VantagePoint Marketing: The Movie

Last week, Scott Monty, head of social media for Ford Motor Company, posted a blog titled “Social Network: The Movie.” In a nutshell, Scott mentioned 10 social media professionals, including Chris Brogan, Seth Godin, Mark Ragan, and Brian Solis, and listed what celebrity would play them if they were in a movie. Also known as their “Hollywood doppelganger,” Scott did a great job finding celebrities to match these individuals.

Well, there was already a Vantage Point movie (released in 2008), but Dennis Quaid and Matthew Fox graced the silver screen instead of our team here in Greenville, SC. But if there were a movie on VantagePoint Marketing, who would play our team?

Note: I picked only a few from the VantagePoint team to highlight – it’s hard coming up with actors!

Craig O’Neal – President and CEO / George Clooney

(Similarities: successful, a genuinely nice guy, and well dressed)

Dave McQuaid – Vice President, Creative and Digital / Jim Carrey

(Similarities: creative, funny and sometimes out there, but in a good way!)

Kristin Ambory – Vice President, Client Services / Nicole Kidman

(Similarities: polished, professional and great attention to detail)

Mitch Mahoney – Summer Intern / John Francis Daley

(Similarities: it’s all in the hair and face)

Me – PR Specialist / Mena Suvari

(I’d rather be played by Rachel McAdams from “The Notebook” or Jennifer Anniston, but I’ve been told I look like Mena Suvari.)

What do you think? Did I represent our people well? I would love to hear what you think, or if you have any other recommendations.

The Rise of the CMO

I was delighted to see in BtoB Magazine’s 10th Anniversary issue that one of the major trends over the past 10 years in the business-to-business space is the rise of the CMO. Admittedly biased, the addition of this key function to the c-suite is a must for any company who really is serious about growth in today’s marketplace. If marketing is all about creating and retaining customers, pray tell me, how can the CMO role not be critical?

As the article stated, “The CMO is really a business strategist and the owner of the customer experience who has the ability to work with every facet of the organization to optimize the customer experience.” Many companies give lip service to being “customer centric” but have not taken the necessary steps of having a key internal champion in the c-level suite (the CMO) to truly be so. Until they do, it will continue to be lip service, and the company will continue to get less than optimal results in the marketplace.

No doubt it’s been a transition for many CEOs to come to recognize that a very good CMO is worth his or her weight in gold. I have personally found that there is a direct correlation between the value that a CEO places on marketing and the value they place on a CMO. Those of us in marketing should then take heart that the CMO position has become increasingly important over the past decade and that more and more companies are seeing the real value of outstanding marketing. However, the CMO function is also one of the most challenging positions, with tremendous expectations to produce results like never before.

I’ll have several things to say in my next blog about these expectations and what that means for the CMO. Stay tuned…

Does your customer have equity in your brand?

You bet they do. Customer equity is the sum of the lifetime value of all its customers discounted over time. What drives customer equity? Three things drive customer equity: value equity, brand equity and retention equity. Let’s look at each one of these separately and see how they come together to form customer equity.

Value equity is the customer’s objective assessment of the utility or value of the brand based on the product/service cost versus what they receive. This is not based on price but overall value to the customer.

Brand equity is the customer’s subjective and intangible assessment above and beyond its objectively-perceived value. This is not solely about product features and benefits but also about other more intrinsic reasons.

Retention equity is the tendency of the customer to stick with your brand, again, above and beyond the objective and subjective assessments of your brand. Remember, this driver alone will not last forever, so you must build up both the value and brand equity drivers.

The bottom line of all this is that you had better concentrate on owning the customer. Learn which of the drivers your customers desire and create as many touch points as possible to continue to build these drivers. Create a content-filled web site, a communications plan that includes PR, blogs and social media so the customer sees and hears a consistent value proposition and promise. Conduct a Net Promoter Score survey every year. The first year establishes the benchmark.  In the following years you can see how you score against the same categories.

Remember that your customer does have equity in your brand.

4 On-the-Go Tools for Marketers

There’s no denying that we are all faced with doing more with less these days. Between meetings and emails, there isn’t always a lot of time for everything else on the to-do list. Additionally, it is summer, which means many people are traveling or taking time off. For those of us that are constantly on the go, here are four tools that can keep us connected without getting too far behind.

Innovate or imitate?

Is it better to be the market leader, innovating to stay ahead of competitors — and perhaps even the marketplace itself? Or, are those companies with follower strategies in a stronger position for success when the risk of an innovative new product or service introduction is largely borne by the leaders?

A recent business book review in TIME Magazine highlights two authors’ separate answers to this question and got me thinking about our own clients’ approaches. (Read the full TIME Magazine article.)

While I’ve never asked this question outright, in looking at our clients’ product and service portfolios, it appears that many employ a combination of innovation and imitation, and are successful, in part, because of such a strategy.

Sometimes, this innovation comes in the form of a truly “game changing” offering. Businesses with a disciplined approach to creating a new experience for their customers or answering a problem in a wholly unique way can enjoy real distinction in their marketplace — translating not only into a sound leadership position but better bottom lines.

Other times, companies introducing follow-up products and services have an opportunity to improve upon the innovator’s offering. While first-to-market is an enviable position, leveraging insights from a market leader’s success — or failure — can also deliver benefits within an existing marketplace or adjacent ones.

And, of course, there are often “me-too” products and services in a business’ portfolio that are offered to provide customers one stop to meet their needs. These “me-too” products, however, don’t dominate the offering for those companies who understand how important differentiation can be to long-term business success.

So, to innovate or imitate? The answer may lie in a balance of both for your business, too.

Takeaways from 2010 Vocus Conference

On June 10-11, I attended the 2010 Vocus Users Conference. Held in Washington, D.C., nearly 400 public relations professionals, all who use Vocus as a PR tool, gathered to learn, network and listen to some of the great thinkers in the industry.

This was my first time attending this conference, so I wasn’t sure what to expect. I knew that there were some very strong speakers lined up, however, and was excited to hear about the latest trends in communications. Among the speakers were: David Meerman Scott, author of The New Rules of Marketing and PR; Brian Solis, author of Engage and his blog, BrianSolis.com; and Deirdre Breakenridge, author of Putting the Public Back in Public Relations.

Here are a couple of takeaways, as applied to BtoB communications, from my time spent at the conference:

• Have an online newsroom. Online newsrooms can be a great way to share information and make the reporter’s life much easier. Include executive bios, product or personnel photos, videos, blogs, and links to social networks. Instead of bogging down an email with several attachments, you can direct the journalist to the online newsroom to pull the information that they need.
• The person within the company that is in charge of social media should be the person who cares about the customer. Beth Harte of Serengeti Communications made this point, and I completely agree. Often we can get caught up in who owns social media – public relations, marketing, sales, etc. It really comes down to communicating with your customer and who can best nurture that relationship.
• Speak to buyers in their language, not yours. We must talk to our customer in a way that is meaningful to them. It may not be easy to hear, but the customer doesn’t care about your product. They do care, however, if you can provide them with a solution to their problem.
• There are no set rules. When it comes to pitching the media, there isn’t a rule book that we can all go by. We must educate ourselves on how someone wants to be pitched. Developing a relationship is a key to success. Spamming irrelevant information will land you in a trash folder. Finally, we must respect their time and treat the media like the humans that they are. Content may open the door, but it’s the human relationship that will carry you much further in your pitch.

  

  

  
  

These are just a few takeaways from the conference. Every attendee had the opportunity to pick up a copy of World Wide Rave (Scott) and Engage (Solis). I look forward to reading these two books and I encourage you to check them out to learn more about the shift from traditional PR to new communication.

Who is at the wheel in your company?

Take a close look at your company’s product and service portfolio.  Does your portfolio reflect your company’s business strategy, or is your portfolio loaded with a mismatch of products or services with little potential for growth?

New products and services set the future direction of your company.  If your portfolio does not support your company’s business strategy, then who is driving your organization?

A company without a new product/service strategy can easily be directed by its most vocal salesperson(s) or its largest customers.  Sure, we all have times when we have to add a small program to satisfy critical customers.  But if you do not have an innovation charter, these incremental projects can drain your development resources and alter the future direction of your company.

The smell of a brand

Our family just returned from a 2-week trip of a number of national parks, including Yellowstone, Grand Tetons, Mt. Rushmore, and Rocky Mountain National Park. Except for a couple of nights at the way-cool Old Faithful Inn in Yellowstone, most of our lodging was in Holiday Inn Express and Hampton Inn hotels. Why? Well, for me it’s pretty simple:

Green, sustainability resources for your business

If going green or becoming more sustainable is a goal at your company (or even in your home), it is important to pay attention to the leaders of the movement. At VantagePoint, many of our clients are focused on sustainable practices and/or manufacturing green products, so we turn to certain sources for up-to-date information. It can be hard to keep track of all of the changes, including legislation, technology and trends, but fortunately, there are resources out there to help you find your way.

Using Application Stories as a Sales Tool

You have probably heard the saying, “Don’t just tell me; show me.” When it comes to selling a product or service, it is best to show your customer how it can meet their needs by giving an example. Telling someone that your product is “the best in the industry” isn’t saying much at all. Anyone can make claims that their widget is the best, fastest, newest, most affordable, etc.

Other than a hands-on product demonstration or a trial run of a service, an application story is one of the best ways to communicate the actual features and benefits. Also known as a case study, these short summaries give your customer or prospect a quick snapshot of your offering’s proven success. It also gives your product a third-party endorsement.