Myth: Quit Advertising Because it Just Doesn't Work

A lot of people enmeshed in the online world like to refer gruffly to other types of marketing as 'interruption marketing.' Predominantly, they are talking about advertising. Advertising 'interrupts' your reading experience. It can certain interrupt your television watching or your radio listening (do people still listen to the radio?). On social media platforms, advertising can fall into the downright annoying category. Yes, a lot of arguments are floating around about why you should stop advertising. As far back as 2009, Business Week noted, 'The vast majority of ads don't register with consumers.' In a recent post for Business2Community, Patrick McDaniel notes that many people go up to him and say, 'Yeah, I tried advertising. It didn't work.'

In fact, a simple Google search for 'advertising is dead' yields quite a few results:

Are all of these folks right? Is advertising dead? Does advertising just simply not work?

What does 'work' mean?

Not to be glib, but exactly what were you expecting your advertising to do? False expectations can be a big problem for businesses and marketers. If you were expecting your advertising campaign to pull your company out of the recessing, you probably found yourself disappointed. Similarly, if you thought advertising would make people like your product more, you were likely not satisfied with the results. As Gini Dietrich and Geoff Livingston note in Marketing in the Round, advertising is really best for direct marketing and building brands. If your objectives and measurement systems aren't alignment with those types of tactics, you're going to run into trouble.

Why do people think advertising doesn't work?

The most common reason advertising doesn't 'work,' I might hypothesize, is that people don't really understand how to make advertising work. Advertising is more like a puppy, not like a cat. You can't leave it alone and assume it will take care of itself. You need to plan your media placements carefully. You need to make sure you are hitting the right audience with the right kind of creative. And yes, you need to find ways to measure everything you're doing.

When we recommend advertising programs to our clients, we present online ads as akin to billboards. People don't click on banner ads much anymore, but they notice them, and if you are going to an industry website, seeing companies you want to learn more about can create an environment where clicks are more possible than in other places (like, say, CNN). We also recommend not using banner ads for sheer promotion anymore. Give people a REAL reason to click. Offer something that can answer a question or that can help your potential customers meet their objectives. If you are led to believe that an online banner ad will increase traffic to your website by leaps and bounds, you will probably end up believing that advertising doesn't work. If you don't capture click-throughs via a special landing page, you'll end up on the same boat.

In print advertisements, it's important to make sure your ad makes sense for your audience. Does your audience like copy-heavy ads that are more like advertorials or do they respond to graphic-heavy ads with very little copy? Do they like straightforward presentations or does their eye get caught by out-of-the-box creative? There are plenty of ways to test these kinds of approaches, whether it's running two different ads in very similar publications or timing your ads for a Reader Study issue, where people can respond directly to your ad and say what they think about it.

Again, if you do not have a methodology for capturing leads from your print ad, you are likely going to believe that advertising doesn't work. You need to find a way to attract readers to your website, and not just to your homepage. You need to drive traffic to a page where you can capture information. Incentivize this part of your program. Again, offer readers something that will entice them to click, whether it's a free white paper, an e-book that answers a key question, or something else along those lines.

If you engage in a print advertising program with an expectation that you will immediately be inundated with sample requests and sales, you will again end up believing that advertising doesn't work.

You can do social media and still advertise

Many people seem to draw a black-and-white contradictory picture between social media marketing and advertising. If you are on Twitter for your business, you clearly can't also advertise. Right?

In fact, this kind of thinking is leading companies away from some really intriguing integrated marketing opportunities. Print ads could drive traffic to a Facebook page. A QR code on an ad could lead to a YouTube video. You could even invite people to answer a question they see in a print ad by contacting you on Twitter. The possibilities for translating interest in a print ad to engagement elsewhere could be almost endless, in fact. But the 'this or that' mentality overshadowing marketers these days may cloud over all of that potential.

What do you think about advertising? Should people just give up on this type of marketing or is that crazy talk? What are your experiences with advertising? I'd love to hear your thoughts!

PS, this post is letter Q in the Alphabet of Marketing Myths series. You can catch up on the series here.

Image Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/colleen-lane/4989879689/ via Creative Commons

CMOs Facing Extinction? Hardly. Why It's Never Been a Better Time To Be a CMO.

It seems like everyone in marketing circles has been passing around Lisa Nirell's recent Fast Company article, Why CMOs Are Facing Extinction.

Of course.  With a title like that, it's going to get the attention of those of us who support our families as CMOs.

The article enumerates industry trends that allegedly put the B2B CMO at risk of going the way of the dinosaur.  The trends are spot on, but the headline misleads.  The CMO is far from extinct. In fact, the role is more important than ever for B2B companies.

Here're three reasons why:

1.  Prospect Engagement Is Increasingly Marketing Led

In the olden days, revenue generation was generally a sales led kind of phenomenon.  Buyers needed to be educated, and by in large this was done via field sales organizations.  Marketing played a supporting role ' developing collateral and promotional programs to drive awareness and interest.

In today's social web world, buyers do their own research, draw their own conclusions, and rely on others for validation.  Sales is increasingly about buyer facilitation.

At the same time, Marketing's role has shifted from pushing the message to developing and deploying a 'pullable' message that greases the buying process.  In other words, prospect engagement is increasingly Marketing led.

2.  Cutting through the Clutter is Harder Than Ever

The B2B world is noisier than ever.  It's hard to get found.  And when you're found, it's hard to gain and keep your prospect's attention.

Our messages must be sharper and more engaging than ever.  We must educate and entertain if we're going to break through.  If we don't, our prospects will move on (and presumably be engaged by one of our competitors).

Engagement. Entertainment.  Education. These are marketing things.  The CMO is responsible for crafting a message and delivering it through vehicles and channels that cut through.  If the CMO doesn't own this process, who will?  Or, as Deb Lavoy of OpenText recently said, 'marketers are the chief storytellers.'

3.  Marketing Metrics Are Now Business Metrics

In the old world, all we had was pipeline forecasting.  The VP of Sales would produce a forecast for the CFO and CEO to scrutinize.

In a marketing led, educated buyer world, pre-pipeline activities have become increasingly important.  And they are measurable.  We can (and must) develop metrics for prospect engagement, social media reach, and conversion.

Over time, these activities will form predictive models to indicate future pipeline and revenue.  And these marketing metrics increasingly will become the subject of boardroom scrutiny.

So yes, marketing is changing.  And yes, if you're a Mad Men era CMO, you're probably already extinct.

But if you're a quantitative marketer who can engage, entertain, and educate prospects, you're in great shape.

For my money, there has never been a better time to be a CMO.

5 Common Ways Your Business Can Improve Its Online Marketing

How can a small business increase the amount of online leads, customers or clients they get from their website?  Here are five common options.

Imagine this scenario:  You are running a small-medium sized business (under $5 million in annual revenue).  You have your hands full wearing multiple hats to keep everything moving forward.

Yet, you realize that one of your most important sources of new business and revenue 'the internet' is not getting leveraged to its full potential.

Every month, you know you are leaving money on the table, while your competitors get fatter from the steady stream of new business through their website.

What can you do to improve the level of leads, client, and customers you get from website and your internet marketing efforts?

Well, you do have options' but some are better than others.

The Good (And Not So Good) Options For Your Online Marketing

1.  You can commit more of your scare hours to personally overseeing this area.

Some have chosen this route because they see the importance of the internet and their website as a key to growing their revenue' but in their mind they don't financially have any other option.

The problem, of course, is that you really don't have sufficient time to do this area well.

This often falls into the same category as, 'I'm going to start exercising more'' or 'I'm going to lose weight this year.'

You know the road to hell is paved with these, don't you?

A business owner also doesn't typically have the expertise to effectively navigate the changing world of technology and online marketing.

'Should I blog more?'

'Should I create a Facebook fan page?  How do I do that?'

'Should I advertise more (or less?) on Google?'

'Should I start using LinkedIn?  How do I do that?'

For most, this stuff makes your head hurt' and stresses you out.

What else can you do?

2.  Hire someone 'in-house' to oversee your online marketing.

You decide, 'I don't have the time or the expertise to get more business online' I just need to hire someone on staff to be my marketing director (or 'online marketing director').'

The problem with this option is that it is pretty expensive and out of the reach of many companies.

Kunocreative.com estimates that you would need to pay someone a minimum of $55-70,000 PLUS benefits to get and retain a sufficiently skilled person to help with just one area of your marketing.  To do your marketing effectively, that estimate  is likely too low.

That isn't very feasible for many cash flow strapped companies.

If you can't afford someone full-time plus benefits, maybe you could find someone to work part-time?

That is much harder than you might think.  Finding a skilled person on a part-time basis who knows and keeps up with all the changes and nuances of internet marketing is next to impossible.

I should know.  I have looked.

Those that are good at what they do can command a full-time position in a number of companies much larger.

Finding a qualified person who is willing to work part-time for a modest wage is like expecting to find a really good part-time tax attorney who knows and keeps up with the latest IRS rulings.

3.  Outsource your internet marketing by hiring a company to do it for you.

There are all sort of national companies out there (like Reach Local, Market Hardware, Yodel) that will take over your online marketing.

The problem with many of them is their personnel are notoriously undertrained and overworked.  They hire entry level people, then saddle them with dozens of companies on which to stay on top.

That's impossible.  All they can do is the minimum.

Follow this link to read the truth about certain national marketing companies.

In addition, you must sign a long-term contract, which guarantees mediocre results for a year.

There are some good options out there with some larger marketing agencies.  They often get better results.  But, they can be even more expensive ($3,000-$12,000/month with a long-term contract).

4.  Hire a smaller agency. 

This is a better, more affordable option for most small-medium sized businesses.  Your internet marketing will get more attention, which usually means better results.

One thing to avoid, however, is a local marketing agency that only does one or two things.  They will want to peddle their 'thing' as the solution to your marketing needs, when in fact you need a full strategy using many different tactics.

You wouldn't hire a golf pro to oversee your golf game that only has a putter in his bag, would you?

5.  Outsource your online marketing to an independent contractor.

This is also a good option for many businesses.  This is usually an individual who has worked for a large agency for some period of time and decided he or she wanted to reap more of the rewards for their expertise.

This option is often the most affordable.

There are, however, potential problems with an independent contractor.  These CAN be minimized or avoided' but you must know what they are.

I have personally hired dozens of independent contractors over the last three years.  Some have been great.  Some have been horror stories.

To learn the pros and cons of hiring an independent contractor, and what to watch out for, follow the link.

It All Comes Down To This

Whatever choice you make should pay for itself many times over with better online results, more leads, clients, customers or sales.  Your return on your marketing investment should be at least 100%' and often much more.

It is no different than hiring a CPA to handle your business taxes.  You want to be confident that the cost of their fees are more than outweighed by the amount of money they can save you.

How can you determine if you are getting your money's worth from your marketing dollars?

Read here on how to determine if you are getting a positive ROI on your marketing efforts.

Sometimes both expensive and affordable marketing solutions for your business bring mediocre results.  Always evaluate your marketing ROI.  Click to tweet

Being Wise' And Minimizing Your Need For Tylenol

If you run a business or are responsible for the marketing of a company, the good news is you do have options.  You don't have to do it all yourself.

But, these options (like most options in life) have pluses and minuses.

You can more wisely navigate these options (and avoid the headaches) with a little education from those who have done it already.

As the ancient sage has said:

Wise is the man who learns from his mistakes.
          Wiser still is the man who learns from the mistakes of others.

What You Need To Do Now

If you are running a business, you don't have a lot of time to research the latest marketing ideas and insights.  So, go ahead and subscribe to this blog.  We will email you our latest ideas to help you get the most out of your marketing.  Better still' it's free!

One final request.  If you found this article helpful, please pass it on to another business you know.  You can also leave a comment of your experience with one of these hiring options.  Tell us what you found.  Thanks.

How To Get Clients From A Conference Or Trade-show

Over the course of a year, my company spent over $25,000 on conferences and trade-shows. Quite a lot of money for a start-up, but something that we found to be absolutely necessary to generate enterprise-level client leads and expand our pipeline. To see a return on our investment, we would need to generate over $25,000 worth of deals from these conferences.

A feat that we achieved with flying colors.

My company has built recognition in the franchise restaurant world because my team and I hustled extremely hard at each conference. We didn't let the business come to us; instead, we went out there and took it for ourselves.

This post highlights in detail the techniques and methods I use to close client deals from a conference or trade-show.

The real networking happens at the event, not the exhibition floor

I quickly learned that only fools stand by their booth all day at a conference.

I'll let you in on a secret that I learned while at conferences: the people that approach your trade-show booth are NOT decision makers; the real decisions makers (the professionals you are looking to meet) avoid the exhibition floor at all costs and can be found at the speaker panels and keynotes events.

Go to the actual event and network with everyone. Be knowledgeable, be helpful, and invite professionals to come check you out at your booth later when the exhibition floor opens.

If you spent the majority if your time at your conference booth, then you've just wasted your investment.

Host a breakout session and bring printed materials

Quite often, conferences have breakout sessions where conference sponsors can lead discussions about a particular topic. To lead a breakout session, speak with the conference coordinator and organize accordingly.

The mistake that I see most sponsors make is that they go into the breakout session completely blind and unprepared because they feel they're already an expert on the topic that they're moderating. It's the mistake of overconfidence.

Prepare + bring handout materials: Everyone in your breakout session will be surprised to find that you not only have a 5-7 minute presentation about the topic, but that you brought handout materials as well. Make sure these handout materials are helpful guides or industry reports about your topic ' don't just hand out marketing materials.

Also, make sure to get everyone in your discussion group involved. People will leave and get bored if you monopolize the conversation.

3 weeks prior/3 weeks post method

As a conference sponsor, you get a list of attendees for the event. I've noticed that the majority of sponsors don't take advantage of the list to build hype and generate leads prior to the conference or after the conference.

The email method that works: For 3 weeks before the conference, my team and I send out a weekly email with helpful tips and strategies about the industry and how it's related to my company. The goal is to be helpful and informative, and let the attendees know that we're experts in our field.

For 3 weeks after the conference, my team and I will send a weekly email with lessons and how to's learned from the conference. This is particularly helpful to professionals who attended the conference because they have to report back to their team about what they learned.

Use the three methods described above to stand out from the crowd and make sure you get a solid ROI from your conference or trade-show investment.

Author:

Jun Loayza is the Co-Founder of RewardMe, a customer loyalty program for restaurants and retailers. In his entrepreneurial experience, Jun has sold 2 internet companies and lead social media technology campaigns for Sephora, Whole Foods Market, Levi's, LG, and Activision. Jun currently lives in Mountain View, CA with his girlfriend and startup team.

9 UnMarketing Tips For Online Audience Engagement

I recently attended the @MarketingProfs webcast 'Top Tools For Engaging Your Audience Online.' with Mr. @Unmarketing himself, Scott Stratten. Scott is the President of his own marketing consulting firm and author of the best-selling book UnMarketing.

I have to say I have been following Scott since I first joined Twitter in 2009. He helped to teach me that social media is truly about having conversations and about engagement. I also love Scott for his famous quote in a former speech that whenever someone asks 'what is the ROI of social media?' a unicorn, a kitten and a puppy all die!

Scott taught me a number of other things like the importance of saying 'thank you' in social media and also some signs that you might be a social media diva.

So I had to show up to see which gems Scott would present in 'Top Tools For Engaging Your Audience Online.'

Scott started by explaining that he wrote the book 'UnMarketing' because he was tired of hypocritical marketing.

Tip 1: Marketing is about building relationships and getting people to know, like and trust you.

Social media is maybe a new term but it is as old we are. We have new tools, online but it is more about being social than it is about media.

Tip 2: Focus more on being social and less on the media or tools.

People think marketing is a tactic and something we need to do. But marketing is about much more than that. It is sometimes about who we hire. It is everything we do in a company. It is not a department.

Tip 3: Marketing is not a tactic or a department. It is everything a company does.

Branding is defined by our customers. They tell you what you stand for. Customers don't care about brochures or logos, they care about experiences.

Tip 4: Focus on delivering amazing customer experiences.

We all create stories and content but much of it is 'frequently futile.' The time and frequency of content should be defined as how often we have something valuable to say.

Tip 5: 'Capitalize on the spread.' This is defined as our innate human nature to spread great stories.

And now content needs to be mobile-friendly. Scott stated that more than half of the time spent on Facebook is from a mobile device! So if people can't read your content, they can't share it. There is a big difference between mobile-ready content and content customized for mobile. Content should be customized for mobile and then tested on all the main formats.

Tip 6: Create a customized mobile content platform.

Scott hates Farmville. He said that 247 million people play Farmville and that Zynga, the company that started Farmville made more than a billion dollars in 2011. So if your audience is there, you need to figure out why they are there. So Scott looked at why people spend time there. The average user is a 47 year old female who enjoys the social networking aspect of the game.

Tip 7: 'You can't ignore what you hate.' Understand why your audience does what it does and goes where it goes.

Many businesses use techniques that send potential customers away. Captchas, popups, registration forms that are poorly-timed ' all tell a new visitor of your site to go away.

Tip 8: Stop 'UnSelling' your customers

Social media is not a platform for sending out promotional messages. It is a conversation where you need to talk with people, not at them. Sometimes we make mistakes but if you do, take the opportunity to be awesome. Critics should be answered. Customer complaints should be addressed. But don't feed the trolls or spend time with people who are just looking for attention.

Tip 9: Use social media to be awesome and engage with potential customers but don't get distracted.

For more of Scott's unique style and sense of humor, check out his blog, follow him on twitter or read his post on the value of social media ' one of the most popular blogs ever written and shared on social media.

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How to Effectively Master Speeches

Have you experienced it as well? You know that you have to present in front of a major audience, maybe your company's leaders will also be present in the room, and already three weeks before the event, you are afraid of that single moment. Well, rest assured, you are not alone; in fact, many of us feel exactly the same and this doesn't make you a bad speaker.

Even the best and most experienced speakers around the globe though, have to prepare thoroughly what they are going to say and how they are going to interact with their audience. Exactly like acting on stage in a theatre or in front of a camera, all gestures, climaxes, intervals and jokes are carefully studied and planned. Not that there would not be any room left for adaptations or flexibility, no, of course not! An experienced speaker will simply be more at ease coping with unforeseen situations or reactions from the audience as he/she will have a reservoir of anecdotes and stories at hand to fill the gap or bridge the difficult moment.

So, how should you prepare for an important speech? A couple of things to remember when putting your slides or other support materials together:

• Images tell more than words; use as many images as you can to stress what you are saying, don't write all you have to say on your slides (why should people listen to you otherwise, they could just read your hand-outs).
• Your only text should be key messages and take-away points; this will make your speech much stronger.
• A speech is like a story, it needs a clear, intro, climax and closure; never lose the red thread during your 'act', it would confuse your audience.
• Give examples that ,speak' to your audience (you should thus know in advance who you are going to address).

And of course:

• Practice, practice, practice' as many times as it takes to feel safe and confident when you speak. Select somebody to present to, he/she might even give you interesting hints and tips on how to improve yourself.
• For the important day: choose clothes that you feel comfortable with. This is extremely important! If you are not happy with your looks, how will you be able to convince your audience?

Last but not least, when you present, please:

• Speak slowly and clearly; even when time runs out (maybe something unforeseen happened): a good speaker knows how to shorten a speech and will still be able to make his/her point.

With this in mind, your speech will have the desired impact and the more often you take the opportunity to be on stage, the less anxiety you will feel. And remember: no one is born a master!

B2B Trade Show Marketing Success in 12 Easy Steps

With the right planning, B2B marketers can use trade shows to speed up the sales cycle, reduce the cost of sales, and reach customers, prospects and even 'hidden buyers.'

In an article by Margit B. Weisgal, President and CEO of the Trade Show Exhibitors Association, she outlines the benefits of trade shows:

'Exhibit marketing is the most cost-effective means of reaching customers and prospects; it reduces the buying cycle; it allows you to reach hidden buyers.  Most important, though, is that it can reduce the cost of a sale by as much as 75%.'

However, to attain those kinds of results, planning is essential.  And that's where many exhibitors fall short:

'Seventy-one percent of all exhibitors have no measurable goals or objectives or even a written marketing plan.'

Weisgal offers a 12-step planning process that can be very helpful for B2B companies who are actively marketing at trade shows or who are considering it.

1. Define the Situation ' Who is your company? What is your product and its real benefit? Who are your competitors?
2. Identify Your Target Audience(s) ' This needs to go beyond just the procurement people. Think about the end users and those who can influence the purchase decsion.  You probably have multiple, distinct audiences.
3. Pre-participation Research ' Not all shows are a good investment of your time and money.  The author includes 8 questions to ask before deciding on a new show (and 5 questions you should ask for shows at which you currently exhibit).
4. Set Goals and Measurable Objectives ' Sales goals are not a realistic metric given the long sales cycles for most B2B sales, but other goals should be set and measured such as contact and qualified leads.
5. Management Support and Input ' To be effective, management needs to perceive trade show marketing as a cost rather than an investment.  Don't exhibit if you can't get management support and input.
6.  Strategies and Tactics ' This contains the specifics of how to achieve the goals and objectives from #4 above.  Unfortunately, many exhibitors skip #'s 1-5 and start here.
7. Integrate Current Advertising and Corporate Communications ' Your trade show message needs to be consistent with all other corporate brand touchpoints.
8. Develop Pre-Show/At-Show Promotion ' After you've determined who you really need to see at the show, develop a promotion beforehand targeting that group to drive them to you.
9. Design an Exhibit to Support Steps 1-8 ' Take the perspective of the visitor whose mindset is 'what's in it for me?'
10. Plan the Follow-Up Program ' According to some experts, 80% of exhibitors don't follow up on leads. By developing a follow-up program beforehand, this problem can be eliminated.
11. Involve and Train Your Staff ' One of the biggest challenges is getting staff to listen to vistiors before jumping into a presentation.
12. Measure Results and Make Money ' This invovles getting back to management, comparing results to objectives and determining if a return to that show is in order.

Click on the following link to read the full article, Twelve Steps to Exhibit Success: A Primer for Planning your Exhibit Marketing Program.

photo credit: rharrison via photo pin cc