steve olenski

Bah Humbug – Lack Of Mobile Integration Means Not So Happy Holidays For Brands

You know, there are some things in life that never cease to amaze. For instance, how is it after all these years of marriage (we’re approaching 20) I still somehow manage to do exactly the opposite of what my wife really wants me to do? You would think during the course of my marriage I would do onething the way she intended it to be done, yes?

Um, no.

Another thing that never ceases to me amaze me, as we approach the holiday season in the year 2012 is the fact that so many brands, still are not integrating their offline with their online marketing strategies.

“A report from global interactive marketing provider ExactTarget found more than half of America’s fastest growing retailers have yet to fully connect online and offline shopping experience, leaving shoppers unsatisfied with their shopping experience.”

Two phones with mobile internet capability dis...The live above is from a press release I received recently. The headline of the release was even more ominous: Research Finds a ‘Mobile Chasm’ Between Retailers, Consumers Heading into Holiday Shopping Season. 

Wow. Anytime you throw the word “chasm” into a conversation and use it to describe any type of gap or hole, you know instantly that said gap or hole is as Mike Myers might say, friggin huge!

Jeff Rohrs, ExactTarget’s vice president of marketing research and education says as they gear up for the holidays, marketers need to “consider how consumers use their mobile phones while shopping,” adding “shoppers are turning to their phones for coupons, promotions and discounts, and marketers have a never-before-seen opportunity to transform these interactions into ongoing conversations that drive sales and repeat purchases.”

The press release also makes mention of a Forrester report from earlier this year which, among others, reported that:

  • Twice as many consumers compared to last year are researching products for purchase using their mobile device
  • More U.S. mobile phone owners are downloading applications and receiving SMS/text alerts compared to last year

Should any of this surprise or amaze you? If it does, it’s time to think about a career change if you’re currently in a marketing or advertising related position. Seriously, if you don’t already know of the impact of Mobile Marketing, I would like you to draw me a picture of the rock you clearly have been living under.

It should also come as no surprise that the lack of online and offline integration is “leaving shoppers unsatisfied with their shopping experience.”

Last July I wrote an article titled Shoppers Want Integration, Retailers And Marketers Not Delivering It in which I made reference to two separate reports/surveys which revealed that integration, along with convenience and service are what consumers want most but find most retailers and retail marketers don’t deliver.

From the reports/surveys:

Integration (consistency) – What Consumers Want

  • 85% want an integrated shopping experience
  • 72% want an integrated marketing approach

Integration (consistency) – What Consumers Currently Get

  • 50% get an integrated shopping experience
  • 39% get an integrated marketing approach

Looking at the gap in percentages between what consumers want vs. what they actually get may or may not qualify as being “chasm-worthy” but make no mistake about it, there is a major disconnect for sure. And it’s not as if marketers don’t want to deliver an integrated approach, either.

From another article, this one titled aptly enough Marketing Integration: What Every Marketer Wants For Christmas:

The article was written last December and the above is a from survey conducted by Webmarketing123. You’ll notice that marketing integration outscored search engine marketing, PPC, even social media when it comes to what marketers want to learn. Yes Virginia, it even outscored social media.

So why then does integration continue to be The Eleven Letter Word That Continues To Elude All CMOs And Marketers?

Can’t we find a couch and Chuck Woolery and make a love connection between offline and online marketing strategies? Can it be that difficult?

This past May I made a trip back to the future of sorts, looking at Integrated Marketing Communications – Then And Now. I made reference to something that was written all the way back in the year 1999 in the The Journal of Marketing Communications: “The need to strive for greater integration is considered inevitable by many, although the means by which such integration may be achieved is uncertain.”

Seems the inevitability has come to fruition where the means is still something many are still seeking.

Named one of the Top 100 Influencers In Social Media (#41) by Social Technology Review and a Top 50 Social Media Blogger by Kred, Steve Olenski 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 email,Twitter, LinkedIn, or his website.

 

Three Of Four CMOs Say Social Media Impacts Sales

Not long ago I wrote an article on the use of social media among CEOs 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.

Today comes results of a survey conducted by Bazaarvoice of 100 members of The CMO Club. 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 revenue while another 36% have $100-999 million in annual revenue, and just 7.9% have annual revenue of $0-100 million.

Image representing Bazaarvoice as depicted in ...Entitled “Chief customer advocate: How social data elevates CMOs” 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.”Key findings include:
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • CMOs believe social reveals consumer sentiment and 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.

As for the impact CMOs believe social media has on sales:

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.

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.

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.

The graph also reveals how CMOs believe that social media does a great job at reflecting consumer sentiment.

CMOs Are “Customer Champions”

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.”

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 Tim Sutherwas correct when he referred to it as a ”tsunami of data” in an article I wrote back in February entitled How To Rein In The Riches Of Big Data.

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.

Sources: CMO.com, Bazaarvoice, The CMO Club

Named one of the Top 100 Influencers In Social Media (#41) by Social Technology Review and a Top 50 Social Media Blogger by Kred, Steve Olenski 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 email,Twitter, LinkedIn, or his website.

 

Did The Penn State Brand Get The Death Penalty?

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: “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.”

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.”

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.

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.

Yet as we now know, this once seemingly invincible and impenetrable brand, has been reduced to a mere shell of its former self.

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The Real Value Of A Facebook Like

Trying to qualify the value of a Facebook Like for a given brand has been shown to be an incredibly elusive and often frustrating exercise. An exercise many brand managers and marketing managers would say ends more often than not, in futility.

Sure, having that large number of Facebook Likes is always great for the ego while standing around the water cooler with the brand managers and marketers – but what is the inherent value?

What good are all these Likes if it doesn’t correlate to increased revenue?

Two recent studies have shed some light on what the value of a Facebook Like truly is: “The Facebook Factor” via Forrester and the “Power of a Like 2” the sequel to comScore’s “Power of a Like” released last year.

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CEOs On Social Media: Do As I Say, Not As I Do

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?

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.

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.

“Daddy, you told us to never touch the hot stove. Why did you touch it?”

“Um, well… it’s different for grown ups.”

“Oh, I see… you want me to get mommy so she can take you to the hospital?”

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.

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The Eleven Letter Word That Continues To Elude All CMOs And Marketers

It’s a rather simple word to say, just four syllables. It’s an easily understood word on the surface – at least I think it is. Its meaning is quite apparent the moment you hear it. Yet so many CMO’s and marketers treat this 11-letter word as if it were a 4-letter word.

And I don’t know why for the life of me.

The word that continues to elude and evade CMOs and marketers is *I*N*T*E*G*R*A*T*I*O*N.

And as anyone who knows me knows this about me – I am a Scorpio who enjoys hot chocolate in August. No wait, not that.

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Are brands wielding more influence in Social Media than we thought?

As one who has read, dissected and written about many a study regarding social media, brands and consumers, I can tell you I for one was quite surprised to see read the findings of a survey recently conducted by Market Force – a worldwide leader in customer intelligence solutions.

In querying more than 12,000 consumers in the US and UK, they wanted to see how consumers engaged with varying industries – retail, restaurant, travel, entertainment and financial businesses to be specific, via the big dogs of social media: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+.

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