Archive for June, 2009
Your website is NOT a strategy
Jun 30th
My theme this week is “strategy” and I would like to examine one of the biggest strategy-related problems I encounter with clients.
Last week I was approached by a man who wanted me to help re-position his company’s ineffective website.
I asked him if he had a marketing strategy and he said, “no.” And, after telling me that he didn’t have strong data on his customer base and couldn’t name how he was differentiating his product, it was clear that he didn’t.
When I suggested that he step back and do some work on a marketing strategy BEFORE plowing money into a website, he resisted … “No,” he said, “We just want a website.”
Now I ask you – If your website isn’t working now, how will it be working any better if you don’t revise the strategy behind it?
Ladies and gentleman, your website is NOT your marketing strategy. If you can’t communicate what you do and what customer needs and wants you serve, you’re probably wasting a lot of advertising money. Every business – no matter how small – needs a marketing strategy BEFORE they have a website!
What do you think? Have you had similar experiences? What happens when a website goes live without a strategy?
Lessons from a marketing strategy gone wrong (mine!)
Jun 29th
The theme for the blog this week is “strategy” and the first thing I needed to do is turn the microscope on myself.
It’s ugly. I have not been following my own rules … but let’s see what you might learn from my mistakes.
Something I have preached relentlessly: When you start a social media strategy, it needs to be integrated into your overall business objectives … which hopefully are aligned with customer wants and needs. Remember, social marketing is still MARKETING. Same fundamental rules apply.
My traditional core business is providing low-cost marketing services to businesses in the Southeast U.S. When I started this blog a few months ago, I had that objective and those customers firmly in mind. But then it all went wrong.
Here’s what’s happened:
- Over time I have been writing less about small business marketing fundamentals, and more about B2B and social media. It’s what’s interesting to me right now, so I went with it!
- The people who read my blog and follow my tweets now come from all over the world — relatively few from my core market.
- Based on my social media presence, including the blog, Twitter, and my web page, I am getting new customers from California, Switzerland and Australia — not what I originally had in mind.
In a matter of weeks, my core business competency and customer base changed dramatically, because my message and audience changed dramatically. Isn’t that interesting? I wasn’t consistent and now I’m challenged to match my STRATEGY to my inconsistent MESSAGE!!
How did this happen? I lost sight of my core mission because writing the blog became so much fun. I wasn’t “marketing.” I was being me. And it worked out fine. I didn’t choose my audience. My audience chose me.
What did I learn? Perhaps in social media, “being me” IS the strategy.
A great example of B2B social media marketing
Jun 27th
Two weeks ago I named GE as one of the Top 5 B2B superstars utilizing social media marketing strategies. Yesterdays’ announcement on a new R&D Center in Michigan and 1,200 new jobs is a wonderful illustration of why they earned this honor.
1) An “announcement about the announcement” was broadcast over the GEreports website, blog, Twitter and Facebook.
2) By simply clicking on a link within a tweet, you could access a real-time, live, HD news feed from Michigan featuring CEO Jeff Immelt and Michigan government officials.
3) Follow-up reports of the speech were available on all social media channels and a subsequent Immelt speech to the Detroit Economic Club were available immediately. A video of the speech is featured on the GEreports website.
4) A video describing the new research center was available the same day on YouTube. An interview with the GE research director explained what would be happening at the facility. It had already received 308 views in the first day.
OK, that is impressive, but if you need any further convincing, here’s the icing on the cake.
Obviously this announcement spurred a lot of interest and excitement, but not all of the reactions were positive. GE has the foresight and courage to host an open dialogue in their onsite commentary, including comments like: “With your speech today regarding Research Center $100 million manufacturing technology center … GE stock went down today. Jeff NO ONE BELIEVES YOU ANY MORE!!!”
That’s an ouch. But a key to social media success is being willing to turn the dialogue over to the community and GE is doing it.
Last week the GE social media team agreed to an interview about their social media strategy and I’m hoping this will be posted on {grow} this week. Stay tuned for an inside view of a major B2B social media success story!
Marketing strategy & social media: Some rationality, PLEASE!
Jun 26th
I LOVE marketing and tend to think in marketing terms all the time, which is problematic in a romantic relationship.
Me (at baseball game): Look at that billboard for hotdogs in right field. If it asked you to Tweet, could we all be tweeting to each other during the ballgame? Could I get a coupon for a hotdog on my cellphone? Could I tweet-redeem it?
Wife: Please shut up.
So my passion for marketing knows no bounds. That’s why I get so upset when so-called professionals make statements like this in a recent blog post: “social media should be at the heart of every company’s marketing strategy.”
Puh-leeeeeze!!!!
Repeat after me: Not all companies and products can equally benefit from social media. (Did you really repeat it? You did? Cool!) Consider …
- If you’re a company trying to sell wheels to GM right now, you’re not going to Twitter your way to success and should be fired if you try to.
- If you’re selling fertilizer to farmers in Lake County Wisconsin, you will probably benefit from a billboard along the interstate more than an account on Facebook.
- My local family-run homebuilder is going out of business because of this recession and could give a rat’s patooty about social media. He needs to focus his strategy on cash conservation and making it to the other side, not a how-to video on YouTube.
- When I go to Home Depot, I am going to buy my sandpaper based on what I need to complete my project at the lowest price, not because the company president has a blog.
Sometimes I think Twitters believe everybody on Twitter is the known universe. That is not the real world, at least not yet. I know it’s hard to believe but MOST people sell stuff to other people who have never heard of MySpace.
So, let’s insert some rationality into the discussion. Most major consumer product companies will benefit from social media. Most B2B — less certain results and they probably won’t focus on this channel until the economy improves. Services aimed at youth — yes; services aimed at geriatrics, no. Businesses who live by couponing – yes. Businesses who live by long-term contracts, not so much.
To the purveyors of social media hyperbole, I humbly request that you dust off your textbook from Marketing 101. The channels have changed but the same rules apply. Stay connected to the basic rules of business when considering any marketing channels. Somehow, you have to figure out how to drive this activity to the bottom line.
As I mentioned in my B2B series last week, many businesses, even traditional industrials, will benefit from a dose of social media community-building. But please gentle readers, join me in resisting the breathless enthusiasm that already created one Internet bust. Social media marketing is ONE CHANNEL, ONE CHOICE, ONE OPTION for SOME businesses.
And by the way, I would definitely buy that hotdog if I got a Twitter coupon. Then my sweetie would understand!
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You’re in marketing for one reason: Grow.
Grow your company, reputation, customers, impact, profits. Grow yourself. This is a community that will help. It will stretch your mind, connect you to fascinating people, and provide some fun along the way. I am so glad you’re here.
-Mark SchaeferFollow Mark
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