marketing

Marketing in a Social Media World

experiment

Experiment means trying different approaches until you hit the one that works.

Too often “strategic planning” means setting a course and sticking by it no matter what the feedback. The benefit and beauty of social marketing is the ability to experiment in a new environment and chart a course that may otherwise have never been discovered.

Time to come out of that BRAND controlled shell and harness the engagement and user generated content/feedback that can drive the business into the future…

Don’t be scared, it will only hurt a little and the benefits can far outweight any pain.

Ted Rubin

Three B2B Marketing Trends (To Avoid)

Three B2B Marketing trends have surfaced during my travels in the past few months that are worth sharing with you as we move deeper into 2010.

signs

The first is that the overwhelming majority of marketers I am speaking with are thinking of social media marketing as something separate and distinct from the rest of their corporate marketing plans. I don’t believe this is being done intentionally, it’s just happening. We saw this same thing (and still do to some extent) happen when companies were first considering how to begin marketing on the internet.

While this approach may work on a small scale for a limited time, to realize the full benefits the social web has to offer your B2B marketing, your social media marketing needs to be integrated with your overall marketing plan and targeted to specific buyer personas. It needs to share the same overarching goals, share the same voice, and most importantly, share the same performance metrics. Thinking of it separately will not be giving it the attention it deserves (and the resources it needs) to truly help you realize its benefits.

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Sales and Marketing Alignment: What the Experts Have to Say

The CMO Council recently published a report entitled “Closing the Gap: The Sales and Marketing Alignment Imperative.” Among other key findings, the study revealed that “…there is an urgent need for marketing, sales, and channel management to align and embrace technologies, processes, and programs that enable wider and deeper customer conversations, as well as leverage the knowledge, influence, and access of the channel and continuously refine the delivery of products and services in the most painless, seamless, and satisfying way.” Although that’s definitely more than a mouthful, the points made are important ones and likely resonate with most marketers.

I’ve been in the marketing game for a long time, and the whole sales and marketing alignment thing is near and dear to my heart. Without exception, the issue of alignment has reared its head in one form or another at every company for which I have worked. As a marketing generalist, I don’t claim to be an alignment expert, but I can tell you that the effort you put forth in that area can pay huge dividends.

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Marketing on a Shoestring: 10 Ideas to Gain Visibility and Market Presence

It is said that money is the great inhibitor of innovation. When businesses have to trim budgets and increase market share—the scenario most of the business world found itself in these last eighteen months—it presents an opportunity.

Wall Street Journal owner Rupert Murdoch seems almost prescient with his 2008 statement: “The world is changing very fast. Big will not beat small, anymore, it will be the fast beating the slow, the nimble beating the bureaucrat, the aware beating the asleep, the world is flat and opportunities are for the taking.”

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Social Media: The Fabric of Community

Time to acknowledge the obvious: few things have had as much impact on the fabric of marketing as has the emergence of “Social Media.” In his book – The Chaos Scenario, author, AdAge columnist and NPR commentator Bob Garfield goes as far as heralding the end of mass marketing as we know it.

While many organizations (and marketers, for that matter) wrestle with the function and role of Social Media, and more still will debate some or all of Garfield’s conclusions, few will argue that things are changing. Fast. So, for strategists, marketers and C-suite leaders, here’s an abbreviated take on what is changing, and at least part of why Social Media seems to be growing exponentially at the heart of the change.

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