Two of the most popular television shows in American history, Lost and 24, ended their runs Sunday and Monday, respectively. I’ve never seen a full episode of either – mostly because I could watch other things instead.

Today’s media landscape is radically different from the days when the nation would gather around the television and watch the same show. There are simply more choices, and I don’t have to settle for what’s on broadcast or cable. I’d rather watch an old episode of Arrested Development than a new one of 24, and because of DVD’s and streaming sites like Hulu, I now can do just that. And I’m not the only one taking advantage of  this – others in the Millennial generation are doing the same. While we are watching the same amount of television overall, more and more of it is being watched on a computer screen, rather than sitting on a couch, in front of a TV. Read More »

Sometimes the things you don’t find in a study turn out to be as interesting as the things you do find.  One very consistent “non-finding” concerns the effectiveness of the classic ROI message. We’ve asked customers to rate the effectiveness of the ROI pitch they hear and assessed reps and managers on their effectiveness at delivering this pitch, trying to link the effectiveness back to a variety of commercial outcomes.  To our surprise, we’ve never found the delivery of the ROI message to have any significant explanatory power.  And since zero correlation means no causation, this is a finding that deserves some exploration.

I’m reminded of a recent conversation with business owners at a software company, who developed a new way of thinking about certain data problems.  Though customers generally agreed that this was a better way to handle the data problems, the solution spanned many departments, and the software company couldn’t convince customers that the hypothetical returns were worth the extra coordination efforts. Failure to generate a positive emotional response likely explains our non-finding with regards to the effectiveness of the ROI pitch. Read More »

By Erin Lynch-Klarup

The concept of a linear purchase funnel from awareness to purchase isn’t realistic for B2Bs today – most everyone agrees on this.  With so many digital and social information sources outside the company, prospects start the purchase process though various channels and at different points on the path to conversion.

Marketing’s challenge is to create tools and messaging that will educate and motivate this diversity of prospective customers.  No small feat!  Folks we’ve spoken with are still adapting to new customer behavior. Read More »

By Rob Hamshar

Scientia potentia est, the Latin maxim commonly paraphrased as “knowledge is power”, is as much a philosophy for gaining competitive advantage today as it was when famously stated by Francis Bacon centuries ago.  But in the elegant simplicity of this phrase lies its vulnerability to misinterpretation and misapplication.  One need only look at the rise and fall of knowledge management (and its current transformation with Web 2.0) to see how quickly this concept can lead you astray.

Just as the word “knowledge” is not qualified in this famous maxim, many people assume that more of any knowledge contributes to more power.  This fails to take into account that some knowledge is far more valuable because of its uniqueness or quality.  Or, perhaps even worse, it falsely assumes that all knowledge is worth the cost of consuming or managing it.   In most organizations, this remains a highly contentious subject.  For every white paper extolling the potential of knowledge management, I read or hear a story from one of our members about the unwieldy systems that fail to deliver. Read More »

One of the most common social media questions we hear is “How do I build global capabilities?”  The challenge is that each market has a unique manifestation of social media (different platforms, levels of uptake, user habits), while each marketing team has different strengths and weaknesses.  With such varied needs and opportunities, attempting to standardize capabilities globally simply doesn’t work.

The best companies embrace heterogeneity instead of aiming for global consistency.  They assess each region’s individual needs in order to tailor capability goals and training accordingly. Read More »

By Laura Morris

At a Blogwell conference last year, Tim Collins and Ed Terpening from Wells Fargo shared their experience using social media to reshape online conversation about their brand.  In the presentation below, Tim and Ed outline three tips for marketers looking to improve the tone of negative conversations online.

Video: Ed on Participating in the Conversation (6:12 – 18:00)

Slidedeck: Darwinism in Social Media

• Immerse yourself in the culture. Each platform has its own etiquette and code of conduct.  It’s critical to understand these unwritten rules in order to be an effective participant.  Do some sleuthing upfront to understand the differences between conversations on Facebook and those on Twitter.

• Avoid “corporate speak”. Try taking a more conversational tone.  Wells Fargo bloggers have had a lot of success going “off topic” and sharing their perspective on events, issues, and happenings outside the banking world.

• Stay in the room. Ed personally comments back on any blog that mentions Wells Fargo’s name to thank people for their feedback.  He’s found that maintaining a constant online presence neutralizes negative conversations or, at the very least, makes the tone of negative feedback more civilized.

(This is a guest post by Dan Clay of the Customer Contact Council, our sister program for call center executives.)

Needless to say (especially living in Washington, DC) it’s hard to find a conversation topic that elicits the same reaction from everyone.  But my experience working in customer service reveals one commonality across all ages, nationalities, races, and eye colors:  If you tell someone you work in customer service, they’ll tell you their latest call center catastrophe. Read More »

We’ve now gathered information from over 250 companies on their social efforts via MLC’s Social Media Maturity Diagnostic.  While 90% of the participating companies are not seeing significant business results for their social efforts, a few social media exemplars are seeing big returns.

One of the ways exemplars are driving results is by using social to embed the brand into customer routines—the recurring “jobs” we do in our personal and professional lives.  These brands are using social to aid the customer across a whole range of sub-tasks that go into completing a routine. Here are a few examples: Read More »

By Whitney Satin

One of my favorite analogies about the evolving dynamic between sales and marketing involves a comparison of golf and basketball (thanks, Sales 2.0 for Dummies!).  In traditional sales- or technology-driven organizations, Marketing often takes on the role of the golf caddie, setting up the shot that Sales takes with customers to land the deal … the figurative hole-in-one.

But a lot has changed in recent years, leading many B2B organizations to question this somewhat subservient relationship.  It’s no question that the purchase funnel has grown in complexity, requiring that reps demonstrate an increasingly deep level of customer understanding as they engage with more and more stakeholders to close every buying decision.  At the same time, we’ve seen an explosion in the number of collaborative technologies available to sales and marketing teams, making possible huge advantages to those companies able to get the right information to the right individuals at the right time. Read More »

By Erin Lynch-Klarup

In talking with marketers about Social Media, we hear about good and not-so-good experiences with vendors in the space.  In many cases, calling on outside expertise makes sense – but matching Marketing’s needs with a vendor’s capabilities can be tricky in this rapidly growing market.  Here are a few things to consider (for those primarily interested in the iPad … skip to #3!) Read More »