As with buying any insurance policy, it is necessary to first look at the policy from an overarching point-of-view (i.e. buying a combo policy: auto, home owners/renters, life, etc.) before diving into details about individual coverage. The same principle can be applied within digital, as it is important to first inspect the entire digital marketing universe (website, fan page, email) at the macro level before discovering how they all fit together: this is the ultimate focus of this post for Policy #1.
It is key to look at the digital medium as a whole, but while doing so also explore the space through the mind of a consumer. Investigating how each touchpoint is used by consumers will identify the market activity strength for each touchpoint to then map touchpoint performance within four critical dimensions:
• Web equity: Which touchpoint is most trustworthy?
• Pre-purchase research: Which touchpoint is relied on for product research?
• Post-purchase support: Where do consumers go for customer service support?
• Relationship building: Which platform is best suited to maintain the interest in ongoing brand communications?
Only through this process does the role of each touchpoint become clear, taking into account how the consumer is interacting with and conceptualizing each one. From there,... Read more
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Policy #1: Assign each touchpoint a specific objective & task to carry out
Tags: digital best practices, Digital Media Touchpoints, Digital ROI, digital trends
Posted in Research, Social Media, Web Analytics, Websites | No Comments »
One Thing That Can Get You From Here to There in 2012 and Beyond
In the world of B2B management, there are numerous head scratching efforts going on as we peer ahead into 2012 and beyond. Primarily, it has to do with how to get from here to there. One of the issues faced by B2B companies with the high degree of uncertainty, global economic turbulence, and a rapidly changing buyer driven and social world is figuring out where the from here to there actually leads to.
Recent buyer and management interviews tell me a lot of head scratching continues to go on. Plenty of internal angst and debate is taking place on how to get from here to there, what is needed, what should be done, and what a lot of people think. The what to do aspects of internal planning usually center on strategy and tactical questions such as:
How do we grow revenues?
What can we do to generate more leads?
How do we expand business with existing customers?
What type of content will drive more traffic to our web site?
Should we get more active with social media?
Do we need to improve our product quality and offering?
Should we boost marketing and sales budgets?
Do we need to hire more people?
What should our pricing... Read more
Tags: buyer experience, buyer insight, buyer persona, buyer research, buyergraphics, buyerology, content marketing, marketing, qualitative research, socialmedia, Targeting, trends
Posted in Creative Best Practices, Emerging Platforms, Opinions, Search, Social Media, Targeting, Websites | No Comments »
Pinterest Is Not For Friends (Updated)
Social discovery is not about your friends, it is about your interests.
Tags: content marketing, pinterest, Social Media, viral
Posted in Opinions, Social Media | 6 Comments »
Komen's Race for the Clue
By Todd Copilevitz, Digital Strategist, IQ
The reality of this new environment is that speed equals emotion. Logic gets left on the curb when messages are passed along in tweets and status updates.
What do these things have in common: Netflix, Bank of America, SOPA, Susan G. Komen for the Cure?
Answer: they've all got tread marks on their backs from social media protests.
The last six months have provided an amazing string of case studies on how protests movements are being changed forever by the speed and reach of social media.
Forget about organizing workers to gather signatures on a petition, or emails calling for a boycott of some company's product. Those are your grandfather's protest tools. Today's protests take shape in a matter of days, and the battles can pivot in a matter of minutes. Gone are colorful posters with catch slogans. Today the canvases are short emotional messages with hash tags or links.
Tags: brand crisis, komen, komen controversey, social media crisis communications, social media pr, susan g komen
Posted in Social Media | 3 Comments »
How Digital Success Relates to Business Success
You know what you are doing with your social media marketing. I know you know what you are doing. Even though the senior management at your organization knows you know what you are doing, too, there is often a disconnect between the way a digital marketer talks about success and the way the board views the success of the business.
The goal of this article is to make your job a little easier by helping you frame your digital marketing successes in a way that even the most skeptical CFO would want to support you.
First, a disclaimer: this is not to say in any way that senior executives don’t get new trends or digital marketing. Remember how GM’s Bob Lutz was a trailblazer in corporate blogging way back in 2004? Or what Tony Hsieh of Zappo’s is doing on Twitter? Though for every Bob Lutz or Tony Hsieh, there are those that do not inherently understand the value of your digital marketing. For instance, unless you are calculating the value of a Facebook fan, sometimes saying you got a large percent increase in fans from one quarter to another is not enough to illustrate your marketing accomplishments. The problem is in... Read more
Tags: digital, Digital Marketing, marketing, metrics, online marketing, reporting analytics, social marketing, Strategy, Targeting
Posted in Opinions, Social Media, Targeting, Web Analytics | 1 Comment »
