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.

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?

Location, Location, Location: Delivering Your Messaging Where Your Customers and Prospects Are

It used to be pretty easy. If you wanted to open a general store in the 19th century or first half of the 20th century, you would rent, buy or maybe build a space within the downtown area of your town. Everyone had to come into town to shop and....there you were.

I am sure if we could have a conversation with a 19th century merchant, he would tell us it was not quite that easy to make a living. But, given the highly sophisticated site selection processes large retailers and restaurants use today, our 19th century entrepreneur faced far fewer decisions and variables. He had a market that all came to the same place, he just had to figure out what they wanted to buy, offer great service and fair prices.

Today, consumers can buy similar goods in many different places so retailers and restaurant chains know that while site selection may not be quite everything, it is critically important.

A similar trend has happened in the media industry. It used to be pretty straightforward. Even in B2B media, entire industries were served by three or four magazines and a few trade shows/conferences. This is obviously no longer the case, which makes it challenging to “be where you customers are.” Or, since you can’t be everywhere, to have a meaningful voice in an effective assortment of communications outlets.

Although I cannot wave my magic wand a design a media plan for you, what I can say is if you are solely using print vehicles, or if you are solely using digital vehicles, or if you spend your entire marketing budget on trade shows, you are missing the opportunity to communicate with a very big portion of your customer and prospect base.

In decades past we knew that marketing communications were good for us - sort of like eating broccoli. Today, they are critical as customers and prospects are much further along the buying cycle by the time they talk to you than used to be the case. So if you are not communicating with them, your competitors are.

At Pharmaceutical Manufacturing we have been studying and surveying our audience in a disciplined fashion as our audience’s needs are change and as new technologies emerge and mature. In a recent audience survey completed by 110 pharmaceutical industry members, we learned that 79.44% regularly read pharmaceutical industry websites and e-newsletters and 69.17% regularly read pharmaceutical industry print magazines.

It should not come as a shock to us that 79.44% are consuming information online. What may be surprising to you is that so many (69.17%) regularly read pharmaceutical industry trade magazines.

I hear every day, multiple times per day that “digital is where it is at,” or “print is dead, right?” Digital media is incredibly important. It is extremely challenging, but incredibly important. However, 69.17% of your customers and prospects read industry print publications…doesn’t it make sense to be there with your messaging?

I understand that it is difficult to measure the effectiveness of print media, but I submit to you that it is incredibly difficult to measure the effectiveness of digital as well. Yes, digital media offers us click and other conversion data that can be incredible useful. However, the goal of marketing is to alter human perception, preferences and behavior.

Given our complexity as human beings, it really sells us short as a species to completely measure our attitudes and emotions in terms of clicks and downloads. If we were in highly transactional, low engagement businesses like selling movie tickets online my position would likely be different. But, most of you are selling high investment, high risk, high engagement solutions to a highly regulated industry.

Those marketers who determine ways to measure a fuller range of customer and prospect behavior will have an enormous competitive advantage. More specifically, marketers who communicate effectively with their customers and prospects where they are – in print, online and at trade shows – will have an enormous competitive advantage.


**If you are interested in seeing a pdf report of Pharmaceutical Manufacturing’s most recent audience survey, please e-mail me at tbecker@putman.net.

You Have a Click, a Lead, a Visitor…..Now What? Ten Questions to Ask Yourself.

We know that many marketing communications tactics are now very measurable. You can include vanity tracking URLs in your print ads or print brochures. You can include code within various landing pages to track conversion rates. You could create a pretty sophisticated and effective lead nurturing program.

All of these things can be done, but are you doing them? Everyday I interact with our clients who are providing various solutions to pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical manufacturers. Nearly all of these marketers know that they should be measuring the effectiveness of their marketing communications programs, that they want and need leads for their business development efforts, that branding and awareness is still critically important and that they should be strategically developing engagement amongst their customers and prospective customers.

Most marketers know these things, but many (probably most) are quite unsure how to execute. Although executing effective marketing communications programs is now a constant and fluid activity that we are always working to perfect, it might be helpful to ask yourself at least some of the questions below.

1. A new visitor was driven to deep link within your website as a result of an e-newsletter ad you placed with one of your media partners. The web page discusses the attributes of one of your products. What do you want the visitor to do now?
2. Is the action you are hoping for from the website visitor described above reasonable or should you provide intermediate engagement opportunities?
3. Do you have enough content to support your lead generation goals?
4. Is the content you do have focused on helping your customers and prospect solve their problems or is it focused on your products?
5. What do you do with the contact information from an industry member who meets your target customer profile, but does not have a need for your product or service at this time?
6. Are you thinking about all of the various places and information delivery formats your customers are engaging with?
7. How are you measuring success or failure of a given marketing communications strategy or tactic?
8. Are you setting realistic performance success expectations among all stake holders on your team?
9. Are you testing, measuring and refining your efforts within all of the marketing communications mediums in which you participate?
10. What messages, content, themes do your customers and prospects most actively respond to?
    

Content Is King. Database Is Queen. We Can Help

As you dive into the world of digital media and marketing, the phrase " content is king and your e-mail database is queen," surfaces over and over.

In many ways digital media and marketing has been falsely spun as being somewhat of a low-cost savior for B2B marketers.

It is true that your cost structure in digital marketing is different than many traditional marketing efforts. It costs nothing to start a Facebook fan page or to open a Twitter account. The delivery cost of hitting "send" for an e-mail deployment is a lot less per recipient than the postage cost of putting a catalog in the mail. We have always needed graphic designers to produce our materials, but now our printing needs are less...yet another cost reduced.

However, by moving some efforts from offline media to digital media, other costs will surface. Or rather, other costs should surface. Without a doubt, a digital marketing campaign will not work without content and without an audience. Without content we are saying nothing and generally speaking, effective digital marketing requires more content - a lot more content - than most offline marketing efforts. Without an audience, we are talking to ourselves and most of us want to grow the audience we are talking to so that we can uncover new opportunities.

As wonderful as we think our products are, our customers do not really care about our products. Our customers do, however, care deeply about the solutions our products provide. So, an entire website full of product spec sheet type of information will not be particularly engaging to your customers and prospects. Don't get me wrong, you need product spec information on your website, but you also should have interesting and relevant content that addresses prospective customers and existing customers in educational and problem solving manners. Research, application stories/notes, case studies, articles, podcasts, videos, webcasts are all ways to help to market to your customers and prospects. Most importantly, it is this type of content that will keep your customers and prospects engaged with you.

Once you have a constant stream of content to engage your audience, how do you build the size of your engaged audience? Your own CRM databases is certainly the first place to start, as well as outside marketing/media partners, trade shows, SEO efforts and much more.

A constant stream of relevant and engaging content and audience growth/engagement....this is not easy, effortless or free. For next to nothing, anyone can start a wide variety of digital marketing efforts. BUT, it takes time, focus and money to engage an audience in a manner that strategically advances your marketing and sales efforts.

The ironic thing is that traditional print-based marketing always has had many of the same demands--constant, engaging content and an audience. Most offline media is more challenging to measure, so often we told ourselves that our efforts worked when the reality was we simply did not know. Since everything in the digital world is extremely measurable, efforts that are not interesting, relevant or engaging to your audience are quickly and sometimes harshly revealed.

How can the Pharmaceutical Manufacturing team help you in this area? We are really good at content creation and audience development. Many aspects of our business have changed radically within the last 6-7 years, but the need for great content written by industry experts has not changed. In fact, the need has only grown. In the throes of the recession, many b2b publishing companies made the unfortunate and, in my opinion, unwise decision to reduce costs by reducing the size and quality of their editorial/content creation teams. Pharmaceutical Manufacturing, nor Putman Media as a whole, took this approach. Our editorial teams are stronger than ever and could be a very substantial asset for you.

We have developed a number of content development programs. Some of these programs are turn-key, more "off-the-shelf" type of efforts that are adjusted to fit your needs. Some of our solutions are very customized and are more involved efforts.

We also have a programs to help you to grow and nurture the audience interested in your content--lead generation programs, contextual advertising programs and behavior-based content programs.

To discuss how we might be able to you help, please contact Tonia Becker, Publisher at tbecker@putman.net or 630-467-1301 ext 455.