MarketingMuses

How to Create a New Technology Category with Gartner (Redux)

In January, I posted How to Create a New Technology Category with Gartner. It described a three-step process used to create a new online-security category:

• Use Specialty Analyst Firms as Advisors

• Develop a Market Model and Competitive Landscape

• Land a Marquee Account

I've developed a short eDoc that can be downloaded at SlideShare.

 

Creating a New Technology Category

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A Unified Digital Marketing Operation

 

A unified digital marketing operation can help small and mid-size B2B companies:

Compete successfully with much larger companies

Produce a better return on investment (ROI)

Generate incremental revenue

Increase enterprise value

This short eBook describes how a unified digital marketing operation can be designed and built to fully utilize new digital marketing and communication technologies and achieve optimal demand generation performance.  

 

A Unified Digital Marketing Operation

View more presentations from Bruce Pharr

What I Learned in School: Social Good Marketing Can Go Bad

Unless your business model is based on social good, can you develop and execute a successful external social good media program without first developing, nurturing and embedding it into your company’s internal culture?

I spent August 8 through 18 as a member of the 2010 Strategic Marketing Management executive education program at Stanford GSB.  It was an exceptional experience.  Fifty students from around the world covered a broad range of marketing and business topics with professors and business leaders.  I will be reviewing some of these in the coming weeks.

Jennifer Aaker led a session titled The Dragonfly Effect: Harnessing Social Media for Impact.  It included the very effective and moving example of Sameer Bhatia and Vinay Chakravarthy Using Social Media to Save Lives.  Jennifer also discussed brand authenticity.  She reviewed survey results showing that 59% of participants couldn’t or didn’t name an authentic for-profit brand, and 49% of participants couldn’t or didn’t name an authentic non-profit brand.

Discussions among members in class and at dinner that evening led to the following question: Unless your business model is based on social good, can you develop and execute a successful external social good media program without first developing, nurturing and embedding it into your company’s internal culture?

Organizations such as Kiva, and companies such as The Body Shop and World of Good were founded on social good principles.  Kiva’s mission is to, “connect people, through lending, for the sake of alleviating poverty.”  World of Good describes itself as, “the world’s first online marketplace to convene thousands of People Positive and Eco Positive sellers and products all in one place, empowering you to shop in ways that align with your personal values.”  The Body Shop states that it, “has constantly sought out natural ingredients…to enhance your natural beauty,” and, “strives to protect this beautiful planet and the people who depend on it—not because it’s fashionable, but based on the belief that it’s the only way to do business.”

In these examples, social good is embedded in the business models.  Unless the company acts in a way that is inconsistent with or contradictory to its business model, its brand should be associated with social good.

But what if you launch a social good marketing campaign that may not be consistent with your company’s business model?  What if the “espoused values” of one of your company brands is directly contradicted by the advertising campaign of another?  This is exactly what Unilever encountered when the message in its Dove Self-Esteem Fund advertising and social media campaign, targeting women of all ages, conflicted with the message in its Axe Effect advertising and social media campaign, targeting teenage and young-adult males.

Here’s a Dove Film titled Onslaught produced by the company.

Here’s the same video shell (intro and audio) edited with video images from the Axe Effect campaign.

It seems to me that incorporating social good messages into an external marketing campaign when that message is not part of your company’s business model or internal culture is inauthentic and, as a result, risky.  I tried to think of a company that has created an authentic external image of social good without first establishing it as part of their internal culture either through their business model or values (e.g., The HP Way before Carly, Pat and Mark).  I can’t!

Can you think of one?  If so, please comment with an example.

A Recipe for a Winning Webinar

Here are the essential elements of a webinar that outperforms the norm, with case study results from a recent one that followed the recipe.

 

1. Address a Hot Topic - The more relevant and timely the topic, the higher the attendance and level of interest will be for the webinar.
2. Partner with a Respected Third Party - Partnering with an analyst group, professional organization, or respected publication can improve the quantity and quality of attendees in a couple of ways.  First, co-sponsorship with an independent, respected third party implies that the webinar is more balanced and less biased than one sponsored by your company alone.  Second, the third-party will usually publicize the webinar to their membership or readership, which can significantly increase your reach, registration and attendance.
3. Use a Third Party Moderator - A third-party partner can usually provide an analyst, editor or other unbiased expert to moderate the webinar.  This adds greater credibility than you or someone from your company moderating the webinar.
4. Have a Customer Present a Case Study - Similar to partnering with a respected third party, a real customer reviewing a real process, decision and result is much more credible and interesting than you doing it yourself. 
5. Try and Limit Your Involvement to Answering Questions - Answering a question is much more powerful and effective than making a statement.  First, you know the audience, especially the person asking the question, is interested in what you have to say.  Second, people listen more closely to answers than statements.  Have the person most knowledgeable about the webinar subject answer the questions, and stay on topic.  This is not the time to try and broadcast your marketing message.  Just answer the questions clearly and concisely.
6. Follow Up with Next Step Options - A few days after the webinar, contact attendees with options for them to learn more and take the next step.  Make sure that there are options for each phase of the buyer education and decision process: awareness, discovery and validation.

 

A Webinar Case Study and the Results

Symyx Technologies recently conducted the most successful webinar in its history: one that significantly exceeded average webinar metrics and produced an exceptional return-on-investment.

Symyx partnered with the American Chemical Society to present a webinar on the electronic laboratory notebook (ELN), a fast-growing software technology that is moving from early adoption to mainstream acceptance.  The webinar was promoted by Symyx through direct marketing, its website, and its social media channels, and by ACS to its 160,000 members.  Rick Mullin, a senior editor at Chemical & Engineering News (an ACS publication) moderated the case study presentation by Gabriel Weatherhead, Ph.D., Lead Systems Engineer at Millennium: The Takeda Oncology Company.  Gabriel described the process Millennium used to select an enterprise ELN for chemistry and biology disciplines.  A Symyx Vice President of Product Management and Strategy was available to answer questions after the presentation by Gabriel.

ACS co-sponsors and conducts webinars with companies every couple of weeks.  Based on its metrics for these events, the Symyx webinar generated 3 times more registrations and attendees than the average, and it generated 145 questions.  Also, the co-sponsored webinar generated 10 times more registrations and attendees than webinars publicized and conducted by Symyx alone.  The average cost of attendee acquisition was about $20, well below the average cost per inquiry from other demand generation activities. 

Attendees were contacted after the presentation and directed to an ELN microsite where they can access a pdf copy of the Millennium case study, as well as other ELN marketing assets that allow respondents to learn more and take the next step in the buyer education and decision process.  
Symyx, in turn, can nurture and track prospects going forward, and eventually provide sales with a well-developed profile of a well-qualified prospective buyer: the definition of a sales opportunity.