tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11256172924106188662024-03-27T19:53:06.950-04:00Steve OlenskiNew Biz Catalyst*Creative Writer*Named Top 100 Influencers & Bloggers in Social MediaThe Fantasy Football Hubhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06856844610944454759noreply@blogger.comBlogger35125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1125617292410618866.post-57141444296820899722014-01-15T17:04:00.000-05:002014-01-15T17:04:59.096-05:00So who is Steve Olenski?<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white;">I'm a Scorpio who doesn't drink alcohol but </span><span style="background-color: white;">drinks entirely too much coffee.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white;">I am currently a senior content creative strategist at </span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="background-color: white; color: black; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">at </span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; orphans: 2; widows: 2;"><a data-mce-href="http://responsys.com/" href="http://responsys.com/" target="_blank">Responsys</a></span><i style="background-color: white; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">,</i></span>a leading marketing cloud software and services company.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br />
</span> <span style="background-color: white;">I am also a creative, imaginative and passionate writing professional, specializing in all aspects of advertising and marketing, social media, content development and management, innovative thinking and idea generation.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="clear: right; float: right; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUV5bsujVWhnTvhSLCE3Nys96yKocJmAxt2m0nVD8PreqlGw1gxJRbLJ90CSh979AqiW17_aAs1mAIGZl5a2hvpyzhSuDs11ADR9MDrP97FzXsVydH0XfjsyYtX9pU1_FNQJspaXMQrA/s1600/Steven-Olenski.jpg" height="320" width="320" /></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><div>
I’m a copywriter with significant experience in advertising, marketing and branding having worked on such brands as:</div>
</span><br />
<ul>
<li><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">AARP</span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Hawaiian Airlines</span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Verizon Wireless</span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Harley Davidson</span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Tootsie Roll</span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Hard Rock</span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Trump Casinos </span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">AAA</span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Drexel University </span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Arnold </span></li>
</ul>
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">... to name a few. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In addition I am also an accomplished blogger/author. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br />
</span><span style="background-color: white;">The list of publications I am a contributor for/have contributed to includes the following but is not limited to:</span></span><br />
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<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Forbes</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Ad Age</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Ad Week</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Social Media</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Business Insider</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Branding Magazine</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Marketing Land</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Business 2 Community</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The Social CMO</span></li>
</ul>
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><div>
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
Samples of my work can be found via the links to the right.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br />
</span> <span style="background-color: white;">I thank you for time and I very much look forward to speaking with you in the near future.</span><span style="background-color: white;">You can reach via me </span><a href="mailto:steveolenski@yahoo.com" style="background-color: white;">email</a><span style="background-color: white;"> or cell phone, 267-738-9935.</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
Thank you!</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Steve Olenski</span><br />
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The Fantasy Football Hubhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06856844610944454759noreply@blogger.com78tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1125617292410618866.post-77548500693079992502013-12-31T11:48:00.002-05:002013-12-31T11:48:58.356-05:00Why Email Marketing Is Vital To A Brand's Health <div style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif; font-size: 12.727272033691406px; line-height: 19px;">
Not long ago I wrote an article entitled <a data-mce-href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/steveolenski/2013/10/10/as-if-they-need-it-another-reason-brands-need-to-be-mobile/" href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/steveolenski/2013/10/10/as-if-they-need-it-another-reason-brands-need-to-be-mobile/" target="_blank">As If They Need It, Another Reason Brands Need To Be Mobile</a> which essentially spelled out the fact that the most powerful brand ambassadors in the world, moms - are a very mobile demographic and if <a data-mce-href="https://www.responsys.com/new-school-marketing?cid=70150000000g950AAA" href="https://www.responsys.com/new-school-marketing?cid=70150000000g950AAA" target="_blank">marketing</a> & advertising folks want to succeed, they better be mobile as well. </div>
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Literally.</div>
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In fact one of the things I used to make my point was this chart, courtesy of <a data-mce-href="http://www.emarketer.com/" href="http://www.emarketer.com/" target="_blank">eMarketer</a> which spells out what the activities moms most like to do via their smartphone. Pay attention to the first two. Then hold that thought.</div>
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<a data-mce-href="http://b-i.forbesimg.com/steveolenski/files/2013/11/emarketers-moms-mobile-phones2.png" href="http://b-i.forbesimg.com/steveolenski/files/2013/11/emarketers-moms-mobile-phones2.png"><img alt="" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-656" data-mce-src="http://b-i.forbesimg.com/steveolenski/files/2013/11/emarketers-moms-mobile-phones2.png" height="511" src="http://b-i.forbesimg.com/steveolenski/files/2013/11/emarketers-moms-mobile-phones2.png" style="border: 0px; cursor: default; display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="369" /></a></div>
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Not long ago I received the results of a survey entitled <em>Shopping with Social Media</em> which was conducted by <a data-mce-href="http://www.ryanpartnership.com/" href="http://www.ryanpartnership.com/" target="_blank">Ryan Partnership</a>, a behavioral marketing agency. In the online survey of primary household shoppers, which yielded over 10,000 results, consumers were asked which digital tools they were aware of and which they used in the past year.</div>
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It is the third year they've conducted this study and according to <a data-mce-href="http://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=3365849&authType=NAME_SEARCH&authToken=OFB-&locale=en_US&srchid=27000051384193857549&srchindex=1&srchtotal=1&trk=vsrp_people_res_name&trkInfo=VSRPsearchId%3A27000051384193857549%2CVSRPtargetId%3A3365849%2CVSRPcmpt%3Aprimary" href="http://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=3365849&authType=NAME_SEARCH&authToken=OFB-&locale=en_US&srchid=27000051384193857549&srchindex=1&srchtotal=1&trk=vsrp_people_res_name&trkInfo=VSRPsearchId%3A27000051384193857549%2CVSRPtargetId%3A3365849%2CVSRPcmpt%3Aprimary" target="_blank">Kim Finnerty</a>, SVP Research & Insights at Ryan Partnership, this year they saw continued increasing penetration for newer, more mobile tools like Load to Card coupons, product reviews, and mobile payments.</div>
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No real surprise there as far as I am concerned given the mobile world we live in, of course.</div>
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In speaking with Kim, I asked her if should could break down the results to show just one particular demographic. A demographic which accounts for anywhere from 80-90% of all household decisions. A very powerful and influential demographic. Of course I am referring to moms.</div>
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The reason I asked for this breakdown is I wanted to see how moms fared compared to the national averages and lo and behold, it seems good old email, the medium many predicted years ago would go the way of fax machines, is not only popular among moms, it outranks other mediums in the eyes of this most sought after demographic.</div>
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Go back and look at the eMarketer chart above, then look at this:</div>
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<a data-mce-href="http://b-i.forbesimg.com/steveolenski/files/2013/11/ryan-partnership-1.png" href="http://b-i.forbesimg.com/steveolenski/files/2013/11/ryan-partnership-1.png"><img alt="" class="aligncenter wp-image-661" data-mce-src="http://b-i.forbesimg.com/steveolenski/files/2013/11/ryan-partnership-1.png" height="283" src="http://b-i.forbesimg.com/steveolenski/files/2013/11/ryan-partnership-1.png" style="border: 0px; display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="640" /></a></div>
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Do you see it?</div>
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The question posed was "<em>When have you used X to help you shop or plan to shop?</em>"</div>
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<strong>Retail emails</strong></div>
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<li>U.S. average - 13%</li>
<li>Moms - 16%</li>
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<strong>Brand emails</strong></div>
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<li>U.S. average - 17%</li>
<li>Moms - 19%</li>
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<strong>Retailer texts</strong></div>
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<li>U.S. average - 29%</li>
<li>Moms - 31%</li>
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So, moms are mobile, we know that. They check email and texts on their smartphones but they are also checking email via other sources as the chart above is channel agnostic.</div>
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In other words <a data-mce-href="https://www.responsys.com/email-marketing?cid=70150000000g921AAA" href="https://www.responsys.com/email-marketing?cid=70150000000g921AAA" target="_blank">email marketing</a> is extremely vital in engaging with moms and potentially impacting their buying decision. The words "<em>help you shop" </em> and<em> "plan to shop" </em>are the key phrases here kids. Anytime you use and hear the words "help" and "plan" that tells you that whatever topic you're discussing carries with it an inherent value either in the positive or negative.</div>
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Go back again and look at the chart above from Ryan Partnership see how email scores compared to social media and shopping apps. In each instance, moms come in under the national average.</div>
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Yet for email, the opposite is true.</div>
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Finnerty, in speaking about the results of the survey from an overall perspective says that the biggest surprise that came out of the findings was how high email ranked. "Email is still a very strong tool for changing shopper behavior <em>and</em> satisfying shopper needs," she said. "While it seems like an old-school tool compared to things like shopping apps and mobile payments, marketers have had years to perfect it so it achieves objectives."</div>
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She very well could have been speaking about the mom demographic only.</div>
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Source: <a data-mce-href="http://www.ryanpartnership.com/" href="http://www.ryanpartnership.com/" target="_blank">Ryan Partnership</a>, <a data-mce-href="http://www.emarketer.com/" href="http://www.emarketer.com/" target="_blank">eMarketer</a>, <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/steveolenski/2013/11/11/why-email-marketing-is-vital-to-a-brands-health/" target="_blank">Forbes</a></div>
The Fantasy Football Hubhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06856844610944454759noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1125617292410618866.post-39003267830830016522013-12-10T13:04:00.001-05:002013-12-10T13:04:51.098-05:002014: The Year Of Living Socially?<div style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;">
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The title of my article is a paraphrase of the title of the 1982 film <em>The Year of Living Dangerously</em> starring Mel Gibson. In the movie Gibson plays a young reporter who is trying to navigate the political turmoil of Indonesia. (Thank you <a data-mce-href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086617/" href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086617/" target="_blank">IMDB</a>).</div>
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Based on what I read, it appears the number of marketers who will be trying to navigate, not the turmoil, but perhaps the terrain that is marketing and advertising, will be at an all time high when it comes to their use of social media.</div>
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The "what" I am referring to is a recent <a data-mce-href="http://www.emarketer.com/" href="http://www.emarketer.com/" target="_blank">eMarketer</a> report “ <i>Social Media Advertising: Seven Trends for 2014"</i> and the ubiquitous red and black chart reflects the growing number of marketers who indeed could make 2014 the year of living socially.</div>
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<a data-mce-href="http://b-i.forbesimg.com/steveolenski/files/2013/11/emarketer-social-media-2014.gif" href="http://b-i.forbesimg.com/steveolenski/files/2013/11/emarketer-social-media-2014.gif"><img alt="emarketer social media 2014" class="size-full wp-image-680 alignright" data-mce-src="http://b-i.forbesimg.com/steveolenski/files/2013/11/emarketer-social-media-2014.gif" height="330" src="http://b-i.forbesimg.com/steveolenski/files/2013/11/emarketer-social-media-2014.gif" style="border: 0px; cursor: default; float: right;" width="325" /></a></div>
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As you can clearly see the number of companies using social media for marketing purposes has increased every year since 2012 and is expected to keep rising into 2015.</div>
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As to the rationale behind the increase, eMarketer points out Facebook's efforts to simplify and prove the effectiveness of its ad products as well as its ability to deliver scale and efficiency via their mobile platform.</div>
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They also make reference to Twitter, "its push for brand dollars by partnering with TV networks" and the planned acquisition of MoPub, a mobile ad technology company which will serve to improve Twitter's self-serve ad platform.</div>
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As eMarketer puts it "Social media advertising took huge strides forward in 2013, and there are multiple signs that the momentum will continue next year."</div>
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So all is well in the world of social media and 2014 will indeed be the year of living socially and marketers will rejoice from sea to shining sea.</div>
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Well, maybe not.</div>
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<strong>The Other Player In Social Media</strong></div>
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So on one hand we have all these marketers making all these big plans to increase their spending on social media marketing.</div>
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Great.</div>
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But on the other hand there is of course the people who all these marketers are trying to engage and relate with via all the social media channels: the consumer.</div>
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Kind of helps if said consumer placed a high value on all these social media activities marketers plan on doing in 2014, doesn't it?</div>
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Take a look at these two charts and you tell me if there's a problem or disconnect between all this increased spending on social media by marketers vs. the value consumers place on it.</div>
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<a data-mce-href="http://b-i.forbesimg.com/steveolenski/files/2013/11/emarketer-social-media-2014-2.gif" href="http://b-i.forbesimg.com/steveolenski/files/2013/11/emarketer-social-media-2014-2.gif"><img alt="emarketer social media 2014-2" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-683" data-mce-src="http://b-i.forbesimg.com/steveolenski/files/2013/11/emarketer-social-media-2014-2.gif" height="224" src="http://b-i.forbesimg.com/steveolenski/files/2013/11/emarketer-social-media-2014-2.gif" style="border: 0px; cursor: default; display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="325" /></a><br /><a data-mce-href="http://b-i.forbesimg.com/steveolenski/files/2013/11/emarketer-social-media-2014-3.gif" href="http://b-i.forbesimg.com/steveolenski/files/2013/11/emarketer-social-media-2014-3.gif"><img alt="emarketer social media 2014-3" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-684" data-mce-src="http://b-i.forbesimg.com/steveolenski/files/2013/11/emarketer-social-media-2014-3.gif" height="225" src="http://b-i.forbesimg.com/steveolenski/files/2013/11/emarketer-social-media-2014-3.gif" style="border: 0px; cursor: default; display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="325" /></a></div>
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The above two charts come courtesy of eMarketer via marketing technology company x+1 and marketing research firm Research Now and their report, “The Marketer’s Playbook: Aligning market strategies with consumer expectations.” For this purpose and context Facebook/Twitter represent <a data-mce-href="https://www.responsys.com/social-marketing?cid=70150000000g92uAAA" href="https://www.responsys.com/social-marketing?cid=70150000000g92uAAA" target="_blank">social media</a>.</div>
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Look at the first chart. Over 4 in 10 marketers place a high value on social media, hence the increased spending. Yet less than 1 in 10 consumers feel the same way.</div>
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Now look at the second chart. Look at the low scores for social media across the board as it pertains to relevancy, accuracy and memorability.</div>
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Ouch.</div>
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Clearly there is a disconnect here.</div>
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How can so many marketers place so much importance on social media marketing yet so few consumers derive any value from it nor find it relevant, accurate or memorable?</div>
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Could it be that marketers still don't get it when it comes to how do social media marketing?</div>
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Could it be that, just as it was back in the day when social media was a new toy and every marketer across the land announced "I need to be on social media!"? And they did this without one thought as to how to do it correctly mind you, only that they had to do it because everyone else was (doing it).</div>
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I think the answer lies somewhere in the middle.</div>
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Yes, there are still marketers out there clamoring that they need to be "doing social media" - whatever that means. And there are still marketers out there who may be "doing social media" but are doing it wrong, completely wrong.</div>
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And by that I mean they're still sending out messages and missives that their audience does not care about , as witnessed by the low relevancy score. And they are still sending out posts and Tweets that all corporate-speak/sales copy - choosing to look at social media as another avenue to peddle their wares as opposed to using it as a channel to engage, relate and listen to their customers.</div>
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The bottom line?</div>
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Marketers who plan on increasing their spend on social media had better know what exactly it is they're doing with all this increased expenditures. You cannot just spend money to spend money.</div>
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Well of course you can. Happens every day in every corner of the world.</div>
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But you cannot, or better you <em>should not</em> increase your spending on a given initiative without first knowing how to best accomplish the initiative in the first place!</div>
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Seems pretty simple, doesn't it?</div>
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<span style="color: #333333;">Sources: <a data-mce-href="http://www.emarketer.com/" href="http://www.emarketer.com/" target="_blank">eMarketer</a>, <a data-mce-href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086617/" href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086617/" target="_blank">IMDB</a>, </span><span style="color: #333333;">Google Images</span></div>
The Fantasy Football Hubhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06856844610944454759noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1125617292410618866.post-89501375563493480702013-09-03T11:34:00.000-04:002013-09-03T11:37:24.679-04:00Is The Social Media Slumber Finally Over For Big Brands? <div style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;">
Perhaps it is because I am the father of a 13-year old daughter but whenever I hear the word "slumber" I immediately think of the phrase "slumber party" - which then conjures up fun, unless of course you are the host parent of said party.</div>
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However, if you're a big brand, say on the level of a Fortune 500 brand, your "state of inactivity" - AKA your slumber - when it comes to <a data-mce-href="https://www.responsys.com/social-marketing?cid=70150000000g92uAAA" href="https://www.responsys.com/social-marketing?cid=70150000000g92uAAA" target="_blank">social media</a>, may finally be over. At least it may finally be over for some as that's the indication one gets from reviewing data from a recent study from the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth Center for Marketing Research.</div>
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<a data-mce-href="http://b-i.forbesimg.com/steveolenski/files/2013/07/Fortune-500-Social-Media-Usage.png" href="http://b-i.forbesimg.com/steveolenski/files/2013/07/Fortune-500-Social-Media-Usage.png"><img alt="" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-186" data-mce-src="http://b-i.forbesimg.com/steveolenski/files/2013/07/Fortune-500-Social-Media-Usage.png" height="275" src="http://b-i.forbesimg.com/steveolenski/files/2013/07/Fortune-500-Social-Media-Usage.png" style="border: 0px; display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="518" /></a></div>
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You can clearly see the uptake in social media usage across the board re: the big social media networks. Most notably is the increase in blogging among Fortune 500 companies - up 28% in just one year.</div>
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However, the study delved deeper into blogging and in fact showed that blogging among Fortune 500 companies is up over 112% since 2008.</div>
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<a data-mce-href="http://b-i.forbesimg.com/steveolenski/files/2013/07/Fortune-500-Social-Media-Usage-2.png" href="http://b-i.forbesimg.com/steveolenski/files/2013/07/Fortune-500-Social-Media-Usage-2.png"><img alt="" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-187" data-mce-src="http://b-i.forbesimg.com/steveolenski/files/2013/07/Fortune-500-Social-Media-Usage-2.png" height="276" src="http://b-i.forbesimg.com/steveolenski/files/2013/07/Fortune-500-Social-Media-Usage-2.png" style="border: 0px; display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="540" /></a></div>
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And try this stat on for size re: blogging: Brands ranked in the top (Fortune) 200 were more likely to blog than those ranked 300-500.</div>
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Coincidence?</div>
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Here's some other findings/stats:</div>
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<li>The 171 Fortune 500 corporations with blogs represented 58 of 75 industries in the Fortune 500.</li>
<li>8 of the top 10 corporations actively post on Twitter.</li>
<li>72 of the 75 industries represented in the Fortune 500 use Facebook & Twitter</li>
<li>Only 1 of the top 10 companies (Ford Motors) is on Instagram.</li>
<li>Walmart is the only company among the top 10 to use Foursquare.</li>
<li>Half of the top 10 have a Pinterest board.</li>
</ul>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;">And speaking of Pinterest, in what should come as no surprise to anyone, it has seen a growth of 350% YOY, 2012 to 2013, going from 2% to 9% adoption among Fortune 500 brands. It is worth noting we're talking very low numbers - 11 companies in 2012 to 45 in 2013 but, you can surely expect to see that number increase as more and more brands take full advantage of the visual-social networks.</span><br />
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<strong>Why Has It Taken So Long?</strong></div>
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I am a very curious person by nature so when confronted with facts and figures like those above I am left wondering "why has it taken so long for so many large, multi-billion dollar brands to realize what we already know?"</div>
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Social media is not a fad. It is not going to go the way of other fads and one day be found on sale on eBay or discovered by the American Pickers sitting in someone's farm with dust and cobwebs over it.</div>
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It is where your customers and future customers are spending more and more of their time so why would you not want to be there with them?</div>
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Not that should I have to do this but I will anyway.</div>
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Just some, some of the latest stats re: social media usage:</div>
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<li>27% of time spent online is on a social network</li>
<li>Facebook has 1.11 billion monthly active users</li>
<li>Twitter has over 550 million users</li>
<li>More than 1 billion unique users visit YouTube each month</li>
<li>There are more than 2.1 million LinkedIn groups</li>
<li>Pinterest has nearly 50 million users</li>
</ul>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;">So why Mr. & Mrs. Brand?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;">Why has it taken you so long to come around and why so others among you continue to resist the open invitation to join the party - the social media slumber party?</span><br />
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Here's a few of the reasons I believe it took so many brands to accept the invitation and/or continue to refuse it:</div>
<ul style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;">
<li><strong>Fear</strong>. Pure, unadulterated fear. Fear, when it comes to social media, comes in many shapes and sizes and at or near the top of the list for brands is fear of saying something or doing something stupid - for all the world to see.</li>
<li><strong>Lack of true ROI.</strong> This reason is perhaps trotted out by more brands as to why they don't participate in social media. Plenty of articles written about this topic. Here's a real good one from <a data-mce-href="https://twitter.com/natalieburg_" href="https://twitter.com/natalieburg_" target="_blank">Natalie Burg</a>, my fellow Forbes contributor: <a data-mce-href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/capitalonespark/2013/04/25/how-to-measure-your-social-media-return-on-investment/" href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/capitalonespark/2013/04/25/how-to-measure-your-social-media-return-on-investment/" target="_blank">How To Measure Your Social Media Return On Investment</a></li>
<li><strong>Lack of content.</strong> I think there are still a great number of brands - both big and small, who know they need to be at the party but simply do not know what to say; what to share, what to post and on and on and on. So they choose to watch from afar, hoping one day to take the leap - which of course they won't and it won't matter anyway for it will be too late.</li>
</ul>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;">The bottom line to all of this is very simple in my humble opinion.</span><br />
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Now, more than ever, it is vital to establish and <a data-mce-href="https://responsys.com/relationship-marketing/what-we-do?cid=70150000000gVwZAAU" href="https://responsys.com/relationship-marketing/what-we-do?cid=70150000000gVwZAAU" target="_blank">maintain a relationship</a> with consumers. And short of going door-to-door or inviting everyone over for a backyard BBQ, the next best alternative is to interact, engage and relate to them via social media.</div>
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Come join the social media slumber party.</div>
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Pajamas are optional.</div>
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Sources: <a data-mce-href="http://www.marketingcharts.com/" href="http://www.marketingcharts.com/" target="_blank">Marketing Charts</a>, <a data-mce-href="http://www.umassd.edu/" href="http://www.umassd.edu/" target="_blank">umassd.edu</a>, <a data-mce-href="http://www.activecommunities.com/" href="http://www.activecommunities.com/" target="_blank">activecommunities.com</a></div>
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<em>Named one of the <a data-mce-href="http://www.socialtechnologyreview.com/articles/top-100-influencers-social-media" href="http://www.socialtechnologyreview.com/articles/top-100-influencers-social-media" target="_blank">Top 100 Influencers In Social Media</a> (#41) by Social Technology Review and a <a data-mce-href="http://topsmbloggers.kred.com/" href="http://topsmbloggers.kred.com/" target="_blank">Top 50 Social Media Blogger</a> by Kred, <a data-mce-href="http://thesteveozone.blogspot.com/" href="http://thesteveozone.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Steve Olenski</a> is a senior creative content strategist at <a data-mce-href="https://www.responsys.com/?cid=70150000000g94vAAA" href="https://www.responsys.com/?cid=70150000000g94vAAA" target="_blank" title="responsys">Responsys</a>, a leading global provider of on-demand email and cross-channel marketing solutions. He is a also a member of the Editorial Board for the <a data-mce-href="http://www.henrystewartpublications.com/jdsm" href="http://www.henrystewartpublications.com/jdsm" target="_blank">Journal of Digital & Social Media Marketing</a> and co-author of the book <a data-mce-href="http://www.amazon.com/StumbleUpon-For-Dummies-Computer-Tech/dp/1118505336" href="http://www.amazon.com/StumbleUpon-For-Dummies-Computer-Tech/dp/1118505336" target="_blank">StumbleUpon For Dummies</a>. He can be reached via <a data-mce-href="https://twitter.com/steveolenski" href="https://twitter.com/steveolenski" target="_blank">Twitter</a>, <a data-mce-href="http://www.linkedin.com/in/steveolenski" href="http://www.linkedin.com/in/steveolenski" target="_blank">LinkedIn</a> or <a data-mce-href="mailto:solenski@responsys.com" href="mailto:solenski@responsys.com">Email</a>. </em></div>
The Fantasy Football Hubhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06856844610944454759noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1125617292410618866.post-77808962428564984392013-07-08T16:54:00.000-04:002013-07-08T16:54:28.531-04:00Relationship Marketing And Millennials<div style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;">
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Ah Millennials, the much desired demographic of many marketers and advertisers the world over, for they are the future, as well as being the here and now. </div>
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They are the digitized demographic, as some refer to them. At least I just did, anyway. While traditional <a href="https://www.responsys.com/new-school-marketing?cid=70150000000g950AAA" target="_blank">marketing</a> and advertising techniques have a place at the millennial table, it is the more digital-enhanced methods - i.e. <a href="https://www.responsys.com/mobile-marketing?cid=70150000000g92VAAQ" target="_blank">mobile</a>, that seems to play a larger role in capturing the attention of this group.</div>
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However one thing that marketers and advertisers need to be reminded of when it comes to Millennials is that they are people, too. I know, I know, shocking right?</div>
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Ok, sarcasm aside, the fact is that marketers and advertisers, while trying to outdo one another via the latest digital, multi-media platform, must never lose sight of the fact that Millennials want everyone else wants today: a relationship. With brands that is.</div>
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Surely they want other kinds of relationships but that's for folks like Dr. Phil and those much more qualified than I.</div>
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<strong>Generation Stress</strong></div>
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In fact, I will go you one deeper and tell you that Millennials want, crave and need a relationship perhaps more than any other generation.</div>
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Why?</div>
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One word: stress.</div>
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In an <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/millennials-stress_b_2718986.html" target="_blank">article</a> for the Huffington Post back in February, <a href="https://twitter.com/ariannahuff" target="_blank">Arianna Huffington</a> referenced a study commissioned by the American Psychological Association which revealed that Millennials are the most stressed demographic. The reasons for their stress are many but the fact is this demographic scored the highest, or is it the lowest? on the stress meter.</div>
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Now surely I am not about to tell you that having a relationship with their favorite brand will be a magic stress-relieving elixir for the Millennial generation and in turn create lifelong loyalty with said brand. No, that would be foolish beyond all human comprehension.</div>
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But, what I will say is that any brand, advertiser, marketer, whatever that can create a relationship - and I mean a true honest-to-goodness relationship where Mr. and Mrs. Brand really understand a Millennial - well that can only be a good thing. It will surely resonate with this over-stressed crowd and maybe, just maybe, help sway them toward the brass ring: loyalty.</div>
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<strong>Experience The Relationship</strong></div>
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Not too long ago I had the chance to speak with <a href="http://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=11894832&authType=NAME_SEARCH&authToken=kVqX&locale=en_US&srchid=a53e43c4-5c7c-44de-b037-fdcf87db25ce-0&srchindex=4&srchtotal=3911&goback=.fps_PBCK_Nancy+Smith_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1_*2_*1_Y_*1_*1_*1_false_1_R_*1_*51_*1_*51_true_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2&pvs=ps&trk=pp_profile_name_link" target="_blank">Nancy Smith</a>, the CEO of <a href="http://www.analyticpartners.com/" target="_blank">Analytic Partners</a>, a leading independently-held global marketing analytics firm.</div>
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She shared with me the results of a survey her company conducted. It was a national survey which revealed that 48% of people between the ages of 18-44 feel that any loyalty they feel toward brands in the future will be determined by the types of experiences brands create for them.</div>
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<a href="http://b-i.forbesimg.com/steveolenski/files/2013/06/Brand-loyalty-survey-chart.png"><img alt="" class="aligncenter wp-image-39" height="368" src="http://b-i.forbesimg.com/steveolenski/files/2013/06/Brand-loyalty-survey-chart.png" style="border: 0px; display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="640" /></a></div>
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Now, I realize you may be thinking a few things after looking at the above chart:</div>
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<em>"This is supposed to be about Millennials, yet it references those ages 18-44."</em></div>
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I realize the age breakout is somewhat higher on the back end then what is traditionally considered a Millennial but to be honest I didn't care all that much about that as the data still includes the Millennials, at least what many think of when they hear the term. And yes I understand that if we looked at ONLY Millennials the numbers may change but I don't think all that much.</div>
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<em>"This uses the word 'experience' not 'relationship.' Is it the same thing?"</em></div>
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Of course it is. In this context it absolutely is. Do you not <em>experience</em> different things in a given relationship? Of course you do. And it is those <em>experiences</em> that ultimately dictate what kind of relationship it is.</div>
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<strong>The One Constant</strong></div>
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Back in May I attended <a href="http://www.responsys.com/blogs/nsm/inside-responsys/day-1-at-responsys-interact-2013/" target="_blank">Interact 2013</a>, the conference hosted by my employer, Responsys. Held in San Francisco, it was a week-long event whose main theme can be summed up in one word: Relationships. Speaker after speaker - from the President of Marketing and Platform at Responsys Scott Olrich, to Bert Jacobs founder of <a href="https://twitter.com/Lifeisgood" target="_blank">The Life Is Good Company</a>, to American hero <a href="http://sullysullenberger.com/">Chelsey “Sully” Sullenberger</a> to musician <a href="http://listen.michaelfranti.com/enter" target="_blank">Michael Franti</a> - who performed at a private concert.</div>
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Each and every one spoke about relationships in one way, shape or form.</div>
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That's the one constant marketers and advertisers need to remember and never lose sight of: ALL consumers, (and yes perhaps the Millennials more than others) need, want and quite frankly deserve a relationship with you. A two-way relationship with open lines of communication.</div>
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Where <em>you</em> address <em>their</em> needs.</div>
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Sources: <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/" target="_blank">Huffington Post</a>, <a href="http://www.analyticpartners.com/" target="_blank">Analytic Partners</a>, <span active="true" class="forbes_entity" display="Google" exchange="NASDAQ" key="google" natural_id="fred/company/1821" style="background-color: #336699; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: white; padding: 1px;" subtype="company" ticker="GOOG" type="organization">Google</span> Images</div>
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<em>Named one of the <a href="http://www.socialtechnologyreview.com/articles/top-100-influencers-social-media" target="_blank">Top 100 Influencers In Social Media</a> (#41) by Social Technology Review and a <a href="http://topsmbloggers.kred.com/" target="_blank">Top 50 Social Media Blogger</a> by Kred, <a href="http://thesteveozone.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Steve Olenski</a> is a senior creative content strategist at <a href="https://www.responsys.com/?cid=70150000000g94vAAA" target="_blank" title="responsys">Responsys</a>, a leading global provider of on-demand email and cross-channel marketing solutions, and a member of the Editorial Board for the <a href="http://www.henrystewartpublications.com/jdsm" target="_blank">Journal of Digital & Social Media Marketing</a>. He can be reached via <a href="https://twitter.com/steveolenski" target="_blank">Twitter</a>, <a href="http://www.linkedin.com/in/steveolenski" target="_blank">LinkedIn</a> or <a href="mailto:solenski@responsys.com">Email</a>. </em></div>
The Fantasy Football Hubhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06856844610944454759noreply@blogger.com20tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1125617292410618866.post-31328763377265784192013-04-23T10:24:00.000-04:002013-04-23T10:24:25.775-04:00Moneyball For Sales And Marketing<br />
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<dt class="wp-caption-dt"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Moneyball-Art-Winning-Unfair-Game/dp/0393057658%3FSubscriptionId%3D0G81C5DAZ03ZR9WH9X82%26tag%3Dzemanta-20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3D0393057658"><img alt="Cover of "Moneyball: The Art of Winning a..." class="zemanta-img-configured" height="300" src="http://b-i.forbesimg.com/marketshare/files/2013/04/4120gz2h3iL._SL300_4.jpg" style="border: 0px none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" width="191" /></a></dt>
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I know what you're thinking, Steve's writing about Moneyball only because of the incredible physical similarities between himself and Brad Pitt - who starred in the movie of the same name.</div>
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Well, Mr. Pitt's and my striking resemblances aside, the reason for my article is to share with you something I discovered that ties in the concept of Moneyball with sales and <a href="https://www.responsys.com/new-school-marketing?cid=70150000000g94MAAQ" target="_blank" title="responsys">marketing</a>. Now for those of you who are not familiar with the term "Moneyball" please allow me to explain.</div>
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The term itself comes from the title of a book written by Michael Lewis in 2003 called <em>Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game</em>. The book is about the <a href="http://oakland.athletics.mlb.com/index.jsp?c_id=oak" target="_blank">Oakland Athletics</a> baseball team and the highly unusual and controversial methods they took to compete as a small market team with little money against larger market, bigger budget teams such as the Yankees.</div>
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The team's general manager, Billy Beane (played by Pitt in the movie) decided to use a completely different set of statistics to gauge a player's value and these methods often flew in the face of conventional baseball wisdom and the beliefs of many scouts and executives.</div>
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While the team never won a World Series (yet) using the Moneyball approach, the A's have proven that their approach can work as witnessed by their 20 game winning streak in 2002, the longest of its kind in American League history - longer than even the most consecutive wins by the vaunted Yankees.</div>
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<strong>Moneyball For Sales And Marketing</strong></div>
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A few weeks ago I was introduced to Peter Mollins, the VP of Marketing for <a href="http://blogs.forbes.com/marketshare/wp-admin/knowledgetree." target="_blank">KnowledgeTree</a> - a company that specializes in helping companies use and improve their best collateral. Peter and I got to talking and he told me about the Moneyball approach to collateral and content marketing.</div>
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He also shared with me a very cool infographic he and his team put together to visually convey the concept of Moneyball for sales and marketing which is below.</div>
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<strong>SO: How does the theory of Moneyball apply to Sales & Content Marketing?</strong></div>
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PM: You only have so many at-bats with a prospect. So, each interaction needs to have impact. And when the prospect is disconnected from you, they need to be producing a winning business case for your solutions. That's why it's so important to arm your prospect with great content. Content that advances a sales process. But what do you send? The same content you've always used? Generic content that doesn't speak to their needs? Of course not. You need to test which content works and works for different sales stages. Versus different competitors. For different pain points. And then put the right content into play. That's the Moneyball approach.</div>
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<strong>SO: What do you see as being the biggest mistake brands make when it comes to sales & content marketing?</strong></div>
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PM: The biggest mistake that these brands make is to forget that they tune their messaging in <a href="https://www.responsys.com/email-marketing?cid=70150000000g92LAAQ" target="_blank" title="responsys">email </a>campaigns, website content, and more. But why aren't they doing it for the content that your prospects build their internal business cases around, the content that closes business? Generic messages and generalized content don't close deals. Deals get closed by sales people armed with content that's focused on the pains that a prospect is trying to ease. B2B customers need to know that you are speaking their language.</div>
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<strong>SO: Why do you think these same brands continue to keep making these same mistakes?</strong></div>
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PM: These organizations keep making the mistake because it is a gray area between sales and marketing teams. Collateral generally gets produced by marketing and consumed by sales. So, how do you make sure that the right marketing content is getting surfaced to the sales team. And how does sales get feedback back to marketing to make sure content continues to improve? The divide between sales and marketing, the communication around what resonates with prospects, has to be bridged.</div>
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Source: <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/marketshare/2013/04/11/moneyball-for-sales-and-marketing/" target="_blank">Forbes</a></div>
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<em>Named one of the <a href="http://www.socialtechnologyreview.com/articles/top-100-influencers-social-media" target="_blank">Top 100 Influencers In Social Media</a> (#41) by Social Technology Review and a <a href="http://topsmbloggers.kred.com/" target="_blank">Top 50 Social Media Blogger</a> by Kred, <a href="http://thesteveozone.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Steve Olenski</a> is a senior creative content strategist at <a href="https://www.responsys.com/?cid=70150000000g94HAAQ" target="_blank" title="responsys">Responsys</a>, a leading global provider of on-demand email and cross-channel marketing solutions, and a member of the Editorial Board for the <a href="http://www.henrystewartpublications.com/jdsm" target="_blank">Journal of Digital & Social Media Marketing</a>. He can be reached via <a href="https://twitter.com/steveolenski" target="_blank">Twitter</a>, <a href="http://www.linkedin.com/in/steveolenski" target="_blank">LinkedIn</a> or <a href="mailto:solenski@responsys.com">Email</a>. </em></div>
The Fantasy Football Hubhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06856844610944454759noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1125617292410618866.post-10516476425649858622013-03-25T12:59:00.003-04:002013-03-25T12:59:59.252-04:00LinkedIn Lady Show Interview March 22, 2013<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Last year <a href="http://steveolenski.blogspot.com/2012/05/my-appearance-on-linked-in-lady-show.html" target="_blank">I had the honor</a> of being a guest on <a href="http://www.linkedinlady.com/" target="_blank">The LinkedIn Lady Show</a> hosted by the brilliant Carol McManus. </span><br />
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</span> <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="https://twitter.com/linkedinlady" target="_blank">Carol</a> is a <span style="line-height: 20px;">is a self-described recovering corporate executive who left that world in 2007 to start her own business. She grew it quickly with a very limited marketing budget but through the creative and diligent use of social media.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 20px;">Today, she is one of the most sought-after speakers and consultants for businesses and entrepreneurs who aspire to grow their business by using this digital medium as a way to stay in touch with and attract new clients.</span></span><br />
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</span></span> <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 20px;">On Friday, March 22, 2013 I was once again Carol's guest and during the show we talked about <a href="http://responsys.com/" target="_blank">Responsys</a> - my employer who is a l</span><span style="line-height: 20px;">eading provider of email and cross-channel marketing. Their services include email, mobile, social, the web and display. </span></span><br />
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</span></span> <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 20px;">We also talked about some of my recent Forbes' articles and the state of advertising, marketing and branding in general.</span></span><br />
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The Fantasy Football Hubhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06856844610944454759noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1125617292410618866.post-47208873119970658402013-02-26T15:12:00.002-05:002013-02-26T15:14:22.264-05:00Price Always Trumps Brand, But It Shouldn't Matter To Marketers<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; line-height: 19.5px;">Let me preface this article by saying categorically I believe very much in the power of branding. I myself (isn't that redundant?) have worked on many branding campaigns for </span><a href="https://www.responsys.com/new-school-marketing?cid=70150000000g94MAAQ" style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; line-height: 19.5px;" target="_blank">marketers</a><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; line-height: 19.5px;"> and advertisers of all sizes and shapes. I know first hand the value of branding done right and done on a consistent basis i.e. staying true to a given brand's tone and voice over time.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">But I also have been witness to a growing trend. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A revealing trend that is bringing to the light the fact that more and more consumers are sacrificing brand loyalty for the best price on a given product, service, etc.</span></div>
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<li><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">1/07/2013 - <a href="http://socialmediatoday.com/steve-olenski/1138611/brand-loyalty-dying-slow-and-painful-death" style="text-decoration: initial;" target="_blank">Is Brand Loyalty Dying A Slow And Painful Death?</a> "Sponsored by AisleBuyer, a survey conducted earlier this year revealed that nearly 75% of consumers would switch brands if offered real-time discounts and promotions that were delivered to their smartphones in real time while they were shopping in a store."</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">1/09/2013 - <a href="http://socialmediatoday.com/steve-olenski/1145921/most-powerful-brand-ambassadors-world-may-not-be-brand-loyal" style="text-decoration: initial;" target="_blank">The Most Powerful Brand Ambassadors In The World May Not Be Brand Loyal</a> "A stunning 75 percent of women now say it’s important get the lowest price on everything they buy, up 12 percentage points. from 2008 and up 22 percentage points from 2004"</span></li>
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<strong><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Exhibit B</span></strong></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Consider the above Exhibit A and the following to be, well, you get the idea.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The following (below) relates to a little something I like to call social media. Perhaps you've heard of it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The lines have been skewing for some time now when it comes to brand loyalty and social media and with each passing day that line is skewing more toward the almighty dollar or if not currency in the monetary form, some other form of currency for sure.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">From a <a href="http://www.cmocouncil.org/" style="text-decoration: initial;" target="_blank">Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Council</a> and <a href="http://www.lithium.com/" style="text-decoration: initial;" target="_blank">Lithium</a> survey in 2011.</span></div>
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<a href="http://blogs-images.forbes.com/marketshare/files/2013/02/screen_shot_2011-12-14_at_10.43.51_am-1.png" style="text-decoration: initial;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><img alt="price and consumers" class="aligncenter wp-image-16023" height="306" src="http://blogs-images.forbes.com/marketshare/files/2013/02/screen_shot_2011-12-14_at_10.43.51_am-1.png" style="border: none; display: block; height: auto !important; margin: 12px auto; max-width: 586px; vertical-align: middle;" width="478" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Then there's this (below) from a report put out by <a href="http://www.turn.com/forbescmoinsights" style="text-decoration: initial;" target="_blank">Forbes Insights and Turn</a> late last year called “The New <span class="forbes_entity">Rules of Engagement</span>: Measuring the Power of Social Currency":</span></div>
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<img alt="price trumps branding" class="aligncenter" height="476" src="http://blogs-images.forbes.com/marketshare/files/2013/02/ForbesInsights3.png" style="border: none; display: block; height: auto !important; margin: 12px auto; max-width: 586px;" width="579" /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">And finally and most recently, this below, from a survey conducted by <a href="http://www.pwc.com/" style="text-decoration: initial;" target="_blank">PwC</a>:</span></div>
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<a href="http://blogs-images.forbes.com/marketshare/files/2013/02/PwC.png" style="text-decoration: initial;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><img alt="marketing considerations" class="aligncenter wp-image-16024" height="258" src="http://blogs-images.forbes.com/marketshare/files/2013/02/PwC.png" style="border: none; display: block; height: auto !important; margin: 12px auto; max-width: 586px; vertical-align: middle;" width="471" /></span></a></div>
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<strong><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Not So Breaking News</span></strong></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">If there is a marketer out there who finds all or any of this news to be "breaking" he/she may need to start considering other employment for this should come as no surprise to anyone.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Consumers are people, people. Get it?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In general they want the best deal, period. Now juxtapose that thinking over a failing or still-recovering economy depending on who you speak to, and price just becomes all that more important in the pecking order.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">'Ah but Steve, what about those brands who can never win a price war for any number of reasons? Are they doomed to fail?'</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Good question.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">No, of course they are not doomed to fail.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">If, if they realize that there's more than one way to skin a cat or in this case win a consumer's heart, that is - which ties into the "why it shouldn't matter to marketers" part of the title of this article.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Obviously many brands consistently thrive and survive just fine without being the cheapest on the shelf. They do so for a myriad of reasons including something I like to call "quality." Remember the old "you get what you pay for" adage? Yeah, that kind of goes hand-in-hand with this thinking.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">So there are plenty of marketers, brands and so on who wake up every morning knowing they cannot possibly win a price battle but they know there's a quality product so all is well in the world.</span></div>
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<strong><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Not So Fast </span></strong></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The real winners in ALL of this will be the brands who come to grips with the fact that while price and quality will always play a role in a consumer's decision making process, it is the relationships they create with a consumer that will ultimately determine success or failure.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Make no mistake about it, we are or already are, in what <a href="https://www.responsys.com/?cid=70150000000g94HAAQ" style="text-decoration: initial;" target="_blank" title="responsys">Responsys</a> CMO Scott Olrich referred to as "the relationship era" in an end-of-the year piece entitled <a href="http://socialmediatoday.com/steve-olenski/1088116/looking-back-looking-ahead-cmos-weigh" style="text-decoration: initial;" target="_blank">Looking Back, Looking Ahead - CMOs Weigh In</a>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">His exact quote was "We will see the beginning of what I refer to as “the relationship era” whereby marketers will move away from an acquisition first mentality to a relationship first one. Marketers will focus more on the entire consumer experience to build and foster a long term relationship with a consumer as opposed to just that initial purchase phase."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The brands who understand how to cultivate and maintain relationships with consumers will be the ones who reap the biggest rewards.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Sources: <a href="http://www.pwc.com/" style="text-decoration: initial;" target="_blank">PwC</a>, <a href="http://www.cmocouncil.org/" style="text-decoration: initial;" target="_blank">CMO Council</a>, <a href="http://www.turn.com/forbescmoinsights" style="text-decoration: initial;" target="_blank">Forbes Insights and Turn</a>, <a href="http://www.lithium.com/" style="text-decoration: initial;" target="_blank">Lithium</a> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Photo credit: Wikipedia</span></div>
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<em style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; line-height: 24px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Named one of the <a data-ls-seen="1" href="http://www.socialtechnologyreview.com/articles/top-100-influencers-social-media" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">Top 100 Influencers In Social Media</a> (#41) by Social Technology Review and a <a data-ls-seen="1" href="http://topsmbloggers.kred.com/" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">Top 50 Social Media Blogger</a> by Kred, <a data-ls-seen="1" href="http://thesteveozone.blogspot.com/" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">Steve Olenski</a> is a senior content strategist at <a data-ls-seen="1" href="https://www.responsys.com/?cid=70150000000g94HAAQ" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank" title="responsys">Responsys</a>, a leading global provider of on-demand email and cross-channel marketing solutions and a member of the Editorial Board for the <a data-ls-seen="1" href="http://www.henrystewartpublications.com/jdsm" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">Journal of Digital & Social Media Marketing</a>.</span></em></div>
The Fantasy Football Hubhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06856844610944454759noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1125617292410618866.post-44353977648312468592013-01-24T14:09:00.001-05:002013-01-24T14:09:49.904-05:00What Two 5-Year Old Kids Can Teach Us About Society<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;">As anyone who knows me will attest I am a very passionate person by nature. And normally my passion, in this particular space, covers topics like branding, marketing, advertising, </span><a href="https://www.responsys.com/social-marketing?cid=70150000000g939AAA" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;" target="_blank">social media</a><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;"> and so on. I write about my thoughts on the aforementioned topics and hopefully anyone reading what I have to say, er write, will come away the better for it.</span><br />
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Today, however, I want to share with you two stories - each dealing with a five-year old child in very different, albeit equally difficult circumstances.</div>
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Each should serve as a lesson to all of us and serve as a not-so-gentle reminder that ignorance is still rampant in our world and common sense is a truly lost art for for many. And yes, there is a lesson to be learned here for brands, <a href="https://www.responsys.com/new-school-marketing?cid=70150000000g94MAAQ" target="_blank">marketers</a> and advertisers - at least one lesson such as the customer is NOT always right.</div>
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You'll see what I mean.</div>
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The first story comes from Houston, home of a restaurant called Laurenzo's Prime Rib and a waiter named Michael Garcia. Not long ago Garcia was waiting on Laurenzo's regulars Kim Castillo and her 5-year-old son, Milo, who is very popular among the employees.</div>
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<a href="http://blogs-images.forbes.com/marketshare/files/2013/01/article-waiter4-0119.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-15418" height="165" src="http://blogs-images.forbes.com/marketshare/files/2013/01/article-waiter4-0119-300x165.jpg" style="border: 0px; float: right;" width="300" /></a>Oh yeah, Milo also has Down syndrome. Here's a picture of him. </div>
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According to a story in the New York Daily News "Castillo and her family were sitting at their table for all of 10 minutes when a group across from them got up and moved to the back of the restaurant. Their waiter Michael Garcia didn’t think too much of the move until one bit of conversation caught his attention. He heard a man in the group say, “'Special needs children need to be special somewhere else.'”</div>
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That's right. A man, an <em>adult</em> man - who was in the restaurant with his family, uttered what is arguably some of the most offensive words I have ever heard in my life: “Special needs children need to be special somewhere else.”</div>
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According to Castillo, Garcia, the waiter, then refused to serve this man and his family after hearing such horrific words. She wrote on her Facebook wall "The waiter promptly told them he was offended by their comment and refused to serve them."</div>
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My hat goes off to Michael Garcia who risked his job by his actions. "I had considered whether or not I would lose my job, but I knew it wasn't right," he said. "I could find another job and my guests would follow me."</div>
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As to the gentleman who said those disgusting words, apparently he too was a regular at the restaurant with the operative word being "was."</div>
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Clearly this was a classic of case of the customer is not always right and the lesson to brands, marketers and advertisers? Well remember the words your employees use carry a lot of weight. As <a href="https://twitter.com/PamMktgNut" target="_blank">Pam Moore</a> just wrote about for <a href="http://socialmediatoday.com/pammoore/1175626/social-brands-are-employees-your-employees-247" target="_blank">Social Media Today</a>, "Every employee within your company is a walking billboard of your brand. If you don’t like what they say, do, tweet, think, post, pin, video tape or sing about your brand, then you better start on the inside out and fix it."</div>
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Now juxtapose what Pam - who has been named as one of the <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/haydnshaughnessy/2011/12/02/who-are-the-top-10-influencers-in-social-media/2/" target="_blank">Top 10 Influencers in social media</a> by Forbes, wrote over this story. Do you think whatever company this man who said such derogatory things is proud of him today? Do you think they would want to hold him up as an example of their brand, their company, their values?</div>
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Don't think so.</div>
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<strong>Common Sense Is Not So Common</strong></div>
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The next story comes from Mount Carmel, Pennsylvania and involves, well, here's one of the headlines about the story: Pennsylvania kindergartener uses Hello Kitty bubble-gun at school, suspended for "terrorist threat"</div>
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<a href="http://blogs-images.forbes.com/marketshare/files/2013/01/51VmJLRbfGL._SL500_1.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-15419" height="300" src="http://blogs-images.forbes.com/marketshare/files/2013/01/51VmJLRbfGL._SL500_1-300x300.jpg" style="border: 0px; float: left;" width="300" /></a>Here's how one writer at <a href="http://boingboing.net/2013/01/21/pennsylvania-kindergartener-us.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+boingboing%2FiBag+%28Boing+Boing%29" target="_blank">boingboing.net </a>characterized the whole incident:</div>
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"Mount Carmel Area Elementary School in Pennsylvania suspended a five-year-old girl for pointing a Hello Kitty bubble-gun at another student, characterizing this as a "terrorist threat." The little girl had to undergo psychiatric evaluation before she was allowed back in.</div>
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Her parents say that they couldn't get their daughter into another school, because no one wanted a kid with "terrorist" on her transcript. They're considering a lawsuit."</div>
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The little girl even told her mom that she was being told she could go to jail by school officials. For their part the Mount Carmel Area School District said the allegations “may not be consistent with the facts" adding that they take "the well-being and safety of students and staff very seriously.”</div>
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I will be very interested to learn in the coming days and weeks of any inconsistencies the school district alluded to.</div>
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And as for the other part, that sounds fine, doesn't it?</div>
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Surely we want the well-being and safety of students and staff taken very seriously, right?</div>
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But at some point doesn't common sense have to enter into the equation?</div>
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Doesn't the letter of the law have to be interpreted differently in a situation such as this?</div>
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Don't you think the adults in this case could have exercised some common sense before overreacting, allegedly, in the manner in which they did?</div>
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So it would appear ignorance and lack of common sense are in abundance despite all the advances we collectively make every day. Perhaps it's good to hear about stories like these to remind us of that.</div>
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Sources: <a href="http://www.nydailynews.com/" target="_blank">New York Daily News</a>, <a href="http://boingboing.net/" target="_blank">BoingBoing</a></div>
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<em>Named one of the <a href="http://www.socialtechnologyreview.com/articles/top-100-influencers-social-media">Top 100 Influencers In Social Media</a> (#41) by Social Technology Review and a <a href="http://topsmbloggers.kred.com/">Top 50 Social Media Blogger</a> by Kred, <a href="http://thesteveozone.blogspot.com/">Steve Olenski</a> is a senior content strategist at <a href="https://www.responsys.com/?cid=70150000000g94HAAQ" target="_blank" title="responsys">Responsys</a>, a leading global provider of on-demand email and cross-channel marketing solutions. </em></div>
The Fantasy Football Hubhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06856844610944454759noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1125617292410618866.post-45090217561226646292013-01-03T15:53:00.000-05:002013-01-03T15:53:37.069-05:00Looking Back, Looking Ahead - CMOs Weigh In<div style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;">
This is such a great time of the year isn't it? I mean with all the parties for hosting, marshmallows for toasting and caroling out in the snow. This time of the year is also time for fearless forecasts, the ones where everyone dares to boldly go where no man, or woman has gone before.</div>
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Or something like that.</div>
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What I am referring to of course is it's the time of year when people make predictions for the coming year about this and that. And while I wanted to pen such a piece myself, I wanted to put a little different spin on it - I am a big fan of spinning, as it were.</div>
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<a href="http://blogs-images.forbes.com/marketshare/files/2012/12/its-the-most-wonderful-time-of-the-year-small.jpg"><img alt="" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-14843" height="150" src="http://blogs-images.forbes.com/marketshare/files/2012/12/its-the-most-wonderful-time-of-the-year-small-300x150.jpg" style="border: 0px; float: right;" width="300" /></a></div>
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So I decided to reach out to a group of CMOs and other high-level folks across a wide array of industries to, yes, get their thoughts on 2013 - but to also get their take on the year that's coming to a close.<br />
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My esteemed panel consisted of the following: (in alphabetical order of last name, in case you curious)</div>
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<li><a href="https://twitter.com/jccarcamo" target="_blank">Julia Carcamo</a>, Vice President of Brand Marketing, <a href="http://www.islecorp.com/index.aspx" target="_blank">Isle of Capri Casinos Inc.</a> (JC)</li>
<li><a href="https://twitter.com/ChristaCarone" target="_blank">Christa Carone</a>, CMO, <a href="http://www.xerox.com/" target="_blank">Xerox</a> (CC)</li>
<li><a href="https://twitter.com/flyingpoint" target="_blank">Steve Fuller</a>, CMO, <a href="http://www.llbean.com/" target="_blank">L.L. Bean</a> (SF)</li>
<li><a href="http://www.linkedin.com/pub/scott-olrich/0/167/140" target="_blank">Scott Olrich</a>, CMO, <a href="http://responsys.com/" target="_blank">Responsys</a> (SO) (full disclosure - my employer)</li>
<li><a href="http://www.linkedin.com/pub/denny-post/3/a5b/a15" target="_blank">Denny Post</a>, CMO, <a href="http://www.redrobin.com/" target="_blank">Red Robin</a> (DP)</li>
<li><a href="http://www.linkedin.com/in/randallrozin" target="_blank">Randall Rozin</a>, Global Director, Brand Management and Marketing Communications, <a href="http://www.dowcorning.com/" target="_blank">Dow Corning</a> (RR) (Randall wins the award for longest title)</li>
<li><a href="https://twitter.com/TroutLine" target="_blank">Will Seccombe</a>, President & CEO, <a href="http://www.visitflorida.org/am/template.cfm" target="_blank">VISIT FLORIDA®</a> (WS)</li>
</ul>
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So quite the eclectic mix for sure which is good as I wanted a diverse group to speak to and cull and glean info from as they look back on 2012 and ahead to 2013.</div>
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Ok without further adieu here's some of their thoughts looking back on the year 2012:</div>
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<em>Was there anything in 2012 that going into the year you thought was going to happen but did not?</em></div>
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<li>(RR) "I thought the number of high quality leads generated from social media platforms would be much higher."</li>
<li>(CC) "Stronger economic improvement in the US and a leveling off economic declines in Europe. I’m an optimist; now I’m more of a 'cautious optimist.'”</li>
<li>(SO) "I thought this would be the year people would stop over investing in search marketing."</li>
</ul>
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<em>Conversely did anything happen that you did not see coming?</em></div>
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<li>(JC) "I didn’t see our customer base using so much more social media and accessing our content through mobile devices."</li>
<li>(CC) "From a social marketing perspective, I did not expect LinkedIn to transition so quickly from a resume-posting social community to one that has increasing relevance for B2B relationship building through relevant content sharing."</li>
<li>(RR) "The popularity of social media curation via sites like Pinterest and the resurgence in direct mail."</li>
</ul>
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<em>In 2012 mobile marketing was very much on many marketers minds yet so many still found it hard to put into practical application. Did you use mobile marketing as part of your overall strategy?</em></div>
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<li>(JC) "We kind of stumbled onto it in 2012, but now that we have a better handle on the tools and on the needs/desires of our customers, I think there will be a much clearer path in 2013."</li>
<li>(RR) "I ‘d say we’ve dipped our toes into the shallow end of the pool this year."</li>
<li>(CC) "Our initial focus is optimizing our content for all screens and taking deeper data dives to understand how, where, when and why business decision-makers access our information and engage with us to inform their purchasing."</li>
<li>(SF) "We’ve seen mobile (pads and phones in this definition) explode. And it’s amazing to think that the bulk of the traffic is being driven by a device that wasn’t even invented until early 2010."</li>
</ul>
<em>Misc 2012 thoughts...</em><br />
<ul>
<li>(SF) "2012 was a little different for us because it was our 100th Anniversary. Lots of new marketing activities and good lessons, but a few really stick out. While customers are especially 'careful' in their shopping since the recession, it's amazing how much they enjoy 'new and unique.'"</li>
<li>(WS) "We undertook a massive transformation in 2012 to position the organization to best create and add value for industry partners and travelers worldwide."</li>
<li>(SO) "Social media continued to be a great engagement platform but not necessarily a revenue platform."</li>
</ul>
And the winner for the Smart Aleck Award goes to Randal Rozin for his response when asked if if there was anything he would've done differently if given the chance? "I had a horse come in 25 to 1. Problem was the others came in at 12:30. I’d like to have that one back."<br />
<strong>Looking Ahead To 2013</strong><br />
<em>If not already, will mobile marketing play a role in your overall marketing strategy?</em><br />
<ul>
<li>(RR) "Definitely. For me print is fast becoming like Jan Brady from the Brady Bunch, but instead Print is saying ' Mobile, Mobile, Mobile.' Mobile will be more important than ever in 2013 in users’ consumption of information, including video, but will also be important as an outreach platform from search to display."</li>
<li>(DP) "We currently employ two mobile apps - one for our very popular loyalty program and the other to guide guest menu choices known as the 'Customizer.' We will be expanding access to both applications next year and exploring other forms of mobile marketing to connect with our guests at just the right times to keep Red Robin top of mind."</li>
</ul>
<em>What impact, if any, will the reelection of President Obama have on your overall marketing/advertising strategy going into 2013?</em><br />
<ul>
<li>(CC) "None."</li>
<li>(SO) "Not much."</li>
<li>(RR) "Post election there is definitely more media inventory available. Also interesting to note there will be neither an Olympic event, nor any FIFA World Cup in 2013. There is an opportunity for other creative brand activation and sponsorships."</li>
<li>(SF) "Not really. We share everyone’s concern for the 'fiscal cliff' and the impact on consumer confidence, but nothing relating specifically to Obama’s reelection."</li>
</ul>
And finally what you've all been waiting for:<br />
<em>What are the three biggest trends or predictions you see for 2013?</em><br />
<em></em>(DP)<br />
<ol>
<li>Multi-platform marketing - as I sit here watching on-demand TV with my iPad in my lap and my Blackberry at my side, I am know damn well I am one of many surfing, viewing and emailing all at once. Which marketers will be first to reach me in all three with relevant, connected messages?</li>
<li>Economic recovery gains momentum - I am an eternal optimist. We're due.</li>
<li>Fast retailing gets faster. The pace of innovation and imitation is dizzying and only getting faster. It has become harder and harder to hold a competitive advantage. Success being to those who are ready to move fast and move on faster.</li>
</ol>
(CC)<br />
<ol>
<li>Data + Creative Content + Relevance: The role of B2B marketing shifts from sales enablement strategies and tools to communication-based, data-driven stakeholder engagement.</li>
<li>The priority becomes less about promotion and more about creating, curating and sharing relevant content to connect with decision makers in ways that give them more confidence in our brand and more reasons to be advocates of our technology and services.</li>
<li>Content really does become king -- in subtle, creative, engaging and really relevant ways.</li>
</ol>
(RR)<br />
<ul>
<li>Content marketing is the new black of B2B marketing campaigns. Goes with everything.</li>
<li>Greater balance between mass customer marketing and account-based marketing. Investing in those accounts that spend more.</li>
<li>More B2B marketers will adopt marketing automation as a core competency, especially lead scoring and nurturing.</li>
</ul>
Additional trends Randall sees are:<br />
<ul>
<li>Social CRM will move from ‘hype to heaven-sent’ for integration.</li>
<li>Social media marketing will move from experimental to accountable. B2B winners will emerge and others will be culled more quickly.</li>
<li>Knowledge management, corporate security, HR and legal will be forced to embrace social media within their firewalls and employees seek to connect at work.</li>
<li>Further fragmentation of media – Media will continue to become even more fragmented, meaning it will be more and more difficult to reach your target audience in mass. This means content management and distribution will be even more important to effectively reach your target audience and growing your business.</li>
</ul>
(SO)<br />
<ol>
<li>We will see the beginning of what I refer to as “the relationship era” whereby marketers will move away from an acquisition first mentality to a relationship first one. Marketers will focus more on the entire consumer experience to build and foster a long term relationship with a consumer as opposed to just that initial purchase phase.</li>
<li>We will see a transition from big data to the right data. Marketers will realize that there’s plenty of data to go around but it’s finding the right data that will have the biggest impact on their ultimate program success.</li>
<li>Digital overtakes physical. Digital marketers and ecommerce marketers, etc. will begin to influence and drive more revenue than their bricks and mortar counterparts.</li>
</ol>
<em>Misc 2013 thoughts...</em><br />
<div>
<ul>
<li><em>(WS) </em>"We will continue to increase investment in content and in international marketing and multicultural marketing."</li>
<li>(SF) "We are worrying about the Postal Service. The role of the catalog has changed dramatically over the last decade, but it remains a valuable advertising vehicle. The Postal Service’s continuing financial issues and possible impact on deliverability, etc. are a concern. And while I can’t say that I like the term “big data,” there are a number of intriguing services popping up in that space that facilitate advertising, better omni-channel service, etc."</li>
</ul>
<em>Named one of the <a href="http://www.socialtechnologyreview.com/articles/top-100-influencers-social-media">Top 100 Influencers In Social Media</a> (#41) by Social Technology Review and a <a href="http://topsmbloggers.kred.com/">Top 50 Social Media Blogger</a> by Kred, <a href="http://thesteveozone.blogspot.com/">Steve Olenski</a> is a senior content strategist at <a href="https://www.responsys.com/?cid=70150000000g94HAAQ" target="_blank">Responsys</a>, a leading global provider of on-demand email and cross-channel marketing solutions. </em></div>
</div>
<br />The Fantasy Football Hubhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06856844610944454759noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1125617292410618866.post-51335122653670291142012-12-21T15:27:00.000-05:002012-12-21T15:27:22.150-05:00These Are A Few Of My Favorite ThingsAs we head plow full steam ahead toward another Christmas I just wanted to take this opportunity to share with you some of my favorite holiday songs.<br />
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I'm sure you have your own list and by all means share them with me via the comment section.<br />
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Before I get to the songs, I just want to pause and remind everyone to pause themselves on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day and remember and pray for those families affected by the horrific events in Newtown, CT.<br />
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Words can simply not describe the unspeakable tragedy that befell so many on that fateful day.<br />
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So when you're enjoying Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with your family and friends, just pause... pause to be grateful for everything you have in your life for the best things in life don't come under a tree or gift wrapper or purchased with a credit card.<br />
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As promised, here are a few of my favorite things, er holiday songs...<br />
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Of course I love Stevie's original but I love this version, too...<br />
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The granddaddy of 'em all...<br />
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Gotta get a little Francis Albert in here...<br />
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<iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/LpPdl0StUVs" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>The Fantasy Football Hubhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06856844610944454759noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1125617292410618866.post-30919468268044415352012-12-14T12:19:00.002-05:002012-12-14T12:19:41.315-05:00When It Comes to Mobile Marketing, Integration Is Key<div class="articlebody">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">As a
long-standing proponent of marketing integration I can speak to the fact
that many marketers still have difficulty in putting it into practical
use, including many chief marketing officers which was the basis of my
piece aptly titled <a href="http://socialmediatoday.com/steve-olenski/543679/eleven-letter-word-continues-elude-all-cmos-and-marketers" target="_blank">The Eleven Letter Word That Continues To Elude All CMOs And Marketers.</a></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Based
on recent research it would appear many in the mobile marketing space
would be wise to integrate their marketing messages, especially this
holiday season and in particular across two specific mediums.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">The research comes from <a href="http://www.responsys.com/" target="_blank">Responsys</a>,
AKA the company I work for, and reveals some very interesting and
intriguing findings and shows a clear correlation and opportunity for
mobile marketing folks.<img alt="mobile marketing" border="0" height="261" src="http://cdn.business2community.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/mobile_integration.png?maxX=279&maxY=261" style="float: right;" width="279" /></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">According
to the research almost 40% of consumers who previously opted in to
receiving promotional emails from a retail marketer are also interested
in getting promotional messages from these same retailers via SMS or
text messaging. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">The findings alone would be significant but when you
factor in that this past Cyber Monday saw an increase of 96% in mobile
sales year-over-year from 2011 <a href="http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/39543.wss" target="_blank">according to IBM</a>,
plus mix in the the fact that the percentage of emails being read on a
mobile device are growing steadily literally as we speak – you can see
why in the press release announcing the findings were the words
"...marketers will have a massive opportunity to drive online and
in-store purchases this holiday season and beyond through smart
cross-channel marketing."</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>Making Spirits Bright</b></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="https://twitter.com/mikepenna/" target="_blank">Michael Della Penna</a>, Senior Vice President of Emerging Channels at Responsys – who recently shared his views on the Papa John's saga <a href="http://socialmediatoday.com/steve-olenski/1038221/what-mobile-marketers-can-learn-papa-johns-lawsuit" target="_blank">What Mobile Marketers Can Learn From The Papa John's Lawsuit</a> – says
retailers and marketers can have a ho, ho, ho happy holiday season if
they take advantage of some good old fashioned multi-channel marketing.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">"The
holiday season is a great time for marketers to experiment with mobile
as part of their integrated cross-channel marketing strategy given
consumers are traveling, out shopping and on high alert for discounts
and offers from their favorite retailers," said Della Penna. "For
example, offering information about an invite-only discount or a
reminder that gift wrapped packages are ready for pick-up are effective
ways to engage customers who have opted-in to receive mobile messages
from your brand.”</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">As to what specific types of promotions consumers prefer to receive via text message:</span></span><br />
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">42% prefer location-based offers</span></span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">39% like general discounts, offers and deals</span></span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">37% want to hear about in-store sales and events</span></span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">32% are into gift guides and product recommendations</span></span></li>
</ul>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">In
terms of age breakdowns, 64% of younger adults (18-29) prefer to
receive the location-based offers but not far behind were 30-39 year
olds (50%) and 40-54 year olds (42%). All of this lends credence to the
fact that the use of mobile smartphone technology is growing across many
generations.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Source: <a href="http://responsys.com/" target="_blank">Responsys</a></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Named one of the <a href="http://www.socialtechnologyreview.com/articles/top-100-influencers-social-media">Top 100 Influencers In Social Media</a> (#41) by Social Technology Review and a <a href="http://topsmbloggers.kred.com/">Top 50 Social Media Blogger</a> by Kred, <a href="http://thesteveozone.blogspot.com/">Steve Olenski</a> is a senior content strategist at <a href="http://responsys.com/" target="_blank">Responsys</a>, a leading global provider of on-demand email and cross-channel marketing solutions. </span></span></i></span></div>
The Fantasy Football Hubhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06856844610944454759noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1125617292410618866.post-56581348266504229892012-11-20T16:08:00.002-05:002012-11-20T16:11:32.335-05:00Mobile Marketing - The Elephant In The Room For Marketers<div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: black; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 19px; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">
<i>"A difficult situation that is very obvious but not discussed or addressed."</i></div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: black; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 19px; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">
That's
just one of I'm sure many definitions of the phrase "elephant in the
room." Frankly I don't really care which definition you subscribe to.
The fact of the matter is that mobile marketing - despite all it's
continued hype and promise has been severely under utilized by<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://responsys.com/services/index.php">marketers</a><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>of all shapes and sizes.</div>
<div class="zemanta-img" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: black; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 19px; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">
<div class="mceTemp" draggable="">
<dl class="wp-caption alignright" id="" style="background-color: #f3f3f3; border-bottom-left-radius: 3px; border-bottom-right-radius: 3px; border-top-left-radius: 3px; border-top-right-radius: 3px; border: 1px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); float: right; margin: 10px 0px; padding-top: 4px; text-align: center; width: 250px;">
<dt class="wp-caption-dt"><a href="http://commons.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:African_Bush_Elephant.jpg"><img alt="English: A female African Bush Elephant in Mik..." class="zemanta-img-configured " height="200" src="http://blogs-images.forbes.com/marketshare/files/2012/10/300px-African_Bush_Elephant2.jpg" style="border: 0px none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" width="133" /></a></dt>
<dd class="wp-caption-dd" style="font-size: 11px; line-height: 17px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 4px 5px;">English:
A female African Bush Elephant in Mikumi National Park, Tanzania
Français : Femelle éléphant africaine au Parc national de Mikumi,
Tanzanie (Photo credit: Wikipedia)</dd></dl>
</div>
</div>
<div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: black; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 19px; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: black; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 19px; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">
And the word "continued" is absolutely the operative word in the sentence above.<br />
<br />
Recently, in a piece for Digiday, Brian Morrissey wrote of the<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://www.digiday.com/agencies/ad-industry-lies/" target="_blank">Ad Industry Lies</a><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>and at the top of his list was mobile:</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: black; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 19px; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">
<b>"1. It’s the Year of<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="forbes_entity" style="background-color: #336699; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: white; padding: 1px;" type="place">Mobile</span><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>(for the fourth year in a row)</b><br />
Everyone talks about the power of mobile and how it will change advertising. But the truth is, no one has figured it out yet.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="forbes_entity" style="background-color: #dddddd; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: black; padding: 1px;" type="place">Mobile</span><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>advertising is like going back to the internet 1995, except on a much smaller screen."</div>
<div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: black; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 19px; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: black; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 19px; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">
Did you catch the "fourth year in a row" reference?<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
<br />
Think about it. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: black; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 19px; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">
How many times have we all heard that<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><i>this</i><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>year is the year of mobile?</div>
<div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: black; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 19px; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">
About a month ago I wrote a piece entitled <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/marketshare/2012/09/20/mobile-marketing-too-large-for-brands-to-ignore/" target="_blank">Mobile Marketing Too Large For Brands To Ignore</a><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>which featured a very telling quote from <a href="https://twitter.com/joygantic" target="_blank">Mark Donovan</a>, <a href="http://www.comscore.com/" target="_blank">comScore</a> SVP of mobile: "“With nearly 86 million Americans now shopping on their smartphones,<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><b>this pronounced shift in consumer behavior is simply too large for retailers to ignore</b>, with the future of their business depending on how well they adapt to the new environment.<br />
</div>
<div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: black; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 19px; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">
According to<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://www.emarketer.com/" target="_blank">eMarketer</a>:</div>
<ul style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: black; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 19px; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">
<li>Time spent using mobile devices for activities such as internet and
app use, gaming, music and others has more than doubled in the past two
years.</li>
<li>This year, the amount of time US consumers spent using mobile
devices—excluding talk time—will grow 51.9% to an average 82 minutes per
day, up from just 34 minutes in 2010</li>
</ul>
<div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: black; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 19px; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">
So
we know consumers are more and more turning to their mobile phones to
do well, pretty much everything but first and foremost they are using it
to spend money, to buy your products, services and wares.</div>
<div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: black; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 19px; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: black; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 19px; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">
Then
how do you explain that, according to the Chief Marketing Council, a
mere 16% of companies have a mobile marketing strategy to establish and
foster customer engagement which theoretically leads directly to more
sales?</div>
<div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: black; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 19px; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: black; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 19px; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">
Or,
also according to eMarketer, that less than 2% of all U.S. marketing
spending, or just $2.6 billion, to go toward mobile advertising?</div>
<div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: black; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 19px; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">
<b>Is The Price Not Right?</b></div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: black; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 19px; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">
As per a recent infographic the<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://online.wsj.com/" target="_blank">Wall Street Journal</a><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>released "the cost and market for mobile ads remains relatively small compared to other outlets like television and the Web."</div>
<div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: black; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 19px; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">
<a href="http://blogs-images.forbes.com/marketshare/files/2012/10/MK-BX554_MOBILE_G_20120927180031.jpeg"><img alt="" class="size-full wp-image-13909 aligncenter" height="469" src="http://blogs-images.forbes.com/marketshare/files/2012/10/MK-BX554_MOBILE_G_20120927180031.jpeg" style="border: 0px; display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="555" /></a></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: black; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 19px; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">
<br /></div>
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I
realize these are estimates and best-guesses and all that but
the infograph clearly shows that mobile ads are the least expensive
medium for advertising at just $2.85 which is half the price of ads on
the internet and ten times cheaper than those on tv.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: black; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 19px; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">
And by no means am I stating that all marketers should suddenly shift all ad dollars into mobile. Of course not.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: black; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 19px; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">
Anyone who knows me knows I am a huge proponent for creating an integrated marketing strategy.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: black; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 19px; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">
The point is that marketers can obviously see the massive shift into mobile<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://responsys.com/nsm/index.php">marketing<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></a>and mobile advertising. </div>
<div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: black; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 19px; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: black; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 19px; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">
There
is most assuredly a tremendous opportunity to set yourself apart from
your competition by taking full advantage of the fact that more and more
consumers are going mobile. And isn't that Marketing 101? Be where your
customers are. Get your message in front of the right people at the
right time on the right platforms?</div>
<div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: black; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 19px; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: black; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 19px; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">
Sounds easy when I put it that way.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Sources:<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://www.emarketer.com/" target="_blank">eMarketer</a>,<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://online.wsj.com/" target="_blank">Wall Street Journal</a></div>
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<i>Named one of the <a href="http://www.socialtechnologyreview.com/articles/top-100-influencers-social-media">Top 100 Influencers In Social Media</a> (#41) by Social Technology Review and a <a href="http://topsmbloggers.kred.com/">Top 50 Social Media Blogger</a> by Kred, <a href="http://thesteveozone.blogspot.com/">Steve Olenski</a> is a </i><i>senior content strategist at <a href="http://responsys.com/" target="_blank">Responsys</a>, a leading global provider </i><i><i style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: black; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif; font-size: 13px; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 19px; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">of on-demand emai</i>on-demand email and cross-channel marketing solutions. </i></div>
The Fantasy Football Hubhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06856844610944454759noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1125617292410618866.post-33292993679124260022012-10-26T13:50:00.000-04:002012-11-20T16:11:58.680-05:00Content Marketing The #1 Driver Of Leads For B2B Marketers<div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: black; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 19px; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">
This past May I wrote an article entitled <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/marketshare/2012/05/15/why-valuecontent-marketing-nothing-new/" target="_blank">Why The Value Of Content Is Nothing New</a>. The opening line to that article would also be appropriate here:</div>
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"One of the big buzz phrases sweeping the digital nation is the term "content marketing.'" <a href="http://blogs-images.forbes.com/marketshare/files/2012/10/content-marketing-300x249.jpg"><img alt="" class="alignright size-full wp-image-13121" height="166" src="http://blogs-images.forbes.com/marketshare/files/2012/10/content-marketing-300x249.jpg" style="border: 0px none; float: right;" width="200" /></a></div>
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It
seems the sweeping of said digital nation is still occurring,
especially in the business to business marketing world for B2B marketers
- according to the results of a study conducted by<a href="http://www.btobonline.com/" target="_blank"><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>B2B Magazine</a>,
identified content marketing (51%) as being the most important tool for
generating leads, outscoring brand awareness (38%), thought leadership
(34%) and sales (29%).<br />
<a name='more'></a></div>
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The
study of 440 B2B marketing professionals also indicates a sincere
willingness to make a commitment to content marketing with two-thirds of
the respondents saying they will be either "very" or "fully" engaged in
content<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://responsys.com/services/index.php" target="_blank">marketing<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></a>by
next year. This represents a 100% increase (66% to 33%) over 2012 to
2013. I would say that is a pretty significant increase, wouldn't you?</div>
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<a href="http://blogs-images.forbes.com/marketshare/files/2012/10/blog_B2B-Mag-CM-Survey-Chart-4-Stage.png"><img alt="" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-13109" height="290" src="http://blogs-images.forbes.com/marketshare/files/2012/10/blog_B2B-Mag-CM-Survey-Chart-4-Stage.png" style="border: 0px none; display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="400" /></a></div>
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In terms of the specific content B2B marketers prefer,<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://responsys.com/nsm/power-channels.php" target="_blank">social media</a><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>was
named as the the most important followed by articles, e-newsletters,
white papers and blogs and several other digital or online types or
methods.</div>
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<a href="http://blogs-images.forbes.com/marketshare/files/2012/10/blog_B2B-Mag-CM-Survey-Chart-1-Content-methods.png"><img alt="" class="aligncenter wp-image-13110" height="154" src="http://blogs-images.forbes.com/marketshare/files/2012/10/blog_B2B-Mag-CM-Survey-Chart-1-Content-methods.png" style="border: 0px none; display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="400" /></a></div>
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It
would appear, however, there is a disconnect between what method of
content B2B marketers prefer vs. what method or avenue they judge their
content marketing success against. From the graph below you'll see that
Web Traffic is cited as the #1 criteria they are using to measure
success and way down the list is social media.</div>
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Could
it be B2B marketers, like their B2C brethren and so many others, are
still having a problem connecting the social media dots from engagement
and interaction to sales?</div>
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<a href="http://blogs-images.forbes.com/marketshare/files/2012/10/blog_B2B-Mag-CM-Survey-Chart-3-Success-Criteria.png"><img alt="" class="aligncenter wp-image-13112" height="185" src="http://blogs-images.forbes.com/marketshare/files/2012/10/blog_B2B-Mag-CM-Survey-Chart-3-Success-Criteria.png" style="border: 0px none; display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="400" /></a></div>
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<b>Reuse, Repurpose, Regenerate - The 3 Rs of Content Marketing</b></div>
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Randall Rozin, Dow<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="forbes_entity" style="background-color: #336699; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: white; padding: 1px;" type="organization">Corning</span>'s
global director-brand management and marketing communications, in
speaking with B2B Magazine, said something I have been saying for quite
some time which is basically that not only is ok to reuse existing
content, it makes a lot of sense, too!</div>
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Rozin
said "marketers can derive multiple uses from a single piece of
content." He used examples such as a video that could double as a call
to action while also living on the given company's YouTube channel. The
transcript of the same video could be converted into a white paper
and/or blog post.</div>
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In
other words, go ahead and use the materials you already have "lying
around." Companies have a wealth of information they use every day that
would make for great fodder for Content Marketing such as information
they can glean from sales fliers and presentations, annual reports, user
manuals, customer service manuals, charts, and on and on.</div>
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All
they need to do is position it as a value added service they're
providing to their prospects and customers. Use the information from the
aforementioned items as a way to educate their prospects and customers
on ALL that they do for chances are there are some products and services
that they may not even know you offer which could of course lead to
more sales opportunities for you.</div>
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Sources: <a href="http://www.btobonline.com/" target="_blank">B2B Magazine</a>, <span class="forbes_entity" style="background-color: #336699; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: white; padding: 1px;" type="organization">Google</span><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Images</div>
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<i>Named one of the <a href="http://www.socialtechnologyreview.com/articles/top-100-influencers-social-media">Top 100 Influencers In Social Media</a> (#41) by Social Technology Review and a <a href="http://topsmbloggers.kred.com/">Top 50 Social Media Blogger</a> by Kred, <a href="http://thesteveozone.blogspot.com/">Steve Olenski</a> is a senior content strategist at <a href="http://responsys.com/" target="_blank">Responsys</a>, a leading global provider of on-demand email and cross-channel marketing solutions. </i></div>
The Fantasy Football Hubhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06856844610944454759noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1125617292410618866.post-15317722639386586372012-10-12T16:15:00.000-04:002012-11-20T16:12:21.189-05:00Marketers Continue To Struggle With Big Data<div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: black; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 19px; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">
It would appear marketers the world over are collectively losing sleep over one thing: who will be voted off Dancing With the Stars next. I kid. Just wanted to see if you were paying attention. And no for the record, I do not watch DWS - not there's anything wrong with that.</div>
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<dt class="wp-caption-dt"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/48889057888@N01/6259499293"><img alt="Big Data" class="zemanta-img-configured " height="112" src="http://blogs-images.forbes.com/marketshare/files/2012/10/6259499293_b577b94cfd_m3.jpg" style="border: 0px none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" width="168" /></a></dt>
<dd class="wp-caption-dd" style="font-size: 11px; line-height: 17px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 4px 5px;">Big Data (Photo credit: Kevin Krejci)</dd></dl>
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No what I am referring to is that two word phrase that is surely on the agenda of many a marketing meeting from sea to shining sea. A two word phrase that marketers concern themselves with all the live-long day or at least a significant part of their day: Big Data.<br />
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And depending on who you listen to and/or believe either marketers are handling their new found wealth of prodigious piles of information quite well and are using insights gleaned from the data to their benefit or, quite simply they are not.</div>
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The headline of a recent article on<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://blogs.hbr.org/" target="_blank">Harvard Business Review</a>: <i>Marketers Flunk the Big Data Test</i>. The article references a study done by<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://www.executiveboard.com/" target="_blank">CEB<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></a>of nearly 800 marketers at Fortune 1000 companies which revealed that "the vast majority of marketers still rely too much on intuition — while the few who do use data aggressively for the most part do it badly."</div>
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The study also revealed:</div>
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<li>On average only 11% of the decisions marketers make when it comes to consumers is based on data</li>
<li>Over 50% of the marketers surveyed said they rely on past experienced and/or their intuition to make decisions</li>
<li>In a list of what they rely on to make decisions, marketers listed data dead last after engaging with their co-workers, seeking expert advice and data last on their list — trailing conversations with managers and colleagues, expert advice and one-off customer interactions.</li>
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But is using your gut necessarily a bad thing? I can tell you as one who has worked the "marketing" side of the aisle, trusting my gut instincts has served me well.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="https://twitter.com/ChristaCarone" target="_blank">Christa Carone</a>, the CMO of<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://www.xerox.com/" target="_blank">Xerox</a>, believes there should be a happy medium and there's nothing wrong with trusting your gut.</div>
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"I wouldn't want to give up the data that helps us make fact-based decisions quickly. But I fear that marketers' access to and obsession with measuring everything takes away from the business of real marketing," she told me recently. "It's impossible to measure 'squishier' meaningful intangibles, such as human emotion, personal connection and the occasional 'ahhhh' moment. Those things often come with a marketer's intuition, and they deliver big-time. To me, this means trust your gut even while as you’re trying to embrace Big Data."</div>
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Could not agree with her more. There is no way to tell what someone is thinking or feeling. That does not show up on<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="forbes_entity" style="background-color: #336699; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: white; padding: 1px;" type="organization">Google</span><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Analytics, at least not yet. A good marketer will know his/her audience and be able to not only use the data that is available to them but also integrate their personal experiences and knowledge into their decision-making.</div>
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<b>Tsunami of Data</b></div>
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That's the phrase<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://www.acxiom.com/" target="_blank">Acxiom</a><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>CMO<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="https://twitter.com/timsuther" target="_blank">Tim Suther</a><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>used when I spoke to him earlier this year for a piece I wrote for CMO.com entitled <a href="http://www.cmo.com/planning/how-rein-riches-big-data" target="_blank">How To Rein In The Riches Of Big Data</a>. And he of course was spot on for marketers, whether they choose to believe it or are even aware of it, are faced with a seemingly endless amount of data and as Suther puts it "the best companies and brands will be those who do a better job of controlling it.”</div>
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And speaking of awareness or in this case, lack of it - from a recent eMarketer article:</div>
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<a href="http://blogs-images.forbes.com/marketshare/files/2012/10/emarketer-image.gif"><img alt="" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-13006" height="280" src="http://blogs-images.forbes.com/marketshare/files/2012/10/emarketer-image.gif" style="border: 0px; display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="324" /></a><br />
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The writer of the article chose to look at the positive side writing "only 17% were unaware of the concept of Big Data."</div>
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To me, I look at it from the complete opposite perspective and believe 17% who were unaware of Big Data is 17% too many. Now I will admit I do not know who these retail executives were that were surveyed but how in the world can they<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><i>not</i><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>know about Big Data at this point in time?</div>
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Have they been out of the office for a few days, months, years? C'mon boys and girls, this is the big time, this is Big Data. I understand there are concerns about how to handle the data, what to do with the data and so on but the fact remains marketers - from ALL industries, have a tremendous opportunity to increase their bottom line significantly.</div>
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A recent<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="forbes_entity" style="background-color: #336699; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: white; padding: 1px;" type="organization">Oracle</span><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>survey of of North American retail executives showed that nine in 10 thought a failure to capitalize on the benefits offered by data translated to lost revenues.</div>
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Exactly my point.</div>
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As for how to use the data, Carone believes in not over-complicating things but rather taking a "simpler approach to aggregating the data and mining practical insights from the data." She says marketers need what she describes as "more elegant interfaces" that can bring all the data together to deliver those much sought after "aha" moments that "really influence marketing strategies and spend."</div>
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Sources:<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://www.emarketer.com/" target="_blank">eMarketer</a>,<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://www.cmo.com/" target="_blank">CMO.com</a></div>
The Fantasy Football Hubhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06856844610944454759noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1125617292410618866.post-76440696801777259812012-09-21T12:56:00.002-04:002012-11-20T16:12:44.512-05:00Three Of Four CMOs Say Social Media Impacts Sales<br />
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Not long ago I wrote an <a data-mce-href="http://www.business2community.com/social-media/ceos-on-social-media-do-as-i-say-not-as-i-do-0225702" href="http://www.business2community.com/social-media/ceos-on-social-media-do-as-i-say-not-as-i-do-0225702" target="_blank">article on the use of social media among CEOs</a> and how many often talk the social media talk on behalf of their brands/companies but very few actually walk the social media walk for their own personal use.</div>
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Today comes results of a survey conducted by <a data-mce-href="http://www.bazaarvoice.com/" href="http://www.bazaarvoice.com/" target="_blank">Bazaarvoice </a>of 100 members of <a data-mce-href="http://www.thecmoclub.com/" href="http://www.thecmoclub.com/" rel="homepage" title="The CMO Club">The CMO Club</a>. Now while I realize the sample size is small (100) it is worth nothing that 56.1% of the brands represented have more than $1 billion in annual revenuewhile another 36% have $100-999 million in annual revenue, and just 7.9% have annual revenue of $0-100 million.</div>
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<a data-mce-href="http://www.crunchbase.com/company/bazaarvoice" href="http://www.crunchbase.com/company/bazaarvoice" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="Image representing Bazaarvoice as depicted in ..." class="alignright" data-mce-src="http://www.business2community.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/27021v1-max-450x45021.png" height="86" src="http://www.business2community.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/27021v1-max-450x45021.png" style="border: 0px; float: right;" width="400" /></a>Entitled “<i>Chief customer advocate: How social data elevates CMOs</i>” the survey and subsequent white paper ”reveals the results of an online survey of 100 members of The CMO Club, which includes CMOs of business-to-consumer and business-to-business organizations.”<br />
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Key findings include:</div>
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<li>Social (media) data impacts decisions for nearly all CMOs. Almost half of CMOs have used social data to make predictions or forecasts, and nearly nine in 10 say this data has influenced their decisions.</li>
<li>CMOs use data to drive smarter decisions beyond marketing. While marketing teams and agencies most often uncover the data itself, insights are used in product development, customer experience, sales, and C-level discussions.</li>
<li>CMOs believe social reveals consumer sentimentand improves brand awareness. CMOs are most confident in social data analysis of product/service sentiment, and in its impact on overall brand loyalty and awareness.</li>
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As for the impact CMOs believe social media has on sales:</div>
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While I’m not sure why the folks behind this survey/white paper decided to “water down” the confidence quotient, if you will, by inserting the word “somewhat” in the subhead in the chart above, especially when they did not use the word in the headline – but regardless the fact that so many of the CMOs surveyed identified social media as having such a profound impact on sales, as well as brand awareness and loyalty speaks volumes.</div>
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It speaks volumes in that CMOs, perhaps unlike their fellow C-suite residents (CEOs), realize that social media is here to stay – yes there are those still on “it’s a fad” bandwagon, and that it can have a significant impact the things that matter most, AKA the bottom line and brand loyalty.</div>
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It would also appear that CMOs realize that social media is a direct reflection on the world around them – the world where consumers live, work and play. While not crazy about the use of the word “somewhat” again, the graph below shows that a large number of CMOs surveyed believe that social media is effective for identifying discernible trends among consumers with the word “discernible” being the operative word for sure.</div>
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The graph also reveals how CMOs believe that social media does a great job at reflecting consumer sentiment.</div>
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<b>CMOs Are “Customer Champions”</b></div>
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Erin Mulligan Nelson, CMO, Bazaarvoice used that term in discussing the findings of the survey, saying “In a consumer-obsessed C-suite, the CMOs are the chief customer advocates and social (media) data is their ultimate weapon. Social data lets CMOs truly know their customers and predict consumers’ future needs before they even have them. Nearly all CMOs now use this data to drive decisions. As the business world re-centers around serving and delighting consumers, social data is turning CMOs into customer champions — and heroes within the C-suite. And as an industry, we have just started to tap into the potential of social data.”</div>
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She is dead on when she says that we have just started to tap into the potential of all the social media data of course as we are just now beginning to realize the sheer magnitude and power and scope of the mounds of data. Given the fact that we as consumers now create as much information every two days as we did from the dawn of civilization to 2003, I would say Acxiom CMO <a data-mce-href="https://twitter.com/timsuther" href="https://twitter.com/timsuther" target="_blank">Tim Suther</a> was correct when he referred to it as a ”tsunami of data” in an article I wrote back in February entitled <a data-mce-href="http://www.cmo.com/planning/how-rein-riches-big-data" href="http://www.cmo.com/planning/how-rein-riches-big-data" target="_blank">How To Rein In The Riches Of Big Data</a>.</div>
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The aforementioned article also speaks to the inherent dangers brands and businesses face when deciding what to do with all this new found data and the possible legal ramifications therein.</div>
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Sources: <a data-mce-href="http://www.cmo.com/" href="http://www.cmo.com/" target="_blank">CMO.com</a>, <a data-mce-href="http://www.bazaarvoice.com/" href="http://www.bazaarvoice.com/" target="_blank">Bazaarvoice</a>, <a data-mce-href="http://www.thecmoclub.com/" href="http://www.thecmoclub.com/" rel="homepage" title="The CMO Club">The CMO Club</a></div>
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<i><br /></i></div>
<div style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;">
<i>Named one of the <a data-mce-href="http://www.socialtechnologyreview.com/articles/top-100-influencers-social-media" href="http://www.socialtechnologyreview.com/articles/top-100-influencers-social-media" target="_blank">Top 100 Influencers In Social Media</a> (#41) by Social Technology Review and a <a data-mce-href="http://topsmbloggers.kred.com/" href="http://topsmbloggers.kred.com/" target="_blank">Top 50 Social Media Blogger</a> by Kred, <a data-mce-href="http://thesteveozone.blogspot.com/" href="http://thesteveozone.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Steve Olenski</a> is a freelance copywriter/blogger looking for full-time work. He has worked on some of the biggest brands in the world and has more than 20 years experience in advertising and marketing. He lives in Philly and can be reached via <a data-mce-href="mailto:steveolenski@yahoo.com" href="mailto:steveolenski@yahoo.com">email</a>,<a data-mce-href="http://www.twitter.com/steveolenski" href="http://www.twitter.com/steveolenski" target="_blank" title="steve olenski">Twitter</a>, <a data-mce-href="http://www.linkedin.com/in/steveolenski" href="http://www.linkedin.com/in/steveolenski" target="_blank" title="steve olenski">LinkedIn</a>, or his <a data-mce-href="http://steveolenski.blogspot.com/" href="http://steveolenski.blogspot.com/" target="_blank" title="steve olenski">website</a>.</i></div>
The Fantasy Football Hubhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06856844610944454759noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1125617292410618866.post-67055431501632448102012-09-02T16:39:00.000-04:002012-11-20T16:13:52.155-05:00When Taglines Go Bad – The Best Buy Saga<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 13px;">So there I was minding my own business when I came across an article on </span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 13px;">Fast Company entitled </span><a class="external" href="http://www.fastcompany.com/3000600/what-every-ceo-can-learn-best-buy%E2%80%99s-continued-branding-mistakes" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font: inherit; line-height: 13px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">What Every CEO Can Learn From Best Buy’s (Continued) Branding Mistakes</a><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 13px;">. </span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 13px;">Written by </span><a class="external" href="https://twitter.com/davidbrier/" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font: inherit; line-height: 13px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">David Brier</a><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 13px;">, who I know to be not only a great writer but also a branding expert, the article made reference to the new tagline the much-maligned </span><a class="external" href="http://www.forbes.com/companies/best-buy/" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font: inherit; line-height: 13px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">Best Buy</a><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 13px;"> recently trotted out after what was surely an exhaustive 18-month odyssey.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 13px;"><br /></span></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; line-height: 13px;">Truth be told the 18 months was spent “working to reframe the retailer’s</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; line-height: 13px;">brand proposition” and the new tagline was one item that came out of said</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; line-height: 13px;">reframing.</span><br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; line-height: 13px;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The new tagline for Best Buy is, wait for it “<i style="border: 0px; font: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Making technology work for you</i>.”</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.business2community.com/branding/when-taglines-go-bad-the-best-buy-saga-0267945/attachment/best_buy_logo" rel="attachment wp-att-267957" style="border: 0px; font-size: 13px; font: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><img alt="" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-267957" height="300" src="http://cdn2.business2community.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/Best_Buy_Logo-300x300.jpeg" style="border: 0px; float: right; font-size: 13px; font: inherit; margin: 2px 0px 15px 20px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" title="Best_Buy_Logo" width="300" /></a></span><span style="border: 0px; font-size: 13px; font: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: right; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span><span style="border: 0px; font-size: 13px; font: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: right; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In his article Brier refers to the tagline as “not only tired, it is a death sentence that is bland, old, worn, uninspired and not reflective of a single strand of your customer’s aspirations.” </span></span><span style="border: 0px; font-size: 13px; font: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: right; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">He also, quite correctly I might add, says the tagline “reeks of “marketing speak” and “committee-itis.”</span></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">He goes on to talk about branding in general but I want to focus squarely on this horrifically bad tagline.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">By the way, is it me or does the title of my article sound like a title for a new reality show? Can’t you just hear something along the lines of “Tonight on the Discovery Channel, advertising taglines or slogans are all around us and most of them serve to help a brand </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">and inform the public. </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">But what happens when something goes awry? Tonight at 9, it’s the premier of When Taglines Go Bad.” Cue the loud piercing female scream or shriek and an image of people running wildly through the streets.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">But I digress.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The new Best Buy tagline or slogan, whatever you want to call it – and please don’t start with the “they’re not the same thing, Steve” mantra, is all the things Brier said it was but it’s also a line that one would expect to hear from a new company/new brand, not from one’s that been around as long as Best Buy has.</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">If they were just starting out and they unveiled this tagline, I would laud and applaud it for it would immediately tell me what they do – in a matter of speaking. It would at the very least provide me a glimpse into what’s in their DNA.</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">But this is Best Buy, a brand that is very well known and instantly recognized.</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I will never understand why such an established brand sees the need to suddenly become Lucy Literal or Larry Literal, whatever the case may be. You’re Best Buy, we know you. Save the sales pitch. Save the educational angle. You’ve earned the right to be creative, to use an experiential tagline.</span><span style="border: 0px; font: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b><br /></b></span></span><br />
<span style="border: 0px; font: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b>The Real Thing</b></span></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Perhaps you’ve heard of a soft drink called <a class="external" href="http://www.forbes.com/companies/coca-cola/" style="border: 0px; font-size: 13px; font: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">Coca-Cola</a>. Well when Coca-Cola first came to the attention of the public one of their first taglines was “Delicious and Refreshing.” See what they did there? Not many people knew what Coca-Cola was other than a soft drink. But their tagline immediately conveyed the benefits one would get from enjoying some. They realized they better let the consumer know right up front what Coca-Cola can do for them.</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Fast forward to today’s tagline for Coca-Cola, which is “Open Happiness” and you can see the difference. Of course there have been many different taglines employed by Coca-Cola over the years but the point is this is a brand that is very well known and instantly recognized.</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">They know they can have some fun and put people in the moment, if you will, and utilize experiential type of wording in their tagline for the need to inform and educate has long since passed.</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Named one of the <a class="external" href="http://www.socialtechnologyreview.com/articles/top-100-influencers-social-media" style="border: 0px; font-size: 13px; font: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">Top 100 Influencers In Social Media</a> (#41) by Social Technology Review and a <a class="external" href="http://topsmbloggers.kred.com/" style="border: 0px; font-size: 13px; font: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">Top 50 Social Media Blogger</a> by Kred, <a class="external" href="http://thesteveozone.blogspot.com/" style="border: 0px; font-size: 13px; font: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">Steve Olenski</a> is a freelance copywriter/blogger looking for full-time work. He has worked on some of the biggest brands in the world and has more than 20 years experience in advertising and marketing. He lives in Philly and can be reached via <a href="mailto:steveolenski@yahoo.com" style="border: 0px; font-size: 13px; font: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">email</a>,<a class="external" href="http://www.twitter.com/steveolenski" style="border: 0px; font-size: 13px; font: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank" title="steve olenski">Twitter</a>, <a class="external" href="http://www.linkedin.com/in/steveolenski" style="border: 0px; font-size: 13px; font: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank" title="steve olenski">LinkedIn</a>, or his <a class="external" href="http://steveolenski.blogspot.com/" style="border: 0px; font-size: 13px; font: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank" title="steve olenski">website</a>.</span><br />
<br />The Fantasy Football Hubhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06856844610944454759noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1125617292410618866.post-91080702937044345952012-08-15T16:30:00.002-04:002012-08-15T16:30:45.575-04:00Did The Penn State Brand Get The Death Penalty?<div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: small;">There
are no shortage of definitions for the term “brand equity.” You probably
have your favorite. This is one of mine, especially in the context of
the Penn State brand: “<i style="-moz-font-feature-settings: inherit; -moz-font-language-override: inherit; border: 0px none; font-size-adjust: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: italic; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">A
brand’s power derived from the goodwill and name recognition that it
has earned over time, which translates into higher sales volume and
higher profit margins against competing brands.” </i></span></div>
<div style="-moz-font-feature-settings: inherit; -moz-font-language-override: inherit; background-color: white; border: 0px none; color: black; font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; font-size-adjust: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 11.8182px; margin: 0px; orphans: 2; padding: 0px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: small;">The
reason I like this particular definition when it is applied to the
brand of Penn State is because of words like “goodwill” and “name
recognition” and “earned over time.”</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Clearly
the Penn State brand, with Joe Paterno at the helm for over 45 years,
wielded the power that came from goodwill while garnering name
recognition, which in turn lead to higher sales and higher profit
margins – that in the university world translates to an increasing level
of enrollment and an increasing level of monetary donations from
alumni. All of which makes the competing brands green with envy for
sure.</span></div>
<div style="-moz-font-feature-settings: inherit; -moz-font-language-override: inherit; background-color: white; border: 0px none; color: black; font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; font-size-adjust: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 11.8182px; margin: 0px; orphans: 2; padding: 0px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: small;">At
its peak, which for all intents and purposes was anytime right up until
the world found out about Jerry Sandusky – the Penn State brand
possessed a tremendous amount of brand equity.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
<br /></div>
<aside data-position="4" style="-moz-font-feature-settings: inherit; -moz-font-language-override: inherit; background-color: white; border: 0px none; color: black; display: block; font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; font-size-adjust: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 11.8182px; margin: 0px; orphans: 2; padding: 0px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://www.business2community.com/branding/did-the-penn-state-brand-get-the-death-penalty-0242484/attachment/penn-state-logo-2005-2" rel="attachment wp-att-242505" style="-moz-font-feature-settings: inherit; -moz-font-language-override: inherit; border: 0px none; font-size-adjust: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><img alt="" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-242505" height="300" src="http://cdn2.business2community.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/penn-state-logo-20051-300x300.gif" style="-moz-font-feature-settings: inherit; -moz-font-language-override: inherit; border: 0px none; float: right; font-size-adjust: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 2px 0px 15px 20px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" title="penn-state-logo-2005" width="300" /></a></span></aside><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; font-size: small;">And
while in some eyes the lines may have been blurred with many wondering
“Is it the Joe Paterno brand?” or “Is it the Penn State brand?” – the
fact remains that the brand was an extremely powerful one and one that
surely did not achieve its massive cache of brand equity overnight.</span><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Yet as we now know, this once seemingly invincible and impenetrable brand, has been reduced to a mere shell of its former self.</span></div>
<div style="-moz-font-feature-settings: inherit; -moz-font-language-override: inherit; background-color: white; border: 0px none; color: black; font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; font-size-adjust: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 11.8182px; margin: 0px; orphans: 2; padding: 0px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><b style="-moz-font-feature-settings: inherit; -moz-font-language-override: inherit; border: 0px none; font-size-adjust: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: bold; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">A History Lesson</b></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: small;">We
all know the line about history and what can happen when one fails to
learn from it. And history is replete with brands who, for one reason or
another, have failed or fallen victim to issues – some not even of
their own doing, which resulted in severe loss in brand equity.</span></div>
<ul style="-moz-font-feature-settings: inherit; -moz-font-language-override: inherit; background-color: white; border: 0px none; color: black; font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; font-size-adjust: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 11.8182px; list-style: none outside none; margin: 0px; orphans: 2; padding: 0px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">
<li style="-moz-font-feature-settings: inherit; -moz-font-language-override: inherit; border: 0px none; font-size-adjust: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></li>
</ul>
<ul style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
<li style="-moz-font-feature-settings: inherit; -moz-font-language-override: inherit; border: 0px none; font-size-adjust: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size: small;">In
1982 Tylenol suffered a massive blow to its brand equity when seven
people died after taking Extra Strength Tylenol laced with cyanide.
After recalling 31 million bottles and losing more than $100 million,
Tylenol rebounded and recovered to eventually regain 100% of the market
share it had lost. </span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: small;">In 2004 Martha Stewart was found guilty of
conspiracy, obstruction of an agency proceeding, and making false
statements to federal investigators. Needless to say her brand equity
and all its various offshoots, took a major hit. Her brand recovered
eventually, her daytime TV show is in its sixth season, and this fall
she will have a new cooking show on PBS.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: small;">On July 4, 2011, revelations surfaced that News of
the World – owned by Rupert Murdoch’s powerful News Corporation, hacked
into voicemail messages of murdered British schoolgirl Milly Dowler.
Just three days later it was announced that News of the World would be
shut down.</span></li>
</ul>
<div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: small;">These
are just three examples of major brands suffering severe damage to
their hard-earned-over-time brand equity. Each of the brands recovered –
well except in the case of News of the World but obviously Rupert
Murdoch’s News Corp brand is alive and kicking despite the closing of
News of the World.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: small;">But
none of these brands needed to recover from the kind of damage that is
being inflicted on the Penn State brand. The reason being none of these
brands’ fall from grace, if you will, involved the sexual abuse of
children and subsequent cover up by the very people who A) built the
brand and B) were entrusted with maintaining its goodwill.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: small;">How
can the Penn State brand possibly survive this unprecedented – a word
that’s used a lot in talking about Penn State these days, loss of brand
equity?</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: small;">In
the case of Tylenol for example, the problem was identified and
corrected as fast as humanly possible. Yes it took a great deal of time
to reestablish trust with the public but as you saw, it did happen and
can happen again for Penn State.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Or can it?</span></div>
<div style="-moz-font-feature-settings: inherit; -moz-font-language-override: inherit; background-color: white; border: 0px none; color: black; font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; font-size-adjust: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 11.8182px; margin: 0px; orphans: 2; padding: 0px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><b style="-moz-font-feature-settings: inherit; -moz-font-language-override: inherit; border: 0px none; font-size-adjust: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: bold; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">What Does The Future Hold For The Penn State Brand?</b></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: small;">As
I sit here today I honestly do not know if the public will ever regain a
level of trust with the Penn State brand. It’s quite possible I would
have said the same thing back in 1982 about Tylenol. But I was only 17
and had a can of Spam for a brain, so.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: small;">But right now, do I think the Penn State brand can ever recover, I honestly don’t know.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Much
of my uncertainty has to do with what is still emanating from Happy
Valley. There are still far too many brand advocates/brand ambassadors
of the Penn State brand still steadfastly refusing to admit something
went terribly and tragically wrong.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: small;">There
are far too many who are entrusted with maintaining standards of the
brand – the board of trustees for example, who refuse to admit to the
public, much less themselves, that such atrocities were being committed
right under their very noses.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: small;">And
if those entrusted with the brand’s health and future cannot first
bring themselves to this fact, how can the brand ever hope to rebound
and recover? If they don’t think anything went wrong in the first place,
why would they ever think they need to repair and restore the brand?</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><a class="external" href="http://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=16083354&authType=NAME_SEARCH&authToken=lNGv&locale=en_US&srchid=a86ad35d-4cee-4f45-81f4-1d4e1ff52800-0&srchindex=1&srchtotal=82&goback=%2Efps_PBCK_*1_Joseph_Mcdonough_*1_*1_*1_*1_*2_*1_Y_*1_*1_*1_false_1_R_*1_*51_*1_*51_true_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2&pvs=ps&trk=pp_profile_name_link" style="-moz-font-feature-settings: inherit; -moz-font-language-override: inherit; border: 0px none; font-size-adjust: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">Joe McDonough</a>, VP/Executive Creative Director at <a class="external" href="http://www.masterminds1.com/" style="-moz-font-feature-settings: inherit; -moz-font-language-override: inherit; border: 0px none; font-size-adjust: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">Masterminds, a full-service agency </a>with
a focus on brand integration, says it comes down to brands realizing
the responsibility that comes with achieving such lofty brand equity
status.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: small;">“The
more respected, more credible the brand, the higher the stakes and the
more critical it is to treat the public trust as the cornerstone of your
brand’s foundation,” says McDonough.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: small;">McDonough,
who has worked on such big name brands as MGM and Pinnacle
Entertainment, says the keepers of the Penn State brand made a fatal
mistake in the face of the crisis.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: small;">“When
the powers-that-be decided to go into damage control mode instead of
pursuing the ethical, or in this case – lawful position, the stakes were
raised to double or nothing,” he added. “Imagine if PSU had actually
gotten away with covering this up?”</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Crisis
management consultant Dr. Ken J. Brumfield says the problems transcend
the playing field. “It’s not the football culture, but rather the senior
executive team culture that got them here,” says Brumfield, author of
the book “S.E.T. CULTURE: What Every Organization Needs to Know Before
Crises Occur.”</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><b style="-moz-font-feature-settings: inherit; -moz-font-language-override: inherit; border: 0px none; font-size-adjust: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: bold; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">What Can Brands Learn From Penn State?</b></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: small;">According to Brumfield there are three distinct things the leaders of Penn State need to do to rebuild its tarnished brand.</span></div>
<ul style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
<li><span style="font-size: small;">Change the culture from the top down</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: small;">Make better decisions</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: small;">Seek outside help</span></li>
</ul>
<div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Of course these are a lot easier said than done.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Changing
the culture means first admitting the culture was bad in the first
place. As I mentioned previously, I’m not so sure the leaders of Penn
State would openly admit their culture was bad.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: small;">As
for making better decisions, that of course comes down to who is making
the decisions in the first place. With all but one of the board of
trustees still in place, if not power, making better decisions than
those previously made may not be so easy.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: small;">And
as for seeking outside help, setting up advisory boards, etc. – that
too will depend on if the leaders of Penn State deem such an action
necessary and warranted.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: small;">For
his part, McDonough believes the best thing a brand can learn from Penn
State is that despite all the years one spends building trust with the
consumer, it can all come apart in the blink of an eye.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: small;">“The
public’s trust is hard won and easily lost. In this day and age it’s
the public who bestows the value of your brand upon you – they assign
which rung on the brand consideration ladder you grasp – but the hold is
tenuous and needs only the slightest negative momentum to send you
tumbling down,” he says.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: small;">“Now that ‘all <a class="external" href="http://www.masterminds1.com/social-sherpa/" style="-moz-font-feature-settings: inherit; -moz-font-language-override: inherit; border: 0px none; font-size-adjust: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">media is social</a>’
and every conversation can become a public forum that trends in the
millions for even trivial snippets of reality TV flotsam – the need for
stewards of brands of every scale to maintain actual credibility – not
just the veiled appearance of it, is paramount.”</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Source: <a class="external" href="http://www.livescience.com/" style="-moz-font-feature-settings: inherit; -moz-font-language-override: inherit; border: 0px none; font-size-adjust: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">Live Science </a></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i style="-moz-font-feature-settings: inherit; -moz-font-language-override: inherit; border: 0px none; font-size-adjust: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: italic; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Named one of the <a class="external" href="http://www.socialtechnologyreview.com/articles/top-100-influencers-social-media" style="-moz-font-feature-settings: inherit; -moz-font-language-override: inherit; border: 0px none; font-size-adjust: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">Top 100 Influencers In Social Media</a> (#41) by Social Technology Review and a <a class="external" href="http://topsmbloggers.kred.com/" style="-moz-font-feature-settings: inherit; -moz-font-language-override: inherit; border: 0px none; font-size-adjust: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">Top 50 Social Media Blogger</a> by Kred, <a class="external" href="http://thesteveozone.blogspot.com/" style="-moz-font-feature-settings: inherit; -moz-font-language-override: inherit; border: 0px none; font-size-adjust: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">Steve Olenski</a> is
a freelance copywriter/blogger currently looking for full-time work. He
has worked on some of the biggest brands in the world and has over 20
years experience in advertising and marketing. He lives in Philly and
can be reached via <a href="mailto:steveolenski@yahoo.com" style="-moz-font-feature-settings: inherit; -moz-font-language-override: inherit; border: 0px none; font-size-adjust: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">email</a>,<a class="external" href="http://www.twitter.com/steveolenski" style="-moz-font-feature-settings: inherit; -moz-font-language-override: inherit; border: 0px none; font-size-adjust: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank" title="steve olenski">Twitter</a>, <a class="external" href="http://www.linkedin.com/in/steveolenski" style="-moz-font-feature-settings: inherit; -moz-font-language-override: inherit; border: 0px none; font-size-adjust: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank" title="steve olenski">LinkedIn</a> or his <a class="external" href="http://steveolenski.blogspot.com/" style="-moz-font-feature-settings: inherit; -moz-font-language-override: inherit; border: 0px none; font-size-adjust: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank" title="steve olenski">website</a>.</i></span><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span style="-moz-font-feature-settings: inherit; -moz-font-language-override: inherit; background-color: white; border: 0px none; color: black; font-size-adjust: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 11.8182px; margin: 0px; orphans: 2; padding: 0px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></span>The Fantasy Football Hubhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06856844610944454759noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1125617292410618866.post-12684151026187504212012-08-05T15:10:00.000-04:002012-08-05T15:23:20.757-04:00CEOs On Social Media: Do As I Say, Not As I Do<br />
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As a parent I of course have tried to instill a set of rules for my children to adhere to as a means to teach them as they move along the growth ladder. All parents instill their own set of rules and values and so on to help guide the instruct their children, right?</div>
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Well let’s say that when my kids were younger, say around 3, I hung up a sign in the kitchen that read: “Don’t Touch A Hot Stove.” I made the sign big, bright and bold so they could not miss it every time they walked into the kitchen. And they followed the rule and never touched the hot stove.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 23.100000381469727px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; padding: 0px;">
Now let’s say one time they walked into the kitchen and there I was touching the hot stove, burning my fingers, screaming in pain.</div>
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<em style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">“Daddy, you told us to never touch the hot stove. Why did you touch it?”</em></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 23.100000381469727px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; padding: 0px;">
<em style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">“Um, well… it’s different for grown ups.”</em></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 23.100000381469727px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; padding: 0px;">
<em style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">“Oh, I see… you want me to get mommy so she can take you to the hospital?”</em></div>
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While this may not be the best analogy the point is very clear that when it comes to social media and the use thereof, far too many CEOs are telling their employees – and the rest of the world for that matter that they know their company needs to be “doing it” yet simply do not practice what they preach.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 23.100000381469727px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; padding: 0px;">
<strong style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">What CEOs Are Saying To Their “Kids”</strong></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 23.100000381469727px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; padding: 0px;">
“As a percentage of overall marketing budgets, spending on social media is expected to increase 17.5% over the next five years.” That comes directly from a study conducted last year by Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business of nearly 250 top executives.</div>
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From an infographic put out by MBAPrograms.com which reveals recent findings on how corporations are using social media. Note, how “corporations” are using social media, not those running them.</div>
<ul style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 23.100000381469727px; list-style-type: square; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em 40px; padding: 0px;">
<li style="margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; padding: 0px;">94% of corporations are using social media in one way, shape or form</li>
<li style="margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; padding: 0px;">85% credit social media for providing increased exposure to their business</li>
<li style="margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; padding: 0px;">74% indicated an increase in website traffic thanks to as little as 6 hours a week on social media</li>
<li style="margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; padding: 0px;">58% say it’s use for lead generation & developing brand loyalty</li>
<li style="margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; padding: 0px;">65% say social media is key to learning about their competition</li>
</ul>
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As to their preferred social media networks…</div>
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<a href="http://blogs-images.forbes.com/marketshare/files/2012/07/mba-capture1.png" style="color: #333333; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><img alt="" height="286" src="http://blogs-images.forbes.com/marketshare/files/2012/07/mba-capture1.png" style="border: 3px double rgb(187, 187, 187); margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" width="494" /></a><br />
<img alt="" src="http://blogs.forbes.com/marketshare/wp-includes/js/tinymce/plugins/wordpress/img/trans.gif" style="border: 3px double rgb(187, 187, 187); margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><br />
No great surprise there.</div>
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Ok, this all looks great, right? CEO’s are investing more in social media and corporations are “getting” social media and realizing that is not a fad, is here to stay and to stay alive in today’s world, one better “get” social media.</div>
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<strong style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">What CEOs Are Actually Doing</strong></div>
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Not long ago <a href="http://socialmediatoday.com/steve-olenski/605361/transparent-live-case-study-company-going-social" style="color: #333333; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" target="_blank">I wrote an article</a> on Josh James, his company Domo and the now infamous #domosocial experiment. Josh is the living embodiment of a CEO who “gets” social media so I definitely urge you to read about his groundbreaking experiment.</div>
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Josh and his company recently teamed up with CEO.com to conduct a survey on Fortune 500 CEOs and their use of social media. Josh <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/victoriabarret/2012/07/12/ceos-afraid-of-going-social-are-doing-shareholders-a-massive-disservice/" style="color: #333333; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" target="_blank">wrote about the findings</a> of the survey which clearly revealed that a very large number of CEOs are “touching the hot stove” as 70%, yes 70% of all Fortune 500 CEOs have no presence of any kind on social media.</div>
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<em style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">“You kids get to getting on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest and all that good stuff. I’m far too busy to spend my time engaging with the very people who keep us in business.”</em></div>
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The obligatory infographic from the Domo and CEO.com survey:</div>
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<a href="http://www.ceo.com/marketing/infographic-how-social-are-fortune-500-ceos/#ceoid=edce258" style="color: #333333; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><img alt="" height="2219" src="http://blogs-images.forbes.com/marketshare/files/2012/07/2012-Social-CEO-Index-Infographic8.png" style="border: 3px double rgb(187, 187, 187); margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" width="495" /></a><br />
It really is mind-blowing and in fact quite hypocritical when you get right down to it when you consider the fact that CEOs openly acknowledge the importance of the use of social media for their companies yet don’t see the need to be socially active themselves.</div>
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Yes, I saw the stat that read the number of CEOs using social media is expected to grow to 57% from the current 16% in 3 – 5 years but I will believe that when I see it. And by the looks of things, I won’t be seeing in 3 , 5, 7 or even 10 years. Sorry, not buying it.</div>
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I want to leave you with quotes from Josh’s article and also one from David K. Williams who recently penned <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/davidkwilliams/2012/07/17/business-and-social-media-how-much-is-too-much/" style="color: #333333; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" target="_blank">CEOs and Social Media — How Much is Too Much?</a></div>
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From Josh’s aptly titled article <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/victoriabarret/2012/07/12/ceos-afraid-of-going-social-are-doing-shareholders-a-massive-disservice/" style="color: #333333; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" target="_blank">CEOs Afraid Of Going Social Are Doing Shareholders A Massive Disservice</a>:</div>
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“It is my hope that CEOs come to believe in the transformative power of social media. But <strong style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">if they persist in lagging far behind the general population in social media participation and not delivering value to the shareholders that is there for the taking, they may not be CEOs for much longer</strong>.”</div>
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From David’s article:</div>
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“If we haven’t convinced you yet (of the importance of social media), consider these two results from the <a href="http://smallbiztrends.com/2012/07/small-business-how-social-should-you-be.html" style="color: #333333; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">BRANDFog 2012 CEO Survey</a> as the final clincher: More than 82% of respondents are likely or much more likely to trust a company whose CEO and team engage in social media. And an amazing 77% of respondents are likely or much more willing to buy from a company whose mission and values are defined through their leaderships’ involvement in social media.</div>
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The conclusion is clear: <strong style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Any leader who isn’t engaged in social media today is like the leaders of 50 years ago who insisted on sending a telegram instead of dialing a phone</strong>.”<br />
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'Til next time,<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKHKRUC4PeLTJEEKZuDVCwYaGL8sXGLUzHqfJD80FSQ7VeryeXSfU4ZjAliZy-dSe7goyV_8TmHPw23nsAkm57duDBqN3xuyiNIWxq4K7VTEG_jwxPRzymsOyTjNHcaOQ0SJn8IOl46g/s1600/lunapic_134419797324334_1+(1).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKHKRUC4PeLTJEEKZuDVCwYaGL8sXGLUzHqfJD80FSQ7VeryeXSfU4ZjAliZy-dSe7goyV_8TmHPw23nsAkm57duDBqN3xuyiNIWxq4K7VTEG_jwxPRzymsOyTjNHcaOQ0SJn8IOl46g/s1600/lunapic_134419797324334_1+(1).jpg" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">Source: </span><a href="http://www.forbes.com/" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" target="_blank">Forbes</a></div>
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<em style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Named one of the <a href="http://www.socialtechnologyreview.com/articles/top-100-influencers-social-media" style="color: #333333; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" target="_blank">Top 100 Influencers In Social Media</a> (#41) by Social Technology Review and a <a href="http://topsmbloggers.kred.com/" style="color: #333333; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" target="_blank">Top 50 Social Media Blogger</a> by Kred, <a href="http://thesteveozone.blogspot.com/" style="color: #333333; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" target="_blank">Steve Olenski</a> is a freelance copywriter/blogger currently looking for full-time work. He has worked on some of the biggest brands in the world and has over 20 years experience in advertising and marketing. He lives in Philly and can be reached via <a href="mailto:steveolenski@yahoo.com" style="color: #333333; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">email</a>,<a href="http://www.twitter.com/steveolenski" style="color: #333333; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" target="_blank" title="steve olenski">Twitter</a>, <a href="http://www.linkedin.com/in/steveolenski" style="color: #333333; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" target="_blank" title="steve olenski">LinkedIn</a> or his <a href="http://steveolenski.blogspot.com/" style="color: #333333; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" target="_blank" title="steve olenski">website</a>.</em></div>The Fantasy Football Hubhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06856844610944454759noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1125617292410618866.post-61297432398093322112012-07-19T16:16:00.000-04:002012-07-19T16:17:15.764-04:00Marketers And Advertisers, Are You Keeping An Eye On The Baby Boomers?<div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: small;">I wanted to take this opportunity to remind all you marketers and advertisers to keep an eye on all those baby boomers. You know the ones who:<a href="http://blogs-images.forbes.com/marketshare/files/2012/06/screen_shot_2011-10-25_at_10.14.28_am.png"><img alt="" class="alignright size-full wp-image-6919" height="347" src="http://blogs-images.forbes.com/marketshare/files/2012/06/screen_shot_2011-10-25_at_10.14.28_am.png" style="border: 0px none; float: right;" width="299" /></a></span></div>
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<li><span style="font-size: small;">Have more discretionary income (wealth) than any other age group</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: small;">Control 70% of the total net worth of American households – $7 trillion of wealth</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: small;">Own 80% of all money in savings and loan associations</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: small;">Spend more money disproportionately to their numbers</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: small;">Are not fanatically loyal to brands</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: small;">Watch television more than any other age group</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: small;">Account for a dramatic 40% of total consumer demand</span></li>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Now, I'm sure you're keeping your eye on them for all of the above reasons but in case you either forgot or didn't know,</span><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="font-size: small;"> </span><span style="font-size: small;"><b>the first of the baby boomers turned 65 last year</b></span><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="font-size: small;"> </span><span style="font-size: small;">and needless to say there's a whole lot of them who will turn the magic number of 65 in the years to come.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">I use the term "magic" because many marketers and advertisers will, when someone turns 65, put them into a different demographic bucket which in turn could mean they get paid less attention to those under that magical mark. C'mon admit marketers and advertisers, you're not really interested in someone 65+, right?</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Unless of course your product, service or ware is designed specifically for those in this age demo.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">In general, when someone turns 65 they are moved up, (or is it down?), the marketing and advertising food chain.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b>For the first time, half of adults ages 65 and older are online</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">That was the headline from a recent article from the</span><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="font-size: small;"> </span><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://www.pewinternet.org/" target="_blank">Pew Internet & American Life Project</a>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">And here's the opening paragraph:</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><i>"As of April 2012, 53% of American adults ages 65 and older use the internet or email. Though these adults are still less likely than all other age groups to use the internet, the latest data represent the first time that half of seniors are going online. After several years of very little growth among this group, these gains are significant."</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Some additional key points from the article are "once online, most seniors make internet use a regular part of their lives" and "one in three online seniors uses social networking sites like Facebook</span><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="font-size: small;"> </span><span style="font-size: small;">and LinkedIn."</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">The reason I referenced the Pew Internet article and corresponding stats is because I wanted to juxtapose that with the fact that the first baby boomer turned 65 last year which means not only does the age 65 take on a whole new meaning and value, but the senior demographic in general is changing and marketers and advertisers better be paying attention.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">If you're a marketer or advertiser and there are folks in your database right now who are age 65 or even 66, do you really want to "lump them in" with the rest of the demo over 65?</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">And do you really want to keep keeping on with your marketing and advertising strategies for the entire 65+ demo - knowing what you now know?</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Like anything else in the world of marketing and advertising, you have to know who your target demo is in the first place, yes? That's a given.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">But if your target demo includes 65+ you may want to A) look at 65-66 year olds differently from now on as more and boomers enter that demo and B) revisit your entire strategy as clearly the 65+ demo has changed, is changing and will continue to change.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">And you better change with it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Source: <a href="http://www.babyboomer-magazine.com/" target="_blank">Baby Boomer Magazine</a>, <a href="http://www.pewinternet.org/" target="_blank">Pew Internet & American Life Project</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><i>Named one of the <a href="http://www.socialtechnologyreview.com/articles/top-100-influencers-social-media" target="_blank">Top 100 Influencers In Social Media</a> (#41) by Social Technology Review, I am a freelance writer/blogger currently looking for full-time work. I have worked on some of the biggest brands in the world and have over 20 years experience in advertising and marketing. I live in Philly and can be reached via <a href="mailto:steveolenski@yahoo.com">email</a>,<a href="http://www.twitter.com/steveolenski" target="_blank" title="steve olenski">Twitter</a>, <a href="http://www.linkedin.com/in/steveolenski" target="_blank" title="steve olenski">LinkedIn</a> or my <a href="http://steveolenski.blogspot.com/" target="_blank" title="steve olenski">website</a>.</i></span></div>The Fantasy Football Hubhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06856844610944454759noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1125617292410618866.post-59975719668177275252012-06-15T15:50:00.001-04:002012-06-15T15:52:04.179-04:00When It Comes To Inbound Marketing Time Is Definitely Of The Essence<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 1.5em; text-align: left;">A couple of months ago I wrote a post titled </span><a data-bitly-type="bitly_hover_card" href="http://www.business2community.com/marketing/curiosity-may-have-killed-the-cat-but-complacency-will-kill-the-marketer-0155354" style="border: 0px; color: #003a80; cursor: pointer; font: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">Curiosity May Have Killed The Cat But Complacency Will Kill The Marketer</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 1.5em; text-align: left;">. In that particular post I told of the dearth of retention marketing by quoting a survey which revealed that 60% of the B2B and B2C companies surveyed devote less than 20% of their marketing budget to customer retention.</span><br />
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<a data-bitly-type="bitly_hover_card" href="http://cdn.business2community.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/InboundMarketing1.jpg" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #003a80; cursor: pointer; font: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><img alt="" class="alignright" height="152" src="http://cdn.business2community.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/InboundMarketing1.jpg" style="-webkit-box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.398438) 0px 1px 4px; border: 0px; box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.398438) 0px 1px 4px; float: right; font: inherit; margin: 2px 0px 15px 20px; padding: 0px; position: relative; vertical-align: baseline;" width="331" /></a></div>
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Today I want discuss another form of marketing, one that has become extremely important since the digital age was thrust upon us – inbound marketing.</div>
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There are many definitions of the term inbound marketing but I happen to love this description/definition of inbound marketing, courtesy of <a class="external" data-bitly-type="bitly_hover_card" href="http://www.trustemedia.com/" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #003a80; cursor: pointer; font: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">Trust Media</a>:</div>
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“Inbound Marketing is a marketing strategy where businesses implement tactics to ‘get found’ by customers. Inbound Marketing involves creating and providing valuable content for your customers, promoting your remarkable content, building customer relationships, and <strong style="border: 0px; font: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">overall ‘pulling’ the customer toward you</strong>. Inbound Marketing strategies create brand awareness, improve Search Engine Optimization, create thought leadership, develop valuable customer relationships, establish credibility, and build trustworthy reputations.”</div>
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You may have your own favorite definition of the term, but I think most people would agree with the basics of the above description/definition of inbound marketing.</div>
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Now, I highlighted the phrase <strong style="border: 0px; font: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">“overall ‘pulling’ the customer toward you</strong>” because at the end of the day, this is the ultimate goal of inbound marketing. If your goal is to “ pull your customer toward you” in order to sell them something, then time is definitely of the essence.</div>
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<span style="border: 0px; font: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><b>Follow The “Lead”er</b></span></div>
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Way back in 2007, if someone used the word “pinterest” you would have thrown the flag at then for misspelling and only the cool kids had iPhones, Dave Elkington, the CEO and founder of a company called <a class="external" data-bitly-type="bitly_hover_card" href="http://www.insidesales.com/" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #003a80; cursor: pointer; font: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">InsideSales.com</a>, along with Ken Krogue, the president and co-founder, wanted to know the answer to a question that sales professionals had pondered since the beginning of time – Internet time that is.</div>
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What Dave and Ken wanted to know was <em style="border: 0px; font: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">how</em> and more importantly, <em style="border: 0px; font: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">when</em> sales pros should respond to sales leads coming directly via inbound marketing.</div>
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After discovering that no research had been done on this topic, they decided to do it themselves. They reached out to <a class="external" data-bitly-type="bitly_hover_card" href="http://www.jamesoldroyd.com/index.html" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #003a80; cursor: pointer; font: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">James B. Oldroyd</a>, a professor at the Sloan School of <a class="external" data-bitly-type="bitly_hover_card" href="http://www.forbes.com/management/" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #003a80; cursor: pointer; font: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">Management</a> at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).</div>
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“Because so much money was migrating to Internet marketing efforts, we knew there would be significant interest around the topic of lead response rates, timing and effort, and there influence on the outcome of a lead,” says Elkington.</div>
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Krogue recognized the changing tides and shifts that were occurring in the world of marketing, “quickly realizing the industry was migrating away from the old way of doing business (outbound) cold calling to the new digital marketing environment, centered around web leads.”</div>
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<span style="border: 0px; font: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><b>Don’t Take Five</b></span></div>
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The most dramatic finding from the 2007 study had to do with the time it takes to respond to an inbound, marketing generated lead. “<strong style="border: 0px; font: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The study revealed that the odds of making contact with a new lead are extremely high if you call within the first 5 minutes of submission</strong>,” said Elkington. “The odds drop off dramatically by the first 30 minutes. Specifically, a rep is 100x<em style="border: 0px; font: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">less</em> likely to make contact if the first call is made 30 minutes after submission. The odds of making contact drop by 3000x if the first call is made 5 hours after lead submission.”</div>
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<a data-bitly-type="bitly_hover_card" href="http://cdn2.business2community.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/SalesResponseRates11.png" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #003a80; cursor: pointer; font: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><img alt="" class="aligncenter" data-orig-height="430" data-orig-width="620" height="267" src="http://cdn2.business2community.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/SalesResponseRates11.png" style="-webkit-box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.398438) 0px 1px 4px; border: 0px; box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.398438) 0px 1px 4px; display: block; font: inherit; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; position: relative; vertical-align: baseline;" width="385" /></a></div>
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“We call it the ‘wow effect’ as in wow, that was fast! You are impressive.” says Elkington, referring to the reaction a person has when contacted so soon after submitting a lead.</div>
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But according to Elkington the most interesting data had to do with qualification behavior. Qualification is defined as the rate at which the lead contact is willing to set an appointment and enter the sales cycle.</div>
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The study revealed that <strong style="border: 0px; font: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">the odds of qualifying a lead dropped 21x if the first contact is made 30 minutes after lead submission.</strong></div>
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The study, entitled <a class="external" data-bitly-type="bitly_hover_card" href="http://www.matrixintegratedmarketing.com/MIT.pdf" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #003a80; cursor: pointer; font: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">How Much Time Do You Have Before Web-Generated Leads Go Cold</a>, was presented at <a class="external" data-bitly-type="bitly_hover_card" href="http://www.marketingsherpa.com/" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #003a80; cursor: pointer; font: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">Marketing Sherpa’s</a> 2007 annual summit. Krogue can still remember the reaction he got from Ann <a class="external" data-bitly-type="bitly_hover_card" href="http://www.forbes.com/places/mi/holland/" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #003a80; cursor: pointer; font: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">Holland</a>, the founder of Marketing Sherpa.”I told her about the survey results and the first words out of her mouth were: “Do you really have what you say you have? She couldn’t believe it.”</div>
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<span style="border: 0px; font: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><b>That Was Then, What About Now?</b></span></div>
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Since the survey findings were released and over 100,000 downloads later, one would think the number of businesses/companies would now “get it” when it comes to the need for a rapid response.</div>
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Not so, according to Krogue who says they routinely conduct audits of businesses but “the bar is still set pretty low” and that many businesses are still “not responding fast enough nor are they persistent enough.”</div>
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There also may be the case of businesses not even realizing what’s going in their own company and that some are under the misconception that their company is not as bad as others. Krogue gives an example of a national sales exec at a U.S. based insurance company who raved as to the efficiency and proficiency of their sales team when it came to web based leads.</div>
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Sure enough, after submitting a lead of his own as a test, Krogue did not receive a follow up contact until six days had passed – hardly the optimal five minute time frame to say the least.</div>
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<span style="border: 0px; font: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><b>In Closing</b></span></div>
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According to Elkington B2B companies spend anywhere from $30 to $200+ on each marketing generated lead while B2C firms typically spend from $2-25 for each hot lead. He says “if a CEO realized the amount of money they were throwing down the drain in terms of wasted leads and lower close rates due to no-follow-up, slow-follow-up and low persistence, they would shake the tree and turn things upside down.”</div>
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I think it’s time to shake the tree and turn other things upside down in all sorts of other ways when it comes to inbound marketing, wouldn’t you?</div>
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Think about your own personal experience. If you go so far as to enter your contact information online via a form let’s say, all under the guise of wanting to learn more about a given product or service, aren’t you going to be more receptive to talking about it while it is still fresh in your mind?</div>
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I know I would be.<br />
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Thanks for your time...<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-XrQqYxMd4sJRQs1Xt-mq_MIVxtSK3BFoTDA44j07W5mmg4yrEuzwIWMmw0_dqLd1FCXKo9E7Q89edB4uGcou7nOAQ0Pm7ofnjHRx00L944dmK_pBvSmQVJAysuTkLxNd6Im_F3zEnQ/s1600/stevelogo_web.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-XrQqYxMd4sJRQs1Xt-mq_MIVxtSK3BFoTDA44j07W5mmg4yrEuzwIWMmw0_dqLd1FCXKo9E7Q89edB4uGcou7nOAQ0Pm7ofnjHRx00L944dmK_pBvSmQVJAysuTkLxNd6Im_F3zEnQ/s200/stevelogo_web.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
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Sources: <a class="external" data-bitly-type="bitly_hover_card" href="http://www.matrixintegratedmarketing.com/MIT.pdf" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #003a80; cursor: pointer; font: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">How Much Time Do You Have Before Web-Generated Leads Go Cold</a>, <a class="external" data-bitly-type="bitly_hover_card" href="http://www.insidesales.com/" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #003a80; cursor: pointer; font: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">InsideSales.com</a>,<a class="external" data-bitly-type="bitly_hover_card" href="http://www.jamesoldroyd.com/index.html" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #003a80; cursor: pointer; font: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">James B. Oldroyd</a>, <a class="external" data-bitly-type="bitly_hover_card" href="http://www.trustemedia.com/" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #003a80; cursor: pointer; font: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">Trust Media</a>, <a class="external" data-bitly-type="bitly_hover_card" href="http://www.forbes.com/" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #003a80; cursor: pointer; font: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">Forbes</a></div>The Fantasy Football Hubhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06856844610944454759noreply@blogger.com73tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1125617292410618866.post-7444005101491710482012-06-07T10:57:00.001-04:002012-06-07T10:57:03.911-04:00In Honor Of Some Good Copywriting And My New LogoAs one who has written many headlines, taglines, slogans, billboards and any other short forms of copy, I can certainly appreciate a good line when I see one.<br />
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And I came across just such a line walking through Wal-Mart not long ago.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgziVCug9gQdbqpwI5Zz1khXMLtJE63hMAtWnWenu_do_Js4dvzzj6T87-gU77Ahoq5dp5Pwieq_RGYEHtPnMP2f1_cj6mFRIr-ozwwdmXoYP1m5CYpGobxH_yZGaV6bzqrf1b3QXm3Ug/s1600/photo1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgziVCug9gQdbqpwI5Zz1khXMLtJE63hMAtWnWenu_do_Js4dvzzj6T87-gU77Ahoq5dp5Pwieq_RGYEHtPnMP2f1_cj6mFRIr-ozwwdmXoYP1m5CYpGobxH_yZGaV6bzqrf1b3QXm3Ug/s200/photo1.JPG" width="149" /></a></div>
I was cruising through the summer "stuff" - the outdoor furniture, the pool supplies, all the lawn-type things and of course, the grills.<br />
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It was while walking past the BBQ grills that I came upon a display for Easy Off Grill Cleaner. At first I strolled right on by but then stopped and went back to see what was written on the side of of the display.<br />
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I don't know, of course, who penned this particular line and some of you may think "eh, it's an ok line" but I loved it.<br />
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Loved it because it spoke to me. Not literally of course, that would be a little creepy.<br />
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But spoke to me as a consumer and gave me a friendly edict if you will.<br />
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A kind of gentle warning, a subtle reminder, a... never mind, you get the idea.<br />
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See for yourself:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTPMnof9_YassK7ALwpiK2EFMXcTg7clfMyoeroZRjx-j8uBPGP_dGY4zU0GHjwEMDjiYB6y35nE0NENrPJwpY3hIMxlViJe3LFp3IVpI_WIjhDyv4L0zR6YkPeW_aZw5OQrsOqKW7XQ/s1600/photo.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="185" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTPMnof9_YassK7ALwpiK2EFMXcTg7clfMyoeroZRjx-j8uBPGP_dGY4zU0GHjwEMDjiYB6y35nE0NENrPJwpY3hIMxlViJe3LFp3IVpI_WIjhDyv4L0zR6YkPeW_aZw5OQrsOqKW7XQ/s400/photo.JPG" width="400" /> </a></div>
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I also wanted to share something I am very excited about... my new logo.</div>
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My man Kemar Wedderburn of <a href="http://www.pixelignite.com/">Pixel Ignite</a> created this for me and I think it looks great but want to hear your thoughts on it.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjY1GhoLXzRs4hePmXV7clIQcwkcjALnRODlNZsgCKCFi4FRkdHI8V_jVN9am2koFaGByBLSRMmxLD2wErefbtpkGJV-4aBjvVsAQcbRm1kccvCaflU5amOpwgp0jQpCHM-o_T4pVvenQ/s1600/stevelogo_web.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjY1GhoLXzRs4hePmXV7clIQcwkcjALnRODlNZsgCKCFi4FRkdHI8V_jVN9am2koFaGByBLSRMmxLD2wErefbtpkGJV-4aBjvVsAQcbRm1kccvCaflU5amOpwgp0jQpCHM-o_T4pVvenQ/s320/stevelogo_web.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>The Fantasy Football Hubhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06856844610944454759noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1125617292410618866.post-16230792928162058202012-05-22T14:23:00.000-04:002012-05-22T14:23:04.150-04:00The Real Reason GM Left Facebook<div>
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So GM is pulling its $10 million Facebook ad budget and we all are now left to ponder who will be next, right?<br />
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<a href="http://www.business2community.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/4561v1-max-450x45012.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="facebook" border="0" class="alignright" height="100" src="http://www.business2community.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/4561v1-max-450x45012.png" style="border: 0pt none;" width="245" /></a>In their official statement GM marketing chief Joel Ewanick said “We regularly review our overall media spend and make adjustments as needed. This happens as a regular course of business and it’s not unusual for us to move our spending around various media outlets – especially with the growth of multiple social and digital media outlets. In terms of Facebook specifically, while we currently do not plan to continue with advertising, we remain committed to an aggressive content strategy through all of our products and brands, as it continues to be a very effective tool for engaging with our customers.”<br />
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Blah, blah and blah.<br />
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GM is pulling their money from Facebook just as they would pull an account from an ad agency. There is no difference.<br />
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See, somewhere along the way to IPO nirvana the folks at Facebook forgot the one cardinal rule in advertising – always keep the client happy and do whatever you can to please them.<br />
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Anyone who has been in advertising for longer than 30 seconds knows this is the way of life. Like or not, and a lot of times we don’t like it, that is the way it is. How many times of those of in the ad agency world have griped and complained about a given client’s decision to change this or alter that only to realize at the end of the day, the client is paying the bills – literally?<br />
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<b>Fearless Forrester Forecaster</b><br />
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In what maybe a bit of a Nostradamus-esque bit of foresight Forrester analyst <a href="https://twitter.com/#%21/nate_elliott" target="_blank">Nate Elliott</a> wrote last November that he hasn’t “spoken to many companies that are thrilled with their Facebook programs.”<br />
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And on <a href="http://blogs.forrester.com/nate_elliott/12-05-14-facebook_needs_to_take_marketing_seriously" target="_blank">May 14th</a>, on the eve of the announcement from GM and on the quasi-eve if you will of Facebook’s IPO, Elliott wrote “Facebook still hasn’t stumbled upon a model that’s proven consistently successful for marketers, or that brings in the massive revenues to match the site’s massive user base.<br />
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Hmm, catch the use of the words “stumbled upon?” Probably nothing but thought it was worth mentioning.<br />
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Regardless, they are some very telling words coming from Elliott and speak to the issue that I think is prevalent which is Facebook seems to put more emphasis on its members than it does on those who allow for the site to even exist in the first place – the advertisers.<br />
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Elliott seems to agree with my take writing “Facebook just doesn’t pay nearly as much attention to marketing as it does to user experience. If Facebook did pay much attention to the marketers who handed it billions of dollars last year, and who make the site’s very existence possible, maybe we’d see innovative new marketing solutions every six months rather than every few years.”<br />
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I’m not saying, and I don’t think Elliott is either, that there needs to be a higher value placed on satisfying marketers and advertisers than on consumers, but rather there should be an equal amount of time and effort devoted to each.<br />
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One last thing from Elliott, which he labeled as being “shocking” – and I would certainly agree with him, is that one global consumer goods company told Forrester recently that “Facebook was getting worse, rather than better, at helping marketers succeed. And companies in industries from consumer electronics to financial services tell us they’re no longer sure Facebook is the best place to dedicate their social marketing budget.”<br />
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<b>So Is Facebook Doomed?</b><br />
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Of course not.<br />
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GM’s decision is sending shock waves for sure through the halls of big brands and smaller ones, too. I’m sure many are openly questioning their own Facebook ad buying strategies. So it will be interesting to see the fallout from all of this.<br />
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There is also the possibility that GM’s poor Facebook ad experience is self-inflicted.<br />
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In the original <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304192704577406394017764460.html" target="_blank">Wall Street Journal article</a>, where the news of GM’s decision first appeared, there was mention made of a meeting held earlier this year in which reps from Facebook actually criticized GM’s approach of having multiple firms managing its advertising for the site.<br />
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Too many cooks in the Facebook kitchen?<br />
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Somehow I think that plays a role in all of this but, be that as it may – and I think it’s a small role, Facebook still needs to do a better job at helping the folks who keep them in business.<br />
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They need to provide better tools to the marketers and advertisers.<br />
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They need to keep them happy.<br />
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Sources: <a href="http://online.wsj.com/" target="_blank">Wall Street Journal</a>, <a href="http://forrester.com/" target="_blank">Forrester</a><br />
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<i>Named one of the <a href="http://www.socialtechnologyreview.com/articles/top-100-influencers-social-media" target="_blank">Top 100 Influencers In Social Media</a> (#41) by Social Technology Review, I am a freelance writer/blogger currently looking for full-time work. I have worked on some of the biggest brands in the world and have over 20 years experience in advertising and marketing. I live in Philly and can be reached via <a href="mailto:steveolenski@yahoo.com">email</a>,<a href="http://www.twitter.com/steveolenski" target="_blank" title="steve olenski">Twitter</a>, <a href="http://www.linkedin.com/in/steveolenski" target="_blank" title="steve olenski">LinkedIn</a> or here, my <a href="http://steveolenski.blogspot.com/" target="_blank" title="steve olenski">website</a>.</i> </div>The Fantasy Football Hubhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06856844610944454759noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1125617292410618866.post-67864267123470695452012-05-16T14:00:00.000-04:002012-05-16T14:00:48.226-04:00Why The Value Of Content Is Nothing NewOne of the big buzz phrases sweeping the digital nation is the term
“content marketing.” And while content marketing is important, it’s not
as if someone just woke up and realized the value of content.<br />
<br />
Was reading <a class="external" href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/marketshare/2012/05/09/evan-shapiro-on-why-tv-isnt-dead-and-how-marketers-need-to-see-it/" target="_blank">Brandon Gutman’s interview</a> with <a class="external" href="https://twitter.com/#%21/eshap" target="_blank">Evan Shapiro</a>
on Forbes about the fact that TV is not dead – yes, there are those who
still insist on proclaiming television to be dead, and I came across a
quote from Evan which inspired me to write this article.<br />
<br />
Before I
get to my point, I definitely recommend reading Brandon’s interview.
It’s very well done and provides some interesting insights into the
thoughts of a key player in the television industry.<br />
<br />
Ok, the line
that Evan said during the interview is quite simplistic and obvious, but
as I mentioned it inspired me, so you know, it has that going for it,
which is nice. (kudos for catching the Caddyshack reference)<br />
<br />
<a href="http://cdn.business2community.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/content-is-king4.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="" class="alignright" height="176" src="http://cdn.business2community.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/content-is-king4.png" width="352" /></a>“Content is still king.”<br />
<br />
Yes that’s the entire line.<br />
<br />
Well,
truth be told Evan’s full thought was “Content is still king. And I
submit that TV is the best, most valuable and most relevant content on
earth right now.”<br />
<br />
I admire Evan’s zest and passion for what he does but “the best, most valuable and most relevant content on earth right now?”<br />
<br />
You think there’s just a tad of hyperbole in there?<br />
<br />
Be that as it may, it has always been and always will be about content. But not just content for the sake of content.<br />
<br />
It has to be the right content.<br />
<br />
It has to be the right TV shows as in Evan’s context.<br />
<br />
It has to be the right content from brands and marketers in the social media space.<br />
<br />
It has to be the right shoes for shoe store owners.<br />
<br />
It has to be the right content to match whomever your given audience is.<br />
<br />
And that has <strong>never</strong> changed nor will it ever.<br />
<br />
And as for content marketing, heck I even wrote a piece late last year titled “<a href="http://www.business2community.com/b2b-perspective/the-future-of-business-to-business-marketing-summed-up-in-two-words-content-marketing-086266" target="_blank">The Future Of Business To Business Marketing Summed Up In Two Words: Content Marketing</a>” in which I laid out the findings of a survey which revealed the importance of content marketing in the B2B world.<br />
<br />
So I get it. I get the fact that content, in today’s digital world, as Evan put it – is still king.<br />
<br />
<strong>Content Comes In All Shapes And Sizes</strong><br />
<br />
But the value of content as a whole is nothing new.<br />
<br />
Think about it.<br />
<br />
Let’s use sports for an example.<br />
<br />
The Kansas City Royals and Cleveland Browns. Not to pick on any specific teams but they provide the perfect example.<br />
<br />
For the past 10-15 years or so, and counting, their teams have been pretty dismal, wouldn’t you say?<br />
<br />
How would you think their fans would sum up the “content” of their teams over the past 10-15 years?<br />
<br />
Yes
I know all about revenue sharing and how smaller market teams can’t
compete, but all things being equal but would you say their collective
“content” has been of any value to their fans?<br />
<br />
Of course this is a highly over simplification of my point but you knew that, right?<br />
<br />
<strong>Location, Location, Location</strong><br />
Know
when you’re talking to a realtor and they invariably trot out the age
old adage of location, location, location as being the three most
important things when it comes to real estate?<br />
<br />
In the context of
today’s world for marketers, advertisers, brands and so on, the three
most important things are content, content, content.<br />
<br />
But it cannot be content just for the sake of content.<br />
<br />
It
cannot be running the same lineup or roster out there, to borrow the
sports analogy. It has to be quality content. It has to be content that
your customers and prospects want to see and read and engage with and
share with their friends.<br />
<br />
And only you know what that content is.<br />
<br />
Image Source: Google ImagesThe Fantasy Football Hubhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06856844610944454759noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1125617292410618866.post-80943993158517347652012-05-11T08:00:00.000-04:002012-05-11T08:02:10.130-04:00My Appearance On The Linked In Lady ShowI don't know how many of you out there know who <a href="http://www.linkedin.com/in/carolmcmanus">Carol McManus</a>, AKA <a href="http://www.linkedinlady.com/author/carol-mcmanus/">The LinkedIn Lady </a>is, and if you don't know her, you should.<br />
<br />
She is a self-described recovering corporate executive who left that world in 2007 to start her own business. She grew it quickly with a very limited marketing budget but through the creative and diligent use of social media.<br />
<br />
Today, she is one of the most sought-after speakers and consultants for businesses and entrepreneurs who aspire to grow their business by using this digital medium as a way to stay in touch with and attract new clients.<br />
<br />
She is also the host of an immensely popular radio show appropriately titled <a href="http://toginet.com/shows/thelinkedinladyshow">The LinkedIn Lady Show</a>. She has had many of the heavy hitters from the world of social media including the very popular speaker and author, Jason Falls, appear on her show.<br />
<br />
And yours truly was extremely honored to be invited to appear and aside from a slight and brief technical difficulty, I thought it went very well and I for one had a blast.<br />
<br />
Enjoy...<br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/HYEbI-YSDgo" width="560"></iframe>The Fantasy Football Hubhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06856844610944454759noreply@blogger.com0