Marketing success starts with getting the basics right.  To help marketers ensure that they’re building off a solid foundation, we have assembled The Marketer’s Playbook—a new resource center that contains practical lessons as well as editable, customizable tools in key areas of marketing including segmentation, planning, social media, and sales collateral development.

Here’s a quick snapshot of 10 hallmarks of effective marketing execution. Read More »

Your mandate is to design and implement a global digital marketing strategy. But…How do you identify priority markets for digital marketing? How do you build digital capabilities across subsidiaries? How do you create campaigns relevant to the local market? Companies find it hard to leverage digital marketing on a global scale since subsidiaries differ widely in their digital capabilities while markets differ in their level of sophistication.

Faced with this mandate, MLC member Microsoft crafted a strategy that focused on prioritizing and addressing digital capability gaps in its subsidiaries.

Microsoft kicked off a global survey in which subsidiaries and agencies rated themselves on digital media capabilities. Microsoft then examined how well subsidiaries compared to the external market they operated in and prioritized development of those subsidiaries which lagged the external market in the use of digital media. To help subsidiaries develop digital capabilities, Microsoft created unique capability development roadmaps for all markets. It then set up centers of excellence to provide customized, practical support to subsidiaries in campaign development and execution, as well as to disseminate local best practices globally.

To ensure effectiveness of digital marketing efforts, Microsoft focused on setting clear campaign objectives, KPIs and scorecards, before launching a campaign. For instance, the Windows Server launch focused on driving awareness and engagement, with clear metrics assigned across each medium used. Microsoft also focused on creating campaigns with a strong ‘pull’ factor, that would appeal to both ‘seekers’ and ‘providers’ of information. For instance, Live Search’s Ms.Dewey campaign made ‘Search’ on the internet fun and appealed to ‘seekers’, while the creative of the campaign engaged ‘providers’ resulting in over 3000 blogs on Ms. Dewey.

MLC Members: Jeannette Liendo, Global Marketing Director of Microsoft shared her perspective on Microsoft’s digital journey. We broke down Ms. Liendo’s valuable advice into short clips here, or listen to the full replay of the webinar here.

Earlier this year Wells Fargo announced its new presence in Manhattan through a ‘flash mob’, recorded for posterity on YouTube:

Read More »

You have a great product but customers are not talking about it. Maybe either think it’s boring, or just too personal to talk about and advocate for. How can you generate word of mouth to increase sales and build the brand?

Faced with this challenge, Intuit built its advocacy program on the following insights:

• No matter what your product, there is a group of people which is naturally interested in it
• The product or something outside of it needs to be interesting to get people talking
• People hesitate in talking about products they like if they relate to personal matters like finances

So how did this work for Quicken? Intuit kicked off the Quicken advocacy program by inviting applications for brand ambassadors on its website. These advocates were existing customers who had a healthy interest in the brand. Intuit encouraged advocates to talk about the product by using rewards, such as the opportunity to interact with Quicken GMs over dinner. Also, being Quicken brand ambassadors served as the ‘something interesting’ that advocates could talk about.

Beyond equipping advocates, Intuit marketers identified barriers to advocacy.  For Quicken, the chief barrier came in demonstrating the product—turns out advocates get squeamish about showing the software to others with their personal financial situation front-and-center.  So Intuit developed fake screenshots of data to include in the product kit enabling advocates to give a demo without sharing their own personal data.

How do you create brand advocacy?

MLC members: Peter Karpas, President and Division General Manager of Intuit’s Quicken Health Group and formerly Intuit’s Chief Marketing and Product Management Officer, shared his perspective on developing high impact brand advocacy programs. We broke down Mr. Karpas’ valuable advice into short clips here, or listen to the full replay of the webinar here.