What happens when you don’t plan your use of social media?  The same thing that occurs with any other PR, advertising and marketing communications tactics.  You end up doing the wrong things, at the wrong time, with the wrong focus.

If you don’t plan, you:

• start doing before listening.
• think social media is traditional marketing.
• won’t know how social media fits into your company’s overall strategy.
• don’t recognize how social media should complement your overall marketing strategy.
• won’t know who to engage and where to find your audience.
• can’t know if the bulk of your customers are or are not online.
• won’t know what it is you want to get out of social media.
• approach Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn as strategies.
• won’t know the difference between a group page and a fan page on Facebook.
• believe the here-and-there-post approach to blogging will build an audience.
• think the number of fans/followers is the only metric that matters.
• can’t decide who from your company will engage your online audience.
• fail to determine how much time to spend on social media.
• believe you control the message.
• assume that social media tools don’t have a cost.
• ignore setting accurate benchmarks.
• won’t hone your message for simplicity and clarity.
• pass up the opportunity to demonstrate what you know.
• ignore the fact that social media tools are temporary.
• expect to only get when you don’t give.

What would you add to this list?

I just registered myself on Klout, the analytical tool that measures the influence of Twitter users across the social web.  Klout allows users to track the impact of their opinions, links and recommendations.  Once Klout puts your Twitter stats through its algorithm, it plots you on a quadrant chart and delivers a number of statistics.

I plugged in my Twitter ID, RAReed, and before I saw the results, I already knew where I’d likely end up: border line Casual/Climber (the lower portion) and not Connector/Persona (upper portion).  Bottom line?  I need to be a much more active.

So, it got me thinking. How much does a person need to tweet and what should they tweet about?  Not a new thought, but with so many people signed on to the service, what is a healthy, valuable point of engagement?   The study conducted by Pear Analytics suggests that over 40 percent of Tweets came under the “Pointless Babble” category.  That may be true, but pointless babble scored “shitmydadsays” a CBS sitcom deal.

For the Twitterarti, you know what’s working for you.  For the rest of us making the climb or just getting started, here are some suggestions to either reign in or ramp up your visibility on Twitter.

1. Organize your daily tweets.  Do it in the morning or the previous evening.  I usually take 15 minutes at the end of the day (before I head to bed) to jot down the items that need my attention, so for me, this is a good time to assess what I want to Tweet about.  I typically look at some of the 70 some-odd feeds I subscribe to for inspiration.

2. Pick your tweet times.  To get actual work done, I look at Twitter when I look at my e-mail — morning, noon, quitting time and evening is a sane approach to sharing what’s catching my eye with my followers.

3. What to tweet. I use Twitter for business.  I tend to be more content driven, so retweeting interesting blog posts; posting relevant PR and social news stories; of the day and posting available updates to this blog are the underpinnings of my Twitter engagement.  Depending on the business you’re in, post announcements and events that could be pertinent.  You can also ask questions, but until you get enough followers, don’t expect all that many answers.

4. Mix It Up. Drilling your followers with business-related data with links to longer articles can get a bit ponderous. Recommendations from other PR and social marketing pros are to mix up your Tweets between business and personal.  I’ve learned I need to throw in some balance, such as interesting stories. Honestly, the stuff that turns me off is the near breathless updates of what someone is doing.  One of the people I follow went on about the pending acquisition of a new BMW.  Save it, please.

5. So what’s the count? By looking at the Twitter over users and underachievers through my follow list, it looks like a good daily target is between four and eight tweets per day, depending on your day.  One way around that is to deploy one the available Twitter schedulers that can send your tweet when you’re unavailable.

Like anything else, a good plan should produce good results.  I’ll let you know when I achieve some Twitter clout.

From JISC infoNet, a JISC Advance Service

What could America’s companies have done to fare better in the economic downturn?

Scenario Planning – a strategic method for preparing responses to imagined changes in conditions. 

 The art of scenario planning is making a comeback from its early days as a military tool, to a popular management practice in the 1970s.  Addressing different scenarios as part of the annual planning process enables companies to be ready with identified action steps before a crisis or opportunity hits. 

It is credited with many seemingly prescient decisions – including the New York Board of Trade’s 1990s decision to build a second trading floor outside of the World Trade Center.

This year, companies that saw the warning signs early and prepared in advance fared better, some even continuing to generate cash despite double-digit sales declines.  Those that are suffering lament that they made changes later than they should have. 

Regardless of how well they weathered the storm, many companies are now reporting increased productivity, despite fewer employees, with a relatively low percentage planning to re-hire anytime soon.  That’s a negative for the unemployed, but a positive for the companies.  It means they’ve found ways to work smarter not harder (a silver lining?).

How Well Do You Plan For the Good, the Bad and the Ugly?

Scenario planning is a world unto its own, with complicated methodologies and potential dangers (such as constructing scenarios based on too simplistic a difference, i.e. optimistic and pessimistic, according to this Scenario Planning Corporate Strategy Model*.  

Having survived 2009, you may decide to do more future thinking.  Here are some quick questions you’re likely already asking:

• What’s working, and not working, as a result of any changes made this year?

• What should be continued?

• What could use further improvement?

• What wasn’t looked at, that should be?

• How about new opportunities or market trends on the horizon?  Can your company get ahead of the New Year with aggressive effort now?

Planning of any kind takes time and focus.  Planning for multiple scenarios, even more.  But this is planning season.  Whether the business climate improves as predicted, tanks further or stays the same, prepare to act quickly!

* For more detailed reading on the subject, see:

How scenario planning can significantly reduce strategic risks and boost value in the innovation value chain

Future-Proof Your Organization, CEO Journal, Oct. 2008

The Secrets of Successful Scenario Planning, Forbes Aug. 2009

www.scenariothinking.org

Where are your prospects and customers going for information?  And, what non-commercial information are you sharing?

 • Know your audience

As described in our previous post (Part One: Who Cares?), know what your customers want and why they buy. Where possible, augment that with anything more they should know before they buy. Then use all of this in your marketing content.

For example, our client, CAPSYS Technologies, recently published an entire book applying this exact principle.  “ECM Buyer Beware: Real Insights and Answers for Decision Makers” encapsulates more than 20 years of knowledge, insights and real-world solutions facing companies trying to manage paper and electronic data using  enterprise content management (ECM) hardware and software tools. 

The author, Paul Szemplinski, methodically walks readers through the in’s and out’s of many aspects of these systems, sharing truly helpful details on every page.  Anyone that manages or makes budget decisions on IT systems will find the book a goldmine.  He did it without blatantly touting his own firm, introducing a breakthrough SaaS service from his company only in the very last chapter.

The tone?  Educational and forthright.  Paul knows the business and therefore shared what he knows, for the benefit of the reader.  Period.  The reader draws his or her own conclusion.  Whether or not numerous new customers result, he has done them all a service.

 • Create a program that regularly provides valuable information

The new mantra is value, not just a sales pitch.  While we all know the primary purpose of marketing is to sell, in today’s densely crowded marketplace, we simply must give our target more reason to listen to our story. 

The obvious example of this: Traditional ads are increasingly ignored.  Relevant ads (i.e., Google search) are growing exponentially. If we provide valuable, non-commercial information to both current customers and prospects, we build an environment of trust. People appreciate the expertise, and seek it out when the time to buy comes.

Map out a new program that reaches your targets at least quarterly; or find ways to fold non-commercial content into your existing tactics.

  • Let your target talk back to you

Involve your customers in the conversation.  Use online and/or social media tools to create a “user community” that talks to each other.  With every exchange, you are building your brand.

For tips on brainstorming dozens of valuable subject matter ideas for your company, read the white paper: Information: The New Marketing Currency, Go to our homepage www.rurelevant.com, and click the banner.

I won’t belabor the need for companies to think about the intended customer before they develop a product.  As it happens, PR/marketing folks typically are brought into the process after the fact.  With that, these are the customer-centric questions we ask before embarking on any plan for a new product or service launch:

• What trend(s) do this new product and/or service capitalize on?
• What would be the ideal behaviors (current situations, issues their facing, marketplace position, etc.) exhibited by the intended customer?
  Describe the intended customer:
  • Current customers (which ones)?
  • Prospects (which ones)?
• What experiences does this offering provide for the intended customer?
  • Positive
  • Negative
• How will the customer financially measure the value of this new offering?
• Does this new offering require the customer to change anything? (i.e. current behaviors, processes, systems, etc.?)
• How will this new offering new be adapted into the customer’s business? Describe training, implementation, conversion, usage, migration, etc.
• What are the next best alternatives compared to this offering? (i.e. what does it compete against – competitors, other offerings from company, and the intended customer’s internal resources?)
• Can partners provide help through co-marketing opportunities, leads, etc.?
• Buying process – which positions at the intended customer company will recommend, approve and influence the decision to buy this new offering?
• How will the sales force be trained in this offer?
• What will be a successful launch? List the target revenue and profit contribution for this offering during the 6, 12, 18, and 24 months?
• How do these intended results compare with previous new offering launches?

What customer-related questions do you ask?

Here’s the question you should ask as you prepare any marketing piece that will be seen by a customer or prospect:  Why should they care?

If you can’t easily and quickly answer this, STOP.

Consider:  What are you saying (or planning to say) to make them care?

If you’re not saying anything that will resonate with what they want to accomplish or achieve, or improve upon, or resolve a problem they are facing – or the old need, want, fear or desire motivators — it’s time to re-think your message.

As a product or service marketer, you have an objective: to increase sales leads, to present your company as an innovator or thought leader, to alert them to a special offer to buy, etc.  But, effective marketing today is NOT about your company.  It’s about your customers.

Think you can’t get beyond the standard no-meaning descriptors, like, “we’ve provided high quality products for 30 years?”  Think again.  It’s just not that hard, regardless of how old the product line may be, or how seemingly banal the point of the communication.

Attack the Problem
1. As a very first step, we conduct what we call our ‘Insight Phase’ in which we talk with both customers (satisfied and less so) and prospects to pick their brains about the company, what’s important to them, and why they buy.  This can be done in-depth with as few as 4-6 contacts, all the way up through a formal research format involving dozens of contacts.  While an online survey tool is useful, we believe there is no substitute for a live conversation.

2. With target input in hand (and used to generate more probing questions), we help our clients think beyond the typical marketing-speak by holding an internal messaging brainstorm. Gather up a cross-section of staff.  Include R&D, HR, sales, management, the lot.   Plan a two hour session and generate a dozen or so questions for the group (you can modify some of the same questions you used with customers).   Think of questions beyond the obvious (who we are, what we sell, what make us different/better, although many companies don’t even have good answers to these basics!).

A telling way to start the discussion is to ask the group to give their current company ‘elevator’ speeches.  There are likely to be good tidbits from several that can be culled for later use.

Other questions to take the group beyond the basics:

• What are some of the issues sales reps face when selling the company’s product or service?   Reps will likely be vocal about this, which then leads to deeper discussion of what the company should be emphasizing in its marketing messages.

• What are customers buying beyond our product or service – what are they really buying?  This should open up a torrent of commentary (and will make the group think!).  Examples of answers we’ve gotten include “trust,” “we know they’ll bend over backwards for us,” “we’re confident in the end result.”

• Define the terms used to describe your company, product or service.  Many companies say they are leaders.  So ask, what does being a leader in our industry really mean to our customers?

• Ask the group for examples of your company’s key successes.  Often these can be turned into meaningful points that can be effectively expressed through various marketing tools.

The answers from both groups – customers and staff – should give you a rich source of new reasons why your target should care about your product or service.

Use them and the ROI of your next marketing piece will improve in multiple ways: You’re being real with your audience; you’re being specific; and, you might just open the door to having some fun with your message.

The last question from yesterday’s post, “Would you consider your strategic planning process to be customer centric?”, is the perfect transition into today’s list about, you guessed it, customers.

You know how important it is to get them and keep them.  At the beginning of any engagement, we query the prospect about their customers and what drives their buying decisions.  Getting these answers will not only help your marketing direction, it will help your client find — and hopefully keep — satisfied customers.

• What problems are your customers trying to solve?
• Who are your most valuable customers?
• What do your most valuable customers have in common?
• What would the last 10 former customers answer to the following question, “What were the reason(s) you left us?” (If you don’t know their names, phone or e-mail, that’s a different issue.)
• What is the next best alternative that your best customers have for your product, service or solution?
• How do you leverage information gathered from your customers for direct customer benefit?
• What are you teaching your customers and prospects?
• What makes your company or product remarkable?
• What are your primary tactics for acquiring new customers?
• What percentage of new customers comes directly from direct selling efforts, marketing programs, customer referrals, or unknown?
• Do you have a Customer Advisory Panel? Do you meet them on a regular basis (i.e. at least once per quarter)?

What questions about customers do you ask?

“Judge a man by his questions, not his answers.”
- Voltaire

Silver Bullet thinking goes down the slippery slope of making assumptions.  Like so many experienced marketing and PR people, we don’t like to assume anything.

When we engage prospects, we ask questions, about their marketing, about their business, about their industry.  You name it.  Ask the right kinds of questions and you’ll begin to sense that what a client needs isn’t necessarily what they want.

This is the first of several posts about the kinds of questions we ask, starting with strategy and planning:

• Do you have a marketing vision?
• Do you have a marketing strategy and plan for next year?
• What issues are having an impact on your business, e.g. external influences that could change your business, both positively and negatively?
• How are your sales, service, delivery and operational managers involved in marketing plan development and execution?
• If you could measure only one economic driver at your company, what would it be?  Does this driver matter to your customers?
• If you have multiple marketing groups (i.e. your company is organized by product and channel, or marketing functions such as research, promotions, web marketing, and communications), how do you align individual programs so that the customer is not confused?
• Would you consider your strategic planning process to be customer centric?

What kinds of strategic planning questions do you ask?

What are you loading into your strategic marketing chamber?   Blanks or live rounds?

No Silver Bullet will occasionally share real-world stories from companies that made marketing mistakes through “fire, ready, aim”.   Share yours and read on for a few valuable lessons clients experienced with agencies that pushed doing over thinking.

“I should have stood on the roof of my office building and thrown the $28,000 into the wind,” said the executive director of national medical trade association, who took a full-page ad in USA Today to promote an event.

Lesson: Appeal as directly as possible to those with a vested interest in your event (especially when funds are limited)!

“Every PR agency I’ve ever hired has been a waste of money,” said a financial industry client.  Could it be because the agencies used standard PR tools, without thought about what results might be achieved through broad exposure; or more important, what value would be realized by the business?  Not to mention considering changing their strategy upon realizing their work was not moving the needle.

Lesson: PR alone is frequently NOT enough to achieve desired results.

A cookie-cutter is good only for making uniform cookies, not marketing. Element-R won a competitive pitch among three finalists.  We beat one on ideas; the other competitor shot itself in the foot.  It inserted the wrong client into its set of recommendations.  Incredulous, the prospect shared the mistake with us.  Not just lazy, shockingly indifferent.

Lesson: Marketing recommendations are NEVER transferable.