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Is Your Business About To Get Disrupted?

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And you just don’t see it coming?

The evidence is all around us. The “era of disruption” has arrived. Is your business about to get disrupted?

Change Agents

Apple disrupted the music industry with the invention of the iPod and iTunes store. Amazon disrupted the book business. Legal Zoom disrupted the legal services business. Netflix disrupted the video business. And so on. And so on.

Indeed, disruption is all around us, hiding, lurking, ready to devour its next victim whole – that is, if the inattentive remain unaware.

The velocity of change in consumer consumption is driving evolution in every sector. And, forgive the platitude, but change does indeed breed opportunity.

As a marketing strategist and founder of a technology-driven hybrid-marketing agency, I find our best clients come to us when they begin to feel the very real pain these changes bring on. They see the writing on the wall, they recognize they need to change their perspective on their business, and they are motivated to look at new opportunities through a whole new prism and move forward. That means harnessing the powers of disruption for good, and disrupting their own undertaking before their competition does.

Often our first step is to undertake a comprehensive top-to-bottom brand review. We guide the client through a careful review of all the benefits that their product or service delivers to their customers. Then we ask them what additional services or products they should be delivering in response to specific targeted customer research results. Finally we brainstorm about what they “could” do for customers to solve their needs in a whole new way. Every idea goes on the table – the good, the bad, and downright ugly.

The especially important question we then ask of the client is: What “could” you do for the customers that your competitors simply cannot do because of cost, infrastructure, technology, corporate policy, or just plain lack of imagination.

We invite members from all the functional areas and all levels from within the organization to participate. It is surprising where the best game-changing ideas often come from.

Often, the most simple, revolutionary, and truly disruptive idea is often first met with an overwhelming chorus of “We can’t do that! It’s never been done before.” However, when prompted to view it from the customer’s perspective and assuming all things are equal, the team begins to see the light.

However the road from idea to implementation is often a rocky one and inevitably the business owner must summon the guts, gumption and green to make it happen. But when truly disruptive methods find their mark, competitors are often too far behind the game, too stuck in “that’s-the-way-it’s-always-been” to react before it’s too late. In the meantime, the disruptor has won customer after customer and deal after deal, sometimes recreating the business model within the category.

An example of disruption in practice can be found in the telecom business in our own city of Vancouver. Like most large cities, the local legacy cable company, whom we’ll call “Company A” offers a bundled service of cable television, internet, and home phone delivered via co-axial cable, at a price point of approximately $150 per month. The customer of Company A is responsible for purchasing their own HD receiver/PVR(s) (ranging from $250-$450 per unit). Additional terminal connections are extra. All other equipment, including digital television receiver is available on a monthly rental. The customer agrees to return the rented agreement upon cancellation of the account. There are no contracts.

Meanwhile, “Company B,” a telephone telecommunications company entered the marketplace in just the past few years with a broadband television technology –and the same bundle of services – but with a whole new disruptive philosophy.

Company B asked themselves, “What can we do that Company A cannot, will not, or is unable to do?” The answer was to leverage their technology and provide an array of solutions that had never been offered before, at a compelling price point (around $120 per month), and addressing key issues that have driven Company A’s customers absolutely crazy for years.

Company B turned the existing game rules upside down by:

  • Building their offering on the technical advantage that their bandwidth does not peak and crater like coaxial cable-delivered internet.
  • Providing as many additional components at no cost or with no cash outlay: Not one but two free set-top receiver/PVR boxes, both of which can be controlled and accessed from the other. Providing free phone and internet modem.
  • Including free installation from top to bottom, and basic home network computer and routing set-up and troubleshooting. Eureka!
  • No caps on internet usage (a real issue in Canada)
  • Enacting a customer service policy where the answer is always “yes.”

And finally when the value of the total package and discount incentives were just too good for any right-minded prospective customer to refuse, Company B asked what used to be a dirty question in the industry:

“Given this incredible package value we are delivering for you, will you sign for us for three years under very favorable terms, so that we can justify underwriting the value of all of this equipment and service to you?”

The answer nine times out of ten is an absolute “yes!”

Company B disrupted the local industry. They changed the rules of what was doable and they did it. Now, every day, Company A is losing hundreds of customers to Company B. But Company A is too big, too bureaucratic, and has too much invested in its existing technical infrastructure to want or be able to react to the disruption. And their market leadership is ebbing away day-by-day.

Disruption. It’s the new name of the competitive game.

Are you bold enough to be disruptive too? Or will your business be disrupted by another?

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Sales and Marketing. Why It’s Getting Harder To Sell

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(And what you can do about it)

It’s not your imagination. Businesses of all shapes and sizes are struggling to meet their sales numbers. Something has changed. That something is everything.

You may have noticed by using relationship tools such as LinkedIn that a high percentage of your contacts and acquaintances have changed jobs in the past 24 months.

This unprecedented churn should present opportunity, shouldn’t it? People we know moving to new positions usually opens up new conversations. However, in the post-economic collapse era, these folks are stepping into new roles at diminished salaries with increased responsibilities and fewer monetary resources than ever to get the job done. They are stretched thin. And from a sales perspective this repeat business and referral network is likely underperforming as compared to the past.

Furthermore, in the corner offices, baby boomers are retiring out of senior decision-making roles in growing numbers, ceding that authority to a whole new generation of incumbents who have an entirely different way of cultivating relationships.

The problem is that most consumers are tuning out traditional, interruption-based marketing methods. In fact, cold calls are regarded with utter disdain. The reaction translated is: “How dare you interrupt me with an extraneous sales communication. Do you not understand that my time is precious and I do not have bandwidth to do what I need to do let alone accommodate your need to sell me too?

In short this is why the old sales methods are gone forever. Prospective customers are now choosing to interact with the solution providers they choose, when they want, and on their own terms.

The reason you may be feeling a chilling effect on sales now more than ever is because we have just now reached a tipping point; the point at which a critical mass of customers seem to be exhibiting these traits.

The old way is gone. Now is the time to evolve your sales and marketing processes or continue to feel the increasing pain and isolation of diminishing sales opportunities and new business conversations.

It is time to invest in an inbound marketing approach so you can begin receiving and responding to the needs of qualified prospect’s rather than trying to “smile and dial” or “spray and pray” to little or no avail.

This means developing a plan that exploits the latest and evolving marketing methodologies, including content, search, web, PR, digital, social, advertorial, lead generation, and e-mail marketing. It also means reassessing cold calls, print, mail and other less than desirable practices that are falling on deaf ears and blind eyes.

It may be a rude awakening. But once you have a strong plan in place, the results can be seen quite quickly.

Get expert help to evolve your sales and marketing strategies and watch your numbers rise.

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7 Ways To Better Investor Relations

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With Improved Inbound Marketing

Here are some steps that with the help of a good marketing firm you can implement right away to dramatically improve the quantity and quality of inbound investment leads.

1. Generate More Web Traffic – Investor relations professionals constantly tell us that their single biggest challenge is getting more potential investors to visit their website. By developing an inbound marketing strategy, you will be able to attract qualified prospects to your company.

2. Create Custom Content – With the help of media marketing experts, you can publish your press stories, blog posts… even audio and video as compelling, searchable editorial content that can easily be deployed across multiple channels, exponentially increasing opportunities for investors to find you.

3. Utilize every social channel – Whether Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, or others, consumers increasingly rely on social mediums to connect and discover information. Furthermore, 81% of US consumers consider blogs to be a reliable source of advice and product information.

4. Optimize every communication – Using highly developed inbound marketing software, it is possible to determine the best possible keywords and phrases that will best appeal to your target and incorporate them into all the content, to aid in search and discovery.

5. Generate Leads – It is highly desirable to collect, monitor, and chart all your prospective investors activity on your site, to build a relationship, and pre-qualify them with a series of on-site initiatives.

6. Nurture Those Leads – Consumers will be drawn to your site to read/consume general industry information, learn about social and green initiatives, or to pre-qualify themselves on the investment potential of your business. You must harness these leads and nurture them to fruition.

7. Measure. Refine & Repeat – These essential cutting-edge must be tracked and measured. Based on the results every campaign must be tweaked for optimum performance.

Social Media Is A Valuable IR Tool

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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.

Let’s Talk Marketing Strategy

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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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What Happened To Kashi Could Happen To Your Brand

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…if it stands for something you can’t stand behind.

The image appearing on social feeds across the globe is one that is still hard to erase.

The shock is still palpable to masses of Kashi cereal lovers, including myself, who woke up over the past few months to the fact that the all “natural” breakfast food they loved and trusted was found by the USDA to contain genetically modified soy, and that certain grains contained pesticides that are known carcinogens and hormone disruptors.

Undoubtedly consumers everywhere need to wake up to how our food is grown and processed and to take responsibility for what we put on our family’s tables. That’s a matter for another article.

But, from a marketing perspective, why was there such a massive consumer backlash on social media?

Kelloggs – the corporate parent of Kashi – maintained it did nothing wrong. Finally, on Facebook, they blamed food supply and then the USDA for not regulating the term “natural.”

Kashi clearly missed the point. They did not understand and value the true connection they had enjoyed with consumers all this time.

Consumers felt betrayed because they believed Kashi shared their values. The products were being marketed as “natural” at a premium price point ($5-$8.00) through reputable health food and organic retailers. Health professionals touted the benefits of switching to Kashi cereals to their patients. Friends told their friends, and so on. Kashi was a company you could trust to help you live a healthier life.

Instead of understanding the power of this connection with their followers, Kashi remained silent for days. When they did speak, Kashi went on the defensive and denied wrongdoing instead of taking responsibility in a head-on approach crisis as a “partner in nutrition.”

Kashi missed a priceless opportunity to share the values – even in a time of crisis- with the one group of people with whom they had an opportunity to build consensus; people who are relatively aware of and are concerned about the presence of unhealthy ingredients in the food chain; people who were already putting money where their mouths are.

What can be learned: It is so important to take stock in what makes your brand tick. Are you fortunate enough to share certain beliefs with those who use your product? Do you fully appreciate how your consumers view your brand? Does your brand live up to its actual or perceived brand promise? Have you reviewed every aspect of your operation to ensure all the elements are in alignment and you can stand behind what you stand for? And are you prepared with a proper social media crisis plan when the unthinkable happens?

If you answered “no” to any of the afore mentioned questions, you had better get ready or risk getting “Kashi-ed!”

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