Marketing Memos

Intersections cause collisions, but also opportunities.

A basic marketing strategy is practice to find the intersection of what customers want to achieve (expected outcomes) and where the market is not providing that solution. Alternately, one can look for places where different technologies can, for the first time, be combined and create previously unavailable value.

Smart phones are now ready to facilitate SoLoMo.

The three raging factors in markets and marketing today are SOcial, LOcation-based apps and MObile. The real-time enabled combination of these three may well be the next major moment in consumer technology and marketing. The ability to reach people in tight geographical clusters, who are sharing an experience or looking for one, will be an exciting market in which to pitch.

Social is about sharing. As witnessed by Facebook posts, it is the moment in which the user has the impetus to share that is important. What one is thinking, feeling and experiencing is what they wish to share. To a limited degree Facebook and Twitter enable such sharing since you can Tweet and post from your handsets. But it lacks location services that enable bridging the people in or near a location (after all, why not share what you and another 25,000 people at the Rolling Stones concert are experiencing).

The other weakness is the asynchronous nature of current social media. Most people open Facebook during lunch or after a day’s work. Some folks browse Twitter weekly (which rather defeats the purpose). Real-time enablement of interaction between near-by individuals, especially when it pulls people in from slightly larger distances (say drawing people into a hot night club from the competing bars on that block) creates new interaction potential (mostly pleasant).

More interesting yet to marketers might be the ability to pool information about people clustered geographically. Merging big data pools of demographic and psychographic information, combined with location identification of individuals could provide real-time promotional opportunities (which will take a real-time arbitrage so the demo/psychographics enable the right advertisers). What if in real-time a common profile of a particular Rolling Stones concert attendee was a 70 year old man (this time is coming) that prefers bourbon? No bother selling ads space to Dr. Pepper.

Like social media a few years ago, this is a largely undefined area for experimentation. On the marketing end, the ability to create highly local participation, or to market to people sharing a location at the same instant, offers the marketer some unique targeting opportunities.

Which means Google (local, Android, Plus, ad trafficking) has all the necessary tools to make this happen now.

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The word “consternation” could be illustrated by faces of B2B technology marketers trying to leverage social media.

Social media is plate tectonics under marketing terra firma. It is a fundamentally new way of reaching people that at least augments, and in many cases replaces, traditional marketing. Getting unpaid people to carry your message to potential buyers seems to be a gift from the Gods, or at least Mark Zuckerberg.

Well, for B2C marketing mavens. B2B has uneven results in social promotions.

Part of the reason is that motivations for sharing a YouTube video with Grandma are very different from sharing anything with your co-workers, boss or peers. And whereas Nanna might forward your email to cousin Don, your boss might never forward it to anyone. Motivations for sharing are the center of any social outreach, be it passing the collection plate at church or making off with the offerings.

Business buyers share when they must, when it builds better relationships, or when they are compelled for selfish reasons.

My favorite example of a B2B social sharing comes from Nearsoft, a software outsourcing company in Mexico (yes, Mexico). They eliminate many of the aggravations of outsourcing to India, less chance of theft than outsourcing to Russia, and similar low costs to coding American. Long ago they created their 53 second video (which they admit is over 80 seconds long) and would have accumulated a longer list of views had they not moved it from place to place. The video is so low budget that it makes the montage a bit lovable, like a dog pound mutt, and yet has made the rounds so often that years later, people still regularly email it to me.

What makes their B2B social promo effective? Why would people pass this around? Sure, it has humor, but so do most promo videos and they don’t get the same traction. The Nearsoft video has the added benefit of plainly, clearly and quickly summarizing why the viewer should be interested. Within the first twenty second you know who they are, what they do and which types of companies they serve. By the 45 second mark, you know their differentiation and top value propositions. At the 60 second mark there is a clear call to action.

People decline to share what lacks value. Sending Uncle Phil a video of a politician’s pants falling down has all the value Phil needs, and you don’t hesitate to pass it along. B2B is about selling to businesses, and behind every promotion there is the risk of receiving an unwanted sales call. Knowing the full value and differentiation provided by a company lets the viewer know the promo will not waste the time of bosses, subordinates or peers. Making it humorous makes sharing a social activity as well as a business one.

The lesson is that social media works for B2B, but has to cleanly combine both business and social.

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It is odd to encounter plain spoken and seemingly honest politicians.

Being a professional cynic, I doubt nearly everything. Having been a political animal my entire adult life, I’m doubly cynical about anyone who campaigns to achieve power. To be disappointed in broken political promises is a sign of naivety. To believe any political brand shows trust where there should be none.

So to witness a handful of governors and other candidates speaking bluntly, without equivocation, and taking positions normally considered poisonous … and then watch their poll numbers rise … is both a lesson in marketing and possibly a sign of the Apocalypse.

Authenticity matters in all matters. If you could not take your spouse’s word, then your marriage would be destined for the dumpster (which always makes me wonder about Bill and Hillary). When corporations promote products that do not deliver, the acquired lack of authenticity becomes fatal. If Charlie Sheen were to sober-up, nobody would talk about him because his acting chops are not Grade-A. In instances of marriage, political promotions, product pitches and even behaving badly as a brand, authenticity is essential.

Authenticity mechanics are interesting for marketers. If a business remains authentic in its operations, then it creates no net negatives. New customers, having never heard bad words about the offering, are more apt to give it a try even if there are no significant positive recommendations. That alone tends to advance a product once competitors begin to over promote or under-deliver. I once ran marketing for a company whose lead product was ugly, had no GUI and required training to use. But it always worked and there was always someone on the other end of the phone to help, which created in the market an interesting perception of stability, which IT buyers liked.

I have seen the opposite apply. When inexperienced marketers promise more than the product can do, they lose authenticity. When the product performs poorly or is unstable (ala Microsoft Windows), it loses authenticity. When tech support doesn’t, you lose authenticity if it were promised. Political warfare is largely composed of destroying an opponent’s authenticity (Herman Cain was building a brand of authenticity before unsubstantiated rumors of sexual improprieties arose). If Charlie Sheen were spotted praying at a church altar, not only would his brand be destroyed but I suspect the church would be as well via a well placed lightning bolt.

Social media enforces authenticity, and there is nothing you can do to stop it. No degree of smart copywriting, aggressive PR or slick advertising will wash away the ruminations of one angry ex-customer. Betray your brand or product promises and you will be portrayed as unauthentic in digital public squares. Engagement with the masses, participating in social media, reinforces authenticity and may be the new normal for PR.

Authenticity above all else. Otherwise be unelected by customers.

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Social media is an ad hoc referral system gone horribly right.

Referrals are primarily a means to building business, brands and bucks. Ask my dentist (to whom I would gladly refer anybody). He is maniacal about soliciting his patients to make referrals, and he gets them.  He knows that patients move away or die (hopefully from old age and not botched dental surgery), so he is constantly refilling his demand chain for crowns, fillings and laser whitening.

Referrals occur in every business, from your neighborhood dry cleaner to multinational technology companies. The larger the organization, the more it drifts from the quaint and personal sounding “referral” into the more Machiavellian sounding “buzz generation.”  Yet it is essentially the same thing. At either extreme we are asking, coaxing, bribing or begging people to talk to other people about our products, preferably in a positive manner.

Which brings us to social media, which in its purest form is simply user-focused referral facilitating technology.  When someone clicks on a Facebook “like” or a Google “+1”, they are making a referral.  The only difference is that the referral is instantaneous, low effort and broadcast to everyone that person knows instead of just one single acquaintance. But, as with my dentist (he is really good) people need a reason to refer. Motivation. Without it, a referral never happens. The primary reasons people make referrals include:

Obligation: Sometimes people feel obliged to make a referral.  Often services professionals will ask clients to make a referral for them (this often occurs in Linkedin when one makes a request to be referred to a connection’s friend). This is the least effective method because the referral, if made at all, is done under duress or a sense of guilt. The recipient of the referral is rarely interested.

Bribery: My dentist is unashamed to offer a $50 discount on your next outrageously priced dental cleaning if you refer a new patient to him. The motivation is not self-sustaining. Bribes work, but you have to continue the bribing process to continue the behavior. This is why smart parents never bribe their kids because the kids will turn it into an extortion racket.

Self-importance: Most people have egos (I don’t because my ex-wife won mine as part of the divorce settlement). When ego is involved, making a referral is less about glee over the referred product or service, and more about being important in the eyes of the person to whom the referral is made. This is not the worst source of a referral, but it often lacks an authentic connection. People occasionally refer items of little or no consequence to others, and thus do nothing positive to the product’s brand.

Pleasant experience: This is the most common motivation in social media for referrals. Recently a cocktail lounge opened down the street, which pleasantly met with my fiancée’s and my satisfaction. I clicked a rating button in Yelp, which seemed like a nice gesture to the new and gracious owners. Much has been written about striving to slightly exceed a customer’s expectations and how this incentivizes them to promote your wares. Social media, because it is a low-impact tool for ad hoc referrals, plays well into this mode of motivation.

Authentic excitement: People go nuts when they are authentically excited about something, which dovetails nicely into brand management theory. Authentic excitement is on the other side of the referral / proselytization line, though that line can be blurry. When jazzed about a product, people not only refer it, they actively promote it, and use social media more as a social-network building mechanism (“I want to connect to you because of our shared passion.”) Some companies establish fan pages on Facebook when consumers of their product are not “fans”, which leads to utterly public and embarrassingly sparse pages.

It should be obvious that the last two motivations are different than the rest because they come spontaneously from consumers for selfless motivations. The other three are exercised only for some personal benefit (assuaging guilt, making a buck and generating influence). This is not to say the first three should be ignored – after all, pumps must be primed. But long-lasting referrals come from people who want to reach out to others in order to spread the happiness they encountered.

Engineering authentic happiness leads to everlasting referrals.

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One of the best lines I’ve recently stolen is that “the Internet is a gigantic copying machine,” to which I appended “with a share button.”

Needless to note is that social networking is a driving force in consumer marketing.  Companies as diverse as Apple, Proctor and Gamble, and General Motors (gizmos, suds and duds) are active users of social media to create brands, promote products, and otherwise find cost effective means for memes.  Collectively consumer product companies are effective in targeting buyers, generating sharable content, and getting unpaid workers (you) to spread the word.

B2B companies are borderline imbecilic on the process.

Granted, the similarities between your average teenaged movie buff and all stakeholders in an earthmoving equipment purchase decision are about the same as the similarities between horses and horse fish.  With the exception of the single-decision-maker for a consumer product vs. group decision making for enterprises, the mechanics  for social media promotions are roughly the same.  Tearing down the short list of social media realities, we see some sameness and some divergence.

Targeting

With any promotion, including social media, you have to know your buyers and influencers.  Consumer goods companies are very good at documenting their target buyer.  In slightly more complex consumer sales, say breakfast cereals, they document all the purchase influencers (kids / parents) and their promotional options (colorful, noisy television ads on Saturday morning / nutritional info).  They then orchestrate social media in such ways that the themes, memes and brands are clearly communicated to each individual demographic.  This gives every buyer a reason to share what they experience or learn.

B2B marketing efforts always fall short in buyer genotype segmentation, much less social media promotions from there.  Each genotype needs specific social media content, and you cannot create that content without knowing your genotypes.  Even sophisticated technology firms often fail to pitch products to each influencer much less make that content social (i.e., sharable).

Going where they are

One problem is that B2B marketers don’t have the same social forums for business buyers.  Facebook may be a good venue for promoting a book (which by a book’s nature targets individual buyers, typically of one genotype) but is not ripe for selling a million dollar ERP system to a Fortune 500 enterprise.

Social promotions begin by going where buyer genotypes go.  However, the more genotypes in the buy decision, the more numerous and varied the social media sites may be.  LinkedIn may cover many bases, but likely not all.  Some web sites provide for discussion groups, but lack real sharing tools.  But no social media campaign can succeed unless you leverage social tools specific to one or another genotype (i.e., don’t expect a techie’s social media, like SlashDot, to sell CEOs).

Relevant content

With multiple genotypes in on buy decisions, you have multiple sets of content to create and maintain.  If you are budget tight or plain lazy, then generating enough web and collateral content is a challenge, much less a steady stream of social media stuffing.  If this is the case, it might be better to not attempt social media if you cannot keep up with the reaction to your outreach.  Alternately, performing social media on your most problematic genotype alone might reduce sales cycles and improve your top-line numbers.

Making it sharable and encouraging it

Social is about sharing.  If it can’t be easily and instantly shared, it is not social.  Yet glance about most B2B promotions and you will discover little that is instantly sharable.  Perhaps the chicken is ahead of the egg (or the other way around) – perhaps the dearth of genotype-specific or general business social networking sites makes social engineering online content wasted effort.  But some B2B sites do, going beyond mere “like” links and creating content specifically for sales-focused sharing.  Videos that cover genotype-specific value propositions in humorous ways tend to do well, and thanks to YouTube are instantly sharable (though the places where they can be shared are still not well aligned by genotype).

…

Buyers can’t share a Caterpillar earth mover or an elaborate ERP suite.  Your goal is to use what can be shared to represent your B2B products, to do so for specific genotypes that highly influence purchase decisions, and to make it sharable in the online venues that these genotypes haunt.  Wait until you can hit all those marks before starting or you’ll waste time, money and the patience of a lot of non-buyers.

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