Today I am happy to present a great guest blog post from my friend, Michele Reister. Michele is a field Marketing Specialist in SAS' Education and Training group.
Last week Michele attended the Event Marketing Summit in Chicago. And by 'attended', I mean attended! She sat through one workshop, one social media masterclass, five keynotes and nine session presentations. According to Michele, "Many were good, some were great." And, although the speakers were from different industries (some B2B, some B2C), there were a few common themes throughout the three days. Here’s her recap of what she learned.
1. Be Authentic.
Almost every session I attended spoke about the need for companies to “be authentic.” As an example of this principle, Paul Kalbfleisch, VP-Brand Marketing, Research in Motion (makers of Blackberry), spoke about Blackberry’s sponsorship of the Black Eyed Peas concert tour. Yes, they were trying to reach that demographic of music fans, but it was more than that. Through their relationship with Will.i.am, they created an authentic experience where Blackberry BBM was incorporated into the concert. This wasn’t the traditional signage and demo stations sponsorship; Blackberry was part of the concert experience. Will.i.am freestyled lyrics made up of BBMs from concert attendees. It felt real. Will.i.am was into it. The concert attendees loved it. It was authentic.
Along this same line of authenticity, it’s important to remember to keep your marketing purposeful. Don’t use technology just for the sake of using technology. For example, the Event Marketing Summit used the BeLinker technology for attendees to send and receive information from other attendees, vendors and speakers. Despite their efforts to incorporate technology into networking, I still saw plenty of people trading old-fashioned, paper business cards. BeLinker sounded okay in theory, but in my opinion, it just added a layer of complexity to the natural networking that happens at conferences.
2. Don’t Bother Trying to Keep Up with the Jones’.
I was happy to hear Erik Qualman, author of Socialnomics say “there’s too much happening in the world of digital marketing. You can’t keep up with it, so focus on what you CAN do and do it well.” We’re all in the same boat – limited staff, smaller budget, never enough time. If maintaining a Twitter account is all you have time for, then just stop there. But, make it a really good Twitter account. Share lots of helpful content. Interact with your customers. Follow the right people and really listen.
3. Stop trying to attribute sales to a single marketing tactic, it’s about the mix.
Measurement and ROI are always hot topics, but especially in social media these days. A lot of management teams are hesitant to dedicate resources to social media when we can’t prove that Facebook fans or Twitter followers equals more sales. The bottom line, though, is that your brand is being talked about whether you like it or not. Decide if you want to be a part of the conversation and what role you will play. Maybe you can’t specifically prove that your LinkedIn group is driving revenue, but you can monitor trends in your metrics such as Web traffic, sales and new customers and compare the difference to your baseline.
4. Marketing is less about pushing messages and more about co-creating everyday life experiences with them.
Don’t just tell your customer about your product; invite them to experience it. Not just on a tradeshow floor, but at your facility. Not just through your sales people, but with your R&D folks. Alicia Dietsch, VP-Marketing at AT&T described how they invite customers to attend their quarterly emergency drills. AT&T performs these drills regardless; why not invite some customers to take part in the action?
Another example I liked comes from Cisco, who changed their conference session format to game shows and talk shows to engage their audience after receiving feedback that the sessions were too static (read: boring).
Gone are the days of corporate speak. Business today is about people talking to people. This is difficult for some old-school marketers to embrace, but right now it’s all about merging the personal with the professional. Just try it. I promise, it’s easier and more fun than writing another boring product fact sheet.
5. Fish where the fish are.
Stop trying to send everyone back to your web site. Meet them where they are. If your users are on Facebook, create a fantastic Facebook fan page where customers can download your content, enter your contests and purchase your product without ever having to leave Facebook. Dan Hanover, Editor & Publisher of Event Marketer Magazine pointed out that “marketers are in the conversion business. We need to add more transactional elements to all of our marketing activities.”
6. And, I’ll throw in one extra:
My sixth take away from this conference is, if you want attendees to visit your booth, give away an iPad!
8 Comments
Good takeaways Justin - thanks for sharing!
I could not agree more with your tip 2 about keeping up with the Jones. There are way too many marketing technologies and ideologies, i.e. social media, directories, search engine marketing, viral marketing, ppc, photosharing e.t.c. its best to focus on 1 o 2 main tools and be very good at it and others as and when just ti mix things up. Better to be an expert at or 1 or 2 things than be know a bit about everything, especially with todays crowded and cut throught world of marketing as it can be hard to get your message accross.
OMG, I am soooo behind times....I need to incorporate the marketing strategies you speak about into a couple of my pages regarding assessment of the competition and the mix of marketing techniques (point number 3). I concentrated way too much on managing employees. Thank you for this insight. As I write more, I definitely write about social media particularly when I speak of the "limited resources" or "management process".
Great post, I especially liked: "...your brand is being talked about whether you like it or not. Decide if you want to be a part of the conversation..."
One thing that wasn't mentioned, and that I just don't get - it seems like so many big companies rely on motivating customers by "punishing" them. (For example, cell phone companies that threaten you with huge fees if you leave before the contract term is up, or any company that makes you pay an extra fee to pay with a representative.)
Wouldn't it be better, from a brand-building perspective, to use positive motivation, so that people feel really good about your company and WANT to stay (rather than feeling it's too expensive to leave right now, and counting the days until they can leave)?
I'm just thinking that customers that LOVE you will stay, be loyal, forgive small mistakes, and spread the word about how wonderful you are. Customers that are stuck with you will pretty much do the opposite, including giving you ample bad press, right?
Thanks!
i agree about NOT keeping up with the Joneses. You can either run a business or be an seo expert/tech guru etc. Usually, most of us are good at one and not both.
Just use the main marketings tactics like Twiiter/Facebook unless you ve got tons of time on your hands you ownt be able to use everything else
Nice, post i agree also. Working as a manager for a pharmacy callcenter times have changed where we need to make the customer feel like family. Customer always will be loyal, and they are our number one goal to keep them happy. I do like the information about facebook and using twitters to brand your business.
Point #1 is extremely important...
My last job was with a large company that forgot to remain authentic. The company's products targeted the upper-middle class, middle age segment, however they attempted to release a product that targeted the "hip" college crowd.
With one strike already against them, the company's next mistake was giving the college social media project to a team of employees who were far from the college mindset and with kids in the 1-10 year old range rather than recent MBA or Undergrad hires. This team researched how to set up a facebook page and made a half-hazard facebook fan page -- considering it a success. The product absolutely bombed and was repositioned as another product shortly after.
As someone watching from the sidelines (and understanding the power of Facebook and Twitter) I saw the trainwreck of a company attempting to be "hip" when it was as hip as your 45 year old uncle who makes plastic airplane figures as a hobby.
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