Marketing opportunities in 2014

I have recently been reading PR20/20's "2014 Marketing Score Report" which was compiled by interviewing over 300 marketing professionals, executives and entrepreneurs who assessed their own and their organisations strengths and weaknesses in different aspects of marketing.

Amid a wealth of very valuable information, two areas stood out for me.  They are of great importance for the success of organisations and I was surprised by the low achievement ratings that marketers gave themselves and their companies in these areas. 

The good news is the potential this provides to marketers who are already expert in these fields or who can rapidly increase their competence.

The first area is content marketing.  Among the 13 elements of content marketing that were assessed, the top score was only 4.4 out of 10, which was for blogging.  The lowest was 0.8 for podcasts.

Now a number of the content marketing elements are fairly new (e.g. infographics) so it is understandable that many organisations are still working out how to include them in the marketing mix and finding, or training staff, to implement them.

But elements such as blogging, case studies, PR and white papers have been core parts of marketing activities for a long time.  Moreover, the report also shows that those who rate their performance highly in content marketing activities such as blogging are those who perform best in generating website traffic and leads as well as converting them to sales.

Of course, this does not prove causality - that more blogging leads to more website traffic, leads and sales.  But the fact that the companies that prioritise and generate content for their different audiences (prospects, partners, suppliers and other influencers) do better than those who do not suggests it is worthwhile adopting and testing a stronger focus in this area.

Given the way that customers, both businesses and consumers, research products and services more and more before buying, it would be stupid not to put more effort into creating content that will bring your company's name and expertise to their attention while they are doing their research.  Content marketing enables you to be involved early in the customer journey.

The second interesting area in which marketing competence is rated surprisingly low is that of diversity of lead sources.  The results show a particular weakness in gaining leads from digital sources with the best digital channel being organic search with a rating of only 4.3 out of 10.

Once again the best performing organisations rated themselves significantly higher for digital leads;  and again this is a sign of the need for most organisations to investigate the new digital sources for leads that leading companies are exploiting.

So both content marketing and digital leads are shown to offer many companies huge scope for growth, and they are areas in which they do not currently have sufficient in-house expertise.  

That is great news for marketers who have the expertise and energy to exploit these opportunities.

Happy 2014. 

I'm not human enough for Instagram

I have given up on Instagram.

This morning I wanted to try it out - it might be fun and it might be useful for marketing.  At least I thought I ought to know about it.

So I tried to set it up on my Samsung Galaxy II phone.  No problem installing but then I tried to register using my Facebook login and reached the point where you are asked if Instagram can message all your friends.  I changed this for private messaging to begin with (until I knew what I and Instagram were doing).  But this just led to an error message about an unknown page. Has nobody tried the privacy option before?

How do you report or sort out bugs in apps?  I have no idea, so switched to the Instagram website on my desktop and tried the "Forgot Password" option since I was having trouble with the Facebook login.

Before sending me an email, Instagram asked to use a Captcha to prove I was human.  Sometimes it takes 2 or 3 goes to get the Captcha right but this one I tried 8 times without success.  Also I tried the audio version but it was so fuzzy I was unable to make it out.

So I gave up with Instagram.

Apparently I am not human enough for them.

Digital OAPs

The maximum age for a true digital native is probably 30 - someone who grew up with a mobile phone that they used to communicate with their friends, with online social networks for sharing, with widely available e-commerce for purchase..  If digital natives want to find out a fact they use Google search, Wikipedia or ask questions on social media and are hardly aware of offline methods.

But while those of us from previous generations did not grow up with this technology, most of us have come to accept it and use it as the best tool for many personal and business activities.  Some may be reluctant but there are many older people, including silver surfers, who have embraced it enthusiastically as a way to enrich and simplify their lives, from being able to see and talk to remote family over Skype to automating their small business accounts.

So are the digital natives really a breed apart?  Until recently, I was not convinced and felt that there were already ncreasing numbers of OAPs equally at home in the new world of technology.  I liked to think of them as digital OAPs.  But a couple of articles that I read last week made me think again.

Firstly, John Naughton's article in The Observer (http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2013/jun/15/nsa-covert-surveillance-trap) in which he talked about the NSA and their PRISM program and concluded that however much people might be horrified by the way PRISM is collecting so much personal data, they could not envisage stopping using the main internet services that provide the information to the NSA, particularly if they were under 25. 

The other article, by Brian Halligan, was on the culture of HubSpot, the firm he co-founded (http://www.businessinsider.com/hubspot-ceo-brian-halligan-on-company-culture-2013-6). He talks about the different values of younger employees - how they want to buy into the goals of their companies and value transparency in their organisations. This attitude towards work ties in with the freedom with which digital natives are willing to share so much of their life online even though it becomes visible to so many people.

So maybe digital OAPs (as well as those slightly younger, like myself) can be as good technically in using the new technology.  But do we have the attitude of relying on it entirely that the digital natives have?

If we are like those learning a foreign language compared to native speakers of that language, then while we have to work very hard to speak it fluently, once we master it we may also be able to see its strengths and weaknesses in context.

Does a "Like" button give enough feedback?

Reading a recent article from the Nieman Journalism Lab about testing a "Respect" button instead of a "Like" button for news items led me to think more about the benefits and disadvantages of "Like" buttons.

Facebook is well known for its "Like" button which allows users to "give positive feedback and connect with things [they] care about" but other sites have their equivalent: Google+ with "+1" to "give something a public stamp of approval" ; Twitter with "Follow" ; YouTube has thumbs up or thumbs down icons; Pinterest has "Like"; and Tumblr has a like.

So most of the major social media sites have one or at most two simple ways for a viewer to show approval and YouTube is the only one that allows viewers to rate an item negatively as well as positively with one click.

Allowing users to give positive feedback or approval with one click has the obvious benefit of making it very easy for users to interact with content.  It only takes a second to "Like" whereas adding a comment could take a minute or more.  So one-click approval encourages more interactions and keeps a site lively.

But how much does it measure, and more importantly, increase customer engagement?  More sophisticated ratings or comments provide much richer feedback, including making it clear whether the user finds the views expressed in the content interesting and worth sharing or perhaps just the topic itself, while not agreeing with all of the views expressed.  There are some interesting ideas on increasing customer engagement through social media in this prezi (and the Nieman article mentioned up front has some interesting insights on comments and polls)

Which is more important for a site?  Volume of instant feedback or in-depth engagement?

Well, of course you can have both with buttons and comment fields.

But maybe there is a way to gain more information from buttons without losing significant volume, and possibly encourage more comment by just making some users reflect a little more on the feedback they are giving.  How about one or two more buttons to record better the positive and negative sentiments and to rate the importance of the topic being discussed?

I feel most sites are in a rut of just using one standard button.

Time for an experiment?

Who owns the online community?

The biggest online communities are businesses that tap into people's general or specific interests and offer great value to users and contributors.  In today's world they often do not charge any money for the use of their services, instead making money from selling adverts on their sites or from services sold to premium users or to companies providing add-ons.  Think of Facebook, YouTube and LinkedIn for example.

Looking at these communities today, it is hard to think of a future without them, but they face constant pressures not to go the way of previous stars such as MySpace (now growing again slowly), AOL and SecondLife.  For example, Facebook experiences considerable pressure from younger rivals as it tries to maintain growth and the amount of time users spending on the site as noted in this CNBC report on Facebook growth from May 2013; while it is growing fast in emerging markets, there are signs of a loss of interest by users in established markets such as the USA and UK.

These pressures highlight the fact that the communities depend on their users who are free to go elsewhere if something new grabs their attention (for example Tumblr or Pinterest), if the site annoys them (e.g. not addressing privacy concerns) or just if they grow bored with the activity on the site.

Are there ways to combat this and create longer-lasting online communities?

One possibility would be to involve the community itself much more in running and setting the direction for the site.  Could the community actually co-own the service?  A real sense of ownership would increase loyalty and should also ensure that the site develops in ways that the community wants.  But if the online site was run as a business, this would inevitably create tension between the profit-motive of the company running the service and the demands of users.

There are two other drawbacks to the idea of community involvement or co-ownership.  Firstly, most users do not want to get involved.  They want a service, one that is useful and is used by their friends but do not want to spend time or effort on working out how it should be run; if it stops meeting their needs, then they will just go elsewhere.  Secondly, the active members who would be willing to participate in setting direction are not necessarily representative of the majority, let alone new users whom the business might want to attract.

All of these drawbacks can be overcome, in my opinion, (after all, two of them exist in democratic governments) by adhering to three principles

• clarity on the aims of the community and how both the company running it and the users will benefit
• balance of benefits between operator and users with limits on both sides
• realistic controls that meet the long-term objectives and concerns of the users while allowing the business to operate commercially from day-to-day

I am working on building these principles into a new community for the travel industry.  By focusing on a specific part of the travel industry, the community should also cater to a long-term interest that will help the community to survive (as long as it is well-run).  I will share my plans in more detail in future posts.

Maybe you have any experience of building or even just participating in communities that have long-term success in maintaining user commitment or enthusiasm?  If so, it would be great to hear your experiences.

Turning consumption into engagement

Content marketing is nowadays seen as the answer to a marketer's prayers.  Of course, it requires producing a lot of content but there is usually have lots of product information lying around.  It can just be smartened up a little, with a few added images, then posted, tweeted and referred to on Facebook.  Surely that provides content marketing and social media leading to community engagement?

Except that this misses one key element - involving the community.  We may work hard to combine well-worded content and stunning visuals into a mixture of videos, infographics, case studies and webinars; and this can lead to a satisfying number of visitors and clicks.  But how engaged are those reading, watching and listening?

There is a big difference between consumption and engagement, well expressed by Jason Hekl in his rant on engagement.  He proposes the use of the phone to create engagement, and this is a highly effective method.  But it is not the only way.  The principles of a conversation can be used online as well as on the phone.

The first thing is to open a conversation, not just broadcast your message.  So your content must ask questions and have a format for replies (you can comment below!).  It must pause from time to time to allow for questions or observations from the other person (so I will not make this post too long).  Explanations should be followed by questions to check understanding.  You need to find out more about the other person's interests and needs.

These things can be difficult to do face-to-face, and even more difficult over the phone, where you cannot see the person's expression.  Online it is even harder to judge a person's emotions or receptivity but you do have a number of advantages that you can use

• you can plan what you say and what questions to ask
• you can test different ways of saying things and different formats
• you can measure how people find you, what content they read and the time they spend in order to gain clues to their interest 
• you can make yourself known to thousands or millions of people to find those who most want to have a conversation with you

This last point is so vital because you have to be realistic.  Maybe only 1% of people who read your content will want to engage with you but, as I wrote previously, you do not need many conversations to create activity and debate around your products and services).

So I will be happy if any of you let me know - was this post of interest?  Does it match your experience?

I plan to post more about how to measure people's receptivity online - would this be useful or are there other areas we can explore?

Motivation and output

Motivation to drive useful and creative output has been a focus for me at the start of this year.  The new year is always a time for setting goals and refocusing on the important tasks to be achieved.  But goal setting is useless unless there is a plan for achieving the goals.  The plan must be realistic and this involves reviewing past successes and failures and understanding what drove you to success and what hindered you when you failed.  For many people, myself included, a key element is ensuring that you are really motivated to achieve your goals; the motivation needs to be more than just words and should be tightly tied into your emotional needs (what makes you tick).

"Making lots of money" or "being successful" are too woolly as motivators.  Spell out what you are going to do with the money or how exactly will you be successful e.g. ensure my family's financial security, buy a Ferrari, go on holiday of a lifetime, prove to everyone (and myself) that I can do it, be ranked the best in my department.

At the January meeting of the Mayfield Business Forum that I help organise, we discussed plans for 2013, how to set them, how to make sure they are realistic and how to keep on track in achieving them.  One of the very good ideas that came out of the meeting was that of putting your goals somewhere you could see them on a regular basis and so be reminded of what you were working for.  Ian Parker,  for example, had his goals on his mobile phone which provided a constant reminder.

Since the meeting I have created a screen saver on my PC consisting of two screens, one with two key goals and one with two key behaviours that I need to improve.  This has proved very useful since the screen saver is there when I have been away from my desk for a while. or when I have been interrupted by a conversation, and focuses me back on the essentials.   However, the effect is starting to wear off because it is always the same words and the same background that appear and the mind tends to switch off when seeing something so familiar.  I know I will have to refresh the words and image, the "story" I am sending to my brain.

All this made me very interested yesterday to read McKinsey's article on "Increasing the ‘meaning quotient’ of work".  It highlights how people can be highly productive when at work but this usually only happens rarely.  It depends on the right environment in terms of

• knowing what to do and having the skills to do it  - the IQ element
• being supported to do it and having the soft skills (communication, empathy etc) - the EQ element
• but also the concept of MQ, the Meaning Quotient, which is how to ensure that you, or your  staff and colleagues, feel that the task is worth doing

You need to read the whole article for all the insights this gives and I would encourage you to do so.  But one key thing the article highlights is the story that you tell (yourself and others) about the tasks in hand that make them meaningful and motivate you.

Different reasons will motivate ourselves and other people, and these may change over time and need to be refreshed.  But creating a rich story that we believe in is a key element of motivation, of working productively and so of reaching our goals.

Never mind the question, social media is the answer??

There is a danger of thinking that social media is the answer to all marketing problems in this day and age.

But it is always sloppy thinking to believe that the latest and greatest thing is the answer to all the issues you face.  Successful business depends on deep thinking and a rigorous approach to finding out what is going on in your industry, your market and your company.

Social media has fantastic potential for many companies and markets.  But this article from Mashable shows that many companies are doing very well without social media and that it is not appropriate for them to focus resources on it
   http://mashable.com/2013/01/01/social-media-not-required/

Whatever your company, industry and market, you need to understand your prospects and customers but if they are not on social media or you need to talk to them in ways that are not suited to social media (e.g. requiring confidentiality, in-depth discussions or sensitive conversations) then you need other methods - pick up the phone, incentivise partners to survey their contacts, send out white papers, present at conventions, ..

The one essential is to spend enough time keeping a track on your customers and those who could become your customers to understand their issues, what makes them tick and what might excite them or make their life easier.

How you then pull out the key messages and best communicate with them is where the hard thinking comes in.