Here’s Why All This Matters:

Social Media is sexy.

It is attention grabbing. It captivates Chief Marketing Officers. (Aren’t you helping to prove the point by reading this?) There are few better conversation starters than social media.

Success in Social Media requires many of the same disciplines that make more traditional CCM solutions successful. (measurability, crisp call to action, crisp execution) Are you  a thought leader when it comes to traditional customer communications.

Social Media and mail (“e” and direct) are a marriage made in heaven.

Both offer unprecendented targeting and personalized messaging opportunities. Are you  a thought leader when it comes to targeting and personalized messaging.

Social Media is mobile.

The cell phone is the most intimate form of media on earth today. Most people spend more time with their cell phone than they do with their spouse, their kids, their job, their car radio, their newspaper, the billboard on the highway, the computer or their television. Studies indicate that the average cell phone user has it at their side 15 hours per day.

Social Media is only partially up the “Innovation Curve”

Because it’s mobile, it offers unprecedented location based Marketing opportunity. This is our future. The time is now to be an innovator. Are you  a thought leader in location based decision making. The time is now.

The Competition Can’t Do It (Yet)

There is an unprecedented opportunity to innovate. The time is now.

We were meeting him for breakfast before an all-day meeting. He was grappling with a force he didn’t understand, one that was growing all the time. Bloggers. Discussion groups. YouTube. Consumers whom he’d never met were rating his company’s products in public forums that he no experience with and now way to influence.

All were assaulting his company’s cherished brand, and traditional  PR tools were as useless as a broadsword against a rain of poison darts. Rick had decided it was time to take matters into his own hands, to become a blogger himself. For this veteran of almost two decades of managing his company’s image, the goal looked daunting. It looked like the unknown.

From where we sit, Rick Clancy is a symbol.  (Rick Clancy was the head of Communications for Sony.) He and thousands of corporate executives just like him are now dealing with a trend we call the groundswell, a spontaneous movement of people using online tools to connect, take charge of their own experience, and get what they need — information, support, ideas, products, and bargaining power — from each other. The groundswell is broad, ever shifting, and ever growing. It encompasses blogs and wikis; podcast and YouTube;  and consumers who rate products, buy and sell from each other, write their own news, and find their own deals. It’s global. It’s unstoppable. It affects every industry — those that sell to consumer and those that sell to business— in media, retail, financial services, technology, and health care. And it’s utterly foreign  to the powerful companies and institutions — and their leaderships — that run things now.

Simply put, the groundswell is a social trend in which people use technologies to get the things they need from each other instead of from companies. If you’re in a company, this is a challenge.

The groundswell phenomenon is not a flash in the pan. The technologies that make it work are evolving at an ever-increasing pace, but the phenomenon itself is based on people acting on their eternal desire to connect. It has created a permanent, long-lasting shift in the way the world works.

Have you read “Groundswell”? Please add your comment s below.

Quoting an article from cnet:  “The Pentagon says it recognizes that social networks, among other Web capabilities, are useful tools for interaction both within the Defense Department and between the agency and the general public. It is also satisfied with the balance it has struck between network security and use of Internet-based tools.”

Is this the best endorsement yet for Social Media? Please add your comments below.

With the advent of social media, economic recovery on our doorsteps this is your time.

Keith Ferrazzi is fond of describing a conversation with his colleague Dr. Mark Goulston. According to Ferrazzi and Dr. Goultson, good listeners (and subsequently good marketers) are at the root of transformational change. Organizations embracing change count on fully embraced change through it’s individuals.

Dr. Goulston’s Four R’s of Listening:

Removed listening is the kind of listening you do when you’re actively engaged in something else, like using your BlackBerry. You may parrot back what I’ve said, but you aren’t really paying attention. It’s the equivalent of talking over someone else’s words in a conversation but in this case you’re “listening over” my words.

With reactive listening, you’re being somewhat more attentive.  If I ask you a question, you reply with a straightforward answer. You’ve heard me, but you aren’t really mulling over what I’ve said.

Responsible listening takes place when you not only react to what I have said but reply with a further action or elaboration. This is the basis of all good conversation. It’s the equivalent of talking to someone, as opposed to talking at them.

Receptive listening is the deepest form of listening.  With this kind of listening, you’re empathizing fully with what I have to say, and feeling what I am feeling. This is the level of listening we all want to achieve during meaningful debates.

Online and offline, responsible and receptive listening are winning strategies. Good luck!

1. “Last year you told me you needed resources for social media. I gave them to you. Justify the money spent in this area.”

Even the believers will ask if the money is worth it. The CMO needs to be prepared give specific examples of how tools like Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and LinkedIn are used every day AND how they blend with the overall marketing plan. If the CMO is trapping metrics, they should be reported in a simple way. For example:

“We are using Twitter as a tactic to improve our brand position as a thought leader AND to generate actionable leads for our sales team. One is quantitative. One qualitative. To do this, we are re-purposing white papers via our blog. Via Twitter we provide a teaser tagline and a hyperlink. For example: “Dear Chief Marketing Officer, it’s time for your January Gut Check”. When our Social Media Strategist posted this teaser and link on Twitter, it was clicked 1,000 times. 64 readers filled out the registration form. 3 of those registrants were CMO’s of Fortune 1000 companies. The leads were logged and submitted to our Lead Nurture team.

This same white paper was made available as part of a “register to read” outbound email campaign and we also drove traffic via a pURL postcard as well. Full analysis available soon…”

2. “How are your cause marketing campaigns progressing?”

The 4Q earnings call is right around the corner. The CEO wants to make sure investors and the general public know how much the company cares. The CMO can make the CEO a hero with cause marketing campaigns. By the way, it’s the right thing to do and the time is now. For more on Cause Marketing, check out this month’s post Get Caught Doing Good.

3. “How are you innovating?”

The CMO is expected to be a big thinker. The velocity of business today requires constant innovation. Ideas come from interacting with thought leaders but many of the best ideas come from front lines. When is the last time you strapped on a headset in your call center? (This is a key idea evangelized by one of my favorite bloggers Jim Gilbert.) Get down to your call center or customer service center and do the job for the day. What? You don’t have time to do this? Really? When the CEO asks you the last time you spoke with the customer, you better be prepared.

One of the best ways to interact with thought leaders is by taking appointments with your vendors. Yes, yes, Marketers hat sales people. Bleh. Slimy. But you don’t hate sales professionals. Professionals deal with the best and brightest every day. They seek first to understand, then to be understood. In doing so, they often provide innovative ways to tackle old problems. Editorial comment: Pitney Bowes Management Services is filled with the non-slimy kind. Email me, or comment for more info.

4. “What else are you doing that I can’t get from a run 0f the mill CMO?”

The CEO needs reminders that he has an all-star team. The best way to prove this to him or her is with measurable results that are attributed to your marketing plan. The next best way is with proof that your peers view you as an all-star. Speaking engagements demonstrate that you are a thought leader, not to mention secure the right kind of exposure for your brand. In addition, one of the best ways to learn is to teach. Speaking engagements force you to identify trends in your marketplace in order to be interesting.

Bottom line, it’s gut check time for the CMO. What else might the CEO ask?

1. Develop a master financial plan
2. Select suitable products/services
3. Make your offer irresistible
4. Use lists / media that reach best prospects
5. Choose formats that fit your product /service
and objective
6. Create advertising that sells
7. Plan for prompt fulfillment
8. Set up an R&D budget for testing
9. Analyze results carefully
10. Maximize customer value through repeat sales

Here’s the rest of the deck if you prefer a deeper drill:

According to Steve Drake, Cause Marketing happens when a not-for-profit and a for-profit partner for purpose, passion and profit. This is a trend we can all get behind, right?

Steve Drake, President of Drake & Company in collaboration with The Center for Association Leadership put together this tremendous deck on the power of Cause Marketing.

Why should you consider Cause Marketing:

85% of Americans have a more positive image of a product or company when it supports a cause.

91% wanted companies to show them how they are supporting causes

79% want to work for a company that cares how it impacts society

Please share your thoughts. By making a stand on SuperBowl ads, has Pepsi ignited a positive new trend?

To participate in a local Cause Marketing campaign, join us at the Florida Direct Marketing Association Kickoff event on January 28th, 2009.  The event features Bob Burg, teaching the principles of his best-selling book, The Go-Giver. In the spirit of the event, and on-topic, the FDMA will be donating proceeds to the Broward Partnership for the Homeless. To register, visit the Florida Direct Marketing Association website.