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

Why Do You Need Content for SEO?

This is a pretty amazing infographic that explains why content is not a luxury for effective digital marketing. Click on the graphic below to view a larger version of the graphic.

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.