denise lee yohn: brand as business bites™ » business

future of marketing

denise lee yohn — Tue, 08 Feb 2011 12:25:31 +0000

Late last year, 60 marketing experts shared their visions of the future of marketing through a “micro-conference” run by Sam Rosen of thoughtlead. It found it fascinating on several levels.

First the “micro-conference” is a really neat format. It’s a podcast-type audio event in which each person has only 60-seconds to speak. Sam initiated the format with The Influencer Project, billed as “the shortest marketing conference ever” and featured thought-leaders on the subject of increasing your online influence.

In just one hour a “micro-conference” gives listeners a broad range of perspectives – it’s a little random, and by design, there isn’t a lot of depth, but nuggets of wisdom emerge throughout. It’s kind of a buffet for the brain.

Also the types of thought-leaders who participated in the Future of Marketing were interesting. There weren’t any real surprises in the speaker list – it included the expected experts (e.g., Guy Kawasaki, Charlene Li, Steve Rubel, and more), popular business figures (e.g., Scott Monty, Tony Hsieh, Alex Bogusky, etc.), and the authors everyone has read (e.g., David Meerman Scott, Brian Solis, Chris Brogan, etc.) No real academics, no one from outside the field of marketing, and no celebrities (although Alex Bogusky might have as many fans — and critics — to qualify for that designation!)

I’d guess the speakers’ average age was around 40 (with Barry Schwartz representing the top end of the scale at 65 and Frank Gruber at the low end at 29). Only 15 of the 60 speakers were women; only 6 were people of color. All the speakers were U.S.-based.

I’m reporting these stats not to pass a judgment on who was/wasn’t included, but rather to paint a profile of the type of person who is leading the marketing profession these days. And that profile — white, American middle-aged male marketing leader with an established platform — was another of the things that fascinated me about the event.

tag cloud of transcript from Future of Marketing

Finally the content itself was fascinating but even more so was the types of topics discussed. I did a quick classification of the topics mentioned and my tally showed:

25% focused on social (social media, social commerce, social search)

Amber MacArthur talked about “the idea that more and more people are going to different social networks to get recommendations for products and services they buy versus is going to traditional search engines like Google.”

Ekaterina Walter, Social Media Strategist at Intel, declared, “Revolutionary marketing strategies are nonexistent without social media nowadays.”

20% talked about a broader aspect of business beyond marketing

Sonia Simone, Chief Marketing Officer of Copyblogger Media, suggested, “Everything we do is marketing, from our supply chain to what our CEO says over drinks to how our support teams treat our customers.”

Innovation was Virgin America Marketing VP Porter Gale’s point: “We tried to use the central part of innovation at the core of our DNA. We looked at the product. We looked at the guest experience. We looked at all of our marketing channels and made sure that we pushed beyond the traditional landscape and changed the game. For us it’s plugs at the seats; it’s wi-fi in all of our planes; it’s food on demand; it’s mood lighting; it’s things that guests actually didn’t even realize they needed.”

10% focused on content

Victoria Harres from PR Newswire explained, “The role of the marketer will be to facilitate rich and useful content to that well researched audience. And that is what I mean by the future of marketing isn’t selfish.”

“Focus your marketing on helping other people,” was the advice from Michael Stelzner of socialmediaexaminer.com. “Everybody wants access to great insight and have great people who can help them, so produce engaging content that meets people’s insatiable demand for how-to information.”

the remaining 31% ranged across a bunch of marketing tactics and approaches — from mobile to shopper marketing to email marketing and more

Here’s the most fascinating part: only 3 made the customer their main point

“The real best companies in the world and best marketers imagine the unrecognized needs of their customers,” declared author Chip Conley.

Chris Brogan encouraged marketers, “…to incorporate [listening] into both your lead development, your awareness, your sales, and your customer service. Basically do more to understand your customers in a 360-degree way.”

Todd Defren at SHIFT Communications challenged listeners saying, “So many companies and marketers think about taking a content-specific approach where they put ‘creative’ at the forefront of everything. Really what they should be thinking about in the social media era is putting relationships at the center of everything.”

and only 3 people focused on the brand as the future of marketing

Michael Margolis, President of GetStoried.com, said, “People don’t buy your product or your solution or even your idea. What they’re buying is the story that’s attached to it, or more importantly, the story they tell themselves about what your brand means to them, which is why you need to give people something to believe in, a bigger story. When your brand stands for something larger than just a widget, a sale, or a transaction, you invite people to find the deeper meaning.”

Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh spoke on his resounding theme, saying, “A company’s culture and a company’s brand are really just two sides of the same coin.”

Jeanne Bliss of CustomerBliss.com explained that brand experience is driven by five things:

clarity of purpose: redefine your purpose from your customer’s point of view.

recognize that employees are the brand in so many interactions.

be human and real in your communications.

become a talk-able brand by delivering a reliable experience your customers can tell others about.

be there on customers’ terms and nurture your humility and your humility muscle in how you say sorry and respond to customer disappointments.

On the one hand, this breakdown is concerning – only a handful of marketing experts put customers or the brand in the center of their vision of the future of marketing, while over half are betting on social or some marketing tactic. It would seem they’re forgetting the fundamentals of marketing.

But as I try to be open-minded and give these people (many of whom I respect a lot) the benefit of the doubt, I think I may understand their perspective. Customers and the brand are indeed marketing fundamentals — the core of the discipline — and their importance is timeless.

But perhaps it’s the tools and tactics that are what’s changing. And they are ushering in the new marketing era.

five leading business ideas for 2011

denise lee yohn — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 13:21:48 +0000

Change happens. That’s not just a bumper sticker slogan; it’s the state of business today. Mastering change requires new ways of thinking, talking about, and doing business.

I believe the leading companies in 2011 and beyond will distinguish themselves by embracing these five ideas:

1. value and values
Over the past decade, we’ve seen the pendulum swing from a focus on businesses’ value propositions to a focus on the company purpose. Many companies have eschewed a hard core sales- and shareholder-driven mission in favor of one which emphasizes a nobler purpose. Case in point: Last month, Ad Age recapped the annual Association of National Advertisers conference with the headline “Purpose-Driven Marketing All the Rage at ANA.”

But to emphasize a company’s purpose over its business proposition neglects the fundamental driver of business – filling a customer need well. Smart companies understand that it isn’t an “either/or” – it’s a “both/and.” They must offer value and operate with values.

So they base their brand platforms on both the unique value they deliver to customers and the unique way they do business which reflects their values and purpose. They are as rigorous as about what they do as how they do it.

2. experience channels
A key component of any business model is distribution channels. Traditionally businesses have been designed around delivering goods and services to customers through channels – whether through retailers, wholesalers, distributors, or more recently direct channels.

But the different ways customers do business with companies is growing explosively – mobile, click-and-pick-up, co-ops and buying collectives, etc. And the way customers are using these channels is also changing. In addition to researching and making purchases, they’re comparing, sharing, collaborating on designs, customizing, giving feedback, subscribing, and exchanging.

Leading companies are changing the way they think about, develop, and use channels. They’re making them open, flexible, and engaging two-way exchanges. And they’re partnering with suppliers, media, affiliate, and customers themselves to offer differentiated and compelling customer experiences through them. No longer a simple distribution point, a channel is an experience.

3. customer engagement measurement
While business gurus have been preaching the importance of customer engagement for years, few companies have embraced it as the primary way of thinking about and valuing their customers. Most are stuck in the mindset of customer acquisition and retention – how can they get more customers? And, once they “have” them, how can they keep them?

The reality is that companies no longer “acquire” customers because today’s customers can’t be owned. In this age of access, very few monopolies — even perceived ones – still exist. Customers often use multiple brands in a single category, even in B2B markets. And customer loyalty may be fostered but the bonds of loyalty are no match against deep-discounting, breakthrough innovation, and simple customer wanderlust.

Companies wanting a more accurate and appropriate measure of their customer efforts look beyond customer acquisition and retention to customer engagement. They quantify and track the extent to which customers are engaged with the brand — in terms of depth (emotional commitment), breadth (range of products, services, touchpoints), and length (amount of time). They use these measurements to develop and optimize their customer strategies and to track the true health of the business.

4. advocate relations
Leading companies are also challenging the notion of media and public relations. After all, the lines between traditional media and social media have become blurred and an influential blogger has been proven to be able ignite or crush a story more powerfully than many reporters.

Plus communicating to the broader public is important to only the largest, mass brands. For all others, targeting interested parties and influencers is more efficient and effective. Developing relationships with the select people who will spread the word on the company’s behalf is far more productive than reaching out to all those who can.

So instead of media relations and public relations, companies on the forefront of communications are working on advocate relations. Advocates are bloggers, experts, social mavens, and other thought leaders who wield strong influence within the company’s target audience. Like journalists, advocates are proactively enrolled to communicate messages to the broader audience without compromising their integrity – but unlike journalists, they can be openly biased in their communication of that message, praising a company or a product which resonates with them.

That’s why advocate relations is becoming a priority.

5. content supply chain
Several of these ideas speak to the growing importance of content. Twitter streams, mobile applications, e-newsletters, online videos – these new communications are as valuable to customers as a company’s products and services. They’re the way companies do customer service, sales and user support, corporate news and information, public education, community relations – oh, and yes, promotional marketing.

But content has clearly become more than a marketing function — content has become a product in and of itself.

In fact, content development has become a core competency for leading companies. They’re investing in the production and coordination of content development to ensure its quality and consistency. And they ensure they have the process and systems in place to produce content efficiently. They have developed and actively manage a content supply chain.

As these five ideas demonstrate, business as we know it is changing. Companies can either lead the change or follow it. Thinking differently and challenging the norms have always been the hallmarks of leading companies.

building influence in the workplace: it has to be personal

denise lee yohn — Tue, 07 Dec 2010 12:23:21 +0000

(This is the second in a two-part blog series on influence and leadership. This post is written by Terry Starbucker, who has been in the business world for over 28 years in a variety of leadership positions, and regularly writes about his experiences in his blog, “Ramblings From a Glass Half-Full” . He is also a co-founder of SOBCon, a biannual live conference event designed to help entrepreneurs achieve success in both the online and offline worlds. The first post, called “Ideas Plus Influence” and written by me, appeared on Terry’s blog on December 2. )

How do we become influential leaders? There’s a certain magic (and danger too) to being in that position, where virtually everything that comes out of our mouths is tagged with importance, legitimacy, and truth, whether they actually have that distinction or not.

That’s quite a powerful thing to wield in the workplace, and it certainly comes with a responsibility to use it wisely. But that’s another post.

What I’d like to talk about is HOW that influence is obtained in the first place.

Contrary to what it may seem on the org chart, just bestowing a title and authority on someone doesn’t automatically pass along great influence. Can someone move things along on title alone? Sure they can, but without influence to grease the wheel, it’s bound to be a lot more difficult.

Building influence is hard work. It doesn’t happen overnight. It’s like building a house brick by brick. And the reason why this is so is because real workplace influence, the kind that enables rapid and often transformative progress, and ultimately great success, can only be earned one person at a time.

It has to get personal.

And the only way to do that is spend a lot of time outside your office. Listening. Absorbing. Interacting. Building relationships. Assessing personalities and how everyone absorbs and processes information. And yes, being transparent and open about themselves.

This is critically important among your direct reports, but it has to go well beyond that. It has to get personal with all the people you want to influence, and that includes your bosses, your peers, and all the staff that flow into your direct reports.

Each “brick” of your influence house is made of trust and respect – as you forge these personal relationships, you will be judged worthy of these things based on how well your actions matched your words (I’ve seen more influence lost by broken promises than any other thing).

Once the bricks start accumulating and your influence house takes shape, it’s at that point where your initiatives start to get a lot more traction. At your level of the organization, problems get resolved quickly, and more importantly, diplomatically and with relatively little friction, because you have forged these relationships, and can work inter and intra departmentally, and up and down the org chart, with ease.

At the rank and file level, the staff are more responsive to your strategy and vision, because you have met many of them individually, gained a greater understanding of the collective “psyche” of the group, and tailored the messages accordingly. When the message comes down, your influence is felt because they really KNOW you, and they feel you are talking to them, and not just pushing down orders.

Then the success happens, more bricks accumulate, and the house only grows stronger. But the leader, now flush with an even greater influence, has to resist the temptation to start to start coasting and cut back on the relationship building, letting the ego take control.

With influence, it always has to be personal. Even once it is obtained and the house is built, it must be properly maintained, lest the house become a house of cards, collapsing because much of its foundation had been neglected. (In other words, we can never get “too big for our britches”)

One last thing to consider – the prospect of “putting yourself out there” in the way I am suggesting can be a daunting task, especially for the more introverted leader. There’s certainly a fear factor involved.

My advice, based on over 28 years of building influence houses myself, is this: The reward is really worth the risk. Go for it. Be influential.

And prosper.

Lead well!

takeaways from the business growth conference

denise lee yohn — Sun, 09 May 2010 17:10:28 +0000

Last week I had the pleasure of serving as a panelist on the marketing track for the 26th Annual Southern California Business Growth Conference. Co-hosted by the Harvard Business School Association of Orange County and USC Marshall Alumni Association, the conference attracted over 1,000 of the region’s elite business leaders, innovators and entrepreneurs.

Between the keynoters, Tony Hsieh (CEO of Zappos and the Author of “Delivering Happiness“) and Bob McKnight (Chairman of the Board, CEO and President, Quiksilver Inc.) and my fellow panelists, I gleaned a lot of insights.

Here are some of the best bits I took away from the day:

on thinking about business differently

Tony Hsieh:

“We’re hoping in 10 years people won’t even realize that we started selling shoes… Maybe Zappos could run an airline. We would be like Virgin which is so many different businesses but while Virgin is about being hip and cool, we’d be about providing the very best customer service.”

“Customer service shouldn’t be a department; it should be the entire company.”

“We don’t tell [people about customer service], they experience it. We do things like surprising them with overnight shipping, we don’t use scripts, we don’t upsell. If we’re out of stock on an item, we’ll look at competitors’ websites and let people know 3 different sites that have it in stock and direct people to buy from there. It’s not about maximizing every transaction; we’re trying to build lifelong relationship with customers.”

“People ask us if we’re afraid of being so transparent [about our culture and values] with our vendors. We actually think it’s a good thing – because now we have an extra 1,500 pairs of eyes watching what we’re doing and helping us co-manage our business.”

on the importance of having a great product

Bob McKnight:

“It’s all about product – it has to be compelling, innovative and exciting. We need to inspire loyal fans and first time customers alike to see something they have to have.”

“We have to really be on our feet on product. In a recession, people aren’t buying just for the sake of buying; they buy for a new product, style, or technology.”

“We’re focused on product development leadership across all of our brands. We devote all of our talent to fantastic, high quality, innovative products that help build our brand integrity.”

on fostering culture

Tony Hsieh:

described the hiring process at Zappos: every candidate goes through 2 interviews. One is with the hiring manager, who ensures the person has the right skill set, relevant experience, etc. The other is with human resources, who interviews for fit with our culture. People must pass both to be hired.

“Your values must be committable, meaning you have to be willing to hire and fire based on whether people are living up to them regardless of job performance.

Bob McKnight: “Of course we enjoy the $300,000 orders from Nordstroms but we focus on the $300 order from [independent surf shop] FrogHouse. We always need to focus on the core [customer] and if we do that, we can’t lose.”

on why brands matter

Michael Distefano, Chief Marketing Officer, Korn/Ferry International:

“If you give a man a fish, he eats for a day. If you build the man a brand, all the fish swim to him.”

“Brands take away the guesswork.” [brands lay the foundation of trust with customers so you can cross-sell]

Ray Baird, President and Founder, Rieches and Baird: “Brands create value for companies.” [brands represent an average of 66% of assets on the balance sheet for B2B companies, according to Interbrand/Business Week]

on brand development

Ray Baird: “Alignment with the business strategy is key. Oftentimes I have to tell clients, ‘you don’t need a brand; you need a strategy.’”

Mark Anderson, Managing Director, TrueNorth International: “There are 3 things when it comes to visual expression of the brand: it must be consistent, it must be tightly controlled, and it must be pervasive.”

Peter Bretschger, CMO/CFO, Integrated Marketingworks discussed the need for an inciting marketplace condition in order to introduce a brand: whether you take advantage of something that just happened (e.g., Ford seizing the moment during Toyota’s recalls) or you create the condition through a PR campaign, you need to build a heightened awareness of the need for the solution you’re selling.

Michael Distefano: “For service providers, you need to be flexible [about your brand strategy]. You need to get input from your stakeholders and make adjustments because they’re the ones who have to buy it in order to sell it.”

Tony Hsieh – “The telephone is one of the best branding devices out there. You’ve got 5 minutes with a customer and if you get that interaction right, they’ll tell their friends and family and they’ll become loyal customers for life.”

Ray Baird discussed the trade-off between building a brand fast, cheap, or well, saying “ The big idea makes time for itself…nobody remembers us for how fast we got something done or how much they paid us for it.”

business lessons from the biggest loser

denise lee yohn — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 17:39:35 +0000

The TV show The Biggest Loser started up again this week. The show features contestants who train, diet, and compete in challenges to see who can lose the most weight. I started watching the show last season because a client of mine is a sponsor and I got hooked – not only is it inspirational to see how the contestants’ lives are completely transformed, but also the show teaches some great lessons about competing and succeeding in business.

Last year I did a short Twitter series on the business lessons I learned from the show – here’s a more complete list of the 9 things I’ve learned about business from The Biggest Loser:

1: keep metrics simple – the show uses only one measure (pounds lost) to evaluate the contestants’ progress. Clearly they are improving their health and their lives in so many other important ways, but the one number makes tracking easy. Likewise, in business we should use metrics that are easy, clear, and memorable.

2: success requires both mental and physical strength – the most successful contestants are those who are mentally tough enough to withstand the politics and emotions of the show, as well as physically strong enough to compete in the challenges. In business, I think mental strength is strategy and physical strength is execution; we need both.

3: don’t get distracted from the goal – some contestants make the mistake of emphasizing winning a particular challenge just because they want to beat the others, when they should instead be focused on the end result which is weight loss. It’s just as easy for us businesspeople to get distracted by small issues or fads or personal agendas.

4: the tortoise always beats the hare — time and again, taking a steady and sure approach in the challenges wins over starting strong and then flaming out. In business, consistency and the wise use of all of our resources ensures we cross the finish line too.

5: excel at what you can control – when competing, it’s tempting to fixate on what the competition is or isn’t doing. Problem is, we can’t control what others do. Our competitive strategy should be grounded in focusing on our own excellence and playing to our strengths first.

6: be prepared – like most shows, The Biggest Loser surprises the contestants with challenges at random times. Likewise, we never know when our businesses will be tested by customers, competitors, or even market conditions. We should always have our game on and never think that something we do won’t get noticed or won’t matter.

7: up your game – just as our bodies get used to exercising over time and so they need increasingly harder workouts, business needs innovation and continuous improvement. How many companies have lost important ground while they were resting on the laurels of their last successful new product?

8: ask for help – the contestants who sought out extra support from the trainers and their friends seemed to have more success. Likewise, collaboration and partnerships are important to businesses now more than ever. Companies that try to go at it alone miss out on the resources, ideas, and support that business partners, customers, and even competitors can provide.

9: test your limits — we won’t know what’s possible until we do. Some contestants pushed themselves beyond what they perceived their limits to be and were able to do things they never thought they could. Businesses should also challenge the past. Calculated risk taking is the key to growth.

Thanks for listening and enjoy the show!