Great example of a webcast here promoting the benefits of online marketing, specifically to marketers in the commercial property sector. it was pulled together by the team at Estates Gazette and includes practical tips on using email marketing and online marketing as well as some useful case studies. Take a look at the webcast by clicking here.
June 2009 Archives
The first thing that strikes you is the large picture of a park scene covering most of the wall. Next comes the cloud hanging from the ceiling followed by the realisation that the the green is meant to be grass and that's why they have painted blades of grass pained up the walls.
You guessed it, I'm in the London HQs of Google, in a large meeting room modeled on St James Park. I was there for a CMO meeting and saw one of Google's latest initiatives: Survival of the Fastest, a concept based on the assumption that those businesses who have the best insight and the ability to move swiftly in the right direction will win competitive advantage and come out of this recession in a much stronger position than those that don't.
Google have developed some excellent resources and tools to help marketers. For a start, there are now over 200 short videos posted on a new You Tube Channel: Survival of the Fittest. It's full of good insights from people like Sir Martin Sorrell, CEO of WPP and Rory Sutherland, the Vice-Chairman of Ogilvy Group UK.
The basic message is that online technology when used correctly can help save costs and deliver the insight to help marketers move forward in the right direction. Here's a summary of some of Google's free tools - you should also take a look at the Google's Barometer blog:
Google Analytics to help you spot where people are exiting your site amongst other things
Useful article from Marketing Sherpa on ways of saving time writing case studies, simply interviewing customers. There are 7 steps in total:
Step #1. Choose customers to approach for a potential interview
Step #2. Invite customer to participate in the interview
Step #3. Write interview questions
Step #4. Record interview on conference line.
Step #5. Transcribe interviews
Step #6. Edit transcript
Step #7. Send interview to customer for final approval
Step #8. Promote some interviews publicly, but hold others in reserve
With more and more b2b marketers investing in their own websites to build reach and generate leads, there's a big challenge around maintaining these sites and maximising on the investment. Working for a digital publisher myself, I know how hard it is to get all of the different pieces right, without it taking up everyone's time. Research by Forester shows that many organisations do underestimate the amount of work required to design, create content and optimise that content on day-to-day basis. RB Insight, which is part of RBI now offers a website health check to help b2b marketers understand how well their site is working at the moment and what positive actions they could take to improve things. Often, tiny changes lead to big results. Here's some more information about their service.RBInsight_handout_new.pdf
A few thoughts from Rohit Talwar, the CEO of a company called Fast Future, on tactics and strategies that all sizes of companies can use to 'win' during these recessionary times. She's also running a seminar on Winning in a Downturn on June 22nd in London. She makes some very good points about:
1. The opportunities that a recession brings:
'A 5% shrinkage in an economy means that 95% of activity is still taking place...Recessions create huge upside opportunities. Rents are lower, raw materials are cheaper, firms are keener to trade, capital goods are cheaper and labour is more abundant.. This creates a tremendous opportunity to step in, examine and enhance every aspect of your customer offering, add more value, differentiate service, make it better and easier for customers to do business with you and increase their loyalty as a result.'
2. The importance of staying close to customers
'Investing time creating a long-term dialogue with your customers will reap long term rewards. The better you understand (i) how your products and services are used by your customers, (ii) the technical and logistical challenges they face and (iii) what their future plans are, the greater the opportunity to provide genuine added value solutions and deepen the long-term relationship. This kind of insight helps you move from simply promoting what your products can do to co-developing solutions and technological innovations for 'what they want'.
3. Focusing on a few key things - rather than trying to do everything with less resources available:
'Free up time and resource by focussing on the 'vital few' initiatives that are critical to your business. Cancel or postpone those which are not considered core '
4. Raising the position of brands by sponsoring research and then using that to host events
'One of the most interesting trends we are seeing is that of firms shifting marketing budgets from advertising to research sponsorship. Firms are finding that sponsoring research which is of value to their customers and partners creates an output that has a longer lifespan than an advertisement. Furthermore research tends to be shared amongst many readers and positions the sponsors as being serious about the issues of importance to their stakeholders. Finally, research offers a powerful platform from which to create new conversations. Many are finding that while their requests for sales meetings are rejected, customers and prospects are only too willing to attend or host short research briefings that can provide them with useful insights.' Here's an example of this in practice.
Overall, Rohit offers three key messages:
1. Invest in people, customer relationships and innovation.
2. Open up to ideas from outside the organisation and think in 'out of the box' ways about working with the supply chain
3. Believe that you can outperform the sector and win in a downturn
