marketing

Listen. Do You Want To Know A Secret?

For anyone of a certain age (we won’t be any more specific) those words most likely prompt a mind’s earful of a catchy tune as recorded by the Fab Four.  (If “Fab Four” is meaningless to you, skip to paragraph 2.)  The lyrics of the song, simplistic as they might be, belie one of the key — maybe even THE key criteria to successful relationship: be quiet; listen up; and you are likely to hear something of value.

Makes for a nice song.  But practically speaking, we don’t much care for the discipline that is required to really listen.

Don’t believe this?  Look around, and consider the precipitous decline in the art of conversation.  E-mail, texting, social updates (in as few as 140 characters, to boot) — all make it infinitely more easy to browse, skim, filter and create shortcuts for messaging.  Key words and optimized phrases have become the shorthand of ideas.  Seems like this used to be thought of as “hearing only what we want to hear.”

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Marketers And Advertisers: Women Are Driving The Purchasing Bus, Get Used To It

“Women control the majority of purchasing decisions in a household and their influence is growing.” That’s just one of the many key findings from a Nielsen Study which showed that women the world over are in control of purchasing decisions which should serve as a wake up call to business to consumer (B2C) marketers and advertisers across the globe. 

The study, titled Women of Tomorrow: A Study of Women Around the World, provides insight into how current and future generations of female consumers shop and use media differently and presents many cases where marketers have a “massive opportunity to better connect women with the products they buy and the media technologies they use to make a positive impact both in their lives and in the bottom line.” The study also provides even more proof as to the importance of creating and integrated marketing and advertising message.

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To Link or Not to Link Social Media Accounts?

One of my LinkedIn connections (Phil Masiello) recently asked me an important question – one that, in my opinion, everyone should be asking themselves if they haven’t already.  Following is his question, with my response and a few additional thoughts:

Phil: Ted, 
I have my Twitter linked to my LinkedIn account. One of my contacts is complaining to me that I shouldn’t do that. Linked in is for business and Facebook is for other. My twitter is mostly related to business, business travel, etc. What is your thought? Should I take twitter off LinkedIn?

My response went something like this:

I connect my Twitter activity to my Linkedin account because I do very little daily LinkedIn interaction and this way my LinkedIn presence still has a life. I DO NOT connect Twitter to Facebook since those posts  do fill up peoples pages and cause issues, and the language I use for Twitter and Facebook differs so greatly.

I have had a few LinkedIn complaints as well (about showing my Twitter activity there), but those complaints are HUGELY outweighed by the positive feedback and interaction it creates for me in a medium that lacks that easy functionality. I explain this to those who complain, and they all understand my reasoning. That being said, if they are unhappy, they can simply unlink from me, with no harm done.

I DO pay attention to these things and if the negative begins to outweigh the positive, I will change my practice.  

The key things to ask before linking any social media streams are:

  1. Is the information relevant to more than one network?  If not, don’t link.
  2. Is the language (tone, formal vs. informal, etc) appropriate for more than one network?  If not, don’t link.
  3. Is the content valuable to more than one network?  If not, don’t link.
  4. Is the content appropriate for the purpose of more than one network/tool?  If not, don’t link.
  5. Is the link (and resulting automatic feed) likely to get in the way of other people’s online experience?  If so, don’t link.

Although each social media tool has several shared attributes, each tool also has different functionality and different purpose – which draws a different audience and content for each. 

Bottom line?  Pay attention to your audience and make sure your links between tools are of value to each audience involved, and not just an easy (but useless) way for you to spray your content far and wide.  Just because you CAN doesn’t mean you SHOULD. 

On the other hand, when done intentionally and appropriately, linking content feeds from one social media tool to another can be a highly effective and valuable way to extend your online presence to more than one relevant audience in more than one way. 

Bottom line?  It’s your choice… just choose wisely, for the sake of all involved. 

Ted Rubin 

PS. Notice how Phil used social media to request information from a trusted source.  LOVE it!

Originally posted at Zemoga’s FromBogotaWithLove.com

Brand Immersion with Contests… Don’t Forget About the Relationship!

A well-structured contest — wisely integrated in social media, encouraging participation of groups, and easily enabling the sharing and including of the social graph of participants — will bring consumers into your brand experience.  Savvy marketers can leverage contests to increase both short- and long-term return.

As with any marketing campaign using social media, a contest needs to be part of an integrated media strategy, using a blend of social and traditional media as appropriate for your brand’s consumers. And as always, remember to keep your message consistent.  A great contest that does not match your brand message is a waste of your resources and does little to add long-term value. Many are using strictly social contests to grow Facebook “likes” and Twitter “followers,” and this is ok if that is your objective, but keep in mind those are very targeted initiatives and offer little value to the brand experience.

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Context, Content and Caring

A recent blog post by Brian Solis calls out a systemic issue we are faced with every day as marketers – the issue of understanding consumers. Brian points to a serious lack of understanding that brands have for the context in which their consumers live.

You see folks, there once was a time when businesses believed that they were in business because they had a product – not necessarily because there was a market for this product. And, there once was a time, only shortly after businesses believed their product was enough, that marketing was called upon to cater to the people who consumed. But, what catering to the consumer meant – at least at that time – was to put pretty pictures and nifty words on a poster and hope it would make people want the product.

The issue with this approach was that brands would broadcast to their consumers all the things they thought their consumers wanted to see and hear.

Now, with the advent of social media platforms and quick adoption rates, marketers, businesses and brands rejoice. There is a direct view to the consumer and more of what “we think they want”. This plethora of information has been taken in and more than one brand is taking the opportunity to talk to their consumer. But that’s the problem, isnt’t it? The dialogue isn’t really dialogue.

I recently gave a presentation at Social Media Masters in Toronto. The premise of my presentation was to share that brands must become human again. We, as marketers and business owners, must allow brands to become human again. Taking notice of the social media chatter is only one part… It empowers us to better understand the context in which our consumers live, but it also gives us the opportunity to see the type of content that genuinely engages them. It is this engagement that gets us one step closer to real dialogue. And real dialogue is the beginning of creating human brands.

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73% of CEOs Think Marketers Are Not Effectiveness-focused

I read a fascinating global study on what CEOs think of Marketers, by the Fournaise Marketing Group. Some of the interesting findings for me are:

  • They keep on talking about brand, brand values, brand equity and other similar parameters that their top management has great difficulties linking back to results that really matter: revenue, sales, EBIT or even market valuation (77%)
  • They focus too much on the latest marketing trends such as social media, because they believe they represent the new marketing frontiers – but can rarely demonstrate how these trends will help them generate more business for the company (74%)
  • They are always asking for more money, but can rarely explain how much incremental business this money will generate (72%)
  • They bombard their stakeholders with marketing data that hardly relate to or mean anything for the company’s P&L (70%)




The average tenure of a CMO is still less than two years. largely because of the issues identified above.

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Let’s take back the word “Friend”!

Facebook has done an amazing thing – they now own the word “friend”!  The problem is that they have devalued the word while adding value to their brand. Let’s take back the word “friend” and fill it with value again!

How many of you use “air quotes” when you say so-and-so is your Facebook “friend”?  That’s exactly my point.  The word now, more often than not, just means that you exchanged a keystroke with someone.

To be clear — I am not saying that connecting through Facebook is a bad thing; I’m saying that few of us actually take the time to connect in the ways that a real friend would.  We are missing the chance to use social media as a tool that facilitates real relationships and instead using “friends” as points in a popularity contest.

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Why it Pays to Reward Loyal Customers

It’s no secret that I’m a fan of Dunn Brother’s coffee. I have blogged about them before and often tweet about my love of their vanilla iced nirvana or coconut lattes.

But as much as I love Dunn Brothers, I can’t always sneak away from the office to get a cup of their sweet, delicious coffee.

A few weeks ago, I lamented on Twitter about how I could really use a cup of coffee and that I wished Dunn Brothers delivered. They responded and asked where my office was located and said they might just surprise me some day.

Well, yesterday was that day!

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Café de Colombia – Branding at Its Best

I met Juan Valdez — yes, the “actual” Juan Valdez — this week (more on that at the end of this post)!  The fact that I am genuinely excited about this, and that you likely know who (and what) I’m referencing here says a lot about the success of this brand.  

Café de Colombia is a brilliant example of what can happen when relationships are placed in the forefront of all aspects of an industry – from production, to sales and distribution, to marketing, and beyond.

I had the honor of spending time in Colombia as part of my involvement in Social Media Week in Bogotá (#SMWBOG), sponsored by Café de Colombia.  My colleague, DJ Edgerton, co-founder & CEO of Digital Innovation Firm Zemoga asked me to speak at the event, and provided this amazing opportunity to visit coffee-grower farms and directly engage with Café de Colombia representatives.  This was one of those “MUST write a blog post!!” experiences!

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Being ‘More Connected’ – Key Step in Owning a Seat at the Revenue Table

In my continuing series of blog posts on gaining that proverbial “seat” at the senior management table, I have discussed the importance of being more agile and social in marketing, and throughout the entire revenue process. In this week’s post, I focus on the importance of being increasingly more “connected” in all of your marketing, sales, and revenue-oriented activities.

Of course, a sure fire way to strengthen connectivity – as well as enhance both agility and social media engagement – is adopting Revenue Performance Management (RPM). At its core, RPM is all about driving integration between the corporate functions that are so crucial to generating more revenue, but which too often operate as disconnected silos.

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