Make Your Marketing Message Contagious

Jonah Berger first caught my attention in this Fast Company article (“Fifty Percent of ‘The Tipping Point’ is Wrong”). The article positions him as the new Malcolm Gladwell and challenges some accepted theory of The Tipping Point.

Berger is a Marketing Professor at the Wharton School of Business. At Stanford, he was a student of Chip Heath, author of the marketing classic Made to Stick. Made to Stick describes why messages stick with audiences. Berger has taken this concept a step further in his bestselling book Contagious: Why Things Catch On. Berger examines why certain products get more word-of-mouth marketing and why some online content goes viral.

In the Fast Company article, Berger says marketers have been obsessed with the wrong part of the viral equation. “By focusing so much on the messenger, we’ve neglected a much more obvious driver of sharing: the message,” he writes. The Tipping Point’s notion that social epidemics are driven “by the efforts of a handful of exceptional people, is just plain wrong.”

Instead, Berger has identified six reasons why certain products have great worth-of-mouth marketing and why content goes viral (acronym STEPPS):

• Social Currency. We share things that make us look good. For example, if we are able to inform other people about a trendy new smartphone app that we discovered, it makes us look good…and, increases usage of the app.
• Triggers. Ideas that are top of mind spread. Ideas become top of mind when they are activated by triggers which make people easily think of the product. Cheerios gets more word-of-mouth than Disney because it is so strongly associated with breakfast.
• Emotion. When we care, we share. The author even cited tests where people who learned something during physical activity were more likely to pass along the concept.
• Public. People tend to follow others, but only when they can see what those others are doing. Steve Jobs designed the Apple logo on the Mac so other people could see it when someone else is using a Mac. Ideas need to be public to be copied.
• Practical. Humans crave the opportunity to give advice and offer tips…especially if they offer practical value. Berger has identified this ‘paying it forward’ to help others. No one will share a product or idea that does not have practical value to others.
• Stories – People do not just share information, they tell stories. And stories are like Trojan horses that carry ideas and brands. To benefit the brand, stories must be interesting and relate to a sponsoring company’s products.

A fascinating book, it has a lot of great advice for marketers and product positioning. Berger explains that you can pick and choose which of the six viral reasons to use in your messaging. He said you can use one or select a couple to apply. This is, from our experience, could be misleading.

It is possible that certain packaging will work better than others; or that packaging too many will confuse your audience. Which of these techniques have you applied to your marketing efforts? Did they work? Have you tried to package multiple techniques? We love to hear your comments.

If you think that you need insightful advice to take your international marketing to the next level, then contact us and we’d love to chat more.

Let’s Ban Press Releases

In a memo sent out to staff at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in January, the Trump Administration has prohibited press releases, social media postings, blog posts or new content placed on the agency’s website.

I’m a big fan of this policy.

Not only do I think, as a media agency, we’ve worked for several organizations who should have put this out to all departments (it would have saved some heartache for some them), but it just makes sense.

I’ve just come back from teaching a crisis communications lecture, where students very effectively showed that many a company CEO has led their organization to crisis (at the very least, a loss of revenue) by talking about their personal stance on something and it being represented as from the company.

Let’s take Dan Cathy (president of Chick-fil-A) and his comments against LGBT rights. It led to loss of traffic for Chick-fil-A (which continues today despite a damn tasty chicken sandwich) and several new restaurants (notably on University Campuses) that never opened.

It’s near impossible for a CEO to talk to any media outlet and not represent the organization that CEO leads.

Back to politics for a moment. This isn’t the first instance of a government agency being told to cease social media postings or communications in the new Donald Trump presidency. During Trump’s inauguration, the National Park Service retweeted two posts teasing Trump about his inauguration crowd size and hitting the administration for deleting references to climate change.

Dude!  If this was any professional business, heads would be rolling. There is no instance when one sub-department or rogue employee should be teasing the CEO of a business on social media. So, as PR pros we must make sure this is not possible.

So, I say, all press releases should be banned. Let’s face it, it’s a lazy tool that good PR pros just don’t need. There is no instance today that needs blanket press releases sent out, when a dedicated team couldn’t reach out personally to multiple press contacts to get the story right. I know you think I’m off my rocker or joking, but seriously, media relations needs some relations that are personal – not mass market. Leave that to advertising.

Next up, no one – no one at all – should be speaking to the media, unless cleared and managed by a senior PR person representing (I don’t care if it’s in house or through an agency) the organization. Today, there is too much at stake. Seriously – no one. Not the founder, not the owner (in fact especially not those two), not any person.

We need to wake up and smell the digital communication highway. Founders and CEO’s are brilliant people, but that doesn’t make them brilliant at the nuances of media spokesperson. Yes, they can be very desirable as their quirky, entrepreneurial, shoot from the hip, style makes them very quotable. But there is a lot at stake. One wrong soundbite and it can be echoed around the world and back again leading to considerable financial loss.

So that’s my drive for 2017. Ban press releases and tighten control so no one can speak to the press unless it can be controlled by a media pro.

Anyone with me?

Profitability through PR

Growing a company into a global brand is all about building reputation and doing it over and over until potentially millions of people know and love what you do. The process for this success is relatively simple.

Visibility + Credibility = Reputation + Profitability.

Please note, this is a process, and not a formula.

First your brand must be visible in the community (ideally your target market). That is when people know who you are and what you do.

Over time, you establish credibility. Credibility is when people know who you are, what you do, and they know that you are good at it.

And then and only then do you get to reputation.

You know when you have reached reputation, because that will result in sales, which in turn should lead you to profitability.

So, what does that mean in the word of marketing?

Step 1 - Visibility

The best way to get visibility to a mass audience is to go straight for that TV commercial in the Super Bowl. That spot ran at $5 million for just 30 seconds of air time this year. So, maybe, just maybe, that’s not going to be the best use of your marketing budget.

Luckily, you are probably not targeting the 110+ million people that tune into this sporting event. You can probably target a little better than that. Nope, you can target a lot better than that.

Targeting takes skill and research, but it is time well spent. Once you know your target and what media they consume, you can build a plan to speak to (not reach) them.

Most media contain two elements – the free section and the paid for section – the media relations section and the advertising section. 

Placing ads is just great, if you have a large budget and a short amount of time. The trouble with advertising is well documented and can best be summed up by the pioneer in marketing, John Wanamaker, who famously said, “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is, I don't know which half”.

For those with slimmer budgets, the world of media relations is the way to go. PR is wonderful for creating visibility, because it is amazing at educating an audience. With PR you can get into how and why of your product / service. You can get deep.

It is going to take time - effective frequency is a controversial topic. Some say you need to see a message seven times for it to be effective. Some say it’s twenty. Whatever the mathematical accuracy is for your brand, sooner or later there will be visibility.

Step 2 – Credibility

Too many people and brands don’t recognize the need to move to step two – credibility - the quality of being trusted and believed in.

Advertising is not great for gaining credibility. Your customers – irrespective of whether you are in a B2C or B2B business – see through the ads pretty quickly. Be honest, so do you when you are a consumer.

Media relations, on the other hand, passes the smell test. There are all kinds of articles that can be placed for build credibility such as getting testimonials from clients/experts and sharing business insights / information with customers without selling to them directly.

In fact, we would suggest to you that media relations is the best marketing tactic for building credibility (and if you don’t believe us, speak to one of our customers or read some more of our great articles).

When will you know when your credibility campaign is working? Your reputation grows through word of mouth and profits will follow.

Just don’t forget – credibility is where the magic happens.

The Fear of Digital Marketing and One Little Secret you Need to Know

Business owners and marketing experts are scared. Just like other (more regular and boring) people, they fear the unknown. They fear what might happen, loss of control and what won’t happen.  Some have even admitted to me that the digital changes we experience today that cause disruptions to their business are keeping them up at night.

The fear is real and justified. Digital is transforming how we market to customers and how customers interact with us and our clients. They can make us more efficient, they can increase customer service and they can bring bigger profits. They can also work against us.  The fear is based in the unknown. We’ve yet to find a company that have it right, constantly, long term.

Unlike traditional threats to business, there is little insurance available to mitigate these risks. We hear that businesses are exploiting data, virtualizing infrastructure, reimagining customer experiences, and seemingly injecting social features into everything, but do we have a handle on it?

I spoke to hundreds of business owners in 2016 and none – not one – has said they gain clients because of their great Twitter campaigns. Now I think about it, not one has said they have gained a substantial client base from any single online digital platform.

I have spoken to several companies that have advertised very successfully online, using platforms such as Facebook, but the small print is that these companies are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on marketing/advertising. So, what is the little secret?

The secret is simple - digital marketing can work, but it is not a standalone tactic. The success of digital only works when it is integrated with traditional and off-line marketing strategies.

If you think any one digital marketing platform is the ticket to success, then you are going to be wasting time and money in 2017. If you can integrate digital marketing into your traditional this year, I’ll toast to your success.

Have you cracked the digital / traditional integration nut?

PR TRENDS FOR 2017… WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW TODAY.

PR TRENDS FOR 2017… WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW TODAY.

There is one major driver to the world of media relations, and that is digital media. It’s not new this year, but it is developing quickly and has a hand in what media is, how consumers absorb content, how we as PR pros deal with the media and how as PR pros we communicate to our customers. As the world changes, so do we need to. Here’s what you need to be aware of.

1. Visual Storytelling

Facebook now sees 8 billion average daily video views from 500 million users

Snapchat users watch 6 billion videos every day

US adults spend an average of 1 hour, 16 minutes each day watching video on digital devices

78% of people watch online videos every week, 55% watch every day

And according to some, there is a 74 percent increase in understanding when someone watches a video. These are some simple reasons to start using video and other visual tools right now.

2. The Traditional Media Press Release Is Dead

How you write it and how you distribute it.

First up, your release must be digital friendly. This means you need to include links and hashtags. Without these, others (possibly a journalist or editor) will add them, but you loose control of the message and the online advantage of multiple links/hashtags going live at one time.\

Secondly, while we can use a news wire (sure, why not?) this is not the answer. They are increasingly affordable and quick to access. Better still, get that news out directly to just the right (small group) of quality, professional journalists. At the same time, publish your own piece of news on your own blog and then multiply it by posing across social media

3. Amplify your Social Media

Yes, the lie between PR and advertising are ever greyer. Once you have used your own social media platforms to publicize your own news, it’s time to turn the volume up with some amplification. You can use paid promotion, such as Facebook promoted posts, Twitter promoted tweets and LinkedIn sponsored updates. Google AdWords will continue to be another great paid promotion tactic.

To go to the next level, try asking big influencers in your industry to share and contribute to your content to give it more credibility and publicity.

4. Native Advertising

Now we have you over the hurdle of actually paying to play in the form of amplified social media posts, next you need to consider native advertising. Ad and digital agencies have been pushing these solutions for some time.

Native advertising typically match the look and feel of the platform it appears in and provides *useful* content rather than a typical call-to-action to purchase something. It’s about time the PR pro understands how and when to use native advertising.

5. Personalizing Your Pitch

We have known for many years that mass pitches do NOT the job. You need to build relationships with journalists and editors if you want to increase your chance of getting your content published fast. So, why is this going to be a trend in 2017? Well, people seem to have forgotten. Many believe that they can use technology to overcome this vital part in the PR process. You can’t. We believe that traditional processes of getting to know journalists will have a resurrection this year.

What else do you think will be driving the PR industry in 2017?

WHAT WE JUST READ… LETS US GET TO ‘YES’ QUICKER.

The author of the legendary bestseller Influence, social psychologist Robert Cialdini shines a light on effective persuasion and reveals that the secret doesn’t lie in the message itself, but in the key moment before that message is delivered.

What separates effective communicators from truly successful persuaders?

Using the same combination of rigorous scientific research and accessibility that made his Influencean iconic bestseller, Robert Cialdini explains how to capitalize on the essential window of time before you deliver an important message. This “privileged moment for change” prepares people to be receptive to a message before they experience it. Optimal persuasion is achieved only through optimal pre-suasion. In other words, to change “minds” a pre-suader must also change “states of mind.”

His first solo work in over thirty years, Cialdini’s Pre-Suasion draws on his extensive experience as the most cited social psychologist of our time and explains the techniques a person should implement to become a master persuader. Altering a listener’s attitudes, beliefs, or experiences isn’t necessary, says Cialdini—all that’s required is for a communicator to redirect the audience’s focus of attention before a relevant action.

From studies on advertising imagery to treating opiate addiction, from the annual letters of Berkshire Hathaway to the annals of history, Cialdini draws on an array of studies and narratives to outline the specific techniques you can use on online marketing campaigns and even effective wartime propaganda. He illustrates how the artful diversion of attention leads to successful pre-suasion and gets your targeted audience primed and ready to say, “Yes.”

Pre-suasion

A Revolutionary Way to Influence and Persuade
By Robert Cialdini

What we just read… just made us smarter, faster & better than you.

At the core of Smarter Faster Better are eight key productivity concepts—from motivation and goal setting to focus and decision making—that explain why some people and companies get so much done. Drawing on the latest findings in neuroscience, psychology, and behavioral economics—as well as the experiences of CEOs, educational reformers, four-star generals, FBI agents, airplane pilots, and Broadway songwriters—this book explains that the most productive people, companies, and organizations don’t merely act differently.

Here’s what we took away and how it can be applied to the world of international integrated marketing.

Productivity relies on making certain choices. The way we frame our daily decisions; the big ambitions we embrace and the easy goals we ignore; the cultures we establish as leaders to drive innovation; the way we interact with data: These are the things that separate the merely busy from the genuinely productive.

The structure of the book hinges on eight key productivity concepts that explain why some people and companies get so much done:

• Motivation

• Teams

• Focus

• Goal Setting

• Managing Others

• Decision Making

• Innovation

• Absorbing Data

Packed with true stories and scientific discoveries that explain that the most productive people, companies, and organizations don’t merely act differently. They view the world, and their choices, in profoundly different ways.

Smarter Faster Better is both a page turner and a book that will frequently cause you to turn down page corners to be read again later.

SMARTER FASTER BETTER
The Secrets of Being Productive in Life and Business
By Charles Duhigg

11 strategy points you have to consider if you’re serious about content marketing

11 strategy points you have to consider if you’re serious about content marketing

In the forever changing world of marketing communications and public relations, if you’re not talking content marketing, then you’re behind the curve.

Here are NettResults’ 11 strategy points that we work on with our clients, to help them meet their business goals and outperform their competitors when it comes to content marketing.

1 - Creation of a real content marketing strategy

Does your organization have a documented content marketing strategy? Sadly, most do not. Companies that do have one, and review it consistently, are more likely to be successful. Even though you might think this is basic, it’s not. We are still too focused on campaigns and talking about our products, instead of truly driving value outside the products and services we offer.

2 - Influencer marketing

Influencer marketing is quickly gaining importance and the C suite is getting it. It seems that every enterprise has some kind of content and influencer strategy, but few organizations execute a real strategy that makes sense.

3 - Purpose-driven marketing

What’s your why? Why do you create your content? Does it have a real impact on your customers and prospects? Is there a deeper purpose behind what you do, instead of just creating content as part of your sales and marketing machine?

4 - Video and visual

We’ve been saying it for years in this blog, using video and having a visual storytelling strategy are paramount for success. But, most brands are still hanging their video strategy on the viral video, instead of building a process and organization around the ongoing delivery of valuable information through video.

5 - Teams and workflow

Doesn’t matter how good your strategy is – who’s on your team to implement it? Having quality people that understand content and the business you’re in is so important. Equally important, how are the client/agency, and the internal team going to work? Get that workflow right to give visibility and make the process as smooth as possible – clear communications with on-time delivery and checks to ensure nothing is delayed or inaccurate.

6 - Stories & writing

It’s all in the story. Writing still counts, perhaps more than ever. While some marketers are fanatical about social media and video, they don’t comprehend that most of our communication is still text and story based. Make sure your team has really, really good writers.

7 - Integration with sales

Sales and marketing HAVE to be integrated. If we don’t market well, then sales perform poorly. If there is less money that comes into the company, there is less money to pay salaries. Who are they going to cut first – a sales person that can make more money for an organization or a content marketing team? Hello! Your job is on the line. There you go – we said it.

8 - ROI and measurement

If you don’t measure it, you don’t know if there is a return on investment. If you can’t prove your ROI you’re out of a job. There you go – we said it again.

9 - Email and marketing automation

Email is far from dead, and may be more important than ever for our content marketing programs. In fact, with a lot of the conversations moving to text, chat, apps and personal email accounts, the business email account is a particularly uncluttered marketplace right now – if you use it wisely.

And then, as many B2B enterprises have done, they move from just email into marketing automation. That’s a conversation for another time.

10 - Executive buy-in

Content marketing is an approach… a way of doing business… and many executives in the C suite are still firmly set with the traditional four Ps model. Without executive buy-in, you’re dead in the water. Not only are you doing something they don’t understand or value, but you’re then not able to do other functions that they think you should be doing. What does this lead to? Job insecurity. Oh yes we did.

11 - Global integration

At NettResults we come from an international stand point – it’s in our DNA. More and more in today’s market, organizations are operating globally. This means complex processes, scattered teams, communication issues, politics, and varied customer experiences. Simply put, it’s hard. The global integration needs more communication, understanding and tools.

And a bonus… maybe more tactical that strategy:

Snapchat

Snapchat has surpassed Facebook in total video views, it’s about time we started to take notice. OK, so you may need your 13-year old daughter to explain it to you, but if you are targeting the users of Snapchat, then you need to start engaging now.

Engaging with external stakeholders – what we can learn from leading companies

Engaging with external stakeholders is more important than ever to company leaders, according to the fifth McKinsey Global Survey on external affairs. Yet while most executives believe outside stakeholders will be increasingly involved in their industries in coming years, few say their companies have taken an active approach to engaging with stakeholders or that they have found success in their external-affairs efforts.

52% of CEOs say external affairs falls as their top or top 3 priority

The results suggest that to step up their game, companies should start by strengthening their capabilities—many of which aren’t any stronger now than they were a few years ago. The companies that, according to respondents, are most successful at external affairs not only have better overall capabilities than their peers but they also are particularly skilled at organizing their external-affairs functions.

External affairs is a rising priority for CEOs and boards. When asked about the most influential stakeholders, executives expect government entities and regulators—as well as customers—will have the greatest effect on their companies’ value. Furthermore, executives in developing markets and in Asia are likelier than others t see external affairs as an opportunity rather than a risk.

11% of CEOs say their companies frequently succeed at shaping government and regulatory decisions

Despite the growing focus on external relations and the recognition of the value at stake, responses suggest that success is rare. Only 11 percent of executives say their companies frequently succeed at shaping government and regulatory decisions, and there are no regions or industries where more than one in five respondents report success. Managing the corporate reputation is challenging as well: just 22 percent of respondents say they frequently succeed at this.

On average, respondents (n= 1,334) report little progress – and even decline – in the strength of their companies’ capabilities since 2012. What’s more, few executives report that their companies are actively engaging with stakeholders. Just one-quarter say that in the past year, their companies have taken a very active approach to engaging with governments and regulators

Not surprisingly, those companies that are engaging external affairs are reporting greater success. More importantly, what are they doing – and what do we help with at NettResults?

We break it down into three areas that really differentiate those that are doing well and those that are reporting not to succeed:

Strategy formation:

- Building a fact-based narrative to support positions

- Aligning external-affairs agenda with company’s corporate strategy

- Prioritizing items on external-affairs agenda based on potential value at stake

Organization:

- Tracking quality of relationships with most relevant stakeholders

- Engage CEO to support external-affairs activities

- Balancing local engagements with corporate-level priorities

- Attracting talent with the right skills

- Having a coordinated response to a crisis

Stakeholder engagement:

- Mapping stakeholder landscape to understand networks of influence

- Engaging with stakeholders in response to unfavorable policies

When setting the external-affairs agenda, respondents at the most successful companies are 2.5 times likelier than their peers to say they’re very effective at building fact-based narratives to support their positions. They are also much likelier to report effectiveness at tracking the quality of their relationships with stakeholders.

Other data suggest that digital tools have a role to play. Although a whopping 82 percent of all respondents say their organizations use digital tools (such as social media) for business reasons, those at successful companies use these tools differently. When asked about their main goals for using digital tools, for instance, they most often cite promoting their companies’ priorities and engaging with specific stakeholders, rather than driving website traffic or increasing their companies’ media visibility—which respondents at other companies cite more often.

If you would like to find out more about how your organizations (or an organization you represent) can engage external stakeholders more effectively, then call or email to set up an informal conversation and we’d be delighted to discuss your situation.

What Marketers Need to Know About Growing Sales

Make no mistake about it, when we’re in the marketing role, we are supporting sales. The two are joined at the hip and nothing in marketing should be thought about without the understanding of how it effects sales.

Let’s hand it over to McKinsey & Company and the book Sales Growth: Five Proven Strategies from the World’s Sales Leaders to reveal how top-performing sales organizations harness digital to drive growth, meet the new challenges of managing talent, and evolve with the future of sales.

By understanding how the sales professional thinks, marketing gets better.

How do sales leaders harness digital and analytics to drive growth? How are management and talent challenges evolving? And what does the future of sales look like?

Based on discussions with more than 200 executives from companies like Adidas, American Express, and Siemens, as well as on advanced research and our firm’s extensive experience in sales, McKinsey & Company have distilled the lessons into a set of practical, real-world insights across five major themes:

• Finding growth before your competitors do

• Selling the way customers want

• Optimizing sales operations and technology

• Finding sales leaders who continually challenge the status quo and thoughtfully manage performance

• Leading sales growth to make change happen

What Marketers Need to Know About Growing Sales

Make no mistake about it, when we’re in the marketing role, we are supporting sales. The two are joined at the hip and nothing in marketing should be thought about without the understanding of how it effects sales.

Let’s hand it over to McKinsey & Company and the book Sales Growth: Five Proven Strategies from the World’s Sales Leaders to reveal how top-performing sales organizations harness digital to drive growth, meet the new challenges of managing talent, and evolve with the future of sales.

By understanding how the sales professional thinks, marketing gets better.

How do sales leaders harness digital and analytics to drive growth? How are management and talent challenges evolving? And what does the future of sales look like?

Based on discussions with more than 200 executives from companies like Adidas, American Express, and Siemens, as well as on advanced research and our firm’s extensive experience in sales, McKinsey & Company have distilled the lessons into a set of practical, real-world insights across five major themes:

Finding growth before your competitors do

Selling the way customers want

Optimizing sales operations and technology

Finding sales leaders who continually challenge the status quo and thoughtfully manage performance

Leading sales growth to make change happen

Here are some of the highlights:

Power growth through digital sales

Sales organizations may have felt that digital technologies and channels were jeopardizing their business, but they are now realizing they can turn them to their advantage.

By 2017, almost two-thirds of all US retail sales will involve some form of online research, consideration, or purchase. Digital’s share of total retail sales in the United States has been growing by about 15 percent annually over the past five years, and the value of those sales is predicted to grow at 9.5 percent year on year. Turn to mobile channels and the growth is even more dramatic: 25 percent a year through 2017. A revolution in processing ability has put unprecedented shopping and buying power into the hands of today’s customers. More than 60 percent of Americans have a smartphone, and 80 percent of them are “smartphone shoppers”—they use their phones to help them shop while in a store, most often to research product reviews and specifications and compare prices. In South Korea, shoppers are not so much mobile first as “mobile only.” Of consumers who shopped on a mobile device, 13 percent did not shop in stores, and 53 percent did not shop via other digital channels.

Smartphone users are in many ways a godsend for vendors. Their digital footprint makes them easier to track through their decision journey, and that additional data delivers richer insights that can help drive higher-value purchases. The convenience and tailored experience now on offer not only help companies build stronger connections to customers but also drive down costs. Some 40 percent of US drugstore chain Walgreens’ total online prescription refills are ordered via its mobile app. This saves time for pharmacists and reduces the need for additional employees.

Blending digital channels into a company’s overall multichannel approach requires changes beyond the sales force, encompassing product development, marketing, distribution, and customer service. Companies that are thriving in the digital age are those that can figure out creative ways to pull together the best resources from across the organization.

Get the most out of marketing

Historically, sales and marketing have not always been harmonious bedfellows, but the opportunities afforded by big data and the complexities of connecting with customers in more granular ways require integrated and collaborative models that bring marketing and sales together.

On average, a B2B customer will regularly use six different interaction channels throughout the purchase process, and two-thirds come away frustrated by inconsistent experiences. The notion of a customer decision journey (CDJ) around which marketing and sales collaborate has become embedded in many leading sales organizations, but the journey differs by customer segment, with needs and expectations varying at each stage. Insightful customer research and advanced analytics mean these segments can be defined ever more precisely by marketing, but that work is wasted unless sales reaches the right people with the right offer. Nor is the onus all on marketing. Both functions generate enormous volumes of valuable data on customer segments and preferences, but at outperforming companies, the front line reports back to help marketing refine its value propositions.

As data becomes more readily available and easier to crunch, companies can move from broad-based predictive modeling to a much more personalized approach. Information from past interactions with a customer or from existing sources can be used to instantaneously customize the buyer’s experience. Remembering customer preferences is just the beginning; true personalization is the next wave in a customer’s journey and helps drive loyalty.

Pay attention to presales

For B2B sales, “personalization” is about delivering tailored solutions. To do that, sales organizations need a very clear understanding of customer needs. This requires technical experts to be involved with customers at a very early stage in the buying journey. These presales specialists are so important that one account manager at a global technology company said, “Every sales leader would say they couldn’t run the business without a specialist. The competitive dynamic is such that if you don’t bring your A-game to the deal, you’re not going to win.”

In addition to getting experts working on deals, the pre-sales function can play a vital role in qualifying leads. Social media, digital marketing, advanced analytics, and the more pervasive use of inside sales have exponentially increased the number of deals a company can pursue. But too many potential deals can have a negative effect on the organization by diffusing focus and taxing resources. It is far more efficient and effective to qualify leads using data and analytic tools, so that only the most attractive ones then move into the pipeline.

Despite its importance, pre-sales is often understaffed and overlooked. A high-performing sales organization should have about two-thirds of its presales team undertaking technical presales activities (crafting solutions to customers’ problems) and the rest involved with commercial presales activities (managing deal qualification, pricing, and bid). For maximum productivity, the function should account for 40 to 50 percent of the overall commercial headcount. B2B companies with strong pre-sales capabilities consistently achieve win rates in excess of 40 percent in new business, which is 10 to 15 points higher than we usually observe.

Although this technical sales support is most associated with B2B sales, it can apply to B2C, too. Apple’s product geniuses may be the best-known examples, but some car dealers send the product expert, not the salesperson, out on the customer’s test drive to answer questions.

Reimagine sales growth

With its focus on how digital technologies, data, and analytics are changing the face of selling, it’s natural that Sales Growth concludes with some thoughts on where the future may lie for sales organizations. The pervasive automation of back-office processes and the complete outsourcing of the sales function, enabled in part by precisely this technology shift, are redrawing the lines of sales management.

Machine learning and intelligent automation are already transforming a wide range of industries and functions. By 2020, customers will manage 85 percent of their relationship with an enterprise without interacting with a human, and 40 percent of sales activities could be automated using technology that already exists.

“Cognitive agents” such as IPsoft’s Amelia, already understand, interact, and—crucially—learn in order to solve customers’ problems in industries from financial services to telecommunications. They can parse natural language and independently determine which questions to ask in order to diagnose what the customer really needs and act accordingly. It’s a small step from helping customers tackle basic processes to selling, and Amelia can already solve basic customer problems, for example, moving a customer to a more comprehensive phone tariff.

These new technologies and trends do not spell the end of salesmanship. They will fulfill much of the presales work, but many sales will still need people to close them. Making sure that the right salesperson is in place is becoming easier, too, thanks to analytics. Matching the seller with the lead and equipping the salesperson with the maximum amount of useful information to close the deal will characterize the new sales environment.

AI can be deployed beyond just responding to queries. Today, even with modern CRM systems, only a quarter of leads are actually contacted. A bot can contact 100 percent of them and do so in a relatively engaging, human-like manner that should not put off any potential customers. Companies that have pioneered the use of AI in sales rave about the impact, which includes an increase in leads and appointments of more than 50 percent, cost reductions of 40 to 60 percent, and call-time reductions of 60 to 70 percent. Customers love it too—these companies have seen an increase in customer satisfaction as customers get what they want faster.

Sales teams will need to be comfortable with algorithms and able to work with data scientists and marketing-tech experts to design solutions. Sales leaders, meanwhile, will need clear escalation and exception protocols to manage the trickiest or most valuable situations. As the machines get smarter, the biggest differentiator of success will be the human touch. Senior executives will need to ask the right questions, vigorously approach the exceptions that the machines highlight, and shine in the areas that AI will always struggle with: ambiguity and emotional engagement.

With more sales organizations turning to technology vendors to solve problems, is it only a matter of time before the whole sales function is outsourced?

Outsourcing the part of your business that involves selling to customers sounds risky at first, but for pioneering companies, the fact that the salesperson doesn’t work directly for the company no longer matters, nor is it important that s/he may be selling products from several different companies in the same category over the course of a week. What matters for the manufacturer is that someone is out there pounding the pavement, the phone, and the digital platforms, getting the product into the hands of customers more cheaply and effectively than the company can do itself.

Telesales is the most common form of outsourcing, but we have also seen a big rise in the outsourcing of sales operations. Alongside CRM, companies are outsourcing sales-compensation programs, lead-generation insights, sales analytics, account planning, and other operations. In return, they benefit from lower costs of operation, greatly reduced error rates, and the ability to shift their limited resources and energy to the critical parts of their business that they are best equipped to manage.

CEOs have valid reservations, yet sales often has significant variation between top and bottom performers and thus is ripe for being handed over to companies that can bring costs down and performance up. Outsourcers are experts at standardization and script every part of the sales interaction to bring the average performance up to the highest levels.

As outsourcing providers become more sophisticated, they are likely to infiltrate more complex B2B sales settings where customers need more tailored solutions and managing accounts still requires the personal touch.

Here are some of the highlights:

Power growth through digital sales

Sales organizations may have felt that digital technologies and channels were jeopardizing their business, but they are now realizing they can turn them to their advantage.

By 2017, almost two-thirds of all US retail sales will involve some form of online research, consideration, or purchase. Digital’s share of total retail sales in the United States has been growing by about 15 percent annually over the past five years, and the value of those sales is predicted to grow at 9.5 percent year on year. Turn to mobile channels and the growth is even more dramatic: 25 percent a year through 2017. A revolution in processing ability has put unprecedented shopping and buying power into the hands of today’s customers. More than 60 percent of Americans have a smartphone, and 80 percent of them are “smartphone shoppers”—they use their phones to help them shop while in a store, most often to research product reviews and specifications and compare prices. In South Korea, shoppers are not so much mobile first as “mobile only.” Of consumers who shopped on a mobile device, 13 percent did not shop in stores, and 53 percent did not shop via other digital channels.

Smartphone users are in many ways a godsend for vendors. Their digital footprint makes them easier to track through their decision journey, and that additional data delivers richer insights that can help drive higher-value purchases. The convenience and tailored experience now on offer not only help companies build stronger connections to customers but also drive down costs. Some 40 percent of US drugstore chain Walgreens’ total online prescription refills are ordered via its mobile app. This saves time for pharmacists and reduces the need for additional employees.

Blending digital channels into a company’s overall multichannel approach requires changes beyond the sales force, encompassing product development, marketing, distribution, and customer service. Companies that are thriving in the digital age are those that can figure out creative ways to pull together the best resources from across the organization.

Get the most out of marketing

Historically, sales and marketing have not always been harmonious bedfellows, but the opportunities afforded by big data and the complexities of connecting with customers in more granular ways require integrated and collaborative models that bring marketing and sales together.

On average, a B2B customer will regularly use six different interaction channels throughout the purchase process, and two-thirds come away frustrated by inconsistent experiences. The notion of a customer decision journey (CDJ) around which marketing and sales collaborate has become embedded in many leading sales organizations, but the journey differs by customer segment, with needs and expectations varying at each stage. Insightful customer research and advanced analytics mean these segments can be defined ever more precisely by marketing, but that work is wasted unless sales reaches the right people with the right offer. Nor is the onus all on marketing. Both functions generate enormous volumes of valuable data on customer segments and preferences, but at outperforming companies, the front line reports back to help marketing refine its value propositions.

As data becomes more readily available and easier to crunch, companies can move from broad-based predictive modeling to a much more personalized approach. Information from past interactions with a customer or from existing sources can be used to instantaneously customize the buyer’s experience. Remembering customer preferences is just the beginning; true personalization is the next wave in a customer’s journey and helps drive loyalty.

Pay attention to presales

For B2B sales, “personalization” is about delivering tailored solutions. To do that, sales organizations need a very clear understanding of customer needs. This requires technical experts to be involved with customers at a very early stage in the buying journey. These presales specialists are so important that one account manager at a global technology company said, “Every sales leader would say they couldn’t run the business without a specialist. The competitive dynamic is such that if you don’t bring your A-game to the deal, you’re not going to win.”

In addition to getting experts working on deals, the pre-sales function can play a vital role in qualifying leads. Social media, digital marketing, advanced analytics, and the more pervasive use of inside sales have exponentially increased the number of deals a company can pursue. But too many potential deals can have a negative effect on the organization by diffusing focus and taxing resources. It is far more efficient and effective to qualify leads using data and analytic tools, so that only the most attractive ones then move into the pipeline.

Despite its importance, pre-sales is often understaffed and overlooked. A high-performing sales organization should have about two-thirds of its presales team undertaking technical presales activities (crafting solutions to customers’ problems) and the rest involved with commercial presales activities (managing deal qualification, pricing, and bid). For maximum productivity, the function should account for 40 to 50 percent of the overall commercial headcount. B2B companies with strong pre-sales capabilities consistently achieve win rates in excess of 40 percent in new business, which is 10 to 15 points higher than we usually observe.

Although this technical sales support is most associated with B2B sales, it can apply to B2C, too. Apple’s product geniuses may be the best-known examples, but some car dealers send the product expert, not the salesperson, out on the customer’s test drive to answer questions.

Reimagine sales growth

With its focus on how digital technologies, data, and analytics are changing the face of selling, it’s natural that Sales Growth concludes with some thoughts on where the future may lie for sales organizations. The pervasive automation of back-office processes and the complete outsourcing of the sales function, enabled in part by precisely this technology shift, are redrawing the lines of sales management.

Machine learning and intelligent automation are already transforming a wide range of industries and functions. By 2020, customers will manage 85 percent of their relationship with an enterprise without interacting with a human, and 40 percent of sales activities could be automated using technology that already exists.

“Cognitive agents” such as IPsoft’s Amelia, already understand, interact, and—crucially—learn in order to solve customers’ problems in industries from financial services to telecommunications. They can parse natural language and independently determine which questions to ask in order to diagnose what the customer really needs and act accordingly. It’s a small step from helping customers tackle basic processes to selling, and Amelia can already solve basic customer problems, for example, moving a customer to a more comprehensive phone tariff.

These new technologies and trends do not spell the end of salesmanship. They will fulfill much of the presales work, but many sales will still need people to close them. Making sure that the right salesperson is in place is becoming easier, too, thanks to analytics. Matching the seller with the lead and equipping the salesperson with the maximum amount of useful information to close the deal will characterize the new sales environment.

AI can be deployed beyond just responding to queries. Today, even with modern CRM systems, only a quarter of leads are actually contacted. A bot can contact 100 percent of them and do so in a relatively engaging, human-like manner that should not put off any potential customers. Companies that have pioneered the use of AI in sales rave about the impact, which includes an increase in leads and appointments of more than 50 percent, cost reductions of 40 to 60 percent, and call-time reductions of 60 to 70 percent. Customers love it too—these companies have seen an increase in customer satisfaction as customers get what they want faster.

Sales teams will need to be comfortable with algorithms and able to work with data scientists and marketing-tech experts to design solutions. Sales leaders, meanwhile, will need clear escalation and exception protocols to manage the trickiest or most valuable situations. As the machines get smarter, the biggest differentiator of success will be the human touch. Senior executives will need to ask the right questions, vigorously approach the exceptions that the machines highlight, and shine in the areas that AI will always struggle with: ambiguity and emotional engagement.

With more sales organizations turning to technology vendors to solve problems, is it only a matter of time before the whole sales function is outsourced?

Outsourcing the part of your business that involves selling to customers sounds risky at first, but for pioneering companies, the fact that the salesperson doesn’t work directly for the company no longer matters, nor is it important that s/he may be selling products from several different companies in the same category over the course of a week. What matters for the manufacturer is that someone is out there pounding the pavement, the phone, and the digital platforms, getting the product into the hands of customers more cheaply and effectively than the company can do itself.

Telesales is the most common form of outsourcing, but we have also seen a big rise in the outsourcing of sales operations. Alongside CRM, companies are outsourcing sales-compensation programs, lead-generation insights, sales analytics, account planning, and other operations. In return, they benefit from lower costs of operation, greatly reduced error rates, and the ability to shift their limited resources and energy to the critical parts of their business that they are best equipped to manage.

CEOs have valid reservations, yet sales often has significant variation between top and bottom performers and thus is ripe for being handed over to companies that can bring costs down and performance up. Outsourcers are experts at standardization and script every part of the sales interaction to bring the average performance up to the highest levels.

As outsourcing providers become more sophisticated, they are likely to infiltrate more complex B2B sales settings where customers need more tailored solutions and managing accounts still requires the personal touch.

How to Convince the World...

How to Convince the World...

This was posted by Seth Godin (sethgodin.com) recently and we love it.

As marketers we are forever trying to persuade people to do something new. Sometimes at the macro level – like changing a nations behavior for health reason – or at a micro level, such as pitching in a new story to a journalist. Either way, we have something new and we want people to like it.

Seth’s diagram sums it up just right, and helps us avoid the gulf of disapproval.

Start at the left. Your new idea, your proposal to the company, your new venture, your innovation—no one knows about it.

As you begin to promote it, most of the people (the red line) who hear about it don't get it. They think it's a risky scheme, a solution to a problem no one has or that it's too expensive. Or some combination of the three.

And this is where it would stop, except for the few people on the blue line. These are the early adopters, the believers, and some of them are sneezers. They tell everyone they can about your new idea.

Here's the dangerous moment. If you're keeping track of all the people who hate what you've done, you'll give up right here and right now. This is when the gulf of disapproval is at its maximum. This happened to the telephone, to the web, to rap music... lots of people have heard of it, but the number of new fans (the blue line) is far smaller than the number of well-meaning (but in this case, wrong) people on the red line.

Sometimes, if you persist, the value created for the folks on the blue line begins to compound. And so your fans persist and one by one, convert some of the disapproving. Person by person, they shift from being skeptics to accepting the new status quo

When the gulf of disapproval comes, don't track the red line. Count on the blue one instead.

Awareness, Trust and Action

Public Relations is not about one thing. It's about three things.

Awareness is a simple ping: they have that feature on that car now; they just opened that long awaited restaurant; they're running a promotion.

Trust is far more complicated. Trust comes from experience, from word of mouth, from actions noted. Trust, also seems to come from awareness. "Did you read that review in the magazine" is a debatable way to claim trust, but in fact, when people are more aware of what you do, it often seeps into a sort of trust.

And action is what happens when someone actually goes and buys something, or shows up, or talks about it. And action is as complex as trust.

Action requires overcoming the status quo. Action means that someone has dealt with the many fears that come with change and still does something.

Many people reading this are aware that they can buy a new gadget, and might believe it's worth the effort, but don't take action.

Many people reading this are aware that they can visit a foreign land, read a book (no - write a book), start a business... but action is the difficult part.

Action is quite rare. For most people, the story of 'later' is seductive enough that it appears better to wait instead of leaping.

As a marketer, then, part of the challenge is figuring out which of the three elements you need the most help with, and then focus on that...

The 6 Characteristics your Corporate Spokes Person Must Have

One of the first questions we are asked when we are setting up a new client is why they should invest in media training? Quite simply, as an agency, there are many PR tools that we can use with the media to reach the desired target audience, and they all have differing ROI, but having a good spokes person is one of the best.

A strong and easily identifiable media personality will:

·      Make the product more easily identifiable

·      Make better and stronger links between you and your target market

·      Increase product prestige through social visibility

·      Create a positive brand imagine through the perception of the audience towards the product or company, from their feelings about you

·      Help segment the market and make way for future product launches and upgrades

·      Comfort the audience and make a purchase feel safe.

In short, people buy from people.

Media personalities are people who can be relied upon to be opinionated and interesting. Journalists will call on the same person again and again, so early ground-work pays off in long term exposure & coverage.

The best personalities are:

·      Authoritative figures

·      With a credible track record

·      With a breadth and depth of knowledge which creates immediate respect

·      Aware of the needs and agenda of the press, and will work with it

·      Always available for quotable comments

·      Able to take a helicopter view of the industry, market and wider issues Risk-takers, unafraid of censure

Frequently quoted media personalities are confident, outspoken, opinionated, and not afraid of questioning the status quo.

Just look around at the good and bad. I hope we don’t have to pull examples at American Politics to make our point– there are also some great examples from the business world.

Who do you think are the best (non-celebrity) corporate spokes people and why?

What Countries to Invest your Marketing Dollar

As we work in multiple countries on any given day, we are often being asked to comment on the global economy and why some regions are performing poorly and others less so.

A lot of the Western World is concerned about stock prices. Since the beginning of the year, major stock exchanges are down (from the Footsie to the Big Board) from a couple of percent to nearly ten.

But frankly, that’s nothing compared to what’s going on in the BRICs. There was a time, not so long ago, when it seemed the rugged promise of the globe’s economic frontier could be summed up with a simple acronym: BRIC. To investors and corporate prospectors alike, Brazil, Russia, India, and China were like Gold Rush towns high in the hills—deep, rich veins of commerce that could be tapped by anybody quick enough, industrious enough, and brave enough to stake a claim. Marketing in these markets sure was fun too!

But slowing economic growth, oil prices and scandals have put an end to those golden children. Well, India seems to be holding on, but generally speaking BRC is not solid.

Where are the opportunities? For varying reasons the following are poised for growth – Indonesia, Malaysia, Mexico, Columba, Poland and Kenya. Want to know how to market here?

But back to oil prices for a moment.  Due to our long standing focus in the Middle East, the question most recently has been ‘our sales are well below expectations this year, what can you do’? 

Here’s the skinny. The Middle East’s economies are dependent upon black liquid gold. Oil price is at a low - around $32 a barrel at the time of writing.  From Oct 2009 to Oct 2014 is bounced between $80 and $115 a barrel. The last time it hit $30 values was in 2002. Informally I hear that so long as it stays above $70 a barrel the Middle East is making a lot of money every day – which of course has a great effect on the economies locally and anyone selling into the Middle East.

Why is it so low right now?  It’s a long, complicated and disputed story. From our point of view, in the simplest form – the cartel of the Middle East is artificially keeping the cost of oil low themselves (this not a demand problem – no matter how many electronic cars Mr. Elon Musk produces – the world is still dependent upon oil and is likely to be for a considerable number of years).  Why would these economies keep something that fuels their own economy so low?  Simply, because they are freezing out the competition from other economies (e.g. U.S. and Russia) who have found revolutionary drilling methods (that have a higher cost of production). 

The Middle East is playing a long term game to remain the leaders in oil production.  A year or so (if that) of lower oil price will achieve their goals.  The price will then be raised and we’ll see the boom time that we experienced from 2009 to 2014.

What should an international business – that is selling into the Middle East - do right now? Re-set short term sales goals and take advantage of the lower cost to market to a competitive advantage. Invest (yes, marketing is an investment and not a cost of sales) in the region so when the price of oil re-bounds, you have a significant market share.  In short, play the long term game, just like the Middle East region is.

Free yourself from stock market short term goals.                     

Not getting the #sales you want in the Middle East? Here’s what to do -  

The Four Global Forces Breaking all the Trends

The world’s changing. In the new book No Ordinary Disruption, its authors (Dobbs, Manyika & Woetzel) explain the trends reshaping the world and why leaders must adjust to a new reality. What does that mean to us marketing people?             

As you’ll remember from your studying at school, in the Industrial Revolution of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, one new force changed everything. Today we’re undergoing four fundamental disruptive forces - any of which would rank among the greatest changes the global economy has ever seen. It is also happening ten times faster and at 300 times the scale, or roughly 3,000 times the impact. Although we all know that these disruptions are happening, most of us fail to comprehend their full magnitude and the second- and third-order effects that will result.

1. - Beyond Shanghai: The age of urbanization

The first trend is the shifting of economic activity and dynamism to emerging markets like China and to cities within those markets. These emerging markets are going through industrial and urban revolutions, shifting the center of the world economy east and south. In 2000, 95 percent of the Fortune Global 500—the world’s largest international companies including Airbus, IBM, Nestlé, Shell, and The Coca-Cola Company—were headquartered in developed economies. By 2025, we can expect nearly half of the world’s large companies—defined as those with revenue of $1 billion or more—to be headquartered in emerging markets.

What’s your international PR strategy in emerging markets?

2. The tip of the iceberg: Accelerating technological change

The second disruptive force is the acceleration in the scope, scale, and economic impact of technology. Technology has always been a great force in overturning the status quo. The difference today is the sheer ubiquity of technology in our lives and the speed of change. Accelerated adoption invites accelerated innovation. In 2009, two years after the iPhone’s launch, developers had created around 150,000 applications. By 2014, that number had hit 1.2 million, and users had downloaded more than 75 billion total apps, more than ten for every person on the planet. As fast as innovation has multiplied and spread in recent years, it is poised to change and grow at an exponential speed beyond the power of human intuition to anticipate.

Processing power and connectivity are only part of the story. Their impact is multiplied by the data revolution, which places unprecedented amounts of information in the hands of consumers, businesses, the media etc, and the proliferation of technology-enabled business models.

How are you using new technologies to interact with the media wherever they are located?

3. Getting old isn’t what it used to be: Responding to the challenges of an aging world

The human population is getting older. Fertility is falling, and the world’s population is graying dramatically. For the first time in human history, aging could mean that the planet’s population will plateau in most of the world.

Let’s look at real numbers - the European Commission expects that by 2060, Germany’s population will shrink by one-fifth, and the number of people of working age will fall from 54 million in 2010 to 36 million in 2060, a level that is forecast to be less than France’s.

A smaller workforce will place a greater onus on productivity for driving growth and may cause us to rethink the economy’s potential. Caring for large numbers of elderly people will put severe pressure on government finances.

And what about how we staff the marketing and media relations and of companies. Who are we going to staff, and where do their relationships need to be strong?

4. Trade, people, finance, and data: Greater global connections

The final disruptive force is the degree to which the world is much more connected through trade and through movements in capital, people, and information (data and communication). Trade and finance have long been part of the globalization story but, in recent decades, there’s been a significant shift. Instead of a series of lines connecting major trading hubs in Europe and North America, the global trading system has expanded into a complex, intricate, sprawling web.

The links forged by technology have marched on uninterrupted by recent recessions and with increasing speed, ushering in a dynamic new phase of globalization, creating unmatched opportunities, and provoking unexpected volatility.

When it comes to the future of marketing and media relations, it is going to be archaic to think that we can compartmentalize our services by geography – we are going to have to be global.

What does this mean?

Our intuition has been formed by a set of experiences and ideas about how things worked during a time when changes were incremental and somewhat predictable. Globalization benefited the well-established and well-connected, opening up new markets with relative ease. Labor markets functioned quite reliably. Resource prices fell.

But that’s not how things are working now—and it’s not how they are likely to work in the future. If we look at the world through a rearview mirror and make decisions on the basis of the intuition built on our experience, we could well be wrong.

The world’s changing – how are you changing?

Is your future marketing strategy future proof? 

25 great PR opportunities in 2016

We love news hijacking. We also love being prepared and ready for those opportunities. Of course, we need to be country specific, so make sure the events you are following are right for your market.

Without further ado, here’s the top 25 opportunities that we’ll be following for 2016:

January 7 - National Bobble Head Day

January 16 – 14th Taiwanese general election

January 21-31 – Sundance Film Festival

February - National Shower with a Friend Day

February 7 – Super Bowl 50 in California

February 14 – Valentines Day (county specific so watch out)

March 12 - National Read Across America Day (Dr. Seuss Day)

March 17 – St Patrick’s day

March 31 - National Bunsen Burner Day

April 1 – April Fools Day (fun for all PR people and children under 10years)

April 28 – Austrian Presidential Election

May 7 – Kentucky Derby

May 24 - National Escargot Day

June 16-19 – 116th U.S. Open Golf

July 4 – NASA’s Juno spacecraft is going to arrive to Jupiter. It was launched in 2011.

July 2-24 – Tour de France

August 5-21 – 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

September 7 - National Beer Lovers Day (our office will be closed Sep 8)

September 20 - National IT Professionals Day (seriously)

October 4 – National Vodka Day (our office will be closed for the rest of the week)

October 7 - World Smile Day

October 25 – Major League Baseball World Series

November 8 – The 58th US presidential election

November 27 – Abu Dhabi Grand Prix – final Formula One race of the season

December 8 – FIFA Club World Cup in Japan

Which event do you think will bring the most coverage?

What events are you following for 2016? 

Top 5 PR & Marketing Trends That Will Define 2016

It’s an exciting year ahead for the world of PR and marketing. What do we think are the defining trends for 2016?  Read on for a glimpse of the future.

1 - Marketing in 3D

Augmented and virtual reality will hit your customers - mainstream style - in 2016. Are you ready to take advantage of this technology? Sure, we’ll see the gaming community first take to this, but it’ll move beyond shoot ‘em up games (STG’s) rapidly. Expect geeks to push this across the chasm and then the sky is the limit.

I get excited when I hear that students in my university lectures are already gaining work experience at start-ups that are ahead of the curve… this week it was online retail fashion and virtual reality.

How will pitches to journalists and bloggers change once augmented and virtual reality is a common platform?

2 – Social media will be recognized as a channel

Yes, we know that you get this, but so many people don’t. Social media is a channel – it’s not a strategy. We’ve said this so many times it’s somewhat numb to us. We really think that all will understand the message soon. 

This means that social media is fantastic at supporting other marketing, but it really sucks as a standalone tactic. Expect budgets to reflect this and your marketing strategy to be defined in different ways.

3 – Mobile gets more mobile

We all know that web sites need to be mobile friendly, and we know that there are a number of apps that can help us with PR and marketing, but there is more of a fundamental shift.

Users, customers and targets are more mobile and thus on more mobile devices. Many school age children over different countries are on tablets with or without keyboards. The latest groovy large iPad means that professionals are moving away from a computer or laptop completely. So, our strategies need to be updated to take this into consideration.

4 – Content is king, queen and commoner

Ad blockers were just another nail in the coffin for online advertising. News aggregator apps seem to be de-facto across most platforms, allowing users to truly personalize their receptors to the type and style of information they want.  So content is king – for sure.

It’s more though.  Your content needs to have a style, a personality and connect emotionally to your reader/listener.  You now need to move your content creation up a strategic level and be sure your team knows how to create a consistent character across all content.

5 – Data is big… very big

Sorry to be misleading – we don’t mean big-data, although that is really important for so many people.  We’re talking about measurement, feedback and the data for your campaigns.  Expect your entire C-level suite, peers and team members to demand measurement before, during, and after campaigns to validate return on our marketing investments. If you can’t measure it, don’t expect to be doing it in 2016.

Which trends do you think will define PR & marketing in 2016?

What did we miss?

What are your predictions? 

PR stunts that reduce sales?

We love a good PR stunt as much as the next person. So when REI, the company that sells camping gear and other outdoorsy wares, told us it was closing all of it’s 143 U.S. stories on Black Friday, our ears pricked up.

For those of you that don’t know (and this is an international blog so don’t judge) Black Friday is the Friday following Thanksgiving Day in the United States (the fourth Thursday of November). Since the early 2000s, it has been regarded as the beginning of the Christmas shopping season in the U.S., and most major retailers open very early (and more recently during overnight hours) and offer promotional sales. In 2014, 133 million U.S. consumers shopped, spending $50.9 billion during the 4-day Black Friday weekend.

Why isn’t REI closing and how will this affect their sales?

REI is one of the most powerful forces in outdoor retailing, with over $2 billion in sales in 2014. But it’s also a member-owned cooperative (REI’s more than 5 million members pay a one-time fee and contribute some 80% of its sales).

Authentic? REI’s CEO Stritzke said, “For 76 years, our co-op has been dedicated to one thing and one thing only: a life outdoors. We believe that being outside makes our lives better. And Black Friday is the perfect time to remind ourselves of this essential truth”. This sounds authentic (even through the PR lens) and as such should resonate well with customers – deepening their relationship with the company.

Will that deepening customer relationship (and the story behind it) be able to overshadow the loss of convenience to shoppers?

Oh, and is it a coincidence that this announcement came the same week that Amazon.com announced it’s latest financial earnings, making it the largest retail store in the world (click or mortar) overtaking Wal-Mart for the first time in history.

Of course, following Black Friday, we get Cyber Monday, when there are (allegedly) great online sales to be snapped up by the most finger nimble online shoppers.

Is REI pushing their cyber sales – it certainly has a robust and deep online sales offering? We have to assume that REI’s online store will be open on Black Friday.

Is this just a PR stunt?

Planning for 2016. What ALL marketing professionals MUST take into consideration

Yes, as we move into October, it’s time to look at next year, our plans and 

therefore what the marketing budget is going to be.

All things being equal, what would you predict is going to happen to the data in 

the graph below?

I know; it’s totally unfair. We haven’t given you anything to go on. You don’t have 

visibility on what is being measured and over what time period.  

Let’s assume it’s the number of purple dots appearing in the sky over Metropolis 

over the past three months.  Do you think the number of purple dots are going to 

increase or decrease? 

Want to know what this data really is and how it affects your 2016 marketing 

plan? Then continue reading on our blog.

The data isn’t purple dots (surprise). It is actually the S&P 500 since 1994… 

recognize that Oct 2008 drop?

OK, we’re not economists, or statisticians, but we do know we need to plan the 

marketing and public relations for a number of key clients on an international 

level.  We also know that the economy does affect business and therefore we 

need to be ready for upturns and downturns.

There is a school of thought that says you can’t predict the sales of an 

organization beyond the next 3 months. There are simply too many factors 

moving too fast for your predictions to be accurate.

As public relations and marketing meld closer to sales, we begin to ask the same 

question – can we really start predicting a year out our marketing actions? 

The simple answer is yes. And no.

We can predict annual events and cycles – such as opportunities at an annual 

trade show or that there is a larger IT spend in Q4. What we can’t do is 

categorically say how much effort to put behind such predictable events ten 

months out, as there are many factors that could affect that.

So planning for 2016, based purely on the fragile international economies, needs 

to be a mixture of both concrete and flexible actions and effort.

What do you think? What helps you plan?

Not tomorrow, but TODAY.

We say we want to have amazingly creative media campaigns, and that we want to be cutting edge.  We say we want to do fun things to attract the right customers and that our culture needs to be expressed in our marketing.

But first, we need to...

We say we intend to hire the best people to the team, put the right agencies on the project, and put a sensible budget behind our convictions.  But of course, in the interim, first we have to get...

This interim strategy, the notion that ideals and principles are for later, but right now, all the focus and resources have to be put into the emergency of getting successful—it doesn't work.

The interim is forever, so perhaps it makes sense to act in the interim as we expect to act in the long haul.

The most successful companies we have worked with have not worked on interim strategies.  They take the bull by the horns, and act now.

What’s the underlining characteristic that we see with individuals that are successful in running marketing campaigns?  Just like the entrepreneurs that started the companies that they work in, they take risks. 

Business is not safe.  We can’t just find one marketing solution and keep repeating. We have to try new things, move at break-neck speeds just to keep up with the changing business environment and sophisticated / rapid customer desires.

Risks don’t have to be risky.  They can be measured and calculated risks, but still risks need to happen if success is desired. 

Our advice for this month – take a self-review of your risk factor.