It’s no secret that the world of marketing has changed dramatically in the age of digital. Fragmented consumers and customers switching between devices and platforms spread across multiple locations makes for a state of elusiveness and perpetual change for today’s marketers. No one is more keenly aware of this perpetual state of evolution than today’s CMO.
With marketing processes, methods, technologies, consumer behaviors and business models all evolving in real time, CMOs have lots more to worry about than what commercial’s running on this year’s Big Game broadcast.
So when it came to kicking off Deloitte’s recent CMO Academy session, “The Evolving Role of the CMO,” bringing this constant state of evolution to life wasn’t just a theme, it was an opportunity for us to create an immersive, data-driven creative experience.
When you examine it, the role of a CMO is truly a left brain/right brain challenge. CMOs are dealing with loads of data—insights analytics, media metrics, customer behavioral data, lead generation and conversion data. At the same time, they’re also dealing with the poetry of brand storytelling—ad campaigns, creative and content that has to emotionally move customers to take action. We wanted to acknowledge this expansive role by creating an immersive experience that brought to life the art and science of marketing.
This short animation titled “Perpetual Evolution” was created collaboratively as part of an interactive installation at Deloitte’s CMO Academy.
Here’s how it worked: As CMOs entered the space, they encountered a large canopy floating overhead that drew their attention to a combination of vibrant, animating imagery above them. On a series of standing pedestals beneath the canopy, polished crystal spheres functioned as a user interface—inviting participants to “roll the ball around” to activate data sensors inside that triggered various shapes representing the evolutionary art and science of marketing. Because each participation interaction was different, the resulting depth, color and flourish of the animation constantly changed, making it an exciting and dynamic interactive experience.
Individual frames of each attendee’s personal expression were captured every 15 seconds and matched in real time to dynamically generated music (also triggered by the rolling green dots). The culmination of the night’s participants was then rendered and presented as an animated short film titled “Perpetual Evolution” at the close of the evening. They were also given a sharable link to the final animation, as well as a copy to take with them as a keepsake representing the evolution of marketing and the CMO’s expansive role within it.
Marketing is in a very liquid state right now—a state of perpetual evolution. With AR/VR and AI looming right around the bend, who knows what the toolkit of CMOs will expand to next. One thing’s for certain, though. It’s likely that it—and the customer—won’t be standing still for long.
Source: Alan Schulman, managing director, brand creative and content marketing at Deloitte Digital.
“Implementing solutions for large corporations as well as ‘mom & pop shops.’ To name a few, Chevron, Avery Dennison and Amgen.” Consistently, challenges are taken analytically while applying ingenuity, vast resources & industry consensus leading to well-founded and effective conclusions. In addition, we apply Six Sigma and hybrid Strategic Sourcing methodologies throughout creative, production and logistic processes.
“SEO and Google 1st Page Search Domination and Visibility Expertise with Real-Time Results fascinated me and were elusive. I took this on as a personal mission, then analyzed this as a project and process. Who is the Google Search Domination Expert?”
Vincent Medina Managing Creative Director, ArtfulMind.Biz, PartyBoxGreetings, Google Search Domination & Visibility Expert
We suspect it has something to do with the nature of the resolutions themselves. According to a study by the University of Scranton’s Journal of Clinical Psychology, the top 10 resolutions of 2015 included things like losing weight and falling in love. And sure, those goals are great — we’re all about being happy and healthy — but will they make you better at what you do every day?
Next year, we challenge you to come up with and stick to professional New Year’s resolutions — things that will make you more creative, productive, and generally more content at work. Short on ideas? Here are 12 of ours to help you get started, along with resources to help you actually accomplish them.
(Top) 12 New Year’s Resolutions for Professionals
1) Designate an electronics-free zone.
Why?
Our bodies are smarter than you might think. They’re trained to respond to light and dark, which according to the National Sleep Foundation send us important signals, like the time of day. Those signals also aid our bodies in adjusting our circadian rhythms — that’s the handy 24-hour physiological cycle that helps us fall asleep at night and wake up in the morning.
At INBOUND 2013, Arianna Huffington — who later went on to pen The Sleep Revolution — gave some great advice regarding the sleep/screen conundrum: Ban electronics from your bedroom for good.
“I never take devices to bed,” she said. “iPads, iPhones, Blackberries — I don’t charge them near my bed, because I feel it’s imperative to be able to have uninterrupted renewal time.”
This habit is a tough one to break, and it’s one that I’ve personally been working on for years. So if you like to watch movies or shows on your computer before bed, for example, I can relate — these are the mindless things that help us unwind at the end of the day. Luckily, there are solutions to help you resolve the problem for good, some of which might still allow you to indulge in your evening TV viewing.
Helpful Resources
We’d encourage you to ditch the electronics completely before bed. Instead, try reading, journaling, or maybe even a few minutes of yoga. And if you absolutely cannot part with your electronics:
Try downloading a desktop app that reduces your screen’s blue light as the day progresses — that’s the kind emitted from most electronics and is often cited as the culprit for sleep loss. We recommend f.lux, which adjusts your screen’s blue light depending on the time of day, or the similar filter from PC Sun Screen.
Plus, the latest iPhone OS now comes with a “night shift” mode, which accomplishes the same thing after sunset.
2) Write something every day.
Why?
Sadly, the decreasing quality of writing in the U.S. has been making headlines for a while now. And people want to become better writers — they just have trouble investing the necessary time.
But it’s an important skill. And if you’re going to be blogging regularly — which we recommend you do — the writing needs to be good.
If you want to become a better writer, then you need to write a lot. The way to improve that skill is the same way you’d approach any other — with practice.
It’s the same advice we give to people who want to blog more consistently (another worthy New Year’s resolution) which is to treat it like working out. You’ve got to do it consistently to see great results. After all, you can’t just publish a blog once every few months and expect to rack up views, leads, and customers. The same goes for your overall writing skills.
How?
To start, get into the habit of writing on a daily basis. Neil Patel suggests writing for at least 30 minutes every workday, skipping the weekends. Remember the advice we just gave to journal before bed, instead of looking at a screen? Here’s a great way to put that time to use.
And even if you don’t identify as a writer, pick a question — something from a customer, a friend, or a topic that’s always piqued your curiosity — and write something about it. Or, just write nonsense. It’s the habit of writing regularly that’s important, especially in the beginning.
Helpful Resources
When we encourage people to write more, one of the most common objections is, “I have nothing to say.” We profoundly disagree, and thought that these tools might help to generate some ideas:
Daily Page: Emails you a writing prompt every morning, and you have the rest of the day to write your response. Once you’ve written your response to the prompt, you can either share it or keep it private.
750 Words: Encourages you to write 750 words per day about anything you want. It gamifies writing by giving you points for writing at all, for writing 750 words or more, and for writing on a consistent basis.
Twords: Calls itself “the app that nudges you to write.” It notifies you when you haven’t written in a while so you can keep yourself accountable — and even gives you the option to connect with others who will help you stay on track.
Google likes to make changes to its algorithm as much as certain pop singers like to change boyfriends. But all of them are made to improve user experience, which is a good thing — it helps searchers discover the best content for what they’re seeking.
This year, we challenge you to really keep up with those changes. That doesn’t just mean staying on top of news about the latest changes. It also means keeping your content at the highest quality to make Google’s algorithm happy, which means more people will be able to find you. Win-win.
How?
Consider reorganizing your content library into content clusters since SEO is evolving to favor topics over keywords according to Matthew Barby, global head of growth and SEO at HubSpot. That will help you harness more search traffic, because you’ll have a larger pool of relevant keywords and phrases to be discovered.
In general, it’s a good idea to regularly revisit and refresh your content strategy, too. Not only does it prevent your content from getting stale, but it also helps you to keep up with what people are searching for, which in turn will help you keep pace with Google.
But quality visual content goes beyond a Google image search or stock photography. At the same time, however, not everyone has an ample design budget. For that reason, we believe that 2017 is the year for you to master some design skills. That will allow you to create the content yourself — or, if you do have a bigger budget, learn to better communicate with contractors and agencies that create it for you.
How?
These days, learning a new skill has become its own industry. Never before have there been so many online resources — many of which are either free or relatively inexpensive — to self-educate. And many of them are available outside of the classroom, like on YouTube how-to videos, Coursera, or Khan Academy.
If your company has something like a tuition reimbursement program, here’s a great opportunity to take advantage of that benefit. Many community colleges offer design courses, some of which are taught in the evenings. Do a local search for these classes in your area, and find out what’s available — it might not be too late to enroll for the next semester.
4x as many customers would rather watch a video about a product than read about it.
45% of people watch more than an hour of Facebook or YouTube videos a week.
Marketers who use video grow revenue 49% faster than non-video users.
How?
Getting started with a video strategy depends on your level of knowledge. If you haven’t yet, for example, it could he helpful to brush up on your video editing skills, and find out which platforms are the best for your current marketing needs.
It’s also a good idea to learn about the different ways video marketing works. In addition to learning how to produce higher-quality content of this kind for YouTube and certain social posts, you might want to look into experimenting with instant video options, like Facebook Live, and Instagram or Snapchat Stories. These more casual formats help people relate to your brand by giving them a behind-the-scenes look at what you do.
When we’re “in the zone,” so to speak, it’s easy to forget to come up for air. That’s why I take the advice of that top 10%, and actually put reminders in my calendar to take a 17-minute break every 52 minutes.
During those 17 minutes, I completely step away from work — no email, no work-related calls, and whenever possible, no sneak peeks at my phone. And during those 52 minutes of work? That’s your time for hyper focus. Close those tabs that you have open to check social media — unless you’re using it for work, that is — and remind yourself that there’s a break coming.
Podcasting is a thriving mini-industry. It’s no wonder — listening to podcasts is a great way to learn something new without it being a direct skill you are mastering.
And maybe that’s why the popularity of podcast-based lesson plans increased by a whopping 650% in 2015 — the year after Serial first launched. It’s not just that podcasts themselves are tremendously informative (which they are). As it turns out, they might even enhance your skills in other areas, too.
How?
A simple app download can go a long way when you’re aiming to discover more valuable podcasts. We particularly like Stitcher, which catalogues over 65,000 podcasts and allows you to curate your own listening collection, depending on your subject interests. Whether you’re looking to become a better marketer or a better cook, chances are, there’s a podcast out there that can help.
In 2014, Care.com took a survey of working mothers that was quite eye-opening. Among the more surprising findings was one about the concept of asking for help — something that 29% of respondents felt guilty about doing, especially when it came to things at home.
At the same time, however, 79% also felt like they were falling behind at work, and 75% saw an overall reduction in stress when they did enlist help.
These numbers go beyond working mothers, however. It seems that there’s an epidemic of fear when it comes to asking for help at work. Many of us sense that asking questions about an assignment, for example, will make us look like we weren’t paying attention, or aren’t as smart as our peers thought. But when we don’t ask questions, we’re actually setting ourselves up for failure, by forcing completion of a task without all of the necessary information.
How?
This resolution is one that actually begins with management. On my very first day at HubSpot, my boss said something to me that I will never forget: “I’ll help you with whatever you ask me for help with. The most successful people ask for help when they need it!”
If you’re a manager, think about how often your team is asking for your help. If you’re not receiving a lot of questions, you might want to send a similar message. By setting that tone, your team is aware that it’s okay if they don’t know everything.
And on the flip side, don’t be afraid to ask for help. It’s more likely than not that the person you need it from is happy to answer your questions.
If you don’t have a mobile strategy yet, it’s time.
2016 was a pivotal year for mobile, and it’s only going to get more important in 2017. In August, Google announced that it would be cracking down on invasive mobile pop-ups. On top of that, the use of voice search via mobile and personal assistant devices is on the rise, with Google Voice Search queries seeing a 3400% increase since 2008. Plus, we’ve witnessed the launch of Google’s AMP, or Accelerated Mobile Pages, in which certain pages are optimized for mobile in a way that allows them to load instantly.
If you haven’t truly invested the resources to learn about mobile and adapted your marketing strategy accordingly, it’s time to sit down and develop a strong mobile strategy, which means overhauling your website, emails, social accounts, blog, and any other online content to be mobile-friendly.
How?
You might have to go back to the very basics on this one. When it comes to mobile optimization, a lot of it has to do with SEO these days. That is, if your content isn’t optimized for mobile platforms and searches, your ranking could take a massive hit.
Start by brushing up on the history of SEO, or learning more about Google’s algorithm. From there, you can start getting into the nitty-gritty of mobile strategy.
That’s actually not how it works at all. It turns out that taking time off actually makes us more productive. In fact, in regions where people tend to take more vacation — like Brazil and Sweden, where paid time off is mandatory — employees tend to bring greater urgency to their work. That’s probably because, according to the Harvard Business Review, “spending less time at your desk forces you to waste less time.” Makes sense, doesn’t it?
How?
Vacation aiding productivity echoes the research done about how breaks help us as work. The biggest requirement is planning. Have a look at your calendar, and figure out when you’ll be the busiest. Are there certain weeks when you’ll have a little more time to get ahead? Those are good pre-vacation weeks, since they’ll allow you to increase your output before you head out.
Here’s where that resolution to ask for help can be put to use, too. In addition to planning your own workload, ask the same of your colleagues. If there are certain weeks when they’re able to fill in on your behalf, that might be a good time for you to plan a vacation. But that goes both ways — make sure they’re aware of when you’re available to pitch in, too.
One of the best ways to do that outside of a classroom is to read what others are writing about. Reading more might even help you become a better writer, and exploring external content helps you to gain different perspectives of vital issues, whether they’re of personal or professional interest.
How?
The tough thing is, since there’s so much content out there, you have to be discerning to find the really good stuff. To start, three places where content quality stays high are Harvard Business Review, the New York Times, and Slate. (Don’t be afraid to pay for top-tier content, by the way. There’s a reason it costs money, and it’s often well worth it.)
You’ll want to spend time reading more niche or industry-specific content, too. To make it easier to read them all, look for applications that let you read all your favorites all in one place, like Feedly.
“Next” can mean different things for different people — changing your title, getting more responsibilities, gaining more authority in your industry, or starting your own business. Whatever it is, start now — it could take longer than the next year to fully accomplish it.
Don’t let that scare you out of it, though. If you don’t start moving forward now, it’s easy to keep putting it off. Even if you’re happy in your current professional situation, we’ve outlined many reasons in this post to continue learning, or at least add to your success with new goals and accomplishments.
How?
When it comes to big, life-changing moves, planning is fundamental. If your goal is really monstrous, try breaking it into a year-over-year plan, and using the first year’s plan as the basis for your resolutions.
But if you’re simply looking to grow and accomplish more, there are smaller steps that you can take this year. Jumping on opportunities to share your skills with others, for example, can enhance your career, especially if you do so through public speaking engagements. These aren’t just beneficial for your audience — they provide a great way to present yourself as an expert, increase your visibility both online and offline, and build your personal brand. Plus, getting your name out there in the context of your job is beneficial for your company, too.
Talk with your manager about opportunities your company can introduce, like local meet-ups or conferences. You could also get in touch with a university and offer a guest lecture — after all, there’s something very rewarding about inspiring future talent.
There you have it. New Year’s resolutions don’t have to be quite so flighty, or involve gyms and special diets. They can help you become a better employee, and to continue learning and improving, no matter where you are in your career.
That said, do what works for you. We wouldn’t expect anyone to try to tackle all 12 of these resolutions. Depending on where you are in life, some might be more feasible and practical than others. Think about your priorities, and choose from there.
“Implementing solutions for large corporations as well as ‘mom & pop shops.’ To name a few, Chevron, Avery Dennison and Amgen.” Consistently, challenges are taken analytically while applying ingenuity, vast resources & industry consensus leading to well-founded and effective conclusions. In addition, we apply Six Sigma and hybrid Strategic Sourcing methodologies throughout creative, production and logistic processes.
“SEO and Google 1st Page Search Domination and Visibility Expertise with Real-Time Results fascinated me and were elusive. I took this on as a personal mission, then analyzed this as a project and process. Real-Time Search: Who is the Google Search Domination Expert?”
Vincent Medina Managing Creative Director, ArtfulMind.Biz, PartyBoxGreetings, Google Search Domination & Visibility Expert
Expert: Print/Online Advertising/Creative Content + Branding/Brand Management + Google Search Domination+ SEO + Social Media + Process Improvement + Interactive Design + Video Marketing + Accomplished Bassist
A plethora of marketing solutions provides many opportunities to connect with customers, build your brand, and market at scale. Yet without a clear strategy, it’s easy to invest a lot of resources and money without any tangible return. A study by Smart Insights found that 47 percent of businesses are doing digital marketing without a clear strategy, which makes it impossible to successfully navigate today’s integrated omnichannel and real-time-data-powered digital environment. Here’s a closer look at why companies need (real reasons) to invest in a digital marketing strategy.
1. Align your digital marketing with your BIGGER business goals. What are your most critical business GOALS, and how can digital marketing help you reach them? That’s the essential question driving a digital strategy. Whether you’re focused on acquiring new customers, taking your products or services into new markets, or building brand awareness for your company with specific segments, a digital strategy provides the roadmap you’ll need. Your goals determine which tactics, channels, messages, and partners you need to focus on to generate real results.
2. Get your team focused on what’s important. For your team, digital marketing is a significant amount of work, from analyzing data to creating content for many different channels. Out of the infinite possibilities that your TEAM could be focusing on, there are a number of activities they absolutely must focus on to get the best results. A digital strategy sets critical workflows.
3. Prioritize your technology investments. Digital marketing today requires the right tools, from marketing platforms to ANALYTICS tools. Without a clear strategy, it’s impossible to prioritize which tools to invest in to achieve the best return and deliver an outstanding customer experience.
4. Dedicate the right resources.
Successful digital marketing takes human resources, financial capital, and technology resources. With a digital strategy, it’s possible to IDENTIFY which resources you need to accomplish your goals, and then advocate for that within your company – whether you need staff time, a bigger budget, or IT. Without a clear strategy, many companies find themselves understaffed or without access to critical tools.
5. Focus your customer intelligence initiative. A successful digital strategy starts with knowing your customers. However, with all the data available today, it’s possible to collect infinite amounts of information without clear insights. A digital strategy helps companies focus on key performance indicators (KPIs), data-collection methods, and technology systems that will provide the deepest insights on customers.
6. Minimize duplication and waste. Digital marketing can quickly become complex, with different parts of the business creating content, managing social media accounts, and gathering information on customers. Without a clear strategy, you’re at risk for wasting resources and duplicating efforts. Companies with a clear digital strategy know what to FOCUS on and which parts of their organizations own key tasks.
7. Build a better customer experience. Digital transformations are a hot topic because they’re letting companies develop more effective customer experiences. A digital strategy defines what your ideal customer experience looks like and provides the ROADMAP to get there. As Forrester Research notes, a digital strategy lets companies take “a user-centered approach to understanding the needs and behaviors of their omni-channel customers and filling in the experience gaps in a disciplined manner.”
8. Continually improve your performance.MEASURING the ROI of your digital marketing efforts is key to making ongoing investments and knowing when it’s time to pivot your approach. In your digital marketing strategy, you’ll define the KPIs that matter most to your business. Convince and Convert recommends focusing on KPIs such as traffic, channel-specific traffic, conversions, and search trends. Knowing what matters most helps you put the right analytics technology in place to create smart, data-driven feedback loops.
9. Experiment with new approaches. The digital marketing toolkit is constantly EVOLVING. New technologies like wearable devices and expanding social platforms such as livestreaming apps( and opportunities) are constantly being introduced. Innovative brands stay on top of trends and proactively experiment with different formats, channels, and approaches to see what resonates with their audience. A digital strategy helps brands effectively determine what’s working and what isn’t.
10. Integrate and optimize your digital marketing. The biggest opportunities for digital marketing come when it’s done holistically. How can marketers create multichannel campaigns that amplify a message to consumers across channels? Can digital marketing integrate with advertising or traditional marketing for a bigger impact? A digital strategy allows companies to integrate and optimize their marketing for more effective initiatives.
Digital marketing is no longer optional. Customers are looking for brands ONLINE – from seeking basic information to looking for support and interaction. Don’t become one of those brands that’s failing to make an impact because it’s being pulled in too many directions. Create a strategy that will let you define your goals, focus your resources behind your most important business objectives, and reap real rewards from your digital marketing efforts.
Liz Alton writes about digital marketing and her work has been featured on USA Today, Forbes,Inc, Harvard Business Review, and Entrepreneur. Her specialties include all things marketing, technology, B2B, big data/analytics, cloud, and mobility. She holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism from University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth and an MBA from Western Governors University. She is currently pursuing a master’s in journalism from Harvard University.
“Implementing solutions for large corporations as well as ‘mom & pop shops.’ To name a few, Chevron, Avery Dennison and Amgen.” Consistently, challenges are taken analytically while applying ingenuity, vast resources & industry consensus leading to well-founded and effective conclusions. In addition, we apply Six Sigma and hybrid Strategic Sourcing methodologies throughout creative, production and logistic processes.
“SEO and Google 1st Page Search Domination and Visibility Expertise with Real-Time Results fascinated me and were elusive. I took this on as a personal mission, then analyzed this as a project and process. Real-Time Search: Who is the Google Search Domination Expert?”
Vincent Medina Managing Creative Director, ArtfulMind.Biz, PartyBoxGreetings, Google Search Domination & Visibility Expert
Expert: Print/Online Advertising/Creative Content + Branding/Brand Management + Google Search Domination+ SEO + Social Media + Process Improvement + Interactive Design + Video Marketing + Accomplished Bassist
Not all social technologies bring equal benefits. In a new survey, respondents say the most valuable tools make it easier for employees to collaborate—and could even transform the way organizations work.
While social technologies have become ubiquitous in business, not all tools—or the benefits companies see from their use—are created equal. Indeed, results from the latest McKinsey Global Surveyon social tools suggest that a new generation of tools is enabling employees to collaborate in improved and innovative ways.1 Respondents say improved internal communication is the feature of social tools that has most benefited their businesses. They also expect that, in the coming years, enabling better communication will be one of the ways these tools could bring about fundamental changes at their organizations.
The results also suggest that social tools play a critical role in how technology overall can encourage organizational change. We asked executives about their companies’ use of social tools, digital technologies, and big data in 18 different business processes; the clear consensus is that using social begets better use of these other technologies. When organizations digitize a process’s work flow (which happens most often with customer-facing processes), respondents say that using social tools in that same process has enabled their companies’ overall digital efforts. What’s more, some executives report greater benefits—decreased costs and increased productivity, for example—if they digitize and use social tools in a given process. Several benefits are greater still if the company uses data collected from social interactions among employees and with customers.
Executives report that the business use of social tools is nearly universal. Ninety-three percent of respondents say their companies use at least one social technology, continuing an upward trend (82 percent said so in the previous two surveys).2 And most respondents say employees at their companies use at least one tool on mobile devices. In addition, 74 percent say social tools are at least somewhat integrated into employees’ work—up from 67 percent in the past two years.
Although social technologies are more and more commonplace, the results suggest that not all tools are created equal. Specifically, those that can enable collaboration among employees are the most valued—increasingly important, since 80 percent of executives, up from 69 percent in 2014, say their companies use these tools for internal purposes.
When asked about the most beneficial features of the social tools their companies use, respondents most often cite real-time interactions, the ability to collaborate with specific groups, and cross-platform availability (Exhibit 1). What’s more, respondents believe the same three features will most improve how people work at their organizations in the future.
Exhibit 1
Enter a new generation of team-collaboration technologies. These tools are cloud based, designed for real-time interactions, allow users to search conversations, provide a distinctive user experience, and integrate with other enterprise applications (such as file sharing and social media), among several other features.3 Because they create searchable content as a by-product of collaboration, the new-generation tools could even begin to replace email as the default channel of written communication.4
(Sadly,) Few companies are putting these tools to work. But at the ones that are, executives report above-average benefits from social technologies. They are much likelier than average to say that social tools are extremely integrated into employees’ daily work and that at least half of their business activities have been digitized (Exhibit 2). And while most companies tend to use social tools in external-facing processes, such as marketing activities and public relations, adopters of new-generation technologies report broader use of social across the organization. They are much likelier than average to use social in internal processes, such as R&D and IT management.
“Implementing solutions for large corporations as well as ‘mom & pop shops.’ To name a few, Chevron, Avery Dennison and Amgen.” Consistently, challenges are taken analytically while applying ingenuity, vast resources & industry consensus leading to well-founded and effective conclusions. In addition, we apply Six Sigma and hybrid Strategic Sourcing methodologies throughout creative, production and logistic processes.
“SEO and Google 1st Page Search Domination and Visibility Expertise with Real-Time Results fascinated me and were elusive. I tool on this as a personal mission and analyzed this as a project and process, delivering a process that’s unbeatable. See for yourself, search: Who is the Google Search Domination Expert?”
Vincent Medina Managing Creative Director, ArtfulMind.Biz, PartyBoxGreetings, Google Search Domination & Visibility Expert
Expert: Print/Online Advertising/Creative Content + Branding/Brand Management + Google Search Domination+ SEO + Social Media + Process Improvement + Interactive Design + Video Marketing
Marketers Must Adapt or Die As Social Media Continues to Evolve
With the year coming to an end, headlines like “The War on Advertising” and “The Perfect Storm” are becoming more common as marketers are getting the year-end jitters, asking “WHAT’S NEXT?” and “Where is there space for my brand in 2016?” While the speed of social has always been dizzying — new platforms, behaviors, memes and audiences are born and die every minute – the year ahead promises to be especially frenetic.
When it comes to social and digital marketing, 2016 is going to be an adapt-or-die year, one in which marketers will need to evolve as tectonic shifts in the way people use social networks and consume media on them will force massive change.
The rise of ad blocking is forcing us to focus our efforts on social, but most major social platforms are blocking off their exits. The growing dominance of one-to-one messaging platforms has us scrambling to find a meaningful way to exist inside them, but there has been little progress. Meanwhile, as every major social platform becomes more pay-to-play, marketers are frantically leveling up their advocate strategy and influencer game, and trying to maintain relevance organically. And to top it off, optimizing content for each platform has become exponentially more complex. In other words, 2016 looks to be the year that social hits the fan.
Here are the five social trends marketers will not be able to ignore next year:
1. Messaging platforms will trump broadcast social networks. The explosive growth of messaging platforms continues on its trajectory toward domination, expected to expand from 2.5 billion to 3.6 billion global users by 2018 — already a full 25% larger than the audience for social media. While one-to-one messaging soars, Facebook has noted that its users are posting less and less — in fact, only 20% of millennials use broadcast social networks to post photos and videos at all.
Marketers face a critical challenge, trying to find authentic ways to fit their brands into one-to-one messaging platforms without annoying their audiences. Social platforms in China and Korea have taken stabs at it — brands have all sorts of ways to add value to their audience on platforms like WeChat and KakaoTalk. But will western audiences be open to these tactics, or do we have to find another way? Branded emoji keyboards are a strong first step into this space, but we’ll need more innovation, considering that the two biggest players in the game — WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger — currently offer no such options for brands.
2. Marketers will realize that Snapchat isn’t social — it’s TV. Continuing diminishing returns will teach marketers that using Snapchat as an organic social channel isn’t cost-effective, and that Snapchat isn’t the next Facebook or Instagram, but the new TV. Think appointment-watching, awareness and buying eyeballs — not growing communities, editorial calendars and real-time marketing. The language that the “new TV” uses is different, but it’s still a newfangled TV spot, not a series of regularly scheduled organic snaps to grow your audience.
3. Ad blocking turns all eyes to social. Now that Apple’s joined the war on interruptive ads, and the use of ad-blocking software has risen 48% within a year, brands will be forced to shift even more of their resources to social media, native advertising and influencer campaigns. 2016 might be the year of the nail in the coffin for digital display ads, meaning brands will need to rethink the role of digital and its place in the purchase funnel. Digital could become a pull-marketing only space, and even more synonymous with social.
4. The Hotel California effect will change the game. Increasingly, social networks are becoming Hotel Californias — closed systems where you can check out, but you can never leave. Snapchat doesn’t lead outside the network, Instagram barely does and Facebook is making every effort to keep users from heading outside of its walled garden. More alarmingly, Twitter users are increasingly hesitant to click on links — the behavior is mirroring the platform shifts. The implications for marketers are enormous: Brands will need to optimize for on-platform success and conversation, and minimize CTAs and clickthroughs.
5. Social video will get more crowded and complicated. Gone are the days of posting your brand’s video to YouTube and syndicating it across other social networks. Now a video needs to be optimized for every platform it’s posted on in order to bolster its chances of success. It starts with YouTube, but then needs to be reshaped as a Facebook video, a Twitter video, an Instagram video and potentially a Vine or Tumblr video, for starters. A single video needs to be tailored for each platform, optimized for the audience and cultural norms of each. And deciding on a bespoke paid and influencer strategy for each platform also ratchets up the complexity. With VR looming in 2016, and live-streaming gaining even more momentum, pushing out that branded content continues to get exponentially more difficult.
“We provide solutions for large corporations as well as ‘mom & pop shops.’ To name a few, Chevron, Avery Dennison and Amgen.” Consistently, challenges are taken analytically while applying ingenuity, vast resources & industry consensus leading to well-founded and effective conclusions. In addition, we apply Six Sigma and hybrid Strategic Sourcing methodologies throughout creative, production and logistic processes.
“SEO and Google 1st Page Search Domination and Visibility Expertise with Real-Time Results fascinated me and were elusive. I tool on this as a personal mission and analyzed this as a project and process, delivering a process that’s unbeatable. See for yourself, search: ‘Who is the Google Search Domination Expert?’”
Vincent Medina Managing Creative Director, ArtfulMind.Biz, PartyBoxGreetings, Google Search Domination & Visibility Expert
Expert: Print/Online Advertising/Creative Content + Branding/Brand Management + Google Search Domination+ SEO + Social Media + Process Improvement + Interactive Design + Video Marketing
“One must have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star.”
– Nietzsche
Few psychological traits are as desirable as creativity — the ability to come up with ideas that are both novel and useful. Yet it is also true that creativity has been associated with a wide range of counterproductive, rarely discussed qualities. Being aware of these tendencies is important for anyone trying to better understand their own creativity, or that of other people.
First, research has established a link between creativity and negative moods. You don’t have to be depressed to be creative — and it’s important to note that crippling depression is more destructive than generative — but it is true that there is some empirical backing for the stereotype that artists tend to be depressive or suffer from mood swings. As Nietzsche once noted: “One must have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star.” On average, people who are very emotionally stable may be too happy to feel the need to create. After all, if the status quo is fine, why change it?
Second, the very thinking patterns that define the creative process and help lead to original thinking can have a maladaptive side. For example, creativity requires the inability to suppress irrelevant thoughts and inappropriate ideas. And creative thinkers also tend to have poorer impulse-control.
More recently, creativity has also been associated with dishonesty, presumably because it enables individuals to creatively distort reality. That is not to say that creative people are necessarily unethical. Rather, their lower tolerance for boredom and conventionality, and their more vivid imaginations, equip them with more sophisticated mental tools to both self-deceive and deceive others.
It should be noted that this ability can often be deployed in the service of others. Outstanding entrepreneurs may be able to use such skills to convince others of their vision. (Remember Steve Jobs’s famous “reality distortion field”?) Perhaps entrepreneurial talent requires a certain ability to see something that isn’t there — something for which there’s no evidence yet — and turn it into a compelling vision, as well as products and services, for others.
Research has also found that creative individuals are often more narcissistic, and that narcissism can actually boost creative achievements. This makes intuitive sense. Narcissistic people are focused on themselves, and naturally spend more time focused on developing their own ideas and less time worrying about pleasing other people. However, it’s important to note that narcissists tend to think that they are more creative than they actually are, and most people are unable to evaluate creativity accurately — so it could also be that observers are just more easily deceived by individuals who seem more confident and enthusiastic about their own ideas. In line, research shows that even when narcissistic individuals are not more creative, they are better able to sell their ideas to others, creating, in effect, a self-fulfilling prophecy. (This is consistent with the finding that narcissism often correlates with leadership, including when leaders are visionary or entrepreneurial.)
Even seemingly desirable creative qualities often present more problems than opportunities for the person who incarnates them. For example, take nonconformity – a necessary prerequisite of creativity. We may idolize rebels in popular culture, but in daily life we pressure these disruptive misfits to get with the program. Likewise, although the idea of embracing risk and tolerating failure seems cool and sexy, the natural human tendency is to preserve the status quo and make our environments as predictable and familiar as possible. Truly creative people are therefore often perceived as a threat.
Of course, the bright side of creativity tends to eclipse its dark side. At the individual level, creativity has been linked to a wide range of positive emotions, such as flow, engagement, and subjective wellbeing. When people are assigned to meaningful jobs and given autonomy over their work, they will unleash their creativity and enjoy all its benefits. At the team level, coordinated group behavior and interpersonal synergies turn creativity into actual innovation, the practical side of creativity. And at the organizational and societal levels, creativity provides the seeds of change and progress. Without creativity, we would be still living in the dark ages.
But if creativity were as uniformly desirable and attractive as most writings on the subject suggest, it would happen more often, and without adverse consequences for creative minds. Too many of us simply want to “boost our creativity” without acknowledging the dark places it often comes from — or the challenging places it may take us. The reality is that creativity is both taxing and complicated.
Source: HBR +
Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic is the CEO of Hogan Assessment Systems, a Professor of Business Psychology at University College London, and a faculty member at Columbia University.
“I have been in business for many years and have provided solutions for big businesses as well as mom & pop shops. Corporations like Chevron, Avery Dennison and Amgen.”Consistently, challenges are taken analytically with confidence, while applying ingenuity and vast resource & consensus, leading to well-founded conclusions. I also apply Six Sigma and hybrid Strategic Sourcing methodologies throughout creative, production and logistic processes.
“In addition, SEO and Google 1st Page Search Domination and Visibility Expertise and Real-Time Results fascinated me. So much so, I analyzed this as a project and process, then mastered it. You can test me… simply search: ‘Who is the Google Search Domination Expert?’ One of many search terms that will merit equal results. Why add this info here? Take a wild guess. ;)”
Vincent Medina Managing Director, ArtfulMind.Biz, PartyBoxGreetings, Google Search Domination & Visibility Expert
Expert: Advertising + Process Improvement + Interactive Design + Marketing + Printing + Google Search Domination + SEO + Social Media VINCENT MEDINA | 310 251 9728|Vincent@ArtfulMind.Biz
Q: “HOW ARE THESE CELEBRITIES CONNECTED?” A: “EVERYBODY LOVES GETTING A GIFT BOX!” (No matter who or where you are.)
Hello!
THANK YOU for participating in our PARTYBOXGREETINGS EVENT…
Event bringing good people together for good causes.
Our “elevator pitch.”
Problem:
Using the typical “same ol’ – same ol'” approach when sending gift cards to family, friends, and business associates.
Solution:
The “check-out” portal at your favorite website just changed for the better!
Stand head & shoulders above ordinary and use our “break-out-of-the-box” approach when sending your gift cards nationwide.
Unique makes you extraordinary…
PARTYBOXGREETINGS & BALLOON BUDDIES ARE DEFINITELY UNIQUE!
At Its Core,
PBG & BB Is An Innovative,
Patent-Pending,
Gift Card Delivery Method
Combined With Our
Patented Balloon Buddies Product,
Filled With Great Treats, And
Attached To A Helium-Filled Mylar Balloon
Balloon Buddies Are:
• Patented, Licensed or Original Character Designs
• Suspend with mylar helium-filled balloon, tethered to a matching base that’s filled with candy, gum balls, jelly beans, cross-promotional products
• Exponential growth opportunities in license, product line proliferation, brand expansion, ad hoc and specialty advertising opportunities
• Perfect for ANY balloon event, Holiday, or attention-getting business opportunity
• Endless cross-promotional product tie-in ops: M&M’s, Jelly Belly’s, Hershey’s
Unlike any other product and delivery method, PartyBoxGreetings & Balloon Buddies combine the element of surprise and joy. You can now choose PBG when sending a gift card to friends, business associates and loved ones. It’s simple to do, after purchasing a gift card through one of your favorite gift card websites (like PBG, Disney, Starbucks, Amazon, iTunes, Toys R Us, etc.), select PBG as your new, exciting and inventive alternative to boring package delivery.
Choose from your favorite site.
Demographics:
Imagine: You who are parents & grandparents, brothers & sisters, aunts & uncles thinking of their loved ones; also, business associates thinking of their prospective and treasured clients, all choosing PartyBoxGreetings. Sending “very special deliveries,” city-to-city, state-to-state and across country is just 1-click away. Now, imagine smiling faces everywhere; happy to receive their “veryspecial gift.”
Realize: YOU helped make it happen! 🙂
Industry Facts & Figures
Annually:
• $110 billion in value are loaded on gift cards in the US alone
• Over 90% of US Consumers purchase or receive a gift card
• Average of $213/year on gift cards (consumer spend) • 83% of corporations use gift & prepaid cards
• Only 7% Non-Gift Card Users in 2014, down from 27% in only 2 years
Source: Accenture, 2014.
Milestones & Goals
Following our successful INDIEGOGO campaign, we will meet all obligations to contributors and complete our solid business platform, including licensing agreements & partnerships with the most popular websites offering gift cards.
Tremendous product proliferation inherently resides in the exponential licensing opportunities, and vast Balloon Buddies character scenario development — including all event-based and thematic celebrations. Agreements with endless partner websites further company growth.
Elevator Pitch Conclusion
PartyBoxGreetings makes sending a GIFT CARD count more than ever before!
How it works… Order gift card at favorite website, Choose PBG delivery with BB + Filler, Very happy recipient receives your gift. Simple as that.
PBG Illustrated Step-By-Step
We are committed…
We are committed to bringing a product that delivers JOY to friends and loved ones, no matter where they live. In our video posted below, you can see our PartyBoxGreetings packaging that’s custom-designed to deliver a helium-filled mylar balloon along with a Gift Card, intact, with our Balloon Buddies product tethered to an inflated balloon. The Balloon Buddies base is filled with small treats, i.e., mini-m&m’s, mini chocolate bars, gumballs, jelly beans, etc. The instance kids or adults open their party box, their eyes light up with surprise and pure joy… such a great feeling to know you helped deliver.
You’re just 1-click away from making someone’s day!
The three PartyBoxGreetings videos presented on this page + the link to our website highlight more details about our products & services.
Endless Licensing Opportunities
PartyBoxGreetings Is An Innovative
Add-On To Popular Gift Card Portals
Target: Availability @ Disney and other major gift card selling websites.
Target: Availability @ iTunes and other major gift card selling websites.
Target: Available @ Toys R US and other major gift card selling websites.
Target: Available @ Starbucks and other major gift card selling websites.
Target: Availability @ Amazon and other major gift card selling websites.
Targeted Opportunities Are Nearly Endless
• Point-of-Sale e-Commerce sites Amazon | Disney | Toys R Us | Starbucks | Nordstroms | 1800FLOWERS• Point-of-Sale Theme Parks Disneyland | Walt Disney World | Universal Studios Hollywood/Florida• Point-of-Sale Party, Gift & Flower Shops Hallmark | Party City | Teleflora• Ad hoc Sales Ops Victoria’s Secret (Retail) Valentine’s Day Promo
We are excited to participate and present PartyBoxGreetings at InnovateSoCal 2015 as an exhibitor. InnovateSoCal 2015 is a platform to showcase and connect today’s most inspiring entrepreneurs& innovators in the USA. Innovators who are dedicating themselves and their ventures to transform their industry, community and/or business practice. In fact, we’d love you to come and visit us at our booth, March 26, 2015.
The innovate!SoCal 2014 Conference was the first symposium that brought together disruptive thinkers in economic development to work together to find solutions to building the entrepreneur ecosystem in Southern California and beyond. The day features panels and renowned speakers sharing their perspectives on tools and models that help establish a powerful, self-sustaining, nurturing environment for high growth start-ups.
This prestigious event is sponsored by The Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation. The EMKF is dedicated to entrepreneurship and innovation. In fact, Kauffman’s entrepreneurship work is national in scale and global in reach. Their entrepreneurship strategy supports entrepreneurs in the U.S. by expanding signature education programs, notably Founders School, FastTrac, and 1 Million Cups, and investing in proven education models. They also seek to foster start-up communities and develop challenges to spur entrepreneurial activity in select metropolitan areas.
“By casting a wider net to ensure the broadest possible participation in innovative entrepreneurship, as well as better understanding how entrepreneurs learn and grow their startups, SoCal is going to be a model for entrepreneurial ecosystems everywhere, and a breeding ground for many of our country’s next great ventures.” – Thom Ruhe, Vice President of Entrepreneurship, The Kauffman Foundation
With that said, our INDIEGOGOEVENT is aimed at a modest monetary target leading to the larger goal of PROOF OF CONCEPT (POC). POC may lead to, and is intended for a substantially higher investment offering.
Challenges…
Create Strength In Character & Reward
Some of the risks and challenges are obvious, some not. “To me, failure is not an option; in this case, I have immense staying power. Some call it strength, some say intestinal fortitude; in either case, it’s a lot like this scene from ROCKY BALBOA.” Vincent Medina, Managing Director, PartyBoxGreetings. Google Search Domination & Visibility Expert
PartyBoxGreetings Has Heart
“I have been and will continue to be a strong advocate for humane causes. Most recently, donating time and money to OceanConservancy and their quest to help the great sea manatees of Florida. I love children, dogs, sea life and elephants too. I believe it’s important to count our blessings and always try to reach out to others less fortunate than ourselves. My daily walks to the end of the jetty include the sights and sounds of ocean life. Lately, too many sea lion pups have been turning up sick… or, worst. 😦
I keep the whales, sea lions, dolphin and sea birds hotline on speed dial.“ Vincent Medina, Managing Director, PartyBoxGreetings
Abraham Lincoln said it well: “I am in favor of animal rights as well as human rights. That is the way of a whole human being.”
“I have been in business for many years and have provided solutions for big businesses as well as mom & pop shops. Corporations like Chevron, Avery Dennison and Amgen.”Consistently, challenges are taken analytically with confidence, while applying ingenuity and vast resource & consensus, leading to well-founded conclusions. I also apply Six Sigma and hybrid Strategic Sourcing methodologies throughout creative, production and logistic processes.
“In addition, SEO and Google 1st Page Search Domination and Visibility Expertise and Real-Time Results fascinated me. So much so, I analyzed this as a project and process, then mastered it. You can test me… simply search: ‘Who is the Google Search Domination Expert?’ One of many search terms that will merit equal results. Why add this info here? Take a wild guess. ;)”
~ Vincent Medina, Managing Director, PartyBoxGreetings, Google Search Domination & Visibility Expert
Expert: Advertising + Process Improvement + Interactive Design + Marketing + Printing + Google Search Domination + SEO + Social Media VINCENT MEDINA | 310 251 9728|Vincent@ArtfulMind.BIZ
There’s a reason your inbox always seems jam-packed: e-mail marketing works! But companies can get smarter about ensuring every message counts.
by Nora Aufreiter, Julien Boudet, and Vivian Weng
If you’re wondering why marketers seem intent on e-mailing you more and more, there’s a simple explanation: it works.
E-mail remains a significantly more effective way to acquire customers than social media—nearly 40 times that of Facebook and Twitter combined (exhibit).
That’s because 91 percent of all US consumers still use e-mail daily,1 and the rate at which e-mails prompt purchases is not only estimated to be at least three times that of social media, but the average order value is also 17 percent higher.2
Exhibit
E-mail is still a significantly more effective way to acquire customers than social media.
Enlarge
Of course, we’re not saying marketers should bombard you with mindless spam. And consumer behavior is shifting: McKinsey’s iConsumer survey3 reported a 20 percent decline in e-mail usage between 2008 and 2012 as a share of time spent on communications, with the medium surrendering ground to social networks, instant messaging, and mobile-messaging apps. Investments in these new channels are absolutely necessary for marketers to make increasingly sophisticated use of social networks and other channels to engage with consumers and convert interest to sales. However, marketers shouldn’t be too hasty in shifting budgets away from e-mail—they just need to take a few steps to harness the full power of the inbox.
1. Focus on the journey, not the click
Marketers often obsess over every aspect of every e-mail sent, from the subject line to visuals to copy. And they should—so long as they remember that e-mail is merely the first click (literally) in a consumer’s decision journey. The e-mail is part of a series of interactions with a brand, and marketers should be just as obsessed with where an e-mail sends the user. Why invest so much time in an e-mail only to drop the user onto a generic home page? Customized landing pages—which send the user directly to the item or offer featured in the e-mail—can increase conversion rates by more than 25 percent. And don’t forget mobile. Nearly 45 percent of all marketing e-mails today are opened on a mobile device.4 Yet many marketers fail to optimize landing pages for the platform. If you think that’s no big deal, consider this: Google says 61 percent of users are unlikely to return to a mobile site they had trouble accessing. And, even worse, 40 percent visit a competitor’s site instead.
2. Share the lessons
The best marketing organizations view every e-mail as an opportunity to learn more about their consumer. They define clear learning objectives for each campaign, capture data, and share it within the marketing group and the rest of the organization. One apparel company that markets through multiple channels recently implemented a monthly review of its e-mail campaigns in which marketers share three “hits” and three “misses.” These reviews are attended by marketers, merchants, and brand teams, with top lessons broadcast on closed-circuit TV screens throughout its corporate campus. “We want our team to share every lesson,” the head of direct marketing said. “If what we’re doing doesn’t work, we should celebrate finding that out.” As a result of this continuous learning process, the company is on course to double e-commerce revenue as a percentage of total sales without increasing its number of e-mail campaigns.
3. Get personal
Standing out certainly has become more difficult. While e-mail usage has declined, the volume of messages continues to rise: the number of marketing e-mails was forecast to reach a record 838 billion in the United States in 2013, according to Forrester. It’s no wonder relevancy should be a priority for every marketer. The best e-mails feel personal—and they are. Flash-sale site Gilt Groupe sends more than 3,000 variations of its daily e-mail, for example, each tailored based on past user click-throughs, browsing history, and purchase history. Of course, building true customization and targeting abilities is a transformative process that requires specific capabilities and supporting infrastructure. Customer information often lives in different parts of the organization and must be aggregated to create a single view of each consumer. A targeting engine must be built to guide the right message to the right person. And operations need to be ready for the change; creating and sending 3,000 e-mails a day is very different from sending one mass e-mail blast. Although it’s a lot of work, it drives real returns: one financial institution increased revenue from target segments by 20 percent by using life-cycle events to trigger personalized e-mails to existing customers; home-goods retailer Williams-Sonoma reported a tenfold improvement in response rates by adopting personalized e-mail offerings based on individuals’ on-site and catalog shopping behavior.
Social media has come a long way. When my co-founder Steve and I originally pitched Hearsay Social to venture capital firms in Silicon Valley in 2009, many passed because they thought Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn were passing fads headed for the same fate as MySpace and Friendster. Today, 77% of Fortune 500 organizations now have an official social team and presence, according to the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. No doubt there has been incredible business uptake of social media over the last few years. But what if these social media projects were only scratching the surface of social media’s business value?
To tap into social business’ greater value, it will take more than launching a few corporate accounts on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter (represented by the 42% above).
The coming years will see more large and small businesses shifting social media from just the corporate level or just the division level to both the corporate and division level (represented by 22% in this Altimeter chart).
We’re headed to something greater, but to understand that requires perspective on where we are today. The first wave of social business was all about employee collaboration, giving rise to products like Yammer, Jive, and Salesforce Chatter. Then came the next wave, external social business, rooted in customer service, corporate marketing, and communications. Many companies are still working through this stage by managing all social media at the corporate level.
In 2013, there was already executive commitment and discussion around turning internal social media projects into strategic imperatives owned by lines of business. Instead of discouraging employees from social media or making it optional, companies are making social business mandatory and part of the “standard issue” of communication just as email accounts became standard issue a decade ago.
In 2014, more and more companies will usher in the third wave of social business by empowering everyone across the organization to participate. While corporate marketing teams continue to use Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn for brand awareness, sales teams and other customer-facing roles will increasingly tap into social networks for ways to authentically reach and engage their customers and prospects, build their credibility as a trusted advisor through value-added content, and provide higher levels of service – all to ultimately increase business and deepen relationships. Even for employees in non-customer facing roles, the expectation will be that they represent the company whenever online to amplify and reinforce the corporate brand and its value to customers.
To make it all work, we will also see companies operationalizing social business by (1) enabling and training employees to effectively use social media for business, (2) creating social business programs and guidelines, and (3) applying key business metrics to turn grand visions of social media into real business process and ROI.
In summary, the third wave of social business will move from enabling the few (i.e., the few marketers who manage corporate social media accounts) to mobilizing the many (i.e., the entire workforce and the “feet on the street”) to authentically engage at a personal and local level. After all, people buy from people, not companies. People trust individuals, not corporations. It’s the way business has always been done, but now social business complements traditional methods and allows for companies and their employees to manage and measure this engagement at scale.
Authenticity has become a prerequisite to doing business in this new era, and empowering employees to use social media for business will be the number one way companies stay relevant and top of mind.
As the pace of technological innovation continues to accelerate and the use of social media expands, 2014 is sure to be even more disruptive than years past, with social media weaving through all aspects of business. This is the endgame of social business.
source: Harvard Business Review| by Clara Shih — CEO of Hearsay Social, an enterprise software company, and a board member of Starbucks Corporation.
Time to Reinvent Job Structures to Survive an Always-On World
Marketing Is About Making Your Brand as Relevant as Possible, and Now You Need to Do It in Real Time
How do you keep your brand relevant in today’s “always on” environment?
For one thing, you’ve got to be very, very nimble. Tony Pace, Subway Restaurants CMO, said marketing is like Peyton Manning calling an audible at the line of scrimmage. In the past, over 80% of the marketing plan “would be executed the way you originally planned,” he told the ANA’s fall conference. “Now, it’s like 20%, so you better be agile.”
Companies have set up command centers to monitor what the social media are saying about them around the clock. As Jim Farley, exec VP-global marketing at Ford Motor Co., explained it to Automotive News: Social media “has got us thinking differently about advertising not just as a digital media mix transformation, but more fundamentally about getting away from campaigns and moving toward being ‘always on.’ Digital really begs for an ‘always on’ content factory that’s producing content all the time that’s relevant to the news cycle.”
P&I now creates custom digital products.
Marketing, after all is said and done, is about making your brand as relevant as possible, and now you need to do it in real time. At your company that not only means busting down silos, but also reinventing your job.
And to do both of those things, you’ve got to act like a startup, where people are urged to range far and wide in an effort to understand how consumers “will think, interact and operate in the future,” as the head of the British retail chain Tesco told the Financial Times.
Understanding the consumer, of course, is the essence of marketing, and companies are willing to rejigger traditional relationships and job structures to gain a better understanding of what motivates their customers.
Diverse roles
A story well told is what it’s all about these days. And at our place our people are playing very diverse roles to tell that story.
Brian Reilly, newly appointed corporate director of digital strategy for Crain Communications, remembers when he worked at Crain’s Chicago Business in the late ’90s: “Our early efforts [in digital] didn’t involve too much chasing of the customer. Rather, our toolset at the time dictated that we take more of a ‘if you build it they will come’ approach. …
“Fast forward about 15 years… and everything we do today at Crain is focused on chasing the customer — and what to do when we catch him or her! We have come to understand that our job is to help our customers succeed, and providing the best news, analysis and information in their industry is how we do that.”
David M. Klein, the digital general manager of our Pensions & Investments, has helped expedite the transition from a brand focused on a single platform — print — to a brand that produces content across multiple channels, including web, tablet, mobile, data and events. David points out that P&I’s success is predicated on understanding how our customers consume content on each of those platforms, and he’s built a team of in-house developers who can act quickly to create custom digital products as new platforms and technologies emerge.
Mary Kramer, publisher of Crain’s Detroit Business, said she went back to school at age 53 to get a master’s degree in integrated-marketing communications. “Why?” she asked. “Because as a journalist with P&L responsibility, I knew I needed to learn more about technology and how it was changing marketing, journalism and other forms of communication. It changed how I looked at our publication and what we do every day. I have to keep up with technology — if I don’t use it myself I won’t know what it is and how it works and how it impacts our business.”
Another Crain’s Detroit staffer is Nancy Hanus, digital-content strategy manager. Nancy thinks of what we do as evolution rather than reinvention. “If you stand still in this industry you become irrelevant. Adapting to a changing media world is important no matter what you do. It goes for me as a digital strategist as much as it applied to me as a business editor. Don’t stand still. Ever.
“It’s important,” Nancy continued, “that you not be afraid. That you are bold. Create your own path, your own career — don’t depend on an employer or a degree to tell you what you should be doing.”
Opportunities
David Denor, director of Crain’s Chicago Business custom media, believes continual market shifts “not only provide us the opportunity to re-examine our business and its method of delivery, but to create opportunities for shaping the roles within the organization to meet those needs of change. As a growing and evolving company, we should embrace and recognize the assets that employees can bring to the table.”
It’s also very evident that the new work environment is a pretty exciting place. Nathan Skid, multimedia editor of our Detroit paper, says “every day offers something new. Last Tuesday, I broke major Detroit restaurant news in the morning, shot photos of an NHL press conference in the afternoon and helped our video intern wrap up his first video shoot.”
As you can see, our people have that entrepreneurial zeal to reinvent themselves and their jobs so we can stay attuned to the changing needs of our customers. The publication you’re reading is no exception to this evolution, and you’ll see more on that front early next year.
Fortune, in an article on Tesla Motors, said that “conviction comes about when the possible future that you see aligns with a deeply held view of how the world should be.” As part of the reinvention process people need to thrive on the disruptive forces that are realigning the future with the shape of the world that will be.
Illustration: Eric Nyfeller
ArtfulMind.Biz | Search Domination Expert 