Reputation to Revenue

The training imperative for B2B marketing

AdWeek has a nice article today on how some of the large agencies are revamping their training programs to help attract, develop, and retain talent. A survey of agencies include DDB, Deutsch, Grey, McCann Erickson, and Saatchi & Saatchi highlights a number of new initiatives in such hot areas as mobile marketing, social media, and data analytics. "The overall consensus among the sample," according to AdWeek, "is that general 101-level classes aren't nearly enough in an industry that is defined today mainly by change."

It's a welcome recognition of the importance of continuing professional development, and one can only hope it is paralleled by a similar recognition within B2B marketing departments as well. Even if the agencies do catch up with the most needed skills and approaches, they are still only as good as the companies that hire them.

The problem on the corporate side, of course, is that training and professional development is the first thing to be cut when budgets tighten up.

For companies marketing to other businesses there is another problem, too. Even in today's services-dominated economy, most marketing training reflects its roots in consumer products.

A look at the recent Economist Intelligence Unit report on "10 Megatrends in B2B Marketing 2008" (PDF) suggests some critical areas for investment in training B2B marketing professionals, such as:

• Thought leadership marketing
• Executive relationship development
• Integrated marketing
• Marketing to emerging markets
• Web 2.0 and social media
• Marketing ROI

All of these areas are quite different in marketing to businesses than marketing to individual consumers -- and all are areas that the B2B marketing organizations I know, at the very least, are still early in developing.

As the pace of change continues to accelerate, B2B marketing leaders would do well to follow the lead of some of their agency partners. DDB, for example, sets aside a firm percentage of gross revenue each year for employee training, and that percentage has climbed steadily in the last few years, according to global chief communications officer Jeff Swystun -- who told AdWeek very clearly, "To us this is a huge investment in our ongoing relevance and differentiation."

Learning from political campaigns?

Presidential campaigns long ago absorbed the lessons of American advertising and marketing, and not necessarily for the better. McCain and Obama are spending hundreds of millions of dollars marketing themselves, much of it focused on the latest promotional tools and techniques. Obama in particular has done a great job tapping online social media to spread the word and build support. But it's hard to watch all this and think that the marketing and advertising gurus running the campaigns are contributing to more informed decisions by the citizenry on the critical issues of the day.

But what if the campaigns took a lesson from one of the newer trends in marketing, thought leadership?

The whole idea of thought leadership marketing is helping your customers better understand the challenges they are facing and the potential solutions. It's about educating your customers, and believing that they will reward you for the knowledge you provide.

Could the candidates take the same approach? Rather than just pushing out clever slogans, attack ads, and traditional cliches (I'm for cutting taxes, I'll fight for the middle class), what if they put some of their marketing brain trusts to work on engaging new ways to help us better understand the financial meltdown, the health care crisis, and global warming?

Why not some clean energy teach-ins, health care reform comic books, and Middle East peace videos on YouTube -- brought  to you by Obama? What about some online chats with financial experts, global warming microsites, and wikis on education reform -- sponsored by McCain?

Like you, I can think of dozens of reasons why this will never happen. But wouldn't it be nice if it did?

Green reporting on the rise, but accountability lags

Forty of the Fortune 50 companies now showcase reports on their sustainability performance, but many focus more on promoting their green credentials than on providing real accountability to the public, according to a new study by the PR measurement firm KDPaine & Partners. You can download the full report here (PDF).

The good news is that most of the largest companies have begun to take seriously the need to report on their own environmental impact, and most of them present information on their environmental goals and policies, energy consumption, waste disposal and recycling, and air emissions. Most also highlight the environmental awards they have won. The numbers are up significantly from even a few years ago.

On the other hand, far fewer of the companies provide real context for their reporting to help readers understand how well the companies are actually doing, and only a minority involve third party stakeholders in the reporting process, which would tend to add credibility to their efforts. As the study authors noted, "environmental sustainability reporting is still being used as a public relations tool to position companies favorably on environmental issues, rather than to hold companies accountable to stakeholders for environmental performance."

For those interested in improving their own environmental reporting, the report provides a useful Environmental Reporting Transparency Scorecard which outlines a wide array of factors used in ranking the Fortune 50. (Many more useful resources are available from the Global Reporting Initiative, the leading international network for corporate sustainability reporting.)

Breakfast briefing on thought leadership marketing - Sept 30

I'm speaking September 30 at a Breakfast Briefing organized by SMEI  (Sales and Marketing Executives International) in Waltham, MA, so if you're in the Boston area and want to talk about what's new and what's working in thought leadership marketing, please check it out here.

I'll be joined by Bob Buday, my partner at The Bloom Group and we'll kick off the discussion with some thoughts and examples on what we consider to be the four hallmarks of successful thought leadership:

• Doing the research to create real intellectual capital
• Shaping stories that speak effectively to the market
• Choosing the right channels, including Web 2.0 social media, to connect with buyers
• Integrating marketing and sales to help close the deal

If you've got ideas on what matters most in thought leadership marketing, please let me know. And I promise not too many slides!

How does thought leadership in IT really work?

Technology companies are spending more and more money on "thought leadership" marketing -- producing endless numbers of white papers, case studies, blogs, podcasts, videos and the like to convince potential buyers of their expertise on the business and technology issues that matter most. A recent series of interviews with marketing and brand leaders at top IT services organizations underlined the trend. To a person these marketing leaders all told me that thought leadership was a top priority in their efforts to build brand awareness, interest, and competitive differentiation.

But how do we know if the thought leadership activities we're funding are truly paying off? How do we know in this incredibly crowded marketplace of ideas what actually works?

Generally speaking, it's easy to suggest some hallmarks of successful thought leadership initiatives: original research into relevant problem areas, compelling packaging of new ideas and approaches, clear demonstration of solution proof points, and focused distribution of engaging materials through credible channels for the target audience.

Clearly these are all important, and some IT companies are using them to great advantage. Accenture comes to mind here, as do some of the other IT consulting and services companies like Capgemini.

But what about the really big ideas, the ones that take off and drive real change in the IT marketplace (e.g., business process reengineering, customer loyalty, business analytics, etc.). These happen only occasionally, and the companies that help develop and take advantage of them best derive enormous benefits. SAP, for example, was able to ride the reengineering wave for billions of dollars in growth through the late 1990s.

The question of how thought leadership actually moves markets is rather more complex, yet increasingly important in today's slow growth environment. New and  not-so-new technologies are crying out for a compelling business or management concept that will inspire business leaders to invest more and faster. Think about RFID, VOIP, and Web 2.0 collaboration tools, to name a few of today's hot technology topics. All interesting technologies, all surrounded by hype, all growing more slowly than their advocates suggested a few years back -- and all suffering, I would suggest, from the lack of a galvanizing big idea.

To learn more about how thought leadership works at the marketplace level, I'm happy to be joining forces with The Bloom Group, specialists in thought leadership marketing, in a major new study of how big management ideas move technology markets. We'll dig into some of the most important success stories from the last twenty years and look as well at what's working and not working in current areas such as those mentioned above. The idea is to uncover critical dynamics in the marketplace of ideas, including the various roles of academic experts, management consulting firms, industry media, and technology firms themselves, in the making (or not) of breakthrough business concepts that drive substantial growth in technology-based innovation.

The study will bring together a group of corporate sponsors interested in substantially improving the effectiveness of their thought leadership initiatives. If you're interested, or know someone who might be, please let me know.

Marketing leaders desperate for digital know-how

A new survey from Sapient shows that CMOs and other senior marketers are looking anxiously for help from their marketing and advertising agencies with almost all things digital. (Thanks to Marketing Charts for the pointer.)

The survey asked more than 200 marketing execs what they want from their agencies over the next year, and "greater knowledge of the digital space" topped the wish list. Just as important, the top ten on the wish list was rife with digital concerns, including leveraging online communities, more savvy in social media, and, interestingly, evidence that the agencies themselves are using the social media (Facebook, Flickr, etc.) that they recommend to their clients.

Here's the whole list:

1. Greater knowledge of the digital space
2. More use of "pull interactions"
3. Leverage virtual communities
4. Agency executives using the technology they are recommending
5. Chief Digital Officers make agencies more appealing
6. Web 2.0 and social media savvy
7. Agencies that understand consumer behavior
8. Demonstrate strategic thinking
9. Branding and creative capabilities
10. Ability to measure success

For now, according to Sapient, many marketers are looking to change agencies. This is great news if you're an agency with legitimate skills at the cutting edge -- although the frustration marketing leaders have with current agencies suggests this is easier said than proved.

It's not just a question of the agencies, though. Marketing leaders need to find more skilled in-house staff as well. And they need to get more up to speed themselves, if only to make sure they're choosing  the right agency and managing them effectively.

Ultimately, we all need to find even more time to keep up with the accelerating pace of change in digital tools and tactics. That's not easy when we're already stretched to the max. But I can't see another way. Can you?

Key questions for B2B communities

There aren't many issues hotter than online communities for B2B marketers these days. Just about about every B2B company I know is trying to figure out how to advance existing communities, build a new one, or design a strategy. The benefits seem obvious, and everyone else is doing it, so you'd best not be left behind.

It's all well and good, but two rather practical questions keep getting in the way:

• How do you really make them work, given the extreme time pressures on would-be  participants?
• Where should you actually look to demonstrate return on investment?

Susan Zellmann-Rohrer tackled those questions head on the other day in a useful webinar organized by Mzinga and Communities Exchange. Zellmann-Rohrer spent years helping building Communispace, a top manager of private online communities for B2C and B2B clients, and is currently heading community strategy for EMC, so has more practical experience in this world than most.

On the first question, making them work, she highlighted three specific benefits that organizers should emphasize in creating a value equation for participants:

• Empowerment. Customers want to have a say on company direction and initiatives that affect them. If you can indeed empower that, they'll respond. But this means asking them for input, sharing inside ideas and information, and, most important of all, really listening and acting upon what you hear -- and reporting back on the results.
• Premium Content. What special and useful material can you provide participants that they would not otherwise see? Are there members-only publications? What about pre-publication drafts of important reports?
• Networking. This is the most obvious benefit and the first rationale for most communities, but it's hardly a matter of build it and they will network. Inviting the right people to join is the first, hurdle; actively encouraging and making it easy for them to connect to each other is the second. At EMC, for example, Zellmann-Rorher is tying a new online community directly into LinkedIn, so participants have easy access to more extensive profiles and networks than they would with EMC's community alone.

As for creating and proving the value, Zellmann-Rohrer suggested three areas to consider:

• Quality improvements. Has the community generated practical ideas to improve the quality of products and services?
• Customer advocacy. Are community members, especially the most engaged ones, actively advocating for the company, both within the community and outside?
• Co-innovation. Is the community becoming a vehicle to actually develop new product and service offerings? Zellmann-Rohrer cited research by MIT professor Eric von Hippel showing that innovation fueled by "lead users" in communities is highly correlated with commercial success.

The point of all this is that, beyond the hype, communities can indeed be extremely valuable to B2B companies, but not without a serious commitment to investing the time, giving at least as much as you get, and bringing a much more open approach to customer connections. Hmm... this is pretty much what we need to do with every other aspect of marketing these days, isn't it?

New Booz CMO points the way for B2B

Booz & Company today announced that Thomas Stewart, former editor  and managing director of Harvard Business Review, is joining the management consulting firm as Chief Marketing and Knowledge Officer. It's not exactly a typical career progression for heads of marketing, but it is an important sign of the growing importance that companies are placing on winning with ideas.

Consulting firms like Booz are have always used their expertise as a core asset in marketing and selling their services. But putting a career writer, editor, and intellectual like Stewart atop marketing and into the C-suite reflects the growing understanding, especially in B2B and services companies, that marketing organizations as a whole need to think and behave more like publishers than promoters.

Developing, disseminating, and stimulating conversations about ideas and information that relevant audiences want is the future for B2B and services marketing; figuring out clever ways to get them to pay attention to your standard pitch is the past. Kudos to Booz for taking the logical but still unusual next step in marketing's evolution.  

Can advertising help buyers make the right decisions?

In a buyers market, helping buyers make the right decisions should be a winning strategy, especially when it comes to high-stakes purchases. Buyers have endless choices, and often want and need sound advice to help sort through all their options. Much of today's thought leadership marketing is based on just this approach.

But can advertising alone provide sound advice? The insurance company Mass Mutual just launched a new ad campaign around the idea of helping its customers make the right decisions in the complex world of personal finance and insurance. The campaign came from consumer research suggesting that people wanted more assurance they were making the right decisions, a MassMutual exec told Marketing Daily yesterday. "It's an evolution of our core positioning," said Vic Lippman. "We're still about the central notion of helping people navigate the complexities of the financial environment."

The real issue, of course, is are they actually helping? Ads alone can do little beyond driving traffic to additional material or inspiring other calls to action. MassMutual's website does have all sorts of documents and self-help tools, but the experience is not very intuitive or user-friendly. And while the flash banner ad on the top of the home page promises that "We'll help get you there" with links for individuals, parents, business owners, and so on, a series of clicks through the various pathways ultimately just brings you to a page that prompts you to contact one of their representatives.

Advertising that you can help people make sound decisions in this day and age may have its place in the overall marketing mix, but creating the materials and programs to truly provide the help is much more important