Stop Social Media Marketing - Unless ...

By Augie Ray
Director, Voice of Customer Strategy
American Express




I predict that many CMOs will diminish their support for social media, content and earned media marketing in the next year or two, and when they do, careers will be adversely impacted. If your career relies on Marketing Department support for content or social media marketing, now is the time to take stock of the trends and consider some actions to protect your career. It is possible that you work for the right sort of company for which social media is well aligned for Marketing Department expectations---that's the "Unless" part of the title--but, as you will see, I believe this is the exception and not the rule.

What is (and is not) Social Media Marketing?

Before we explore where social media marketing works and where it does not, let's first be clear that the definition of "social media marketing" does not include paid media on social networks. Go ahead and invest in advertising on Facebook and Twitter, just do not call it "social." The most popular forms of advertising on Facebook today are retargeting and custom audiences, neither of which are remotely social, and less than one in six ad dollars use social data.

I suggest a better definition of Social Media Marketing is this: Content authored or encouraged by the brand and shared by Word of Mouth that creates earned media and delivers on Marketing objectives. This definition excludes a couple of things, such as advertising (which is not social) and consumer content not coaxed by a marketing program (which is not marketing). It also excludes social media programs that fail to deliver on key marketing metrics, and therein is the problem for most brands.

The Earned Media Venn Diagram

A simple Venn diagram explains what works and what does not in Social Media Marketing. The first circle includes what your brand can say to move consumers closer. This does not mean retweets and likes--the fool's gold of social media marketing--but rather changes in consumer attitude or behavior such as greater awareness, consideration and purchase intent.

The second circle in the Venn diagram is what consumers want to hear from your brand. For years, we have acted as if consumers crave branded content, but the data on this clear; a 2014 Kentico study found that 68% of US consumers “mostly” or “always” ignore brand posts on every social network. The situation is much worse for some categories than others--a 2014 Scratch/Viacom study found that 71% of Millennials would rather go to the dentist than listen to what their banks are saying! If people would rather get a cavity filled than listen to your brand, it's a good bet your content and social media marketing faces a profound uphill challenge.

Where Social Media Marketing Works

Some brands have an overlap between these two circles of the Earned Media Venn Diagram; most do not. There are three types of companies that have this "magic intersection" between content that helps the brand and that consumers want:

• Brands in select verticals:  Some categories have built-in consumer interest. For example, sports brands can easily post content that drives engagement and also increases demand for team attire and products. TV shows and movies have an easy time offering content fans will share that also increases ratings and box office receipts. Style brands are another example--in the same way that women eagerly purchase the September issue of Vogue with its 631(!) pages of ads, so too will style-conscious women pay attention to and share the latest pins and posts from their favorite fashion brands. Brands in select verticals enjoy a magic intersection between the content consumers want and the content that drives consideration and sales.

• Brands with purpose:  Consumers may have little interest in what banks have to say, but that does not stop USAA from delivering great engagement and inbound traffic with its posts. This is because USAA has created a brand with a purpose that resonates with its audience. Another example is Chipotle, which has outperformed other brands in the restaurant industry by promoting its commitment to more locally- and organically-sourced ingredients. (Just last quarter, Chipotle delivered a same-store sales increase of 17% in a vertical where almost no brands are able to achieve half that.)

• Brands with better products and services:  Of course, there is always the old-fashioned way of encouraging attention from consumers: Be better than the competition! Apple has no official company profile on either Facebook or Twitter, yet it still beats Samsung when it comes to building buzz. Both companies had product unveilings in early September (Samsung for the new Note and Apple for the iPhone 6), yet despite the fact Samsung has 2,350% more fans, followers and subscribers on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, Apple still delivered far more Word of Mouth about their event and product. Apple does not need social profiles and content to drive WOM; it just needs to continue producing interesting, innovative products that get fans talking.

Some companies can publish content that consumers want and delivers on marketing goals, but most brands simply do not have that same opportunity--they have no "magic intersection." This does not stop them from trying, of course, which is why so many brands stumble with unwelcome, heavy-handed, embarrassing, brand-damaging posts on Facebook and Twitter.

We entered the social media era suggesting that brands with something to say could use social media to say it; instead, we today have brands with little to say that nonetheless post 4.3 times per day because some consultant told them this was a best practice. Desperate for attention and relevance, these companies continue to invest in content that is delivering neither the scale marketers need nor the content consumers want.

Ironically, even for the best companies, earned media may wither and die in the coming years. In just six months, organic reach on Facebook was halved, and many expect that zero organic reach will soon be the rule on the social network that collects 57% of all social visits. The organic reach game has gotten so tough that Coca-Cola, one of the strongest brands in the world, only earns engagement with 1 in 100,000 of its fans on Facebook. The situation on Twitter is no better; a recent Forrester report notes that the average engagement rate with brand posts on Twitter is just 0.03%--75% less than banner ad clickthough rates today!

Earned media could soon be a thing of the past. What happens to your social media marketing strategies if the content you create and post reaches no one?

Social Media Marketing's Inability to Deliver Trust, Acquisition or Purchase Conversions

If the prospect of organic reach crumbling to nothing is not enough to worry about, social media marketing has a variety of other problems that marketers have been ignoring:

• Trust: Forrester's 2014 data reveals that people trust brand social media posts 40% less than they do information on brand websites (and, of course, 70% less than recommendations from family and friends). Adobe's 2013 research found the same--just 2% of US consumers found company social media page best for credibility compared to 17% for company web sites (and 59% for friends, family and coworkers.)

• Acquisition of prospects: Although many marketers continue to view fans and followers as prospects, the Adobe study found that consumers are three times more likely to follow brands from which they already buy than brands from which they aspire to buy. An even more damning study comes from Custora: Studying data from 86 retailers and 72 million customers, Custora found that Facebook and Twitter deliver essentially zero acquisition. While acquisition is best delivered by organic search (16%), CPC (10%) and email (7%), Facebook and Twitter account for just 0.2% and 0.01% respectively. Furthermore, the Customer Lifetime Value delivered by those acquired through Facebook was just average while Twitter was 23% below average.

• Purchase: An IBM study of the online sales generated by 800 retailer websites the week before Black Friday 2013 found that a mere 1% of those sales were generated from social media traffic, essentially unchanged from the year prior. And Monetate recently published its Q2 Ecommerce Quarterly based on 7 billion online shopping experiences--it found that social delivers an add-to-cart rate of just 0.6% (70% less than search), a minuscule conversion rate of 0.12% (70% lower than search) and an average revenue per session of $0.14 (yes, 70% less than search.)

If social media is so poorly equipped to deliver trust, traffic, acquisition and purchases--and is facing declining organic reach--why are marketers increasing their investment in the channel? These are, after all, the metrics that most marketers care about. In a 2013 study by Ascend2, both B2B and B2C marketers reported their top three most common performance metrics are website traffic, quantity of sales leads and conversions--goals against which social media does not deliver. Meanwhile, fewer than half of B2B and B2C marketers measure customer retention, awareness or reputation, which are metrics that align well to social media strategy.

But if social media is poorly matched to Marketing Department objectives, it remains a powerful opportunity for others in the enterprise who do not need to rely on reach and scale to deliver on their goals.  For example, The PR/Corporate Communications function can be successful if it uses social media to create relationships with a few dozen influencers, both traditional ones (journalists) and the new variety (bloggers). Product Development does not need to collaborate with tens of thousands of customers but can work collaboratively to develop new products and services with much smaller subsets of customers and vendors. And Customer Care can achieve success by answering the questions and complaints of a few hundred people in social channels. (Compare that to the average marketing campaign, which would be considered a dismal failure if it only engaged a few hundred people.)

Social Media Marketing on a Collision Course with C-Suite Expectations

For now, CMOs seem to have confidence in social media, but I believe this will change in the next year or two. Social media and content marketing is on a collision course with the C suite.

Recent research by the Fournaise Marketing Group, which was conducted with 1200 CEOs and CMOs, found that 80% of CEOs claim they have lost trust in their marketers. One of the reasons is that "74% of CEOs think Marketers focus too much on the latest marketing trends such as social media – but can rarely demonstrate how these trends will help them generate more business for the company."

This criticism is, sadly, entirely fair. In just-released data from the 2014 CMO Survey, derived from 351 top US marketers, a mere 15% of CMOs say they have proven the impact of social media quantitatively. Another 40% "have a good qualitative sense of the impact, but not a quantitative impact" and a whopping 45% have "not been able to show the impact yet." Despite this, CMOs expect to increase social media marketing spending 128% in the next five years. 

If you wonder why the tenure of CMOs is so short compared to the rest of the C-suite, the answer is right there. Less than one in six CMOs know if their social media investments are paying off, yet they still intend to rapidly double that investment!

I predict that increase will not happen. The falling organic reach, low acquisition, microscopic purchase conversion and inability to measure quantitative success will come crashing headlong into the growing pressure on the Marketing Department to demonstrate results. When this collision occurs, will you be the one holding the social media marketing bag? If your career depends on the success of social media or content marketing, now is the time to consider the data, trends and future.

How to Protect Your Social Media Marketing Career

For those in the social media marketing profession, I believe the time has come for a candid assessment. Protect your career by asking three questions:

• Does your brand have a "magic intersection"? Are you in one of those categories--such as entertainment, sports and style--that has built-in consumer demand for branded content? Or has your company won high levels of loyalty and advocacy with its sense of purpose or by producing products and services that are leaps and bounds better than your competitors? If so, then social media marketing can be an effective channel for the Marketing Department, but if not, then ask...

• Does your firm evaluate its Marketing spend based on reputation and loyalty? When marketing leaders furnish updates, do they lead with Net Promoter Score and measures of repurchase and reputation? Or do they lead with sales, conversions, acquisition and traffic data?  If the former, then social is well aligned to what the organization most cares about, but if it is the latter, then ask one last question....

• Can you control the paid media budget for social? If you can control the ad budget and are really held more accountable for delivering paid media than earned media, then your job is secure (provided you are doing it well). If, however, the ad budget is controlled elsewhere and your job is dedicated solely to content and earned media, I would suggest you have career challenges ahead. It may time to consider one of three options:

• Redirect: If your social media scorecard is full of non-marketing metrics such as likes, retweets and number of fans, then the time has come for you to lead a change. Do not wait until Marketing leadership begins to question how those useless social metrics tie to Marketing objectives; take the lead and start that conversation today. You may be able to change the conversation and redirect expectations toward the sorts of metrics on which social can realistically deliver.

• Detour: It may be time to consider social media opportunities outside of the Marketing Department. While social may not deliver on typical marketing goals, it certainly aligns well to the needs and expectations of Public Relations, Customer Care, Product Development, Sales and others parts of the organization.

• Exit: Or perhaps it is time to exit social media altogether and consider other career paths where your experience in customer-centricity and innovation can be of great value. In recent years, I have seen social media professionals successfully shift into new careers in Customer Experience, mobile and customer care, for example.

Of course, if your career is in social media marketing, you could choose the fourth option and bury your head into the sand. I hope you will not, because the data is consistent, the trends are in place and the questions about social media marketing effectiveness are only going to rise.

This article originally appeared on Experience: The Blog.

Why Social Media is Different - and How to Use it for Customer Engagement

By Brendan Read
Industry Analyst – Customer Contact
Frost & Sullivan




Every company understands the necessity of listening and engaging with customers on social media. But have most companies grasped how to effectively market to them on that channel?

As noted in the Frost & Sullivan Market Insight, From Mass Marketing to Social Marketing, companies may be challenged in marketing on that channel.  Here’s why, from this report and from other research:

• Companies are not used to engaging and interacting with a mass, but also a targeted audience, and a “target of one”. Companies are still conditioned to “message-out”. Shorter, colloquial conversations run a greater risk of misinterpretation.

• Applying metrics to track performance, results, and to determine ROI is very difficult to accomplish as there is a lack of universal metrics across social platforms. Companies can’t use audience size and length of engagement because there are active and passive audiences, including audience members (like me) who view social sites through other Web sites. This last category is probably bigger than most people or businesses think.

• Companies cannot generally use social media as a direct sales channel because it is open, hence confidential information cannot be revealed. Also, the social media culture frowns on this practice.  However, a new Facebook “buy” feature may change that attitude if it is unobtrusive and secure.

• While customers may be buying as a result of social marketing programs, the conversions are often difficult to track. For example, a customer may have purchased an item after reading a Tweet, but the seller may not be able to identify the direct link. 

To market on social media effectively, companies need to step back and look at social media for what it is, which is a gathering place, like an event, meeting, or a reception. The same social practices, conventions, and mores that apply when you attend in-person also apply while on social media:

• You listen politely to conversations, analyze what is being said (and not said) and, at the right moment, you introduce yourself.

• When the others allow you to speak, you engage with them in their conversation before talking about yourself, making your points, and introducing your topics.  All the while you are picking up “data points” about the others’ careers, interests, passions, demographics, status, and social influence.

• Only if the others express a direct interest in you and your points do you deep-dive into them.  And if there are one or two people who are especially interested in what you say you go to one side or follow up with them later “off-line”.  Some Twitter solutions, like those from HipLogiq, perform lead generation with social conversations. They capture and analyze Tweets for desires and wants, such as “I’m hungry for a burger”, and respond with targeted offers.

• Finally, if you find that the group is not listening to you, then you move on to another group.

There is so much information that is exchanged in a simple conversation that to sort it out and to respond accurately and appropriately in real-time with analytics solutions is extremely challenging.  I like IBM’s social media analytics solutions in part because IBM continually strives to bring machine intelligence closer to human intelligence, such as through its Watson cognitive processing technology.

Once companies see and understand the social dynamics in person they should apply them to social media marketing and social media in general, with the right tools. If they do then they might be pleasantly surprised with the results. 

How Do You Prioritize Your Marketing Resources?

By Sam Narisi
Publications Editor/Lead Writer
Frost & Sullivan









One of the biggest challenges for marketers is finding the best ways to utilize limited resources. There are a lot of opportunities to engage current and new customers across a variety of channels, adopt new technologies and implement new strategies.

However, while the opportunities are seemingly limitless, companies’ marketing budgets are not. In fact, despite increasing demands on the marketing department, most marketing budgets are expected to stay flat in the near future, according to Frost & Sullivan’s 2014 Marketing Priorities survey.

Among the marketing leaders polled, 57 percent expected their budgets to stay the same or decrease this year. Of those that were expecting an increase, only 10 percent thought it would be significant.

That’s why one quality of successful marketers is that they know how to prioritize.

Gauging the ROI

It’s important to assess the ROI of marketing channels and strategies in order to properly plan, said Misty Hathaway, Chair of Marketing at the Mayo Clinic, in a presentation at the 15th Anniversary MARKETING WORLD 2014: A Frost & Sullivan Executive MindXchange.

Hathaway recommended evaluating tactics by:

• Cost
• How many impressions they return
• How much staff time they require
• The depth of connection they generate
• The quality of that connection
• How easy they are to track

Think long term when estimating the ROI of an available channel. Evaluate the depth of the connection a campaign will create and make sure it will go beyond just a quick hit.

What tactics create the biggest impact for marketers? In a survey conducted by TechValidate on behalf of Frost & Sullivan, respondents listed the techniques that generate the greatest returns on their investment:

• Live events (cited by 53%)
• Webinars (35%)
• Email marketing (31%)
• White papers (22%)
• Social media (7%)

Content Marketing Efforts Increasing

One area where companies are putting a greater priority is content marketing. Among the marketers surveyed by Frost & Sullivan, 55 percent expected an increase in their budgets for content marketing.

Content marketing is becoming critical as customers do more research before they make purchases. Companies need to make sure they have content tailored to specific audience segments.

Content must also be targeted based on which phase of the buying cycle the customer is currently in:

1. Awareness: For this phase, focus on branding, content marketing, public relations, and thought leadership.
2. Consideration: As buyers are considering their options, focus on demand generation, product/solution demos, and sales-to-prospect connections.
3. Credibility: To build trust in your brand, use third-party validation, client case studies, thought leadership, and expert positioning.
4. Evaluation: To solidify the value of the brand, focus on trials and capability demos.

Focus on Your People

Beyond all the available channels, techniques and technology, what’s really critical for the success of companies’ marketing campaigns is the people working in the marketing department.

However, just as with the marketing budgets, companies aren’t likely to see big increases in the size of the marketing team, according to Frost & Sullivan’s priorities survey. The majority of respondents (57 percent) say their staffing levels will stay the same, while only 5 percent expect a substantial increase in headcount.

That makes it all the more important to hire right. You can have the best technology and plenty of money, but without the right talent, you can’t be successful, said Roseann Harrington, Vice President of Marketing, Communication & Community Relations with the Orlando Utilities Commission, during a presentation at MARKETING WORLD 2014.

Harrington offered some recruiting and on-boarding steps companies should take to hire the best marketers available and get the most out of that talent:

• Create a strong, accurate and unique job description.
• Widely promote the opportunity to reach as many candidates as possible.
• During the interview process, simulate the work environment as best as possible to find a good fit.
• When you find the right person, make a competitive, timely offer.
• Have a plan ready to onboard new hires properly.

What Should My Annual Marketing Budget Be?

One question many marketers may have: What size should our budget be?

It's been widely publicized that the average marketing budget for B2B firms is 2 percent of the company’s annual revenue.

Where does your budget stand? While there are plenty of factors that can affect how much should be directed toward marketing initiatives – for example, growing companies may spend more in order to drive brand awareness – that’s a good benchmark to start with. Then, of course, it’s a matter of making sure the resources are put to good use.


About the Author

Sam Narisi is the Publications Editor and Lead Writer for Frost & Sullivan’s Integrated Marketing Solutions Practice. For more information and insight, visit the IMS Knowledge Center and sign up for Frost & Sullivan’s quarterly eBulletins.

About Frost & Sullivan's Integrated Marketing Solutions Practice

Frost & Sullivan's Integrated Marketing Solutions Practice delivers above-market returns for our clients by utilizing a portfolio of over two dozen unique turnkey programs that are strategically designed as end-to-end solutions. Leveraging the third-party credibility of our brand, Frost & Sullivan can generate the awareness and interest around your products and service offerings, connect your sales team with prospects, enhance relationships with current clients and serve as an extension of your existing marketing team. Your goals are our goals.

Where Worlds Collide: The Evolution of the B2B Consumer

Consumer forces like mobile, 24/7 connectivity, customer empowerment, virtual communities and collaboration are spilling into the enterprise. As a result, the B2B marketer is expected to not only market to the business, but to the human beings who run that business. In this excerpt from Frost & Sullivan's Executive MindXchange Chronicles, a panel of experts explore the expectations of the new B2B consumer and looked at how marketing executives can creatively and strategically navigate the changing dynamics in the B2B and B2C consumer paradigms.

Session
ASK THE EXPERTS! PANEL DISCUSSION - Where Worlds Collide: The Evolution of the B2B Consumer

Moderator
Barbara Glasser, Senior Vice President, Head of Marketing, Corporate Communications and Product Management, Astoria Federal Savings Bank

Panelists

- Christa Carone, Executive Vice President, Corporate Affairs, Communications & Events, Fidelity Investments

- Lisa Connolly, Senior Brand Manager, INVISTA

- James Gross, Vice President, Global Marketing, Brady Corporation

- Roseann Harrington, Vice President, Marketing, Communication & Community Relations, Orlando Utilities Commission

- Kevin Murphy, Global Hair Care Industry Leader, Xiameter at Dow Corning

- Jamie Womack, Vice President, Marketing & Branding, CareerBuilder.com

TAKE-AWAY

In a lot of ways, B2C marketing is influencing how business is done on the B2B side. For example, there’s a greater push in B2B marketing to become more personalized. The panelists talked about some of the things they have learned from B2C marketing: 

• B2B customers now expect the same features the B2C customers get, said James Gross of the Brady Corporation. That includes ratings, reviews, personalization, selector tools, and advanced searches. All these things are blurring the line. Amazon is the fastest growing B2B company, or as Gross called it, B2E (business to everything). In this new environment, the key is having the right info at the right time and keeping messages consistent. B2B customers are trying to collect as much information prior to buying as they can, so you need to make sure they’re thinking of you. 

• A lot of it comes down to dialogue, said INVISTA’s Lisa Connolly. What’s the personal value in a B2B situation? You need to be able to have that dialogue to discuss problems and solutions.

• Another key is the greater need for transparency in purchasing journeys, said Christa Carone of Fidelity Investments. After the economic meltdown in 2008, Fidelity’s phones were ringing off the hook. Customers were looking for help and asking for the company’s point of view about the situation. Customers put a lot of trust in Fidelity, and the company has built a whole division for planning and guidance for clients. Everything is based on transparency to earn the trust and confidence of customers.

BEST PRACTICES

According to an Ad Age survey of B2B marketing decision-makers, 52% of marketing budgets will increase in the next year. The top three channels companies that will focus on are digital, events, and direct mail.

Panelists agreed that content is king today. Companies need to have great content geared toward the audience and medium. The average buyer looks at 10 pieces of content before making a decision, so companies need to make sure they’re offering content that potential customers find helpful during that process.

B2B marketers are using all social media platforms to publish content. The group ranked the platforms in order of effectiveness:

1. LinkedIn
2. Twitter
3. YouTube
4. Slideshare
5. Vimeo

To use those tools effectively, messages must be short and sweet, panelists said.

Mobile doesn’t seem to be part of marketers’ plans yet, but is shifting. One-third (33%) were using mobile marketing in 2013, while the number will increase to 49% in 2014.

One recommendation from the panel: Learn the language your customers’ companies use to communicate with their customers, and make sure you communicate with them in a similar way. 

TAKE-AWAY

Many of the audience members said that their companies use customer personas as part of their marketing efforts. Panelists discussed their approach to personas:

There are different viewpoints on what personas are for, said CareerBuilder’s Jamie Womack. Her team uses personas to humanize their efforts and keep the customer at the center. They’ve looked at what B2C marketers have done well to determine how to adapt that to the B2B world. The key is figuring out who the buyers are and what motivates them to buy.

The idea of the customer journey is also becoming commonplace in B2B, said Dow Corning’s Kevin Murphy. As his team maps the customer journey, they define it in two distinct phases. At every step, the company has an opportunity to be impressive or not.

BEST PRACTICES

Today, there’s a high-tech, high-touch paradigm; it’s easy to become overwhelmed by technology. However, it’s critical not to lose sight of the personal side of marketing. 

How can companies personalize their outreach in this landscape? Hosting and participating in events is one example cited. 

In addition, create content that speaks to different personas. One big area to focus on now is finding messages that resonate with cross-generational audiences.

Marketers must also make sure there is alignment between what the companies say and what they do. Content can be the bridge between the two. 

For more valuable insight from the 15th Anniversary MARKETING WORLD 2014: A Frost & Sullivan Executive MindXchange, download a copy of Frost & Sullivan’s Executive MindXchange Chronicles, a unique guidebook filled with strategies and insights collected from all the presentations and interactive sessions at MARKETING WORLD 2014.

Learning from your Customers – The Link Between Marketing and Product Development

An interview with
Sanjay Shrivastava
Director, Global Marketing
Vascular Therapies Covidien

Interviewed by Sam Narisi






As Director of Global Marketing in the Vascular Therapies business for  Covidien, Sanjay Shrivastava is responsible not just for promoting the company’s products, but also for engaging with customers to make sure products are developed that truly meet their needs.

Frost & Sullivan recently spoke with Sanjay about how marketing and product development teams are closely linked at his organization and what he’s learned from his R&D background and his customers in the medical field.

Tell me about your role with Covidien.

We market to physicians. My business unit markets products to neurointerventionalists and interventional radiologists primarily. We develop the portfolio strategy, determining what the disease states and the unmet needs are, and, from there, determine where best to invest our dollars and develop products in those spaces. Once the development process is completed, we begin the product launch process. For that, we reach out to customers to build our relationships with them and understand their needs. For example, we would engage our customers through trade shows, events and clinical work.

The healthcare market is very different from consumer markets because we’re often marketing to a very small group of physicians who are highly specialized. Our work involves a lot of one-on-one interaction by educating physicians on techniques to use our new products and conducting clinical studies to demonstrate the safety and efficacy of these products. We use clinical data, sponsor clinical studies and show how physicians can do procedures faster, better and safer when using our products, or how they could treat a disease that wasn’t treatable before. Clinical data and one-on-one interactions play an important role in our marketing and education efforts.

What are the biggest marketing challenges you’re facing right now?

Competition is always there. The competition can be more lean and agile sometimes if they are smaller companies. Larger companies  have brand equity that needs to be protected, certain quality criteria that need to be achieved, and certain compliance procedures that must be followed which may be more rigorous than for smaller companies. So probably our biggest challenge is to match the nimbleness of smaller start-up companies in bringing new technologies to market.

What are you doing to overcome that?

We scrutinize our own internal processes to see which steps are absolutely necessary for us to develop high quality products. We look for the areas where we can be more efficient in our product development and product launches while providing the highest quality and most reliable products. It’s a matter of identifying and scrutinizing our own internal activities and the steps we take and then strategizing on how we can streamline them.

Before moving into your marketing role, your background was in R&D and product development. Does that give a different perspective that’s valuable for marketing? Do you think it creates any challenges?

I was very active in R&D for many years, and prior to that I did a little bit of manufacturing as well. Having led different functions in R&D, I found that R&D is really a cross-functional effort, rather than just product development as may be typical elsewhere. There are regulatory affairs, clinical affairs, quality, process development, manufacturing, engineering, and other functions that support R&D projects. So as an R&D leader, I oversaw these cross-functional teams or the managed the managers who oversaw those teams.

In the cutting edge medical device field, leaders of R&D need to interface quite often with their customers to understand the unmet needs and know what’s working from a product standpoint and how it can be improved. I had very strong relationships with many customers which had resulted from providing them with high quality products, training them, and/or seeking their feedback during various stages of the development process, so coming into this role was a smooth transition in that regard because I was fairly customer-facing to begin with.

I think the advantage of having worked in R&D for many years is primarily in being product-savvy. What R&D can offer to marketing is an additional eye for how to improve those features to serve the next-generation needs, so I think that skill set helps me engage physicians. Rather than going at it from a purely sales perspective, I engage them from a critical and analytical perspective.

Is there a downside? There can be if some personnel are too much into engineering, where they are always looking at improving features or capabilities of the product without focusing on conveying the value of the current features. Marketing requires a good balance between highlighting the features that exist and a keen eye for improving on them. The latter aptitude is key to developingthe  strategy for next generation products that can meet the currently unmet needs, which is vital for business growth and the patient.

Do you have any advice to share with marketers from a more traditional, less product-focused background?

I think people shouldn’t take things for granted. They need to understand that things are not black or white, but usually somewhere in between. I think marketers need to have that perspective, especially in our field. I would definitely encourage them to question the current process, challenge it, and understand what else can it be or how else can it be done. Don’t just take somebody’s word.

Physicians who advance the field and/or invent new procedures or devices have a strong sense for knowing what’s not working or what can be better. I think for traditional marketers who just say that what they have is the greatest thing may learn that is prudent for them to know what could be a better way to improve the device.

Tell me more about the connection between marketing and product development at Covidien.

In our organization, Covidien thinks of the patient first. Marketing plays a big role in the product portfolio strategy. Marketing represents the customers and their needs, and R&D represents how and whether those needs can be fulfilled. We sit down quite often to review our portfolio to see where we can add new products and projects as well as drop some that no longer make sense. Once a project is a go, a marketing person works in the product development team to represent the customer side. They contribute to product specifications and design; then we bring customers in as needed to seek their feedback. By the time we’re done with the product development project, we make sure that we are not separated from the customer. We’ve obtained their feedback to be confident that this is something that our customers need and what we have is something that fulfills that need.

In our field, we work hand-in-hand with the clinical community to develop products. So marketing is not really just marketing to physicians, it’s also developing the right product at the right time. That’s almost a bigger role than the actual marketing. If we invest our resources in developing the right technologies that fulfill some unmet need, then the product markets itself. We spend a significant bit of time ensuring that we make the right investments. Physician input plays a valuable part in our investment decisions. Marketing plays a big role in establishing those relationships, knowing how to seek that input, and developing a portfolio strategy based on the information input received. Covidien is at the leading edge of different aspects of our business, not just the sales aspect. That, to me, is what makes this job so very interesting.

How to Repurpose, Refresh, and Reuse Content

By Pam Didner
Former Global Integrated Marketing Strategist
Intel Corporation



I had the opportunity to speak at the Content to Conversion Conference on May 6. It was a great event with a solid agenda touching on content strategy, sales enablement and demand generation. My topic was “Repurpose, Reuse and Refresh (RRR)” and I shared my thoughts on how to make the most of your content.  You can check out the presentation on Slideshare.  As usual, your feedback is appreciated.

Before repurposing, reusing and refreshing your content…

It’s important to answer three questions:

• Who is your audience? –> Persona
• What topics should be used to engage them?  –> Editorial Topics
• What materials should be used to engage them? –> Content

As I mentioned in the post I wrote on how to create a global persona, a good persona provides insights such as pain points, keywords, job description, desires, demographics, attributes, even content format and media consumption preferences. Using the intelligence gathered from your persona research and observation, you and your team can brainstorm on editorial topics that your personas care about that are relevant to your products and services.

Somewhere between original content and curated content…

It’s hard to create original content day in and day out. At the same time, curated content (third party content) may not perform as well as the new material. Somewhere between these two you need to find creative ways to repurpose, reuse and refresh (RRR) existing content.

There are three potential options to RRR:

1. RRR a flagship content to one audience
2. RRR a flagship content to different audiences
3. RRR different pieces of content into a new piece of content

RRR a piece of flagship content to one audience:

RRR content to different audiences:

LinkedIn’s Sophisticated Marketer’s Guide offers a perfect example by creating similar content and using it to target different marketing professionals. Thanks to Jason Miller, Global Content Marketing Manager, for sharing his awesome content RRR examples.

RRR different pieces of content into a new piece of content:

Understand your content landscape, pick and choose different pieces to create another piece of content to share with your audience.

Above are some examples that I shared to repurpose, reuse and refresh your content. The reality is that it’s expensive and time consuming to RRR content. Don’t RRR for the sake of RRR. Give it some thought by evaluating your current content list. Start with promotion and audiences’ needs in mind. Create an RRR plan by starting with 1 or 2 flagship content items or by logically pulling pieces of information from various content pieces.  Happy RRR! I would love to hear your examples of RRR.

'Like Taking Care of a Garden': The Constant Quest for Integrated, Customer-Centric Marketing

An interview with
Andy Burtis
Senior Vice President, Marketing & Communications
McKesson Corporation

Interview by Sam Narisi






The best marketing creates value for customers, says Andy Burtis, senior vice president of marketing and communications at McKesson. His organization has tried to move beyond pushing promotional content and become a “convener of stature” and key player in the improvement of healthcare. A key part of that strategy is McKesson’s Better Health Tour, a series of events in different cities designed to facilitate exchanges among experts in the health sector.

Following Andy’s presentation at the 15th Anniversary MARKETING WORLD 2015: A Frost & Sullivan Executive MindXchange, we spoke with him about the tour and his efforts at McKesson to unite the entire organization under a unified brand message and rallying cry: “For Better Health.”

One of the things you talked about in your presentation is taking charge of how the company is seen rather than letting the market decide, which led to the idea of “For Better Health.” What are some things you’ve done to accomplish that? 

Prior to this effort, each division of the company was very focused on how they wanted the market to perceive their business, but we had not created a unifying big idea that would bring cohesion to how the market would view the corporation as a whole. We decided to take a step back and get very intentional at the master brand level rather than just viewing the way the divisions told our story as the de facto McKesson story.

As we went through our process, we came to appreciate the importance of focusing on our purpose as a business— “why” we exist—versus focusing on “what” we do. You only get so far by explaining your products and services. The best way to build your brand is to stand for something and then communicate that stand through tangible action that leaves an impression with your audience. The Better Health Tour that we’ve been doing is a great example. This initiative brings together a cross-section of healthcare leaders in key cities across North America for strategic conversations that are really about helping our customers achieve a healthier future, as opposed to being about McKesson.

McKesson is a big company with a lot of units. What did it take to get everyone on board across those divisions? 

We engaged leaders from each division in a process of co-creation so they were all involved in formulating and giving birth to the idea. For any large company, it doesn’t go well if something is invented by corporate and imposed on the business units. So we had representatives from all the divisions involved in the creative process, and they really helped us to get to the heart of what is it that we stand for as a business. We also made sure the idea resonated with the CEO and that it became the expression of his own views on why our company exists. He became our chief evangelist and incorporated the idea into his communications to all audiences, including employees, customers, suppliers, investors, and policy makers.

The next important part was engaging our employees and giving them a way to see their own role in helping our customers and the patients they serve achieve better health. We have an internal employee engagement campaign where we photograph employees at every level of the company sharing their own stories and make videos that celebrate the role our employees play. It’s been really important to make sure employees feel a sense of connection and ownership.

Around the same time as the brand transformation, we were overhauling our employee benefits program. So we worked very closely with HR to make sure all of the messaging and program design around that was consistent with our commitment to better health. For example, we have a program that allows employees to earn credits for healthy behavior. So we talked about the way we’re working as a business to bring better health to our customers while at the same time working to bring better health to our own employees. That became a real catalyst for getting people excited about our purpose as a company.

We also created an extremely detailed and comprehensive book of brand guidelines to disseminate to all of the marketing and communications teams across our divisions. Our brand team worked very closely to train all of those teams on the guidelines and consult with them on the implementation.  We’re going through a comprehensive audit right now where we’re planning to meet with all of the marketing VPs in the various divisions and give them a scorecard for how they’re doing. For any items that score below a B, they’ll have to put a correction plan in place. That kind of governance is really important and we’re continuing to work on that.

It can be difficult for organizations to get the content they need with the resources available. Was that a challenge for McKesson?

In the early days, it was a big challenge. At the corporate level we tried to produce defining content that would show the business units what we thought good content looked like—for example, a brand inspiration video that all of the business units could use. We were really focused on quality as opposed to quantity and we were counting on the business units to develop the quantity of content. Our corporate team probably only did 10% of the content, and the divisions were responsible for the rest. That was a positive because it was less expensive and more distributed, but it also created challenges because people will often apply their own filter to the brand, and if you’re not careful, you end up creating a level of diffusion in your brand expression that defeats the purpose.

It seems like that’s where the governance plan you mentioned really comes into play.

It does and I would just emphasize that this is a journey.  I wouldn’t want to suggest that we’ve hung the “Mission Accomplished” flag and we’re done. Taking care of the brand is like taking care of a garden. You plant it, you water it carefully, and it begins to sprout. Then you’ve got weeds and you have to pick them. It’s a never-ending process of tending to the garden and caring for it in an on-going way. That’s the way I look at what we’re doing. We’ve got a really good start to a garden that has tremendous potential. And with the Better Health Tour, we’re now trying to expand the garden beyond our own company.

How did the Better Health Tour come about?

Our view was we have a unique perspective on what better health looks like for the individual players, including pharmacies, physician practices, health plans, hospitals, pharmaceutical manufacturers and others. We also have a unique perspective on what better health looks like for the ecosystem as a whole. So we thought: Why don’t we convene these healthcare leaders in different cities for a strategic conversation about how we, as an ecosystem, can work together more effectively? We’ve done Portland, the Twin Cities, and Boston, and we’re going to Toronto at the end of October.

The tour is a full day event where we try to bring together senior level influencers from across the care delivery system, including public health officials, administrators, clinicians, etc. We talk about the current state of health in that particular region and start to figure out the greatest opportunities for the players to build a healthier business ecosystem and create better population health in the region.

From a marketing perspective, what effects have you seen? 

We’ve seen a significant uptick in media impressions, which has been terrific for us. We’ve also seen a significant increase in social media activity. We have a LinkedIn group related to the tour where we continue the conversation after visiting a city. We’ve also seen the door open to a lot of terrific new business relationships. As we go through these summits, attendees come away with a much-expanded view of McKesson and we pepper these events with our clinical and business thought leaders. More often than not, through the conversations that take place, new connections will be formed that lead to expanded opportunities for us.

What do you have planned for the tour in the future?

Our goal really is to scale this initiative and take it to many more cities. We’re still working through the proposal to do that. Our hope is that, if we can run these strategic summits around the globe, we will be in a position to function as a knowledge broker between cities and stakeholders across borders. We want to be at the center of facilitating that worldwide knowledge exchange, all in the name of Better Health. Nothing could be better from a brand and business development perspective.

7 Critical Elements of a Successful Integrated Marketing Strategy

By Sam Narisi
Publications Editor/Lead Writer
Integrated Marketing Solutions
Frost & Sullivan




New marketing channels are appearing all the time, thanks to social media outlets and other digital platforms. At the same time, traditional outreach methods such as physical ads still have a big impact.

The growing number of choices gives marketers plenty of ways to reach their target audience. However, it also leaves the door wide open to one of the biggest problems in marketing today: fragmentation.

To make a lasting impact, marketing needs to communicate a consistent message to customers at every point of interaction. But with so many marketing channels, it’s easy to lose control.

To keep communications consistent and prevent fragmentation, here are seven key elements to keep in mind when developing your integrated marketing strategy:

1. Planning

To make sure all channels and communication methods are integrated, you have to start at the beginning.

Start by defining the campaign and its goals, said Frost & Sullivan’s Gary Robbins and Lauren Jaeger during a session at the 15th Anniversary MARKETING WORLD 2014: A Frost & Sullivan Executive MindXchange in Boston. Figure out your company’s identity and the message you want to send, as well who you want to send it to.

2. Buying cycle

Integration isn’t just about making sure different marketing campaigns use similar language or have the same taglines or design schemes. It’s about the sending the same message to customers throughout their entire journey with your company.

Make sure you consider the entire buying cycle when planning your integrated marketing strategy – including brand awareness, consideration, credibility, and final evaluation. While different types of content will be used depending on which phase the buyer is in, the core message needs to be consistent.

3. Your audience

Really successful integrated marketing happens when companies are able to look at themselves from the customer’s point of view and see if that view is consistent with the message the company is trying to convey. Doing that requires a full understand of your audience and its different segments.

Many companies have taken up the strategy of developing buyer personas for the different types of customers they’re trying to reach. Key factors to consider when defining those personas include title, industry, level of decision-making power, needs and concerns, and preferred communication channels.

4. People

Customers don’t just interact with your company via the marketing collateral that you deliver to them. They’re also likely to speak with a salesperson during the process, or with support staff at some point after they make a purchase.

The message delivered in those person-to-person interactions must also be consistent with marketing communications. To achieve that, marketers will have to work with other teams such as sales, customer support, and others that deal with customers.

5. Content

Content is king in today’s marketing landscape, as buyers have greater knowledge and access to more information than ever. Buyers have already done their research before they contact companies, so marketers need to make sure they’re putting out the kinds of content that resonate with the target audience.

The key – and one of the biggest challenges – is making sure all of those pieces of content deliver a consistent message. Robbins and Jaeger recommended a rubric for developing content that is “ALRITE”:

• Audience: Who, specifically, does each marketing asset target?

• Longevity: What is the shelf-life, or long-term value, of this asset?

• Resources: How will the asset be produced and who will be delegated to execute? 

• Integration: How will this asset integrate with the rest of our marketing campaign?

• Timing: When is the best time for this asset to be launched?

• Evaluation: How will we measure the performance of this particular asset?

6. Technology

Technology plays a role in almost every aspect of marketing these days, from analyzing data and conducting to research to publishing content and tracking the success of campaigns. However, it’s important to use technology wisely, warned Dell’s Monique Bonner during her keynote speech at MARKETING WORLD 2014.

With so much technology available, marketers sometimes act like kids who are excited to play with a bunch of new toys, she said. It’s important to start by defining the goals and then figuring out what technology will help the company get there, rather than the other way around.

7. Measurement

As any marketer knows, the work isn’t done once a campaign is rolled out. You need to track results so you can do better next time – and, ideally, make changes in real time based on the results.
Again, it comes back to the planning. Before implementing a strategy, the company needs to know what key performance indicators need to be looked at and how that data will be tracked. The goal should always be continuous improvement, with a focus on viewing the company from the customer’s point of view.

About the Author:

Sam Narisi is the Publications Editor for Frost & Sullivan’s Integrated Marketing Solutions Practice, which helps companies innovate and deliver original marketing programs for every stage of the buying process.  For more information and insight, visit Frost & Sullivan’s IMS Knowledge Center.  For details on Frost & Sullivan's Integrated Marketing Solutions Practice, contact us today.

Top 10 Take-Aways from the 15th Anniversary MARKETING WORLD 2014: A Frost & Sullivan Executive MindXchange

By Nicole Coons
Marketing Vanguard/Principal Consultant
Integrated Marketing Solutions
Frost & Sullivan

Marketing leaders from around the globe recently convened at the Boston, MA, Copley Plaza for the 15th Anniversary MARKETING WORLD: A Frost & Sullivan Executive MindXchange, excited to discuss their day-to-day issues and solutions and strategies for meeting the new demands being placed on them and their teams.

During this three-day marketing think tank, participants asked each other questions like “How are you showing an ROI in your content marketing?” and “How are you engaging audiences across differing segments using social media?” Marketers also benefited from presentations delivered by marketing leaders who shared their stories of transformed brands, cultures and products, as well as marketing’s role in creating and sustaining value for customers.

If we had to pick one word that encapsulates this year’s theme of “how to stay connected and engaged with your empowered customer”, it would be Innovation. Innovation is finding a better way of doing something. For marketers, that means finding better ways to create value in the eyes of the customer.

Keynote speaker Stephen Liguori, former Executive Director, Global Innovation & New Models at GE, made a strong case for innovation as the marketer’s fundamental role. He distinguished innovation from invention in that innovation is “the process of translating an idea (the invention) into a good or service that creates value for which customers will pay.”  He went further to say that marketing’s emerging new role is to lead innovation because it’s the marketers who bring the voice of the customer to the table. He summarized his point “It’s the value of the innovation that determines success or failure…if you focus on the value of innovation, you can build a successful career.” Stated by another keynote, Andy Burtis of McKesson, marketing itself is now the value-creating product.

Participants at MARKETING WORLD 2014 came away with a number of lessons that will help them create more value in their marketing and deepen connections with their empowered customers. Here’s our take on the top 10. If you were at this year’s event, please share your top take-aways in the comments below.

Top 10 ways to create more value for your customers through marketing

1) Check your brand. Social media is definitely the topic du jour. But the advice that got heads nodding was this: don’t attempt anything in social media until you’ve got three other essentials right: Your brand, your people and your customer service.

• Make sure your brand is solid. As Jamie DePeau, Senior Vice President, Chief Marketing Officer of Lincoln Financial Group stated, “Are you really evolving the way you help and serve, or are you just updating your website and changing your logo?” Keep your marketing engaging by keeping your brand relevant and timely for your targeted audiences. This advice was reiterated throughout the Executive MindXchange.

• Next, care for your people (employees, partners, ecosystem) and ensure they know the value proposition and are motivated to uphold and share your company’s vision. 

• Finally, before entering the world of social media, content personalization and the rest, make sure you have a handle on your customer’s journey once they become a customer. Nothing will kill a new customer’s spirit faster than a bad experience, and social media only increases the speed of negative customer service “wild fires”. 

2) Invest in great talent. Several presenters echoed this advice, including Misty Hathaway from the Mayo Clinic, where the right talent doing the right work helped the organization achieve high visibility and success with its marketing campaigns. Other presenters and participants shared examples where the success of certain social media programs, data analysis, and even product innovation were due to one or two key talented team members. Hiring people who are knowledgeable, skilled and creative in the areas where you need expertise can make all the difference in your marketing program success—implementing new software alone won’t solve everything. Crowd sourcing is yet another way companies are locating great talent to make significant strides in value creation.

3) Map your customer’s journey—all of it.  Over fifty percent of the audience polled during a keynote presentation said they are using journey mapping and personas to develop a picture of their targeted audiences. Furthermore, marketers are urged to consider both the “choosing” and the “using” stages of the customer journey.  Seek to understand how you are viewed by the customer along this journey, and then connect how you serve their needs along that path by looking at your operational processes.

4) Know your customer’s 100 pain points and then focus on the ones that you uniquely solve the best. This was a little nugget that was conveyed by a number of presenters—also coined the “no stone unturned” approach by Frost & Sullivan Research Analyst Jessica Jeffcoat. She advises, “Listen before you add to the noise…and be open to the inherent value expressed by your customers. What do they say is most valuable? Then use those exact words as you communicate.”

In conversations about personas and personalization of content, the experts advise that it’s essential to know as much as you can about your target (up to 100 pain points, according to one presenter). Then decide what conversations you want to be a part of—hopefully it’s those where you have the most to give. This action step is also a reminder to marketers that we needn’t be everything to everyone. There’s a chance for a deeper connection with your customer, and hence more value shared, when you choose to focus on serving through what your business does best.

5) Start with just a handful of personas. Many who are just beginning to work with personas wanted to know how many a company should have.  While there was never a magic number deemed to perfectly capture the essence of every customer, two helpful rules of thumb were 1) fewer is better and 2) consider that you have your current personas (those who buy from you today) and your aspirational personas (those markets you want to capture in the future).

6) Check your content for value.  Here are some questions you can ask yourself about your content to see how well it’s adding value. Any one of these attributes will raise the level of your content from a sales pitch to useful content that builds connections with your audience:

• Does it tell a story?
• Is it personal? 
• Is it emotional? 
• Are you wrapping your customer in an integrated experience? 
• Are you speaking to your audience at all points along their decision process? 
• Are you helping them compare? 
• Are you helping them understand why?

7) Get savvy around digital and data. Marketing automation and Big Data were recurring themes, as it’s an area that’s bringing marketing from an art to a science. Data sophistication is increasing the speed and accuracy of decision-making for marketers. As discussed by Ian Cross, Professor, Bentley College and Misty Hathaway from the Mayo Clinic, data is a critical asset that needs to be managed and turned into an opportunity. The next generation of marketers who are data driven and adept at the technical and analytical aspects of working with data will be able to turn findings into monetizing opportunities and things of value.  Once again, it’s not the data itself creating the value, it’s about how well people use it.

8) Invest in some form of marketing automation. Taking the previous point a step further, the fastest way to get savvy around digital and data is to jump in and begin using it. Marketing automation is a rapidly evolving field and the array of choices is dizzying; the fact is that these tools are helping to put marketers back at the table with credibility. Marketing automation tools provide actionable insights and tools for measuring ROI. Look for tools that are flexible and offer scalability.

9) Ensure you are mobile-ready. According to Matthew Donegan-Ryan, Director of Mobile Strategy at Cvent, the average person checks their smart phone 150 times a day. That translates to about once every six minutes.  The average user has 65 apps on their phone or iPad, downloading one new app every month and discarding those that are not useful. You now have to assume that your audience is consuming most of your content from a device other than their desktop. Websites and emails need to have responsive design for tablets and smart phones, and the rest of your content needs to be easy to consume from these devices as well.  Perhaps this explains the increase in the popularity of video. While it may be hard to read a three-column PDF file on your phone (hint: one-column pages are mobile-friendly), video can easily be consumed while listening and watching.  Many examples of video marketing were shared during the event, and video content has the added benefit of helping you break through the noise.

10) Be okay with feeling scared. The audience collectively exhaled when Stephen Liguori issued this advice.  “The truth is,” he said, “we’re all scared, and that’s a good thing… It’s okay not to have the answers.”  He finished with the following four-step call to action, which superbly summarizes some of the most salient points from throughout the Executive MindXchange:

1. Play big or go home.
2. Innovation is disruptive, lean and “crowded”.
3. Get savvy around digital and data.
4. Forget 1-3, and help your customers.

These were just a few of the potentially one hundred or more take-aways from the 15th Anniversary 2014 MARKETING WORLD: A Frost & Sullivan Executive MindXchange.  If you attended, we’d like to know what action items you took away. If you didn’t make it, what questions do you hope are answered at next year’s event? Share with us and your peers below!

Sales and Marketing: If You Only Understood Me, We Could Get Along!

The chasm between marketing and sales organizations has existed for years and continues to be a challenge. Now more than ever, with the speed and complexity of today's marketplace, bridging the gap is crucial to enabling growth. In this excerpt from Frost & Sullivan's Executive MindXchange Chronicles, a panel of marketing and sales executives discuss the big issues: Why aren't we better aligned? What makes a good lead? What metrics make sense? And, the age-old question: How can sales better understand—and capitalize on—the value marketing brings to the table?



SESSION
SALES & MARKETING CROSSFIRE - If You Only Understood Me, We Could Get Along!

MODERATOR
Stephen Liguori, Former Executive Director, Global Innovation & New Models, GE

PANELISTS

Cheryl Bascomb, Director of Marketing & Business Development, BerryDunn
Christine Feuell, Vice President, Global Marketing & Strategy, Johnson Controls
George Stenitzer, Former Vice President, Communications, Tellabs
Andrew Cook, Senior Vice President and Chief Customer Relations & Marketing Officer, Areva

TAKE-AWAY

It’s not just about sales and marketing; instead, marketing should be integrated across the whole organization, with involvement from all departments, including sales, tech, legal, and finance. The company’s mission must be driven throughout and across the entire organization to create a common culture and understanding of goals.

BEST PRACTICES

Liguori asked the panel: How can sales, marketing—and also technology, finances, and IT—become more integrated?

According to Andrew Cook of Areva, Inc., organizations need to ask: Is the company, from a sales and marketing perspective, living the soul of its mission? Your values and mission must be driven throughout the whole organization, and sales and marketing must be aligned with the product. If you end up with a marketing or brand management strategy, and then your product goes in another direction, you will have a mess.

The right answers depend largely on the culture of the organization, said Christine Feuell of Johnson Control. When she was at Ford, she said, the culture created attention in a way that was almost combative, which was unintentional. Sales was given priority, and marketing saw sales targets, whereas marketing metrics were longer term and less immediate. To fix the culture and increase alignment, marketing needs to get creative in how they demonstrate value and give sales reps valuable tools. The challenge is that marketing tends to operate a bit longer term and is more strategic, while sales is more tactical and day to day.

According George Stenitzer, former VP of Communications with Tellabs, his company had a situation in which sales was fighting with everybody else. Salespeople often had complaints like, “This customer needs this feature, and if you don’t give it to me I can’t sell it.” There was also an issue of who would get credit for revenue: sales or marketing? Tellabs attacked that by keeping the focus for each team on the customer.

Historically, strategic and business goals have come from the C-suite down a linear pipe, said BerryDunn’s Cheryl Bascomb. Products were handed to the sales force to sell. Now it’s more iterative, with more of a cycle in which sales can get feedback from marketing. Also, sales has a greater connection to the client and therefore can share feedback with marketing. The key is to balance the micro view of sales and marketing’s macro view to limit the tension.

TAKE-AWAY

Collaboration is crucial to the success of both sales and marketing. Liguori asked the panelists for some examples of how they’ve increased collaboration.

BEST PRACTICES

Feuell’s team had a situation in which marketing channels weren’t reaching their intended audience so the fundamental metrics goals weren’t being reached. The biggest problem was that marketing wasn’t getting any input from the rest of the organization about what was needed. So the team started over and got the necessary input. One key part of the collaboration was a training session in which sales reps were asked: How would you explain this product to your customer if you were just walking down the street? That gave marketing valuable insight and made sales know they were part of the solution.

When Feuell first arrived at Johnson Controls, the first thing she did was present to leadership what marketing was, to define the role and responsibility of the marketing team within the company. This type of transparency allows leadership teams to align efforts for a more cohesive strategy and more results-driven outcomes.

As a CPA firm, BerryDunn relies on consultative sales, Bascomb said. The company’s business developers are the sales team. Marketing needs to provide them with the sales tools they need. They think first of service, so from a marketing standpoint you have to help them think about the customer at the center of the wheel. That can be a challenge to help sales move forward, but data about what customers think of the brand can help.

TAKE-AWAY

In addition to information, marketing can also provide help with technology to sales.

Feuell said her company recently started using Salesforce. That helped because sales could see visually how they were progressing within the pipeline process, and as they converted leads and were putting them into the pipeline, marketing was able to show them true data and evidence.

According to Bascomb, BerryDunn’s salespeople could use technology comfortably, but they were less comfortable with social media. They came to marketing and asked for help meeting their goals. When the sales team became more comfortable with social media, they were able to help provide content for those platforms.

Stenitzer recommend looking for ways to help sales get their work done quicker and better. At Tellabs, a survey found that salespeople weren’t getting paid their full commissions, so staff members were spending as much as a day per week calculating their commissions on their own. That’s one area where better technology can help make the job easier.

FINAL THOUGHT

The key to success and integration is to start with the customer, Cook said. All parts of the organization should be aligned around a focus on the customer. You may have a great product and a great marketing campaign, but typically most employees don’t experience the customer, and that’s not good.

For marketing, campaigns shouldn’t just push the product, but present the company and its offerings in a customer-centric way. Marketers can also help the sales team think in the same way.

According to Feuell, marketers must learn how to represent the voice of the customer as best as they can and integrate that into their marketing materials. Focus on how you help grow customers and how you cross-sell more to those customers, Stenitzer said.

It all begins with a sale, Cook said, and sales always begin with a customer. Marketing’s job is to bring customers and sales together.

For more valuable insight from the 15th Anniversary MARKETING WORLD 2014: A Frost & Sullivan Executive MindXchange, be sure download a copy of Frost & Sullivan’s Executive MindXchange Chronicles, a collection of the key take-aways and best practices from all of the event’s presentations and interactive sessions.

Frost & Sullivan's Integrated Marketing Solutions: The Changing Role of Marketing – And What You Need...

Frost & Sullivan's Integrated Marketing Solutions: The Changing Role of Marketing – And What You Need...: An interview with: Michael Williams Chief Marketing Officer The Grand Prix of America, Formula 1 Interviewed by Sam Narisi ...

The 15th Annual MARKETING WORLD: A Frost & Sullivan Executive MindXchange Keynote

Monique Bonnar
Vice President,
Global Marketing
Dell