Business-to-business marketing priorities
by Marc Diebold, President & CEO
While it’s true that no two business-to-business marketing situations are exactly alike, there’s something to be learned from comparing your plan to what other companies are doing. For that reason, we’re always on the lookout for relevant data and trends on marketing communications in the business-to-business sector. One of the many resources we have valued over the years, BtoB Magazine, recently shared insights from their research on what business-to-business marketers plan to do in 2012. Here are just a few highlights from that study:
- Customer acquisition tops the list of primary overall marketing goals, followed by brand awareness and customer retention.
- Roughly half of the respondents say print advertising, events and direct mail spending will not change from 2010, but almost all of them say online spending will increase.
- Brand building is by far the most important use for social media, followed by lead generation, thought leadership, customer feedback and advertising.
So, how does this compare with your plans for 2012? Are you surprised to see these findings? If you have comments, I’d love to hear from you. Please feel free to comment here, or email me at diebold@dgsmarketing.com. Thanks for reading.
Enter The Power of “No”
By Justin Brown, Senior Art Director
For those who don’t know, I have a 14 month old little boy. He’s our buddy and he thinks we’re hilarious. But the days are making him older, and it’s now time for redirection.
Enter the power of “No”.
Have you ever noticed truly successful people have little trouble saying “No”? They do it politely, but they do it and do it often. “No” is a control word, a word that has real power. When we use it, we’re in control. When we don’t, we’re open to the control of others. By saying “No”, we guard our time, our efforts and even our money. When we say “yes”, or even “maybe”, it can make all three vulnerable.
“No” is such a simple word–only two letters–yet saying “No” out loud is hard for most people. Most of us said, “No!” quite well when we were two. After all, it’s the two-year-old’s job to say “No.” The authority figures in our lives at the time, our parents, expect us to say “No.” (But I’m not looking forward to it…)
However, many of us grow up to be people pleasers. We void “No” from our vocabulary, and we substitute ways to be agreeable and keep the other person happy. Saying “No” to authority figures or clients is not expected. Underneath it all we believe that saying “No” will cost us something of value. Read more
It’s finally here!
By Mimi Brodt
The buzz around Central Indiana for a really long time has been the 2012 Super Bowl. Finally, after years of planning and hard work of thousands of organizers and volunteers, the big event has arrived. Even my mother, who lives in Northern Indiana did her part, knitting several scarves that volunteers received as part of their uniform packages.
A zip line takes a fan across AND OVER Super Bowl village in Downtown Indy
With unseasonable warm weather throughout December and January, we’ve all been anxious to see which type of Indiana weather will greet the thousands of visitors to our city. A foot of snow? “Bring it on,” one of the local television news directors told me recently. “It will make for great news, and this city is ready.”
Watching the Super Bowl committee and leaders plan and prepare for this super-sized event has been a great reminder how important it is to be prepared for anything. My husband often claims I’m “too optimistic.” I can always seem to find the good in anything and usually don’t even consider the idea that something bad might happen. While I believe this makes for a happier life, I do admit that it’s probably a good idea to take off the rose-colored glasses every once in a while to think about how we might handle crisis. Whether it is our personal lives, our businesses, or even on the sports teams we follow, we never know what is going to happen, so it pays to be ready. After all, look what happened to our city’s home team when it was unprepared for an injury to its team leader and key player.
Even though we can’t know exactly what the weather will be later this week, when/if a key team member will be injured, or if an accident will happen in our plant, if we have a plan, the outcome will be better. Now, let’s shine and show the world what a great city this really is. We’re ready!
Where are the iPad-Friendly Toolboxes?
By Chuck Bates, Public Relations Director
Recently, I visited a machine shop that specializes in manufacturing tools and devices used in orthopedic surgeries. I interviewed the president of the company for a client case study that would be placed in a metalworking trade publication. During that interview, and as I do when conducting all such interviews, I wrapped up the meeting asking what the future held for the company.
The president of the company predicted that business would continue to grow at a significant pace and that there would be a need to purchase additional manufacturing equipment. While this has been the common response with all shops in today’s booming manufacturing industry segment, what really caught my attention was that he said the company would be automating the shop floor to a whole new level using iPads.
The company’s plan is to purchase maybe five or six iPads and designate them to strategic areas within the shop. Once that’s done, the company will remove many of the computers currently being used on the shop floor. The iPads will serve the same functions as the computers, but the iPads will provide much more, mainly because of their mobility. They will store information on jobs and how the shop’s specific medical components are to be manufactured, but most importantly, they will eliminate redundancy and reduce even more paperwork than the computers did when installed.
For all the shop’s jobs, the iPads will house job schedules, current job status and the documentation required when manufacturing medical components. All shipping and receiving will be tracked in the iPads, and the company will have a portal on the backside of its system that will allow customers to check, in real time, on the status of their particular jobs.
During the manufacture of medical components, the company’s machinists will use the iPads to bring up stored photos and videos of how certain workpieces should be set up in machine tools, as well as view a list of needed tools for that particular job and the required machine settings.
While the president of this medical manufacturing company was relaying to me how the iPads would be used, I couldn’t help but envision the shop’s machinists walking around with iPads dangling from tool belts or of a machinist’s tool box that featured a built-in iPad station so the device could be mounted on the inside of the toolbox lid and would automatically switch on when the tool box was opened. But according to the president of the company, the machinists would carry the iPads around with them to specific machines as needed then return them to designated stations. The idea of tool belts or iPad-friendly toolboxes was never mentioned.
On a last note, I did conduct an Internet search and found websites offering iPad mounts in various colors for refrigerators, cars and airplanes – nothing specifically for machinist toolboxes.
Moser, Reshoring at the White House
by Harry Moser, Founder, Reshoring Initiative
Harry Moser with President Obama at the Insourcing American Jobs Forum, which took place at the White House on January 11, 2012
I was first contacted by the White House’s National Economic Council on Tuesday, Jan 3. They said that the Commerce Department and the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy had both recommended I be included in a possible Jan 11 event related to reshoring, or as they called it “insourcing.” They asked whether I would attend if the event were held. I asked “attend” or “speak”? They were unable to commit. We communicated a bit by email for the next few days and I rearranged my travel schedule to get to DC and on to MA, Albany and NJ without breaking the bank. (DC to Albany would have been $700+). On Tuesday, Jan 10 they confirmed that I would actively participate in the morning Roundtable and the afternoon panel, so the travel arrangements were a good investment!
I entered the Eisenhower Executive Office Building thru the Guest Entrance, passed security twice, and was taken to the Roundtable room. Great assemblage of business executives, cabinet members, presidents of major unions, Governor of Oregon, Mayor of Atlanta, other administration leaders, and 2 other experts. Vice President, Joe Biden, also joined us with the President. Wonderful networking!
President Obama entered and shook hands with each of us. He said to me: “I have a question for you.” He was perfectly scripted with questions tied to each participant’s experience and knowledge. The President started the discussion and stayed quite non-political. The attendees responded with solid data and examples and avoided any political controversy. We all focused on what could be done. I described the importance of businesses using total cost of ownership (TCO) analysis and the fact that the online TCO data base showed that whereas 100% of cases had far higher U.S. prices, 60% had lower U.S. TCO. Strong support was expressed for use of TCO, instead of price variance, to decide on sourcing and for skilled workforce development.
The press conference was a mix of the essential content of the Roundtable and more politically motivated comments. At the end I told the President I would send him a good reshoring line for the State of the Union address. He encouraged me to do so. I sent it the next morning.
The afternoon panel was much less structured than the Roundtable. Karen Mills, Administrator of the SBA , led the panel. I provided overview and suggestions what SBA could to strengthen financing and the skilled workforce. The SBA senior staff followed-up with me to discuss issues and opportunities in depth.
I was honored to be included. I look forward to pursuing joint interests with many contacts and to advancing reshoring and the tightly tied issue of skilled workforce.
A No-Longer-Premature Look at 2011′s Music
So the back half of my original entry from November 11 was originally going to run before the end of the year, but then travel and holidays and other miscellaneous busy-ness happened and here we are two weeks into the new year. 2011 was a great year for music and over the past two months, I picked up several late-in-the-year releases and re-listened to quite a few earlier ones, causing a bit of a shift in my top 10. Namely, 2 of my top 10 in November fell a bit, so now the cumulative list will be the top 12.
12. Wilco – The Whole Love – see November’s entry
11. Glasvegas – Euphoric Heartbreak – see November’s entry
10. Ok Go – “Muppet Show Theme Song” from The Green Album
Like many of my generation, I’ve got a fair amount of nostalgia for the Muppets. Elise & I saw the new movie over the holidays and loved it. I knew I’d be picking up The Green Album, but I wasn’t prepared for just how good it is. For those who haven’t heard of it, it includes a variety of highly talented artists doing new takes of their favorite old Muppet songs. I’m including the video from Ok Go, because Ok Go makes the best videos of any band today, but really, every song on the album shines and you can tell the musicians have a lot of love for what Jim Henson created.
9. Mates of State – “Palomino” from Mountaintops
A husband-wife team, Mates of State tends to make music that lifts your spirits, even when the lyrics aren’t always the cheeriest. Mountaintops is my favorite work they’ve done and was the soundtrack to getting our house ready to sell, making all the cleaning and minor repair projects a bit more bearable.
8. The Vaccines – What did you expect from The Vaccines? – see November’s entry
7. Foo Fighters – Wasting Light – see November’s entry
6. Elbow – “Open Arms” from Build a Rocket Boys!
If you like Coldplay or Snow Patrol, you’d probably love Elbow, a fantastic UK band that hasn’t become as known in the US as they should be. Quite a few of their songs have popped up in movies and television shows, but they rarely get radio play. The latest album didn’t get quite the accolades they usually receive, but it was among my favorites of the year.
5. The Dodos – No Color – see November’s entry
4. TV on the Radio – “Will Do” from Nine Types of Light
Usually, saying a band’s music is instantly recognizable is a bit of a backhanded compliment, insinuating all their songs sound the same. Not so in the case of TV on the Radio. They’re another band that hasn’t had a huge amount of popular success, but have songs frequently pop up in movies or tv shows. I’d be remiss to not point out that the use of their song “DLZ” in the episode “Over” in Breaking Bad‘s second season may be my all-time favorite use of a song in a television show.
3. The Black Keys – “Lonely Boy” from El Camino
I love that The Black Keys seem to finally be getting the attention they deserve. If you listen to popular radio, you’ve probably already heard this song. Get the album and then just start working your way backwards through their catalog. It’s all great stuff.
2. The Antlers – “No Widows” from Burst Apart
My introduction to The Antlers came with Hospice, a concept album about someone caring for a terminally ill loved one. While the lead singer has declined to say how much the music was based on life experience, it was a beautiful and sad masterpiece of an album and one of my favorites of the 2000′s. Burst Apart isn’t nearly as good, but that’s not to say it isn’t great. If you like music that could be described as haunting, you should check out The Antlers.
1. The Naked and Famous – “Frayed” from Passive Me Agressive You
This is kind of cheating, as this New Zealand band released their album in 2010, but it didn’t make its way to the US until 2011. It’s a driving, catchy, awesome album and may be the best debut since Arcade Fire’s Funeral.
What is ‘Klout’ and Do I Have Any?
By Mike Magan
Ever “Googled” yourself? Then you are going to love Klout!
The author's "could-be-better" Klout profile
If you participate in any major social media network - you have online influence. The folks at Klout have put together a tool that many believe is the most unbiased and comprehensive measurement of the waves you are making on the inter webs today.
Klout’s greatest strength is perhaps its most basic – it’s simple to use, simple to share and simple to understand. This formula actually underlies a complex algorithm developed by the Klout braintrust that is constantly evolving. How about a real-world analogy? OK . . . think of it as a buoy that measures the waves created in a swimming pool. The bigger you are, the more influence you have on the world around you no matter what you do. If you tip-toe into the pool, slide on a mat or belly flop – you have influence. The Klout Score is a number, a measurement of your overall online influence across the pool .The scores range from 1 to 100 with higher scores representing a wider and stronger sphere of influence.
Klout uses variables on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn Google Plus, YouTube and more. dgs uses Klout as part of our analysis of client and competitor activity not because it has buzz or is controversial, but because it is unbiased and easy to share for those who want some sort of snapshot of how their activity is viewed by their peers and followers.
I think think they do a good job of matching my interaction on Twitter and concludes in the same way what hours of analytic computations will tell me in much more detail.
For example, my personal Klout score “dropped” somewhat during the holidays because I wasn’t using social media too much. That makes sense. I also saw my score skyrocket in a two-day period several months ago because some information from the Red Cross I shared in regards to an emergency situation was re-shared by some major news outlets and their thousands of followers.
That was an accurate measure of influence. The Klout people didn’t go on to pontificate about how I wrote or if what I wrote was even accurate – just how it was shared.
I love what Klout is trying to do but I try to pull back the reigns a little to keep my Narcissistic tendencies in check. Well respected tech writers and editors at Wired, The New York Times and CNet, sing it’s praises. There are others, such as social media today writers who think it’s “Evil.” As you can tell, I think it’s the best tool we have – but that doesn’t make it scientifically accurate.
- It has weaknesses
- It can be gamed. (what analytic algorithm can’t be?)
- Search results, the web properties you control, forum site mentions, blog subscribers, etc. are not part of the algorithm they use.
For other sources that measure one’s influence across the social web, try these:
Have any others you use or are curious about? Please share in the comments section below!
Don’t Let a Bad Headline Embarrass You
By Sarah Knight, Copywriter
I’m not one to stay up and watch late night television, but if I happen to catch The Tonight Show, I love when Jay Leno does his bit on bad—but very funny—headlines. As a writer, I realize it’s sometimes difficult to craft an effective, highly compelling headline, but what I don’t understand is how blatantly bad or stupidly obvious headlines make it into newspapers. Were the copyeditors sleeping on the job that day?
Headlines that make you laugh, and the authors cry:
- Big Ugly Woman Wins Beauty Pageant (Newspaper in Big Ugly, WV)
- Chef Throws His Heart Into Helping Feed Needy (Louisville Courier Journal)
- Body Search Reveals $4,000 in Crack (Jackson Citizen-Patriot)
- Hospitals are Sued by 7 Foot Doctors (Providence Journal)
- Jerk Injures Neck, Wins Award (Buffalo News)
- Killer Sentenced to Die for Second Time in 10 Years (Post News)
- Lack of brains hinders research (The Columbus Dispatch)
- Local High School Dropouts Cut in Half (Valley News)
Headlines that make you say “No Duh!”:
- Alcohol Ads Promote Drinking (The Hartford Courant)
- Fish Lurk in Streams (Democrat & Chronicle)
- Plot to Kill Officer had Vicious Side (The Chicago Tribune)
- Putting Mattress on Floor Prevents Fall From Bed (the Associated Press)
- Teenage Girls Often Have Babies Fathered by Men (The Sunday Oregonian)
Writing the perfect headline is essentially an art form because you need to strategically and succinctly piece together words that are going to entice people to read your article.
Here are some headline tips to help you avoid copy blunders. After all, no one wants to be called out on Leno for writing a bad headline.
Frame Your Copy Correctly
Sometimes the right words for a headline are there; they just aren’t in the right position. Take “Killer Sentenced to Die for Second Time in 10 Years,” for example; the writer would have been better off using “For Second Time in 10 Years, Killer Sentenced to Die.”
Stay Short and on Point
Busy people don’t want to waste their valuable time trying to figure out what you’re trying to say. If your headline is too much to digest, readers will typically bypass your article, assuming the rest of your copy will be just as long-winded. And don’t forget you’re competing with the thousands of other messages people receive daily—so keep your content short and sweet.
Don’t Confuse or Intimidate Your Readers
Keep corporate jargon and highly complex text out of your headline. Most newspaper reporters write their articles at the seventh or eighth grade level, so don’t go overboard trying to impress people with your fancy talk. Simple is better.
Edit and Proof
Start by editing and proofing your own work. Sometimes reading your headline out loud helps. Then, you MUST have others in your office proof your work. It’s amazing how many errors slip by when you are proofing your own work. You are too close to the content and your mind will trick you into thinking an “a” is where it should be, when it is actually missing.
B-to-B vs. B-to-C – Part 1
by Marc Diebold, President & CEO
When I’m in a social situation where the conversation turns to work-related subjects, I’m often asked what I do for a living, as we all are. If the person I’m talking with is engaged somehow in this and the conversation expands, it can lead to questions about what business-to-business marketing is about, and how it’s different from consumer marketing. I believe this curiosity stems from the fact that most people who took any classes on marketing were studying consumer marketing examples instead of business marketing examples. This in and of itself is a beef of mine with the academic world that I’ll try to address in another blog post, but suffice to say that from my experience interviewing recent college graduates, few of them have ever been exposed to anything other than consumer marketing as part of their school curriculum. Add to that the reality that you rarely see business-to-business advertising campaigns in mainstream consumer media, and what you’re left with is that people just don’t see b-to-b marketing unless they themselves are a target audience in their work lives. So, when I’m asked about the differences between these two categories, I usually try to start by explaining what motivates people to buy things. In everyday life, as a consumer, you have needs that range from basic ones like ‘I need to eat to survive so I’m going to buy food’ to emotional or status-driven ones like ‘I think I would look more attractive in that shirt or blouse so I’m going to buy it.’ In the b-to-b world, what usually motivates people is a need to solve a problem, pursue an opportunity, or make a company more efficient. It’s really about having a different mindset. From my perspective, business-to-business marketing is much more difficult, especially when the subject matter is complex and the buyer is a technical person, which is what we deal with on a daily basis here at dgs Marketing Engineers. It may not be as glamorous as consumer marketing, but it can be more rewarding. More on the differences between b-to-b and b-to-c marketing in a future blog post.
Tis’ the Season to Volunteer
by Amanda Borshoff
With the holidays and changing of the seasons, people become invigorated to volunteer. To some it’s helping at your local soup kitchen, for others it’s helping your neighbor winterize his house. For me, it’s a time to give what I can in as many ways as I can.
I was recently asked what I got from my involvement in various volunteer capacities, and I thought to myself, “What am I getting out of this?”. The thought hadn’t crossed my mind in a while. So, after much thought; here is what I came up with…
Volunteering….
…allows me to be a leader. (As the president of the Indianapolis Chapter of the American Marketing Association, I’m learning new things every day on how to effectively manage people and have the confidence to be a successful leader.)
…gives me joy. (As a monetary donor for various non-profits, I’m able to share my wealth with those who need it most.)
…allows me to learn new things. (As a volunteer for Joy’s House, I’m able to learn do-it-yourself skills around the house while easing the workload of their staff.)
…builds relationships (As a friend to the owner of Cork + Cracker, I’m able to share my knowledge of marketing and promotions to help build her business, while continuing to learn more about running a company.)
I guess the real answer I found was that volunteering gives me all the warm fuzzies inside and that’s why I do it. Whether it’s to become a better employee, friend or person, I volunteer not because I have to but simply because I want to.
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