Sep 16

I met with Francois Gossieaux, co-founder and President of Human 1.0, to discuss elements of his book The Hyper-Social Organization: Eclipse Your Competition by Leveraging Social Media. Human 1.0 is a customer strategy firm that helps companies innovate business programs, practices and organizational culture to realize the benefits of social media and Web 2.0. Francois and I discussed the challenges of contemporary marketing organizations and the challenges faced by Chief Marketer Officers as they transition from CMO 1.0 to CMO 2.0. We discussed the difficult tasks of these executives and their need to get out of their silos, suggesting, perhaps, that they spend more time with customer service.

We also attacked the perceived perch of social media. We acknowledged the importance of social media, but analyzed our disbelief that many “experts” in the area actually lack basic social skills. The key to success is understanding the cultural aspects, which is the foundation of both community and social media.

Rob Ciampa

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Aug 16

The Value Proposition Challenge

I love great salespeople. They know their customers’ business needs; they know their products; and – most importantly – they know how to link the two together. And there’s one more: they actively and positively engage marketing. One of the best sales professionals I know is Sean Harris, someone whom I’ve been honored to work with several times over the years.

Not too long ago, after Sean and I went on to different companies, he called me up to vent, which was uncharacteristic for him.

“Rob, I got double-booked after a major client changed a meeting between the executive team and me. I was supposed to speak at an industry event.”

“Sean,” I said, “you deal with this all the time. Just have one of your marketing people speak.”

“That’s the problem, Rob, they can’t.”

“Because of scheduling?” I asked.

“No, because they can’t give the pitch. Even worse, they don’t know the product and can’t interact with customers.”

“You’re kidding, Sean, right?”

“I wish I were, Rob.”

Sean’s dilemma is not at all unusual. Too often, marketers, as well as other people in an organization, can’t deliver their firm’s value proposition. Many can read it, understand it, and possibly write it, but they often stumble when delivering it live, in real-time. We can assume that both marketers and their marketing organizations invest continually in telling their story in the most clear and compelling way, but we’d be wrong. Instead, they’ve invested heavily in social media, while tragically abdicating the community dialogue to inexperienced people who can neither deliver nor comprehend the value proposition. It’s time to address these problems.

Fix #1 – Have marketers spend time on the phone with insides sales or actively participating in sales calls.

I’m sorry, but sitting in the corner, smiling, and saying nothing during a meeting with prospects and customers doesn’t cut it. Marketers need to know how their product or service can solve a customer’s business problem or enable them to penetrate new markets. They need to be business problem solvers and expert consultants. Beyond their job description? Absolutely not. They should be able to handle any challenge that comes their way. That’s where the rubber hits the road and the real marketing begins:

“I don’t need your product.”

“I don’t understand what you just said.”

“Your main competitor does this better.”

“You’re too expensive.”

“What I have is just fine.”

“I don’t see a return on investment that my CFO will approve.”

Ouch.  Am I making this up? Go ask any sales professional if they’ve heard this. See if the marketers give the same answers as the sales team. I’d wager not.

Marketers need real-time, live action feedback to not just be good, but great: great at the value proposition and great at understanding how it addresses customer needs.

The Product or Service Challenge

Marketers also need to understand what their product does or how their services function. They must answer this from a customer perspective. In another piece, I wrote about the importance for marketers to know their products and study the documentation. Though these activities are relevant for marketers, they are more academic and represent only parts of the overall marketing effectiveness equation. Marketers can learn a great deal by spending time in either customer service or in the field to really learn about their product.

My customer service education came from Peter Wolf, now a support manager at IBM. Peter and I worked together several years back at Access360, a Southern California software company. Not only did Peter know exactly what our customers were doing, but his team was equally proficient in knowing them too. Spending time with Peter was a marketing goldmine, especially since our customers loved his services group. Over dinner one night, Peter explained it to me:

“Rob,” he inquired, “who gets paid more: engineers or customer service?”

“Engineers, Peter. I’ve worked on way too many compensation plans to know that,” I responded.

“Exactly, and that’s a huge problem. Customer service is the most important department for most companies, so why do we not treat it that way?” he asked.

Peter went on to explain the rationale and economics behind putting great people in customer service.

  • Customer satisfaction is always world-class. Is great for marketing and sales.
  • Customer retention is never an issue. Ensures profitability and important references.
  • Repeat sales occurs organically. Helps lower the cost of sales and drives revenue.

This was brilliant – truly brilliant. He also described the tight relationship – and respect and collaboration – that occurred among product development, product management, and customer service. All teams were aligned. He even described about how people freely moved between product development and customer service with absolutely no stigma attached. Is there a lesson here?

Fix #2 – Put marketing people in customer service and in the field regularly

Marketers see real live use cases rather than trying to make them up. Marketing can see how customers use the product rather than trying to make it up. Marketers can see genuine customer impact rather than trying to make it up. Marketers can see measurable ROI or rather than trying to make it up.

Conclusion

Sales and customer service are cogs in the marketing wheelSales and customer service are the keys to building a great marketing organization. Alignment between these two disciplines can help fix a marketing organization that might not be fully grounded in the reality of the markets served. There’s another important byproduct: it makes a company more cohesive by more tightly bonding marketing, sales, service, and product. But what about social media and the huge investment so many have made? Perhaps sales and customer service are the keys to fixing that too, but that’s a story for another day.

And what about my friends, Sean and Peter? Now I have a great reason to make some long overdue calls to them. The good part is I know the conversation will be great. Why? Because they both know their customers, which makes them some of the best marketers I know.

Rob Ciampa

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Jan 30

Brand Equity is a House of CardsAs marketers and business leaders, we spend years, if not a lifetime, cultivating our brands. They define who we are and generate an annuity of business and goodwill for decades. That annuity helps grow the value our brand equity. Our customers, by purchase and by proxy, derive benefit from our brands. Go walk into a Starbucks. Who is there? Why are they there? What are they drinking? What computers are they using? What are they wearing? What are they reading? It’s all brand. Marketing 101.

So if brand is so important, why are we seeing some of the strongest ones tumble? Because brands are incredibly fragile. Just look at Tiger Woods and Toyota as recent examples. The fallout is not just to the brand-owners but to those who derive ancillary benefit. Tiger Woods’ sponsors are leaving because the brand actually has negative value and it impacts them. Personally, I love watching Tiger play and I enjoy hopping into my Toyota SUV and driving through the New England snow. I’m disheartened by both recent events.

The brand equity ascent is slow and arduous; the descent is fast and dangerous. Paraphrasing a former business partner of mine:

If you’re not careful, you can go from a hero to a has-been in heartbeat.

How true. Is it more challenging these days to protect a brand? Absolutely. The velocity of communications and the acceleration effects of social media leave little time to react.  And remember: bad news is like gasoline and good news is like water – all it takes is one strike of a match.

Is there a cure? Not entirely, but integrity sure goes a long way. Not just integrity from the start (Tiger Woods) but also integrity when dealing with and addressing problems as they arise (Toyota). We’ll see how they (and many others) try to regain their brand equity. Much, however, depends on whether those of us who benefit will remain loyal.

Rob Ciampa

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Jan 16
The Twitter Scream

The Twitter Scream

“I feel as if the train left the station and I’m standing on the platform watching it fade into the distance,” exclaimed a friend of mine whom I regard as one of the finest marketing people I know. He was referring to his disconnection to the major shift occurring in how we use social media to communicate with our customers and prospects.  My friend is not alone; I recently spent time with a group of senior marketers discussing Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff’s book Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies. I was surprised to find that only about one in five of my peers had a blog (corporate or personal) and most hadn’t read the book. This is not a disparagement, but rather a warning sign that many of our best marketing people aren’t adapting.

Why? Although there are many reasons, I’ll answer it in marketing terms: positioning. The new world order has been positioned in such a way that everything in the classic marketer’s toolbox is irrelevant, thereby making them irrelevant. Naturally, if not subconsciously, this generates fear and a negative reaction to the cause. Too Freudian? Perhaps, but I’ve witnessed this far too frequently to dismiss it as an anomaly.

Call it the social media revolution, but it’s really a marketing communications evolution. Don’t view it as a new toolbox; consider it new tools in the toolbox. And by the way, a tool is much more effective when it’s being used and not locked up. Now go out and grab that twitter wrench and work with (not fire) your PR team to get your message out.

Rob Ciampa

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Nov 27

Sarah Palin Pardoning TurkeyWhat a difference a year makes. Last year, our large Thanksgiving gathering was still divided and at odds over the then recent 2008 presidential election. With the exception of Sarah Palin, which I’ll address shortly, a new, shiny object showed up with the holiday turkey: social media. With three generations at the table ranging from ages twelve to eighty, I knew it was going to be an interesting discussion. For my statistically-oriented and pollster-pushing friends, here is a measurable tidbit: everyone in attendance had an email address – and that included “the elders.” For simplicity, let’s segment the gathering into the elders (60 +), the kids (20 -) and the mid-market (20-60).

As a marketing guy and a card-carrying member of the mid-market, I was at an interesting vantage point because I’ve used all of the social media vehicles. I had to explain the role of Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, blogs, Digg, etc. What intrigued me, though, were the divergent and interesting views on social media. Here are some take-aways:

  • The kids thought the other generations at the table were Luddites and couldn’t understand why we weren’t texting between bites of cranberry sauce and stuffing.
  • The mid-market and elders believe Facebook should be about connecting friends and not about communicating to your-sister’s-classmate’s-cousin-from-Fresno-CA’s-favorite-Starbucks-barista.
  • The kids had an average 582 friends vs. about 87 for the mid-market. From our sample, none of the elders had Facebook, but were very interested.
  • Only the mid-market, marketing guy and his wife (Mrs. Market Research) had a Twitter account. None of the kids “got” Twitter and thought it was weird. Go figure.
  • LinkedIn was deemed very intriguing by the mid-market and the elders, though the brand recognition was weak. The kids challenged the concept of LinkedIn when one already had a Facebook account. (Why do the non-kids segments feel this way? Because business colleagues generally don’t want to see one another in skimpy bathing suits and compromising situations.)
  • Social bookmarking was not well known across all three segments. When I explained the concept, everyone thought the idea was great, but didn’t like that fact that there were so many choices. The one-stop shopping rule returns.
  • Most at the table don’t understand long URLs and want to shorten them. I explained bit.ly to a few, but they didn’t necessarily like the new, cryptic URLs either.

After the social media discussions ended, Sarah Palin showed up again this year as a hot topic. As always, she remains a divisive subject, especially now that her new book is out. I tried to remain objective between the Maureen Dowd-esque and Sean-Hannity-esque banter (and flying drumsticks) at the table. In an effort to mediate the debate, I raised the subject of her use of Facebook and Twitter, which only empowered both sides at the table. I’ll try to remain neutral again next year, though I suspect my analysis of her use of social media may not fly again. I will be especially interested at the Thanksgiving 2010 to see how the market segmentation changes and which social media vehicles are in vogue.

Rob Ciampa

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