Higher Grade Product Design Concept Models (Photo credit: Jordanhill School D&T Dept)

This is part 5 and final article of a limited series on why buyer choice modeling is the new view B2B Business must adopt to improve revenue performance and develop long lasting relationships with buyers.

How buyers make choices today, in large part driven by empowering new technologies, will transform how B2B businesses will view buyers as well as redefine what is meant by business marketing. The rigid funnel will no longer serve as a workable means of communicating unique views of buyers and their buying behaviors. This not to say that buyer processes, stages, and steps are no longer relevant but to highlight that buyers today no longer make choices neatly in the paradigm of the funnel. A rigid funnel view, whether it is drawn up horizontal or vertical, cannot provide the orbital view of choices being made continuously.

There are four ways that new buyer choice dynamics will transform the practice of business marketing and alter the view of what practices are relevant:

Predictive Buyer Modeling And Intelligence

As we covered, many B2B businesses are wrestling with the unknown and the invisible. B2B buyers are remaining invisible in their behaviors associated with exploring as well as establishing new networks of participants in decision-making. There will be a rise in the use of buyer modeling techniques as well as integrating the use of buyer intelligence, predictive analytics, and the illuminating aspects of predictive buyer modeling. The changes underway in buyer behavior will cause B2B business marketing to extend well beyond conventional buyer profiling as well as simplistic buyer persona creating for demand generation.

Reorient From Business Marketing Teams to Buyer Driven Marketing Teams

Traditional business marketing has been historically put together teams that are seller driven and narrowly funnel focused. The single buyer model view narrowly shared across all channels. Leaders in B2B marketing and sales will soon have to migrate towards buyer segment teams that are focused on activities that are focused on the buyer’s entire brand and buyer experience. We are beginning to see leading organizations, such as GE, move towards aligning their organizations to industry buyer segment teams focused on deeper understanding and alignment with buyers.

Create Orbital Match With Buyers

B2B is becoming more complex with every passing month. When informed with deep buyer intelligence, business marketing can begin to align to the continuous orbital loop of what confronts buyers and how they make choices. The new role of business marketing is to pull buyers into an orbital loop that mirrors their own and enables choices that are buyer driven. The new business marketing strategy is to create the gravitational pull that buyers feel and are drawn to because it aligns with their own orbital loops. Conversely, how can your organization get close to the buyer’s own gravitational pull and be drawn into their orbital loop? This is a departure from the seller driven and narrow funnel view of push messaging. Another way of positioning this concept in simple terms is this: either your B2B business becomes part of the orbital loop or you can watch it from afar with a telescope – and be out of the loop.

Total Brand and Buyer Experience

Business marketing today can take a strong leadership role in organizations by transforming itself to an orientation around the buyer. Historically, in the seller driven and narrow funnel view world, business marketing has been positioned as the conveyers of getting information in front of buyers. Producing material that buyers could read, provide messaging to sales, and putting together promotional programs with the aim to get sellers to sell harder. My intuitive guess is that in the world of business marketing, this positioning still exists in a large majority of B2B organizations – perhaps trapped within the label of marketing communications. To influence corporate strategy and decision-making, business marketing must now become the conveyors of buyer intelligence and influencing organizations to orient around the buyer. Conveying that what counts is the total brand and buyer experience and that business marketing’s role is to help create these experiences for buyers.

Business marketing today, by making these four ways the cornerstone of transformation, can enhance their leadership role in organizations. Orienting businesses around the understanding of buyer choices being made in a new complex buyer driven world. This is no easy challenge yet one that business marketing must take up. It must demonstrate that it understands buyers deeply and that a designed focus on the total brand and buyer experience is the new business marketing strategy. It is time for business marketing to come out of the literature closet and lead.

(This 5 part series has been compiled into an eBook entitled, A Matter of Choice: How B2B Buyers Choose in Today’s Complex Markets, to make for easy reading and sharing. Click on the hyperlinked title to receive.)

Follow @TonyZambito

Related articles

• 3 Ways To Connect With Today's B2B Buyers (buyerology.com)
• The Buyerology of the Buyer: How B2B Leaders Respond to the Psychology of Buyer Choice (buyerology.com)
• Revenue Growth by Choice and The Buyer Orbit (buyerology.com)
• Slow Death of the Funnel: Why Buyer Choice Matters to Revenue (buyerology.com)
• The Single Buyer Model: A Dangerous Road Towards Competitive B2B Marketing (buyerology.com)

Oftentimes I find myself struggling with the “what to change” so I can “be better” dilemma; essentially, the dreaded resolutions or reflection reality check. Over the last month, most of my thought has been focused on minimizing – basically getting rid of waste in my time and life and/or creating more with less. The result, I hope, would be more clarity and time.

Given this topic has been heavy on my mind, I have been reading a lot on the subject. One article I read in Harvard Business Review, “Five Things you Should Stop Doing in 2012” by Dorie Clark, provided some tremendous advice, and therefore I decided to share it and add my own thoughts as well.

1. Email Hell

If you are experiencing this, you know exactly what I mean. I have literally received 278 emails as of 2:30pm today (work related only). It’s become a skill in itself to manage the deluge of email. In Dorie’s article, she calls it “Responding like a Trained Monkey,” and I do feel that way some days. Dorie mentions that email management studies prove email has become addictive and, in many ways, like a slot machine for the brain, further explaining that checking email only periodically (every 90 minutes or only once a day) is not only beneficial for our well-being, but further allows you to actually accomplish something substantial.

In this day and age, I know we all feel we need to respond to every email as soon as it arrives, but the truth is we don’t and we shouldn’t. I recently spent time at the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Awards with Greg Koch, CEO of Stone Brewing Co., and he certainly has a focus on managing email. In fact, his auto-reply states the following: “Thank you for your email. In order to better respond to business demands, I will be responding to emails twice daily.
If your email is Urgent in nature and cannot wait up to 6-8 hours for a response, please contact…thanks for your understanding.” Moral of the story: Manage email – don’t let it manage you.

2. Small Distractions

All day long, one distraction leads to another, which eventually adds up. We inevitably become stressed, frustrated and finally overwhelmed. I’d estimate this happens to me at least 2 – 3 times a week. Dorie’s concept is called “Mindless Traditions.” The example given is essentially passing on one opportunity because of feeling the need to fulfill another traditional “obligation” – such as sending holiday cards – because if you don’t, you may feel guilty. Meanwhile, your card gets buried in the many others people receive around the holidays.

The opportunity here is to reach out and touch someone in a different time, perhaps a time they wouldn’t expect it. How about sending a card in July – Happy Summer Card? Or better yet – just call them. Handwritten notes throughout the year are nice when not expected. In fact, I keep a stack of thank you cards and envelopes on my desk, and every time I get back from a conference or a meeting, the first thing I do is write a quick note to those I met and thank them for their time. Recently, I received a nice wallet in return just because I had sent a handwritten note. Focus on what is important through prioritization, and delegate the rest.

3. Information Paralysis

It is really easy to get caught up in feeling as though we have to know everything going on in the world. Heaven forbid we are the last to find out the latest business merger, political policy or worse yet, Kardashian breakup. In Dorie’s article, she mentions that she has nearly a dozen newspaper and magazine subscriptions all driving her compulsion to be included on crucial information. I’d say that is about par for the course. I bet we all have – at minimum – two-dozen physical subscriptions, email newsletters and online accounts we feel we must read. Dorie took a month off from all the physical sources to detox and afterward, realized she was able to reflect on those that matter. For her, that was The New Yorker; the rest were out the door.

I’d like to broaden this to all compulsive sources of information overload. Which of them don’t truly provide value or save you time? For me, it means no more magazines, DVR for every show, cutting my newsletter subscriptions in half (I don’t need that special Groupon deal) and an aggregate RSS news feed that organizes my news. Streamline your information sources to essentials, and gain more control over your life. You’ll probably get smarter as a result.

4. All Work is Not Created Equal

Dorie calls this “Work That’s Not Worth It”, and for this section, I’ll skip her examples. I am very passionate about this topic. In fact, at advertising and marketing industry events, I often talk about it. Businesses (especially ad agencies) have gotten so caught up in the herd, they feel compelled to do something cheap or free to keep a client happy or compete with everyone else – why? “Because everyone else is doing it.” Let me ask you, how’s that process worked out for you thus far? If you do something cheaper than you should or for free because everyone else is, you do three major things:

1. You devalue your work
2. You become frustrated because you made a bad decision, and it is painful to work on that project every day
3. You actually harm the client long-term because the quality suffers

That’s right: if you can’t do it at a fair price for both the client and your business, you should not do it. Say no. Free often leads to low quality, and you will end up in an unhappy place.Respect your business and your clients; the results will not only improve, you will be happier and your client will be too.

5. Idea Complications

We all have a lot of ideas. However, may times we overcomplicate them. We either don’t have a great approach or vision, lack execution or haven’t tested the waters to know whether people even want or desire what we think is great. I once heard that Google has an internal pitch process for ideas. If you can’t get the point or value across in as few as three slides, your idea is toast. I like that. Ideas should be simple and easy to communicate. The moving parts can be figured out after the value proposition. Dorie’s example was in regard to a friend’s idea of a professional development series, but the friend wanted to do bi-weekly calls over a two-month period to filter through the idea. When Dorie asked a series of questions that resulted in silence, she quickly knew she had saved herself a lot of time and effort on moving forward with a bad idea. Create a value proposition and decide what to test (even a little) before putting too much time and effort into it.

I suggest reading Dorie Clark’s full article on HBR and appreciate her inspiring words that led to this post.

Follow me on twitter at @sparkerjr.

Yahoo!, Microsoft, and AOL announce huge ad partnership

Horizon wins Clearwire

Twitter expanding promoted tweets

Android gobbles BB share to take top spot in US smart phones

Reactions to WIN 8 preview

Problems at Groupon’s China JV

Stay informed. For more insights into the latest developments in the digital marketing revolution, attend the iMedia Breakthrough Summit, Oct. 16-19. Request your invitation today.

Participating organizations included a welter of public and private sector entities that have a vested interested in Internet security-related issues.

Some included the U.S. State Department, the U.S. Army, Cardinal Health, Cryptography Research, Mocana, Symantec, and VeriSign, to name a few.

The presentations were quite varied – ‘Federal Devices in Critical Contexts’ talked about how engineers and scientists in the medical, industrial, military and utility sectors have tended to lag behind the consumer electronics industry in adopting connected smart devices and how they’ll have to ramp up quickly to connect everything.

‘Attacking the Device/App Security Problem with Collaboration Models’ focused on the importance of making innovative inroads in device security and what’s being done in the public and private sector to defeat security threats targeted at (or via) connected devices.

‘Security, the Internet of Things, and Federal Law’ brought together experts who expounded upon what kind of international legal framework is needed to handle a global information architecture that will not only provide adequate security, but also protect the privacy and digital property of device users.

Panelists for the ‘Internet 2016: A Whole New ‘Net’ session, talked about how five years now, both our business and personal content will follow us even more seamlessly and intuitively from device to device.

One of the panelists from Internet security firm Mocana, Senior Analyst Robert Vamosi, also recently authored a book, When Gadgets Betray Us. All attendees were given a copy of his book; sections of two paragraphs of the inside cover flyleaf particularly grabbed my attention:

“How many of us actually stop to think about potential threats to our privacy? Keyless entry systems in many high-tech car models make auto theft easier than ever. Commercial photocopiers are equipped with hard drives that can document everything we ever copied on it. And our digital photos, even after they’re cropped, can expose the entire original image…from iPads to Blackberry devices, online banking to keyless entry systems, we’re increasingly giving over the management of our crucial information to the latest and greatest electronic gadgets.”

So between listening to what the panelists had to say, reading snippets of Vamosi’s book and networking with other attendees, it gave me pause for concern on how widespread our security problems are, what needs to be done, and how we go about resolving these issues.

In a related IEEE Computer story I authored on mobile security in last month’s issue (http://www.leavcom.com/pdf/Mobilesecurity.pdf), I quoted Mocana VP-Marketing Kurt Stammberger (who invited me to attend this Amphion Forum session).

A reprise of one of his remarks is especially apropos to conclude this posting:

“Our dependence on an always-on, connected, mobile device environment is going to be profound in critical contexts that we can’t imagine today. We have to be able to trust these devices, but we can’t now. There’s still a lot of work that needs to be done to get to the point where that trust is warranted.”

Unlike Gen. Douglas MacArthur’s famous Apr. 19, 1951 quip before a joint session of the U.S. Congress – “old soldiers never die; they just fade away,” thanks to Facebook, those high school, and in many cases, even middle and elementary school classmates –and the occasional teacher –  won’t fade away either.

All of the aforementioned has now been officially substantiated by the Pew Internet and American Life Project, which recently released a report entitled,"Social Networking Sites and Our Lives."

It's the first national survey of how the use of social networking sites by adults is related to people’s overall social networks.

As the report is 85 pages and summarizing all of the findings would take numerous postings, I’ll comment on a few points that were rather illuminating.

Yes, the largest single group of Facebook friends is your high school classmates. Survey respondents were asked to classify friends into a number of categories – immediate family, extended family, coworkers, neighbors, people from high school, college/university classmates, members of voluntary groups/associations, folks they’ve never met in person, and people they had only met once.

The survey revealed:

• Average Facebook user’s friends list has 56 people from high school – about 22% of the total.

• Extended family was second with 12%; coworkers,10%; college friends, 9%; immediate family, 8%; people from voluntary groups, 7%; neighbors, 2%.

• About 31% of Facebook friends weren’t classified in any of the categories per previous bullet. The survey authors surmised that these were probably dormant ties and friends-of-friends.

Other key findings:

• The number of those using social networking sites has nearly doubled since 2008 and the population has gotten older;

• Facebook users are more trusting than others;

• Facebook users have more close relationships;

• Facebook users get more social support than other people;

• Facebook users are more politically engaged than most people.

And this was somewhat surprising – MySpace users are ‘more likely to be open to opposing points of view.’ The survey measured “perspective taking,” which the authors said is the ability of people to consider multiple points of view.

“There is no evidence that social network site users, including those who use Facebook, are any more likely than others to cocoon themselves in social networks of like-minded and similar people as some have feared,” the report said. “Moreover, regression analysis found that those who use MySpace have significantly higher levels of perspective taking. The average adult scored 64/100 on a scale of perspective taking. Using regression analysis to control for demographic factors, a MySpace user who uses the site a half dozen times per month tends to score about 8 points higher on the scale.”

As the 2012 presidential election starts to register amongst voters nationwide, it’s also interesting to note that the survey reported that a Facebook user who uses the site multiple times per day was two and a half times more likely to attend a political rally or meeting, 57% more likely to persuade someone on their vote, and 43% more likely to have said they would vote.

The findings, say the authors, show that there’s little cause for concern that people using social networking sites “experience smaller social networks, less closeness, or are exposed to less diversity.” Those with more education tend to gravitate to LinkedIn and Twitter. But total network size may not be as important as intimacy, for instance.

“Americans have more close social ties than they did two years ago – and they are less socially isolated,” noted the report. “We found that the frequent use of Facebook is associated with having more overall close ties.”

So you just might want to ‘friend’ that cheerleader after all.

While I meet and listen to a lot of brilliant people over the course of an iMedia Summit, at today's Agency Summit in Phoenix, Ariz., I had a chance to catch up on the thought process of Uwe Hook, president of BatesHook, as he put his mind towards how media professionals -- and the entire agency model -- needs to evolve. Born in pre-unified West Germany, Hook certainly has first-hand knowledge of what it takes to completely restructure an important yet flawed framework.

With every evolution, the principal players need to decide what needs to change. But almost equally as important is what needs to stay.

Hook identified several areas of the agency model that have evolved into essential core elements:

1. The client relationship
2. Team relationships. itIt's important to keep the team together once you find people who click.
3. The 4 C's. The culture of an agency; the cooperation within the agency; continuity so you have long-term relationships; and the communication within the agency
   
4. Training and tools. To work in advertising, you need to live and breathe advertising. You have to see what other brands are doing, as well as other people within your company/brands.
5. Global reach and local knowledge.

And what did Hook say needed to change?:

1. The deliverables. If you are good at certain things, you always recommend using those things, so you need to start thinking beyond your areas of expertise and expand your viewpoint.
2. Disciplinary xenophobia. Different departments of companies don't always get along because they are threatened that they will be replaced. This needs to change.
3. The compensation model.
4. Egregious excess.

Hook also identified four things that all professionals -- actually all people -- need to do to be successful in the new, media-enabled, crowdsourced future:

1. We all have to become "T-shaped" people. The horizontal T is the understanding that it's not what you know but rather what you share.
2. We have to become indispensable.
3. Everyone has to become an entrepreneur. Or an artist. Tap into your inner child.
4. We have to talk less and create more.

I remember this line, because I firmly believe you can learn a lot from anyone. If you pay attention enough. Life is one big Community College Class, and each and person we come in contact with, is an opportunity for growth. And when I say growth, I don't mean the "Los Angeles Life Coachey" growth of transforming into a beautiful butterfly and saving the rain forests. I mean growth in the ability to not keep doing the same thing over and over and over again.  Too many people continue to do the same thing over again and expect different results. I am flabbergasted when I encounter humans with a printer issue.  The printer clearly says "Paper Jam", yet most humans give up. They assume the printer is broken since clearly there is no jam. They assume since they looked for more than 2 minutes, there has to be something wrong with the printer. This happens over and over and over again. And 99% of the time. There is a paper jam. There is an entire industry of printer repairman that thrive on this basic principle.  I want to abolish this. This is why I have spent the last 4 minutes thinking of this blog which is titled.

Brilliant Business Ideas I Learned from Brad Pitt - and other nonsensical nonsense of nonentities.

"Nah, I don't think so. More like chewed out. I've been chewed out before" ~ Lt. Aldo Raine,
This one is brilliant for its simplicity. We, as marketeers, are inept by fear. We are so afraid of some higher structure of corporate America, we cut off our thumbs to spite our pinkys. There is so much creativity in our ranks that if we actually unleashed this power, we would cause Ogilvy to roll over in his cryogenic chamber. Far too often Marketeers are stopping themselves from some fear of Voldemort on the top floor.  The simple truth is, always do what is right and ask for forgiveness later. Leadership has entrusted us with the keys to the kingdom. We don't need a consensus, we need to lead. By not being leaders and innovators, we are constantly regurgitating the same trite ad copy that we have done for the past 30 years. We are not creating new consumer benefits, but like a County Fair barker, screaming about features most people don't want or care about.  Let's get a little Aldo swagger in our step.

"Careful Bill, you'll give yourself a heart attack and ruin my vacation" ~ Joe Black
We as employees and consumers are all in this game for ourselves. Never forget this. Even the Dali Llama wants a comfortable sandal once in a while.

"How Much do you know about yourself, if you've never been in a fight" ~ Tyler Durden
Nothing is less attractive than a kid who just got his MBA from some university that gives rings and they think they know how to do something (Even if they do).  We all need to lose once in a while. It builds character. Risk takers don't always win, so if you are in this game to always win, you will either burn out quickly or try to turn loses into wins. Nothing irks me more than someone who changes the words problems to "opportunities".  There is nothing wrong with problems, problems are great. Problems spur change, problems encourage creative thinking, problems also force activity.

"He's a nutbag, just because the f**ker has a library card doesn't make him Yoda" ~ David Mills
Lots of people inside the organization and outside claim to be the guru from on high. Beware these charlatans.  You can always learn as much from someone on the bus as you can from someone who claims to be the king of all marketeers. The flip side to this coin, find the real "Yoda's" in the bunch and learn from them as much as possible.  They do exist, there are brilliant people around. Be adept at filtering the Wheat from the Chaff. Here's a tip, anyone who claims to be a guru, is not.

"Hey, get some beer and some cleaning products" ~ Floyd
I just love this quote, and no one is reading this far anyway. If you are, be sure to celebrate your successes and clean up your messes.

To wrap this up, Brad Pitt taught me a lot about marketeering. He was also great in "Legends of the Fall".  I tried to find a quote from that movie, but every time I put it on, I couldn't focus.

josh minnick
www.vitaminID.com

Le-Le-Le!

Viva Chile!”

If you watched any of the Chilean mining rescue coverage (links to CNN), you probably heard the spirited chanting of a justifiably proud and relieved nation and maybe even felt the collective exhale of people around the world. I’m sure the first thing that popped into your head after the last of the 33 miners was brought safely to the surface and the wave of elation subsided was, “I wonder if there’s a lesson for marketers in this near tragedy turned triumph?”

And I’m not talking about the Oakley sunglasses given to each of the miners. Though that was a brilliant move.

It was a great moment for Chile and the world—pure, life affirming victory in a situation that so often goes the other way. And while the raw human drama of the miners’ rescue is considerably more compelling and urgent than the ongoing transformation of marketing, it inspired me to think about how we achieve something both worthy and challenging in a period like our industry is experiencing today, where much is at stake and precedent is not entirely clear. Specifically, it made me think about the conditions that compel and sustain action—how we choose our course in uncharted territory and the benefits of adversity.

So before Eric Estrada ruins the memory of this riveting and triumphant moment by landing the lead role in the made for TV dramatization, I offer a few thoughts.

Post collapse or during a major shift, I think three elements help focus people and organizations and illuminate the path forward:

• Necessity: survival requires a response. And the response must be proportional to the scope of the challenge or objective. In Chile, basic humanity dictated the best effort possible for the 33 countrymen trapped half a mile under the surface. In the transformation of marketing, the stakes are economic, true, but they are also social, cultural and personal. People’s expectations have changed and this enables us to address marketing’s potential beyond the purely financial and economic benefits that have largely commanded the industry’s focus over the last 50 years. This mother of invention dictates that brands understand and address a more comprehensive consideration set than shareholders have generally endorsed. Securing investor cooperation may be the real mother, but it’s crucial if your organization or brand needs to keep these people happy. Start building a common vision today and if you need a little inspiration, try reflecting on some of the examples from Firms of Endearment (links to Amazon).
• Freedom: liberated from traditional constraint—untethered from what we might have been doing for years because it is no longer working—we are free to embrace something different. And not like “you are now free to move about the country”….you have to pay for that kind of freedom. Here, you’ve been cut loose, set adrift by forces that are pervasive and unstoppable. And when the risk of doing nothing is greater than the risk of failing, people and organizations can afford to pursue opportunities that might not have seemed reasonable before. I think this reality also increases the likelihood of achieving the improbable because it opens the door a little wider than if we’re only thinking about incremental change. The rescuers in Chile sought out expertise from NASA and Chilean naval submarine veterans, very non-traditional partners for the mining industry, to help craft an evolving survival approach for the 33 men trapped within the confines of the mine and its hostile environment. Had they only focused on getting the men out, it might have been more of a recovery than a rescue. Perhaps this is a complicated way of paraphrasing Kris Kristofferson, but freedom is another word for nothing left to lose…and then some. Freedom is a bridge to the unconventional.
• Hope: the fundamental belief that success is possible—that there is a reason to keep investing our time and energy. There is purpose to our commitment and reward for our effort. The obvious payoff for Chilean rescuers and the miners themselves, was life itself. For marketers, it is sustainability—bridging the gap between an old model in decline and successfully transitioning to a new and constantly changing marketing era. If we can figure out how to make this shift and adapt to the new era (and you have to believe this is possible) we can do better than survive—we can thrive. Thoughtful leadership and a shared vision must be matched with broad-based committed action, and personal and organizational incentives to make the vision a reality. And the rewards must be meaningful. If the payoff is just survival, then organizations risk falling into the philosophical trap succinctly explained in Office Space, where the fear of losing their job only makes people work hard enough to not get fired.

I’m not suggesting that these are the only pre-conditions for a success, but to me, they set the stage for the more tactical heavy-lifting that agencies, organizations and brands must accomplish as we evolve from a mass-oriented consumer persuasion approach, to a more meaningful and effective relationship-building model. Necessity, freedom and hope, when appropriately understood, can help us overcome institutional inertia and evolve with the society and culture that we ultimately serve.

Some myths die hard.   Did you know that it really doesn’t take 5 years for you to digest chewing gum?  And, science has proven pretty conclusively that we use much more than 10% of our brains.  And finally, whether its water, or your love life, or your career or whatever else might see spin down the drain - it does not do so in any different direction in the southern hemisphere than in the northern.

And marketing myths are dying hard as well.   As much attention as we’re paying to new platforms like Search, Mobile and Social Media, and to conversing more effectively with our customers and prospects – it would seem we’re still not getting through to those who still feel like marketing is “a boat that I pour money into on the hopes that I’ll eventually get to use it” (an actual quote from a CEO).

5 Marketing Myths

Over the last month, I’ve had the pleasure to visit with more than 10 client companies.  They range in size from a five-person startup, to a mid-sized non-profit to a billion dollar global corporation.   And a fascinating trend emerged during those visits.   For all the progress we’ve made as digital marketers, The C-Suite in organizations of all sizes, still has some die-hard beliefs about marketing that need busting.

Here are five of them in no particular order..

1. Sales And Salespeople Should Be Separated From The Marketing Process
This is still common. And it’s still amazing to me when an organization’s management separates the sales team from the marketing process. In many organizations there is still an “Us vs. Them” mentality – where once the ‘formal handoff’ of the customer takes place, – neither side pays attention any more.

In one organization I spoke with, the main marketing success metric is “number of inquiries” (of any kind). The inside sales group metric, on the other hand, is a completely separate “number of qualified leads generated”. Is it any wonder that in that organization, the inside sales group doesn’t trust marketing and marketing isn’t terribly concerned about the quality of inquiries?

2. Marketing Results & Budgets Are Linearly Related
This one is going to be tough to shake. We’ve become so focused on making digital marketing a “science” with analytics and measurability – that its now viewed as such by some CEO’s and CFO’s. We’ve got to start communicating that a 10% reduction in marketing does not necessarily mean a mere 10% reduction in success metrics (leads, customers, page-views etc..). The converse is true as well. Doubling the marketing budget does not mean the number of sales will double. Now, in fact – if we’re really successful they may indeed triple with more money. But the key point here is that it’s not a linear equation.

3. Marketing = Advertising
It’s amazing that this one still persists with so much emphasis on conversation, engagement and content on the marketing process. But it’s still out there. There are CEO’s and (especially) CFO’s out there that still view marketing as “money for media buys”. The reality, as we all know, is that the role of marketing is expanding. It’s not just paid media and managing the agency – it’s creating original, optimized content. Marketing is engaging the customer in conversation and developing deeper relationships with our constituencies. These are all re-forming the marketing and sales process.

These are not just new media platforms that marketing will throw money into; they are fundamental changes to the process in our organization. The C-Suite needs to understand that all of these things are changing how we go-to-market – and are not just new line items in our precious budgets.

4. Since Digital Marketing Is So Fast – Results Should Come Just As Fast
This one is directly connected to #3 above – and is also a tough one to shake. These days, we can be so quick with results on experiments ranging from search marketing, optimizing content, polls and other direct feedback – that somehow the expectation has emerged that results should come just as fast. I visited one organization where the marketing budget was increased in August, and linear results were expected for September (see #2 above).

The reality is that even though the feedback loops of our efforts have become smaller and more tightly coupled – the customer buying process is more complex than ever. The same tools that make it easier for us to reach consumers, give them MANY more inputs for making decisions.

We still need to develop relationships, create awareness and ultimately convince the buyer that our product or service is differentiated. We’re having the same conversation that we’ve had for 100 years – and it’s still about trust.

5. If We Can’t Quantify The Results – We Shouldn’t Do It
This is where analytics has the potential to become what I call WMD - or a weapon of mass delusion. In some cases our C-Level managers are expecting every graph to continually go up and to the right. Any deviation from that sets us up for the sideways glance, the uncomfortable meeting, the reduced budget and more questions (see #2 above).

I see two net results from the perpetuation of this myth. The first is that every decision the marketer makes is slowed down because of a fear of making an unsubstantiated guess (see number 4 above). The second is that because there are never any “breakthrough” moments, the marketing results always cost just a little more to be a little bit better.

I read a wonderful book recently called “Street-Fighting Mathematics – The Art of Educated Guessing and Opportunistic Problem Solving”. The author summed the myth of relying too much on analytics well when he said: “too much mathematical rigor teaches rigor mortis: the fear of making an unjustified leap even when it lands on a correct result.”

Guess What: We Create Our Own Reality

The key thing we need to remember about all these myths is that, in most cases, they are not perpetrated UPON us; they are perpetuated BY us.  We allow them to be.  In other words, it’s our actions and our beliefs that allow most of these myths to continue.

As we continually strive to be better marketers for our customers, we’ve got to also strive to be better educators to our management team.  It’s up to us to work as hard on our internal communication and marketing strategy as it is on our customer facing one.   Otherwise, we’ll perpetuate that most famous of all marketing myths…

Everybody’s got two jobs… theirs… and marketing.

Neuromarketing: The Process

The implications of neuromarketing are broad and open to interpretation.  What is more concrete are the techniques used to yield results.  Neuromarketing can simply be described as an analysis of different areas in the brain that respond to marketing stimuli.  These areas in the brain, usually monitored by fMRI (Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging) will be inundated with oxygenated blood, therefore providing a distinct and indisputable reaction to a marketing campaign.

Neuromarketing’s success hinges on the ability to predict consumers’ predilections in an entirely new way; instead of relying upon individual analysis of how consumers will react when faced with a buying decision, the buying cycle can be observed and consumers’ opinions throughout the process will be transparently defined instead of subjectively interpreted.

Neuromarketing: The Problems

The big “but” in the fabulous field of neuromarketing is composed of three components; money, ethical dilemmas, and unproven claims of neuromarketing.  Neuromarketing is expensive; the combined costs of neuromarketing machinery and skilled professionals to conduct the initial research can cost millions of dollars.  The prohibitive expenses currently involved restrict neuromarketing to large companies with expansive marketing budgets, but these same companies may still be hesitant to employ neuromarketing until the remaining ethical dilemma is resolved.  Ethically, neuromarketing falls into an ambiguous category.

Although not technically crossing any legally defined ethical boundaries, opponents argue that neuromarketing provides too much access to consumer preference, and manipulates consumers’ free will.  However, for now, neuromarketing is in the clear to continue and no legislation exists to limit its implementation.

Finally, the bulk of advertisers are hesitant to invest in unproven techniques.  Although neuromarketing appears to be scientifically sound, real world conditions often differ dramatically from controlled research experiments.  The employment of neuromarketing on a large scale, which has been hindered by the first two factors discussed above, is the only definitive manner in which to verify that neuromarketing is not only possible, but beneficial to marketing efforts.

Neuromarketing: The Assessment

Advertisers are always eager to find the next gimmick or mechanism to gain a competitive advantage in their field.  Neuromarketing, however, is much more than a mere trick.  If the complications described above are resolved, neuromarketing could provide advertisers with the insight they need to create campaigns tailored to appeal to consumers needs, and develop a stronger understanding of what consumers want.

About Brian Easter

Brian Easter is one of NeboWeb’s founders and is driven by two things: a love of interactive marketing and a duty to bring home the bacon-flavored tofu (AKA dog food) for his two dogs. While he does enjoy the simple pleasures in life, such as driving his car as fast as possible on the interstate while his passengers cower in the backseat, his true passion is helping clients make the most of the web.

If that team member happens to be you, WebWorkerDaily has put together a list of questions that you should be asking when choosing from among the many enterprise collaboration tools available. Some of the key considerations include:

Take a look at the full list here.

This week we are attending the iMedia Brand Summit in Las Vegas, with our CEO Rob Key leading a spotlight session title 'Listening 2.0: Activating Social Media Across the Enterprise' on Tuesday morning.

We've been supporting iMedia events for some time as they tend to bring a mix of the biggest brands, smartest minds in online marketing along with an arry of innovative vendors. We anticipate this summit to be no different with presentations from the likes of Bob Garfield of AdAge & NPR fame and attendance from senior marketers from Kraft, General Mills, Zappos, American Express and more.

Rob's presentation will focus on how our clients are using Conversation Mining to drive insights and strategy across the business, along with the process we've developed to take brands through a social media evolution and some tactical tips on how to apply social media with your brand today to drive business results.

We'll be live tweeting the event via our @Converseon Twitter account so make sure you're following us for updates, we'll also be taking another poll of the brand marketers in attendance on some key social media issues, as we did at the  San Diego Brand Summit last September. This post cross-posted from the Converseon blog.
 

1. Kohl simply doesn't understand that MicroHoo will create more competition.
2. Kohl knows that MicroHoo will create more competition—but doesn't think that empowering two of the three biggest online players is the way to go about increasing competition.
3. He knows that MicroHoo will create more competition—but he wants to open up the door for serious investigations into online antitrust, and wants to seem as objective/thorough as possible.
4. He understands that MicroHoo will create more online competition—but a powerful Microsoft on the Web makes Microsoft too powerful in the tech sphere, overall.
5. There's just lots of Government mistrust of Microsoft (it's a holdover from the 90s).

 Which possibility makes the most sense to you? I invite all readers to vote your answers in the comments below--and to add other reasons of your own.