Marketer's Lab

Do I Know You?

"Hi, remember me?  I'm your client, (or maybe a potential client).  Wanted to check in, seems like its been a long time since we really connected.  A while ago you seemed to hang on my every word, wanted to know what my interests were, what kinds of things I was into, where I hung out, where I got my information and how I was feeling about "us".  I've changed a lot and not sure you really know me anymore.  Are you really still interested in me?"

The above is not an excerpt from a bad TV script (although it certainly could be), but a little snippit to remind us we are in relationships with clients and prospects.  "Know your customer", it's one of those fundamental marketing concepts all marketers seem to universally understand and agree on.  Chances are good that with the current belt-tightening most marketers are enduring any budget you might have had lined up for research has been cut.  If not, congratulations, you work for an enlightened, and probably well-funded, organization.  If you're like most marketers you now have limited funds to learn more about your clients or prospects. 

Why is research so important?  When every dollar counts, knowing those dollars are spent well is critical.  A deeper understanding of your target provides insights that can sharpen your messaging, targeting and overall strategy.  Simply put, better, richer information helps you make more informed decisions.

The good news is there are some fantastic options for learning more about your market without breaking the bank.  In no particular order:

Online surveys - Online surveys are cheap, easy to use and with a well designed set of questions can provide some great insights.  There's no shortage of providers in this space, companies like Keysurvey, Zoomerang, Survey Monkey and Survey Gizmo all provide good services. 

Community - Whether you define community as topic-centric community sites or as the larger "community" that includes all Social Media, there is an enormous opportunity to simply listen to your target clients.  Take the time to listen to what's happening in these environments.  

Focus groups - I'm a fan of the low-key, informal focus group and less a fan of the one-way mirror/laboratory-style focus group.  Gathering together a couple handfuls of clients/prospects for lunch and a lightly moderated discussion can produce some very interesting insights.  For the cost of a few pizzas you can learn a lot. 

Smile and dial - Similar to the focus group idea, just pick up the phone and call a few target contacts, offer them a little something to spend a few minutes on the phone and away you go.  Surprisingly even without any incentive, many people are willing to spend a few minutes to share their thoughts.  I've done this many times and have been amazed how well it works.  Certainly not quantitative information, but helpful and informative every time.

Talk to your salespeople - Your sales team is taking your message to the streets each and every day.  They are on the receiving end of a mountain of raw, unvarnished and often very direct "feedback" from prospects.  In addition to building your relationship with the sales team, talking to your salespeople provides a perspective that's hard to get any other way.   

With a little effort its not terribly tough to deepen your knowledge of your target.  Like any relationship, you get out of it what you put into it. 

Behold Upshot Institute

After months of hard work, rework, and plenty of late nights, Upshot Institute has gone from a great idea, to pseudo pre-launch to now a full-fledged, honest to goodness killer marketing resource.  If you're a marketing professional looking to stay sharp on marketing technology, Upshot Institute is for you. 

Behind the scenes at Upshot Institute are yours truly, my business partner Steve Gollob and a handful of free agent types working with us on development/production/etc.  The common bond is a commitment to providing marketers practical insights on what we consider to be the new tools of the trade. 

Upshot Institute is the result of one of those ideas that just wouldn't go away coming together with an opportunity to work with Steve, who shares both my passion for geeky, marketing technology stuff and the desire to build an organization that provides something truly unique and valuable. 

What does Upshot Institute provide for marketers?  A resource center that includes a huge vendor directory and hundreds of white papers, an ongoing series of podcasts and webcasts, and Upshot Institute research reports that address the marketing technology topics top of mind for most marketers. 

Head on over to Upshot Institute, explore a little and please let us know what you think. 

 

The Marketing Technology Top 5

One of the challenges with the huge number of marketing tools and technologies is figuring out which technology areas are most likely to deliver the greatest value.  Certainly no absolutes to be sure, but there are a handful of technologies I believe should be at the top of every marketers list to either be actively utilizing or at minimum learning more about.  In no particular order, my Marketing Technology Top 5:

1. Web Video - This goes way beyond trying to hit the YouTube lottery with some clever viral piece.  All the technologies for creating, editing, distributing and tracking web video have evolved exponentially.  Web Video is now an incredibly versatile tool that's viable even for marketers without huge budgets.  The applications for web video are almost limitless.  The approach can be really simple and straightforward (commoncraft) or done in a more sophisticated way (Accela).  The challenge is to begin thinking about how to use video as a medium.  For many marketers thinking about telling your story via video is new.

2. Intelligent email - Gone are the days of the batch and blast email approach.  Despite the "email is dead" sentiment that continues to bubble in pockets within the marketing world, email is still an extremely viable, dare I say vibrant, method of communication.  The key is relevance, relevance, relevance.  Most people in the email space agree relevance is typically driven by both demographic knowledge of the recipient and awareness of the actions they undertake.  Intelligent email involves integrating activity triggers or using other behavioral queues to drive dynamic, customized messages. This type of functionality is becoming more commonplace with the leading email vendors and seems essential to build or maintain an effective email program.

3. Marketing Super-Platforms - What's a Marketing Super-Platform?  Good question.  These super-platforms are the emerging converged platforms which integrate email, analytics, content management, behavioral targeting and depending on the provider a whole host of other stuff.  Companies like Eloqua, Manticore, Valtira, Vtrenz and others have created these platforms to provide a one stop shop for marketers and provide a more holistic set of tools.  There is tremendous power in these applications and I believe this is where we as marketers are headed over the next few years.    

4. Social Media Measurement - At this point most marketers know participating in the social media arena in some shape or form is block and tackle marketing.  With participation becoming more common, the measurement and effectiveness of social media programs takes on a whole new significance.  Tools like Buzzlogic, Techrigy, and SentimentMetrics provide information on who's out there, their influence and specifically what they're saying.  FYI, check out "Distributed Influence: Quantifying the Impact of Social Media" a great piece addressing the larger issue of social media measurement.

5. Insight Tools - Wrapped into this category I would put everything from simple online survey tools to some of the more sophisticated insight gathering/market research tools.  The big idea here is to learn as much as possible about clients and prospects.  Knowing more improves your ability to select media, tune your messaging and do a better job of being relevant.  A subset of this category would include competitive intelligence solutions and tools.  I'll post some specifics on competitive intelligence soon. 

That's a wrap, my two cents on the Marketing Technology Top 5, the key technology areas I believe are deserving of your attention.  Let me know if you agree/disagree or have other ideas around this. 

Brand Personality Insight Without the Headache

Truly understanding the "personality" of your brand can be difficult and elusive.  For starters this kind of thing reeks of all the nonsense pitched so often by fast-talking agency types and other branding gurus.  The processes and methodologies for attempting to get at this kind of insight can range from stupid and sophomoric to incredibly complex, time-intensive and expensive.   MeBox offers a solution that empowers you to quickly get to the realities of how your brand is perceived and how you compare to  others in your space.

The best way to get the full overview of what they do is check out this link, where they have a great overview demo and links to a handful of sample reports.   MeBox essentially provides a platform which allows you to quickly and easily build a very clever word association program which assigns characteristics to any set of brands you load into it.  The application output is a series of maps which visually depict the results of the associations. 

If you're an agency, this application could be a powerful way to quickly deliver baseline brand information and potentially follow on post-campaign to demonstrate any movement.  If you're a corporate marketer, this is an easy to use do-it-yourself application which could put you in direct control of your brand measurement.  It's easy to see how MeBox could be applied to individual products or services or even to exploring the characteristics of potential competitors in new markets.

Getting deeper insight into the characteristics of your brand and your competitors brands is extremely important, now you can get this insight without the agency-speak or expense.