Note to CMO: Doubling Your ROI by Winning in the Last 3 Feet

Dear CMO:

Think of how much more effective your marketing budget would be if you asked three more questions:

Question #1: OK, now that we're done with our campaign planning and understand all the final execution-level details... what happens next?

Question #2: OK, now what do we do?

Question #3: Got it, now what?

Pretty intellectual stuff here. If you're into deep paradigm shifting, try the paradigm you're standing on first before you reinvent the wheel. No one executes well enough, and if we did, our marketing efforts would pull in twice the returns they do today.

You push your company to launch a certification program for your channel parter sales people. You get the budget, you select your e-learning vendor, you modify your existing power point presentations, and you push it out to your partners with a program to drive enrollment. There. Done.

Question #1: OK, now that we're "done," what do we do next? How have we constructed the actual training? Is it death by power point, or have we steeped the curriculum, quizes, and take-aways in the best practices of the psychology of persuasion? Have we brought in examples of social proof -- of many, similar others that have gone before your students and who might serve as good role models? -- or of authority figures who can show case studies that support your positions? Have you employed reciprocity -- have you given before you have received -- to promote the relationship?

Or did you just check the box?

Question #2: OK, now what? Did you engage your channel partner principals with a financial presentation, proving the value of your program and making it their own? Did you market your program -- create an identity, a design language, put creative and appropriate media behind it, launch it, support it, and promote it -- the same way you would have launched one of the products you are certifying them to sell? Compare a product launch, from budget to marketing outputs, to your program launch: did you give it enough of a chance to win?

Question #3: And... now what? What else did -- or didn't -- you do? Are you employing social media to get the erstwhile competitors in the field to feed off of each other? Are you supporting this with after-the-launch incentives, promotions and awareness building activities? What else? What after that?

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Key Takeaways:

> We're all too busy. We have too many products, too many programs, and too many demands on our time to make sure that every bolt is tightened and every touch point is engineered to its optimal level. Right? Wrong. We're too busy to prepare a post-mortem to management explaining why the program wasn't as effective as we originally thought and how we'll spend more money and more time re-launching it at greater expense. Spending the time today, before we launch, is what we have time for.

> They're too busy, too. Our competitors aren't nearly as smart as we are. We're just more alpha than they are. Period. So trust that they won't do this as well as we do. As a matter of fact, whoever they are, we -- with our superior planning, execution, and focus on those last three feet where all battles are won or lost -- will take advantage of their sloppiness. We want to be in the position so that when they spend more money, our sales go up. Does our certification program talk about their certification program? Do we debunk their tests, their management double-talk, or their solutions? Do we always drag them out over the thin ice of our creation? Of course we do. That's why we're so... damn... good.

> Spending all of your time on driving awareness and little of it on the absolute last moments prior to full engagement means you're leaving things to chance. Regardless of whether these last moments refer to your channel sales person finishing your certification program AND psychologically committing themselves to your cause, or to the guy standing in the aisle at Best Buy wondering which TV to buy, you don't win until they choose you. And if you're spending your budget wisely -- particularly in difficult economic times -- you'll focus on conversion at this point of influence. It isn't enough to drive them in. You need to win them over. Let the other guy spend his money on driving them in. It costs more and means less.

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When times get tough, we all need to focus our attention on what realizes revenue in the most efficient manner possible. Let your competition spend the big bucks on driving category awareness. You can win at the point of influence with a smaller, smarter strategy that focuses on your target at the instant they are going to commit themselves.

More on this later, with a stronger retail spin next time!


Regards.


Photo courtesy of Flickr.

Note to CMO: My Week of Twitter

Dear CMO:

CK told me I had to do it. That Twitter was the reason that so many blogs had so fewer posts and even fewer comments, that microblogging (which my spell checker refuses to believe is a word) is the new blogging, and that Note to CMO needed a smaller 140 character voice. Never one to shy away from the social media thing (I did draw the line at Second Life), I’ve been up for a week or so. This is what I’ve found.

One: people I don’t know are following me. This web thing sure is amazing.

Two: 95% of the Twitter traffic is utterly useless.

Three: 5% of the Twitter traffic is actually pretty useful.

Four: 50% of the 95% is political – which is odd, given the fact that I’m really only following marketing people. Another 40% keeps me updated on people’s gate change announcements, plus various other forms of slightly veiled self-aggrandizement.

Five: Tim Siedell is the funniest voice on Twitter. One hundred and forty characters of media-savvy Twitter haiku.

Six: people who send links to studies, articles, insights, or other people’s posts that matter are the 5% I mentioned above.

Seven: I’m part of the 95% at the moment, but I aspire to be part of the 5%.

Note to CMO is a long-form blog – I just think in blocks of 400 words – so having the ability to be an aggregator is interesting to me. I think Twitter can be pretty useful to me once I find my voice. Note to CMO is written as an open letter to the Chief Marketing Officer, much as CS Lewis wrote “The Screwtape Letters” to his mythical demonic understudy, Wormwood, and as Seneca’s missives on Stoic philosophy were often addressed to his correspondent, Lucillius. I don’t think that 140 characters helps me keep to my form – unless I really want to write all insights and links in a zen-like 5-7-5 haiku style. I’ll think about it. Don’t hold me to it.

Feel free to follow me at http://twitter.com/Note_to_CMO if Twitter works for you. And who knows, maybe I’ll figure out how to get to the aspirational 5%.


Regards.

Note to CMO: Hubris, the Dow, and Your Business

Dear CMO:

Hubris is what happens when you think you don’t have to try anymore. Your “brand equity” is better than Brand X – or of Brand Z.com, that pesky start-up that is responsible for half of your PR pick-ups over the past sixty days, none of which are flattering.

Hubris is when you think it’s OK just not to make waves right now. When you’re tired of arguing. When you’re sure that things will be OK, regardless.

Hubris is when you don’t think you have to compete to win. When you get “gator arms” and don’t really stretch too far anymore for fear that you might get blindsided.

Hubris is when you think that you’ll weather the storm better than most because of all the hard work that you did a while ago.

Hubris is what creeps in when you chalk it all up to “timing,” or “market conditions,” or other unmentionable forces beyond your control.

Hubris is when you already know your customer so you don’t need to do more outreach, more research, more engagement, more dialog, more anything. Trust us, we’re experts.

Hubris is entitlement. The expectation of victory without the preparation or execution you always needed in the past.

Hubris is arrogance, the certainty of saying, “don’t you know who we are?” when the listener clearly doesn’t care one way or the other.

Hubris happens after you’ve been successful, but before you understand what caused your success.

Hubris is a fatal mistake in all human endeavors, because once you’re branded as ‘over’ by your customers, your channels, your influencers, your pundits and your analysts, you need to work twice as hard to win back their confidence – usually against an internal culture that wants nothing more than to go back to sleep in their personal snow bank.

In uncertain economic times, many will rely on the past to carry them forward. If I were counseling you, I’d suggest that now is the time to think harder about how you can make life easier for the people that matter to you in uneasy times. It doesn’t always have to cost more money, but it will definitely take more work.



Regards.

Note to CMO: the Future of Debates vs. Dialogs

Dear CMO:

A trend, a trajectory, and an event to animate it all.

The trend: the world seems so caught up in its own ability to self-publish that it is ignoring the other half of “dialog” – there is a growing shortage of conversation, with only massive parallel monologues taking place. Look at blogging in general, the growth of groups within LinkedIn where “discussions” have no “answers”, and the lack of debate in debates. We’re all talking. Unfortunately, no one’s listening.

The trajectory: our traditional gatekeepers are crumbling. Look at television: today, you watch a show created by a production company, packaged by a network, and delivered by a cable operator. The network decides when you can watch it. The cable operator decides whether you get to see it at all, and what else it comes along with. Want to watch the Tennis Channel? Here, have these six Mexican soap opera channels, as well. The arrival of ubiquitous bandwidth, unlimited storage and Ethernet connections in the back of our TV sets means the rules are about to quickly change. I want to watch what I want to watch, when I want to watch it – either “live,” in the case of a debate or a sporting event, or “when I damn well want to,” like all four seasons of House. Disintermediation is increasingly the name of the game.

The event: if you saw the Vice Presidential debate last night – and still have a burning passion for politics, and better yet are actually “undecided” in this upcoming election – you may be the rarest of rare things, the “sub-segment of one.” Whether we watch elected officials hurl accusations and conclusions at each other (again, everyone talking and no one listening, let alone “responding”) or blindly spouting their talking points, regardless of the question asked, we see a complete lack of meaningful discussion taking place.

If we look at the US election cycle as the most intensely studied branding event of the current day, we would be forgiven if we categorized it thusly:

• Consumers have been over-marketed to and creative burn-out has set in. The quality of the story is very poor at this point.


• There is no brand switching taking place.


• The choices of media fail to hit our emotional hot buttons.


• The gate keepers think they’re the story.
  

Ms. Palin mentioned that she’s happier speaking directly to the American people and not through mainstream media celebrities too busy packaging their own brands to care about the “news.” Barack Obama bought a channel on Dish TV to continually run a 2 minute commercial, possibly until the end of time.

If we live in a time and place where we have access to the emotional impact of video, the immediacy of the internet, and the ubiquity of fact checking, it seems logical that a candidate might choose to promote their agenda and personal brand by meeting the public half-way.

Give us a daily, or twice weekly, video telling us what you want to say – talk about energy independence, talk about your views on market regulation, talk about national defense – and give us details. Five minutes of real content, not sound bytes. Give us links in the page that show us the congressional record supporting your statements and debunking, if necessary, those of your opponent. Let us hear the story, straight from you, without the gatekeepers. Treat us with enough respect to let us choose how deep we want to fact check – a little or a lot. And push everyone through your investments in traditional media expenditures towards your site, where your brand resides. Neither of the candidates do this on their respective sites today. Both push talking points, neither show objective proof, and neither speaks directly to their audiences.

Now, if we can pan back and refocus ourselves on the broader marketing agenda, we have more than a few enduring lessons to take away:

• We are increasingly wary of gatekeepers, especially when we have the ability to speak directly to our own public with little help. Gatekeepers can – in some instances – imbue the brand with additional authority and credibility. Third party reviews meet this definition. The mainstream media? In politics? Not so much anymore.


• We are all tired of propaganda. We want facts. And facts are so easy to check now. So be as transparent as you say you are by providing easy links to the source material that proves your point. If there is inconsistency, feel free to say why. But treat the public with respect. This will make you very unique in your market, regardless of what market you serve.


• Use the best possible means to reach your audience. Video has become amazingly cheap with the advent of digital handheld camcorders and PC based editing. What used to cost $50K now costs $5K.


• In a world of glitz and gloss, authenticity is the new “new.” Teach them how to learn the truth. Create experts, not evangelists.
  

Your mind is already made up for this election. If you’re a US citizen, you already know who you’re voting for. You made your decision largely on partisan – and purely on emotional – grounds, in all likelihood. Branding your product is more subtle and far less emotional than branding a future President of the United States. But wouldn’t we all be better off if we had the option of learning more before our emotional walls flew up?

Regards.