Changing Ecosystem of Marketing Communications

This afternoon I had the opportunity to attend American Business Media’s (ABM) joint meeting of the Marketing Advisory Counsel, Media Advisory Counsel and Publishers' Committee.

The primary purpose of the meeting was to discuss the changing B2B marketing/marketing communications ecosystem – how are the rapid changes are impacting the roles and approaches of clients, agencies and publishing companies.

Some of the key points of this discussion within this meeting were:

• Many clients, agencies and publishing companies are concerned that the audience following or engaged within their social media channels are not truly qualified decision makers or influencers. The very valid point was made that if campaign objectives and messaging are tightly defined to appeal to the target audience, the campaign will attract the target audience. People who do not fit the scope of the message (unqualified for engagement in that particular campaign) will fall away.

• In social media people are the resource. Social, by definition, involves people and requires appropriate time investment in order to be successful. The perception that social media is “free” is a fallacy given the time investment necessary for success. One committee member submitted that just as media budget hard dollars are allocated strategically to various properties and channels, team members’ time (the currency of social media) should be strategically allocated in the same manner as social media efforts are considered and approached.

• Numerous clients still struggle with legal/corporate policies that are unfriendly to social media and other interactive marketing approaches. However, more and more companies are refining policies that balance the need for corporate legal protection and the relative informality and speed of new media.
  

• During the course of the meeting I was reminded of the usefulness of Net Promoter Scores. We should be strategically thinking about how to arm our influential advocates with handy content and opportunities to share our messaging/content within their networks.

• Most b2b marketers, publishers and agencies do not think enough about the strategic role of marketing communications post sale. It is critical to market and communicate post sale for ongoing relationship building – this is an often overlooked aspect of b2b marketing programs.

It was clear during this meeting and other events I have recently attended that clients, media companies and agencies are all working to find equilibrium within the new "marketing communications order." I suspect that it is a waste of time and energy to try to identify and create the clearly defined roles of days gone by. Relationships and partnerships in today's world are simply more fluid and forces that interrupt the "order" are far more common than order itself.

Rather than trying to neatly define the new ecosystem, a better use of time might be to think about buyer and seller and how the two can best interact with one another, within which mediums for optimal value for all at a given moment in time. For those of us who want to hold onto a portion of the days of yore, this is the area to hold onto and an area that must be held onto.

Effective B2B marketing communications has always been and will always be the art and science of connecting buyers and sellers within high-value information environments. This concept is more true than ever, the mediums for this information delivery are simply different and will continue to change at a rapid pace.

How Do Social Media Sites Make Money?

An interesting look at the revenue and profit approaches for the major social media networks.


Via: USBundles.com

Please Share Your Thoughts - Best of Funny Pharm on Pinterest

The social media platform craze of the moment is Pinterest. Pinterest is gaining traction quickly and is starting to be dubbed as the Facebook killer platform. I don't pay a lot of attention to the "Facebook killer" type of hype, but I always look at new tools in light of our business and the pharmaceutical industry. I think I like Pinterest...it reminds me of my workspace 13-14 years ago where big bullentin boards were always a big feature of the space.

I would organize tid bits for current and upcoming projects....or sometimes just articles that seem important for some work in the future. The high-tech tool for all of this organization (that while it had its draw backs, was quite effective in many ways) was a push pin.

I built a Best of Funny Pharm Board to play around a little. What do you think? Can you visualize collaborative as well as controlled boards of all varieties...posters, new products, etc.

Is Pinterest just another distraction in our very digital worlds or do you think it has merit as a business communications tool?

Want to Measure Print Advertising Effectiveness?

I fully realize that the media landscape has changed radically and although I strongly do not believe "Print Is Dead" (ironically enough, some of these cries are from the print media themselves), I do realize that print media is one piece of a media plan that contains many more distribution channels than used to be contained in a typical plan.

Print is not dead. In fact in a recent audience study, we learned that 69% of Pharmaceutical Manufacturing's total audience regularly reads print b2b magazines. Although print is not dead, it is more difficult to get basic and quick metrics to gauge whether or not an ad is resonating. The Great Recession caused most companies to focus their spending on only activities where ROI (or professed ROI) could be measured. I get this and honestly don't disagree with it.

I have had numerous disagreements with clients and colleagues on what is being measured, how metrics are collected and the priority of importance assigned to the metrics.

Many claim that print advertising effectiveness cannot be measured. I agree that it is more difficult to measure interest (especially casual/initial interest) generated from a print ad than from a web ad. In fact, I have pondered this issue for a lot of years.

But, some tools and approaches for measuring print ads are coming into focus.

1) I am currently reading a book entitled "How to Measure Anything: Finding the Value of 'Intangibles' in Business," by Douglas Hubbard. Stay tuned as this book is offering some interesting insights on how to approach measuring things that appear at first blush to be unmeasurable or at least very complex to measure.

2) QR Codes. While QR Codes are not the be all and end all, they are a tool that can offer opportunity for direct measurement. Be careful not to write off an ad...deeming it ineffective...if you don't get dozens and dozens of people taking additional engagement steps via your QR code in your print ad. But, there is an opportunity here and there are approaches that make sense and are effective and approaches that do not make sense.

"Five Tips for Implementing a Successful QR Code Campaign" is a really well written piece that offers some great advice and offers some comments that will help you to establish and frame expectations.

3) Vanity/Tracking URLs in print ads. This is also not a fool-proof approach by any means, but it is a tool. Most companies have been using vanity URLs in print ads for some time now, but many companies do not use the approach as strategically as they could. Promoting the content that can be accessed via the vanity URL within your print ad is definitely advised. What are prospective customers going to find if they visit the page? - a video, a calculator of some kind, a white paper, a handbook....??? Give them a reason to visit.

For the foreseeable future, print advertising has role and a place within B2B marketing communications plans. The reason is simple...69% of your customers and prospects (a much larger percentage that is doing any other one single activity) are reading B2B print publications. To say that print advertising does not have a place because it "can't be measured" is both untrue and results in marketing programs that are not nearly as effective as they should be.

Make a comment below to let me know what you think.

Cadbury UK Launches New Product on Google +

It is no longer unusual for companies to launch new products via their social media channels, but to date Google + has not been the platform of choice. Earlier this week Cadbury UK launched its new product Bubbly on its Google + page first (3,440 people within their circle) rather than on its Facebook page with more than 78,000 followers.

Before you can all of your other social media strategy and pledge allegiance to Google, I am still not sold on Google +. I have a Google + account and have some people and a few companies in various circles, but I don't see many signs of Google gaining traction. AND most importantly, I don't see what Google + is offering me that I am not getting from other social media platforms on which I am deeply entrenched.

We are, of course, watching Google + and have thrown the Pharmaceutical Manufacturing hat in the ring in a very low engagement kind of way. But, social media needs high levels of engagement. If most social media participating individuals and companies only go through the motions to say they are on Google +, Google + will fail (as I suspect it will). After all, what is social media if your friends and colleagues aren't engaged? You are just talking to yourself.

Or....just talking to 3,440 in Cadbury's case.

(I tip my hat to whoever at Cadbury thought to launch their new product on Google +. It was a brilliant strategy in that they are the first major consumer products company to launch a new product on Google +. Yes, they only have 3,440 people in their circle, but they have gotten major play in the traditional press and on other established social media platforms...Cheers).

My New Year’s Resolutions to You

Happy New Year! I hope your holidays were fun and relaxing.

I, along with many of you, have spent the last couple of weeks reviewing the successes as well as the learning points 2011 offered. Also I have spent this time contemplating the areas of my life I am pleased with and will continue, as well as making commitments in areas I am dedicated to strengthening.

Thanks to the commitments I made to myself a couple of years ago I am in pretty good physical shape and am a healthy weight, so I will not bore you with the subtleties of my resolutions in this area. You are also probably not wildly interested in the commitments I made relating to my life with my family, friends and spiritual life.

What’s in it for you? Professional resolutions have always been a big part of my commitments for a given new year, but this year they are center stage under a bright spotlight.

Successful business-to-business communications and business development approaches have changed. Driven by technology, lean teams within most companies and corporate cost cutting, the way your customers make their way through buying cycles has changed. This said, the age old saying….."The more things change, the more they stay the same" certainly applies. Your customers are people and people do not change their views, perceptions and behaviors as quickly as technology changes.

So, I resolve to you to:

• Multiply my dedication to ongoing professional development so that I, along with the full Pharmaceutical Manufacturing team, can bring the latest marketing communications thinking and approaches to you. In fact, Putman Media has invested to send myself and one of my colleagues to American Business Media’s B2B Advanced Leadership Program at Northwestern University next week so stay tuned.
  

• Drive myself and our team to develop new and creative solutions to address your marketing communications and business development challenges.

• Continue to work to understand and meet our audiences’ information and knowledge needs.

• Not letting our commitment to the creation of leading edge editorial waiver.

• Professionally making recommendations to assure that your Pharmaceutical Manufacturing marketing communications programs meet and exceed your expectations.

I am excited about this year and look forward to working with you to achieve your 2012 goals and maybe to helping you to work on one or two of your own resolutions.

I wish you peace, blessings and success in the New Year.

Print Media Blending With Digital Media Via Augmented Reality Approaches

Print and digital media have been working to effectively integrate for some time now. Like any new movement, new direction...it takes time for equilibrium and a new reality to be established. There have been stops and starts to be sure, but it is happening.

Print media as a whole is not going away, just as radio did not go away as TV became an entrenched media source for America and for the world. Radio did not go away, but it changed radically. Families stopped sitting around their radios in their living rooms starting blankly into space conjuring fantastic images of the Lone Ranger and his adventurers. America started sitting around their living rooms staring at images being delivered for them on their television sets. Radio became more music and news centric rather than featuring soap operas and serial adventures. This was a radically media transformation that happened within a fairly short period of time and we are experiencing a similar print/digital media transition.

Augmented reality experiences being promoted via print and other traditional media mechanisms is one example of how the blending of the old and the new is shaping. Despite all of the snappy technology, ultimately media consumers will decide what is value and worth their time and what is not. So as with any epic transitions, only time will tell.

But as smart marketers and media professionals we need to watch, listen and strategically experiment. The one thing that is certain for marketers is that this print/media transition will not conclude, then stay fairly stable for 50 years as the radio/television transition did. The changes will continue to be fast and constant, so buckle in and enjoy the long, fun and constantly changing ride.

Just two recent examples of the print/digital transition - Starbucks and Commonwealth Bank are using traditional and non-digital vehicles to promote high-tech augmented reality apps.

Starbucks to Launch Augmented Reality Campaign

Commonwealth Bank Augmented Reality App Promoted Via Newspaper Ads