Just as technology emerged in the movie industry to make 3D movie production  more cost-effective, so too has it  emerged to provide B2B marketers with a 3 dimensional, not 2 dimensional, platform to provide compelling information about products and services and engage the people who like them.

People buy from people they like. This has been true well before use of the Internet . Remember the boring person who spits when they talk and who cornered you at the cocktail party? Your eyes glazed over, and you excused yourself to refresh your drink (and wipe off your face). What about when you got the overly assertive (aggressive?) sales pitch at the lunch that was intended to “get to know each other?” You looked for the first excuse to leave early.

Now, in social networks such as LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter, people choose whom they want to follow. Most people want to follow people who are interesting and have relevant stories to tell. They do not want to follow people who only post business pitches. They especially don’t want to follow those who repeat the pitches, over and over again!

How do you get people who wear 3D glasses to follow you?

Be Interesting in Your Social Networks.

It’s more important than ever to be interesting. Don’t copy “stuff,” but do create original materials. Don’t push your features and benefits out, but do tell a story that has some emotional context. And, yes, even your software product or your black box network router has a story, because it has changed the way people do business and made their lives better. Even better, get your customers to tell people online how your product or service changed their lives.

Be Your Brand Online

It’s also critical to know whom you want to personify online to represent your business. Don’t merely express your individual opinion online when you are marketing your products or services. Be your brand. Spend some time figuring out what your brand is (if you don’t know already). Then represent it creatively and “engagingly” online, and your customers will represent it as accurately as you do.

At Marketing Profs 2009 B2B Forum in Boston, Jay Baer said, “Be 3 dimensional in your social networking. Save the 4th dimension for Facebook.” (In my opinion, you could let loose a 4th dimension on Facebook, but set up your privacy settings so that your work connections don’t see that)

By all means be interesting and market in 3D. Don’t be 2D! What do B2B marketers think? Are you 3D or 2D? What are the obstacles to being 3D in your marketing?

Marketing consultants have to come up with great ideas and sell them to their client. Some take it a step further and create project plans. A few even stick around to execute the marketing plan. How do you know how your marketing consultant can perform through this marketing continuum?

Some of the key variables to getting marketing projects done include how individuals naturally focus their energy and prefer to work. At the Association for Strategic Planning annual conference in February, I was introduced to a unique assessment system designed to help individuals and teams maximize performance while minimizing stress. The underlying assumptions of the 5 Dynamics assessment/reporting system assessment are based on neurobiology, not personality.

I took the assessment in 2-3 minutes online, and in short order was served up a 13 page report that allowed me to review my ideal work environment, motivation, communication, interaction with others on my team,  task orientation, preferences for taking direction, leadership, sales orientation and learning style. The result told me that I love the exploration stage of a project, and I’m deliberate in the proposal, planning, and execution stages. Some of the points from my report are:

1. When you enter the 1st Dynamic, you instantly have new insights, ideas and connections.
   
2. You put time and energy into feelings, people and developing community.
3. You will stay within the boundaries necessary to get through the 3rd Dynamic. You very seldom distract the team from the agenda.
   
4. You will implement plans within deadlines and other boundaries.

I felt the assessment was accurate, and it explains why I love strategic marketing planning and easily adopt and assimilate new marketing techniques, technologies and methodologies for my clients. It also explains why my process of working from a one-page, written marketing plan and working with great teams leads to successful execution. I also loved the validation of my business name, New Incite. I chose the name because I incite my clients to positive change by offering new insights into their marketing!

Many thanks to Dr. Joyce Reynolds-Sinclair for showcasing the 5 Dynamics tool at the ASP Conference. By the way, the tool also provides analyses for teams – it quickly pinpoints any of the 5 Dynamics that a team is lacking. If you want to know more about 5 Dynamics, visit the web site at www.5dynamics.com.

I attended the Association for Strategic Planning’s annual conference in Pasadena, California on February 22-24, 2010. I got value from great networking, exhibits on strategic planning tools, methodologies and materials, author book-signings, workshops and breakout sessions. The keynote speakers were outstanding. They truly are some of the rock stars of strategic planning.

Here are some of my takeaways (note that these are not in order of importance or level of strategic-planning-rock-star-ness):

Dave Logan, co-author of Tribal Leadership, Professor at the USC Marshall School of Business

• Strategic planning has a “first mile problem.” It’s critical to execute and show some results for strategic plans, but few do this.
• Micro-strategies create a burst of implementation.
• Businesses that are demoralized should focus on the assets they have first, instead of on the assets they don’t have.
• Sometimes an asset that you don’t think is that important becomes a critical success factor (example: followers on social network can be a major factor for marketing communication).
• When businesses execute based on core values, the values act as a booster for getting results sooner.
• The micro-strategy process lends itself well to strategic thinking’s nested strategies.

Daryl Conner, Chairman of Conner Partners and Blogger, Change Thinking

• Number one reason for failure to execute strategic plan is leader’s lack of sponsorship for the plan to change.
• Strategic planners and plan implementers should spend more time talking to each other over the fence.
• Winners see themselves as both leaders and students at the same time.
• In order to change, an organization must have a “burning platform” – something too painful or expensive to continue the status quo.

Charles Kennedy, SVP of Research, ABC Television Network

• Referencing The Fourth Turning, Kennedy sited the authors’ 80-100 year cycles of American history: 1.) Awakening; 2.) Unraveling; 3.) Crisis; 4.)Heightening.
• We are currently in the crisis era, which the authors of The Fourth Turning predicted would start in 2005.
• Each stage in a cycle of history brings new meaning for society and how we tell our stories.
• In the crisis stage, there are nine new social contexts: intense parenting, rising community, simplicity, gender gap, stigma, survival, secular heroes, urgency, big & friendly.

Robert M. Malchione, SVP, Corporate Strategy and Technology, Avery Dennison

• Use ring-fence investing on key growth initiatives
• For OEMs, it’s important to focus on end-users of product as well as OEM customers
• Transparent communication is critical for innovation and agility

ASP’s annual conference on strategic planning will be in Dallas, Texas, next year – a perfect fit for one of Kennedy’s nine social contexts for our crisis era: big and friendly. The dates will be announced soon; the plan is to have the conference in early March of 2011.

Photo by Artbrom on Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0

Dave Logan, Co-Founder/Senior Partner of Culture Sync, Professor at the Marshall School of Business at USC, and C0-Author of the book Tribal Leadership, presented the opening keynote at the Association for Strategic Planning annual conference in Pasadena, California. In a little over an hour, Dave gave the audience of strategic planners a new model for jump-starting strategic plan implementation with his keynote speech. Here’s a summary of the talk:

Dave started by discussing an important disconnect in strategic planning. While the broadband industry has a “last mile problem” (the last mile of cable or wiring is the most expensive), strategic planning has a “first mile problem.” Businesses that have a strategic plan often don’t know how to move the plan into action. The inability to act on the strategic plan is compounded by the fact that most strategic plans have many initiatives, and executives have to decide which initiatives to implement first.

One solution is the micro-strategy. Micro-strategies create a burst of implementation in a 100-day term that allows strategic planners to show results quickly. The process includes five steps.

1. Identify an outcome that the business wants.
2. Identify the assets that the business has to support achieving the outcome. Dave pointed out that a critical aspect of this step is focusing on what a business has, not what they don’t have. He commented that if you are working with a group that is completely demoralized, start by making a list of the assets the business has – not what they don’t have – a great tip for these economic times.
3. Ask the test question, “Do we have the right assets?” If you don’t have the right assets, create a new outcome to achieve them, which is a nested strategy. An example is a business that doesn’t have a platform from which to communicate its marketing message for a product launch. A new outcome might be to “Get X number of followers on Twitter.”
4. List actions that can be done to achieve the outcome.
5. Ask the test question, “Will the actions achieve the outcome?”

A Micro-Strategy Example

The example Dave showed was that of a health organization that needed to improve compliance with health standards to reduce patient infections. A micro-strategy outcome they identified was to increase hand washing compliance from 42% to 85%. Some of the assets that were identified included knowledge of the financial impact of the problem, knowledge of the compliance percentage, knowledge of the role that families and culture play in hand-washing. Some of the actions they identified were to increase communications about the need for compliance and to engage families of patients to create compliance.

Dave pointed out that often one asset will emerge as a key factor in achieving the outcome. In his example, the key was engaging families and culture to increase hand-washing compliance. Once families of patients understood the importance of hand-washing by medical personnel, they would ask the doctors and nurses if they washed their hands before treating the patient, their family member. He equated the key asset to a usual object that action heroes often have and use to achieve extraordinary results  – Indiana Jones’ whip is one example. What was the actual outcome in the example? 93% compliance!

Dave had the audience break into small groups to create and discuss our individual micro-strategies, giving everyone a chance to experience the model first-hand. After we identified what we outcome wanted, Dave suggested that we triple it(!) He also pointed out that identifying core values that drive planning is a booster of the micro-strategy process, allowing businesses to increase success by as much as 300%. Because the health organization valued quality service, 42% hand-washing compliance was unacceptable and increased the organization’s motivation to achieve the outcome.

This is one of the many take-aways from ASP’s annual conference on strategic planning. I hoped to live-blog at the conference, but the facility wasn’t set up for it. I’ll be sharing more in the next week. If you find this information helpful, please comment about it below.

A recent Hubspot survey showed that most business bloggers write no more than one blog entry a week. In 2010 2-3% write multiple blog entries per day, 8% write one per day, 29% write 2-3 per week. 38% write once a week, 17% monthly and 6% less than once a month. For those who write 2-3 blog entries per week, Hubspot says 69% have acquired a customer from their blogging activities. At one blog entry per day 90% of bloggers have acquired customers, and with multiple blog entries per day 100% have gotten customers.

How do we blog with discipline to increase the frequency of our blog entries without sacrificing quality? I have my own ideas, and I’ve also surveyed some of my favorite blogs about blogging.

1. Keep a file for your blog ideas. When you get an idea, you can write it down and throw it in the file. Then all your ideas are in the same place. When it’s time to write, open the file and choose the topic that inspires you most.

2. I now maintain a spreadsheet of blog ideas on my laptop. I also enter blog ideas into the notes file on my iPhone. The spreadsheet allows me to categorize blog ideas by category and to strategically I.D. blog tags to use on the entries. In this way, I can be aware of which categories need more writing and which have the most blog entries.

3. Tie blogging to something you do regularly and create a system. I jog five miles three times a week, so I’ve tied blogging to jogging. Before I go out to run, I look at my blog spreadsheet or my blog folder and choose a topic to think about on the run. I’m slow (about a 12 minute mile), so an hour later I usually have some content that I’ve pondered and sometimes even a good headline. The danger is forgetting what I think on in mile two by the time I end at mile five!

4. Copyblogger recommends writing blog entries in advance when you are inspired, so that you will be prepared for those days where your blog-writing muse isn’t with you. Copyblogger also recommends scheduling blogs for the future, if your blogging platform allows this.

5. Hubspot suggests that you take information from your Press Releases and create blog entries. Also ask vendors and alliance partners to submit information.

6. A lot of blogs do a good job when the authors mix in video and interviews with people to create more content. This definitely mixes things up for those  following  a blog written by one person.

How do you blog with discipline? How frequently do you blog? Please comment below.

Photos by AF-Photography on Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0

The Chinese New Year started on Sunday and is being celebrated around the world. It’s the Year of the Tiger in the Chinese Zodiac, which relates each year to one of twelve animals. The attributes of the tiger are tenacity and verocity, perfect qualities for marketing in today’s economic environment.

Merriam Webster defines tenacious as: 1 a : not easily pulled apart : cohesive; and 2 a : persistent in maintaining, adhering to, or seeking something valued or desire.

What does it take to be a tenacious marketer?

1. Identify business goals that you need to achieve. You’re at Point A now. Without goals (Point B) you not only can’t determine how to get where you’re going, but you don’t even know where you’re headed.
2. Have a marketing plan. You won’t be “easily pulled apart” if you have a written, strategic marketing plan. Stick to a plan instead of operating by a seat-of-the-pants approach.
3. Dare to innovate and take measured risk. Marketing has changed phenomenally in the last ten years. Are you still stuck in 1999? 1989? Learn new tactics and new technologies that will get you where you want to go faster and more cost-effectively, including social networking, search engine optimization, and inbound marketing.
4. Eliminate marketing tactics that don’t produce results. When tigers are hunting, if they don’t succeed, they starve. They don’t waste their energy chasing anything but dinner. Track your marketing results, and if certain marketing activities don’t produce what you need, eliminate or change them.

Photo by Keven Law on Flickr,   CC BY-SA 2.0

There has been a lot of buzz about this year’s Super Bowl ads and the fact that Pepsi eschewed the ad spend this year to run a contest for the best idea to help needy people.

Will corporate marketers change their messages to reflect these economic times? Which of the ads is your favorite? If you remember the ad storyline, do you remember the brand it represented?

Please vote for your favorite below. Note that the 2010 ads will not display until the 4th quarter of the game ends.

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When I studied for the Inbound Marketing Certified Professional designation, one of the many comments that I made note of is that the key to social networking efficiently is “discipline and filtering” (I believe these words are attributable to Tod Defren of SHIFT Communications – strike me down if I am wrong). We need to participate consistently (with discipline!) and we need to provide consistent brand images and messaging. In addition, we need to filter the volumes of information available to us online, so that we can feed our customers, clients, and followers with relevant information.

There is a simple and free tool you can use from Google to filter online information about industries, products, people, companies and pretty much anything else you can think of. I set up Google Alerts for new clients, new product lines, competitive research, as well as my name, my company and my products.

Setting up Google Alerts is easy. If you don’t have a Google account, create one. From the menu, select Alerts, or, if that doesn’t display, select “More” from the menu and then select “Alerts”.

Your Google Alerts can help you monitor your own activity online. In addition, you can set up alerts for customers, clients, competitors, industries, trends, products and services, and even locations that you want to travel to or consumer products you want to buy.

Note that you can set your alerts to email you as they occur, daily or weekly. There may be some additional options. This is a very simple thing you can do to add to your marketing filtering system.

So, instead of manually searching for your marketing intelligence when you think of it, set up automatic alerts. You’ll have more marketing intelligence and more fodder for your customers and for blog entries,  Tweets and other social networking topics.

Please comment below on Google Alerts, or other tools you use to monitor your and your customers’ online activity.

Many of us are pretty enamored with the television series Madmen, with its portrayal of advertising industry “madmen” who worked at the agencies behind the scenes, smoking incessantly, fueling their creativity with gallons of alcohol, and relieving stress with illicit affairs. It’s so popular, fashion designers are incorporating elements of the show’s costumes into their current designs. The show even has a web site where you can create your own Madmen avatar. Yes, I couldn’t resist – see my Madmen avatar below, complete with martini in gloved hand.

The Author's Madmen Avatar

I think it’s interesting that this show became popular at the very time the traditional ad agency model is in decline. The process of creating and producing crafty subliminal ads that got our attention and “made us” buy in the 60s, 70s and 80s isn’t as relevant to today’s buyers who are suspicious of hidden messages, who value transparency, and who want to know and like the people in the company that is selling what they want or need.

Madmen Are Out

Today’s buyer wants to buy from people and companies whose stories they like and can relate to. They don’t want middle men and women crafting clever, catchy messages to try to lure our attention away from blogs, forums, LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter where they’re connecting with and learning from thought leaders, colleagues, customer and friends. In addition, they can tell when the story being told is not true. They even like to read, see or hear from the company CEO or other company representatives via their blogs, video messages or podcasts.

Nurturers Are In

The disruptive technology of the Internet has led to a tremendous paradigm shift in how people buy. That means we have to change how we sell. People are inundated with ads and emails that are pushed on them. They now find it easier to search online – especially within their trusted networks – to find solutions, products and services.

The buyer’s preference is to access information when and how they want or need it. (See my previous post, How to Make Sure Your Drip Marketing Campaigns Are Not Water Torture.) They don’t want you to push information on them, but rather want to access it when they’re ready or have time.  The new marketers are not called “madmen” but “lead nurturers.” We fertilize the Internet with valuable content that will help our prospects learn about and become loyal to our products and services and grow into customers. We lead prospects down the buying path through attraction, watching for buy signals.

Buyers are smarter than they used to be, armed with more information, and in control. How will your company adapt to this change from push advertising to lead nurturing? Do you agree with my statement, “Madmen are out?” Please comment below.

What is Inbound Marketing and why is it important to B2B marketers? A couple of years ago, my answer to this question would have been, “I have no idea.” Today I’m certified in this specialty. Why did I do it? Why should you  consider Inbound Marketing in your 2010 marketing programs?

Inbound Marketing Is… …the art of creating inbound marketing interest from your prospects when they have a need or interest in your product or service.

Inbound Marketing Is Not… …about creating outbound marketing messages that you push onto prospects when you want to, whether or not they are looking.

There are several parts to the Inbound Marketing process.

Part 1: Identify where and in what format(s) your prospects like to get information, then build outstanding and valuable content in those places and formats to attract your prospects.

Part 2: Engage prospects as they follow your conversation and gather buying data, all the while measuring their activity and interest.

Part 3: Recognize prospects’ buying signals and have the right resources and additional information to close the buying process.

Why is this important for B2B marketers? Inbound Marketing is in touch with today’s reality. It recognizes that the Internet is a disruptive technology that changed the way people purchase goods and services. Instead of the sales cycle, Inbound Marketing recognizes the buy cycle. It acknowledges that the buyer, not the seller, is in control.

Inbound Marketing is cost-effective and time-efficient. It doesn’t waste time and money trying to reach people and companies that are not interested in buying.  It combines online and offline marketing that attracts qualified buyers with interesting and valuable content. Maybe most importantly, it doesn’t completely annoy your prospects the way traditional, push-marketing ads, mail pieces and emails do.

Do you think I’ve been drinking more than Kool-Aid? Have you already adopted the Inbound Marketing approach? Please comment below.

Flickr Photo by foxypar4 CC BY 2.0