Marketing Today

I'm A Marketing Technopologist. Are You One Too?

Last night, I headed over to IceBox Co-Labs for the October Social Media Club of Louisville event featuring Dave Knox, chief marketing officer at Rockfish Interactive and former brand manager at Procter & Gamble.

Knox’s presentation was titled "Brand Manager 2.0" and it focused on managing a brand and digital marketing from a big brand perspective.  He quoted the American Marketing Association when he explained that marketing has changed more over the last three to five years than in decades before that. How do we marketers survive and thrive.  Well, in five easy steps:

1. Become a marketing technopologist - this is from a WSJ article which originally coined the term that describes a person at the intersection of anthropoligist, technologist, and marketer.

2. Try purpose-inspired brand building - as Know explained many of the products that have been marketed over the last 20 years have focused on upgrading products to better, faster, cheaper, whiter, brighter, etc.  Companies that are standing out from the pack and doing the right thing include those like Nike who is "bringing inspirational innovation to every athlete" and (a favorite of mine) LEGO who is "providing fuel for children's imaginations."

3. Practice consumer collaboration - if you think about it, the most successful companies stay close to their customers.  Knox gave the example of how Starbucks is running "My Starbucks Idea" to gather feedback from their customers.

4. Facilitate conversations and community - Knox's example here was a site created by P&G called "Man of the House" that focused on the men who are shopping and taking care of kids who were not only P&G customers but who appreciated talking with other guys like themselves and who don't want want to be marketed to like the lady of the house.

5.  Get to know the everywhere shopper marketer - marketers need to understand that the "digital revolution" is all about customer empowerment.  Every product review, recommendation, piece of signage, and ad is helping customers make decisions.  To ignore that this is happening can be a waste of your marketing budget and efforts.

Special thanks to Jason Falls for organizing it and to Kix.com, the Kentucky Indiana Exchange, an online community that presents a new opportunity for growing, retaining and attracting talent in the Wired65 region for their sponsorship of the event.

 

Greetings from the Mayor of Blackstones of Beacon Hill...and....

Foursquare is "a service that mixes social, locative and gaming elements to encourage people explore the cities in which they live." I started using the Foursquare iPhone app in April and I've got to say, it's pretty cool.   So far, through the check-ins in my neighborhood, I'm the mayor of three places: the local gift shop, one of my favorite Italian restaurants, and the local burger joint.  I'm leaving the hardware store and the 7-11 for Nick C since he seems to be working the other half of the 'hood.

Geolocation Software is Here to Stay

For years, I've heard pitches from entrepreneurs about direct marketing to my cell phone so that as I walk through a mall I can get barraged with coupons from retailers to come inside and shop.  That always sounded like a nightmare to me.  And, something that benefited a retailer and would annoy me. 

With today's geolocation software, smart phone or Internet-connected computers can be identified in terms of a meaningful location like a street address rather then just a set of geographic coordinates.  Using programs like Foursquare becomes more like a game you can play with your friends.  And, it's finally coming around with promotions from firms like Starbucks with $1 off coupons for people who have reached mayor status (those with the most visits to a location.)

Foursquare Offers Analytics for Business

As of March of this year, check-in-based Foursquare has added analytics tools for businesses. A dashboard provides data such as total number of customer check-ins, unique visitors to the site, gender comparisons, and breakdowns by time of day.  And, of course, businesses will be able to shoot out coupons and promotions to Foursquare members as well.  Foursquare users can opt-in to how they'd like to receive this information (through Facebook, Twitter, etc.)

I'm told the cool kids don't hook up their Foursquare account through Twitter or Facebook, but prefer to share information with their Foursquare friends instead.  For security reasons, this could ensure that you're Foursquare location doesn't appear on sites like Please Rob Me who is trying to raise awareness around oversharing of information.  Instead, when you check into your local burger joint on a Friday night, you can see if any of your friends might be there too without advertising that you're not home.

Social Media Hits the Boston Foodie Scene

This morning I attended "Eat, Drink, And Be Social," an event for foodies and social media practitioners, in Boston.  Run by Tyson Goodridge and the team from Dialogue who brought together over 100 people at Le Cordon Bleu school in Cambridge, MA.

A Chat With Barbara and Jody

The day began with a chat with, Barbara Lynch and Jody Adams, two Boston restaurateurs who once worked together right around the corner at Michela's Restaurant.  When asked where the most creative food was coming from in the Boston area, both answered "Cambridge."  And when asked what was the most important technology affecting the Boston restaurant business, it was a toss up between OpenTable and the Microplane grater.

Social Media Case Study: Caminito Argentinean Steakhouse

Justin Levy of New Media Labs, talked about how after buying into Caminito Argentinean Steakhouse, he  immediately cut the traditional marketing budget by approximately 80% and began implementing a social media strategy that lead to increased sales.  He said that you should think of your blog as your home base and that you should not get hung up on other platforms like Facebook or Twitter.  Always think of what a platform can do for you and use it to your advantage, but remember that your website and your blog belong to you and are your magnet for attracting business.

How Are They Doing It?

There was a great panel made up @eatBoston, b.good restaurants, City Search, Yelp, Upstairs on the Square, Amy Traverso, and Zagat who talked about how they are using social media in action.  Of special interest to me was listening to Mary-Catherine Deibel of Upstairs at the Square (a favorite restaurant of mine) talking about marketing today.  She said that they rarely buy advertising any more.  Instead they depend on "capturing the hearts and the e-mail addresses of their customers" and marketing to them via e-mail and special events.

Geolocation and You

It's fascinating to see the technology of Foursquare and Foodspotting in its nascent stage.  It's amazing to see folks (or perhaps geeks like me) using geolocation technology available through their smart phones to learn more about what's good on food and drinkwise where ever they are.  Already a Foursquare user, I downloaded the Foodspotting app to my iPhone while it was being presented.  Can't wait to start using it in my neighborhood and when I'm on the road.

Thanks, Tyson & team for pulling this event together.  You deserve all of the great praise you're going to get for pulling the foodie community in Boston together for this event.  Bon appetit!

When Bad Things Happen to Good Bunnies

I love a good video that gets across a product message in a humorous way that people want to share with each other.  The folks at Digital Lumens have created a great video using Easter candy that demonstrates the heat generated by HID high bay lighting vs. LED lighting.  (Hint: HID high bay lighting is much hotter which a) melts the chocolate bunny and b) will cost your facility a lot more in electricity needed for cooling given the amount of heat generated).  The video has just been up a week, but it's poised to go viral on it's cleverness alone.  Bravo!

 

Did You Ever Wonder About Andy Rooney and Social Media?

In the mode of FakeAPStyleBook and Fake Steve Jobs, we now have Fake Andy Rooney (and he's following me back on Twitter!)  As a 60 Minutes fan and long time mimicker of Andy Rooney, I thought this video of Social Media Andy Rooney was pretty funny as well as a great way to put Tipping Point Labs on the map for their expertise in social media.

Back when I lived in Connecticut, I actually met the real Andy Rooney at a Christmas party.  My friend Betsy's parents were having the party their home in Rowayton, Connecticut and Andy Rooney was a long time neighbor of theirs.  He had one of those holiday ties on that played a Christmas tune if you squeezed the bottom of it.  At the time (don't ask!) I was wearing these  goofy Christmas socks that did the same thing.  So, we had a pretty bad concert together over by the bar.  Of all the things I could have chatted with Andy Rooney about from his great career as a war correspondent and CBS news writer, I blew my shot at intellectual conversation.  But, we had a good laugh.  Did you ever wonder why we don't do that more often?

Who's Doing Social Media in the ProductCamp Crowd?

Steve Robins led a great session on Social Media at ProductCamp this past Saturday in Cambridge, MA.  I found it interesting to be in a crowd of product marketing folks from organizations of all sizes with the opportunity to see where they were with social media.  Its fascinating to see social media programs start in "old school" organizations and that attitude of employees towards adopting change or hiding from it.  Here are my notes from this session.

We all agreed that an effective social media program begins with your organization’s goals.  But, when the group was asked what their goals were, there were a variety of answers that included:

• We want to gather market requirements
• We want to gather leads
• We want to make sure that we aren't getting burned "out there"
• We want to hear what people are saying about our competition
• We know people are doing their research online so we want to make sure our information is there
• We want more evangelists for our products

These are all good goals, but in a big organization (or even a mid-size one), chances are these goals fall under different departments and no one stepped up to say that they were coordinated across their organization with a company-wide social media strategy.

So where should an organization start?  How about by listening before you start talking?  Everyone agreed that "Frank" at Comcast Cares on Twitter was doing a great job at staying ahead of the pack on customer complaints online. Why?  Because he asks "how can I help?" to diffuse the emotion and to change the conversation. 

We also agreed that just because the world is on Twitter doesn't mean that your company belongs on Twitter.  There's nothing worse that jumping into social media without a strategy so that when some sort of action occurs, you're not prepared to respond.  An example that Joseline Manebrought up was with Sprint. Last spring, there new CEO ran ads with his e-mail address on it asking for customer response.  When folks accepted his invitation and start writing in, they received an auto-response e-mail.  Talk about a way to backfire your campaign!

In all, about a third of the crowd said that they were using social media in some fashion within their organizations.  When asked how it was working, no one jumped up and said "Fantastic!"  Instead, we heard that it takes a financial and resource commitment and until my company is ready to commit to that, we can't start a social media program.  And, that social media is something that you need to measure so that you can demonstrate success to senior management for buy-in. 

While I think that the ProductCamp crowd was conservative, I think their approach towards adopting social media is typical of many organizations today.  They get that they need to be doing it and they want to learn more, but they are hoping that someone else will figure it out for them and tell them what to do.

Making Marketing Mischief with the Stainfighters

Did you ever attend a dinner party at someone's house and manage to stain a few things while you were there?  This happened to my friend Nina who was mortified when she thought she'd smeared some blueberry pie right into a mint green cloth napkin at a recent dinner party at my house.  She e-mailed me first thing the next morning to say "Thank you and I'm sorry."  I wasn't really that concerned, but since she felt so bad, I started a load of laundry immediately and we had a little fun with the situation.

Making Marketing Mischief with the Stainfighters

I should mention that Nina is not just my neighbor and friend, but she's also an IT consultant and a marketing geek like me.  By 7:56 a.m. she started tweeting:

@NinaLytton:  can anyone advise @cgunst on how to get blueberry pie stains out of cloth napkins? the culprit would appreciate forwarding

No answer from any of the 45 million plus on Twitter, so I just applied some laundry detergent directly to the tablecloth and dropped it into the washing machine.  Voila!  Stain was gone and I tweeted back at 10:19 a.m:

@NinaLytton After pretreating cloth napkins with All laundry detergent http://bit.ly/kUicp all blueberry stains gone. Ur worries are over.

What surprised us both is that even after I mentioned the name of the detergent with a link to their page, still no one joined our silly, stainfighting conversation.  This got us both wondering how many organizations are actually tracking the conversations about their products online.  While we read about the ones who are, we're guessing there are an awful lot of others out there who are not a part - good or bad - of the customer conversation. 

What about you?  Are you tracking your customer conversations?  If not, why not?  Do you just not understand social media so you are avoiding communication with your customers online?  I hope that's not the case.

Gravity Summit Brings Social Media Crowd Together at Harvard

Yesterday, the Gravity Summit was held at the Harvard Faculty in Cambridge, MA.  What a fantastic collection of social media rock stars from hip hop legend MC Hammer to wine guy Gary Vaynerchuk to Domino's pizza man Ramon de Leon who showed us all how social media is done right. 

The seminar focus  was on how to use new social media tools - blogs, wikis, podcasts, Facebook, Twitter, online video, and social networks for customer engagement.  Top social media experts Beverly Macy and Rodney Rumford took the audience through a full day of information, case studies, special guest speakers, and networking. 

I watched most of the conference online as it was streaming live on CNN throughout the day and through Twitter at #gravsum. (Thanks Master Tweeters Joselin Mane and Jeff Cutler for all the tweets!)  Around 5:00, I headed over to the TweetUp/After Party at the OM Restaurant  in Cambridge with my friend Sarah.  It was great to meet so many of the folks that I follow on Twitter and to get to know some new social media folks including one of my social media idols MC Hammer.  (Special thanks to Robert Collins for posting the pictures of the Gravity Summit Tweetup so quickly.)

For some of the press coverage of the Gravity Summit at Harvard, check out:

• Boston Business Journal
• Boston Globe
• NECN

It's Official! Everyone But My Mom Has a Facebook Page!

I snapped the image you see to your right off a table in the food court at the CambridgeSide Galleria today.  Yes, even the local mall (once considered a gang safe zone when I used to work over in East Cambridge as a Lotus employee) has a Facebook page.

CambridgeSide Galleria on Facebook

Being a geek, I snapped a picture of the table promo.  Being a curious geek, I came home and checked out the site on Facebook.  Believe it or not, the site has 888 fans!  Communication to the "fans" seems to be more push than pull, but I am impressed that they got so many folks to sign up with them on Facebook.  Wonder how many people found them on Facebook through the table promotion?

My Mom Will Never Be on Facebook

I gave my folks a demo of Facebook when I was just visiting them this past week  so that they could see all of the other "Gunsts" on Facebook who have started to form an online community.  While my dad was able to translate some text from the German folks who are participating but didn't seem to know any of them.  Neither my dad nor my mom is really interested in meeting them online.  As they say "If they really want to meet us, they'll pick up the phone and call."

Using Online Videos to Market What You're Selling

There's nothing like a humorous video to get across sometimes complicated messages to your audience.  Here is an example of one that I was involved with for the launch of a new product, Disk Library for mainframe.  It was released online as part of the launch which included a press release, unveiling at an industry trade show, and inclusion in several blogs written by industry enthusiasts published on launch day.

 

Revenge of the Mainframe features a mainframe pioneer as he reminisces about the glory days of mainframe technology and predicts what the future has in store.  It came out on the day we announced the product at a mainframe conference and it received 1200 hits in the first two days!  Beyond the trade show floor, the video was shared by many who wanted to share it with their industry peers.  The 6000 hits it's gotten in just over a year came from the audience it was intended for and it linked people back to a landing page for more information on additional mainframe offerings.

Got A Concept You Need to Message In a New Way?

Whether you've been creating videos for a while or you're just considering it, give it a try.  It can cost as much or as little as you want it too.  You'll be surprised the hidden talents people you know have when it comes to a video project.  I was.  With new cameras like the Flip, you can start creating your own video and upload straight to your computer for editing for under $500.  It's easy to post your final product up onto YouTube when you're ready.  You'll find that there's only so much outbound promotion that you can do through social media (Twitter, blogs, etc.) and e-mail blasts, the rest is up to the Internet audience to promote (or not.)