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.

Such a thing as a free lunch

They say that there is no such thing as a free lunch but I disagree.  I have more than once been invited to a briefing where the lunch was free, and remember an IBM seminar in particular where I gained useful information as well as enjoying free sandwiches and drinks.

But these are trivial examples.  The more important examples come in the availability of open source software.

This week I was sent a mail detailing all the great new features in Wordpress 3.4. I use Wordpress for a number of websites that I have created for myself and for my clients - for example, theaibs.tv for the Association for International Broadcasting and movingmarketing.biz for my own video marketing project.  I use it for free and take advantage of great features and they keep on delivering more.  Thank you very much Matt Mullenweg and others.

Since this post is created on blogger.com., I should also thank Google for their continual updates of this and their other properties, of which I take advantage.

Of course, most software companies do not offer the services out of the goodness of their hearts - they want to make money on the service somehow.  This is often by advertising or offering freemium services (entry level for free, pro versions that cost).  But many ask for subscriptions but leave it entirely up to the user to donate what they think is appropriate.   Lots of users, myself included, respond with voluntary payments.

Being offered a good product or service for free accompanied by a low-key request for donations, builds loyalty just as free lunches make you feel grateful.  We should all examine what we can offer for free that maybe just builds reputation and kudos.   If you have a passion and something to offer, it may be a healthy option to make it a giveaway - healthy for you and ultimately healthy for your business.

Social Media as a Part of Market Engagement

Social media tends to provoke one of two widely different reactions from business people - they either embrace it wholeheartedly and devote enormous amounts of time to it at the expense of other activities or they avoid it either out of fear or out of belief that it is just a fad which is a waste of time for them. This is particularly true of small businesses who do not have the luxury of appointing a person, still less a whole department, to manage their interactions with social media.

The reality is that social media can be valuable for all businesses but it is not a panacea to be pursued to the detriment of other tasks, and even other marketing. I have mentioned this before in a previous blog - http://rogerstonemarketing.blogspot.co.uk/2011/07/reality-behind-social-media-hype.html

Social media has tremendous potential as part, but not all, of your marketing engagement. To understand this, we must first understand what marketing engagement is.

For much of my marketing career, one major element of marketing was called marketing communication (marcom) but this was in the days when companies told customers and prospects what was on offer and the only communication back from most of them might be a negotiation on price, possibly a purchase and after that maybe one or two requests for service. Feedback on new ideas, new offers or even new marketing campaigns was done at best with a focus group or small survey.

But now customers and prospects not only expect more involvement and dialogue with companies but also are willing to be your advocates if they like your product or service and the way you treat them. So now one-way marketing communication has evolved to two-way communication with the aim of going beyond simple expressions of "Here's what we have to offer" and "Yes I'll take it / No, I do not want that" to engaging the attention of the market. Now it is about discussing how the offer and its message can be adapted to the needs of the prospects and how they can be enthused to tell others about their experience.

Social media is a great tool for this because

• you can find and address communities with particular interests, and build your own communities
• conversations can be rich in structure and include short messages, links to detailed material, photos, videos, podcasts, slideshows and webinars
• feedback is quick and direct
• the means for passing on the message about your product is built into social media software

But social media is not the only way to engage with the market. Customers still appreciate face to face meetings, go to conferences and events, read newspapers, listen to the radio and watch TV. So your market engagement mix should include all types of communication that are relevant and affordable.

In thinking about the effort you should spend on social media, you should first decide on the amount of time. effort and money (and the number of people) to devote to market engagement as a whole. Then you must decide how to divide this up into five different activities that make up market engagement:

1. Building and maintaining a shopfront: for most people this is not physical but a website or set of Facebook pages where the market can see who you are and what you have to offer.
2. Meetings and events: face to face time where you have direct contact with prospects, customers, suppliers and partners. You might also include video conferences or even phone calls in this activity as long as you obtaining a rich feedback from people's expressions, manners and voices to help build personal relationships.
3. Listening and joining in relevant conversations: this is done on sites such LinkedIn, Facebook, Google+,Twitter, popular blogs, and discussion forums. To succeed you need to be interested in your customers, so it is vital to listen to them and comment on what they say rather than hogging the conversation with your own opinions. People are going to engage with you and Like/Follow/Link with you if you are interested in them as well as if you have something interesting of your own to say.
4. Starting conversations yourself: when you have something to say, or even better when you want market opinion on a particular subject, then you can start a conversation, be it a Tweet, a post on Facebook or a topic on a LinkedIn group.
5. Publishing detailed information that shows your expertise in a particular area (whitepaper, blog posts, slideshow, how-to video, etc) or that explains your product and service in detail.

Decide how much time you have to do all these tasks and then set realistic goals for how often you can do each of them and stick to it. Better to follow one or two of the most relevant groups and comment every few days than follow dozens but comment so infrequently that you do not leave a lasting impression.

Marketing engagement is a vital part of your business. Nowadays it can often perform the bulk, if not all, of the task of selling. Social media is a necessary and fantastically useful element of this engagement, but it is not the only element so you have to balance the time you spend on it.

Week of scams and unwanted calls

This has been a week for scams and unwanted calls. It started with the common annoyance of a phone call from a company which I did not know asking about my energy bills. I questioned why they were calling me, since I am on the Telephone Preference Service (TPS) list and should not receive unsolicited calls, at which the caller just hung up. Short but disruptive.

Then there was a second caller saying they were from Car Claims and suggesting that I could claim compensation for a recent accident. I asked to speak to their supervisor to complain about the call, but was told that I could only call them on another number. The caller then coolly gave me an 0900 number which he said was free to call. I am pretty sure it would have cost me to try out. But it was the first time I have had this type of response.

The third episode involved a US company, Hamilton & Pricehouse, phoning me about some shares that I own They claimed to have an investor who wanted to make a hostile takeover and was willing to buy the shares at a price several times more than the quoted value. Although suspicious (if something sounds too good to be true, it nearly always is) I could not work out what the scam was and ended up discussing the offer for a while and giving out my email address to receive their information.

The information sent was just a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) for me to sign and send back, together with a request that I send details of my share holdings e.g. copy of certificate. The NDA would bind me but placed no restrictions on them and the share details could be used to defraud me. I also checked the website of the company whose shares were involved and it highlighted that this practice of unsolicited calls was going on and recommended a call to the UK's ActionFraud. So I have not sent back the NDA despite two phone calls from Hamilton & Pricehouse to chase it up, and I am waiting a call back from ActionFraud, so I can report what has happened. Also I hope to understand if it is a scam and how it works, so that I can be even more on my guard in future.

For jobs be aware of social media rather than beware

For some time now there have been stories about people, particularly youngsters, being identified in embarrassing social media entries ( videos on YouTube, pictures on Facebook or Flickr, blog posts on WordPress or Blogger, tweets on Twitter) which causes problems with their employers or, if they are still teenagers, could cause problems when they come to look for their first job. My wife and I have been telling our children for a while that they need to careful what they publish even when they are young, since it might come to the surface and count against them in five or ten years time.

But this article in imedia made me think again. It talks about employers starting to look at Klout scores and favouring those who score highly. Those who are active and engaged on social media are demonstrating their ability to communicate and to influence others, which can be important characteristics for some jobs such as marketing. This leads to the conclusion that it might be useful to be active in social media to give yourself an edge when applying for jobs.

Also the fear of embarrassing incidents from the past being visible on social media and being a major disadvantage in finding employment may reduce over time. We have all had embarrassing episodes in our past, but until recently they have only been seen by a few people. Yet the younger generation are growing up with a more open idea of what can or should be shared. In a few years, those hiring may well think it as normal that the embarrassing incidents can be viewed online as we now think it is normal that they happened at all.

So instead of telling people to beware of their social media profile and to keep it low, we should be telling people to be aware of their profile and raise it in the right way

First step provides momentum

The idea for MovingMarketing (as described on this blog on Monday http://rogerstonemarketing.blogspot.com/2012/01/movingmarketing.html) has been pinging around in my brain for a few months now and I have even started an alpha test producing a video for a company I know. But the distractions of other projects and a Christmas break have slowed my progress.

On Monday I pushed other projects to the side and registered domain names, Facebook and Twitter accounts. Small steps but they helped make me much more focused on rolling out the service quickly and effectively.

It's amazing how commitments (money, public announcements, telling family and friends or even just writing down your intentions) however small can create momentum and a positive force to move forward

MovingMarketing

MovingMarketing is a new project I have been planning for a while. Its focus is to provide all businesses, but particularly small businesses (SMEs) with a simple method of producing and publishing videos (and also podcasts) that promote their brand, views, product and services.

What will set my service apart from the many existing video production services which nowadays are affordable for small businesses is combination of guidelines for how to produce messages which have impact together with tools for producing videos (and podcasts) as well as for promoting them.

And of course, the use of social media to engage and involve customers will be a key element, as will the ability to harness the power and connnectivity of mobile devices.

There will be great deal more detail in future posts

Reducing time spent drifting

It is easy to get carried away on emails, responding to unimportant mails, reading interesting articles and generally wasting time.

To help me reduce the time I spend on this and to free up more time for the important tasks, I have started to use the stopwatch feature on my phone to highlight how much time I am spending on different tasks.

Before I start a new task I intend to decide how long I should spend on it, though it is important to remain flexible if important tasks take longer than expected. Let them crowd out the unimportant (but often addictive tasks) rather than the other way round

(Image from www.freeimages.co.uk)

Bring out the FAB benefits

Reading a new business plan today reminded me of the importance of differentiating between Features, Advantages and Benefits (FAB) and putting far more weight on benefits than features or advantages.

So what is the difference between features, advantages and benefits?

· Features describe what a product or service does e.g. searches through a million pieces of data a second, sends a repair person within 4 hours, utilises 25 years of industry experience

· Advantages tell you why the offering is better than other solutions e.g. speeds up your data processing, offers a quick response in case of breakdown, provides advice taking into account knowledge of what works

· Benefits are the ways that the product solves real customer problems e.g. “We now save time and money finding the right information quickly”, “The cost of downtime is reduced”, “We are beating our targets by adopting tested solutions”

Features of your own product or services are dear to your heart and seem fantastic and really cool , because you have usually spent months or years developing them and working out ways to do more, more quickly, more efficiently than has ever been done before. But they can be just dry facts to customers who have their own perspective.

You are only going to sell your offering if it solves some of the needs of the customer – or ideally, if it reduces or eliminates some pain they are suffering. So you need to set out, in your marketing material and in your sales pitches, the benefits that will come from buying from you.

The best way to show this is to use the words of actual customers. You should constantly be checking what customers like most about your product. Sometimes you will be amazed that some simple feature (for example a simple prompt to remind them of the next action) has far more value than some sophisticated capability. But if you are trying to in more customers in the same market, what your existing customers find most attractive is likely to be what will convince prospects to become new customers.

If you are a start up with no customers or are entering a new market, then you may not have relevant quotes from existing customers but you should test out your offering on some friendly potential customers and you can gain their reaction. In the very early stages of developing a new offering or addressing a new market, you can even put yourself in the shoes of the customers you are trying to help and think what they would most like.

I have talked about features then about benefits but jumped over advantages. Advantages can be a good stepping stone to working out the benefits, helping you think about what useful work your product or service can do for a customer.

You may want to list the features somewhere in your marketing material, especially for any technical readers, and setting out the advantages may help you tell the story of what you are offering. But talking about the benefits using the actual words of customers is the most important part of your description. The prospect must believe that it will solve their problems, make them work better and make them feel better.

Building your community

One of today's greatest marketing challenges is building the community around the company, brand or product that you are marketing. It no longer works to keep your company distant from your customers and expect them to be loyal because of they have purchased from you in the past or because today's products lead the market. Tomorrow's customers will be looking for something else and will want their supplier to listen to their changing requirements and to adapt their products and services accordingly. Good marketers will always have been listening to customers and asking for feedback as they test new ideas. But there is less and less room to hide for companies that do not connect with the market.

Social media provides us with the tools to connect and discuss. But how do we get the enough of our customers and prospects to engage in conversations and to comment on our website, blog, Facebook page or YouTube channel?

The good news is that a small core of followers can make for a lively debate. Ning's recent POV research showed that 20 people engaged in conversation with your company and with each other brings a reasonable level of activity and encourages others to participate more. If you take the rule of thumb that 1% of visitors become engaged advocates, you are looking for 2000 to visit your sites. Of these, 20 will then become excited enough to share regularly their enthusiasm, concerns and suggestions and form the foundations of a lively community.

Of course, you have to demonstrate that you are willing to listen to them and take notice of their views as well as producing content to interest them. But engaging the community feels like an achievable goal for all companies on this basis.

Remarkable or reliable?

Yesterday I attended a webinar run by myPRGenie and given by Deb McAlister-Holland of Distribion. The topic was "Get heard and get your content to go viral" and Deb gave us some really useful advice to publish content and promote it so that your audience will pass it on.

Much of the advice was around using the right tools, planning what you are going to say as well as when and how, preparing the content and delivering it in the right way. She had lots of tips on topics such as the tools to use and the timing of messages - I suggest you follow Deb's Distributed Marketing blog where you can learn from her experience.

Then today I watched one of Seth Godin's TED presentations about standing out and being remarkable. For a while I wondered what Deb McAlister-Holland was doing that was outstanding since her output is certainly being remarked upon. Eventually I realised that through her hard work and dedication, she was consistently producing really interesting topics and making sure it was always presented in a way that drew people in. There is no one gimmick or element that on its own makes her stand out, but putting all her good ideas into practice makes her stand out.

First Impressions - be a Receptionist

We form impressions of people in the first few seconds that we meet them and it takes a lot to overturn first impressions. The same is true of our impressions of companies - the first few seconds are very important. This is why the receptionist has such an important role in a company. Very often she or he is the first person in the company that a visitor will meet face to face and the friendliness and professionalism displayed will form a major part of the visitor's impression of the company.

Yesterday I was reminded that everyone has the role of receptionist from time to time - the first person seen by a visitor - and so we all need to make sure we are giving a good impression of the organisation we are representing. In my case yesterday I was manning the barriers where the road was closed for the carnival street market in our local village, Mayfield. So I was the first person many visitors to our village met.

It rained heavily for a while so I was wet and I was at the barrier for over three hours, often with periods where no-one new needed help or directions. So at times it was difficult to stay as helpful as possible to people asking about parking or how to get round the closed portion of the road. My respect increased for receptionists who have greet visitors all day every day however they are feeling.

In any organisation we need to work out how we can support those who are meeting and greeting visitors (as their regular job or just from time to time), remind them of their critical role and structure their work to help them make that vital great first impression.

Porous to Pitch

Yesterday I attended a very interesting workshop run by Business Link South East - "Your Games, Your Business" about business opportunities (and concerns) arising from the London Olympic Games in 2012. It showed how many opportunities there were for business and how the games, although based in London, would have an effect that spread widely across the UK, particularly with games venues outside London, training camps for competitors, visitors not all staying in London and the torch relay round the country.

As well as food for thought on business opportunities, I also picked up one phrase I really liked, from Rob Lewtas of UKTI (UK Trade and Investment) when he talked about making people "porous to pitch".

It highlights the fact that whenever you are pitching to people, trying to sell products, services or your own talents, you need to do your best to ensure that they are in a receptive mood. If your audience is distracted or bored, then even the best arguments and most convincing benefits will have difficulty persuading them.

To make people "porous to pitch" you need to use timing, tone and listening

• timing: if someone is hurried, give them brief details, explain that you would like to speak to them at some more convenient time and book a better time when they will be more relaxed and you can do your message justice. Similarly if the location is making someone uncomfortable, find a better place and time
• tone: when meeting someone in an informally, such as a networking meeting, do not go into a hard sell but explain briefly but enthusiastically your offering. You can even talk business in a purely social setting if it fits well into the conversation, but do not push it or you will turn people off (make them 'impermeable to message'). Also some conversation on a shared interest or some light-hearted talk can make your audience more receptive
  
• listening: ask what their needs are in the areas where you have products or services to offer. What they say will help you make your pitch relevant to them and so make them more receptive to it. How they say it will help you work out the first two points: whether the timing is right and what tone to adopt

We all ought to practice our techniques for making our audience "porous to pitch" since this is as important as the message itself in marketing and selling