Building A Winning B2B Marketing Strategy

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Strategy is the backbone of great marketing. However, it’s the marketing strategy that is the most often overlooked or underdeveloped component of many marketing plans. The consequences of poor strategy can amount to wasted resources or, worse, a failed business initiative.

Bottom line: businesses cannot afford not to develop the correct strategy the first time around. A double negative, I know… but it underscores the point!

Good marketers must be part strategist and part tactician.

Setting Goals

Developing a great marketing strategy requires asking tough questions and developing consensus and clarity around goals. This often requires the marketer to serve as referee among all the stakeholders. The process of goal setting should include senior management and the sales and production teams. Clear objectives will allow effective measurement of all the marketing efforts.

Identifying Obstacles

It is said that knowledge is power. By acknowledging potential impediments to success, each potential course of action considered for the strategy can then be conceived proactively to both achieve goals and thwart obstacles. Like killing two proverbial birds with one stone, it’s far more efficient to hit a goal while at the same time navigating a pitfall. Now the strategy is ready to be created, followed by tactics.

Strategy and Tactics

In order to never confuse the two, think of it this way. Strategy is a high level “roadmap for success” that defines the basic courses of action required to arrive at the correct destination – on time and on budget. Whereas, tactics comprise all the specific actions that must be taken and tools to be employed to successfully execute the strategy.

For instance, “develop a creative advertising campaign to sell the unique brand attributes of quick service at low prices” is a strategy item. “Buy a local television schedule, produce a 30-second spot, and deliver creative” are tactics that support the strategy.

Jumping to Conclusions

We all know what happens when one assumes… When developing sound strategy a true marketing pro must resist the urge to jump to conclusions. Every strategy should be unique to every brand, product, competitive situation, and time (within the product life cycle). One should never attempt to prescribe tactics before all inputs have been considered and analyzed.

Creative for Creative’s Sake

The highly creative marketer has an even harder task, and that is to resist the urge to create for creative’s sake. Strategy must drive creative, not the other way around. The fun path or the first creative thought is not often the right one for the brand. This is why the creative brief is so crucial, especially when the strategy must be communicated to the creative team of copywriters, graphic designers, and others who will be responsible for bringing the campaign to life.

Thinking Deeply

Although a Hollywood-created character, “Mad Men’s” Don Draper, Creative Director with Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce, described the creative process this way. He explained that one must think very deeply about the creative problem being solved. If one thinks deeply enough, (focusing on all of the inputs), the answer will come, perhaps when least expected… even while sleeping or in the shower. Allowing the conscious and unconscious brain to deliver the creative answer is a powerful way to ensure that the work is on goal, on strategy, and will deliver the best possible results for the brand, product, or client. Nothing to it, right!?

Winning Marketing Strategy

Building winning strategy is a deliberate process. It’s not always fun or sexy. Nor is it quickly arrived at without proper evaluation of all the desired outcomes. And in the end, great creative always begins with great strategy, not the other way around.

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MomentumCurator – Clarity. Focus. Context. Content Curation.

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At Momentum, we make it our business to keep on top of the latest developments in marketing and media. Then we share the best links, and our own insights, with our clients as a courtesy to help them grow their businesses. The feedback has been extremely positive. It started as an eNewsletter. Now, as with all things, it is evolving and we’re giving it a name.

Introducing – Momentum | Curator.

“Content curation” is a trending topic in marketing and media. It has come to represent the process of carefully researching, sifting, selecting, and sharing of content with others. Much the same way as a museum curator acquires and displays objects of relevance or an art collector selects and interprets artwork, a modern day content curator chooses and showcases material that is relevant to a particular tribe of users with specific preferences.

We know that our followers want to cut down their search for good reading on marketing and media. They want to understand how changing technology, techniques, and consumer consumption impacts their businesses. We are content curators for our own constituents!

Incredible mass appeal content curation tools are already at our fingertips – Flipboard, Zite, Google Currents, among others. These tools exist for one fundamental reason. In the context of our busy lives it has become a herculean task – nay, an almost impossible one – to navigate the sheer scale and depth of information that is relevant to one specific area of interest.

When we plug-in every morning, we conjure up an image of our clients starting their day – looking for solutions for their business challenges and opportunities. We don’t just blog and tweet about building brands and creating content. We do it every day. That’s why it’s only natural that Momentum is the curator that puts a carefully crafted collection of industry news and insights in our client inboxes and social feeds. We are their thought partners.

It is our absolute privilege and passion to provide much needed and highly valued clarity, focus, and context. We’d like to do it for you too.

Get your complimentary Momentum | Curator subscription now.

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B2B Marketing Has Never Been More Difficult… or More Fun.

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No matter the industry, it has never been tougher to engage prospects in a sales conversation than it is right now.

Let’s face it. No one – you and me included – wants to be “sold.” Most people avoid incoming cold calls like the plague. With texting, email, Facebook, LinkedIn, and so many other ways to communicate, most desk phones are starting to sprout cobwebs!

Professionals still buy the products and services they need every day. But the impetus now begins with buyer. They seek out the information they need – usually via the internet – and they reach out to those that they perceive have the expertise, solutions, or goods they want and are prepared to acquire.

The challenge of B2B marketers is to:

1) Be easy to find – everywhere

2) Communicate a clear and consistent value proposition

3) Demonstrate industry-leading expertise (in your niche)

4) Allow easy sharing of your collateral and online sales assets

5) Be absolutely approachable and instantly responsive

No one wants to be sold. When they have pain, they want to connect with a trusted expert who can deliver real solutions that solve their problems. Someone who can help them move their business forward. It’s even better if the service or product comes recommended from within their known network.

If your sales approach is limited to cold calling and old school interruptive marketing techniques, you are missing a huge opportunity to connect with buyers on a whole new level.

Content marketing, advertorial campaigns, social media activity, and other relationship-building initiatives are all tools you can use, in tandem with traditional techniques, to establish expertise, make connections, and start conversations with prequalified prospects almost immediately.

Producing sales is more difficult and the old way is dead.

The great news is that, although it can be daunting at first, the new way is a lot more fun!

Two Super Hero Approaches to Social Engagement

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When comic book legend Stan Lee wrote, “With great power comes great responsibility,” he most likely did not imagine that in a mutant-free future this quote would perfectly summarize a phenomenon known as social engagement.

Engagement through social media is a powerful way to reach an audience. And when your brand is armed with a strong cohesive strategy, it can be a super hero. But without that “s” for strategy on emblazoned on your chest your brand is less like Superman and more like a guy dressed in tights holding a chunk of kryptonite awaiting a smack down from the dark side.

To avoid such a doomsday scenario let’s look to super heroes as role models when developing an online brand. There are two ways to represent a brand on social networks:

1) As a lone super hero a la Green Lantern, or
2) As a poster-child supported by a team like the Avengers

Green Lantern

The first is to choose a single voice to speak for the brand and make sure that any person writing on the behalf of the brand respects its value and its identity. This is much like the Green Lantern in that every person wearing the ring has to take the oath to respect the values of the Green Lantern.

You must define the social voice of the brand and how it interacts with the audience. Let’s compare two superheroes that have a lot in common: Ironman and Batman. Both are eccentric philanthropist billionaires who wear costumes to fight crime. If you gave them a Twitter account to share you could easily recognize each of the characters by the styles in which they write. Batman would be more introverted and humble. Ironman would be extraverted and at times arrogant.

In this approach you must use a cohesive voice and never let the audience become aware that there may actually be more than one individual interacting with them. Otherwise you would make your audience feel like they are dealing with split personalities, never knowing what to expect. The latter might be a good idea of the brand is the unpredictable Incredible Hulk.

The Avengers

The second approach is for a strong team of social advocates to drive the brand. In the case of The Avengers, Nick Fury is the voice of the group. He deals with the corporate aspect of things and the generic public relations but when it comes to action it’s Ironman, Captain America, Thor, and the others who do the heavy lifting.

In this scenario your main character (Nick Fury) only post news about the overall brand and rarely interacts directly with the audience. That’s a job left to the associates.

This way every member of the audience feels like the brand is dedicating one of its super heroes to them and doesn’t mind the potential difference in tone between the brand identity and the person representing the brand.

But which route to choose?

In social engagement the right way is always the way your audience is expecting you to engage with them.

What’s the Value of a Facebook “Like?”

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The answer on Facebook is $0 if you don’t have a strategic plan to monetize it or otherwise leverage social media in a way that creates revenue.

Internet coffee shops are rife with “social media experts” who sip lattes and brandish the word “engagement” about as if business were as simple as chatting with friends. Engagement for engagement’s sake often results in a whole lot of yakking with little or no regard to whether or not the conversation is consistent, on brand, on target, or, most importantly, leading somewhere. In short, these “experts” can do a lot of talking and not much for the bottom line.

Almost every brand can benefit from unique and specific marketing initiatives that can be employed to drive revenue using social media.

However, if your social media strategy begins and ends with the word “engagement,” or worse, you have no strategy at all, you are missing out on the huge and essential opportunity to drive your business forward in a quantifiable way.

The truth about employing social media marketing is that it is challenging work. It requires great focus and skill. But when it’s done properly, social media will establish credibility for your brand, expose you to a social reach far beyond your current network of followers, and allow you to significantly impact the bottom line

This requires a unique and comprehensive brand strategy that is informed by specific goals for the brand, deployed with proven tactics and creative that is in-line with the strategy, and validated with a variety of simple measurement tools to ensure a worthwhile return on investment.

And most importantly, there are a variety of specific metrics that will determine the value of a “Like.” You will know and you will like it!

How to Get Your Social Media on Track

• Restart with a solid strategy.
• Avoid BS. Get qualified help.
• Develop a unique plan that addresses revenue.
• Formally define rules for social deployment.
• Monitor all activity for consistency.
• Measure. Adjust. Repeat.

What’s The Value Of A Like?

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Great Content Is A Godsend

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A client recently offered those words at the close of a conference call. And right then it dawned on me: Our clients tend to be experts in their particular field – not experienced multi-media communicators like we are. That’s in our DNA and we sometimes take it for granted. It’s our secret weapon.

Content Marketing is an oft-overused term originally conjured up to describe paid print editorial. In a platform agnostic marketing environment of 2012, truly great content must be deployed across multiple platforms, where consumers want, and how they want.

Any organization can leverage its expertise to create compelling media content – especially if it enjoys a thought-leadership position in the marketplace. An experienced and quality content creator can help these brands literally evolve into media properties that can engage followers with a myriad of specific interests and motivations.

North America’s largest trade association and the leading producer of housing market data had several goals. It sought a way to deliver information on buying, selling, and owning a home as well as other housing market information directly to consumers.

NAR previously relied almost exclusively on the national media to interpret their releases and present the information through their varying lenses. The Association also wanted to create and disseminate credible and timely messages that represented the immense collective expertise and professional acumen of their 1.1 million REALTOR® membership.

With the help of media marketing experts, Real Estate Today was born and within 24 months the weekly 2-hour audio program, hosted by award-winning talent Gil Gross, and its associated web-deployed and social media-driven content became America’s #1 real estate program.

Real Estate Today is now available on on-air, on satellite, on-line, via mobile, and is consumed by over 1 million consumers every month. www.RETradio.com

Example: The National Association of REALTORS® – Real Estate Today

The winning formula for producing great content starts with a comprehensive brand strategy and is fulfilled with highly produced and informative, engaging content that can activate the target audience in a natural and powerful way.

No tactic can rival the successful deployment of superior multi-platform content marketing delivered by a credible organization by proven and professional content creators. It truly is a godsend.

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