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Marketing Profs Daily Fix

Opinion, Analysis and News from MarketingProfs

Robert Lesser: New Research on Lead Generation through Web 2.0 MediaToday

In June 2008, I joined a panel at the MarketingProfs BtoB Forum 2008 in Boston. The team, moderated by Roy Young, presented the highlights from the panel's recent research with MarketingProfs on how B2B marketers were using online media.

Contrary to popular wisdom that social media tools like blogs are best suited for engagement, 49% of those B2B marketers surveyed by MarketingProfs indicated that when using blogs, the goal was to generate leads.

Fast forward to today and my organization has just released a follow-up to the MarketingProfs research.

Our approach was to focus on how B2B marketers were leveraging new media for lead generation and what specific tools were being deployed in programs.

Our survey of almost 250 B2B marketers made a similar observation: 50% of those surveyed were using blogs for lead generation.

Online Lead Generation Tools by Segment

The first tier of online tools deployed by responders for lead generation was comprised of Web 1.0 tools such as email, webinars/webcasting and paid search.

Paul Dunay: Social Media Budget RatioToday

After my last post on the Media Budget Ratio I got a question out on the Marketing 2.0 community by Scott Zosel about how much should you allocate for Social Media in your budget?

Great question Scott and you inspired me to write this post. So here it goes.

The cost of the technology used for social media is rather low. Take for example - a blog - costs next to nothing, a podcast can cost btw $0 and $2000 on the high end, a video can cost btw $0 and $10,000 - $15,000, a wiki can cost about $6500 a year, a community can cost btw $0 (Ning) up to $100,000 a year for a private branded community.

So unlike traditional media – Print, TV and Radio - which can cost big money. Social media’s upfront costs very little and we actually use money within my team to experiment with so we A) get a better understanding of the technology and B) start to understand how we can use it and measure the results along with all the other media we have.

Ok but the real cost (again unlike the traditional media stuff) is in Content Creation to fill up those social media / new media channels - here is where the cost can get large. I happen to think I am very fortunate since I work at a consulting firm where many people are thought leaders - so we have no shortage of opinions ;-)

So to recap - I would say (as I did

Ted Mininni: Selling Comfort During Tough TimesYesterday

Some marketers are responding to the current economic downturn and consumer fear, by softening their marketing campaigns.

This isn’t anything new, of course. Whenever we’ve had tough times in the past, marketers have instinctively turned to reviving nostalgic advertising to reconnect consumers with happier days and associations. Or they’ve sought to comfort us with images of family, hearth and home. Translation: warmth, safety, the implied promise that everything’s going to be okay.

According to a recent Wall Street Journal article: “Marketers Take a Softer Tack to Reach Uneasy Consumers,” a number of new marketing campaigns are being rolled out to comfort frazzled, retrenching consumers.

In one effort at soft marketing, Pillsbury has launched a new campaign dubbed: “Home is Calling.” Multi-media advertising depicts people of all ages clicking their heels and wishing to return home to eat with loved ones. Juliana Chugg, Pillsbury’s president: “This campaign is an opportunity for us to represent hope in a time when people are feeling scared. To be able to connect home and values like safety, security, warmth and love at home really resonates.”

Other campaigns noted in the article:
• MasterCard advertising depicting hugs, smiles and shared happiness as a family departs on a trip.
• Ragu depicting its value—the ability to help moms prepa

Amber Naslund: Laying the Groundwork for Successful Social MediaYesterday

If you aren't connected with your customers now, social media isn't going to fix that. It's going to amplify it. So before your business launches a social media plan, be sure that you're set up for success.

Get your customer service department in order.
While social media is often described as an extension of marketing, it really has its roots in customer service. It provides a clear path for communication between company and customer, not unlike the phone or email.

If you have kinks in your customer service mechanism, now is the time to fix that. You need to have not only a clear flow of information and a plan for how to solve issues as they arise, but you need to have the right people and mindsets in place. If the people manning the phones or the email aren't serving the customer well now, social media will only ever highlight the shortfalls.

Take the time to ensure that your customer service department is running like a well oiled machine before you open up even more channels for dialogue. The most straightforward way to find out: ask your customers what THEY think.

Set up listening posts. Lots of them.
You need to know what's being said about you across the web, plain and simple. Don't be the last to know, because it puts you forever in a reactionary state.

Participating directly in social media is not for everyone - it takes time, money, resources, commitment, and careful planning. But listening and paying attention c

Andrea Learned: Designing for Transformability in a DownturnYesterday

What if this economic downturn is not the time to give up on new thinking, but really provides the opportunity to more freely explore some fresh ideas? Since stressing out does nothing toward increasing, or even maintaining, your numbers... why not use that worry-filled brainwave space, instead, to identify and integrate consumer trends you never needed to notice before?

Reena Jana's quick hit Businessweek article and video with David Rockwell, architect/branding expert/set designer, presents a great example in the discussion of his design thinking process. Rockwell's ideas for hotel design in a down economy, specifically, include this nugget: what about holding cooking classes in hotel kitchens? Given the current convergence of trends in staying home, cooking more, and being with family, this makes a lot of sense.

So, what else, physical space or otherwise, might be primed for such "transformability," as Rockwell called it? The possibilities are endless.

The interesting thing to note is that without this "what now" sense of doom we feel, tranformable ideas might never surface. Yet, offerings that bubble up that way, like cooking classes in hotel kitchens, can serve consumers and add value on so many levels. Perhaps, the counterintuitive truth is this: that extreme limitations or tighter parameters, in a way, force a bolder, creative thinking. And, the solutions