Book The New Language of Marketing 2.0

Marketing Megatrends

Globalization and new technology have spurred the rapid development of megatrends that have redefined marketing practices and made change management more critical. Corporate marketers must be fast and proactive to anticipate, identify and respond to this rate of change. Testing new ideas cheaply and quickly using advanced “Marketing 2.0” tools and technologies can help them keep pace and create personalized, positive and memorable customer experiences.

“The most effective marketers today employ a rigorous marketing methodology across both traditional and recently developed techniques.”

Web 2.0 has made it easier for customers using social networking sites to compare the relative merits of competitive products and services. Customers also can use the Internet to obtain critical information about almost any product, company or service. This presents marketers with new challenges. Web 2.0 bridges traditional marketing concepts, such as “customer-requirements management, value pricing and segmentation,” and modern concepts and tools, like social networks, new channels and innovative media.

“The capability to be nimble and move quickly in the market is the key element in successful marketing.”

To merge and manage these two worlds and to get better results from your marketing, use the six-part “ANGELS” framework. The acronym stands for “analyzing” your market with sophisticated discovery techniques, “nailing” down your strategy by identifying and maximizing market opportunities, “going to market” by penetrating media noise locally and globally, “energizing” your marketplace with social networking, measuring “leads and revenue” with dashboards, and “screaming” your marketing message with technology. To be a marketing angel, fly this way:

1. “Analyze Here, There and Everywhere”

Closely study your marketplace to develop a solid understanding of what drives it and which communication tools work best. Web 2.0-market research examines postings on social networking Web sites, combines that data with traditional research, and uses the information to anticipate change and react quickly. Adopt an “outside in” approach, so you can see your business as other people do. When companies collaborate with external groups, they develop more innovative ideas and become less insular. Focusing on customer segments can help you determine current and future areas of profit and learn more about your consumers.

“Education and experimentation are the name of the game because there are no rules, and breakthrough thinking and techniques will separate the winners from the losers.”

A “market discovery” analysis estimates a market’s size and growth potential. It considers whether the market is “nascent, emerging or mature,” and examines meaningful variables in each category. Marketers can complement traditional analysis methods, such as quantitative surveys, direct observation and focus groups, with modern tactics like Web surveys, blog research, online reviews and an examination of responses in Internet communities. IBM improved its WebSphere product line after monitoring such responses. Customers were more honest online than they were in conversations with researchers. Web research is also cheaper than person-to-person surveys.

“Seeing the world today involves multiple perspectives and requires not just data but insight from multiple angles.”

Marketers should monitor blogs and Twitter feeds to see what people are discussing on the Web – and, if possible, influence those conversations. Automobile marketers who wanted to test a car campaign made a short video using an online gaming theme. They sent it to 20 top bloggers and YouTube videographers, 12 of whom referred to it in their online discussions, leading to three million views of the video within a few days.

2. “Nail the Strategy”

To nail your strategy, focus on your primary marketing goals. Develop innovative ways to make your work memorable, such as creating powerful stories that reflect your customers’ priorities. Generate stories that evoke positive emotions and align your brand with popular values, such as corporate social responsibility. To create an effective strategy, reach the right audience and tell the most compelling story, be sure you understand your customers’ present and future needs. Synchronize your strategy and your message. Stay flexible so you can alter your tactics as new information emerges or as customer behavior changes.

“‘Outside in’ is the new term for ensuring you are not focused on internal views but continuously looking outside your four walls.”

Use role-based marketing to specify your target audience, so you can develop appropriate products for them and use the right language to reach them. IBM creates profiles of archetypical customers, specifying their priorities, business problems and product requirements. Effective research should identify the primary people who set your clients’ budgets, make decisions and govern buying. IBM marketers study how their customers make purchasing decisions, so the corporation can satisfy their needs and build loyalty.

3. “Go to Market”

Test your strategies to be sure you are communicating about the main benefits of your product and brand in a way that compels customers to believe in them. Assemble data or proof points that support your claims. Follow through on the benefits you promise. Address consumers by market segment so you “win prioritization” locally and globally. Any go-to-market strategy must cut through the noise and information overload that crowd the market. Break through by using messages with specific, local impact. If you don’t develop the right piece, you will only add to the noise and that will choke your message. A powerful message can cut through the clutter and serve as the engine behind your tagline, positioning statement and strategy. Your offering has to work for the region, channel or target audience you want.

“Companies need to learn how to embrace the energy of a scream in their marketing at the right time to the right people.”

IBM’s strategy recognizes its audience’s relationship with its products and with the company itself. To enhance its credibility, IBM refers reporters to stock analysts and university-based experts as news sources for stories about the company. When IBM used an Intranet site to solicit employees’ opinions about its core values, the effort drew some 150,000 people in more than 104 countries, including staffers’ relatives, and resulted in more than 46,000 possible new ideas.

“The whole notion of customer-driven and market-driven marketing is here to stay.”

IBM’s “Service Oriented Architecture” (SOA) group worked internationally leveraging its far-flung expertise about local cultures to develop better ways to do business. In Russia, for instance, IBM sought a way to expand its reach across eight time zones. It solved the problem with online seminars that let customers collaborate with experts and ask questions via live broadcasts.

4. “Energize the Ecosystem and Market”

Energizing your community and your information channel is essential for connecting with your target audience. Be innovative in your use of all that Web 2.0 has to offer business by optimizing each of your channels as much as possible, from social networks to virtual environments and gaming. This means carefully selecting the most effective media to reach your sales teams, partners, government regulators and any other significant entities. Use a combination of traditional and cutting-edge media, exploring new channels such as blogs, really simple syndication (RSS) feeds, social networks, e-publications, widgets (miniature applications), wikis, podcasts and videos. For instance, IBM uses “serious gaming” to educate audiences about new applications and its SOA group used widgets in its marketing to present instantly useful information, such as videos that supplemented newsletters. Selecting the right mechanism matters, but having the right message matters more.

5. “Leads and Revenue”

Use dashboards with relevant metrics to track the most informative data about your sales leads and revenue. Build your dashboard based on your long- and short-term marketing goals. Integrate each element of the ANGELS process into the dashboard. Be selective about what information you choose to include. Dashboards work best for top executives who monitor “five to fifteen metrics,” but no more. Focus on metrics that relate to your brand, customer loyalty and satisfaction, leads, validated lead revenue and the conversion of leads into customers. Follow metrics that assess primary drivers in integrated marketing campaigns, such as employee satisfaction and “customer engagement,” a measurement of how customers are influenced by and interact with your brand.

6. “Scream Through Technology”

Proclaiming your marketing message energetically to targeted audiences shows your passion about your product. Leverage technology to personalize your marketing communications. Shout your message by using online social networks, like Facebook and MySpace, which have evolved into platforms for making social and emotional connections around mutual interests. Other online communities may form when people share a purpose, activity, goal or experience. Marketers who use social channels must decide whether to start their own communities or join existing ones. Wal-Mart effectively used Facebook to target college students. It created links to Wal-Mart departments and set up a special interactive application to help students identify compatible roommates. In another example, Adobe also created an online community for product research.

“One of the more amazing phenomena is the proliferation of social networking sites. If MySpace were a country, it would be the 11th largest in the world (between Japan and Mexico).”

IBM aired a video-on-demand series on YouTube to promote a few of its product lines both internally and externally. In a separate venture, it dedicated 5,000 employees and $130 million to creating a virtual online community, including establishing the technology to track customer interactions and to hold virtual meetings, training events and product development activities.

“By exploring real-time chat, there is more proactivity in answering questions and taking the customer further into the sales cycle directly on the Web site.”

Coca-Cola, which “has been in virtual worlds for several years,” used Second Life to set up a virtual community where people could create avatars (individual online graphic representatives) that competed in building virtual futuristic vending machines that dispensed experiences rather than soft drinks. The machines were placed throughout the Second Life world. Coca-Cola runs virtual worlds for teens in eight nations; the U.S. version has eight million registered users.

New Media Tools

Technological tools include widgets, wikis, blogs and gaming. IBM made use of gaming in its Innov8 project for universities and training facilities. It developed a game to educate users about its business process management capabilities. IBM identified gaming as a useful marketing tool because 63% of the U.S. population plays video games. This subgroup is 60% male, average age 35.

“Proactive chat gives us the ability to have a conversation with our prospects when they’re most receptive – while they are on our Web site actively gathering information about our products.” (Brian Adler, IBM)

Games can help sell complex systems. Medical device companies, for instance, are using games to show surgeons how they can apply a new tool in the operating room. Coca-Cola has used in-game ads to build product and brand awareness. Companies get noticed and earn new brand advocates when they create personalized brand experiences. Consumer evangelists spend 30% more annually on their favorite brands than other customers do. Marketers can use technology to track customer preferences and behaviors, whether they use company Web sites or such channels as social networking, mobile technology and virtual online communities.

“Within each market need or category of solutions, specific ways and approaches to address business problems depend on the existing business environment and priorities.”

Researchers predict that by 2011, 80% of Web users will have access to an environment that allows real-time collaboration and communication. One research firm expects marketing-enabled technology to become the new industry standard, making social media an even more important way to interact with customers. Social media has already changed human interactions: One in eight of the couples who got married in the U.S. last year met on the Internet.

"Today’s most successful companies have redefined themselves to deliver more relevant brand experiences.” “

Online interactions and other Web 2.0 developments have led to new best practices for technology-oriented marketers, including:

• Use social networks and other Web 2.0 tools, such as online chats, to drive sales.
• Use technology to track leads as they progress through the sales cycle.
• Use existing technology, such as a corporate Web site, as well as collaborative communities to build business-to-business and business-to-consumer markets.
• Use your understanding of your customers to “determine if you want to approach them and how you should approach them.”

“Every single time a customer interacts with your brand, there is an opportunity to learn and respond.”

One sales principle endures through all the technological advances and changes: Marketing still relies on building customer relationships.