One thing we can count on is by the time you have finished reading this buying behavior may have been altered one again.  Changes in buyer behaviors continue unabated.  This is making it difficult for marketing and sales leaders to plan the right mix of strategies and tactics resulting in a winning formula.

5 Buyer Behaviors B2B Marketing Must Keep An Eye On

New buying behaviors means B2B marketers have to become more responsive today.  Creating nimble organizations and improving knowledge in buyer understanding.  Here are ways buyer behavior will continue to reshape marketing:

Buyers Embrace Collaboration

Social and digital technologies has allowed for progress in the area of collaboration.  Meaning the sphere of influence and interaction not only has widened but increased.  Old ideas about roles on buying teams are being shattered as we speak.  The era of collaborative buyer networks has arrived.  We now have to consider internal as well as external members of collaborative networks impacting decision-making.

Buyers Want Co-Creation

Collaborative networks are fostering a new environment for co-creating products, services, and for solving problems.  This new development will put pressure on B2B organizations to get in line with flexible products and services which allow buyers to play an active role in co-creating.  Buyers and their collaborative networks will demand it.  For B2B marketers, this means a broader view on how you deliver messaging.

Buyers Want Less Content

I am sure some will do a double take on the above sub-header.  The fact is buyers are overwhelmed with content.  Here is how one buyer put it to me: “Look, I think twice now about putting my name in a form - not because I am not willing - but I know this just means I am going to get a flood of emails to download more information.” Buyers want less content – yet desire smart content.

Buyers Want 1-to-1

A funny thing happened on the way to marketing automation.  Marketing may be inadvertently dripping back into the mode of 1-to-many as opposed to the coveted 1-to-1.  I came upon this thought after conducting two reviews of lead generation and nurturing campaigns.  Buyers can see right through this screen.  They can smell automation.  A buyer’s voice on an email she received: “What is this?  I really don’t know because it doesn't say anything to me.”

Buyers Want More Than Insight

There is the old adage “too much of a good thing.”  I think we may have such a situation happening.  We have embraced the idea of the Challenger Sale and you see organizations racing to offer insight.  An issue here is too many items are being classified as insight.  This can actually counter-balance the act of contributing insight.   What this means for B2B marketing and sales is they will have to be more judicious in what they label insight.  Why dilute a good thing?

Adaptive and Agile Marketing

With rapidly changing buying behaviors, B2B marketing will need to be more adaptive and agile.  I foresee buyer behaviors shifting in waves.  This means marketing must be able to see these waves and make adaptive shifts in how they connect with buyers.  This will certainly not be easy to do.

Predictability will become even more important as we look ahead.  While Big Data holds promise, it will equally take developing the qualitative ability to anticipate where the new buyers of today are heading.

(Become part of the dialogue.  Connect with me on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google Plus as well as subscribe to the Buyer Persona Blog on the tonyzambito.com website.)

Related articles

• 5 Buying Behaviors of the Persona Buying Cycle
• 5 Buying Behaviors of the Persona Buying Cycle
• The Art of Buying
• 7 Big Questions for B2B Marketers in 2013

From the big idea to campaign integration, to media  strategy, it’s all about developing the best creative concepts and making the best media choices to reach the right audiences with the right messages and calls to action. So, does amazing creative succeed without the right media strategy? Can great media save bad creative? Or working together, can they make any product or service successful?

David Murdico: Which came first, the chicken or the egg?

Jason DeLuca: I always thought that the chicken came first, but after much contemplation I came to the same conclusion as Aristotle once did, that both the chicken and the egg have always existed together at the same time in harmony; much like the relationship between creative and media.

DM: What's your background and what brought you to Allscope Media?

JD: I’ve spent the last 15+ years working closely with some of the worlds most iconic brands, helping them manage every aspect of their online media research, strategy, planning, buying, content integration, targeting, tracking, reporting, analysis, optimization and reconciliation needs.

What brought me to Allscope was the opportunity to marry my digital media expertise with a successful group of traditional media professionals to create a truly integrated media services offering.  Since traditional media accounts for such a big majority of all marketing dollars spent, it’s critical that we, the digital media mavericks, find creative ways of integrating with traditional media touch points.

Additionally, I was attracted to Allscope because they are a nimble independent shop made up of only senior level experts. I was impressed with their strong experience in utilizing data and analytics to drive effective media strategies.  I also saw the tremendous value they provide to their clients that is way beyond the norm, something they refer to as Positive Value Exchange. Last, I saw work that was being done efficiently without all the slow moving over worked inexperienced junior filled teams that I so often see with most agencies these days.

DM: Who are some of your more notable clients, and what's your most memorable campaign?

JD: Over the years Allscope has worked with dozens of clients from a wide range of industries including: National Geographic Channel, Timberland, BlueCross & BlueShield, The Travel Channel, SmashBurger, Atari, Clarks, The Tennis Channel, Toshiba and Harper Collins.

A few memorable campaigns that stand out for me that were exceptionally fun and thrilling include winning the Atari business and working closely on a brand that was such a big part of my childhood.  Additionally, having the chance to work on The Travel Channel’s ‘Man v Food’ show was a great thrill as it was a program that I was already a loyal fan of prior to working on, so it made it that much more rewarding to help drive TV ratings.  I felt part of the family from the start so it felt very personal.

DM: Do most of your media buys start with the media buying strategy or the creative concepts?

JD: We start with both congruently, dividing responsibilities into each area then coming together to share and refine the best combinations. It’s very counterproductive to work in silos or to have one discipline dictating the other.  Therefore, we always strive to intertwine both disciplines until they become as one. Like the chicken and the egg, buying strategy and creative concepts work best when they are conceived of together at the same time.

DM: Can the right creative and media buying approach save any campaign, no matter how bad the product is? In other words, is the right combo putting lipstick on a pig?

JD: Good question. It’s not always black and white.  On one hand the right combo can put lipstick, a cowboy hat and disco roller skates on a pig with ease, but all that swine entertainment can quickly hit a mud patch if a product fails on its core promises.  Then again, there are many examples of great creative and strategy shining a light on not so good products that end up being successful, at least in the short term.  Those products typically require a high level of media reach and frequency commitment to stay relevant.  Most consumers assume that if they see an ad for something “everywhere” how bad could it be?  In fact, most think that the products/services advertised, “must be doing well if they can afford all those ads!” In the end there must be a balance between the right marketing flash and the product promise to maintain sustainability in the marketplace.

DM: If you were "king of all brands" and could change the way things are done in your industry, how would you do things differently?

JD: If I were the “King of All Brands” I would…

A) Create more accountability in media.  I’d start by redefining all digital media impressions as only those that can actually be seen.  Millions of dollars worth of media are spent and wasted each day on ads that cannot even be seen.  Remember when John Wanamaker, the father of modern advertising, said, “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don't know which half.“?  Well guess what, we now know which half.  It’s the half consumer can’t even see.  Brands must rise up and demand accountability or they will continue to be taken advantage of by Publishers.

B) Stop squeezing the life out of agencies and start by paying them more money and investing in longer relationships.  This would enable agencies to afford to hire the best people, invest in the best technologies and provide a level of loyalty that was once commonplace.  These types of investments would keep my agency team happy and allow my brand to shine.

C) Stop placing media into black hole silos and begin to bring everyone to the same table to think on how to effectively integrate all media options together as one organism. Although this is talked about ad nauseam by agencies, it is rarely done effectively and often the TV media tail wages the dog.

D) Bypass traditional content partners and create a custom content creation juggernaut that entertains and inspires, much like what Red Bull has done.

E) Listen very carefully and attentively to my brand ambassadors and social media network for insights, then act diligently to make changes to address their concerns and needs.  We would create an open dialogue, give public recognition where due and express gratitude to our customers.

DM: As a media professional, what do you think is the best-executed product launch in recent memory? What made it so successful?

JD: In recent memory, I would say Apple & Red Bull continue to impress me most in how simple yet powerful their ads excite the senses and imagination.

I also admire the selection of media they invest in to surround their target audience with ads while supporting their related passions. I look forward to seeing their ads and branded content evolve even further in the future.

Questions? (Photo credit: Valerie Everett)

The more change occurring  the more questions arise.  This year is no exception.  B2B Marketers are experiencing ongoing as well as new challenges as we start to hit stride in 2013.   What are the big future questions for B2B Marketers?  Let's look at a few:

How do we generate more leads and keep them?

Survey after survey indicate B2B marketers have this issue top of mind.  Creating demand and filling up a pipeline is loaded with pressure packed environments.  In my qualitative buyer research work, I see shifts in behavior on the part of buyers.  There are unique sets of goals and behaviors emerging in the area of nurturing.  Calling into question how leads should be defined and segmented.  Lead research and unique lead persona development will emerge to help B2B marketers address this most important question.

How do we use marketing automation effectively?

Marketing automation has crawled out of infancy stage and is being more widely adopted.  Many organizations have been in the "let's just get started" phase.  Experiencing the pain of implementation.  The next level question is how to make marketing automation more effective to get better results.

How do we operationalize content marketing?

Content marketing has certainly arisen as one of the core capabilities B2B marketing must possess.  It is causing radical shifts in thinking about the role of marketing and how to build internally.   To operationalize content marketing begs further questions related to structure, roles, and skills.  Presenting CMO's with the daunting task of figuring out how to build internal strength in content marketing.

What do customers and buyers want?

Usually, when this question is asked, there is a tendency to give a product-centric answer.  If you find yourself doing this - then you might want to catch yourself.  Admittedly, this is one of the hardest questions to figure out.  Since no one is guaranteed to be a mind-reader, this will take qualitative intelligence.  To understand how your customers and buyers think as well as what is motivating this thinking, it takes skilled customer research and buyer research.

How do we create seamless multi-channel experiences?

Existing customers and prospect buyers, simply stated, do not want to have to alter how they interact based on the channel.  My theory on this is based on hearing how buyers complain about how one channel works for them but another does not.  The wider the gap, the more disruptive.  Disrupting your customers and buyers - well - is not a good thing.   Here is an example:

"Okay here's what I mean, I go to the website.  It is impressive and I find some good information.  I am thinking this could be a smart organization to potentially get to know.  Of course, I download the white paper and I get the call.  Let me just say they had no idea what they were talking about." (Director, IT Integration and Service)

How do we stop reacting and plan for the future?

There is palpable tension in the air for B2B Marketers this year.  The need to know and the need to get results creates mounting pressure.  When first quarter results may not have been as expected, it is bound to cause some to push the panic button.  It can become a fire drill.  All hands on deck to create the next campaign.  What I believe is happening is buyers are out in front and B2B marketers are trying to catch up.   I advocate having a solid foundation of buyer intelligence to work with.  This means a collective body of research-based reference knowledge like audience personas, buyer personas, mapping tools related to content and buying journeys, and much more.  These give you the perspective you need to know why something may not have worked and to plan intelligently.  Another words - stop hitting the panic button.

How do we build more buyer predictability into B2B Marketing?

Predictive analytics continues to grow.  With limitations.  It holds promise to scale down Big Data and give the ability to predict buying behaviors.  While this may help us to predict how buyers may behave online for example, it may yield little on predicting why.  A capability I am advocating is developing customer and buyer foresight planning.  This type of planning calls for  emerging buyer scenario modeling and mapping capabilities.  Knowing where your buyers may be headed can give you the foresight needed to anticipate future motivations.  In addition, share your foresight and help them envision a future which includes you.

There are many more questions.  It is the nature of business and marketing.  It is the one constant we can count on.  Things will change enough which will beg more questions.  B2B Marketing leadership and success wil be predicated on the ability to answer the big questions.

(Become part of the dialogue.  Connect with me on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google Plus as well as subscribe to the Buyer Persona Blog on the tonyzambito.com website.)

Related articles

• The Art of Buying
• 5 Buying Behaviors of the Persona Buying Cycle
• One Way to Know the Ideal Buying Scenarios for Lead Nurturing

A key component of understanding buying decisions is gaining a reality check on how buyers perceive you and whether you match to their criteria.  How well organizations are perceived will serve as one of the primary influences shaping buying behaviors and purchase decisions.

Buyer research can reveal many aspects of what comprises buyer perception.  Buyer experience is now becoming one of the most important factors contributing to and influencing perceptions.  The new digital age is introducing new types of criterion buyers place a value on, which can directly affect their perceptions:

Buyer Experience: previous as well as current experiences can have an enormous impact on how buyers perceive you. Do you think waiting an extra day to return a call was no big deal?  Think again.

Engagement: evidence is building on engagement being a factor in shaping buyer perceptions when making purchase decisions.  What the "engagement experience" tells buyers can make a big difference.  This differs from buyer experience in this way: when you ask customers and prospects to engage - meaning interact - it better not be painful.

Knowledge: the sharing of knowledge and insight is fast emerging as a one area shaping how buyers perceive companies.  Content marketers need to watch for information fatigue setting in with their buyers.  Suffocating buyers with content is not the answer.  On the other hand, if buyers feel like they have to perform a tooth extraction tor pry information from your organizations, then they will move on.

Community: buyers today are getting tuned into joining various communities specific to their industry.  Are your efforts tuned into the communities buyers are at?  Are you contributing to this community - or "selling" and annoying the community?

These are just four factors affecting how buyers can perceive you and your organization.  Based on hundreds of buyer interviews I have done to date - I can say the above directly impact the why and how of purchase decisions.

Now What?

Getting to understand how buyers perceive you can be challenging.  Two ways you can get a handle on buyer perception is:

• Have buyer research performed specifically for perception
• Have mystery shopping performed to get insight on how buyers experience their interactions with your organization

Understanding how buyers perceive you can often be a surprise.  When I have provided insight into buyer perception, I often get the "I had no idea" response.  Given the hyper-competitive digital world of today, this might be one area you should have an idea about.

(Become part of the dialogue.  Connect with me on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google Plus as well as subscribe to theBuyer Persona Blog on the tonyzambito.com website.)

Related articles

• The Art of Buying

• 4 New Values Affecting How Buyers Perceive You (tonyzambito.com)
• 5 Buyer Behaviors Reshaping B2B Marketing (tonyzambito.com)
• Is Your Lead Generation Off-Target? (blogs.imediaconnection.com)

A problem facing organizations today is generating more leads.  Making this issue even more challenging is changes in buying behavior.  Depending on which study to reference, buyers are performing different activities for up to 70% of their buying evaluation before sales intervention.

A recent report by the Aberdeen Group on sales performance shows there is a fair degree of dissatisfaction among sales leaders.  56% saying they were not seeing sufficient growth in top line revenue.  Nearly 30% expressed dissatisfaction with lead conversion to sales.  A recent CSO Insights report indicated that only 20% of organizations understood their buyer’s buying process.  These two perspectives combined point to one of the key issues – targeting the wrong buyer.

Looking back on over 12 years of qualitative buyer research and buyer persona development work, I found in 6 out of every 10 organization– a different buyer was identified than the organization had been targeting!  If you are off-target with the buyer – you will be off-target on your demand generation and lead generation.

Getting On Target

Marketing and sales leaders today are looking to increase their percentage of being on target when it comes to lead generation.  There are four steps you can take to resolve targeting issues:

Do Lead Research:  It all starts here.  You can no longer assume the buyers you've been targeting are the correct ones.  A level of lead research is needed to outfit your lead generation and nurturing team with knowledge about ideal prospects.  For example - it may not always be the CIO but the IT Director.

Develop Lead Personas:  Lead and buyer personas are useful in understanding consideration and purchasing behaviors.  Organizations, through personas, can determine how a prospect behaves when moving from a lead persona to a buyer persona.   One of the main benefits of this approach is the ability to tailor lead and buyer personas to fit the needs of dedicated lead nurturing teams as well as sales team.

Buyer-Centered Design: Designing your lead generation strategies, systems, and processes should revolve around buyers.  The key is in modeling their behaviors when in lead nurturing and when they enter the buying cycle.  Better results will happen when you meet buyer expectations and goals – which can be distinctly different when in lead nurturing versus buying cycle.  Conversion rates at the point of when a lead persona converts to a buyer persona (becomes a sales-ready lead) will rise.

Conversation Enablement Training:  What is needed is making conversation enablement a staple of training for lead generation and nurturing teams.  The long ramp-up time it takes for lead generation teams to understand prospects is out of synch with the pace of change in buying behavior.  As the CSO Insights report pointed out, barely 20% of organizations understand their buyer’s behaviors and buying processes!  In my qualitative research, I often hear of the frustration prospective buyers have in the lack of productive conversations.

Targeting the right prospect is becoming the lifeblood of organizations today.  For many companies, tackling this issue means discovering who represents their ideal target buyer.  In addition, gaining greater clarity on how buyers differ in behavior when they are being nurtured versus actively engaged in a buying cycle.  Combining these can be a winning ticket and get your lead generation results on target.

(Become part of the dialogue.  Connect with me on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google Plus as well as subscribe to theBuyer Persona Blog on the tonyzambito.com website.)

Related articles

• 5 Buying Behaviors of the Persona Buying Cycle
• 5 Buying Behaviors of the Persona Buying Cycle

• One Way to Know the Ideal Buying Scenarios for Lead Nurturing (tonyzambito.com)

“It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters, in the end.”
― Ernest Hemmingway
The concept of buyer personas, as a means for understanding buyers, has been around now for over a decade.  It is an understatement to say many things have changed in the world of buying and selling since their beginning.

We have witnessed the changing dynamics of the buyer-seller relationship. The dynamics I refer to are buying behaviors and buyer goals.  On the other side of the coin, we see marketing and sales making attempts to adapt.  The concepts of content marketing, lead nurturing, insight-based selling, customer experience, and brand management emphasized.  These practices have been introduced as gateways to connecting with buyers in the new digital age.

Adapting to New Realities

Personas, at their core, were introduced as a tool to communicate the goals and behaviors of users and buyers.  Specifically for informing strategies related to product design and marketing to buyers.  For B2B Marketing and Sales, a clearer picture has begun to emerge around the goals and behaviors of buyers.  Yet, there are many more miles to go.  My endeavor and work with organizations over the past decade lead me to this conclusion:

Personas, specifically in B2B, need to be adaptive to new goals and behaviors of buyers throughout their buyer’s journey.  In addition, personas need to be designed for the new practices, which are developing in marketing and sales.

The term buyer persona has been used universally to an extreme level. The term worked well when buyers relied on sales for their buying cycle for upwards to eighty percent.  We are seeing the inverse today.  Here is where I believe buyer trends as well as qualitative evidence is telling us to go:

B2B personas need to be researched, understood, and designed to meet robust goals and behaviors of buyers throughout the end-to-end buying cycle and brand experience.  In addition, personas need to be designed to enable as well as make more effective new practices, functions, and roles.

Persona Buying Cycle™

As new operational models for marketing and sales develop, there are 5 buying behavior phases of the buying cycle personas must now address:

1. Audience Behavior: the concept of content marketing reaching audiences is more prevalent.  Audience goals and behaviors are distinctly different when not in the market for products or services.  Yet, awareness, insight, and intelligence are an important component of connecting with existing customers and future buyers today.  Content marketing effectiveness is enabled when it can reach many different types of audiences.  Audience personas must now include the likes of industry influences and more.
2. Lead Behavior: one of the fastest growing areas, in terms of emerging practices, is the rise in lead nurturing and lead development.  Buyers have distinct goals and behaviors when they convert from being a part of a wider audience to an interested party.   New forms of lead research and lead personas can create more effective conversions from an interested party to an active buyer.
3. Buyer Behavior: the core persona when buyers have become actually engaged in the process of buying.  Buying behaviors, and buying goals, operate on a different level when buyers are actively engaged in the buying process.  Buyer personas, true their original intent, are designed to enable the buying process between buyer and seller.
4. Customer Behavior: when a buyer becomes a customer, there is a trial period underway.  This trial period consists of a different set of goals and behaviors meaningful to confirmation and customer experience.  Specific customer personas can enable understanding and capabilities to meet customer goals post-sale.  Implementation and customer support teams can benefit immensely from personas designed specifically for their roles.
5. Brand Behavior: brand management is emerging out of the shadows, as a competency B2B companies have to get right today.  Fulfilling the brand promise consistently is one of the hardest jobs of marketing and an organization as a whole.  Customers and buyers have different goals, behaviors, and beliefs, which surround brands.  The goal here is to convert customer personas into brand persona advocates.

A recommendation for forward-thinking marketing and sales leaders is to begin thinking in terms of the Persona Buying Cycle™ versus a singular focus on a buyer persona.  One certainty is the buyer’s journey not only begins before buyers think of themselves as a buyer, but also extends beyond the purchase.  Having a common visual and story of how buyer’s goals and behaviors change throughout the buying cycle is compelling.   We are also seeing activities, functions, and roles widen in marketing and sales in response to changing buying behaviors.  The Persona Buying Cycle™ is a natural extension to address both of these developments.

Positive Outcomes

Creating B2B personas through the lenses of a Persona Buying Cycle™ help bring these positive outcomes:

• • Make personas relevant throughout the major touchpoints of the end-to-end buyer’s journey
  • Make personas more practical to each functional team interacting with audiences, buyers, and customers
  • Make demand generation, lead generation, opportunity management, and customer experience more effective
  • Provide a common communications platform for understanding buyers
  • Foster alignment between marketing and sales by mapping to specific buyer goals and behaviors

In a dozen years, we have seen the then straightforward buyer-seller dynamics become more complex.  How B2B views the use of personas, from a pragmatic standpoint, now must adapt.

(Become part of the dialogue.  Connect with me on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google Plus as well as subscribe to the Buyer Persona Blog on the tonyzambito.com website.)

Related articles

• Marketing is in the Throes of a Buyer Revolution
• The Art of Buying

• 5 Buying Behaviors of the Persona Buying Cycle (tonyzambito.com)

I don’t pretend to be a savvy shopper, but when I dive wallet-first into the clearance section at The Gap, I tend to stock up on accessories in my favorite color — black. Why? It’s a universal truth that black goes with everything.

So does branded journalism. In the words of veteran digital content guru Ann Handley, “Content is the new black.”

Handley is right, branded journalism (also known as brand journalism or branded content) has caught on like a wildfire this year. From Tory Burch’s fantastic branded blog to Mint.com’s MintLife section, brands realize the value of consumer-facing content like articles, photos or videos, and are rushing to create some with the company name on it.

Why? For a lot of the reasons we discussed in the first post in this series and mainly because consumers are demanding it. As brands become more accessible to fans through social media, people want more from brands than their products and services. So much so, even Twitter is looking to hire a Head of News. That leads us to branded journalism.

But branded journalism breaks the natural order of business that advertisers, journalists and businesses have subscribed to for decades. This makes some people nervous, traditionalists angry and opportunists jumping on the branded content bandwagon faster than Baltimore fans during the last Super Bowl.

So that leaves the question, if you’re going to start creating content for a brand, be it a local business or a Fortune 500 company, what are the best practices? Better yet, how do you do it ethically?

Try these simple steps for better branded journalism:

1. Build a process

Journalistic content should be more than an article or blog post thrown together quickly. Create an editorial plan, support whatever content you create with strategy, edit it, review it with key company team members and a set time to distribute it via a medium that will reach your intended audience.

2. Share something valuable

Share something that your target market will respond to. For example, Home Depot’s YouTube page features an array of do-it-yourself garden tutorials. Completely different from Red Bull’s adrenalin-pumping YouTube page that offers an array of video features on the brand’s extreme athletes. Both give their fans journalistic content in the same medium, but do it completely different ways to reach separate audiences.

3. Know your boundaries

Producing journalistic content doesn’t equate to producing a Pulitzer winning news article, so stick to your industry and the topics surrounding it. Create content targeted at a company’s audience, on subjects related to your company’s industry. Find creative ways to make content relevant to trends and new stories without reporting the news.

4. Stick to the facts and cite your sources

People want transparency from their favorite brands. Always support your content with facts from experts and credible sources. Back up your claims with research, data or testimonials from credible experts that you mention by name.

5. Strike a balance

Don’t use branded journalism as an opportunity to knock a competitor’s product or service, use it as an opportunity to share valuable content. If needed, acknowledge competitors professionally when it’s appropriate. Focus instead on sharing real insight about a subject consumers are interested in.

6. List a byline

If possible, list the author or producer of a branded journalism piece. This gives your work credibility and gives audience members a face representing the brand to connect with. Melissa Lafsky Wall left her job at USA Today to head up content production at dating site How About We, where every article or column in the site’s Date Report section is credited with a byline.

7. Track results

Producing branded journalism is useless if it doesn’t reach the correct audience to support business goals. Use analytics to track your results and SEO to shape the strategy behind your content. This ensures that you don’t just produce quality branded journalism; you produce branded content that gets results.

*as posted by Sarah Giarratana on IQ's blog

Here’s the thing. In documentary production we are able to make a nice chart of how money is spent. If you view it as a timeline,  you’ll notice something right away. At the start – when it is just you and an idea – things are pretty cheap, but as production continues – adding a crew, an editor, composer, and graphics -  things get more and more expensive. If you need to make changes at the beginning, it’s cheap. If you need to change something at the end, it is not cheap.

Now, when you look at communications and PR, most people turn that formula on its head. People seem to think like movie moguls who want their blockbuster movie to ‘open big,’ so they blow an enormous amount of money on the opening weekend, the premiere, the launch, the one-time media release, figuring that if you make enough noise at the beginning it will last to the end.

That might work for the next Transformers movie, but in the online world it’s a fast-and-furious waste. Online movements that last tend to start slowly. Those that blow up at the start tend to fizzle out. So when you ask, ‘How fast do I spend my money?’ Not fast. Spend longer instead.

Say you have enough cash for a solid Google AdWords campaign, about $100 a day. Running that campaign over a month will get you good traffic to your site. Running it over two days in a massive mega-buy will make a nice blip in your Analytics shaped like the Matterhorn. But it won’t matter because it won’t last. I’ve seen StumbleUpon feature websites on the front page – massive traffic is the result – usually for part of a day. Then it goes away, dipping back to the site norm. Life resumes. WordPress once featured a blog of mine on Freshly Pressed. In the space of a few hours more than a thousand people showed up to read it, and I made a hundred new WordPress friends. Then life resumed as before.

There are a few mass market venues that still matter. If you get on a television news show you will make friends who may head over to your site in droves. (How many miles per gallon do you get in a drove, anyway?) If you are featured on a prominent podcast, radio show or written about in a magazine or blog, you get yourself a link that generates traffic for a long time.

The loyal audience that you build slowly means more. Your critical mass number doesn’t have to be big at the start (though it might be big later.) Spend what you need to make an impression, but spend over time.

The quest to uncover how and why people and businesses engage in the act of buying is becoming an endurance race.  Spurred on by increasing social technologies advances.  The result is many organizations, whether academia or business, have focused on the science of buying.  What we may be losing is critical understanding of the art of buying.

What we are witnessing in the new digital age is the old rules of near total dependency on understanding processes and rules associated with buying is no longer the sole winning ticket.  Buying processes and rules have been dissected and analyzed many times over throughout the past few decades.  We clung to the belief of knowing the how will lead us to systematic knowledge of how to close more business with buyers.   The problem marketing and selling organizations face today is the how – processes and rules – are not as easily defined or structured as in the past.  Social technologies have made it possible for new networks and collaboration amongst buyers – causing plenty of flex in processes and rules.

The Why of Buying

If the science of buying has focused on the how of buying, the art of buying is a heightened quest for understanding the Why of Buying™.  The focus on how businesses buy in B2B marketing and sales has led to many different spin offs of stages, processes, cycles, and funnel shapes.  These exercises do have value.  However, here is a way of looking at what is missing:

A pure focus on process and stages, for example, creates a focus on what buyers are doing rather than what they are thinking and why it is important.

My point of view goes something like this:

Despite all the hype and efforts made in demand generation and content marketing, organizations are still struggling in these areas.  This is due to campaigns and programs designed to fit into established ideas of how businesses buy.  We have even believed automating processes to fit into our view of how we believe buyers buy will speed up purchase cycles.  This is happening at the expense of innovating marketing and sales to get at the core why of buying.

In the recent B2B Demand Generation Benchmark Survey 2012 sponsored by Eloqua, CMO, and Software Advice, I was struck by how 45 to 60% of the 155 marketer respondents believed demand generation performance were below expectations.  Those using marketing automation believing performances were better than those not using marketing automation.   In recent CMI as well as eConsultancy surveys, 40 to 50% of marketers surveyed believed their content marketing efforts were not effective.

Effectiveness a Continuing Struggle

Effectiveness and performance continue to be ongoing issues when it comes to demand generation and content marketing.  While organizations may be getting more productive and efficient at automating processes related to demand generation and content marketing, the missing link is an understanding of why buyers behave, think, and decide as they do.  How buyers behave, think, and decide do not always fit squarely into boxes we have defined to go with processes, rules, or stages.

To become more effective at helping buyers, marketing and sales organizations will need to do this:

Put more investment and energy into understanding the why of buying as opposed to an over abundance on the science of marketing and sales.  We cannot understand how to help buyers unless we are grounded in knowing the why.

Competitive advantage will be determined by knowledge of the motivations, beliefs, thinking, perceptions, goals, behaviors, and responses on the part of buyers.  Marketing today must fulfill the role of understanding how buyers behave and think.   Sales must become the enablers of buyers helping themselves.

The Stories of Buyers

The art of buying is represented through the stories of buyers.  For every industry, there are compelling stories about buyers, which can be told.  It is through these stories we can learn the motivations and goals of buyers, which open the door to understand the why of buying.  For marketing and sales, the key to future success will be in understanding what stories are unfolding, why these stories are important, and how to become part of stories. To mold this key, it will take more art than science to achieve.

(Become part of the dialogue.  Connect with me on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google Plus as well as subscribe to the Buyer Persona Blog on the tonyzambito.com website.)

Follow @tonyzambito

Related articles

• Marketing is in the Throes of a Buyer Revolution
• 4 Buyer Trends That Will Shake Marketing in 2013

• The Art of Buying (tonyzambito.com)

Click here to view the embedded video.

As I write in my book THE ON-DEMAND BRAND, we've reached a point now where brands should no longer view social media as a cool new way to connect with consumers.

We must now view social media as a means by which we as brands can enable consumers not just to connect with us, but to each other. And not just in some virtual space, but in the physical world as well.

This initiative can help break the ice in a social setting - as well as continue the conversation (and/or flirtation) after that beer (or the many, many beers, as the case may be) is gone.

Cheers to Bud for the bold idea.

Read all about it, here.

THE MYTH: Higher value offers drive better results.

“If I offer you more for less, you’ll accept and become a devoted customer.”

It’s an easy assumption to make, regardless of what product or service you’re marketing.  But consumers have figured out the ins and outs of dangling carrots, and marketers are realizing that long-term success requires more than offering ‘the most’ or ‘the greatest’.

Offers based on value alone tend to fall into a few categories:

“Too good to be true”: We’ve all had the pleasure of answering that dreaded phone call – the one that inevitably comes right at dinner time with someone offering us a free trip to an exotic resort. Most hang up the phone before the offer is fully revealed, but for those who choose to wait it out, that ‘too good to be true’ offer is eventually followed up with a long list of blackout dates, less than appealing air travel, and a forceful requirement to ‘act now’ or lose the opportunity.

“It’s great and I’ll wait": I can’t say that I’m much of a couponer, but it’s amazing to see how shoppers have figured out the constantly rotating catalogs of discounts issued by their local stores.  And what’s even more amazing is how they’ve altered their shopping behaviors to ensure they always receive the best deal.  Back in the day, a marketing offer was a ‘treat’ – something that was rare enough to catch someone’s attention and more importantly, change someone’s behaviors.  In today’s age of so many event or calendar triggered offers, consumers assume that an offer will arrive – with some predicting the timing down to the hour or day – and therefore, do not act until it arrives.

“Missed the mark": I was shocked a few months back when my wife received a pamphlet of coupons and an educational booklet highlighting a ‘how-to’ guide for baby gear. I quickly asked if there was something she needed to fill me in on – given the fact that our two children are half grown and I was pretty sure we didn’t have plans for more.  Looks like someone “missed the mark” she said, as she headed to the door to take it to our more than gracious, seven-month pregnant neighbor.  There must have been over $100 worth of coupons – a great value for someone, but not for us.

THE REALITY: Offers with the right value drive better results.

Back to my earlier comment about a marketing offer being a ‘treat’ – the beauty of the mobile channel is its ability to help marketers engage with customers at an individual level. This takes customer engagement to an entirely new level – marketing can finally be personalized, relevant, and most importantly, valuable to your customers.  And that’s the key to mobile marketing success – defining what’s valuable for each customer and just as important, what’s valuable for your business.

It all goes back to understanding your customers’ behaviors – what services they use, how they act, who they’re connected to, what their buying preferences are, etc. – and aligning offers to your higher order marketing objective.   For example, if the goal is to increase usage consumption, the development of personalized marketing treatments should stem from the insight you have on each individual’s usage (past, current, and predicted consumption), and how this compares to how  you would like them to use your service.

A ‘marketing treatment’ doesn’t always contain an offer – sometimes a simple reminder or an educational FYI is all it takes for someone to act.  In fact, although one may assume that a higher dollar discount will result in a more positive response, it can actually do quite the opposite by decreasing the brands’ perceived value – and cannibalizing your potential revenue.

WHY IT MATTERS: Successful marketing is all about building long-term, profitable relationships – not achieving incremental gains with one-hit wonders.

It’s easy to get wrapped up in the day-to-day tracking of click-throughs and opt-ins but those aren’t the KPIs that truly matter.  Revenues, retention rates, brand loyalty – these should be the driving forces behind each and every offer delivered.  Marketing is not about driving a single response, but having a long-lasting, sustainable positive impact on customer behavior.

So the real challenge is altering – and most importantly, scaling – your marketing approach to deliver the right offers to each customer over time.   Using a pre-determined set of marketing treatments doesn’t cut it when the behavioral contexts of your mobile customers are continually changing, and in turn, so are their definitions of what’s valuable.   So what’s needed?  Marketing capabilities that offer the ultimate flexibility – allowing you to create and test an infinite number of marketing treatments to then determine what’s best for whom.

Luckily for marketers, marketing technologies rich with automation and machine learning are coming to the rescue and doing a lot of the thinking behind the scenes.  Think of it like a baker and his recipes.  You provide all of the ingredients – the data, the offers, the contexts, the messaging, the call to action, etc. – and he determines what works best.  Voila!

Use stock photos! Stock photos and product shots on social make us cringe, but the practice is all too common. If your social media marketing strategy involves stock imagery and products shots we have rounded up the top reasons to convince you to change it up.

Here are the top reasons not to use stock photos in your social posts:

1. Who are these people anyway?

If your grandparents looked like they crawled off a Clairol box, then congrats on hitting the genetic lottery. For the rest of us, stock images showing perfect people in perfect families just aren’t relatable.

Showing images of real people using your products, who are truly enthusiastic, are going to go much further with your target audience. Your brand’s likes,  share and overall engagement will go up.

2. Cans lack soul.

It’s a can of cat food. Yes, if you are a cat owner you probably have a brand of cat food that you like. And, if you are the cat food company then you probably paid thousands for a photo shoot in which each piece of niblet of meat in this can was arranged.

But, chances are if you saw this can of cat food pop up in your newsfeed accompanied by copy like “Like this if your cat eats this”- you would not even pause for a second look. Even if it had the most gorgeous label in the world. It's still just a can.

On the other hand….

If you are a cat food company and post a pic of a real cat a user shared on your wall or on another social platform, who is super cute, and put your branding on it, BOOM. Magic happens...

People will share. Fancy Feast rocks this tactic all the time on Facebook, and their images get a lot of love. Always think about your brand’s content from the user’s perspective- not just the brand perspective.

If your brand is posting cans, bags and other product shots- not matter how lovingly poised that product may be, it will never have the soul of a user generated image.

3. Stock photos aren’t funny, smart or interesting

Think about it for a moment. You went to school for photography. You have to make extra cash. So, you create the most generic images possible like the above “couple brushing teeth” and add a million random tags to the photo in the hopes that your image will be downloaded enough times that you can buy groceries this week.

The result: Boring images.

This image was posted on Colgate's wall. A consumer is proving the whitening power of their toothpaste with a photo taken in black light.

That would be a very funny post from the brand as well, but instead Colgate responded "HAHAHA" and let the post wither on the "Recent Posts by Others" vine, instead of using the image in a post on their own wall with thanks to the user who submitted it.

Instead they use images like this...

I don't mean to pick on Colgate or their agency or in-house person tasked with picking stock photos of perfect people with perfecter teeth.

They are just typical of the way brands use images to little effect on social.

So, use real user generated image on your wall and consumers will see that you are paying attention to them, and even better that you are celebrating their relationship with your brand. They may also post a pic in the hopes that they will get a star turn in your brand’s posts.

Have you made the switch from product beauty shots and stock images to user generated on social? Leave a comment and share your thoughts!

Call it 3D projection writ small. Very, very small.

In January, I posted about an initiative we spearheaded to super-size a client's core message on a 12-story building through the power and magic of 3D projection mapping.

In celebrating its 10th anniversary, Ropongi Hills - a renowned Tokyo landmark, decided to use the technology in reverse - with a remarkable digital campaign called "Tokyo City Symphony," an interactive website where you can experience playing with 3D projection mapping on a 1:1000 miniature model of Tokyo.

According to the Mori Building Company, the handcrafted model is an exact replica of the cityscape of Tokyo in every detail. Three visual motifs are projected onto the city in sync with music: "Future City," conjuring futuristic images, "Rock City" that playfully transforms Roppongi Hills into colorful musical instruments and monsters, and "Edo City," or "Traditional Tokyo," that portrays beautiful Japanese images.

One very big small idea.

Check it all out yourself, here.

A good example is the recently concluded Linley Tech Mobile Conference, held last week in Santa Clara, CA and organized by Mountain View, CA-based The Linley Group, a market research firm providing independent technology analyses of semiconductors for networking, communications, mobile, and wireless applications. The company also produces a trade publication, Microprocessor Report.

This was the fourth year the event was held; according to company founder and Principal Analyst Linley Gwennap, the conference attracted about 200 people, including those from mobile IP and chip companies, handset and other device vendors, carriers and software vendors, as well as the financial community and press. Attendees represented a broad range of companies, including Broadcom, China Mobile, Cisco, Dell, Ericsson, HP, Huawei, Imagination Technologies, Marvel, Samsung and Sony, as well as financial analysts from Bank of America, Credit Suisse, UBS, and Wells Fargo.

The conference focused on a wide array of topics; here’s a snapshot:

• Heterogeneous processing
• Licensable CPUs for mobile devices
• Licensable GPU and DSP cores
• Mobile semiconductors
• Mobile SoC design issues
• Mobile software trends
• Multicore application processors
• Other low-power IP cores

The presentations addressed design issues for mobile devices -- tablet computers, smartphones, navigation devices, media players, handheld games, and e-book readers.

One of the conference highlights, noted Gwennap, was a panel on the growing China mobile market, featuring executives from China Mobile, Imagination Technologies, MediaTek and Spreadtrum. The panel addressed key challenges and opportunities for mobile products in China, the diverging demands of Chinese consumers and the different tiering in that enormous market. One interesting takeaway: the total available market for mobile handsets in China is larger than the entire population of the United States!

Another session on mobile CPUs talked about major issues for mobile product development. One of the panelists, Mark Throndson, serves as Director of Processor Technology Marketing for UK-based Imagination Technologies.

One of Throndson’s conclusions was that industry trends are forcing more efficiency in how companies build products, and to enable this, new technologies are abstracting software development away from the underlying hardware/instruction sets.

“At the end of the day, even though software is becoming less dependent on the hardware it runs on, good underlying architectures are still important as they affect the user experience through delivering high performance, longer battery life, and lower costs,” said Throndson.

Another interesting session focused on power-optimized design. This is an increasing challenge as today’s mobile devices integrate ever-more features and functionality, yet battery technology hasn’t kept pace. A couple of session participants proposed that the answer lies in adding a bit more complexity in hardware to handle power management. While this additional logic may consume some power, the end result, according to these panelists, is increased efficiency and longer battery life.

I’ve been to gobs of analyst-driven events that focused too much on promoting the market research firm and its offerings; the buzz on the Linley gathering from attendees is that it was two days well-spent.

Marketers have started to tackle their social media needs, similar to how they have historically approached every other marketing tactic - by isolating and siloing their strategic parameters, success metrics, and analytics. We’ve seen this time and time again. This is how marketers dealt with banner advertising in the ‘90s, SEM and email in the early ‘00s, and mobile and in-game advertising in the late ‘00s. Over a decade later and the same mistakes are being made. Next it will be real-time-bidding and then most likely video; especially as digital convergence really takes form and everything (i.e. TV, radio, print, etc.) is technically “digital”. Agencies and media providers are always ready to reposition themselves based on the flavor of the month. Social is the new black. Or is it the new pink? Most trends are just that – “trendy”.

Don’t get me wrong, social marketing is extremely important. In fact, it is too important to think you can just silo it out and hire a specialized social media agency to manage it on your company’s behalf. The most successful marketers are not experts in analog media, digital media, social media, search marketing, or real-time-bidding; they are efficient in communication and understanding how to serve people’s needs. Once you understand what your audience/customers’ needs are and their communication requirements, you can determine the most effective channels and tactics to satisfy those needs - just like establishing any human relationship.

I realize most marketing disciplines these days require specialists to deploy and manage specific tactics. However, we must not confuse strategy with execution. You must have an integrated communication strategy that puts your customers and target prospects at the core. Through the communication planning process you should determine how much social marketing support is required and how it should be managed. Additionally, we should stop referring to social as a tactic and think of it more as the fabric that weaves throughout your entire marketing program. There’s no such thing as a social media campaign. You don’t make friends with someone and then decide to abruptly end that friendship because he/she had plans on the same night you wanted to go out.

A strong relationship is cultivated over time and this means you need to be willing to allocate the necessary resources to building those high value relationships and plan on managing them indefinitely. The only way to assure this can be done is by centralizing your customer relationship management internally. Yes, social is a component of CRM. Only now, it is a multi-dimensional dialogue and your refer-a-friend programs have exponential potential. Those that are positioning themselves as “social media experts” are less concerned about the long term value of the relationships between you and your customers, and really trying to capitalize on the ignorance that exists in the marketplace to, once again, provide false value – kind of like that “friend” who is always there to console you during a really bad time. They appear to be genuine, but we all know there is an ulterior motive which is driven by taking advantage of your vulnerability.

Be less concerned about the new, bright, shiny objects and focus on better understanding your audience and customers. The more you learn about what people want, the better you can serve their needs. Marketing channels and tactics are just the delivery mechanisms to serving those needs. With all that being said, I do recommend partnering with those that are proficient at managing the execution of each tactic. Many tactics are extremely labor-intensive and require a deep understanding of the market and the various technology platforms used to effectively manage these programs. However, when it comes to building your strategy, focus on the communication needs of your audience, then determine the channels and tactics that will help facilitate how you address those needs.

Remember this, there is no such thing as a category called “social media”. All media is social. It always has been and always will be. Only now, you can actually see what people are saying behind your back. You just need to determine what value you can contribute to the conversation – more importantly, make sure it is a reciprocal dialogue. Leave your “push, push” mentality back in the 20th century. And if you plan on playing in the social sandbox, make sure you are welcoming, respectful, appreciative, and provide value. Treat those the way you would like to be treated.

Sometimes I think marketers forget what it means to be human. In the words of Robert Fulghum, “all you really need to know, you learned in kindergarten”. Play fair. Share everything. Don’t take things that aren’t yours. Don’t hit people. Say you’re sorry when you hurt somebody. Clean up your own mess. Now, stop your wining and go make some friends!

What is the best email marketing service for your online newsletter? I've used Constant Contact, MailChimp, AWeber, Emma and Vertical Response. They all will send your email newsletter. Some with do it with style. Some will do it plainly. Some will get you more  bounces (undeliverable emails) than the other providers. Others will allow you to sort through your list and send to specific people (called 'segmenting the list') and others will allow you to send specialized emails to people at intervals you choose (called 'autoresponders.') Here's a listing of all the features of each and my rankings.

Emma

My bias:  Emma is my favorite platform (MailChimp is my second-favorite.) Emma has a large number of tastefully designed templates, but it is also easy to create your own or import templates from elsewhere. At this writing, Emma's engineers just released a drag-and-drop interface for all templates. This means that you can move text, images, links and so forth, anywhere you want. The design flexibility is great and to my taste, far ahead of the others.

Emma also has the best customer service of any provider. You get to speak with (or email with) a real person who works things through with you. They help you set up your list and actively troubleshoot. Recently AOL wasn't cooperating with Emma's servers - I knew this because of Emma's superior reporting functions allowed me to see this right away. I called Emma's help desk and they said they were already working with AOL to fix the problem.

List segmentation is very easy in Emma. You can search for specific responses (opens, clicks) and send just to those people. Autoresponders are a snap. You can build out automated campaigns over days, weeks, even months. You can create and send surveys from within Emma and link to them in your newsletters.

Reporting in Emma is plain vanilla. You can get an excel spreadsheet of your results. Integrations are few.  (They just added Survey Monkey, but as you'll see below, MailChimp is the integration king.) There is an excellent agency platform well suited to collaboration, teams and client login. You can re-sell and repackage Emma to clients.

Pricing: $30 for the first 1,000 subscribers with unlimited sends.  $45 per month for 2,500 subscribers, unlimited sends. $125 per month for 10,000 subscribers with unlimited sends.

Ratings on Emma

Design flexibility - Excellent

List segmentation - Excellent

Reporting - Good

Customer Service - Excellent

Multi-User  Platform:  Yes

Constant Contact

Constant Contact has the best marketing of all the providers (you've heard of them, right?) The customer service is strong.  Constant Contact's pricing is competitive with the other providers. The big drawback here for me is that Constant Contact's design interface is clunky and there's a lack of flexibility in the templates. You tend to get locked in to their templates and then your newsletter looks like everyone else's. Importing HTML templates is possible, but it's frozen in HTML so you have to know HTML (or get a designer who does) to make any changes you need.  You can segment your lists into targeted sends so that only those you want to receive your email will get them.  There is a decent enough reporting interface so that you can share results of your mailings with your team. There is no agency platform for multiple users collaborating on emails. If your emails bounce you may not be able to figure out why.

Pricing:  Average at $15 per month for 500 on your list, $30 for up to 2500 on your list, and upward. They offer a free 60-day trial for new users.

Ratings on Constant Contact

Design flexibility - Bad

List segmentation - Good

Reporting - Fair

Customer Service - Excellent

Multi-User  Platform:  No

MailChimp

MailChimp makes doing a newsletter more fun than the other providers. They have a chimp mascot who tells jokes. There are a wide variety of templates available. You can write your own in HTML and import it into MailChimp with a little bit of effort.

MailChimp makes it easy to segment your list, slicing and dicing to your heart's content. They even have an application called Hairball that allows you to work on your list off line, segment it, and upload the results to your MailChimp account.  You want integrations?  MailChimp has them, with Salesforce, Freshbooks, Highrise and lots of other CRM applications. MailChimp even has an application what will let people sign up for your list on your iPad.  Customer service has improved in the past few years that I've used MailChimp, but it's not all that personal, can be slow, and you will be sent to their Knowledge Base for answers, which is not always that helpful.

Standard reporting on MailChimp is good.  You can export a PDF with lots of nice graphics. If you really want to drill down into your list and send to segments (such as those who clicked on a particular link) it will take a little work, though. MailChimp recently discontinued free use of Autoresponders, and this is a negative if you want to send somebody an automatic email after they sign up, or if you want to send them an email after a specific amount of time, say, one week after sign up. There is no agency platform for multiple users collaborating on emails, but there are multi-user logins, and using a MailChimp application called On Stage you can collaborate on designs and gives notes as the mailing is shaped.

MailChimp has the strictest policy about who can use their service. They don't like real estate agents or PR people much, in my experience, and they can bounce you off their list with no warning. If your emails bounce (become undeliverable) MailChimp won't help you much with that. Some of their templates can even be tagged as spam but they won't help you fix them.

Pricing:  Free if fewer than 2,000 people on your list.  Makes this an excellent option to get your feet wet. Gets pricey fast when you send to larger lists.  There are limitations on some features, like autoresponders. $10 per month for lists of up to 500 emails, $30 per month for up to 2,500.

Ratings on MailChimp

Design flexibility - Good

List segmentation - Good

Reporting - Good

Customer Service - Fair

Multi-User  Platform:  Yes

AWeber

I have done a demo of AWeber but haven't used it for years (like I have MailChimp and Constant Contact.) I can say that I like it, but the templates are bland and your emails can end up looking like everyone else's on Aweber.  AWeber does one thing hugely better than other providers, however: They make available an absolutely huge variety of sign up forms for your list. Sending to segments is pretty easy. Reporting is good. There is no agency platform for multiple users collaborating on emails.  There is an affilate program, meaing that you can re-sell AWeber to clients, setting your own rates.

Pricing: $19 for the first 500 subscribers.  Unlimited email sends. Add $10 per month to have up to up to 2,500 on your list.

Ratings on Aweber

Design flexibility - Okay

List segmentation - Okay

Reporting - Good

Customer Service - Good

Multi-User  Platform:  No

Vertical Response

Vertical Response can be one of the most economical email newsletter options, with plans starting at $8.50 per month.  It's solid, but to me uninspiring. The design interface is blah and the templates aren't much better. You can import HTML and make your own, however. You can segment your list and reporting is good.  Vertical Response will give you a deal on postcards, and you can send customer surveys. There is a multi-user agency platform so that teams can work on campaigns or you can re-sell Vertical Response to clients.

Pricing: Starting at $8.50 per month.

Ratings on Vertical Response

Design flexibility - Poor

List segmentation - Good

Reporting - Good

Customer Service - Good

Multi-User  Platform:  Yes

There are lots of email marketing platforms out there, even a few that I've not mentioned so far, like iContact and Cooler Email. When using these platforms, I'm looking for design flexibility, autoresponders, good customer service and reporting. By these measures, and by my own personal biases and choices, Emma comes out on top for me, followed by MailChimp. If you want to get your feet wet, try MailChimp for free. When you get serious about email marketing and newsletters, go to Emma.

Email graphic by Sean MacEntee via Creative Commons License.  Hand-drawn envelope graphics from Charfish.

It wasn’t about story-boarding or scripting, it was about asking questions, getting answers, and weaving content together to produce an interesting and useful story. The benefits of combining the approaches of traditional journalism and brand storytelling seemed obvious. It’s something we’ve called “brand journalism” since day one, and it’s picking up speed as the new-media world continues to evolve, along with consumers’ habits.

Businesses are using social media, web video, and digital publishing to speak directly to consumers. It’s a way for brands, big and small, to use the approach of professional journalists to create, curate and share expert content in the form of blogs, articles and video. Brand journalism is obviously not as impartial as journalism, but it’s a way for a brand to engage an audience with relevant and interesting material. The content must be factual, and keep “relevance to the viewer” top of mind.

Marketing strategist David Meerman Scott, author of The New Rules of Marketing & PR, says “brand journalism is winning over direct marketing and PR attention-getting techniques.

“I'm convinced that those with the traditional skills of marketing, public relations, and copywriting are not the right people to create brand journalism content. Instead you need the skills of a journalist.”

Brand journalism is about facts and balance. It’s about telling an engaging story, and the goal is to educate rather than blatantly market. This way, readers or viewers are informed, and they become engaged with your business and it’s mission.

Home Depot is one major brand that has been creating expert content and useful do-it-yourself advice for a while, and it’s reaping the benefits. The content, whether it’s in the form of blog posts or web video, generally doesn’t try to sell anything directly. Instead, it keeps the focus on education.

Cisco is another example. On its blog, most of the articles and videos don’t mention the company at all. Its plan is to create a conversation and to position itself as a leader in the industry it represents. The company’s digital lead, Karen Snell, has said: “The goal was to generate engaging content to spark a conversation ... If we can make people understand what Cisco is doing, then we’ve been successful.”

Boeing is often mentioned as a successful adopter of brand journalism. “When brand journalists think of what’s interesting to their audiences and create engaging content, they generate stories that can really take off,” writes communications director Todd Blecher. “This story is about testing the brakes on our new 747. It involves speeding an airplane down a runway, hitting the brakes just before takeoff. It ends with the brakes on fire, which is eye catching, to say the least.

“We’ve had millions of views, and our key messages about safety and durability reached more people through our website, YouTube channel, and Facebook than we would’ve ever reached with a traditional news release.”

There are huge benefits to providing content that educates and informs, and it’s easy to measure the return on investment. How many hits did it get? Was it shared? Did it spark conversation? As the public and businesses become increasingly “social,” brand journalism can make communicating with consumers more interesting, while setting a company apart from outdated "push" marketing approaches.

Businesses that do it properly can create a huge competitive advantage, while increasing their credibility and relevancy in the marketplace.

Lisa Ostrikoff is a TV Journalist & Anchor turned creator of BizBOXTV -- a Canadian Online Video Production/Advertising + Social Media Marketing Agency. You can find her on Twitter and Facebook.

So while the speed of technology is increasing, it’s interesting to note that one of the hottest trends in online marketing might just be the age-old art of story-telling.

What does this mean? To cut through the clutter, businesses need to stop annoying, and start telling stories.

Story-telling has evolved from ancient rock markings to the current age, where brands are able to effectively tell their stories via Web video, blog posts and social media platforms. Despite technology’s effect on the methods we’re using to tell stories, the basics remain.

If you ask the experts, they’ll tell you the same story they’ve been telling for years.

“Marketing is storytelling,” says author, entrepreneur and expert Seth Godin. Writing on “ How to tell a great story,” Mr. Godin says that “first impressions are far more powerful than we give them credit for,” making it important to ensure your story does what you need it to do the first time someone reads, hears or watches it.

“Your products and your service and your people are all part of the story,” Mr. Godin adds.

Peter Guber, chief executive officer of Mandalay Entertainment Group and co-owner of the NBA's Golden State Warriors, also has a take on the importance of story-telling.

“Simply put, if you can’t tell it, you can’t sell it,” he writes in Tell to Win: Connect, Persuade, and Triumph with the Hidden Power of Story.

The first chapter is entitled “It’s about the story, stupid.” You can read it by downloading it here.

“Our brains still respond to content by looking for the story to make sense out of the experience. No matter what the technology, the meaning starts in the brain,” writes Pamela Brown Rutledge, director of the Media Psychology Research Center, in The psychological power of storytelling posted on Psychology Today. She notes that there are several psychological reasons why story-telling is so powerful.

So, what’s your story? Ask yourself what messages you are trying to get across to your audience. Is your story authentic and interesting?

All businesses and business owners have a great story. 2013 is the year to tell it, on purpose.

Lisa Ostrikoff is a TV Journalist & Anchor turned creator of BizBOXTV -- a Canadian Online Video Production/Advertising + Social Media Marketing Agency. You can find her on Twitter and Facebook.

So, your brand has less time than the average television or radio advert to grab your prospects' attention. When you consider that most web users dedicate only 4.4 seconds to each 100 words they see on a webpage, this isn't such an easy task. However if you keep your content marketing simple, concise and eye-catching, it is less likely to flatline - as this latest infographic shows...

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#1 Hello Kitty - photo2013-03-31 16:41

Hope you have an eggcellent Easter!

1.046% enagement rate 97,186 likes 853 comments 34,921 shares 26% shares

#2 McDonald's - photo2013-03-30 23:00

Bacon, Ranch or Sweet Chili. What more could chicken ask for? www.mcdonalds.com/PremiumMcWrap

0.982% enagement rate 244,083 likes 20,440 comments 8,434 shares 3% shares

#3 Louis Vuitton - photo2013-03-25 18:05

Spice up your life with Louis Vuitton in Piment.

0.795% enagement rate 96,632 likes 1,442 comments 5,732 shares 6% shares

#4 Mercedes-Benz ► Cool Hunting - photo2013-03-30 10:22

Cool Hunting editor Josh Rubin had a chance to drive the CLA 250 in South France and used it wisely for these stunning pictures. Take a look and read the full story here: http://www.coolhunting.com/design/mercedes-benz-cla250.php

Cool Hunting with the CLA 250

Cool Hunting editor Josh Rubin had a chance to drive the CLA 250 in South France and used it wisely for these stunning pictures. Take a look and read the full story here: http://www.coolhunting.com/design/mercedes-benz-cla250.php

0.659% enagement rate 59,572 likes 568 comments 5,172 shares 8% shares

#5 Taco Bell - photo2013-03-25 20:30

Cool Ranch DLT, Nacho Cheese DLT or both?

0.644% enagement rate 56,302 likes 5,705 comments 2,157 shares 3% shares

#6 BMW ► Les Voitures - photo2013-03-28 17:08

Do you want to see the world of BMW in a whole new light? Come to Paris and visit the first BMW Brand Store on Avenue George V. Experience in a futuristic and stylish setting some of our outstanding cars and much more. For more impressions please check the Les Voitures blog: http://bit.ly/YHOXhM

BMW Brand Store Paris

Do you want to see the world of BMW in a whole new light? Come to Paris and visit the first BMW Brand Store on Avenue George V. Experience in a futuristic and stylish setting some of our outstanding cars and much more. For more impressions please check the Les Voitures blog: http://bit.ly/YHOXhM

0.631% enagement rate 73,198 likes 807 comments 8,400 shares 10% shares

#7 Natalie Sabrowske ► H&M - photo2013-03-28 12:33

H&M eins sag ich euch, würdet ihr dieses Top verkaufen, würden euch alle Mädchen den Laden einrennen.

0.592% enagement rate 80,881 likes 2,520 comments 176 shares 0% shares

#8 Burberry - photo2013-03-25 18:12

Check canvas tote bag with leather trim http://bit.ly/Vae6vH

The Burberry Prorsum Spring/Summer 2013 Accessories Collection

0.562% enagement rate 76,704 likes 1,449 comments 5,779 shares 7% shares

#9 Buffalo Wild Wings - photo2013-03-26 00:00

It's a little savory, a little sweet, plus "Teriyaki" is just downright fun to say.

0.459% enagement rate 44,840 likes 1,453 comments 932 shares 2% shares

#10 Aéropostale - photo2013-03-31 23:47

Like if you'd wear it! http://bit.ly/Srr4am

0.441% enagement rate 38,049 likes 145 comments 506 shares 1% shares

About

TopTen is weekly summarty of the previous week's ten most engaging posts from the largest 100 consumer brand pages on Facebook. All data is pulled using social media content strategy tool Zuum.