| We all have the same opportunities. We all have the same channels. We all have access to the same people. It’s what we do with them that matters most.
Like an artist, all of our collective canvases start off as a white, blank space. It can be the blank screen of your Blog writing platform, it can be a empty Twitter box waiting for you to answer the question, "What’s happening?", it can be a hot microphone just waiting for you to rant and publish a Podcast with, or it can be the moment before you flip on your Flip video cam. How you fill your space is going to determine your level of success (and whatever "success" means to you). It’s not easy. Yes, anyone can publish their thoughts in text, images, audio and/or video almost instantly (and for free) to the world, but it doesn’t mean that everybody is going to be great (or memorable) at it. Some take their time and labour over every single thought, while others seem to be able to constantly (and consistently) publish something of quality with very little preparation as it rolls off their tongues. The talented ones really do have something special going on. The talented ones have the ability to be interesting. Be interesting. A lot of the online conversation is about how much one should talk about themselves versus providing valuable content to the community they are trying to build. Some people think there is some kind of mathematical formula to how many times you can talk about yourself versus simply publishing something that adds value to someone else’s life. None of that matters. All you have to do is be interesting. It’s not easy to do. Saying, "it’s not easy to be interesting" is actually a very complex thought. Afterall, if the real power of Social Media – and all of these publishing platforms – is to share who you really are and then no one connects with what you’re doing, does that mean you’re not interesting? Alternatively, if you have to really think about it and be calculated in what you’re publishing to try to be interesting, what’s the point? People who are interesting often don’t think too much about it. They just are. That’s the real secret: not everyone is interesting (sorry). Some people are more interesting than others (it’s true). Some people are super-successful, while other people will struggle their whole lives (sadly). It’s what makes us individuals, and it’s what makes us the society we are (for better or for worse), but in the end, we all do have this amazing new, white, blank canvas to explore and discover. It’s something we’ve never had before, and it’s something we should celebrate. Don’t worry about monetization. Don’t worry about community. Don’t worry about your traffic. Focus on being interesting. Focus on bringing that white canvas to life. Tags: artist be interesting blog community flip video interesting monetization online conversation personal brand podcast publishing publishing platform social media success traffic twitter white canvas |
The White Canvas
| We all have the same opportunities. We all have the same channels. We all have access to the same people. It’s what we do with them that matters most.
Like an artist, all of our collective canvases start off as a white, blank space. It can be the blank screen of your Blog writing platform, it can be a empty Twitter box waiting for you to answer the question, "What’s happening?", it can be a hot microphone just waiting for you to rant and publish a Podcast with, or it can be the moment before you flip on your Flip video cam. How you fill your space is going to determine your level of success (and whatever "success" means to you). It’s not easy. Yes, anyone can publish their thoughts in text, images, audio and/or video almost instantly (and for free) to the world, but it doesn’t mean that everybody is going to be great (or memorable) at it. Some take their time and labour over every single thought, while others seem to be able to constantly (and consistently) publish something of quality with very little preparation as it rolls off their tongues. The talented ones really do have something special going on. The talented ones have the ability to be interesting. Be interesting. A lot of the online conversation is about how much one should talk about themselves versus providing valuable content to the community they are trying to build. Some people think there is some kind of mathematical formula to how many times you can talk about yourself versus simply publishing something that adds value to someone else’s life. None of that matters. All you have to do is be interesting. It’s not easy to do. Saying, "it’s not easy to be interesting" is actually a very complex thought. Afterall, if the real power of Social Media – and all of these publishing platforms – is to share who you really are and then no one connects with what you’re doing, does that mean you’re not interesting? Alternatively, if you have to really think about it and be calculated in what you’re publishing to try to be interesting, what’s the point? People who are interesting often don’t think too much about it. They just are. That’s the real secret: not everyone is interesting (sorry). Some people are more interesting than others (it’s true). Some people are super-successful, while other people will struggle their whole lives (sadly). It’s what makes us individuals, and it’s what makes us the society we are (for better or for worse), but in the end, we all do have this amazing new, white, blank canvas to explore and discover. It’s something we’ve never had before, and it’s something we should celebrate. Don’t worry about monetization. Don’t worry about community. Don’t worry about your traffic. Focus on being interesting. Focus on bringing that white canvas to life. Tags: artist be interesting blog community flip video interesting monetization online conversation personal brand podcast publishing publishing platform social media success traffic twitter white canvas |
The End Of Big Website Builds
If you thought fragmentation was changing the way a brand buys media, just wait until you see what it’s going to do to the Digital Marketing space.
Are the days of big websites and long website builds numbered? It could well be. If you think about how people find and connect to most brands, it’s not just through a search engine anymore. In fact, more and more people are having their first brand interaction on their mobile device. There are many people who are also connecting to brands for the first time in spaces like Twitter, Facebookand YouTube.
Does this mean that the website is going the way of the dodo bird?
Not exactly, but it does mean that the overall Digital Marketing strategy is going to change dramatically in the next little while. Instead of one, big and centralized website with many digital marketing outposts in the appropriate platforms, it is more than likely that we’re going to see more and more brands create multiple spaces and platforms to ensure that they’re connecting with the right people in the right communities.
Imagine a world…
Where a Digital Marketing strategy focuses less on one big website and more on creating engaging "things" like iPhone apps, a mobile website, a Facebook page along with a Blog (or whatever), and it’s all supported with a simple website that acts more like a hub for all of the other spokes. Yes, there are some (only a few) brands already playing with creating Facebook pages in lieu of micro-sites for promotions and experiential marketing initiatives, but it has not become a commonplace activity where you find a brand doing multiple things in multiple channels and focusing less on driving consumers to their marketing-riddled jargony websites.
It becomes a more complex Digital Marketing play.
The "game" used to be about always driving people back to your own, controlled, website, and the truth is that the more vibrant community for a brand may be happening more through a mobile app or online social network platform… or something else or something in addition to it. Does this mean we need to trim websites back to WordPress Blog-shaped platforms or micro-site sizes? Not really, but it does mean that if a brand’s vibrant community is happening in a place like Facebook, they won’t have much control or ownership over the content, but they might be able to do things (in terms of connecting and growing that community) that they could not scale to with a big, towering website of their own.
This is just further proof that the conversations are everywhere (and maybe not where we always want them to be).
TECHNOLOGY: CRM
Is CRM simply a piece of technology or a philosophy for effective marketing? Alice Johnson reports on current attitudes to this controversial acronym
Customer relationship management (CRM) has a long and chequered history, and continues to create controversy today.
CRM technology was touted as an enabler for new paradigm for marketing in the mid-1990s, but the hype died down when first-generation solutions failed to match up to vendors’ promises.
Several reasons have been proposed for this fall from grace. One of the most prominent is that ‘one-size-fits-all’ solutions could not possibly be utilised by every type of business, each with differing structures, vision and client-base. Those companies taking the plunge often found lack of employee commitment and buy-in an obstacle, and that outward-facing CRM solutions conflicted with inward-facing IT systems: their functionality didn’t facilitate meeting the objectives required. Consequently, reports of failed implementations were numerous and widespread.
The face of CRM changed after this, and both IT and marketing decision makers became increasingly cynical about vendors’ hype and the potential of the technology. However, marketers continued to embrace the intellectual concept of CRM, and the importance of a coherent, consistent and structured approach to customer communications and interaction, although not necessarily managed through a dedicated application.
More recently, vendors have responded by adapting their product offering. The unwieldy first-generation solutions disappeared, replaced by more tailored and flexible solutions that increasingly took business vision and culture into account. Packages became more responsive to users’ needs, with innovations including sales-force and marketing automation, analytical tools and data-support functionality.
How effective has this new approach been in breaking down the resistance towards, and cynicism about, CRM applications? Do B2B companies in 2007 really need to go to all the trouble and expense of implementing such a solution? Or are there easier and cheaper ways of achieving the same objectives?
Aristotle rules
The view that CRM is a technology first and foremost is countered by many observers who argue that the ‘R’ in CRM cannot purely be based on software with database-type functionality.
From a marketing communications perspective, of course, technology is not fundamental for CRM and agencies in particular are eager to downplay its importance. Michael Beattie, planning director at marcoms agency Toast, comments, “My view is that CRM is a philosophy, not a technology. If you unpack the acronym, ‘R’ is the most important: ultimately it’s about relationships, not software.”
He continues, “Treating CRM as a technology reeks of a world run by the IT department and accountants; it’s ghastly. It’s not a scientific recipe where you stick in the ingredients and get a happy customer. You can’t input data and expect a relationship to pop out at the end. The entire customer experience with the brand is related to CRM; it’s not just about software.”
Jaakko Alanko, MD of McCann Erickson Business Communications, agrees in part, although he does see some redeeming features of CRM software. He comments, “Often, CRM is a modern buzz-word for saying that you need to stay in touch with customers, and customers are the best new prospects.”
Alanko concludes, “CRM has almost decapitated the most important thing, the customer, out of its proper context. It shouldn’t be a gizmo, it is more like a stream of consciousness.”
Software solutions
Despite its initial failings, the notion that CRM is simply a software solution still exists amongst some vendors, who – not surprisingly – believe that technology must still be at the heart of any CRM strategy.
“I wouldn’t call it [CRM] a business philosophy,” says Mark Woodbridge, consultant at vendor Seelogic. “CRM software is a tool that enables the increased effectiveness of processes. If you are using it to maximise the effectiveness of a supplier, for example, then a CRM tool is essential. It is a technology, as it is very difficult to put together an encompassing view of customers as prospects without a database functionality to do that; which is what CRM is.”
Other vendors, meanwhile, have become less adamant that the technology is a cure-all, preferring to talk more in terms of partnership with users. This is often a reflection of the nature of the new breed of CRM systems, many of which are hosted applications.
Justin Barlow, marketing manager for new business at Sage, comments, “CRM is both a technology issue and a business philosophy; you can’t really have one without the other. If you do, then you are not realising its true benefits. Both should be used to reinforce the brand.”
Customer responsibility management
Whilst some vendors are embracing the need to see CRM as part of a wider business philosophy, there remains much cynicism about the technology and its benefits. Arguably, the key sticking point is leadership, with many practitioners still reluctant to allow the agenda to be dictated by a software application, rather than a human being.
Beattie at Toast comments, “Communications is at the heart of everything, as everything is a conversation between a brand and its consumer; therefore, choosing what to say and where, when and how to say it is a marcoms strategy. What a piece of software might say is ‘communicate with your customers six times a year’, but it can’t tell you what to do or give you an engaging piece of communications that says what you want.”
Ian Wallace, MD at CRM reseller CABC, counters this statement, “Marcoms is one department, with one activity that may use CRM to help them. It’s definitely not the heart or the driver. In the same way as software is there to help carry out jobs properly, marcoms is one function,” he says.
The broad nature of CRM as a philosophy means that it cannot be the responsibility of a single department to develop, implement and maintain.
A happy medium
It is clear that CRM, and its associated technology, has come a long way in the last 15 years. Initial enthusiasm was replaced by cynicism, which in turn appears to be gradually replaced by cautious optimism and a mature insight and understanding of what is involved, what can be gained and at what cost.
This is reflected in the way that the CRM vendors themselves are promoting their products and services. Barlow at Sage comments, “Ten years ago, CRM systems were being sold as IT solutions on their own. They didn’t address the people issues. Businesses jumped on the CRM bandwagon without understanding the implications. CRM technology companies were pushing the product 10 years ago, but now they are looking at customer requirements as a way of allowing businesses to achieve their objectives.”
Whether this more realistic and responsible approach to marketing is successful in completely rehabilitating what has been a much derided and often phenomenally expensive waste of time and money remains to be seen. For some, it will certainly be a long-term process, and a huge education challenge for the vendors.
Ultimately though, marketers cannot afford to ignore CRM technology altogether, as despite its numerous pitfalls, the benefits it can potentially facilitate are enormous.
However, to leverage these, they face the considerable challenge of finding the right product for their needs from the right vendor, with the right attitude, at the right price and with the right support. Even if they acknowledge the technology’s potential, this may simply prove too much for some marketers.
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