other technologies such as CRM and email marketing
• The common features and advanced functions of various tools
• How to build a business case and convince internal stakeholders to act
• The future of marketing automation

5 Different Types of Landing Pages (and How to Choose the Right One)

Landing pages are always going to be important because it is the first thing your users see. You want to make that good first impression; however landing pages aren't all about looks. There are quite a few other aspects to the landing page that will impact its effectiveness ' things like navigation, optimization and relevancy. In 2013 understanding the different types of landing pages it going to be more important than ever because the competition is stiffening, and people are going to be expecting relevant results more than ever.

Top 5 Different Types of Landing Pages

It's first important to understanding what a landing page is, and it isn't just your homepage. A landing page is the page that someone lands on when they click on one of your ads (whether it be banner, Google result, lick in a guest post, etc.). Therefore, your landing page will change based upon the link or ad that someone is clicking'it has to be specific. You have to set your landing pages for all of these different ways of online advertising to be something relevant to the specific ad.

Below are five of the most popular and most general types of landing pages:

1. Click Through. This is the most basic type of landing page and is therefore one that is usually considered first. This landing page has general information about a product'why you should buy the product, when it's available, etc.'and has a button for a user to press to take him/her to the page where the item can be purchased.
2. Viral. These types of landing pages are trying to generate buzz amongst a large group of people, so they are full of social sharing buttons and great content. Websites that typically have a landing page full of blog posts and cool photos and videos are considered viral.
3. Lead Capture. There is no exit route when it comes to a lead capture landing page. The company wants someone to come to the page and fill out his/her information so that the company can use this information to send email marketing campaigns, connect with on social media, call with special offers, etc. Below is one example of a lead capture landing page:
4. Mobile. Setting up a mobile landing page is all about keeping in mind the small device. You don't want a ton of little content, but you don't want an image taking up the entire screen, either. You want to have a colorful and catchy headline with a nice big button that helps users navigate through the site.
5. Homepage. Sometimes companies will just link to the homepage, and this isn't usually a good move. Your homepage is likely full of different options and choices, when in fact someone clicked on a specific link to get something specific. Therefore, you need to be giving them something specific when they arrive. Sometimes the homepage is it, but usually you'll want to go with one of the above choices.

It's true that different landing pages look different, but the different types are really all about goals and what the landing pages can accomplish.

How to Know Which Landing Page Is Right for You

When it comes to 'types' of landing pages the first thing you need to ask yourself has to do with your goals. What do you want to accomplish when users hit your landing page? How much money are you willing to put into your landing page? It's all about asking those basic questions first before sitting down to analyze the different options.

In general, the different types of pages work well for different types of companies. For example, if you are an Ecommerce company and aim to sell things online (as opposed to educate or entertain), then it makes sense to have a click through landing page. If you aim to educate, having lots of cool content with the viral type of page makes sense. It's all about asking yourself those questions and seeing which option works, even if it means taking features of a few different types and coming up with something on your own.

Have you spent some time fixing up your landing page? Which type did you think worked best for your company and why? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

Using the Digital Social Landscape to Pay It Forward in Business

I'm a big believer in 'what goes around, comes around'. As a marketer, this has come through for me big-time in the social media landscape ' where I've 'met' and connected with some awesome folks who get the idea of shared information and support to make us all better at what we do.

The idea of the digital social landscape is to do just that: be social and use digital to build relationships through content, sharing, and advocacy. If you turn the world on its head once in awhile to make it about others as well as yourself, it will come back to you and your business will thrive.

I've tried to pay it forward as others in my network have, and these are some tips I've learned and/or have executed along the way that I think everyone in business should consider.

1. Share valuable content provided by people in your network. Take 20 minutes each week to proactively look for meaningful content in places like your Twitter, Google+ or LinkedIn streams and like, share, comment on, or recommend it.
2. Take the time to comment on blog posts or articles from your network that you find particularly meaningful or valuable.
3. Add links to other people's content on your website and/or blog posts to support like-minded people whose offer/content aligns with your own, and may be of value to your constituents.
4. Tweet, post and share content from folks in your network who are announcing a new venture, launching a new product, or doing something really cool. Help them get the word out (if you believe in what they're doing that is).
5. Go to Yelp, LinkedIn or similar channels to post something nice about someone whom you've had a good experience with, who you believe in and/or who has offered value to your business. Surprise someone with an unsolicited promotion or recommendation.
6. Thank folks in your network who are adding value to your business. Maybe (as has been the case with my network) they are teaching you new things, helping you to stay up on trends or even providing leads. Think of how you can show your appreciation for their 'place' in your business life.

The point is: At the end of the day, we're all in the business of building awareness about what we do and what we offer, so why not be in this game together. Use the digital social landscape to pay it forward and it will come back two-fold. At least it has for me.

What is the Difference Between Thought Leadership and Content Marketing?

The other day, I asked the following question:

How would you define the difference between thought leadership and content marketing?

' Jon Miller (@jonmiller) February 7, 2013

Here are some of the responses I got:

RT @jonmiller: Thought leadership can be in content used for content marketing, but not all content marketing has thought leadership ~ME

' AcquireB2B (@AcquireB2B) February 7, 2013

Some overlap, TL is outside the status quo and practices. CM is more focused on education and common practice. RT @wittlake @jonmiller #b2b

' Casey Carey (@caseycarey) February 7, 2013

@jonmiller Thought leadership is the goal; content marketing is the means.

' Resonance (@resonancecont) February 8, 2013

@jonmiller I think of thought leadership as your beliefs/values. Content marketing is the way you amplify those (& tie to your offerings).

' Heather Vaughn (@mewzikgirl) February 7, 2013

@jonmiller From a metrics perspective, TL measured by recognition metrics & CM by harder numbers typified by the steps in the lead funnel

' emediaUSA (@emediaUSA) February 7, 2013

@jonmiller It's like the difference between Apples and Oats. They go well together, they are both foods, but that's the end of it.

' Eric Wittlake (@wittlake) February 7, 2013

My Thoughts

In a post from 2009, Why Thought Leadership Is Your Most Valuable Asset, I wrote that thought leaders:

• Develop relationships with customers, prospects and others by engaging them in non-sales, industry-relevant conversations.
• Become the go-to source for research, insight and interpretation of the latest news and trends.
• Gain trust among prospective customers so that when the time finally comes to purchase, customers turn to the thought leader organization.

In retrospect, that sounds to me more like content marketing, which I define as 'the process of creating and distributing highly relevant and valuable content to attract, acquire, and engage clearly defined and understood target audiences'with the objective of driving profitable customer action'.

So my thoughts have changed. My perspective today is that both thought leadership and content marketing can very effectively build your awareness and brand, but that true thought leadership is much rarer. Thought leadership consists of ideas that require attention, that offer guidance or clarity and that can lead people in unexpected, sometimes contrarian directions (think of Seth Godin). Thought leadership needs to be educational and ideally provocative; content marketing can simply be fun or entertaining.

Recently, we've started to see a backlash against content marketing that's devoid of quality, including must-read posts from Velocity, Jonathon Colman, Christopher Penn, Michael Brenner, and Marketo's own Jason Miller. Perhaps what content marketing needs in 2013 is an injection of more thought leadership?

What do you think? How would you distinguish thought leadership from content marketing? Let me know in the comments.

9 Valuable Bits of Business Advice for New Entrepreneurs

I've compiled what I think is some great advice for emerging entrepreneurs from small business and entrepreneurial experts on mosiacHUB, an entrepreneur community and resource center where entrepreneurs, service providers, mentors, and investors connect. (I've included links to the mosaicHUB profiles of those who contributed to the advice offered in this article.)

1. Define your brand up front.
   Crafting your brand'your promise to buyers with a foundation of trust' is one of the most important initial steps in jumpstarting a business. Branding is about discovering the thing deep inside you and your business that creates unique value for your customers. If you clearly and consistently brand your business, you'll have a laser-focused understanding of your business's values, personality and goals, and a self awareness that dictates all your actions. Over time, you will build a stronger business identity. Strong brands elicit strong emotions, opinions, and responses from your target market that contribute to the growth of your business. All good business decisions are made in alignment with the established brand. Your brand determines the position and strength of your entire marketing framework, and serves as a constant internal point of focus.
   (Rob Wolfe)
2. No matter how much you think you know, you know less than you realize.
   The key is to surround yourself with people who know more about things you don't know and people who challenge your way of thinking about things you do know, then listen to both. People are the most important asset. Don't ignore your people.
   (Steve Meyer, Jim Finkelstein)
3. Keep focus on the vision and stay flexible to market dynamics.
   All good businesses should have an idea of where they want to be at a point in time in the future and create a plan to get there. All long journeys are made up of a path of small steps. However the plan must be followed and developed to overcome problems along the way and to identify a new path if the goal changes. Continually research your market and be open to new opportunities.
   (Brian Omolo, Philip Gale, Frank Odia)
4. Invest in marketing.
   An average product with big marketing dollars can succeed, but the greatest of the products without sufficient marketing dollars won't go anywhere. Marketing needs as much money as you can afford to put in. That is where people underestimate and get in trouble all the time.
   (Brijesh Kumar)
5. Accept that problems are a part of business.
   Just accept that there will always be problems. Consider them part of your business, and deal with them as they arise. Don't hit the panic button every time. Trust your instincts ' you will now if a problem is REALLY a problem. Sometimes problems are in fact opportunities, chances to learn, etc.
   (John Flanagan)
6. Pay full attention to your financials.
   This tells a business owner what happens in their company from when the lights are turned on in the morning to when they are turned off at night. Tap into the intellectual experience in your circle to ensure you are rightsizing your expenses and paying attention to your top line. Keep your expenses as low as possible when you're starting up. This will insure that you can last long enough to grow that seed. Once you have grown the seed into a viable business, then you can spend to grow the business. Cashflow, cashflow and cashflow'manage it daily !
   (Danita Harn, Rick Tuinenburg, James Gibson)
7. Be ready to be wrong. You learn more by failing than by quitting.
   Entrepreneurship requires trial and error to find the best way for you to execute it. You will make bad investments, you will hire the wrong people and you will miss opportunities'it's the nature of entrepreneurship. If you cannot accept and learn from mistakes, that will cost you money, time and worst of all, clients. Then you will not find the patience and perseverance necessary for you and your business to develop, grow and succeed. Things are probably going to get really tough at some point and you're likely to seriously consider giving up. Carefully review the path you took to determine where you might have been better off to change directions for future reference. Learn from the mistakes, make changes and move on quickly.
   (John Wolforth, Steve Meyer, Ken Helmers)
8. Stop thinking like a small business owner.
   Ask yourself this: 'If Richard Branson didn't have a dime, and had to build his fortune back from where I am now, would he be doing what I am doing?' The answer is invariably, 'No!' So, what would he do? Fine tune the model and make it work as a pilot. Keep the pilot low cost, and be close to the customer to achieve valuable feedback. Once the pilot is successful, rapidly scale.
   (Alok Sharma)
9. Dress for the part.
   Far too many budding entrepreneurs think that being an entrepreneur means fulfilling the image of showing up to important meetings wearing a golf shirt. Having the right image not only impresses others favorably, but it creates a strong impression on YOUR mind and gives you a feeling and persona of power you can't get otherwise.
   (Frank Rumbauskas)

Are there any other pieces of critical advice that you would like to add to the list to offer to emerging entrepreneurs? What are your thoughts on the bits of advice provided above?

Is Big Data The Future of Marketing?

Our Future of Marketing interview series continues with Steve McKee. Steve is the author of When Growth Stalls, the accompanying blog, Stalled, Stuck or Stale. He is also President of marketing agency McKee Wallwork. You can follow Steve on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

In our last interview, Doug Kessler talked about creating a content culture. Before that, Todd Wheatland predicted that content and technology would combine to drive the future of marketing. Mark Schaefer discussed culture and the future of search. Marcus Starke predicted the rise of the science of marketing. Ann Handley called for more brands to become Content Brands. And Alan See reiterated that the customer and the content is king.

Now let's hear what Steve thinks about the present and future of marketing.

Tell us about yourself?

I'm an author, columnist, blogger, entrepreneur and head of an integrated marketing agency. I've been an agency guy from day one, starting my career working on the Pizza Hut business for a terrific Southern California firm. Fast forward to today'having spent the past twenty-five years in five different agencies (from global to local) working on a wide variety of accounts, I'm partner in my own shop. Along the way I discovered a love of writing (hence my book, blog and Businessweek column) and a knack for finding niches (we recently launched a startup tech firm in the Bay Area).

Tell us about a tough or interesting challenge you face?

The biggest challenge we face is maintaining our agency's focus while staying ahead of change in a rapidly evolving environment. We specialize in working with stalled, stuck and stale brands, which there are no shortage of these days. But turnover in the c-suite, changing marketplace dynamics and an increasingly confusing environment can easily knock an agency off its game.

How are you approaching those challenges?

We continually remind ourselves to take our own medicine, deepening the capabilities we consider unique and maintaining focus on the essentials (our core competency of helping struggling companies understand and address their true challenges) while being nimble in our offering (new/different services including things like social media strategy consulting and data visualization). That has helped us remain consistent while staying relevant'an interesting balancing act.

What is your prediction for the future of marketing?

I am fascinated with the rapid escalation of 'big data' and the tools available to analyze it. I think it may increase the polarization between the analytical and creative sides of marketing. More and better-understood data will give the analysts more influence, but since data, by definition, can provide only a view of the past (even if it's the immediate past), we'll need forward-thinking creative capabilities more than ever. This may raise tension not only between the analytical and creative players within clients and agencies, but within the mind of the individual strategist as well. It will put an even higher premium on planners who can comfortably operate using both sides of their brains. I find that personally exciting, if a bit intimidating.

Content Marketing: The Fallacy that More Content is Better

Everywhere I go, I find marketers who are challenged with creating more content. More blog posts, more eBooks, more videos, more podcasts' more, more, more. Even our latest content marketing research found that the number one challenge for business marketers is producing enough content.

I'm done with more.

Here's a little state of the industry that I've noticed:

• There are hundreds of marketing gurus out there who will tell you that more is better.
• Brands and publishers alike are setting up massive newsrooms to newsjack every possible opportunity.
• Keyword phrases are being locked and loaded, as we speak, into thousands of content marketing programs around the world ' curated content and original content alike.
• Organizations of all sizes are figuring out how much content they can get out of every contractor they work with, and how to get that investment down to as little per hour as possible.

Now, I'm not saying that any of this is wrong; but it's definitely not better.

There was a time for more

'Ecclesiastes assures us' that there is a time for every purpose under heaven. A time to laugh' and a time to weep. A time to mourn' and there is a time to dance. And there was a time for this law, but not anymore.' ' Kevin Bacon (Ren) in 'Footloose' (1984)

Going back almost a decade ago, I believed more was better ' more of any and all types of content helps us market all types of things (as long as it's good content, right?).

Good sites like Mashable and Huffington Post came along and started to show us what amazing traction we could get with more. More content would get more play on Reddit and Digg, and then Facebook and Twitter. Inevitably, this led to thoughts like, 'Hey, we need to target these 150 keywords. We need more content.'

And then media companies like Forbes added a million [exaggeration] contributors, and started to create more content and cover more niche areas.

More eBooks for SlideShare. More videos for YouTube. More content for syndication. More blog posts for Buffer to buffer' and on and on.

There was a time for more, but that time has passed.

Epic content marketing

My upcoming book, out in September, is called 'Epic Content Marketing.' I have one goal for the book: to say something worth saying.

There are many definitions of the word epic. According to dictionary.com, the sixth definition given for epic is 'of heroic or impressive proportions; an epic voyage.' This is the one I'm focusing on for my book.

In North America, nine in 10 businesses (of any size in any industry) use content marketing. Content marketing is not new, but it is getting cluttered; contaminated, if you will.

How do we break through this clutter? We need to be epic with our content marketing. We need to do it better.

What do I think of when I think of truly epic content marketing? I think of Marcus Sheridan and his blog posts ' when I read them, I can tell that he spent way more time than any average human would take to make what he was saying worth saying.

I think of IBM and its amazing research reports, which are always helpful. The company never, ever takes shortcuts with its research.

I think of thinkMoney magazine from Ameritrade. Heck, I'm not even a trader and I enjoy this publication immensely.

The next phase of content marketing

Think about your current content marketing program. Now read the questions below:

• Do you have a documented content strategy as part of your marketing program, or are you just filling channels with content?
• Is the content you are distributing truly best of breed ' meaning that it's as good or better than anything else available?
• Are you really making an impact on your customer's lives or careers with the information you provide to them?
• Are you in the game just to sell more, or are you in it to make a difference?
• Are you setting up your content marketing department around more or around best?

How do you know if your content is truly epic?

Here is one easy litmus test: Are you seeing behaviors change?

Are customers sharing your content? Are members of your customers' networks sharing your content? Is your content a central part of conversations on the web? Are prospects signing up to receive your content on an ongoing basis? If you don't deliver your content at the regularly scheduled time, are customers calling you to find out where it is? Are influencers creating new content from your old content?

If the answers to all of these questions are 'yes,' then your content is worth saying. Your content is epic.

This responsibility falls on every one of us. It is on us to change our wicked ways and stop the contamination that comes from the endless, and misguided, quest for more.

(Okay' getting down from my soapbox now. Thank you for listening!)

Looking for tips on better content creation (rather than just 'more' content creation)? Register to attend Content Marketing World Sydney, in Sydney, Australia on March 4'6.

7 Customer Experience Lessons Courtesy of the Horse Meat and Amazon Scandals

What is the central insight that arises from the discipline of systems and systems thinking? It is this

Everything is interconnected with everything else

You may be asking yourself, what has this to do with Customer Experience. Everything. For one it means that when one is up for architecting/designing/delivering the Customer Experience it is not enough to simply focus on the service delivered by Customer Services. Nor is it enough to look at interactions, touchpoints, and the front office functions of marketing, sales and customer service. These are the two essential facts that are not adequately grasped, at best, for many, they are simply platitudes. Let's explore.

Horse meat scandal: Supermarkets battle to regain customer confidence

By now you must have heard that there is another scandal which started in the UK and now spans Europe. It is the horse meat scandal. According to the Telegraph, a pro business newspaper:

A hard-hitting report by MPs on Thursday said that the scale of contamination in the supermarket meat supply chain was 'breathtaking'. The cross-party Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee said that consumers had been 'cynically and systematically duped', as 'elements in the food chain' had pursued profits by substituting beef for cheaper horse meat.

And if that is not enough, the same piece goes on to say:

Although blame for the contamination lies with suppliers rather than retailers, one long-serving senior supermarket executive described the situation as 'pandemonium'. 'I was around for foot-and-mouth and BSE and this feels like it's on that scale,'

Think about the Customer Experience. Has the experience of customers been affected negatively by the scandal? Here is what the Telegraph newspapers says:

Shoppers already appear to be voting with their feet. Meat sales in independent family-run butchers and farm shops have risen by 75pc in some areas while analysts believe sales of cheaper processed meat in supermarkets have fallen sharply. A survey found that almost half of all shoppers will avoid buying processed meat from affected supermarkets.

Ask yourself what has changed? Specifically, what customer interaction, touchpoint, and experience at that touchpoint has changed? It occurs to me that from a functional touchpoint view nothing has changed. So how is it that the Customer Experience has changed? From a customer viewpoint everything has changed. They have found that they cannot trust the supermarkets. And as such the Customer Experience of supermarkets, at least when it comes to buying meat, has been impacted negatively.

What specifically does the horse meat scandal unconceal for us? I say that it unconceals the importance of the supply chain in so far as it impacts the 'product' that is offered to the customer. Hold that thought.

Amazon scandal: using neo-Nazi guards to keep workforce under control?

Can you exclude examining the supply chain, as a part of your Customer Experience effort, if it does not impact the quality of the product which touches the customer? The obvious answer appears to be yes. I say you might just want to think again. Why?

I am an Amazon customer and up to now I have been neutral about the values/impact of Amazon. As such I have bought a lot of stuff from Amazon over the years. Now, I am conflicted. Over the past few days the desire to buy several products has shown up and yet I have not found myself able to buy. Why? Because I have been given a glimpse into the supply chain practices of Amazon. And what I stand for in this world conflicts with what Amazon is up to in its supply chain. According to this Independent article:

Amazon is at the centre of a deepening scandal in Germany as the online shopping giant faced claims that it employed security guards with neo-Nazi connections to intimidate its foreign workers.

Germany's ARD television channel made the allegations in a documentary about Amazon's treatment of more than 5,000 temporary staff from across Europe to work at its German packing and distribution centres.

The film showed omnipresent guards from a company named HESS Security wearing black uniforms, boots and with military haircuts. They were employed to keep order at hostels and budget hotels where foreign workers stayed. 'Many of the workers are afraid,' the programme-makers said.

7 Customer Experience lessons

I say one should not waste the insight that comes from these scandals. So I offer you 7 lessons that show up for me as result of these scandals and my work on Customer Experience.

1. Clearly Customer Experience, as a construct and as a discipline, is more than simply the service delivered by the Customer Services function.

2. Customer Experience is more than individual, or even the sum of, customer interactions with the company at touch points via specific channels.

3. Customer Experience is the delivery of the promise (value proposition) and the fulfilment of customer expectations across the complete customer life-cycle.

4. The product or service that draws the customer to purchase is a core/critical part of the Customer Experience and cannot simple be taken for granted and ignored. I wrote a while ago that the Customer Experience folks cannot simply ignore the product.

5. The supply chain matters as it impacts the Customer Experience, as such it cannot simply be ignored by those of us working on the Customer Experience.

6. Everything is connected to everything else. This means that what happens in the 'back office' or 'out of sight' of the customer, including HR practices and technology decisions, indirectly impacts the Customer Experience.

7. To excel and compete at Customer Experience one needs to get that Customer Experience has to be the organising doctrine for the whole organisation- it has to be a way of life for every person, every part of the organisation including its supply chain and channel partners.

And finally

It occurs to me that it is worth sharing this lesson. It is lesson that is not appreciated nor heeded especially by the Tops. It is a lesson that comes from the nature of systems:

One cannot escape indefinitely the long-term consequences of short-term orientated behaviour. Or as my father taught me at the age of 5, if you 'steal' then expect to get caught sooner or later.

How Your B2B Content Marketing and Sales Can Work Hand-in-Hand

A recent study really got me thinking about the role of the sales team in the B2B content marketing process, and vice-versa.

The ITSMA 2012 How Buyers Consume Information study asked an interesting question: 'At what stage in the buying process do you find it most useful to engage with sales reps?'

The top responses to this question stuck with me:

• Epiphany (24 percent): Keeping up with industry/technology news and events
• Awareness (23 percent): Learning more about potential solutions and solution providers
• Interest (24 percent): Identifying a shortlist of solution providers

Until I saw this data, I was under the impression that sales teams provide the greatest value to prospects who are at the final stages of the B2B buying process ' those who are evaluating vendors and solutions and those who are ready to negotiate and close a deal.

It is true that a company's sales team is invaluable at these final stages. But sales also has a vital role to play during the rest of the process ' that of trusted adviser. And that is a role that B2B content marketers can capitalize on.

Though the ITSMA study surveyed organizations in many different industries that purchase major technology solutions at costs of more than $500,000, its findings hold particular value for any company looking to explore ways that B2B sales and content marketing teams can work together for their mutual benefit.

Social buyers

One thing this study confirms is the existence of the social buyer ' someone distinctly different than a traditional buyer. This is not a surprise given the ever-increasing use of the web by buyers seeking information ' and the ever-increasing use of the web by companies to share content. Yet it is important to understand this type of consumer and his or her online behaviors.

Social buyers spend more time consuming content online (6.5 hours per week versus 4.3 per week for traditional buyers), and are more likely to engage in online conversations. This fact validates the time and energy B2B content marketing teams spend on creating educational and useful content: Prospects are indeed searching online for information to help them during the buying cycle.

The study also revealed that social buyers interact with sales teams differently than those who take the more traditional route to researching product or service options: With the amount of information available on the web, social buyers are better able to self-educate about many aspects of a product or service or a company. This would seem to reduce the need to interact with sales representatives.

Yet these very same buyers are looking to sales people to serve as advisers during their buying process. They want sales to help them accomplish specific tasks, such as finding unique perspectives on the market, identifying subject matter experts, and accessing benchmarking data and best practices.

Because the sales team plays a role earlier in the process ' at stages formerly reserved for the marketing team to make an impact ' the way these two teams relate to each other must adapt to be effective. In today's digital marketing environment, there are definite benefits to marketing and sales working together to reach the social buyers, such as:

• A more unified approach to creating content and reaching out to prospects and customers
• Better understanding of the buying cycle and how prospects consume content
• Better understanding of the needs of the audience

Content and the sales rep

Do you see where content enters into the picture? Think about how the sales team can use the content you create to help with their role as advisers. And think about how you can create content specifically designed for the sales team to use in that role.

Here are just a few examples of content you can create to help the sales team address these issues in each stage of the process, in their advisory roles:

• Content that provides perspectives on the market and solutions, like white papers, case studies, or blog posts. For example, Bongo International created white papers to discuss issues its customers may encounter when shipping internationally.

• Content that challenges a prospect's thinking, such as articles, analyst reports, or presentations. Take a look at this video Verizon produced on allowing employees to use personal and consumer applications in an enterprise.

• Content written by subject matter experts, like white papers, eBooks, webinars. For example, Axway's webinars showcase its experts as they discuss risks in financial services.

• Content that discusses benchmarks and best practices, including survey results, white papers, or eBooks. Consider Vodaphone's white paper on the BYOD (bring your own device) trend.

• Content that enables prospects to understand alternative solutions, like product comparisons, analyst reports, or white papers. For example, HID Global distributed product comparison charts for its security identity products.

• Content that gives advice about making the decision, such as case studies, ROI calculators, or webinars. See Cisco's Total Cost of Ownership and ROI calculator for migrating RISC server infrastructure to Cicso, as an example.

• Content that helps build the business case, including analyst reports, white papers, and ROI calculators. Microsoft features analyst reports on its website to serve this purpose.

Also consider creating content specifically for the sales team's use, such as presentations, scripts, or discussion questions. Annotated white papers or case studies can also be developed that will help them better understand the market by calling out relevant discussion questions and decision points that they can use in their customer interactions.

The sales rep and content

There is also another side to the content + sales coin: The sales team has a lot of good insight and information to help the content marketing team shape its content to better meet the needs of its target consumers. After all, these are the people who are out on the front lines, in the offices of the executives the marketing team is creating content for.

If there is a formal process to share information, the sales team can provide useful feedback about what content is helpful for prospects, what content is not as helpful and why, as well as what media or methods of delivery work best. This is a win-win-win.

The marketing team can better meet the needs of the audience and the sales team. The sales team can help the marketing team and be trusted advisers for prospects. And customers and prospects will get access to the most useful and relevant data when and where they need it.

There are many ways to formalize the process of sharing information between the two teams. The key is to keep a few principles in mind as you develop a process that works for your organization.

• Align goals of both departments with those of the organization.
• Align work processes, with members of each team having access to information from both sales and marketing.
• Integrate software tools used by both teams, starting with the CRM software and the marketing automation applications.
• Clearly define the point at which a prospect becomes a qualified lead, so both sales and marketing are working with the same understanding about who manages what parts of the buying cycle.

Cisco has developed a program that incorporates many of these principles. It includes a process that enables both teams to fully understand lead management and provides a mechanism for the marketing team to automatically share relevant content with the sales team. Incidentally, the company was awarded a 2012 Sales and Marketing Integration Award by DemandGen for the program.

B2B content marketing is about creating thought leadership and materials that help buyers understand and clarify their needs, solve problems, and make informed purchasing decisions. Your sales personnel can play a vital role in this educational process ' if they are given the right encouragement, motivation, and tools to participate.

Ultimately, the goal of both the sales team and the content marketing team is to build, maintain, and strengthen the relationships a business has with its customers and prospects. And while a content team's approach is one-to-many, and a sales team's approach is one-to-one, it's the production of useful, relevant, and insightful content that can unite their purposes to better serve buyers in your market.

For more insight into the ways content can benefit businesses on an enterprise-wide scale, read 'Managing Content Marketing,' by Robert Rose and Joe Pulizzi.

Cover image via Bigstock

Technology is Just the Enabler for Cross-Channel Customer Care in the Social Era. It's About People & Processes

In my last blog post Customer Care In the Era of Social Media, we discussed how social CRM solutions make the transition to this new world of customer care a lot smoother. Integration with CRM is key to have an integrated cross-channel view across social and traditional channels ' emails and call center interactions. If you respond to a comment, question, or concern on social channels, you can track it using a social CRM solution of choice. After that, anyone with access to that same information will be able to see that you assisted this particular customer before. They'll be able to see the conversations that occurred, as well as any notes that you've included to the conversation records.

Why is this important? Well, it saves you time from asking a lot of repetitive questions that ultimately annoy consumers if they have to answer the same ones too many times. It also gives you the benefit of having a user's past conversation history in front of you, which can help you to detect important patterns. But it also lets your customers know that you value them and their time to keep such accurate records so that you don't waste their time asking for information they've provided before. This is just the start with multi-channel customer support. Things are progressing fast, from multi-channel to cross-channel, where a customer issue raised on one channel e.g. social, is then addressed and closed on another channel e.g. over the phone or email. Such advances in cross-channel customer care are critical to offer a seamless customer experience.

If you wish to progress from the traditional channel customer care provider to a cross-channel customer experience enabler, you need the technology platform and infrastructure that enables such a process. In most cases, companies have existing CRM solutions that they use to provide support through traditional channels, and the challenge is in identifying and implementing a Social CRM solution with little disruption to business and also a solution that seamlessly integrates with the existing CRM solution.

When technology parity is established to deal seamlessly across social and traditional channels, it also provides your company the ability to leverage your current investments in processes and people skills. You will be able to extend the same business processes and people skills that you already have in place to now include Social channels.

So the most important considerations are people, processes and technology. Technology is just an enabler. The good news is that you now have the ability to extend the above three aspects without major disruptions or investments.

If you're not making moves to offer integrated customer care services across your channels, both social and traditional, you're going to start falling behind when it comes to the customer experience race. It's time to adopt cross-channel customer care initiatives.

How is your business adjusting to social customer service techniques? Are you embracing cross-channel customer care initiatives? We'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments section below.

5 Pro Tips for Successful Marketing Strategies with Tout

15 seconds is enough to make your online marketing easy!

Tout [Ta-out] is Twitter for a video. It allows you to update status with a 15-second video and to share with your audience, followers, and customers through major social media channels on mobile and desktop computers.

In this short guide, you'll learn 5 online marketing strategies with Tout that you can use to achieve ROI for your brands.

About Tout

Tout provides online social networking and microblogging service that enable over 12 million Touters (Tout users) to share 15-second messages on their videos.

You can update 15-second Tout videos and share your status in real time via Tout.com, Facebook, Twitter, other various social media channels, SMS, and email. Tout's reply feature enables users to immediately join a face-to-face conversation with other Touters and to get quick replies to their Touts.

What ROI can you achieve by using Tout?

• Have a conversation with your audience through Tout`s reply feature.
• Drive traffic to the other social media channels
• Promote your company, product, or promotion
• Derive values from the behind the scenes Tout
• Make a well-organized Tout video calendar

How to use Tout as your online marketing strategies to achieve your ROI:

1. Have a conversation with your audience through Tout's reply feature.

If you reply by videos to someone's Tout, you can immediately engage in a face-to-face conversation with other Touters.

What can retailers learn from this?

• Pick an interesting topic that you would like to discuss with your followers. You can share your story to host a conversation like you talk with your friends at a cafe. Also, you can ask a question for discussion or talk about hot issues around the world just for fun! At the end of your Tout, ask them to leave solicit comments on your Tout.

Example: Jessica Alba`s 'Question Tout' at Self Magazine Tout channel

*Note: The video with a blue dialogue balloon is the reply Tout.

• To build more intimate relationship with them, upload 'Thank you Tout' for the audience who responded to your Tout.

Example: Jessica Alba`s Thank you Tout at Self Magazine Tout channel

*Note: As you see the bottom of Thank you Tout, there're social buttons that you can reply to Touts by a click of the blue reply box. Also, you can like your favorite Tout by a click of the heart icon, retout into your account by a click of the restore icon, and share them on other social media channels by a click of the arrow icon.

• Manage notification setting to track every reply to your Touts by email. How?

1) Log into Tout.com
2) Click your name, next to your profile image in the top right corner.
3) Click 'Settings' from the drop down menu.
4) From settings, select the 'Notifications' tab and check the boxes you would like to receive by email.

5) Click 'Save' when you're done.

(Source Tout FAQ: http://www.tout.com/faq)

2. Drive traffic to the other social media channels

Tout has two elements that enable you to obtain more fans and followers on your other social media channels. First of all, most of Touters are currently heavy social network users. They enjoy sharing their status updates and interesting content with their friends and other web users in real time. Another element is you can share Touts via email, SMS, and various social networks. These prompt and multiple sharing opportunities will be the perfect combination to promote your Touts and other platforms.

What can retailers learn from this?

• You can directly import your contact list through web or mobile to share videos through SMS and email.
• Add specific hashtags to your Tout. Hashtags will classify your Touts into relevant categories and easily navigate the audience to your Touts. There are 3 methods of Tout hashtags.

1) Retrieve a hashtag's Touts. It returns a list of Touts related to specific hashtags. Your app could display this data when someone clicks or searches a hashtag in your app.

2) Retrieve a list of trending hashtags. It returns a list of trending hashtags.

3) Retrieve suggested hashtags. It allows your app to lookup hashtags based on a search string. It returns a list of suggested hashtags matching the search criteria.

(Source Tout Developer: http://developer.tout.com/api-overview/hashtags-api )

3. Promote your company, product, or promotion

As many brands have used Tout for their marketing tools, this short video is becoming one of the most effective promotion that brings great results in a very short period. It enables brands to entice target audience and turn them into followers, repeated visitors, and even loyal customers.

What can retailers learn from this?

• Announce your new product launching at Tout.

Launch your new product at Tout instead of spending a million dollars on advertising. Tout generates word-of-mouth effects through available multiple sharing channels. Also, you can get immediate feedback from followers and listen to their honest and critical opinions about new product.

Example: Introduction of new talk show by Jenny McCarthy at The Talk Tout channel

• Showcase whole promotional videos or TV commercials at your Tout channel like using Twitter. Choose the most stunning 15-second clips out of videos or commercials and share short snippets with your audience. Also, add URLs of sites that have full video clips for the interested group of people.

Example: RedBull's freeskiing competition Tout

• Create sub-contests or sub-events at Tout to increase awareness and participants of main contests and events. Let's look at the great example of Zappos!

Example: Zappos' CEO published a book for business advice, called 'Delivering Happiness.' This bestselling book has inspired to grow a movement that spreads more happiness in the world. Zappos has used 'Delivering Happiness movement' for their marketing strategies such as product lines, online promotion and events. To support their major marketing strategies, they created Tout video contest to share an inspirational story about their audience's happiness.

• Not only provide a winning prize to the winner, but also give a small gift like a $25 gift card to people who reply to your Touts and show appreciation of participation.

4. Derive values from the behind the scenes Tout

You don't have to make an event or happenings for your Touts. Just show your company as it is! Natural states are the key points of the behind the scenes Tout to make a friendly image and to be closer with your followers and customers.

What can retailers learn from this?

• Types of the behind the scenes Touts

1) Employee recognition

Highlight your team who works behind your company and make your audience feel like they are congratulating together. Through this public employee recognition, you can motivate your employees to make more efforts into their work and personify your Touts through emotional connections with your audience.

Example: Tim Dakay's employee of week Tout (@WhiteCollarUSA)

2) Work environment

Take your audience inside of your company to make a transparent image and to differentiate your company from competitors. Open the curtains and show where you are working at and how you are running your business.

3) Backstage of events

Openly share your event backstage with your audience. People are naturally curious about what they don't know and can't see. Use your Touts to answer their questions within 15 seconds and give them more chances to know more about your brands.

Example: Backstage of Obama election night (#Obama)

5. Make a well-organized Tout video calendar

We've talked about many types of Tout video so far. The last strategy for online marketing with Tout is deciding why and when to upload a video. With a well-organized Tout video calendar, you will be able to meet your audience regularly and to make them keep coming back to your Tout channel. Let's look at the following tips.

What can retailers learn from this?

1) Set a SMART goal: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-bound.

• Specific: Make your goal clear and unambiguous and tell your team exactly '5W' questions and answers.
• Measurable: You must be able to evaluate the result of online marketing ROI by using tools such as Google Analytics. Ask yourself: How much? How many? When can I achieve your goal?
• Attainable: Goals must be realistic and be neither underestimated nor overestimated. Ask yourself: How can the goal be accomplished?
• Relevant: Goals must be important to you, your team, and company. Ask yourself: Is it valuable? Does it match our needs? Am I the right person?
• Time-bound: Goals must be achieved within a time frame. A deadline helps a team make efforts into completion of their assignments. Ask yourself: When (Daily? Weekly? Monthly?)

2) Themes

• To avoid confusion, pick a right topic and a theme of each Tout to divide into various categories such as events, the behind the scenes Touts, products, trends, and so forth. It will help you brainstorm more ideas about your Touts, target specific audience, and decide when to upload a video depending on a type, a topic, and a theme.

3) Tools

• Microsoft Excel
• Google Calendar, Note, Document, or Spreadsheet
• WordPress Editorial Calendar Plugin. And more'.

*Note: Place your calendar where everyone can see it, touch it, and live it.

Are you ready to experience this new online social networking service? Tout will change how you interact, share, and communicate with your audience in full color, sound, and motion.

Tout It Out!

'Customers Are Assets.' Have You Totally Lost Sight of Your Humanity?

It occurs to me that whilst the words have changed the speakers who speak 'Customers are assets.' continue to be gripped by the same old paradigm, the same old way of being-in-the-world. And it occurs to me that one makes little headway in cultivating genuine customer loyalty if one continues to be gripped by this outdated paradigm and the associated way of being-in-the-world. Let's explore.

What kind of frame of reference would give rise to the statement 'Customers are assets'? Think about it, engage with it, and it comes clear that the frame of economics, of trade, is what gives rise to this way of thinking, speaking, and being-in-the-world. It is in the world of the economist and accountant that one speaks of and deals in assets and liabilities. There are fixed assets and current assets. What does one do with assets? Well if you are an economist or accountant you leverage assets, you make assets sweat, you strive to generate a ROI from your assets'

Now please take a moment and think of your life, your personal life, your social life. How often do you talk of your partner as an asset? What about your father or mother? Do you refer to your children as assets? What about your friends do you speak of them as assets? How often do you hear other people, in social situation, speaking of the people in their lives as assets?

Now please tell me why you speak of your customers as assets.

I say that customers are not assets. I say that customers are people. I say that customers are fellow human beings. I say that customers have hopes and dreams. I say that customers have worries and concerns. And I say that it is the emotional bonds that we cultivate between our customers and ourselves that are assets. Why? The principle of reciprocity. Most of us are brought up to live the principle of reciprocity ' to return good for good, and bad for bad. Most of us literally have no say in the matter. When people are good to us we feel compelled to be good to them. And if we do not return good for good our self-esteem takes a big hit.

Why is the distinction between 'Customers are assets' and 'It is the emotional bonds that we cultivate between our customers and ourselves that are assets' matter? Because, it is the very kind of being and showing up in the world that gives rise to the statement 'Customers are assets' that gets in the way of cultivating emotional bonds with our customers.

Let me put it bluntly, the relationships that arise out of a context of love/service are vastly different to the relationships that arise out of a context of greed/selfishness/fear. Customers are not assets. Customers are people. And people do not like to be thought of or spoken of as 'assets'. No, they crave to be appreciated, validated, trusted, supported, encouraged, helped, included, listened to, treated fairly '. Please notice these words ' appreciation, validation, trust, support, encouragement, help, inclusion, listening ' do not arise in the language/world of economists and accountants.

If there are any doubts then let me put them to rest. Customers are loyal to you, your business, when you honour/validate that which matters most to them. What is that? Their human dignity. And their need to feel that you genuinely care for them and have their best interests at heart. If this shows up as being unrealistic then I say this to you: I was with friends who have built up a successful business, against the odds, through this very orientation: genuine caring for customers as fellow human beings.

Will IT Telemarketing Be Your Start-Up IT Firm's Game Changer?

As a start-up IT company, one of your priorities is to increase revenue. The only way that's going to happen is for you to find new customers. However, it is never easy to find business prospects that would love to employ the services of your IT firm. Due to the desire to obtain more leads, some IT companies choose to make use of IT telemarketing as part of their lead generation and marketing strategies.

Imagine a scenario in which your start-up IT firm isn't exactly doing well. If that's what exactly is happening to you then you will perhaps say that you need a sort of game changer to get you back on track and keep your business running. So what's your game plan? How are you going to market to your prospects and attract new customers to your firm?

Why should you turn to the use of telemarketing to generate IT sales leads? Aren't there other ways in which you can market your services to businesses that need it? Well, here are some reasons as to why using phone is going to be a game changer for your firm.

A cheaper alternative to marketing your IT services.

Most companies would turn to heavy advertising to reel in new customers for your IT services ' IT outsourcing, IT consulting, web development, network management, web hosting, cloud computing, etc. The problem is that doing so is not only expensive but may not prove to get the results needed by the business that employs it. IT companies that cater to other businesses aren't ones that are going to benefit from the use of advertising mediums such as TV ads, radio advertisements and the like.

Telemarketing on the other hand is a proven IT sales lead generation method which is used by businesses in order to bring in new customers. Although it does require an investment of its own, the price you pay would all be worth the possibility of getting more IT sales leads and future sales.

Boasts good penetration rates.

One concern that many marketers have with their tactics is penetration rates. Some marketing methods just aren't able to 'getin there' and deliver the intended message to prospects. Advertising is effective; however, it should be able to penetrate into a company's target market in order for it to be effective.

Telemarketing is known for being a direct marketing tool that is able to put marketers where they need to be ' talking to their prospects, and sales reps in business appointments through cold calling and B2B appointment setting. Telemarketing boasts high penetration rates because it allows you to market directly to decision makers with relative ease, such as being patched through directly to the intended contact person after the call is answered. Also, the phone cannot be ignored (it keeps ringing) thus calls have higher chances of getting responses.

So do you think B2B telemarketing is going to be your IT firm's game changer? Put a game plan together and see how telemarketing plays its role in your organizations marketing strategy.