Beyond

Guidelines on guidelines: how NOT to create a brand tone of voice document

2012-05-18T13:48:25Z

It all makes perfect sense.

When a company is going through a branding exercise, it is excellent practice to put together a guide to how the brand should speak - otherwise known as a "tone of voice" document. The idea is that anyone involved with the brand - whether it is the CEO giving a talk to shareholders or a marketing exec creating an email blast - should be confident that they are helping the brand to communicate in a tone of voice that is consistent with the agreed brand.

It's a straightforward idea. So why do so many companies do it so badly?

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Teaching grandma to suck eggs

Fine so far. The problem I have with these documents is that many of them then lazily go on to suggest examples of the style of English you should use. Happily patronising the reader within an inch of his or her life, these guides make the same sweeping generalisations about writing style which are at best misleading and restrictive, at worst, simply wrong.

The problem is that these GCSE-level writing tips have no place in a brand guide.

The aim of a branding strategy is to differentiate - and any guidelines document should help the brand to reinforce its difference. Not to make the same old patronising recommendations about style.

This is why I ask you - whether you are a copywriter, brand strategist, brand manager or student of best-practice branding - to avoid the following 'default' recommendations that appear in every such document.

1. You must avoid jargon.

Most guides will tell you that jargon is an obstacle to communication, and that you shouldn't use it. Rubbish. Using jargon can be an extremely useful shorthand provided your audience is familiar with that jargon. Jargon is a form of language - a sub-set of phrases and terms adopted by certain groups - because it aids communication (otherwise they wouldn't have bothered adopting it).

Of course, using heavily technical jargon when talking to a financial audience - or vice-versa - is not a good idea. But you may as well recommend that you don't use German when speaking to the Italian delegates. Jargon can improve communication as well as hinder it; the decision of whether to use it is not one that the "brand police" should be making.

2. Never say "endeavour" when you mean "try"

Another favourite recommendation is to dictate that English writers should use conversational English whenever possible. Say "now" instead of "at present". Say "talk" not "communicate". "Say 'truth' not 'veracity'. There are many examples. A multitude, even.

But again, is it really the job of the branding team to tell you what words to use? Do they know your audience? Do they know what you're writing about? Of course not. One of the reasons for the popularity and versatility of English is that we have so many options to choose from. We have Latin, French, Anglo-Saxon, Celtic influences. We have a palette of synonyms with which to colour our writing that other languages can only dream of.

So, do we owe it to our brand to use our language to the full? To be expressive? Or to allow ourselves to beaten into using English 101 because someone at the branding agency told us to. Come on...

3. Use short sentences.

This has some merit. Short sentences can be punchy. Ungrammatical, sometimes. But punchy. But you know what? It gets tiring. And if anyone tells you. That you should. Do it. All the time. They. Are . Wrong.

4. Use active not passive voice.

"Your writing is appreciated by a lot of people."

"A lot of people appreciate your writing."

But you know what, more people will appreciate your writing more if you choose the active or passive voice because it suits (or doesn't suit) what you are trying to communicate. It is true that there are subtle differences between them, and that the active voice can be more direct and concise. If that is what you are aiming for, you will probably choose it yourself. And not because of the edict handed down from the Head of Branding.

Everyone should write well; only you should write like your brand

Now don't get me wrong. There may be a perfectly acceptable reason for including one or more of the above points in your brand guidelines. But be aware that the aim of any branding exercise is to help your brand to reveal its true identity. Not to teach people how to write. And in any case, if you recommend to employees, agencies and partners that they sound the same as everyone else, you're simply undoing all the good work you did in your brand strategy.

If you want to offer general advice on how to write professional-sounding copy, that's fine. Just call it a writing guide, not a brand guide because it does not do anything to make your brand distinctive.

And be careful who you talk down to, just in case they are an English graduate who is higher up the pay scale than you...

How Starbucks overestimated the English...

2012-04-30T11:00:03Z

Let's face it: we are not a socially adept nation.

It is well documented that we English lack social skills. That is to say that, although we crave the company of others just as much as the people of any national culture, we are just not very comfortable with dealing with other people. This has been most eloquently described by anthropologist Kate Fox, who writes very entertainingly about the English social 'dis-ease'.

She explains that this can be seen in a number of instances:

]]> Weather-speak
We are not actually fascinated with the weather. It is an accepted pretext because we are uneasy about starting up conversations and are too reticent to introduce ourselves directly to a stranger. So when we say "It's turned out nice again today" to a stranger at the bus stop, we are really saying "I'm available for conversation - would you like to talk".

The English are known for talking about the weather. It's not because we have great weather (we have horrible weather) - it's because we're not very good at being sociable.

Handshakes
In the corporate context we lack the natural social confidence of other cultures. How many times have you been uncertain whether to shake hands or not? Or offered a hand, retracted a hand and been left with it half-outstretched but ultimately ignored?

And do you kiss people on the cheek? Once? Twice? Or do you get it wrong, inadvertently turning your head the same way, and end up greeting the colleague rather more intimately than you intended. This is typical of our social gaucheness - something that many other cultures simply take in their stride.

Humour
Our social 'dis-ease' means that we prefer to joke about things than deal with them directly. Not funny "ha ha" humour, but gentle irony that allows us to express ourselves in a roundabout 'unearnest' way, which we are far more comfortable with.

Think about it: could an English businessperson get through a nervous meeting with a new client without making the odd self-deprecating joke? Of course not. Other nations do this too, but few rely on it as much as the English.

You give me your name, I give you a free latte
Anyway, all of this Englishness - and the cross-cultural issues that are associated with it - were brought into sharp relief last month with Starbucks' ill-judged "Tell Me Your Name" promotion. I have been involved with a number of international marketing projects with US-based clients in the B2B world and have always tried to avoid the assumption that the US campaign will automatically work in different cultures. It won't - and I'd say that Starbucks have made the same mistake.

The campaign went like this. Determined to promote the friendliness of their barristas and the welcome that you get in every Starbucks store, they offered various freebies on the condition that you give them your name.

One problem. This doesn't work in England!

In my local Starbucks, I noticed repeatedly that customers were either embarrassed at the prospect of sharing their name in a commercial context, or refused. Add to this that the Starbucks staff, aware of the impertinence of their question, were frequently too embarrassed themselves to ask.

Now, in other cultures - notably the US - it is far more acceptable to ask for someone's name. A New Yorker might start a conversation with a stranger by announcing his name first. Not so in England. In my experience, English people can talk for hours with strangers, yet only learn their name on leaving. "Sorry mate, what was your name?" "Oh, it's Dan" "Ah, great to meet you. Bye!"

One size doesn't fit all
Now correct me if I'm wrong, but I get the feeling that this particular campaign was cooked up in the US, and UK marketers got railroaded into implementing it. (Either that or they were simply too shy to refuse.)

It's a small thing, but crucial if you are investing thousands of pounds/dollars into a marketing campaign that hinges on the understanding of such nuances.

Here at Base One, we often handle international marketing campaigns, and do all we can to take cultural considerations into account. Give us a ring if you want to talk about it. Just ask for John.

A negative outlook for Google+

2012-04-12T08:02:23Z

I was astonished to see a recent piece of research from Experian that showed how little impact Google+ is making.

According to The 2012 Digital Marketer: Trend and Benchmark Report (a study that is as long on detail as it is in its title), the top 10 social media sites are not what you would expect.

The list is below, but the interesting thing to me was that Google+ is really not making the waves we all thought it would. With 61 million visits in March, it achieved a fraction of Facebook's traffic (7 BILLION in the same period). It is narrowly ahead of MySpace (!) that is hanging on in there with 43m, yet trailing in the wake of Pinterest (104m) and even Tagged.com (72m). No - I hadn't heard of that one either, but it's outperforming Google+. And that got me wondering.

Marketers are sensible enough to know that Google will give search prominence to Google+ posts, and we all flocked towards it. The web was full of posts and whitepapers explaining how to formulate a Google+ strategy.

But all the strategy in the world isn't going to help if it is a ghost town. I wonder how many of the 61 million visits were from marketers, posting stuff in the hope of getting some kind of SEO benefit.

Maybe I'm wrong, but we've already seen Google Wave level out, and Google Buzz quieten down. Maybe there are only negatives in store for Google+?

Image courtesy of birgerking via Creative Commons and Flickr

Are iPads for serious business? Or just Angry Birds?

2012-02-01T12:25:36Z

While a PC might still be the centerpiece of most business desks, we are increasingly working on laptops, netbooks, smartphones and tablets, which now allow us to work outside the confines of the office.

Of these technologies, the tablet stands out as the most rapidly growing - the hot topic of the past 18 months or so. With the Apple iPad, what started out as a consumer 'must-have' is now creeping in as a business tool, and there is now some solid research to show that a switch is underway from smartphone-wielding commuters to those armed with considerably more conspicuous tablets.

In my household (an environment where iPad usage is largely dictated by a 5-year-old) it is mainly an Angry Birds display mechanism or a digital doodle pad. But the evidence is growing that tablets are commonplace business tools - and that marketers should be aware of this if we are to effectively target business buyers.

]]> this report from IDG Connect. The latest trends show that 54% of IT and business professionals with iPads 'always' use them for work communication. This is considerably higher than the respondents who use their iPad for personal communication (42%) and even for entertainment (31%). The amount of iPad users who use their device at work rises up to 70% in Africa and South America, with a low of 33% in Asia.

It also seems that consumers aren't just buying iPads for personal use and bringing them to work. In fact, many of these are actually being provided by employers. Throughout the global research, the numbers vary from 47% of devices provided by work, to 10%. It seems that where employers would traditionally give out a laptop or phone to keep up with email, they're now providing iPads.

It's clear that the iPad is making waves as a business device. But another great takeaway from IDG Connect's research is the effect that the iPad is having on the use of other devices. A number of respondents said their iPad has at least partially replaced their smartphone, laptop, PC, mp3 player, TV and games console. With 54% saying their iPad had replaced their laptop and 43% saying it had replaced their smartphone, the tablet is having an impact on everyday lives as well as business practices. This is a key consideration for marketers, who now have some insight into which areas tablets are penetrating.

For example, an important consideration is the design of online assets. Are they optimized for tablets? It's one thing making sure your landing page or online resource centre works on a regular laptop browser, but what is the experience like on an iPad? The message "this content requires Flash" will not come across as a failing of the IOS platform, but as a failure of your brand. Bear also in mind that users of tablets are likely to be more sensitive than most to the user experience; these are the early majority of business users and likely to be more demanding/critical of the technology they use. The attention you give to this platform will either position you as out of touch with new technology, or as a leading light in your industry.

In summary, the research makes it clear that these devices are making an impact as a business tool. They're on the way to becoming as important as the laptop and the smartphone. And this research gives us a little more substantiation to the argument that we should be developing for these platforms. Hope you find it useful.

What are the 5 things that B2B websites always get wrong?

2012-01-25T09:23:09Z

As B2B marketers, we invest a big lump of our marketing budgets in our websites. Of course we do. But with so much investment going into them, you would have thought that we would have learned by now the pitfalls that lie in wait for the team planning it.

I was recently talking to Paul Hatcher, our Head of Digital Planning, who surprised me by saying that the same mistakes get made time and time again.

Which means websites end up costing more, taking longer, and delivering less.

So I asked Paul if he would spend a little while writing up these mistakes and explaining how digital marketers could avoid them. Paul has been central to hundreds of B2B website projects over the years and has seen it all happen, and I was keen to share Base One knowledge with our friends via the Beyond blog. He explained that he's made his fair share of mistakes too, but the point is that we're trying to learn from the experience!

Two days later a comprehensive and splendidly written whitepaper dropped into my inbox - and this is my chance to pass it on to you.

Download The Big 5 Mistakes: How Not To Make An Effective B2B Website here. And I hope it helps you get more out of your next project.

Is marketing honourable?

2012-01-18T10:39:00Z

Ever wondered what marketing is really all about? When I did my CIM (Chartered Institute of Marketing) Diploma, the first session was dedicated to defining the term. Officially, according to the CIM at the time, marketing was "the management process responsible for identifying, anticipating and satisfying customer needs".

Fired up as I was with all the enthusiasm and rebelliousness of youth (I was 27, I think), I took issue with this. Come on. Let's be honest.

That's simply not true.

Marketing is about helping to sell more. It's doing what you need to do in order to make it easier for the sales guys to close the deals. It's greasing the wheels of commerce by creating desire for products, communicating in a certain way that makes more people like your company and your brand.

Isn't it?

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But this purist definition still annoys me because we don't live in a perfect world, and such clean definitions don't really work in practice. And I was reminded of this when I visited Starbucks this morning.

We all know that Starbucks is held up as a shining example of the "customer comes first" ethos. If your coffee is slightly imperfect or late, they swiftly give you a voucher for a free cup next time, no questions asked. They allow you to stay in their nice warm store for as long as you want. They give you free wi-fi. They smile and generally look after the customer. They're nice people.

But dig a little deeper and look at the marketing machine behind the smiling barristas, and there is a more brutal commercialism at work.

Free drinks - and benefits galore!

A large sign greeted me on entry at my local Starbucks in Teddington. "Free drinks and benefits galore" it says. Now I already had a Starbucks card, because it meant I got a few perks. A free drink when I bought coffee beans. Free whipped cream. All the important stuff.

So I was keen to find out how my experience of Starbucks was going to improve. But it soon appeared the new scheme put me back to Square One in terms of accumulated loyalty benefits. Not only did I have to buy a million coffees before reaching 'Gold' status, but even then I couldn't get the same benefits. Sorry Sir, we're not doing those any more.

Now I don't have a problem with this. Of course, Starbucks has to turn a profit. And if tweaking the loyalty scheme is the tool they use to improve the success of their business they can and should do it. Reduce the cost by giving less away, boost revenue by making people pay for the whipped cream instead of giving it away as a perk.

But does this count as marketing?

Thinking back to my CIM lecturers, I can't help wondering what they would say. Did Starbucks identify, anticipate and satisfy my need? Or did they take a long hard look at what they needed to do to keep me satisfied enough to keep buying coffee?

Let's not be naïve. Marketing is about meeting needs. But that's only part of the story: it's also about the planning, the comms, the technology and all the other tricks that we can put in place to make the customer comfortable with the idea that your brand is meeting their needs more effectively than the competition. And if this involves a bit of smoke and mirrors in order to create the impression that you're giving something when you're really taking it away, that's OK.

Or is it? Part of me wants to be honourable, ethical and transparent at all times. But part of me wants my role as a marketer to have a real impact, which means not being afraid of commercial realities.

Or maybe the CIM just did a great marketing job on me ...

What do you think? As a marketer, do you represent the customer's interests? Or the brand's? Or do you cheerily start each working day, confident that you are doing both? I'd love to know.

'The unwitting spammers': the death of email design and the consequent defacement of the brand in front of the customer's very eyes.

2011-12-02T16:57:13Z

Marketing Automation and DIY marketing tools are great. Powerful tools for the marketer that directly enable you to communicate in a more frequent, relevant and timely manner with customers and prospects. No need to rely on an agency to send out every email (still smiling!). I am an absolute advocate of these tools - if used correctly.

Yet when in untrained hands these tools can quietly erode your brand right in front of your customer's eyes in a way that almost goes unrealised if your antennae is pointed elsewhere.

I write following recent experience as a recipient of a series of emails as a customer of the sending business (I'm not going to name names).

The basic fact is that you send most emails to people you already have your best relationships with: customers. Don't underestimate this. These are the most important people in the world to your business. Yet email is often delegated as focus put on other 'higher impact' comms.

Why?   Because we 'now have a template', and with that QA seems to go out of the window. Yet systems and users have a habit of managing to break templates pretty quickly. 'Those 1000 words will fit.' 'That 1200 pixel wide image will CAN be a thumbnail.' 'Over-compression - they love it!'

Templates are incredibly useful as they let you send out frequent comms without the need to re-invent the wheel each time. But how thought-through and tested are they? How understood is their use? Does your sender understand good communication design principles? Are these being tested across all email clients using tools such as Litmus? Just whose hands are you putting them into?!

So here's the recipe: a lack of understanding of the brand or good design, consequent template abuse, and the desertion of QA. Put these in a pot and stir.
Let's see what you get:

So I get an email... here's what happens in about 5 seconds.

I recognise the sender so I open it.
First impressions: it looks like spam.
There's an heavily over-compressed logo. Why has someone turned that into a JPEG?
I can't believe that image has come from an approved library. 
Poor text formatting: can hardly read it. Margins and spacing are everywhere.
Too much content. Too many links - unstyled.
Nothing stand-out.
And didn't I get this before last week?
Delete.
My opinion of the brand has just gone down a few notches.
I will probably just hit delete if it arrives again.

Maybe the primary concern of the sender is about 'just getting it out'.  That's a phrase I hate.

So what's the point of this rant?   I suppose I'm trying to point out that even activity deemed 'routine' should be crafted with as much care and attention as the sexy stuff.
When you consider the audience who receive it, you could easily argue its impression and effect matter far more.

Coffee culture v social media: a quick theory on why business behaviour varies across Europe

2011-10-12T10:19:17Z

This piece first appeared as the European Perspective column in the print version of B2B Marketing Magazine October 2011.

Ever wondered why the British and the French use social media differently? It's all a question of context, apparently...

Anthropologists will tell you that Europe can be broadly divided into high- and low-context cultures. France and Italy, for example, are high context cultures, where routine communications are often based on experiences and expectations understood by all members of that culture.

This reduces the need for detail, and increases the tendency for verbal story-telling over factual description. Low-context cultures, such as the UK, Germany and the US make fewer such assumptions, preferring fuller communications and more detailed descriptions.

These two dimensions have a very direct influence on how people share and communicate their knowledge. High-context cultures may use stories and metaphors in explaining a learning situation whereas low context cultures may uses tables and figures for underlining arguments. Tables and figures are much more easy to share via online media, whereas stories and metaphors are more suited to face-to-face conversation.

Which may explain why business meetings over a long lunch might happen more in Paris than Berlin. And this may in turn contribute to the slower adoption of social media sharing in such cultures. Whilst LinkedIn is great for sharing infographics, it doesn't serve very good coffee...

Image courtesy of sh0dan, via Flickr and Creative Commons

B2B Content Marketing: a bulletproof methodology

2011-10-06T13:59:18Z

According to a recent blogpost I read (and I can't remember whose, or I would have credited them fully), content marketing is a little like High School sex. Everyone says they're doing it, but the truth is very few really are. And those who are doing it, are almost certainly doing it wrong.

With this in mind, I thought it was worth sharing the methodology we use at Base One for helping clients to derive the maximum benefit from content marketing.

I couldn't possibly suggest that it is the only way of going about this. But it is a structured approach that you may find useful: it describes in five sensible stages what you need to do in order to identify the correct course of action for your company, as well as outlining a few of the tools that you might use along the way.

Even though we are an agency - and although this is a methodology designed to be applied to our clients' situations - I believe it is equally useful to B2B marketers who are working independently and internally. The same principles apply. (Although of course, if you want any more help, just drop us a line...)

(By the way, the webcast was managed by Brighttalk, and I have simply embedded it here. They may ask you to register to use the service. Otherwise, it is free.)

2B or not 2B?

2011-09-30T09:15:44Z

Although the Base One Beyond blog has until now always been written in English, our operations now extend across Europe, with offices in Amsterdam, Berlin, Paris and Milan. So we are delighted to feature a debut post in Italian from Alessia Di Domenico, Principal at Base One Milan (English readers may wish to use Google Translate):

Fino a qualche decennio fa, le aziende del b2b, protette o limitate (a seconda dei punti di vista) dalle dimensioni più ridotte dei mercati, dalle logiche distributive, da brevetti e tecnologie proprietarie, dedicavano pochissimo tempo e risorse sia al marketing che alla comunicazione.

Convinte che la qualità di prodotti e servizi, i margini che potevano assicurare ai propri clienti e l'esperienza nel settore bastassero a creare un "buon nome", a far crescere di anno in anno il fatturato e a convincere i clienti a ricomprare sempre da loro. E sia proprietari che dirigenti all'interno di aziende b2b spesso si vantavano di essere degli "operatori" anziché degli uomini di marketing, quasi ad indicare che la comunicazione nel b2b non fosse indispensabile per il successo. Oggi non è più così.

]]> Non solo per i brand consumer, ma anche per i brand b2b la competizione sul mercato è talmente forte che esperienza nel settore, qualità, brevetti da soli non bastano più a dare un'esclusiva e a differenziare dai concorrenti. I competitor in grado di assicurare un'offerta simile, se non migliore, si sono moltiplicati, anche perché il confronto avviene oggi su scala globale. E ad ogni angolo del mondo c'è un'azienda altrettanto agguerrita, o addirittura di più che cerca di conquistare una sua quota di mercato, soffiandola magari a chi in quel mercato c'è già da anni.

La comunicazione è diventata allora un'arma sempre più strategica per creare e mantenere nel tempo un vantaggio competitivo, tramite la gestione della propria reputazione (il famoso "buon nome") e il mantenimento delle relazioni commerciali.
Questo però non vuol dire che b2b e b2c oggi si equivalgano.Tutt'altro.

In primo luogo perché continua ad essere molto diverso il processo d'acquisto e non solo per i volumi e l'ammontare dei beni. Un esempio banale. Mentre io sto utilizzando un computer e ho bisogno di una sola macchina, un'azienda compra decine quando non centinaia di computer. Cosa che dà al cliente business un valore superiore, considerato anche la maggiore frequenza d'acquisto. Mentre nel mio portatile c'è solo una ventola di raffreddamento, un'azienda che produce portatili avrà bisogno di milioni di ventole. Mentre io gestisco il mio acquisto in tutte le sue fasi da sola, benché mi informi tramite diversi canali (amici supergeek, colleghi, siti, riviste), in azienda chi conclude l'acquisto domanda ad altri la scelta (un IT manager, un ingegnere o comunque un personaggio molto competente) e deve farsi comunque approvare da altri il budget di spesa.

E le motivazioni d'acquisto?
Personalmente sono un po' scettica rispetto alla distinzione scolastica e anacronistica tra consumer e business. Ovvero, l'azienda dà priorità alla funzionalità e al contenimento dei costi, a scapito dell'emotività, mentre il privato si lascia condizionare di più da criteri estetici, mode, gusti personali.

Io credo che siamo tutti consumatori e che difficilmente una persona parcheggi la sua emotività fuori dall'ufficio. Anzi, al contrario, credo che dare un tocco umano alla comunicazione b2b sia un modo per renderla più efficace e per portare il business un passo avanti. Magari anche un passo avanti agli altri che continuano a trascurare questo aspetto.

Se anche le aziende b2b non investono nel loro brand, rischiano di doversi confrontare sempre e solo sul prezzo. Cosa che le costringerà a ridurre la redditività e ad arrancare faticosamente nella fidelizzazione dei clienti, rischiando di perderli e peggio ancora, di perdere molto denaro per trattenerli o acquisirne di nuovi.

Perché un cliente decida di ritornare, ripetere il suo acquisto, consigliare un'azienda o un prodotto, è necessario che la sua esperienza sia complessivamente soddisfacente. È necessario che si crei una relazione positiva e coinvolgente. E quindi che ci sia qualcosa di...personale, di unico, di speciale. È necessario che chi compra percepisca un valore che va un po' oltre. Altrimenti si può benissimo acquistare altrove.

Per sopravvivere nel tempo e creare un business sostenibile, bisogna continuare ad essere unici, agire diversamente dai concorrenti, stupire, innovare, essere creativi. E in questo tra b2b e b2c non c'è proprio differenza.

Why B2B companies need a Chief Content Officer

2011-09-26T10:15:24Z

Who is the Chief Content Officer in your company?

I ask the question because it is a role that is increasingly common, particularly in the US.

In case it is new to you, a CCO is the single person who is responsible for the whole company's content output. He or she marshalls a company's internal army of writers, bloggers, technologists and amateur film-makers ensuring that everything that is posted in the company's name is of a quality and relevance that customers would expect.

And in this age of instant publishing and information-hungry, Google-happy buyers, the content made available is vital to maintaining a share in the market and a presence in the hearts, minds and bookmarks of the target audience. So I thought it was about time we asked (and answered) the question: what benefits does a CCO actually bring to a B2B organisation?

]]> The growing need for CCOs
But even though there is plenty of talk about CCOs, the reality is that creating content is still the job of many people, frequently operating in isolation from each other.
It stands to reason, because every customer-facing division needs content. Responsible for the website? You need content. Responsible for new business? You need content to generate leads. Customer retention? Web? Channel support? The need is the same, so it is not surprising that each division goes about it in their own way.

This raises two issues, both of which would be solved by the Chief Content Officer: quality and efficiency.

Quality of content
From the quality point of view, the CCO is able to take a broader perspective of the material being produced. He can ensure that brand values are being applied and that shaky hand-held videos don't clog the company's YouTube channel (unless that is what is expected of your brand). He can ensure topicality and accuracy of information and should have a better idea than anyone where the subject experts are within the organisation.

But he (or she) is not just a guardian. Their role is also to encourage content creators. They should be both evangelist and enabler, giving people within the company the skills and the confidence they need to contribute meaningfully to the corporate effort.

Efficient content production
The second issue of efficiency is perhaps the easiest one to sell at board level. If there is a central figure overseeing the company's content needs, it is easy to avoid duplication. Resources can be directed at creating content once and simply repurposing it when necessary instead of reinventing every time.

But what if you don't have a CCO? I believe the point is simply to recognise that, because content is more important than it has ever been, it is worth taking a more strategic approach to it. This trend has been driving the emergence of best practice resources, such as the Content Marketing Institute, which has its own 'Chief Content Officer' online magazine (you can see the cover of the latest issue at the top of this post). Which all points to the need for someone to take on the role of coordinating resources and making sure both the quality of content is kept up while the cost of producing it is kept down.

This person could be called a CCO but the title doesn't matter. In fact, it doesn't need to be anyone within your company at all, since agencies are increasingly taking on this role.

With in-house writing and production skills, as well as an external viewpoint, they are able to serve different divisions of the company with equal enthusiasm, providing an efficiently produced stream of content with minimum disruption to internal structures. And of course if it doesn't work, it is much easier to undo...

Whether you hire a CCO or outsource the whole job is not really the point. A centralised content strategy is becoming essential, and the longer we wait before recognising it, the more time and money we are going to waste.

This article was first written on behalf of the Association of B2B Agencies in B2B Marketing Magazine in the UK in September 2011. Image courtesy of the Content Marketing Institute.

B2B customer targeting: the only constant is change"

2011-09-23T15:47:30Z

Heraclitus, the Greek philosopher, believed that change, in all its forms, was pivotal to the cosmos. It's unlikely that he was thinking about B2B marketing at the time, but I can't help feeling that his doctrine could be easily applied to what B2B marketers are doing today - especially when thinking about how B2B buyers are changing.

Working on a recent campaign for a client (Epicor), I was reminded of this very point. Individual roles within organisations are radically changing and changing fast. Expertise in their chosen field, flexibility, commitment, all that is still required, but what is different, is the level of influence that each individual is now expected to exert on decisions relating to issues and topics which previously, they would not have even been consulted on, let alone asked to actively participate in with greater and greater insight.

One such role is that of the Finance Director or CFO...

]]> Introducing a new breed of FDs
The unflattering, stereotypical profile this individual has earned over the years, namely of being risk-averse, conservative and unadventurous, it's been influencing how we market to this audience, leading our creative thinking into making assumptions that this type of individual would not be receptive to a new style of marketing. This may have been the wider perception to date, but this belief must now take notice of the changes that have taken place and our marketing needs, in turn, to adapt accordingly.

It was fascinating to read many reports and studies describing how the financial role has taken on a whole new mantle and individuals in this function are now, by far, involved at the highest level of strategic decisions. In fact, it goes beyond this, they are expected to bring on change, seek it out, gather ever deeper insights and understanding of their business and market, in order to encourage a new vision for their organisation.

The expectation on the FD/CFO is now that of an individual who needs to be capable of shaping the future by understanding, through analytics, the past but more importantly what's coming up in the future. They are central to the success and survival of their organisation - they are critical in turning the business into an agile unit which is constantly adaptable, fast, efficient, able to cope with the endless market changes and customer demands.

This means, they themselves need to be more adaptable individuals, the old risk-averse is the new risk-taker, the old conservative is the new seeker of opportunities and patterns that could influence the overall direction of the organisation. The new FD needs to be well-informed of forthcoming trends and know how to capitalise on these.

How should marketers target the new FD?
In direct response to this change, our marketing needs to alter accordingly - molded around this new breed of B2B customer who has never been freer to choose for their organisation.

Our campaign was centred exactly on this idea, of FDs/CFOs being restricted by inflexible, unyielding ERP systems - which we visualised as big concrete boots - preventing our FD (who we named 'Ted') to gain deeper and faster insights into their business. The daily struggle of our Ted character represented that of all FDs out there, constantly trying to keep up with ever changing markets, rules and regulations and now daily under pressure to supply meaningful and insightful information upon which major strategic decisions are to be based.

The campaign was very successful because it resonated with FDs who have to work with inflexible systems all the time. The campaign was also aimed at the IT contacts who were identified as instrumental in helping FDs free themselves from their 'concrete boots'.

So take a look at our case study of the Epicor campaign for a more detailed summary of our "Concrete Boots" work and consider the teachings of our Greek philosopher that nothing stays the same. Except his theory, of course, which is as true today as it ever was...

Salted liquorice, content marketing, and the battle for relevance

2011-08-18T15:09:50Z

Salted liquorice is very popular in Sweden, the Scottish love deep fried Mars bars, and in Finland sautéed reindeer is a national dish. We're all different and it should therefore be no surprise that there are also preferences for different types of content around the world.

Because like food, most regional differences stem from what is available and how tastes and markets have evolved accordingly. But what kind of content do different audiences want? As marketers we need to know, and I have some recent research that provides some of the answers...

]]> IDG Connect, which reveals some very different approaches to white paper content consumption by continent. (NB: the research was focused on IT audiences, but seems nonetheless pretty robust, featuring responses from over 3,000 IT professionals). This is also a follow-up to last week's post about how content marketers have a tendency to assume that one size of content fits all audiences...

Hard facts or thought leadership?
One of the main findings of the research was that the majority of really engaged whitepaper consumers outside North America prefer local analysis, whilst North Americans have a strong preference towards thought leadership. What this seems to suggest is that whitepaper consumers outside North America prefer facts and figures because they tend not to be available. This is particularly obvious in emerging markets.

North America on the other hand appears to be saturated in local (North American) statistics and analysis, and its population is therefore more interested in thought leadership pieces. One way to view this is that delivering insight into a market is a two-part process: first people want solid information, second they want comment/opinion on what that information means. This should be very useful for IT marketers looking to target less well serviced areas.

The other thing that this survey reveals is a clear dichotomy in attitudes to global and regional reports. IT professionals in different parts of the world have very specific preferences. IDG were also good enough to provide a handy diagram (see below) that maps these differences and shows that, with the exception of Asians, most worldwide IT professionals prefer local to global content. This discrepancy could be because Asia - dependent on raw material imports and the export of finished goods - has more of a vested interested in global information.

These findings are good news for IT marketers. They show that to engage IT professionals all over the world does not require an expensive overhaul of all current information. IT professionals do want to read comparisons; they do want to know what the rest of the world is doing, but they also want content to relate to their unique circumstances. The job for smarter B2B marketers in 2012 will be to turn customisation into a standard approach rather than an optional extra.

And what does this have to do with salted liquorice? Well nothing directly, but I thought I would put IDG's theories to the test. And having cunningly optimised this blog post for Scandinavian markets, I hope it will go down particularly well there...

Why international B2B marketers are failing to meet local content needs

2011-08-10T14:11:02Z

If you're an IT manager in Kenya you probably want different information from one of your contemporaries in the US, right? It stands to reason that research reports and papers aimed at one market may not be appropriate for another.

People in emerging markets might not even have the broadband speed to trial information promoted in European or US material. This all makes perfect sense when you think about it, yet I found some recent research that suggests most of us are failing to meet the needs of customers and prospects in different countries. Last month's excellent report by IDG Connect shows how different types of IT content are received in different regions and shows that the majority of B2B marketers are simply not taking localisation into account.

And that is costing us money and losing us sales.

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It's a solid survey (conducted among 3,217 IT professionals) which shows that, although 72% of respondents found vendor white papers extremely useful, the majority outside of North America struggle to find the localised content they prefer to read. The statistics speak for themselves (but just in case they don't, see IDG's infographic below): in Asia, 74% of IT professionals say they would prefer localised content, but 79% say they "struggle" to find it. In the Middle East 64% prefer to read localised content, yet 67% "struggle" to find it. Across every continent the figures are similar, with 75% from Africa, 81% from South America, 69% from Australia and New Zealand and 55% from Europe all "struggling" to find their preferred local content.

The only place where there is a difference is - rather predictably - North America, where demand for localised content is still fairly high, but only 33% "struggle" to find regional reports. Of course, the majority of white paper content is produced in North America, so you would expect a US audience to easily locate the information it wants to read. Perhaps this goes to show that US marketers (especially) are missing a trick; this year 58% of revenue generated by America's largest companies comes from outside the continent. It is no longer enough to just target domestic buyers.

The message to B2B marketers is loud and clear: content preferences vary by region, and you must localise your content to really engage disparate global audiences. Give me a chance to look further into this report and I'll give more detail in another post next week (or download it and take a look yourself).

Why content marketing is not for you

2011-08-02T08:46:54Z

Everyone's talking about it, but content marketing could be a really bad move for you and your company. Let me explain why.

I recently listened to an episode of the excellent FIR podcast (great for keeping in touch with marketing/tech news while commuting, I find), which featured Tom Foremski, a leading Silicon Valley writer/journalist. He is most famous for coining the phrase "every company is now a media company" - a sentiment which resonates in today's social media obsessed world. But I would like to take issue with Tom. Every company should not be a media company. In fact, if any of the following statements are true of your company, you should not be investing in content marketing right now:

]]> Reason #1: You don't believe in it
The whole point of content marketing is that you position yourself as an expert in your field. And by sharing your content, you share your expertise. You show the world that you know what you are talking about and this will, in the long run, help you to close more sales. I've lost count of the number of supposed content marketing initiatives that end up either spouting product information or being so cagey about revealing any competitive advantage that it become bland, opinion-free and, ultimately, value free. If the content is poor, no one reads it. And if no one reads it, it doesn't work.

Reason #2: Your boss doesn't believe in it
Happily, the majority of people appreciate that content marketing is about a mindshift where we release information into the wild. We realise that we need to let go and talk openly to the industry - sharing information with customers, prospects AND competitors - in order to better position ourselves for an improved sales pipeline and a better reputation. But if your boss is still living in 2007, it is never going to work. The internal battle for hearts and minds - the job of getting buy-in from senior management - is one that has to be won before investment starts, or it is not going to give you a return. Too many obstacles. Too much work.

Reason #3: Your people don't have time for it
While the principle of content marketing holds true even in small volumes (ie a few well-written blogs, for example, are usually better than none) there is a risk of being over-ambitious. Don't underestimate the time cost and the difficulty of getting good content created in-house or you might end up with tumbleweeds bouncing around your LinkedIn group and a blog that was last updated 8 months ago. And that doesn't look good.

Reason #4: You don't have a strategy for it
There are two broad solutions to the problem above, and both involve setting out a formal strategy for content marketing. It goes without saying that no one should leap into anything without a little planning, but content marketing is one area that is perhaps less understood than more established marketing practices.

One answer is to take a root and branch approach to internal education over content marketing, where you involve internal stakeholders to allow time and resource for content creation You train and educate internal experts to the point that they become conscientious, valuable and regular contributors to your company's content marketing efforts. The other solution is look to bring in expertise from outside. The idea of an expertly (and independently) coordinated content resource feeding appropriate content into the various parts of the organization that needs is increasingly being accepted by large companies.

Do any of the above apply to you? Don't get me wrong: these are not insurmountable and most organizations will face these problems and deal with them in the fullness of time. I'm a firm believer in content marketing - and if you've got this far, I can assume you are too. But the factors above are issues that will put a spanner in the wheel of any content marketing initiative - and dent your credibility if you are the one proposing it.

If it's not right, don't do it! But work to overcome these four key issues and the undoubted benefits of content marketing can be yours.

Image courtesy of atomicjeep via Creative Commons and Flickr. Much obliged to you.